How does Cryptic Spires work? Do you declare what colours it uses during deck submission, or can it change per match / per game?
You chose when you submit the deck. It is a classic EtB tapped dual.
Deadline in 24h, and still missing a few regulars: silkster, maxx!, GoblinSmashmaster (illegal entry), Phasmoid, and maybe H.
Don't miss out!
Small thing: I'll be on holiday at the deadline, and might not be able to post scores (or send a new deck before the deadline for round 2).
I'll try to get some time in to check and post from wherever we are in Italy at that moment, but don't wait for me if I end up not posting.
Join the 4 Card Blind competition!
We'll calculate your scores for R1, no problem!
And I'll send you a deck by MP that is extremely likely to be one of the round 2 DtB, so you can prepare and send me something before going into holidays.
Also, I do not think I would ban lands that do not have special effects except making mana. So storelands will always be available.
And as I do not want the following to be buried:
I'll submit mine soon. A couple week ago I was sure I knew what I was going to submit, but the next day I found a deck more. Then I found a deck I thought I would like more, but it turns out that I don't. So I saved myself from giving you all the tech that you've probably already thought of, but now at least you don't know that I know it.
Edit: submitted.
Also, not banning storage lands is a very interesting and unexpected proposition. There are many other lands that "only make mana" in awkward ways, like Mana Confluence, Gemstone Mine, and the already-banned Veldt. It feels really difficult to draw a sharp line. My vote would be to let anything that isn't a basic land get banned, in part to keep things simple and in part to see more turnover.
Last edited by silkster; 08-15-2022 at 02:39 PM.
I also was expecting any nonbasic to get banned, feels hard to determine what counts as "only makes mana"
Veldt would be unban.
Mana confluence has many twins (city of brass, but also things like karplusean forest) and would be unbannable.
I would only ban lands with unique effects, eg tabernacle or dark depths. If even with two lands you cannot emulate something similar, then ban.
Otherwise, we are soon playing with 3 drops at most and/or are restricted on colours.
Seems a little late to change the rules.
What if only storage lands were immune from bans, aside from basics? It would leave strategies that require large amounts of mana on the table for the whole season, and there is enough nonland color filtering that I don't think that playing multiple colors would be a problem if someone really wanted to.
I guess the concern is that 3 or 4 storage lands get banned each round and by round 6 we're out of them, or perhaps more troubling is the round before they're all banned if only one is left and that round has no diversity? People were worried that we'd run out of storage lands in the last two seasons but they lasted through 15-round seasons. Perhaps I'm overestimating the alternatives here. I'm curious what later rounds would look like without storage lands. If we do protect some lands from bans, I'd be in favour of protecting only the storage lands.
The goal of banning is strategic renewal.
My go would be to ban only the cards that were defining a strategy, so that said strategy cannot be reused.
For instance, from the sample deck, it could be the helix only.
If a land is part of the strategy, then we ban it too.
The rest feels a bit like removing options, while complicating deck design / preventing anyone to "hold the banlist in their head"?
And still missing maxx!, GoblinSmashmaster (illegal entry), Phasmoid, and maybe H.
I will post all decklist at 19h (in 8h).
Isn’t the whole point to have the power level increase? Letting the moxen get banned last round let the meta change.
The moxen are basically allowing to ignore the land rule, so that is a bit apart.
We would still ban the cards that led to decks that score >3, just not all cards.
A bit like the dci is doing, just much faster.
Regarding power level, I couldn't care less whether it increases or not, I thought the point of banning was to foster strategic renewal and strategic diversity.
I submitted!
If I were the boss, I’d ban anything, maybe even including basic lands. There are plenty of Magic cards. I’m not the boss, though.
Speaking of which, thanks for doing the work of organizing (and being the boss), dte.
If the concern is that we could run out of storage lands which might stifle options, then maybe we can just have the storage lands ban-immune and allow everything else to be banned.
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