I’ll start by introducing myself. I’m greyes3 on MTGO. I’ve played Magic since Unglued was released. I have a clan named team rocket, and we’re doing pretty well for our first year online. Since late December/January we’ve won around 2,000 packs in mostly constructed events, with maybe 6-7 regular members participating. FiatLux is currently 3rd in the POTY race over on ClassicQuarter, and I’m 5th, having not played in an event for a while now because of school. Our other members come from all over the world. We have people from Japan, Norway, NYC, Canada, Spain, Brazil, and Florida, just to name a few. All of which are nice people, and fairly competent players.
Earlier this year a few of us caused a bit of a ruckus trying to participate in one of the PREs regularly advertised on this site. And by ruckus, I mean we joined and did well. Needless to say, afterwards, they went out of their way to make sure that didn’t happen again. Their whole tournament was restructured with “keep team rocket out” in mind, which let’s be honest, is more of a prize than anything they could have put up. More importantly, It was around that time we started to get the idea to host out own event. So we’re going to make this event our test trial and see how things go. Hopefully if it picks up enough steam and support we can start holding events a little more often, so if you have any suggestions or tips on how we can go about doing this, feel free to share. Here are the event specifics as of right now:
Who?: Mtgotraders and team rocket will be hosting this event. Everyone is welcome to participate. There is no entry fee!
What?: Prismatic 2v2 event. The Event will be swiss, 4 rounds with a cut into the Top4 or Top8, depending on turnout. We will abide by the current prismatic Banned/Restricted list, no changes or additions to if will be in effect. If you don’t have a partner, there is a chance someone else at the event doesn’t have one either, so come anyway!
Where?: MTGO /join Prismatic
When?: July 31st 7pm est. time
Why?: Because it’ll be fun! Plus, we’re putting up a 100ticket prize for the 1st place team! 2nd place and 3rd place prizes will be determined based on turnout, but we will have something good for each of them. (Most likely will be 50 tickets 2nd/20 tickets 3rd) Random prizes may be given out during the event as well.
Without the ability to regulate decklists, we will be abiding by the “Hater’s Ball” rule. Between rounds teams may change any number of cards in their decks as they wish, so long as they fulfill all deck building requirements. Games will be take place in the multiplayer room and be set as the following: Prismatic 2v2 (Not 2hg!) timed 60 minutes, single game win. (Not best 2 of 3!) Watchers must be set as allowed, and spell range must be 3. Leave Allow Handicaps, Restrict Effect Range, and Only Players within Spell Range… unchecked. (So basically just everything default)
The rules of the format are pretty straightforward, albeit maybe a little obscure at first. Decks are required to be at least 250 cards, and each deck must contain 20 cards of each color. Hybrid and split cards count towards only one of their colors, but are otherwise perfectly legal. An interesting side note: It is entirely possible to build a mono-colored Prismatic deck using hybrid and split cards. There are also a lot of cards that can be used to cheat color requirements such as Street Wraith or Simian/Elvish Spirit Guide, so don’t be hesitant to get a little creative when putting something together.
If you have any questions or comments feel free to contact me online.
Keep Team Rocket out? Not quite. In fact one of your clan members is actually one of the nicest guys who attend and on of my favorite people to play/chat with on mtgo. Did we approve of the decks you brought? Not really, but mainly since the event was structured to be a very casual laid back environment, which admittedly, you had no idea. It was changed to make it more so, onyl to discourage those types of decks rather than players. Out of everyone in your clan I can say I don't really have a problem with any of you. Things may have gotten out of hand that day, but it was more frustration than anything. Me and Fiatlux were in a clan together before he knows I can be rather unreasonable and hot-headed at times. Overall I'm sorry you felt we became strictly anit-team rocket which was not the intention. It was more anti-tier 1 classic decks in a fun event than anything. All that said...I really hope this works out for you. The only prismatic I ever played was Pauper Prismatic Singleton so I doubt I would be able to keep up card-wise, but I do sincerely hope you guys succeed in adding a little more life to the online Prismatic Community. If I have that day free I may come show support by playing. I just apologize now to my partner in advance.
I wouldn't say you were unwelcome either. Your team however did come across as obnoxious at first glance and that raised some eyebrows. As choleric as Shard gets I am down right belligerent when I think people are deliberately trying to cause trouble. I had no problems with your decks per se as Lord E and others have brought vial fish to the PRE in the past but I will say there was a hope to see less combo, less tier 1 shoehorning and that did not work out that well even without your presence. I think we (collectively all the players at the PRE) owe you guys a small debt for making us rethink the standards for it. I didn't particularly like the attitude you guys brought to the chat but I recognize some of that might just have been over-exuberance on the part of your younger members. Also I believe there is (ironically) a tribal attitude among clans members (in any game) when you feel outside hostility (warranted or not.) I don't think that helped at all.
