I believe MTG could be a self contained card game

I started playing in 9th edition and I found the theme decks were well balanced and represented each color well. Would anyone be interested in designing a set of decks meant to play against each other while still preserving what a more "generic" style?

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Just play Limited. For fuck's sake, Limited should be the mainline game anyway. One block at a time, and make the blocks larger, and design them ahead of time so it's all playtested together.

Isn't that basically block constructed?

*main format, I meant. Limited should be the main format, not standard. I've been planning to run a limited draft among friends once I can get 8 people or so together and 4 or 5 hours to do it. Not sure how many packs I'd need per person to make it good, or even how a draft works, but I was basically figuring, everyone pays 5 bucks per pack as the entry, we take 4 for buying the pack and 1 to add to the prize pool (so like a 30-something dollar prize pool with 8-ish people and 4 packs each, 20 dollar entry fee, I dunno honestly) then people open their packs and start building some decks and they can trade cards between them so they can get enough of one color to make a certain kind of deck. Then we play with random 1v1s, maybe people pick teams and do 2 headed giants to narrow the field, best of 3 for each match of course, free mulligan if you drew no land in your opening hand cause that's how we play in kitchen table. Oh and I'd have to buy land. I dunno, it'd probably be a huge waste of money and time but I think it'd be fun.I'd also have to figure out what the fuck I am doing exactly first. But it would be all from one set that we all like and like the mechanics for, and build a deck entirely from that set.

I actually used to do this a lot, back when I played a lot around people who didn't really know much of the game. I would try and make a set of five "starter decks", usually monocolor, that were designed to showcase what the colors did while still remaining fun.

Most successful ones I ever did were a set of psuedo-tribal ones for OG Innistrad, which were super fun. I still actually run the werewolf one.

So basically what I'm saying is, yes, I'm 100% interested. What would you think should be the focus of the decks we make? I'm thinking maybe heavily weighted 2-color, with emphasis on a core color to showcase what it does while still showing interactivity with the second color.

>preconstructed mtg format
YESSS!
I used to play a ton of Lorwyn and Innistrad Intro Pack games back in the day.
Anyway, designwise, do we use actual cards, or are these decks meant to contain custom cards?

>limited, the worst format, should be the main game
>sets should be larger, creating more useless bulk shit cards and hurting standard even more
>add even more time onto their already fucking astronomical 3 year development time per set

Do you even play this fucking game?

I always prefer block constructed but my play group never likes the same blocks or has the card catalogue to play anything from historical blocks.

Block constructed and plane constructed (like putting INN and SOI blocks together) is always super fun. I wish it was more of a thing.

If you think limited is the worst format you have an actual brain disorder or some kind of psychosis. I feel sorry for you.

Limited is the only reason I play.

Fuck constructed.

>Limited should be the mainline game anyway
Gah. Fuck no.

Limited it a nice deserve focusing on serious thinking in deck construction (and minor politics) and ... not as much during game play. Well draft at least.
60 card magic is the reverse.

>a set of decks meant to play against each other while still preserving what a more "generic" style

This exactly describes a set of five monocolor decks I just made recently. Me and my more casual friends really enjoy using them, especially for Star. Let me tell you, as a Johnny player, it was really hard putting together five whole decks that don't follow a single linear theme or combo out to ridiculous levels of strength, but eventually I did it, each one around fifty bucks too. I'll unprivatize and post them if anyone's interested.

>limitedfags

Treat them like tripfags. Just ignore them and they'll go away.

Why not build a cube? You essentially create your own set from which you "draft" packs of 15 cards. Same as limited play, but it's reusable, and adjustable to the cards and archetypes you personally want to play with. U9u

Google search for linear and modular design

lmgtfy.com/?q=linear modular mtg

Recommended link:

remptongames.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/linear-i-hardly-knew-her/

Gamepedia has the decklist for 8th and 9th edition theme decks

One of the keys to having them be balanced is that one deck doesn't lose to another deck to to their design, i.e. aggo vs midrange.

The 8th and 9th edition decklists that can be found on gamepedia do a good job of the focus. I would like to play all basic lands because I am OCD like that so idk about 2 colors because it has to go in a circle and dont know which color supports which.
I'm not against custom cards.

