Great discussion on the Modern format. I liked how you 'replied' to WotC releases with your assessment of their intentions against your experiences/experiences in general. Having multiple quotes helped me see the format intentions better than I thought Modern was.
Not too long ago, we lost the Standard Pauper filter on MTGO, and some prominent standard pauper players sounded off on articles published on puremtgo.com. We have a healthy, fun, and diverse metagame, whose participates also help organize player-ran events weekly.
Now, we lost the Modern Pro Tour that follows less than two weeks after a judges lawsuit against WotC.
I ask because I don't know: Are we seeing WotC react to the judicial lawsuit by cutting a Pro Tour? Historically, it seems WotC learned nothing from a similar suit brought against them in Europe.
Are cuts to the MTGO client for standard pauper filters and cuts to the Pro Tour examples of forcibly-steered directions to buy more Standard cards and participate in that format above other formats? I can understand this push, from a sales perspective. However, was the lawsuit the straw that broke Modern Pro Tours' backs?
For me, I have no aspirations of joining a Pro Tour when I cannot dent the standard pauper metagame. However, I am unlikely to just jump into Standard due to high costs and having to learn what Planeswalkers do. Are players who may flirt with a Modern Pro Tour mindset or goals, how likely is this group to jump ship and play more Standard format events over Pro Tour focuses?
I appreciate your very upbeat and optimistic approach to what many could see as disappointing news about the Modern Pro Tour. Thanks!
Why did wotc cut HoF/platinum payouts because of the judges lawsuit ?
Edit; and they went back on the platinum decision this morning.
Which brings me to the next question; How can I know that the 1 land per turn rule is valid when I play tournaments and they change so much all the time ?
Is the CR there when we look away ? How often does the cr change ?
Of course, flavour of the week was probably the wrong term to use. What I meant to see is that they are the main deck dominating the format at the moment; it most certainly isn't a passing fad.
Mentor's been around for a while in vintage. Not surprising that it is doing well post restrictions as Shops took a big hit. It definitely isn't just the flavor of the week.
Concur on Thraben Gargoyle. Postgoyles can easily turn it on, and having a low cost blocker is very useful. (There's currently the 3/3 for 3 that loses defender and gains flying for 3, which is a little slow to face down aggro decks.
Happy birthday! I know how you feel about Pauper, at least that's how I felt when I played it a lot 5-6 years ago, and I feel it's still the exact same decks today with basically the exact same lists. Not good for an eternal format.
My advice, and I expect it to go completely ignored, is to encourage more Silverblack on MTGO. It's a Gatherling-recognized format for commons AND uncommons, with lots and lots of room for deckbuilding creativity and metagame shifting. Cost is mostly negligible compared to Pauper. Dabil used to run a lot of events in the format until his other life priorities caught up with him.
Yes, I was thinking along those lines of local servers. If I didn't have to worry about shuffling and rules enforcement, I would definitely attend MTG cardboard (or here, quasi-cardboard) events instead.
Excellent review as always; this one quite passionate and far more fun with a higher percentage of playables. I think I agree with you in considering Innistrad to be my favorite plane. Too bad I don't like playing Standard.
Unfortunately, Wolf of Devil's Breach can't Emrakul you to the face (it only damages creatures and planeswalkers) - even clunkier than you had thought.
I would quibble with you on Devilthorn Fox, as I would rank it the #3 Fox in existence (behind Eight-and-a-Half Tails and Samurai of the Pale Curtain), as it's the only Fox to deal 3 or more damage to the face by itself until you otherwise get to 6 mana, so not a bad deal for 2! Along the same lines, the slug is bad, but it's still probably the best Slug in general for Tribal Wars ever printed (sadly), so impact should probably be higher. Finally, I would also play Thraben Gargoyle in any Cloudpost-based Gargoyle deck as a stopgap on the curve until I can afford pricier stuff. When you have the endgame advantage, it's nice to be able to play 1-drops that have decent chances of trading with or at least stalling their 2-drops and even 3-drops. Easily in the playable category.
I think you could do a tournament with mtgo technology. You don't run it on the regular platform though, you bring along enough hardware to host as many mtgo server instances as it would take.
