When changes are made to the paper B&R lists, the wizards.com Friday article always covers it.
Tribal Wars and Classic aren't explained as far as I know. I don't think it's anyone's job. Wizards actively monitors Vintage, Legacy, Extended, and Standard, even if they focus most of their energy on the latter two. But Classic isn't on the mind of either design or R&D, nor does it fall under the jurisdiction of the DCI. Therefore it gets separate treatment.
------------------
There are two types of orchards in Magic: Exotic and Forbidden. The first one is Fellwar's Land. The second one donates little spirit tokens.
------------------
RRRRR - because I can't rate while leaving a reply.
There was a really dope survival vintage list I found from 2005....this thing looked so stupid silly I had to test it out, and wow when it got amazing draws, it got amazing draws, problem was unless you're mike long, chances are you're not going to pilot the thing correct. I'm really stoked you guys like this article, I hope others do as well
Put Inkshrouder in the yard, give it Unblockable and Untargetable until EOT at the same time put Phage into the GY, making it an unblockable, untargetable Phage.
Hi, I was missing the second part of the walkthrough as you had left us in a cliff-hanger.
About the game play, I had never thought about leaving chaff for looting fodder, is it really worth it? If I was in your place, I would have played the Hatchling, and then loot to see if what was coming was better than the rest of my hand.
Also, speaking of Hatchling vs. Gomazoa, have you come to a conclussion yet about that? It looks like you would prefer Gomazoa all the time, yet I've had some very nice experiences with the Hatchling as well, against fast red, black (minus Nighthawk) or white (minus Skyfisher) decks. I usually pick them half way through the pack, especially if I'm U/W, my kind of deck really.
Against Nighthawk, Gomazoa is way better. I had an opponent call me noob,and lame, because I blocked his 'Hawk with my 'Zoa and sent them both back to the library. That was sweet.
A minor note: the deck error ArchGenius talks about has happened to me too, although I've been unable to pin down the exact secuence of events that lead to that error.
I hope WotC reads the bit about Imperial Seal being banned in paper due to cost. Imperial Seal is basically a fair card in 100CS. I don't think it's an auto-include by any means.
My complaint is that they give the B/R list responsibilities to Development people who don't seem to have enough time to do it right. Why does this job have to fall to them? I think Development should just manage the core formats and leave the others to somebody else who places a higher importance on them.
Great article. I especially agree that the "spirit of the format" considerations are just baggage. WotC should instead focus on simply nurturing a good format instead of a format that is good in a very specific way.
Nice draft and article. You could detail a little more in some card choices but overall nice article. The videos are always a nice touch... it's better then reading match reports :)
Here's the current legacy banned list, I think this is the way Tribal will go when MED4 is released. There are a few cards that I think for tribal should not be on this list like Mana Drain and Necropotence (because its restricted).
This wont however solve the combo issue we have at present. The problem as I see it is that Wizards monitors all the games played in the casual room and can tell if a card is used too much but because Classic Tribal is not supported no one is really bothered about breaking the format. This means the broken cards are not highlighted.
The only chance we have of Wizards listening to us is through Hamtastic. I think the tribal players need to think hard about what needs to be banned and hope Hamtastic can relay the word back to Wizards.
•Amulet of Quoz
•Ancestral Recall
•Balance
•Bazaar of Baghdad
•Black Lotus
•Black Vise
•Bronze Tablet
•Channel
•Chaos Orb
•Contract from Below
•Darkpact
•Demonic Attorney
•Demonic Consultation
•Demonic Tutor
•Dream Halls (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Earthcraft
•Entomb (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Falling Star
•Fastbond
•Flash
•Frantic Search
•Goblin Recruiter
•Grim Monolith
•Gush
•Hermit Druid
•Illusionary Mask
•Imperial Seal
•Jeweled Bird
•Land Tax
•Library of Alexandria
•Mana Crypt
•Mana Drain
•Mana Vault
•Memory Jar
•Metalworker (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Mind Twist
•Mind's Desire
•Mishra's Workshop
•Mox Emerald
•Mox Jet
•Mox Pearl
•Mox Ruby
•Mox Sapphire
•Necropotence
•Oath of Druids
•Rebirth
•Shahrazad
•Skullclamp
•Sol Ring
•Strip Mine
•Tempest Efreet
•Time Spiral
•Time Vault
•Time Walk
•Timetwister
•Timmerian Fiends
•Tinker
•Tolarian Academy
•Vampiric Tutor
•Wheel of Fortune
•Windfall
•Worldgorger Dragon
•Yawgmoth's Bargain
•Yawgmoth's Will
I don't get why on R2G2 you traded all the snakes for the Tuktuk Grunts. IMHO they were better as a fog for a couple of turns, giving you the time to take him through the air with the dragon.
