February Tournament: Limited Shop

[Salbei]

Deckbuilding limitations
-adjust your config.txt to "RulesEngine:0" <- edit (27.01.2011)
-The minimum decksize is 40.
There is no maximum limit.So you need at least 40 NON-Handicap 7 cards in your deck.
-The maximum number of copies per card is 3.
No cards restrictions. (you may play 3 Strip Mine)
-The maximum handsize is normal (7 cards)
-You may only use cards you "bought" from the c/u/r shop.
common spells/creatures cost 1
uncommon spells/creatures cost 3
rare spells/creatures cost 6
Planeswalkers cost 10
Handicap 7 cards cost 3
-You got 100 points to buy cards from the c/u/r shop.
-The first Planeswalker of your choice can be bought free of charge (0 points).You may choose not to include that Plainswalker to gain additional 6 points !
-You may buy as many additional Planeswalker cards as you wish (10 points each) - up to 3 copies each.
-Your first 10 Handicap 7 cards can be bought free of charge (0 points)
-You may buy as many additional Handicap 7 cards as you wish (3 points each).Each Handicap 7 card stands for 1 hit point you start the duel with.
-Basic landcards (Swamp Mountain Forest Plains Island) can be bought free of charge (0 points).

c/u/r shop | Open

Special cards
Handicap 7 (3)(increases your hit points by 1, first 10 are free)
Basiclands (0)

Planeswalkers
Garruk Wildspeaker (10)
Ajani Goldmane (10)
Ajani Vengeant (10)
Sorrin Markov (10)
Chandra Nalaar (10)
Jace Beleren (10)

common spells (1)
White: Path to Exile / Join the Ranks / Disenchant
Black: Doom Blade / Duress / Grim Discovery
Blue: Repulse / Negate / Remove Soul
Green: Vines of Vastwood / Relic Crush / Cultivate
Red: Hammer of Bogardan / Volcanic Strength / Chandra´s Outrage
Multicolored: Electrolyze / Absorb / Kiss of the Amesha
Artifacts: Warlord's Axe / Elixir of Immortality / Adventuring Gear / Trusty Machete
Lands:Terramorphic Expanse / Arcane Sanctum / Crumbling Necropolis / Jungle Shrine / Savage Lands / Seaside Citadel

---

uncommon spells (3)
White: Raise the Alarm / Honor the Pure / Oblivion Ring
Black: Hymn to Tourach / Diabolic Edict
Blue: Brainstorm / Counterspell / Threads of Disloyalty
Green: Creeping Mold / Tanglesap / Might of Oaks
Red: Lightning Bolt / Incinerate / Reverberate
Multicolored: Blightning / Lightning Helix / Armadillo Cloak
Artifacts: Sword of Vengeance / Brittle Effigy / Crystal Ball / Meekstone
Lands: Desert / Fetchlands / Dual Lands

---

rare spells (6)
White: Wrath of God / Worship / Glorious Anthem
Black: Bitterblossom / Damnation / Chainers Edict
Blue: Evacuation / Tidings / Bribery
Green: Beastmaster Ascension / Harmonize / Gigantiform
Red: Seething Song / Fireball /
Multicolored: Wrecking Ball / Vindicate / Putrefy / Mortify /
Artifacts: Tawnos Coffin / Vedalken Shackles / Khalni Gem / Mirror Universe / Mox Diamond / Nevinyrral´s Disk
Lands: Strip Mine / Mishra´s Factory / Karakas / Pendelhaven / Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

--------

common creatures (1)
White: Akrasan Squire / Blinding Mage / Soul Warden / Icatian Priest
Black: Nekrataal / Ravenous Rats / Grave Digger / Vampire Hexmage / Bloodghast
Blue: Scroll Thief / Wall of Frost / Man-o-War / Welkin Tern / Caller of Gales
Green: Sakura-Tribe Elder / Viridian Shaman / River Boa / Ravenous Baloth / Wild Nacatl
Red: Rockslide Elemental / Hellfire Mongrel / Goblin Bushwhacker / Kird Ape / Mogg Fanatic
Multicolored: Rhox War Monk / Watchwolf / Moroii / Woolly Thoctar / Tidehollow Strix
Artifacts: Wall of Spears / Solemn Simulacrum / Onulet / Hedron Scrabbler

