When Rule Zero Fails at a Standard Tournament | MTGGoldfish Podcast  

It's also important to note that the player that backed out of the deal was the same player who suggested the deal in the first place. I feel this is important because it tells me he would've been upset if his opponent did the same. He was only gonna like this deal as long as it's beneficial to him

I think Unfinity's big problem is that instead of just cutting stickers they tried to underpower the set, leading to a bunch of forgettable cards and a couple stand-outs that stuck out like sore thumbs. When you read the design articles about Unfinity, they literally were playing with different physical stickers than in the set so by the time they actually saw the technology it was too late. There was a real chance this could've been a modern horizons type set with cards people want to play with and mechanics that weren't a hassle.

all that glitters in pauper (which is a slower and much grindier format) is the equivalent of a Ragavan style card. If you can answer it it's no big deal, but if you dont it finishes the game on the spot, and that is not what pauper is suposed to be. Remember that artifact lands are legal in pauper, there are 8 thraven inspector, and there are all sort of affinity cards running free, so all that glitters was a bit out of control forcing holding removal at all times

In a casual setting, you can whip your phone out and ask scryfall to generate a random sticker card or attraction. That can't happen in a WotC-sanctioned tournament.

I saw the ATG banning coming, especially after boros syn started running it. Just cannot tap out and must have removal at all times with that card or it's game over.

The frustrating thing is was so obvious that unfinity cards being tournament legal was a bad idea that obviously people in wizards brought it up but Maro just haaaaaaad to try and push the limits in a way that made no sense anyway. I thought unfinity could have been nice on its own, but people hate it specifically because it was tournament legal

So something that was missed with the heist mechanic. It doesn't COPY the card, it EXILES the card. So when you heist someone that card is straight up gone from their deck. I think that's why people are freaking out.

On the subject of backing out of deals: I was once in a draft against a famously slow player. Round 1 I flood out he wins , round two I steam roll. We start round 3 and I notice it's close to time. I propose that since the winner gets 2 packs but if we draw it's 1 each so it would be beneficial if whoever is behind scoops if we go to time so one of us can get an extra pack. Dude agrees. We had maybe 15 minutes total for round 3. We make it to turn 4 and dude goes "sorry man I gotta go grab my pizza" . So in my mind I'm like he's gunna scoop anyways because I'm ahead no big deal. He comes back a min before time and refuses to scoop.

In our cEdh group we ruled it this way : If any effects makes it so that you need a sticker the OWNER of the card must provide you with a way to deal with it. Which in practices means he just lends you is own stickers sheets most of the time and you build your 3 based on that.

Wait, the goblins thumbs up and hearts ISN'T their power and toughness? I assumed that represents their stat lines?

"there is no way to make this legal in commander but not vintage" just write it on the card with a silver border "this card can be played in commander" or something honestly I dont think people would raise pitchforks more than the acorn mess caused instead.

If they made unfinity silver bordered and practically gave it away at cost then people that are magic-curious would have a way to get into playing magic with a manageable card pool and a fun, silly vibe that isn't hyper-competitive and hyper-optimized (which is what commander has become, except with extra hidden rules about not being too competitive or too optimized). Instead, they try to monetize every product to death and end up damaging the long term health of the game, and its so patently obviously pure greed.

I enjoyed the Un sets but I agree they're not really needed anymore. They're perfectly happy going super silly in the main sets and the same with experimenting with mechanics.

I really don't like the rule that whoever has more life wins if the game goes to time. Life is a resource and that would mean you'll get punished for using it. If you cracked a fetch, played a shockland, or decided not to block an attack to gain information, you'll lose. Someone who is playing a deaths show deck could be ahead on the board but have a low life total because that's the point

Everything Miku sold out before I even knew it was dropped. What the actual fuck man!!??

I have always hated intentional drawing of games. One solution to prevent gaming the out of time deciders. What ever you choose to use is to use a point system. 2 points for win without going to time 1 point for win from going to time and 0 points for loss.

Perfect timing for the 5 am podcast 😄 (I already listened on the website)

I play a fair bit of cEDH so can say The Unset is pretty much not used outside of three cards in Mind Goblin, Saw in Half(combos well with Dualcaster and Hoarding Broodlord), and CLOWN CAR of all things but that is pretty much exclusively in Magda lists because we use it as a 0 mana tapper for dwarves.

