I was trying to make this work during the Eldrazi era (prior to Eye getting banned).
The issue was that too often you cast it as a 3-for-3 which left you with no hand, then the opponent's next threat killed you. You were heavy white, preventing you from just drawing cards to make up for it.
There might be a shell for the card but for now I have given up.
With that said, I have 4 questions for you:
1) Why is Top banned?
2) Do you believe that Top will not cause the problems that caused it to be banned in the first place?
3) One other card on the ban list is banned for the same reason as Top. What is it?
4) The card in 3) does not currently fit into any tier 1 deck. Do you believe it should be unbanned?
Sensei's Stalling Top is banned because it doesn't really work well in paper Magic.
It's fine on MTGO with the chess clock but in paper it causes too many unintentional draws and delays tournaments too much. Additionally it causes too many accusations of cheating and too many opportunities to conceal intentional cheating as 'just thinking'.
This issue in paper isn't fixable and I do not support MTGO and paper having divergent banlists, so Stalling Top should remain banned.
Edit: It's also entirely possible that Stalling Top would be oppressively good in the format now, with Terminus legal. Terminus and Top have never been legal together in formats smaller than Legacy.
Well, we have 1 more Mythic left and if you ask me it's more likely to be a White card than a Land card (There's 2 of each other color, 2 multicolored, 2 artifacts and 1 land).
We've reached pretty much the point past all the big-shot Mythic previews, so I'm really doubting the last Mythic is going to be a fantastic card (Chase Mythic revealed when Full Spoiler List comes out is something they don't usually do let's face it. Not impossible, but very unlikely).
Mythics are not usually color symmetric, and even if they are, Karakas could easily be deemed the second white mythic. After all, Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth *was* the 8th black rare in Magic 2015 and that set had colour symmetry among the rares.
I know it's probably blasphemy to admit, but I only play online. So far, this set isn't worth paying for online.
At rare, Wasteland is very hard to crack and it would be cheaper to just buy it outright(about 45 tix). Force of Will is worthwhile, but still not enough to purchase.
Rishidan Port would make buying boosters online very appealing. What are the chances it will show up?
No matter how good the cards in the set, while it is available the average value of the cards in a pack will fall to about 2.3-2.5 tickets online.
Look at VMA, the strongest set ever. Using the equivalent rarity from EMA (EMA is half the set size), it had 10 mythic dual lands, FOW at mythic, Power at '4 times rarer than Mythic', LED and JTMS at 2 times rarer than mythic, and lots of other formerly $20+ cards at high rarities (Vampiric Tutor, etc).
Prices fell to the equilibrium point fast.
EMA will do the same whether Port is in it or not. If Port is in at mythic, it's still the same rarity (1 per 121 packs) as Bayou was in VMA, and Bayou has much higher demand (Source: MTGGoldfish's 'most played lands in Legacy page' - Bayou is #17 at 43 copies per 100 decks, Port is #24 with 32 copies per 100 decks). Expect Port to fall to similar price points to Bayou if it gets the 1 in 120 reprint online, and lower if it gets a 1 in 60 reprint.
The set has Mana Crypt. They aren't afraid to print utterly, completely unfair bombs at mythic in this Limited environment. JtMS isn't too far behind in power level either.
I played a lot of VMA limited and never saw a player lose after casting Mana Crypt or Sol Ring on turn 1, and only once did I see someone lose after a turn 1 Mox.
At least with Jitte, you can contain the damage it does by casting artifact removal. Card is still an insane bomb (better than JtMS) but it isn't like Mana Crypt or (in VMA) Skullclamp.
I've moved to Reddit mostly, just because of the threaded conversations.
/r/magicTCG for casual-related stuff and spoilers; /r/spikes for medium quality competitive-minded content; and /r/mtgfinance for the most insightful analysis of what is happening in Magic that actually matters.
As I see it, four possibilities. From least likely to most likely:
1) Block Constructed.
Serves two purposes (selling the newest set and providing the most accessible Constructed format possible). But historically when it existed it was a mixed bag - original Ravnica block was phenomenal (one of the best Constructed formats ever), but original Mirrodin was terrible. So was Innistrad block.
