This is seriously just one step forward to standard DEs eliminated completely.
DEs being gone would probably be a good thing for MTGO, assuming they replaced them with the rolling tournaments online-CCGs seem to be moving towards.
The Arena in Hearthstone and the Jackpot tournaments in Duels of the Champions spring to mind. You enter, play matches as you can throughout a set period (24 hours usually) and collect your prize at the end. No need to block off 4+ hours for a tournament in a row. This is online and digital, we don't need to have the same tournament structure restrictions as paper for every event.
If you take a foreign language shimmering grotto and just say it's a cavern of souls, your opponent might not look too closely and they look very similar.
Disclaimer: Obviously you should never actually do this.
I played with Korean Grottos in a grixis deck once right after Cavern came out.
I was asked multiple times, once by a judge, what I was naming when it came into play. The first time it happened it took me quite a while to figure out what they were talking about, until they asked again "what is your cavern naming" that I realized they thought I had played a cavern.
The invitational top 8 legacy decks were just the decks the top 8 players played in a mixed format event. I would look at the 7-1 decks instead. Or the results from the open happening now.
Well I'm just glad I'm an MTGO player and can get these without a hassle of pre-ordering or waiting in lines or lotteries for MSRP.
Depending on if another legacy/modern staple card makes it into this set (wasteland, FoW, Thoughseize), I wonder how much modo had to do with some of these choices, as this really has the chance to be a sweet modo box set to get people into those formats, since for $140 you get playsets of 20 cards.
I would also like if they unbanned the Artifact lands and banned something else in order to weaken affinity. I mean they're such great cards - especially with stuff like Thirst for Knowledge and both Tezzerets. It's such a shame for them to be banned only because of a single deck that isn't this dominant. While their non-existence in the format cripples so many potential other decks.
Using Artifact Lands would potentially make Affinity worse. In legacy they power up the deck, but in the modern format, when people worry about affinity, artifact hate is FAR more prevalent, especially since it can hit multiple decks.
Right now affinity has a great mana base in man lands and other non-basics that dont get blown up by all the hate in the format. The only thing artifact lands do is make their mana base worse and make their thoughtcasts slightly better.
Never played MTGO but I just looked up the decklists for those. Why don't they print legacy precons like that in real life!?!? Man, that would be sick!
They really should make more, they were really good ideas.
I wonder if they didnt sell well or if they got collector complaints or something (which is even dumber for a digital product than in real life).
But if they made a couple modern ones, that would be cool.
The modern banned list is probably one of the most debated things in magic, mostly because it has so many odd choices and cards that could probably be unbanned to cancel out other unbannings (JTMS vs. BBE for example)
Modern could probably be a fine format with a much tighter banned list, but we will probably never know.
Something like: Mental misstep, Glimpse of nature, Seat of the Synod, Great Furnace, Hypergenesis, Ponder, Blazing Shoal, Jitte & Dark Depths with the new legend changes, Dread Return, Rite of Flame, Top and Stoneforge
I am pretty sure that MaRo said that the future shifted frame was to make it stand out, but it actually was a rejected frame as far as any future changes. I could be way off though. I'll have to go back and re-listen to his podcast on the subject.
I think the future shifted frame is based on the alternate 8th edition frame they decided not to use.
Some pictures in this thread if you have never seen them.
heh i am overkill for backpacks ... i have a Maxpedition Condor II and an 5.11 Rush 24 that i alternate between... but if i do not feel like lugging everything with me other then a few decks and a small binder i go for my Hazard 4 Kato
I use a Hazard 4 Evac Plan-B for pretty much every event. I never trade, so I dont have to worry about binders on site and the bag holds everything I need for the day (decks, pens, notebook, dice, tokens, snacks, etc).
I have no idea what you could think I'm making up here. SCG has already dropped Legacy support in favor of Sunday Standard or Sealed at about half of its remaining Opens for the year. Legacy is no longer the cash cow that it used to be for SCG, and since they are literally the only people still seriously supporting it as a format, the fact that they are beginning to drop it is incredibly relevant to the future of the format and the wisdom of investing in it.
They dropped legacy on Sundays in places that had low legacy turnouts during their last open.