In many ways it would be better, no pools to register, no need to move between tables, no judges, easier to televise matches.
Ways it could be worse include the heat generated by all those devices, power problems, discriminate against those with physical handicaps.
LAN parties are a thing (but not a thing that appeals to me).
No I really was amused, because it seemed like a great joke. And I am sorry if you felt slighted by my levity. You are generally someone I respect even if we don't always agree.
But... Bringing a laptop (personal device whatever) to a tournament would not be sufficient for officially sanctioned events. Too many factors involved in such a thing could go wrong. And I am not even talking about corruption or deliberately caused problems (theft, destruction, etc).
The fact is you could have a core doable idea here if Wizards bought thousands of laptops solely for this purpose, installed them properly with just the right software and hired enough techs to service them if they malfunctioned as inevitably happens. But I still believe the MTGO infrastructure would not be able to handle the load.
However, I still don't believe that it would actually be done. For the mere fact that people play paper magic, partially because they enjoy doing that. These people drive many miles out of their way, lose sleep, skip meals, forget bathing and dress in whatever they can find (though some spend quite a lot of time looking for appropriate costuming), just in order to play in thousand people tournaments. If they bail from the main event they STILL stick around and play side events.
And imho the enthusiasm would evaporate very quickly if they knew they would be sitting down to a laptop/desktop set up to play someone on MTGO. Particularly now, but even in a few years when MTGO is 10x nicer (we can only hope, right?) And if instead the event was for regular MTGO members only (as all mtgo events are now unless they happen at GPs/PTs) then we have the regular set of problems even so.
I do agree that ANY idea beats no idea for a derth of judges.
I don't actually think this will come to pass. At worst (and I doubt it will be the worst case scenario even) WOTC will fork over some bucks to the 4 judges and may look in to installing a 3rd party Not for profit Judges Organization. Which I think was the initial intent behind the DCI.
Again, my apologies if you think I was being unnecessarily rude to you.
Do you know how many people bring laptops to the same room of a state bar exam? Thousands. (California was 8500 last year.) It's not so farcical as you apparently think (your apparent rudeness aside), and this was of course presupposing your hypothetical of no more affordable judges. It still seems like a decent alternative to folding-up shop.
That. Will. Never. Happen. GP on MTGO? That's just crazy talk. There would BE no MTGO. DO you know how many people sign up for local GPs? Thousands. Imagine if you didn't have to travel to get the same deal? Tens of thousands and with MTGO as it is, that would stretch the infrastructure too far.
With judges then costing a premium, I'd rather like to think of it as the day they have to accommodate those of us who have never learned how to shuffle or untap pieces of cardboard, requiring all GP participants to bring a laptop. For rules enforcement, it's probably cheaper on their end already to simply supply a sufficient number of power strips than to support all human judge costs. If they want to be extra greedy, they can even require players to keep physical copies of their decks at their sides at all times.
From WotC support rep: "Thank you for your report [on Thought Lash]. I was able to reproduce the issue as described and I have forwarded it to our development team for analysis and triage...Keep an eye on the bi-weekly Bug Blog, found on MTGO's home page, for updates."
Jitte is banned in Legacy. All cards banned in Legacy are still banned in TWL even singleton. Oops nevermind, just realized that it isn't banned in Legacy so I dunno. I DO know it was banned in the TWL list and that might still be in effect. You'd think I'd know this btw since I suggested the format :D
There's a discrepancy on the banned lists for next week's Singleton event - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gFKhJtWCl6Yo82Ez0d_N4Iq58ruqfQWY... says there is no banned list for the sub-format but if you try loading Umezawa's Jitte, for example, into Gatherling, it doesn't work. I suspect Gatherling is correct here, and other old Tribal-format banned cards will also still be banned for a new Singleton banned list. Either way, please let us know. Thanks!
Great discussion on the Modern format. I liked how you 'replied' to WotC releases with your assessment of their intentions against your experiences/experiences in general. Having multiple quotes helped me see the format intentions better than I thought Modern was.
Not too long ago, we lost the Standard Pauper filter on MTGO, and some prominent standard pauper players sounded off on articles published on puremtgo.com. We have a healthy, fun, and diverse metagame, whose participates also help organize player-ran events weekly.
