I usually don’t comment on PRE’s, because I don’t play in them. But this is not a PRE issue, per say – it’s an issue of freedom of association. ‘PLAYERS’ (People) may ‘RUN an EVENT’ (Associate) in any manner that they see fit. So if some PRE’s want to enact bans, and others don’t, who is anyone else to say it’s right or wrong? Don’t like banning? Don’t play in the event. Don’t like facing Mind’s Desire? Don’t play in the event. Honestly, I just don’t see the problem here – the market of free choice will sort this question out reeeeeaaal quick…move on, already.
Let's not forget that these are Player Run Events, and decisions about bannings here should be made by the players. Over in PDC, the current B&R list (Banned Cranial Plating, Restricted Artifact lands) and rules about Purple Cards (only if they have an online common counterpart) were made by the players themselves after lengthy forum discussion. Origianally, there was a monthly PDC forum where all players had their voice heard on any issue that was brought up (which was how the Affinity-neutering was decided).
I do not play FFA, I do however compete in a PRE community, so here goes my two cents.
Erman: WotC bans for sanctioned formats. Alot of people in the PRE community put much more time into testing these formats than WotC ever could (I highly doubt MaRo and RaBu sit around playing Pauper against one another). In cases such as these, player input should always be valued- if people were not showing up because of this paritcular combination of cards, then perhaps they would need to be examined. And because this is a PRE, one could always start up that does not ban the cards in question (as Ancien as done with Vintage PDC, which allows cards which were common in any printing, like Kird Ape).
Another misconception is the idea of PRE as budget. This is false. Even for PDC, as some staples there cost more than junk rares. While PDC is great for budget players (as you can build competitive decks for under 5 bucks), I do not think that PRE should ever equal budget. It has only had this relationship because palyers who are not on such a budget often gravitate towards evetns where they can win larger prizes (8 mans, Premier events).
Finally, I want to chime in on this idea of PRE Clans. Not every PRE has to be run by a clan. The template 1v1 PRE, PDC, was started not by a clan, but by one individual. The idea that there needs to be clans to have a PRE just strikes me as false. I'm not saying clans do not help (PDC has at least four active clans), but the assumption that for a PRE to exist there needs to be a clan, to me, is hurting PRE's more than helping them.
Sebastian: Good article, but this piece was primed for a personal opinion intertwined with it. Keep up the great work.
The whole game revolves around things being broken. thats the idea to break you opponet before he breaks you. How do you do that? you find the biggest hammer you can. the idea is to design a deck that is broken. thats the point and when you find one thats just that good people will change their decks acordingly. I remember when affinity was superbroken and what happen? people made decks that could do only one thing. beat affinity and because so many people were playing affinity it would win 8 man tornies. You have a sideboard use it. don't just ban cards. the only reason a card sould be banned is if it on its own is so overpowered that it disrupts things not because someone put the time and work in to makeing it usefull with other cards. thats what a deck is. THIS BANNING IS WRONG!
I thought long and hard on the issue of banning Mind's Desire from the weekly Chaos FFA. After much thought I then unbanned Kokusho, the Evening Star and left only Erayo banned and am seriously thinking of unbanning it as well. I brought the issue of Mind's Desire to several of the sponsors, fellow PRE hosts, and many, many of the PRE players. Of coarse the responces varied, but in the end, the answer most had was actually a question, "What's next?". I have never seen the PRE sceen as a place focused on "Budget" players, they have PDC PREs for them, but as a place I could go to be challenged. Honestly, I've played in the mulitiplayer room for many years now, and there are only a few players that make me smile when they sit at my table. They are the ones I know will challenge my playing skills. I know they come to win, as do I. But unfortunatly, most of the time I get random players on "Budget" decks that end up conceeding. So, I love to sit down at a table during any PRE and know I have actual compitetion facing me. That is what the PREs bring to me. But, I am only one of the many players there. We all play for our own reasons, and for those that play for the compitetion, I will do my best to make sure that at least the Sunday Chaos FFA (/join Chaos) will provide just that!
