This smacks of condescension and the complete misunderstanding of why (at least in my opinion) why people didn't like Werewolves.
On the one hand, I'm tempted to agree: his presentation in that article was quite condescending.
On the other hand, the point he was making there was completely right: there were a huge number of really uninformed reactions that weren't a good representation of how players in general felt about the set after the dust settled. Shrug.
Magic as a game is at its best when it is balanced - not the creature power creep we have seen for the last half decade or more.
It seems straightforwardly obvious to me that creature power creep was necessary because the card types were hideously unbalanced before, but that the ideal stopping point was probably a bit less than the high point they reached. I feel like the fact that the Best Standard Format Of All Time (RAV/TSP) was partway into the power creep process supports that.
It seems straightforwardly obvious to me that creature power creep was necessary because the card types were hideously unbalanced before, but that the ideal stopping point was probably a bit less than the high point they reached. I feel like the fact that the Best Standard Format Of All Time (RAV/TSP) was partway into the power creep process supports that.
Yeah, I agree that creatures needed to be powered up from what they were in the first 5 years of Magic. Rav/TSP, or Kami/Rav (mostly because of Ravnica) were probably the best Standard formats ever. There's a distinction I see between powering up creatures (while powering down other aspects of Magic that were once too powerful) and power creep - which I define as more of an unbalancing of a game. If the game was initially unbalanced in favor of non-creature spells, the right thing to do is to balance the game between creatures and non-creatures - not to push creatures to new heights while neutering many non-creature spells. That's why I think the balance of the game reached an all-time peak (for Standard at least) around the time of Ravnica.
In every field of entertianment, art, etc, there is always a disconnect between what the masses think is good versus what the connoisseurs think is good. See hollywood versus arthouse. What we think makes magic a good game might not be economically viable.
This is a really good point, so unfortunately it will probably go unnoticed. The hardcore fans of every hobby and/or media property always think they know what's best for the company but in reality they only know what they like best. Wizards has all kinds of focus groups, surveys, tournament attendance, and sales data that they use to determine what's popular. We may not agree with it and it may push some of us away from the game, but Wizards doesn't just arbitrarily make changes. Their decisions are carefully planned out to maximize revenue.
In April 1995, 4th Edition was released. A number of cards were rotated out because they were too powerful.
The cards rotated out for this reason included Granite Gargoyle and Roc of Kher Ridges. The baseline they used to determine that these two cards were too powerful was a vanilla X/X creature with mana cost XC. That is, Grey Ogre and Hill Giant were the correct power level for creatures in 1995. Only green was allowed to have a common creature with power equal to CMC without a drawback associated with it.
Two years later, they removed Serra Angel because it was fractionally above the power curve they wanted with "improved metrics."
There is no doubt that it's not the loss of mana acceleration, but a general overestimation of the power leel of creatures across the board in the minds of R&D in the early days that meant the power level of creatures had to be boosted. When these decisions were made, Dark Ritual and Counterspell were, according to public statements made by R&D, iconic for their colour and intended to exist in perpetuity.
Many of the choices made in 5th Edition were questionable. Savannah Lions, Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire were removed for being slighly undercosted, but Necropotence, a known quantity since the Summer of 1996 (Black Summer) was introduced into the set.
In April 1995, 4th Edition was released. A number of cards were rotated out because they were too powerful.
The cards rotated out for this reason included Granite Gargoyle and Roc of Kher Ridges. The baseline they used to determine that these two cards were too powerful was a vanilla X/X creature with mana cost XC. That is, Grey Ogre and Hill Giant were the correct power level for creatures in 1995. Only green was allowed to have a common creature with power equal to CMC without a drawback associated with it.
Two years later, they removed Serra Angel because it was fractionally above the power curve they wanted with "improved metrics."
There is no doubt that it's not the loss of mana acceleration, but a general overestimation of the power leel of creatures across the board in the minds of R&D in the early days that meant the power level of creatures had to be boosted. When these decisions were made, Dark Ritual and Counterspell were, according to public statements made by R&D, iconic for their colour and intended to exist in perpetuity.
I think your right but your two examples are poor, Red shouldnt have the best flyers compared to white and blue.
I have no problem with power creep, 6 drops should end games. I just think that they have removed the natural counter to gx combo decks in mass land removal.
