The Times they are a changin

Thanks to Bob Dylan for the title of today's blog.  Although the album came out in 1964 some 2 years before even I was born, my feeling towards Bob Dylan are a metaphor to the content of this blog.  Here is a performer who has grown over his long career and adjusted with the changing times.

The Legendary Mr Bob Dylan.

FNM Relax has been going since July 2012 and has tried to cater for the many diverse tastes of Magic players out there.  It has never been the place to play the latest net deck and has tried to maintain an atmosphere of friendly competition as well as being somewhere that nurtures new players and helps to make them understand the game in more depth without feeling like they have just been physically assaulted.

We seem to have developed some strong players in that time; Mark Smith, James Brooks and Micheal Shillitoe to name but three.  However, in order to give people the best experience I feel it is very important to listen to feedback and where possible act on it.  To this end we have changed the formats slightly with the start of the New Year to make things more fun for people and encourage participation.

Some cards are just too good...

So with effect from 1st February 2013 we are going to make even more changes.  At present we have an 8 week cycle of formats which includes Standard, 2 Headed Giant, Legacy, Pauper and Modern.  We have one of these formats that just doesn't really work in the grand scheme of FNM Relax despite our best efforts and that is Legacy.  There is just no such thing as "casual" Legacy at the end of the day, or if there is those who have actual Legacy cards will win against a casual Legacy deck every time.  There are also other formats which people would like to play more of like Standard and 2 Headed Giant.

Too busted for casual...

On top of this several Relax players have turned up for drafts recently (and I hope a whole bunch of them will do so on release weekend the 2-3 February 2013) and really enjoyed them.  So Mark Smith has managed to do what I couldn't and come up with a 12 week cycle of formats to give people what they want and it looks like this;

• Standard.
• Pauper.
• Draft.
• Modern.
• Standard.
• Two Headed Giant.
• Draft.
• Pauper.
• Standard.
• Two Headed Giant.
• Draft.
• Modern.

I would normally, at this point, apologise for mucking around with the formats and say sorry for the list that is up on the Patriot web site not being right, except that the list has not been changed to the current formats so it is not going to make much of a difference!

Stoneforge Mystic -  broken even if it is in Chinese.

Drafts in Relax will be £10 with everyone getting a booster in prize support.  A lot of FNM Relaxers tend to buy boosters afterwards anyway so hopefully the additional price for playing draft will no effect people adversely, and £10 for 4 boosters is pretty sweet really.  However, there is a caveat to draft in Relax; draft is a whole different set of skills (Mike Radford may well have written a couple of excellent blogs about it which can be found here and here).  As a result anyone who could be considered "Elite" players (sorry Joe Alexander that includes you) will be banned from Relax drafts.  The only exception to that is me as I am running the damn thing!  I shall try to play nice...honest.

A copy of Clique without an Eduardo joke...

So to look at the formats by date from here to rotation (when "Friends" comes out) here is what it looks like:

01 February 2013	Standard.
08 February 2013	Pauper.
15 February 2013	Draft.
22 February 2013	Modern.
01 March 2013	Standard.
08 March 2013	Two Headed Giant.
15 March 2013	Draft.
22 March 2013	Pauper.
29 March 2013	Standard.
05 April 2013	Two Headed Giant.
12 April 2013	Draft.
19 April 2013	Modern.
26 April 2013	Standard.
03 May 2013	Pauper.
10 May 2013	Draft.
17 May 2013	Modern.
24 May 2013	Standard.
31 May 2013	Two Headed Giant.
07 June 2013	Draft.
14 June 2013	Pauper.
21 June 2013	Standard.
28 June 2013	Two Headed Giant.
05 July 2013	Draft.
12 July 2013	Modern.
19 July 2013	Standard.
26 July 2013	Pauper.
02 August 2013	Draft.
09 August 2013	Modern.
16 August 2013	Standard.
23 August 2013	Two Headed Giant.
30 August 2013	Draft.
06 September 2013	Pauper.
13 September 2013	Standard.
20 September 2013	Two Headed Giant.
27 September 2013	Draft.
04 October 2013	Modern.

I have even colour-coded it which may help.  That means this Friday is the last ever FNM Relax Legacy event, if you haven't tried it yet give it a go it is great to play so many amazing cards - it actually makes you smile when you see your hand!  Oh for those that have not yet guessed all of the card images I have used this week are in my deck (even the Chinese Stone Forge)!  Have a good week and be well I will be back on Friday with the Magic version of new year resolutions.