Many of us have piles of non-tournaverse Magic Cards and nothing to do with them, so I'd like a way to somehow bring them into the Tournaverse. Now, by saying that, I don't mean that I want to add them to my card list so that only I can benefit them; I'd like to bring them in in such a way that they're spread out in a fair and even way, with no preference given to the donator whatsoever.
For me, the fun of the Tournaverse is that everyone is given an equal chance and less-so that there's such a limited selection of cards. As it stands now, deck building can be quite frustrating. If you decide to play a particular colour, you're shit out of luck if 2+ others had decided that already and had already collected all those cards. 'Well yeah man, you have to pick a colour combination that has the cards you'll need available!'; great, now I have minimal say in what colours I play.
Jesse and I talked about this briefly and he suggested that something as simple as each of us choosing a selection of these cards of roughly equal power to be added to their Tournaverse list. I feel that this would work, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way to do things, so an suggestions?
Your Reigning Champion, Coolness Idol and Spiritual Leader,
- Christopher Beresford Bebbington
Just wanted to throw one more thing out there:
ReplyDeleteSome of you may feel that by adding in extra cards it eliminates the 'fun' of constructing with very limited resources. The point of constructed is to build what you want to play; we have 2 other formats in draft and sealed that are fun due to limited resources, I see no reason to force the third type of play into that same mold. As long as the cards are brought evenly, of course.
Another option that I didn't think of when we chatted briefly about this yesterday is that, especially if the next tournament is Sealed where rare-drafts make little sense, is we could have an external-card-draft as the prize -- get together a bunch of cards, agree on them beforehand, and then draft with winner getting first pick.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally I was futzing around with my magic cards (I now have a mono-black deck similar to the one I played in the draft yesterday but (hopefully) more effective) and I've got a bunch of somewhat interesting cards but they're all from 8th and earlier -- if we're bringing in outside cards what sort of limit on sets would we be looking at?
I really do understand the idea of bringing cards in (I have argued for it in the past) but I did finally start to understand why people didn't want to let that happen. While Chris disagrees with me, I do see value in creating decks that slowly evolve as better cards come available. Having those moments where a second Troll is added to the deck, or a 4th fireball and you finally see things working better.
ReplyDeleteOne of Chris's points is that for people that didn't decide on colours at the same time they are at a disadvantage because they will have a harder time building a deck without this injection of cards... but I am not sure I am sold on that because I am really not sure how we can balance that out fairly. Imagine for instance that one player picked Blue to play as a deck and then two more decided after that they wanted to play blue. What will the influx of new cards do? The first Blue guy will still get Blue cards that should be equally as helpful as what the 2nd and 3rd guy gets (because we are saying we are going to make the injection fair) so what benefit do we have then? If 1's blue deck is a 8 while the other two are a 4 (a made up ranking for illustration) then the addition of 5 cards to each deck makes them each gain (let's say) 2 in power. So we now have decks with 10, 6 and 6. Because we are equal bringing in cards the cards will not change the relative effectiveness of the decks it just inflates the abilities of all the decks equally.
Now I do see that injecting cards will allow everyone to have a chance to play a particular deck they were hoping to and that is a worthwhile goal too. This could ,however, be a difficult to fairly manage injection of cards into the Tournaverse that is essentially a money injection that the Tournaverse was trying to avoid.
(Before you say you already spent the money remember that you can always sell the cards for packs etc.)
Anyway, not against it, I have plenty of cards I think would help me, but I think we should be careful.
To Shamus's point, I think we should stick to more recent cards only because I have a green deck already that does a variation of what i am trying to do now, if I had the ability to inject specific cards into this I would think that unfair.
I'm almost not into the idea of outside cards simply for the sheer vastness of the choices it will require us to make. And it does feel like it cheapens the work-with-limited-resources we're doing now if we get to just ramp up the power level to some arbitrary degree. God knows how we could come to any sensible ruling on balancing what everyone brings in anyway, or what sets are allowed, etc. And I really just don't want to use my boring old cards and decks again all that much, as Stu pointed out.
