That is actually what I put in my first post. Show me the numbers that demonstrate how relevant casual players are to the revenue generated from a set and I will care that they make cards for casual players. (Again, casual players probably dont care because they will play with whatever cards are printed regardless of how "good" they are.)
manaman, this is something I have been thinking about for a long time actually.
In my opinion there is proof that WotC's target market audience is a majority casual players and/or players who do not yet play magic. The proof is this: UU Counterspell is never going to be in non-Eternal formats. I'm beginning to think that after last year, WotC may not even allow 1U Mana Leak in Standard ever again. Not because R&D has found it to be unfair, but instead they have found it to be too 'unfun'.
Counterspell prevents Titans and Planeswalkers and other big splashy effects which more often draw players into the game. It prevents them from seeing play because they suck in comparison. Obviously, WotC messed up allowing Mana Leak and McSnappington in the same standard format.
Countering spells is going to be something that will rarely if ever occur in the post rotation standard. I would be ecstatic if WotC brought back mana leak AND provided another two mana counterspell in the same format to enable draw-go as a deck, but it's never ever going to happen.The problem isn't that counterspells are too good, its that providing too many usable ones makes the game 'unfun' and can drive away players.
Expect to see the 'can't be countered' cycle in Gatecrash, it is pretty clear Wizards does not want players to counter spells for at least another year.
Magic will be more 'fun'. This is clear. Will it be more 'fair'? I don't know.
The signals from R&D have been quite clear for many years now.
The majority of the player base (Read: casual players) enjoy magic more when draw-go counter control isn't a viable option to play in Standard, the constructed format MOST casual players enter into. Obviously this is not true for all cases, but I would reckon a good 95% of players start with Standard. (Personally my first constructed format was Extended, when Mirrodin was released)
Some other users have noted that the 'Can't be countered' clause actually helps control decks, because with all these 'Can't be countered' answers coming out tempo-based blue doesn't really stand much of a chance against Supreme Verdict.
So far the only real counterspell we have in post-rotation standard is Dissipate right? God, what has this game become...
EDIT:
I would vote against price being a criterion for banning. Where do you set the dollar amount, and why is that dollar amount optimal? By which dealer do we measure a card's monetary value? When a card fluctuates above and below the arbitrary margin, does it become legal one day and illegal the next?
I definitely agree with these two generals being suspect.
Army Ants is ultra un-fun in 1v1... would be fun to play with haha
This so much... I just dont see why anyone has a reason to listen to anyone in this page for what they think should be banned or not. Have you tested 100 games playing the commander? What opposition did you play it against? What conclusions bring you to think that they should be banned?
In my opinion.... until you can do the leg work and explain to me why in detail a card needs to be banned.... just dont even bother bringing up banning something. We dont have the benefit to have an official rules committee for pauper so if you want people to listen to you, in my mind you have to do that by excessively playtesting the format and giving detailed reasoning behind your results.
Keep in mind.... EDH is designed to be a multiplayer format so even if something is fairly powerful.... it needs to be OP to the point where 3 opponents regularly cannot deal with it in my book to consider banning it.
Absolutely. Much testing is required.
I don't agree with this mentality that things should not be banned in Multiplayer unless 3 opponents can't handle it. So 3 player multiplayer does not matter? Nor does 1v1?
Personally I think if a card is too good in 1v1, it's too good for multiplayer. There are probably some - a select few - generals that get worse in multiplayer. I doubt many generals that are suspect bans for 1v1 fit in that category, though...
I propose that we start this ban list off right by either following the EDH philosophy of "with multiplayer in mind only" or consider both equally and don't weigh one more heavily than the other. (Personally since this is an EDH variant, my vote is for ignoring how a card plays in 1v1.)
So don't ban cards that might be too good in 1v1 because you want to play them in multiplayer? Nice.
I guess your meta is strictly multiplayer. Mine is not.
@Argetlam: I've added all the generals you have mentioned, I get the idea behind 'Enchantress' Simic Guildmage, though it usually has white. Frozen Solid seems decent with stacking Simic's ability.
@Dtrain: Good find.
@xbinox: Yeah he makes a good Esper control shell with a finisher.
I disagree with almost all of the lifegain effects except for the really silly ones, like Congregate. I think you need more white enchantments to feed into Chroma at all times.
Watchwolf and Imperiosaur restrict your card choices differently than Simic Guildmage. I tried picking a possible general for each color combination so that within those color restrictions you could see what archetypes are available.
