So if I have it right, black can't compete against the likes of Ancestral Recall and Parallax Tide, so we'd better just give it two starting hands?
Sidenote: am I the only person that doesn't have a problem with his or her black section in cube? Tutors, reanimation, stacks and 6/6 fliers for 4 don't cut it?
If the tourney is "for ante," as described in the Beta rules, that seems sufficient.
How would that be sufficient? The Beta rules don't apply anymore. Magic players use the rules from the current comprehensive rulebook, which clearly identifies everything you need to know about the rules for Ante (as well as every other rule in the game). I would imagine your lawyer friends would just ask if there's a current rules document that outlines how Ante is supposed to be played. They'd read it and find out that not only does Ante need to apply for each individual game, but that "ownership" in the definition of the rules is actually referring to legal ownership for the Ante section, basically rendering Ante an unplayable game option for any phantom events.
Or you can ignore the rules for ante and make up whatever house rules you want.
Quote from ambivalentduck »
other colors have more bombs than black does. Green and blue in particular are problematically strong. Rather than cut bombs like Parallax Tide I'd rather prop up black and white where I can.
This makes no sense to me, and doesn't mirror the experience I've ever had with any cube I've ever drafted. Black has a deep shelf of some of the strongest cards in the entire cube, and it's one of the better colors in the cube. Not only is it a better color than green, but it's top shelf of cards makes green's look embarrassing by comparison. And white is probably the second best color in the cube.
[quote=ambivalentduck]How would that be sufficient? The Beta rules don't apply anymore. Magic players use the rules from the current comprehensive rulebook, which clearly identifies everything you need to know about the rules for Ante (as well as every other rule in the game). I would imagine your lawyer friends would just ask if there's a current rules document that outlines how Ante is supposed to be played. They'd read it and find out that not only does Ante need to apply for each individual game, but that "ownership" in the definition of the rules is actually referring to legal ownership for the Ante section, basically rendering Ante an unplayable game option for any phantom events.
Time Vault was errata-ed to it's current form because its behavior under the rules was inconsistent with how it played during Beta. Other Alpha cards have received similar errata to restore original intent/functionality. I've shown elsewhere in this thread that the card's current functionality is intentionally inconsistent with both and that the current rules regarding ante are intentionally dysfunctional. WotC doesn't want to support ante, which has nothing to do with the function of ante and ante cards. The rules are deprecated and the question is what the last set of rules prior to said deprecation looked like. So far as I can tell, that's covered only in the earliest versions of the rulebook before WotC got in legal trouble over ante.
And at this point ignoring the evidence presented is tantamount to trolling. Mods please issue me a warning. He has the right to be obtuse, but he does not enjoy immunity from being called out on doing so intentionally. He also has the right to have said obtuseness arbitrated in a public forum. I don't mind lacking that right myself.
So if I have it right, black can't compete against the likes of Ancestral Recall and Parallax Tide, so we'd better just give it two starting hands?
Sidenote: am I the only person that doesn't have a problem with his or her black section in cube? Tutors, reanimation, stacks and 6/6 fliers for 4 don't cut it?
Have you tried hymn to tourach, mindtwist, yawgmoth's will, doomsday, and chains of mephistopheles?
I suppose will just enables the blue decks further thought...
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Have you tried hymn to tourach, mindtwist, yawgmoth's will, doomsday, and chains of mephistopheles?
Chains is markedly worse than Spirit of the Labyrinth, a card relatively few cubes play and doesn't make it into the CubeTutor 450. Doomsday requires a lot of cards to build around it and generally requires blue. Hymn and Mind Twist are in. Yawgmoth's Will is unremarkable outside of unusual levels of support for a combo deck. It also falls short of the CubeTutor 450.
So far as I can tell, the best cards in black are Contract, Demonic Tutor, Liliana of the Veil, Recurring Nightmare, Mind Twist, and Grave Titan. Some cards like Pack Rat and Braids are very strong with minimal support, but they do require that support.
