Tom LaPille - he's at it again

[makochman]

http://twitter.com/#!/TomLapilleMagic

Legacy and Vintage contain several decks that "aren't Magic". How much of that is healthy? How good should those decks be? "aren't Magic" means that the game is about something unrecognizable, like dredge or storm or no one casting spells forever or something. My bar for "real Magic" is pretty low- both players playing lands and tapping them to cast spells for four or more turns is plenty.

If you're still upset about MM being banned... just imagine Tom LaPille being in charge.

This was in the SCG newsletter, so I understand even they found it redonkulous.

[Richard Cheese]

Bracing for shitstorm...

[Koby]

I hereby declare the formation of the Player's Convention International, aka PCI. The first order of business:

Vintage and Legacy B&R lists
1. Tom LaPille - BANNED

[Gheizen64]

So he's gonna do what? Ban jewelry in Vintage? Vintage will have combo decks that win consistently T3 no matter what, unless you ban all the jewelry.
Legacy ? Lol ? You just banned misstep and then you whine that the format is too fast? I am missing something here?
T4 is also the speed of Zoo, combo being slower than aggro would just mean combo IS aggro (and then aggro become midrange, think Big Zoo>Sligh Zoo>Control>Big Zoo). The only problem Aggro has with combo is that sideboard options for it against combo are garbage while the opposite isn't true (unless you play heavy blue). But Combo have to be faster than aggro just to exist, else it wouldn't. Maybe instead of whining print some goddamn good stack-interaction cards outside of blue, ***lord.

[Lancer]

So he's gonna do what? Ban jewelry in Vintage? Vintage will have combo decks that win consistently T3 no matter what, unless you ban all the jewelry.
Legacy ? Lol ? You just banned misstep and then you whine that the format is too fast? I am missing something here?
T4 is also the speed of Zoo, combo being slower than aggro would just mean combo IS aggro (and then aggro become midrange, think Big Zoo>Sligh Zoo>Control>Big Zoo). The only problem Aggro has with combo is that sideboard options for it against combo are garbage while the opposite isn't true (unless you play heavy blue). But Combo have to be faster than aggro just to exist, else it wouldn't. Maybe instead of whining print some goddamn good stack-interaction cards outside of blue, ***lord.

Holy Snap Dragon!!! I cannot deal with these dumbasses controlling the format... We need to get DCI and Wizards of the Coast out of the same bed!

[UnderwaterGuy]

I hate that guy.

Is being arrogant a job requirement at wizards? Moron doesn't even know how to play the game well .

[CorpT]

I generally think WotC does a very good job with the game. With the major exception of LaPille. He's just completely out of touch and clueless. He should not be allowed to speak in public because he continuously embarrasses himself and, by proxy, WotC.

[SpikeyMikey]

I generally think WotC does a very good job with the game. With the major exception of LaPille. He's just completely out of touch and clueless. He should not be allowed to speak in public because he continuously embarrasses himself and, by proxy, WotC.

Really? I'm surprised. I would think that a Legacy afficianado would be disappointed with Wizards as a whole these days. They've had this mindset that they want to focus on nerfing counterspells into near unplayability and murder the shit out of combo whenever they find it. I much prefer the old Wizards of the Coast. Wizards pre-Onslaught, really. Odyssey was a fine set, Invasions was my favorite set ever, Masques and Urzas had some issues but had very playable T2 formats, Tempest was tits, I mean, the old sets had good flavor. Not flavor insofar as "this fits into our shitty, hackneyed novels" but flavor in terms of cool concepts. I mean yeah, Humility may be an absolute rules nightmare, but it's just a cool card, good name, Foglio art, it's where it's at.

And while I was never on the boat with the '6ED rules will kill the game' crowd, I kind of feel that way about the M10 rules changes. I mean, it was a strict dumbing down of the rules. You took a lot of creatures that were interesting with combat damage on the stack and made them uninteresting. You took a lot of cool tricks with distributing partial damage among several creatures and killed them. Basically, you removed a lot of peoples' ability to maximize the utility of their cards. You removed a lot of skill from the game. Not to improve other aspects of the game, but just to make it more marketable to people that would otherwise be too stupid to play. Call me an elitist intellectual, but I kind of enjoy playing against intelligent opponents.

