Despite the fact that really this post is shooting down my initial idea, it's really makes me feel better about the state of things.

Again, I started this thread in reaction to all the people complaining about High Voltage and Toolbox decks. Personally ... I NEVER ENCOUNTER THOSE. This may be because I play in casual playgroups, and the only non-Hobby League prize tournaments I attend are Sneak Peaks.

But yes, if the golden-age tournament scene isn't what most everyone on these boards is making it out to be (which is a degenerate net-decking format), this card may easily do more harm than good, and really all it was good for was starting this conversation, which is at least something.

Now there is a middle ground possibility, although I hope it's the prior "everything is fine and people on the forums are really just complaining for the sake of it" situation, where golden age IS degenerating, and silver age IS NOT.

Thoughts? Ideas?

OTE=Access] where golden age IS degenerating, and silver age IS NOT.

Thoughts? Ideas?[/quote]


I don't think that Golden Age is degenerating, but that the open nature of the format changes some of the basic 'concepts' of the game. Some people love this aspect, others hate it. Those who are most successful in the golden tournaments now, are those who attempt to win (or not lose in the case of life gain based decks) using alternate conditions that are not conductive to the way the game was originally belived to be played. We are all taught initially that the way to win is by dealing 50 damage to your opponent while not taking 50 damage yourself. If you expect to play a purely combat oriented deck with the primary win condition of only attacking, in a Golden tourny you probably will not do that well.

I believe that the degenerate comments about metagames are because, many people create artificial limits when playing a game; they define those limits as the 'right' way to play the game.

Example: In Madden right now there is a huge complaint about people using "goal line" offense outside of goal line situations. It creates problems for people who want to simulate real football. Sadly they are not playing real football, and their complaint is that the other players are ruining their fun by not simulating real football situations. Instead of constantly running Goal Line D in an attempt to prevent this they just quit the game to frustrate their opponent. This is ruining the game for everyone as some players have given up on the online aspect culling the pool of available sim players and upping the crazy players. Everyone loses in this scenario except EA because they made their money when they sold you the game!

In an open format like Golden you have to be willing to loosen your personal 'rules' to give yourself the opportunity to win. Some people call this degenerate. "I should not have to deal with a deck that can deal 50 damage in 4 turns or less!" "I want to turn my favorite guys sideways and win!" Sadly the latter probably won't happen too often. It's just the nature of the game when so many cards are available. Silver Age has had its fair share of craziness though with Light Show, and JL of A. Overall though the decks and matchups have a high amount of interaction as it is most commonly defined in VS. Most of the Silver Age problems were from when Origins was still legal, and I have a feeling we will see less unintended combo-centric win conditions in the future.

I think the problem with Golden is that as more cards are released certain synergistic archetypes (burn is the big complaint lately) will continue to become more efficient and have more options. The rotating nature of Silver will be more likely to keep play focused on designed card interaction and synergy over archetypes. In Silver Age, as new cards are released for an archetype they are replacing cards in the sets that have become illegal as opposed to supplementing ever card with the same theme ever created for the game. Hence the reason there is no voltage equivalant dominating Silver at the moment.