'protection from' has been a staple since Magic was created. I don't like the road they are going down.
I see a future where all we do is turn creatures sideways.
Stop buying new product. When sales drop low enough they will have to change the way they do things.
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
As for my 'turning creatures sideways' comment....all I meant is that I don't want Magic to become a game that requires less thinking and instead just dumb luck at drawing the right creatures at the right time. 'Protection' is one of those things that requires both the person playing it and the person who 'may' be playing against it to really think out their deck building. Think of Modern for example....There are modern staples that have protection, or hexproof, indestructible, unblockable, etc, etc. A lot of thought has to go into building a deck for Modern if you plan to do well. Anyone can stuff good creatures in a deck and hope to draw better than their opponent.
The other day, I was playing Modern, and came up against a fast white wheenee deck. I just happened to be playing 4x Phyrexian Crusader in my deck. It didn't go well for him, but if he had sideboarded Wrath of God or maybe a Celestial Flare or something like that.....it's all about preparing for anything when deckbuilding.
That is precisely the kind of thing they want to avoid, Phyrexian crusader is a fine card without the protection, it's mostly irrelevant, but it just happened to be good against a random deck that was white, that has nothing to do with deckbuilding or skill, I'm almost certain that you didn't include Phyrexian crusader because you knew you'd face white decks and made a metagame call, you just randomly got lucky and got paired against a white deck, that is the kind of gameplay they are trying to avoid, the same goes for land-walking, it's just randomly good against certain opponents, mechanics like menace are far more interesting, and require actual play skill, it just plays better.
Now, they haven't found protection's replacement yet, so you'll still see protection every once in a while, just won't be often and won't be in full on hoser style cards.
If you're worried about "a future where all we do is turn creatures sideways", then why are you bemoaning the loss of an ability that helps you turn creatures sideways?
Removing protection doesn't stop the game nowadays being about turning creatures sideways in the end.
Of course a lone mechanic won't single-handedly decide whether MtG is creature focused or not. (I never implied that, so I don't know where your comment is coming from.) But protection does help contribute to a creature-focused Magic by making creatures harder to answer. So if it's a more spell-focused Magic you want, then you should consider the abandoning of protection to be a minor victory, and a step, however small, away from creature-dominated Magic.
As for my 'turning creatures sideways' comment....all I meant is that I don't want Magic to become a game that requires less thinking and instead just dumb luck at drawing the right creatures at the right time. 'Protection' is one of those things that requires both the person playing it and the person who 'may' be playing against it to really think out their deck building. Think of Modern for example....There are modern staples that have protection, or hexproof, indestructible, unblockable, etc, etc. A lot of thought has to go into building a deck for Modern if you plan to do well. Anyone can stuff good creatures in a deck and hope to draw better than their opponent.
The other day, I was playing Modern, and came up against a fast white wheenee deck. I just happened to be playing 4x Phyrexian Crusader in my deck. It didn't go well for him, but if he had sideboarded Wrath of God or maybe a Celestial Flare or something like that.....it's all about preparing for anything when deckbuilding.
I don't see how your example helps prove your point. You just lucked into Phyrexian Crusader's protection mattering due to the color of your opponent's deck, and your opponent should've had versatile answers in his sideboard anyway, since any hard to block and hard to kill creature would've caused him trouble.
I'm sad for protection going away. It was simple, flavorful, easy to catch even if a small crash course on rules was needed, and helped some archetypes, and had answers. Yes, it also was there since forever. Landwalk was more annoying because, yeah, unless you had removal, you couldn't do much about it. 'Complexity' is a catch-all argument designed to avoid explaining why they want to stop putting some effort into things in my opinion. Because speaking of complexity, I've never seen so much discussion about Throwing Knife and Willbreaker going sour that make protection look like 1+1=2 in comparison.
I feel as though we're addressing the loss of protection granters and the loss of innately protected creatures as though they were one large issue when, in actuality, they play very differently.
Innate protection is indeed a terrible random hoser but granting protection is not. It comes with a choice, allowing you to get the same power against any mono-coloured deck. And it's not dead against multi-coloured like pro-black is against a white weenie deck. This means that the card's inherent imbalance is far less and only serves to push the metagame towards the inherently less consistent multi-coloured decks. That is not a bad thing in moderation.
Yes, you can randomly draw the protection giver when a single unblocked attack would be enough to win but that's the same with many things. More likely is that it'll counter removal or make your creature survive a block. Protection is an interesting mechanic when used this way that has a lot of implications that all demand thought and intelegent usage. It is not bad for the game.
