As for Modern playable cards, New Ulamog is great in tron, and having seen it in action myself it's a welcome addition. The "upon casting Clause" means it's always going to hit 2 permanents, and if if it gets remanded even better
As for other cards...I've been more excited about left overs.
I do want to see some new Eldrazi arch types come up and compete, but will somehow I think Abzan will crush everything that's not a dragon shell or Jeskai. So...I leave it to the players who have the time to break these cards; but even they are telling me it's bland. I want my hobby to be spicy all the time, but this time it's like they gave me chips with no Salsa
Lastly, being that half of us are idiots who will drool over full arts lands, we'll buy and get those aesthetically pleasing full art lands because in our vain minds it just make our decks look cooler. Along with the Expedition Lottery, wizards will see this as a huge success and wonder how stupid we are because despite us not liking a product we'll still fork over money. Me...at least I'll be honest and say I want full arts. Will I spend a ton? NO, I'd rather buy tequila shots. Someone in WOTC must have gotten a raise and promotion for this.
Leaving aside the limited design rant, I believe you can see that designing for limited AND constructed is not as easy as it looks, WotC designs for it's 2 main formats, which are Draft and Standard, and that's it, cards are balanced for those formats only, for good or bad, whether a set is a success or a failure will be evaluated solely on those 2 formats, even so, I believe there are some cards that have potential in older formats, and are at least interesting to try, even if they don't make the jump, that doesn't make this set a failure.
It's a good thing they design for standard/limited because they would have to constantly push sets hard to impact modern on a large basis in every set. The power creep would get so out of hand that people would be complaining how their older cards were constantly getting invalidated. Call me crazy but don't people like Modern/Legacy because you can build a deck for those formats and barring bannings that deck will likely be at least pretty good FOREVER?
I mean even accidental broken cards still make it through in todays MTG I sincerely doubt they thought Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time would end up banned in Legacy/Modern when they were designing and developing Khans.
Even if they did, those formats have banned and restricted lists to balance them out and correct mistakes, you inadvertently screw Vintage, modern or legacy, you can correct it within 3 months, no harm done, most players in those formats are used to bannings and unbannings, where a bad limited or standard format, can make one hell of a lot more damage to the game.
Right my point was more people wanting like 10-20 cards that shake up Modern or Legacy with every set your talking about chaos man. I don't care that they make a few cards now and then that shake up modern/legacy. I mean those two cards show how much impact cards like that can have on older formats. I also want to point out that if Treasure Cruise was a mythic rare people would have been pretty annoyed if they bought their playset for legacy/modern and then 3 months later they can't play it.
There is a world of difference between wanting cards that shake up eternal formats and cards that are at least potentially playable in those formats.
And there is a fine line between a card that is playable in eternal formats and one that will shake up an eternal format. Look at Monastery Swiftspear. It's balanced just right to walk that line. But any change in power, in either direction, would change that. Lower the cost and it's way too powerful. Raise the cost and it's too weak. Add or increase the power of an ability at the existing mana cost, too powerful. Take away any of the existing abilities, too weak. How would you change Treasure Cruise to not be too powerful in eternal formats, but still be playable? Are you sure your changes would work? And how easy could you be sure if you mainly test the power level of your cards for Draft and Standard instead of Modern or Legacy/Vintage?
It's a good thing they design for standard/limited because they would have to constantly push sets hard to impact modern on a large basis in every set. The power creep would get so out of hand that people would be complaining how their older cards were constantly getting invalidated. Call me crazy but don't people like Modern/Legacy because you can build a deck for those formats and barring bannings that deck will likely be at least pretty good FOREVER?
I mean even accidental broken cards still make it through in todays MTG I sincerely doubt they thought Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time would end up banned in Legacy/Modern when they were designing and developing Khans.
Even if they did, those formats have banned and restricted lists to balance them out and correct mistakes, you inadvertently screw Vintage, modern or legacy, you can correct it within 3 months, no harm done, most players in those formats are used to bannings and unbannings, where a bad limited or standard format, can make one hell of a lot more damage to the game.
Right my point was more people wanting like 10-20 cards that shake up Modern or Legacy with every set your talking about chaos man. I don't care that they make a few cards now and then that shake up modern/legacy. I mean those two cards show how much impact cards like that can have on older formats. I also want to point out that if Treasure Cruise was a mythic rare people would have been pretty annoyed if they bought their playset for legacy/modern and then 3 months later they can't play it.
