5. Evoke-Evoke cards are essentially split cards, but more abusable with stuff like Sedris, the Traitor King, Grave Pact, and Living Death. What's not to like?
4. Imprint-It can do anything. Soul Foundry, Prototype Portal, Strata Scythe, and Chrome Mox are all fun, and the mechanic is both versatile and powerful.
3. Landfall-It makes dropping lands exciting, even late in the game when it normally wouldn't matter.
2: Proliferate-It accelerates planeswalkers, adds +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, helps your artifacts and lands charge up, and poisons your opponent. Anything that can do that is awesome.
1: Multikicker-It makes small things relevant late in the game, can do almost anything, and adding more mana to a spell to make it more powerful makes sense.
5. Threshold-The problem with this one is not that it is bad or complicated, but that it makes you want to discard cards and sacrifice permanents. That is not something that most players want to do.
4. Infect-Infect is a horribly linear mechanic. It also doesn't have good flavor. You die from poison before you die from damage, and blighsteel colossus somehow kills you with poison instead of by using its enormous strength and huge size.
3. Ripple-Ripple forces you to play with a certain subset of cards, most of which are bad, in order to get an effect. Because the ripple value is 4 on each card printed with ripple, you probably will never actual use the ripple effect, leaving you with an overcosted card.
2. Rampage-Why in the world would you block something with rampage but without trample with more than one creature! It makes no sense!
1. Epic-Not being able to cast spells is a drawback unworthy of the effect. The only good thing about this mechanics is that it was only printed on 5 cards with horribly high mana costs that you can almost never cast.
I'd say my 3 favorite mechanics are Infect, Annihilator, and Deathtouch - though that's mostly because I love looking at alternate ways to win games than what's generally accepted. I don't think I have a least favorite, though I guess an honorable mention in that category would go to Shadow, simply because I got screwed one too many times by playing Shadow Sliver in Time Spiral drafts.
2011: Best Mafia Performance (Individual) - Best Newcomer
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
Storm is easily the best mechanic and the worst mechanic. If we're going by the best in regards to the fact that it just wins game for no intelligent reason it wins hands down. It's the most effective and easiest mechanic to pull off and can do everything from mill you out (Brainfreeze), to hitting you for twenty plus points of damage (Tendrils, Grapeshot), to killing you outright with Dragons (Dragonstorm).
It is easily the worst designed as well though. It makes no sense from a design standpoint. I get to cast this spell twenty times because of all these zero drops I put into play.
1) Flashback - Intuitive mechanic, lots of design space, not tied to any particular colour, and when used correctly, can provide a lot of value in a deck. Plus it can give you something to do with lots of extra mana.
2) Landfall - See Flashback.
3) Cycling - Another simple mechanic. It's great because it gives you a use for otherwise useless cards. Plus in some decks, it leads to neat interactions, like Astral Slide or Living End.
4) Rebound - See Flashback (minus the bit about extra lands).
5) Kicker - The design may be a little broad, but it's a fun mechanic. It leads to an interesting decision as to whether to wait until the kicker cost can be paid or not.
Most of the evergreen mechanics are pretty good too.
I'll give a dishonourable mention to Hexproof. While it's given rise to lots of new decks in Standard and Modern, the mechanic itself leads to very non-interactive games. Shroud at least was fair. Sure, you can't Doom Blade my guy, but I can't give him a Snake Umbra and Daybreak Coronet and laugh at the Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix stuck in your hand. It just feels like having my cake and eating it too.
1) Flashback- A nice simple mechanic that gives subtle card advantage, and generally does not make cards too broken. Cards like Think Twice and Lingering Souls are really my favorite type of design.
2) Unearth- Creature version of flashback, I like it for the same reasons as above.
3) Threshold- I'm gonna disagree with you about this one, I think it's a nice way to give relatively "weak" cards a late game push. Plus I just love me some Nimble Mongoose and Werebear.
4) Kicker/Multikicker- Grouped these together cause they're quite similar. I like these for the same reasons I like threshold, to give cards that would normally be dead draws late in the game a nice bonus. Into the Roil and Burst Lightning are a couple of my favorites.
5) Persist/Undying- Fun way to give creatures a little extra value. Also enables some fun combos.
****************
My worst 5 (I'm gonna leave out absurdly terrible mechanics like banding, phasing, rampage, etc that were ditched long ago. I think those go without saying.)
1) Miracle- Did wizards really not think that people would find tons of ways to abuse this? There are some decently cool Miracle cards (Temporal Mastery, Thunderous Wrath, but every time I see a Terminus cast I just want to puke.
2) Hexproof- What on earth was wrong with Shroud? Seriously, hexproof sounds worse and is stupid flavorwise. I really don't get why they decided to replace shroud with hexproof. It's a mystery to me.
