Magic flavor doesn't always make sense. You're telling me that the fat, 7th edition Eager Cadet can only trade with an Elite Vanguard, but can't kill a Laboratory Maniac? And what's with creatures both killing each other during combat?
I guess, but there are some flavor things that need to make sense. If you're going to make gods into cards, you better make them huge, powerful, and awesome. My jaw should be hitting the floor with how powerful they are. They're gods, for crying out loud. They need to be Eldrazi-esque in their power level. Instead, we get 5/5s. Not even as big as the titans. Not even as big as green commons. That's just a flavor fail.
I get that this a powerful card, but flavor-wise it seems strange that mythic, legendary gods are smaller than a lot of common creatures. Oh, you have a god? Well, my Kindercatch/Scaled Wurm/Alpha Tyrranax is bigger.
Dopey green creatures should not be able to outrace gods. It would be more appropriate if the gods were comparable in size to the Eldrazi. But they should be able to outrace commons at the very least.
getting pretty tired of wizards constantly making mechanics that just add counters to creatures...
I've been noticing that too. Scavenge, Unleash, Evolve, Monstrosity, the hydras... plus individual cards like Scavenging Ooze and Archangel of Thune. Ooze I like the design for, but the others seem pretty uninspired mechanically. I think Monstrosity will play better than it looks on paper, but that by itself is indicative of the problem: adding counters to creatures just isn't that exciting, even if it plays well. It certainly isn't exciting enough to take up multiple mechanics in a set like the guild abilities did. It also doesn't help that among all the guild abilities that use +1/+1 counters, there are only a few playable playable cards, and they only see fringe play at best.
Some cool reprints, and those decks actually look super fun to play. Can't wait for this to come out! Also, I'm looking forward to the Regrowth, which has never been printed in a non-promo modern frame before. I'm reserving judgment on Polukranos and Anax and Cymede. Depending on what else is in standard, they could wind up being really good... or poopy.
WotC has never said that the mana in current Standard is too good.
Random people on the internet are saying that the mana in standard is too good. People keep saying that WotC said it, but I've never actually seen a source to back this up.
1) The mana in Standard is very good
2) R&D intentionally made the mana in Standard very good to support the multicolor theme of RTR block
3) Mana will get worse at rotation
He never says or implies that the mana in Standard is too good, merely that it is very good and that, come rotation, the pendulum will swing the other way and mana will get worse. In other words, they intended to make the mana as good as it is right now, and are fine with the result. Standard is an ever-changing and evolving format. They don't want the mana to be this good all the time, but they're not unhappy with making it this good some of the time when the format calls for it. Here are a few choice tidbits from that article that support this argument:
Quote from "Sam Stoddard" »
Current Standard mana bases are about as strong as we have ever allowed mana to be in Standard. ... By the time Gatecrash was released, we saw a great number of three-color aggro and control decks, and this really afforded players to cast the Return to Ravnica cards they wanted without going too far out of their way. I think this was tremendous boon for Return to Ravnica block.
Quote from "Sam Stoddard" »
As Zac Hill mentioned last year, the core duals introduced with M10 wouldn't have been included in M13 except for how well they played with the Ravnica shocklands... . It was very important for us that Return to Ravnica, a block based around multicolor cards, have the Standard support to make said multicolor cards playable.
Quote from "Sam Stoddard" »
Everything in Magic is cyclical. I think if you asked most people what the most powerful part of Standard is right now, you would get a lot of different answers—the creatures, the spells, the Planeswalkers. I don't think many people would answer what I believe is the actual answer—the mana. While the mana bases in Standard may not be up to the level of mana bases in Modern or Legacy, they are a fundamental part to many of the top decks right now, and have allowed almost every deck in the format to exist without having to put a whole lot of thought into its mana base.
While we have no intention of going back to an era where players are unable to cast their spells, we are leaving an era of Standard where mana fixing was overly abundant, and most importantly incredibly easy. The opportunity cost was almost zero, but that was done intentionally to support the Return to Ravnica block.
It's similar to the rays design on the miraclecards. They added a new piece of border art (probably different for each color) to the frames for the god cards. You can see it on the top half of the frame for the Black God card that was revealed.
What we're saying is that the area between the black borders and the card art was altered with a space/glitter look. That's more a background to the card than a border.
Oh, I see. It's just the coloring. I guess that's different. I was mixing up "border" with "card frame," and was looking for a change as drastic as the Mirrodin/8th Edition card frame change. Derp.
I seem to be the only one who doesn't see anything different about the "new" border on the God card. Is it just the pattern in the colored part that's different?
P.S: Thanks to you, I now have to find a Manabond for my Mimeo deck.