There is a world of difference between wanting cards that shake up eternal formats and cards that are at least potentially playable in those formats.
And there is a fine line between a card that is playable in eternal formats and one that will shake up an eternal format. Look at Monastery Swiftspear. It's balanced just right to walk that line. But any change in power, in either direction, would change that. Lower the cost and it's way too powerful. Raise the cost and it's too weak. Add or increase the power of an ability at the existing mana cost, too powerful. Take away any of the existing abilities, too weak. How would you change Treasure Cruise to not be too powerful in eternal formats, but still be playable? Are you sure your changes would work? And how easy could you be sure if you mainly test the power level of your cards for Draft and Standard instead of Modern or Legacy/Vintage?
Good christ imagine how broken swiftspear would be at two power.
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Standard
Meh
Modern BUWEsper ControlWUB BRUGrixis DelverURB WRBGKiki ChordGBRW WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW BRGJundGRB
Wrong. People think they want powerful cards, but what they really want are balanced cards. How often do you hear people complaining that they lost to some bomb they couldn't deal with, or how a specific card warps an entire format.
Plus I always find it weird when people who play eternal or semi-eternal formats demand new sets to have cards for their decks. If you want to play with new cards, play with a more limited card pool, aka standard. The bigger the card pool the higher the bar for new cards to enter that format, which means that as time progresses fewer and fewer cards per block are viable for those formats. If you don't get that very simple formula, then nobody can help you, but it's like complaining about gravity, because no matter how hard wizards tries, they will either shake up eternal formats each year through powercreep or provide next to no eternally playable cards in each block.
Powerful doesn't equal unbalanced, broken or bahbroken to use an R&D term, Abrupt decay is a powerful card, and it isn't broken and it wasn't unbalanced in it's time, you could print Stoneforge Mystic in this environment and it would be fine, the card would still be powerful, just correctly balanced for the environment.
people assume there is no middle ground between power creep and stagnation. that is just silly. the power level doesn't have to climb, it can go sideways. new engine cards, cool build around cards or mechanics, that one card to push a nearly competitive deck to playable. it happened with Merfolk and Elves, Goblins is getting close, they could have given Modern really good Allies. but they didn't
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
people assume there is no middle ground between power creep and stagnation. that is just silly. the power level doesn't have to climb, it can go sideways. new engine cards, cool build around cards or mechanics, that one card to push a nearly competitive deck to playable. it happened with Merfolk and Elves, Goblins is getting close, they could have given Modern really good Allies. but they didn't
No, they couldn't of. Making a bunch of modern quality allies would make allies far too strong in Standard. Balance in standard is far more important than creating new cards for modern.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Well, we got a 1 mana 2/1 ally and a ally rainbow land for modern, plus a couple more of playable 3 mana allys which might or might not be playable in the same deck, if what you wanted is something like Hada freeblade, you have the following problem, it turns out that Eldrazi exists in the same draft format as these Allys would exist, and they needed the eldrazi to be playable, as it's one of the main themes of the set, if you push allys to the "really good" territory, you screw up the format, making the Eldrazi nearly unplayable, the other solution would be... sure, make a couple of them hyper aggressive, so they can be played in modern, but you have to make them rare and mythic rare so they don't show up too often in draft, and nobody wants those cards at rare and mythic.
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
I think people just want all 10 fetchlands in Modern (meaning accessible and not $50-$75+ each, more $10-$20 like the KTK ones). This means getting them in a set that has a decent print run, and not some limited MM or Commander product - even tho' MM would be the place to print them... said everyone except WotC.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
I think people just want all 10 fetchlands in Modern (meaning accessible and not $50-$75+ each, more $10-$20 like the KTK ones). This means getting them in a set that has a decent print run, and not some limited MM or Commander product - even tho' MM would be the place to print them... said everyone except WotC.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
Absolutely. I want enemy fetches reprinted as well, and I was surprised that they weren't reprinted in DTK (and now, BFZ). Just making it clear that the idea that Wizards presented, that 10 fetchlands would have made 5 color good, seems completely unfounded.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
Absolutely. I want enemy fetches reprinted as well, and I was surprised that they weren't reprinted in DTK (and now, BFZ). Just making it clear that the idea that Wizards presented, that 10 fetchlands would have made 5 color good, seems completely unfounded.
