You know, oddly enough, it might be the hover program: When I inspect this article, or even Pete's recent SotP, all of the sections are broken into DIV html. If I go look at my SotP, that didn't get the hover program, all of the html is still how I wrote it - p blocks for text, div just for tables and such.
Hmm, interesting. I wonder if the script I had for the Judge Q & A toggle messes with the hover script and vice versa?
For what it's worth, try leaving the formatting off of the lists until AFTER you paste them, then use the editor to apply it. That might help any other odd interference from erasing out text?
What the heck? Something is happening to my bulleted lists and cutting them off. I just double-checked, and this isn't happening when I paste the articles in--maybe it's something with the hover script? Anyway, here's a paste of those bullets, as they're a lot longer this time--first, the rules for reprint sets:
* Sets have a specific skeleton, a certain number of cards per rarity, and balanced colors. Modern Masters 2017 has 249 cards like most recent large sets (minus the basic lands), which is set up as 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares. There are places to explore at the margins though—my design is a bit heavier on colored cards than the previous two Modern Masters sets (as there’s no artifact archetype), I’ve went back to two uncommon multicolored cards for each color pair (Eternal Masters had only one), and I’ve finally given up on the cycle of common multicolored cards. Eternal Masters also wasn’t quite as strict on color-balancing as other sets (mostly in “gold-adjacent” cards, like (Rally the Peasants:EMA) and (Kird Ape:EMA)), and I’ve taken that tool and ran with it.
* For Modern Masters sets, every card not only has to be legal in Modern (which excludes both old and banned cards), but not too new either. For MM17, this upper limit is Magic 2014, and the limit has consistently been about four years old. Importantly, only the original printing of the card has to be in this range; the card could have been reprinted in a Standard-legal set more-recently (culminating in multiple MM15 cards still being legal in Standard at the time).
* There is no hard upper limit on complexity (as the product isn’t sold at mass-market outlets and is a premium price), but efforts are made to avoid spreading the set too thin. In particular, the main visible limitation is that any keyword/ability should appear on at least three cards. This constraint is one that Wizards has been following less and less recently (and I call them out on it every time), but I follow it rigidly.
Now, the types of rares, from the money section:
1. Chase rares, ones worth more than many mythics ((Snapcaster Mage:ISD), (Goblin Guide:ZEN))
2. Good rares, worth around the price of the pack ((Gifts Ungiven:MMA), (Death Baron:ALA))
3. Average rares, hovering around the “half the price of the pack” cutoff for the list ((Kalastria Highborn:WWK), (Obstinate Baloth:M13))
4. Bulk ((Sygg, River Guide:LRW), (Renegade Krasis:DGM))
Hopefully if it's a bug in the hover script it can be fixed, otherwise I'll try to avoid lists, I guess?
Hey Stijn, thank you for reading . After the Pro Tour I really can't tell if WR Tokens isn't better than humans but definitely have to play/watch more games and see how the meta advances to see which one is better. I think Jeskai Control might be better than the BR Control List, but I really feel BW Angels will still have something to say in the future. Do you still feel the same way? What are your thoughts post Pro-Tour? Again man, thanks a bunch. It means a lot to me...
*shrugs* language is elastic and people use what is popular and or has some humorous subcontext. It isn't very far a stretch from hate to strong dislike to dislikes somewhat.
Zlethnoba, It does not matter in the context from above. Remembering what I passed will not get me any insight at all into what my opponents might be playing.
"Hate draft" comes from the practice of taking cards that you know your deck hates to see. It became popular because pros used it but it was a pretty common term among anyone who drafted back in the day.
That part still matters. You should consider what signals you're sending.
As for playing around cards like Blessed Alliance, you should do that regardless. It's a high-pick uncommon, they may well have it without you passing it. An off-color bomb rare would be a much better example, but that's relatively rare. I never play around rares in game one. Even if I passed it, they may not have it, or not draw it.
I like the way leagues really make clear that hate drafting is useless. When everybody learns that lesson, decks should become better on average, which will make for more interesting play.
This would already make leagues at least equivalent to queues. When you add the timing thing (no waiting for the control players!), there's no contest.
1) Scouting - ... - has always been a contentious issue at tournaments, and Wizards has always been opposed to it.
2) For most of this century, scouting has been tolerated.
