While I agree that Tarmotog has a responsibility to the community to not condone illegal behavior in terms of MTGO, I do think the situation has been overblown slightly. I can think of at least three different players who write for Starcity's premium ($$$) articles, and have all mentioned letting other people play their drafts and tournaments. It's just a touchy subject because there's no way to enforce it within MTGO. A lot of people break this rule. Unless the next version of MTGO has a retinal-scan device to verify player identity, this will continue to be commonplace in the game.
bladestk:
First off, you are right- I misunderstood your point about the multiple activations of Crypt rats since you called it "reuseability."
All the cards you mentioned are restricted in formats where A)They win the game when drawn or B) Reduce the variance of decks and help them find their game winning cards. While Crypt Rats is awfully good, drawing it alone does not equal a win. The ability to activate Crypt Rats multiple times is an advantage when trying to get around Circles of Protection and Obsidian Acolyte, but that's really about it. Please xplain how this is such a huge power boost.
With regards to Cryptic Command, you said "Is it the only card in the format that can achieve the goals it achieves? Not even close." It is the only card that can do all the things it does, and hence achieve those goals. If a "Blue" deck did not want to run Cryptic Command and still have access to all those abilities, it would have to run copies of four different cards.
bjbrains:
Take a look at the top 16 from the last event, or even the top 32. How many decks there are heavily prepared with specific hate for Rats main? By my count, one. Burn does not have a good matchup with MBC, in my experience, thanks to the abundance of life gain in MBC.
Just because decks have to prepare for a card in the metagame does not mean it warrants being banned. It just means you have to be prepared.
As I understand it, here is the argument against Crypt Rats:
It's a good card in a good deck, and the only card that can do what it does. If we take it away, the deck will still be good. All decks in Pauper must prepare to face Crypt Rats.
Now, if that is true, I can simply replace Crypt Rats with ANY HEAVILY PLAYED CARD in Pauper and I could come up with an argument for banning. For example:
Fireblast is a good card in a good deck, and the only card that can do what it does. If we take it away, the deck will still be good. All decks in Pauper must prepare to face Fireblast.
Mine was the first comment and I wasn't really trying to get you into any trouble. I like your articles and your writing style in general.
I also agree that yeah it does happen. Gold buying happens in WoW, Isk buying happens in EVE, Getting a bot to play your account used to happen in WoW, Online accounts are bought and sold in many MMO's where it is against the 'terms of service' or 'code of conduct'. These are all examples of things that are not legal but very hard to police. I didn't have any real objection with the subject being raised.
It did however come over in your article not as a comment that it may well be happening. It come across as more as an endorsement of it.
Anyway that has all been said and it's been removed so in my mind it's all good. Keep writing the articles dude.
So far, the news that's popped up on the Prereleases information with MTGO's Home Page. 30 Freaking Tix for a Prerelease.. WotC's Really trying to Kill secondary market Tix Prices.
I'm aware they're doing it for a reason, if people can buy tix for .89 cents on the collar, then why would they buy them for $1.09 in the store.... Gah. Personally, i'm boycotting the prerelease issue, 30 tix is Stupid, It'd probably be a better choice instead of Tix, Just selling Prerelease Bundles in the Store, 3 of each pack (AAARRR) Plus the leftover Tix and such to make it even $30 like it is in paper... But killing the Tix Prices is BAD! People wont buy tix from the Store any more than they already do, tax really hurts the whole point of $1 entry fee tix, forcing us to pay additional in tax makes it ugly. Boosters being a taxable thing, just fine. but Tix. that's just Ugly.
The whole prerelease issues just end up hurting MTGO, with the prices the way they are.. I was saying to my local buddies, if prereleases were less Tix, might be more welcomed. but it being 30 tix just hurts tix all the more.
It may be against the coc, but since we all know that people do it I dont see the problem in bringing it up. Im sure a small percentage of the people with 15qps had friends help, and while it may be against the coc, it is still something to look at if you must get those 15 no matter what. Personally, I would never trust anybody to use my account unless I knew them in person (my brother, and roomate maybe). Seems like an easy way to lose some $ cards from your collection. But I did have my roomate play the third round of a draft for me , when I got called in to work early one day. He lost.
