Hello, I made a Horde deck and I wanted to make a post with the decklist, special rules for playing it, and to seek advice from others who've played around with Horde decks to make it better. Would "Casual & Multiplayer Formats" be the right place for such a post? I assume yes, but I want to be sure and what I should be careful about before making the post.
My first question for you is... Have you tried playing this way?
It's hard to say exactly what without trying myself, but I feel like there are a lot more pros and cons than what you listed there. This kind of major rules change would have a significant impact on how decks get built. You say it would encourage longer games with more interaction, but I could see the opposite happening. For example, you could build burn decks that don't get any dead draws because most of them don't need more than 3 lands to work.
Maybe if people start playing this way, it could become a new format, but I think I've seen people propose similar things in the past.
Drakuseth, Maw of Flame's ability, and other abilities that start with "when ~ attacks" trigger when the creature is declared as an attacker, not when they deal combat damage. So double strike does not affect the ability, and it would only trigger once regardless of rather or not it has double strike.
What results in basically a weird repeatable ability with a sudo "draw up to 5 and/or get up to 5 2/2s" I feel 5 cards is too much. Maybe 3? Otherwise I like how simple the design is. I would totally make a commander deck with this if it was real.
Both cards seem very well thought-out and designed imo. Eelstrum's effect seems super powerful at first glance but probably isn't even close to busted in practice. Goblin Innkeepers seems solid just for being a 2/2 with flash in those colors, but the additional etb effect seems like a decent solution against gy decks.
My gut says maybe Eelstrum should only exile your opponents cards, because there may be some degenerate combo, but I'm not sure.
I feel like I'm not understanding the +2, because it seems like it would detain all but 1 non-land permanent your opponents control of their choice. If so, isn't that + drawing a card for each opponent waaay too powerful for a + ability?
I like Kaya. I don't like the Gatewatch. I have mixed feelings.
This is like a Hissing Miasma or Marchesa's Decree kind of effect, except just for planeswalkers. I like it.
Man, this makes Violent Ultimatum look bad in comparison. (although technically Violent Ultimatum can still target 3 things of the same types, I feel like this would be better at least 8 out of 10 times for Commander)
Unless someone gives you cards, or loans you their decks... isn't it though? Maybe I don't understand what you mean here, but you'd at least have to buy 60 cards to PLAY the game, no?
You do not need to proxy expensive cards, there are 20,000 + unique game pieces. There is a substitute for everything. It might be a 7 out of 10 instead of a 10 out of 10, but this is a casual format, and you shouldn't "need" to play any cards at all, because there is nothing to win.
I agree... to a point. I think it depends on context. You're right, for every competitive-level card, there's at least 1 cheaper alternative, if not several. But it ultimately depends on your playgroup, and what playgroups you have access to. I personally don't like building super-competitive decks, but I have a few just in case I encounter a group who use decks built to win on turns 6~8 (EDH). I wouldn't bother building those decks if it wasn't for the fact that I hate sitting down to play magic... but I don't get to because my opponents are playing decks that win too fast or lock me out.
It's a more complicated issue than "if you can't afford the expensive cards, use cheaper ones". But more importantly, even getting a collection of the cheaper cards to play the game can be a bit pricey compared to some other hobbies.
I don't think it's fair to say the game is casual so use fake cards. If it's casual why do you need to use fake cards? Spell swindle is no mana drain. But it costs less then a buck, is super fun, and you wont make ANYONE feel ANY KIND of way casting a real card, as opposed to playing a proxied mana drain on someones real card. Especially if using proxies directly help you win the game.
I wasn't making the claim that MTG as a whole is a casual game. Actually, rather or not it's casual has nothing to do with my point. I care about having fun and not excluding people. If allowing proxies lets someone play the game the way they want and have fun without bankrupting them, as long as they aren't a jerk about it, what's wrong with that? But I feel we're in "let's agree to disagree" territory here.
If someone is using proxies, I wouldn't assume it was because they wanted to win. I would assume it was because they wanted to play with cards that they couldn't afford, or didn't want to buy without making sure they were worth having in their deck. I don't think it's fair to assume that all they care about is winning, and it doesn't bother me when someone wins because of a proxy card. But maybe that's just me.
I'm going to be a goodie-little-two-shoes here and state what I think is obvious. Generally speaking, it's wrong to lie to people.
