- no more core sets to inject balance and answers into standard
- EDH partners are kinda broken in the fact that you can basically build a 4 color deck around a 2-color general.
- no mtgo for Mac's
- dumb buyouts and price manipulation of cards on the 2ndary market
I used to draft competitively and it was in fact the main way I built my collection because you could count on good deckbuilding and good gameplay to keep winning more packs to keep drafting with prize packs, and trade whatever money cards you pulled for cards you wanted.
Then NWO happened, and the best deck in the pool could now be beat by Timmy with a walker. At the start it was only stuff like Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Jace, the Mind Sculptor, genuinelly amazing cards that see Legacy play for a reason. But answers kept worsening and bombs kept becoming more stupid to it's climax in BFZ where Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is pretty much unboeatable and if someone pulls a Dust Bowl you might as well stop the draft right there anc concede all your ***** to him/her.
A lot of people have stopped drafting, because WotC stopped making draft a skill game with a luck component, and made it a full on lottery instead.
I agree with you on almost all of this. Limited has gone from a game of skill and sigleing and subtle diplomacy (with minor backstabbing) to a game of chance who got the best mythic blow out, however how on earth is a Dust Bowl effecting your draft that baddly? 99% of drafts I have been in most people use basics for almost all their mana base.
There are masterpieces that destroy limited when they are opened, ever have an opponent drop a T1 Mana Crypt against you in draft, but Dust Bowl isn't one of them unless something really odd happened in your draft.
The BFZ common nonbasics are super good in some (and my favorite) draft archetypes, when they're not being blown up making you lose two turns of mana acceleration.
Granted you can't avoid picking Mortuary Mire if you're on GB Syphon just because Dust Bowl and Wasteland are cards that exist, but when it happens you want to slap the opponent's eyebrows off for breaking the draft. Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Ensnaring Bridge, Mind Twist, Dark Ritual, too many masterpieces are a bane on the draft experience and I'm glad I spent all my draft money on masters editions these past two years instead of suffering Kaladesh and Amonkhet from what I saw my friends deal with.
Umm ok Sol Ring and Mana Crypt can be devastating if drawn early in any format, granted they can blow out a match no question their is a reason sol ring is restricted in Vintage and banned in every other format not named commander. However seriously you are upset about some pitiful LD (like wasteland/dust bowl) or Mind Twist or DARK ritual? I have drafted in sets where that was a common pick, it is not that broken. Ensnaring Bridge is a big bomby thing late game, Likely middle of the road. its powerful but still deal with able.
I will guess I will add this as something wrong with todays magic, so much lack of land destruction people are upset about dustbowl.
Keep in mind that when you are talking about Dark Ritual, that was a time where the most powerful bombs were things like Serah Angel and Shivan Dragon. Then wizards changed how they did card design and made more powerful creatures, resulting in spells like Dark Ritual to quickly catapult out of control. I actually like old school magic since it balanced the power of the spells better against the creatures, where as now spells are getting constantly nerfed because the idiots at R&D kept pumping out exceedingly broken targets for mana ramp spells, then relegated the stuff that would have been perfectly fine back under the old design at common and uncommon.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think the mythic rarity is more of a burden on limited than random inserts. Of course not all mythics or rares are created equal, but its the mythic slot that is prevalent enough and powerful enough to really screw you over with a random Planeswalker or some absurd bomb.
Case in point: I was watching LSV's Amonkhet draft yesterday and the other guy had the new Liliana and rare zombie lord. Lol, it was like watching a constructed vs draft deck match. Even LSV didn't manage to dig himself out of that one.
I think the design issues are important, but the bigger problem is the public image that standard and modern are not card set rules for everyone, but rather for strictly competitive play. They have made bone headed mistakes like this in the past with baby Jace and caw Blade, it's just that the pendulum has swung so far towards pushing competitive that anyone adhering to standard or modern gets dragged into this.
They have always pushed competitive over casual because competitive knows what they want. I have been a casual for 20 years, and can say from experience with other newbies and casuals that they don't know/understand what they want out of the game. What's worse is that non-casuals understand even less about what casuals want.
What casual players want is elegant simplicity, which is why I absolutely hate the fact they created planeswalkers and over complicated the game with too many mechanics on creatures. The reason we have to wait for net decks to show up to figure out what is actually good is due to wizards of the coast designing the best cards with deck builders and puzzle solvers in mind, which is not what the average casual player wants. For example, casual players love zombies, spirits (once they get the hang of the entire flash mechanic), and werewolves because they are easy to break down and digest. Zombies are a war of attrition, spirits are great at disruption and tempo plays, werewolves are a combination of early aggression and mid-range all sandwiched into a single package.
On the flip side, deck builders and puzzle solvers abhore a lot of simplification. Desolator Magic is a pretty good example of this as he hates tribal decks and go ballistic over things like mardu vehicles crushing out the majority of other deck ideas, thus leaving only a few solutions that work. They tend to like things such as combo decks (when they aren't two card combos), non-tribal control, mid-range, and aggro using cards with seemingly no obvious relationship between each other, and watching the entire thing come together.
