Would you play CYOS?

[Arrowni]

The new reprint policy seems to have affected the long term development of Legacy as a format appealing to the masses, and since wizards has started to take that direction I think its a good moment to propose and develop a way out of that sink -every change has to start somewhere, at the very least we can start discussing it.

One of the possible formats that can mimic the complexity and interactions of Legacy without having a very high entry barrier would be Choose your Own Standard. It seems that I'm not the only one fond to this forgotten invitational format -me and some friends are currently playing it- so I want to present it as a possibility for a future "legacy format".

You pick two blocks starting from Ice Ages block and one core set after 4th. With those, you make a deck which respects the Legacy banned list and the banned list of each individual block. You can pit that deck against others deck which can choose different blocks and core sets, giving you most of the card pool of legacy and many of its more powerful combos and still keeping a format much less powered than in the current eternal formats.

Obviously the format would need a player base for Wizard to consider supporting it. Standard and Extended crews could be competitive much more easily than in current Legacy, while Eternal players would have much wider card and deck choices, the format could be made for online gaming without much trouble either. The main question is: Would you play it?

Just putting the idea out there.

(If this format was ever picked it would be the best for wizards to drop the earliest sets from the reserved list at least as a token settlement between players and collectors, cards from Ice Ages and after it are not nearly expensive enough to warrant any serious presence in the list anyways and the format would shape the list and would be shaped by it, something that I think people could be sensible to)

[Some Guy]

you make a deck which respects the Legacy banned list and the banned list of each individual block.

these are two very different things. besides , how often are things even banned in standard ? not often. why wouldnt every one just play affinity ? or lowyn block UB fearies with ice age block for FoW and brainstorm ? possibly some saga block brokenness ? of all the blocks out there , it seems there would be very few viable ones. everything would gravitate towards blocks with a high tribal / aggro theme in it already.

[Arrowni]

Have you looked at the Mirrodin banned list? No affinity is possible there, I assure you.

A new more fit banned list would be needed, but that's the way modern legacy was born.

[Cabal_chan]

Why not just run our own shadow Legacy format?

Realistic proxies + a banned list maintained by respected/knowledgeable players. I want to play Legacy, not some other format.

[Arrowni]

We may as well make our own expansions, tournament rules and errata our own cards.

I want people to consider that CYOS would be a permanent link for Eternal cards and Eternal players with newer formats. Wizards burned the bridge for Legacy to be that format, we need to find a solution. This is the best permanent solution I came up with.

[Otter]

We may as well make our own expansions, tournament rules and errata our own cards.

Yes, because that's how Vintage works, right? Of course Vintage failed in the end, so perhaps the proxy model is not sustainable, but the format did have a booming scene for a couple of years, so then again perhaps there is something to be said for it. Either way, suggesting that one of the more easily done and simple solutions for long-term legacy (proxies and unsanctioned events) leads to random fanmade crap being legal is an absolutely ridiculous leap of logic.


I want people to consider that CYOS would be a permanent link for Eternal cards and Eternal players with newer formats. Wizards burned the bridge for Legacy to be that format, we need to find a solution. This is the best permanent solution I came up with.

How exactly do you expect to deal with what happens when the best deck in the format ends up using something like Mox Diamond? Just because the format doesn't have duals doesn't mean that other reserved list cards can't become huge problems. Sure, everyone can play more recent blocks, but if there are very good decks in the older blocks, that'd be the equivalent of a legacy tournament where everyone is playing Dredge and Fish -- card availability warping the metagame. I don't see how CYOS truly gets us anywhere.

edit -- To be realistic, what WotC burned the bridge with was not legacy, but the hope of having any sort of long-term sustainable, older format. Well, unless there are some crazy reprints of course (i.e. 3 color duals that are legendary or whatever).

[Arrowni]

I expect to bargain. The modern blocks that are being reprinted Online and are included in CYOS (Ice Ages, Mirage, Tempest and Urza's) should be forced out of the list. But the format would need to be played widely to have such impact, Wizards can show good will towards players but signs have to be mutual.