Not sure I can agree with characterizing RecSur as being a 'Timmy' deck even genius level. It just has so much good synergy that it says "spike" all over it. Well that's my 2.5cents anyway.
Updated versions of the Full English Breakfast eschew the Dreadnought/Hellion package for the Akroma/Phage package. Of course, this was before M10 rules that eliminated damage on the stack. Previous, you would discard Akroma to fetch Phage, attack with the Shapeshifter on the same turn (hasty, pro black/red), then with damage on the stack - discard Phage and deal lethal combat damage to the opponent. Instant kill! The trick still works now, but it is trickier for Phage to stay alive during the last leg of combat.
I also played Magic during the 1998 Worlds season, and have to agree that Brian Seldon's RecSur deck was absolutely positively the most genius Timmy deck ever. It definitly has a lot of power for being a creature deck. Once Saga came out that fall, things changed towards the combo deck with Peregrin Drake and Great Whale replacing the fatties from Mirage block which fueled the infinite combo nature of the deck.
Really cool idea and I really appreciate the work that you put into doing this. While its easy to debate the actual meaning of the data you collected, it's great just to have access to it.
I have to agree with a previous poster in that this is type of data is probably more useful in identifying what the more skilled players are playing, rather than what cards specifically are leading to victories. There pretty much aren't any cards (maybe nighthawk?) whose presence alone can be expected to alter the outcome of a game. As a result, I would expect most cards that the vast majority of players will always play if they are on color, to have a rating that is not significantly different from 50%. Just as you said yourself, Journey should win more, if people actually played it right. I think the same may go for hookmaster here, although maybe it isn't as exciting in sealed as it is in draft. Along the same lines, I think the reason nimbus wings scored so low is that it is exactly the type of card that beginners value quite highly but more experienced players tend to prefer avoiding. It is very hard to agree that the act itself of playing such a card is what lead to a loss. Rather, the act of playing the card indicates that it is more likely that a weaker player is piloting this deck.
intuition + loam: the first time we've seen loam in action is probably from the extended pt where Gifts Ungiven + loam +2 cycling lands was the card drawing engine of a tog deck. Let us put it this way. If we stare at them blankly, we know it's good. If you take a look at relevance to the format.... not that much. In fact, the past PE was topped with red burn/goblin decks. Intuition/gifts don't help that much against those decks. In fact, whatever you want to accomplish with loam will take time.
Loam can be argued for and against but having loam definitely opens up more strategies.
Even if I concede life from the loam, the jointly banned Crucible of Worlds has no business staying on the banned list.. no?
Mana crypt: Fast mana is no doubt good but it's inconsistent to work around. You randomly die to it bolting you and and randomly win when it doesn't but that isn't the main point. It really only makes games more luck based than anything.
arch: I would try out every format to get a unique avatar from each... as long as they don't expect me to play once a month to get one.
dragonbgx: I don't play highlander but I see that format as a guide to what a possible 100c singleton format might become. The people have definitely played the format more than any of us online could possibly have so they would have seen much more than what we have. Technology-wise, strategy-wise, it's a much more developed format than 100c singleton. Even so, it's not too far off from the 100c singleton.
pyyhttu: thnx loads for the inside info! =)
That cleared up quite abit.
I must so try out buried alive + perstermite +kiki jiki + phyrexian delver...
For anyone who is interested, here is the abstract regarding enlightened tutor and mystical tutor (I wish we had proper explanations like these):
"Ban Enlightened
Some of the most game-defining and critical cards in the current meta are enchantments, first of all Survival together with Back to Basics (not only Mythrandir hates this card Wink), Blood Moon and the artifact Winter Orb. Why? On the strength of our experience this cards decided the most games in the last time by far when they once hit the board. The evaluation of recent tournaments supports this impression. On the other hand side this cards also have an important function for the balance of our meta. That's the reason why we didn't ban one or all of the mentioned cards but the best tutor to get access to them, Enlightened Tutor.
Another point is -like pyyhttu already mentioned-: the banned list looks more rational when Mystical and Enlightened both are banned or unbanned. That's one reason why we discussed to unban Mystical Tutor instead of banning Enlightened. After we debated this approach for a while we all (Sturmgott, malz77 and me) came to the conclusion that unban Mystical isn't a good idea cause it would push Staxx too much (Mystical -> Gifts Ungiven, Armageddon, Wildfire, Mindtwist, Upheaval)"
"The Mystical Tutor presents the same advantages. Mystical Tutor searches for effects that can only be countered in contrast to enlightened tutor or worldly tutor which search for “Permanents” which can be attended to in various ways. As an example, just think of how good this addition to the HulkFlash deck would have been – it will find the Hulk (through the Summoner's Pact), as well as the Flash, and even Duress, Orim's Chant or Abeyance in order to protect the combo."
