The main issue with Companion is that if a Companion is a good card on its own you would want in your deck, the Companion mechanic just kicks it over the top and provides you with that card all the time and even as an extra card with immunity to discard.
If Companions would simply suck, nobody would want to have them in the first place and the mechanic wouldnt matter and not show itself as an issue.
In formats like edh/Commander that works to some degree, as a wannabe "partner" for your commander and hitting the restrictions is actually meaningful.
In constructed however, lots of decks can almost naturally a Companion and any card that prevents you from playing the Companion has to demonstrate enough power to justify starting without the 8th extra card (so thats an inherent 2for1 you are losing before the game even starts).
Matters get even worse if the Companion happens to be a COMBO card. The entire problem of a combo is to find its pieces, and if a piece is just 100% available, it cannot be fair.
Also, if you have a deck that can run a Companion adding a new card to that deck that would remove your ability to play that Companion is hurting deck construction instead of helping it, it limits your options of building a deck (thats the case for Companions that "restrict" the possible cards you can play).
Companions like Yorion bank on the format to offer enough power cards that going up to 80 is not enough of a drawback in comparison to having the 8th card guaranteed value 5-drop as a win-option.
If your deck can play Yorion and has enough strong cards to include, theres little reason to go back to 60 cards "ever" again, so Companions on this variation are hurting deck building as well.
----
If they would add more Companions you would run in the problem that at some point your deck pretty much has to play one of them no matter what, as any deck without a Companion needs to do especially extreme broken stuff to compensate for the inherent card disadvantage for the grindy 1for1 trading long game of attrition (stuff that planeswalkers are guilty of to, as a source of constant card advantage).
----
Companion seems to be so fundamentally messed up, they probably will rewrite the rules and change the entire mechanic (i would guess they have to be included in the actual deck, playing the card from outside the game is just not fair in any way).
again, the problem aint the companion mechanic in itself
the problem is the powerlevel of certain cards
when oko was printed, no one said "ban all planeswalkers"
yes companions are extra cards, but if u make them more fair due to the deck ristrictions they give and increase their mana cost, it would be fine
what if lurrus would have costet 6 mana instead of 3 with the rest being all the same, would we still have this discussion ?
This may be a stupid question but what happened with all the Gyruda, Doom of Depths hype? For a couple of days I couldn't escape the idea of turn 0 and turn 1 wins, and now it isn't a blip.
when oko was printed, no one said "ban all planeswalkers"
There is and always has been a problem with this kind of logic.
People can confidently make statements like this as long as they stay wrapped in ignorance. Indeed, some cling desperately to ignorance in order to keep making statements like this.
People have said for a very long time now that adding planeswalkers to the game has not been a net positive for the quality or health of the game.
People have said for a very long time now that the game would be better off if they had never existed or if they were all removed.
After a very long time of that not happening, some of those people have quit the game and you dont hear from them.
But because you don't hear from them does not mean they did not say such things. You might be a very poor listener.
That is not correct. Convoke always allowed you to tap creatures for color.
Originally, convoke was an additional cost that reduced the cost in mana. With the return of convoke in Magic 2015, the rules for convoke changed to their current form as an alternative way of paying a mana cost. This affects how it interacts with, for example, Eldrazi Spawn tokens' sacrifice-based mana ability (mana abilities must be activated before paying costs), and effects such as Trinisphere that care about total costs.
Convoke was significantly changed when it was reprinted. Initially only generic mana could be paid with convoke and now colored mana can be paid as well with matching creature.
That isn't what changed. They only changed that you could no longer "overpay" for a spell with Convoke, changing it from a cost reduction to a payment method. It was always able to pay for colored mana.
EDIT: Oh, Dunharrow got to it before me
Ah, I stand corrected. It happened quite long time ago and WotC does not use any versioning system on the rules.
