Amulet of Quoz is much more fun. Let's flip a coin instead of playing Magic.
Contract is certainly broken in powered decks, mostly because it's a one sided wheel as opposed to a global one... but if your black pool is shallow I'd surely suggest you try it out. Test drives don't harm anyone.
Does the "if not playing for ante" clause allow you to play a deck that's under the legal minimum size? That is, if you have Contract or another ante card in your 40-card deck in a normal game, can you legally start the game with a 39-card deck with the Contract removed? A curious situation if so, as I'd "play" it in every deck I had it, but I probably wouldn't pick it high.
We play the card as printed. We play for an initial ante of 0, which could be increased by Contract from Bellow. The winner of each game adds the ante cards to his pool for the remaining of the draft. As most of my players are competitive, they really care about the potential of making their deck worst, and don't play the Contract if they are likely dead after its resolution, which makes the ante relevant (but which still leave the card as the most powerful one in Cube).
This doesn't represent permanent loss, or any financial loss to the player casting the Contract. This doesn't represent what "ante" means by definition or by spirit. And playing ante for zero isn't playing for ante. If nothing gets put up for ante at the beginning of the game, you're ...not playing for ante.
Ante cards and "competitive player" are two thing that don't realy fit together. Ante cards are completely removed from ANY competitive mtg format.
House rules are absolutely ok and every cube group should have fun while playing. But I can't agree on the statement that how nof's group plays the card is "as printed", because it is clearly not. Without adding a severe drawback (money, valuable cards owned by the player) this card is the sickest and most unbalanced thing ever. If you like that, that's fine. But claiming this is playing how the card is printed is fooling yourself.
It's still permanent loss. When you lose a card in-game, you lose it for good. And it belonged to you to begin with. You had to earn the card, and spend time obtaining it. In the cube, it's all phantom drafting. Nobody possesses any of the cards, and so ante doesn't come with a sense of loss attached to it.
Not to mention that simply speaking, an ante of zero cards isn't an ante.
Sure Nof, you guys (eh, girls;) ) can have all the fun you want with Contract from Below. But as most here I think you are playing with House Rules (totally cool if you like that).
Ante for zero sounds like a weird attempt at rules lawyering. and the way you play Ante is not what the idea of Ante is. This would mean that ante cards are stronger at the end of the evening, because you risk less. It looks like you tried really hard to find a way to make ante work ruleswise, not because it should, but because you want it to be playable. Which is fine, but you will not convince other people with that weird rules lawyering attempt.
You are right that this debate is not productive though. We all will have to agree to disagree .
All the points you made about Shandalaar applies in the same way about a card you drafted and is removed from your pool.
That's simply not true. One is losing a card from your collection entirely. The other is losing access to one card for a single draft. It's not the same at all.
Quote from Nof »
And again, this is your feelings. My playgroup differs on that. Doesn't mean one of the side is wrong. I just reported how we play it and why, and why we feel this is consistant with the card's wording. You reported your feelings about this.
I don't agree with this. I don't think it's a matter of opinion at all. There's playing by ante, and there's not. If you don't risk permanent loss that has an impact on the person putting the card up for ante, you're not playing for ante.
Quote from Nof »
I don't see the point of trying to convince the other and continue to argue. It's not like I will convince you to play with the card, nor that you will convince us to stop playing it.
I'm not trying to convince you not to run the card. I'm simply pointing out that using ante cards in the cube requires the development of house rules, and you can't be playing the card as printed when you're not playing for ante. An ante of zero cards is not an ante. Losing a card from a phantom draft does not represent an ante.
Back in my 5-Color days (www.5-color.com), we used play for a variety of different ante depending on which decks we were playing. I had a totally trashed deck that I'd play for traditional ante or signature ante. This involved letting your opponent doodle on a card (not necessarily the ante'd cards) if they won the game. It was usually with a fun quote about the card they won with or some way to dagger the opponent when they drew it the next game. When we played with out pimped out decks (duals, power, etc.), we would ante a dime, quarter, dollar, etc. Jeweled Birds were worth a buck regardless, which actually made them more powerful than Contract in many cases. I had a huge stack of them, all customized with silly doodles and stickers.
