Two New Formats and a New Deck Feature
Site Updates forum
Posted on Oct. 9, 2024, 4:14 a.m. by Femme_Fatale
We have two new formats and a new feature regarding default printing selecting for your decks.
Planar Constructed
Like block constructed, but for a specific plane (or alt universe) instead of a block. So all sets/products related to a specific plane would be legal for making a deck in that specific plane. To identify which plane you are building for, there was a bunch of hubs that was added for plane constructed. In order for a plane to have its own hub it must have two products specific to that plane released at different times (or about to be released, so upcoming return to planes will get their own hub). This format has no legality tied to it as I'm not going to try to find every single card related to each plane in supplementary products, secret lairs and variations. It'll be up to you to figure that out. The planes that currently have their own hub are as follows:
- Dominaria
- Eldraine
- Fiora
- Forgotten Realms
- Innistrad
- Ixalan
- Kamigawa
- Lorwyn
- Mirrodin
- Ravnica
- Theros
- Zendikar
Modern Beyond Horizons
The second format added is simple: It's modern but any Modern Horizons sets and Universes Beyond sets are not legal. I've seen some community and local tournament results on mtggoldfish with similar ruleset and with the amount of people upset at just how disruptive these direct to modern sets are, I thought this would be something people could use. The ban list is the same as modern because I cannot organize nor manage a tournament scene nor committee. If you want to link local tournament results and discuss the new meta that'd be fine as a new thread in the modern forum.
Default Printings
The new feature you'll find in the text edit form for your decks, as one of the many options in the bottom left called default printings. These options only apply to the individual deck, but you'll see them even through the live editor. There are 5 options at the present:
- Nothing selected: The first option sets this as the default that the site has always functioned as, the newest printing but ignoring sets marked as skip as latest.
- Oldest printing
- Newest printing, but this doesn't ignore skip as latest.
- Least expensive printing
- Most expensive printing: Both of these check your preferred vendor.
I have plans for more options in the future: Border, frame-type, rarity and holo-foil stamp are all potential additions, plus the ability to have an order of operations for situations. However this is a lot of work for our devs and have yet to garner how valued these potential additions are, as prices and date were the most common ones people requested. So let us know what you think about these potential additions!
Squee_Spirit_Guide says... #5
Nice! I really like the Default Printing option!
October 9, 2024 9:34 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #8
Necramus: None of the treatments are available yet, primarily because it also doesn't look at variations yet.
October 10, 2024 1:47 a.m.
Awesome work! And thank you for being open about your limitations!
October 10, 2024 7:27 a.m.
I love the MBH format, this has been my personal house rule for awhile and now the idea has more official support. I'll be using this instead of Modern as my format from now on. It does seem like the legalities are a bit wonky, some stuff is showing up in red that shouldn't, but I'm sure it'll get worked out.
October 10, 2024 9:54 a.m.
So where did you find this out cuz I can't find anything about it?
October 10, 2024 10:03 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #13
Lord_Olga Which cards? While normally I say never assume things will work itself out, this format is still auto-checking its legality I feel but I need to sure. Also I'd hardly call this official support but rather, just a place for ya to put stuff... I'd call this format having official support when there's a trusted body determining the ban list.
magwaaf: You won't find anything about "Modern Beyond Horizons" as it's a name I created. Other sources that would talk about this probably had their own terms. I think "Modern Pure" might have been a term others used but I'm not too sure.
October 10, 2024 4:48 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #15
Since we don't have an official name, I suggest
Modern Light (- Lite) or Modern Zero
Maybe we gather a bunch of options and do a poll? T/O could spearhead this.
I will most likely convert to this format as well.
October 10, 2024 5:15 p.m.
Femme_Fatale It may be me misunderstanding what you meant by the format too, but I noticed Propaganda and Counterspell were illegal. I thought the format was making cards that originated from modern horizons or universes beyond illegal, but these may be illegal because of being reprinted into modern sets that this filters out?
October 10, 2024 6:13 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #17
sergiodelrio: I like Modern Beyond Horizons because it has fun word play. But also because I made it. So I'll be sticking to my idea :p
Lord_Olga: Now you have me confused, so let me attempt to clarify: Format legality is defined by two things: Entire sets, and an individual card ban list. MBH here copies almost everything in modern, except the amount of sets that are legal by removing the Modern Horizons sets and Universes Beyond sets from the list of legal sets. Thus if a card's first foray into modern is the first printing or a reprinting through one of these formats, it is not legal in MBH.
October 10, 2024 10:10 p.m.
Femme_Fatale that clarifies it, i thought it was banning only cards that were initially created within these sets.
October 10, 2024 10:53 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #19
Lord_Olga The trick to a good format in terms of adoption is to have it be as concise as possible. While I agree that the reprints are healthy for the format, having an unfocused format makes it much harder to get adoption by players. It's my main beef with frontier, they had the perfect criteria that mirrored Modern but decided to botch it.
I don't have the luxury of a pre-existing local tournament scene that can handle ban lists that also include a popular streaming group like LoadingReadyRun and Canadian Highlander. Nor do I have the luxury of WotC support for mass adoption regardless of rules complexity. I'd be more comfortable with allowing the reprints if either of these things were true.
