What would happen if we change the official tournament rules such that the minimum deck size would be 100?
My argument for this is that, as eternal formats mature, lists tend to homogenize around a few powerful cards and avenues for deck exploration and innovation become few and far between. Now obviously, War of the Spark and Modern Horizon completely broke eternal formats wide open, but it won’t be long before a more homogenous format would reappear, such is the nature of the beast.
Commander is the exponent of heterogeneity in our format, due to the minimum deck size, color identity restrictions and of course the one card per deck restriction. The result is arguably the most widely enjoyed format.
By taking only the 100 card decksize rule we would have more room to play our cards. On the other hand, cantrips might get even more important and shuffle times would increase, both of which are not necessarily good things for tournament play.
It would give us more degrees of freedom which would in turn result in more cards from new sets to be worthy of tournament consideration. This would help MTG sales. On the other hand, onramping new players with 100 card decks would be a bit more difficult I think.
Last edited by bruizar; 07-24-2019 at 05:54 AM.
Shuffling 100 cards is a miserable experience, and a long one too. More forced creativity would simply be to drop 4x rule to 3x.
The main cards holding back forced color identity are Fetchlands. I don’t think anyone really wants to put up with Fetch shuffles and 100 card stacks; you’d have to increase round time quite a bit in paper.
i played an 80 card maindeck UB reanimator, which ended up being a 4c reanimator with DRS and dack fayden. it was pretty fun.
100 is a bit much for shuffling, especially with double sleeves.
-rob
Just no.
You just said something quite ingenious. This is a totally elegant solution for an eternal format. By dropping the playset from 4 to 3, you solve a lot of problems in Eternal MTG. You get the same effects, and a few more, without the negatives.
1) More room for new cards to enter the list of commonly played cards
2) The fourth copy of every playset can go to a Commander deck, which boosts the Commander player base
3) No logistical problems due to increased shuffling
4) The demand for reserved cards is lowered due to the lower quantity of cards needed to play a competitive deck
5) The reserved printings can support a larger, and thus healthier eternal player base
6) It gives the format it's distinctiveness, which would mix too much with Commander if we were to up the card count to 100
7) Mana bases are even more expensive with 100 card decks, which is not true for 60 card decks with 3-card play sets
8) It reduces the power of Leylines which can be problematic from a design space point of view.
9) It makes 2-card combo decks much less problematic, whether it's SNT, Sneak Attack, Reanimate, Painter Grindstone, Ancient Tomb-Chalice. You get more 'real games of magic' (loose and subjective term, I know.
10) The biggest issue is that cantrips relatively gain in value, pushing blue even more.
On color identity: I was always a proponent of banning fetchlands, even though I own shiny versions of them. The Prismatic Vista printing kind of made me give up on that idea ever happening though.
By lowering the playset from 4 to 3, you're virtually increasing the print run of reserved list cards by 33% without violating the reserved list.
What can we do to address the relative gain of blue cantrips other than banhammering?
What problem is this supposed to be fixing?
I saw the post title and assumed it was about going from 1v1 magic to Commander or Brawl or something.
Instead it's some hilariously stupid nonsense about "what if we changed the format to something else?", like, again.
Eh, at least it's keeping the posts coming.
I mean, Canadian Highlander already exists, so I doubt this is "needed."
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Is there a compendium of all the rando-formats beyond the sanctioned ones?
I'll hear people talking about normal formats with seemingly arbitrary modifiers slapped in front of them like Scandinavian Commander or Iberian Modern or Gondwanaland Block Constructed.
I'd be nice to see what everything is all in one place without having to dive into a bunch of enthusiast blog sites
Multiply regular commander by .75 and boom, theres the canadian version
I'm sorry you can't appreciate the topic. It was more a thought experiment than an attempt at creating a new format. IMO too many different formats just fragments the player base and that's not good either. However, I do think that idea of reducing the size of play sets would benefit legacy a lot by making cards more available to buyers, and buyers requiring less copies (buyers=people that buy into the format).
There is a half-decent list at the bottom of this page but I don't think a truly "comprehensive" list exists.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
In almost all cases the expensive reserve list cards that are in demand are dual lands and in most decks people don't play 4-ofs. Even U/R delver only typically plays 3 volcs. So I don't think it is opening up a whole lot. Are there any very expensive reserve list cards that are typically 4-ofs in legacy play?
A 3x rule probably doesn’t do much to RL prices. The main benefit would be would be different card choices in threat, answer, and lockpiece categories. You could of course look for the next worse version of the same thing (ex. Plow -> Path, Bolt -> Chain, BS -> Preordain), but there’s also more freedom to play cards with greater interactive potential (from previous list Blessed Alliance, Forked Bolt/Abrade, Portent). Excluding changes in mana bases, most legacy decks would need to make ~7-10 slot changes, and there’d be quite a bit of variety in how those decks could play, even in mirrors.
i was thinking it, damn glad you posted it... needs to be said every time.
seems legit...
i would sell off a good chunk of my reserve list knowing i only need 3 ofs. i'm sure others would too and the perception that legacy is more accessible would be relevant; more cards in the pool and you only need 3 to optimize your list.
mox diamond, academy rector, aluren, gaea's cradle, helm of obedience, intuition, metalworker
the OP had a legit idea and if people here don't like it, that's fair but this would make legacy appear more accessible.
Reducing max copies from 4 to 3 is a great idea that the format would greatly benefit from IMO. Cantrip suites would go from 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder to 3 BS, 3 Ponder, 3 Preordain but we would get things like a maximum of 3 Delvers, 3 SnT, 3 Sneaks, max 9 reanimation spells, 3 Wish, 3 Tutors, diverse burn decks, max 3 Thalia, 3 Vial, 3 Wastes per decks, Max 3 Chalice and 6 Sol Lands + 3 Chalice. Overall I think the format would see much more variety while maintaining consistency.
This rule would somewhat also decrease the barrier of entry by reducing some deck costs by requiring 3 copies of a staple rather than 4 and stimulate economic growth by creating new staples for the format.
The main problem I see with this idea is calling it Legacy. Fragmenting into a different format would be more agreeable and wouldn't get the idea very far. I think the best way to make this a thing is to take the commander approach to create your own format and persist until it becomes a thing. This would make for a nice community project that enables cool things like a new and revised ban list.
Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
Get it...? Ass, u, me?
... ffs I was trying to be funny...
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