EX33396948 was nicer to you. That's fine, but now it's My turn to respond. I'm not as nice. I hate to break it to you, but you logic fails and it fails hard. You are using assumptions on something you have no knowledge of. You didn't read a damn bit of this thread nor did you come here to offer any actual substance to it. You are the typical foaming at the mouth, casual edh Quaker who thinks they can come in and pass judgment on tournament players as if they are a bane of existence and are causing the downfall of everything cuddly and good. Its a bunch of crap and I'm calling you out on it.
Wow, way to not read anything of what I said. At all. I want competitive EDH events. I love to play EDH, and when I am not building joke decks they are exceptionally cutthroat. I would love it if I won some packs for just playing the game. I don't like 1vs1 though, and that seems to be all that the tournaments for this format are. For the very reason I posted actually. Where did you gather that I am a "casual quaker" from? Did you just decide on it because I pointed out a big flaw in FFA tournaments that hasn't been solved yet?
FFA works fine. We have Free for all sports in today's world. The one thing that is the same in all of them is, you are expected to act like an adult. How is that any different here? Please tell me. Just because you are a quitter, doesn't mean 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 is the only way to go. We have already out lined the basis to make EDH FFA events work.
You mean sports where the players are payed to play and there is some major fame on the line? Because that might solve the problem. Congrats, all we have to do is pay EDH players to play the game and be honest about it, and then televise the event to make money from all the people watching it. Or we could sell tickets to the event where people watch them play. Aren't you glad that EDH is such a high profile game? /sarcasm
Oh yes, this old archaic excuse. You are pathetic. I suppose if you came to a new LGS and played for fun and one person brought a deck you thought was "too hard core" for casual and rolled you, you would never come back and spread lies to everyone that, that LGS breeds a hole players.
Once again, thanks for making assumptions on who I am based on essentially nothing. I already said that I am a relatively competitive player, and I have said in previous posts that I would love to see this idea work. Why you are try to smear me (and what good it does for your argument) I will never know.
Just because one event over 3 years ago before edh was ever actually monitored in any real way, doesn't mean you just give up. You have a great attitude man, no really you do. Your first mistake is basing the average LGS tournament of MAYBE a maximum of 50 people with an event held yearly and advertised as a huge event that draws in hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of people. Apples and orange, stop posting crap.........EX33396948 and Even I and others like us are looking to take on gen con, comic con, or any other huge event that might host magic the gathering events. Those are where the hard core card sharks can vulture around if they want big pay outs, we're talking about the local scene.
Wow, way to not know ANYTHING about what you are talking about. The EDH event at Gencon that year had 16 players in it on the first day. You know how I know? I was there. Not in the tournament mind you (didn't have my EDH deck with me at the time) but as a spectator. There were also only 6 members of the "EDH mafia" at the event. They still won easily.
Oh yes, the typical back peddling. Ex33396948 (i hate your name btw LOL copy and paste is myfriend), called you out, and apologized to you. Fat chance from me. You are a petty person. You came in here with the idea of someone trying to rob you from your cute little kitchen table examples. No one is trying to steal your kitchen table group away from you. Maybe you are talentless to the point where if tournament play did take off your friends would want to try it, then what, you going to call them failures of edh for wanting to try it?
Why these personal attacks based on knowledge you don't have about me? Is it to make yourself feel better or to try to invalidate my claims? If the latter you may want to look into the definitions of some logical fallacies, specifically ad hominem.
I love your addition of having to call the OP stupid by defining what criticism is.
I didn't call him stupid, I helped him understand the definition of a word. There are plenty of words I don't know the definition of (plenty of words I have never heard, even) that doesn't make me stupid, and it doesn't make him stupid. Not everything on the internet needs to be a shallow attack you know. You can be polite. You should try it sometime.
You are laughable man. You can cloud your obvious troll & hate left-right combo as being helpful, but I expected it.
What?
You probably think my thread about LGS is filled with insane hyper competitive dooshbags. Just because you have no social skills and are afraid to try and interact with people doesn't mean this cannot work.
I don't know anything about you or your LGS, so I don't think I would make that claim. Also, why claim I have no social skills? Why another blind jab at me?
This isn't a fixed tournament. A fixed tournament ONLY rewards the winner. This clearly does not, yet another oversight of yours , but I guess you were too busy being helpful to notice right?
I meant fixed as in "rigged", pardon my use of the vernacular.
For Christ sakes open your eyes and stop being obtuse. This entire thread is screaming for input from casual players so we can try and set the bar high and make it possible, instead of just giving up and resorting to negative attacks on the premise.
"Negative attack"? Do I really need to re-post the definition of criticism?
