Read that article and you will understand that skill in Magic starts long before the card shuffle.
It's a great article until you sit through an AVR draft, then your first round opponent goes turn 2 wondering wolf, turn 3 miracle blessings of nature on the play. Playing to your outs is a funny joke, and the punchline is him using Angelic Wall in the defense part. It's the worst possibly designed mechanic for limited because nearly all the spells, despite being overcosted by standard terms, are more than playable. The amount of times I've seen people toss up their hands and let out a frustrated "you got me" to a miracle is quite a bit more than the other nutty crap in this format.
Sure, you can draw a miracle at the wrong time or have it in your opening hand. The game is, in essence, random. No outlook change will affect that. I'm not saying this is bad or good, just the way it is. I'd say that the idea was a stupid one to begin with. The fact that people are willing to take risks for the potential payout is up to them. I hate it when my opponent sets up a stupidly big Entreat when there's not much you can really do to play around it. I hate it even more when I'm pushing towards victory and that entreat flips over on top of his library. But it's random, so whatever.
The format will eventually adapt. There's always going to be that one guy that flips an entreat or something at an EDH table, but I think the flaring hatred towards miracles from many an angry draft grinder will make that poor moppet a very short-lived planeswalker. As for limited, it's quite clearly the worst modern idea they've had, AVR is a disaster of a format.
You can't deny a format is awful when the 8-4 goblins are actually looking forward to core.
So this guy's telling you that his family is going to be tossed out on the street penniless and starving and his dog is going to be kicked repeatedly if you don't give him a positive feedback...and he still won't honor the original deal?
Islandhome wasn't retired because it is bad, it was retired because it appeared on too few cards and the other Landhome abilities virtually never came up. As has been mentioned, other abilities have been retired: Banding, Bands With Other, Bury, Fear, and Substance.
Banding, Bands with Other & Fear is still part of Mtg, seeing that it still exists in the Comp Rules. Islandhome on the other hand, was completely removed. I wouldn't call Bury a mechanic, just as I wouldn't call Destroy a mechanic.
Only Substance falls under the same category as Islandhome, except that there was zero cards printed with Substance in any part of their textbox.
It's still not colorless, and has no color. That's a paradox. So either you're a Zen master or an idiot, I'll assume the Zen master for sake of argument. This card will have no paradoxes because it has a clear paradox. Deep stuff man.
Banding, Bands with Other & Fear is still part of Mtg, seeing that it still exists in the Comp Rules. Islandhome on the other hand, was completely removed. I wouldn't call Bury a mechanic, just as I wouldn't call Destroy a mechanic.
Only Substance falls under the same category as Islandhome, except that there was zero cards printed with Substance in any part of their textbox.
I do believe that you missed my point. You identified the difference between retired and obsolete mechanics. Retired abilities are still a part of Magic but no new cards will ever be printed with them like Fear or Banding. Obsolete means that the ability doesn't even exist anymore like Bury, Global Enchantments, Interrupts, Legend creature type, and Mana Burn. Islandhome wasn't just made obsolete, it was also retired. With most obsolete mechanics like Legendary creatures and Continuous Artifacts, new cards are printed that do the same thing, just without the problematic mechanic. With Islandhome they retconned the keyword with the rules-text because it didn't come up enough and then retired the ability that it represents because it wasn't interesting or interactive. So not only isn't the keyword there anymore, the ability "Can't attack unless opponent has islands and is destroyed if you don't have islands"(paraphrasing) doesn't get printed either.
It is still mentioned in the Comp Rules Glossary which explains what the keyword means even though it has been obsoleted. Bury is a game mechanic by definition since it is a keyword which has rules attached to it. There are actually many many other obsolete mechanics and terms in the game that you can find by going to the Comp Rules Glossary and doing a search for "obsolete". This won't however show the retired mechanics that I listed which are still part of the game but never printed. Substance, as you observed, is on a whole different level since, unlike Islandhome, it has been removed from the Comp Rules entirely and isn't even mentioned.
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Substance was not a real ability. It was a very bad idea that was introduced to make Armor of Thorns work properly (previously you could not save a creature from dying with Armor of Thorns, because when it was sacrificed in the end step the creature still had its damage marked on it).
