General Battle Box
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
Turn the guildgates into scrylands? Too good?
I contemplated it. I kinda like the guildgates (also incidentally turn on the Gates-matter cards from RtR block) since there are enough decisions for early lands imo.
Which of these do you even run? ogre jailbreaker? I'm hesitant to run the gatekeeper cycle since 2/4s clog boards pretty hard and I kinda wanted to keep the power level low. Gateway shade seems OP
I'd warn that this format is already very decision dense. I had a headache at the end of one game, I don't think Scrylands are what the gameplay needs.
Does this format have no mana elves?
The problem I had was that so many of my decisions were so marginal (which 3/3 for 4 do I run out first) and then I got wrecked by a Zealous Persecution that made all those tedious decisions before it moot. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think that the cards you run should have a low standard deviation in swinginess.
It'll be in a future article, but in a draft I recorded, James and I had games where the pendulum of who was ahead each turn was swinging hard each turn and it made for really dynamic gameplay. In Battlebox Anotak and I had a very marginal tug-of-war going on, and then a killing blow out of nowhere.
It also feels almost "too consistent". When I was behind I wanted some out (my opponent missing on their draw step, whatever), but I just slippery sloped further and further behind with no real tools for trying to turn the game around. I know people don't like mana screw, but I think the threat of it provides something fundamental to the game, some tension, hope and excitement. With this system the draw step felt like a drip feed of value, and I was never really excited about what I was going to draw. The decision density was high but the fun-density was not.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Could it be that there are not enough swingy cards in the battlebox? If it's all marginal value there is nothing that can get you back in the game, so that once you start losing there is no coming back?
Jailbreaker and the guy who gets vigilance if you have a gate. Might run the gate untapper if I care enough to look through my bulk boxes, but probably not.
Wrath effects are fine to have. Better when behind than ahead and such.
FlowerSunRain
Contributor
It's reasonably common in economic games, some of which have very long play times for an early mistake to come about and be insurmountable, deciding the game in the first 20 minutes. I mean, you can try your best to scrape back in, making lots of decisions to gain marginal value, but all that effort is basically for nothing: its already over. Decisions aren't fun once you pull back the veil and see they are pointless (a point CML has often harped on), but while an early mistake can snowball and make later decisions worthless, "swingy" mechanics can wipe out the importance of early decisions, so its no better.
Its no surprise that many economic games can be frustrating when the skill levels of the players are unequal, often becoming an exercise in "who can get the noob throw them the game".
For low margin games to be most effective, I think two things should be true:
1) Gains should be linear, rather then exponential, so that an early error CAN be overcome by a great move later.
2) It should be fairly obvious when a game is hopeless so that the losing player can concede. [As players improve at the game, they generally get better at this, but new players (who are also the most prone to be frustrated) often can't.]
or at worst
3) The game should be short enough that it isn't frustrating to complete the game.
As far as Magic is concerned, I think the Wrath suggestion is a decent one as it helps with #1.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
So, which wraths do you run in a battle box?
?
?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Parley is awesome in this format. I just went...
into
Eat that, double enchanted Fiendslayer Paladin!
into Eat that, double enchanted Fiendslayer Paladin!
This post doesn't make any sense to me, particularly in a five-color format.
I went through my junk rare binder and my cube reject pile, and ended up with these
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Haha, I did the same
I ended up with these.Might need more, but we'll see. I put my list up on cubetutor here!
Edit: How big is your battle box? Mine is 200, so that makes 2,5% sweepers.
If by "dig" you mean "dig up", then yup!
It's really just whatever I had on hand. I guess red is where all the sweepers happened to land, but it's not like you can draft a red deck. I don't see myself actually going out and acquiring cards for this format, and stuff like Martial Coup seems it'd be a little much when you can guarantee seven mana on turn seven. Even Phyrexian Rebirth could be too strong. And Sunblast Angel was pretty unfun / bomby back in Scars limited.
My battle box is 300ish? I haven't counted, other than knowing I have 45 cards from each colour, and then a random assortment of artifacts and gold cards.
In general, I think my creature power level is higher than BenS's. Some of his stuff - Mortis Dogs, Aven Cloudchaser, Voice of the Provinces, Gang of Devils - seems a little questionable. But in a format with guaranteed mana, maybe a mediocre high end makes sense. I'm not sure, but I wanna push creatures a little harder to start - Vampire Outcasts, Enlisted Wurm, Duskdale Wurm, and stuff like that.
Whoa, I just took a look at your list. Pelakka Wurm? That seems very good in a format with guaranteed mana. Skeletal Vampire might also be unbeatable. Volition Reins just seems unfun - stealing a land is probably one of the best things you can do. But on the other hand - high five for Kiss of the Amesha!
edit: Scratch not buying any cards for this format. Apparently I don't own all of the Guildgates. God *!$&%#! dammit.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I won a game today because of Mortis Dogs, the card is a blast to play with
I run Pelakka Wurm rather than Duskdale Wurm. Gotta gain that incremental advantage! I played a good few games today, and I think the sweepers are at a nice spot. Once in a while one turns up, but games don't feel stuck when neither player draws one. Level-up, flashback, monstrosity and other mana sinks are all awesome.
Also, Skeletal Vampire feels like it's at exactly the right power level. Powerful but not unbeatable! How cool is that? In fact it just lost a game against good old-fashioned Ember Hauler recursion
I run Pelakka Wurm rather than Duskdale Wurm. Gotta gain that incremental advantage! I played a good few games today, and I think the sweepers are at a nice spot. Once in a while one turns up, but games don't feel stuck when neither player draws one. Level-up, flashback, monstrosity and other mana sinks are all awesome.
Also, Skeletal Vampire feels like it's at exactly the right power level. Powerful but not unbeatable! How cool is that? In fact it just lost a game against good old-fashioned Ember Hauler recursion
Post lists people, I want to try them on 'trice.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/13646
The six missing cards are
All of those have been cool, though Deathreap Ritual feels a bit overpowered in this format. Card advantage is really, really strong in this format, and anything that nets you more than two cards might be broken...
I'm also thinking about cutting the noncreature artifacts and use aura's instead. It's really tricky to balance artifacts and artifact removal when you just play a pile of cards, and more colored cards means more land sequencing decisions, which is fun! Enchantment removal is tacked on more interesting cards as well.
Agree on dialing back colorless cards. I might even go so far as to scale back on cards that require only one coloured mana symbol, and jam more CC cards, to make sequencing more interesting. Never felt better about casually tossing in Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Voidmage Prodigy, and Goblin Wardriver!
What are some fun CCC cards that are worth paying attention to sequencing to cast on time? I'm giving some thought to
What are some fun CCC cards that are worth paying attention to sequencing to cast on time? I'm giving some thought to
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
You'll have to be at a higher power level than typical to run the red and green ones I think. Luminous Angel was actually interesting for the short time it was in, but I replaced it with Apex Hawks. Speaking of which...
Anyone can search gatherer for CCC spells, but the above are somewhat less obvious I do want to mention these though:
Anyone can search gatherer for CCC spells, but the above are somewhat less obvious
I do want to mention these though:
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Other potentially cool adds are cards with a CCC cost in their rules text. I like:
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Temporal Adept sounds brutal if Voltion Reins is being cast on lands...