There are three reasons to consider that this card is fair or even underpowered:
First, consider the odds of drawing this card in your opening hand with the presumption that you have 4 copies of Temporal Flummoxer in a 60 card deck:
0.399499626 chance to draw at least 1 copy in 7 cards
0.063219416 chance to draw at least 2 copies in 7 cards
0.00387585 chance to draw at least 3 copies in 7 cards
0.000071775 chance to draw at least 4 copies in 7 cards
Second, consider that because the extra turn occurs very early in the game, the consequence of this extra turn doesn't have as much impact as a turn taken later in the game. In effect, if you are lucky enough to get this on turn 1, this card will usually function similarly to Explore or Growth Spiral.
Third, this card is lousy unless you know your opponent is playing first. Thus, it mandates sideboard space.
So in retrospect, perhaps this card isn't strong enough. This is despite the gut instinct that ANY card that grants an extra turn is overpowered.
Temporal Flummoxer
Artifact - 0 mana
Flash
At the beginning of your draw step, sacrifice Temporal Flummoxer. If you do, draw a card. Then, if this was your first turn of the game, take another turn after this one.
I call this rule set the Squared-Rooted Rules because my goal is to reduce the approximate number of games significantly affected by mana-screw/mana-flood/color-screw. Suppose about 16% of games are made sour by random mana-problems. This rule set will ideally reduce that percentage to about 4%, and 4 is the square root of 16! Well, that's the ideal premise. Whether it turns out that way remains to be determined. More importantly, having a gimmicky title serves as click-bait.
Anyway, the rule set is as follows:
1. Any time a player has priority, they may exile two land cards from their hand to draw a card.
2. Each colored mana symbol in a mana cost can be paid with either one mana of that color, or by paying 2 generic mana.
Rule #1: Reduces the likelihood of mana-flood and mana-screw. Obviously, losing two cards to draw one card is unpleasant, but at least it's better than being stuck with nothing but lands and consequentially no spells to cast. It also slightly reduces the likelihood of mana-screw, because you will probably want to include a few more lands in your deck, knowing that mana-flood won't necessarily dictate defeat to the same extent as in plain MtG. Also, because you exile lands rather than discard them, I can't think of decks that can profoundly abuse this rule.
Rule #2: Reduces the likelihood of color-screw. It also opens up your drafting options a little bit, making it more appealing to draft a 3-color deck. This makes you decisions while drafting packs #2-3 less restrictive, which also allows you more opportunity to draft more skillfully (or more ineptly) than the other players at the table.
Here's a card I thought up. It's a solution for overpowered Planeswalkers and the Scarab God, but aside from that I don't think it's overpowered for Standard. It's probably good, but not great, in draft due to its ability to recur.
Nekrataal Revenant
Creature - Spirit Assassin 2/1
You may cast Nekrataal Revenant from your graveyard.
First strike
When Nekrataal Revenant enters the battlefield, exile target planeswalker or god.
So the decks with the most cookie-cutter netdeck structure will get {Match Points} as their score. The best you can do with a deck running nothing from the netdecks is {2 * Match Points} score. The problem I see is that in order to get a modifier like that, you'll have to build an extremely suboptimal deck (netdecks are netdecks for a reason), and your Match Points will be close to 0, which makes the modifier useless.
Somewhere south of 50% on your deck scoring system might be worth building, and you can get in some luck as well to still pull out ahead of the cookie-cutter deck's score. I don't think there is an intersection between expected total score for a 0% unique deck and expected total score for a >0% unique deck (as the expected match points will go down as a multiplier goes up), other than a netdeck that's expected to lose all matches. Of course getting lucky can put the >0% unique deck up higher, but if we're analyzing a format that's not explicitly meant to be gambling I don't think counting on luck should be included.
Your understanding of how Deckbuilder Percentile affects the final standings is correct.
But take a look at the linked Excel workbook in the section "Deckbuilder Prizes in Practice", and click on the "Standings" tab. It shows that you can build a deck with Deckbuilder Percentile >85% without having to resort to using bad cards. However, in a tournament in which practically everyone deliberately avoids playing a popular netdecks, I predict the Deckbuilder Percentiles would become less spread out - perhaps between a range of 60%-95%.
Remember that Deckbuilder Percentile is based on online data, so it's easy to look online, see what the most popular decks and cards are, and deliberately void playing them. Also, presuming the Card Dominances are formally updated every Monday, you would be able to see exactly what your deck's Deckbuilder Percentile would be before the tournament.
At this date, it would also be certain that the Deckbuilder Percentile of the Mono-Blue Aggro would be lower, since last weekend this deck archetype saw lots of play, probably because it has a good matchup against the previous weekend's most popular deck, Sultai Aggro.
I propose a new subtype of constructed tournaments called Deckbuilder Tournaments, which would be unique in their method of prize distribution. These tournaments would be an incentive to get more players to plunge back into old-fashioned creative deck design. The scoring system for Deckbuilder Tournaments would be automated and therefore impartial and unbiased. Although I can’t realistically propose an automated system that can measure with pinpoint accuracy such nebulous things as creativity and ingenuity, I think this system would strongly encourage players to explore cards and strategies that have been neglected. And it would certainly increase the variety of decks you would play against.