Just like Vintage is often a contest to find and resolve Ancestral Recall?
Is it? I haven't played Vintage in a few years.
Green and blue in particular are problematically strong.
Green is probably the weakest color in my cube. I doubt I'm the only cube manager to come to that conclusion.
It takes major adjustments to the floor rules to even run a Cube tourney. For instance, card ownership reverts to the house at the end of the night and REL: Beer-Involved. If the tourney is "for ante," as described in the Beta rules, that seems sufficient.
If card ownership reverts to the house, what are you anteing?
The point of ante is that you're risking something. The point of Contract is that you're risking losing a second card in an effort to win the game. If a bunch of us are drafting my cube for FNM, and I get all the cards back at the end of the night, you haven't invested any extra risk by playing Contract. All you've done is spend B to draw 7. I'm not willing to put that effect in my cube. YMMV.
That's just it, really. I'm personally okay with using house rules in situations like these, but I don't understand why I should bend over backwards in an attempt to break my cube in half. Losing to long-term ownership changes is unfun, and losing to this card makes anything you do in the games themselves feel meaningless.
I understand that there's an appeal that goes with "best card in existence", but this goes so far beyond Power 9 territory that it becomes less "sweet random value" and more "this no longer resembles a game of Magic".
I'm going to have to disagree about chains if you are running a graveyard strategy it can often enable your deck. Also when paired with a wheel effect you nuke hands symmetrically unless of cource you dredge so that chains doesn't trigger. If stacked another way it allows you to dredge repeatedly off the same card. It also says discard so it can be paired with things like liliana's caress (not the best idea for cube even if you can wheel of fortune. If you have support for it it does a lot though.
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Time Vault was errata-ed to it's current form because its behavior under the rules was inconsistent with how it played during Beta.
Time Vault currently plays exactly like it's supposed to. It was errata'd back to be more consistent with the wording printed on the card.
In Beta, Ante was used as a way to play "for keeps" and exchange legal ownership cards as a kind of bet or wager. It represented a permanent loss to someone's collection. It was never intended to be manipulated to work for any kind of phantom event. No "evidence" presented so far comes close to refuting this. And in fact, the comprehensive rulebook outlines both the intent and the proper execution for "playing for ante". You can ignore this for whatever reason you want, but at the end of the day, you're still just ignoring the rules.
There's nothing wrong with using house rules. A lot of cube managers do it. Make up whatever rule you want to justify the inclusion of Contract for your playgroup. As somebody said before, you don't need our permission to house-rule Contract if you want to. Take a sharpie to the text until all it says when you're done is: B, Discard your hand and draw 7 cards. Makes no difference to me how you errata the card.
Quote from ambivalentduck »
And at this point ignoring the evidence presented is tantamount to trolling. Mods please issue me a warning. He has the right to be obtuse, but he does not enjoy immunity from being called out on doing so intentionally. He also has the right to have said obtuseness arbitrated in a public forum. I don't mind lacking that right myself.
FYI, you were moderated for name-calling, not furthering the discussion. If ignoring evidence for the purposes of being obtuse is trolling, that's the pot calling the kettle black if I've ever seen it. All the evidence has been provided for you in black and white from the comprehensive rulebook. If you choose to ignore it for any arbitrary reason you come up with, that's called playing with house rules.
Green is probably the weakest color in my cube. I doubt I'm the only cube manager to come to that conclusion.
3 CMC land and artifact destruction makes the color dramatically better because the mana dorks let you reliably cast it on turn 2. Green is the best aggro-control color. Black can do just as well, but it needs moxes which are in much shorter supply than mana dorks.
The point of ante is that you're risking something. The point of Contract is that you're risking losing a second card in an effort to win the game. If a bunch of us are drafting my cube for FNM, and I get all the cards back at the end of the night, you haven't invested any extra risk by playing Contract. All you've done is spend B to draw 7. I'm not willing to put that effect in my cube. YMMV.