Other venues can be taken if bargaining proves useless but we always hope it doesn't come to that.

[Exospaciac]

As long as there were some adjustments made, it could work really well.
They should probably do something about Lorwyn block Faeries. I didn't play Magic then, but I hear just as many bad things about Faeries as I do about Affinity. Maybe ban Bitterblossom?

The other thing I'd be worried about is Jund, but I'm not sure how powerful it'd be in this format. Still, banning Bloodbraid Elf or (maybe?) Sprouting Thrinax might be a good idea.

If WotC ever decided to support it, sure I'd play it. It looks like a blast to play.

[Ozymandias]

Of the cards on the reserve list that are valid choices, the only one that's pushing 50 is really Mox Diamond, and to a lesser extent LED...and there are a hell of a lot more Mox Diamonds out there than Duals. If people will shell out 40 for a depths or 45 for a baneslayer, having a few dozen cards be costly is not the end of the world.

Plus, it would probably take ages to develop a "best deck." Off the top of my head, people will probably try stuff like Time Spiral/Alara for thopters, Hypergenesis, and Living End, Ravnica/Alara for Zoo, Onslaught with either Saga or Mirrodin for Goblins, and other highly linear decks/2-card combos. Eventually, someone might want to build a flexible control deck or something, but decksfor legacy are sometimes positioned badly-who wants to run Mirage/Alara for NOPro, or Kamigawa/Ice Age for Countertop?

I'd play-probably TS/Rav Dredge with 5E for Nether Shadow.

[Anusien]

There's already a best CYOS deck. It's either Dredge or Chimera.

[majikal]

WTF is wrong with all of you? You're acting like Legacy just keeled over and died as soon as they announced there weren't going to be any more reprints.

The fact of the matter is that nothing has changed apart from the fact that WotC can't feasibly push Legacy as hard as they have been. Sure, prices will rise, and that will suck, but we can still play our format for the time being. Prices probably won't rise to disastrous levels for a couple of years, and by that time we don't even know if the Reserved List will still exist. Let's all just calm down and not get our panties in a twist. Your hysteria is only going to make things worse.

[cupajoe]

I would definitely play

Arrowni....If you could persuade a store near you to do an unsanctioned CYOS tourney with pretty good advertising/decent prizes etc. I'm curious to see what the turnout would be.....

I'm betting it would catch on, but since no one's trying it, there's no way to know.....

As to the price issue....Unlike Revised duals, which to be competitive are needed in most Legacy decks, the other pricy cards could easily be worked around....Anotherwords, it would be far easier to build a variety of decks around those cards than trying to build a variety of decks without Revised duals in Legacy


If there was any card warping the format, it would be banned, just like when Wizards banned Flash, etc.....I don't see that as an issue, really....That's the same as any other format

One more thought: Just for kicks, you could have one "block" be Fallen Empires and Homelands.....since Coldsnap is now part of the Ice Age block....And both FE and Homelands had massive print runs......Hey, you've got Hymn out of Fallen Empires and the awesome Giant Oyster out of Homelands ;)

[cupajoe]

@majical.....No one is saying do away with Legacy, and most are not saying Legacy will die

There's no hysteria here

CYOS could be created as a new format to simply give players another choice. Conceivably it could somewhat reduce the number of players in Legacy, which from what a lot of the posters here are saying, would actually be a good thing because duals wouldn't be so hard to come by/expensive

[jrsthethird]

The pros of this format:

- Removes dependence on dual lands across the board.
- Accessible for both Legacy players and Extended/Standard players (with a little adjustments)
- Lets you use (most) cards ever printed, but in a way that's different then just "Legacy Lite", which no one would play if you just banned duals and similar stuff like people were discussing.
- Allows more cards to be relevant (most noticeably cards freshly rotated out of Extended that aren't good enough for Legacy)

There are many possible decks that could see play in this format, and I guess Ice Age and Time Spiral would probably be the two most common blocks (Force of Will/Brainstorm in the former, and a huge smattering of mechanics + Tarmogoyf in the latter).

