Most of the time, once is all you need. Shields of Velis Vel also works with both and without having to rely on timing, as turning all creatures target player controls into djinn efreet goblins for 1 mana is handy.
I like the idea a lot. Hopefully so will Wizards, and the players.
I'm not sure how well it will work, but my judgment is faulty. I thought Swiss 8man events would help, and they bombed. This has more potential.
I have to add my voice to the "time constraints are huge" contingent. Recently, I have been entering the 4-3-2-2 draft queues, and dropping after winning round one. I get two packs, and I can still get to work on time. I haven't had time for even a 4 rounder for months. That said, the packs per win might get me to free up part of my weekend.
The reason to run Ideas Unbound is to simply find Hive Mind and throw away chaff. You only need so many mana ramp spells. The goal is to ideally go off 2 mana, turn it into 5, use the 3rd land (island) to then cast Hive Mind and win by turn 3.
Ideas Unbound provides sheer drawing power, where Night's Whisper both hurts you, and draws you one less card.
As a sorcery, it doesn't really matter, seeing as how you shouldn't be doing too much else your second turn but trying to find Hive Mind/set up 3rd 4th turn kills.
With the new fetchland, Scalding Tarn, I see no reason to be afraid of Blood Moon. The mana base is very nonbasic purely because it can be. Any two color deck like this can function off a manabase of 4 x Scalding Tarn, 4 x Steam Vents, 3 x Cascade Bluffs and the rest basics. The Shivan Reefs and Reflecting Pools are there just for even more smoothness. If you are worried about Blood Moon, feel free to tweak the base.
However, adding black, seems like inviting pain and diverting a bit from the fastest combo. Yes it gives you a way to disrupt the opponent's hand, but I think using something like gigadrowse on EOT t3 into combo t4, is a pretty fair way to win.
Spoils is a very very very dangerous card. I don't like the idea of running it, especially because you are already on death's bed when playing Zoo and AggroRock
How about fade away (from exodus) against gobos? Sure it doesn't beat bushwhacker, but turn three when they tap out to play a bunch of dudes then you pop it and wrath their team.
If I remember correctly, v2 used to say something like "______ has just won an 8-man draft!" in the chat window whenever any event concluded. A live list on the home page would be very cool. There's room for at least 5, if not 10 one-liners on the home screen. Get rid of the static clan rankings since they can't be updated (bugged), anyway. (The booster totals per clan aren't updated, right?)
Personal stats are also a good idea. There's lots of funny things they could track. Maybe wins per deck (by filename on your local machine), maybe games participated in each of the anything/casual/TP rooms, or maybe your top 3 most played spells? In addition to the obvious stats, of course.
M:TG based achievements are hard to come up with, though. You can't have things like "Win with Coalition Victory 3 times" because that would BORK both the card's price and the presence of the card in the casual room. Not to mention I'd just farm it anyway. (Hey Steve, hold still and be my goldfish.) Achievements like "Win 10 games of Commander" are reasonable, but there's only so much you can do with that. Naturally, Magic wants achievements like "Earn 12 Johnny victories" but the software can't tell when you're playing a combo deck or otherwise doing something clever. "Fight your way out of a Stasis lock" would be an awesome achievement, but it has every problem above. Etc.
Yeah AJ's deck is stupid strong if he gets either combo off. I don't think GLiB came back actually. I was thinking he would but I think he felt bad about housing us with such a tier one classic deck. lol. Well Ichiorimp has it's weakness but darn it, turn 1 bazaar really gets the ball rolling there.
I'd say "not giving up despite the odds" and "lucking into some great draws" were the two ways I won. Thanks.
How _did_ you win that? Congrats anyway. Hey, what happened to that dredge-imp deck? Did he decide to just not play it? Or did the clerics beat it?
Suleiman's Legacy is a crazy card. Tivadar's Crusade + Artificial Evolution is cute, and kind of strong, but it only works once. This combo makes it stick. Ouch.
