Considering the presence of both Devotion and Heroic, is it possible that instead of making an enchantment block wherein there'd need to be 'enchantment enablers' that people seem to want, they decided to go with the route that its an enchantment block because enchantments enable other themes in the set?
Oh wait, that's exactly what it is. So yes, it's an enchantment block.
Heroic only works with auras, and we haven't seen any good auras get printed yet. And Devotion is not an enchantment mechanic. If a mechanic would work just as well with colored artifacts as with enchantments, then it is not an enchantment theme.
R&D trying to make auras good was a bad idea in the first place. let bant hexproof players and noobs enjoy their auras. I wanted wicked global enchantment synergy. I hate creatures. They usually die to removal. With so many creatures, I'm forced to play a lot of removal. While I am getting things off my chest, who says Blue gets to be aggressive? That is downright unfair. I, strictly building rogue decks, don't see the fun in playing 4 creatures, swinging 20, reloading my hand with Jace (the holiest of holies). It is like giving esper control an extra deck to play in-game and making it mono red where aggro should be. If they just gave us a black enchantment that siphoned life each turn, I would be happy
It'll be interesting to see how many more enchantment creatures and auras etc. I personally enjoy the block, especially the flavor. Fade into Antiquity has serious main deck potential for green players if the God decks really take off. Just a thought, indestructible.
I see a lot of complaining about the enchantments in this block not doing what people want them to. The biggest problem is that when they specifically complain about something, it just makes me laugh.
I thought I'd see global enchantments with the usual effects in the colour pie, such as anthems for white, pay-life-draw-cards for black, play with first card of library face-up for blue, and maybe even a few of my old favorites reprinted.
Anthem for white? Spear of Heliod, check. Pay-life-draw-cards for black? Erebos, God of the Dead, check. As the man said, two outta three ain't bad.
You all seem to be right about the unifying cards for enchantments, a la enchantresses, but there were some printed in M14 and RtR block that could be useful if you can overcome your disapointment that they aren't in Theros.
Also, I'd say that Ravnica was a success at first because I view the theme as multicolor, not specifically dual color.
sounds like a perception issue to me. how you view the theme. Ravnica was in fact all about two color combinations and what their philosophies and mechanical overlap meant and could do. that was the designers' intention, whether or not that is how you perceived it.
that's what this is all about at the heart of it. you had expectations based on false pretenses and what you wanted the block to be about, and now you are upset that it didn't pan out that way. that's fine and understandable, but it doesn't make it a design failure. as has been mentioned ad nauseam, Theros block is first and foremost a top-down Greek mythology block. flavor defines it's identity more than any of it's mechanical themes, which were chosen to help illustrate that flavor.
The mechanical theme of the block is supposed to get a lot of support, but this block doesn't have a lot of support yet.
again, that's an issue with your perception of what the "mechanical theme" is. MaRo has stated the themes to be Heros, Gods, and Monsters.
Heros are supported through Heroic and an aura subtheme (particularly Bestow). Gods are supported through Devotion, which has produced two top-tier decks so far, as well as a couple other lower-tiered decks. Monsters are supported through Monstrous and Tribute, generally scary fatties. Polukranos and Fleecemana Lion are pretty popular it seems, possibly a couple others i'm forgetting.
so, two of those themes have in fact shown up in tournament decks so far (and a fraction of the third if you count Boon Satyr). and even beyond using competitive success as a metric for support and simply looking at the cards themselves, the support is certainly there. the issue is how you are defining "support for mechanical themes" based on your expectations of how this block would look.
I think a large part of that is expectation, I don't believe Theros was intended to be the enchantments-matter block in the same vein of artifacts in the first Mirrodin. I think Theros only intended to use the enchantment type to convey a flavor theme.
nailed it.
like somebody whom i forgot to multiquote mentioned above: think of it like Arcane in Kamigawa. the use of the enchantment subtype in Theros block is meant to convey the magic of the Gods in contrast to the mortal world. in that vein, the block does have an "enchantment subtheme." it's just getting a lot of flack because people expected that to mean something entirely different.
i don't recall anyone at WotC ever stating this was going to be "the Enchantress block" or anything.