Possible choices that haven't been mentioned:

Masques/Time Spiral Rebels (who wouldn't like to see Rebels again?)
Ice Age/Zendikar HexDepths
Mirage/Onslaught StifleNaught

The big problem with the format is enforcement of the rules, and making sure that every deck in a tournament is actually viable. A big step for TOs who use deck regs. is to make ones that are sorted by block, so you list the blocks you're using and sort the cards, so when going over decklists you don't have to keep thinking "what blocks is he using?"

[chris_acheson]

CYOS could be created as a new format to simply give players another choice. Conceivably it could somewhat reduce the number of players in Legacy, which from what a lot of the posters here are saying, would actually be a good thing because duals wouldn't be so hard to come by/expensive

Reducing the number of Legacy players is a bad thing, for those of us that still want to play it. A major reason that most established Legacy players want to see the Reserve List abolished is because we want more opportunities to play Legacy and more opponents to play against. High prices on Legacy staples are antithetical to this goal, as would be creating an alternate format to draw people away from Legacy.

[Eldariel]

I do play the format a ton. Mostly online though. And if it were sanctioned, I sure as hell would play it competitively. Legacy it ain't though. It's closest to old Extended. As it's limited to the era Standard has existed (starting from 5e and IA), it lacks tons of the key stuff Legacy contains, and as you're limited to two blocks, you can't pick most of the strong cards in a color thus forcing more Standard-level cards into decks.


Oh, and best deck? It's not Chimera, I can tell you that much. And Dredge is way too easy to hate for it to take the top; it lacks the resilience provided by Ichorids & co. You only have Time Spiral/Ravnica or Odyssey/Ravnica, either way being rather weak against gravehate and being eminently raceable in rather all-innish plan. I'd say it's between:
Onslaught/Urza/M10 Goblins
Tempest/Kamigawa/5th WW
Time Spiral/Alara/M10 Hypergenesis (tho prolly not as it loses so hard to anything with blue)
Lorwyn/Tempest/6th Painter's Stone
Zendikar/Ice Age/M10 Dark Depths
Lorwyn/Kamigawa/7th Faeries
Time Spiral/Tempest/10th Rec Sur (Time Spiral-version has much stronger non-combo plan hence getting the nod over Tem/Urza; Tarmogoyfs make things better)

There's also Zen/Rav/W/Eth Zoo, Ody/Tem/M10 RDW, TSP/Ody/10th Gruul, Masques/TSP/10th Counter Rebels, Rav/Ody/10th Aggro Loam, Lor/IA/6th Merfolk, Te/Mr/8th Red Chalice Aggro, TSP/Inv/5th Ugb Control and Mr/TSP/5th Blue Tron as examples of what I've seen function. Nobody knows how to build red aggro or survival best, of course; there are too many variables to nail that down without hundreds of hours of testing. Still, I've seen the Rec Sur lists perform really well mostly with Time Spiral, Urza or lately, Zendikar. I guess cheating Iona in play is pretty brutal still.

Chimera is just way underpowered by present MYOS standards and hell, it did so well at the Invitationals only 'cause people didn't know how to play against it. Dredge is a good linear strat as long as not prepared for, but MYOS Dredge isn't strong enough to win through 4+ gravehate from every deck coupled with the decks' own gameplans (hell, it's barely faster than others by default). The format is definitely wide open and it'd need a PTQ season or something to really iron out what works and what doesn't. And it's a bit too complex a format to pin down during one PTQ season too; the number of possible combinations is simply so much higher for everything compared to any present Constructed format due to the fact that you have a large number of blocks and core sets to choose from and can pick only 3 total, which determines your entire card pool.


That said, let's let the "Legacy is dying"-crap be.

