5 cards out of 7 are from kaladesh...boy did that design team screw up...
Just like Urza's Block, Mirrodin, Scars of Mirrodin... really, the solution seems to be for Wizards to stop printing artifact blocks
(Yes, I know Urza's was supposed to be an Enchantment block, pedants)
The funny thing is that most of the cards on the list aren't broken in standard because of being artifacts, and most aren't artifacts at all. In fact, I would argue that only one is actually too strong by virtue of being an artifact and that's Smuggler's Copter. Aetherworks Marvel is strictly an energy card and would have functioned exactly the ssme way had it been an enchantment.
It's almost like they pushed energy way too hard in that block while artifact based decks never actually got out of rogue status. Which is sadly hilarious when you consider that Kaladesh was supposed to be an artifact set.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
It's almost like they pushed energy way too hard in that block while artifact based decks never actually got out of rogue status. Which is sadly hilarious when you consider that Kaladesh was supposed to be an artifact set.
Agree. It's like it was a tokens set. Thopters, servos, and energy oh my.
It's almost like they pushed energy way too hard in that block while artifact based decks never actually got out of rogue status. Which is sadly hilarious when you consider that Kaladesh was supposed to be an artifact set.
Was it though? Was it just an artifact set?
It's stated that the idea behind the plane is a world of inventors. And while Artificers are the go-to inventors in Magic and the way they realize this prominently energy in its one separate way tackles the issue by being an A+B mechanic. It has the same Augment/Host, choose the placement of your Contraptions etc. Mix-and-Match feeling that Unstable uses and it certainly generates the feeling that you create something on your own.
I feel energy is just as representative about the feel of what Kaladesh, the plane, and Kaladesh, the set, are about as artifacts are representative. The whole theme of tokens and counters (that fabricate plays into as well) is just so evocative of your game table becoming a work bench with loose nuts and bolts that you can put somewhere - Kaladesh was even more about tokens and counters than previous artifact sets.
I think in the future this could be the essence of how we tell our artifact worlds apart: By the feel of the mechanics that set apart a world of engineers vs. a world of biologically growing artifacts like Mirrodin/New Phyrexia. It's really a blessing that Kaladesh will be known for its energy deck - if it wasn't just too powerful for the sake of the play environment.
On the other hand tokens/counters and artifacts come together a lot.
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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]
Energy is a fine mechanic. The problem was that WotC handed it out like candy and did not increase the cost (be it mana or with altered power/Toughness or some other deficit) of energy producing cards.
The problem with Energy, IMBAO, is the same problem with Infect: They printed no way of removing counters from players, offensively (in the case of Energy) or defensively (in the case of Infect). With no way to counteract something, it will flourish.
And I would disagree with the Idea that Kaladesh block designers "screwed up" re: the bannings. It's Ixalan block design that screwed up. Any answers to overused cards in a set needs to come from future sets, not by retroactively blaming design for those cards being overused. Plus, you know, making sure the next set doesn't suck.
(Protip: printing one and only one mediocre-to-bad card to counteract a pushed mechanic isn't enough to balance things out.)
Energy is not a fine/smart mechanic. Here's something WotC needs to learn with the likes of emblems/player counters: Don't create a resource that an opponent can't interact with.
Stuff like experience counters for EDH are likely fine, and the City's Blessing takes effort to generate, and something like PW emblems are not that common to get to. Energy on the other hand is produced too easily and there's no way to interact with it like you can with the board, permanents, graveyards, or life totals.
Energy is not a fine/smart mechanic. Here's something WotC needs to learn with the likes of emblems/player counters: Don't create a resource that an opponent can't interact with.
Stuff like experience counters for EDH are likely fine, and the City's Blessing takes effort to generate, and something like PW emblems are not that common to get to. Energy on the other hand is produced too easily and there's no way to interact with it like you can with the board, permanents, graveyards, or life totals.
Precisely. There should have been a spell that drains energy, or one similar to Price of Progress that damages off Energy, or a creature like Pygmy Hippo for Energy. Allow some type of counter play. They waited...how many years to create an artifact that stops loyalty abilities? It should have been done a year or so after the first planeswalkers.
Always have a counter play or plan available for every mechanic or possible problematic.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Longtusk Cub is even stupid in limited, the cards just busted if it snowballs and just got better with any synergy.
