I find Rest in Peace is actually pretty bad in EDH. Sure you can build around not being able to use your graveyard, but it cuts off so many good cards and strategies that unless the whole table is playing out of the graveyard I'd rather use something with a bit more finesse.
Great article, points out some very good cards I hadn't previously considered. I've never actually played with Stonecloaker. Is he really good enough?
- Jaxck
- Registered User
-
Member for 14 years, 8 months, and 9 days
Last active Thu, May, 4 2017 22:34:56
- 1 Follower
- 2,296 Total Posts
- 50 Thanks
-
Mar 23, 2015Jaxck posted a message on Word of Command #6 - Preventing a Blast from the PastPosted in: Articles
-
Feb 26, 2015Jaxck posted a message on Cazia Part 1 - The Story of a Custom SetSilly oversight, but I forgot to actually explain what Dunes actually are:Posted in: Jaxck Blog
Dune
Basic Land - Desert (B)
(T: Add 1 to your mana pool.)
Yes I will be including a new basic land type, Desert, a topic which deserves its own series of posts, so hold of commentary on that topic for now. -
Feb 4, 2014Jaxck posted a message on Launch Giveaway!Facevaulter - The perfect Goblin, therefore the perfect Magic card.Posted in: Announcements
-
Apr 30, 2013Jaxck posted a message on Dragon's Maze Set Review Part 1Trait Doctoring probably isn't as good as I initially thought it was, but it does serve a role as one of the better Cypher cards, mainly for its use as part of combos. I think this card in particular shows a big issue with Cypher, the need to attack makes it that much more interesting in Limited, but really hampers the mechanic's constructed viability.Posted in: Jaxck Blog
Renegade Krasis' ability is incredibly strong. Evolving him just once or twice is enough to get value out. Combined with Evolve all stars such as Fathom Mage and Cloudfin Raptor, I see him being very strong in more casual EDHs and in Limited. I think he'll definitely find a home but not as a staple. -
Dec 7, 2011Jaxck posted a message on Working blog postAbbey Gargoyle - Too big with too many abilities for its cost. I'd either make it a 2/4 (1/4 in a weaker format) or give it defender.Posted in: Robert Blog
Abbey Matron - Fine. Can't target your opponent's stuff, so fewer shennanigans.
Aysen Bureaucrat - This could be more powerful, but I think this is the right version of this card. Gideon's tapper is too good in my opinion.
Aysen Crusader - My only issue with this card is that it feels green, or green-white. If it's ability hit only white creatures I'd say good.
Rashka, the Slayer - Couple of things. A) This needs a new name, as Raksha already exists; B) I want this to do more, as is it is kind of an underwhelming card. Perhaps she blows up black permanents on the attack?
Serra's Silencing - Nice Pacifism rif. Not spashable, so I'd say good.
AEther Storm - Too good of a hoser I think, especially in uncommon. I'd move it to rare and change the sacrifice cost.
Baki's Curse - Not blue. White or green. Blue moves Auras, that's all it does with enchantments.
Chain Stasis - I always liked Chain Lightning.
Dark Maze - Too good for common. Make it uncommon, its activated ability 2U, and I think its good.
Dwarven Sailor - THIS IS NOT BLUUUUUE!!!! Blue gets the worst one-drops, not ones that can kill just about every other one-drop out there.
Forget - Ooh! I like this. Its like Sign in Blood, but better in mill decks.
Giant Albatross - What is it with you and blue creatures? This is too big for its mana cost. If this were 2U, it would be a very good common, but still fair.
Labyrinth Minotaur - Fair I guess, but why is a Minotaur blue?