3) Hellbent- This is pretty much unplayable, out side of corner cases like LED+Infernal Tutor. I can't think of a single card with Hellbent that's actually worth playing. Just far too conditional to be good.
4) Clash- This was just silly IMO, it was completely luck based and never really offered that big of an advantage anyway.
5) Double-faced cards- While I like the idea of "transforming", the flip cards from Kamigawa block did this a lot better, as they didn't require awkwardly taking a card out of a sleeve and then putting it back in.
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Current Modern decks BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam UB Reanimator
My favourites:
1. Evoke: Gives you interesting decisions both in play and deckbuilding
2. Flash: I love surprises
3. Persist: Strong keyword, and unlike Undying, it can be put on already solid cards
4. Echo: It allows cards to be very strong for their cost, and you can build around the downside
5. Cycling: It's simply a nice ability to have on any card
As for my least favourite, I'm not exactly sure. There's a bunch I find boring, but most have potential if used differently, except for Banding.
Best:
1. Storm. I strongly believe that storm is probably the most powerful mechanic printed. Free stuff is always good and many, many free things is even better.
2. Cascade, for the same reason as above. It's power was tempered by a somewhat limited selection of cards, but the mechanic itself is undoubtedly one of the most powerful.
3. Dredge. It enables so many strategies and is a self-fueling, self-filtering system. It combos with itself so beautifully.
4. Affinity. Probably the most nightmarish mechanic to ever grace standard, it is similar to Dredge in that it further enables itself, making for a terrifying board presence at lightning speeds. I place it below the other three only because it encourages over-extension and can be self-defeating if handled improperly.
5. Flashback, because recycling stuff is always fun. It leads to interesting deck construction, fun situations, and adds options to decks.
Favorite:
1. Affinity. Because I picked up my first Magic card in the Mirrodin block and used Broodstar to great effect against my friends. Little did I know it was dominating the competitive scene at the time.
2. Cycling. It streamlines play and has a lot of design space left open. I would love to see cycling become an evergreen mechanic.
3. Transmute. It is fun, fits the colors well, and has tremendous potential. Wizards was careful with it, but it still makes for interesting plays.
4. Suspend. This mechanic brings a lot of fun play to the table. It builds suspense and can quickly get out of hand!
5. Morph. Morph creatures are awesome and can provide so much utility as well as board presence in an emergency.
Least Favorite mechanics:
1. Cipher. The fear of free spells is understandable, but this mechanic seems very gimped. It has a lot of potential, but it was prematurely slaughtered.
2. Battlecry. Its so boring. It always seems like something that was picked at the last minute due to running out of time.
3. Infect. I loved Wither. But it's evolution is awkward and ranges from stupidly powerful to terribly gimmicky on the cards.
4. Ripple. I always felt there was a better way to execute this mechanic. Free spells must be controlled, but Ripple cards pretty much demanded to be played in groups of 4 and even then, there was a SMALL chance it would ever actually occur. Plus the Ripple cards are lame.
5. Hexproof. This should never have been made into a mechanic. Shroud was fine. The all-upside makes some cards too powerful. Shroud was beautiful in that it was a strategic sacrifice, but hexproof is just a lazier, superior version with few decisions involved.
I don't think Threshold belongs on the dishonorable list. Yes, discarding/sacrificing permanents to pad your graveyard isn't something casual players like to do--but that's why cards with threshold aren't played in casual circles. It's one of the more powerful mechanics that has seen significant play in both Pro-Tour and World Championship decks.
1. Suspend (so versatile, so much room to expand upon)
2. Storm (the most pure potential power of any mechanic)
3. Annihilator (incredible pure power + easily the most hated mechanic ever)
4. Cycling (card draw and versatility)
5. Tie - Flashback and Kicker (staple mechanics that turn a good card great)
Top Five Worst:
1. Phasing (the most poorly designed mechanic of all time)
2. Banding (only useful in extremely limited situations and the creatures that have it are subpar)
3. Epic (no mechanic feels wasted in its implementation more. It needs a do-over, perhaps in Theros with the Gods and Heroes theme!)
4. Cipher (a joke even in a subpar-power set)
5. Rampage (an excuse to boost the cost of an otherwise already overcosted card)
I don't think Threshold belongs on the dishonorable list. Yes, discarding/sacrificing permanents to pad your graveyard isn't something casual players like to do--but that's why cards with threshold aren't played in casual circles. It's one of the more powerful mechanics that has seen significant play in both Pro-Tour and World Championship decks.