---

uncommon creatures (3)
White: Blinding Angel / Emeria Angel / Steppe Lynx / Heavy Ballista
Black: Sorceress Queen / Halo Hunter / Gatekeeper of Malakir
Blue: Mulldrifter / Air Servant / Archivist / Spiketail Hatchling
Green: Cudgel Troll / Eternal Witness / Acidic Slime / Birds of Paradise / Prized Unicorn
Red: Vulshok Sorcerer / Obsidian Fireheart / Rukh Egg / Cyclops Gladiator
Multicolored: Blazing Specter / Razorfin Hunter / Loxodon Hierarch / Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers / Shadowmage Infiltrator
Artifacts: Juggernaut / Steel Overseer / Beast of Burden / Triskelion

---

rare creatures (6)

White: Sun Titan / Preacher / Battlegrace Angel
Black: Grave Titan / Nantuko Shade / Vampire Nighthawk
Blue: Frost Titan / Roil Elemental / Living Tsunami
Green: Primeval Titan / Lhurgoyf / Rampaging Baloths
Red: Inferno Titan / Ancient Hellkite / Fire Servant
Multicolored: Broodmate Dragon / Iridescent Angel / Lightning Angel / Tolsimir Wolfblood / Stoic Angel / Rubinia Soulsinger
Artifacts: Masticore / Platinum Angel / Ulamog's Crusher

example 1 | Open

You try a Green/Red deck based around Primeval Titan and Valakuth.
This is just an example of how the shop works, don´t take the deck to seriously.

10 Handicap7 /free
1 Garruk /free // 39 cards left

You buy :
1 Valakuth (6) - 94 points left //38 cards left
3 Primeval Titan (3*6=18) - 76 points left // 35 cards left
3 Harrow (3x1=3) - 73 points left // 32 cards left
1 Garruk (10) - 64 points left // 31 cards left
3 Taiga (3x6=18) - 46 points left // 28 cards left
3 Incinerate (3x3=9) -37 points left // 25 cards left
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder (3x1=3) -34 points left // 22 cards left
7 Forrest (0) -34 points left // 15 cards left
10 Mountain (0) -34 points left // 5 cards left
2 Eternal Witness (2*3=6) -28 points left // 3 cards left
3 Cudgel Troll (3*3=9) -19 points left // 0 cards left
6 Handicap 7 (6*3=18) 1 point left // 0 cards left

40 cards // 16 Handicap

You have completed your 40 card deck so you can spend the rest of the points for points.At this point you got 19 points left.
So you could either fine tune your deck and replace a couple cards or just buy life for the remaining points.In this case 19 points would equal 6 life (3 points per life) so you would start out with 16 life.

example2 | Open

You try a black weenie list.This is just another shop example.

10 Handicap 7 free
no Plainswalker (+6 points) // 106 points left // 40 cards left

3 Nantuko Shade (3*6=18) 88 points left // 37 cards left
3 Bloodghast (3*1=3) 85 points left // 34 cards left
3 Bitterblossom (3*6=18) 67 points left // 31 cards left
3 Trusty Machete (3*1=3) 64 points left // 28 cards left
3 Doom Blade (3*1=3) 61 points left // 25 cards left
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir (3*3=9) 52 points left // 22 cards left
3 Strip Mine (3*6=18) 34 points left // 19 cards left
3 Wasteland (3*3=9) 25 points left // 16 cards left
14 Swamp (0) 25 points left // 2 cards left
2 Hymn to Tourach (2*3=6) 19 points left // 0 cards left
6 Handicap 7 (6*3=18) 1 point left

40 cards 16 life

You decide you want to have more starting life to support the Bitterblossom so you cut the Wastelands (gain 9 points) and replace them with swamps.You buy 3 additional life with that.
40 cards 19 life.