The risk of it either being eclipsed by Standard, or splitting the Standard playerbase are probably too big to overcome, however. And why announce it now?
2) Something between Standard and Modern.
Modern is now about 15 years of cards, and Standard is 1.5. There's room between those two points, with something like RTR and up being viable as a format that would be more accessible than Modern and with more room for new cards to impact the game.
3) Pauper
This format has real legs on its own even if there's disputes over the finer points of the rules. Already popular on MTGO and EMA has a lot of support for it there.
4) Eternal (Legacy with all Reserve List cards banned, and a rebalanced banned list broadly similar to Legacy's but possibly with some cards added or removed)
This would make sense as something to push EMA, especially as the removal of a bunch of truly broken cards that are on the reserve list (LED, City of Traitors) would change the balance of a lot of decks in the format making it quite different to Legacy. Additionally the downgrade from Alpha duals to shocklands would add burn and possibly other aggro to the competitive decks in the format.
Angel is probably better than Thunderbreak Reagent or Avaricious Dragon if you are on an all-in aggro plan. Otherwise it's bad, but it does seem to have a niche.
how can you even compare it to thunderbreak reagent, and thunderbrak to avaricious?
They all do the same thing - 4 damage per turn that's hard to block. Comparison is just obvious.
Angel is probably better than Thunderbreak Reagent or Avaricious Dragon if you are on an all-in aggro plan. Otherwise it's bad, but it does seem to have a niche.
Make a very unfriendly deck that does stupid things people aren't prepared for. Like donating Immortal Coil and then dropping Bojuka Bog.
It doesn't win very often but it is entertaining to watch someone lose to a donated Transcendence
I love giving people a present and saying "Happy Birthday".
Any unwelcome permanent works, but Illusions of Grandeur is great for nostalgia reasons.
But in general, Commander is a format where there are a lot of 'HAHAHAHAHA game over I win' big mana spells played. You either have to kill before those spells come online or have an answer for them, and mass land destruction is all white and red really have to stop things like Insurrection, Cyclonic Rift or Tooth and Nail.
Hasbro's public financials indicate that they are not hurting for new players. Both player numbers and average spend are up over last year.
Strict colourless is just another new mana mechanic like hybrid, snow, mono-hybrid (Spectral Procession) or phyrexian mana. We get one every now and again. Nothing remarkable - hybrid was the one that truly broke new ground.
EMA leaks are a serious issue but Wizards are actually taking it seriously.
As for Modern prices - this is a consequence of Wizards being too conservative with reprints. I *think* this is starting to change now. We used to get one low quality reprint set per 2 years (old core sets). Then one low to medium quality half-new, half-reprint set per year. Now, we have a good deal more reprints coming out.
Wizards are likely quite concerned about the secondary market for their own reasons - counterfeiting. The higher prices get the more lucrative the MTG counterfeit market becomes to organised crime. We've not yet hit the point where counterfeiting ZEN fetches is a more lucrative business proposition to a criminal than importing meth - but we might, and that is something Wizards do not want to see, because once the criminals get every cent they can out of older cards, they'll start competing with Wizards on the newer ones.
Is that even the standard practice for when you discover someone has taken two picks from one pack in a draft? Can a judge weigh in? Say it was a normal pack and there was a foil stuck to the back of the rare and I took both, and it got noticed 5 picks later - would you just put the foil back in the pack? Make the me forfeit the draft?
IANAJ, but reading from the Infraction Proceedure Guide.
I think it's just Tournament Error - Limited Proceedure Violation.
Even if the judge believed it was intentional cheating, seizing the Expedition is not acceptable conduct here. (The correct remedy there would be disqualification and a report to the DCI, with you keeping the already drafted cards, the sealed pack, and the cards you were selecting from).
It could be construed as Unsporting Conduct - Theft of Tournament Materials but again, that requires intent.
OP should definitely tell Wizards their side of the story.
Also worth taking note here that your contact with Wizards should clarify whether you believe the 5th player was in the wrong or not. If they are personal friends with the store employee handling it, that's relevant information. It doesn't sound like there was anything intentionally fishy here.