There are plenty of people stuck between the two extremes as well, and this isn't even talking about the other axis of casual players in relation to competitive prize fighter players. On that axis I'm not really sure what the two extremes would be as there isn't a person on earth who doesn't want to play with strong cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I think the mythic rarity is more of a burden on limited than random inserts. Of course not all mythics or rares are created equal, but its the mythic slot that is prevalent enough and powerful enough to really screw you over with a random Planeswalker or some absurd bomb.
Case in point: I was watching LSV's Amonkhet draft yesterday and the other guy had the new Liliana and rare zombie lord. Lol, it was like watching a constructed vs draft deck match. Even LSV didn't manage to dig himself out of that one.
I think the design issues are important, but the bigger problem is the public image that standard and modern are not card set rules for everyone, but rather for strictly competitive play. They have made bone headed mistakes like this in the past with baby Jace and caw Blade, it's just that the pendulum has swung so far towards pushing competitive that anyone adhering to standard or modern gets dragged into this.
They have always pushed competitive over casual because competitive knows what they want. I have been a casual for 20 years, and can say from experience with other newbies and casuals that they don't know/understand what they want out of the game. What's worse is that non-casuals understand even less about what casuals want.
What casual players want is elegant simplicity, which is why I absolutely hate the fact they created planeswalkers and over complicated the game with too many mechanics on creatures. The reason we have to wait for net decks to show up to figure out what is actually good is due to wizards of the coast designing the best cards with deck builders and puzzle solvers in mind, which is not what the average casual player wants. For example, casual players love zombies, spirits (once they get the hang of the entire flash mechanic), and werewolves because they are easy to break down and digest. Zombies are a war of attrition, spirits are great at disruption and tempo plays, werewolves are a combination of early aggression and mid-range all sandwiched into a single package.
On the flip side, deck builders and puzzle solvers abhore a lot of simplification. Desolator Magic is a pretty good example of this as he hates tribal decks and go ballistic over things like mardu vehicles crushing out the majority of other deck ideas, thus leaving only a few solutions that work. They tend to like things such as combo decks (when they aren't two card combos), non-tribal control, mid-range, and aggro using cards with seemingly no obvious relationship between each other, and watching the entire thing come together.
There are plenty of people stuck between the two extremes as well, and this isn't even talking about the other axis of casual players in relation to competitive prize fighter players. On that axis I'm not really sure what the two extremes would be as there isn't a person on earth who doesn't want to play with strong cards.
Im going to disagree slightly, and say that what the casual player wants isn't so much elegant simplicity so much as transparency. Complexity is fine as long as it can be understood.
Transparency is probably a better term than what I used to describe it. It has to be something that is easy to say "hey, I get it" and can be picked up quickly with little effort into the construction. I don't necessarily think Planeswalkers are bad either, just that being something that is used in a 60 card deck the way they are is not the best way for them to be utilized. If they kept them to things like event cards for Pre-release, such as the oversized Garruk card, or as commanders in Commander they would be okay.
Also, another thing wrong with magic: Plugging in a deck list for modern fairies or any good deck in modern ends up costing over 1000 usd. Thanks wizards. I guess we all got to play burn and aggro to play modern magic. I can't think of any other game that I play where the non-rotating format decks have a cost of over 500 usd. Even Force of Will decks run only about 300 usd, and those are top tier.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I actually find Planeswalkers aren't that bad. They are obviously powerful cards, which is transparent, and you pick up on what an individual Planeswalkers card does pretty fast. Where it gets tricky is in deckbuilding. Planeswalkers are strongest in midrange decks, which IMO are the most difficult for the newbie to understand how to build and play well. Midrange is what people default to when they don't know better, and playing big creatures and spells is obvious, but doing it well in a winning deck isn't as obvious. Planeswalkers are okay in Control, but Control a lot of the time doesn't want to tap out to play them. Only a few Planeswalkers are really geared for Combo or Aggro decks, which generally get little to no use from them at all.
???? What non rotating formats are you playing besides modern? It can't be Legacy (pick any 2+ color deck that costs less then $500 I'll wait) Sure as heck isn't vintage. Force of will alone costs like %80, you are at 320 Just for the FOW playset.
???? What non rotating formats are you playing besides modern? It can't be Legacy (pick any 2+ color deck that costs less then $500 I'll wait) Sure as heck isn't vintage. Force of will alone costs like %80, you are at 320 Just for the FOW playset.
???? What non rotating formats are you playing besides modern? It can't be Legacy (pick any 2+ color deck that costs less then $500 I'll wait) Sure as heck isn't vintage. Force of will alone costs like %80, you are at 320 Just for the FOW playset.
Force of will the trading card game. Not the card.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Really? I hate draft but prerelease is fun if you skip spoilers.
