I am fed up with combat, planeswalkers and more combat. I would love a Planeswalker free set, I find their design tedious now, they lost whatever glamour they once had by virtue of being ubiquitous. That should provide a nice emblem free time for the original poster.
You're right about the ubiquity. Cracking a PW used to get me excited. Now I'm just kinda... meh.
Off topic: It would have been great to have a 3 set block where the first set had no planeswalkers, there was tension, but things were mostly pretty docile. Then the PWs show up in the 2nd set and things go from relatively okay, to completely buggered up, partially/mostly because of their intrusion. In the 3rd set all hell has broken loose, the plane is dying, cats and dogs are living together, and the PWs just end up leaving the plane to implode because of the irreparable damage done to the plane.
But there's too much excitement and money surrounding PWs for them to skip out, unless they print some godly cards to make it sell.
On topic: Just play Karn Liberated and wipe away those emblems. That's what I'd do.
I would love a Planeswalker free set, I find their design tedious now, they lost whatever glamour they once had by virtue of being ubiquitous. That should provide a nice emblem free time for the original poster.
Muraganda vanilla-creatures-matter, here we come~!
(No joke, I think that could potentially be a cool set theme.)
The game could do with more suppression field type effects, which would provide an additional way of interacting with every planeswalker that does not involve creatures or direct removal on a 1:1 basis. Of course, players would find it really frustrating to have their cards and not always be able to use them, or ony be able to use them and not devlop, and frustrating the newbie is a big no-no for WOTC. Nonetheless, SF is an ideal example of a card that we need more vaiants of.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
The only ways to really prevent them is by countering the activated ability or killing the walker before they can make them. I can't see them making a way to get rid of emblems as they are supposed to be something special and hard to make
All this talk about how easy it is and using karn and whatnot:
You forget me and a lot of others see the problem not in MODERN: rather in sealed/limited (and sometimes standard) - where choices aren't so wide and you simply might not be lucky to have drawn enough answers to that T3 liliana.
While some say this is just the variance of the game: I say it is not only that. Variance is indeed part of it, and capitalizing on it is good playstyle. HOwever planeswalkers -especially those who can pump an emblem- have the ability to quickly multiply a small advantage gained by early variance. They (cheap planeswalkers with emblems) act as variance amplifiers. And amplification of variance is something I dislike, especially to the extent some of those emblems give. Heck emblems are not even a linear amplification, the amplifications factor grows with time.
I don't really buy the sealed/limited defense against Emblems considering how creature-heavy limited tends to be, making it very easy to get rid of Planeswalkers before they can ultimate. Most of the time I see them get to use an ability 2-3 times but never ultimate, and most of the time they aren't any better than any other bomb.
You forget me and a lot of others see the problem not in MODERN: rather in sealed/limited (and sometimes standard) - where choices aren't so wide and you simply might not be lucky to have drawn enough answers to that T3 liliana.
I've played against many a planeswalker in Sealed and Draft. Sure, sometimes my opponent won because they drew their bomb (in the form of a planeswalker) and I didn't have an answer for it. Welcome to Limited. I've also won many games against decks that played a planeswalker, usually by attacking said planeswalker until it died. Planeswalkers aren't nigh unbeatable in Limited.
Really T3 counter is impossible, so if that is your plan against planeswalkers you have to find a bounce first (which means 2 cards for 1). Similar with removal, sure it can come a bit later, but considering you have only very limited choices to remove planeswalkers (typically after sideboarding you have still max 8 cards) to get this removal before T7 still only occurs in about 75% of the games. (meaning a single planeswalker with winning emblem can just luck out enough in 1 in 4 games - I have not yet seen any other card that can, even with sideboarding win by itself 25% of the time if you draw it at the perfect moment). - Smuggler's copter is the only thing that comes close.
So this leads to my statement that planeswalker emblems in the current state of standard are too powerful as "value" cards without needing a deck that supports it. And since in the current standard they are that strong, and the answers to planeswalkers are that weak - other than to aggro the hell out of them -, emblems to me are utterly boring; Now if they make other forms of removal better: ie I can "dig" for answers while a planeswalker is on the field, or I have cards that can perform a secondary role if there is no planeswalker so I can add them more easily in a deck, the problem becomes negligible.
Though that shows that the emblem-carrying and dependent planeswalkers are very hard to balance: either the meta has answers and they become quickly weak. Or the meta doesn't and the walker can singlehandedly win games.
There is an adequate number of answers to Planeswalkers in standard without turning creatures sideways. Additionally, planeswalkers do not single handedly win games, it requires lines of play which protect them. If a deck cannot deal with planeswalkers in the current standard environment it has a pretty major design flaw as the tools are available.
Or the meta doesn't and the walker can singlehandedly win games.
