Just your screen. Could be that the site uses relative styles for the pics and they overlap as a result. I did not 100% format this myself, using instead the (pic=) short cuts where able so this might be why. Do you have a low resolution?
Pretty clearly everybody's playing different levels, but to say that it's fine for one person to bring a powerful deck, but not multiple people (i.e. one guy and "3-4 clan buddies") seems daft.
Anyway, I don't really see the disadvantage of just banning the cr*p out of the format. The combo pieces people are playing are used ONLY in their relative combos, so the only people who would mind them being banned are the people ruining the format in the first place. Might as well ban the tribes which are clearly *too* powerful (like goblins and merf) as well, seeing as nobody wants to play against them.
How about the second-placed decklist above not featuring Moat? I'm fond of the card, as it puts the damper on generic rush strategies, but it is not my be all and end all. Does moat warp the metagame? Possibly, because in the deck above I made sure to include at least one recursive card that can beat it. Do I try to build above the curve? I'd say my target was slightly to the left of the curve: Build decks that exploit avenues of attack which no-one else has fully considered. People were playing fairly samey aggro decks, so I found a card to metagame against that. My goal is variety, both in my own deck choices and in making other people consider the meta.
I love these pauper articles and am getting what enjoyment I can from the format.. but I'm mostly a paper Magic person and am new to MTGO, and am having a hard time finding the critical pauper cards. Anyone have good advice? What should I be paying for cards like Corrupt and Counterspell??
I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this, but I haven't had much luck anywhere else, and there seems to be a lot of experienced players around here.
actually, Ill be honest. That first time you brought Painter's Servant, you openly said that it was not fun. Since then you have brought in my mind a fair quality of decks. In truth your one of the better players I expect your decks to be harder than some of the others, its fine everyone is at a different level. But you never ruined a tournament. And never brought 3-4 clan buddies to help you.
A remember putting the bosks in originally i must have somehow not kept them in...my fault
Shard, my list is missing 4 cards. There are 4x Murmuring Bosks in deck too. They are the most important part of the manabase actually.
About the other things: Apparently I'm to blame for many things but all I can say is "Forgive me father for I have sinned".
I DID play a couple of broken things like 5 months ago but saw that it was wrong. After that, for the health of the format and the community, I tried to bring more balanced decks to the tournaments. Some won me the tournament as can be seen above and some get crushed in the first round. But I somehow get the feeling that my understanding of "balanced" is still not balanced enough.
Unfortunately I cannot play 20x Grizzly Bears, 20x Rampant Growths and 20x Forests. Which leaves only one option for me, which is...
You say that, but as a poster above evidenced, LE is still playing scapeshift valakut, AJ hasn't got tired of his one-card tribal win (because oh yes, there're no sideboards) etc. You cannot have a situation where most players are turning up with something fun and/or original and LE, AJ, Flippers etc are turning up with stuff way above the curve.
If you are going to allow the majority of players to run into those guys playing something way stronger, then these players need to accept that sooner or later, they're going to run into something way above their curve too.
Ah, ya got me, that was a typo, obviously :) I"ve only been playing since the dark! Sorry bout that. You never answered my question weeks back? Are you related to the musical composer for the show "Dexter?" Same last name...
You know when you think about it there are a lot of fun things you can do to dominate a game in creative ways... one turn wins aren't fun, but if I see some creative things you've played I don't mind losing to them... like the Djinn enchantment and the Knights with protection and color change.. odd things like that are fun to see
idk the idea just doesn't interest me as much as the singleton idea... I mean I already have a tribe that is all "Zombie Wizard"s and that's fun to me, merging two tribes together I guess has some appeal, but some interactions just work too well together. Faerie Rogue, Faerie Merfolk, Elemental Shaman, stuff like that, I just think it may get bland fast
also want to agree with that guy who posted below lol, I really love TSP tribal because I was running my "flanking" tribe, but some of the interactions with tribes just work too well together and you see many Std/Ext/Classic decks that are a couple cards away from being tribal, I like some interaction between tribe members, but we don't need more sliver types ie Allies
I think it would be a mistake to restrict ALL non-creature cards because then you kill the ability to run simple underpowered things like multiple Smothers or something. Restricting the combo pieces sounds like a better idea, it still allows people to run those decks, but inhibits their ability to constantly pull off that combo win
I think the important thing is that if you look at the articles Shard talks about, yes from the start they all brought the worst they could, but soon realized that it took some of the fun out of it
Well, I'm not talking about banning, I'm talking about restricting. IE, you can only have 1 copy of a non-creature card in your deck. Of course, enforcing this rule is probably not easy.
People can still play with things like Grindstone, Moat, Dark Depths, Lightning Rift, AEther Vial, etc, but they wouldn't be able to rely on them to consistantly win while pretty much ignoring the 20 creatures they have in their decks.
Hmmm...lots of interesting comments.
@ Anonymous- Yes Flippers and LordErman did start off with powerful decks. But each time they openly said playing these were not fun in the environment. And the next week they brought something totally original. Unfortunately, I know what the two clans I hinted at are about. This won't be the case with them.
@ AJ- maybe you do like to just utterly crush people...your decks tend to be creative and innovative enough that at least it's fun. Playing against Fish with standstill's and Force of Will's is just kinda not.
@ Archgenius- banning of all non-creature cards would be tough. It negates a lot of perfectly fine strategies. However the idea of swiss does have some appeal. If i can find a copy of DCI-R for download we will probably run swiss this weekend.
I totally agree with you that there are some out of control tribal decks. I don't even get to play in these events, but I have playtested against yourself, shard, ajimpy, and others, and I have to say I don't like what I see. Recent blocks have really changed the way tribal works. I used to play in the Standard Tribal events run on MTGO every week, but then came Lorwyn and I saw the format I loved so much absolutely killed. The game has changed. That's also the problem with Tribal Classic. It's a classic format, you have to expect that people are not going to run the "fun" or "interesting" cards. They are going to bring a deck full of powerful cards, especially when the event is a "tournament" and it's single elim. Ever hung out in those 2 person ques? You see decks there that you would never see in a tournament simply because your deck doesn't need to have staying power when all you have to do is win one round.
To your point, I don't like this idea. Not because it's not a good idea. It seems like a decent idea, but it doesn't really address the issue. The issue is the classic format. Making the deck bigger just means I can run even more powerful cards. Also, I am a mediocre deck builder, at best, (don't believe me? read my articles lol). I HATE big deck formats. I can barely make a decent 60 card deck, asking me to double it's size just means that my "slightly bad" 60 card deck will now be a "terrible" 120 card deck. That's the same reason I don't play commander or 100 card singleton. Man, I miss 60 card singleton.
But you are correct when you say you need to fix the format. I think your singleton suggestion is the best suggestion. I've been playing a singleton Soldier deck for about a year now and I enjoy it every time I get to use it. Here are two suggestions of my own, that I'm sure people won't like.
First: Total Tribal. Every non-land card in your deck must be a creature. Now THAT'S a whacky format. Realistically, if non-creature spells are the problem, which it appears from these articles that they are, (Thopter Foundry, Oath, Vial, FoW) this structure would solve that instantly. Yes, some tribes might die. My poor Leviathons would be no more, but I think the loss of a crudy tribe like them might be worth it.
Second: Take it back to Tribal Standard. That deck format is still an option in the deck builder. Yes, it would neuter about 90% of the tribes. But it would also kill about 99% of the problem decks.
So I would have to ask how serious you really are about stopping problem decks. Like I said, the problem is NOT the players or the decks, it's the format. I think these two solutions would be the best answer and would solve all the problems, but they are the most drastic solutions that could be offered. Anyway, as someone who doesn't participate in the events (although I want to, but life doesn't allow me) not sure how much my opinion on this matters, but just thought I'd put it out there.
While I certainly understand the problem of Spikes ruining the game for casual players, I don't think it's easy to limit the power level of the entrants to the tournament.
AJ Impy and Lord Erman, the people you mentioned as founders of the tournament, already play some reasonably powerful decks that crush casual or budget decks. As it is, I've dismissed several tribal ideas simply because they keel over and die to Moat which seems to be a favorite of AJ Impy. And three weeks ago after being trounced by Lord Erman playing Scapeshift/Valakut elves, I decided that if I wanted to win, I needed to add another power level to my deckbuilding.
During that tournament which you mention as a problem, I played the Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry combo in my Kor deck. The reason I went for that combo is that it has a feasible chance of beating Moat and Valakut among other commonly used tribal strategies like Lightning Rift. I ended up losing in the second round to one of those merfolk decks, however if we acknowledge that merfolk are over-powered than Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry, Scapeshift/Valakut, Painter/Grindstone, and every other 2 card Extended and Classic combo is also probably too powerful. Where do we draw the line?
