Summary? fucking thing is 20000000000000 words long. TL, DRQuote:
Originally Posted by frogczar
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Summary? fucking thing is 20000000000000 words long. TL, DRQuote:
Originally Posted by frogczar
Just imagine if you had to read the entire dissertation XDQuote:
Originally Posted by caiomarcos
In the opinion of the game designers, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by TooCloseToTheSun
Blue has one thing going for it that all the other colors are far behind in: consistency. Therefor, when it comes to long, drawn out tournament settings, traditional blue design will have a higher chance of performing better than e.g. a color like red that is traditionally built around chaos and unreliability.
If you really want to weaken blue, print cards to promote consistency in other colors. And, if you still care about flavor, try not to violate the color wheel while doing so.
I have a fine-tuned eye for game balance, and I would say that the problem with blue is merely that it has broken cards, that more of them are printed in every set, and that no proper hoser for these cards are printed outside of blue.
Every time a set is spoiled, I rate the entire set using R&D's metric to know which color I should play at the prerelease. In every set, blue is filled with plenty of mediocre cards, and then some bathshit insasely crazy rare cards that are either 4.0, 4.5 and 5.0 in the scale and which are the ones that break constructed. The worst color is usually black (though many times it is green), and you will be hard pressed to see a playable black deck in modern, extended, or standard. Even in legacy black is non-existent outside combo decks that rely on old cards from Mirage/Tempest/Urza's Saga era.
Blue is the most popular color. WoTC is a business that wants to sell packs. They know that tournament players are more likely to draft and buy packs if they're getting cards they want.
Does blue get a little more love than other colors? Sure, but it's not as bad as all the whiners and complainers who swear brainstorm raped their first born would like to think.
I wouldn't say a "little more love". I would say blue is the spoiled child by a shot so long it bypasses the Earth's curvature, and I would still be too generous. Most of the problems we have with power escalation is because WotC is trying to make all the other colors as good as blue, while the game would be a lot better if blue was just toned down of its most broken cards. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by honestabe
Maverick is the DTB right now and it doesn't play blue.
Even if blue is the best color why should we sacrifice much of the formats enjoyability (casting Brainstorm namely) just so that all the colors are equally good? It's not like blue is breaking the format, it's as diverse as ever.
Maverick seems DTB because there are a lot of different deck names for what's basically the same Blue Tempo strategy. Blue tempo decks outnumber Maverick's results by 3:1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snap_Keep
Moreover, blue tempo decks would beat Maverick if they weren't so busy trying to beat each other, because there are plenty of tools to crush Maverick.
There are plenty of tools to beat anything in Legacy, lol. If you want to beat Brainstorm play Chains of Mephistopheles. If you want to beat Tempo, play more lands. The later will result in your losing in long-drawn out games. That's the way it is and it's pretty good that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
No one said anything about removing (ban) Brainstorm. Is the format really diverse when we can essentially boil the format down to Blue tempo (UG/r Tempo, UW/x Stoneblade) and anti-Blue (Burn, Maverick)? (hurpy-derps need not apply - Dredge/Show and Tell)Quote:
Originally Posted by Snap_Keep
What about combo (show and tell, tes/ant), Lands and Zenith/Explorer Rock?
I think there is diversity, but there will always be best decks. If g/w and u/w and rug weren't the best other decks would be.
EDIT - your ninja edit made me look foolish! Curse you!
There aren't any tools to beat blue tempo. That's why it has been the best deck for so long. People have to settle with attacking the other parts of the deck which aren't the blue shell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
In fact, Cavern of Souls is 120$ a playset on ebay right now because it's the first playable card that truly hoses blue tempo's strategy, even if Drew Levin has written that article saying it's not so hot (hint: Drew Levin is wrong).
I'm going to buy a box of Avacyn Restored soon because I know that after the first printing of the set, the most expensive cards will become almost impossible to get from boosters. It happened with Living Death, it happened with Tarmogoyf, and it happened with Jace, The mind sculptor.
How long does Delver exist?Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
Canadian got COMPLETELY outclassed by nearly every Survival variant and was mediocre to good and ridiculously hard to play in between the banning of Survival and the printing of Delver.
Canadian got outclassed by other blue tempo and blue combo decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by oRen
Canadian ain't that hot against decks playing enough lands and big dudes, lol. You're so fixated on free counters being evil, it's not even funny. Still I lol. lol.
Did you play during Vengevine Survival? The top decks were not blue....
