Actually, if you've been paying attention, Maro specifically said that Mindless Null was designed as a 2/2 for 1B w/ the same drawback, and it was typoed to 2B. So Mindless Null isn't limited filler - it's a typo and an insult.
Doesn't he "break" super expensive, mildly decent enchant creature auras?
Then again, without 1 or 2 more cards that do something similar, running him would be silly since you'd rarely have him and an enchantment in your graveyave without running an otherwise horrible deck...
It works w/ madness too, yes. Now I'm not saying we print this in a block w/ madness, but if it comes a year or two before or after the next madness block, I think Extended (and maybe legacy) would really like it...
Skeletal Puzzle 2B
Creature - Skeleton
Suspend 2 - B
B: Regenerate ~.
Unearth B
At the end of your upkeep, if ~ is exiled from the game, you may pay B. If you do, put a suspend counter on ~.
2/1.
Really? It's land block season and noone wants to comment on bouncelands that set you back a mana?
Fine.
Generic Bounceland
Land - Mine
When ~ enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand.
Tap: Add 2 to your mana pool.
(this doesn't come into play tapped, gives you 2 mana on turn 2, and other stuff...).
Well its a problem land, as its allready powerfull to get a "Discard" outlet.
And discard is not a drawback at all if you can pull it off when you want to, thats actual a big big big advantage.
Its a land you wouldnt want as its advantage is so big if you can abuse it, and if you can't you won't use it at all.
Here you have an exmaple of a card which forces you to give it some interaction, as its otherwise totally crap.
Pull it together with Madness and you have a pretty nuts land, like Lotus Cobra gets an upgrade by Fetchlands and the Landfall theme.
Printing cards without a connection to your theme is just bad design, and printing cards with the knowledge that they are good, just because you have "no interaction" in your set is even worser, as you steal yourself intresting interactions and just carry them to print "imbalanced" cards.
This means, you can scale your card down and simply make it good in general:
City of the Forgotten
Land (Rare)
Discard a card from your hand, T: Add one mana to your manapool of one of the same colors as the discarded card.
This is enough, theirs no reason to give it a "colorless" upgrade and no reason to make it lower than Rare.
So if your set offers a bunch of Madness, Unearth, Delve, flashback, hellbent, what ever you use, the cards cost is no longer a real drawback, even better it will help you to get to your goal.
And its really a good land for sure.
Flavourwise i would choose "Forgotten" instead of "Doomed" as discard has a flavour of "losing ideas" , if the "hand" is explained as the planeswalkers current ideas, the library is the "complete mind" , than discard means that you forget one of your ideas before you can pull them off.
Doomed sounds better for "black" lands, or something that uses sacrifice a creature or something.
Your version is identicle to my original version, but (a) what happens when you discard a land (it's not at all clear, hence my non-land provision), and (b) I want it to tap for colorless so that in limited it's not worthless (I mean, even at rare - which might be a good idea, depending on what else is in the set, I would feel REAL bad if someone ran this because it taps for "any colored mana" and it didn't have a colorless tap ability that didn't cost anything...)
Your version is "too good" in a madness standard format, good in an extended or legacy format, and worthless in any other format. My version (even a revised version) would be halfway decent in limited and block - and I take it that means quite a bit.
So, my revised version:
City of Amnesia
Land (Rare)
Discard a non-land, non-artifact card from your hand, Tap: Add one mana to your manapool of one of the same colors as the discarded card.
Tap: Add 1 colorless mana to your mana pool.
Yes. However, there is no reason to keep printing Scathe Zombies given the other cards black has. If you get a Scathe Zombie, you have a card you probably won't use in limited, definately won't use in construted, and definately won't use in casual.
Im pretty sure you either can't or don't want to see that about 80% of the cards in a set are just for "Limited" and nothing else.
We are talking about a trading card game, and theirs far more than Constructed here.
Peops might just collect cards, no matter how good they are, and vanilla cards can carry flavourtext better than cards with abilities, so that alone can be a reason to print them, as a small part of player like that, and especially "Core sets" are (from the idea) done to introduce new players, and are ment to be simpel, using only basic abilities and simpel creatures.
