Seems like an interesting format. One I may give a try. I do admit like others before me, that the time constraints to look up pricing will be a pain, but it seems like it can be a fun format. Hopefully you can get the price issues worked out. You have a tough road ahead of you.
Article wise I think you did a good job. I don't like all the bold text. I understand you were trying to exagerate your point, but I am not a fan of all the bold. A few can be ok.
Pauper being expensive, I have to disagree with. You mentioned some commons that are expensive. True, but a majority of the decks are not expensive. And even the ones that do have the mentioned cards, or others of the same price range, usually do not run a bunch of expensive commons. So if a deck that runs Crypt Rats is 10 tix, then 8 of that comes from Crypt Rats, and the remaining 54 cards fall into the remaining 2 tix of the cost. Still cost effective. I do see where your point is comming from, but an exagerating I think.
Another point I want to comment on and let me quote from the article. "For a format with it's name it has some pretty expensive singles in it. Some of this is because of natural market forces and some is straight up wizards exploitation and gouging by printing up-coming commons in preconstructed decks."
I have to disagree with the point about WoTC exploiting and price gouging. If they did price gouge, then From the Vaults: Relics would of been $100 straight from thier store. I also have a friend of mine who used to run a card store and he said that it would be illegal for them to price gouge thier stuff. Price gouging is a result of a secondary market reselling a product in high demand. WoTC is not the secondary market.
A good article overall and as I mentioned, I hope your format works out for you. It would be fun to play something different and cost effective.
Jace the mind sculptor is the planeswalker that wins games whether it is 1vs1 or ffa. I agree they should gang up on said user but it seems ffa really only works that way when the players are social enough to care. A lot of the players Ive seen seem to me to be rather shortsighted.
@Deckwizard: first off thanks for all the critiques!
P1P3 The problem I have with Knight is that there is only one common card it helps, and a 2/3 flier doesn't actually get that big a boost from +1/+1 and indestructibility. However! I think you're definitely right about this pick. If it were Cloud Crusader, Stormfront Pegasus, or Assault Griffin than that would be the pick, but Wild Griffin simply isn't strong enough to edge out the potential of the knight lord. Good call!
P1P13 I have seen Thunder Strike played as essentially a Giant Growth for fine value, but Demolish is defensible too.
P3P3 Like I said, this pick was very close and I essentially just erred on the side of caution, but Ascension does have potential to be a lot better.
P3P6 If we were discussing Vengeful Archon I would agree, but I don't think Arbiter is quite a "game-winning bomb". It is a bomb, but since it comes down so late I find my opponents will often already be in topdeck mode, so the ability doesn't actually have much of an effect. I'm gonna stick to my smaller, but way cheaper Griffin.
P3P10 True that.
P3P11 You're absolutely right, and I think if I'd had more experience with red I'd've taken and played the Strongbox too.
RE Safe Passage, I actually love that card too, but I don't think this is the deck for it. I won't be able to set up any big blow outs and I just want to pounding face, I like Safe Passage in more defensive decks mostly.
Multiplayer games are a little different when it comes to Planeswalkers. Yea they are still powerful, but they are a threat and if there are three other guys, they should be ganging up to take out the Planeswalker or the player with him on the board. Planeswalkers to me are not as powerful in Multiplayer and the only one I have had success with is Nicol Bolas, and only because the other players left him alone.
Opening a mythic is just rare is all. Then you basically spin the dice between the good mythics in the set...and the ones that are worth like 2-3 tix. They were a horrible idea, no playset of a new card should ever cost $400. Their cost reflects their rarity, and their rarity reflects your frustation. The pack-ripping game isn't rigged, it just stinks.
It's no big deal. Everyone's interprutation is different. It goes back to the arguement of "what is casual". If you start to get a lot of flack for it, maybe consider changing it up.
I also would have done it in other way, but my question is - Pack 1 Pick 6 - why didn't you mention Terramorphic Expanse? It's really good mana fixer and I don't think that serpent is going maindeck if you have any other bear to play.
