Ugh, so conflicted. Like the designs of the cards, which although outside of the prowler are mostly limited-oriented, but I hate the flavor so much. Not even that some of my fierce puppies were lost to the Emrakul scourge, but when MaRo confirmed that only Ulrich will be a classic werewolf, I died inside.
It just.....isn't the same. The art and flavor got me into the game, particularly werewolves. Now we come back to Innistrad and outside of Arlinn and Ulrich, it feels werewolves kind of got shafted again. I want to love these cards, but when there's no hope for anything but Eldrazi for my tribe, why even care at this pointime? These aren't the creatures that lured me to the game. If they'd just given me a small few that were immune, I could have gotten by. Oh well....
Is this actually a thing? Maro confirmed there will be no original WW style cards.
I'm bad at linking url's properly here, so apologies to the mods if this isn't proper procedure. From Blogatog last night. Not a direct confirmation, but all but one.
This has to be the most disappointing thing I have seen about this set.
Maybe it's a little of overreacting, but honestly, I just feel like dropping MTG once more after those spoilers and that answer from MaRo. I knew Magic way before Innistrad, but I've played a little on the old Innistrad and goddamit i've loved to play with these butt-sniffers. Some months ago, i've gotten into touch once again with old-time friends of mine and we all came back to magic and made some kitchen table decks. I didn't think twice before completing playset of all the old dogs from first inns and it felt really great. Everyone was afraid of me and focused on killing me because they knew that if they forgot about me they'd just take 30 damage easily right into their faces (Thanks, instigator gang!). BFZ came and we started getting into the competitive standard. It felt awkward seeing eldrazis everywhere: in standard, modern and legacy, but it was okay. Then innistrad was announced and I got really hyped all of a sudden because they were coming back. They announced Arlinn and I was foaming from my mouth out of excitement. They revealed her card and I got a little frustrated that she was not oriented for the tribal, but I still loved reading about her and anticipating everything. We also gained many great toys in SOI such as village messenger, duskwatch recruiter and geier reach bandit. It felt like they finally realized how they overnerfed the tribe on the first block and everything was pointing that they would buff the tribe some more on Eldritch Moon (A set focused on the freaking moon, the coming of a werewolf planeswalker, Avacyn's death, no cursemute and a threat that Arlinn said would be faced only by the werewolves. They simply would dominate all the game tables!). And then Ulrich was revealed, and it was like they've just taken an old scrap that was rejected from first innistrad and threw it right at our faces. And then... those abominations. And Maro confirming that they simply just don't really care about a part of the players who waited six years for them to return. It doesnt matter if there are people who love this tribe and that we only get a shot at making some progress in innistrad... no. They just wanted to surprise everyone and add a hella lot of eldrazis there, even though we got really sick of them after the eldrazi winter. They didn't think twice about cutting all our werewolves to make room for that plague that literally infested the game as a whole in the last block. Not one single bastard in the design team seemed to care that werewolves, unlike other tribes, are exclusive to innistrad and, therefore, should have a little more of attention and support than other tribes who appear in a ton of other planes.
I'll just look for the rest of the set to see if they make single faced werewolves or make some noncreature support spells that help the ones from SOI. I'll also read the lore to try to figure out if there is any chance that Arlinn will have some impact and protagonism on other planes or if she will just be a one-time only planeswalker like tibalt. That way i'll know if i can watch the mtg lore from a distance waiting for the time when wizards realize how they neglected fans of the tribe like me. I know this won't impact WotC at all, but, just like they care way more about getting profit out of their product, I have the freedom to not give my money to a company that just cares so little about what their costumers want."We really fought you'd like what we did to Ulrich" N*GGA, HAD YOU TAKEN 5 MINUTES OF YOUR FREAKING TIME TO LOOK UP FOR SOME FAN MADE CARDS OF THE ALPHAS, YOU'D KNOW IN A MOMENT THAT WE FREAKING WANTED TRIBAL SYNERGY AND SUPPORT
Ugh, so conflicted. Like the designs of the cards, which although outside of the prowler are mostly limited-oriented, but I hate the flavor so much. Not even that some of my fierce puppies were lost to the Emrakul scourge, but when MaRo confirmed that only Ulrich will be a classic werewolf, I died inside.
It just.....isn't the same. The art and flavor got me into the game, particularly werewolves. Now we come back to Innistrad and outside of Arlinn and Ulrich, it feels werewolves kind of got shafted again. I want to love these cards, but when there's no hope for anything but Eldrazi for my tribe, why even care at this pointime? These aren't the creatures that lured me to the game. If they'd just given me a small few that were immune, I could have gotten by. Oh well....
Is this actually a thing? Maro confirmed there will be no original WW style cards.
I'm bad at linking url's properly here, so apologies to the mods if this isn't proper procedure. From Blogatog last night. Not a direct confirmation, but all but one.
This has to be the most disappointing thing I have seen about this set.
I never meant to be the barer of bad news, but it is what it is. Tribal werewolf fans lost the fight. I'm just sad I didn't know we were even fighting. And don't get me wrong, the previews today show great ways werewolves could evolve and expand as a tribe, but when they slap eldrazi on the creature type and change their look completely, it kind of defeats the point, you know?
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Vorthos-player with way too much time on his hands and a love of thematic decks.
EDH - Yes, Each One is Named After a Song. I love tying music to my decks.
And yet, I am incredibly conflicted. I don't often see a company actively choose to alienate a large part of their customer base. They had to know this would have a negative impact. They just had to. I mean, was there really not a single creative or development team member that said, "I dunno if it's the best idea to utterly destroy a tribe."
LMFAO.
