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Magic: the Gathering |OT| Guilds of Ravnica - We built this city on blocks of gold
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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Yeah Gruul looks very strong. I like it. These mechanics all seem fantastic for limited. I'm excited for that.
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First reaction to riot was that it's Fanatic of Xenagos but with you choosing as a mechanic, then I realized it's a strictly better unleash. And I see, this is why MaRo was talking about green becoming secondary in haste (when it was tertiary before).
abzan-adherent asked: Hey Mark, I wanted to give my input on Adapt. I think part of the reason is that it doesn't feel different enough from Monstrosity to warrant being the new Simic keyword. I think if you had just reprinted Monstrosity, it would have been well recieved.
We treated it as if it were a reprint. In my preview article I talk all about how it's a reprint. We tweaked it to make it work better with Simic (both to solve memory issues and let you use counters as a resource and reuse the ability). We're not trying to pull a fast one on anyone. It's essentially a reprint like Convoke was on Selesnya.
December 19, 2018
zargasheth asked: Ignoring the actual gameplay of it (which seems like an improvement), do you think Adapt would have gotten a better first-impression response if it had been an exact return of Monstrosity?
Maybe. The problem Monstrosity has memory issues with cards that put +1/+1 counters on other creatures, something Simic does a lot.
December 19, 2018
As far as they're concerned, adapt is a returning mechanic. This likely means Azorius won't have a returning one.
abzan-adherent asked: Hey Mark, I wanted to give my input on Adapt. I think part of the reason is that it doesn't feel different enough from Monstrosity to warrant being the new Simic keyword. I think if you had just reprinted Monstrosity, it would have been well recieved.
We treated it as if it were a reprint. In my preview article I talk all about how it's a reprint. We tweaked it to make it work better with Simic (both to solve memory issues and let you use counters as a resource and reuse the ability). We're not trying to pull a fast one on anyone. It's essentially a reprint like Convoke was on Selesnya.
December 19, 2018
zargasheth asked: Ignoring the actual gameplay of it (which seems like an improvement), do you think Adapt would have gotten a better first-impression response if it had been an exact return of Monstrosity?
Maybe. The problem Monstrosity has memory issues with cards that put +1/+1 counters on other creatures, something Simic does a lot.
December 19, 2018
As far as they're concerned, adapt is a returning mechanic. This likely means Azorius won't have a returning one.
They also said that they weren't interested in balancing the number of returning mechanics among sets, so I'd say it's still quite possible Azorius does, right?
This makes sense. Monstrosity was great—but they should've been flip cards—but the memory issues were really a problem, especially for newer players (like I was at the time of Theros. Not new, but returning after a decade away.) I also like the idea that it allows counters to be used as currency for other cards.
Except there was no reason not to Unleash most of the time. Most people will probably favour the counter, but the option to give it haste is great.
I can see why Proliferate is problematic to develop for.
A single instance of Proliferate does a bunch of things, and the more players you add on the more ridiculous a single instance of it actually is.
A single instance of Proliferate does a bunch of things, and the more players you add on the more ridiculous a single instance of it actually is.
My sense lately is that if a green mana symbol appears on a card then there are no design restrictions on the stat line.
I can't wait until the Azorius mechanic is "whenever you counter some shit, do some other bullshit"
If anyone was asking "but why Red?!" it's because they don't hate Hero's Downfall, it's that Hero's Downfall gets played as a 4x in every black deck in Standard (it often did when it was legal) and they don't want it to be a 4x in every black deck.
English version.
And now it's much harder to cast so good job?
Can' t even splash it in Grixis.
They don't want you to splash it.
They don't seem to like the old play pattern of "drop a Planeswalker, tick it, it dies to Downfall." That was pretty popular while the card was legal.
It still was a 4x in Abzan Rhinos. It was a good card and if you were playing black there wasn't any reason not to put 4 in. It wasn't a reward for playing those colors. It was just ruthlessly efficient and wasn't dead even against stuff like Azorius Control because they still ran Elspeth and Jace.
I find it funny that Riot is more of an adapt-like ability in concept than Adapt actually is, like you get to adapt to the situation and choose Haste or a +1/+1 counter while Simic gets... just +1/+1 counters. LUL
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Brandon Sanderson discussed his story on Reddit and in the Magic stream. Info collected by a poster on MTG Salvation.
Davriel is mostly B ( Sanderson pitched him as a mono-black heroic character) but a strong U side as well as a tiny bit of W for liking order and social structures, but mostly for others and not himself. Sanderson wrote a lot of Davriel thinking of how much he and Liliana would clash. He is from a known plane but Sanderson isn't allowed to say.
-The bog entity is G (though it acted a little B in its shattered state trying to reform), Darrel's entity is B. Entities are like "mana reservoirs--the collected mana of a plane--that can be tapped to power spells, but with dangerous results." The m15 soul cycle was an inspiration for him and they are formed from special circumstances. Sanderson can't confirm if anything else outside of his story is an entity. While mostly Sandersons idea, he worked with creative for work with MTG lore and think we will be seeing more of the entities.
-Tacenda started as mono R and her magic came from Sanderson wanting to show some non-combat magic but her personality came out more GW leaning hard on the G, so Sanderson now see her most G and secondarily RW. While in Sandersons head he thought of Tazenda becoming a planeswalker in the end and the bog entity being the source of her walking, Sanderson knows that doesn't full work in magic lore as well as not wanting to force in another walker so he left is up in the air for creative to use how they want. In Sanderson head Davriel is the same, while Davriel thinks that its his spark and "ignited when he he saw the true nature of the multiverse" (this is canon to how Davriel sparked on the magic lore).
