4 Reyemile : nowhere man Exploration / March of the Machines / Door to Nothingness
0-6 Totem stops the insta-win, and Bridge means the Door can't hit me (I've always wanted to say that). Without March Door wins on your turn 5.
8. I drop Gnomes and start swinging. If he drops revoker, I Storm World to burn it away, then swing a win with gnomes or a 3/3. 6-0
If benbuzz790 is on the play, he plays Revoker first. If you drop Gnomes, revoker just kills it. If you use Storm World to kill Revoker, SW damages you before it damages benbuzz, and you lose the race. Playing Gnomes adds one damage to each side, so it doesn't help. This should be 3-3.
1. Guide hits first to stop SW kill, Vampire stops any blightsteel. 0-6
If you're on the play, you swing with BSC on turn 3, which is too fast for Vampire to answer. So I have to play Pithing Needle preemptively. If I then play Guide to try to win, you can play SW to kill it and kill me just before it kills you. If I do nothing, you can't win. This should be 4-1 in my favor.
You can't catch everything, and obviously this wasn't an entirely intuitive interaction. The round was fun to build for, and that's what matters.
Seconded.
Although I do think that the format would be improved in future if the whole Planeswalker thing were chucked out and the rule was simply that activated abilities of creatures all cost (0), but could only be activated once per turn. (Plus ban Pack Rat!)
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Although I do think that the format would be improved in future if the whole Planeswalker thing were chucked out and the rule was simply that activated abilities of creatures all cost (0), but could only be activated once per turn. (Plus ban Pack Rat!)
That would be a pretty different format, but also cool. I would support that for a future week. I also think we haven't fully explored the planeswalker rule, especially given the Pack Rat thing.
For this week, what exactly is the round rule? The OP is still all vague.
next week is 2cb, basic land rule, cards must start with the same letter, no acceleration, no mana denial.
not sure if i should address this with rules or with bans. if any of yall want to take a crack at that, thatd be great
Personally, I think that "mana denial doesn't work this round" is a better sort of round rule than something complicated that is almost certain to have some kind of unforeseen loophole.
Why? Because with a rule that MAY have a loophole, you have to try and work out what the loophole might be, and if it's obvious then the entire round is going to be dominated by the loophole...
...which means that the intent of the round is lost completely. The idea that seemed cool to you is "no mana denial". Rocking. Let's go with that.
Personally, I think that "mana denial doesn't work this round" is a better sort of round rule than something complicated that is almost certain to have some kind of unforeseen loophole.
Why? Because with a rule that MAY have a loophole, you have to try and work out what the loophole might be, and if it's obvious then the entire round is going to be dominated by the loophole...
...which means that the intent of the round is lost completely. The idea that seemed cool to you is "no mana denial". Rocking. Let's go with that.
Also, I think my results are the same as the other Door deck except for the one match where March kills a Pithing Needle, but I'll try to get around to double checking later tonight.
Also, does "no mana acceleration" ban or shut down Manamorphose? You can tap 2 lands and spend the mana to play Manamorphose - then you have produced 4 mana on turn 2.
Also, I think my results are the same as the other Door deck except for the one match where March kills a Pithing Needle, but I'll try to get around to double checking later tonight.
In order to win on turn 3, you have to expose creatures where Reyemile does not. That hurts you in a few matchups. You also have the ability to make a 1/1 on turn 1, which helps against benbuzz.
Anyway, I've finished the grid. The match between tomsloger and benbuzz790 is confusing, but I'm pretty sure tomsloger wins it by waiting to cast Gwafa and Shinobi on the same turn. Mogg's deck is capable of pulling out some draws in theory, but not against any of the submitted decks, so I've omitted it.
you can play power sink, but it wouldnt tap lands because my "rule" says you cant do that. so it would be a worse syncopate
flooded woodlands would not be allowed, because it doesnt do anything but mana denial, even if its bad mana denial. just dont do it
Also, does "no mana acceleration" ban or shut down Manamorphose? You can tap 2 lands and spend the mana to play Manamorphose - then you have produced 4 mana on turn 2.
correct, manamorphose wouldnt work. on turn 2, you could produce 2 mana at most.
the intention of the rule is "dont mess with mana. yours or opponents.
also, thank you psly4mne for finishing that grid, and congrats on the win!
