I had the quest to "Play 20 Black spells". So I put in 20 Swamp and all the 1 cmc black creatures and cards like Disfigure, Bone Splinters etc I could find. NO RARES. No dual lands. I start and I ***** you not:
1st matchup: Temur Elementals
2nd Matchup: RDW
3rd Match: Espers.
Last match (needed 1 more black spell): RDW
Seems legit..lol
So you built a deck that was not designed to win and are complaining because the game didn't match you up against the NO other players who were trying to play a game with sub-precon level decks?
The game can only match up people who are actively looking for a game. It can't create opponents playing badly built common only decks for you.
I think the role of the ban list is to stop people from "accidentally" making a bad gameplay experience, doing it deliberately is pretty much impossible to stop.
I think this is the important point that too many people seem not to get. The banlist philosophy is pretty straightforward.
If you want to do broken and unpleasant stuff, they cannot stop you. There are too many powerful cards, and there is no way to police all of them without making the banlist 10 times the size it currently is.
Primeval Titan is banned. Hermit Druid is not.
You can do much more broken things with the druid than with the titan - not close.
But unless your trying to do (and set up for) broken things, the druid is innocuous and tends not to be anything other than a nice card.
The titan, on the other hand, changes/warps/wrecks the game regardless of whether you try and set up silly things or just love his value.
If you want to watch the world burn, the rules committee cannot stop you. Their goal seems to be to remove the most common causes of accidental fires, and it seems to be working well.
I always ask myself if a land is going to be good if I have a specific powerful card in play and 2 extra mana available when I play it and don't need to benefit from it until the next turn. It's right up there with considering is this a land I want to have if my opponent might be playing Psychic Venom.
This is not to say that the code is completely random, due to the handshaping element in whatever format that applies. But the color distribution/screw, the either flood or starvation of lands after your opening hand, that's just randomness.
Humans suck at predicting/understanding randomness. We are also creatures of pattern recognition, even when there isn't a pattern to recognize.
When you think of a randomized deck, you likely think of one with a relatively even distribution of lands throughout the deck. But true randomness is rarely relatively even, and often filled with more clumps and other distribution weirdness. A truly randomized deck will have significantly more clumps of lands than you would expect.
It's just a card you put in your deck. It doesn't really do anything but it's cost is only a land drop.
I think this is the post that somes up what this thread is for.
Reliquary Tower is fantastic at what it does. It's just that what it does is not worth doing most of the time. Sure, the cost is low. But that cost can and will matter, especially if you are not doing something to take advantage of the effect.
A well built manabase is a fantastic thing. Reliquary Tower almost always makes the manabase worse.
If your reason for running Reliquary Tower comes down to "I might...." then you shouldn't be running it. If you just run a lot of card draw and end up with a lot of cards in hand, you still probably shouldn't be running it (You should be figuring out how to better deploy your resources rather than hoard them).
It's not that there aren't uses for the Tower. There are. It's just that they are far rarer than most people believe, and because the cost of running Tower is small (although not as small as it appears), many people run it when they shouldn't.
People do all sorts of things to limit themselves and then still try their best in a given situation.
Obviously, you can't run a 3 legged race (even with the worlds fastest man as your partner) as fast as you'd run a regular one. But when you do run that race, you still try to run as fast as you can.
Singleton is obviously a limitation. Some people embrace the chaos. Some people do not. Some people take joy in building the most consistent, streamlined deck possible despite the limitation. Some people like decks that play differently every game. Some people search to find a balance.
Yeah, Warp World is a massive resource denial card disguised as a wacky fun card. Play it if you want, but understand what it is and why it makes a lot of people miserable when it resolves.
You can use old versions of a legal card. Getting new copies from the latest set is not necessary.
Predicting the cards that will be reprinted is going to be very difficult. Some cards appear in multiple core sets in a row, some disappear quickly, and others disappear only to return after a time. In many ways, there is no telling which is which.
A few thoughts:
Keyword mechanics from nonCore sets are unlikely to come back. Or keywords that have fallen out of favor are also unlikely (Protection, Regeneration)
The more clean and simple the name, the more likely they are to reuse it. Names that reference specific characters or locations are more limited in being reprinted.
