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I'm not sure why they care, though. "I already have enough basic land, therefore WOTC should not make something like the Land Station." ... is one of the silliest (to say the least) complaints I've heard here in a long time. You're not forced to buy this product, nor are they heavily marketing it, or giving you bonus cards or exclusive foils or anything, and the secondary market for basic lands is not really important. This product is purely there to enable first time tournament organizers to run limited, which is a good goal that I'm glad Wizards thought about, and it doesn't really affect anyone outside of that target market.
Also, isn't it already available to the general public? In any case, even if it isn't, making it so still probably won't affect anyone else. (Particularly since buying basics secondhand online is still probably cheaper anyway.)
2) ManyCookies 0-6 Agreed, dangit. PHM always makes me appreciate the power of lifegain.
3) Mogg 6-0 I think either one of my cards would be enough to stop you.
4) nerdyjoe 3-3 Agreed.
5) Reyemile 4-1 My goal is to Prelate-lock out Mardu Charm. Void doesn't do anything, so it's a question of who gets there first. OTD, you get one casting of Charm on the upkeep of my third turn; the 2 1/1s and my 2/2 stare at each other. OTP I lock you.
6) Superbajt 6-0 Chant is pretty much useless, but it's discard fodder. I drop Prelate T3, locking out Command, then race against Charm.
7) tomsloger 6-0 I've got two different ways to lock out your deck.
| X 0 6 2 4 6 6 | 24 |
Prelate was awesome, but Chant was pretty useless since it can't do much against instants. Mana Tithe or something might have been better.
2) ManyCookies 0-6 Agreed.
3) Mogg 4-1 Agreed.
4) nerdyjoe 0-6 Yeah Overgrown Estate's pretty good
5) Reyemile 6-0? Leyline of the Void plus Leyline of Punishment means Elixir doesn't do anything. You can counter Shadow, and stop one activation of Pride, but a growing force of 1/1s will eventually trade off with a 3/1 and win.
| X 0 4 0 6 | 10 |
I spent a bunch of time looking at Lich's Mirror decks, but couldn't find anything good enough. I also considered some sort of burn strat to limit the people spending too much mana. What I really expected, though, was Chancellor of the Dross as both a mana-attack and win-con, hence the Leyline of Punishment. Eventually, I settled on my favorite card (Pride of the Clouds) plus a cheap wincon to cast on low life. It worked out... pretty badly with no interaction, but eh.
Re the "can't cause to lose control" rule: Wouldn't this disable, say, T1 Kozilek or something, since annihilator could cause them to do that? Plus, I know that nobody likes to see turbo Capsize, but this would also ban anything cheap that could casually bounce a 'permanent', or lead someone to sacrifice a permanent.
The first option, meanwhile, seems even weirder, since now something like Annihilator can (I think, yes?) make them avoid sacrificing creatures, since they can choose to sacrifice lands and then keep them on the battlefield.
I dunno. I'm not necessarily specifically concerned about keeping Eldrazi or bounce-locks around, and maybe there are few enough cheap cards that would be banned by this that it's worth it. But if this is triggered by the use of Braids recently -- which I don't think has been prevalent enough to justify anything (although if it wins this round again I may reconsider -- then we could just ban Braids. The alternatives are Capsize, which is a lot more difficult to put out T1 or T2, and then... what else?
EDIT: Oh, hands were posted as this was written. Okay, I'll take a look.
2) Magus of the Aesthetic 3-3 Agreed
3) ManyCookies :: 0-6 Agreed
4) Mogg 3-3 Agreed
5) nerdyjoe 3-3 I lose OTD, you can just Myth, Vessel to get rid of Wurm and Contamination, and then Call is useless. Holding my cards lets me keep Wurm (in hand/library), but that's too slow against Liliana/Myth. OTP, I can kill Liliana by saving up to 3 or 4 attackers (depending on your plays) and swinging, and from there I win; Vessel exiles Contamination and I discard Wurm in response.
| X 3 0 3 3 | 6 |
I mean, if you need to, you could switch the deck to Tariel, Reckoner of Souls for the same colors and Angel focus. You would lose the ramp element of Kaalia, but if your commander is really drawing that much hate then you might live longer this way anyways. If you cut some expensive spells (maybe some of the demons, for theme?) and added more ramp, more board wipes or other forms of interaction, some card draw... goodstuff basically, then I can see it being a deck that has a weak early game that it survives through with board control, that blossoms into a late-game powerhouse.
