You're not alone, I really liked this editorial too. I don't claim to be the best at analyzing what the effects of the author's revisions would mean for the game, but I 100% agree that much of the card design is overly cautious, disappointing, and feels like it misses a lot of opportunities on innovation and mechanic~theme synergy.
I was very excited when the initial spoilers rolled in, but have since cancelled the box I preordered and switched entirely to singles purchases (was planning on +/- $110 for the set, but reduced to about $30). I'm now just waiting for the huntsmaster and lich to fall in price, which I think will be inevitable. None of the deck archetypes I started working for standard got the support I was anticipating; no new quality burn spells, and not many good pod finishers (maybe vorapede).
Actually Doomed Traveler has proven to be more than mediocre-but-playable in aggressive decks. And of course cards like cleaver make it much better but it's still early in the draft and I can get it or something else. I'm not gonna give up a slot of my deck to make someone else's deck weaker. It's not like I'm giving up a 8 tix card or anything.
I can see mulliganning that hand but I don't think it's clear. I think it's one of those cases that there isn't a correct answer. You can either mulligan or keep and both plays involve risks.
I played in the era of 4 Strip Mines. Never again, please - especially not in a format with Crucible and Thorns. Of course, if you really want Shops back, this might be a start. I agree that unrestricted Strip Mine would not break the format, but it could easily turn off enough players to keep events from ever firing. Same with Balance. Gettting wrecked by those cards over and over again is not fun.
Tinker gets too many broken things, and gets them too cheaply. Can't unrestrict. If you wonder what the format might be like, go read the coverage of PT New Orleans - a/k/a PT Tinker.
Consult is too good. Back circa 2000, I played a lot of Counterslivers. Consult was the best card in that deck - an instant speed tutor that puts the card in your hand for B is really, really good. It would be better now. Demonic Consultation is the second best spell costing B ever printed. (What's the best? - here's a hint: it will never, ever appear online. Answer below)
Wheel might be okay now, but not if Wizards intends to spread the release of the P9 over a couple sets, or over time. The only way it could be unrestricted now is if the plan is to have Classic convert immediatly to Vintage B&R once the P9 hits. Otherwise, keep wheel restricted so that releasing the P9 is easier, unless you want to boost Tendrils decks in the short run. (FWIW - my prophecy is that P9 will appear 6 months after the new version goes live, if it proves it can handle growth in the online player base.)
The one area where I could see some flexibility is Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and maybe even Sol Ring. In the event you covered, there was one Sol Ring and zero Vaults and Crypts. More importantly, the only cards that have multiple colorless mana in the casting costs were Jace, FoW, Gush and Yawg Will. These decks don't need double or triple colorless mana. What decks would? Shops would like them, but what could Shops cut for a non-threat, non-lock piece? Storm decks could try them - but colorless mana does not chain as well as RRR and BBB mana acceleration. The only deck that would be really happy with unresticted Vaults and Rings might be the mythical (so far) four Memory Jar deck, and that seems to prefer LEDs.
I have never watched "Thank You for Smoking." I'll try and check it out. No promises, I've been busy lately.
"The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Schell is my game design bible. There is no better book for game design. Reading it will make you a better designer. It is not a false statement, it what I genuinely believe. I would not hire a designer who is unfamiliar with that book.
And yea, this *OP ED* article is based on my personal opinions, which in turn have been formed during my tournament magic career, which has included pro points. When I don't like X or Y, it is usually because it could be playable in a specific metagame, but isn't. I don't want my articles to run too long, so I don't write essays on every card. The point of the article is about design of the new set, not how to properly evaluate cards at a tournament level, though the two are connected. But thank you for the advice regarding 'This card is badly designed because...' I'll try and take it for the next set.
I am a little surprised to not see the white shrine (loyal legions), as it is an early play that your deck is very much lacking, and it makes myr tokens. With a parallel lives, the card can win the game by itself quite easily. Just another thought when tweaking this. The last thing I thought of was another one for the aggro matchup - Timely Reinforcements. This is probably better in the theoretical sideboard, so I'm not surprised you left it out. 6 life and 3 or 6 tokens is a pretty big game. They don't support the myr theme unfortunately, but surviving until you can sweep the board or drop your haymakers is pretty important.
