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Come Join Us in the Past Past League!  You know that first week after rotation? Those precious few days where nobody is really sure which cards are good or bad, and deck brewing is full of endless possibilities? Imagine if that happened every month. The PPL is a new thing a few of us have been trying out. The idea is a format that challenges your ability to brew decks as much as your ability to pilot them. We start with a randomly selected combination of two Blocks and two Core Sets from throughout Magic history, and every month one of each is going to rotate out. The challenge is figuring out just how exactly, say, Kamigawa block works with Ice Age block to create a good deck. By the time you've got it all figured out, whoops! Kamigawa is gone and is replaced by Mirage block. Better get back to brewing! Obviously, this is going to be a very casual format. However, there is a reward for being the best. At the end of the month, one Core Set and Block will rotate out. The person with the best record at the end of the month gets to choose what leaves. Then, two new randomly selected sets come in for the next month! Sounds like fun? Great! So How Do I Get In On This? First, join #pastpastleague on Synirc.irc.net - you can find more information on IRC Here. This is where people discuss cards, test decks, and set up matches, all very useful things. Second, download Cockatrice, a free Magic client that is very popular for playing games. It's similar to Apprentice. Third, brew your deck! Legal cards and tournament rules are below, as are important dates. Current Format: Magic 2015, Shards of Alara, Odyssey, Magic 2013. Any cards on the Vintage Restricted/Banned List are also restricted/banned in the Past Past League (ie, Sol Ring is restricted, Chaos Orb is banned). Tournament Rules October 17th, Midnight: Deadline for Deck Registration, League Play begins October 31st, Midnight: End Tournament, Winner declared, Sets Rotate. To register, you must submit a final decklist to me in order to be registered for the tournament. You must use the same deck for all scoring matches. Email or PM is fine. Each match will be a best of 3 games. Matches should be at least 50 minutes before going to turns, but players can extend the games if they like. Tournament will be Single Round-Robin - Everyone plays everyone once, Sorta. Wins are worth 3 points, Draws are worth 1 point, and Losses are worth 0 points. Matches that aren't played are worth nothing, but do not count as losses. The player with the highest overall score wins. Tie breakers will be number of losses, followed by direct match-ups. To be the winner, you must play 75% of your matches. Players who play less than 25% of their matches won't be counted. Past Formats: September: Revised, Odyssey, M13, Scars October: Magic 2015, Shards of Alara, Odyssey, Magic 2013 Current Leaderboards: (October Results) 1.) Brian Kibler Past Champions: September: The Lord of Hats Jonked fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 04:37
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When we have Legends, OG Rav, Alara and Invasion Block together I will die happily.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:13
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Where are we planning on playing the matches? I've come up with a couple decks for the September format, although they're less original than one might think. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 06:09 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 05:57
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Count me in for this. Dumb deck ideas here I come. Can't wait for dumb secret tech of mine being absolutely meaningless!
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Sep 10, 2014 06:18
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Sign me up! How do we intend to play, will it be Magic Online, Cockatrice, or just whatever the two players can agree on?
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Sep 10, 2014 06:24
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:Sign me up! How do we intend to play, will it be Magic Online, Cockatrice, or just whatever the two players can agree on?