2) I have never tolerated scouting. I have asked the judges for "no spectators please ?" at many events/matches throughout the years, and most times the judges approved my wish !
1) You might base this on the linked article, but it is wrong. Bergeot herself writes that "...pro players had not realized that we did not endorse scouting." This is proof clear enough for me to say that wotc in fact has condoned scouting.
Baseless claims !
From wotc article;
"Over the past few years, scouting increased significantly to the extent that it was negatively impacting the Pro Tour experience."
This is also a baseless claim, and it is wrong. The lack of prohibition and policing of scouting negatively impacted the experience and results(prizes!) of PTs (and GPs, and PTQs, and FNMs, and prereleases, you name it) more than 15 years back !
Wotc making the PT (partly) a team thing...they are idiots.
League drafting is not set up well imho. Breaking the pod system has thrown the format into chaos so veteran drafters who are used to being knowledgeable concerning the pool have to make wild guesses as to what each opponent may be playing because the odds are they wont be from the same pod.
Pretty sure the prize structure is here to stay at least until packs are completely phased out. I think that might be on the schedule at some point only because chests seem to be the logical replacement for packs once people accept their existence.
I feel the same way about drafts. In a recent draft, I was playing white but passed two Blessed Alliance's. My opponent played one. Later, in the same game I was clearly being invited into a very beneficial (for me) attack with my one large creature. They had only W1 mana available for a few turns even though I knew they held a W1 creature in hand. I didn't attack until I could attack with a second creature.
I like paying attention to what goes around in the draft so I can have some idea of what to expect when I play. I also like my picks having an impact on my opponent's decks.
I, for one, am among those who consider deckbuilding a feat with its own merit. Deckbuilding for deckbuilding's sake. It's like creating a work of art, it doesn't need to have a purpose, no? Of course, to evaluate the resulting list, you want to prove that it actually works, that it's able to do what it's supposed to do, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can win tournaments.
That Spider idea sounds fun to me! Ishkanah also gets her own prize (you can read about it at the bottom of my articles). Hope to see you run her someday.
I just got that kind of impression. I certainly don't know much about why players play limited and what kind of people play limited. (in terms of casual/competitive play. in constructed you can see that quite easily but in limited I never thought about that much)
as for 6-2-2-2, I think they should be happy^_^. I think there are many more things they can be unhappy about but the prizes are not it. So far I have very mixed feelings about it and wish for 8-4 SE to stay.
Time will show I would say. the 6-2-2-2 league seems to be quite a mess now and the players are trying to figure out if they like that or not.
Neither of us said that about spikes. I have a very close friend who is 99% spike who almost entirely ONLY plays limited. No way would I think otherwise. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding in the phrasing?
As to casual drafting, that's not something I have ever engaged in officially. Unofficially I used to draft swiss all the time even when I was good at a set/block because higher amount of time with each deck and thus more fun/investment, and because it was more relaxed than worrying about elimination due to a fragile deck draw or bad play. And I suspect a lot of players liked that about swiss.
But the logical choice of choosing best ev means Swiss is just worse than 6222 if you are not a bad player (like me) and that was debatable with 4322.
On an aside I am amused that the player base is unhappy with 6222s since there was such a longstanding complaint on the old mothership forums (before they were murdered this time last year) about 4322s being a terrible rip off of the consumer.
I disagree with 'spikes' not being limited players^_^ or not tending to like limited much. Playing with a limited pool is not something 'bad'. Drafting in general is something one needs to learn and there are many levels of drafting (meaning in-pod drafting). It takes a lot of skill to see what is going on in the pod and to know when and what to pick and build a good deck (even though many players just learn pick orders). and it is fun and often different each time. I think that for many it is more rewarding than playing constructed.
