Wow. Does that leak put PHASING as a core set mechanic? That's something I was not expecting.
Especially since phasing is a 8 on the storm scale
But its saids ” it's unlikely to return but possible if the stars align” and teferi focused core set is the probably the star's since phasing is his thing During the old magic days
Putting phasing in a core set seems like a dumb idea.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Phasing is NOT complicated
Banding is NOT complicated
Original Regenerate is NOT complicated
...I just don't get those arguments but hey thats me
Some of the stuff they do nowadays is complicated with a wall of text on cards and multiple triggers and multiple interactions
Phasing may not be complicated to you but I guarantee new players would scratch their heads and that is the point of a core set, tt is to let a new player dip their toe in and not scare them off.
Necessary changes, however; we as a community, we as consumers, we as players, need to vocally demand a change in approach regarding design.
There is a clear disconnect. Design itself needs to run free and be creative, but cards need to be tested with feedback listened to before cards are printed. There have been far too many bannings recently and something has to give. The game can not continue to exist while repeatedly becoming so unhealthy.
The addiction is hard to break. If you wont speak with your wallet, contact wotc. Explain the issue, demand change, offer alternatives.
Im so sick of this ***** from them every set lately. Balance is hard, but ignoring reprints and printing format breaking cards that have to be banned every single recent set is totally unacceptable and needs to change.
At this point they could just select a random bunch of people and let them look at the "version 0.9" version of a sets design of cards and let people look over the cards.
If you let say 100 or even 1000 people look over the lists of cards, somebody might notice a problem or just give them proper feedback of what they didnt think of.
It costs them nothing as people will do that for no cost, its just customer feedback.
----
Yea sure, some cards will get spoiled ahead of time, but thats a problem they have anyway, so eat the apple and get customer feedback as early as possible to fix problems before the cards go to print.
Essentially spoiling every full set nearly a year before they come out doesn't sound like a good idea regardless of it would actually fix the problem. If it would fix the problem is debatable with a strong argument for no considering few people discovered any of the problematic cards just from looking at them. Also this fallacy of it having no cost is ridiculous. It might be low cost but it could also be unreasonably expensive.
pretty easy solution in holding them to an NDA and prosecuting them aggressively if its broken. you keep the team on the payroll and compensate them so they're less likely to leak things. its not like this hasn't been done before. they used this methodology for more than a decade. it just needs to be listened to and tweaked to catch these blatant mistakes.
as it stands we're nothing more than beta testers paying, literally paying, to find mistakes for them to fix.
Necessary changes, however; we as a community, we as consumers, we as players, need to vocally demand a change in approach regarding design.
There is a clear disconnect. Design itself needs to run free and be creative, but cards need to be tested with feedback listened to before cards are printed. There have been far too many bannings recently and something has to give. The game can not continue to exist while repeatedly becoming so unhealthy.
The addiction is hard to break. If you wont speak with your wallet, contact wotc. Explain the issue, demand change, offer alternatives.
Im so sick of this ***** from them every set lately. Balance is hard, but ignoring reprints and printing format breaking cards that have to be banned every single recent set is totally unacceptable and needs to change.
At this point they could just select a random bunch of people and let them look at the "version 0.9" version of a sets design of cards and let people look over the cards.
If you let say 100 or even 1000 people look over the lists of cards, somebody might notice a problem or just give them proper feedback of what they didnt think of.
It costs them nothing as people will do that for no cost, its just customer feedback.
----
Yea sure, some cards will get spoiled ahead of time, but thats a problem they have anyway, so eat the apple and get customer feedback as early as possible to fix problems before the cards go to print.