Right now there is little to no incentive for creativity in the Tribal Apocalypse tournaments. Winning is the only thing that is reinforced. Playing a single elimination tournament escalates this problem because it encourages us to play more "Spiky" decks, because if we lose one round, we're done. Personally I like playing something different. I like looking for different tribes to use or using cards in unexpected ways. I think winning with an original creative tribal deck is much better than winning with an uncreative deck. However I still want to win, and if my opponents are going to bring powerful combos to the field, I have to match them or just enter the tournament knowing I'm going to be a punching bag for someone else.
If you're looking for suggestions, I have a few. Of course with most modifications, the problem is that you would need to enforce the rules manually like you have done for the modified ban list.
1) Make all non-creature cards restricted. This discourages most 2-card combos, however it doesn't effect some of the broken tribes. It also makes it harder to port a deck from classic to tribal.
2) Make the tournament 3 rounds of swiss rather than single elimination. Single elimination tends to shorten the time it takes for the tournament to run and encourages spikiness due to the "win or go home concept"
Absolutely I agree on all points except the merfolk/faeries point. I don't think that combination is MORE broken than say Goblins/Zombies. Though it might be that Vial needs restricting too.
Remember that it was your Lord Erman who was first to show up with vial merfolk, your flippers giraffe who first tutored up painter/grindstone, or hypergenesised dragons etc.
If the writers for this very site are playing overpowered classic decks in this tourney, then it's not difficult to see why classic players would think it was fine to bring out their power stuff.
Paul's 120 card double tribal thing sounds interesting, but not mentioned are the facts that the decks will cost twice as much to build, it's not a sanctioned format (so you'd have to police the decklists yourself) and it's still going to go completely tits-up the first time somebody thinks "oh look, these faeries and merfolk seem to go together well".
In my opinion your best bet at this point would be simply to ban all of the classic combo cards (i mean really, who is going to use grindstone, bridge from below, etc for anything other than that one combo?), and ban merfolk, elves, faeries and goblins. Maybe also cats, as you could pretty easily convert classic zoo to a cats shell.
Now, whether you ban elves as being the elected tribe, or just ban anybody from playing any elves at all (same for the other mentioned tribes) would be an interesting discussion.
Anyway, my core point is that it was the writers of puremtgo who started bringing the overpowered decks to this tournament, so they should take their share of the blame for it having become what it has.
Every week, I try to play something different, a handcrafted deck built around a common principle: Crush my opponents, see their tribes driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of those who didn't bring removal for moat/pact/whatever crazy thing I'm abusing this week. Technically, I do get fun from destroying the field and taking the prize, even if the medal is always silver rather than gold. I concede that's not the only fun I get out of it, but it is a factor. At what point do my innovations become too much?
I agree with Explorer's Scope, IMO it's quite underrated. At any point of any game, assuming you have the bodies that will attack, filtering lands is good. I especially like it in U/W.
Have to disagree with Nissa's Chosen, though. In this format, 3 toughness on turn 2 is nothing to laugh at, even if it means a little extra green.
I understand where you're coming from, as I said in my other comment I was glad to not be playing last week tbh, but you really can't keep these decks away entirely
on WW I think I'm a little disappointed how easy its become, from a tribal pov, to build a powerful vamp deck not to mention the addition of the new sliverish tribe, yes it'll be fun to play allies for a bit, but then, like slivers I'll slowly get tired of everyone playing such a powerful tribe
glad to see AJ came in second with his black warriors, maybe theyll start gaining a bit more popularity lol
I think this was a great article because it seems recently there have been several instances of this.. I made a comment about tournament decks vs. using planeswalkers and then there was the recent tribal event that, while usually casual, was dominated by combo pieces this week.. not to mention that I was just considering this kinda thing and making a deck that included things such as Sadistic Sacrament in order to clear out those particular combo pieces
Well I do have to say I didn't make it in time this week and was talkin to another player about the decks I saw round 1.. there were like 2 counterfolk, kor thopter/sword, painter, and oath.. I said that I was glad that I didn't play because I would have been a bit irritated by those kind of matches.. i have to agree it seems silly to me for someone to join up and play something so one sided in an attempt to win a few bucks.. before it wasnt really in it to win it as much as seeing some creative decks and playing in a more casual environment, but you're probably right there may not be a way to really eliminate these decks from the meta.. i have to say if the format changed im not sure id be any more interested... pauper tribal doesn't excite me and while I think singleton is a great idea the tribes may be cut a little thin
Just your screen. Could be that the site uses relative styles for the pics and they overlap as a result. I did not 100% format this myself, using instead the (pic=) short cuts where able so this might be why. Do you have a low resolution?