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Sep 10, 2014 06:36
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General Introduction to the Format So we have two whole blocks and two core sets, several of which you might have never even played with before. Fear not, I'm here to give some pointers about what's available. It's actually quite diverse at the moment and no one has found an overruling deck type yet. Lands      The mana fixing is insane. We have a complete cycle of dual lands, three cycles of allied colors, and tainted lands, which give you access to what they do if you have a swamp. We also have nothing akin to wasteland, so you're free to get greedy with mana. Two colors is easy, three colors is still doable, four colors is probably alright too if you're in black.     In addition to fantasy mana fixing, there are a variety of lands for other uses. Since we're in Torment, you're still getting rewarded for going black. Take your pick of strategy, there's probably a land to support it, whether it's aggro, control, or combo. Major Mechanics:       Six main mechanics going on:
The Restricted Cards:        Since we're playing by Vintage rules, that means that some cards are restricted to one per deck. I believe I have all of the available restricted cards above. They're all quite powerful and more than capable of rocking a game if used right. Wishes:      Your primary tutors (and the only ones you'll be getting outside of black) are the wish cards. These allow you to grab something out of your sideboard and help to enable a variety of combos, including Battle of Wits. Where do I begin? Revised is probably a good place to start for looking for cards. Go ahead, have a look for yourself. It contains a variety of Vintage staples as well as other generally awesome cards. If you're thinking of an aggressive deck, Scars of Mirrodin block has a lot going on to enable fast strategies. It (as you might expect from Mirrodin) has a lot of artifact nonsense going on too. Graveyard based decks should probably start in Odyssey block, there's also a considerable amount of useful tools in there for making a graveyard work. As always, discussing with other people in the topic is never a bad idea. The meta for this grouping is surprisingly diverse due to the sheer number of ways to approach the game. Ramos fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 06:46
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Ramos posted:Great intro but... You left out the single best land to come out of odyssey block! Invite your friends to join you in the pit!  I'm super stoked because Psychatog is legal in this format. Along with a whole bunch of awesome spells that support it well. e: so is Balance. This is gonna be good! L0cke17 fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 06:52
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L0cke17 posted:You left out the single best land to come out of odyssey block! Invite your friends to join you in the pit! I was considering listing some powerful cards, but they're all over the place. I'd never get around to finishing that list. Though personally, I've been trying to bust Stasis open.
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Sep 10, 2014 07:04
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I would like to make a deck. This sounds hilarious and I'm kinda obsessed with revised.
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Sep 10, 2014 08:18
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Any reason for the Vintage b&r list over the Legacy one? Only having one Brainstorm or Ponder when we get around to Masques or Lorwyn or whatever is going to be pretty naff.
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Sep 10, 2014 12:10
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Down like a clown! This sounds awesome and I've missed playing revised so much!
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Sep 10, 2014 14:59
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I'm so much game for this. I'm on Euro-time however, is that a huge issue?
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Sep 10, 2014 15:05
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Jabor posted:Any reason for the Vintage b&r list over the Legacy one? Only having one Brainstorm or Ponder when we get around to Masques or Lorwyn or whatever is going to be pretty naff. I know it gets a little wonky with stuff like Brainstorm, but this seemed like a cleaner solution than coming up with a unique banned list. That said, I'm open to whatever people want to do. If most people want to go to Legacy rules, or create a special banned list, or even a third option, I'm fine with that. I have no problem with following the will of the people. I think we should see how September plays out first, and then re-evaluate the rules there, however.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:39
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Ramos posted:I was considering listing some powerful cards, but they're all over the place. I'd never get around to finishing that list. Though personally, I've been trying to bust Stasis open. There aren't any good twiddle effects though, unless I missed something, which will make that harder to lock your opponent out.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:57
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L0cke17 posted:There aren't any good twiddle effects though, unless I missed something, which will make that harder to lock your opponent out. 
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Sep 10, 2014 16:54
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I meant to tap down your opponent's lands consistently, so that they can never have more than 1 mana on their turn. Also, the Mirran Crusader, Hero of Bladehold, Battle Screech deck will be insane in this format I think!