Limited is a shit format predicated on luck. Pull the planeswalker win the event. Any skill in drafting or reading tells from your pod are thrown out the window tye moment someone windmill slams their 4 mana value engine.

At least in constructed you have just as much opportunity to compete with everyone else at every event.

all i want is A precon format, i just want to buy a precon and fight some guys causally. i have so many fun precons i own, i just want to have a big precon cube

holy shit how bad can you be? there has been times limited has been much better then any shitty format. standerd right now is a shit show

>Would anyone be interested in designing a set of decks meant to play against each other

WotC already did your job for you. There has been literally dozens of "sets of preconstructed decks meant to be played against each other". Fuck, you can get some for free at the Magic Open House ("Welcome Decks").

The problem with all that shit is that playing the same deck over and over is incredibly fucking boring. The point where the tedium sets in varies with people, some can go for longer while I personally never want to see a deck again after having played with it like ten games. It also loses the single most entertaining aspect of Magic, which is designing your own deck. If you want to make a self-contained "Magic: the card game", it would be something more like cube draft (google it).

>a format where you have to buy new cards every single time you play should be the mainline game

Nice try Shekelstein.

There are a lot of good self-contained/preconstructed card games out there and MtG would be a really bad one due to the nature of it. It'd boring real fast without the wide array of options currently present in any given format.

Probably be fun for a bit but get old quick

Great refutation you fucking mongoloid. Limited does nothing but hurt the game. Balancing your joke of a format makes every other format suffer.

Standard is awful, but it's still a god damn mile ahead of "draft the planeswalker: the format".

If you weren't incapable of maintaining friendships you could run a cube.

I would recommend you look into cubing. Basically you create a cube of whatever cards you want, and then you draft it. I like power cubes, but you could make it pretty much anything you want, I've seen Tribal cubes, pauper, junk rare, all sorts of shit.

>mfw i beaten people in limited that pulled not only planeswalkers but also bomb cards like avacyn

>mfw I've drafted a complete pile and gone undefeated because i drafted a planeswalker and drew it every game

Oh drat, I guess we both have anecdotal evidence.

You can literally pool the 24 packs from a draft back together.
Use 2 booster boxes if you want more variety between drafts.

Cube is personally the favorite way of playing the game. It feels like actual magic, you open up a pack / kind of trade the same shit around and build your own deck of what you got and want / play magic that isn't super optimized like any competitive format. And the nature of cubes not having 99% of trash makes the games actually interesting.

Card Kingdom makes rookie decks that are pretty much what you are describing.
They also make "battle decks" which are a bit more focused, but still generally made to be on a similiar power level.

That sounds like an incredibly boring version of cube that someone who was really lazy would suggest. You just can't beat the kind of drafting experience that's possible to create if you are the one setting each individual card someone could possibly get.

Only constructed format I will still play is price limited edh.

Fuck constructed.

Drafting (cube) is where it's at.

2x toolkit is the way to cube

>being this much of a faggot
>price limited constructed
>edh
>draft
>cube

W E W L A D

What about no ban Cube

What the ever-loving christ is "no ban cube"? How is there a ban list for a format that is literally "you decide every rule"?

Perhaps the reason that limited keeps coming up is because of the lower power level which gives opportunity for playing less than the best cards.

I found the 8th and 9th edition to be quite varied in games. Please see
for linear versus modular game design

>There has to ne an understanding of the playstyle etc to build a deck or else most people would just try to build the strongest deck they can

I'm not big on tabletop games in general but any suggestions?

Something like that but not card kingdom

linking to

>being this much of a faggot
>Likes playing boring shitty repetitive constructed formats.
>thinks watching consistent turn 2-3 wins from every deck that happen exactly the same way every fucking time isn't boring as fuck, when it makes most matchups about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
>standard
>modern
>legacy
>vintage

W E W L A D

Innistrad was the last great block

Cube

I do this with precons. I have a collection of about 100 different intro packs, theme decks, duel decks and special decks Wizards released over the years, and it provides endless gameplay without any hassle of deckbuilding or having to solve balancing issues. Casual level: 100. The downside is that the decks get repetitive to play, but since there's so many of them and you can duel against any of the other decks, it doesn't matter.