I'm curious... Why skip the spoilers entirely and be less prepared for prerelease events when glimpsing them in advance gives you a better understanding of the mechanical interactions, effectively saving you time during the deck building process and allowing you to play more efficiently? Do you derive more satisfaction and entertainment from the on-the-spot discovery process of seeing new game pieces and being forced to improvise with less time and information than other competitors who are well versed on the set in advance?
I certainly enjoyed the mystery of discovering new cards when sets were released way back in the day before the era of internet spoilers, but now that so much information is readily available, neglecting to review spoilers in advance only puts one at an inherent disadvantage against those who do when it comes time to build and play.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
I think wizards believe they can bring in more new players to offset the old ones that quit. That's why they cater to the new players and throw the rest of us under the bus. What wizards forgets though, it is the older players that spread the game and teaches it to the new players. If wizards destroys the older player base the whole card house is going to collapse.
I'd like to add to the overall conversation by saying that I am glad that WoTC has announced the rest of its $10/pack products for the rest of the year. This should be the new model.
I would like for WoTC to continue giving players an advanced notice on their upcoming Masters sets/premium priced products. Many of us complain about the prices but it is a lot easier of a thing to manage saving up for, in thia case of Iconic Masters, when you have 6 months.
Really? I hate draft but prerelease is fun if you skip spoilers.
I'm curious... Why skip the spoilers entirely and be less prepared for prerelease events when glimpsing them in advance gives you a better understanding of the mechanical interactions, effectively saving you time during the deck building process and allowing you to play more efficiently? Do you derive more satisfaction and entertainment from the on-the-spot discovery process of seeing new game pieces and being forced to improvise with less time and information than other competitors who are well versed on the set in advance?
I certainly enjoyed the mystery of discovering new cards when sets were released way back in the day before the era of internet spoilers, but now that so much information is readily available, neglecting to review spoilers in advance only puts one at an inherent disadvantage against those who do when it comes time to build and play.
To me the prerelase is all about discovery. My performance is 80% tied to my card pool anyways, so it's not like knowing what else is in the set really matters. Removal is removal. Bombs are bombs. I'm not going pass on something good because I know there's an answer for it at common.
I think the mythic rarity is more of a burden on limited than random inserts. Of course not all mythics or rares are created equal, but its the mythic slot that is prevalent enough and powerful enough to really screw you over with a random Planeswalker or some absurd bomb.
Case in point: I was watching LSV's Amonkhet draft yesterday and the other guy had the new Liliana and rare zombie lord. Lol, it was like watching a constructed vs draft deck match. Even LSV didn't manage to dig himself out of that one.
I think the design issues are important, but the bigger problem is the public image that standard and modern are not card set rules for everyone, but rather for strictly competitive play. They have made bone headed mistakes like this in the past with baby Jace and caw Blade, it's just that the pendulum has swung so far towards pushing competitive that anyone adhering to standard or modern gets dragged into this.
They have always pushed competitive over casual because competitive knows what they want. I have been a casual for 20 years, and can say from experience with other newbies and casuals that they don't know/understand what they want out of the game. What's worse is that non-casuals understand even less about what casuals want.
What casual players want is elegant simplicity, which is why I absolutely hate the fact they created planeswalkers and over complicated the game with too many mechanics on creatures. The reason we have to wait for net decks to show up to figure out what is actually good is due to wizards of the coast designing the best cards with deck builders and puzzle solvers in mind, which is not what the average casual player wants. For example, casual players love zombies, spirits (once they get the hang of the entire flash mechanic), and werewolves because they are easy to break down and digest. Zombies are a war of attrition, spirits are great at disruption and tempo plays, werewolves are a combination of early aggression and mid-range all sandwiched into a single package.
On the flip side, deck builders and puzzle solvers abhore a lot of simplification. Desolator Magic is a pretty good example of this as he hates tribal decks and go ballistic over things like mardu vehicles crushing out the majority of other deck ideas, thus leaving only a few solutions that work. They tend to like things such as combo decks (when they aren't two card combos), non-tribal control, mid-range, and aggro using cards with seemingly no obvious relationship between each other, and watching the entire thing come together.
There are plenty of people stuck between the two extremes as well, and this isn't even talking about the other axis of casual players in relation to competitive prize fighter players. On that axis I'm not really sure what the two extremes would be as there isn't a person on earth who doesn't want to play with strong cards.
Im going to disagree slightly, and say that what the casual player wants isn't so much elegant simplicity so much as transparency. Complexity is fine as long as it can be understood.
Y'all are missing something, which I find kinda funny to me so I'll chime in: casual players often want their deck to make some kind of thematic sense. Pick up a goodstuff pile (say, Jund) and look at what the cards do. Is there a theme? What's the story of this deck? Your answer is wrong because it doesn't have a story, it's just a pile of random death and creatures that would make no sense if they sat in a room together. What you are measuring is wrong: sometimes, deck building in casual magic has exceptionally little to do with how the deck plays or how easy it is to Grok. Sometimes a player just wants to be the lord of all vampires because they look cool and vampires are awesome, and why would you include a reference to eldritch horror in a deck of vampires? Makes no sense if you ask me.