The best way to grind or gain the most (apart from playing premier events) is from limited actually and I wouldn't be able to play constructed at if it weren't for 8-4 drafts. These are the best or were the best to gain the most out of them. If your win percentage is around 67% or more you can go infinite and can win quite a lot. You get the most out of 8-4 drafts. If you are slightly worse player the 6-2-2-2 league is actually good. 6-2-2-2 used to be swiss full of not so 'good' players or casual players? (how can someone play a draft casually?). If you would enter 8-4 draft you'd play against experienced players that knew how to draft and how to play but joining a 6-2-2-2 draft was like 'chaos draft'. Half of the pod was picking very strangely and the games were even more strange. Getting 6 packs was fine if you won but it wasn't worth the time usually. These took way longer and also did not award 8 packs but rather 6. Being second meant 2 packs that practically mean nothing if you want to win something. That is the reason why a competitive player would never enter 4-3-2-2 draft (I managed that once by accident). There is one pack missing from the prize pool and getting 4 packs means you practically don't win anything (about a tix or so). Winning 3 packs does not pay for the draft. I wouldn't even expect a casual player to join this queue. Pack per win seems more likely to me even though there you have straight negative EV. So if you want to join you really join because you want to play in the draft. Packs are just a bonus to the 14 tix entry. I mean there is nothing bad about that. It's just...that as kumagoro or other players said, casual player does not usually have budget for constructed and limited in general is considered to be expensive for a casual player.
Now the 8-4 drafts are still the best, but the 6-2-2-2 leagues actually have better EV than the earlier 6-2-2-2 drafts. The thing is that it is swiss that can be played anytime and there are actually many players that prefer the league system from the competitive players. if your win percentage is around 65 the EV is comparable and if the league system is better time wise it is better for the player to play that. The crosspod pairings are horrible though and it totally changes the way how one drafts (or switches to a color). It's totally different kind of game. You don't have the information about other cards and what other players play or what you should fear or what to pick for sideboard. You can encounter more or less anything. I played against 3 almost the same decks each playing the same mythics/rares. I wasn't happy. Do you know how it feels to be beaten by Gisela in three consecutive rounds? (I did not lost 3 times against it but just imagine that) this does not happen in a normal draft. Those players that don't mind will just draft the best cards and just play and see. the variance is high. both the decks and skill of the player can vary a lot so even if you draft a horrible deck like I did the first time you can go 3-0 or 2-1. I went 2-1 and the game I lost was due to going to five and my opponent having simply everything. But I actually had a game against that person. But in-pod draft this deck was bound to go 0-2. I've seen the cards passed and my deck's level was nowhere good enough to beat that. So I was kinda thankful. On the other hand I would just lose the first round in 8-4 draft and enter another one.
There has to be seen what will be good. It did segment the players in a way but it made very strange things happen.
I for one do not understand friendly leagues prizes and I guess you guys will have to tell me why that sounds enticing for some.
Thanks for the comment. I think that primarily people should play with a deck they like. I know that this is not often the case in Magic since many people just want to win and try any tier 1 deck they think is the best (talking about the environment I play in and grew up, many of those players are at PT Honolulu right now.)
But I learned through a different game that playing with a deck one is not comfortable with is very bad. It was Legend of the Five Rings TCG that I used to play (at the highest level, like Top 8 placing well at GPs, if you'd want to compare it with Magic). It is a game that showed me that I really cannot play an aggro deck. Just taking all my personalities ('creatures') I just couldn't attack and pretend that I have something that could win me a battle. So I ended up playing either combo-control or a switch deck (control that could switch to being aggro if needed). After this experience with this game I started to look for decks I like in Magic. I realized that since Lorwyn the game changed so much that it does not even allow me to play the decks I used to like (draw go control) and that I spent a too long time playing with decks I dislike (Jund).
It is difficult to find players that like the game, like to explore and build fun decks meant for fun while maintaining a high level of play (which as you guys noticed is one of my conditions to having fun). That is why I was so surprised to find you guys, Tribal Wars players, and well other people around puremtgo and gatherling. You guys are passionate about the game, like deckbuilding and play for fun and that is something I don't see in my area. Even when I was playing on Magic Online prior to writing for this site or knowing about PREs. I was often the person playing strange decks and called names because I played my own decks instead of some PT/SCG/GP top decks and seriously I'm sick of that as well.
I would gladly go 0:5 in your tournament but first I need to find a deck I would like because I already tried some decks that I even considered fine for me as a pilot but I dislike them. I really want to build a spider deck since I love Ishkanah. I have a decklist in mind, but I'm way too lazy to buy the cards for it. But since I already have Ishkanahs it should not be such a problem. The problem I have with Tribal Wars is that it really is creature heavy and it does not allow me to have control over what I do. Aluren and Dredge are decks that do not really speak to me and it would be more of suffering for me to play with it. I could play Kiki pod for example though because that gives a lot of control over the game (and value) and has a win condition that does not require going through combat each turn. Playing Dredge/Self-mill zombies that could win with Ghoultree dealing 20 damage with the help of Artful Dodge or Spiders with Spider Spawning and Ishkanah could qualify for a deck I would like and could possibly play because they somehow cheat the 'going through regular combat' part.
