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Magic: The Gathering |OT| Throne of Eldraine - Will and Rowan's Excellent Adventure

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TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,133
Nacho said:
To be fair, the same could be said for any busted card in the game. So many things are possible and legit in magic, which is why it's infinitely fun, but allowing people to do tricksy shit for no mana cost or have a card early in the game that is essentially giving them infinite value and incredibly hard to remove is BS.



Yeah, no card should go out without proper testing. Last minute changes, before realizing what it actually is until people get their hands on it and then taking an even longer time to ban is is a horrible practice.

Like, just wait for the next set if a card isn't ready. There's no easy way to take shit back but there sure as hell is an easy way to not leave shit like this happen as often.
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No amount of testing they do in R&D is ever going to stop everything. Oko seems egregious because everyone in the pro scene recognized he was very good immediately, which means he should've been recognizeable in THAT manner to R&D and been tested fucking thoroughly.

Like, I believe shit will slip through,m it's just inevitable, but Oko didn't take like thousands of manhours of play to realize he was stupid. People called that he was 'very good' just from previews.
 
i hate cheaters

i hate cheaters

Member
Feb 16, 2018
2,679
the oko situation seems different from previous offenders like field of the dead or kethis or nexus of fate. there are plausible explanations about how those might be missed

the design intent of oko sounds to me like the goal was to have it be overpowered

the "mistake" is that it ended up being a 12/10 instead of a 10/10, but i haven't seen any convincing explanation of how oko was ever supposed to not be overpowered. even the mode of just elking your own food is better than everything else you could do at that mana cost.

this isn't an actual quote, but "we wanted it to be better than everything else. it ended up being even stronger than that" is not an approach that would be considered valid in any design of a competitive game. i mostly compare it to video games that can deploy balance patches, and even they aren't usually daring enough to begin with the premise of making something overpowered.

it's not too frustrating for me since i only treat the draft game mode as the serious one, but i find it amusing how much the whole pay-to-win lootbox model warps game design. will be interesting to see if they keep trying to pull shit like this in 20 years or if they eventually get punished for it. seems tough without strong competitors and a mostly hostage customer base

but it's at least good that they banned it instead of trying to ban around it. hopefully they learn something from it for the future
 
Tofd

Tofd

Member
Jul 8, 2018
447
i hate cheaters said:
it's not too frustrating for me since i only treat the draft game mode as the serious one, but i find it amusing how much the whole pay-to-win lootbox model warps game design. will be interesting to see if they keep trying to pull shit like this in 20 years or if they eventually get punished for it. seems tough without strong competitors and a mostly hostage customer base
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The magic community has some of the most entrenched supporters I've ever seen on a hobby/game forum. It really is crazy how much they adore WotC.
 
ZealousD

ZealousD

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,303
i hate cheaters said:
it's not too frustrating for me since i only treat the draft game mode as the serious one, but i find it amusing how much the whole pay-to-win lootbox model warps game design. will be interesting to see if they keep trying to pull shit like this in 20 years or if they eventually get punished for it. seems tough without strong competitors and a mostly hostage customer base
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Magic has pushed the power level of rares since its very first set. It's not going to stop anytime soon.
 
Steve Winwood

Steve Winwood

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,589
ZealousD said:
Magic has pushed the power level of rares since its very first set. It's not going to stop anytime soon.
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The power level gap between the best rares/mythics and the best commons/uncommons is higher than it's ever been and grows every year. For a huge chunk of MTG's history, staple commons and uncommons made up a large portion of competitive decks. It's only since the development of mythics, the complete abandonment of "mythics aren't just more efficient rares," and the constant need to push those cards to justify rarity that this has (largely) stopped.

You could go back to 2002, show players then a set of commons today, and, once you explained Wizards tilting the balance toward creatures, I think people would largely be fine with it. Oko, Nissa, or Questing Beast would be completely alien.