So cards like Scathe Zombie are nothing you compare in Constructed, but you can easy compare them to other "limited" cards, and so find out that they are not as bad as you make them.
A functional reprint of naturalize that cost 2G in a "bad cards block" is "good" in limited, but objectively bad as it offers nothing to the game. It's designed strictly for limited, and block play, and sucks since the theme of the block is, apparently, cards you wouldn't play elsewhere.
A funny thing comes if you think that a higher manacost makes a card worser.
This means the 2G naturalize is clearly worser, cases exist were its better, but it makes no sence to print such cards, as you can "clearly" say its just bad.
But a Naturalize for 20 mana would be just insane powerfull, not because you would ever cast it, but just because the manacost itself is the power for cards like Erradic Explosion and such.
So its not "that" simpel to say what makes a card good or bad, but in view of existing cards to compare them its possible.
Krosan Grip for example is pretty much allways better than naturalize, but only if the Split Second really makes a difference at your targets, if not, you better run naturalize as its cheaper, but as the MetaGame is, Krosan Grip is "clearly" better, but only as it is as it is.
Its a major thing that you don't focus your mind too much on Constructed, as just about 1% of the Magic cards ever printed have a meaning in Constructed, the others are just done for Limited, and right now a lot enjoy Limited more than Constructed, as you don't have the "allways nuts" cards, and not allways the same decks, you play with the set, find out whats good and what not, and theirs plenty of room to make cards that would "normally" be bad stronger than the cards that would be "normally" better.
If you push your idea far enough you can create new archtypes and make them competitive, but a major "problem" of magic is that the power creep has a limit were its not enjoyable anymore for the major part of players.
Its ok if creatures get stronger and stronger , and thats what currently happens, its ok, but its pretty boring aswell, as a lot of Constructed gets down to who gets the "stupid bonkers draw" and a lot more decks get impossible as they are simply too slow, so its not a good thing to drive the power creep forward, sometimes you have to go a step back and that makes your set more enjoyable.
You make my point for me. A card that no one wants can't be traded. Some players don't play red. So they trade all their red cards away. Some players like playing multiplayer, so they trade for cards bad in standard, but good in multiplayer.
But a card bad in all formats is a criminal waste of paper, extortion (as they sold us something there's no reason for us to want), and hurts the game.
Like i said, peops exist that just collect the cards, as its a Trading card game, and some just enjoy the flavour text, theirs plenty of reasons why peops still enjoy even the worst cards, its not allways a matter if they are playable "anywhere".
And its not a good idea to talk about cards like Scathe Zombie, as thats nothing you would print in purpose, and especially not if you want to print some "special" cards, but its by far not a bad card, and WotC still continues to print cards like Scathe Zombie, just search the gatherer for black creatures with 2B common , they are all Limited creatures you would rarely consider playable in Constructed, and that doesnt make them "bad" or useless, they are printed exactly for this reason, so they make their job.
And even on this level you can find cards that are pretty much superior to most, but that doesnt mean the card is just "allways" better.
A pretty good example is this:
In M10 Limited you have Baneslayer Angel VS Serra Angel.
Ofcourse Baneslayer will be superior in a direct fight, but funny is that Serra Angel survives more removal, as theirs Entangling Vines, Assassinate and such at common, so peops are a lot more likely to have them and just kill your Baneslayer, and more important, you might get smashed by your own creature if your opponent is able to either Mind Controll it or Reanimate it (seen at M10 often enough), so the Serra Angel can really be the "Better" card for you, even if its by far not stronger in pure terms of abilities.
And like i said, if theirs some cards that hate 5+ power, theirs an extra reason against it, on the other side if all those things don't exist,
It gets even more funny if your set somehow has a theme for "vanilla" creatures, like this one:
Blessing of the Vanilla W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature with no abilities
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, vigilance and lifelink.
Thats something that could really make it good for you to play Vanilla creatures over the same creature with an extra ability, in Constructed you would go for Isamaru again, over a Nacatle (if you "really" would is something more complex, but you see what it wants to tell you).
