Portal is coming!!!

[dandan]

Recently (1st of Feb) Oracle got updated to include Portal and Starter sets (of course Crystal Keep had pseudo-Oracle versions of these cards back in 1999).  Perhaps Wizards have decided that casual players everywhere were confused by the complexity of these cards but maybe, just maybe....

Portal and Starter are going to be allowed in Type I

Remember last year? 2003- the year that Wizards started to listen and do intelligent stuff with the Type I format. MaRo replied on MagictheGathering.com to my letter which included my long term crusade to make Type I the format where you can use any (non-silly) card - basically allowing Portal and Starter. Many view this as an effort to get Jungle Lion in my Stompy deck, whilst others fear the might of Horsemanship and bad, sorcery speed tutors. MaRo replied with a 'maybe'.

Months later the sets are added to Oracle, removing the last hurdle to allowing them in Type I.

They are going to do it, my friends! Type I will be the format where you can use any (non-silly) cards you own. Some will rant about how broken some of the bad tutors are, about how you can have decks with 57 tutors in them and no doubt someone will bitch about the difficulty of knowing the creature type of Hulking Goblin or Bear Cub.

You, who doubted the righteousness of the campaign, recant your past follies here and save your credibility.

They're coming !!!!!!!

P.S. I think that Starter was designated as a subset of 8th and so is technically Type I legal. I haven't seen / found any official confirmation of this so I would be grateful if anyone could enlighten me.

"Our new plan is to treat the Starter game as an “extension” of Eighth Edition. All the cards that appear in the Starter game will be considered to be part of Eighth Edition and will be legal for play in Standard tournaments (as long as Eighth Edition is legal, of course). However, some of the cards in the starter box won’t appear in booster packs, and they won’t count against the total number of cards in the set. For example, Vizzerdrix might be in the starter box, but you’d never get one in a booster pack and Vizzerdrix’s old spot in Eighth Edition will be filled by some other blue rare."http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/rb30

[Kowal]

Sweet.  Rebecca Guay.dec will be able to go back to its green roots, with Defense of the Heart and giant wurms.

The artist format is mine.

[Bram]

What am I, a crystal ball?

[dandan]

Your No vote has been noted and I shall personally remind you of it when this joyful change becomes reality.

Remember Aaron Forsythe from MagictheGathering.com in Feb, 2003
"9) Allow Portal Cards
Now this is a proposal I can get behind. Not many people suggested it, because it requires "thinking outside the box," but it is a great idea nonetheless.
Portal as an oversimplified way to introduce players to the game was not the best idea ever, and the creation of cards that were not overtly goofy (like Unglued), yet still not legal in tournaments has been met with a small amount of ire in the community (especially by those players that started with Portal, only to find out later that the cards were "useless"). We have since stopped making such sets, and have gone so far as to make special exemptions for the tournament legality of cards that will only appear in the Starter game, as Eager Cadet will do when Eighth Edition rolls around.

The logistics of legalizing all three Portal sets, plus a few random Starter cards, is the real barrier at this time.

Most Type 1 players call for the legalizing of Portal because of one card in particular, the green common Jungle Lion, which many claim is just the card Stompy (mono-green beatdown) needs to be truly competitive. The problem is that the rules team can't just say "Jungle Lion is legal in Type 1." If Portal is to be legalized, all three sets must be legalized, which would entail writing Oracle wordings for all the cards (some of which are quite awkward under "real" rules), and assigning creature types to a bunch of monsters. While not an impossible task, it would require a bit of time.

All in all, a good idea, and one I'd personally like to see happen. But if and when such a change would be made are murky at best.
"

Oracle has been updated, Aaron's 'real barrier' has been removed. It's coming, people.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I think it would be cool if they did make it T1 legal, but I also think that they ph34r the tutors.

[dandan]

If they fear tutors then why did they print Spoils of the Vault? A decent combo deck should already beat aggro so it needs to beat other combo and control. Putting in Sorcery speed tutors that are card disadvanatge and make you wait until next turn before you get the card (sans Brainstorm) is hardly likely to improve those matchups. Besides which, most combo decks have no room for additional tutors, Merchant Scroll rarely makes the cut.