It'd be a different deck, which would suck, but if your playgroup is targetting you this heavily then it might be a choice between an optimized Kaalia deck or a tribal Angels deck.
I assume you've considered the above, but I figured I'd put them down; mostly the first two seem good. Also, you may or may not think Warmonger is too off-theme or gives too much control to opponents, and Mark of Asylum turns off your enrage but protects your creatures.
2) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0 Venser Sorin, Capsize lock.
3) ManyCookies 3-3 Agreed
4) Mogg 3-3 If I'm plotting it out correctly, I get within 1 turn of killing you before a horde of zombies breaks down the door. Oh well.
5) nerdyjoe 6-0 I... may be missing something here? You say I'm threatened by Kozilek, but it seems to me that even OTD, it's T1 Shelldock (tapped) T1 land Exploration land, T2 LED cast Kozilek T2 land land bounce Kozi with Venser, and from there I can Capsize lock.
6) Superbajt 4-1 OTP I T3 Capsize your lands, then eventually have the mana to keep Capsizing plus play Venser plus keep Capsize open to fizzle Path. OTD you can play Command, I discard Venser, then next turn bounce one of your lands with Capsize. From here, you can play a land and then Scavenger, but I'll bounce it. In 3 turns, you'll be able to replay it after bouncing, but by then I'll have the mana to bounce it twice; this continues, as every time you get 3 more mana to recast it once more in the turn, I get 6 more mana to Capsize it.
7) Tatterhood 6-0 ??? OTP you never reach 2 mana. OTD makes me understand better why Leyline of Anticipation was banned. I'm pretty sure I can pull ahead like so: T1 land | land Exploration land; T2 land | landx2; T3 I Venser to bounce a land during your upkeep, if you drain then on my turn I can Capsize, and from there I'll have the mana to keep capsizing if you play Exarch or whatever, and by T5 I can protect Capsize from Drain by fizzling it through bouncing my own spell with Venser. So, T3 Venser on your upkeep, you don't drain and I bounce a land, you play a land | play land x2, T4 land (you're up to 3) | land x2, T5 land. You can Exarch on my turn but I just Capsize it back to you. You could try to rush Twin T6, but it doesn't matter without haste, and if you did you couldn't Drain at all. Once it reaches T6, I can Capsize with Venser backup without being affected by Exarch. Pretty sure I can win from there. Please double-check me on this, I'm definitely not sure I worked this out right.
8) tomsloger 6-0 ? OTP, Capsize lock pretty easily. OTD, you're pretty limited by mana constraints. If you play T1 Mentor, you can't stop Vensor from coming down and bouncing an island, from which point I can Capsize lock. If open T1,2 island, T3 Forest, you need to wait until at least T6 to have the right colors for Weapon, even if Mentor allows you to play it earlier. T5 is when I can start Capsizing with Venser backup to bounce my own Capsize and fizzle Drain if I need to. I haven't plotted it out, but I'm guessing that, in a 100 life format, I can Capsize colorscrew you and get to the point where I'm casting it twice in a turn fast enough to outrace the Mentor tokens -- even if you get one use and manage to exile Exploration. Again, I'm not totally certain about this and expect to be proven wrong somewhere.
Disagreements Superbajt and nerdyjoe, honestly can't tell on Tatterhood and tomsloger. Expect these scores to change!
| X 6 3 3 6 4 6 6 | 32-
2) Convoy_Avenger 3-3 OTP, I can T3 play City and Architect, then tap Architect to itself to play Pili-Pala; then play Run, swing, and go infinite T4. OTD, you kill me first.
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 3-3 T2 Pili-Pala off of City. From there, OTP I swing and kill you T3, OTD you Encroaching Wastes my Isle during my upkeep.
4) ManyCookies 3-3 Agreed.