Essentially spoiling every full set nearly a year before they come out doesn't sound like a good idea regardless of it would actually fix the problem. If it would fix the problem is debatable with a strong argument for no considering few people discovered any of the problematic cards just from looking at them. Also this fallacy of it having no cost is ridiculous. It might be low cost but it could also be unreasonably expensive.
pretty easy solution in holding them to an NDA and prosecuting them aggressively if its broken. you keep the team on the payroll and compensate them so they're less likely to leak things. its not like this hasn't been done before. they used this methodology for more than a decade. it just needs to be listened to and tweaked to catch these blatant mistakes.
as it stands we're nothing more than beta testers paying, literally paying, to find mistakes for them to fix.
If you're going to ignore the part "It costs them nothing" then I will have to totally agree because it is literally what they are currently doing just on a larger scale. They could spend millions of dollars and it would easily fix their problem. But it would create a much larger problem. They are spending millions of dollars on this one aspect of creating the cards.
So weird to have multiple bannings and even functional power level errata this early in the release. I mean, did they even test these?
This is something I've been wondering. Seems like their new playtest group started strong, but in the past two years there have been more bannings than ever. To companion's credit only two or three are a real issue that could have been solved by different CMC, stats, or prerequisites (to be a companion) on the card(s).
If I had to put this on the storm scale I'd be putting this at around a (maybe a 6) 7 or 8, considering how hard it is to balance, but as we see it is possible to make companions that aren't overly oppressive.
Companions will always be a big issue.
mainly because they're free consistency + card advantage.
and they're designed to work damn well in decks that have their conditions.
that said....
it's very, very hard to design companions that are not either waaaay to good or just borderline unplayable.
I mean, when your companion is a reasonably costed engine that is always available to cast on a deck that won't simply miss it's first turns because of the restrictions, then it's automatically broken.
if the card is too expensive to be played or doesn't synergize very well with it's build condition, then it's barely unplayable.
that said, yes, too many obvious slips are passing through playtests.....
Companions is a new wacky mechanic, so it's likely it can slip through.
but stuff like Underworld Breach and Oko, Thief of Crowns shouldn't ever be printed..... they're blatantly obvious overpowered format warping cards and stuff like that should be caught during internal playtesting.
Look at the reminder text on Teferi's Protection It seems pretty simple and straightforward, that's my only point, I don't see whats so hard to understand about it. There are abilities and triggers in Core Sets that are much more intricate I think
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Been on this forum for 10++ years
Playing since '94
Companion change is so weird, especially on the 3 mana companions. They are now impossible to cast on-curve.
Personally, I was in favor of, "If you reveal a companion, also reveal your starting hand. An opponent chooses a nonland card from your hand. You discard that card."
Gets rid of the advantage of having an extra card, and letting the opponent choose which card gets discarded makes up for getting to choose a card which starts in your "hand" every game.
That solution is only marginally better than what Maro wrote.
Necessary changes, however; we as a community, we as consumers, we as players, need to vocally demand a change in approach regarding design.
There is a clear disconnect. Design itself needs to run free and be creative, but cards need to be tested with feedback listened to before cards are printed. There have been far too many bannings recently and something has to give. The game can not continue to exist while repeatedly becoming so unhealthy.
The addiction is hard to break. If you wont speak with your wallet, contact wotc. Explain the issue, demand change, offer alternatives.
Im so sick of this ***** from them every set lately. Balance is hard, but ignoring reprints and printing format breaking cards that have to be banned every single recent set is totally unacceptable and needs to change.
At this point they could just select a random bunch of people and let them look at the "version 0.9" version of a sets design of cards and let people look over the cards.
If you let say 100 or even 1000 people look over the lists of cards, somebody might notice a problem or just give them proper feedback of what they didnt think of.
It costs them nothing as people will do that for no cost, its just customer feedback.
----
Yea sure, some cards will get spoiled ahead of time, but thats a problem they have anyway, so eat the apple and get customer feedback as early as possible to fix problems before the cards go to print.