(This is not to say that Wizards didn't frequently miss then, obviously, but the misses were results of misunderstanding what one design knob did, not simultaneously turning every design knob to maximum power setting.)
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
Steve Winwood said:
The power level gap between the best rares/mythics and the best commons/uncommons is higher than it's ever been and grows every year. For a huge chunk of MTG's history, staple commons and uncommons made up a large portion of competitive decks. It's only since the development of mythics, the complete abandonment of "mythics aren't just more efficient rares," and the constant need to push those cards to justify rarity that this has (largely) stopped.

You could go back to 2002, show players then a set of commons today, and, once you explained Wizards tilting the balance toward creatures, I think people would largely be fine with it. Oko, Nissa, or Questing Beast would be completely alien.
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Nissa and Oko would be completely alien because they're a card type that literally didn't even exist in 2002.

Also, I have no fucking clue why people are so concerned about Nissa. Mirari's Wake was printed in 2003. Nissa's a more limited and vulnerable Mirari's Wake that exchanges the anthem for a win con. Which is really strong, don't get me wrong, but at 5 mana it's perfectly reasonable.
 
Steve Winwood

Steve Winwood

Member
Oct 31, 2017
2,589
Toxi said:
Nissa and Oko would be completely alien because they're a card type that literally didn't even exist in 2002.

Also, I have no fucking clue why people are so concerned about Nissa. Mirari's Wake was printed in 2003. Nissa's a more limited and vulnerable Mirari's Wake that exchanges the anthem for a win con. Which is really strong, don't get me wrong, but at 5 mana it's perfectly reasonable.
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Pretty easy to explain what they do.

Nissa vs. Mirari's Wake: a good example of what I mean by modern design turning every knob. Mirari's Wake was a good, powerful rare. Doubling mana let you leverage other cards and create an advantage. It becomes a 2019-rare once it a) replaces two of the mana used to cast it immediately while b) creating a 3/3 haste/vigilance attacker the turn it comes down then c) threatening to create a 3/3 every single turn it survives and d) sure, there's an ultimate as well.

There are exceptions, but old rares just didn't tend to do forty things. The engine cards needed to be combined with cards and placed in the right shell. Try playing, say, a game of limited with Mirari's Wake vs. a game of limited with Nissa. Wake is an extremely powerful card; either the buff effect or the mana-doubling can easily swing a game. But Nissa just lands and the game is instantly over, almost no matter what either player was doing up until that point.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
Steve Winwood said:
Pretty easy to explain what they do.

Nissa vs. Mirari's Wake: a good example of what I mean by modern design turning every knob. Mirari's Wake was a good, powerful rare. Doubling mana let you leverage other cards and create an advantage. It becomes a 2019-rare once it a) replaces two of the mana used to cast it immediately while b) creating a 3/3 haste/vigilance attacker the turn it comes down then c) threatening to create a 3/3 every single turn it survives and d) sure, there's an ultimate as well.
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It feels like you're complaining about the concept of Planeswalkers more than anything else. Garruk was making 3/3s, ramping, and overrunning in 2007. Planeswalkers as a card type are specifically designed to do several different things.

Steve Winwood said:
There are exceptions, but old rares just didn't tend to do forty things. The engine cards needed to be combined with cards and placed in the right shell. Try playing, say, a game of limited with Mirari's Wake vs. a game of limited with Nissa. Wake is an extremely powerful card; either the buff effect or the mana-doubling can easily swing a game. But Nissa just lands and the game is instantly over, almost no matter what either player was doing up until that point.
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This standard actually has a ton of decks built around simple engine cards. Cavalcade of Calamity, Edgewall Innkeeper, Fires of Invention, and Wilderness Reclamation (A Mirari's Wake-style enchantment at uncommon) are all powerful cards, and Field of the Dead had to be outright banned. While Edgewall Innkeeper is a typical parasitic build-around, the others are all much more open-ended.
 