PWs have never, ever single handedly won games. In actuality players require a fair amount of resources to keep their pws alive so they can ult. If a PW gets to a point where it can ult well that usually means you were going to lose that game with or without that ult because it means you can't attack that board state in any meaningful way.
It's funny when someone says they lost a game because of a PW ult. The majority of the time they don't realize that at that point the opponent had so much control of the game they probably could had won with a damn Storm Crow
Why do you say that? There's 2 two mana counterspells in standard that'd stop a T3 planeswalker, 7 3 drop counterspells that'll catch them on the play...
to get this removal before T7 still only occurs in about 75% of the games.
Your odds are, given 8 targets and a 60 card deck, 87-89% to draw that target card.
And what you're saying is that something that happens on turn 7 gives one player a significant advantage in the game. It doesn't make the game an auto-win, just gives you a very strong position.
Why is that bad?
The whole concept of emblems is that they give you something permanent. Printing removal for it would ruin that. I have a quite good superfriends deck and can tell you from a lot of experience that it is quite hard to get a PW to ultimate, even with a deck designed to protect them until they do. So yeah they are powerful, but rightfully so as getting them is quite a feat unto itself.
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Interesting replies. The Karn solution is a 40 dollar card which is unattainable to most. The majority of the other responses include blue. I am also an anti-blue guy. I feel blue is broken. The majority are saying to get rid of the planeswalker and not allow the emblem to be created in the first place. That is not my contention with emblems. My issue is having something on the board that is impervious to ALL forms of removal. That, in my opinion, is a fundamental flaw of MTG.
Interesting replies. The Karn solution is a 40 dollar card which is unattainable to most. The majority of the other responses include blue. I am also an anti-blue guy. I feel blue is broken. The majority are saying to get rid of the planeswalker and not allow the emblem to be created in the first place. That is not my contention with emblems. My issue is having something on the board that is impervious to ALL forms of removal. That, in my opinion, is a fundamental flaw of MTG.
I agree with the spirit of the OP topic. I think everything in the game should be able to be interacted with in some way, and countering doesn't count.
I would say a more egregious example are poison counters. WotC clearly feels that mechanic is broken but they have yet to print any dedicated hate for it outside melira, and even she can't interact with it, just stop more from being accumulated.
I'm very shocked WotC never printed an anti infect artifact or enchantment the level of stony silence or rest in peace. Those cards are simply backbreaking against their respective decks and yet we have no 1X echantment "Remove all poison counters. Additional Poison Counters cannot be accumulated" or Artifact 2cmc "Sac this artifact: Remove all poison counters. Target player cannot receive Poison counters this turn". Or would this 1 card make Infect unplayable? Stony Silence hasn't taken Affinity out of Tier 1. Rest In Peace and the scads of Gy hate hasn't kept modern dredge from winning.
I am fed up with combat, planeswalkers and more combat. I would love a Planeswalker free set, I find their design tedious now, they lost whatever glamour they once had by virtue of being ubiquitous. That should provide a nice emblem free time for the original poster.
I agree with that statement. That's part of the reason I built a peasant cube, so I don't have people ask me why don't have walker X in my cube. Every set having a planes-walker cards is kinda ridiculous.
I'm very shocked WotC never printed an anti infect artifact or enchantment the level of stony silence or rest in peace. Those cards are simply backbreaking against their respective decks and yet we have no 1X echantment "Remove all poison counters. Additional Poison Counters cannot be accumulated" or Artifact 2cmc "Sac this artifact: Remove all poison counters. Target player cannot receive Poison counters this turn". Or would this 1 card make Infect unplayable? Stony Silence hasn't taken Affinity out of Tier 1. Rest In Peace and the scads of Gy hate hasn't kept modern dredge from winning.
I think it would survive as green has plenty of cheap ways to deal with artifact/enchantment hate. That being said, if infect had to run counter hate it would certainly lose some of the explosiveness it relies on.
More on topic, I can only recall one, maybe two, games that i've played in the last couple years where an emblem sealed the game on the spot so from my perspective it's hardly an issue. Granted, planeswalkers get hated out pretty consistently in my play circles for exactly that reason. Any deck that can't prevent a game winning ultimate from a planeswalker or out race it suffers from poor design or was very unlucky. Being unlucky is just part of the game and can happen in any set of circumstances.
I agree with the spirit of the OP topic. I think everything in the game should be able to be interacted with in some way, and countering doesn't count.
I would say a more egregious example are poison counters. WotC clearly feels that mechanic is broken but they have yet to print any dedicated hate for it outside melira, and even she can't interact with it, just stop more from being accumulated.