They have had one non-legacy weekend so far, and the standard sunday did not do any better than the legacy one did (it was Orlando, 380 for saturday standard, 180 for Sunday standard).
Legacy being about half of Standard on Sunday is pretty typical, so their one experiment so far has not fared well, especially considering viewership was also down for that Sunday on Twitch as well. (For Reference, Milwaukee 2 weekends ago was like 550/280 and Seattle was like 580/280.) Time will tell if they can find a way to entice people to play on Sunday in numbers closer to those that show up on Saturday, but format is not the only reason Sunday numbers are lower.
And I think it should be telling to anyone that they chose sealed and double standard, but never modern. Cause modern is just new Extended, PTQ season/GP interest only for most higher level tournament players.
I'd have like to see one weekend experiment where they flopped legacy and standard, but I know that's a pipe dream.
And, on topic, I am sure eggs will survive and be just as annoying to everyone as it was before.
If there was one thing I would do to try and "fix" modern, it would be to re-evaluate the entire banned list every year or two using modo.
Take like 6 to 10 weeks after the spring set comes out (for instance after DGM this year) and have a format on modo that is "Modern Classic", where every modern card that can be modern legal is (so no vaults or commander printings, etc) and let the masses play it out.
Support it with 2 mans, 8 mans, dailies and PEs. And see where the meta goes and what really needs to be banned. You can ban during the test if needed (every PE and Daily won by blazing shoal? ban it mid test, obviously warping).
It would allow them to find out if cards really need to be banned, without releasing them into the "wild" (PTQs, GPs, PTs, store level events where people could just hate everything).
You could see if BBE does keep Jace down, like she did in standard. You could see if Abrupt decay works to keep Bitterblossom, SFM and Jitte in place. You could see if there is a combo deck that would be way to degenerate with chrome mox, full suite of rituals and cantrips. You could see if Dredge is actually too good, even though most of the best GY hate ever printed for that deck are modern legal. You could see if you really need to ban the artifact lands/would affinity even play the white or black ones?
I think it would be an interesting experiment at least. And one that could produce a lot more trackable information that what WotC does behind closed doors when pondering the banned list changes.
Is expecting a judge to notice that play really an unreasonable request? It is a semifinals match, a judge is stationed at the table specifically to watch the play. Sometimes multiple judges will watch a feature match.
It is not an insurmountable task.
That is not what a table judge in the feature area is for. Judges do not watch any one match, even ones in the feature area.
A judge in the feature area is there as either a spotter to relay life total changes/non-obvious choices (what is that pithing needle on?, etc) to coverage or to allow for fast judge calls in the feature area.
The job of maintaining game state is on the players. That isn't to say that judges don't step in to correct things they see are wrong sometimes, but that isn't what they are there for.
I've had plenty of table judges just kinda zone out and focus on lifetotal changes for coverage and not even really know what is going on in our game if we had a rules question.
Feature matches don't get a referee because every other table at the tournament doesn't get one either.
I've never seen a planned turn 0 win, but I have seen a player show and tell on turn 1 on the play, their opponent put into play a charbelcher, use some guides, ritual and activate it, killing the guy who show and telled in an emrakul on 1.
DEs being gone would probably be a good thing for MTGO, assuming they replaced them with the rolling tournaments online-CCGs seem to be moving towards.
The Arena in Hearthstone and the Jackpot tournaments in Duels of the Champions spring to mind. You enter, play matches as you can throughout a set period (24 hours usually) and collect your prize at the end. No need to block off 4+ hours for a tournament in a row. This is online and digital, we don't need to have the same tournament structure restrictions as paper for every event.
I played with Korean Grottos in a grixis deck once right after Cavern came out.
I was asked multiple times, once by a judge, what I was naming when it came into play. The first time it happened it took me quite a while to figure out what they were talking about, until they asked again "what is your cavern naming" that I realized they thought I had played a cavern.
Depending on if another legacy/modern staple card makes it into this set (wasteland, FoW, Thoughseize), I wonder how much modo had to do with some of these choices, as this really has the chance to be a sweet modo box set to get people into those formats, since for $140 you get playsets of 20 cards.
