MTG Salvation

Quote from Ree Wicker »

I think the more silly thing is writers seem to have it down pat the ability to build up a romance, but then when the characters are finally in a relationship, the writers tend to flounder about and are unsure where to take it from there.

Oh, absolutely. Easy to write a dramatic buildup because it has clear narrative arc to work with and significant emotional payoff. Stable relationships not so much.

Quote from Dom4419 »

Has it ever been confirmed that she is bisexual? I've been reading the stories since KTK and never got this confirmation. I understand why people might interpret it so as there were some passages that did make you wonder but nothing definitive. Her only obvious interest to me was Gideon. Is there any parts I missed or is it all speculation?

The Forsaken novel includes these two notable passages in it.

On Ravnica, in the wake of Gideon’s death and Bolas’, they had admitted to each other that they loved. But both of them knew deep down they were only speaking platonically.

That first bit referring to the previous novel.

Chandra had never been into girls. Her crushes — and she’d had her fair share — were mostly the brawny (and decidedly male) types like Gids. But there had always been something about Nissa Revane specifically, something the two of them shared in that great chemical mix — arcing between them like one of Ral Zarek’s lightning bolts — that had thrilled her. From the moment they first met.
Now everything’s different.
It was over. Before it had ever had a chance to begin. Maybe, maybe they had missed their moment.

So even if you haven't read the previous story content in which it is made pretty clear that there is definitely something going on with Chandra and Nissa, the story here reiterates that, before telling us it wasn't actually real though whoops.
WotC's apology says that "Chandra will love and be involved with many characters as her story unfolds—regardless of gender", which makes it sound like Chandra is going to be written as bi or pan going forward. I really hope that's what they mean, because it would be massively *****ty and massively stupid of them to say that while apologizing for queerbaiting otherwise, because then you're just layering queerbaiting on top of queerbaiting.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/189241573888/even-though-i-do-not-quite-a-few-people-view-the

So I'm glad Mark actually mentioned the words 'diverse' and 'inclusive'— unlike the official apology, which didn't use any such language— which does go some way toward acknowledging that this was a serious failing on meeting up to their goals with diversity and inclusivity.
I like that, despite being a game which has a significant, fairly vocal 'anti-SJW' crowd (as most games do), WotC has been bold enough to be very explicitly in favour of diversity and inclusion and has delivered on that front definitely with female characters, but this whole debacle does have the air of not wanting to push the envelope any further for fear of backlash, and I really hope that's not true.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

It’s not enough. De-canonize both novels immediately before this hemorrhages our faith In WOTC out any longer.

I agree, it's not enough. They had yet to even allude to other complaints with the story (like about Jace and Vraska) and for this one they put it as 'not meeting expectations' when it is was more of a case of straight-up queerbaiting and bury-your-gays erasure, which is a lot more than not meeting expectations. I hope there will be more to come on this and this was just an initial statement to make sure they get something out there. But, even still, they could have done better.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/chandra-and-forsaken-novel-2019-11-22
"Oops" — WotC

Quote from Pip_Maxwell »

Farewell elks, you will be missed.

Frankly, I think the architecture of Castle Garenbrig is looking a lot better now that one of those elks turned back into The Great Henge. It just wasn't the same without it.

Quote from the n00b king »

Quote from JaceBluesMaster »

I feel like this is confirmation that the higher ups at WotC had no faith in this set's ability to sell based off of a combination of its themes, setting and lack of a Jacetice League member, so they relied on the tried and true method of adding a couple pushed cards to the set to ensure it sold well. Play Design had been doing such a great job, this is really the only reason I can think of for why this set has experienced so many problems.

I mean everyone immediately knew Oko was going to be oppressively good. There is no way Play Design missed that, or let it slip through the cracks.

The more I read about play design and the more I think a lot of people's hate is super misguided. Play design DOES NOT design cards with the purpose of sales. That is NOT their role. I don't believe for a second that that's their main goal when designing cards.

