Yeah I've really been digging it. The cards are crazy nonsense, but in a fun way. And format looks NOTHING like regular Standard, so that's pretty cool. Already thinking they may end up needing to nerf some of the Alchemy cards--especially the cost reducing ones (Geistchanneler and Discover the Forumula are pretty broken)--but that's fine. Also, I was worried about Historic but really the cards they nerfed weren't seeing a ton of play in that format anyway. Seems like mostly the same decks with just a few new ones that have popped up with the addition of Alchemy.
All those "Spellbook" mechanic cards could have been perfectly made in Black Border. With a very little tweak instead of conjuring the cards, they could just create a token thats a copy of them exactly like Garth One-Eye and that would resolve all of issues. Then write the cards in a piece of paper and roll a D20 (reroll if exceed) to see what you were going to get.
Tibalt, Wicked Tormentor or the new Garruk seems very fun cards to use, and the idea of a pseudo-extra deck to use seems a very nice idea for casual play. What a pity
You just said for casual play, so why not just do what you're saying? Proxy up some of these with errata'd text and go nuts.
And no, it wouldn't really work outside of casual because (1) not everyone you play against is going to know what all those cards do, so you'd ultimately have to resort to outside information and (2) the process you describe would take serious time, especially for the spellbook cards that are repeatable. They also wouldn't function the same way, as conjuring produces a card, whereas tokens aren't cards and behave differently.
Disclaimer: I haven't played as long as some of you, but I've still been playing around 12 years and will ALWAYS prefer to play in person over Arena or MtGO. That said, I cut WotC a lot of slack because, holy crap, I'm still playing this game 12 years later and have no desire to stop any time soon, despite a lot of the current problems. So I'm not a new player, I prefer paper, BUT...
Now that this has been out a bit and I've had a chance to think about stuff--I still think this is a great idea, but I do have a few issues with implementation. I love the new cards. I think the digital-only mechanics are awesome, and I think buffs/nerfs instead of outright bans is a great idea. I don't think the proliferation of online stuff will kill paper MtG because they make SO MUCH MONEY on the collectible aspects of the game, so I don't think the fact that they can now "fix it in post" means they'll devote less time to designing cards that will be printed (I think the design philosophy is the problem right now, not actually the designers or playtesters, and that's a whole other thing anyway).
I DO think purposefully handicapping the digital version of the game just so it can be identical to the paper version would be lighting money on fire. I DO give people more credit and believe they won't be hopelessly confused between two clearly marked products (same name/art be damned).
Where I see a problem is Historic. Most of the cards are fine as they are in Historic--they don't need to be altered. I also think having a separate Alchemy Historic would be too much. I think the new (not altered) cards should be available in Historic but for existing cards either the original printing should remain or the card should stay banned. But even then it's weird because certain cards could be altered while others couldn't, etc., etc., so I think the way they're doing it still makes the most sense even though I don't like it.
If this bothers you--just don't play Alchemy? Don't see how any of this is confusing. If you're playing in paper, the Alchemy cards don't matter. If you're playing anything in Arena other than Alchemy or Historic, the Alchemy cards don't matter.
I think this is awesome, and am excited to play with a lot of these cards in Historic especially. Honestly not super excited about "slightly different Standard," but don't mind that it's coming either.
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Yeah I've really been digging it. The cards are crazy nonsense, but in a fun way. And format looks NOTHING like regular Standard, so that's pretty cool. Already thinking they may end up needing to nerf some of the Alchemy cards--especially the cost reducing ones (Geistchanneler and Discover the Forumula are pretty broken)--but that's fine. Also, I was worried about Historic but really the cards they nerfed weren't seeing a ton of play in that format anyway. Seems like mostly the same decks with just a few new ones that have popped up with the addition of Alchemy.
I'd call it a success.
You just said for casual play, so why not just do what you're saying? Proxy up some of these with errata'd text and go nuts.
And no, it wouldn't really work outside of casual because (1) not everyone you play against is going to know what all those cards do, so you'd ultimately have to resort to outside information and (2) the process you describe would take serious time, especially for the spellbook cards that are repeatable. They also wouldn't function the same way, as conjuring produces a card, whereas tokens aren't cards and behave differently.
Now that this has been out a bit and I've had a chance to think about stuff--I still think this is a great idea, but I do have a few issues with implementation. I love the new cards. I think the digital-only mechanics are awesome, and I think buffs/nerfs instead of outright bans is a great idea. I don't think the proliferation of online stuff will kill paper MtG because they make SO MUCH MONEY on the collectible aspects of the game, so I don't think the fact that they can now "fix it in post" means they'll devote less time to designing cards that will be printed (I think the design philosophy is the problem right now, not actually the designers or playtesters, and that's a whole other thing anyway).
I DO think purposefully handicapping the digital version of the game just so it can be identical to the paper version would be lighting money on fire. I DO give people more credit and believe they won't be hopelessly confused between two clearly marked products (same name/art be damned).
Where I see a problem is Historic. Most of the cards are fine as they are in Historic--they don't need to be altered. I also think having a separate Alchemy Historic would be too much. I think the new (not altered) cards should be available in Historic but for existing cards either the original printing should remain or the card should stay banned. But even then it's weird because certain cards could be altered while others couldn't, etc., etc., so I think the way they're doing it still makes the most sense even though I don't like it.
I think this is awesome, and am excited to play with a lot of these cards in Historic especially. Honestly not super excited about "slightly different Standard," but don't mind that it's coming either.