It's really a different case because unlike Tactics or whatever, MTGO is pulling in *plenty* of money and they've had *plenty* of times to fix things. I haven't seen such well-funded studios produce so much nothing. (Although I am sure they are out there...)
I usually like to add that even if MODO is bringing in tons of cash, that doesn't mean its getting a proportional cut of what it's making. I wouldn't be surprised if MODO was mega profitable, because WoTC chooses to spend the money it makes elsewhere, like paper R&D or Dungeons and Dragons.
There was also many cards on this expansion that are supposed to affect Modern or make it better / different (2 tribal creatures in special).
Which probably means they'll overshoot and impact legacy too. If they're tribally focused, then they might just be narrow enough to miss-out, but I doubt it.
Ashen Rider provides your answer. There's a full allied Gold cycle of Mythics...except for the G/W one, which is B/W instead. This means that they had to use the G/W elsewhere in the block and couldn't have it in set 1. Meaning we have a G/W Planeswalker (Ajani) who couldn't be moved from his Set 2 appearance. (Set 2 also has always had a returning PW.)
I don't think this is a "cycle" I'd expect to be completed in the other two sets, especially since the minor gods will take up the Mythic Slot for 2color combinations in the following set.
Commonalities do not make for a shared culture. Unless we're about to start calling ourselves British-American, we need to stop conflating Greece and Rome - especially when the best and only links are religion (I don't have the time to elucidate people, again, on the subtler differences here) and philosophy, both of which are tenuous at best.
Anybody who knows the first thing about either Greece or Rome would easily be able to see the difference. After months of witnessing the same arguments, it's become extremely clear to me that the people repeatedly vomiting "hurr durr, same gods" don't fall into that category of cultural and historical awareness. As it stands right now, Ravnica has far and away more in common with Rome than Theros does.
I'd argue that the nuanced differences between Roman and Greek culture/mythology is not something most people are aware of. Any Roman themed stuff in MTG would be saved less for a block setting, and more for a particular element in a block. (Like a specific faction, or region in a block setting, contrasted with other distinct cultural factions and regions.)
A Roman inspired block would run into a similar class of problems Kamigawa had: Lake of cultural awareness of the subtleties. Apparently, Kamigawa had a good set of top-down flavor elements inspired by Shinto mythology, but they were lost to western audiences, who don't experience Shinto on a day to day basis. This is part of why Kamigawa feels like genereic Japanese trope set to some people.
Rome-block would run into the "problem" or being Theros 2: The Therosening, and so people would have certain expectations that would be inapropriate (The behavior of the Gods, and philosophies being pretty much the same. City States)
Not to mention, it can be argued that there are many images of Rome, the Republic, which lasted for many hundreds of years, and the Empire, which also lasted for hundreads of years. And Empire can be further divided between the differences between Pax Romana and other periods of History (Like the East West/Divide, Reunification under Constantine, redivision later, and you can even go as far down as Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire.)
I don't understand why you don't feel that they could do 'enchantments matter' in a way that's different from how Mirrodin interacted with artifacts. There's tons of design space there. Just look at the 'enchantments matter' cards from RTR and M14 for examples (ironic that we have to go back to non-Theros sets to find support for Theros' supposed subtheme.) Sphere of Safety, Blightcaster, and Ajani's Chosen are all great examples of the stuff possible.
Because those examples are indistinguishable from the sorts of things done in Mirrodin. Every card you listed would very much function the exact same way, and wouldn't even be out of place on Mirrodin if you replaced "enchantment" in the text line with "artifact."
Caring about the raw number of a card type to get an effect is what Mirrodin is all about. Metalcraft, Affinity, Modular, and various one-off effects all cared about the number of artifacts, and forced you play those artifacts in order to maximize their effect. In fact, there was 0 way to take Mirrodin's mechanics and actually utilize them in non-artifact heavy decks.
You're right that we don't have that design space explicitly explored, but that's because it's derivative of everything they've done before. WoTC wants to see if they can make the enchantments matter without having to fall back on old design patters. This is an important excersize for the longevity of the game, otherwise they'll be forced to re-use the same design templates over and over again, which gets old quickly.
Don't get me wrong, I do find it strange that there are 0 cards that care about enchantments in the traditional way, and they're all instead sprinkled in RTR and M14, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to leaves those card for BoG onwards.
The word "matters" was not subconsciously added. It was said by mark rosewater. The enchantments were supposed to matter.
