Magic-League

[georgjorge]

Considering that opportunities to play Legacy competitively are few and far between, I've been wondering why not many people here are playing over on Magic-League (www.magic-league.com) ? It's an online league (over MWS) where they have about three or four eight-man tourneys a day, and a big tourney (40-70 people) once or twice a month.

People seem to assume that decks and players over there are substandard, yet I don't know...there are lots of people there playing pretty well, and the decklists - though sometimes strange (Life and Martyrtron coming in first and second ?) - are generally reasonably competitive. For reference, here are some decks from the last tourneys (although some of them may look strange because of problems with the site when recording decks, such as leaving out sideboards and maindeck cards):

http://www.magic-league.com/tournament/info.php?id=34222&view=decks

http://www.magic-league.com/tournament/info.php?id=34301&view=decks

http://www.magic-league.com/tournament/info.php?id=34311&view=decks

http://www.magic-league.com/tournament/info.php?id=34312&view=decks

http://www.magic-league.com/tournament/info.php?id=34157&view=decks

[Cabal-kun]

Do they require you to have bought the software? Or can somone with the download provided at the Magic-League site still participate?

[georgjorge]

The only software you need is MWS for playing, and mIRC for getting to the chat channels where tourneys are announced. Both are free to download, and there are instructions for both at the Magic-League site.

[Nihil Credo]

No, you can play with a trial version of MWS as well.

[niknight]

Just to correct some of george's figures, we average approximately 25-30 tournaments per day spread out over all different formats (one of which is a daily trial, that averages between 50-120 depending on format). The currently hot format is Precon War, for example. With the exception of our masters (once every 2 weeks), all tournaments are single elim.

You also don't need to download mIRC, as we have a java IRC client on the site.

[Rastadon]

I'd be all over that, but I never know when they're going to have a tourney, and you need to devote your attention undivided attention to the chat for a good hour before you could even get a singles match. In the end I just go with mwsplay.net. Even though they all play crappy decks, there's something to do.

[URABAHN]

The Calendar says there's a Legacy tourney tomorrow.

[Parcher]

Fair warning to those who play.

Whoever wins the first game wins the match if there is a tie after the second game and time is called. Yes, that means if you win game one you can stall out game two long enough to make sure you win the match. And no matter what they say, no one really enforces any kind of stalling rules unless it is one of the actual Moderators on the site doing the complaining. No matter how many times you go to their judges page and complain, they will just not do anything at all. Really.

Oh, and even better. If it's 1-1 and you are playing game three while the whole 40 minute round ends, the winner of game one wins the match if life totals are equal. Guess what that means? That's right. Last game is decided by life totals if time is called. No extra turns. Life.

I have seen games end with a total of six uncracked Fetchlands in play in a Control v. Control match, as neither player wanted to dip below twenty with time running out.

Sound like fun?

[niknight]

Fair warning to those who play.

Whoever wins the first game wins the match if there is a tie after the second game and time is called. Yes, that means if you win game one you can stall out game two long enough to make sure you win the match. And no matter what they say, no one really enforces any kind of stalling rules unless it is one of the actual Moderators on the site doing the complaining. No matter how many times you go to their judges page and complain, they will just not do anything at all. Really.

That's because when >95% people come into the room and complain of stalling, they either do so after time has been called, or they don't provide any proof that their opponent stalled (logs with timestamps are required).



Oh, and even better. If it's 1-1 and you are playing game three while the whole 40 minute round ends, the winner of game one wins the match if life totals are equal. Guess what that means? That's right. Last game is decided by life totals if time is called. No extra turns. Life.

I have seen games end with a total of six uncracked Fetchlands in play in a Control v. Control match, as neither player wanted to dip below twenty with time running out.

Sound like fun?

With the exceptions of not using the 5 turn rule (impossible to enforce in our case), and the first blood rule ( we don't like having 100 players complain about when they will get pairings b/c a match has gone 15 minutes over time), we follow the DCI rules for timed single elimination matches as closely as we can. And just so people are told upfront, our replacement to first blood in game 3 is the winner of game 1. Also, rounds are 45 minutes, which is now an acceptable time limit for DCI matches.


