By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Thursday, November 23, 2006 - 01:10 pm:

Hey everyone, I want to do a necropotence deck. It doesn't have to be legal. It's just for casual play. Unfortunatly I can't find any deck listings anywhere. If anyone has any input it would be appreciated. I have a ton of cards so it doesn't have to be cheap, although I don't have power nine. Thanks.

By Dark Lord (Apprentice) on Thursday, November 23, 2006 - 05:17 pm:

Well first of all...

We don't make decks for people. We can definatly help, but if someone tells us "make me a decklist" we usually ignore it. Also you need to tell us the format, metagame and other factors like that.

So this is unrestricted t-1? Casual play? As far as I know using illegal decks especially with cards like Necropotence isn't fun. Is this deck supposed to combo out of first turn?

So far we have:

20 Swamp
4 Dark Ritual
4 Necropotence
4 Y@wgmoths Bargian

What do you want the dck to be like?

-Apprentice

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 04:02 am:

Plus, if he wasn't able to find any Necrodeck List, he is either totally inable using computers and search engines or plain out lying. Necrodecks were about the most played decks ever until Necro got banned/restricted in all formats.

I'll add Yawgies Will to that artificial list. 4 times <shudders>

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 04:52 am:

I say we add 4 Dwarven Ponies, then I go back to Ignore Mode.

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 06:35 am:

Bad pony!!!.

Erh?

I mean bad PSYCHO...
-------------------------------------------------
Lets analyse this...

Last week we had bad paolo whom criticised a (probably randomly chosen) deck.
Do we need paolo's ???

Now we have BILLTHEPIRATE who has many cards but no power, that is searching for a network!!!

I mean, seriously, what do we perform in here???
Are we a network of people ready to give info in hope of gaining info later, or are we a narrowminded bunch of conservatists that always speak of the gloryfull past, and is satisfied by that???

I say squid pro cure, or something like that.

Let's try it out and give BILLTHEPIRATE some info. In return BILLTHEPIRATE, you may tell us something about yourself. Do you have a special talent of any kind. Is it magic-related. Do you know what to do when a cat runs away and you need to track it down again???
-------------------------------------------------
Necropotence generally has two directions to take. The most populare version is to have a combo in the deck that kills your opponent. Most people prefer tendrils of agony. A deck like that has cards to search for necropotence to get it into play as fast as possible, then go down to 1-4 life while trying to draw the combo to kill with. The other less taken approach is to use it to boost an already powerfull creaturedeck, this kind of deck usually has discard. If you know how to search the net you may be interested in building a "pox" deck around necropotence... There is also many strange old decks out there that use necropotence in weird ways (like academy rector)If you want a more modern approach we have all been discussing how abusive children of corlis is with necropotence. Today's rules state that payment of life is considered loss of life...
In general use cheap discard as much as possible in the deck. When you get the "potence" you get back the card advantage you give up early...
-------------------------------------------------
Also, I can use this opportunity to promote a computermade manacurve to you...

Use 22 lands.
Use 12 cards costing 1, permanents are best.
Use 12 cards costing 2, permanents are best.
Use 14 cards costing 3, permanents are best.

(you may notice that the manacurve is buildt to use permanents, but in reality you can fill anything into it, but permanents WILL be most efficient in it)...

I hope you found phyrexia usefull, and that you tell us how the battle went, or if you discovered a really nasty combo you or your opponents used...

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 10:46 am:

This has nothing to do with being a norrowminded bunch of conservatives. Everything that has been said is true. If you just want to netdeck, then netdeck. There are prolly more necrolists out there than Magic players. If we would be the conservatives how you pictured us (always speaking of the glorious past) then we would have posted our favourite old school Necrodeck, right? We didn't because this SPhere is about creativity. Its not that we deny our creativity but:
1) We won't do anything unless he makes at least the first step. Its easier to help with and also it wouldn't be as impolite.
2) We need some instructions and directions where to go. All he gave us was "it should be unrestricted and for casual play" and those two things do contradict each other ...

Seriously, you and now me are giving him more attention than he deserves for his post.

4 Necropotence
4 Black Vise
4 Howling Mine
4 Stasis
4 Donate
4 Dark Ritual
4 Sol Ring
4 Mana Crypt
4 Underground Sea
12 Island
8 Swamp

There. Thats a legal submission to his request. I know that its not what he wanted but he didnt tell us what he wanted.

