And as for your other comment ("Uh, 1 account per player restriction dude..."), I'm not sure what you mean.
The 1 Single Client Restriction (SCR) is currently lifted. It will be on again for the Lorwyn release, but that's not what Worth was talking about. The change coming up for replay instances is only restricting the replays not the amount of game instances. As it was originally stated by Worth, we'd only be able to have two game instances open. Meaning that at most we could be in 2 events. This has been ammended in my reply above to mean that you can still have up to 10 game instances open (as it is now) but if you have a game up you cannot send a replay request.
I had a great big long post written up, but I know how Dreager hates those. So I'll make three brief points:
Wizards is capable of printing mass removal at common without screwing up limited. The Martyr, the echoing cycle, Nausea, squall, all great examples of mass removal in various colors that didn't mess up limited. I'm asking for more like that, please. And maybe something in white; I don't think we have seen that yet. The closest we've come is lowland tracker, which I think you'll agree isn't very close.
Regarding sponsorship; let me hedge my bet. I don't think official sponsorship is the way to go, but I am a little curious about what would happen if we got prize support from an official sponsor. It's never been done in PDC to my knowledge. The closest we've come is MPDC. During their inaugural events, there was awesome prize support provided by the host. This resulted in attendance numbers parralleling those of SPDC, a much more established tournament. MPDC hasn't been renowned as a particularly innovative tournament, but standard is always churning anyway, so it would be more difficult to tell. Once prize support waned, the number of participants waned as well.
PDCers as a rule are egocentric. They care more about the fame and notoriety that comes with winning than the pecunary gain they recieve from doing so. I wouldn't have it any other way. In a perverse way this makes the community stronger, since you are less likely to want to piss off the people among whom you would be famous. Non-classic PDC tournaments simply offer more fame than classic tournaments do right now. It is my belief that if they offered trophies, power rankings and weekly event reports, attendance would skyrocket. The format is filled with untapped potential; PDCers simply need a reason to tap it.
More background on the discussion of the popularity of classic can be found at the link below. It's a fun read, full of famous paupers bickering at each other:
The problem with your request of mass removal at the common slot is that mass removal is usually granted to three colors via three different ways. White and black share on occasion the destroy all creatures effect, and red has damage removal. The problem with printing a common mass removal spell is simply... it would pretty much screw up limited. Having too many decent mass removal spells in the common slot would make curved creatures a bad proposition. Imagine, if every rift bolt in TPF was actually a common slot pyroclasm? I don't want to imagine that.
Also, this site is for everyone #1. There's Erik with information about all the forums happenings that most people (IE me :P ) don't want to sit down and read about, there's Alex with his amazing PDC articles and his attempts to breath life into PDC, and Evu whose articles are so awesome and so long, I usually read half of it and come back later to get the full enjoyment out of it.
However, my opinion reflects innovation. History tells us, individuals create solutions based on needs to. Why was the cotton gin invented? Slavery was dying down, and there needed to be a more efficent way of harvesting cotton. Why is Greater Gargadon being played in almost every red deck even though at the beginning everyone thought it sucked? Because, pepole were running shennanigans like Tendrils of Corruption, and it became necessary to find a tech that dealt with the urborg + tendrils combo.
However, another key issue behind all of these things was that the inventor stood to gain a lot. Whitney made a fortune (quite literally) and that was his goal. If you've ever seen a red deck with gargadon top 8, I can point you there as a person reaping the benefits.
Likewise, I believe PDC needs a huge sponsership. I intuitively look to WotC because they're the ones with the least to lose from doing so. Heath can't support a 2x prize tournament with DCI reporter and maintain deck checks, prevent cheating, and gather enough people to pay 6 tixs to. WotC can, has, and hopefully will.
Indeed. The issue of the popularity of Classic was discussed a few months ago on the paupermagic.com forums, and various solutions were bandied about. I don't believe any of them have been implemented yet. Perhaps in the next season we'll see some change.
I agree with Runeliger that a lack of reward for one's efforts is one of the causes of the stagnation in classic. I disagree with him about the reward, though. I would prefer not to see official WOTC involvement in the format. If any members of R&D are listening, though, PLEASE PRINT MORE COMMON MASS REMOVAL ONCE MARTYR OF ASHES ROTATES. Preferably in a non-red color. Like squall or crypt rats. Thank you.
First of all, I am one of the many who is against WotC involving themselves in PDC.
Second, while Classic may be currently stagnant, Standard is far from it. Acknowledging the interest level of the Lorwyn commons just shows that Lorwyn brings something new and exciting to PDC, Standard in particular.