Wait so some cards have their functionality affected, but others are banned? Who decides exactly *how* the functionality is affected, in those cases? I would really like our rules to be formulated as Magic text and unambiguous ban lists. This kind of vagueness rewards the person who is willing to try to come closest to an invisible line without crossing it, and that sucks.
In lieu of trying to enumerate all the ways people might try to do things with mana, I would like to propose this alternative expression of the intent:
2CB Alliterative Mana-On-Rails
Deck size: 2
Land rule: none
Deck construction rule: Alliterative - Both cards' English names must begin with the same letter.
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player has an emblem with "0: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only up to n times between the end of your untap step and the beginning of your next turn, where n is the number of turns you have begun." and "If an effect with a source other than this emblem would change the amount of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
I think this gets at the intent fairly well. One difference is that you can't produce things like Snow mana, but that is probably okay. Another difference is that you get a mana in the upkeep of your first turn. This could be changed easily, but I kinda like it this way.
Wait so some cards have their functionality affected, but others are banned? Who decides exactly *how* the functionality is affected, in those cases? I would really like our rules to be formulated as Magic text and unambiguous ban lists. This kind of vagueness rewards the person who is willing to try to come closest to an invisible line without crossing it, and that sucks.
In lieu of trying to enumerate all the ways people might try to do things with mana, I would like to propose this alternative expression of the intent:
2CB Alliterative Mana-On-Rails
Deck size: 2
Land rule: none
Deck construction rule: Alliterative - Both cards' English names must begin with the same letter.
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player has an emblem with "0: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only up to n times between the end of your untap step and the beginning of your next turn, where n is the number of turns you have begun." and "If an effect with a source other than this emblem would change the amount of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
I think this gets at the intent fairly well. One difference is that you can't produce things like Snow mana, but that is probably okay. Another difference is that you get a mana in the upkeep of your first turn. This could be changed easily, but I kinda like it this way.
i like this. it takes away strategies like beacon of creation, but i think we can live with that. and it doesnt effect any of the decks that have been submitted.
i would like to add "non emblem sources cannot produce mana"
we could also go super ridiculous and make the emblem snow, just in case someone wants that
sound reasonable to everyone? calling all judges.
edit: im still not going to accept a deck that tries to find loopholes. just dont do it, people.
Wait so some cards have their functionality affected, but others are banned? Who decides exactly *how* the functionality is affected, in those cases? I would really like our rules to be formulated as Magic text and unambiguous ban lists. This kind of vagueness rewards the person who is willing to try to come closest to an invisible line without crossing it, and that sucks.
In lieu of trying to enumerate all the ways people might try to do things with mana, I would like to propose this alternative expression of the intent:
2CB Alliterative Mana-On-Rails
Deck size: 2
Land rule: none
Deck construction rule: Alliterative - Both cards' English names must begin with the same letter.
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player has an emblem with "0: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only up to n times between the end of your untap step and the beginning of your next turn, where n is the number of turns you have begun." and "If an effect with a source other than this emblem would change the amount of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
I think this gets at the intent fairly well. One difference is that you can't produce things like Snow mana, but that is probably okay. Another difference is that you get a mana in the upkeep of your first turn. This could be changed easily, but I kinda like it this way.
I like this a lot. Below, I've suggested a minor rewording:
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player starts the games with an emblem with "0: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Until your next turn, you may activate this ability only N times, where N is the number of precombat main phases that have happened during turns you've started. You may treat this mana as though it were produced by a snow permanent" and "If an effect of a source other than this emblem would change the amount or type of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
Mogg, that's fine, though because of the kinda confusing way that Magic templates activation restrictions I want to make sure that no one thinks it lets you make mana on turn 0.
Quote from "tomsloger" »
i would like to add "non emblem sources cannot produce mana"
It already has (a superset of) that in the second ability.
Quote from "tomsloger" »
edit: im still not going to accept a deck that tries to find loopholes. just dont do it, people.