[jrsthethird]

Oh, and best deck? It's not Chimera, I can tell you that much. And Dredge is way too easy to hate for it to take the top; it lacks the resilience provided by Ichorids & co. You only have Time Spiral/Ravnica or Odyssey/Ravnica, either way being rather weak against gravehate and being eminently raceable in rather all-innish plan. I'd say it's between:
Onslaught/Urza/M10 Goblins
Tempest/Kamigawa/5th WW
Time Spiral/Alara/M10 Hypergenesis (tho prolly not as it loses so hard to anything with blue)
Lorwyn/Tempest/6th Painter's Stone
Zendikar/Ice Age/M10 Dark Depths
Lorwyn/Kamigawa/7th Faeries
Time Spiral/Tempest/10th Rec Sur (Time Spiral-version has much stronger non-combo plan hence getting the nod over Tem/Urza; Tarmogoyfs make things better)

How do you hate out Dredge? You need either TS block or Alara block for artifact hate (Urza block if you splash black), Rav block gives you Leyline but when not black you can't hardcast it, which really sucks. I've played against Extended Dredge recently and 90% of those cards can be picked from TS/Rav.

[Eldariel]

How do you hate out Dredge? You need either TS block or Alara block for artifact hate (Urza block if you splash black), Rav block gives you Leyline but when not black you can't hardcast it, which really sucks. I've played against Extended Dredge recently and 90% of those cards can be picked from TS/Rav.

Many of the cards that truly matter there aren't TS/Rav. You get something equivalent to Narcobridges from Standard; you don't get Bloodghasts, you don't get the better Dread Return-targets, you miss out on a number of more efficient dredge outlets and are, often, slower. Especially lacking Bloodghasts is a huge drawback leading you to basically having a bunch of Narcomoebas and praying they'll make it to be Dread Returned.

That leads to much weaker Dredge-hate like Faerie Macabre, Jotun Grunt, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, Scrabbling Claws and so on actually helping out in a surprisingly large number of games. And occasionally you can just kill all their Dredge outlets and race their slowdredge-plan; without Ichorids, Breakthroughs, Cephalid Coliseums and company, slowdredge is slow indeed.


Frankly, I much prefer the Odyssey/Ravnica-version; sure, you gotta kill with Ichorids, but you have much better Dredge-tools and Cabal Therapies to ensure your guys get in there. But again, that decks kills with 4 Ichorids so meh.

[morgan_coke]

Have to agree with Eldariel here. Rav/TSP was an actual Standard format for awhile. There were dredge decks in it, but they weren't very good for most of the reasons he lists above. IIRC, basically you pulled a Llanowar Mentor and it lived or you were in for bad times. Greenseeker and Llanowar Mentor were the main discard outlets for that deck, and it would often do things like hardcast Trolls in its attempts to win. That or DR Flame-Kin.

[Arrowni]

Yep, CYOS dredge is not a bad deck but far from the unstoppable beast required to rule the format.

Nobody is burying Legacy here, everyone should know that CYOS is a format way too different for both to actually be compared, creating an intermediate format could hurt Legacy! But it could also make a bridge for Extended/Standard players into looking at older cards -at least get interest in the format for discussion and deck-building if active participation is harsh. Building CYOS decks is incredibly skill intensive and even more rewarding than rogue Legacy strategies -the overall deck power is between standard and extended level, but you can have access to even more interactions-. Much more cards compete including many sub-par ones, I assure you that while I have pretty much every card I need to build Legacy decks -Tabernacles, Loams, etc.-, I don't have nearly enough to make just any deck I want on CYOS, but individual lists are still much cheaper.

[jrsthethird]

I didn't play ts/rav standard so I didn't know how bad it was. Ody/rav sounds a lot better.

[Phoenix Ignition]

No.

I wouldn't.

[JeroenC]

I might, I've always felt it was an interesting format but I never got into it because there was never any reason to.

[dahcmai]

Ok, what is this Chimera? I don't play this format, but I soooo loved the old Visions Chimeras. Are you talking about those, because if so I want a sample decklist. Those things are hilarious.

[Eldariel]

Ok, what is this Chimera? I don't play this format, but I soooo loved the old Visions Chimeras. Are you talking about those, because if so I want a sample decklist. Those things are hilarious.

