Rosewater in one of his Q/A columns said that the lack of non-aura enchantments in Throes was not an accident and strongly implied we'd be seeing them inthe next two sets
Taking the Legendary Enchantment Artifact idea to the extreme, I want to see some Basic Legendary Snow Tribal Artifact Enchantment Planeswalker Creature Lands.
Taking the Legendary Enchantment Artifact idea to the extreme, I want to see some Basic Legendary Snow Tribal Artifact Enchantment Planeswalker Creature Lands.
Well, it seems likely that we'll get some vanilla enchantment creatures like Lucent Liminid -- note from its flavor text, it is a herald of the sun goddess so while some of the details have been changed, it was intended for a mythological gods themed set -- and presumably a mechanic or other cards that make their "enchantment-ness" more interesting.
Speaking of Pacifism, it would sure be nice. Claustrophobia too. I understand that voltron is kind of supposed to be a thing here, but there needs to be some way to stop it. Bestow goes way too bonkers. As Semantics noted, tension during choices is good for the limited experience, and bestow offers exactly zero tension as is.
I played my Theros sealed deck against a friend's M14 sealed deck the other day, and he obliterated my two voltrons with Pacifism. It was a thing of beauty.
The upside to Pacifisms and such is that Enchantment removal is already built into the set.
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The upside to Pacifisms and such is that Enchantment removal is already built into the set.
Yes. That way, Pacifism has blowout potential against voltrons (which is needed), but can be mitigated by something that is already quite commonly available.
There just needs to be some kind of risk associated with voltrons. The way I see it, removal (generally speaking) should be occasionally capable of 2-for-1s, even at common and uncommon to make it good enough to compete with threats. As is, it is nearly impossible to get a 2-for-1 with your answers in Theros. The way Theros operates, removal is almost strictly on a 1-for-1 basis. Of course, the threat has likely already done some kind of damage. Due to bestow and the cantrip auras, most parts of a voltron either stick around when the "main" creature dies, or already replaced themselves, so there is no card advantage to be had from removal.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
I'd like to see a few more Monstrous cards like Fleecemane Lion-- cheap to play at first and then much later you can upgrade them. Too many Monstrous cards are already mid-to-high costing before they even turn monstrous.
I'd also like to see Mesa Enchantress, but I don't really expect to.
Enchantment lands... not enchant lands
something like:
Cardname
Enchantment Land
When Cardname enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
Creatures of the chosen type gain +1/+1.
Tap: add (1 specific mana) to your mana pool.
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Be a lemming hunter. Don't be a lemming. Really, all you had to do was explain to him the popularity metric, not give him the lemming hunter manifesto...
I think that they would reserve Enchantment Lands for Journey into Nyx.
After all, if they are indeed journeying into Nyx in that set--which seems like a safe bet--and Nyx is the source of all of the enchantments in the block--those being the influence of the gods--it seems to make sense that the lands in Nyx would also be enchantments.
I expect those to work out as well as (meaning, not at all) as the Artifact Lands of Mirrodin.
Also, anyone else note that MaRo was very coy about why non-Aura enchantments are so scarce in Theros? Could it be because they're printing Affinity for Enchantments somewhere in the block? While Affinity for Artifacts is inherently... problematic to balance, Affinity for Enchantments in a block where there are very few enchantments that don't require other cards to be playable might be... a bit better.
Well, it seems likely that we'll get some vanilla enchantment creatures like Lucent Liminid
I believe Mark Rosewater said that he was not at all happy with how Lucent Liminid turned out. That an enchantment creature should have a reason for being an enchantment, i.e. an ability.
I also think he said that Lucent Liminid actually had such an ability, but that development removed it to reduce complexity.
I'd like to see Cyclopean Snare reprinted. It's even on-theme!
(I was originally going to suggest Icy Manipulator, but I think that would be too good at Common and printing it at Uncommon wouldn't help much.)
Also, some kind of Infest-like card would be good.
