Ante in Tournaments

S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Tag Guard

Arhar's article got me thinking:

Should ante be brought back in Constructed play? With additional rules like must be traded back at fair value or something...

I'll say sure off the bat since I don't really play :) and I have no idea how broken an ante card can be :) and since you have a chance to get your card back why not?
 
D

Dune Echo

Guest
Damn TAG GUARDS! I could get you if it wasn't for those.

No, it would screw up Limited too bad. Imagine having to deal with a situation that can't exist, like exchanging ante cards or something? Also, it would make 40 card decks illegal and what if some had to use an ante card as their rare, wouldn't they feel gypted?
 
C

Chaos Turtle

Guest
Uhm. I don't think it's a very good thing to do officially.
But if you're doing a casual tournament, then as long as everyone's okay with it, sure.
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
How could you force the guy to trade at a fair value ???

And playing for Ante can be seen as playing for valuable items, which is probably to near to Gambling, especially with minors (under 18). To have to trade back would be equivalent as playing for money.

I dont think Ante will ever come back.
Ante is actually one of the reason I didnt start playing back in 93 (stupid me !!! I could have some real good stuff now) as I hate gambling ! (instead I bought some crappy cards from another CCG that I ended up never playing anyway) :eek:
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Tag Guard

Okay, remember here I'm pretty much a devil's advocate here...

Dune: I thought Limited already had ante. At least when I played Sealed it did... and I thought drafting too. Have the rules changed? If you lose your card, you merely put in one of your other cards to bring it back up to 40. I'm not sure what you mean about illegal situations by exchanging ante cards.

Mundungu: Yeah, it'd be hard to enforce the trading rule. Ideally everyone would be nice about it. Probably need an "impartial" party (judges after the tourney or round?) at the minimum. However, since no issues that I'm aware of were raised back in '93 when the game came out about ante = gambling, that shouldn't be a concern. Unless you know of any...
 
A

arhar

Guest
Ante in tournaments? Hmmmm..... Sealed, Draft, yes, that's a very good idea. But constructed play? This would be a lot of fun in my opinion... but some of the ante cards are just too degenerate and have a potential to be abused. Imagine a deck whose sole purpose is to just to mess up the opponent's deck....

4x Contract from Below
4x Demonic Attorney
4x Jeweled Bird
4x Bronze Tablet


etc....


Unfortunately, tournament play is all about winning at all cost. Imho, ante is only good in friendly games, hence the "trade back at fair value" rule.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Tag Guard

Well, seeing how a lot of tourney decks aim to win by the third turn, I doubt a deck based solely on the ante cards is really going to get going... I mean, an ante card is taking up a slot for another card that actually is a route to victory in the deck. Put too many ante cards in and you dilute the deck.
 
A

Apollo

Guest
Actually, Limited tournaments don't use ante. I'm not sure if they ever did, but I know they don't now.

Hey Turtle, didn't you save Dune Echo up there? He had tag guard in the subject, but not at the top of the article.

Apollo
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Tag Guard

They must have changed it (it's been 2-3 years since my last tournament). When I played Sealed (Starter plus 2 or 3 boosters) we played for ante.

And CT didn't save Dune; he put "Tag Guard" in his message right after his subject header (although it was in a sentence but I guess it counts).
 
L

Lythand

Guest
Whats this TAG Game you all sem to be doing..I am just curious
 
Y

Y The Alien

Guest
Check out some old posts on here. If you don't put "Tag Guard" in your post, the other players try to "kill" you. No, it doesn't have a point.
 
A

Apollo

Guest
You just say that you killed them, usually in a bizarre manner such as "I scrub you with soap and water" or "I smack you with a tree trunk" or some other silly way. You had to join in the beginning, and now there's like 3 people left that never forget, so it could be a while before this is over.

Apollo
 
I

Istanbul

Guest
Back to the topic...

I would have to say no, under no condition. First, you'd get the player with a very liberal definition of 'fair'. "Oh, you need this Armageddon for your deck, pretty badly? I think six dollars is a fair value, then..." Then you'd get the guy who loses but only wants to trade utter crap. "The rules say you HAVE to trade it back to me. It's a Rishadan Port, worth about ten bucks. I'll trade you a Brand, two Karn's Touch, and two Pale Moon, worth about two bucks apiece."

I stopped playing for ante a long time ago...and there's a reason. It just fosters bad blood.
 
Y

Y The Alien

Guest
There's enough talk about Magic already, we don't need to add some brutal beatings to a newbie by a vet who lost his Mox Ruby 'cause he got manascrewed. Who would EVER want to do that?
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Tag Guard

Istanbul: Yeah, such rules would require a lot of thinking to be ironed out.

On the other hand, you just play for ante period. Winner of the duel gets the card. I don't know if people will play, but at least with such unambiguous terms they know what they're getting into.
 
M

Multani

Guest
Tag Guard

Off Topic: Sorry.
Apollo, there is ABSOLUTELY nothing silly about
smacking someone with a treetrunk.
(Smacks Apollo on the head with a Redwood.)
Ya see?! :D
 
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