He's prolly referring to the Chimera-combo from Urza/Masques Tiago Chan played at the invitationals where this format was used (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtgevent/mi07/cyostandarddecklists).

[dahcmai]

Awww sad face. I thought someone had finally made something decent out of these.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=3590&type=card

[Eldariel]

Awww sad face. I thought someone had finally made something decent out of these.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=3590&type=card

Sorry, man; don't remember any competitive deck incorporating those in the game. Cute though they may be, Arcbound really showcases what you need for a competitive deck of that manner. 4-mana 2/2s are just wee bit behind the curve. Though...Urza's Incubator + Chimeras = hawt.

[Arrowni]

I think one of the questions to ask about how "viable" would playing CYOS in the long run is looking at current sets and asking if there is one or two that are almost "must include" in order to make competitive decks. If there is nothing dominating and sets are mostly equally distributed in how competitive they are, then the format would be pretty fair when it comes to prices.

[Eldariel]

I think one of the questions to ask about how "viable" would playing CYOS in the long run is looking at current sets and asking if there is one or two that are almost "must include" in order to make competitive decks. If there is nothing dominating and sets are mostly equally distributed in how competitive they are, then the format would be pretty fair when it comes to prices.

Due to linearity of the themes and completely different requirements of the deck, just about all sets would see play. Some combos alone ensure that certain sets see play, and certain linear themes exist in basically every block. Removing Block-bannings at least by and large (Affinity is way too strong with Alara, forcing heavyduty artifact hate from any competitors) would help things out quite a bit; right now Masques is quite weak but all it takes is Port to suddenly add a ton of viable strategies based on Masques, and Thawing Glaciers would really help IA-based decks in all manners of non-Weenie/Combo decks.

Urza is presently neutered somewhat by the Block-bannings and Mirrodin is very neutered for the same reason (artifact lands are so integral part of the set that non-Affinity decks are hurt by it too, though thanks to Fifth Dawn-goodies, Chalice/Trini, Molten Rain, Slith and Thirst, it's still good enough in some decks). Removing those bannings and e.g. leaving just Ravager/Disciple/Cranial Plating banned should help (Cursed Scroll is another card I'm worried about since Tempest-based aggro is ridiculously good already between Shadows, Cataclysm, Pups, burn, Wasteland, City, Ritual, Hatred, etc. but it might turn out alright).


But yeah, since power cards are split pretty evenly and roleplayers are quite eminently available, you generally make a choice on gameplan and which "power" you want in the deck and go from there. Due to the even split of extremely strong cards throughout Magic's history, this tends to result in every block being used (Counter Rebels are quite strong even without Lin Sivvi, for example).

The metalisting I did contains all blocks except Invasion, Masques and Mirage on the top and between Natural Order/Fireblast/, Rebels/Tangle Wire/co. & Invasion Goodies (honestly, Fact/Deed/MM/Vindicate/Enemy Fetches/Ringleaders/etc. - it's in the upper echelons of block power) they definitely have their nichés.

Fact is that nobody has done enough work to truly figure out all the viable decks, but I'd say most of the "potentially broken" decks have been found and while there's a bunch of very strong strategies in the format (many of them Extended-level), nothing is truly strong enough to be able to dominate.

[Arrowni]

I'm going to test this format getting people over starcity -Legacy forums, could be moved somewhere else- in case anyone is interested into giving it a go. Just a few people will certainly not crack the format but it could shed some light on its potential.

[cupajoe]

Just out of curiosity.....Anybody evaluate how the manabases look across the blocks.....I think the fetchlands were only printed in Onslaught block unless I'm mistaken


Should be some interesting tradeoffs happening......By choosing certain blocks you could get more consistent manabases, but other blocks might have better choices for spells etc.....Just wondering if anyone's thought about this

[Eldariel]

Just out of curiosity.....Anybody evaluate how the manabases look across the blocks.....I think the fetchlands were only printed in Onslaught block unless I'm mistaken

Should be some interesting tradeoffs happening......By choosing certain blocks you could get more consistent manabases, but other blocks might have better choices for spells etc.....Just wondering if anyone's thought about this