Given how dumb the new duals would be without fetches available,
I won't be surprised if we get the enemy fetches back in the next block.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
If all ten fetchlands were legal (assuming they take the place of the Battle Lands), mana fixing would be quite poor in standard. Three color would still be viable because of the trilands, but it would be far worse than it was during THS-KTK. We'd end up running the gainlands to get enough colored mana in the deck.
I think people just want all 10 fetchlands in Modern (meaning accessible and not $50-$75+ each, more $10-$20 like the KTK ones). This means getting them in a set that has a decent print run, and not some limited MM or Commander product - even tho' MM would be the place to print them... said everyone except WotC.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
Wrong, MM is definitely not the place to print them, precisely because of the limited print run, you need to put them in a Standard legal set, but they carry a lot of baggage, having them along with dual lands, makes for undesirable environment, as people just jam any card in their decks, as long as it's powerful, that's just nor right, then there's the time issue in tournaments, as all the searching takes too much time, and then there's new players who don't understand the value of a land, specially one that doesn't produce mana and requires you to loose a life in order to be able to, and are disappointing when they open one, and then there's the marketing baggage, as fetchlands sell packs and you don't want to put them in any set, you want them to be valuable as MtG was still a TCG last time I checked, if you print them every 2 years, that's just not gonna happen, we just got ONS fetchlands, it's gonna be at least 3 or 4 years (starting from Khans) before we get them in another expansion
This thread has been an interesting read. A few points that have come to mind:
1) I wonder if the set would have been better received (or at least had a less negative reaction) if it didn't have the word "Zendikar" in the name. A lot of the disappointment seems to stem from the fact that this set is a very far departure from the original Zendikar in terms of flavor, mechanics, and power level. Managing expectations is an important part of successful marketing, and maybe referring to the Eldrazi instead of the plane in the name would have been a better tactic.
2) A lot of criticism is met with statements like, "Wait until you play with the cards." The thing is, a set doesn't succeed or fail along only the axis of game play. First impressions are very important, too. In an article about impressions, Mark Rosewater wrote, "You see, it's all well and good to make an awesome set, but you still have to make sure players discover that it's awesome." (source). BFZ has been met with a fairly strong negative reaction initially. Regardless of how perceptions change (or don't change) over time, a bad first impression is still an important thing for WotC to avoid.
3) I can't speak for every eternal player, but for me, I don't generally look to new sets for format-defining cards for Modern, Legacy, or Vintage. What I do look for are role-players and sideboard options. Usually basic cards make me pretty happy. Rending Volley and Roast are great examples of recent cards that interested me. They certainly aren't broken in any format, but they can play a role, even in non-rotating formats.
Also, it isn't just about finding cards that are cheaper or more pushed than previous cards. A couple of my favorite examples are Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim. They each have roles to play in Eternal formats even though one costs three times as much as the other for the same basic effect.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
Absolutely. I want enemy fetches reprinted as well, and I was surprised that they weren't reprinted in DTK (and now, BFZ). Just making it clear that the idea that Wizards presented, that 10 fetchlands would have made 5 color good, seems completely unfounded.
Given how dumb the new duals would be without fetches available,
I won't be surprised if we get the enemy fetches back in the next block.
What's dumb about them? They are as dumb as the shocklands without fetchlands, they just generate different gameplay than you like/want/are used to.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
In testing I died to red aggro decks on turn 5 or shortly thereafter, a deck that has little or no cards from BfZ depending on the build, trying to play slow durdly BfZ decks. A small sample size to be sure, but just goes to show the "you haven't played with the cards" argument is just another useless extension of the "they've only spoiled X% of the set" argument. You can just look at the numbers on the cards to see predict how weak the power-level will be. Do a bit of testing and the idea that the Khans/Origins cards are wiping the floor with the new cards becomes even clearer (new duals excepted - those are sweet).
When "I don't like brewing with these cards" is met with "you haven't brewed with these cards!" it kind of sounds like people aren't listening and would respond to any complaint with "you don't know what you're talking about." Which is how we get in these circular discussion...
