New Eternal Format Idea: Blue Collar

[PunkRocker1134]

Everyone knows what pauper is, but it seems like uncommons get no love. So me and a few friends had a great idea, and we call it Blue Collar. Basically your deck is all uncommons, except for basic lands and the following proposed banned list:
Skullclamp
Mana Drain
Sword of the Meek
Library of Alexendria
Strip Mine
Tinker
Windfall
Channel

Any thoughts on this new eternal format, or its banned list (which is shaky at best)?

[(nameless one)]

Just to let you know, having Force of Will, Wasteland, AEther Vial and Sensei's Divining Top in that format defeats the purpose of being 'pauper'.

Why not just play Legacy?

[PunkRocker1134]

Just to let you know, having Force of Will, Wasteland, AEther Vial and Sensei's Divining Top in that format defeats the purpose of being 'pauper'.

Why not just play Legacy?

I was only comparing it to Pauper, because Paupers all commons and this all uncommons. Its just something a little different, a little cheaper, and seems to be drastically different than legacy in all honesty. The cardstore where I run things prefers things like these over Legacy, mainly because of cost, card availibility and the overall power level being so high.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

This format seems slightly unbalanced aka a control-players dream. The good aggressive one-drops other than Vial usually happen to be common (or rare in the case of Figure of Destiny and Goblin Guide), all the good burn-spells are common, most effective combo-cards are rare (and most of the acceleration is common) but Counterbalance, SDT, Predict, Force, StP, PtE, Fire/Ice, Mishra, Standstill, Urza-block manlands, Wasteland, Fact or Fiction and Firespout are all uncommon. Even Counterspell is legal because it was uncommon from alpha to I think 4th.

/edit:

As a simple starting-point, this rough list seems pretty ridiculous:

4 SDT
4 CB
4 CS
4 FoW

4 PtE
4 StP
2 Abolish/Aura of Silence

4 Standstill
3 FoF

3 Wasteland
2 Urza's Factory
4 Mishra's factory
2 Faerie Conclave
4 Flood Plain
2 Terminal Moraine
4 Plains
6 Island

Some issues with the manabase and a few too many taplands, but over all this seems pretty sick considering how weak most non-control strategies seem.
/edit edit: You could even run Enlightened Tutor in that list if a relevant amount of silver-bullets are available. Story Circle, Aura of Silence and Bound in Silence/Prison Term give you a solid basic toolbox when combined with CB, SDT and Standstill.

[PunkRocker1134]

Can you think of any reasonable way to balance out the power level of control? Maybe banning cards? If so what cards should be nurfed? From that list, I would say SDT, Standstill and maybe FoF.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I think that's pretty difficult to do as the real problem is the absence of cards that give people a (good) reasong to play non-control strategies. On first sight pretty much all the mana-fixing seems to come from taplands, meaning you need to either play monocolor or you should avoid being aggro because the tempo-loss will hurt you much more that way. Mono-color aggro-decks on the other hand miss the support-spells and good early creatures that usually make those decks powerful (utility is common, bombs are rare/mythic), which in turn means control is already favored simply because most of its staple-cards are uncommon (or rare-bombs, which you can do without as long as you have the rest). If you nuke the good control-cards, you turn the format into cripple-fight, which doesn't seem all that much fun.

/edit: I just realized that a large part of Goblins is actually legal (Lackey, Vial, Warchief, Matron, Ringleader, Incinerator, Recruiter (!), as well as a number of very aggressive 1-drop Goblins), so it seems I overrated controls strength somewhat. Having the full Recruiter-Goblins engine seems pretty sick, actually. So this is at least a two-deck format ;)

Assuming I missed other stuff (likely, considering I missed Ringleader + Recruiter) it's probably fine to just get rid of SDT so that control actually has to work for its wins lategame and can't just CB-lock people and beat them down with Urza's Factory tokens. At that point, I'd actually like to see how the format shakes out before doing anything else. A ton of people building decks seems more usefull than preventively nuking control from orbit just because it seems overpowered on first sight.

/edit edit: Wow, I'm an idiot - Sol Ring isn't on your banned list and I didn't start the control-deck with four of those. That definitely has to go on the list, otherwise decks without four of them simply aren't real decks.
Channel, Tinker and Windfall are probably fair game and could come off the list. Having some broken crap floating around that isn't controlish probably does more for format diversity here than banning things. Channel-Fireball isn't the greatest of combos and there aren't all that many other viable manasinks for it. If someone comes up with something stupid you can always ban it. Similarly the format probably doesn't have the accel, manafixing or additional engine pieces necessary to really break Windfall and Tinker just doesn't have insane targets if its uncommons only (as far as I can think) as all the really sick expensive artifacts as well as the good cheap ones (to sacrifice) usually aren't uncommon, leaving Tinker with mediocre enablers and targets (assuming you do the reasonable thing and ban Sol Ring).

