Lastly, hexproof: "Dear WotC, Rock OP, plz nerf. Paper is fine. Sincerely, Scissors." It does exactly what it needs to.
And what, exactly, is that? Make the game less interactive? Way to talk down to people who don't like Hexproof without actually contributing to the discussion. I'm hardly the scissors to Hexproof's rock, I just don't like the mechanic because it encourages solitaire games. Shroud accomplishes a similar design goal without the problems Hexproof has.
"Similar" is not "identical." Hexproof being all-upside is no worse than Menace, Lifelink, or Flying being all-upside. It forces you to bring answers, and those answers have to be creatures. It isn't attacking along a strange axis that nobody thinks about, like mill: it just means that an unbalanced deck with 0-2 creatures as finishers is going to have problems with it: meanwhile, it allows the hexproof player to skirt cheap removal and attack with creatures, focusing the decks on combat. Creature combat is only non-interactive if you decided not to interact by not bringing creatures to the table.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Lastly, hexproof: "Dear WotC, Rock OP, plz nerf. Paper is fine. Sincerely, Scissors." It does exactly what it needs to.
And what, exactly, is that? Make the game less interactive? Way to talk down to people who don't like Hexproof without actually contributing to the discussion. I'm hardly the scissors to Hexproof's rock, I just don't like the mechanic because it encourages solitaire games. Shroud accomplishes a similar design goal without the problems Hexproof has.
"Similar" is not "identical." Hexproof being all-upside is no worse than Menace, Lifelink, or Flying being all-upside. It forces you to bring answers, and those answers have to be creatures. It isn't attacking along a strange axis that nobody thinks about, like mill: it just means that an unbalanced deck with 0-2 creatures as finishers is going to have problems with it: meanwhile, it allows the hexproof player to skirt cheap removal and attack with creatures, focusing the decks on combat. Creature combat is only non-interactive if you decided not to interact by not bringing creatures to the table.
Show me a modern-legal creature that can effectively interact with an umbra'd, Ethereal Armor or Daybreak Coronet'd creature, in a timely fashion. I sincerely can't think of any.
Is the Bogles deck overpowered? No. What it is, however, is non-interactive, by blanking far too wide a variety of cards in the game from being of any use in the match. Menace, Lifelink, and Flying don't even remotely compare.
Note: I'm not calling for the removal of Hexproof cards from the game, or even from the further printing of them (I think Dragonlord Ojutai is a great example of a well-designed hexproof card). But the fact that it wholly replaced Shroud irks me.
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Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
I want to see exalted and cascade come back. They allow for interesting deck building. Cascade can be a bit of a gamble which I always love. Exalted allows for some interesting deck building.
I also like bloodthirst, but I'm afraid if it was brought back it would just be used to make creatures that are only playable if they get the trigger.
Split Second could be great to bring back too. I think control gets the short end of the stick on a lot of keywords in general, and split second can be great for control and great for other decks as well.
Also Champion and Infect would be cool to see more design space with.
Is the Bogles deck overpowered? No. What it is, however, is non-interactive, by blanking far too wide a variety of cards in the game from being of any use in the match. Menace, Lifelink, and Flying don't even remotely compare.
Oh come on. Bogles isn't even the least interactive deck in Modern. Let's focus on Standard where hexproof isn't really doing anything crazy. You bring your edicts and deal with it.
Is the Bogles deck overpowered? No. What it is, however, is non-interactive, by blanking far too wide a variety of cards in the game from being of any use in the match. Menace, Lifelink, and Flying don't even remotely compare.
Oh come on. Bogles isn't even the least interactive deck in Modern. Let's focus on Standard where hexproof isn't really doing anything crazy. You bring your edicts and deal with it.
And is there much of a difference between Hexproof and Shroud in Standard? It's not like Auras see much play now that Theros is gone. Would reintroducing Shroud negatively impact Standard, compared to giving hexproof to the same creatures? I doubt it.
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Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
I agree with the return of provoke and flanking being fantastic.
I am however going to put in my two cents for shroud/hexproof.
I feel weaker nontribalheavy creatures should are fine to have hexproof. Lumberknot starts out small and really needs time to grow.
Stronger/ more tribal creatures should lean towards shroud. Inkwell Leviathan and especially Deadly Insect would have been disgusting if they had been hexproof. Silhana Ledgewalker can be a terrifying card, especially in a tribal elf deck which is why I'd actually be more into cards like it that aren't elves.