I know that it's powerful, but if I am going to be putting cards in my graveyard, its going to be for reanimation. I's like it if it was based on the number of cards in your opponents' graveyards. That way, you wouldn't have to discard and sacrifice cards to fuel a keyword and would be able to use removal and discard without being worried about it boosting your opponents' stuff.
I don't feel that I could actually crown anything as the best but here are my favorite/least.
Favorites:
1. Phasing: I know that I probably will be the only player who ever gives this their favorite spot, but I can't help myself. I genuinely love phasing. I'm a big fan of downside mechanics. I love trading power for downsides and trying to figure out how to get around and minimize my own card's downsides. I just love casting a wrath when all my creatures are phased out or just seeing my opponent's face when they've been killed by Teferi's Imp.
2. Flashback: So much value. I mean, what is there really to say. Just so much value. I don't think there is much more to say.
3. Transmute: It's cycling... but you tutor. I just love how it gives interesting gameplay options as well as forcing interesting deck construction choices in a nice balanced shell.
4. Dredge: I do like choices and dredge does give me lots of fun interesting choices for both deck construction and at play time. I really just feel that dredge wasn't developed correctly and they really dropped the ball by printing cards in the next block that turned dredge into basically a combo deck.
5. Umm... I don't know... Fading?
Most Hated:
1. Hexproof: Oh look. No downside that does nothing but remove card interactions and makes creatures hard to kill. Not a fan.
2. Cascade: Ok... Who thought this was a good idea? Free spells and not even free spells in the alternate casting cost sense (because in all those cases you are always giving up something even if it was just having your opponent gain life). This is just disgusting and doesn't reward play skill in the slightest, just spin the wheel and... oh look a Lightning Bolt or some other cards that you just get to cast for free. Good job.
I don't actually hate any other keywords but the next teir would be all the mechanics that I find dreadfully uninteresting or just stupid: Annihilator, Battalion, Battle Cry, Booodthirst, Cipher, Clash, Fateful hour, Graft, Haunt, Hideaway, Infect, Join forces, Kinship, Level Up, Miracle, Populate, Proliferate, Prowl, Rebound, Recover, Scavenge, Soulshift, Splice, Undying, and Unleash.
Imprint (Flavorful, versatile, awesome.) Level up (A seminal concept executed flawlessly.) Clash (Screw coin flips, clash is randomness done right.) Infect (In a perfect world this would lose the wither part and be evergreen. Still I'm just so glad to finally have poison back.) Proliferate (Goes so well with so many other mechanics.)
Least favorite:
Intimidate (Really, really poor fix for the problems with fear.) Banding (Come on, you know why.) Dredge (Finicky and clunky. Still don't know what this does.) Poisonous (This is how not to do poison.) Sweep (Duh.)
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Thou shalt not have others of the same Legendary before me Thou shalt not frame images with the modern card face Thou shalt not change rules in vain Remember the Reserved List to keep it holy Honor thy Slivers and the symmetry of their abilities Thou shalt not kill mana burn Thou shalt not sacrifice depth for accessibility Thou shalt not steal combat damage from the stack Thou shalt tell a story through thy cards All must be one
5: Evoke, turned creatures into spells which was cool.
4: Echo, gave you impactful effects at a cheaper cost.
3: Cascade, because everyone loves to gamble.
2: Storm, because its awesome mind's desire and dragonstorm are two of the coolest cards ever printed.
1: Banding, because it makes 1/6 defenders really good.
Worst:
5: Totem Armor, makes for annoying effects when stacked on creatures.
4: Populate, ruined limited isn't constructed playable replaced convoke which was actually cool
3: Detain, completely useless nuff said.
2: Infect, annoying ability ruined limited if you saw too much of it to not take but too little to actually make your deck work. Made for annoying constructed decks for a while.
1: Hexproof, because shroud was actually balanced and hexproof is awful to deal with.
Love:
5. Cipher. As fair as free spells can be.
4. Cycling. Need more options!
3. Dredge. And more options!
2. Scry. Library manipulation is always good.
1. Landfall. I love my lands I cannot lie
Hate:
5. Cascade. That sounds cool, but with my terrible luck turns into "all for library manipulation" - and becoming a victim of successful random cascade feels awfully unfair.
4. Sweep. Why that's a mechanic and how resource denying yourself is fun?
3. Ripple. I. Hate. Luck. Based. Mechanics.
2. Clash. 'sigh'
1. Epic. Game playing itself isn't my idea of fun.
My Favorite
1. Splice - I just wish there were more playable arcane and splice cards. Its a cool mechanic that lets me build spells on the fly.
