Given the look of Theros block overall, and this article, combined with my early concerns about M15's removal suite... I don't like the way this is going.
There are good reasons for removal to be cheaper than the creatures it is removing, and for unconditional removal to exist at common, or at least uncommon.
Among them are:
sometimes you need a way to get rid of an opponent's creature that you don't have an effective creature that can beat it, or aren't drawing such.
Wheenie aggro with lots of little guys needs a way to push through enemy big guys on their low mana curve and attack right now (not spend a turn tapping all their guys with convoke to remove one big guy late game that might soon be replaced with a bigger guy)
Control-ish decks need reliable removal they can play early game to deal with an opponent's evasive creatures, even in limited where their defense is more creature based (with walls and big toughness creatures)
Removal of this sort reigns in on over-use of combat tricks in big blowouts that screw up the board state and make the game luck based swingy rather than skill based, due to the risk of being 2-for-1ed
A lot of times you need to be playing a removal _with_ something else later game, not spend a whole turn on it
A lot of times you need instant speed good removal -right now- against a big hasty creature that popped up unexpectedly, but can't afford not to spend mana on other stuff
Huge casting cost removal is pointless at instant speed, because saving it usually clues in your opponent that you are holding onto some big instant speed thing, probably over-costed removal or an over-costed counterspell, and they'll hold off casting the things you wanted to potentially remove/counter, and in some cases, find ways to attack your hand, or just play smaller stuff that isn't worth your limited reserves of removal and cause you to have effectively wasted a turn while the opponent got ahead a small amount, just because they saw you leave a lot of mana open.
Does this mean people can quit using "It dies to removal" as an excuse for their inability to properly evaluate cards for constructed? If so, then I'm all for it.
Does this mean people can quit using "It dies to removal" as an excuse for their inability to properly evaluate cards for constructed? If so, then I'm all for it.
No, because Modern still has a decent removal pool, and even if the removal is minimized, it still will probably matter more in constructed that limited, especially if they still have decent removal in constructed, it's just moved to rare like Hero's Downfall. Dies to removal is something that doesn't matter much to low CMC creatures, but is a major problem on high CMC creatures that don't have haste (and sometimes even if they do), because in most cases, they'll play removal and something else with the same mana that you played your high CMC thing that they removed. Even with the over-costed removal in the current M15 set being the tendency, it still means most auras that don't protect from removal are unplayable because of the 2-for-1 aspect that even expensive removal presents.
High CMC creatures that can't handle at least some relevant sorcery speed removal simply tend to be unplayable in constructed formats. And if they are rare, their relevancy in limited becomes unfair because you are less likely to draw one unless all the rares in the set are roughly equally great in limited.
They want Auras to be a thing. Conventional thinking will just have to adjust if they keep pushing that.
Except that Auras still won't be a thing.
Did you miss all of Theros?
Did you miss that the reason that auras were good in theros, heroic and bestow, both serve to counteract what is generally the biggest problem - getting 2-for-1'ed?
I'm fine with reducing the frequency of "premium removal" as long as they also lower the power level of creatures. Otherwise Limited will be thrown out of balance.
I've made this argument here before but to state it simply: Removal = Time. The better the removal in the format, the more time you have to execute a strategy. Another way to add time is to reduce the quality of creatures. But if you nerf the removal and not the creatures, the game simply won't be as fun. Too much of each game will be decided by the randomly drawn opening hand and not strategy. It's a delicate balance, introducing randomness without making the game pointless (meaning skill is not sufficiently rewarded).
Did you miss that the reason that auras were good in theros, heroic and bestow, both serve to counteract what is generally the biggest problem - getting 2-for-1'ed?
That'a true. Another way to counteract the 2-for-1 is to print much worse removal. Or make Auras into potential card parity, like Burning Anger, which could actually end up being much better than a 2-for-2. Another case would be Inferno Fist, which, unless it's played incorrectly threatens a 2-for-2 against removal. Or they could make auras so potentially powerful at such low cost like Ensoul Artifact and a bunch of cheap artifacts, that playing them vastly out weighs the risk.
I don't know what the hostility is all about. Wizards has been actively trying to make Auras a thing. It even has a small percentage of Standard right now. But that doesn't work unless 1.) you make a bunch of stuff hexproof or 2.) you nerf removal and buff auras. They are clearly doing a bit of both.
I more or less agree with Marshall's conclusions. Draft is a lot more interesting when you don't just auto take removal over all but the most insane of creatures. It also means we end up in more interesting board states and that you don't have to be as hesitant to play more expensive creatures (having your 6-drop doom bladed on end step the turn you play it is pretty miserable).