I apologize for the long post. I'm very glad I decided to try Tribal Wars and will hopefully get back to the format when I have the time for it. Hope you guys will be my opponents so I can try the ideas I have in mind (just poke me so I actually buy the cards...)
Take this as a thank you to all of you. You have a great community here and great content.
Excellent analysis of a first approach to Tribal Wars!
I see you've realized Tribal Apocalypse doesn't have a very definite meta. This is due to the extreme variance in the format (and if you like combo, you can look up the decks by Bazaar of Baghdad and Chamale, for instance. Aluren and manaless Dredge are not just viable but very powerful in the format, due to them being somehow creature-based to begin with). But it's also caused by the fact that the player base is not entirely composed by Spikes. A large part of the players don't come to the tournament looking for the deck with which to win more easily and assuredly. Some of them seek the deck they have more fun with, or the most outrageous interaction, or the most obscure tribe. Hence the Noggles, or AJ's lists. Why did AJ play Pilot last week? Simply because now he could!
There's also a budget component. Many Tribal Apocalypse players (as it's the case with PRE players in general) don't own cards like Force of Will or Wasteland, so they just don't use them. In my weekly report I publish the prices of the featured decks, and a few of the most successful ones are worth $10 or less.
Anyway, thanks for this article! Hope it'll bring more interest to Legacy Tribal Wars and to see you again soon in the #TRIBAL room!
I am so glad you jumped into the apocalypse and dominated (as I knew you would). The format is fun and broken and full of weird and interesting interactions. Hope to see you take the prize often.
I will keep that in mind.
You know, oddly enough, it might be the hover program: When I inspect this article, or even Pete's recent SotP, all of the sections are broken into DIV html. If I go look at my SotP, that didn't get the hover program, all of the html is still how I wrote it - p blocks for text, div just for tables and such.
Hmm, interesting. I wonder if the script I had for the Judge Q & A toggle messes with the hover script and vice versa?
For what it's worth, try leaving the formatting off of the lists until AFTER you paste them, then use the editor to apply it. That might help any other odd interference from erasing out text?
What the heck? Something is happening to my bulleted lists and cutting them off. I just double-checked, and this isn't happening when I paste the articles in--maybe it's something with the hover script? Anyway, here's a paste of those bullets, as they're a lot longer this time--first, the rules for reprint sets:
* Sets have a specific skeleton, a certain number of cards per rarity, and balanced colors. Modern Masters 2017 has 249 cards like most recent large sets (minus the basic lands), which is set up as 101 commons, 80 uncommons, 53 rares, and 15 mythic rares. There are places to explore at the margins though—my design is a bit heavier on colored cards than the previous two Modern Masters sets (as there’s no artifact archetype), I’ve went back to two uncommon multicolored cards for each color pair (Eternal Masters had only one), and I’ve finally given up on the cycle of common multicolored cards. Eternal Masters also wasn’t quite as strict on color-balancing as other sets (mostly in “gold-adjacent” cards, like (Rally the Peasants:EMA) and (Kird Ape:EMA)), and I’ve taken that tool and ran with it.
* For Modern Masters sets, every card not only has to be legal in Modern (which excludes both old and banned cards), but not too new either. For MM17, this upper limit is Magic 2014, and the limit has consistently been about four years old. Importantly, only the original printing of the card has to be in this range; the card could have been reprinted in a Standard-legal set more-recently (culminating in multiple MM15 cards still being legal in Standard at the time).
* There is no hard upper limit on complexity (as the product isn’t sold at mass-market outlets and is a premium price), but efforts are made to avoid spreading the set too thin. In particular, the main visible limitation is that any keyword/ability should appear on at least three cards. This constraint is one that Wizards has been following less and less recently (and I call them out on it every time), but I follow it rigidly.
