Printing cards like harsh mentor and deliberately making them NOT hit PWs was practically trolling by WOTC.
Broad cards like Suppression Field are just fine, specific removal mentioning Pws and a.n. other permanent are fine.
I want to see some people punished in game specifically because they included PWs- like most players get punished for doing something if the opponent has the right cards. Everything should come with a cost. The game needs to make powerful Pws, sure, but it also needs people who benefit in some way by choosing not to run them, in the same way a Humility deck makes big creatures into garbage but at the cost of not being able to run good creatures itself. You get to hurt creatures, but you don'tget to run them. There is no reason not to include Pws at the moment, there never has been. No splash hate, no penalty,no drawback. You can build a creatureless deck in Legacy and leave the opponent with a Swords to Plowshares that is useless, or a manaless deck and leave the Pox player's Sinkholes looking pretty silly, but with PWs nobody ever gets a worse deck for putting them in. In that respect they feel very forced upon us.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
The problem with planeswalker (un)popularity lies in their imbalance. They only run away with games because they are balanced to a pushed Constructed power level - and even the weaker ones are pushed with respect to their reference cards due to being "face cards". The problem is that all planeswalkers are mythic rare and mythic rarity doesn't exist on the same level playing field.
which is why "hate" cards are vital to keep them in check. Black obviously needs Hero's Demise. Blue could get a "1UU: Shuffle target planeswalker in to its owners library". White can get an exile spell that serves the same function. Red gets "x dmg to target planeswalker". Green is probably the most difficult to pin down. I wonder if a spell that gives you X X/X creatures, where x is target planeswalkers loyalty could work though at first glance seems a bit too powerful compared to the others. Or it could give its controller creatures/lands. Id have to give it more thought
Hm, now that you mention that. Every color should have weaknesses; for example, black and red shouldn't be able to deal with enchantments.
Should the same hold true for planeswalkers? In this regard, black has destroys and counter removal, red has direct damage and blue has transformations, to a lesser extent.
Note that every color plays creatures, which are answers to planeswalkers - but only at a hefty opportunity cost, giving your opponent tempo for an upfront mana investment.
Creatures are also a problematic answer as they can't force a direct retaliation on a board with a critical mass of defenders. Here, some mechanics make it so that this can be circumvented - tokens, pump, evasion that is conditionally unopposed (a trampler against small defenders, a flier without the opponent having flying or reach, deathtouch against creatures worth too much as a board state, menace with only one defender).
However, it's kind of awkward - the philosophy that certain colors should be better against certain card types is a great design philosophy. But planeswalkers are incredibly valuable mythic rarity cards with a huge board presence if left unopposed, so it creates a sour taste in one's mouth that there really aren't any direct common-rarity answers outside burn.
Should certain colors be better against planeswalkers? Currently, certain colors are. Each color has limited options against them. It's not like how schewed the color wheel is in a hypothetical enchantment block where black and red basically has no real answer against the enchantment card type. But is a limited answer - creatures - enough of an answer?
Personally, I dislike planeswalkers more than I like them, but I do get some pleasure out of them.
Printing cards like harsh mentor and deliberately making them NOT hit PWs was practically trolling by WOTC.
I take you mean not firing when a loyalty ability fires? If so that is understandable as it would then be too powerful against planeswalkers. It would effectively become a 2 mana answer to every planeswalker that your opponent played as as you can then redirect the damage to the planeswalker that triggered the ability and effectively stop it from ever gaining loyalty counters as very few have loyalty abilities that put more than 3 counters on the planeswalker when activated and it would also almost guarentee that it would only be able to use its minus ability the once as you would have already removed the loyalty counters to pay for the ability then have your opponent redirect the damage to it to remove 2 more.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
just about everyone I've tried to teach to (mostly being young 12-14 year olds) dislike them with a passion because they do too many things and can run away with the game. It's not even a power level thing, they hate Gideon AOZ as much as Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Nissa, Nature's Artisan. They mostly love the same things I ended up loving back in the old days like Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual, Counterspell, Temporal Aperture, you name it, because those did exactly one thing each and could easily be understood how to work them into a deck.
So they also like Shock and Cancel, right? Or are you skewing the results there?
The problem with planeswalker (un)popularity lies in their imbalance. They only run away with games because they are balanced to a pushed Constructed power level - and even the weaker ones are pushed with respect to their reference cards due to being "face cards". The problem is that all planeswalkers are mythic rare and mythic rarity doesn't exist on the same level playing field.
Maybe it is time to play nonmythic Standard and see how that plays out.
Basically they like shock and cancel, or their equivalently beefed up older versions. Multi mode cards in general seem to be the issue. Also of note is that the group I was teaching had an easy time understanding suspend, but a hard time understanding how it interacted on a more nuanced basis. They loved the legacy version of magic with how it made less powerful cards fun to play with thanks to dark ritual, Sol ring, etc. Totally did not get how storm worked and preferred mid range strategies.
