that fair but i would take into account the people playing it as well which isnt many.
yep, for sure. This is the same song and dance I heard about Lantern when it was created, and KCI before Matt proved it broken though. If its that good, he should prove it, or others should pick it up and do so.
Can we just get rid of Limited? Do we really need both Limited and Standard to sell packs?
I don't think getting rid of Limited is the answer. I think everyone wins if 'designed for Limited' stops being the primary goal. I know it has always been a consideration and that's great, but it's become very clear in the last few years that it is their primary focus, with cards for Standard and beyond being relative afterthoughts.
I think they should design good powerful interesting sets, and let Limited work itself out. I don't draft much, I am not good at it, but the most fun I have ever had in Limited is sets where the cards are actually good. Back when I played Standard, we had Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade, the Titans. It wasn't overpowered for Standard because that wasn't such a laughably low bar. Limited was a ton of fun because you weren't picking crap cards and trying to cobble together something that looked like a deck. A lot of the cards I drafted back then have seen play in my other decks, not just rares and mythics either. I just think that if they designed for maybe Block Constructed first instead of Limited, with the idea that a good number of drafted cards would see SOME use after the draft, everyone would win.
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why would they design for a format that isnt competitive (block constructed). we saw when it was around how difficult it could be to balance.
also, its pretty clear they arent designing solely for limited. 'powerful' is a relative term, and designing for one thing and just hoping the others 'just work out' seems like a poor strategy when they have the space to do more.
there has been a noticeable shift in design anyways. we are seeing more power at lower rarities, better answer cards, and both standard and limited have had positive reception - dominaria is considered one of the better draft sets in the history of the game and the GRN rotation got standard out of its funk. so im not sure where your criticism is aimed.
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I like this. I recently told a friend who was new to magic that the black or silver set symbol means the card is supposed to be worthless after the pack is opened. It's sort of a sad state of affairs and pretty crushing to new players to realize that even though they just got 10 packs worth of cards (a fat pack) only 6.6% are worth anything to anyone.
Would be nice to see an "other than limited" approach to design like block constructed.
According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
Yeah thats weird to me. I get it, GY, and Cheap permanents, but...you cast this Turn 3, its too late, and its not just cheap stuff (Red creatures, Death's Shadow??) its the CHEATED OUT stuff.
Cool that they think of designing for Modern, but this just doesnt get there, I dont think.
why would they design for a format that isnt competitive (block constructed). we saw when it was around how difficult it could be to balance.
also, its pretty clear they arent designing solely for limited. 'powerful' is a relative term, and designing for one thing and just hoping the others 'just work out' seems like a poor strategy when they have the space to do more.
there has been a noticeable shift in design anyways. we are seeing more power at lower rarities, better answer cards, and both standard and limited have had positive reception - dominaria is considered one of the better draft sets in the history of the game and the GRN rotation got standard out of its funk. so im not sure where your criticism is aimed.
They could make it competitive, it would literally take one announcement to do so. And it doesn't have to be Block, that was just spitballing. Design for Modern could lead to power creep a bit too fast, it was just the next step up from what they do now. Extended might be more likely. We are seeing more power at lower rarity since Kaladesh, and that's great, but it's still only a couple cards a block. I have no idea who was a huge fan of Dominaria limited, I thought it was incredibly boring.
Saying that Standard is in a better place than it has been in since before BFZ is not saying much, that is a very low bar, like 'better than Dragons Maze'. I mean....sure?
I did not say solely for limited, I said primarily for limited. My entire point was that if they drop 'too strong for Standard' and go to 'too strong' as the bar, and quit warping the sets around 'balanced for Limited' then the quality of Standard and Limited will go up. Triple Innistrad is considered maybe THE best limited format of all time. Limited was a consideration, but you can see looking at it that it was not designed as a draft set first, with chase cards for Standard put in after they figured out Limited. It's strong, with strong cards, creative designs, and some real chances taken in the name of 'this could be really cool after the draft'.
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I think you're seriously underestimating the deck. I'd say that out of the currently 30-ish most played decks in modern it only has 3 bad matchups. Jeskai and UW primarily due to cryptic circumventing the welding jars/needles, and burn which is actually closer than expected.
It doesn't surprise me that many former kci players are turning to the deck as the next best mox opal deck, it's hard to master but has a very high ceiling.
from what ive seen of the deck its worst matchup is itself. not as bad as something like boggles or grishoalbrand, but its draws are polarized enough that the average suffers for it.
Not really. Bogles and Grishoalbrand are actually pretty bad against Whir Prison, IMO; they're just too flimsy and linear. The worst match up is by far BGx midrange. Abrupt Decay beats Chalice and Bridge (with no Jar, obviously), targeted discard is extremely effective against the deck before it gets an Academy Ruins online, and Goyf/Tasigur/Flayer/Ooze are fantastic threats against Whir Prison if they can't protect their Bridges, which they rarely can if they've been slowed enough. Grixis Death's Shadow is a close second, since they have the same discard as GBx but get countermagic to shut off your Whirs and kill you much faster. Tron is a pain in the neck too since they can topdeck Karn, Ostone, or Ugin to wipe your board. UW control is also great against Whir prison thanks to cards like Negate, Detention Sphere, and Stony Silence out of the sideboard.
I would say that Whir prison is well positioned against many of the decks that are currently popular (Izzet Phoenix and Dredge in particular) and it uses many of the same cards as the KCI decks.
ah yeah, nothing to disagree with. im an idiot and for some reason i thought you guys were talking about hardened scales affinity. my reply was aimed at hardened scales seeming inconsistent much like bogles or grishoalbrand.
as for URx whir decks im not worried about them getting out of hand, decks like BGx, UW control, and tron can handle them fairly easily. even with a bunch of needle effects pushing through countermagic and the walkers threatening to ultimate is typically too much to handle, and tron just...does tron things. tron destroys lantern, and i dont see anything that would change that dichotomy in URx whir.
On paper Tron might look like a poor matchup but it ultimately has a really hard time fighting through Damping Sphere, the multiple Sorcerous Spyglass and the Tec Edge+Crucible lock. Lantern tries to lock the player out in a different manner, one which is much harder to achieve against Tron due to the sheer amount of relevant threats and Chromatic Sphere.
The same goes for BGx, with Whir serving as copies 5-8 of any needed artifact along with the 4 Ancient Stirrings the deck is redundant enough to consistently land a Bridge with one of the 4 Welding Jars through disruption. Then you only need to find a needle effect for Liliana and the game will eventually drag out until you´ve found enough Jar/Bridges that the few Decay effects won´t suffice. Post SB the 4 Spellskite make it even harder to get a Bridge off the table and Whir also brings in additional needle effects + Sai.
The deck is by no means easy to play and a big factor, at least in paper, is actually the clock. If you´re playing against someone who, either out of stubbornness or inexperience refuses to concede, then the games can often go to time since actually winning the game is a very tedious process, especially game 1.
I´ve played with and against Whir a good amount recently and I believe the deck is a serious contender to be the next best deck in modern. With KCI gone which was one of the worst matchups, and many KCI players gravitating towards picking the deck up themselves I reckon we´re going to see alot more of it in the near future.
Not really. KCI was actually a pretty decent match up in my experience. Also, targeted discard is a great answer to slow down Whir Prison, since the earliest Prison can cast it is turn 2 (outside of a double Mox opening). BGx can easily run 8 efficient Targeted discard spells and 12 efficient "Destroy target Permanent" effects in their 75. Turn 1 targeted discard will hit Whir. Every time. Post board, Abzan in particular is noteworthy as a nightmarish match up because they get spells like Stony Silence and Rest in Peace which do a lot to make Prison very, very vulnerable to BGx's removal.
The main issue with Tron is that you aren't able to shut them off fast enough that the speed bump of Damping Sphere is enough. They can actually afford to wait 7-8 turns to cast Karn or Ugin against Whir Prison. You need at least 3 Pithing Needle effects to shut off their relevent removal, Damping Sphere, at least 1 Bridge, and either Academy Ruins + Spellbomb or Crucible + Rivulet. This is game 1, before they board in Bombs, Needles/Spyglasses, and Relics (if they forgot them in their 60 for some reason).
Don't get me wrong- Whir prison is a fantastic deck, that's well positioned in the meta and quite resilient to many forms of hate... but it is far from unanswerable. It's just really good against decks that trade away resiliency or interactivity for speed. Specifically, decks like Bogles, Grishoalbrand, Dredge, Living End, Izzet Phoenix, and similar strategies. If a deck is looking to go long though, it's usually a pretty bad match up.
They could make it competitive, it would literally take one announcement to do so. And it doesn't have to be Block, that was just spitballing. Design for Modern could lead to power creep a bit too fast, it was just the next step up from what they do now. Extended might be more likely. We are seeing more power at lower rarity since Kaladesh, and that's great, but it's still only a couple cards a block. I have no idea who was a huge fan of Dominaria limited, I thought it was incredibly boring.
Saying that Standard is in a better place than it has been in since before BFZ is not saying much, that is a very low bar, like 'better than Dragons Maze'. I mean....sure?
