Speaking as a primarily Limited player who dabbles in Modern...
The spoilers seem to contain a lot more random EDH junk than suits my tastes, but those are mostly rare and can be ignored in Limited. And they're flavored quite appropriately around a contest for wacky inventors, so why not have a few silly cards? They're not hurting anybody.
The energy mechanic has me really excited. One of the best ways to make draft more interesting is to have cards that scale with the length of the game. A removal spell like Die Young is a great example of that, and all the creatures that can grow with energy look like they'll make combat math really interesting.
I was initially excited about vehicles, because they're almost-creatures that have the benefit of dodging sorcery-speed removal, but as I'm seeing a lot of good instant-speed removal, I'm a little more cautious about picking up a lot of vehicles; I'd hate to see them wiped out as soon as I turn them on, or worse, have them sitting uselessly on the board as my opponent wipes out the rest of my creatures. That said, I like the idea of having first-pickable artifacts that keep you open as far as colors.
I don't see a lot for Modern, except maybe a potential sideboard card here or there, but oh well. What I like about Modern is it's (usually) fairly consistent and new sets don't tend to make giant waves.
Finally, the flavour looks like a blast and a great change from things they've done lately. We haven't been to a place like this in a while, and it'll be fun to spend some time there.
So I guess I'm on the "I just want my dwarves to drive cars" bandwagon.
Yeah, there are definitely some options, possibly a new deck. I'm a bit too wet behind the ears to try brewing in the format, but I could see a new deck coming out of this set if everything falls together right.
I had forgotten about Voltaic Brawler. I would like to try that in the Bushwacker Zoo list I've been toying with. It's not quite there but it could be all it's missing is some higher-quality creatures.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
PS to those posting about bad sets, Fallen Empires was good, it had pump knights for the day's Standard, practically giving rise to White Weenie standard decks, Hymn which is still playable in Legacy today, Goblin Grenade which was as much damage as 1 mana could do for two cards, cards like Orgg and Breeding Pit might seem weak today but back then were above the normal curve for anything creature based. Homelands it was not- leave it alone!
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Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
While I admit that there are plenty of powerful cards in this set, I could not be less excited to play with it. Steampunk India is lushly portrayed and vividly imagined, and full of names like Aerial Responders, and (shudder) Whirlermaker. Mundane names that leave me cold. Like I'm naked in Antarctica, I just want to start burning these cards to stay warm and, well, never-mind. I get that there are only so many card names you can use, but seriously, who wants to play with a card called Thriving Ibex? One of my favorite cards in the set has a name so pedestrian, it makes me cringe every time I say it's name. I want my cards to feel magical and a lot of these just don't What's next? Disgruntled Sanitation Worker? Kaladesh. Worse than Homelands, worse than the Dark, and barely better than Portal 2.
This set is one of the few I've seen that has impressed me on the back of the execution of the set's flavor, the cleverness of the cards' designs, *and* the sheer amount of powerful cards. Usually I have to pick two of those. The only sets that have done that for me since I've been playing--since Conflux--have been original Innistrad, New Phyrexia, Eldritch Moon, and now Kaladesh, apparently.
Energy is somewhat parasitic, yes, but that doesn't automatically make it poorly designed. The mechanic has a ton of design space, and on many cards is close enough to a more broad implementation of Charge Counters. The cards with it range from aggressive creatures to spellslinging engines, and the fact that they all work together will be really rewarding to play with.
Vehicles have downsides, but they also have tremendous upsides to make up for those. The fact that my Skysoverign will likely never die to a Planar Outburst unless I make some especially poor decisions is huge, and they're a naturally great way to make use of summoning sick Creatures. They dodge all sorcery speed removal, and are hugely undercosted when they're creatures. As with any mechanic, most won't be good enough to see any real standard play, but there are a few I would not be surprised to see in constructed formats.
Even ignoring the mechanics, this set has a boatload of interesting and powerful individual cards as well. The Planeswalkers all look great--Saheeli Rai I think is getting underrated, since she has less universal appeal, but I think she'll be great in specific kind of deck that is looking for a 3 mana planeswalker that can start sending out powerful hasted threats quickly. Enough has been said about Chandra and Nissa, so I'll let other people talk about how great they are. The Gearhulks remind me of much less oppressively powerful Titans, and each one shown so far seems like it'll provide a powerful new tool to many different decks.