Im also completely against this. I don't understand why Kokushostorm was banned- it was never banned from CHAOS when it ran for over a year. People who play FFAs enough know the metagame- and there ARE answers. (False Cure, Stifle, etc. etc- in each colour). Sure, Dragonstorm won- but did it next time? No. Most likely every single person packed an answer and beat down on the storm player. PRE FFAs are competitive- and there's no possible way you can aim it towards budget players.
After reading my own comment, just like Runeliger, I felt that I sounded like I didn't like it or something like that but I totaly liked it, just wanted to point out some other important issues about serious play. Good job. :))
Unless a card is officially banned by WOTC, I am 100% against all these bannings. If it wins constantly, ban it! I most certainly do not agree with this. If the organizers want to see more budget/casual decks in their tournaments, then they should start hosting different formats or same format with different rules like "no more than 4 rares" or something alike. As I said, if WOTC doesn't ban it, then there is nothing wrong with it. And they probably know it better than anyone for THEY are the one who's spending 1000's and 1000's of USD's to their own tournaments. I think like that. And Runeliger, quality job as always.
I also agree with everybody else here that this is a very well written article and it was quite fun to read it. About the things that you wrote; there are things I agree and things I don't but I think that you focused a lot on the deck and card choices. Actually the whole article is about that. But piloting a deck is as important as having the best deck. Give the best deck to a mediocre player and see what he does and then give a mediocre deck to the best player and then see what he does. To succeed one must have a VERY good knowledge of the meta, he must know what he will be facing, a VERY good deck(be it a net deck or not), he must have HOURS of playtesting under his belt and he must be a VERY good player in general. This is how I think. The deck itself is never enough. Nice article anyway. Thanks.
It's definitely a huge improvement over your last article, but as you said in the beginning "most basic mistakes" is right. A lot of this article is quite intuitive, and bordering on common sense. I don't question your writing style, it's very pleasing to read, but you say things such as what you'd rather have, but there are tech in decks that allow for people to innovate, heck people thought Sulfur Elemental was terrible, but I'd like to point out PT Yokohoma had 114 Sulfur Elementals, making it the 2nd most played non-land card. Othewise, good article
I play in a store where i'm one of a select few players that accually play the game like you would see on the net, by that i mean i will use good deck and play them well.
But I very much would like others to play in the way but it's very hard to explain some of the concepts that you articulated very well just then.
I like the KISS concept and would show this to others if they were interested in improving there game.
This is much more like it. Good, sound advice with a definite audience, put across in a clear manner. All in all your best article yet, and a good benchmark for the future. Encore.
I do have to point out though that having the cost of 0, remove a counter (or sacrifice) has been errated to just... remove a counter (or sacrifice) no need to put the 0 in there...
Thanks for the feedback guys, I really do appreciate it(as I always do). AJ, I just don't know how I missed that Hatred. Call mine Hatred-2, what can I say now :((. And yes, we should definately have a custom cards&sets contest in our forums. That would be so much fun.
A useful primer, and the concept is cool, but the cards themselves seem a bit oddly powered and costed. I'd recommend playtesting the set with a few friends and seeing how it plays. Also, there's already a Hatred: a popular Exodus finisher.
I think your set has need been though the design team yet. Many of your cards seem overpowered. The goblin grenade, for example, is just a much more powerful mogg fanatic.
FYI: a 500 error means there in an error happening server side, not with your computer
I like how you've semi separated card analysis and draft hindsight. As other people have mentionen, after the third pick or so, the entire draft will change.
I always just thought people did these in photoshop and had no idea there was a program that does it for you. Man that makes it soo much easier. Once the forums are working we will def have to have a contest.
Really inspirational, ive been watning to make my own set of cards for year's, but the tast of using photoshop to do it all was too daunting, with the programmes you listed, its gonna be very fun...
Brilliant Article and i love some of your previews.
Although as I said that I have no knowledge of the format, Persecute seems to be a good replacement for Mind Sludge. And you can also fetch it with Dimir House Guard. Just a thought...