I did not say solely for limited, I said primarily for limited. My entire point was that if they drop 'too strong for Standard' and go to 'too strong' as the bar, and quit warping the sets around 'balanced for Limited' then the quality of Standard and Limited will go up. Triple Innistrad is considered maybe THE best limited format of all time. Limited was a consideration, but you can see looking at it that it was not designed as a draft set first, with chase cards for Standard put in after they figured out Limited. It's strong, with strong cards, creative designs, and some real chances taken in the name of 'this could be really cool after the draft'.
sure they could make block constructed a thing again, but they wont because its a garbage idea. the card pool is too small to balance, especially now without the 2 big sets + 1 small set structure. regardless designing an entire set primarily around a constructed format is a non-starter. as i said before, power is relative, and the 'good' and 'powerful' cards rise to the top of a pile of other cards within the same set or format. in other words look towards the conventional magic wisdom: 'you need bad cards for good cards to exist'.
alright you thought DOM limited was boring, but the majority of comments ive personally seen claim otherwise. neither of us have any data to support, so we will have to agree to disagree. the same goes for standard, you may say that poop with glitter on top is still poop but i thought the GRN format going on the last few months was pretty good relative to other standard seasons in the last decade or so. its not like arena took off and exceeded expectations merely because of the platforms functionality, the gameplay of a good standard format was a part of that.
lastly, i agree innistrad was an amazing block (notably a garbage constructed format that needed lingering souls banned), however i think nostalgia is distorting your perspective. 'it wasnt designed around limited' (to the same extent): says who? literally 90% of the cards were draft chaff just like every other and saw/see zero constructed play. constructed at the time wasnt all roses and sunshine either. cards like delver and snapcaster with mana leak became oppressive enough that wizards felt the need to print cavern of souls, which is a quite stupid design. how do you think cards become 'mistakes'? its because they do something detrimental to gameplay.
even still im not quite sure what you are asking for because of the ambiguity. you acknowledged the shift in their design over the last 6-12 months. beyond that it just sounds like 'i want magic to be like it was back then'; hence the comment about nostalgia. really go back and look at pretty much any standard or limited environment in the last 10-15 years. when they were current, there are tons of complaints; yet a couple years later they are looked at fondly. how sure are you that this is not just another instance of that?
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According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
Yeah thats weird to me. I get it, GY, and Cheap permanents, but...you cast this Turn 3, its too late, and its not just cheap stuff (Red creatures, Death's Shadow??) its the CHEATED OUT stuff.
Cool that they think of designing for Modern, but this just doesnt get there, I dont think.
She's a little too slow against the competitive gy strategies.
They're really careful with the - ability, allowing it to exile only cmc 1 or less. A sideboard card at best.
According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
These are the kinds of statements from Wizards that continually show they know absolutely nothing about Moddern. And that their ideas about Modern are driven 100% from data figures, analyzed by people with a loose, surface-level understanding of a deeply complex ecosystem.
Cards that are good in Modern are almost exclusively two things: excessively pushed or design accidents. Statements like these continue to show that's true.
WOTC incompetence towards Modern gets another example to point to.
They designed a card for modern and erred too much on the side of caution for it to make a break through. Given the huge card pool, variety of decks, and speed of the format it's not exactly a simple task to design a card that fits into modern without breaking it or standard. Not every card has to be a slam dunk.
Yeah thats weird to me. I get it, GY, and Cheap permanents, but...you cast this Turn 3, its too late, and its not just cheap stuff (Red creatures, Death's Shadow??) its the CHEATED OUT stuff.
Cool that they think of designing for Modern, but this just doesnt get there, I dont think.
Damping Sphere being good, Alpine Moon less so, and Amulet of Safekeeping and Infernal Reckoning even less than that.
I mean again, cool they are thinking about it, its still a bit of a swing and a miss.
I think the idea that Kaya would be for Modern says they fundamentally misunderstand the way their 'turn 4 format' ideals work. Answers to faster weird stuff needs to come at 2 cmc or lower, not 3-4 cmc, especially if you are on the draw, for it to be worth playing in many cases. I'm worried about how long it will take WotC to actually figure this out.
Answers don't have to be that low of cmc of course, Kolaghan's Command and Cryptic Command prove this, but they tend to play a different sort of role, more of creating a large swing in game state after the most dangerous time in many games when the faster answers are needed, and tend to need to be powerful 2 for 1 type effects with plenty of flexibility, and I don't think WotC has quite figured that kind of thing out, and is still happening upon the things that work and make it to modern at least partially by accident when they do so.
I think the idea that Kaya would be for Modern says they fundamentally misunderstand the way their 'turn 4 format' ideals work. Answers to faster weird stuff needs to come at 2 cmc or lower, not 3-4 cmc, especially if you are on the draw, for it to be worth playing in many cases. I'm worried about how long it will take WotC to actually figure this out.
Answers don't have to be that low of cmc of course, Kolaghan's Command and Cryptic Command prove this, but they tend to play a different sort of role, more of creating a large swing in game state after the most dangerous time in many games when the faster answers are needed, and tend to need to be powerful 2 for 1 type effects with plenty of flexibility, and I don't think WotC has quite figured that kind of thing out, and is still happening upon the things that work and make it to modern at least partially by accident when they do so.
To be honest, I think she would have more relevancy if she hit things that were 2 CMC or less but that seems almost *too* powerful (at 3 CMC anyway). In any case, I see what they tried to do with her. And, no matter how off the mark they were, the attempt is still commendable. It at least shows that they do think about Modern. Their other attempts have been just as hit or miss and idSurge listed out a couple that were geared towards Modern with varying degrees of success.
I think a lot of this comes about from the Play Design team who effectively just got into full swing with Dominaria (I think) so I would expect more things like this and their misses such as Kaya and Infernal Reckoning should start showing them what the answers need to look like and moving them in the right direction.
The big thing is likely trying to determine what can be done for Modern while simultaneously not messing up Standard. In the recent past, Revolt seems to have been the best thing for that so maybe they will revisit that at some point and be a little more open with some of their designs in that space in order to affect Modern.
i mean i get it. if play design is trying to see what works then its better to undershoot rather than overshoot.
whats galling about kaya though is that it isnt some uncommon or fringe bulk rare upshifted for limited considerations. its a mythic planeswalker, and a major story figure no less.
its not some heinous mistake or anything, and i wouldnt go so far as to say its full blown incompetence. if history is anything to go by both the community and wizards have been notoriously bad at card evaluation, especially for non-standard non-limited formats. this speaks to the complexity and depth of the game more than anything else. that said, if you are going to use a BW mythic PW slot for a non-rotating hate piece, then make it a freaking real hate piece.
its disappointing because its one more instance of wizards taking the conservative line. you can see their intentions with the various cards printed over the last year, but they still arent grasping that course correcting modern is going to take more than just nudges. answer cards, disruption, and hate needs to be less narrow, have more cross matchup applications, and in some cases should be generically powerful enough to be main-deckable. on top of this the way sets/cards are released every few months, every 'not quite there' translates to a serious time gap before modern players can expect to actually experience the change from any help wizards is looking to give.
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Kaya a 2 cmc planeswalker? I fear the coming of Tybalt 2.0 - will be near unplayable, because they will be afraid 2 cmc walkers will be abused if given decent abilities.
According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
These are the kinds of statements from Wizards that continually show they know absolutely nothing about Moddern. And that their ideas about Modern are driven 100% from data figures, analyzed by people with a loose, surface-level understanding of a deeply complex ecosystem.
Cards that are good in Modern are almost exclusively two things: excessively pushed or design accidents. Statements like these continue to show that's true.
WOTC incompetence towards Modern gets another example to point to.
Chill. A card can be designed for modern without being an immediate format staple. Leaning a card generally in the direction of doing things that modern does is enough for a card to be described as 'designed for modern' and shouldn't be cause to draw disdain and insults from the community.
Remember. Modern is a card pool. Modern isn't necessarily happening at a GP 100% of the time. Cards like these can exist in the ecosystem and provide choices without being a slam-dunk and that's totally fine.
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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
According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
These are the kinds of statements from Wizards that continually show they know absolutely nothing about Moddern. And that their ideas about Modern are driven 100% from data figures, analyzed by people with a loose, surface-level understanding of a deeply complex ecosystem.
Cards that are good in Modern are almost exclusively two things: excessively pushed or design accidents. Statements like these continue to show that's true.
WOTC incompetence towards Modern gets another example to point to.
I mean, please, go ahead to become a card designer. At this point, your level of aggressiveness towards the design team is completely unreasonable.
You are claiming that Wizard's has no idea about how to handle modern. However Modern has been great for a while not (even though you don't agree), and in the last B&R decisions have actually been spot on (e.g. KCI or Probe bans). Are they always correct? No, they are not, none is. But they are also not completely incompetent as you are portraying them to be.
The fact that Kaya was designed with modern IN MIND, doesn't necessarily imply that it will also be a GREAT card. They are exploring possibilities and printing cards. Balancing 280 card sets is pretty hard and you don't want to go overboard with anything just to make something viable in one format. Rending Volley was designed with modern in mind but in the end, it was not enough to do anything. Even Fatal Push was probably designed WITH fetchland synergy in mind. There is no reason to believe otherwise.