Now I shall describe my initial proposal for how the Deckbuilder Prize system would operate.
DECKBUILDER PRIZE METHODOLOGY
1. Prize support in constructed events called Deckbuilder Tournaments is awarded based on Deckbuilder Points, not match points.
2. Players register their deck lists for Deckbuilder Tournaments electronically. A new computer program and phone app would be necessary for this.
3. Each deck has a Deckbuilder Percentile. The Deckbuilder Percentile is dependent upon the mean (average) popularity of the individual cards within the main deck (sideboard cards don’t affect Deckbuilder Percentile for now). It is desirable to have a high Deckbuilder Percentile because a high Deckbuilder Percentile indicates the inclusion of more unpopular cards in your deck. A Deckbuilder Percentile of 50% is the definition of average. The Deckbuilder Percentile of the oddest rogue decks will be close to 100%, and the Deckbuilder Percentile of the most popular netdecks will be close to 0%. That’s really all you need to know! But for those who are interested in math and statistics, search my full article linked at the start of this post for the area enclosed by a box.
4. At the end of the Swiss rounds, each player is ranked not by match points and tiebreakers, but by Deckbuilder Points. To determine the top Deckbuilders, use the following equation for each player:
Deckbuilder Points = Match Points + (Deckbuilder Percentile * Match Points)
The top Deckbuilders, as determined by this descending list of Deckbuilder Points, are awarded prizes at the end of the Swiss rounds. It is up to the tournament organizer to decide how much prize to allocate to the top 8 elimination rounds thereafter, if applicable.
I acknowledge that this protocol sounds complex. But with computer programming, the whole thing can easily be automated and implemented.
This Excel workbook takes 8 different Standard deck lists from the recent SCG Team Open Baltimore that occurred last weekend. I located these deck lists at https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=21065&f=ST. I also added two additional decks: my own current Standard deck, Duncan Hills Coffee, and a rogue deck called Mirror Match Wizards by SaffronOlive from https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-mirror-march-wizards-standard. On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 3:00pm Eastern time, I collected and calculated Standard card dominances from 92 Standard decks gathered at Mtgtop8.com over the past 2 weeks.
With these deck lists and a list of card dominances, I set up a hypothetical 10-player tournament in which each player achieved a final record of 3-3-1 (which is 10 match points). You can see below that decks with higher Deckbuilder Percentile ended up with more Deckbuilder Points in this hypothetical tournament.
This final list of standings, sorted by Deckbuilder Points, indicates that my method for calculating Deckbuilder Percentile might need modification. My Duncan Hills Coffee deck is a simple, linear deck that nevertheless has the highest Deckbuilder Percentile because it uses lots of cards that other people don’t use. Andrew Hung’s stereotypical Mono-Blue Aggro deck has a high Deckbuilder Percentile for the same reason, despite being basically a netdeck. Such high Deckbuilder Percentiles are largely undeserved. Ideally, SaffronOlive’s deliberately rogue Mirror March Wizards deck should have the highest Deckbuilder Percentile. But on the other hand, the two most prevalent netdecks, Sultai Aggro and Esper Control, have the lowest Deckbuilder Percentiles, so at least that is proper.
Although this system doesn’t appear to necessarily reward creativity all the time, I do predict it would be highly effective for promoting more deck diversity in the Standard metagame. And that might be even more important than awarding creativity, because it gets very dull to play against the same deck archetype for multiple rounds in a single tournament. It should be noted that these Deckbuilder Percentiles were derived from online data that encompassed only 92 decks, which might not be enough. It should also be noted that 9 out of the 10 decks (mine included) that I put on the spreadsheet are designed with the sole purpose of winning matches, with no impetus placed upon being weird or unique. In an actual Deckbuilder Tournament in which players are indeed trying to bring weird, unique decks, I have no idea what would happen with the numbers. Sometimes you just need to put things to the test to see if they work as intended, and I indeed think this system is ready for a few trial runs.
Now allow me to get grandiose and imagine that Deckbuilder tournaments become popular. A problem looms: Suppose a major Deckbuilder tournament is completed, and a bunch of new rogue deck lists are posted online. It will be necessary to have a method of disincentivizing players from simply copying these new rogue decks and playing them in future Deckbuilder tournaments. To address this, every Monday two separate official lists of Card Dominances for both plain Standard and Deckbuilder Standard would be posted. Until the following Monday, whenever a player registers a deck list for a Deckbuilder tournament, each card in their deck list uses whichever Card Dominance is higher (which could be either that card’s Dominance in the plain Standard list or in Deckbuilder Standard list). I think that these regularly updated lists would promote consistent creativity and deck diversity by always pushing players away from playing cards that are known to be popular.