Also, Spike Boy's comments were spot on
I usually don’t comment on PRE’s, because I don’t play in them. But this is not a PRE issue, per say – it’s an issue of freedom of association. ‘PLAYERS’ (People) may ‘RUN an EVENT’ (Associate) in any manner that they see fit. So if some PRE’s want to enact bans, and others don’t, who is anyone else to say it’s right or wrong? Don’t like banning? Don’t play in the event. Don’t like facing Mind’s Desire? Don’t play in the event. Honestly, I just don’t see the problem here – the market of free choice will sort this question out reeeeeaaal quick…move on, already.
Let's not forget that these are Player Run Events, and decisions about bannings here should be made by the players. Over in PDC, the current B&R list (Banned Cranial Plating, Restricted Artifact lands) and rules about Purple Cards (only if they have an online common counterpart) were made by the players themselves after lengthy forum discussion. Origianally, there was a monthly PDC forum where all players had their voice heard on any issue that was brought up (which was how the Affinity-neutering was decided).
I do not play FFA, I do however compete in a PRE community, so here goes my two cents.
Erman: WotC bans for sanctioned formats. Alot of people in the PRE community put much more time into testing these formats than WotC ever could (I highly doubt MaRo and RaBu sit around playing Pauper against one another). In cases such as these, player input should always be valued- if people were not showing up because of this paritcular combination of cards, then perhaps they would need to be examined. And because this is a PRE, one could always start up that does not ban the cards in question (as Ancien as done with Vintage PDC, which allows cards which were common in any printing, like Kird Ape).
Another misconception is the idea of PRE as budget. This is false. Even for PDC, as some staples there cost more than junk rares. While PDC is great for budget players (as you can build competitive decks for under 5 bucks), I do not think that PRE should ever equal budget. It has only had this relationship because palyers who are not on such a budget often gravitate towards evetns where they can win larger prizes (8 mans, Premier events).
Finally, I want to chime in on this idea of PRE Clans. Not every PRE has to be run by a clan. The template 1v1 PRE, PDC, was started not by a clan, but by one individual. The idea that there needs to be clans to have a PRE just strikes me as false. I'm not saying clans do not help (PDC has at least four active clans), but the assumption that for a PRE to exist there needs to be a clan, to me, is hurting PRE's more than helping them.
Sebastian: Good article, but this piece was primed for a personal opinion intertwined with it. Keep up the great work.
This is one of the coolest articles yet. Ive been tooling around with that program for two straight days. Great stuff!
The whole game revolves around things being broken. thats the idea to break you opponet before he breaks you. How do you do that? you find the biggest hammer you can. the idea is to design a deck that is broken. thats the point and when you find one thats just that good people will change their decks acordingly. I remember when affinity was superbroken and what happen? people made decks that could do only one thing. beat affinity and because so many people were playing affinity it would win 8 man tornies. You have a sideboard use it. don't just ban cards. the only reason a card sould be banned is if it on its own is so overpowered that it disrupts things not because someone put the time and work in to makeing it usefull with other cards. thats what a deck is. THIS BANNING IS WRONG!
I thought long and hard on the issue of banning Mind's Desire from the weekly Chaos FFA. After much thought I then unbanned Kokusho, the Evening Star and left only Erayo banned and am seriously thinking of unbanning it as well. I brought the issue of Mind's Desire to several of the sponsors, fellow PRE hosts, and many, many of the PRE players. Of coarse the responces varied, but in the end, the answer most had was actually a question, "What's next?". I have never seen the PRE sceen as a place focused on "Budget" players, they have PDC PREs for them, but as a place I could go to be challenged. Honestly, I've played in the mulitiplayer room for many years now, and there are only a few players that make me smile when they sit at my table. They are the ones I know will challenge my playing skills. I know they come to win, as do I. But unfortunatly, most of the time I get random players on "Budget" decks that end up conceeding. So, I love to sit down at a table during any PRE and know I have actual compitetion facing me. That is what the PREs bring to me. But, I am only one of the many players there. We all play for our own reasons, and for those that play for the compitetion, I will do my best to make sure that at least the Sunday Chaos FFA (/join Chaos) will provide just that!
michaelrossignol
Sunday Chaos FFA Host
OnlyHellWillFillYourVoid
Im also completely against this. I don't understand why Kokushostorm was banned- it was never banned from CHAOS when it ran for over a year. People who play FFAs enough know the metagame- and there ARE answers. (False Cure, Stifle, etc. etc- in each colour). Sure, Dragonstorm won- but did it next time? No. Most likely every single person packed an answer and beat down on the storm player. PRE FFAs are competitive- and there's no possible way you can aim it towards budget players.