The kind of combinations the +1/+1 counter deck allows shouldnt really exist in a standard set, but they decided to push the cards in that deck so much that the deck kinda builds itself by including all the pushed cards into a single deck.
They do that to "force" a metagame.
As long as all the other options are somewhat worse they can much easier predict a metagame as the choices are kinda obvious and theres little room to innovate , other than choosing between the pinpoint kind of removal (classic Essence Scatter , Negate, kind of things they "love" doing, as it makes them look smart to give players a "choice" , while its just the same choice all over again and again).
----
Want more flexibility ? Spells get more expensive, so you lose against faster decks.
Pack all the cheap specific removal against that fast decks, lose to variance of your spells and just being outclassed by slower decks.
Its the same deal over and over again.
WotC really believes they have to push this and control how the format unfolds by making sure specific cards are just "must-plays".
A pushed card that doesnt lend itself to a specific deck theme is more fine, as it still allows actual options outside of the limited scope.
Scarab God simply has a way too easy to pay casting cost, should easily be UUBB to put you more deep into the colors, but they wanted so badly to make the card easy to splash that it becomes the kind of card that just asks to be an issue as it eliminates pretty much any other choice for that manaslot.
----
The "future future" league kinda kills all forms of making a format truly enjoyable, as it forces them to push cards they want to see play and all the other cards fall under the table.
It produces a format "they" want to see , and if they make a mistake it hurts them even harder, as all the "solutions" they produced do not work and they cannot do anything to fix the situation other than with banns.
It would be much easier to have good solutions and not push cards too much, make sure all cards , even the limited trash is "somewhat" playable in a deck , that increases the actual card pool tremendously if theres a true balance, other than requiring a hand full of rares and mythics and pushed cards to be to go to solution.
Overall generic good answers make sure specific single cards do not outright dominate a format, as there is a real answer to them and crushing anything and everyone in longer tournaments just doesnt work out, if you have to fight longer attrition battles , simply because you draw a bunch of lands at some point and it lends itself to be much less snowbally , which also just enforces the issue of "playing first = wins" ; in games with 10+ turns going first isnt that critical of an advantage, but thats not going to happen, as long as they push some cards in the way they do.
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.
I'm moving on.
Someone earlier in the thread noted that discussion about answers was irrelevant to the thread, since we were discussing bans.
I held that it was indeed exactly what we were supposed to talk about in the thread.
One mana dorks, however, are not part of the equation.
They do not belong as part of this discussion.
So stop talking about them.
I'm free to use your article as an outline of what needs to be done in regards to bannings, as that was the point of the article as well as the thread, and you know what, it did not talk about one mana dorks. Just because you don't present it to me doesn't mean I can't look through it for information that's important to the discussion at hand, because that's kind of the issue. On the contrary, the very fact that it does not touch upon 1 mana dorks and that you take it as such face value perfectly displays why they don't matter, regardless of what you want to use the article for.
So, yea, stop talking about cmc 1 mana dorks. They're not relevant.
The thing is... It's you that keep doubling down on something that just doesn't connect to the issue, without really providing any argument as to why it's relevant. I have systematically explained to you why your insistance to keep it in the thread isn't fit for the discussion, and you ignore it and continuously fills the thread with arguments that make people believe irrelevant things - it makes them dumber. It's like when people rage over power creep and blame New World Order. It's just not true, and telling people this, making them believe it, is incredibly disingenious.
Instead of answering that, you try to bait me into getting upset? It's not my fault you get so agitated over it...
okay let's all dial it back here free warning to everyone
I am hoping we start to see answers being printed in Dominaria and Core 2018.
Me too, we will see if bans help invigorate things for now but if Dominaria is another no answer/counter set I'm not sure whatever the meta ends up with they'll get out of this ban/recover cycle.
Also, considering how much they like to communicate, it'd be nice to hear them talk about counters/removal getting better as part of their plan.
I am hoping we start to see answers being printed in Dominaria and Core 2018.
Me too, we will see if bans help invigorate things for now but if Dominaria is another no answer/counter set I'm not sure whatever the meta ends up with they'll get out of this ban/recover cycle.
Also, considering how much they like to communicate, it'd be nice to hear them talk about counters/removal getting better as part of their plan.
Considering the Core Set coming this summer was originally designed as the second set in the Dominaria block, I am not sure if it will be the winner we all hope it to be. Also the set's focus on new players is likely to be rough on the first go around. It will likely be next year's core set that refines the concept and 'gets it right".