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 11:59 am:

Though I'm not big in this sphere, I agree with WD on this one. There's something to be gained from providing information like this. If constructive debate can be started regarding possibilities and combinations, you're more likely to get an interesting and creative product. This is sort of what happens when someone posts their already-invented framework for a deck, and people make suggestions. But perhaps less initial detail can also lead to more solutions. Perhaps the challenge here is to build a deck from scratch- without a preconceived idea in mind first.

In fact, it might be a good exercise, a bit like JG's Create a Card challenges.

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 12:40 pm:

Ok, first of all, to those who were bashing me, sorry, this is my first time in a forum like this. Also, I am kinda new to the internet. I just got my cpu about 4 months ago. I am a member of starcitygames but all I could find were decks using the power nine and I don't have access to those cards. I just remember playing a guy in a tournament back in the day and he beat me. I was looking around on the internet and found this page. I thought maybe you guys would be able to give me a framework. Next time I'll put something together first. Thanks Darkman, you're ideas will definately be used.....and when a cat runs away, it will generally find it's way back on it's own when it gets hungry.....or it'll get hit by a car.

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Friday, November 24, 2006 - 01:20 pm:

All right, I have one put together. It's definately not legal in anything now, but it used to be really good. If you have any ideas on how to make it vintage legal, that would be great.
4x Necropotence
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Spinning Darkness
4x Contagion
4x Unmask
4x Duress
4x Corrupt
3x Drain Life
4x Masticore
4x Dark Ritual
21 Swamp

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Saturday, November 25, 2006 - 03:03 am:

I believe cutting Demonic Consultation from 4 to 1 and adding 3 Dwarven Ponies makes it Vintage Legal ;)

Actually, I don't have any idea what Necro decks look like these days. Don't they usually have Skirge Familiar for insane mana? (Pay all but one of your life to get cards, transform them to black mana, cast Drain Life, rinse, repeat, or something like that.)

I guess adding some Tutors (Vampiric and Demonic) can't hurt, and since you have something of a life gain theme in there, how about some Soul Spikes?

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Saturday, November 25, 2006 - 09:08 am:

I believe that a necrodeck with skirge familiar is called "TRIX" but I may be wrong. Trix is a very old concept. I believe modern decks are based

PUSCHKIN: Rules 1 & 2. Thats the conservatism I'm speaking about. How the hell is he to know what rule 1 & 2 is if he doesnt know where to find them. It's the tribal pattern that has been developed here that are showing their ugly faces.
People develope defence-mechanisms to protect their societies. This place is small numbered on members compared to outside forums. And it's very hostile to newcommers...

We will all be steamrolled one day by the lack of social developement in this place...

I believe that this pattern has been psychologically nurtured by magic. It's all about paranoid wizards battling each others, forming groups against each other. The game is based on a "there can be only one" principle.
Think of how MUD's cooperate, and how they create great social events. We have this too but to a minimal of what we actually could make.
And it's not just this place. Magic is not a game that screams cooperation out loud. But if we want to survive as gamers and forumers we have to be cooperative. It's "IN" these days.

The key is communication...

BILLTHEPIRATE was communicating one thing with his first post "I am a person, I need help, from anyone of you" He is telling us that he needs help. The fact that he tells it in here, should tell you that he values the oppinions of people in here. He reached out...

How many have been deflected by the "You must bring us sacrifice" attitude ???

The legends that exists in magic today have all had to start somewhere. If we turn down every single cry for help we migth turn down someone who becomes a master in his/her own way...

Do not look at outsiders as intruders. Look at them as investments. You invest 5-10 minutes of your life. In return you mostly will recieve nothing, but sometimes that investment will pay of. I remembered you PUSCHKIN, and that's the sole reason why I am actually here. I may not have been your investment but I am certainly paying of...

BILLTHEPIRATE:

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Saturday, November 25, 2006 - 01:32 pm:

Tutor's sound good. That would solve my problem of restriction on potence. Also, I like the Soul spike. I'd never heard of it before. I haven't bought cards since Dissension. I also didn't realize that consultation was restricted. Thanks for the help. Maybe I'll take a look at some of the newer sets for replacements.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Sunday, November 26, 2006 - 06:49 am:

WD:
You absolutely miss the point. Obviously you haven't been around here for long ...

First of all, Phyrexia IS a small community and never WANTED to be more! This place is like it is exactly BECAUSE only the strange, tough and flexible people survive the "firewall" at the front. But each new member that doesn't run away at the first hint of problems has very good chances of becoming part of that community AND adding his own spice and twist to it.