The 'good' stuff (the tutors, card drawers, manipulation, etc):

Control of the Court  Sorcery (Goblin Lore)   1R    
Draw four cards and put them into your hand. Then discard three cards at random from your hand.  

Cruel Bargain  Sorcery       BBB
Draw four cards. You lose half your life, rounded up. (For example, if you have 11 life, you lose 6 life.)  

Cruel Tutor  Sorcery   2B    
Search your deck for any card. Shuffle your deck and put that card on top of it. You lose 2 life.  

Gift of Estates  Sorcery   1W    
If your opponent has more lands in play than you do, search your deck for up to three plains and put them into your hand. Shuffle your deck afterwards.  

Grim Tutor  Sorcery   1BB    
Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. You lose 3 life.  

Imperial Seal  Sorcery       B
Search your library for any one card. Shuffle your library and put that card on top of it. You lose 2 life.

Personal Tutor  Sorcery     U  
Search your deck for a sorcery and reveal that card to all players. Shuffle your deck and put the revealed card on top of it
 
Rolling Earthquake  Sorcery   XR    
Rolling Earthquake deals X damage to each player and each creature without horsemanship. (This includes you and your creatures without horsemanship.)  
(fear Horsemanship!)

Strategic Planning  Sorcery   1U    
Look at the top three cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

[Dr. Sylvan]

Oh I wasn't saying it was an entirely rational fear, I was just saying that it's what might still be in the way.

Cruel Bargain Sorcery BBB
Draw four cards. You lose half your life, rounded up. (For example, if you have 11 life, you lose 6 life.)

Heh. [card]Infernal Contract[/card] 4L.

[Matt]

Imperial Seal is the only dangerous card (assuming Personal Tutor doesn't become "instant or sorcery").

[Jacob Orlove]

Imperial Seal is the only dangerous card (assuming Personal Tutor doesn't become "instant or sorcery").

Imperial Seal fetches Bazaar. So much for T1.5

[Matt]

It also gives you six non-dangerous (Spoils, Consult) ways to have Will in your hand on turn two in type one, without ANY acceleration. Or Lotus, if you feel like doing that.

Imperial Seal needs to be retsricted because Burning Wish is restricted. Also, like Jacob said, it would make Dragon unbeatable in 1.5.

[Smmenen]

Portal should be legal.  I believe it will as well.  Imperial Tutor should be restricted probably though.

Steve

[dandan]

I think it would probably be prudent to restrict Imperial Seal just for safety. To be honest, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify not having a different B&R list for Type 1.5 as things that are fine in Type I are dangerous in Type 1.5. I hope Wizards feels that 3 sets do not need to be banned from Type I because 1 card would need to be restricted (largely because of Type 1.5 anyway).
Personal Tutor is far weaker than Merchant Scroll and I can see no reason to even consider it.

If we agree that Imperial Seal would need to be put on the Restricted List and given that there are Oracle listings for all cards (the vast majority of which are very very simple cards anyway), is there any reason at all not to allow Portal (and Starter) in Type I?

(Can anyone confirm one way or another if Starter is technically classified as a subset of Eighth as Randy wrote on MagicTheGathering.com way back before 8th was released?)

[Nameless]

Control of the Court  Sorcery (Goblin Lore)   1R    
Draw four cards and put them into your hand. Then discard three cards at random from your hand.

This card would be nuts in Madness...  *drool*  I want this card!!!

[Hyperion]

If it weren't for the random discard I would agree. Prior testing with Gamble showed me first hand how awful it was despite the fact that it has the word 'discard' in it .

[Nameless]

If it weren't for the random discard I would agree. Prior testing with Gamble showed me first hand how awful it was despite the fact that it has the word 'discard' in it .

How would this be any worse then, say...  LED?  See the key here is that Gamble is one measly card, where this is 4(!) off the top, and out come the Madness!  It's been my experience with Madness.dec that I empty my hand very quickly, so basically this is : Play the top 4 Madness cards from your deck, discard the rest.