What is totally on with the transparency thing though is that it behooves wizards to make it easy for casual players to jam together stuff that makes thematic sense and come out with a deck that works at some level. It makes even more sense when you remember that you're a powerful wizard summoning magical creatures from distant planes, casting powerful spells and calling upon mighty allies for your cause! Competitive players forget this sometimes.
Random unrelated observation: I think wizards has become so enamored with the draft format that they've forgotten how to play non-draft formats. Their attitude towards standard, and how it should play, seems to be moving slowly and painfully towards "expensive limited". Has a lot to do with why the answers suck, because limited. Also why they severely overvalue slow value generators, because limited. And why they completely blank on synergy/combo, because limited. They furthermore try to jam all their constructed staples into rare, as a dinky way to cordon off the "scary constructed stuff" from their beautiful, meticulously crafted limited format.
That does feel like what they are aiming for as of late. What makes things dicey is that there is no widely popular and supported secondary format to shore up when standard goes south. Modern is just too expensive for most players, and commander is a 100% non-competitive format.
We really need core sets back and block constructed or extended.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Casual and new players don't know what they want. Knowing what you want implies knowing what your options and alternatives are, understanding the game on a deep level. I hesitate to even place myself in that category so my desires are usually aesthetic and thematic rather than mechanical.
Good things are not made based on this back and forth process between an amateur and a professional. That has been the bane of many a video game that have become downright pointless in the quest for greater "accessibility" (sales). Good things are made when the professional just does what he does best and has faith in the rest.
Older Magic designers had this faith and made things that were mostly good... and sometimes a mistake - but still remembered fondly, even when broken (eg. Urza's Saga). Newer designers are slaves to pleasing their customers, the accountants, and whatever bull***** survey the marketing department waves in front of their face.
They have managed to get a handle on balancing the game, repeating the formula and playing it safe, which is why it has also become repetitive, streamlined and boring, and truly good set so far and few inbetween. Yes, the game works better and has less oddities than before but it was these quirks that made it feel like Magic to me.
Amonkhet is a perfect example. There is not a single truly novel mechanic in the set.The bad cards are predictably bad and the good predictably good. Its so routine that I could not find a single card to be truly excited about either in terms of flavor or mechanics. There is no real fault that you can point to in the set, it does what it says on the box. But its boring nevertheless.
I think Shadow of the Grave is kinda cool it has some old school magic feel to it.
The bad cards are predictably bad and the good predictably good.
If you didn't say this then it would be more agreeable, but just look across this forum. 'Good' cards are still not obvious and 'bad' cards aren't either. Each spoiler season we have many cards defy the general expectation of this site. Just look back to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. If you mean the extremes, such as draft fodder being obvious draft fodder then its harder to argue but I still don't think the good cards are predictably good.
The bad cards are predictably bad and the good predictably good.
If you didn't say this then it would be more agreeable, but just look across this forum. 'Good' cards are still not obvious and 'bad' cards aren't either. Each spoiler season we have many cards defy the general expectation of this site. Just look back to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. If you mean the extremes, such as draft fodder being obvious draft fodder then its harder to argue but I still don't think the good cards are predictably good.
Not so much as unpredictable but rather where you find the good cards. Good common cards? Not so much. Good Mythics? Yep. But there's so much chaff that the number of good cards at Rare and Mythic are few and far between.
Sure, you get a few gems here and there. But WotC is so fearful of good cards at common or uncommon that they refuse to print them or just outright ban them.
This caution hurts the sets in terms of power level and theme. Not reprinting Desert in Amonkhet is a solid example how far Magic moved away from its core game play. The avoidance of long term core cards like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell is another.
The whole concept of needing bad cards to make good cards good is all and fine, but completely pointless when there are so few good cards at all.
As someone who's been playing since '94, here's what I don't like about Magic today:
1) Planeswalkers. I have no problem with Planeswalkers as a concept. But seeing them as the face of EVERY new set is tedious and sucks the flavor out of most storylines.
2) The Modern/Frontier card face(s). The original card face evoked a fantasy-feel, especially Alpha/Beta. The current card face is bland and generic; it could be applied to almost any other card game out there. It needs a major overhaul.
3) Mythics. As I feared when mythics were first introduced, they've slowly become less about flavor and more about power.
4) Too many "premium" sets. I don't mind them once in a while, but we're getting close to over-saturation with the Masters sets, Anthology sets, From the Vaults, SDCC promos, etc.
5) Not enough support for Eternal formats. Particularly Vintage.
The Modern/Frontier card face(s). The original card face evoked a fantasy-feel, especially Alpha/Beta. The current card face is bland and generic; it could be applied to almost any other card game out there. It needs a major overhaul.