General

We use the Limited version to play best of 3 games.

The scoring system will be :
2-0 Human 3 / AI 0
2-1 Human 2 / AI 1
1-2 Human 1 / AI 2
0-2 Human 0 / AI 3

I hope its not TOO complicated to understand. Ask your questions here if there are any and please let me know if you are interested.
I´ll post the dates etc. once we got enough people (at least 6).
After that just PM me your decklist along with your points spend so i can recheck them.
I won´t participate in the tournament (since i´ve made the c/u/r list - it is up to you to figure out and exploit weaknesses in there).Hopefully we will see a variety of different decks.
The current c/u/r list is fixed and i won´t change it.

If there are any questions left feel free to ask them here.
This should be a "fresh" and unique idea.I´d also like to test a different score system this time, hope you don´t mind. I´ll keep track of the score so you don´t have to do the math.

Side Event Score system
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=3874&p=52146#p52146

[Shantak]

Mark me as interested.

[jatill]

I'm in, of course. I like how we can buy life points
In the docs, in 1 place it says 5 points for a handicap card, but most places it says 3. So it's 3, right?

[aww1979]

I'll play. Is the card shop list above the one we are actually using, or is it an example?

[Salbei]

It is the one we are using. You can playtest already if you want to.

I'm in, of course. I like how we can buy life points
In the docs, in 1 place it says 5 points for a handicap card, but most places it says 3. So it's 3, right?

Whoops thats a leftover. The handicap thing was a last minute thing.
5 was too much after testing.Was thinking about lowering it to 2 but that would be too low with an all common deck.So 3 seems to be right and is what we use.

So far so good:

Group A
Shantak
AWW

Group B
Jatill

We still need at least 3 people.Please let me know if there are any major AI issues with the c/u/r cards (like not equipping Equipments).I´ve played with all (?) of them before, but a recent patch might have broken a card or two.

[Cognis]

I'll give it a try as well

[Salbei]

Group A
Shantak
AWW

Group B
Jatill
Cognis

Nice.Alright i´ll wait till January 30th for other people to join.
Your Decks should be submitted (PM me) untill February 5th, so take your time to playtest.Should be plenty of time for that.

[jatill]

I think the AI will never use Blade of the Bloodchief, and even if they do, it doesn't work right :/

[Salbei]

Hmm i thought so.I will replace the card - gimme a few minutes.

I´ve replaced it with Elixir of Immortality. Some lifegain was missing anyways. Hopefully it doesn´t break Bitterblossom, but i´m not too worried about that.Prolly a good choice for the common slot.
Hope it was the right choice.
*hint* people might "trade" this to work around low start hp or to avoid decking out in long games.

Standstill is not available in the Limited Version (doh!) i replaced it with Tidings. Not quite the same i know, but its kinda tought to replace.Brainstorm already covers the "cheap" carddraw so Tidings seemed to be the next best choice.

Cryptic Command is also not available in the Limited Version (doh again!). I´ve replaced it with Evacuation after some playtesting.

Vampire Lacerator got replaced by Vampire Hexmage. Another very needed balance change.

Wasteland is not available in the Limited Version (grrrr) replaced it with Desert.Funny how Strip Mine is available but Wasteland isn´t.

Dismiss got replace by Repulse. There was just too much Countermagic in the common slot and i had a feeling nobody would use it anyways.Repulse was choosen mainly because of the lack of bounce effects.Especially Gigantiform concerned me a bit.

Hopefully those are the last changes i have to make.I´m still playtesting for major balance flaws and change cards if needed.

What do you think about the points to buy stuff ? Hope i hit the sweet spot where you have just the "right" ammount of cards without having to cut too much.Would be even worse if you could mindlesly buy like 20 extra life.It was a lot easier without the Handicap cards to determine how much points you would roughly need, but i guess it keeps it interesting.I tried to set the initial hp low enough so people are forced to buy "extra" life - hope that won´t backfire.