Now, we lost the Modern Pro Tour that follows less than two weeks after a judges lawsuit against WotC.
I ask because I don't know: Are we seeing WotC react to the judicial lawsuit by cutting a Pro Tour? Historically, it seems WotC learned nothing from a similar suit brought against them in Europe.
Are cuts to the MTGO client for standard pauper filters and cuts to the Pro Tour examples of forcibly-steered directions to buy more Standard cards and participate in that format above other formats? I can understand this push, from a sales perspective. However, was the lawsuit the straw that broke Modern Pro Tours' backs?
For me, I have no aspirations of joining a Pro Tour when I cannot dent the standard pauper metagame. However, I am unlikely to just jump into Standard due to high costs and having to learn what Planeswalkers do. Are players who may flirt with a Modern Pro Tour mindset or goals, how likely is this group to jump ship and play more Standard format events over Pro Tour focuses?
I appreciate your very upbeat and optimistic approach to what many could see as disappointing news about the Modern Pro Tour. Thanks!
Why did wotc cut HoF/platinum payouts because of the judges lawsuit ?
Edit; and they went back on the platinum decision this morning.
Which brings me to the next question; How can I know that the 1 land per turn rule is valid when I play tournaments and they change so much all the time ?
Is the CR there when we look away ? How often does the cr change ?
Of course, flavour of the week was probably the wrong term to use. What I meant to see is that they are the main deck dominating the format at the moment; it most certainly isn't a passing fad.
Mentor's been around for a while in vintage. Not surprising that it is doing well post restrictions as Shops took a big hit. It definitely isn't just the flavor of the week.
I could find only 19 events on Gatherling when I checked, mostly in 2013.
Izzet Blitz is the last time I remember a new deck coming to the format. That was what, three years ago?
In a perfect world wotc would offer more filters instead of taking them away. Do events still happen?
And thank you
Thank you!
Concur on Thraben Gargoyle. Postgoyles can easily turn it on, and having a low cost blocker is very useful. (There's currently the 3/3 for 3 that loses defender and gains flying for 3, which is a little slow to face down aggro decks.
Happy birthday! I know how you feel about Pauper, at least that's how I felt when I played it a lot 5-6 years ago, and I feel it's still the exact same decks today with basically the exact same lists. Not good for an eternal format.
My advice, and I expect it to go completely ignored, is to encourage more Silverblack on MTGO. It's a Gatherling-recognized format for commons AND uncommons, with lots and lots of room for deckbuilding creativity and metagame shifting. Cost is mostly negligible compared to Pauper. Dabil used to run a lot of events in the format until his other life priorities caught up with him.
Yes, I was thinking along those lines of local servers. If I didn't have to worry about shuffling and rules enforcement, I would definitely attend MTG cardboard (or here, quasi-cardboard) events instead.
Excellent review as always; this one quite passionate and far more fun with a higher percentage of playables. I think I agree with you in considering Innistrad to be my favorite plane. Too bad I don't like playing Standard.
Unfortunately, Wolf of Devil's Breach can't Emrakul you to the face (it only damages creatures and planeswalkers) - even clunkier than you had thought.
I would quibble with you on Devilthorn Fox, as I would rank it the #3 Fox in existence (behind Eight-and-a-Half Tails and Samurai of the Pale Curtain), as it's the only Fox to deal 3 or more damage to the face by itself until you otherwise get to 6 mana, so not a bad deal for 2! Along the same lines, the slug is bad, but it's still probably the best Slug in general for Tribal Wars ever printed (sadly), so impact should probably be higher. Finally, I would also play Thraben Gargoyle in any Cloudpost-based Gargoyle deck as a stopgap on the curve until I can afford pricier stuff. When you have the endgame advantage, it's nice to be able to play 1-drops that have decent chances of trading with or at least stalling their 2-drops and even 3-drops. Easily in the playable category.
Happy birthday!!!
I think you could do a tournament with mtgo technology. You don't run it on the regular platform though, you bring along enough hardware to host as many mtgo server instances as it would take.