You all seem to be right about the unifying cards for enchantments, a la enchantresses, but there were some printed in M14 and RtR block that could be useful if you can overcome your disapointment that they aren't in Theros.
I see there are some of the cards you may be speaking of in the other sets. However, none of these is quite as nice as the Enchantresses. I'm surprised we haven't seen anything like the three of them yet. I just speculate we will. I don't see much with what we have now available outside of Theros block, making as much of a synergistic impact. Will any of these cards be abused?
I see there are some of the cards you may be speaking of in the other sets. However, none of these is quite as nice as the Enchantresses. I'm surprised we haven't seen anything like the three of them yet. I just speculate we will. I don't see much with what we have now available outside of Theros block, making as much of a synergistic impact. Will any of these cards be abused?
You forgot Auramancer from m14. Born of the Gods is introducing some repeatable enchantments that might be able to abuse Ajani's Chosen or, less likely, Oath of the Ancient Wood. Also, if you include Treasury Thrull then you should mention the spoiled Silent Sentinel.
[EDIT] Looking through the enchantment mentioning cards in Theros, almost all of them are removal for rather than support for. Very disappointing.
Are you guys in denial about auras being enchantments or something? There is an undeniably strong aura theme going on in this block, including synergistic aura support from heroic cards, do these not count because they were not the enchantment style you were hoping for? Theros even had 10 incredible global enchantment cards in the gods and their weapons, and they are well represented in the tournament scene.
I keep seeing this argument that some cards could easily be printed as non enchant and be the same card. Would you really be okay with an normal artifact giving an anthem effect or lifelink to all your creatures? Or these new global enchant creatures, can you not see what wizard is doing there? Would Fate Unraveler be better to you if it's flavor text was "This card is the creature version of underworld dreams " because its clear to me why it's an enchantment.
I can't justify enchantment critter tokens, but I like the art direction of them, I like that enchant destruction with heavily go up in value in limited and I'm confident that cards will be printed in this block that care about your enchantment count.
How many cards cared about enchantments in theros not counting prot. or destruction?
0? Now in BnG there is already 2 with only 1/3 of the set being relevealed. Seems like that number will go up in time, with enchantress effects being most likely in Jou.
I understand that there is less pure enchantment synergy than you would have liked, and while that is a valid complaint, trying to make the argument that this isn't an enchantment block, when you've seen less than half the block, seems shortsighted to me.
Theros is an aura focused set with extremely powerful enchantments that have dramatically shifted the metagame. BnG is looking to keep up that theme, but with even more enchantment cards and support. This is an enchantment block, just not what you were hoping for I guess.
It's pretty clear the whole theme is moving toward a deeper traditional enchantment theme as we get closer to Nyx. A lot of the complaining in this thread seems like impatient whining.
Even if Wizards didn't capitalize on the potential of enchantment matters, I'm glad they are pacing themselves. Having cards that care about enchantments just to care about them as a full block theme seems like box-checking. I have a feeling the whole block will make more "sense" when it is complete.
It's pretty clear the whole theme is moving toward a deeper traditional enchantment theme as we get closer to Nyx. A lot of the complaining in this thread seems like impatient whining.
Even if Wizards didn't capitalize on the potential of enchantment matters, I'm glad they are pacing themselves. Having cards that care about enchantments just to care about them as a full block theme seems like box-checking. I have a feeling the whole block will make more "sense" when it is complete.
What feels way more like box checking is having a bunch of cards that are not enchantments in any way except for the word enchantment on them, and then nothing that cares about it.
And no, it doesn't give me the feeling it's moving towards a deeper traditional enchantment theme. It is actually doing quite the opposite, it makes me feel like their will be no traditional enchantments at all, instead just creatures with a tacked on enchantment type.
