So I'd say plan for 20-25 lands per player. A 400-land land box will thus suffice for about 16 players in raw numbers. They will average out the more players there are. Even half of the players all playing the same color combination is already very unlikely. So unless you expect to have about that many or more players, a single land station will be enough. If you expect significantly more players, a second land station, or at least another 100-card pack of basic lands, will likely be nessessary.
Thanks for the advice. I'll have about 40 players, so at 16 players per land station 3 land stations sounds reasonable.
You have two considerations: having enough lands for all of your players, and making those lands accessible.
Land stations are just a pretty presentation. If you're dead-set on using them becuase they look cool, you should base the number you need on how easy they will be to reach, not how many lands you need to supply. For example, 2-3 is probably sufficient for a 40-person event if you space them around the room.
You don't need to have enough stations to fit every single land you're supplying. Of course, you do need to have the land supply, but here's the crazy thing: you can refill a land station when it empties out!
The issue here isn't the presentation of the lands, but rather the actual lands themselves. I'm dealing with a group of players who don't have access to their normal supplies of thousands of lands, so I'm talking about how many physical basic land cards I need. When I say "land station" I actually just mean "box of 400 lands evenly split between the types." In fact, I'll almost certainly be buying aftermarket land stations. I don't need to spend $20 on WOTC's official land boxes when I can get the same number of mint condition lands
Sealed Deck are usualy at least two color decks, running around 14 lands. That means if you calculate 7 per color per player, that would be enough. A land station has, if I googled correctly, 400 lands - 80 of each color. That means 1 land station would be sufficient for 11 players.
Questions you should ask yourself:
- Players can bring their own lands to a limited tournament. Do you want to tell the players that? How experienced are those players? I think, more experienced tournament players are more likely to bring their own lands.
- Will you organize future limited events? In that case buying a little bit more will not hurt you in the long run.
- Perhaps there are local players who are willing to donate a couple of lands?
I don't think many people will bring their own lands. This is a tournament at my college, which is 100% residential. I know a lot of people own enough lands, I probably own enough basics to support this entire tournament myself, but when I went off to college I only brought my decks and trade binder with me; I couldn't afford the space to take my whole collection with me. And I think most other people are in the same boat.
There might be other limited events in the future, as i'm running this event partially in my role as one of the leaders of the school tabletop club. Any extra lands won't just sit around rotting.
The math I did was that the average player runs 17 lands. If they all go mono-red, and I get maximum attendance for my event (which I'm capping at 40 due to space limitations), I can expect to need 17*40=680 mountains. With 80 mountains per land base I would need 8.5 land stations. Which is a lot. If I assume that everybody tries to make a two color deck, but they all go red-green, I need half as many land stations which is 4.25. 4-5 land stations sounds like a lot, but I guess is manageable.
I'm running a limited tournament at my school, and I'm faced with the question of how many land stations to buy. I'd like to buy as few land stations as possible, as less lands means more funding for prize support, but I don't want to be stuck with a player who can't get enough lands of the color they need. The format is sealed deck, so unlike a draft I can't be sure that players will be spread somewhat normally across the 5 colors. In fact, in a worst-case scenario it's possible for EVERYONE's best colors to be the same! If I assume the worst case scenario, that means buying a little under 1 land station for every two people, which seems quite unreasonable, so I was wondering how other people would plan to purchase land stations. What totals would you all recommend?
So I help run the tabletop games club at my college, and one thing that a lot of student organizations do is bringing in experts on a relevant subject to give a speech or lead a workshop. And I was thinking: Hey, wouldn't it be cool to bring in an expert drafter, pick up a few boxes of Kaladesh, and host a draft-skills workshop?
I know I have an audience for it, as there's quite a few people who play magic and would be interested in drafting but lack the necessary skills to draft well. And I can arrange for funding within reason, as there are funding sources specifically designed for bringing knowledgeable speakers onto our campus. But then I realized that I don't know how I would go about finding an expert on drafting. I wouldn't even know where to start.
