#monday blog | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inventors-fair · 9 months

Text

Limited Experiences, Archetypes, and How a Little Madness will Get You Nowhere or Everywhere

Folks, I don't play Arena and I don't have a MODO account. I've drawn tokens and borrowed dice. My experiences in MTG have been weird to say the least and I've been playing since before I needed to shave regularly. Which I still don't.

But part of Magic's versatility is the ability to go hog wild with the card that you pick as long as you're doing something fun. I draft a lot with my students when we can, and I get to see the kinds of decks that they play as well. Back in Shadows over Innistrad, I was fascinated with a student's Jeskai Aggro build; he's still playing at the LGS whenever he can, with a real job and everything. When we drafted Streets of New Capenna, one student played BW Elspeth and another swung Temur, of all things. You don't have to be normal about anything.

I'm far from normal in my constructed designs, so I'll admit to being caught by the bug; my competitive Pioneer decks are a homebrew Mono-White Weenies deck that still runs Brimaz, and a Mono-Red Skredless Skred Karnfires pile of nonsense that baffles the Spikes right before they beat me (or get Glorybringer'd). And yet, when I draft, normalcy abounds. The big cards are big, and the other cards are... Well, sometimes control works. Sometimes.

I'm going to go through the four most recent standard sets and talk about their archetypes, my experiences, and whether or not weirdness is permitted. Hopefully this will encourage you to go back and find a bit of weirdness yourself. Or not. But whatever you make for this week, it has to capture something that'll make us feel again. Don't let me down—but how can you? You're an Inventor.

Let's start most recently...

MARCH OF THE MACHINE

As many folks have heard me crow about already, I won our LGS's March of the Machine store championship. The deck was greedy, swingy, and the legends really tore the deck apart with their power level. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite was and is a very powerful card. The limited archetypes were:

WU Knights

UB Instants/Sorceries/Recursion

BR Sacrifice

RG Battles

GW +1/+1 Counters

WB Incubate/Phyrexians

BG Incubate/Phyrexians

GU DFCs

UR Convoke

RW Backup

An abundance of mana-fixing ensured that the three/four/five-color decks could have fun on their own, and the wedge legends encouraged that as well if you could pick them up. The inclusion of Yarok and Atraxa were rare, but also pushed for a little bit of green-oriented power there.

As you can see, two archetypes (Battles & Backup) pushed for the newest set mechanics. Personally? I never tried them. Backup was best used wherever the aggro happened on its own, and Battles were better in the grindier colors and/or as bombs for other archetypes when necessary.

Grinding out fliers was usually the way to go. I don't have many fond memories of drafting this set, not in the same way I do with other sets. The mechanics were great, and Battles were surprisingly fun, but coming out on top felt less about who was the better player and more who could draw into the uninteractive over-the-top synergy first.

When things got good, things got GREAT. I stared down an amazing five-color Alara pile once that blew me out of the water, and knights had a heck of a time. But sealed... Sealed was amazing. Even the prerelease (which I missed winning by a hair) had amazing moments. The decks could pack all their iconic characteristics into one mashup and it felt like assembly of a monument, less haphazard and more genuinely epic. What does it say that a set feels more cohesive the less control you have over what you pick from it?

At least the Incubate mechanics were awesome all around. It synergized with Phyrexian typal, +1/+1 counters, and the transformation theme. I'd put Incubate as my favorite mechanic and archetype.

WEIRDNESS CONCLUSION: You had to get weird with this format, but even the weirdness didn't feel good because the biggest cards like Ghalta and Chandra performed regardless of their archetype. It was both cluttered and samey at the same time. Weirdness failed to find the good-feeling spot.

Best you could do was the five-color pile, and that relied on bomb support—not that you really had to ask for it.

PHYREXIA: ALL WILL BE ONE

This set was baller. It was fast. It was fun. It was interactive on the battlefield. Combat mattered immensely and topdecks felt radically tense. I had so much fun with this set. The archetypes were:

WU Artifacts Matter

UB Proliferate

BR Oil Sacrifice

RG Oil Aggro

GW Toxic Midrange

WB Mites/Tokens

BG Toxic Aggro

GU Proliferate

UR Noncreatures

RW Equipment

Out of all of these, the only archetype I saw eschewed was GW. My favorite deck I made was a four-color pile with Atraxa (hnnng, yet 2-1 overall) but I saw mono-red go undefeated one night as well. Two proliferate and two toxic archetypes meant there was a fair amount of love to be spread, yeah? But speed mattered a lot. Usually.