WotC is doing what every IP has to do: find a successful idea, riff on the idea until design space is pretty much tapped, then change it. WotC's made werewolves in both their colors at every playable CMC. They've made two lords, two anthems and a couple random tribe-support spells for folks who want to build casual decks around them. They've made a Legendary dude for the EDH nerds. They've made several pushed Standard staples that have dominated their resepctive formats throughout their lifespans.
What more are you actually expecting? Can you actually say with a straight face that printing new cards instead of recycling old ones is a choice to "alienate a large part of their customer base"?
What we were expecting? Well, how about they realizing that the classic transformation mechanic was such a big drawback, and therefore, they shouldn't be so afraid of making them way too broken, like they freaking did with the eldrazi?
Seeing the failure of werewolves in competitive play because of their drawbacks, they could create more cards that help human werewolves to transform, more cards that prevent werewolves from becoming human again, put several of those effects on a single card (which would make a great legendary creature for commander), invest heavily on the flash keyword (which goes pretty well with the tribe), make stronger human sides (even if they nerf the wolf side a little), make more werewolves that have some positive impact when transforming to either side like Huntmaster of the Fells/Ravager of the Fells, focus more on low CMCs, like 1 and 2, stop trying to include wolves in the werewolf tribal, etc
Really, all that prevents werewolves from becoming viable and a strong tribe is wizards' lack of interest in doing so
What we were expecting? Well, how about they realizing that the classic transformation mechanic was such a big drawback, and therefore, they shouldn't be so afraid of making them way too broken, like they freaking did with the eldrazi?
Seeing the failure of werewolves in competitive play because of their drawbacks, they could create more cards that help human werewolves to transform, more cards that prevent werewolves from becoming human again, put several of those effects on a single card (which would make a great legendary creature for commander), invest heavily on the flash keyword (which goes pretty well with the tribe), make stronger human sides (even if they nerf the wolf side a little), make more werewolves that have some positive impact when transforming to either side like Huntmaster of the Fells/Ravager of the Fells, focus more on low CMCs, like 1 and 2, stop trying to include wolves in the werewolf tribal, etc
Really, all that prevents werewolves from becoming viable and a strong tribe is wizards' lack of interest in doing so
And when they made a new werewolf that did things by flipping back and forth, it was the werewolf fanboiz who *****ed loudest of all. Just look at the Ulrich thread.
I kind of get the griping. I liked it, they changed it, sure. But that's exactly what content makers do once they've retread a design space into the ground. And WotC has certainly done that. But folks seem to be implying that people who play the same deck constitute any sort of meaningful demographic, and that Hasbro is making deliberate choices to persecute that demographic, and those people making those insinuations are out of their ******* minds.
Werewolf survive Wolfir, they will live with this. When we come back we'll see them again.
They may be previous werewolves in the lore and all, but in the cards they are wolves, so they don't count.
And yes, this simple detail make them lose a lot of synergy with the rest of the tribe
I assume you mean the wolfir? What I just mean that this isn't a death of werewolf transform day/night mechanic.
Oh, I see.
But i'm still highly disappointed, on SOI, we've got such good additions to the deck, such as village messenger, duskwatch recruiter, and geier reach bandit. It really looked like they would give the tribe a lot of support on EMN, and, instead, they replace them all with weredrazi that still manage to have a non-reliable alternative transformation mechanic. It looks like we wont have any transformation cost cheaper than 4 on a CMC1 or 2. They don't synergize well with the regular werewolves and Maro has confirmed there will be no regular werewolves on this set. If you take into consideration we waited 6 years to see them shine, well, you can imagine the frustration we are facing right now
Cheer up guys, WotC is too cowardly to destroy Innistrad so after the Jacevengers defeat Em we'll return to Innistrad again and surely by then more classic werewolves will show up.
I feel your pain, I really do. I'm a jellyfish fan and learning that Gomazoas were driven to extinction by Koz and Ula in BFZ/OGW stung real bad.
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Vorthos-y Johnny. All will be One
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Cheer up guys, WotC is too cowardly to destroy Innistrad so after the Jacevengers defeat Em we'll return to Innistrad again and surely by then more classic werewolves will show up.
I feel your pain, I really do. I'm a jellyfish fan and learning that Gomazoas were driven to extinction by Koz and Ula in BFZ/OGW stung real bad.
I know, i'm pretty sure Innistrad will get rid of Emrakul in the end, it's too popular of a plane to be destroyed. The problem is: werewolves are exclusive to innistrad, they practically only exist there and therefore only get more support and tools there. It's not like goblins, vampires, zombies, merfolks, dragons, angels and everything else that receives support in a more regular basis. I mean, vampire fans were on their own and suddenly... BAN! They get a great kalitas. Goblins get guide on the first zendikar, some good ones on gatecrash, and they recently have gotten a reprint of the piledriver on magic origins... This doesnt happen to werewolves: if it's not innistrad, you wont get sh*t there and you know it. And they always mess them up in the final set of the block. Last time we've gotten the cursemute, no werewolves on avacyn restored, and no legendary creature. On this set we've got a planeswalker that doesnt really support the tribe, a crap card for commander, and all of their slots have been replaced to eldrazi on EMN, so i'm pretty sure we'll just wait 6 more years for wizards to give us the middle finger again.
Well, mechanically these "werewolves" actually compliment the playstyle of the tribe, since they provide the huge mana-sinks that one can use without having to cast spells... and they can transform at instant-speed. Sadly, outside of the Green Savannah Werewolf, the rest are costed at Limited-levels.