Marjhan - Good till you get to the last ability. That ability is red, or black with the -1/-1. -
Dec 7, 2011Jaxck posted a message on Innistrad, a step up.I challange you to build a pair of decks with just vanillas and "vanilla spells" (Giant Growth and such). Find a friend with the same play level as you, and play some games. I guarantee you will have fun. What Wizards has been doing recently is lower the complexity level of commons, while raising the complexity of higher rarities(read MaRo's recent article for more in depth on the topic). What this means is more common vanillas and fewer uncommon and rare vanillas. You've also got to consider the set from which those cards were drawn. One is a rare from an expert level expansion, while the other is an uncommon from a core set. If you don't understand the distiction I just made there, you should not be complaining about vanilla creature's existing.Posted in: Massive Marc Blog
-
Dec 27, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Help to build decks.Aw frick! I misread Foundry! Time to rebuild red-white Golems...Posted in: ainfectingdragon Blog
-
Dec 18, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Mechanic RundownI understand what your saying. I've understood it all along. What I'm saying is that it doesn't break the game to the degree your proposing. Really what needs to be made is a Poison-Life converter of some sorts, that would allow the two totals to be controlled to the same degree. Remember that they still have two whole sets in which to fix Infect.Posted in: Demagogue Blog
-
Dec 18, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Mechanic RundownYour not getting what I'm saying. I agree with what your point. MY point is that Infect is in its own design space, with absolutly nothing around it to support Poison. Imagine if you will all mechanical components of Magic in visual form, with lines connecting related mechanics. Every block theme save Poison is already interconnected into the rest of the game. However Poison is not, and therefore Infect will suck until Poison gets more stuff. That is my point.Posted in: Demagogue Blog
-
Dec 14, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Mechanic RundownI see the point that your making. Really that is a problem with Poison, not directly with Infect. Infect is a perfectly fine mechanic which I expect will see a lot of play in the coming year. If they somehow bring back more Poison in later years, I expect Infect will become even stronger. Your point is a valid one, and I agree somewhat.Posted in: Demagogue Blog
I agree in that Infect is an exclusive mechanic. It does encourage playing almost excusively with Infect. However I would like to make the counter point that Infect is really the first of its kind. It is the first Poison mechanic to actually have any major effect, and as such will be very exclusive. You could make the same point about tribal when Lorwyn came out, if there were absolutly no tribal cards prior to Lorwyn. My point is really that Infect occupies its own design space, with absolutly no connected mechanics. So yes, judge it. But do not throw it away out of hand. -
Dec 14, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Mechanic RundownI see your problem with Infect. It is basically the same with most linear mechanics. Slivers beget slivers, allies beget allies, infect begets infect, I agree completly. I also agree that Infect is particularly guilty in this category, having only a couple of creatures (Putrefax, Necropede, or Blight Mamba in my mind) that can be played outside Infect decks. I would also like to point out that this is a three part block, not the two parters which we have had since Time Spiral (I call Alara a two part block because Conflux and Reborn went so off theme from Shards, that togethor only one sets worth of Shards theme cards were produced), each set of which will feature Infect. I expect that come Febuary Infect/Proliferate will become one of the stronger constructed forms. MaRo has made a major point of several of his design articles that one should not spoil all their good stuff in one go, but rather spread it out across all the sets which share the theme.Posted in: Demagogue Blog
Rant aside, I agree Infect is a very linear mechanic and there aren't many cards to play with, but I also say that there are more on the horizon. I know this point has been made before, but you can't dismiss Infect till we have seen its complete cycle of existance. If you were writting this after the release of Besieged, I'd have less of a beef. But you cannot dispell Infect simply because of its linearity.