CONCLUSION
I know that no proposal pleases everyone. Would my proposal please more people than it would displease? And would it increase attendance at tournaments and the audience for tournament coverage? Although I identify as a hybrid “Johnny/Spike”, I must endeavor to perceive this proposal from the perspectives of the other player stereotypes. These player stereotypes are described in the article TIMMY, JOHNNY, AND SPIKE at https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03
I suspect that players belonging to the “Spike” player stereotype (those who want to win by any means necessary) would not participate in Deckbuilder Tournaments. Indeed, the absolute worst sort of Spikes have contempt for rogue decks and the people who play them. By contrast, I suspect that “Johnny” players (those who like to win but are more interested in the crazy and creative opportunities deckbuilding provides) would love this proposal. “Timmys” (those who enjoy epic, profound creatures and effects) would probably like Deckbuilder Tournaments as well. As for the audience, I am very confident that Deckbuilder tournaments would increase the amount of people who view streaming tournament coverage.
In conclusion, Magic has several aspects behind its appeal. It has a competitive aspect, a creative aspect, a fantasy aspect, and a collectible aspect. I predict that if the creative aspect were emphasized with Deckbuilder Prizes, then there would be a flourishing of innovative new decks which would bring both higher attendance at constructed tournaments and a greater audience for event coverage.
{Name of the card} comes into play tapped.
{T}: Add {} to your mana pool.
Exile this card from your hand, (...). Use this ability only if you control a {name of the card}.
At this point, I would prefer Legendary lands with a Grandeur mechanic, no ETB tapped.
Grandeur?! That's actually a really smart idea, I reckon. It would work great for constructed formats, although it would be sadly irrelevant for limited.
Because cycling for zero mana would profoundly empower the cards Hollow One, Life from the Loam, and Knight of the Reliquary, and it would also further empower the delve mechanic.
There strength far exceeds what is acceptable on rare lands so putting them at common is completely ignoring what rarity means.
Does rarity dictate how good a desirable a card should be? By the criteria set forth in an old article https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/rare-well-done-2002-02-25-0, I think these cards are fine at common, especially so because they aren't (7) Disruptive to Limited, and another principle is (10)Spread Good Cards Among All Rarities. I do acknowledge that rare cards in recent years tend to be better than common cards on average, probably for the sake of selling more boosters. But I am unaware of anyone in R&D formally stating that rares must be better than commons.
Your lands are auto 4-ofs in any deck that wants that color of mana as long as they run at least 1 basic.
I don't know if that's true. A deck with only 1 basic land and 4 ethereal lands probably wouldn't draw that single basic land often enough to capitalize on the ethereal "cycling" ability. I don't think I would run a full set of 4x an ethereal land unless I had at least 3-4x of the corresponding basic land.
As for violating the better-than-basic rule, that is something I evidently need to fix.
Cycling lands from Urza's Saga weren't very good. Cycling lands from Onslaught were slightly better, but still not good enough to see much use outside of limited.
Hmmm? Slider was very powerful during it's time.
Anyway, these cards are not just profoundsly good, they're strictly better than a basic land
The ramification of the “strictly better” rule is that we cannot design lands that tap for a colored mana without having some kind of drawback. The nonbasic land status, incidentally, is not considered by R&D to be enough of a drawback.
Your lands tap for colored mana without a drawback.
Oops, I forgot the old Astral Slide/Lightning Rift deck. But I could still argue that the Onslaught cycling lands weren't great as standalone cards, but rather only great within the context of a deck that capitalizes on the cycling mechanic. And what I am intending to do is create lands that are indeed great for practically all Standard and Limited decks, irrespective of the deck's context.
As for being strictly better than a basic land, after reading that referenced Making Magic article, I completely acknowledge that I have sinned. I shall add a drawback to these lands, so that they aren't strictly better than basic lands... just usually better.
(This has been updated due to some feedback from others, specifically to address the fact that the previous versions of these cards were strictly better than basic lands. I added the text "As this land enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life." These cards are nevertheless still really great, despite not always being better than a basic land.)
Cycling lands from Urza's Saga weren't very good. Cycling lands from Onslaught were slightly better, but still not good enough to see much use outside of limited. The same was true for cycling deserts from Amonkhet - they were mediocre, but useful for limited. This is a disappointment in my opinion, because the concept of cycling lands could really go a long way towards mitigating something nearly everyone finds annoying in Magic: mana-screw and mana-flood.
Here I propose upgraded versions of cycling lands. My intent is to make these cards so profoundly good that they will be as popular in Standard as whatever cycles of rare dual lands are available at the time (the currently available rare dual lands are "check lands" and "shock lands"). Rare dual lands have historically been so terrific that it has always been generally correct to include full sets of them in two-color decks, and to include 15+ of them in 3+ color decks. Yet practically nobody complains that such dual lands are overpowered, probably because playing a land as an obligate mana source never feels unfair (unless it's an absurd card like Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy, etc.) But whereas dual lands are profoundly helpful at preventing color-screw, these cycling lands profoundly help prevent mana-screw and mana-flood. They also incidentally protect a little against color-screw.
Ethereal Field
Land (common)
As Ethereal Field enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add W.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Plains.
Ethereal Isle
Land (common)
As Ethereal Isle enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add U.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Island.
Ethereal Marsh
Land (common)
As Ethereal Marsh enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add B.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Swamp.
Ethereal Peak
As Ethereal Peak enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
Land (common)
T: Add R.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Mountain.
Ethereal Woods
Land (common)
As Ethereal Woods enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add G.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Forest.