The enchantments do matter, and you do care for them, but as enablers for card-type agnostic mechanics. Again, this was mentioned by Maro in his state of design article (I think) where this year's goal is to make a card-type matter, but not in the way they've mattered before. (Since in the past, the mechanic would reward you for ONLY having that particular card type, as opposed to building around the mechanic however you want, with a particular card type being better than most.)
My main complaint is that they once again made a whole slew of 'cute' auras but they didn't make any good ones. I don't understand why they keep making jank auras.
Here - let me demonstrate how easy it is to make a good aura:
WW - Holy Land - enchant target basic land. W - target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Well look at that - a playable version of Blessing.
UU - Underwater Passage - enchant target island. 1U - target creature is unblockable until end of turn.
First of all any color can get rid of these if they want so you don't have to fret about making red or black players upset.
Second of all it doesn't encroach into any other design spaces the way equipment encroached into auras.
Third - avoids a great deal of the typical 2 for 1 worries by putting it on a card type that typically can't be destroyed until turn 4 or later.
Fourth - doesn't suck.
While these would be great, and I would love the hell out of a set of land auras like these, they run the risk of making limited too complex, a-la Lorwyn. While most all of the cards on Lorwyn were fairly simple and strait forward, almost everything had and activated or triggered ability. This mean figuring out combat from just looking at the cards on board (and ignoring potential combat tricks!) took too long because there were too many permutations.
Note: Most of the RTR lands-auras had a tap cost, preventing you from using them over and over again, and none of them modified power and toughness. A couple did give abilities though.
Also, the most straitforward answer to these auras is LD, and a mechanic that encourages LD is problematic because of the amount of splash damage dealt to more casual folks not on that strategy.
I only have one big problem with Theros: WotC should never, ever have used the phrase "enchantment theme". It obviously built up some hopes and expectations Theros wasn't designed to meet - it seems like a good set altogether, but anyone who wanted an enchantment set will be disappointed.
Part of WoTC's goal for THS was to see if they could make a card-type matters block that was very much different than the ones they've done in the past, particularly artifacts.
They didn't want THS to be a set that was essentially Mirrodin/Antiquities but with Enchantments instead. That would be lazy, and they can't do the same thing with enchantments that they can do with artifacts. Additionally, the first time they did Mirridon, things ended up getting way busted, with the artifacts matters cards being much more powerful than everything else in the block.
They don't want to risk doing the same with THS (Especially since the first ever Enchantment block, Urza's Saga, almost destroyed MTG.) And I think that the way they achieved this was pretty interesting. Instead of making you want to have as many enchantments as possible to trigger an effect, they're instead the most efficient, and best way to support whatever you're doing.
For example: Enchantments are great for devotion, since they're a fairly sturdy permanent type, and don't die to most creature interactions. Having a whole bunch of non-aura enchantments laying on the field is a saver bet for triggering you Gods and other Devotion effects than a whole bunch of easy to interact with creatures.
Enchantments, particularly auras, also work better for Heroic than any other card type, since their effects are permanent, unlike instants and sorceries.
So this set is less about rewarding you for having as many enchantments as possible, and more about letting you build around the mechanics however you want, but making enchantments the best way of going about doing this.
They're exiled based on the cards specific flavor.
For example Swords to Plowshares causes the targeted creature to receive a massive change in consciousness. They refuse to fight anything anymore and instead try to help the player in other ways. Path to Exile is similar, but a more direct "banishing.
Return to Dust is different because it literally dissolves something so fully that no magical properties remain to be salvaged. Unmake is similar.
Every suspend card (Rift Bolt) is on the exact same plane, but in a sort of time bubble that doesn't interact with our current reality until the bubble moves along.
Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void both show powerful magic that unbinds the essences of the dead from the material plane, allowing them to pass on. They similarly render left-over magical scrap innert as a side effect.
etc. etc. etc. Exiling is actually a very flexible flavor result, and it's not even used to represent the same thing each time. I haven't even gotten to cards like Restoration Angel or Ghostway
First of all, we can't monolithically define Johnny's subjectvity, and demand that obviosly powerful combo cards such as Warpworld or Possibility storm be the only cards that satisfy that outlook.
There are also small effects that can appeal to Johnny because they provide an interesting and reasonable deck building challenge. Cards like Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Delver of Secrets, and every Heoric card fit into this mold.