See, when I arrived here, things were really harsh and much more like you described. The gang around Pac, Tiger, Poo & Co pretty much flamed away everyone. But in small communities, everysingle person can have impact. With the help of BWM, Apprentice, Kafir and others we turned this into a place where you can actually dicuss decks and get some help. But this is still Phyrexia! That means it is "self-gouverned", anarchistic, weird, moody, sluggish.

We did help alot but over the years you get experience in seperating the "wrong" guys/posts from the "right" ones. How many times did we give very good support and suggestions on sloppy posts and didn't ever get anything back?
We do have some kind of established "formula" or "pattern" how to treat news although its not written up anywhere. Its not in any way unsocial although it may seem to you this way. In fact its very educational and pedagogical. And someone who is turned down and leaves for the critique we gave is certainly not Phyrexia material and go to mgt.com or whatever.

You also don't have to tell me about the 5-10 minutes spending and "investing" in newts. I have done this for almost my entire Magic Career. Not just here, also on The Mana Drain (as moderator), Die Zusammenkunft (ZK), MtG Craft and many others. It's not that much about "getting something back". I was disappointed many times, yes, but i also got much back from individuals, including members of this place. No, it's more about the very method of giving advice. I have given so much of advice on so many levels that I do know now what works and what doesn't work, what will be a short issue and what will drag out forever. And the rule is very simple: The more input, instructions, limitations and explanations I got from the guy that is seeking for help, the better and on-par my advice will be!

This doesn't even have anything to do anything with creativity as Sqeeman said. "I want a Necrodeck" simply isn't enough to start anything. Explicitly BECAUSE I can be very creative. My creativesness needs some boundaries to work within or I'll go way off-topic because I would just build a deck fitting all MY personal tastess.
If I just knew one or two variants of Necro I would post it and thats it. And IF he really hadn't any clue what to do about it and which direction it should go, then he should have stated that for heaven's sake!

argh, its so hard to explain and we've gone through this time and again, I am tired of it. All I can say is: You, Sir, are relatively new to this site as well and still don't know the history nor the way how it goes here nor the reasons that are behind this. Fast Forward a year or two and you might admit that your critique was uncalled for. Too bad that you can't check our old posts of Deckhelp (second sphere is usually the first sphere to be sephed) to verify what I said.

---

Quote:

But if we want to survive as gamers and forumers we have to be cooperative. It's "IN" these days.

The key is communication...

---

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Sunday, November 26, 2006 - 05:46 pm:

Puschkin: This deck will be for 1-on-1 play. Hymn to Tourach is definately better. I'm actually playing in a varied environment. I play with alot of people who like to change what they're playing from week to week, so I have to be ready for anything. Nevinyrral's Disk had crossed my mind but I see more aggro decks than anything, so I think I'm gonna throw a couple in sideboard. I hadn't even thought of phyrexian Arena, but it could be used. What do you think of Havoc Demon? With Cabal Coffers I could easily ramp up the mana to cast it quickly. So far I've got:
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth's Bargain
2x Phyrexian Arena
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Diabolic Tutor?
4x Spinning Darkness
4x Contagion
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Duress
2x Nevinyrall's Disk
1x Sol Ring
4x Drain Life
4x Havoc Demon?
4x Dark Ritual
16x Swamp
4x Cabal Coffers
1x Strip Mine

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 03:43 am:

PUSCHKIN: So I'm young and innocent!!!
You have tired a bit on explaining this for the yadda yadda time, so if the whole shebang was readable somewhere you could save a lot of time
If phyrexia wants to be hostile, so be it. But even hostility has to evolve sometimes.
I look on this place as one guild out of many, and when guilds cooperate they get their common goals running. Do we interact with other guilds? (appart from spamming!).
And come to think of it, the system can be level-based...
All spheres could be locked down except for the first sphere. (members will have access to the other parts.)

1st sphere: Welcomming area, newbie's can chat and wonder what phyrexia is all about. This place will crawl with lost puppies (No I'm no longer a lost puppy), and noone would really know what was going on.

2nd sphere: Here people are initiated into what phyrexia is REALLY about, they have been promoted by people from 3rd sphere who has noticed a special talent, personality or yadda yadda in an individual and given the person acces to 2nd. (by three or more phyrexians saying "we need this one")

Repeat with accesssytem/spheres... The higher the level, the more phyrexians has to say YAY!!!

