The Limited format of Magic Origins is pretty poor. First of all, it's a core set, so the ceiling isn't very high, but it's not even a good format for a core set. It's not as atrocious as M15, but Magic Origins is now the third core set in a row where the colors were very clearly intentionally imbalanced, and I simply cannot understand why you would ever do that, and it's something that I would have liked to see discussed in the podcast.
Spell Mastery: I don't hate it, but I feel that there isn't really much reason for this mechanic to exist. It's just so inconsequential, both for deck building purposes, and for gameplay decisions. Cards like Animist's Awakening and Dark Dabbling would really just be cleaner if they didn't have the spell mastery text (something that will frequently come up: Me: "Dark Dabbling targeting your dude that's just chilling there." Opponent: "???") I like the design of Fiery Impulse because it gives the card the ability to still be relevant in the late game, while not being too efficient in the early game. I think Unholy Hunger is quite alright; the lifegain is a welcome bonus, but you won't ever hold the card back to wait for spell mastery.
Renown: Here we go again... Another format where being on the play makes you 70% favored to win, where you get immediately punished for keeping a slow hand, and where most of the games are non-games. This is not a mechanic that should exist in a core set. Core sets generally lack any mechanics that reduce variance, and therefore don't need a mechanic that introduces more. But I don't care about the wording. I think it's completely fine.
The reception of the draft format among my playgroup was overall very negative. Part of it is that it's a core set, and during core set drafts, attendance is always plummeting. But I still feel like they could have done a much better job with the Limited environment given the constraints of a core set.
On the other hand, Magic Origins is a great set for Constructed. The flavor is great, the flipwalkers are great, Demonic Pact is great. I disagree that Nissa reads badly. The thought "It's just a Civic Wayfinder that flips into a planeswalker" never crossed my mind. For me it was "Wow... that's a Civic Wayfinder... THAT FLIPS INTO A PLANESWALKER!" The same is true for Jace. I still don't understand how people initially rated Jace poorly. I think these flipwalkers were a very good test for card evaluation skills. The argument of Nissa's +1 I also don't understand. Playing the land off the top is very relevant in Commander, or in Standard when you're trying to play Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or other super-expensive cards, probably Eldrazi soon. That the +1 is better than "Draw a card" should be more than obvious, even to novice players. The legendary on the -2 makes the ability way cooler, and the ultimate reads "You win the game," so I disagree that it doesn't read well here too.
The Limited format of Magic Origins is pretty poor.
This is something I don't currently agree with personally, all my 4-5 drafts have been varied, fun and reasonably balanced so far. Like M15 white is slightly stronger than the other colors but nowhere near as imbalanced as blue in M14 or white in M15. White in Magic Origins has very premium commons like Topan Freeblade (which is nowhere as premium as Triplicate Spirits or Sanctified Charge) but also a wealth of very bad cards like Akroan Jailer, Yoked Ox, Enlightened Ascetic etc. Making it not very deep.
I think the quality of the limited environment is far from determined and different people have different experiences this early on.
Topan Freeblade is good but only excepcional in aggro decks, which are good but not super deep.
My only serious complaint about ORI is that the synergy decks are inconsistent because there are many anti-synergy in then, like Skaab Mauler exiling creatures from the yard and Revenant counting then, or sacrifice decks wanting tokens to go wide and Shadows of the Past which gives you plenty of scry in that deck sometimes iffing because tokens dont stay in the yard. Or auramancer wanting enchantments in the yard for the recursion and Blood Cursed Knight wanting then in play.
Funny enough these issues are mostly in black. Add the fact theres very little cross synergy in the B/X synergy decks and the conclusion is that black is super cluncky to draft compared to the other xolors that do fine with a simple creatures+removal deck.
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Spell Mastery: I don't hate it, but I feel that there isn't really much reason for this mechanic to exist. It's just so inconsequential, both for deck building purposes, and for gameplay decisions. Cards like Animist's Awakening and Dark Dabbling would really just be cleaner if they didn't have the spell mastery text (something that will frequently come up: Me: "Dark Dabbling targeting your dude that's just chilling there." Opponent: "???") I like the design of Fiery Impulse because it gives the card the ability to still be relevant in the late game, while not being too efficient in the early game. I think Unholy Hunger is quite alright; the lifegain is a welcome bonus, but you won't ever hold the card back to wait for spell mastery.
Renown: Here we go again... Another format where being on the play makes you 70% favored to win, where you get immediately punished for keeping a slow hand, and where most of the games are non-games. This is not a mechanic that should exist in a core set. Core sets generally lack any mechanics that reduce variance, and therefore don't need a mechanic that introduces more. But I don't care about the wording. I think it's completely fine.
The reception of the draft format among my playgroup was overall very negative. Part of it is that it's a core set, and during core set drafts, attendance is always plummeting. But I still feel like they could have done a much better job with the Limited environment given the constraints of a core set.
On the other hand, Magic Origins is a great set for Constructed. The flavor is great, the flipwalkers are great, Demonic Pact is great. I disagree that Nissa reads badly. The thought "It's just a Civic Wayfinder that flips into a planeswalker" never crossed my mind. For me it was "Wow... that's a Civic Wayfinder... THAT FLIPS INTO A PLANESWALKER!" The same is true for Jace. I still don't understand how people initially rated Jace poorly. I think these flipwalkers were a very good test for card evaluation skills. The argument of Nissa's +1 I also don't understand. Playing the land off the top is very relevant in Commander, or in Standard when you're trying to play Ugin, the Spirit Dragon or other super-expensive cards, probably Eldrazi soon. That the +1 is better than "Draw a card" should be more than obvious, even to novice players. The legendary on the -2 makes the ability way cooler, and the ultimate reads "You win the game," so I disagree that it doesn't read well here too.
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This is something I don't currently agree with personally, all my 4-5 drafts have been varied, fun and reasonably balanced so far. Like M15 white is slightly stronger than the other colors but nowhere near as imbalanced as blue in M14 or white in M15. White in Magic Origins has very premium commons like Topan Freeblade (which is nowhere as premium as Triplicate Spirits or Sanctified Charge) but also a wealth of very bad cards like Akroan Jailer, Yoked Ox, Enlightened Ascetic etc. Making it not very deep.
I think the quality of the limited environment is far from determined and different people have different experiences this early on.
EDIT: Also about renown take a look at this discussion with Ethan Fleischer. The increased variance is very much deliberate.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Topan Freeblade is good but only excepcional in aggro decks, which are good but not super deep.
My only serious complaint about ORI is that the synergy decks are inconsistent because there are many anti-synergy in then, like Skaab Mauler exiling creatures from the yard and Revenant counting then, or sacrifice decks wanting tokens to go wide and Shadows of the Past which gives you plenty of scry in that deck sometimes iffing because tokens dont stay in the yard. Or auramancer wanting enchantments in the yard for the recursion and Blood Cursed Knight wanting then in play.
Funny enough these issues are mostly in black. Add the fact theres very little cross synergy in the B/X synergy decks and the conclusion is that black is super cluncky to draft compared to the other xolors that do fine with a simple creatures+removal deck.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras