The same people that thought a 4 CMC instant that lets you play two creatures with 3 CMC was fine?
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Magic: the Gathering |OT9| Kaladesh - Cruisin' Down the Street in my 6/4
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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The same people that thought a 4 CMC instant that lets you play two creatures with 3 CMC was fine?
The problem with WoTC is they do their testing internally, and don't poke their heads up to figure out what's good and what's fun. They play something and figure out "ok this is a deck, this is a deck" but they don't put it into practice long enough. They don't simulate the evolution of a format like they should.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
Not in the US but yes, you need to get that many points. I've been to two WMCQs and when you check in they had the big list of people who had enough points and made me sign my name. I made enough points at my only GP of the year with the main event and side events to qualify for next year's WMCQ in Taiwan.
Giant Panda
Member
Weren't you okay with Copter before? What changed your mind?
Simply Sarah
Member
I tend to feel that the flashy cards aren't the issue as much as the bad interactions and lack of good answers. Yes, Delirium and Emrakul do ridiculous things but with actual graveyard hate they'd no longer be almost automatic, reliable, and permanent. Gideon would still be very good but more reasonable if you could actually interact with it. I don't have a huge issue with Avacyn by herself; I think she just has some bad interactions with the current Standard but even then isn't the worst thing ever.
Marvel is, at very best, questionable design but it's hard to say where it would end up without Ulamog or Emrakul.
I actually think most of the vehicles are OK when they're not a 2 CMC 3/3 looting flier that's nearly impossible to interact with and which straight beats most other Standard flying creatures in combat. Better artifact hate, along with more reason to run it beyond hitting Marvel and Copter, might actually be enough here, though.
Spell Queller with any of the knobs turned down would be less a problem. No flying, 4 CMC, 2/2, or hitting 3 and below. Also living in a world without Avacyn and Selfless Spirit.
Marvel is, at very best, questionable design but it's hard to say where it would end up without Ulamog or Emrakul.
I actually think most of the vehicles are OK when they're not a 2 CMC 3/3 looting flier that's nearly impossible to interact with and which straight beats most other Standard flying creatures in combat. Better artifact hate, along with more reason to run it beyond hitting Marvel and Copter, might actually be enough here, though.
Spell Queller with any of the knobs turned down would be less a problem. No flying, 4 CMC, 2/2, or hitting 3 and below. Also living in a world without Avacyn and Selfless Spirit.
Infinite Stars
Member
I'll maintain until my dying day that CoCo was fine for Standard until Reflector Mage was printed.
Magic Story: BREAKTHROUGH
Rashmi is working captive for Tezzeret, improving the transporter. She makes is big enough to fit a Gearhulk. She tries it and planeswalks around Zendikar and some other planes, realises the harm Tezzeret can do with it so tries to destroy it in front of Tezz. Windows get blown, Rashmi falls, Saheeli and Liliana rescue her and bring her to the rebels' HQ. (I skimmed through, so I may be off on some details).
Rashmi is working captive for Tezzeret, improving the transporter. She makes is big enough to fit a Gearhulk. She tries it and planeswalks around Zendikar and some other planes, realises the harm Tezzeret can do with it so tries to destroy it in front of Tezz. Windows get blown, Rashmi falls, Saheeli and Liliana rescue her and bring her to the rebels' HQ. (I skimmed through, so I may be off on some details).
You'll renounce on your death bed.
Joe Molotov
Member
TOO STRONG FOR STANDARD
Thank God M15 finally rotated and we escaped the oppression of these cards.
Thank God M15 finally rotated and we escaped the oppression of these cards.
Simply Sarah
Member
A format can be diverse while at the same time not being enjoyable to people. Unless you're playing Blue and/or it's a mirror you basically need to hope Marvel decks stumble because you really lack any sort of answer to Ulamog/Emrakul. Delirium is still crappy to play against because getting Delirium is basically an emblem. Copter is just obnoxious in general with fairly limited answers.
Standard hasnt been fun for awhile. I think the last time I enjoyed the format was RTR/Theros block. The problem is they keep making cards that scream" YOU MUST PLAY THIS TO WIN" rather than just having decks with cool interactions and foils to others decks. Playing commander exclusively has shown me that you don't need the strongest cards in the world to have a good deck or an interesting strategy.
Basically let go of the spells attached to creatures mantra and make build around me cards.
Basically let go of the spells attached to creatures mantra and make build around me cards.
phazedplasma
Member
Thats why I play zombies in standard
not Tier 1, but super fun and challenging to play
not Tier 1, but super fun and challenging to play
I've never been ok with it. It's stupid.
Wulfric
Member
*sniff*
Poor Rashmi
Awesome, I should be able to get enough points then. What was the competition like? I checked this year's entrants for the U.S. WMCQ and Sam Black as well as Jon Finkel were competing. That sounds like a quick path towards 0-0-7 to me.
Poor Rashmi
Awesome, I should be able to get enough points then. What was the competition like? I checked this year's entrants for the U.S. WMCQ and Sam Black as well as Jon Finkel were competing. That sounds like a quick path towards 0-0-7 to me.
*sniff*
Poor Rashmi
Awesome, I should be able to get enough points then. What was the competition like? I checked this year's entrants for the U.S. WMCQ and Sam Black as well as Jon Finkel were competing. That sounds like a quick path towards 0-0-7 to me.
Usually a lot of pros. I played my first one last september and saw Edel and Saporito (Saporito actually beat me in the quarters).
Jabaiano was there as well but worked as a commentator.
Wulfric
Member
Hmm, I'd like to make the trip at least once for the experience. I have my tournament schedule more or less planned out until April, and hopefully I can make an improvement between now and whenever next year's WMCQs are scheduled for. My biggest weakness right now is standard and draft. I don't have a clue about what's going on in standard right now and I've 3-0'd a draft like twice in 2 years.
Infinite Stars
Member
Seriously though, no one was complaining about it when the best you could get that's close to Green(and not 4C hell) is Anafenza the Foremost. No one was playing it when Thoughtsieze could steal it, Rhino could out value you, etc. It barely saw play during 4C Hell of BFZ because you couldn't justify running in a deck that was that creature light.
Collected Company being stupid powerful is nearly on par with the rotation of anything below 2 Mana as a playable card in a deck that would want it. Abzan/Bant CoCo have to deal with the fact that they can either blank or get 2 dorks, which is fair for the card. The card is only bad when it's a near guaranteed 4 Mana get 6 Mana worth of creatures at instant speed.
I'm of the opinion that Collected Company isn't too strong of a card even for standard. It's too strong of a card for a standard environment that also includes Reflector Mage and Spell Queller.
I think the power level isn't so much of an issue as it is that the card is just bad gameplay.
Wasn't CoCo Rally THE deck to beat during the 4C bfz hell?
Infinite Stars
Member
Rally only really got good once Reflector Mage was printed iirc.
It rotated just as people were realizing it was the best deck by a mile.
A lot of cards are okay as long as they don't get enabled by other cards. It's not that CoCo is a broken card, neither is Spell Queller for that matter, but its potential to be unfun should have been obvious to design.
It's not *that* powerful, it's just really annoying given the right cards.
Infinite Stars
Member
My point was that CoCo was fine for half of it's lifespan and only became stupid when a card they didn't test for Standard turned out to be good in Standard.
I'll agree that CoCo is annoying, but it's a card that is a build around in the right environment. Bant CoCo could have honestly ditched the CoCos with all the additional crap they had( Weren't several lists running Avacyn)?
Bant CoCo was the shitstorm of a color combo having the best creatures, the best card draw/filtering, the best removal, and a bunch of other bests that Development missed.
I'll agree that CoCo is annoying, but it's a card that is a build around in the right environment. Bant CoCo could have honestly ditched the CoCos with all the additional crap they had( Weren't several lists running Avacyn)?
Bant CoCo was the shitstorm of a color combo having the best creatures, the best card draw/filtering, the best removal, and a bunch of other bests that Development missed.
And thank God it did, I do not want to know what Rally would have become with SoI thrown into the mix. Amalgam would have been a $15 card.
RTR/Theros was true trash. Devotion hell.
charlequin
Banned
I mean, you have to look at this in the context of Magic R&D having twice or more the total staff of any other game of its type (even Hearthstone, last I checked, has a smaller total design team than Magic.) Changes they make have to be systemic, philosophical or process-oriented at this point because it's not actually feasible to spend more time than they do.
Yeah, I think they've swung too far on this. There are insufficient answers of two kinds now: not enough efficient solutions to core permanent types (creatures and PWs), and not enough effective hate cards for specific powerful block strategies (especially graveyard and artifacts.) Both of these got dialed down from their peak for pretty solid reasons but they need to reverse course on them now.
I don't honestly think the haymaker issue is that bad, that's one that we've seen plenty in previous environments.
