Thursday, June 08, 2006
League of Extraordinary Magic Cards
Since Stormcrow has Limited playsets of Ninth, Ravnica, Guildpact, and Dissension, we decided to hold a "League" tournament between the two of us. League play goes like this: each player makes a 30-card deck out of an initial set/number of Ninth booster packs, and faces them off against each other. The winner gets 1 point, the loser gets 2. (negative feedback -S.) At predetermined intervals, in this case 5 points, players earn an additional booster pack. Our pack cycle goes R-G-D-R. The players can update their decks with these new packs, then proceed to battle again.
Me being the inferior player, I get an initial set of six Ninth booster packs while he gets only four. I got a good amount of removal from black and burn from red, dictating the form of my first deck. I faced Stormcrow's initial black-green deck, and the play went on from there.
This card never left my deck.
League play is very immersing, spanning nearly two months and around thirty matches of constantly evolving decks. Inevitably it turned into meta-gaming, where I found myself changing my deck to counter specific elements of his then current deck. After a notable match when he fielded both COP:Black and COP:Red, I changed into white-green (which was weak for me) and eventually went back to my stronger black, but with anti-enchantments.
His deck evolved into a huge monster deck, mostly blue-black with Shielding Plaxes, so I countered with an all-color deck filled with removals (Putrefy, Mortify, Brainspoil, DarkBan) and anti-enchantments with finishers such as Lava Axe, Blaze, and swampwalkers. At the end, though, it became rather boring. I prefer seeing creature interactions, which apparently is mainly absent in Constructed, which our decks were starting to resemble.
These cards are boring.
Hence we decided to end the League in what is basically a tie game, with me finishing with 46 points and Stormcrow with 44. We are now reshuffling the playsets to begin another League play with some variations, adding more Ninth at first and later giving a free choice of what Expansion pack to earn.
Raven
Me being the inferior player, I get an initial set of six Ninth booster packs while he gets only four. I got a good amount of removal from black and burn from red, dictating the form of my first deck. I faced Stormcrow's initial black-green deck, and the play went on from there.
This card never left my deck. League play is very immersing, spanning nearly two months and around thirty matches of constantly evolving decks. Inevitably it turned into meta-gaming, where I found myself changing my deck to counter specific elements of his then current deck. After a notable match when he fielded both COP:Black and COP:Red, I changed into white-green (which was weak for me) and eventually went back to my stronger black, but with anti-enchantments.
His deck evolved into a huge monster deck, mostly blue-black with Shielding Plaxes, so I countered with an all-color deck filled with removals (Putrefy, Mortify, Brainspoil, DarkBan) and anti-enchantments with finishers such as Lava Axe, Blaze, and swampwalkers. At the end, though, it became rather boring. I prefer seeing creature interactions, which apparently is mainly absent in Constructed, which our decks were starting to resemble.
These cards are boring. Hence we decided to end the League in what is basically a tie game, with me finishing with 46 points and Stormcrow with 44. We are now reshuffling the playsets to begin another League play with some variations, adding more Ninth at first and later giving a free choice of what Expansion pack to earn.
Raven
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pat! good to see you're now fully immersed in mtg.
i must admit, though, having a play environment that's almost rare-free (even the reject rares like hatching plans and sky swallower) is kinda boring.
sali ako one time!
i must admit, though, having a play environment that's almost rare-free (even the reject rares like hatching plans and sky swallower) is kinda boring.
sali ako one time!
Well, league play might not be the best option when there are only two players on board, but on the other hand, I imagine that you have personal restrictions at the moment...
That said, why not just get together with a bunch of friends and pool some cards? Or try another variant... there's this "reject rare" draft format that looks pretty good, for one.
That said, why not just get together with a bunch of friends and pool some cards? Or try another variant... there's this "reject rare" draft format that looks pretty good, for one.
Sean: If you're worried about metagaming, that's part and parcel of league. I was able to push Raven off her Red/Black deck by getting a COP:Red and COP:Black. Brutal, yeah.
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