Yeah, how is it that I've never even heard of this card???? It seems disgustingly powerful in any sort of green-based graveyard deck. Just imagine Life from the Loam with a stocked graveyard and this in play.
On topic: Choosing whether to play your combo pieces if you can't cast and activate Oona in the same turn has always been a tough choice for me. It depends on the situation and what deck(s) I'm playing against. I generally try to play everything on the same turn so that my opponents have as small a window as possible for responding. Depending on the situation, I've run the other combo pieces out and then played Oona the next turn. Once I cast Oona, though, I plan to use her ability that same turn. I never give people the chance to kill her with sorcery speed removal, since wraths are a dime a dozen in EDH.
I've never played against another Oona combo deck, though. Is that how other people play her as well?
Ghave, Guru of Spores is your new best friend. There are a bunch of Ghave decks, from combo decks to more token swarm strategies. All of them involve a lot of synergies, though. It sounds like you don't want to go with the more token-centric strategy, but there are plenty of Ghave interactions that are more counter-centric as well.
Search the forums for Ghave decks. Ghave, like Doubling Season itself, is one of those cards that seems to combo or synergize with EVERYTHING. If that sounds like it would be up your alley, he may be the general for you.
Another general that would be good with the counter-centric strategy is Kresh the Bloodbraided. Kresh also avoids the whole token thing if that's important to you.
Finally, I think one of the writers on SCG had a proliferate-themed Vorosh, the Hunter deck, and all of the cards you listed would fit well in that sort of deck.
Can I sacrifice it once its ability is on the stack so that I still get the mana but my opponent does not gain control of it?
I would like to preemptively point out that Witch Engine's ability is NOT a mana ability:
Because the ability is targeted, it is not a mana ability. It can only be activated when you have priority, and goes on the stack like other non-mana abilities.
I ask because some cards have abilities that are countered if the permanent that produces the effect is no longer on the battlefield when the ability resolves (e.g. the exchange part of Gilded Drake), and this card seems weird enough that it might have an interaction like that. In other words, does an opponent have to actually gain control of Witch Engine for the ability to resolve, or will the mana-producing part of the ability resolve even if Witch Engine is no longer on the battlefield to allow the control-changing part of the ability to resolve?
Maybe I'm missing something here, but why no Boneyard Wurm, Mortivore, or Lhurgoyf? Do you have enough better threats already without them?
Also, how good has Creeping Renaissance been, and what card type do you normally choose? I assume most of the time you choose "creature," but are able to put so many creatures back into your hand that you're forced to discard most of them (except the one or two threats you actually wanted) at end of turn, thus keeping your GY stocked?
Even if it's only 700, it will be 200$ less. And it is a good thing.
Even a 25% decrease in the price of the rares is being VERY generous. All the numbers I've seen, including both of the articles that nerf linked to in the post of his I'm quoting now, have said that the prices on rares will move very little, if at all. Every little bit helps, but Modern Masters won't be dropping decks down into the standard deck price range, at least not because of cheaper rares/mythics.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's based on a flawed premise. Assuming that the goal was to lower prices is not based on anything that they said directly or indirectly. Instead it is based on your (and others') perception that that is what the term accessable means. I personally don't think that that is the case. I believe that the goal was to bring the number of copies of certain cards in existence in line with their counterparts from later sets.
But, again, there is a strong negative correlation between card availability and price (ie, low availability --> high price, and vice versa), which Wizards knows. And card prices are the thing that most people cite as the barrier of entry to modern, which Wizards also knows. When people talk about how legacy isn't accessible because of card availability, they are usually talking about how legacy is extremely expensive. "Card availability issues" and "high card prices" are basically synonymous. I can't cite a definition somewhere, but that is always how I've heard the terms used, and many, many other people interpret those terms the way I do. I think Wizards can't or won't directly say that they want to affect secondary market prices on cards, but that is very clearly what they're trying to do, and they've all but spelled it out by talking about card availability.
For what its worth, both of the articles you cite also assume that cost, not availability, is the real barrier to entry of modern, and that Wizards is actively trying to lower the cost of cards. Dr. Jeebus thinks it's the price of the uncommons, not the rares, that's the real problem Modern Masters is meant to solve, but he still clearly thinks it's an issue of cost. And literally the first sentence of the second article is "One of the problems with the Modern format is card prices as a barrier to entry."
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. We've cleared up basically every other disagreement we had, and all our current disagreements really boil down to whether we think Wizards was implying that they wanted to affect card prices when they said they wanted to increase card availability. That's the crux of the disagreement, and everything else follows from it. You seem to have pretty good reasons for thinking the way you do about card availability, since in your experience availability is not necessarily connected to card price. My experience has been different, though; for me, card availability and price have always been connected, and the terms have always been connected as well.