Last but not least, colours which aren't Black should get at least one good Devotion card each at Common.
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<Limited Clan>
I'd like Icy a bit more for constructed, actually. It can be an Aetherling mirror-breaker in the same way Debtor's Pulpit was occasionally tried, without being useless vs aggro and enchantment hate. Not that that's relevant to this forum, but worth pointing out.
I agree regarding a Pacifism/Claustrophobia variant. We've already got a million ways to deal with them in our sideboards, so they can't be that broken. How about an Arachnus Web variant that stops triggered abilities instead of activated abilities? Green could use the help.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Yeah. It doesn't come with the built in insurance against 2-for-1s that Domestication has. Still, any kinds of auras that can slow down the herps would be nice.
As mentioned in a thread from a while ago, how about some build-around niche uncommons to provide giggles once the format inevitably becomes stale? Can a brotha get a Rage Extractor! (Limited viability notwithstanding.)
To all of you who are saying there needs to be something to deal with Voltrons: I'd like to point out that Pharika's Cure and Lightning Strike are both common, and most creatures that get Bestowed have no more than 2 or 3 toughness. I wouldn't mind a Claustrphobia either, but I've had attempts at Voltronning fall flat already-- I'm not convinced we need that many more answers.
Since we've only seen one out of three sets in the block, I'm confident that we will be seeing more devotion cards, and by the time Journey into Nyx is out all five colors will have convincing reasons to devote yourself to it. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for them!
I'd like to see a repeatable Scry effect that isn't as bad as Witches' Eye and isn't rare. Maybe that's too much to ask-- I know Crystal Ball slows games down quite a bit-- but darn it, Scry's one of my favorites! Maybe a sorcery that scries X, then puts itself back in your library X cards from the top?
The problem with having card like Cure, Strike, and Voyage's End as the cards that answer voltrons is that they're all high picks. There's little that you can do to draft a deck that's specifically good against the strategy, nor anything you can side in. You just have to take high picks highly, and hope.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
The problem with having card like Cure, Strike, and Voyage's End as the cards that answer voltrons is that they're all high picks. There's little that you can do to draft a deck that's specifically good against the strategy, nor anything you can side in. You just have to take high picks highly, and hope.
If a strategy is good and relatively easy to draft, then any card that deals with it will be a high pick. If Born reprints Claustrophobia and Pacifism, will they be picked any less highly than Cure, Strike, or End? Of course not.
Magic: the Gathering has been trying to make stacking Auras on your own creatures a viable strategy ever since 1993, but the card disadvantage has always stymied them. Now it finally is, and people want a silver bullet tailor made for stopping it?
I said in my first post on this thread that I wanted some Walls, so that people had a chance of answering Prowler's Helm. If said Walls have a toughness high enough to block a creature wearing a few Nymphs, then that could "answer" the Voltron strategy without discouraging people from playing Auras. I suspect that's part of the reason Guardians of Meletis and Pheres-Band Centaurs were printed-- so it would be fairly easy to find creatures that can hold off a Nymph-wearing Bear.
Magic: the Gathering has been trying to make stacking Auras on your own creatures a viable strategy ever since 1993, but the card disadvantage has always stymied them. Now it finally is, and people want a silver bullet tailor made for stopping it?
It's only viable because all its natural predators have been removed or hamstrung in the Theros ecosystem. Step just outside that and you start running into Pacifism, Doom Blade, Claustrophobia; you're right back in that high-risk box.
THS has stacked both Bestow (which itself is a pretty good way around the inherent risk of casting an Aura) and a very limited removal suite in order to showcase the Auras approach, but as I and a few others have mentioned before, it's not representative of the rest of the game. It's like the Galapagos islands, it's a place perfectly suited to crafting giant, Aura-stacked monsters and beating face.
