I was hoping the damage as if not blocked would be called Heedless, as in the creature keeps going after the player/planeswalker without heeding the punishment blocking creatures inflict on it. Unstoppable also sounds more evasion-y to me. Still glad to see some spacesaving potentially on the way, even if it means a few more keywords players need to learn.
You can’t base a faction around these mechanics (for the most part). They are just too narrow. They are too narrow and rarely used to be called evergreen, either.
Other than Protection, I can’t think of any deciduous mechanics that are too narrow to be one of the premier mechanic of a faction/guild/wedge.
For back-bone in particular, the ability has only really been used as an A-B mechanic with enablers and pay-off cards. Printing a 0/4 with Backbone is certainly possible but would feel really odd.
Edit: while I know that “big butts” has been a draft archetype in several sets like ravnica and ixalan, these decks have always been based on hoping to get a single uncommon enabler, not on assembling a wide array of backbone cards. Unless they want to print cards with backbone... which feels a bit odd to me... It would likely feel like Ingestors-Processors if it was used as a faction’a ability
With all of that said, it sounds like these abilities were key-worded for the sole purpose of letting the commander decks include additional keyword tokens... which seems like a really silly reason to keyword an ability.
The net gain on these changes, from what I can tell, is freeing up a bit of space on no more than a dozen cards printed each year... at the cost of additional cognitive load for newer players.
You can’t base a faction around these mechanics (for the most part). They are just too narrow. They are too narrow and rarely used to be called evergreen, either.
Other than Protection, I can’t think of any deciduous mechanics that are too narrow to be one of the premier mechanic of a faction/guild/wedge.
For back-bone in particular, the ability has only really been used as an A-B mechanic with enablers and pay-off cards. Printing a 0/4 with Backbone is certainly possible but would feel really odd.
Edit: while I know that “big butts” has been a draft archetype in several sets like ravnica and ixalan, these decks have always been based on hoping to get a single uncommon enabler, not on assembling a wide array of backbone cards. Unless they want to print cards with backbone... which feels a bit odd to me... It would likely feel like Ingestors-Processors if it was used as a faction’a ability
With all of that said, it sounds like these abilities were key-worded for the sole purpose of letting the commander decks include additional keyword tokens... which seems like a really silly reason to keyword an ability.
The net gain on these changes, from what I can tell, is freeing up a bit of space on no more than a dozen cards printed each year... at the cost of additional cognitive load for newer players.
meanace was much the same before becoming evergreen. It was very rare, but is now on a small fraction of mostly red and black cards. Unstoppable could be the same for green and perhaps blue say (they have a bit too much trample and flying respetively).
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"Hail to the speaker, hail to the knower; joy to he who has understood, delight to they who have listened." - Odin
Should be interesting, anything that usually granted unstoppable was a 1-time trick or had a requirement such as "when ~ attacks...". Which means we might see enchantments and equipment and lords that grant it. Which also means certain commanders might see some more play if they can become unstoppable (Example: Phage the Untouchable)
Would have preferred: Baby got back OR Junk in the Trunk. Maybe Backmeat or Trunkjunk as well.
Glad both are coming back in this set.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
ehhh, not a fan. they don't feel very obvious in what they do, they don't appear that frequently on things to be warranted, but hey whatever at this point. if they turn out to be real and they use them, i'm sure they'll walk it back in like 2 sets anyway.
I really see no point in keywording Unstoppable and Backbone. That doesn’t fix blue’s need for a combative keyword, as that would be the biggest need of something new to add to the game on a evergreen basis. I didn’t like Prowess’s flavor but I was getting used to it just as it got yanked. But whatever.
Unstoppable sounds almost like an attempt to find a keyword that replaces trample. I say this because I’ve heard several times that trample is perhaps the hardest keyword for new players to understand (outside of protection). There are a number of interactions with trample that make it easy for new players to make mistakes, like trample and deathtouch or how a trample creature deals full damage to a player if the creature assigned to block it dies (or is removed from combat) before the combat damage step.
That said, they attempted to phase out protection as a keyword after Magic Origins (it only briefly reappeared in Eldritch Moon on a single mythic), but now it seems to be back in the rotation as of M20. So Unstoppable could also just be unique to Ikoria and not a trample replacment.