So which of those maroon lists run Bob? 0 of them? Oh.
Which of those maroon lists run Goyf? Zoo? Ok.
Again, this isn't about Goyf and Bob in particular, it's about expensive modern cards in general, and how Modern Masters isn't going to do much to bring down the prices on them.
The bulk of the price is coming from fetches, which MM was never going to be able to fix anyway. Flattening prices of commons and uncommons will help as well.
Fine, let's look at the UWR deck from the top 8, take all the pre-Zendikar uncommons in it, and cut the prices on them in half. This deck runs a significant number of Modern Masters-legal uncommons. Since I used deckstats to calculate the price of the decks, I'll use them to calculate the price of these invidual cards as well.
4x Lightning Helix: $17.12 total
3x Path to Exile: $22.62 total
2x Remand: $21.22 total
2x Electrolyze: $4.90 total
1x Isochron Scepter: $5.94
2x Aven Mindcensor: $16.36 total
=$88.16 in pre-Zendikar uncommons
Divided in half, that's $44.08. So, going by our 50% price drop example, you could save about $44.08 on uncommons from that deck from Modern Masters. Saving $44 on uncommons is pretty good, but how much of a difference will that actually make? Subtracted from the original deck price of $889.70, the new price is $845.62. That's still almost two hundred dollars more than the most expensive standard deck.
Also, and this is something people mention ALL THE TIME about legacy, but never modern...you only need buy into the format once. Your deck doesn't rotate like standard. You don't have to keep trading and rotating the cards out of your possession to stay competitive.
True, but it's the barrier of entry that's the problem, not the barrier-of-after-you've-already-bought-all-the-cards-you-need. You're basically saying that modern is super cheap after you get past the barrier of entry... which is great, but doesn't solve the barrier of entry problem.
I think you and I have a fundamental difference of opinion on what constitutes a significant increase in supply. That's going to make getting us to agree difficult.
Well, I agree with you that we probably won't agree.
Actually FTV is a fantastic example of a print run that helps availability w/o hurting prices. There are FTV cards all over my shop (noone there buys off the internet) that people have either purchased from the store or traded for from commander players who bought the product for select cards. Not everyone who has an interest in playing modern will even consider buying cards off the internet. Many of us would rather trade for the cards we need or pick them up at the LGS. My LGS currently doesn't have any stock of modern cards, but I am certain that they will open a box or 2 of MM for singles. My friend who plays modern and I have already traded for every goyf that is in our shop's economy, and I have the only Dark Confidant available to trade currently. I have 2 boxes on preorder and no interest in keeping any goyfs or bobs that I open so those are an increase of the supply at my local shop. The overall increase in product will be an amount that will let more people build the decks they want to build without making the cards themselves cheaper.
This is a really interesting point, and one I hadn't considered. None of the ~3 shops I attend on a regular basis function like this, which is why I hadn't considered it. In the shops I attend, when a FTV or something comes out, the copies get bought up by people that attend the shop, but it doesn't seem to change much. You'll occasionally see some of the cards in binders, but for the most part, the trade landscape stays pretty much the same. This isn't because people only play or trade standard in the shops, either; it just seems like sets like FTV don't make a big enough impact to change the trading environment significantly. Still, your shop may function differently. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether more shops are like mine or like yours.
Once again, the cost of building a deck is not the barrier to entry that you think it is. Standard decks cost just as much as modern decks do and their value is 100% guaranteed to go down, but people still play the hell out of standard.
This is demonstrably false. While some standard decks are more expensive than some modern decks, modern decks are generally more expensive by several hundred dollars. I compared the prices of the top 16 decks of GP Portland and the latest SCG Classic using deckstats.net and compiled the information here. In a nutshell, there were nine different archetypes in both modern and standard. The most expensive standard archetype, Jund, is, on average, less expensive than the majority of the modern archetypes. As in, more than half (five) of the modern archetypes were more expensive than the most expensive standard archetype. In fact, the vast majority of the modern archetypes were more expensive than the vast majority of the standard archetypes. Here's the list of archetypes, by average price (maroon for modern, green for standard):
See the clump of maroon at the top and the clump of green towards the bottom? That's what I'm talking about. Modern is absolutely more expensive than standard.