Noice, I also do this with the limited chaff commons from my LGS.

>cheaper than a pauper deck
We're reaching levels of poverty that shouldn't even be possible.

CardKingdom's Battle Decks are close to what you want and they are 10 bucks each. Very fun.

Stop being retarded, you can't make a set solely out of good powerful cards and expect to sell new sets equally powerful for 20+ years.

Even if one dislikes limited (Which is retarded, Draft is objectively the most skill-intensive format), having Limited in mind when designing is what keeps the game alive.

What really hurts all formats is Wizards' unwillingness to balance for anything other than Standard.

just play pauper

I love Krosan Tusker. Uncounterable, cantrip landfetch that is sometimes randomly a creature for no good reason.

>a game where all the exciting and fun cards are deliberately rare or mythic
>"hey guise let's play with commons only, its more fun lol"

It's factually incorrect to say constructed is only playable with the absolute best cards. It's correct to say constructed isn't playable with a pile of draft chaff mixed with an intro deck many newcomers try to use because they don't understand that there is a cost barrier to entry like any hobby.

>>a game where all the exciting and fun cards are deliberately rare or mythic

>constructed is repetitive
>Limited, the unending midrange grindfest with 25 turn board stalls while each player desperately top decks for their bomb isn't

Lmfao limited fags are so fucking stupid

5/10 you almost made me to reply to you seriously

>objectively the most skill intensive format
This is objectively wrong. Drafting multiple on-color bombs or even a single planeswalker that fits your deck gives you an insane advantage over everyone else in your pod for no fucking reason.

I also never said every card had to be good, I know why "there needs to be bad cards", but because of faggy fucking limited we've seen mythic rares, rarity as powerlevel, and even fucking multiple tiers of rarity within a rarity come into existence. It's all limited's fault and it strangles constructed.

How about you actually try the format you retard?

Yes, because Lightning Bolt, Brainstorm, Ponder are all such underpowered and unfun cards to play with.

Pauper decks can whoop Standard deck's ass with relative ease. Hell, Pauper Burn is probably stronger than Modern Burn thanks to access to Chain Lightning and Fireblast.

Mythic rares were developed by Wizards' jewry, not because of limited.

That being said

>This is objectively wrong. Drafting multiple on-color bombs or even a single planeswalker that fits your deck gives you an insane advantage over everyone else in your pod for no fucking reason.

Spoke like someone who never drafted a deck. Bomb rares play a lot less important of a role in Draft because draft formats tend to be quicker and more aggro-oriented. It's not uncommon to first-pick good commons or uncommons over good but not busted rares.

Also, there is hate-picking, which is an valid and important strategic plan. Last draft I played I opened a Nicol Bolas, but didn't play with him - instead, I picked it to not give him to other players in the table (Well, and for the financial value).

Draft is the format that most rewards deck-constructing skills and the ability to read the table and see which colors are taken or open. You can't just jam rares and hope everything turns out well. There is also the balancing aspect of choosing which colors to play, two or three, how deep on which, and the act of playing itself, which requires you to build a deck with a good curve and play on curve.

It's by far the most skill-intensive format and this is a fact.

The justification for mythic rarity was to print huge splashy cards and they were made so rare specifically not to fuck with limited. Yes, obviously they could have invented a reason to put them in still if they really wanted to, but that doesn't change the fact that limited is their primary justification.

Nigger, I've been playing magic since onslaught have drafted for about that long as well, draft is nowhere near as skill intensive as you make it sound.

>read the table
Boy there's almost no green coming to me, that must mean they're drafting green over there. Oh man that medium tier black card I left in pack didn't wheel, someone's going hard on black.

>hate picking
Oh man this card hoses my synergy/the color I know they're on, better grab it before the table does.

>deck construction is more complicated with 50 cards to choose from than hundreds and play is more skill intensive when you don't have to worry about combos stealing the game, everyone is on the same aggro-midrange game, and there are no hosers to play around

Now you're just being a retard

>The justification for mythic rarity was to print huge splashy cards and they were made so rare specifically not to fuck with limited. Yes, obviously they could have invented a reason to put them in still if they really wanted to, but that doesn't change the fact that limited is their primary justification.