Pretty clearly everybody's playing different levels, but to say that it's fine for one person to bring a powerful deck, but not multiple people (i.e. one guy and "3-4 clan buddies") seems daft.
Anyway, I don't really see the disadvantage of just banning the cr*p out of the format. The combo pieces people are playing are used ONLY in their relative combos, so the only people who would mind them being banned are the people ruining the format in the first place. Might as well ban the tribes which are clearly *too* powerful (like goblins and merf) as well, seeing as nobody wants to play against them.
Seriously, why not?
How about the second-placed decklist above not featuring Moat? I'm fond of the card, as it puts the damper on generic rush strategies, but it is not my be all and end all. Does moat warp the metagame? Possibly, because in the deck above I made sure to include at least one recursive card that can beat it. Do I try to build above the curve? I'd say my target was slightly to the left of the curve: Build decks that exploit avenues of attack which no-one else has fully considered. People were playing fairly samey aggro decks, so I found a card to metagame against that. My goal is variety, both in my own deck choices and in making other people consider the meta.
I love these pauper articles and am getting what enjoyment I can from the format.. but I'm mostly a paper Magic person and am new to MTGO, and am having a hard time finding the critical pauper cards. Anyone have good advice? What should I be paying for cards like Corrupt and Counterspell??
I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this, but I haven't had much luck anywhere else, and there seems to be a lot of experienced players around here.
is it just my screen, or are the pictures overlapping a lot of the article?
actually, Ill be honest. That first time you brought Painter's Servant, you openly said that it was not fun. Since then you have brought in my mind a fair quality of decks. In truth your one of the better players I expect your decks to be harder than some of the others, its fine everyone is at a different level. But you never ruined a tournament. And never brought 3-4 clan buddies to help you.
A remember putting the bosks in originally i must have somehow not kept them in...my fault
Shard, my list is missing 4 cards. There are 4x Murmuring Bosks in deck too. They are the most important part of the manabase actually.
About the other things: Apparently I'm to blame for many things but all I can say is "Forgive me father for I have sinned".
I DID play a couple of broken things like 5 months ago but saw that it was wrong. After that, for the health of the format and the community, I tried to bring more balanced decks to the tournaments. Some won me the tournament as can be seen above and some get crushed in the first round. But I somehow get the feeling that my understanding of "balanced" is still not balanced enough.
Unfortunately I cannot play 20x Grizzly Bears, 20x Rampant Growths and 20x Forests. Which leaves only one option for me, which is...
You'll see what it is.
LE
You say that, but as a poster above evidenced, LE is still playing scapeshift valakut, AJ hasn't got tired of his one-card tribal win (because oh yes, there're no sideboards) etc. You cannot have a situation where most players are turning up with something fun and/or original and LE, AJ, Flippers etc are turning up with stuff way above the curve.
If you are going to allow the majority of players to run into those guys playing something way stronger, then these players need to accept that sooner or later, they're going to run into something way above their curve too.
Ah, ya got me, that was a typo, obviously :) I"ve only been playing since the dark! Sorry bout that. You never answered my question weeks back? Are you related to the musical composer for the show "Dexter?" Same last name...
You know when you think about it there are a lot of fun things you can do to dominate a game in creative ways... one turn wins aren't fun, but if I see some creative things you've played I don't mind losing to them... like the Djinn enchantment and the Knights with protection and color change.. odd things like that are fun to see
idk the idea just doesn't interest me as much as the singleton idea... I mean I already have a tribe that is all "Zombie Wizard"s and that's fun to me, merging two tribes together I guess has some appeal, but some interactions just work too well together. Faerie Rogue, Faerie Merfolk, Elemental Shaman, stuff like that, I just think it may get bland fast
also want to agree with that guy who posted below lol, I really love TSP tribal because I was running my "flanking" tribe, but some of the interactions with tribes just work too well together and you see many Std/Ext/Classic decks that are a couple cards away from being tribal, I like some interaction between tribe members, but we don't need more sliver types ie Allies
I think it would be a mistake to restrict ALL non-creature cards because then you kill the ability to run simple underpowered things like multiple Smothers or something. Restricting the combo pieces sounds like a better idea, it still allows people to run those decks, but inhibits their ability to constantly pull off that combo win
I think the important thing is that if you look at the articles Shard talks about, yes from the start they all brought the worst they could, but soon realized that it took some of the fun out of it
Well, I'm not talking about banning, I'm talking about restricting. IE, you can only have 1 copy of a non-creature card in your deck. Of course, enforcing this rule is probably not easy.