For your standard tournament, in the first 2 matches, you lost 4 games in a row and was out of contention. For 3 of those 4 losses, you gave no details other than "land flooded and lost." I mean for playing with a deck that is 27 lands and at least half of the remaining non-land spells does nothing but search for land, that is really not saying much.
"Round five vs Runeflare Trap." ... except that he did not play a single runeflare trap?
Your mother of runes comment, i remember having those conversations like 10 yrs ago, timeless joke tho, never gets old!
I do like the more descriptive parts of your article tho, just seems like some parts could use more work.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
I sold a lot of my spares to MTGO Traders, got 54 TIX, and I am pretty close to playsets of all the commons, uncommons and maybe halfway on the rares. Got my second Primeval Titan too. WOOT!
I can't see it. Wizards doesn't make anything on the aftermarket, and the vast, vast majority of packs opened online are opened in drafts or sealed. They just want to sell more packs. Screwing with the distribution would just put overhead on the server, slowing down the game for almost no gain.
Besides, if Wizards did that, and the word got out, it would be a public relations disaster. And word would get out. Absolutely no way the gain is worth risk.
The online system is fair. I just haven't opened the right packs.
(Although the sealed early this morning was nice: Baneslayer AND Primeval Titan.
Even though i think u made quite a few wrong picks (like ice cage over armored ascension??), etc, my thinking is posting a draft where everything was shipped is not really entertaining.
No offend meant.
Time wise I'd say the best is reg at 12:30 EDT (17:30 British Summer Time) start at 13:00 EDT (18:00 British Summer Time).
Note that these times do conflict with other player run events though On Saturday you will conflict with Tribal Apocalypse and a pauper event. On Sunday you conflict with BYOS and another pauper event.
depends on what others bring as far as how douchy i want to be. A lot of my decks have small built in combos that are gamewinning but not the focus. like one guy was being a total douche one game. All he did was cycle cards the whole game and nothing else. So we were all sick of him wasting time. I sacced my Riptide Shapeshifter for Emrakul(only eldrazi) then T&N a Sakashima(copying Em) and a Madrush Cyclops into play. I hit him for 30 with annihilator 12. Then I sacced my emrakul to greater good so the rest of the table didnt kill me immediately. lol
Well I usually don't say anything about obviously good cards. But when I saw Reassembling Skeleton played that led to a whole conversation about its various uses, what it could and couldn't do, etc. That led to someone making a joke about zombies and it went on.
I really do hope the best for you, it will take a lot of work. I'm just not sure you are going in the right direction.
According to mtgo traders there are about 650 commons between 3 cents and 6 cents (I'm assuming half of everything listed are foils, which appears to be the case). There are about 1750 uncommons between 5 cents and 15 cents. And there are about 700 rares between 10 cents and 30 cents. So we are looking at 2700+ cards that are fairly close to your price points. Even if only a small percentage of those fluctuate, say 10 percent, we are looking at 270 cards changing every month. But maybe I'm completely off, and only say 1 percent of the cards change every month, so 27. I hope that's the case!
I agree with the above poster, until you post a banned list/legal list out two months in a row, and see what kind of turnover we are talking about, we won't really know, but I just don't see good things for Heirloom as you've currently described it. (And the banned list itself, of course, will be several thousand cards).
Well I hope it wasn't a "douchey" deck. Some of the other players I've played on there had far stronger decks and mine wasnt reliant on expensive cards at all. I think I won 1/3 4 player games I played and it seemed like online people were mostly doing what they could to win. Mind you I haven't played a ton of the format was just looking for something fun to do online and it was the first deck idea that came to mind.
I love your attitude, that's the spirit! I encourage everyone to do whatever they can to win (that isnt cheating). A competitive format is called competitive for a reason. This week I'm planning to run the event on Sunday. I'm still trying to settle on an ideal time. What are good hours for you?
From a casual players perspective, I need my decks to remain legal in order for me to keep playing. If my deck becomes illegal every month, it will be too much work to participate in the format.
Standard and Extended only remove cards once a year, and the cards removed are predictable and known well in advance. The eternal formats never remove cards.
I still pull out my old Tribal decks, update with a new (or newly acquired) card, and its still legal. Same is true for Pauper. In heirloom, if I haven't touched a deck in three months it could very easily be illegal.