I completly agree with Persist. It is basically flashback for creatures, albeit with a way to get them to come back. I love Persist, and I hope to get my hands on a couple of boxes of Shadowmoor/Eventide to round out my collection. That being said, it does mess with the game and the right deck can manage to get an infinate mass of creatures. This is hard however, as the correct tools aren't really availible. This is one of the simplest, but not neccessarily the best ways to balance a mechanic. I really dislike this methodology however, and really wish they would have (or do in the future) print more persist/Persist support, and balance it by putting the mechanic in the appropriate enviornment. -
Dec 13, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Reworking the type lineI believe the reason that Instant still exists is two-fold: A) They've been a part of the game, in one form or another, since the beginning, and most player's don't find a major problem with them; and B) wording. I accept that the first arguement is weak, but honestly, which is more intuitive: an Instant or a sorcery with flash? Maybe to an experienced player like you or myself, but not to a young inexperienced player. My second point is basically that it would require a huge overall of thousands of cards, and fundamentaly change the way the game works. Plus flash is defined as "playable at instant speed", so flash itself would need to be reworked, in a way which would require more text on cards with flash, limiting its uses.Posted in: Nis Blog
-
Dec 13, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Mechanic RundownI would have to disagree with your ordering of these mechanics, but I agree with the general gist of your list.Posted in: Demagogue Blog
Cycling is a fine mechanic. Everyone loves drawing cards, and almost every deck is improved by having a couple of decent cyclers. The big problem with cycling is that it fundamentaly changes the way the game works. If everyone is drawing cards more effeciently, then the game gets accelerated. However lands are not being played any faster (assuming your using a single block which has cycling), so player's access to mana doesn't really shift. This hurts blue, one of whose primary attractors is amazingly efficient card-drawing spells. Cycling is a good, straight-forward mechanic for players, but a headache for designers.
Dredge is one of the worst mechanics in the game. It is also one of the most fun mechanics in the game. The player who intelligently uses Dredge in their deck design will almost invariably end up with a powerful deck, with plenty of options. However the player who isn't playing dredge loses game time, as they have so many fewer relative options, dragging the game out. Dredge also messes with two of the balancing elements of the game: the random draw and the graveyard. The random draw is what makes Magic work, as it stops any one deck from automatically winning, as a player doesn't neccessarily draw everything they need. The graveyard is where dead cards go to die, and should, for the majority of the game, remain untouched. Of course there are obvious exceptions to these rules, as there should be. The problem is that Dredge breaks both of these rules, without much cost to the dredge player. I personally love dredge, but I also think it is one of the worst mechanics for the game as a whole.
Flashback almost falls into the category of Dredge, but doesn't due to the exile clause and the generally high mana cost for the effect. I'll be honest, I don't have that much experience with flashback, but from what I have played with it, it seems to be a fine mechanic.
Scry is a simple way to allow a player to alter the random element of the card draw, without overtly changing the shape of their library. One of the better mechanics I have seem, its primary weakness is wordiness, and an expodential power level as the Scry # gets higher and higher.
Wither is a strange creature mechanic. I call it strange in that it doesn't really effect how my creature works, rather how your creature will work in the future. Due to this, there is very little design space within the mechanic. This is really its only weakness, as it is hard to break such an obviously abusable mechanic.
Kicker is an option giver. That is all it does. Period. This makes it, in my opinion, among the best mechanics ever printed. It adds options to one player, without detracting from the balancing elements of the game (like dredge or cycling) or taking options away from your opponents.
Metalcraft is Affinity V 2. That's all it was designed to be, that's all I expect it ever will be. Overall a limited/casual mechanic, I have no issue with a power pumper like this. One of several of the block mechanics, it encourages a certain theme in a set.
Landfall. Another block mechanic, landfall is simply a way to push the importance of lands without fundamentaly changing the lands. Personally one of my favourites, I'd rank Landfall up for originallity and uniqueness.
Affinity is another one of the worst mechanics in the game, and another of my favourites. While Dredge broke card drawing and the graveyard, Affinity breaks mana. Without the balancing effect of mana, the game breaks down into a "I win, you lose" scenario, without an opportunity for the loser to respond. And it wasn't the artifact lands that broke affinity, it was affinity that broke affinity. Anything which fundamentaly alters one of the game's balancing aspects on a large scale is a bad mechanic.
Infect is a block mechanic. Nothing more. It is meant to sell Scars and to be a powerful casual/limited mechanic. Your primary beef with it seems to be that it is linear, but I would disagree and say that this is a good thing. For a set to be successful, it should have at least one or two linear mechanics which players can immediatly lock onto and play with. One of the reasons Ravnica was so successful was that each Guild was very well defined. Sure, players played multiple guilds in limited. But they almost always worked best with other cards of the same guild.
