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By: Kumagoro42, Gianluca Aicardi
Jan 13 2012 9:51am
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*** Tribal Apocalypse: Weeks 49-52 BE ***
This Is the End

 

 Hey, I'm back! Welcome back, me! (It's been a while, I know. Real life and everything. Very annoying).

 Don't worry, that's not about the end of Tribal Apocalypse. Or is it? Well, it is, but just in a way (the true Mayan way): the first Blippian Cycle ended with the 52th event, which very appropriately has been held on New Year's Eve (with people actually showing up to play!). So, that's it. It has been a great first year, if I get to say that. Here's some basic factoids for you:

  • Tribal Apocalypse events held in 2011: 52
  • Total attendance: 910 players
  • Average attendance: 17.5 players
  • Maximum attendance: 27 players (Event 14, April 9)
  • Minimum attendance: 8 players (Events 1, January 8, and Event 52, December 31; now, that's really coming full circle, isn't it?)
  • Different players qualifying for the Hall of Fame: 68
  • Different players achieving a 1st place: 27
  • Different tribes qualifying for the Hall of Fame: 74
  • Different tribes achieving a 1st place: 30
  • Maximum number of 1st places of a single player: 7 (NemesisParadigm)
  • Maximum number of 1st places of a single tribe: 6 (Elf)
  • Maximum number of Hall of Fame results: 15 (NemesisParadigm and _Kumagoro_)
  • Maximum number of consecutive 1st places: 2 (NemesisParadigm and mihahitlor)
  • Maximum number of consecutive Hall of Fame results: 4 (hg20010 and DirtyDuck) 
  • Maximum number of different 1st place tribes piloted by the same player: 4 (NemesisParadigm and Ayanam1)
  • Maximum number of different Top 4 tribes piloted by the same player: 8 (_Kumagoro_) 
  • Maximum number of different tribes achieving Hall of Fame points while piloted by the same player: 9 (_Kumagoro_ and AJ_Impy) 
  • Maximum number of Endangered Prizes: 5 (AJ_Impy and vantar6697)
  • Maximum number of participations: 48 (_Kumagoro_ — I was aiming at 52, but three times I hosted, and one time I fell asleep!)

 What can I say? We had a whole lot of diversity this year (more than 50% of the events ended with a unique player and/or a unique tribe on top), and that's telling me that this format, at least in the way we're playing it here, is far from being solved, despite what the Elvish Dominance theorists like to think and worry about. Still, if I get a wish for 2012, that would be "less Elf and Goblin, more Gargoyle and Ooze", and the first event of the new year (which I'll cover in the next article) already seems to agree with me here.

 Before analyzing the last 4 events of the year, let's jump straight to the end and see who the Top 16 players of 2011 ended up being and what's their stats, keeping in mind that they will also be the ones elected to compete in the next 2011 Hall of Fame Invitational on January 21. Some of them, and especially SBena, managed to grab a spot in the Top 16 at the very last minute, so kudos to them. Next time we will celebrate the 2011 Ranking's Number 1 Player with an exclusive chat. But now it's time to stop wasting space with my preambles: let's...

MEET THE MAGNIFICENT TOP 16 PLAYERS OF 2011!