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Sep 10, 2014 17:09
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L0cke17 posted:I meant to tap down your opponent's lands consistently, so that they can never have more than 1 mana on their turn. Well, the general idea isn't to completely seal the other person out of the game but to keep things moving slow enough that you have no competition for getting Venser and whatever other super buddies to ultimate. code:
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Sep 10, 2014 19:49
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Ramos posted:Well, the general idea isn't to completely seal the other person out of the game but to keep things moving slow enough that you have no competition for getting Venser and whatever other super buddies to ultimate. I've been working with this, and while I admittedly haven't tried Stasis, I think I prefer Standstill backed by the control suite that's available (Counterspell, Swords, Wrath), particularly because Venser can lift the standstill on your turns. As for WW, I think control just has too many goodies for it to really compete; in my games against Procrastinator this morning, There was a world of difference between playing against his Reanimator compared to the decks without counterspells in them.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:05
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The Lord of Hats posted:I've been working with this, and while I admittedly haven't tried Stasis, I think I prefer Standstill backed by the control suite that's available (Counterspell, Swords, Wrath), particularly because Venser can lift the standstill on your turns. Yeah, my general impression has been that aggro looks to be pretty weak. Between powered out wurmcoils and batterskulls, swords, wrath, dismember, balance, etc. it just seems like it might not be a real thing.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:23
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The Lord of Hats posted:I've been working with this, and while I admittedly haven't tried Stasis, I think I prefer Standstill backed by the control suite that's available (Counterspell, Swords, Wrath), particularly because Venser can lift the standstill on your turns. Somehow that interaction completely escaped me even though I ran Standstill before switching to Stasis. I doubt there's enough room to run both though there's a lot of overlap between them. That said, I think there is a place for aggro, but you have to be very fast with it. Battle Screech is definitely going to be at the losing point for aggro. On the flipside, Armageddon can probably wreck a control player if timed right.
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Sep 10, 2014 20:27
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The March Hare posted:Yeah, my general impression has been that aggro looks to be pretty weak. Between powered out wurmcoils and batterskulls, swords, wrath, dismember, balance, etc. it just seems like it might not be a real thing. I dunno. I've been messing around with Merfolk and it seems to be working out fairly well.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:00
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OneDeadman posted:I dunno. I've been messing around with Merfolk and it seems to be working out fairly well. Merfolk isn't aggro though, it's fish. Your list has counters in it.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:06
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Infect is probably a good way to go with aggro. Only have to count to 10 and we have things like Giant Growth, Unstable Mutation, and Mutagenic Growth. My first draft of it has been doing decently.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:09
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This looks tons of fun. I'm going to start thinking about deck ideas now.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:24
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L0cke17 posted:I meant to tap down your opponent's lands consistently, so that they can never have more than 1 mana on their turn. http://magiccards.info/rv/en/280.html  Still trying to figure out how best to build a deck around this, you end up with something very different from a Stasis deck. So far my general idea is artifact mana plus freeish spells plus wincon (probably batterskull or something).
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Sep 11, 2014 00:57
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I always want to see Muscle Burst serve utility, but I never feel like I get the full value out of it. I think an agressive infect definitely helps curve that, with Reckless Charge providing another highly effective pump. Are we sharing decklists? Well here's one I tossed together on the weekend. http://deckstats.net/deck-4849977-a0a1e1dfa7866cec31a0f84c98b934a6.html
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Sep 11, 2014 02:27
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BagOfDucks posted:I always want to see Muscle Burst serve utility, but I never feel like I get the full value out of it. I think an agressive infect definitely helps curve that, with Reckless Charge providing another highly effective pump. Huh. My U/G version also uses Muscle Burst, but I hadn't thought to include Rancor or Diligent Farmhand.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:44
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Silver2195 posted:Huh. My U/G version also uses Muscle Burst, but I hadn't thought to include Rancor or Diligent Farmhand. I'm also running blue green. Rancor is amazing, don't leave home without it. I didn't think about Muscle Burst, but I'm not sure if Farmhand would be a good idea, he's kind of slow and not helping with making the person dead NOW. Definitely going to try Muscle Burst though.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:49
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All the cards in the current format, btw. This website is a bit better than Gatherer for card searching.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:36
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Defeatist Elitist posted:http://magiccards.info/rv/en/280.html We were talking in the context of stasis, which already does that but better.
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Sep 11, 2014 06:02
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L0cke17 posted:We were talking in the context of stasis, which already does that but better. Yeah, I totally missed that, you're right.
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Sep 11, 2014 06:07
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Had my first real games of this today, playing with Ramus and Null1fy. They were super helpful in helping me get Cockatrice set up. Looking forward to the matches and brewing! Is there a good way of finding out some shortcuts for this? I'm on a mac and therefore doing everything through right click is not super intuitive.
