My comment about playing the format was actually directed at the Facebook commenter rather than yourself. However, take offence if you must.
I played two tournaments fairly recently and never ran into a Cephalid Breakfast deck once (playing 12 rounds altogether). Looking at results in Gatherling although the deck does show up reasonably frequently it's hardly dominating the tournaments and it's usually only one or two people playing it. So if you are running into it extremely frequently then I think you've been somewhat unlucky - also if this has deprived you of all the fun in the format then I think that's also a shame. The format does have answers to Cephalid Breakfast in the forms of removal for the creatures required, counterspells for the combo pieces, and then more targeted hate like Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Dryad Militant, Relic of Progenitus and Nihil Spellbomb.
I did address your comments regarding the banned list when I said that I didn't know who is in charge of it. Clearly Misthollow Griffin doesn't deserve to be on the banned list. Apparently it was put there due to an infinite mana combo with Food Chain, which is no longer in the format (I note that the comment explaining that was made after your original comment).
As to the other cards on the banned list -
Sword of the Meek - A potent combo with Thopter Foundry
Hypergenesis - Another extremely powerful combo deck
Channel - Another very powerful combo card that allows fast mana
Zuran Orb - I'm not sure of the precise reason for its banning but it would be very potent in the Eggs deck as a way to untap your basic lands
The banned list could do with some updating but to call it a joke is a bit extreme.
Overall, I think if you think a deck is bad for the format and you don't like the banned list it's probably best to contact the people who run the tournaments (MLBerlin and Afgusto I believe). I cannot speak for what their opinions are on these matters but I imagine they are in a much better position to deal with your grievances than I am.
A quick bug to add to your list: Kumano, Master Yamabushi is currently bugged. The second ability does absolutely nothing - Creatures dealt damage by Kumano will go to the graveyard instead of being exiled.
I thought about Gush, but I didn't want to fill the Hall of Fame too much, and in the end the other hall of famers (including Thoughtcast) would just be more widely voted out of sheer popularity.
Just think of yourself as multiple people. :)
It's not mandatory to express multiple votes (you can also express 0 votes in a category), it's just to widen the pool, and don't create huge gaps with cards ending with zero votes – you can vote for what you think it's the obvious best and at the same time give some love to your personal favorite.
I have been playing heirloom for a while now and am one of the host and I can tell you that Griffin should not be unbanned. I remember when Mishollow was legal and it nearly ruined the format, It was riducilously powerful for for the format. It was not an I win now card but the recurring card advantage it provided was near unbeatable. It prayed on all decks from combo, to aggro to control. So good riddance.
Misthollow's Banning was when Food Chain was still legal. I feel that the Griffin should be unbanned. It is a 3/3 flyer for 4 that has strange, obscure synergies. Now that Food Chain is far too expensive to be legal, I wouldn't worry.
Misthollow is a fair card in the format. I know that tutoring 3 of them into exile is strong but they still can't be cast before t4 and a 3/3 flier for 4 mana isn't the scariest thing when there are decks that can consistently win before turn 3-4.
I've played the damn format, and ran into that combo 4 times total where it was scoop by t3 every game. So much fun! I also love how no one addressed the fact that the banned list reads like a joke.
To most people, I wouldn't think 20+ tix is not budget, especially if you are only looking at those 3 cards that can be substituted for.
If it was like... $250 just to put together the backbone of whatever you were building, that's where you start to think it's not budget at all. Otherwise, there is a chance someone already owns those cards, or is able to swap them out.
Titan, Ophiomancer, Homeward, pushing deck into over 20 ticket range = not budget if only 3 cards do that.
Not needed redundancy: recursion cards that target your own gy, Endrek puts tokens only from casted creatures, not the ones that enter from other zones.
Consuming spirit: since you are sacking tokens its underwhelming and just plain bad in this deck.
Tragic slip, geths verdict, slate, disciple of bolas, trading post, forced march = all bad cards for this deck. Slip single target only under special circumstance which wont be online before turn 6. Disciple 1 life 1 card drawn usually otherwise you sac your win con. Trading post: you have endrek for tokens. Slate, necrologia: minions murmurs are by order of magnitude better. Forced march: terrible destroying your own resource.
If you want you can check the most tuned version of budget Endrek sahr deck (i think i didnt pay more than 10 tix in total for first version) you can check it under metagame on www.gatherling.com, ive played it in suncom tournament.
