I wish I liked playing virtual Magic. It'd be so much easier... I got into online Vintage for a while, but I dislike the interface (that goes for Cockatrice too). Playing live is so much better... I don't know if I'm going into MTGO for Commander though. Sounds tempting.
I'm also a MTGO newbie. The hotkeys are a pain to learn, particularly passing priority and holding.
Anyways does anybody have a good estimate of full deck prices? I've only Jace built so far and it cost 230 tix on MTGOtraders after I used a coupon on their website. I'm thinking of also building Keranos, Prossh, Selvala MonoG, Vial/Thrasios or Oloro Esper control but I'm scared of buying 35+ duals and fetches for Oloro. With Jace Tide I've gotten away with not buying Jace TMS or Wasteland yet.
edit: Jace TMS is less than 10 tix so scratch that.
I'm also a MTGO newbie. The hotkeys are a pain to learn, particularly passing priority and holding.
Anyways does anybody have a good estimate of full deck prices? I've only Jace built so far and it cost 230 tix on MTGOtraders after I used a coupon on their website. I'm thinking of also building Keranos, Prossh, Selvala MonoG, Vial/Thrasios or Oloro Esper control but I'm scared of buying 35+ duals and fetches for Oloro. With Jace Tide I've gotten away with not buying Jace TMS or Wasteland yet.
Imo Wasteland is a pretty safe buy as you'll use it literally in every deck. Even the most tight 4c manabases will play one. If you only buy one expensive-ish card, that'd be my recommendation.
The most tight 4c manabases will probably just replace Waste with Strip Mine and not run Waste. But while I agree it's a safe buy, I simply can't justify spending 50tix on a card after getting used to paying nothing for 100+ decks on Cocka :D. I have no regrets getting the Force for 30 tix, but Wasteland on MTGO is pricier than on paper so I'm feeling a bit burned about getting that, particularly when Strip Mine is legal.
The top8 may be diverse but if you look at the metagame of the latest Demonic Tournament (190 player I think) you have:
27 Zurgo, 17 Geist, 14 Baral, 13 Bruse Tarl & Reyhan. Then 8 Tymna & Thrasios 6 Titania, 6 Jace, 5 Radha and a bunch of 1/2-of.
Basically, aggro and Blue.
Have you played Modern? You would think Burn is unbeatable there by the numbers it shows up in. But while it's "Tier 1" it's been a very long while since it won anything.
Zurgo is not "everywhere" because it's unbeatable, it's "everywhere" because it's stupidly cheap. In fact if you swap Titania and Radha for the partners decks in that list, it's pretty much inverselly proportional to deck cost with Geist as the only outlier.
It doesn't matter how many Zurgos play, what matters is that other decks have a chance to win. I bet if we make a WotC list tournament with a single optimal Oloro, a single optimal Narset, a single optimal Vial/Kraum, a single optimal Jace, a single optimal Baral, a single optimal Maelstrom Wanderer and a single optimal Tasigur plus 500 rougue decks, the top 8 will be among the decks I just listed.
Pretty sure non WotC 1v1 formats are dead, unless you want to play French where there will be bannings every quarter and with 20 life instead of a regular 20 life constructed format.
I don't get this sentence, you seem to be describing DC as doing something wrong unlike regular constructed formats, but what you describe is done in regular constructed formats and considered possitive in all but Standard.
The most tight 4c manabases will probably just replace Waste with Strip Mine and not run Waste. But while I agree it's a safe buy, I simply can't justify spending 50tix on a card after getting used to paying nothing for 100+ decks on Cocka :D. I have no regrets getting the Force for 30 tix, but Wasteland on MTGO is pricier than on paper so I'm feeling a bit burned about getting that, particularly when Strip Mine is legal.
The top8 may be diverse but if you look at the metagame of the latest Demonic Tournament (190 player I think) you have:
27 Zurgo, 17 Geist, 14 Baral, 13 Bruse Tarl & Reyhan. Then 8 Tymna & Thrasios 6 Titania, 6 Jace, 5 Radha and a bunch of 1/2-of.
Basically, aggro and Blue.
Have you played Modern? You would think Burn is unbeatable there by the numbers it shows up in. But while it's "Tier 1" it's been a very long while since it won anything.
Zurgo is not "everywhere" because it's unbeatable, it's "everywhere" because it's stupidly cheap. In fact if you swap Titania and Radha for the partners decks in that list, it's pretty much inverselly proportional to deck cost with Geist as the only outlier.
It doesn't matter how many Zurgos play, what matters is that other decks have a chance to win. I bet if we make a WotC list tournament with a single optimal Oloro, a single optimal Narset, a single optimal Vial/Kraum, a single optimal Jace, a single optimal Baral, a single optimal Maelstrom Wanderer and a single optimal Tasigur plus 500 rougue decks, the top 8 will be among the decks I just listed.
Pretty sure non WotC 1v1 formats are dead, unless you want to play French where there will be bannings every quarter and with 20 life instead of a regular 20 life constructed format.
I don't get this sentence, you seem to be describing DC as doing something wrong unlike regular constructed formats, but what you describe is done in regular constructed formats and considered possitive in all but Standard.
