I'd like to kindly ask the mods to keep this thread in Magic General. Pretty much all TL talk currently happens either in the Commander forum or in various Commander threads (such as the Commander Huge Gainers thread in MSC), and I think that makes it hard to get a pulse on the MTGS community's feelings at large about the format.
I've said this before in various threads, but it's worth saying again here: TL doesn't play much like a Commander variant. I don't have a ton of experience with duel Commander specifically, so I suppose it's more similar to that, but as a long-time Legacy/Modern player and someone who greatly enjoys competitive, efficient, and toolbox-y decks, TL scratches an itch for me that's a lot more Legacy-lite without the Sneak Shows and Reanimators than anything resembling Commander. (That's my full disclosure statement.)
I feel like the TL talk in the Commander areas gets a good degree of bias. It feels like many Commander players see TL as a bastardization of (or just a pointless set of restrictions on) the format they love, or a threat to their local Commander scene. When viewed through the lens of Commander enthusiasts only, I can understand the distaste.
But the Commander rule and singleton nature (i.e., the main reasons TL gets filed into Commander) are only part of the TL picture, just as the Commander crowd is only a fraction of the audience that TL may (or may not) appeal to. I think it's unfortunate that TL get classified pretty strictly as a Commander variant, as I suspect most people that really play TL would agree that it's more a hybrid that's as close to Legacy as it is to EDH.
[/background]
So with all that background, what I'm trying to get is a sense for how prevalent TL is in your area, how the general MTGS population likes/dislikes the format, and what its current growth trend seems to be.
If you look at reddit metrics (http://redditmetrics.com/r/TinyLeaders), the TL subreddit spiked big earlier this year around the time the TL Facebook page took off, and has since leveled off over the past couple months. I've heard some people anecdotally say "flash in the pan," but I don't have enough data (even enough anecdotal data) to confirm or deny that.
For me, I really enjoy the format. I think it can happily coexist with Commander, Legacy, and others, and hope people take an interest and keep playing it. I'm not big on wanting to see Wizards take it over (and don't think it's anywhere near popular enough for that yet, anyway), but would be cool to see the yearly Commander products acknowledge TL by printing additional, 3-cost generals in the color combinations that are lacking.
It's a fun format-my LGS has a league setup for it- but it doesn't take long for it to quickly become much more competitive than most Commander groups (even groups that have spikey players). The decks are fast and vicious, and the legal strategies employed are outright merciless. I find it to be more of a cutthroat format than just about anything else, and for some, that's a very attractive feature. However, I think it also tends to drive away players who are looking to it as an alternative to commander, so if there's anything keeping its growth checked, I suspect it would be misplaced expectations.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
It's a fun format-my LGS has a league setup for it- but it doesn't take long for it to quickly become much more competitive than most Commander groups (even groups that have spikey players). The decks are fast and vicious, and the legal strategies employed are outright merciless. I find it to be more of a cutthroat format than just about anything else, and for some, that's a very attractive feature. However, I think it also tends to drive away players who are looking to it as an alternative to commander, so if there's anything keeping its growth checked, I suspect it would be misplaced expectations.
Yeah, that's a big reason I wanted to make this thread. I feel like the format is often misclassified, and therefore hits the wrong audience with the wrong set of expectations.
It got boring pretty quickly in my area. There was about 10 of us giving it a go because it was the new "thing", but fifty card decks just don't give that many unique play experiences. The majority of us are very skilled players, and it really wasn't any more obnoxious or cutthroat than normal commander, perhaps watered down, but a bit more streamlined, but that's it really. I guess we played it mostly because it was "different" but it wasn't that much different. I don't think any of us even carry a TL deck on us anymore.
I feel like there's nobody around here who plays it but the last big tournament I went to there were a few people playing it.
I find that for casual formats like edh/tiny leaders, people around here tend to take a while to get into them, as it's kinda competitive around here. Some people just got edh decks or are still working on them.