Using Artifact Lands would potentially make Affinity worse. In legacy they power up the deck, but in the modern format, when people worry about affinity, artifact hate is FAR more prevalent, especially since it can hit multiple decks.
Right now affinity has a great mana base in man lands and other non-basics that dont get blown up by all the hate in the format. The only thing artifact lands do is make their mana base worse and make their thoughtcasts slightly better.
They really should make more, they were really good ideas.
I wonder if they didnt sell well or if they got collector complaints or something (which is even dumber for a digital product than in real life).
But if they made a couple modern ones, that would be cool.
Modern could probably be a fine format with a much tighter banned list, but we will probably never know.
Something like: Mental misstep, Glimpse of nature, Seat of the Synod, Great Furnace, Hypergenesis, Ponder, Blazing Shoal, Jitte & Dark Depths with the new legend changes, Dread Return, Rite of Flame, Top and Stoneforge
I think the future shifted frame is based on the alternate 8th edition frame they decided not to use.
Some pictures in this thread if you have never seen them.
http://www.magiclibrarities.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5514
Even though I know if Revenge wins, it will just be garbage. There is no way it will be released at a CMC that will make it good (B or 1B or BB).
I use a Hazard 4 Evac Plan-B for pretty much every event. I never trade, so I dont have to worry about binders on site and the bag holds everything I need for the day (decks, pens, notebook, dice, tokens, snacks, etc).
They dropped legacy on Sundays in places that had low legacy turnouts during their last open.
They have had one non-legacy weekend so far, and the standard sunday did not do any better than the legacy one did (it was Orlando, 380 for saturday standard, 180 for Sunday standard).
Legacy being about half of Standard on Sunday is pretty typical, so their one experiment so far has not fared well, especially considering viewership was also down for that Sunday on Twitch as well. (For Reference, Milwaukee 2 weekends ago was like 550/280 and Seattle was like 580/280.) Time will tell if they can find a way to entice people to play on Sunday in numbers closer to those that show up on Saturday, but format is not the only reason Sunday numbers are lower.
And I think it should be telling to anyone that they chose sealed and double standard, but never modern. Cause modern is just new Extended, PTQ season/GP interest only for most higher level tournament players.
I'd have like to see one weekend experiment where they flopped legacy and standard, but I know that's a pipe dream.
And, on topic, I am sure eggs will survive and be just as annoying to everyone as it was before.
Take like 6 to 10 weeks after the spring set comes out (for instance after DGM this year) and have a format on modo that is "Modern Classic", where every modern card that can be modern legal is (so no vaults or commander printings, etc) and let the masses play it out.
Support it with 2 mans, 8 mans, dailies and PEs. And see where the meta goes and what really needs to be banned. You can ban during the test if needed (every PE and Daily won by blazing shoal? ban it mid test, obviously warping).
It would allow them to find out if cards really need to be banned, without releasing them into the "wild" (PTQs, GPs, PTs, store level events where people could just hate everything).
You could see if BBE does keep Jace down, like she did in standard. You could see if Abrupt decay works to keep Bitterblossom, SFM and Jitte in place. You could see if there is a combo deck that would be way to degenerate with chrome mox, full suite of rituals and cantrips. You could see if Dredge is actually too good, even though most of the best GY hate ever printed for that deck are modern legal. You could see if you really need to ban the artifact lands/would affinity even play the white or black ones?
I think it would be an interesting experiment at least. And one that could produce a lot more trackable information that what WotC does behind closed doors when pondering the banned list changes.
That is not what a table judge in the feature area is for. Judges do not watch any one match, even ones in the feature area.
A judge in the feature area is there as either a spotter to relay life total changes/non-obvious choices (what is that pithing needle on?, etc) to coverage or to allow for fast judge calls in the feature area.
The job of maintaining game state is on the players. That isn't to say that judges don't step in to correct things they see are wrong sometimes, but that isn't what they are there for.
I've had plenty of table judges just kinda zone out and focus on lifetotal changes for coverage and not even really know what is going on in our game if we had a rules question.
Feature matches don't get a referee because every other table at the tournament doesn't get one either.