Magic Online: The QT3 Limited League [Archive]

mouselock

06-30-2009, 09:36 PM

Alright, we're looking to start up a limited cardpool league so some of us ex-junkies can play without getting sucked in totally again and so some of the magic newbies can play without feeling completely overwhelmed and overspent.

We're looking at running a Shards of Alara/Conflux/Alara Reborn league. The initial cardpool will be 2 each of Shards of Alara, Conflux, and Alara Reborn boosters (6 boosters total). We're planning on running with the following format:

Rules clarified/revised 7/15/09

There will be a league master account named LeagueMaster_QT3L who will be responsible for distributing any needed additional lands, collecting cards into the common pool (unless we don't pool), handle card flux from the common pool, and facilitate trading league cards to other accounts if necessary at the end of the league.

1) Players will need to create a new account named as follows:

Username_QT3L

League signups will end on Thursday, July 16 at midnight GMT.

Official games begin Friday, July 17 at 12:00pm GMT.

2) All players should join the QT3 Clan. This will provide player visibility for both league players and casual players (in case someone else in QT3 isn't in the league or is looking to play non-league games).

3) After creating an account, you should get your boosters. 2x Shards of Alara, 2x Conflux, and 2xAlara Reborn. Open your boosters and construct the best 60 card deck you can (including land). If you don't have the necessary basic land to play your deck, you can talk to the LeagueMaster_QT3 account, which is currently controlled by Extarbags.

Players will open their packs and construct a single deck of 60 cards (including lands) and a sideboard of 15 cards (Including lands if applicable). These will be your league play decks.

4) Players are asked to try to play 3 matches per week, and are encouraged to play as many as they like. However, people's schedules vary so if you're interested in the league and can't make as many matches, don't let that keep you from signing up. People are asked to report their match results under their original sign up posts. You may play anyone you like, but only games against other league members on their league account are counted for win ratios .

5) Deck evolution:

After a match, the losing player will choose a card from the excess of the winning player, and the winning player will chose a card from the excess of the losing player. Any card which is not part of your 60 card deck and your 15 card sideboard is considered excess, with the exception of basic land. If you have rares/mythic rares you don't wish to trade, then they should either be used in your 60 card main deck or your 15 card sideboard, even if they are unplayable.

6) Card influx:

Once every 2 weeks, league players will be allowed to buy a single booster pack from any of the three allowed expansions (Shards of Alara, Conflux, Alara Reborn) in the league. The purchase windows will be announced ahead of time, so that we can try to coordinate somewhat the card influx hitting the majority of players at the same time. If for any reason you are unable to purchase an allowed booster when the purchase window opens, you may always purchase it at a later time so long as the total boosters purchased never exceeds the maximum possible at that time. (i.e. If you're not sure you want to spend the money at the first purchase window, you play a week, and decide you do, you're allowed to go ahead and purchase your first booster a week after everyone else.)

7) Win tracking:

I will start an additional thread for win tracking. Sometime at the end of every weekend, please try to post a summary of your match records for the preceding week. At the minimum, I need to know how many matches you've played, how many you've won, how many lost, and who you played against. Feel free to give more detail for the amusement of the league as a whole. Please edit your original post in the win-tracking thread with each week's results for ease of data collection.

Reldan

06-30-2009, 09:42 PM

I'm going for Reldan_QT3L.

I seem to be having some sort of account issue right now though and can't log in.

mouselock

06-30-2009, 09:45 PM

Account name: Mouselock_QT3L

Card flux preference: 5a or 5b
Card purchase preference: 6b, Two Week Interval

Reldan, if you have preferences for rules 5 or 6, please indicate your preference.

Extar: You should be able to set up LeagueMaster_QT3L without a problem. If you can't or don't want to for any reason let me know and I'll do so.

If anyone has a preference for rule 5 or 6 that they don't wish to post publicly, please PM me and I will tally your vote but keep your choice confidential.

Vesper

06-30-2009, 09:53 PM

I haven't made my league account yet, but it'll be Vesper_QT3L.

Card flux: I'm not really wild about this idea as I like to use leagues as a way of building my collection. In the traditional MTGO Leagues, it was a way of essentially buying boosters to build my collection while simultaneously experiencing some asynchronous sealed deck play.

On the other hand, I do like the standard league practice of influx of new boosters periodically.

As far as getting in the clan: I'll try to be online most evenings this week so I can send out clan invites. Please send a message to Vesper6.

wigglestick

06-30-2009, 10:16 PM

Account: DMOORE_QT3L

Card flux: 5b

Card influx: I kind of prefer 6a to make sure we get new cards periodically coming into the league, but I am totally sympathetic to the idea that people might not want to commit to continually buying more boosters to keep playing in the league. I will go along with either choice here, and though I'd slightly prefer 6a, I will not be pushing for it.

Lokust

06-30-2009, 11:14 PM

Have not created account yet, but will soon.

Account: lokust_QT3L

Card flux: 5c

Card influx: 6b (2 week)

Also have a non league account of Lokust that I'll put in the clan and people are free to ask if I want to relog to play league games.

delirium

06-30-2009, 11:51 PM

I might be interested. I haven't seriously played Magic in probably 15 years, though, and that was fairly casual. I've never heard the words Shards of Alara/Conflux/Alara Reborn in my life. Will I be lost?

5b
6b - two weeks

What's a booster pack cost anyway?

Lokust

06-30-2009, 11:59 PM

$3.99 each, so you're looking at about $24 startup cost and about $4 (maybe) per influx, assuming that an influx is chosen.

Hanzii

07-01-2009, 01:08 AM

I still think I'll join and hope time differences won't be too much of a problem - if I end up holding the league up, then I'll drop out.

I would like to have one of you guys buy my boosters and give them to me in trade - I can paypal you the money - since MtGO are nice world citizens and adds 25% VAT to make my government happy and I allready think their prices for virtual goods are crazy.

As for the rules I'm for 5c and 6b (two weeks)

Lokust

07-01-2009, 03:21 AM

I saw the deadline for starting in the first post, but can players go ahead and start playing now? or should we hold off until everything is set up?

Wendelius

07-01-2009, 03:37 AM

Account name: Wendelius_QT3L
(regular account name: Wendelius. Will get both in the Clan)

Card flux preference: 5a or 5c
Card purchase preference: 6b, Two Week Interval

I'm UK time. Hope I can manage to get matches.

Ah the sweet feeling of unopened booster packs. Now I remember why I stopped playing the game after spending too much on it.

http://www.gasperazzo.net/images/mtgo/mtgoleague.jpg

Will open them later today and see if I have the making of a deck. *fingers crossed*

Wendelius

extarbags

07-01-2009, 04:24 AM

Ok, LeagueMaster_QT3L and extarbags_QT3L are open for business. I'll do whatever option for number five, but I prefer 6b with two week intervals.

Wader

07-01-2009, 05:30 AM

My account will be Agpolec_QT3L, and I will try to make it this evening when I get home from work.

Card Ante - While I like the ante idea, the problem with pulling from a sideboard is this: Given that unused cards are pooled, you are only going to keep useful cards to yourself in your sideboard. That means you are going to be taking a card from your opponent that may or may not be useful at all to you, but BOTH players are guaranteed to lose a card they considered at least marginally useful. That means that at least a percentage of the time, both the winner and the loser end up worse off after the ante.

For that reason, I am going to vote for everyone keeps their extra cards, and the ante is pulled from that. However, if the vote goes the other way, I wont have any problem playing that way.

In terms of card purchase, I like 6b, where you have the option to buy a new pack, but dont have to if you dont want to, or cant.

Kyrios

07-01-2009, 06:42 AM

Account name will be Kyrios_QT3L, will set it up tonight when I get home.

Prefer 5c and... either of the 6's as long as we have one of the two, so that the decks mature a little as time goes on. I would have no problem playing under any of the rule variants, really.

Wolff

07-01-2009, 07:13 AM

Wolff_QT3L now active buying boosters now.

I prefer the flux rule with taking one from a sideboard. At first I thought 60 cards was too big but it we have some form of incomming additional cards then that should be fine.

Also - Opening the vanguard pack gives you a ton of basic land

Also - Also - Previewing your cards is much easier in the deck editor tab then in the collection tab. Just set it from "all" to "standard" and you won't even see annoying vanguard cards.

mouselock

07-01-2009, 07:42 AM

I saw the deadline for starting in the first post, but can players go ahead and start playing now? or should we hold off until everything is set up?

Play as much as you want now. Don't need to report match results until after the deadline when things officially start. From now until the start of the league is the testing period effectively.

Also, all the votes for whichever rule variant will be tallied and decided on or around the 17th when the league officially starts. So if playing some test games changes your mind about which ones you think things should be, feel free to edit your responses.

Wendelius

07-01-2009, 07:52 AM

Also - Also - Previewing your cards is much easier in the deck editor tab then in the collection tab. Just set it from "all" to "standard" and you won't even see annoying vanguard cards.

Thanks for the tips, Wolff. Those 2 make deck building much easier. I was a bit lost previously.

Question: Can you generate playtests from a deck? I.e. can you generate random draws without an opponent to see what comes out in the first few turns?

Wendelius

wigglestick

07-01-2009, 08:53 AM

Thanks for the tips, Wolff. Those 2 make deck building much easier. I was a bit lost previously.

Question: Can you generate playtests from a deck? I.e. can you generate random draws without an opponent to see what comes out in the first few turns?

Wendelius

Go to start a new game, and you can choose to play games of solitaire, in which you're just casting spells on-- and using creatures to attack-- yourself. You basically see how few turns you can kill yourself in. I played one game like that last night, and plan to do a few more tonight if I can't find someone online to play with. It should aid the deck playtesting process quite a bit.

Skipper

07-01-2009, 09:18 AM

mouselock

07-01-2009, 09:26 AM

I'll join. Give me a bit this evening to make my account. I'm up for any of the rules for 5. As for rule 6 I would expect that it would be easier to wait until we play say, some sort of brackets, before needing 6. This would both keep cost down and prevent decks from getting too honed for the more casual folks to still have fun.

One question, you didn't finish the sentence on land. How do we get that?

Sorry. You shouldn't need it, each account gets 15 of each basic land to start with. However, if you do need it you can hit up the league master account and ask him for some of his basic land. If he grows low on land we have people willing to give him more.

(If you get good enough pulls that you need more basic land, it means effectively you're running a near-mono color deck. In that case you're going to be very unpopular to play against given the environment. ;) )

Skipper

07-01-2009, 09:50 AM

Okay that makes more sense on the land then. Perhaps I forgot that from my older account, or that's new.

Wendelius

07-01-2009, 11:47 AM

For those planning to register and make their deck today: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1210716

The system will be down from 8:00 am PDT / 1500 UTC to 1:00pm PDT / 2000 UTC

The system will go into ‘No Pay’ at 5:00 am PDT / 1200 UTC.
Store and trades will shut off at approximately 7:45 am PDT / 1445 UTC.
This downtime is expected to last approximately 5 hours.

Wendelius

Wader

07-01-2009, 02:49 PM

Ok,

Agpolec_QT3L is up and ready to go. Can we open the boosters and start working on the decks?

Kraaze

07-01-2009, 02:57 PM

Vesper

07-01-2009, 02:58 PM

Agpolec_QT3L is up and ready to go. Can we open the boosters and start working on the decks?
Is there any reason we can't start playing games right away? I guess the only thing holding it up is what to do on the "card flux" stuff, which seems to be up in the air.

mouselock

07-01-2009, 03:14 PM

Is there any reason we can't start playing games right away? I guess the only thing holding it up is what to do on the "card flux" stuff, which seems to be up in the air.

Again.. people can play right now, no games are "official" until after the 17th. So that means no card trading, no card flux, etc.. but by all means put together your decks and test them to see if they work. Keep all of your cards as your cards until the flux rules are in place. The thought of telling people not to play with their new, shiny, virtual cardboard is silly. It's just casual right now and doesn't count toward the standings is all.

mouselock

07-01-2009, 03:15 PM

Hmmm, I'd love to get into this but I'm going to spend the next week traveling for the holiday and then I'm going to be stuck in Eastern Europe for two weeks on business. I don't think I'll be able to participate :(

Bah.. and I specifically tried to extend stuff out to accomodate for you after your posts in the original thread. :(

If it goes over well I'm sure we'll run it again though.

Wader

07-01-2009, 03:17 PM

Bah.. and I specifically tried to extend stuff out to accomodate for you after your posts in the original thread. :(

If it goes over well I'm sure we'll run it again though.

If no games are "official" until after the 17th, then he should be fine, or am I miscounting?

mouselock

07-01-2009, 03:30 PM

If no games are "official" until after the 17th, then he should be fine, or am I miscounting?

Well he was worried in the other thread about not having time to test a deck, and if he's gone for the next three weeks he would basically need to sign up now and then be offline for 3 weeks and therefore not really have time to test a deck before he had to conform to whatever the card flux rules would be. As long as he's signed up in time, though, there's no reason he couldn't play. And if he'll be out of town until after whatever the card flux rules go into effect, I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to simply abide by those rules once he returns to town, but it would severely limit his time to test his proposed deck.

Wader

07-01-2009, 03:44 PM

Well he was worried in the other thread about not having time to test a deck, and if he's gone for the next three weeks he would basically need to sign up now and then be offline for 3 weeks and therefore not really have time to test a deck before he had to conform to whatever the card flux rules would be. As long as he's signed up in time, though, there's no reason he couldn't play. And if he'll be out of town until after whatever the card flux rules go into effect, I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to simply abide by those rules once he returns to town, but it would severely limit his time to test his proposed deck.

Deck testing is overrated!

Ok, thats kind of not true, but still...

Indierthanthou

07-01-2009, 03:47 PM

So after getting into the XBLA Magic, I decided I would try this.

I am on as Indierthanthou_QT3L.

In terms of rules, I am for 5C and 6B.

I will get my ass kicked (but it should be fun)

Kraaze

07-01-2009, 03:50 PM

Well he was worried in the other thread about not having time to test a deck, and if he's gone for the next three weeks he would basically need to sign up now and then be offline for 3 weeks and therefore not really have time to test a deck before he had to conform to whatever the card flux rules would be. As long as he's signed up in time, though, there's no reason he couldn't play. And if he'll be out of town until after whatever the card flux rules go into effect, I see no reason why he shouldn't be able to simply abide by those rules once he returns to town, but it would severely limit his time to test his proposed deck.

