Green fours should force other players to start using their good spells to deal with it. What else does green do particularly well in limited but combat tricks fixing and midranged dudes? Why should white or blue be able to just ram in a 20th card 2/5 guy in there and consider themselves safe? Make them use their tappers up, their arresting spells, invest an enchanted creature or a counter spell in dealing with it. Play your test of faith for poops sake.
It's not hard to figure out. Green needs to be ruling the ground and if they don't want to get run over by tempo disadvantage they need to be doing it at a good price. Have you seem the 2 and 3 drops gmail has made for every colour? Pascifying your 5cc guy would be such a waste of your turn while their 2cc evasive super creatures keep dropping.
Constructed playable? I don't know, but it's pretty boss in limited. But without the former, the latter's not going to happen.
In all seriousness, I don't see a problem with green getting a 4/4 4 drop at common with an additional ability... or two?
But let me run this by you:
Name Wurm3GG
Creature - Wurm (C)
6/6
Is this printable? fair? Constructed playable? Quite frankly w/o a keyword on there this is just pretty bad. Although if it were a goblin, it'd read "7/7 haste" for 3GG with a lord out, and that might be playable.
Green fours should force other players to start using their good spells to deal with it. What else does green do particularly well in limited but combat tricks fixing and midranged dudes? Why should white or blue be able to just ram in a 20th card 2/5 guy in there and consider themselves safe? Make them use their tappers up, their arresting spells, invest an enchanted creature or a counter spell in dealing with it. Play your test of faith for poops sake.
It's not hard to figure out. Green needs to be ruling the ground and if they don't want to get run over by tempo disadvantage they need to be doing it at a good price. Have you seem the 2 and 3 drops gmail has made for every colour? Pascifying your 5cc guy would be such a waste of your turn while their 2cc evasive super creatures keep dropping.
I agree with you. I was mainly pointing out that GG3 4/4 Trample is worse than Stampeding Rhino.
However, I do think that GG2 4/4 Trample is the brute force way of making the point that green needs better breakthrough. For instance, if green has enough trample its pump spells get significantly better. Or give green more playable pump spells/ways to get trample.
What about going the other way and replacing Reach with "Can only be blocked by fliers/reach"?
That would give green the offense side of Serra Angel at the expense of blocking fliers AT COMMON. That would be nice because then you could pair it alongside a defensive Spider rather than having it BE a spider.
I've never really taken issue with improving the stock of pump spells, or really green spells in general.
I think it could even be done at uncommon. Its possible to make both an Overrun and Might of Oaks effect (such as Enlarge) where they are distinct enough that you can have both at uncommon. Throw in things like Ring of Kalonia or (extreme case) Rancor and things start to get pretty nasty.
Alternately, instead of "deal with this or else" you can go the "just try to deal with this!" hexproof route.
You can also add in extra push for Auras like Aura Gnarlid.
EDIT: but its a fine line before something like that starts to be unfun
Here gmail let me explain the idea as if you were a 4th grader, since you don't seem to get it. Wizards is a company which needs to sell products. There product is a game with collectible parts. The product is only valuable if the collectibles have value. To create value they print far more collectibles than anyone would ever want, but vastly fewer collectibles that people actually value. As such they create a market for their product. This is the business explanation for why Wizards doesn't print it's own cube.
The gameplay reason comes from the business reason, but is also grounded in Richard Garfield's original plan for the game. Rarer cards are more powerful (or rather more powerful effects are kept at rare) so as to create gameplay value and increase the overall design space. Shivan Dragon could be a common in some alternate universe sure. That alternate universe is called YuGiOh, where each set builds upon the last by increasing the overall power level. Magic sets however build upon the last by expanding the total number of effects in the game (though power creep does still happen). By keeping a rarity system with (generally) well regulated divisions of power and complexity, each set is able to offer something new to the game. The fact that this is possible 20 years and as many sets after Alpha is amazing and a testament that Wizards R&D know what they're doing.
Mark Rosewater has also discussed another reason why maintaining rarities (and thus not printing a set of "all playables") is important. No matter the size of a format, only a small chunk will get played. Only the best of the best if you will. Printing a set of the "best of the best" would remove any value those cards would have and make printing more cards much more difficult. Theoretically you could create "the perfect set" with a flat power level around current standard playability. However such a set would by necessity neutralize the existence of all other sets. If you want to play a game with a fixed pool of playables, get a deck of cards. If you want to play a game with a regularly increasing power level, play YuGiOh. Magic just doesn't seem to be your kind of game.
Here gmail let me explain the idea as if you were a 4th grader, since you don't seem to get it. Wizards is a company which needs to sell products. There product is a game with collectible parts. The product is only valuable if the collectibles have value. To create value they print far more collectibles than anyone would ever want, but vastly fewer collectibles that people actually value. As such they create a market for their product. This is the business explanation for why Wizards doesn't print it's own cube.
His response to me telling him this was that wizards was selling rotten eggs. Its not possible to reason with such a response because it is delusional. No business can sell rotten eggs for very long and continue to be a business (I await someone saying "Microsoft!")
I do wish he'd drop the "moral" arguments though. I don't think for a moment that he has invested any serious study in the topic in his life and clearly he doesn't realize how stunningly callous it sounds to use the same terminology to damn a CARD GAME as you would to describe human induced famine or firebombing civilian populations (ie true atrocities)
A 4/4 hexproof guy would be infinitely worse concerning other colour's abilities to deal with it, than the trample guy.
The trample guy makes greens crappy tricks better, makes sure green is not trading too poorly against 2/1 deathtouch guys for 2, flash deathtouch guys for 3 and all of gmail's great removal, and makes sure green's relative size advantage is relative.
I don't know why everyone is so fixed on removing inevitability from green, or giving everyone a kidmode way to deal with, or turning it into an absolute untenable mess the way hexproof might. Gmail's cards are really good around the 2-3 cc mark, they aren't too afraid of this thing.
I also think your vigilance spider might be too crazy. I'm not sure quite why, but it just seems like such a low investment for something that is such a hammer blow against a bunch of decks. On the other hand I think you've printed a lot of great evasive guys so maybe?
The gameplay reason comes from the business reason, but is also grounded in Richard Garfield's original plan for the game.
Garfield's original vision was that a player would drop $10 on a starter and $10 on boosters, and then make a deck and win a few cards from his opponent with ante.
Your analysis here is not only flawed, it's downright incompetent. To put it in terms you might understand, it's like SAYING that you don't take candy from strangers, then getting in the van anyways!
Mark Rosewater has also discussed another reason why maintaining rarities (and thus not printing a set of "all playables") is important.
And you, master of unethical business practices, decided to ignore my response to Mark Rosewater's discussion? Color me shocked that you - a defender of 'con artists - would ignore an argument that doesn't fit with your preconceived biases.
Printing a set of the "best of the best" would remove any value those cards would have and make printing more cards much more difficult.
You know I've had this conversation earlier in this thread with others.
So please allow me to speak to you as if you were in fourth grade for a moment. Stop eating the chalk and read the assignment! Read this thread and find those who have advocated the position you halfhazardly have glommed onto, and then read my responses.
Then - if you have something to add - respond to those responses.
If you don't find those arguments compelling, please explain why.
If you do find those arguments compelling then you probably agree with me.
Either that or join the flat earth society. I'm sure they wouldn't mind another person who believe something objectively false for no reason despite all the evidence against her.
In all the world, if you are looking for a "cause" to call your own, the volume of crappy Magic cards printed can't possibly be at the top of anyone's list.
Don't sell people rotten eggs if they're looking for good eggs.
If you want to know "why" you shouldn't do something so obviously morally bankrupt you know where to look.
No one is forcing or deceiving anyone to buy rotten eggs.
When someone buys a TCG booster his aware not all cards are good or have the same quality in game's standards.
Still I will admit buying booster as a bad way of augmenting collections is a 'dark secret' mtg keeps from newer customers. The first time I quit mtg, I quit for this very reason (I discovered the net deck world, the secondary market and how cracking boosters are pointless... my kitchen table world fell a part).
But cracking booster being pointless is basically something WotC can't change. The expected value of a booster will never exceed it's price (because if it does, people will buy boosters until supply force the card's price, and booster expected value, down). It means, getting stuff from the secondary market will always be the best choice, as long as a secondary market exist.
What they can do about it is: make cracking boosters more fun, so even if it's bad in terms of collection net worth, you do it because it is inherently fun. And how they do that ?
Design a good draft format.
Also, bad cards are done in order to make the very casual players more happy. Basically, if their starting deck is horrible and cracking a few boosters allows then to upgrade their strategy, they will enjoy the game more, even if it makes then weaker compared to the high competitive players they will never meet or play against.
In other worlds, while your set philosophy suits the kitchen tablers that want to a have shot in FNM, they suck for the kitchen tablers who doesn't. Because those guys wouldn't be able to easily upgrade their decks by substituting the pillar field ox for something better.
Still I will admit buying booster as a bad way of augmenting collections is a 'dark secret' mtg keeps from newer customers.
