I am not advocating for any bans or anything, but can we talk about how terrible a design Hollow One is? How did something like this make it past development or play design?
I am not advocating for any bans or anything, but can we talk about how terrible a design Hollow One is? How did something like this make it past development or play design?
Play Design was not in effect when H1 was in development. The first set where Play Design had "input" was Dominaria, and it will take a few more sets until they were involved from start to finish in the design and development process.
H1 is totally appropriate in Standard and we know that's all pre-Play Design Wizards cared about (although, they also sucked at testing that). I'm sure no one even mentioned Modern when designing it. We do know they shifted some numbers around to make H1 a rare instead of an uncommong (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/m-files-hour-devastation-part-2-2017-07-21), so I wonder what pre-number shift H1 looked like. Probably no Cycling and a smaller casting cost and P/T.
I am not advocating for any bans or anything, but can we talk about how terrible a design Hollow One is? How did something like this make it past development or play design?
This is what designing for Standard without Modern in mind does. Even if Wotc did consider Modern, they would have probably missed that Burning Inquiry can be a REAL card.
*I actually foresee Wizards actually changing this planning in the future, probably after a broken Human is printed or a broken Artifact that goes in Affinity (something better than Bomat Courier).
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
I am not advocating for any bans or anything, but can we talk about how terrible a design Hollow One is? How did something like this make it past development or play design?
Wizards balances cards around standard and limited formats with eternal as a distant after thought. While Hollow One is a powerful card with cards like Faithless Looting, Burning Inquiry, and Street Wraith that does not make it a terribly designed card. I would say it is a very well designed card in that it enables and is enabled by cycling matters decks even though it never took off in standard. Saying that Hollow One is a terrible design because of Modern is like saying Brainstorm is a terrible design because of how it interacts with fetchlands.
I am not advocating for any bans or anything, but can we talk about how terrible a design Hollow One is? How did something like this make it past development or play design?
This is what designing for Standard without Modern in mind does. Even if Wotc did consider Modern, they would have probably missed that Burning Inquiry can be a REAL card.
*I actually foresee Wizards actually changing this planning in the future, probably after a broken Human is printed or a broken Artifact that goes in Affinity (something better than Bomat Courier).
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
I thought the PD team (or at least "big changes") were happening as long ago as Hour of Devastation?
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
I thought the PD team (or at least "big changes") were happening as long ago as Hour of Devastation?
I think they were introduced as a team during that period, but they didn't have any say in the design of the set.
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
I thought the PD team (or at least "big changes") were happening as long ago as Hour of Devastation?
kind of. they announced this stuff around the release of Hour of Devastation, didn't they...?
however, that set was mostly wrapped up in the can up to a couple of years before its release.
WotC has been on record a few times saying they work up to about four years ahead of the current releases. That's one of the primary reasons for misjudgments in terms of what's "supposed to be good" in standard based on their Future Future League play.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
i believe maro said that their new design philosophies would first show up in RIX. not sure if this meant play design specifically.
Here is the most recent quote I can find on the subject of Play Design's involvement in the process. It sounds like Dominaria was the first set where they have any real involvement in the finished product (and that sounds like it was relatively minimal) and then the sets after they were further involved.
interesting. where i remembered reading about RIX was the article explaining the update to rotations and the core set returning, but yeah looking at it again it doesnt say anything about PD's involvement.
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
I thought the PD team (or at least "big changes") were happening as long ago as Hour of Devastation?
"The first set to have Play Design input is Dominaria, the first set to have a full Play Design focus (I'll explain the schedule below) is codenamed Milk, and the first set to have Play Design input in vision is Archery."
Unrelated note, SFM is increasingly looking like a really stupid ban at this point. It looked stupid before this GP, it continues to look stupid after.
Unrelated note, SFM is increasingly looking like a really stupid ban at this point. It looked stupid before this GP, it continues to look stupid after.
It's definitely not the only stupid looking ban, to be honest. Here's hoping more cards come off, especially since Jace is doing relatively little and BBE is just "pretty good" compared to the kinds of things happening at the top of the format.
It's...gotta be one of the worst. I'm trying to think of the last, and I think there was one that was super heavy on infect/affinity/burn, but this is easily worse than that.
For sure I'm not playing in a meta that would look like this. This is less tilting than Eldrazi, but it's not what I would want to sit and burn an afternoon on.
Blue Moon, Mardu, and Jund all there. Taking Turns too, if you're looking for blue. Blue Moon also missed T8 on breakers by .04. So looking past the T8 we see a much better picture of real diversity than we saw in the T8. Notably, it's also the same picture of diversity the more measured commentators predicted.