Ethereal Desert
Land - Desert (common)
As Ethereal Desert enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add 1.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic land.
These cards are obviously amazing. But they don't feel amazing/devastating in the same way that format-defining spells like Teferi, History of Benalia, Arclight Phoenix, or Experimental Frenzy do. And how it feels to play with/against cards is profoundly important, because, as a game, the primary goal of MtG is to be entertaining and enjoyable.
You will definitely want to include Ethereal Marshes in any Standard or limited deck containing basic Swamps, just as you would want to include (for example) Watery Grave in any Standard or Limited deck that casts black and blue spells. The exact number of ethereal lands you would want to include in a Standard deck entails finding the right balance between basic land counts and ethereal land counts. The presence of ethereal lands adds an additional layer of complexity to figuring out the optimal land configuration for your deck.
I'm guessing that a generic Blue-Black Standard two-color decks would start by trying something like: 4 Drowned Catacombs, 4 Watery Graves, 4 Ethereal Marshes, 4 Ethereal Isles, 2 Ethereal Deserts, 6 Swamps, and 6 Islands. Note that this is 30 lands, which is more than the default of 24. The presence of ethereal lands encourages you to play more lands because you can avert mana-flood by "cycling" ethereal lands. And since you are playing more lands, you are also protected against mana-screw.
Furthermore, since ethereal lands essentially "thin" your deck, your sideboard cards become a bit more accessible, which I regard as an additional benefit.
Ethereal lands are at common rarity because limited formats desperately need more mana consistency. It would also be nice to have these cards available in Pauper.
Why did I choose for ethereal lands to exile themselves rather than cycle like their counterparts in Urza's Saga, Onslaught, and Amonkhet? Because cycling for zero mana would profoundly empower the cards Hollow One, Life from the Loam, and Knight of the Reliquary, and it would also further empower the delve mechanic. There might still be ways in which these cards disproportionately empower specific deck archetypes, but my primary concern is improving mana consistency in Limited and Standard.
If such cards were in booster packs, I wonder how highly they would be picked in draft by expert players? I'm guessing they would be a typical 5th or 6th pick, at least in packs #2-3 when you have decided on which colors you are drafting.
This card is inspired by the greatest martial art film ever: Kung Fury.
I'm curious if folks this is appropriate, both with regards to the character Kung Fury and with regards to game balance?
Kung Fury
Legendary Creature - Human Cop 7/2
Triple strike (This creature deals first-strike, regular, and last-strike combat damage.)
T: Kung Fury deals 2 damage to any target.
When Kung Fury dies, you may yell, “You’re breaking the law!” If you do, return Kung Fury to the battlefield tapped.
You should only allow Baseball if you have a certain number of cards in library. Even if you have 3 cards left, you have just stacked your next 2 draws in the order you want. With 6 cards, if you baseball 2 times in a row you stack the rest of your library. Getting to both dig 3 and choose the order of the cards is too powerful for a small library.
Suggestion: You may only Baseball if your library is at least half its starting size (20 in Limited, 30 in Constructed).
That not only avoids the situations where Baseball stops you from drawing to death, but also prevents abuse from library stacking. Besides, you don't really need Baseball beyond the first few turns. You just need it in the first few turns to hit your first land drops consistently.
I assume Burn was brought up because Burn is just more abusive about it. The biggest drawback of Burn is that you can manaflood or lose to manascrew. When you remove that variance, it becomes a combo deck that basically always wins the game on turn 3-4. That invalidates slower decks.
Maybe there should be a gentleman's agreement not to play Burn in this metagame. The point of the house rule is to make random kitchen table creature decks more consistent, not increase Burn's goldfish rate.
There's a far bigger problem than just considering what lands to make eligible. You just made Brainstorm, already the best card in Legacy, even more broken. Interactions with Sylvan Library and Ponder are also goofy. Thank goodness Sensei's Divining Top is banned.
Ineligible lands should start with: Strip Mine, Mishra's Workshop, Tolarian Academy, Bazaar of Baghdad, Library of Alexandria, Gaea's Cradle, Karakas, Dark Depths, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Serra's Sanctum, Wasteland. Most others should be OK. Actually even Wasteland might be fair, since the opponent can find new land as easily as you can find new Wastelands, and Wasteland even gets slightly worse when its much harder to get manascrewed.
I don't think it's worth using Baseball to "topdeck" lands in the late game when your library is thin is worth eventually being able to work off a stacked deck, but I could be wrong. Another alternative is to allow each player just 3 "at-bats" with Baseball per game.
I agree fully with your assessment of Burn archetype abusing this a little more than other archetypes. Other decks benefit as well, but straight Burn-your-face-with-LavaSpike, Rift Bolt, Lightning Bolt, etc. might get a little too much of a boost.
Banning Brainstorm would probably destroy cause rioting. Ick. But I like your suggested list, but think Wasteland would be fine to get with Baseball. But again, Legacy wasn't what I really was considering much when writing this rule.
Isn't this just going to shift the problem around? "Ooh, now I can cut half my lands! Wait... I'm still getting manascrewed? I'm so unlucky!"
