General CBS

[Brad]

My only real thought around trying to reduce spiking in an "open" format (i.e. not cube or battle box etc.) would be to maybe have some concept of forced rotation. Oh you're playing a bunch of expensive powerful cards? They're now banned or restricted! To encourage constant brewing. Maybe the cards get unbanned after a while (maybe on a league basis?).

I've heard of people doing budget challenges, but it still requires a playgroup of sufficient size where it's worth spending $20+ on a deck specifically for that playgroup.

Spiking is inevitable in a game where there's a winner, but you can change the context if you don't want to buy a $500 deck. That's why I bring the whole format with me.



I should also say that Jumpstart is really cool and would probably let me play Eldrazi more successfully, but I enjoy drafting more than playing.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

That's why I bring the whole format with me.

See, people keep mentioning this in this thread but I think that's a different thing entirely. I like cubing and other "closed" formats, but I think there's a lot of fun for a group to open boosters and start making a collection and putting that collection to use. If I bring the entire card pool then that very fun aspect is lost.

Limited budget formats can be fun, but one draw back of limited budgets is that you can't play a rare you opened even though it might not be too oppressing with just a single one. The cost of a card is also not always an indication of its power level, so it's somewhat blunt of an instrument.

I'll keep pondering about some kind of "organized" school ground magic. I'm leaning strongly towards the idea of "anything initially goes, then develop a local ban list". Biggest obstacle is just to get people I know to put together casual decks to play with lol.

 

[MilesOfficial]

I just (re-)added a small discard sub-theme into my Cube with the following cards, and I'm so happy I did. Feels like a reasonable contender and the cards are totally fine in a variety of decks, even at my relatively high power-level.



All of these cards had been in my Cube previously sans Tinybones Joins Up.

Here's the first test deck I drafted on CubeCobra after adding them in, without feeling like I even forced it!

 

[Brad]

See, people keep mentioning this in this thread but I think that's a different thing entirely. I like cubing and other "closed" formats, but I think there's a lot of fun for a group to open boosters and start making a collection and putting that collection to use. If I bring the entire card pool then that very fun aspect is lost.

Limited budget formats can be fun, but one draw back of limited budgets is that you can't play a rare you opened even though it might not be too oppressing with just a single one. The cost of a card is also not always an indication of its power level, so it's somewhat blunt of an instrument.

I'll keep pondering about some kind of "organized" school ground magic. I'm leaning strongly towards the idea of "anything initially goes, then develop a local ban list". Biggest obstacle is just to get people I know to put together casual decks to play with lol.

I think there's potential for some kind of league where you open N packs per session or something with a larger initial card pool. $50 starting cost and $15 every session (or something) and you can slowly accumulate a card pool, trade, whatever. That's how I started. I think I had the elf starter deck and a few packs and did what I could from there.

 

[Velrun]

I think there's potential for some kind of league where you open N packs per session or something with a larger initial card pool. $50 starting cost and $15 every session (or something) and you can slowly accumulate a card pool, trade, whatever. That's how I started. I think I had the elf starter deck and a few packs and did what I could from there.

Stuff like that is always fun.

Like a major Rogue-Like, Deck-Builder Slay the Spire variant!

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

I think there's potential for some kind of league where you open N packs per session or something with a larger initial card pool. $50 starting cost and $15 every session (or something) and you can slowly accumulate a card pool, trade, whatever. That's how I started. I think I had the elf starter deck and a few packs and did what I could from there.

There used to be something like this on MtG online: it started off like a sealed pool then you added another pack each week or something like that. It was quite fun.

The challenge with such a league in paper magic is policing it. For small stakes and with people you trust it will be fine. As soon as prizes get bigger and the player pool widens it would be easy for someone to introduce a couple of extra cards to strengthen their deck.

 

[Seeker]

Stuff like that is always fun.

Like a major Rogue-Like, Deck-Builder Slay the Spire variant!

"Shandalar" was right there

 

[Velrun]

"Shandalar" was right there

Hehe #DeepRegrets

But also not many people know Shandalar anymore.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I spent many, many, many hours collecting the best cards and hunting doppelgangers! There’s a modern variant floating around the internet somewhere!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I think there's potential for some kind of league where you open N packs per session or something with a larger initial card pool. $50 starting cost and $15 every session (or something) and you can slowly accumulate a card pool, trade, whatever. That's how I started. I think I had the elf starter deck and a few packs and did what I could from there.

I actually play a sealed league at work, we start with 6 boosters and add 1 pack after each round (4 total rounds, so 3 extra packs).

Might be worth trying to encourage building decks with what we've opened and play post league as well.

(The super try hard version would be to put a stamp on the back of each card, so you know what's in the "echo system" and then let people freely trade).

 

[Mown]

If you want to curb the spike mentality while still preserving the creative aspect of deckbuilding you could also remove the ownership aspect and instead contribute to a communal pool of decks that everyone can use.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Hm, that's an interesting thought! Not sure how to resolve who gets what when several people want to build with the same cards, though.

 

[Velrun]

Hm, that's an interesting thought! Not sure how to resolve who gets what when several people want to build with the same cards, though.

Many solutions there.

One could be to let the lowest ranked player choose first.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

(The super try hard version would be to put a stamp on the back of each card, so you know what's in the "echo system" and then let people freely trade).

Pro tip: do the stamp on the front. It defaces the card, but at least it’s tournament legal afterwards.

 

[Mown]

Hm, that's an interesting thought! Not sure how to resolve who gets what when several people want to build with the same cards, though.

I was thinking more along just making casual decks with your own collections (you'd still ultimately own the cards and decks), but you could do it with a league system as well I'm sure.

 

[Brad]

I was thinking more along just making casual decks with your own collections (you'd still ultimately own the cards and decks), but you could do it with a league system as well I'm sure.

Everyone could bring a random selection of commons every week to contribute to a pool that's then shuffled and distributed. I'm sure most players have some kind of bulk and then the process can happen with no additional cost.

Hell, if one player has a ton of cards, they could provide the entire pool.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Everyone could bring a random selection of commons every week to contribute to a pool that's then shuffled and distributed. I'm sure most players have some kind of bulk and then the process can happen with no additional cost.

Hell, if one player has a ton of cards, they could provide the entire pool.

Hmm... that's very interesting. If some cards turn out to be staples, it's probably very cheap to just buy a couple more of them. Plus, having a local card pool meta with some pre-constructed decks probably encourages people just dropping by to play (as is often customary in EDH circles).

Edit: Probably the easiest thing, since we've ran a couple of "lunch leagues" by now (since The Brothers' War), is to just have a kind of "extended" format that is "play w/e from all standard formats since brothers wars" and also supply a communal library of cards to make it easier to show up and play

Edit2: Also maybe it would make sense to keep it a singleton format, to make it easier to get cards to share?

 

[Humpty_Dumpty]

Hell, if one player has a ton of cards, they could provide the entire pool.

That player with all the cards could even curate the pool to ensure a balanced and enjoyable format, based on feedback from other players.

In order to resolve the issue of who gets which cards, maybe you could split the pool so that everyone gets a first choice from a random subset of the cards. Then someone else chooses and so on.

It's a novel and intriguing idea, but it might just work.

 

[Velrun]

Edit2: Also maybe it would make sense to keep it a singleton format, to make it easier to get cards to share?

Or go the other way and have no restrictions on how many copies

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think I might have finally found a card I'm going to cut for purely aesthetic reasons:

And from the top: I like this card mechanically! I like that it encourages actually interacting with your opponent and not just filling your deck with air, but it's still good with that air. I like that it's a solid cheap blue creature, because I'm the kind of sicko that wants like 17 blue 1-2 drop creatures. I like that it's evasive, it blocks, but it doesn't really block all that well barring some shenanigans, all of it.