They were doing core sets for a long time ya'd think they've got the formula down.
Just reprint Thragtusk, Resto Angel, Noble Hierarch, Hellrider, Geist of St Traft, and Invis stalker... right? All good?
Lots of energy builds still viable but not seeing them as dominant. Merfolk hasn't won yet but damn they seem strong with temp and sudden swing wins.
Considering Hierarch has a specific mechanic tied to it, it would be weird to reprint it there unless Exalted shows up on other cards in the set. Geist is a legend, but his abilities are more generic and he's still around (IIRC), so maybe.
I was joking, Geist got a reprint somewhere recently and didn't Noble get one too?
I don't think they plan on any of those other ones... though maybe Invis Stalker will get a nod. Hexs and pants.
Also, considering how much they like to communicate, it'd be nice to hear them talk about counters/removal getting better as part of their plan.
This actually made me think. I've long been an opponent to seeing Counterspell reprinted; something you suggested earlier in the thread. But I can't help but wonder whether that would've been a really good component as part of the Energy meta; if we had strong enough counterspells (regardless of other removal in the meta), energy would be much less of a problem. At least Mana Leak would really have shifted the power to something more managable. The issue with board removal is that energy gain triggers often come as part of casting nonpermanents (Attune with Aether), as an ETB effect (Rogue Refiner) or the reward comes as an ability that can counteract Abrade simply by virtue of being usable as a response to removal (Aetherworks Marvel). Disallow works a little bit as an universal tool, but against Aetherworks, countering the effect doesn't solve the board state's massive enabler itself, which is way to weak an effect for three mana, even with the flexibility of the spell. As a blue player, answering Aetherworks on-the-board is difficult, since it can respond to bounce with a resource you can't interact with, and countering the effect puts you down a card. And afterwards, are you really going to counter that Attune with Aether or Harnessed Lightning fruitfully, as your counterspell costs much more than the spells in question?
Now, Aetherworks Marvel was obviously too powerful as a colorless enabler and shouldn't exist to begin with, but the same logic holds true to many other energy cards. The card advantage in energy decks works especially well due to everything using a non-mana resource at instant speed. Doom Blade/Abrade just only answers half the card.
Now, this issue with early threats and things on the board is supposed to be a blue weakness, but having just Mana Leak would mean you could more feasibly answer the 4-mana artifact on the draw, and would probably have allowed some blue decks to prey upon the metagame, as how Spreading Seas was a real thing during Jund's heyday. If both proper counterspells and targeted board removal were part of the meta, energy would do much worse against counterspells than Doom Blade or Abrade; something that's not as true for decks whose threats don't use activated abilities as flexible enablers.
OTOH I have problems mentally crafting a counterspell that properly solved early Energy enablers/threats while being sufficiently weak to other enablers/threats.
Instead of spells that deplete opponents' energy counters, I would've preferred if certain permanents had a subtype like "conductor" or "vat" or something that would've enabled energy storage as long as you'd at least one such permanent on the battlefield. If you lose your last conductor / vat, then you lose all of your energy counters at the end of the current phase or turn or whatever.
Instead of spells that deplete opponents' energy counters, I would've preferred if certain permanents had a subtype like "conductor" or "vat" or something that would've enabled energy storage as long as you'd at least one such permanent on the battlefield. If you lose your last conductor / vat, then you lose all of your energy counters at the end of the current phase or turn or whatever.
That would make Energy too fragile, IMO.
Maybe make it like Ascend? Where you have to earn x number of energy counters to become "Fully Charged" and so you don't "deplete" energy after that?
I haven't liked the upping of complexity in the last few blocks, honestly. If they are going to do something in Return to Dominaria I'm praying they keep to established mechanics like flashback and don't try to start new things like yet another alternate resource to track or cards that require what feels like a paragraph of text to explain what they do.
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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!
Energy is a fine mechanic. The problem was that WotC handed it out like candy and did not increase the cost (be it mana or with altered power/Toughness or some other deficit) of energy producing cards.
There is one other huge problem that energy has.
The Energy consumers were all instant speed effects that completely negated the hate cards, Cub, Hydra and Virtuoso wouldn't nearly have been as strong if you could actually answer them without the opponent dumping all their energy into it.