Just some thoughts. By the way, what was with the etc? It is not immediatly apparent what you are talking about there. -
Sep 8, 2010Jaxck posted a message on Shards of Alara Block Could Have Been BetterWhenever I draft Shards block, I always go ALA-ALA-ALA, or occacionally ALA-ALA-REB. I do this because I completly agree with you. I started playing in regualr limited and standard events right after Conflux came out (I think I started the week after the release), and it was a very bad way to start my competative career. In my first draft, I was all over the place, as I hadn't been able to catch onto the shards just by the cards themselves. The one thing I think Alara did well was Esper. Being artifacts, almost everything meshed and it was really easy to build mechanically and flavourfully around the shard. Alara should have taken a que from Ravnica, but not in block design and set distrebution. They should have had three sets of roughly the same stuff flavourfully (with new mechanics obviously), but they should have also included a watermark for each of the shards. This would have given new players, like myself at the time, an opportunity to better understand the set. I remember first organizing my Alara cards by shard, but I couldn't with some of the stuff from Conflux and Reborn. If Conflux had had an enemy bi-color (rather than five-color) theme, that would have been excellant. Reborn's dilution of flavour broke the already Maelstroming block, severing any hope Wizards had of building a good, solid-gold set in the year 2009.Posted in: Improbable Things
- To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Forked Elemental - Mudbutton Torchrunner is the card you want in this slot. The "sac-on-hit" ability plays fine (I've experimented with similar myself), but it feels EXTREMELY bad and it is very easy to make the wrong decision. A more interesting subtheme would be something along the lines of devour, with a higher asfan of death triggers (instead of etb) and big things (or spells) which involve sacrifice. By separating the ability into two parts you retain the same basic effect, but now you've created a huge amount of play. Assembling synergies in Draft is fun and highly rewarding, even if the synergies are as obvious as sticking Devour with death triggers.
Sateless Predator - This will die 90% of the times you fight. 4 toughness creatures almost always have more than 2 power, meaning this is just going to die when it fights making it functionally identical to Forked Elemental. If this had an etb that was "Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control", that would be awesome!
Scarling Leader - 2 tokens is just too punishing for 3. Even in aggressive Limited formats you can't always guarantee a block on turn 4, and even one hit with this guy can be devastating. This card pushes me even more towards a Devour-esque mechanic which rewards sacing smaller creatures for value towards a larger creature.
Gandeev's Fanatic - Haste plus tap effects is really silly, and falls into the same trap as Forked Elemental. By splitting the abilities you create room for synergy, and thus play. As it stands this is extremely strong on turn 1, and combined with Scarling Leader completely overpunishes bad draws.
Fury of the Night - This might be better as a global effect. "Whenever you declare attackers, CARD deals damage equal to the number of attacking creatures you control to target player" and "All creatures you control have haste". Now THAT is a playable card but primarily one for this archetype.
Bardabora - I really don't see why this animates lands. The flavour isn't there and neither is the mechanical impetus from the RG subtheme. Regardless, free 4/4s is way too good (mass animat lands has historically been 2/2s, not 4/4s by the way).
Jungle Fall - As I pointed out with a lot of your cards, you're piling activations with triggers which decreases the synergy among your cards and leads to poor play experiences or out of colour effects. By unbundling effects you will create more play, stay more true to the colour pie, and decrease bad experiences. Infect is a terrible measure of colour pie as the whole Phyrexian faction is black shifted (not to mention that the needs of an artefact block mean that colours are going to be more bleedy than usual). Green is about going big, its creatures win fights by stomping on the enemy not by pricking them to death. Wither is more blue than green and I think the green wither from Shadowmoor was a huge mistake (one of many systematic colour pie errors during the whole Lorwyn super-block).
You need to go back to the core theme of your archetype and figure out what you actually want your player to be doing. If you want them to be sacrificing creatures for value, then add big effects which encourage reckless use of creatures and their later sacrifice. Fling would be a great reprint here. Enable synergy by splitting up abilities and giving the player more opportunities to actually play with their cards.
Night Feeder - Reverse lifelink is fine, not the best because of the weird flavour. Bear in mind that you have no offensive cards at common in this archetype with cmc less than 4. That means this is currently an unplayable archetype.
Hours of Darkness - Fine.