Yes, it's accounted for. Most relevantly:
- Shocklands from Ravnica
- Fetchlands from Onslaught & Zendikar
- Future Sight lands from Time Spiral
- Tribal lands from Lorwyn
- Enemy Pains from Invasion

Core generally provides you:
- Ally Pains (5th - 7th)
- All Pains (9th - 10th)
- M10 Lands (M10)
- City of Brass (5th - 7th)

8th is the odd one out with just meh CiPT lands (something you rarely play outside slow'n'powerful control, and practically never more than 4-of). Generally the manabase is constructed out of these so decks with large numbers of colors tend towards Ravnica. Ravnica/Onslaught and Ravnica/Zendikar in particular have superb manabases; Ravnica/Zendikar is the gold standard for various Zoo-type decks (3+ color aggro) and Ravnica/Onslaught supports N-color Slide among others.

Most other decks are 2-colored (with small splashes occasionally) or 1-colored and play by the traditional magic deck construction rules. As I said, this format has been played quite extensively on Magic-League, enough to actually form some kind of a metagame at a point (though mostly dominated by the strongest mechanical players and deckbuilders, obviously, as is wont to happen in small circles) so there is some data to go off on.

That data and those match results are what I'm drawing most of this info from.

[jrsthethird]

Fixing options:

Ice Age block - Allied ETBT Snow duals, Allied Painlands. Allied depletion lands (Lava Tubes et al). No enemy color fixing.
Mirage block - ETBT allied fetchlands (Bad River et al), Undiscovered Paradise, Gemstone Mine, no enemy color fixing but 2 5-color options
Tempest block - ETBT allied painlands, enemy depletion lands, Reflecting Pool
Urza's block - nothing comes to mind here
Masques block - again, can't think of anything except Rhystic Cave (LOL)
Invasion block - tons of fixing, most of it is unplayable. But you do get ETBT duals and enemy painlands
Odyssey block - Original filter lands (Skycloud Expanse et al), Tainted lands, Riftstone Portal, some crappy commons (Archaeological Dig et al), Tarnished Citadel, Eggs
Onslaught block - Allied fetchlands, Grand Coliseum
Mirrodin block - Glimmervoid, Talismen, Mirrodin's Core
Kamigawa block - Allied depletion lands (without depletion counters), Tendo Ice Bridge
Ravnica block - Karoos, Shockduals, Signets
Time Spiral block - Allied charge lands (Dreadship Reef et al), Future-shifted allied cycle (Nimbus Maze et al), Terramorphic Expanse
Lorywn block - "Tribal" reveal lands (Murmuring Bosk et al), Reflecting Pool, Vivid lands, hybrid filter lands
Alara block - Panoramas, Tri-lands, Rupture Spire, Obelisks, landcycling
Zendikar block - Enemy fetchlands, allied manlands, ETBT lifegain duals

5th editon - allied painlands, City of Brass
6th - allied painlands, City of Brass
7th - allied painlands, City of Brass
8th - ETBT duals, City of Brass
9th- all painlands
10th - all painlands
M10 - M10 duals (allied)

So basically your options don't really suck that much since you always have access to allied painlands, which are pretty good (unless you're 8th editon for some reason). If you have an enemy-colored deck, your fixing is kinda bad unless you can get 9th or 10th editon.

[Eldariel]

Urza has Thran Quarry which is playable in some decks (I've seen Geddon run in Goblins with help from it). TSB has Gemstone Mine too. But my listing was for building blocks; outside possibly the Odyssey Filters, you don't base your manabase on any of the rest. They serve as complementals, when the base already exists as a 1-3 of to increase mana stability at the cost of power. Hell, Odyssey Filters fall under this too.

[Arrowni]

Hey Eldariel, looking around I noticed you made an article about the format. Did you ever get around making the four proposed parts or you only did the first one?

[Eldariel]

Hey Eldariel, looking around I noticed you made an article about the format. Did you ever get around making the four proposed parts or you only did the first one?