This may be a stupid question but what happened with all the Gyruda, Doom of Depths hype? For a couple of days I couldn't escape the idea of turn 0 and turn 1 wins, and now it isn't a blip.
Apparently tentacles are quite delicious and cats and foxes have eaten all of them.
But seriously, Gyruda is Charbelcher style nondeterministic glass cannon deck and it's easier to produce more consistent results with other decks. It's still a playable deck across the formats but not good enough to get to top places.
That is not correct. Convoke always allowed you to tap creatures for color.
Originally, convoke was an additional cost that reduced the cost in mana. With the return of convoke in Magic 2015, the rules for convoke changed to their current form as an alternative way of paying a mana cost. This affects how it interacts with, for example, Eldrazi Spawn tokens' sacrifice-based mana ability (mana abilities must be activated before paying costs), and effects such as Trinisphere that care about total costs.
Convoke was significantly changed when it was reprinted. Initially only generic mana could be paid with convoke and now colored mana can be paid as well with matching creature.
That isn't what changed. They only changed that you could no longer "overpay" for a spell with Convoke, changing it from a cost reduction to a payment method. It was always able to pay for colored mana.
EDIT: Oh, Dunharrow got to it before me
Ah, I stand corrected. It happened quite long time ago and WotC does not use any versioning system on the rules.
This may be a stupid question but what happened with all the Gyruda, Doom of Depths hype? For a couple of days I couldn't escape the idea of turn 0 and turn 1 wins, and now it isn't a blip.
Apparently tentacles are quite delicious and cats and foxes have eaten all of them.
But seriously, Gyruda is Charbelcher style nondeterministic glass cannon deck and it's easier to produce more consistent results with other decks. It's still a playable deck across the formats but not good enough to get to top places.
Glad to hear my suspicions confirmed - it did seem to be too much of a glass cannon to me.
when oko was printed, no one said "ban all planeswalkers"
There is and always has been a problem with this kind of logic.
People can confidently make statements like this as long as they stay wrapped in ignorance. Indeed, some cling desperately to ignorance in order to keep making statements like this.
People have said for a very long time now that adding planeswalkers to the game has not been a net positive for the quality or health of the game.
People have said for a very long time now that the game would be better off if they had never existed or if they were all removed.
After a very long time of that not happening, some of those people have quit the game and you dont hear from them.
But because you don't hear from them does not mean they did not say such things. You might be a very poor listener.
The game has to change, if it changes in a way you no longer feel part of then leaving is the healthy thing to do. But the changes also attract new players, or make the game interesting for those who are bored of the same stuff.
If anything the game has kept growing because it has changed and it is not stale. I came back after a 10 year absent and I was amazed at how much more combat based the game is, how much important is the board now, how creatures improved and a lot of mechanics were also great. In fact it is cards like Urza or OuaT that feel old and very OP, Urza is a fixed tolarian academy worded to avoid getting hosed by Stony silence and will always be one artifact away from getting banned.
Either starting with one less card or skipping your first draw step seem like reasonable fixes for companion. Maybe even skipping your next draw step after casting your companion. Anything to take away the "8th card advantage".
I don't think that's enough of a drawback at all. The main issue with Companion is just how powerful having guaranteed access to a specific card actually is.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Also it was confirmed that companions were given hybrid mana to help let them see more play. So instead of Orzhov Workshop in Vintage, we had Mono-White Workshop. Instead of Mardu Burn, we had Boros Burn. Instead of Dimir or Sultai Gyruda in standard, its Simic Gyruda. If they wanted mono colored companions, they should have had mono colored companions in addition to two-color companions. They wanted the companion mechanic to breed creativity through restrictions, but they used hybrid mana to lighten up that restriction. Which results in Ohm's Law occuring which is the law of "the path of least resistance". Hybrided cards should be in the deck or the sideboard without the companion mechanic. As their flexibility allows for one card to fulfill the same role in one or more colors.