Tarmatog, great article. Dont be sorry for writing the truth.
I guess I owe everyone an apology, especially to puremtgo.com.
There's nothing I can say to justify what I have written.
I'm sorry for the trouble caused.
This is exactly why I advocate banning Crypt Rats. Decks *must* heavily prepare, mainboard and sideboard, for the crypt rats (discounting the low-creature decks like MUC, and Burn which tend to have a better matchup vs MBC partially for this reason). Crypt rats are the only sweeper who's damage is only limited by your mana in Pauper. The "But then aggro would always win" argument fails to impress me, as MBC role in the current metagame is *not* an aggro hoser, as it has multiple good matchups beyond aggro (and some mediocre aggro matchups).
Every deck in Pauper has to either plan for Crypt rats (Through the anti-sweepers), or play around them by not playing many creatures (Burn, MUC). This is *not* WoG in standard (Which Wizards just printed a hose for, ironically).
When I read over the article, I got to point 6, and got a different meaning than everyone else did. As I went over the article, and that part in particular, I honestly thought that he was talking about enlisting friends for support.
I did not under any circumstance think tarmotog was going on about having players play on your account.
However, I can see how people could get that idea.
I will be removing point 6. Puremtgo does not condone breaking the terms of service, nor will we glorify it here. It is an issue for another article.
horrible advice. getting friends to help you! how can you post that on this nice website and say that it's part of the "guide to getting 15 QPs" mise well call it the guide to get in trouble with wotc. shame on you.
You may have been unaware that this was against the coc and illegal for implementation. but that dosent stop the fact that you endorse this behavior in your article. going back with a lenghty explanation of why you thought you have to justify putting in the option dosent stop it from being written.
in the context of your article this is something you suggest people do to make there 15 points. nowhere do you say or even hint that this is an amoral choice and infact you even go a step in the opposite direction pointing out that this is something that you can not get away with in paper magic.
I will except that you may not have known that this was actually not within the legal parmiters of the mol champs set up, however i find it hard to believe that you put this in there as a consicios effort to tell us the readers that it is something we have to worry about. The number of people playing on a single account has no bearing on my quest to obtain qp points what so ever, and i will never ever know if any givin player is the legal account holder. Why would we need to know of this option if it werent meant to be used?
Please do not thing that i am hating on you as i enjoy your articles but I think this is rediculos.
You're completely missing my point on reusability. I'm not talking about bringing it back from the graveyard. I'm talking about activating it multiple times in response to anything the opponent does. THAT is an enormous power boost; and you know it.
Also note that I said banned/restricted. There are a plethora of cards that are b/r in multiple formats that are powerful, but only when you pair them with other cards. A good example: Flash. Which card is more inherently powerful? Crypt Rats or Ponder? Gush? Not so cut and dry, is it? Goblin Recruiter: not inherently off the power charts, but coupled with other cards from the history of Magic, it becomes banworthy.
Of course there is not a specific card that does everything Cryptic Command does. Otherwise that card would be called CC II. But if Cryptic Command did not exist, are you telling me that control players would not be running some other form of permission or bounce? There's plenty of that around. The form of mass removal we're talking about in regards to Cryptic Rats in pauper, on the other hand, not replaceable. Make sense?
Uniqueness alone does not warrant bans or restrictions, as I've argued on the forums. It's just one piece of the pie. You can't pick apart the argument by saying that one specific piece of the argument isn't enough to call for a ban. I never said that. It's a sum effect. This card is much more complex in its utilization and effect than Cranial Plating. Yes, numerous cards are unique, but they don't have as broad - even the term we've been using for it is broad: sweeper - an application as CR.
I never said that black's potency is a reason to ban the Rats. I said black is versatile enough to survive without the Rats, which is a counter to the argument that everyone makes about its place in the metagame. "It keeps things in check." Well, yeah, because it's absurdly powerful. Black would be ok without it, but everyone assumes it's only the Rats that do this.