The point is that they would have done it with or without Limited. they would just have found a different limitation. Thus, your initial point of:

>but because of faggy fucking limited we've seen mythic rares

Is wrong.

You can oversimplify anything, it doesn't change the fact that table reading and hate picking are legit abilities that require player skill.

>deck construction is more complicated with 50 cards to choose from than hundreds and play is more skill intensive when you don't have to worry about combos stealing the game, everyone is on the same aggro-midrange game, and there are no hosers to play around

Constructing a deck on the fly when you don't know the next pieces you will be getting is way harder that picking from a fixed selection of cards, yes.

And let's not be silly, everyone just netdecks in constructed - which they should.

Most mythics are garbage in limited and justification is just another word for excuse.

Pauper is gimped Vintage. The decks are less consistent than in Modern, but they're faster and there's a larger pool of viable decks.

Yes they are legit abilities, but the level of skill required to be good at them is nowhere near eclipsing the skills required in a constructed match.

>Constructing a deck on the fly when you don't know the next pieces you will be getting is way harder

No matter how many times you repeat this it won't suddenly become true. Deck construction for limited is incredibly simple. In an ideal world you want 16 to 20 creatures, a well rounded curve that peaks at cmc 2 and no more than 2 cards cmc 6+. You of course can't always draft this perfect deck, but as long as you shoot for it then you'll have a functional, competitive deck.

Compare this to constructed where you can take almost any idea and turn it into a deck to win FNM if you're good enough at deck construction?

Constructed wins out by a landslide.

>No matter how many times you repeat this it won't suddenly become true.

The same can be said for your """"argument"""""

Yes but I give justification, and no matter how many quotation marks you place around argument, it doesn't invalidate mine.

I'm gonna echo
You can fairly easily and cheaply build a gauntlet of Pauper decks that fulfill your needs, the top tier decks all have a subtle Rock-Paper-Scissors game going on, yet with careful play and sideboarding, Scissors can beat Rock. And what exciting card we get! Delver, Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Gurmag Angler, Exhume, etc.

Also if his BUG list isn't exciting enough with his Deep Analysis and Mulldrifters, then take a look at this Petals of Insight/Enchant Land combo deck. It's Storm! And you get to play Brainstorm, Ponder AND Preordain!

Besides a Pauper gauntlet; to address your main point, I myself have been working on such ideas too, the goal in mind being that players of all skill and involvement levels can come to my place and play without a deck. Ideas I'd throw out are:

Duel Decks
Cardkingdom's precon decks
Commander precons
Cube

And finally, something I picked up from the grapevine known as a Battle Box. It's popular with entry level friends who like games like chess. The idea is you have a shared singleton deck of ~200-300 cards, and each player starts the game with, in their Command Zone, one of each basic land, and then Azorius, Dimir, Rakdos, Gruul and Selesnya Guildgates. Players may play lands from their Command Zone. Starting hand size is 5. Draw cards from the shared deck. Rest of the rules as per normal.

My feel is that between a Precon format, a Cube format and the Battle Box, you should have enough formats to please plenty of folks, even non-Magic players looking to start.

...

To be fair Pauper decks aren't exactly cheap, top tier ones go for like 30-60 bucks.

$40 to $80, UR Delver and MBC still go for $100 at times.
Tron was $100 when it was relevant, though it think it's down to $80?

Tron was at some point $100 because of the fact that you needed Ancient Stirrings for Temur Tron (which assembles Tron the most consistently), a playset of which is about 16-20 bucks.

Play something like Modern Pauper?

>Reach,Peer, Shift without Unspeakable
That is just sad.

You have a point, but in my defense the point of the deck is to consistently combo off turns 4-5 to cast a Fireball for lethal by exploiting Splice onto Arcane, and those three exist to generate a shuffle effect in case you Brainstormed poorly.

They are called duel decks you brainlet.

Duel decks are bad though.

where do you play it? I can't find a single paper event in my entire state

There's nothing about those sentences I don't love.

same question

Honestly, as a person whose store has a fluctuating pauper turnout, the best way to do it is to force it. Me and two others play before rounds of standard or whatever, and then people come over and are like 'whoa that looks fun, what format'?

Then sometimes they show up and do the same before rounds the next week. And then sometimes we all are around and just do pauper instead for FNM.