And not only does this set have powerful cards for the Spikes among us, there are plenty of awesome build-arounds that excite the brewer in me. Metallurgic Summons seems very powerful in a deck built around it, Aetherflux Reservoir makes me want to build some sort of Storm/Eggs deck in standard, Ghirapur Orrery is ripe for some sort of deck that dumps its' hand early and would love to cast a free Ancestral Recall every turn, and Aetherworks Marvel shares a standard format with all three Eldrazi Titans.
This set looks phenomenal, for the Spike in me that likes powerful cards, the Timmy in me that's looking forward to slamming down gigantic airships crewed by massive artifact titans, and the Johnny in me that just wants people to have to sit and watch me try to play storm with 0-mana equipment, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Paradoxical Outcome.
Once the netdeckers take over and complain that the decks they want to build are too expensive because they just want to run the proven decks rather than brew things will be back to normal.
Kaladesh is the set that has made me the most excited in a long time.
The unique Indian - steampunk flavor mix with dwarves, elves and vedalken in the mix makes for a great feel.
The mechanics - Fabricate is nice and simple giving good extra options to creatures, Energy is an interesting new system which thanks to the decision to make most energy cards able to both produce and use energy managed to avoid being too parasitic and Ships/Crew are interesting for boosting smaller creatures or groups of creatures and for making creature decks more resilient to sorcery speed removal/ wrath effects.
The power level - we aren't even halfway and there are already a significant amount of high potential standard cards, the enemy fast lands, the planeswalkers (particularly God Chandra), the Gearhulks (aka new Titans), Demon of Dark Schemes (aka new Massacre Wurm). There are even a bunch of good Uncommons like Aerial Responder, Voltaic Brawler, Filigree Familiar, Unlicensed Disintergration, Aether Hub, Ceremonious Rejection, Essence Extraction etc.
The only issue is that there is barely anything with plegacy or modern playability. But that's not unusual and we still have plenty to go.
This set seems like modern magic. 200 cards that will never see play and 50 that will. I'm including the lands in that 50, even the basics.
Limited looks like it's deep. Gearhulks are a lazy rehash of Titans. And energy is just another mechanic that feels like they had no other idea.
I like it so far but won't be opening packs outside of draft.
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In case I didn't tell you, I don't care about your opinion I just want your facts. And not the facts that make you seem smart. I want the ones that are actual facts.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
WHAT? Enemy fast lands are what then?
Allied ones are not played in Legacy, these won't be. Allied ones are played in not many places in Modern relative to the number of Modern archetypes. Hatebear decks use them because of Arbiter, and a couple of combo decks like Grishoalbrand play them because they go off quickly.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
On topic, I genuinely do not like this set. I think the vehicles are cheesy and mostly unplayable. Energy will be playable in some cases, but it is going to dictate the structure of any deck that includes any of them. Also, I dislike the new expeds. Why? Basically they represent the end of any powerful rare re-print in standard. They are also another lottery, which is bad for the game IMO. More than ever, the value of packs will be determined by a scant few cards at the top of the chain. I suppose I'll buy even fewer packs than I do now.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
WHAT? Enemy fast lands are what then?
Allied ones are not played in Legacy, these won't be. Allied ones are played in not many places in Modern relative to the number of Modern archetypes. Hatebear decks use them because of Arbiter, and a couple of combo decks like Grishoalbrand play them because they go off quickly.
Legacy is a different animal, but Jund routinely runs fast lands in modern. First turn plays are important. They are solid lands. I suspect you could see some play with the new blue off-color ones as well. Sure they aren't played as much as fetch+shock or manlands, but they get more play than filter lands I'd imagine.
