"Just like Urza's Block, Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin... really, the solution seems to be for Wizards to stop printing artifact blocks"
Careful with statements like that. I made one almost like it some time ago and people went all mob mentality on me.
The issue with the statement in this context is that Kaladesh wasn't busted because of its artifacts other than Marvel (Copter was under-costed, but it wasn't busted).
As for artifact blocks as a whole, if Wizards stops trying so hard to push artifact-related mechanics in these type of sets (as they did with Equipment and Affinity), and maybe consider using more colored artifacts a-la the Esper artifacts or the Gearhulk cycle, the alleged artifact block curse might not come to pass if they give it another go against all reason.
Meh, seems to be like a Yugioh complex going on. When something stops selling they ban something to make you buy new product. Luckily I couldn't care less for standard; Long live EDH.
The problem I have with the bannings is that aggressive bannings won't make things better. The problem is that the format lacks certain cards to make it better and taking away options in an already limited pool of choices does not expand a format. For example, I think that banning Scorched Desert would probably have been a better attempt at balancing ramunap without killing the deck. Also Rampaging Ferocidon being banned has left me a bit divided. I see the points they are pushing, yet at the same time it was one of the few ways red had to deal with a lot of the life gain and token strategies. Energy is likely going to go Grixis now as it has the better options to run and never ran the banned cards to begin with.
Did you read the banning article? Because making sure that decks that go wide or use life gain can fight back against RR was why the card was banned. /facepalm
Yeah I did, and I don't agree that it was a wise decision to ban Ferocidon. I think something else should have been banned in place of it as despite the fact they designed it to handle a problem that never surfaced, it still acted as a SkullCrack in a format that does have a lot of options for life gain. At the same time, I understand the reasons for why they would ban it. Did you read my own post? I said I was divided on the decision, not "zomg it was the stupidest choice ever".
Case in point, mono-black aggro win percentage was around 56%. They could, as mentioned, removed Ahncrop Crasher to equal effect, removing an older card, keeping Ixalan free of banned cards, and therefore not make the set worse to open. But who knows, maybe they actually have Skullcrack coming in the next set so this was to give an underpowered vampires strategy breathing room.
No you asked why would they ban the card when it fights against tokens and life gain strategies when the article literally spells out why banning the card, in order to enable that angle of attack against RR, which calls into question why you would ask a question that was already answered directly by the article. Straw manning other people's posts doesn't make that any less nonsensical.
As someone else put it, if a Skullcrack with legs is giving someone trouble they have their own issues to deal with. Now I'm interested in seeing if mono-black aggro makes a return.
That's not a response, that's you ignoring the fact you asked a question answered in the very article you claim to have read. Nor does it actually address the situation in the format that prompted the bannings. It doesn't even make sense in regards to the article since the article specifically mentions that going wide and lifegain WAS an effective strategy against RR. Which Ferocidon wrecks.
"Just like Urza's Block, Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin... really, the solution seems to be for Wizards to stop printing artifact blocks"
Careful with statements like that. I made one almost like it some time ago and people went all mob mentality on me.
The issue with the statement in this context is that Kaladesh wasn't busted because of its artifacts other than Marvel (Copter was under-costed, but it wasn't busted).
As for artifact blocks as a whole, if Wizards stops trying so hard to push artifact-related mechanics in these type of sets (as they did with Equipment and Affinity), and maybe consider using more colored artifacts a-la the Esper artifacts or the Gearhulk cycle, the alleged artifact block curse might not come to pass if they give it another go against all reason.
While it is true that the artifacts of Kaladesh block are not completely to blame, it is something else that each artifact block has given us a lot more grief than any other set/block before or after it. Then again a lot of Kaladesh's issues come more from the issues of design and development. Thopter couldn't be stoped from lack of answers for creatures and artifacts, Marvel was both from artifacts and energy, Cat was creatures and them not noticing, and these new bannings are from no answers to energy, outside of Solemnity.
