Elder Dragon Highlander, no question. It's just the greatest format ever. It's the only constructed format that I prefer over most limited formats, actually. In general, I will take limited over constructed every time unless EDH is involved.
I don't know that that's fair, though. I have watched a number of Troma movies, and they were always more entertaining than Boll's efforts. Boll just seems, for me, to hit that perfect level of suck where you recognize horrid craft and elements, but he doesn't suck in the right way to make it enjoyable. Maybe he's less delightfully camp?
Most of the people signing this thing have likely not even seen any of his movies and are just doing it because they think it is cool. It is pointless.
I have a close friend who used to make Michael Jackson jokes on the net in forums and such. I showed her some MJ videos and now she is a huge fan and feels silly for laughing at him. It is much the same.
A generally fair cop, although I feel that many of the people, like me, just truly dislike his movies. But I will stand by my claim that the "kicking in the nuts" thing is over the top and ultimately weakens your otherwise fine position. Perhaps a better simile would be, "For many of the people signing this petition, signing it is like when a kid says s/he doesn't like a certain food because s/he hasn't tried it."
Bash Uwe really is more of an internet Meme than an actual hatred. It is cool to bash him on the internet, that is it. Signing this would be like walking up and kicking some kid in the balls in elementary school because everyone else gets a kick out of calling him names.
I won't deny that bashing Uwe is more popular on the internet than it is in real life (although, as a regular movie viewer, I do it a fair amount in real life-he really is terrible), you really need to explain the "kicking in the nuts" simile here. Because as it stands, I'm just not really sure that it makes sense. Signing something saying that you dislike something and that you think it should stop=kicking someone in the nuts? The underlying sentiment isn't even very similar (although I guess I can sort of see it), and the escalation here certainly doesn't make sense to me. I just don't get it.
This was worth every second that I spent signing the petition and writing out my comment. And it really is incredible how quickly the petition is being signed. I really doubt that this will stop him, but I think that it will hit a million signatures. And that makes me happy.
Heh... Times like this, I'm glad that I don't play standard anymore. Because, let's face it, these aren't the kinds of cards that standard players get excited about. Speaking as a fan of EDH and Reject Rare Draft, though, I can say that these are both really exciting. In the right deck, you'll have a hard time not being able to activate the troll in EDH, and Thought Reflection just seems like a bomb. I mean, at the absolute worst, it's an expensive Phyrexian Arena. At its best, it's just a CA machine. And, of course, if they don't pan out in EDH, I always have my RRD pool, where they'll feel right at home. Two big, unique effects? Oh, today is a good day indeed!
And then you hatepick a Blackguard in Morningtide instead of taking Pyroclast Consul in a Giant deck with allready 10 cards (if you run them all) that will win you the kinship..this can't be right oO
While I didn't agree with all of your picks, this was the one that just made me scratch my noggin. Ok, Blackguard is a good card. But have you ever played with an online Pyroclast Consul? It can be downright absurd, and it fits with your deck's secret shaman theme perfectly.
That said, I don't know how much good it would have done. Your round one opponent's deck in draft #6 was among the most absurd piles of cardboard that I've ever seen.
Congrats on the two wins, though! And yeah, I think that 8-4s are the way to go. Now, take that with a grain of salt, as I've never played a game of Magic online in my life, but I've watched a number of draftcaps in both kinds of drafts, and I just don't think that the drafter or the viewer learns very much from a 4-3-2-2. So, gogo 8-4s!
I'd appreciate if you guys didn't fool around in there. There's a reason why it's a private forum. I can't control you obviously until Hannes gets on and can fix this, but can we please use the honor system here? If Memnarch6 can, so can everybody else. Sometimes the best mysteries are the unsolved ones!
I'm down with this. If there's one thing that I learned from 18 years with my parents, it's that whatever happens behind closed doors is best left unexplored.
That said, is there any chance that I can get my access to the Writer's Forum back in the near future (say, later tonight)? I'm fine waiting, as someone else is probably in charge, but I was just about to update something in there a bit later. If I need to wait, though, I can do that too.