Every Saturday, 1pm is the registration cut off but show up a little before so that the organizer knows you are participating. in the MTGO client type /join Tribal anywhere there is a chat and you should enter the room. The games are played in anything goes and are single elimination. To get to 'anything goes' open the menu > play > casual > anything goes.
The person who is named first in each pairing makes the table and labels it "Tribal Wars Apocalypse Round (#)" where (#) is the round.
you did an awsome job!!! landfall is very powerfull in this set. I'm running black/green/blue landfall and having all my opponents head spinning. 3 ob nixilis 3 rampaging baloths 4 lotus cobras 4 harrow 4 kaloni heart exp. 4 misty rainforest 4 verdant catacombs 4 terramorphic expanse 2 sorin markov 4 hedron crabs and a couple roil elementals that make this a very nasty deck. p.s. the hedron crabs in a landfall deck have a lot of power and i find ppl waste thier creature removal on them and takes the heat off lotus cobra...
Thanks AJ. I do hope you get a decent keyboard soon. (Xmas maybe Grandma?) I know how it is to deal with subpar equipment. (and I don't mean sword of paruns either.)
You won fairly: Hardware problems at my end are my concern. In any case I could probably have averted the risk with an onscreen keyboard, but didn't think to. Good article, and a well earned victory.
great, great article. Very well done. I'm sure somewhere down the line Wizards is going to read this and consider what you've wrote.
on the subject of achievements, the PDC community is very good about showcasing winners, if anyone reading has ever checked out that site. Something similar to that would be best I feel, a quick banner-type scrolling area with the info: Player name, deck name, specific tournament won. Maybe on the home page, there's room for that.
And a personal info tracker... wow, that's so basic to most any online game you log into, I didn't even realize MTGO didn't have it... for shame Wizards. That's too easy to implement, really.
great to read some tribal news, if i had more time id love to join yall, but i love some of these creative deck ideas, nice to see people playing somethin in tribal that we havent seen before
It seems like Wizards has about 3 options for getting more people to buy any given product, including entry to a tournament:
1) Make it cheaper.
2) Make it better.
3) Market it more effectively.
The first is the easiest of those. Making it better might include addressing time barriers and reducing player minimums to make them more accessible. You can spend more time/effort/money on marketing, but I think you make players happier by lowering the cost by however much it would cost for the marketing effort.
Why can't the payouts and/or entry fees be improved? It seems to me that this is not off the table. They did, after all, make classic block drafts cheaper than regular drafts (perpetual nix tix vs 2 tickets). This is one of the few knobs WotC has left to turn after one rules out all of the fixes with legal baggage.
Classic PE's are a different product than Standard PE's, and evidently people won't pay the same price for the former as for the latter. So lower the price or increase the winnings until you start making money on them. WotC can be stubborn and refuse to accept smaller profits on Classic PE's, but I don't see what they have to lose.
Edit: By the way, I think payouts by wins is a good idea.
Pretty great idea. I would like there to be an additional prize for the winner of the whole event (to avoid strange situations where the 3rd place finisher gets a better prize then the overall winner because of better swiss record). MOCS points may be all that are needed but trophies or even a Premium card would be good.
You mentioned a point that it would be difficult to release promos of cards that haven't been released in paper.
Here's an elegant solution that's sure to bring in HUGE crowds for the Classic scene: award Judge promos for their respective tournaments. Imagine if Sol Ring were a participation prize (with a foil copy being a FOIL Sol Ring). This would both make that card legal in the Classic cardpool (bonus!!) and allow everyone to enter the tournament and receive one (skirts availability concerns). There are a whole host of similar cards that could be implemented as such, as there are nearly 50 Judge promos that have been released in paper. Later on, WotC could also throw those promos into the MOPR cycle to ensure enough people have them.
Yay lagging double poster. :( please delete? Thanks.
Don't sell them short AJ, at least tier 2 when you get a decent draw and no mechanical failures lol.
Don't worry, BB, my broken combos are decidedly tier 3.
Most of the time, once is all you need. Shields of Velis Vel also works with both and without having to rely on timing, as turning all creatures target player controls into djinn efreet goblins for 1 mana is handy.