It always seems like with artifact heavy blocks we get a mess of trouble.
The issue with the statement in this context is that Kaladesh wasn't busted because of its artifacts other than Marvel (Copter was under-costed, but it wasn't busted).
I bet you cost Marvel high enough, it won't be busted either.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I've seen people here and there say that The Scarab God should have been 6 mana, and I'm inclined to agree.
Its reanimation ability alone is really good, but it has two other upside abilities (one of which makes it difficult to kill), and is a 5/5 that only costs 5 mana. Compare that to the other two gods, and you wonder why Scarab is so pushed. This is even weirder when you consider that The Scorpion God had much more presence in the story than Scarab did.
Also, Amonkhet needed a cheap card like Deicide that can deal with the Gods as soon as they show up. Without efficient exile, Hazoret and The Scarab God can just do what they want.
To those pushing for 1-mana dorks... You're aware that they provide a significant board state, right, ie that they provide threat more than providing an answer? With removal as bad as it is now, Llanowar Elves will probably only worsen the format.
I've added 1 cmc mana dorks to the list of things WotC has killed in order to screw up Standard.
I was listing it as one of the many things they should bring back at the same time. Sure bring back just one thing and Standard will not be fixed.
They need to bring back
-efficient Removal
-efficient Counters
-efficient Ramp
-stop over pushing creatures and mechanics
-make sure the removal is pertinent to the threats they provide
I do not understand why there's any real need for cmc 1 dorks. Especially because they throughoutly warp the cmc 3 spot in green, and if adding multicolored mana, it gets even worse. The removal of them was not what caused problems in Standard, it does not connect for me whatsoever how they would help with anything other than continuously make Magic have problems designing cmc 3 creatures. Similar to how Dark Ritual used to warp black throughoutly, making them remove fair creatures such as Hypnotic Specter. The problems with Standard is purely incidental in regards to the mana dorks and relies solely on a roster of other issues, all connected with weak removal and broken enablers and/or overly resilient threats. (Resiliency being a keyword here; Titans were the peak of creature power creep mind you.)
With the death of 4 mana board wipes the removal of 1 mana dorks was pretty much necessary. Whether games were better or worse before the changes without that board wipe to punish overextending 1 CMC dorks would be too powerful in standard.
Seems you have a particular hate for 1 cmc cards and I feel like you're walking past my whole explanation to hate on them.
The removal of 1 cmc was part of the whole design strategy change.
I'm simply calling for them to undo that change in its entirety.
Prior to Rally/CoCo days 1 cmc dorks didn't make green out of whack own the whole game. Formats were not broken because of mana dorks. Ramp was a strategy that had pluses and minuses and had it's place in the balance. Power creeping creatures are disruptive to balance.
The problem with standard is the overall design strategy change that Maro came up with. I am in no way saying 1 cmc mana dorks solve everything or are necessary for standard to be good. It is not the main point. It's not the solution. If you don't design broken OP cards at 3 cmc then mana dorks aren't a problem.
Did you read the banning article? Because making sure that decks that go wide or use life gain can fight back against RR was why the card was banned. /facepalm
Yeah I did, and I don't agree that it was a wise decision to ban Ferocidon. I think something else should have been banned in place of it as despite the fact they designed it to handle a problem that never surfaced, it still acted as a SkullCrack in a format that does have a lot of options for life gain. At the same time, I understand the reasons for why they would ban it. Did you read my own post? I said I was divided on the decision, not "zomg it was the stupidest choice ever".
Case in point, mono-black aggro win percentage was around 56%. They could, as mentioned, removed Ahncrop Crasher to equal effect, removing an older card, keeping Ixalan free of banned cards, and therefore not make the set worse to open. But who knows, maybe they actually have Skullcrack coming in the next set so this was to give an underpowered vampires strategy breathing room.
No you asked why would they ban the card when it fights against tokens and life gain strategies when the article literally spells out why banning the card, in order to enable that angle of attack against RR, which calls into question why you would ask a question that was already answered directly by the article. Straw manning other people's posts doesn't make that any less nonsensical.