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 04:17 am:

Billthepirate:

Diabolical Tutor is too slow, I'd cut it or replace with Spoils of the Vault (Mirrodin).

Havoc Demon is nice and all but 7 mana means he'll come into play way too late. Since you DO play against so much aggro, you should keep at least one of the Masticores (one you can tutor for!). Kokusho, the Evening Star is also a nice addition. It's another drain effect and it doesn't matter if the opponent is able to get rid of it. 6 mana may still be too expensive, though. But it definately fits the theme, replaces one of the Corrupts and can be your casual touch
still 2 slots to fill in the "Bigone" bracket. Seizan, Perverter of Truth fits in nicely but suffers from the problem that all of the opposing creature removal will concentrate on him ... (Masticore regenerates and Kokusho wants to die)

4 Cabal Coffers is too much, you don't want to draw more than one and you don't need them in the opening hand, also 16 Swamps is dangerously low to run Coffers effectively. I'd switch to 18 Swamps + 2 Coffers.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 04:26 am:

Wicked Darkman:

---

Quote:

You have tired a bit on explaining this for the yadda yadda time, so if the whole shebang was readable somewhere you could save a lot of time

---

By Dark Lord (Apprentice) on Monday, November 27, 2006 - 01:34 pm:

Puschkin, I put your post on the bottom of the Second Sphere and also linked you here. If you object to any od that (i doubt you will) I will certainly ammend it for you. All in all I thought it was an excellent guide, and I agree on each standard. Good work.

As to the necro deck:

It s clear that you do not know how to use our search format (called Keyword in the sdebar) because you could have seen my own decks in different varieties to get some groundwork. I did put alot of time and energy into these decks, so use them with the knowledge that the ideas come from us, Phyrexians.

One of them is linked here:

http://www.phyrexia.com/forum/messages/6/7661.html?

the text f it is:

MBC

Lands 22

16 Swamp
4 Cabal Coffers
1 Thawing Glaciers
R Strip Mine

Creatures: 4

4 Nantuko Shade

Utility 15

1 Zuran Orb
2 Ivory Tower
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach

Draw 3

R Necropetence
R Y@wgmoth's Bargain
1 Phyrexian Arena

Broken 4

R Demonic Consultation
R Demonic Tutor
R Y@wgmoth's Will
1 Mirari

The Kill 12

4 Bubbling Muck
4 Drain Life
3 Pestilence
1 Spirit of the Night (style points here)

60 Cards in total.

Card explainations:

Pestilence + Nantuko??

Yes, Nantuko Shade is good when there are larger critters running around but does not detract from Pestilence's ability to kill weenies. You have to pay twice as much, but it keeps both Pestilence and 'tuko on the board for another turn, while wiping all the weenies.

Thawing Glaciers + Zuran Orb:

It gets lots of lands out which feeds Cabal Coffers and Bubbling Muck. Then I can float all black mana, sac the lands to Zuran Orb and do massive amounts of damage with a Pestilence and come out with positive life.

Demonic Consultation:

No Vampiric, so I use this only to fetch a Bubbling Muck or Cabal Coffer or another 4-of.

Bargain/Necro/ Phyrexian Arena + Ivory Tower/Drain Life:

I may abuse the Necro/Bargain/Tower combo to draw lots of cards and gain lots of life, and then Drain Life. Or, I could do a major Drain Life, then blow it on Necro/Bargain. Either way my combo works out. Phyrexia Arena is just a steady draw or a way to negate Necro/Bargain if need be.

Of course that was an early version.

Other links will be:

http://www.phyrexia.com/forum/messages/6/8023.html?

These again are only a few was to make decks including Ncropotence. These are not intended for you to netdeck. But you may get some nsight as to some strategy.

-Apprentice

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 03:59 am:

PUSCHKIN: Nice and detailed, but too big to stand at the top of the forum... (I GUESS)
By the way, SQUEEMAN has probably been here longer than me, did you mean BILLTHEPIRATE ???
Also, illusion/donate was indeed a very powerfull deck until someone clever discovered that you could kill the donator with a welltimed disenchant because of the stack...

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 04:55 am:

And that's where Force of Whale comes in. (

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 05:15 am:

Yes unless the guy with the disenchant also has force. But then the first guy has another force, but the second guy also has two forces, and then it turns out that since there are a lot of if's involved in this the question is "why did trix stop being a good deck, after someone found out that disenchant in the wrong hands are deadly???"
Fact: Trix is not being played by pro's anymore.
Fact: The "reverse disenchant kill" MAY be responsible...
Fiction: The use of dwarven ponies in many decks caused temporary insanity in trixplayers resulting in a mass-abbandon of the deck. Now trix is just waiting to be picked up by players immune to the sigth of dwarven pony. Players like you PSYCHO... Believe me it's true...