My thought as well. I'll come back and if there's time to squeeze me in at that point and I like the rules that everyone has voted up, I may still jump in late. Apologies for requesting special dispensation that it turns out I couldn't take advantage of. I just found out about the Eastern Europe thing today.

Ryan Markel

07-01-2009, 04:18 PM

I will be in on this but I'm having issues atm with getting my Windows installation up and running.

delirium

07-01-2009, 05:20 PM

I will be in on this but I'm having issues atm with getting my Windows installation up and running.

Same here. It keeps telling me that my version is not up to date and to run the Repair thing. Every time, the repair seems to update but I still get the error message. I've probably updated about 10 times now.

Also, I have a non-QT3 friend or two that may be interested in joining. Is it OK to ask them? If so, I figure I'll at least wait until closer to the start date to gauge Qt3's interest in case the league gets too big.

mouselock

07-01-2009, 05:48 PM

Same here. It keeps telling me that my version is not up to date and to run the Repair thing. Every time, the repair seems to update but I still get the error message. I've probably updated about 10 times now.

Also, I have a non-QT3 friend or two that may be interested in joining. Is it OK to ask them? If so, I figure I'll at least wait until closer to the start date to gauge Qt3's interest in case the league gets too big.

It's going to be hard for a non-QT3 person to get me their match reports to track is my only concern. There are, of course, ways around this. Also if they're not on QT3 we can't come to the thread and call them out for playing with stupid cards! ;)

As for the repair thing, make sure you're running as administrator if you're on Vista. I had similar issues and that fixed it for me.

mkozlows

07-01-2009, 06:24 PM

As for the repair thing, make sure you're running as administrator if you're on Vista. I had similar issues and that fixed it for me.

To be clear, that's right-click on the executable and choose "Run as Administrator", not just logging in as an administrator.

Vesper

07-01-2009, 06:26 PM

FYI- I'll be online in about an hour (8:30 CDT) and available to do clan invites.

Ryan Markel

07-01-2009, 07:47 PM

Same here. It keeps telling me that my version is not up to date and to run the Repair thing. Every time, the repair seems to update but I still get the error message. I've probably updated about 10 times now.

I unfortunately have to wait for my Time Machine to finish running its backup, then repartition my drive, restore my Mac OS X installation, and install Windows.

I might be ready to play this weekend. :)

BigWeather

07-01-2009, 07:58 PM

I am so tempted... I've got the client installed and have been watching some games. Some buddies of mine and I were also going to get some M10 paper boosters in a couple of weeks -- having a hard time anteing up for both offline and online. =/ What to do!

I dunno if I'd be good enough to do any league -- it has been years since I played. I may be up for some casual play, though. Could I get invited if I end up only doing that?

Also, do your cards ever disappear? I know that if you play Standard or what-not they are not playable a couple of years later (though if it is from a card that is still legal -- like a core set card that is in the newer editions -- is it still playable? Or do you need the new version?) but do you still at least "own" them for casual play and non-Standard play? Or do they go *poof*?

delirium

07-01-2009, 09:14 PM

It's going to be hard for a non-QT3 person to get me their match reports to track is my only concern. There are, of course, ways around this. Also if they're not on QT3 we can't come to the thread and call them out for playing with stupid cards! ;)

As for the repair thing, make sure you're running as administrator if you're on Vista. I had similar issues and that fixed it for me.

Yeah, fair points. I'll ask them, with the precondition that they need to register here.

The administrator thing totally worked. Thanks! (dumb program, what kind of crap is that anyway?)

mkozlows

07-01-2009, 09:26 PM

The administrator thing totally worked. Thanks! (dumb program, what kind of crap is that anyway?)

It's one of the worst programs I've seen in a long time, in a whole bunch of ways, not the least of which is that it prompts UAC every time I start it up. Apparently WOTC sucks at making software, between this and their still-incomplete D&D Insider stuff.

Vesper

07-01-2009, 09:37 PM

It's one of the worst programs I've seen in a long time, in a whole bunch of ways, not the least of which is that it prompts UAC every time I start it up. Apparently WOTC sucks at making software, between this and their still-incomplete D&D Insider stuff.

You should be able to edit properties on MAGIC_NET.EXE and set to "Run as Administrator" to get rid of the UAC prompts. But, I wouldn't know. I disabled UAC a long time ago. :)

mouselock

07-01-2009, 10:16 PM

It's one of the worst programs I've seen in a long time, in a whole bunch of ways, not the least of which is that it prompts UAC every time I start it up. Apparently WOTC sucks at making software, between this and their still-incomplete D&D Insider stuff.

Speaking of which, anyone else on vista get a totally garbled boot up screen with crap in the wrong place all over?

Lokust

07-01-2009, 10:17 PM

Speaking of which, anyone else on vista get a totally garbled boot up screen with crap in the wrong place all over?

Every time.

JonC

07-01-2009, 10:22 PM

Lokust

07-01-2009, 10:28 PM

you need add vesper6 as a buddy and send him a private message requesting an invite

Vesper

07-01-2009, 10:36 PM

you need add vesper6 as a buddy and send him a private message requesting an invite
We both have to be online to do the invite too, but I'm trying to stay online most evenings this week.

Reldan

07-01-2009, 11:23 PM

So I'm actually Reldan__QT3L (two underscores, lame story).

And in terms of options, I'm voting for 5c and 6b.

wigglestick

07-01-2009, 11:31 PM

(two underscores, lame story)

Lame as in "and then I found 5 dollars!" lame, or lame as in "I had my schmuck hat on when I made my league account" lame? :D

ravenight

07-02-2009, 01:46 AM

Ryan Markel

07-02-2009, 05:45 AM

Wendelius

07-02-2009, 05:49 AM

Go to start a new game, and you can choose to play games of solitaire, in which you're just casting spells on-- and using creatures to attack-- yourself. You basically see how few turns you can kill yourself in. I played one game like that last night, and plan to do a few more tonight if I can't find someone online to play with. It should aid the deck playtesting process quite a bit.

Thanks for the tip. I consistently kill myself on turn 8. Not that fast but this is a limited format. Of course, it's hard to imagine how that will work with an opponent on the other side. Definitely looking forward to some test games to see if I need to consider some radical changes. Not that my current cards give me a ton of choice.

Wendelius

mouselock

07-02-2009, 07:44 AM

I signed up as jonc@QT3L. Does the clan exist yet? I couldn't find it, but then I don't really know how to look for it.

Is it permissible to trade cards with others in the league? Or is the only card exchange when you win or lose a game?

No card trading. We're not sure which card exchange, if any, we'll be doing yet.

Of course, once the league is over your cards are yours to do whatever you wish with. But what I'm trying to avoid is the more experienced players putting together killer decks and frustrating the heck out of the newer or more casual players.

mouselock

07-02-2009, 07:52 AM

I'm leaning more and more towards joining, so I expect I'll make a second account some time this weekend. To clarify 5c, are you saying that the winner chooses both cards (that is, which one he takes and which to give up)? I assume that's the idea (otherwise there isn't really an advantage to winning, right?). A hybrid of that and 5b sounds best to me, where we do 5c, and everyone also chooses 5-10 cards to give up after they've settle on their deck (but before they are allowed to play official matches), and then we use weekly standings in the 3 "required" games to determine in what order people get to swap with the pool that week.

That approach would be complex and possibly tedious. Unfortunately the virtual environment already makes this a bit more of a pain than it should be. (When we did it in paper we pooled the excess card and when you turned in your slips you got to exchange a card for every match you played up to the required limit, with the highest winner for the week going first, then the next highest. That's a pain with all the scheduling.)

As for 5c, I'm inclined for the loser to pick their card from the winner's for the trade. I don't want their to be much advantage for winning really; this isn't an ultra-competitive environment and I care far more about demoralizing folks on the low end of the winning curve than incentivizing those on the high end. Just winning tends to be fun enough to keep you playing. Especially when it happens in fun and cool ways (like I saw last night; poor Moore ).

On the other hand, not having a league card pool will make life much easier on the organizer if this thing gets big. Anyway, I'll make a post with my actual votes once I've created my account.

Yeah, that's a concern. I'm actually starting to come around to the idea of maybe just having card flux from the booster buy since I haven't heard many complaints about that, but I don't want to penalize folks who can't or don't want to keep ponying up money every couple of weeks. I guess I'll post a poll or something when sign-ups close (well, slightly after since I'll be out of town next weekend) to see what preferences are after folks have had an opportunity to play with their decks a bit.

mouselock

07-02-2009, 07:53 AM

Those of you who are seeing weird graphical issues might want to both update your video card drivers and also reinstall the .NET Framework to see if that solves the problem. (MTGO is a .NET application, right?)

I'm getting my Vista installation up this weekend and just waiting for a contract client to pay me so I can have the money to pick up the account/cards. Are we buying the cards already?

You have to pay for the account anyway, so chances are you're going to want to go ahead and buy the rest of the cards (not covered in the account coupon) at the same time. But you just need to have cards by the 17th at worst.

Orsson

07-02-2009, 07:56 AM

I'm having some issues activating the account, but you can count me in as well.

Orsson__QT3L (two underscores, maybe for a reason similar to Reldan's...)

I'll join the clan as soon as WotC's Customer Service clears up the problem.

Votes: 5c, 6b (two weeks)

wigglestick

07-02-2009, 08:48 AM

Wader

07-02-2009, 08:50 AM

Played some games last night with Mouse and Reldan and it was a ton of fun. The limited format, with everyone doing the best they can with what cards they drew, is a blast.

Reldan trounced me with this creature that let him look at my hand and play my cards as though they were his. He was using my enchants on his creatures, and summoning my creatures to his side of the board. Frustrating, but funny. :)

I played 3 games with Wolff last night. He dominated the first due to mana screw on my end, I almost won the second, but he countered my directly damage spell, and I never drew anything else, and the third went back and forth till he was able to lock me down and take me out.

The funny thing is that after losing three times, I actually feel better about my deck than I did before I started. I thought I wasnt going to have enough mana, and that wasnt a problem at all except for the first game. In fact, I might have had too much.

mouselock

07-02-2009, 09:46 AM

Reldan trounced me with this creature that let him look at my hand and play my cards as though they were his.

That was just fun to watch. Reldan's critter (Sen Triplets (http://magiccards.info/arb/en/109.html)) strikes me as one of those cards that you wouldn't see much in constructed setups, but which is a total game winner in limited environments. Plus it makes for fun stories.

Orsson

07-02-2009, 12:43 PM

Customer Service worked out the kinks in my account and I got everything set up. I won't be available to play until the end of next week, unfortunately, but I'm looking forward to it!

One thing I had to look up was Planeswalker rules (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/planeswalkers/week4). I had a Planeswalker (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=174852) come up in a pack and didn't even know where to begin with it. The rules are worth a look, though, for those of us who have been away long enough to miss new stuff like this.

Ryan Markel

07-02-2009, 02:21 PM

My client paid up, so I'll post over the weekend with my info. I will generally only be around later in the evening.

Vesper

07-02-2009, 02:25 PM

I'll be online again tonight in the 9-12 CDT range for more clan invites.

extarbags

07-02-2009, 03:11 PM

My deck is ready to rock, if anyone is up for a few games.

Ryan Markel

07-02-2009, 04:32 PM

Are we on honor system as far as people buying too many cards, or should we submit deck/card lists a la sealed-deck tournaments?

mouselock

07-02-2009, 04:45 PM

Are we on honor system as far as people buying too many cards, or should we submit deck/card lists a la sealed-deck tournaments?

Well I think it'd be cool if folks would drop all their cards into a file for posterity sake, but I'm not going to worry too much about people trying to game the system. If they do I think they'll quickly find that folks don't want to play against them because they'll shred the competition and that's not really all that fun for the losing player.

Wendelius

07-02-2009, 05:09 PM

Is it only the clan leader who can invite? Or is there a way to delegate "officer powers" to clan members to spread the load and time zones?

Wendelius

Wolff

07-02-2009, 06:20 PM

So having seen a couple decks out there I would vote for more packs before we get officially underway. Probably one more of each booster.

Most leagues that play with this few cards play 40 card decks in my experience. Currently everyone is pretty much locked into a deck without much flexibility. Its pretty telling that almost everyone I've played is running at least 4 colors. Also while I pulled a pretty decent mix of cards for my deck (not many finishers but just about everything else) other people seem down right screwed, not much control, not many bombs, not much mana fix.

I also have concerns over any system that awards the winners, we'll quickly have a league of only 3 to 4 players. Having some packs to hand out at the end of a set time period would be a nice way to reward the top players but by building their momentum its not gonna be much fun for anyone except them.

We were tossing around some ideas in clan chat:

1) Have a sports franchise-like reverse draft. Bottom ranks get first pick of a new pack of cards opened each week. The cards could be listed in this forum and crossed off as they are handed out from the league master.

2) When you join the league you also donate one pack to the prize/draft pool or something.

3) Allow trading within the league - trades must be posted in the thread? or is that not necessary.

Just some ideas we've tossed around. I know this ups the buy in more than some folks may be comfortable but I think some of these ideas could really give the league legs, while preventing the cash-power curve you see in the casual room.

extarbags

07-02-2009, 07:14 PM

I don't want to see a ton more cards (after all, there's a limit to how much I want to spend on pictures of Magic cards), but I do think it would be good to have some more. Maybe two more packs of our choice from this block to start, plus one pack every two weeks. I don't mind the idea of drafting a pack a week in reverse order, in addition to the ante-from-sideboard thing which rewards the winners.

Oh yeah, the ante-from-sideboard is another reason we need more packs to start with. Currently, everyone is playing four or five colors and including some pretty poor cards even for limited to get up to sixty. The upshot of this is that the "sideboard" is mostly/completely filled with just the worst fifteen cards you've got. At least that's how mine is; I don't know about anyone else. I have one legitimate sideboard card (Naturalize), and I can't imagine anyone picking through those fifteen cards and finding anything even a little bit useful.

Reldan

07-02-2009, 07:27 PM

I'm surprised you are sideboarding Naturalize in this environment. It seems like there's a bajillion artifacts out there, many quite good.

I originally was expecting to have a card pool of 90 cards, from which I figured people could all make decent, reasonably consistent 3 color decks. However, with each booster giving you a land, the pool really only includes about 84 real cards to choose from. Combine that with the multi-color insanity of this set and most "artifacts" actually being colored, you're pretty much stuck playing 4-5 color and praying for a decent draw of lands.

I think that either switching to a 40 card deck limit (a la booster draft style) or adding 1-2 packs would solve the issues.

That said, I am having a ton of fun with this. It was a great idea.

extarbags

07-02-2009, 07:45 PM

I had it main at first, then drew it in each of my first four games with no targets. Then I took it out and saw artifacts every game. I probably will put it back in, as much because I don't want to lose it when someone beats me and it's the only decent card in my sideboard as because of its actual usefulness.

That's a good point about the colored artifacts, Reldan. That and the land thing really do push you into more colors than usual (well, the old usual).

FWIW, normal sealed deck gives you five boosters, and only requires you to make a forty-card deck. That explains a lot; we basically have fourteen more cards and need twenty more in our deck.

Vesper

07-02-2009, 08:13 PM

Is it only the clan leader who can invite? Or is there a way to delegate "officer powers" to clan members to spread the load and time zones?
Unfortunately, it's as lame as you think. Only the clan leader can invite, and only if both parties are online. I'm trying to be online (even if not paying attention full time) every evening this week to try to make it easy for people. But if someone is on the other side of the world, we may have to figure out a time to meet online on the weekend.

Kyrios

07-02-2009, 08:27 PM

ravenight

07-02-2009, 08:35 PM

Ok, so I made my account - I'm ravenight_QT3L.

I'll vote for 5c and 6b, preferably with a 2-week window.

EDIT: I also think 40-card decks makes more sense than 60.

EDIT #2: On second thought, I'm not sure the 40-card thing is necessary. 3-color decks are basically going to be the norm in Shards-block anyway, and there's tons of manafixing. Looking at my cards, I seem to be able to fit comfortably in 3 colors if I want to not worry much about my manabase, or splash a 4th if I want some more power. But that's pretty much the point of this block, so it isn't the fault of the number of cards I have, necessarily.

Vesper

07-02-2009, 10:18 PM

I was just working on my deck, and yes.. we definitely need to use 40 card decks, as per normal league setups. 60 for limited format would be very atypical..

mouselock

07-02-2009, 11:30 PM

Agreed to either a couple more boosters or a somewhat smaller deck size. I've played eight or ten matches now against a few people, and it's been a TON of fun, but easily half of them have been decided by the mana draw. That said a couple of the ones that didn't have been fairly epic, with all the big creatures getting played (since these decks are all so slow).

This is rather the point, at least at first.

I get what folks are frustrated by, but seriously, if [i]every[i] deck is slow, what exactly is the problem with the fact that yours is slow as well.

Do me a favor folks, answer the following question honestly:

Is it really impossible for people to make a 3 color deck? Or is it just uncomfortable? I had to make hard decisions as to which cards I cared about playing with more, but I have no problems getting down to 3 colors (RBU in my case). My sideboard is basically a color swap (to RBG). I had some nice cards in W, W/B, and G/W but the problem with W is that the really nice cards require two specific mana, and that's just uncomfortable in 3 colors of mana, IMO.

I'm interested in hearing about folks who literally can't run a 3 color deck. Not folks who can't because they don't have the right mana fixing, or can't because half their good cards are in one color and half in another. Part of the challenge of this format is to figure out whether or not it's worth running that fourth color for that fantastic card or if you're better off with lesser cards but more reliable mana.

Either way, though, I assure you if we all throw our cards into one big pool and can pick them out, the colors I don't use will be colors other people will, and this will inevitably serve to refine decks.

I'm pretty loathe to tell folks who've already agreed to play @ $24 dollars "Whoops, it's actually going to be $32 to start with." Especially on top of people having the opportunity to buy more cards ona biweekly basis. That's $32 up front, plus $16/month to play in a league which is supposed to be rather cheap.

Trashcan

07-02-2009, 11:39 PM

I'm in as Trashcan_QT3L

I haven't played since around Mirage, but I've got a 40 card test deck set up to get some games in with (I'll be on tomorrow evening).

Voting for 5c and 6b (two weeks).

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 12:05 AM

Good LORD. This is the longest install process ever.

I'm all for 60-card decks, myself. I like the challenge - especially looking at spoilers of the block - of creating multicolored decks.

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 12:18 AM

I'm in.

RyanMarkel_QT3L

delirium

07-03-2009, 12:21 AM

OK, I haven't paid yet, but I set up an account that may or may not exist at this point - delirium_QT3L

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 12:37 AM

Deck building for me so far is a fight to the death with this alarmingly 90's UI. Holy crap.

They need to get the dudes who made the XBLA game and sic them on this NOW.

Wendelius

07-03-2009, 03:22 AM

Wader

07-03-2009, 06:06 AM

I have a 3 colours deck. But I had to leave out some aspects of the game to manage it. And I haven't built a sideboard yet because that's likely going to mean removing one colour and removing it with another. But I'll figure it out.

I vote we don't get any more boosters for the first week or 2 as we all have slow decks and it's going to allow us to get used to get used to this pool of cards and the rules (even old hands haven't seen many of the rules currently in use).

I watched Extar and Wolff play yesterday and that was interesting. I think I'm going to get in trouble with some of their cards. Looking forward to playing against y'all...

Wendelius

I got down to three colors on one of my decks (I actually built 3 decks because I wasnt sure which I liked best). My deck is running about 50% at the moment, as I have lost 2 and won 2. I actually like the wacky decks that are floating around out there at the moment, so I would say we should keep the current number of boosters for at least the first two weeks of the league. Yes, it will make some of the wins and losses completely dependent on draws, but seeing some of the combinations people have come up with is highly entertaining.

Also, this problem should fix itself as we move further into the league with the ante and additional packs (provided we use those rules). If we dont use those, I would recommend adding a pack or two.

mouselock

07-03-2009, 06:42 AM

Also, this problem should fix itself as we move further into the league with the ante and additional packs (provided we use those rules). If we dont use those, I would recommend adding a pack or two.

Yeah.. we have to have something. The common pool ante idea is most likely to fix the problem, followed by pack addition. (With as many players as we have now, the common pool ante would be like drawing from 5-6 additional packs at this point unless there's some truly odd distribution going along so everyone is playing the same color selection.)

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 06:58 AM

Just a few notes now that I'm waking up from my first night of Magic binging in ten years:

1. Wow, I kinda don't like this block for Limited play. The multi-color stuff sounds neat in theory, but in reality those cards pretty much determined what my deck was going to be.

2. I'm looking forward to getting going, but my hours of availability are going to make it difficult, I think. I'm generally only available for this after about 10 pm Central. Is that going to be a problem for everyone else?

3. I'm already looking forward to doing this again with M10. :)

4. Guys, Exalted stacks.

Reldan

07-03-2009, 09:43 AM

Here's what I've got:

9 White
11 Blue
13 Black
8 Red
10 Green
5 colorless Artifacts, most of which are mana sources

9 additional tri-color or double-same color cards that are hard to play.

Everything else is a mish-mash of 2 color cards in more combinations that I feel like counting. Additionally, a number of the single-color cards have abilities that require other colors anyways, making them de-facto gold cards.

I want 24 mana sources in a 60 card deck, so I need 36 other cards. Unless I wanted to play UBG (which would be an ass deck), I'd pretty much just be playing EVERY card I have for any other combination of 3 colors to meet minimum reqs.

To be clear, I HAVE to play Red because it's the only color I got any reasonable removal in, and it's also the color I have an almost abnormally low number of cards pulled in.

ravenight

07-03-2009, 12:29 PM

Well, you might be able to play UBG with a red splash for the removal, especially if you have some of those manafixing artifacts and some landcyclers in there.

I think we should stick to the 60-card decks for a bit and if we decide on 5c and 6b (which seem to be in the lead now), then we can let people add the first booster on the 17th, when we start the "ante". I know you aren't going to have a ton of options for how to build a particular 3-color combo, but which colors you select is going to be a fairly intricate decision, since a 4th-color splash is usually viable in this block. If we drop down to 40 cards, the power levels of the decks will be a lot higher, but it won't really give you that many more interesting decisions in deck-building, since a lot of cards that are quite playable when everyone is stretched will just become unplayable.

There's plenty of time to fool around with constructing different decks between now and the 17th, though, so I could also see trying out 40-card decks a bit to see if people actually prefer it. Especially if we are going to start a new league with 2010 at some point, since there then won't be a ton of time for extra packs/ante-swaps to skyrocket the power levels of the decks.

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 12:59 PM

I really wish they had a Mac client for this game.

All of the gold cards make it harder to establish what your basic land ratios should be from one color to another. At least the game gave me that Vanguard pack that included a whole bunch of basic land to get started.

Right now, I'm rocking a G/U/W, but I had an epiphany this morning that said I don't have enough removal and might have to toss in some R as a fourth color. It's true that the cycling cards and some activated effects make it easier to handle more than one color.

I would go with five if I had anything B that was worth throwing in.

Concepts that I'm still getting used to, given that my last block played was Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight:

* Colored artifacts. Say what?
* I have a hard time believing that banding was removed because people "didn't understand it" and yet they've introduced so many keyword abilities that my head is spinning trying to catch up.
* Gold cards used to be a novelty item you almost never saw (same with non-basic Lands). Now, they're all over the place and are making a huge difference in my deck construction decisions.

It might be a neat exercise for at least some of us to record what our decks start as at the beginning of the league and also what they end up as. I expect we'll see some significant changes based on the other decks in the environment.

extarbags

07-03-2009, 01:54 PM

Is it really impossible for people to make a 3 color deck? Or is it just uncomfortable?

Impossible, in my case: my best and post populated colors are GWU, and after including literally every card in those colors, I still had twenty-eight empty spaces in my decklist.

I'm pretty loathe to tell folks who've already agreed to play @ $24 dollars "Whoops, it's actually going to be $32 to start with." Especially on top of people having the opportunity to buy more cards ona biweekly basis. That's $32 up front, plus $16/month to play in a league which is supposed to be rather cheap.

I agree. Forty-card decks are a free solution to this.

Vesper

07-03-2009, 02:54 PM

Why are we trying 60 cards anyway? Just something to try as an experiment? Or do people regularly do 60 card decks in a limited card pool of 6 boosters? I've been out of Magic a few years, but this is the first I have heard of this.

My card pool is such that I was able to put together a fairly decent 3 color deck, but I can see this being very discouraging for people.

delirium

07-03-2009, 03:21 PM

As a new player to this edition, a 40 card deck sounds more manageable to me. It should also reduce the chances of players catching a raw deal with their cards. What's the downside of a 40 card deck? I'm up for trying 60 cards, but 40 seems more workable.

wigglestick

07-03-2009, 04:28 PM

4. Guys, Exalted stacks.

Holy shit, I know! Awesome, isn't it?

Reldan

07-03-2009, 05:36 PM

I'm for either adding 2 more packs and staying with 60 or dropping down to 40 cards on the deck size debate. I'm not trying to get ultra-competitive with this, but the current situation of trying to run a 4-color 60-card deck off of a limited assortment of random manafixers means that every other game I play is being decided, plain and simple, off of mana screw. Something that seems easily fixable is simply not working correctly right now.

However, I have noticed that many folks around these parts are new to Magic Online, if not to M:tG in general. There are a number of important keyboards shortcuts and settings that are not very well advertised in the game, but are critical to playing. Check this article out for more info:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/fundamentals/12711_New_To_Magic_Online_But_An_Old_Hand_At_Magic .html

A few tidbits if you're too lazy to read it - Alt-U lets you untap mana. F2 lets you pass. Holding Ctrl lets you maintain priority after playing anything (normally the game assumes you concede priority over the stack after taking any action).

Reldan

07-03-2009, 07:42 PM

It's about 9:40 EST and I'm on if anyone else wants to play some.

Ryan Markel

07-03-2009, 08:18 PM

I am finishing up a few things and then I'll be on and will be around late as well.

Skipper

07-03-2009, 08:41 PM

I'm still downloading and haven't made anything yet. I have the weekend and entire week next week off though so I'll happily play some.

Reldan

07-03-2009, 10:12 PM

Well... aside from a couple games with Ravenight, tonight was mostly a bust. You all must be west coasters or something, but I think I'm out for tonight.

Catch you all laters!

Aesculapius

07-03-2009, 10:34 PM

Signed up!

Name: Aesculapius_QT3L
Nonleague name: Aesculapius1 - already in clan

5C
6B

Wendelius

07-04-2009, 03:04 AM

Well... aside from a couple games with Ravenight, tonight was mostly a bust. You all must be west coasters or something, but I think I'm out for tonight.

Catch you all laters!

I'm European. Hoping to catch the East coasters in the evening during the week.

But this week-end is kids week-end. So things are a bit too hectic to give me time to do much logging on. If I get a chance to tonight, I will though. I need to playtest my deck for the first time.

Wendelius

wigglestick

07-04-2009, 03:27 AM

I'm all for maintaining a friendly and laid-back league, and I'm wondering if we might strike a better balance between cost and newbie-friendliness. After opening my packs I had to engage in some fairly ridiculous card-counting and analysis to even figure out which three colors I should try to make a deck out of. I'm pretty happy with the results, and I've had fun playing the deck even when I've lost, but it seems some people got an even poorer draw than I did.

I think I'd be crapping myself if I were forced to run a four-color deck. I'd be ok with either reducing deck size or adding even just one more pack to our individual card pools, if not two.

Ryan Markel

07-04-2009, 06:31 AM

Well... aside from a couple games with Ravenight, tonight was mostly a bust. You all must be west coasters or something, but I think I'm out for tonight.

Catch you all laters!

Sorry, man. Sleep debt from the week caught up with me last night and I totally crashed around 10. I'll try to make some room for games tonight.

Have we decided on a deck size/booster requirements yet? The only problem I see with 40-card decks is that normally in Limited formats then your entire remaining card pool is considered your sideboard (or has that changed?).

Reldan

07-04-2009, 07:58 AM

I think we could probably do 40-card decks with a 15 card sideboard. I don't think there's been any decision made on the subject though. There was a time I thought the multi-color theme of Invasion block was over the top, but that can't hold a candle to this.

Orsson

07-04-2009, 09:31 AM

I'm fine with a 60 card deck, but then maybe I got a good mix of cards.

Ryan Markel

07-04-2009, 01:43 PM

Darn it, now that I'm going through and doing some more deck construction, I find that I'm OK with 60 cards. I think it's doable, but I'll yield to the consensus.

EDIT: I also think it's going to be damn fun. You just have to look through your available cards to leverage cycling.

Reldan

07-04-2009, 03:31 PM

I certainly feel that I have a workable 60-card deck. However, there are not a lot of deck-building decisions involved here - I think I'm just lucky that I pulled enough mana fixing cards to scrape by. I'm concerned that not everybody might have pulled enough decent mana fixing cards.

I did put together a 40-card deck as well and played some great games with it against Trashcan earlier (who also built a 40-card deck). There certainly are a lot more hard choices to make for the 40-card deck, and it's vastly more consistent.

mouselock

07-04-2009, 06:42 PM

Hey, can someone stating they can't make a 60 card deck in three colors send me a card list so I can see what you guys are pulling?

Part of the reason I'm not all over adding more cards is that I'd rather the more experienced players play in their discomfort zone than the less experienced players. Over time some card flux will happen and people will lean out their decks, but I'd hate to see another two packs have people going all the way from "I'm playing this five color deck because I have all these cool spells" to "Okay, I've got my mana curve almost perfect, a couple of board sweepers, and enough mana fixing to lean out this three color deck to always have mana and consistently let me drop on time."

The latter sucks if you're a new player, and just isn't any fun. I get the frustration that the experienced players (and especially deckbuilders) have with the former, but I'd much rather see the bias toward the former where time gives the newer players an opportunity to learn at least a bit toward the latter type of player before the opportunity to more finely tune decks comes down on them.

All that said, I'll throw up a poll mid next week and get folks to vote and let majority rule. I'm more inclined to fix it by going to 40 cards (does MTG:O handle 40 card deck games okay? When I went into the deckbuilder it defaulted to thinking I was playing 60/15, but maybe it's just a setting somewhere?).

Trashcan

07-04-2009, 07:42 PM

All that said, I'll throw up a poll mid next week and get folks to vote and let majority rule. I'm more inclined to fix it by going to 40 cards (does MTG:O handle 40 card deck games okay? When I went into the deckbuilder it defaulted to thinking I was playing 60/15, but maybe it's just a setting somewhere?).

I don't think there's a setting. You just have to save a deck with 40 out of 60 cards and then select freeform when you challenge someone.

Skipper

07-04-2009, 07:43 PM

I was able to make a 60 card 3-color deck. It's not pretty, but I made it. I'm assuming whatever we do with the card pool or ante or whatever will take care of that over time. My sideboard is a piece of crap though.

extarbags

07-04-2009, 08:09 PM

Just to be clear, I don't think the problem is that the decks aren't good enough. Of course they're slow and unwieldy; this is limited, after all. The problem I'm seeing is that I don't see how the decks are going to be dynamic in any way, the way you're saying. Making a sixty card deck out of six packs requires playing literally every good card you have, and indeed quite a few not-so-good ones. The cards that I have that I'm not playing are utter dreck, which means that when someone beats me and earns a forced trade from my sideboard, they're going to get a card they don't want to play and their deck is going to stay the same. I don't see that ever changing with so few leftover cards and almost no playable ones, even in this format.

But: I'll go along with whatever the group wants. :)

Ryan Markel

07-04-2009, 08:14 PM

After some messing around, I'd very much like to do 60 cards, and I think it's going to be exciting to see how decks change over the first two booster additions.

Vesper

07-04-2009, 10:34 PM

After some messing around, I'd very much like to do 60 cards, and I think it's going to be exciting to see how decks change over the first two booster additions.
Decks will change with booster additions with 40 cards, too!

I'd like to do both things: 40 cards AND add cards. Just like the old leagues on MtGO. Basically what I've seen in my attempts to make decks is that if I pick 3 colors, I'm basically using every single card of those combinations. There's really very little choice involved. What I always have loved about 40 card league play is that I have to agonize over decisions. I would also like to point out that we could make 40 cards the minimum, leaving you with the right to use 60 if you wish..

Lokust

07-04-2009, 10:50 PM

I'm pretty happy with my current 60 card deck. it just took some failures and a lot of tuning to get it right. I would prefer to stay with 60 but will move to 40 if that's the consensus.

mouselock

07-05-2009, 12:15 AM

Just to be clear, I don't think the problem is that the decks aren't good enough. Of course they're slow and unwieldy; this is limited, after all. The problem I'm seeing is that I don't see how the decks are going to be dynamic in any way, the way you're saying.

Ah.. I see your viewpoint. Yeah, when you start out there's none. I've found that the common pool/card flux thing tends to take care of the dynamism in a very controlled way. But there's not the ability to change up what you're playing from game to game or match to match too much (barring the offcolor swap that I and some other people may be running).

Wallapuctus

07-05-2009, 12:04 PM

I have signed up. My username is FashionZombie_QT3L. As far as the rules go, I vote for 5b and 6b with a two week interval.

I'm working on building a deck right now and I don't have enough cards to go 3 color.

Also, what are avatars? I got 5 of them.

Reldan

07-05-2009, 12:14 PM

I guess I just dislike HAVING to play with crappy cards and then having matches come down to who draws less of the crap cards that they are playing simply to meet the 60 card limit. Couple that with the multi-color bent of this set and the randomness of pulling good mana fixers and I see a potential issue.

Anyone lucky enough to pull any sort or artifact removal can have a field day with 90% of the decks out there I've run into who are completely reliant on a handful of artifact mana fixers to allow them to play the 4-5 colors they're running. I don't like situations where I'm one Naturalize away from not being able to play half my hand.

I'm with Vesper on voting for a 40-card minimum (with no maximum of course) and adding packs later as well.

Every 40-card game I've played has been pretty fun and did not feel overwhelming decided by mana screw. Half of my 60-card deck games have come down to mana screw as the decided factor (either for or against me).

ravenight

07-05-2009, 10:11 PM

60-card decks are going to be somewhat more random (because each person is going to have just a few strong cards, so they will get their really strong cards less often). Mana screw isn't really the problem them, it is just more visible than the other forms of bad draws. Like one person getting a bunch of 2 & 3-drops and point removal, and the other one getting only 5 and 6-drops and thus being out of the game before the deck gets going. Or, you know, one person having Rafiq of the Many AND Martial Coup... ;)

Reldan

07-06-2009, 10:07 AM

Or it's possible to play a relatively consistent 3-color 40 card that strikes a balance between mana fixers, creatures, and removal versus a 4-color 60 card deck that collapses under its own weight half the time.

I've got a total of about 6 mana fixers. In 40 card 3-color this makes for a consistent draw. In 60 card 4-color it's a wing and a prayer.

Vesper

07-06-2009, 10:12 AM

mouselock

07-06-2009, 10:16 AM

mouselock

07-06-2009, 10:21 AM

My main problem with the 60 card idea is that at least for my cards, I'm not really deckbuilding. I'm picking all of the cards I have in 3 colors, adding land, removing 1 or 2 cards, and using that. That removes 90% of the fun of Magic for me, since I'm essentially playing with random cards. Sure, I'll have more things to pick from by going to 4 color, but I'm not really interested in playing color screw roulette.

Yes, the deckbuilding comes later when you start swapping out cards after playing games and/or add new cards after having figured out how your deck works and what's actually of value. Again, this is more of a newbie friendly feature so players can see what does/does not work for their deck setup organically and aren't as dependent on having some theoretical knowledge of how to optimize a deck.

Wallapuctus

07-06-2009, 10:24 AM

For what it's worth, I was able to put together a 3-color 60 card deck as well, but it left nothing for a sideboard. My sideboard is basically another color that I'll likely never use.

I also got screwed on rares, as some of my best are of colors I can't build a 60 card 3-color deck with.

I would be happy with either 40 or 60, but I think the 60 card format favors people who got particularly bad card pulls. If someone got lucky and pulled a killer combo or two, a 40 card deck will let them deploy it that much easier. Slowing things down with 60 means really unfortunate players will at least have a shot to get rolling, hopefully.

Maybe I'm completely off base, though. This weekend is the first real Magic I've played since 4th edition.

Also, when will the clan leader be available for invites? :D

Vesper

07-06-2009, 10:26 AM

Also, when will the clan leader be available for invites? :D
I wasn't on much this weekend due to family visiting for Independence Day festivities, but I'll be on every evening this week. Usually after 8:30-9 CDT until 1AM CDT.

Reldan

07-06-2009, 12:49 PM

Reldan,

Can you PM me your card list please when you get a chance? Since you seem to be the most vocal about not liking the 60 card format, I'd like to see how bad it is for you at the offset to try to determine what the best way of fixing things would be.

I'm trying to avoid going to 40 cards primarily because that suddenly puts a large premium on being a better deck builder, which is going to inherently favor more experienced players at the expense of the newbies. I prefer the 60 card format because your deck basically has to "come to you" over time, and that helps to equalize the early setup for the newer players.

But I'll admit I'm one of the ones who can build a 60 card three color deck (albeit not tightly tuned by any means) so I'm interested in what your card pool is and how far off the norm what I'm seeing is.

I think vesper summed up what I've been trying to say better than I've been saying it. I probably could technically put together a 3 color 60-card pile of cards by putting every card except 1 or 2 in and tossing in basic lands to reach 60. This is not deck building in the slightest, and deck building for me (and I think several others) is probably the primary draw to the game in the first place.

Sealed deck formats are almost always about playing decks that are built using Only a third of your random card pool.

mouselock

07-06-2009, 02:11 PM

I think vesper summed up what I've been trying to say better than I've been saying it. I probably could technically put together a 3 color 60-card pile of cards by putting every card except 1 or 2 in and tossing in basic lands to reach 60. This is not deck building in the slightest, and deck building for me (and I think several others) is probably the primary draw to the game in the first place.

Yeah, I get that. The flip side of it is that decent deckbuilding really isn't possible until you have a firm grasp of how the game's mechanics interact with each other and hang together, and this changes with new keywords as well as set releases. That means that effectively the more recently someone has played, the better they're going to be at the deckbuilding part (and hence the more dominant they will be in the playing part). The structure as set up does get to the deckbuilding via pulling cards of your choice from a larger pool and/or grabbing ongoing booster additions. It just doesn't make the game hinge so much on that right up front, to try and balance out the differential between newer players (or players who haven't played so recently) and those who are more competitive about deckbuilding.

Vesper

07-06-2009, 02:13 PM

I think we need to have a vote on the subject. But if we're split, how about a compromise of 50?

Lorini

07-06-2009, 02:16 PM

mouselock

07-06-2009, 02:59 PM

Mouselock, have you considered taking the win-loss thing out of the equation entirely? That way the new people could get into the game more easily, and the experienced people could look at the league as an opportunity to teach. Trying to play with 60 card decks is crazy to me, but that's part of the reason I'm not involved in this......

Yeah, the win-loss method of picking cards won't work I don't think. I'm thinking just letting people swap out based on number of matches played up to some maximum is the way to do that. Though if we go down to 40 cards I could see also letting only losing players swap cards, which might be the most elegant solution.

Anyone care to weigh in on the following idea:

40 card decks, 15 card sideboards

The losing player of a match has the option to swap one of the losing player's cards (of his choice) for one of the winning opponent's cards (also of the losing player's choice) from the winning opponent's excess card pool.

Seems like it would address the concerns about not actually having any deck tuning in a 60 card deck to start with my primary concern of the good getting better and the bad getting worse as time goes on. If you consistently win then you're strong by definition and the swap should help other decks grow into competitiveness. If you consistently lose you get the most chance to refine and improve your deck. It's heavy-handedly biased for players who aren't doing as well, of course.

Consistently winning decks would still see new cards from the random cards they get from the people they beat as well as from any purchased packs.

Thoughts?

Lokust

07-06-2009, 03:13 PM

Are you talking about letting losers pick a rare and leave a common? Because I don't see many people being on board with that. I mean, I'd stand to gain, because none of my 6 rares are really very playable, but some people could lose some very nice cards in other colors, taking away their ability to be strong in those colors once more packs are added.

Personally if everyone is so polarized I'm down with the idea of compromising at 50 cards. I prefer 60 cards because to me it's a lot more challenging to build a good deck at that size, but I know I'll have fun regardless of what is decided.

Vesper

07-06-2009, 03:19 PM

Personally, I was never wild on any sort of ante/card-swap/flux idea to begin with, but I'm semi-flexible on that subject. To Lokust's point, getting some crap common and losing a Mythic because I didn't use it in my deck is pretty crappy.

We talked about having a master pool of cards for swapping before via the Leaguemaster account. Why not explore that idea some more? To keep it semi-sane, we can say that any cards not in your deck and sideboard (except rares & mythic) go to the Leaguemaster. If you lose a match, you get to swap cards with the league master. Perhaps you are entitled to multiple common swaps (2-3?) or 1 uncommon swap. This approach lets you immediately try to tune your deck based on how it just performed, and keeps the rarity distribution intact.

Aesculapius

07-06-2009, 04:20 PM

My opinions mirror many who have already spoken. I was fairly lucky in that I have a fairly decent 60 card deck that covers about 3 colors. But it was a matter of cutting away extra, as some have said, instead of actually picking good cards.

My suggestion would be to change the rules of the league to purchase 8 or 10 booster packs instead of the 6 (total) and then either a 40 or 60 deck would be more fun to put together minimizing the sway in deck strength because of the random factor.

ravenight

07-06-2009, 04:52 PM

I don't really think dropping to 40 adds much deckbuilding to the equation. The main deckbuilding choice you are making is going to be what colors to play, and you have to make that same choice (3 or 4 colors in which combinations) at 40 as you do at 60. The fact that at 40 you have the opportunity to decide which of your cards in those 3 colors are weakest and cut down to a 2-plus-a-splash version isn't really adding additional deckbuilding options per se, it is simply adding more influence from the player's knowledge of good cards for limited. For most players, there aren't going to be many choices color-wise anyway, because they will have specific bombs they pretty much have to play - Reldan, for instance, doesn't really have an option to not play Rafiq's colors unless he specifically wants to make his deck weaker. Likewise, I'm pretty much going to be in Lavalanche colors unless I somehow acquire an even bigger bomb in different colors.

As for card swapping - almost everyone who voted seems to have voted for the option where the players basically trade cards at the end of the match - each player chooses one card from the other's excess. I say we just call anything not maindeck or sideboard "excess" and go with that rule (once people get their feet under them). It seems like some are assuming they will be picking from a pool of crappy cards, but that is not at all the case. Most people's excess will have 2 colors worth of playable cards, and even if the "protect" some by putting them in the sideboard, there will still be solid limited playables available for at least the first few swaps (and longer, assuming that they also grab something they want when swapping).

It is the swapping mechanism (and to a much lesser extent, the addition of new packs over time) that will eventually push the decks more towards constructed decks. The swaps encourage people to play more, and they allow decks to become much more specialized. Sure, if we have 40 card decks we will reach the constructed power-level much faster, with potentially nasty combos possible, but then there's a big danger in that, since the game isn't really tested to be balanced in a constructed format with 40 cards.

Are people really not having fun playing with the 60-card decks? I've had plenty of fun with the games I've played, and they seemed pretty interesting. I don't think turning up the clock by a turn or two would make it more interesting, and the gain you'd get from having more reliable access to your manafixers would be offset by both the faster speed (meaning less time to draw out of a bad draw) and the more reliable access to bombs (meaning more emphasis on those who got really good bombs in their packs).

Reldan

07-06-2009, 06:12 PM

I don't really think dropping to 40 adds much deckbuilding to the equation.

I disagree wholeheartedly. A 40 card deck can get away with running 12-14 less non-land cards. You basically need 24 non-land cards in such a deck, as opposed to 36 non-land cards in a 60 card deck.

Given that most people probably have at most 50 cards for any given 3-color combination, this makes building the deck about choosing what to put in instead of choosing what to take out.

The main deckbuilding choice you are making is going to be what colors to play, and you have to make that same choice (3 or 4 colors in which combinations) at 40 as you do at 60.

The main deckbuilding choice in Magic is not supposed to be about what colors to play. You are neglecting the number one most important key to building a deck - mana curve. I've got the same number of potential 2-mana, 3-mana, and 4-mana drops in whichever 3 colors I pick either way, but I can actually maintain a good mana curve ratio within the 40 card deck, whereas with the 60 card deck it's out of my hands whether half the games I have no play to make until turn 4.

Reldan, for instance, doesn't really have an option to not play Rafiq's colors unless he specifically wants to make his deck weaker. Likewise, I'm pretty much going to be in Lavalanche colors unless I somehow acquire an even bigger bomb in different colors.

Rafiq isn't a game-winning bomb. He's still just a 3/3 creature that can be killed by just about any removal I've seen anyone playing (aside from Crystallization - that requires some way to target him afterwards). If I tried playing a strict 3-color WGU deck it would amount to being a tremendous pile of ass anyways.

As for card swapping - almost everyone who voted seems to have voted for the option where the players basically trade cards at the end of the match - each player chooses one card from the other's excess. I say we just call anything not maindeck or sideboard "excess" and go with that rule (once people get their feet under them). It seems like some are assuming they will be picking from a pool of crappy cards, but that is not at all the case. Most people's excess will have 2 colors worth of playable cards, and even if the "protect" some by putting them in the sideboard, there will still be solid limited playables available for at least the first few swaps (and longer, assuming that they also grab something they want when swapping).

Agreed, although I think you're failing to see that a lot of folks are playing 4-color, or 4-color with the 5th splashed, in order to create viable 60 card decks. The excess cards in this case are mostly the assiest of the ass cards that no one should be playing at all. In the 40 card environment I see people doing 2-3 color decks which means the excess cards might actually have some decent to good cards in the unplayed colors. If people want to protect their rares by sideboarding them I don't see an issue with that.

It is the swapping mechanism (and to a much lesser extent, the addition of new packs over time) that will eventually push the decks more towards constructed decks. The swaps encourage people to play more, and they allow decks to become much more specialized. Sure, if we have 40 card decks we will reach the constructed power-level much faster, with potentially nasty combos possible, but then there's a big danger in that, since the game isn't really tested to be balanced in a constructed format with 40 cards.

Seriously? We could pool everybody's cards together and I doubt you'd be able to construct a Constructed power-level deck. This league is never going to come close to anyone achieving a "dangerous" deck - at best people might be able to tune what they've got now a bit.

I honestly have 1 card in my entire pile of excess cards that I can even remotely fathom anyone would want, and it's not even that great of a card. To be honest, anything that I think anybody might want, or any rares I have, are tucked away in my sideboard. I have no use for a sideboard in a 60 card format because I'm already playing every card I can play in the colors my deck is in - there's nothing meaningful to swap in or out between games anyways.

Are people really not having fun playing with the 60-card decks? I've had plenty of fun with the games I've played, and they seemed pretty interesting. I don't think turning up the clock by a turn or two would make it more interesting, and the gain you'd get from having more reliable access to your manafixers would be offset by both the faster speed (meaning less time to draw out of a bad draw) and the more reliable access to bombs (meaning more emphasis on those who got really good bombs in their packs).

I've had several fun games and several not-fun games with the 60-card decks. I've had several fun games and 1 not-fun game with the 40 card decks (the 1 was because my opponent got totally mana screwed, which really just happens from time to time). Also, the 40 card deck took a lot more effort to build and the sideboard is actually meaningful.

extarbags

07-06-2009, 06:29 PM

Anyone care to weigh in on the following idea:

40 card decks, 15 card sideboards

The losing player of a match has the option to swap one of the losing player's cards (of his choice) for one of the winning opponent's cards (also of the losing player's choice) from the winning opponent's excess card pool.

I love this idea. Please please please let's do it please. I'm not worried about the rare->common thing; if you have a bomb rare, you're probably playing it already, and anyway the number one rule for this league as I recall was "be prepared to consider these cards game pieces, and to not get attached to them."

mouselock

07-06-2009, 10:31 PM

I love this idea. Please please please let's do it please. I'm not worried about the rare->common thing; if you have a bomb rare, you're probably playing it already, and anyway the number one rule for this league as I recall was "be prepared to consider these cards game pieces, and to not get attached to them."

I can say it all I want, but that's not going to make it happen unfortunately. If someone pulled a $15 rare out of a pack they're going to be protective of it.

I think after talking with Reldan in game I'm probably leaning toward the above with a slight modification. 40/15 decks with the loser chosing a swap, and if a player wants to protect a rare/mythic from the swap they should sideboard it. At the very least if someone's going to insist on bringing card value to the forefront they should pay some game-related penalty for it, so I think shrinking the sideboard is acceptable. Even if you got incredibly lucky with rares/mythics and didn't use -any- of them in your main deck, your sideboard is only going to lose 6-7 slots. And that's assuming your mythic is worth protecting. (I got a Sedris which current price checks put at a whopping 0.25 tickets; pretty sure there are uncommons worth more out there and I know I've seen commons worth about half as much.)

Vesper

07-06-2009, 10:53 PM

I think after talking with Reldan in game I'm probably leaning toward the above with a slight modification. 40/15 decks with the loser chosing a swap, and if a player wants to protect a rare/mythic from the swap they should sideboard it. At the very least if someone's going to insist on bringing card value to the forefront they should pay some game-related penalty for it, so I think shrinking the sideboard is acceptable. Even if you got incredibly lucky with rares/mythics and didn't use -any- of them in your main deck, your sideboard is only going to lose 6-7 slots. And that's assuming your mythic is worth protecting. (I got a Sedris which current price checks put at a whopping 0.25 tickets; pretty sure there are uncommons worth more out there and I know I've seen commons worth about half as much.)
This sounds good to me. So just to recap:

1) League decks are 40 cards, 15 card sideboard
2) If you lose a league match, you get to swap any of your non-sideboard cards with one of the winner's non-sideboard cards.
3) The league winner will get a to-be-determined-prize. (Maybe we should have everyone throw in an event ticket, and distribute to the top 3 players/etc).

Reldan

07-06-2009, 10:59 PM

Does anyone have advice on the easiest way to get your non-sideboard, non-deck cards into tradable form quickly?

I tried writing out a list from the deck editor screen but that's going to be hard to manually punch in and keep track of.

delirium

07-06-2009, 11:16 PM

My credit card expired the day before this league announcement and it's been agony reading this thread and waiting to create an account, but having to wait for my PP check to go through. I've just been playing the trial version with all the basic cards over the last few days. I've absolutely mastered it, but I know I'm in for a rude awakening when I finally get my hands on some cards.

I hate to ask, but is anyone willing to PayPal me some money so I can start my account up and get learning? I'll pay you back as soon as my check clears later this week.

smokingkipper

07-07-2009, 02:13 AM

Hey guys!

I would love to join in on the fun, is this thing still going? My only taste of Magic is from the xbox live version and its prebuilt decks, but I would love to make the step up if you will have me?

Wendelius

07-07-2009, 03:44 AM

I really think the 60 cards deck for the first 2 weeks had a lot of merit to help the MTG newcomers get into the game. I can modify my deck to be 40 cards if that's the way the vote goes. But I don't think it's the best way to get the league started (even though it would probably be more fun for the old hands). What's wrong with a gentlelearning curve?

Wendelius

Reldan

07-07-2009, 06:58 AM

Building decks and seeing what works is a major part of this game. I think you lose that when you are putting 95% of the card pool into the deck.

The 40 card format is also easier to experiment with. You can build multiple decks in different color combinations and get a feel for what's working.

Wallapuctus

07-07-2009, 07:14 AM

Wader

07-07-2009, 07:56 AM

I test built a 40 card deck this morning, and found it a lot harder than putting together the 60 card decks I had done previously. Thats actually a good thing, since I feel like I was making more strategic decisions of how I wanted my deck to run, rather than putting every card with the right 3 colors into the deck.

I honestly dont care that much about protecting rares. I will be a little sad when someone pulls this guy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=180611) out of my extra cards, but at least (I hope) its someone taking it because they can use it rather than taking it because they want a rare.

I like the 40 card decks, and the idea of having the loser pulling from extra cards. That should help keep anyone from falling too far behind, and lets you protect cards by sideboarding them.

Also, in response to someone earlier, I dont think there is any way to make all non sideboarded or decked cards tradeable, you just have to go through one by one.

mouselock

07-07-2009, 08:20 AM

What's wrong with a gentlelearning curve?

For one thing, the league doesn't start until the 17th officially anyway. (Sign ups end on the 10th though, so if you're still on the fence you have until Friday!)

And Reldan's point is a fair one. Part of playing is building a deck, and while many of us can make three color decks, there's a bit of a difference between "Which three colors are strongest" and "Okay, now that I've picked my deck colors, which cards should I include."

The idea behind the setup I posted above is that if you start out on a downswing you can very quickly and easily change your deck around. The more you play the more you learn about your deck, and if you're playing and getting beaten, then each time you do so is an opportunity to swap for a new card for your deck. (Note that you never have to swap)

mouselock

07-07-2009, 08:28 AM

I'm cool with the 40 card format, but I think we should exclude rares and mythics from the swaps. I see people, especially newbies, getting upset when they lose a good card to someone that just whooped their ass with a superior deck.

I got this gentleman (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Discussion.aspx?multiverseid=189645), for instance, but I can't build a viable deck out of the colors he requires, nor did I pull a single creature enchantment in any of my packs. I realize I can protect him in my sideboard, but it would be a shame if sideboards just became "off limits" cards and didn't actually function as a sideboard over time.

I agree. But how is it fair if the environment is supposed to be about "You build the best deck you can, then someone else does the same, and then you refine your decks by taking cards from the pool of non-utilized cards out there" if we say "Oh, except for the really cool mythic rares and rares, because people can't get over the fact that they're worth a few bucks." I don't know how to address that. If I'm playing GRW, then you holding onto that card when it's not in your sideboard just because it's a mythic rare is denying me a potential resource that I could be using to stomp your face in. If you're going to deny me that resource, then you should lose some effectiveness because of it. I much prefer the idea of every card that's not in your sideboard/deck goes into a common pool to be drawn from, but clearly some people would still sideboard in their rares because they want to keep them.

In paper we had a solution for this problem (mark the cards so they were worth very little) but in digital there's not one. Folks would really do well to remember that each card is worth
$0.27 and the fun you get out of playing with him, but that's unfortunately hard to enforce.

Wallapuctus

07-07-2009, 08:32 AM

mouselock

07-07-2009, 08:38 AM

I think it's less about their perceived value and more about "these are my best cards." In my case, I can't build a viable deck that utilizes my best card, yet. With a couple swaps and maybe a booster in 2 weeks, I'll be able to.

Protecting cards with the sideboard works, especially considering that most of our sideboards are useless right now. I was just tossing out the idea of letting people protect cards outside their sideboard.

I think if you think you might be able to grow a deck around that card sometime then you definitely should keep it sideboarded. At the start, you're very unlikely to want to sideboard in for matches themselves, I'd guess. Do keep in mind that if you're sideboarding something like that which is off color, though, you'd better sideboard the bases of that entire color too. It's not going to make much difference if, say, you don't have enough W to play your guy, if you sideboard your guy to keep him safe and then people you play are pulling all your good W spells from your excess so that by the time you do have a chance to play some you've lost your white basis even if you've grabbed a couple other spells back.

Sometimes you can't play your "best" card simply because you don't have the support. In an unlimited environment you go get the support; in a limited you generally end up playing the better deck even if it excludes the cards. (I, for example, have a brutal black/white couple of cards, with an armageddon/hand discard combo. But I simply don't have the critters and backup to go with those two colors.)

I don't know how it will go if we do 40 cards, but I will say that all the times I've done a league like this @ 60 cards, I've never seen someone entirely rotate through a color nor have I ever seen extreme color narrowing. People never went from 3 colors with a splash of 4th to 2 colors, for example; they simply refined their three main colors and unsplashed the fourth.

Vesper

07-07-2009, 09:26 AM

mouselock-

Since I think we've more or less stabilized on things, could you please post the "final" rules so there is no misinterpretation from people reading the discussion in this thread?

ravenight

07-07-2009, 12:00 PM

The main deckbuilding choice in Magic is not supposed to be about what colors to play. You are neglecting the number one most important key to building a deck - mana curve. I've got the same number of potential 2-mana, 3-mana, and 4-mana drops in whichever 3 colors I pick either way, but I can actually maintain a good mana curve ratio within the 40 card deck, whereas with the 60 card deck it's out of my hands whether half the games I have no play to make until turn 4.

No, I understand what you meant when you said it would give you more decisions to make, I just don't think those decisions are significant creative deckbuilding ones. The significant decision is what color(s) to play, after that it is a pretty rote task of smoothing out your curve, balancing creatures with spells, etc. I think that second task occurs even with 60 card decks, and the 40 card format, at best, allows the option of build a deck in 3 colors where you don't really have enough cards to build a 60-card deck.

Rafiq isn't a game-winning bomb. He's still just a 3/3 creature that can be killed by just about any removal I've seen anyone playing (aside from Crystallization - that requires some way to target him afterwards). If I tried playing a strict 3-color WGU deck it would amount to being a tremendous pile of ass anyways.

Well this goes back to my point about color choices being most important. If you remove blue or green, then you are without Rafiq, who can win games pretty quickly on his own. If you don't add a 4th color, then you are light on spot removal (or whatever else the problem is), but you still have Rafiq and Martial Coup. If you add the 4th color, then you have a shaky manabase. All these decisions are the interesting ones, not the decision of whether Cylian Elves is a better fit than Cavern Thoctar, and they exist regardless of deck size.

Agreed, although I think you're failing to see that a lot of folks are playing 4-color, or 4-color with the 5th splashed, in order to create viable 60 card decks.

Well, I think they are choosing to do that because it is possible and it makes their decks better. I don't really believe that anyone would be incapable of creating a 3-color deck that was reasonably close to the other 60 card decks in terms of power. I just think that your expectations of which cards you shouldn't ever be playing are colored by a lot of experience with 40-card formats, so you are exaggerating the pain that is caused by having to put those cards in a 60-card deck.

I honestly have 1 card in my entire pile of excess cards that I can even remotely fathom anyone would want, and it's not even that great of a card. To be honest, anything that I think anybody might want, or any rares I have, are tucked away in my sideboard. I have no use for a sideboard in a 60 card format because I'm already playing every card I can play in the colors my deck is in - there's nothing meaningful to swap in or out between games anyways.

Reducing it to the 40/15 idea above definitely makes the excess-card swaps more meaningful, but again, I think your idea of what is playable is colored by the 40-card format. I seriously doubt that you have almost 40 cards in your pool that are completely unplayable in all 60-card decks.

If most people want to go for the 40-card decks, I don't mind (I'll actually probably enjoy it more), I just want to make sure that we keep the league reasonably newbie-friendly, and I think that 40-card decks are not very friendly. All the decisions that I said are rote ones are really tough ones for new players to make, ones they sometimes don't even realize they are making. If we switch to 40-card decks, I predict a much greater striation based on experience level and thus a greater frustration amongst people who are just starting out. But maybe all of that is made up for by having the loser choose cards to swap.

Ryan Markel

07-07-2009, 05:17 PM

Ryan Markel

07-07-2009, 05:30 PM

I'm good with either, but would prefer 60-card. I'm more confident in my 40-card decks, and there is a lot more unpredictability in my 40-card, but the chief difference for me isn't the newbie introduction (though I do believe that's a factor), but the effect that adding cards to our personal pools will be as we move forward. I vote for personal pools rather than a common one, but no "franchise player" protection. I for one am not going to be moving over to Constructed play after this is over, because I can't afford to keep up with that action. Losing a sideboard slot to protect cards makes sense, though. You'd eventually run out of slots as we added cards. (Heck, because we're adding boosters over time, I'm not even sure we need the "flux" aspect and could instead encourage trading and sharing of card lists.)

My 40-card decks are pretty tuned already. I've worked on the curve, and at this point any changes that would be made to them would likely be adding additional copies of clutch spells/abilities or subbing out one moderately ineffective card for another. They run on three colors and seem to cycle pretty well.

My 60-card decks are like the beginnings of sculptures. They're rough around the edges, and they contain things I normally wouldn't play in a Limited format, let alone Constructed. I don't like some things about them. But they will likely undergo drastic changes as cards are added to the mix (especially if we can keep our own tradebait and shift our decks around as time passes). One of my 60-card monstrosities is five-color and STILL works well because I have enough manacycling to power it most of the time (even if it is slow).

Over time and with more cards in the mix, that 60-card deck is going to shed a color or two and become leaner and meaner. For newbies in the mix, this will teach them gradually how to build a deck around a concept. Early on, there's just the beginnings of that feeling, but as time passes, the game and experience will teach them what works and what doesn't, and what to remove from the deck as more powerful cards become available.

delirium

07-07-2009, 07:36 PM

OK, I'm up and running, thanks to Ryan Markel.

My account name is deliriumtrigger_QT3L

Lokust

07-07-2009, 07:52 PM

Online now, going to build some 40 card decks to mess around with. PM me (on MTGO) if I don't respond in clan chat.

mouselock

07-07-2009, 07:53 PM

Alright folks, there's a poll for deck format up here (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=53529) for the league to choose their preferred league deck format. I think if we go with 60 card decks it's necessary for the winners to have some control over what cards they get from the swap at the end of the match.

Please note that you will be playing matches for actual guild games, not single games. So best 2 out of 3 is considered a win. This will help mitigate random card screw to some extent; it won't help if your deck is built poorly of course.

Once we get this final decision worked out I'll work on posting up final rules. That will be sometime next week as I'm out of town this weekend.

delirium

07-07-2009, 08:25 PM

Well, this is overwhelming, but looks pretty fun so far. Can someone explain the plainswalker thing?

extarbags

07-07-2009, 08:44 PM

Well, this is overwhelming, but looks pretty fun so far. Can someone explain the plainswalker thing?

Sure: they're unblockable if your opponent controls a Plains.

Kidding! planeswalkers are actually pretty simple. They're permanents, so you play them and they sit there. The number in the lower right corner is called "starting loyalty," and they come into play with that many counters on them. The loyalty counters are like life for a planeswalker, kind of.

So they have these abilities listed, as so:

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ptc/38.jpg

You're allowed to play one ability of each of your planeswalkers each turn, at sorcery speed, during your main phase only. The numbers in front of them are the cost that you pay in counters; most planeswalkers have an ability that adds one counter, one that subtracts one or two counters, and one that subtracts a whole bunch of counters.

You (or your opponents) have a couple of different ways of getting rid of opposing planeswalkers. For one thing, when you attack, you now have the choice to attack either the player themselves or any one of their PWs. Blocks and trample and everything else works the same; just, you have to declare upfront who you're attacking, before they make any other decisions. Aside from that, any time you control a spell that would deal damage to a player, you can choose to have that damage dealt to one of that player's planeswalkers instead. So if I have a Lightning Bolt, I can't target your Ajani with it, but I can target you and have the damage dealt to Ajani. They aren't creatures (a surprising number of people seem to think they are, even though they have almost nothing in common with them), so they can't be targetted by things that destroy creatures, but they can be affected by spells and abilities that affect permanents, such as Oblivion Ring (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/20.html) and Violent Ultimatum (http://magiccards.info/ala/en/206.html). Also, they work kind of like legendary things, where if there are two of the same one in play, they both get sacrificed immediately, only instead of going by name, they go by the type line. This is so they can print different versions of the same planeswalker (like they've done with a number of legendary creatures) and still have it make sense. So there are currently two version of the guy above (Ajani Vengeant and Ajani Goldmane); if you had an Ajani Vengeant out and I played one too, they'd both die, but if I played an Ajani Goldmane, they'd also both die.

That's it!

delirium

07-07-2009, 08:55 PM

Cool, sounds interesting! Thanks for that.

merryprankster

07-07-2009, 11:11 PM

Can anyone tell me where in the store I can find the correct boosters? I looked and did not see any of the sets that were listed.

delirium

07-07-2009, 11:16 PM

Also, does anyone have any helpful hints for the deck management interface? Very confusing to organize things.

Namely, how to take inventory on my colors to decide what I should be leaning towards.

Reldan

07-07-2009, 11:31 PM

Also, does anyone have any helpful hints for the deck management interface? Very confusing to organize things.

Namely, how to take inventory on my colors to decide what I should be leaning towards.

The interface is and always has been a bag of ass.

All you've really got in the deck editor is the list of cards at the top which can be sorted and filtered, and the decklist in the middle (and sideboard on bottom).

You can sort by any column, but not by color. You can use the buttons at the top to filter colors so you can study each color's cards individually, although with the sheer number of gold cards in this set that becomes a chore. There's a mana cost filter in the upper right where you select a logical operator and a number and it filters the cards for you. There's also a set of buttons below the color filter buttons that let you filter cards by type (creature, land, artifact, etc.).

That's pretty much it.

Also, when you save your deck save it as a "Net Deck" and not a "Local Deck", otherwise if you install and play MTGO on any other computer you won't have the deck (Net Deck saves it to the server).

delirium

07-08-2009, 01:10 AM

How do I filter my deck by color type? When I click the icons at the top, it filters the library but not the deck.

Fancy Salami

07-08-2009, 12:57 PM

This league has gotten me to wreck my brain a little and finally remembering the password to this forum account. I'm back after more than five years of lurking! I played around one MTGO league a month until they borked it with 3.0 and would love to be part of this league if possible.

Account name: Fancy_QT3L

I seems that the rules are mostly decided, but I would just like to add that a common card pool got the potential to be a logistical nightmare unless we trust each other enough to have a shared account with the pooled cards that everyone in the league have access to. So swapping between the ones who just played seems the better option.

How do I filter my deck by color type? When I click the icons at the top, it filters the library but not the deck.

At the top right of the deck portion of the deckbuilder UI there's a tiny icon with an eye on it. Click on it and you'll get a graphical view where the cards are sorted by piles and the default is by color. Also you can change the way the cards pile by a right-click menu. For instance sorting by mana cost is a nice way to see your mana curve (especially with regards to creatures).

Edit: Also I'm in the CET timezone so I guess I'll be playing Wendelius a lot or stay up really late (which I can due to having a vacation atm).

mouselock

07-08-2009, 01:39 PM

I seems that the rules are mostly decided, but I would just like to add that a common card pool got the potential to be a logistical nightmare unless we trust each other enough to have a shared account with the pooled cards that everyone in the league have access to. So swapping between the ones who just played seems the better option.

Yeah, there are a lot of things I like about the common cardpool idea, but the logistics just get worse and worse as you add people. When everyone can gather up in a room and pass the box of cards around it's no big deal. I'm not even sure everyone who's signed up here is within an 8 hour gap in terms of time zones. (In fact I'm pretty sure they're not.) That's just too much to ask of anyone, even though Extar agreed to be the league master.

Wolff

07-08-2009, 06:59 PM

omgs more cards before we start the league plox, some people just have absolutely crazy draws from their 6 packs, I mean I thought I had it good, and I may get lucky here and there but a bunch of the matches will be determined before the first card is even drawn

Wader

07-08-2009, 07:02 PM

Lokust

07-08-2009, 07:33 PM

I shudder as I wonder who managed to get better pulls than Wolf

Vesper

07-08-2009, 08:10 PM

Who all still needs to get invited to the clan, other than delirium & Fancy? Still logging on every evening (central time), but if you need some alternate arrangement, let me know.

delirium

07-08-2009, 08:53 PM

I'm on now if anyone wants to play a bit tonight. I am dying to get a few games in and see how I did with my deck (U/B/W - easily my most prolific colors). I have a few good combos, but who knows how often the cards I need for them will turn up.

Ryan Markel

07-08-2009, 10:12 PM

Jeez - that last game against Vesper I had to mulligan down to four and then played with three lands for the first six turns (gah).

delirium

07-08-2009, 11:54 PM

extarbags

07-09-2009, 04:45 AM

Yeah, that's definitely one of the biggest "you win" cards in Alara block limited. Conglaturation!

Lorini

07-09-2009, 07:37 AM

Wader

07-09-2009, 07:38 AM

Hopefully this is an OK post because I wouldn't want to start yet another Magic thread :)

Is anyone interested in doing a swiss Shards sealed deck Friday night? There are three rounds of an hour (max) each, so allocate three hours. The block pack costs $26 total. I realize that 8 people probably won't be available at once, but it'd be nice to have a couple of Qt3'ers to play with. I've always enjoyed sealed deck play and would also like to increase my collection of shards online.

Just post here if you are interested and what time (remember to post your time zone too!).

What time would you want to start?

Lorini

07-09-2009, 07:40 AM

I'm very flexible so that's why I was suggesting people post their times. I can start anytime basically.

Wader

07-09-2009, 07:48 AM

I'm very flexible so that's why I was suggesting people post their times. I can start anytime basically.

I would probably be interested. I am an east coaster, so I would be on earlier than the majority of you all though.

Wolff

07-09-2009, 08:06 AM

Its not a knee jerk reaction to losing. Its a reaction to having seen a good majority of the decks that are currently out there. As I've said before, I'd say I fall on the upper end of the power curve from what I have surveyed so far.

I've played only one person where over a series of games we have gone back and forth. Every other game (with the exception of the rare mana screw) has been one sided over several matches for one deck versus the other.

Eveyone has very few removal options so it becomes a war of the fatty drops. Problem is the fatty distribution is no where close to even.

I just think we'll have a much more interesting league when as players we have the flexibility to mess around with our decks as we see which ones are rising to the top.

See fatties ---> add bounce and counters
See control ---> add weenies and card draw

etc.

mouselock

07-09-2009, 08:43 AM

Just post here if you are interested and what time (remember to post your time zone too!).

I'll be out of town so can't do this, but I am curious. If you basically instigate your own swiss tournament are there still prizes? Or does WotC just take your two tickets from the tournament pack for the "overhead" of having shunted you into an automated queue?

Wallapuctus

07-09-2009, 08:49 AM

I still need an invite, but it's mostly my fault, I haven't been able to log in much this week.

Tonight, though, I'll be available pretty much all night. My username is FashionZombie_QT3L.

Lorini

07-09-2009, 09:02 AM

I'll be out of town so can't do this, but I am curious. If you basically instigate your own swiss tournament are there still prizes? Or does WotC just take your two tickets from the tournament pack for the "overhead" of having shunted you into an automated queue?

It's just the regular swiss format, meaning that there are still prizes. We just all need to be on at the same time so we can be in the same group.

ravenight

07-09-2009, 11:05 AM

Also, does anyone have any helpful hints for the deck management interface? Very confusing to organize things.

Namely, how to take inventory on my colors to decide what I should be leaning towards.

What I usually do with sealed is to use the deck portion of the editor to sort cards manually, like I would with physical cards. Basically, I start with the rares/mythics and then add in the uncommons and eventually commons, kind of laying out deck options as I go. Or, I'll go through all the cards and decide which ones are the most powerful, then choose colors that let me play the most of them, then switch to sorting by converted mana cost to fill out my curve.

mouselock

07-09-2009, 11:45 AM

Jeez - that last game against Vesper I had to mulligan down to four and then played with three lands for the first six turns (gah).

I need to play you more often. I've played 4 games with a combination of 40/60 card 3 color decks:

Game 1 - No swamps for whole game
Game 2 - No swamps for whole game
Game 3 - No land, mulligan, no land, mulligan
Game 4 - No land, mulligan, all land but 1, don't mulligan, draw 4 non land cards total over the ensuing 11 turns.

All this with 35+% land in the deck, in even increments, and no more than one of any color needed per casting cost except in two cards (BB1, RR3)

RNG's just -hate- me.

ravenight

07-09-2009, 11:54 AM

mouselock

07-09-2009, 12:01 PM

35% land is not enough, especially in sealed with 3 colors. Your 60 card deck should have at least 24 lands (40%) and your 40 card deck probably 17 unless you've got a lot of mana sources in the non-land cards.

Fair enough. However, drawing three lands @ 35% over the course of 9 or 10 turns is a statistical anomaly, regardless.

If any of you more knowledgeable players wants to put together a quick newbies guide with advice like the above for folks, I'd love to pop it up at the top of this thread (or perhaps the win tracking thread when I make it and we get around to actually tracking stuff starting on the 17th).

It's one thing to figure out card mechanic interactions, but I believe there's a lot more math/statistics work that's been done on things like mana ratios based on casting costs/card mixes since the last time I played in any mildly compeitive environment (revised). So if anyone can put together, or even provide links to, quick, concise summaries that would be awesome.

ravenight

07-09-2009, 04:48 PM

Well, I don't know if I can give a great comprehensive guide, and the ratios and such may vary a bit in a 60-card sealed environment vs. a constructed one (constructed mana curves are always much tighter). Here's some quick tips, though:

Land count: You will want at least 40% of your cards to be land, and probably closer to 50% of them to be sources of mana or ways to get sources of mana (like the landcycling cards). If you have fewer mana artifacts/creatures and landcyclers, you will want more land to keep the ratio up. If you have very few 6+ casting cost cards, you can probably shave out a few land to give yourself more useful cards.

Removal is key: Any cards that allow you to kill an opposing creature, even expensive or narrow ones can be worth playing (and in this block, that includes artifact destruction, because of all the esper artifact creatures). Obviously, anything that lets you kill 2 or more opposing creatures is also really strong, and board sweepers are also really good, even if they kill your guys. If you don't have anything that directly kills creatures, you will want to make sure you have bounce spells ("return target creature to its owner's hand") and/or combat tricks - instants that make your creatures bigger, or give them deathtouch, or even first strike.

Creatures are the main play: For the most part, cards in your deck that aren't removal or land should be creatures. You need to have them for both defense and offense, and while the specific ratio can vary a lot depending on how much good removal and other spells you have, bear in mind that a lot of cards (like combat tricks or creature enchantments) become much worse the fewer creatures in your deck. A rough guideline here would be that less than 30% creatures is almost certainly too little, and you can only have too many creatures if you are playing them instead of decent removal or removal-like spells.

Mana curve: If you sort your deck by "converted mana cost" (you can right-click in the editor to do this), you will be able to see quickly what your curve looks like and what cards you can tweak to fix it (there is also a "stats" button which shows you a bar graph of the curve). Generally, in a sealed environment you'd expect your curve to peak at 3 mana, and taper off in each of the other directions. If the curve is too sharp, or has multiple peaks, it may be worth looking to see if you can find a lower-mana alternative to some of the more expensive cards. Likewise, if you have vastly more 3-drops than 2-drops, you should look to find 2-drops you can replace 3s with. Curve is important, but power level of your cards is more important, so don't remove things that are strong just to fix your curve. Bear in mind that some creatures can act as removal.

Mana ratios: The "stats" button will give you a summary of the number of mana symbols of each color that appear in the casting costs of cards in your deck. This is a great shorthand for figuring out the ratio of mana sources in the deck. So if you have 20 red symbols, 25 green symbols, 10 black symbols, and room for 23 basic lands, you might split that as 8 mountains, 9 forests and 6 swamps. Note that with an uneven distribution of colors you will want to shade up the number of sources of the less prevalent colors, at the expense of the main colors. You can count lands, artifacts or cyclers that give access to multiple colors as sources of each color they provide.

Creature power level: This is a really broad subject, but I'll just touch on two things. 1) Evasion is really good, especially flying, because it allows you to control the damage race really well - you can choose when to deal damage and when to hang back to block or trade, but your opponent doesn't have the option of blocking. 2) Power is much better than toughness - you generally want to be getting 1 point of power for each mana in the cost of a creature, but you will settle for a little less in exchange for evasion, or if you are getting really large total power or other cool abilities like cycling. High toughness/low power creatures are generally pretty weak unless you have a lot of evasion, in which case they can sit back and block while you fly over with the other guys.

Anyway, hope that is helpful, and if anyone thinks some of this advice is off or unclear, please chime in.

Funkula

07-09-2009, 05:16 PM

Well, I'm in as Funkula_QT3. I figure the structure of the league (as well as the fact that when we finish I won't know anyone playing and won't have a badass enough deck to play competitively) should help keep me from dumping too much cash into this. I've got my first deck (white/blue/black, not my favorite combo but by far the best color spread from my available options) and I'm looking to get some testing with it.

Ryan Markel

07-09-2009, 06:19 PM

Wow, I'm just realizing that I made out like a bandit on some of these cards. I got 2 mythic rares, both of them are useful to me, and one of them might be the most valuable card in this expansion (and certainly a potential game winner):

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ala/9.jpg

Yes, let's talk about how you also have:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=189641&type=card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=188962&type=card

And *all three* cards have color synergy.

Ryan Markel

07-09-2009, 06:24 PM

ravenight's summary is pretty good. In Constructed, my general rule of thumb was to have 24 land in a 60-card deck, depending on what else was in there and what the curve looked like.

Since I've played, the game has certainly swung in the direction of creatures being the pivot point around which games are won/lost. You need both some sources of creature removal and a fair number of creatures in your deck to have a good shot, especially in the limited card pools we have available to us.

extarbags

07-09-2009, 08:10 PM

Yes, let's talk about how you also have:

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=189641&type=card http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=188962&type=card

And *all three* cards have color synergy.

Nemesis of Reason sucks though, unless we go to forty card decks, in which case it's retarded.

delirium

07-09-2009, 08:39 PM

It doesn't suck. Obviously it's a lot better in a 40 card deck, but definitely still puts on some pressure with 60. I've learned that it's not always best to attack with it, because with enough creatures on your opponent's side it can get taken down easily. With its 7 toughness, it can be a very solid defender, and its special ability is enough to make your opponent consider leaving some attackers back to defend.

extarbags

07-09-2009, 08:54 PM

It doesn't do anything against a sixty card deck. Losing cards out of your library does nothing at all unless you get killed that way, so that's how you have to look at that card. Against a forty-card deck, it kills in three swings, making it roughly the equivalent of a 7/7 flying for five; that's a good deal, even though it basically has to kill the opponent all on its own. Against a sixty-card deck, it needs five swings, making it the equivalent of a 4/7 flying for five; that's a bad deal, even if it wasn't expected to win the entire game.

As for the rest of it: nobody is afraid of it for the above reasons, so that's out. As for blocking: creatures designed to block are bad, because they basically temporarily remove your opponent's best attacker. This can be accomplished more effectively with any removal spell, and those generally cost 1-3 mana, not five.

delirium

07-09-2009, 09:20 PM

I Against a sixty-card deck, it needs five swings, making it the equivalent of a 4/7 flying for five; that's a bad deal, even if it wasn't expected to win the entire game.

Not exactly. You can block a flying creature, but you can't block the discard ability. You can use all kinds of cards to nullify attack damage. Aside from removal, your only option is to leave enough defenders back to kill it. Considering the slow pace of 60 card deck games, 5 swings is not out of the question. Plus, you're essentially eliminating your opponent's important cards from the game (though that can backfire if they play spells to take a card out of the graveyard).

The fact that it can eat up 7 damage as a blocker is just a nice bonus. It's not an ubercard in a 60 card deck, but it's nice to have around.

Ryan Markel

07-09-2009, 09:33 PM

extarbags

07-10-2009, 06:40 AM

Plus, you're essentially eliminating your opponent's important cards from the game

This is a common misconception, and understanding this is one of the keys to understanding Magic a little better.

When you mill someone through any effect, however efficient or inefficient, you are not eliminating their important cards from the game. You are eliminating random cards from the game. Unless the top of their deck has been stacked in some way, their library is randomly ordered, which means that you are just as likely to mill away a bunch of irrelevant cards to get them closer to drawing the card they want as the opposite. You can't count this as a bonus at all.

The only point of milling is to kill someone through milling. That's a basic fact that is lost on a lot of players who haven't wasted their lives thinking through this stuff, but it's fundamentally true; this stuff about "you can maybe knock out their best cards" can't be counted as any benefit whatsoever.

As far as killing someone through milling goes, it's a risky proposition that rarely works, and it only ever works if you're completely dedicated to it. The reason for this is simple: if half of your win conditions deal damage and the other half mill, half of them are going to have been wasted in any given game, and it will take you twice as long to kill your opponent. That's why Nemesis of Reason isn't good when it's not made incredibly efficient by facing down a 40-card deck; yes, it's true that they can't block its mill effect, but it's also true that no other card in your deck contributes to the mill plan in any way whatsoever, which is decidedly worse. And worse yet, it can't contribute to your damage plan in a significant way either. If you play it, attack four times, and then it gets removed, you're basically back to square one, because all of that milling accomplished nothing.

delirium

07-10-2009, 09:32 AM

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think your points are as relevant to this league in its current state. If we were all playing with finely tuned killing machines for decks, you would be absolutely correct that this card is a waste of space unless it's used in a deck designed to drain one's library. But as things stand, nobody is playing ideal cards, the games are slow, and the discard ability is still somewhat of a threat. If I need to make room later for some badass 5 mana creature, I'd consider cutting this card, but it's nice to have around for the time being.

Brian Seiler

07-10-2009, 11:01 AM

RE: milling - I think you're still not quite getting the main thrust here. It doesn't matter whether the deck is tight and constructed or not - all that you've accomplished by removing cards from the deck is you've eliminated cards that your opponent couldn't use. There are any number of scenarios you could bring up in which it's advantageous (ha ha - I milled out your last Stasis, jackwad!) or disadvantageous (you know, if I hadn't stripped off those six cards, I could have killed you before you even had a chance to draw that dragon...), but in terms of raw utility, you're not getting much bang for your buck from milling, apparently. Which is a shame, because I always loved milling strategies, but there you go. The situation changes a little in a Sylvan Library type situation where your opponent is arranging the cards on top of his library (meaning you can bugger up his strategy and deprive him of the benefit of his lookahead), but otherwise, you're not making much progress. In the case of this card, you've basically buried ten cards that were never played, which gets you no closer to winning until you get the last card out of your opponent's library. I wouldn't call it useless, but it's one of the first cards I would consider replacing, but then I'm the kind of guy who likes to put in cards that irritate the crap out of the other guy to get him off his game, and nothing is more irritating than having the best three cards in your deck that YOU TOTALLY WOULD HAVE DRAWN IN IMAGINATION UNIVERSE if it weren't for me and my buggardly cards and playing and junk.

As far as the game goes.....you people are all going to hell. Every. Last. One. Of. You. I'll go ahead and sign up tonight, I guess. I'm sure I'll get plowed into the ground like a row of dead corn, but I simply can't resist the draw any more with all of this talk-talk-talking about the game going on.

delirium

07-10-2009, 11:37 AM

I was talking about discarding to win the game in my last post, not milling. I understand that taking cards out of the library and putting them into the graveyard isn't accomplishing that much.

If I could replace the Nemesis of Reason with a more appropriate card for my deck, I'd do it. But right now, the pickings are slim for everyone and it's a pretty good card for the moment.

Reldan

07-10-2009, 12:44 PM

I am surprised nonone has brought up the point that milling can help your opponent in this environment. There are a number of cards that let you return a card in your graveyard to your hand, so massive milling essentially can provide them with their choice. On top of that there are a number of Unearth cards that can be played directly from the graveyard.

If you mill me and it isn't to death, you actually have helped me more than hurt me.

Brian Seiler

07-10-2009, 12:46 PM

That's a newish development since I quit. Back when I was bangin', we had the recall ability that would let you suck the thing back from your graveyard to your hand, but that was about it. Of course, back when I played I also had a rockin' stasis deck, so it's been a while. What's even better are the cards that do things based on the number of X in graveyards - I've got a world championship deck that would rock your brains in that sort of scenario.

Lorini

07-10-2009, 01:05 PM

Looks like it's just me and Wadar for tonight, so Wadar let me know what time you'll be on.

Chronic

07-10-2009, 01:42 PM

I'm signed up as Chronic_QT3L

I just opened my boosters and threw together a desk last night and haven't gotten a chance to play yet but I hope to tonight. I'm also in the Cental time zone and will most likely be on after 9:00 P.M.

Wow they've really changed up Magic since when I played way back when in the days of the Revised set. I've been enjoying the XBLA version but like most everyone else I prefer more deck building. I love opening a bunch of boosters and then trying to make something work out of the resulting mess.

Can anyone explain how the Cycling ability on the cards works? I didn't have time last night to figure out exactly how it plays. Is it just an ability that lets you discard from your hand and draw a replacement? It seems like a pulled a lot of cards with that ability but I don't ever remember seeing it before.

extarbags

07-10-2009, 01:46 PM

Yes, it's exactly that. The only variant in this set is landcycling (i.e. Mountaincycling, Swampcycling, or Basic landcycling), which lets you search for an appropriate land and put it in your hand instead of drawing the card. Both versions are much better than they look, especially in limited.

Brian Seiler

07-10-2009, 01:52 PM

Hmmm....so let me see if I grasp the strategy. Cycling gives you two advantages out of a card. The first is a straight-up card advantage - if you pull something and don't need it for whatever reason you can toss it and see another card. The second is that it gives you a method to basically put the card in your graveyard and get something for it, so, for instance, if you have a big creature that costs eight but has 4 cycling, you could cycle it and then pull it out of the graveyard next turn with whatever the equivalent of Raise Dead is these days, or if you have a creature that gains power based on having creatures in your graveyard you can cycle a creature with cycling there out of your hand and your creature inflates a little bit.

Is that how it's mostly used? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the strategic implications of some of the newer mechanics. There's nothing as out-and-out weird as Flanking yet that I've run across, but some are more complicated than others.

extarbags

07-10-2009, 02:11 PM

It's mostly used as the first thing you said (which is not technically card advantage btw--I can elaborate on this concept at great length if anyone is interested). Regular cycling lets you play a lot of very situational, subpar cards, such as Jungle Weaver (http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ala/134.jpg), because if you draw it when it's not useful, you can always just pitch and and get whatever the next thing is. Landcycling is probably even better in this format, because it's that plus mana-fixing.

Cycling has more complex uses in certain constructed formats, but that's the basic gist of it in limited.

LesJarvis

07-10-2009, 02:11 PM

Cycling doesn't produce any card advantage by itself, just parity. However, many cycling cards also include triggers, so they produce a minor effect in addition to drawing you a card, effectively making them cantrips (example (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=41146)). The principle built-in advantage is flexibility. For a simple example, consider Barren Moor (an older card, but I'm not terribly familiar with the newer sets):

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=197029&type=card

In the early game it's a land drop, and in the late game it allows you to cycle it away for a (hopefully) more useful card.

Lorini

07-10-2009, 04:33 PM

Looks like I'm going to have to postpone my initial entry into swiss sealed deck, as my day didn't go as anticipated. Next Friday!

Wader

07-10-2009, 04:39 PM

Looks like I'm going to have to postpone my initial entry into swiss sealed deck, as my day didn't go as anticipated. Next Friday!

I finally got qt3 working again... Next Friday should be good for me as well...

Brian Seiler

07-10-2009, 06:17 PM

Holy flaming crap this is a clunky interface.

I got myself created, though. I'm Seiler_QT3.

May God have mercy on you all for getting me back into this.

Ryan Markel

07-10-2009, 06:40 PM

Holy flaming crap this is a clunky interface.

I got myself created, though. I'm Seiler_QT3.

May God have mercy on you all for getting me back into this.

Welcome, sir. I, too, have come to this after twelve years of not playing.

And damn it all if this isn't really fun.

Reldan

07-11-2009, 11:20 AM

Welcome to the jungle man, we've got fun and games!

And I would not recommend running Cycling cards just because they cycle. If you're playing one not because the main spell is ever going to see play but just to cycle it, you're effectively playing a spell that wastes time and mana in order to... draw a single card.

Cycling on expensive spells lets you try to get to more mana early game if that's a problem for your particular draw. Cycling on cheap spells lets you toss them late game where their utility would be limited. Cycling on 3-4 casting cost spells is... usually kinda weak unless there's a really useful cantrip effect on the card.

Think of it this way, if you're cycling a card, it's only because you're hoping to draw a better card, not because it's going to net you an actual gain. Cycling is always Plan B, because Plan A would have been to have drawn a card you actually wanted in the first place. At best it's a very weak form of Virtual Card Advantage.

Hanzii

07-11-2009, 01:20 PM

Holy flaming crap this is a clunky interface.

I got myself created, though. I'm Seiler_QT3.

May God have mercy on you all for getting me back into this.

Ah, was just going to complain, that I messed up when naming my new account, but I see I'm not alone.

I'm Hanzii_QT3 for this (Hanzii is my old account with no cards, but 9 tickets, so I'm probably going to play some sealed with that)

Hanzii

07-11-2009, 01:21 PM

BTW, what the hell is Avatar cards?

Wader

07-11-2009, 01:52 PM

They are the little picture thats displayed when you are in a game. You can choose which pic the other player sees. And you can win new ones by participating in release events and other special stuff.

extarbags

07-11-2009, 01:58 PM

Aren't they also for playing Vanguard (http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg_tcg_vanguard_productinfo )?

Wader

07-11-2009, 02:03 PM

Aren't they also for playing Vanguard (http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg_tcg_vanguard_productinfo )?

Yes, I guess thats true... I have never played that variant, so the only way I ever came across them was as your player icon.

Hanzii

07-11-2009, 02:30 PM

Aren't they also for playing Vanguard (http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg_tcg_vanguard_productinfo )?

Yeah, that was the part that confused me. The printed abilities of the cards.

Hanzii

07-12-2009, 04:17 AM

smokingkipper

07-12-2009, 04:22 AM

grr a little late here, is it too late for me too sign up?

In any case, I have created my account...SmokingKipper_QT3L, and got my boosters.

Wader

07-12-2009, 04:30 AM

So, managed to make a 60 card three-colour deck... man I'm rusty. I really had a tough time deciding on cards and especially limiting colours. I had some semi-great card combos across colours, but including all would have made a messy 4-colour.
Hope this works.

Also it appears that WoTC didn't redeem my $9.95 even though I entered the code. bastards. I'll try again, when we add boosters.

Did you actually see the charge on paypal or your credit card? My email receipt didnt have it either, so I called them, and they said it had been taken off, the email just doesnt say anything, which is very odd.

Hanzii

07-12-2009, 05:06 AM

Did you actually see the charge on paypal or your credit card? My email receipt didnt have it either, so I called them, and they said it had been taken off, the email just doesnt say anything, which is very odd.

No. Perhaps it's the same - I'll check the statement when it's done.

Fancy Salami

07-12-2009, 05:21 AM

Who all still needs to get invited to the clan, other than delirium & Fancy? Still logging on every evening (central time), but if you need some alternate arrangement, let me know.

Seems we might need to come to some arrangement as I've tried being up until 3 am on some nights and still haven't catched you online. The 8 hour time difference is a bitch. Anyway - not sure what suits you better; If we try to get me signed up either in the middle of the night (3 am-ish) or very early in the morning (7 am-ish CEST which is your timezone +8 hours).

Right now and until the middle of august I have vacation and can probably stay up late some nights, but I suspect getting games in will be tricky once I get back to work...

Wendelius

07-12-2009, 07:15 AM

I also need to get signed in. Haven't seen you online yet Vesper. 8 hours time difference is indeed a bitch.

Wendelius

Wallapuctus

07-12-2009, 12:18 PM

Y'all are shitting all over milling, but when you combine that with say, Liliana Vess's (http://magiccards.info/autocard.php?card=Liliana%20vess) -8 ability (who I drafted this weekend, she's so purty), you get a crap load of creatures.

Chronic

07-12-2009, 03:44 PM

I still need a clan invite too. I'll try to log on each night and try to catch you.

Vesper

07-12-2009, 03:48 PM

I got most of the opposite-side-of-the-Earthers today, I think. Chronic, I'll be on this evening after 8:30 CDT.

Wendelius

07-12-2009, 04:43 PM

So you did. And then existing QT3 clan members proceeded to trounce me and my deck repeatedly as a welcome gift. :)

Wendelius

Funkula

07-12-2009, 09:32 PM

I am loving the league so far, and I can't wait to start playing for trades in a week. After careful consideration of my options, I changed my color focus from white-blue-black to white-blue-green, and it's not only better, it's more fun to play now. Exalted has to be my favorite new mechanic since flanking, and adding green gave me access to several more exalted creatures, as well as a piece of equipment (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=179545) that I've been told is the nastiest card in my deck.

Furthermore, I ended up splashing in some dual or triple mana sources that include red and black, which allowed me to get some good use out of a very small number of red and black spells with cycling, as well as some activated abilities on cards I was already using that call for those colors (Paragon of the Amesha (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=179878) is nice in the format regardless, but if you can pay for its activated ability it is a game-ender). This is the first time I've ever used a five-color deck and it's been an awesome experience.

Hanzii

07-13-2009, 02:20 AM

Yeah, after playing Fancys 5-colour deck I was considering going above 3-clours too to add in more of the truly awesome cards in "wrong" colours... but I really don't think I have enough mana fixers in my pool.
I'm rusty as hell at deckbuilding, but I am too really looking forward to this - when you haven't played for ages and don't want to sink your savings into MtG (again) this is a good way to play.
We need to get a few more Euros addiceted, though.

Brian Seiler

07-13-2009, 06:21 AM

I'll still need an invite so that people can stomp all over these horrible.....things I have created as well. I got kind of a wacky draw - my creature pool is a little bit borked, but we'll see if I'm a secret brilliant genius or something. I'm guessing no. When is our first scheduled "you can totally buy a booster now" thing?

Oh, and as regards the ten dollar credit, I also did not receive the ten dollar credit, because every time I tried to punch my code into the checkout counter it basically told me to go pound sand. I assumed that it was being a jerk on account of I had more then ten dollars worth of stuff in the cart and Wizards, in a manner I could completely believe their developers would do based on my past history with their websites, wrote the thing in such a way that if your cart total exceeds your one payment cap thing that it belches up a big smelly failure message and refuses to go on.

Wendelius

07-13-2009, 06:30 AM

Nope. Pretty sure my $10 credit was available to use right after creating the account and I used it as partial payment for my cards and used my credit card to pay for the rest. So the shop does that right at least.

It obviously has many other issues though.

And the clunky software (although, credit where it's due, it handles all the rules well). Oh the humanity!

Wendelius

Brian Seiler

07-13-2009, 06:36 AM

Speaking of the clunky software:

Is there, like, a tutorial for that noise anywhere? I ask because I've tried my deck a few times in solitaire and I've had a couple of problems. First off, there's, like, seventeen times as many keywords now as I remember there being and half the ones I knew have vanished into the mists of history, but when I hover or right click or do anything to the card at all, it doesn't want to explain to me what in the chuffing hell an Exalted thing means.

Beyond that, I'm also having some minor problems getting the interface to act the way it's supposed to. The biggest specific problem I've had so far is the occasional choke in the program where I try to throw down a spell and I go over to start tapping my lands and nothing happens. A few seconds pass. Then a bunch of stuff happens. I assume this is me doing something wrong. I'm guessing that I'll get used to this sort of thing as I go on, but is there, like, a tutorial somewhere to familiarize me with the quirks of this particular system?

Wendelius

07-13-2009, 06:43 AM

Yes, the software sometimes can delay its response a bit and I've ended up triggering an ability that taps one of my creatures unless I pay 2 life points instead of an opponent's because I clicked twice before something happened and the software took it as triggering + targetting my creature. :(

As for keywords, if I hover over a card, the expanded description always seems to explain things like exalted, shroud, ... It seems to take equipment and a few others (cycling? Cascade?) as granted though, if I recall correctly. In quite a few games I've made, old timers have made mistakes based on us trying to get to grips with all the new mechanics. So you're not alone.

I guess the best way to find all the explanations would be to search for an online version of the rules book.

Wendelius

Brian Seiler

07-13-2009, 06:49 AM

Yeah, that's what I've been doing, which is why I've been playing in solitaire for three days, but I'm guessing there's stuff I haven't heard of. Even the stuff I have heard of seems wrong. Cascade makes my brain hurt - I can't tell whether it's supposed to be an additional cost to the card (because you're removing expensive crap in your deck that might be key to your winning strategy from the game) or a benefit (because you're putting a free thing in play). Cycling, thankfully, was introduced right around the time I left, so I recognized that one straightaway, but I wouldn't have known what Basic Landcycling was if it weren't for this thread.

It might be that the thing with Exalted happened because there were a bunch of other words on the card and I was checking it from the play board. Possibly that would have been explained in my card collection. That said, that's another keyword that I'm having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head around (the description I found online said that when any of your creatures attacks by itself it gets +1/+1, which led me to immediately ask myself what happens if you've got thirty seven Exalted creatures and then attack with your War Mammoth or the equivalent, which led me to think that I must have gotten the wrong definition).

It's a testament to the draw this game has on me that I'm still playing it at this point.

Lorini

07-13-2009, 07:09 AM

I posted a couple of links returning players may be of interest to the returning players in the CARD game thread.

Wallapuctus

07-13-2009, 07:15 AM

I've been burned a couple times by the UI's lag. Sometimes I click OK and it doesn't take, so I have to click again. Sometimes I click it and there's lag, so I click again, and it takes both clicks.

So, if you double click OK to end your main phase for whatever reason, due to lag or a twitchy finger, you could end up skipping your attack phase.

Wendelius

07-13-2009, 07:24 AM

It might be that the thing with Exalted happened because there were a bunch of other words on the card and I was checking it from the play board. Possibly that would have been explained in my card collection. That said, that's another keyword that I'm having a little bit of trouble wrapping my head around (the description I found online said that when any of your creatures attacks by itself it gets +1/+1, which led me to immediately ask myself what happens if you've got thirty seven Exalted creatures and then attack with your War Mammoth or the equivalent, which led me to think that I must have gotten the wrong definition).

Nope. you got it right. Exalted stacks. It makes it both awesome and scary and forces you to rethink combat situations a bit.

Been facing decks with 3 or 4 exalted critters out this week-end and the one creature attacking got +3/+3 or +4/+4 during the attack every turn, making it very hard to stop.

If you had 37 out, your War Mammoth would get +37/+37 when attacking alone.

Wendelius

delirium

07-13-2009, 10:03 AM

Is it possible to test a 40 card deck in solitaire? I just made one for the hell of it, but when I start a game to test it, it tells me that there aren't enough cards in the deck.

Vesper

07-13-2009, 10:16 AM

Is it possible to test a 40 card deck in solitaire? I just made one for the hell of it, but when I start a game to test it, it tells me that there aren't enough cards in the deck.
You need to set the base ruleset to "freeform."

Reldan

07-13-2009, 05:25 PM

Just to be clear, Cascade is intended to always be a benefit. Unless you've played something that specifically has ordered your library in some way, anything that involves digging through said library of random cards isn't really hurting you in any way, as it is no more likely that you shove your expensive spells to the bottom of your deck than that you actually get yourself closer to drawing those spells.

You know the guy who always has to sit on the end of the blackjack table to make sure no one "messes" up the dealer's hit card? Yeah. Don't be that guy.

extarbags

07-13-2009, 07:56 PM

Yeah, wow, Cascade is such a ridiculous advantage it's unbelievable. I mean, it's just silly. Whatever cards get shuffled to the bottom aren't cards you had anyway; playing a free spell out of your deck is amazing card and tempo advantage.

Lokust

07-13-2009, 09:36 PM

I've found it doesn't work well with counterspell type cards in your deck.

Reldan

07-13-2009, 09:40 PM

I've found it doesn't work well with counterspell type cards in your deck.

Very true, although you don't have to play the spell. It's a may.

Funkula

07-14-2009, 01:47 AM

I just had one hell of a match with delirium. He got that godawful 6/6 first striking vigilant flying lifelinking protection from red and greening son of a bitch, and I thought that was game. I pulled the Behemoth Sledge (equipment that gives trample, lifelink, and +2/+2) when I was down to 9, and proceeded to trade swings with him. He had an enchant giving all my creatures -1/-0, and had wiped out all my creatures with power 2 or greater. Fortunately, I had just enough exalted that I could get a creature to 6/7 and send it his way. So for several turns we traded blows, batting 6 life back and forth like a tennis ball, while his other attacker (a 5/5) slowly went through all my defenders. I drew cards like hell with my Frontline Sages (blue and tap to draw 1, then discard 1) and finally found my one creature that could assassinate the motherfucker. Once he was down, I was able to make headway, and finally dealt the killing blow on turn 23.

One of the harder games that I've managed to pull out, and definitely the longest one I've been in (we were both under 5 minutes left on the clock at the end).