Remove the randomized resource base. It's just pure unfun.
Make MTG a split deck game. You have lands in one pile, nonlands in another. When you draw a card, you may draw from either. So players have actual control over thier mana curves. Any ban any cards that are broken in that format.
I've played that way quite a bit and it makes MTG SO much more of a fun interactive game. Since you control your curve you can look at your hand and be planning moves out 3, 4, 5 turns in advance. It adds a lot of strategic thinking to playing.
As for changes that have some chance of ever happening, print the M10 duals with the basic land types. Instantly lower the cost of entry to Legacy by thousands of dollars.
How do you draw your opening 7? How do you deal with cards that want you to reveal cards until you reveal a land or nonland card?
I've only been playing magic for about 2 years, so I don't know what it was like without mythic rares, but I think the game could benefit from getting rid of it, and having those cards be just normal rares. It would make the game much more accessible to people because they would have just as much of a chance to pull a Jace or Sphinx's Revelation as they have of getting a Search the City.
And If I had a Jace for every Search the City that I've pulled....
Also, I would like to see more cards in standard that have unique and usable abilities. There are some pretty cool ones like Olivia Voldaren, Izzet Staticaster, so on. It adds so much more strategy to the game than creatures like Geist of Saint Traft in my opinion.
I never understood why Red didn't get mill effects. I know that blue has always been the home of mill but destroying someone's library seems Red-ish to me.
Why doesn't red get more stuff that builds slowly like a fire growing? E.G.
R - Creature - 1/1 Add a counter to this at the end of every turn.
Sacrifice ~ to add X R mana to pool where X = # of counters on ~
I never understood why Red didn't get mill effects. I know that blue has always been the home of mill but destroying someone's library seems Red-ish to me.
Why doesn't red get more stuff that builds slowly like a fire growing? E.G.
R - Creature - 1/1 Add a counter to this at the end of every turn.
Sacrifice ~ to add X R mana to pool where X = # of counters on ~
Red is the color of madness, so milling does make some sense. Alternatively, red could have some sort of randomization mechanic. Maybe a counterspell that says: this spell is countered, and returns to the players hand, and then they may cast a different spell with a lower CMC cost for free. Or maybe red choses for them (no, you don't cast that, you cast this instead).
It would also be nice if milling were better integrated into the game. As it is, it is a fringe mechanic that operates so differently they every thing else, it's like you're playing a totally different game. And there are so few defenses against it.
As for red growing...growing is a green thing, usually. Red is more about exploding.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Things WotC cares about:
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
This is just a random thought, but why not give ability counter to red? That would expand red's color pie and help deal with all those nasty ETB and LTB creatures that Wizards won't stop designing for some reason. No color really has a lot of ability countering, even blue nowadays who used to have it, so why not give it to red to replace their loss of effective land destruction? I don't know, it could be interesting. As someone said earlier, red does occasionally have quasi counter magic already. This seems to fit within that mold nicely.
This is just a random thought, but why not give ability counter to red? That would expand red's color pie and help deal with all those nasty ETB and LTB creatures that Wizards won't stop designing for some reason. No color really has a lot of ability countering, even blue nowadays who used to have it, so why not give it to red to replace their loss of effective land destruction? I don't know, it could be interesting. As someone said earlier, red does occasionally have quasi counter magic already. This seems to fit within that mold nicely.
I think they should do stuff like that but only as long as it's a sac ability on a creature.
I think it would be interesting play-wise to create a bunch of creatures that are like R - 1/1, sac to prevent whatever
Running an ability through a creature is interesting because it telegraphs the play and creates strategic play. It also allows Red mages to choose a slightly less powerful, versatile creature instead of going pure aggro.
Insert rant about complete trash of modern story and character here...
With the cards...I'd like everyone, everywhere to STOP. THINKING. THAT SUBTYPES ARE MECHANICS. As well, I'd like types that can go anywhere (e.g. Mercenary, Ally, Gate, Tower, etc.) to actually show up on cards that make sense for them (why Mystic Gate not a Gate?! why Command Tower not a Tower?! why Ulvenwald Mystics not a Mystic?! why Phantasmal Sphere not an Orb?!). It's a minor change really, but the easiest way to expand upon tribal mechanics is just to make more cards with the type. Like I keep telling people, Arcane, Trap, Curse and the like will continue to matter if they just actually keep making cards with the type (NOT EVERYWHERE, just apply where the flavor would make sense). And like I keep telling people, aren't tribal mechanics for Elf and Goblin automatically improved just by making more Elves and Goblins?
I think they're so locked into their color pie identities that they're reluctant to view the colors as abstractions aligned to particular game strategies. Instead, they focus on psychoanalytics and stuff like that.
The color pie works, absolutely, but I think they stick so hard to it that it sometimes causes gameplay to suffer like you mentioned. Not that we should give blue direct damage or something silly like that, but when you struggle to add mechanics to a particular color because "that's not how the color feels", that seems silly.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
Change the reserve list to cards that have never been printed in a language other than English. Collectors would be happy because power would not be reprinted, nor expensive junk from AN and AQ, and players would be able to get duals for Legacy. Ban accordingly if something gets too inaccessible.