Walkers are not a problem because of mythic rarity. They are a problem because they are hard for players to use or interact with. This is with marketing making them the cards that are often the face of a set.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Decided to check in with the thread, and it seems that nearly everyone seems to view planeswalkers as somehow being particularly difficult to answer. They are, in fact, far easier to answer than artifacts or enchantments, since you can't have your creatures attack either of those to remove them, nor use direct damage spells to do it. In fact, there are many decks that simply cannot deal with artifacts or enchantments of an opponent.
Aside from that, there are currently plenty of answers in Standard in every color that deal with planeswalkers. And if anyone is paying attention to the current Standard meta, planeswalkers are far from the oppressive element. It's a little artifact called Aetherworks Marvel. At the last two GPs this weekend, half of the top 32 at each event were Marvel decks. And what other deck that isn't running any blue can actually prevent the Marvel from activating the turn it comes down in game 1?
There are currently only a handful of cards in Standard besides counterspells that can prevent such an occurrence (Manglehorn, Dispossess, and Lost Legacy being the most notable). If they do manage to land an Ulamog or something on turn 4 or 5, your only chance is to hope you can either remove Ulamog and recover the tempo lost from him wanging two of your permanents into exile, or to hope that you can get your kill in before Ulamog eats your library.
Yes, yes, boo hoo, Gideon was hard to deal with once he came down, but in Mardu Vehicles, it was more because he typically had a Heart of Kiran -- another artifact that is difficult to deal with unless it turns into a creature -- to defend him. Considering how many planeswalkers are in Standard right now, it speaks volumes to how unoppressive they generally are if there are only one or two that some players complain about.
Hm, now that you mention that. Every color should have weaknesses; for example, black and red shouldn't be able to deal with enchantments.
Should the same hold true for planeswalkers? In this regard, black has destroys and counter removal, red has direct damage and blue has transformations, to a lesser extent.
Sure. Id be ok with Green not having an answer as the other 4 have options that are in line with what a color is capable of dealing with.
Note that every color plays creatures, which are answers to planeswalkers - but only at a hefty opportunity cost, giving your opponent tempo for an upfront mana investment.
Creatures are also a problematic answer as they can't force a direct retaliation on a board with a critical mass of defenders. Here, some mechanics make it so that this can be circumvented - tokens, pump, evasion that is conditionally unopposed (a trampler against small defenders, a flier without the opponent having flying or reach, deathtouch against creatures worth too much as a board state, menace with only one defender).
Indeed. Of course, if green still had mana dorks, they'd be able to pump out larger creatures faster and that could theoretically be green's answer to PW's.
However, it's kind of awkward - the philosophy that certain colors should be better against certain card types is a great design philosophy. But planeswalkers are incredibly valuable mythic rarity cards with a huge board presence if left unopposed, so it creates a sour taste in one's mouth that there really aren't any direct common-rarity answers outside burn.
Should certain colors be better against planeswalkers? Currently, certain colors are. Each color has limited options against them. It's not like how schewed the color wheel is in a hypothetical enchantment block where black and red basically has no real answer against the enchantment card type. But is a limited answer - creatures - enough of an answer?
Personally, I dislike planeswalkers more than I like them, but I do get some pleasure out of them.
I was very anti Planeswalker when they first became a part of the game.....but at that time, a more broad spectrum of answers existed in the game to keep them more in line. Im 50/50 on them now. Some are designed fairly, others not so much. But as has been pointed out, left unchecked they generate too much value and sort of overshadow games and other card types
Decided to check in with the thread, and it seems that nearly everyone seems to view planeswalkers as somehow being particularly difficult to answer. They are, in fact, far easier to answer than artifacts or enchantments, since you can't have your creatures attack either of those to remove them, nor use direct damage spells to do it. In fact, there are many decks that simply cannot deal with artifacts or enchantments of an opponent.
this is why most decks splash, so they gain access to those answers. A single artifact or enchantment here or there can certainly be trouble unchecked, but as a card type, they dont come close to PWs. Attacking isnt a reasonable answer (honestly, its a problem that forces aggro....which is another huge problem with the state of the game atm). It costs tempo, it can force bad trades, and there's no guarantee you can force enough through to deal with it anyway.
Aside from that, there are currently plenty of answers in Standard in every color that deal with planeswalkers. And if anyone is paying attention to the current Standard meta, planeswalkers are far from the oppressive element. It's a little artifact called Aetherworks Marvel. At the last two GPs this weekend, half of the top 32 at each event were Marvel decks. And what other deck that isn't running any blue can actually prevent the Marvel from activating the turn it comes down in game 1?