As far as the PRE being structured to keep Team Rocket out, I imagine you'd find it just as amenable now as it was then though some of the more heinous decks are out (no turn 2 dredge with Bazaar for example) you can still bring FOW/Daze/Fish and Vials. The difference is mainly that the 3-0 winner(s) get 3 tix and the 2-1 winners get 2tix instead of the top 4 getting tix divided among them.
On to your event: 2v2 I assume means teams within chaos? (So just like FFA but you and a team mate gang up on the other guys and whomever is left standing last wins?) Does this mean if you and your team mate are the only ones left you have to play on till there is a winner?
It is interesting to see someone (someones in this case) championing Prismatic which seems in casual to be a barely alive yet extremely broken format. Hope the event goes well. 100tix is insane as PRE prizes go so I imagine the turn out will be enormous.
I think the thought is that with a 100 tix prize many of the old players might come out of the woodwork, and hopefully some new people who wouldn't have thought about the format look into it.
As a long time prism player I greatly appriciate the idea with this tournament.
I hope you will be able to keep the tournament and maybe even expand it to more. Same goes for me as for Flippers, it will be too late for me to participate - or at least too late to finish!
Again, good luck with it, I hope I will be able to participate at some point!
One thing to note about this tournament, and prismatic, in general, is that the decks can be very good. We don't want to discourage anyone from bringing anything they want to play as long as they fit within the confines of the rules and banned list. While some of the decks may start with a 40 duals/40 fetches manabase, this does not necessarily make them the default winners, because the deckbuilding options in prismatic are almost limitless. Being a team event also helps on this front because you and your teammate can prepare decks to foil the field. For someone without all the money cards who still wants to participate and compete, I'd consider running a deck that punishes non-basic land manabases using cards like Price of Progress, Blood Moon, etc. Other strategic options would be to have one teammate running a combo-centric deck while the other runs a control suite to aid in getting his teammate's combo off. Having such a diverse set of deckbuilding options should make this a very interesting tournament. With almost a full month to prepare, I am excited to see all the innovation that will come out of this tournament.
Also, the tournament is free, so we strongly encourage everyone who can build a prismatic deck (that is, anyone with 250 cards, 20 from each color) to find a teamate (or come anyway and get paired with someone else) and sling some cards. The prizes are bountiful because we really want to drum up interest in this format. Depending on popularity, we will try and host these tournaments regularly.
If you have any questions regarding the tournament, the format, or magic, in general, feel free to message me in game (Username: DeckWizard). If you have any suggestions regarding this tournament, also please comment here or PM one of us in game. Thanks.
I've actually found that fetch lands are fare more important that duals in your deck. I started off with a full playset of every real dual, and have since drastically cut back. Mana fixing creatures or artifacts can certainly help too. I think the real key will be having decks that have synergy together and can play as a team. Good luck everyone.
I'm a big fan of prism and greyes knows I'm hoping to participate, but as much as I get along with certain members I don't think it was necessary to make that comment about the other PRE, you're trying to create an issue when there really wasn't one.. you're slighting it that we had a problem because who you were and not for the real reason which was we had a problem with the power level of the decks at the time and that included people who were not even from team rocket, by adding that comment you take away from the point of the article, which was the new PRE
I would have also liked to see a bit of extra content about prism tips, but since I was waiting to put this info into an article for you I've kind of started that so maybe I'll just finish the article (time willing) lol
Thanks for the comments guys. It's good to see there isn't any bad blood between us and your event Shard. You are all certainly welcome to this one. Neverloze/Flippers, what time would be better for you guys? If this one goes well and we do another after, I can try and maybe make it a bit more accommodating next go around. And thanks for the thread on CQ danger, it looks great. The more support we can get for this thing the better.
10 Comments
Keep Team Rocket out? Not quite. In fact one of your clan members is actually one of the nicest guys who attend and on of my favorite people to play/chat with on mtgo. Did we approve of the decks you brought? Not really, but mainly since the event was structured to be a very casual laid back environment, which admittedly, you had no idea. It was changed to make it more so, onyl to discourage those types of decks rather than players. Out of everyone in your clan I can say I don't really have a problem with any of you. Things may have gotten out of hand that day, but it was more frustration than anything. Me and Fiatlux were in a clan together before he knows I can be rather unreasonable and hot-headed at times. Overall I'm sorry you felt we became strictly anit-team rocket which was not the intention. It was more anti-tier 1 classic decks in a fun event than anything. All that said...I really hope this works out for you. The only prismatic I ever played was Pauper Prismatic Singleton so I doubt I would be able to keep up card-wise, but I do sincerely hope you guys succeed in adding a little more life to the online Prismatic Community. If I have that day free I may come show support by playing. I just apologize now to my partner in advance.