I will also be dissappointed if there are no regular global enchants, but I won't be surprised if we don't see any until Nyx. That set should have the strongest enchant theme, hopefully a bit less of the all critters all the time subtheme they have been doing.
What feels way more like box checking is having a bunch of cards that are not enchantments in any way except for the word enchantment on them, and then nothing that cares about it.
Not enchantments in any way? So Enchantment creatures that can be played as Auras do not interact like enchantments in any way? I must be missing something here, because your reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
Not enchantments in any way? So Enchantment creatures that can be played as Auras do not interact like enchantments in any way? I must be missing something here, because your reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
Yeah, let's complete ignore the cards I'm actually talking about like the archetypes, fate unraveler, or the inspire tokens.
Let's focus instead around the unplayable bestow creatures and claim that now that you can staple one creature onto another creature, somehow enchantment support is covered.
I keep seeing this argument that some cards could easily be printed as non enchant and be the same card. Would you really be okay with an normal artifact giving an anthem effect
Before Whip of Erebos, there were twoenchantments that gave lifelink to multiple creatures, and one of them only gave it to Zombies. Artifacts had previously given lifelink to singlecreatures as equipment, similar to a number of auras. One of those equipment was just a type-shifted aura. I'm fairly certain Whip of Erebos could have been a colored non-enchantment artifact without breaking anything.
Or these new global enchant creatures, can you not see what wizard is doing there? Would Fate Unraveler be better to you if it's flavor text was "This card is the creature version of underworld dreams " because its clear to me why it's an enchantment.
This is obvious to everyone, but it doesn't make it any less lazy, incomprehensible design. There are two justifications for Fate Unraveler: "flavor," whatever that means, and "get it?!" Neither is remotely satisfying.
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so we're ignoring the fact that the two most popular Standard decks right now are based on Devotion?
Good point. But they said that enchantments would be a major theme. Right now, there is no synergy at all with them.
sounds like a perception issue to me. how you view the theme. Ravnica was in fact all about two color combinations and what their philosophies and mechanical overlap meant and could do. that was the designers' intention, whether or not that is how you perceived it.
that's what this is all about at the heart of it. you had expectations based on false pretenses and what you wanted the block to be about, and now you are upset that it didn't pan out that way. that's fine and understandable, but it doesn't make it a design failure. as has been mentioned ad nauseam, Theros block is first and foremost a top-down Greek mythology block. flavor defines it's identity more than any of it's mechanical themes, which were chosen to help illustrate that flavor.
And as I've mentioned ad nauseum, if they are going to say that it is an enchantment block, then it should have a bunch of support for enchantments. An enchantment block is not a bunch of cards that have enchantment on them "because flavor". It is a block with cards that interact with enchantments positively. I'll bring up my example of tribal again. If Wizards had 30 humans, 30 merfolk, 30 zombies, 30 goblins, and 30 elves in a block, and had no cards that encouraged tribal decks, would it still be a tribal block because "It's flavorfully tribal".
again, that's an issue with your perception of what the "mechanical theme" is. MaRo has stated the themes to be Heros, Gods, and Monsters.
Heros are supported through Heroic and an aura subtheme (particularly Bestow). Gods are supported through Devotion, which has produced two top-tier decks so far, as well as a couple other lower-tiered decks. Monsters are supported through Monstrous and Tribute, generally scary fatties. Polukranos and Fleecemana Lion are pretty popular it seems, possibly a couple others i'm forgetting.
so, two of those themes have in fact shown up in tournament decks so far (and a fraction of the third if you count Boon Satyr). and even beyond using competitive success as a metric for support and simply looking at the cards themselves, the support is certainly there. the issue is how you are defining "support for mechanical themes" based on your expectations of how this block would look.