As someone else put it, if a Skullcrack with legs is giving someone trouble they have their own issues to deal with. Now I'm interested in seeing if mono-black aggro makes a return.
That's not a response, that's you ignoring the fact you asked a question answered in the very article you claim to have read. Nor does it actually address the situation in the format that prompted the bannings.
No, that's me trying to put the thing to rest because both of us have better things to do than argue about nothing.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Given Ixalan's themes, from a flavour standpoint it did feel awfully weird not having birds of paradise.
I don't think we are seeing one mana ramp cards for at least another set. It would tip the balance in dinosaur tribal favor without a better counter.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Also, Amonkhet needed a cheap card like Deicide that can deal with the Gods as soon as they show up. Without efficient exile, Hazoret and The Scarab God can just do what they want.
Agreed that the Scarab God is quite pushed and overshadows the other gods. But there are more than enough exile cards like Vraska's Contempt, Hour of Glory, Ixalan's Binding, Cast Out to handle it and 3 of them are instant-speed.
4cmc vs 2cmc makes all the difference in the world.
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
If you're going to play Thopter Arrest you may as well play Cast Out or Ixalan's Binding.
The 1 extra casting cost is totally worth the benefits especially in game 1.
Lost Legacy can be sideboard to excavate Approaches or whatever but most decks change their tack for game 2 so you don't know what to pick out.
The card the format needs is heroes downfall or anguished unmaking. The four mana answers pose deck building restrictions that go beyond color pairing and into the total resources needed to run them.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
UW, UB, and Esper all have nice packages for removal but Spell Pierce makes T4-T6 very hard.
Merfolk, Vamps, Vehicles, and Pirates are quite fast when they're not hitting land snags and those sweepers are totally necessary. No Dispel is hard.
Seems you have a particular hate for 1 cmc cards and I feel like you're walking past my whole explanation to hate on them.
The removal of 1 cmc was part of the whole design strategy change.
I'm simply calling for them to undo that change in its entirety.
Prior to Rally/CoCo days 1 cmc dorks didn't make green out of whack own the whole game. Formats were not broken because of mana dorks. Ramp was a strategy that had pluses and minuses and had it's place in the balance. Power creeping creatures are disruptive to balance.
The problem with standard is the overall design strategy change that Maro came up with. I am in no way saying 1 cmc mana dorks solve everything or are necessary for standard to be good. It is not the main point. It's not the solution. If you don't design broken OP cards at 3 cmc then mana dorks aren't a problem.
Ah, so you arbitrarily decide all change is connected to the central problem of weak removal.
It doesn't really make sense, but good for you.
The question about CMC 1 mana dorks has nothing to do with me. I don't really care one bit for or against 1 cmc dorks. As a finished product, they can be part of a balanced environment. I just good proper design technology when I see it. And returning to 1 mana dorks just severely hampers what's available. The power of cmc 3 creatures can vary wildly with or without cmc 1 mana dorks, it's not even about allowing overpowered cards at cmc 3. It was because they made games incredibly swingy and severely hampered their design flexibility. Removing them allows more variation in product. Bolt the bird is an MTG meme for a reason, that's how strong they are as enablers, and having that as a part of your game, by turn one, warped the cmc 3 spot for a long time. I prefer variance in my MTG game. If I want to play Counterspell and Llanowar Elves, there are plenty of options to do so outside Standard.
Has nothing to do with me. You might even consider that I might like playing cmc 1 mana dorks. I just recognize that Magic, as a game, is larger than me, and also that without variance in Standard, the game will suffer, giving me fewer cards to play with in the future. That's the primary reason they ban after all, because of lack of variance.
Attune with Aether getting banned makes me wonder if that card is the reason why we have the sucky Dinosaur rampant Growth in RIX (what's the name again?)....
UW, UB, and Esper all have nice packages for removal but Spell Pierce makes T4-T6 very hard.