ReplyDeleteI think the feeling of pain we are experiencing in constructing our decks right now (two whole tournaments into it!) will lessen considerably the more cards come in. On top of the natural balancing-out Stuart just described, our decks will likely diverge in many more interesting ways when we have more than one edition (and a pretty straightforward one M10 is) to work with, so there will have to be less stepping-on-toes. There will be more bomb cards floating around and not all of them compatible with any deck of the appropriate colour to play them, more people with 4+ of desirable commons and uncommons and thus more willingness to trade off the excess, and our constructed decks will get much more polished and satisfying to play. Already I have a few playsets of cards I like in my deck, and while it's somewhat single-minded I'm interested to see how it performs. Also, Chris is already building two decks, and I strongly suspect I will be unable to resist that kind of temptation soon myself -- so again, X having a monopoly on all the good cards Y could want is going to get increasingly unlikely.
I suggest we wait until after the Alara sealed to revisit this possibility. If everyone really feels like they simply can't bear to play a constructed tournament with their accumulated decks by then, then we can start entertaining crazy ideas.
"I do see value in creating decks that slowly evolve as better cards come available"
ReplyDeleteDecks are still going to be slowly evolving. Let's take M2010, for example: I've got a stack about 4 inches high of M2010 cards that aren't in the tournaverse and - surprise, surprise - the large majority of them are commons. Adding that kind of collection to the tournaverse will make it easier to acquire a foundation for a new deck, but not really to get a hold of the big game-winning rares, as they'll still be few and far between. If I want to play black, it shouldn't be a pain in the ass to get things like Doom Blade just because someone else is playing black and EVERY black deck is going to want that card. Things like Royal Assassin, Liliana Vess, and Mind Blast are still going to be very, very hard to get.
"I'm almost not into the idea of outside cards simply for the sheer vastness of the choices it will require us to make."
How about we do something as simple as divide them up into rarity class, then shuffle and deal them out?
"Now I do see that injecting cards will allow everyone to have a chance to play a particular deck they were hoping to and that is a worthwhile goal too. This could ,however, be a difficult to fairly manage injection of cards into the Tournaverse that is essentially a money injection that the Tournaverse was trying to avoid. "
Easily done fairly, see above. The Tournaverse, in my understanding, was designed such that it would be fair for all and that no one would benefit from having spent more money than anyone else. Donating other cards to be distributed evenly doesn't violate any of those principles, it just allows me to do something with those cards other than throw them out or leave them on my shelf.
"And I really just don't want to use my boring old cards and decks again all that much, as Stu pointed out."
I'd be assuming that only cards from the current sets could be brought in.
"Anyway, not against it, I have plenty of cards I think would help me, but I think we should be careful. "
You're missing the point: my wanting to bring cards in has nothing to do with 'helping me'. And I'm not sure what we should be careful of, exactly.
There seems to be a few different views on how the Tournaverse should work out there, here's how I see things: I feel that it should be a casual, fun environment with an equality of cards and no one being able to buy an advantage. I feel that not only it should be easy to build a deck that you want to play should be as easy as we can make it to the point that we should make an effort to help each other do that, rather than horde particular cards that we don't want to play against or demand outrageous things in trade just because we can. Yes, there are going to situations in which two players both want a card in limited supply, but aside from that, trading should be straight forward. All this talk of colour monopolies and uncommon drafting just seems silly and unnecessary.
Typo correction:
ReplyDelete"I feel that it should not only be easy to build a deck that you want to play, but that it should be as easy as we can make it, to the point that we should make an effort to help each other do that, rather than horde particular cards that we don't want to play against or demand outrageous things in trade just because we can."
Oh, one last addendum:
ReplyDelete"I feel that it should be a casual, fun environment"
Except when I'm playing Christos, obviously, then it's the cards equivalent of a public flogging.
I have really not seen anyone hoarding cards. Holding out for a better trade doesn't seem inappropriate. Which bring up one other consideration, bringing in more cards lowers the value of all cards we already have. If there is a player holding onto a good rare the presence of 8 more doom blades and 7 more assassinates lowers the value of an assassin (to use Chris's example). If we want to do that, that is fine but we should consider the effects on the economy of cards.