I'm waiting until other people show interest in the format to build a deck
fifty card decks just don't give that many unique play experiences
This is pretty much it. A 50-card deck means you can build yourself a deck with a very high level of consistency, and the mana cost restriction means there are a lot of strategies without effective or numerous answers (sweepers, for instance, being relatively few in number). It just makes me wonder why I wouldn't just play Modern or Legacy instead for a richer, more varied experience. Like, Tiny Leaders, to me, just doesn't have any kind of unique draw that I can't find better in another format. My LGS largely feels similarly, too, since I've seen maybe one person with a Tiny Leaders deck there, whereas nearly everyone has EDH. There was a Pauper Commander fad a little while ago, too, so it's not like they're resistant to variant formats. It just doesn't seem to have widespread appeal, instead forming pockets where I find either a community has a strong Tiny Leaders playerbase, or none at all, with little in-between.
I totally agree with Teia. The limitations in deck building just make the format too focused. Ezuri or bust basically. I tried it, and it was boring. Every game, each deck just did their thing with little interaction and then one won. It's nothing like Legacy and nothing like EDH. And I think this is why it is a disappointment to fans of both formats. It seems like a terrible mix trying to take flight with two broken wings and just a piece of cardboard to flap.
After trying the format one night months ago, it has literally been mentioned once that I have heard of at my LGS.
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"You are what you pretend to be, so you must be careful what you pretend to be" from Mother Night
As someone who knows the creators and overlords of Tiny Leaders I have to say that Tiny Leaders was never meant to be an alternative to Commander (more like Legacy) and I'm not sure how people ever thought that
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"Listen closely as your radio plays
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
fifty card decks just don't give that many unique play experiences
This is pretty much it. A 50-card deck means you can build yourself a deck with a very high level of consistency, and the mana cost restriction means there are a lot of strategies without effective or numerous answers (sweepers, for instance, being relatively few in number). It just makes me wonder why I wouldn't just play Modern or Legacy instead for a richer, more varied experience.
For me, it's like Legacy-lite. It's a high-powered and efficient format where I can play a lot of the Legacy stuff not legal in Modern, but without all the unfair decks like Dredge, Show and Tell, Reanimator, and most combo. I also find that 50-card singleton yields a more varied play experience than 60-card formats that allow playsets. In any TL deck, you're going to have 30+ different nonland cards, and the general is what provides consistency. In the matches I've played, the relevance/importance of the commander varies from game to game.
But this comes back to the expectations thing. If you're expecting Commander levels of variety, you don't get that. But in a format designed to be cutthroat and efficient, I don't think you really want it. I feel like TL hits a nice middle ground.
As someone who knows the creators and overlords of Tiny Leaders I have to say that Tiny Leaders was never meant to be an alternative to Commander (more like Legacy) and I'm not sure how people ever thought that
that's one reason I've heard to not playing Tiny Leaders, that people rather play Legacy than alternative to it (Tiny Leaders)
I mean I have nothing against the format, I'm just not gonna invest in a format where nobody around here plays
As someone who knows the creators and overlords of Tiny Leaders I have to say that Tiny Leaders was never meant to be an alternative to Commander (more like Legacy) and I'm not sure how people ever thought that
Yeah. I know 2-3 people who play EDH that think Tiny Leaders is playable. I know 40-50 that all think it's *****. It's packaged like EDH but it's not at all the same - sort of like Sour Apple Skittles.
In my area, it is very popular and my LGS even does Tiny Leader tournaments that give out Game Day tokens and pins from SCG. It seems like every week, someone is trying to get me to play it.
I have only played exactly 1 game of Tiny Leaders. It was at a Premier IQ when a guy who I know that had just beaten me let me use his deck to play against him. It was okay, but there really wasn't much to playing it, even if I did make a big mistake on 1 card Athreos, God of Passage.
I would like to capitalize on the popularity by selling cards that I have though. I will put that out there...
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The difference is whether or not you have adequate tools available. Choosing not to run certain answers is one thing, and the onus for not dealing with the strategy is on the player, but when the answers simply aren't there (or there are very few of them, making it more difficult than it has to be to answer certain strategies), it's another thing entirely.