Merfolk, Vamps, Vehicles, and Pirates are quite fast when they're not hitting land snags and those sweepers are totally necessary. No Dispel is hard.
Totally agree. These decks just flood the board with creatures early, and then hold up 1 or 2 mana for their Spell Pierce or Negate. I lost to a Sultai Energy deck during Store Championship (my only loss) because they countered two sweepers of mine two turns in a row.
Thankfully, Cataclysmic Gearhulk exists, although it inexplicably sees very little Standard play. Against decks that pack main- or sideboard Spell Pierce and/or Negate, these are phenomenal.
Generally, though, I agree that creature removal and general control tools aren't nearly what they used to be. It mostly comes down to Wizards trying to attract new players to the game by nerfing control decks, which are favored by the more experienced players and a major turnoff for a lot of newer players, who just want to turn creatures sideways.
Seems you have a particular hate for 1 cmc cards and I feel like you're walking past my whole explanation to hate on them.
The removal of 1 cmc was part of the whole design strategy change.
I'm simply calling for them to undo that change in its entirety.
Prior to Rally/CoCo days 1 cmc dorks didn't make green out of whack own the whole game. Formats were not broken because of mana dorks. Ramp was a strategy that had pluses and minuses and had it's place in the balance. Power creeping creatures are disruptive to balance.
The problem with standard is the overall design strategy change that Maro came up with. I am in no way saying 1 cmc mana dorks solve everything or are necessary for standard to be good. It is not the main point. It's not the solution. If you don't design broken OP cards at 3 cmc then mana dorks aren't a problem.
Ah, so you arbitrarily decide all change is connected to the central problem of weak removal.
It doesn't really make sense, but good for you.
The question about CMC 1 mana dorks has nothing to do with me. I don't really care one bit for or against 1 cmc dorks. As a finished product, they can be part of a balanced environment. I just good proper design technology when I see it. And returning to 1 mana dorks just severely hampers what's available. The power of cmc 3 creatures can vary wildly with or without cmc 1 mana dorks, it's not even about allowing overpowered cards at cmc 3. It was because they made games incredibly swingy and severely hampered their design flexibility. Removing them allows more variation in product. Bolt the bird is an MTG meme for a reason, that's how strong they are as enablers, and having that as a part of your game, by turn one, warped the cmc 3 spot for a long time. I prefer variance in my MTG game. If I want to play Counterspell and Llanowar Elves, there are plenty of options to do so outside Standard.
Has nothing to do with me. You might even consider that I might like playing cmc 1 mana dorks. I just recognize that Magic, as a game, is larger than me, and also that without variance in Standard, the game will suffer, giving me fewer cards to play with in the future. That's the primary reason they ban after all, because of lack of variance.
Did you even read what you quoted? Because that's not what I'm saying and now you're getting personal. Is the misunderstanding intentional?
1 cmc dorks aren't banned. They've been removed from design.
So my analysis is arbitrary but yours is spot on and you're the one who sees deep is what you're saying. I disagree.
Nothing was severely hampered in design for years with mana dorks available, in fact sets were more fun and well balanced when they were in so you're making facts fit your opinion.
We will get fewer bans with old design strategy. Full stop.
I'd only disagree with his apparent support of the shorter standard cycle. We lost so many players to Modern when they did that. Reducing the time you can play cards you over pay for was not going to go any other way. Pros don't care about card costs, but the LGS players who buy product and singles do. All the outrage every time they ban is the same outrage you got when they told people their $20+ cards were going to be useless faster.
Seems you have a particular hate for 1 cmc cards and I feel like you're walking past my whole explanation to hate on them.
The removal of 1 cmc was part of the whole design strategy change.
I'm simply calling for them to undo that change in its entirety.
Prior to Rally/CoCo days 1 cmc dorks didn't make green out of whack own the whole game. Formats were not broken because of mana dorks. Ramp was a strategy that had pluses and minuses and had it's place in the balance. Power creeping creatures are disruptive to balance.