Now a days lands are things you play as many as possible, while I understand some where frustrated by Armaggedon I think it made playing land more thought inducing then it is now.
I mean DFCs are something I dislike but the Mahomati Djinn is out of the bottle so to speak.
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Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
On the one hand, I'm tempted to agree: his presentation in that article was quite condescending.
On the other hand, the point he was making there was completely right: there were a huge number of really uninformed reactions that weren't a good representation of how players in general felt about the set after the dust settled. Shrug.
I think that article came out after the prerelease, so many players, myself included, had plenty of time to play with DFCs. While I like the format of INN limited and LOVE the art/flavor/setting, DFCs are still annoying because of the extra logicstical stuff: getting sold sleeves to hide the backs of the DFC or using really ugly checkmark proxies.
My beef with LaPille in that article is that he constructed a giant strawman and then "attacked" forum users based on that strawman. I don't know if he meant to come off that way, but he sure did. I haven't boycotted INN like others because I love the art and setting that I can put up with DFCs, but LaPille and others in R&D should take this into consideration:
The success INN has, from some of the players anyway, will be in spite of DFCs, NOT because of DFCs. They should also get a more adquedate PR person. I don't know about LaPille's contributions to magic, but his PR skills really a sour note to me.
They should also get a more adquedate PR person. I don't know about LaPille's contributions to magic, but his PR skills really a sour note to me.
this is a wotc problem in general. its ridiculous because pr can make or break your entire product/company, yet for years we've had to deal with the most god awful pr in... well just about anything.
But thought inducing is not necessarily a net positive. The whole push of nerfing LD and counterspells is to let cards do something, which is perceived as more fun.
Btw, what do you mean with gx combo?
I considered Ramp decks effectively combo decks, they try to combo off as quickly as possible its just instead of a Tendrils or Dragonstorm its a primal titan or a tooth and nail.
Mass LD where unbalanced back when a dropping a titan/sphinx/wurmcoil wasnt a dream.
It's flagship, Armageddon , was removed to give big mana decks a chance, because they assumed only decks with counterspells could thrive with Armageddon.
The Problem was they gravely underestimated the power of counterspells.
Regardless, big mana decks have thrived a dominated consistently and in a way I think and it seems like Im not part of a so small minority, that they have become as oppressive and un-fun as counterspells and mass land destruction.
Also I offer that mass Land Destruction makes the games more interactivity since your lands matter.
Even single target LD is meant to be answered by just mindlessly playing more land, even things like Wildfires, however true mass LD causes you to think more about how many lands you want to play.
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Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
Also I offer that mass Land Destruction makes the games more interactivity since your lands matter.
But it doesn't lead to more interaction between two people. If I play my lands, and then you destroy my lands and I have no more lands to play. I just sit there until you kill me or I draw into more lands.
As for the idea of holding lands back as an insurance against mass-LD, that pushes the mana curve down considerably, since both the lands I keep in my hand and the lands in play have to make my cards playable. Keeping one or two lands in my hand when a good number of my spells cost 4+ mana is not a way to recover from LD.
Interaction in the way that WotC uses the term implies back and forth action between the players. They do not use the term to signify that one player can "interact" with another player's stuff. Now, at a superficial level, someone might see no distinction between one kill spell + one creature = one dead creature and one LD spell + on land = one dead land, but WotC uses the term interaction to encompass far more than just one action, it is meant to imply a series of actions and counter-actions.
I agree... LD is far more crippling than countermagic. Primevil Titan isn't as big of a scary threat now because the lands that he fetches aren't as problimatic to the game state. Lotus Cobra and Valukut being gone make Primevil not nearly as powerful of a threat... which is saying something!
On a related note about the issues with R&D. It is my belief (and has been for several years) that WoTC is not hiring with quite the right mindset. They like to pull players with experience and knowledge of the game and some history of success. That part is great and I believe they should continue.
The main problem is they are hiring very good players but not excellent deckbuilders. The last great deckbuilder who worked for WoTC in some capacity was Zvi. WoTC can put together all the greatest players they want but if none of them are excellent deck builders the balance problems of late will continue.
this is a wotc problem in general. its ridiculous because pr can make or break your entire product/company, yet for years we've had to deal with the most god awful pr in... well just about anything.