You are getting a little outrageous at the end of your post. I won't consider the parts about banning Wrath, Nuck, CC, and Ultimatums, because you misinterpreted by statement about CR's reusability. But to assume that I'm not acknowledging the power of the card is a bit absurd. I'm talking about the power of the card. Of course I take it into account when I build and play a deck, that's the point. To beat it, many times you have to pack the hate or get fortunate, or fare poorly against the field, or one of many other subpar outcomes. Why would I ever play a deck in a competitive format that flat out folds to the best card/deck? That makes no sense at all.
This series of articles was written by someone who returned online after a year hiatus. Meaning the card pool for constructed classic (med2), standard (some lorwyn/mornintide/base sets), and block (no alara) was not present in my collection.
Extended events, which I did try entering at two points, either didn't fire or were inaccessible due to a collection bug I described.
Sealed events weren't a realistic choice compared to drafts, as they would require the purchase of starter packs from the store for admittance, increasing the real money cost significantly. Alternatively, I could pay 15tix for starters, but for that same price I simply bought an extra booster pack. Drafts are much better than sealed if you want to build your collection for possible constructed events, such as the actual formats for the championships, both in seasons one and two.
However if you have the cards already, then yes, Daily Events (not premiers, which I don't think give QP) are better in terms of time commitment. Maybe value as well; I can't comment on that.
Basic Land - PEs do give QPs. I definitely got mine there. The release events will be on the PE page rather than the daily page so it's kinda odd.
radman99 - It would be an unfair estimate I would think to show how much I spent cos I got 3 qps out of a free event, I consecutively t4 2 stronghold event which gave me 15 pax, of which I sold the tempest pax early on to get tournament pax. The 9 pts I got basically paid for itself past the sealed and the pax I spent on drafts came from the Xed sealed i managed to t2 in (b4 the season which gave about 18 pax) and also the tpf (18 pax again I think) where i got t8.
In short, u win big online but probably in the daily event/premier events. If you want to go "infinite", those are probably the only way you can do it in my opinion so you should choose very carefully where you make your move in to increase your chances of doing so.
My plan was to maximize the drafts done in the nix tix season but as you can see, I only made 1 QP (at a 8-4 fortunately) despite having an equivalent of probably 12 draft sets (at the start) of which I liquidated some draft sets into tix to get cards. I think it is much easier (or maybe just more worth it) to t8 a pe than to win a draft (cos u need many things to go right). I guess the fairest estimate of my spendings will be reflected from what I have left at the end of season 1 which is 6xed pax, 8tempest-4 stronghold.
everyone else - #6 is indeed very controversial and I really would rather not have written about it if I didn't have to but I feel that this is "dark side" that exists that people should know about an Massive Multiplayer Online Game equivalent. It is probably should not be there because I don't want to advocate it but people are possibly doing that and there is no real guard against it. I want you, the readers, to be equipped with the knowledge that it exists but even after knowing that still not abuse it. It sounds very hopeful and I'm probably better off removing it (although I can't) for many reasons.
First, with your assertion that cards are banned for not being absurdly powerful in their format, please provide some examples from Wizards sanctioned formats (aside from ante and dexterity cards in Vintage).
Um, for what it's worth, Cryptic Command is the only card in Standard that does what it does- I defy you to give me one card that can accomplish all the Cryptic does.
The fact that Rats occupies a unique slot in the metagame has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it should be banned. As I said, numerous cards occupy unique slots and have non-replicate cards yet you aren't asking for them to be banned- only Rats because it's "reusable" and "flexible." I can make the same argument about Krosan Tusker or mesmeric Fiend or Mogg fanatic. In Pauper, all creatures are reusable and the best ones are flexible.
The fact that Black has other options for removal has no bearing on this argument, as we are talking about Crypt Rats. Is Black a powerful color with access to great effects? Yes. Is that, in conjunction with the potency of Crypt Rats enough to get Rats banned? I still don't think so.
We now have a card in Standard, Vengeful Rebirth that lets us reuse Wrath of God- should we ban Wrath?