The few tournaments I participated in didn't enforce any ante rules. No one complained about Contract having no drawback because in the spirit of the format we were all doing broken things. In cube, you can decide to run whichever cards you want. I'm so sick of the house rules and errata discussions. Everyone's lists and formats are not without their quirks. We all have zany formats, cards, and house rules. No matter how strict you decide to manage your list, you're still playing a format that is about as competitive and serious as EDH or wacky pack drafts.
If Nof wants to play Contract, and her group is fine with the power-level, then why try to convince her it's bad just because it's essentially using errata? Why does anyone care about errata in the first place? At this point, these SCD discussions have gone on long enough that there is little ambiguity in what these cards actually do that the line between house rules and the way the card functions is beginning to get blurred. I loved playing Contract regardless of the mode. If I still played money games, you can bet your butt I'd be considering this in my combo cube. I'm glad that people go outside of traditional design parameters to test cards like Contract out.
I personally think cube without some sort of house rules and errata has about all the character of something like the MODO cube which is to say, not much. I can cube with my list or a close friend's any day of the week. It's not everyday I get to cast a card like Gifts Given, Contract, or something like Booster Tutor, play with an Exalted Angel with Exalted, or play a format like 2HG Roch with a finely-tuned multiplayer list. At big events like SCG Opens and Gen Con, there are quite literally dozens of cubes. When presented with a choice to draft a traditional 360-540 card vanilla list and someone's cube like Antknee or Andy Cooperfaus, people are immediately drawn to the other cubes. This isn't conjecture; this actually happens. People are excited to solve a new format and experience the format for themselves. To me, dismissing this kind of cube design goes against everything I love about the format. You don't have to like errata, but if you don't respect that it's just as much a part of our format as anything else, you are shutting out some really great design discussion.
If Nof wants to play Contract, and her group is fine with the power-level, then why try to convince her it's bad just because it's essentially using errata?
I'm not. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. A lot of cube groups use custom erratas and house rules to bring in cards they want to use.
But the argument isn't if it's good or bad. The argument is about if it's a house errata or not. I think it clearly is. Which again, is fine, but it's still a house errata nonetheless.
I don't know if anyone has brought up Contract From Below before but it's such a powerful card that it makes me sad not to include it. I've been following baseball a lot lately and when players who reject qualifying offers by one team are signed by another team then the former team gets their draft pick. I was thinking something like this could be applied to cube w Contract.
If you draft Contract from Below you get to ignore the ante effect but skip your next pick. I've never done it in practice but was wondering what other peoples' perspectives on this issue are.
I don't run cards I need to make special rules for. At that point, they are practically custom cards. Without playing for ante, this card is stupid and it really goes against what the card was meant to do.
Yes, it's been discussed before. The consensus usually is that people prefer to play with cards as written and oppose house rules. However, a number of people have created house rules for this card, like returning cards from your deck to the cube box to pay the ante or your solution.
It plays like a custom card, so if you're ok with that, go ahead. It's kind of busted though. I would easily skip a pick for this, every time. There's nothing that you could lose that wouldn't be worth it.
I really wish I could cube with this card. It won me so many matches back when I played Shandalar (which now is too old school to run on my laptop ). As it is, this card would be filthy in a cube setting, and be the actual best card ever printed for the cube format.
It would probably be the best card ever printed period for any format lol.
But yeah, this card is far too absurd for any cube. Unless it was like "when you cast this card, ante a card with mox or lotus in its name printed in alpha, beta, or revised." That would make people think twice about using it lol.
If you draft Contract from Below you get to ignore the ante effect but skip your next pick. I've never done it in practice but was wondering what other peoples' perspectives on this issue are.
I am pretty sure that even if you skipped your next 2, 3, or maybe even 4 picks this card would still be the most powerful card in cube. Draw 7 for 1 mana is just...so insane.
My cube group is really getting behind everyone submitting a $5 entry card into the pot, then a 5/3 split between best and second best record.
What are folks opinions on a player casting CfB needing to cough up another $5 card every time they use it? Is $5 too steep? A $1-2 card/use instead?
Frankly, to me, this sounds like a great way to turn something that is supposed to be fun and relaxing into something that is a great way to cause stress and breed animosity. Plus, making people pay extra to use the card doesn't make it any worse, it just makes everyone feel worse. If you play the card and lose, you feel like you wasted your money. If you lose to the guy playing it, it feels like he bought the win.