ReplyDeleteLOL
ReplyDeleteYou were lucky with your wins BOTH times and you know it!
I like Chris' idea actually
I also like Gavins... perhaps we can marry the two?
I have a SHITLOAD of cards as well, perhaps simply a rare draft after the next sealed tourny? and we distribute the uncommons randomly via a deal.
Commons... there are so many LOL we can also just make a pile of all that crap and say winner has choice of first three, second next three, etc....
I understand Chris' point in all this, I had to make a LOT of trades to get my white to work out...
This is because I chose to honor the tournament and NOT uncommon draft, nor colour draft... I saw a lot of great white uncommons, and commons float past me... and I gained no benefit from playing the other colours.
See Chris is 100% correct about trades not being liquid in this environment.., an uncommon is not equal to an uncommon, and people are not readily willing to trade..., so IF you were to draft the colours that you are playing you have a huge advantage over someone playing the same colour as you which chose to draft different colours.
I think that there is a balance issue we need to think about more to make a draft more worthwhile to try to win.
apparently is was Shamus' idea, not Gavins' that said I liked
ReplyDeleteI guess I didn't notice people not trading. But we have to make sure not to punish those holding out because they can't get a suitable deal for a card to a move to inflate the card supply.
ReplyDeleteAs I communicated to you via e-mail
ReplyDeleteThe draft provided some people with additional benefit through the colours they chose. These colours could be the same as say.. Chris is looking for, and so the person(s) may not see a benefit in trading to him (which is very fair not to want to trade your beneficial cards)
The goal was to make a limited card supply for constructed... which we achieved, and have each independent draft/sealed be beneficial for the overall constructed game. I LOVED the draft, I had a great time.., however I think that there is a big shortfall for the constructed and that there is an undeniable HUGE advantage to drafting the colour you are constructing.
This was something I wanted to mitigate by doing an uncommon draft... but Chris.., who won.. doesn't even have the ability to get commons that he wants.
Which is why I thought that this could work...
I think that we need to rethink our draft(s) how they way toward points and how they benefit the constructed decks.
Christos: your point about needing to play the colour you draft or draft the colour you want to play in constructed is a good one, and that's probably the root of what's bugging me about this limited constructed format. I drafted green/red and now I have TONS of amazing green cards, but no interest in playing green. Clearly drafting what I did was the right decision in terms of being competitive in the draft, but it's now forcing me to either play those colours or go through the hassle of trading them all away.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to de-regulate everything. Here's how I'd like to do things: Each player can have 2 decks going at any one time. Cards that he has that he doesn't intend on using for those decks are free to be used by anyone else. At first the idea of trading and deck building in a limited format seemed kind of cool, but now I don't see the point.
We have two formats that are fun due due to (in part) limited card supply, why do we want constructed to feel the same?
OK
ReplyDeleteSo I had an enlightening conversation with Stuart over lunch, and I have an idea.
I believe that the simplest solution for this entire thing to to make a draft worth twice as much as winning a sealed or constructed.
So a sealed is worth 8 points for the winner (where there are 8 or us) and 1 point for the loser, the draft should be worth 16 points.
This would resolve my issue with the negligible benefit of not drafting your colour.
I think that this resolves Chris' problem as well.. he will get points that are worth having a shitty..., or more difficult time making a constructed.
Damn it, Christos, I thought you got where I was coming from for a sec.
ReplyDeleteDoubling the value of the draft doesn't do anything for me, in fact it actually works against what I'm getting at. I honestly couldn't care less about the overall ranking system, the integrity of the 'card economy', points or prizes. I just want things to be simple and fun with ad much of a pick up and play feel to it as possible.
Here's an example of how I'd like things to work:
Jesse: I think I'm going to build a white soldier deck.
Chris: oh yeah? I've got a few swordsmiths and a captain of the guard that I'm not using, would you like them?
Jesse: you'd just give them to me? What about the card economy? What about you losing such a strong card and getting nothing in return?
Chris: fuck the card economy, I'm just trying to make a differnce, one card donation at a time.
Jesse: Chris, thank you. You are truly a great man.
Chris: I know, Jesse, I know.