I think this is bad policy. If a deck works under the format rules, it should work, period. The entire point of formalizing is to make it so that there can't be a moderator judgment call involved. I think the format is pretty airtight in eliminating what you are likely to see as "loopholes", but within that, pushing it as far as it goes is kinda the point.
I think this is bad policy. If a deck works under the format rules, it should work, period. The entire point of formalizing is to make it so that there can't be a moderator judgment call involved. I think the format is pretty airtight in eliminating what you are likely to see as "loopholes", but within that, pushing it as far as it goes is kinda the point.
this is why i did not want to set more formal rules. the point isnt to try to get around it. just play fair.
as of yet, no one has tried to and thats what i wanted. keep that up guys, however the rules get formalized
I think this is bad policy. If a deck works under the format rules, it should work, period. The entire point of formalizing is to make it so that there can't be a moderator judgment call involved. I think the format is pretty airtight in eliminating what you are likely to see as "loopholes", but within that, pushing it as far as it goes is kinda the point.
Whilst I sort of agree with that stance, I think it's worth recognising that special formats often attempt to achieve specific things in terms of opening up categories of decks and cards that would normally be bad. Doing so quite frequently means shutting down whole categories of play because they're too good. If you take the (perfectly reasonable) view that all loopholes are fair play then if the mod misses even one card in their consideration of the format it can ruin the balance of the entire week. That's clearly not good.
If players can be reasonable about the difference between a bug in the format and a legitimately clever deck then problems don't arise. When I've been modding before I've had people PM and say "Hey, I think <some card> breaks the format. Ban it?". This seems like the right attitude to me. The question is how we can improve on that mechanism in terms of not having round rules repeatedly changing during the submission period, whilst still having non-vague format rules not requiring moderator discretion.
(I remember causing a big controversy once by submitting Uba Mask and Winds of Change in a context where discard and exile-from-hand were banned. It's this kind of thing tomsloger's looking to prevent and I think that's a very worthwhile goal.)
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i like this. it takes away strategies like beacon of creation, but i think we can live with that. and it doesnt effect any of the decks that have been submitted.
i would like to add "non emblem sources cannot produce mana"
we could also go super ridiculous and make the emblem snow, just in case someone wants that
sound reasonable to everyone? calling all judges.
edit: im still not going to accept a deck that tries to find loopholes. just dont do it, people.
Can we assume this is still a land rule week? (It's relevant for things like Valakut and sacrificing lands, even if they don't tap)
I'll also note that I liked the informal "no weaselling" rule much more.
If players can be reasonable about the difference between a bug in the format and a legitimately clever deck then problems don't arise. When I've been modding before I've had people PM and say "Hey, I think <some card> breaks the format. Ban it?". This seems like the right attitude to me.
I want to agree with this, but it has the same problem as all honor-code rules - it asks players to voluntarily give up an advantage, and thereby rewards those who choose not to. There is no way to differentiate a player who starts thinking about their deck a few hours before the deadline, sees the "loophole", assumes everyone else saw it too and submits a deck that uses it in an attempt to remain competitive from a player who saw it during format discussion, realized no one else was thinking about it, and sat on it until submitting a few hours before the deadline.
Of course, in a friendly game where the moderator participates, we have to have an honor code, and we do, and it works great, because we are all good people. But I don't see why we shouldn't minimize it as much as possible. I know from experience as a moderator that it is easiest to do the job fairly when I make a clear distinction for myself between "format construction time" and "deck construction time". During the former, I try my very hardest to make the format truly airtight. During the latter, hopefully at least a few days later and thread discussion later, I try my best to break it.
I think that dichotomy should apply to everyone, and that no one should be punished for playing the game to the best of their ability. We should all be honorable while we are discussing the format, and I trust everyone here to do that. But once we've settled on a formal definition, all bets should be off - the joy of this game is in the creativity we all manage to display when trying to squeeze every last bit of value out of a format into a tiny little deck.