It's not a complex topic at all. If you've played magic for any reasonable length of time, you know Mindless Null is a bad card. You know Scathe Zombies is a bad card (maybe it wasn't, once, but it is now), and you know that NO ONE WANTS THEM (except the Vorthoses who would be just as happy with the "next" worst card if the worst card wasn't printed). Now, you might be able to play these "justification" games like "I can imagine a format where this would see play", but when you do so you're being disingenuous. You know we're not talking about fantasies, we're talking about realities.
Well if you can't except that a card is good designed if only Vorthos players like it, than you are not a "overall" good designer at all, as thats just a player like the others that actual "buy" cards, maybe even more than some Spike/Jonny players (which just buy Singel cards not Boosters).
A major thing is that Mindless Null isnt even "bad" at all.
Ofcourse its by far not a great card, but it can easy be in your Limited deck, as you simply need more creatures, and funny enough, the pretty redundant ability can be a random trick.
I have seen this in our last FNM draft.
Mindless Null is on the field, equipped with +2/+1 and the opponent reads it, just fast, not carefully, it looks bad, the player thinks its totally bad, and the ability seems to make it even worser.
But the player just ignores the random Vampire, and attacks into the Null and loses the creature.
This doesnt mean you will ever have such a moment at a PTQ / PT or anything if the players really "know" the cards, but its something that comes up from time to time, and theirs plenty of reasons why you play "not good" cards in Limited, you need Fillers and a creature is fair enough.
Finally, Haunting Echoes is a great example of a card that indirrectly encourages you to run 1 and 2 ofs, instead of 4 ofs. When your opponent Haunting Echoes, he thinks he's won - but if your deck is full of 1 and 2-ofs, rather than 4 ofs, Haunting Echoes... shuffles your deck. Indeed, a clever designer would run 4x of a cards he wanted to be haunting-echoed away - say, discard, mana ramp, and other "early game" effects, such that when his opponent haunting echoed him away, he'd be left with lands and cards he needs in his library.
Well a problem with the cards like Haunting Echoes is that you don't want a lot of them, and you don't want them at Un/Common, as the effect is totally useless in Limited, and just good in Constructed if theirs a reason for them against decks that really have just a small amount of WinOptions.
And Haunting Echoes will "never" encourage you to run a different deck, its 5 mana and it won't kill you at all if your Board is able to win.
And it won't remove basic lands, so it won't kill you anyway, and if played later, theirs plenty of room to work around it anyway.
The time Haunting Echoes was great (back in the time in was printed) was because the format itself was super slow, and it was a format that often could get down to late game, and this means the Haunting Echoes wins you the TopDeck game, even if that means you just sideboard it against PsychaTog Mirrors, or against MonoBlack Controll.
In fact, thats something you won't get today, as Magic is just way to fast, way too much creatures and way too much overall sick hate against special cards, and you have a lot more "powerfull" point removal and creatures that "survive" removal.
Make no mistake - there are reasons to run "less than full playsets" of cards.
Its simpel. If your deck is going to be "fast" you play 4-offs to be as consistent and fast as possible.
If your deck is about "answers" and more controllish, drawing more cards, and playing the Long-Game, you don't play just 4-offs, simply because you don't need them, and you don't want them.
But Controll will still play 4-offs of cards that need to show up fast and consistent, and nothing will change that, no matter how much hate you put into it.
Fazit:
Try to get a bigger view at Magic cards, not every card has to be as imbalanced as Baneslayer Angel or Tarmagoyf, i would even count "THIS" cards as mistakes that really effect magic for a LONG LONG time.
Sets can have a bunch of real intresting constructed cards, but they need a lot more intresting Limited cards, and you should not make every common a big bomb, and not too much powerfull removal, as the game gets intresting if cards are good and bad, depending on the situation.
And the best design is if the card makes player happy.
If you know players like advantages more than a drawback, you will try to make cards with advantages, rather than making efficient creatures with insane drawbacks.
But as you want to make something for everyone, you can just offer 1 of this Drawback cards in your set, and just put more cards in with advantages.
That said, if you look over the decklists out there (especially the control decklists), you'll see that Haunting Echoes is much on their minds in the 3 and 2 ofs they run.