You are claiming incompetence because a card didn't really meet the criteria for the format, but you are not presenting anything. You are just bashing. You are also not recognizing other cards as good. Several threads ago people had posted cards from recent sets that have entered modern and they were A LOT! And definitely not always extremely pushed or design accidents.
Mausoleum wanderer for example is a great card that is neither pushed nor a design accident, yet it is a core part of one of the best decks. The same goes for Reflector Mage, a 3 mana 2/3 which, at face value people would say would probably be completely unplayable in modern, and yet it has made a great splash. Still the card is not pushed nor design accident. Kolaghan's Command and Collective Brutality are also similar examples.
Your claim stands to absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it shows that you are simply bashing for the sake of bashing because at this point, only Twin unban will make you happy.
According to the M Files today, Kaya was designed for Modern. No idea what they were thinking on that one.
These are the kinds of statements from Wizards that continually show they know absolutely nothing about Moddern. And that their ideas about Modern are driven 100% from data figures, analyzed by people with a loose, surface-level understanding of a deeply complex ecosystem.
Cards that are good in Modern are almost exclusively two things: excessively pushed or design accidents. Statements like these continue to show that's true.
WOTC incompetence towards Modern gets another example to point to.
Chill. A card can be designed for modern without being an immediate format staple. Leaning a card generally in the direction of doing things that modern does is enough for a card to be described as 'designed for modern' and shouldn't be cause to draw disdain and insults from the community.
Remember. Modern is a card pool. Modern isn't necessarily happening at a GP 100% of the time. Cards like these can exist in the ecosystem and provide choices without being a slam-dunk and that's totally fine.
Hey, I'm just calling out the team that thought Sword of the Meek was going to break Lantern, that Jace was too powerful for Modern, that thought there was a wealth of blue decks being suppressed by Twin, and continue to think Stoneforge is too strong for Modern, among many other statements and actions. The things they "design for Modern" are designed for a format they fundamentally do not understand, and demonstrate their misunderstanding time and time again. When they can show that they actually understand the nuances of the format, and are not simply pulling MTGO/GP data and saying "well that's that!" I will continue to remind everyone how little they know about Modern.
Hey, I'm just calling out the team that thought Sword of the Meek was going to break Lantern, that Jace was too powerful for Modern, that thought there was a wealth of blue decks being suppressed by Twin, and continue to think Stoneforge is too strong for Modern, among many other statements and actions. The things they "design for Modern" are designed for a format they fundamentally do not understand, and demonstrate their misunderstanding time and time again. When they can show that they actually understand the nuances of the format, and are not simply pulling MTGO/GP data and saying "well that's that!" I will continue to remind everyone how little they know about Modern.
I agree with you that Wizards has indeed made many mistakes on Modern throughout the years. I doubt there's that many people that can refute that.
But it is definitely true that there has been an increased number of Standard cards printed that have ported to Modern in the recent years. I think it's been a reasonable amount. If it's too much, people will complain. Modern will "rotate" much sooner, not to mention that Standard could possibly get messed up (yes I know there's been tons of that, but we have to look ahead). If there's too few cards, Modern will get STALE. I didn't think KCI needed to get banned, but it did. The format is still pretty good. Would it get better with some unbans? I believe so. But Wizards is going to do things at their pace, not someone else's. Maybe not even the vocal majority's...
My point is that we need to focus on the good. The format is pretty solid in some ways. Obviously it could get better, but someone told me that is a sign of a "good format." Basically what I'm saying is that we need to focus on the good more...while I personally focus on the bad, lol. (I need to focus on the good more.)
*Also I really don't know what I prefer more - new cards breaking Modern, we have fun, then it gets banned OR new cards affecting Modern a bit or in the Tier 2, but definitely NOT having no influence on Modern. That last one just sucks.
**And yes, I do think that affecting Modern could be done with unbans as well. I am very, very Pro Unban. I actually think it was a huge mistake for Wizards to start with a preconceived ban list. We now know that a few of those cards never belonged, while others are broken only in certain metagames.
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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)
this type of thread and what we are generally discussing lends itself towards negativity, emphasizing the flaws, and harsh criticisms. it isnt reddit or god forbid twitch chat status, but hyperbole and making mountains out of molehills has been ingrained into moderns personality or whatever you wanna call it. we are the 'middle child' format and drama suits us.
i mean lets be real here, modern players love *****ing about the format about as much as they love playing it.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Kaya a 2 cmc planeswalker? I fear the coming of Tybalt 2.0 - will be near unplayable, because they will be afraid 2 cmc walkers will be abused if given decent abilities.