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Tuesday, November 28, 2006 - 06:35 am:

About Squeeman:
No, I meant Squeeman. Because he jumped the train of "don't scare away noobs" and "you are stagnant and lazy". He may be longer here than you and iirc longer than me, but he is a story-guy. So I explained the stuff to you AND him.

About the guide and it's length:
It may be long, yes, but if you look closely at it, once you understood it, the summarization is all you need. The explanations are optional and even those have two parts: The explanation itself and if you still didn't get it, you can read the following example.
It was never menat to be be pinned at the top (this ghettosoftware doesn't allow that anyway). It was meant as a reference to be stored somewhere so we can link to it if necessary or quote from it. It wasn't even be meant to be used as a formula or mask that every post has to stick to ... just a tool to explain why it is so important to write a detailed initial post, to eyplain, why we are ignoring certain posts, to explain, what things we are assuming when the necessary information is missing. See, we got just ONE sphere for deckhelp but there are myriads of formats out there. Usually sites like this do have a subforum for Type II, Type I and so on. But here everything is mixed up.

About Trix and disenchant:
I prolly typed this thrice already and at least one time targetting you, WD:
The "reverse-disenchant-kill" was NOT the thing that stopped Trix. As I stated before, at that time I played aggro-control with the "free" Disenchant Abolish maindeck and Seal of Cleansing (even better against Trix than Disenchant or Abolish) and Pyroblast (can do the "reverse-kill" but also counter the Illusions, the Donate or the FoWs) in the side. I also had creatures und StP to gain life to survive the first Illusions. None of those solutions costed more than 2 mana. And I had 4 Demonic Consultations to fetch any of them. And still lost.
Dude, the reason why Trix died is so simple that you should be crying ... first they banned supporting cards Demonic Consultation or even Dark Ritual in Extended, then they restricted Necropotence in Type I and banned it Extended, end of Trix. Necropotence was and always has been the card that made decks tick, the Illusions-Donate-combo was just the best vehicle ever to spread out death but the real sick card WAS Necropotence. R&D tried and tried to deny that it is, they banned card after card that interated with Necro, they printed hosers, they printed other strong cards hoping for stronger competition, they closed their eyes ... but nothing helped.

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 04:02 am:

So it was a ban that did it. Figures. Bloody wotc. One of my oldest goals in magic is to add enough stopper-cards to deal with the problemcards to lift the worst restriction of them all. "You may use 4 of each card"...
But that is far out in the future. Currently my small goal is to get every card unrestricted, and unbanned if possible, I like the idea of ante. They should create more antecards and create antelegal tournaments...

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 05:52 am:

No way. The 4-of rule is the best of them all! Sure, it would be fun to have no limitations at all. But this would mean you have to balance each card perfectly. Even if we assume that this is possible and doable in a reasonable amount of time, even then we would have problems:
* Taking balance between cards to such a degree means that the designers will be drastically limited in their design boundaries! A great slew of cards would not be balanceable and therefore would never see print! While I am myself a big advocater of more balanced sets, your suggestion would just go too far. Cards would really start looking all the same.
* Even if everything is perfectly balanced you will still have cards that are superior to others in certain situations and/or combination with other cards and decks. There may be 20 red creatures with casting cost that are all of the exactly same powerlevel but one of them will fit YOUR deck the best because of the other card choices you made. And without the 4-of-rule you would just max out the cc2 slots with this one creature ...
At this point, the 4-of-rule isn't needed anymore for balancing reasons but it is needed for reasons of diversity and fun - it's just too boring to play with nothing but 6 different cards.

Have you ever played the Battletech TCG? Its from Wizards as well. The initial goal was to play without any restrictions. Of course they failed and some cards had to be banned. But they also introduced the limit-to-4-of-rule simply because games were too boring otherwise. FOr example, the Mongoose was the most efficient "weenie" if you played a certain combination of two assets (thats compareable to the colours in Magic). All decks that ran these "colours" had 20 or so of this 'Mech. It was extremely boring. The thing is, the card itself was balanced. (the closest ting to compare with would be Kird Ape).