Then what would be the point of being EDH if it's just a bad version of most formats? There's Modern if you want low interactivity and blue cards banned into oblivion.
The top8 may be diverse but if you look at the metagame of the latest Demonic Tournament (190 player I think) you have:
27 Zurgo, 17 Geist, 14 Baral, 13 Bruse Tarl & Reyhan. Then 8 Tymna & Thrasios 6 Titania, 6 Jace, 5 Radha and a bunch of 1/2-of.
Basically, aggro and Blue.
Have you played Modern? You would think Burn is unbeatable there by the numbers it shows up in. But while it's "Tier 1" it's been a very long while since it won anything.
Zurgo is not "everywhere" because it's unbeatable, it's "everywhere" because it's stupidly cheap. In fact if you swap Titania and Radha for the partners decks in that list, it's pretty much inverselly proportional to deck cost with Geist as the only outlier.
It doesn't matter how many Zurgos play, what matters is that other decks have a chance to win. I bet if we make a WotC list tournament with a single optimal Oloro, a single optimal Narset, a single optimal Vial/Kraum, a single optimal Jace, a single optimal Baral, a single optimal Maelstrom Wanderer and a single optimal Tasigur plus 500 rougue decks, the top 8 will be among the decks I just listed.
Pretty sure non WotC 1v1 formats are dead, unless you want to play French where there will be bannings every quarter and with 20 life instead of a regular 20 life constructed format.
I don't get this sentence, you seem to be describing DC as doing something wrong unlike regular constructed formats, but what you describe is done in regular constructed formats and considered possitive in all but Standard.
Then what would be the point of being EDH if it's just a bad version of most formats? There's Modern if you want low interactivity and blue cards banned into oblivion.
I'm trying to read between the lines of this conversation and I can't seem to find anyone remotely implying that EDH is a bad version of most formats so I don't know where that came from. Another misleading thing that you said is "banning every quarter".. there may be updates every quarter, but not all of them involved bans. Some also involved unbans. The point of an update is to polish and improve the format, so frequent updates are a actually a good thing. Your personal distaste for the contents of the updates do not change that fact.
Then what would be the point of being EDH if it's just a bad version of most formats? There's Modern if you want low interactivity and blue cards banned into oblivion.
I consider both of your entirely subjective views on these formats to be wrong.
Modern's current prime deck is extremelly interactive with a combination of discard and removal trying to open the gates for a single fatty to get the damage in. Exactly the same gameplay as Draw Go with the exception that it's proactive rather than reactive. And what keeps blue "banned into oblivion" is not aggro or even the banlist, it's Tron. Slower decks can't compete when there's a popular deck that consistently wipes the board of colored permanents turn 4 and has an uncounterable "exile two permanents" spell for 4 lands.
Commander is it's own format not because blue always wins or because durdledecks are a thing. It's it's own format because of ommanders, color-identity deckbuilding rules and the exitement of singleton variability. If you don't like Commander when blue isn't the only avaliable option for competitive play, you don't like Commander.
The top8 may be diverse but if you look at the metagame of the latest Demonic Tournament (190 player I think) you have:
27 Zurgo, 17 Geist, 14 Baral, 13 Bruse Tarl & Reyhan. Then 8 Tymna & Thrasios 6 Titania, 6 Jace, 5 Radha and a bunch of 1/2-of.
Basically, aggro and Blue.
Have you played Modern? You would think Burn is unbeatable there by the numbers it shows up in. But while it's "Tier 1" it's been a very long while since it won anything.
Zurgo is not "everywhere" because it's unbeatable, it's "everywhere" because it's stupidly cheap. In fact if you swap Titania and Radha for the partners decks in that list, it's pretty much inverselly proportional to deck cost with Geist as the only outlier.
It doesn't matter how many Zurgos play, what matters is that other decks have a chance to win. I bet if we make a WotC list tournament with a single optimal Oloro, a single optimal Narset, a single optimal Vial/Kraum, a single optimal Jace, a single optimal Baral, a single optimal Maelstrom Wanderer and a single optimal Tasigur plus 500 rougue decks, the top 8 will be among the decks I just listed.
Pretty sure non WotC 1v1 formats are dead, unless you want to play French where there will be bannings every quarter and with 20 life instead of a regular 20 life constructed format.
I don't get this sentence, you seem to be describing DC as doing something wrong unlike regular constructed formats, but what you describe is done in regular constructed formats and considered possitive in all but Standard.
Then what would be the point of being EDH if it's just a bad version of most formats? There's Modern if you want low interactivity and blue cards banned into oblivion.
I'm trying to read between the lines of this conversation and I can't seem to find anyone remotely implying that EDH is a bad version of most formats so I don't know where that came from. Another misleading thing that you said is "banning every quarter".. there may be updates every quarter, but not all of them involved bans. Some also involved unbans. The point of an update is to polish and improve the format, so frequent updates are a actually a good thing. Your personal distaste for the contents of the updates do not change that fact.