  1. NemesisParadigm. Final HoF points: 920. 1st places: 7. Total HoF results: 15. HoF tribes: Artificer (2 times), Wall (6 times), Plant (3 times), Vedalken, Shaman, Vampire, Cleric.
  2. _Kumagoro_ (yay!).  Final HoF points: 509. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 15. HoF tribes: Shaman (2 times), Elf (2 times, including the Elf/Goblin event), Sphinx (3 times), Ooze (2 times), Human (2 times), Scout, Avatar, Demon, Spirit.
  3. Ranth. Final HoF points: 444. 1st places: 4. Total HoF results: 9. HoF tribes: Cat (5 times), Dragon, Elemental, Kavu, Minion.
  4. Ayanam1. Final HoF points: 435. 1st places: 4. Total HoF results: 6. HoF tribes: Human, Golem, Lhurgoyf, Construct, Treefolk, Goblin (in the Elf/Goblin event, also best Goblin deck).
  5. mihahitlor. Final HoF points: 426. 1st places: 4. Total HoF results: 7. HoF tribes: Elf (5 times), Vampire, Assassin.
  6. DirtyDuck. Final HoF points: 390. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 10. HoF tribes: Artificer (2 times), Cat (4 times), Vedalken, Wall, Spirit, Phoenix.
  7. Mr Slippery 39. Final HoF points: 366. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 9. HoF tribes: Elf, Spirit (3 times), Angel, Plant, Construct, Kavu, Bird.
  8. raf.azevedo. Final HoF points: 359. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 9. HoF tribes: Elf (4 times), Dragon (2 times), Myr (2 times), Mutant.
  9. AJ_Impy. Final HoF points: 343. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 10. HoF tribes: Hellion, Specter, Elemental, Archon, Praetor, Hydra, Angel, Demon, Devil (2 times). 
  10. ScionOfJustice. Final HoF points: 333. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 7. HoF tribes: Elf (2 times, including the Elf/Goblin event, also best Elf deck), Wizard (2 times), Rebel, Archon (2 times).
  11. Nagarjuna. Final HoF points: 318. 1st places: 0. Total HoF results: 8. HoF tribes: Vampire, Giant (2 times), Dragon (2 times), Human, Ally, Spider.
  12. endless_nameless. Final HoF points: 290. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 7. HoF tribes: Leviathan (3 times), Praetor (3 times), Construct.
  13. james mcaliney. Final HoF points: 229. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 5. HoF tribes: Wizard (4 times), Rat.
  14. hg20010. Final HoF points: 218. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 5. HoF tribes: Elf (5 times).
  15. SBena. Final HoF points: 214. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 7. HoF tribes: Kor (3 times), Human, Slug, Rebel, Knight.
  16. fliebana. Final HoF points: 209. 1st places: 0. Total HoF results: 7. HoF tribes: Eldrazi (4 times), Ally (3 times).

 It's worth noting how 2-time winners undeadgod (208 points) and Mupps84 (156 points) didn't achieve Top 16 status, while more consistent players like Nagarjuna and fliebana did, despite not having scored any 1st place during the year (granted, fliebana beat undeadgod by 1 single point: good job!). Some of the players ranked 17-24 might still end up joining the Invitational due to the possible unavailability of one or more of the higher-ranked players. The complete ranking along with everything else that happened this year (Top 4 placements, special prizes) can be found here.

 Let's have a look at the Top 16 Tribes of the Year too. That's especially important since the players will not be allowed to play these tribes on the first round of the Invitational.

  1. Elf. Final HoF points: 1025. 1st places: 6. Total HoF results: 22.
  2. Goblin. Final HoF points: 768. 1st places: 5. Total HoF results: 18.
  3. Human. Final HoF points: 643. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 13.
  4. Wall. Final HoF points: 526. 1st places: 3. Total HoF results: 8.
  5. Cat. Final HoF points: 525. 1st places: 5. Total HoF results: 10.
  6. Vampire. Final HoF points: 393. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 9.
  7. Wizard. Final HoF points: 379. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 7.
  8. Construct. Final HoF points: 264. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 5.
  9. Elemental. Final HoF points: 221. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 3.
  10. Dragon. Final HoF points: 220. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 5.
  11. Shaman. Final HoF points: 214. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 6.
  12. Plant. Final HoF points: 208. 1st places: 2. Total HoF results: 4.
  13. Merfolk. Final HoF points: 205. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 5. 
  14. Ally. Final HoF points: 174. 1st places: 0. Total HoF results: 5.
  15. Spirit. Final HoF points: 166. 1st places: 0. Total HoF results: 5.
  16. Myr. Final HoF points: 156. 1st places: 1. Total HoF results: 4.