Blue Moon, Mardu, and Jund all there. Taking Turns too, if you're looking for blue. Blue Moon also missed T8 on breakers by .04. So looking past the T8 we see a much better picture of real diversity than we saw in the T8. Notably, it's also the same picture of diversity the more measured commentators predicted.
That's making the GP look a lot more interactive, and a whole lot nicer overall. Happy with that!
Certainly that wasnt the point of releasing just the top 16... lol
is it weird im suspicious of them only posting the top 16?
Yeah... I was really hoping for top 32, or God forbid, 64. Was going to calculate conversion rates... Had the spreadsheet ready to go and everything. Just showing top 16 (when other GPs have released much more) is highly dubious. Hopefully it is just a delay and more lists are to come...?
The only question right now is: should we be Battle Raging chumps, or opening up our box of Cheeri0s? Seriously, I think it's time we get the fair cards on the banlist back. Maybe even Preordain and Ponder if they ban Grapeshot at the same time.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Blue Moon, Mardu, and Jund all there. Taking Turns too, if you're looking for blue. Blue Moon also missed T8 on breakers by .04. So looking past the T8 we see a much better picture of real diversity than we saw in the T8. Notably, it's also the same picture of diversity the more measured commentators predicted.
I don't believe you are not trolling at this point
Again, I have no idea why you are being so abrasive in these posts. I fully admitted the T8 was horrible. Beyond the T8, things looked better. We had Jund, Mardu, and Blue Moon for interactive representatives, with Blue Moon barely missing the T8 itself. Notably, this fits the prediction I made before the event:
Sure, we are going to see the same diversity as always. 800 different linear *****decks, Jund and Mardu.
We will also see a number of totally viable blue decks and a relatively even distribution of aggro, midrange, big mana, control, etc. across the T16 and T8.
We have two viable blue decks in this T16 (Blue Moon, Turns). We have one control deck (Blue Moon). We have two midrange decks (Jund, Mardu). We have big mana (Titanshift, Amulet Titan), we have combo (Eggs, Living End), we have aggro (basically everything else). Aggro is admittedly overrepresented, especially in the T8, but if that T16 had been even in just a slightly different order things would have looked much better. And again, I fully admit the T8 looks bad. But my initial prediction extended into the T16 for a reason; breakers really matter in painting a T8 picture but don't matter in determining deck viability.
From a conversion perspective, neither Humans nor H1 were anything special. Humans sent 1 of 27 pilots to the T16 for a conversion rate of 4% and under-representing itself relative to Day 2 (7.8% Day 2 vs. 6.25% T16). H1 was a bit better for representation (9.5% Day 2 vs. 12% T16), but not great for conversion either (9%). There's nothing apocalyptic about this. There are some annoying finishes such as Bogles and another Blue Moon player losing to Burn in Round 15 to miss the T8, but it's really not horrible. By far the worst part about the T16/T8 is that these strategies are at Modern's top-tier and stuff like SFM is still banned. That's just laughable.
Someone retweeted an old #freejace, #freetwin, #freesfm tweet I had sent to Sam, Forsythe and Maro a year or so ago today.
That happened to me as well, how odd.
Anyhow, anything outside the top 8 looks fine, not spectacular, just fine. The only thing entertaining about the top 8 results is the inevitable Modern Nexus article that this is all somehow Bloodbraid Elf's fault.
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Play Design was not in effect when H1 was in development. The first set where Play Design had "input" was Dominaria, and it will take a few more sets until they were involved from start to finish in the design and development process.
H1 is totally appropriate in Standard and we know that's all pre-Play Design Wizards cared about (although, they also sucked at testing that). I'm sure no one even mentioned Modern when designing it. We do know they shifted some numbers around to make H1 a rare instead of an uncommong (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/play-design/m-files-hour-devastation-part-2-2017-07-21), so I wonder what pre-number shift H1 looked like. Probably no Cycling and a smaller casting cost and P/T.
This is what designing for Standard without Modern in mind does. Even if Wotc did consider Modern, they would have probably missed that Burning Inquiry can be a REAL card.
*I actually foresee Wizards actually changing this planning in the future, probably after a broken Human is printed or a broken Artifact that goes in Affinity (something better than Bomat Courier).
