what's the threshold for cost and power/toughness efficiency these days for a vanilla creature with no relevant creature type to see play in standard?
1 mana-seems to be 2/2 in terms of vanilla
2 mana-even 3/3 isn't seeing play, i would say a 3/4 or 4/2 might see play as a vanilla
3 mana-4/7 or 5/5 or 6/3 vanilla playable?
4 mana-needs to be 8/5 or 7/7 or 6/9 to see play in my opinion as a vanilla
5 mana-uh....11/11 considering wolfr silverheart is equivalent of a 12/12 where 4 of that power has haste.
6 mana-I dunno....13/16 or 14/14 or 15/11 equivalent?
I feel if WOTC designed cards from a power/toughness threshold perspective, we can get more variety of cards with that same efficiency without people complaining overpowered. Like for 3 mana, i wouldn't complain about a 4/7, 5/5 or 6/3 and then can tack on special abilities for decrease in power/toughness equivalent, add first strike? reduce toughness by 2, we now have 4/5 first strike, 5/3 first strike, or 6/1 first strike for 3 mana. Want flying added on, reduce power by 1. Now we can have a 3/7 flying, 4/5 flying, or 5/3 flying for 3 mana or 3/4 first strike, flying, 4/3 first strike/flying, or 5/1 first strike, flying for 3 mana. and then you can compound with other abilities. I believe magic was designed from a math perspective and WOTC should design card balance from those perspective instead of giving "STRICTLY BETTER" cards like fauna shaman and runeclaw bear. This way as deck designers it would be more challenging to optimize efficiency and abilities and have no strictly overpowered cards.
I can't think of any cards that fit your p/t ratio's at the mana costs you have listed.
People will always complain about the cards that wizards prints, it's part of human nature.
That stats for hypothetical cards you've listed are incredibly powerful 4/5 first strike for 3? Really man? That's not how card design works. You cannot dish out power toughness and ability based on what feels right, you need to design with not only the playable formats in mind but also the limited environment.
Finally, strictly better is a unicorn, it rarely comes up. How often depends on how different the cards are but fauna shaman doesn't get powered up by Muraganda Petroglyphs.
I'd suggest you stop trying to fix what isn't broken, I don't hear the doomsayers you seem to.
Stormblood beserker is a 3/3 for 2 and he even has some evasion built, is pretty easy to achieve the condition unlike mayor and friends, unfortunately the supporting cast is pretty mediocre
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what's the threshold for cost and power/toughness efficiency these days for a vanilla creature with no relevant creature type to see play in standard?
1 mana-seems to be 2/2 in terms of vanilla
2 mana-even 3/3 isn't seeing play, i would say a 3/4 or 4/2 might see play as a vanilla
3 mana-4/7 or 5/5 or 6/3 vanilla playable?
4 mana-needs to be 8/5 or 7/7 or 6/9 to see play in my opinion as a vanilla
5 mana-uh....11/11 considering wolfr silverheart is equivalent of a 12/12 where 4 of that power has haste.
6 mana-I dunno....13/16 or 14/14 or 15/11 equivalent?
I feel if WOTC designed cards from a power/toughness threshold perspective, we can get more variety of cards with that same efficiency without people complaining overpowered. Like for 3 mana, i wouldn't complain about a 4/7, 5/5 or 6/3 and then can tack on special abilities for decrease in power/toughness equivalent, add first strike? reduce toughness by 2, we now have 4/5 first strike, 5/3 first strike, or 6/1 first strike for 3 mana. Want flying added on, reduce power by 1. Now we can have a 3/7 flying, 4/5 flying, or 5/3 flying for 3 mana or 3/4 first strike, flying, 4/3 first strike/flying, or 5/1 first strike, flying for 3 mana. and then you can compound with other abilities. I believe magic was designed from a math perspective and WOTC should design card balance from those perspective instead of giving "STRICTLY BETTER" cards like fauna shaman and runeclaw bear. This way as deck designers it would be more challenging to optimize efficiency and abilities and have no strictly overpowered cards.
There are so many things that the OP is not taking into account. Here are some of the following (I am sure I am missing more):
1. Mana intensity. Leatherback Baloth had his stats because he cost GGG. If he had cost 2G he would have been significantly better.
2. Other abilities. Stormblood Berserker is the card most people are looking at. However, if Stormblood is actually a 1/1 with evasion he isn't nearly as good, all for 2 mana. There are things that make cards situationally good.
3. The meta. WotC has wanted to be sure things are not going to get out of control overpowered. By definition, in standard, not all cards can be playable. Some will have to be better, some will have to be worse. Making a level playing field for everything does not solve any problems, rather, creates new ones.