Wouldn't that be nice? Agree with me or I'm ping to break into a rendition of 'Imagine' next time I see you.
LOL
ReplyDeleteI like the card economy... for the time being.. and although it wont matter soon...
I think that we should keep its integrity until the constructed at least.
Don't get me wrong.. if we were to play someone that is way too into it... like lets say.. Allen, I'm all in for everyone doing what you are saying so taht we can beat the snot out of them... however LOL I don't see the benefit in this format LOL
If you con't care to do a limited constructed.. that is an entirely different story LOL, which it sounds like.
And we will end up with rediculous decks like we used to if everyone is as.... generous as you propose LOL
Those are my two cents, now I await your rendition of 'Imagine'!
I'm just going to throw this out there: Again, I'm making a fast, aggressive red deck and a drunken blue/black control deck that probably won't work. If anyone wants any of my cards that don't fit into those two molds, they're welcome to them, assuming they intend to use them in a deck. I think what led me to this philosophy was having to actually trade for a bloody Raging Goblin. Fuck Raging Goblins.
ReplyDelete"And we will end up with rediculous decks like we used to if everyone is as.... generous as you propose LOL"
Ridiculous? The only problem that we had back in the day was that one or two people played a lot more (me and Stu, really) and had spent more money than everyone else, and therefore had unbalanced decks compared to everyone else. Nothing I've suggested will cause that to happen.
"Those are my two cents, now I await your rendition of 'Imagine'!"
Don't think it isn't coming.
I still would like this to be a long-term limited format, not a constructed format with some balancing. I suggest that we revisit the question of which of those we'd all like it to be after the Alara sealed, and then we'll have it sorted for the constructed tourney.
ReplyDeleteOkay that is fine in your example. Now let's say both Jesse and I want to play white... how do we determine who gets what in your system of insane generosity?
ReplyDeleteI want first dibs on your insane Green stuff and will happily send you black and blue things that being said I DON'T want you to give anyone those Green cards as a donation... but if you do I will gladly take the cards that help me make a 1/1 and 2/2 green deck that uses a zerg + overrun strategy. I will be getting rid of bigger things (save the Ant Queen and Master of the Wild Hunt) once i have the ability to rely more heavily on numbers. - But again DON'T give your cards away.
I don't think giving cards away is a manageable or fair way of doing things. People who talk magic more often or talk to each other more often are more likely to make "donations" and people like Costas who doesn't care about magic outside the times we play will get squat.
I really don't see how you can't have fun with what we are doing, especially since we haven't even played constructed yet.
What is funny is, as soon as you play Shards you will be playing Red/Blue/Black control instead of just Blue/Black and then this will seem like less of a problem. :P
"Okay that is fine in your example. Now let's say both Jesse and I want to play white... how do we determine who gets what in your system of insane generosity?"
ReplyDeleteWe share man, it's not that complicated. If there's 1 can of coke left and two people want it, what do we do? Panic? Have a bidding war? Involve 5 people in a trade so that everyone gets what's 'fair'?
I don't think we need a complicated point-buying/rare and/or uncommon drafting system to figure out how to do this. The goal should be for everyone to just have fun, not to have an over-regulated competition.
"If there's 1 can of coke left and two people want it, what do we do?"
ReplyDeleteIn my history with our group one of us has a Mug instead.
By the way earlier you used the word deregulate but you are clearly a communist haha. What happens when a 3rd person wants to play white, do the first two split their cards with him as well? I am trying to follow the natural progression of your system.
Why, who and when was this Shards idea decided??
ReplyDeleteI personally absolutely hate this idea.
Chris.., I know what you are saying, but that is not the goal of everyone else in here. We wanted to make it difficult to make a constructed deck, that is the whole point.
You are looking at three colours if I am not mistaken, and probably that spread is what is causing you issues primarily.
I don't think anyone will rip you off for a common like that
I told you I would give you all my pikemen and raging goblin (ontop of Mind Control) for your Planar Cleansing
a) I'm not that huge a fan of bombing the board to start over.. it doesn't win a game.. it resets it because bad shit is going on.
b) I didn't give you lightning bolt because I knew I could get a Blinding Mage, or a safe passage for it, not because I was being spiteful, or trying to gouge.