Fortunately, it has been eliminated. Now the cards just say they get sacrificed at the beginning of the next cleanup step, producing the same effect without the need for substance.
What on earth was substance? I missed a few blocks.
Essentially when they changed the rules there were a small number of cards that didn't work properly anymore (ie Armor of Thorns). "Substance" was magical fairy errata that they added to those 10 cards that basically said "don't worry, even though the rules say these cards don't work anymore, they still work".
All I have to say is that anyone complaining about miracles being too luck based, better not have played the typical Jund deck in standard a couple of years ago.
Cast Bituminous Blast, cascade into Bloodbraid Elf, cascade into Blightning. Grrr, I still hate that.
Banding will never get printed again. I cant think of a keyword that's more confusing and has less impact than banding. Its very flavorful, but there are way too many rules issues and uses that need clarification for it to even remotely be a good mechanic. Soulbond is a cleaner banding inspired mechanic.
You cant really compare banding to miracle though. Banding sucks because its horribly designed. Miracle sucks because it promotes uninteresting topdecking strategies.
Cast Bituminous Blast, cascade into Bloodbraid Elf, cascade into Blightning. Grrr, I still hate that.
Thing is, though, that's less "luck" than miracles are. When you cascade, you know you're going to hit one of a certain number of spells. Cascade was hideously powerful, often resulting in multiple creatures being blown up and/or multiple cards being discarded, but it wasn't a one-card "blow up your board and burn your face for a lot" kind of "I win" button like a large Bonfire is.
Entreat the Angels, by contrast, is the sole reason I run Sever the Bloodline in my Standard sideboard.
I agree with the OP, there's a reason Bonfire of the Damned has risen in price to $30 and Entreat the Angels to $20.
There are no other spells a player can top-deck which change the board state in such a one-sided manor.
I am not quite sure how Miracle is "pure luck" when Ponder is in the format. Additionally there are a lot of scry-type cards with library manipulation anywhere from 2 to 5 cards, allowing you to set your draw. That is not luck, that is good deck building.
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I think that it would be cool if you couldn't activate the Miracle mechanic of a card more than once a game. It doesn't feel like a miracle if it's happening over and over again.
Had semenulative upkeep before it was fashionable. Look what you forced me to do, Wizards! IT DIDN'T HAVE TO GO DOWN LIKE THIS!
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Like I said, I can only go by my own experience, which is now 18 years. Kind of disheartening when you think you know something and you find out that you're a notch below a low grade moron.
Soulbond is not banding. By the way say hello to the last sentence in KingPun's first paragraph.
...are you following me? Soulbond is better and worse than banding, but it's about as similar to banding as horsemanship is to flying, and it was printed in the same set as miracle.
I don't understand why you tell me I'm wrong without explanation ("tomatoes are not fruit,"...then walk away...) and then mirror my post in an attempt to further deride me by implying that I was unoriginal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sir.
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Had semenulative upkeep before it was fashionable. Look what you forced me to do, Wizards! IT DIDN'T HAVE TO GO DOWN LIKE THIS!
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Like I said, I can only go by my own experience, which is now 18 years. Kind of disheartening when you think you know something and you find out that you're a notch below a low grade moron.
...are you following me? Soulbond is better and worse than banding, but it's about as similar to banding as horsemanship is to flying, and it was printed in the same set as miracle.
I don't understand why you tell me I'm wrong without explanation ("tomatoes are not fruit,"...then walk away...) and then mirror my post in an attempt to further deride me by implying that I was unoriginal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sir.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have been trying to say that King Cobra was wrong (and that banding has been or will be reprinted) when you said: "Soulbond says hi."
I was simply pointing out that not only did King Cobra take into account the existence of Soulbond, but his assessment that Soulbond is not a reprinting of banding or any indication that banding may return was right on the money.
As for the flattery, I'd prefer you take that than offense.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have been trying to say that King Pun was wrong (and that banding has been or will be reprinted) when you said: "Soulbond says hi."
I was simply pointing out that not only did King Pun take into account the existence of Soulbond, but his assessment that Soulbond is not a reprinting of banding or any indication that banding may return was right on the money.
As for the flattery, I'd prefer you take that than offense.
King Pun =/= KingCobra. If you're worried about offending someone, I'd start right there.
