I hate this design. Big difference between a card like griptide and an effect that hits multiple creatures.
Its power level is brought down by the fact it only hits attackers and your opponent gets to choose where to put the creatures, but neither of those things changes the fact this is another instance of blue getting more of the pie.
I don't think blue alone should handle creatures this efficiently. Blue is supposed to need things from other colors.
Asian cards are printed at a different location to the English ones, hence different card stock is used and thus the cards feel different. Actually I think the cards from event decks are printed on the same stock as the Asian cards.
Yeh, I noticed this a while ago with an event deck. All the cards felt glossier and flimsy.
People will cheat when there is nothing on the line. Plus, you have to worry about the others who think manaweaving and shuffling insufficiently is 100% okay.
It's not even much of an analogy here: "Trust everyone, but cut the cards."
This is pretty meaningless really. They will sometimes give out things for events or special product releases, but they will never put anything of value in boosters.
A paper booster and an online booster will always require you to pay twice. It is that simple.
I think you guys are missing a huge part of the problem.
TSG shouldn't have been buying/selling large quantities of cards. Its a huge conflict of interest.
Its one thing to sell from your personal collection while working as a buyer/seller for a retailer, but it is something entirely different to acquire cards for the purpose of selling them(which he clearly was given the quantities reported to be sold on ebay). Wasn't CFB paying him to do for them what he was doing for himself?
I don't think it's too far out there to be printed today. Pyretic Ritual is basically the same thing for mono-red, and that was printed in M11.
Its obviously not overpowered. Its more a question of the current color pie and whether or not they want to print any more cards like this.
I was about to pose the question of whether or not we ever see the split mana symbols used like that. It seems like a pretty narrow thing to bother changing(even if the split symbols do look cleaner). I think its pretty intuitive to anyone who has played with a "add any combination of X and Y" what the symbols mean in that context, but it may be less so to players who started playing after the change. It may be misconstrued as mana that is actually of both types.
I can see why they don't want legacy and I'm glad PTs are now a mix of constructed and limited, but you would think they could do something better than just have standard twice.
Even if it were the last PT being modern and standard.
First, typical Constructed entry fees are 1/2 to 1/3 of draft entry fees.
This is the issue here. The new or less frequent(more casual) players are paying for the packs in limited and end up getting virtually nothing when there is a redraft.
I'm pretty decent at limited, but don't like the idea of a redraft.
Its a lot easier to justify $5 for a few hours of fun or $15 for a few hours of fun and a few packs of cards than it is to justify $15 for a few hours of less fun(which drafts where rares are redrafted usually are).
For some reason the rule is you can mana weave as long as you sufficiently randomize. Always annoyed me when I see people mana weave and then they insist they "sufficiently randomized" after. Then whats the point of the weaving?
The etiquette is don't do it. If I see you do it It will just mean I take longer shuffling your deck and I think you are a cheater.
Life gain has always been good when it comes aggressively costed, i.e. practically free. Kitchen Finks minus the lifegain is still a great card, the lifegain is just a nice bonus. IMO, Thragtusk minus the lifegain would be played almost as often. A 5/3 for 5 that gives you a 3/3 when it LTB, in a standard with blink effects? How about Sphinx's Revelation? I mean, its Stroke of Genius with a slightly (only slightly due to the lands available in standard) more prohibitive mana cost. Seems pretty good to me. The lifegain is practically a free bonus on those cards, and the reason they are seeing so much play is because they are such good cards otherwise.
I pretty much agree with all of this, but I think they are trying to make life gain viable but haven't figured out how yet. So instead they just made really good cards that happen to have life gain. Obviously, straight life gain won't be viable, but I think there is the possibility for more balanced cards than what we've seen.
Thragtusk and Sphinx's Revelation definitely push the envelope in terms of how life gain can distort the game... but Deathrite's lifegain is his most irrelevant ability as far as I've ever seen it played (the pinging is a clock your opponents need to outrace, and the mana-generating ability lets you do some pretty silly stuff).