I'd say the problem I have with Eduardo's action is that is was done in terribly bad faith. It's not like he made a silly mistake or something, they knew what they were doing... For most of human history, a man's words was so important, I don't understand why we should normalize straight up lying like that. Just because it isn't writing on a formal contract signed by both party doesn't mean you didn't give your word. In ANY situation in life, anyone acting like Eduardo did deserve to be shamed. You simply do not give your word, just to go against it when it's not convenient to you. Actual scumbag move. Also, I'm from Montréal, so if I ever meet them at an LGS, I'm not gonna trust them at all on anything, which is a shame, but that's what you get when you don't care about your word and reputation.

Best rule for textless, non-local language, old misprint etc cards would be that you must have a judge approved "rules card" with the oracle text on it.

the beginning of this is funny to me because Richard and Crim especially look really tired and half awake, and that's exactly how i feel right now too

That eldrazi in slime against humanity decks. Start of with since exiled

The biggest thing about heist is that it’s 3 nonlands. In Grave expectation’s case, it plays a lot better than you’d think, because it hits basically every deck archetype effectively assuming you’re playing it in a control deck. Against combo (the most common type of which is something with the graveyard), it can exile 3 cards from the yard. Against aggro, it gains 3 life for 1 mana, and while a healing salve isn’t great, it can be the difference between 1 and -2 life. Against a control or midrange deck, it’s a hybrid between drawing a card (which is nigh-guaranteed to be some relevant piece of interaction, given its 3 choices that are all nonland), and also removing that piece of interaction from the opponent’s deck. This lets you effectively deck thicken(?) your opponent while also getting another card to help you keep pace against them. It’s surprisingly versatile.

On the goblin secret lair I'm pretty sure the like/dislikes are power/toughness

The easy solution is to make RC record the defining factor for pro tour qualifiers. Its was originally called the X-2 method. The idea is achieving a specific record gets you a pro tour spot. These things coming down to Skynet deciding if you are good enough creates a ton of feels bad moments. The RCQs with more than 8 seats available should do it by record. What’s the purpose of limiting the Pro Tour invites? Do they have exactly 256 chairs at the venue? The arbitrary numbers don’t pass the smell test. Making the RCQ seats by record instead of top X solves all of these fringe problems.

Life is just a terrible way of determining a winner is the issue. If you have 7 cards in hand and 1 life you´re hugely favoured to win against decks that have 50 life and no cards in hand with most decks/matchups, life is a trivial resource as long as you have more than 1. We can´t have the winner of a competitive match be determined by the biggest mistake every player realises is a noob trap within a few months of starting the game... If you really want to determine the winner of the game to prevent draws entirely you either have to have the judge determine the winner using his own judgement(which would open a whole other can of worms) or introduce a new measurement, something like permanents in play + cards in hand.

Richard bringing the "archenemy talk" to the rule zero meta is such a richard thing to do.

Surprised you guys didn’t talk about the Rabiah Scale article, that’s always interesting

Crim Strawmaning people who hate Textless Cards "LUL YA'LL ARE SMART IT DOESN'T MATTER" Crim two minutes later : "I totally ran textless, mistake and other language cards to confuse my opponent"

One potential use case of Devourer of Destiny is with Ugin's Labyrinth. You get the pseudo scry and then immediately pitch it to Labyrinth to turn on the Sol land

As someone who bought nearly 100 copies of professional face breaker when capenna came out, my biggest issue with the pokerfaces secret lair is the tenth reprint facebreaker has now gotten in that set

I think if you make a deal and both players agree, it should just be officialized. No backing out. If you say ahead on board, it's determined by ahead on board.

Yes, cedh has stickers. I had to buy some and add them to my deckbox for cedh, the goblin only really gets ran in slicer and godo though.

Devourer of Destiny seems cool in Painter’s Servant in Legacy. Put in Ugin’s Labyrinth as an additional sol land that benefits from the devourer and you might have a pretty good upgraded deck.

Big sigh, I completed my order but Seedborn Muse wasn’t on my invoice as it appears to have been sold out by the time I checked out. 😢

Heist can be built around to make it pretty efficient. You're targeting your opponent so counts for crime, and there are more than a few synergies with playing cards you don't own. On top of that you get to choose what of 3 cards work best for the current situation. Broken? Not really. Annoying as hell? Oh yeah!