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TheYanger

TheYanger

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
10,133
Rares didn't tend to be the most broken cards back in the day? could've fooled me. Rares are where complexity goes, complexity is what breaks the game. It's not that complicated. that wasn't always true, yet the most busted cards were still almost always rare.
 
Toxi

Toxi

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
17,546
There's something kinda humorous about Nexus of Fate. For well over a decade I have watched people on the internet complain about Magic shifting to focus more on creature combat, about how you always need creatures or planeswalkers as a win condition, about how we weren't allowed to have "unfun" cards like Stasis. And then we got a standard deck that played no creatures and won by endlessly replaying a 7 mana Blue instant.
TheYanger said:
Rares didn't tend to be the most broken cards back in the day? could've fooled me. Rares are where complexity goes, complexity is what breaks the game. It's not that complicated. that wasn't always true, yet the most busted cards were still almost always rare.
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People always point back to UG Madness and Ravager Affinity. Which were indeed very cheap, but they were the exception, not the rule.
 
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SigmasonicX

SigmasonicX

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Oct 25, 2017
15,465

Survey from Wizards that has some pretty interesting questions about what worlds you want to return to and what from there you'd like. There are a lot of detailed questions about Kamigawa, asking if you'd like to see cute Miyazaki monsters, shiba inu folk, leonin, and others, and ask what anime you're familiar with. They also ask detailed questions about an Innistrad 3 and a potential cyberpunk world with Terminators and mega corporations.

This seems like a really important survey to give feedback on.
 
Bigkrev

Bigkrev

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Oct 25, 2017
12,292
Toxi said:
People always point back to UG Madness and Ravager Affinity. Which were indeed very cheap, but they were the exception, not the rule.
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Oddessy is the unique outlier in the history of magic, where most of the best cards- Wild Mongrel, Careful Study, Roar of the Wurm, , Buried Alive, Innocent Blood, Nimble Mongoose, Werebear, Psychatog, etc- were all either common or uncommon, and the rare slot is full of a bunch of weird/niche cards like Need for Speed, Obstinate Familiar, Holistic Wisdom , and a lot of the best cards in the set- Entomb, Battle of Wits, Upheaval- are all non-traditional, very unique cards
 
jph139

jph139

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,359
SigmasonicX said:

Survey from Wizards that has some pretty interesting questions about what worlds you want to return to and what from there you'd like. There are a lot of detailed questions about Kamigawa, asking if you'd like to see cute Miyazaki monsters, shiba inu folk, leonin, and others, and ask what anime you're familiar with. They also ask detailed questions about an Innistrad 3 and a potential cyberpunk world with Terminators and mega corporations.

This seems like a really important survey to give feedback on.
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The last question (for me at least) was just a list of anime and whether I recognize them or not.

It's happening!
 
TAFAE

TAFAE

Member
Aug 27, 2018
439
Michigan
3-1 last night in Modern with Dredge. Beat UG Infect, Bant Spirits, and Eldrazi Tron; lost badly to Titanshift when my deck failed to function (but that's just Dredge for ya). Memorable moments:
  • Just ruining the Infect player in game 2 by Lightning Axing his Inkmoth Nexus on his turn 2, then blowing up his board a couple turns later with Blast Zone.
  • Mulliganing to an almost functional 3 in game 2 against Titanshift (Copperline Gorge, Shriekhorn, Cathartic Reunion). My 7 was not something you keep with no way to start dredging, then 6, 5, and 4 were all no landers. If I had drawn a land on turn 2 or even 3, I would have been right back in that game.
  • Fighting through natural Tron from ETron in one game, naming KGC with turn 1 Needle (thanks, Sodek) in another to shut down his hand's payoff. ETron player day 2'ed MCVI too, so it was cool to beat a pretty good player. Also, I got to avenge the other guy who was playing Dredge and lost to the ETron player earlier after he got demolished by game 1 naturally drawn Scavenger Grounds.
 