As for Modern, I don't know, I've been mainly looking at Standard, but I have this hunch:
R/G Tron is kind of on the bench at the moment, as least according to the last few Modern tournaments I've watched. Your mileage may vary; I know that my store's meta, which is fairly small, consists mainly of decks that Tron can do little against; you're stuck racing Storm or Life from the Loam or something like that that doesn't play to the board. At the SCG opens it seems to struggle to get on its feet under the rush of something like Infect or Affinity. All in all, everything I've seen is that Tron's main weakness is it's too slow. If that is the case, what on earth would you take out for a 7-mana instant or a 9-mana creature? My list has a little wiggle room, but I'm not taking out a Karn Liberated or an All Is Dust for a Scour from Existence. That's just silly. I did slot in a Sanctum of Ugin, just to see, but that's about it.
That is exactly correct. And it's why I've previously referenced it as Stockholm Syndrome. They are so in love with the set for whatever reason that they are unwilling to look at it objectively and/or entertain any form of legitimate criticism against it.
To be fair, "I don't like brewing with these cards" isn't what I would call a legitimate criticism. When people to post reasonable criticisms of the set, the topics seem to be met with reasonable discussion. For example, when people say "allies are not a well tied together faction and there is no obvious reason why ally X is an ally but creature Y isn't" they are making a reasonable criticisms, with reference to actual cards. When they say "My 5 minutes of testing hasn't revealed anything strong enough" or "wizards should print more playable cards" they are largely being unreasonable. They are just making blanket unsupported claims.
If someone wants to say that there aren't enough playable cards, and be taken seriously, they are going to need to first establish a baseline for what 'enough playable cards' is by studying old sets, and then manage to successfully argue that greater than 274-"enough playable cards" in BFZ are unplayable.
In the mean time, I'm going to keep brewing, enjoying draft, and collecting my full art lands.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
This thread has been an interesting read. A few points that have come to mind:
1) I wonder if the set would have been better received (or at least had a less negative reaction) if it didn't have the word "Zendikar" in the name. A lot of the disappointment seems to stem from the fact that this set is a very far departure from the original Zendikar in terms of flavor, mechanics, and power level. Managing expectations is an important part of successful marketing, and maybe referring to the Eldrazi instead of the plane in the name would have been a better tactic.
2) A lot of criticism is met with statements like, "Wait until you play with the cards." The thing is, a set doesn't succeed or fail along only the axis of game play. First impressions are very important, too. In an article about impressions, Mark Rosewater wrote, "You see, it's all well and good to make an awesome set, but you still have to make sure players discover that it's awesome." (source). BFZ has been met with a fairly strong negative reaction initially. Regardless of how perceptions change (or don't change) over time, a bad first impression is still an important thing for WotC to avoid.
3) I can't speak for every eternal player, but for me, I don't generally look to new sets for format-defining cards for Modern, Legacy, or Vintage. What I do look for are role-players and sideboard options. Usually basic cards make me pretty happy. Rending Volley and Roast are great examples of recent cards that interested me. They certainly aren't broken in any format, but they can play a role, even in non-rotating formats.
Also, it isn't just about finding cards that are cheaper or more pushed than previous cards. A couple of my favorite examples are Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim. They each have roles to play in Eternal formats even though one costs three times as much as the other for the same basic effect.
In reference to the eternal format side of it, this is generally how I am as well. "X card could be interesting to side in if I'm matching up against x deck"
On an unrelated note Rending volley has won me a number of games playing affinity and grixis delver vs twin. That might be my favorite card of the last 3 5 sets.
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Standard
Meh
Modern BUWEsper ControlWUB BRUGrixis DelverURB WRBGKiki ChordGBRW WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW BRGJundGRB
This thread has been an interesting read. A few points that have come to mind:
1) I wonder if the set would have been better received (or at least had a less negative reaction) if it didn't have the word "Zendikar" in the name. A lot of the disappointment seems to stem from the fact that this set is a very far departure from the original Zendikar in terms of flavor, mechanics, and power level. Managing expectations is an important part of successful marketing, and maybe referring to the Eldrazi instead of the plane in the name would have been a better tactic.
2) A lot of criticism is met with statements like, "Wait until you play with the cards." The thing is, a set doesn't succeed or fail along only the axis of game play. First impressions are very important, too. In an article about impressions, Mark Rosewater wrote, "You see, it's all well and good to make an awesome set, but you still have to make sure players discover that it's awesome." (source). BFZ has been met with a fairly strong negative reaction initially. Regardless of how perceptions change (or don't change) over time, a bad first impression is still an important thing for WotC to avoid.