I love the 4-of-rule and I am also a big fan of highlander formats. In those formats, you are forced to play with cards that you don't play with normally. Of course there are cards that don't make any sense if you can have just one copy of it, but generally speaking, the limitation of 4 is very healthy for Magic and a good compromise between degenerate decks and over-balancing.

Ante never worked to stop that. The theory and intent was great, though. The idea was that the system will balance itself since using good(=expensive) cards helps you win but also puts you at a higher risk of losing valuable cards.

Well, this approach didn't work out for several reasons.
* The most important is: "value in money = play value" just isn't true! Cards can be expensive for so many other reasons, most importantly rarity, but also including hype factors, style, fun in multiplayer, art and so on.
* While playing for ante, people tended to build decks that are completely worthless. If your deck is completely worthless, you might not win often but you have nothing to lose.
* It adds to the tension, to the bad side of it. Losing a game is already hard to take for many people, but losing real money at the same time just takes the fun out of it and people get angry.
* Troubles with the law. Some countries consider this gambling.
* The luck involved. Both players have valuable cards in the deck but one cutt the deck and a 300 dollar card is put to the ante, the other cuts a basic land ...
* Cards from a certain value and up would not be played anymore, putting you to yet more limitations.
* It's possible to run into "dead ends" with lousy card pools where you can't make decks good enough to win better cards.
* Games are altered. They start to bargain "if you give up now, I'll trade that Mox back to you for cheap". Thats not how tournaments should be decided.
* The Antecards are all broken by definition. There are two types of antecards, a) cards that have powerful effects but you have to put up anotehr cars for ante to balance the extra power (Contract from Below) and b) cards that alter/swap/manipulate the cards that have already been put up to ante (Jewelled Bird).
A type of cards will end up in combodecks only and are only played if that assures the win, chances that the additional ante card will change ownership are very slim. And b) type of cards spoil the very essence of the ante idea: If you play with powercards, the opponent should have the chance to get them.

Although I am rambling and critisizing, please note that I am basically with you!
I am all for balanced sets and cards just not to the extreme. I once started a project of my own where I altered all existing cards to my personal taste, creating something as a balanced environment, wehre all card can be played without bans or restrictions (but the 4-of-rule would still be in effect). I got stuck somewhere in the middle of Legends.
And Ante IS fascinating, the evolutional aspect of it, but it's just not practical. I like the basic idea but personally never played a game of ante except for the one special Chaos-Ante-Tournament that I organized for one of my birthdays.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:02 am:

I guess the Ripple Shock would be quite broken if you played 40 of it

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:20 am:

Yeah, or the dredge cards;)

Thats what I mean, the Ripple mechanic would not be possible without the limitation of four, it would also mean that tutors and cards like Sylvan Librabry would be useless. But those cards are the ones that make games and deckbuilding interesting, they are the ones where you need skill to make the right descisions, both in deckbuilding and playing.

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:39 am:

I really belive that cards can be made to counter the bad effects of unrestricting 4 of all. I have previous made cards like this:

Towards chaos: GG
sorcery.
This spell cannot be countered.
look through target opponents deck and remove from the game all cards that there is exactly four of in the deck.
(In the unrestricted environment it would of course be "that there is more than four of")

Towards cosmos: WW
sorcery.
This spell cannot be countered.
Look through target opponents deck and remove from the game all cards that there is exactly 1 of in the deck.

planeswalker apprentice: 2U.

If an opponent cast a spell with a converted manacost of 1 or lower
you may reveal *this* from your hand, shuffle it into your deck and draw a card. if you do, counter that spell.

2/2.

This little baby is part of a cycle mechanic I call "Reveal and Reshuffle" you reveal these cards and then shuffle them into your deck to gain an effect then draw a card... They must all be reactive at something opponent does or they will be too powerfull. Its cards like these that can stop all powerdecks...
-------------------------------------------------
It really shouldnt be hard to make cards that stopped huge quantities of powercards...
Trust me, I'm really working on it

If I ever get my hands inside wotc...

I had so much hope in JESTERGOBLIN but somehow I knew he would fail, mostly because I belive that powerfull forces are trying to stop my weird ideas, but thats just paranoia's again...

I am really serious about the koala's...

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:47 am:

Oh, and just to make a totally new one...

High spirits 4W
Creature - faeries
flying.

You may remove this from your hand
to out of the game: gain 1 life, then search
your library for a copy of this and put it
into your hand. then shuffle your library.

1/1.