I'll await vast reply of vocabulary artillery shells ready to hit me in the head. There is a reason the world isn’t ran in general by people like you Blue Warlock, they would give up after any actual show of adversity. Much like your edh playing field I imagine.
Yet another blind jab at me. I have tried to stay polite, so I hope my words are nothing like "artillery shells" but I do hope you have learned something about making proper arguments from this.
BACK ON TOPIC. It may be not be feasible, but a large enough tournament (say 200 people or more) could stop another "mafia", simply by needing too many members for it to be practical. Unlikely, and technically another HUGE mafia could form, but its the only way that sticks out to me to try and hinder its formation.
I like it a little... It disregards a common fashion of pairing equal points players together but then again we're talking multiplayer pods. The question becomes, if a group of players come to "fix" the wins, will they all make it to final "pod" (table)?
Also, in regards to "fixing", if you start cutting prizes, is it worth it after you cut so far? Say 10 people from the store enter and 10 people working together enter. If prize support is... 2 packs per $5 and entry is $5... 40 packs for the "winner" if ALL of entry goes to prize support, then 40/10 = 4 packs a person... is saving $1.25 a pack really worth it? And the less people you bring, the less likely you'll win more, and the second you do it in a local environment, word will spread like wild fire for everyone to eliminate you guys asap.
First, the issue with your commend on 1 vs 1 and 2HG is it sounded like you were telling me "you can't do multiplayer, much less 1 vs 1 or 2HG".
When you said "either..." you mean "I'll have to be either 1 vs 1 or 2HG".
Second, you were being unproductive and pessimistic. You didn't offer an idea, you didn't criticism, you didn't question a rule. You told me that I was going to fail because this can't be done. Fortunately I found the silver lining in your pessimism and I'm using it. Maybe you didn't mean so come off to me they way you did, but I'm clarifying that. To at least me, you did. If I'm the only one seeing your response as this way, then I'm sorry (I'm not starting a poll btw). I'm just giving you "constructive criticism".
First of all, if you offer a prize and people will have much higher odds of winning if they band together, there is a large chance they will. Even if by some miracle they don't win (I don't know, all of them got terrible hands. In every game. Had to mull all the way down to 2, whatever.) The tournament scene is still going to be wrecked, people won't play tournaments hosted by you, or using your rules. After all, if the first one was "fixed" whats to stop it from happening in the future? You need players to support a tournament after all.
Second off, you may not grasp the definition of the word "criticism."
Here, let me post it for you: crit·i·cism
[krit-uh-siz-uhm]
–noun 1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.
A fixed tournament is completely merit-less, and I would say that letting you know about this was also a great exercise in faultfinding. I have provided you with criticism, perhaps even the most valuable piece in the thread. Just because its not what you want to hear doesn't mean its not criticism, nor does it mean I am being a pessimist. Please try to understand that.
Well for one, it's disheartening that instead of trying to offer insight and support on the topic or even criticizing, you're just striking it down as "can't be done". I applaud that too because I know so many people in this world that would stop at no ends to prove people who say "can't", wrong. You might have single handedly encouraged someone to solve your pessimism.
And in regards to at least 1 vs 1. How in the world is that impossible?
Anyways, thanks for the insight. I'll google it and see where things went wrong. It'll help me build on pairing and points.
I was offering insight and support, I told you that you will have to do 1vs1 or 2HG, something that you apparently missed in your response to my post. Second off, I would love to see your solution to this, as it has been the main barrier to more competitive FFA events. I haven't been able to think of a way to do it properly, and nobody else has either (including the fine folks at wizards, obviously).
Just mentioning that before you try to even think up another rule for this tournament, from awkward concessions to sideboarding time, you have to solve this problem or change the style of your tournament.
I hate to break it to you, but competitive multiplayer EDH just doesn't work. If you actually have real prize support or any other great incentive to win, people are going to conspire together to win, and I don't mean in the typical political way EDH games are played. People will form groups before the tournament (or during) in which they agree to split the prize support. Its obvious who will win in a 2vs1 or in a 2vs1vs1. Even with random seating, this will still happen.
Don't believe me? One of the first EDH constructed events to happen (organized by wizards and held at Gencon, before WotC even added the EDH rules to their database) was struck by the same circumstance. The group called themselves the EDH mafia, you can google the incident if you want and you should be able to turn up more information if you want, but just know that FFA EDH and competitive don't mix. Either do 1v1 or 2HG.
You can't really set up a hard and fast rule against combos. Sure, being able to only make five mana off of Basalt monolith and Rings of Brighthearth is going to make the combo terrible, but if its Rings, Cabal Coffers, Deserted Temple then it might as well be infinite. Same with infinite turns, usually five is enough to kill the table. Or at least Kill enough people that they can survive til their next "real" turn and get 5 more free turns.
