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Magic: the Gathering |OT| Ravnica Allegiance - These 5 Lands Will SHOCK You!
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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EDIT: I like that alter.
Duel Masters, also from Wizards, allows you to play any card as a mana source. This resulted in games with those decks playing pretty similarly without other sources of randomization, though.
Just make lands automatically add to your resources at the start of your turn.
Also ban islands because there would be no reason to play blue anymore.
Oooooooor—hear me out—what if we... didn't fuck with the fundamental structural elements of the most popular and successful TCG of all time?
Hearthstone has proven that linear resources and predictable card draw make for boring, same-y games, which has led to an over proliferation of random effects that are impossible to replicate in a paper card game (and awful in their own right).
Hearthstone has proven that linear resources and predictable card draw make for boring, same-y games, which has led to an over proliferation of random effects that are impossible to replicate in a paper card game (and awful in their own right).
The problem I see with the London mulligan is that instead of avoiding "non-games", they're going to enable them for the wrong reasons: fishing for nut hands that guarantee a perfect goldfish start or fishing for all the sideboard cards that won't allow your opponent to play Magic at all.
I think the land thing has been archaic and a problem since the beginning, and the recent sets seem to be some of the best yet, so I like the way Magic is evolving.
Sure. Like we'd listen to someone who is an advocate of the Urza is green theory.
they don't need to get rid of lands
they just need to make a lot more land/spell split cards
except the current head of design is a "mana screw/flood is good for the game" person, so you'll have to wait for him to retire
or just play arena where they're trying all this weird stuff where they keep shuffling your deck until you're going to draw enough lands + nonlands
they just need to make a lot more land/spell split cards
except the current head of design is a "mana screw/flood is good for the game" person, so you'll have to wait for him to retire
or just play arena where they're trying all this weird stuff where they keep shuffling your deck until you're going to draw enough lands + nonlands
Considering how they have spent years trying to make the game simpler, I doubt they are going to adapt a system where one way of playing has one system and other has a different one. Hell, they forced the EDH committee to use the Vancouver mulligan instead of the Partial Paris
If Arena BO1 represents the trends of the future then count me out. Messing with mulligan rules makes sense, that's orders of magnitude less impactful than changing the overall land system.
The biggest problem with Arena is that I just stopped playing paper magic and sold all my cards because Arena takes like 3 minutes to get a competitive game going
I very much doubt BO1 represents the future, so much as it represents an option that will remain in the future.
one thing that has to be said about hte mulligan is that in a large amount of games if not the majority it will make almost no or no difference.
It IS a feature. While it sucks to lose to mana problems, they also allow lesser skilled players to win occasionally and they provide good excuses to help ease the burden of losing.
There's absolutely no reason not to have specific mulligan rules for Modern and Legacy. They are (beyond) expert-level formats with a massive initial entree fee. There's no one playing those formats who would be saying, "Oh man, how can I grasp the complexity of this game when I now have to remember that there's a different mulligan system for the format that only I and a tiny percentage of the most hardcore players of the game ever play."
There already are different mulligan rules for different formats. Multiplayer formats for example.
I'm not sure something that provides an excuse is a good feature -- if anything it seems to lead to players whining and negativity in my limited experience.
Yeah, but the whining and negativity is an outlet. If the players had only themselves to blame for losing, they'd have quit a long time ago. It's why team based video games are so popular. People have weak egos and can't stand knowing that their lack of skill is the reason why they can't win. It's the whole Chess vs. Poker debate.
That's a super cynical thing though -- I think it would be healthier if people did quit if they're only staying in something because of addiction and their egos.
From the company's perspective I guess I see why you're arguing that, though.
mtg doesn't have too much skill in playing the games. there would still be plenty of luck even if they did more stuff to address the shortcomings of the land system
any variance-reducers they add would be strictly worse than other options, so anyone taking advantage of them would just be making their average draws weaker in exchange for making their extreme draws better
anyways, they already do this in miniscule amounts with things like tapped lands vs untapped lands vs ability lands
but the folks in charge of card design are too timid or inexperienced to do more than that, so instead we get the arena devs making big changes to deck shuffling and moving the game further and further away from paper in some pursuit of presenting best-of-1 as an esport
any variance-reducers they add would be strictly worse than other options, so anyone taking advantage of them would just be making their average draws weaker in exchange for making their extreme draws better
anyways, they already do this in miniscule amounts with things like tapped lands vs untapped lands vs ability lands
but the folks in charge of card design are too timid or inexperienced to do more than that, so instead we get the arena devs making big changes to deck shuffling and moving the game further and further away from paper in some pursuit of presenting best-of-1 as an esport
If the mulligan goes through I'll probably be done. At least with modern. I already sold off BG/Jund and am just rolling with UW for now. Tron, dredge, Phoenix, etc getting to pick what they need just isn't appealing to me and I'd rather just stay home and watch dust collect
It's not really a negative thing. Games are designed to be fun. What's not fun? Feeling bad. Why do you feel bad? Because it's your fault you lost. Therefore games are designed to ease the burden on the player. That's part of why fighting games are so hard for newer players. It hurts way more to lose in a 1v1 game than in other genres. Also, never argued that addiction played a part.