Part of having an 'eternal' format like Classic is having 'eternal' decks. But there are new decks being designed. Grand Entrance. These decks win -- even win Worlds Championships. I think the bleak state of the format some of you perceive from this article is far from the truth.
If this is a site purely for Spikes, maybe PDC doesn't appeal to you. But there are plenty of players who think Pauper on MTGO is just as exciting as ever!
I too find that without official support there is not really a great reward to playing PDC outside of not playing against the same net decks in the casual rooms (however, ive found that more people play discard, counter, and burn more in PDC then any other format..)
I like classic too.. but it is a rock paper scisors format right now.. PDC is hard to make a good combo deck as combo pieces are generally rare with the enablers uncommon.. but you know.. i like the format.
Minor modification after talking with elf regarding number of game instances available to be open at one time:
The new change means that you will only be able to request a replay if you are NOT already engaged in ANY game instance activity. All other game instance requests are fine, meaning that if you want to play in 3 PE's, 2 drafts, and a casual game all at once, that would be fine/possible.
What we're really trying to do with this change is drive down huge replay requests hitting the queue all at once.
As far as the LRW 2x/4x top8/no top8 thing, Scott is still out of the office in Essen for the Magic invitational, we'll discuss it when he gets back next week and post something definitive before LRW release events begin on 11/2."
Meaning that you can still have multiple playing instances open. Just not as many replay instances.
Seems like if you want to play in 2+ PEs at once, you might want to use multiple accounts and therefore multiple instances of the client. If you have a relatively modern computer, you should be able to run multiple VMs, each with their own MtGO client running. I have a one year old Mac that I use to play, I run a couple of VMs at once when I need to.
Erik, what about those of us who play 2 PEs+ at once? Will we still be able to to do that? (And trust me, there's quite a few players who do this)
Just wondering
Love this article series... I used to be able to keep up with the boards, but nowadays with class, I perfer to play magic versus read about MODO... Your article really helps me a bunch!
How about No Rest for the Wicked? It may be an obvious combo for your opponent to figure out, but, if you pop a mass removal (or they do!), sacrifice NRFTW, and then let the reset resolve, the creatures that they would normally get go back to your hand and you get theirs. Theoretically...
For me, I believe the format inevitably lacks the fund support. As a tournament player, or just any player who's out to do whatever, without adequate reward, there's not as much motivation to break the format, or solve the format (depending on your outlook). Thus, individuals posessing the know-how to effectively do so (not saying PDC players are bad, but to be honest there are 1000s of more people trying to break Lorywn Standard than PDC now) are missing.
What the format needs is sometihng similar to what WoTC did for Classic... offical support. If it can get that offical support that it needs, I'm sure the format will instantly be revitalized, given the fact it's probably the cheapest one to play (with the exception of Momir Basic).
So my 2 cents is basically, the format needs more players to beat these dominant decks, and it needs to beat these dominant decks to attract more players, is circular, and nothing gets done... So it may be time for WoTC to step in...
Also, Lorywn rocks in terms of its upcoming commons.
Good to see simple articles that focus on one aspect of the PDC play experience.
Those three decks all have different play feels, but they exploit the same concept of interactivity. Very interesting -- and useful not just for Classic!
Since my eventual goal is to get into playing PDC, I found this article very informative. Having yet to play a single PDC game, see what the standards are, and how to deal with them, gave me more insight than the pauper site has given me. The deck I had in mind to make... needs some tweaking now to work in the standard metagame. Although, in all likelihood, I'll probably only play causally, since I work during most of the tourneys. Thanks for the info!
When you're decked, you lose the game due to drawing a card from an empty library. Your opponent doesn't win. This can be seen most clearly in multiplayer formats, but holds true in a duel. The card is worded to avoid winning by decking yourself.
The article was fantastic, I must apologize for the formatting errors, completly my fault, and it has been fixed, please discuss the article :)
er the last comment I made was directed towards pcjr. But yes, I understand it's been lifted. Can't wait till ya next article
My bad Sebastian!
And as for your other comment ("Uh, 1 account per player restriction dude..."), I'm not sure what you mean.
The 1 Single Client Restriction (SCR) is currently lifted. It will be on again for the Lorwyn release, but that's not what Worth was talking about. The change coming up for replay instances is only restricting the replays not the amount of game instances. As it was originally stated by Worth, we'd only be able to have two game instances open. Meaning that at most we could be in 2 events. This has been ammended in my reply above to mean that you can still have up to 10 game instances open (as it is now) but if you have a game up you cannot send a replay request.