So how do I find expert drafters? Is there a list somewhere of the best drafters in the USA? Do I just look at pro-tour results and start emailing top finishers? Are there organizations that rank players drafting skills? I'm not sure where I go from here.
Commander: Athreos, God of Passage
Who likes taking a lightning bolt to the face? Not me, and hopefully not my opponents either. The point of this deck is having Athreos out as soon as possible, preferably turn 3, so he can be a nuisance for the rest of the game. Then you just play cheap creatures, and when they die you ask permission from a political ally to put the creature back into your hand. When lacking political allies, it's safe to assume you can find at least one person at the table who is willing to let you keep your creature. Most people aren't willing to take a hit personally in order to help the rest of the players.
After observing the deck, you will notice there are too many cards. (63 Non-land Cards, to be exact.) I am indecisive. Recommendations of cards to cut would be greatly appreciated, as well as anything you think would be good in the deck. I'm usually willing to acquire cards up to the $2 point, anything under $5 is possible if it is really beneficial over the next budget option, and anything over $5 is probably too much for my budget self handle. As much as I wish I could spend all my money on magic cards, I have to eat somehow.
Edit: Replaced a whole boat-load of stuff, added a boatload of other stuff. Still need to cut a boatload of cards. There's now more ways to actually win, although, to be honest, that's not really a priority. We don't take games too seriously in my playgroup.
Edit2: Dropped a lot of stuff, favoring the direction of ETBs or Death triggers that are a nuisance to my opponents. The goal being having fun for a while until I make my way to a win with Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or a combo like Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood or Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank (thank you Honest Conman). The deck seems to be functioning okay.
At a competitive REL, if my opponent forgets to look at the top card of his library at his upkeep from his Into The Wilds, I know I don't have to point it out to him because it's a missed trigger entirely in his benefit; but am I supposed to call a judge and tell them that my opponent missed a trigger because it's an MIPG infraction? Or can I go ahead and pretend like it never happened all game?
I don't want to be an ass and get my opponent a warning for something I'm not required to report that doesn't hurt me at all, but I also don't want to get in trouble myself for misrepresenting information to a judge.
There's no such thing as a "booster draft" PTQ. There is Sealed Deck with Draft Top 8. You won't be doing any drafting unless you make the cut.
Oh, derp. I read the site wrong. Honestly though, that's almost better. At the very least, if i fail terribly, its double the product for the entry fee compared to what I thought it was.
Hrm, so I guess maybe I'll go for the booster draft PTQ and not the constructed one. I have faith in my drafting and deck-building skills, but I don't spend top dollar to get the best of the best cards.
Thanks for answering my questions. I just wish this kind of information was available on the wizards site. It would be pretty useful for anyone else in the same position as I am.
I've never been to a PTQ before, but seeing how much time I waste spend on MTG I've decided It might be fun to go. There are 2 PTQs coming up at a location on half an hour's drive from my home next month and it seems like fun.
The problem is, i can't find out any information about them online. Most Google searches come up with page after page of people ranting about how poorly PTQs are run. I was hoping people could answer a few questions about these events for me.
1) How much do these events usually cost? (1 near me is a standard constructed, the other is a booster draft)
2) What timeframe do these usually occupy? When do they usually start, and how long do they usually take?
3) What does prize payout usually look like, aside from the 1st place prize of winning an entry to the PT.
4) How many people usually show up to these? Tens, hundreds, thousands?
My mental image of this type of event is similar to the scholastic chess tournaments I attended as a little kid. A school's gym would be filled with those temporary foldable tables and a few hundred chess sets would be set up; the kids would play around in the school's cafeteria while the chess-parents would huddle into groups and talk with each other; vendors would set up selling various merchandise like board/card games or food; and it would be a very relaxed and friendly event.
Are these anything like that? Or are they all super serious, all-business type people?
So now I've got the shocks taken out of pillars of flames, and i've moved two of the fleeting distractions from MB to SB to put in two of the Izzet charms from the SB. If i feel I need more draw in a match I can sideboard in more Izzet charm or even both Izzet charm and fleeting distractions.