Why are fetchlands "ineligible"? They're fair Magic cards. Is it because they're expensive? This rule is basically a soft ban on fetches, since they can now be removed from decks "for free" anyway.
This rule makes it easier to get your early land drops with Baseball. And if makes it harder to mana flood because you can now include fewer lands in your deck without having such a high probability of being mana-screwed early. It is still possible to get screwed/flooded, but the frequency of either is significantly reduced with this house rule.
I just think fetchlands are too good, and they power up strategies like delve, landfall, and revolt. They are so good that they are sometimes warranted in mono-colored decks.
Your suggestion to put cards on the bottom, then draw is better. I have altered the rules in the opening post to use it. I suppose if you have fewer than 3 cards in your library, you look at as many as possible before drawing. There is no longer any way to abuse Baseball to avoid losing to library depletion.
Burn can certainly drop to 15 lands. Even with 15 lands, if the Burn player plays first and uses Baseball on turns #2 and #3, they will have accessed on average 2.92 lands by turn 3, but in doing so they will miss out on an average of 0.83 cards by doing so (if my calculations are correct). But playing a low land count is something all aggressive decks can attempt, not just Burn. Even non-aggressive decks will play a lower land count than they would normally. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is certainly different.
I agree that the Baseball rule doesn't benefit Tron like it does other Modern decks. But I don't think Tron becomes unplayable. With the Tron deck made weaker, fewer people will use Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, and Damping Sphere. So it will balance out.
Regarding Legacy/Vintage, I wrote previously, "Since I lack experience in such formats, I have no list of ineligible lands to propose. I also think players who play in these tournaments are generally too hardcore to be interested in house rules, anyway." But I'm sure a Vintage/Legacy list of ineligible lands would include lands that produce more than one mana, which would hurt decks using cards like Cloudpost, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Mishra's Workshop, Gaea's Cradle.
Any house rule will warp an established metagame. With the Baseball rule this is profoundly more true for Legacy/Vintage than Standard or Draft. But some of the fun of house rules is figuring out how to exploit them. If you think Burn is disproportionately powered-up, then play Burn or a deck that beats Burn.
Also remember that no additional cards are banned. But a few land cards are prohibited from being "found" with Baseball.
First, consider the odds of drawing this card in your opening hand with the presumption that you have 4 copies of Temporal Flummoxer in a 60 card deck:
0.399499626 chance to draw at least 1 copy in 7 cards
0.063219416 chance to draw at least 2 copies in 7 cards
0.00387585 chance to draw at least 3 copies in 7 cards
0.000071775 chance to draw at least 4 copies in 7 cards
Second, consider that because the extra turn occurs very early in the game, the consequence of this extra turn doesn't have as much impact as a turn taken later in the game. In effect, if you are lucky enough to get this on turn 1, this card will usually function similarly to Explore or Growth Spiral.
Third, this card is lousy unless you know your opponent is playing first. Thus, it mandates sideboard space.
So in retrospect, perhaps this card isn't strong enough. This is despite the gut instinct that ANY card that grants an extra turn is overpowered.
Artifact - 0 mana
Flash
At the beginning of your draw step, sacrifice Temporal Flummoxer. If you do, draw a card. Then, if this was your first turn of the game, take another turn after this one.
Anyway, the rule set is as follows:
1. Any time a player has priority, they may exile two land cards from their hand to draw a card.
2. Each colored mana symbol in a mana cost can be paid with either one mana of that color, or by paying 2 generic mana.
Rule #1: Reduces the likelihood of mana-flood and mana-screw. Obviously, losing two cards to draw one card is unpleasant, but at least it's better than being stuck with nothing but lands and consequentially no spells to cast. It also slightly reduces the likelihood of mana-screw, because you will probably want to include a few more lands in your deck, knowing that mana-flood won't necessarily dictate defeat to the same extent as in plain MtG. Also, because you exile lands rather than discard them, I can't think of decks that can profoundly abuse this rule.
Rule #2: Reduces the likelihood of color-screw. It also opens up your drafting options a little bit, making it more appealing to draft a 3-color deck. This makes you decisions while drafting packs #2-3 less restrictive, which also allows you more opportunity to draft more skillfully (or more ineptly) than the other players at the table.
Nekrataal Revenant
Creature - Spirit Assassin 2/1
You may cast Nekrataal Revenant from your graveyard.
First strike
When Nekrataal Revenant enters the battlefield, exile target planeswalker or god.
Your understanding of how Deckbuilder Percentile affects the final standings is correct.
But take a look at the linked Excel workbook in the section "Deckbuilder Prizes in Practice", and click on the "Standings" tab. It shows that you can build a deck with Deckbuilder Percentile >85% without having to resort to using bad cards. However, in a tournament in which practically everyone deliberately avoids playing a popular netdecks, I predict the Deckbuilder Percentiles would become less spread out - perhaps between a range of 60%-95%.
Remember that Deckbuilder Percentile is based on online data, so it's easy to look online, see what the most popular decks and cards are, and deliberately void playing them. Also, presuming the Card Dominances are formally updated every Monday, you would be able to see exactly what your deck's Deckbuilder Percentile would be before the tournament.
