I'm a Vorthos player. I play the game but I consume mostly because I enjoy exploring the themes, characters and setting. The lack of these being just "skins" and the fact that they are not silver-border, and therefore optional, bothers me greatly. These factors, as well as the FOMO, limited distribution, and response to the problem by WotC is all just too much. I've been slowly buying less MtG in recent years and the release of this product will only make my consumption even less limited.
Fellow EDH players beware: if you play with these cards I will consider it my personal mission to knock you out *of the game, even if I have to go down in flames along with you. There shall be no Quarto.
"This product doesn't appeal to me, therefore I will bully anyone who enjoys it."
Thanks for succinctly summing up your side's entire argument.
A bit overboard there, Mystic, but its nice to know that there's at least one other adult in the room :/
Honestly I'm just going to buy some of these for the zombie tokens. They're legit the best part of the set and dollars to donuts they're the most expensive part when the dust settles. Probably going to give the characters away to my friends for a chuckle.
'A certain amount of overreaction' is a ridiculous understatement. Have you SEEN that petulant, churlish, melodramatic video put out by TCC that folks are pointing to and agreeing with?
The folks at WotC are good people. They want to make the game fun for everyone and nerds demonstrably LOVE when you mash up their favorite things, so of course they jumped at the chance to put two and two together. This was supposed to be a nice surprise for everyone who loves TWD or zombies, and they even made absolutely sure that the cards weren't anywhere near broken to keep the whiners from mewling, but no, we have to ***** all over their hard work for no legitimate reason. God forbid they try to make money as a business while doing cool things for us.
Honestly all of the screeching about this product is coming from the very worst parts of the community. The game is dead, WotC is evil, people who like these are wrong, yadda yadda ten-page hyperbole about how this is the worst thing to ever happen.
Have you been outside lately?
This isn't even the worst thing going on in Magic, let alone the world, and you're investing this much emotional energy into it? Literally my entire livelihood is tied to this game and I'm not upset about this, what's wrong with y'all? Let people like things.
Yeah he's pretty well known for having steaming hot bad takes and going off on half-cocked sky-is-falling rants, so I'm not surprised he has such a barely coherent reaction to this product. Funny stuff.
People screeching about these being mechanically exclusive need to chill the **** out. They're terrible. Let people play with their terrible fan cards in whatever format they're deemed to be legal in. They're not hurting you. If they accidentally make one that's good we can talk but until then relax.
This is honestly completely fine as long as the cards aren't powerful, and these definitely aren't. Given the power-level of recent buy-a-box exclusives as well as the obvious attempt to make sure these are bad, I don't think we have to worry about these black-border limited-availability cards any time soon.
The price point obviously sucks, but there are licensing fees to consider here.
I have a clearer picture now of the fact that our ideas of what qualifies as powerful are incredibly different. Good to know moving forward I guess. Now stop derailing lol.
Yeah I've got 25 years of experience with the game myself (including some bounty hunting back when ELO was a thing) not that time spent playing necessarily means anything at all (I know a guy who has been playing since Alpha and he's atrociously bad). My experience has been very different from yours, in that the stronger a deck is the less likely it is to have a big beefy dude or recurring value creature worth stealing with anything but the most efficient of Control Magics (read: Gilded Drake). I can't begin to fathom your point of view so I guess we'll agree to disagree. Back to the thread then?
Oh obviously meta-dependency is a thing, but I was thinking:
1) Steal-your-***** decks are only really playable in weaker metas where it will garner salt, otherwise they're just a joke. I made the assumption that OP is in the former given what he's trying to build, but I guess he could just be looking to make a joke deck. Care to chime in, Looshkin?
2) Expropriate is only really playable in metas where people choose time, everywhere else people eventually realize its bad and take it out. My statement about Expropriate was predicated on my assumption in point 1.
Either way, my point about group hug stands because hate for group hug is universal lol. You're essentially turning a 4-player game of EDH into a 3-player game of Planechase, and most people would rather gouge their eyes out than endure a game of kingmaker with an extra layer of kingmaker on top.