I'm very shocked WotC never printed an anti infect artifact or enchantment the level of stony silence or rest in peace. Those cards are simply backbreaking against their respective decks and yet we have no 1X echantment "Remove all poison counters. Additional Poison Counters cannot be accumulated" or Artifact 2cmc "Sac this artifact: Remove all poison counters. Target player cannot receive Poison counters this turn". Or would this 1 card make Infect unplayable? Stony Silence hasn't taken Affinity out of Tier 1. Rest In Peace and the scads of Gy hate hasn't kept modern dredge from winning.
While MaRo has said that he didn't want such cards, there actual is a card that interacts with poison counters in the way you are referring to, unfortunately it is a one shot effect: Leeches
On topic, I disagree with the idea that everything needs to have an answer. Don't get me wrong, I think that every card type should have an answer, and that if there are things that happen very often then it should have an answer. But I do think that some, until the end of the game effects are interesting, especially if you have to work for them, or there is a major cost. It rewards players from doing something awesome in a permanent way, which I think is cool.
On that note that is why I dislike infect, because it made poison counter winning far to easy, making it feel less special. But I thought that poison counters were cool before, infect cards like serpent generator required work, and that made them dool
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Infect and Emblems both have the same answer: kill the source.
Ugh seriously, that's your answer. That logic works with anything and therefor nothing. Oh, we can't kill this op creature, kill the player instead. Oh, this combo is broken, kill the player instead.
In case you didn't notice, Infect is the most consistent turn 3 deck in modern. Which means you're more likely than them to be dead by turn 3.
xecel - I will address your point as it was actually well written and thought out. I honestly didn't know about the card leeches but yes I agree, 3 mana and a 1 shot effect simply would be too slow for modern.
Emblems I'm more ok with because most you have to work for. Gideon's is fine because you are essentialy paying 4 mana for glorious anthem that can't be removed. I think at some point emblems will be interactable, but right now, no big deal IMO because like you said, you had to work for it.
About poison counters, I don't dislike alt win cons per se(i loathe cards that use the word "game" as it kills the suspension of disbelief). I don't like how there is little downside for using infect though(and giving an infect creature unblockable by default was mindblowingly stupid by R/D). Maybe they could bring it back, keep it at 10 counters needed, but add on for every poison counter you inflict, you loose 1 point of life, which IMO would make it more balanced.
Or, and if you've played video games you'll get this but poison typically goes away after time passes so they could make a rule(again if they decide to bring back infect) that each turn the opp may remove 1 poison counter. If they do, they lose 2 life, or discard a card(or exile a card from their hand) or something to make poison counters intractable.
And yet they are the least interesting and easiest to deal with emblems in the game.
Yea there definitely not as powerful as some emblems, and do nothing without creatures. However, I would say they make combat favor their controller. If you kill all their creature not a problem, but I still see why the poster could find it annoying. I don't think I would play 4 mana glorious anthem if it was not an emblem.
Emblems are game-long effects, I think thats ok
If you think about it we can't deal with any continuous effects but that doesnt mean it sucks ("target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn", "Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card")
You're right about the ubiquity. Cracking a PW used to get me excited. Now I'm just kinda... meh.
Off topic: It would have been great to have a 3 set block where the first set had no planeswalkers, there was tension, but things were mostly pretty docile. Then the PWs show up in the 2nd set and things go from relatively okay, to completely buggered up, partially/mostly because of their intrusion. In the 3rd set all hell has broken loose, the plane is dying, cats and dogs are living together, and the PWs just end up leaving the plane to implode because of the irreparable damage done to the plane.
But there's too much excitement and money surrounding PWs for them to skip out, unless they print some godly cards to make it sell.
On topic: Just play Karn Liberated and wipe away those emblems. That's what I'd do.
(No joke, I think that could potentially be a cool set theme.)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I don't really buy the sealed/limited defense against Emblems considering how creature-heavy limited tends to be, making it very easy to get rid of Planeswalkers before they can ultimate. Most of the time I see them get to use an ability 2-3 times but never ultimate, and most of the time they aren't any better than any other bomb.
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URW PillowFort Stasis (costruction)
modern:
U Taking Turns combo
pauper:
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I've played against many a planeswalker in Sealed and Draft. Sure, sometimes my opponent won because they drew their bomb (in the form of a planeswalker) and I didn't have an answer for it. Welcome to Limited. I've also won many games against decks that played a planeswalker, usually by attacking said planeswalker until it died. Planeswalkers aren't nigh unbeatable in Limited.
There is an adequate number of answers to Planeswalkers in standard without turning creatures sideways. Additionally, planeswalkers do not single handedly win games, it requires lines of play which protect them. If a deck cannot deal with planeswalkers in the current standard environment it has a pretty major design flaw as the tools are available.
PWs have never, ever single handedly won games. In actuality players require a fair amount of resources to keep their pws alive so they can ult. If a PW gets to a point where it can ult well that usually means you were going to lose that game with or without that ult because it means you can't attack that board state in any meaningful way.