Funny if you try it, but really don't make comments about Constructed if they are just plain wrong.
Nobody considers Haunting Echoes, simply because its not played in the MetaGame, as it won't win you games at all, it will just "lose" you a lot more games instead as its effect is just not worth it.
Haunting Echoes goes in the line of "mill" , and mill is only good if you can directly "kill" with it, otherwise it has no effect at all, and it can randomly give your opponent exactly what they want, steal what they want or do just nothing, but you never have controll about that, and in Constructed you are pretty much "dead" by turn 5 against beatdown and controll will laugh about you if you try to play Haunting Echoes if they can just eat you with "real" card advantage.
Why do you play just 3 Day of Judgment in your Controll List ?
Example could be that you don't need 4, as you can simply Cascade into it, or use Draw spells into it, or you don't want it "allways", plenty of reasons without anything that makes it a good idea or not by an card effect.
A format where sellers sell more of the cards they open, where new players have a chance to do well, and experienced players have a chance to try out a different format... that just seems good.
Thats not good, its very short sighted. If you make your set so strong that its superior, you sell more cards ofcourse, but what is about your next set ? Will you print just even better cards ? And continue this for 2 years ? Doing this will totally ruin your game, and than nobody has something from it.
And in this little generic field, you will allways get expensive cards, as something among your cards is "the best" , and you can't allways print more fetchlands, more Duals, more insane Baneslayer Angels, more Tarmagoyf.
You just print 1 maybe 5 really "good" cards , were you are sure they are nuts, printing more of them sets a too high standard for your next set, so this means you next set will automatically be "bad" and sell bad, which means less money for you.
But Marketing is even a more complex thing, while the basic ideas for the designer of cards is kinda obvisious, but complex in "detail".
The point, though, is that for any given (normal) standard or limited format, this is a bad card - it's much worse than City of Brass, or any number of fixers.
So it's bad in some formats, and good in other formats. All I'm saying is that it'd be nice if every time WOTC needs a "bad card" for a set/format, they'd make it like this. Bad where it needs to be bad, and good elsewhere.
I'm just going to address this because it's early, and I've got other things to do. This breakdown might very well be true (although Vorthos is surely off)(and it's contingently not true, if you want to actually go by what WOTC has said and empirical evidence from constructed tournaments). But if it is true, it's assininely true.
Generally speaking, if you look at any given set, around 40% of the cards are semi-constructed playable. Some sets top 50%. And yes, I may be including "causal" and "if the format arives" cards in the playable catagory, but the point is simple - your numbers are off.
More importantly, there is absolutely no game-related reason to print cards that are only "limited" playable (and benidiction of moons is neither constructed or limited playable, and yet your numbers don't bother with this all too typical "catagory" of card). Elsewhere I've discussed numerous ways to make WOTC-style limited cards constructed playable in some format, whether it's akin to my City of Amnesia card from the other thread, or yugioh style linear design where rares make "bad" commons and uncommons constructed playable in at least some sense. Heck, if they're worried about power creep or running out of (good) ideas, they can always reprint cards (in the bulk they did in early stand-alone sets).
Too often cards "slip through the cracks" (mindless null), and even more often cards are designed to be ONLY limited playable. And yet, you ask yourself why these same cards couldn't have, for example, a really bad keyword that gives bonuses in multiplayer. The card would still be limited-playable, but would be constructed worthy in some format. Or you wonder why they can't make a change in creature type to boost tribal. But this conversation has been had before, here and elsewhere. And the only way that people can justify WOTC's printing bad cards is to look at what they've said... no, not the "oops, we made a mistake" comments, but the ad hoc justification "See, we made One With Nothing to be REALLY bad (oops, we made a mistake... it's actually semi-good) because the game NEEDS bad cards", or "we allot so many spaces in any given set for constructed playable cards, and we "use up" power points as we make good cards", etc. No matter how many people point out the inconsistencies of these claims, or design "equivalently unpowerful, but otherwise more appealing" cards, the people who side with WOTC ignore these objections and label them ignorant.