I use infect in way too many of my decks, but as far as all players are concerned, I really enjoyed wither.
I would like to see Contraption "again", even thou i am not sure its a keyword, it could as well be a card type, and only one card ever "used" it so far: Steamflogger Boss
...what the hell? Contraptions? That sounds... awesome! Imagine, say, sacrificing X creatures to "assemble" a "contraption" with an X/Y in its' triggered ability (perhaps where Y is equal to the CMC of the sacrificed creatures?). Or, perhaps, you essentially "combine" multiple artifact creatures to form a "Contraption" that has the abilities of both (kinda like what Banding should have been in my opinion).
As far as the current Comprehensive Rules is concerned, Contraptions have absolutely no explanation, though it IS listed as one of the official Artifact subtypes (alongside Equipment and Fortification). This sounds like an interesting mechanic, though since we have next to no clarification as to what it does, this speculation could be completely off of what was originally in mind. Unless there wasn't really any meaning, I guess.
By the way, there is ONE other Rigger card in all of Magic the Gathering: Moriok Rigger which has post-release been given the Rigger subtype (at least according to Gatherer).
I don't think we'll be seeing Transfigure or Transmute again because they're tutor abilities and too many tutors make games too similar.
As far as other Future abilities go, Fortify seems like it could be amazing in the right set, as could Frenzy. I'm honestly surprised they didn't show up in Scars of Mirrodin. Fortify as a Mirran ability, Frenzy paired with Infect to give players the choice of engaging an infect creature in combat or taking a burst of poison.
Actually that might have been too OP.
Grandeur feels like it would make sense in Return to Kamigawa, but I don't think we're getting that.
And is there much of a difference between Hexproof and Shroud in Standard? It's not like Auras see much play now that Theros is gone. Would reintroducing Shroud negatively impact Standard, compared to giving hexproof to the same creatures? I doubt it.
I think MaRo has said that development doesn't like Shroud because too many players attempt to use their own targeted abilities on their own Shrouded creatures, and it's easier for everyone just to use Hexproof.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
And is there much of a difference between Hexproof and Shroud in Standard? It's not like Auras see much play now that Theros is gone. Would reintroducing Shroud negatively impact Standard, compared to giving hexproof to the same creatures? I doubt it.
I think MaRo has said that development doesn't like Shroud because too many players attempt to use their own targeted abilities on their own Shrouded creatures, and it's easier for everyone just to use Hexproof.
A little more accurately, players expect keywords to be all-upside. This is nearly always true anyways, so it's a reasonable assumption. That's not to say players aren't OK with abilities that have downsides. They'd just rather have them spelled out than be gotchas buried in a keyword that can appear without reminder text.
Defender seems to be the exception here, but I'm guessing it gets a pass for being flavorful and really easy to understand.
"Kicker" makes me want to kick the nearest living thing every time I hear it, so I hope it continues to kick rocks.
On topic, I want to see keywords that I felt didn't get such a great treatment the first time around. Unleash, for one, has some wacky design potential, such as creatures with 0 toughness and death triggers.
Players only think of abilities as all-upside because WotC keeps killing off creature drawbacks.
...which they do because WotC thinks players think abilities should be all-upside.
Nope, they think that because they take as a given that if you are playing a card it should benefit you and not your opponent. It happens in every trading card game, it's not something related to WotC's design policies. In Hearthstone for example cards with simetrical effects tend to have that part of their text in caps (like "Destroy ALL minions") because designers know that new players tend to forget that their own cards can also hurt them.
I really enjoyed Prowl, and I don't think it gets enough love.
Others I'd like to see:
Suspend (too complex these days)
Splice onto _____
Affinity (something a little harder to pull off than Affinity for Artifacts though)
Madness
Cycling
Buyback
Transmute
Transfigure
Detain
Level Up
I think they just need to make all keywords evergreen and sprinkle them throughout each block. It would make standard fun to figure out again. They have more then enough mechanics to not print any new ones for a long while, just tons of untapped potential.
Dredge < On a legendary please
Splice with anything as said above
Shroud is awesome
Bushido on actually good creatures Horsemanship < Khans would have been awesome for this
Oh and dethrone, because it's the best thing ever. >_>
Totally agree. Khans has a bunch of people riding horses yet no horsemanship? Total waste of an opportunity to bring that mechanic back! And Khans was an Asian-flavored block, as was Portal 3 a Chinese history set!