Excellent article.
I like the idea a lot. Hopefully so will Wizards, and the players.
I'm not sure how well it will work, but my judgment is faulty. I thought Swiss 8man events would help, and they bombed. This has more potential.
I have to add my voice to the "time constraints are huge" contingent. Recently, I have been entering the 4-3-2-2 draft queues, and dropping after winning round one. I get two packs, and I can still get to work on time. I haven't had time for even a 4 rounder for months. That said, the packs per win might get me to free up part of my weekend.
I took this for a spin yesterday, since it was fairly cheap to grab all the rares. Boy does it make people angry in the casual room.
The reason to run Ideas Unbound is to simply find Hive Mind and throw away chaff. You only need so many mana ramp spells. The goal is to ideally go off 2 mana, turn it into 5, use the 3rd land (island) to then cast Hive Mind and win by turn 3.
Ideas Unbound provides sheer drawing power, where Night's Whisper both hurts you, and draws you one less card.
As a sorcery, it doesn't really matter, seeing as how you shouldn't be doing too much else your second turn but trying to find Hive Mind/set up 3rd 4th turn kills.
With the new fetchland, Scalding Tarn, I see no reason to be afraid of Blood Moon. The mana base is very nonbasic purely because it can be. Any two color deck like this can function off a manabase of 4 x Scalding Tarn, 4 x Steam Vents, 3 x Cascade Bluffs and the rest basics. The Shivan Reefs and Reflecting Pools are there just for even more smoothness. If you are worried about Blood Moon, feel free to tweak the base.
However, adding black, seems like inviting pain and diverting a bit from the fastest combo. Yes it gives you a way to disrupt the opponent's hand, but I think using something like gigadrowse on EOT t3 into combo t4, is a pretty fair way to win.
Spoils is a very very very dangerous card. I don't like the idea of running it, especially because you are already on death's bed when playing Zoo and AggroRock
and try to leave the tier one broken combos behind though please.....
there added that bit for you Paul
:)
How about fade away (from exodus) against gobos? Sure it doesn't beat bushwhacker, but turn three when they tap out to play a bunch of dudes then you pop it and wrath their team.
If I remember correctly, v2 used to say something like "______ has just won an 8-man draft!" in the chat window whenever any event concluded. A live list on the home page would be very cool. There's room for at least 5, if not 10 one-liners on the home screen. Get rid of the static clan rankings since they can't be updated (bugged), anyway. (The booster totals per clan aren't updated, right?)
Personal stats are also a good idea. There's lots of funny things they could track. Maybe wins per deck (by filename on your local machine), maybe games participated in each of the anything/casual/TP rooms, or maybe your top 3 most played spells? In addition to the obvious stats, of course.
M:TG based achievements are hard to come up with, though. You can't have things like "Win with Coalition Victory 3 times" because that would BORK both the card's price and the presence of the card in the casual room. Not to mention I'd just farm it anyway. (Hey Steve, hold still and be my goldfish.) Achievements like "Win 10 games of Commander" are reasonable, but there's only so much you can do with that. Naturally, Magic wants achievements like "Earn 12 Johnny victories" but the software can't tell when you're playing a combo deck or otherwise doing something clever. "Fight your way out of a Stasis lock" would be an awesome achievement, but it has every problem above. Etc.
Yeah AJ's deck is stupid strong if he gets either combo off. I don't think GLiB came back actually. I was thinking he would but I think he felt bad about housing us with such a tier one classic deck. lol. Well Ichiorimp has it's weakness but darn it, turn 1 bazaar really gets the ball rolling there.
I'd say "not giving up despite the odds" and "lucking into some great draws" were the two ways I won. Thanks.
How _did_ you win that? Congrats anyway. Hey, what happened to that dredge-imp deck? Did he decide to just not play it? Or did the clerics beat it?
Suleiman's Legacy is a crazy card. Tivadar's Crusade + Artificial Evolution is cute, and kind of strong, but it only works once. This combo makes it stick. Ouch.