So this all started when I wanted a version of this card with Crime reminder text:

I think this is fine, the world champ text being in the collector info is pretty necessary for a card with this much text.

But oh Christ I think they did Nathan dirty with that art. The pose of the figure frustrates me. Like he's just floating there, and the hands are set up in this way where it mimics that he's supposed to be casting a spell with the ghostly scroll/quill combo in front of him, but the hands feel off so it just looks like he's doing the (and here's where I out myself as a non-scholar) "jesus hands"

Like there is a specific meaning that these hand gestures have and a specific name for them, it's not sign language but it does represent something, I just can't remember what, more educated people than I can fill you in if they wish. Sign of Benediction maybe? I'm no Catholic.

I hate the stupid ghostly stairs, why are those there if he can fly? Surely there isn't need for both those AND the stupid non-functional ass looking wings?

But my personal favorite is the strange mix of painterly detail in the bottom right with the sharp crisp detail of the main figure
Here's the high res artwork from Darren Tan's Artstation (Link)

So when I added this to card conjurer and zoomed in a bit, I didn't zoom in enough to actually avoid the magic logo over there, and it ended up looking like there was just a box of revised just out of frame, just sitting in the corner.

At this point, the more I stare at it the more I find little things that annoy me, like the name "Duelist of the Mind" never really got to me until now. That is 11/10 edgy, how did I ever take this seriously? How had this name not already been used by some 1/1 from legends that can give another creature -2/-0 for , ?

From there I started looking for new art, maybe that'll scratch this itch, and like

This is a fine if goofy art and doesn't really show flying (Also I mislabeled the art, this is The Wizard by Filipe Pagliuso)

This shows flying in that it's a bird that's just standing there I guess

I gave up after an hour or so and maybe I'll try again, but for now I might just cut both the copies I'm running for Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel and a second Ledger Shredder

 

[Onderzeeboot]

This shows flying in that it's a bird that's just standing there I guess

I don't have the same problems as you with the original art, but I like the bird art. If you rename the card and use the right creature types, this could totally work. It reminds me of the Lookout person in a heist, maybe Heist Lookout, or Heist Posse Eyes, or something like that?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah but I don't want to do customs that are just name/art swaps.
I run 158 custom cards at time of writing, I've gotta leverage paper magic as hard as I can.

 

[LadyMapi]

"jesus hands"

That particular gesture actually doesn't have a formal name, as far as I can tell, so that's as good a name as any. Ironically, the Orthodox version of the gesture is literally "jesus hands", since it's supposed to look like the Greek initials for "Jesus Christ".

 

[Seeker]

But oh Christ I think they did Nathan dirty with that art. The pose of the figure frustrates me. Like he's just floating there, and the hands are set up in this way where it mimics that he's supposed to be casting a spell with the ghostly scroll/quill combo in front of him, but the hands feel off so it just looks like he's doing the (and here's where I out myself as a non-scholar) "jesus hands"

I didn't know he was not doing the Jesus Hands until right now. Seriously, I thought it was just like "here's a world champion, be not afraid".

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You know, despite using AI to generate “art” myself, and accepting that this is pretty much a new technology that isn’t going to go away anymore, what I do hate about AI art is how it has corrupted Fiverr. I used to commission my D&D portraits from there, but it’s just a jungle of slop nowadays. Some people are upfront about this, like Natallia here. It’s smart use of her time, using AI as a base and then retouching it by hand to actually make the portraits look good. They’re totally upfront about their method as well, stating that they use AI + manual graphic editing. This is fine as far as I’m concerned. They’re cheaper than fully hand drawn art is as well, which makes sense because using AI art as a base significantly expedites the process.

Then there’s asshats like Sofia Wallin who dare to charge more than Natallia’s most expensive tier for a black and white drawing. But hey! According to their profile at least you’re paying for “freehand digital” artistic technique, right? Good to see that there are still real artists on Fiverr!



*Expletive deleted*