 2-time winning tribes not in the Top 16: Treefolk (144 points), Kor (136 points). Best-ranked Endangered tribes: Plant, Ally, Myr.

 And now for something completely different...
 

HOW THE WARS WERE WON

WEEK 49: THE LAST (REGULAR) BATTLE OF THE YEAR

  • Date: December 10
  • Attendance: 18
  • Special Rules: none
  • Top 4: Ayanam1 (Treefolk); ChrisMH77 (Ally); NemesisParadigm (Cleric); grapplingfarang (Shaman)
  • Special Prizes: Endangered Prize to Malum (Mystic)

 That was the last event of 2011 not employing special shenanigans, and like the Top 4 up there nicely demonstrate, it was a good showcase for some allegedly Tier-2 tribes. Both Ayanam1 (getting here to 4 victories with 4 different tribes) and ChrisMH77 went undefeated, with the former reaching this way the 4th place in the general ranking. And both ChrisMH77 and grapplingfarang beat me badly while I was running some bizarre Beast deck I will spare you the sight of. In the meantime, NemesisParadigm was consolidating his dominance experimenting with a new tribe, Cleric. Here's the decklists: 

 

 As suggested by the name of the deck (devised by Ayanam1 himself: for once someone is getting a little creative here!), there's a "lone giant" in there: the singleton Primeval Titan whose sleep gets sometime interrupted in order for him to fetch Kessig Wolf Run along with the red mana needed to activate it and bring some more punch to the aggro strategy of the deck. Not that the Treefolk have nothing to learn as far as brutal beating is concerned: cards like Doran, the Siege Tower sure don't use to jerk around. Ayanam1 also exploits his great Legacy competitive collection to the fullest: 3 Pernicious Deed and 3 Vindicate are some serious stuff. That's 334 tix for you, no kidding! Here's a comment about the event from our 4th Tribal Apocalypse Player of 2011 himself: "I played some great players today. Including one of my favorite PureMTGO writers, Pete Jahn and the number 1 ranked Tribal Apocalypse champ NemesisParadigm." Yeah, Pete Jahn was there. More on that later.

 

 Ally are a very solid tribe, one of the most important additions of the Zendikar block to this format. ChrisMH77's take on them adds some cascade (Bloodbraid Elf, Violent Outburst) to, once again, make the strong stronger. It's a very effective move, actually, as I sadly witnessed first hand: the Bloodbraid is able to hit and fetch pretty much every Ally in the deck, with often explosive results. And maybe Naya Charm isn't the best charm in the Alara cycle, but it's versatile enough, especially when used to take back key players like Kabira Evangel.

 

 From NemesisParadigm's (virtual) voice: "My first attempt at AJ's challenge (AJ_Impy challenged Nemesis to a public duel, more on that in the next installment Editor's note) to not use alternate win conditions. It did all right, but in the last round I faced Ayanam1's pretty powerful Treefolk deck and my deck decided to get land flooded a lot." This Cleric deck uses the life-gaining from the titular Martyr of Sands and other tribe members, like Auriok Champion or the always powerful Loxodon Hierarch, to fuel the recursion of Phyrexian Reclamation and the card advantage of Phyrexian Arena. The engine is neat, and it's complemented by the interaction between Rotlung Reanimator and Starlit Sanctum, with an endgame where Mirror Entity would pump up an army of clerical zombies. Also note the classical NemesisParadigm's singleton mana base, featuring all kinds of land-shaped tools. 

 

 I once successfully tried the tribal Valakut route myself, with Scouts; grapplingfarang chose a nice selection of Shamans instead, but the resulting power is the same, if not greater, especially when the combo is backed up by its classic enabler, Scapeshift (which is now a fairly cheap card again). The inclusion of  Rolling Earthquake is noteworthy: the regular Earthquake is a bulk rare in M10, but there are still more creatures with flying than with the infamous, one-time Portal wonder horsemanship.