2. Imprint - I just always liked imprint.
3. Buyback - Playing spells and keeping them in my hand is always nice.
4. Phyrexia Mana Symbol - I like the idea of being able to use my life as a resource for the game.
5. Kicker/Multi-Kicker - Its always nice to make your spells more useful when you have the mana to do so.
6. Flash Back
Least Favorite
1. All creature based mechanics. Lifelink, flanking, trample, exalted, etc... I think the game should focus less on creatures. We are not just summoners, but spell casters. I am not a big fan of creatures I guess. Yet the game is still so heavily creature based.
2. Indestructible - Really? Should I have to explain? I guess removing things from the game works but still?
3. Infect - It just feels cheap and broken when spells like giant growth are used. +3/+3 basically turns into +6/+6.
4. Can not be countered cards - I feel this is just broken.
5. Hexproof - Again it just feels like a cheap way to avoid having to protect your resources. Also an other card I would call out is Leyline of Sanctity its just broken to have decks that can't even cast it side it in as hate.
Favorites:
1. Kicker: probably my top choice - love the flexibility, and simplicity.
2. Suspend: I find this fun to use, invest in a more powerful spell for a low mana cost in advance.
3. Undying: keeping creatures relevant later in the game
4. Level Up: again, a fun way to have things grow throughout the game
5. Flashback: like having that option remaining in my graveyard later in the game
(I do tend to run decks where I deplete my hand by a certain point, which probably explains why I like the mechanics that let me use my mana on cards I've already played)
Least Favorites:
1. Infect
2. Hexproof
(just not fun to play against --or have opponents play against if I use them)
3. Miracle
4. Exalted
5. Cipher
(just ones I don't find particularly exciting...)
1. Infect/Proliferate. I put these together because while it is possible to win without Proliferating I knew of no-one who did so. It was stupidly broken in terms of how powerful it was and how simple it was to play with.
2. Flashback. Play a card, put it in your graveyard. Want the same effect? Play it again later. Such a simple, wonderful mechanic.
3. Flying. Another simple mechanic that hardly ever gets challenged. Nobody plays anything with Reach or runs Green anti-flier hate cards, and swapping flyers is very boring.
4. Haste. I love, love, LOVE haste. Playing hasty creatures feels like you're cheating the system, and you're able to sneak in damage where you might not have been able otherwise.
5. Unleash. As mechanics go, it's not very inspired, but I've had a lot of fun with playing all Unleashed creatures and throwing caution to the wind and just swinging swinging swinging.
Least favorite mechanics:
1. Evolve. Nice flavor, but poor implementation. It requires you to play your threats in a very specific, choreographed way that feels very restrictive and boring.
2. Battalion. I have a love/hate relationship with this mechanic, because it's strong and weak at the same time. All your opponent has to do is use some removal and all those nice little bonuses your creatures get disappear.
3. Fateful Hour. This mechanic basically says "You're going to lose the game - have some free pity!"
4. Cipher. This could have probably worked had every card with Cipher had one mana shaved off the casting cost, as well as having more evasive, efficiently costed creatures to cipher spells onto. As it is, it'll only see play in non-Standard formats. Such a waste, such a shame.
5. Flipping cards. Even though the werewolf thing in Innistrad was REALLY cool, I never played Red/Green all throughout the block because of how many hoops you had to jump through to play those colors. And playing against them? Forget it.
Favorites:
1. Threshold - loved my gooses in legacy
2. Evoke - very clean way to give cards 2 options and push creatures
3. Cycling - again very simple way to give a card some utility
4. Storm - Hated playing against it but it was a great creative idea for combo
5. Suspend- this was a great limited mechanic
Least favorite:
1. Planeswalkers - just stupid... hated them, they are probably half the reason I stopped playing
2. Phasing - just why?
3. Banding - how many years later and most people still have no idea what this does
4. Ripple/clash - bad for constructed but it was good for limitted
5. Shadow - it is just flying but without the depth of cards that can interact with it making it silly
Out of the all people's least favorite mechanics, one that I'm not surprised has been overlooked was Amplify. It was pretty much there for I think one small set, which itself wasn't popular to begin with (legions). Thus, I can see why not that many people remember it.
The thing that bothers me about it is how it's simple to understand yet so inelegant. Amplify 1 can easily be said to do with +1/+1 counters, but it also tries to imply that the creature's type plays a part in how it works. To me, this also shuts some doors with how far this mechanic can go. Daru Stinger can probably say something like "Amplify 1 - Soldier" which will leave room for cards in the future that can say "amplify 2 - enchantment" or something like that.
My Favorites are:
Honorable Mentions-Equip, Double Strike, Suspend, Splice, Deathtouch, Indestructible
5. Evoke-Evoke cards are essentially split cards, but more abusable with stuff like Sedris, the Traitor King, Grave Pact, and Living Death. What's not to like?