I counted 11 (maybe 12) cards that cost around or more than 1 dollar. I do not think any of those cost more than 5 dollars. Some of those are easily replaceable, and some are very good and cost that much for a reason. Some of those that are expensive can easily be found in a precon commander deck. Homeward Path is an example, as is Sol Ring.
It is very difficult to make a good deck that works for Multi and Single Player. I build each deck differently. By no means do I consider this deck a finished product as is. You have to taylor your deck to your budget, your meta, and the ammount of opponents.
Of the cards that are expensive, some of those are some I would suggest any player save up for, like Phyrexian Arena and Solemn.
Sorry to say it but this is nowhere near budget friendly deck, not on modo not in real life.
Second the deck that should revolve around synergistic cmdr feels like you have crammed singleplayer good commons to offset expensive multiplayer cards.
Deck feels made in haste and without forethought. Detailed analysis to follow
Look at Vintage.
Heirloom has a fun format living somewhere in the idea. But a format that changes so much from quarter to quarter should have someone or a group on top of broken stuff happening. Fun Magic is great, and builds a good event. But broken stuff pushes players away.
Plus the often don't put up registration till right before the event starts, making it very easy to miss, give the event a recluse feeling.
I have a favorite PRE format, Silverblack, which had not only the Modern ban list but also a special ban list. Heirloom should follow suit.
As someone who has been a fan of this format since its inception about 4 years ago, I have to say I really enjoy Heirloom. Back when it started the power level was much lower and it has crept up somewhat since then, particularly with the increase in the cost brackets that I believe was introduced to help create Standard Heirloom (which I think there are still tournaments for).
I don't get to play in the PREs very much but I did get a chance to play not so long ago and the format was still a lot of fun. I'll admit that combo is perhaps a little overpowered in the format but you should note the horrible lands Cephalid Breakfast has to play and the power of the countermagic available in the format (you can play a proper Counterspell). There are answers available for the combo decks out there.
I'm not sure if Xaos still has a hand in the banned list or who has the task of updating it but it's always an option if any particular deck gets out of hand. Heirloom, as I mentioned, has been going for about 4 years now and it's easy to say that a format needs fixing without ever playing it. I think the longevity in itself shows you that this is still a fun and interesting format.
so, you do you use the parenthesis option for hotlinking cards, or do you get the Gatherer address and use the old "anchor" style?
Sometimes the pictures/thumbnail options work for me and sometimes they do not. Back in the day I stored pictures via FTP and referenced back to their filename. I think the same thing is allowed here, but is done differently.
I figure the more and more I learn and do this, the more I will expand and come up with new ideas. I hope that some new player somewhere gets help from all of these articles.
Right, I guess that's basically it - the thing is, when you're writing, you're mostly ignoring HTML, at least I do. Then, once you've got the content part of the thing taken care of, you want to make sure you've got the supporting parts in place. I go back, try to hot-link obscure or important cards, possible include pictures or screenshots as pertinent, and (most importantly) decklists. Then I'll preview it to make sure that the things I want to show up, are. This is kind of important too - sometimes you'll see no obvious errors, but you realize there are only two decklists, when you put in 3, or thought you did.
This is frequently id10t error, but sometimes it's not as MUCH my fault, exactly - I might have bumped a button in the editor that undid my paste in, or pasted it inside of the 2nd decklist (so visually I'm like, "two lists, not 3? wtf" and then I figure it out), etc.
I did go through and try to make sure each opened marker had a closed one (where the backslash is in the second one)
I think the decklist jacked up the rest of the entire page. I copied and pasted it twice just to make sure it was not me.
Trust me, if I still knew my HTML, I would write the whole article that way. I can usually look at source and see what is going on, but I am not smooth enough to script a whole decklist from scratch that way. Tables always kicked my butt.
Against the Boss Sligh deck you could have one a turn earlier if you directed the shock at him instead of his creature.
My comment about playing the format was actually directed at the Facebook commenter rather than yourself. However, take offence if you must.