I tried to keep the "format" fast paced without much opportunities to stall - although you still got the strategic option to do so.
Well we will see how "good" the c/u/r list is when people submit their decks.When everybody is playing the same deck i did some major mistakes, but i don´t see that happening yet.

[Stroggoii]

I really liked the shop style, it'd be a good and easy way to keep future tournaments fresh to keep the list changing, tho a bigger list would work for less similar decks too

[Salbei]

Stroggoii already PM´d me his list and wants to participte.
Remember that you can still change the deck till we actually start.

Group A
Shantak
AWW
Stroggoii

Group B
Jatill
Cognis

So there we just need one more player.
I also came up with a really nice idea for a "side-event".I´ll let you know more about it when i got everything worked out.

[aww1979]

With only two legend creatures in the list (that I counted) I don't think Karakas is going to sell, especially at 6 points. Otherwise it seems pretty good, and reasonably balanced, and there's no one deck that really stands out as a clear winner to me yet.

[Salbei]

Yeah i´ve noticed that aswell. Also i forgot to add Terminate to the list.But since i already got my first submitted deck for the tournament i don´t want to do anymore changes to the list.

It is up to the "deckbuilders" to discover things like that - the list defines the meta and it is a quite good skill indicator to see what kind of strategies might show up and build the deck accordingly.Another main thing is to make sure that the AI can play your deck.This is where you can get that "edge" you might need to make it through the round.Winning the player games alone won´t cut it - every AI win puts you ahead of others.

I´m testing the list myself. Already made around 30 decks (!) with this.Some decks are clearly superior to others, but that is up to you to discover.

That is pretty much where i came up with the idea for that "side-event".I´d like to discuss this here.

Side-event: Beat Sal
I´ve picked 10 different decks for you to fight against.(already picked the 10, but i´d like to wait for everybody to submit their deck before i post them for obvious reasons).
I came up with an innovative score-system for this (i´m not going to reveal this yet since it would affect deck building).
If you want to participate, then run a best of 1 against each of these decks with your group opponents deck and report the result as usual (with a kicker).It is just 10 games.This is OPTIONAL.

Group opponents:
Its pretty easy to understand.
Example:

Group A
player1a (Shantak)
player2a (AWW)
player3a (Stroggoii)

Group B
player1b (Jatill)
player2b (Cognis)
player3b (unknown)

Lets say you are player2a (Aww1979) so you would have to run your group opponents deck (in this case) player2bs (Cognis) deck through the "gauntlet". Shantak would have to play Jatills deck and vice versa.Hope you get what i mean.

I will cover missing games (for people who don´t have time to play the additional 10 games) and play their best of 1 gauntlet for them if needed.

Playing this is optional and is not rewarded with any extra points.The reward for winning the side-event depends on Jatills schedule i guess (aswell as the main tournaments reward).

If we just stay 6 people then it is just going to be 6 matches per group (12 matches total - all best of 3).So everybody should have enough time for this side-event thing then.
If we get 8 people we will have the usual 12 matches per group (24 matches total).

We still need at least 1 player to join up.

[240sxforever]

I will join in if there is still a spot.

[Salbei]

Group A
Shantak (plays Jatills deck for the side event)
Aww1979 (plays Cognis deck for the side event)
Stroggoii (plays 240sxforevers deck for the side event)

Group B
Jatill (plays Shantaks deck for the side event)
Cognis (plays Aww1979s deck for the side event)
240sxforever (plays Stroggoiis deck for the side event)

Alright,we got the minimum needed players of 6 now.Hope you don´t mind if i "stretch" the tournament a bit by adding a 2nd Group phase.

Round1:
12 matches (two 3people groups), winner and runner up of Group A+B advance to Round 2 (12 days to play)
Round2:
12 matches (a 4people group), winner and runner up advance to Round3 (12 days to play)
Round3:
2 matches for the final

Please submit your decks until Jan 31.