Regarding Umezawa's Jitte:
"Umezawa's Jitte has not been unbanned despite several demands from players in the Forum. The reason remains the same as the reason we originally banned the card. We decided to ban Umezawa's Jitte for the following reasons:
1. Powerlevel and casting cost: Jitte provides a way too high powerlevel according to it's casting costs and cardtype (artifact). Jitte combines multiple important funktions in one card. It offers boardcontrol and fast kills for just two mana. Because the equipped creature only needs to deal damage, not combat damage, Jitte is almost always impossible to handle.
2. Missing selfregulation: The intended selfregulation through its legendary status (my Jitte destroys your Jitte) from WotC's R&D does not work for Jitte. It's far less likely to draw Umezawa's Jitte the time needed than in other formats to destroy the opposing Jitte. Thereby the luckfactor in a aggro vs. aggro matchup becomes more and more important because a Jitte which could not behandled for two or more turns is in most cases equal to victory."
Here is what I would like to know about the new constructed clan. As in constructed and playing events? Or as in constructed and playing whatever (I'm casual, with some tourney testing for others, but not really interested in playing most events)?
If casual is ok, I would like to be a part of the clan as well, will try to contact in game.
If I had the tix I'd wait for it to drop a bit more. For now Cobra isn't going up and it might go down...but then again I don't play standard so I know nothing.
Hi eric,a question (and all the people :P ):
what do u think about the lotus cobra's prize?
go up or go down?
i want to buy it and i dont know what can i do!
Tnx all
When changes are made to the paper B&R lists, the wizards.com Friday article always covers it.
Tribal Wars and Classic aren't explained as far as I know. I don't think it's anyone's job. Wizards actively monitors Vintage, Legacy, Extended, and Standard, even if they focus most of their energy on the latter two. But Classic isn't on the mind of either design or R&D, nor does it fall under the jurisdiction of the DCI. Therefore it gets separate treatment.
------------------
There are two types of orchards in Magic: Exotic and Forbidden. The first one is Fellwar's Land. The second one donates little spirit tokens.
------------------
RRRRR - because I can't rate while leaving a reply.
There was a really dope survival vintage list I found from 2005....this thing looked so stupid silly I had to test it out, and wow when it got amazing draws, it got amazing draws, problem was unless you're mike long, chances are you're not going to pilot the thing correct. I'm really stoked you guys like this article, I hope others do as well
Put Inkshrouder in the yard, give it Unblockable and Untargetable until EOT at the same time put Phage into the GY, making it an unblockable, untargetable Phage.
Hi, I was missing the second part of the walkthrough as you had left us in a cliff-hanger.
About the game play, I had never thought about leaving chaff for looting fodder, is it really worth it? If I was in your place, I would have played the Hatchling, and then loot to see if what was coming was better than the rest of my hand.
Also, speaking of Hatchling vs. Gomazoa, have you come to a conclussion yet about that? It looks like you would prefer Gomazoa all the time, yet I've had some very nice experiences with the Hatchling as well, against fast red, black (minus Nighthawk) or white (minus Skyfisher) decks. I usually pick them half way through the pack, especially if I'm U/W, my kind of deck really.
Against Nighthawk, Gomazoa is way better. I had an opponent call me noob,and lame, because I blocked his 'Hawk with my 'Zoa and sent them both back to the library. That was sweet.
A minor note: the deck error ArchGenius talks about has happened to me too, although I've been unable to pin down the exact secuence of events that lead to that error.
...or a theory article of some kind ...
I hate to break it to you, but your draft articles are as close to a 'multiclass' theory article as I've ever seen. (that is a good thing, btw)
My vote is to keep drafting or go get yourself a Q envelope for sunny San Diego. GL!
If you run those in RecSur sure but the deck is more than a couple choices that may or may not be optimal.
I hope WotC reads the bit about Imperial Seal being banned in paper due to cost. Imperial Seal is basically a fair card in 100CS. I don't think it's an auto-include by any means.
I completely agree with this.
My complaint is that they give the B/R list responsibilities to Development people who don't seem to have enough time to do it right. Why does this job have to fall to them? I think Development should just manage the core formats and leave the others to somebody else who places a higher importance on them.