Speaking of tap lands, has everyone forgot about the discover lands? Those still seem pretty decent as well

With the playing card frame Magic cards...what about a QR to the Gatherer link???

The new 7+ mv eldrazi sure aren't pushed for power - but they are so thematic for my colourless eldrazi deck. Might include just for the artwork after all.

Sweaty Crim has the best thoughts on competitive! I follow the same mottos.

RE: Textless - You shouldn't be forced to constantly check your phone.

I JUST made proxies of "All that Glitters" for my pauper boggles deck as placeholders for my next CardKingdom order, lol.

I run attractions in my Mr House commander deck (it even has a few silver-bordered cards related to rolling dice) but it's never been an issue. There are usually better things to copy on the table than a 2/3 that creates an attraction. From my opinion, deals in tournament should automatically be considered collusion and DQ both players. Heck, I don't even think ID should be legal either.

I agree that just playing the game is the ideal. No deals, no IDs, play the game, that's what you signed up for. It's more about optics and modeling sportsmanship than mathing out the best angle.

Pauper player here : So many people play Glitters. The NYC pauper scene isn't massive but it is almost a given that there will be a glitters at every event.

I wish draws were determined by judges. The way it could work is players reveal their hands and step away from the table, not allowed to talk to the judge or each other unless the judge wants to clarify something. The judge makes a quick decision whether there is a determinate win for one of the players. If they cant clearly see it, they can classify it as a draw. This would handle many of the drama-causing cases where one person refuses to scoop and probably a lot where they try to make it go to time. It also incentivises pushing towards a winning board state even if the match is going to time. I've only ever gone to time once and it was at a pre-release. The last 3-4 turns my opponent clearly played fully defensive to stop himself from dying. One more turn and I would have done it. He'd also played very slowly in game 2 when he was losing, even taking 5 minutes with a judge to clarify something. The stakes were literally a booster pack for the winner and nothing for a draw (2 draws = 1 pack but it was the last match of the day and neither of us had draws). Refused to scoop, didn't say good game, just packed up his cards once the last turn was played after telling me it was a draw and that he'd logged it in the app. I tried hinting and had been nothing but friendly throughout, always patient too. It really wound me up, never have I wanted my bulk rare from a pack more.

As long as there is no explicit rules against making deals, things like that will happen, and even if there are rules, some people will find ways to avoid being caught. As soon as something becomes competitive, you will have people using all means to achieve higher rankings.

10 tapped lands is an absolutely unhinged number to play imo. There will be some games you draw your lands perfectly and only feel the value, but you have to value casting your spells on curve more than the value of any tapped lands. It is usually easy to find a turn to play one tapped land and not interrupt your game, but a high density can force you have to play under curve on multiple turns a significant percentage of games. Even late game with a lot of ramp there is usually always a use for one extra mana, you could even pay for rhystic study with it. Playing lots of fetches can help pick when those tapped lands come into play but they only help with the triomes and surveil lands. Other tapped lands always run the risk of slowing you down and the more you play the greater the risk gets. It has to reach a point where where the risk to your spells on curve and holding interaction are too great to play anymore tapped lands (or the quality/synergy of your spells is too low if you would rather be scrying 1 or something than casting them). I think 10 tapped lands is far to high for the quality and efficiency of most decks, something like 5 is far more reasonable (MDFC's don't really count towards this if you play them in a true spell slot, if its a land slot then they definitely do).

god I want stickers/attractions banned in commander too. If someone wants to rule-0 in their casual deck with them that’s okay, I just want to be able to rule 0 in my sticker/attraction decks (impossible in cedh)

As someone who loves silver border sets, I don't think we need them anymore, there's tokens in regular packs, there's full art lands in every set, there's squirrels and bunny's in regular sets, and they do joke names and joke flavor texts now. Edit: also name sticker goblin works different on modo so the faerie artisan troll wouldn't work

Devourer of Destiny with eternal scourge and food chain in a eldrazi shell with temples and the new ugin land? Use devourer to try and dig for an eternal scourge and use the infinite mana to loop eldrazi triggers?