Deliberately stalling is against the rules of magic. Under bug reports, there is an option to report for player conduct. Expect to see your account sanctioned if you keep it up.
You are abusing the program and violating the rules to try and make other people have an unpleasant time without playing or trying to win the game. These forum have rules that forbid me from telling you what I think of you, but I'm sure you can guess.
Sure, but if you can stick Feather and have a spell or two the game ends pretty quickly regardless. Guttersnipe only seems good in situations where you would win anyway.
The current system doesn't make sense. It's the result of an old system that has been improved multiple times but lacks the singular vision of something started from scratch and designed to work in a singular way, as opposed to a patchwork of fixes built on an archaic principle.
Prereleases used to be rare, there may only be 1 or 2 locations in your state that had the prerelease. The cards and what they do were not known (generally speaking, leaks were common). It was a rare, small event to hype the new set and a way to draft going into a format almost completely blind.
Obviously, the current incarnation of Prereleases are nothing like that now.
The current "Prerelease" events are fine, I just fail to see the benefit from separating them from the release. It's not to promote the set, as that information is already out there. It's not to create an environment for people who like drafting a completely unknown format (new =/= unknown).
Drop the "Pre", let people buy their cards that weekend and be done with it. Virtually nothing would change, and everyone would be happier.
including the fact that we would have to ban at least six or more cards to implement this change without breaking the format.
Just because I'm curious (and well aware that the list is hypothetical and in no way binding, what are the 6+ cards that you expect would likely require a ban if the rules were changed?
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Bazaar decks were a thing, even though dredge wasn't (hello Worldgorger combo)
Workshop decks were a thing, because of course they were - even though chalice, trinisphere and tons of other lock peices didn't exist yet.
Control was viable, in various multicolor forms.
Psychatog was also a major beater in the format.
Here are some 2003 Vintage decklists to give an idea:
So you built a deck that was not designed to win and are complaining because the game didn't match you up against the NO other players who were trying to play a game with sub-precon level decks?
The game can only match up people who are actively looking for a game. It can't create opponents playing badly built common only decks for you.
I think this is the important point that too many people seem not to get. The banlist philosophy is pretty straightforward.
If you want to do broken and unpleasant stuff, they cannot stop you. There are too many powerful cards, and there is no way to police all of them without making the banlist 10 times the size it currently is.
Primeval Titan is banned. Hermit Druid is not.
You can do much more broken things with the druid than with the titan - not close.
But unless your trying to do (and set up for) broken things, the druid is innocuous and tends not to be anything other than a nice card.
The titan, on the other hand, changes/warps/wrecks the game regardless of whether you try and set up silly things or just love his value.
If you want to watch the world burn, the rules committee cannot stop you. Their goal seems to be to remove the most common causes of accidental fires, and it seems to be working well.
Paradox Engine and Iona banned. Painter's servant freed.
I always ask myself if a land is going to be good if I have a specific powerful card in play and 2 extra mana available when I play it and don't need to benefit from it until the next turn. It's right up there with considering is this a land I want to have if my opponent might be playing Psychic Venom.
This is not to say that the code is completely random, due to the handshaping element in whatever format that applies. But the color distribution/screw, the either flood or starvation of lands after your opening hand, that's just randomness.
Humans suck at predicting/understanding randomness. We are also creatures of pattern recognition, even when there isn't a pattern to recognize.
When you think of a randomized deck, you likely think of one with a relatively even distribution of lands throughout the deck. But true randomness is rarely relatively even, and often filled with more clumps and other distribution weirdness. A truly randomized deck will have significantly more clumps of lands than you would expect.
I think this is the post that somes up what this thread is for.
Reliquary Tower is fantastic at what it does. It's just that what it does is not worth doing most of the time. Sure, the cost is low. But that cost can and will matter, especially if you are not doing something to take advantage of the effect.
A well built manabase is a fantastic thing. Reliquary Tower almost always makes the manabase worse.
If your reason for running Reliquary Tower comes down to "I might...." then you shouldn't be running it. If you just run a lot of card draw and end up with a lot of cards in hand, you still probably shouldn't be running it (You should be figuring out how to better deploy your resources rather than hoard them).