Addressing what I think is your core claim as directly as I can: I think you're saying that ante and legal ownership are intrinsically linked:
You can play Magic with only one deck if it is large enough. Just divide it between the players. One way to play in this case is with antes, continuing until one player wins enough cards to render the other's deck unplayable (though, of course, the owner gets all the cards back afterwards). This can take a while if the deck is large.
As early as Beta, the designers were already talking about cards moving around a fixed card pool (like a Cube!) without changing legal ownership.
Ante was originally there to balance card pools against "cardlords" who had bought more than a handful of boosters. Risk wasn't the point at all. The designers wanted playing 18 Black Lotus, 20 Timetwister, and 2 Fireball against 15 Mountains and 25 Lightning Bolts to be a losing proposition.
In Beta, Ante was used as a way to play "for keeps" and exchange legal ownership cards as a kind of bet or wager. It represented a permanent loss to someone's collection. It was never intended to be manipulated to work for any kind of phantom event. No "evidence" presented so far comes close to refuting this. And in fact, the comprehensive rulebook outlines both the intent and the proper execution for "playing for ante". You can ignore this for whatever reason you want, but at the end of the day, you're still just ignoring the rules.
You can play Magic with only one deck if it is large enough. Just divide it between the players. One way to play in this case is with antes, continuing until one player wins enough cards to render the other's deck unplayable (though, of course, the owner gets all the cards back afterwards). This can take a while if the deck is large.
So you'll now withdraw from your position? Or you'll maintain your position in the face of evidence?
Nope. The Beta rulebook is obsolete. The original intent of the game was to use Mana Burn too, but that's no longer a current part of the game. No matter what you believe the original intent of Ante was, the correct way to play it is clearly outlined in the current rules.
You're the one that seems to be maintaining position in the face of evidence. Check the current rules. They'll tell you how ante works.
As someone who has been playing since the ante era, it was always clear how it worked, and it was a legal exchange of ownership of the wagered card. It occurred at the start of every game, and the exchange of cards took place at the end of every game. Exactly how the current rulebook says it works.
Nope. The Beta rulebook is obsolete. The original intent of the game was to use Mana Burn too, but that's no longer a current part of the game. No matter what you believe the original intent of Ante was, the correct way to play it is clearly outlined in the current rules.
The content of a historical document is not my subjective opinion. It includes a clear example where ante is not intrinsically tied to legal ownership. You cannot in good faith claim that ante was inherently tied to legal ownership. You cannot in good faith claim that the current rules are not the product of the original rules running afoul of gambling laws. You cannot in good faith claim that gambling laws apply when legal ownership is not changing hands.
Here on the internet, we call argument in bad faith "trolling." For whatever reason, the mods seem to think that name-calling is more worrisome than argument in bad faith. I understand that they enable you by warning others for calling you out on it. It's their loss because it degrades the quality of discussion.
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I can, in good faith, say that the current comprehensive rulebook outlines how to play for ante. If you choose to reference obsolete rules to defend your position, more power to you. But I don't care what the out-of-date rules say. I only care about the current rules. Which clearly states that ante is every game, and that ownership on ante refers to legal ownership.
Come up with whatever rules you want. Using any justification you want. But if it deviates from the most current comprehensive rules, it's a house rule.
I don't understand what the big deal is. If someone wants to play this card with errata'ed ante rules, they can play it. If someone thinks you should use the ante rules literally from the rulebook which involves actual ownership of the card and therefore they do not want to play this card in their Cube, than that is OK too. If someone (like me) doesn't care either way because they're not going to run a card this absurdly overpowered in the game, then that's alright.
Cube is a custom limited environment, so people can do whatever the hell they want. I play an Alpha Orcish Artillery in my Cube (it costs 2 mana), and everyone that has played my Cube thinks that's fun. Let's continuing having discussion on this card for those who wish to run it with errata and stop discussing whether or not people should be "allowed" to put this in their Cube with errata for ante.