 As said above, one of the highlights of the event was the presence of legendary MTG personality and PureMTGO contributor OneMillionWords, a.k.a. Pete Jahn, who accepted Blippy's invitation and ended up 6th (after gbagyt's Elf deck with Myr Superion) with this Illusion deck: 

Tribal Illusions
by OneMillionWords
Creatures
4 Krovikan Mist
4 Gossamer Phantasm
4 Phantasmal Bear
4 Phantasmal Image
4 Aether Figment
2 Cloudskate
1 Errant Ephemeron
4 Lord of the Unreal
27 cards

Other Spells
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Counterspell
2 Exclude
12 cards
 
Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
9 Island
4 Mutavault
4 Wasteland
21 cards

 
Krovikan Mist

 

 Yeah, that's a full playset of Force of Will, folks (strangely enough, we would see FoW again in the following weeks, despite a long absence from the traditionally more budget-friendly shores of TribAp). Here's Jahn's comment about his tribal time: "With about 15 minutes to find a deck, I modified a classic deck I had built. Thanks, Blippy, for the invite. Fun times." 

WEEK 50: THE STEPMOTHER OF ALL THE TRIBAL BATTLES

  • Date: December 17
  • Attendance: 11
  • Special Rules: only Elf and Goblin decks; each player was playing both tribes: Elf if listed first in the pairing, Goblin if listed second
  • Top 4: ScionOfJustice (Elf); Ayanam1 (Goblin); Chonarox (Cleric); grapplingfarang (Shaman)
  • Special Prizes: highest-ranked Elf deck to ScionOfJustice; highest-ranked Goblin deck to Ayanam1

 On the occasion of the 50th TribAp gathering of the Blippian Era, we treated ourselves to the very nightmare of every tribal player: Elves and Goblins everywhere! The idea was to stage a showdown between the two most popular and successful tribes of the format, with each player running both, depending on his or her position within the round pairing: the player creating the table would play his or her Elf deck, while the opponent would play with the Goblins (who are notoriously unable to make a MTGO table). Despite the apparent predictability of this set-up, the participants stepped up their games and defied expectations, with some of the highest-ranked decks thinking out of the box with unusual combos and meta-calls. The Elves ended up winning 1 more match, thus confirming their superiority, if barely (the first round actually saw the Goblins taking the lead with an amazing 5-1 partial score, yet the Elves managed to score 4-2 and 4-1 in the following rounds, for a photo finish final result of 9-8). Here's the best ranked Elf and Goblin decks (according to the number of times they were called to play and succeeded), by ScionOfJustice and Ayanam1, respectively.

 

 As ScionOfJustice himself noted on the forum, the thing here isn't as much the Elves (the selection includes a lot of all-purpose favorites, but no Ezuri and none of the trite infinite combos), as is the combo involving Worship and indestructible creatures, with even a Defense of the Heart into  Blightsteel Colossus into Lightning Greaves on the Colossus endgame, for good measure. It might look a bit random and unreliable (the only way to tutor up the singleton Darksteel Myr is a singleton Fauna Shaman), but it worked, supported by the steadiness of a somehow "normal" (as in "non-broken") Elf base.

 

 "For this event, I took Kumagoro's ideas for both his past Dream Halls Elves deck and Shaman Goblins and made some changes. Thanks for the deck ideas!" Ayanam1's words, not mine. Well, it turns out his improvements to my (often unlucky) Kiki-Jiki/Lightning Crafter deck paid off nicely, as the addition of a strong discard suite made it extremely badass. Also, it needed an accomplished Legacy player like Ayanam1 to finally see the glorious (and deadly) Goblin Piledriver in a Goblin deck! And Goblin Ringleader, too. That's the way we used to play Goblins back in the time, kids.