For some reason green always seems to be good in almost every set. White had an evil streak when Konda, Lord of Eiganjo started a war for petty reasons, but for some reason green always has the benevolent protagonist. However, when green does turn evil it is almost always accomanied by red or black. In Lorwyn we had particularly nasty elves; while most were green, they were also black. The accumulation of evil depicted in green seems to be animals killing instinctively cause they have no concept of morality. The most evil card I can think of in green is probably Llanowar Elves soley based on the flavor text.
While Wizards seems to be incapable of giving green the evil mantle without another color attached, I absolutely believe that Green is capable of evil, or at the very least acts of pure brutality that go against modern sensibility. As many people have said, Green gets lots of destructive forces that aren't necessarily evil.
But I'd also like to point out that sentient green evil, or at least antagonists, exist. For example, Garruk Wildspeaker's story seems to set him up as a master predator, which seems to be what Wizards considers to be a perfect fit for Green. Following that model, we can find a few examples of sentient Green antagonists. Take the Predator from Predator, for instance: He comes from a race that lives for the thrill of the hunt. Similarly, the villains Craven, from the Spiderman comics and Stalker from Batman Beyond play this part in their respective works.
As was pointed out by Horseshoe_Hermit, Ra's Al Ghul seemed to usually be inspired by green motivations, at least in the Animated series. I would also argue that Poison Ivy is a sentient Green villain, although this is more based on her motives in the comic books: Her appearances in the animated series seemed to play up her more selfish motives, which the comics sort of write off as part of her overall loyalty to the natural order.
As I have regularly argued, I would say that Sylar, from Heroes, at least started out with fairly Green motives. For the first part of the first season, at least, he seemed to be inspired by those who were "wasting their natural gifts," or those who wanted to remove or control their powers to the point of nothingness or act like they didn't exist. Alas, the staff quickly wrote him back to the role of a Black villain, as he seems to just be out for more power these days. How sad.
Also, Scar (from Fullmetal Alchemist) always seemed pretty Green to me. While I know that he's not really a villain, he certainly performed actions that could qualify as "evil." I don't think that killing dozens of people because they "turned their back on the natural gifts of God" is really that justifiable, for instance. But he seems to be motivated by an endless hatred for those who turn their back on nature and the god that provides it through Alchemy. He also seems to have a deeply tribal an instinct-based nature that I feel place him firmly in Green. However, many people have commented that he might be partially Red as well, and while I disagree, that seems like a reasonable claim. But I would certainly say that he is at least partially Green.
So, yeah. There are some examples of antagonists/villains/evil people who I feel are Green.
That's not the point. The point is, taking GENERALS is much more game swinging than taking ordinary creatures. It also completely defeats the purpose of playing EDH in the first place.
Most "competitive" (and I use the term loosely since there hasn't been that many EDH tournaments) build their decks around their general (see top general Zur), stealing someone's primary win condition is a HUGE blow to them, considering the 21 general damage rule is often in effect, taking a general and smacking someone else a couple of times to kill them isn't hard to do.
You see, I really don't see a huge problem with this. Requiring players to either pack answers or have a way to win if plan A doesn't work out? I'm just not seeing a huge problem. Why shouldn't Zur need to run creature removal (for Zur), enchantment/artifact removal (which will likely take out the enchantment/whatever stealing him), or even just wacky crap like Despotic Scepter? Heck, he's even in the best colors for the first two anyway.
From your post, I'm guessing you haven't played EDH extensively, but rather, you've played more "normal" magic. EDH has a different set of problems. If you allow Control Magic effects, then what about Karakas, what about Riftsweeper? The former is universally agreed upon by almost all the play groups to be errataed, and the later is even banned by the new MTGO commander format (EDH online). Denying someone's general is against the basics of the format (which evolved from a more casual environment). Control Magic effect does just that. They aren't banned, they are just errataed to not affect enemy generals. This keeps the spirit of the format alive, and that's what makes it a unique variant.