There was a night where I had the fastest BG deck possible, and only dropped a game where I missed four land drops in a row. But I won the match because the proliferation mattered when the toxic couldn't connect, and there was no way out. Battles were furious. People say that RB was the best archetype—or was it RG?—but just about everything could be done well. WU wasn't the most popular, and neither was UB, but both of them performed well.

Oil counters being the newest addition as do-nothing-but-synergize felt a little off at first, but when they worked, they worked immensely well, and they suited the environment in a way that I really didn't expect. You wanted to get them, use them, board them, and burn them. And don't get me started on the awesomeness of For Mirrodin! As a piece of noncreature-ish tech, the equipment archetype was more powerful than I had thought possible.

WEIRDNESS CONCLUSION: If you could do it right, you could do it well. 3-5 color decks had odd synergies but had stiff competition. This set didn't feel like it had quite the wiggle room for competitive oddities, but it felt good to perform with them all the same. Cunning mattered more.

Best you could do would probably be a control curve. A lack of sweepers meant true control was next to impossible, but you could eke it out.

THE BROTHER'S WAR

Out of all the disappointments, BRO was one of the most frustrating to contend with. Big stuff on top of big stuff only mattered when you could cheat it out or go fast enough that it hardly made a difference when you killed someone. Forgone conclusions were just that. The archetypes were:

WU Soldiers

UB "Draw Two"

BR Sacrifice

RG Powerstone Aggro

GW Artifact ETB

WB Small Soldiers

BG Self-Mill

GU Big Robots

UR Noncreatures

RW Aggro

Go fast or go home. When games got grindy, everyone went to time, and then everyone who drafted red got to sit around and watch them before winning the event. There were, on occasion, odd decks that managed to eke out victories, but the archetypes felt more or less directionless.

Soldiers had to be committed to so early that, if you didn't draw a bomb P1P1, you were done for. Powerstones felt good and versatile all around, but they were primarily sacrifice fodder and on occasion used in combat for tricks that would get lethal anyway. People would hate out the RB deck for that alone, and then whoever got the red bombs or the ramp would come out on top. Removal felt decent. Blue was a strange fiend where practically none of the archetypes felt supported, but WU worked if you just went for straight midrange. Urza's rare card in particular was stellar.

Drafting a curve was useless unless you built specifically to go against the decks that were going faster than you. The bonus sheet as well was...interesting. Quicksilver Amulet was particularly strong if you could find it. But even Wurmcoil Engine was slow. Sometimes you got to go nuts with Bone Saw. Most often, they slotted in, but didn't change much unless they hit the other singularly good card in your deck.

WEIRDNESS CONCLUSION: I watched my Students play with this one. One of them assembled the Workers in his deck and only lost one match. But RG aggro got there because the kids drafting RB weren't quite ready to go nuts. I was surprised at some of the expertise and not at all surprised at the others. With the LGS, nobody particularly liked the set because of the imbalance.

Best you could do probably WOULD be the Workers deck, unless you had some kind of combo. To get true jank, you'd have to board specifically against the best decks.

DOMINARIA UNITED

This is how you can make weirdness work. You know how in Khans of Tarkir, the lifegain lands made all the difference? But in March of the Machine, they muddled the waters? Well... Anyway, here are the archetypes:

WU Instants/Sorcery Midrange

UB Instant/Sorcery Control

BR Death/Sacrifice Aggro

RG Domain Beats

GW Tokens

WB Aristocrats

BG Graveyard Matters

GU Domain Ramp

UR Instant/Sorcery Aggro

RW Enlist Aggro

Fast and furious? It would seem so, but there was enough countermagic, removal, and interruption in this set to give it a strong back-and-forth. Even lifegain mattered immensely! My favorite deck I made was an incredible Sultai control build, but I got blown out on other nights with other fantastic decks, and in general? We had so much fun trying to be weird. That Sultai deck was splashing for the Domain lands, and that's where the fun happened.

The aggro was often offset by the other colors having big durdly butts and toughness that could match it, plus draw power on the side. Splashing was vital unless your game plan was tuned precisely. Equipment mattered, and every draw got you closer. Searching was fun and made for difficult choices. Domain was always relevant, always.

In every color combination, you could make something relevant, and if things went wrong, that was okay. Off-color kicker still felt great to build a powerful deck around. Removal felt like it had to be used at the right time, and it could turn the tide of battle with effort yet. Sometimes white felt a little weak, until it flew through the air and smacked the crap out of you. And if someone got a solid defenders deck, they were on cloud nine.

The format allowed for decks to slow down the field enough for interaction to happen, and the fast decks got their day in the sun all the time. Balance and options without too many cards and without a push towards bombastic setpieces meant that synergy could prosper. Yes, even with Sheoldred in the set.

WEIRDNESS FACTOR: If you could dream it, you could do it. The set punished spreading yourself too thin without support, but the support that it gave allowed for weird stuff to manifest quite well.

There's no limit to the best you could do: Abzan sacrifice, five-color goodstuff, Legendary typal, Jeskai spellslinging (that happened a fair amount actually), Bant control... It was awesome.

But these were just my experiences and my observations. On Arena, the same draft rules hardly apply. On MODO, the player base is much different. And of course, every LGS has its player base who plays differently.

What were your best limited experiences? What's the set where you felt the most powerful weirdness, and how do you want to bring that to your card this week?

With love, @abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #monday blog #limited

9 notes · View notes

inventors-fair · 12 days

Text

The Art of Art: What works for contests?

Most of us are not visual artists—or at least I assume. What I also assume is that in the early days of card design, most new designers have visions for their cards but not the specific art to execute them. And so, we trawl the internet, put some "placeholder" art, and the cards rest in peace in our MSE folders from there on out.

In order to avoid any possibilities of uncredited art, fair use issues, etc., it still remains best practice to do everything as originally as possible. That does indeed include what art appears on a card. And yes, like I said, most of us aren't visual artists, but there are other approaches that will work best. For example:

1. Art Direction!

Here are two winning examples from previous contests, from @hiygamer and @starch255. A written scene can demonstrate the card in the same manner that art direction is given to the actual artists who create pieces for Wizards of the Coast. Clear action, simple direction, and a feeling for the mood are all that's needed to convey what you want.

The most important thing about art descriptions is to keep them brief and specific! If you can't clearly describe what's happening in the scene, then the jumbled elements feel disconnected from the card. If the art description is too detailed, then it can sometimes get in the way of the actual mechanics being judged.

One more thing to note is that, like in these examples, it's helpful to put the art description where the card's actual art would be. This way, anyone looking at your card can see what they're supposed to at first glance.

2. Sketches!

On the left, here's some previous contest art from @bread-into-toast, and on the right—art from me! You don't have to have access to much to draw the outline of what you'd like, and you can get across what you want to without worrying about judgement on that front.

Drawing your own pieces is both fun and functional. Once you have an idea of what you'd like, it doesn't matter what it looks like on paper, because it's entirely your own creation through and through. We can extrapolate even more about intent from it, and as Magic players, we know what truly professional/polished art looks like. Taking that imaginative step is easy and fun!

And yes, you have to credit the artist at all times, even when it's yourself. Who are you to deny your own greatness?

3. A combination of both?

@deg99 won the most recent contest with Bone Fetcher, and I won absolutely nothing with this old example card for a contest that I don't even remember what it was about. So let's look at Bone Fetcher instead. What does having both elements to for this card?

If just the dog and the skeleton were there, that would be wonderful, but then we'd miss out on the precise tone of the piece. With just the text, we'd get a good description, but the arm in the foreground shows the dramatic tilt of the camera that I'm assuming Deg intended here. You get the best of both worlds!

And sometimes one or the other is good enough. Which is fine! Maybe a little art direction can help with a rough sketch, maybe it can assume some positioning for you, etc.

I'll say this: there was one piece I can't find where a bunch of stick figures were placed around a crude torch, and the art description turned those little MS Paint dudes into a dramatic, heartfelt scene that still jars me even to this day. I've almost cried at the depiction of a ghost-laded squiggle-guy whose card told a full story about his impending death.

We don't need a massive budget to make the cards come alive visually. Words and sketches are all that we require, and it helps to ensure that you follow the best ethical practices for your cards. Don't like the MSE backgrounds? Zoom in on a piece until you only see pixels, or use a solid color! Don't have a steady hand? Show us the unsteady vision! There are many options available, and we accept all of them, just like we accept you.

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #monday blog

3 notes · View notes