5) MyNameIsFourteen 6-0 I kill T3, you kill T4. (If I counted correctly, that is.)
6) nerdyjoe 6-0 I'm faster.
7) Superbajt 6-0 I'm faster.
8) Tatterhood 3-3 I believe this is the same situation as Convoy_Avenger.
| X 2 2 2 6 6 6 2 | 26 |
@Tatterhood: Yes, Saprazzan Skerry would indeed be far better lol.
Would this format still allow alternate win conditions eg Approach of the Second Sun? After all, the Comp Rules separate the two, and with eg Platinum Angel the 'you can't lose' and 'they can't win' are separated. I'm fine if this is intended, just wasn't sure if it was.
2) Feyd_Ruin 0-6
Your constant lifeloss easily outpaces Bitterblossom.
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 2-2
If you continuously play Zenith starting with T=0, it'll always be in your library when I could cast Doomfall. So, if I play Bitterblossom I'll die from lifeloss. On the other hand, Doomfall easily deals with Messenger. Thus, I think this is a draw.
4) Mogg 6-0
Actually pretty close, but I can Doomfall Markov away, and his Vengeance isn't enough to finish the job aainst Bitterblossom.
5) ManyCookies 6-0
Agreed
6) MyNameIsFourteen 2-2
Same as Magus of the Aesthetic.
7) Personman 4-1?
OTD, I play blossom, you Unmake it, I Doomfall your Salvation. OTP, I Doomfall your Unmaking. Then I might be wrong about my math, but I'm pretty sure that whenever you choose to drop Salvation, I can race you. T5 Salvation seems to be the most dangerous, but I'm pretty sure that, with a few blocks near the end, I can pull through.
8) Superbajt 4-1
OTD, you Unmake Bitterblossom and I Doomfall Ob Nixilus. OTP, I Doomfall Unmaking, and at least according to ManyCookies, Bitterblossom should beat Ob Nixilus on its own.
9) Tatterhood :: 3-3
Dread Wanderer / Stillmoon Cavalier
OTP, Doomfall Cavalier and Bitterblossom beats Wanderer. OTD, you get down Cavalier, which is just far faster than Bitterblossom.
10) WhammeWhamme 0-6
With Doomfall, I can deal 1 damage per turn. You do 3.
1) CalvinSchwa :: Gollum and the Ring
Daze / Goblin Settler / Sol Ring
2) Convoy_Avenger 6-0
I settle your lands.
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 3-3
OTD, you can do your thing. OTP, Daze stops you for a turn and I can kill your lands.
4) ManyCookies 6-0
I Daze the creature and settle your lands.
4.5) Personman 6-0
Agreed.
5) superbajt 3-3
Angrath, the Flame-Chained / Oath of Gideon / Sol Ring
OTD, flickering Oath gets you there. OTP, killing your lands and using Daze keeps you off the mana to cast it.
6) Tatterhood 3-3
OTP, landlock. OTD, you can Truth my Sol Ring on my upkeep to delay me one turn, Time Walk -> Witness the following turn, and even after I kill 2 of your lands you can then go infinite and eventually bounce my Settler for the win.
7) tomsloger 6-0
Daze and landkill gets there.
8) WhammeWhamme 0-6
Agreed.
It was a neat tech with Legion's Landing and Oath of Gideon. Two things I'm disappointed about: one, Sol Ring + Hushwing Gryff lets me play Gryff on their upkeep on the play, which is cool. Some variant of this could've enabled a discard strat too. Admittedly, these probably would've done far worse than my unexpectedly decent actual performance, but they've been neat.
Two, on further reflection I should've set the name to something involving Catan.
| X 6 3 6 [6] 3 3 6 0 | 30 |
2) ManyCookies 3-3
Balance / Greater Gargadon / Lotus Bloom / Swan Song / Volcanic Island
OTD, I think you can just counter Vineyard and win. OTP, I get down Vineyard, you counter Unlife, and between Vineyard, a Swan, and Spirit Guide, I think I can race you.
3) Mogg 0-6
Agreed, manaburn means I can't do too much and my only defense would be Guide, which I need to turbo out anything.
4) MyNameIsFourteen 0-6
Agreed.
