As I’ve read through the spoilers of the last few sets and I see the cards getting printed. I think I’ve realized how he felt. I’m not impressed by cards like this, I don’t find them exciting. They’re just sort of obnoxious and it just doesn’t feel like it should.
Then you get someone to come in and tell you that this card isn’t any good and will be in the bargain box. That doesn’t make it better, it just exacerbated the feeling my buddy had and I’m now understanding. If this kind of card is no good then...well, I’ll just say I understand why he quit playing so soon after picking it back up.
I totally get it. Same deal. You read something like this, which is so obviously, desperately pushed, but then realize it "isn't playable" because it doesn't get you any immediate value and doesn't protect itself. The thing is, in many ways that's always been true about creatures. I think it's something about the desperate pushing of creatures, combined with how the game has changed competitively, along with the existence of the internet (and... internet commenters) and it just gets hard to appreciate cards like this.
I've been playing forever too. I played during the ups and downs. There were a lot of powered up cards then slow years then the slow years ended and power kept increasing every set since planeswalkers became a thing. It's easier to get excited when you aren't grinding in tournaments. Or even playing them that much. Just buy a booster box and play your packs with friends. I will say though that they have been extremely over the top for some time with all of the cards they print these days. I never thought they would re-print grim tutor. But the card can be fairly weak when opponent can smash you with a plains walker or creature. The game has changed a bit too much. Still fun but changed a bit too much.
Wizards current plan is to branch out to every version of power up they can. Dogs are now a class with a powered up leader. It's mostly nonsense and running out game design space. They also want to make the game faster to hold shorter attention spans with more powerful cards.
I remember regenerate being a hugely powerful ability. Now it's weak. Ancient Silverback once a rare down graded to uncommon level power. They can just keep printing whatever they want. Everyone else can do the tournaments. If anything tournaments are boring now. Plus a lot of the people there are crappy to be around.
I agree with both of you. I play casual exclusively and usually try to build theme decks capable of holding their own at the table. The thing is, when power creep is this strong the cards will make it into the casual space and might even only be played there.
So, Wizards makes a pushed card like this that maybe sees no play in the competitive environment They’re trying to affect. But instead it just warps my casual group. Because these ridiculously strong creatures then mean that we have to run the super strong removal and this creates a cycle that we have to self-police to stop. That’s something every group has to do to an extent but it’s so common today and none of us like telling each other not to play with new cards.
You’re right that they’re running out of design space. It’s amazing that it’s taken so long so kudos to the designers for that. But to me it results in a feeling that the suits are more interested in attracting new players versus developing an enfranchised community. Every single game I’ve ever played has fallen into this situation after they reach a certain popularity. Every forum I’ve ever been on has these same words that I’m typing. Doesn’t make it less of a bummer that the stronger business model is clearly to have a revolving door of new customers.
I think this card highlights it more than others. It’s just a jumble of text key words and abilities on a random piece of art with no theme or identity. It could just as easily be an elemental, a treefolk, or any other green card. I’m not just talking about the art but that is part of it.
In casual though what deck really gets dunked on by this? I often see a series of what is effectively very casual kitchen table Magic consisting of 2 players having 300 decks each to play over a series, 100 of that is effectively no restriction do what you want from collections going back to like 4th Edition with a few obnoxious cards like Channel banned, and sure this is a decent beater at casual tables, but there's many other creatures like it, and I wouldn't see it as the bane of casual. Black and white removal trades favourably with it. Blue decks will just counter it. Green have there own potential big fatties. It can in theory dunk on say a mono-red or mono-green strategy but those decks will probably have an ability to go under it to an extent.
I mean it guess on your rules and how long people have been playing to have cards going back in their collections but I see far more obnoxious things at casual table Magic than just a mid-range green beater.
Okay, I’ve changed my mind on this card. Between Alseid, Selfless Savior, and Heroic Intervention, there are officially enough ways to protect this card from random kill spells... and this card is good enough to warrant being played a turn or 2 late with protection available.
I'm not sure times have ever changed that much. Mid-range strategies have tended to be overrated through Magic's history. A few times they were good was normally off some extreme card advantage mechanic like Cascade. Even when I first got into Magic nearly 20 years ago now, mid-range Rock strategies were normally the trap in extended that I as a new player would fall into then.
The reality is fast strategies go under this card and longer/combo strategies go over it. There aren't many decks that want 5 drop creatures to begin with. Aggro decks rarely go up to 5 mana, control/combo are norm very focused where this wouldn't fit, which leaves only mid-range strategies this really fits in. This is basically like a modern day Spiritmonger a card that looked insane on paper, but in reality didn't see anywhere near as much play as expected. Mid-range decks are normally dependent off their cards actually providing value to function, and that's basically been the bane of the pushed 5 drop creature through Magic's history.