At this date, it would also be certain that the Deckbuilder Percentile of the Mono-Blue Aggro would be lower, since last weekend this deck archetype saw lots of play, probably because it has a good matchup against the previous weekend's most popular deck, Sultai Aggro.
(This is a shorter version of an article I wrote. If you want to see the full version, it's at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CJqwASf-be5rDlHi2FTgmGH9uN3a9hPG/view).
I propose a new subtype of constructed tournaments called Deckbuilder Tournaments, which would be unique in their method of prize distribution. These tournaments would be an incentive to get more players to plunge back into old-fashioned creative deck design. The scoring system for Deckbuilder Tournaments would be automated and therefore impartial and unbiased. Although I can’t realistically propose an automated system that can measure with pinpoint accuracy such nebulous things as creativity and ingenuity, I think this system would strongly encourage players to explore cards and strategies that have been neglected. And it would certainly increase the variety of decks you would play against.
Now I shall describe my initial proposal for how the Deckbuilder Prize system would operate.
DECKBUILDER PRIZE METHODOLOGY
1. Prize support in constructed events called Deckbuilder Tournaments is awarded based on Deckbuilder Points, not match points.
2. Players register their deck lists for Deckbuilder Tournaments electronically. A new computer program and phone app would be necessary for this.
3. Each deck has a Deckbuilder Percentile. The Deckbuilder Percentile is dependent upon the mean (average) popularity of the individual cards within the main deck (sideboard cards don’t affect Deckbuilder Percentile for now). It is desirable to have a high Deckbuilder Percentile because a high Deckbuilder Percentile indicates the inclusion of more unpopular cards in your deck. A Deckbuilder Percentile of 50% is the definition of average. The Deckbuilder Percentile of the oddest rogue decks will be close to 100%, and the Deckbuilder Percentile of the most popular netdecks will be close to 0%. That’s really all you need to know! But for those who are interested in math and statistics, search my full article linked at the start of this post for the area enclosed by a box.
4. At the end of the Swiss rounds, each player is ranked not by match points and tiebreakers, but by Deckbuilder Points. To determine the top Deckbuilders, use the following equation for each player:
Deckbuilder Points = Match Points + (Deckbuilder Percentile * Match Points)
The top Deckbuilders, as determined by this descending list of Deckbuilder Points, are awarded prizes at the end of the Swiss rounds. It is up to the tournament organizer to decide how much prize to allocate to the top 8 elimination rounds thereafter, if applicable.
I acknowledge that this protocol sounds complex. But with computer programming, the whole thing can easily be automated and implemented.
DECKBUILDER PRIZES IN PRACTICE
I have assembled an Excel workbook illustrating the ease by which Deckbuilder Percentiles and Deckbuilder Points can be calculated. You can preview, download, and tinker with this workbook at https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jt_VlymQk8wRZDkj_LXr0ImKb8zU2KWm
This Excel workbook takes 8 different Standard deck lists from the recent SCG Team Open Baltimore that occurred last weekend. I located these deck lists at https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=21065&f=ST. I also added two additional decks: my own current Standard deck, Duncan Hills Coffee, and a rogue deck called Mirror Match Wizards by SaffronOlive from https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-mirror-march-wizards-standard. On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 3:00pm Eastern time, I collected and calculated Standard card dominances from 92 Standard decks gathered at Mtgtop8.com over the past 2 weeks.
With these deck lists and a list of card dominances, I set up a hypothetical 10-player tournament in which each player achieved a final record of 3-3-1 (which is 10 match points). You can see below that decks with higher Deckbuilder Percentile ended up with more Deckbuilder Points in this hypothetical tournament.
This final list of standings, sorted by Deckbuilder Points, indicates that my method for calculating Deckbuilder Percentile might need modification. My Duncan Hills Coffee deck is a simple, linear deck that nevertheless has the highest Deckbuilder Percentile because it uses lots of cards that other people don’t use. Andrew Hung’s stereotypical Mono-Blue Aggro deck has a high Deckbuilder Percentile for the same reason, despite being basically a netdeck. Such high Deckbuilder Percentiles are largely undeserved. Ideally, SaffronOlive’s deliberately rogue Mirror March Wizards deck should have the highest Deckbuilder Percentile. But on the other hand, the two most prevalent netdecks, Sultai Aggro and Esper Control, have the lowest Deckbuilder Percentiles, so at least that is proper.
Although this system doesn’t appear to necessarily reward creativity all the time, I do predict it would be highly effective for promoting more deck diversity in the Standard metagame. And that might be even more important than awarding creativity, because it gets very dull to play against the same deck archetype for multiple rounds in a single tournament. It should be noted that these Deckbuilder Percentiles were derived from online data that encompassed only 92 decks, which might not be enough. It should also be noted that 9 out of the 10 decks (mine included) that I put on the spreadsheet are designed with the sole purpose of winning matches, with no impetus placed upon being weird or unique. In an actual Deckbuilder Tournament in which players are indeed trying to bring weird, unique decks, I have no idea what would happen with the numbers. Sometimes you just need to put things to the test to see if they work as intended, and I indeed think this system is ready for a few trial runs.