4. Imprint-It can do anything. Soul Foundry, Prototype Portal, Strata Scythe, and Chrome Mox are all fun, and the mechanic is both versatile and powerful.
3. Landfall-It makes dropping lands exciting, even late in the game when it normally wouldn't matter.
2: Proliferate-It accelerates planeswalkers, adds +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters, helps your artifacts and lands charge up, and poisons your opponent. Anything that can do that is awesome.
1: Multikicker-It makes small things relevant late in the game, can do almost anything, and adding more mana to a spell to make it more powerful makes sense.
Least Favorite:
Dishonorable Mentions-Hellbent, Haunt, Madness, Splice onto Arcane, Phyrexian Mana, Recover, Miracle
5. Threshold-The problem with this one is not that it is bad or complicated, but that it makes you want to discard cards and sacrifice permanents. That is not something that most players want to do.
4. Infect-Infect is a horribly linear mechanic. It also doesn't have good flavor. You die from poison before you die from damage, and blighsteel colossus somehow kills you with poison instead of by using its enormous strength and huge size.
3. Ripple-Ripple forces you to play with a certain subset of cards, most of which are bad, in order to get an effect. Because the ripple value is 4 on each card printed with ripple, you probably will never actual use the ripple effect, leaving you with an overcosted card.
2. Rampage-Why in the world would you block something with rampage but without trample with more than one creature! It makes no sense!
1. Epic-Not being able to cast spells is a drawback unworthy of the effect. The only good thing about this mechanics is that it was only printed on 5 cards with horribly high mana costs that you can almost never cast.
Thoughts?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
2016: Best Town Performance (Group) - Best Town Player - Best Overall Player
It is easily the worst designed as well though. It makes no sense from a design standpoint. I get to cast this spell twenty times because of all these zero drops I put into play.
1) Flashback - Intuitive mechanic, lots of design space, not tied to any particular colour, and when used correctly, can provide a lot of value in a deck. Plus it can give you something to do with lots of extra mana.
2) Landfall - See Flashback.
3) Cycling - Another simple mechanic. It's great because it gives you a use for otherwise useless cards. Plus in some decks, it leads to neat interactions, like Astral Slide or Living End.
4) Rebound - See Flashback (minus the bit about extra lands).
5) Kicker - The design may be a little broad, but it's a fun mechanic. It leads to an interesting decision as to whether to wait until the kicker cost can be paid or not.
Most of the evergreen mechanics are pretty good too.
1) Phasing
2) Rampage
3) Forecast
4) Radiance
5) Sweep
I'll give a dishonourable mention to Hexproof. While it's given rise to lots of new decks in Standard and Modern, the mechanic itself leads to very non-interactive games. Shroud at least was fair. Sure, you can't Doom Blade my guy, but I can't give him a Snake Umbra and Daybreak Coronet and laugh at the Lightning Bolt and Lightning Helix stuck in your hand. It just feels like having my cake and eating it too.
I don't always post about Rafiq of the Many, but when I do, I cardlink to the original artwork, and not the supplementary product version.
"I trust myself to do my duty, even unto death. It's what comes after that I'm afraid of."
"Just fight without fear. Your soul is protected by the hand of Avacyn and will never submit to evil."
1) Flashback- A nice simple mechanic that gives subtle card advantage, and generally does not make cards too broken. Cards like Think Twice and Lingering Souls are really my favorite type of design.
2) Unearth- Creature version of flashback, I like it for the same reasons as above.
3) Threshold- I'm gonna disagree with you about this one, I think it's a nice way to give relatively "weak" cards a late game push. Plus I just love me some Nimble Mongoose and Werebear.
4) Kicker/Multikicker- Grouped these together cause they're quite similar. I like these for the same reasons I like threshold, to give cards that would normally be dead draws late in the game a nice bonus. Into the Roil and Burst Lightning are a couple of my favorites.
5) Persist/Undying- Fun way to give creatures a little extra value. Also enables some fun combos.
****************
My worst 5 (I'm gonna leave out absurdly terrible mechanics like banding, phasing, rampage, etc that were ditched long ago. I think those go without saying.)
1) Miracle- Did wizards really not think that people would find tons of ways to abuse this? There are some decently cool Miracle cards (Temporal Mastery, Thunderous Wrath, but every time I see a Terminus cast I just want to puke.
2) Hexproof- What on earth was wrong with Shroud? Seriously, hexproof sounds worse and is stupid flavorwise. I really don't get why they decided to replace shroud with hexproof. It's a mystery to me.
3) Hellbent- This is pretty much unplayable, out side of corner cases like LED+Infernal Tutor. I can't think of a single card with Hellbent that's actually worth playing. Just far too conditional to be good.
4) Clash- This was just silly IMO, it was completely luck based and never really offered that big of an advantage anyway.
