- Shadowcraft
- Registered User
-
Member for 14 years and 14 days
Last active Tue, Dec, 17 2013 02:42:45
- 5 Followers
- 5,213 Total Posts
- 21 Thanks
-
1
Cabz posted a message on [[THS]] DailyMTG Previews 9/5: Gainsay cycle, Ashiok, Tymaret, ErebosI really wish they would stop trying to push UB's strategy into mill. I hate that archetype and it's been done to death. I miss when UB could just play straight control, and not have to be bogged down by all these mill cards.Posted in: The Rumor Mill -
1
Wikidclowne posted a message on The Alphabetical Card GameKaleidoscope Assassin 4Posted in: Custom Card Contests and Games
Creature - Assassin Construct
,t: Destroy target creature that doesn't share a color with ~. ~ becomes all colors that destroyed creature is.
Whenever ~ is all colors, ~ becomes colorless.
2/2 -
4
NoUndies posted a message on Dimir is UnplayableFirst off, I'll address the comment someone made that an overpowered creature will not affect the game in the same way as an overpowered spell. This just patently isn't true for a number of reasons: first, let's look at snapcaster mage, thragtusk, and stoneforge mystic, and then I'll talk about why, logically, overpowered creatures are just as dangerous for the game as overpowered non-creature spells.Posted in: Magic General
Onto snaps: snaps is such an efficient card that he cannot exist in a standard with any kind of efficient counter or library manipulation. He fundamentally changed the way that WotC views counters, and drew a whole lot of hate in the form of the uncounterables cycle and cavern of souls, ash zealot, etc. Blue will not be same for a long time, because snaps enables strategies that Wizards no longer wants players to play.
Next, we have thragtusk: thrags is the one card that makes green strong right now. His ETB is so good, he's able to consistently generate 3-for-1 or 4-for-1 card advantage using resto angel, and can be recurred indefinitely with angel of serenity. If you aren't playing an aggro deck, it's almost impossible to beat him once he comes online. Not only do you have to spend two cards to completely get rid of him, but he undermines boardwipes, and prolongs a game in which you're already under severe pressure thanks to the quality of the creatures beating down on you. Junk is the best midrange deck based purely on the mathematics of thrags and resto.
Then you have stoneforge mystic, which has the privilege of being one of the few cards banned whilst it was in standard. Mystic is to this day banned in modern, because the fact is, being able to do what mystic does, is far, far too strong. Yet despite the key pieces of the cawblade deck being white, blue cops the blame for JTMS. Stoneforge Mystic is a textbook example of what can happen when a creature is just too good.
The logical conclusion is that any type of card can destroy standard. If you believe that only non-creature spells have the capacity to do this, your argument falls apart when you realise that WotC are now stapling sorceries onto creatures and calling it a day. If sorceries can be broken, it logically follows that creatures can also be broken when they include a sorcery as their 187. In fact, creatures have the capacity to be even worse, because they are much easier to recur from the graveyard, and come attached to a win condition; i.e. they actually hit you. There are very few ways to reliably return spells from your graveyard to your hand, and flashback exiles the spell, so you can only do it twice. Thrags and snaps though, can keep coming back until you run out of cards, and their abilities will always be relevant based purely on the principle of card advantage.
Right now, blue and black in general are not getting the love they need to really compete. If you listen to Mark Rosewater's podcast on creatures, you'll understand what the problem is: the design team believes that creatures are the primary focus of the game, as they offer the largest number of avenues for player interaction. The problem with this is that not all colours are weighted equally in terms of the strength of their creatures. Blue and Black rely on the power of their non-creature spells in order to compete with the efficiency of red, green and white creatures. Without a strong spell base, both colours get marginalized like we're seeing now.
It's also a myth to say that creatures are the most interactive card type. Just as much interaction can occur on the stack as on the battlefield, and the skill required by the player to interact at that level is much higher, as your decisions must be based on imperfect information and deduction. This is where strategies like bluffing, card counting, and reading your opponent come into play. In contrast, creature combat almost always breaks down into a linear series of patterns, where the right move is almost always apparent. -
1
SnowBunny posted a message on Dimir continues to get hosedPosted in: New Card DiscussionQuote from driftwoodDimir doesnt need good cards to win. It needs good pilots. Right now the majority of mtg players lack the sublety to run U/B effectively. Dont blame the cards, blame your lack of creativity.
Are people really gonna claim U/B is underpowered, when we have snapcaster, liliana, the best spot removal we've had in a while (black spells killing black critters without a dozen mana) half a dozen mediorce counters, and a fistful of decent finishers. Solar flare is usually 2-3 of the top 8's. While a big part of that deck is W (azo charm, sphinx's, supreme) u/b is still its underpinnings
Such a cop out...
Ok lets break your arguement into pieces:
Best Spot Removal: Really? Searing Spear is considered good now... and it is a strictly worse Lightning Bolt. Ultimate Price and Victim of the Night miss too many big targets (Olivia, Huntmaster, the zombie bunch, ect.). Additionally, creatures now a days have stupid levels of resilence or backing. Between Thragtusk with his double lives and boros charm and more and more things having regen, the spot removal is not cutting it very much.
Counters: half a dozen??? We have Cancel and Dissipate (essentially the same with the exception of the exile clause), Psychic Strike, and Syncopate. Just about ever other counter is horrible (in UB colors).
Decent Finishers: What decent Finishers? Consuming Aberattion? lazav? The only reason Esper can use Drownyard is because they have Revelation to help them stall the game out.