Second off,
Combo deck going off in a 5 player game = 1 person having fun, 4 conceding. The point is to make the game more fun.
It's one thing if you talk about a 1v1 game, but in a multiplayer, combo restrictions make sense to me.
Can't this be said about anyone winning by killing the table all at once? Does it matter if they win by making 10,000 mana fireballs or overrunning after an Avenger of Zendikar? Everyone lost at the same time, does it honestly matter how they lose?
Again, you keep going on about combo's being unfun for everyone else but the combo player, and here you are telling the combo player they can't play their chosen strategy. Obviously you wouldn't be making this rule up if their were not other people in your group who are playing combo, have you asked them about this? I don't see why you are the grand arbiter of fun and your way of fun is the only way, while the combo players are having badwrongfun.
And finally, your rules have no way of dealing with infinite combos that can't end, like having only 3 nonland permanents in play, all of which are oblivion ring (which can happen off of a stray warp world or the like), or Animate Dead and Worldgorger dragon with the dragon as the only target in a graveyard. What if the guy doing the dragon trick has a Bogardan Hellkite in play? Is he allowed to kill every body or does the game have to end in a tie instead?
There are plenty of loopholes in whatever rule you make that aspiring Johnnies will try to find in order to combo off, Grand Arbiter of Fun. You are going to just have to change their deck construction habits to actually get rid of the combos, not change the rules of the game to try and stop them, because you probably won't be able to find and pre-emptively stop every way for them to "go infinite" that somebody could cook up.
Force of Will would be flat out ridiculous. While most everyone would like for it to come back, it probably wouldn't be very good for the perceived health of standard. Think its bad when all blue decks contain JTMS? It'd be the same for Force of Will, though the overall influence on the game would be different.
Are you insane? Force of Will is an absolutely awful counterspell most of the time. The only reason it is so prolific in eternal formats is because if you use it at the right time against a combo deck you win the game (or while playing a combo deck). Nobody in standard is going to want to 2 for 1 themselves just to stop a turn 1 goblin guide, and Dismember (playable in every deck for only one mana) gets rid of the only real combo in standard.
I wish people would stop ****ting themselves everytime Force gets mentioned, thinking it would destroy standard, when it probably wouldn't even be seen in sideboards.
Yes, skyshroud claim can ind them. They are saprolings while in the library, and limb and limb says that all saprolings are forests as well. So, yes you can tudor for them with skyshroud claim
Wrong, life and limb effect cards in play only. Saying this works is like saying Urborg lets you crack your marsh flats for a Maze of Ith.
Calling people who disagree with you stupid is not the way to have a productive discussion.
Granted, my apologies.
There is a fundamental difference. The format is designed and built around legendary creatures, as such, a hoser for legends is drastically different than a hoser for theft effects.
But Karakas hoses the thing that makes Commander commander, if I wanted to play 100 card highlander, I'd play 100 card highlander instead, Homeward Path has a very powerful effect against a very specific subset of cards that not every deck plays, they're not the same at all.
To these two arguments I would say that Karakas does not hose all generals. I'm sure generals Like Maga or Clique would love to be bounced by Karakas and the strategy would be more than sub-par against them and many others. Playing a general does not mean you are going to get hosed by Karakas, it just means that certain generals with a particular strategy will get hosed by Karakas. How is that different than some strategies getting hosed by Homeward Path?
To reiterate, Karakas only wrecks some generals completely, just like Homeward Path only wrecks some strategies completely. You could claim that Karakas may harm deck diversity, but can't the same be said of Homeward Path?
Just wanted to respond to everyone on the RUN MOAR REMOVAL bandwagon with Homeward Path. Is it the same attitude you have towards Karakas? They both hose entire strategies with essentially no investment on the hosers part (they are both lands which produce mana and come into play untapped). You should probably consider yourself a hypocrite if you believe that one should be banned and the other should not. If your argument is about one strategy being more "fun" than another that's completely subjective. If you are going to say its because everyone makes decks around their general that's not true either, as I have made decks that don't make use of the general, and some of the best decks don't use a general either (see 99 card grim long with pirate ship as a general).
Not sure if there are a bunch of people that want Karakas unbanned or are too stupid to realize the similarities.
White. Its not that its not a good color, it has the best wraths and spot removal along with a few nifty tutors. It's just that its not very exciting. Red is a close second simply because the cards are so terrible, but they are exciting. If I am playing a deck with some red in it I know that some nutty explosive plays can be had, while white just kind of slows down the board.