The difference is whether or not you have adequate tools available. Choosing not to run certain answers is one thing, and the onus for not dealing with the strategy is on the player, but when the answers simply aren't there (or there are very few of them, making it more difficult than it has to be to answer certain strategies), it's another thing entirely.
I've found the available tools to be pretty adequate. There are a couple cards I lean on a bit, but I haven't yet run into a situation I feel consistently powerless against. Aside from playing overall good cards, I'm not running anything to trump specific generals/strategies.
It's not perfect, but I think the tools are there, especially for a young format/concept. Where I think it's most lacking is in the commander options, specifically in some color combinations like U/B (Sygg, River Cutthroat is the only option) and BUG (no available commander options). Hopefully those will improve in time.
Never played the format yet I dislike it. Someone told me it's a slightly cheaper way to play Legacy, but I watched a game all it was was power cards with no synergy, and the same cards again and again. I decided if that was the case, I'd stick to Legacy, where a blue deck does not always have Jace in it...
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
Never played the format yet I dislike it. Someone told me it's a slightly cheaper way to play Legacy, but I watched a game all it was was power cards with no synergy, and the same cards again and again. I decided if that was the case, I'd stick to Legacy, where a blue deck does not always have Jace in it...
Jace Beleren is the only Tiny Leaders legal Jace and he's not really the one your talking about, is he?
While I think TL is pointless, saying that it's just power cards with no synergy sounds more like a small data set and not something inherent in the format.
Never played the format yet I dislike it. Someone told me it's a slightly cheaper way to play Legacy, but I watched a game all it was was power cards with no synergy, and the same cards again and again. I decided if that was the case, I'd stick to Legacy, where a blue deck does not always have Jace in it...
I will say that it's a potential starting point for players interested in Legacy, given that the smaller deck size + singleton nature translates to lower cost of entry...
But beyond that, TL gets me to a place I can't easily get to with Legacy in terms of brewing. Legacy is such a mature and established format, "innovation" typically involves little more than playing with a couple flex spots in an established list. You also have to constantly be wary of all the busted and unfair stuff, leaning on FoW in blue, and so on. I love Legacy, but it has its shortcomings.
(Not that unfair-ish stuff can't happen in TL, but it's not nearly on the same level, or with the same degree of prevalance/consistency.)
The options to brew and personalize I think are the biggest things TL draws from Commander (well, aside from the commander rule itself), and I find them to be a real positive. Even though I don't much enjoy actual Commander, I love those elements of the format.
Again, I totally get why Commander players aren't into TL. It appeals to a mostly different set of "needs" as a Magic player. But I also feel like there's a lot of instant dismissal of the format, statements like "Just play Legacy," or "Not varied enough," or "Format already solved." I really don't get any of that.
Played it for a little while and got sick of it. Basically games come down to whoever can 'go off' first. It's mini legacy in a nut-shell, as many have stated above. I run a pretty busted Merieke Ri Berit deck and still get stomped by some of the more degenerate decks. If you like watching your opponent solitaire, it's for you.
"If fetch lands are reprinted I really believe they will be in allied colors (aka Onslaught fetches). If the fetch lands are reprinted you better believe that we'll all be fetching up basics. This would lead me to believe that the set after THS may have a reprint as the temples can't be fetched but it's pure speculation." - posted 03/22/2014 proved correct during Khans spoiler season.
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
It fails at being EDH. (So I can only play with a limited number of cards from a hyper-restricted selection based on an incredibly arbitrary CMC amount)
It fails at being competitive. (See Duel for a proper attempt at balance and competition)
It fails at being interesting. (Everything it does another format does better, without restricting most of the game).
If you like poorly designed psuedo-wannabee legacy then go for it. I like my formats with more than 15 minutes of apparent thought behind them.
I am astounded that people can honestly compare TL to legacy when DC exists. It's frankly silly (and outright dishonest) at this point.
It feels poorly cobbled together and that some cards that "warp" the format by the converted mana cost restriction being a 100% upside should be banned. Inquistion of Kozilek is a much better thoughtseize, and Smother kills everything without Protection from Black. Also, Black Sun's Zenith is really good in a format that has 43 cards left in your deck when you get your opening hand.
