The program just got another major overhaul and revision.

It's pretty much perfect now. 

Sorry, I forgot to link to the actual program...

The torrent just has all the gamesets and pictures and such. You also need the OCTGN 2 Program itself.

You can download the program here...

http://www.octgn.net/downloads.php

Just click the link that says "Install OCTGN 2"

03/05/2010 Update: The Program Recently Recieved A Massive Update That Added Drafting, Shortcuts And Tons of Other Much Requested Functionality. And it's all been packed together into a single easy to download torrent file.

Here is a link to the torrent that includes the latest game definition, all the MTG sets and the game module, packed together and ready to install...

http://www.kickasstorrents.com/octgn-w-magic-the-gathering-2-8-t3429809.html

UPDATE: This program just got a slew of updates recently and all of the below concerns over the past two years have been addressed.

Firstly, it looks AMAZING!







It's been getting updates/improvements for the past five years, and is now fully functional.


It features...

Multiplayer - It supports all multiplayer and most variant formats including as Emperor, Two Headed Dragon, Elder Dragon Highlander, Free For All, Five Color and Mental Magic. The only way to play Emperor Online.

Full Functionality - It supports all the features that other programs support, including tokens, modifiable libraries, modifiable keyboard shortcuts and such.

Fast Clean Interface - It loads in under three seconds!! Easily the fastest softward outthere for this purpose.

Modular - It can support any game you want it to, Blue Moon, WoW etc. It's not strictly restricted to MTG.

Completely Free - No Ads, No Limitations, Completely Free. All the functionality is there for everyone to use.

Frequently Updated/Improved - I checked the blog and it has had three additional features added just in the past two months. The last time Magic Workstation or Apprentice or other competing programs had an update or gained functionality was almost three years ago.



The download link for OCTGN 2.0 is here...
http://www.octgn.net/downloads.php
(Simply click "Install OCTGN 2" in Internet Explorer.)

Once you have the program itself, everything you need to download, the MTG game module, and all of the sets is right here...
http://www.mediafire.com/sets
(Get all of the sets from the O2 folder.)

If you just want to download the MTG game module by itself, the magic game definition is available at...
http://filebeam.com/bcc3b17ace45fde83ce8bee787aedf84
(Remove the .txt from the file name after downloading.)

To connect to a chatroom full of players, simply go to...
http://www.mibbit.com/networks/ircstorm/octgn.html


Have fun!



Once again, I'm not involved in anyway with creating or helping in anyway with this program, my entire involvement consists of me frequently playing games with this program and reading the blog, so please post your suggestions and feedback at either the developer blog or the forum...
http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
http://www.octgn.net/forum/index.php

They are there.

There's plenty of forum posts, articles at random sites, and no doubt tons of email going to Wizards asking them to act against Ichorid.

Exactly the same grumblings and complaints that led to drastic bannings at the last annoucement.

Anyone who's actually familiar with manaless ichorid could tell that...

A.) Manaless Ichorid achieve consistent uncounterable early kills neccesitating that people sideboard against it before Future Sight and Bridge from Below ever saw print. Restricting Bridge wouldn't slow down the deck at all. It would still be capable of consistent uncounterable kills just as quickly using Sutured Ghoul and Dragon Breath as the very competitive preFS builds of the deck did.

B.) Bazaar is the card that breaks the deck, not Bridge. Replacing the Bridge kill with Sutured Ghoul instead really wouldn't hurt the deck much at all.

C.) Manaless Ichorid honestly doesn't deserve to be neutered or any component banned.

D.) Banning Bridge instead of Bazaar would be akin to how wizards first dealt with Necropotence's brokeness by restricting Hymn to Tourach, then Dark Ritual, then Mana Vault, before finally realizing that the actual broken card needs to be the one that should get restricted.

There's a few people saying that Ichorid and Stax are too powerful and should be neutered.

They're wrong, a deck needs to win tournaments to be considered too powerful.

But if you must restrict more cards in Vintage, please make them be..

Bazaar of Bagdad and Mishra's Workshop.

Restricting some other card from Ichorid like Bridge From Below instead of Bazaar would be a horrible horrible horrible idea.

Bazaar is what breaks the deck wide open, providing both an uncounterable discard outlet and a dredge source.

Early kills were very much common and consistent for Manaless Ichorid well before Bridge from Below was ever printed.

If you opt to ban Bridge instead of Bazaar, you wouldn't eliminate the frequency of early kills that Manaless Ichorid can achieve.

The deck would remain every bit as fast using Sutured Ghoul and Dragon Breath for the win as the very competitive preFS builds of the deck did.

You would piss off both the sane people that don't think Ichorid needs to be neutered until it puts up some tournament results, and also piss off the misguided people that lose to Ichorid early because they don't have a decent sideboard because they would continue to lose to Ichorid early.

It would be extended necropotence trix situation all over again, with you guys banning every card in the combo except the actually broken component.