I played two tournaments fairly recently and never ran into a Cephalid Breakfast deck once (playing 12 rounds altogether). Looking at results in Gatherling although the deck does show up reasonably frequently it's hardly dominating the tournaments and it's usually only one or two people playing it. So if you are running into it extremely frequently then I think you've been somewhat unlucky - also if this has deprived you of all the fun in the format then I think that's also a shame. The format does have answers to Cephalid Breakfast in the forms of removal for the creatures required, counterspells for the combo pieces, and then more targeted hate like Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Dryad Militant, Relic of Progenitus and Nihil Spellbomb.
I did address your comments regarding the banned list when I said that I didn't know who is in charge of it. Clearly Misthollow Griffin doesn't deserve to be on the banned list. Apparently it was put there due to an infinite mana combo with Food Chain, which is no longer in the format (I note that the comment explaining that was made after your original comment).
As to the other cards on the banned list -
Sword of the Meek - A potent combo with Thopter Foundry
Hypergenesis - Another extremely powerful combo deck
Channel - Another very powerful combo card that allows fast mana
Zuran Orb - I'm not sure of the precise reason for its banning but it would be very potent in the Eggs deck as a way to untap your basic lands
The banned list could do with some updating but to call it a joke is a bit extreme.
Overall, I think if you think a deck is bad for the format and you don't like the banned list it's probably best to contact the people who run the tournaments (MLBerlin and Afgusto I believe). I cannot speak for what their opinions are on these matters but I imagine they are in a much better position to deal with your grievances than I am.
Last night I was playing and may have come across a bug with the shop.
First off I had F8 hit (no bluffing)
Only I had a shop out and tapped it to cast a couple of artifacts and it jumped to EOT.
A quick bug to add to your list: Kumano, Master Yamabushi is currently bugged. The second ability does absolutely nothing - Creatures dealt damage by Kumano will go to the graveyard instead of being exiled.
According to the official announcement, a Power 9 shows up in 1 out of every 53 packs. You are just exceedingly lucky.
I thought about Gush, but I didn't want to fill the Hall of Fame too much, and in the end the other hall of famers (including Thoughtcast) would just be more widely voted out of sheer popularity.
Just think of yourself as multiple people. :)
It's not mandatory to express multiple votes (you can also express 0 votes in a category), it's just to widen the pool, and don't create huge gaps with cards ending with zero votes – you can vote for what you think it's the obvious best and at the same time give some love to your personal favorite.
I have been playing heirloom for a while now and am one of the host and I can tell you that Griffin should not be unbanned. I remember when Mishollow was legal and it nearly ruined the format, It was riducilously powerful for for the format. It was not an I win now card but the recurring card advantage it provided was near unbeatable. It prayed on all decks from combo, to aggro to control. So good riddance.
it is lost to the sands of time, im in an equoise as to what was in the deck.
or in other words i didnt save the file and its not worth the effort to retrieve it ;)
Misthollow's Banning was when Food Chain was still legal. I feel that the Griffin should be unbanned. It is a 3/3 flyer for 4 that has strange, obscure synergies. Now that Food Chain is far too expensive to be legal, I wouldn't worry.
Misthollow is a fair card in the format. I know that tutoring 3 of them into exile is strong but they still can't be cast before t4 and a 3/3 flier for 4 mana isn't the scariest thing when there are decks that can consistently win before turn 3-4.
I've played the damn format, and ran into that combo 4 times total where it was scoop by t3 every game. So much fun! I also love how no one addressed the fact that the banned list reads like a joke.
Most people are not in hospital for over a year and can work to sink money into 50$ cards a piece.
To most people, I wouldn't think 20+ tix is not budget, especially if you are only looking at those 3 cards that can be substituted for.
If it was like... $250 just to put together the backbone of whatever you were building, that's where you start to think it's not budget at all. Otherwise, there is a chance someone already owns those cards, or is able to swap them out.
Nonbudget:
Titan, Ophiomancer, Homeward, pushing deck into over 20 ticket range = not budget if only 3 cards do that.
Not needed redundancy: recursion cards that target your own gy, Endrek puts tokens only from casted creatures, not the ones that enter from other zones.
Consuming spirit: since you are sacking tokens its underwhelming and just plain bad in this deck.
Tragic slip, geths verdict, slate, disciple of bolas, trading post, forced march = all bad cards for this deck. Slip single target only under special circumstance which wont be online before turn 6. Disciple 1 life 1 card drawn usually otherwise you sac your win con. Trading post: you have endrek for tokens. Slate, necrologia: minions murmurs are by order of magnitude better. Forced march: terrible destroying your own resource.