Now, the types of rares, from the money section:
1. Chase rares, ones worth more than many mythics ((Snapcaster Mage:ISD), (Goblin Guide:ZEN))
2. Good rares, worth around the price of the pack ((Gifts Ungiven:MMA), (Death Baron:ALA))
3. Average rares, hovering around the “half the price of the pack” cutoff for the list ((Kalastria Highborn:WWK), (Obstinate Baloth:M13))
4. Bulk ((Sygg, River Guide:LRW), (Renegade Krasis:DGM))
Hopefully if it's a bug in the hover script it can be fixed, otherwise I'll try to avoid lists, I guess?
Hey Stijn, thank you for reading . After the Pro Tour I really can't tell if WR Tokens isn't better than humans but definitely have to play/watch more games and see how the meta advances to see which one is better. I think Jeskai Control might be better than the BR Control List, but I really feel BW Angels will still have something to say in the future. Do you still feel the same way? What are your thoughts post Pro-Tour? Again man, thanks a bunch. It means a lot to me...
*shrugs* language is elastic and people use what is popular and or has some humorous subcontext. It isn't very far a stretch from hate to strong dislike to dislikes somewhat.
Ok, so then the term does not cover cards that your deck slightly dislikes to see, ergo an unfitting term.
But yes, I do believe you when you say that the term originated among those pros.
Zlethnoba, It does not matter in the context from above. Remembering what I passed will not get me any insight at all into what my opponents might be playing.
"Hate draft" comes from the practice of taking cards that you know your deck hates to see. It became popular because pros used it but it was a pretty common term among anyone who drafted back in the day.
Hatedrafting can also be named defensivedrafting and it is never useless, frequently it is bad for you, but definitely not always.
It has always puzzled me that it got the name HateDrafting, it is a useless description.
That part still matters. You should consider what signals you're sending.
As for playing around cards like Blessed Alliance, you should do that regardless. It's a high-pick uncommon, they may well have it without you passing it. An off-color bomb rare would be a much better example, but that's relatively rare. I never play around rares in game one. Even if I passed it, they may not have it, or not draw it.
I like the way leagues really make clear that hate drafting is useless. When everybody learns that lesson, decks should become better on average, which will make for more interesting play.
This would already make leagues at least equivalent to queues. When you add the timing thing (no waiting for the control players!), there's no contest.
1) Scouting - ... - has always been a contentious issue at tournaments, and Wizards has always been opposed to it.
2) For most of this century, scouting has been tolerated.
2) I have never tolerated scouting. I have asked the judges for "no spectators please ?" at many events/matches throughout the years, and most times the judges approved my wish !
1) You might base this on the linked article, but it is wrong. Bergeot herself writes that "...pro players had not realized that we did not endorse scouting." This is proof clear enough for me to say that wotc in fact has condoned scouting.
Baseless claims !
From wotc article;
"Over the past few years, scouting increased significantly to the extent that it was negatively impacting the Pro Tour experience."
This is also a baseless claim, and it is wrong. The lack of prohibition and policing of scouting negatively impacted the experience and results(prizes!) of PTs (and GPs, and PTQs, and FNMs, and prereleases, you name it) more than 15 years back !
Wotc making the PT (partly) a team thing...they are idiots.
League drafting is not set up well imho. Breaking the pod system has thrown the format into chaos so veteran drafters who are used to being knowledgeable concerning the pool have to make wild guesses as to what each opponent may be playing because the odds are they wont be from the same pod.
Pretty sure the prize structure is here to stay at least until packs are completely phased out. I think that might be on the schedule at some point only because chests seem to be the logical replacement for packs once people accept their existence.
300 soldiers! Awesome flavor, Armont.
I feel the same way about drafts. In a recent draft, I was playing white but passed two Blessed Alliance's. My opponent played one. Later, in the same game I was clearly being invited into a very beneficial (for me) attack with my one large creature. They had only W1 mana available for a few turns even though I knew they held a W1 creature in hand. I didn't attack until I could attack with a second creature.
I like paying attention to what goes around in the draft so I can have some idea of what to expect when I play. I also like my picks having an impact on my opponent's decks.
I, for one, am among those who consider deckbuilding a feat with its own merit. Deckbuilding for deckbuilding's sake. It's like creating a work of art, it doesn't need to have a purpose, no? Of course, to evaluate the resulting list, you want to prove that it actually works, that it's able to do what it's supposed to do, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can win tournaments.
That Spider idea sounds fun to me! Ishkanah also gets her own prize (you can read about it at the bottom of my articles). Hope to see you run her someday.