In many ways it would be better, no pools to register, no need to move between tables, no judges, easier to televise matches.
Ways it could be worse include the heat generated by all those devices, power problems, discriminate against those with physical handicaps.
LAN parties are a thing (but not a thing that appeals to me).
No I really was amused, because it seemed like a great joke. And I am sorry if you felt slighted by my levity. You are generally someone I respect even if we don't always agree.
But... Bringing a laptop (personal device whatever) to a tournament would not be sufficient for officially sanctioned events. Too many factors involved in such a thing could go wrong. And I am not even talking about corruption or deliberately caused problems (theft, destruction, etc).
The fact is you could have a core doable idea here if Wizards bought thousands of laptops solely for this purpose, installed them properly with just the right software and hired enough techs to service them if they malfunctioned as inevitably happens. But I still believe the MTGO infrastructure would not be able to handle the load.
However, I still don't believe that it would actually be done. For the mere fact that people play paper magic, partially because they enjoy doing that. These people drive many miles out of their way, lose sleep, skip meals, forget bathing and dress in whatever they can find (though some spend quite a lot of time looking for appropriate costuming), just in order to play in thousand people tournaments. If they bail from the main event they STILL stick around and play side events.
And imho the enthusiasm would evaporate very quickly if they knew they would be sitting down to a laptop/desktop set up to play someone on MTGO. Particularly now, but even in a few years when MTGO is 10x nicer (we can only hope, right?) And if instead the event was for regular MTGO members only (as all mtgo events are now unless they happen at GPs/PTs) then we have the regular set of problems even so.
I do agree that ANY idea beats no idea for a derth of judges.
I don't actually think this will come to pass. At worst (and I doubt it will be the worst case scenario even) WOTC will fork over some bucks to the 4 judges and may look in to installing a 3rd party Not for profit Judges Organization. Which I think was the initial intent behind the DCI.
Again, my apologies if you think I was being unnecessarily rude to you.
Do you know how many people bring laptops to the same room of a state bar exam? Thousands. (California was 8500 last year.) It's not so farcical as you apparently think (your apparent rudeness aside), and this was of course presupposing your hypothetical of no more affordable judges. It still seems like a decent alternative to folding-up shop.
That. Will. Never. Happen. GP on MTGO? That's just crazy talk. There would BE no MTGO. DO you know how many people sign up for local GPs? Thousands. Imagine if you didn't have to travel to get the same deal? Tens of thousands and with MTGO as it is, that would stretch the infrastructure too far.
I do applaud your joke though. I did laugh.
With judges then costing a premium, I'd rather like to think of it as the day they have to accommodate those of us who have never learned how to shuffle or untap pieces of cardboard, requiring all GP participants to bring a laptop. For rules enforcement, it's probably cheaper on their end already to simply supply a sufficient number of power strips than to support all human judge costs. If they want to be extra greedy, they can even require players to keep physical copies of their decks at their sides at all times.
I like it. I happen to enjoy green tints so it seems striking to me.
Trying Black Vise. That was banned in Legacy but got unbanned
It looks awful, but who cares, I plan to sell my copy. :D
If they do, DCI judging will probably end as we know it which could be the end of Grand Prix.
From WotC support rep: "Thank you for your report [on Thought Lash]. I was able to reproduce the issue as described and I have forwarded it to our development team for analysis and triage...Keep an eye on the bi-weekly Bug Blog, found on MTGO's home page, for updates."
Let us hope the suit has merit and that the judges win.
Jitte is banned in Legacy. All cards banned in Legacy are still banned in TWL even singleton. Oops nevermind, just realized that it isn't banned in Legacy so I dunno. I DO know it was banned in the TWL list and that might still be in effect. You'd think I'd know this btw since I suggested the format :D
There's a discrepancy on the banned lists for next week's Singleton event - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gFKhJtWCl6Yo82Ez0d_N4Iq58ruqfQWY... says there is no banned list for the sub-format but if you try loading Umezawa's Jitte, for example, into Gatherling, it doesn't work. I suspect Gatherling is correct here, and other old Tribal-format banned cards will also still be banned for a new Singleton banned list. Either way, please let us know. Thanks!