Flavor-wise everyone has already complained about the Eldrazification (although that extends to almost everything else, not just werewolves. People just hate the creature type now. They could print a functional reprint of Snapcaster Mage with an additional Eldrazi type and we're probably still see complaints about the typing).
All this over-bearing hate on the Eldrazi has once again missed the main point. It's not the Eldrazi themselves - it's the way R&D pushed it. Remember how Kamigawa was loved for its story (if not flavor) but hated for its mechanics, largely speaking? The Kami were a diverse bunch that had grudges between each other and the novels displayed that well. Mechanically, however, they were all cramped into 1 playstyle and it ended up being "Spirit and Arcane" theme (the linearity didn't help, but that's not the main point). The Eldrazi are doing the same - it feels like outside Ulrich, they just wanted a sweeping statement mechanically that all Werewolves are Eldrazi now (while the flavor text itself contradicts that) and that is the same mistake Kamigawa made. Ulrich being bad is just salt on the wounds by now, honestly.
Are they so afraid of Time Sprial (complications) that they have to make such sweeping mechanical decisions instead of making diversity within the tribe, like creative has directed so? Seeing Meld exists, I would actually think not. So a new mechanic with 6 cards is fine and dandy, but a couple more of regular werewolves doesn't make sense in the set? I don't get the logic.
Usually I like to defend WotC (and generally speaking I'm okay with the Eldrazi), but honestly they went ahead and repeated Kamigawa's mistakes with the Eldrazi... which makes it harder and harder to defend the Eldrazi although the actual underlying fault is the mechanical decisions, because the Eldrazi are just the flavor coating.
And when they made a new werewolf that did things by flipping back and forth, it was the werewolf fanboiz who *****ed loudest of all. Just look at the Ulrich thread.
I kind of get the griping. I liked it, they changed it, sure. But that's exactly what content makers do once they've retread a design space into the ground. And WotC has certainly done that. But folks seem to be implying that people who play the same deck constitute any sort of meaningful demographic, and that Hasbro is making deliberate choices to persecute that demographic, and those people making those insinuations are out of their ******* minds.
Yes, all those cards you used as an example are great on their own, but the tribal itself doesnt get enough support. Pacifist needs a deck all centered on anthem effects to work. The two lords are both easily removed by almost any removal in standard and modern. And the non-creature anthems are troublesome, considering that they are occupying slots for removals and Collected Company needs a deck with little number of non-creature spells. Duskwatch is great and I wont complain, it was more of him I was expecting. Mayor is great, but a 1/1 human body for cmc2 really hurts. It really hurts to take an electrolyze that kills your mayor and other werewolf while giving your opponent another card. And Huntmaster of the fells is the prime example of what a werewolf should be. Only problem with him is that he falls off of CoCo's reach, but I admit he would be too broken for cmc3 or lower.
The thing with Ulrich is that he is quite too expensive for an aggro deck (that werewolves should be) and he doesnt support the tribe as he should do, he works for himself mostly. As a commander, we wanted something that helped werewolves and rewarded us for making a deck around the creature type. Commanders needs to MAKE A HUGE IMPACT ON THE FIELD THE MOMENT THEY COME IN, and ulrich doesnt do that. He needs to be casted normally, on your own turn, that implies on another turn your wolves won't transform. When he enters, he just gives +4/+4 to someone UNTIL THE END OF TURN, and then he stays a regular 4/4 until he transforms. I don't know how much you've played commanders, but they need to make a lot more than that. He doesnt even have trample on his wolf side, for god's sake. He'll be blocked by countless tokens all day and never hurt the opponent untill he destroys ulrich or kill you. And his effects are not that great on CMC5, now imagine he returns to the commander zone and then you have to pay 7 for a 4/4 creature who gives +4/+4 to another. Had he been a regular rare werewolf, he would be okay (not good or great, okay), but, as our commander, he is frustrating. He is just a nerfed huntmaster. Those usefullness on both sides need to be more frequent and appear on cheaper werewolves, on CMCs 1 to 3. Duskwatch does not do anything with the transformation itself, but he is useful on both sides at CMC2 with a 2/2 human body and a 3/3 werewolf one. That's what werewolves in general should be. But there are little good CMCs 1 and 2 for the tribe.
And it wouldn't be a problem for wizards to try to inovate on the expense of werewolves if we hadn't to wait for returns to innistrad to HAVE A CHANCE to see them shine again, and get craps like Sage of Ancient Lore and those weredrazi freaks wasting precious slots that could be used by new duskwatches and huntmasters. You can't really believe it's okay for wizards to cut all werewolves from EMN to make room for freaking eldrazi, that have been everywhere in the last block and even threatened the modern metagame and became a solid legacy deck from night to day
EDIT: and no, i don't have a problem with them trying new things, what made me mad is that they took out all the dfc slots of the werewolves (who appear just in innistrad) and gave it to the eldrazi (who have been appearing quite a lot lately and can show up in literally any plane). And the red weredrazis are pretty unplayable out of constructed. The CMC1 green one is good only for being a 2/1 CMC1 with no drawbacks, but that's it. Paying 5 for him to turn into basically a vanilla 4/4 (let's face it, being blocked by just one creature is no big deal) is quite exaggerated. Paying 4 to transform it would be reasonable and paying 3 would be a little strong, but five mana really hurts. Okay, i know the idea is to spend the mana to let the actual werewolves transform, but tapping all your lands on turn 5 just to transform this guy is not that great.
I honestly don't understand the outcry some people are having with these werewolves. I'm a huge werewolf fan, my favorite deck in Innistrad-Scars standard was a RUG delver deck that ran Mayor of Avabruck, Daybreak Ranger, and Huntmaster of the Fells alongside a ton of instant speed disruption to more easily flip my wolves. I, like many others, was irritated when Avacyn Restored dropped werewolves and DFC entirely, and gave us the Wolfir in return.