I think the issue is basically that at the efficiency level of CoCo, it's kind of an attractive nuisance. It's very easy to print creatures that are too good under CoCo at its cost, so even if it's balanced in a hypothetical environment it's too easy to break.
I'm of the camp that spells got watered down HARD. WIthout a measure of power to spells, you get specific powerhouses that emerge without having other powerful spells to judge it against (Collected Company) and creatures relegated to having spells built into them (O-Ring into Spell Queller, Mindslaver on Emrakul, etc).
I think R&D really went for the "get in the red zone with creatures" approach too hard pendulum wise.
I think R&D really went for the "get in the red zone with creatures" approach too hard pendulum wise.
Similar to Stoneforge Mystic?
Cheating mana costs at a huge discount rate is almost always a problem.
Magic's problems time and again are:
- Fast mana
- Easy color manabases
- Cheating spells and mana into play
And they STILL fuck it up. Which is why I'm scared about Yahenni's Expertise and Improvise. It has potential to be busted.
Now battle at the bridge isn't broken af, but there could be something even worse hiding in the spoiler
charlequin
Banned
Exactly like Stoneforge Mystic, yeah.
Improvise is very low risk, we already know Convoke is basically a safe mechanic. The things that break aren't mechanics that let you effectively generate mana by doing something, typically; they're the ones that let you pay a fixed cost in place of a variable one.
Ashodin, you sound like people over in gaming who complain about bugs and dev time while having no frame of reference for how stuff is done or how difficult it is.
Also I dont mind creature centric development seeing as how that wasnt the case for much of magic's life. Sort of like how I dont mind blue being underpowered in Modern. I have literally never seen a standard environment where people didnt bitch about certain cards running the show. INN-RTR, which people love to reference like everyone never had a problem with it, had shit like Resto-Tusk and Mana Leak with Snapcaster Mage. They definity made a mistake with trying to protect delirium and vehicles though.
Also I dont mind creature centric development seeing as how that wasnt the case for much of magic's life. Sort of like how I dont mind blue being underpowered in Modern. I have literally never seen a standard environment where people didnt bitch about certain cards running the show. INN-RTR, which people love to reference like everyone never had a problem with it, had shit like Resto-Tusk and Mana Leak with Snapcaster Mage. They definity made a mistake with trying to protect delirium and vehicles though.
But with Mana Leak, they gave Cavern of Souls to counter it. You also had graveyard hate cards like Graffdigger's Cage that you could put in your sideboard
Yes, hence why I said they protected it too hard, though in their defense there have also been standards where keys themes or card types get hated out by accident and then people bitch about that instead.
Also Cavern was a dumb idea.
Thought experiment. Try to remember the cards people hated in standard in recent years, not including Kaladesh. This is my list:
Jace 2.0, Stoneforge, the Titan cycle, Mental Misstep, Delver, Snapcaster, Thragtusk, Pack Rat, Sphinx's Rev, Thoughtseize, Courser/Caryatid, Fetches, Rally, Siege Rhino, Den protector/Deathmist, Coco/Reflector/Queller
Jace 2.0, Stoneforge, the Titan cycle, Mental Misstep, Delver, Snapcaster, Thragtusk, Pack Rat, Sphinx's Rev, Thoughtseize, Courser/Caryatid, Fetches, Rally, Siege Rhino, Den protector/Deathmist, Coco/Reflector/Queller
Cavern didn't hit until Mana Leak had been in the format for nearly 2 years (July 2010 -> May 2012).
The graveyard hate cards weren't added in the first set, they were added later in the format. I'm still convinced that they kept grave hate out of Kaladesh because there was such a small gap between Eldritch Moon (when delirium and zombie strategies actually became viable) and Kaladesh. It'd suck to buy into a delirium deck and have it obsoleted less than 2 months later and they likely knew that. I'd be surprised if we don't see some grave hate in Aether Revolt.
[EDIT]
You forgot Mutavault!
Beautiful deck, I wish they printed better aggro 2 drops in red. I have an insane amount of 2 drops in black that range from great to completely ridiculous (Asylum Visitor, Bloodghast, Dark Confidant, Heir of Falkenrath, Oona's Prowler, Pack Rat and Scrapheap Scrounger) but red two drops are pretty lackluster.
Giant Panda
Member
I haven't seen much of anyone hating on Den Protector and Deathmist.
But I would personally add Thought-Knot, Kalitas, Jeskai Ascendancy, maybe Whisperwood Elemental/Mastery of the Unseen.
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