Essentially spoiling every full set nearly a year before they come out doesn't sound like a good idea regardless of it would actually fix the problem. If it would fix the problem is debatable with a strong argument for no considering few people discovered any of the problematic cards just from looking at them. Also this fallacy of it having no cost is ridiculous. It might be low cost but it could also be unreasonably expensive.
pretty easy solution in holding them to an NDA and prosecuting them aggressively if its broken. you keep the team on the payroll and compensate them so they're less likely to leak things. its not like this hasn't been done before. they used this methodology for more than a decade. it just needs to be listened to and tweaked to catch these blatant mistakes.
as it stands we're nothing more than beta testers paying, literally paying, to find mistakes for them to fix.
If you're going to ignore the part "It costs them nothing" then I will have to totally agree because it is literally what they are currently doing just on a larger scale. They could spend millions of dollars and it would easily fix their problem. But it would create a much larger problem. They are spending millions of dollars on this one aspect of creating the cards.
right but okay i'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting. you're attacking one idea as costing nothing but not being a great idea because it spoils the entire set, and then you're attacking another idea because it could cost money? so the solution is do nothing? pretend this isn't a growing problem that has effected the past 5 years with this past year being absolutely absurd?
it doesn't have to cost a fortune to fix. they've done it before, like these ideas aren't something new that they haven't done. what is new is the major disconnect between design and playtesting. you're suggesting no one caught these just form looking at them... didn't they though? ikoria was playable for how many days before it was obvious companion was a busted mechanic? if the players catch it and a playtest team doesn't, then that team is incompetent and should be replaced, but they may have also caught it and simply been ignored. we just don't know. we do know broken things keep getting released and polluting environments (not just standard).
look the point here is that you, and i, don't know exactly how much testing is currently being done behind the scenes - what we do see is that however much it is, it either isn't being listened to or its not enough. it needs to be fixed. the game can't survive like this, it really can't, and this too has also been proven in the past (though we all seem to have forgotten urza's saga and mirrodin block).
where is all that additional income from targeting whales going? we know magic is profitable, where is that money being spent? doesn't it make sense to at least try, even if it cuts into that profit, just to maintain the health of the game? we're moving backwards not forwards and the players consistently make excuses to justify it but on a longer timeline players quit because of this issue. they just disappear and don't say anything.
it is our responsibility to put pressure on them to fix this sort of problem, and its their responsibility to us to get the job done. we don't have to fix the problem, that's on them. we just have to expose it and voice discontent.
How about Lutri, the Spellchaser for edh is he still to bad for it since it always meets the criteria and now you can’t cast from sideboard and you have to pay 3 to your hand
I think he's still always a strict upgrade to any deck with U/R because having him is never a drawback, their reasons for banning weren't about power level
right but okay i'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting. you're attacking one idea as costing nothing but not being a great idea because it spoils the entire set, and then you're attacking another idea because it could cost money? so the solution is do nothing? pretend this isn't a growing problem that has effected the past 5 years with this past year being absolutely absurd?
it doesn't have to cost a fortune to fix. they've done it before, like these ideas aren't something new that they haven't done. what is new is the major disconnect between design and playtesting. you're suggesting no one caught these just form looking at them... didn't they though? ikoria was playable for how many days before it was obvious companion was a busted mechanic? if the players catch it and a playtest team doesn't, then that team is incompetent and should be replaced, but they may have also caught it and simply been ignored. we just don't know. we do know broken things keep getting released and polluting environments (not just standard).
look the point here is that you, and i, don't know exactly how much testing is currently being done behind the scenes - what we do see is that however much it is, it either isn't being listened to or its not enough. it needs to be fixed. the game can't survive like this, it really can't, and this too has also been proven in the past (though we all seem to have forgotten urza's saga and mirrodin block).
I attacked the first idea because it was a special combination of bad and illogical. It both suggested spoiling the entire set about a year in advance and claimed it would cost nothing. The proposed idea wouldn't guarantee to fix the problem and it wasn't guaranteed to cost nothing. While the other idea costs an absurd amount of money.