I had a great big long post written up, but I know how Dreager hates those. So I'll make three brief points:
Wizards is capable of printing mass removal at common without screwing up limited. The Martyr, the echoing cycle, Nausea, squall, all great examples of mass removal in various colors that didn't mess up limited. I'm asking for more like that, please. And maybe something in white; I don't think we have seen that yet. The closest we've come is lowland tracker, which I think you'll agree isn't very close.
Regarding sponsorship; let me hedge my bet. I don't think official sponsorship is the way to go, but I am a little curious about what would happen if we got prize support from an official sponsor. It's never been done in PDC to my knowledge. The closest we've come is MPDC. During their inaugural events, there was awesome prize support provided by the host. This resulted in attendance numbers parralleling those of SPDC, a much more established tournament. MPDC hasn't been renowned as a particularly innovative tournament, but standard is always churning anyway, so it would be more difficult to tell. Once prize support waned, the number of participants waned as well.
PDCers as a rule are egocentric. They care more about the fame and notoriety that comes with winning than the pecunary gain they recieve from doing so. I wouldn't have it any other way. In a perverse way this makes the community stronger, since you are less likely to want to piss off the people among whom you would be famous. Non-classic PDC tournaments simply offer more fame than classic tournaments do right now. It is my belief that if they offered trophies, power rankings and weekly event reports, attendance would skyrocket. The format is filled with untapped potential; PDCers simply need a reason to tap it.
More background on the discussion of the popularity of classic can be found at the link below. It's a fun read, full of famous paupers bickering at each other:
http://www.paupermagic.com/Forums/tabid/54/forumid/-1/threadid/4298/scop...
The problem with your request of mass removal at the common slot is that mass removal is usually granted to three colors via three different ways. White and black share on occasion the destroy all creatures effect, and red has damage removal. The problem with printing a common mass removal spell is simply... it would pretty much screw up limited. Having too many decent mass removal spells in the common slot would make curved creatures a bad proposition. Imagine, if every rift bolt in TPF was actually a common slot pyroclasm? I don't want to imagine that.
Also, this site is for everyone #1. There's Erik with information about all the forums happenings that most people (IE me :P ) don't want to sit down and read about, there's Alex with his amazing PDC articles and his attempts to breath life into PDC, and Evu whose articles are so awesome and so long, I usually read half of it and come back later to get the full enjoyment out of it.
However, my opinion reflects innovation. History tells us, individuals create solutions based on needs to. Why was the cotton gin invented? Slavery was dying down, and there needed to be a more efficent way of harvesting cotton. Why is Greater Gargadon being played in almost every red deck even though at the beginning everyone thought it sucked? Because, pepole were running shennanigans like Tendrils of Corruption, and it became necessary to find a tech that dealt with the urborg + tendrils combo.
However, another key issue behind all of these things was that the inventor stood to gain a lot. Whitney made a fortune (quite literally) and that was his goal. If you've ever seen a red deck with gargadon top 8, I can point you there as a person reaping the benefits.
Likewise, I believe PDC needs a huge sponsership. I intuitively look to WotC because they're the ones with the least to lose from doing so. Heath can't support a 2x prize tournament with DCI reporter and maintain deck checks, prevent cheating, and gather enough people to pay 6 tixs to. WotC can, has, and hopefully will.
Feel free to talk to me about this
-Seb
Indeed. The issue of the popularity of Classic was discussed a few months ago on the paupermagic.com forums, and various solutions were bandied about. I don't believe any of them have been implemented yet. Perhaps in the next season we'll see some change.
I agree with Runeliger that a lack of reward for one's efforts is one of the causes of the stagnation in classic. I disagree with him about the reward, though. I would prefer not to see official WOTC involvement in the format. If any members of R&D are listening, though, PLEASE PRINT MORE COMMON MASS REMOVAL ONCE MARTYR OF ASHES ROTATES. Preferably in a non-red color. Like squall or crypt rats. Thank you.
Have a similar deck and have found rust elemental to be a fun thing to give to my foes...
First of all, I am one of the many who is against WotC involving themselves in PDC.
Second, while Classic may be currently stagnant, Standard is far from it. Acknowledging the interest level of the Lorwyn commons just shows that Lorwyn brings something new and exciting to PDC, Standard in particular.
Part of having an 'eternal' format like Classic is having 'eternal' decks. But there are new decks being designed. Grand Entrance. These decks win -- even win Worlds Championships. I think the bleak state of the format some of you perceive from this article is far from the truth.