I haven't liked the upping of complexity in the last few blocks, honestly. If they are going to do something in Return to Dominaria I'm praying they keep to established mechanics like flashback and don't try to start new things like yet another alternate resource to track or cards that require what feels like a paragraph of text to explain what they do.
I miss when they would try alternate activation costs of mechanics or tried putting two or more mechanics on the same card. That's something that went away around Zendikar when we had big third sets and lots of mechanics were taken out just for mechanics to show up one time.
A card with cycling and flashback is neat, convoke and kicker work well together, and others just like them that I'm sure I'm forgetting. It's just nice to see when multiple mechanics come together.
Energy is a fine mechanic. The problem was that WotC handed it out like candy and did not increase the cost (be it mana or with altered power/Toughness or some other deficit) of energy producing cards.
There is one other huge problem that energy has.
The Energy consumers were all instant speed effects that completely negated the hate cards, Cub, Hydra and Virtuoso wouldn't nearly have been as strong if you could actually answer them without the opponent dumping all their energy into it.
If we ever return to Kaladesh, and energy is still a mechanic they'd use there, they should probably restrict the timing of activated abilities that pay energy as a cost.
While they're at it, they should make the energy costs cleaner in the text. Instead of a long string of E symbols like in Gonti's Aether Heart, something shorter like "Pay eight E: Do whatever".
Imo a sprinkling of tap effects on energy users would have been fine. Cohort was absolute garbage for constructed, but it's mainly because the payoff was laughable. Give cub a tap effect to eat 4 energy for two counters and you open the window to deal with it by two turns (summoning sickness, turn later in response to the activation). Being on the play against these style of energy creatures would have made them less daunting imo. Just give them tap effects you'd actually take a turn off to use.
Virtuoso can still generate plenty of advantage over time, but it is instantly as soon as he hit the board.A 3/4 over two bodies for 3 is already decent...the mechanic just makes the ceiling so much higher.
I agree with the sentiment that scarab god is just too easy to play. It's bad when I look at a WB vampires or UW auras deck and seriously consider testing a splash for that card alone.
I also think all the sweepers white has with approach is kind of silly. It's a recipe for disaster even if it turned out okay. Settle/ fumigate/hour right up the curve is just tempting a turbo wipe deck into gain seven/ stabilize gg.
Also, again, a more general answer to energy cards would be better counterspells, as they don't allow the energy producing triggers/cost activations to happen, meaning that the "one for half a card" trade with ordinary board removal wouldn't be necessary.
It's almost like they pushed energy way too hard in that block while artifact based decks never actually got out of rogue status. Which is sadly hilarious when you consider that Kaladesh was supposed to be an artifact set.
-Chandra Nalaar
Agree. It's like it was a tokens set. Thopters, servos, and energy oh my.
Was it though? Was it just an artifact set?
It's stated that the idea behind the plane is a world of inventors. And while Artificers are the go-to inventors in Magic and the way they realize this prominently energy in its one separate way tackles the issue by being an A+B mechanic. It has the same Augment/Host, choose the placement of your Contraptions etc. Mix-and-Match feeling that Unstable uses and it certainly generates the feeling that you create something on your own.
I feel energy is just as representative about the feel of what Kaladesh, the plane, and Kaladesh, the set, are about as artifacts are representative. The whole theme of tokens and counters (that fabricate plays into as well) is just so evocative of your game table becoming a work bench with loose nuts and bolts that you can put somewhere - Kaladesh was even more about tokens and counters than previous artifact sets.
I think in the future this could be the essence of how we tell our artifact worlds apart: By the feel of the mechanics that set apart a world of engineers vs. a world of biologically growing artifacts like Mirrodin/New Phyrexia. It's really a blessing that Kaladesh will be known for its energy deck - if it wasn't just too powerful for the sake of the play environment.
On the other hand tokens/counters and artifacts come together a lot.
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."
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And I would disagree with the Idea that Kaladesh block designers "screwed up" re: the bannings. It's Ixalan block design that screwed up. Any answers to overused cards in a set needs to come from future sets, not by retroactively blaming design for those cards being overused. Plus, you know, making sure the next set doesn't suck.
(Protip: printing one and only one mediocre-to-bad card to counteract a pushed mechanic isn't enough to balance things out.)
Stuff like experience counters for EDH are likely fine, and the City's Blessing takes effort to generate, and something like PW emblems are not that common to get to. Energy on the other hand is produced too easily and there's no way to interact with it like you can with the board, permanents, graveyards, or life totals.