I'd definitely recommend against group hug, it is generally seen as a fairly obnoxious playstyle and when you add that to the fact that the average player becomes irrationally livid when you take their stuff you're going to get hated out of games extremely quickly. Taking someone else's cards is probably EDH cardinal sin no.1, above MLD even. Like, no joke, the only reason Expropriate is playable is the fact that people would rather give you an extra turn than one of their permanents so 90% of the time it reads 'Take 4 extra turns' for 1 less mana than Time Stretch.
If you're going to make an annoying deck you're either going to want to make it control-heavy to counteract all the hate, or build something innocuously durdley in order to shake off some heat.
Like... 'Oops, all Clones' Sakashima with a few Control Magic effects is probably fine, since copying isn't frowned upon and the deck generally won't be able to do anything better than catch up to the player in the lead.
Trim as you see fit based on price/availability, but try to keep accelerants under 3 cmc when possible as you want to be casting Kadena on turn 3. Signets, Talismans, and weaker Rampant Growth effects are fine swaps for expensive things like Three Visits. If your meta is wrath-heavy the green-producing mana dorks can be cut for more of the rocks/sorceries, but 1-mana dorks are extremely good so make the decision consciously. I'd never cut Birds/Deathrite under any circumstances.
If you need to sub lands, start with 'painlands' like Underground River followed by 'checklands' like Drowned Catacomb. Overall get as many taplands out of the deck as you can. Zagoth Triome gets a pass because it taps for all your colors and is fetchable.
Bolt was actually quite good against Cawblade. I say this as a Cawblade player at that time. It killed greedy Jaces brainstorming before fatesealing first, and hawks in combat after equipping so you couldn't re-equip. Probably the single best piece of interaction against the deck.
The problem with that format wasn't actually even THAT deck itself, it was actually Valakut which had a 0% winrate against Cawblade but a 100% winrate against the rest of the format, including decks that were really very favored against Cawblade. Players who just wouldn't let go of their big dumb Primeval Titans choked the variety out of standard.
Bringing us back around to the threats being too good argument lol.
STP do do da do do do
STP do do da do do do
STP do do da do do do
STP!
Counterspell do do da do do do
Counterspell do do da do do do
Counterspell do do da do do do
Counterspell!
Lightning Bolt do do da do do do
Lightning Bolt do do da do do do
Lightning Bolt do do da do do do
Lightning Bolt!
This can easily be solved if reliable answers from days of yore were reprinted with earnest. Remember M11 standard? Bolt was there. Were there any out-of-control decks at the time? Not that I can recall. At least they brought Disenchant back over Naturalize...
This is also a telling sign of the neglect WotC has put into the designing of standard-level sets and focusing too much on auxiliary products. But that's the result of having so many formats that require product support. They reap what they sow...
'buster
Prettymuch!
They got a lot of feedback from bad players that they hated having their stuff interacted with, and now all of the threats are completely out of control. Answers have never, EVER ruined a format, and should be leaned upon heavily to regulate them. People like playing with powerful threats, so let them! Just make sure there are efficient answers to those threats at all times.
Honestly, something like '1W Sorcery Exile target creature.' should probably just be evergreen. Not so efficient or flexible that it invalidates archetypes, but strong enough that you can't just jam a threat and expect it to stick around for the rest of the game. No-frills 4-cmc wraths should also be a constant, since the aggro decks nowadays are inarguably fast enough to warrant it.
I'll concede that budget is not an absolute indicator of power level, but all things equal building-skill-wise, a bigger budget will invariably lead to stronger decks. Aside from cards that are expensive because of collectibility (read: reserved list, underprinted, rare promos), expensive cards are expensive for a reason and that reason is that they're powerful.
Also, yeah, expensive is relative. Some people think buying physical cards at all is a racket. Some people play with Alpha duals.
"This product doesn't appeal to me, therefore I will bully anyone who enjoys it."
Thanks for succinctly summing up your side's entire argument.
