Montag, 19. Oktober 2015
Freitag, 16. Oktober 2015
Mittwoch, 14. Oktober 2015
Montag, 12. Oktober 2015
Planeswalkers as Generals?
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!
I think I am not the only one who has wondered: Would it be bad to let people play normal Planeswalkers as their Commander? Technically they're a "legendary creature" right?
Let's fetch a list of all printed planeswalkers: Here ya go!
64, eh? Minus the 5 we got in the Commander 2014 Packs and 5 from Origins equals 54 Planeswalkers that aren't legal... So let me share my view of things with you!
I think I am not the only one who has wondered: Would it be bad to let people play normal Planeswalkers as their Commander? Technically they're a "legendary creature" right?
Let's fetch a list of all printed planeswalkers: Here ya go!
64, eh? Minus the 5 we got in the Commander 2014 Packs and 5 from Origins equals 54 Planeswalkers that aren't legal... So let me share my view of things with you!
Powerlevel
To be honest I don't think powerlevel would be an issue. Yes, there are some very potent planeswalkers out there that will make a very strong and competitive commander...
... but hey, Animar or Prossh are definitely up to par in terms of raw powerlevel - just to give you two examples.
I think the real strength of them would be their resiliency since there are few cards that will handle them directly. As long as you have creatures to defend him/her/it, and many planeswalkers even bring their own, you can happily get incremental value out of your planeswalker and noone will be able to stop you. You can play a boatload of boardwipes and your general will get better and better since you'll be able to a) build your deck around the fact that you play lots of massremoval and b) the longer a game goes the more advantage you'll get out of your planeswalker and games with a ton of massremoval tend to go veeeery long.
In that regard, Planeswalkers are a bit similar to the Theros-Gods in that they are harder to deal with then normal generals but will provide a good amount of value over the course of the game. The major difference is that while the Gods are even harder to deal with than Planeswalkers in my opinion, Planeswalkers are way more versatile in their use due to them having different modes.
That said, Commander/EDH/"whateveryoucallit" is probably the single best equipped format in dealing with non-creature-permanents, but still - since I write this on the assumption that we play them as our general - being able to play them again out of the command zone kind of cancels out the relative richness of answers.
Then again, not every planeswalker out there is as busted as those three above...
Don't get me wrong here, I'd probably consider building a deck around them and it would be a ton of fun while being decently powerful, but if I were to build a deck for a mega competitive tournament, they wouldn't be on my list of consideration.
The most limiting factor in powerlevel for most of the planeswalkers is their lack of colors. Only 20 planeswalkers out there have more then one color and two of them are even colorless. Just having access to more colors ups the powerlevel of a well built deck by a considerable amount so you're basically present a trade-off:
... but hey, Animar or Prossh are definitely up to par in terms of raw powerlevel - just to give you two examples.
I think the real strength of them would be their resiliency since there are few cards that will handle them directly. As long as you have creatures to defend him/her/it, and many planeswalkers even bring their own, you can happily get incremental value out of your planeswalker and noone will be able to stop you. You can play a boatload of boardwipes and your general will get better and better since you'll be able to a) build your deck around the fact that you play lots of massremoval and b) the longer a game goes the more advantage you'll get out of your planeswalker and games with a ton of massremoval tend to go veeeery long.
In that regard, Planeswalkers are a bit similar to the Theros-Gods in that they are harder to deal with then normal generals but will provide a good amount of value over the course of the game. The major difference is that while the Gods are even harder to deal with than Planeswalkers in my opinion, Planeswalkers are way more versatile in their use due to them having different modes.
That said, Commander/EDH/"whateveryoucallit" is probably the single best equipped format in dealing with non-creature-permanents, but still - since I write this on the assumption that we play them as our general - being able to play them again out of the command zone kind of cancels out the relative richness of answers.
Then again, not every planeswalker out there is as busted as those three above...
Don't get me wrong here, I'd probably consider building a deck around them and it would be a ton of fun while being decently powerful, but if I were to build a deck for a mega competitive tournament, they wouldn't be on my list of consideration.
The most limiting factor in powerlevel for most of the planeswalkers is their lack of colors. Only 20 planeswalkers out there have more then one color and two of them are even colorless. Just having access to more colors ups the powerlevel of a well built deck by a considerable amount so you're basically present a trade-off:
- Do I want to have the more powerful overall deck: Play a general with 3 colors (probably not a planeswalker)
- Do I want to have a resilient commander: Play a planeswalker/god but have access to less colors.
That's a pretty fair trade-off and definitely not a reason why it is good that we can't play Planeswalkers as our commander.
Flavour
You know these people?
They're legal as generals because they have this neat little "Legendary" in their type-bar along with "creature".
Then let's have a look at these:
Holy mother of god! Suddenly: "Planeswalker"!
Ok, I am exaggerating here but you get the point, don't you? "Planeswalkers" and "Legendary Creatures" are basically the same: They're extraordinary people/dragons/things/... that play a big role in the Magic: the Gathering multiverse.
Maybe once they get their spark and turn into Planeswalkers they're too busy leading an army to battle, but if we get too realistic here there are several creatures we shouldn't be able to play because they got killed in some point of the lore.
So in my opinion, it would even be more flavourful to allow Planeswalkers than not, period.