5) Personman 0-6
Denial Vineyard, I can't do anything else.
6) Superbajt 0-6
You're faster.
7) WhammeWhamme 0-6
I can't do anything.
| X 2 0 0 0 0 0 | 2 |
I genuinely believe that Vineyard could have been great. I failed to actually demonstrate that. Also, shout-out to Abolish playing absolutely zero role in every single match.
Presumably he's using the second ability on both of the cards. it doesn't go infinite since Magosi enters tapped, but he does get 2 turns for everyone else's turns, assuming he can keep sacrificing artifacts. It's not broken -- arguably better than, say, Opposition or Time Warp -- but still really annoying.
I'm not sure why they care, though. "I already have enough basic land, therefore WOTC should not make something like the Land Station." ... is one of the silliest (to say the least) complaints I've heard here in a long time. You're not forced to buy this product, nor are they heavily marketing it, or giving you bonus cards or exclusive foils or anything, and the secondary market for basic lands is not really important. This product is purely there to enable first time tournament organizers to run limited, which is a good goal that I'm glad Wizards thought about, and it doesn't really affect anyone outside of that target market.
Also, isn't it already available to the general public? In any case, even if it isn't, making it so still probably won't affect anyone else. (Particularly since buying basics secondhand online is still probably cheaper anyway.)
2) ManyCookies 3-3 Agreed
3) Mogg 0-6 That, uh, that'll do it. Dang.
4) nerdyjoe 6-0 Yeah Revoker.
| X 3 0 6 | 8 |
Well, it's good to be back to normal after last week's round of backbuild! Bit of a quiet room this week, though.
3) Mogg 6-0 I think either one of my cards would be enough to stop you.
4) nerdyjoe 3-3 Agreed.
5) Reyemile 4-1 My goal is to Prelate-lock out Mardu Charm. Void doesn't do anything, so it's a question of who gets there first. OTD, you get one casting of Charm on the upkeep of my third turn; the 2 1/1s and my 2/2 stare at each other. OTP I lock you.
6) Superbajt 6-0 Chant is pretty much useless, but it's discard fodder. I drop Prelate T3, locking out Command, then race against Charm.
7) tomsloger 6-0 I've got two different ways to lock out your deck.
| X 0 6 2 4 6 6 | 24 |
Prelate was awesome, but Chant was pretty useless since it can't do much against instants. Mana Tithe or something might have been better.
3) Mogg 4-1 Agreed.
4) nerdyjoe 0-6 Yeah Overgrown Estate's pretty good
5) Reyemile 6-0? Leyline of the Void plus Leyline of Punishment means Elixir doesn't do anything. You can counter Shadow, and stop one activation of Pride, but a growing force of 1/1s will eventually trade off with a 3/1 and win.
| X 0 4 0 6 | 10 |
I spent a bunch of time looking at Lich's Mirror decks, but couldn't find anything good enough. I also considered some sort of burn strat to limit the people spending too much mana. What I really expected, though, was Chancellor of the Dross as both a mana-attack and win-con, hence the Leyline of Punishment. Eventually, I settled on my favorite card (Pride of the Clouds) plus a cheap wincon to cast on low life. It worked out... pretty badly with no interaction, but eh.
The first option, meanwhile, seems even weirder, since now something like Annihilator can (I think, yes?) make them avoid sacrificing creatures, since they can choose to sacrifice lands and then keep them on the battlefield.
I dunno. I'm not necessarily specifically concerned about keeping Eldrazi or bounce-locks around, and maybe there are few enough cheap cards that would be banned by this that it's worth it. But if this is triggered by the use of Braids recently -- which I don't think has been prevalent enough to justify anything (although if it wins this round again I may reconsider
EDIT: Oh, hands were posted as this was written. Okay, I'll take a look.
3) ManyCookies :: 0-6 Agreed
4) Mogg 3-3 Agreed
5) nerdyjoe 3-3 I lose OTD, you can just Myth, Vessel to get rid of Wurm and Contamination, and then Call is useless. Holding my cards lets me keep Wurm (in hand/library), but that's too slow against Liliana/Myth. OTP, I can kill Liliana by saving up to 3 or 4 attackers (depending on your plays) and swinging, and from there I win; Vessel exiles Contamination and I discard Wurm in response.
| X 3 0 3 3 | 6 |
It'd be a different deck, which would suck, but if your playgroup is targetting you this heavily then it might be a choice between an optimized Kaalia deck or a tribal Angels deck.