We will NEVER see another Progenitus level card that's not "a mistake". That's just how R&D works these days.
I think you are miss-interpreting how R&D works, we just got a 10 mana indestructible 10/10, that exiles 2 creatures upon casting, that's Progenitus territory and I don't think R&D has shied away from that kind of card, they just don't seem to like when an otherwise good creature randomly hoses a deck just because is X color, cards that are 10+ mana are fine having big splashy effects like protection from everything, that's what you expect when you invest 10+ mana, and are mostly done at rare/mythic, so relatively new players don't have to deal with the frustration of not being able to do anything because the opponent drew their randomly "pro me" creature that just stopt them in their tracks.
I'm sad for protection going away. It was simple, flavorful, easy to catch even if a small crash course on rules was needed, and helped some archetypes, and had answers. Yes, it also was there since forever. Landwalk was more annoying because, yeah, unless you had removal, you couldn't do much about it. 'Complexity' is a catch-all argument designed to avoid explaining why they want to stop putting some effort into things in my opinion. Because speaking of complexity, I've never seen so much discussion about Throwing Knife and Willbreaker going sour that make protection look like 1+1=2 in comparison.
I think you got it backwards, for one, willbreaker is a mythic, so complexity means very little in mythics, trowing knife is an uncommon thus can be more complex that commons, and it also piggibacks on real world throwing knife's function, protection just lost it's evergreen status, it wasn't discontinued as a mechanic, one of the reasons it lost it was because you don't want an evergreen mechanic that you can't put in commons, and that's exactly the case with protection, you can't put it there because of complexity and it's un-intuitive and unfun, that all adds up. But again, it wasn't discontinued, it's just not evergreen anymore.
'protection from' has been a staple since Magic was created. I don't like the road they are going down.
I see a future where all we do is turn creatures sideways.
Stop buying new product. When sales drop low enough they will have to change the way they do things.
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
That's on you then. If your complaints with WotC's direction aren't enough to make you vote with your dollars, how much do really expect other people (including WotC) to care?
'protection from' has been a staple since Magic was created. I don't like the road they are going down.
I see a future where all we do is turn creatures sideways.
Stop buying new product. When sales drop low enough they will have to change the way they do things.
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
As for my 'turning creatures sideways' comment....all I meant is that I don't want Magic to become a game that requires less thinking and instead just dumb luck at drawing the right creatures at the right time. 'Protection' is one of those things that requires both the person playing it and the person who 'may' be playing against it to really think out their deck building. Think of Modern for example....There are modern staples that have protection, or hexproof, indestructible, unblockable, etc, etc. A lot of thought has to go into building a deck for Modern if you plan to do well. Anyone can stuff good creatures in a deck and hope to draw better than their opponent.
The other day, I was playing Modern, and came up against a fast white wheenee deck. I just happened to be playing 4x Phyrexian Crusader in my deck. It didn't go well for him, but if he had sideboarded Wrath of God or maybe a Celestial Flare or something like that.....it's all about preparing for anything when deckbuilding.
That is precisely the kind of thing they want to avoid, Phyrexian crusader is a fine card without the protection, it's mostly irrelevant, but it just happened to be good against a random deck that was white, that has nothing to do with deckbuilding or skill, I'm almost certain that you didn't include Phyrexian crusader because you knew you'd face white decks and made a metagame call, you just randomly got lucky and got paired against a white deck, that is the kind of gameplay they are trying to avoid, the same goes for land-walking, it's just randomly good against certain opponents, mechanics like menace are far more interesting, and require actual play skill, it just plays better.
Now, they haven't found protection's replacement yet, so you'll still see protection every once in a while, just won't be often and won't be in full on hoser style cards.
Except that's really the fault of the person who built the deck that can't deal with the card, not the person using it. Playing a monocolored deck has both advantages and disadvantages, and one of those is thinking, "If my opponent has a blocker that says protection from white, and that's my entire deck, how am I going to deal with that?"
