MTG Salvation

Quote from PsyOp

The problem with Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman influences is that they are too similar to both base broad stroke blocks around and make them seem different enough yet faithful to the source material.

Actually, a number of sources from R&D have said that they tried to keep references to Roman stuff at a minimum because they thought there was enough differences that they might want to do a Roman based setting somewhere down the line and wanted to keep the option available.

Quote from Mark Rosewater »

The creative team asked early on if we could focus just on Greek mythology because they felt that there were enough differences between Greek and Roman culture that we might be able to save Roman for a future set (not necessarily a Roman mythology set, but one around Roman culture—gladiators, chariots, and such).

Kraken art is awesome. Haters on the Kraken be damned!

Quote from quizzlemanizzle

Yeah man wheel of fortune, that is great analogy, not.

Actually, it is a reasonable analogy. They both represent sacrificing a controlled number of cards for a greater number of uncontrolled cards. And the choice to run them in a control deck would depend greatly on both deck construction and player preference.

Quote from FlossedBeaver

That is a great rebuttal, not.

You're a pretty reasonable guy to debate with, why do you let people get under your skin so? It usually just baits them into more, after all.

Quote from Beusapu

If you think the opponent has the final control of this card's effectiveness, then you don't understand anything.

And again, talking about you on the internet is just dumb. How do you expect us to think you're a good player when you keep saying the same absurd things?

Why do you think your position is automatically correct? To detractors of the card, you are the one saying "absurd things" about it.

Quote from FlossedBeaver

Fair enough. Which cards are getting pulled to accommodate Steam Augury?

I looked at the same thing. Those UWR decks really pack a ton of removal (for good reason) and I'm not sure that dropping some of it is a great idea. I also would disagree with losing Sphinx's Revelation. I remember someone suggesting dropping Think Twice, and I think that is a poor decision as well. Actually, if you did want to play this card, Think Twice actually has good synergy with it.

But I'm with you in that I don't think it does enough to justify it's inclusion when the only card that takes advantage of the graveyard is Snapcaster. I understand that card draw might also be something those decks are interested in, but I have doubts that it is the best available card draw even considering Snapcaster interactions.

Quote from FlossedBeaver

"Quantity has a quality all its own." - Joseph Stalin

Sage advice from the murderer of millions.

Being a murderer of millions makes a man no less intelligent. Hitler was no idiot, and look at this atrocities. How do you think they came to be reality?

Anyway, I definitely agree with your argument. I feel like most people are overvaluing this card rather heavily. Of course, I could turn out to be wrong come the new Standard, but most people up-talking the card seem to be either

A. Creating rather specific board states for it to be powerful in

or

B. Looking at its similarities to a certain FoF, while disregarding the key differences.

As I said before, I doubt this card will have much of a splash in Standard. I couldn't say about Modern because I despise the format and anything that makes a big enough splash is just going to be on the banlist next month anyway.

Quote from Devil"s Advocate

Forbidden alchemy serves a different role than this, whether you're playing with Snapcaster or not. FA only gives you one card, and you get to chose the one you need the most. Steam augury gives you 2.5 cards not of your choice. Of course Forbidden Alchemy is better if you're trying to use Steam Augury to filter your draws, SA doesn't do that. But SA is a lot better at producing immediate card advantage. 2.5 cards in hand and 2.5 cards in the graveyard immediately 4 on turn 4, vs. 1 card in hand and 3 in the yard on turn 3 and a second in hand and 3 more in the yard turn 7 at the earliest. I don't understand how you can even compare them, they serve totally different purposes in deck construction.

Forbidden Alchemy is different, yes, and better. You get the best card out of your top 4. You'll never get that with Augury. Not like it matters, because rotation.

Anyway, this thread just keeps repeating itself. Augury is fine if: (1) you have two cards in the top 5 you want; or (2) the opponent does not know what it is that you really want to draw. However, neither of these are optimal because: (1) if you have a deck that is likely to have redundant answers in your top 5, then you probably shouldn't be spending 5 on dedicated card draw; and (2) it is a very bad idea to bet on your opponents being bad at magic.

In pretty much every other situation, Augury is pretty stinky. "But but but you might draw 3 cards." Yes, it's true. There are conceivable piles where the opponent would be right to give you 3 or even 4 cards instead the bomb you dug for. It may even be true that you can consistently get 3 cards off of this guy as long as you make your pile correctly. 2 spells versus 3 lands seems like a pretty reliable way to get 3 in your hand, for instance.

But what the naysayers keep saying, and the proponents keep overlooking, is that you are going to get your 3 WORST cards. If you split them equally on a regular basis, you are usually going to get an Inspiration out of this. An inspiration which will never give you the card your opponent thinks is the best for you. An inspiration that lets your opponent trash your best card so you will not draw it. That's why people keep making that comparison. If you reliably draw 3, you are reliably drawing the 3 worst cards in your top 5. Keep that in mind.

"But my deck only has good cards so the 3 worst is fine." Alright, here again we have the redundancy issue. If your deck is all good, why are you wasting a five drop slot on raw card draw instead of just continuing to draw good stuff?

This card is playable -- if there is a deck that just wants raw card advantage. For example, if we have a powerful effect that you pay for by discarding cards, then the idea of forcing your opponent to give you 3 crap cards to fuel the engine is fine. In that respect, it's kind of like how Land Tax works very well with Scroll Rack. There is no such deck, or cards really, in standard.

It is also workable in reanimator, as people said, because if you get access to all five anyway it's gravy. A deck full of Recoup effects, for example, is fine with this. But, as people pointed out, the closest thing we have to this - Snappy - is rotating. So there's no deck there either.

Bottom line: this card is bad at the moment and would take some very specific types of printing to make it worthwhile.