I like the trading for the most part, and the constricted deck that we can make. I'm pretty sure everyone in here wants this format as opposed to whoever wants whatever card can have it to build their dream deck (so long as two players aren't playing the same colour and then they decide amongst themselves.
Now How the FUCK do I make a new Post Thing so that I can tell off everyone that has decided we are getting all this Alara crap next time, and I am stuck with one colour... screwed if I try to get into others so late... after giving away AMAZING things because I had NO idea we were doing this.
I DO NOT want to change from 2010 before the constructed and IF we do, I definitely do not want to do all of this Alara stuff... perticularly not the all gold crap
Stu: "By the way earlier you used the word deregulate but you are clearly a communist haha."
ReplyDeleteCommunism with work just fine in a world without greed. Seriously.
"What happens when a 3rd person wants to play white, do the first two split their cards with him as well? I am trying to follow the natural progression of your system."
lol, you're still missing the point: I don't want there to be a bloody system, just frigging help each other out as best we all can. And that argument is just as valid - if not more so - against the system we currently have.
Christos: "We wanted to make it difficult to make a constructed deck, that is the whole point."
I disagree. Perhaps that was your goals with the Tournaverse, but for me it was always to have a balanced environment where no one can buy an advantage.
"You are looking at three colours if I am not mistaken, and probably that spread is what is causing you issues primarily."
Nope.
This is really a side issue, but it needed to be addressed:
"a) I'm not that huge a fan of bombing the board to start over.. it doesn't win a game.. it resets it because bad shit is going on."
Uh... yes it does, it can definitely flat-out win a game. You wait for me to cast all my shit while you hoard a couple of big cards, then you bomb everything and I'm fucked. You win.
With regards to the next draft/sealed: I don't really care what we do next, but I could certainly understand wanting to have a 2010 constructed before introducing alara cards.
Before I continue, I just want to state that while I obviously prefer what I'm suggesting, I'm not going to freak out or anything if I don't get things changed.
Now, since neither of you two dinks have addressed this point, here it is one more time: we have two formats that are cool in part because of the limited selection of cards, so it's not like we aren't getting to play in such an environment if we make building the foundation of a constructed deck easier. Am I wrong? If you really feel the need for all of our games to leverage that same element, then sure, we can do that. I don't see the need.
Stu and Christos: I feel like you two have been corrupted by your MBA training. The Market owns you, you are it's slaves. Let it go, let it all go. Give in to sharing, love and cooperation. Give in to communism.
"we have two formats that are cool in part because of the limited selection of cards, so it's not like we aren't getting to play in such an environment if we make building the foundation of a constructed deck easier."
ReplyDeleteThat'll get easier anyway after we've done more than two little tournaments!
Like I said, this is just a conflict over which idea of the purpose of this thing people prefer -- a long-term limited campaign or an avenue for balanced-out constructed play --, and we should take a For Real Vote on it after the next tournament.
Christos, you can make a new post from anywhere on the pages of the blog by going to the top right corner of the page and clicking 'new post'. Which would be a better place than this already bloated comment thread for discussing your problems with playing... tournament-legal editions other than M10.
I think it is clear that we will have to wait until the next get together to figure this out, I just want you to come up with a run through of how your idea will work in practice. "In theory communism works... in theory" -HS
ReplyDeleteI also want to point out that none of us have the decks we want, I am playing mostly green but in reality I would love R/G/W with those beautiful alara cards to make it work... however for now I decided I would build up some good green with some red controlling aspects. As time goes on it will change and get better at what it does. I have great cards here for a R/G/W deck but I do not see how this can be bridged equitably. I think it is as good as buying cards to help you except in this case it helps you and maybe one or two other people. The problem is what happens for people like Costas that don't have any cards. I know he will have access to the cards we bring, but if I have mostly green cards and you have some great red cards and the rest of the participants have mediocre cards (from other colours) than by us bringing in our cards it is a subsidy to players playing red and green while leaving black, blue and white in the lurch.
