You Make the Masters Set

[Thomas David Baker]

I loved Innistrad.  I believed Maro when he said New World Order made things better for experienced players too and used Innistrad as an example.

Then Modern Masters came out and despite having to include a bunch of rares and only being allowed cards from Mirrodin to Shards it was way better than anything we've seen since Innistrad, and most of what came before, too.

It will be minimum one year until the next Modern Masters.

So, my idea is, let's make our own Modern Masters.

Random ideas that are very much half formed:

* 6 of each of 60 commons, 3 of each of 60 uncommons, 2 of each of 50 rares, 1 of each of 10 mythics is 650 cards.

* Use old cards, pre-Mirrodin, for spell-based funtimes and novelty even for players that have been playing for a while.

* Invent cards where necessary to fill holes.

* Some possible seeded archetypes: free spell necro, ug madness, gro, draw-go, astral slide, reanimator, artifact control, mill, auras, tokens, birthing pod, pox, sacrifice, prison, wizard tribal.

* Possibly include a lot of Legacy playables and call it "Legacy Masters".  What wizards would print if they said fuck it to the secondary market and the reserve list and tried to support legacy via a "Masters" release.

What do you think?  Interested in being on the development team?  Could make for some cheap Tuesday nights during the long reign of M14* ...

* = Bit of a cheap shot.  I've actually really enjoyed 3 of the last 4 core set drafts.

[Thomas David Baker]

Not perfect (ignore the typo!) but possibly good enough?

If we were feeling wild we could create our own set symbol and print the whole thing in either new or old borders with all the correct rarities, etc.  That's an option for further down the road.

[ross miles]

"If we were feeling wild we could create our own set symbol and print the whole thing in either new or old borders with all the correct rarities, etc.  That's an option for further down the road"

 

definately this

 

i really really enjoyed yester eve - usually a create a set thing works out ok but feels a bit like not quitie playing magic - this was the opposite i enjoyed both drafts and all the games - well done team.

 

we should play again next week?

 

a few things to consider frome me other than what tom already said.

 

my blue white deck - i like it a lot and all the cards did well - i think the blue 1/1s for 2 that i played are good inclusions - one sacks to counter a spell unless the pay 1 and one untaps two lands - they were good as 1/1s as anything with 2 power on turn two in blue would make flyers too good i think (followed up by some great 3 drops 3/1 flyer and 2/1 shadow that returns to hand if you discard) - the white tow drops were good at double white coz then its hard to get a perfect curve - which i think is good - we pobably dont want a deck that makes lost of 2 or 3 power evasion creatures really easily.

 

Green -

what does green do? i was never tempted to take a green card in my drafts (this could be true of all drafts i do?) - astral slide seems like a deck that will sometimes come together and would use green  (like burning vengance - this is good - you want it to sometimes be there but not always - astral slide probably needs to table the first time so you know its open? is this what used to happen with burning vengance - or did you first pick and go all in?)

 

enchantments? this would involve green - does it work as a deck?

 

threashold? is threshold good - ive never really played with it - how good are the rewards for getting threashold quickly?

 

my worry about all three of these being in green is that they are possibly inconsistent/marginal - which makes it hard to take green picks that are good and keep you open to viable strategies?

 

green could of course be fine - but these were my thoughts.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Astral Slide/Lightning Rift should almost never table in the first booster. They are both considerably cheaper than Burning Vengeance and much easier to support. That said I think that the balance for cycling may be okay. I was very tempted to go all in on my 2nd pick Stoic Champion, but glad I didn't as I never saw a Rift/Slide in the draft.

Regarding Green, I think Threshold just happens to be on Springing Tiger, its probably not an archetype to build around as we only have 1 card with it I think. We began with Green aiming to be the following:

GU - Aggro Control, small evasive beaters with tempo and madness card advantage

GW - Enchantment aggro/control

GR - Beatdown? Not sure there is any archetype actually supported here?

GB - Sacrifice for benefit

Gx - domain support and 3rd colour in cycling deck

Whether it is actually hitting any of these goals I'm not 100% sure

Also definitely looking forward to the next draft!

[Thomas David Baker]

Awesome notes Ross. I agree that it was really fun. I assumed someone would draft an unbeatable deck and we'd have to go entirely back to the drawing board in one or more areas. As it is I think only No Mercy really stank the place out - all the other powerful plays I saw were fun rather than miserable. I do have to learn how to play against Goblin Sharpshooter, though.

G has had the least work of all the colors and perhaps that shows. I definitely think the t3 Overgrowth into t4 Giant Warthog or Wirewood Guardian is cool. Fierce Empath is great (if not OP) in that he can get any of the land cyclers, Krosan Tusker, various bombs or (if that's what you need) a Giant Warthog. And I'm certain that Wild Mongrel with Basking Rootwalla, Arrogant Wurm and Roar of the Wurm is good. Perhaps we need one more discard outlet in G at Common? Or is it more interesting to make G lean on U or another color for that. Deepwood Drummer is a candidate.

The Enchantments deck was envisioned as WG with Monk Idealist, the Opal creatures, Pacifism, Seal of Cleansing, Ancestral Mask, Seal of Strength, Overgrowth and Fertile Ground as the relevant Commons.  The reward card there is Ancestral Mask. Additionally there's Yavimaya Enchantress, Elephant Guide, Still Life, Sterling Grove and Improvised Armor (good for Monk Idealist) at Uncommon with Argothian Enchantress/Enchantress's Presence, Replenish, Serra's Sanctum and Academy Rector at Rare/Mythic.  Pacifism and the Rares are the only cards I see myself first-picking out of those. Elephant Guide is the next best?  Overgrowth or Fertile Ground if pickings were very slim? So it may be that there aren't enough reward cards to go with all these Enchantments. Uncommon is not strongly defined so we can probably do something there to make it more desirable to dive into Enchantments.