The point is that the enchantment part of those three themes hasn't showed up. Theros was marketed as an enchantment block. It has no playable support for enchantments. It is not an enchantment block. And also, if you admit that enchantments aren't the mechanical theme, you are also admitting that this isn't an enchantment block, which makes me right.
Yeah, let's complete ignore the cards I'm actually talking about like the archetypes, fate unraveler, or the inspire tokens.
Let's focus instead around the unplayable bestow creatures and claim that now that you can staple one creature onto another creature, somehow enchantment support is covered.
"Unplayable"? Looks like someone is forgetting how sets are designed.
Hint, it's called Limited.
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Good point. But they said that enchantments would be a major theme. Right now, there is no synergy at all with them.
And as I've mentioned ad nauseum, if they are going to say that it is an enchantment block, then it should have a bunch of support for enchantments. An enchantment block is not a bunch of cards that have enchantment on them "because flavor". It is a block with cards that interact with enchantments positively. I'll bring up my example of tribal again. If Wizards had 30 humans, 30 merfolk, 30 zombies, 30 goblins, and 30 elves in a block, and had no cards that encouraged tribal decks, would it still be a tribal block because "It's flavorfully tribal".
The point is that the enchantment part of those three themes hasn't showed up. Theros was marketed as an enchantment block. It has no playable support for enchantments. It is not an enchantment block. And also, if you admit that enchantments aren't the mechanical theme, you are also admitting that this isn't an enchantment block, which makes me right.
The enchantment part of the Gods hasn't shown up? Really? You mean besides the fact that the gods themselves are enchantments? Or their weapons? Or everything else from their realm of existence?
We should rename this thread Sad and Angry People Congregation.
A lot of people are upset because of arbitrary reasons. It's okay to like or dislike BNG, but only 1/3 of the set is spoiled. So far, it looks like a good set for standard and limited.
Especially for the standard players, stop hoping certain to come back; standard is a dynamic format, so you can either adapt to change or play a different format.
1. Enchantments are a major theme, but that doesn't mean that card type will be synergistic or playable in any way if you were to define the word, "theme." It's flavor.
Good point. But they said that enchantments would be a major theme. Right now, there is no synergy at all with them.
And as I've mentioned ad nauseum, if they are going to say that it is an enchantment block, then it should have a bunch of support for enchantments. An enchantment block is not a bunch of cards that have enchantment on them "because flavor". It is a block with cards that interact with enchantments positively. I'll bring up my example of tribal again. If Wizards had 30 humans, 30 merfolk, 30 zombies, 30 goblins, and 30 elves in a block, and had no cards that encouraged tribal decks, would it still be a tribal block because "It's flavorfully tribal".
The point is that the enchantment part of those three themes hasn't showed up. Theros was marketed as an enchantment block. It has no playable support for enchantments. It is not an enchantment block. And also, if you admit that enchantments aren't the mechanical theme, you are also admitting that this isn't an enchantment block, which makes me right.
People are still going on that this is an 'Enchantment block'? Seriously!? Dude this is 'a Greek mythology theme' set with an enchantment 'sub theme'. It was the community of people like you that misunderstood that and labeled enchantments as the major theme. Wizards of the Coast NEVER intended this to have a theme 'focused' on enchantments.
Quote from Wizards of the Coast »
Theme: The Magic of the Gods
All Magic sets have powerful enchantment cards, and the Theros set features many Auras and other enchantments of the kind we're all used to playing with. But the Theros set also gives players enchantments unlike anything they've seen before. These new cards combine the enchantment card type with other card types to represent how the gods of Theros and their creations manifest themselves in the realm of mortals.
THIS! THIS is how Wizards of the Coast marketed the block. Again it was the community that misunderstood and misrepresented the block as enchantment block.
I understand that you want a theme based around things like Enchantresses, but this isn't it. It probably won't happen again for a while either. Who knows, maybe they will reprint 'A' enchantress in the next core set. But I doubt it.