The general idea is that you can really gain some life and thin out your deck at the same time, but then you will only have a handfull of combo left in your deck. And I have many solutions to stop decks like that...

By Bwm Wil Mindctrl (Bwm) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 09:54 am:

This little baby is part of a cycle mechanic I call "Reveal and Reshuffle" you reveal these cards and then shuffle them into your deck to gain an effect then draw a card... They must all be reactive at something opponent does or they will be too powerfull. Its cards like these that can stop all powerdecks...

not draw a card too, it's already good enough

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 10:34 am:

They have a huge drawback of being reactive...
If you want to stop almost every know deck, you will have to play with nothing but these kinds of cards. Then the rogue decks TWACK you into submission and beyond... They are only stoppers, a sort of harmless keycards that will destroy keydecks that makes trouble for the game...

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 10:39 am:

You cannot remedy everything with printing hoser cards. How often do I have to tell you this?
Why? Simple, because you just have 60 + 15 slots in your deck, you can't prepare for everything out there. At some point, your deck is nothing but hosers and has no "real" cards anymore ...

In the end, nobody cares about those cards. Look at the Ripple example. All I need is 2 red mana and one of my about 40 Ripple-Shocks in my deck to win the game. You have "Total Chaos" in your deck. If you play it against me, you win. Even if you have it in every starting hand, our games would be evenly split 50-50. But that would require you to have at least 20 Total Chaos in your deck. The thing is, I win against any opponent once I can play my spell. But you lose against any opponent that does not run more than 4 of one spell.

And thats just this. You said that everything can be balanced by printig hoser cards, well, think of it, you'll need Total Chaos, you'll need your Martyrs of Korlis to stop Tendrils , you'll need your whateveryouinventedtostoppowerninecards and so on and so on ... Sure, if everybody plays Tendrils, you could win the day with Martyrs. But everybody who leaves out the hoser cards and concentrates on one of the broken ways to victory has a consistent way to win against everything except X while you can only win if you are prepared to meet X. Since theres not just X and Y, you are on the losing side. if you are "prepared" for everyting tehre is, you can't win the game anymore and won't be able to stop any of those you are prepared for because you have only 2 or 3 cards each to stop them.

But as always, you are so obsessed with evolutional stuff that won't be able to see that. The 4-of-limit really opens up deck varity, it does not limit it. Please explain to me how such narrow cards that you invented (cards that eitehr do nothing or ruin the game for one of the two players) will be able to create a better environment!? And please try to explain how they are able to counteract the two bad influences that I stated that a balanced but unrestricted environment would have ...

BTW, there are already tons of cards that punish players for having more than one copy of each card! Haunting Echoes, Eye of Singularity, Leyline of Singularity, Suleiman's Legacy, Quash, Splinter, Eradicate, Sowing Salt, Scour, Bazaar of Wonders, Meddling Mage, Null Chamber, Cabal Therapy ... and I bet there are many more among the newer ones.
And trust my, none of those ever stopped anyone from building redundnat decks ... redundancy is so important for victory, you should know that. Single cards that hose redundancy but keep your self from being redundant will never make the day.

By Dark Lord (Apprentice) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 11:12 am:

I like the limitation of 4 cards per deck. Also, one of your examples would wipe away all lands... not what you want.

What about:

Jelousy of the N00b
B-Instant
Remove any restricted card from an opponent's library from the game.

And if this is too powerful, it is easily balanced by restricting it.

I possibly see a future of magic that had no restrictions, but a limit of 4 cards per deck.

-Apprentice

-Apprentice

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 11:21 am:

I am confused by your wording, does that mean "all restricted cards" or just "any one restricted card"?

If its the first one, it will soon be restricted itself, resulting into a situation where whoever goes first will win. If its the latter, Extract is in about 95% of all situations better (in Type I that is)

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 12:26 pm:

PUSCHKIN: OKAY. compare these two quotes:

"You cannot remedy everything with printing hoser cards. How often do I have to tell you this?"

"If you want to stop almost every know deck, you will have to play with nothing but these kinds of cards. Then the rogue decks TWACK you into submission and beyond..."

We are saying the same thing... I just use about doubly as many words...

But... No hoser can hose all existing magiccards.
However, if enough cards are hosed (keycards) decks will be forced into different types, creating another deckscape. Have I posted the pyramid shape of old cardsets??? I was planning to post a post about the critical mass of magic and how the game will reach a point where you wont need to buy new cards because all solutions to any new card would be available in the past?
I dont recall posting that ??? Well that post is kinda critical for my argument so has anyone seen it or am I behind schedule???