Indeed. I'm ready to believe that a for-profit company did something bad for customers just for the sake of profit, but as they say, why assume malice for what is adequately explained by stupidity, or rather, in this case, simple human fallibility? It's a pretty bold claim to suggest WotC is so deliberately screwing with players, after all. That would be a rather risky move on their part. Just the fact that players are so annoyed with this situation to feel like this must be some deliberate slight against them tells you that it might not be ideal for WotC. Especially if someone leaked anything that substantiated that— can you imagine the fallout after that?

Quote from the n00b king »

Reading the last article about play design really helps puts things in perspective, in my opinion. What's been happening is that they have actually powered down standard quite a bit but have pushed a few cards really far in one direction. So that's why some of these seem so egregious. To be completely honest, it's better to push the envelop than to hold back. Sometimes things come together super well and other times, they don't. They have no way to predict what the meta will look like (consider that there's only like 20 of them vs the collective hive mind when it comes to play testing). Mistakes will slip through.

Exactly. I don't know why anyone would be surprised that this happens. It happens with like, every game. Most game communities seem to think the devs are incompetent at balancing, or have nefarious ulterior motives. You can criticize shortcomings without jumping to a conspiracy theory or claiming to be smarter than the entire dev team, guys. Trust me, it's possible. In fact, it would make your criticisms a lot more impactful.

Quote from the n00b king »

The problem, and i hope they scale this back, is 3 mana planeswalkers. These tend to be too strong when you have 1 drop acceleration available in standard. Hell even without acceleration, we all know how strong 3 mana walkers are (too efficient). If you bumped both Teferi and Oko up to 4 mana, they are nowhere near as oppressive (as your opponent will have had time to build a board).

Yes. They should have slightly more options for interactivity with planeswalkers too.

Quote from the n00b king »

Additionally, WotC has mentioned that they would be more aggressive to correct metagames with bannings. I'm totally on board with this. In fact, the truth is that in the past, they should have been more proactive to address bad metagames.

Agree. Bannings are annoying in losing cards, but if it opens up more cards to playability and reduces the need to buy into a select set of ridiculously expensive cards then it's easily worth it on that front.

Quote from the n00b king »

I understand that some players may feel frustrated with this, but without the ability to "nerf" cards, this is the only way.

Ah, the advantages of a digital game...

Quote from the n00b king »

Green has been pushed quite a bit since the last Innistrad. I think every color will get it's time to shine. Eventually, that might even be white!

I remember a time when white-blue decks were the monster of the metagame. White will have its time. Hell, after these bannings, white-blue looks to be in a pretty good position again.

Quote from Grimberry »

What it comes down to is that Wizards uses Standard to thoroughly crush an expensive card. The problem is, a card can’t return to Standard unless it fits the rules of New World Order, which is the current design philosophy for sets on rotation. So about half of Modern is excluded from Standard reprints. They can’t use precons for meaningful reprints either, because the guaranteed presence kills reprint equity for Wizards, who depends on the gambling aspect of packs to pad the bottom line.


The next problem is, New World Order didn’t start until Return to Ravnica. So only RTR onward has the card design to see a steady supply of reprints as is permutable in Standard.

Incorrect.
Zendikar was the first set to be fully designed under the new world order philosophy.

And power creep is less likely, due to the inherently weaker card design in New World Order.

You clearly don't know what NWO is.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/59210579698/nwo-wouldnt-care-if-ancestral-recall-were-printed#notes
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/43299188962/in-response-to-soulflames-talking-about-non-spike
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/22851174337/what-i-meant-in-my-last-question-was-that-recent

Pioneer isn’t an eternal format. It’s a New World Order All-Stars format.

Of course it's not an eternal format; it only includes the last ten years of cards. Eternal formats need to include all the sets.

Quote from Dom4419 »

Are the non test cards reprints? They come with their original borders and set symbol but they have the little planeswalker symbol at the bottom.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/188896384663/i-saw-that-in-the-mystery-booster-you-had-chatter

The Mystery Boosyer has what we call straight pick-ups, meaning that we literally took the file as is and printed it (adding the Planeswalker symbol to show it’s this printing). That is a different thing than printing a new card, with updated rules text, which is how we normally make cards.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

How the stores even had the physical product to make a mistake with in the first place is beyond me

Sets begin printing and distribution long before official release.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/172629765523/how-long-before-release-does-printing-start

Quote from ACEGamer »

Is it just me or is Escape oddly similar to Delve and Dredge—two mechanics that didn’t really work out in the past for WotC. What makes escape a better idea?