I wrote three. I'm gonna write a new one some time in the future given the old one is so obsolete with Lorwyn, Alara, M10 and Zendikar all having altered the format significantly. And I definitely need to get by that resources-article. Though since I'm constantly playing with the idea of starting to play the format with a separate B&R-list, I'm not sure about that. But no, didn't write the 4th part yet.

For the record, part two is here (http://www.magic-league.com/article/427/makings_of_a_standard_a_guide_to_myos_-_part_two.html) and part three is here (http://www.magic-league.com/article/428/makings_of_a_standard_-_part_three.html).

[Shabbaman]

I like playing with casual deck building constraints, so CYOS (or BYOB) sounds fun. I like playing with old cards though, I started to play when Ice Age was just released. For me, cards from sets like Legends are truly legendary. Consider that back then there weren't any webshops, so getting certain singles was challenging. So I'm really fond of certain cards, just because it took me so much effort to get them. Okay, I can get any card I'd want now, but I don't fancy spending too much money on this game. Still, if I get an Abyss (for example), for me that's still a minor victory (as an aside, massive reprinting of old cards like they did with Chronicles would really spoil this game for me). So why are you coming up with the Ice Age limit? Card availability, price on the secondary market? I can see why the cost of Underground sea is prohibitive to play a good UB deck, but card price is relative: there are a lot of people that see the price of Watery grave as prohibitive as well. I think that the constraints of this CYOS format are restrictive enough to allow all sets (if you keep the Legacy banned list, that is). No matter what happens, I won't play if I can't use Hymns.

[jrsthethird]

The block structure came about with Ice Age, but card availability is also an issue. Plenty of shops don't have cards that date before Ice Age. Fallen Empires is an unfortunate casualty of this.

I don't know why they use 5th as a cutoff. 4th was pretty bad.

[Arrowni]

I imagine that it was because of its time during "Ice Ages" standard. Keep in mind that Ice Ages marks the beginning of Extended and "modern" blocks, so its kind of a natural cut off from really ancient magic. Losing Hymns and Sinkholes is kind of sucky, but otherwise most of the cards are kind of limited on use.

So if anyone wants to test this online we can start making a list of people, see how the format works -and if there is people playing it already it would be nice to know too-.

[Eldariel]

I don't know why they use 5th as a cutoff. 4th was pretty bad.

The cutoffs is extremely logical: it simply dates back to the first Standard format, 5th/FE/IA/Homelands/Alliances/Mirage/Visions/Weatherlight and first Block, Ice Age. FE was never a part of a block format, so that's excluded but other than that the first standard is the basis. Technically, 4e could be allowed (though it'd make StP eminently more available; dunno if that's a good thing or not) and there's little stopping us from making blocks out of FE/TD/HL and AN/LG/AQ. Further, Portal 1, Portal 2 and Portal 3 could be turned into a block.

The principal issue with all this is the price issue; the old blocks being allowed would just mean there's a huge bunch of decks full of cards most players cannot afford. Cores before 4e are also problematic due to original duals and access to all the best instants making them the best core sets for basically all decks; original duals are just incomparably powerful compared to anything else in Core Sets.

[Arrowni]

Anyways, in case any one is interested in further brainstorming or playing we're trying to get something going at SCG and a little free forum out there. Thanks in advance, hope to see you in some games!

[Shabbaman]

I find the "price" argument flawed. Entomb is more expensive than most duals, the only card outside the legacy banned list more expensive than Tarmogoyf in a set from before Ice Age is Tabernacle. Basically you're taking away a very appealing number of cards just because of a single card that's played in a single deck.

[Arrowni]

Mmmmh... Moat?

The format barely sacrifices playable cards, I think the biggest hits are Hymn to tourach and Sinkhole, maybe Regrowth or something. You could make an argument of losing as much playable cards on Portal sets than in old sets. Truth to be told, you're likely to handicap yourself picking old sets anyways, creatures are too weak, most of the power comes from single cards which aren't even part of a combo and spending the resources of an entire block in them... Well, you'll see it's harder to be consistent in CYOS than it is in Legacy.