3) I can't speak for every eternal player, but for me, I don't generally look to new sets for format-defining cards for Modern, Legacy, or Vintage. What I do look for are role-players and sideboard options. Usually basic cards make me pretty happy. Rending Volley and Roast are great examples of recent cards that interested me. They certainly aren't broken in any format, but they can play a role, even in non-rotating formats.
Also, it isn't just about finding cards that are cheaper or more pushed than previous cards. A couple of my favorite examples are Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim. They each have roles to play in Eternal formats even though one costs three times as much as the other for the same basic effect.
Is everyone seeing this? This is what the voice of reason looks like.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
When "I don't like brewing with these cards" is met with "you haven't brewed with these cards!" it kind of sounds like people aren't listening and would respond to any complaint with "you don't know what you're talking about." Which is how we get in these circular discussion...
That is exactly correct. And it's why I've previously referenced it as Stockholm Syndrome. They are so in love with the set for whatever reason that they are unwilling to look at it objectively and/or entertain any form of legitimate criticism against it.
Oh yeah, people excited to play with these cards are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Every card is objectively terrible in every possible situation and no card from this set will see play in any format ever. Just like Treasure Cruise. And Desecration Demon. And Stormbreath Dragon. And Stoneforge Mystic. I guess that's why all of the card sites are pre-selling cards for pennies. Because they won't be able to burn them for heat, let alone sell them.
Your absolute arrogance is unreal.
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Level 1 Judge
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
This thread is hilarious. People are working really hard to defend the set with the rare 2 mana Typhoid Rats. But people keep overlooking the sweet new Grozoth targets.
This thread has been an interesting read. A few points that have come to mind:
1) I wonder if the set would have been better received (or at least had a less negative reaction) if it didn't have the word "Zendikar" in the name. A lot of the disappointment seems to stem from the fact that this set is a very far departure from the original Zendikar in terms of flavor, mechanics, and power level. Managing expectations is an important part of successful marketing, and maybe referring to the Eldrazi instead of the plane in the name would have been a better tactic.
2) A lot of criticism is met with statements like, "Wait until you play with the cards." The thing is, a set doesn't succeed or fail along only the axis of game play. First impressions are very important, too. In an article about impressions, Mark Rosewater wrote, "You see, it's all well and good to make an awesome set, but you still have to make sure players discover that it's awesome." (source). BFZ has been met with a fairly strong negative reaction initially. Regardless of how perceptions change (or don't change) over time, a bad first impression is still an important thing for WotC to avoid.
3) I can't speak for every eternal player, but for me, I don't generally look to new sets for format-defining cards for Modern, Legacy, or Vintage. What I do look for are role-players and sideboard options. Usually basic cards make me pretty happy. Rending Volley and Roast are great examples of recent cards that interested me. They certainly aren't broken in any format, but they can play a role, even in non-rotating formats.
Also, it isn't just about finding cards that are cheaper or more pushed than previous cards. A couple of my favorite examples are Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim. They each have roles to play in Eternal formats even though one costs three times as much as the other for the same basic effect.
Is everyone seeing this? This is what the voice of reason looks like.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
When "I don't like brewing with these cards" is met with "you haven't brewed with these cards!" it kind of sounds like people aren't listening and would respond to any complaint with "you don't know what you're talking about." Which is how we get in these circular discussion...
That is exactly correct. And it's why I've previously referenced it as Stockholm Syndrome. They are so in love with the set for whatever reason that they are unwilling to look at it objectively and/or entertain any form of legitimate criticism against it.
Oh yeah, people excited to play with these cards are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Every card is objectively terrible in every possible situation and no card from this set will see play in any format ever. Just like Treasure Cruise. And Desecration Demon. And Stormbreath Dragon. And Stoneforge Mystic. I guess that's why all of the card sites are pre-selling cards for pennies. Because they won't be able to burn them for heat, let alone sell them.
I love how people keep calling a set low power level without even playing with the cards, time will tell, it might be it might not, at least back up your claims with facts... which you don't have right now and won't have until people have played with the set.
When "I don't like brewing with these cards" is met with "you haven't brewed with these cards!" it kind of sounds like people aren't listening and would respond to any complaint with "you don't know what you're talking about." Which is how we get in these circular discussion...