People are still going on that this is an 'Enchantment block'? Seriously!? Dude this is 'a Greek mythology theme' set with an enchantment 'sub theme'. It was the community of people like you that misunderstood that and labeled enchantments as the major theme. Wizards of the Coast NEVER intended this to have a theme 'focused' on enchantments.
THIS! THIS is how Wizards of the Coast marketed the block. Again it was the community that misunderstood and misrepresented the block as enchantment block.
"Also, using enchantment creatures as the backbone for an enchantment block would allow us to solve one of the biggest sticking points of an enchantment block—how would black and red deal with the theme?"
"Return to Ravnica block and Magic 2014 were aware of the enchantment theme and made cards accordingly. Remember you haven’t seen the majority of Theros and none of Born of the Gods or Journey Into Nyx."
Theros block is very much about top-down design inspired by Greek mythology, but mechanically it is also very much about tapping into the potential of enchantments. One of the goals of design in this block was seeing if we could make enchantments matter but in a way a little different than we've made other things (artifacts, I'm looking at you) matter in the past. This goal asks, "Is this execution interesting?" and even more importantly, "Is this execution fun?"
At some point (possibly PAX) someone else at Wizards described the set thus:
There is a strong enchantment theme. Many of the strongest cards will be enchantments or interact with them.
The block has been marketed as both an enchantment block and a not-enchantment-block, sometimes both at the same time. One gets the impression the goal was to subvert our idea of what an "enchantment block" would look like, in which case every aspect of their execution thus far has been severely flawed.
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At some point (possibly PAX) someone else at Wizards described the set thus:
The block has been marketed as both an enchantment block and a not-enchantment-block, sometimes both at the same time. One gets the impression the goal was to subvert our idea of what an "enchantment block" would look like, in which case every aspect of their execution thus far has been severely flawed.
What I'm reading in these quotes/links is that they wanted to make enchantments a thing without removing black and red from the picture as dealing with enchantments is not something that they do without splashing other colors. As such these were discussion about the idea for that they had envisioned. So to allow black and red to stay interactive in an enchantment theme they decided to follow the idea that they had with making them the creations of gods as the first link you provided explained. They even made a direct reference to the first one created in Futuresight: Lucent Liminid. So their block was created to have an 'enchantment theme' to it, but not to make enchantments the focus of the block.
Your other quote also said this:
One of the goals of design in this block was seeing if we could make enchantments matter but in a way a little different than we've made other things (artifacts, I'm looking at you) matter in the past
Between the Gods, their weapons, and cards like Boon Satyr... I think they succeeded
What I'm reading in these quotes/links is that they wanted to make enchantments a thing without removing black and red from the picture as dealing with enchantments is not something that they do without splashing other colors. As such these were discussion about the idea for that they had envisioned. So to allow black and red to stay interactive in an enchantment theme they decided to follow the idea that they had with making them the creations of gods as the first link you provided explained.
This explains why there are enchantment creatures and auras and very few global enchantments. This is a smart way to increase the enchantment count while preserving interactivity in limited. I'm all aboard this particular train.
So their block was created to have an 'enchantment theme' to it, but not to make enchantments the focus of the block.
This, however, doesn't follow from the presence of enchantment creatures. Quite the opposite: enchantment creatures allow you to be more focused on enchantments than you could be if you didn't have access to that tool, because of limited.
Besides, your use of the term "enchantment theme" has virtually no meaning in this context; it's like saying that every block has a "creature theme".
Your other quote also said this:
I'm aware of that. Both my post and the post I quoted alluded to how various instances of marketing Theros block boil down to Wizards representatives talking out of both sides of their mouths on this question.
It's also pertinent to point out that Maro said they were making enchantments matter a little differently than they've made artifacts, which is a gross mischaracterization of what we know of Theros block so far.
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The enchantment part of the Gods hasn't shown up? Really? You mean besides the fact that the gods themselves are enchantments? Or their weapons? Or everything else from their realm of existence?