Stop hosing control quite so much. It seems rather uncreative to keep the archetype in check by bleeding it dry. It's thinking like that which leads to cards like Thragtusk, normally kept in check by counterspells, so difficult to deal with. Make metagame answers to control instead. Sure, you can run hard control, but you're going to get stomped by really fast aggro, so you better make sure you win the rest of your games if you want to do well today.
Stop dumbing down the game so much. Giving everything hexproof is obnoxious. It'd be like making everything unblockable or indestructible. Keep hexproof around, if you want, but make it less rare. And why, exactly, does every single creature have to have an enter the battlefield effect? Why bother choosing between casting a creature or a spell this turn when you can cast both in one go?
Stop making such huge differences in what cards are good and what cards are bad, and using rarity to differentiate them. It makes the game extremely expensive. Maybe it works for your business model, but there are long-term implications to sticking it to your players so much. Be careful you don't regret what you're doing in the end.
Remove the randomized resource base. It's just pure unfun.
Make MTG a split deck game. You have lands in one pile, nonlands in another. When you draw a card, you may draw from either. So players have actual control over thier mana curves. Any ban any cards that are broken in that format.
I've played that way quite a bit and it makes MTG SO much more of a fun interactive game. Since you control your curve you can look at your hand and be planning moves out 3, 4, 5 turns in advance. It adds a lot of strategic thinking to playing.
As for changes that have some chance of ever happening, print the M10 duals with the basic land types. Instantly lower the cost of entry to Legacy by
thousands of dollars.
The card border. It's ugly, dull and breaks the flavor of the art.
Thank you! That's a good way of putting it. The art is so beautiful and this is a fantasy game where things are supposed to feel magical and ancient. Why do the cards look like a website interface?
Make Scry evergreen. I think it gives borderline cards some extra umph to make them playable where a cantrip would be too much. (I.E. Counterspell or Cancel? How about 1UU counter target spell, scry 1.) It also reduces flood/screw as long as you build with the correct ratio in the first place, and it makes the game require more advance planning to seperate good and bad players.
price is my only gripe. semi-competitive standard decks cost $100 minimum and the blocks rotate out every two years.
printing shocks was a nice start to making magic more affordable for the long term. all we need now is more playable commons/uncommons and less limited fodder.
And another thing: can white get some sort of card draw, please? Like, anything?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Things WotC cares about:
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
More cantrips like Shelter, Smash, and the like for non blue decks. Things that do something relevant within their color pie that then replace themselves. These are some of my favorite cards in limited/cube, typically too narrow for constructed play but neat little two for ones.
I don't think that card draw should even be in any one color pie. Card filtration and massive card draw still belong very much to blue, but I think one of the earliest flaws of this game was associating cards with knowledge, instead of as a game resource. Giving red looting effects was a great start, for one.
survival cache? mentor of the meek? dual color you obv get sphinx revelation
Survival cache replaces itself and sometimes gets you another card, but not always. Mentor is a pretty bad card - if you play Honor of the Pure it stops working, and you often don't have the mana available to use it. It's a card you have to build around to get to work, and I don't know any major decks that play it. If you're willing to dual color, then yes, but some of us are tired of having to splash blue all the time for card drive and green for ramp. Mono coloured decks should be playable.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Things WotC cares about:
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
Keep bringing the control. Abrupt Decay? Yes. Detention Sphere? Okee-Dokey.
Cancel is unplayable. Counterspell is playable. Let's bring back one of the most iconic cards in the game, especially at a time when paying two mana of the same color is apparently oppressive. By placing such an emphasis on creature-based aggro, the game is losing variety and strategy. If it continues, and control is ultimately phased out as a viable strategy, then combo owns the game, and don't think they'll catch every potential game breaking combo before it can get out.
Make more cards with ninjitsu!!! On that note, use abilities that already exist in addition to making up new ones... New abilities are cool and all, but so were the old ones... And they all can be powerful...
Mentor is a pretty bad card - if you play Honor of the Pure it stops working
1/1 token with +1/+1 has > 2 power?
and you often don't have the mana available to use it.
Three mana for Mentor of the Meek turn three, four mana for Lingering Souls and a card turn four? Five mana for Midnight Haunting and two cards turn five?
It's a card you have to build around to get to work
Make monocolor decks viable. This can be done by rewarding those decks by making good cards heavily weighted with one color (ie, three to four mana of a single color in the casting cost). The expensive cost of dual lands and the severe rarity of competetive non-red monocolored decks keep newcomers out of the game.
From Innistrad only 1 of the 5 tribes (Zombies) is playable in Standard atm, meaning that a sizable chunk of the last block has utterly failed to make any impact in the long run. Card types like traps, curses, and arcane need to get continued support, as does tribal.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Sig by Rivenor
Decks (All Budget)
Modern WSoul SistersW RGShamansRG
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How do you draw your opening 7? How do you deal with cards that want you to reveal cards until you reveal a land or nonland card?