But this is totally different from that. We got werewolves, they're just in a different fashion than we used to get them, and that's fine. These werewolves even synergize fantastically with 'traditional' werewolves, so they'll play well together outside of weirdness with Immerwolf. And we just had another set of werewolves, so we'll have both the old style and the new style existing together. We're seeing an evolution of werewolves, not a devolution of them.
I am *loving* the aesthetic of the werewolves, and the warped creatures in general, in this set. This set avoids the problem I had with BFZ, where the Eldrazi all looked mostly similar. The varied takes on what an Eldrazified creature is are very visually interesting, especially since Werewolves often ended up looking kind of same-y for me on their flipped sides. It also probably helps that I loved Bloodborne, which also combined Gothic Horror and Eldritch Horror.
But the sheer backlash against the adding of the 'Eldrazi' type to these werewolves is baffling to me. Yes, they *are* twisted versions of the werewolves we loved, but that doesn't mean I love them any less now. I think it's neat seeing a variation on my favorite tribe, and I'll add them to my decks and appreciate the variety.
Wizards isn't 'not caring' about a section of the playerbase, let's not get dramatic about this. I'm disappointed about the werewolf legend too, although werewolves would have needed something *insanely* broken to be good in EDH so I didn't really even expect much, but some of the hyperbole in this thread is really astounding.
Edit: I'm not saying you have to like the new aesthetic, that's totally a matter of personal taste, but some of the reactions in this thread are going way far beyond just "oh, i don't like the way that looks".
Maybe for some the looks are the problem. For me is the unplayability the transformation costs have. I mean, damn, the CMC1 NEEDS 5 FREAKING MANA to transform into basically a vanilla 4/4 what will the costs of the CMCs2+ tranformations be? My problems are: A) that the CMC1 will very likely be the only playable werewolf in standard and other formats, and B) we will very likely not get the tribal support we need to boost them in modern after they rotate out of standard, so we will have to wait six more years to wait FOR ANOTHER CHANCE to TRY.
IF any of those weredrazi did what Ulrich should do (support the werewolf tribe by stabilizing their transformation in any way, buff them with anthems, etc) I would love it and be all cheerful. But that's not going to happen, it's not flavorful: eldrazi are there to f*ck innistrad up, and if all werewolves are eldrazi, then this means no werewolf will help the tribe
And yet, I am incredibly conflicted. I don't often see a company actively choose to alienate a large part of their customer base. They had to know this would have a negative impact. They just had to. I mean, was there really not a single creative or development team member that said, "I dunno if it's the best idea to utterly destroy a tribe."
LMFAO.
WotC is doing what every IP has to do: find a successful idea, riff on the idea until design space is pretty much tapped, then change it. WotC's made werewolves in both their colors at every playable CMC. They've made two lords, two anthems and a couple random tribe-support spells for folks who want to build casual decks around them. They've made a Legendary dude for the EDH nerds. They've made several pushed Standard staples that have dominated their resepctive formats throughout their lifespans.
What more are you actually expecting? Can you actually say with a straight face that printing new cards instead of recycling old ones is a choice to "alienate a large part of their customer base"?
This guy plucked out the first paragraph of a decently lengthy post which was essentially me thinking out loud. Literally in the very next paragraph i state that I understand why they are going this route.
I also described the rest of why this feels bad in that post. At the end of the day, this isnt a big tribe. Relative to other tribes with a following, werewolves have pretty few cards. Thus, already perverting them to this extent has a larger impact than it does on humans, for example.
But hey, maybe this time you can just quote one sentence and tell me how wrong I am based on that limited info as well.
This guy plucked out the first paragraph of a decently lengthy post which was essentially me thinking out loud. Literally in the very next paragraph i state that I understand why they are going this route.
I also described the rest of why this feels bad in that post. At the end of the day, this isnt a big tribe. Relative to other tribes with a following, werewolves have pretty few cards. Thus, already perverting them to this extent has a larger impact than it does on humans, for example.
But hey, maybe this time you can just quote one sentence and tell me how wrong I am based on that limited info as well.
You got me to read your entire post back 1 page and I can really see why my stand on the Eldrazi were correct.
You talk about Eldrazi supposedly to bring hopelessness and despair and they did it technically by wiping out werewolves (or generally speaking, the culture/setting of a plane)... but plenty of posts here simply display anger rather than despair. The reason is simple: We know that we're "superior" to the Eldrazi and therefore cannot feel despair and therefore only anger. The worst thing about the Eldrazi plot is that is exactly what WotC is doing TO THE ELDRAZI. Planeswalkers toying around with them, moving them to planes they shouldn't be at naturally and then killing them off when they had their fun. Then the game tells us we're of the same ranking as these planeswalkers. The anger we have at the Eldrazi now is no different than the anger Nahiri had for Sorin (and now vice-versa) and used Eldrazi as the tools to get back to each other, because they know that they are "superior" to the Eldrazi. Despair from the Eldrazi? How about we get angry and destroy them instead?
The Eldrazi have two faults: First they are the antithesis to world-building... which means the amount of selected planes they show up at should be planes that really exhausted their resources (inclusive of plot) are dying. R&D saying Innistrad running out of those is quite blatantly not true at all. Griselbrand did nothing but played second fiddle to Liliana and Ormendahl pretty much decorated that throne for 1 set and they say there aren't any more ideas left? Or is it that they didn't want to expand on them here? You can't just create a new plane, sparsely decorate it than have Eldrazi destroy it either, because we won't feel the pain. You need a plane that has been through so much more and while it pains us it has to go, we also can see why it went... the answer, people, is Dominaria.