I'm going to end it here. You've just given a practical reason why WOTC should fulfill their moral obligation, apart from the moral reasons I have given.
In this thread alone, we have both (a) moral reasons, and (b) practical reasons to do what I've suggested. We've also (c) shown that the reasons WOTC gives for NOT doing what I've suggested are without basis. They freely equivocate between Mindless Null-bad cards and Siphon Soul-"bad", and that's not only dishonest, it's an error in logic.
If WOTC was more concerned with turning out a quality product, I suspect they could do a better job. It might take more time - but guess what fellas, you design and play games for a living! Judging by the size of this forum, there are a lot of people willing to do it for substantially less $. So if you can't put in the extra weekend to find a way to tweak the gray ogre limited "needs" to be balanced into a card playable in tribal, or 2HG, or pauper, or *SOMETHING*
Heck - they can always invent new formats if need be.
Highlander makes many cards that were once unplayable because there are better options playable.
Gmail, you’ve made the rotten egg analogy before, as well as other analogies basically saying that if a company sells a product it is unethical (in a business sense) for them to sell you inferior products. I’m curious then as to how you view the fact that Wizards is one of the most transparent companies I can think of when it comes to revealing their product.
Strictly speaking, the right thing to do in any given situation is to do what you think is right.
I'm sure some people at WOTC genuinely believe that bad cards need to exist. They're good people doing bad things because they believe them to be good.
However if there is a portion of R&D who not only makes bad arguments, but intentionally makes bad arguments in order to justify existing policies... well, that's morally wrong in itself.
For at least the past two years, they have prominently displayed on their site every single card that could be in the packs you’re buying. And they’ve done so multiple weeks before the packs are sold in stores. Sure there are a lot of commons in each set I have no wish to ever see or open. But I can look at the makeup of the set, figure out what portion of the commons I like vs those I don’t, and decide whether it’s worth picking up a pack.
Oh... wait... this is a "You know what you're getting in for" argument. Please don't make that argument. The "Rotten Egg" argument stands firm even if the seller is upfront that one of your dozen eggs is rotten.
If you're interested, feel free to look up moral objections to gambling in professional ethics journals. There's some good stuff.
The last line of this card features two things I’m seeing an abnormal amount in this set:
* Grave from anywhere: This “when hits graveyard from anywhere” is showing up on a lot of your cards and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s an anti-mill ability yes, but decks only ever need one or two such cards to effectively deter mill decks. If you’re going for anti-discard then make it anti-discard: the current text required to mildly hose both abilities simultaneously is clunkily wordy. It also lacks flavor: why is the IDEA of this spell vanishing giving you a bonus.
Well, strictly speaking, this ability is mostly on creatures. Here, it's a thing - a "Thicket of Ants" - that is disappearing to give you a bonus. The flavor here is that there's always another ant in the thicket.
By utalizing the "put into the yard from anywhere" language I can maintain consistency in wording between anti-mill and anti-discard roles. It does both.
Some card thoughts:
Endless Hive: Beyond power level, there is a key difference between Bitterblossom and this. Bitterblossom did two things: create evasive tokens and lower you life total. Both of these things move the game further to its end; even if your opponent can handle the fliers, the enchantment will kill you by itself. Hive is the opposite: it’s non-evasive creatures are best used to clog up and slow down the game state and it slowly takes you further and further away from losing. Inevitability is important, but this is a card that (right now) is designed for stalling.
Fair point. But that's what makes it an excellent control card I think.
Fresh Foliage was an uncommon in a set where it didn't kill half of your commons. In this set bump it to unc and I'd add at least a mana to it.
Up to uncommon might be doable. Increasing the cost isn't going to happen though. Against green, you need to fear this.
French 1s, French2 2s, French3 3s: These are lumped together because a lot of what I have to say really applies to them as a whole. Previous threads have made my dislike or the two-drop cycle in its current state quite clear. But on reflection, the problem isn’t just that cycle: it’s that these three cycles all are too similar to one another and crowd each other out.
I'm going to disagree with you here - I know, shocker. One of the most important things about these 3 cycles is that they really do play differently. But I'll get to that. First, the reason they're here is that french vanilla is as close as we're going to get to have "vanilla" and "playable" in the same sentence thanks to the current status quo. These are, by far, some of the easiest to recognize and grokk cards in the set.
As for how they play - there's differences between the cycles and between the members of the cycles. Take the 1/1s. Flying plays a lot differently from deathtouch, let alone hexproof. Still the 1/1 first strike goblin plays a very unique role in an environment with a cycle of powerful 2/1s.
Consider the much maligned 2/1 cycle. No one cares about the 2/1 Reach Deathtouch guy (although because he and the flash, non-reach, hexproofer have Deathtouch there's an overlap people confuse for playing the same), and once the black one became Deathtouch/Lifelink there wasn't much outcry ("Oh no, Child of Night got obsoleted! My word!")(and despite the fact the 1 drop also has deathtouch, they play substantially differently. The 2/1 is aggressive, while the 1/1 is, typically, defensive). White gives us flying and lifelink, which plays much like the black one but without worries of being blocked usually, and the blue one - the most maligned of the cycle - certainly plays different from the rest. Red's role is clear - attacks, gets damage in.
And then let's talk about the 2/3s... the mInotaur owns the battlefield while the white guy flashes in for lifelink and surprise blockerism. The green one, too, flashes in, but this guy bites either big or small attackers to death - a substantial difference. And then there's Vampire Nighthawk, and we both know how that plays.
Moving on to Relentless creatures: On a micro level, */* is just easier for the bat and cleric than making them 1/1’s that count everyone else. For one thing, some players get confused about whether a card referreing to “other X” counts other copies of that card (i.e. would one copy of Relentless Bats count other Relentless Bats). Given that these cards are explicitly designed to be played in bulk, we should absolutely avoid confusion if we can.
I really don't see t he difference between */* and 1/1-counts-others except for tutoring and similar effects, in which case the 1/1s are easier to understand.
I don't see how players could get confused about relentless bats counting other versions of the card - indeed, it would border incoherent to do so while knowing what "relentless" means.
This cycle and the relentless cycle also both play up deck conformity and yet you have multiple highlander cards encouraging toolbox approaches (heck, the green card in this cycle manages to carry both in one). This is a weird mixed message to send: pick a subtheme and stick with it.
The job of the core set is to encourage a variety of playstyles and give a base for those playstyles.
Indeed, this is one of the errors in modern design - sticking to a theme. If you stick to a theme, but only so many of those cards can go in a deck, then the rest in that theme get left out. However, if you have three or four themes that don't necessarily go well together, then you have three or four archetypes with a stable base for each and all of the cards can go in a deck.
Gold: These are the only gold cards in your set. As such, by dictionary definitions they are rare. Either add another cycle at rare, change these to be rares, or take them out. However, assuming you keep them anyway, the fact they are the only five gold cards means they are automatically a cycle. Thus, you can feel free to vary up the mana costs. How about these five: Watchwolf Fires of Yavimaya Recoil/Dinrova Horror, Vanish, and Burning Oil?
The reason I want the costs on the cycle to be CD is to enforce the "this is harder to play without mana fixing" concept. It's a learning tool for the core set.
As for being uncommon - this is where the cycle belongs, both in terms of limited-balance and learning-balance.
As for the "there's only 5 of them, they're rare by definition" claim... there's less than 5 wurms, but they're all common. So... yeah.
Lords: This cycle actually works fine at 1CC, since that’s been proven to be (generally) the most useful spot on the curve for a lord. Of course blue has two and black need one, but I’m sure you’ll look at that on pass two (hint, Merfolk realllllly don’t need any more lords unless you have a really unique idea for one. Hexproof isn’t it.
Black has the zombie token producing lord, right?
And yeah, Merfolk has the now-common mill "lord". Deal. It plays substantially differently from the rare one and is a good learning tool at common.
Legends: Don’t need to all cost 3CCC. They’re mythic legends with cool, build-around effects. They’ll be tied together naturally by players. If some work at 3CCC cool, but feel free to adjust the costs if they’d make more interesting cards. *small text* + drop the haste from the balck on both it and the ability (cool enough without) and add @ least 1 to the angel (self combo-ing stream of tokens is stronger than you think, and would be a cool and popular commander even @ 4ww
I've got to stick with the Onslaught-costing for homage-value. Besides, it's also the perfect "6 drop" finisher cost that is impossible to splash for. If you're playing the blue legend... you're playing blue.
M14 had five cycles period in the entire set.
We really need to stop talking about M14. Let's look at M13 and M12 as our standardbearers, shall we? M14 is objectively crap on a crap stick to draft, so using it as our baseline for a good draft format has genuinely been an oversight on all of our parts.
That said, as you've mentioned - some of these "cycles" you wouldn't even have known were cycles w/o being told. Furthermore these cycles differ from the "cycle overload" of poorer sets because the members of the cycles are radically different and play differently.
Like it or not, but intimidate hybrid hill giants are 100% terrible cards. variable cost hybrid enchantment cycle all played the same and all played poorly except on unblockables who got +2/+2 and lifelink.