No I mean if her -1 hit anything 2 CMC or less. Though her +1 is still pretty useless. I mean 2 Life gain if you hit a creature. Especially since this is an early game Walker so there might be nothing to exile when you drop her if you drop her on Turn 3. I mean I suppose her +1 is suppose to fight recursion but single target exiling aint the best way to be recursion decks. In terms of design I much prefer Sarkhan dragon focus (I want to see an Elf version). Whereas Dovin is around cause we wanted to shackle Teferi.
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yep, for sure. This is the same song and dance I heard about Lantern when it was created, and KCI before Matt proved it broken though. If its that good, he should prove it, or others should pick it up and do so.
Spirits
I don't think getting rid of Limited is the answer. I think everyone wins if 'designed for Limited' stops being the primary goal. I know it has always been a consideration and that's great, but it's become very clear in the last few years that it is their primary focus, with cards for Standard and beyond being relative afterthoughts.
I think they should design good powerful interesting sets, and let Limited work itself out. I don't draft much, I am not good at it, but the most fun I have ever had in Limited is sets where the cards are actually good. Back when I played Standard, we had Lightning Bolt and Doom Blade, the Titans. It wasn't overpowered for Standard because that wasn't such a laughably low bar. Limited was a ton of fun because you weren't picking crap cards and trying to cobble together something that looked like a deck. A lot of the cards I drafted back then have seen play in my other decks, not just rares and mythics either. I just think that if they designed for maybe Block Constructed first instead of Limited, with the idea that a good number of drafted cards would see SOME use after the draft, everyone would win.
also, its pretty clear they arent designing solely for limited. 'powerful' is a relative term, and designing for one thing and just hoping the others 'just work out' seems like a poor strategy when they have the space to do more.
there has been a noticeable shift in design anyways. we are seeing more power at lower rarities, better answer cards, and both standard and limited have had positive reception - dominaria is considered one of the better draft sets in the history of the game and the GRN rotation got standard out of its funk. so im not sure where your criticism is aimed.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Would be nice to see an "other than limited" approach to design like block constructed.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Yeah thats weird to me. I get it, GY, and Cheap permanents, but...you cast this Turn 3, its too late, and its not just cheap stuff (Red creatures, Death's Shadow??) its the CHEATED OUT stuff.
Cool that they think of designing for Modern, but this just doesnt get there, I dont think.
Spirits
They could make it competitive, it would literally take one announcement to do so. And it doesn't have to be Block, that was just spitballing. Design for Modern could lead to power creep a bit too fast, it was just the next step up from what they do now. Extended might be more likely. We are seeing more power at lower rarity since Kaladesh, and that's great, but it's still only a couple cards a block. I have no idea who was a huge fan of Dominaria limited, I thought it was incredibly boring.
Saying that Standard is in a better place than it has been in since before BFZ is not saying much, that is a very low bar, like 'better than Dragons Maze'. I mean....sure?
I did not say solely for limited, I said primarily for limited. My entire point was that if they drop 'too strong for Standard' and go to 'too strong' as the bar, and quit warping the sets around 'balanced for Limited' then the quality of Standard and Limited will go up. Triple Innistrad is considered maybe THE best limited format of all time. Limited was a consideration, but you can see looking at it that it was not designed as a draft set first, with chase cards for Standard put in after they figured out Limited. It's strong, with strong cards, creative designs, and some real chances taken in the name of 'this could be really cool after the draft'.
Not really. KCI was actually a pretty decent match up in my experience. Also, targeted discard is a great answer to slow down Whir Prison, since the earliest Prison can cast it is turn 2 (outside of a double Mox opening). BGx can easily run 8 efficient Targeted discard spells and 12 efficient "Destroy target Permanent" effects in their 75. Turn 1 targeted discard will hit Whir. Every time. Post board, Abzan in particular is noteworthy as a nightmarish match up because they get spells like Stony Silence and Rest in Peace which do a lot to make Prison very, very vulnerable to BGx's removal.
The main issue with Tron is that you aren't able to shut them off fast enough that the speed bump of Damping Sphere is enough. They can actually afford to wait 7-8 turns to cast Karn or Ugin against Whir Prison. You need at least 3 Pithing Needle effects to shut off their relevent removal, Damping Sphere, at least 1 Bridge, and either Academy Ruins + Spellbomb or Crucible + Rivulet. This is game 1, before they board in Bombs, Needles/Spyglasses, and Relics (if they forgot them in their 60 for some reason).