This may not be a big deal to you, but I don't know of many players that keep a price list in a separate window while playing (not really much point to do that unless you are rare drafting, but then you can close the window after the draft).
Many players do not have an large amount of time to play games, and any time spent checking deck legality is time not spent playing. For hardcore spikes, the shifting legality of the environment means that the metagame will always be indeterminate.
Thanks a lot for all the positive comments. Any help would be amazing.
As much as I would like to have a banned list up before the event right now I believe that to be an operation that could take 10 hours to achieve, and right now I'm a little tight on time to dedicate that much time to it but certianly will try to find that time soon. The include list I believe would be longer than the banned list (certianly for uncommons and commons, rares include would be shorter and mythic include would be shorter)
I will try to make myself available on the day of each tournament foe at least a few hours before hand to confirm legality. If a card is bening played that is banned that has not been certified before the tournament (ie if you get checked before the tournament youre good for the tournament) it will first be a warning then you'll have 10 mins to switch out the card, 2nd a game loss, 3rd a match loss.
What do you think is the best time for maximum convenience to MTGO players overall?
I understand your frustration with this aspect of the format. Hopefully the positives will outweigh the negatives for you. While it's still possible to change rules for the format it isn't for me alone to decide and I'd have to be convinced that the positives of a change would outweigh the negatives before I would go to other players of Heirloom to try to convince them to make a change. Right now I'm still very happy with how it is right now, but I will keep your comments in mind as we go forward.
Seems like an interesting format. One I may give a try. I do admit like others before me, that the time constraints to look up pricing will be a pain, but it seems like it can be a fun format. Hopefully you can get the price issues worked out. You have a tough road ahead of you.
Article wise I think you did a good job. I don't like all the bold text. I understand you were trying to exagerate your point, but I am not a fan of all the bold. A few can be ok.
Pauper being expensive, I have to disagree with. You mentioned some commons that are expensive. True, but a majority of the decks are not expensive. And even the ones that do have the mentioned cards, or others of the same price range, usually do not run a bunch of expensive commons. So if a deck that runs Crypt Rats is 10 tix, then 8 of that comes from Crypt Rats, and the remaining 54 cards fall into the remaining 2 tix of the cost. Still cost effective. I do see where your point is comming from, but an exagerating I think.
Another point I want to comment on and let me quote from the article. "For a format with it's name it has some pretty expensive singles in it. Some of this is because of natural market forces and some is straight up wizards exploitation and gouging by printing up-coming commons in preconstructed decks."
I have to disagree with the point about WoTC exploiting and price gouging. If they did price gouge, then From the Vaults: Relics would of been $100 straight from thier store. I also have a friend of mine who used to run a card store and he said that it would be illegal for them to price gouge thier stuff. Price gouging is a result of a secondary market reselling a product in high demand. WoTC is not the secondary market.
A good article overall and as I mentioned, I hope your format works out for you. It would be fun to play something different and cost effective.
Or classic and take your lumps?
Jace the mind sculptor is the planeswalker that wins games whether it is 1vs1 or ffa. I agree they should gang up on said user but it seems ffa really only works that way when the players are social enough to care. A lot of the players Ive seen seem to me to be rather shortsighted.
@Deckwizard: first off thanks for all the critiques!
P1P3 The problem I have with Knight is that there is only one common card it helps, and a 2/3 flier doesn't actually get that big a boost from +1/+1 and indestructibility. However! I think you're definitely right about this pick. If it were Cloud Crusader, Stormfront Pegasus, or Assault Griffin than that would be the pick, but Wild Griffin simply isn't strong enough to edge out the potential of the knight lord. Good call!
P1P13 I have seen Thunder Strike played as essentially a Giant Growth for fine value, but Demolish is defensible too.
P3P3 Like I said, this pick was very close and I essentially just erred on the side of caution, but Ascension does have potential to be a lot better.
P3P6 If we were discussing Vengeful Archon I would agree, but I don't think Arbiter is quite a "game-winning bomb". It is a bomb, but since it comes down so late I find my opponents will often already be in topdeck mode, so the ability doesn't actually have much of an effect. I'm gonna stick to my smaller, but way cheaper Griffin.