I don't really have a problem with this kind of a deck, It's just more expensive than i'd like to spend on a gimmicky deck. A quick toss into tcgplayer's mass card entry shows this costing almost 400% of my budget.
As for card draw, would replacing the fleeting distractions with inspirations/divinations be a good choice? With those I would be getting two cards per one spent without worrying about flashback issues, but im afraid of loosing the cheap cost plus damage prevention from fleeting distractions that can help me hold out early until i get burning earth or other threats down.
My initial concern is you only have 2 Negate mb and no card draw (yes, Fleeting Distraction cantrips, but it needs a valid target), so the chances you will actually see one in a game is pretty slim. I'd rather see the Fleeting Distraction as something like even Think Twice to help you dig for answers. And I personally think Shock should be Pillar of Flame. The exile clause is super relevant atm.
The pillar of flames I can do, i see your point and Jund will hate me for it. The think twice scares me though. I'd hate to want for cards and not be able to get them because of my own ash zealot. The "needing a target" thing hasn't been a problem for me in the past, but if you guys think it's a really big thing would it be better to put some Thought Scours in since they don't need a creature to target? I was thinking about my card draw when I put this together, but i decided that saving my ass from 1 damage per card for only 1 mana, in addition to getting a card draw, might be the better thing.
I have always hated the prevalence of non-basic lands, and how most good dual colored or more decks are pretty much required to run them to hold out against other decks that run them. As such I decided to do something about it. The meta where I play is a lot of Grixis, Naya, and UWB decks that run almost exclusively non-basic lands. I wanted to punish them while keeping my budget pretty low (for a gimmick deck like non-basic hate i had about a $20 limit for the deck). This is what I came up with:
The ash zealots are turn 2 offensive drops with the added ability to graveyard hate, while the fog banks give me the ability to play defensive against a deck where i think i need more time. Mindsparker is not only a good 3 drop, but also hates on the better sides of lots of commonly played decks. By 4 mana I'd like to be able to drop a burning earth, but if I'm afraid of a counter spell i can easily hold out till i have enough for a negate of my own. Ætherling sits there as a potential win con, but more often they burn themselves low enough by playing their own spells that i can finish them with a burn of my own.
The sideboard has Ætherize for those pesky Naya aggro decks that can beat me before I am set up, and bouncing tokens is always fun. There's elixirs of immortality against the 1 or 2 mill decks out there, and a single Vandalblast because you never know when eggs will rise from the grave. Electrickery is there for the decks that attempt to bypass the barbs with mana dorks, and the Izzet charms let me add more burn or counterspells to my deck as needed.
It's play-tested well for me against my friends who I forced to run Grixis and Naya tournament level decks over OCTGN, but those friends aren't too used to those decks and I'm not too secure in the results. Hopefully I'll be able to run it at my next FNM, but that all depends if I get the cards I need by Friday. If I do play it, ill be sure to report back with results.
Any advice or suggestions for the deck would be greatly appreciated.
-------------
Edited deck to match various suggestions.
Thanks for the advice. I'll have about 40 players, so at 16 players per land station 3 land stations sounds reasonable.
The issue here isn't the presentation of the lands, but rather the actual lands themselves. I'm dealing with a group of players who don't have access to their normal supplies of thousands of lands, so I'm talking about how many physical basic land cards I need. When I say "land station" I actually just mean "box of 400 lands evenly split between the types." In fact, I'll almost certainly be buying aftermarket land stations. I don't need to spend $20 on WOTC's official land boxes when I can get the same number of mint condition lands
I don't think many people will bring their own lands. This is a tournament at my college, which is 100% residential. I know a lot of people own enough lands, I probably own enough basics to support this entire tournament myself, but when I went off to college I only brought my decks and trade binder with me; I couldn't afford the space to take my whole collection with me. And I think most other people are in the same boat.
There might be other limited events in the future, as i'm running this event partially in my role as one of the leaders of the school tabletop club. Any extra lands won't just sit around rotting.