It's funny when someone says they lost a game because of a PW ult. The majority of the time they don't realize that at that point the opponent had so much control of the game they probably could had won with a damn Storm Crow
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Why do you say that? There's 2 two mana counterspells in standard that'd stop a T3 planeswalker, 7 3 drop counterspells that'll catch them on the play...
Your odds are, given 8 targets and a 60 card deck, 87-89% to draw that target card.
And what you're saying is that something that happens on turn 7 gives one player a significant advantage in the game. It doesn't make the game an auto-win, just gives you a very strong position.
Why is that bad?
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
You act like an emblem is a guaranteed win. It's not even close.
That being said: Power creep and Magic: The Gathering is 23 years old this year. I understand.
I got no solutions, I ain't a game designer, only a cube designer.
There was one post that listed a bunch of blue answers.
Hero's Downfall
Dreadbore
Ruinous Path
Utter End
There's more. If you don't allow the emblem to be created there's no reason to want to remove it.
I would say a more egregious example are poison counters. WotC clearly feels that mechanic is broken but they have yet to print any dedicated hate for it outside melira, and even she can't interact with it, just stop more from being accumulated.
I'm very shocked WotC never printed an anti infect artifact or enchantment the level of stony silence or rest in peace. Those cards are simply backbreaking against their respective decks and yet we have no 1X echantment "Remove all poison counters. Additional Poison Counters cannot be accumulated" or Artifact 2cmc "Sac this artifact: Remove all poison counters. Target player cannot receive Poison counters this turn". Or would this 1 card make Infect unplayable? Stony Silence hasn't taken Affinity out of Tier 1. Rest In Peace and the scads of Gy hate hasn't kept modern dredge from winning.
I agree with that statement. That's part of the reason I built a peasant cube, so I don't have people ask me why don't have walker X in my cube. Every set having a planes-walker cards is kinda ridiculous.
I suspect the poster has had to deal with to many Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Sorin, Lord of Innistrad emblems.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
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I think it would survive as green has plenty of cheap ways to deal with artifact/enchantment hate. That being said, if infect had to run counter hate it would certainly lose some of the explosiveness it relies on.
More on topic, I can only recall one, maybe two, games that i've played in the last couple years where an emblem sealed the game on the spot so from my perspective it's hardly an issue. Granted, planeswalkers get hated out pretty consistently in my play circles for exactly that reason. Any deck that can't prevent a game winning ultimate from a planeswalker or out race it suffers from poor design or was very unlucky. Being unlucky is just part of the game and can happen in any set of circumstances.
While MaRo has said that he didn't want such cards, there actual is a card that interacts with poison counters in the way you are referring to, unfortunately it is a one shot effect: Leeches
On topic, I disagree with the idea that everything needs to have an answer. Don't get me wrong, I think that every card type should have an answer, and that if there are things that happen very often then it should have an answer. But I do think that some, until the end of the game effects are interesting, especially if you have to work for them, or there is a major cost. It rewards players from doing something awesome in a permanent way, which I think is cool.
On that note that is why I dislike infect, because it made poison counter winning far to easy, making it feel less special. But I thought that poison counters were cool before, infect cards like serpent generator required work, and that made them dool
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In case you didn't notice, Infect is the most consistent turn 3 deck in modern. Which means you're more likely than them to be dead by turn 3.
xecel - I will address your point as it was actually well written and thought out. I honestly didn't know about the card leeches but yes I agree, 3 mana and a 1 shot effect simply would be too slow for modern.
Emblems I'm more ok with because most you have to work for. Gideon's is fine because you are essentialy paying 4 mana for glorious anthem that can't be removed. I think at some point emblems will be interactable, but right now, no big deal IMO because like you said, you had to work for it.
About poison counters, I don't dislike alt win cons per se(i loathe cards that use the word "game" as it kills the suspension of disbelief). I don't like how there is little downside for using infect though(and giving an infect creature unblockable by default was mindblowingly stupid by R/D). Maybe they could bring it back, keep it at 10 counters needed, but add on for every poison counter you inflict, you loose 1 point of life, which IMO would make it more balanced.
Or, and if you've played video games you'll get this but poison typically goes away after time passes so they could make a rule(again if they decide to bring back infect) that each turn the opp may remove 1 poison counter. If they do, they lose 2 life, or discard a card(or exile a card from their hand) or something to make poison counters intractable.
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Yea there definitely not as powerful as some emblems, and do nothing without creatures. However, I would say they make combat favor their controller. If you kill all their creature not a problem, but I still see why the poster could find it annoying. I don't think I would play 4 mana glorious anthem if it was not an emblem.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
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If you think about it we can't deal with any continuous effects but that doesnt mean it sucks ("target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn", "Choose up to two target creatures. Until your next turn, whenever either of those creatures deals combat damage, you draw a card")
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