If you ignore dissenting opinions and arguments then, YES, things really are "simpel"...
Mons Goblin Rogue 2RR
Creature - Goblin Rogue (Rare)
When ~ comes into play, you may search your library for any number of cards named 'Mons goblin raider' and put them into play. They gain haste until end of turn. If you do, shuffle your library.
Whenever a goblin you control deals damage to an opponent, that player draws a card, then discards a card at random.
3/2
Pearl Trident 1
Legendary Artifact - Equipment Rare?
U1: Until equipped creature.
Equip: 1
Equipped creature gets +1/+1. If the equipped creature is named "Merfolk of Pearl Trident", it has "Tap: ~ deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
Sizzle Crafter 1R
Creature - Human Wizard Uncommon
2R: You may play a card named "Sizzle" from your sideboard without paying its mana cost.
2/1
Gray Ogress 3R
Creature - Ogre Warrior Uncommon
Haste
When ~ comes into play, you may search your library for a creature card named "Gray Ogre" and put it into play and it gains haste until end of turn. If you do, shuffle your library.
2/2
Naturally, they'd only be printed if their "partners" are reprinted in that block.
What will happen, and what should happen are two different things. WOTC might very well keep making bad cards, but they shouldn't.
And this card is an excellent example of a card they could print to take up the "bad in limited, standard" role they deem so necessary for a set, and yet would be good elsewhere.
Even so, the idea of referencing other cards by name is something Magic tries to avoid I think.
I don't think these cards would get me to play with a vanilla 1/1.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
Then again, without 1 or 2 more cards that do something similar, running him would be silly since you'd rarely have him and an enchantment in your graveyave without running an otherwise horrible deck...
Can cast Dark Withering, Circular Logic, Fiery Temper anytime.
Skeletal Puzzle 2B
Creature - Skeleton
Suspend 2 - B
B: Regenerate ~.
Unearth B
At the end of your upkeep, if ~ is exiled from the game, you may pay B. If you do, put a suspend counter on ~.
2/1.
Broken? Confusing enough? It is a puzzle...
Fine.
Generic Bounceland
Land - Mine
When ~ enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand.
Tap: Add 2 to your mana pool.
(this doesn't come into play tapped, gives you 2 mana on turn 2, and other stuff...).
And discard is not a drawback at all if you can pull it off when you want to, thats actual a big big big advantage.
Its a land you wouldnt want as its advantage is so big if you can abuse it, and if you can't you won't use it at all.
Here you have an exmaple of a card which forces you to give it some interaction, as its otherwise totally crap.
Pull it together with Madness and you have a pretty nuts land, like Lotus Cobra gets an upgrade by Fetchlands and the Landfall theme.
Printing cards without a connection to your theme is just bad design, and printing cards with the knowledge that they are good, just because you have "no interaction" in your set is even worser, as you steal yourself intresting interactions and just carry them to print "imbalanced" cards.
This means, you can scale your card down and simply make it good in general:
City of the Forgotten
Land (Rare)
Discard a card from your hand, T: Add one mana to your manapool of one of the same colors as the discarded card.
This is enough, theirs no reason to give it a "colorless" upgrade and no reason to make it lower than Rare.
So if your set offers a bunch of Madness, Unearth, Delve, flashback, hellbent, what ever you use, the cards cost is no longer a real drawback, even better it will help you to get to your goal.
And its really a good land for sure.
Flavourwise i would choose "Forgotten" instead of "Doomed" as discard has a flavour of "losing ideas" , if the "hand" is explained as the planeswalkers current ideas, the library is the "complete mind" , than discard means that you forget one of your ideas before you can pull them off.
Doomed sounds better for "black" lands, or something that uses sacrifice a creature or something.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Your version is "too good" in a madness standard format, good in an extended or legacy format, and worthless in any other format. My version (even a revised version) would be halfway decent in limited and block - and I take it that means quite a bit.
So, my revised version:
City of Amnesia
Land (Rare)
Discard a non-land, non-artifact card from your hand, Tap: Add one mana to your manapool of one of the same colors as the discarded card.
Tap: Add 1 colorless mana to your mana pool.