All in all, I think LaPille is pretty much in line with the rest of the Wizards staff. Rosewater has always been an idiot. Don't get me wrong, I still think LaPille should be sent to Guantanamo for questioning, but it's the whole company these days, not just 1 man. They're not being embarassed by proxy, they're being embarassed by their own inability to think.


Also, I'm not buying the "storm combo was an unintended side effect" bullshit. If storm combo was unforseen, they wouldn't have banned Mind's Desire in Extended well before we even had a full spoiler. They knew full well that the storm cards were too expensive (manawise) to see play outside of combo with only the narrowest of exceptions (Wing Shards).

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Aha. Ahahaha. Ahahahahaha! What a joke.

[Octopusman]

It will always be Wotc's game first and ours second.

That doesn't mean it's "right". I would argue he's a bad designer solely based on the fact that they consider one pile of 60(75) cards to be more offensive than another when they both contain legal cards.
They should embrace the interactions that players come up with unless it's totally degenerate.

If they didn't think of people storming out for a lethal tendrils when they made the card it just puts a spotlight on their ineptitude.

Let us play the damn game in my opinion and/or playtest your shitty designs better.

[Nihil Credo]

Tom LaPille and Sheldon Menery - Separated at birth?

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

-Aggro beats control due to too many threats.
- Control beats combo due to having enough answers to stop the combo players combo.
-Combo beats aggro due to being faster.

This is not true. This has never been true. Please stop saying it.

Tom LaPille and Sheldon Menery - Separated at birth?

In fairness, LaPille wants to actually ban things. Sheldon would just write petulantly about what a bunch of fun-wreckers people playing Vengevival are.

[UnderwaterGuy]

This is not true. This has never been true. Please stop saying it.

What exactly do you mean here? What he said is pretty much the definition of the three archetypes.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

What exactly do you mean here? What he said is pretty much the definition of the three archetypes.

Which is an anachronistic and hopelessly wrong-headed theory from the very early days of Magic, whose only modern function is to be regurgitated in an attempt to murder intelligent discussion of the game.

[DragoFireheart]

This is not true. This has never been true. Please stop saying it.

Too simple?

We have the following decks:

A
B
C
V
X

A beats V and X and loses to B and loses extremely hard to C.
C beats B and A but loses to V and X.
V ties with X and beats B and C but loses to A.

etc.

It's more complicated than what I posted, but the point is still true: different archtypes of decks beat other decks. With variety we ensure balance since no one deck is a Paper to every Rock.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Too simple?

We have the following decks:

A
B
C
V
X

A beats V and X and loses to B and loses extremely hard to C.
C beats B and A but loses to V and X.
V ties with X and beats B and C but loses to A.

etc.

It's more complicated than what I posted, but the point is still true: different archtypes of decks beat other decks. With variety we ensure balance since no one deck is a Paper to every Rock.

It's not true. Archetypes don't beat decks. Decks beat decks. And they do so based on the cards they contain. Archetypes are only vaguely useful as a classification scheme, but nothing more than that.

[Julian23]

PVDDR Paulo Vitor
@TomLaPilleMagic to me, all of those are more Magic than transform cards :) (except maybe Dredge)

:-)

[Koby]

PVDDR Paulo Vitor
@TomLaPilleMagic to me, all of those are more Magic than transform cards :) (except maybe Dredge)

QFT, repeated for emphasis.

[KevinTrudeau]

Not nearly the worst thing to ever come out of his mouth (the Great Sable Stag comment and implying that running Overgrown Battlement would make mono-green infect in Standard better because "it's a combo deck, and combo decks need defense and mana" were pretty egregious). I actually agree with him to an extent- Dredge and Storm are two archetypes that base themselves upon unintended design, and wouldn't fall under what I would define as the true essence of Magic (although, few Constructed formats have ever fallen under that category).

Doesn't this picture just make you angry?:

[bakofried]

RAGE
Just play a fairer deck, Tom. Don't fuck with the format.