Doomed Traveler is the definition of mediocre-but-playable, mostly for the reason that his value is very strongly determined by the rest of your deck. Since you didn't have Cleaver or any additional draw to a Humans deck at that point (although you did later), I think "mediocre" is a proper description for that exact pick.
Your R2G3 keep seems pretty bad - you can run a rather-meaningless 1-drop, and approximately 27% of the rest of your deck is mountains. You're only around 60% to peel a mountain by turn 4 - and only 3 other cards in your ENTIRE DECK are meaningful to peel by then otherwise (literally, Fiend Hunter, Haunting, Blazing Torch). You basically just lose over a third of the time assuming the opponent does anything at all, and another third you'll have difficulty recovering because you're drawing lands and trading one-for-one while he is playing out threats and not spending cards on 1/1 speed bumps.
And that assumes deck parity! You have to toss that. Hell, the hand was almost a mull to 5 anyway.
but I started during legends and bought a whole booster box of the Dark when it came out. My first event deck was 115 cards, my 2nd one 73. Then I made Land Tax/Land's Edge. My fifth deck, Ball Lightning/Blood Lust mono-red nearly won something at an event (but didn't)... really needed Berserks to push it up a tier (had the Taigas).
And I even mentioned in the article that perhaps the comparison with the Dark wasn't fair, which is why I also compared extensively with Worldwake.
First, I agree with Paul above - you definitely need a sweeper for those aggro decks, so if you're cutting Rebirth, you replacement should be DOJ, not another pump effect. The white spellbomb could also help against those aggro decks, while helping you dig towards your turbine or parallel lives (the two engine cards this deck needs one of to win). All in all, looks like a fun deck. Might take it for a spin myself.
Just a personal preference, but I like matches a little better than single games. I guess then you'd have to build a sideboard, but you could at least take it into the tournament practice room and see how it holds up against the "net decks" or other more tournament-ready decks. If you're just looking for a casual deck to have some fun and win with, that's great, but maybe you should say that up front.
Just my 2 cents. Good article though, looking forward to the next one.
When they print another set I like, I'll take an overall positive tone. Comments are along the lines of 'who do you think you are to criticize wizards!' -- I expect that. It is hard for me to take a neutral stance in an OP ED, because then it wouldn't be my actual opinion. With Innistrad, I took a positive tone in the beginning, and got even *more* flack about being a negative nelly. This point of a design critique is to critique... not cheer lead the set. At least this time I was clear about it being an OP ED.
Mark Rosewater is actually a great guy in person, and I don't have any vendetta against him. But I don't think he did a good job as lead designer with this set. More of a case of 'like that man, dislike his work on *this* job.' And Rosewater has had great sets too.
I don't feel comfortable marketing my own creations in a MTG article. They aren't magic, and when I read self-promotion like that in other articles it makes me feel dirty. I'll think about it more for the future... maybe when I need the money more. Maybe when certain projects have shipped.
Grats on episode 50 fellas. I listened too it on my run home last night, which helped numb the pain :/
I don't think either Flash / Tinker and definately not Strip Mine (agree wtih Zach 100%) should come off restricted list. Healthy debate though boys, i was laughing quite a bit.
Keep the episodes coming. May you have infinity more!!
Instead of Tempered Steel include 4x Day of Judgment which solves the "I died the turn before I could cast Phyrexian Rebirth" issue. DOJ is a super cheap card so no excuse for not including it.
First of all I didn't pick a mediocre card over a bomb. I picked a solid card that I would play for sure over a bomb I would have to splash for or even not play at all. I don't really like splashing in this format.
Moon Heron is certainly better than Rebuke in an aggressive deck. Rebuke is a fine card and Moon Heron isn't spectacular or anything but at that point I was pretty sure I wouldn't be playing white because it just hadn't been coming. The following pick showed that white was simply not having any good cards in the packs.