I just got that kind of impression. I certainly don't know much about why players play limited and what kind of people play limited. (in terms of casual/competitive play. in constructed you can see that quite easily but in limited I never thought about that much)
as for 6-2-2-2, I think they should be happy^_^. I think there are many more things they can be unhappy about but the prizes are not it. So far I have very mixed feelings about it and wish for 8-4 SE to stay.
Time will show I would say. the 6-2-2-2 league seems to be quite a mess now and the players are trying to figure out if they like that or not.
Neither of us said that about spikes. I have a very close friend who is 99% spike who almost entirely ONLY plays limited. No way would I think otherwise. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding in the phrasing?
As to casual drafting, that's not something I have ever engaged in officially. Unofficially I used to draft swiss all the time even when I was good at a set/block because higher amount of time with each deck and thus more fun/investment, and because it was more relaxed than worrying about elimination due to a fragile deck draw or bad play. And I suspect a lot of players liked that about swiss.
But the logical choice of choosing best ev means Swiss is just worse than 6222 if you are not a bad player (like me) and that was debatable with 4322.
On an aside I am amused that the player base is unhappy with 6222s since there was such a longstanding complaint on the old mothership forums (before they were murdered this time last year) about 4322s being a terrible rip off of the consumer.
"Part of the skill in draft is remembering what you passed"
Which is why I dont like draft leagues. That, and I miss core set drafts.
I disagree with 'spikes' not being limited players^_^ or not tending to like limited much. Playing with a limited pool is not something 'bad'. Drafting in general is something one needs to learn and there are many levels of drafting (meaning in-pod drafting). It takes a lot of skill to see what is going on in the pod and to know when and what to pick and build a good deck (even though many players just learn pick orders). and it is fun and often different each time. I think that for many it is more rewarding than playing constructed.
The best way to grind or gain the most (apart from playing premier events) is from limited actually and I wouldn't be able to play constructed at if it weren't for 8-4 drafts. These are the best or were the best to gain the most out of them. If your win percentage is around 67% or more you can go infinite and can win quite a lot. You get the most out of 8-4 drafts. If you are slightly worse player the 6-2-2-2 league is actually good. 6-2-2-2 used to be swiss full of not so 'good' players or casual players? (how can someone play a draft casually?). If you would enter 8-4 draft you'd play against experienced players that knew how to draft and how to play but joining a 6-2-2-2 draft was like 'chaos draft'. Half of the pod was picking very strangely and the games were even more strange. Getting 6 packs was fine if you won but it wasn't worth the time usually. These took way longer and also did not award 8 packs but rather 6. Being second meant 2 packs that practically mean nothing if you want to win something. That is the reason why a competitive player would never enter 4-3-2-2 draft (I managed that once by accident). There is one pack missing from the prize pool and getting 4 packs means you practically don't win anything (about a tix or so). Winning 3 packs does not pay for the draft. I wouldn't even expect a casual player to join this queue. Pack per win seems more likely to me even though there you have straight negative EV. So if you want to join you really join because you want to play in the draft. Packs are just a bonus to the 14 tix entry. I mean there is nothing bad about that. It's just...that as kumagoro or other players said, casual player does not usually have budget for constructed and limited in general is considered to be expensive for a casual player.
Now the 8-4 drafts are still the best, but the 6-2-2-2 leagues actually have better EV than the earlier 6-2-2-2 drafts. The thing is that it is swiss that can be played anytime and there are actually many players that prefer the league system from the competitive players. if your win percentage is around 65 the EV is comparable and if the league system is better time wise it is better for the player to play that. The crosspod pairings are horrible though and it totally changes the way how one drafts (or switches to a color). It's totally different kind of game. You don't have the information about other cards and what other players play or what you should fear or what to pick for sideboard. You can encounter more or less anything. I played against 3 almost the same decks each playing the same mythics/rares. I wasn't happy. Do you know how it feels to be beaten by Gisela in three consecutive rounds? (I did not lost 3 times against it but just imagine that) this does not happen in a normal draft. Those players that don't mind will just draft the best cards and just play and see. the variance is high. both the decks and skill of the player can vary a lot so even if you draft a horrible deck like I did the first time you can go 3-0 or 2-1. I went 2-1 and the game I lost was due to going to five and my opponent having simply everything. But I actually had a game against that person. But in-pod draft this deck was bound to go 0-2. I've seen the cards passed and my deck's level was nowhere good enough to beat that. So I was kinda thankful. On the other hand I would just lose the first round in 8-4 draft and enter another one.
