If Dig Through Time and Birthing Pod are considered too powerful for Modern then Collected Company will be banned too. We can't have that 3 drop Siege Rhino from BfZ taking over the format.
^^^ Serious or not, I unfortunately agree. CC is enabling tons of decks, it's fun to play, and you start hearing things like "The finals of the Magic Online Championship was Collected Elves vs Abzan Company" and "When I cast that card, I have never lost yet" (this has been my experience so far also, though also in a very limited number of matches). As an ex-Pod player, the card is just too good to be true. Decks and combos will become too consistent, provide too much value, and they'll nuke it. I don't want them to, but even this early it feels inevitable. Seems like it groups right in with BBE, GSZ, Pod, DRS, DTT in terms of being a tier above cards that are allowed to stay in the format. Play it while you can.
(Sorry mods, not wanting to start ban talk outside of the official thread, but on the topic of what CC's future is... that's what I think it is.)
For me it is not about comparing it to EDH or Legacy (something I am utterly unqualified to do), rather it does not fit into the MTG niches I am looking for. I like Modern for a medium to high competitive level, and Standard (I actually play this very rarely) for it's rotation. Beyond that I want a format that gives me an opportunity to play cards that don't fit in other formats, and one where the games vary a lot from on to the next. EDH scratches that itch like no other, and that is why it is the only real casual format I care about. Tiny Leaders just does not satisfy a need I have. EDH decks can be pretty darn consistent with tutors and early combo wins if you build it that way, but with the few people I play with it is generally like playing a new deck for each game.
I think that's pretty fair. The main reason I've latched onto TL but never to Duel Commander is that building, sleeving, and maintaining 100-card decks is just overbearing for me. I find them annoyingly awkward to shuffle (especially double-sleeved) and while I love intricate deckbuilding, for Commander decks I practically have to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the card choices. TL gives me the elements of Commander I like without actually having to build Commander decks. Would be nice to have more general options though. I almost wish the color identity restriction in TL/EDH wasn't a thing.
TL has become my favorite format so it irks me when people who either don't play the format at all or have "played a game with a friends deck" jump to conclusions.
TL is a game that resembles a lot of things on the surface but in truth is extremely deep and unique in magic.
Once you play TL for a while you will find a lot of space that you never considered before because you didn't have to.
I have found TL to be more SB dependent than any other format adding a great layer of strategy.
I have also found TL to have an extremely fluid meta.
the combination of smaller deck size and singleton makes the format more diverse than traditional 60/4 deck rules but it also makes those obscure single card answers to a strategy extremely relevant.
but of course to each their own. I think that to enjoy TL you have to be primarily a lover of deck building and not mind building and tweaking constantly. If you are the kind of person who wants to just perfect the game to game play and skill of a specific archetype you will likley want to just net deck a legacy deck and go from there. this takes a great amount of skill and I dont look down on that. but you likley will not enjoy the dynamics of TL.
Same for an EDH player who enjoys deck crafting but wants an environment where they can make a few wonkey decisions that wont punish them. nothing wrong with that but TL is a bit too efficient for that kind of play.
Couldn't agree more. Bums me out a little to see the poll numbers gradually drifting toward the format's disfavor, though also feels like the most vocal dissenters are Commander players, which I can understand.
Played a couple games with my buddy tonight, me running Skullbriar and him running Geist, and I just marveled at how intricate the gameplay was. Geist is tough to play against (considered one of the top 1-2 generals in the format) but BG has a lot of strong tools to combat it. I built up a board of Courser of Kruphix, Sylvan Library, Dark Confidant (talk about confusing upkeep/draw steps) and a handful of various creatures (Lotleth Troll, Vampire Nighthawk, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodstained Champion, Treetop Village...) while he was working on Voltron-ing Geist and Eidolon of Countless Battles and stalling with Maze of Ith.
That's what separates TL from Legacy for me... you see such a wider variety of cards which lead to so many interesting interactions. The card pool for TL may technically be smaller, but the pool of viable cards is SO much larger. Legacy is great, but TL is more than just its kid brother.
I was surprised to see no Spell Pierce or Inquisition of Kozilek in the set. I figured we'd get at least one....
Watch Inquisition go crazy if not reprinted in BFZ. The name really limits the reprint opportunities in booster sets.
Still hoping we'll see a couple cards that didn't make the cut in Origins. I could see IoK, Auriok Champion, or Goblin Guide, though GG may be a stretch.