P3P10 True that.
P3P11 You're absolutely right, and I think if I'd had more experience with red I'd've taken and played the Strongbox too.
RE Safe Passage, I actually love that card too, but I don't think this is the deck for it. I won't be able to set up any big blow outs and I just want to pounding face, I like Safe Passage in more defensive decks mostly.
Multiplayer games are a little different when it comes to Planeswalkers. Yea they are still powerful, but they are a threat and if there are three other guys, they should be ganging up to take out the Planeswalker or the player with him on the board. Planeswalkers to me are not as powerful in Multiplayer and the only one I have had success with is Nicol Bolas, and only because the other players left him alone.
Opening a mythic is just rare is all. Then you basically spin the dice between the good mythics in the set...and the ones that are worth like 2-3 tix. They were a horrible idea, no playset of a new card should ever cost $400. Their cost reflects their rarity, and their rarity reflects your frustation. The pack-ripping game isn't rigged, it just stinks.
Absolutely. That is what EDH is and Commander should be no different. Sadly not everyone online follows that rule, but I try to make attempts to.
The way i see it, if you want to play combo oriented decks that are geared to just winning, play 100 card singleton.
It's no big deal. Everyone's interprutation is different. It goes back to the arguement of "what is casual". If you start to get a lot of flack for it, maybe consider changing it up.
And thanks for being a player of commander
I also would have done it in other way, but my question is - Pack 1 Pick 6 - why didn't you mention Terramorphic Expanse? It's really good mana fixer and I don't think that serpent is going maindeck if you have any other bear to play.
For your standard tournament, in the first 2 matches, you lost 4 games in a row and was out of contention. For 3 of those 4 losses, you gave no details other than "land flooded and lost." I mean for playing with a deck that is 27 lands and at least half of the remaining non-land spells does nothing but search for land, that is really not saying much.
"Round five vs Runeflare Trap." ... except that he did not play a single runeflare trap?
Your mother of runes comment, i remember having those conversations like 10 yrs ago, timeless joke tho, never gets old!
I do like the more descriptive parts of your article tho, just seems like some parts could use more work.
Thanks for sharing your experiences!
The below was in first place, undefeated last week till the top 8 (losing to goblins in semifinals)
Cvalenti90 (3rd Place)
Pauper Challenge #1530181 on 08/29/2010
Main Deck
60 cards
4 Forgotten Cave
16 Mountain
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Chain Lightning
4 Fireblast
4 Incinerate
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Needle Drop
4 Rift Bolt
4 Staggershock
Sideboard
3 Martyr of Ashes
4 Molten Rain
4 Searing Blaze
4 Smash to Smithereens
oops
definitely cheaper than going to the movies...
I sold a lot of my spares to MTGO Traders, got 54 TIX, and I am pretty close to playsets of all the commons, uncommons and maybe halfway on the rares. Got my second Primeval Titan too. WOOT!
I can't see it. Wizards doesn't make anything on the aftermarket, and the vast, vast majority of packs opened online are opened in drafts or sealed. They just want to sell more packs. Screwing with the distribution would just put overhead on the server, slowing down the game for almost no gain.
Besides, if Wizards did that, and the word got out, it would be a public relations disaster. And word would get out. Absolutely no way the gain is worth risk.
The online system is fair. I just haven't opened the right packs.
(Although the sealed early this morning was nice: Baneslayer AND Primeval Titan.
Even though i think u made quite a few wrong picks (like ice cage over armored ascension??), etc, my thinking is posting a draft where everything was shipped is not really entertaining.
No offend meant.
Time wise I'd say the best is reg at 12:30 EDT (17:30 British Summer Time) start at 13:00 EDT (18:00 British Summer Time).