The math I did was that the average player runs 17 lands. If they all go mono-red, and I get maximum attendance for my event (which I'm capping at 40 due to space limitations), I can expect to need 17*40=680 mountains. With 80 mountains per land base I would need 8.5 land stations. Which is a lot. If I assume that everybody tries to make a two color deck, but they all go red-green, I need half as many land stations which is 4.25. 4-5 land stations sounds like a lot, but I guess is manageable.
I know I have an audience for it, as there's quite a few people who play magic and would be interested in drafting but lack the necessary skills to draft well. And I can arrange for funding within reason, as there are funding sources specifically designed for bringing knowledgeable speakers onto our campus. But then I realized that I don't know how I would go about finding an expert on drafting. I wouldn't even know where to start.
So how do I find expert drafters? Is there a list somewhere of the best drafters in the USA? Do I just look at pro-tour results and start emailing top finishers? Are there organizations that rank players drafting skills? I'm not sure where I go from here.
Who likes taking a lightning bolt to the face? Not me, and hopefully not my opponents either. The point of this deck is having Athreos out as soon as possible, preferably turn 3, so he can be a nuisance for the rest of the game. Then you just play cheap creatures, and when they die you ask permission from a political ally to put the creature back into your hand. When lacking political allies, it's safe to assume you can find at least one person at the table who is willing to let you keep your creature. Most people aren't willing to take a hit personally in order to help the rest of the players.
After observing the deck, you will notice there are too many cards. (63 Non-land Cards, to be exact.) I am indecisive. Recommendations of cards to cut would be greatly appreciated, as well as anything you think would be good in the deck. I'm usually willing to acquire cards up to the $2 point, anything under $5 is possible if it is really beneficial over the next budget option, and anything over $5 is probably too much for my budget self handle. As much as I wish I could spend all my money on magic cards, I have to eat somehow.
Edit: Replaced a whole boat-load of stuff, added a boatload of other stuff. Still need to cut a boatload of cards. There's now more ways to actually win, although, to be honest, that's not really a priority. We don't take games too seriously in my playgroup.
Edit2: Dropped a lot of stuff, favoring the direction of ETBs or Death triggers that are a nuisance to my opponents. The goal being having fun for a while until I make my way to a win with Exsanguinate, Debt to the Deathless, or a combo like Sanguine Bond/Exquisite Blood or Bloodchief Ascension/Mindcrank (thank you Honest Conman). The deck seems to be functioning okay.
1 Viscera Seer
1 Mother of Runes
1 Children of Korlis
2-Drop Creatures - 12
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Blood Artist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Imposing Sovereign
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Yixlid Jailer
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 High Priest of Penance
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Grand Abolisher
3-Drop Creatures - 7
1 Sin Collector
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
1 Royal Assassin
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Burnished Hart
4-Drop Creatures - 5
1 Fleshwrither
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Ghost Council of Orzhova
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Shriekmaw
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Obzedat, Ghost Council
1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled
1 Magister of Worth
1 Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Abhorrent Overlord
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Ashen Rider
Planeswalkers - 3
1 Liliana of the Dark Realms
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Spot Removal - 7
1 Silence the Believers
1 Barter in Blood
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Mortify
1 Bile Blight
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Swords to Plowshares
Boardwipes/Pseudo-Boardwipes - 4
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Killing Wave
1 Planar Cleansing
1 In Garruk's Wake
1 Blind Obedience
1 Necromancer's Covenant
1 Debt to the Deathless
1 Underworld Connections
1 Exsanguinate
1 Bloodchief Ascension
1 Mindcrank
1 Exquisite Blood
1 Sanguine Bond
1 Dictate of Erebos
Non-basic Lands - 6
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Temple of Silence
1 Mutavault
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Reliquary Tower
Basic Lands - 30
18 Swamp
12 Plains
I don't want to be an ass and get my opponent a warning for something I'm not required to report that doesn't hurt me at all, but I also don't want to get in trouble myself for misrepresenting information to a judge.
Willpower
Profit = -------------------------
"But I could pull an XYZ!"