Best idea is to not even try and make this card work IMO. It is far too broken.
Yeah, there's a reason this card has been consigned to the annals of history. Magic did itself a favor by making this card unusable, and it's so broken that even the most powered, house-rules driven cube should leave this card alone.
Unless you've got a silver-bordered cube and a group willing to do some silly, un-set style things to pay for this kind of power, of course. Then you can get creative and have some fun with it, but playing it in any kind of serious manner just spells trouble. Pay-to-play is just a bad time for everybody involved, since it takes you out of the act of actually playing magic.
I really don't get the house rules stuff. Ante works better/easier in Cube than anywhere else. When you play Contract ante a card like it says. If you lose, your opponent gets that card at the end of the game.
Its a powerful card (over powerful, even), but Necro-Impotence is better because for about 15 life (worst case) you draw your entire deck. At which point winning becomes fairly trivial as long as you drafted mana acceleration and something like Dream Halls.
I really don't get the house rules stuff. Ante works better/easier in Cube than anywhere else. When you play Contract ante a card like it says. If you lose, your opponent gets that card at the end of the game.
It also says, "Remove Contract from Below from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante."
"Playing for ante" does not mean "putting a card in the ante if and only if an ante card shows up". It means:
407.2. When playing for ante, each player puts one random card from his or her deck into the ante zone after determining which player goes first but before players draw any cards. Cards in the ante zone may be examined by any player at any time. At the end of the game, the winner becomes the owner of all the cards in the ante zone.
So if you're doing what someone else called "starting ante of 0", it is already a change on the meaning of "ante".
So what you propose is a house-rule. Frankly you can do whatever you want, more power to whoever plays with Contract and only put cards in the ante when Contract resolves if everyone accepts this as a previously-acknowledged house-rule.
Just don't say it is how actual ante works. It is not.
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Contract is certainly broken in powered decks, mostly because it's a one sided wheel as opposed to a global one... but if your black pool is shallow I'd surely suggest you try it out. Test drives don't harm anyone.
They only get removed from your deck (if you aren't playing for ante) at the beginning of the game.
So if you burning wish or booster tutor into it, you can use them in a game that's not for ante.
While its cute with Contract From Below, it's downright mean with Tempest Efreet (when they are under 10 life).
Of course, they can just concede.
This doesn't represent permanent loss, or any financial loss to the player casting the Contract. This doesn't represent what "ante" means by definition or by spirit. And playing ante for zero isn't playing for ante. If nothing gets put up for ante at the beginning of the game, you're ...not playing for ante.
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House rules are absolutely ok and every cube group should have fun while playing. But I can't agree on the statement that how nof's group plays the card is "as printed", because it is clearly not. Without adding a severe drawback (money, valuable cards owned by the player) this card is the sickest and most unbalanced thing ever. If you like that, that's fine. But claiming this is playing how the card is printed is fooling yourself.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/other-formats/mtgo-pauper/developing/647850-primer-angler-delver
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Not to mention that simply speaking, an ante of zero cards isn't an ante.
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Ante for zero sounds like a weird attempt at rules lawyering. and the way you play Ante is not what the idea of Ante is. This would mean that ante cards are stronger at the end of the evening, because you risk less. It looks like you tried really hard to find a way to make ante work ruleswise, not because it should, but because you want it to be playable. Which is fine, but you will not convince other people with that weird rules lawyering attempt.
You are right that this debate is not productive though. We all will have to agree to disagree .
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
That's simply not true. One is losing a card from your collection entirely. The other is losing access to one card for a single draft. It's not the same at all.
I don't agree with this. I don't think it's a matter of opinion at all. There's playing by ante, and there's not. If you don't risk permanent loss that has an impact on the person putting the card up for ante, you're not playing for ante.
I'm not trying to convince you not to run the card. I'm simply pointing out that using ante cards in the cube requires the development of house rules, and you can't be playing the card as printed when you're not playing for ante. An ante of zero cards is not an ante. Losing a card from a phantom draft does not represent an ante.
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The few tournaments I participated in didn't enforce any ante rules. No one complained about Contract having no drawback because in the spirit of the format we were all doing broken things. In cube, you can decide to run whichever cards you want. I'm so sick of the house rules and errata discussions. Everyone's lists and formats are not without their quirks. We all have zany formats, cards, and house rules. No matter how strict you decide to manage your list, you're still playing a format that is about as competitive and serious as EDH or wacky pack drafts.