Quote from Aloehart

Doesn't take much effort to go back through your responses in the thread, and none of them address the possibility of drawing more than 1 answer.

If you're in a situation where only 1 card in your deck can save you, that's poor deckbuilding and in game planning.

What? That is a situation that happens in damn near every single game that you lose. You need answers and you don't have them.

This whole "1 card" argument is fruitless anyway. You should be using the total number of cards in your deck which are beneficial to you. If you need mass removal that number might be 3-4. If you need *any* removal it might be 10-12. It varies, but the more behind you are, undoubtedly the number of cards that will help you goes down as well.

Bah. This has turned (expectedly, I must unfortunately say) into yet another Valarin-centered thread. Has he ever said anything else but:

- I hate standard.

- Maro is an incompetent doofus.

- Magic is dying. Sales are only up because XBox game / momemtum / people are devoted idotic fans.

- They don't do ABU anymore.

Have I missed anything significant? It's not an "interesting dissenter with a fresh outlook." It's the same old same old spamming. Valarin has shown that he doesn't get it:

- ABU is done. We won't get instant-speed one-mana draw three anymore.

- 20 years of cards has mined a lot of design space. The easy tropes of ABU (bolt, fireball, time walk, giant growth, ...) are done. You can't magically create 250 entirely original cards anymore.

- Different things get pushed at different times. They *did* reprint lightning bolt for a while. Now it's not in print. We *did* get good dual lands for a while. Now we won't.

- Yes, limited and standard requirements are important factors in design. ABU couldn't be drafted nor played in sealed. ABU as a standard set would be broken with today's deck design knwoledge. Heck it was broken back then and new deck-building limits imposed back then.

- Once every few set back then would be widly unbalanced with simple two or three card combo or synergy dominating play for months at a time.

He claims to be quitting magic over every set. He's always back for more hate, though. It's not an interesting view point and derails every. single. set thread with the same spam. How can someone takes his opinion seriously when it never has changed an iota since I ever read his post here? You can copy paste his post from every set. In fact, I've seen the exact word-for-word paragraph from him many times! I guess he has a bag of already-written post snippet that he only copy/paste on demand.

His rants about his interview... God. CIP? Really? In a card design department in a game company? Yeah, let's throw out imagination, creativity and focus on metrics. That's how you create good games. Oh God.

Quote from Tybalt

I think what he means is that Valarin's opinion and criticisms have reasons behind them, where as the vast majority simply says 'You don't like it? Don't buy it. How dare you not appreciate what WotC has done?' which is neither constructive nor realistic.

The vast majority of the people on this forum who would argue against Valarin or other 'dissenters' act no more than strawman WotC fanboys at every supposed slight against the designs of WotC.

Like, for instance, I will say that enchantment artifacts are the absolute dumbest thing Wizards has ever done, the reason being, is that they could just be artifacts, and that they have absolutely no reason to also be enchantments. Artifacts literally do everything that enchantments do, except that they were traditionally colorless, and traditionally enchantments couldn't be creatures.

The average response to such a complaint is generally: 'This set wasn't designed for you!'

That's not a real argument. There's literally no point for anyone to waste the time to post it. They would have managed their time better by doing literally anything else.

So, reading someone's opinion who differs from the mold is much better than reading something like:

[NewSet]Vanilla Goblin: 2r (M) 3/2

"First!"
"Oh wow, so flavorful, a goblin too stupid to do anything!"
"Wow! This will be great in standard!"
"Standard? This is great in eternal formats!"
"Oh wow, I can't wait to get a playset of these!"
"[picture of fry 'take my money']"
"Wow, Can you say standard goblins? Because I can!"
"This card's going to be $60!"
"Wow, I can't believe this, I need this for EDH!"

So, when someone goes to the thread and tells them that the card is god awful, as it truly is, that's different than the norm. I feel bad for the people on this forum quite often, solely because of what their opinions are and the events that must have happened to cause them to be so. WotC is not theur friend, WotC is their drug dealer's drug dealer. WotC would shoot them if they tried to rat on it.

WotC does not get offended when we don't like cards, or sets. MaRo doesn't, either. MaRo just tells himself that he can't please everyone, looks at the sales figures for boxes of cards that NEED to be purchased to play a game, and tells himself that he did a good job. After 10 years of that, he just walks around with an air of self importance, and people would defend his smug ass to the death, a man who wouldn't piss on them to put the fire out.

Let's be honest, Valarin hates everything about MtG as it is now (and I like the guy as far as everything else on this forum goes: movies, real-life advice especially), although I'm fairly confidant he enjoyed Return to Ravnica (who didn't? I thought limited wasn't all that great in RtR to be honest)

I don't find his views on recent sets to be very constructive at all: "this is terrible, I wanted something else, everything MaRo does is utter garbage"

It's just as bad as "WotC can't do anything wrong"; one extreme to the other

What you choose to focus on is up to you; I personnaly love spoiler season because it creates deck ideas and deck building is probably the part of the game I enjoy the most (sometimes I build a deck for the fun of it and take it apart after only a few games): I don't pay any mind to the cheerleaders or the haters; why would I?

I'm a bit baffled by how showing enthusiam for a game that we clearly all like is frowned upon however: this is an internet forum for a game for which the average player is 13 years old... Let the kids have their fun.

Valarin is certainly allowed to be as vocal in his hatred as he wants to be; sometimes he does gets a lot of unwarranted hate but your reap what you sow.

As far as the business side of things go, I couldn't care any less. I fail to see how it has any relevance to the discussion at hand which is: dissension is good in itself.

It isn't, it's beyond stupid to think it is no matter how you try to sugar coat it with "all these cheerleaders need a reality check" by using hyperbolic and superfluous examples.

The lack of empathy is disturbing honestly.