What I'm hoping for isn't an absolute return to 'conventional Magic' in this block; I want to see a few more spells that can stop a gestalt after it's hit 'critical mass'. There are four or five spells that do this today in Theros:
Griptide
Voyage's End
Sip of Hemlock
Divine Verdict
Keepsake Gorgon
Red loses the ability to burn through the target once it gets past 3 toughness, and often can't respond at all as long as the opponent leaves mana up. Green must rely on having big guys to throw in front of an Aura'd-up guy and hope it doesn't have evasion.
Something should be added to red and green to allow them to compete a little better, that's all. Whether it's something like a rebalanced Fissure or some kind of new Lignify, I hope to see both colors get some way of stopping an aura gestalt.
Plus a smattering of rares and mythics, none of which are in red.
And then green of course gets direct Enchantment removal to either take out the base creature directly or at least get one-for-ones on the component parts. White's Ray of Dissolution is spectacular on this front, incidentally.
Still, I agree that there is an unusually low amount of removal that can take out large creatures, and that BNG could certainly stand to amp it up just a touch. I'm not sure red will actually get any of these tools, mind you, since I think they rather intend for it to try and slip in wins before the gestalt can get off the ground, but we'll see.
The thing is, auras add variance to the game, plain and simple. Variance is good if you're a noob, but bad if you actually know what you're doing. Isn't the variance of deck shuffling, mana screw/flood enough? Auras SHOULD involve significant risk because the reward is very high. Slamming a Mark of the Vampire actually rightly should either swing the game, or get 2-for-1ed the second it tries to come out. Auras are perfectly viable if you're playing against noobs that don't know what they are doing. However, people who actually draft removal because they know it is important should be rewarded for doing so. Auras already did their job prior to Theros, and that job was to add variance to the game. They should be a niche kind of thing. Removal, on the other hand, should not be a niche thing.
I don't think the data is really available, but I bet Theros has caused a shift of limited ELO rating towards the middle from either direction because noobs start winning more often and good players lose more often than they would in a normal set. It's almost as though Theros is a casual set instead of a competitive one in the same way that Planeschase or Archenemy are not competitively balanced due to the built in variance. But, that's perfectly acceptable. When I play those formats, I expect the variance, want the variance, and know that we're just playing for gits and shiggles and will get to see some pretty stupid stuff happen. On the flipside, it's frustrating when an allegedly-competitve environment has such high variance built into it. You may as well be playing Chutes and Ladders Online.
Granted, this might actually make sense from a business standpoint. Noobs winning would give them more incentive to keep showing up, to keep buying cards, and continue that into the future. Then, once they get good, they will complain about how Theros was a terrible set. At the same time, I'm choosing not to play MTGO because I hate Theros with a burning passion. I don't know how many others have made that decision, but I give Wizards more money than your average nooble.
TL;DR... The major problem is that the current state of bestow/voltron is quite literally no risk, high reward. Add the cantrip auras to that as well and you have a well-oiled machine that is stopped by a very small number of answers. There is almost no way to create card advantage by removing a voltron in this set. Because removal cannot generate card advantage where auras do, removal is very weak on the whole now.
Normal draft order is BREAD. Gatecrash was BARED. Theros is BEARD where A is for auras.
(I understand some of this might be a slight exaggeration, though only slight)
Can we get a few Enchantments that are like, you know, traditional enchantments?
Not Bestow guys, not Enchantment Creatures or Artifacts or whatever, but just a plain old Enchantment?
Where are the Curses? Where are the Pyrostatic Pillars and Seal of Cleansings and Doubling Seasons? Can we get a few wacky, build-around-me enchantments in the Enchantment Block?
How about a Lightning Rift for Scry (since Astral Slide would probably break the format)?
Unrelated, but probably should also point out that we haven't seen the set's Wrath of God variant yet.
Well, it seems likely that we'll get some vanilla enchantment creatures like Lucent Liminid -- note from its flavor text, it is a herald of the sun goddess so while some of the details have been changed, it was intended for a mythological gods themed set -- and presumably a mechanic or other cards that make their "enchantment-ness" more interesting.