You might not like some of the members of my cycles, but you can't accuse them of being poorly designed QUA cycle-member. You either think they're too strong or too weak on their own. And that's what makes my cycles largely different from WOTC's current-generation of cycles.
You know I cited the Stronghold wall cycle. That's the kind of cycle that my cards are - unique, interesting, a tight cycle, and largely constructed playable in standard. Each wall plays differently.
You don't buy chess, you buy chess sets. Ford doesn't sell the idea of a truck, they sell a specific vehicle. Wizards doesn't sell you the game of Magic, they sell you the cards. Thus the value of the game of Magic comes from the value of the individual cards. It is therefore smart business practice to drive up the price of collectibles by printing smaller quantities (Modern Masters, rares) or premium limited versions (promos, foils). If you have such a quote-on-quote 'moral' opposition to the common rarity (or rather cards that define the common rarity, "bad eggs"), shouldn't you also have the same opposition to the idea of rarity in general? Shouldn't you find the idea of foils or judge promos repulsive? I'm surprised you aren't advocating for a switch to baseball card -type distribution as that seems to be the logical conclusion to your moralizing of Magic the Gathering. If you don't like the business practices of Wizards, don't buy their products.
That has got to be the most nonsensensical hogwash I've ever read.
And I'll let you know I *tried* to offer a thoughtful and reasoned response, but your rambling was incoherent nonsense.
In contrast, I've got genuine arguments to back up my position.
Your position? If you don't like it, don't buy it!
I suggest you go watch the Superman: Doomsday animated adaptation. Absolute dribble. But the 1st 5 minutes demonstrates why your argument is bull.
Lex Luthor's cronies cure cancer. And he *****es at them explaining that it is worthless to him. Curing cancer makes him far, far less money than TREATING cancer. So he's going to go ahead and treat cancer and not release the cure.
Well guess what Jaxck... you don't have to buy Lex Luthor's cancer treatment. But your *can't* buy his cure (if you lived in the appropriate fictional universe, blah blah blah).
The position you're defending is that it's MORALLY ACCEPTABLE for Lex Luther to withhold the cure for cancer - which he is more than capable of providing at a reasonable cost - so that he can make more money treating cancer. This is to say that you're okay with WOTC doing a less-than-perfect job on MTG because although they could do a better job, it's up to them how many rotten eggs they pack the lottery with.
Next time - and at this point I sincerely don't care if there is a next time - please try to at least address the issues at hand instead of mangling the Wilt Chamberlain argument. Yes, Wilt can refuse to play unless we each pay him an extra 25 cents. And yes we'd probably willingly play it because he's good at basketball. But, really... he's kind of a dick if he refuses to play according to his contract unless we each chip in an extra 25 cents.
I bolded the reason why a lot of people are getting/have gotten pissed off at you. You genuinely believe bad cards don't need to exist. Many of us genuinely believe that they do, though we have sometwhat different definitions of the word 'bad'.
However, you keep bringing up bad cards as something morally wrong, which is only true if, as you say, R&D does not believe this but says it anyway. The trouble is, you can't prove that. I can't prove that. No one can prove that they do not believe in their heart of hearts that their methods are the best methods. You can disagree with this and call them incorrect. But you have no actual evidence of them doing wrong things with the intent to deceive or rip off their customers. Thus every time you treat R&D's failings as a proven moral lapse, we pay less and less attention to your argument.
Which is why I'm not attacking WOTC personally, or as an organization. My target has always been their policy.
I've argued their current policy is morally wrong. I've argued that the defenders of the policy have made objectively bad defenses of those policies. Furthermore, if you read the defenses, you'll see that WOTC really does have several options open to make a rotating series of 100% playable decks, whether they want to support multiple formats like I do or not. Thus the position they defend is wrong.
Perhaps an analogy is in order: Racism is morally bankrupt; it is inherently morally unsupportable. However, some racists are nice people. Misinformed, but generally nice. If they ever had the opportunity, they might very well rethink their racist policies. It's perfectly acceptable to talk about racism as if it is wrong even though there are some "nice" racists out there.
I guess. My argument though was that those roles are niche enough that they do not need to be lumped together and do both.
I'm also curious to hear your reasons for adding an exile clause on many of your graveyard triggers (this, your red wall, etc.) As I said, that clause is a lot clunkier to add and is only really need when recursion or reanimation becomes a real threat.
You've got to remember -these are really pseudo-madness cards. This explains, in part, the exiling clause - it plays similar to flashbacking the cards, but of course with different effects.
Against green you already need to fear the fact they're just bigger than everyone else. 7/13 of your green common creatures have 2+ toughness. That alone deters attackers significantly.
This card is to block unblockables. White blue, an enemy, gets. That is pretty much it.
We agree here (though you then insist on printing Ent Sapling, weakening your argument that vanillas can't be playable. Have I mentioned I hate that card yet this post?)
Vanillas can be playable... but unfortunately very few P/T combos are playable. Every time WOTC obsoletes an existing playable vanilla, the only way to fix this is to give that vanilla relevant-enough types to get it playable then, or to give it a P or T boost, or to give it an additional ability such that it's no longer vanilla.
I want more playable vanillas. Quite frnakly though with WOTC obsoleting perfectly constructed playable 3/1s for 1W, it's difficult.
They are good cards yes. We already knew that. But your descriptions actually remind me of other cards in the cycle (green flash in to kill = blue 2/1 flash to kill = white knight flash to kill; Nighthawk flies + life = pegasus flies + life). I'm not saying nuance doesn't exist. But for something taking up over 10% of your non-rares it seems you could cut one to make space for all the varied effects you've run out of room for.
This, I'm afraid, is a consequence of the amount of keywords in the set, not the cycles themselves.
I've stipulated I want each non-indesctrible, non-strict cycle (Defender, Relentless) keyword set to be on ~8 cards (more for flying, obviously). If 5 of those cards are c common, and we have 12 keywords, that's 60 keywords to distribute (Well, more like 75 given the amount of flying we want in the core).
There are ~100 commons.
About half of those are creatures - so that's 50. So if we want 75 keywords between 50 creatures, then each creature is going to have an average of 1.5 keywords.
Now, of course, that's not how this plays out. A few select rares and a the triple-keyword uncommons make it much easier to have keywordless common creatures.
In any event, though, there are going to be lots of creatures that share some combination of keywords. Vampire Nighthawk and the Pegasus share 2 of 3 keywords. There's no real way to avoid that and keep the "8" threshold.
Now you might say "So cut it back to 5". This, I think, is a mistake. The core set is for teaching, and at 5 cards per keyword it's going to be hard for players to compare two or more cards with the same keyword at the same time. But that's the point of a keyword - cards with trample all play the same. Cards with lifelink all play the same.
The only other solution is to double the size of the set (like WOTC did around 5th edition or so?), but this has it's own problems - not the least of which is trying to make 500 cards playable at once.
We've seen what happens when WOTC prints ONE or TWO copies of a keyword in the core set - no one learns anything. So many people have talked about how my set lacks focus, lacks synergy (and so intentionally, by the way), but where's the outrage when WOTC's sets lack synergy or consistency?
Put yourself in the position of a new player. You're trying to learn magic, and you've got the fundamentals down but you're just getting into drafting. Do you want there to be 5 common tramplers, or 1, from a purely learning perspective?
And I don't see how players get so confsed over X spells, but I know you've seen them do so. All I know is I have personally seen players get confused over wordings on same-named cards before.
Oh I haven't seen them do so. But WOTC has published articles about how Meteor Storm ruined their day.
If I understand you correctly, players get confused about cards that reference their own name. But these don't. They reference creature types (they're not relentless rats, they're plague rats functionally - you know, but with relentless).
This is a valid point.
I will however say that two opposite themes should probably not appear on the same card, which is the case with your current Green kindler. If you made it 2g, you could either make it a Rampant Growth or keep it a Sylvan Scrying. Either way, it would perform the same role, be unique, and not obsolete anything.
If it's Sylvan Scrying it's obsoleting Sylvan Scrying... or costs more and is probably unplayable.
Right now it's just sylvan scrying for odd-hilander-esque decks. It's got some neat synergy with Paths Untaken actually.
Other people have mentioned this but just to reiterate: in a two color deck CD is easier to cast than CC or DD. As limited decks are going to be at least two colors, I'm not sure this lesson would work that well.
The lesson is this:
I can usually play a 1C or a 1D on turn 2.
I can't nearly as reliably play a CD on turn 2.
We've seen how I really don't have many CC cards at common (or uncommon)... or in the set at all. I can think of one - the skyknight - which I'm probably changing to a Thunder Spirit variant (in part because I need more First Strike...).
I was referring to the rare lord. I hadn't seen you had removed it; my problem=solved.
There should be 2 lords - 1 rare, 1 common.
Thank you for explaining your reason. Curious: why not just reprint Visara? People love Visara.
Regeneration clause, no regeneration in the set, cut it.