Fortify should definitely be used more (as well as Auraswap and Gravestorm) and "riggers assembling contraptions" should happen already. It's been 8 years, WotC. 8 years... Where're them contraptions, fortifications, spells with gravestorm, and auras with auraswap?!
Landhome should make a comback in order to nerf broken creatures instead of just being placed on aweful creatures (like how it was). You wanna take advantage of a 10/10 islandhome leviathan with a cmc of 6? Then find ways to altar the landscape in your favor. I always felt that landhome would've made a challenging way to build decks.
Rampage should be keyworded again as per the examples already mentioned. Spine Sliver being another good example. It's not overcosted and its ability is technically better than rampage 1 (since it's each creature and not each additional creature). So putting rampage X on a creature without overbloating the cmc is not something so far-fetched anymore. I'd love me some rampage X berserkers once more. Putting rampage X on creatures like Golgari Decoy, Breaker of Armies, etc. would be awesome. Or being able to cast Bloodscent on a low-cost creature with rampage would be equally awesome. I remember attaching Lure to Craw Giant back in the day *tear*. Actually, both cards are now Modern legal, lol. Time to build!
Epic. It's not as underwhelming an ability as it seems. It could be definitely be revisited!
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Give me Madness, preferably in a set with Flashback. In fact, let's just do Torment all over again. Maybe in Shadows over Innistrad we'll get Flashback and Madness at the same time?
I'll accept it as a late Christmas Gift wizards. =3
on the topic of new slice cards, but non-arcane splice things, i think splice without a drawback would be too good for normal spells.
perhaps make it a sorcery speed thing even on instants. imagine a world were a player with 8 mana gets to do all 4 modes of cryptic command every turn because of a cheap buyback spell.
on a related note, i love buyback spells. i would love to see it come back. it justifies the low power level that wizards gives a good ammount of cards.
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"Similar" is not "identical." Hexproof being all-upside is no worse than Menace, Lifelink, or Flying being all-upside. It forces you to bring answers, and those answers have to be creatures. It isn't attacking along a strange axis that nobody thinks about, like mill: it just means that an unbalanced deck with 0-2 creatures as finishers is going to have problems with it: meanwhile, it allows the hexproof player to skirt cheap removal and attack with creatures, focusing the decks on combat. Creature combat is only non-interactive if you decided not to interact by not bringing creatures to the table.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Wouldn't mind seeing Evoke make a comeback, too.
Echo was cool,,,
MaRo hints at seeing cycling and even shadow returning not so far off. As far as shadow. wizards didn't think it all that evasive (??).
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
Provoke is the keyword I'd like to see again above all.
Retrace comes in at close second.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
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Show me a modern-legal creature that can effectively interact with an umbra'd, Ethereal Armor or Daybreak Coronet'd creature, in a timely fashion. I sincerely can't think of any.
Is the Bogles deck overpowered? No. What it is, however, is non-interactive, by blanking far too wide a variety of cards in the game from being of any use in the match. Menace, Lifelink, and Flying don't even remotely compare.
Note: I'm not calling for the removal of Hexproof cards from the game, or even from the further printing of them (I think Dragonlord Ojutai is a great example of a well-designed hexproof card). But the fact that it wholly replaced Shroud irks me.
I also like bloodthirst, but I'm afraid if it was brought back it would just be used to make creatures that are only playable if they get the trigger.
Split Second could be great to bring back too. I think control gets the short end of the stick on a lot of keywords in general, and split second can be great for control and great for other decks as well.
Also Champion and Infect would be cool to see more design space with.
Love that idea.
(e.g. Capsize or Forbid)
-Overload
(e.g. Cyclonic Rift)
-Cycling
(e.g. Vedalken Æthermage)
-Flashback
(e.g. Snapcaster Mage)
-Transmute
(e.g. Tolaria West)
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Also, it's not really a keyword, but I'd love to see the return of Grandeur.
Standard - RIP Cat
Modern - Death & Taxes
Commander - Mazirek, Trostani, Angry Omnath
Oh come on. Bogles isn't even the least interactive deck in Modern. Let's focus on Standard where hexproof isn't really doing anything crazy. You bring your edicts and deal with it.
And is there much of a difference between Hexproof and Shroud in Standard? It's not like Auras see much play now that Theros is gone. Would reintroducing Shroud negatively impact Standard, compared to giving hexproof to the same creatures? I doubt it.
I am however going to put in my two cents for shroud/hexproof.
I feel weaker nontribalheavy creatures should are fine to have hexproof. Lumberknot starts out small and really needs time to grow.