Besides, we offer free play against competition which is considerably better than mwsplay, with our Master tournaments being completely open, free tournaments that give PayPal credit to any store except eBay, with staff that donates their time to provide this with no compensation.

[georgjorge]

Just to correct some of george's figures, we average approximately 25-30 tournaments per day spread out over all different formats (one of which is a daily trial, that averages between 50-120 depending on format). The currently hot format is Precon War, for example. With the exception of our masters (once every 2 weeks), all tournaments are single elim.

I know...I was referring to the number of Legacy tourneys only.

As to the time you have to spend in the chatrooms to find opponents...I find that I can get a Single match pretty fast most of the time, but it might have to do with what time of the day you're on.

[Zherbus]

I was considering partnering TMD up with them to help with our next Type 1 Tournament of Champions (which started with BDominia and lasted into early TMD). I was working on the plans for the event, but wanted to do some research.

I had an afternoon off, and I thought "why not?" I joined a Vintage event just starting (a qualifier of sorts). As usual when online, I went incognito and signed up with a deck I was hoping to test. First round, my opponent just hammered me with insults and "hurry up" and "noob!" the whole time. I got mana flooded game 1, and just wanted to go to game 2. The game went by in probably less than 7 minutes.

Game 2 started, and I noticed he wasn't playing very fast after a few turns. I'm sitting there with four men just waiting to swing. I waited a few, then clicked over to IRC to notice he was calling me out for stalling in the judge room. After we gave our side of the story, email logs were exchanged, and he got a slap on the wrist for being belligerant and the ruling was that we had "minor lag", but noone was "stalling". Two seconds later he was promptly awarded the match since time ran out. We spent the almost the entirety of game 2 resolving said dispute.

The judge was just like "them's the breaks".

[Sims]

I was considering partnering TMD up with them to help with our next Type 1 Tournament of Champions (which started with BDominia and lasted into early TMD). I was working on the plans for the event, but wanted to do some research.

I had an afternoon off, and I thought "why not?" I joined a Vintage event just starting (a qualifier of sorts). As usual when online, I went incognito and signed up with a deck I was hoping to test. First round, my opponent just hammered me with insults and "hurry up" and "noob!" the whole time. I got mana flooded game 1, and just wanted to go to game 2. The game went by in probably less than 7 minutes.

Game 2 started, and I noticed he wasn't playing very fast after a few turns. I'm sitting there with four men just waiting to swing. I waited a few, then clicked over to IRC to notice he was calling me out for stalling in the judge room. After we gave our side of the story, email logs were exchanged, and he got a slap on the wrist for being belligerant and the ruling was that we had "minor lag", but noone was "stalling". Two seconds later he was promptly awarded the match since time ran out. We spent the almost the entirety of game 2 resolving said dispute.

The judge was just like "them's the breaks".

I know it can be difficult to monitor and actually enforce rulings in this type of environment and everything, so I don't mean to offend anyone affiliated with Magic-League, but I have had a similar experience to Zherbus in my one and only tournament I played in via Magic-League.

The way the system works, awarding matches going to time to whomever wins game 1, is extremely abusable as you can do just what was mentioned: Win Game 1 through whatever means (simply outplaying, your opponent losing to his deck failing or dead draws, yadda yadda) and then just slow-play the hell out of game 2 or bring up some asinine argument into the judges channel to bring everything to time and win the match. I can see many people trying to abuse or take advantage of this system throughout the tournaments, intentionally playing control oriented or prison style decks to slow the games down for the match win via the rules.

[CynicalSquirrel]

I've played at magic-league for a long time, and can say that those times when you face a douchebag opponent who is abusing the rules is extremely rare. It's only happened to me maybe once in a few months. Obviously since it's a free online league it can't be perfect, but every real life or online tournament is going to have its assholes. There isn't much you can do about it really. I still think it's a fine place to test, and I'm sorry one bad time ruined it for you, because it really isn't nearly as bad as you guys seem to think it is.