There are currently only a handful of cards in Standard besides counterspells that can prevent such an occurrence (Manglehorn, Dispossess, and Lost Legacy being the most notable). If they do manage to land an Ulamog or something on turn 4 or 5, your only chance is to hope you can either remove Ulamog and recover the tempo lost from him wanging two of your permanents into exile, or to hope that you can get your kill in before Ulamog eats your library.
Marvel isnt the problem. What Marvel spins into, is. Without cards like Emrakul/Ulamog, the card and deck are far more reasonable. Another fine example of how stupid design teams can be.
Yes, yes, boo hoo, Gideon was hard to deal with once he came down, but in Mardu Vehicles, it was more because he typically had a Heart of Kiran -- another artifact that is difficult to deal with unless it turns into a creature -- to defend him. Considering how many planeswalkers are in Standard right now, it speaks volumes to how unoppressive they generally are if there are only one or two that some players complain about.
Its far from just Gideon. There are a plethora of PW's that see play and all generate some sort of value that is hard to race.
Printing cards like harsh mentor and deliberately making them NOT hit PWs was practically trolling by WOTC.
I take you mean not firing when a loyalty ability fires? If so that is understandable as it would then be too powerful against planeswalkers. It would effectively become a 2 mana answer to every planeswalker that your opponent played as as you can then redirect the damage to the planeswalker that triggered the ability and effectively stop it from ever gaining loyalty counters as very few have loyalty abilities that put more than 3 counters on the planeswalker when activated and it would also almost guarentee that it would only be able to use its minus ability the once as you would have already removed the loyalty counters to pay for the ability then have your opponent redirect the damage to it to remove 2 more.
Precisely what I mean. I don't think it is remotely understandable. I don't think a 2/2 creature needing to be removed before using a PW, or a 2/2 dude turning PWs in to expensive 1 shot effects is an issue. This is exactly the reason why I won't touch std. Frankly I would be happy if there was a 2/2 for 2 that read "players can't activate planeswalkers". I mean it is a 2/2, and should be easily removed.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
Precisely what I mean. I don't think it is remotely understandable. I don't think a 2/2 creature needing to be removed before using a PW, or a 2/2 dude turning PWs in to expensive 1 shot effects is an issue. This is exactly the reason why I won't touch std. Frankly I would be happy if there was a 2/2 for 2 that read "players can't activate planeswalkers". I mean it is a 2/2, and should be easily removed.
something something mortals cant wield that sort of power over the most powerful beings in the multiverse.....and their cash cows
Without Marvel, Ulamog would only ever see Standard play in ramp decks.
Marvel IS the problem because there will always be extremely powerful threats in Standard that cost 8CMC or more. They are not broken because of their high CMC.
Imagine if there was a card that reliably allowed a deck to cast any of them on turn 4 with very few answers. No one would honestly argue that the high CMC cards were the problem, and not the card that cheats them out 4+ turns early.
Without Marvel, Ulamog would only ever see Standard play in ramp decks.
Marvel IS the problem because there will always be extremely powerful threats in Standard that cost 8CMC or more. They are not broken because of their high CMC.
Imagine if there was a card that reliably allowed a deck to cast any of them on turn 4 with very few answers. No one would honestly argue that the high CMC cards were the problem, and not the card that cheats them out 4+ turns early.
There is a BIG difference between spitting out Ulamog vs spitting out Metalwork Colossus. Ulamog is ridiculously overpowered and never should have seen print (like a lot of the Eldrazi.....just a horrible design idea in general).
Without Marvel, Ulamog would only ever see Standard play in ramp decks.
Marvel IS the problem because there will always be extremely powerful threats in Standard that cost 8CMC or more. They are not broken because of their high CMC.
Imagine if there was a card that reliably allowed a deck to cast any of them on turn 4 with very few answers. No one would honestly argue that the high CMC cards were the problem, and not the card that cheats them out 4+ turns early.
There is a BIG difference between spitting out Ulamog vs spitting out Metalwork Colossus. Ulamog is ridiculously overpowered and never should have seen print (like a lot of the Eldrazi.....just a horrible design idea in general).
Metalwork Colossus dies to a strong breeze and doesn't do anything when it hits the field.
The same can't be said for nearly every card I listed, though. Imagine spinning the Marvel into a turn 4 Iona. Or Nicol Bolas. Iona shuts off all of your spells of a single color, so there goes your removal or your ability to cast a ton of cards in your hand and deck.
Or Nicol Bolas starts blowing up your lands every turn or steals your best creature and THEN proceeds to blow up your lands every turn while beating your face with your best creature.
Any one or more of these scenarios are likely game ending if they happen on turn 4 in Standard.
What's worse, we're going to get a Nicol Bolas planeswalker card in Hour of Devastation, and it'll likely be as powerful as his first iteration, but the card's CMC will be high enough that it wouldn't worry the vast majority of the player base ... until they realize that Marvel is still a thing.