I respect the instinct behind asking players to "play fair", but I think it can only have unfortunate results - either the moderator will be put in the position of making an a fairly arbitrary judgment call about what the "spirit" of the rule really was, or players will shy away from submitting exciting, boundary-pushing decks for fear of running up against such a judgment call. As a player, I don't want to worry about making the moderator uncomfortable by submitting a deck - I just want it to be unambiguously legal or illegal.
I want to agree with this, but it has the same problem as all honor-code rules - it asks players to voluntarily give up an advantage, and thereby rewards those who choose not to. There is no way to differentiate a player who starts thinking about their deck a few hours before the deadline, sees the "loophole", assumes everyone else saw it too and submits a deck that uses it in an attempt to remain competitive from a player who saw it during format discussion, realized no one else was thinking about it, and sat on it until submitting a few hours before the deadline.
Of course, in a friendly game where the moderator participates, we have to have an honor code, and we do, and it works great, because we are all good people. But I don't see why we shouldn't minimize it as much as possible. I know from experience as a moderator that it is easiest to do the job fairly when I make a clear distinction for myself between "format construction time" and "deck construction time". During the former, I try my very hardest to make the format truly airtight. During the latter, hopefully at least a few days later and thread discussion later, I try my best to break it.
I think that dichotomy should apply to everyone, and that no one should be punished for playing the game to the best of their ability. We should all be honorable while we are discussing the format, and I trust everyone here to do that. But once we've settled on a formal definition, all bets should be off - the joy of this game is in the creativity we all manage to display when trying to squeeze every last bit of value out of a format into a tiny little deck.
I respect the instinct behind asking players to "play fair", but I think it can only have unfortunate results - either the moderator will be put in the position of making an a fairly arbitrary judgment call about what the "spirit" of the rule really was, or players will shy away from submitting exciting, boundary-pushing decks for fear of running up against such a judgment call. As a player, I don't want to worry about making the moderator uncomfortable by submitting a deck - I just want it to be unambiguously legal or illegal.
No. Not every week needs to be the same.
Particularly when the mod is someone like tomsloger (er, no offense) who isn't usually one of the people spotting the holes in someone else's format.
Having a battle of wits between myself and (say) Mogg, trying to figure out the holes in the format? That's a fun challenge.
Trying to figure out what loophole tomsloger missed? Not so much. It's usually easy, at which point we play the "real" format (e.g. the format based around pacts and dark rituals), which is usually not even remotely like what he was trying to do.
(Seriously, the guys who can make a format and spot the loopholes in their *wording* that aren't there in their *intent* have honed a skill over time - it's REALLY hard, which means unless you want to slowly drive out the more average XCB players from taking over as mod for a bit, you need to cut some slack)
I'll note that I count myself among the guys who isn't good at spotting the holes in their own formats.
I think that's a good point, but I reach a different conclusion - I think we just need to give more weight to the format discussion and formalization process, which is what Mogg and I were trying to do above (and I think we captured tomsloger's intent pretty well - he did say he liked it!).
All of this said, I don't think this is life or death for XCB, at least not on the scale of a few ambiguous rounds. I would be sad if we moved toward this kind of vagueness permanently, but I'm not going to quit or anything.
For now, it would be nice to get word from tomsloger about whether we are in fact adopting Mogg's most recent update to my proposal, so that we can all start working on decks in earnest
How about a separate thread where people throw in a bunch of ideas for special weeks and we refine them? When refining is finished and when it comes time to play a week, use randomization to determine what special week we are running, what land rule, number of cards, etc. Like for example:
Idea 1: Nonland cards with converted mana cost X or less are banned. Idea 2: Life totals start at X. Idea 3: Roll again, choosing from a list of special formats that have already been done. Idea 4: Normal week. Idea 5: Backbuild. Idea 6: Something.
Moderator rolls a 6 sided die and rolls a 1. Moderator rolls a d6 for the value of X. Moderator rolls a 4. Moderator rolls for # of cards. Moderator rolls a 3.
3CB Land Rule, Nonland cards with converted mana cost X or less are banned.
How about a separate thread where people throw in a bunch of ideas for special weeks and we refine them?
Seems like a great idea to me!