As far as fixing the problem. Look back on this site and see how many people gave companions an "Unplayable" or even "conditional" rating. I couldn't find anyone sounding the alarm about this "Obviously" broken mechanic. If you want to talk about how many days until it was found I'm cool with running numbers. Let's say it took a mere two days for the player base to find the problem, I don't think it was this fast but I don't want to work with larger numbers because these are already absurd. That amounts to a minimum of 20,000,000 hours of playtesting before the problem was found. How many playtesters do you think wizards should hire? If given 6 months(24 weeks) of 8-hour workdays. That means you need at least 100,000 employees whose full-time job is playtesting just standard. It simply isn't realistic for Wizards to catch everything or even most things. I'll agree that we don't know how much playtesting is going on but will disagree that is is possible for Wizards to ever do enough playtesting.
My main complaint with the current trend of problems is their slow reaction time which is born from the player base having the thought that bans are bad, indicative of failure, rather than being a healthy fix for incidental problems. If they were to ban cards more quickly we wouldn't have long stretches of time where formats are unplayable. As other cards are released we could even see regular unbannings to test the waters. Overall I feel bans should be a nob to turn not a last resort.
The change is fine and all but it still guarantees you an easily-accessible 8th card in your hand without resorting to Wish-like effects to get it. Whoever said that having the opponent choose a card to discard as a "cost" of using your companion was spot on. You want a companion? Lose your best card in your opening hand. And why isn't Teferi part of the ban?
And what the what...phasing? It kind of makes sense given that Teferi's history with phasing and temporal studies is a huge part of his original identity. Phasing isn't too hard to grasp: Think of it as the giant Time-Out chair in Magic with flair. Once you're done thinking about what you did you can have dessert.
'buster
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HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Phasing 101:
Your creature does not leave or enter the battlefield.
It is considered to just not exist on the board.
It returns during your next untap step.
Any auras or equipment attached to it are also phased out and phase back in when it does.
Any counters on it stay on the creature.
This does not kill tokens.
If a permanent would phase out before the damage step, it must remain phased until the next upkeep or the next end step to "heal".
A spell that targets a permanent than then phases out only fizzles if the permanent phases in during the next step or phase.
Flicker 101:
Your creature leaves the battlefield, then returns to the battlefield.
It moves from the battlefield to the exile zone then back again.
The duration is based on the card.
Any auras equipment attached to it fall offs when it changes zones.
Any counters on it fall off.
This kills tokens.
Damage is removed when it changes zones.
A spell always fizzles if a permanent is flickered.
Flicker was originally part of Phasing. More likely than not, Phasing will be easier to grasp for new players when they interact with it on Arena than in paper.
Maybe this has been slightly changed, but it used to be stated that it returns before the untap step. A permanent that phased out tapped phases back in tapped (another difference to flicker), but then immediately untaps.
Wow. Does that leak put PHASING as a core set mechanic? That's something I was not expecting.
Especially since phasing is a 8 on the storm scale
But its saids ” it's unlikely to return but possible if the stars align” and teferi focused core set is the probably the star's since phasing is his thing During the old magic days
I wonder if this is where we’ll see Oubliette finally return?
Phasing 101:
Your creature does not leave or enter the battlefield.
It is considered to just not exist on the board.
It returns during your next untap step.
Any auras or equipment attached to it are also phased out and phase back in when it does.
Any counters on it stay on the creature.
This does not kill tokens.
Flicker 101:
Your creature leaves the battlefield, then returns to the battlefield.
It moves from the battlefield to the exile zone then back again.
The duration is based on the card.
Any equipment attached to it fall offs, while auras are permanently exiled.
Any counters on it fall off.
This kills tokens.
Flicker was originally part of Phasing. More likely than not, Phasing will be easier to grasp for new players when they interact with it on Arena than in paper.
I mean you are getting several things wrong in your explanation of it so it seems like it's harder than you think to understand it.
Wow. Does that leak put PHASING as a core set mechanic? That's something I was not expecting.