My only problem is that it should not be called Miracle, it should be called Bully. It is supposed to save a player at the right moment, but more often than not it beats the oponent up with powerful effects that you usually never see in the first few turns.
See the problem with Miracle isn't just the luck-based feel of the mechanic but rather that it works best around a mechanic type they knowingly banned key cards of in Modern MONTHS (and years in at least one case) before the mechanic itself arrived. And the mechanic type I refer to is that on Ponder, Preordain, and Sensei's Divining Top. All banned for either fueling combo too much or making the game unfun. Personally, I would've scrapped the keyword at the last minute and used their backup whatever that was. (And if they didn't have a backup, shame on them for being bad set designers.)
So for that reason, Miracle I say is worse than banding. At least w/ banding it's just difficult to understand. Miracle is just unfun to play with and against.
I don't think a single keyword/mechanic has ever kept me out of playing limited before like Miracle has. When I saw it was spoiled, and I saw stuff like Terminus, Bonfire, and Entreat the Angels, I just said, "No." Not spending a dime on AVR limited or prerelease if I can spend 30mins-1hr thinking of a limited deck strategy and getting all the stops right just to lose to a blowout topdeck of a miracle card. It sucks the fun and skill right out of the format. And with stuff like Mist Raven at common, it was clear to me that most decks were just going to be based off of soulbond/tempo or miracles/fliers (and isn't U/G or U/W considered to be the best color combo in AVR limited?) If the miracles hadn't have been blowouts, then maybe, but cards like an Entreat the Angels that win the game on their own and can't be answered except by a ridiculously good board presence (you have to be able to race or block 8-16 power worth of fliers) or topdeck your own broken miracle (bonfire) in order to survive.
What I mean to say is, you have bombs in limited that makes things swingy. The stuff to open in, lets say, Innistrad, were Garruk, Lilli, and then money stuff like the lands and snapcaster, etc. And while the key top bomb picks were good, they were still very much beatable. But even those bombs don't compare to something like an Entreat or Bonfire, where, within a vacuum, are nigh-unbeatable (upwards of probably 75-90 percent chance of victory after spell resolves)
Mystical tutor, Brainstorm, ponder, preodain, divining top, and ive only been playing for 2 years I'm sure there is more interactions. If your talking standard only... who actually enjoys standard.
Scroll Rack is amazing with Miracle, not only because it lets you put a Miracle from your hand on top of the deck (letting you pick when you want to actually cast that Terminus), but also because Scroll Rack doesn't actually draw cards, so you can follow up the Rack with Cycling or something to Miracle on the same turn.
It's a great article until you sit through an AVR draft, then your first round opponent goes turn 2 wondering wolf, turn 3 miracle blessings of nature on the play. Playing to your outs is a funny joke, and the punchline is him using Angelic Wall in the defense part. It's the worst possibly designed mechanic for limited because nearly all the spells, despite being overcosted by standard terms, are more than playable. The amount of times I've seen people toss up their hands and let out a frustrated "you got me" to a miracle is quite a bit more than the other nutty crap in this format.
Sure, you can draw a miracle at the wrong time or have it in your opening hand. The game is, in essence, random. No outlook change will affect that. I'm not saying this is bad or good, just the way it is. I'd say that the idea was a stupid one to begin with. The fact that people are willing to take risks for the potential payout is up to them. I hate it when my opponent sets up a stupidly big Entreat when there's not much you can really do to play around it. I hate it even more when I'm pushing towards victory and that entreat flips over on top of his library. But it's random, so whatever.
The format will eventually adapt. There's always going to be that one guy that flips an entreat or something at an EDH table, but I think the flaring hatred towards miracles from many an angry draft grinder will make that poor moppet a very short-lived planeswalker. As for limited, it's quite clearly the worst modern idea they've had, AVR is a disaster of a format.
You can't deny a format is awful when the 8-4 goblins are actually looking forward to core.
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Banding, Bands with Other & Fear is still part of Mtg, seeing that it still exists in the Comp Rules. Islandhome on the other hand, was completely removed. I wouldn't call Bury a mechanic, just as I wouldn't call Destroy a mechanic.
Only Substance falls under the same category as Islandhome, except that there was zero cards printed with Substance in any part of their textbox.
