Hey guys Yea a tourney could be really good. Make sure to mention this idea to other tappedout out users at your local magic store so we can get some more people interested before we start something like that. PyroMechanical- Ill make sure AwesomeName and I get shelved in the suggested names.

So, would this tournament be a playtesting of banned cards? Or would you all rather start with the assumed banlist (already described above), and playtest some "real" Shelf/Shelved/Time Capsule decks? I'm cool either way, but am better at Jimmy-deck brewing than I am at Spike-deck brewing, lol.

I really like the way Pyromaniac described this new format. "[The format would] let block standard develop after it's rotated out, and let people use cards that aren't playable in modern." THIS is the little blurb that would appear on pack-inserts and the backs of packages. Concise, descriptive and appealing, good job. =)

Also: I don't see why we need to pick just ONE name for the format, tbh. I really like the name "Shelf." I think it sounds cool AND thematically applicable. But, if people are looking for something more descriptive, what about "Extended Standard?" It could be shortened to X-Standard, or Ex-Stand or something, for those of us who use slang.

BTW: @ StUrzasBeard... "Brick, are you just saying you love random things that you see around the room?"

I think we should test banned cards. Something that is important to remember is that JtMS, SFM, SkCl aren't inherent broken. Well, SkCl sort of is, but I digress. The main reasons are that:1. It took JtMS, SGM, Batterskull, and Wurmcoil Engine to be together to break standard. 2. JtMS isn't that good on its own. No joke. 3. The way standard was set up at that time allowed for Stone the Wurmskull to reign supreme. No one has ever tested how it would do in other standard environments.

So ogreall, this tourney would be a great opportunity to test whether or not certain bans are necessary. Personally, I would love Jace-Forged Battercoil in the same environment with Chromantiflayer combo. We juat have to see.

By the way, you may recieve large volumes of decks. Just a thought.

I have a concern: How do you know if a decklist is Shelf legal?

There's a lot of reprinted cards that need to be kept track of.

Checking which blocks were standard legal together isn't always obvious either (especially during those weird transition periods that used to occur every cycle). The core sets make it even more difficult to tell what cards were standard legal together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Magic:_The_Gathering_sets (for reference)

If we fast forwarded to the future and started without core sets, it'd be a lot easier to set this up.

DCI would maintain a list of legal card pools, lol. Then you would just go to The Gatherer and select "Shelf" (or whatever) under Format Contains....

Until then, we'll have to post the legal card pools somewhere. :] Beyond that, I guess pick a card you like, then look at the list of cards from the sets in that Standard.... There's no easy way yet, I don't think, except to build by looking at lists and verifying.

the tournament will be with no banned cards. No one can make a judgement without testing.

Well regardless of "DCI" and "bans" (baby-steps first), I'm more just concerned about the difficulty of determining the legality of a Shelf list outside of netdecking old lists.

Presumably people will want to adjust to the Shelf meta and create new Shelf decks that are tailored for the format. If I presented you with a list, how would go about checking to see if it was actually Shelf? If not explicitly stated, how do know what period of standard to begin looking at? I'll start putting together an example of a difficult Shelf decklist to judge.

Sometimes modern players get confused when brewing (despite the simplicity), so I don't think you can leave it up to the deck maker to get it right 100% of the time. It should be somewhat obvious if a deck is legal in a format or not.

Again I'm a big fan of the format idea, but I think there's some hurdles to be dealt with first.

What about a chart that lists all of the blocks/sets in chronilogical order. Then color-highlight each standard era so that you can decide at (almost) a glance which sets are legal with each. This would aid in both brewing a deck and judging if a deck is within format by providing a range of sets that confine the deck build.

@StUrzasBeard That would work pretty well.

I was thinking that in addition, depending on the number reprints, there could be a list of all the reprinted cards that show what blocks they belong to. But if there's too many, than I don't know, that would be a hassle both to create and to reference.

@electromancer, Yeah, there will probably be too many cards on that list. @StUrzasBeard, A chart does sound helpful. For now though, all decks will have to be checked manually (unless someone writes a program that can check it for you).

Well. If a supposed reprinted card is off set in a player's deck you can run a card search in any number or range of sets with most any deck builder app or program as part of the deck registration prior to the event. I use MTG Unofficial. It's really easy to do unless a player runs a deck chock-full of reprints off label.

I can work on a chart.

Just type in each set you are looking through in the gatherer, sure it's a hassle, but it covers all basis and it's not THAT difficult.

A chart would help of course. It would be good to have something to glance at and know exactly what set to type into the gatherer.

For those of you who do not know, the gatherer is part of the official MTG website that is the data base for all mtg cards. The basics of the search functions are relatively simple so it's a good place to start when building anything.

Guess what guys! I have all the standard sets all done! ocs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oGvzTKIW3GDu1CIL40xLX935J6qL-o99bbwzi1TUNmU/edit?usp=sharing.

I'm working on programing stuff, so I might be able to code something. No promises.

@TheFoilAjani, Thanks! I only glanced at it, so I'm not sure if there are any mistakes, but from what I saw it looks good!

Just FYI, messed up the link. Here it is!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oGvzTKIW3GDu1CIL40xLX935J6qL-o99bbwzi1TUNmU/edit

@TheFoilAjani Nice! are you referring to using conditional statements in the spreadsheet or something else? Also, what did you have in mind in terms of what you'd be programming?

I have some experience using conditional statements for spreadsheets from a previous job if you need help. (It was for setting up manufacturing resource planning)

TheFoilAjaniAwesome job! Thanks a ton ur really helping out.

electromancer, not sure what you mean by "conditional statements". On the programming note, I was thinking of a program that pulls what set a card is from (using gatherer).

Well with spreadsheets, like excel, you can technically program anything you like, albeit really inefficiently for most applications. I wasn't sure if you were trying to add some features to your spreadsheet list.

A conditional statement is used in programming for "making decisions." For example in Python you could have a piece of code that looked like this (comments won't allow white space):

if n > 5:
print ("The number is greater than 5.")
elif n == 5:
print ("The number is 5.")
else:
print ("The number is smaller than 5.")

You could also use conditional statements in spreadsheets.

so what do we tag the decks that we would most likely build for this deck set up

electromancer Huh, I never really thought about doing something like that. I'll see if I can do something like that.

Alrighty, this is a Timespiral Standard deck. It was this or Reanimator. Super proud of the name BTDubs.

A Shelf Full of Nails

Also, come'on guys! Let's get some discussion all up ins.

TheFoilAjani Like it a lot. This and sultai whip would be a sweet machup.