Even Hearthstone experimented with a very similar mechanic to the companion mechanic. What happened is their companions ended up dominating the two formats they had. They also only had two companions. And the restrictions were very simple, One made you play even costed cards, the other made you play odd costed cards. The benefit was that your hero power could either be activated for 1 mana instead of 2, or it costed 2 but had the upgraded effect. The companions themselves were just big dumb beaters, but since they were neutral cards, any deck could hypothetically run them. Eventually both hearthstone companions were banned from their equivalent of standard to help the format breathe again.
Even Hearthstone experimented with a very similar mechanic to the companion mechanic. What happened is their companions ended up dominating the two formats they had. They also only had two companions. And the restrictions were very simple, One made you play even costed cards, the other made you play odd costed cards. The benefit was that your hero power could either be activated for 1 mana instead of 2, or it costed 2 but had the upgraded effect. The companions themselves were just big dumb beaters, but since they were neutral cards, any deck could hypothetically run them. Eventually both hearthstone companions were banned from their equivalent of standard to help the format breathe again.
The hearthstone ones happened in 2018 by the way.
All of the "Quests" that start in your opening hand are similar to this mechanic, as are the "reno jackson" type cards. There were "companions" in Duelyst and they did seem to dominate deckbuilding.
If they are going to keep Companions around, here is what I would like to see corrected.
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, one card is revealed at random and put on the bottom of your deck after you take your last Mulligan. (It could also be shuffled into the deck as a possibility.)
The companion takes away variance, the random card put on the bottom adds variance right back in. No one starts with an 8 card hand then.
OR
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, After all mulligans, pick a card at random from your starting hand and exchange it for your Companion, that card goes to the sideboard.
Again, companion is taking away variance, but the random card placed into the sideboard increases variance AND the opponent now has a means to interact with that Companion card, being in hand instead of out there is exile somewhere.
A couple of thoughts, nothing more.
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STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
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The random card loss makes it completely unplayable. No sane player would gamble with their ability to play at all just to get a decent to strong card. The only formats that would want them would be vintage where every card is insanly broken so trading one of them isn't a big deal.
The random card loss makes it completely unplayable. No sane player would gamble with their ability to play at all just to get a decent to strong card. The only formats that would want them would be vintage where every card is insanly broken so trading one of them isn't a big deal.
You need to look at the bigger picture and what I said. You GAIN a guaranteed card with Companions. No where else in the game of Magic are you GUARANTEED a card in your opening hand, NOWHERE. This is the exact opposite of variance. So if you introduce a guaranteed card and promote less variance, it needs to be balanced by more variance, OR an appropriate penalty for that guaranteed card. If the Companion can offer the strength to overcome the addition of variance, then it will be played. Think about it a little bit more before you "pish posh" it. Companions can't continue the way they are unless they power them down a bit (via lower power level OR higher casting cost). They can keep the power up but it would come with a cost. Many SANE players would pay that cost for a guaranteed card if powerful enough.
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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."
Should just ban all the Campanions and get it over with.
Instead we deal with this crap for the upcoming year.
I am guessing they already have Companion cooked into an upcoming set like M21 or whatever comes after Zendikar 3.0 and they don't want to kill the mechanic but possibly change it.
That they haven't banned Lurrus from Modern and Pioneer (and possibly Standard) yet tells me they want to sell more cards over the next few weeks. That is flat out scummy business practice.
It's the same business practice Konami does with Yu-Gi-Oh! nowadays especially in Japan:
Release set in Japan, North America, Latin America, Singapore, and Europe.
Identify the most powerful / sought after cards as determined by the players.
Upshift the rarity and short print them (so that an uncommon might become a Mythic that's half as printed as other Mythics).
Sell everywhere else.
Satisfy market demand for the cards with a huge reprint in another set.
Ban the cards for a few formats to allow the rest of the game to catch up.
Unban the card(s) to give decks new life so that people buy support you printed for the deck.