I'm just not a fan of the format. I told myself I would give it time to see if they actually banned anything, but with no banned list updates, this looks like it's dead in the water as far as competitiveness goes. I see a lot of sameness out there, which is surprising since you would think with sideboards you would try some wackier stuff. :/
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I don't love it, I don't hate it, but I've watched a few games and all in all, I prefer both EDH for my lengthy, complex, involved games and Modern for my high-powered, few turns, optimized-decks games.
That's just me, however. Tiny Leaders is huge locally, and oddly has grown at the expense of one particular format: Duel Commander. A couple stores that had Duel Commander nights have dropped them entirely in favor of Tiny Leaders nights, which multi-player EDH seems largely unaffected by the growth in Tiny Leaders other than the prices of certain cards. The Tiny Leaders crowd is comparable to the Modern crowd and bigger than the Legacy crowd by almost double.
I don't know if it will stick, but it's the hot trend just now!
It's currently in decline at my LGS. Most of the people who had multiple decks built have cut down to one, and others don't have theirs together anymore. I tried to start by building a "serious" deck with Xira Arien for colors, but I got bored with the gameplay. I'm getting ready to replace it with a "silly" Soraya the Falconer tribal bird deck.
A few people here play it and love it, but many more still just play commander. As the op pointed out, Tiny Leaders is a very aggressive format just by the nature of its ruleset. That combined with it being a one-on-one format, means it tends to get competitive fast. This makes it kind of an awful substitute for commander, which is supposed to be a casual format (even if some groups do get spiky).
I personally don't care for it that much. I play standard and modern competitively (would go for legacy and vintage too if I had the spare change) and I like winding down with a group of friends playing commander now and then. Tiny Leaders doesn't really work so well for winding down due to its aggressive nature and and being one-on-one. It just doesn't scratch that competitive itch for me that a normal standard/modern/legacy deck would, and it's not as good for casual fun as commander, so for me it just doesn't really fit in anywhere.
I'd like to kindly ask the mods to keep this thread in Magic General. Pretty much all TL talk currently happens either in the Commander forum or in various Commander threads (such as the Commander Huge Gainers thread in MSC), and I think that makes it hard to get a pulse on the MTGS community's feelings at large about the format.
(For anyone that's been living under a rock: http://tinyleaders.blogspot.com/)
I've said this before in various threads, but it's worth saying again here: TL doesn't play much like a Commander variant. I don't have a ton of experience with duel Commander specifically, so I suppose it's more similar to that, but as a long-time Legacy/Modern player and someone who greatly enjoys competitive, efficient, and toolbox-y decks, TL scratches an itch for me that's a lot more Legacy-lite without the Sneak Shows and Reanimators than anything resembling Commander. (That's my full disclosure statement.)
I feel like the TL talk in the Commander areas gets a good degree of bias. It feels like many Commander players see TL as a bastardization of (or just a pointless set of restrictions on) the format they love, or a threat to their local Commander scene. When viewed through the lens of Commander enthusiasts only, I can understand the distaste.
But the Commander rule and singleton nature (i.e., the main reasons TL gets filed into Commander) are only part of the TL picture, just as the Commander crowd is only a fraction of the audience that TL may (or may not) appeal to. I think it's unfortunate that TL get classified pretty strictly as a Commander variant, as I suspect most people that really play TL would agree that it's more a hybrid that's as close to Legacy as it is to EDH.
[/background]
So with all that background, what I'm trying to get is a sense for how prevalent TL is in your area, how the general MTGS population likes/dislikes the format, and what its current growth trend seems to be.
If you look at reddit metrics (http://redditmetrics.com/r/TinyLeaders), the TL subreddit spiked big earlier this year around the time the TL Facebook page took off, and has since leveled off over the past couple months. I've heard some people anecdotally say "flash in the pan," but I don't have enough data (even enough anecdotal data) to confirm or deny that.