Thraben Sentry is certainly better than Nightbird's Clutches. I really hate Nightbird's Clutches. I don't like Feeling of Dread either but at least that one is cheaper to flashback and also prevents creatures from attacking, so it is good in certain deck. Clutches however is usually very not good enough and I certainly wouldn't take it over a solid creature.
I opted to not play Rally in the main because I already had better tricks and I don't like overloading on those. Rally is one of those cards that once in a while it wins you a game you would lose otherwise but most of the time does close to nothing.
I almost always play 17 lands. I need to hit my land drops at least until turn 3 and I also don't want to have my bomb stuck in my hand.
You can only blame yourself for losing to a bomb in R2G2. You should have picked up that card. Unlikely that you would play that (even though at that moment you were thinking about white-blue, and then it is easy to splash), but you picked up a really mediocre card instead. Other notable questionable picks: Moon Heron over Rebuke with the comment: best card of the pack. No, it's not. And "only card for me" is not something you should have said about Thraben Sentry when there was Nightbird's Clutches in the pack. And I think this deck could have worked with 16 lands. Finally, Rally the Peasants. How could you leave it out? Did you actually read that card? It is perfect for your deck.
being an article on building a cheap deck I have to say I expected some comment about cost... my only guess was that this was less than 12 tix and that's based off a kind of fly by comment, that being said the deck looks like a lot of fun, Myr Battlesphere was one of those 'junk' rares that I LOVED
I get the impression I'm the only one that thought the article was spot-on.
Once I digested the spoiler, I canceled my plans to go to the prerelease.
The set is very weak and not at all what I was anticipating for the follow-up
to Innistrad. I thought that innistrad was a great set and I was looking
forward to the prerelease and I have to admit that I was disappointed with
what WOTC cooked up. The set is weak. I don't look forward to cracking open packs
that are full of cards that have no practical application anywhere.
Personally, I liked his opinions (and that is the key here: "his opinions")
on how to jazz up some of the cards in the set. I'm sure everyone has opinions of
their own on how to fix cards. There's no reason to flame him over that. Here's an
idea: write your own article and include your ideas on fixing some of the crap in
Dark Ascension!
People, don't make excuses for Wizards of the Coast. They pay flunkies good money
to do that already. Don't put a flunky out of work!
I don't understand many things about this article. For example "useful cards". In what format? And you just describe what they do, no reasoning why they are useful and why the others aren't. Some other cards which might be useful: Increasing Devotion (to human decks, instead of the Monk), Undying Evil, Hellrider, Markov Blademaster, Huntmaster of the Fells. And additionally if some decks are played, like werewolves, spirits, curses, then those cards.
In general: there are several new cards every year. Do you really want all of them to be playable? And not just as a possible sideboard card, but really good card? That would just mean that older cards would fast become unplayable. Do you think that would be good?
Fateful hour: I'm sure the designers considered other possibilities and choose 5 as the best. It works only the real dark times, when there is immediate danger. That's why they choose the number which can be easily reached by single spells.
Curses: I think lot of people underestimates the power of Curse of Misfortunes. Suppose you play one, and the opponent doesn't destroy it immediately. From your next turn you can have mana to counter everything what would destroy it. First turn you search for something which messes with the plans of the opponent (Curse of Death's Hold if he has many creatures, the blue one to automatically counter his counters, or the white one, which you have in your blue-black deck as a singleton and couldn't even play otherwise). Next turn Curse of Thirst (3 damages on his turn), then the red curse (again, you cannot play it normally), that's 8 damage next turn, and any other Curse next time. If curse of Misfortunes would cost 2, you could play it before he has mana to counter it, and then you could counter everything he tries to do against it. He's dead at the beginning of his 6th turn.
Wrack of Madness for one red: that card kill almost everything it can target, including Titans and Blighsteel Colossus.
Hellrider with undying? That's a powerful finisher for red decks with small guys even this way. Black Cat with undying? If you have any sacrifice outlet, it is a hymn to tourach at worst. Yes, I think I would put that in basically any deck with sacrifice outlets. Tower Geist gives you an acceptable body and a card now. Should it also give you a good body and another card in case it dies?