It feels poorly cobbled together and that some cards that "warp" the format by the converted mana cost restriction being a 100% upside should be banned. Inquistion of Kozilek is a much better thoughtseize, and Smother kills everything without Protection from Black. Also, Black Sun's Zenith is really good in a format that has 43 cards left in your deck when you get your opening hand.
I'm just not a fan of the format. I told myself I would give it time to see if they actually banned anything, but with no banned list updates, this looks like it's dead in the water as far as competitiveness goes. I see a lot of sameness out there, which is surprising since you would think with sideboards you would try some wackier stuff. :/
They stated on their Facebook page in April that ban list updates will be synchronized with Wizards' official ban list announcements going forward, so that should happen starting with Origins.
I would agree that some bannings may be needed to handle things that are too degenerate, though I wouldn't agree with banning cards like Smother or Inquisition of Kozilek just because their CMC restrictions are non-factors in the format. There's a difference between a card being elevated due to the parameters of a format vs. warping the format. An example of the latter would be Karakas in TL or EDH.
Never played the format yet I dislike it. Someone told me it's a slightly cheaper way to play Legacy, but I watched a game all it was was power cards with no synergy, and the same cards again and again. I decided if that was the case, I'd stick to Legacy, where a blue deck does not always have Jace in it...
I will say that it's a potential starting point for players interested in Legacy, given that the smaller deck size + singleton nature translates to lower cost of entry...
But beyond that, TL gets me to a place I can't easily get to with Legacy in terms of brewing. Legacy is such a mature and established format, "innovation" typically involves little more than playing with a couple flex spots in an established list. You also have to constantly be wary of all the busted and unfair stuff, leaning on FoW in blue, and so on. I love Legacy, but it has its shortcomings.
(Not that unfair-ish stuff can't happen in TL, but it's not nearly on the same level, or with the same degree of prevalance/consistency.)
The options to brew and personalize I think are the biggest things TL draws from Commander (well, aside from the commander rule itself), and I find them to be a real positive. Even though I don't much enjoy actual Commander, I love those elements of the format.
Again, I totally get why Commander players aren't into TL. It appeals to a mostly different set of "needs" as a Magic player. But I also feel like there's a lot of instant dismissal of the format, statements like "Just play Legacy," or "Not varied enough," or "Format already solved." I really don't get any of that.
The difference is whether or not you have adequate tools available. Choosing not to run certain answers is one thing, and the onus for not dealing with the strategy is on the player, but when the answers simply aren't there (or there are very few of them, making it more difficult than it has to be to answer certain strategies), it's another thing entirely.
I've found the available tools to be pretty adequate. There are a couple cards I lean on a bit, but I haven't yet run into a situation I feel consistently powerless against. Aside from playing overall good cards, I'm not running anything to trump specific generals/strategies.
It's not perfect, but I think the tools are there, especially for a young format/concept. Where I think it's most lacking is in the commander options, specifically in some color combinations like U/B (Sygg, River Cutthroat is the only option) and BUG (no available commander options). Hopefully those will improve in time.
fifty card decks just don't give that many unique play experiences
This is pretty much it. A 50-card deck means you can build yourself a deck with a very high level of consistency, and the mana cost restriction means there are a lot of strategies without effective or numerous answers (sweepers, for instance, being relatively few in number). It just makes me wonder why I wouldn't just play Modern or Legacy instead for a richer, more varied experience.
For me, it's like Legacy-lite. It's a high-powered and efficient format where I can play a lot of the Legacy stuff not legal in Modern, but without all the unfair decks like Dredge, Show and Tell, Reanimator, and most combo. I also find that 50-card singleton yields a more varied play experience than 60-card formats that allow playsets. In any TL deck, you're going to have 30+ different nonland cards, and the general is what provides consistency. In the matches I've played, the relevance/importance of the commander varies from game to game.
But this comes back to the expectations thing. If you're expecting Commander levels of variety, you don't get that. But in a format designed to be cutthroat and efficient, I don't think you really want it. I feel like TL hits a nice middle ground.
It's a fun format-my LGS has a league setup for it- but it doesn't take long for it to quickly become much more competitive than most Commander groups (even groups that have spikey players). The decks are fast and vicious, and the legal strategies employed are outright merciless. I find it to be more of a cutthroat format than just about anything else, and for some, that's a very attractive feature. However, I think it also tends to drive away players who are looking to it as an alternative to commander, so if there's anything keeping its growth checked, I suspect it would be misplaced expectations.