No, it has almost no similarities with either of those abilities. It is very much like flashback or unearth except its permanent. I can understand why you see a similarity where none exists and that is because the escape card we see has a cost that resembles delve. However, the ability escape has no relationship. Look at the actual ability Escape-{cost}(You may cast this from your graveyard for its escape cost). It reads almost exactly like flashback, Flashback-{Cost}(You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) While Delve is a cost reduction mechanic that eats your graveyard like Elspeth's escape cost but there is no intrinsic link between escape and exiling cards from your graveyard. As for Dredge, there is the small similarity of both being methods of getting the card out of the graveyard, however, their execution is radically different. Dredge returns the card to hand both making you have to spend further resources to cast it again and giving you additional options by it being in your hand.

Quote from Henrick »

At this point I have no doubt that Arena is rigged to help some players have wins.
- If people don't win, they won't play. If they don't play, there is no chance of making money with Arena. -

Here are 3 game examples that happened to me THIS week...
Game 1:
I Mulligan twice to get two colors of land or duals etc. (ok, fine, this could happen)
Next it takes me 5 draws to get a land (I started with 2 land. Ok, this could happen.)
He has a Bloodthirsty Aerielist dealing damage. It is the ONLY WAY he can win the game at this point.
I have 2 enchantments that give creatures Riot.
I cast a Snarespinner which has Reach and when Riot is supposed to activate to give my choice of +1/+1 or Haste, it skips this and goes straight to combat phase. So no Riot. Opponent then wins the game because it was critical that I have those counters to kill his Aerielist.

Game 2:
The other player's Vraska didn't require them to sacrifice a permanent to draw a card... twice in one game. Fun.

Game 3:
Playing the instant Joust suddenly doesn't recognize that my Knight has First Strike.

Honestly I'm kind of sick of this crap. I want my money back.

So, your argument for the shuffler being rigged is stating 3 anecdotes that have nothing to do with the shuffler? And 1 of them (maybe 2) are just you misunderstanding the rules:

1) The Snarespinner Riot interaction sounds like a bug. Bugs happen. Report it and move on.

2) So, they drew a card without sacrificing something? Or, they didn't sac something but they also didn't draw a card? The former would be a bug. The latter is how the card works. The Sacrifice is a may but then they don't draw a card.

3) First Strike (and Double Strike and Trample) don't work in "Fights". This worked exactly as the rules said it should which is exactly as it would have played out in paper if the players are following the rules.

Rainbow means they are getting chandra and nissa back together. w la LGBTQ!

Blue will always rule my friend, deal with it. Frankly, I’m not ashamed to share my opinion, and I’m hardly in the minority here. The backlash is on every internet medium out there, and the Amazon reviews speak for themselves. Outsourcing the writing was polarizing, but I can’t call that a failure because Kate Elliott delivers every time. We’ve seen some good material come of it, but overall, I do prefer creative handling the material. I do hold Weisman accountable for his own writing, though.

I’m anticipating Theros and hope it will be handled by Helland, Elliott, Kelly Digges or a name we can trust. Seriously, I waited years for this resolution and I do not want to see a flop with Theros. I am still stunned they took such a risk with resolving the Bolas arc, considering the time and effort invested in cultivating it all these years, only to send it Media Mail and have it arrive shattered.

They only see money. Those trash novels were only bestsellers because of the hard work and dedication of actual WOTC creative (including Kelly Digges) over the years. These novels destroyed that. I fully anticipated an announcement to remove these horrid books from canon and promise to never work with Weisman again. I’m appalled by his deprived, elementary and downright insulting “writing.” Just when I thought his repulsive lack of talent had been the worst of it, he shattered everything the lore has built over all this time, right down to the foundation and even through it. I vehemently loathe the entire WAR project outside of the actual set itself. I actually teared up a bit when I realized some marketing team or CEO is too ashamed of Chandra being bisexual as their main character. I haven’t been made to feel repulsive to society like that since a Baptist woman told my mother I needed an exorcism for being gay.