To sum it all up, Wizards of the Coast print cards so broken that you have no choice but to play them in said format. Then it sees play for awhile and gets toxic for the formats that it's in where it eventually gets banned because Wizards of the Coast and inside traders at MTG Finance got their money for the card(s) and proceeds to print more broken cards. That's how Wizards of the Coast went "full Konami" as they did back in Throne of Eldraine with Oko, Thief of Crowns.
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All of the "Quests" that start in your opening hand are similar to this mechanic, as are the "reno jackson" type cards. There were "companions" in Duelyst and they did seem to dominate deckbuilding.
Thats the thing though, the quests from hearthstone are closer to the tempest idea than the companions as they occupied one of your cards in your opening hand. They also costed 1 mana. Which may not seem like a lot but it means your opening turn is possibly preoccupied by the quest. You could also only have one in your deck so if you tossed it back for a mulligan, you may not see it again. Also the quests do require you to build around. Unlike companions though, its like you are trying to fill a meter in a video game to unlock a permanent level-up for yourself. As the quests in hearthstone, until fulfilled, did nothing. One could also use Richard Garfield's version for Sagas as a similar spot in logic where his Sagas didn't automatically advanced and required effort on your part.
The reno jackson styled cards I would say are fine in comparison to companions. As they all have the lutri requirement of your deck must be singleton. And since they all stay in the deck, that is where I would say they are mostly fine. Especially Zephyrus, which I feel is the most interesting of the bunch which its like a charm where it has three modes. An aggro option, a control option, and a generalist option.
If they are going to keep Companions around, here is what I would like to see corrected.
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, one card is revealed at random and put on the bottom of your deck after you take your last Mulligan. (It could also be shuffled into the deck as a possibility.)
The companion takes away variance, the random card put on the bottom adds variance right back in. No one starts with an 8 card hand then.
OR
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, After all mulligans, pick a card at random from your starting hand and exchange it for your Companion, that card goes to the sideboard.
Again, companion is taking away variance, but the random card placed into the sideboard increases variance AND the opponent now has a means to interact with that Companion card, being in hand instead of out there is exile somewhere.
A couple of thoughts, nothing more.
I think the simpler method would be: "You draw 6 cards in your opening hand plus your companion from your sideboard."
While also nixing the deckbuilding restriction.
As it gives the companions a monkey's paw effect. You get what you desired in your opening hand, but unless you run duplicates or tutors, you also risk keeping a hand that bricks. Which seems fair especially with the london mulligan rules giving you more leeway with how you want to mull down.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
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Sorry for my possible english mistakes, I'm not a native speaker.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
I think the simpler method would be: "You draw 6 cards in your opening hand plus your companion from your sideboard."
While also nixing the deckbuilding restriction.
At minimum it should be this yes (but also WITH the deckbuilding restriction). I just don't think that is enough of a drawback for a guaranteed (and protected) card in hand. Every competitive deck is trying to minimize variance in some fashion. This takes what players have been doing for 27 years and throws that variance out the window. It should require a bit of variance thrown back in. Again, I am with your suggestion (including restriction) as an absolute bare minimum, I just don't think it would be enough of a restriction to make a big difference in playing a Companion.
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."
The random card loss makes it completely unplayable. No sane player would gamble with their ability to play at all just to get a decent to strong card. The only formats that would want them would be vintage where every card is insanly broken so trading one of them isn't a big deal.
You need to look at the bigger picture and what I said. You GAIN a guaranteed card with Companions. No where else in the game of Magic are you GUARANTEED a card in your opening hand, NOWHERE. This is the exact opposite of variance. So if you introduce a guaranteed card and promote less variance, it needs to be balanced by more variance, OR an appropriate penalty for that guaranteed card. If the Companion can offer the strength to overcome the addition of variance, then it will be played. Think about it a little bit more before you "pish posh" it. Companions can't continue the way they are unless they power them down a bit (via lower power level OR higher casting cost). They can keep the power up but it would come with a cost. Many SANE players would pay that cost for a guaranteed card if powerful enough.
That is exactly the problem I bring up. None of the companions are good enough to risk turning a solid hand into unkeepable junk. Except in formats where their abilities are actually broken. The risk of keeping a two land hand that goes down to one is far to significant for any of the companions in standard, historic, pioneer or modern. It would reduce the range of keepable hands significantly and none of them as so game ending that they are worth such a blow to your deck.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
Ctrl+F "Draw #2" to get straight to the right subsection if you are lazy
Thank you! If I understand that bit correctly though, it was broken because MaRo made basically "companion" lands that will always be in your opening hand. It doesn't mention them being restricted to one copy per deck or them being legendary. Obviously, something like that would be utterly broken. Just play four of those lands and your deck doesn't even need other lands in it! Companion isn't anywhere near that level of power.
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Sorry for my possible english mistakes, I'm not a native speaker.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
Ctrl+F "Draw #2" to get straight to the right subsection if you are lazy
Thank you! If I understand that bit correctly though, it was broken because MaRo made basically "companion" lands that will always be in your opening hand. It doesn't mention them being restricted to one copy per deck or them being legendary. Obviously, something like that would be utterly broken. Just play four of those lands and your deck doesn't even need other lands in it! Companion isn't anywhere near that level of power.
It's actually kind of unclear exactly what he was referring to when. It can't just be "lands that are guaranteed to start in your hand" because then he would have talked exclusively about that rather than a broader discussion of the mechanic.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
Ctrl+F "Draw #2" to get straight to the right subsection if you are lazy
Thank you! If I understand that bit correctly though, it was broken because MaRo made basically "companion" lands that will always be in your opening hand. It doesn't mention them being restricted to one copy per deck or them being legendary. Obviously, something like that would be utterly broken. Just play four of those lands and your deck doesn't even need other lands in it! Companion isn't anywhere near that level of power.
It's actually kind of unclear exactly what he was referring to when. It can't just be "lands that are guaranteed to start in your hand" because then he would have talked exclusively about that rather than a broader discussion of the mechanic.
It sounds like an entire group of cards were designed with this mechanic. But it was the lands that made him decide, without even playtesting, that the mechanic was "bah-roken". It's reasonable to think that when working on companion they looked back on what was done there and avoided any obvious pitfalls that they encountered then such as free lands. I still don't think any companion, besides Lurrus, is broken. The mechanic is strong but the restrictions are real and most of the cards aren't even that good.
Ctrl+F "Draw #2" to get straight to the right subsection if you are lazy
Thank you! If I understand that bit correctly though, it was broken because MaRo made basically "companion" lands that will always be in your opening hand. It doesn't mention them being restricted to one copy per deck or them being legendary. Obviously, something like that would be utterly broken. Just play four of those lands and your deck doesn't even need other lands in it! Companion isn't anywhere near that level of power.
It's actually kind of unclear exactly what he was referring to when. It can't just be "lands that are guaranteed to start in your hand" because then he would have talked exclusively about that rather than a broader discussion of the mechanic.
It sounds like an entire group of cards were designed with this mechanic. But it was the lands that made him decide, without even playtesting, that the mechanic was "bah-roken". It's reasonable to think that when working on companion they looked back on what was done there and avoided any obvious pitfalls that they encountered then such as free lands. I still don't think any companion, besides Lurrus, is broken. The mechanic is strong but the restrictions are real and most of the cards aren't even that good.
That is only half the argument, though. "Change and growth" in the game are one thing but what happens when they up those elements to 11 and people start to feel like its not the same game anymore? "It's good for you, you'll learn to like it" is not a great sales pitch, honestly.
It's also kind of dense to say "I'm sure they applied all the lessons they learned over the years" in a situation where they clearly decided to go against the tide because they were sure they were right and everybody else (even the player base if it came down to it) was wrong.