 Let's also have a look of Ayanam1's mentioned Elf deck, which he played in the final round:

 

 This is one of my favorite creations (I played it in this tournament myself), and I'm very glad Ayanam1 decided to run it nearly unchanged, up to the tribal base and the Nicol Bolas/Doubling Season finishing strike. Yet the addition of Ancient Tomb and Show and Tell (over Lim-Dûl's Vault) allows for a Turn 2 win: Tomb + another land into Show and Tell into Dream Halls pitching a card for Conflux to grab the win conditions (some Cruel Ultimatums and another Conflux to grab more Ultimatum and the seasoned Bolas). Coiling Oracle is perfect for fueling Ultimatums and coming back in hand each time.

 It's due noting that some last minute ruling for the event stated that the Elf decks couldn't use cards with the words "Goblin" and "red" in their text (the same goes for Goblin decks and cards with the words "Elf" and "green"). The idea was to prevent hosing situations. Now, the text of Conflux also mentions the word "red", among the others, and that would make these decks illegal; that wasn't the spirit of the banning, though (whose wording, admittedly, wasn't thought through), so Blippy made a call on the fly and allowed it. After all, who says that Elf decks are green and Goblin decks are red? Surely not AJ_Impy, who came to the event bringing along two amazing black decks. I'll let him talk about his destabilizing strategy and deckbuilding process, as he thoroughly described afterwards on the forum:

 "Managed a 2-1 money finish with a deconstruction of the event concept: knowing that we were playing Elves vs. Goblins and Goblins vs. Elves not only defined our own decks, but the decks our opponent would be running. This is critical! We essentially got handed a massive metagame helping hand right there and then. Our opponents will be playing tribes that like to swarm, like to empty their hand and fill the battlefield, with some scope for trickery but in general a simple, aggressive swarm strategy, perhaps backed up by combo antics."

  "However, our opponents also got this vital piece of information. They know the archetypes it is likely we could be running, and they are free to counteract this however they so choose. In general, there were two responses to this: build a deck conforming to the successful archetypes which have been tried and tested over the years and trust that to outperform your opponent, or to take the expectations of your opponent and turn them on their head. Rather than red aggro burn or green aggro-combo, I went black control."

Loggers & Earwigs
AJ_Impy
Creatures
4 Festering Goblin
4 Frogtosser Banneret
4 Boggart Loggers
4 Mad Auntie
4 Stinkdrinker Bandit
3 Earwig Squad
2 Murderous Redcap
25 cards

Other Spells
4 Mutilate
2 Infest
2 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Profane Command
11 cards
 
Lands
22 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers
24 cards

 
Boggart Loggers

 

 "The Boggart Loggers were my best weapon: The bans were on cards mentioning 'green' or 'Elf', so nothing about 'forest'. The landwalkers, pumped and protected by the Mad Aunties with a nasty kick from the Bandits, gave me the win. The Earwig Squads were my answer to Combo: when you only have a few alternate win conditions, being capped and subsequently facing a 5/3 is painful. Note the heavy removal suite, with a set of 8 sweepers, 4 online from turn 3: killing the swarms is a high priority, especially given the predisposition to overextend."

Assassins & Plagues
AJ_Impy
Creatures
4 Scarblade Elite
4 Plague Witch
4 Moonglove Winnower
4 Hunter of Eyeblights
4 Ghostly Changeling
20 cards

Other Spells
4 Mutilate
3 Infest
2 Black Sun's Zenith
3 Profane Command
4 Nameless Inversion
16 cards
 
Lands
21 Snow-Covered Swamp
3 Cabal Coffers
24 cards

 
Scarblade Elite

 

 "Elves don't have as strong a monoblack option as Goblins do, but the Assassin lord and the Spellshaper provide useful early board presence, as high toughness swarm goblins are a rarity until the Lords come out. If anything the removal suite here is even heavier: Against a fast goblin deck you need to stem the tide quickly. Here, the main attack creature is Ghostly Changeling, once the Goblins have emptied their hand and you have a Coffers or two out."