-The demons would be B, though Miss Highwater has some RU to her, while Crunchgnar has some RG to him. Miss Highwater and Davriel relationship was something Sandersons had thought up in college and she was the demon he knew before hand he wanted to include.
-Willia is WGB
-The bog entity is G (though it acted a little B in its shattered state trying to reform), Darrel's entity is B. Entities are like "mana reservoirs--the collected mana of a plane--that can be tapped to power spells, but with dangerous results." The m15 soul cycle was an inspiration for him and they are formed from special circumstances. Sanderson can't confirm if anything else outside of his story is an entity. While mostly Sandersons idea, he worked with creative for work with MTG lore and think we will be seeing more of the entities.
-Tacenda started as mono R and her magic came from Sanderson wanting to show some non-combat magic but her personality came out more GW leaning hard on the G, so Sanderson now see her most G and secondarily RW. While in Sandersons head he thought of Tazenda becoming a planeswalker in the end and the bog entity being the source of her walking, Sanderson knows that doesn't full work in magic lore as well as not wanting to force in another walker so he left is up in the air for creative to use how they want. In Sanderson head Davriel is the same, while Davriel thinks that its his spark and "ignited when he he saw the true nature of the multiverse" (this is canon to how Davriel sparked on the magic lore).
-The demons would be B, though Miss Highwater has some RU to her, while Crunchgnar has some RG to him. Miss Highwater and Davriel relationship was something Sandersons had thought up in college and she was the demon he knew before hand he wanted to include.
-Willia is WGB
It had worse mana than this one - it was either Temples/Shocks or Temples/fetchlands. This format has Checks and Shocks, so it's conceivably splashable if you're B/x/x.
Downfall was never legal while BFZ's dual-typed lands were legal so there weren't that many double colored cards.
At PT Dragons Brad Nelson was playing some number of: fetches, trilands, painlands, temples, Urborg, and Mana Confluence in his 4-Downfall Abzan aggro deck that had two-drops in every color. "Either Temples/shocks or Temples/fetchlands" undersells the manabases a bit imo.
Checks and Shocks are about as good as mana gets in Standard.
They should be uncommon though. Looking at almost $100 for a competitive dual land manabase (a full set of shocks + checks) is almost downright criminal and prices a lot of people out of competitive play.
You don't need a full playset of all the lands for competitive play; just the ones in the deck that you plan to play. If you switch decks, they're pretty liquid, so it should be easy to trade one check for another; same with the shocks.
Maybe I went a bit overboard with the 100€ figure (since some LGS that sell singles tend to be on the overpriced side due to the convenience) but just the 8 I need for a single deck are 70€: ~35€ for each 4x playset of Sulfur Falls and Steam Vents shopping around on cardmarket (a european site) for example. Yeah, I can trade them for other colours' set may I need to (and I should find someone that has a set but not currently playing it in the first place!) but I still think it's borderline prohibitive.
If it's 3 color, easily about $100 for the mana base. Maybe a little less if you scrounge for great deals. Shocks are 5-8 each and you need 12. Plus 12 checks that run 2-4 each. That's a lot.
It is ridicoulus, that really shouldn't be up for debate. However, 25 years of Magic has made most people just become used to it. Also from the business side it unfortunately part of what makes the game financially viable for Hasbro.
It's pretty dumb. Lands are already probably the most hated element in Magic, making high-quality basic functionality lands Rare was always a mistake and always will be, but like basically everything regarding lands we're just too far down the rabbit hole to fix the problem now. It would be nice if they at least started printing everything that's below Checklands in terms of quality (Temples, Tangos, etc.) at Uncommon, no one should be popping a Tier 3/4 dual as a draft rare.
At least they're pretty good about reprinting, where the Reserved List doesn't cock things up.
At least they're pretty good about reprinting, where the Reserved List doesn't cock things up.
Wotc knows that lands sell packs, lands that do nothing but colour fix should definitely be uncommon.
Even real ABUR duals were incredibly cheap back then. Sigh...
RNA - Addendum
"Read each addendum card carefully so you know exactly how each one works. The word "instead" in the addendum ability indicates a self-replacement effect, meaning you won't get the base effect, just the upgraded one."
Will have to see the printed cards but this sounds like a recipe for confusion. Unless it is something simple like "gain 3 life; addendum: gain 5 life"
Will have to see the printed cards but this sounds like a recipe for confusion. Unless it is something simple like "gain 3 life; addendum: gain 5 life"
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I have to say, I didn't expect this mechanic for Azorius at all. We've had cards like this in the past, in Time Spiral block and somewhere in Theros block, but this is the first time it's been labeled like this. I suppose the connections to Orzhov and Simic will be purely on a card by card basis. One neat thing about Emergency Powers is that the 7 mana is clearly referring to a new Bolas card (next set).
I'm surprised by the power of Incubation, given how strong previous one-mana green cantrips have been.
Addendum is a boring ability word version of something they have done in the past, but it is at least flavorful. Hopefully there are more addendums than just "If it's your turn", such as "If your opponent attacked this turn" or "If your opponent cast a spell this turn" or something
At least the mechanic encourages playing stuff on your turn instead of playing draw-go. Maybe that'll make all the new Arena players less sad about control.
But wait, Teferi lets you untap lands you used to play your Addendum card for full value. Noooooooooo.
But wait, Teferi lets you untap lands you used to play your Addendum card for full value. Noooooooooo.
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