Warlord Ancients Format
In the past, there has always been an Open format as a “if you got it, smoke it” format. Open will always stay that as well. But over time, unique items and combos from different arcs have produced “NPEs”: Negative Play Experiences.
Now Paul Dulaney (Nihilistiskism) and a few others have volunteered to bring us an alternative, more balanced Open format, which I call “Warlord Ancients Format”. That will allow you to play an estimated 98% of the cards available in one more or less balanced format.
Warlord Ancients Format
Warlord “Ancients” format follows all standardized rules in the 4E rulebook with the following exception:
Due to wording issues, “Targeting” in the Warlord “Ancients” format is defined as follows:
An action ‘targets’ a card when:
a) the action declares the card as a target
b) at the time the action is performed, it directly modifies the attributes, location or readiness of a card in play or in the discard pile, or requires it make a check, test, or save.
Warlord “Ancients” format supports a “Banned” and “Restricted” list. The terms “Banned” and “Restricted” are defined as follows:
“Banned” = The card is completely disallowed in deck construction
“Restricted” = No more than one copy of the card allowed in deck construction
The following cards are “BANNED”:
Line Items:
1) Any and all cards specifically related to “Medusan Lords,” including, but not limited to; items, actions, characters, and dungeons.
2) Any and all cards specifically related to “Destiny Lords,” including, but not limited to; items, actions, characters, and dungeons.
Individual Cards:
- Children of Yscar
- Sakarian Manticore
- Lilah
- The Restless
- Brother Averil
- Jautya Syne
- Sword of Chaos
- Heerman’s Epic
- Overwhelm
- Gravity Flux
- Malrog’s Lair
- Negotiated Surrender
- A Prophecy Fulfilled
The following cards are “RESTRICTED”:
- Paradigm Shift
- Phantasm
- Into the Tunnels
- Improved Invisibility
- Fields of Bone
- Perfect Self
- Kapix
- Toren Yscar
- Supply
- Brother Dominy
- Archer Tower
- Nodwick
- Helm of Undying
Warlord “Ancients” format applies “Blanket Errata” to a select group of cards. “Blanket Errata” is defined as follows:
“Blanket Errata” = The defined errata applies to all cards listed
Blanket Errata:
Defined Errata: The following cards gain the following restriction: “May not start in play.”
- Ring of Piercing
- Ring of Mending
- Ring of Blasting
- Ring of Guile
- Brother Dominy
- Archer Tower
In very rare circumstances, the Warlord “Ancients” format applies “Individual Errata” to certain cards. This is done so as to not wholly cripple any specific deck archetype or theme, while still attempting to maintain balance within the environment. “Individual Errata” is defined as follows:
“Individual Errata” = A rewording of a single specific card
The following is a listing of “Individual Errata” for the Warlord “Ancients” format:
Individual Errata:
Phantasm
-> Change last line of text to read as follows: “The character is removed from the game after it suffers one or more wounds, or is removed from play by any means. Remove this character from the game at the end of the turn.”
Helm of Undying
-> Change Spend Order to read as follows: “Spend Order: Once per turn…”
Of course this new format is going to be premiered at KoHIT. If you play this format and have suggestions on how to make it better, feel free to post about it in the Ancients forum at cardmasters.de.
Tags: Warlord Ancients Format
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Kind of interesting that Phantasm and Helm of Undying needed to be Restricted AND Receive Errata
Also - little correction on the Helm of Undying Spend Order is missing an ‘r’
October 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Maybe they meant “Spend Odor.”
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 pm
This isn’t cool. In open there are ways around everything. I just won’t play open anymore either. I already don’t like the rules in 4e, now I can’t even use my good cards in an open tournament, that’s fun. Just stop touching Warlord. Look for a ton of open on ebay.
[Ed.: You seem to misunderstand that Open is untouched. Ancients is a directed format that utilizes almost all of the Warlord cards ever produced with the goal to produce a more balanced environment.]
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:39 am
Not sure how I feel about the concept… I don’t like the idea of not being able to run Jautya… But that’s just me… I’m sure people will be divided on this; For those who enjoy the format, they’ll play, they who don’t won’t play…
October 23rd, 2008 at 7:21 am
Jautya makes Open silly (well, silli-er anyway). Glad to see him on the list.
October 23rd, 2008 at 11:08 pm
i really don’t like the idea of a banned and restricted list, this is what caused me to stop playing magic way back when. i understand the need to reword cards to fix issues, but to say these cards you bought, spent time collecting are now useless scraps of paper is rather a game killer.
[Ed.: You seem to misunderstand that Open is untouched. Ancients is a directed format that utilizes almost all of the Warlord cards ever produced with the goal to produce a more balanced environment.]
October 24th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Open was fun, but now its just an expanded version of 4e
October 25th, 2008 at 2:00 am
not a format I will be playing, but interesting. I am still a big fan of smoke’m if you got them. I did notice they didnt limit the big kill cards vorpal blade combos, gaze of the infident, ect, ect…
October 26th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Jautya Syne makes a lot of decks obsolete.