Besides, as soon as I hit on the Hell's Caretaker I was in love. Haste Hell's Caretaker with good stats is just juicy fun!
M13 had 7 cycles, 2 of which were tight. M12 had eight, four of which were tight.
So we're moving in the right direction I see.
Now - just for fun - out of those tight cycles, what percentage were constructed playable?
With the walls, you are proposing 12 by my count, 11 of which are tightly costed (the planeswalker are the only loose cycle I'm seeing.
Yeah, I guess the planeswalkers do count as a cycle...
Part of the cycle overload problem is that each color's entry into each cycle tends to overlap. Your blue land, blue three-drop trip french play similarly. Your black two-drop and black land play similarly. Your green land, green wall, and (to an extent) your green two-drop all will be used similarly. there's only so many knobs that can be turned when every creature is 2CMC.
Now that's a problem I need to work on. You're right. That said, I don't know that most of that is true. The lands necessarily play differently form the 2 drops, even if in some situations they share a single keyword with them.
You have maybe three cards in the entire set that encourage you to discard you own cards.* I don't think the set needs pseudo-madness, especially when it's opaque enough I, who was actually playing for Tormanet, had no idea that's what you were going for.
*And you have enough anti-opponent's discard hosers that you don't need psuedo madness for those either.
Pseudo-madness is constructed playable in dredge/madness decks primarily. The fact it also hoses mill and discard are bonuses, and make the design pop more.
So in order to foil a single card (1) in this set (which, again, should be cut or altered because it's horrifically unfun in Limited anyway), surprise sweeping half the set is acceptable collateral damage?
It's Sandstorm. Remember this set encourages you to equip, enchant, or use combat tricks... so, like mirrodin, it has a smaller P/T average. And that set was awesome.
Again I ask: if you feel this way why are you fine with obsoleting perfectly constructed playable (as if proven) cards like Mesa Charger or Children of Night?
Again I ask if these were constructed playable.
I'd want five. But hey, look! Five is an option! You're just dismissing it.
I'm not dismissing it, I've got an argument against it - 5 isn't enough for new players to learn a keyword. At 5, that means only about 2 at common. This means that to compare the 2, those 2 would need to be in the same color.
I haven't done the math, but in small expansions 8 has felt right. In large expansions I feel 8 is going to be too few actually. But an minimum threshold any larger will feel overwhelming.
I have seen players, when faced with two lords (let's say Elvish Archdruid) be unsure whether the druids are 3/3s or 2/2s. They see the ability says "other elves", but aren't confident if "other" menas "each other creature I control that's an elf" or "each elf I control that's not a Elvish Archdruid". That was the thing I was referring to in regards to your relentless lords.
It's weird, rare and baffling to me, but if a simple change could erase that confusion I'd gladly make it.
I don't know what to tell you. If it's at common, hopefully it comes up more and they learn. Reminder text can't help, and being rare clearly doesn't help.
That reminds me: the highlander clause and multi-searching feels too similar to your rare (which I like far better)
I think they play differently, but I'd have to think about it more.
Casual players would find it just as fun without the word haste ever appearing on it. But we've had this argument.
Besides making it a much better card, haste here represents it in black (Who lost the scorpion remember).
More of an upper limit than a right direction. But since you asked...
In M12? 2.5/4 (some mages saw heavy-solid play, others didn't). Of course 3 of the loose cycles were at least mostly playable.
M13? 1/2 tight cycles saw play. All five loose cycles had at least some cards see decent or better amounts of play. I'm not sure what your point here was.
My point was that on average a well designed cycle is usually more constructed playable than a non-cycle card.
The lands require a mana sink but once a creature they act quite similarly. I'd be curious to see how you'd plan on working on this without removing a cycle or removing some keyword creep.
There's always going to be some redundancy in how creatures work - moreso with the keyword threshold I have set. This helps to define a color. The imporant thing is that no 2 cards feel "the same". Creature types, casting cost, and keywords help to distinguish this. For a while I worried the anti-discard, anti-instant-draw "bears" were too similar - both 2/2s, both uncommon, both 1G, both get counters. Now although both are 1G, they play radically differently and have obviously different creature types. So I hope it'll be much better.
Edit:
Okay, so I might regret this, but what about:
Leg Parade 1G
Instant (C)
Put a 1/1 green insect token onto the battlefield, then another 1/1 green insect token onto the battlefield for each card named ~ in a graveyard. Everyone loves a parade,
Slur, Goblin Cuisinart
And
Scrying Exploration 2G
Sorcery (U)
Search your library for a land card plus up to an additional land card for each card named ~ in each graveyard. Reveal them. Shuffle. Put them into your hand.
Theoretically I could do up a rare for the cycle, but I don't know about that. This would give me 6 cards with this mechanic, but they all feel different and don't obsolete anything.
That said, I think if I did this I'd need to find a creature or two to "eat" the insects in green.
Edit again: Actually, I already have a common insect token producer, so maybe something else:
The Trees are Revolting1G
Instant (C)
Target forest you control becomes a 2/4 green treefolk with reach and haste until end of turn, then for each card named ~ in a graveyard, up to one additional forest you control becomes a 2/4 green treefolk with reach and haste until end of turn.
One of these is a surprise blocker that'll probably kill a 2 drop and live. The 2nd is two surprize blockers. The third is an army to attack with.
Ultimately this feels new and fresh. But is it too strong for 2 mana? Too weak? Constructed playable?
Edit: Simpler version: The Trees are Revoltingv2 1G
Instant (C)
Untap a forest you control. It is a 2/4 green treefolk until end of turn. Then you may untap an additional forest for each card named ~ in a graveyard. Those are 2/4 green treefolk until end of turn. (They are still lands)
You keep bringing up Mirrodin, but have you actually looked back on that block? It's markedly different from what this looks like
If you mean that it didn't have as many constructed playable cards as my set, it shares that distinction with pretty much all mtg sets outside of Alpha and Beta.
More importantly, there were 17 common equipment in that environment, and another 16 uncommon equipment. The average draft would see over 27 equipment opened and passed around.
5 common auras, 7 or so uncommon equipment, various auras and combat tricks. And most give a p/t bonus more often.
You set has 7 uncommon equipment and 4 common auras that actually pump stats. You'd see a bit under 15 in a draft, or 44% less than in Mirrodin-era limited.
I think as you prepare for the next step you need to create a list of what you are looking for from this set. Be specific, what do you want Limited to look like, what archetypes do you wish to support, etc (the more detailed the better, as if you show us we could give more specific criticisms). Then take a step back and look at your set on the whole. You're making a lot of changes to little pieces of the set but I think you're too close to it at times and are missing the forest for the trees. With many things, like your effort to emulate Mirrodin limited, your vision is deviating heavily from the reality of your set.
My goal is to make a 100% constructed playable set with a mirrodin-esque environment of low-average p/t that forces you to play equipment, auras, and combat tricks to win games.
Too often MTG is a fast environment that doesn't care about auras, equipment, or the like. By making things smaller on average, this makes improving your creatures a lot more important.
Look at what you set out to do, look at what you've actually done, then try and decide what big shifts you need to make to reconcile them. Because right now your words and actions aren't aligning.
I'm not following this too closely, but every time I do look into one of these threads I see different people criticizing aspects of the set, and then you just dismissing those criticisms out of hand.
My goal is to make a 100% constructed playable set with a mirrodin-esque environment of low-average p/t that forces you to play equipment, auras, and combat tricks to win games.
Too often MTG is a fast environment that doesn't care about auras, equipment, or the like. By making things smaller on average, this makes improving your creatures a lot more important.
You are not listening to what Zoomba is saying then. If pumping your creatures with Auras and Equipment is important, then why are there so few Auras and Equipment at common? And if you don't want a fast environment, then why are so many of the creatures at such a low mana cost? Except for the making things smaller part, everything else you are describing that you want actually sounds a lot like Rise of Eldrazi limited. ROE had a playstyle nicknamed in R&D as Battlecruiser Magic where there was a lot of early defenders to stabilize the board and the Eldrazi Spawn for mana acceleration to allow you time to make creatures larger with Auras, Equipment, level up, or just paying high mana costs. This leads to giant clashes between behemoths that otherwise doesn't happen in normal Magic.
If you want to slow down the game, then you need early defenses, mana acceleration that fits in all colors, and larger late games cards to incentivize players to take the game longer. But If that is what you really want, then I think from the very beginning calling this an "ideal core set" was a mistake. That is not a core set. A core set should be a simpler more "normal" version of the game highlighting the central core elements and "normal" playstyles.
I have 8 toughness-enhancing equipment/auras (green's got a boosting uncommon aura), Mirrodin has 5. So my #s are quite good compared to mirrodin, actually. I have *MORE* toughness-boosters than the set that I am discussing.
Second, re:
And if you don't want a fast environment,
1. I didn't say that. I don't want limited to be too fast, but having a fast-paced constructed isn't a bad thing.
2. The fact that creatures have a low cost doesn't make the environment faster, it just means that there's a greater chance that the cards will be played, but not necessarily together.
