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This week on Limited Resources, Marshall and Jon have a few card battles from M12, do a Crack-a-Pack and take a deeper look at the mechanics and themes in Innistrad!
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Your Hosts: Marshall Sutcliffe & Jon Loucks
MTGO (Marshall): Marshall_LR
MTGO (Jon): Zygonn
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Good show again !
On the Planeswalker system:
Top16 GP-invites to the PT is now erased and thrown into the grind-market which includes every other sanctioned tournament in the world.
To grind you need three things: TIME, MONEY and ACCESS to high-multiplier tournaments (which the last correlates with more-rounds-tournaments like fnm (which again depends on lgs opening hours)). (In addition the factor of available LvL2+ judges plays a role in this picture).
Earlier one could bypass all those factors, with travelling GPs here and there. Thing is, one couldnt just pop up at GPs expecting to have a good shot at winning unless one also kept the paper-skills hot and going by attending the local paper scene/lgs – no matter how much mtgo one plays. MtgO does not equal Paper by far !
The ppl that win on the new PW-system are ppl that live in large US cities that also are on the SCGs schedule-route. THIS ALSO EXCLUDES A LOT OF AMERICAN PLAYERS, not only Europeans. PT-wannabees dream is to play the GPs and win against PT-players like LSV and the like, Local Players incentive is beating the best local-PT-wannabees in LGS-tournaments – except now those wont be in the LGSs practising their paper-skills anymore (since they arent any longer travelling to GPs).
I predict downfall in MtG-sales and abolition of the PW-system pretty quick/within a year.
Top-Down- One of the points they were trying to make with this set is that you can build a flavorful set that still has internal consistency with its mechanics. I’m not sure how that is going to work, but it seems like it could be very fun.
Flashback- To answer Marshall’s question about Flashback: A card having flashback is a pretty big benefit. It’s not quite as good as just cantripping, but it can sometimes be better. It’s kind of like you are adding two cards to your deck for the price of one; the first one is cheaper, and the second one is more expensive. Also, Tom LaPille specifically mentioned that they slowed the format down a little bit so that you could cast your Flashback spells later in the game. Honestly, Flashback is just like the Spike’s dream mechanic. They are hard for newer players to evaluate, and they have built in card advantage. Like Think Twice, drawing 2 cards for 5 mana isn’t that great. Drawing 1 card for 2 mana isn’t that great. But getting to play it early on to cycle, and then getting another card later when you have lots of extra mana is really good.
Thraben Sentry- The idea is that when the Sentry sees someone get killed, he calls the rest of the militia. Once again, this is an example of the “oozing” with flavor cards.
Common Flip Cards- Also, Tom Lapille specifically mentioned that most of the cheaper werewolves aren’t going to be at common. Like the R 1/1 that flips to a 3/2 werewolf; that card is an uncommon, since they wanted to slow the format down a little bit.
I pick Serra Angel over Rune Scarred Demon. I’m an aggro player at heart so my play style pulls me toward the efficiency of the angel. Another reason for the angel pick is that there isn’t a high pick white card in that pack where there are a few options in black. Picking the angel would send a stronger signal to my left. I see your reasoning for the demon since it is a higher quality card but control is just not my thing in M12 unless I’m running blue. If you/I pick the demon I’d be hoping for a good blue signal (Aether Adept, Mind Control, Merfolk Looter). I think the B/W Bloodthirst deck sounds pretty awful… I do not want to risk mana inconsistencies in an aggro deck like bloodthirst and threaten giving any tempo advantage to my opponent. I would rather play worse cards with a better supportive colors and maintain tempo.
Invisible stalker is a human magician that made himself invisible, that’s the flavor with that card, like the invisible man from the sci-fi fantasy stories. He’s not supposed to be a ghost.
Simple ratings solution: Keep the Planeswalker Points system, but don’t give attendance points.
This way you get the level up mechanic for winning without a penalty for losing.
Wizards didn’t need to create an incentive to play; they needed to eliminate the discincentive that the previous system put in place. Eliminating a disincentive has more or less the same effect as creating an incentive.
In other words, if there’s no penalty for losing, then the people who weren’t going to play using the old system (trying to protect their rating to qualify) would play under the new system.
Random question… Let’s say you open Pack 1 Pick 1 with Chandra, the Firebrand and a Fireball (assume all the other cards are terrible). Which one would you guys pick? I know the situation is unlikely but it just happened to me and I’m interested in what you’d do.
If it’s a normal MODO draft or FNM i slam the chandra because she funds future drafts or looks nice in a binder. If it’s a competitive event, probably the fireball. Fireball is going to be consistently better than chandra and makes more sense as a splash. You really need a lot of support for chandra to be any good. If i get chandra vs fireball p1p3 and I have a bunch of good removal already, then I grab the chandra because the potential upside there can get nuts.