Especially since phasing is a 8 on the storm scale
But its saids ” it's unlikely to return but possible if the stars align” and teferi focused core set is the probably the star's since phasing is his thing During the old magic days
I wonder if this is where we’ll see Oubliette finally return?
Maybe! I feel like any kind of hint that would have applied to this would have been too obvious.
If phasing plays any sort of larger roll in M21 than just Teferi, it’s remotely possible (*remotely*) that they just errata Oubliette to “phase out target creature until [this] leaves play.”
Phasing 101:
Your creature does not leave or enter the battlefield.
It is considered to just not exist on the board.
It returns during your next untap step.
Any auras or equipment attached to it are also phased out and phase back in when it does.
Any counters on it stay on the creature.
This does not kill tokens.
Flicker 101:
Your creature leaves the battlefield, then returns to the battlefield.
It moves from the battlefield to the exile zone then back again.
The duration is based on the card.
Any equipment attached to it fall offs, while auras are permanently exiled.
Any counters on it fall off.
This kills tokens.
Flicker was originally part of Phasing. More likely than not, Phasing will be easier to grasp for new players when they interact with it on Arena than in paper.
I mean you are getting several things wrong in your explanation of it so it seems like it's harder than you think to understand it.
They only got one thing wrong per each category.
Aura’s and equipment don’t phase with a creature unless the effect says they do for phasing. The phasing in before untap step while wrong, is close enough to how it works and is easy to correct since it just one word off.
Aura’s don’t get exiled when the object they’re attached to gets exiled unless the effect says so.
Other than that everything else they stated is 100% correct.
Phasing 101:
Your creature does not leave or enter the battlefield.
It is considered to just not exist on the board.
It returns during your next untap step.
Any auras or equipment attached to it are also phased out and phase back in when it does.
Any counters on it stay on the creature.
This does not kill tokens.
Flicker 101:
Your creature leaves the battlefield, then returns to the battlefield.
It moves from the battlefield to the exile zone then back again.
The duration is based on the card.
Any equipment attached to it fall offs, while auras are permanently exiled.
Any counters on it fall off.
This kills tokens.
Flicker was originally part of Phasing. More likely than not, Phasing will be easier to grasp for new players when they interact with it on Arena than in paper.
I mean you are getting several things wrong in your explanation of it so it seems like it's harder than you think to understand it.
They only got one thing wrong per each category.
Aura’s and equipment don’t phase with a creature unless the effect says they do for phasing. The phasing in before untap step while wrong, is close enough to how it works and is easy to correct since it just one word off.
Aura’s don’t get exiled when the object they’re attached to gets exiled unless the effect says so.
Other than that everything else they stated is 100% correct.
Even the people correcting others aren't getting it right. Anything attached to a permanent that phases out will phase out indirectly with that permanent(702.25f).
Can hardly wait for June 4th so I don't have to see Yorion/Fires/Agent anymore when trying to rank in Arena. I mean Yorion might show up but it's not going to be very competitive anymore.
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Fixed my one mistake regarding auras, also added new lines for each category.
Hot Take: Phasing is actually the fair yet neglected sibling of the two while Flicker hogs the spotlight. It doesn't unattach things, it keeps counters on its permanents, it doesn't kill token-based board states, it doesn't cause more value/card advantage from ETB/LTB effects, its primary usage is just as a temporary refuge or a temporary prison.
Hotter Take:Flickerform is just a second-rate Vanishing. In addition to what was already mentioned about phasing: It costs twice as much to cast. It costs twice as much to activate. It lasts half the time. Its a Rare instead of a Common. Its selling point in its activated ability is just a nerfed version of phasing's tricks. Its text box is so cluttered with rules text that you can't even have a meaningful and flavorful quote like Vanishing does.
Companions will always be a big issue.
mainly because they're free consistency + card advantage.
and they're designed to work damn well in decks that have their conditions.
that said....
it's very, very hard to design companions that are not either waaaay to good or just borderline unplayable.