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On topic, I genuinely do not like this set. I think the vehicles are cheesy and mostly unplayable. Energy will be playable in some cases, but it is going to dictate the structure of any deck that includes any of them. Also, I dislike the new expeds. Why? Basically they represent the end of any powerful rare re-print in standard. They are also another lottery, which is bad for the game IMO. More than ever, the value of packs will be determined by a scant few cards at the top of the chain. I suppose I'll buy even fewer packs than I do now.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
WHAT? Enemy fast lands are what then?
Allied ones are not played in Legacy, these won't be. Allied ones are played in not many places in Modern relative to the number of Modern archetypes. Hatebear decks use them because of Arbiter, and a couple of combo decks like Grishoalbrand play them because they go off quickly.
Legacy is a different animal, but Jund routinely runs fast lands in modern. First turn plays are important. They are solid lands. I suspect you could see some play with the new blue off-color ones as well. Sure they aren't played as much as fetch+shock or manlands, but they get more play than filter lands I'd imagine.
all of the allied fastlands are played in modern seachrome coast and darkslick shores in ad nauseum. ive also seen shores in grixis control copperline gorge in some dredge and burn and living end.
you can look up all decks they are played in on mtggoldfish
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3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
I'm not going to argue. I'm just going to say that this set looks awesome, and I don't say that very often. The mechanics feel fresh and saving/spending energy counters will add another dimension to the game (assuming you are not running only one card that uses energy). I think we will be surprised by some of the decks that pop up. The style and flavor of the world of Kaladesh is unique and cool, too.
I don't need to look up what they are played in, I know, honestly. I own literally 30 plus complete Modern decks, good to go, no budget- rent a tournament. They get some play in the 3 color decks, especially those running discard, the odd combo deck on top, hatebears too. I own all of those decks. I also own decks where they don't feature and never would- I have a couple of playsets worth of them tops- compared to fetches and shocks in those Modern decks its pretty small potatoes. I am sure there will be some play, but no where near the slam-dunk interest when they put fetches into KTK. All relative of course, but I would have expected more major impact/standout cards for Legacy and Modern than we have seen to date was my original statement's intent, that does not mean we have had none, it means we have less than I expected.
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People with belligerent signatures are trying to compensate for something....
On topic, I genuinely do not like this set. I think the vehicles are cheesy and mostly unplayable. Energy will be playable in some cases, but it is going to dictate the structure of any deck that includes any of them. Also, I dislike the new expeds. Why? Basically they represent the end of any powerful rare re-print in standard. They are also another lottery, which is bad for the game IMO. More than ever, the value of packs will be determined by a scant few cards at the top of the chain. I suppose I'll buy even fewer packs than I do now.
-While it's impossible to comment on the term "cheezy", one cannot use the term unplayable to refer to cards that no one has played with yet. Many things are deemed unplayable during preview season.
-Any mechanic that you center a deck around dictates the structure of that deck. Energy acts the same way.
-Cards that are deemed too powerful for standard usually do not get reprinted at all. So you won't lose anything there. You actually gain something that wouldn't have been there otherwise. There's no way in hell they'd have reprinted mana crypt or sol ring. Now you get them reprinted anyway without affecting the format.
-None of the masterpieces are cards that they would have reprinted in a set.
-The masterpieces will all be of the same type (In this case artifacts) So they can't really stop "powerful" rare reprints. Since they can hardly pick the Masterpieces type based solely on which particular card players want reprinted.
-I'm sure you've noticed that most reprints are uncommons and commons. Rares define a set, so we don't get that many rare reprints. They did that in core sets and nobody cared.
-Buying boosters is a lottery from the start. You have no idea what cards you're buying. If that was bad for the game, it would no longer exist today.
-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
[quote from="Aesnath »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/new-card-discussion/754214-kaladesh-worst-set-since-homelands-or-worst-set?comment=128"]-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
Bad value on average? Yeah, sure, depending on the details. Always bad value? That's not how gambling works. Sometimes a person spends $4 and cracks that $50+ foil mythic or what have you. That's why people keep doing it.
Set looks fun for limited, great art. There are no obvious cards to date for Modern or Legacy that are not Planeswalkers- not even niche ones that may get use in fringe decks- pretty unusual as normally by now one or two would have popped up. Early days though. Seems very EDH-ish.