[Eldariel]

Well, I'm presently judged there and whenever some game where judge activity was involved is going to time, I give them an extension of approximately the time spent to resolve the issues. I've had the same experience with most other judges I've played under. And so far, one person has complained about stalling to me, he sent the logs and his opponent got a gameloss. Many people here seem to have different experiences over there than I've had. Maybe times have changed? Presently the site is experiencing server problems, which is indeed annoying, but usually things work out in the end.

[Alex]

After we gave our side of the story, email logs were exchanged, and he got a slap on the wrist for being belligerant and the ruling was that we had "minor lag", but noone was "stalling". Two seconds later he was promptly awarded the match since time ran out. We spent the almost the entirety of game 2 resolving said dispute.

The judge was just like "them's the breaks".

As someone also said above it is a free online league for MTG, run by people who like the game and decide to devote some of their free time. When it comes to judge decisions there will always be problems. I can remember having problems even offline back in the Euro Championships (2003), my opponent called the judge for something silly and i was awarded a game loss although the decision was way too strict.

Same applies to online play, an outsider (judge) having to rule out a match or a situation. The advantage here is that you have at least logs which can help the situation. Also remember the league has a hierarchy and if you think a decision was harsh you can bring it to the attention of a high level judge (level 3 and up)

In any case you are welcome to participate in magic-league activities :)

[URABAHN]

Fair warning to those who play.

Whoever wins the first game wins the match if there is a tie after the second game and time is called. Yes, that means if you win game one you can stall out game two long enough to make sure you win the match. And no matter what they say, no one really enforces any kind of stalling rules unless it is one of the actual Moderators on the site doing the complaining. No matter how many times you go to their judges page and complain, they will just not do anything at all. Really.

Oh, and even better. If it's 1-1 and you are playing game three while the whole 40 minute round ends, the winner of game one wins the match if life totals are equal. Guess what that means? That's right. Last game is decided by life totals if time is called. No extra turns. Life.

I have seen games end with a total of six uncracked Fetchlands in play in a Control v. Control match, as neither player wanted to dip below twenty with time running out.

Sound like fun?


I was considering partnering TMD up with them to help with our next Type 1 Tournament of Champions (which started with BDominia and lasted into early TMD). I was working on the plans for the event, but wanted to do some research.

I had an afternoon off, and I thought "why not?" I joined a Vintage event just starting (a qualifier of sorts). As usual when online, I went incognito and signed up with a deck I was hoping to test. First round, my opponent just hammered me with insults and "hurry up" and "noob!" the whole time. I got mana flooded game 1, and just wanted to go to game 2. The game went by in probably less than 7 minutes.

Game 2 started, and I noticed he wasn't playing very fast after a few turns. I'm sitting there with four men just waiting to swing. I waited a few, then clicked over to IRC to notice he was calling me out for stalling in the judge room. After we gave our side of the story, email logs were exchanged, and he got a slap on the wrist for being belligerant and the ruling was that we had "minor lag", but noone was "stalling". Two seconds later he was promptly awarded the match since time ran out. We spent the almost the entirety of game 2 resolving said dispute.

The judge was just like "them's the breaks".

That sounds rather poopy, I think I'll be too busy not playing Magic-League! I hate to say it, but I can't wait to pay for virtual Revised-Antiquities on MODO.

[Parcher]

You also don't need to download mIRC, as we have a java IRC client on the site.

This needs to be addressed as it is another point of contention.

First, let me point out that niknight is one of the very few reasonable, fair, and intelligent fellows on magic-league(GRAH is a demi-god there!) and has proven it here. Not disputing any fact, simply stating that the system isn't perfect, but it is free and open to all.

The problem with the Java applet is that everyone who runs mIRC knows you are using it. The reason this becomes important is because this is where you report MWS game logs for stalling, cheating etc.