The "pay one colorless" on Mind's Eye is an activated ability as far as I know.
It shuts down everything I listed, and quite handily too.
No worries. You're not the only one tired at 4am
Minds Eye is in fact a triggered ability.
Also, just to contribute more to the conversation, I don't ever wind up running Null Rod just because you do have to build your deck around it a bit. You lose out on oodles of powerful cards (Sol Ring, Top, Scroll Rack, Mindslaver, every other piece of artifact accel, equipment, disk, stone, etc) just to try and shut down the same cards.
Sure you could get to screw over a bunch of artifacts, but the conditions have to be good enough that it isn't a loss for you. I mean, its only one card in your deck, versus the 10+ other great artifacts you could be running that it shuts down, and if you don't draw it you are only gimping yourself against opponents that have much higher odds of drawing into one of their many great artifacts
Also, although I hate to say it "dies to removal" it has a significantly larger target painted on it than any of the other cards it would be shutting down, and when it dies you once again are running some subpar cards as opposed to the artifacts you could run.
The other changes I could care less about, but I really do feel like "dies" is a step in the wrong direction. It doesn't specifically mention a game zone and it may become really frustrating to explain when dealing with newer players. Muddying up the mechanics of a game in favor of "flavor" (its not even good flavor, since printing this text on something that doesn't "die" like artifact creatures, zombies, etc. doesn't make sense from a flavor standpoint) leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Really not a fan and hope this gets a rework.
EDIT: Its been a while, but didn't they learn their lesson a while back on this from the term "bury"? What prompted the change in perspective?
Wow, way to not read anything of what I said. At all. I want competitive EDH events. I love to play EDH, and when I am not building joke decks they are exceptionally cutthroat. I would love it if I won some packs for just playing the game. I don't like 1vs1 though, and that seems to be all that the tournaments for this format are. For the very reason I posted actually. Where did you gather that I am a "casual quaker" from? Did you just decide on it because I pointed out a big flaw in FFA tournaments that hasn't been solved yet?
You mean sports where the players are payed to play and there is some major fame on the line? Because that might solve the problem. Congrats, all we have to do is pay EDH players to play the game and be honest about it, and then televise the event to make money from all the people watching it. Or we could sell tickets to the event where people watch them play. Aren't you glad that EDH is such a high profile game? /sarcasm
Once again, thanks for making assumptions on who I am based on essentially nothing. I already said that I am a relatively competitive player, and I have said in previous posts that I would love to see this idea work. Why you are try to smear me (and what good it does for your argument) I will never know.
Wow, way to not know ANYTHING about what you are talking about. The EDH event at Gencon that year had 16 players in it on the first day. You know how I know? I was there. Not in the tournament mind you (didn't have my EDH deck with me at the time) but as a spectator. There were also only 6 members of the "EDH mafia" at the event. They still won easily.
Why these personal attacks based on knowledge you don't have about me? Is it to make yourself feel better or to try to invalidate my claims? If the latter you may want to look into the definitions of some logical fallacies, specifically ad hominem.
I didn't call him stupid, I helped him understand the definition of a word. There are plenty of words I don't know the definition of (plenty of words I have never heard, even) that doesn't make me stupid, and it doesn't make him stupid. Not everything on the internet needs to be a shallow attack you know. You can be polite. You should try it sometime.
What?
I don't know anything about you or your LGS, so I don't think I would make that claim. Also, why claim I have no social skills? Why another blind jab at me?
I meant fixed as in "rigged", pardon my use of the vernacular.
"Negative attack"? Do I really need to re-post the definition of criticism?
Yet another blind jab at me. I have tried to stay polite, so I hope my words are nothing like "artillery shells" but I do hope you have learned something about making proper arguments from this.
BACK ON TOPIC. It may be not be feasible, but a large enough tournament (say 200 people or more) could stop another "mafia", simply by needing too many members for it to be practical. Unlikely, and technically another HUGE mafia could form, but its the only way that sticks out to me to try and hinder its formation.
First of all, if you offer a prize and people will have much higher odds of winning if they band together, there is a large chance they will. Even if by some miracle they don't win (I don't know, all of them got terrible hands. In every game. Had to mull all the way down to 2, whatever.) The tournament scene is still going to be wrecked, people won't play tournaments hosted by you, or using your rules. After all, if the first one was "fixed" whats to stop it from happening in the future? You need players to support a tournament after all.
Second off, you may not grasp the definition of the word "criticism."
Here, let me post it for you:
crit·i·cism
[krit-uh-siz-uh
–noun 1. the act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything.
2. the act of passing severe judgment; censure; faultfinding.