I think people have this kind of backwards. Having protection on your cards doesn't make your opponent have to think more, it makes you have to think less when building a deck. It's an obviously "unfun" mechanic to anyone playing against it. Its certainly not annihilator, dont get me wrong. But I hate putting time and effort into building and conceptualizing a deck just to have have it stall out to a lazy protection deck. And its not just about turning cards sideways. Protection makes the game MORE about turning cards sideways. If I'm playing a black red deck and my opponent has a white creature pro black and red (this happens to me at the kitchen table to often) I cant use any SPELLS to remove the threat. I HAVE TO turn creatures sideways in an attempt to finish him before he inevitably kills me. Making protection no longer evergreen PROMOTES more instant/sorcery use, and less boring stall outs
I think people have this kind of backwards. Having protection on your cards doesn't make your opponent have to think more, it makes you have to think less when building a deck. It's an obviously "unfun" mechanic to anyone playing against it. Its certainly not annihilator, dont get me wrong. But I hate putting time and effort into building and conceptualizing a deck just to have have it stall out to a lazy protection deck. And its not just about turning cards sideways. Protection makes the game MORE about turning cards sideways. If I'm playing a black red deck and my opponent has a white creature pro black and red (this happens to me at the kitchen table to often) I cant use any SPELLS to remove the threat. I HAVE TO turn creatures sideways in an attempt to finish him before he inevitably kills me. Making protection no longer evergreen PROMOTES more instant/sorcery use, and less boring stall outs
Promotes interaction!! Which is what this game is about, protection is... ok, I can't kill that, what is a green or red gonna do to a pro green/red creature? Stare at it? Blue, white and black at least have non-targeted, non damage based removal, are you gonna run skullcrack or the like in the hopes your opponent blocks? That is another "bug" in protection, why cyclonic rift, damnation and wrath of god affect creatures with protection while Pyroclasm doesn't?
Again, the game is about having fun, interacting with the opponent, and out-think them, protection promotes neither of those. Protection has 2 saving graces, one is flavor to a certain extent, the other one is that it fills a role that is needed sometimes, but having it downgraded from evergreen is a good thing.
Progenitus is likely the exact kind of card that will still get protection. It's actually worth learning what such an ability does just like how planeswalkers are cool enough for the brain work. Of course, it would actually be better with unblockable and hexproof. It's also pretty underpowered for the effort required to cast it. I mean that mana cost can literally win the game on the spot with door to nothingness. It wouldn't likely be played at 5UU for 10/10 pro everything.
So if this is all true, then why did it take them over 20 years to realize this? Protection has been around since Alpha/Beta. It has worked in Magic for 20 years...and now they are saying it has it's issues?
In designing protection, Garfield thought mainly of White Knight and Black Knight. But when the designers started to discuss what exactly comprised protection, they realized the ability was more complex than they thought. Would Wrath of God destroy a Black Knight? Would Pestilence damage a White Knight? These discussions led to the concept of targeting.
Protection wasn't the only tricky mechanic to be placed on white creatures...
Anyhow, I expect we got Piledriver when we did because it was their last opportunity to get a Modern reprint while justifying a use of protection under their new guidelines. While I don't have any insider info, I suspect that when we see Protection next, it'll be in a manner and a place that doesn't require the full DEBT mnemonic. I would think we'll see something like "protection from auras" or non-creatures with "protection from color" when and if we see it at all.
yes, it would be nice to shift pro from creatures to something like an artifact or land; maybe we'll see ~has protection from sorceries. or ~ cant be targeted, how about ~ can't be enchanted
yes, it would be nice to shift pro from creatures to something like an artifact or land; maybe we'll see ~has protection from sorceries. or ~ cant be targeted, how about ~ can't be enchanted
Or rewording future protection cards so that only when they are not being used for an attack the effect is active. Or pair it with creatures with defender so that it becomes a mechanic where it helps reduce the mindless strategy of turn the creature sideways.
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
What, are you telling me you only know about magic? What about other games like Netrunner, Yugioh, Hearthstone.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't like turning creatures sideways should try netrunner, it's really fun and well done and cheap to play. with the current way wizard is going with magic I see mroe people leave for other such game. Even Hearthstone, who is a VERY simplified magic can be "fun" (if you can stomatch the ridiculous RNG, I coudl for a while).
I don't know for you but I see myself abandonning magic if they keep tonight everything down. My stax decks, LD, control, etc. get less and less cards every sets.
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
What, are you telling me you only know about magic? What about other games like Netrunner, Yugioh, Hearthstone.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't like turning creatures sideways should try netrunner, it's really fun and well done and cheap to play. with the current way wizard is going with magic I see mroe people leave for other such game. Even Hearthstone, who is a VERY simplified magic can be "fun" (if you can stomatch the ridiculous RNG, I coudl for a while).