The problem with standard is the overall design strategy change that Maro came up with. I am in no way saying 1 cmc mana dorks solve everything or are necessary for standard to be good. It is not the main point. It's not the solution. If you don't design broken OP cards at 3 cmc then mana dorks aren't a problem.
Ah, so you arbitrarily decide all change is connected to the central problem of weak removal.
It doesn't really make sense, but good for you.
The question about CMC 1 mana dorks has nothing to do with me. I don't really care one bit for or against 1 cmc dorks. As a finished product, they can be part of a balanced environment. I just good proper design technology when I see it. And returning to 1 mana dorks just severely hampers what's available. The power of cmc 3 creatures can vary wildly with or without cmc 1 mana dorks, it's not even about allowing overpowered cards at cmc 3. It was because they made games incredibly swingy and severely hampered their design flexibility. Removing them allows more variation in product. Bolt the bird is an MTG meme for a reason, that's how strong they are as enablers, and having that as a part of your game, by turn one, warped the cmc 3 spot for a long time. I prefer variance in my MTG game. If I want to play Counterspell and Llanowar Elves, there are plenty of options to do so outside Standard.
Has nothing to do with me. You might even consider that I might like playing cmc 1 mana dorks. I just recognize that Magic, as a game, is larger than me, and also that without variance in Standard, the game will suffer, giving me fewer cards to play with in the future. That's the primary reason they ban after all, because of lack of variance.
Did you even read what you quoted? Because that's not what I'm saying and now you're getting personal. Is the misunderstanding intentional?
1 cmc dorks aren't banned. They've been removed from design.
So my analysis is arbitrary but yours is spot on and you're the one who sees deep is what you're saying. I disagree.
Nothing was severely hampered in design for years with mana dorks available, in fact sets were more fun and well balanced when they were in so you're making facts fit your opinion.
We will get fewer bans with old design strategy. Full stop.
Getting personal..? It's you that up design issues of Magic to my personal hate, me being emotional.
It's you that arbitrarily correlate something with something else that has nothing to do with it, a classical post hoc ergo propter hoc, and instead of realizing this, you double down on this flawed logic. I don't really care about you as a person, neither for or against, but your logic is, per definition, flawed, especially as you don't really expand upon it. It's perfectly fair for me to point that out; I can't really take responsibility for whether you take this personally or not. You make no attempt to think critically about the roles of cmc 1 dorks in regards to how you design a Magic set. You just appeal to a construct and don't further investigate how it actually hampers design.
The vast majority of concurrent bans wouldn't be necessary with proper removal. The bans that aren't necessary due to weak removal come from overpowered enablers, not threats in themselves, which has always been an issue in previous. Llanowar Elves is not a part of this equation, and you haven't demonstrated anything to the contrary; infact, they're basically enablers over anything else, not actual threats. Which is why they weakened them, so they had more breath in designing new sets.
You don't either seem to consider that sets have other goals than minimizing bans; infact, there are a roster of things they prioritize over avoiding bans, which is healthy for the game as long as it doesn't get as bad as it currently is; something that cmc 1 mana dorks still have nothing to do with.
Look at the article you posted. Do they need to prioritize minimizing bans over everything else? No.
Are these kinds of egregious design mistakes going to happen again in the future?
I hope the answer is yes. They should keep testing boundaries and be willing to take risks. While mistakes will sometimes be made, good sets and formats do result when they are willing to experiment. Khans of Tarkir is an example of a great set that had a fun impact on Standard for years and lots of the cards in that set were aggressively pushed.
Is printing a cmc 1 mana dork taking a risk? Actually, yes it is, and they can utilize it as a tool later. It's just not the default anymore, and that can actually be perfectly reasonable, depending on the rest of the set. But the issue is that the risk of using those cards detracts from their ability to take risk other places. This was an issue back when they reprinted Thoughtseize. A toolbox boogieman of a format so powerful it warped black throughout its presence in Standard, making them unable to do printings they otherwise wanted.
