C19 - Tokens
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The token design change from Core Set 2020 was a great move
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Magic: The Gathering |OT| Core Set 2020 - Red Head Wins
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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The token design change from Core Set 2020 was a great move
Question: creatures with abilities on their card stating 2/B mana, "do this"— are those abilities like instants or do they have to be played during main phases?
These are still different though. I think I prefer Core 2020.
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OP
Abilities can be activated at any time you can cast an instant, unless stated otherwise.
Agreed. I'm excited for the Throne Collector boosters (more foil/full art/variants), though I will probably only be able to afford one or two of them.
I mean, I don't pay too much attention to Modern and older formats, but wasn't this sort of expected?
The last tournament that mythic thing had only 2 hogaaks in top 8, or 1 I don't remember, but it was very prevalent and succesful against a field that was supposedly ready for it. The green force blowing up leylines didn't help matters.
And when they ban him mere 2 months after being printed maybe people can stop pretending play design are balance geniuses, they're pretty bleh at their jobs.
Nah, they're not. And that's a pretty shit way of looking at people who I'm sure work hard af trying to make things fun for the game. Ok, so hogaak is busted. It happens, ban it, move on. For the most part, Modern Horizons has been great, and so has standard for the last year or so.
The only thing that's shit about the situation is that Hogaak is still running around when the card is clearly a problem. I don't mind them trying to push the boundaries once in a while, but I do mind them not taking care of business when things have clearly gone awry. That's not play/design's fault imo
Pretty bad to not emergency-ban given that the only reason we're in this situation was them whiffing on the last scheduled B&R. Feel for anyone playing Modern tournaments in the meantime.
Yeah, I don't blame play design: there seems to be a clear mandate to push boundaries on power level. The issue is that, if that's your policy, you need to be pretty aggressive with bannings or risk ruining formats for long periods of time. "Print Hogaaks" + "be cautious with bans and restrictions" + "don't ban new cards" is the real problem combo.
Yeah, I don't blame play design: there seems to be a clear mandate to push boundaries on power level. The issue is that, if that's your policy, you need to be pretty aggressive with bannings or risk ruining formats for long periods of time. "Print Hogaaks" + "be cautious with bans and restrictions" + "don't ban new cards" is the real problem combo.
TBH, a lot of people assumed banning Bridge would be enough, so it's not like the whiff was something everyone saw coming. There was a brief window where everyone thought the Hogaak deck was dead and buried, or at least way worse, without Bridge.
Nah. Play Design's been fantastic for standard and limited.
I don't blame WotC for creating Hogaak. It's an incredibly cool and splashy design that pushes new boundaries, and I would have loved to see it actually work in Modern. But it didn't, and WotC really messed up by not banning Hogaak alongside Bridge From Below in the last B&R announcement.
The thing is, emergency bans suck for people actually attending tournaments. Emergency banning Hogaak is basically telling people to come up with a new deck on the fly.
They have only emergency banned on two occasions: once for Memory Jar (It's not an understatement to say that Urza's Saga could have killed MTG, and this would have been just another headache), and once for Saheli Twin, when they said "we don't have to do this", then got so much blowback and actual data from MTGO that they changed their mind.
I'm fine with them missing stuff for non-limited/standard, as long as they are going a great job with those formats. Hoggak wasn't the obvious insane card at spoiler season that it is seen as now (otherwise it would have preordered for a ton of money), but that said, if you are intentionally designing cards for powerful formats, they either need to be pushed to the point where they might be broken, or they won't see play.
I'm fine with them missing stuff for non-limited/standard, as long as they are going a great job with those formats. Hoggak wasn't the obvious insane card at spoiler season that it is seen as now (otherwise it would have preordered for a ton of money), but that said, if you are intentionally designing cards for powerful formats, they either need to be pushed to the point where they might be broken, or they won't see play.
It's not just Hogaak, to be fair the misses are more notable than the hits but they've made plenty of dubious design decisions in their short time as a team.