I am not trying to be a dick here (the communism slight by the way was because I thought it was funny that you used the word deregulate in one msg and then started talking about spreading the wealth like some hippy) I am trying to point out that we have the balance and equity you are talking about and outside cards will throw that off.
Anywho we can discuss this at some other point. Hell I was an advocate of this idea for a long time... maybe I will change my mind as I reflect on it or when the implications of this are more clearly spelled out. (Oh and Dal was by and large a hippy MBA it has been the hardened life at Aliant that has changed me)
Christos if you can't create a post it is because you have to message Jesse and get him to enable you to have that power.
"I just want you to come up with a run through of how your idea will work in practice"
ReplyDeleteHoly crap man, it's not complicated. Let's you decide out of no where that you want to drop all your other decks and build a white deck. People who have white cards to spare give them to you to use, then you use them. Now you counter with "But what if 3 people are already playing white and there aren't a lot of unused white cards?" Then those playing white can donate a few cards FROM THEIR DECKS to help you out. Yes, sharing... I know it's complicated, but try to keep up. Of course, the whole donating from the deck thing could be avoided if it was easy to build a foundation of commons and uncommons when making a new deck, which could be achieved by bringing in cards that we already have and have already been paid for.
"I also want to point out that none of us have the decks we want"
Hurray! That sounds like a point for my arguement!
"I have great cards here for a R/G/W deck but I do not see how this can be bridged equitably"
"but if I have mostly green cards and you have some great red cards and the rest of the participants have mediocre cards (from other colours) than by us bringing in our cards it is a subsidy to players playing red and green while leaving black, blue and white in the lurch."
I'm about to demolish this argument, are you ready?
Wait... I'm not ready yet....
ok, ready:
Unless I'm mistaken, ALL the outside M2010 cards within the group, aside from the 1 draft that I did by myself at the SUB, have come from sealed deck tournaments, am I right? Since everything is from sealed tournaments, all the colours should be represented in equal
strength.
"The problem is what happens for people like Costas that don't have any cards"
Again, you've missed the point. All of them. I've been arguing for even distribution of outside cards, sharing of cards with the pain of trading for everything, and making an effort to help each other build the decks they want to play.
"I am not trying to be a dick here (the communism slight by the way was because I thought it was funny that you used the word deregulate in one msg and then started talking about spreading the wealth like some hippy)"
I'm not talking Communist Russia Communism, I'm talking Hippy commune communism. If everyone involved agrees to the common goal, there's no need whatsoever for regulation: just make helping each other out as high a priority as helping yourself out.
"I am trying to point out that we have the balance and equity you are talking about and outside cards will throw that off. "
Sure, we have balance, but as you said: 'none of us have the decks we want'
"Sure, we have balance, but as you said: 'none of us have the decks we want'"
ReplyDeleteWhich is exactly what you should expect of a limited format. The 'decks we want' should just be the most effective decks we can manage to build with what we've got.
I'm not looking for a specific deck made up of a specific set of 60 cards, I'm looking for a deck that plays the style I'd like to play. We're lacking things at that fundamental of a level right now.
ReplyDeleteWell I disagree with you, I don't think we should take away from other people's decks just because someone changes their mind. You don't want regulation but there is no way to do this without some parties feeling a unjustly treated. You have two white players that have comfortable decks that are able to deal well with the other players. Then I decide to jump on the white bandwagon. All of a sudden the same number of cards (no matter what system of card numbers you use) is spread accross three players. Now all the players are playing white... hooray but now all three decks are very limited in their ability to fight the other decks. Well hooray we met your criteria of everyone playing the colours they want, except now one of the first white players is feeling poorly treated because their once solid Angel deck is missing a few key components and is left with having to rely on cats or some such nonsense. Now that player says, "hey I am not playing the kind of deck I want, I don't want to splash red to make this work against the X and Y." Well jeeze guy, you should have thought about that before Bill decided to play white too. I know your goal but I don't think that your goal of everyone getting everything they want works * exaggeration of your goal I know but it seems to be in the spirit of your goal.
