MTG Salvation

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What are the implications for limited? Will it simply be impossible to meld cards unless you have both of them?

It's B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster) finally in black-bordered world.

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While this isn't a Standard concern, I will say for EDH exile is pretty much always required. Having played Sheoldred into Eternal Witness into Time Warp for an infinite loop on several occasions (or bouncing Mnemonic Wall for the same effect) I can say it really doesn't matter how expensive the spell is... it's pretty much a win.

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I guess I'm just getting tired of all of these "new" mechanics that are basically Wizards coming up with every way imaginable to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature. It's just boring in my opinion. At least on cards like this that do nothing to take advantage of it.

Could not agree more. I wish wizards would do something about it but everytime it´s brought up it´s the same answer "Herpderp we need a +1+1 mechanic in new sets"

I see it the other way around. For a lot of mechanics, WotC needed some way to signify a onetime changed state on a creature in a way that is highly visible and easy to identify. You're going to have to put something on that card to mark it as the altered state anyways, might as well be a +1/+1 counter.

They're not coming up with a bunch mechanics to justify putting +1/+1 counters on creatures. They have a bunch of mechanics that requires marking the cards and defaults to +1/+1 counters as the markers.

But couldn´t this just be done in the form of normal cards that gives counters to creatures? Are we really in need of a +1+1 mechanic every set when we instead could have mechanics that requires a brain?

Renown even have more or less the same template as Monstrosity from Theroes which makes me even more annoyed. It seems like Wizards are really struggeling to find new ways for the +1+1 mechanic to work so now it´s being milked hard

I think you've hit a very salient point... "mechanics that require a brain". Perhaps I'm wrong in this, but my understanding was that Core Sets (and now Origins, as the last core set) were considered a place where complexity should remain quite low overall. So a really nice simple mechanic is probably a good fit here. I know Origins is a special case, and there's plenty of complexity in cards like Starfields of Nyx but as I understand New World Order, complexity is a resource and they don't want to spend a lot of it on this mechanic, especially in a set where the overall available resource pool is quite small.

Unless I've missed something with 164 unspoiled cards there's still a good chance that there may be more dragons to spoil, so that's a possibility. I recognize that there was "These are the cycles" in one of the articles, but that list probably shouldn't be taken as "these are all of the dragons".

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Quote from ShadowFenril »

I guess I'm just getting tired of all of these "new" mechanics that are basically Wizards coming up with every way imaginable to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature. It's just boring in my opinion. At least on cards like this that do nothing to take advantage of it.

Could not agree more. I wish wizards would do something about it but everytime it´s brought up it´s the same answer "Herpderp we need a +1+1 mechanic in new sets"

I see it the other way around. For a lot of mechanics, WotC needed some way to signify a onetime changed state on a creature in a way that is highly visible and easy to identify. You're going to have to put something on that card to mark it as the altered state anyways, might as well be a +1/+1 counter.

They're not coming up with a bunch mechanics to justify putting +1/+1 counters on creatures. They have a bunch of mechanics that requires marking the cards and defaults to +1/+1 counters as the markers.

But couldn´t this just be done in the form of normal cards that gives counters to creatures? Are we really in need of a +1+1 mechanic every set when we instead could have mechanics that requires a brain?

Renown even have more or less the same template as Monstrosity from Theroes which makes me even more annoyed. It seems like Wizards are really struggeling to find new ways for the +1+1 mechanic to work so now it´s being milked hard

I think you've hit a very salient point... "mechanics that require a brain". Perhaps I'm wrong in this, but my understanding was that Core Sets (and now Origins, as the last core set) were considered a place where complexity should remain quite low overall. So a really nice simple mechanic is probably a good fit here. I know Origins is a special case, and there's plenty of complexity in cards like Starfields of Nyx but as I understand New World Order, complexity is a resource and they don't want to spend a lot of it on this mechanic, especially in a set where the overall available resource pool is quite small.

I totally agree with your point that Origins, like any other core set, needs to be low when it comes to mechanics.
However "Hardcore" sets like the ones we have just had, have had no-brainers mechanics like Prowess, Heroic and even Megamorph that added a +1+1 counter when morphing. This is so dull that it hurts which is my point that why not just add cards like they already do that takes care of buffing your creatures while then making mechanics that requires a bit of thinking like Flashback and Miracle for instance.

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I guess I'm just getting tired of all of these "new" mechanics that are basically Wizards coming up with every way imaginable to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature. It's just boring in my opinion. At least on cards like this that do nothing to take advantage of it.

Could not agree more. I wish wizards would do something about it but everytime it´s brought up it´s the same answer "Herpderp we need a +1+1 mechanic in new sets"

I see it the other way around. For a lot of mechanics, WotC needed some way to signify a onetime changed state on a creature in a way that is highly visible and easy to identify. You're going to have to put something on that card to mark it as the altered state anyways, might as well be a +1/+1 counter.

They're not coming up with a bunch mechanics to justify putting +1/+1 counters on creatures. They have a bunch of mechanics that requires marking the cards and defaults to +1/+1 counters as the markers.