You cannot copy/paste to the applet, so an opponent on mIRC can see you running it in the chatroom, and behave accordingly in the game, knowing you cannot prove it to the judges.

[CynicalSquirrel]

I can't believe people on here are so paranoid about cheating. People aren't going to go to such extreme lengths to cheat you out of a free online magic game. It seriously has never happened to me in nearly two years at magic-league. Not every player there is a total asshole who will do whatever it takes to cheat you out of a game, most of the people there are pretty friendly and cool when you play. There are obviously some bad apples, but this goes for any tournament, online or real life.

[Tinefol]

Nothing is perfect. But if you ask me if I'd prefer to play on m-l, or to face some random scrub on mwsplay, I'd choose m-l anyday.

[URABAHN]

I can't believe people on here are so paranoid about cheating. People aren't going to go to such extreme lengths to cheat you out of a free online magic game. It seriously has never happened to me in nearly two years at magic-league. Not every player there is a total asshole who will do whatever it takes to cheat you out of a game, most of the people there are pretty friendly and cool when you play. There are obviously some bad apples, but this goes for any tournament, online or real life.

After reading this thread, it appears you're in the minority as far as bumping into cheaters and assholes in Magic-League Tournaments. You're being just a little naive if you think that people aren't going to go to extreme lengths to cheat you out of a free online magic game.

[KillemallCFH]

I have mixed feelings on M-L.

First of all, it is free MTG play, which is of course great. It also has tournaments to test out my decks in a competative environment.

However, I have many problems with it. First, yes, the meta is substandard and not at all a representation of the real Legacy meta. The past two trials I've seen, Burn came in third place (and the burn list honestly looked like it was just thrown together). Also, the fact that it is single elimination makes it much more luck-based. (I realize doing Swiss would probably take much too long; I'm just adressing the fact that single elimination is worse than Swiss on many levels) Also, I have had MANY bad experiences with the people on M-L. I've seen many people who are just dicks, yelling at you, calling you a "n00b", etc. I've also had people who have been way too stringent. Someone refused to face me because I put Brainstorm in the graveyard before resolving it (i.e. I put it on the table, put it in the 'yard, drew my three, and put back two, as opposed to putting it on the table, drawing my three, putting back two, and then putting it in the 'yard). When I asked why it mattered, he gave me something along the lines of " 'You're right, rules are stupid.' Sphinx draws 3 cards. Sphinx creates a 100/100 token." He then went on to give me a lecture about how I'm not actually playing Magic becasue I don't follow the rules verbatim. One last thing is that a judge gave me an incorrect ruling (He told me Glittering Wish couldn't fetch Fire//Ice.). I know, it is only one judge and only one mistake, but it still shows how M-L can be rather subpar at times.

Overall, M-L is good for the occasional Legacy trial, and good if you're in the mood to draft. I don't frequent it anymore, put I'll go on every now and then. I'd much rather just play over MWS/Apprentice with someone I know.

[Tinefol]

After reading this thread, it appears you're in the minority as far as bumping into cheaters and assholes in Magic-League Tournaments. You're being just a little naive if you think that people aren't going to go to extreme lengths to cheat you out of a free online magic game.

As one of the m-l judges and as a frequent player, I don't find the amount of cheaters and assholes on m-l as high. It is certainly not more than anywhere in general and we are dealing with them. And its far less than on mwsplay (just check out that "Beating your head against the wall" thread). Anyway, I'm not convincing you to play here, its just that a lot of people miss the great opportunity of quality testing and general enjoyment.

KillemallCFH, I'd just add that there are quite a few of these "I know" people on m-l with whom I (and in fact anyone) can play and some of them are even sourcers :)

[georgjorge]

I also have been playing Legacy on M-L A LOT (I exclusively play online), and have almost never had to deal with badly behaving, or even cheating, players.

I've also had hardly any problems with the time-out rule - people play at a reasonable pace even if they win game one. Also, most games I've played didn't even go to time (but that may have to do with my preference for Aggro and Combo decks ;)