I see people make this claim a lot. I understand the people often don't like change, simply because Change Is Bad™. But I don't get the argument that somehow the old borders evoke a fantasy feel while the modern borders do not.
I mean, compare 7ED BoP to 8ED BoP. From a graphic design standpoint, the only major difference between the two is that the 8e version is easier to read (with the exception of the artist credit and copyright line, but those are irrelevant to gameplay). Honestly, the only thing I feel comes close to saying "fantasy" about the old card face is the paper-like design of the card's text box, and that's hardly a neon sign shouting "this is for a fantasy game". The background of the 8e face doesn't lend itself to other card games any more than the 7e face does; they're both extreme closeups of plants.
LEA Counterspell vs. FNM Counterspell is another good comparison, as is LEA Sol Ring vs. Judge Promo Sol Ring. And in these cases, you can see that the old card face doesn't even have the paper-like text box for blue cards or artifacts. (In fact, only green and black cards had some kind of effect like that.)
So please, tell me: how exactly does the old card face evoke a fantasy setting while the modern card face does not?
The old frames did a better job evoking the different... let's just call them "elementals".
In the examples you gave, the old green frame is paper-like, blue frame has a watery look, and artifact has a stone like appearance. The text box and the colored bordered work together, it's not just the text box. Couple this with the vastly different art styles from each artist and you have the sense that you're looking at pages of a tome intended for the target spell caster. Each page or "vision" recorded by someone else and you're learning then playing the spell.
It's obvious the designers keep heehawing over the design such as their treatment of lands like the classic Duals. But the intent seemed to be there.
The new frame did away with the stylized text boxes, shrunk the borders and added a sort of embossed frame. Even the artwork was modernized into a "wide screen" format and forced into a consistent style. To me, I'm just looking a futuristic viewscreen looking at the Discovery Channel. It doesn't feel like a collection of spells that survived the ages, but more like I'm using a Pokedex and all my stats and details are spoonfed to me. Devoid of any character. Look at the drawings of a Dodo bird. All of them, every single one is an artistic rendition of an extinct species drawn from differing viewpoints and skillsets. That's what magic should feel like. Understanding the story of Urza and Mishra through word of mouth and lore. Tainted by generations and altered through distance.. Instead we get Jace spoonfed to us like watching the six O'clock news. Less mystical and more "exact". Science and technology instead of Magic.
The different versions of Ornithopter is a great example of something whimsical and magical morphing into something we see every day.
The bad cards are predictably bad and the good predictably good.
If you didn't say this then it would be more agreeable, but just look across this forum. 'Good' cards are still not obvious and 'bad' cards aren't either. Each spoiler season we have many cards defy the general expectation of this site. Just look back to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. If you mean the extremes, such as draft fodder being obvious draft fodder then its harder to argue but I still don't think the good cards are predictably good.
Not so much as unpredictable but rather where you find the good cards. Good common cards? Not so much. Good Mythics? Yep. But there's so much chaff that the number of good cards at Rare and Mythic are few and far between.
Sure, you get a few gems here and there. But WotC is so fearful of good cards at common or uncommon that they refuse to print them or just outright ban them.
This caution hurts the sets in terms of power level and theme. Not reprinting Desert in Amonkhet is a solid example how far Magic moved away from its core game play. The avoidance of long term core cards like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell is another.
The whole concept of needing bad cards to make good cards good is all and fine, but completely pointless when there are so few good cards at all.
I think the NWO/Limited First has severely hurt the game.
Most decks are comprised mainly of outrageous manabases fueling playsets of Mythics and Rares, with the occasional Supergood Uncommon. I began playing in Revised, and many "good" staple cards were common or uncommon: animate dead, dark ritual, counterspell, prodigal sorcerer, Llanowar Elves, giant growth, lightning bolt, shatter, swords to plowshares, serra angel. You could build a perfectly servable deck with mostly C and U cards splashed with goodstuff rares and artifacts. (Manabases were still expensive though; stupid dual-lands). How many of those cards cannot be produced by being too good; how many are given away in intro decks for being too weak...
Look at the top standard decks today; how many play commons or playsets of uncommons? How many staples (like removal, ramp, counter, or burn) are overpriced except at mythic? How many are draft-fodder rather than the backbone of a good constructed deck? Look at a Planeswalker deck; a collection of 2 color C, U, and a few R cards in two colors (with dual land fixing), including a PLANESWALKER, that is utterly unplayable except against another PWD?
Maybe I'm being the grouchy old man, but I find I'm unable to get back into Magic and construct a playable deck without taking out a small loan to pay for it.
The bad cards are predictably bad and the good predictably good.
If you didn't say this then it would be more agreeable, but just look across this forum. 'Good' cards are still not obvious and 'bad' cards aren't either. Each spoiler season we have many cards defy the general expectation of this site. Just look back to Chandra, Torch of Defiance. If you mean the extremes, such as draft fodder being obvious draft fodder then its harder to argue but I still don't think the good cards are predictably good.