Karakas has received errata "officially," as has Riftsweeper. However, I think that both offer a very different thing than the Control Magic rule. Karakas is, among other things, the least answerable type of permanent (Sure, Dust Bowl and Strip Mine are pretty much obligatory in the format, but beyond that...), which makes it notably more difficult for a player to answer effectively. Control Magic variants, on the other hand, are usually very answerable: While you get exceptions like Blatant Thievery and Govern the Guildless, most creature theft takes the form of an enchantment or artifact, which any good EDH deck will have removal for in some form or another. Even if they don't, the creature's controller can still just kill their general and play it again later, and literally every EDH deck packs some form of creature hate. Sure, it's a resource drain, but that's not really that big of a deal.
Note, however, that I'm not a huge fan of the Karakas rule, either. While I could be convinced either way, I don't think that it's as problematic now as it may have once been.
Here's what the problem was with Riftsweeper, by the way:
"Prior to PT San Diego, the EDH rules committee discussed Riftsweeper, and its place in EDH. Based on its agressive cost, substantial effect in EDH, and preemptive nature, the decision was made to alter the rules such that Riftsweeper's ability does NOT affect Generals in the RFG zone. This falls under Principle #1 listed here, namely that its power level:cost ratio is unacceptably higher in EDH than it is in other formats, due to EDH-specific rules.
Other Shuffle-into-library effects, such as Oblation/Condemn, still work as normal. The fact that they are reactive, and they allow the owner more opportunities to play their general and defend it, makes them acceptable to us.
As always, everyone is encouraged to play whatever house rules work best for your local community, but we believe that these are the rules which are best for the format at large, and will be played in the casual games after hours at PTs and GPs.
Gavin"
I agree with this sentiment, and feel that it makes a clear distinction between Riftsweeper and Control Magic variants. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why?
Quote from Avatar of Kokusho »
This is only somewhat on topic, but I find myself wondering if using Phage as a general is an extremely bad idea....seeing as the one I was planning on using got himself banhammered
According to the "official" rules, Phage kills you when you play her, and Koko never hit the graveyard (so he wouldn't have been a good choice anyway). However, I am under the impression that many playgroups let players play Phage as a general and allow that player to cast her as though she was in the player's hand. Of course, I don't know if she's the best choice anyway...
My husband keeps talking about using Memnarch but I can't find the rulings behind that. In one place, it said you get only artifacts...in another, it syas that Memnarch is officially blue so you use blue cards.
According to the official rules, Memnarch is not a valid general choice, as his off-color activations are of a different color than the deck's general's mana cost. Here's the rules page: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~geduggan/EDH_rules.html
"The general's mana cost dictates what mana symbols may appear on cards in the deck. A deck may not generate mana outside it's colours; anything which would generate mana of an illegal colour generates colourless mana instead."
However, many groups (I am under the impression that this is something that almost all groups do) allow generals with off-color activations and allow them to count as generals of the colors of their off-color activations, which allows for guys like Memnarch, Bosh, and Rhys as blue, red, and green/black generals, respectively. I think that this will become official soon, though, as two of the three head rules committee guys seem to agree with the rule, and it's a practically universal exception anyway (as far as I can tell).
If you don't believe me, try it out next time. Make a mono blue deck with Teferi as your general. Now cram it with as many control magic effect as possible. Treachery, Confiscate, Take Possession, etc, etc. You can easily win multiple games, since you don't need any win conditions other than your opponent's generals. It becomes just a bit unbalanced.
To be fair, the person who I play EDH with most these days uses a deck that does almost exactly this, except it uses Empress Galina (who we let target generals). It's annoying, but it's hardly an unstoppable force. If people are really bothered by this, they can pick up real ultimate tech like Despotic Scepter.
I guess I just don't see a huge difference between General theft and normal creature theft. Perhaps I am simply inexperienced with the matter.
I'm glad to see some more of these up. I always love to watch you draft, and I hope that you keep up the good work.