Nowhere in the article does he state that cmc 1 mana dorks are necessary for a healthy format. He points out that the format used to be more diverse during Inn/RTR standard, where yes, cmc 1 mana dorks were a part of the format, and he refers to ramp being stronger, but this is not actually what he points out as an argument; none of the points procured from him argues they need to empower enablers again; it moreso boils down to, from the article's actual card design standpoint, current answers being horrible. Reprinting Llanowar Elves would not have solved this.
And personally, I'm just not interested in playing a copy of INN/RTR standard forever. I want the set to move forward, I want new cards, even over old ones that I have a close attachment to. And removing cmc 1 mana dorks opens up a large amount of design space. You want to return to old form, sure. You know what that entails in regards to risk-taking, right? If we're going to see new archetypes sprout up? Because INN/RTR standard can't be done forever; it wasn't done before, it hasn't been done since. It's vastly different from the last competetive highlight around old Ravnica (even though Kamigawa and Time Spiral sold awfully, which meant they can't reasonably return to that either). The lack of or presence of Llanowar Elves did not solve anything previously, and the lack of or presence of them does not solve anything today. It's just not relevant to a discussion about bans.
The article post wasn't for you Sephon it was for the discussion at hand.
It's not all about you, mana dorks, or what you think.
You make a lot of assumptions about design intent while my observations are about result.
You are angry.
I'm moving on.
The part people are missing when others say they want one mana dorks back is that people want the set design to fall back to a form that allows them to exist again. It wasn't about the fact that someone could ramp into a turn 3 play early, it was about the fact people had the freedom to ramp into a turn 3 play, taking the risk that turn 3 play could be removed or countered in the process. In essence, it's a part of the situation with weaker removal and countermeasures.
Also, I tend to believe a longer rotation is better than a shorter rotation. It takes wizards two years to generally produce an answer to a problem, so something that shows up at the start of a format may never see a proper answer get printed in the current standard. With an longer cycle they could address a problem from early standard in the final days before the rotation hits.
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!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The issue with the statement in this context is that Kaladesh wasn't busted because of its artifacts other than Marvel (Copter was under-costed, but it wasn't busted).
As for artifact blocks as a whole, if Wizards stops trying so hard to push artifact-related mechanics in these type of sets (as they did with Equipment and Affinity), and maybe consider using more colored artifacts a-la the Esper artifacts or the Gearhulk cycle, the alleged artifact block curse might not come to pass if they give it another go against all reason.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
That's not a response, that's you ignoring the fact you asked a question answered in the very article you claim to have read. Nor does it actually address the situation in the format that prompted the bannings. It doesn't even make sense in regards to the article since the article specifically mentions that going wide and lifegain WAS an effective strategy against RR. Which Ferocidon wrecks.
While it is true that the artifacts of Kaladesh block are not completely to blame, it is something else that each artifact block has given us a lot more grief than any other set/block before or after it. Then again a lot of Kaladesh's issues come more from the issues of design and development. Thopter couldn't be stoped from lack of answers for creatures and artifacts, Marvel was both from artifacts and energy, Cat was creatures and them not noticing, and these new bannings are from no answers to energy, outside of Solemnity.
It always seems like with artifact heavy blocks we get a mess of trouble.
I bet you cost Marvel high enough, it won't be busted either.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Its reanimation ability alone is really good, but it has two other upside abilities (one of which makes it difficult to kill), and is a 5/5 that only costs 5 mana. Compare that to the other two gods, and you wonder why Scarab is so pushed. This is even weirder when you consider that The Scorpion God had much more presence in the story than Scarab did.
Also, Amonkhet needed a cheap card like Deicide that can deal with the Gods as soon as they show up. Without efficient exile, Hazoret and The Scarab God can just do what they want.