I don't know, I see some sideboard stuff for Modern. I'm excited to replace Thragtusk with Filigree Familiar in R/G Tron. It seems a much better option for shoring up the Burn matchup than anything to date.
Agree about the EDH-y feel, though, a lot of these things seem irrelevant outside of that sort of field.
PS to those posting about bad sets, Fallen Empires was good, it had pump knights for the day's Standard, practically giving rise to White Weenie standard decks, Hymn which is still playable in Legacy today, Goblin Grenade which was as much damage as 1 mana could do for two cards, cards like Orgg and Breeding Pit might seem weak today but back then were above the normal curve for anything creature based. Homelands it was not- leave it alone!
Thank you, finally somebody gets it. Fallen Empires was amazing at the time it was released; it introduced a lot of interesting dynamics and got a lot of new players into the game. It was also heavily over-printed, but being able to pick up a booster box for $25 can be a good thing when you have a big influx of new players.
Homelands was simply bad, even at the time. Personally I thought the flavor was cool, but the gameplay was an absolute dud.
On fast lands not being played.... They are not played a LOT... exaclty because there is no enemy ones! The most common color combinations involve black and green and blue and red.
With enemy fast lands it becomes MUCH more valid to have 12 fast lands in a 3 color deck. THat means you have over 40% chance of having your 2 first turns free of damage to self.
On topic, I genuinely do not like this set. I think the vehicles are cheesy and mostly unplayable. Energy will be playable in some cases, but it is going to dictate the structure of any deck that includes any of them. Also, I dislike the new expeds. Why? Basically they represent the end of any powerful rare re-print in standard. They are also another lottery, which is bad for the game IMO. More than ever, the value of packs will be determined by a scant few cards at the top of the chain. I suppose I'll buy even fewer packs than I do now.
-While it's impossible to comment on the term "cheezy", one cannot use the term unplayable to refer to cards that no one has played with yet. Many things are deemed unplayable during preview season.
-Any mechanic that you center a deck around dictates the structure of that deck. Energy acts the same way.
-Cards that are deemed too powerful for standard usually do not get reprinted at all. So you won't lose anything there. You actually gain something that wouldn't have been there otherwise. There's no way in hell they'd have reprinted mana crypt or sol ring. Now you get them reprinted anyway without affecting the format.
-None of the masterpieces are cards that they would have reprinted in a set.
-The masterpieces will all be of the same type (In this case artifacts) So they can't really stop "powerful" rare reprints. Since they can hardly pick the Masterpieces type based solely on which particular card players want reprinted.
-I'm sure you've noticed that most reprints are uncommons and commons. Rares define a set, so we don't get that many rare reprints. They did that in core sets and nobody cared.
-Buying boosters is a lottery from the start. You have no idea what cards you're buying. If that was bad for the game, it would no longer exist today.
-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
OK, fair points, especially about vehicles. However, it seems like an ascended limited mechanic. I despise it when rares and mythics have such mechanics. I view energy counters like infect--very narrow deckbuilding options. I also dislike such mechanics. Sure, card choices, by nature, dictate deck choices, but parasitic mechanics impose such structure to an extreme degree.
I suppose I enjoy buying packs occasionally, but they are rarely good value. However, it has generally been getting worse as we go along and the masterpieces are the next evolution of that. Powerful reprints were occasionally a thing, and one that I liked. Heck, I often enjoyed returning to standard when something I liked from older sets came back around. Right now, none of the masterpieces are things that would see print in a standard set. However, I promise you that will not be the case going forward. If they are trying to hit 50+ cards per block, you are going to see many re-printable cards used, along with a fair amount of chaff. Give it a couple of years. Moreover, it is going to suck to play limited against some of these. Sure it won't happen a lot, but when it does, it will be unfortunate
[quote from="Aesnath »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/new-card-discussion/754214-kaladesh-worst-set-since-homelands-or-worst-set?comment=128"]-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
Bad value on average? Yeah, sure, depending on the details. Always bad value? That's not how gambling works. Sometimes a person spends $4 and cracks that $50+ foil mythic or what have you. That's why people keep doing it.