An anecdote that's related to this topic: Last week, a brand new player came in and won a draft at our LGS with a bunch of (fundamentally) bad limited cards and (traditionally) poor decision making. She was super inexperienced and it was her first draft. I talked to her and she said she was so nervous that she almost didn't enter. She spent the entire car trip down to the LGS thinking about how she'd draft and hoping she didn't make anyone mad. After she won, she told me she had a TON of fun and I fully expect to see her come back quite a bit in the future. Quite a few of her opponents were mana screwed. Remove that variance and maybe she goes 0-3. But she didn't. She won in an unlikely manner because of how Magic is designed and now she left extremely happy and will probably continue to keep buying product and coming back.
I understand that it feels bad to lose to mana screw, but people have to think of the bigger picture. Maybe they wouldn't have anyone to play with if we changed the mana conditions to reduce variance. I played poker for a living and people kept trying to "fix the game" by reducing variance there, too. Without Chris Moneymaker (an amateur at the time) winning the World Series of Poker, it never would've become as big of a sensation as it did.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention. Noone's arguing for there to be complete chaos where skill doesn't matter at all. But, just like in poker, even the best Magic players can't expect to win 100% of the time. The number is closer to ~60% and I personally think that's fine and healthy for the game.
So, random thought that hit me in my drowsy sleepiness, buuuut... what if they changed the rules so that casting a colorless spell with any colored mana pinged you for one damage? Still in kind of a daze so maybe it's just a stupid thought, and honestly I think the right solution is just more artifacts with color in the cost. But still, deals with artifact sets being too strong kind of and gives a purpose to colorless mana production. I dunno, at least doesn't feel like the worst idea I've had while half asleep...
Just make colored artifact, that's the solution.
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? Was I not explaining myself well enough, because it feels like maybe so? I was talking a minor nerf to colorless spells, not a major buff. Like essentially the equivalent of Umezawa's Jitte and all other overly powerful colorless spells would be erreta'd to have "if you use any colored mana in casting this spell, take one damage." So stuff like Sol Ring would be a minor choice in Commander at least, etc. May be waaaaaay too much of a ding on the stuff out there that's fairly balanced though, yeah....
That seems to be skirting close to making "any mana" spells (and not the Eldrazi require colorless spells) into a 6th color, which seems kind of counter to the entire idea of artifacts. They'd either do more colorless required stuff, or do the colored artifacts you're suggesting if they want to limit that.
wrt land screw/flood, I think more important than "giving worse players a chance to win" is creating a more diverse set of gamestates. Being able to adjust to resource disparities is skill-testing and expands the possible set of game situations and narratives.
I don't know if it's perfectly optimized -- maybe you somehow can get the games where you navigate three missed land drops perfectly and win without getting the games where you miss three more turns and have 0% equity -- but I'm inclined to believe Maro that something about this system is intrinsically tied to Magic's long-term appeal.
I don't know if it's perfectly optimized -- maybe you somehow can get the games where you navigate three missed land drops perfectly and win without getting the games where you miss three more turns and have 0% equity -- but I'm inclined to believe Maro that something about this system is intrinsically tied to Magic's long-term appeal.
I've been able to win individual games in Modern after a mulligan to 5 on a sub-optimal budget deck against tier stuff. Same with games where I risked opening with a 1-lander and won the game with just 2-3 lands on the board. That variance, and the fact that mana flood/screw means you cannot always get fixated on a single, linear path to victory where just drawing 4 cards to be played on curve the first turns means you automatically win if your opponent didn't do it is a big appeal of the game.
The real crux of the land issue is that while it's fun and absolutely justified to complain about at any/all times, it's also basically an intractable problem because the entire design of the game has revolved around the system in use for as long as the game has existed.
You'd have to have a straight-up "Magic 2.0" hard reboot to reasonably do anything about it.
You'd have to have a straight-up "Magic 2.0" hard reboot to reasonably do anything about it.
Could be "fixed phyrexian" mana:
Blue "fixed" phyrexian - You may use any color (or colorless) to cast this, but if it's not blue, you take one (or two) damage.
Adds a "cost" to artifacts while keeping them functionally similar. Kinda like dual lands -> shocklands.