Don't get me wrong- Whir prison is a fantastic deck, that's well positioned in the meta and quite resilient to many forms of hate... but it is far from unanswerable. It's just really good against decks that trade away resiliency or interactivity for speed. Specifically, decks like Bogles, Grishoalbrand, Dredge, Living End, Izzet Phoenix, and similar strategies. If a deck is looking to go long though, it's usually a pretty bad match up.
sure they could make block constructed a thing again, but they wont because its a garbage idea. the card pool is too small to balance, especially now without the 2 big sets + 1 small set structure. regardless designing an entire set primarily around a constructed format is a non-starter. as i said before, power is relative, and the 'good' and 'powerful' cards rise to the top of a pile of other cards within the same set or format. in other words look towards the conventional magic wisdom: 'you need bad cards for good cards to exist'.
alright you thought DOM limited was boring, but the majority of comments ive personally seen claim otherwise. neither of us have any data to support, so we will have to agree to disagree. the same goes for standard, you may say that poop with glitter on top is still poop but i thought the GRN format going on the last few months was pretty good relative to other standard seasons in the last decade or so. its not like arena took off and exceeded expectations merely because of the platforms functionality, the gameplay of a good standard format was a part of that.
lastly, i agree innistrad was an amazing block (notably a garbage constructed format that needed lingering souls banned), however i think nostalgia is distorting your perspective. 'it wasnt designed around limited' (to the same extent): says who? literally 90% of the cards were draft chaff just like every other and saw/see zero constructed play. constructed at the time wasnt all roses and sunshine either. cards like delver and snapcaster with mana leak became oppressive enough that wizards felt the need to print cavern of souls, which is a quite stupid design. how do you think cards become 'mistakes'? its because they do something detrimental to gameplay.
even still im not quite sure what you are asking for because of the ambiguity. you acknowledged the shift in their design over the last 6-12 months. beyond that it just sounds like 'i want magic to be like it was back then'; hence the comment about nostalgia. really go back and look at pretty much any standard or limited environment in the last 10-15 years. when they were current, there are tons of complaints; yet a couple years later they are looked at fondly. how sure are you that this is not just another instance of that?
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)She's a little too slow against the competitive gy strategies.
They're really careful with the - ability, allowing it to exile only cmc 1 or less. A sideboard card at best.
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These are the kinds of statements from Wizards that continually show they know absolutely nothing about Moddern. And that their ideas about Modern are driven 100% from data figures, analyzed by people with a loose, surface-level understanding of a deeply complex ecosystem.
Cards that are good in Modern are almost exclusively two things: excessively pushed or design accidents. Statements like these continue to show that's true.
WOTC incompetence towards Modern gets another example to point to.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Spirits
Damping Sphere being good, Alpine Moon less so, and Amulet of Safekeeping and Infernal Reckoning even less than that.
I mean again, cool they are thinking about it, its still a bit of a swing and a miss.
Spirits
Answers don't have to be that low of cmc of course, Kolaghan's Command and Cryptic Command prove this, but they tend to play a different sort of role, more of creating a large swing in game state after the most dangerous time in many games when the faster answers are needed, and tend to need to be powerful 2 for 1 type effects with plenty of flexibility, and I don't think WotC has quite figured that kind of thing out, and is still happening upon the things that work and make it to modern at least partially by accident when they do so.
I think a lot of this comes about from the Play Design team who effectively just got into full swing with Dominaria (I think) so I would expect more things like this and their misses such as Kaya and Infernal Reckoning should start showing them what the answers need to look like and moving them in the right direction.
The big thing is likely trying to determine what can be done for Modern while simultaneously not messing up Standard. In the recent past, Revolt seems to have been the best thing for that so maybe they will revisit that at some point and be a little more open with some of their designs in that space in order to affect Modern.
whats galling about kaya though is that it isnt some uncommon or fringe bulk rare upshifted for limited considerations. its a mythic planeswalker, and a major story figure no less.
its not some heinous mistake or anything, and i wouldnt go so far as to say its full blown incompetence. if history is anything to go by both the community and wizards have been notoriously bad at card evaluation, especially for non-standard non-limited formats. this speaks to the complexity and depth of the game more than anything else. that said, if you are going to use a BW mythic PW slot for a non-rotating hate piece, then make it a freaking real hate piece.
its disappointing because its one more instance of wizards taking the conservative line. you can see their intentions with the various cards printed over the last year, but they still arent grasping that course correcting modern is going to take more than just nudges. answer cards, disruption, and hate needs to be less narrow, have more cross matchup applications, and in some cases should be generically powerful enough to be main-deckable. on top of this the way sets/cards are released every few months, every 'not quite there' translates to a serious time gap before modern players can expect to actually experience the change from any help wizards is looking to give.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Kaya a 2 cmc planeswalker? I fear the coming of Tybalt 2.0 - will be near unplayable, because they will be afraid 2 cmc walkers will be abused if given decent abilities.