The weapons could have just as easily been artifacts, and there is only 1 playable bestow creature. Yes, there are the gods, but is there any synergy with enchantments? Is the enchantment theme present as a major mechanical theme?
What I'm reading in these quotes/links is that they wanted to make enchantments a thing without removing black and red from the picture as dealing with enchantments is not something that they do without splashing other colors. As such these were discussion about the idea for that they had envisioned. So to allow black and red to stay interactive in an enchantment theme they decided to follow the idea that they had with making them the creations of gods as the first link you provided explained. They even made a direct reference to the first one created in Futuresight: Lucent Liminid. So their block was created to have an 'enchantment theme' to it, but not to make enchantments the focus of the block.
Your other quote also said this:
One of the goals of design in this block was seeing if we could make enchantments matter but in a way a little different than we've made other things (artifacts, I'm looking at you) matter in the past
Okay, so they were intentionally making it different just for the sake of it being different. They took an idea that many people wanted to return to, and then said "Actually, we are just going to make a mechanic with almost no constructed applications, attack enchantment to a bunch of random creatures, and now we have an enchantment block. Only it is different. And different=better so you should all be happy." They might have done things differently, but they didn't do them well.
Heroic only works with auras, and we haven't seen any good auras get printed yet. And Devotion is not an enchantment mechanic. If a mechanic would work just as well with colored artifacts as with enchantments, then it is not an enchantment theme.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Anthem for white? Spear of Heliod, check. Pay-life-draw-cards for black? Erebos, God of the Dead, check. As the man said, two outta three ain't bad.
You all seem to be right about the unifying cards for enchantments, a la enchantresses, but there were some printed in M14 and RtR block that could be useful if you can overcome your disapointment that they aren't in Theros.
so we're ignoring the fact that the two most popular Standard decks right now are based on Devotion?
sounds like a perception issue to me. how you view the theme. Ravnica was in fact all about two color combinations and what their philosophies and mechanical overlap meant and could do. that was the designers' intention, whether or not that is how you perceived it.
that's what this is all about at the heart of it. you had expectations based on false pretenses and what you wanted the block to be about, and now you are upset that it didn't pan out that way. that's fine and understandable, but it doesn't make it a design failure. as has been mentioned ad nauseam, Theros block is first and foremost a top-down Greek mythology block. flavor defines it's identity more than any of it's mechanical themes, which were chosen to help illustrate that flavor.
again, that's an issue with your perception of what the "mechanical theme" is. MaRo has stated the themes to be Heros, Gods, and Monsters.
Heros are supported through Heroic and an aura subtheme (particularly Bestow). Gods are supported through Devotion, which has produced two top-tier decks so far, as well as a couple other lower-tiered decks. Monsters are supported through Monstrous and Tribute, generally scary fatties. Polukranos and Fleecemana Lion are pretty popular it seems, possibly a couple others i'm forgetting.
so, two of those themes have in fact shown up in tournament decks so far (and a fraction of the third if you count Boon Satyr). and even beyond using competitive success as a metric for support and simply looking at the cards themselves, the support is certainly there. the issue is how you are defining "support for mechanical themes" based on your expectations of how this block would look.
Form of the Dragon, son!
nailed it.
like somebody whom i forgot to multiquote mentioned above: think of it like Arcane in Kamigawa. the use of the enchantment subtype in Theros block is meant to convey the magic of the Gods in contrast to the mortal world. in that vein, the block does have an "enchantment subtheme." it's just getting a lot of flack because people expected that to mean something entirely different.
i don't recall anyone at WotC ever stating this was going to be "the Enchantress block" or anything.
I see there are some of the cards you may be speaking of in the other sets. However, none of these is quite as nice as the Enchantresses. I'm surprised we haven't seen anything like the three of them yet. I just speculate we will. I don't see much with what we have now available outside of Theros block, making as much of a synergistic impact. Will any of these cards be abused?