This is probably obvious to everyone else, but I just saw a deck play 2x simultaneous wilderness reclamation, and I hadn't thought about the fact that you could empty your mana pool 3 times due to that. Having that not be legendary on top of everything else is pretty silly.
Yeah, that's how the Temur deck wins, because if you have an Instant you can float mana and use it all on the same spell. Gotta cast those Explosions for 20! Having to do that counting a lot, among other things, does make playing that deck a little more mentally taxing than Izzet or Sultai. I am still enjoying it. I feel like it should be able to get me to Diamond, because I'm making a lot of dumb mistakes still, but still generally climbing.
For the Nexus decks this lets them reuse Azcanta a bunch of times which is usually enough to keep finding Nexus, because you can look at the top 12 cards or something like that.
Yeah, but it's less important than in Nexus. It's more just a general value play to have in vs other slower decks.
This is my list right now. I'm sure there are some better choices one could make, but it seems alright so far.
3 Niv-Mizzet, Parun (GRN) 192
2 Gift of Paradise (M19) 184
4 Wilderness Reclamation (RNA) 149
2 Search for Azcanta (XLN) 74
2 Blink of an Eye (DAR) 46
2 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
4 Expansion // Explosion (GRN) 224
4 Growth Spiral (RNA) 178
4 Opt (DAR) 60
4 Shivan Fire (DAR) 142
4 Sinister Sabotage (GRN) 54
2 Island (XLN) 265
1 Mountain (XLN) 273
4 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
4 Hinterland Harbor (DAR) 240
2 Rootbound Crag (XLN) 256
4 Steam Vents (GRN) 257
4 Stomping Ground (RNA) 259
4 Sulfur Falls (DAR) 247
Sideboard:
2 Biogenic Ooze (RNA) 122
3 Kraul Harpooner (GRN) 136
2 Rekindling Phoenix (RIX) 111
1 Gift of Paradise (M19) 184
2 Crushing Canopy (XLN) 183
3 Negate (RIX) 44
2 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
2 Gift of Paradise (M19) 184
4 Wilderness Reclamation (RNA) 149
2 Search for Azcanta (XLN) 74
2 Blink of an Eye (DAR) 46
2 Chemister's Insight (GRN) 32
4 Expansion // Explosion (GRN) 224
4 Growth Spiral (RNA) 178
4 Opt (DAR) 60
4 Shivan Fire (DAR) 142
4 Sinister Sabotage (GRN) 54
2 Island (XLN) 265
1 Mountain (XLN) 273
4 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
4 Hinterland Harbor (DAR) 240
2 Rootbound Crag (XLN) 256
4 Steam Vents (GRN) 257
4 Stomping Ground (RNA) 259
4 Sulfur Falls (DAR) 247
Sideboard:
2 Biogenic Ooze (RNA) 122
3 Kraul Harpooner (GRN) 136
2 Rekindling Phoenix (RIX) 111
1 Gift of Paradise (M19) 184
2 Crushing Canopy (XLN) 183
3 Negate (RIX) 44
2 Lava Coil (GRN) 108
Yeah I had someone play 3 last night and then do an X spell for 28 damage
I just bought The Brothers War on Kindle $5 as I heard the old MTG books where good. Is there any legal way to get the other 10 MTG novels before the Artifacts cycle digitally?
Anyone going to buy the Ravnica War of the Spark book?
Anyone going to buy the Ravnica War of the Spark book?
To be clear, these books aren't good. They're just okay.
Not sure where you'd get the digital books legally. You might look into an audio book?
I have no idea about digital.
The Brothers War was probably my favorite. I also enjoyed The Thran, gave me a really good understanding on some of the pre Urza backstory. But I also read the series so long ago I don't recall if they were actually good or not.
I read quite a few of the later Magic novels (from Onslaught -> Kamigawa at least). They used to put them in the fat packs. Most weren't that great. I do remember really liking the Ice Age cycle by Jeff Grubb though.
Edit: a quick look on Apple's store shows a fair number of Magic novels available for purchase. Looks like the whole Artifact cycle, the Invasion cycle, and the whole Mirrodin cycle (would not recommend these, especially since New Phyrexia makes the events of these books pointless).
Edit: a quick look on Apple's store shows a fair number of Magic novels available for purchase. Looks like the whole Artifact cycle, the Invasion cycle, and the whole Mirrodin cycle (would not recommend these, especially since New Phyrexia makes the events of these books pointless).
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Valor's Reach announced
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New mobile card game, Valor's Reach, announced. Named after the setting of Battlebond.
Wizards has never supported the side mobile games from other developers well, so I expect this to drop off the map in a month.
Wizards has never supported the side mobile games from other developers well, so I expect this to drop off the map in a month.
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