Who pulled the Coldsnap PR stunt. The whole Coldsnap being a lost set was the worst PR stunt I had seen the company do. They meant it to be a joke, but the announcement was written so seriously.
They acknowledged that mistake, which was mostly about who wrote the article (they had the person known for serious articles and with very little tongue-in-cheek announcements write the article). The joke would have been a lot more obvious if someone like Rosewater had written the announcement letter.
Land destruction is absolutely fine. At four mana, it's unplayable even (with the exception of our friends like Goblin Ruinblaster & Avalanche Rider that come with a decent body).
Decks nowadays run more than enough lands to survive a Stone Rain on turn three. Jund, basically an aggro deck, ran up to 28 lands!! No deck in standard really runs less than 20, and very few run less than 23.
Now, the problem can be (much getting Boomerang'd on the draw) fast mana + land destruction. A 'turn one Birds of Paradise, turn two Stone Rain' game isn't fun, I agree.
BUT: A) it doesn't happen that often, B) it doesn't automatically mean you lose and C) future LD spells don't need to be splashable!!!
Simple fix: RRR Destroy target land. (If you really want to Memnite, Infernal Plunge, LD.. whatever, go ahead.. doesn't seem that great)
But what really grinds my gears is that flavor on land destruction. I mean, are you really destroying the lands the opposing mage is drawing from? It would seem more likely that you're severing the connection that mage has to his mana. Although the name has been used already, Mana Severance would be a good name for a "new LD" spell imho.
Land destruction is absolutely fine. At four mana, it's unplayable even (with the exception of our friends like Goblin Ruinblaster & Avalanche Rider that come with a decent body).
Decks nowadays run more than enough lands to survive a Stone Rain on turn three. Jund, basically an aggro deck, ran up to 28 lands!! No deck in standard really runs less than 20, and very few run less than 23.
Now, the problem can be (much getting Boomerang'd on the draw) fast mana + land destruction. A 'turn one Birds of Paradise, turn two Stone Rain' game isn't fun, I agree.
BUT: A) it doesn't happen that often, B) it doesn't automatically mean you lose and C) future LD spells don't need to be splashable!!!
Simple fix: RRR Destroy target land. (If you really want to Memnite, Infernal Plunge, LD.. whatever, go ahead.. doesn't seem that great)
But what really grinds my gears is that flavor on land destruction. I mean, are you really destroying the lands the opposing mage is drawing from? It would seem more likely that you're severing the connection that mage has to his mana. Although the name has been used already, Mana Severance would be a good name for a "new LD" spell imho.
Jund was an exception to traditional deckbuilding on so many levels. Cascade guaranteeing secondary spells. Manlands. Outstanding topdecking. It's only weakness was the manabase, specifically the heavy color requirements, hence the prevalence of maindecked ruinblasters for part of Jund's time in standard.
As for land destruction - to put it in gamblers terms: the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Land D doesn't attract a large enough portion of the playerbase for WotC to design "interactive" land destruction cards on a regular basis. This doesn't mean they don't design such cards, (see: spreading seas, beast within, etc.) it simply means that land destruction is going to be a niche gameplan at best for standard or limited. This is exactly why we continue to see mill-strategy cards being placed in new sets on a regular basis - in terms of driving sales, there IS a large enough portion of the playerbase that gets a kick out of milling a guy to death, so cards like archive trap, curse of the bloody tome, and jace 3.0 get printed, and it's also why a card like glimpse the unthinkable is ten bloody dollars.
1-for-1 land destruction is fine even if it's very cheap, e.g. Ghost Quarter, Molten Rain, and Smallpox. In fact I would say that targeted 1-for-1 LD is needed in Standard, if there are to be strong manlands and utility lands, like Inkmoth and Valakut and Moorland Haunt.
And really, that kind of LD has been in Standard for years. We've had cards like Ghost Quarter (twice now) and Tectonic Edge to serve in this role. Not to mention the few red cards that serve the same purpose (Ruinblaster). But they all serve a specific purpose, which is to deal with some troublesome land or to keep excessive colour splashing in check. The days of LD being used as mana denial are unlikely to come back, which, of course, is also why Boomerang-effects now generally target non-lands.