You certainly do have a point, Lutri is practically unplayable as the prerequisite is too much to be played in any meaningful way that wasn't Commander. It probably should have been "two copies or less of each nonland card" then at the very least would have been playable.
I'd think the ones they did end up getting right though are Umori, Obosh, Jegantha, Kaheera, and Zirda. Strong cards that weren't really doing much of anything, their prerequisites are appropriate, and their effects aren't too straong (Zirda's and Obosh's being the strongest among those.)
I mean, when your companion is a reasonably costed engine that is always available to cast on a deck that won't simply miss it's first turns because of the restrictions, then it's automatically broken.
I don't know about broken, but it is fairly easy to make a broken card when it is so easy to cast it.
that said, yes, too many obvious slips are passing through playtests.....
Companions is a new wacky mechanic, so it's likely it can slip through.
but stuff like Underworld Breach and Oko, Thief of Crowns shouldn't ever be printed..... they're blatantly obvious overpowered format warping cards and stuff like that should be caught during internal playtesting.
They definitely should not have been pushed out as they were, that's for sure. I can't say much about Breach as I always forget that card exists for some reason and don't pay attention to it. Oko was a clear case of all the wrong stats on a card. A plus ability on removal is never a good idea and definitely should have been -1, zero at most. If none of the abilities changed cost then 3 CMC was too low. As printed Oko's -5 was somehow the most fair part about that card considering how good the +1 was.
At first I didn't think Oko was amazing, definitely good though, but it's clear it was a huge issue that is oddly overlooked.
Couldn't agree more, I can't stand playing against Yorion, just what were they thinking when they released that and Lurrus? The whole "start with the companion in hand (but with discard protection because why the hell not)" made the downside of playing more than 60 cards pretty much negligible, and to make matters worse the ETB trigger interacted really well with a busted card that lets you play stuff for free, an effect which by now they should have learned to avoid like the plague.
Lurrus in Modern and Legacy was also a colossal blunder by the playtesting team, most Modern or Legacy decks with creatures already had barely any permanent over 2 CMC. I can understand not testing it in Vintage, but the impact on Modern should have been obvious to the testing team.
I hope for the game's sake the new sets don't force so many bannings, this trend is more worrying than in the past, this time it's not contained to one busted block mechanic like Affinity or a busted interaction that slipped through the radar like Saheeli+Cat. We've had cards banned from unrelated sets or mechanics because they were too powerful, or again, a busted mechanic that makes games repetitive as hell...who would have thought suspecting Temur Rec on the other side of the board because of the lack of a compa...I mean Yorion was going to be something you'd look forward to, wait, I'm the one playing Temur Rec.
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Especially since phasing is a 8 on the storm scale
But its saids ” it's unlikely to return but possible if the stars align” and teferi focused core set is the probably the star's since phasing is his thing During the old magic days
Banding is NOT complicated
Original Regenerate is NOT complicated
...I just don't get those arguments but hey thats me
Some of the stuff they do nowadays is complicated with a wall of text on cards and multiple triggers and multiple interactions
Been on this forum for 10++ years
Playing since '94
Phasing may not be complicated to you but I guarantee new players would scratch their heads and that is the point of a core set, tt is to let a new player dip their toe in and not scare them off.
pretty easy solution in holding them to an NDA and prosecuting them aggressively if its broken. you keep the team on the payroll and compensate them so they're less likely to leak things. its not like this hasn't been done before. they used this methodology for more than a decade. it just needs to be listened to and tweaked to catch these blatant mistakes.
as it stands we're nothing more than beta testers paying, literally paying, to find mistakes for them to fix.
Companions will always be a big issue.
mainly because they're free consistency + card advantage.
and they're designed to work damn well in decks that have their conditions.
that said....
it's very, very hard to design companions that are not either waaaay to good or just borderline unplayable.