I disagree that bad removal = more interesting board states. More often than not, bad removal = better opening hand wins, because removal is the great equalizer.
hm... what if "bad removal" meant "cheap removal useful against the smaller creatures played in the early game"? would that prevent winning more by opening hand luck instead of strategy?
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Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul "no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
There does seem to be an odd theme at common of a very cheap early removal that gets worse in the late game and very expensive or narrow removal that is terrible at stopping early stuff. Lightning strike and blastfire bolt. Crippling blight and flesh to dust. Oppressive rays and pillar of light. Even void snare and chronostutter on the tempo side of things. Certainly not all of those cards are of equal value but it does seem like the tools are there for however the format shakes out.
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"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: 1. Could I put it more shortly? 2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?"
Just noticed that Brood Keeper is another way Wizards is pushing auras. It's another way to make sure you get card parity if you want to run them.
As far as the general discussion of whether removal is too poor now, I don't think it is. Definitely not to the point where it feels random in the draw step. Wizards is clearly making easy 2-for-1 spells much more difficult to come by. I mean, they madeGravedigger into an uncommon. Removal is being pushed up the curve or made sorcery speed so the blowout potential is lessened greatly. If you want to kill a creature in response to a pump spell, you need to either have one of the efficient burn spells or leave open a fair bit of mana. And it also makes the above mentioned 'I live 9 turns and pay 7 mana for my stabilizing dragon' 'LOL I pay 2 mana and Doom Blade it GG' scenario much less common.
Then again, I'm sure we'll see removal that fits the format. We just had Asphyxiate, Fall of the Hammer, Divine Verdict, Griptide, etc. at common. It's interactive, and to say that the removal we have now makes the game too random is possible but unproven.
Removal getting worse makes drafting more skill testing at the higher levels, because you can't just snap pick premium removal over all other commons, but at the lower levels it has the opposite effect, because it means there's less of a power differential between the cards the better players take and cards worse players take. X years ago, if Timmy takes a big green creature over a removal spell it's probably a huge value loss, whereas today it might not be such a big deal (Charging Rhino is on a similar level to or better than most common removal in this set, for example). Of course, the "skill" being tested in that case is simply knowing that removal is good, so I'm not sure it's so terrible that it's importance has been lessened.
Any way that removes the 2-for-1 pushes auras. That white common that tutors auras really encourages you to run some as the one you dig up is a free card, offsetting the 2-for-1. Cantrip auras or Rancor-type auras also work, although the latter tend to be OP.
Removal getting worse makes drafting more skill testing at the higher levels, because you can't just snap pick premium removal over all other commons
I think you're severely overestimating how many "snap pick premium removal" cards there ever were in Limited. It's not like everyone could just mindlessly draft a deck with 10 removal spells. I also don't see how it's more or less skill testing to reduce the power level, because no matter what you reduce or push, there will be always be the best cards that are snap picked.
The BREAD acronym seems to get in the way here. It has created this perception that removal is always better than anything but the top rares and that was never true. It was always an oversimplification.
I'm all for giving this a try for a couple years to see how it affects Standard. If it sucks, go back to the old ways.
That said, this is all for naught if they print 4-mana wrath effects. I mean, Wrath of God at 4 is only 'fair' if the caster is playing creatures too, but control decks pretty much never do. Maybe they could print something like "Sacrifice all your creatures. Each other player sacrifices the same number of creatures."
They should make a new mechanic called "Soulstorm" (as an additional cost, sacrifice X creatures. put X copies of this spell on the stack). It would have an interesting interaction with a Limited format, particularly if there were a couple token engines or 2-for-1 creatures.
EG
2BB - Blight of Souls
Each opponent sacrifices a creature.
Soulstorm.
R - Staticstorm
Deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Soulstorm.
Nice idea. It would be cool mechanic for limited. I doubt they would print it though because of storm being so combo-y, and how similar this mechanic is, even is the cards are overcosted.
I think they are trying to make it more like Hearthstone. The removal in that game is either very limited [Kill only 3 or less power, 5 or high power, hurt damaged minions, etc]. If you want something that is just flat out kill target creature it would cost nearly 5 mana [Assasinate] or almost all of it 10 mana [Forgot the Warlock wrath of god]. It sorta works because you never get mana screwed and you don't have to worry about instants/abilities at an opponent's turn. They favor more creature on creature combat.