Note that these times do conflict with other player run events though On Saturday you will conflict with Tribal Apocalypse and a pauper event. On Sunday you conflict with BYOS and another pauper event.
depends on what others bring as far as how douchy i want to be. A lot of my decks have small built in combos that are gamewinning but not the focus. like one guy was being a total douche one game. All he did was cycle cards the whole game and nothing else. So we were all sick of him wasting time. I sacced my Riptide Shapeshifter for Emrakul(only eldrazi) then T&N a Sakashima(copying Em) and a Madrush Cyclops into play. I hit him for 30 with annihilator 12. Then I sacced my emrakul to greater good so the rest of the table didnt kill me immediately. lol
Well I usually don't say anything about obviously good cards. But when I saw Reassembling Skeleton played that led to a whole conversation about its various uses, what it could and couldn't do, etc. That led to someone making a joke about zombies and it went on.
I really do hope the best for you, it will take a lot of work. I'm just not sure you are going in the right direction.
According to mtgo traders there are about 650 commons between 3 cents and 6 cents (I'm assuming half of everything listed are foils, which appears to be the case). There are about 1750 uncommons between 5 cents and 15 cents. And there are about 700 rares between 10 cents and 30 cents. So we are looking at 2700+ cards that are fairly close to your price points. Even if only a small percentage of those fluctuate, say 10 percent, we are looking at 270 cards changing every month. But maybe I'm completely off, and only say 1 percent of the cards change every month, so 27. I hope that's the case!
I agree with the above poster, until you post a banned list/legal list out two months in a row, and see what kind of turnover we are talking about, we won't really know, but I just don't see good things for Heirloom as you've currently described it. (And the banned list itself, of course, will be several thousand cards).
But seriously good luck.
Well I hope it wasn't a "douchey" deck. Some of the other players I've played on there had far stronger decks and mine wasnt reliant on expensive cards at all. I think I won 1/3 4 player games I played and it seemed like online people were mostly doing what they could to win. Mind you I haven't played a ton of the format was just looking for something fun to do online and it was the first deck idea that came to mind.
Xaoslegend-
Hi there Lord Erman,
I love your attitude, that's the spirit! I encourage everyone to do whatever they can to win (that isnt cheating). A competitive format is called competitive for a reason. This week I'm planning to run the event on Sunday. I'm still trying to settle on an ideal time. What are good hours for you?
Xaoslegend-
From a casual players perspective, I need my decks to remain legal in order for me to keep playing. If my deck becomes illegal every month, it will be too much work to participate in the format.
Standard and Extended only remove cards once a year, and the cards removed are predictable and known well in advance. The eternal formats never remove cards.
I still pull out my old Tribal decks, update with a new (or newly acquired) card, and its still legal. Same is true for Pauper. In heirloom, if I haven't touched a deck in three months it could very easily be illegal.
This may not be a big deal to you, but I don't know of many players that keep a price list in a separate window while playing (not really much point to do that unless you are rare drafting, but then you can close the window after the draft).
Many players do not have an large amount of time to play games, and any time spent checking deck legality is time not spent playing. For hardcore spikes, the shifting legality of the environment means that the metagame will always be indeterminate.
Hey Flippers_Giraffe,
Thanks a lot for all the positive comments. Any help would be amazing.
As much as I would like to have a banned list up before the event right now I believe that to be an operation that could take 10 hours to achieve, and right now I'm a little tight on time to dedicate that much time to it but certianly will try to find that time soon. The include list I believe would be longer than the banned list (certianly for uncommons and commons, rares include would be shorter and mythic include would be shorter)
I will try to make myself available on the day of each tournament foe at least a few hours before hand to confirm legality. If a card is bening played that is banned that has not been certified before the tournament (ie if you get checked before the tournament youre good for the tournament) it will first be a warning then you'll have 10 mins to switch out the card, 2nd a game loss, 3rd a match loss.
What do you think is the best time for maximum convenience to MTGO players overall?
Xaoslegend-
If it was me youd get the "Ouch, gg" comment as that card invariably wins by itself in most casual games.
Asabmow,
I understand your frustration with this aspect of the format. Hopefully the positives will outweigh the negatives for you. While it's still possible to change rules for the format it isn't for me alone to decide and I'd have to be convinced that the positives of a change would outweigh the negatives before I would go to other players of Heirloom to try to convince them to make a change. Right now I'm still very happy with how it is right now, but I will keep your comments in mind as we go forward.
Xaoslegend-