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Sep 12, 2014 00:48
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Found one. Probably something else to add to the OP.
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Sep 12, 2014 01:08
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OfChristAndMen has been telling me about this. I would love to play some matches. Working on a brew now.
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Sep 12, 2014 01:12
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I refuse to believe that I've hit on the optimal version of this archetype (because I am not a particularly good deckbuilder), and I'd love to see more discussion in here, so I'm gonna toss out Artificers United to you guys (You can't keep me from giving my decks stupid names here, Wizards!) Deck: Artificers United     Display deck statisticsI started my journey when I saw Braids in the card pool. "Awesome!" I said, "I'll make a prison deck!". Then I realized I had no Crucible or Smokestack. "But hey, I've got Stasis and Winter Orb!" I then realized that I didn't have a good way to tap creatures down. "Well, there's Standstill, I guess, but I don't have manl-wait, yes I do." And so, I wound up in Esper control, with artifacts. Really, this is kind of what I imagine the basic framework of control decks in this format is going to be--Swords, Wraths, and Counterspells. What I've done with this isn't particularly special, and has very definite room for improvement that I'm not quite good enough to make. I haven't faced a lot of the Infect decks in the format, which has probably made this list a little inbred. Wrath could just be too slow, especially because it's fairly easy for Infect to not commit more than one creature to the board, or to be winning with an Inkmoth Nexus. Still, having access to Swords goes a long way to making this look better than it probably is. The win conditions are mostly the Planeswalker suite, with a couple other options than can be Wished out of the sideboard. Karn is pretty much just Karn, but it's worth mentioning that Venser can reset the mana rocks that stay tapped, the other planeswalkers, Tumble Magnet when it runs empty, and most importantly Standstill so that you can still cast spells. Tezzeret isn't quite as tricksy, but he still provides card advantage as well as an excellent clock. The Wish Suite is pretty a bit of everything, though I'm really doubting my crappy Pseudo-moat that I've never actually sided in or Wished for, and it means I don't really have an actual sideboard sideboard. Tumble Magnet is a lot better than it looks at first; it turns off mana rocks and slows down Infect pretty well. Now please, go ahead and tear my deck to shreds.
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Sep 12, 2014 05:30
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The Lord of Hats posted:I refuse to believe that I've hit on the optimal version of this archetype (because I am not a particularly good deckbuilder), and I'd love to see more discussion in here, so I'm gonna toss out Artificers United to you guys (You can't keep me from giving my decks stupid names here, Wizards!) I think its entirely wrong not to play 4 Tezzeret if you run any. He's the best walker in the format, and probably one of the best cards in general. Karn getting countered is a beating when Counterspell and Power Sink and Circular Logic are in the format, I would run 1 or none.
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Sep 12, 2014 05:44
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http://deck.tk/0HKq6mGg That's my shell for the Tezzeret deck. I didn't find white very necessary.