Nucklavee lets you get back a Cruel Ultimatum and a Cryptic Command - let's ban all three!
Rats only makes it Varsity vs JV if you refuse to acknowledge its power and prepare for it. If you're playing a deck that just flat out loses to Rats, then you're not playing to win, you are playing to prove a point.
The mistake everyone seems to make is that the criterion for banning a card is not simply an amazingly broken level, i.e. Cranial Plating. There are plenty of cards across different formats that feature banned/restricted cards that are not at the uppermost limit of power level. (As a side, I do maintain that Crypt Rats is that powerful, but for the sake of the argument, I'll let that point slide) The analogy to Cryptic Command seems to make sense on the surface, but if you really examine what the cards do, the analogy doesn't work so well for me. Is CC a card you have to build around? Yes. Is it a great card. Of course. Is it the only card in the format that can achieve the goals it achieves? Not even close.
That's the problem with Crypt Rats. It is reusable, it is flexible, it is the only card in the format that does what it does. Throw all the other "sweepers" out; they are not the same type of card. Rolling Thunder is as far away from Crypt Rats as you can possibly get. (Another side note, if there were five different cards that did what CR does, you would not need to ban them all, you would have to ban none) The arguments that this card keeps the aggressive creature decks in check is a fairly weak argument, simply because black has so many options for removal. And it has so many options for removal that get around even pro-black guys or enablers. MBC can hang with Slivers, et al, with just its removal and/or sac-removal. Add in Crypt Rats, however, and the game field just isn't level.
As to limiting creativity, many of the decks that have game against MBC do pack main-deck hate. Sure, those cards have hate for Tendrils/Corrupt, as well, but we all know why they're in there. The pro-black hate really does nothing against sac-removal. Further, some of the decks have game against MBC, but fairly little against the rest of the field. When you have that scenario, it really is only an eyelash away from best deck vs. hate-against-best-deck deck.
The attendance is a shaky barometer. In general, I agree with you, but because Pauper is still a new format in terms of official sanctioning, the amount of play and attendance will probably be high no matter what. People just want to play PEs in this format right now. Believe me, I know plenty of people who really hate MBC mostly due to Rats and some have stopped playing because they know they either have to play MBC or some sort of deck that packs tons of hate.
Tendrils is strong, yes, but in the end it really only is removal. Slivers and other creature decks can easily overcome Tendrils, or at least stay competitive. But when Rats shows up, it's like Varsity vs. Junior Varsity.
I would suggest trying out Premier Events as the value in such events are much higher than spending so much time to attempt 50 drafts. 3 QP points by top 8'ing a Premier Event is much easier and realistic than winning 15 drafts from my view.
this is way not legal and i know others beat me to the punch, but i gotta say that even thinking about it is a no go. I would love to get my clanies to play on my account but its so not anywhere near fair. i hope any one caught doing this gets nailed to the wall for violating the terms of service.
I didn't do well in the actual champs... I finished 126th after what felt like a comedy of errors. In terms of drafting for QP's, it makes a lot more sense to go nix tix if possible. Since it's 50 drafts for 15QP, that's 100tix right there that you can save with 'nix' promotions.
While I do like the strategy I've developed for AAC, it doesn't work with ACR at all. Reborn has cards which make both Grixis and Jund better, to the point where Esper and Naya are no longer dominant. For example, the biggest weakness of Grixis, no big men, is no longer an issue with the commons in Reborn. Bant is still a bad choice because it suffers from a lack of removal. It's no longer completely true that Naya is always superior to Bant, but it is still my preference.
Could you put in stats for dollars spent, tickets/packs used and maybe even hours playing? It would be very interesting to compare them to the other 15QPs in 50 drafts articles on this site. Thanks for a great write-up!
While I agree that Tarmotog has a responsibility to the community to not condone illegal behavior in terms of MTGO, I do think the situation has been overblown slightly. I can think of at least three different players who write for Starcity's premium ($$$) articles, and have all mentioned letting other people play their drafts and tournaments. It's just a touchy subject because there's no way to enforce it within MTGO. A lot of people break this rule. Unless the next version of MTGO has a retinal-scan device to verify player identity, this will continue to be commonplace in the game.