There has to be seen what will be good. It did segment the players in a way but it made very strange things happen.
I for one do not understand friendly leagues prizes and I guess you guys will have to tell me why that sounds enticing for some.
There's been PR leagues since SoI
Thanks for the comment. I think that primarily people should play with a deck they like. I know that this is not often the case in Magic since many people just want to win and try any tier 1 deck they think is the best (talking about the environment I play in and grew up, many of those players are at PT Honolulu right now.)
But I learned through a different game that playing with a deck one is not comfortable with is very bad. It was Legend of the Five Rings TCG that I used to play (at the highest level, like Top 8 placing well at GPs, if you'd want to compare it with Magic). It is a game that showed me that I really cannot play an aggro deck. Just taking all my personalities ('creatures') I just couldn't attack and pretend that I have something that could win me a battle. So I ended up playing either combo-control or a switch deck (control that could switch to being aggro if needed). After this experience with this game I started to look for decks I like in Magic. I realized that since Lorwyn the game changed so much that it does not even allow me to play the decks I used to like (draw go control) and that I spent a too long time playing with decks I dislike (Jund).
It is difficult to find players that like the game, like to explore and build fun decks meant for fun while maintaining a high level of play (which as you guys noticed is one of my conditions to having fun). That is why I was so surprised to find you guys, Tribal Wars players, and well other people around puremtgo and gatherling. You guys are passionate about the game, like deckbuilding and play for fun and that is something I don't see in my area. Even when I was playing on Magic Online prior to writing for this site or knowing about PREs. I was often the person playing strange decks and called names because I played my own decks instead of some PT/SCG/GP top decks and seriously I'm sick of that as well.
I would gladly go 0:5 in your tournament but first I need to find a deck I would like because I already tried some decks that I even considered fine for me as a pilot but I dislike them. I really want to build a spider deck since I love Ishkanah. I have a decklist in mind, but I'm way too lazy to buy the cards for it. But since I already have Ishkanahs it should not be such a problem. The problem I have with Tribal Wars is that it really is creature heavy and it does not allow me to have control over what I do. Aluren and Dredge are decks that do not really speak to me and it would be more of suffering for me to play with it. I could play Kiki pod for example though because that gives a lot of control over the game (and value) and has a win condition that does not require going through combat each turn. Playing Dredge/Self-mill zombies that could win with Ghoultree dealing 20 damage with the help of Artful Dodge or Spiders with Spider Spawning and Ishkanah could qualify for a deck I would like and could possibly play because they somehow cheat the 'going through regular combat' part.
I apologize for the long post. I'm very glad I decided to try Tribal Wars and will hopefully get back to the format when I have the time for it. Hope you guys will be my opponents so I can try the ideas I have in mind (just poke me so I actually buy the cards...)
Take this as a thank you to all of you. You have a great community here and great content.
Excellent analysis of a first approach to Tribal Wars!
I see you've realized Tribal Apocalypse doesn't have a very definite meta. This is due to the extreme variance in the format (and if you like combo, you can look up the decks by Bazaar of Baghdad and Chamale, for instance. Aluren and manaless Dredge are not just viable but very powerful in the format, due to them being somehow creature-based to begin with). But it's also caused by the fact that the player base is not entirely composed by Spikes. A large part of the players don't come to the tournament looking for the deck with which to win more easily and assuredly. Some of them seek the deck they have more fun with, or the most outrageous interaction, or the most obscure tribe. Hence the Noggles, or AJ's lists. Why did AJ play Pilot last week? Simply because now he could!
There's also a budget component. Many Tribal Apocalypse players (as it's the case with PRE players in general) don't own cards like Force of Will or Wasteland, so they just don't use them. In my weekly report I publish the prices of the featured decks, and a few of the most successful ones are worth $10 or less.
Anyway, thanks for this article! Hope it'll bring more interest to Legacy Tribal Wars and to see you again soon in the #TRIBAL room!
I am so glad you jumped into the apocalypse and dominated (as I knew you would). The format is fun and broken and full of weird and interesting interactions. Hope to see you take the prize often.
Not your fault mate! Thanks for fixing it up though :)
My apologies, I will do better next time.