I mean, when your companion is a reasonably costed engine that is always available to cast on a deck that won't simply miss it's first turns because of the restrictions, then it's automatically broken.
if the card is too expensive to be played or doesn't synergize very well with it's build condition, then it's barely unplayable.
that said, yes, too many obvious slips are passing through playtests.....
Companions is a new wacky mechanic, so it's likely it can slip through.
but stuff like Underworld Breach and Oko, Thief of Crowns shouldn't ever be printed..... they're blatantly obvious overpowered format warping cards and stuff like that should be caught during internal playtesting.
Been on this forum for 10++ years
Playing since '94
That solution is only marginally better than what Maro wrote.
right but okay i'm not sure exactly what you're suggesting. you're attacking one idea as costing nothing but not being a great idea because it spoils the entire set, and then you're attacking another idea because it could cost money? so the solution is do nothing? pretend this isn't a growing problem that has effected the past 5 years with this past year being absolutely absurd?
it doesn't have to cost a fortune to fix. they've done it before, like these ideas aren't something new that they haven't done. what is new is the major disconnect between design and playtesting. you're suggesting no one caught these just form looking at them... didn't they though? ikoria was playable for how many days before it was obvious companion was a busted mechanic? if the players catch it and a playtest team doesn't, then that team is incompetent and should be replaced, but they may have also caught it and simply been ignored. we just don't know. we do know broken things keep getting released and polluting environments (not just standard).
look the point here is that you, and i, don't know exactly how much testing is currently being done behind the scenes - what we do see is that however much it is, it either isn't being listened to or its not enough. it needs to be fixed. the game can't survive like this, it really can't, and this too has also been proven in the past (though we all seem to have forgotten urza's saga and mirrodin block).
where is all that additional income from targeting whales going? we know magic is profitable, where is that money being spent? doesn't it make sense to at least try, even if it cuts into that profit, just to maintain the health of the game? we're moving backwards not forwards and the players consistently make excuses to justify it but on a longer timeline players quit because of this issue. they just disappear and don't say anything.
it is our responsibility to put pressure on them to fix this sort of problem, and its their responsibility to us to get the job done. we don't have to fix the problem, that's on them. we just have to expose it and voice discontent.
I think he's still always a strict upgrade to any deck with U/R because having him is never a drawback, their reasons for banning weren't about power level
I attacked the first idea because it was a special combination of bad and illogical. It both suggested spoiling the entire set about a year in advance and claimed it would cost nothing. The proposed idea wouldn't guarantee to fix the problem and it wasn't guaranteed to cost nothing. While the other idea costs an absurd amount of money.
As far as fixing the problem. Look back on this site and see how many people gave companions an "Unplayable" or even "conditional" rating. I couldn't find anyone sounding the alarm about this "Obviously" broken mechanic. If you want to talk about how many days until it was found I'm cool with running numbers. Let's say it took a mere two days for the player base to find the problem, I don't think it was this fast but I don't want to work with larger numbers because these are already absurd. That amounts to a minimum of 20,000,000 hours of playtesting before the problem was found. How many playtesters do you think wizards should hire? If given 6 months(24 weeks) of 8-hour workdays. That means you need at least 100,000 employees whose full-time job is playtesting just standard. It simply isn't realistic for Wizards to catch everything or even most things. I'll agree that we don't know how much playtesting is going on but will disagree that is is possible for Wizards to ever do enough playtesting.
My main complaint with the current trend of problems is their slow reaction time which is born from the player base having the thought that bans are bad, indicative of failure, rather than being a healthy fix for incidental problems. If they were to ban cards more quickly we wouldn't have long stretches of time where formats are unplayable. As other cards are released we could even see regular unbannings to test the waters. Overall I feel bans should be a nob to turn not a last resort.
And what the what...phasing? It kind of makes sense given that Teferi's history with phasing and temporal studies is a huge part of his original identity. Phasing isn't too hard to grasp: Think of it as the giant Time-Out chair in Magic with flair. Once you're done thinking about what you did you can have dessert.