And yes, your name is superior. Nice job.
Im pretty sure you either can't or don't want to see that about 80% of the cards in a set are just for "Limited" and nothing else.
We are talking about a trading card game, and theirs far more than Constructed here.
Peops might just collect cards, no matter how good they are, and vanilla cards can carry flavourtext better than cards with abilities, so that alone can be a reason to print them, as a small part of player like that, and especially "Core sets" are (from the idea) done to introduce new players, and are ment to be simpel, using only basic abilities and simpel creatures.
So cards like Scathe Zombie are nothing you compare in Constructed, but you can easy compare them to other "limited" cards, and so find out that they are not as bad as you make them.
A funny thing comes if you think that a higher manacost makes a card worser.
This means the 2G naturalize is clearly worser, cases exist were its better, but it makes no sence to print such cards, as you can "clearly" say its just bad.
But a Naturalize for 20 mana would be just insane powerfull, not because you would ever cast it, but just because the manacost itself is the power for cards like Erradic Explosion and such.
So its not "that" simpel to say what makes a card good or bad, but in view of existing cards to compare them its possible.
Krosan Grip for example is pretty much allways better than naturalize, but only if the Split Second really makes a difference at your targets, if not, you better run naturalize as its cheaper, but as the MetaGame is, Krosan Grip is "clearly" better, but only as it is as it is.
Its a major thing that you don't focus your mind too much on Constructed, as just about 1% of the Magic cards ever printed have a meaning in Constructed, the others are just done for Limited, and right now a lot enjoy Limited more than Constructed, as you don't have the "allways nuts" cards, and not allways the same decks, you play with the set, find out whats good and what not, and theirs plenty of room to make cards that would "normally" be bad stronger than the cards that would be "normally" better.
If you push your idea far enough you can create new archtypes and make them competitive, but a major "problem" of magic is that the power creep has a limit were its not enjoyable anymore for the major part of players.
Its ok if creatures get stronger and stronger , and thats what currently happens, its ok, but its pretty boring aswell, as a lot of Constructed gets down to who gets the "stupid bonkers draw" and a lot more decks get impossible as they are simply too slow, so its not a good thing to drive the power creep forward, sometimes you have to go a step back and that makes your set more enjoyable.
Like i said, peops exist that just collect the cards, as its a Trading card game, and some just enjoy the flavour text, theirs plenty of reasons why peops still enjoy even the worst cards, its not allways a matter if they are playable "anywhere".
And its not a good idea to talk about cards like Scathe Zombie, as thats nothing you would print in purpose, and especially not if you want to print some "special" cards, but its by far not a bad card, and WotC still continues to print cards like Scathe Zombie, just search the gatherer for black creatures with 2B common , they are all Limited creatures you would rarely consider playable in Constructed, and that doesnt make them "bad" or useless, they are printed exactly for this reason, so they make their job.
And even on this level you can find cards that are pretty much superior to most, but that doesnt mean the card is just "allways" better.
A pretty good example is this:
In M10 Limited you have Baneslayer Angel VS Serra Angel.
Ofcourse Baneslayer will be superior in a direct fight, but funny is that Serra Angel survives more removal, as theirs Entangling Vines, Assassinate and such at common, so peops are a lot more likely to have them and just kill your Baneslayer, and more important, you might get smashed by your own creature if your opponent is able to either Mind Controll it or Reanimate it (seen at M10 often enough), so the Serra Angel can really be the "Better" card for you, even if its by far not stronger in pure terms of abilities.
And like i said, if theirs some cards that hate 5+ power, theirs an extra reason against it, on the other side if all those things don't exist,
It gets even more funny if your set somehow has a theme for "vanilla" creatures, like this one:
Blessing of the Vanilla W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature with no abilities
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, vigilance and lifelink.
Thats something that could really make it good for you to play Vanilla creatures over the same creature with an extra ability, in Constructed you would go for Isamaru again, over a Nacatle (if you "really" would is something more complex, but you see what it wants to tell you).