It's not that there aren't uses for the Tower. There are. It's just that they are far rarer than most people believe, and because the cost of running Tower is small (although not as small as it appears), many people run it when they shouldn't.
Obviously, you can't run a 3 legged race (even with the worlds fastest man as your partner) as fast as you'd run a regular one. But when you do run that race, you still try to run as fast as you can.
Singleton is obviously a limitation. Some people embrace the chaos. Some people do not. Some people take joy in building the most consistent, streamlined deck possible despite the limitation. Some people like decks that play differently every game. Some people search to find a balance.
Predicting the cards that will be reprinted is going to be very difficult. Some cards appear in multiple core sets in a row, some disappear quickly, and others disappear only to return after a time. In many ways, there is no telling which is which.
A few thoughts:
Keyword mechanics from nonCore sets are unlikely to come back. Or keywords that have fallen out of favor are also unlikely (Protection, Regeneration)
The more clean and simple the name, the more likely they are to reuse it. Names that reference specific characters or locations are more limited in being reprinted.
Beyond that, good luck guessing.
You are abusing the program and violating the rules to try and make other people have an unpleasant time without playing or trying to win the game. These forum have rules that forbid me from telling you what I think of you, but I'm sure you can guess.
Prereleases used to be rare, there may only be 1 or 2 locations in your state that had the prerelease. The cards and what they do were not known (generally speaking, leaks were common). It was a rare, small event to hype the new set and a way to draft going into a format almost completely blind.
Obviously, the current incarnation of Prereleases are nothing like that now.
The current "Prerelease" events are fine, I just fail to see the benefit from separating them from the release. It's not to promote the set, as that information is already out there. It's not to create an environment for people who like drafting a completely unknown format (new =/= unknown).
Drop the "Pre", let people buy their cards that weekend and be done with it. Virtually nothing would change, and everyone would be happier.
Just because I'm curious (and well aware that the list is hypothetical and in no way binding, what are the 6+ cards that you expect would likely require a ban if the rules were changed?
Bazaar decks were a thing, even though dredge wasn't (hello Worldgorger combo)
Workshop decks were a thing, because of course they were - even though chalice, trinisphere and tons of other lock peices didn't exist yet.
Control was viable, in various multicolor forms.
Psychatog was also a major beater in the format.
Here are some 2003 Vintage decklists to give an idea:
3 Duress
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
2 Merchant Scroll
3 Cunning Wish
2 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Deep Analysis
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Fire / Ice
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Mind Twist
3 Coffin Purge
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Artifact Mutation
1 Naturalize
1 Berserk
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Cadet
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Raging Goblin
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Siege-Gang Commander
Burn and pump (16)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Goblin Grenade
4 Reckless Charge
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
Mana (19)
1 Mox Ruby
4 Barbarian Ring
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Volcanic Island
5 Mountain
4 Rack and Ruin
4 Scald
4 Null Rod
3 Blood Moon
4 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Ambassador Laquatus
3 Animate Dead
3 Dance of the Dead
2 Necromancy
Setup (15)
4 Squee Goblin Nabob
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Intuition
3 Compulsion
Counters (4)
4 Force of Will
Others (5)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Rushing River
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
3 Underground River
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Goblin Welder
4 Juggernaut
3 Su-Chi
1 Karn Silver Golem
1 Triskelion
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Squee Goblin Nabob
1 Wonder
1 Anger
Other artifacts (7)
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Tangle Wire
1 Memory Jar
Other spells (7)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
4 Survival of the Fittest
1 Metalworker
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
4 Mishra's Workshop
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
2 Forest
2 Blood Moon
3 Bottle Gnomes
2 Elvish Lyrist
1 Flametongue Kavu
2 Rack and Ruin
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Uktabi Orangutan
Blue (22)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Future Sight
2 Morphling
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind Twist
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 The Abyss
3 Duress
White (3)
1 Balance
2 Swords to Plowshares
Mana (27)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
3 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 City of Brass
4 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
2 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Disenchant
1 Shattering Pulse
1 Ebony Charm
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Diabolic Edict