Just having a format available on tappedout does not mean it immediately gets adopted, there have been plenty of community formats that have gotten added in the past that get decks once a few years and thus have been disabled, and many things that do have like, popularity in terms of content view count but people don't interact with that much themselves.
October 11, 2024 4:05 a.m.
Femme_Fatale It makes sense, just means it'll be a bit more restricted than I thought. I'm just happy that this is being acknowledge on a platform larger than my living room table because I do think its an issue that a lot of people are feeling. Especially with the universes beyond content. The way it feels to me at least, it seems like those have been recieved with a resounding "meh."
October 11, 2024 4:14 a.m.
Baconofunrest says... #21
Hi,
I like the idea of modern beyond horizons but it feels like the pioneer format but with extra steps. I get the desire to want to play with old modern cards, but many have been reprinted in standard sets. I think if we want to play with these cards, we should encourage WOTC to reprint these cards into standard.
I also like the plane specific format but given the overlap in stories and planes especially now, establishing the criteria for that would be hard. For example does urza's legacy count for dominaria? Large parts of the story and the cards reference the planes of phyrexia or serra's realm. What plane does rath belong to for this. What about mercadia? For that matter phyrexia invaded every other known plane and liliana as well as many planeswalkers are intricately tied to the stories of planes to which they are not native.
I would think if you really wanted to pursue this idea without expending a lot of time, narrow the focus on the 2 planes with the most established stories, Dominaria and Ravnica and picking one to focus on. In fact with both sets having remastered editions, those set make a good base set to focus a format around and slowly expand the card pool to include other sets. Domniaria in particular would have the most material to draw from and ravnica would be best if your trying to narrowly define the format by having the sets for the format take place only on ravnica.
October 12, 2024 2:54 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #22
Baconofunrest: I think you misunderstand.
Modern and pioneer have quite different card pools, and removing the direct to modern sets doesn't change this. The point of this format is not to want to play with old magic cards, but that people are tired of modern meta being warped entirely of these direct to modern sets. If anything it is modern but with less steps than current modern. Sure you can play a pioneer deck here but the inverse is not true for the classics of Naya Burn, Jund, U-Tron, Eldrazi Tron, Death's Shadow, Living End, Amulet Titan, Puresteel, Delver, D&T, 5c Humans (rip affinity, pod, twin) ... for many of these decks, the cards have not been reprinted in standard. And trust me, I compared the 2019-2021 metas of modern against pioneer, RDW and Arclight Phoenix are the only commonalities. (I find it funny that Amulet Titan is the one deck that remains a constant in modern.)
There is no encouraging WotC to do anything, tappedout has remained entirely unaffiliated and does not communicate with WotC in a way you are thinking of. I communicate with WotC with regards to data. I bothered Gavin enough to finally get WotC to start sending high resolution images. I've communicated with Adam (WotC Comms and Content) to keep a unified colour profile on the card images that is good enough so that my recolour batch action process creates a perfect 1-to-1 match of the colour profile that older card images had. I also talk with Ian (head of Arena dev team) about data specifics for Arena import and export. I'll probably talk with Adam again in the future about updating card image galleries to parse their data like tappedout does so it'll be easier to read. But in terms of reprints, that'll fall on deaf ears as that's what everyone else is saying WotC to do.
What cards can go into a specific planar deck is up to the player, not the site, so the criteria is going to be on the hubs that players can use, not the legality. The hubs I have chosen are simply the planes that have multiple sets dedicated to a plane that are released at points in time that would place them not in the same block. The story doesn't matter here, thus individual cards depicting a plane amongst another set does not count for this. So reprint sets, planechase, core sets and commander products are not considered, and likewise would apply to individual card depictions in any other set.
Planar constructed is something I added because it's a thing people have already been doing, as it's an enticing thing with players, considering constant returnings to in Zendikar, Innistrad, Mirrodin and Dominaria, and it fills the lack of Block Constructed. Having a plane-inclusion criteria means everyone is on the same page in terms of what is a hub and what isn't.
Of the planes featured in older sets; Phyrexia, Mercadia, Rabiah, Rath, Serra's Realm, Ulgrotha and Zhalfir; Rath is the one I actually have to consider, considering it was the main feature in Tempest block and then later appeared again in Nemesis. Zhalfir might become a hub eventually since that once was a part of Dominaria but now swapped places with Mirrodin (now new phyrexia). Serra's Realm would need two sets not linked but that's not happening as it is destroyed. Ulgrotha, Mercadia and Rabiah would need another set, and I'll probably also do the same with Phyrexia if it gets one more set.
October 13, 2024 1:10 a.m.
Lowest price is great. I would like to see a little more control, as you hinted at. For example, lowest price can randomly put old 4th edition white border cards in your decks, along side modern cards. They just don't jive in my opinion. So the other filters I'd like to see are black border and non-foil (if a non-foil version exists).
Icbrgr says... #2
Neat!
October 9, 2024 8:43 a.m.