If Nof wants to play Contract, and her group is fine with the power-level, then why try to convince her it's bad just because it's essentially using errata? Why does anyone care about errata in the first place? At this point, these SCD discussions have gone on long enough that there is little ambiguity in what these cards actually do that the line between house rules and the way the card functions is beginning to get blurred. I loved playing Contract regardless of the mode. If I still played money games, you can bet your butt I'd be considering this in my combo cube. I'm glad that people go outside of traditional design parameters to test cards like Contract out.
I personally think cube without some sort of house rules and errata has about all the character of something like the MODO cube which is to say, not much. I can cube with my list or a close friend's any day of the week. It's not everyday I get to cast a card like Gifts Given, Contract, or something like Booster Tutor, play with an Exalted Angel with Exalted, or play a format like 2HG Roch with a finely-tuned multiplayer list. At big events like SCG Opens and Gen Con, there are quite literally dozens of cubes. When presented with a choice to draft a traditional 360-540 card vanilla list and someone's cube like Antknee or Andy Cooperfaus, people are immediately drawn to the other cubes. This isn't conjecture; this actually happens. People are excited to solve a new format and experience the format for themselves. To me, dismissing this kind of cube design goes against everything I love about the format. You don't have to like errata, but if you don't respect that it's just as much a part of our format as anything else, you are shutting out some really great design discussion.
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I'm not. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. A lot of cube groups use custom erratas and house rules to bring in cards they want to use.
But the argument isn't if it's good or bad. The argument is about if it's a house errata or not. I think it clearly is. Which again, is fine, but it's still a house errata nonetheless.
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What are folks opinions on a player casting CfB needing to cough up another $5 card every time they use it? Is $5 too steep? A $1-2 card/use instead?
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
I am not sure the system is balanced. But $5 is way too much. Playing Contract from Below once does not double your chances of winning the draft.
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If you draft Contract from Below you get to ignore the ante effect but skip your next pick. I've never done it in practice but was wondering what other peoples' perspectives on this issue are.
Duplicate SCD threads merged.
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Cheers,
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Personally, I think it's just too broken.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=484979
It would probably be the best card ever printed period for any format lol.
But yeah, this card is far too absurd for any cube. Unless it was like "when you cast this card, ante a card with mox or lotus in its name printed in alpha, beta, or revised." That would make people think twice about using it lol.
Edit -
I am pretty sure that even if you skipped your next 2, 3, or maybe even 4 picks this card would still be the most powerful card in cube. Draw 7 for 1 mana is just...so insane.
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Frankly, to me, this sounds like a great way to turn something that is supposed to be fun and relaxing into something that is a great way to cause stress and breed animosity. Plus, making people pay extra to use the card doesn't make it any worse, it just makes everyone feel worse. If you play the card and lose, you feel like you wasted your money. If you lose to the guy playing it, it feels like he bought the win.
Best idea is to not even try and make this card work IMO. It is far too broken.
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Unless you've got a silver-bordered cube and a group willing to do some silly, un-set style things to pay for this kind of power, of course. Then you can get creative and have some fun with it, but playing it in any kind of serious manner just spells trouble. Pay-to-play is just a bad time for everybody involved, since it takes you out of the act of actually playing magic.
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Its a powerful card (over powerful, even), but Necro-Impotence is better because for about 15 life (worst case) you draw your entire deck. At which point winning becomes fairly trivial as long as you drafted mana acceleration and something like Dream Halls.
It also says, "Remove Contract from Below from your deck before playing if you're not playing for ante."
"Playing for ante" does not mean "putting a card in the ante if and only if an ante card shows up". It means:
407.2. When playing for ante, each player puts one random card from his or her deck into the ante zone after determining which player goes first but before players draw any cards. Cards in the ante zone may be examined by any player at any time. At the end of the game, the winner becomes the owner of all the cards in the ante zone.
So if you're doing what someone else called "starting ante of 0", it is already a change on the meaning of "ante".
So what you propose is a house-rule. Frankly you can do whatever you want, more power to whoever plays with Contract and only put cards in the ante when Contract resolves if everyone accepts this as a previously-acknowledged house-rule.
Just don't say it is how actual ante works. It is not.