General CBS

shamizy

shamizy

These bans all make sense from a gameplay perspective as fast mana is inherently broken, but it's bizarre to suddenly decide to go nuclear with these seemingly out of nowhere. I just don't see what's changed recently for them to make such an abrupt turn into going FAST MANA BAD when they just didn't care at all for years and just relied upon Rule Zero as a shitty crutch while not doing anything.

Sucks for anyone who saved up to buy any of these recently. Some kind of heads up or watchlist would have made sense before unveiling this. Like Nadu could be seen from a mile away with how shitty the gameplay was, but these fast mana sources never felt like they were even close to the chopping block.
 
Brad

Brad

shamizy said:
These bans all make sense from a gameplay perspective as fast mana is inherently broken, but it's bizarre to suddenly decide to go nuclear with these seemingly out of nowhere. I just don't see what's changed recently for them to make such an abrupt turn into going FAST MANA BAD when they just didn't care at all for years and just relied upon Rule Zero as a shitty crutch while not doing anything.

Sucks for anyone who saved up to buy any of these recently. Some kind of heads up or watchlist would have made sense before unveiling this. Like Nadu could be seen from a mile away with how shitty the gameplay was, but these fast mana sources never felt like they were even close to the chopping block.
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Yep. I have an online friend who exclusively plays EDH and saved up for a Dockside which will likely hold next to no value soon.

Hell, they banned a card that they specifically made for their own format. Is that going to be a trend? Sell chase cards to ban them?

At least I can sleep well tonight knowing that there's no more broken cards like Mana Crypt or Biorhythm in the game's most specialest format.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Nah, Commander game quality is wholly dependent on the playgroup and always has been. When everyone is on the same page it's a blast. It's the closest thing that can emulate the fun of brewing up decks as a newer player and just discovering interactions all over the place.

It's socially stunted Magic players that suck and make things weird, but that goes waaaaay beyond Commander.
 
Brad

Brad

Specifically, rule 0 sucks and makes the whole thing illegitimate as a format.

I think that a Commander Cube/Jumpstarts could be really fun for both 1v1 and/or multiplayer.
 
ravnic

ravnic

It's not about the group for me. I really dislike multiplayer magic, games with 40 lifepoints and enormous board states. Especially when there are 4+ people and things become impossible to track properly. I played a couple dozen commander games in my life and I have yet to have fun in one. Seriously, I love magic beyond reason and I'd play UNO before I play commander.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

ravnic said:
Commander sucks.
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One thing that annoys me about EDH is that it has effectively removed kitchen table magic from the picture, and as a result there's a much bigger gap between "casual" and "competitive" Magic than there used to be.

I used to build a bunch of janky combo decks, but I stopped because I didn't have anywhere to actually play with them. I don't have an existing group and everyone I know who plays Magic only plays EDH. And if I go out looking for 60-card Magic, I'm pretty much stuck with people playing constructed formats (which have become very expensive if you want to have a reasonable chance of not being stomped).

Heck, I don't even like drafting! I only hang out over here because cubing is one of the last non-EDH ways of chatting about casual-ish Magic! Which tells me that maybe I should be making jumpstart cubes instead of "traditional" cubes...
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
LadyMapi said:
One thing that annoys me about EDH is that it has effectively removed kitchen table magic from the picture, and as a result there's a much bigger gap between "casual" and "competitive" Magic than there used to be.
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This. This is the only thing I truly dislike about Commander. I still have twenty-something casual 60 card decks in a box somewhere, that I’ll never get to break out anymore. They were perfect for introducing new players to the game too, and a blast to construct.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

One of my holy grails is to figure out how to make an "organized" kitchen table format that's easy to get people into. I would love to play constructed in a way that doesn't encourage just buying the best cards. I guess maybe one of the other singleton formats that isn't EDH?
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Onderzeeboot said:
This. This is the only thing I truly dislike about Commander. I still have twenty-something casual 60 card decks in a box somewhere, that I’ll never get to break out anymore. They were perfect for introducing new players to the game too, and a blast to construct.
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In a world without Commander, I could make a 60-card rabbit deck with multiple copies of all the rabbit tribal cards just from a couple drafts and prize packs. It'd be a reasonable deck, easy to introduce someone to the game with, and quite resonate with new players. Now I'd give it to someone and it'd be wholly useless after that first session. You could make a bunny commander deck, but that's now a serious task that can't be done from a pile of draft chaff, even in its most basic form.