M14:
Blightcaster
Ajani's Chosen
[CARD]
Oath of the Ancient Wood
[/CARD]
RtR:
Ethereal Armor
Sphere of Safety
Gatecrash:
[CARD]
Treasury Thrull
[/CARD]
Dragon's Maze
ZERO
You forgot Auramancer from m14. Born of the Gods is introducing some repeatable enchantments that might be able to abuse Ajani's Chosen or, less likely, Oath of the Ancient Wood. Also, if you include Treasury Thrull then you should mention the spoiled Silent Sentinel.
[EDIT] Looking through the enchantment mentioning cards in Theros, almost all of them are removal for rather than support for. Very disappointing.
I keep seeing this argument that some cards could easily be printed as non enchant and be the same card. Would you really be okay with an normal artifact giving an anthem effect or lifelink to all your creatures? Or these new global enchant creatures, can you not see what wizard is doing there? Would Fate Unraveler be better to you if it's flavor text was "This card is the creature version of underworld dreams " because its clear to me why it's an enchantment.
I can't justify enchantment critter tokens, but I like the art direction of them, I like that enchant destruction with heavily go up in value in limited and I'm confident that cards will be printed in this block that care about your enchantment count.
How many cards cared about enchantments in theros not counting prot. or destruction?
0? Now in BnG there is already 2 with only 1/3 of the set being relevealed. Seems like that number will go up in time, with enchantress effects being most likely in Jou.
I understand that there is less pure enchantment synergy than you would have liked, and while that is a valid complaint, trying to make the argument that this isn't an enchantment block, when you've seen less than half the block, seems shortsighted to me.
Theros is an aura focused set with extremely powerful enchantments that have dramatically shifted the metagame. BnG is looking to keep up that theme, but with even more enchantment cards and support. This is an enchantment block, just not what you were hoping for I guess.
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Even if Wizards didn't capitalize on the potential of enchantment matters, I'm glad they are pacing themselves. Having cards that care about enchantments just to care about them as a full block theme seems like box-checking. I have a feeling the whole block will make more "sense" when it is complete.
What feels way more like box checking is having a bunch of cards that are not enchantments in any way except for the word enchantment on them, and then nothing that cares about it.
And no, it doesn't give me the feeling it's moving towards a deeper traditional enchantment theme. It is actually doing quite the opposite, it makes me feel like their will be no traditional enchantments at all, instead just creatures with a tacked on enchantment type.
Not enchantments in any way? So Enchantment creatures that can be played as Auras do not interact like enchantments in any way? I must be missing something here, because your reasoning is fundamentally flawed.
Yeah, let's complete ignore the cards I'm actually talking about like the archetypes, fate unraveler, or the inspire tokens.
Let's focus instead around the unplayable bestow creatures and claim that now that you can staple one creature onto another creature, somehow enchantment support is covered.
Before Whip of Erebos, there were two enchantments that gave lifelink to multiple creatures, and one of them only gave it to Zombies. Artifacts had previously given lifelink to single creatures as equipment, similar to a number of auras. One of those equipment was just a type-shifted aura. I'm fairly certain Whip of Erebos could have been a colored non-enchantment artifact without breaking anything.
This is obvious to everyone, but it doesn't make it any less lazy, incomprehensible design. There are two justifications for Fate Unraveler: "flavor," whatever that means, and "get it?!" Neither is remotely satisfying.
~ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Good point. But they said that enchantments would be a major theme. Right now, there is no synergy at all with them.
And as I've mentioned ad nauseum, if they are going to say that it is an enchantment block, then it should have a bunch of support for enchantments. An enchantment block is not a bunch of cards that have enchantment on them "because flavor". It is a block with cards that interact with enchantments positively. I'll bring up my example of tribal again. If Wizards had 30 humans, 30 merfolk, 30 zombies, 30 goblins, and 30 elves in a block, and had no cards that encouraged tribal decks, would it still be a tribal block because "It's flavorfully tribal".