[Hyperion]

LED is a 0cc madness outlet that can be used at instant speed, and you control when it's used to pay madness spells, but Goblin Lore is a 2cc sorcery-speed outlet, which makes it cumbersome to pay madness spells on top of the casting cost for this spell. It's like comparing apples and oranges though, because LED is acceleration + outlet and Lore is draw + outlet. The better comparison is probably Goblin Lore vs. Careful Study, and Careful Study is several orders of magnitude better than this card.

The other side to the point you made about Madness emptying its hand quickly is that when you do have a few cards in hand Goblin Lore is horrible. This card is very risky to play in the first couple turns where you need to set up and you need a decent amount of mana to be able to pay multiple madness spells at once.

[Mykeatog]

Guys-- let's not have hypothetical fights about imaginary cards until they are real.

Back on track-- this is fucking awesome.

It would be wicked sweet if they add these cards to type 1, and come on, even the awesome stuff isn't that good. These are all Sorc's, and most people don't even play Vampiric Tutor. It would be interesting to see exactly how much type 1 effects the value of cards though, as surely anything that ends up playable will shoot up fast.

I think that the demonic tutor + B should be restricted, as well as the Sorc Vamp. Let the transformed merchant scroll be legal times 4 though, since merchant scroll is currently sub par anyway.

[dandan]

I want these cards to be Type I legal not because they are strong, interesting or cool but because Type I should be the format where you can use any (non-silly) cards you own. There just isn't any good reason not to allow them. The lack of Oracle listings was a convenient excuse although Crystal Keep has had listings since about 1999. It isn't like any Type I player should have problems figuring out how to use Portal cards.

The status of Starter is still rather unclear.

I am also fairly sure that the retailers have also let Wizards know that they would appreciate any move that would allow them to sell those boxes of Portal and Starter that nobody currently wants.

Is it just me that feels that it is a bit daft that we can use Moxen, YawgWill, Bargain, Workshop, Time Walk, Ancestral, Noble Panther, Sedge Troll and other broken cards but Bear Cub is considered out of bounds?

[Bram]

stacking your deck becomes >>>> this way.

[Nameless]

Screw you, I WILL fight about cards that don't exist, so HA!!!   :shock:

I think Goblin Lore would just be an excellent Mid-Late Game card for Madness.dec, and you are right, compairing it to LED is like apples and oranges, but I should have been clearer earlier because even then I wasn't considering it an early game card.

But...

It would be pretty cool.  I mean, I don't think there are really any cards that are broken at all.  I mean the crappy Demonic is only 1 colorless less then Diabolic Tutor, but costs you 3 more life, that seems perfectly fair, and not even restrictable.  I mean you aren't going to go crazy casting these things even if you have 4 in the deck, that's 12 life for petes sake.  Even a Keeper deck could drop enough Soldiers EOT to finish you off suppa-qik.

The only thing I don't like is Horsemanship, and I'd agree with Abe from SCG that they could just use erratta on the ability itself to add, "Anything that can block a creature with 'Flying' can block a creature with 'Horsemanship'."; for reasons of pure logic, if nothing else.  I mean dude, it's an Eternal Dragon, a Morphling, and an Angel sitting there and you're telling me a stupid little horse just whips by?  Is it really that damn fast?  

[dandan]

Wizards print 2/2 fliers for 2 and 3 mana, completely unblockable blue creatures for 3 mana, 2/2 shadow creatures for 2 mana (effectively unblockable) but some people have problems with crappy 2/2 dudes on horses for 3 mana (generalising a bit but a reasonable generalisation).

Just pretend they are unblockable, is that unreasonable? They are sat atop an armour-clad warhorse. That is not a Shetland pony, it is a tank with a brain.  It doesn't whip by, it crashes through your defences with power and elegance, not like the brute force of Green's tramplers but with the precision of warcraft honed to perfection by years of training and centuries of tradition. Remember Genghis Khan? Horsemen. Remember Agincourt (spelling?)? More horsemen but met with distain from ranged attacks. That sort of aerial attack works, coconut-laden swallows (even African ones) can't dive down to take on the 6-legged attackers.  Show me your broken Type I Horseman deck.  Show me your nasty multiplayer deck full of Pearled Unicorn look-alikes.  