To tie this back in to the topic of the thread, since we've been getting a little side-tracked: modern decks are much more expensive to build, on average, than standard decks, as demonstrated above. This is a barrier of entry to the format. Modern Masters was supposed to help alleviate this problem by increasing the supply of expensive modern cards, thus driving the prices on those cards down. Dark Confidant is an example of an expensive modern card that Wizards would do well to help bring down the price on. Yet by making it mythic, only packaging 24 packs in a box, and printing the set in limited quantities, Wizards is significantly hampering their effort to make cards like Dark Confidant more available, and, by doing so, sabotaging their stated goal of making modern more accessible.
Again, difference of opinion on what is significant. If 1-3 players per store can suddenly have access to the cards they need through routes that are not the internet, then I would call that significant indeed. Honestly, I fully expect that anything printed below mythic rarity is at a huge risk of dropping quite a bit. Especially any of the currently money uncommons that aren't bumped in rarity.
See, I think the problem, at least in my shops, is that the players who can afford to buy any significant amount of modern masters product are the ones who can already afford expensive cards and are already playing modern/legacy.
Dopey green creatures should not be able to outrace gods. It would be more appropriate if the gods were comparable in size to the Eldrazi. But they should be able to outrace commons at the very least.
Random people on the internet are saying that the mana in standard is too good. People keep saying that WotC said it, but I've never actually seen a source to back this up.
Most people point to the article on the mothership where it was announced that there would be no dual land cycle in M14 as evidence that WotC thinks the mana in standard is too good, but that's not what the article actually says. Sam Stoddard, the author of the article and a developer in Magic R&D, says that:
1) The mana in Standard is very good
2) R&D intentionally made the mana in Standard very good to support the multicolor theme of RTR block
3) Mana will get worse at rotation
He never says or implies that the mana in Standard is too good, merely that it is very good and that, come rotation, the pendulum will swing the other way and mana will get worse. In other words, they intended to make the mana as good as it is right now, and are fine with the result. Standard is an ever-changing and evolving format. They don't want the mana to be this good all the time, but they're not unhappy with making it this good some of the time when the format calls for it. Here are a few choice tidbits from that article that support this argument:
On topic: Choosing whether to play your combo pieces if you can't cast and activate Oona in the same turn has always been a tough choice for me. It depends on the situation and what deck(s) I'm playing against. I generally try to play everything on the same turn so that my opponents have as small a window as possible for responding. Depending on the situation, I've run the other combo pieces out and then played Oona the next turn. Once I cast Oona, though, I plan to use her ability that same turn. I never give people the chance to kill her with sorcery speed removal, since wraths are a dime a dozen in EDH.
I've never played against another Oona combo deck, though. Is that how other people play her as well?
Search the forums for Ghave decks. Ghave, like Doubling Season itself, is one of those cards that seems to combo or synergize with EVERYTHING. If that sounds like it would be up your alley, he may be the general for you.
Another general that would be good with the counter-centric strategy is Kresh the Bloodbraided. Kresh also avoids the whole token thing if that's important to you.
Finally, I think one of the writers on SCG had a proliferate-themed Vorosh, the Hunter deck, and all of the cards you listed would fit well in that sort of deck.
EDIT: Skullbriar, the Walking Grave seems right up your alley, too.
Can I sacrifice it once its ability is on the stack so that I still get the mana but my opponent does not gain control of it?
I would like to preemptively point out that Witch Engine's ability is NOT a mana ability:
I ask because some cards have abilities that are countered if the permanent that produces the effect is no longer on the battlefield when the ability resolves (e.g. the exchange part of Gilded Drake), and this card seems weird enough that it might have an interaction like that. In other words, does an opponent have to actually gain control of Witch Engine for the ability to resolve, or will the mana-producing part of the ability resolve even if Witch Engine is no longer on the battlefield to allow the control-changing part of the ability to resolve?
Also, how good has Creeping Renaissance been, and what card type do you normally choose? I assume most of the time you choose "creature," but are able to put so many creatures back into your hand that you're forced to discard most of them (except the one or two threats you actually wanted) at end of turn, thus keeping your GY stocked?
But, again, there is a strong negative correlation between card availability and price (ie, low availability --> high price, and vice versa), which Wizards knows. And card prices are the thing that most people cite as the barrier of entry to modern, which Wizards also knows. When people talk about how legacy isn't accessible because of card availability, they are usually talking about how legacy is extremely expensive. "Card availability issues" and "high card prices" are basically synonymous. I can't cite a definition somewhere, but that is always how I've heard the terms used, and many, many other people interpret those terms the way I do. I think Wizards can't or won't directly say that they want to affect secondary market prices on cards, but that is very clearly what they're trying to do, and they've all but spelled it out by talking about card availability.