If someone wants to play this card with errata'ed ante rules, they can play it. If someone thinks you should use the ante rules literally from the rulebook which involves actual ownership of the card and therefore they do not want to play this card in their Cube, than that is OK too. If someone (like me) doesn't care either way because they're not going to run a card this absurdly overpowered in the game, then that's alright.
It's nice that you're subjective knowers and you think your feelings are enough to justify a position. Some of us have lawyers in our playgroups and we have to dig up original intent and original functionality. If you think that's an empty exercise, that process is exactly what Steve Menendian did to get Time Vault errata-ed to its current form. These things supersede the rules so much that the rules can and will be changed to accommodate them. I followed the same process to get the changes to Reconnaissance revoked as well.
In this case, the rules won't be changed for the same reason the ante rules are poorly written: any update, even to fix a spelling or grammar error, would give the impression that WotC supports ante and land them in hot water legally.
Sidenote: am I the only person that doesn't have a problem with his or her black section in cube? Tutors, reanimation, stacks and 6/6 fliers for 4 don't cut it?
How would that be sufficient? The Beta rules don't apply anymore. Magic players use the rules from the current comprehensive rulebook, which clearly identifies everything you need to know about the rules for Ante (as well as every other rule in the game). I would imagine your lawyer friends would just ask if there's a current rules document that outlines how Ante is supposed to be played. They'd read it and find out that not only does Ante need to apply for each individual game, but that "ownership" in the definition of the rules is actually referring to legal ownership for the Ante section, basically rendering Ante an unplayable game option for any phantom events.
Or you can ignore the rules for ante and make up whatever house rules you want.
This makes no sense to me, and doesn't mirror the experience I've ever had with any cube I've ever drafted. Black has a deep shelf of some of the strongest cards in the entire cube, and it's one of the better colors in the cube. Not only is it a better color than green, but it's top shelf of cards makes green's look embarrassing by comparison. And white is probably the second best color in the cube.
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Time Vault was errata-ed to it's current form because its behavior under the rules was inconsistent with how it played during Beta. Other Alpha cards have received similar errata to restore original intent/functionality. I've shown elsewhere in this thread that the card's current functionality is intentionally inconsistent with both and that the current rules regarding ante are intentionally dysfunctional. WotC doesn't want to support ante, which has nothing to do with the function of ante and ante cards. The rules are deprecated and the question is what the last set of rules prior to said deprecation looked like. So far as I can tell, that's covered only in the earliest versions of the rulebook before WotC got in legal trouble over ante.
And at this point ignoring the evidence presented is tantamount to trolling. Mods please issue me a warning. He has the right to be obtuse, but he does not enjoy immunity from being called out on doing so intentionally. He also has the right to have said obtuseness arbitrated in a public forum. I don't mind lacking that right myself.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
Have you tried hymn to tourach, mindtwist, yawgmoth's will, doomsday, and chains of mephistopheles?
I suppose will just enables the blue decks further thought...
Chains is markedly worse than Spirit of the Labyrinth, a card relatively few cubes play and doesn't make it into the CubeTutor 450. Doomsday requires a lot of cards to build around it and generally requires blue. Hymn and Mind Twist are in. Yawgmoth's Will is unremarkable outside of unusual levels of support for a combo deck. It also falls short of the CubeTutor 450.
So far as I can tell, the best cards in black are Contract, Demonic Tutor, Liliana of the Veil, Recurring Nightmare, Mind Twist, and Grave Titan. Some cards like Pack Rat and Braids are very strong with minimal support, but they do require that support.
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Is it? I haven't played Vintage in a few years.
Green is probably the weakest color in my cube. I doubt I'm the only cube manager to come to that conclusion.
If card ownership reverts to the house, what are you anteing?
The point of ante is that you're risking something. The point of Contract is that you're risking losing a second card in an effort to win the game. If a bunch of us are drafting my cube for FNM, and I get all the cards back at the end of the night, you haven't invested any extra risk by playing Contract. All you've done is spend B to draw 7. I'm not willing to put that effect in my cube. YMMV.
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I used to write for MTGS, including Cranial Insertion and cube articles. Good on you if you can find those after the upgrade.