People can still play with things like Grindstone, Moat, Dark Depths, Lightning Rift, AEther Vial, etc, but they wouldn't be able to rely on them to consistantly win while pretty much ignoring the 20 creatures they have in their decks.
Hmmm...lots of interesting comments.
@ Anonymous- Yes Flippers and LordErman did start off with powerful decks. But each time they openly said playing these were not fun in the environment. And the next week they brought something totally original. Unfortunately, I know what the two clans I hinted at are about. This won't be the case with them.
@ AJ- maybe you do like to just utterly crush people...your decks tend to be creative and innovative enough that at least it's fun. Playing against Fish with standstill's and Force of Will's is just kinda not.
@ Archgenius- banning of all non-creature cards would be tough. It negates a lot of perfectly fine strategies. However the idea of swiss does have some appeal. If i can find a copy of DCI-R for download we will probably run swiss this weekend.
I totally agree with you that there are some out of control tribal decks. I don't even get to play in these events, but I have playtested against yourself, shard, ajimpy, and others, and I have to say I don't like what I see. Recent blocks have really changed the way tribal works. I used to play in the Standard Tribal events run on MTGO every week, but then came Lorwyn and I saw the format I loved so much absolutely killed. The game has changed. That's also the problem with Tribal Classic. It's a classic format, you have to expect that people are not going to run the "fun" or "interesting" cards. They are going to bring a deck full of powerful cards, especially when the event is a "tournament" and it's single elim. Ever hung out in those 2 person ques? You see decks there that you would never see in a tournament simply because your deck doesn't need to have staying power when all you have to do is win one round.
To your point, I don't like this idea. Not because it's not a good idea. It seems like a decent idea, but it doesn't really address the issue. The issue is the classic format. Making the deck bigger just means I can run even more powerful cards. Also, I am a mediocre deck builder, at best, (don't believe me? read my articles lol). I HATE big deck formats. I can barely make a decent 60 card deck, asking me to double it's size just means that my "slightly bad" 60 card deck will now be a "terrible" 120 card deck. That's the same reason I don't play commander or 100 card singleton. Man, I miss 60 card singleton.
But you are correct when you say you need to fix the format. I think your singleton suggestion is the best suggestion. I've been playing a singleton Soldier deck for about a year now and I enjoy it every time I get to use it. Here are two suggestions of my own, that I'm sure people won't like.
First: Total Tribal. Every non-land card in your deck must be a creature. Now THAT'S a whacky format. Realistically, if non-creature spells are the problem, which it appears from these articles that they are, (Thopter Foundry, Oath, Vial, FoW) this structure would solve that instantly. Yes, some tribes might die. My poor Leviathons would be no more, but I think the loss of a crudy tribe like them might be worth it.
Second: Take it back to Tribal Standard. That deck format is still an option in the deck builder. Yes, it would neuter about 90% of the tribes. But it would also kill about 99% of the problem decks.
So I would have to ask how serious you really are about stopping problem decks. Like I said, the problem is NOT the players or the decks, it's the format. I think these two solutions would be the best answer and would solve all the problems, but they are the most drastic solutions that could be offered. Anyway, as someone who doesn't participate in the events (although I want to, but life doesn't allow me) not sure how much my opinion on this matters, but just thought I'd put it out there.
While I certainly understand the problem of Spikes ruining the game for casual players, I don't think it's easy to limit the power level of the entrants to the tournament.
AJ Impy and Lord Erman, the people you mentioned as founders of the tournament, already play some reasonably powerful decks that crush casual or budget decks. As it is, I've dismissed several tribal ideas simply because they keel over and die to Moat which seems to be a favorite of AJ Impy. And three weeks ago after being trounced by Lord Erman playing Scapeshift/Valakut elves, I decided that if I wanted to win, I needed to add another power level to my deckbuilding.
During that tournament which you mention as a problem, I played the Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry combo in my Kor deck. The reason I went for that combo is that it has a feasible chance of beating Moat and Valakut among other commonly used tribal strategies like Lightning Rift. I ended up losing in the second round to one of those merfolk decks, however if we acknowledge that merfolk are over-powered than Sword of the Meek/Thopter Foundry, Scapeshift/Valakut, Painter/Grindstone, and every other 2 card Extended and Classic combo is also probably too powerful. Where do we draw the line?