But couldn´t this just be done in the form of normal cards that gives counters to creatures? Are we really in need of a +1+1 mechanic every set when we instead could have mechanics that requires a brain?

Renown even have more or less the same template as Monstrosity from Theroes which makes me even more annoyed. It seems like Wizards are really struggeling to find new ways for the +1+1 mechanic to work so now it´s being milked hard

They didn't needed a mechanic that gives +1/+1 counters to creatures. Handing out +1/+1 counters aren't the point of designing those mechanics. They had mechanics that wanted to represent two states of a creature eg. non-monstrous/monstrous, non-renown/renown. The idea for those state mechanics came first and instead of having Renown counters and Monstrous counters (like back in the old days where lots of counters have their own names eg. spore counters for thallids), they use +1/+1 counters to mark those states instead.

Why is deathtouch a theme? If you're playing +1/+1 counters and big creatures, you should have no problem dealing with big threats. I think things like Sedge Scorpion actually go against your strategy of achieving formidable, so you may want to cut him out.

Quote from el_pato »

I agree with Xcric, and I think the problem is that cycles amplify how boring a card is when every card in the cycle is symmetrically boring. They could have reprinted a single card like Manalith and it would get a quiet yawn and few complaints, because it is what it is and it's only one card. But a cycle of bland crap takes up 5 cards, 5 missed opportunities to do something cool.

I'm guessing that here, the problem was that each "keyrune" had to be a dragon, so they were all going to be big. That reduces flexibility in activation cost, which reduces range in power/toughness and abilities. To makes things worse we already have that bland cycle of french vanilla megamorph dragons. So it would be weird to tack on Hexproof, lifelink, trample, etc to these rocks. The boring solution was to make them all the same.

Quote from Nakhla »

Tedious mana rocks are tedious. I don't see how each mana rock making an identical creature is flavorful, nor is the power level high enough.

I love cards in cycles, but there are way too many redundant ones here.

Quote from Bread Connoisseur »

Wow, really? They couldn't have made each one unique in terms of what creature it becomes? That's just pure laziness. Like the UB one could have easily been a 3/3 unblockable, RB could have been a 4/3 with first strike, GW could have been a 4/4 with lifelink, and UW could have been a 3/4 hexproof. Honestly just 4/4 fliers for days is so boring.

I love how people around here keep trying to evaluate these cards in a vacuum and think they know everything about the cards even before they can play test them. (you don't have to even spend money to play test them. Just printout proxy cards and test once the set is revealed). Most people are making assumptions without enough relevant data.

Then there's the emotional complaint of "they're boring" or, "they're not using the design space properly." When I see the first, all I hear is, "Wizards should always cater to my personal tastes" and when I see that second one all I hear is "I think I can do design and development's jobs better than they can." I'm not saying don't critique a set but at least get a sense of it first. A REAL sense.

What I'm saying is that not every card can be a winner and you can't always get what you want. Do I think these cards are OMG fantastic: Heavens no. But I'm rational enough to recognize that these cards aren designed to fill a job and there's no sense in whining about it. I can already think of at least one common scenario I've found myself in personally where I might end up using these.

Once again, I ask this every time a new set comes out: You want to be wowed every time? That means they have to keep eating up design space and causing powercreep like mad. I came from a game where that happened. It was called Yugioh and I don't think any of you want what happened there.

My theory is they tried having different power/toughness or abilities, but drafters would take the monuments for the stats rather than for the mana fixing. So in order to make the mana fixing be the major factor of needing them they standardized the creatures the mana rocks could turn into.

A nonartifact Lumengrid Gargoyle. And as a colorless Dragon, it can fit into any of the broods. Neat!

Quote from Searys »

Haha crappy card again, what's the point of putting this uncommon...

To answer this and questions like it, it's at uncommon because 4/4 fliers that can be played in any color do not belong at common. It's 4/4 because that works better for formidable, plays with ferocious which is still a thing in FRF, and feels more appropriate for a Dragon. Not to mention if it was common you'd be seeing even more copies in your packs and if it was rare it would take up the slot that would otherwise be taken by one of the rare Dragons, a Dragonlord, or even Sarkhan Unbroken.

Seriously, all this complaining about "crap cards" is getting really old. It doesn't contribute anything helpful to the topic and is seldom entertaining. It just sounds like a bunch of spoiled, whiny kids complaining that each new set isn't another Urza's. Fact is, there are a lot more needs a set has to fill than the competitive demands of a small subgroup of competitive players, and if Wizards produced sets resembling what those players demand, the game would die out and there would be no more Magic. So I think it isn't too much to ask that those players take their Siege Rhinos and Treasure Cruises with gratitude and leave well alone any cards that don't fit into their hyper competitive mindset. It might well behoove them to read some articles written by design and development staff to learn why 90% of cards in a given set aren't fitting into their tournament decks.

While I can't help much when it comes to recommending things that wont draw hate because everyone I play against starts the game like, "Everything Steven does is evil, kill him now." but I might suggest Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Most people wont think much of him and he's nothing like what you've been doing before. He's an aggro deck with enormous expensive creatures. Does playing Wurmcoil Engines, Soul of New Phyrexias, and Eldrazi for free sound good to you?