Devoured of destiny is very good. Tron decks mul to 4 to assemble tron. This card helps dig for any missing pieces of tron and can be exiled with the new ugin labyrinth. It is very good

Back when I played tournament yugioh, I had some german cards in my deck. The expectation was, if you play with foreign language cards, you bring a copy of the official rules text from the konami database. I feel it should be the same way in magic, commander or otherwise

And how exactly does one stop deals? I mean in practical terms. I do think there are areas where rules are not to tread. And that seems beyond any reasonable measure to control.

As a Dangerous Gamer enjoyer, I think attractions are not nearly as bad as stickers. I think the main issue with attractions is bookkeeping. If they made attractions that did nothing when visited, I would play those just for the simplicity tbh.

There does not currently exist a printed copy of Honden of Infinite Rage with its correct oracle text. If people can reconcile oracle text by looking up cards, they can reconcile text less cards

Power move: Play the textless cards, explain your plays in a different language.

I made the Myra commander deck from Unfinity that makes contraptions and copies spells. The win condition is my opponents scooping from frustration with how long my turns take. Sure... maybe I could take put all of the extra turn spells... but why ruin the deck?

I still remember my first official tournament, I was SO confused when everyone started making deals, and thus, decided the top 8 before the last round was even played. I was in a position to top 8, if one of those deal makers lost their match, but since they all had draws, I didn't stand a chance. I hate this deal system, even tho My first top eight I also got in this way. But how do you say no when someone asks to do this?

Breaker of Creation seems terrible by itself, but with a lot of new cards like Echoes of Eternity and Kozilek's Unsealing, I feel like it gets a lot better than its initial showing. With echoes, two copies can hit the field, triggering 4 times the lifegain and next turn annihilator for 8. I'm kind of seeing it as similar to Ulamog's Crusher but with more protection and an ETB trigger.

As far as deals go atleast for Yu-Gi-Oh if you are found making a deal you both get a match loss for collusion

New sticker rule for stickers: if you’re bringing a sticker deck, bring 12 instead of 10 and give every player three cards from your deck

breaker of creation looks like a sweet pauper commander build.

It really bothers me what happened with the unfinity set stickers should have been counters I absolutely love the joke. Sets and I feel like what they did with this and the community reception is making me it impossible I really loved all of the mechanics in it beside stickers

Lmao, my phone screen is so cracked i didnt even notice that effect on the goblingram cards until Crim said something

56:55 didn’t they do this in the past with cards you could only get in magazines in the beginning of the game?

The goblins' 👍/👎 are their power/toughness. That's why.

Make a deal, call the judge! If someone can hold you to your deal, then this is not an issue

Crim is so right about the textless cards 🤣 mtg players love finding anything to complain about. Thank you for saying it how it is Crim

on the whole draw thing. Flesh and Blood rules it that a draw is 0 match points (like a loss) and i was told that it has 0 international draws. that would be a solution

Regarding deals. I think its impossible to remove them, but it would make the game better. Since they exist, I think Seth is right. If you break deals people wont trust you and or will try to get back on you. The reputation doesnt goes away. I've seen this happen in many LGS on casual commander. The dude who gets labaleded as a deal breaker never gets the trust of people again.

Unstable was the only silver border set that was any good, was actually fun to play. Unfinity was a complete failure on all fronts but the lands. They also killed one of the big things Un-sets had, which was great full art basics.

About the textless cards, i do se an issue with them, but on the other hand.. on the competitive side, you could argue it can be done with cards in other languages like Crim did, and on the casual side, you can ask and most people won't be an ass about it if you're all playing for fun (that and personally, when i play casually cards with too much text are basically textless, i'm not reading questing beast, if you say i can't block it i'll take your word for it).

I'd consider Devourer of Destiny in Tron with how good that new Rangeling land is, not to mention it's not that card to cast in that deck

The solution to deals/draws in matches is super easy: Draws are worth zero points.

Glitters was very dominant in Pauper in Affinity shells so honestly its good it was banned.

I feel like, the whole thing about an opponent with a morph needs to present stickers is silly. The easy fix is you just make the person with the sticker mechanic in their deck bring two matching sticker decks to the tourney and present the second to their opponent to use each game. The onus should just be on whoever is bringing the mechanic. DQ them if they don't.