Yes I did. In fact, I probably have been playing this game for a longer time than you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snap_Keep
To be fair, there have been very few periods during Legacy's history (since the lists were split, anyway) when the format wasn't reducible to best deck X, hate decks for deck X, and combo outliers. Most of Legacy's much-touted diversity lies in Tier Two decks with slim chances of winning large tournaments or relic decks that were obsoleted years ago but which people continue to play because they can't afford to stay abreast of price increases.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koby
And yet your posts on this page of the thread are full of sh*t so none should care about that in this argumentation ... at least I do not.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
Canadian losing to other tempo decks and to combo decks? The heck are you talking about? Resolved Survival on an even board was gg 90+% of the time for the Canadian player. Generally before Delver the lower thread density (9 creatures) made the deck easy to hate, easy to outclass with bigger dudes and therefore very hard to play PROPERLY. After the banning of Survival the position in the metagame of the deck got better but was always incredibly far from todays popularity/strength/whatever.
That's extremely humorous. The best performing VV Survival was infact, UG Survival.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snap_Keep
Everyone has its own interpretation of the data. Of course, some interpretations are more useful than others. I tend to study the data a lot because I want this game to be the best one and want all people to have fun, and I tend to write long and reasonable feedback messages to WotC with suggestions to improve Magic. And they tend to listen to it.
In fact, I remember I made a suggestion once telling them to reduce the number of playable counterspells in Standard so that draw 'n go style decks were no longer an option. You can blame me for that one. But hey! I told them that Counterspell was fair at UU. The main reason they went for 1UU was that at 2cc they had no room to print conditional countermagic.
So basically, Counterspell at UU means you get no other countermagic in standard.
This is so true.Quote:
Originally Posted by oRen
I was damn happy to finally beeing able to play the deck after months of admiration during the Survival-aera and then that little fugger
http://static.manatalks.com/www/imag...-thumbnail.jpg
saw the break of day, I was not pleased.
Well, I guess Delver is some sort of Karma.
I had to think about whether or not I should reply to this or not. It certainly will not add to the discussion, but this doesn't feel like an especially serious, content heavy thread so I think it's ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
Why do you think you have played magic longer than me? Would that make you better? I was being genuine and not taking in a shot at you in asking if you had played during Survival. I guess I'm just remembering when Goblins and Landstill were at the top of the heap.
I just looked at my joining date and your joining date.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snap_Keep
Oh c'mon, join dates? I've been playing Magic for like almost 10 years longer than my join date. What kind of bullshit is this? Scrolling up, I realize you brought up this whole non-sense as a reply to a contentual argument. Should have better replied to that instead of talking shit about join dates. What's next? Post count? Avatar? Signature?
Also, you beat him by one month. This means you are obviously more knowledgable about magic, better at playing it, and almost definitely better looking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
Playing magic longer is pretty much the only criteria I look at when determining how much I should listen to people.
Now I feel terribly bad for having exhasperated you with my comment about joining dates. I'm very much sorry about it and I promise I won't make it again.
At least post counts are still a perfectly reliable metric.
The only reason I've been so vehemently supporting banning TM before it is because I think the current meta is fine. Could I be wrong? Of course I could be.
I don't think anything else should be banned. Things have been fine since Mental Misstep got banned. Maybe I'd like to see more non-blue decks as DTBs, but I think there's room for other decks to thrive and grow. FFS, Burn was a DTB!
Heh. Now I feel like the weekly monster in the power rangers. :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil Credo
You are a Hydra.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
HAHAHAHAHA, thanks a lot you litterally just made me laugh out loud in the middle of a lecture.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
Don't pat yourself on the back too hard. Standard is currently filled to the brim with playable counterspells and your long letters to WotC probably aren't rushed directly to R&D. It's cute that you think a team of professional game designers working on the most popular non-video-game in the world are taking your advice to heart and using it to shape the future of a multi-million enterprise run by an multinational corporation though. I bet Santa reads your letters too all the way in the North Pole. As someone who actually goes to school for software engineering hoping to one day be a game designer I don't know whether to find this humorous or insulting.
You should probably listen to me, I've been on this site since before Legacy was a format.
You don't know how much I wish you were already a game designer or a software engineer. Then you would be like me.Quote:
Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes
You have a huge post count. You are therefore probably correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
I would have an even higher post count, but I prioritize quality over quantity.
Clearly not.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
Nicely done. >_>Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil Credo
Except that I already am designing a game, I'm just not doing it for money yet. Engineering school with a game design application domain = win. I'm coding my prototype demo right now for a final project, it's due in 5 weeks. Oh and I still don't like you.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJones
I find your arrogance insulting. Way to take credit for the current Standard environment and the new Caverns land. Meanwhile you have an average of almost 60 posts a day for the past 5 years and I can't think of a single one I liked or agreed with in any way.
At this point I'm realizing you post 60 times a day here, and write long letter to WotC, and take credit for things that you most likely had nothing to do with. All the pieces to the puzzle just came together and it's all starting to make sense now.
No, seriously?Quote:
Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes
This thread is getting better and better.
EDIT: Come to think of it, I'm convinced you were joking.