Except for the making things smaller part, everything else you are describing that you want actually sounds a lot like Rise of Eldrazi limited. ROE had a playstyle nicknamed in R&D as Battlecruiser Magic where there was a lot of early defenders to stabilize the board and the Eldrazi Spawn for mana acceleration to allow you time to make creatures larger with Auras, Equipment, level up, or just paying high mana costs. This leads to giant clashes between behemoths that otherwise doesn't happen in normal Magic.
I don't see how this is the case. I don't have ramp or acceleration of the kind you're talking about, nor do I have a wide variety of giant creatures. Heck, I don't even think it's fair to say I have a lot of early defenders! I've got a few of note, and certainly not in all colors.
I don't want to "slow down the game" or "speed up the game". I want to produce an environment where multiple kinds of decks are viable - where weenie, burn, and suicide decks are playable, but so are ramp, control, and even draw-go.
I think I've selected cards that are largely successful in doing this, as I give each archetype some pieces of the puzzle, not not too many.
Zoomba,
First, that affinity skews the curve. It does slightly, but not as much as you'd think. Out of the 112 common creatures in that environment just 9 had affinity. If we cut 2 from each of their costs to compensate for their 'real' cost, the average creature CMC only drops to 3.3. That's cheaper, but not by much.
Fair point... but I think it misses the bigger issue:
I want my set to be 100% playable; Mirrodin - as with most sets - falls far short of this. Generally speaking, cost has a lot to do with whether something is playable, and as such a lower curve might mean more playability. But it's not the only thing: Consider Leonin Scimitar and Bone Splitter. Under what conditions would you run the former over the latter? Certainly not many. Contrast this with my green 2 drops in this thread: Thornweald Archer - good elf deck 2 drop, mediocre elsewhere. Centaur Redeemer - fair "good stuff" 2 drop against a discard-heavy environment, fair centaur 2 drop. Dryad Soothsayer - fair "good stuff" 2 drop/surprise blocker, fair dryad 2 drop (should tribal dryads be a thing), and good blue sideboard draw-go card, as it comes in when they tap out to draw and might be a boss once they've drawn. Flow of Scarabs - I don't know how fair this is, but I know it's not fighting for a slot with the other things here.
That's 4 2 drops, and none are exactly fighting for the same deck slot (outside of limited that is)!
Your creatures are already 80% efficient in terms of power:CMC. Therefore, they are much better on their own without needing any enhancements.
I don't think this is the right analysis. Right now, most of my 2 drops trade with other 2 drops - this is to say that I get 1-1s and everyone's left without a creature. However, this is the reason you equip, play auras, and play combat tricks - it's to make sure you 1-for-0.
Thirdly (I added one, sue me) while you have a lot of combat tricks, most of them are actually based around removing (bounce/removal) or adding (flash creatures, instant tokens) creatures to combat. You have about the same amount of P/T boost tricks as any average set. Possibly a bit less but I'm too lazy right now to run the numbers.
Fair enough. [U]This is where I really need to work on.[/U]
As much as I'd like to say I did it right the first time out of the gate, this is a first pass. But even as a first pass, this gives us a good idea of what the set does well - and what changes need to be made for it to do better.
I'm actually quite pleased that there's very little to keep track of on-board. This is to say that if I have 5 lands untapped, you generally don't have to worry that I've got 3 different creatures with activated abilities that I might use at the end of your turn. I've got equipment I might move around on my turn, but that's largely it. What you need to worry about is my playing flash creatures or instant combat tricks. You mention removal; but I've tried to give red some good first strikers who combo with burn spells to remove larger creatures than normal (IE, your 1/1 first strike can combo with lightning bolt to kill the baloth at common; and I think this might actually happen more often than you'd think).
That said, I think Test of Faith is my favorite combat trick in the set right now, as it does 2 things I want it to do: (1) it feels white, and (2) it makes a 2/2 something bigger! I'd really like to do more of this kind of thing (Perhaps more flash auras?).
That is debatedly true in Constructed, but my point here was never about Constructed: it was all about Limited. In Constructed no one is using equipment on sub-par beaters like Pteron Ghost, they're pumping up Leonin Skyhunter. Using pump aura/equipment to balance out tinier bodies only matters in Limited because Constructed already uses the bigger bodies.
Re: Constructed - I've seen very healthy formats where equipping a Cranial Plating, Empyrial Plate (good reprint @ uncommon???), Loxodon Warhammer, or various Swords of X and Y were strong plays. Late game these turn weenies into finishers, and that's a game changer against control decks that once-upon-a-time merely needed to Wrath and then their next drop could take out whatever weenies crept up.
You say
In Constructed no one is using equipment on sub-par beaters like Pteron Ghost, they're pumping up Leonin Skyhunter.
Here's the thing though - in constructed, all of the cards are going to be Skyhunter-quality.
You say:
Using pump aura/equipment to balance out tinier bodies only matters in Limited because Constructed already uses the bigger bodies.
See, but that's just it - there are no bigger boddes in constructed! Yeah, we're going to have (what's looking more and more like a tight cycle of) 2/3s for 3, or whatnot, and yeah I guess we'll have the occasional fattie - but we're not having 1/1s for 2 who tap for mana in my set. If you're paying 2 mana, you're probably getting a 2/1 or better. Across the board.
So the question becomes "will this 2 drop survive combat", and the thing that makes the answer "yes" is most often times a combat trick or equipment.
Also the lowness of your curve arguably reduces the effectiveness of combat tricks by telegraphing them more. When everything costs 2, the possibility that three untapped lands means your stuck with a four-drop is gone: the base assumption becomes that if you aren't casting a creature with that two mana it's because you're holding a blow-out.
"2nd main phase, play creature" should be how you play magic. It's something new players need to learn. That said, if you're missing a 2 drop on turn 3 because you want to play a combat trick - you're doing it wrong.
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It's not hard to figure out. Green needs to be ruling the ground and if they don't want to get run over by tempo disadvantage they need to be doing it at a good price. Have you seem the 2 and 3 drops gmail has made for every colour? Pascifying your 5cc guy would be such a waste of your turn while their 2cc evasive super creatures keep dropping.
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Watching Spider2GG
Creature - Spider (C)
Reach, Vigilance
4/4
Constructed playable? I don't know, but it's pretty boss in limited. But without the former, the latter's not going to happen.
In all seriousness, I don't see a problem with green getting a 4/4 4 drop at common with an additional ability... or two?
But let me run this by you:
Name Wurm3GG
Creature - Wurm (C)
6/6
Is this printable? fair? Constructed playable? Quite frankly w/o a keyword on there this is just pretty bad. Although if it were a goblin, it'd read "7/7 haste" for 3GG with a lord out, and that might be playable.
I agree with you. I was mainly pointing out that GG3 4/4 Trample is worse than Stampeding Rhino.
However, I do think that GG2 4/4 Trample is the brute force way of making the point that green needs better breakthrough. For instance, if green has enough trample its pump spells get significantly better. Or give green more playable pump spells/ways to get trample.
What about going the other way and replacing Reach with "Can only be blocked by fliers/reach"?
That would give green the offense side of Serra Angel at the expense of blocking fliers AT COMMON. That would be nice because then you could pair it alongside a defensive Spider rather than having it BE a spider.
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I think it could even be done at uncommon. Its possible to make both an Overrun and Might of Oaks effect (such as Enlarge) where they are distinct enough that you can have both at uncommon. Throw in things like Ring of Kalonia or (extreme case) Rancor and things start to get pretty nasty.
Alternately, instead of "deal with this or else" you can go the "just try to deal with this!" hexproof route.
You can also add in extra push for Auras like Aura Gnarlid.
EDIT: but its a fine line before something like that starts to be unfun
Mind you, outside of Ageless Oak I don't know what I could cut...
The gameplay reason comes from the business reason, but is also grounded in Richard Garfield's original plan for the game. Rarer cards are more powerful (or rather more powerful effects are kept at rare) so as to create gameplay value and increase the overall design space. Shivan Dragon could be a common in some alternate universe sure. That alternate universe is called YuGiOh, where each set builds upon the last by increasing the overall power level. Magic sets however build upon the last by expanding the total number of effects in the game (though power creep does still happen). By keeping a rarity system with (generally) well regulated divisions of power and complexity, each set is able to offer something new to the game. The fact that this is possible 20 years and as many sets after Alpha is amazing and a testament that Wizards R&D know what they're doing.
Mark Rosewater has also discussed another reason why maintaining rarities (and thus not printing a set of "all playables") is important. No matter the size of a format, only a small chunk will get played. Only the best of the best if you will. Printing a set of the "best of the best" would remove any value those cards would have and make printing more cards much more difficult. Theoretically you could create "the perfect set" with a flat power level around current standard playability. However such a set would by necessity neutralize the existence of all other sets. If you want to play a game with a fixed pool of playables, get a deck of cards. If you want to play a game with a regularly increasing power level, play YuGiOh. Magic just doesn't seem to be your kind of game.