It's a fully featured alpha though.

And anyone with the mtg images and some programming experiences could put together an mtg module for it in a day or so.

03/05/2010 Update: The Program Recently Recieved A Massive Update That Added Drafting, Shortcuts And Tons of Other Much Requested Functionality. And it's all been packed together into a single easy to download torrent file.

Here is a link to the torrent that includes the latest game definition, all the MTG sets and the game module, packed together and ready to install...

http://www.kickasstorrents.com/octgn-w-magic-the-gathering-2-8-t3429809.html

The torrent just has all the gamesets and pictures and such. You also need the OCTGN 2 Program itself.

You can download the program here...

http://www.octgn.net/downloads.php

Just click the link that says "Install OCTGN 2"


Firstly, it looks AMAZING!








It's been getting updates/improvements for the past five years, and is now fully functional.


It features...

Multiplayer - It supports all multiplayer and most variant formats including as Emperor, Two Headed Dragon, Elder Dragon Highlander, Free For All, Five Color and Mental Magic. The only way to play Emperor Online.

Full Functionality - It supports all the features that other programs support, including tokens, modifiable libraries, modifiable keyboard shortcuts and such.

Fast Clean Interface - It loads in under three seconds!! Easily the fastest softward outthere for this purpose.

Modular - It can support any game you want it to, Blue Moon, WoW etc. It's not strictly restricted to MTG.

Completely Free - No Ads, No Limitations, Completely Free. All the functionality is there for everyone to use.

Frequently Updated/Improved - I checked the blog and it has had three additional features added just in the past two months. The last time Magic Workstation or Apprentice or other competing programs had an update or gained functionality was almost three years ago.



03/05/2010 Update: The Program Recently Recieved A Massive Update That Added Drafting, Shortcuts And Tons of Other Much Requested Functionality. And it's all been packed together into a single easy to download torrent file.

Here is a link to the torrent that includes the latest game definition, all the MTG sets and the game module, packed together and ready to install...

http://www.kickasstorrents.com/octgn-w-magic-the-gathering-2-8-t3429809.html

To connect to a chatroom full of players, simply go to...
http://www.mibbit.com/networks/ircstorm/octgn.html


Have fun!



Once again, I'm not involved in anyway with creating or helping in anyway with this program, my entire involvement consists of me frequently playing games with this program and reading the blog, so please post your suggestions and feedback at either the developer blog or the forum...
http://octgndev.wordpress.com/
http://www.octgn.net/forum/index.php

It's a shame that more people haven't heard of this fantastic program and that magic-league tournaments aren't hosted on it.

Unlike Magic Workstation, its open source, free, and supports both Draft games and any multiplayer formats you can dream up including Emperor. It's also more feature packed and the cards look so much better.

Yet all people talk about is Workstation.

Why isn't OCTGN used in the Magic-League tournaments?

I am bringing it up now right before OCTGN 2.0 is released so that if there was some technical reason that magic-league doesn't use it, some incompatibilities with the servers or something, that magic-league could talk to the developer at http://octgndev.wordpress.com/ and work out the problems before release.

By switching over to this program, magic-league could hold regular drafts and multiplayer tournaments as well instead of just hosting duals.

I just stumbled onto this program and it is worlds better than Workstation in every aspect.

It looks cleaner, runs faster, is completely free, and is OPEN SOURCE which means it just keeps getting better and better.

Best of all, there is an even better version, Version 2.0, about to be released. Version 2.0 enhances and perfects every aspect of the program. I don't see why magic-league wouldn't atleast consider swithing over to that version as soon as it's available in the next two months.

http://octgndev.wordpress.com/

So is there any reason this program isn't getting the mad props that it deserves?

If you are interested, here's a comprehensive list and great descriptions of all well built magic related software out there...

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=56796 <--- I HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading through this once, there's a lot of great software out there.

It seemed like meadbert is going for a build of the deck that is as
resilient and disruptive as possible.

Meanwhile, Stephen went with a build of the that wins on turn two as
consistently as humanly possible on the notion that winning early
consistently is the best way to minimize the chance of getting stopped
by hate, a philosophy that I definatley think holds true a good bit.

And finally, kobefan went with a build of the deck that ensures that
you can consistently deal with Leyline with turn two as that is the
hate that most effectively shuts down this deck, even if it hurts the
ability of this deck to deal with other hate cards like Yixid Jailer.

This was my attempt to adopt kobefan's list with Stephen's plan of winning on turn 2 as often as possible without abandoning the other goals of disruption and leyline hate as much. The key change from Stephens build is to switch it to the flame kin/cephalid plan as imho, the latter is a lot more comboesque.

The main advantage to the flame kin/cephalid plan over the sutured ghould plan is that you get to run 4 dread returns and 4 targets for it. So you can dread return a cephalid sage even with just a few cards in the yard on second turn into another dread return all the way till you get the flame-kin in the yard and win that same turn. With the sutured ghoul plan, you only have 2 dread return and if you don't have that along with sutured ghoul and dragon breath in the yard by turn 2 which you many times won't as you only have 2 of each, you really can't win till turn 3.