We also have to remember that there is overlap between all of the profiles. So while a deck like Warp World might be a "Johnny" deck, it does something so visceraly powerful and cool that it also appeals to Timmys. Likewise Twin Combos appeal to both Spike and Johnny.
Heroic is a Johnny Mechanic, especially since you can accidently 2-for-1 yourself if you mess up. Not to mention trying to get as many triggers as possible etc.
Trying to get around the Legendary Drawback is also a nice puzzle, albeit a boring(from most perspective) one.
To save space. Whenever multicolored cards are made, WoTC is put in a lot of preasure to "complete" the loose cycle of enemy/allied color pairs so that its more fair for fans of those colors. If they are only obligated to do 5 instead of 10, they can be a little more flexibile in the cards avialable.
Realizing now that castigate is only WB to cast, yeah this should have been 1UB or 2UB.
Castigate never allowed you to cast the spell at your leisure. In fact, no spell ever let you cast a spell at your leisure. Most effects like this just flat out require you to cast them that very turn, and don't even bother to help you cast them. This card is fair at 5cmc, instant Standard card at 4, modern playable at 3, and banned in vintage at 2.
These may be Spike cards, but even the spikes would have preferred enemy colored scar lands, Horizon Canopy, River of Tears, Grove of the Burnwillows, or Nimbus Maze. And Vorthos would have preferred that the lands involve devotion (they are temples after all).
Uhh, I'm pretty sure when talking about preferences, Alpha tumps all, but that's not what matters. These Scry Lands are what we're getting and I know a lot of high level tournament players excited for them.
Hell, I'm excited for them because I'm the crazy sort of person whose willing to jam these in mono-colored decks for the variable chance of a free loot effect. I'm bummed they don't help out aggro in the way the painlands or Scars lands do, but this sort of tiny incremental effect is something I find rad.
I don't see how the lands could hurt the strategies, per say. If the potential to lose tempo by playing the lands is so great, run basics. If not, run these. Understanding what benefits your deck the most and playing the appropriate cards is what makes for better Magic players and deck builders. If they are "bad" because they are not as obvious as lands like Shocklands or dual Manlands, then they are only as bad as a player is at evaluating their role in his or her deck.
That to me makes for a better designed card, even if the card isn't better than another option. Magic cards that make you think about how you play, and why you play them, make the game healthier.
They hurt strategies by locking out how you're able to build your deck. And on top of that, they harm consistency.
If I want to build a R/W Aggro deck for, example, these lands don't allow me to go R -> WW -> 1WR -> 1RRW. That's just a fancy way of saying I can't run Precinct Captain with Ash Zealot, and have to replace one with Rakdos Shred Freak, or the other with Phalanx Captain. It also means that I can't run a critical mass of two power one drops, because it could lock me out of a two drop.
The lands also hurt my ability to play the RW bears in the format, like the Guildmage or Halbrediers. The opportunity cost of just strait up playing nothing for decades when I could instead just splash red and run mono-white creatures, or splash white and run mono-red creatures means that actual gold cards get muscled out.
Running more basics doesn't help the former because of the failure rate, it is more reasonable for the latter because you "only" need one mana of any color to cast your spell, so there's some potential there, but that also means you're missing out on some very powerful (may be even necessary) card filtering latter in the game.
Note, these are still valid format considerations to design into standard, I'm just saying that these cards aren't 0 impact of aggressive strategies.
I will also like to mention that almost all duel lands are pretty much mono-Spike appeal, with Timmy/Johnny not getting too excited by cards like these because they're don't promote some cool build around me strategy (Like Maze's End or Valakut the Molten Pinnacle) or create some super cool splashy effect (Grove of the Guardian, Utility lands like Kessig Wolf Run)
It's not that these cards are "bad" but they're unexciting to these sets of players, and that's O.K. Besides, most Spike cards are hard to evaluate, so it's resaonable and expected for people to miss-evaluate or even dislike the cards getting showed, especially compared to a 5/5 Octopus that can remove island home from itself.
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I usually like to add that even if MODO is bringing in tons of cash, that doesn't mean its getting a proportional cut of what it's making. I wouldn't be surprised if MODO was mega profitable, because WoTC chooses to spend the money it makes elsewhere, like paper R&D or Dungeons and Dragons.
Which probably means they'll overshoot and impact legacy too. If they're tribally focused, then they might just be narrow enough to miss-out, but I doubt it.