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His response to me telling him this was that wizards was selling rotten eggs. Its not possible to reason with such a response because it is delusional. No business can sell rotten eggs for very long and continue to be a business (I await someone saying "Microsoft!")
I do wish he'd drop the "moral" arguments though. I don't think for a moment that he has invested any serious study in the topic in his life and clearly he doesn't realize how stunningly callous it sounds to use the same terminology to damn a CARD GAME as you would to describe human induced famine or firebombing civilian populations (ie true atrocities)
The trample guy makes greens crappy tricks better, makes sure green is not trading too poorly against 2/1 deathtouch guys for 2, flash deathtouch guys for 3 and all of gmail's great removal, and makes sure green's relative size advantage is relative.
I don't know why everyone is so fixed on removing inevitability from green, or giving everyone a kidmode way to deal with, or turning it into an absolute untenable mess the way hexproof might. Gmail's cards are really good around the 2-3 cc mark, they aren't too afraid of this thing.
I also think your vigilance spider might be too crazy. I'm not sure quite why, but it just seems like such a low investment for something that is such a hammer blow against a bunch of decks. On the other hand I think you've printed a lot of great evasive guys so maybe?
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
Thank you.
And it can either sell a good product (fresh eggs) or a bad product (rotten eggs)
Magic is a customizable, collectable card game. IE, it is a game where the parts are collectable and intended to be used in a game.
If a part fails to be usable in said game, then it fails.
This is objectively false. The primary value of the collectable card game comes from the game itself.
Translation: They produce crap and mix it in with the good stuff and sell it to suckers who want to get the good stuff.
It's points like this where the "rotten egg" analogy slap you in the face like a disobedient child peeing on the carpet for fun.
Did you just say "the goal of printing bad cards is to make money"?
Read Chapter 1 of Plato's Republic. I'll wait.
Garfield's original vision was that a player would drop $10 on a starter and $10 on boosters, and then make a deck and win a few cards from his opponent with ante.
Your analysis here is not only flawed, it's downright incompetent. To put it in terms you might understand, it's like SAYING that you don't take candy from strangers, then getting in the van anyways!
And you, master of unethical business practices, decided to ignore my response to Mark Rosewater's discussion? Color me shocked that you - a defender of 'con artists - would ignore an argument that doesn't fit with your preconceived biases.
This is objectively false!
If you take the existing standard playable cards, then that is a 100% standard playable format.
You know I've had this conversation earlier in this thread with others.
So please allow me to speak to you as if you were in fourth grade for a moment. Stop eating the chalk and read the assignment! Read this thread and find those who have advocated the position you halfhazardly have glommed onto, and then read my responses.
Then - if you have something to add - respond to those responses.
If you don't find those arguments compelling, please explain why.
If you do find those arguments compelling then you probably agree with me.
Either that or join the flat earth society. I'm sure they wouldn't mind another person who believe something objectively false for no reason despite all the evidence against her.
This doesn't even rise to being sophism.
In all the world, if you are looking for a "cause" to call your own, the volume of crappy Magic cards printed can't possibly be at the top of anyone's list.
Here's the business ethics lesson for today:
Don't sell people rotten eggs if they're looking for good eggs.
If you want to know "why" you shouldn't do something so obviously morally bankrupt you know where to look.
In the meantime we'll be talking about cards not intended to bilk people, but intended to be used.
In the meantime until you buy up the stock of Moonlace, I'm pretty sure you don't have leg to stand on.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
No one is forcing or deceiving anyone to buy rotten eggs.
When someone buys a TCG booster his aware not all cards are good or have the same quality in game's standards.
Still I will admit buying booster as a bad way of augmenting collections is a 'dark secret' mtg keeps from newer customers. The first time I quit mtg, I quit for this very reason (I discovered the net deck world, the secondary market and how cracking boosters are pointless... my kitchen table world fell a part).
But cracking booster being pointless is basically something WotC can't change. The expected value of a booster will never exceed it's price (because if it does, people will buy boosters until supply force the card's price, and booster expected value, down). It means, getting stuff from the secondary market will always be the best choice, as long as a secondary market exist.
What they can do about it is: make cracking boosters more fun, so even if it's bad in terms of collection net worth, you do it because it is inherently fun. And how they do that ?
Design a good draft format.
Also, bad cards are done in order to make the very casual players more happy. Basically, if their starting deck is horrible and cracking a few boosters allows then to upgrade their strategy, they will enjoy the game more, even if it makes then weaker compared to the high competitive players they will never meet or play against.
In other worlds, while your set philosophy suits the kitchen tablers that want to a have shot in FNM, they suck for the kitchen tablers who doesn't. Because those guys wouldn't be able to easily upgrade their decks by substituting the pillar field ox for something better.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
You can do the same thing with making a quality product.
Stop making excuses. Please.
No, I get them in the "lottery" of looking for good cards. Hey, look, someone forced me to buy rotten eggs!
So if you know you're being ripped off beforehand you're not being ripped off?
No! Sorry! No dice!
I'm going to end it here. You've just given a practical reason why WOTC should fulfill their moral obligation, apart from the moral reasons I have given.
In this thread alone, we have both (a) moral reasons, and (b) practical reasons to do what I've suggested. We've also (c) shown that the reasons WOTC gives for NOT doing what I've suggested are without basis. They freely equivocate between Mindless Null-bad cards and Siphon Soul-"bad", and that's not only dishonest, it's an error in logic.
If WOTC was more concerned with turning out a quality product, I suspect they could do a better job. It might take more time - but guess what fellas, you design and play games for a living! Judging by the size of this forum, there are a lot of people willing to do it for substantially less $. So if you can't put in the extra weekend to find a way to tweak the gray ogre limited "needs" to be balanced into a card playable in tribal, or 2HG, or pauper, or *SOMETHING*
Heck - they can always invent new formats if need be.
Highlander makes many cards that were once unplayable because there are better options playable.
Strictly speaking, the right thing to do in any given situation is to do what you think is right.
I'm sure some people at WOTC genuinely believe that bad cards need to exist. They're good people doing bad things because they believe them to be good.
However if there is a portion of R&D who not only makes bad arguments, but intentionally makes bad arguments in order to justify existing policies... well, that's morally wrong in itself.
Oh... wait... this is a "You know what you're getting in for" argument. Please don't make that argument. The "Rotten Egg" argument stands firm even if the seller is upfront that one of your dozen eggs is rotten.
If you're interested, feel free to look up moral objections to gambling in professional ethics journals. There's some good stuff.
Well, strictly speaking, this ability is mostly on creatures. Here, it's a thing - a "Thicket of Ants" - that is disappearing to give you a bonus. The flavor here is that there's always another ant in the thicket.
By utalizing the "put into the yard from anywhere" language I can maintain consistency in wording between anti-mill and anti-discard roles. It does both.
Fair point. But that's what makes it an excellent control card I think.
Up to uncommon might be doable. Increasing the cost isn't going to happen though. Against green, you need to fear this.
I'm going to disagree with you here - I know, shocker. One of the most important things about these 3 cycles is that they really do play differently. But I'll get to that. First, the reason they're here is that french vanilla is as close as we're going to get to have "vanilla" and "playable" in the same sentence thanks to the current status quo. These are, by far, some of the easiest to recognize and grokk cards in the set.
As for how they play - there's differences between the cycles and between the members of the cycles. Take the 1/1s. Flying plays a lot differently from deathtouch, let alone hexproof. Still the 1/1 first strike goblin plays a very unique role in an environment with a cycle of powerful 2/1s.
Consider the much maligned 2/1 cycle. No one cares about the 2/1 Reach Deathtouch guy (although because he and the flash, non-reach, hexproofer have Deathtouch there's an overlap people confuse for playing the same), and once the black one became Deathtouch/Lifelink there wasn't much outcry ("Oh no, Child of Night got obsoleted! My word!")(and despite the fact the 1 drop also has deathtouch, they play substantially differently. The 2/1 is aggressive, while the 1/1 is, typically, defensive). White gives us flying and lifelink, which plays much like the black one but without worries of being blocked usually, and the blue one - the most maligned of the cycle - certainly plays different from the rest. Red's role is clear - attacks, gets damage in.
And then let's talk about the 2/3s... the mInotaur owns the battlefield while the white guy flashes in for lifelink and surprise blockerism. The green one, too, flashes in, but this guy bites either big or small attackers to death - a substantial difference. And then there's Vampire Nighthawk, and we both know how that plays.
I really don't see t he difference between */* and 1/1-counts-others except for tutoring and similar effects, in which case the 1/1s are easier to understand.
I don't see how players could get confused about relentless bats counting other versions of the card - indeed, it would border incoherent to do so while knowing what "relentless" means.
The job of the core set is to encourage a variety of playstyles and give a base for those playstyles.
Indeed, this is one of the errors in modern design - sticking to a theme. If you stick to a theme, but only so many of those cards can go in a deck, then the rest in that theme get left out. However, if you have three or four themes that don't necessarily go well together, then you have three or four archetypes with a stable base for each and all of the cards can go in a deck.