And I really think that it's best to optimize both an extremely comboesque build like Stephens for environments where hate is lite (and the best way to do this is probably to just take stephen's most recent build verbatim and simply replace the sutured ghoul win with the flame-kin zealot win) and a very resilient build like meadberts for places where hate is heavy.

I pretty much just tweaked kobefan's build because it seems like an extremely strong plan against Leyline.

4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder

3 Wooded Foothills
2 Dryad Arbor

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge From Below
4 Ichorid

4 Chalice of the Void/Petrified Field/Leyline of the Void/Street
Wraith
4 Unmask
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Dread Return
3 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Lion's Eye Diamond

SB:
2 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Emerald Charm
2 Reverent Silence

I went up to 14 dredgers just because multiple dredgers in the yard
before turn 2 is so key to being able to win on turn 2. The build also
makes room for Lion's Eye Diamond as that too is key to being able to
win turn 2.

Unlike the previous sideboards which needed one of 7 lands AND one of
7 spells in your early hand to deal with Leyline, this build plays 10
of each which greatly increases the probability of being able to do
this. If not for this, Arbor is probably a slightly worse way to ensure you get 3 creatures by turn
3 than Nether Shadow.

And with these changes, you now have both 4 Unmask and 4 Chain of
Vapor postboard to deal with hate  cards that are not Leyline.

Lastly this build lets you bring your entire sideboard in and the only
cards that are dead if your opponent doesn't open with Leyline is
Reverent Silence. Chain of Vapor almost always has it's uses, Emerald
Charm lets you dredge another 12-18 cards to your graveyard, and the
fetchland/arbor plan at the very least helps you dread return turn 2
all while fueling many additional creatures with Underworld Dreams.

The one major thing that the above build needs is a way to protect
Bazaar from Wasteland when your opponent goes first and plays it turn
one. Petrified Field works a bit but the question is, how to go about
making room for it.


What changes would you make to this build?


Honestly, is Leyline common enough to dedicate the orient the build so heavily versus it at the expense of resiliency to far more common though not as potent hate cards like Wasteland, Pithing Needle and Tormod's Crypt.

There's a lot of speculation regarding MaRo's statement in Inquest that a major rule is about to be changed in Peanut, the next set.

A lot of possiblities were thrown around and here, I want to discuss one in particular.

The change to 20 card Sideboards as was speculated I think would be a really good thing for all magic formats.

Here's the reasoning...

Currently in every single format, there are a select few decks that are extremely synergic and powerful, decks that have such strong cards and interactions that they dominate their respective formats.

To illustrate, in Legacy, the top decks are Goblins & Threshold/Solidarity/Iggy Pop Variants to a lesser extent. In any tournament, you can expect as much as 2/3rds of the field to be made up of these decks

Then there are literally thousands of rogue tier two decks that though well tuned and decent, still face difficulty in getting top 8s. There is just nothing in them that can compete with the raw synergy and pure aggressive speed of Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Matron, Seige Gang and such cards. Just to have a decent matchup against goblins, certain decks such as Vile Horror or Pox and many others for example are forced to devote around 12 of their 15 sideboard slots to that one matchup and in doing so don't have enough slots left to combat the other decks. Everyone expects these popular overplayed decks to show up, but the rogue decks rarely have the sideboard slots to fight off more than one or two of them.

A larger, 20 card sideboard would inherently favor these rogue strategies. The more slots decks have to devote to hating out the dominant decks, the more successful they will be at doing so. Meanwhile, rogue decks by definition are unexpected and the top decks will never have enough slots to properly have tools against all of them.

Larger 20 card sideboards would also inherently work against Storm based combo decks, Ichorid decks and generally any extremely fast decks that win within a few turns simply because the decks themselves are built very tightly and don't have many cards they can side out and still function well. It is healthy for these decks as well to not become overplayed as having to face them multiple rounds in a row in unappealing.

Thus, 20 cards sideboards would encourage diversity and well tuned rogue builds over the decks that everyone else plays. This in my opinion would be a very good thing. People running into a different competitive deck each round of a tournament is a good thing, a sign of a healthy format. It's also a good thing for stores and collectors as well as it would mean more strategies, more cards in general being played and many cards that allow for many different rogue strategies would be worth money rather than just a few cards that are extremely popular and priced highly.

Lastly, this is probably an irrelevent point to most people, but just to throw it out there, a 20 card, or even a 16 card sideboard is inherently more asthetic than a 15 card one. As MaRo explained very well in this article... http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr28, people find symmetry and consistency inherently asthetic, even if they don't realize it. A person will not find it consistent, or asthetic to not be able to run 4x copies of each card in their sideboard, especially since they can build a deck with 20 land and 10 4x copies of each card in their maindeck.