Right now there is little to no incentive for creativity in the Tribal Apocalypse tournaments. Winning is the only thing that is reinforced. Playing a single elimination tournament escalates this problem because it encourages us to play more "Spiky" decks, because if we lose one round, we're done. Personally I like playing something different. I like looking for different tribes to use or using cards in unexpected ways. I think winning with an original creative tribal deck is much better than winning with an uncreative deck. However I still want to win, and if my opponents are going to bring powerful combos to the field, I have to match them or just enter the tournament knowing I'm going to be a punching bag for someone else.
If you're looking for suggestions, I have a few. Of course with most modifications, the problem is that you would need to enforce the rules manually like you have done for the modified ban list.
1) Make all non-creature cards restricted. This discourages most 2-card combos, however it doesn't effect some of the broken tribes. It also makes it harder to port a deck from classic to tribal.
2) Make the tournament 3 rounds of swiss rather than single elimination. Single elimination tends to shorten the time it takes for the tournament to run and encourages spikiness due to the "win or go home concept"
Absolutely I agree on all points except the merfolk/faeries point. I don't think that combination is MORE broken than say Goblins/Zombies. Though it might be that Vial needs restricting too.
Remember that it was your Lord Erman who was first to show up with vial merfolk, your flippers giraffe who first tutored up painter/grindstone, or hypergenesised dragons etc.
If the writers for this very site are playing overpowered classic decks in this tourney, then it's not difficult to see why classic players would think it was fine to bring out their power stuff.
Paul's 120 card double tribal thing sounds interesting, but not mentioned are the facts that the decks will cost twice as much to build, it's not a sanctioned format (so you'd have to police the decklists yourself) and it's still going to go completely tits-up the first time somebody thinks "oh look, these faeries and merfolk seem to go together well".
In my opinion your best bet at this point would be simply to ban all of the classic combo cards (i mean really, who is going to use grindstone, bridge from below, etc for anything other than that one combo?), and ban merfolk, elves, faeries and goblins. Maybe also cats, as you could pretty easily convert classic zoo to a cats shell.
Now, whether you ban elves as being the elected tribe, or just ban anybody from playing any elves at all (same for the other mentioned tribes) would be an interesting discussion.
Anyway, my core point is that it was the writers of puremtgo who started bringing the overpowered decks to this tournament, so they should take their share of the blame for it having become what it has.
Every week, I try to play something different, a handcrafted deck built around a common principle: Crush my opponents, see their tribes driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of those who didn't bring removal for moat/pact/whatever crazy thing I'm abusing this week. Technically, I do get fun from destroying the field and taking the prize, even if the medal is always silver rather than gold. I concede that's not the only fun I get out of it, but it is a factor. At what point do my innovations become too much?
That is precisely why I developed the idea I talk about in this article: Double Tribal. Not interesting? Why not?
I agree with Explorer's Scope, IMO it's quite underrated. At any point of any game, assuming you have the bodies that will attack, filtering lands is good. I especially like it in U/W.
Have to disagree with Nissa's Chosen, though. In this format, 3 toughness on turn 2 is nothing to laugh at, even if it means a little extra green.
I understand where you're coming from, as I said in my other comment I was glad to not be playing last week tbh, but you really can't keep these decks away entirely
on WW I think I'm a little disappointed how easy its become, from a tribal pov, to build a powerful vamp deck not to mention the addition of the new sliverish tribe, yes it'll be fun to play allies for a bit, but then, like slivers I'll slowly get tired of everyone playing such a powerful tribe
glad to see AJ came in second with his black warriors, maybe theyll start gaining a bit more popularity lol
I think this was a great article because it seems recently there have been several instances of this.. I made a comment about tournament decks vs. using planeswalkers and then there was the recent tribal event that, while usually casual, was dominated by combo pieces this week.. not to mention that I was just considering this kinda thing and making a deck that included things such as Sadistic Sacrament in order to clear out those particular combo pieces
Well I do have to say I didn't make it in time this week and was talkin to another player about the decks I saw round 1.. there were like 2 counterfolk, kor thopter/sword, painter, and oath.. I said that I was glad that I didn't play because I would have been a bit irritated by those kind of matches.. i have to agree it seems silly to me for someone to join up and play something so one sided in an attempt to win a few bucks.. before it wasnt really in it to win it as much as seeing some creative decks and playing in a more casual environment, but you're probably right there may not be a way to really eliminate these decks from the meta.. i have to say if the format changed im not sure id be any more interested... pauper tribal doesn't excite me and while I think singleton is a great idea the tribes may be cut a little thin