Rasmus Källqvist said:
One of my holy grails is to figure out how to make an "organized" kitchen table format that's easy to get people into. I would love to play constructed in a way that doesn't encourage just buying the best cards. I guess maybe one of the other singleton formats that isn't EDH?
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My local store does pre-con leagues, where winners get to add one card from the "3 for $1" bulk rare bin for every win. I feel like putting budgets on lists is a pretty reasonable way to do it, it's just not particularly a "fun" restriction (but it's better than pauper imo).
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Rasmus Källqvist said:
One of my holy grails is to figure out how to make an "organized" kitchen table format that's easy to get people into. I would love to play constructed in a way that doesn't encourage just buying the best cards. I guess maybe one of the other singleton formats that isn't EDH?
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I used to construct “set mechanic” decks to get a feel for new sets. They would focus on a single mechanic in a single set, and have a blueprint of 24 land, six different commons (3 copies of each common), six different uncommons (2 copies) and six different rares/mythics (1 copy). If the set included nonbasics I would include those in the 24 lands at the same distribution as the nonland cards (so e.g. 3 Azorius Guildgate + 1 Hallowed Fountain)

These are great for slinging spells with friends as well, because the decks typically have a really strong identity. You can play Rakdos vs Azorius, or Frogs vs Lizards, or Mounts vs Crimes :)
 
P

Phone

LadyMapi said:
One thing that annoys me about EDH is that it has effectively removed kitchen table magic from the picture, and as a result there's a much bigger gap between "casual" and "competitive" Magic than there used to be.

I used to build a bunch of janky combo decks, but I stopped because I didn't have anywhere to actually play with them. I don't have an existing group and everyone I know who plays Magic only plays EDH. And if I go out looking for 60-card Magic, I'm pretty much stuck with people playing constructed formats (which have become very expensive if you want to have a reasonable chance of not being stomped).

Heck, I don't even like drafting! I only hang out over here because cubing is one of the last non-EDH ways of chatting about casual-ish Magic! Which tells me that maybe I should be making jumpstart cubes instead of "traditional" cubes...
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I agree with everything you said here. Honestly, Jumpstart is awesome and I've only ever heard good things.
 
gaytransmulldrifter

gaytransmulldrifter

I'll try to find some time soon to make a thread about jumpstart cube and talk about some of the challenges and questions it poses. I've only built one and its been really rewarding and I feel like people don't really talk about it much here. I think it is a good solution to a lot of the logistical hurdles of trying to organize and play 8 player drafts while still providing a lot of the things that make cube cool. I think it's been one of the biggest design hits for me in terms of stuff people really connect with instantly, great for parties and music festivals and shit like that.
 
alvoi

alvoi

gaytransmulldrifter said:
I'll try to find some time soon to make a thread about jumpstart cube and talk about some of the challenges and questions it poses. I've only built one and its been really rewarding and I feel like people don't really talk about it much here. I think it is a good solution to a lot of the logistical hurdles of trying to organize and play 8 player drafts while still providing a lot of the things that make cube cool. I think it's been one of the biggest design hits for me in terms of stuff people really connect with instantly, great for parties and music festivals and shit like that.
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Yes please! It is something that always has fascinated me, but it's hard to sit down and build one! Maybe with some advice from somebody that already did it, we can help spread the format!
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

Rasmus Källqvist said:
One of my holy grails is to figure out how to make an "organized" kitchen table format that's easy to get people into. I would love to play constructed in a way that doesn't encourage just buying the best cards. I guess maybe one of the other singleton formats that isn't EDH?
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I think that this is a doomed quest, unfortunately - organizing kitchen table beyond "bring decks built with the cards you've got and don't be a jerk about it" is going to run into people Spiking it up because anyone who plays a bunch of Magic is going to be a little bit Spike-y. Both EDH and Pauper more-or-less started life as "hey, let's build decks out of jank and draft chaff", and now look at them.

Nanonox said:
We had a thread I can’t find where we were building jump start packs. It was a fun design challenge for sure!
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You're probably thinking of this thread?

gaytransmulldrifter said:
I'll try to find some time soon to make a thread about jumpstart cube and talk about some of the challenges and questions it poses. I've only built one and its been really rewarding and I feel like people don't really talk about it much here. I think it is a good solution to a lot of the logistical hurdles of trying to organize and play 8 player drafts while still providing a lot of the things that make cube cool. I think it's been one of the biggest design hits for me in terms of stuff people really connect with instantly, great for parties and music festivals and shit like that.
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All I know is that I want to build a pack around Say Its Name/Altanak, the Thrice-Called, both for the meme and because that kind of dumb-but-fun synergy feels like the kind of thing that can make a pack pop (other dumb ideas: red half-deck that happens to run a few copies of Stomping Slabs and an artifact half-deck that has assembling Crown of Empires/Scepter of Empires/Throne of Empires as a subtheme).

I would just like some pointers for handling mana curves and the like for smooth smashing-together-of-decks.
 
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Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

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?).
 
Brad

Brad

Rasmus Källqvist said:
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?).
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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.
 
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