And If I had a Jace for every Search the City that I've pulled....
Also, I would like to see more cards in standard that have unique and usable abilities. There are some pretty cool ones like Olivia Voldaren, Izzet Staticaster, so on. It adds so much more strategy to the game than creatures like Geist of Saint Traft in my opinion.
Why doesn't red get more stuff that builds slowly like a fire growing? E.G.
R - Creature - 1/1 Add a counter to this at the end of every turn.
Sacrifice ~ to add X R mana to pool where X = # of counters on ~
Red is the color of madness, so milling does make some sense. Alternatively, red could have some sort of randomization mechanic. Maybe a counterspell that says: this spell is countered, and returns to the players hand, and then they may cast a different spell with a lower CMC cost for free. Or maybe red choses for them (no, you don't cast that, you cast this instead).
It would also be nice if milling were better integrated into the game. As it is, it is a fringe mechanic that operates so differently they every thing else, it's like you're playing a totally different game. And there are so few defenses against it.
As for red growing...growing is a green thing, usually. Red is more about exploding.
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
I think they should do stuff like that but only as long as it's a sac ability on a creature.
I think it would be interesting play-wise to create a bunch of creatures that are like
R - 1/1, sac to prevent whatever
Running an ability through a creature is interesting because it telegraphs the play and creates strategic play. It also allows Red mages to choose a slightly less powerful, versatile creature instead of going pure aggro.
D:<
With the cards...I'd like everyone, everywhere to STOP. THINKING. THAT SUBTYPES ARE MECHANICS. As well, I'd like types that can go anywhere (e.g. Mercenary, Ally, Gate, Tower, etc.) to actually show up on cards that make sense for them (why Mystic Gate not a Gate?! why Command Tower not a Tower?! why Ulvenwald Mystics not a Mystic?! why Phantasmal Sphere not an Orb?!). It's a minor change really, but the easiest way to expand upon tribal mechanics is just to make more cards with the type. Like I keep telling people, Arcane, Trap, Curse and the like will continue to matter if they just actually keep making cards with the type (NOT EVERYWHERE, just apply where the flavor would make sense). And like I keep telling people, aren't tribal mechanics for Elf and Goblin automatically improved just by making more Elves and Goblins?
This, to the power of every grain of sand in Infinite Hourglass.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
That's what they should have done.
Got my vote!
Also, let Core Sets last 2 years. You get a larger card pool for standard, more diverse decks, and the card value don't collapse in 1/2 the time.
I like the way you think.
Brilliant idea.
aka Prey Upon
Thank you! That's a good way of putting it. The art is so beautiful and this is a fantasy game where things are supposed to feel magical and ancient. Why do the cards look like a website interface?
printing shocks was a nice start to making magic more affordable for the long term. all we need now is more playable commons/uncommons and less limited fodder.
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
I don't think that card draw should even be in any one color pie. Card filtration and massive card draw still belong very much to blue, but I think one of the earliest flaws of this game was associating cards with knowledge, instead of as a game resource. Giving red looting effects was a great start, for one.
Survival cache replaces itself and sometimes gets you another card, but not always. Mentor is a pretty bad card - if you play Honor of the Pure it stops working, and you often don't have the mana available to use it. It's a card you have to build around to get to work, and I don't know any major decks that play it. If you're willing to dual color, then yes, but some of us are tired of having to splash blue all the time for card drive and green for ramp. Mono coloured decks should be playable.
-making certain Standard cards can be played in Modern, therefore increasing their value and increasing WotC's profit margin
Things WotC does not care about:
-keeping the ban list as short as possible
-taking chances with an entire format for the benefit of a single card
-catering to play styles that newer players generally don't like and will lose them more players than it will gain
-keeping the meta balanced between archetypes/colors/whatever
-keeping cards on the secondary market cheap (available yes, but not cheap)
-keeping the meta diverse (as long as a single deck doesn't threaten the popularity of the format)
Cancel is unplayable. Counterspell is playable. Let's bring back one of the most iconic cards in the game, especially at a time when paying two mana of the same color is apparently oppressive. By placing such an emphasis on creature-based aggro, the game is losing variety and strategy. If it continues, and control is ultimately phased out as a viable strategy, then combo owns the game, and don't think they'll catch every potential game breaking combo before it can get out.
http://supervillainous.spiderforest.com
1/1 token with +1/+1 has > 2 power?
Three mana for Mentor of the Meek turn three, four mana for Lingering Souls and a card turn four? Five mana for Midnight Haunting and two cards turn five?
Those have never worked..
..on topic: functional reprints of cards on the reserved list. Make it more of a TCG than a CCG.
Or, you know, just buy the rights to vs system and produce that for us again.
From Innistrad only 1 of the 5 tribes (Zombies) is playable in Standard atm, meaning that a sizable chunk of the last block has utterly failed to make any impact in the long run. Card types like traps, curses, and arcane need to get continued support, as does tribal.
Sig by Rivenor
Decks (All Budget)
Modern
WSoul SistersW
RGShamansRG