The Second fault of the Eldrazi: they cannot be the playthings of Planeswalkers without repercussions, which they have been so far, honestly. If you want to place so much importance to planeswalkers (like Superheroes) that they can plot-shields their way all the time, then Cthulhu/Cosmic Horror cannot be a storytelling option, because by default those demand to be of a higher tier than the heroes themselves. Being playthings is still a viable option (especially when they were weakened/sealed), but there must be repercussions to establish that in the end, the plot cannot defend against the despair that the Eldrazi were supposed to bring with them.
It wasn't obvious with BFZ/OGW, but I feel like EMN (and the Werewolves in particular) has finally unraveled the real problem with the execution of the Eldrazi. Too bad the Blind Eternities are actually ruled by feedback and once we're done here, we're probably never see the Eldrazi again as they were unpopular, like Kamigawa was (and the Kami technically did a better job at their roles than the Eldrazi, at least story-wise).
From what i see, the problem is not the eldrazi themselves. What really went wrong was: A) a lack of planning out of the standard metagame, which has lead to a power creep on other formats after the OGW eldrazi releases, and B) they didn't know how to move the spotlight from the eldrazi to other characters. They pushed them so much, nobody stands them anymore. On BFZ and OGW, half of the creatures were eldrazi, and and the other half all received the Ally type. It really felt like the whole block was a huge ally vs eldrazi duel deck. And then we move to another plane, take a little breath, and then SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKERS, IT'S ELDRAZI ALL OVER AGAIN! NO! Man, eldrazi can be greatly explored. I'll admit i didnt follow the original zendikar block, but, from what i see, the eldrazi back then were few and all had high costs, which made them feel like a real and serious threat. On the return to zendikar, they banalized the eldrazi, made them appear everywhere, and all the lore orbited around them. Any tribe would be rejected after that. They really shouldnt have made 2-set blocks, or just make the walkers deal with both ulamog and kozilek on BFZ, and Emrakul on OGW, leaving space for other threats on innistrad
You know, it's funny how these werewolves actually don't work well with Immerwolf; They still get the boost, just that they can't power up
Well, the kessig prowler can't transform, but he becomes a 3/2 for one mana, which is nice. It is also worth to mention that immerwolf is a huge target for your opponent's creature removals. So it turns out that sometimes your opponent will find it better to leave your immerwolf alive instead.
From what i see, the problem is not the eldrazi themselves. What really went wrong was: A) a lack of planning out of the standard metagame, which has lead to a power creep on other formats after the OGW eldrazi releases, and B) they didn't know how to move the spotlight from the eldrazi to other characters. They pushed them so much, nobody stands them anymore. On BFZ and OGW, half of the creatures were eldrazi, and and the other half all received the Ally type. It really felt like the whole block was a huge ally vs eldrazi duel deck. And then we move to another plane, take a little breath, and then SURPRISE MOTHERF*CKERS, IT'S ELDRAZI ALL OVER AGAIN! NO! Man, eldrazi can be greatly explored. I'll admit i didnt follow the original zendikar block, but, from what i see, the eldrazi back then were few and all had high costs, which made them feel like a real and serious threat. On the return to zendikar, they banalized the eldrazi, made them appear everywhere, and all the lore orbited around them. Any tribe would be rejected after that. They really shouldnt have made 2-set blocks, or just make the walkers deal with both ulamog and kozilek on BFZ, and Emrakul on OGW, leaving space for other threats on innistrad
I actually stated this (several times in fact) across different preview threads in this section (of course I don't blame you for not reading that, can't expect everyone to read everything I posted). Combined they probably could make for an article to everything the Eldrazi was done wrongly... that previous post was emphasizing on how they screwed it up creatively rather than mechanically and why that screw up resulted in so much hate for the Eldrazi. The mechanical screw-up was also half the reason, but it wasn't the focus of that post (because it's easier to see that half when I just raise the entire Kamigawa and its linear mechanics as an example).
What I don't agree with you is that "Eldrazi can be explored". If Eldrazi are meant to be true Cosmic Horrors/Cthulhu, being able to explore them defeats its own purpose (sort of how you break your neutrality to stand for neutrality itself). I know Wizards said it was their spin on the archetype, but people have expectations when your art looks too similar to the original archetype and the inability to understand and therefore diversify is actually central to those expectations. That makes Eldrazi, by default, a bad archetype to print en masse (the same reason why ROE is loved but BFZ/OGW hated).
You can't expect to create a tribe whose default settings are "Stronger than every other tribe but weaker to our Comic Book superheroes". That's a recipe for disaster right there... they're in an isolated power-group that cannot diversify with other tribes because they overpower them, can't diversify with planeswalkers because they're just the playthings of planeswalkers and can't even diversify themselves because they cornered themselves with "not meant to be understood by other parties". Werewolves are the perfect example of the first, the Eldrazi themselves been played for by walkers in all stories so far an example of the second and well, I explained the third above (it defeats their own purpose if they diversified themselves).
Note that when I said diversify, it must have conflict... Ulamog and Kozilek being different is not true diversification. New Phyrexia fighting internal wars is.
You know, it's funny how these werewolves actually don't work well with Immerwolf; They still get the boost, just that they can't power up
Well, the kessig prowler can't transform, but he becomes a 3/2 for one mana, which is nice. It is also worth to mention that immerwolf is a huge target for your opponent's creature removals. So it turns out that sometimes your opponent will find it better to leave your immerwolf alive instead.