4. Limited design space. Using a formula drastically reduces what WotC can do with cards, because they all have to reach the formula. I would say that Somberwald Sage is not underpowered, even though it is a 0/1. If we had used your formula, she might have to be a 3/4 for 3 mana with the ability to ramp into an apparently 15/11 or bigger.
5. Limited (the format). If your formula were true, this would break limited in half. No one would ever draft 1 or 2 drops, and when they dropped a 6 drop, in two turns they would win the game. That seems dumb.
6. Power level of other spells. Cards like Blightsteel Colossus would seems terrible with this formula, as would Dead Weight, Death Wind, Shock, and any other deal damage spell. Thus, everything would have to be increased in power by a ton, and then this would be Yu-Gi-Oh! with 8000 life total and turn 1 creatures that can deal 2000.
I really don't find stormblood beserker a 3/3 at least not a turn 2 3/3 maybe a turn 3 possibly turn 4 3/3.
However he does have some really nice evasion that works pretty well, against delver they might find it hard to deal with.
Yeah... 'cause Delver deals with creatures by blocking them
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There are so many things that the OP is not taking into account. Here are some of the following (I am sure I am missing more):
1. Mana intensity. Leatherback Baloth had his stats because he cost GGG. If he had cost 2G he would have been significantly better.
2. Other abilities. Stormblood Berserker is the card most people are looking at. However, if Stormblood is actually a 1/1 with evasion he isn't nearly as good, all for 2 mana. There are things that make cards situationally good.
3. The meta. WotC has wanted to be sure things are not going to get out of control overpowered. By definition, in standard, not all cards can be playable. Some will have to be better, some will have to be worse. Making a level playing field for everything does not solve any problems, rather, creates new ones.
4. Limited design space. Using a formula drastically reduces what WotC can do with cards, because they all have to reach the formula. I would say that Somberwald Sage is not underpowered, even though it is a 0/1. If we had used your formula, she might have to be a 3/4 for 3 mana with the ability to ramp into an apparently 15/11 or bigger.
5. Limited (the format). If your formula were true, this would break limited in half. No one would ever draft 1 or 2 drops, and when they dropped a 6 drop, in two turns they would win the game. That seems dumb.
6. Power level of other spells. Cards like Blightsteel Colossus would seems terrible with this formula, as would Dead Weight, Death Wind, Shock, and any other deal damage spell. Thus, everything would have to be increased in power by a ton, and then this would be Yu-Gi-Oh! with 8000 life total and turn 1 creatures that can deal 2000.
Those are just my thoughts.
Sorry, i think people misinterpretted my post. I was thinking what is required for an efficient creatures in standard these days. If you look at the creatures played, it pretty much follows the formula. strangleroot geist? that is essentially a 5/3 with haste for 2.5 mana (since double green is equivalent to 2.5 splashable mana) That 3/3 wolf from ravnica wasn't played that much either. If we look at vanilla creature played today, there are none...because the power/toughness isn't efficient enough to make up for the lack of special abilities. The closest one I can think of is wolfri silverheart since that is essentially a 12/12. tarmogoyf is a vanilla 4/5, 3/4, or 5/6 for 2 mana, that is why it's played, if he was 2/3 then he wouldn't be played.
I've wondered, as a thought experiment, at what casting cost a vanilla 1,000,000/1,000,000 would actually see play. I suspect it would be unplayable at 6 mana. At 5 it might be interesting.
I've wondered, as a thought experiment, at what casting cost a vanilla 1,000,000/1,000,000 would actually see play. I suspect it would be unplayable at 6 mana. At 5 it might be interesting.
Phage the Untouchable is basically exactly this card. She was not playable, generally. 7 mana is clearly too much. Having only 4 toughness was a liability too as well. Phase was more like infinite/4 in terms of stats i guess.
i think a true infinite/infinite without the weird drawbacks would be playable at 7 mana though.
Blightsteel Colossus is closer to 1000000/1000000 than phage, and he says play... with tinker...
edit: I guess trample and actual indestructibility (rather than just infinite toughness) actually make him better than a vanilla infinite/infinite creature though.
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1 mana-seems to be 2/2 in terms of vanilla
2 mana-even 3/3 isn't seeing play, i would say a 3/4 or 4/2 might see play as a vanilla
3 mana-4/7 or 5/5 or 6/3 vanilla playable?
4 mana-needs to be 8/5 or 7/7 or 6/9 to see play in my opinion as a vanilla
5 mana-uh....11/11 considering wolfr silverheart is equivalent of a 12/12 where 4 of that power has haste.
6 mana-I dunno....13/16 or 14/14 or 15/11 equivalent?