Not so much as unpredictable but rather where you find the good cards. Good common cards? Not so much. Good Mythics? Yep. But there's so much chaff that the number of good cards at Rare and Mythic are few and far between.
Sure, you get a few gems here and there. But WotC is so fearful of good cards at common or uncommon that they refuse to print them or just outright ban them.
This caution hurts the sets in terms of power level and theme. Not reprinting Desert in Amonkhet is a solid example how far Magic moved away from its core game play. The avoidance of long term core cards like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell is another.
The whole concept of needing bad cards to make good cards good is all and fine, but completely pointless when there are so few good cards at all.
I think the NWO/Limited First has severely hurt the game.
Most decks are comprised mainly of outrageous manabases fueling playsets of Mythics and Rares, with the occasional Supergood Uncommon. I began playing in Revised, and many "good" staple cards were common or uncommon: animate dead, dark ritual, counterspell, prodigal sorcerer, Llanowar Elves, giant growth, lightning bolt, shatter, swords to plowshares, serra angel. You could build a perfectly servable deck with mostly C and U cards splashed with goodstuff rares and artifacts. (Manabases were still expensive though; stupid dual-lands). How many of those cards cannot be produced by being too good; how many are given away in intro decks for being too weak...
Look at the top standard decks today; how many play commons or playsets of uncommons? How many staples (like removal, ramp, counter, or burn) are overpriced except at mythic? How many are draft-fodder rather than the backbone of a good constructed deck? Look at a Planeswalker deck; a collection of 2 color C, U, and a few R cards in two colors (with dual land fixing), including a PLANESWALKER, that is utterly unplayable except against another PWD?
Maybe I'm being the grouchy old man, but I find I'm unable to get back into Magic and construct a playable deck without taking out a small loan to pay for it.
Exactly. I recall narrowly winning a match the first time I saw Juzam Djinn. We both managed to get down to 5 life and my opponent cast Juzam. In desperation, I cast Hypnotic Spector to chump block. Next turn, I drew Animate Dead to bring back Sengir Vampire for another chump block. My third turn, I drew Lightning Bolt and finished. I managed to beat out a much better deck using a deck consisting largerly of Commons and Uncommons. I had Demonic Tutor to dig for answers (my most expensive card at the time I think) but couldn't draw it. I took pride in the win because I knew the oponents deck was far more capable and the player much better.
Do I see plays like that with the current sets? Not really. Seems like everyone races to get the Rares and Mythic centric decks built. Vehicles is a thing I guess but it feels.... forced. Like Wizards wants us to try this really cool mechanic or die.
Couple this with the vastly different art styles from each artist and you have the sense that you're looking at pages of a tome intended for the target spell caster.
The card art is not the subject here. The claim is that the frame evokes a fantasy setting or not. That's why I specifically chose printings with old and modern borders that had the same art for my examples, to remove the art from the comparison.
I'll definitely acknowledge that the art direction has shifted significantly over the years. It's not a sudden break as with the frames, and I'm not sure I'm willing to say that the older art necessarily does a better job of evoking a fantasy setting. What the shift has done, however, is homogenize the art styles more. Old cards had distinctive styles unique to each artist. It's much more difficult to tell new cards apart by their artist without reading the artist credit or being the kind of art fan that pays abnormal amounts of attention to the card art.
- no more core sets to inject balance and answers into standard
- EDH partners are kinda broken in the fact that you can basically build a 4 color deck around a 2-color general.
- no mtgo for Mac's
- dumb buyouts and price manipulation of cards on the 2ndary market
Sets where you can draft Dark Ritual at common usually have Swords to Plowshares at uncommon. In Amonkhet you may have to deal with a turn 2 Crocodile of the Crossing for BG, turn 3 Cryptic Serpent for UUB or Seraph of the Suns for 2WWB. Hope you picked that Winds of Rebuke.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What casual players want is elegant simplicity, which is why I absolutely hate the fact they created planeswalkers and over complicated the game with too many mechanics on creatures. The reason we have to wait for net decks to show up to figure out what is actually good is due to wizards of the coast designing the best cards with deck builders and puzzle solvers in mind, which is not what the average casual player wants. For example, casual players love zombies, spirits (once they get the hang of the entire flash mechanic), and werewolves because they are easy to break down and digest. Zombies are a war of attrition, spirits are great at disruption and tempo plays, werewolves are a combination of early aggression and mid-range all sandwiched into a single package.
On the flip side, deck builders and puzzle solvers abhore a lot of simplification. Desolator Magic is a pretty good example of this as he hates tribal decks and go ballistic over things like mardu vehicles crushing out the majority of other deck ideas, thus leaving only a few solutions that work. They tend to like things such as combo decks (when they aren't two card combos), non-tribal control, mid-range, and aggro using cards with seemingly no obvious relationship between each other, and watching the entire thing come together.
There are plenty of people stuck between the two extremes as well, and this isn't even talking about the other axis of casual players in relation to competitive prize fighter players. On that axis I'm not really sure what the two extremes would be as there isn't a person on earth who doesn't want to play with strong cards.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Also, another thing wrong with magic: Plugging in a deck list for modern fairies or any good deck in modern ends up costing over 1000 usd. Thanks wizards. I guess we all got to play burn and aggro to play modern magic. I can't think of any other game that I play where the non-rotating format decks have a cost of over 500 usd. Even Force of Will decks run only about 300 usd, and those are top tier.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Force of will the trading card game. Not the card.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm curious... Why skip the spoilers entirely and be less prepared for prerelease events when glimpsing them in advance gives you a better understanding of the mechanical interactions, effectively saving you time during the deck building process and allowing you to play more efficiently? Do you derive more satisfaction and entertainment from the on-the-spot discovery process of seeing new game pieces and being forced to improvise with less time and information than other competitors who are well versed on the set in advance?
I certainly enjoyed the mystery of discovering new cards when sets were released way back in the day before the era of internet spoilers, but now that so much information is readily available, neglecting to review spoilers in advance only puts one at an inherent disadvantage against those who do when it comes time to build and play.
I would like for WoTC to continue giving players an advanced notice on their upcoming Masters sets/premium priced products. Many of us complain about the prices but it is a lot easier of a thing to manage saving up for, in thia case of Iconic Masters, when you have 6 months.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/334931-what-is-the-most-pimp-card-deck-youve-seen-or?comment=5361
Commander
RGOmnath, Locus of Rage Grenades! EDHGR
UWSygg's Defense, EDH - Voltron & ControlWU
BUGMimeoplasm EDH ft. Ifnir Cycling-discard comboBUG
WBTeysa, Connoisseur of CullingBW
BWSelenia & Recruiter of the Guard suicice combo EDHWB
UBRWGO-Kagachi - 5 Color Enchantments - EDHUBRWG
To me the prerelase is all about discovery. My performance is 80% tied to my card pool anyways, so it's not like knowing what else is in the set really matters. Removal is removal. Bombs are bombs. I'm not going pass on something good because I know there's an answer for it at common.
Y'all are missing something, which I find kinda funny to me so I'll chime in: casual players often want their deck to make some kind of thematic sense. Pick up a goodstuff pile (say, Jund) and look at what the cards do. Is there a theme? What's the story of this deck? Your answer is wrong because it doesn't have a story, it's just a pile of random death and creatures that would make no sense if they sat in a room together. What you are measuring is wrong: sometimes, deck building in casual magic has exceptionally little to do with how the deck plays or how easy it is to Grok. Sometimes a player just wants to be the lord of all vampires because they look cool and vampires are awesome, and why would you include a reference to eldritch horror in a deck of vampires? Makes no sense if you ask me.
What is totally on with the transparency thing though is that it behooves wizards to make it easy for casual players to jam together stuff that makes thematic sense and come out with a deck that works at some level. It makes even more sense when you remember that you're a powerful wizard summoning magical creatures from distant planes, casting powerful spells and calling upon mighty allies for your cause! Competitive players forget this sometimes.
Random unrelated observation: I think wizards has become so enamored with the draft format that they've forgotten how to play non-draft formats. Their attitude towards standard, and how it should play, seems to be moving slowly and painfully towards "expensive limited". Has a lot to do with why the answers suck, because limited. Also why they severely overvalue slow value generators, because limited. And why they completely blank on synergy/combo, because limited. They furthermore try to jam all their constructed staples into rare, as a dinky way to cordon off the "scary constructed stuff" from their beautiful, meticulously crafted limited format.
We really need core sets back and block constructed or extended.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Not so much as unpredictable but rather where you find the good cards. Good common cards? Not so much. Good Mythics? Yep. But there's so much chaff that the number of good cards at Rare and Mythic are few and far between.
Sure, you get a few gems here and there. But WotC is so fearful of good cards at common or uncommon that they refuse to print them or just outright ban them.
This caution hurts the sets in terms of power level and theme. Not reprinting Desert in Amonkhet is a solid example how far Magic moved away from its core game play. The avoidance of long term core cards like Lightning Bolt and Counterspell is another.
The whole concept of needing bad cards to make good cards good is all and fine, but completely pointless when there are so few good cards at all.
1) Planeswalkers. I have no problem with Planeswalkers as a concept. But seeing them as the face of EVERY new set is tedious and sucks the flavor out of most storylines.
2) The Modern/Frontier card face(s). The original card face evoked a fantasy-feel, especially Alpha/Beta. The current card face is bland and generic; it could be applied to almost any other card game out there. It needs a major overhaul.
3) Mythics. As I feared when mythics were first introduced, they've slowly become less about flavor and more about power.
4) Too many "premium" sets. I don't mind them once in a while, but we're getting close to over-saturation with the Masters sets, Anthology sets, From the Vaults, SDCC promos, etc.