I don't know for you but I see myself abandonning magic if they keep tonight everything down. My stax decks, LD, control, etc. get less and less cards every sets.
Here's the issue:
Yugioh flat out sucks....can't say it enough times.
As for the others....unless you live in a very large city, it is hard to find enough dedicated players to play with once a week (like FNM for example).
Magic is so popular that even small towns (less than 50k) have really good player bases.
A few years back a few guys in my town tried to push LOT5Rings....never took off at all...and that wasn't a bad game.
I'll say it again....in reality...Magic has ZERO competition
It doesn't work that way. Magic the Gathering has NO other competition. There isn't a card game in existence that even touches it, so I'll continue to play until it goes off the deep end....or something of that nature.
What, are you telling me you only know about magic? What about other games like Netrunner, Yugioh, Hearthstone.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't like turning creatures sideways should try netrunner, it's really fun and well done and cheap to play. with the current way wizard is going with magic I see mroe people leave for other such game. Even Hearthstone, who is a VERY simplified magic can be "fun" (if you can stomatch the ridiculous RNG, I coudl for a while).
I don't know for you but I see myself abandonning magic if they keep tonight everything down. My stax decks, LD, control, etc. get less and less cards every sets.
Here's the issue:
Yugioh flat out sucks....can't say it enough times.
As for the others....unless you live in a very large city, it is hard to find enough dedicated players to play with once a week (like FNM for example).
Magic is so popular that even small towns (less than 50k) have really good player bases.
A few years back a few guys in my town tried to push LOT5Rings....never took off at all...and that wasn't a bad game.
I'll say it again....in reality...Magic has ZERO competition
Hearthstone's online, so that's not an issue there.
The way I see it, they will continue to use protection in very limited circumstances when the card they need wants protection, but at the same time they are going to piece out the things protection does. For instance, replacing "gains protection from X" with "prevent all damage to" on white instants, gains indestructible until end of turn, can't be targeted by X, etc. If this works, they will eventually phase out protection entirely and just give cards that would otherwise have protection "Prevent all damage to Cardname from sources with quality X. Cardname cannot be targeted or destroyed by sources with quality X." It will do what protection does in a way that noobs can understand, and actually do what protection seems like it should do. If such rules text would be too problematic, they will retain protection as an occasionally used ability on higher rarity cards, like indestructible and unblockable used to be.
Personally, I think protection is a flavorful way to add a powerful ability to mythics and rares that isn't stiflingly powerful, as it will be useless against some decks. "Oh, that blue legend has protection from red because she's so rational and practiced against combating chaos that she can effortlessly counter anything red can throw at her", or "Oh, that Green legend is so in tune with nature and seeing things as they are that he is immune to blues trick."
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Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
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That is precisely the kind of thing they want to avoid, Phyrexian crusader is a fine card without the protection, it's mostly irrelevant, but it just happened to be good against a random deck that was white, that has nothing to do with deckbuilding or skill, I'm almost certain that you didn't include Phyrexian crusader because you knew you'd face white decks and made a metagame call, you just randomly got lucky and got paired against a white deck, that is the kind of gameplay they are trying to avoid, the same goes for land-walking, it's just randomly good against certain opponents, mechanics like menace are far more interesting, and require actual play skill, it just plays better.
Now, they haven't found protection's replacement yet, so you'll still see protection every once in a while, just won't be often and won't be in full on hoser style cards.
We will NEVER see another Progenitus level card that's not "a mistake". That's just how R&D works these days.
Of course a lone mechanic won't single-handedly decide whether MtG is creature focused or not. (I never implied that, so I don't know where your comment is coming from.) But protection does help contribute to a creature-focused Magic by making creatures harder to answer. So if it's a more spell-focused Magic you want, then you should consider the abandoning of protection to be a minor victory, and a step, however small, away from creature-dominated Magic.
I don't see how your example helps prove your point. You just lucked into Phyrexian Crusader's protection mattering due to the color of your opponent's deck, and your opponent should've had versatile answers in his sideboard anyway, since any hard to block and hard to kill creature would've caused him trouble.
Innate protection is indeed a terrible random hoser but granting protection is not. It comes with a choice, allowing you to get the same power against any mono-coloured deck. And it's not dead against multi-coloured like pro-black is against a white weenie deck. This means that the card's inherent imbalance is far less and only serves to push the metagame towards the inherently less consistent multi-coloured decks. That is not a bad thing in moderation.