5) Double-faced cards- While I like the idea of "transforming", the flip cards from Kamigawa block did this a lot better, as they didn't require awkwardly taking a card out of a sleeve and then putting it back in.
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
Haste
Flying
First-Strike
Trample
Cycling
HM - Champion a permanent
Bottom 5:
Kinship
Ripple
Sunburst
Radiance
Detain
LHM - Sweep, Protection from Red, I don't like most of the mechanics for one reason or another, so the rest too.
Legacy:
RWBG Goblins
RRR Burn
WBU Affinity
UBR Sac-Land Tendrils!
BBBPox
Next possible deck: D&T, but that just wouldn't be right.
Modern: R Goblins (work in progress)
Standard: I only care about standard when Goblins is a deck.
Limited: I only care about limited when Goblins are in the set.
Pauper:
RGoblins
URCloudpost
other decks
Goblins.
Ever played grandeur in limited? You don't.
Banding. What does this do again?
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
WUModern Second SunriseWizard's Ruined MeWUBModern Teachings <- Current Favourite
WUBRGPauper Cube
Currently Building:
R Modern Burn
All hail Grand Comrade Storm Crow!
1. Evoke: Gives you interesting decisions both in play and deckbuilding
2. Flash: I love surprises
3. Persist: Strong keyword, and unlike Undying, it can be put on already solid cards
4. Echo: It allows cards to be very strong for their cost, and you can build around the downside
5. Cycling: It's simply a nice ability to have on any card
As for my least favourite, I'm not exactly sure. There's a bunch I find boring, but most have potential if used differently, except for Banding.
Best:
1. Storm. I strongly believe that storm is probably the most powerful mechanic printed. Free stuff is always good and many, many free things is even better.
2. Cascade, for the same reason as above. It's power was tempered by a somewhat limited selection of cards, but the mechanic itself is undoubtedly one of the most powerful.
3. Dredge. It enables so many strategies and is a self-fueling, self-filtering system. It combos with itself so beautifully.
4. Affinity. Probably the most nightmarish mechanic to ever grace standard, it is similar to Dredge in that it further enables itself, making for a terrifying board presence at lightning speeds. I place it below the other three only because it encourages over-extension and can be self-defeating if handled improperly.
5. Flashback, because recycling stuff is always fun. It leads to interesting deck construction, fun situations, and adds options to decks.
Favorite:
1. Affinity. Because I picked up my first Magic card in the Mirrodin block and used Broodstar to great effect against my friends. Little did I know it was dominating the competitive scene at the time.
2. Cycling. It streamlines play and has a lot of design space left open. I would love to see cycling become an evergreen mechanic.
3. Transmute. It is fun, fits the colors well, and has tremendous potential. Wizards was careful with it, but it still makes for interesting plays.
4. Suspend. This mechanic brings a lot of fun play to the table. It builds suspense and can quickly get out of hand!
5. Morph. Morph creatures are awesome and can provide so much utility as well as board presence in an emergency.
Least Favorite mechanics:
1. Cipher. The fear of free spells is understandable, but this mechanic seems very gimped. It has a lot of potential, but it was prematurely slaughtered.
2. Battlecry. Its so boring. It always seems like something that was picked at the last minute due to running out of time.
3. Infect. I loved Wither. But it's evolution is awkward and ranges from stupidly powerful to terribly gimmicky on the cards.
4. Ripple. I always felt there was a better way to execute this mechanic. Free spells must be controlled, but Ripple cards pretty much demanded to be played in groups of 4 and even then, there was a SMALL chance it would ever actually occur. Plus the Ripple cards are lame.
5. Hexproof. This should never have been made into a mechanic. Shroud was fine. The all-upside makes some cards too powerful. Shroud was beautiful in that it was a strategic sacrifice, but hexproof is just a lazier, superior version with few decisions involved.
Signature courtesy of Rivenor and Miraculous Recovery
EDH Altered Cards by Galspanic (Seriously, this guy's awesome.)
My Pauper Cube
Tapped-Out Simulator
My Trade Thread
-Decks-
Commander:
GWR Rith, the Awakener RWG
U Kami of the Crescent Moon U (Flagship Deck)
BW Teysa, Orzhov Scion WB
Under Construction:
UBR Crosis, the Purger RBU
Cube:
WUBRGX Pauper XGRBUW
Top Five Favorite/Best:
1. Suspend (so versatile, so much room to expand upon)
2. Storm (the most pure potential power of any mechanic)
3. Annihilator (incredible pure power + easily the most hated mechanic ever)
4. Cycling (card draw and versatility)
5. Tie - Flashback and Kicker (staple mechanics that turn a good card great)
Top Five Worst:
1. Phasing (the most poorly designed mechanic of all time)
2. Banding (only useful in extremely limited situations and the creatures that have it are subpar)
3. Epic (no mechanic feels wasted in its implementation more. It needs a do-over, perhaps in Theros with the Gods and Heroes theme!)