Ah, that's an interesting mindgame you mentioned there.
Of course, this small discussion is invalid if you decide to play the Immerwolf as a sorcery Anthem after the werewolves have all transformed
And I earlier thought these Wolfies would do well with Moonmist, but unfortunately I remembered wrong; Moonmist transforms only Humans, so these doggies are out in the cold....
Well, they are still able to deal combat damage themselves while the opposing creatures won't scratch them. I think the best way to look at them it like wolves that have a little bit more of synergy with werewolves, such as being affected by Full Moon's Rise and sharing "joker tribal bonus" provided by cards such as Cavern of Souls, Obelisk of Urd and Adaptive Automaton.
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This has to be the most disappointing thing I have seen about this set.
I never meant to be the barer of bad news, but it is what it is. Tribal werewolf fans lost the fight. I'm just sad I didn't know we were even fighting. And don't get me wrong, the previews today show great ways werewolves could evolve and expand as a tribe, but when they slap eldrazi on the creature type and change their look completely, it kind of defeats the point, you know?
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WotC is doing what every IP has to do: find a successful idea, riff on the idea until design space is pretty much tapped, then change it. WotC's made werewolves in both their colors at every playable CMC. They've made two lords, two anthems and a couple random tribe-support spells for folks who want to build casual decks around them. They've made a Legendary dude for the EDH nerds. They've made several pushed Standard staples that have dominated their resepctive formats throughout their lifespans.
What more are you actually expecting? Can you actually say with a straight face that printing new cards instead of recycling old ones is a choice to "alienate a large part of their customer base"?
Seeing the failure of werewolves in competitive play because of their drawbacks, they could create more cards that help human werewolves to transform, more cards that prevent werewolves from becoming human again, put several of those effects on a single card (which would make a great legendary creature for commander), invest heavily on the flash keyword (which goes pretty well with the tribe), make stronger human sides (even if they nerf the wolf side a little), make more werewolves that have some positive impact when transforming to either side like Huntmaster of the Fells/Ravager of the Fells, focus more on low CMCs, like 1 and 2, stop trying to include wolves in the werewolf tribal, etc
Really, all that prevents werewolves from becoming viable and a strong tribe is wizards' lack of interest in doing so
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They may be previous werewolves in the lore and all, but in the cards they are wolves, so they don't count.
And yes, this simple detail make them lose a lot of synergy with the rest of the tribe
I assume you mean the wolfir? What I just mean that this isn't a death of werewolf transform day/night mechanic.
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Failure in competitive play? Lambholt Pacifist and Duskwatch Recruiter are and Mayor of Avabruck and Huntmaster of the Fells were standard staples, and werewolves are the strongest thing you can be doing in Limited right now, not even close.
And when they made a new werewolf that did things by flipping back and forth, it was the werewolf fanboiz who *****ed loudest of all. Just look at the Ulrich thread.
I kind of get the griping. I liked it, they changed it, sure. But that's exactly what content makers do once they've retread a design space into the ground. And WotC has certainly done that. But folks seem to be implying that people who play the same deck constitute any sort of meaningful demographic, and that Hasbro is making deliberate choices to persecute that demographic, and those people making those insinuations are out of their ******* minds.
Oh, I see.
But i'm still highly disappointed, on SOI, we've got such good additions to the deck, such as village messenger, duskwatch recruiter, and geier reach bandit. It really looked like they would give the tribe a lot of support on EMN, and, instead, they replace them all with weredrazi that still manage to have a non-reliable alternative transformation mechanic. It looks like we wont have any transformation cost cheaper than 4 on a CMC1 or 2. They don't synergize well with the regular werewolves and Maro has confirmed there will be no regular werewolves on this set. If you take into consideration we waited 6 years to see them shine, well, you can imagine the frustration we are facing right now
I feel your pain, I really do. I'm a jellyfish fan and learning that Gomazoas were driven to extinction by Koz and Ula in BFZ/OGW stung real bad.
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I know, i'm pretty sure Innistrad will get rid of Emrakul in the end, it's too popular of a plane to be destroyed. The problem is: werewolves are exclusive to innistrad, they practically only exist there and therefore only get more support and tools there. It's not like goblins, vampires, zombies, merfolks, dragons, angels and everything else that receives support in a more regular basis. I mean, vampire fans were on their own and suddenly... BAN! They get a great kalitas. Goblins get guide on the first zendikar, some good ones on gatecrash, and they recently have gotten a reprint of the piledriver on magic origins... This doesnt happen to werewolves: if it's not innistrad, you wont get sh*t there and you know it. And they always mess them up in the final set of the block. Last time we've gotten the cursemute, no werewolves on avacyn restored, and no legendary creature. On this set we've got a planeswalker that doesnt really support the tribe, a crap card for commander, and all of their slots have been replaced to eldrazi on EMN, so i'm pretty sure we'll just wait 6 more years for wizards to give us the middle finger again.
Flavor-wise everyone has already complained about the Eldrazification (although that extends to almost everything else, not just werewolves. People just hate the creature type now. They could print a functional reprint of Snapcaster Mage with an additional Eldrazi type and we're probably still see complaints about the typing).
All this over-bearing hate on the Eldrazi has once again missed the main point. It's not the Eldrazi themselves - it's the way R&D pushed it. Remember how Kamigawa was loved for its story (if not flavor) but hated for its mechanics, largely speaking? The Kami were a diverse bunch that had grudges between each other and the novels displayed that well. Mechanically, however, they were all cramped into 1 playstyle and it ended up being "Spirit and Arcane" theme (the linearity didn't help, but that's not the main point). The Eldrazi are doing the same - it feels like outside Ulrich, they just wanted a sweeping statement mechanically that all Werewolves are Eldrazi now (while the flavor text itself contradicts that) and that is the same mistake Kamigawa made. Ulrich being bad is just salt on the wounds by now, honestly.