But since I started playing there have been 3 different updates with bans and 1 with unbans (the Tasigur ban, the DTT and TC ban, Balance unban and now the Vial ban), and I started last March so he is almost right :). But I dont think talking about how often something gets banned and/or unbanned is the only signal that a format is "broken" and/or unstable. I think its more a question of how many cards are banned over how much time. And in the last year 10-12 cards have been banned and around 5 cards have been unbanned. That alone tells me something about how stable/unstable a format is.
This is also why I welcome the new WotC format cause I really do think that DC is off-track. Sure WotC could learn a lot from the things that has happened in DC over the years, but at this point I personally think that DC is on a track where they just keep banning the best cards that shows up, which means that something else will be the best card/cards and then they can ban that. That is just my opinion though.
You can't compare Burn in Modern to Zurgo in DC. Burn has 6% Top8s, Zurgo has 12%. It's twice as effective. Period. If we don't know the full metagame breakdown, we can only be speculating that a lot of Burn or Zurgo show up at a tournament. How do you know those Zurgo Top8s aren't achieved by the only Zurgo in the room? You don't and you can't, unfortunately. Your exercise on suggesting the only Oloro in a 500 people tournament would make Top8 is anecdotal at best.
About the health of the format, I understand part of what Godec said about constant bannings. We talked about this when the 20 life change was announced. It's theoretical, but a 20 life format IS more prone to degeneracy than a 30 life. There are less viable Tier 1 decks, so the probability one of those will beat the 15% mark is big. It's harder for people to stabilize so things get harder to solve by metagaming than by bannings. We'll have concrete proof if this is true in an year or so, but to this day it feels like it is.
Of course, Wizards' list needs work. Strip Mine alone is a glaring mistake. i Hate that they treat the format as "for fun" because that means bannings won't be result-based, but well, I hope they treat casting Dig Through Time as fun. Their announcement of separating 1x1 and Multiplayer banlists is awesome, as is their decision to rename the 1x1 format. So even though I feel the first months of the format will be blue dominated, I feel it has room to improve in a good way, at least a way that I prefer rather than the midrange-fest that DC is and will always be.
I dont know if there are less tier 1 decks in DC with 20 lp than 30 lp. What I feel is more like that with 30 lp you could show up with a tier 2 deck and actually stand a chance, which seems to be quite hard with 20 lp.
I dont think you need to take the "for fun" part too seriously. If the format grows, which I think it will now that Wizards cares about it, it will go from "for fun" to a competitive format.
You can't compare Burn in Modern to Zurgo in DC. Burn has 6% Top8s, Zurgo has 12%. It's twice as effective. Period. If we don't know the full metagame breakdown, we can only be speculating that a lot of Burn or Zurgo show up at a tournament. How do you know those Zurgo Top8s aren't achieved by the only Zurgo in the room? You don't and you can't, unfortunately. Your exercise on suggesting the only Oloro in a 500 people tournament would make Top8 is anecdotal at best.
About the health of the format, I understand part of what Godec said about constant bannings. We talked about this when the 20 life change was announced. It's theoretical, but a 20 life format IS more prone to degeneracy than a 30 life. There are less viable Tier 1 decks, so the probability one of those will beat the 15% mark is big. It's harder for people to stabilize so things get harder to solve by metagaming than by bannings. We'll have concrete proof if this is true in an year or so, but to this day it feels like it is.
Of course, Wizards' list needs work. Strip Mine alone is a glaring mistake. i Hate that they treat the format as "for fun" because that means bannings won't be result-based, but well, I hope they treat casting Dig Through Time as fun. Their announcement of separating 1x1 and Multiplayer banlists is awesome, as is their decision to rename the 1x1 format. So even though I feel the first months of the format will be blue dominated, I feel it has room to improve in a good way, at least a way that I prefer rather than the midrange-fest that DC is and will always be.
Until the MTGO banlist is polished, that format is more prone to degeneracy than anything as of the moment. And what's degenerate in 20 life as of now? Btw I would like to stress that this is not a rhetorical question, I would seriously like to hear from people what the exact problem is with 20 life other than the loss of a 10 point cushion to sit back and ignore damage before combo-ing off. I pray it's not zurgo that people are referring to as degenerate. The most recent 180+ player demonic tournament had zurgo as the most entries at 27, and zero of those cracked top 8. I think there were 2 geists, some partners and a jace, a karlov and a narset. Diversity-wise I'd say that's a lot better showing than previous finals that involved oloro vs oloro or tasigur vs tasigur or mono B sidisi vs tasigur, which were the results of many of the tournaments over here back in the day. Also, in a big tournament like DTC where most of the meta all the way to fringe decks are most likely to be represented, zurgo gets exposed as a deck that's only broken vs unprepared decks. So zurgo complains aside, what else has been the problem? I'd really like to hear them so that I can better understand.
Also, at 30 life, isn't one of the selling points of this new format that some people are so happy about the "celebrity deathmatches" of broken vs broken finally being possible? So what does that mean for tier 2 decks as mentioned by Maelstrom? What tier 2 deck can actually stand a chance against oloro or tasigur? And if they can't beat those 2, wouldn't they be even more left out than in 20 life? With vampiric tutor and imperial seal legal, wouldn't those with decks under budget constraints be more alienated than ever before? I'm sorry if these are sounding like rhetorical questions but I'm actually hoping for answers to help me understand. As the banlist stands right at this moment, it doesn't feel accessible outside of blue players with expensive legacy pieces.