Now allow me to get grandiose and imagine that Deckbuilder tournaments become popular. A problem looms: Suppose a major Deckbuilder tournament is completed, and a bunch of new rogue deck lists are posted online. It will be necessary to have a method of disincentivizing players from simply copying these new rogue decks and playing them in future Deckbuilder tournaments. To address this, every Monday two separate official lists of Card Dominances for both plain Standard and Deckbuilder Standard would be posted. Until the following Monday, whenever a player registers a deck list for a Deckbuilder tournament, each card in their deck list uses whichever Card Dominance is higher (which could be either that card’s Dominance in the plain Standard list or in Deckbuilder Standard list). I think that these regularly updated lists would promote consistent creativity and deck diversity by always pushing players away from playing cards that are known to be popular.
CONCLUSION
I know that no proposal pleases everyone. Would my proposal please more people than it would displease? And would it increase attendance at tournaments and the audience for tournament coverage? Although I identify as a hybrid “Johnny/Spike”, I must endeavor to perceive this proposal from the perspectives of the other player stereotypes. These player stereotypes are described in the article TIMMY, JOHNNY, AND SPIKE at https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03
I suspect that players belonging to the “Spike” player stereotype (those who want to win by any means necessary) would not participate in Deckbuilder Tournaments. Indeed, the absolute worst sort of Spikes have contempt for rogue decks and the people who play them. By contrast, I suspect that “Johnny” players (those who like to win but are more interested in the crazy and creative opportunities deckbuilding provides) would love this proposal. “Timmys” (those who enjoy epic, profound creatures and effects) would probably like Deckbuilder Tournaments as well. As for the audience, I am very confident that Deckbuilder tournaments would increase the amount of people who view streaming tournament coverage.
In conclusion, Magic has several aspects behind its appeal. It has a competitive aspect, a creative aspect, a fantasy aspect, and a collectible aspect. I predict that if the creative aspect were emphasized with Deckbuilder Prizes, then there would be a flourishing of innovative new decks which would bring both higher attendance at constructed tournaments and a greater audience for event coverage.
Grandeur?! That's actually a really smart idea, I reckon. It would work great for constructed formats, although it would be sadly irrelevant for limited.
Because cycling for zero mana would profoundly empower the cards Hollow One, Life from the Loam, and Knight of the Reliquary, and it would also further empower the delve mechanic.
Does rarity dictate how good a desirable a card should be? By the criteria set forth in an old article https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/rare-well-done-2002-02-25-0, I think these cards are fine at common, especially so because they aren't (7) Disruptive to Limited, and another principle is (10)Spread Good Cards Among All Rarities. I do acknowledge that rare cards in recent years tend to be better than common cards on average, probably for the sake of selling more boosters. But I am unaware of anyone in R&D formally stating that rares must be better than commons.
I don't know if that's true. A deck with only 1 basic land and 4 ethereal lands probably wouldn't draw that single basic land often enough to capitalize on the ethereal "cycling" ability. I don't think I would run a full set of 4x an ethereal land unless I had at least 3-4x of the corresponding basic land.
As for violating the better-than-basic rule, that is something I evidently need to fix.
Oops, I forgot the old Astral Slide/Lightning Rift deck. But I could still argue that the Onslaught cycling lands weren't great as standalone cards, but rather only great within the context of a deck that capitalizes on the cycling mechanic. And what I am intending to do is create lands that are indeed great for practically all Standard and Limited decks, irrespective of the deck's context.
As for being strictly better than a basic land, after reading that referenced Making Magic article, I completely acknowledge that I have sinned. I shall add a drawback to these lands, so that they aren't strictly better than basic lands... just usually better.
Cycling lands from Urza's Saga weren't very good. Cycling lands from Onslaught were slightly better, but still not good enough to see much use outside of limited. The same was true for cycling deserts from Amonkhet - they were mediocre, but useful for limited. This is a disappointment in my opinion, because the concept of cycling lands could really go a long way towards mitigating something nearly everyone finds annoying in Magic: mana-screw and mana-flood.
Here I propose upgraded versions of cycling lands. My intent is to make these cards so profoundly good that they will be as popular in Standard as whatever cycles of rare dual lands are available at the time (the currently available rare dual lands are "check lands" and "shock lands"). Rare dual lands have historically been so terrific that it has always been generally correct to include full sets of them in two-color decks, and to include 15+ of them in 3+ color decks. Yet practically nobody complains that such dual lands are overpowered, probably because playing a land as an obligate mana source never feels unfair (unless it's an absurd card like Gaea's Cradle or Tolarian Academy, etc.) But whereas dual lands are profoundly helpful at preventing color-screw, these cycling lands profoundly help prevent mana-screw and mana-flood. They also incidentally protect a little against color-screw.
Ethereal Field
Land (common)
As Ethereal Field enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add W.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Plains.
Ethereal Isle
Land (common)
As Ethereal Isle enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add U.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Island.
Ethereal Marsh
Land (common)
As Ethereal Marsh enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add B.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Swamp.
Ethereal Peak
As Ethereal Peak enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
Land (common)
T: Add R.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Mountain.