I have taken the liberty of creating one so that any discussions which would be better off there can move there now so we can find them again later.
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I like the idea of a thread for generating and refining special weeks. This could go a long way toward working out format issues in advance.
I dislike the idea of randomly choosing a format. The moderator should be able to determine whether they have the time to run a particularly complex format or whether they want to time the round to coincide with an event or with other rounds. Further, as a player, I like to sometimes be a blown away by a format that I haven't remotely started to think about.
Mogg took the words right out of my mouth. Thread = great. Randomization = bad. Or at least, a tool a mod could totally choose to use if they are having trouble deciding, or want to pick fairly between several popular candidates. But it should not become the expected method.
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Results for
7 yarn : screw you, special format
Cursed Totem / Darksteel Reactor / Ensnaring Bridge
gwafa hazid, profiteer / neurok replica / okiba-gang shinobi
4-1 Lockdown on the play, make me discard Reactor on the draw.
2 WhammWhamme : blighted serenity
Copper Gnomes / Blightsteel Colossus / Serenity
0-6 Serenity is too good with colossus.
3 Draco9 : Goblin Passion
Flamewave Invoker / Goblin Lackey / Skirk Fire Marshal
6-0 Love me some tribal. Totem t2 means you can only deal up to 0+11+2=13 damage before Bridge locks you down.
4 Reyemile : nowhere man
Exploration / March of the Machines / Door to Nothingness
0-6
Totem stops the insta-win, and Bridge means the Door can't hit me (I've always wanted to say that).Without March Door wins on your turn 5.5 Feyd_Ruin : Going for Broke
Blightsteel Colossus / Copper Gnomes / Storm World
0-6 Funnily, Storm World wins this just as easily as Serenity would have.
6 bateleur : At Last! A Format That Makes Pack Rat Playable!
Elvish Scrapper / Pack Rat / Pithing Needle
6-0 :/
8 benbuzz790 : pith and blood
Pithing Needle / Phyrexian Revoker / Gilded Drake
6-0 Hate meets more hate.
9 Mogg : infirat
Leyline of Vitality / Pack Rat / Time Elemental
6-0 Suture Priest may have worked... but it's too easily hated out.
10 personman : island of misfit doors
Tinder Wall / Toymaker / Door to Nothingness
0-6 Door is a very cool card for the format.
11 psly4mne : vampiric guide
Goblin Guide / Captivating Vampire / Pithing Needle
6-0 Creatureless control you out.
7 | 4 0 6 0 0 6 X 6 6 0 6 | 34
If benbuzz790 is on the play, he plays Revoker first. If you drop Gnomes, revoker just kills it. If you use Storm World to kill Revoker, SW damages you before it damages benbuzz, and you lose the race. Playing Gnomes adds one damage to each side, so it doesn't help. This should be 3-3.
If you're on the play, you swing with BSC on turn 3, which is too fast for Vampire to answer. So I have to play Pithing Needle preemptively. If I then play Guide to try to win, you can play SW to kill it and kill me just before it kills you. If I do nothing, you can't win. This should be 4-1 in my favor.
You mean 6-0, but you wrote it correctly in your row.
He never plays March, and Door kills you without being a creature. Should be 0-6.
Should be 6-0 because Pack Rat doesn't work, though you wrote them correctly in your row.
Seconded.
Although I do think that the format would be improved in future if the whole Planeswalker thing were chucked out and the rule was simply that activated abilities of creatures all cost (0), but could only be activated once per turn. (Plus ban Pack Rat!)
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<Limited Clan>
That would be a pretty different format, but also cool. I would support that for a future week. I also think we haven't fully explored the planeswalker rule, especially given the Pack Rat thing.
For this week, what exactly is the round rule? The OP is still all vague.
not sure if i should address this with rules or with bans. if any of yall want to take a crack at that, thatd be great
Why? Because with a rule that MAY have a loophole, you have to try and work out what the loophole might be, and if it's obvious then the entire round is going to be dominated by the loophole...
...which means that the intent of the round is lost completely. The idea that seemed cool to you is "no mana denial". Rocking. Let's go with that.