Now I wouldn't mind this situation since it becomes a bit more fair but unlike Hearthstone, we have mana-screw so getting that high-cost removal just because impossible to get it when u need it. Playing the pre-release of M15 sorta showed me that. Very build your battlecrusier vs battlecrusier type of matches. God forbid you get mana-screwed because you can't set up your battlecrusier fast enough or can't blow up theirs. I especially agree with this point...
Huge casting cost removal is pointless at instant speed, because saving it usually clues in your opponent that you are holding onto some big instant speed thing, probably over-costed removal or an over-costed counterspell, and they'll hold off casting the things you wanted to potentially remove/counter, and in some cases, find ways to attack your hand, or just play smaller stuff that isn't worth your limited reserves of removal and cause you to have effectively wasted a turn while the opponent got ahead a small amount, just because they saw you leave a lot of mana open.
I often felt like I got cheated out of my turn because my opponent would get small increments over time if I held a overcosted removal spell like Flesh to Fire and Blastfire Bolt by playing smaller dudes or guys REALLY not worth burning that much mana on.
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To the people that say that a card needs to be a higher rarity because of Limited... I hate you guys so much. I present to you with this.
Removal getting worse makes drafting more skill testing at the higher levels, because you can't just snap pick premium removal over all other commons
I think you're severely overestimating how many "snap pick premium removal" cards there ever were in Limited. It's not like everyone could just mindlessly draft a deck with 10 removal spells. I also don't see how it's more or less skill testing to reduce the power level, because no matter what you reduce or push, there will be always be the best cards that are snap picked.
The BREAD acronym seems to get in the way here. It has created this perception that removal is always better than anything but the top rares and that was never true. It was always an oversimplification.
It's not that there were tons of premium removal spells floating around, it's that the best removal spells were a class above everything else and an instant pick over basically every other common and most uncommons and rares.
I actually felt that 3B is the cheapest a card like flesh to dust (an instant speed unconditional removal with a non-regeneration clause) could cost in black. Noting that it is a common for draft purposes, I am not surprised that the mana cost is upped by B.
Examples of how destroy effects are ramped up in black. Deathmark Effects green and white creatures. CMC 1 Doom Blade Effects nonblack creatures. CMC 2 Dark Banishing Effects nonblack creatures. Has Non-Regenerate Clause. CMC 3 Flesh to Dust Effects all creatures. Has Non-Regenerate Clause. CMC 5
Well there is Murder of course, that kills anything at CMC 3. The "no regeneration" clause is rarely important (it would be nice if they just eliminated that mechanic entirely...)
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http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-2015-removal-overview-2014-07-09
Given the look of Theros block overall, and this article, combined with my early concerns about M15's removal suite... I don't like the way this is going.
There are good reasons for removal to be cheaper than the creatures it is removing, and for unconditional removal to exist at common, or at least uncommon.
Among them are:
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Except that Auras still won't be a thing.
(Also known as Xenphire)
No, because Modern still has a decent removal pool, and even if the removal is minimized, it still will probably matter more in constructed that limited, especially if they still have decent removal in constructed, it's just moved to rare like Hero's Downfall. Dies to removal is something that doesn't matter much to low CMC creatures, but is a major problem on high CMC creatures that don't have haste (and sometimes even if they do), because in most cases, they'll play removal and something else with the same mana that you played your high CMC thing that they removed. Even with the over-costed removal in the current M15 set being the tendency, it still means most auras that don't protect from removal are unplayable because of the 2-for-1 aspect that even expensive removal presents.
High CMC creatures that can't handle at least some relevant sorcery speed removal simply tend to be unplayable in constructed formats. And if they are rare, their relevancy in limited becomes unfair because you are less likely to draw one unless all the rares in the set are roughly equally great in limited.
Did you miss all of Theros?
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Did you miss that the reason that auras were good in theros, heroic and bestow, both serve to counteract what is generally the biggest problem - getting 2-for-1'ed?
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
I've made this argument here before but to state it simply: Removal = Time. The better the removal in the format, the more time you have to execute a strategy. Another way to add time is to reduce the quality of creatures. But if you nerf the removal and not the creatures, the game simply won't be as fun. Too much of each game will be decided by the randomly drawn opening hand and not strategy. It's a delicate balance, introducing randomness without making the game pointless (meaning skill is not sufficiently rewarded).
That'a true. Another way to counteract the 2-for-1 is to print much worse removal. Or make Auras into potential card parity, like Burning Anger, which could actually end up being much better than a 2-for-2. Another case would be Inferno Fist, which, unless it's played incorrectly threatens a 2-for-2 against removal. Or they could make auras so potentially powerful at such low cost like Ensoul Artifact and a bunch of cheap artifacts, that playing them vastly out weighs the risk.