You see, most of us are actually doing the opposite, you have an actual complaint about the set, go ahead, let's discuss it, I think X card had potential, but it lacks x, y or z, or I believe this cards are badly positioned because of this and this, just saying "this set is low power level" because of reasons (which you don't state), is gonna be meet with... Play with the cards for more than a prerelease, make decks, test them for more than 5 minutes, then you can actually share your conclusions.
Again, you should check out MaRo's blog, there's been a lot of people both complaining and complimenting the set, from a design/development perspective, I believe it's a great set, it seems like standard will be interesting to figure out, of course there are the obvious decks that survive rotation, but there also seems to be new archetypes to be build, they have certainly lowered the power level of removal and ramp to allow some breathing room for other strategies, but that's it, you can't expect every standard format to be the same and play the same strategy over and over again, I don't know about you, but I'd get bored and quit, which is most certainly not what wizards wants.
1) Read my post and try to explain to me how Prism Array or Defiant Bloodlord will ever see any constructed format of play. Please.
Literally every set ever has had bad rares. What is your point?
2) As someone whose username is Teysa, you should know first hand what it is like to see an awesome character and card like Teysa, Orzhov Scion be brought back as a limited only rare Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. Lets forget that she brought down a dragon and then rode that thing into combat. No, lets talk how she went from 3cmc to 7. You yourself should understand how Vorthos players such as myself are let down by this shoddy return.
She is also fun in commander, but whatever. Why do you think its bad for a character to return with a different mana cost? Your question is rhetorical, but it is lost on me because the answer isn't obvious. I also don't understand what Teysa has to do with BFZ?
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Oh yeah, people excited to play with these cards are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Every card is objectively terrible in every possible situation and no card from this set will see play in any format ever. Just like Treasure Cruise. And Desecration Demon. And Stormbreath Dragon. And Stoneforge Mystic. I guess that's why all of the card sites are pre-selling cards for pennies. Because they won't be able to burn them for heat, let alone sell them.
Your absolute arrogance is unreal.
1) Read my post and try to explain to me how Prism Array or Defiant Bloodlord will ever see any constructed format of play. Please.
2) As someone whose username is Teysa, you should know first hand what it is like to see an awesome character and card like Teysa, Orzhov Scion be brought back as a limited only rare Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. Lets forget that she brought down a dragon and then rode that thing into combat. No, lets talk how she went from 3cmc to 7. You yourself should understand how Vorthos players such as myself are let down by this shoddy return.
You are not a Vorthos, if you were, you'd understand that she's stronger now, she's bigger and more powerful (4/4 Protection from creatures, kills anything that touches you and you get a spirit token), mana cost has nothing to do with being a Vorthos, Teysa 2.0 being stronger HAD to cost more mana, you liked her previous card because it was efficient, that makes you a Spike. I don't see you complainig about Drana, if you see her card, she's clearly weaker than her previous self, but her new card is more efficient, see the difference?
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As for other cards...I've been more excited about left overs.
I do want to see some new Eldrazi arch types come up and compete, but will somehow I think Abzan will crush everything that's not a dragon shell or Jeskai. So...I leave it to the players who have the time to break these cards; but even they are telling me it's bland. I want my hobby to be spicy all the time, but this time it's like they gave me chips with no Salsa
Lastly, being that half of us are idiots who will drool over full arts lands, we'll buy and get those aesthetically pleasing full art lands because in our vain minds it just make our decks look cooler. Along with the Expedition Lottery, wizards will see this as a huge success and wonder how stupid we are because despite us not liking a product we'll still fork over money. Me...at least I'll be honest and say I want full arts. Will I spend a ton? NO, I'd rather buy tequila shots. Someone in WOTC must have gotten a raise and promotion for this.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
Good christ imagine how broken swiftspear would be at two power.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
Wrong. People think they want powerful cards, but what they really want are balanced cards. How often do you hear people complaining that they lost to some bomb they couldn't deal with, or how a specific card warps an entire format.
Plus I always find it weird when people who play eternal or semi-eternal formats demand new sets to have cards for their decks. If you want to play with new cards, play with a more limited card pool, aka standard. The bigger the card pool the higher the bar for new cards to enter that format, which means that as time progresses fewer and fewer cards per block are viable for those formats. If you don't get that very simple formula, then nobody can help you, but it's like complaining about gravity, because no matter how hard wizards tries, they will either shake up eternal formats each year through powercreep or provide next to no eternally playable cards in each block.