But what does "no mana denial" mean? Does it mean Power Sink is banned? What about Flooded Woodlands?
Also, I think my results are the same as the other Door deck except for the one match where March kills a Pithing Needle, but I'll try to get around to double checking later tonight.
In order to win on turn 3, you have to expose creatures where Reyemile does not. That hurts you in a few matchups. You also have the ability to make a 1/1 on turn 1, which helps against benbuzz.
Anyway, I've finished the grid. The match between tomsloger and benbuzz790 is confusing, but I'm pretty sure tomsloger wins it by waiting to cast Gwafa and Shinobi on the same turn. Mogg's deck is capable of pulling out some draws in theory, but not against any of the submitted decks, so I've omitted it.
sheet
you can play power sink, but it wouldnt tap lands because my "rule" says you cant do that. so it would be a worse syncopate
flooded woodlands would not be allowed, because it doesnt do anything but mana denial, even if its bad mana denial. just dont do it
correct, manamorphose wouldnt work. on turn 2, you could produce 2 mana at most.
the intention of the rule is "dont mess with mana. yours or opponents.
also, thank you psly4mne for finishing that grid, and congrats on the win!
In lieu of trying to enumerate all the ways people might try to do things with mana, I would like to propose this alternative expression of the intent:
2CB Alliterative Mana-On-Rails
Deck size: 2
Land rule: none
Deck construction rule: Alliterative - Both cards' English names must begin with the same letter.
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player has an emblem with "0: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool. Activate this ability only up to n times between the end of your untap step and the beginning of your next turn, where n is the number of turns you have begun." and "If an effect with a source other than this emblem would change the amount of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
I think this gets at the intent fairly well. One difference is that you can't produce things like Snow mana, but that is probably okay. Another difference is that you get a mana in the upkeep of your first turn. This could be changed easily, but I kinda like it this way.
i like this. it takes away strategies like beacon of creation, but i think we can live with that. and it doesnt effect any of the decks that have been submitted.
i would like to add "non emblem sources cannot produce mana"
we could also go super ridiculous and make the emblem snow, just in case someone wants that
sound reasonable to everyone? calling all judges.
edit: im still not going to accept a deck that tries to find loopholes. just dont do it, people.
I like this a lot. Below, I've suggested a minor rewording:
Additional rule: Mana-On-Rails - Each player starts the games with an emblem with "0: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Until your next turn, you may activate this ability only N times, where N is the number of precombat main phases that have happened during turns you've started. You may treat this mana as though it were produced by a snow permanent" and "If an effect of a source other than this emblem would change the amount or type of mana in your mana pool, instead it doesn't."
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion
GWRhys the Redeemed
GUKruphix, God of Horizons
GRXenagos, God of Revels
GThrun, the Last Troll
GStompy
It already has (a superset of) that in the second ability.
I think this is bad policy. If a deck works under the format rules, it should work, period. The entire point of formalizing is to make it so that there can't be a moderator judgment call involved. I think the format is pretty airtight in eliminating what you are likely to see as "loopholes", but within that, pushing it as far as it goes is kinda the point.
this is why i did not want to set more formal rules. the point isnt to try to get around it. just play fair.
as of yet, no one has tried to and thats what i wanted. keep that up guys, however the rules get formalized
Whilst I sort of agree with that stance, I think it's worth recognising that special formats often attempt to achieve specific things in terms of opening up categories of decks and cards that would normally be bad. Doing so quite frequently means shutting down whole categories of play because they're too good. If you take the (perfectly reasonable) view that all loopholes are fair play then if the mod misses even one card in their consideration of the format it can ruin the balance of the entire week. That's clearly not good.
If players can be reasonable about the difference between a bug in the format and a legitimately clever deck then problems don't arise. When I've been modding before I've had people PM and say "Hey, I think <some card> breaks the format. Ban it?". This seems like the right attitude to me. The question is how we can improve on that mechanism in terms of not having round rules repeatedly changing during the submission period, whilst still having non-vague format rules not requiring moderator discretion.
