An Apology for the M2010 Combat Rules Changes

[AngryTroll]

First of all, I feel that we, Team InfoNinja, owe the Legacy Community (and perhaps the entire Magic Community) an apology. Although the changes to manaburn, “Cast,” “Battlefield,” and “Exile” were unavoidable, I am afraid that we may have inadvertently caused the devastating changes to the combat step announced earlier this week. Basically, we did not realize that our actions would have such far-reaching ramifications, and for this, I apologize.

Does everyone remember GP: Flash? And the desperate calls for a banning before the GP, to remove a sudden, unfair, format-shredding deck from the metagame before the GP and restore a healthy balance in time for the tournament? We tried to keep our deck under wraps, but it leaked anyways.

Due to an unfortunate conflux of circumstance, Wizards of the Coast was made aware of Team Info-Ninja’s most secret deck tech last weekend, a few weeks before the Star City Games $5K Legacy Event. Whatever might have been, what has happened to the Combat Damage Stack was a result of a side event at the Seattle PTQ a few weekends ago that attracted the attention of Wizards of the Coast, also located in Seattle.

The final standings of the most painless tournament in which I have ever participated was a Top 8 comprised of 7 InfoNinjas and Richard Garfield. The Richard Garfield. Now, as a sidenote, Team InfoNinja would have swept the Top 8, except Andy “Giles” insisted on packing his Hunted Horror/Gilded Drake deck; he placed eleventh, after narrowing missing the Top 8 on tiebreakers to another teammate.

Well, in addition to the Underground Seas received to the winning Ninja, a cryptic letter was received by each of the seven Ninjas in the mail during the following week. You know how Coalition Victory says “You win the game if you satisfy these conditions”? Well, we each received an envelope containing a magic card that said something to the effect of “You lose if you do not satisfy these conditions.” Now, these cards passed the bend test, and the return address was Wizards of the Coast in Seattle. We decided to meet at the address specified on the date on the cards.

Now, does everyone remember, wayyy back to the days of GameBoys (not GameBoy Color, even) and the original Pokemon? You know, the one we were all the perfect age to play and enjoy? Yeah, that’s it. Remember the ending, where you had to face a series of increasingly difficult players to make it to the very end? That’s what Wizards of the Coast was like (so Chris "Volt" "I'm not really that old guys, see, I'm hip to your generation's video games" tells me. I wouldn't know, I don't waste time on silly games about fantastic creatures and violence and such).

We (Team InfoNinja) played our way through an initial wave of Limited Decks, a round of Draft Decks, some terrible Block Constructed Decks, some BW Token and Faerie Type II decks, some Extended Storm Combo (and everything else that format has to offer), a round of fun Legacy competition, and the most overpowered Vintage decks Menendian and team Meandeck have ever crafted.

During these seven rounds (each played 3/5 games, instead of 2/3), the InfoNinja Tech Deck managed to drop a total of four games, two to unfortunate mulligans into mana flood, one third to the nuts draw from Zvi (who is apparently one of the revered Extended Guardians of the Eighth Floor), and one when Brian "Maverick" kept a seven land hand against Kai Budde. He almost won that game, though.

Finally, the team arrived at the top floor conference room. Honestly, it was rather anti-climatic; we defeated Richard Garfield the weekend before in the Top 8 and quarter finals. How threatening could the current Wizards management possibly be? On the other hand, I am pretty sure I passed a room containing an actual Force of Nature. Also, a room full of concubines learning to play cards based on their text, not art. Let’s just say a few Demigods of Revenge were summoned (also, a Norin the Wary, but we promised Pinder we wouldn’t mention that part) and we, uh, swept that round too.

Anyways, Giles scrubbed out, and Chris “Volt” was bored by the time we got to the eighth floor (he opted to take the Physical Challenge, which apparently climbing eight flights of stairs and resisting a bag of potato chips for twenty minutes), but Aaron Forsythe and Mark L. Gottlieb demanded our decks for a deckcheck. After careful inspection, they returned our decks (“for all the good it would do us”), banished us from the building using an elevator that we had somehow failed to notice on our way up to that floor. I could have sworn I saw a hint of panic behind Forsythe's cool demeanor as he handed back our decks. Of course, it was hard to tell; we were all pretty distracted by Gottleib's weeping.

Anyway, the next morning, Wednesday morning, our combo was given four week’s notice. Although I am hesitant to reveal the full decklist, due to the sheer awesome-density contained in the 76 cards, we agreed that I would tell everyone that the combo relied on damage on the stack, one of the Myojin, Volrath’s Shapeshifter, Mischievous Quanar, and a Sorrow’s Path. Don’t worry; without the decklist, I don’t think the critical awesome-density-limit of the Source has been exceeded.

Also, although I am not entirely sure why Forsythe decided to do it, but he neutered Gile’s Horror deck while he was at it. I am really at a loss for words at that one, and just as angry as everyone else about it. Giles scrubbed out to the Block deck. Seriously? He couldn’t neuter my Vial Wizard (splash red) list? It wasn’t good enough to need neutering? I’ll show him.



Anyway, fellow Legacy players: Team InfoNinja is deeply sorry for what has happened. We hope that in the future, our awesome factor does not exceed the established awesome limit for a sixty card deck. Our EDH lists, though, are a different story. No one alert the EDH council, though. They’re a lot further away from Seattle and Portland than Wizards, so we hope to slide under their radar for some time to come.

[xsockmonkeyx]

[Cabal-kun]

Waste of time is a waste.

On a side note, your unabashed hatred of Isamaru's deck is telling of your maturity level, or lack therefore of.

[sdematt]

I'm leaning towards the fact this is not true...just like the time I actually survived a zombie apocalypse, but it turned out I just fell asleep playing Left for Dead. Cool story though!

[Bryant Cook]

Cool Story Horrible Bitch

[frogboy]

On a side note, your unabashed hatred of Isamaru's deck is telling of your maturity level, or lack therefore of.

He's just making fun of Giles which I assure you is 100% standard.

<3 Giles.