That's how you can tell that a card is a design/development mistake: It places severe limitations on entire classes of cards that can be printed into the same Standard environment.
there are certainly enough design mistakes to go around, I'll grant you that. But lets take Ulamog out of standard for a second. Lets also not speculate as to what we will or wont get in HoD. What card replaces the current Eldrazi and makes Marvel as broken as it currently stands? Are Marvel decks just as viable without him?
wasn't copy cat combo a know isue that they knew but left in the set anyways? I always had the impression that they knew it but did't predict that people would just made a ETB deck with the combo in it ( like, we got some pretty decent hate in amonkhet, a set that was alread in priting before the cat was spoiled )
I lolled so hard at the artwork and your comment.
And to all those people who say we should trust WOTC and be happy about this "change":
When people's cards have become fertilizer because of some untested thing, it is too late. People have limited timespans and most of them have limited budgets, so you don't want bad cardboardcrack when you want to play and experience the so-called good cardboardcrack. Or there are going to be complications. Apologies, accepted or not, do not fix past problems between a company and its customers as they are not on a friendship basis. Even if they are sincerethis time, too late is too late.
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Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics, and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.
Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
there are certainly enough design mistakes to go around, I'll grant you that. But lets take Ulamog out of standard for a second. Lets also not speculate as to what we will or wont get in HoD. What card replaces the current Eldrazi and makes Marvel as broken as it currently stands? Are Marvel decks just as viable without him?
Probably not as broken since Ulamog is an exceptionally powerful threat on par with Progenitus and Blightsteel Colossus (defending player dies instantly to an unblocked Blightsteel), and there are no other threats on that level in Standard right now. But the deck would find something to replace it with, just as the deck recovered from the banning of Emrakul.
With CMC's spread out enough, Kozilek could potentially offer a way to lockdown the board through discard.
Sandwurm Convergence is no Eldrazi titan, but it would be very difficult to answer on turn 4 in game 1.
Let's say that they did ban Ulamog. Then the new Nicol Bolas planeswalker is printed in Hour of Devastation, and Marvel decks start cheating that out on turn 4 and take over the game.
And Ulamog rotates out in only four months. What happens with the four sets after Hour? Wizards suddenly has to stop printing high CMC Mythic Rare threats that no one ever seriously considers playing in competitive environments because of Marvel? Or Wizards just has to insta-ban every single one of these cards as soon as the set is released, anticipating that Marvel will cheat them out turn 4?
If any card is at a high risk of getting wanged with the banhammer, it's Marvel. If other decks don't start finding a way to shut it down, it's done for. Wizards has shown that they have little tolerance for one or two decks dominating the metagame, and consisting of over a 50% share of it is clearly dominating.
Let me make something clear here: Development has the final say on any set. Design provides a lot of material, but Development trumps them in authority. Any mistake that happens in Standard is on Development, not Design. (So the Maro-haters can kindly rack off here, as Maro is Head of Design, not Development.)
The situation with Marvel is a delicate balancing act; make the removal too good, and it won't see play, shutting down a potentially fun archtype. Make the removal not good enough, and Marvel risks taking over the format.
However, I support banning the likes of Emrakul and Ulamog over Marvel because Marvel is only as good as whatever it can cheat out.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Let me make something clear here: Development has the final say on any set. Design provides a lot of material, but Development trumps them in authority. Any mistake that happens in Standard is on Development, not Design. (So the Maro-haters can kindly rack off here, as Maro is Head of Design, not Development.)
The situation with Marvel is a delicate balancing act; make the removal too good, and it won't see play, shutting down a potentially fun archtype. Make the removal not good enough, and Marvel risks taking over the format.
However, I support banning the likes of Emrakul and Ulamog over Marvel because Marvel is only as good as whatever it can cheat out.
Again, though, that kind of approach demands CONSTANTLY banning any new good cards that can be cheated out with Marvel. There IS going to be a new Nicol Bolas card in Hour of Devastation, and Wizards knows it has to live up to the hype of being the centerpiece of the Nicol Bolas set. If Ulamog gets banned, then Marvel just starts using Nicol Bolas instead. Then what? Ban that card, too?
What about cards from the next four sets? Ban all the high CMC powerhouses? How does that make any sense whatsoever??
If any card is going to get banned, it's Marvel. If it doesn't drop significantly below 50% of the metagame within a few weeks, the deck is at a seriously high risk.
Probably not as broken since Ulamog is an exceptionally powerful threat on par with Progenitus and Blightsteel Colossus (defending player dies instantly to an unblocked Blightsteel), and there are no other threats on that level in Standard right now. But the deck would find something to replace it with, just as the deck recovered from the banning of Emrakul.