WEEK 51: LET IT SNOW! (OR NOT)

 

  • Date: December 24
  • Attendance: 10
  • Special Rules: white, red, or green cards only (no colorless non-land cards, no lands producing other colors of mana) and at least one of each
  • Top 4: raf.azevedo (Elf); Chonarox (Human); SBena (Knight); _Kumagoro_ (Spirit)
  • Special Prizes: highest-ranked Snow deck, not assigned

 It's Christmas in Tribal, all the Goblins sing... Ok, let's cut this short since this article is kinda spinning out of control already, and honestly this event wasn't very interesting. The idea for the Christmas Special was to play with decks bearing "the colors of Christmas" (white, red and green), sort of the complementary of all the black and blue we saw during the Halloween event. But here's the thing, most of the players just made mono-colored deck (white for Humans or Knights or Clerics, red for Goblins, green for Elves), and put just a couple of hybrid-mana cards in there (Manamorphose über alles) to fulfill the requirements. I played against an absolutely regular, all-mountain Goblin deck that just featured a singleton Boros Recruit and a singleton Boggart Ram-Gang. Eye-rolling indeed. Plus the whole Snow deck prize was moot, because, hey, there's no way you can build a tribal deck where all the permanents are Snow, because no tribe has enough members with the Snow supertype. So much for that. Blippy gave us gifts (a nicely chosen (Winter's Night) for each participants), in typical festive Blippy's fashion (during the Elf vs. Goblin event he assigned tons of door prizes, including some Garruk and Chandra). But all in all, no much to be mentioned here. So I'll just give you MY deck, because MY deck wasn't a lazy attempt to outsmart the rules. It had actual Naya-colored cards! (And lots of Boros). And it ended up at 4th place anyway!
 

 

 It actually performed better than expected, going close to being undefeated (it almost stopped an Elfball deck in the final round). It didn't need to actually attack, since when Balefire Liege is online, pretty much every spell means 3 damage to the opponent (and Lightning Helix might mean 6 damage to the opponent and 6 life gained). Glitterfang is there to abuse it, and Squee's Embrace is a nice, underrated aura that protects the Liege while still enabling it. Tamanoa (the true Spirit of Christmas), Guardian of the Guildpact, and Windborn Muse are the resistance suite, backed up by the mighty Ajani Vengeant and the stealthy MVP Intimidation Bolt, which was capable to buy enough time for the Liege to show up and work its lethal magic. Very fun deck to play.

WEEK 52: END OF DAYS

 

  • Date: December 31
  • Attendance: 8
  • Special Rules: no banned list
  • Top 4: Owain (Merfolk); SBena (Kor); milegyenanevem (Goblin); Freinstein1 (Human)
  • Special Prizes: none

  And that's it, the last event of this long, long tribal year. The attendance was small (well, still surprisingly large, given that it was New Year's Eve, just a few hours away from the midnight in Europe!). The special rules, not very crucial: nobody showed up with a Sneak Attack deck, unfortunately. SBena managed to achieve Top 16 status by dusting off his old Quest for the Holy Relic/Argentum Armor Kor deck. Here's the list, just because it's short.

 

 However, we also had a new player showing up with a Human deck and getting a good 4th place placement: Freinstein1, the very last entry in the 2011 Hall of Fame. And for the first time, both Owain and his beloved Merfolk grabbed a deserved 1st place. Here's the list, for the last winner of this first season of Blippian Wars:

 

 It has been fun, it will be again in 2012. See you in the Tribal Room, all of you. Speaking of  which...

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

TRIBAL APOCALYPSE TOURNAMENT PRACTICE: THIS TIME FOR REAL!

 WoTC just did it, by renaming some of the rooms like they were the sections of some sort of kid show with muppets, so I can do it too: I proudly announce (again, this time it's true, I swear!) the institution of the Tribal Apocalypse Tournament Practice Room! (Except it's exactly the same room, so just type /join tribal if you want to get there). Every Wednesday after the downtime, let's meet in the tribal room for some serious deck tuning in view of that week's Tribal Apocalypse event (so with the same deck legality enforced that week). I'll be there for at least one hour, and if there will be enough people at that point we can do a 8-player single elimination impromptu tourney, and the winner will get... absolutely nothing! That is, apart from a tiny amount of glory and the awareness that his/her deck kinda works (well, for three matches in a row, at least). So, it's like a 8-player queue with no prizes, a really long queue and no guarantee it will ever fire. Isn't it amazing?