They should do an all-text secret layer where they drop the art just to troll the people that doesn't like text-less card. It will probably never happen tho since sweet art is what sells magic cards and secret layers in particular

If draw wins were based on life total, resources, and cards in library, it would be sub-optimal to even consider playing a mill strategy.

Unsets are maros "no, it's the children that are wrong" issue.

I love un sets. I think they could still make them on rare occasion. The problem is they focused too much on making them Playable cards. People love unglued and unhinged and those use the silly voices, dancing, confetti, cheatyface... the cards need to be Nonsense to be fun. Nowadays they consider much of that to be 'dexterity' cards and won't make them. Unfinity and unsanctioned are just fully playable sets with puns. They're not FUN

Thanks to my collection, the only tapped lands I ever play in EDH are triomes, MDFC’s, or synergies (temples in Scry Matters). I legitimately believe replacing most of the bad duals in precons with basics improves them. I tried it with the Warhammer and Lord of the Rings precons I keep for precon battles and pretty much each of them (the mono black Warhammer deck besides) play without being a turn behind. Plus new players need to read less.

Devourer: Finds a Tron land, pitches to new ugin's labyrinth, exiles a permanent on cast, and exiles artifacts for little Karn.

If they made serialized unique cards, then people would just proxy them. I'm very happy with my 2 of 1 The One Ring.

25:01 anti textless arguments should also apply to old cards

the irony of Maro wanting to make Un cards playable meanwhile WOTC is like "wait we didnt actually think anyone would play these:

Ironically, "the jokes from silver border sets are just in black border" is literally the logic that lead to Unfinity.

Regarding RC Montreal, I feel Edouardo should have kept his word and karma will make him pay even more than his 13th place finish! It's a shame... I actually played against him day one and I felt he was fair. We were in the draw bracket and he really didn't want to draw again, so he was playing aggressively fast. After winning a quite long game one, he kept playing really fast in game two even though it wasn't to his advantage anymore. Standard can be a slow format these days with analyst combo, 4c legend, domain and control. There were rounds that went over 20 minutes for the 5 turns. Also, the way we get paired with same results makes it that people who drew a round always play with other people with draws. So more chances to make more draws! I even played a pro in day 2 that intentionally drew a mirror in day one because they felt their bant toxic deck had better matchups in the draw bracket!

My take on taking deals is that any dealmaking is anticompetitive at best and matchfixing at worst. It should be illegal. Look at how Chess handles it, and equate Pro Tour to being granted grandmastery. There have been multiple, multiple accounts of young players' rich parents ensuring their kids can spam certain tournaments for GM norms, for instance.

I don't think they'll ever do serialized mechanically unique cards. Take Nalathni Dragon, essentially a mechanically unique card for a convention. Backlash was so bad it's never been done again. Serialized would be this problem on steroids..

Also, isn’t the likes/dislikes the power and toughness of the cards? I think that’s what it is and why the likes/dislikes are so low

If the card has more than one line of text it needs text. Swords to plowshares and lightning bolt fine, cryptic command and rankle nah.

Hahaha the textless counterspell deck with lier. Completely relying on your opponent not knowing what lier does.

In cedh Mind Goblin is not problematic as now, but it can totally be problematic because its literally a slightly shittier but very playable dockside, and cloning docksides IS a mainstay of the format. I would like it to be banned before it becomes a thing. Its not like its adding anything super important and having to get stickers is a pain in the ass. I dont think all stickers and attractions should be banned from commander in general. But Mind Goblin for sure, as thats the only one that will cause isssues in cedh. I like unsets. They allow for experimental mechanics that wouldnt be otherwise printed. Sure stickers failed cataclysmically, and we get stuff like Holy Cow in black border, but sometimes fun cards get made because they were in unsets (like good ol barren glory). Just make them silver border and there.

Devourer of Destiny will see play, I'm sure of it. Just waiting for the other Eldrazi spoilers

Does Breaker of Creation count all of your lands too? That seems like a lot of life!

The Eduardo situation is just scummy. But, I agree there shouldn't be agreements in the first place. Play the game and try to win. Weird, don't have to worry about whether someone backed out on their "what if" agreements then.

Deals like a prize split, which arent meant to effect who wins or loses, are totally fine though. Making a deal about how the game might end is foolish

The likes one the goblin one are the power toughness

Poker faces should have chosen a variety of mana values