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Chill. A card can be designed for modern without being an immediate format staple. Leaning a card generally in the direction of doing things that modern does is enough for a card to be described as 'designed for modern' and shouldn't be cause to draw disdain and insults from the community.
Remember. Modern is a card pool. Modern isn't necessarily happening at a GP 100% of the time. Cards like these can exist in the ecosystem and provide choices without being a slam-dunk and that's totally fine.
You are claiming that Wizard's has no idea about how to handle modern. However Modern has been great for a while not (even though you don't agree), and in the last B&R decisions have actually been spot on (e.g. KCI or Probe bans). Are they always correct? No, they are not, none is. But they are also not completely incompetent as you are portraying them to be.
The fact that Kaya was designed with modern IN MIND, doesn't necessarily imply that it will also be a GREAT card. They are exploring possibilities and printing cards. Balancing 280 card sets is pretty hard and you don't want to go overboard with anything just to make something viable in one format. Rending Volley was designed with modern in mind but in the end, it was not enough to do anything. Even Fatal Push was probably designed WITH fetchland synergy in mind. There is no reason to believe otherwise.
You are claiming incompetence because a card didn't really meet the criteria for the format, but you are not presenting anything. You are just bashing. You are also not recognizing other cards as good. Several threads ago people had posted cards from recent sets that have entered modern and they were A LOT! And definitely not always extremely pushed or design accidents.
Mausoleum wanderer for example is a great card that is neither pushed nor a design accident, yet it is a core part of one of the best decks. The same goes for Reflector Mage, a 3 mana 2/3 which, at face value people would say would probably be completely unplayable in modern, and yet it has made a great splash. Still the card is not pushed nor design accident. Kolaghan's Command and Collective Brutality are also similar examples.
Your claim stands to absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it shows that you are simply bashing for the sake of bashing because at this point, only Twin unban will make you happy.
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)
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Hey, I'm just calling out the team that thought Sword of the Meek was going to break Lantern, that Jace was too powerful for Modern, that thought there was a wealth of blue decks being suppressed by Twin, and continue to think Stoneforge is too strong for Modern, among many other statements and actions. The things they "design for Modern" are designed for a format they fundamentally do not understand, and demonstrate their misunderstanding time and time again. When they can show that they actually understand the nuances of the format, and are not simply pulling MTGO/GP data and saying "well that's that!" I will continue to remind everyone how little they know about Modern.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
I agree with you that Wizards has indeed made many mistakes on Modern throughout the years. I doubt there's that many people that can refute that.
But it is definitely true that there has been an increased number of Standard cards printed that have ported to Modern in the recent years. I think it's been a reasonable amount. If it's too much, people will complain. Modern will "rotate" much sooner, not to mention that Standard could possibly get messed up (yes I know there's been tons of that, but we have to look ahead). If there's too few cards, Modern will get STALE. I didn't think KCI needed to get banned, but it did. The format is still pretty good. Would it get better with some unbans? I believe so. But Wizards is going to do things at their pace, not someone else's. Maybe not even the vocal majority's...
My point is that we need to focus on the good. The format is pretty solid in some ways. Obviously it could get better, but someone told me that is a sign of a "good format." Basically what I'm saying is that we need to focus on the good more...while I personally focus on the bad, lol. (I need to focus on the good more.)
*Also I really don't know what I prefer more - new cards breaking Modern, we have fun, then it gets banned OR new cards affecting Modern a bit or in the Tier 2, but definitely NOT having no influence on Modern. That last one just sucks.
**And yes, I do think that affecting Modern could be done with unbans as well. I am very, very Pro Unban. I actually think it was a huge mistake for Wizards to start with a preconceived ban list. We now know that a few of those cards never belonged, while others are broken only in certain metagames.
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 mean lets be real here, modern players love *****ing about the format about as much as they love playing it.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)No I mean if her -1 hit anything 2 CMC or less. Though her +1 is still pretty useless. I mean 2 Life gain if you hit a creature. Especially since this is an early game Walker so there might be nothing to exile when you drop her if you drop her on Turn 3. I mean I suppose her +1 is suppose to fight recursion but single target exiling aint the best way to be recursion decks. In terms of design I much prefer Sarkhan dragon focus (I want to see an Elf version). Whereas Dovin is around cause we wanted to shackle Teferi.