Honestly I'm just going to buy some of these for the zombie tokens. They're legit the best part of the set and dollars to donuts they're the most expensive part when the dust settles. Probably going to give the characters away to my friends for a chuckle.
The folks at WotC are good people. They want to make the game fun for everyone and nerds demonstrably LOVE when you mash up their favorite things, so of course they jumped at the chance to put two and two together. This was supposed to be a nice surprise for everyone who loves TWD or zombies, and they even made absolutely sure that the cards weren't anywhere near broken to keep the whiners from mewling, but no, we have to ***** all over their hard work for no legitimate reason. God forbid they try to make money as a business while doing cool things for us.
<snip>
Have you been outside lately?
This isn't even the worst thing going on in Magic, let alone the world, and you're investing this much emotional energy into it? Literally my entire livelihood is tied to this game and I'm not upset about this, what's wrong with y'all? Let people like things.
The price point obviously sucks, but there are licensing fees to consider here.
1) Steal-your-***** decks are only really playable in weaker metas where it will garner salt, otherwise they're just a joke. I made the assumption that OP is in the former given what he's trying to build, but I guess he could just be looking to make a joke deck. Care to chime in, Looshkin?
2) Expropriate is only really playable in metas where people choose time, everywhere else people eventually realize its bad and take it out. My statement about Expropriate was predicated on my assumption in point 1.
Either way, my point about group hug stands because hate for group hug is universal lol. You're essentially turning a 4-player game of EDH into a 3-player game of Planechase, and most people would rather gouge their eyes out than endure a game of kingmaker with an extra layer of kingmaker on top.
If you're going to make an annoying deck you're either going to want to make it control-heavy to counteract all the hate, or build something innocuously durdley in order to shake off some heat.
Like... 'Oops, all Clones' Sakashima with a few Control Magic effects is probably fine, since copying isn't frowned upon and the deck generally won't be able to do anything better than catch up to the player in the lead.
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Flooded Strand
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Marsh Flats
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Prismatic Vista
1x Fabled Passage
1x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Watery Grave
1x Breeding Pool
1x Zagoth Triome
1x Command Tower
1x City of Brass
1x Mana Confluence
5x Swamp
5x Island
5x Forest
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Arcane Signet
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Bloom Tender
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Farseek
1x Nature's Lore
1x Three Visits
Trim as you see fit based on price/availability, but try to keep accelerants under 3 cmc when possible as you want to be casting Kadena on turn 3. Signets, Talismans, and weaker Rampant Growth effects are fine swaps for expensive things like Three Visits. If your meta is wrath-heavy the green-producing mana dorks can be cut for more of the rocks/sorceries, but 1-mana dorks are extremely good so make the decision consciously. I'd never cut Birds/Deathrite under any circumstances.
If you need to sub lands, start with 'painlands' like Underground River followed by 'checklands' like Drowned Catacomb. Overall get as many taplands out of the deck as you can. Zagoth Triome gets a pass because it taps for all your colors and is fetchable.
The problem with that format wasn't actually even THAT deck itself, it was actually Valakut which had a 0% winrate against Cawblade but a 100% winrate against the rest of the format, including decks that were really very favored against Cawblade. Players who just wouldn't let go of their big dumb Primeval Titans choked the variety out of standard.
Bringing us back around to the threats being too good argument lol.
Prettymuch!
They got a lot of feedback from bad players that they hated having their stuff interacted with, and now all of the threats are completely out of control. Answers have never, EVER ruined a format, and should be leaned upon heavily to regulate them. People like playing with powerful threats, so let them! Just make sure there are efficient answers to those threats at all times.
Honestly, something like '1W Sorcery Exile target creature.' should probably just be evergreen. Not so efficient or flexible that it invalidates archetypes, but strong enough that you can't just jam a threat and expect it to stick around for the rest of the game. No-frills 4-cmc wraths should also be a constant, since the aggro decks nowadays are inarguably fast enough to warrant it.
Also, yeah, expensive is relative. Some people think buying physical cards at all is a racket. Some people play with Alpha duals.