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Wizards balances cards around standard and limited formats with eternal as a distant after thought. While Hollow One is a powerful card with cards like Faithless Looting, Burning Inquiry, and Street Wraith that does not make it a terribly designed card. I would say it is a very well designed card in that it enables and is enabled by cycling matters decks even though it never took off in standard. Saying that Hollow One is a terrible design because of Modern is like saying Brainstorm is a terrible design because of how it interacts with fetchlands.
Play Design is already changing this. Tom Ross is on the team almost entirely as a non-rotating format specialist. Beyond him, the rest of the team will also start checking for non-rotating breakage. DOM was the first set with Play Design input, but it will take until "Archery" until Play Design is with a set from start to finish.
I thought the PD team (or at least "big changes") were happening as long ago as Hour of Devastation?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
kind of. they announced this stuff around the release of Hour of Devastation, didn't they...?
however, that set was mostly wrapped up in the can up to a couple of years before its release.
WotC has been on record a few times saying they work up to about four years ahead of the current releases. That's one of the primary reasons for misjudgments in terms of what's "supposed to be good" in standard based on their Future Future League play.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/164603972978/having-read-todays-play-design-article-is-hour
I know you are talking about Design Philosophies in general, but just wanted to throw this out there as something about Play Design specifically.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/metamorphosis-2-0-2017-06-12
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)They started commenting on sets back then, but they didn't have input:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/vision-design-set-design-and-play-design-2017-10-23
"The first set to have Play Design input is Dominaria, the first set to have a full Play Design focus (I'll explain the schedule below) is codenamed Milk, and the first set to have Play Design input in vision is Archery."
Unrelated note, SFM is increasingly looking like a really stupid ban at this point. It looked stupid before this GP, it continues to look stupid after.
It's definitely not the only stupid looking ban, to be honest. Here's hoping more cards come off, especially since Jace is doing relatively little and BBE is just "pretty good" compared to the kinds of things happening at the top of the format.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Honestly, if this top end sticks around I'm taking another break.
Spirits
For sure I'm not playing in a meta that would look like this. This is less tilting than Eldrazi, but it's not what I would want to sit and burn an afternoon on.
Spirits
Humans, Hollow One, Affinity, and...Bogles.
Nope.
Spirits
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gphar18/9-16-decklists-2018-04-15
Blue Moon, Mardu, and Jund all there. Taking Turns too, if you're looking for blue. Blue Moon also missed T8 on breakers by .04. So looking past the T8 we see a much better picture of real diversity than we saw in the T8. Notably, it's also the same picture of diversity the more measured commentators predicted.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Certainly that wasnt the point of releasing just the top 16... lol
UB Turns again. Thats twice its performed.
Spirits
Yeah... I was really hoping for top 32, or God forbid, 64. Was going to calculate conversion rates... Had the spreadsheet ready to go and everything. Just showing top 16 (when other GPs have released much more) is highly dubious. Hopefully it is just a delay and more lists are to come...?
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Again, I have no idea why you are being so abrasive in these posts. I fully admitted the T8 was horrible. Beyond the T8, things looked better. We had Jund, Mardu, and Blue Moon for interactive representatives, with Blue Moon barely missing the T8 itself. Notably, this fits the prediction I made before the event:
We have two viable blue decks in this T16 (Blue Moon, Turns). We have one control deck (Blue Moon). We have two midrange decks (Jund, Mardu). We have big mana (Titanshift, Amulet Titan), we have combo (Eggs, Living End), we have aggro (basically everything else). Aggro is admittedly overrepresented, especially in the T8, but if that T16 had been even in just a slightly different order things would have looked much better. And again, I fully admit the T8 looks bad. But my initial prediction extended into the T16 for a reason; breakers really matter in painting a T8 picture but don't matter in determining deck viability.
From a conversion perspective, neither Humans nor H1 were anything special. Humans sent 1 of 27 pilots to the T16 for a conversion rate of 4% and under-representing itself relative to Day 2 (7.8% Day 2 vs. 6.25% T16). H1 was a bit better for representation (9.5% Day 2 vs. 12% T16), but not great for conversion either (9%). There's nothing apocalyptic about this. There are some annoying finishes such as Bogles and another Blue Moon player losing to Burn in Round 15 to miss the T8, but it's really not horrible. By far the worst part about the T16/T8 is that these strategies are at Modern's top-tier and stuff like SFM is still banned. That's just laughable.
That happened to me as well, how odd.
Anyhow, anything outside the top 8 looks fine, not spectacular, just fine. The only thing entertaining about the top 8 results is the inevitable Modern Nexus article that this is all somehow Bloodbraid Elf's fault.