With CMC's spread out enough, Kozilek could potentially offer a way to lockdown the board through discard.
Sandwurm Convergence is no Eldrazi titan, but it would be very difficult to answer on turn 4 in game 1.
Let's say that they did ban Ulamog. Then the new Nicol Bolas planeswalker is printed in Hour of Devastation, and Marvel decks start cheating that out on turn 4 and take over the game.
And Ulamog rotates out in only four months. What happens with the four sets after Hour? Wizards suddenly has to stop printing high CMC Mythic Rare threats that no one ever seriously considers playing in competitive environments because of Marvel? Or Wizards just has to insta-ban every single one of these cards as soon as the set is released, anticipating that Marvel will cheat them out turn 4?
If any card is at a high risk of getting wanged with the banhammer, it's Marvel. If other decks don't start finding a way to shut it down, it's done for. Wizards has shown that they have little tolerance for one or two decks dominating the metagame, and consisting of over a 50% share of it is clearly dominating.
to be perfectly honest, over powered mythic rares shouldnt be printed in the first place. Thats how we got in to this eldrazi mess. Powerful cards are fine with practical application. Cards that etb by killing your opponents first born child are just asking for the sort of problems we have now.
And again, We dont know anything about if or what the HoD Bolas will do.
Ona slightly related/unrelated on, how a card that reads "target players energy reserve is reduced to zero" didnt find print is a bit odd to me, though given all the other shortcomings recently, I supposed I shouldnt be surprised
Let me make something clear here: Development has the final say on any set. Design provides a lot of material, but Development trumps them in authority. Any mistake that happens in Standard is on Development, not Design. (So the Maro-haters can kindly rack off here, as Maro is Head of Design, not Development.)
I dont care what official title Maro has, he's the company mouthpiece, has been with the company a very long time, and I simply cannot and will not believe that he doesnt have both hands in the proverbial cookie jar
The situation with Marvel is a delicate balancing act; make the removal too good, and it won't see play, shutting down a potentially fun archtype. Make the removal not good enough, and Marvel risks taking over the format.
However, I support banning the likes of Emrakul and Ulamog over Marvel because Marvel is only as good as whatever it can cheat out.
Well, if it comes down to banning Marvel vs banning Bolas, then yes, I can accept Marvel being banned as it has had a good run in Standard. It's like how I was content with Felidar Guardian being banned over Saheeli Rai.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
On a slightly related/unrelated on, how a card that reads "target players energy reserve is reduced to zero" didnt find print is a bit odd to me, though given all the other shortcomings recently, I supposed I shouldnt be surprised
Having a Tormod's Crypt-style artifact that costs 0 to cast and activate, and removes all counters from target player would have been the ultimate hoser for the deck. It unequivocally should have been printed. My only guess about why it wasn't is that they were trying very hard to push Energy as a mechanic because they realized how parasitic it is.
well unfortunately it is too late now for this, but Marvel should have never cost only 4 to put out, not in a turn 5 format. It is the problem, not whatever it can spit out. If Marvel had cost 6, or 5 at absolute worst, it would force players to ramp to get it online turn 4, but even then it would be extremely hard to have the needed energy. How could they possibly pretend turn 4 wraths are bad for the format, but turn 4 eldrazi titans are not? There is a reason its hard to get out the eldrazi even with ramp--they are busted powerful cards. Wizards never learns with "cheat" effects, those cards always warp formats--not the cards they put out
On a slightly related/unrelated on, how a card that reads "target players energy reserve is reduced to zero" didnt find print is a bit odd to me, though given all the other shortcomings recently, I supposed I shouldnt be surprised
Having a Tormod's Crypt-style artifact that costs 0 to cast and activate, and removes all counters from target player would have been the ultimate hoser for the deck. It unequivocally should have been printed. My only guess about why it wasn't is that they were trying very hard to push Energy as a mechanic because they realized how parasitic it is.
It would also mess up MaRo's obsession that poison counters be impossible to remove (despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense flavor wise).
Get ready to complain that cards aren't strong enough for Modern. Again?
Unfortunately I agree with you. Who's to say that these play testers won't dumb down the game or make it bland because they don't met anything even slightly racy through?
Asking for a ban of every high powered, high cmc mythic that comes out in the next 5 sets before Marvel rotates seems like a bit much. Yes, it might be fun to play a grindy value-Marvel deck, but does that really outweigh the fact that you would have to ban more cards? Practically this also presents issues because, barring more emergency bans, you wouldn't know that a card was broken in marvel before it had a deleterious effect on standard.
Asking for a ban of every high powered, high cmc mythic that comes out in the next 5 sets before Marvel rotates seems like a bit much. Yes, it might be fun to play a grindy value-Marvel deck, but does that really outweigh the fact that you would have to ban more cards? Practically this also presents issues because, barring more emergency bans, you wouldn't know that a card was broken in marvel before it had a deleterious effect on standard.