In no way am I attempting to say Imperiosaur should beat Simic Guildmage (though I would be willing to try!!!)
As for Azorious Guildmage/Mistmeadow Witch, you are correct in saying 'no generals have been judged unfair'. Caskin (spelling?) posted 'Unofficial' rules recently that seemed very good - except for maybe the life totals/general damage/poison
If that must be the case, I will put together a deck for Azorius Guildmage and Mistmeadow Witch and do my best to make sure that only the most devout masochists will ever want to play me again.
For example, my MSW deck is defined as casual because it's meant to have silly fun rather than win, but aside from some self-imposed restrictions, I want it as tuned as possible. That to me is competitive(ish).
Sounds pretty confusing. When you say tune, I'm assuming you mean to win a greater percentage of any given matchup which is competitive. When attempting to have silly fun, you can veer away from that. I guess because its all (ish) you can get away with whatever you want. To me that is misleading - your MSW (don't know what this stands for) sounds not so competitive.
Actually I would like this.
I have the feeling more people reply to the general multiplayer section then the budget/casual section. It's a bit of a disappointment if you put hours of work in it to get your list on the forums, and you don't get any replies. (Just my opinion )
I would love the casual section to be cut, because I would prefer to optimize any deck I create myself/comment on. I don't want to be told that my deck is 'too competitive' or that my comment is 'removing the casual aspect' from someone's deck.
If you have a casual deck, why do you even care what other people think anyway?
Boros Guildmage may be lackluster compared to other RW choices... but it can give any creature haste or first strike, both of which are very powerful in Pauper.
Azorious Guildmage and Mistmeadow Witch are TOO good IMO, and I don't think it is healthy to allow either to dominate the format. I am a U/W control player at heart, but I want people to actually play with!!!
The main problem here is that you can pretty much take any EDH deck and play the other formats. Pauper/Peasant is pretty much the only one that requires you to build a deck differently than normal EDH, so if we had a sub-forum for each variant, you would have a lot of empty sub-forums.
I'm not suggesting making a sub-forum for each variant. Yes, a sub-forum for 2HG Commander Decklists would be a barren wasteland. The same is probably true for Planechase, Archenemy, Horde, etc...
I can see the arguments for forcing Pauper to stay in Variant Decklists - but it just seems so strange that we have to artificially inflate the number of threads in Variant because of Pauper alone.
Why are we afraid with pointing out the fact that, if not for Pauper, the Variant decklists commander subforum would be dead?
Given that the majority of the posts in the Variant Decklist Forum are already Pauper why move it? What is it about the three non-Pauper threads in that forum that have been active this month do you find confusing or distracting to the Pauper threads?
This. Right here. I'm glad I did not have to spell it out myself. It's obvious the VAST majority of activity in the Variant forum revolves around Pauper discussion - are we just afraid no one really cares about the other Variant formats to split the forum?
Nobody else seems to have a problem with those threads (or the current set up) other than yourself. I'm a little perplexed by your apparent crusade.
I like organization and clarity (which the Variant subforum has little of). Plus, I see the opportunity to make a great format so long as some rules are agreed upon.
Forum: Variant
Expectation: Decks that are built based on variant rules, e.g. Pauper, Two-Headed Giant, Planechase, etc.
I don't see why you mentioned Two-Headed Giant or Planechase. Let's think about this.
Two-Headed Giant Commander seems pretty degenerate if pairs of players are building decks together - following a standard banned list still leaves the format wide open for very consistent combo pairs. All players not in this category of players likely don't bother posting a list on the internet specifically for 2HG - they are just in it for the lulz.
As for Planechase, correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can tell the only difference a 'Planechase' decklist would have is that silly 2 mana artifact that rolls the die?
I think Zombie Shakespeare made the key point - the majority of posts on the Variant forum are strictly for Pauper Commander. Why does it not get it's own forum?
Merged Double Post. Please use the "EDIT" button rather than double posting within 48 hours. -ISB
So let me make sure I understand the people who have posted so far. Perhaps my expectations for organization on an internet forum is too high!