Yeah, that's a big reason I wanted to make this thread. I feel like the format is often misclassified, and therefore hits the wrong audience with the wrong set of expectations.
I'd like to kindly ask the mods to keep this thread in Magic General. Pretty much all TL talk currently happens either in the Commander forum or in various Commander threads (such as the Commander Huge Gainers thread in MSC), and I think that makes it hard to get a pulse on the MTGS community's feelings at large about the format.
I've said this before in various threads, but it's worth saying again here: TL doesn't play much like a Commander variant. I don't have a ton of experience with duel Commander specifically, so I suppose it's more similar to that, but as a long-time Legacy/Modern player and someone who greatly enjoys competitive, efficient, and toolbox-y decks, TL scratches an itch for me that's a lot more Legacy-lite without the Sneak Shows and Reanimators than anything resembling Commander. (That's my full disclosure statement.)
I feel like the TL talk in the Commander areas gets a good degree of bias. It feels like many Commander players see TL as a bastardization of (or just a pointless set of restrictions on) the format they love, or a threat to their local Commander scene. When viewed through the lens of Commander enthusiasts only, I can understand the distaste.
But the Commander rule and singleton nature (i.e., the main reasons TL gets filed into Commander) are only part of the TL picture, just as the Commander crowd is only a fraction of the audience that TL may (or may not) appeal to. I think it's unfortunate that TL get classified pretty strictly as a Commander variant, as I suspect most people that really play TL would agree that it's more a hybrid that's as close to Legacy as it is to EDH.
[/background]
So with all that background, what I'm trying to get is a sense for how prevalent TL is in your area, how the general MTGS population likes/dislikes the format, and what its current growth trend seems to be.
If you look at reddit metrics (http://redditmetrics.com/r/TinyLeaders), the TL subreddit spiked big earlier this year around the time the TL Facebook page took off, and has since leveled off over the past couple months. I've heard some people anecdotally say "flash in the pan," but I don't have enough data (even enough anecdotal data) to confirm or deny that.
For me, I really enjoy the format. I think it can happily coexist with Commander, Legacy, and others, and hope people take an interest and keep playing it. I'm not big on wanting to see Wizards take it over (and don't think it's anywhere near popular enough for that yet, anyway), but would be cool to see the yearly Commander products acknowledge TL by printing additional, 3-cost generals in the color combinations that are lacking.
I hate to go all "TINY LEADERS!!" on people, but... TINY LEADERS!!
Skullbriar isn't anywhere near the level of Animar / Teysa / Sydri as a Tiny Leaders commander, but these rule changes certainly make it more viable. And its price isn't exactly dropping. I can at least see this causing a minor uptick.
TL has stated that it will not be adopting the EDH tuck rule change. Definitely think the price increase is still largely TL, as Skullbriar is very viable and now a few years old so becoming more scarce. The rest is likely hype for regular EDH due to the rules change.
I feel like Tiny Leaders *should* be the explanation based on the card and the timing of the jump, but I don't really feel like Rings is all that great in the format. Maybe just the age of Lorwyn block and EDH demand catching up.
ok Promo Geist buy or sale for $37 shipped will this hold current price or is the bubble working on popping?
For me I don't think Tiny Leaders will take off and Geist will get dumped.
2 people tried and failed to spark the format at my LGS. 50 card spike format where you play all the legacy relevant 3 drops? Yeah right that's going to be a big hit.
I've heard anecdotal stuff like this both ways. In some areas, the interest sounds to be pretty big and legit. I personally think it's a great alternative to Legacy. If TL does stick, Geist for sure will keep going up. So it's a matter of what you believe with regards to the format.
Keep in mind too that selling on eBay comes at a cost. A copy sold at $140 probably equates to ~$120 going to the seller. I think a fair way to do it is, figure out how much you'd have to pay to buy on eBay, figure out what your friend would net from selling on eBay, and take the midpoint of that. Everybody wins.
^^^ Serious or not, I unfortunately agree. CC is enabling tons of decks, it's fun to play, and you start hearing things like "The finals of the Magic Online Championship was Collected Elves vs Abzan Company" and "When I cast that card, I have never lost yet" (this has been my experience so far also, though also in a very limited number of matches). As an ex-Pod player, the card is just too good to be true. Decks and combos will become too consistent, provide too much value, and they'll nuke it. I don't want them to, but even this early it feels inevitable. Seems like it groups right in with BBE, GSZ, Pod, DRS, DTT in terms of being a tier above cards that are allowed to stay in the format. Play it while you can.