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If Companions would simply suck, nobody would want to have them in the first place and the mechanic wouldnt matter and not show itself as an issue.
In formats like edh/Commander that works to some degree, as a wannabe "partner" for your commander and hitting the restrictions is actually meaningful.
In constructed however, lots of decks can almost naturally a Companion and any card that prevents you from playing the Companion has to demonstrate enough power to justify starting without the 8th extra card (so thats an inherent 2for1 you are losing before the game even starts).
Matters get even worse if the Companion happens to be a COMBO card. The entire problem of a combo is to find its pieces, and if a piece is just 100% available, it cannot be fair.
Also, if you have a deck that can run a Companion adding a new card to that deck that would remove your ability to play that Companion is hurting deck construction instead of helping it, it limits your options of building a deck (thats the case for Companions that "restrict" the possible cards you can play).
Companions like Yorion bank on the format to offer enough power cards that going up to 80 is not enough of a drawback in comparison to having the 8th card guaranteed value 5-drop as a win-option.
If your deck can play Yorion and has enough strong cards to include, theres little reason to go back to 60 cards "ever" again, so Companions on this variation are hurting deck building as well.
----
If they would add more Companions you would run in the problem that at some point your deck pretty much has to play one of them no matter what, as any deck without a Companion needs to do especially extreme broken stuff to compensate for the inherent card disadvantage for the grindy 1for1 trading long game of attrition (stuff that planeswalkers are guilty of to, as a source of constant card advantage).
----
Companion seems to be so fundamentally messed up, they probably will rewrite the rules and change the entire mechanic (i would guess they have to be included in the actual deck, playing the card from outside the game is just not fair in any way).
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the problem is the powerlevel of certain cards
when oko was printed, no one said "ban all planeswalkers"
yes companions are extra cards, but if u make them more fair due to the deck ristrictions they give and increase their mana cost, it would be fine
what if lurrus would have costet 6 mana instead of 3 with the rest being all the same, would we still have this discussion ?
There is and always has been a problem with this kind of logic.
People can confidently make statements like this as long as they stay wrapped in ignorance. Indeed, some cling desperately to ignorance in order to keep making statements like this.
People have said for a very long time now that adding planeswalkers to the game has not been a net positive for the quality or health of the game.
People have said for a very long time now that the game would be better off if they had never existed or if they were all removed.
After a very long time of that not happening, some of those people have quit the game and you dont hear from them.
But because you don't hear from them does not mean they did not say such things. You might be a very poor listener.
Ah, I stand corrected. It happened quite long time ago and WotC does not use any versioning system on the rules.
Apparently tentacles are quite delicious and cats and foxes have eaten all of them.
But seriously, Gyruda is Charbelcher style nondeterministic glass cannon deck and it's easier to produce more consistent results with other decks. It's still a playable deck across the formats but not good enough to get to top places.
Glad to hear my suspicions confirmed - it did seem to be too much of a glass cannon to me.
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The game has to change, if it changes in a way you no longer feel part of then leaving is the healthy thing to do. But the changes also attract new players, or make the game interesting for those who are bored of the same stuff.
If anything the game has kept growing because it has changed and it is not stale. I came back after a 10 year absent and I was amazed at how much more combat based the game is, how much important is the board now, how creatures improved and a lot of mechanics were also great. In fact it is cards like Urza or OuaT that feel old and very OP, Urza is a fixed tolarian academy worded to avoid getting hosed by Stony silence and will always be one artifact away from getting banned.
I don't think that's enough of a drawback at all. The main issue with Companion is just how powerful having guaranteed access to a specific card actually is.
This is something the mechanic already went through when it was originally tested 20 years ago when Maro first found out that this ***** is busted and not good for the game, as he detailed in an article he posted five years ago. Then he said "fug it" and did it anyways for Ikoria. And look what happened...