Yes, there are such things as white lies, but since we're talking about something that most people agree that rather or not it matters depends on the individual, lying to someone who cares about such things would be wrong.
I don't care about WotC (in this case), they make enough money and I don't think using proxies hurts them that much. Also, I don't personally care if people use proxies; this is a game played to have fun, but I personally appreciate it when people give me the heads up of "Oh by the way, I have a few proxies in my deck", but I wouldn't get mad if they didn't. But if someone told me that all of their cards were real, and I somehow found out some of them were proxies... I wouldn't want to be friends with that person any more purely on principle.
Why? Because if someone is willing to lie about something as little as that, who knows what else they might be lying about. It's just a bad precedent.
Now, I don't want to make you feel bad or feel like I'm attacking you, I'm just explaining what I think and how I feel about the matter. For what it's worth, I understand your dilemma, and I don't understand people who care so much about rather or not someone is using proxies. Considering how expensive of a hobby magic is, even if you're not using the super-competitive cards, it can feel exclusionary to say "you can only play with real cards" when the real cards cost so much to get. It's the equivalent of saying something like "you have to be at least this rich to play" and that is the biggest aspect of this game I dislike. So I'm all for people using proxies. Just don't lie to me. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
Armament Distribution (R/W)
Tribal Instant - Soldier
put a +1/+0 counter on up to one target creature.
put a +0/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
The problem was never planeswalkers' power level per se. The problem was that the creative staff never figured out to write them like the Greco-Roman gods or the Norse pantheon, where the gods themselves are frankly the backdrop to the actual heroes of the story (Heracles, Hector, Achilles, Paris, etc). I mean nobody complains about Greek mythology because "why don't the gods just solve everything with their god powers?"
You hit the nail on head with this comment in my opinion. Take Urza, for example. Urza was ultimately a "force for good" but he did a lot of things that were questionable at best, and horribly amoral at worst. As a whole, he's a compelling character, but not a good hero for a story. Compared to him, and others from that era of Magic story telling, the Gatewatch seem like a group of incompetent goodie-two-shoes.
I actually try to follow the Magic story line, but the recent stories revolving around the Gatewatch and Bolas have felt bland (for reasons people have already mentioned. I think everyone here is more-or-less correct about the reasons).
My favorite Magic stories come from Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, but most of the stories from that plane are unrelated to each other.(with some exceptions)
If I was in charge, I would take a similar approach to each plane.
Ixalan, for example. I'm with all the people who liked the romance story between Jace and Vraska, but yet still I would have preferred they focused on the short stories that told us more about the world and the unique characters who lived there. A story about the leader of the pirates looking for legendary treasure and the merfolk people trying to stop them. The dinosaurs and their worshipers fighting off an invading army of vampires. That sort of thing. (in fairness, I didn't read all of the Ixalan stories so maybe there were a few like that, but my point is that they should focus more on those kinds of stories) As it has been, I feel all the more interesting stores are happening in the background of the boring stuff with the planeswalkers. There's just something about many of the new planeswalkers that seem un-relatable, I think.
Also... I agree that it would be waaay more interesting if Bolas won the war of the spark, and became a looming presence in every set, except for the fact that I'm kinda sick of him too. Part of me wonders if Bolas and Ugin are gonna fuse together somehow and become a new character.
Thank you!
It's hard to say exactly what without trying myself, but I feel like there are a lot more pros and cons than what you listed there. This kind of major rules change would have a significant impact on how decks get built. You say it would encourage longer games with more interaction, but I could see the opposite happening. For example, you could build burn decks that don't get any dead draws because most of them don't need more than 3 lands to work.
Maybe if people start playing this way, it could become a new format, but I think I've seen people propose similar things in the past.
My gut says maybe Eelstrum should only exile your opponents cards, because there may be some degenerate combo, but I'm not sure.
Spite of the Kitsune xW
Instant
~ deals X damage divided as you choose to any number of tapped creatures.
This is like a Hissing Miasma or Marchesa's Decree kind of effect, except just for planeswalkers. I like it.
Unless someone gives you cards, or loans you their decks... isn't it though? Maybe I don't understand what you mean here, but you'd at least have to buy 60 cards to PLAY the game, no?