Any of Tethered Griffin, Auratog, Phantatog, Cantivore, Cleansing Meditation, Opal Avenger, Cataclysm (?!), Opal Titan, Opalescence, Parallax Wave, Golden Wish, Veiled Apparition, Parallax Tide, Hidden Predators, Hidden Spider, Hidden Stag, Holistic Wisdom, Saproling Burst, Hanna Ship's Navigator, Thaumatog, Natural Emergence, and Ertai the Corrupted might be used to bolster the Enchantments deck in one way or another.

BG has a pretty ill-defined sac/Threshold theme that might be leaning a bit too heavily on the B cards for now. Werebear is definitely a sweet card as an accelerator that becomes a threat itself with Threshold (when you are done accelerating).

RG has no theme at all, really. Beasts is a possibility. Or give G some actual curve out creatures to make it some other form of aggro.

As well as Madness, the Domain deck is probably UGwrb with Ordered Migration, Allied Strategies (Uncommons), and Collective Restraint and Last Stand (Rares) as a little nudge to go that way. We could print Coalition Victory at Mythic but it's probably just bad. Perhaps do it anyway?

G is by far the color most likely to be played as one of 3+ colors.

G Commons that I *think* are pulling their weight: Basking Rootwalla , Wild Mongrel, Werebear, Fierce Empath, Symbiotic Elf, Giant Warthog, Wirewood Guardian, Krosan Tusker, Overgrowth

G Commons that I'm not sure about: Heartwood Dryad, Yavimaya Elder, Pincer Spider, Springing Tiger, Spike Colony, Seal of Strength, Fertile Ground, Ancestral Mask, Break Asunder

In particular Seal of Strength probably needs to get swapped out for a real pump spell.  Gaea's Might is an option.  A smaller creature with Trample wouldn't go amiss for Ancestral Mask-ing.

Cards to think about: Spike Worker, Trained Armodon, Gaea's Might, Harrow, Rampant Growth, Deepwood Drummer.

[Kieran Symington]

I was going to make comments, but then decided there were too many random things I want to say. What we really need is some sort of google doc with all the current cards on that we can just comment on. Bakerverse is good for looking things up but not so much for seeing what is currently in and suggesting replacements.

[Thomas David Baker]

We probably need more than two states in Multiverse. "Selected", "Candidate" and "Retired" or something like that.

Alternatively I could just add freeform tagging and we could tag with Selected and maybe Common, Uncommon, Rare and Mythic the cards that are currently making the cut.  We'd want some way to sort or search on tags though.

Alternatively I could import just the cards that are currently making the cut into "Legacy Masters - Final Version" or something similar.  We'd need a way to move a card into or out of that set from the full pool.

I too have about 12 things to discuss/work on which don't really suit a linear forum thread. But I don't want to cut out the people that are following along a bit more casually because their input is valuable. I set up a Trello board ... http://bit.ly/legacy-masters-trello ... and made it as public as possible (you can comment but not add new tasks until you are made a member).  I'd love to make all the folks on this thread a member - give me a shout if you want that.

[Thomas David Baker]

Maybe I'm overthinking this.

I've coded up a change to search on Multiverse where you can include retired cards in your search by putting an asterisk in your search.

Shall I delete everything that is currently retired then retire everything that isn't currently making the cut?  Then you can always search our restricted pool with the new * operator, and magiccards.info still knows every single card in the six blocks.

I think I'll do that unless anyone thinks that either (a) the stuff we have retired currently should be left in or (b) that retiring everything not currently making the cut or very close is a bad idea.  What say you?

[Thomas David Baker]

OK here's what I came up with.

    1. Everything retired before today is now in a set called "Legacy Masters - Rejects".

    2. Everything not yet retired is in a new set called "Legacy Masters".

    3. I'm going to retire most everything in the new set so that only current choices and very close cards are unretired.

    4. You can now search retired cards simultaneously with unretired cards by including "*" in your search.

    5. For now you can only unretire cards from the Retired page even though you can see them in search results.  Clicking on them there will do nothing.

You may find you are on "Legacy Masters - Rejects" when you visit the site.  You can switch to Legacy Masters via the menu at the top of the page (and vice versa).

This is all pretty reversible if it seems like a terrible idea.

[Thomas David Baker]

Retired ~1600 cards in Legacy Masters. Please retire other things with impunity. They can always be unretired. If you want anything moved from Rejects to the main pool let me know.

[Simon O'Keeffe]

Okay I joined Trello and commented on some of your thoughts.

Still looks like a on of cards to cut on Legacy Masters in the multiverse. I'll get cracking!

[Thomas David Baker]

Sweet. I think Trello works well for this. We'll see I guess.

You can now unretire cards directly from search results without having to go to the Retired page.

http://bit.ly/legacy-masters-trello

[Thomas David Baker]

As well as a bunch of mini-discussions there's a couple of votes up on the Trello. People following a long at home may care to vote on the Uncommon Artifact cycle and/or the UR Uncommon even if they aren't interested in devoting their lives to the care and nurturing of Legacy Masters :)

http://bit.ly/legacy-masters-trello

To vote, click on the answer(s) you like and click Vote on the resulting dialog.