Arretasaur - This is too good at common, considering that you need a */4 to even block and a 4/4 to kill. "Than it" at the end of the ability is irrelevant.
Sheer Momentum - Spot on. This is the way to make 'toughness matters' an interesting theme.
Scar Weaver - Again the cmc problem at common crops up. This could be a 1/3 reach wither at 3.
That of Many Legs - Nice! Flavour homerun with a great etb effect and a decent body to boot. "Than it" at the end of the ability is irrelevant.
Endurance of Nature - This is weird, but I kind of like the evolve-esque play pattern. You could probably make this a little stronger (such as reduce to 2 or add an active).
Nightfall Ancient - Big green nasty is nasty. This is quite an impactful card, sure to be a limited bomb and an all star in Standard (if the mana's right, GGG isn't easy). 5/7 is probably a little too good, so I'd move this down to 4/7 before playtesting. No comma before "if able".
To make an archetype work you need at least 2 cheap (1-2cmc) creatures, 2 mid (3-4), and 1 big (5+) at common. At least 4 of those creatures should be expected to do double duty, if not all five. You currently have four creatures, one which should be an uncommon and one which doesn't count (0 power and Defender don't count towards your creature total, while noncreature token producers do). You need at least two more cheap (1-2cmc) creatures and need to make sure all your creatures can pull double duty with other archetypes.
I like Veterency. The limited factor means you are really encouraged to push for that one extra counter and be more aggressive when swingin, which is absolutely right.
Opportunist is extremely win more, which really turns me off. An easy way to design around the win more trap is to make the Opportunist cost bigger, providing a bigger effect.
Improvise is good, a much better form of Miracles (god Miracles are bad). "Whenever" should be "when", considering you can only draw a given card once (shenanigans notwithstanding).
How is Merciless different than Opportunist?
Alesava - This would be a better card if A) its ability was only self-triggered and B) it didn't have hexproof.
Skybreaker's Passage - Why is this rare? Seems like a decent uncommon at 3.
Rising Champion - Great card. I'd drop it to 2/2, to make it easier to deal with even after the ability is activated.
Rampant Wurm - Ewww. This card just screams unfun linear synergy to me.
Deepwood Ranger - You like your 3/3s for 3, even when they're busted all to hell. This could be rare, swapped with Skybreaker's Passage.
Watchkeep Captain - This at first seems like a cool card, but then you've got to consider how it plays for your opponent. Attacking should be risky not only because you are exposing your creatures to damage, but also because you are exposing yourself to damage. Effects which allow you to easily and repeatably untap creatures at instant speed make combat sooo much less fun for everybody. This would be more interesting if he had "T: Untap target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it".
Honourable Strike - This and Skybreak's Passage should not be in the same set. In moving Skybreak's Passage to uncommon I'd combine it with this card and add a "attacking or blocking" restriction to the creature target instead of the cmc 3 or less.
Arm with Faith - Why isn't Fated an ability word? This is an odd card, not exciting but no alarm bells either.
Alesan Druid - Why does this have Reinforce? You've already got too much reinforce, this would be more interesting without.
Thornback Roamer - You really like your 3/3s. This is fine, the reinforce should probably be 6cmc+.
Guard of the Realm - This would be more interesting if it was smaller, 2/1 seems like the right size.
Plow Hauler - Bad cards are fine.
Aspirant of Daramir - Why does your 1-drop have reinforce? Think about it, reinforcing requires a creature on the battlefield and most reinforce effects cost 2. If you're a savy player you'll NEVER reinforce this card except extremely late in the game, and even then a 1/1 for 1 isn't actually that bad when you have lots of +1/+1 counters flying around. I might even make this guy vanilla, that's how relevant he is.
Urasus Ambassador - This should A) only activate on +1/+1 counters (you shouldn't mix counters in a single set, and especially not at common) and B) not get the pump. The +1/+1 counters ARE the pump. You also seem to quite like your 2/4s.
Black Wither 2B
Instant (C)
As an additional cost to cast CARD, CARD deals 2 damage to a creature you control.
Put two -1/-1 counters on target creature.