Marvel or no Marvel, the issue is that they exist an ppl will always look for a way to cheat them in. 99% of the time, these cards are dollar rare bin fodder. But that 1% of the time, they break things. IMO Wizards needs to sit down and instead of printing the overpowered and easily abused monsters, make more reasonable and playable top cost creatures. Or if youre going to make absurd cards, dont make them impossible to deal with. In short, more Titan like cards and less Eldrazi. The former is better for other formats too imo
Asking for a ban of every high powered, high cmc mythic that comes out in the next 5 sets before Marvel rotates seems like a bit much. Yes, it might be fun to play a grindy value-Marvel deck, but does that really outweigh the fact that you would have to ban more cards? Practically this also presents issues because, barring more emergency bans, you wouldn't know that a card was broken in marvel before it had a deleterious effect on standard.
Marvel or no Marvel, the issue is that they exist an ppl will always look for a way to cheat them in. 99% of the time, these cards are dollar rare bin fodder. But that 1% of the time, they break things. IMO Wizards needs to sit down and instead of printing the overpowered and easily abused monsters, make more reasonable and playable top cost creatures. Or if youre going to make absurd cards, dont make them impossible to deal with. In short, more Titan like cards and less Eldrazi. The former is better for other formats too imo
The titans kind of warped Standard pretty badly, actually. Numerous designers and developers at Wizards have publicly stated that the Titan cycle is the epitome of creature power creep, and they don't want to get to that point ever again for the health of the game.
High-powered, high CMC monsters are just fine as they are without a way to cheat them into play too early. Virtually no decks but some fringe control or ramp strategies would play Ulamog in Standard without Marvel. And if you do manage to cast it on curve or even a turn or two early, good for you, you deserve to win after staying alive for so long. Of course, the opponent's board state may be such by that point that casting Ulamog doesn't automatically win the game the same way it does on turn 4. Hence, why they are fair at such high CMCs.
And those high-CMC monsters generally appeal to casuals quite a bit, and that market segment spends way more money on packs than spikes and other players who care most about the competitive scene.
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Broad cards like Suppression Field are just fine, specific removal mentioning Pws and a.n. other permanent are fine.
I want to see some people punished in game specifically because they included PWs- like most players get punished for doing something if the opponent has the right cards. Everything should come with a cost. The game needs to make powerful Pws, sure, but it also needs people who benefit in some way by choosing not to run them, in the same way a Humility deck makes big creatures into garbage but at the cost of not being able to run good creatures itself. You get to hurt creatures, but you don'tget to run them. There is no reason not to include Pws at the moment, there never has been. No splash hate, no penalty,no drawback. You can build a creatureless deck in Legacy and leave the opponent with a Swords to Plowshares that is useless, or a manaless deck and leave the Pox player's Sinkholes looking pretty silly, but with PWs nobody ever gets a worse deck for putting them in. In that respect they feel very forced upon us.
Hm, now that you mention that. Every color should have weaknesses; for example, black and red shouldn't be able to deal with enchantments.
Should the same hold true for planeswalkers? In this regard, black has destroys and counter removal, red has direct damage and blue has transformations, to a lesser extent.
Note that every color plays creatures, which are answers to planeswalkers - but only at a hefty opportunity cost, giving your opponent tempo for an upfront mana investment.
Creatures are also a problematic answer as they can't force a direct retaliation on a board with a critical mass of defenders. Here, some mechanics make it so that this can be circumvented - tokens, pump, evasion that is conditionally unopposed (a trampler against small defenders, a flier without the opponent having flying or reach, deathtouch against creatures worth too much as a board state, menace with only one defender).
However, it's kind of awkward - the philosophy that certain colors should be better against certain card types is a great design philosophy. But planeswalkers are incredibly valuable mythic rarity cards with a huge board presence if left unopposed, so it creates a sour taste in one's mouth that there really aren't any direct common-rarity answers outside burn.
Should certain colors be better against planeswalkers? Currently, certain colors are. Each color has limited options against them. It's not like how schewed the color wheel is in a hypothetical enchantment block where black and red basically has no real answer against the enchantment card type. But is a limited answer - creatures - enough of an answer?
Personally, I dislike planeswalkers more than I like them, but I do get some pleasure out of them.
I take you mean not firing when a loyalty ability fires? If so that is understandable as it would then be too powerful against planeswalkers. It would effectively become a 2 mana answer to every planeswalker that your opponent played as as you can then redirect the damage to the planeswalker that triggered the ability and effectively stop it from ever gaining loyalty counters as very few have loyalty abilities that put more than 3 counters on the planeswalker when activated and it would also almost guarentee that it would only be able to use its minus ability the once as you would have already removed the loyalty counters to pay for the ability then have your opponent redirect the damage to it to remove 2 more.