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Your creature does not leave or enter the battlefield.
It is considered to just not exist on the board.
It returns during your next untap step.
Any auras or equipment attached to it are also phased out and phase back in when it does.
Any counters on it stay on the creature.
This does not kill tokens.
If a permanent would phase out before the damage step, it must remain phased until the next upkeep or the next end step to "heal".
A spell that targets a permanent than then phases out only fizzles if the permanent phases in during the next step or phase.
Flicker 101:
Your creature leaves the battlefield, then returns to the battlefield.
It moves from the battlefield to the exile zone then back again.
The duration is based on the card.
Any auras equipment attached to it fall offs when it changes zones.
Any counters on it fall off.
This kills tokens.
Damage is removed when it changes zones.
A spell always fizzles if a permanent is flickered.
Maybe this has been slightly changed, but it used to be stated that it returns before the untap step. A permanent that phased out tapped phases back in tapped (another difference to flicker), but then immediately untaps.
I wonder if this is where we’ll see Oubliette finally return?
I mean you are getting several things wrong in your explanation of it so it seems like it's harder than you think to understand it.
Maybe! I feel like any kind of hint that would have applied to this would have been too obvious.
If phasing plays any sort of larger roll in M21 than just Teferi, it’s remotely possible (*remotely*) that they just errata Oubliette to “phase out target creature until [this] leaves play.”
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They only got one thing wrong per each category.
Aura’s and equipment don’t phase with a creature unless the effect says they do for phasing. The phasing in before untap step while wrong, is close enough to how it works and is easy to correct since it just one word off.
Aura’s don’t get exiled when the object they’re attached to gets exiled unless the effect says so.
Other than that everything else they stated is 100% correct.
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Hotter Take: Flickerform is just a second-rate Vanishing. In addition to what was already mentioned about phasing: It costs twice as much to cast. It costs twice as much to activate. It lasts half the time. Its a Rare instead of a Common. Its selling point in its activated ability is just a nerfed version of phasing's tricks. Its text box is so cluttered with rules text that you can't even have a meaningful and flavorful quote like Vanishing does.
You certainly do have a point, Lutri is practically unplayable as the prerequisite is too much to be played in any meaningful way that wasn't Commander. It probably should have been "two copies or less of each nonland card" then at the very least would have been playable.
I'd think the ones they did end up getting right though are Umori, Obosh, Jegantha, Kaheera, and Zirda. Strong cards that weren't really doing much of anything, their prerequisites are appropriate, and their effects aren't too straong (Zirda's and Obosh's being the strongest among those.)
I don't know about broken, but it is fairly easy to make a broken card when it is so easy to cast it.
They definitely should not have been pushed out as they were, that's for sure. I can't say much about Breach as I always forget that card exists for some reason and don't pay attention to it. Oko was a clear case of all the wrong stats on a card. A plus ability on removal is never a good idea and definitely should have been -1, zero at most. If none of the abilities changed cost then 3 CMC was too low. As printed Oko's -5 was somehow the most fair part about that card considering how good the +1 was.
At first I didn't think Oko was amazing, definitely good though, but it's clear it was a huge issue that is oddly overlooked.
Lurrus in Modern and Legacy was also a colossal blunder by the playtesting team, most Modern or Legacy decks with creatures already had barely any permanent over 2 CMC. I can understand not testing it in Vintage, but the impact on Modern should have been obvious to the testing team.
I hope for the game's sake the new sets don't force so many bannings, this trend is more worrying than in the past, this time it's not contained to one busted block mechanic like Affinity or a busted interaction that slipped through the radar like Saheeli+Cat. We've had cards banned from unrelated sets or mechanics because they were too powerful, or again, a busted mechanic that makes games repetitive as hell...who would have thought suspecting Temur Rec on the other side of the board because of the lack of a compa...I mean Yorion was going to be something you'd look forward to, wait, I'm the one playing Temur Rec.