Tiny Leaders: still a thing?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 6, 2016, 9:41 a.m. by capriom85
There are a few guys that play Tiny Leaders at my LGS still, but I notice the interest in the format dwindling. Is TL still a thing and my LGS is an isolated instance of waning interest or has the format started losing steam? I know t never picked up as much steam as full blown commander, but I do enjoy it for the purpose of putting some cards I LOVE into a competitive deck where a 100 commander deck wouldn't even want them.
I was talking about this in Friday. There was a lot of hype for it when people thought it was a commander variant, but some (most?) People got a shock when it was actually closer to legacy. And that turned off a lot of people to the format.
April 6, 2016 9:56 a.m.
fadelightningmm says... #4
I agree with NecroPony my group was interested in the format as a commander variant, but it didn't play out that way. As EDH is kind of a unique beast we hoped that it would be comparable with a new twist What happened is people who play in my area always tried to get turn 2 kills and combo off which was off putting for the fun factor any newbie to the format would have
April 6, 2016 10:03 a.m.
geekmp3, I never personally played multiplayer TL. Why is it not possible?
NecroPony, never played Legacy. Can't afford the buy in and totally unfamiliar with the card pool. In what way does TL mimic Legacy?
April 6, 2016 10:03 a.m.
fadelightningmm, thanks for the input. I think that answered my question. Is it a matter of too competitive? T2 combo kills are never fun unless you are in a 100% competitive environment. I always chose fun commanders for TL as did my whole playgroup. We all had fun playing the FTR clan leaders and some lesser legends ties like Daxos and right now for me Karlov but we stayed away from anything that was degenerate for the most part.
Do you guys think TL will die? I personally love it.
April 6, 2016 10:08 a.m.
EndStepTop says... #7
It's probably going to die off. As mentioned it was sold as a hybrid legacy/commander and unfortunately most people found the negative aspects in each. Casual players where put off by the formats lack of a widespread social contract and would go for kills when it was opportune, often early. Add to that the card pool led to decks being expensive just like legacy. The more competitive crowd was put off by the format being legacy-lite plus a waifu and would rather play legacy.
April 6, 2016 10:57 a.m.
I still muck about with it, but i think the problem is the format is basically "solved." St. Traft is just stupid good and by far the best TL commander.
Anyway,If you can still play it and enjoy it, who cares if it isnt a popular format?
April 6, 2016 11:03 a.m.
I care because I have no one left to play with. It's all but dead at my LGS. It will get beyond stale playing with just my son as we don't swap our decks out often. I like that unplayable good cards fit into it. But if it does I have a lot of trade stuff opened up I guess.
April 6, 2016 11:17 a.m.
After my LGS stopped supporting it and most of the TL players not caring, I broke apart all of my decks and pieces them out. It just doesn't have the casual appeal like edh and some of the decks enable dumb things. Traft is oppressive, Artifact Glissa is annoying as hell and there are many others.
TL is dead around me so in my eyes it's dead unless something crazy happens.
April 6, 2016 11:23 a.m.
KillDatBUG says... #11
Like everyone said... Geist of Saint Traft. What a stupid card....
April 6, 2016 11:33 a.m.
TL is a horribly narrow format that only supports a few given strategies. The worst part is that it competes heavily with Legacy/EDH cards, so the decks tend to cost you an arm and a leg. I got into the format heavily when it received hype. After some time, I realized just how shallow the format is.
Good riddance...
April 6, 2016 11:41 a.m.
I will say that if I were to build a TL deck I would play BR madness with Olivia, Mobilized for War She actually had me somewhat excited to brew with her. But yeah, it's way too narrow to ever become a thing like EDH.
April 6, 2016 11:44 a.m.
It is narrow, but what drew me TL t is things like the FTR legendaries. Yasova Dragonclaw actually made a great general here and it wasn't such an expensive deck. She is useless in EDH so it was a fun place where she mattered. A lot of cards are like that.
I play Karlov TL now. Is he a thing in "real" EDH? I would happily make the jump to that format with him.
April 6, 2016 12:20 p.m.
its not that narrow, we have quite a healthy meta in the UK local to me in the Midlands. I first played Anafenza infect, then Varolz dredge, as well as Yasova infect, Geist is another ofc, I found Teysa tokens to be pretty sick, and I have yet to try my Jenara deck. All viable and powerful, yes a TNN is pretty harsh but there are plenty of spells that can easily global out TNN and Geist etc. Far from solved imo, but maybe thats just local to me
April 6, 2016 1:10 p.m.
capriom85 Tiny Leaders is designed as a 1v1 format. Playing it as multiplayer is possible, I guess.
April 6, 2016 1:47 p.m.
Megalomania says... #17
I think it's a bad format. Doesn't offer as much variety as multiplayer EDH. This is the same reason I was never fond of Duel Commander.
geekmp3 says... #2
It started off strong in my playgroup but when we kept running into an odd number of people showing up it made the 1v1 format that is TL almost clunky. We ended up gravitating to multiplayer CMD games instead to include everyone. Honestly, if it was easier to do multiplayer in TL it would take off more.
April 6, 2016 9:48 a.m.