At that point you'd have control, aggro-combo Goblins and some weird Spirit-Guide, Windfall, Channel, Rite of Flame, Cabal Ritual Tendrils deck as probable contenders. Sounds a lot better than control only already.
Also: Psychatog seems like it should be viable, too. Another control-deck but at least one that's different from UW.

/edit edit edit: Thinking some more, Demonic Tutor as a four off - so sweet. Now I really want to play this format, if only to do stupid things ^^ Also, that alone means that white is probably not the correct color to pair with blue for control.

[The Treefolk Master]

This format seems slightly unbalanced aka a control-players dream.

And that is bad because... :tongue:

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

And that is bad because... :tongue:

Uhm.... yeah, actually, that's a very good question ;) I'd love playing control-mirrors all day *g* This doesn't by incredible luck happen to take place in Berlin, Germany?

/edit: Also, I think I might have been wrong concerning control-dominance: I just realized freakin' Black Vise is legal. I haven't played with that for years and years, which is probably why I forgot it existed, but non-accelerated control loses to it - badly.

Consultation and Demonic being both legal as four-ofs seems pretty silly, too, though kept under control by color-constraints as far as combo is concerned (because there isn't enough good black accel).

[the Thin White Duke]

I was hoping you were going a different route with the "blue" thing. I propose a format where island is banned.

[Zlatzman]

I tried playing around with combo in the format, I have a feeling something can be made sufficiently broken with Sol Ring, Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor and Demonic Consultation, but I haven't found anything that manages to overcome the lack of acceleration yet. The error might have been that I have been searching for a combo deck, while UB control is actually the stronger archetype.

edit: the Tainted Lands provide good mana-fix if your main color is black. Ciy of Brass and Gemstone Mine are both available for combo-decks. Bazaar of Baghdad is available, but I am not yet sure how it can be abused.

[Shawn]

Zlatz, I'd probably try something similar to pauper storm, where they chain cantrips and draw into a lethal storm count. There's a bunch of good acceleration that are commons and uncommons: Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, invasion sac lands, Petal, Cabal Ritual, etc. Being able to play tutors and Tendrils seems pretty insane.

Here is one from a daily event by samus_ssp, for reference:


4 Ancient Spring
2 Geothermal Crevice
3 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent

4 Cabal Ritual
1 Careful Study
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Dark Ritual
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Grapeshot
3 Ideas Unbound
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
4 Preordain
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood

Sideboard
3 Deep Analysis
2 Dimir Aqueduct
3 Duress
1 Echoing Truth
3 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Island
2 Shred Memory

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Zlatz, I'd probably try something similar to pauper storm, where they chain cantrips and draw into a lethal storm count. There's a bunch of good acceleration that are commons and uncommons: Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, invasion sac lands, Petal, Cabal Ritual, etc. Being able to play tutors and Tendrils seems pretty insane.

Here is one from a daily event by samus_ssp, for reference:


4 Ancient Spring
2 Geothermal Crevice
3 Irrigation Ditch
4 Sulfur Vent

4 Cabal Ritual
1 Careful Study
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Dark Ritual
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Grapeshot
3 Ideas Unbound
4 Lotus Petal
4 Manamorphose
4 Preordain
4 Rite of Flame
4 Sign in Blood

Sideboard
3 Deep Analysis
2 Dimir Aqueduct
3 Duress
1 Echoing Truth
3 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Island
2 Shred Memory

If commons were legal, combo would be ridiculous Petal, Ritual, CRit, Demonic Tutor, Consultation, Tendrils, etc. The format is uncommons ONLY, though.

[Zlatzman]

The problem is the acceleration really. Since only uncommons are allowed the Rituals and Lotus Petal are no longer available. Saclands are also common, but they can in part be replaced by Ancient Tomb.

edit: yes I am slow :/

[TheDarkshineKnight]

I dunno, I think an all uncommons format is a bit silly, to be honest. Now, commons and uncommons only could be interesting. Still cheap to play, but much more interesting than Pauper. You'd need to devise a banlist which bans expensive playables and overly powerful cards to keep the Pauper feel. Something like:

AEther Vial
Ancient Tomb
Bazaar of Baghdad
Berserk
Black Vise
Channel
Cranial Plating
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Enlightened Tutor
Force of Will
Frantic Search
Goblin Lackey
Goblin Recruiters
Gush
Imperial Recruiter
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Lotus Petal
Mana Drain
Maze of Ith
Merchant Scroll
Mystical Tutor
Personal Tutor
Reset
Sea Drake
Sensei's Divining Top
Sinkhole
Skullclamp
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
Sylvan Tutor
Tinker
Wasteland
Windfall

[Shawn]

Oh, I can't read. All all uncommons format would be weird.