For what its worth, both of the articles you cite also assume that cost, not availability, is the real barrier to entry of modern, and that Wizards is actively trying to lower the cost of cards. Dr. Jeebus thinks it's the price of the uncommons, not the rares, that's the real problem Modern Masters is meant to solve, but he still clearly thinks it's an issue of cost. And literally the first sentence of the second article is "One of the problems with the Modern format is card prices as a barrier to entry."
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. We've cleared up basically every other disagreement we had, and all our current disagreements really boil down to whether we think Wizards was implying that they wanted to affect card prices when they said they wanted to increase card availability. That's the crux of the disagreement, and everything else follows from it. You seem to have pretty good reasons for thinking the way you do about card availability, since in your experience availability is not necessarily connected to card price. My experience has been different, though; for me, card availability and price have always been connected, and the terms have always been connected as well.
Oh, I do. I think we'll be disappointed, though.
Fine, let's look at the UWR deck from the top 8, take all the pre-Zendikar uncommons in it, and cut the prices on them in half. This deck runs a significant number of Modern Masters-legal uncommons. Since I used deckstats to calculate the price of the decks, I'll use them to calculate the price of these invidual cards as well.
4x Lightning Helix: $17.12 total
3x Path to Exile: $22.62 total
2x Remand: $21.22 total
2x Electrolyze: $4.90 total
1x Isochron Scepter: $5.94
2x Aven Mindcensor: $16.36 total
=$88.16 in pre-Zendikar uncommons
Divided in half, that's $44.08. So, going by our 50% price drop example, you could save about $44.08 on uncommons from that deck from Modern Masters. Saving $44 on uncommons is pretty good, but how much of a difference will that actually make? Subtracted from the original deck price of $889.70, the new price is $845.62. That's still almost two hundred dollars more than the most expensive standard deck.
I do agree that fetches are a problem, though.
True, but it's the barrier of entry that's the problem, not the barrier-of-after-you've-already-bought-all-the-cards-you-need. You're basically saying that modern is super cheap after you get past the barrier of entry... which is great, but doesn't solve the barrier of entry problem.
Well, I agree with you that we probably won't agree.
This is a really interesting point, and one I hadn't considered. None of the ~3 shops I attend on a regular basis function like this, which is why I hadn't considered it. In the shops I attend, when a FTV or something comes out, the copies get bought up by people that attend the shop, but it doesn't seem to change much. You'll occasionally see some of the cards in binders, but for the most part, the trade landscape stays pretty much the same. This isn't because people only play or trade standard in the shops, either; it just seems like sets like FTV don't make a big enough impact to change the trading environment significantly. Still, your shop may function differently. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether more shops are like mine or like yours.
This is demonstrably false. While some standard decks are more expensive than some modern decks, modern decks are generally more expensive by several hundred dollars. I compared the prices of the top 16 decks of GP Portland and the latest SCG Classic using deckstats.net and compiled the information here. In a nutshell, there were nine different archetypes in both modern and standard. The most expensive standard archetype, Jund, is, on average, less expensive than the majority of the modern archetypes. As in, more than half (five) of the modern archetypes were more expensive than the most expensive standard archetype. In fact, the vast majority of the modern archetypes were more expensive than the vast majority of the standard archetypes. Here's the list of archetypes, by average price (maroon for modern, green for standard):
1. Domain Zoo: $1,664.69
2. Gifts: $948.64
3. Melira Pod: $914.84
4. UWR: $852.17
5. WB Tokens: $716.52
6. Jund: $661.88
7. UWR: $614.62
8. Affinity: $547.67
9. Scapeshift: $544.22
10. WRB Aggro: $502.30
11. Bant Hexproof: $488.69
12. Bant Aggro: $439.96
13. Reanimator: $431.63
14. Life and Death (Junk Midrange): $417.10
15. Storm: $370.81
16. GW Aggro: $335.89
17. Living End: $285.09
18. RG Aggro: $246.11
See the clump of maroon at the top and the clump of green towards the bottom? That's what I'm talking about. Modern is absolutely more expensive than standard.
To tie this back in to the topic of the thread, since we've been getting a little side-tracked: modern decks are much more expensive to build, on average, than standard decks, as demonstrated above. This is a barrier of entry to the format. Modern Masters was supposed to help alleviate this problem by increasing the supply of expensive modern cards, thus driving the prices on those cards down. Dark Confidant is an example of an expensive modern card that Wizards would do well to help bring down the price on. Yet by making it mythic, only packaging 24 packs in a box, and printing the set in limited quantities, Wizards is significantly hampering their effort to make cards like Dark Confidant more available, and, by doing so, sabotaging their stated goal of making modern more accessible.
See, I think the problem, at least in my shops, is that the players who can afford to buy any significant amount of modern masters product are the ones who can already afford expensive cards and are already playing modern/legacy.