I expect part of the reason for keywording these is to support a more general template for cards like Odric Lunarch Marshal, Soulflayer, Rayami, Cairn Wanderer, Majestic Myriarch. Those are all extremely wordy and inconsistent about what sets of abilities they cover - they probably want new behemoths to have abilities like that, but not have to itemize every keyword (and have them future-compatible with future keywords), and are making this change to make frequently used but never-before-keyworded ‘abilities’ also get caught in this net. I’d be a little surprised if they miss this chance to officially keyword ‘Daunt’ (the Steel Leaf Champion ability) in the same effort though.
Myr Welder, Mairsil, and Necrotic Ooze have nice compact text encompassing a creature gaining all activated abilities of (subset of creature cards with activated abilities). It would be a clean fix to the Cairn Wanderer problem to have similar all-encompassing ‘~ gains all static keyword abilities of all...’ wording.
Though for abilities like that, being templated to include all creature static keyword abilities ... makes them play a lot less nicely with Defender. A keyword-generic Soulflayer munching a Sylvan Caryatid ... wouldn’t be as useful as hoped.
I'm very glad neither of these are set keywords. I think both abilities are fine as one- or two-ofs in a set, or for build-around uncommons, but I don't think they would make for interesting set mechanics, especially unstoppable as either the creatures are overcosted and bad, or undercosted and the format becomes super aggro.
In arena two never seen keywords we’re spotted and it’s ben done before for both probably appearing in Ikoria
First is
Unstoppable
Cards with old texts
And possibly Outmaneuver depending if it’s worded right to get the ability
The second word is
Backbone
Cards with old text
Probably for the keyword counters coming
I approve of these fixes just because they eventually lead to more space on a card by cleaning things up.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
You can’t base a faction around these mechanics (for the most part). They are just too narrow. They are too narrow and rarely used to be called evergreen, either.
Other than Protection, I can’t think of any deciduous mechanics that are too narrow to be one of the premier mechanic of a faction/guild/wedge.
For back-bone in particular, the ability has only really been used as an A-B mechanic with enablers and pay-off cards. Printing a 0/4 with Backbone is certainly possible but would feel really odd.
Edit: while I know that “big butts” has been a draft archetype in several sets like ravnica and ixalan, these decks have always been based on hoping to get a single uncommon enabler, not on assembling a wide array of backbone cards. Unless they want to print cards with backbone... which feels a bit odd to me... It would likely feel like Ingestors-Processors if it was used as a faction’a ability
With all of that said, it sounds like these abilities were key-worded for the sole purpose of letting the commander decks include additional keyword tokens... which seems like a really silly reason to keyword an ability.
The net gain on these changes, from what I can tell, is freeing up a bit of space on no more than a dozen cards printed each year... at the cost of additional cognitive load for newer players.
meanace was much the same before becoming evergreen. It was very rare, but is now on a small fraction of mostly red and black cards. Unstoppable could be the same for green and perhaps blue say (they have a bit too much trample and flying respetively).
Glad both are coming back in this set.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
That said, they attempted to phase out protection as a keyword after Magic Origins (it only briefly reappeared in Eldritch Moon on a single mythic), but now it seems to be back in the rotation as of M20. So Unstoppable could also just be unique to Ikoria and not a trample replacment.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
........................
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/fhj9t1/new_keyword_for_ikoria/fkbpf93/ (unrelated to Ikoria)
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/fhj9t1/new_keyword_for_ikoria/fkbqxvw/ (not showing up in cards on a foreseeable future)
Myr Welder, Mairsil, and Necrotic Ooze have nice compact text encompassing a creature gaining all activated abilities of (subset of creature cards with activated abilities). It would be a clean fix to the Cairn Wanderer problem to have similar all-encompassing ‘~ gains all static keyword abilities of all...’ wording.
Though for abilities like that, being templated to include all creature static keyword abilities ... makes them play a lot less nicely with Defender. A keyword-generic Soulflayer munching a Sylvan Caryatid ... wouldn’t be as useful as hoped.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588