I played my Theros sealed deck against a friend's M14 sealed deck the other day, and he obliterated my two voltrons with Pacifism. It was a thing of beauty.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Yes. That way, Pacifism has blowout potential against voltrons (which is needed), but can be mitigated by something that is already quite commonly available.
There just needs to be some kind of risk associated with voltrons. The way I see it, removal (generally speaking) should be occasionally capable of 2-for-1s, even at common and uncommon to make it good enough to compete with threats. As is, it is nearly impossible to get a 2-for-1 with your answers in Theros. The way Theros operates, removal is almost strictly on a 1-for-1 basis. Of course, the threat has likely already done some kind of damage. Due to bestow and the cantrip auras, most parts of a voltron either stick around when the "main" creature dies, or already replaced themselves, so there is no card advantage to be had from removal.
Explorer G
When Explorer comes into play, you may search your library for a basic land and put it on top of your library.
1/2
?
I'd play it.
They printed Treefolk Harbinger.
I'd like to see a few more Monstrous cards like Fleecemane Lion-- cheap to play at first and then much later you can upgrade them. Too many Monstrous cards are already mid-to-high costing before they even turn monstrous.
I'd also like to see Mesa Enchantress, but I don't really expect to.
something like:
Cardname
Enchantment Land
When Cardname enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.
Creatures of the chosen type gain +1/+1.
Tap: add (1 specific mana) to your mana pool.
Be a lemming hunter. Don't be a lemming.
Really, all you had to do was explain to him the popularity metric, not give him the lemming hunter manifesto...
Originally posted by MemoryLapse and DotMatrix
After all, if they are indeed journeying into Nyx in that set--which seems like a safe bet--and Nyx is the source of all of the enchantments in the block--those being the influence of the gods--it seems to make sense that the lands in Nyx would also be enchantments.
I expect those to work out as well as (meaning, not at all) as the Artifact Lands of Mirrodin.
Also, anyone else note that MaRo was very coy about why non-Aura enchantments are so scarce in Theros? Could it be because they're printing Affinity for Enchantments somewhere in the block? While Affinity for Artifacts is inherently... problematic to balance, Affinity for Enchantments in a block where there are very few enchantments that don't require other cards to be playable might be... a bit better.
I believe Mark Rosewater said that he was not at all happy with how Lucent Liminid turned out. That an enchantment creature should have a reason for being an enchantment, i.e. an ability.
I also think he said that Lucent Liminid actually had such an ability, but that development removed it to reduce complexity.
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(I was originally going to suggest Icy Manipulator, but I think that would be too good at Common and printing it at Uncommon wouldn't help much.)
Also, some kind of Infest-like card would be good.
Last but not least, colours which aren't Black should get at least one good Devotion card each at Common.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
I agree regarding a Pacifism/Claustrophobia variant. We've already got a million ways to deal with them in our sideboards, so they can't be that broken. How about an Arachnus Web variant that stops triggered abilities instead of activated abilities? Green could use the help.
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Since we've only seen one out of three sets in the block, I'm confident that we will be seeing more devotion cards, and by the time Journey into Nyx is out all five colors will have convincing reasons to devote yourself to it. I just hope we don't have to wait too long for them!
I'd like to see a repeatable Scry effect that isn't as bad as Witches' Eye and isn't rare. Maybe that's too much to ask-- I know Crystal Ball slows games down quite a bit-- but darn it, Scry's one of my favorites! Maybe a sorcery that scries X, then puts itself back in your library X cards from the top?
The problem with having card like Cure, Strike, and Voyage's End as the cards that answer voltrons is that they're all high picks. There's little that you can do to draft a deck that's specifically good against the strategy, nor anything you can side in. You just have to take high picks highly, and hope.
If a strategy is good and relatively easy to draft, then any card that deals with it will be a high pick. If Born reprints Claustrophobia and Pacifism, will they be picked any less highly than Cure, Strike, or End? Of course not.