(Sorry mods, not wanting to start ban talk outside of the official thread, but on the topic of what CC's future is... that's what I think it is.)
I think that's pretty fair. The main reason I've latched onto TL but never to Duel Commander is that building, sleeving, and maintaining 100-card decks is just overbearing for me. I find them annoyingly awkward to shuffle (especially double-sleeved) and while I love intricate deckbuilding, for Commander decks I practically have to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the card choices. TL gives me the elements of Commander I like without actually having to build Commander decks. Would be nice to have more general options though. I almost wish the color identity restriction in TL/EDH wasn't a thing.
Couldn't agree more. Bums me out a little to see the poll numbers gradually drifting toward the format's disfavor, though also feels like the most vocal dissenters are Commander players, which I can understand.
Played a couple games with my buddy tonight, me running Skullbriar and him running Geist, and I just marveled at how intricate the gameplay was. Geist is tough to play against (considered one of the top 1-2 generals in the format) but BG has a lot of strong tools to combat it. I built up a board of Courser of Kruphix, Sylvan Library, Dark Confidant (talk about confusing upkeep/draw steps) and a handful of various creatures (Lotleth Troll, Vampire Nighthawk, Deathrite Shaman, Bloodstained Champion, Treetop Village...) while he was working on Voltron-ing Geist and Eidolon of Countless Battles and stalling with Maze of Ith.
That's what separates TL from Legacy for me... you see such a wider variety of cards which lead to so many interesting interactions. The card pool for TL may technically be smaller, but the pool of viable cards is SO much larger. Legacy is great, but TL is more than just its kid brother.
Still hoping we'll see a couple cards that didn't make the cut in Origins. I could see IoK, Auriok Champion, or Goblin Guide, though GG may be a stretch.
They stated on their Facebook page in April that ban list updates will be synchronized with Wizards' official ban list announcements going forward, so that should happen starting with Origins.
I would agree that some bannings may be needed to handle things that are too degenerate, though I wouldn't agree with banning cards like Smother or Inquisition of Kozilek just because their CMC restrictions are non-factors in the format. There's a difference between a card being elevated due to the parameters of a format vs. warping the format. An example of the latter would be Karakas in TL or EDH.
I will say that it's a potential starting point for players interested in Legacy, given that the smaller deck size + singleton nature translates to lower cost of entry...
But beyond that, TL gets me to a place I can't easily get to with Legacy in terms of brewing. Legacy is such a mature and established format, "innovation" typically involves little more than playing with a couple flex spots in an established list. You also have to constantly be wary of all the busted and unfair stuff, leaning on FoW in blue, and so on. I love Legacy, but it has its shortcomings.
(Not that unfair-ish stuff can't happen in TL, but it's not nearly on the same level, or with the same degree of prevalance/consistency.)
In TL, even if I take a very solid shell like B/G, I have maybe 8-10 "must include" cards for the shell (stuff like Inquisition of Kozilek, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman...) and then maybe a few "must include" cards based on my general (Rancor with Skullbriar, the Walking Grave...), but beyond that, everything else is flex. I can include pet cards here and there and still be competitive. I can play around with a variety of sub-strategies. Maybe I want to run a Varolz, the Scar-Striped package (or as an alternate general) with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Death's Shadow, maybe I want to do Dark Depths + Thespian's Stage and Vampire Hexmage, or run some Life From the Loam with Bloodghast, Gravecrawler and Cabal Therapy... you have lots of options to brew/personalize, while still being competitive and having some of the Legacy feel.
I dunno, for me, the format is all about synergy.
The options to brew and personalize I think are the biggest things TL draws from Commander (well, aside from the commander rule itself), and I find them to be a real positive. Even though I don't much enjoy actual Commander, I love those elements of the format.
Again, I totally get why Commander players aren't into TL. It appeals to a mostly different set of "needs" as a Magic player. But I also feel like there's a lot of instant dismissal of the format, statements like "Just play Legacy," or "Not varied enough," or "Format already solved." I really don't get any of that.