If you want you can check the most tuned version of budget Endrek sahr deck (i think i didnt pay more than 10 tix in total for first version) you can check it under metagame on www.gatherling.com, ive played it in suncom tournament.
I counted 11 (maybe 12) cards that cost around or more than 1 dollar. I do not think any of those cost more than 5 dollars. Some of those are easily replaceable, and some are very good and cost that much for a reason. Some of those that are expensive can easily be found in a precon commander deck. Homeward Path is an example, as is Sol Ring.
It is very difficult to make a good deck that works for Multi and Single Player. I build each deck differently. By no means do I consider this deck a finished product as is. You have to taylor your deck to your budget, your meta, and the ammount of opponents.
Of the cards that are expensive, some of those are some I would suggest any player save up for, like Phyrexian Arena and Solemn.
Sorry to say it but this is nowhere near budget friendly deck, not on modo not in real life.
Second the deck that should revolve around synergistic cmdr feels like you have crammed singleplayer good commons to offset expensive multiplayer cards.
Deck feels made in haste and without forethought. Detailed analysis to follow
I'm trying to learn all this myself...
Look at Vintage.
Heirloom has a fun format living somewhere in the idea. But a format that changes so much from quarter to quarter should have someone or a group on top of broken stuff happening. Fun Magic is great, and builds a good event. But broken stuff pushes players away.
Plus the often don't put up registration till right before the event starts, making it very easy to miss, give the event a recluse feeling.
I have a favorite PRE format, Silverblack, which had not only the Modern ban list but also a special ban list. Heirloom should follow suit.
As someone who has been a fan of this format since its inception about 4 years ago, I have to say I really enjoy Heirloom. Back when it started the power level was much lower and it has crept up somewhat since then, particularly with the increase in the cost brackets that I believe was introduced to help create Standard Heirloom (which I think there are still tournaments for).
I don't get to play in the PREs very much but I did get a chance to play not so long ago and the format was still a lot of fun. I'll admit that combo is perhaps a little overpowered in the format but you should note the horrible lands Cephalid Breakfast has to play and the power of the countermagic available in the format (you can play a proper Counterspell). There are answers available for the combo decks out there.
I'm not sure if Xaos still has a hand in the banned list or who has the task of updating it but it's always an option if any particular deck gets out of hand. Heirloom, as I mentioned, has been going for about 4 years now and it's easy to say that a format needs fixing without ever playing it. I think the longevity in itself shows you that this is still a fun and interesting format.
Haha, it took a little work but I got it down after a couple articles! Don't worry man, you'll get it.
Typically I'll just use the () option.
so, you do you use the parenthesis option for hotlinking cards, or do you get the Gatherer address and use the old "anchor" style?
Sometimes the pictures/thumbnail options work for me and sometimes they do not. Back in the day I stored pictures via FTP and referenced back to their filename. I think the same thing is allowed here, but is done differently.
I figure the more and more I learn and do this, the more I will expand and come up with new ideas. I hope that some new player somewhere gets help from all of these articles.
Right, I guess that's basically it - the thing is, when you're writing, you're mostly ignoring HTML, at least I do. Then, once you've got the content part of the thing taken care of, you want to make sure you've got the supporting parts in place. I go back, try to hot-link obscure or important cards, possible include pictures or screenshots as pertinent, and (most importantly) decklists. Then I'll preview it to make sure that the things I want to show up, are. This is kind of important too - sometimes you'll see no obvious errors, but you realize there are only two decklists, when you put in 3, or thought you did.
This is frequently id10t error, but sometimes it's not as MUCH my fault, exactly - I might have bumped a button in the editor that undid my paste in, or pasted it inside of the 2nd decklist (so visually I'm like, "two lists, not 3? wtf" and then I figure it out), etc.
So, you are saying leave comment markers as spacers for decklists?
Back when I used HTML, comments were:
<------------------comment here------------------>
I did go through and try to make sure each opened marker had a closed one (where the backslash is in the second one)
I think the decklist jacked up the rest of the entire page. I copied and pasted it twice just to make sure it was not me.
Trust me, if I still knew my HTML, I would write the whole article that way. I can usually look at source and see what is going on, but I am not smooth enough to script a whole decklist from scratch that way. Tables always kicked my butt.