Stronger/ more tribal creatures should lean towards shroud. Inkwell Leviathan and especially Deadly Insect would have been disgusting if they had been hexproof. Silhana Ledgewalker can be a terrifying card, especially in a tribal elf deck which is why I'd actually be more into cards like it that aren't elves.
I use infect in way too many of my decks, but as far as all players are concerned, I really enjoyed wither.
...what the hell? Contraptions? That sounds... awesome! Imagine, say, sacrificing X creatures to "assemble" a "contraption" with an X/Y in its' triggered ability (perhaps where Y is equal to the CMC of the sacrificed creatures?). Or, perhaps, you essentially "combine" multiple artifact creatures to form a "Contraption" that has the abilities of both (kinda like what Banding should have been in my opinion).
As far as the current Comprehensive Rules is concerned, Contraptions have absolutely no explanation, though it IS listed as one of the official Artifact subtypes (alongside Equipment and Fortification). This sounds like an interesting mechanic, though since we have next to no clarification as to what it does, this speculation could be completely off of what was originally in mind. Unless there wasn't really any meaning, I guess.
By the way, there is ONE other Rigger card in all of Magic the Gathering: Moriok Rigger which has post-release been given the Rigger subtype (at least according to Gatherer).
The Rats are Relentless.
The Rats are Relentless.
As far as other Future abilities go, Fortify seems like it could be amazing in the right set, as could Frenzy. I'm honestly surprised they didn't show up in Scars of Mirrodin. Fortify as a Mirran ability, Frenzy paired with Infect to give players the choice of engaging an infect creature in combat or taking a burst of poison.
Actually that might have been too OP.
Grandeur feels like it would make sense in Return to Kamigawa, but I don't think we're getting that.
I think MaRo has said that development doesn't like Shroud because too many players attempt to use their own targeted abilities on their own Shrouded creatures, and it's easier for everyone just to use Hexproof.
Art is life itself.
A little more accurately, players expect keywords to be all-upside. This is nearly always true anyways, so it's a reasonable assumption. That's not to say players aren't OK with abilities that have downsides. They'd just rather have them spelled out than be gotchas buried in a keyword that can appear without reminder text.
Defender seems to be the exception here, but I'm guessing it gets a pass for being flavorful and really easy to understand.
...which they do because WotC thinks players think abilities should be all-upside.
On topic, I want to see keywords that I felt didn't get such a great treatment the first time around. Unleash, for one, has some wacky design potential, such as creatures with 0 toughness and death triggers.
Others I'd like to see:
Suspend (too complex these days)
Splice onto _____
Affinity (something a little harder to pull off than Affinity for Artifacts though)
Madness
Cycling
Buyback
Transmute
Transfigure
Detain
Level Up
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Totally agree. Khans has a bunch of people riding horses yet no horsemanship? Total waste of an opportunity to bring that mechanic back! And Khans was an Asian-flavored block, as was Portal 3 a Chinese history set!
Fortify should definitely be used more (as well as Auraswap and Gravestorm) and "riggers assembling contraptions" should happen already. It's been 8 years, WotC. 8 years... Where're them contraptions, fortifications, spells with gravestorm, and auras with auraswap?!
Landhome should make a comback in order to nerf broken creatures instead of just being placed on aweful creatures (like how it was). You wanna take advantage of a 10/10 islandhome leviathan with a cmc of 6? Then find ways to altar the landscape in your favor. I always felt that landhome would've made a challenging way to build decks.
Rampage should be keyworded again as per the examples already mentioned. Spine Sliver being another good example. It's not overcosted and its ability is technically better than rampage 1 (since it's each creature and not each additional creature). So putting rampage X on a creature without overbloating the cmc is not something so far-fetched anymore. I'd love me some rampage X berserkers once more. Putting rampage X on creatures like Golgari Decoy, Breaker of Armies, etc. would be awesome. Or being able to cast Bloodscent on a low-cost creature with rampage would be equally awesome. I remember attaching Lure to Craw Giant back in the day *tear*. Actually, both cards are now Modern legal, lol. Time to build!
Epic. It's not as underwhelming an ability as it seems. It could be definitely be revisited!
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I'll accept it as a late Christmas Gift wizards. =3
perhaps make it a sorcery speed thing even on instants. imagine a world were a player with 8 mana gets to do all 4 modes of cryptic command every turn because of a cheap buyback spell.
on a related note, i love buyback spells. i would love to see it come back. it justifies the low power level that wizards gives a good ammount of cards.