5) Not enough support for Eternal formats. Particularly Vintage.
I mean, compare 7ED BoP to 8ED BoP. From a graphic design standpoint, the only major difference between the two is that the 8e version is easier to read (with the exception of the artist credit and copyright line, but those are irrelevant to gameplay). Honestly, the only thing I feel comes close to saying "fantasy" about the old card face is the paper-like design of the card's text box, and that's hardly a neon sign shouting "this is for a fantasy game". The background of the 8e face doesn't lend itself to other card games any more than the 7e face does; they're both extreme closeups of plants.
LEA Counterspell vs. FNM Counterspell is another good comparison, as is LEA Sol Ring vs. Judge Promo Sol Ring. And in these cases, you can see that the old card face doesn't even have the paper-like text box for blue cards or artifacts. (In fact, only green and black cards had some kind of effect like that.)
So please, tell me: how exactly does the old card face evoke a fantasy setting while the modern card face does not?
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
In the examples you gave, the old green frame is paper-like, blue frame has a watery look, and artifact has a stone like appearance. The text box and the colored bordered work together, it's not just the text box. Couple this with the vastly different art styles from each artist and you have the sense that you're looking at pages of a tome intended for the target spell caster. Each page or "vision" recorded by someone else and you're learning then playing the spell.
It's obvious the designers keep heehawing over the design such as their treatment of lands like the classic Duals. But the intent seemed to be there.
The new frame did away with the stylized text boxes, shrunk the borders and added a sort of embossed frame. Even the artwork was modernized into a "wide screen" format and forced into a consistent style. To me, I'm just looking a futuristic viewscreen looking at the Discovery Channel. It doesn't feel like a collection of spells that survived the ages, but more like I'm using a Pokedex and all my stats and details are spoonfed to me. Devoid of any character. Look at the drawings of a Dodo bird. All of them, every single one is an artistic rendition of an extinct species drawn from differing viewpoints and skillsets. That's what magic should feel like. Understanding the story of Urza and Mishra through word of mouth and lore. Tainted by generations and altered through distance.. Instead we get Jace spoonfed to us like watching the six O'clock news. Less mystical and more "exact". Science and technology instead of Magic.
The different versions of Ornithopter is a great example of something whimsical and magical morphing into something we see every day.
I think the NWO/Limited First has severely hurt the game.
Most decks are comprised mainly of outrageous manabases fueling playsets of Mythics and Rares, with the occasional Supergood Uncommon. I began playing in Revised, and many "good" staple cards were common or uncommon: animate dead, dark ritual, counterspell, prodigal sorcerer, Llanowar Elves, giant growth, lightning bolt, shatter, swords to plowshares, serra angel. You could build a perfectly servable deck with mostly C and U cards splashed with goodstuff rares and artifacts. (Manabases were still expensive though; stupid dual-lands). How many of those cards cannot be produced by being too good; how many are given away in intro decks for being too weak...
Look at the top standard decks today; how many play commons or playsets of uncommons? How many staples (like removal, ramp, counter, or burn) are overpriced except at mythic? How many are draft-fodder rather than the backbone of a good constructed deck? Look at a Planeswalker deck; a collection of 2 color C, U, and a few R cards in two colors (with dual land fixing), including a PLANESWALKER, that is utterly unplayable except against another PWD?
Maybe I'm being the grouchy old man, but I find I'm unable to get back into Magic and construct a playable deck without taking out a small loan to pay for it.
Exactly. I recall narrowly winning a match the first time I saw Juzam Djinn. We both managed to get down to 5 life and my opponent cast Juzam. In desperation, I cast Hypnotic Spector to chump block. Next turn, I drew Animate Dead to bring back Sengir Vampire for another chump block. My third turn, I drew Lightning Bolt and finished. I managed to beat out a much better deck using a deck consisting largerly of Commons and Uncommons. I had Demonic Tutor to dig for answers (my most expensive card at the time I think) but couldn't draw it. I took pride in the win because I knew the oponents deck was far more capable and the player much better.
Do I see plays like that with the current sets? Not really. Seems like everyone races to get the Rares and Mythic centric decks built. Vehicles is a thing I guess but it feels.... forced. Like Wizards wants us to try this really cool mechanic or die.
The card art is not the subject here. The claim is that the frame evokes a fantasy setting or not. That's why I specifically chose printings with old and modern borders that had the same art for my examples, to remove the art from the comparison.
I'll definitely acknowledge that the art direction has shifted significantly over the years. It's not a sudden break as with the frames, and I'm not sure I'm willing to say that the older art necessarily does a better job of evoking a fantasy setting. What the shift has done, however, is homogenize the art styles more. Old cards had distinctive styles unique to each artist. It's much more difficult to tell new cards apart by their artist without reading the artist credit or being the kind of art fan that pays abnormal amounts of attention to the card art.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)