I was going to tell you about your picks that I disagreed with, but... I watched most of your latest batch at 3-4 in the morning, and I don't really remember too many picks that I strongly disagreed with. What I do want to tell you, though, is that there's no need for you to beat yourself up over that Sower pick in Draft #4. Sure, from a play standpoint, it was probably a mistake, but were the consequences really that dire? Your alternatives were, if memory serves, Woodland Changeling and Mulldrifter. One was on-color and decent, but hardly a bomb, while the other was an off-color, though easily splashable, powerhouse. Sower, meanwhile, is a card worth $5-10. So, not only did you pick up your draft winnings, but you also scored a sweet $5-10 on the deal. Each time you draft in an 8-4, 4-3-2-2, or whatever, I think that the first question that you should ask is: Is this card's value worth more than the possible gain of having the alternative in my deck? In this case, I think that the answer was no.
Is it something you should do regularly? No. But in this case, I think that the Sower ended up being the right pick. So don't be so hard on yourself!
While I prefer Nolan's focus on Batman/Bruce Wayne, again in my opinion, Tim really nailed key traits for the characters...yet it was always the villains running the show. In a perfect world there would be a blending of the two styles...ahem, moving on...
Are you talking about Tim Burton, director of Batman and Batman Returns, or Bruce Timm, producer of the animated series? If your answer is the former, may I ask what traits you felt he nailed? If your answer is Bruce Timm, on the other hand, I agree completely.
I've been an open nerd since I was five years old, when I first saw Star Wars. That movie drew me into comics, which drew me into gaming (if you wanted comics in my hometown, there was only one store with a good selection, and it's also where all the gaming happened), and each of those interests (film, reading/comics, and gaming) grew as I did. I have never made any secret of my nerdiness, and I make almost nonstop obscure references and connections regularly.
Luckily, my open nerdiness was smiled upon (I think that my school just had a low number of "true" nerds), and it drew all the people to me that I wanted to be around without drawing ire from those who wanted no part in my activities. I was always one of those "quiet and smart" kids in class, and most people picked up on my behavior and realized that it fit pretty well with their lives to keep me around as an acquaintance in some capacity.
Of course, I usually kept my "school nerdiness" and "other nerdiness" separate. I never, ever played Magic or read comics in school, and I usually tried to talk about other matters of nerdiness, like excessive interest in a class or homework, or a political figure (though I was far from perfect in this regard).
I don't know that that's fair, though. I have watched a number of Troma movies, and they were always more entertaining than Boll's efforts. Boll just seems, for me, to hit that perfect level of suck where you recognize horrid craft and elements, but he doesn't suck in the right way to make it enjoyable. Maybe he's less delightfully camp?
A generally fair cop, although I feel that many of the people, like me, just truly dislike his movies. But I will stand by my claim that the "kicking in the nuts" thing is over the top and ultimately weakens your otherwise fine position. Perhaps a better simile would be, "For many of the people signing this petition, signing it is like when a kid says s/he doesn't like a certain food because s/he hasn't tried it."
I won't deny that bashing Uwe is more popular on the internet than it is in real life (although, as a regular movie viewer, I do it a fair amount in real life-he really is terrible), you really need to explain the "kicking in the nuts" simile here. Because as it stands, I'm just not really sure that it makes sense. Signing something saying that you dislike something and that you think it should stop=kicking someone in the nuts? The underlying sentiment isn't even very similar (although I guess I can sort of see it), and the escalation here certainly doesn't make sense to me. I just don't get it.
Thanks for making my day.
While I didn't agree with all of your picks, this was the one that just made me scratch my noggin. Ok, Blackguard is a good card. But have you ever played with an online Pyroclast Consul? It can be downright absurd, and it fits with your deck's secret shaman theme perfectly.
That said, I don't know how much good it would have done. Your round one opponent's deck in draft #6 was among the most absurd piles of cardboard that I've ever seen.
Congrats on the two wins, though! And yeah, I think that 8-4s are the way to go. Now, take that with a grain of salt, as I've never played a game of Magic online in my life, but I've watched a number of draftcaps in both kinds of drafts, and I just don't think that the drafter or the viewer learns very much from a 4-3-2-2. So, gogo 8-4s!