When I click on the link I have a hard time sorting through all the nonsense to find the meat of whatever the issue is. Can you summarize what is supposedly happening and who is supposedly involved?
It appears that an as-yet unknown dealer that is NOT starcitygames knew a fair bit about EMA at least 2 weeks before the Twin ban, possibly by bribing someone with Wizards wickR access.
It is being rumored that someone is selling the set list for USD 25000.
A very reliable source has indicated that they are suspicious of Aether Games but no proof has been offered.
Edit: Oh and on SCG's buylist and Twin: as far as I can tell SCG responded to the MTGO beta leak and not before.
Once the bans went live on the beta (about 48 hours before they should have been published) they were very much in the public eye.
Like them or hate them, SCG look innocent in all of this.
Well magic is a randomized product so his comment in relation to vendors using their store for money funneling is probably a real thing and relatively easy to do.
There was a discussion about this in reddit's mtgfinance section recently, where someone that used to work in anti-money laundering operations said a couple of things about it.
Police are onto people using MTG for money laundering. You'll possibly get away with laundering $15000 but not $200000.
The issue was that too often you cast it as a 3-for-3 which left you with no hand, then the opponent's next threat killed you. You were heavy white, preventing you from just drawing cards to make up for it.
There might be a shell for the card but for now I have given up.
Sensei's Stalling Top is banned because it doesn't really work well in paper Magic.
It's fine on MTGO with the chess clock but in paper it causes too many unintentional draws and delays tournaments too much. Additionally it causes too many accusations of cheating and too many opportunities to conceal intentional cheating as 'just thinking'.
This issue in paper isn't fixable and I do not support MTGO and paper having divergent banlists, so Stalling Top should remain banned.
Edit: It's also entirely possible that Stalling Top would be oppressively good in the format now, with Terminus legal. Terminus and Top have never been legal together in formats smaller than Legacy.
Mythics are not usually color symmetric, and even if they are, Karakas could easily be deemed the second white mythic. After all, Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth *was* the 8th black rare in Magic 2015 and that set had colour symmetry among the rares.
No matter how good the cards in the set, while it is available the average value of the cards in a pack will fall to about 2.3-2.5 tickets online.
Look at VMA, the strongest set ever. Using the equivalent rarity from EMA (EMA is half the set size), it had 10 mythic dual lands, FOW at mythic, Power at '4 times rarer than Mythic', LED and JTMS at 2 times rarer than mythic, and lots of other formerly $20+ cards at high rarities (Vampiric Tutor, etc).
Prices fell to the equilibrium point fast.
EMA will do the same whether Port is in it or not. If Port is in at mythic, it's still the same rarity (1 per 121 packs) as Bayou was in VMA, and Bayou has much higher demand (Source: MTGGoldfish's 'most played lands in Legacy page' - Bayou is #17 at 43 copies per 100 decks, Port is #24 with 32 copies per 100 decks). Expect Port to fall to similar price points to Bayou if it gets the 1 in 120 reprint online, and lower if it gets a 1 in 60 reprint.
The set has Mana Crypt. They aren't afraid to print utterly, completely unfair bombs at mythic in this Limited environment. JtMS isn't too far behind in power level either.
I played a lot of VMA limited and never saw a player lose after casting Mana Crypt or Sol Ring on turn 1, and only once did I see someone lose after a turn 1 Mox.
At least with Jitte, you can contain the damage it does by casting artifact removal. Card is still an insane bomb (better than JtMS) but it isn't like Mana Crypt or (in VMA) Skullclamp.
/r/magicTCG for casual-related stuff and spoilers; /r/spikes for medium quality competitive-minded content; and /r/mtgfinance for the most insightful analysis of what is happening in Magic that actually matters.
1) Block Constructed.
Serves two purposes (selling the newest set and providing the most accessible Constructed format possible). But historically when it existed it was a mixed bag - original Ravnica block was phenomenal (one of the best Constructed formats ever), but original Mirrodin was terrible. So was Innistrad block.