Yeah, "always" is clearly hyperbolic. Sorry. "Mostly" and soon to be "even more often" bad value is more accurate. Winners win even bigger, but more losers all around.
I will say that there is some merit to the idea that these lotteries could make standard cheaper. Big chase cards at the top deflate the value of everything else. Since these aren't standard playable, it could work, which would be a boon for many players. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
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Whether or not vehicles are playable doesn't matter to me. Who cares about playable when you can drift so close to the guard rail you're basically touching it. Forget tapping, I gonna drift straight into you yelling "DEJA VU I've just been in this place before Higher on the street and I know it's my time to come home!" My Eurobeat playlist will be at the ready.
-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
Bad value on average? Yeah, sure, depending on the details. Always bad value? That's not how gambling works. Sometimes a person spends $4 and cracks that $50+ foil mythic or what have you. That's why people keep doing it.
Yeah, "always" is clearly hyperbolic. Sorry. "Mostly" and soon to be "even more often" bad value is more accurate. Winners win even bigger, but more losers all around.
If you're deciding whether to buy a pack, it's "always" bad value. You don't know what you're going to open. You have a better-than-average chance of losing money. If you're opening packs regularly, the $50 cards you open will eventually be offset by the more-frequent $.50 ones. And vice versa. You can do all the math and aggregate it to figure out exactly how much you will lose (or occasionally gain, the weekend a set is released, assuming you have the time, knowledge and resources to sell off your openings for profit), but, ignoring edge cases, the answer to the question "I'm going to open this pack of Magic cards. Am I likely to lose money?" is always "yes." Expeditions/Masterpieces don't change that one bit, they just make for higher highs and lower lows once the packs are actually opened.
Maybe that's pedantic, but we're talking about an economy where lots of people sell single Magic cards, so it's useful to say opening a pack is always bad value because once people realize how much they're losing, they can start spending that money on singles instead. During a game of Magic you play towards the random outcomes that our most likely to happen, so why wouldn't you at the counter?
The spoilers seem to contain a lot more random EDH junk than suits my tastes, but those are mostly rare and can be ignored in Limited. And they're flavored quite appropriately around a contest for wacky inventors, so why not have a few silly cards? They're not hurting anybody.
The energy mechanic has me really excited. One of the best ways to make draft more interesting is to have cards that scale with the length of the game. A removal spell like Die Young is a great example of that, and all the creatures that can grow with energy look like they'll make combat math really interesting.
I was initially excited about vehicles, because they're almost-creatures that have the benefit of dodging sorcery-speed removal, but as I'm seeing a lot of good instant-speed removal, I'm a little more cautious about picking up a lot of vehicles; I'd hate to see them wiped out as soon as I turn them on, or worse, have them sitting uselessly on the board as my opponent wipes out the rest of my creatures. That said, I like the idea of having first-pickable artifacts that keep you open as far as colors.
I don't see a lot for Modern, except maybe a potential sideboard card here or there, but oh well. What I like about Modern is it's (usually) fairly consistent and new sets don't tend to make giant waves.
Finally, the flavour looks like a blast and a great change from things they've done lately. We haven't been to a place like this in a while, and it'll be fun to spend some time there.
So I guess I'm on the "I just want my dwarves to drive cars" bandwagon.
I had forgotten about Voltaic Brawler. I would like to try that in the Bushwacker Zoo list I've been toying with. It's not quite there but it could be all it's missing is some higher-quality creatures.
PS to those posting about bad sets, Fallen Empires was good, it had pump knights for the day's Standard, practically giving rise to White Weenie standard decks, Hymn which is still playable in Legacy today, Goblin Grenade which was as much damage as 1 mana could do for two cards, cards like Orgg and Breeding Pit might seem weak today but back then were above the normal curve for anything creature based. Homelands it was not- leave it alone!
WHAT? Enemy fast lands are what then?
Energy is somewhat parasitic, yes, but that doesn't automatically make it poorly designed. The mechanic has a ton of design space, and on many cards is close enough to a more broad implementation of Charge Counters. The cards with it range from aggressive creatures to spellslinging engines, and the fact that they all work together will be really rewarding to play with.