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Basically they like shock and cancel, or their equivalently beefed up older versions. Multi mode cards in general seem to be the issue. Also of note is that the group I was teaching had an easy time understanding suspend, but a hard time understanding how it interacted on a more nuanced basis. They loved the legacy version of magic with how it made less powerful cards fun to play with thanks to dark ritual, Sol ring, etc. Totally did not get how storm worked and preferred mid range strategies.
Walkers are not a problem because of mythic rarity. They are a problem because they are hard for players to use or interact with. This is with marketing making them the cards that are often the face of a set.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Aside from that, there are currently plenty of answers in Standard in every color that deal with planeswalkers. And if anyone is paying attention to the current Standard meta, planeswalkers are far from the oppressive element. It's a little artifact called Aetherworks Marvel. At the last two GPs this weekend, half of the top 32 at each event were Marvel decks. And what other deck that isn't running any blue can actually prevent the Marvel from activating the turn it comes down in game 1?
There are currently only a handful of cards in Standard besides counterspells that can prevent such an occurrence (Manglehorn, Dispossess, and Lost Legacy being the most notable). If they do manage to land an Ulamog or something on turn 4 or 5, your only chance is to hope you can either remove Ulamog and recover the tempo lost from him wanging two of your permanents into exile, or to hope that you can get your kill in before Ulamog eats your library.
Yes, yes, boo hoo, Gideon was hard to deal with once he came down, but in Mardu Vehicles, it was more because he typically had a Heart of Kiran -- another artifact that is difficult to deal with unless it turns into a creature -- to defend him. Considering how many planeswalkers are in Standard right now, it speaks volumes to how unoppressive they generally are if there are only one or two that some players complain about.
Indeed. Of course, if green still had mana dorks, they'd be able to pump out larger creatures faster and that could theoretically be green's answer to PW's.
I was very anti Planeswalker when they first became a part of the game.....but at that time, a more broad spectrum of answers existed in the game to keep them more in line. Im 50/50 on them now. Some are designed fairly, others not so much. But as has been pointed out, left unchecked they generate too much value and sort of overshadow games and other card types
this is why most decks splash, so they gain access to those answers. A single artifact or enchantment here or there can certainly be trouble unchecked, but as a card type, they dont come close to PWs. Attacking isnt a reasonable answer (honestly, its a problem that forces aggro....which is another huge problem with the state of the game atm). It costs tempo, it can force bad trades, and there's no guarantee you can force enough through to deal with it anyway.
Marvel isnt the problem. What Marvel spins into, is. Without cards like Emrakul/Ulamog, the card and deck are far more reasonable. Another fine example of how stupid design teams can be.
Its far from just Gideon. There are a plethora of PW's that see play and all generate some sort of value that is hard to race.
Precisely what I mean. I don't think it is remotely understandable. I don't think a 2/2 creature needing to be removed before using a PW, or a 2/2 dude turning PWs in to expensive 1 shot effects is an issue. This is exactly the reason why I won't touch std. Frankly I would be happy if there was a 2/2 for 2 that read "players can't activate planeswalkers". I mean it is a 2/2, and should be easily removed.
Marvel IS the problem because there will always be extremely powerful threats in Standard that cost 8CMC or more. They are not broken because of their high CMC.
You can't seriously argue that something like Marvel, which bypasses the major drawback of the high-powered cards, isn't the problem because there will ALWAYS be high CMC cards in Standard. Nicol Bolas? Omniscience? Worldspine Wurm? Ugin? Iona? Progenitus? Avacyn v1? Griselbrand? Ashen Rider? Blightsteel Colossus?
Imagine if there was a card that reliably allowed a deck to cast any of them on turn 4 with very few answers. No one would honestly argue that the high CMC cards were the problem, and not the card that cheats them out 4+ turns early.
Metalwork Colossus dies to a strong breeze and doesn't do anything when it hits the field.
The same can't be said for nearly every card I listed, though. Imagine spinning the Marvel into a turn 4 Iona. Or Nicol Bolas. Iona shuts off all of your spells of a single color, so there goes your removal or your ability to cast a ton of cards in your hand and deck.
Or Nicol Bolas starts blowing up your lands every turn or steals your best creature and THEN proceeds to blow up your lands every turn while beating your face with your best creature.
Any one or more of these scenarios are likely game ending if they happen on turn 4 in Standard.
What's worse, we're going to get a Nicol Bolas planeswalker card in Hour of Devastation, and it'll likely be as powerful as his first iteration, but the card's CMC will be high enough that it wouldn't worry the vast majority of the player base ... until they realize that Marvel is still a thing.