Look, I don't think Wizards' format is healthy as of now. But it's not degenerate in my small experience with it. Is it a blue-dominated grindfest? Yes. But it's not "degenerate", since most matches are not easily won or lost. You may think Vial/Oloro/Tasi will dominate, but stuff like Sidisi and Keranos have great matches against them, as has Jace and a bit of Titania. So yeah, the format has less diversity than the old 30 life format, but I honestly don't care right now. It's fun to play (because I like the play style of the decks it has) and I don't feel I don't have a chance in any matchup if I'm playing a good deck.
The main complaint I hear about 20 life is that it doesn't allow rogueness; a lot of matches are decided simply by pairing; and budget mana base complaints. Imperial Seal is a budget problem, but it's not THAT important to have, as Wasn't Imperial Recruiter or Capture of Jingzhou or Candelabra. The thing 30 life gives player the most is that they don't need a 100% tight deck to be able to play well, so the expensive cards are almost never a must-have. There were people placing Top8s that didn't even have FoW for example.
The other thing I hear people complaining (and I do too) is that they dislike the meta. It can be diverse in that it has different decks, but they're all-in aggro or midrange controlish lists, so people dislike that kinda of play (which is very Modern-like). That's personal taste, sure, but it is what it is.
So I don't know how everyone feels about it, but I for one am getting behind Wizards for 3 reasons:
1) I like the way the games play out
2) I believe the 1x1 banlist will be better tuned
3) My whole area prefers 30 life and prefers a format that Wizards support
We finally had a friday night with more than 2 people to play with in a while this friday. That's something to consider.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tasigur-wizards-x1/ now i just have to test, cutted fatal push cause i'm expecting a lot of tasigurs, sidisi, keranos, oloro, maelstrom,baral,jace,vial and fatal push is only good against 2 or 3 from these decks, maybe i will remove maze for fatal push, i think we don't need maze in this meta too.
ps: i have to test dissipate, maybe i will cut it for dissolve or another counter like countersquall.
Look, I don't think Wizards' format is healthy as of now. But it's not degenerate in my small experience with it. Is it a blue-dominated grindfest? Yes. But it's not "degenerate", since most matches are not easily won or lost. You may think Vial/Oloro/Tasi will dominate, but stuff like Sidisi and Keranos have great matches against them, as has Jace and a bit of Titania. So yeah, the format has less diversity than the old 30 life format, but I honestly don't care right now. It's fun to play (because I like the play style of the decks it has) and I don't feel I don't have a chance in any matchup if I'm playing a good deck.
The main complaint I hear about 20 life is that it doesn't allow rogueness; a lot of matches are decided simply by pairing; and budget mana base complaints. Imperial Seal is a budget problem, but it's not THAT important to have, as Wasn't Imperial Recruiter or Capture of Jingzhou or Candelabra. The thing 30 life gives player the most is that they don't need a 100% tight deck to be able to play well, so the expensive cards are almost never a must-have. There were people placing Top8s that didn't even have FoW for example.
The other thing I hear people complaining (and I do too) is that they dislike the meta. It can be diverse in that it has different decks, but they're all-in aggro or midrange controlish lists, so people dislike that kinda of play (which is very Modern-like). That's personal taste, sure, but it is what it is.
So I don't know how everyone feels about it, but I for one am getting behind Wizards for 3 reasons:
1) I like the way the games play out
2) I believe the 1x1 banlist will be better tuned
3) My whole area prefers 30 life and prefers a format that Wizards support
We finally had a friday night with more than 2 people to play with in a while this friday. That's something to consider.
You said that this new meta is less diverse than the old one, but you don't care. Then you also said that 20 life has a diverse lineup but you don't like aggro and midrange controll-ish lists. So it wasn't about diversity after all, you just prefer playing in a grindy blue-dominated format. That's exactly what I've been wanting to hear. My point is, as of now I don't think we should argue our choice of format in terms of degeneracy or diversity. It's clearly about personal preference.
20 life is prone to degeneracy yes but it has not happened outside of vial which has been banned. Being prone to something does not necessarily mean that is actually the case. And it is also unfair to argue that 20 life DC pushes rogue decks out when a meta with oloro/tasigur is even more likely to push these rogue decks out and then some. Even the budget constraint argument goes both ways. While optimized lands are now a necessity for hungrier manabases in 20 life, MonoW/MonoR (hell, even MonoB drana) aggro is relatively cheap to construct and play competitively in 20 life, while in 30 it got pushed out by many tier 1 decks. So again, with all the pros and cons for each format, the deciding factor is what kind of meta you enjoy playing in. There's really this disconnect experience-wise because my 20 life player base locally has been great. I have 3 different duel playgroups all using different decks, and in the mini tournaments we have organized, matches weren't necessarily decided by pairings. No one has any complains with DC over here, and the only people excited with the new format are former tasigur and oloro players.