Every Saturday, 1pm is the registration cut off but show up a little before so that the organizer knows you are participating. in the MTGO client type /join Tribal anywhere there is a chat and you should enter the room. The games are played in anything goes and are single elimination. To get to 'anything goes' open the menu > play > casual > anything goes.
The person who is named first in each pairing makes the table and labels it "Tribal Wars Apocalypse Round (#)" where (#) is the round.
you did an awsome job!!! landfall is very powerfull in this set. I'm running black/green/blue landfall and having all my opponents head spinning. 3 ob nixilis 3 rampaging baloths 4 lotus cobras 4 harrow 4 kaloni heart exp. 4 misty rainforest 4 verdant catacombs 4 terramorphic expanse 2 sorin markov 4 hedron crabs and a couple roil elementals that make this a very nasty deck. p.s. the hedron crabs in a landfall deck have a lot of power and i find ppl waste thier creature removal on them and takes the heat off lotus cobra...
nice write up, the personality put in was welcome.
hmm, I'm a little curious try this... what's the info for this event?
Thanks AJ. I do hope you get a decent keyboard soon. (Xmas maybe Grandma?) I know how it is to deal with subpar equipment. (and I don't mean sword of paruns either.)
You won fairly: Hardware problems at my end are my concern. In any case I could probably have averted the risk with an onscreen keyboard, but didn't think to. Good article, and a well earned victory.
lol zombies are fun
great, great article. Very well done. I'm sure somewhere down the line Wizards is going to read this and consider what you've wrote.
on the subject of achievements, the PDC community is very good about showcasing winners, if anyone reading has ever checked out that site. Something similar to that would be best I feel, a quick banner-type scrolling area with the info: Player name, deck name, specific tournament won. Maybe on the home page, there's room for that.
And a personal info tracker... wow, that's so basic to most any online game you log into, I didn't even realize MTGO didn't have it... for shame Wizards. That's too easy to implement, really.
great to read some tribal news, if i had more time id love to join yall, but i love some of these creative deck ideas, nice to see people playing somethin in tribal that we havent seen before
And Zombies :p
its alright, ive never been in the final when uve being writing it , lets say thats what you meant
It seems like Wizards has about 3 options for getting more people to buy any given product, including entry to a tournament:
1) Make it cheaper.
2) Make it better.
3) Market it more effectively.
The first is the easiest of those. Making it better might include addressing time barriers and reducing player minimums to make them more accessible. You can spend more time/effort/money on marketing, but I think you make players happier by lowering the cost by however much it would cost for the marketing effort.
Why can't the payouts and/or entry fees be improved? It seems to me that this is not off the table. They did, after all, make classic block drafts cheaper than regular drafts (perpetual nix tix vs 2 tickets). This is one of the few knobs WotC has left to turn after one rules out all of the fixes with legal baggage.
Classic PE's are a different product than Standard PE's, and evidently people won't pay the same price for the former as for the latter. So lower the price or increase the winnings until you start making money on them. WotC can be stubborn and refuse to accept smaller profits on Classic PE's, but I don't see what they have to lose.
Edit: By the way, I think payouts by wins is a good idea.
Pretty great idea. I would like there to be an additional prize for the winner of the whole event (to avoid strange situations where the 3rd place finisher gets a better prize then the overall winner because of better swiss record). MOCS points may be all that are needed but trophies or even a Premium card would be good.
You mentioned a point that it would be difficult to release promos of cards that haven't been released in paper.
Here's an elegant solution that's sure to bring in HUGE crowds for the Classic scene: award Judge promos for their respective tournaments. Imagine if Sol Ring were a participation prize (with a foil copy being a FOIL Sol Ring). This would both make that card legal in the Classic cardpool (bonus!!) and allow everyone to enter the tournament and receive one (skirts availability concerns). There are a whole host of similar cards that could be implemented as such, as there are nearly 50 Judge promos that have been released in paper. Later on, WotC could also throw those promos into the MOPR cycle to ensure enough people have them.