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I do believe that you missed my point. You identified the difference between retired and obsolete mechanics. Retired abilities are still a part of Magic but no new cards will ever be printed with them like Fear or Banding. Obsolete means that the ability doesn't even exist anymore like Bury, Global Enchantments, Interrupts, Legend creature type, and Mana Burn. Islandhome wasn't just made obsolete, it was also retired. With most obsolete mechanics like Legendary creatures and Continuous Artifacts, new cards are printed that do the same thing, just without the problematic mechanic. With Islandhome they retconned the keyword with the rules-text because it didn't come up enough and then retired the ability that it represents because it wasn't interesting or interactive. So not only isn't the keyword there anymore, the ability "Can't attack unless opponent has islands and is destroyed if you don't have islands"(paraphrasing) doesn't get printed either.
It is still mentioned in the Comp Rules Glossary which explains what the keyword means even though it has been obsoleted. Bury is a game mechanic by definition since it is a keyword which has rules attached to it. There are actually many many other obsolete mechanics and terms in the game that you can find by going to the Comp Rules Glossary and doing a search for "obsolete". This won't however show the retired mechanics that I listed which are still part of the game but never printed. Substance, as you observed, is on a whole different level since, unlike Islandhome, it has been removed from the Comp Rules entirely and isn't even mentioned.
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Fortunately, it has been eliminated. Now the cards just say they get sacrificed at the beginning of the next cleanup step, producing the same effect without the need for substance.
Essentially when they changed the rules there were a small number of cards that didn't work properly anymore (ie Armor of Thorns). "Substance" was magical fairy errata that they added to those 10 cards that basically said "don't worry, even though the rules say these cards don't work anymore, they still work".
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Substance
Cast Bituminous Blast, cascade into Bloodbraid Elf, cascade into Blightning. Grrr, I still hate that.
You cant really compare banding to miracle though. Banding sucks because its horribly designed. Miracle sucks because it promotes uninteresting topdecking strategies.
There are no other spells a player can top-deck which change the board state in such a one-sided manor.
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Thing is, though, that's less "luck" than miracles are. When you cascade, you know you're going to hit one of a certain number of spells. Cascade was hideously powerful, often resulting in multiple creatures being blown up and/or multiple cards being discarded, but it wasn't a one-card "blow up your board and burn your face for a lot" kind of "I win" button like a large Bonfire is.
Entreat the Angels, by contrast, is the sole reason I run Sever the Bloodline in my Standard sideboard.
I am not quite sure how Miracle is "pure luck" when Ponder is in the format. Additionally there are a lot of scry-type cards with library manipulation anywhere from 2 to 5 cards, allowing you to set your draw. That is not luck, that is good deck building.
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Soulbond says hi.
Soulbond is not banding. By the way say hello to the last sentence in KingPun's first paragraph.
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...are you following me? Soulbond is better and worse than banding, but it's about as similar to banding as horsemanship is to flying, and it was printed in the same set as miracle.
I don't understand why you tell me I'm wrong without explanation ("tomatoes are not fruit,"...then walk away...) and then mirror my post in an attempt to further deride me by implying that I was unoriginal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, sir.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have been trying to say that King Cobra was wrong (and that banding has been or will be reprinted) when you said: "Soulbond says hi."
I was simply pointing out that not only did King Cobra take into account the existence of Soulbond, but his assessment that Soulbond is not a reprinting of banding or any indication that banding may return was right on the money.
As for the flattery, I'd prefer you take that than offense.
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King Pun =/= KingCobra. If you're worried about offending someone, I'd start right there.
Faithful Hour felt closer in flavor...
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So for that reason, Miracle I say is worse than banding. At least w/ banding it's just difficult to understand. Miracle is just unfun to play with and against.
Oh whoops I was thread hopping, and King Pun showed up a lot in the other thread my apologies.
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What I mean to say is, you have bombs in limited that makes things swingy. The stuff to open in, lets say, Innistrad, were Garruk, Lilli, and then money stuff like the lands and snapcaster, etc. And while the key top bomb picks were good, they were still very much beatable. But even those bombs don't compare to something like an Entreat or Bonfire, where, within a vacuum, are nigh-unbeatable (upwards of probably 75-90 percent chance of victory after spell resolves)
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