ideas about formats
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on July 26, 2024, 12:45 p.m. by Alsosligo
i have always been hesitant to bring this idea up, MTG is an old game with a long history of niche formats but i have looked around and i could anything like these ideas, so: i have a pitch for two different but related formats. unfortunately have no real way to see either of them come into being so tossing the idea into the void of the aptly named blind eternities seems like the right way to share this idea.
this writer would like to thank the reader for their time in advance.
so the first concept for a new format is to reflect the concept of rarity values in deck construction as there are four tiers on this scale and the normal rule for a constructed format is four copies per card we sort of bring the two together an initial building block that any deck may contain four copies of any common 3 copies of any uncommon 2 of rare and 1 copy of mythic rare cards. the second rule: having a minimum deck size of 80 is for two reasons partially to impact the variance of deck building and game play and also because personally i feel like there should be an 80 card format (limited is 40 most of constructed is 60 and commander is 100). beyond that there is the question of how to police the format such as how to define what rarity a card is as many cards have been printed at different rarities and also what should be banned outright. i don't even know what to call this format, the best i have come up with are "Mythic" and "Podium" but would be glad to hear ideas because i don't know if either of those are taken and honestly think they kinda stink.
the second format idea is similar to pauper except instead of including every common all rares are exculded.
this would also be an 80 card constructed format.
another layer that i like for this is instead of using just a ban list to police the format add a restricted list , admittedly this could lead to a lot of confusion. however it is something i would like to implement if i were to design a format for the community because it would provide a means for the format itself to be a "budget" format. if each card becomes restricted once its secondary market value exceeds a certain threshold restricting it instead of banning the card allows for the power of said card yet helps the market vale of the card pool stay budget friendly. a secondary effect of this unique style of card restriction would be that with each update to the Ban/restriction list there would inevitably be cards that would rise or fall below that threshold thus adjusting the variance of the format creating its own pseudo rotation.
I don't have a good name for this one either i don't think the magazine has been out of print long enough to call it hustler or perhaps call it Raider because of the sports team (their colors are black and silver) i would like to hear better names.
Penultimate thoughts
for each format the first question to answer is how to define the rarity of a card, i see three options:
1. least rare printing
2. most recent printing
3. rarest printing
I lean toward the third option as it would recognize all inventions and expeditions as mythic rare.
What cards should be on the Ban/Restricted list and why are they there?
-aside from the obvious power 9 card and the OG dual lands, this requires a level of understanding of the game i just don't have, i do feel like there is space within both formats for a diverse meta.
these would be enteral formats so the final question to answer is if the card pool goes all the way back to alpha or a more recent set.
in closing this writer would again like to thank their reader and ask them to share their own thoughts on either of the descrbed formats.
My biggest concern here is what to do with promos and Secret Lair cards, which have given a lot of cards rare printings without changing their actual quality or function. Are Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse
qualified to be rares? Is Ornithopter mythic? If cards are restricted in Podium or banned in Format 2 based on their highest or most recent rarity, these products create a huge amount of variance as Secret Lairs or promo pieces are given thematic rarities high above their actual value. Because of this pretty much by itself, I think the least rare print of a card should be the defining factor. Using the Expeditions and Inventions as a baseline, most of those would already be restricted to two copies each. Cards like Strip Mine or Mana Crypt can be further restricted or banned on a case-by-case basis.
Is there a gameplay reason for 80-card decks?
July 26, 2024 7:32 p.m.
FormOverFunction Pyramid is a great name. the word itself helps explain the concept; will definitely be using that name for format 1 moving forward.
legendofa raises an interesting point of debate. it would be easy to have a rule for excluding promo and secret lair printings, unfortunately for Ornithopter it is specifically because of the invention/expeditions printings that i lean toward using using a highest rarity rule, this is primarily the difference between giving 4-5 color decks access to 20 fetch lands and 18-20 shock-lands plus a suite of other non-basic land options to only having access to half that, i think the mana bases are probably are already just too good. another argument for leaning toward highest rarity is specifically Force of Will which is totally fine at mythic but just absurd at uncommon. to answer your second question yes there are game play reasons for an 80 card format. the larger deck size slows the game down since the tempo of land drops changes. also it is to make it harder for storm style decks to go off without pushing them out of the format completely.
FormOverFunction says... #2
I really like the first variant. Restrictions make the game, and this is a pretty cool way to put a salary cap of sorts on the decks. There would be pushback, probably not dissimilar to when they went to the four-only rule, but having that pyramid sort of structure is cool. Here’s one problem that could arise: the evaluation of what gets to be rare or uncommon has always been a little weird to me. There have easily been as many uncommons that mop the floor with opponents as there have been rares (and doubly so for mythics). I don’t think that’s a deal breaker at all, but it could be a pothole to manage. I like “Podium” but I really like “Pyramid” ;p The 80 card idea is something I would enjoy, but the optimizer-part Of M:tG players brains will probably wrankle some at it. There are enough cards, though, to work with in a modern-style format.
July 26, 2024 3:22 p.m.