I don't know what the hostility is all about. Wizards has been actively trying to make Auras a thing. It even has a small percentage of Standard right now. But that doesn't work unless 1.) you make a bunch of stuff hexproof or 2.) you nerf removal and buff auras. They are clearly doing a bit of both.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Goblins have poor impulse control. Don't click this link!!
some of my favourite flavour text:
Wayward Soul
"no home no heart no hope"
—Stronghold graffito
Raging Goblin
He raged at the world, at his family, at his life. But mostly he just raged.
Lightning strike and blastfire bolt. Crippling blight and flesh to dust. Oppressive rays and pillar of light. Even void snare and chronostutter on the tempo side of things. Certainly not all of those cards are of equal value but it does seem like the tools are there for however the format shakes out.
As far as the general discussion of whether removal is too poor now, I don't think it is. Definitely not to the point where it feels random in the draw step. Wizards is clearly making easy 2-for-1 spells much more difficult to come by. I mean, they madeGravedigger into an uncommon. Removal is being pushed up the curve or made sorcery speed so the blowout potential is lessened greatly. If you want to kill a creature in response to a pump spell, you need to either have one of the efficient burn spells or leave open a fair bit of mana. And it also makes the above mentioned 'I live 9 turns and pay 7 mana for my stabilizing dragon' 'LOL I pay 2 mana and Doom Blade it GG' scenario much less common.
Then again, I'm sure we'll see removal that fits the format. We just had Asphyxiate, Fall of the Hammer, Divine Verdict, Griptide, etc. at common. It's interactive, and to say that the removal we have now makes the game too random is possible but unproven.
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
I think you're severely overestimating how many "snap pick premium removal" cards there ever were in Limited. It's not like everyone could just mindlessly draft a deck with 10 removal spells. I also don't see how it's more or less skill testing to reduce the power level, because no matter what you reduce or push, there will be always be the best cards that are snap picked.
The BREAD acronym seems to get in the way here. It has created this perception that removal is always better than anything but the top rares and that was never true. It was always an oversimplification.
That said, this is all for naught if they print 4-mana wrath effects. I mean, Wrath of God at 4 is only 'fair' if the caster is playing creatures too, but control decks pretty much never do. Maybe they could print something like "Sacrifice all your creatures. Each other player sacrifices the same number of creatures."
(It would still be amazing with Elspeth, though.)
EG
2BB - Blight of Souls
Each opponent sacrifices a creature.
Soulstorm.
R - Staticstorm
Deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Soulstorm.
3B - Process
Draw a card.
Soulstorm.
1W - Martyr's Blood
Gain 3 life.
Soulstorm.
The essential point of this philosophy is to reduce the complexity of the game, particularly at the lower rarities.
The goal is to make the game more accessible to new players.
Good removal being shifted to uncommon/rare is just one small part of this.
Now I wouldn't mind this situation since it becomes a bit more fair but unlike Hearthstone, we have mana-screw so getting that high-cost removal just because impossible to get it when u need it. Playing the pre-release of M15 sorta showed me that. Very build your battlecrusier vs battlecrusier type of matches. God forbid you get mana-screwed because you can't set up your battlecrusier fast enough or can't blow up theirs. I especially agree with this point...
Huge casting cost removal is pointless at instant speed, because saving it usually clues in your opponent that you are holding onto some big instant speed thing, probably over-costed removal or an over-costed counterspell, and they'll hold off casting the things you wanted to potentially remove/counter, and in some cases, find ways to attack your hand, or just play smaller stuff that isn't worth your limited reserves of removal and cause you to have effectively wasted a turn while the opponent got ahead a small amount, just because they saw you leave a lot of mana open.
I often felt like I got cheated out of my turn because my opponent would get small increments over time if I held a overcosted removal spell like Flesh to Fire and Blastfire Bolt by playing smaller dudes or guys REALLY not worth burning that much mana on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8h2vp5Xis
It's not that there were tons of premium removal spells floating around, it's that the best removal spells were a class above everything else and an instant pick over basically every other common and most uncommons and rares.
Examples of how destroy effects are ramped up in black.
Deathmark Effects green and white creatures. CMC 1
Doom Blade Effects nonblack creatures. CMC 2
Dark Banishing Effects nonblack creatures. Has Non-Regenerate Clause. CMC 3
Flesh to Dust Effects all creatures. Has Non-Regenerate Clause. CMC 5