After reading my own comment, just like Runeliger, I felt that I sounded like I didn't like it or something like that but I totaly liked it, just wanted to point out some other important issues about serious play. Good job. :))
Unless a card is officially banned by WOTC, I am 100% against all these bannings. If it wins constantly, ban it! I most certainly do not agree with this. If the organizers want to see more budget/casual decks in their tournaments, then they should start hosting different formats or same format with different rules like "no more than 4 rares" or something alike. As I said, if WOTC doesn't ban it, then there is nothing wrong with it. And they probably know it better than anyone for THEY are the one who's spending 1000's and 1000's of USD's to their own tournaments. I think like that. And Runeliger, quality job as always.
I also agree with everybody else here that this is a very well written article and it was quite fun to read it. About the things that you wrote; there are things I agree and things I don't but I think that you focused a lot on the deck and card choices. Actually the whole article is about that. But piloting a deck is as important as having the best deck. Give the best deck to a mediocre player and see what he does and then give a mediocre deck to the best player and then see what he does. To succeed one must have a VERY good knowledge of the meta, he must know what he will be facing, a VERY good deck(be it a net deck or not), he must have HOURS of playtesting under his belt and he must be a VERY good player in general. This is how I think. The deck itself is never enough. Nice article anyway. Thanks.
Oh, but overall, an informative and well written article (sorry if I sound like a complete critic haha)
It's definitely a huge improvement over your last article, but as you said in the beginning "most basic mistakes" is right. A lot of this article is quite intuitive, and bordering on common sense. I don't question your writing style, it's very pleasing to read, but you say things such as what you'd rather have, but there are tech in decks that allow for people to innovate, heck people thought Sulfur Elemental was terrible, but I'd like to point out PT Yokohoma had 114 Sulfur Elementals, making it the 2nd most played non-land card. Othewise, good article
I play in a store where i'm one of a select few players that accually play the game like you would see on the net, by that i mean i will use good deck and play them well.
But I very much would like others to play in the way but it's very hard to explain some of the concepts that you articulated very well just then.
I like the KISS concept and would show this to others if they were interested in improving there game.
No doupt about it. I have just resently started getting this into my head. Hope it helps others get into the more serius scene online!
This is much more like it. Good, sound advice with a definite audience, put across in a clear manner. All in all your best article yet, and a good benchmark for the future. Encore.
great read man, i totally agree
I do have to point out though that having the cost of 0, remove a counter (or sacrifice) has been errated to just... remove a counter (or sacrifice) no need to put the 0 in there...
Thanks for the feedback guys, I really do appreciate it(as I always do). AJ, I just don't know how I missed that Hatred. Call mine Hatred-2, what can I say now :((. And yes, we should definately have a custom cards&sets contest in our forums. That would be so much fun.
A useful primer, and the concept is cool, but the cards themselves seem a bit oddly powered and costed. I'd recommend playtesting the set with a few friends and seeing how it plays. Also, there's already a Hatred: a popular Exodus finisher.
I think your set has need been though the design team yet. Many of your cards seem overpowered. The goblin grenade, for example, is just a much more powerful mogg fanatic.
FYI: a 500 error means there in an error happening server side, not with your computer
I like how you've semi separated card analysis and draft hindsight. As other people have mentionen, after the third pick or so, the entire draft will change.
This was really cool! A great primer for making your own card sets. Thaks!
I always just thought people did these in photoshop and had no idea there was a program that does it for you. Man that makes it soo much easier. Once the forums are working we will def have to have a contest.
Really inspirational, ive been watning to make my own set of cards for year's, but the tast of using photoshop to do it all was too daunting, with the programmes you listed, its gonna be very fun...
Brilliant Article and i love some of your previews.
Although as I said that I have no knowledge of the format, Persecute seems to be a good replacement for Mind Sludge. And you can also fetch it with Dimir House Guard. Just a thought...