(I remember causing a big controversy once by submitting Uba Mask and Winds of Change in a context where discard and exile-from-hand were banned. It's this kind of thing tomsloger's looking to prevent and I think that's a very worthwhile goal.)
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
Can we assume this is still a land rule week? (It's relevant for things like Valakut and sacrificing lands, even if they don't tap)
I'll also note that I liked the informal "no weaselling" rule much more.
I want to agree with this, but it has the same problem as all honor-code rules - it asks players to voluntarily give up an advantage, and thereby rewards those who choose not to. There is no way to differentiate a player who starts thinking about their deck a few hours before the deadline, sees the "loophole", assumes everyone else saw it too and submits a deck that uses it in an attempt to remain competitive from a player who saw it during format discussion, realized no one else was thinking about it, and sat on it until submitting a few hours before the deadline.
Of course, in a friendly game where the moderator participates, we have to have an honor code, and we do, and it works great, because we are all good people. But I don't see why we shouldn't minimize it as much as possible. I know from experience as a moderator that it is easiest to do the job fairly when I make a clear distinction for myself between "format construction time" and "deck construction time". During the former, I try my very hardest to make the format truly airtight. During the latter, hopefully at least a few days later and thread discussion later, I try my best to break it.
I think that dichotomy should apply to everyone, and that no one should be punished for playing the game to the best of their ability. We should all be honorable while we are discussing the format, and I trust everyone here to do that. But once we've settled on a formal definition, all bets should be off - the joy of this game is in the creativity we all manage to display when trying to squeeze every last bit of value out of a format into a tiny little deck.
I respect the instinct behind asking players to "play fair", but I think it can only have unfortunate results - either the moderator will be put in the position of making an a fairly arbitrary judgment call about what the "spirit" of the rule really was, or players will shy away from submitting exciting, boundary-pushing decks for fear of running up against such a judgment call. As a player, I don't want to worry about making the moderator uncomfortable by submitting a deck - I just want it to be unambiguously legal or illegal.
No. Not every week needs to be the same.
Particularly when the mod is someone like tomsloger (er, no offense) who isn't usually one of the people spotting the holes in someone else's format.
Having a battle of wits between myself and (say) Mogg, trying to figure out the holes in the format? That's a fun challenge.
Trying to figure out what loophole tomsloger missed? Not so much. It's usually easy, at which point we play the "real" format (e.g. the format based around pacts and dark rituals), which is usually not even remotely like what he was trying to do.
(Seriously, the guys who can make a format and spot the loopholes in their *wording* that aren't there in their *intent* have honed a skill over time - it's REALLY hard, which means unless you want to slowly drive out the more average XCB players from taking over as mod for a bit, you need to cut some slack)
I'll note that I count myself among the guys who isn't good at spotting the holes in their own formats.
All of this said, I don't think this is life or death for XCB, at least not on the scale of a few ambiguous rounds. I would be sad if we moved toward this kind of vagueness permanently, but I'm not going to quit or anything.
For now, it would be nice to get word from tomsloger about whether we are in fact adopting Mogg's most recent update to my proposal, so that we can all start working on decks in earnest
Idea 1: Nonland cards with converted mana cost X or less are banned.
Idea 2: Life totals start at X.
Idea 3: Roll again, choosing from a list of special formats that have already been done.
Idea 4: Normal week.
Idea 5: Backbuild.
Idea 6: Something.
Moderator rolls a 6 sided die and rolls a 1. Moderator rolls a d6 for the value of X. Moderator rolls a 4. Moderator rolls for # of cards. Moderator rolls a 3.
3CB Land Rule, Nonland cards with converted mana cost X or less are banned.
Seems like a great idea to me!
I have taken the liberty of creating one so that any discussions which would be better off there can move there now so we can find them again later.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
I dislike the idea of randomly choosing a format. The moderator should be able to determine whether they have the time to run a particularly complex format or whether they want to time the round to coincide with an event or with other rounds. Further, as a player, I like to sometimes be a blown away by a format that I haven't remotely started to think about.
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion
GWRhys the Redeemed
GUKruphix, God of Horizons
GRXenagos, God of Revels
GThrun, the Last Troll
GStompy