First of all, we should know what we're talking about: the format DC was with 30 life is NOT the format Wizards is right now. DC30 was way more balanced and diverse; Wizards is not - although it's more than people make it seem, since it's not a 2-deck-format as of now. So when I'm talking about 30hp diversity, I'm not talking about Wizards format, but about DC30.
With that in mind, diversity per se is overrated to me and shouldn't be the sole pursuit of a format. It's definitely important, no doubt about it, but I still don't believe a format should be strongly tinkered with to make a certain archetype viable. For example, DC30 became DC20 in order to make full-on aggro decks like Zurgo viable. That happened, but the whole hard-control and combo spectrum got nerfed with the same change. For me, that's not how you should work a format at all, instead should just be containing the real problems in the format, not tailoring it with biased preferences. So yeah, diversity is important, but every format has limits in its diversity and every format has unplayable archetypes - and that's ok.
Most importantly though, my area, which was D-E-A-D before Wizards' announcement, bounced back and is bringing players into the format again. So even if I wanted to play DC20, I wouldn't be able to maintain it here. That plays out diversity-wise too. You may think Bruse/Reyhan is too different from Saskia or even Geist, but they're all tempo-based aggro decks. That's not more diverse than Tasigur x Oloro control grindfests. So yeah it always becomes a bit about preference. I feel I could build a Daretti or a Rashmi deck in 30hp and just go to a tournament with, play well and have a chance or even win. That doesn't happen in 20hp for me. I must chose between 2-3 decks (because I'm not an aggro player, don't even have the cards to build a green based deck) and that's it. After the Vial/Breya ban all I can play is Keranos, Jace or Baral. Strong decks, I'm sure, but it's so limited...
The diversity I PREFER in 30hp formats is that they allow more budget players to come into the format and not be stomped. And I'm not even talking about rogue decks. I'm saying shocklands, Capture of Z, Rectruiter, Seal, etc. I'm selling my 1-of Liliana because I don't think having her is so important with 30 life than it was with 20 (I don't play black that much and Oloro doesn't really need Lili). Having 90% optimal decks with 30hp is good enough. With 20hp it's bound to blow up in your face anytime. You talk about how Zurgo is cheap, but it's the ONLY deck in that price range. Waht I'm saying is that a suboptimal Geist list will still be able to put up consistent results with 30hp, but not with 20.
Now, just remembering that I'm talking about a format that doesn't exist as of now. Wizards banlist is broken and bound to be changed - although I'm loving playing with it and so are the player in my area.
30 Life you could play multicolored decks without the need for old duals, that is enough to say about pricing, and without the old duals you are a 90% deck, the manabase is still very very stable without duals when you put all shocks+pain lands+filter lands... Just more "painful"
Also Zurgo was a very solid tier 2 deck, it got even some new tools that work very well with 30HP, Zurgo had 1-2% of top8 appearances, sure not the 10%+, but it was a solid deck and every one always agreed on that, because you got indeed the 10 HP cushion, but the decks were not prepared to face it (and also a lot of decks used shocks and stuff that are not even dared to use today against it).
First of all, we should know what we're talking about: the format DC was with 30 life is NOT the format Wizards is right now. DC30 was way more balanced and diverse; Wizards is not - although it's more than people make it seem, since it's not a 2-deck-format as of now. So when I'm talking about 30hp diversity, I'm not talking about Wizards format, but about DC30.
With that in mind, diversity per se is overrated to me and shouldn't be the sole pursuit of a format. It's definitely important, no doubt about it, but I still don't believe a format should be strongly tinkered with to make a certain archetype viable. For example, DC30 became DC20 in order to make full-on aggro decks like Zurgo viable. That happened, but the whole hard-control and combo spectrum got nerfed with the same change. For me, that's not how you should work a format at all, instead should just be containing the real problems in the format, not tailoring it with biased preferences. So yeah, diversity is important, but every format has limits in its diversity and every format has unplayable archetypes - and that's ok.
Most importantly though, my area, which was D-E-A-D before Wizards' announcement, bounced back and is bringing players into the format again. So even if I wanted to play DC20, I wouldn't be able to maintain it here. That plays out diversity-wise too. You may think Bruse/Reyhan is too different from Saskia or even Geist, but they're all tempo-based aggro decks. That's not more diverse than Tasigur x Oloro control grindfests. So yeah it always becomes a bit about preference. I feel I could build a Daretti or a Rashmi deck in 30hp and just go to a tournament with, play well and have a chance or even win. That doesn't happen in 20hp for me. I must chose between 2-3 decks (because I'm not an aggro player, don't even have the cards to build a green based deck) and that's it. After the Vial/Breya ban all I can play is Keranos, Jace or Baral. Strong decks, I'm sure, but it's so limited...