I do not understand why there's any real need for cmc 1 dorks. Especially because they throughoutly warp the cmc 3 spot in green, and if adding multicolored mana, it gets even worse. The removal of them was not what caused problems in Standard, it does not connect for me whatsoever how they would help with anything other than continuously make Magic have problems designing cmc 3 creatures. Similar to how Dark Ritual used to warp black throughoutly, making them remove fair creatures such as Hypnotic Specter. The problems with Standard is purely incidental in regards to the mana dorks and relies solely on a roster of other issues, all connected with weak removal and broken enablers and/or overly resilient threats. (Resiliency being a keyword here; Titans were the peak of creature power creep mind you.)
The removal of 1 cmc was part of the whole design strategy change.
I'm simply calling for them to undo that change in its entirety.
Prior to Rally/CoCo days 1 cmc dorks didn't make green out of whack own the whole game. Formats were not broken because of mana dorks. Ramp was a strategy that had pluses and minuses and had it's place in the balance. Power creeping creatures are disruptive to balance.
The problem with standard is the overall design strategy change that Maro came up with. I am in no way saying 1 cmc mana dorks solve everything or are necessary for standard to be good. It is not the main point. It's not the solution. If you don't design broken OP cards at 3 cmc then mana dorks aren't a problem.
No, that's me trying to put the thing to rest because both of us have better things to do than argue about nothing.
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!
I don't think we are seeing one mana ramp cards for at least another set. It would tip the balance in dinosaur tribal favor without a better counter.
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!
4cmc vs 2cmc makes all the difference in the world.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
The 1 extra casting cost is totally worth the benefits especially in game 1.
Lost Legacy can be sideboard to excavate Approaches or whatever but most decks change their tack for game 2 so you don't know what to pick out.
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!
Merfolk, Vamps, Vehicles, and Pirates are quite fast when they're not hitting land snags and those sweepers are totally necessary. No Dispel is hard.
Ah, so you arbitrarily decide all change is connected to the central problem of weak removal.
It doesn't really make sense, but good for you.
The question about CMC 1 mana dorks has nothing to do with me. I don't really care one bit for or against 1 cmc dorks. As a finished product, they can be part of a balanced environment. I just good proper design technology when I see it. And returning to 1 mana dorks just severely hampers what's available. The power of cmc 3 creatures can vary wildly with or without cmc 1 mana dorks, it's not even about allowing overpowered cards at cmc 3. It was because they made games incredibly swingy and severely hampered their design flexibility. Removing them allows more variation in product. Bolt the bird is an MTG meme for a reason, that's how strong they are as enablers, and having that as a part of your game, by turn one, warped the cmc 3 spot for a long time. I prefer variance in my MTG game. If I want to play Counterspell and Llanowar Elves, there are plenty of options to do so outside Standard.
Has nothing to do with me. You might even consider that I might like playing cmc 1 mana dorks. I just recognize that Magic, as a game, is larger than me, and also that without variance in Standard, the game will suffer, giving me fewer cards to play with in the future. That's the primary reason they ban after all, because of lack of variance.
Totally agree. These decks just flood the board with creatures early, and then hold up 1 or 2 mana for their Spell Pierce or Negate. I lost to a Sultai Energy deck during Store Championship (my only loss) because they countered two sweepers of mine two turns in a row.
Thankfully, Cataclysmic Gearhulk exists, although it inexplicably sees very little Standard play. Against decks that pack main- or sideboard Spell Pierce and/or Negate, these are phenomenal.
Generally, though, I agree that creature removal and general control tools aren't nearly what they used to be. It mostly comes down to Wizards trying to attract new players to the game by nerfing control decks, which are favored by the more experienced players and a major turnoff for a lot of newer players, who just want to turn creatures sideways.
Did you even read what you quoted? Because that's not what I'm saying and now you're getting personal. Is the misunderstanding intentional?
1 cmc dorks aren't banned. They've been removed from design.
So my analysis is arbitrary but yours is spot on and you're the one who sees deep is what you're saying. I disagree.