Green Wither 2G
Instant (C)
Target creature you control gains wither until end of turn. You may have that creature fight another target creature.
They are, for all intents and purposes, basically the same card. The same BLACK card.
Brash Tree Guardian - Fine. This shouldn't target, "Untap a land you control" is fine.
Jungle Fall - This is a black card, not a green card. Two in colour effects on the same card that add up to an out of colour effect (such as blue putting a card on top of a library then milling) is not okay. You need to add black to this card. Granting Wither isn't even that green, green would rather just stomp on the opponent's creatures.
Forked Elemental - This plays really, really bad. Your opponent knows that if he takes it, he's just going to lose his smaller creature. So he's just always going to block with his smaller creature and not take the damage to the face. The ability never activates, making you feel bad even though you still got the full value of the card. At the same time if the opponent misplays and you connect with this creature, you probably shouldn't activate the ability because 3/3 is bigger than average and thus it's better to have the body.
Sundered Ground - Fine limited finisher. I like these cards because they make limited games more variable. No more than one or two per colour is perfect (I like about 8 in my limited environment).
Sateless Predator - This is the same card as Forked Elemental.
Scarling Leader - This is significantly better than all the other creatures so far. You don't want to block because you'll get two -1/-1 counters, but you want to block because otherwise he'll get Goblins (and you'll take 2). This would be a better card if it was less swingy and only made one token, so as to punish empty boards and bad draws less. Alternatively move up to 4.
Gandeev's Fanatic - I'd rather this was a common without haste. The effect is small enough that I don't want to be wasting uncommon slots on it when I'm drafting.
Fury in the Night - I be dealing all the damage. Bad rares are fine. Remember that auras have negative synergy with sacrifice and ultra-aggro effects.
Bardabora - Cards like these are bad because of memory issues. Instead of making lands into creatures, why not just make tokens? I see no reason this card interacts with lands. Otherwise this is pretty cool. The tokens should be 3/1s or 2/2s not 4/4s, seeing as they're free.
Ruin a/target land (Remove that land from the game then that land's controller puts a Dune basic land card from outside the game onto the battlefield tapped.)
Plus:
Island
Basic Land - Island (B)
(T: Add U to your mana pool.)
/////
Dune
Basic Land - Desert (B)
(T: Add 1 to your mana pool.)
With the additional reminder that when you remove a basic, you can just flip it instead as there are no other ways of flipping a Basic//Dune.
Design 2 - Completely overpowered.
Design 3 - 2UU or 3U at Uncommon. Could be pushed down to 3cmc if was a Sorcery. Divination is good, but Scry 1 isn't too much of an upgrade to be ridiculous. I'd also swap around the draw and the scry, to make it less better than Divination.
Design 4 - Why? This is just a feel bad card. Either you feel bad because that card you needed got discarded or your opponent feels bad because that card that they needed got discarded. Random discard is also probably too high a cost for Constructed.
Design 5 - Again why? Powerful cards are more interesting when their power is synergistic or comes from good play rather than pure stats.
Design 6 - Probably fair at 3BB, but really it isn't. This card is extremely strong and does the super gamey thing of being a board wipe that gets around Indestructible (a design direction I fundamentally disagree with)
Design 7 - 2G at uncommon. Why not blue? Because blue draws for its cards and green searches. Also green has the weakest association with artifacts, but the strongest association with colorless.
Green shouldn't get direct damage, period. Every colour needs to have things they just flat out can't do, and damage is one thing green can never do. However as Silvercut pointed out effects which deal damage based on a creature related statistic is probably a fine addition to green. Blue also never does damage, so I think it's fine to bleed creature-based damage into green.
As I pointed out earlier, this is a beast in limited. Can you imagine this being in Khans? Black goes from being the worst colour, to being one of the best.
Unconditional removal this strong is waaay too good for uncommo white. I could see it at rare, but as I suggested earlier I think this card as is is just too good.
This is so much worse than what was printed. As I pointed out earlier Megamorph doesn't prohibit unflipping for more than one counter (such as with Hooded Hydra), instead it makes it easier to understand the mechanic and appreciate the added value of MegaMegamorphs.