The diversity I PREFER in 30hp formats is that they allow more budget players to come into the format and not be stomped. And I'm not even talking about rogue decks. I'm saying shocklands, Capture of Z, Rectruiter, Seal, etc. I'm selling my 1-of Liliana because I don't think having her is so important with 30 life than it was with 20 (I don't play black that much and Oloro doesn't really need Lili). Having 90% optimal decks with 30hp is good enough. With 20hp it's bound to blow up in your face anytime. You talk about how Zurgo is cheap, but it's the ONLY deck in that price range. Waht I'm saying is that a suboptimal Geist list will still be able to put up consistent results with 30hp, but not with 20.
Now, just remembering that I'm talking about a format that doesn't exist as of now. Wizards banlist is broken and bound to be changed - although I'm loving playing with it and so are the player in my area.
Given that you admit that what underlies your rationale is preference, the points you make are totally valid. My only beef with both sides of this 30 vs 20 discussion is when people phrase their opinions as fact, or cite facts to support their arguments when in reality these same facts can also be argued the other way.
Since you mentioned budget players, they can actually go 2 directions. 1 is to build a mono-colored (non-blue) deck and they'll actually do fine in 20 life. The other direction is to go multi-color with a sub-optimal manabase and play at 30. In your context though I'm guessing the budget players you were referring to are those who don't want to go aggro, hence the former not being an option. But if I were a budget player, I would personally prefer playing a mono-colored deck that I have a better chance of optimizing, than a sub-optimal one that relies on a 10 point cushion. But again, I speak only for myself here, since I personally don't mind switching between aggro and control.
Can you demonstrate proof that a 90% deck is more viable at 30 life? I'm skeptical because imo 100% was still extremely important at 30.
Imo having a cheap deck like Zurgo as the meta is a great feature of 20 life. I don't recall 30 life having that feature
I guess he was referring to fetching for shocks instead of fetching for duals mattering less when you have a 10 point life cushion. Given that, I think having a cushion for sub-optimal lists to be playable is not a very good reason to have 30 life, at least on its own.
I agree that having an affordable tier 1 deck is a selling point for 20 life, but from a non-aggro/multicolor player's perspective, 30 life is the more budget friendly format.
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I wish I liked playing virtual Magic. It'd be so much easier... I got into online Vintage for a while, but I dislike the interface (that goes for Cockatrice too). Playing live is so much better... I don't know if I'm going into MTGO for Commander though. Sounds tempting.
Anyways does anybody have a good estimate of full deck prices? I've only Jace built so far and it cost 230 tix on MTGOtraders after I used a coupon on their website. I'm thinking of also building Keranos, Prossh, Selvala MonoG, Vial/Thrasios or Oloro Esper control but I'm scared of buying 35+ duals and fetches for Oloro. With Jace Tide I've gotten away with not buying
Jace TMS orWasteland yet.edit: Jace TMS is less than 10 tix so scratch that.
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Imo Wasteland is a pretty safe buy as you'll use it literally in every deck. Even the most tight 4c manabases will play one. If you only buy one expensive-ish card, that'd be my recommendation.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Damn you Wizards! *shutupandtakemymoney!.jpg*
1. Jace High Tide Control
2. 5CC Horde Scapeshift
3. Selvala Channel Emrakul
4. Selvala GW Combo
5. Keranos Wildfire
Damia (EDH)
Niv-Mizzet (EDH)
Karador the Hermit Druid (EDH)
Have you played Modern? You would think Burn is unbeatable there by the numbers it shows up in. But while it's "Tier 1" it's been a very long while since it won anything.
Zurgo is not "everywhere" because it's unbeatable, it's "everywhere" because it's stupidly cheap. In fact if you swap Titania and Radha for the partners decks in that list, it's pretty much inverselly proportional to deck cost with Geist as the only outlier.
It doesn't matter how many Zurgos play, what matters is that other decks have a chance to win. I bet if we make a WotC list tournament with a single optimal Oloro, a single optimal Narset, a single optimal Vial/Kraum, a single optimal Jace, a single optimal Baral, a single optimal Maelstrom Wanderer and a single optimal Tasigur plus 500 rougue decks, the top 8 will be among the decks I just listed.
I don't get this sentence, you seem to be describing DC as doing something wrong unlike regular constructed formats, but what you describe is done in regular constructed formats and considered possitive in all but Standard.
play both.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Then what would be the point of being EDH if it's just a bad version of most formats? There's Modern if you want low interactivity and blue cards banned into oblivion.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
I'm trying to read between the lines of this conversation and I can't seem to find anyone remotely implying that EDH is a bad version of most formats so I don't know where that came from. Another misleading thing that you said is "banning every quarter".. there may be updates every quarter, but not all of them involved bans. Some also involved unbans. The point of an update is to polish and improve the format, so frequent updates are a actually a good thing. Your personal distaste for the contents of the updates do not change that fact.
I consider both of your entirely subjective views on these formats to be wrong.
Modern's current prime deck is extremelly interactive with a combination of discard and removal trying to open the gates for a single fatty to get the damage in. Exactly the same gameplay as Draw Go with the exception that it's proactive rather than reactive. And what keeps blue "banned into oblivion" is not aggro or even the banlist, it's Tron. Slower decks can't compete when there's a popular deck that consistently wipes the board of colored permanents turn 4 and has an uncounterable "exile two permanents" spell for 4 lands.