Magic: the Gathering has been trying to make stacking Auras on your own creatures a viable strategy ever since 1993, but the card disadvantage has always stymied them. Now it finally is, and people want a silver bullet tailor made for stopping it?
I said in my first post on this thread that I wanted some Walls, so that people had a chance of answering Prowler's Helm. If said Walls have a toughness high enough to block a creature wearing a few Nymphs, then that could "answer" the Voltron strategy without discouraging people from playing Auras. I suspect that's part of the reason Guardians of Meletis and Pheres-Band Centaurs were printed-- so it would be fairly easy to find creatures that can hold off a Nymph-wearing Bear.
It's only viable because all its natural predators have been removed or hamstrung in the Theros ecosystem. Step just outside that and you start running into Pacifism, Doom Blade, Claustrophobia; you're right back in that high-risk box.
THS has stacked both Bestow (which itself is a pretty good way around the inherent risk of casting an Aura) and a very limited removal suite in order to showcase the Auras approach, but as I and a few others have mentioned before, it's not representative of the rest of the game. It's like the Galapagos islands, it's a place perfectly suited to crafting giant, Aura-stacked monsters and beating face.
What I'm hoping for isn't an absolute return to 'conventional Magic' in this block; I want to see a few more spells that can stop a gestalt after it's hit 'critical mass'. There are four or five spells that do this today in Theros:
Griptide
Voyage's End
Sip of Hemlock
Divine Verdict
Keepsake Gorgon
Red loses the ability to burn through the target once it gets past 3 toughness, and often can't respond at all as long as the opponent leaves mana up. Green must rely on having big guys to throw in front of an Aura'd-up guy and hope it doesn't have evasion.
Something should be added to red and green to allow them to compete a little better, that's all. Whether it's something like a rebalanced Fissure or some kind of new Lignify, I hope to see both colors get some way of stopping an aura gestalt.
Plus a smattering of rares and mythics, none of which are in red.
And then green of course gets direct Enchantment removal to either take out the base creature directly or at least get one-for-ones on the component parts. White's Ray of Dissolution is spectacular on this front, incidentally.
Still, I agree that there is an unusually low amount of removal that can take out large creatures, and that BNG could certainly stand to amp it up just a touch. I'm not sure red will actually get any of these tools, mind you, since I think they rather intend for it to try and slip in wins before the gestalt can get off the ground, but we'll see.
I don't think the data is really available, but I bet Theros has caused a shift of limited ELO rating towards the middle from either direction because noobs start winning more often and good players lose more often than they would in a normal set. It's almost as though Theros is a casual set instead of a competitive one in the same way that Planeschase or Archenemy are not competitively balanced due to the built in variance. But, that's perfectly acceptable. When I play those formats, I expect the variance, want the variance, and know that we're just playing for gits and shiggles and will get to see some pretty stupid stuff happen. On the flipside, it's frustrating when an allegedly-competitve environment has such high variance built into it. You may as well be playing Chutes and Ladders Online.
Granted, this might actually make sense from a business standpoint. Noobs winning would give them more incentive to keep showing up, to keep buying cards, and continue that into the future. Then, once they get good, they will complain about how Theros was a terrible set. At the same time, I'm choosing not to play MTGO because I hate Theros with a burning passion. I don't know how many others have made that decision, but I give Wizards more money than your average nooble.
TL;DR... The major problem is that the current state of bestow/voltron is quite literally no risk, high reward. Add the cantrip auras to that as well and you have a well-oiled machine that is stopped by a very small number of answers. There is almost no way to create card advantage by removing a voltron in this set. Because removal cannot generate card advantage where auras do, removal is very weak on the whole now.
Normal draft order is BREAD. Gatecrash was BARED. Theros is BEARD where A is for auras.
(I understand some of this might be a slight exaggeration, though only slight)