I assume you've considered the above, but I figured I'd put them down; mostly the first two seem good. Also, you may or may not think Warmonger is too off-theme or gives too much control to opponents, and Mark of Asylum turns off your enrage but protects your creatures.
Capsize / Exploration / Venser, Shaper Savant
2) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0 Venser Sorin, Capsize lock.
3) ManyCookies 3-3 Agreed
4) Mogg 3-3 If I'm plotting it out correctly, I get within 1 turn of killing you before a horde of zombies breaks down the door. Oh well.
5) nerdyjoe 6-0 I... may be missing something here? You say I'm threatened by Kozilek, but it seems to me that even OTD, it's T1 Shelldock (tapped) T1 land Exploration land, T2 LED cast Kozilek T2 land land bounce Kozi with Venser, and from there I can Capsize lock.
6) Superbajt 4-1 OTP I T3 Capsize your lands, then eventually have the mana to keep Capsizing plus play Venser plus keep Capsize open to fizzle Path. OTD you can play Command, I discard Venser, then next turn bounce one of your lands with Capsize. From here, you can play a land and then Scavenger, but I'll bounce it. In 3 turns, you'll be able to replay it after bouncing, but by then I'll have the mana to bounce it twice; this continues, as every time you get 3 more mana to recast it once more in the turn, I get 6 more mana to Capsize it.
7) Tatterhood 6-0 ??? OTP you never reach 2 mana. OTD makes me understand better why Leyline of Anticipation was banned. I'm pretty sure I can pull ahead like so: T1 land | land Exploration land; T2 land | landx2; T3 I Venser to bounce a land during your upkeep, if you drain then on my turn I can Capsize, and from there I'll have the mana to keep capsizing if you play Exarch or whatever, and by T5 I can protect Capsize from Drain by fizzling it through bouncing my own spell with Venser. So, T3 Venser on your upkeep, you don't drain and I bounce a land, you play a land | play land x2, T4 land (you're up to 3) | land x2, T5 land. You can Exarch on my turn but I just Capsize it back to you. You could try to rush Twin T6, but it doesn't matter without haste, and if you did you couldn't Drain at all. Once it reaches T6, I can Capsize with Venser backup without being affected by Exarch. Pretty sure I can win from there. Please double-check me on this, I'm definitely not sure I worked this out right.
8) tomsloger 6-0 ? OTP, Capsize lock pretty easily. OTD, you're pretty limited by mana constraints. If you play T1 Mentor, you can't stop Vensor from coming down and bouncing an island, from which point I can Capsize lock. If open T1,2 island, T3 Forest, you need to wait until at least T6 to have the right colors for Weapon, even if Mentor allows you to play it earlier. T5 is when I can start Capsizing with Venser backup to bounce my own Capsize and fizzle Drain if I need to. I haven't plotted it out, but I'm guessing that, in a 100 life format, I can Capsize colorscrew you and get to the point where I'm casting it twice in a turn fast enough to outrace the Mentor tokens -- even if you get one use and manage to exile Exploration. Again, I'm not totally certain about this and expect to be proven wrong somewhere.
Disagreements Superbajt and nerdyjoe, honestly can't tell on Tatterhood and tomsloger. Expect these scores to change!
| X 6 3 3 6 4 6 6 | 32-
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 3-3 T2 Pili-Pala off of City. From there, OTP I swing and kill you T3, OTD you Encroaching Wastes my Isle during my upkeep.
4) ManyCookies 3-3 Agreed.
5) MyNameIsFourteen 6-0 I kill T3, you kill T4. (If I counted correctly, that is.)
6) nerdyjoe 6-0 I'm faster.
7) Superbajt 6-0 I'm faster.