Option 1, what most people seem to want:
Forum: 1 on 1 Commander Decklists
Expected Content: Competitive OR Casual following standard rules, Budget, Variant formats (will there be stickies for the rules of these?), and outright illegal decklists (unless rules say your deck must follow rules)
... but only if the list was 'designed for 1 on 1'
Forum: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Expected Content: Competitive OR Casual following standard rules, Budget, Variant formats (will there be stickies for the rules of these?), and outright illegal decklists (unless rules say your deck must follow rules)
... but only if the list was 'designed for multiplayer'
Option 2, what I think makes more sense:
Forum: 1 on 1 Commander Decklists
Expected content: Competitive only
Forum: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Expected content: Competitive only
Forum: Casual/Budget Commander Decklists
Expected content: 1 on 1 or Multiplayer, with lists that don't compete with the ones in the first two forums
Forum: Pauper Commander Decklists
Expected content: 1 on 1 or Multiplayer, with a set of it's own rules
Forum: Other Commander Decklists
Expected content: Label your format (Archenemy, Horde, etc.)
Frankly, if I were a mod I would expect option 2 to be far easier to manage. Plus you can build out each community, rather than lumping them all together and expecting certain flavors of commander to thrive.
Also it gives people the ability to make a reasonable assumption of what type of content to expect in each forum by the title of the forum alone, rather than making users to self moderate with tags on titles of threads.
Or do you never have problems with poor tag usage in these forums, ISBPathfinder?
manaman, this is something I have been thinking about for a long time actually.
In my opinion there is proof that WotC's target market audience is a majority casual players and/or players who do not yet play magic. The proof is this: UU Counterspell is never going to be in non-Eternal formats. I'm beginning to think that after last year, WotC may not even allow 1U Mana Leak in Standard ever again. Not because R&D has found it to be unfair, but instead they have found it to be too 'unfun'.
Counterspell prevents Titans and Planeswalkers and other big splashy effects which more often draw players into the game. It prevents them from seeing play because they suck in comparison. Obviously, WotC messed up allowing Mana Leak and McSnappington in the same standard format.
Countering spells is going to be something that will rarely if ever occur in the post rotation standard. I would be ecstatic if WotC brought back mana leak AND provided another two mana counterspell in the same format to enable draw-go as a deck, but it's never ever going to happen.The problem isn't that counterspells are too good, its that providing too many usable ones makes the game 'unfun' and can drive away players.
Expect to see the 'can't be countered' cycle in Gatecrash, it is pretty clear Wizards does not want players to counter spells for at least another year.
Magic will be more 'fun'. This is clear. Will it be more 'fair'? I don't know.
The majority of the player base (Read: casual players) enjoy magic more when draw-go counter control isn't a viable option to play in Standard, the constructed format MOST casual players enter into. Obviously this is not true for all cases, but I would reckon a good 95% of players start with Standard. (Personally my first constructed format was Extended, when Mirrodin was released)
Some other users have noted that the 'Can't be countered' clause actually helps control decks, because with all these 'Can't be countered' answers coming out tempo-based blue doesn't really stand much of a chance against Supreme Verdict.
So far the only real counterspell we have in post-rotation standard is Dissipate right? God, what has this game become...
I definitely agree with these two generals being suspect.
Army Ants is ultra un-fun in 1v1... would be fun to play with haha
Absolutely. Much testing is required.
I don't agree with this mentality that things should not be banned in Multiplayer unless 3 opponents can't handle it. So 3 player multiplayer does not matter? Nor does 1v1?
Personally I think if a card is too good in 1v1, it's too good for multiplayer. There are probably some - a select few - generals that get worse in multiplayer. I doubt many generals that are suspect bans for 1v1 fit in that category, though...
So don't ban cards that might be too good in 1v1 because you want to play them in multiplayer? Nice.
I guess your meta is strictly multiplayer. Mine is not.
Bloodhusk Ritualist seems to make pretty good mono black...
Benalish Emissary for 1v1???
The other battlemages, of course
@Dtrain: Good find.
@xbinox: Yeah he makes a good Esper control shell with a finisher.
You need
Fanatical Devotion
Gossamer Chains
Lumithread Field
Consider
Temporal Isolation
Aura Fracture (Meta Call)
Rhystic Circle
Any of the Rune of Protection: Red (they cycle!!!)
Watchwolf and Imperiosaur restrict your card choices differently than Simic Guildmage. I tried picking a possible general for each color combination so that within those color restrictions you could see what archetypes are available.
In no way am I attempting to say Imperiosaur should beat Simic Guildmage (though I would be willing to try!!!)