I'm down with this. If there's one thing that I learned from 18 years with my parents, it's that whatever happens behind closed doors is best left unexplored.
That said, is there any chance that I can get my access to the Writer's Forum back in the near future (say, later tonight)? I'm fine waiting, as someone else is probably in charge, but I was just about to update something in there a bit later. If I need to wait, though, I can do that too.
While Wizards seems to be incapable of giving green the evil mantle without another color attached, I absolutely believe that Green is capable of evil, or at the very least acts of pure brutality that go against modern sensibility. As many people have said, Green gets lots of destructive forces that aren't necessarily evil.
But I'd also like to point out that sentient green evil, or at least antagonists, exist. For example, Garruk Wildspeaker's story seems to set him up as a master predator, which seems to be what Wizards considers to be a perfect fit for Green. Following that model, we can find a few examples of sentient Green antagonists. Take the Predator from Predator, for instance: He comes from a race that lives for the thrill of the hunt. Similarly, the villains Craven, from the Spiderman comics and Stalker from Batman Beyond play this part in their respective works.
As was pointed out by Horseshoe_Hermit, Ra's Al Ghul seemed to usually be inspired by green motivations, at least in the Animated series. I would also argue that Poison Ivy is a sentient Green villain, although this is more based on her motives in the comic books: Her appearances in the animated series seemed to play up her more selfish motives, which the comics sort of write off as part of her overall loyalty to the natural order.
As I have regularly argued, I would say that Sylar, from Heroes, at least started out with fairly Green motives. For the first part of the first season, at least, he seemed to be inspired by those who were "wasting their natural gifts," or those who wanted to remove or control their powers to the point of nothingness or act like they didn't exist. Alas, the staff quickly wrote him back to the role of a Black villain, as he seems to just be out for more power these days. How sad.
Also, Scar (from Fullmetal Alchemist) always seemed pretty Green to me. While I know that he's not really a villain, he certainly performed actions that could qualify as "evil." I don't think that killing dozens of people because they "turned their back on the natural gifts of God" is really that justifiable, for instance. But he seems to be motivated by an endless hatred for those who turn their back on nature and the god that provides it through Alchemy. He also seems to have a deeply tribal an instinct-based nature that I feel place him firmly in Green. However, many people have commented that he might be partially Red as well, and while I disagree, that seems like a reasonable claim. But I would certainly say that he is at least partially Green.
So, yeah. There are some examples of antagonists/villains/evil people who I feel are Green.
You see, I really don't see a huge problem with this. Requiring players to either pack answers or have a way to win if plan A doesn't work out? I'm just not seeing a huge problem. Why shouldn't Zur need to run creature removal (for Zur), enchantment/artifact removal (which will likely take out the enchantment/whatever stealing him), or even just wacky crap like Despotic Scepter? Heck, he's even in the best colors for the first two anyway.
Karakas has received errata "officially," as has Riftsweeper. However, I think that both offer a very different thing than the Control Magic rule. Karakas is, among other things, the least answerable type of permanent (Sure, Dust Bowl and Strip Mine are pretty much obligatory in the format, but beyond that...), which makes it notably more difficult for a player to answer effectively. Control Magic variants, on the other hand, are usually very answerable: While you get exceptions like Blatant Thievery and Govern the Guildless, most creature theft takes the form of an enchantment or artifact, which any good EDH deck will have removal for in some form or another. Even if they don't, the creature's controller can still just kill their general and play it again later, and literally every EDH deck packs some form of creature hate. Sure, it's a resource drain, but that's not really that big of a deal.
Note, however, that I'm not a huge fan of the Karakas rule, either. While I could be convinced either way, I don't think that it's as problematic now as it may have once been.