APPRENTICE: Heh, the original was based on the restricted environment and was meant to also hit non-basic lands. I didnt think too much when I changed it to unrestricted environment...

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 12:35 pm:

I must say >4 of each=bad. I think it would be great to have all cards playable though. I don't like the ante-cards, but if you wanna play'em....feel free. I've got way too many expensive cards to be dealing with that crap.

By Dark Lord (Apprentice) on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 - 07:25 pm:

Actually, it meant the second wording. Extract is much better, but I can revise it-

Covetous Charm
B-Instant
Choose one- You may remove any two restricted cards from a player's deck from the game OR you may destroy any one restricted card in play. That card may not be regenerated.

-Apprentice

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Thursday, November 30, 2006 - 03:27 am:

Hey the day colossus get res. I want to kick it with that card. Make it remove from the game on the second part too.

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Thursday, November 30, 2006 - 07:42 am:

Naah, there's only one beauty who is allowed to TWACK colossus, and that's Shauku!

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Saturday, December 02, 2006 - 06:33 am:

Swords to Plowshares? Hmm. Someone should find a way to turn instants and sorceries into creatures.

The only newcomers I'm in favor of THWACKing are those who believe they know everything and tell people things rather than ask or discuss. Of course, as an old timer, it's kinda hard to avoid those exact patterns.

I defer to most other people's wisdom in this sphere, but I still don't think that someone who says "I just got four Acidic Daggers and I think they'd make a great basis for an aggressive deck" should quite cause a "Think about it for a minute, you fool!" reaction.

Maybe I'm too nice, but then if I wasn't, what kind of goblin superhero would I be?

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Saturday, December 02, 2006 - 12:14 pm:

In unrelated news, today I got a foil Timshifted Eron the Relentess. While it is not my favorite catch of the day, I have this to say for it: it looks bad ass. Eron's eyes - always merely creepy before - are nuts in foil.

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 - 04:04 am:

BILLTHEPIRATE: Did you win ???

PUSCHKIN: Maybe you were rigth, he was invited inside too easy... I feel a bit responsible. Maybe I should adopt him like a pet, and I could call him spot and let him lick my shoes...

SQUEEMAN: I QUOTE PUSCHKIN: "About Squeeman:" ... "Because he jumped the train of "don't scare away noobs" and "you are stagnant and lazy"." He insulted you. Should we gang up on him ???

By Homelands Bookie (Psycho) on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 - 08:52 am:

Mee gots teh RSI's!!

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Thursday, December 07, 2006 - 12:31 am:

Nah, Puschkin doesn't try to shoot ME down every time I say something.

By William Shinol (Billthepirate) on Thursday, December 07, 2006 - 03:02 am:

Actually, I haven't even got to play the deck yet. I've been working alot of hours due to the holidays and haven't had time. I haven't even been on the net much. I'll let you know when I do though.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, December 07, 2006 - 04:11 am:

I also "shoot down" him, I just point out the flaws or possible dangers. If I didn't, he would get lost in his own labyrinth of projects and theories (he needs some kind of counterweight ;) ) and we wouldn't have such nice discussions. Our views may be contrary but not our goals, interests and passions. Constellations like this can be very fertile.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, December 07, 2006 - 04:18 am:

theres a "don't" missing in the first sentence after "also"

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Friday, December 08, 2006 - 03:49 am:

PUSCHKIN: Labyrinth of projects and theories... I like that (I'm 109kg meat and 1kg brain, so counterweighing that you should be 109kg brain and 1kg meat ;))

GOALS: World domination.
INTERESTS: Evolution.
PASSIONS: Nasty women.

Did you mention fertility???

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Friday, December 08, 2006 - 06:57 pm:

Shh, Puschkin, I'm just bitter because he didn't accidentally eat a Volvo.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Saturday, December 09, 2006 - 05:33 am:

If it's an older Volvo, it's impossible to eat. Those are like tanks. If it hits a Käfer or Polo, you'll have Volvo with some scratchd varnish and a small package of scrap metal.

By Wicked Darkman (Wickeddarkman) on Saturday, December 09, 2006 - 07:27 am:

So what are you goals, interrests, passions ???

By Squeeman (Squeeman) on Sunday, December 10, 2006 - 01:38 pm:

If you hit someone with a Volvo, they'll go to the grave with a dent shaped like the male symbol forever embedded in their skin.