Thank Thassa we are returning to Theros. I hope someone competent handles my favorite set, plane and story of all time in this game. Because Weisman is capable of making me hate even Theros.

Farewell elks, you will be missed.

Quote from Pouncing Kavu »

Quote from the n00b king »

Additionally, WotC has mentioned that they would be more aggressive to correct metagames with bannings. I'm totally on board with this. In fact, the truth is that in the past, they should have been more proactive to address bad metagames.

I wasn't aware of this. Are there any cards they regret not banning from past standard environments?

CoCo and Rally easily come to mind, maybe Thoughtseize in the RTR-THS era too...

Quote from JaceBluesMaster »

I feel like this is confirmation that the higher ups at WotC had no faith in this set's ability to sell based off of a combination of its themes, setting and lack of a Jacetice League member, so they relied on the tried and true method of adding a couple pushed cards to the set to ensure it sold well. Play Design had been doing such a great job, this is really the only reason I can think of for why this set has experienced so many problems.

I mean everyone immediately knew Oko was going to be oppressively good. There is no way Play Design missed that, or let it slip through the cracks.

The more I read about play design and the more I think a lot of people's hate is super misguided. Play design DOES NOT design cards with the purpose of sales. That is NOT their role. I don't believe for a second that that's their main goal when designing cards.

Reading the last article about play design really helps puts things in perspective, in my opinion. What's been happening is that they have actually powered down standard quite a bit but have pushed a few cards really far in one direction. So that's why some of these seem so egregious. To be completely honest, it's better to push the envelop than to hold back. Sometimes things come together super well and other times, they don't. They have no way to predict what the meta will look like (consider that there's only like 20 of them vs the collective hive mind when it comes to play testing). Mistakes will slip through. The problem, and i hope they scale this back, is 3 mana planeswalkers. These tend to be too strong when you have 1 drop acceleration available in standard. Hell even without acceleration, we all know how strong 3 mana walkers are (too efficient). If you bumped both Teferi and Oko up to 4 mana, they are nowhere near as oppressive (as your opponent will have had time to build a board).

Additionally, WotC has mentioned that they would be more aggressive to correct metagames with bannings. I'm totally on board with this. In fact, the truth is that in the past, they should have been more proactive to address bad metagames.

I understand that some players may feel frustrated with this, but without the ability to "nerf" cards, this is the only way.

Veil of summer is an insanely overpowered card. It's a 1 mana "cryptic command". Hell, it's even begun to see main deck play.

Narset was actually a problem in vintage (like a serious one) but i'm surprised they care enough to have done that.

W6 doesn't surprise me. The interaction with wasteland is oppressive. However, I think this is too bad because it keeps mana bases honest, which is pretty cool. This does provide an alternative for players who want to enter the format. If your deck is good vs wasteland, you stand a chance vs all the big decks.

Green has been pushed quite a bit since the last Innistrad. I think every color will get it's time to shine. Eventually, that might even be white!

Quote from seilaoque »

how long it has been since the last standard with this many banned cards?

There are 4 banned cards in the current Standard.

For the last ~8 months of Kaladesh-Amonkhet-Ixalan-Dominaria-M19 standard, there were 7 cards on the Standard ban list.

Quote from login »

The ban of Oath of Nissa is more in the tradition of no good cantrips in the modern era, nevertheless it is quite inconsistent they don't ban Once Upon a Time too which we could argue is even better.

As for Veil of summer, as more combo stuff is figured out this card would just be the all start combo protector: from discard, from pieces getting blown and from counterspells. Playing vs Nexus of fate decks which used Veil of summer was even more miserable in a match that is already boring and dull.

As for the data used, if you go and see the PTQ, challenge and leagues from MTGO you would see Mono green devotion was still dominating after the leyline ban, and one big reason was because you couldn't kill NIssa because Veil of summer was protecting her.

Nissa, who shakes the world, BTW might go on the watch list if she still runs rampant after Veil of summer ban, or maybe she will become the Planeswalker to beat in Pioneer

Once upon a time is "better" only on turn 1, and even then what's really pushing oath of nissa is that allows for 5colours superfriends