Ethereal Woods
Land (common)
As Ethereal Woods enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add G.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic Forest.
Ethereal Desert
Land - Desert (common)
As Ethereal Desert enters the battlefield, you lose 1 life.
T: Add 1.
Exile this card from your hand: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if you control a basic land.
These cards are obviously amazing. But they don't feel amazing/devastating in the same way that format-defining spells like Teferi, History of Benalia, Arclight Phoenix, or Experimental Frenzy do. And how it feels to play with/against cards is profoundly important, because, as a game, the primary goal of MtG is to be entertaining and enjoyable.
You will definitely want to include Ethereal Marshes in any Standard or limited deck containing basic Swamps, just as you would want to include (for example) Watery Grave in any Standard or Limited deck that casts black and blue spells. The exact number of ethereal lands you would want to include in a Standard deck entails finding the right balance between basic land counts and ethereal land counts. The presence of ethereal lands adds an additional layer of complexity to figuring out the optimal land configuration for your deck.
I'm guessing that a generic Blue-Black Standard two-color decks would start by trying something like: 4 Drowned Catacombs, 4 Watery Graves, 4 Ethereal Marshes, 4 Ethereal Isles, 2 Ethereal Deserts, 6 Swamps, and 6 Islands. Note that this is 30 lands, which is more than the default of 24. The presence of ethereal lands encourages you to play more lands because you can avert mana-flood by "cycling" ethereal lands. And since you are playing more lands, you are also protected against mana-screw.
Furthermore, since ethereal lands essentially "thin" your deck, your sideboard cards become a bit more accessible, which I regard as an additional benefit.
Ethereal lands are at common rarity because limited formats desperately need more mana consistency. It would also be nice to have these cards available in Pauper.
Why did I choose for ethereal lands to exile themselves rather than cycle like their counterparts in Urza's Saga, Onslaught, and Amonkhet? Because cycling for zero mana would profoundly empower the cards Hollow One, Life from the Loam, and Knight of the Reliquary, and it would also further empower the delve mechanic. There might still be ways in which these cards disproportionately empower specific deck archetypes, but my primary concern is improving mana consistency in Limited and Standard.
If such cards were in booster packs, I wonder how highly they would be picked in draft by expert players? I'm guessing they would be a typical 5th or 6th pick, at least in packs #2-3 when you have decided on which colors you are drafting.
I'm curious if folks this is appropriate, both with regards to the character Kung Fury and with regards to game balance?
Kung Fury
Legendary Creature - Human Cop 7/2
Triple strike (This creature deals first-strike, regular, and last-strike combat damage.)
T: Kung Fury deals 2 damage to any target.
When Kung Fury dies, you may yell, “You’re breaking the law!” If you do, return Kung Fury to the battlefield tapped.
I don't think it's worth using Baseball to "topdeck" lands in the late game when your library is thin is worth eventually being able to work off a stacked deck, but I could be wrong. Another alternative is to allow each player just 3 "at-bats" with Baseball per game.
I agree fully with your assessment of Burn archetype abusing this a little more than other archetypes. Other decks benefit as well, but straight Burn-your-face-with-LavaSpike, Rift Bolt, Lightning Bolt, etc. might get a little too much of a boost.
Banning Brainstorm would probably destroy cause rioting. Ick. But I like your suggested list, but think Wasteland would be fine to get with Baseball. But again, Legacy wasn't what I really was considering much when writing this rule.
This rule makes it easier to get your early land drops with Baseball. And if makes it harder to mana flood because you can now include fewer lands in your deck without having such a high probability of being mana-screwed early. It is still possible to get screwed/flooded, but the frequency of either is significantly reduced with this house rule.
I just think fetchlands are too good, and they power up strategies like delve, landfall, and revolt. They are so good that they are sometimes warranted in mono-colored decks.
Burn can certainly drop to 15 lands. Even with 15 lands, if the Burn player plays first and uses Baseball on turns #2 and #3, they will have accessed on average 2.92 lands by turn 3, but in doing so they will miss out on an average of 0.83 cards by doing so (if my calculations are correct). But playing a low land count is something all aggressive decks can attempt, not just Burn. Even non-aggressive decks will play a lower land count than they would normally. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is certainly different.
I agree that the Baseball rule doesn't benefit Tron like it does other Modern decks. But I don't think Tron becomes unplayable. With the Tron deck made weaker, fewer people will use Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, and Damping Sphere. So it will balance out.
Regarding Legacy/Vintage, I wrote previously, "Since I lack experience in such formats, I have no list of ineligible lands to propose. I also think players who play in these tournaments are generally too hardcore to be interested in house rules, anyway." But I'm sure a Vintage/Legacy list of ineligible lands would include lands that produce more than one mana, which would hurt decks using cards like Cloudpost, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Mishra's Workshop, Gaea's Cradle.
Any house rule will warp an established metagame. With the Baseball rule this is profoundly more true for Legacy/Vintage than Standard or Draft. But some of the fun of house rules is figuring out how to exploit them. If you think Burn is disproportionately powered-up, then play Burn or a deck that beats Burn.
Also remember that no additional cards are banned. But a few land cards are prohibited from being "found" with Baseball.