[FoolofaTook]

I find the "price" argument flawed. Entomb is more expensive than most duals, the only card outside the legacy banned list more expensive than Tarmogoyf in a set from before Ice Age is Tabernacle. Basically you're taking away a very appealing number of cards just because of a single card that's played in a single deck.

The point of CYOS is to make an affordable eternal format that allows people to play with most of their cards. Removing the early sets due to price constraint is necessary to achieve that goal. Dealing with expensive cards from later sets is problematical, because assuming that CYOS catches on and becomes popular they'll decline in value if banned and then re-qualify for the format at some point as a result.

[cupajoe]

@foolofatook

I don't think price of individual cards is going to be a big deal in CYOS as long as there's a large variety of competitive decks to build without having to dip deeply into your pocketbook. Not having duals to deal with helps immensely in that regard.

If individual cards end up getting banned beyond what's banned right now, it would be due to power level reasons and not money.

It would be an interesting exercise if arowni or eldariel could point out decks that don't cost much that are good in CYOS since they've actually played the format. Obviously no one would really know until after Wizards makes it a sanctioned format, if that were to happen

As an aside, I think allowing Fallen Empires and Homelands and either Legends or the Dark as a "block" would make old-school players happy and not be too powerful. Don't know if the print runs from Legends or Dark would be large enough to keep in the spirit of the format.....

[FoolofaTook]

@cupajoe

I think there are any number of places where card price could become an issue down the road in CYOS. The biggest problem will be the blocks that concentrate chase rares for the format, however you'll also get a smattering of the Standard problem where rares that are not necessarily eternal power still command attention because sacrifices need to be made given the limitations. In addition the actual powerhouses will go through the roof if they are in oft-used blocks. Dark Confidant will become a $50+ card because he's in Ravnica block and a lot of people will use that block for other reasons and find him irresistible as an add if they can possibly do it.

There are no competitive formats that draw a lot of people in which the most often played cards do not become expensive depending on their rarity, excepting those that specifically create a pauper environment.

The only constructed non-draft format that you will ever find that is cheap to jump into right away is Standard, since you can usually build almost any competitive deck in Standard for under $300. The drawback is that your cards are largely not valuable down the road so you are spending the money as a one-shot to build a great deck that will then become useless in competitive play.

[Arrowni]

Prices would depend mostly in the metagame formed after the format is actually tested. Let's say for example that you can find an incredibly powerful Enduring Ideal deck using Kamigawa block, by itself it should make Enduring Ideal rise its price, but as long as its a card which only exists in an isolated deck -Reset could be an analogue- it will hardly rise its price. Price issues will come largely with cards that can be used in a wide array of deck, have a limited use in Eternal formats, but become a basic card of CYOS deck-building. An excellent example would be Vindicate, whose price would go up if it became a staple of Invasion-block among the CYOS decks in a competitive meta.

Arguably, the format's entrance threshold would remain acceptable if you consider that you can always "go rogue" just by using cards from Standard or Extended and metagaming accordingly. That by itself would bring a whole new kind of competition and shake the meta with each upcoming set -Legacy is hardly moved by developments in Standard because most of the cards are unable to compete with staples to begin with, here, whole new archtypes can be created.

[Arrowni]

I had a question regarding current block structure in CYOS. As of know, given the existence of two expansion blocks, how would you rule a legal CYOS block combination using for example Shadowmoor and Lorwyn. I imagine there is no way of finding what an official answer would be?

[Eldariel]

I had a question regarding current block structure in CYOS. As of know, given the existence of two expansion blocks, how would you rule a legal CYOS block combination using for example Shadowmoor and Lorwyn. I imagine there is no way of finding what an official answer would be?

They're treated as one block. Lorwyn/Shadowmoor formed one block format and are indeed one superblock. Miniblock is not a terminology MYOS/CYOS cares about. In other words, outside Ice Age (with its Coldsnap and all), you're playing with the block formats as they existed.