4. Cipher (a joke even in a subpar-power set)
5. Rampage (an excuse to boost the cost of an otherwise already overcosted card)
Really, protection from red? That seems just ridiculous.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I know that it's powerful, but if I am going to be putting cards in my graveyard, its going to be for reanimation. I's like it if it was based on the number of cards in your opponents' graveyards. That way, you wouldn't have to discard and sacrifice cards to fuel a keyword and would be able to use removal and discard without being worried about it boosting your opponents' stuff.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Favorites:
1. Phasing: I know that I probably will be the only player who ever gives this their favorite spot, but I can't help myself. I genuinely love phasing. I'm a big fan of downside mechanics. I love trading power for downsides and trying to figure out how to get around and minimize my own card's downsides. I just love casting a wrath when all my creatures are phased out or just seeing my opponent's face when they've been killed by Teferi's Imp.
2. Flashback: So much value. I mean, what is there really to say. Just so much value. I don't think there is much more to say.
3. Transmute: It's cycling... but you tutor. I just love how it gives interesting gameplay options as well as forcing interesting deck construction choices in a nice balanced shell.
4. Dredge: I do like choices and dredge does give me lots of fun interesting choices for both deck construction and at play time. I really just feel that dredge wasn't developed correctly and they really dropped the ball by printing cards in the next block that turned dredge into basically a combo deck.
5. Umm... I don't know... Fading?
Most Hated:
1. Hexproof: Oh look. No downside that does nothing but remove card interactions and makes creatures hard to kill. Not a fan.
2. Cascade: Ok... Who thought this was a good idea? Free spells and not even free spells in the alternate casting cost sense (because in all those cases you are always giving up something even if it was just having your opponent gain life). This is just disgusting and doesn't reward play skill in the slightest, just spin the wheel and... oh look a Lightning Bolt or some other cards that you just get to cast for free. Good job.
I don't actually hate any other keywords but the next teir would be all the mechanics that I find dreadfully uninteresting or just stupid: Annihilator, Battalion, Battle Cry, Booodthirst, Cipher, Clash, Fateful hour, Graft, Haunt, Hideaway, Infect, Join forces, Kinship, Level Up, Miracle, Populate, Proliferate, Prowl, Rebound, Recover, Scavenge, Soulshift, Splice, Undying, and Unleash.
Imprint (Flavorful, versatile, awesome.)
Level up (A seminal concept executed flawlessly.)
Clash (Screw coin flips, clash is randomness done right.)
Infect (In a perfect world this would lose the wither part and be evergreen. Still I'm just so glad to finally have poison back.)
Proliferate (Goes so well with so many other mechanics.)
Least favorite:
Intimidate (Really, really poor fix for the problems with fear.)
Banding (Come on, you know why.)
Dredge (Finicky and clunky. Still don't know what this does.)
Poisonous (This is how not to do poison.)
Sweep (Duh.)
Thou shalt not frame images with the modern card face
Thou shalt not change rules in vain
Remember the Reserved List to keep it holy
Honor thy Slivers and the symmetry of their abilities
Thou shalt not kill mana burn
Thou shalt not sacrifice depth for accessibility
Thou shalt not steal combat damage from the stack
Thou shalt tell a story through thy cards
All must be one
5: Evoke, turned creatures into spells which was cool.
4: Echo, gave you impactful effects at a cheaper cost.
3: Cascade, because everyone loves to gamble.
2: Storm, because its awesome mind's desire and dragonstorm are two of the coolest cards ever printed.
1: Banding, because it makes 1/6 defenders really good.
Worst:
5: Totem Armor, makes for annoying effects when stacked on creatures.
4: Populate, ruined limited isn't constructed playable replaced convoke which was actually cool
3: Detain, completely useless nuff said.
2: Infect, annoying ability ruined limited if you saw too much of it to not take but too little to actually make your deck work. Made for annoying constructed decks for a while.
1: Hexproof, because shroud was actually balanced and hexproof is awful to deal with.
5. Cipher. As fair as free spells can be.
4. Cycling. Need more options!
3. Dredge. And more options!
2. Scry. Library manipulation is always good.
1. Landfall. I love my lands I cannot lie
Hate:
5. Cascade. That sounds cool, but with my terrible luck turns into "all for library manipulation" - and becoming a victim of successful random cascade feels awfully unfair.