Nothing was severely hampered in design for years with mana dorks available, in fact sets were more fun and well balanced when they were in so you're making facts fit your opinion.
We will get fewer bans with old design strategy. Full stop.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=14407&writer=Brian Braun-Duin&articledate=1-19-2018
I'd only disagree with his apparent support of the shorter standard cycle. We lost so many players to Modern when they did that. Reducing the time you can play cards you over pay for was not going to go any other way. Pros don't care about card costs, but the LGS players who buy product and singles do. All the outrage every time they ban is the same outrage you got when they told people their $20+ cards were going to be useless faster.
Getting personal..? It's you that up design issues of Magic to my personal hate, me being emotional.
It's you that arbitrarily correlate something with something else that has nothing to do with it, a classical post hoc ergo propter hoc, and instead of realizing this, you double down on this flawed logic. I don't really care about you as a person, neither for or against, but your logic is, per definition, flawed, especially as you don't really expand upon it. It's perfectly fair for me to point that out; I can't really take responsibility for whether you take this personally or not. You make no attempt to think critically about the roles of cmc 1 dorks in regards to how you design a Magic set. You just appeal to a construct and don't further investigate how it actually hampers design.
The vast majority of concurrent bans wouldn't be necessary with proper removal. The bans that aren't necessary due to weak removal come from overpowered enablers, not threats in themselves, which has always been an issue in previous. Llanowar Elves is not a part of this equation, and you haven't demonstrated anything to the contrary; infact, they're basically enablers over anything else, not actual threats. Which is why they weakened them, so they had more breath in designing new sets.
You don't either seem to consider that sets have other goals than minimizing bans; infact, there are a roster of things they prioritize over avoiding bans, which is healthy for the game as long as it doesn't get as bad as it currently is; something that cmc 1 mana dorks still have nothing to do with.
Look at the article you posted. Do they need to prioritize minimizing bans over everything else? No.
Is printing a cmc 1 mana dork taking a risk? Actually, yes it is, and they can utilize it as a tool later. It's just not the default anymore, and that can actually be perfectly reasonable, depending on the rest of the set. But the issue is that the risk of using those cards detracts from their ability to take risk other places. This was an issue back when they reprinted Thoughtseize. A toolbox boogieman of a format so powerful it warped black throughout its presence in Standard, making them unable to do printings they otherwise wanted.
Nowhere in the article does he state that cmc 1 mana dorks are necessary for a healthy format. He points out that the format used to be more diverse during Inn/RTR standard, where yes, cmc 1 mana dorks were a part of the format, and he refers to ramp being stronger, but this is not actually what he points out as an argument; none of the points procured from him argues they need to empower enablers again; it moreso boils down to, from the article's actual card design standpoint, current answers being horrible. Reprinting Llanowar Elves would not have solved this.
And personally, I'm just not interested in playing a copy of INN/RTR standard forever. I want the set to move forward, I want new cards, even over old ones that I have a close attachment to. And removing cmc 1 mana dorks opens up a large amount of design space. You want to return to old form, sure. You know what that entails in regards to risk-taking, right? If we're going to see new archetypes sprout up? Because INN/RTR standard can't be done forever; it wasn't done before, it hasn't been done since. It's vastly different from the last competetive highlight around old Ravnica (even though Kamigawa and Time Spiral sold awfully, which meant they can't reasonably return to that either). The lack of or presence of Llanowar Elves did not solve anything previously, and the lack of or presence of them does not solve anything today. It's just not relevant to a discussion about bans.
It's not all about you, mana dorks, or what you think.
You make a lot of assumptions about design intent while my observations are about result.
You are angry.
I'm moving on.
Also, I tend to believe a longer rotation is better than a shorter rotation. It takes wizards two years to generally produce an answer to a problem, so something that shows up at the start of a format may never see a proper answer get printed in the current standard. With an longer cycle they could address a problem from early standard in the final days before the rotation hits.
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!