What I don't understand is why some players insist on propping them up as these ingenious design masters, I've had people tell me they "saved" magic lmao.
Just to be clear, it's fine that they make mistakes but maybe have a little perspective. They're about as good/bad as whoever was designing before they were formed, DOM was the outlier not a preview of things to come.
I don't play Modern, but from what I recall reading, Hogaak dominated the Mythic Championship in the Modern portion... it's just that its pilots did poorly in limited on the aggregate, and thus the deck didn't produce as many top finishes as you'd expect.
I think Karn, Narset, W6, and Hogaak have all been meaningful mistakes. I don't think their current philosophy of design for eternal formats is working; a lot of focus seems to be on power level and little focus on whether things encourage positive play patterns. I see few actual eternal players clamoring for cards to be pushed as aggressively as these.
Agree that this likely isn't the fault of the play design team per se and that the play design team seems to have been a positive force (though hard to tell all these things from the outside).
Limited and Standard have been excellent. I'd imagine that's where they focus their time. Modern is impossible to balance realistically.
See? Just like this, PD can do no wrong, even when they do lol.
And standard has not been "excellent" as subjective as that is, but I'm not gonna tell someone they didn't enjoy something they did.
I think you're the one who lacks perspective here. We currently have a standard environment where aggro, midrange, control, and honest-to-goodness combo are all powerful, diverse, and viable. Do you know how refreshing that is? Especially after the complete garbage fire that was Kaladesh standard? The same standard environment that saw nine cards banned, including a fucking basic land tutor?
Like even if you don't think it's near as great as Kamigawa/Ravnica or Innistrad/Return to Ravnica or whatever your favorite period in standard history is, it's still genuinely good, and that's a place standard hasn't been in for a long time.
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They can do wrong. I just don't know that anyone should really expect better.
Play Design have been doing fine in standard but they missed a lot with WAR and some in m20. Standard is really bad rn despite high deck diversity.
this standard is quite awful. lots of viable decks doesn't really mean anything when most of them can't even disrupt the opposing gameplan, so your games are determined by how well you draw and who goes first rather than any sort of decision-making
play design is basically operating under the flawed paradigm of only policing consistency instead of policing power. the only real difference is that they refuse to ban anything, whereas the previous arbiters weren't as arrogant
broken stuff is considered okay because "it's only going to be broken for 9 months" (wilderness reclamation / nexus of fate) or "it's only going to be broken for 3 months" (sorin, scapeshift). this doesn't actually balance anything in the modern netdecking era, but it is an effective way to make sure people's decks become useless more rapidly
sure, we're a lot less likely to get 2-card infinite combos because someone is looking for them now. but the overall play patterns aren't really better than they were in the kaladesh/amonkhet era. hour of devestation era monored and energy were way more fair and beatable and interactive than anything being played today. the past year of play design's nonsensical balance decisions has made me miss when slow late-game card advantage engines (eg. azcanta / teferi 5 / torrential gearhulk) were the most broken things you could do
the side-effect of play design existing is that it might lead to more strong cards without greatly increasing the risk of creating ban-worthy cards, but the process doesn't have enough real checks. they've set up this scenario where they're responsible for both balancing the cards and also judging whether the cards are balanced. so their natural reaction will be to not ban anything because they're trying to use lack of bans as evidence that they're doing a good job.