Yes, you can randomly draw the protection giver when a single unblocked attack would be enough to win but that's the same with many things. More likely is that it'll counter removal or make your creature survive a block. Protection is an interesting mechanic when used this way that has a lot of implications that all demand thought and intelegent usage. It is not bad for the game.
I think you are miss-interpreting how R&D works, we just got a 10 mana indestructible 10/10, that exiles 2 creatures upon casting, that's Progenitus territory and I don't think R&D has shied away from that kind of card, they just don't seem to like when an otherwise good creature randomly hoses a deck just because is X color, cards that are 10+ mana are fine having big splashy effects like protection from everything, that's what you expect when you invest 10+ mana, and are mostly done at rare/mythic, so relatively new players don't have to deal with the frustration of not being able to do anything because the opponent drew their randomly "pro me" creature that just stopt them in their tracks.
I think you got it backwards, for one, willbreaker is a mythic, so complexity means very little in mythics, trowing knife is an uncommon thus can be more complex that commons, and it also piggibacks on real world throwing knife's function, protection just lost it's evergreen status, it wasn't discontinued as a mechanic, one of the reasons it lost it was because you don't want an evergreen mechanic that you can't put in commons, and that's exactly the case with protection, you can't put it there because of complexity and it's un-intuitive and unfun, that all adds up. But again, it wasn't discontinued, it's just not evergreen anymore.
That's on you then. If your complaints with WotC's direction aren't enough to make you vote with your dollars, how much do really expect other people (including WotC) to care?
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
Except that's really the fault of the person who built the deck that can't deal with the card, not the person using it. Playing a monocolored deck has both advantages and disadvantages, and one of those is thinking, "If my opponent has a blocker that says protection from white, and that's my entire deck, how am I going to deal with that?"
Promotes interaction!! Which is what this game is about, protection is... ok, I can't kill that, what is a green or red gonna do to a pro green/red creature? Stare at it? Blue, white and black at least have non-targeted, non damage based removal, are you gonna run skullcrack or the like in the hopes your opponent blocks? That is another "bug" in protection, why cyclonic rift, damnation and wrath of god affect creatures with protection while Pyroclasm doesn't?
Again, the game is about having fun, interacting with the opponent, and out-think them, protection promotes neither of those. Protection has 2 saving graces, one is flavor to a certain extent, the other one is that it fills a role that is needed sometimes, but having it downgraded from evergreen is a good thing.
Actually, the original development team realized that Protection had issues before the game even released.
Anyhow, I expect we got Piledriver when we did because it was their last opportunity to get a Modern reprint while justifying a use of protection under their new guidelines. While I don't have any insider info, I suspect that when we see Protection next, it'll be in a manner and a place that doesn't require the full DEBT mnemonic. I would think we'll see something like "protection from auras" or non-creatures with "protection from color" when and if we see it at all.
Or rewording future protection cards so that only when they are not being used for an attack the effect is active. Or pair it with creatures with defender so that it becomes a mechanic where it helps reduce the mindless strategy of turn the creature sideways.
What, are you telling me you only know about magic? What about other games like Netrunner, Yugioh, Hearthstone.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't like turning creatures sideways should try netrunner, it's really fun and well done and cheap to play. with the current way wizard is going with magic I see mroe people leave for other such game. Even Hearthstone, who is a VERY simplified magic can be "fun" (if you can stomatch the ridiculous RNG, I coudl for a while).
I don't know for you but I see myself abandonning magic if they keep tonight everything down. My stax decks, LD, control, etc. get less and less cards every sets.
Here's the issue:
Yugioh flat out sucks....can't say it enough times.
As for the others....unless you live in a very large city, it is hard to find enough dedicated players to play with once a week (like FNM for example).
Magic is so popular that even small towns (less than 50k) have really good player bases.
A few years back a few guys in my town tried to push LOT5Rings....never took off at all...and that wasn't a bad game.
I'll say it again....in reality...Magic has ZERO competition
Hearthstone's online, so that's not an issue there.
Then I got bored and now I'm returning to magic. I'm probably not alone with a patern liek this (granted I never play at the card store).
Personally, I think protection is a flavorful way to add a powerful ability to mythics and rares that isn't stiflingly powerful, as it will be useless against some decks. "Oh, that blue legend has protection from red because she's so rational and practiced against combating chaos that she can effortlessly counter anything red can throw at her", or "Oh, that Green legend is so in tune with nature and seeing things as they are that he is immune to blues trick."
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!