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Sep 13, 2014 19:48
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Deck: Phoenix Eggs  //Blue 4 Careful Study 1 Gitaxian Probe  4 Riddlesmith  //Red 3 Burning Wish 2 Kuldotha Phoenix  4 Red Elemental Blast 3 Scrapyard Salvo //Colorless 4 Darkwater Egg 1 Mana Vault 4 Mossfire Egg 4 Mox Opal  4 Shadowblood Egg 4 Skycloud Egg 1 Sol Ring 4 Sungrass Egg //Lands 1 Cephalid Coliseum 1 Mountain 4 Plateau 3 Tundra 4 Volcanic Island //Sideboard 4 Burn the Impure 4 Tormod's Crypt 4 Whipflare 1 Balance 1 Wheel of Fortune 1 Scrapyard Salvo Display deck statisticsOkay, so people have been asking about my Eggs deck, so I figured I'd do a primer about it. This is mostly here because I'm rather discontent with the deck. While it's certainly cool and unique, it's hard to get it measuring up to what I need exactly, but more about that in the primer proper. So what does it do? It plays a variety of one to two cost spells in order to dig through your library as fast as possible while being relatively immune to the typical control tools. Counter an egg? Oh dear me. I'll just play these two others in my hand. This is all to grab you two particular cards in this deck: Scrapyard Salvo and Kuldotha Phoenix. The former is a low cost, high impact spell to hit the other person for lethal amounts of damage. Getting to twenty is not uncommon. The latter is an uncounterable, hasty creature that you can easily recur and has really only one commonly used answer to. How do I play it? You unload your hand as fast as possible and start drawing again. This means playing a bunch of one cost eggs, cracking them for two mana, and likely playing down two more eggs once you're done drawing. The most critical part of the game is the opening hand as you'll notice, this deck only has thirteen lands. While the Mox Opals alleviate this problem a bit, you're only going to hit your third and fourth land drop off of egg comboing. You'll find after you hit the fourth land, you're going to end up pitching the rest to various looting tools you have at your disposal since too many clog up the nice draw you got going on. From there, you two main cards that help you start and continue the combo: Riddlesmith and Careful Study. Even in the late game, you'll likely start pitching Careful Study too. Either way, if you can, play those as soon as you can and start digging even faster. It's not essential to play every egg, just that you get enough artifacts in your graveyard. From there, every Salvo becomes lethal, every Phoenix becomes easily playable. Do note though, it's alright to fire off a Salvo for 9 or something. Having 11 artifacts in the graveyard and two more Salvos in the deck isn't exactly unlikely and may often be a good idea against aggressive decks where you don't have leisure time. Oh god, there's someone else on the other side of the table! The main board of this deck is made to handle control players. As you'll notice, I have Red Elemental Blasts. You'll typically want to hold onto one or two of these when you go to fling a Salvo at the opponent. With proper patience, you can often find a critical moment where all you need is one spell while their guard is down. The Phoenix serves as an alternate path to victory and a way of softening them up. Okay, my opponent doesn't play blue though. Welcome to the second game, sideboard out those Red Elemental Blasts. As you'll notice, I already have a sideboard. Keep all of the singletons in, you'll get those with Burning Wish anyway. Tormod's Crypt screws over Reanimator while also being Salvo fuel, Whipeflare kills a large number of aggressive strategies, and Burn the Impure shortens the clock and staves off infect. Balance is typically wished for to be a cheap way to wipe creatures while Wheel of Fortune is there to refresh your hand against control players. The Salvo is just redundancy. What you don't have to worry about ever is monoblack since you draw at your leisure, making most discard effects shrug worthy at best and you don't have enough creatures to care about kill spells either. So what's the glaring weakness?   These guys. While balance deals with them to an extent, they can effectively out race you by dumb beatings and get around 99% of your removal. So what do you play to stop them? That's a good question, I haven't a clue, the deck is already tight on resources. Where are there changes to be made? The Red Elemental Blast is arguably not the best tool in its spot. The other critical card is Overmaster, which not only cantrips, but forces it to be answered instead of the Salvo. With Power Sink in the meta, this is questionable though. Slagstorm can also work in place of some of my answer cards, but as you'll notice, the Phyrexian Crusader still gets through and puts you on a tight clock. The Embersmith is arguably a powerful card that can put into the deck for constant pings to both troublesome creatures and the opponent. With twenty one mana eggs, it's easy to get him rolling. Still doesn't deal with the Phyrexian Crusader. What doesn't work? Furnace Celebration. The egg is long gone by the time you get the mana to pay for the two damage. Trust me, I've tried working around the rule timing and then cried about it. So would I want to play it? You like to actively race. You enjoy general Izzet draw and discard sort of strategies. You like having big, boomy win conditions. You like counting to twenty. You might also enjoy number crunching because if this deck is to be good, you're probably going to want to be able to count cards while also counting mana. It runs off a lot of percentages as far as what you'll draw into. It's a thrilling deck to play, to say the least. Ramos fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 00:40
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Ramos posted:Deck: Phoenix Eggs Looks interesting. I'll have to try it out some time.
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Sep 15, 2014 01:48
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