Commander is it's own format not because blue always wins or because durdledecks are a thing. It's it's own format because of ommanders, color-identity deckbuilding rules and the exitement of singleton variability. If you don't like Commander when blue isn't the only avaliable option for competitive play, you don't like Commander.
But since I started playing there have been 3 different updates with bans and 1 with unbans (the Tasigur ban, the DTT and TC ban, Balance unban and now the Vial ban), and I started last March so he is almost right :). But I dont think talking about how often something gets banned and/or unbanned is the only signal that a format is "broken" and/or unstable. I think its more a question of how many cards are banned over how much time. And in the last year 10-12 cards have been banned and around 5 cards have been unbanned. That alone tells me something about how stable/unstable a format is.
This is also why I welcome the new WotC format cause I really do think that DC is off-track. Sure WotC could learn a lot from the things that has happened in DC over the years, but at this point I personally think that DC is on a track where they just keep banning the best cards that shows up, which means that something else will be the best card/cards and then they can ban that. That is just my opinion though.
About the health of the format, I understand part of what Godec said about constant bannings. We talked about this when the 20 life change was announced. It's theoretical, but a 20 life format IS more prone to degeneracy than a 30 life. There are less viable Tier 1 decks, so the probability one of those will beat the 15% mark is big. It's harder for people to stabilize so things get harder to solve by metagaming than by bannings. We'll have concrete proof if this is true in an year or so, but to this day it feels like it is.
Of course, Wizards' list needs work. Strip Mine alone is a glaring mistake. i Hate that they treat the format as "for fun" because that means bannings won't be result-based, but well, I hope they treat casting Dig Through Time as fun. Their announcement of separating 1x1 and Multiplayer banlists is awesome, as is their decision to rename the 1x1 format. So even though I feel the first months of the format will be blue dominated, I feel it has room to improve in a good way, at least a way that I prefer rather than the midrange-fest that DC is and will always be.
I dont think you need to take the "for fun" part too seriously. If the format grows, which I think it will now that Wizards cares about it, it will go from "for fun" to a competitive format.
Until the MTGO banlist is polished, that format is more prone to degeneracy than anything as of the moment. And what's degenerate in 20 life as of now? Btw I would like to stress that this is not a rhetorical question, I would seriously like to hear from people what the exact problem is with 20 life other than the loss of a 10 point cushion to sit back and ignore damage before combo-ing off. I pray it's not zurgo that people are referring to as degenerate. The most recent 180+ player demonic tournament had zurgo as the most entries at 27, and zero of those cracked top 8. I think there were 2 geists, some partners and a jace, a karlov and a narset. Diversity-wise I'd say that's a lot better showing than previous finals that involved oloro vs oloro or tasigur vs tasigur or mono B sidisi vs tasigur, which were the results of many of the tournaments over here back in the day. Also, in a big tournament like DTC where most of the meta all the way to fringe decks are most likely to be represented, zurgo gets exposed as a deck that's only broken vs unprepared decks. So zurgo complains aside, what else has been the problem? I'd really like to hear them so that I can better understand.
Also, at 30 life, isn't one of the selling points of this new format that some people are so happy about the "celebrity deathmatches" of broken vs broken finally being possible? So what does that mean for tier 2 decks as mentioned by Maelstrom? What tier 2 deck can actually stand a chance against oloro or tasigur? And if they can't beat those 2, wouldn't they be even more left out than in 20 life? With vampiric tutor and imperial seal legal, wouldn't those with decks under budget constraints be more alienated than ever before? I'm sorry if these are sounding like rhetorical questions but I'm actually hoping for answers to help me understand. As the banlist stands right at this moment, it doesn't feel accessible outside of blue players with expensive legacy pieces.
The main complaint I hear about 20 life is that it doesn't allow rogueness; a lot of matches are decided simply by pairing; and budget mana base complaints. Imperial Seal is a budget problem, but it's not THAT important to have, as Wasn't Imperial Recruiter or Capture of Jingzhou or Candelabra. The thing 30 life gives player the most is that they don't need a 100% tight deck to be able to play well, so the expensive cards are almost never a must-have. There were people placing Top8s that didn't even have FoW for example.
The other thing I hear people complaining (and I do too) is that they dislike the meta. It can be diverse in that it has different decks, but they're all-in aggro or midrange controlish lists, so people dislike that kinda of play (which is very Modern-like). That's personal taste, sure, but it is what it is.
So I don't know how everyone feels about it, but I for one am getting behind Wizards for 3 reasons:
1) I like the way the games play out
2) I believe the 1x1 banlist will be better tuned
3) My whole area prefers 30 life and prefers a format that Wizards support
We finally had a friday night with more than 2 people to play with in a while this friday. That's something to consider.
ps: i have to test dissipate, maybe i will cut it for dissolve or another counter like countersquall.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
You said that this new meta is less diverse than the old one, but you don't care. Then you also said that 20 life has a diverse lineup but you don't like aggro and midrange controll-ish lists. So it wasn't about diversity after all, you just prefer playing in a grindy blue-dominated format. That's exactly what I've been wanting to hear. My point is, as of now I don't think we should argue our choice of format in terms of degeneracy or diversity. It's clearly about personal preference.