The point is that the enchantment part of those three themes hasn't showed up. Theros was marketed as an enchantment block. It has no playable support for enchantments. It is not an enchantment block. And also, if you admit that enchantments aren't the mechanical theme, you are also admitting that this isn't an enchantment block, which makes me right.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
"Unplayable"? Looks like someone is forgetting how sets are designed.
Hint, it's called Limited.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
The enchantment part of the Gods hasn't shown up? Really? You mean besides the fact that the gods themselves are enchantments? Or their weapons? Or everything else from their realm of existence?
A lot of people are upset because of arbitrary reasons. It's okay to like or dislike BNG, but only 1/3 of the set is spoiled. So far, it looks like a good set for standard and limited.
Especially for the standard players, stop hoping certain to come back; standard is a dynamic format, so you can either adapt to change or play a different format.
1. Enchantments are a major theme, but that doesn't mean that card type will be synergistic or playable in any way if you were to define the word, "theme." It's flavor.
I am ready to draft and play cards, R&D!
People are still going on that this is an 'Enchantment block'? Seriously!? Dude this is 'a Greek mythology theme' set with an enchantment 'sub theme'. It was the community of people like you that misunderstood that and labeled enchantments as the major theme. Wizards of the Coast NEVER intended this to have a theme 'focused' on enchantments.
THIS! THIS is how Wizards of the Coast marketed the block. Again it was the community that misunderstood and misrepresented the block as enchantment block.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/faq/ths
I understand that you want a theme based around things like Enchantresses, but this isn't it. It probably won't happen again for a while either. Who knows, maybe they will reprint 'A' enchantress in the next core set. But I doubt it.
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
Additionally, Maro listed "Show That We Could Execute an Enchantment Block" as one of his goals for the block, elaborating:
At some point (possibly PAX) someone else at Wizards described the set thus:
The block has been marketed as both an enchantment block and a not-enchantment-block, sometimes both at the same time. One gets the impression the goal was to subvert our idea of what an "enchantment block" would look like, in which case every aspect of their execution thus far has been severely flawed.
~ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
What I'm reading in these quotes/links is that they wanted to make enchantments a thing without removing black and red from the picture as dealing with enchantments is not something that they do without splashing other colors. As such these were discussion about the idea for that they had envisioned. So to allow black and red to stay interactive in an enchantment theme they decided to follow the idea that they had with making them the creations of gods as the first link you provided explained. They even made a direct reference to the first one created in Futuresight: Lucent Liminid. So their block was created to have an 'enchantment theme' to it, but not to make enchantments the focus of the block.
Your other quote also said this:
Between the Gods, their weapons, and cards like Boon Satyr... I think they succeeded
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
This, however, doesn't follow from the presence of enchantment creatures. Quite the opposite: enchantment creatures allow you to be more focused on enchantments than you could be if you didn't have access to that tool, because of limited.
Besides, your use of the term "enchantment theme" has virtually no meaning in this context; it's like saying that every block has a "creature theme".
I'm aware of that. Both my post and the post I quoted alluded to how various instances of marketing Theros block boil down to Wizards representatives talking out of both sides of their mouths on this question.
It's also pertinent to point out that Maro said they were making enchantments matter a little differently than they've made artifacts, which is a gross mischaracterization of what we know of Theros block so far.
~ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
The weapons could have just as easily been artifacts, and there is only 1 playable bestow creature. Yes, there are the gods, but is there any synergy with enchantments? Is the enchantment theme present as a major mechanical theme?
Okay, so they were intentionally making it different just for the sake of it being different. They took an idea that many people wanted to return to, and then said "Actually, we are just going to make a mechanic with almost no constructed applications, attack enchantment to a bunch of random creatures, and now we have an enchantment block. Only it is different. And different=better so you should all be happy." They might have done things differently, but they didn't do them well.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.