That's how you can tell that a card is a design/development mistake: It places severe limitations on entire classes of cards that can be printed into the same Standard environment.
there are certainly enough design mistakes to go around, I'll grant you that. But lets take Ulamog out of standard for a second. Lets also not speculate as to what we will or wont get in HoD. What card replaces the current Eldrazi and makes Marvel as broken as it currently stands? Are Marvel decks just as viable without him?
I lolled so hard at the artwork and your comment.
And to all those people who say we should trust WOTC and be happy about this "change":
When people's cards have become fertilizer because of some untested thing, it is too late. People have limited timespans and most of them have limited budgets, so you don't want bad cardboardcrack when you want to play and experience the so-called good cardboardcrack. Or there are going to be complications. Apologies, accepted or not, do not fix past problems between a company and its customers as they are not on a friendship basis.
Even if they are sincere this time, too late is too late.
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Probably not as broken since Ulamog is an exceptionally powerful threat on par with Progenitus and Blightsteel Colossus (defending player dies instantly to an unblocked Blightsteel), and there are no other threats on that level in Standard right now. But the deck would find something to replace it with, just as the deck recovered from the banning of Emrakul.
Desolation Twin is a poor man's replacement for Ulamog.
With CMC's spread out enough, Kozilek could potentially offer a way to lockdown the board through discard.
Sandwurm Convergence is no Eldrazi titan, but it would be very difficult to answer on turn 4 in game 1.
Let's say that they did ban Ulamog. Then the new Nicol Bolas planeswalker is printed in Hour of Devastation, and Marvel decks start cheating that out on turn 4 and take over the game.
And Ulamog rotates out in only four months. What happens with the four sets after Hour? Wizards suddenly has to stop printing high CMC Mythic Rare threats that no one ever seriously considers playing in competitive environments because of Marvel? Or Wizards just has to insta-ban every single one of these cards as soon as the set is released, anticipating that Marvel will cheat them out turn 4?
If any card is at a high risk of getting wanged with the banhammer, it's Marvel. If other decks don't start finding a way to shut it down, it's done for. Wizards has shown that they have little tolerance for one or two decks dominating the metagame, and consisting of over a 50% share of it is clearly dominating.
The situation with Marvel is a delicate balancing act; make the removal too good, and it won't see play, shutting down a potentially fun archtype. Make the removal not good enough, and Marvel risks taking over the format.
However, I support banning the likes of Emrakul and Ulamog over Marvel because Marvel is only as good as whatever it can cheat out.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Again, though, that kind of approach demands CONSTANTLY banning any new good cards that can be cheated out with Marvel. There IS going to be a new Nicol Bolas card in Hour of Devastation, and Wizards knows it has to live up to the hype of being the centerpiece of the Nicol Bolas set. If Ulamog gets banned, then Marvel just starts using Nicol Bolas instead. Then what? Ban that card, too?
What about cards from the next four sets? Ban all the high CMC powerhouses? How does that make any sense whatsoever??
If any card is going to get banned, it's Marvel. If it doesn't drop significantly below 50% of the metagame within a few weeks, the deck is at a seriously high risk.
And again, We dont know anything about if or what the HoD Bolas will do.
Ona slightly related/unrelated on, how a card that reads "target players energy reserve is reduced to zero" didnt find print is a bit odd to me, though given all the other shortcomings recently, I supposed I shouldnt be surprised
I dont care what official title Maro has, he's the company mouthpiece, has been with the company a very long time, and I simply cannot and will not believe that he doesnt have both hands in the proverbial cookie jar
On that much we agree
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Having a Tormod's Crypt-style artifact that costs 0 to cast and activate, and removes all counters from target player would have been the ultimate hoser for the deck. It unequivocally should have been printed. My only guess about why it wasn't is that they were trying very hard to push Energy as a mechanic because they realized how parasitic it is.
It would also mess up MaRo's obsession that poison counters be impossible to remove (despite the fact that it makes absolutely no sense flavor wise).
Unfortunately I agree with you. Who's to say that these play testers won't dumb down the game or make it bland because they don't met anything even slightly racy through?
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The titans kind of warped Standard pretty badly, actually. Numerous designers and developers at Wizards have publicly stated that the Titan cycle is the epitome of creature power creep, and they don't want to get to that point ever again for the health of the game.
High-powered, high CMC monsters are just fine as they are without a way to cheat them into play too early. Virtually no decks but some fringe control or ramp strategies would play Ulamog in Standard without Marvel. And if you do manage to cast it on curve or even a turn or two early, good for you, you deserve to win after staying alive for so long. Of course, the opponent's board state may be such by that point that casting Ulamog doesn't automatically win the game the same way it does on turn 4. Hence, why they are fair at such high CMCs.
And those high-CMC monsters generally appeal to casuals quite a bit, and that market segment spends way more money on packs than spikes and other players who care most about the competitive scene.