As for Azorious Guildmage/Mistmeadow Witch, you are correct in saying 'no generals have been judged unfair'. Caskin (spelling?) posted 'Unofficial' rules recently that seemed very good - except for maybe the life totals/general damage/poison
If that must be the case, I will put together a deck for Azorius Guildmage and Mistmeadow Witch and do my best to make sure that only the most devout masochists will ever want to play me again.
Sounds pretty confusing. When you say tune, I'm assuming you mean to win a greater percentage of any given matchup which is competitive. When attempting to have silly fun, you can veer away from that. I guess because its all (ish) you can get away with whatever you want. To me that is misleading - your MSW (don't know what this stands for) sounds not so competitive.
I would love the casual section to be cut, because I would prefer to optimize any deck I create myself/comment on. I don't want to be told that my deck is 'too competitive' or that my comment is 'removing the casual aspect' from someone's deck.
If you have a casual deck, why do you even care what other people think anyway?
Boros Guildmage may be lackluster compared to other RW choices... but it can give any creature haste or first strike, both of which are very powerful in Pauper.
Azorious Guildmage and Mistmeadow Witch are TOO good IMO, and I don't think it is healthy to allow either to dominate the format. I am a U/W control player at heart, but I want people to actually play with!!!
Simic Guildmage seems borderline... Lignify, Arachnus Web, and Utopia Vow are cards but I'm still not sold on him.
@bfellow: Battlemages seem pretty good! Nice find.
@merigold: Sprinjack Sheperd is very interesting... decent choice for mono W
I will update this index later today.
I'm not suggesting making a sub-forum for each variant. Yes, a sub-forum for 2HG Commander Decklists would be a barren wasteland. The same is probably true for Planechase, Archenemy, Horde, etc...
I can see the arguments for forcing Pauper to stay in Variant Decklists - but it just seems so strange that we have to artificially inflate the number of threads in Variant because of Pauper alone.
Why are we afraid with pointing out the fact that, if not for Pauper, the Variant decklists commander subforum would be dead?
This. Right here. I'm glad I did not have to spell it out myself. It's obvious the VAST majority of activity in the Variant forum revolves around Pauper discussion - are we just afraid no one really cares about the other Variant formats to split the forum?
I like organization and clarity (which the Variant subforum has little of). Plus, I see the opportunity to make a great format so long as some rules are agreed upon.
I don't see why you mentioned Two-Headed Giant or Planechase. Let's think about this.
Two-Headed Giant Commander seems pretty degenerate if pairs of players are building decks together - following a standard banned list still leaves the format wide open for very consistent combo pairs. All players not in this category of players likely don't bother posting a list on the internet specifically for 2HG - they are just in it for the lulz.
As for Planechase, correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I can tell the only difference a 'Planechase' decklist would have is that silly 2 mana artifact that rolls the die?
I think Zombie Shakespeare made the key point - the majority of posts on the Variant forum are strictly for Pauper Commander. Why does it not get it's own forum?
Merged Double Post. Please use the "EDIT" button rather than double posting within 48 hours. -ISB
Option 1, what most people seem to want:
Forum: 1 on 1 Commander Decklists
Expected Content: Competitive OR Casual following standard rules, Budget, Variant formats (will there be stickies for the rules of these?), and outright illegal decklists (unless rules say your deck must follow rules)
... but only if the list was 'designed for 1 on 1'
Forum: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Expected Content: Competitive OR Casual following standard rules, Budget, Variant formats (will there be stickies for the rules of these?), and outright illegal decklists (unless rules say your deck must follow rules)
... but only if the list was 'designed for multiplayer'
Option 2, what I think makes more sense:
Forum: 1 on 1 Commander Decklists
Expected content: Competitive only
Forum: Multiplayer Commander Decklists
Expected content: Competitive only
Forum: Casual/Budget Commander Decklists
Expected content: 1 on 1 or Multiplayer, with lists that don't compete with the ones in the first two forums
Forum: Pauper Commander Decklists
Expected content: 1 on 1 or Multiplayer, with a set of it's own rules
Forum: Other Commander Decklists
Expected content: Label your format (Archenemy, Horde, etc.)
Frankly, if I were a mod I would expect option 2 to be far easier to manage. Plus you can build out each community, rather than lumping them all together and expecting certain flavors of commander to thrive.
Also it gives people the ability to make a reasonable assumption of what type of content to expect in each forum by the title of the forum alone, rather than making users to self moderate with tags on titles of threads.
Or do you never have problems with poor tag usage in these forums, ISBPathfinder?