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Even Hearthstone experimented with a very similar mechanic to the companion mechanic. What happened is their companions ended up dominating the two formats they had. They also only had two companions. And the restrictions were very simple, One made you play even costed cards, the other made you play odd costed cards. The benefit was that your hero power could either be activated for 1 mana instead of 2, or it costed 2 but had the upgraded effect. The companions themselves were just big dumb beaters, but since they were neutral cards, any deck could hypothetically run them. Eventually both hearthstone companions were banned from their equivalent of standard to help the format breathe again.
The hearthstone ones happened in 2018 by the way.
All of the "Quests" that start in your opening hand are similar to this mechanic, as are the "reno jackson" type cards. There were "companions" in Duelyst and they did seem to dominate deckbuilding.
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, one card is revealed at random and put on the bottom of your deck after you take your last Mulligan. (It could also be shuffled into the deck as a possibility.)
The companion takes away variance, the random card put on the bottom adds variance right back in. No one starts with an 8 card hand then.
OR
If you reveal a Companion then:
Draw your 7 cards, After all mulligans, pick a card at random from your starting hand and exchange it for your Companion, that card goes to the sideboard.
Again, companion is taking away variance, but the random card placed into the sideboard increases variance AND the opponent now has a means to interact with that Companion card, being in hand instead of out there is exile somewhere.
A couple of thoughts, nothing more.
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."
You need to look at the bigger picture and what I said. You GAIN a guaranteed card with Companions. No where else in the game of Magic are you GUARANTEED a card in your opening hand, NOWHERE. This is the exact opposite of variance. So if you introduce a guaranteed card and promote less variance, it needs to be balanced by more variance, OR an appropriate penalty for that guaranteed card. If the Companion can offer the strength to overcome the addition of variance, then it will be played. Think about it a little bit more before you "pish posh" it. Companions can't continue the way they are unless they power them down a bit (via lower power level OR higher casting cost). They can keep the power up but it would come with a cost. Many SANE players would pay that cost for a guaranteed card if powerful enough.
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."
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
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"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
The reno jackson styled cards I would say are fine in comparison to companions. As they all have the lutri requirement of your deck must be singleton. And since they all stay in the deck, that is where I would say they are mostly fine. Especially Zephyrus, which I feel is the most interesting of the bunch which its like a charm where it has three modes. An aggro option, a control option, and a generalist option.
While also nixing the deckbuilding restriction.
As it gives the companions a monkey's paw effect. You get what you desired in your opening hand, but unless you run duplicates or tutors, you also risk keeping a hand that bricks. Which seems fair especially with the london mulligan rules giving you more leeway with how you want to mull down.
Out of curiosity, do you have a link to that article?
Here is one:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/gimme-hand-2010-08-13
Ctrl+F "Draw #2" to get straight to the right subsection if you are lazy
At minimum it should be this yes (but also WITH the deckbuilding restriction). I just don't think that is enough of a drawback for a guaranteed (and protected) card in hand. Every competitive deck is trying to minimize variance in some fashion. This takes what players have been doing for 27 years and throws that variance out the window. It should require a bit of variance thrown back in. Again, I am with your suggestion (including restriction) as an absolute bare minimum, I just don't think it would be enough of a restriction to make a big difference in playing a Companion.
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."
It's actually kind of unclear exactly what he was referring to when. It can't just be "lands that are guaranteed to start in your hand" because then he would have talked exclusively about that rather than a broader discussion of the mechanic.
That is only half the argument, though. "Change and growth" in the game are one thing but what happens when they up those elements to 11 and people start to feel like its not the same game anymore? "It's good for you, you'll learn to like it" is not a great sales pitch, honestly.
It's also kind of dense to say "I'm sure they applied all the lessons they learned over the years" in a situation where they clearly decided to go against the tide because they were sure they were right and everybody else (even the player base if it came down to it) was wrong.