A fixed tournament is completely merit-less, and I would say that letting you know about this was also a great exercise in faultfinding. I have provided you with criticism, perhaps even the most valuable piece in the thread. Just because its not what you want to hear doesn't mean its not criticism, nor does it mean I am being a pessimist. Please try to understand that.
I was offering insight and support, I told you that you will have to do 1vs1 or 2HG, something that you apparently missed in your response to my post. Second off, I would love to see your solution to this, as it has been the main barrier to more competitive FFA events. I haven't been able to think of a way to do it properly, and nobody else has either (including the fine folks at wizards, obviously).
Just mentioning that before you try to even think up another rule for this tournament, from awkward concessions to sideboarding time, you have to solve this problem or change the style of your tournament.
Don't believe me? One of the first EDH constructed events to happen (organized by wizards and held at Gencon, before WotC even added the EDH rules to their database) was struck by the same circumstance. The group called themselves the EDH mafia, you can google the incident if you want and you should be able to turn up more information if you want, but just know that FFA EDH and competitive don't mix. Either do 1v1 or 2HG.
Second off,
Can't this be said about anyone winning by killing the table all at once? Does it matter if they win by making 10,000 mana fireballs or overrunning after an Avenger of Zendikar? Everyone lost at the same time, does it honestly matter how they lose?
Again, you keep going on about combo's being unfun for everyone else but the combo player, and here you are telling the combo player they can't play their chosen strategy. Obviously you wouldn't be making this rule up if their were not other people in your group who are playing combo, have you asked them about this? I don't see why you are the grand arbiter of fun and your way of fun is the only way, while the combo players are having badwrongfun.
And finally, your rules have no way of dealing with infinite combos that can't end, like having only 3 nonland permanents in play, all of which are oblivion ring (which can happen off of a stray warp world or the like), or Animate Dead and Worldgorger dragon with the dragon as the only target in a graveyard. What if the guy doing the dragon trick has a Bogardan Hellkite in play? Is he allowed to kill every body or does the game have to end in a tie instead?
There are plenty of loopholes in whatever rule you make that aspiring Johnnies will try to find in order to combo off, Grand Arbiter of Fun. You are going to just have to change their deck construction habits to actually get rid of the combos, not change the rules of the game to try and stop them, because you probably won't be able to find and pre-emptively stop every way for them to "go infinite" that somebody could cook up.
Are you insane? Force of Will is an absolutely awful counterspell most of the time. The only reason it is so prolific in eternal formats is because if you use it at the right time against a combo deck you win the game (or while playing a combo deck). Nobody in standard is going to want to 2 for 1 themselves just to stop a turn 1 goblin guide, and Dismember (playable in every deck for only one mana) gets rid of the only real combo in standard.
I wish people would stop ****ting themselves everytime Force gets mentioned, thinking it would destroy standard, when it probably wouldn't even be seen in sideboards.
Wrong, life and limb effect cards in play only. Saying this works is like saying Urborg lets you crack your marsh flats for a Maze of Ith.
To these two arguments I would say that Karakas does not hose all generals. I'm sure generals Like Maga or Clique would love to be bounced by Karakas and the strategy would be more than sub-par against them and many others. Playing a general does not mean you are going to get hosed by Karakas, it just means that certain generals with a particular strategy will get hosed by Karakas. How is that different than some strategies getting hosed by Homeward Path?
To reiterate, Karakas only wrecks some generals completely, just like Homeward Path only wrecks some strategies completely. You could claim that Karakas may harm deck diversity, but can't the same be said of Homeward Path?
Not sure if there are a bunch of people that want Karakas unbanned or are too stupid to realize the similarities.
Minds Eye is in fact a triggered ability.
Also, just to contribute more to the conversation, I don't ever wind up running Null Rod just because you do have to build your deck around it a bit. You lose out on oodles of powerful cards (Sol Ring, Top, Scroll Rack, Mindslaver, every other piece of artifact accel, equipment, disk, stone, etc) just to try and shut down the same cards.
Sure you could get to screw over a bunch of artifacts, but the conditions have to be good enough that it isn't a loss for you. I mean, its only one card in your deck, versus the 10+ other great artifacts you could be running that it shuts down, and if you don't draw it you are only gimping yourself against opponents that have much higher odds of drawing into one of their many great artifacts
Also, although I hate to say it "dies to removal" it has a significantly larger target painted on it than any of the other cards it would be shutting down, and when it dies you once again are running some subpar cards as opposed to the artifacts you could run.
EDIT: Its been a while, but didn't they learn their lesson a while back on this from the term "bury"? What prompted the change in perspective?
I would say powerhouse or beatdown, depending on the decklist. But probably always powerhouse.