nobody would have even cared if they added some made-for-multiplayer uncommon (wilderness reclamation) to the standard banlist, but instead we get 9 months of having to win by turn 5 and punishing decks that try to interact with creatures or planeswalkers. and then their "solution" to that (presumably teferi 3) was making the only remaining piece of interaction (counterspells) unplayable 🙄
play design is basically operating under the flawed paradigm of only policing consistency instead of policing power. the only real difference is that they refuse to ban anything, whereas the previous arbiters weren't as arrogant
broken stuff is considered okay because "it's only going to be broken for 9 months" (wilderness reclamation / nexus of fate) or "it's only going to be broken for 3 months" (sorin, scapeshift). this doesn't actually balance anything in the modern netdecking era, but it is an effective way to make sure people's decks become useless more rapidly
sure, we're a lot less likely to get 2-card infinite combos because someone is looking for them now. but the overall play patterns aren't really better than they were in the kaladesh/amonkhet era. hour of devestation era monored and energy were way more fair and beatable and interactive than anything being played today. the past year of play design's nonsensical balance decisions has made me miss when slow late-game card advantage engines (eg. azcanta / teferi 5 / torrential gearhulk) were the most broken things you could do
the side-effect of play design existing is that it might lead to more strong cards without greatly increasing the risk of creating ban-worthy cards, but the process doesn't have enough real checks. they've set up this scenario where they're responsible for both balancing the cards and also judging whether the cards are balanced. so their natural reaction will be to not ban anything because they're trying to use lack of bans as evidence that they're doing a good job.
nobody would have even cared if they added some made-for-multiplayer uncommon (wilderness reclamation) to the standard banlist, but instead we get 9 months of having to win by turn 5 and punishing decks that try to interact with creatures or planeswalkers. and then their "solution" to that (presumably teferi 3) was making the only remaining piece of interaction (counterspells) unplayable 🙄
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Does Magic Arena have different rules than paper? I was reading about blocking (in paper Magic) and it states that if an attacking creature is blocked, but then the blocking creature is destroyed with an instant, the attacker is still blocked and there is no damage to the opposing player. However, I have done the exact opposite a few times in Arena...
I don't think this was the case as I am playing mono-red in Arena.
The new Twiddlestorm deck people are playing in Modern really tickles me. I used to play a version of this deck five fucking years ago before the hexproof lotus land, but it played Utopia Sprawls and such to go off. It just immediately lost to Ghost Quarter which is why I stopped playing it. It's amazing how many weird decks are out there in Modern hiding just out of reach waiting for just one card to come out and make them viable.
It's not that bad, I think you can attribute most of the problems to us now being in a 8 set standard which always gets a bit messy. But the format is still much better than it was a couple of years ago.
I will say though, Wizards completely dropping the ball with organised play at all levels has meant it's harder to know what the best deck is because people are rarely trying to find it (outside of the MPL where there is an additional weird metagame thing going on that requires a different approach). This means diversity can be a bit false.
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OP
Interesting podcast, and MaRo almost confirms they used Scryfall internally, lol
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From last week
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The format has been solved for several weeks now and we're in a cyclical meta.
With Play Design should be much better than it is. They didn't fail on the balance so much since there's various top tier decks as opposed to singular in recent 8 set standards but the play patterns are arguably worse in exchange.
Even if the play patterns are worse, it's not a disaster of a format.
On cyclical metas and the MPL format being weird - there are no vampires in this weeks games because everyone tried to meta each other.
Standard's really convenient for me on Arena right now because I don't really have to go any further than finding out who plays first to resolve the game. I just wish someone would tell the Control players about that situation so they'd stop wasting everyone else's time, we've got grinding to do here, fellas.
Apparently the new criteria for banning should be "Is part of a moderately successful deck I don't like".
this might be funny if nexus of fate wasn't actually a top deck and if it didn't get banned from places (the entire best-of-1 mode, some of the other tournaments)
i think ixalan through ravnica allegiance standard (without wilderness or nexus) could have been an interesting one. i can't say for certain what it would have looked like, but maybe some unplayable decks (i.e. the ones that always lost to nexus of fate) could have steered the format towards a better place
To be perfectly frank, Teferi Time Raveler is a toxic card that is single-handedly warping the metagame in various ways.
Can anyone here explain how cards that don't really looks like they've been played out of a sleeve, can still have pretty bad surfaces? I try to only buy singles that are listed as near mint, and some times I'll get cards that at first glance look brand new, but then when I look at them at an angle under some light, their surface will look pretty worn.