20 life is prone to degeneracy yes but it has not happened outside of vial which has been banned. Being prone to something does not necessarily mean that is actually the case. And it is also unfair to argue that 20 life DC pushes rogue decks out when a meta with oloro/tasigur is even more likely to push these rogue decks out and then some. Even the budget constraint argument goes both ways. While optimized lands are now a necessity for hungrier manabases in 20 life, MonoW/MonoR (hell, even MonoB drana) aggro is relatively cheap to construct and play competitively in 20 life, while in 30 it got pushed out by many tier 1 decks. So again, with all the pros and cons for each format, the deciding factor is what kind of meta you enjoy playing in. There's really this disconnect experience-wise because my 20 life player base locally has been great. I have 3 different duel playgroups all using different decks, and in the mini tournaments we have organized, matches weren't necessarily decided by pairings. No one has any complains with DC over here, and the only people excited with the new format are former tasigur and oloro players.
First of all, we should know what we're talking about: the format DC was with 30 life is NOT the format Wizards is right now. DC30 was way more balanced and diverse; Wizards is not - although it's more than people make it seem, since it's not a 2-deck-format as of now. So when I'm talking about 30hp diversity, I'm not talking about Wizards format, but about DC30.
With that in mind, diversity per se is overrated to me and shouldn't be the sole pursuit of a format. It's definitely important, no doubt about it, but I still don't believe a format should be strongly tinkered with to make a certain archetype viable. For example, DC30 became DC20 in order to make full-on aggro decks like Zurgo viable. That happened, but the whole hard-control and combo spectrum got nerfed with the same change. For me, that's not how you should work a format at all, instead should just be containing the real problems in the format, not tailoring it with biased preferences. So yeah, diversity is important, but every format has limits in its diversity and every format has unplayable archetypes - and that's ok.
Most importantly though, my area, which was D-E-A-D before Wizards' announcement, bounced back and is bringing players into the format again. So even if I wanted to play DC20, I wouldn't be able to maintain it here. That plays out diversity-wise too. You may think Bruse/Reyhan is too different from Saskia or even Geist, but they're all tempo-based aggro decks. That's not more diverse than Tasigur x Oloro control grindfests. So yeah it always becomes a bit about preference. I feel I could build a Daretti or a Rashmi deck in 30hp and just go to a tournament with, play well and have a chance or even win. That doesn't happen in 20hp for me. I must chose between 2-3 decks (because I'm not an aggro player, don't even have the cards to build a green based deck) and that's it. After the Vial/Breya ban all I can play is Keranos, Jace or Baral. Strong decks, I'm sure, but it's so limited...
The diversity I PREFER in 30hp formats is that they allow more budget players to come into the format and not be stomped. And I'm not even talking about rogue decks. I'm saying shocklands, Capture of Z, Rectruiter, Seal, etc. I'm selling my 1-of Liliana because I don't think having her is so important with 30 life than it was with 20 (I don't play black that much and Oloro doesn't really need Lili). Having 90% optimal decks with 30hp is good enough. With 20hp it's bound to blow up in your face anytime. You talk about how Zurgo is cheap, but it's the ONLY deck in that price range. Waht I'm saying is that a suboptimal Geist list will still be able to put up consistent results with 30hp, but not with 20.
Now, just remembering that I'm talking about a format that doesn't exist as of now. Wizards banlist is broken and bound to be changed - although I'm loving playing with it and so are the player in my area.
Imo having a cheap deck like Zurgo as the meta is a great feature of 20 life. I don't recall 30 life having that feature
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Also Zurgo was a very solid tier 2 deck, it got even some new tools that work very well with 30HP, Zurgo had 1-2% of top8 appearances, sure not the 10%+, but it was a solid deck and every one always agreed on that, because you got indeed the 10 HP cushion, but the decks were not prepared to face it (and also a lot of decks used shocks and stuff that are not even dared to use today against it).
Given that you admit that what underlies your rationale is preference, the points you make are totally valid. My only beef with both sides of this 30 vs 20 discussion is when people phrase their opinions as fact, or cite facts to support their arguments when in reality these same facts can also be argued the other way.
Since you mentioned budget players, they can actually go 2 directions. 1 is to build a mono-colored (non-blue) deck and they'll actually do fine in 20 life. The other direction is to go multi-color with a sub-optimal manabase and play at 30. In your context though I'm guessing the budget players you were referring to are those who don't want to go aggro, hence the former not being an option. But if I were a budget player, I would personally prefer playing a mono-colored deck that I have a better chance of optimizing, than a sub-optimal one that relies on a 10 point cushion. But again, I speak only for myself here, since I personally don't mind switching between aggro and control.
I guess he was referring to fetching for shocks instead of fetching for duals mattering less when you have a 10 point life cushion. Given that, I think having a cushion for sub-optimal lists to be playable is not a very good reason to have 30 life, at least on its own.
I agree that having an affordable tier 1 deck is a selling point for 20 life, but from a non-aggro/multicolor player's perspective, 30 life is the more budget friendly format.