I don't think this is a "cycle" I'd expect to be completed in the other two sets, especially since the minor gods will take up the Mythic Slot for 2color combinations in the following set.
I'd argue that the nuanced differences between Roman and Greek culture/mythology is not something most people are aware of. Any Roman themed stuff in MTG would be saved less for a block setting, and more for a particular element in a block. (Like a specific faction, or region in a block setting, contrasted with other distinct cultural factions and regions.)
A Roman inspired block would run into a similar class of problems Kamigawa had: Lake of cultural awareness of the subtleties. Apparently, Kamigawa had a good set of top-down flavor elements inspired by Shinto mythology, but they were lost to western audiences, who don't experience Shinto on a day to day basis. This is part of why Kamigawa feels like genereic Japanese trope set to some people.
Rome-block would run into the "problem" or being Theros 2: The Therosening, and so people would have certain expectations that would be inapropriate (The behavior of the Gods, and philosophies being pretty much the same. City States)
Not to mention, it can be argued that there are many images of Rome, the Republic, which lasted for many hundreds of years, and the Empire, which also lasted for hundreads of years. And Empire can be further divided between the differences between Pax Romana and other periods of History (Like the East West/Divide, Reunification under Constantine, redivision later, and you can even go as far down as Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire.)
Plus so much more.
Because those examples are indistinguishable from the sorts of things done in Mirrodin. Every card you listed would very much function the exact same way, and wouldn't even be out of place on Mirrodin if you replaced "enchantment" in the text line with "artifact."
Caring about the raw number of a card type to get an effect is what Mirrodin is all about. Metalcraft, Affinity, Modular, and various one-off effects all cared about the number of artifacts, and forced you play those artifacts in order to maximize their effect. In fact, there was 0 way to take Mirrodin's mechanics and actually utilize them in non-artifact heavy decks.
You're right that we don't have that design space explicitly explored, but that's because it's derivative of everything they've done before. WoTC wants to see if they can make the enchantments matter without having to fall back on old design patters. This is an important excersize for the longevity of the game, otherwise they'll be forced to re-use the same design templates over and over again, which gets old quickly.
Don't get me wrong, I do find it strange that there are 0 cards that care about enchantments in the traditional way, and they're all instead sprinkled in RTR and M14, but I wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to leaves those card for BoG onwards.
The enchantments do matter, and you do care for them, but as enablers for card-type agnostic mechanics. Again, this was mentioned by Maro in his state of design article (I think) where this year's goal is to make a card-type matter, but not in the way they've mattered before. (Since in the past, the mechanic would reward you for ONLY having that particular card type, as opposed to building around the mechanic however you want, with a particular card type being better than most.)
While these would be great, and I would love the hell out of a set of land auras like these, they run the risk of making limited too complex, a-la Lorwyn. While most all of the cards on Lorwyn were fairly simple and strait forward, almost everything had and activated or triggered ability. This mean figuring out combat from just looking at the cards on board (and ignoring potential combat tricks!) took too long because there were too many permutations.
Note: Most of the RTR lands-auras had a tap cost, preventing you from using them over and over again, and none of them modified power and toughness. A couple did give abilities though.
Also, the most straitforward answer to these auras is LD, and a mechanic that encourages LD is problematic because of the amount of splash damage dealt to more casual folks not on that strategy.
Part of WoTC's goal for THS was to see if they could make a card-type matters block that was very much different than the ones they've done in the past, particularly artifacts.
They didn't want THS to be a set that was essentially Mirrodin/Antiquities but with Enchantments instead. That would be lazy, and they can't do the same thing with enchantments that they can do with artifacts. Additionally, the first time they did Mirridon, things ended up getting way busted, with the artifacts matters cards being much more powerful than everything else in the block.
They don't want to risk doing the same with THS (Especially since the first ever Enchantment block, Urza's Saga, almost destroyed MTG.) And I think that the way they achieved this was pretty interesting. Instead of making you want to have as many enchantments as possible to trigger an effect, they're instead the most efficient, and best way to support whatever you're doing.
For example: Enchantments are great for devotion, since they're a fairly sturdy permanent type, and don't die to most creature interactions. Having a whole bunch of non-aura enchantments laying on the field is a saver bet for triggering you Gods and other Devotion effects than a whole bunch of easy to interact with creatures.
Enchantments, particularly auras, also work better for Heroic than any other card type, since their effects are permanent, unlike instants and sorceries.