Fun
Now, here I can see people disagreeing with me. Having to deal with planeswalkers is sometimes very tiresome and frustrating, therefore hurting the fun of the format. But on the other hand, EDH is a format that is so fun because of the wealth in diversity and getting another 54 legal generals to play with would increase that even more.
Once the meta has adapted to the possibility of running into a planeswalking general, making them legal would've been a good thing for the format, because - let's be honest here - facing a Derevi-Stax list or Scion of the Ur Dragon Hermit Druid deck isn't much fun either but people have learned to accept that (I personally have 0% of a problem with these decks, just to make that clear).
So while some people would cry out and complain, the majority would hopefully see it as an enrichment to the format. And to those who complain I would say: If you don't like Planeswalkers, stuff your deck full of answers and deal with it, that's just how Magic works.
With this I am off for today, I hope you enjoyed the read, have a nice day and...
See y'all 'round!
Samstag, 10. Oktober 2015
Mittwoch, 7. Oktober 2015
Spot on the Build #2: Blaze Pow(d)er
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet another time!
Ever wondered what would be an easy way to power machines early besides a treefarm producing charcoal to then burn in a Furnace Generator of any sort?
Well, I have just the perfect build for you...
Ever wondered what would be an easy way to power machines early besides a treefarm producing charcoal to then burn in a Furnace Generator of any sort?
Well, I have just the perfect build for you...
What I really like about this setup is, that it really doesn't require much by way of ressources, is self-sustaining and can be upgraded to be a nice power supply even in later stages of the game.
Luckily the whole setup is pretty easy to build so this tutorial won't take much of your time either!
 |
| The Spawner is a vanilla Spawner from the Nether (transported with a Diamond Dolly), the Dynamos are Reactant Dynamos from Thermal Expansion. In the pictures below you can see the Pulverizer getting fed Blaze Rods from the Chest and outputting the Powder to the Dynamos in round-robin mode. |
The basic concept is pretty simple: In order to use the Reactant Dynamos you need to provide solid reactant aswell as a liquid fuel and since a Grinder outputs both - given the right mobs to kill - they're a perfect combination. I've used something similar in the past, only that I used Gunpowder I got from Creepers as the reactant. What I really like about using Blaze Powder instead are two things:
- Finding a Blaze Spawner in the Nether is normally not that hard to do and it will provide you with a reliable source of Blaze Rods (which you can then turn into Powder)
- Killing a Creeper costs as much RF as killing a Blaze but the difference in power output is huge (see chart below) since one Blaze Rod equals multiple Blaze Powders.
Math-wise we've got the following then: Killing 10 Blazes will result in ~5 Blaze Rods vs 10 Creepers dropping ~10 Gunpowder. Funny enough even at the 1:2 conversion you get by simply crafting from Rods to Powder, the Blazefarm would be winning here since 5 Blaze Rods equal 10 Powder equal 6,4 Million RF whereas 10 Gunpowder equal 1.6 Million RF. But by using a Pulverizer you double that output, netting you a whooping 12,8 Million RF minus the cost of killing them and grinding the rods - but still the output is amazing from just killing 10 Blazes!
Sadly there is still a little bottleneck in this design which is Mobessence generation, but since the dynamos take a very long time to burn one piece of Blaze Powder you'll only run into that issue if you try to run more than 12 basic Dynamos (or 6 Dynamos with Tier 2 Augments - 1 2 3 4). And extra Blaze Powder/Rods aren't bad either to be honest...
That said, I am already trying out several ideas to solve this issue in the most effective and fun way. I can offer you a little sneak peak at my creative test-builds:
Maybe I can post some progress on these in the next few days, or I even have a breakthrough and come up with something completely different, yet effective.
And that's basically it! The only important thing to note is that you should make sure to put the Sulfur somewhere that you will get from killing the Blazes and pulverizing the Blaze Rods - or else the system might get clogged up and stop working.
On this note, I hope you liked my second "Spot on the Build" and - as always - have a nice day!
See y'all 'round!
Sadly there is still a little bottleneck in this design which is Mobessence generation, but since the dynamos take a very long time to burn one piece of Blaze Powder you'll only run into that issue if you try to run more than 12 basic Dynamos (or 6 Dynamos with Tier 2 Augments - 1 2 3 4). And extra Blaze Powder/Rods aren't bad either to be honest...
That said, I am already trying out several ideas to solve this issue in the most effective and fun way. I can offer you a little sneak peak at my creative test-builds:
Maybe I can post some progress on these in the next few days, or I even have a breakthrough and come up with something completely different, yet effective.
And that's basically it! The only important thing to note is that you should make sure to put the Sulfur somewhere that you will get from killing the Blazes and pulverizing the Blaze Rods - or else the system might get clogged up and stop working.
On this note, I hope you liked my second "Spot on the Build" and - as always - have a nice day!
See y'all 'round!
Montag, 5. Oktober 2015
Samstag, 3. Oktober 2015
Dashing In #2: Piano Music!
Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, yet amnother time!
Since I'm quite busy at the moment - instead of a longer written post - a nice little piece of music for you to enjoy... Have a nice day!
See y'all 'round!
Since I'm quite busy at the moment - instead of a longer written post - a nice little piece of music for you to enjoy... Have a nice day!
See y'all 'round!
Donnerstag, 1. Oktober 2015
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)