I'd be interested in seeing what you plan to add with ARB, especially in the Control based deck.
bladestk:
First off, you are right- I misunderstood your point about the multiple activations of Crypt rats since you called it "reuseability."
All the cards you mentioned are restricted in formats where A)They win the game when drawn or B) Reduce the variance of decks and help them find their game winning cards. While Crypt Rats is awfully good, drawing it alone does not equal a win. The ability to activate Crypt Rats multiple times is an advantage when trying to get around Circles of Protection and Obsidian Acolyte, but that's really about it. Please xplain how this is such a huge power boost.
With regards to Cryptic Command, you said "Is it the only card in the format that can achieve the goals it achieves? Not even close." It is the only card that can do all the things it does, and hence achieve those goals. If a "Blue" deck did not want to run Cryptic Command and still have access to all those abilities, it would have to run copies of four different cards.
bjbrains:
Take a look at the top 16 from the last event, or even the top 32. How many decks there are heavily prepared with specific hate for Rats main? By my count, one. Burn does not have a good matchup with MBC, in my experience, thanks to the abundance of life gain in MBC.
Just because decks have to prepare for a card in the metagame does not mean it warrants being banned. It just means you have to be prepared.
As I understand it, here is the argument against Crypt Rats:
It's a good card in a good deck, and the only card that can do what it does. If we take it away, the deck will still be good. All decks in Pauper must prepare to face Crypt Rats.
Now, if that is true, I can simply replace Crypt Rats with ANY HEAVILY PLAYED CARD in Pauper and I could come up with an argument for banning. For example:
Fireblast is a good card in a good deck, and the only card that can do what it does. If we take it away, the deck will still be good. All decks in Pauper must prepare to face Fireblast.
Please correct me if I am wrong in my assertions.
-Alex
you can check them weekly when they update the score board
Hey, Tog.
Mine was the first comment and I wasn't really trying to get you into any trouble. I like your articles and your writing style in general.
I also agree that yeah it does happen. Gold buying happens in WoW, Isk buying happens in EVE, Getting a bot to play your account used to happen in WoW, Online accounts are bought and sold in many MMO's where it is against the 'terms of service' or 'code of conduct'. These are all examples of things that are not legal but very hard to police. I didn't have any real objection with the subject being raised.
It did however come over in your article not as a comment that it may well be happening. It come across as more as an endorsement of it.
Anyway that has all been said and it's been removed so in my mind it's all good. Keep writing the articles dude.
So far, the news that's popped up on the Prereleases information with MTGO's Home Page. 30 Freaking Tix for a Prerelease.. WotC's Really trying to Kill secondary market Tix Prices.
I'm aware they're doing it for a reason, if people can buy tix for .89 cents on the collar, then why would they buy them for $1.09 in the store.... Gah. Personally, i'm boycotting the prerelease issue, 30 tix is Stupid, It'd probably be a better choice instead of Tix, Just selling Prerelease Bundles in the Store, 3 of each pack (AAARRR) Plus the leftover Tix and such to make it even $30 like it is in paper... But killing the Tix Prices is BAD! People wont buy tix from the Store any more than they already do, tax really hurts the whole point of $1 entry fee tix, forcing us to pay additional in tax makes it ugly. Boosters being a taxable thing, just fine. but Tix. that's just Ugly.
The whole prerelease issues just end up hurting MTGO, with the prices the way they are.. I was saying to my local buddies, if prereleases were less Tix, might be more welcomed. but it being 30 tix just hurts tix all the more.
how do i know whats the number of points i have , i don't remeber the number of drafts i won , and rating doesn't tell me anything...
It may be against the coc, but since we all know that people do it I dont see the problem in bringing it up. Im sure a small percentage of the people with 15qps had friends help, and while it may be against the coc, it is still something to look at if you must get those 15 no matter what. Personally, I would never trust anybody to use my account unless I knew them in person (my brother, and roomate maybe). Seems like an easy way to lose some $ cards from your collection. But I did have my roomate play the third round of a draft for me , when I got called in to work early one day. He lost.