Great article. I especially agree that the "spirit of the format" considerations are just baggage. WotC should instead focus on simply nurturing a good format instead of a format that is good in a very specific way.
spike will use timmy to get the w though. i have to say its both
Nice draft and article. You could detail a little more in some card choices but overall nice article. The videos are always a nice touch... it's better then reading match reports :)
Tend to disagree. Both of these monsters have Timmy written all over them.
Here's the current legacy banned list, I think this is the way Tribal will go when MED4 is released. There are a few cards that I think for tribal should not be on this list like Mana Drain and Necropotence (because its restricted).
This wont however solve the combo issue we have at present. The problem as I see it is that Wizards monitors all the games played in the casual room and can tell if a card is used too much but because Classic Tribal is not supported no one is really bothered about breaking the format. This means the broken cards are not highlighted.
The only chance we have of Wizards listening to us is through Hamtastic. I think the tribal players need to think hard about what needs to be banned and hope Hamtastic can relay the word back to Wizards.
•Amulet of Quoz
•Ancestral Recall
•Balance
•Bazaar of Baghdad
•Black Lotus
•Black Vise
•Bronze Tablet
•Channel
•Chaos Orb
•Contract from Below
•Darkpact
•Demonic Attorney
•Demonic Consultation
•Demonic Tutor
•Dream Halls (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Earthcraft
•Entomb (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Falling Star
•Fastbond
•Flash
•Frantic Search
•Goblin Recruiter
•Grim Monolith
•Gush
•Hermit Druid
•Illusionary Mask
•Imperial Seal
•Jeweled Bird
•Land Tax
•Library of Alexandria
•Mana Crypt
•Mana Drain
•Mana Vault
•Memory Jar
•Metalworker (unbanned, effective October 1, 2009)
•Mind Twist
•Mind's Desire
•Mishra's Workshop
•Mox Emerald
•Mox Jet
•Mox Pearl
•Mox Ruby
•Mox Sapphire
•Necropotence
•Oath of Druids
•Rebirth
•Shahrazad
•Skullclamp
•Sol Ring
•Strip Mine
•Tempest Efreet
•Time Spiral
•Time Vault
•Time Walk
•Timetwister
•Timmerian Fiends
•Tinker
•Tolarian Academy
•Vampiric Tutor
•Wheel of Fortune
•Windfall
•Worldgorger Dragon
•Yawgmoth's Bargain
•Yawgmoth's Will
I don't get why on R2G2 you traded all the snakes for the Tuktuk Grunts. IMHO they were better as a fog for a couple of turns, giving you the time to take him through the air with the dragon.
Mind over matter + azami in Commander = lol fun :)
Not sure I can agree with characterizing RecSur as being a 'Timmy' deck even genius level. It just has so much good synergy that it says "spike" all over it. Well that's my 2.5cents anyway.
Updated versions of the Full English Breakfast eschew the Dreadnought/Hellion package for the Akroma/Phage package. Of course, this was before M10 rules that eliminated damage on the stack. Previous, you would discard Akroma to fetch Phage, attack with the Shapeshifter on the same turn (hasty, pro black/red), then with damage on the stack - discard Phage and deal lethal combat damage to the opponent. Instant kill! The trick still works now, but it is trickier for Phage to stay alive during the last leg of combat.
I also played Magic during the 1998 Worlds season, and have to agree that Brian Seldon's RecSur deck was absolutely positively the most genius Timmy deck ever. It definitly has a lot of power for being a creature deck. Once Saga came out that fall, things changed towards the combo deck with Peregrin Drake and Great Whale replacing the fatties from Mirage block which fueled the infinite combo nature of the deck.
Really cool idea and I really appreciate the work that you put into doing this. While its easy to debate the actual meaning of the data you collected, it's great just to have access to it.
I have to agree with a previous poster in that this is type of data is probably more useful in identifying what the more skilled players are playing, rather than what cards specifically are leading to victories. There pretty much aren't any cards (maybe nighthawk?) whose presence alone can be expected to alter the outcome of a game. As a result, I would expect most cards that the vast majority of players will always play if they are on color, to have a rating that is not significantly different from 50%. Just as you said yourself, Journey should win more, if people actually played it right. I think the same may go for hookmaster here, although maybe it isn't as exciting in sealed as it is in draft. Along the same lines, I think the reason nimbus wings scored so low is that it is exactly the type of card that beginners value quite highly but more experienced players tend to prefer avoiding. It is very hard to agree that the act itself of playing such a card is what lead to a loss. Rather, the act of playing the card indicates that it is more likely that a weaker player is piloting this deck.
intuition + loam: the first time we've seen loam in action is probably from the extended pt where Gifts Ungiven + loam +2 cycling lands was the card drawing engine of a tog deck. Let us put it this way. If we stare at them blankly, we know it's good. If you take a look at relevance to the format.... not that much. In fact, the past PE was topped with red burn/goblin decks. Intuition/gifts don't help that much against those decks. In fact, whatever you want to accomplish with loam will take time.