Precisely. There should have been a spell that drains energy, or one similar to Price of Progress that damages off Energy, or a creature like Pygmy Hippo for Energy. Allow some type of counter play. They waited...how many years to create an artifact that stops loyalty abilities? It should have been done a year or so after the first planeswalkers.
Always have a counter play or plan available for every mechanic or possible problematic.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
The kind of combinations the +1/+1 counter deck allows shouldnt really exist in a standard set, but they decided to push the cards in that deck so much that the deck kinda builds itself by including all the pushed cards into a single deck.
They do that to "force" a metagame.
As long as all the other options are somewhat worse they can much easier predict a metagame as the choices are kinda obvious and theres little room to innovate , other than choosing between the pinpoint kind of removal (classic Essence Scatter , Negate, kind of things they "love" doing, as it makes them look smart to give players a "choice" , while its just the same choice all over again and again).
----
Want more flexibility ? Spells get more expensive, so you lose against faster decks.
Pack all the cheap specific removal against that fast decks, lose to variance of your spells and just being outclassed by slower decks.
Its the same deal over and over again.
WotC really believes they have to push this and control how the format unfolds by making sure specific cards are just "must-plays".
A pushed card that doesnt lend itself to a specific deck theme is more fine, as it still allows actual options outside of the limited scope.
Scarab God simply has a way too easy to pay casting cost, should easily be UUBB to put you more deep into the colors, but they wanted so badly to make the card easy to splash that it becomes the kind of card that just asks to be an issue as it eliminates pretty much any other choice for that manaslot.
----
The "future future" league kinda kills all forms of making a format truly enjoyable, as it forces them to push cards they want to see play and all the other cards fall under the table.
It produces a format "they" want to see , and if they make a mistake it hurts them even harder, as all the "solutions" they produced do not work and they cannot do anything to fix the situation other than with banns.
It would be much easier to have good solutions and not push cards too much, make sure all cards , even the limited trash is "somewhat" playable in a deck , that increases the actual card pool tremendously if theres a true balance, other than requiring a hand full of rares and mythics and pushed cards to be to go to solution.
Overall generic good answers make sure specific single cards do not outright dominate a format, as there is a real answer to them and crushing anything and everyone in longer tournaments just doesnt work out, if you have to fight longer attrition battles , simply because you draw a bunch of lands at some point and it lends itself to be much less snowbally , which also just enforces the issue of "playing first = wins" ; in games with 10+ turns going first isnt that critical of an advantage, but thats not going to happen, as long as they push some cards in the way they do.
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Uh, wat? You're clearly projecting your own temper towards me here.
Someone earlier in the thread noted that discussion about answers was irrelevant to the thread, since we were discussing bans.
I held that it was indeed exactly what we were supposed to talk about in the thread.
One mana dorks, however, are not part of the equation.
They do not belong as part of this discussion.
So stop talking about them.
I'm free to use your article as an outline of what needs to be done in regards to bannings, as that was the point of the article as well as the thread, and you know what, it did not talk about one mana dorks. Just because you don't present it to me doesn't mean I can't look through it for information that's important to the discussion at hand, because that's kind of the issue. On the contrary, the very fact that it does not touch upon 1 mana dorks and that you take it as such face value perfectly displays why they don't matter, regardless of what you want to use the article for.
So, yea, stop talking about cmc 1 mana dorks. They're not relevant.
The thing is... It's you that keep doubling down on something that just doesn't connect to the issue, without really providing any argument as to why it's relevant. I have systematically explained to you why your insistance to keep it in the thread isn't fit for the discussion, and you ignore it and continuously fills the thread with arguments that make people believe irrelevant things - it makes them dumber. It's like when people rage over power creep and blame New World Order. It's just not true, and telling people this, making them believe it, is incredibly disingenious.
Instead of answering that, you try to bait me into getting upset? It's not my fault you get so agitated over it...
okay let's all dial it back here free warning to everyone
Me too, we will see if bans help invigorate things for now but if Dominaria is another no answer/counter set I'm not sure whatever the meta ends up with they'll get out of this ban/recover cycle.
Also, considering how much they like to communicate, it'd be nice to hear them talk about counters/removal getting better as part of their plan.