Are they so afraid of Time Sprial (complications) that they have to make such sweeping mechanical decisions instead of making diversity within the tribe, like creative has directed so? Seeing Meld exists, I would actually think not. So a new mechanic with 6 cards is fine and dandy, but a couple more of regular werewolves doesn't make sense in the set? I don't get the logic.
Usually I like to defend WotC (and generally speaking I'm okay with the Eldrazi), but honestly they went ahead and repeated Kamigawa's mistakes with the Eldrazi... which makes it harder and harder to defend the Eldrazi although the actual underlying fault is the mechanical decisions, because the Eldrazi are just the flavor coating.
Yes, all those cards you used as an example are great on their own, but the tribal itself doesnt get enough support. Pacifist needs a deck all centered on anthem effects to work. The two lords are both easily removed by almost any removal in standard and modern. And the non-creature anthems are troublesome, considering that they are occupying slots for removals and Collected Company needs a deck with little number of non-creature spells. Duskwatch is great and I wont complain, it was more of him I was expecting. Mayor is great, but a 1/1 human body for cmc2 really hurts. It really hurts to take an electrolyze that kills your mayor and other werewolf while giving your opponent another card. And Huntmaster of the fells is the prime example of what a werewolf should be. Only problem with him is that he falls off of CoCo's reach, but I admit he would be too broken for cmc3 or lower.
The thing with Ulrich is that he is quite too expensive for an aggro deck (that werewolves should be) and he doesnt support the tribe as he should do, he works for himself mostly. As a commander, we wanted something that helped werewolves and rewarded us for making a deck around the creature type. Commanders needs to MAKE A HUGE IMPACT ON THE FIELD THE MOMENT THEY COME IN, and ulrich doesnt do that. He needs to be casted normally, on your own turn, that implies on another turn your wolves won't transform. When he enters, he just gives +4/+4 to someone UNTIL THE END OF TURN, and then he stays a regular 4/4 until he transforms. I don't know how much you've played commanders, but they need to make a lot more than that. He doesnt even have trample on his wolf side, for god's sake. He'll be blocked by countless tokens all day and never hurt the opponent untill he destroys ulrich or kill you. And his effects are not that great on CMC5, now imagine he returns to the commander zone and then you have to pay 7 for a 4/4 creature who gives +4/+4 to another. Had he been a regular rare werewolf, he would be okay (not good or great, okay), but, as our commander, he is frustrating. He is just a nerfed huntmaster. Those usefullness on both sides need to be more frequent and appear on cheaper werewolves, on CMCs 1 to 3. Duskwatch does not do anything with the transformation itself, but he is useful on both sides at CMC2 with a 2/2 human body and a 3/3 werewolf one. That's what werewolves in general should be. But there are little good CMCs 1 and 2 for the tribe.
And it wouldn't be a problem for wizards to try to inovate on the expense of werewolves if we hadn't to wait for returns to innistrad to HAVE A CHANCE to see them shine again, and get craps like Sage of Ancient Lore and those weredrazi freaks wasting precious slots that could be used by new duskwatches and huntmasters. You can't really believe it's okay for wizards to cut all werewolves from EMN to make room for freaking eldrazi, that have been everywhere in the last block and even threatened the modern metagame and became a solid legacy deck from night to day
EDIT: and no, i don't have a problem with them trying new things, what made me mad is that they took out all the dfc slots of the werewolves (who appear just in innistrad) and gave it to the eldrazi (who have been appearing quite a lot lately and can show up in literally any plane). And the red weredrazis are pretty unplayable out of constructed. The CMC1 green one is good only for being a 2/1 CMC1 with no drawbacks, but that's it. Paying 5 for him to turn into basically a vanilla 4/4 (let's face it, being blocked by just one creature is no big deal) is quite exaggerated. Paying 4 to transform it would be reasonable and paying 3 would be a little strong, but five mana really hurts. Okay, i know the idea is to spend the mana to let the actual werewolves transform, but tapping all your lands on turn 5 just to transform this guy is not that great.
But this is totally different from that. We got werewolves, they're just in a different fashion than we used to get them, and that's fine. These werewolves even synergize fantastically with 'traditional' werewolves, so they'll play well together outside of weirdness with Immerwolf. And we just had another set of werewolves, so we'll have both the old style and the new style existing together. We're seeing an evolution of werewolves, not a devolution of them.
I am *loving* the aesthetic of the werewolves, and the warped creatures in general, in this set. This set avoids the problem I had with BFZ, where the Eldrazi all looked mostly similar. The varied takes on what an Eldrazified creature is are very visually interesting, especially since Werewolves often ended up looking kind of same-y for me on their flipped sides. It also probably helps that I loved Bloodborne, which also combined Gothic Horror and Eldritch Horror.
But the sheer backlash against the adding of the 'Eldrazi' type to these werewolves is baffling to me. Yes, they *are* twisted versions of the werewolves we loved, but that doesn't mean I love them any less now. I think it's neat seeing a variation on my favorite tribe, and I'll add them to my decks and appreciate the variety.
Wizards isn't 'not caring' about a section of the playerbase, let's not get dramatic about this. I'm disappointed about the werewolf legend too, although werewolves would have needed something *insanely* broken to be good in EDH so I didn't really even expect much, but some of the hyperbole in this thread is really astounding.