Loam can be argued for and against but having loam definitely opens up more strategies.
Even if I concede life from the loam, the jointly banned Crucible of Worlds has no business staying on the banned list.. no?
Mana crypt: Fast mana is no doubt good but it's inconsistent to work around. You randomly die to it bolting you and and randomly win when it doesn't but that isn't the main point. It really only makes games more luck based than anything.
arch: I would try out every format to get a unique avatar from each... as long as they don't expect me to play once a month to get one.
dragonbgx: I don't play highlander but I see that format as a guide to what a possible 100c singleton format might become. The people have definitely played the format more than any of us online could possibly have so they would have seen much more than what we have. Technology-wise, strategy-wise, it's a much more developed format than 100c singleton. Even so, it's not too far off from the 100c singleton.
pyyhttu: thnx loads for the inside info! =)
That cleared up quite abit.
I must so try out buried alive + perstermite +kiki jiki + phyrexian delver...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For anyone who is interested, here is the abstract regarding enlightened tutor and mystical tutor (I wish we had proper explanations like these):
"Ban Enlightened
Some of the most game-defining and critical cards in the current meta are enchantments, first of all Survival together with Back to Basics (not only Mythrandir hates this card Wink), Blood Moon and the artifact Winter Orb. Why? On the strength of our experience this cards decided the most games in the last time by far when they once hit the board. The evaluation of recent tournaments supports this impression. On the other hand side this cards also have an important function for the balance of our meta. That's the reason why we didn't ban one or all of the mentioned cards but the best tutor to get access to them, Enlightened Tutor.
Another point is -like pyyhttu already mentioned-: the banned list looks more rational when Mystical and Enlightened both are banned or unbanned. That's one reason why we discussed to unban Mystical Tutor instead of banning Enlightened. After we debated this approach for a while we all (Sturmgott, malz77 and me) came to the conclusion that unban Mystical isn't a good idea cause it would push Staxx too much (Mystical -> Gifts Ungiven, Armageddon, Wildfire, Mindtwist, Upheaval)"
"The Mystical Tutor presents the same advantages. Mystical Tutor searches for effects that can only be countered in contrast to enlightened tutor or worldly tutor which search for “Permanents” which can be attended to in various ways. As an example, just think of how good this addition to the HulkFlash deck would have been – it will find the Hulk (through the Summoner's Pact), as well as the Flash, and even Duress, Orim's Chant or Abeyance in order to protect the combo."
Regarding Umezawa's Jitte:
"Umezawa's Jitte has not been unbanned despite several demands from players in the Forum. The reason remains the same as the reason we originally banned the card. We decided to ban Umezawa's Jitte for the following reasons:
1. Powerlevel and casting cost: Jitte provides a way too high powerlevel according to it's casting costs and cardtype (artifact). Jitte combines multiple important funktions in one card. It offers boardcontrol and fast kills for just two mana. Because the equipped creature only needs to deal damage, not combat damage, Jitte is almost always impossible to handle.
2. Missing selfregulation: The intended selfregulation through its legendary status (my Jitte destroys your Jitte) from WotC's R&D does not work for Jitte. It's far less likely to draw Umezawa's Jitte the time needed than in other formats to destroy the opposing Jitte. Thereby the luckfactor in a aggro vs. aggro matchup becomes more and more important because a Jitte which could not behandled for two or more turns is in most cases equal to victory."
i like the idea of format specific avatars,
however i really doubt i will ever give up my jesus avatar (hermit druid)
Here is what I would like to know about the new constructed clan. As in constructed and playing events? Or as in constructed and playing whatever (I'm casual, with some tourney testing for others, but not really interested in playing most events)?
If casual is ok, I would like to be a part of the clan as well, will try to contact in game.
Nothing for nothing but you couldn't pay me to play with Djinni and Effriti after the experiencing the debacle that is Sulieman's legacy. :p
If I had the tix I'd wait for it to drop a bit more. For now Cobra isn't going up and it might go down...but then again I don't play standard so I know nothing.
Again, wipes out all the old 'choose a creature' enablers like Steely Resolve, Cover of Darkness or Tribal Unity.
Hi eric,a question (and all the people :P ):
what do u think about the lotus cobra's prize?
go up or go down?
i want to buy it and i dont know what can i do!
Tnx all