I feel if WOTC designed cards from a power/toughness threshold perspective, we can get more variety of cards with that same efficiency without people complaining overpowered. Like for 3 mana, i wouldn't complain about a 4/7, 5/5 or 6/3 and then can tack on special abilities for decrease in power/toughness equivalent, add first strike? reduce toughness by 2, we now have 4/5 first strike, 5/3 first strike, or 6/1 first strike for 3 mana. Want flying added on, reduce power by 1. Now we can have a 3/7 flying, 4/5 flying, or 5/3 flying for 3 mana or 3/4 first strike, flying, 4/3 first strike/flying, or 5/1 first strike, flying for 3 mana. and then you can compound with other abilities. I believe magic was designed from a math perspective and WOTC should design card balance from those perspective instead of giving "STRICTLY BETTER" cards like fauna shaman and runeclaw bear. This way as deck designers it would be more challenging to optimize efficiency and abilities and have no strictly overpowered cards.
People will always complain about the cards that wizards prints, it's part of human nature.
That stats for hypothetical cards you've listed are incredibly powerful 4/5 first strike for 3? Really man? That's not how card design works. You cannot dish out power toughness and ability based on what feels right, you need to design with not only the playable formats in mind but also the limited environment.
Finally, strictly better is a unicorn, it rarely comes up. How often depends on how different the cards are but fauna shaman doesn't get powered up by Muraganda Petroglyphs.
I'd suggest you stop trying to fix what isn't broken, I don't hear the doomsayers you seem to.
What card would that be?
Mayor of Avabruck = Howlpack Alpha
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Stormblood beserker is a 3/3 for 2 and he even has some evasion built, is pretty easy to achieve the condition unlike mayor and friends, unfortunately the supporting cast is pretty mediocre
Magic players have made it abundantly clear that their time is worth $0/hour in their opinion, so no sympathy there. -DR jeebus or something
There are so many things that the OP is not taking into account. Here are some of the following (I am sure I am missing more):
1. Mana intensity. Leatherback Baloth had his stats because he cost GGG. If he had cost 2G he would have been significantly better.
2. Other abilities. Stormblood Berserker is the card most people are looking at. However, if Stormblood is actually a 1/1 with evasion he isn't nearly as good, all for 2 mana. There are things that make cards situationally good.
3. The meta. WotC has wanted to be sure things are not going to get out of control overpowered. By definition, in standard, not all cards can be playable. Some will have to be better, some will have to be worse. Making a level playing field for everything does not solve any problems, rather, creates new ones.
4. Limited design space. Using a formula drastically reduces what WotC can do with cards, because they all have to reach the formula. I would say that Somberwald Sage is not underpowered, even though it is a 0/1. If we had used your formula, she might have to be a 3/4 for 3 mana with the ability to ramp into an apparently 15/11 or bigger.
5. Limited (the format). If your formula were true, this would break limited in half. No one would ever draft 1 or 2 drops, and when they dropped a 6 drop, in two turns they would win the game. That seems dumb.
6. Power level of other spells. Cards like Blightsteel Colossus would seems terrible with this formula, as would Dead Weight, Death Wind, Shock, and any other deal damage spell. Thus, everything would have to be increased in power by a ton, and then this would be Yu-Gi-Oh! with 8000 life total and turn 1 creatures that can deal 2000.
Those are just my thoughts.
MTGS egos at their finest.
Thoughts on proxies:
Yeah... 'cause Delver deals with creatures by blocking them
Sorry, i think people misinterpretted my post. I was thinking what is required for an efficient creatures in standard these days. If you look at the creatures played, it pretty much follows the formula. strangleroot geist? that is essentially a 5/3 with haste for 2.5 mana (since double green is equivalent to 2.5 splashable mana) That 3/3 wolf from ravnica wasn't played that much either. If we look at vanilla creature played today, there are none...because the power/toughness isn't efficient enough to make up for the lack of special abilities. The closest one I can think of is wolfri silverheart since that is essentially a 12/12. tarmogoyf is a vanilla 4/5, 3/4, or 5/6 for 2 mana, that is why it's played, if he was 2/3 then he wouldn't be played.
Big Thanks to Xeno for sig art <3.
Phage the Untouchable is basically exactly this card. She was not playable, generally. 7 mana is clearly too much. Having only 4 toughness was a liability too as well. Phase was more like infinite/4 in terms of stats i guess.
i think a true infinite/infinite without the weird drawbacks would be playable at 7 mana though.
Ah, but the first sentence of the card makes that point moot, unless you're going for the loss.
EDIT: Just reread it. You'd be referring to the second paragraph rather than the original stated card. My bad, reading comprehension is tech.
edit: I guess trample and actual indestructibility (rather than just infinite toughness) actually make him better than a vanilla infinite/infinite creature though.