Is that just natural wear and tear from a lot of play/shuffling while sleeved? Or is it because they've been stored in bad conditions?
Is that just natural wear and tear from a lot of play/shuffling while sleeved? Or is it because they've been stored in bad conditions?
At what point do the payout and costs intersect on the graph? It probably doesn't make much monetary sense if you don't place high enough
Well a trip to the US costs 1k alone in flights so top 64 of a PT which needed 30 match points in the latest MC/PT and good breakers against a bunch of other 30 match point players. That's a 10-6 record that doesn't even qualify you for the next MC/PT I think either
The other day I watched a streamer use an interesting red and black deck. It had the Chandra planeswalker that creates the 2 elementals and utilized Priest of Forgotten Gods. This'd make for a really slick combo if the player manages to get the right cards at the start XP
They heard me! A lot to take in but the stand out is they've gone back to calling PTs PTs but it stands for Players Tour.
My quick takeaways from this (might be wrong there is a LOT here)
Paper side (with a very small MTGO part) and a Arena Side
Paper:
There are 3 PTs per season- one in America, Europe and Asia. You can only play in 1 per season, but if you qualifiy, you can choose which one to go to (ie, playing in America if you are in Europe). There will be 3 "seasons" in the year, so a total of 9 PTs. They expect that there will be 3600 players between all 9 events.
You qualify for these like you have PTs in the past- Top8 or 39 points at a GP, MTGO PTQs, Hall of Fame, PTQs, doing well at the previous seasons PT, etc.
Each season, the 3 tournaments will feed a "PT Final", a 120 player event. To get in, you need to Win a GP, be in the MPL, or be a "top finisher" from that seasons PT or the last PT Final
SCG and other SCG-like circuits will award PT slots
Arena:
There are 3 Mythic Invitationals per year. They are small tournaments.
They will consist of MPL players, Rival League players (more later), MQ tournaments, and special invites (ie, your Amaz's of the world)
MPL and Rivals League
MPL is now a 24 player league, where the top 16 remain the bottom 4 get relegated, and the 5-8th spots are "defended" in a gauntlet
Rivals League consists of the top 12 non-MPL Arena players, top 12 non-MPL, the relegated MPL players, the bottom players in the Gauntlet, and 6 discretionary slots
The Arena stuff is still very confusing, but the takeaway is that the MPL will have relegation down to a Rivals League (and you can presumably fall out of the rivals league the following year), and you can get into the rivals league by playing Paper OR Arena
Paper side (with a very small MTGO part) and a Arena Side
Paper:
There are 3 PTs per season- one in America, Europe and Asia. You can only play in 1 per season, but if you qualifiy, you can choose which one to go to (ie, playing in America if you are in Europe). There will be 3 "seasons" in the year, so a total of 9 PTs. They expect that there will be 3600 players between all 9 events.
You qualify for these like you have PTs in the past- Top8 or 39 points at a GP, MTGO PTQs, Hall of Fame, PTQs, doing well at the previous seasons PT, etc.
Each season, the 3 tournaments will feed a "PT Final", a 120 player event. To get in, you need to Win a GP, be in the MPL, or be a "top finisher" from that seasons PT or the last PT Final
SCG and other SCG-like circuits will award PT slots
Arena:
There are 3 Mythic Invitationals per year. They are small tournaments.
They will consist of MPL players, Rival League players (more later), MQ tournaments, and special invites (ie, your Amaz's of the world)
MPL and Rivals League
MPL is now a 24 player league, where the top 16 remain the bottom 4 get relegated, and the 5-8th spots are "defended" in a gauntlet
Rivals League consists of the top 12 non-MPL Arena players, top 12 non-MPL, the relegated MPL players, the bottom players in the Gauntlet, and 6 discretionary slots
The Arena stuff is still very confusing, but the takeaway is that the MPL will have relegation down to a Rivals League (and you can presumably fall out of the rivals league the following year), and you can get into the rivals league by playing Paper OR Arena
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