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It looks like Wizard's recent design philosophy is to make bigger threats, so players simply compete on landing bigger threats, rather than using lower-costing answers to take care of those threats.
Wizards keeps citing their player satisfaction surveys where new players don't like their threats being countered or neutralized before they can use it. So, really good answers are unlikely to be made for Standard. The better creature removals recently seem to be in black. (Cast Down, Heartless Act)
They might scale back on the power creep for creatures, but removal will probably remain not as quick or efficient in Standard.
Which has been the biggest problem plaguing Standard for a long time now. The game is far healthier and more vibrant when threats and answers are roughly equal. When threats far outstrip answers, you are left with a shallow game of who can ramp and draw into their threat faster.
I don't know if Wizards will ever find the balance needed.
Make the answers too good, and nobody wants to play expensive threats. It really depends on how they design Standard. Players won't readily commit to a 6+ mana big monster only to have it taken down by 2-mana removal. It seems Wizards compensates for that scenario by adding ETB or on cast abilities to make those creatures worthwhile to play. Then, you end up with creatures that Mystic_X said previously are "use or lose" in Standard.
the solution would be increase interaction....
print more cards to protect the bombs... stuff like Mother of Runes, Lightning Greaves or similar that is able to protect creautes for a long time....
and better removal.... bring back Lightning Bolt, stop printing removal weaker than Murder, stop printing Cancel and bring back the real Mana Leak....
if you're going to print Uro and 3 mana Teferi, you need to make removal good enough to make the meta bearable.
This.
And ETB stuff is fine, it't the "when you cast" stuff that isn't. As in if you counterspell their hydroid krassis, they still get the cards and life. If you still think ETB is too good (maybe a particular ETB on a particular card, then delay it "at the first end step after this comes into play, if this is still in play do this".
This is also why Adventure needs to have become evergreen a year ago.. If you're deckbuilding and weighing packing more threats or more responses, then it's very nice to have both on one card. Only one half really needs to be worth playing, the other half exists if the situation calls for it. Completely increases interactivity- more back and forth and strategic choices.
Making Adventure evergreen doesn't seem plausible, too tied to Eldraine, however I fully agree with the need of better answer cards, they gave us a nerfed Mana Leak while the oppressive "opponents play Hearthstone while you play Magic" static ability was downcosted to from a not very splashable .
Besides that, and the obvious lack of playtesting for some cards, the "all-upside" design philosophy has to go, let's take Uro as example, it's supposed to be a ramp spell you can later use as a big beater, fine, however, it's as if they had looked at all potential pitfalls of playing a ramp card and made sure to negate each and every of them. Normally the tradeoff for playing ramp spells is that while you're setting up a powerful play down the line, you're losing cards in your hand, so you lose CA vs control, plus you're not building board presence so aggro decks get a free hit in. So what did R&D do? make Uro draw you a card so you don't lose CA vs control and also give you 3 life so the hit you'll take from an aggro deck has less impact...oh, and just in case, the same stupidly powerful effect is repeated when you attack with your 6/6 beater. They could have removed either the card draw or the lifegain and maybe the attack trigger as well and still have a very powerful tournament-level mythic but with a small weak point other decks could leverage against it, but noo, people don't like downsides or tradeoffs in their dumb overpowered threats like poor Nissa, I mean why not pad her already very high loyalty and the ability to increase board presence with her plus ability with a guaranteed untapped 3/3 with vigilance that can protect her while attacking the opponent as well, and the list could go on, at this rate the next Rotting Regisaur will make the opponent discard instead of you.
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I don't know if Wizards will ever find the balance needed.
Make the answers too good, and nobody wants to play expensive threats. It really depends on how they design Standard. Players won't readily commit to a 6+ mana big monster only to have it taken down by 2-mana removal. It seems Wizards compensates for that scenario by adding ETB or on cast abilities to make those creatures worthwhile to play. Then, you end up with creatures that Mystic_X said previously are "use or lose" in Standard.
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Yes, I know the feeling of that lottery ticket pull. I'm sure most of us here have tried to buy individual boosters, even against our better judgment.
For me, I actually cancelled my pre-orders of Double Masters and will just get singles for my lone Commander deck. I am seriously fatigued from these boosters.
I recently bought a box of Pokemon Sword and Shield Rebel Clash, and although most of the cards aren't worth very much on the secondary market, just pulling full art or foils in the "regular" booster is a great feeling. I don't feel so ripped off.
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Retailers and people with a lot of money will likely be the only ones buying the boxes outright to sell singles.
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The chance of getting a mythic was 1 in 8 rare slots. With Zendikar Rising, it's 1 in 7.4 rare slots. An individual would still have to to open a ton of these to see the 0.6 improvement. If you aren't a retailer or an individual with a lot of money to buy a lot of boosters, that 0.6 improvement isn't noticeable. Also, each box has variance. Some people can see as few as 3-4 mythics in a box while others managed to find 6-7 mythics in a box.
This is another marketing gimmick by Wizards to try to get people to buy this. It's still a pack lottery.
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Is your store following health guidelines? Getting people gathered in an indoor space for playing an extended amount of time is risky. Cabin fever is really annoying, but getting hospitalized or sick is not fun either.
However, my local LGS is opened for reduced hours and selling product, so I still drop in for a 10 minutes to buy some product. They aren't holding any events right now (not to mention they have poor ventilation).
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Wizards could print reserved list cards again in secret, but someone eventually could figure out when it was made. Like carbon dating for cardboard. If Wizard did this and were caught, it would cause a huge uproar in the Magic community. I don't think a "secret" like this could remain secret forever.
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Yeah, this sounds like a design fail, and they are just backtracking to justify it. Sanctum of All should have been worded as working with activated or triggered abilities of shrines to make all of them work.
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It raises some good points justifying Double Masters's existence, but it doesn't solve the reprint problem in the long term. Like other master sets, reprinted cards drop a little to a lot, but often go back up in price in a year. Also, why limit the box to whales and investors? And if the box is really valuable, people might hoard the boxes, preventing the cards from entering circulation on the secondary market. Also, as a commenter there pointed out, how can people who like the draft format play draft if the box is so expensive, because Wizards designs a draft experience for these sets, premium or not?
The only sustainable solution is to reprint more often. Pokemon and YuGiOh reprint often in a variety of products, and it's not harming their overall sales.
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I feel the art direction is wrong on Tamiyo. Tamiyo is wearing a trench coat, which is common in detective settings. If this was supposed to be Indiana Jones, she should not be wearing a trench coat.