Holiday Card - Decorated Knight
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    SigmasonicX

    SigmasonicX

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    0uDOoWtYng.png


    Pretty interesting silver-bordered Holiday Card.
     
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    • Carthago Delenda Est

    Carthago Delenda Est

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    Piecake

    Piecake

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    Limited on arena is really starting to just piss me off. I keep on losing to these bomb mythics and rares recently

    For example, the last two decks I faced really kinda sucked, except that they had a kaya's wrath and played it right after I went all in. After that I basically drew junk.

    Previously I got Oko'd on turn 3 and had that 2/3 deathtouch draw a card played on me on turn 2.

    I know, blah blah, results oriented thinking, but christ, that shit is annoying that not only they have those cards, but they drew them on curve.
     
    Carthago Delenda Est

    Carthago Delenda Est

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    Piecake said:
    Limited on arena is really starting to just piss me off. I keep on losing to these bomb mythics and rares recently

    For example, the last two decks I faced really kinda sucked, except that they had a kaya's wrath and played it right after I went all in. After that I basically drew junk.

    Previously I got Oko'd on turn 3 and had that 2/3 deathtouch draw a card played on me on turn 2.

    I know, blah blah, results oriented thinking, but christ, that shit is annoying that not only they have those cards, but they drew them on curve.
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    Kaya's Wrath isn't even a bomb. It sucks you lost but try to learn from those mistakes. You know Allegiance has a strong board wipe at rare in your opponent's colors. Did you need to go all in?
     
    Piecake

    Piecake

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    Oct 27, 2017
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    SubvertedTrope said:
    Sometimes you need to go all in regardless and it's the right call, how do you know it was a mistake?
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    I don't think it was a mistake because the chances of them having kayas wrath in limited is not good. It just pisses me off that I just ran into rares and mythic rares that just destroyed me and I don't think i could do anything about it.
     
    Schreckstoff

    Schreckstoff

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    Oct 25, 2017
    3,606
    Carthago Delenda Est said:
    Kaya's Wrath isn't even a bomb. It sucks you lost but try to learn from those mistakes. You know Allegiance has a strong board wipe at rare in your opponent's colors. Did you need to go all in?
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    Boardwipes are close to always bombs. They are rare enough in limited that it's unreasonable to play around them in game 1 in particular or when unseen and you have to be pretty far ahead to be able to play around them.
     
    divisionbyzorro

    divisionbyzorro

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    Oct 25, 2017
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    This is a symptom of BO1 being the default. In BO3 you learn what they have and how to play around it. Bombs are less impactful when your opponent knows about them and to play around them.
     

    Deleted member 12224

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    From a design standpoint, Oven/Familiar is cute.

    From a play your game digitally standpoint, holy fuck this interaction is miserable to click through.
     
    timedesk

    timedesk

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    Oct 27, 2017
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    SigmasonicX said:

    Chandra and Nissa will still be broken up, but Chandra will be bi in the future.
    It's pretty clear they wanted her single for future romance drama, likely in that Netflix show.
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    That's pretty lousy. I haven't really payed attention to the lore since the original Ravnica books, but I have heard Chandra/Nissa was something that had been developed for a long time. It sounds like this most recent book kind of spit in those fans face, and even was a little bit biphobic. Even if they wanted Chandra single in the future, there had to be a better way then what they did. Kind of makes me want to just not pay attention to any of the lore again.
     
    Carthago Delenda Est

    Carthago Delenda Est

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    Piecake said:
    I don't think it was a mistake because the chances of them having kayas wrath in limited is not good. It just pisses me off that I just ran into rares and mythic rares that just destroyed me and I don't think i could do anything about it.
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    It was a mistake if you went all in when you didn't need to. Kaya's Wrath is a rare. It'll pop up frequently enough and usually gets passed because it's very hard to cast. If you're against an Orzhov player then you shouldn't go all in if you don't have to. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, that's the nature of the game.