  I'd also like to remind you that the 2011 Hall of Fame Invitational: Thunderdome Royale will be held on January 21. The Top 16 players of 2011 will challenge each other to a single elimination mayhem featuring a crazy set of special rules devised to challenge our best players (and yes, to prevent NemesisParadigm to just run Wall-Drazi all the way to the final round). Every round, the players will have to bring different decks, as follows: 

  • 1st round: Each player must use a tribe which is not listed among the Top 16 Tribes of 2011.
  • 2nd round: Each player must use a tribe with which they achieved their highest ranking in a 2011 Tribal Apocalypse event.
  • 3rd round: Each player must use a different tribe from the previous 2 rounds.
  • 4rd round: Each player must use a tribe with which they did NOT achieve a Top 4 result in a 2011 Tribal Apocalypse event. 

 And remember: When the going gets tough, the tough get going

 

6 Comments

52nd**, sorry that bothered by JustSin at Fri, 01/13/2012 - 10:22
JustSin's picture
5

52nd**, sorry that bothered me

good stuff, especially like the stats!

though curious how AJ ran two decks in one event lol

Everyone was running two by AJ_Impy at Fri, 01/13/2012 - 11:03
AJ_Impy's picture

Everyone was running two decks in that one event: The requirement was that one be an elf deck and the other a goblin deck, to be paired against your opponent's goblin or elf deck respectively. Who played what was determined by the seating arrangement.

Excellent article, Kuma. I've been missing this for weeks.

ah now I get it, thnx by JustSin at Fri, 01/13/2012 - 12:37
JustSin's picture

ah now I get it, thnx

Excellent article, however by ArchGenius at Fri, 01/13/2012 - 13:29
ArchGenius's picture
5

Excellent article, however sometimes I think you prop me up as number one big bad just to draw attention away from yourself as number 2. :-)

Anyway, I was also really disappointed with the Christmas event. I thought the special rules for the event were vague and poorly written. I didn't even know if Man-lands and Kessig Wolf Run were legal so I left them out. I wasn't the only one who was confused. I ended up winning my last round in the worst way possible, by default because my opponent had an illegal deck that contained (Batterskull - colorless).

I like the Endangered events and they are popular, but I'm not sure all of the other special events have been that much of a good idea. I'm not even sure we'll get 16 players for the Invitational when we have to make 4 decks for the event with crazy rules. I'm planning on making it, but I'm not going to be surprised if we end up short of players.

If the worst comes to the by AJ_Impy at Fri, 01/13/2012 - 13:40
AJ_Impy's picture

If the worst comes to the worst, it'll be a rematch: I have my decks in mind for it already.

Thanks to all of you for the by Kumagoro42 at Sat, 01/14/2012 - 10:04
Kumagoro42's picture

Thanks to all of you for the comments!

Nemesis: I hear you about the Christmas event, next year we'll have to think it through or switch to something else. The Elf vs. Goblin event was better than expected though, and kinda well-received.

The 4-deck rule for the Invitational isn't too complicated when you think of it this way:

1st round: you can't play your best deck just yet (you have to prove you're more than your best deck), and you have to play kinda endangered (the difference between "Endangered" and "non-Top 16" tribe is actually interesting)

2nd and 3rd rounds: you play your best decks

4th round: you have to come up with a new deck entirely, since in the final round you have to show up your deckbuilding skill, not just your playing skill

I wanted this strongly because I don't want for an Elfball player to win all the way through just because the pairings happen to be favorable

Also: let's make the Wednesday practice a thing, it should also help consolidate the tribal community.