Vehicles have downsides, but they also have tremendous upsides to make up for those. The fact that my Skysoverign will likely never die to a Planar Outburst unless I make some especially poor decisions is huge, and they're a naturally great way to make use of summoning sick Creatures. They dodge all sorcery speed removal, and are hugely undercosted when they're creatures. As with any mechanic, most won't be good enough to see any real standard play, but there are a few I would not be surprised to see in constructed formats.
Even ignoring the mechanics, this set has a boatload of interesting and powerful individual cards as well. The Planeswalkers all look great--Saheeli Rai I think is getting underrated, since she has less universal appeal, but I think she'll be great in specific kind of deck that is looking for a 3 mana planeswalker that can start sending out powerful hasted threats quickly. Enough has been said about Chandra and Nissa, so I'll let other people talk about how great they are. The Gearhulks remind me of much less oppressively powerful Titans, and each one shown so far seems like it'll provide a powerful new tool to many different decks.
And not only does this set have powerful cards for the Spikes among us, there are plenty of awesome build-arounds that excite the brewer in me. Metallurgic Summons seems very powerful in a deck built around it, Aetherflux Reservoir makes me want to build some sort of Storm/Eggs deck in standard, Ghirapur Orrery is ripe for some sort of deck that dumps its' hand early and would love to cast a free Ancestral Recall every turn, and Aetherworks Marvel shares a standard format with all three Eldrazi Titans.
This set looks phenomenal, for the Spike in me that likes powerful cards, the Timmy in me that's looking forward to slamming down gigantic airships crewed by massive artifact titans, and the Johnny in me that just wants people to have to sit and watch me try to play storm with 0-mana equipment, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Paradoxical Outcome.
The unique Indian - steampunk flavor mix with dwarves, elves and vedalken in the mix makes for a great feel.
The mechanics - Fabricate is nice and simple giving good extra options to creatures, Energy is an interesting new system which thanks to the decision to make most energy cards able to both produce and use energy managed to avoid being too parasitic and Ships/Crew are interesting for boosting smaller creatures or groups of creatures and for making creature decks more resilient to sorcery speed removal/ wrath effects.
The power level - we aren't even halfway and there are already a significant amount of high potential standard cards, the enemy fast lands, the planeswalkers (particularly God Chandra), the Gearhulks (aka new Titans), Demon of Dark Schemes (aka new Massacre Wurm). There are even a bunch of good Uncommons like Aerial Responder, Voltaic Brawler, Filigree Familiar, Unlicensed Disintergration, Aether Hub, Ceremonious Rejection, Essence Extraction etc.
The only issue is that there is barely anything with plegacy or modern playability. But that's not unusual and we still have plenty to go.
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
Limited looks like it's deep. Gearhulks are a lazy rehash of Titans. And energy is just another mechanic that feels like they had no other idea.
I like it so far but won't be opening packs outside of draft.
Cockatrice username: Blackcat77
Allied ones are not played in Legacy, these won't be. Allied ones are played in not many places in Modern relative to the number of Modern archetypes. Hatebear decks use them because of Arbiter, and a couple of combo decks like Grishoalbrand play them because they go off quickly.
Legacy is a different animal, but Jund routinely runs fast lands in modern. First turn plays are important. They are solid lands. I suspect you could see some play with the new blue off-color ones as well. Sure they aren't played as much as fetch+shock or manlands, but they get more play than filter lands I'd imagine.
all of the allied fastlands are played in modern
seachrome coast and darkslick shores in ad nauseum. ive also seen shores in grixis control
copperline gorge in some dredge and burn and living end.
you can look up all decks they are played in on mtggoldfish
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
-While it's impossible to comment on the term "cheezy", one cannot use the term unplayable to refer to cards that no one has played with yet. Many things are deemed unplayable during preview season.
-Any mechanic that you center a deck around dictates the structure of that deck. Energy acts the same way.
-Cards that are deemed too powerful for standard usually do not get reprinted at all. So you won't lose anything there. You actually gain something that wouldn't have been there otherwise. There's no way in hell they'd have reprinted mana crypt or sol ring. Now you get them reprinted anyway without affecting the format.