Well, I doubt any cards from BFZ will make it on the Vintage Restricted list. Also, a set featuring a badger pulling a drum solo on a skull is a hit in my book. The Sengir family had more flavor than any of these conglomerated allies or undistinguishable eldrazis. Hey, the set had fatties too! 7CMC for an 8/8? Still better stats than Ruin Processor. Homelands had all that plus a Didgeridoo and corn dogs.
So, all important things considered: Homelands > BFZ
No, they couldn't of. Making a bunch of modern quality allies would make allies far too strong in Standard. Balance in standard is far more important than creating new cards for modern.
- Manite
I think people just want all 10 fetchlands in Modern (meaning accessible and not $50-$75+ each, more $10-$20 like the KTK ones). This means getting them in a set that has a decent print run, and not some limited MM or Commander product - even tho' MM would be the place to print them... said everyone except WotC.
Having them in standard is less of a requirement IMO as it is having them printed in a decent quantity.
http://www.cubetutor.com/visualspoiler/20765
Absolutely. I want enemy fetches reprinted as well, and I was surprised that they weren't reprinted in DTK (and now, BFZ). Just making it clear that the idea that Wizards presented, that 10 fetchlands would have made 5 color good, seems completely unfounded.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
I too want enemy fetches reprinted. The pricing makes many modern decks completely inaccessible to most people
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
Given how dumb the new duals would be without fetches available,
I won't be surprised if we get the enemy fetches back in the next block.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Wrong, MM is definitely not the place to print them, precisely because of the limited print run, you need to put them in a Standard legal set, but they carry a lot of baggage, having them along with dual lands, makes for undesirable environment, as people just jam any card in their decks, as long as it's powerful, that's just nor right, then there's the time issue in tournaments, as all the searching takes too much time, and then there's new players who don't understand the value of a land, specially one that doesn't produce mana and requires you to loose a life in order to be able to, and are disappointing when they open one, and then there's the marketing baggage, as fetchlands sell packs and you don't want to put them in any set, you want them to be valuable as MtG was still a TCG last time I checked, if you print them every 2 years, that's just not gonna happen, we just got ONS fetchlands, it's gonna be at least 3 or 4 years (starting from Khans) before we get them in another expansion
1) I wonder if the set would have been better received (or at least had a less negative reaction) if it didn't have the word "Zendikar" in the name. A lot of the disappointment seems to stem from the fact that this set is a very far departure from the original Zendikar in terms of flavor, mechanics, and power level. Managing expectations is an important part of successful marketing, and maybe referring to the Eldrazi instead of the plane in the name would have been a better tactic.
2) A lot of criticism is met with statements like, "Wait until you play with the cards." The thing is, a set doesn't succeed or fail along only the axis of game play. First impressions are very important, too. In an article about impressions, Mark Rosewater wrote, "You see, it's all well and good to make an awesome set, but you still have to make sure players discover that it's awesome." (source). BFZ has been met with a fairly strong negative reaction initially. Regardless of how perceptions change (or don't change) over time, a bad first impression is still an important thing for WotC to avoid.
3) I can't speak for every eternal player, but for me, I don't generally look to new sets for format-defining cards for Modern, Legacy, or Vintage. What I do look for are role-players and sideboard options. Usually basic cards make me pretty happy. Rending Volley and Roast are great examples of recent cards that interested me. They certainly aren't broken in any format, but they can play a role, even in non-rotating formats.
Also, it isn't just about finding cards that are cheaper or more pushed than previous cards. A couple of my favorite examples are Krosan Grip and Nature's Claim. They each have roles to play in Eternal formats even though one costs three times as much as the other for the same basic effect.
What's dumb about them? They are as dumb as the shocklands without fetchlands, they just generate different gameplay than you like/want/are used to.
In testing I died to red aggro decks on turn 5 or shortly thereafter, a deck that has little or no cards from BfZ depending on the build, trying to play slow durdly BfZ decks. A small sample size to be sure, but just goes to show the "you haven't played with the cards" argument is just another useless extension of the "they've only spoiled X% of the set" argument. You can just look at the numbers on the cards to see predict how weak the power-level will be. Do a bit of testing and the idea that the Khans/Origins cards are wiping the floor with the new cards becomes even clearer (new duals excepted - those are sweet).