As creatures have got more and more pushed, pure efficiency alone has cut it less and less, and the game has leaned even more towards value creatures. I remember something like Watchwolf being popular in Zoo at the time. Today we have a strictly better version in Standard that you never see. Wild Nacatl was once banned in Modern and yet is basically unplayable now. Somewhat recently I remember Verdurous Gearhulk being like $20 at pre-release, and this being a card that you thought would surely see play given at worst it was 5 mana 8/8 trampler, and with any other creature 4/4 of the stats would have haste, yet it saw very little play and today sits as a $1 card.
This card makes me laugh. It is super pushed but also not playable (without investing more cards into protecting him). We live in weird times.
Any deck that wants to run cards to protect him will also include other cards to protect with that protection, so I don't think it's every going to be a case where you have dead protection in your hand/on top of your deck. This, historically has been the problem with protection cards - that the rate at which they were dead draws was too high. In the current meta, I think this guy, a few other top-end beaters (Q Beast etc.) some ramp and some protection probably puts G or Gx exactly where we all want it to be. I'm 100% here for that. As an Umari Sultai Mutate player on Arena, there's a very high chance this guy will replace the Jellyfish Hydra once it rotates out so I'm quite happy to see it. If my opponents are killing this, they aren't killing something else.
Every time I see this is the form, I read it as Elder (a title) Gargaroth (a crazy dudes name) and I think, ooo who's this interesting new legend we have here:)
I remember regenerate being a hugely powerful ability. Now it's weak. Ancient Silverback once a rare down graded to uncommon level power. They can just keep printing whatever they want. Everyone else can do the tournaments. If anything tournaments are boring now. Plus a lot of the people there are crappy to be around.
I wouldn't say regenerate is weak, I mean it was so strong people couldn't understand it well enough that they had to get rid of it even though it was one of the easier things to understand.
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In casual though what deck really gets dunked on by this? I often see a series of what is effectively very casual kitchen table Magic consisting of 2 players having 300 decks each to play over a series, 100 of that is effectively no restriction do what you want from collections going back to like 4th Edition with a few obnoxious cards like Channel banned, and sure this is a decent beater at casual tables, but there's many other creatures like it, and I wouldn't see it as the bane of casual. Black and white removal trades favourably with it. Blue decks will just counter it. Green have there own potential big fatties. It can in theory dunk on say a mono-red or mono-green strategy but those decks will probably have an ability to go under it to an extent.
I mean it guess on your rules and how long people have been playing to have cards going back in their collections but I see far more obnoxious things at casual table Magic than just a mid-range green beater.
The reality is fast strategies go under this card and longer/combo strategies go over it. There aren't many decks that want 5 drop creatures to begin with. Aggro decks rarely go up to 5 mana, control/combo are norm very focused where this wouldn't fit, which leaves only mid-range strategies this really fits in. This is basically like a modern day Spiritmonger a card that looked insane on paper, but in reality didn't see anywhere near as much play as expected. Mid-range decks are normally dependent off their cards actually providing value to function, and that's basically been the bane of the pushed 5 drop creature through Magic's history.
As creatures have got more and more pushed, pure efficiency alone has cut it less and less, and the game has leaned even more towards value creatures. I remember something like Watchwolf being popular in Zoo at the time. Today we have a strictly better version in Standard that you never see. Wild Nacatl was once banned in Modern and yet is basically unplayable now. Somewhat recently I remember Verdurous Gearhulk being like $20 at pre-release, and this being a card that you thought would surely see play given at worst it was 5 mana 8/8 trampler, and with any other creature 4/4 of the stats would have haste, yet it saw very little play and today sits as a $1 card.
Any deck that wants to run cards to protect him will also include other cards to protect with that protection, so I don't think it's every going to be a case where you have dead protection in your hand/on top of your deck. This, historically has been the problem with protection cards - that the rate at which they were dead draws was too high. In the current meta, I think this guy, a few other top-end beaters (Q Beast etc.) some ramp and some protection probably puts G or Gx exactly where we all want it to be. I'm 100% here for that. As an Umari Sultai Mutate player on Arena, there's a very high chance this guy will replace the Jellyfish Hydra once it rotates out so I'm quite happy to see it. If my opponents are killing this, they aren't killing something else.
I wouldn't say regenerate is weak, I mean it was so strong people couldn't understand it well enough that they had to get rid of it even though it was one of the easier things to understand.