The risk of it either being eclipsed by Standard, or splitting the Standard playerbase are probably too big to overcome, however. And why announce it now?
2) Something between Standard and Modern.
Modern is now about 15 years of cards, and Standard is 1.5. There's room between those two points, with something like RTR and up being viable as a format that would be more accessible than Modern and with more room for new cards to impact the game.
3) Pauper
This format has real legs on its own even if there's disputes over the finer points of the rules. Already popular on MTGO and EMA has a lot of support for it there.
4) Eternal (Legacy with all Reserve List cards banned, and a rebalanced banned list broadly similar to Legacy's but possibly with some cards added or removed)
This would make sense as something to push EMA, especially as the removal of a bunch of truly broken cards that are on the reserve list (LED, City of Traitors) would change the balance of a lot of decks in the format making it quite different to Legacy. Additionally the downgrade from Alpha duals to shocklands would add burn and possibly other aggro to the competitive decks in the format.
They all do the same thing - 4 damage per turn that's hard to block. Comparison is just obvious.
I love giving people a present and saying "Happy Birthday".
Any unwelcome permanent works, but Illusions of Grandeur is great for nostalgia reasons.
But in general, Commander is a format where there are a lot of 'HAHAHAHAHA game over I win' big mana spells played. You either have to kill before those spells come online or have an answer for them, and mass land destruction is all white and red really have to stop things like Insurrection, Cyclonic Rift or Tooth and Nail.
Strict colourless is just another new mana mechanic like hybrid, snow, mono-hybrid (Spectral Procession) or phyrexian mana. We get one every now and again. Nothing remarkable - hybrid was the one that truly broke new ground.
EMA leaks are a serious issue but Wizards are actually taking it seriously.
As for Modern prices - this is a consequence of Wizards being too conservative with reprints. I *think* this is starting to change now. We used to get one low quality reprint set per 2 years (old core sets). Then one low to medium quality half-new, half-reprint set per year. Now, we have a good deal more reprints coming out.
Wizards are likely quite concerned about the secondary market for their own reasons - counterfeiting. The higher prices get the more lucrative the MTG counterfeit market becomes to organised crime. We've not yet hit the point where counterfeiting ZEN fetches is a more lucrative business proposition to a criminal than importing meth - but we might, and that is something Wizards do not want to see, because once the criminals get every cent they can out of older cards, they'll start competing with Wizards on the newer ones.
IANAJ, but reading from the Infraction Proceedure Guide.
I think it's just Tournament Error - Limited Proceedure Violation.
Even if the judge believed it was intentional cheating, seizing the Expedition is not acceptable conduct here. (The correct remedy there would be disqualification and a report to the DCI, with you keeping the already drafted cards, the sealed pack, and the cards you were selecting from).
It could be construed as Unsporting Conduct - Theft of Tournament Materials but again, that requires intent.
OP should definitely tell Wizards their side of the story.
Also worth taking note here that your contact with Wizards should clarify whether you believe the 5th player was in the wrong or not. If they are personal friends with the store employee handling it, that's relevant information. It doesn't sound like there was anything intentionally fishy here.
It appears that an as-yet unknown dealer that is NOT starcitygames knew a fair bit about EMA at least 2 weeks before the Twin ban, possibly by bribing someone with Wizards wickR access.
It is being rumored that someone is selling the set list for USD 25000.
A very reliable source has indicated that they are suspicious of Aether Games but no proof has been offered.
Edit: Oh and on SCG's buylist and Twin: as far as I can tell SCG responded to the MTGO beta leak and not before.
Once the bans went live on the beta (about 48 hours before they should have been published) they were very much in the public eye.
Like them or hate them, SCG look innocent in all of this.
Legacy burn can't compete in a 17-19 life format (fetch/dual manabases), but it can in a 13-15 life format (fetch/shock).
City of Traitors is the other super-impactful reserve list card.
There was a discussion about this in reddit's mtgfinance section recently, where someone that used to work in anti-money laundering operations said a couple of things about it.
Police are onto people using MTG for money laundering. You'll possibly get away with laundering $15000 but not $200000.