The reason I want the costs on the cycle to be CD is to enforce the "this is harder to play without mana fixing" concept. It's a learning tool for the core set.
As for being uncommon - this is where the cycle belongs, both in terms of limited-balance and learning-balance.
As for the "there's only 5 of them, they're rare by definition" claim... there's less than 5 wurms, but they're all common. So... yeah.
Black has the zombie token producing lord, right?
And yeah, Merfolk has the now-common mill "lord". Deal. It plays substantially differently from the rare one and is a good learning tool at common.
I've got to stick with the Onslaught-costing for homage-value. Besides, it's also the perfect "6 drop" finisher cost that is impossible to splash for. If you're playing the blue legend... you're playing blue.
We really need to stop talking about M14. Let's look at M13 and M12 as our standardbearers, shall we? M14 is objectively crap on a crap stick to draft, so using it as our baseline for a good draft format has genuinely been an oversight on all of our parts.
That said, as you've mentioned - some of these "cycles" you wouldn't even have known were cycles w/o being told. Furthermore these cycles differ from the "cycle overload" of poorer sets because the members of the cycles are radically different and play differently.
Like it or not, but intimidate hybrid hill giants are 100% terrible cards. variable cost hybrid enchantment cycle all played the same and all played poorly except on unblockables who got +2/+2 and lifelink.
You might not like some of the members of my cycles, but you can't accuse them of being poorly designed QUA cycle-member. You either think they're too strong or too weak on their own. And that's what makes my cycles largely different from WOTC's current-generation of cycles.
You know I cited the Stronghold wall cycle. That's the kind of cycle that my cards are - unique, interesting, a tight cycle, and largely constructed playable in standard. Each wall plays differently.
GWU Rafiq
RWB Zurgo
WBG Ghave
WUB Oloro
WBR Kaalia (Archived)
My Blog, currently working on series about my custom set Cazia.
Steam Trades - I play Dota 2, CS:GO, TF2, and trade cards heavily. Add me if you like.
And I'll let you know I *tried* to offer a thoughtful and reasoned response, but your rambling was incoherent nonsense.
In contrast, I've got genuine arguments to back up my position.
Your position? If you don't like it, don't buy it!
I suggest you go watch the Superman: Doomsday animated adaptation. Absolute dribble. But the 1st 5 minutes demonstrates why your argument is bull.
Lex Luthor's cronies cure cancer. And he *****es at them explaining that it is worthless to him. Curing cancer makes him far, far less money than TREATING cancer. So he's going to go ahead and treat cancer and not release the cure.
Well guess what Jaxck... you don't have to buy Lex Luthor's cancer treatment. But your *can't* buy his cure (if you lived in the appropriate fictional universe, blah blah blah).
The position you're defending is that it's MORALLY ACCEPTABLE for Lex Luther to withhold the cure for cancer - which he is more than capable of providing at a reasonable cost - so that he can make more money treating cancer. This is to say that you're okay with WOTC doing a less-than-perfect job on MTG because although they could do a better job, it's up to them how many rotten eggs they pack the lottery with.
Next time - and at this point I sincerely don't care if there is a next time - please try to at least address the issues at hand instead of mangling the Wilt Chamberlain argument. Yes, Wilt can refuse to play unless we each pay him an extra 25 cents. And yes we'd probably willingly play it because he's good at basketball. But, really... he's kind of a dick if he refuses to play according to his contract unless we each chip in an extra 25 cents.
Which is why I'm not attacking WOTC personally, or as an organization. My target has always been their policy.
I've argued their current policy is morally wrong. I've argued that the defenders of the policy have made objectively bad defenses of those policies. Furthermore, if you read the defenses, you'll see that WOTC really does have several options open to make a rotating series of 100% playable decks, whether they want to support multiple formats like I do or not. Thus the position they defend is wrong.
Perhaps an analogy is in order: Racism is morally bankrupt; it is inherently morally unsupportable. However, some racists are nice people. Misinformed, but generally nice. If they ever had the opportunity, they might very well rethink their racist policies. It's perfectly acceptable to talk about racism as if it is wrong even though there are some "nice" racists out there.
You've got to remember -these are really pseudo-madness cards. This explains, in part, the exiling clause - it plays similar to flashbacking the cards, but of course with different effects.
This card is to block unblockables. White blue, an enemy, gets. That is pretty much it.
Vanillas can be playable... but unfortunately very few P/T combos are playable. Every time WOTC obsoletes an existing playable vanilla, the only way to fix this is to give that vanilla relevant-enough types to get it playable then, or to give it a P or T boost, or to give it an additional ability such that it's no longer vanilla.
I want more playable vanillas. Quite frnakly though with WOTC obsoleting perfectly constructed playable 3/1s for 1W, it's difficult.
This, I'm afraid, is a consequence of the amount of keywords in the set, not the cycles themselves.
I've stipulated I want each non-indesctrible, non-strict cycle (Defender, Relentless) keyword set to be on ~8 cards (more for flying, obviously). If 5 of those cards are c common, and we have 12 keywords, that's 60 keywords to distribute (Well, more like 75 given the amount of flying we want in the core).
There are ~100 commons.
About half of those are creatures - so that's 50. So if we want 75 keywords between 50 creatures, then each creature is going to have an average of 1.5 keywords.
Now, of course, that's not how this plays out. A few select rares and a the triple-keyword uncommons make it much easier to have keywordless common creatures.
In any event, though, there are going to be lots of creatures that share some combination of keywords. Vampire Nighthawk and the Pegasus share 2 of 3 keywords. There's no real way to avoid that and keep the "8" threshold.
Now you might say "So cut it back to 5". This, I think, is a mistake. The core set is for teaching, and at 5 cards per keyword it's going to be hard for players to compare two or more cards with the same keyword at the same time. But that's the point of a keyword - cards with trample all play the same. Cards with lifelink all play the same.
The only other solution is to double the size of the set (like WOTC did around 5th edition or so?), but this has it's own problems - not the least of which is trying to make 500 cards playable at once.
We've seen what happens when WOTC prints ONE or TWO copies of a keyword in the core set - no one learns anything. So many people have talked about how my set lacks focus, lacks synergy (and so intentionally, by the way), but where's the outrage when WOTC's sets lack synergy or consistency?
Put yourself in the position of a new player. You're trying to learn magic, and you've got the fundamentals down but you're just getting into drafting. Do you want there to be 5 common tramplers, or 1, from a purely learning perspective?
Oh I haven't seen them do so. But WOTC has published articles about how Meteor Storm ruined their day.
If I understand you correctly, players get confused about cards that reference their own name. But these don't. They reference creature types (they're not relentless rats, they're plague rats functionally - you know, but with relentless).
If it's Sylvan Scrying it's obsoleting Sylvan Scrying... or costs more and is probably unplayable.
Right now it's just sylvan scrying for odd-hilander-esque decks. It's got some neat synergy with Paths Untaken actually.
The lesson is this:
I can usually play a 1C or a 1D on turn 2.
I can't nearly as reliably play a CD on turn 2.
We've seen how I really don't have many CC cards at common (or uncommon)... or in the set at all. I can think of one - the skyknight - which I'm probably changing to a Thunder Spirit variant (in part because I need more First Strike...).
There should be 2 lords - 1 rare, 1 common.
Regeneration clause, no regeneration in the set, cut it.
Besides, as soon as I hit on the Hell's Caretaker I was in love. Haste Hell's Caretaker with good stats is just juicy fun!
So we're moving in the right direction I see.
Now - just for fun - out of those tight cycles, what percentage were constructed playable?
Yeah, I guess the planeswalkers do count as a cycle...
Now that's a problem I need to work on. You're right. That said, I don't know that most of that is true. The lands necessarily play differently form the 2 drops, even if in some situations they share a single keyword with them.
Pseudo-madness is constructed playable in dredge/madness decks primarily. The fact it also hoses mill and discard are bonuses, and make the design pop more.
So in order to foil a single card (1) in this set (which, again, should be cut or altered because it's horrifically unfun in Limited anyway), surprise sweeping half the set is acceptable collateral damage?
It's Sandstorm. Remember this set encourages you to equip, enchant, or use combat tricks... so, like mirrodin, it has a smaller P/T average. And that set was awesome.
Again I ask if these were constructed playable.
I'm not dismissing it, I've got an argument against it - 5 isn't enough for new players to learn a keyword. At 5, that means only about 2 at common. This means that to compare the 2, those 2 would need to be in the same color.
I haven't done the math, but in small expansions 8 has felt right. In large expansions I feel 8 is going to be too few actually. But an minimum threshold any larger will feel overwhelming.
I don't know what to tell you. If it's at common, hopefully it comes up more and they learn. Reminder text can't help, and being rare clearly doesn't help.
I think they play differently, but I'd have to think about it more.
Besides making it a much better card, haste here represents it in black (Who lost the scorpion remember).
My point was that on average a well designed cycle is usually more constructed playable than a non-cycle card.