Oh, derp. I read the site wrong. Honestly though, that's almost better. At the very least, if i fail terribly, its double the product for the entry fee compared to what I thought it was.
Thanks for answering my questions. I just wish this kind of information was available on the wizards site. It would be pretty useful for anyone else in the same position as I am.
wastespend on MTG I've decided It might be fun to go. There are 2 PTQs coming up at a location on half an hour's drive from my home next month and it seems like fun.The problem is, i can't find out any information about them online. Most Google searches come up with page after page of people ranting about how poorly PTQs are run. I was hoping people could answer a few questions about these events for me.
1) How much do these events usually cost? (1 near me is a standard constructed, the other is a booster draft)
2) What timeframe do these usually occupy? When do they usually start, and how long do they usually take?
3) What does prize payout usually look like, aside from the 1st place prize of winning an entry to the PT.
4) How many people usually show up to these? Tens, hundreds, thousands?
My mental image of this type of event is similar to the scholastic chess tournaments I attended as a little kid. A school's gym would be filled with those temporary foldable tables and a few hundred chess sets would be set up; the kids would play around in the school's cafeteria while the chess-parents would huddle into groups and talk with each other; vendors would set up selling various merchandise like board/card games or food; and it would be a very relaxed and friendly event.
Are these anything like that? Or are they all super serious, all-business type people?
I prefer to run 60 shadowborn apostles. That way it can be legal in standard, modern, and eternal formats.
I don't really have a problem with this kind of a deck, It's just more expensive than i'd like to spend on a gimmicky deck. A quick toss into tcgplayer's mass card entry shows this costing almost 400% of my budget.
As for card draw, would replacing the fleeting distractions with inspirations/divinations be a good choice? With those I would be getting two cards per one spent without worrying about flashback issues, but im afraid of loosing the cheap cost plus damage prevention from fleeting distractions that can help me hold out early until i get burning earth or other threats down.
The pillar of flames I can do, i see your point and Jund will hate me for it. The think twice scares me though. I'd hate to want for cards and not be able to get them because of my own ash zealot. The "needing a target" thing hasn't been a problem for me in the past, but if you guys think it's a really big thing would it be better to put some Thought Scours in since they don't need a creature to target? I was thinking about my card draw when I put this together, but i decided that saving my ass from 1 damage per card for only 1 mana, in addition to getting a card draw, might be the better thing.
4 Mindsparker
4 Ash Zealot
4 Fog Bank
2 Ætherling
Spells:28
4 Burning Earth
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
4 Dissipate
2 Negate
2 Fleeting Distraction
2 Izzet Charm
13 Mountain
11 Island
4 Ætherize
3 Elixir of Immortality
2 Izzet Charm
2 Fleeting Distraction
3 Electrickery
1 Vandalblast
The ash zealots are turn 2 offensive drops with the added ability to graveyard hate, while the fog banks give me the ability to play defensive against a deck where i think i need more time. Mindsparker is not only a good 3 drop, but also hates on the better sides of lots of commonly played decks. By 4 mana I'd like to be able to drop a burning earth, but if I'm afraid of a counter spell i can easily hold out till i have enough for a negate of my own. Ætherling sits there as a potential win con, but more often they burn themselves low enough by playing their own spells that i can finish them with a burn of my own.
The sideboard has Ætherize for those pesky Naya aggro decks that can beat me before I am set up, and bouncing tokens is always fun. There's elixirs of immortality against the 1 or 2 mill decks out there, and a single Vandalblast because you never know when eggs will rise from the grave. Electrickery is there for the decks that attempt to bypass the barbs with mana dorks, and the Izzet charms let me add more burn or counterspells to my deck as needed.
It's play-tested well for me against my friends who I forced to run Grixis and Naya tournament level decks over OCTGN, but those friends aren't too used to those decks and I'm not too secure in the results. Hopefully I'll be able to run it at my next FNM, but that all depends if I get the cards I need by Friday. If I do play it, ill be sure to report back with results.
Any advice or suggestions for the deck would be greatly appreciated.
-------------
Edited deck to match various suggestions.