For me, I really enjoy the format. I think it can happily coexist with Commander, Legacy, and others, and hope people take an interest and keep playing it. I'm not big on wanting to see Wizards take it over (and don't think it's anywhere near popular enough for that yet, anyway), but would be cool to see the yearly Commander products acknowledge TL by printing additional, 3-cost generals in the color combinations that are lacking.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Yeah, that's a big reason I wanted to make this thread. I feel like the format is often misclassified, and therefore hits the wrong audience with the wrong set of expectations.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
I find that for casual formats like edh/tiny leaders, people around here tend to take a while to get into them, as it's kinda competitive around here. Some people just got edh decks or are still working on them.
I'm waiting until other people show interest in the format to build a deck
This is pretty much it. A 50-card deck means you can build yourself a deck with a very high level of consistency, and the mana cost restriction means there are a lot of strategies without effective or numerous answers (sweepers, for instance, being relatively few in number). It just makes me wonder why I wouldn't just play Modern or Legacy instead for a richer, more varied experience. Like, Tiny Leaders, to me, just doesn't have any kind of unique draw that I can't find better in another format. My LGS largely feels similarly, too, since I've seen maybe one person with a Tiny Leaders deck there, whereas nearly everyone has EDH. There was a Pauper Commander fad a little while ago, too, so it's not like they're resistant to variant formats. It just doesn't seem to have widespread appeal, instead forming pockets where I find either a community has a strong Tiny Leaders playerbase, or none at all, with little in-between.
After trying the format one night months ago, it has literally been mentioned once that I have heard of at my LGS.
First posted EDH deck: Hakim, Beardmaster
a program of a slightly different strain.
Tonight my listeners, a new power will rise,
unleashed upon you all in this musical disguise.
Your cities turn to ash, for the broadcast is cursed.
The signal is peaking and can't be reversed.
If you choose my children, you can try to hide.
But I strongly suggest you run for your life."
-The Sermon 2, The Creepshow
For me, it's like Legacy-lite. It's a high-powered and efficient format where I can play a lot of the Legacy stuff not legal in Modern, but without all the unfair decks like Dredge, Show and Tell, Reanimator, and most combo. I also find that 50-card singleton yields a more varied play experience than 60-card formats that allow playsets. In any TL deck, you're going to have 30+ different nonland cards, and the general is what provides consistency. In the matches I've played, the relevance/importance of the commander varies from game to game.
But this comes back to the expectations thing. If you're expecting Commander levels of variety, you don't get that. But in a format designed to be cutthroat and efficient, I don't think you really want it. I feel like TL hits a nice middle ground.
The three decks I'm running right now are Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, and they all play somewhat similar to Legacy D+T, Eva Green, and Goblins... but you definitely do need to construct solid builds and include cards that can help with problem strategies: Council's Judgment, Nevermore, Toxic Deluge, Pernicious Deed, and Sudden Demise have been pretty huge for me so far. A close buddy runs Geist of Saint Traft, and he can get out of control quickly if you don't have ways to deal. But that kind of stuff happens in all formats.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
that's one reason I've heard to not playing Tiny Leaders, that people rather play Legacy than alternative to it (Tiny Leaders)
I mean I have nothing against the format, I'm just not gonna invest in a format where nobody around here plays
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I have only played exactly 1 game of Tiny Leaders. It was at a Premier IQ when a guy who I know that had just beaten me let me use his deck to play against him. It was okay, but there really wasn't much to playing it, even if I did make a big mistake on 1 card Athreos, God of Passage.
I would like to capitalize on the popularity by selling cards that I have though. I will put that out there...
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)The difference is whether or not you have adequate tools available. Choosing not to run certain answers is one thing, and the onus for not dealing with the strategy is on the player, but when the answers simply aren't there (or there are very few of them, making it more difficult than it has to be to answer certain strategies), it's another thing entirely.
I've found the available tools to be pretty adequate. There are a couple cards I lean on a bit, but I haven't yet run into a situation I feel consistently powerless against. Aside from playing overall good cards, I'm not running anything to trump specific generals/strategies.