Here's what the problem was with Riftsweeper, by the way:
"Prior to PT San Diego, the EDH rules committee discussed Riftsweeper, and its place in EDH. Based on its agressive cost, substantial effect in EDH, and preemptive nature, the decision was made to alter the rules such that Riftsweeper's ability does NOT affect Generals in the RFG zone. This falls under Principle #1 listed here, namely that its power level:cost ratio is unacceptably higher in EDH than it is in other formats, due to EDH-specific rules.
Other Shuffle-into-library effects, such as Oblation/Condemn, still work as normal. The fact that they are reactive, and they allow the owner more opportunities to play their general and defend it, makes them acceptable to us.
As always, everyone is encouraged to play whatever house rules work best for your local community, but we believe that these are the rules which are best for the format at large, and will be played in the casual games after hours at PTs and GPs.
Gavin"
I agree with this sentiment, and feel that it makes a clear distinction between Riftsweeper and Control Magic variants. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why?
According to the "official" rules, Phage kills you when you play her, and Koko never hit the graveyard (so he wouldn't have been a good choice anyway). However, I am under the impression that many playgroups let players play Phage as a general and allow that player to cast her as though she was in the player's hand. Of course, I don't know if she's the best choice anyway...
According to the official rules, Memnarch is not a valid general choice, as his off-color activations are of a different color than the deck's general's mana cost. Here's the rules page: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~geduggan/EDH_rules.html
"The general's mana cost dictates what mana symbols may appear on cards in the deck. A deck may not generate mana outside it's colours; anything which would generate mana of an illegal colour generates colourless mana instead."
However, many groups (I am under the impression that this is something that almost all groups do) allow generals with off-color activations and allow them to count as generals of the colors of their off-color activations, which allows for guys like Memnarch, Bosh, and Rhys as blue, red, and green/black generals, respectively. I think that this will become official soon, though, as two of the three head rules committee guys seem to agree with the rule, and it's a practically universal exception anyway (as far as I can tell).
To be fair, the person who I play EDH with most these days uses a deck that does almost exactly this, except it uses Empress Galina (who we let target generals). It's annoying, but it's hardly an unstoppable force. If people are really bothered by this, they can pick up real ultimate tech like Despotic Scepter.
I guess I just don't see a huge difference between General theft and normal creature theft. Perhaps I am simply inexperienced with the matter.
I was going to tell you about your picks that I disagreed with, but... I watched most of your latest batch at 3-4 in the morning, and I don't really remember too many picks that I strongly disagreed with. What I do want to tell you, though, is that there's no need for you to beat yourself up over that Sower pick in Draft #4. Sure, from a play standpoint, it was probably a mistake, but were the consequences really that dire? Your alternatives were, if memory serves, Woodland Changeling and Mulldrifter. One was on-color and decent, but hardly a bomb, while the other was an off-color, though easily splashable, powerhouse. Sower, meanwhile, is a card worth $5-10. So, not only did you pick up your draft winnings, but you also scored a sweet $5-10 on the deal. Each time you draft in an 8-4, 4-3-2-2, or whatever, I think that the first question that you should ask is: Is this card's value worth more than the possible gain of having the alternative in my deck? In this case, I think that the answer was no.
Is it something you should do regularly? No. But in this case, I think that the Sower ended up being the right pick. So don't be so hard on yourself!
Are you talking about Tim Burton, director of Batman and Batman Returns, or Bruce Timm, producer of the animated series? If your answer is the former, may I ask what traits you felt he nailed? If your answer is Bruce Timm, on the other hand, I agree completely.
Luckily, my open nerdiness was smiled upon (I think that my school just had a low number of "true" nerds), and it drew all the people to me that I wanted to be around without drawing ire from those who wanted no part in my activities. I was always one of those "quiet and smart" kids in class, and most people picked up on my behavior and realized that it fit pretty well with their lives to keep me around as an acquaintance in some capacity.
Of course, I usually kept my "school nerdiness" and "other nerdiness" separate. I never, ever played Magic or read comics in school, and I usually tried to talk about other matters of nerdiness, like excessive interest in a class or homework, or a political figure (though I was far from perfect in this regard).