    Not trying to talk down on you. Just trying to help!
     
    Toxi

    Toxi

    The Fallen
    Oct 27, 2017
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    Zan Syed apologized on Twitter for blatant angle shooting.



    His opponent was not amused.



    Fuck angle shooting, fuck people who do it, and fuck turning paper Magic into a game based around it.
     
    Secret Lair - Cats
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    • Carthago Delenda Est

    Carthago Delenda Est

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    Secret Lair:

    The Secret Lair Drop Series will kick off on December 2, and each drop will only be available to purchase for 24 hours on the official Wizards of the Coast site. While a drop won't be available after its 24-hour period, it also won't run out of stock during that time – a system Wizards called "timeboxed to demand."

    "Everyone who wants one can have one, as long as they show up during the 24-hour window that the drop is happening," Heggen said, explaining that this allows the drops to both feel like a limited and special collectible without forcing people who want one to race to order before they are sold out.

    Drops will contain between three and seven predetermined cards and tokens in a customized collector box, costing either $29.99 or $39.99 depending on the drop – some of which will use premium foil cards as well. A bundle will also be available for $199.99 that guarantees you all seven drops.

    Here is the schedule of when they'll be available for purchase, as well as the names of each:

    • Secret Lair Bundle (all seven drops)- 12/2, 9am PT, $199.99
    • Bitterblossom Dreams - 12/3, 9am PT
    • Eldraine Wonderland - 12/4, 9am PT
    • Restless in Peace - 12/5, 9am PT
    • Seeing Visions - 12/6, 9am PT
    • <explosion sounds> - 12/7, 9am PT
    • Kaleidoscope Killers - 12/8, 9am PT
    • OMG KITTIES! - 12/9, 9am PT, $39.99
    Additionally, ordering a drop will get you codes for digital goodies in MTG Arena and Magic Online. You'll get the cards themselves in Magic Online, but Heggen explained that since most of the cards in this series don't exist in Arena, you'll instead get sleeves as "expressions of the drop's theme."
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    Cards will be spoiled today via Twitter. The IGN article has the cat ones. 🐈
     
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    • Mezentine

    Mezentine

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    Oct 25, 2017
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    Toxi said:
    Zan Syed apologized on Twitter for blatant angle shooting.



    His opponent was not amused.



    Fuck angle shooting, fuck people who do it, and fuck turning paper Magic into a game based around it.
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    Wait so Reality Smasher attacks Oko, he blocks with the Goose, and then because his opponent doesn't explicitly declare "I assign the excess trample damage to Oko" he tries to claim it was all on the Goose?

    Woooooooow
     
    ZealousD

    ZealousD

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    Jeez guys. They're all reprints of relatively cheap cards. If you don't want them, don't buy them?

    Putting Arcane Signet in the Brawl decks was way more egregious than this.
     
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    SigmasonicX

    SigmasonicX

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
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    Secret Lair Bundle (all seven drops) - 12/2, 9am PT, $199.99
    Bitterblossom Dreams - 12/3, 9am PT
    Eldraine Wonderland - 12/4, 9am PT
    Restless in Peace - 12/5, 9am PT
    Seeing Visions - 12/6, 9am PT
    <explosion sounds> - 12/7, 9am PT
    Kaleidoscope Killers - 12/8, 9am PT
    OMG KITTIES! - 12/9, 9am PT, $39.99



    10AM Bitterblossom Dreams @NumotTheNummy
    11AM Eldraine Wonderland @coL_Amazonian
    12PM Restless in Peace @coL_noxious
    1PM Seeing Visions @Theasianavenger
    1:30PM Explosion Sounds @PleasantKenobi
    2PM Kaleidoscope Killers @commandcast
    2:30PM OMG Kitties! @coL_AliasV
     
    jph139

    jph139

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    Is $30 for Bitterblossom good or bad? What's it selling for nowadays?

    I can't think of a time where Wizards essentially set the price for a single card before.
     
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