So this set is less about rewarding you for having as many enchantments as possible, and more about letting you build around the mechanics however you want, but making enchantments the best way of going about doing this.
For example Swords to Plowshares causes the targeted creature to receive a massive change in consciousness. They refuse to fight anything anymore and instead try to help the player in other ways. Path to Exile is similar, but a more direct "banishing.
Oblivion Ring and Detention Sphere are just very powerful forms of magical imprisonment, and don't actually result in any inter-planar travel. Samy with cards like Fiend Hunter and Tidehollow Sculler
Return to Dust is different because it literally dissolves something so fully that no magical properties remain to be salvaged. Unmake is similar.
Every suspend card (Rift Bolt) is on the exact same plane, but in a sort of time bubble that doesn't interact with our current reality until the bubble moves along.
Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void both show powerful magic that unbinds the essences of the dead from the material plane, allowing them to pass on. They similarly render left-over magical scrap innert as a side effect.
etc. etc. etc. Exiling is actually a very flexible flavor result, and it's not even used to represent the same thing each time. I haven't even gotten to cards like Restoration Angel or Ghostway
There are also small effects that can appeal to Johnny because they provide an interesting and reasonable deck building challenge. Cards like Guttersnipe, Young Pyromancer, Delver of Secrets, and every Heoric card fit into this mold.
We also have to remember that there is overlap between all of the profiles. So while a deck like Warp World might be a "Johnny" deck, it does something so visceraly powerful and cool that it also appeals to Timmys. Likewise Twin Combos appeal to both Spike and Johnny.
Trying to get around the Legendary Drawback is also a nice puzzle, albeit a boring(from most perspective) one.
To save space. Whenever multicolored cards are made, WoTC is put in a lot of preasure to "complete" the loose cycle of enemy/allied color pairs so that its more fair for fans of those colors. If they are only obligated to do 5 instead of 10, they can be a little more flexibile in the cards avialable.
Praetors Grasp doesn't give you the mana to cast the spell, Spelljack costs one more mana and kinda proves my point that these effects are expensive.
Castigate never allowed you to cast the spell at your leisure. In fact, no spell ever let you cast a spell at your leisure. Most effects like this just flat out require you to cast them that very turn, and don't even bother to help you cast them. This card is fair at 5cmc, instant Standard card at 4, modern playable at 3, and banned in vintage at 2.
Uhh, I'm pretty sure when talking about preferences, Alpha tumps all, but that's not what matters. These Scry Lands are what we're getting and I know a lot of high level tournament players excited for them.
Hell, I'm excited for them because I'm the crazy sort of person whose willing to jam these in mono-colored decks for the variable chance of a free loot effect. I'm bummed they don't help out aggro in the way the painlands or Scars lands do, but this sort of tiny incremental effect is something I find rad.
They hurt strategies by locking out how you're able to build your deck. And on top of that, they harm consistency.
If I want to build a R/W Aggro deck for, example, these lands don't allow me to go R -> WW -> 1WR -> 1RRW. That's just a fancy way of saying I can't run Precinct Captain with Ash Zealot, and have to replace one with Rakdos Shred Freak, or the other with Phalanx Captain. It also means that I can't run a critical mass of two power one drops, because it could lock me out of a two drop.
The lands also hurt my ability to play the RW bears in the format, like the Guildmage or Halbrediers. The opportunity cost of just strait up playing nothing for decades when I could instead just splash red and run mono-white creatures, or splash white and run mono-red creatures means that actual gold cards get muscled out.
Running more basics doesn't help the former because of the failure rate, it is more reasonable for the latter because you "only" need one mana of any color to cast your spell, so there's some potential there, but that also means you're missing out on some very powerful (may be even necessary) card filtering latter in the game.
Note, these are still valid format considerations to design into standard, I'm just saying that these cards aren't 0 impact of aggressive strategies.
I will also like to mention that almost all duel lands are pretty much mono-Spike appeal, with Timmy/Johnny not getting too excited by cards like these because they're don't promote some cool build around me strategy (Like Maze's End or Valakut the Molten Pinnacle) or create some super cool splashy effect (Grove of the Guardian, Utility lands like Kessig Wolf Run)
It's not that these cards are "bad" but they're unexciting to these sets of players, and that's O.K. Besides, most Spike cards are hard to evaluate, so it's resaonable and expected for people to miss-evaluate or even dislike the cards getting showed, especially compared to a 5/5 Octopus that can remove island home from itself.