Tarmatog, great article. Dont be sorry for writing the truth.
Tarmotog, thanks for the advice. I don't know why people are tripping over the "terms of service". It's your account, do what you want with it!
I guess I owe everyone an apology, especially to puremtgo.com.
There's nothing I can say to justify what I have written.
I'm sorry for the trouble caused.
This is exactly why I advocate banning Crypt Rats. Decks *must* heavily prepare, mainboard and sideboard, for the crypt rats (discounting the low-creature decks like MUC, and Burn which tend to have a better matchup vs MBC partially for this reason). Crypt rats are the only sweeper who's damage is only limited by your mana in Pauper. The "But then aggro would always win" argument fails to impress me, as MBC role in the current metagame is *not* an aggro hoser, as it has multiple good matchups beyond aggro (and some mediocre aggro matchups).
Every deck in Pauper has to either plan for Crypt rats (Through the anti-sweepers), or play around them by not playing many creatures (Burn, MUC). This is *not* WoG in standard (Which Wizards just printed a hose for, ironically).
When I read over the article, I got to point 6, and got a different meaning than everyone else did. As I went over the article, and that part in particular, I honestly thought that he was talking about enlisting friends for support.
I did not under any circumstance think tarmotog was going on about having players play on your account.
However, I can see how people could get that idea.
I will be removing point 6. Puremtgo does not condone breaking the terms of service, nor will we glorify it here. It is an issue for another article.
Joshua Claytor.
horrible advice. getting friends to help you! how can you post that on this nice website and say that it's part of the "guide to getting 15 QPs" mise well call it the guide to get in trouble with wotc. shame on you.
You may have been unaware that this was against the coc and illegal for implementation. but that dosent stop the fact that you endorse this behavior in your article. going back with a lenghty explanation of why you thought you have to justify putting in the option dosent stop it from being written.
in the context of your article this is something you suggest people do to make there 15 points. nowhere do you say or even hint that this is an amoral choice and infact you even go a step in the opposite direction pointing out that this is something that you can not get away with in paper magic.
I will except that you may not have known that this was actually not within the legal parmiters of the mol champs set up, however i find it hard to believe that you put this in there as a consicios effort to tell us the readers that it is something we have to worry about. The number of people playing on a single account has no bearing on my quest to obtain qp points what so ever, and i will never ever know if any givin player is the legal account holder. Why would we need to know of this option if it werent meant to be used?
Please do not thing that i am hating on you as i enjoy your articles but I think this is rediculos.
You're completely missing my point on reusability. I'm not talking about bringing it back from the graveyard. I'm talking about activating it multiple times in response to anything the opponent does. THAT is an enormous power boost; and you know it.
Also note that I said banned/restricted. There are a plethora of cards that are b/r in multiple formats that are powerful, but only when you pair them with other cards. A good example: Flash. Which card is more inherently powerful? Crypt Rats or Ponder? Gush? Not so cut and dry, is it? Goblin Recruiter: not inherently off the power charts, but coupled with other cards from the history of Magic, it becomes banworthy.
Of course there is not a specific card that does everything Cryptic Command does. Otherwise that card would be called CC II. But if Cryptic Command did not exist, are you telling me that control players would not be running some other form of permission or bounce? There's plenty of that around. The form of mass removal we're talking about in regards to Cryptic Rats in pauper, on the other hand, not replaceable. Make sense?
Uniqueness alone does not warrant bans or restrictions, as I've argued on the forums. It's just one piece of the pie. You can't pick apart the argument by saying that one specific piece of the argument isn't enough to call for a ban. I never said that. It's a sum effect. This card is much more complex in its utilization and effect than Cranial Plating. Yes, numerous cards are unique, but they don't have as broad - even the term we've been using for it is broad: sweeper - an application as CR.
I never said that black's potency is a reason to ban the Rats. I said black is versatile enough to survive without the Rats, which is a counter to the argument that everyone makes about its place in the metagame. "It keeps things in check." Well, yeah, because it's absurdly powerful. Black would be ok without it, but everyone assumes it's only the Rats that do this.