It's not perfect, but I think the tools are there, especially for a young format/concept. Where I think it's most lacking is in the commander options, specifically in some color combinations like U/B (Sygg, River Cutthroat is the only option) and BUG (no available commander options). Hopefully those will improve in time.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
While I think TL is pointless, saying that it's just power cards with no synergy sounds more like a small data set and not something inherent in the format.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
I will say that it's a potential starting point for players interested in Legacy, given that the smaller deck size + singleton nature translates to lower cost of entry...
But beyond that, TL gets me to a place I can't easily get to with Legacy in terms of brewing. Legacy is such a mature and established format, "innovation" typically involves little more than playing with a couple flex spots in an established list. You also have to constantly be wary of all the busted and unfair stuff, leaning on FoW in blue, and so on. I love Legacy, but it has its shortcomings.
(Not that unfair-ish stuff can't happen in TL, but it's not nearly on the same level, or with the same degree of prevalance/consistency.)
In TL, even if I take a very solid shell like B/G, I have maybe 8-10 "must include" cards for the shell (stuff like Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman...) and then maybe a few "must include" cards based on my general (Rancor with Skullbriar, the Walking Grave...), but beyond that, everything else is flex. I can include pet cards here and there and still be competitive. I can play around with a variety of sub-strategies. Maybe I want to run a Varolz, the Scar-Striped package (or as an alternate general) with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Death's Shadow, maybe I want to do Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage and Vampire Hexmage, or run some Life From the Loam with Bloodghast, Gravecrawler and Cabal Therapy... you have lots of options to brew/personalize, while still being competitive and having some of the Legacy feel.
I dunno, for me, the format is all about synergy.
The options to brew and personalize I think are the biggest things TL draws from Commander (well, aside from the commander rule itself), and I find them to be a real positive. Even though I don't much enjoy actual Commander, I love those elements of the format.
Again, I totally get why Commander players aren't into TL. It appeals to a mostly different set of "needs" as a Magic player. But I also feel like there's a lot of instant dismissal of the format, statements like "Just play Legacy," or "Not varied enough," or "Format already solved." I really don't get any of that.
Legacy: D+T
Oldschool: BW Deadguy BW
Magic player/collector since 1994
Proud supporter of #MtgForLife!
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
It fails at being competitive. (See Duel for a proper attempt at balance and competition)
It fails at being interesting. (Everything it does another format does better, without restricting most of the game).
If you like poorly designed psuedo-wannabee legacy then go for it. I like my formats with more than 15 minutes of apparent thought behind them.
I am astounded that people can honestly compare TL to legacy when DC exists. It's frankly silly (and outright dishonest) at this point.
Also, the name is stupid (this may be petty).
I'm just not a fan of the format. I told myself I would give it time to see if they actually banned anything, but with no banned list updates, this looks like it's dead in the water as far as competitiveness goes. I see a lot of sameness out there, which is surprising since you would think with sideboards you would try some wackier stuff. :/
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I don't love it, I don't hate it, but I've watched a few games and all in all, I prefer both EDH for my lengthy, complex, involved games and Modern for my high-powered, few turns, optimized-decks games.
That's just me, however. Tiny Leaders is huge locally, and oddly has grown at the expense of one particular format: Duel Commander. A couple stores that had Duel Commander nights have dropped them entirely in favor of Tiny Leaders nights, which multi-player EDH seems largely unaffected by the growth in Tiny Leaders other than the prices of certain cards. The Tiny Leaders crowd is comparable to the Modern crowd and bigger than the Legacy crowd by almost double.
I don't know if it will stick, but it's the hot trend just now!
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
I'm Mike, from The Mana Pool.
Check out my Tapped Out profile and comment on my decks!
I personally don't care for it that much. I play standard and modern competitively (would go for legacy and vintage too if I had the spare change) and I like winding down with a group of friends playing commander now and then. Tiny Leaders doesn't really work so well for winding down due to its aggressive nature and and being one-on-one. It just doesn't scratch that competitive itch for me that a normal standard/modern/legacy deck would, and it's not as good for casual fun as commander, so for me it just doesn't really fit in anywhere.
It never got super big in my area thankfully, and the little support it received kinda died off quick.
It's a flavor of the month/fad format.
More than anything it feels like a format made by someone that really wanted to be known as the guy responsible for making the "next EDH".
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver