Hmm – time to choose a topic. Wizards of the Coast suing Rancored Elf? Review Guildpact for multiplayer? Poker? Neato prerelease tales? Random issues rants?
All of the above?
Sure.
You have been duely warned.
(Spellchecker doesn’t like that.)
How about “dully warmed?”
No.
“Forewarned?”
“Half an octopus?”
That’s it.
The back half. Like a horse, only slimier.
…
Does this seem to be getting somewhat incoherent? More so than usual?
From the Guildpact spoiler:
Angel of Da Pair, 3WWBB,
Flying
When Angel of Da Pair comes into play, destroy target coherence. Search target player’s stream of consciousness for a semi-connected thought.
Flavor text: “Ask yourself, What Would Rizzo Write?”
My spoiler may be inaccurate. It’s happened in the past. Seems likely, since I didn’t see “Angel of Da Pair” at the prerelease – and I judged three pods and twenty-odd drafts.
The prerelease. Some rules questions. Lots of other questions.
The most common question I got asked: “Is this card any good?”
My answer: “Kid, if I was any good at Limited, would I be judging?”
Twenty-odd drafts. I’ve probably observed more Ravnica/Guildpact/Guildpact drafts than 99.99lotsa9s of the rest of the everybody else, so I can tell you all about the format.
Two things worth knowing:
1) The most popular draft archetype – by a mile – was “precious metals.” You know – gold, silver, foils.
2) No one will ever again run Ravnica/Guildpact/Guildpact drafts.
What more do you need to know?
One drafter, as he flashed me a thirteenth pick Warp World, “God – how can this still be here!”
Score!
Time for more Guildpact goodness:
Benediction of More, W, Sorcery
You gain 1 random rare for each good player in the draft.
Lose 10 points from your limited rating.
I think the spoiler got that one right.
I don’t use the Magic Salvation spoiler. Now no one else will, either. WotC is suing Rancored Elf. RE was the guy who compiled the spoilers – first at MtGNews, later at Magic Salvation. Lots of places tried to do spoilers – Rancored Elf had the best info.
WotC is after him big-time. They sent lawyers.
Here’s the progression, based on the DCI Penalty Guidelines
Warning.
Caution.
Game Loss.
Match Loss.
Disqualification.
Extreme Physical Punishment But Not Torture Because We Call It “Thingee” Instead.
Summary Execution.
Lawyers.
“Lawyers” is serious sh**. I know. I spend way too much time with lawyers. More time than I spend playing Magic. Almost more time than I spend thinking about Magic – but the “almost” is because I combine the two. Remember in the movie Brazil, how the guy escapes into his own mind? Yeah – I do that when the lawyers start talking.
It goes like this:
* Meeting starts.
* Lawyers start talking.
* I think about Magic.
* I create decks like Ubageddon.
Like I said, lawyers means serious sh**.
One lawyer = One with Nothing.
Multiple lawyers = much worse than that.
WotC sent a whole passel of lawyers after Rancored Elf.
WotC takes the secrecy of future sets and future cards seriously. (I know, I read and signed their non-disclosure agreement prior to playtesting Mirrodin. Balls in a vice ain’t in it.) In that respect, WotC is no different than any other company: in any company, in any business, revealing trade secrets is a big, bad deal.
RE is clearly guilty of publishing WotC trade secrets. He’s up sh** creek, but he can probably wheel and deal for a paddle. He was just the guy who received the stolen information – the publisher of the top-secret documents. He was the fence, not the thief. You see, RE knew the people who had the real info – and who would spill it to him. People who had actual cards, actual art, real playtest files.
Those are the people that should be really scared right now. No paddles for them. Probably no canoe for them. Lead boots are more likely.
The lawyers will lean on RE until he gives up the names of his sources. Then WotC will crucify those people. WotC is going to make examples, to make sure everyone else that ever gets inside information thinks about forty-seven times before leaking anything.
There will always be websites willing to publish the info, and WotC can’t realistically go after them all. However, there are only a small number of people who can leak actual inside information on the cards, and WotC certainly can lawyer the leakers’ asses – or assets, which is pretty much the same thing – right into the ground.
Another Guildpact card:
Litigate WB, Sorcery
Target leaker reveals his or her assets. Remove those assets from the game. That leaker loses his or her job and prospects.
flavor text: “Per Wis. Stats. s. 185.365(a), You are hereby, and totally, screwed.”
This may be the end of spoilers. Not because of WotC going after RE – but because WotC is going after the leakers. If they nail them, no more leakers. No leakers, no info. No info, no spoiler. In the future, we may be going into prereleases without knowing the cards. We will be flying blind. Is flying blind good?
Here’s the card – you decide.
I think it’s just fine, for Limited at least.
Prereleases are important. They are also huge tournaments. I play (and judge) in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. For Pro Tour Qualifiers and the like, we typically pull in around 100 to 150 – and that includes people drawn from the Chicago area and from the Twin Cities. For this prerelease, we had about 370 people attend, with most playing in multiple events – and that’s despite having to compete with simultaneous prereleases in both Chicago and the Twin Cities.
Prereleases are important because they bring new players into the tournament world. I talked to several people who had been playing Magic for years, but have never played in tournaments before last weekend. Some of them liked the event so much they plan to return for the Sealed PTQs, and even GP Madison. (And, yes, I did warn them about the difference in REL.)
A lot of the prerelease players like being surprised by cards. For them, it’s part of the whole experience. They are turned off by people who have already created draft pick lists and who show no excitement about a brand new rare that has never been played before. The excited folks are there to play the game, because it is fun. Those are exactly the sort of people that Wizards wants to attract to the tournament scene – and those people are what the prerelease should be aimed at. Spoilers hurt the whole experience for those people. (They benefit the hardcore players – but those players are coming to higher level tournaments in any case. Not having spoilers won’t change that.)
Ben Bleiweiss wrote an article about how to attract the new / casual players to tournaments. He suggested redirecting the judge foils to these players – and creating special tournament prizes and travel vouchers aimed at these players.
He got it completely wrong.
The problem is that there are indeed two types of players – and I’m not talking casual verses competitive here. Casual verses competitive is a misnomer. The difference is between the gamblers and the gamers.
Gamblers are playing to win something. They play for profit. Between matches, gamblers may be talking about how certain cards will interact with Tier 1 decks in major tournaments, or do some playtesting. If they are not doing that, they are selling their winnings, or playing poker online (our store has WI-FI access.)
Gamers are playing because the game is fun. After they finish their sanctioned match, they play extra games with their opponent, or pull out their Unholy Clerics deck. They may talk about the effect of a card on Standard or Legacy – or Elder Dragon Highlander. If they are not playing Magic, they may be playing Carcassone™ or Management Material™ – or other games that are a blast to play, but that don’t actually provide anything, except enjoyment.
You can motivate gamblers with valuable prizes, like rare foil cards. You don’t motivate gamers that way. You motivate gamers with the opportunity to play games. More games. More fun games.
Both groups can be highly competitive. Both groups can be highly motivated to win the game – whatever game they are playing. However, the two groups have different motivations for why they want to win – or play.
The two groups have massively different reactions to losing the first two rounds at a PTQ. Gamblers quit – two loses mean they are out of contention for prizes. Gamers are actually happy – this usually means that they will not be paired against gamblers and netdecks from that round on, but against gamers – and the games will be a lot more fun.
Our local Tournament Organizer, Steve Port, has a great tradition at PTQs – he gives a pack to everyone still playing at the end of the last round of the PTQ (in addition to more packs for the top finishers.) This means that the kids and gamers are more likely to stay in for additional rounds, and far fewer players drop. The percentage of gamers in the room is markedly higher than at other PTQs as a result.
Imagine a gamer, playing his favorite homebrew at an Extended PTQ. Assume that the other competitors are all gamblers, playing netdecks (like Ichorid) that just smash his homebrew. Here’s how the gamer’s tournament will go.
* Kill time until the first match starts.
* Round 1: lose on turn 4 to flying Ichorids. Repeat for game 2.
* Kill time for 45-60 minutes until round 2 starts.
* Round 2: lose on turn 4 to flying Ichorids. Repeat for game 2.
* Kill time for 45-60 minutes until round three starts.
* Round 3: opponent whines about being paired down, lose on turn 4
both games.
* Kill time for 45-60 minutes until round 4 starts.
Repeat until the tournament ends.
Gamers play because they enjoy gaming. This gamer just spent twenty-five bucks and nine hours to play sixteen games of Magic – all of which ended on turn 4. Think this gamer is going to come back for more? Hell no – the gamer is going to be playing D&D or Mechwarrior next weekend, and telling his friends that Magic tournaments are a complete rip-off and a waste of time.
Now let us assume that there are thirty other gamers in the tournament. Rounds 1 and 2 are pretty much the same for our gamer – but the odds that he can get in a quick game of Puerto Rico or can swap stories about RPG characters just went way up. Round 3 through 8, however, will probably see him bashing his homebrew against other homebrews, since the x-2 bracket will now be filled almost entirely with other gamers. (The gamblers with similar records will drop.) The gamers may even fill the time between matches playing Magic with their opponents – for fun!
And, at Steve Port’s events, the gamers leave with a free pack. Under this scenario, the gamer spent twenty-five bucks for nine hours of constant gaming, and he comes away with some new cards.
You don’t build Magic by bribing the gamers to come to one highly competitive tournament. You build Magic by getting the gamers to come back to tournament after tournament because they get to play fun games. That’s a win-win-win. The gamers “win,” because they get to enjoy the tournaments. The TO wins because more players mean more profits. WotC wins because more players means more revenue. Even the gamblers win, because the higher turnout means that the TO is likely to organize more events, meaning the gamblers will have more opportunities to win prizes.
Gatherer of Goodies
1G Creature — Human Druid 1/2
Gatherer of Goodies gets +1/+1 for each gamer in attendance at the event.
Sacrifice a Pack: add one gamer to a future event.
I’m pretty sure the spoiler got that one exactly right.
Here’s one that some players got wrong. The following discussion took place after the end of the last round of a pod I wasn’t involved in. Two players walked over.
Player A “Pete, you should have seen how <name deleted> won his last game. He had no cards left in his library, and his opponent had four. <Name deleted> was going to die during his draw step, so he cast Compulsive Research targeting his opponent, then Forked it with the Red-Blue Guildmage. It was classic!”
Me: “Ummm – I didn’t study the spoiler, but that doesn’t sound right.”
Player B: “No – the guildmage can only copy spells with converted mana cost two or less.”
Me: “And Research is a sorcery… Anyone got a Guildmage on them?”
Player A: “So this probably doesn’t make the article, does it?”
Me: “Sure it will, but <name deleted> only gets his name in the article if the play was legal. Now, how long ago did that game finish?”
Time to review some real Guildpact cards. Other writers will do limited, sealed, draft, Standard and on and on. (Craig – any wonder why Teddy Cardgame bailed at just this time? Enjoy the deluge.) [Bring it on!- Craig]
Me, I’ll just look at fun multiplayer cards, or cards I have real issues with.
Borborygmos
It’s Fangren Firstborn, but twice as expensive and the counters only appear after damage. And I’ll never remember the name. Still, I’ll build some kind of deck to abuse, er… Borborgorsosygmososisis? That card. The lawyers will drive me to it.
Burning-Tree Shaman
Or maybe I’ll just play a good creature instead. This will be great post-lawyer therapy. It’s a perfect multiplayer card for when you’re ticked off with the world. Burning-Tree Shaman is like Mundungu – bad enough to really piss off everyone else, but not bad enough that anyone is willing to waste removal on it, or try to kill you first.
Earth Surge
This is going into an Enchantress/Genju deck. I’ll combine it with Primal Rage so everything gains trample. I can see spending 2R per turn for an 8/3 trampling Mountain. Online, I’ll have to use Fangren Pathcutter to get trample – or just live with the fact that my 6/6 Forests have to kill all blockers first, before going to the head. Either way, it will be fun.
Hatching Plans
I kept hearing people saying “They’ve reprinted Standstill!” No, they haven’t. This doesn’t trigger whenever anyone plays a spell. In fact, you have to find some other way of sacrificing it. You could play this and Demystify, and if you draw everything, you would be up a card. Of course, Counsel of the Soratami does the same thing for the same mana, and Counsel isn’t two colors or a two card combo. I though Hatching Plans might work with Blood Clock, but Hatching Plans only triggers when it is put into a graveyard. I thought about it with Braids, but Braids doesn’t eat enchantments. At best, it might combo with Smokestack or Auratog, but that’s about it. Zowie.
Hissing Miasma
Another prerelease comment: “This totally rocks. No one will ever attack you.” Sorry, dude, but life is about to kick you in the balls. A friend used to love No Mercy, which is a lot better, but we killed him by attacking through No Mercy many, many times. No Mercy was a real pain, this is just a minor itch.
Leyline of Singularity
I have an immediate concern about this Leyline. Actually, I have a bunch of concerns. I’ll start with the least pressing and move on up.
First, the Leyline of Singularity/Hunted creature deck. It is going to be U/B, run Remand and other counters, plus the Blue and Black Hunteds. Leyline will kill the tokens, the deck can run Dimir House Guards to Transmute for the Leyline, and it can have lots of card drawing. It should be a very annoying deck, because it could conceivably get a massive fattie into play on turn 2, then protect it for the rest of the game (what little of it there will be.) The number of spells that can actually get rid of Hunted Horror, in Standard, is fairly limited – and all of them are either Blue, Black or temporary (e.g. Faith’s Fetters, against a deck likely running Boomerang.) I would have to playtest more, but I could see this deck constraining other builds.
On the plus side, the Leyline/Hunteds mirror match should be pretty silly.
The second concern is that the whole Leyline concept makes games more draw dependent. That is not a good thing. The games should rely less on what you have in your opening hand, and more on how you develop and on what you play.
My main concern, though, is that the Blue Leyline is a really, really good spell – far better than the other colors. I have spent almost a decade playing creature beatdown against Control decks, and Control decks against creature beatdown decks. The key to beating Blue Control with creatures is to get a rush of fast beaters in under the counters, then hope you can get a few past the Serra Angel, or Glacial Wall, or Morphling, or Kiega, or whatever the daily flavor of big Blue win condition is this week. Leyline gives Blue the equivalent of a Wrath of God that the Blue mage doesn’t have to splash for – and a reusable one at that.
In the past, whenever Blue has had access to a big, powerful method of controlling masses of groundpounders, Blue has been very good. In Tempest block standard, mono-Blue had Capsize and Nev’s Disk. In Accelerated Blue, it had Masticore. In Odyssey block, it got Upheaval. All of these resulted in Blue decks that crushed pretty much all the aggro strategies.
I think it’s official now – WotC has stopped neutering Blue. If that’s not enough proof, take a look at Mimeofacture – then imagine it in Blue Urzatron. Now imagine it in Blue Urzatron with Leyline of Singularity in play.
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
I want to play Nivi in 5Color. Get it into play, play Contract from Below – B, I’ll draw seven cards, you can take seven to the dome. Sweet.
I also want to try this in Elder Dragon Highlander, together with Mind over Matter. Tap to draw a card and ping you, discard the card to untap. Tap, ping, untap. Tap, ping, untap. Tap, ping, untap. Gonna keep this up all day, until the pivot breaks or you all lose. If the group is too big to kill without decking myself, I’ll have Feldon’s Cane.
Siege of Towers
On the flip side, here’s Red’s answer to a Counter/Control deck. They have a single counterspell in hand, you have a single card and eight lands. You are going to end up with at least three 3/1 Mountains, because each replica spell has to be countered separately.
Beating with weenie Mountains – isn’t that a great mental picture?
PRJ