Its obviously the weakest ability, but its pretty damn relevant. Especially in modern. I've seen plenty of modern/legacy games where it pushed someone off an extremely low life total.
I'm not passing judgement as to whether this is good or bad, but it seems to me they are.
I remember life gain being a complete joke before. Now we have cards like fangren marauder in limited and now Thragtusk, Deathrite shaman, and Sphinx's Revelation in constructed.
Sure, there have been cards like ravenous baloth, but they seem to be pushing the overall utility and power of cards that have life gain. I have to think they made an effort for life gain to be a part of constructed to print a trio of cards that are so powerful.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I think having some real cards that involve life gain will make the game more interesting, but my hope is that R&D can make the cards more balanced that what we see now.
My hope is their response won't be to go "Oh ****, print skullcrack and lets never do this again."
Its power level is brought down by the fact it only hits attackers and your opponent gets to choose where to put the creatures, but neither of those things changes the fact this is another instance of blue getting more of the pie.
I don't think blue alone should handle creatures this efficiently. Blue is supposed to need things from other colors.
Yeh, I noticed this a while ago with an event deck. All the cards felt glossier and flimsy.
It's not even much of an analogy here: "Trust everyone, but cut the cards."
A lot of the time in standard it just depends what mistake R&D made. Lots of standard formats have been determined by a broken card or mechanic.
A paper booster and an online booster will always require you to pay twice. It is that simple.
TSG shouldn't have been buying/selling large quantities of cards. Its a huge conflict of interest.
Its one thing to sell from your personal collection while working as a buyer/seller for a retailer, but it is something entirely different to acquire cards for the purpose of selling them(which he clearly was given the quantities reported to be sold on ebay). Wasn't CFB paying him to do for them what he was doing for himself?
Unless its diesel. In which case that name is just silly!
Its obviously not overpowered. Its more a question of the current color pie and whether or not they want to print any more cards like this.
I was about to pose the question of whether or not we ever see the split mana symbols used like that. It seems like a pretty narrow thing to bother changing(even if the split symbols do look cleaner). I think its pretty intuitive to anyone who has played with a "add any combination of X and Y" what the symbols mean in that context, but it may be less so to players who started playing after the change. It may be misconstrued as mana that is actually of both types.
Which is something entirely different.
Even if it were the last PT being modern and standard.
This is the issue here. The new or less frequent(more casual) players are paying for the packs in limited and end up getting virtually nothing when there is a redraft.
I'm pretty decent at limited, but don't like the idea of a redraft.
Its a lot easier to justify $5 for a few hours of fun or $15 for a few hours of fun and a few packs of cards than it is to justify $15 for a few hours of less fun(which drafts where rares are redrafted usually are).
The etiquette is don't do it. If I see you do it It will just mean I take longer shuffling your deck and I think you are a cheater.
Every deck could be named after the broken card/mechanic its built around.
I pretty much agree with all of this, but I think they are trying to make life gain viable but haven't figured out how yet. So instead they just made really good cards that happen to have life gain. Obviously, straight life gain won't be viable, but I think there is the possibility for more balanced cards than what we've seen.
Its obviously the weakest ability, but its pretty damn relevant. Especially in modern. I've seen plenty of modern/legacy games where it pushed someone off an extremely low life total.
I remember life gain being a complete joke before. Now we have cards like fangren marauder in limited and now Thragtusk, Deathrite shaman, and Sphinx's Revelation in constructed.
Sure, there have been cards like ravenous baloth, but they seem to be pushing the overall utility and power of cards that have life gain. I have to think they made an effort for life gain to be a part of constructed to print a trio of cards that are so powerful.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I think having some real cards that involve life gain will make the game more interesting, but my hope is that R&D can make the cards more balanced that what we see now.
My hope is their response won't be to go "Oh ****, print skullcrack and lets never do this again."