4. Sweep. Why that's a mechanic and how resource denying yourself is fun?
3. Ripple. I. Hate. Luck. Based. Mechanics.
2. Clash. 'sigh'
1. Epic. Game playing itself isn't my idea of fun.
1. Splice - I just wish there were more playable arcane and splice cards. Its a cool mechanic that lets me build spells on the fly.
2. Imprint - I just always liked imprint.
3. Buyback - Playing spells and keeping them in my hand is always nice.
4. Phyrexia Mana Symbol - I like the idea of being able to use my life as a resource for the game.
5. Kicker/Multi-Kicker - Its always nice to make your spells more useful when you have the mana to do so.
6. Flash Back
Least Favorite
1. All creature based mechanics. Lifelink, flanking, trample, exalted, etc... I think the game should focus less on creatures. We are not just summoners, but spell casters. I am not a big fan of creatures I guess. Yet the game is still so heavily creature based.
2. Indestructible - Really? Should I have to explain? I guess removing things from the game works but still?
3. Infect - It just feels cheap and broken when spells like giant growth are used. +3/+3 basically turns into +6/+6.
4. Can not be countered cards - I feel this is just broken.
5. Hexproof - Again it just feels like a cheap way to avoid having to protect your resources. Also an other card I would call out is Leyline of Sanctity its just broken to have decks that can't even cast it side it in as hate.
I loathe creatures! Praise Prison and Land Destruction!
My Peasant Cube (looking for feedback)
1. Kicker: probably my top choice - love the flexibility, and simplicity.
2. Suspend: I find this fun to use, invest in a more powerful spell for a low mana cost in advance.
3. Undying: keeping creatures relevant later in the game
4. Level Up: again, a fun way to have things grow throughout the game
5. Flashback: like having that option remaining in my graveyard later in the game
(I do tend to run decks where I deplete my hand by a certain point, which probably explains why I like the mechanics that let me use my mana on cards I've already played)
Least Favorites:
1. Infect
2. Hexproof
(just not fun to play against --or have opponents play against if I use them)
3. Miracle
4. Exalted
5. Cipher
(just ones I don't find particularly exciting...)
1. Infect/Proliferate. I put these together because while it is possible to win without Proliferating I knew of no-one who did so. It was stupidly broken in terms of how powerful it was and how simple it was to play with.
2. Flashback. Play a card, put it in your graveyard. Want the same effect? Play it again later. Such a simple, wonderful mechanic.
3. Flying. Another simple mechanic that hardly ever gets challenged. Nobody plays anything with Reach or runs Green anti-flier hate cards, and swapping flyers is very boring.
4. Haste. I love, love, LOVE haste. Playing hasty creatures feels like you're cheating the system, and you're able to sneak in damage where you might not have been able otherwise.
5. Unleash. As mechanics go, it's not very inspired, but I've had a lot of fun with playing all Unleashed creatures and throwing caution to the wind and just swinging swinging swinging.
Least favorite mechanics:
1. Evolve. Nice flavor, but poor implementation. It requires you to play your threats in a very specific, choreographed way that feels very restrictive and boring.
2. Battalion. I have a love/hate relationship with this mechanic, because it's strong and weak at the same time. All your opponent has to do is use some removal and all those nice little bonuses your creatures get disappear.
3. Fateful Hour. This mechanic basically says "You're going to lose the game - have some free pity!"
4. Cipher. This could have probably worked had every card with Cipher had one mana shaved off the casting cost, as well as having more evasive, efficiently costed creatures to cipher spells onto. As it is, it'll only see play in non-Standard formats. Such a waste, such a shame.
5. Flipping cards. Even though the werewolf thing in Innistrad was REALLY cool, I never played Red/Green all throughout the block because of how many hoops you had to jump through to play those colors. And playing against them? Forget it.
Favorites:
1. Threshold - loved my gooses in legacy
2. Evoke - very clean way to give cards 2 options and push creatures
3. Cycling - again very simple way to give a card some utility
4. Storm - Hated playing against it but it was a great creative idea for combo
5. Suspend- this was a great limited mechanic
Least favorite:
1. Planeswalkers - just stupid... hated them, they are probably half the reason I stopped playing
2. Phasing - just why?
3. Banding - how many years later and most people still have no idea what this does
4. Ripple/clash - bad for constructed but it was good for limitted
5. Shadow - it is just flying but without the depth of cards that can interact with it making it silly
The thing that bothers me about it is how it's simple to understand yet so inelegant. Amplify 1 can easily be said to do with +1/+1 counters, but it also tries to imply that the creature's type plays a part in how it works. To me, this also shuts some doors with how far this mechanic can go. Daru Stinger can probably say something like "Amplify 1 - Soldier" which will leave room for cards in the future that can say "amplify 2 - enchantment" or something like that.