There's always going to be some redundancy in how creatures work - moreso with the keyword threshold I have set. This helps to define a color. The imporant thing is that no 2 cards feel "the same". Creature types, casting cost, and keywords help to distinguish this. For a while I worried the anti-discard, anti-instant-draw "bears" were too similar - both 2/2s, both uncommon, both 1G, both get counters. Now although both are 1G, they play radically differently and have obviously different creature types. So I hope it'll be much better.
Edit:
Okay, so I might regret this, but what about:
Leg Parade 1G
Instant (C)
Put a 1/1 green insect token onto the battlefield, then another 1/1 green insect token onto the battlefield for each card named ~ in a graveyard.
Everyone loves a parade,
Slur, Goblin Cuisinart
And
Scrying Exploration 2G
Sorcery (U)
Search your library for a land card plus up to an additional land card for each card named ~ in each graveyard. Reveal them. Shuffle. Put them into your hand.
Theoretically I could do up a rare for the cycle, but I don't know about that. This would give me 6 cards with this mechanic, but they all feel different and don't obsolete anything.
That said, I think if I did this I'd need to find a creature or two to "eat" the insects in green.
Edit again: Actually, I already have a common insect token producer, so maybe something else:
The Trees are Revolting1G
Instant (C)
Target forest you control becomes a 2/4 green treefolk with reach and haste until end of turn, then for each card named ~ in a graveyard, up to one additional forest you control becomes a 2/4 green treefolk with reach and haste until end of turn.
One of these is a surprise blocker that'll probably kill a 2 drop and live. The 2nd is two surprize blockers. The third is an army to attack with.
Ultimately this feels new and fresh. But is it too strong for 2 mana? Too weak? Constructed playable?
Edit: Simpler version:
The Trees are Revoltingv2 1G
Instant (C)
Untap a forest you control. It is a 2/4 green treefolk until end of turn. Then you may untap an additional forest for each card named ~ in a graveyard. Those are 2/4 green treefolk until end of turn. (They are still lands)
If you mean that it didn't have as many constructed playable cards as my set, it shares that distinction with pretty much all mtg sets outside of Alpha and Beta.
Try removing the affinity for artifacts guys. 4 mana 2/2s can skew a good statistical lashing.
Uh... if their power and toughness is, on average, less, it means they need more armoring up to survive the big stuff.
5 common auras, 7 or so uncommon equipment, various auras and combat tricks. And most give a p/t bonus more often.
Yup. And how much less artifact hate?
My goal is to make a 100% constructed playable set with a mirrodin-esque environment of low-average p/t that forces you to play equipment, auras, and combat tricks to win games.
Too often MTG is a fast environment that doesn't care about auras, equipment, or the like. By making things smaller on average, this makes improving your creatures a lot more important.
I don't think that's fair.
Child of Night: http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/55670
Stormfront Pegasus: Not currently played.
Closest analogue - probably Aven Squire: http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/34804
You are not listening to what Zoomba is saying then. If pumping your creatures with Auras and Equipment is important, then why are there so few Auras and Equipment at common? And if you don't want a fast environment, then why are so many of the creatures at such a low mana cost? Except for the making things smaller part, everything else you are describing that you want actually sounds a lot like Rise of Eldrazi limited. ROE had a playstyle nicknamed in R&D as Battlecruiser Magic where there was a lot of early defenders to stabilize the board and the Eldrazi Spawn for mana acceleration to allow you time to make creatures larger with Auras, Equipment, level up, or just paying high mana costs. This leads to giant clashes between behemoths that otherwise doesn't happen in normal Magic.
If you want to slow down the game, then you need early defenses, mana acceleration that fits in all colors, and larger late games cards to incentivize players to take the game longer. But If that is what you really want, then I think from the very beginning calling this an "ideal core set" was a mistake. That is not a core set. A core set should be a simpler more "normal" version of the game highlighting the central core elements and "normal" playstyles.
First - //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22">&color=+[C]&subtype=+[%22Equipment%22]&rarity=|[C]"]http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22]&color=+[C]&subtype=+[%22Equipment%22]&rarity=|[C] Out of the 7 equipment at common, only 3 give toughness bonuses (IE, only 3 help creatures not die).
I have 0 common equipment, but 4/5 common auras give bonus.
Also, //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22">&rarity=|[C]&subtype=+[%22Aura%22]"]http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22]&rarity=|[C]&subtype=+[%22Aura%22] 3 common auras, 0 toughness bonuses.
Mirrodin has 2 uncommon equipment that give bonuses:
//gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22">&subtype=+[%22Equipment%22]&rarity=|[U]"]http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&set=|[%22Mirrodin%22]&subtype=+[%22Equipment%22]&rarity=|[U]
Here, my colorless: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=531680&highlight=hypothetical+ideal+equipment
I have 3.
I have 8 toughness-enhancing equipment/auras (green's got a boosting uncommon aura), Mirrodin has 5. So my #s are quite good compared to mirrodin, actually. I have *MORE* toughness-boosters than the set that I am discussing.
Second, re:
1. I didn't say that. I don't want limited to be too fast, but having a fast-paced constructed isn't a bad thing.
2. The fact that creatures have a low cost doesn't make the environment faster, it just means that there's a greater chance that the cards will be played, but not necessarily together.
I don't see how this is the case. I don't have ramp or acceleration of the kind you're talking about, nor do I have a wide variety of giant creatures. Heck, I don't even think it's fair to say I have a lot of early defenders! I've got a few of note, and certainly not in all colors.
I don't want to "slow down the game" or "speed up the game". I want to produce an environment where multiple kinds of decks are viable - where weenie, burn, and suicide decks are playable, but so are ramp, control, and even draw-go.
I think I've selected cards that are largely successful in doing this, as I give each archetype some pieces of the puzzle, not not too many.
Zoomba,
Fair point... but I think it misses the bigger issue:
I want my set to be 100% playable; Mirrodin - as with most sets - falls far short of this. Generally speaking, cost has a lot to do with whether something is playable, and as such a lower curve might mean more playability. But it's not the only thing: Consider Leonin Scimitar and Bone Splitter. Under what conditions would you run the former over the latter? Certainly not many. Contrast this with my green 2 drops in this thread:
Thornweald Archer - good elf deck 2 drop, mediocre elsewhere.
Centaur Redeemer - fair "good stuff" 2 drop against a discard-heavy environment, fair centaur 2 drop.
Dryad Soothsayer - fair "good stuff" 2 drop/surprise blocker, fair dryad 2 drop (should tribal dryads be a thing), and good blue sideboard draw-go card, as it comes in when they tap out to draw and might be a boss once they've drawn.
Flow of Scarabs - I don't know how fair this is, but I know it's not fighting for a slot with the other things here.
That's 4 2 drops, and none are exactly fighting for the same deck slot (outside of limited that is)!
I don't think this is the right analysis. Right now, most of my 2 drops trade with other 2 drops - this is to say that I get 1-1s and everyone's left without a creature. However, this is the reason you equip, play auras, and play combat tricks - it's to make sure you 1-for-0.
Fair enough. [U]This is where I really need to work on.[/U]
As much as I'd like to say I did it right the first time out of the gate, this is a first pass. But even as a first pass, this gives us a good idea of what the set does well - and what changes need to be made for it to do better.
I'm actually quite pleased that there's very little to keep track of on-board. This is to say that if I have 5 lands untapped, you generally don't have to worry that I've got 3 different creatures with activated abilities that I might use at the end of your turn. I've got equipment I might move around on my turn, but that's largely it. What you need to worry about is my playing flash creatures or instant combat tricks. You mention removal; but I've tried to give red some good first strikers who combo with burn spells to remove larger creatures than normal (IE, your 1/1 first strike can combo with lightning bolt to kill the baloth at common; and I think this might actually happen more often than you'd think).
That said, I think Test of Faith is my favorite combat trick in the set right now, as it does 2 things I want it to do: (1) it feels white, and (2) it makes a 2/2 something bigger! I'd really like to do more of this kind of thing (Perhaps more flash auras?).
Re: Constructed - I've seen very healthy formats where equipping a Cranial Plating, Empyrial Plate (good reprint @ uncommon???), Loxodon Warhammer, or various Swords of X and Y were strong plays. Late game these turn weenies into finishers, and that's a game changer against control decks that once-upon-a-time merely needed to Wrath and then their next drop could take out whatever weenies crept up.
You say
Here's the thing though - in constructed, all of the cards are going to be Skyhunter-quality.
You say:
See, but that's just it - there are no bigger boddes in constructed! Yeah, we're going to have (what's looking more and more like a tight cycle of) 2/3s for 3, or whatnot, and yeah I guess we'll have the occasional fattie - but we're not having 1/1s for 2 who tap for mana in my set. If you're paying 2 mana, you're probably getting a 2/1 or better. Across the board.
So the question becomes "will this 2 drop survive combat", and the thing that makes the answer "yes" is most often times a combat trick or equipment.
"2nd main phase, play creature" should be how you play magic. It's something new players need to learn. That said, if you're missing a 2 drop on turn 3 because you want to play a combat trick - you're doing it wrong.