Solar Flare: The last time Solar Flare was a thing was back in Innistrad/Mirrodin. If you are talking about Esper Control, then you would be wrong. The basis of Esper control is UW with b as a splash for Nephalia Drownyards, Lingering Souls, Sorin (for certain builds), and some more spot removal. But they are side things. The things that really let Esper be a deck are in UW (Revelation, Supreme Verdict, Detention Sphere, angel of flashiness, AoS.) Don't believe me? Try and look at say Grixis vs Esper Control. Or BUG vs Esper Control. There is a reason why only UWx control decks are viable right now (and, conviently all 3 UWx varients are viable).
Dimir is just bad. Plain and simple. They are just not good and of all the guilds, they have the worst "deck." As in, if you were to build a deck using only 2 colors and based on each of the guilds, Dimir's would probably do the worst of them all. -
1
Yagami posted a message on [[DGM]] Mirko Vosk, Mind DrinkerOMG. I'm so sick of everything about UB being about mill. If that's the only design space UB has than you might as well make blue an enemy color and green or white an allied color for black considering that the latter has more design space.Posted in: The Rumor Mill -
1
Yagami posted a message on [[RTR]] Rakdos CharmIt's a terrible charm because the other ones are maindeckable. Rakdos gets the shaft yet again. Oh well I've given up on this set. I hope Orzhov and Boros don't suck as bad as Rakdos. Oh and Dimir too. Pls no mill for Dimir.Posted in: The Rumor Mill -
3
zemanjaski posted a message on Design MistakesCawblade, Delver, Valakut and SplinterTwin were all unintended decks. So, basically the best 4 decks in the last two years were all due to unforseen or misunderstood interactions. That is incredibly troubling and says a lot about how out of touch the FFL is with actual competitive play.Posted in: Magic General
Decks like Jund and Faeries may have been too strong, but they were at least intended. I don't know why, but I am less troubled by them pushing the envelope too far, compared to just having no idea what the consequences of their choices are.
As for mental misstep in legacy - the card literally invalidated half of the viable decks. Think of it this way - the best card in legacy is force of will. Force of will is at its worst against fair creature decks. Mental Misstep was force of will for those matchups. The card literally cave blue based decks a complete answer to everything in the meta. Every deck was playing MM; it was common to see goblin players mulligan to try and find double MM so they could resolve anything early. The card just horribly warped gameplay, deck construction and the metagame. It was a great thing that it was banned, although it was well intentioned.
@ bocephus - I believe it was a 2/2 flier, in green that flipped on creatures, when the card left design. Development changed it to blue because they needed more early creatures for limited.
Later in development they changed it to instants/sorceries, because, that does make more sense. Blue is the colour of instants and sorceries afterall. The card was intended to be OK in limited - the relative upside of a 3/2 flier for U is not that powerful in limited because you just don't have the quanitity of cards needed to make the flip reliable. Delver is typically unplayable, even in block constructed. Because the change was made late, there was no time to test how powerful it was in constrcuted at length - the testing they did do was not extensive enough to fnd the card broken, because they never crammed enough cheap spells into the decks.
That is frightening. That MaRo (it is not his fault, but he is the guy the answers questions) responds with lunacy to the effect that, "delver and snapcaster are only good in decks with lots of instants and sorceries, so they're not too powerful". So basically, theyre good in any blue deck, ever.
Then you have other idiocy like the Titan cycle; Blood Braid Elf (originally a 2/2 without haste), Huntmaster of the Fells (they wanted to see how far they could push a card with two sets of abilities) and of course Snapcaster (which they have admitted, is overpowered).
It is painful to read when they blame cards like mana leak and ponder, when the real cuplrits are so obvious. Both ponder and mana leak have existed in other decks with no problem. Suddenly, to blue creatures are printed and the spells are the problem? You're kidding surely? Nope.
Creatures have been pushed, and not in a good direction. Thragtusk is just disgusting design. It reminds me of batterskull. WAY, WAY too much value pushed into a card, just because.
Thragtusk is indicative of design policy where they create a new overpowered card to fix a previous mistake. Jace was too good, so the printed Thrun. Thrun led to phantasmal image. Snapcaster led to Thragtusk. That is ridiculous; but it explains the insane power creep we have been seeing.
Creatures shouldnt be the answer to everything. Not every creature needs to have a spell attached.
FFS can red see even a little of the powercreep the other colours have seen? Hell no. Instead, we have to put up with nonsensical explantions for why we cannot have goblin chieftain and krenko in standard for too long (because of all those tournaments they're winning right?!) or how snapcater means red cannot have flame slash; a card it desperately needs. Because F YOU red; blue gets the good cards. -
1
Choirgirl Hotel posted a message on NWO ThoughtsMiracle is a huge swing mechanic and I think it might be as universally reviled as much as infect is/was.Posted in: Magic General
It sucks to go from winning the game to you lose off a single top deck Bonfire of the Damned or Terminus. -
1
everydayishinesoclean posted a message on [M13] Wit's Endsadly im not even mad anymore about wizards just screwing over black. just getting used to it :/ meh.Posted in: The Rumor Mill - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1
But you just HAD to reveal the hand instead of merely looking at it, which is an utter betrayal of color worldview. Another tally mark in the L column, alas.
1
Design is looking schlocky.
1
Speaking of five colors, if MtG were originally developed under Hasbro's thumb, three of 'em would likely have been retired after a single block, since only green and white sell.
1
1
1
Xenopus Hopper UU
Creature - Frog
U: ~ gains flying until end of turn.
2/1
1
Dream Eater 2UB
Creature - Spirit
UB, T: Target player discards a card and you draw a card. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
1
OFF-TOPIC: How much would a vanilla instant/sorcery tutor cost, anyway? I'd say 2R, since red needs to stop being the amputated finger and blue already has a 2C-costed sorcery that searches for a specific card supertype.
1
1