Welcome to Puremtgo, nice to see you contribute.
I wouldn't say you were unwelcome either. Your team however did come across as obnoxious at first glance and that raised some eyebrows. As choleric as Shard gets I am down right belligerent when I think people are deliberately trying to cause trouble. I had no problems with your decks per se as Lord E and others have brought vial fish to the PRE in the past but I will say there was a hope to see less combo, less tier 1 shoehorning and that did not work out that well even without your presence. I think we (collectively all the players at the PRE) owe you guys a small debt for making us rethink the standards for it. I didn't particularly like the attitude you guys brought to the chat but I recognize some of that might just have been over-exuberance on the part of your younger members. Also I believe there is (ironically) a tribal attitude among clans members (in any game) when you feel outside hostility (warranted or not.) I don't think that helped at all.
As far as the PRE being structured to keep Team Rocket out, I imagine you'd find it just as amenable now as it was then though some of the more heinous decks are out (no turn 2 dredge with Bazaar for example) you can still bring FOW/Daze/Fish and Vials. The difference is mainly that the 3-0 winner(s) get 3 tix and the 2-1 winners get 2tix instead of the top 4 getting tix divided among them.
On to your event: 2v2 I assume means teams within chaos? (So just like FFA but you and a team mate gang up on the other guys and whomever is left standing last wins?) Does this mean if you and your team mate are the only ones left you have to play on till there is a winner?
It is interesting to see someone (someones in this case) championing Prismatic which seems in casual to be a barely alive yet extremely broken format. Hope the event goes well. 100tix is insane as PRE prizes go so I imagine the turn out will be enormous.
Looks like a fun event sadly for me the time the event starts converts to a midnight start so I wont be able to attend.
I think the thought is that with a 100 tix prize many of the old players might come out of the woodwork, and hopefully some new people who wouldn't have thought about the format look into it.
As a long time prism player I greatly appriciate the idea with this tournament.
I hope you will be able to keep the tournament and maybe even expand it to more. Same goes for me as for Flippers, it will be too late for me to participate - or at least too late to finish!
Again, good luck with it, I hope I will be able to participate at some point!
One thing to note about this tournament, and prismatic, in general, is that the decks can be very good. We don't want to discourage anyone from bringing anything they want to play as long as they fit within the confines of the rules and banned list. While some of the decks may start with a 40 duals/40 fetches manabase, this does not necessarily make them the default winners, because the deckbuilding options in prismatic are almost limitless. Being a team event also helps on this front because you and your teammate can prepare decks to foil the field. For someone without all the money cards who still wants to participate and compete, I'd consider running a deck that punishes non-basic land manabases using cards like Price of Progress, Blood Moon, etc. Other strategic options would be to have one teammate running a combo-centric deck while the other runs a control suite to aid in getting his teammate's combo off. Having such a diverse set of deckbuilding options should make this a very interesting tournament. With almost a full month to prepare, I am excited to see all the innovation that will come out of this tournament.
Also, the tournament is free, so we strongly encourage everyone who can build a prismatic deck (that is, anyone with 250 cards, 20 from each color) to find a teamate (or come anyway and get paired with someone else) and sling some cards. The prizes are bountiful because we really want to drum up interest in this format. Depending on popularity, we will try and host these tournaments regularly.
If you have any questions regarding the tournament, the format, or magic, in general, feel free to message me in game (Username: DeckWizard). If you have any suggestions regarding this tournament, also please comment here or PM one of us in game. Thanks.
Honestly, I love these guys. Prismatic isn't my cup of tea, but greyes, if you need any help, let me know what I can do.
I'm going to post about the event on CQ now
I've actually found that fetch lands are fare more important that duals in your deck. I started off with a full playset of every real dual, and have since drastically cut back. Mana fixing creatures or artifacts can certainly help too. I think the real key will be having decks that have synergy together and can play as a team. Good luck everyone.
I'm a big fan of prism and greyes knows I'm hoping to participate, but as much as I get along with certain members I don't think it was necessary to make that comment about the other PRE, you're trying to create an issue when there really wasn't one.. you're slighting it that we had a problem because who you were and not for the real reason which was we had a problem with the power level of the decks at the time and that included people who were not even from team rocket, by adding that comment you take away from the point of the article, which was the new PRE
I would have also liked to see a bit of extra content about prism tips, but since I was waiting to put this info into an article for you I've kind of started that so maybe I'll just finish the article (time willing) lol
Thanks for the comments guys. It's good to see there isn't any bad blood between us and your event Shard. You are all certainly welcome to this one. Neverloze/Flippers, what time would be better for you guys? If this one goes well and we do another after, I can try and maybe make it a bit more accommodating next go around. And thanks for the thread on CQ danger, it looks great. The more support we can get for this thing the better.