Memnite[/CARD], Infernal Plunge, LD.. whatever, go ahead.. doesn't seem that great)
I've always looked at LD as being the most potent in Mono-red decks to begin with. Maintaining tempo with almost no draw power is quite difficult to pull off if you're a dedicated mono-red player like me. I think RRR for Stone Rain is a good idea, or reprint Pillage hehehe
Was Lapille behind the Master's Editions? That would make sense, they are horrible...
Tom built MED3 and MED4 - which are both considered pretty good (MED3 was particularly fun)
That is they are good if you consider the ridiculous constraints making a limited-playable standalone set is when you are limited to cards made before Mirage (and not after) with only a few exceptions.
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On the one hand, I'm tempted to agree: his presentation in that article was quite condescending.
On the other hand, the point he was making there was completely right: there were a huge number of really uninformed reactions that weren't a good representation of how players in general felt about the set after the dust settled. Shrug.
It seems straightforwardly obvious to me that creature power creep was necessary because the card types were hideously unbalanced before, but that the ideal stopping point was probably a bit less than the high point they reached. I feel like the fact that the Best Standard Format Of All Time (RAV/TSP) was partway into the power creep process supports that.
Yeah, I agree that creatures needed to be powered up from what they were in the first 5 years of Magic. Rav/TSP, or Kami/Rav (mostly because of Ravnica) were probably the best Standard formats ever. There's a distinction I see between powering up creatures (while powering down other aspects of Magic that were once too powerful) and power creep - which I define as more of an unbalancing of a game. If the game was initially unbalanced in favor of non-creature spells, the right thing to do is to balance the game between creatures and non-creatures - not to push creatures to new heights while neutering many non-creature spells. That's why I think the balance of the game reached an all-time peak (for Standard at least) around the time of Ravnica.
Thanks to Spiderboy4 of [High~Light Studios] for the awesome sig.
This is a really good point, so unfortunately it will probably go unnoticed. The hardcore fans of every hobby and/or media property always think they know what's best for the company but in reality they only know what they like best. Wizards has all kinds of focus groups, surveys, tournament attendance, and sales data that they use to determine what's popular. We may not agree with it and it may push some of us away from the game, but Wizards doesn't just arbitrarily make changes. Their decisions are carefully planned out to maximize revenue.
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/1959
Many of the choices made in 5th Edition were questionable. Savannah Lions, Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire were removed for being slighly undercosted, but Necropotence, a known quantity since the Summer of 1996 (Black Summer) was introduced into the set.
I think your right but your two examples are poor, Red shouldnt have the best flyers compared to white and blue.
I have no problem with power creep, 6 drops should end games. I just think that they have removed the natural counter to gx combo decks in mass land removal.
Now a days lands are things you play as many as possible, while I understand some where frustrated by Armaggedon I think it made playing land more thought inducing then it is now.
I mean DFCs are something I dislike but the Mahomati Djinn is out of the bottle so to speak.
I think that article came out after the prerelease, so many players, myself included, had plenty of time to play with DFCs. While I like the format of INN limited and LOVE the art/flavor/setting, DFCs are still annoying because of the extra logicstical stuff: getting sold sleeves to hide the backs of the DFC or using really ugly checkmark proxies.
My beef with LaPille in that article is that he constructed a giant strawman and then "attacked" forum users based on that strawman. I don't know if he meant to come off that way, but he sure did. I haven't boycotted INN like others because I love the art and setting that I can put up with DFCs, but LaPille and others in R&D should take this into consideration:
The success INN has, from some of the players anyway, will be in spite of DFCs, NOT because of DFCs. They should also get a more adquedate PR person. I don't know about LaPille's contributions to magic, but his PR skills really a sour note to me.
this is a wotc problem in general. its ridiculous because pr can make or break your entire product/company, yet for years we've had to deal with the most god awful pr in... well just about anything.
I considered Ramp decks effectively combo decks, they try to combo off as quickly as possible its just instead of a Tendrils or Dragonstorm its a primal titan or a tooth and nail.
Mass LD where unbalanced back when a dropping a titan/sphinx/wurmcoil wasnt a dream.
It's flagship, Armageddon , was removed to give big mana decks a chance, because they assumed only decks with counterspells could thrive with Armageddon.
The Problem was they gravely underestimated the power of counterspells.