Feyd Rowan Fell Blow or sniper? start Fylgia
Recursion decks? start Devourer
heavy card draw like Rreg’Jen? start Rrgent
October 26th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
what a way to loose even more players.
[Ed.: You seem to misunderstand that Open is untouched. Ancients is a directed format that utilizes almost all of the Warlord cards ever produced with the goal to produce a more balanced environment.]
October 28th, 2008 at 12:28 am
Open was fun, but now its just an expanded version of 4e
Um, wtf? There’s maybe 20 cards on that list. Even Type I Magic (Vintage or whatever they call it) has cards that are banned or restricted. Everyone needs to quit acting like Arne is pissing in their Cheerios here and telling them that Open no longer exists because it just flat isn’t true. And before you whine about lack of support for Open, AEG never supported it either. What’s changed? Nothing, except we now have a workable “Type 1.5″ version of Warlord. Quit complaining and at try it before you start crying about how PI is killing the game.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
TO LORD JALLEMAR
although i do not play open format, (appart the kerebrus format) i AGREE 100% with you.
TO EVERYONE
why so much complains and argues about an official open format that is going to be more balanced? for those of you who want to play open without restrictions you can still do. no one prohibs it. do it unofficially and have fun with circus situations that may occur.
Even more, there are only baned about 20 cards or so and there are still there imba cards like black moss and exhaustion.
I realy am bored reading complains about thing before even trying them.
Oppinions are always welcome. but you have to try things.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
PS.
please forgive my english. i am really tired and made a couple of mistakes….. like much (instead of many) complains
:-p
October 30th, 2008 at 12:49 am
It seems to me that the Banned and Restricted list is made up of cards that Pual just doesn’t like. Some of those cards are quit easily delt with by using certain Meta. If you don’t like playing open then don’t play open. Don’t come up with a list of cards and rulings that you don’t like ban them, reword those rulings and then give it a pretty coat of paint and call it “a new format.” There are certain cards that I’ve heard other players complain about that aren’t even on that list. So it seems to me that this is just Paul finally getting what he wants.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I just can’t understand all the complaints….
What is your damn problem? Most of the people here just don’t seem to understand that they can still play as much open as they want to….
If you have a local tournament and want to play open then do it…
Were any of you reading the entire post?
And for the list, i think that there is a good reason behind the banning or restriction of any of these cards.
I don’t like to face an infinite combo deck as it just takes away one of the parts of the game i like it for: rolling.
there is a forum were people could come up with ideas for cards that should be banned or resticted.
Paul had a discussion for most cards on the list and everybody was allowed to join the discussion. He didn’t make alle the descision on his own…
He has even add two seperate forums for all other players on the TOL and on Cardmasters so that everybody can express their opinion. If you don’t like one of the cards beeing banned or restictited, make a thread an tell us why not…
It’s not that hard at all…
So, very long text…
Regards…
Matthias
October 30th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
I remember when aeg designed the stolen destiny product line, there were complains about the rings.
Everybody belived -even new players at the time- that those rings were simply imba, although we were all used the rings in our decks. Complains, complains and more complains
Now that some people redisigned things and as you know, they know in advance the new cards… they feel like some cards need a retouch and some other cards will cause major problems. Again complains complains and more complains.
it seems to me that the only stable thing in this game are the complains!
When we didn.t have cards for about a year, we designed our own cards in photoshop in order to have something to play. remember?
So play the God D@$&# open warlord as you wish, and leave the team make the official rules as they think it should work.
if you don.t like like the word open format you can call it navuhodonoshor. Just stop complaining all the time.
October 31st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
It just seems to me that every single game company is now collectivly listening to whiners and doesn’t understand that the the collective view of thier other players is that most of these cards do not present that much of a problem. Personally I would like to see Lady of Mercy banned and burnt. But she is not that big a deal. By banning some of those cards there are combos out that cannnot be used if to say that this format is going to be used to challange older Dragon Lords and Medusan Lords. If it is then those combos that can kill them easily are worthless. If you want to errat things to suit your fancy and listen to only about 10% of the community then thats fine. But don’t make the whole community suffer because of the mistakes and follys of past designers and playtesters. It is just a cycle that has been going on since Campain Edition. A card comes out that works with another card and low and behold its the most broken combo out now. Now 75% of the players are going to play the combo and abuse it. Then 10% of the 35% left whine about it until it is either erratad or in this case banned. There are so many ways to get around these cards in open that it doesn’t even matter. And there is something else that makes me even more upset. These cards are being banned or restricted “because they create a NPE!” Cards don’t cause NPE PEOPLE cause NPEs!! Yes cards are annoying but in and of them selves they are not NPEs! It is the attitude of the people playing those cards!!!
November 3rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Why ban Sword of Chaos? I missed something big here I guess.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Sword of Chaos + Hex Starsmore. Start Baqbou Umbala and Borgen Ferris. Infinite Melee strikes.
May 11th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
why Negotiated Surrender?