When "I don't like brewing with these cards" is met with "you haven't brewed with these cards!" it kind of sounds like people aren't listening and would respond to any complaint with "you don't know what you're talking about." Which is how we get in these circular discussion...
As for Modern, I don't know, I've been mainly looking at Standard, but I have this hunch:
R/G Tron is kind of on the bench at the moment, as least according to the last few Modern tournaments I've watched. Your mileage may vary; I know that my store's meta, which is fairly small, consists mainly of decks that Tron can do little against; you're stuck racing Storm or Life from the Loam or something like that that doesn't play to the board. At the SCG opens it seems to struggle to get on its feet under the rush of something like Infect or Affinity. All in all, everything I've seen is that Tron's main weakness is it's too slow. If that is the case, what on earth would you take out for a 7-mana instant or a 9-mana creature? My list has a little wiggle room, but I'm not taking out a Karn Liberated or an All Is Dust for a Scour from Existence. That's just silly. I did slot in a Sanctum of Ugin, just to see, but that's about it.
To be fair, "I don't like brewing with these cards" isn't what I would call a legitimate criticism. When people to post reasonable criticisms of the set, the topics seem to be met with reasonable discussion. For example, when people say "allies are not a well tied together faction and there is no obvious reason why ally X is an ally but creature Y isn't" they are making a reasonable criticisms, with reference to actual cards. When they say "My 5 minutes of testing hasn't revealed anything strong enough" or "wizards should print more playable cards" they are largely being unreasonable. They are just making blanket unsupported claims.
If someone wants to say that there aren't enough playable cards, and be taken seriously, they are going to need to first establish a baseline for what 'enough playable cards' is by studying old sets, and then manage to successfully argue that greater than 274-"enough playable cards" in BFZ are unplayable.
In the mean time, I'm going to keep brewing, enjoying draft, and collecting my full art lands.
- Manite
In reference to the eternal format side of it, this is generally how I am as well. "X card could be interesting to side in if I'm matching up against x deck"
On an unrelated note Rending volley has won me a number of games playing affinity and grixis delver vs twin. That might be my favorite card of the last 3 5 sets.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
Oh yeah, people excited to play with these cards are just suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Every card is objectively terrible in every possible situation and no card from this set will see play in any format ever. Just like Treasure Cruise. And Desecration Demon. And Stormbreath Dragon. And Stoneforge Mystic. I guess that's why all of the card sites are pre-selling cards for pennies. Because they won't be able to burn them for heat, let alone sell them.
Your absolute arrogance is unreal.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
You see, most of us are actually doing the opposite, you have an actual complaint about the set, go ahead, let's discuss it, I think X card had potential, but it lacks x, y or z, or I believe this cards are badly positioned because of this and this, just saying "this set is low power level" because of reasons (which you don't state), is gonna be meet with... Play with the cards for more than a prerelease, make decks, test them for more than 5 minutes, then you can actually share your conclusions.
Again, you should check out MaRo's blog, there's been a lot of people both complaining and complimenting the set, from a design/development perspective, I believe it's a great set, it seems like standard will be interesting to figure out, of course there are the obvious decks that survive rotation, but there also seems to be new archetypes to be build, they have certainly lowered the power level of removal and ramp to allow some breathing room for other strategies, but that's it, you can't expect every standard format to be the same and play the same strategy over and over again, I don't know about you, but I'd get bored and quit, which is most certainly not what wizards wants.
She is also fun in commander, but whatever. Why do you think its bad for a character to return with a different mana cost? Your question is rhetorical, but it is lost on me because the answer isn't obvious. I also don't understand what Teysa has to do with BFZ?
- Manite
You are not a Vorthos, if you were, you'd understand that she's stronger now, she's bigger and more powerful (4/4 Protection from creatures, kills anything that touches you and you get a spirit token), mana cost has nothing to do with being a Vorthos, Teysa 2.0 being stronger HAD to cost more mana, you liked her previous card because it was efficient, that makes you a Spike. I don't see you complainig about Drana, if you see her card, she's clearly weaker than her previous self, but her new card is more efficient, see the difference?