8) Tatterhood 3-3 I believe this is the same situation as Convoy_Avenger.
| X 2 2 2 6 6 6 2 | 26 |
@Tatterhood: Yes, Saprazzan Skerry would indeed be far better lol.
Your constant lifeloss easily outpaces Bitterblossom.
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 2-2
If you continuously play Zenith starting with T=0, it'll always be in your library when I could cast Doomfall. So, if I play Bitterblossom I'll die from lifeloss. On the other hand, Doomfall easily deals with Messenger. Thus, I think this is a draw.
4) Mogg 6-0
Actually pretty close, but I can Doomfall Markov away, and his Vengeance isn't enough to finish the job aainst Bitterblossom.
5) ManyCookies 6-0
Agreed
6) MyNameIsFourteen 2-2
Same as Magus of the Aesthetic.
7) Personman 4-1?
OTD, I play blossom, you Unmake it, I Doomfall your Salvation. OTP, I Doomfall your Unmaking. Then I might be wrong about my math, but I'm pretty sure that whenever you choose to drop Salvation, I can race you. T5 Salvation seems to be the most dangerous, but I'm pretty sure that, with a few blocks near the end, I can pull through.
8) Superbajt 4-1
OTD, you Unmake Bitterblossom and I Doomfall Ob Nixilus. OTP, I Doomfall Unmaking, and at least according to ManyCookies, Bitterblossom should beat Ob Nixilus on its own.
9) Tatterhood :: 3-3
Dread Wanderer / Stillmoon Cavalier
OTP, Doomfall Cavalier and Bitterblossom beats Wanderer. OTD, you get down Cavalier, which is just far faster than Bitterblossom.
10) WhammeWhamme 0-6
With Doomfall, I can deal 1 damage per turn. You do 3.
| X 0 2 6 6 2 4 4 2 0 | 26
1 Act on Impulse
1 Dream Pillager
1 Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
1 Ire Shaman
1 Past in Flames
1 Stromkirk Occultist
1 Undying Flames
1 Commune With Lava
1 Outpost Siege
Daze / Goblin Settler / Sol Ring
2) Convoy_Avenger 6-0
I settle your lands.
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 3-3
OTD, you can do your thing. OTP, Daze stops you for a turn and I can kill your lands.
4) ManyCookies 6-0
I Daze the creature and settle your lands.
4.5) Personman 6-0
Agreed.
5) superbajt 3-3
Angrath, the Flame-Chained / Oath of Gideon / Sol Ring
OTD, flickering Oath gets you there. OTP, killing your lands and using Daze keeps you off the mana to cast it.
6) Tatterhood 3-3
OTP, landlock. OTD, you can Truth my Sol Ring on my upkeep to delay me one turn, Time Walk -> Witness the following turn, and even after I kill 2 of your lands you can then go infinite and eventually bounce my Settler for the win.
7) tomsloger 6-0
Daze and landkill gets there.
8) WhammeWhamme 0-6
Agreed.
It was a neat tech with Legion's Landing and Oath of Gideon. Two things I'm disappointed about: one, Sol Ring + Hushwing Gryff lets me play Gryff on their upkeep on the play, which is cool. Some variant of this could've enabled a discard strat too. Admittedly, these probably would've done far worse than my unexpectedly decent actual performance, but they've been neat.
Two, on further reflection I should've set the name to something involving Catan.
| X 6 3 6 [6] 3 3 6 0 | 30 |
Balance / Greater Gargadon / Lotus Bloom / Swan Song / Volcanic Island
OTD, I think you can just counter Vineyard and win. OTP, I get down Vineyard, you counter Unlife, and between Vineyard, a Swan, and Spirit Guide, I think I can race you.
3) Mogg 0-6
Agreed, manaburn means I can't do too much and my only defense would be Guide, which I need to turbo out anything.
4) MyNameIsFourteen 0-6
Agreed.
5) Personman 0-6
Denial Vineyard, I can't do anything else.
6) Superbajt 0-6
You're faster.
7) WhammeWhamme 0-6
I can't do anything.
| X 2 0 0 0 0 0 | 2 |
I genuinely believe that Vineyard could have been great. I failed to actually demonstrate that. Also, shout-out to Abolish playing absolutely zero role in every single match.