General Premodern

Velrun

Velrun

Not a brand new format but pretty new. Not an official format but gaining traction by each tournament. Recently there was the European Championship in Finland a week or two ago.

Format identity: Magic as it was before Modern. The sets from 4th Edition and to Scourge are legal.

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This means no rotation. No new cards ever.

I have only played it a little bit but it seems very fun. It is actually possible to play a control deck with no creatures. Oath of Druids has no insane targets. Squee, Goblin Nabob is a cool value engine.

Link to official website:

https://premodernmagic.com/blog/category/ban-list/
 
ravnic

ravnic

I always liked watching a premodern veedeeo on menguccis channel, cool format. Anything where you can play Basking Rootwalla and Psychatog you can sign me up for.
 
Humpty_Dumpty

Humpty_Dumpty

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Velrun. I've been toying with the idea of building a Premodern cube for a while, as this cover the era of Magic that carries the most nostalgia for me. I'm not sure who I would play it with, though.

It's interesting to see that the format uses contemporary rules. I assumed it would use sixth edition rules (and had considered doing this for a premodern cube) but the article makes good points about why this would be problematic.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Onderzeeboot said:
Cool concept, but the fact that it will never receive new card means it will be solved eventually. I do think nostalgia is the main raison d’être for this format…
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I don't understand this attitude. Is chess a solved format? Is poker? Is any game that isn't receiving endless expansions? Some games are just wonderful to continue playing, as is. Premodern has a card pool of 5,376 cards, that's a fairly deep pool.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Rasmus Källqvist said:
I don't understand this attitude. Is chess a solved format? Is poker? Is any game that isn't receiving endless expansions? Some games are just wonderful to continue playing, as is. Premodern has a card pool of 5,376 cards, that's a fairly deep pool.
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I mean, Standard is pretty solved right now with 3,251 cards. And that’s without cards from Urza’s Saga block.
 
Mondschwein

Mondschwein

There are metashifts actually, and I'm pretty sure there are more decks that are able to compete than in standard. 5376 is a lot more than 3251 btw

Premodern boomed a few years ago and because of that a lot of old cards and even old printings of cards in the premodern frame exploded in price.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Rasmus Källqvist said:
I don't understand this attitude. Is chess a solved format? Is poker? Is any game that isn't receiving endless expansions? Some games are just wonderful to continue playing, as is. Premodern has a card pool of 5,376 cards, that's a fairly deep pool.
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Sure, but I personally wouldn’t pick them up daily. I don’t play chess either. And while the card pool of premodern is deep, you can’t just pick up any deck of random cards and expect to do well with it at a tournament. I bet you that all the top 8’s since the format’s inception don’t add up to over five thousand unique cards. A huge chunk of that theoretical depth is useless in the context of a competitive environment.

Anyway, I’m not arguing that nobody should enjoy this format. I just think that nostalgia is the driving factor behind the appeal of this format. And there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that. It’s just that, personally, I think new Magic cards are cool, and you don’t get those in this closed system.
 
Velrun

Velrun

That’s the whole point. No new cards. No Universe Beyond or Secret Lairs or Modern Horizons. It feels like old Magic where a creature doesn’t need to have stats equal to or higher than its mana value to even keep up plus having seven lines of card text. Synergy is spread across several cards instead of on the card itself (See: Obsessive Stitcher for reference)
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I think the whole "solved format" thing isn't really a problem unless you value brewing potential and novelty really highly, as long as the format is somewhat healthy.
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

LadyMapi said:
I think the whole "solved format" thing isn't really a problem unless you value brewing potential and novelty really highly, as long as the format is somewhat healthy.
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I also think the number of games played is a huge factor in formats becoming "solved" as well. Thanks to Arena, Standard gets more gameplay within the first month of a new set coming out than some formats will see in a year! It's entirely possible that something niche like premodern hasn't reached the same number of games played in it's entire lifespan as has been played with just the Vivi Standard.
 
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