-None of the masterpieces are cards that they would have reprinted in a set.
-The masterpieces will all be of the same type (In this case artifacts) So they can't really stop "powerful" rare reprints. Since they can hardly pick the Masterpieces type based solely on which particular card players want reprinted.
-I'm sure you've noticed that most reprints are uncommons and commons. Rares define a set, so we don't get that many rare reprints. They did that in core sets and nobody cared.
-Buying boosters is a lottery from the start. You have no idea what cards you're buying. If that was bad for the game, it would no longer exist today.
-If I was you, I wouldn't buy packs at all. It's always bad value.
Bad value on average? Yeah, sure, depending on the details. Always bad value? That's not how gambling works. Sometimes a person spends $4 and cracks that $50+ foil mythic or what have you. That's why people keep doing it.
I don't know, I see some sideboard stuff for Modern. I'm excited to replace Thragtusk with Filigree Familiar in R/G Tron. It seems a much better option for shoring up the Burn matchup than anything to date.
Agree about the EDH-y feel, though, a lot of these things seem irrelevant outside of that sort of field.
Thank you, finally somebody gets it. Fallen Empires was amazing at the time it was released; it introduced a lot of interesting dynamics and got a lot of new players into the game. It was also heavily over-printed, but being able to pick up a booster box for $25 can be a good thing when you have a big influx of new players.
Homelands was simply bad, even at the time. Personally I thought the flavor was cool, but the gameplay was an absolute dud.
With enemy fast lands it becomes MUCH more valid to have 12 fast lands in a 3 color deck. THat means you have over 40% chance of having your 2 first turns free of damage to self.
UWRWorking on: Pyromancer AscensionUR
OK, fair points, especially about vehicles. However, it seems like an ascended limited mechanic. I despise it when rares and mythics have such mechanics. I view energy counters like infect--very narrow deckbuilding options. I also dislike such mechanics. Sure, card choices, by nature, dictate deck choices, but parasitic mechanics impose such structure to an extreme degree.
I suppose I enjoy buying packs occasionally, but they are rarely good value. However, it has generally been getting worse as we go along and the masterpieces are the next evolution of that. Powerful reprints were occasionally a thing, and one that I liked. Heck, I often enjoyed returning to standard when something I liked from older sets came back around. Right now, none of the masterpieces are things that would see print in a standard set. However, I promise you that will not be the case going forward. If they are trying to hit 50+ cards per block, you are going to see many re-printable cards used, along with a fair amount of chaff. Give it a couple of years. Moreover, it is going to suck to play limited against some of these. Sure it won't happen a lot, but when it does, it will be unfortunate
Yeah, "always" is clearly hyperbolic. Sorry. "Mostly" and soon to be "even more often" bad value is more accurate. Winners win even bigger, but more losers all around.
I will say that there is some merit to the idea that these lotteries could make standard cheaper. Big chase cards at the top deflate the value of everything else. Since these aren't standard playable, it could work, which would be a boon for many players. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
And a sidenote for anyone that has played Shadowrun, dwarf riggers are now a thing in Magic.
If you're deciding whether to buy a pack, it's "always" bad value. You don't know what you're going to open. You have a better-than-average chance of losing money. If you're opening packs regularly, the $50 cards you open will eventually be offset by the more-frequent $.50 ones. And vice versa. You can do all the math and aggregate it to figure out exactly how much you will lose (or occasionally gain, the weekend a set is released, assuming you have the time, knowledge and resources to sell off your openings for profit), but, ignoring edge cases, the answer to the question "I'm going to open this pack of Magic cards. Am I likely to lose money?" is always "yes." Expeditions/Masterpieces don't change that one bit, they just make for higher highs and lower lows once the packs are actually opened.
Maybe that's pedantic, but we're talking about an economy where lots of people sell single Magic cards, so it's useful to say opening a pack is always bad value because once people realize how much they're losing, they can start spending that money on singles instead. During a game of Magic you play towards the random outcomes that our most likely to happen, so why wouldn't you at the counter?