You are getting a little outrageous at the end of your post. I won't consider the parts about banning Wrath, Nuck, CC, and Ultimatums, because you misinterpreted by statement about CR's reusability. But to assume that I'm not acknowledging the power of the card is a bit absurd. I'm talking about the power of the card. Of course I take it into account when I build and play a deck, that's the point. To beat it, many times you have to pack the hate or get fortunate, or fare poorly against the field, or one of many other subpar outcomes. Why would I ever play a deck in a competitive format that flat out folds to the best card/deck? That makes no sense at all.
This series of articles was written by someone who returned online after a year hiatus. Meaning the card pool for constructed classic (med2), standard (some lorwyn/mornintide/base sets), and block (no alara) was not present in my collection.
Extended events, which I did try entering at two points, either didn't fire or were inaccessible due to a collection bug I described.
Sealed events weren't a realistic choice compared to drafts, as they would require the purchase of starter packs from the store for admittance, increasing the real money cost significantly. Alternatively, I could pay 15tix for starters, but for that same price I simply bought an extra booster pack. Drafts are much better than sealed if you want to build your collection for possible constructed events, such as the actual formats for the championships, both in seasons one and two.
However if you have the cards already, then yes, Daily Events (not premiers, which I don't think give QP) are better in terms of time commitment. Maybe value as well; I can't comment on that.
Basic Land - PEs do give QPs. I definitely got mine there. The release events will be on the PE page rather than the daily page so it's kinda odd.
radman99 - It would be an unfair estimate I would think to show how much I spent cos I got 3 qps out of a free event, I consecutively t4 2 stronghold event which gave me 15 pax, of which I sold the tempest pax early on to get tournament pax. The 9 pts I got basically paid for itself past the sealed and the pax I spent on drafts came from the Xed sealed i managed to t2 in (b4 the season which gave about 18 pax) and also the tpf (18 pax again I think) where i got t8.
In short, u win big online but probably in the daily event/premier events. If you want to go "infinite", those are probably the only way you can do it in my opinion so you should choose very carefully where you make your move in to increase your chances of doing so.
My plan was to maximize the drafts done in the nix tix season but as you can see, I only made 1 QP (at a 8-4 fortunately) despite having an equivalent of probably 12 draft sets (at the start) of which I liquidated some draft sets into tix to get cards. I think it is much easier (or maybe just more worth it) to t8 a pe than to win a draft (cos u need many things to go right). I guess the fairest estimate of my spendings will be reflected from what I have left at the end of season 1 which is 6xed pax, 8tempest-4 stronghold.
everyone else - #6 is indeed very controversial and I really would rather not have written about it if I didn't have to but I feel that this is "dark side" that exists that people should know about an Massive Multiplayer Online Game equivalent. It is probably should not be there because I don't want to advocate it but people are possibly doing that and there is no real guard against it. I want you, the readers, to be equipped with the knowledge that it exists but even after knowing that still not abuse it. It sounds very hopeful and I'm probably better off removing it (although I can't) for many reasons.
First, with your assertion that cards are banned for not being absurdly powerful in their format, please provide some examples from Wizards sanctioned formats (aside from ante and dexterity cards in Vintage).
Um, for what it's worth, Cryptic Command is the only card in Standard that does what it does- I defy you to give me one card that can accomplish all the Cryptic does.
The fact that Rats occupies a unique slot in the metagame has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it should be banned. As I said, numerous cards occupy unique slots and have non-replicate cards yet you aren't asking for them to be banned- only Rats because it's "reusable" and "flexible." I can make the same argument about Krosan Tusker or mesmeric Fiend or Mogg fanatic. In Pauper, all creatures are reusable and the best ones are flexible.
The fact that Black has other options for removal has no bearing on this argument, as we are talking about Crypt Rats. Is Black a powerful color with access to great effects? Yes. Is that, in conjunction with the potency of Crypt Rats enough to get Rats banned? I still don't think so.