I agree... to a point. I think it depends on context. You're right, for every competitive-level card, there's at least 1 cheaper alternative, if not several. But it ultimately depends on your playgroup, and what playgroups you have access to. I personally don't like building super-competitive decks, but I have a few just in case I encounter a group who use decks built to win on turns 6~8 (EDH). I wouldn't bother building those decks if it wasn't for the fact that I hate sitting down to play magic... but I don't get to because my opponents are playing decks that win too fast or lock me out.
It's a more complicated issue than "if you can't afford the expensive cards, use cheaper ones". But more importantly, even getting a collection of the cheaper cards to play the game can be a bit pricey compared to some other hobbies.
I wasn't making the claim that MTG as a whole is a casual game. Actually, rather or not it's casual has nothing to do with my point. I care about having fun and not excluding people. If allowing proxies lets someone play the game the way they want and have fun without bankrupting them, as long as they aren't a jerk about it, what's wrong with that? But I feel we're in "let's agree to disagree" territory here.
If someone is using proxies, I wouldn't assume it was because they wanted to win. I would assume it was because they wanted to play with cards that they couldn't afford, or didn't want to buy without making sure they were worth having in their deck. I don't think it's fair to assume that all they care about is winning, and it doesn't bother me when someone wins because of a proxy card. But maybe that's just me.
Yes, there are such things as white lies, but since we're talking about something that most people agree that rather or not it matters depends on the individual, lying to someone who cares about such things would be wrong.
I don't care about WotC (in this case), they make enough money and I don't think using proxies hurts them that much. Also, I don't personally care if people use proxies; this is a game played to have fun, but I personally appreciate it when people give me the heads up of "Oh by the way, I have a few proxies in my deck", but I wouldn't get mad if they didn't. But if someone told me that all of their cards were real, and I somehow found out some of them were proxies... I wouldn't want to be friends with that person any more purely on principle.
Why? Because if someone is willing to lie about something as little as that, who knows what else they might be lying about. It's just a bad precedent.
Now, I don't want to make you feel bad or feel like I'm attacking you, I'm just explaining what I think and how I feel about the matter. For what it's worth, I understand your dilemma, and I don't understand people who care so much about rather or not someone is using proxies. Considering how expensive of a hobby magic is, even if you're not using the super-competitive cards, it can feel exclusionary to say "you can only play with real cards" when the real cards cost so much to get. It's the equivalent of saying something like "you have to be at least this rich to play" and that is the biggest aspect of this game I dislike. So I'm all for people using proxies. Just don't lie to me. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
Armament Distribution (R/W)
Tribal Instant - Soldier
put a +1/+0 counter on up to one target creature.
put a +0/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
Mother of Night 2B
Creature - Vampire
Lifelink
1B, Sacrifice a Vampire: Add BBB. ~ gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
2/3
You hit the nail on head with this comment in my opinion. Take Urza, for example. Urza was ultimately a "force for good" but he did a lot of things that were questionable at best, and horribly amoral at worst. As a whole, he's a compelling character, but not a good hero for a story. Compared to him, and others from that era of Magic story telling, the Gatewatch seem like a group of incompetent goodie-two-shoes.
I actually try to follow the Magic story line, but the recent stories revolving around the Gatewatch and Bolas have felt bland (for reasons people have already mentioned. I think everyone here is more-or-less correct about the reasons).
My favorite Magic stories come from Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, but most of the stories from that plane are unrelated to each other.(with some exceptions)
If I was in charge, I would take a similar approach to each plane.
Ixalan, for example. I'm with all the people who liked the romance story between Jace and Vraska, but yet still I would have preferred they focused on the short stories that told us more about the world and the unique characters who lived there. A story about the leader of the pirates looking for legendary treasure and the merfolk people trying to stop them. The dinosaurs and their worshipers fighting off an invading army of vampires. That sort of thing. (in fairness, I didn't read all of the Ixalan stories so maybe there were a few like that, but my point is that they should focus more on those kinds of stories) As it has been, I feel all the more interesting stores are happening in the background of the boring stuff with the planeswalkers. There's just something about many of the new planeswalkers that seem un-relatable, I think.
Also... I agree that it would be waaay more interesting if Bolas won the war of the spark, and became a looming presence in every set, except for the fact that I'm kinda sick of him too. Part of me wonders if Bolas and Ugin are gonna fuse together somehow and become a new character.