I understand that there's an appeal that goes with "best card in existence", but this goes so far beyond Power 9 territory that it becomes less "sweet random value" and more "this no longer resembles a game of Magic".
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Time Vault currently plays exactly like it's supposed to. It was errata'd back to be more consistent with the wording printed on the card.
In Beta, Ante was used as a way to play "for keeps" and exchange legal ownership cards as a kind of bet or wager. It represented a permanent loss to someone's collection. It was never intended to be manipulated to work for any kind of phantom event. No "evidence" presented so far comes close to refuting this. And in fact, the comprehensive rulebook outlines both the intent and the proper execution for "playing for ante". You can ignore this for whatever reason you want, but at the end of the day, you're still just ignoring the rules.
There's nothing wrong with using house rules. A lot of cube managers do it. Make up whatever rule you want to justify the inclusion of Contract for your playgroup. As somebody said before, you don't need our permission to house-rule Contract if you want to. Take a sharpie to the text until all it says when you're done is: B, Discard your hand and draw 7 cards. Makes no difference to me how you errata the card.
FYI, you were moderated for name-calling, not furthering the discussion. If ignoring evidence for the purposes of being obtuse is trolling, that's the pot calling the kettle black if I've ever seen it. All the evidence has been provided for you in black and white from the comprehensive rulebook. If you choose to ignore it for any arbitrary reason you come up with, that's called playing with house rules.
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3 CMC land and artifact destruction makes the color dramatically better because the mana dorks let you reliably cast it on turn 2. Green is the best aggro-control color. Black can do just as well, but it needs moxes which are in much shorter supply than mana dorks.
Addressing what I think is your core claim as directly as I can: I think you're saying that ante and legal ownership are intrinsically linked:
As early as Beta, the designers were already talking about cards moving around a fixed card pool (like a Cube!) without changing legal ownership.
Ante was originally there to balance card pools against "cardlords" who had bought more than a handful of boosters. Risk wasn't the point at all. The designers wanted playing 18 Black Lotus, 20 Timetwister, and 2 Fireball against 15 Mountains and 25 Lightning Bolts to be a losing proposition.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
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My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
So you'll now withdraw from your position? Or you'll maintain your position in the face of evidence?
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
You're the one that seems to be maintaining position in the face of evidence. Check the current rules. They'll tell you how ante works.
As someone who has been playing since the ante era, it was always clear how it worked, and it was a legal exchange of ownership of the wagered card. It occurred at the start of every game, and the exchange of cards took place at the end of every game. Exactly how the current rulebook says it works.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 49th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from MKM!
The content of a historical document is not my subjective opinion. It includes a clear example where ante is not intrinsically tied to legal ownership. You cannot in good faith claim that ante was inherently tied to legal ownership. You cannot in good faith claim that the current rules are not the product of the original rules running afoul of gambling laws. You cannot in good faith claim that gambling laws apply when legal ownership is not changing hands.
Here on the internet, we call argument in bad faith "trolling." For whatever reason, the mods seem to think that name-calling is more worrisome than argument in bad faith. I understand that they enable you by warning others for calling you out on it. It's their loss because it degrades the quality of discussion.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
Come up with whatever rules you want. Using any justification you want. But if it deviates from the most current comprehensive rules, it's a house rule.
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My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
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Cube is a custom limited environment, so people can do whatever the hell they want. I play an Alpha Orcish Artillery in my Cube (it costs 2 mana), and everyone that has played my Cube thinks that's fun. Let's continuing having discussion on this card for those who wish to run it with errata and stop discussing whether or not people should be "allowed" to put this in their Cube with errata for ante.
Amen brother.
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In this case, the rules won't be changed for the same reason the ante rules are poorly written: any update, even to fix a spelling or grammar error, would give the impression that WotC supports ante and land them in hot water legally.
https://www.cubecobra.com/cube/list/p420
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/993
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/23690
The only things that I use to "justify my position" are the rules current comprehensive rulebook.
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