ReplyDeleteNext up, I anticipated your "but they all come from sealed discussion argument" because it is a good point but still misses a bit of reality. The problem is that we really don't know. How do you know if you have all the cards that we drafted/sealed? What if you only kept you deck in a pile but the rest of your cards went into some intelligible mess (You all may have the last few M2010 sealed cards... how about Alara, how about Shadowmoor?). There are people constructing other decks outside the Tournaverse and there is the desire to play drafts so as we play drafts and sealed outside the Tournaverse are we going to want to add more cards? You know how difficult it is to keep it all straight. Now maybe in aggregate this isn't a huge problem but I think that expecting it to somehow be a wonderful balance is ignoring your own experience with keeping cards straight.
I am more okay with bringing cards in than I am with sharing in a manner that will only cause irritation.
And it sounds like "all of us not having the decks we want" represents the fact of us not wanting this to be a money pumping exercise. We are happy with what we have but it is in no way a perfect deck.
So while I am throwing out reasons for not bringing cards, I understand why you want to do it. I don't think sharing is an appropriate or workable solution to deck construction so I would argue you need a more workable solution to ensure some level of equity. (Sharing will not be equal with out a framework... I guarantee)
"I don't think we should take away from other people's decks just because someone changes their mind"
ReplyDeleteMissed the point: No taking, sharing. Sharing is not stealing, it's voluntary. If someone really wants to be a weiner and not share, go for it. And it's not like you'd likely need/want to share things like big cards that define your deck, but simple shit that makes playing that colour possible.
"You don't want regulation but there is no way to do this without some parties feeling a unjustly treated"
People would have to put the group's fun ahead of their own desire to win. I honestly don't care about winning the constructed tournaments, I'd just like to build certain style decks and have fun with them. Did you hear my description of my blue/black deck? The one that makes no attempt to actually win?
Most of your argument in the rest of that first paragraph applies exactly to the situation we have now, except that if someone chooses to play a new colour, well, I suppose they simply may not have that choice if everything is already being used. If things are available, they'll have to go through the process of trading for every stupid little card in the colour they'd like to play.
"The problem is that we really don't know. How do you know if you have all the cards that we drafted/sealed?"
What? Are you suggesting that people may have selectively thrown out certain colours? Why? How? That doesn't even make sense. Even if one or two people did that, there's still 10+ people worth of sealed cards out there that aren't being used, surely it wouldn't have a significant impact on colour balance. Yes, this only applies to M2010, so let's introduce them and not alara stuff.
Other ideas: If we're so concerned about throwing off the balance of power, or destroying the card economy, how about this: Take all the outside cards that are willing to be donated, and deal out the commons and uncommons, leaving out the rares. That way people can make a foundation for a new deck FAR more easily and your drunken concerns are addressed. How does that sound?
I just want to point out one thing: We're both using irritating American political tactics. You're throwing around scary words to ward people off of change, and I'm calling for HUGE overhauls (albeit needed ones) then scaling it back to only significant overhauls to make it seems like a compromise.
Is it Hippy or Communist that you don't like?
ReplyDelete... I don't follow, so I'll refer to what I already said:
ReplyDelete"I'm not talking Communist Russia Communism, I'm talking Hippy commune communism. If everyone involved agrees to the common goal, there's no need whatsoever for regulation: just make helping each other out as high a priority as helping yourself out."
I'm voting for a Hippy Commune kind of situation where we just make an effort to help each other get what they want.
I was wondering what scary words I was throwing around.
ReplyDeleteAh, yeah, just got your text too. What comes to mind immediately are things like 'I think we should be careful', of.... what? And expressing concerns about the potentially changing the card economy without really explaining why that's a bad thing, using the words 'take away' to replace the idea of voluntary sharing that I was suggesting, and my personal favorite:
ReplyDelete"The problem is that we really don't know. How do you know if you have all the cards that we drafted/sealed"
We just don't know man... we just don't know. Who knows what this Craaaaaaazy new plan could do to us? What if all the cards we wanted to add were green, then we'd all have to play green!!! Won't somebody think of the children?! You're praying on ignorance and fear of the unknown! You're the republican party trying to defend private insurance! If we allow outside cards in or attempt something as wacky as sharing, the government will create death squads, kill our grandparents and make abortions mandatory, thus eliminating the human race!! Ahhh!!!!