I've found the available tools to be pretty adequate. There are a couple cards I lean on a bit, but I haven't yet run into a situation I feel consistently powerless against. Aside from playing overall good cards, I'm not running anything to trump specific generals/strategies.
It's not perfect, but I think the tools are there, especially for a young format/concept. Where I think it's most lacking is in the commander options, specifically in some color combinations like U/B (Sygg, River Cutthroat is the only option) and BUG (no available commander options). Hopefully those will improve in time.
For me, it's like Legacy-lite. It's a high-powered and efficient format where I can play a lot of the Legacy stuff not legal in Modern, but without all the unfair decks like Dredge, Show and Tell, Reanimator, and most combo. I also find that 50-card singleton yields a more varied play experience than 60-card formats that allow playsets. In any TL deck, you're going to have 30+ different nonland cards, and the general is what provides consistency. In the matches I've played, the relevance/importance of the commander varies from game to game.
But this comes back to the expectations thing. If you're expecting Commander levels of variety, you don't get that. But in a format designed to be cutthroat and efficient, I don't think you really want it. I feel like TL hits a nice middle ground.
The three decks I'm running right now are Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, and they all play somewhat similar to Legacy D+T, Eva Green, and Goblins... but you definitely do need to construct solid builds and include cards that can help with problem strategies: Council's Judgment, Nevermore, Toxic Deluge, Pernicious Deed, and Sudden Demise have been pretty huge for me so far. A close buddy runs Geist of Saint Traft, and he can get out of control quickly if you don't have ways to deal. But that kind of stuff happens in all formats.
Yeah, that's a big reason I wanted to make this thread. I feel like the format is often misclassified, and therefore hits the wrong audience with the wrong set of expectations.
I'd like to kindly ask the mods to keep this thread in Magic General. Pretty much all TL talk currently happens either in the Commander forum or in various Commander threads (such as the Commander Huge Gainers thread in MSC), and I think that makes it hard to get a pulse on the MTGS community's feelings at large about the format.
(For anyone that's been living under a rock: http://tinyleaders.blogspot.com/)
I've said this before in various threads, but it's worth saying again here: TL doesn't play much like a Commander variant. I don't have a ton of experience with duel Commander specifically, so I suppose it's more similar to that, but as a long-time Legacy/Modern player and someone who greatly enjoys competitive, efficient, and toolbox-y decks, TL scratches an itch for me that's a lot more Legacy-lite without the Sneak Shows and Reanimators than anything resembling Commander. (That's my full disclosure statement.)
I feel like the TL talk in the Commander areas gets a good degree of bias. It feels like many Commander players see TL as a bastardization of (or just a pointless set of restrictions on) the format they love, or a threat to their local Commander scene. When viewed through the lens of Commander enthusiasts only, I can understand the distaste.
But the Commander rule and singleton nature (i.e., the main reasons TL gets filed into Commander) are only part of the TL picture, just as the Commander crowd is only a fraction of the audience that TL may (or may not) appeal to. I think it's unfortunate that TL get classified pretty strictly as a Commander variant, as I suspect most people that really play TL would agree that it's more a hybrid that's as close to Legacy as it is to EDH.
[/background]
So with all that background, what I'm trying to get is a sense for how prevalent TL is in your area, how the general MTGS population likes/dislikes the format, and what its current growth trend seems to be.
If you look at reddit metrics (http://redditmetrics.com/r/TinyLeaders), the TL subreddit spiked big earlier this year around the time the TL Facebook page took off, and has since leveled off over the past couple months. I've heard some people anecdotally say "flash in the pan," but I don't have enough data (even enough anecdotal data) to confirm or deny that.
For me, I really enjoy the format. I think it can happily coexist with Commander, Legacy, and others, and hope people take an interest and keep playing it. I'm not big on wanting to see Wizards take it over (and don't think it's anywhere near popular enough for that yet, anyway), but would be cool to see the yearly Commander products acknowledge TL by printing additional, 3-cost generals in the color combinations that are lacking.
TL has stated that it will not be adopting the EDH tuck rule change. Definitely think the price increase is still largely TL, as Skullbriar is very viable and now a few years old so becoming more scarce. The rest is likely hype for regular EDH due to the rules change.
I've heard anecdotal stuff like this both ways. In some areas, the interest sounds to be pretty big and legit. I personally think it's a great alternative to Legacy. If TL does stick, Geist for sure will keep going up. So it's a matter of what you believe with regards to the format.