Considering the Core Set coming this summer was originally designed as the second set in the Dominaria block, I am not sure if it will be the winner we all hope it to be. Also the set's focus on new players is likely to be rough on the first go around. It will likely be next year's core set that refines the concept and 'gets it right".
Just reprint Thragtusk, Resto Angel, Noble Hierarch, Hellrider, Geist of St Traft, and Invis stalker... right? All good?
Lots of energy builds still viable but not seeing them as dominant. Merfolk hasn't won yet but damn they seem strong with temp and sudden swing wins.
Considering Hierarch has a specific mechanic tied to it, it would be weird to reprint it there unless Exalted shows up on other cards in the set. Geist is a legend, but his abilities are more generic and he's still around (IIRC), so maybe.
I don't think they plan on any of those other ones... though maybe Invis Stalker will get a nod. Hexs and pants.
This actually made me think. I've long been an opponent to seeing Counterspell reprinted; something you suggested earlier in the thread. But I can't help but wonder whether that would've been a really good component as part of the Energy meta; if we had strong enough counterspells (regardless of other removal in the meta), energy would be much less of a problem. At least Mana Leak would really have shifted the power to something more managable. The issue with board removal is that energy gain triggers often come as part of casting nonpermanents (Attune with Aether), as an ETB effect (Rogue Refiner) or the reward comes as an ability that can counteract Abrade simply by virtue of being usable as a response to removal (Aetherworks Marvel). Disallow works a little bit as an universal tool, but against Aetherworks, countering the effect doesn't solve the board state's massive enabler itself, which is way to weak an effect for three mana, even with the flexibility of the spell. As a blue player, answering Aetherworks on-the-board is difficult, since it can respond to bounce with a resource you can't interact with, and countering the effect puts you down a card. And afterwards, are you really going to counter that Attune with Aether or Harnessed Lightning fruitfully, as your counterspell costs much more than the spells in question?
Now, Aetherworks Marvel was obviously too powerful as a colorless enabler and shouldn't exist to begin with, but the same logic holds true to many other energy cards. The card advantage in energy decks works especially well due to everything using a non-mana resource at instant speed. Doom Blade/Abrade just only answers half the card.
Now, this issue with early threats and things on the board is supposed to be a blue weakness, but having just Mana Leak would mean you could more feasibly answer the 4-mana artifact on the draw, and would probably have allowed some blue decks to prey upon the metagame, as how Spreading Seas was a real thing during Jund's heyday. If both proper counterspells and targeted board removal were part of the meta, energy would do much worse against counterspells than Doom Blade or Abrade; something that's not as true for decks whose threats don't use activated abilities as flexible enablers.
OTOH I have problems mentally crafting a counterspell that properly solved early Energy enablers/threats while being sufficiently weak to other enablers/threats.
That would make Energy too fragile, IMO.
Maybe make it like Ascend? Where you have to earn x number of energy counters to become "Fully Charged" and so you don't "deplete" energy after that?
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!
There is one other huge problem that energy has.
The Energy consumers were all instant speed effects that completely negated the hate cards, Cub, Hydra and Virtuoso wouldn't nearly have been as strong if you could actually answer them without the opponent dumping all their energy into it.
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I miss when they would try alternate activation costs of mechanics or tried putting two or more mechanics on the same card. That's something that went away around Zendikar when we had big third sets and lots of mechanics were taken out just for mechanics to show up one time.
A card with cycling and flashback is neat, convoke and kicker work well together, and others just like them that I'm sure I'm forgetting. It's just nice to see when multiple mechanics come together.
If we ever return to Kaladesh, and energy is still a mechanic they'd use there, they should probably restrict the timing of activated abilities that pay energy as a cost.
While they're at it, they should make the energy costs cleaner in the text. Instead of a long string of E symbols like in Gonti's Aether Heart, something shorter like "Pay eight E: Do whatever".
Virtuoso can still generate plenty of advantage over time, but it is instantly as soon as he hit the board.A 3/4 over two bodies for 3 is already decent...the mechanic just makes the ceiling so much higher.
I agree with the sentiment that scarab god is just too easy to play. It's bad when I look at a WB vampires or UW auras deck and seriously consider testing a splash for that card alone.
I also think all the sweepers white has with approach is kind of silly. It's a recipe for disaster even if it turned out okay. Settle/ fumigate/hour right up the curve is just tempting a turbo wipe deck into gain seven/ stabilize gg.