Edit: I'm not saying you have to like the new aesthetic, that's totally a matter of personal taste, but some of the reactions in this thread are going way far beyond just "oh, i don't like the way that looks".
IF any of those weredrazi did what Ulrich should do (support the werewolf tribe by stabilizing their transformation in any way, buff them with anthems, etc) I would love it and be all cheerful. But that's not going to happen, it's not flavorful: eldrazi are there to f*ck innistrad up, and if all werewolves are eldrazi, then this means no werewolf will help the tribe
This guy plucked out the first paragraph of a decently lengthy post which was essentially me thinking out loud. Literally in the very next paragraph i state that I understand why they are going this route.
I also described the rest of why this feels bad in that post. At the end of the day, this isnt a big tribe. Relative to other tribes with a following, werewolves have pretty few cards. Thus, already perverting them to this extent has a larger impact than it does on humans, for example.
But hey, maybe this time you can just quote one sentence and tell me how wrong I am based on that limited info as well.
You got me to read your entire post back 1 page and I can really see why my stand on the Eldrazi were correct.
You talk about Eldrazi supposedly to bring hopelessness and despair and they did it technically by wiping out werewolves (or generally speaking, the culture/setting of a plane)... but plenty of posts here simply display anger rather than despair. The reason is simple: We know that we're "superior" to the Eldrazi and therefore cannot feel despair and therefore only anger. The worst thing about the Eldrazi plot is that is exactly what WotC is doing TO THE ELDRAZI. Planeswalkers toying around with them, moving them to planes they shouldn't be at naturally and then killing them off when they had their fun. Then the game tells us we're of the same ranking as these planeswalkers. The anger we have at the Eldrazi now is no different than the anger Nahiri had for Sorin (and now vice-versa) and used Eldrazi as the tools to get back to each other, because they know that they are "superior" to the Eldrazi. Despair from the Eldrazi? How about we get angry and destroy them instead?
The Eldrazi have two faults: First they are the antithesis to world-building... which means the amount of selected planes they show up at should be planes that really exhausted their resources (inclusive of plot) are dying. R&D saying Innistrad running out of those is quite blatantly not true at all. Griselbrand did nothing but played second fiddle to Liliana and Ormendahl pretty much decorated that throne for 1 set and they say there aren't any more ideas left? Or is it that they didn't want to expand on them here? You can't just create a new plane, sparsely decorate it than have Eldrazi destroy it either, because we won't feel the pain. You need a plane that has been through so much more and while it pains us it has to go, we also can see why it went... the answer, people, is Dominaria.
The Second fault of the Eldrazi: they cannot be the playthings of Planeswalkers without repercussions, which they have been so far, honestly. If you want to place so much importance to planeswalkers (like Superheroes) that they can plot-shields their way all the time, then Cthulhu/Cosmic Horror cannot be a storytelling option, because by default those demand to be of a higher tier than the heroes themselves. Being playthings is still a viable option (especially when they were weakened/sealed), but there must be repercussions to establish that in the end, the plot cannot defend against the despair that the Eldrazi were supposed to bring with them.
It wasn't obvious with BFZ/OGW, but I feel like EMN (and the Werewolves in particular) has finally unraveled the real problem with the execution of the Eldrazi. Too bad the Blind Eternities are actually ruled by feedback and once we're done here, we're probably never see the Eldrazi again as they were unpopular, like Kamigawa was (and the Kami technically did a better job at their roles than the Eldrazi, at least story-wise).
Well, the kessig prowler can't transform, but he becomes a 3/2 for one mana, which is nice. It is also worth to mention that immerwolf is a huge target for your opponent's creature removals. So it turns out that sometimes your opponent will find it better to leave your immerwolf alive instead.
I actually stated this (several times in fact) across different preview threads in this section (of course I don't blame you for not reading that, can't expect everyone to read everything I posted). Combined they probably could make for an article to everything the Eldrazi was done wrongly... that previous post was emphasizing on how they screwed it up creatively rather than mechanically and why that screw up resulted in so much hate for the Eldrazi. The mechanical screw-up was also half the reason, but it wasn't the focus of that post (because it's easier to see that half when I just raise the entire Kamigawa and its linear mechanics as an example).
What I don't agree with you is that "Eldrazi can be explored". If Eldrazi are meant to be true Cosmic Horrors/Cthulhu, being able to explore them defeats its own purpose (sort of how you break your neutrality to stand for neutrality itself). I know Wizards said it was their spin on the archetype, but people have expectations when your art looks too similar to the original archetype and the inability to understand and therefore diversify is actually central to those expectations. That makes Eldrazi, by default, a bad archetype to print en masse (the same reason why ROE is loved but BFZ/OGW hated).
You can't expect to create a tribe whose default settings are "Stronger than every other tribe but weaker to our Comic Book superheroes". That's a recipe for disaster right there... they're in an isolated power-group that cannot diversify with other tribes because they overpower them, can't diversify with planeswalkers because they're just the playthings of planeswalkers and can't even diversify themselves because they cornered themselves with "not meant to be understood by other parties". Werewolves are the perfect example of the first, the Eldrazi themselves been played for by walkers in all stories so far an example of the second and well, I explained the third above (it defeats their own purpose if they diversified themselves).
Note that when I said diversify, it must have conflict... Ulamog and Kozilek being different is not true diversification. New Phyrexia fighting internal wars is.
Ah, that's an interesting mindgame you mentioned there.
Of course, this small discussion is invalid if you decide to play the Immerwolf as a sorcery Anthem after the werewolves have all transformed
And I earlier thought these Wolfies would do well with Moonmist, but unfortunately I remembered wrong; Moonmist transforms only Humans, so these doggies are out in the cold....