If this is a site purely for Spikes, maybe PDC doesn't appeal to you. But there are plenty of players who think Pauper on MTGO is just as exciting as ever!
I always enjoy the articles..
I too find that without official support there is not really a great reward to playing PDC outside of not playing against the same net decks in the casual rooms (however, ive found that more people play discard, counter, and burn more in PDC then any other format..)
I like classic too.. but it is a rock paper scisors format right now.. PDC is hard to make a good combo deck as combo pieces are generally rare with the enablers uncommon.. but you know.. i like the format.
Uh, 1 account per player restriction dude...
Also Erik, it's Sebastian with an A :P
http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14118021postcount=37
"
The new change means that you will only be able to request a replay if you are NOT already engaged in ANY game instance activity. All other game instance requests are fine, meaning that if you want to play in 3 PE's, 2 drafts, and a casual game all at once, that would be fine/possible.
What we're really trying to do with this change is drive down huge replay requests hitting the queue all at once.
As far as the LRW 2x/4x top8/no top8 thing, Scott is still out of the office in Essen for the Magic invitational, we'll discuss it when he gets back next week and post something definitive before LRW release events begin on 11/2."
Thanks for the feedback Sebastion!. :)
Seems like if you want to play in 2+ PEs at once, you might want to use multiple accounts and therefore multiple instances of the client. If you have a relatively modern computer, you should be able to run multiple VMs, each with their own MtGO client running. I have a one year old Mac that I use to play, I run a couple of VMs at once when I need to.
The heck!? 2 game instances?
Erik, what about those of us who play 2 PEs+ at once? Will we still be able to to do that? (And trust me, there's quite a few players who do this)
Just wondering
Love this article series... I used to be able to keep up with the boards, but nowadays with class, I perfer to play magic versus read about MODO... Your article really helps me a bunch!
-Sebastian
How about No Rest for the Wicked? It may be an obvious combo for your opponent to figure out, but, if you pop a mass removal (or they do!), sacrifice NRFTW, and then let the reset resolve, the creatures that they would normally get go back to your hand and you get theirs. Theoretically...
For me, I believe the format inevitably lacks the fund support. As a tournament player, or just any player who's out to do whatever, without adequate reward, there's not as much motivation to break the format, or solve the format (depending on your outlook). Thus, individuals posessing the know-how to effectively do so (not saying PDC players are bad, but to be honest there are 1000s of more people trying to break Lorywn Standard than PDC now) are missing.
What the format needs is sometihng similar to what WoTC did for Classic... offical support. If it can get that offical support that it needs, I'm sure the format will instantly be revitalized, given the fact it's probably the cheapest one to play (with the exception of Momir Basic).
So my 2 cents is basically, the format needs more players to beat these dominant decks, and it needs to beat these dominant decks to attract more players, is circular, and nothing gets done... So it may be time for WoTC to step in...
Also, Lorywn rocks in terms of its upcoming commons.
Good to see simple articles that focus on one aspect of the PDC play experience.
Those three decks all have different play feels, but they exploit the same concept of interactivity. Very interesting -- and useful not just for Classic!
Thanks, Spike!
Very good read.
I always enjoy articles that provide help or teach you something. Walk throughs are nice, but they don't often provide insight.
Great job and keep it up
Since my eventual goal is to get into playing PDC, I found this article very informative. Having yet to play a single PDC game, see what the standards are, and how to deal with them, gave me more insight than the pauper site has given me. The deck I had in mind to make... needs some tweaking now to work in the standard metagame. Although, in all likelihood, I'll probably only play causally, since I work during most of the tourneys. Thanks for the info!
Yes they do look a tad off. I think i'ts something to do with the tables you used. I'll try to get Josh to look at it.
Hey Umii,
Great article. Always nice to see other players pushing the format.
how bout puting a few sleeper agents in so wenever you kill it it just ends up going to you and returning to him? would it work like that?
When you're decked, you lose the game due to drawing a card from an empty library. Your opponent doesn't win. This can be seen most clearly in multiplayer formats, but holds true in a duel. The card is worded to avoid winning by decking yourself.
Wow, broken. It doesn't even be a win due to your opponent. Here's how to build around it:
Leveller + Redemption
Accelerate into turn 3-4 Leveller, play Redemption on your upkeep. You are about to lose to decking, but win to it instead.
Note that Redemption wouldn't just "re-direct" alternate win conditions, it would also prevent (steal) wins by decking.
Evu this is really a great piece of work. Well done!
And yes, card images look a little bit weird.