Just as predicted.
Bans in Pioneer are
Once Upon a Time
Field of the Dead
Smuggler's Copter
RIP Smug Cop
Monoblack was already the overall most successful deck, but that was riding on the back of Smuggler's Copter.Wonder if we'll see Black overtake Green as the best color now that Once Upon a Time is gone.
Monoblack was already the overall most successful deck, but that was riding on the back of Smuggler's Copter.
On another note, I'm reminded of how people thought for sure that Field of the Dead wouldn't be an issue in a format with Blood Sun and such.
Very common for this sort of thing. Blizzcon tickets are the same, for instance, especially for products where they're trying to actually fairly manage a first in first out style product delivery. Let's you check out without pressure to go go go.Just ordered 2 Bitterblossoms. Haven't seen a digital waiting line in ages.
Clues were of an acceptable power level, where the individual Clue was stronger than a Food, but there weren't that many synergy cards for sacrificing clues. So, to counterbalance that Food were weaker than clues, they jacked up the number of Synergy cards, and that's how we got to this point.Why the fuck was Food of all mechanics pushed to be a constructed powerhouse?
Well I like to differentiate engines and payoffs. Goose, oven and Oko are food engines, wolf/trail/cat are payoffs.
I'm thinking Food seeming weaker than Clues was a big part of why we saw a push. They probably though "Gain 2 life? How can we get people to use these? Push it a bit." Little did they know...
Yeah- I can understand how energy was broken- it was a first try at a mechanic that hadn't really been done before. Same as how I can understand how Smug Copter was broken- it was their first try at Vehicles, and thus they didn't understand how powerful they were. Food, on the other hand, is a hybrid of Energy and Clues, and they should have caught it in playtesting the set- like, if Guilded Goose was an uncommon, and they were still doing themed precon decks, we totally would have gotten a precon full of Cat, Oven, Trail of Crumbs and and Goose that would have been pretty close to the Golgari decks
Especially now that they aren't doing 3-set blocks anymore, they are burning through mechanics really quickly, and you can only do so many variations of Kicker. In 3 set blocks with small sets, they could burn off smaller mechanics like Tribute, Battle Cry, Fateful Hour that are very narrow or boring, but now all mechanics need to be more "impactful" as they are in larger sets
Also, they have to design new mechanics for the the Commander decks, for the ancillary booster products each year, etc. They probably should just be willing to go back to re-using mechanics more often- I think we are well past the point where people are not going to care about a set because the new mechanics aren't cool
At least they don't have to hear him mispronounce every other card name, or say the correct line out loud then decide to change course at the last second and lose for reasons.As a random comment: playing against SaffronOlive when he's streaming must be a completely miserable experience. He wastes soooooo much of his opponent's time goofing off with chat.
Yeah this, just like how commander mechanics don't matter - that's design space that is never going to be used in standard Magic. Making random variations of old mechanics still leaves a ton of space as long as they make them narrow, which is basically what food is in the first place.I don't think we have to worry about new mechanic space. Eldraine has only three new mechanics, and the one we're complaining about is literally just a token that gains life.
There are more copies of Cavalier of Flame than basic Plains.
Big decks are Fires, Cat Oven, and Innskeeper. No white, no aggro.
They go into it in the first link. Deafening Clarion and Cauldron Familiar blocking all day are the big culprits. Embercleave is the only thing helping really, thanks to it giving trample.What's the predator for Aggro? Cats? Deafening Clarion? Hate against Embercleave?
I have to wonder if literally anyone at the Future Future League even tried to make a White deck for Eldraine standard that wasn't just splashing for Teferi/board wipes.