We now have a card in Standard, Vengeful Rebirth that lets us reuse Wrath of God- should we ban Wrath?
Nucklavee lets you get back a Cruel Ultimatum and a Cryptic Command - let's ban all three!
Rats only makes it Varsity vs JV if you refuse to acknowledge its power and prepare for it. If you're playing a deck that just flat out loses to Rats, then you're not playing to win, you are playing to prove a point.
-Alex
The mistake everyone seems to make is that the criterion for banning a card is not simply an amazingly broken level, i.e. Cranial Plating. There are plenty of cards across different formats that feature banned/restricted cards that are not at the uppermost limit of power level. (As a side, I do maintain that Crypt Rats is that powerful, but for the sake of the argument, I'll let that point slide) The analogy to Cryptic Command seems to make sense on the surface, but if you really examine what the cards do, the analogy doesn't work so well for me. Is CC a card you have to build around? Yes. Is it a great card. Of course. Is it the only card in the format that can achieve the goals it achieves? Not even close.
That's the problem with Crypt Rats. It is reusable, it is flexible, it is the only card in the format that does what it does. Throw all the other "sweepers" out; they are not the same type of card. Rolling Thunder is as far away from Crypt Rats as you can possibly get. (Another side note, if there were five different cards that did what CR does, you would not need to ban them all, you would have to ban none) The arguments that this card keeps the aggressive creature decks in check is a fairly weak argument, simply because black has so many options for removal. And it has so many options for removal that get around even pro-black guys or enablers. MBC can hang with Slivers, et al, with just its removal and/or sac-removal. Add in Crypt Rats, however, and the game field just isn't level.
As to limiting creativity, many of the decks that have game against MBC do pack main-deck hate. Sure, those cards have hate for Tendrils/Corrupt, as well, but we all know why they're in there. The pro-black hate really does nothing against sac-removal. Further, some of the decks have game against MBC, but fairly little against the rest of the field. When you have that scenario, it really is only an eyelash away from best deck vs. hate-against-best-deck deck.
The attendance is a shaky barometer. In general, I agree with you, but because Pauper is still a new format in terms of official sanctioning, the amount of play and attendance will probably be high no matter what. People just want to play PEs in this format right now. Believe me, I know plenty of people who really hate MBC mostly due to Rats and some have stopped playing because they know they either have to play MBC or some sort of deck that packs tons of hate.
Tendrils is strong, yes, but in the end it really only is removal. Slivers and other creature decks can easily overcome Tendrils, or at least stay competitive. But when Rats shows up, it's like Varsity vs. Junior Varsity.
Banning is a lasy solution for everything. Deal with MBC or go away and play extended, standard, etc...
I would suggest trying out Premier Events as the value in such events are much higher than spending so much time to attempt 50 drafts. 3 QP points by top 8'ing a Premier Event is much easier and realistic than winning 15 drafts from my view.
I just talked to an ORC and confirmed that only Daily Events top8 give 3QP, the Premier Events don't count. Good Luck to everyone
this is way not legal and i know others beat me to the punch, but i gotta say that even thinking about it is a no go. I would love to get my clanies to play on my account but its so not anywhere near fair. i hope any one caught doing this gets nailed to the wall for violating the terms of service.
I didn't do well in the actual champs... I finished 126th after what felt like a comedy of errors. In terms of drafting for QP's, it makes a lot more sense to go nix tix if possible. Since it's 50 drafts for 15QP, that's 100tix right there that you can save with 'nix' promotions.
While I do like the strategy I've developed for AAC, it doesn't work with ACR at all. Reborn has cards which make both Grixis and Jund better, to the point where Esper and Naya are no longer dominant. For example, the biggest weakness of Grixis, no big men, is no longer an issue with the commons in Reborn. Bant is still a bad choice because it suffers from a lack of removal. It's no longer completely true that Naya is always superior to Bant, but it is still my preference.
Could you put in stats for dollars spent, tickets/packs used and maybe even hours playing? It would be very interesting to compare them to the other 15QPs in 50 drafts articles on this site. Thanks for a great write-up!