Well if you can't except that a card is good designed if only Vorthos players like it, than you are not a "overall" good designer at all, as thats just a player like the others that actual "buy" cards, maybe even more than some Spike/Jonny players (which just buy Singel cards not Boosters).
A major thing is that Mindless Null isnt even "bad" at all.
Ofcourse its by far not a great card, but it can easy be in your Limited deck, as you simply need more creatures, and funny enough, the pretty redundant ability can be a random trick.
I have seen this in our last FNM draft.
Mindless Null is on the field, equipped with +2/+1 and the opponent reads it, just fast, not carefully, it looks bad, the player thinks its totally bad, and the ability seems to make it even worser.
But the player just ignores the random Vampire, and attacks into the Null and loses the creature.
This doesnt mean you will ever have such a moment at a PTQ / PT or anything if the players really "know" the cards, but its something that comes up from time to time, and theirs plenty of reasons why you play "not good" cards in Limited, you need Fillers and a creature is fair enough.
Well a problem with the cards like Haunting Echoes is that you don't want a lot of them, and you don't want them at Un/Common, as the effect is totally useless in Limited, and just good in Constructed if theirs a reason for them against decks that really have just a small amount of WinOptions.
And Haunting Echoes will "never" encourage you to run a different deck, its 5 mana and it won't kill you at all if your Board is able to win.
And it won't remove basic lands, so it won't kill you anyway, and if played later, theirs plenty of room to work around it anyway.
The time Haunting Echoes was great (back in the time in was printed) was because the format itself was super slow, and it was a format that often could get down to late game, and this means the Haunting Echoes wins you the TopDeck game, even if that means you just sideboard it against PsychaTog Mirrors, or against MonoBlack Controll.
In fact, thats something you won't get today, as Magic is just way to fast, way too much creatures and way too much overall sick hate against special cards, and you have a lot more "powerfull" point removal and creatures that "survive" removal.
Its simpel. If your deck is going to be "fast" you play 4-offs to be as consistent and fast as possible.
If your deck is about "answers" and more controllish, drawing more cards, and playing the Long-Game, you don't play just 4-offs, simply because you don't need them, and you don't want them.
But Controll will still play 4-offs of cards that need to show up fast and consistent, and nothing will change that, no matter how much hate you put into it.
Fazit:
Try to get a bigger view at Magic cards, not every card has to be as imbalanced as Baneslayer Angel or Tarmagoyf, i would even count "THIS" cards as mistakes that really effect magic for a LONG LONG time.
Sets can have a bunch of real intresting constructed cards, but they need a lot more intresting Limited cards, and you should not make every common a big bomb, and not too much powerfull removal, as the game gets intresting if cards are good and bad, depending on the situation.
And the best design is if the card makes player happy.
If you know players like advantages more than a drawback, you will try to make cards with advantages, rather than making efficient creatures with insane drawbacks.
But as you want to make something for everyone, you can just offer 1 of this Drawback cards in your set, and just put more cards in with advantages.
Funny if you try it, but really don't make comments about Constructed if they are just plain wrong.
Nobody considers Haunting Echoes, simply because its not played in the MetaGame, as it won't win you games at all, it will just "lose" you a lot more games instead as its effect is just not worth it.
Haunting Echoes goes in the line of "mill" , and mill is only good if you can directly "kill" with it, otherwise it has no effect at all, and it can randomly give your opponent exactly what they want, steal what they want or do just nothing, but you never have controll about that, and in Constructed you are pretty much "dead" by turn 5 against beatdown and controll will laugh about you if you try to play Haunting Echoes if they can just eat you with "real" card advantage.
Why do you play just 3 Day of Judgment in your Controll List ?
Example could be that you don't need 4, as you can simply Cascade into it, or use Draw spells into it, or you don't want it "allways", plenty of reasons without anything that makes it a good idea or not by an card effect.
Thats not good, its very short sighted. If you make your set so strong that its superior, you sell more cards ofcourse, but what is about your next set ? Will you print just even better cards ? And continue this for 2 years ? Doing this will totally ruin your game, and than nobody has something from it.
The idea of sets is really simpel.