Haha, as sadly serious as much talk of mandatory euthanasia and death squads is nowadays...
ReplyDelete"I'm not looking for a specific deck made up of a specific set of 60 cards, I'm looking for a deck that plays the style I'd like to play. We're lacking things at that fundamental of a level right now."
Well, at a certain point we'll inevitably accumulate enough cards for that to be easy, will we not? Moreover, along the way you'll have to be creative, and do good trading, in order to get to playing the style you'd ideally like to play. It's just a question of whether we accelerate the process or not, and since the state of our constructed decks is utterly moot until the constructed tournament, I once again reiterate my call to forget about this until after we do the sealed -- which brings us from 9 boosters to 15 -- and reappraise how our decks are looking then.
I'm not really crazy for just saying 'let's share' as the solution, unless we introduce such a pile of cards that nobody could have any trouble getting playsets of the ones they (and others) want. But we could probably come up with some reasonable way of injecting outside cards fairly if we still find ourselves really desperate to have that.
Fair way of injecting cards: Divide them by rarity, shuffle, deal them out.
ReplyDeleteChris, I think your examples of me fear mongering are shoddy at best... you think me saying we should be careful is trying to use scary words? I think I laid out pretty clearly I that I meant we should be careful about the balance issues... not of someone boogie man attacking your gonads.
ReplyDeleteI am all for David's compromise of waiting and seeing if you are still convinced of this in explicable to change a system that we haven't even run into any problems with.
Finally, I am really surprised that you of all the people in this group is Jonsing so bad to get cards in here at the cost of forcing people to be creative with less than idea (but certainly better than sealed or drafted) decks. You are usually such a proponent of making things interesting. Our decks will be more interesting from their lack of polish. If anything this means that our sucky commons will have a better chance of being used in unexpected ways.
So, here's to having us wait it out for another sealed and then, at the very least one round of constructed before we decided that constructed is not fun. I mean we haven't even played with these decks yet.
Haha, sure, every argument being used at this point is shoddy.
ReplyDelete"The problem is that we really don't know. How do you know if you have all the cards that we drafted/sealed"
What the hell? You sound like you're drunk. Or high. Or drunk AND high. As Christos would have said a year or two ago... Suriously? Surrrrriously?!
And yes, I am all for making things interesting, but in this case I'm not finding it interesting, especially since we already play two different formats that are interesting for exactly the same reason! A point which you've yet to address... probably cause it works HUGELY against you.
And yes, constructed with limited resources can be interesting, but in this case building these decks is a pain, unless I want to play what I drafted, which I don't. And yes, as time goes on, the limited selection will sort itself out, obviously. But I don't see that as an argument against helping the situation out now by injecting the modest amount of M2010 cards that we have sitting around.
"So, here's to having us wait it out for another sealed and then, at the very least one round of constructed before we decided that constructed is not fun. I mean we haven't even played with these decks yet."
The only deck I'm able to build right now is basically my draft deck, or a very similar variant of that. The deck I'd like to play is no where near to being built. I tried to get a bunch of the cards at the last draft, but nothing was really available. I've also made it very clear what I'm looking for as well as what I have for trade (see my previous blog post) and (for the most part) I've yet to have any offers that would help me build my deck. I currently have a black/blue control deck composed of 3 mind controls. And a Swamp.
Chris man, we have not even played the constructed format. You have 3 mind controls and you are considering yourself poor off... Gavin has lots of blue and Jesse and Gavin have lots of Black I am sure red could be traded for both those things.
ReplyDeleteI am sure most people aren't checking your previous post because they are too captivated by this discussion.
(To make this debate more interesting, all the arguments must now be presented as Haikus. Arguments not presented as such will be immediately discounted)
ReplyDeleteMind controls are great
But not without the basics.
They need much support.
(Don't get me started on your Haiku man. Where is your seasonal element or reference? :P I am not going to use one either because I have no idea how I can make this debate a true Haiku relating to seasons and the like.)
ReplyDeleteYour control exists!
You yearn for cards that we have
For now splash some red