Angels and Dragons are none too fond of tangling with Horsemen and Morphling is in two minds what to do about them.

For reference sake I don't remember there being four Morphlings of the Apocalypse!!!

[Jacob Orlove]

For reference sake I don't remember there being four Morphlings of the Apocalypse!!!

Hahaha, a brilliant analogy.

The issue is, though, that while it's obvious that a Wall of Stone can't stop a Serra Angel, it's much less clear why neither one can stop some men on horses. Flying and Horsemanship both make sense flavor-wise in a vacuum, but together both feel less "natural".

[dandan]

Flying actually making little sense in a vacuum!

Assuming a large majority of Magic players have seen Lord of the Rings, it shouldn't be too tricky to imagine supernatural mounted warriors that are to all intents and purposes unstoppable. Or simply view them as gaining speed by being mounted, able to outflank, shoot through the ranks of defenders in a flash, able to jump over minor nuisances like walls, too maneuverable for swooping flyers. These are elite warriors, fast and powerful not hollow-boned avian 'soldiers'.
(this is of course from a flavour point of view, in practice they aren't that good!)

Is it any worse than Plainswalk? Your skill at crossing vast expanses of flat land is so great that the massed armies can't spot you as you approach. A Wall of Stone can't block you as you sneak across the Plains, its granite blocks totally useless due to your stealth. Even circling Dragons can't spot you.

Leave Horsemanship as written, it really isn't a problem.

[Saucemaster]

Assuming a large majority of Magic players have seen Lord of the Rings, it shouldn't be too tricky to imagine supernatural mounted warriors that are to all intents and purposes unstoppable... too maneuverable for swooping flyers.

Uhm, the Nazgul's flying beasts seemed to be doing a pretty good job kicking the asses of quite a few mounted warriors.  I'm with Nameless, though only from a flavor standpoint.  From a practical, tournament-oriented standpoint, I couldn't care less.  The horsey can just pull the Plow on my nice little Farm.

[dandan]

It is fairly easy to swoop on a swarm of riders, plucking up one or two who happen to be near your claws. It is quite another thing to catch a single moving target.

I just think it is an unnecassry complication to make up rules for how Horsemanship and Flying interact. I think there needs to be a very good reason to make any card function differently to how it is printed. To date only game balance has been accepted as a reason to change cards, I am not aware of any changes because of flavour.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. (unwritten law of Type I)

[Nameless]

It is fairly easy to swoop on a swarm of riders, plucking up one or two who happen to be near your claws. It is quite another thing to catch a single moving target.

I just think it is an unnecassry complication to make up rules for how Horsemanship and Flying interact. I think there needs to be a very good reason to make any card function differently to how it is printed. To date only game balance has been accepted as a reason to change cards, I am not aware of any changes because of flavour.

If it isn't broken, don't fix it. (unwritten law of Type I)

Well, I'm hardly saying it's broken, I mean I couldn't care less about a few unblockable dudes, too.  I'm just looking at the flavor.

However...

I see that I will be forced to unleash a darh scourge upon the land, and create my masterpiece...

The dreaded Horsemanship deck!

With it I will lay seige, if I have enough grain, and unleash my horde upon the world, as long as I've got my army of pooper scoopers so people don't bitch, and ride past your defenses to victory, so long as that doesn't include a glue factory or something along the way.

(You know, there aren't that many horse jokes that I know of...)

[Matt]

You know, there aren't that many horse jokes that I know of...

You know, you would be remiss in the extreme if you didn't mention Catherine the Great (however apocryphal that story might be!).

[dandan]

I hardly think that is the sort of Horsemanship we are talking about!

[Matt]

But it gets so much funnier when you think about it like that:

Well, I'm hardly saying it's broken, I mean I couldn't care less about a few unblockable dudes, too. I'm just looking at the flavor.

[Smmenen]

Well they missed a good opportunity to legalize Portal today... but I still think it will be coming, eventually.  We've waited this long, I guess there is no real hurry.  

Steve