Regardless, big mana decks have thrived a dominated consistently and in a way I think and it seems like Im not part of a so small minority, that they have become as oppressive and un-fun as counterspells and mass land destruction.
Also I offer that mass Land Destruction makes the games more interactivity since your lands matter.
Even single target LD is meant to be answered by just mindlessly playing more land, even things like Wildfires, however true mass LD causes you to think more about how many lands you want to play.
But it doesn't lead to more interaction between two people. If I play my lands, and then you destroy my lands and I have no more lands to play. I just sit there until you kill me or I draw into more lands.
As for the idea of holding lands back as an insurance against mass-LD, that pushes the mana curve down considerably, since both the lands I keep in my hand and the lands in play have to make my cards playable. Keeping one or two lands in my hand when a good number of my spells cost 4+ mana is not a way to recover from LD.
Interaction in the way that WotC uses the term implies back and forth action between the players. They do not use the term to signify that one player can "interact" with another player's stuff. Now, at a superficial level, someone might see no distinction between one kill spell + one creature = one dead creature and one LD spell + on land = one dead land, but WotC uses the term interaction to encompass far more than just one action, it is meant to imply a series of actions and counter-actions.
The main problem is they are hiring very good players but not excellent deckbuilders. The last great deckbuilder who worked for WoTC in some capacity was Zvi. WoTC can put together all the greatest players they want but if none of them are excellent deck builders the balance problems of late will continue.
Who pulled the Coldsnap PR stunt. The whole Coldsnap being a lost set was the worst PR stunt I had seen the company do. They meant it to be a joke, but the announcement was written so seriously.
Decks nowadays run more than enough lands to survive a Stone Rain on turn three. Jund, basically an aggro deck, ran up to 28 lands!! No deck in standard really runs less than 20, and very few run less than 23.
Now, the problem can be (much getting Boomerang'd on the draw) fast mana + land destruction. A 'turn one Birds of Paradise, turn two Stone Rain' game isn't fun, I agree.
BUT: A) it doesn't happen that often, B) it doesn't automatically mean you lose and C) future LD spells don't need to be splashable!!!
Simple fix: RRR Destroy target land. (If you really want to Memnite, Infernal Plunge, LD.. whatever, go ahead.. doesn't seem that great)
But what really grinds my gears is that flavor on land destruction. I mean, are you really destroying the lands the opposing mage is drawing from? It would seem more likely that you're severing the connection that mage has to his mana. Although the name has been used already, Mana Severance would be a good name for a "new LD" spell imho.
Jund was an exception to traditional deckbuilding on so many levels. Cascade guaranteeing secondary spells. Manlands. Outstanding topdecking. It's only weakness was the manabase, specifically the heavy color requirements, hence the prevalence of maindecked ruinblasters for part of Jund's time in standard.
As for land destruction - to put it in gamblers terms: the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Land D doesn't attract a large enough portion of the playerbase for WotC to design "interactive" land destruction cards on a regular basis. This doesn't mean they don't design such cards, (see: spreading seas, beast within, etc.) it simply means that land destruction is going to be a niche gameplan at best for standard or limited. This is exactly why we continue to see mill-strategy cards being placed in new sets on a regular basis - in terms of driving sales, there IS a large enough portion of the playerbase that gets a kick out of milling a guy to death, so cards like archive trap, curse of the bloody tome, and jace 3.0 get printed, and it's also why a card like glimpse the unthinkable is ten bloody dollars.
And really, that kind of LD has been in Standard for years. We've had cards like Ghost Quarter (twice now) and Tectonic Edge to serve in this role. Not to mention the few red cards that serve the same purpose (Ruinblaster). But they all serve a specific purpose, which is to deal with some troublesome land or to keep excessive colour splashing in check. The days of LD being used as mana denial are unlikely to come back, which, of course, is also why Boomerang-effects now generally target non-lands.
I've always looked at LD as being the most potent in Mono-red decks to begin with. Maintaining tempo with almost no draw power is quite difficult to pull off if you're a dedicated mono-red player like me. I think RRR for Stone Rain is a good idea, or reprint Pillage hehehe
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Tom built MED3 and MED4 - which are both considered pretty good (MED3 was particularly fun)
That is they are good if you consider the ridiculous constraints making a limited-playable standalone set is when you are limited to cards made before Mirage (and not after) with only a few exceptions.