80% = Limited cards
20% = Constructed cards (considered "playable")
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10% = Timmy cards
10% = Jonny cards
10% = Spike cards
10% = Vorthos cards
(Rest just ordinary cards, with no clear categorie)
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And in this little generic field, you will allways get expensive cards, as something among your cards is "the best" , and you can't allways print more fetchlands, more Duals, more insane Baneslayer Angels, more Tarmagoyf.
You just print 1 maybe 5 really "good" cards , were you are sure they are nuts, printing more of them sets a too high standard for your next set, so this means you next set will automatically be "bad" and sell bad, which means less money for you.
But Marketing is even a more complex thing, while the basic ideas for the designer of cards is kinda obvisious, but complex in "detail".
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So it's bad in some formats, and good in other formats. All I'm saying is that it'd be nice if every time WOTC needs a "bad card" for a set/format, they'd make it like this. Bad where it needs to be bad, and good elsewhere.
I'm just going to address this because it's early, and I've got other things to do. This breakdown might very well be true (although Vorthos is surely off)(and it's contingently not true, if you want to actually go by what WOTC has said and empirical evidence from constructed tournaments). But if it is true, it's assininely true.
Generally speaking, if you look at any given set, around 40% of the cards are semi-constructed playable. Some sets top 50%. And yes, I may be including "causal" and "if the format arives" cards in the playable catagory, but the point is simple - your numbers are off.
More importantly, there is absolutely no game-related reason to print cards that are only "limited" playable (and benidiction of moons is neither constructed or limited playable, and yet your numbers don't bother with this all too typical "catagory" of card). Elsewhere I've discussed numerous ways to make WOTC-style limited cards constructed playable in some format, whether it's akin to my City of Amnesia card from the other thread, or yugioh style linear design where rares make "bad" commons and uncommons constructed playable in at least some sense. Heck, if they're worried about power creep or running out of (good) ideas, they can always reprint cards (in the bulk they did in early stand-alone sets).
Too often cards "slip through the cracks" (mindless null), and even more often cards are designed to be ONLY limited playable. And yet, you ask yourself why these same cards couldn't have, for example, a really bad keyword that gives bonuses in multiplayer. The card would still be limited-playable, but would be constructed worthy in some format. Or you wonder why they can't make a change in creature type to boost tribal. But this conversation has been had before, here and elsewhere. And the only way that people can justify WOTC's printing bad cards is to look at what they've said... no, not the "oops, we made a mistake" comments, but the ad hoc justification "See, we made One With Nothing to be REALLY bad (oops, we made a mistake... it's actually semi-good) because the game NEEDS bad cards", or "we allot so many spaces in any given set for constructed playable cards, and we "use up" power points as we make good cards", etc. No matter how many people point out the inconsistencies of these claims, or design "equivalently unpowerful, but otherwise more appealing" cards, the people who side with WOTC ignore these objections and label them ignorant.
If you ignore dissenting opinions and arguments then, YES, things really are "simpel"...
Creature - Goblin Rogue (Rare)
When ~ comes into play, you may search your library for any number of cards named 'Mons goblin raider' and put them into play. They gain haste until end of turn. If you do, shuffle your library.
Whenever a goblin you control deals damage to an opponent, that player draws a card, then discards a card at random.
3/2
Pearl Trident 1
Legendary Artifact - Equipment Rare?
U1: Until equipped creature.
Equip: 1
Equipped creature gets +1/+1. If the equipped creature is named "Merfolk of Pearl Trident", it has "Tap: ~ deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
Sizzle Crafter 1R
Creature - Human Wizard Uncommon
2R: You may play a card named "Sizzle" from your sideboard without paying its mana cost.
2/1
Gray Ogress 3R
Creature - Ogre Warrior Uncommon
Haste
When ~ comes into play, you may search your library for a creature card named "Gray Ogre" and put it into play and it gains haste until end of turn. If you do, shuffle your library.
2/2
Naturally, they'd only be printed if their "partners" are reprinted in that block.
And this card is an excellent example of a card they could print to take up the "bad in limited, standard" role they deem so necessary for a set, and yet would be good elsewhere.
I don't think these cards would get me to play with a vanilla 1/1.
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