Curse of Exhaustion: Rule of Law is a possible sideboard card, make it one-sided but cost 1 more, that's perfect. This card is good against basically every deck. It it was cheap, it wouldn't be broken, but still it would change the whole Legacy metagame. Do you counter my threatening spell? Well, I have another one, and you cannot do anything.
Gather the Townsfolk as an instant wouldn't be broken of course. But there is such a card without the fateful hour thing, Raise the Alarm. Is it a bad card? No, it is not. Why would you make a strictly better version then?
Deadly Allure with draw a card? You know, Think Twice draws a card for 1U and 2U. Now you would add other good stuff to this spell, and change the costs to B and G? I'm glad you are not the head designer for the set.
tribal: it would make sense, but they decided they won't use tribal ever again. It didn't make too much sense, didn't add to much and was a bit confusing.
madness: they won't use a keyword on one card in the set, and they don't want to add too many keywords.
There are plenty among your suggestions which I could agree with (especially about the xxx Woods cards), but I think Wizards did a better job than you.
I'm not unsure abt which green creature to play. It's just that there is a real difference when I play goyfs and a dryad over all goyfs.
Splitting your characteristics of your threats helps you maneuvre around situations where one fails to be good anymore.
Take for example my advocation of my 2 standstill 2 ancestral vision nonbo in legacy for landstill (over a clean 4x of either) which i still stand by today if i am playing the same list.
A good card is only good in the context it is good in and there are situations whereby they fail to be as good. Goyf is generally stronger than dryad but the third goyf is nothing compared to the singular dryad which diversifies the way the game can be played without failing to provide a similar/better function in the situations whereby a dryad is indeed better than the goyf.
That aside, nice to see the podcast hit a milestone.
Hope that it continues to provide interesting classic discussions.
It's one of my weekly things i look forward to.
Also, I wonder where all the new classic players disappeared to. :(
I'm pretty sure the people who qualified for the champs wouldn't immediately liquify their decks...
While I dont think the set is so bad, my expectations were really high, perhaps because of how great innistrad was.
Just to see the metagame in Block or the archetipes in draft (burning, mill, GW, UB, etc) is enought to recognize innistrad was one of the best sets ever designed. Also the flavour was great and the drawing too.
But DKA falls a bit behind, at first glance it seems like the only defining card will be Sorin, and some other cards will get some play. In standard for example i dont see more than 10 cards finding a place.
Maybe im wrong, i hope im wrong.
The mechanich fateful hour doesnt seem interesting for constructed. I think the author made a point with the brimstone volley. Why would you want to be at 5 just to be eaten by a volley...
Undiying certainly is interesting, i look forward to it.
Then we have the curses, almost all unplayable, except for the -1/-1 and Curse of the Bloody tome, curses are not even playable in limited....I dont understand why they put so much effort creating a "possible deck" with enablers, sinergy, and all, if they make the power level so low
I like mtgo. It's fun. These cards seem fun. I like them. They are not as good as they could be, or as good as the past block. I think they are more fun though. Som block was fun but to broken and I think Mtgo needed to step back off the ledge. No annililator, No infect (thats a 2hg ref). I am gonna draft the daylights out of dark.
How on earth would permanently stunting your opponent's tempo and ability to answer threats for the rest of the game which also ensures that every counter you play will resolve for 2 mana (playable on turn one easily) be "fair" in Legacy/Modern exactly?
One major aspect of design is to follow past guidelines so that you don't constantly make your previously designed cards complete crap. You have two different benchmarks for correct costing of the Rule of Law effect, knocking down the price by a mana AND making the effect significantly better is not doing that at all.
but will give 3 fireballs for alot of content that is , at least, opinionated and grammatically well done. I disagree whole heartedly with the Dark comparison and question very much if you actually played Magic at that time, or simply read the cards and compared them with the timeframe that you do play Magic. To me that is a huge mistake, comparing sets, from 10 years ago even, to today. Magic as a game has had a HUGE power creep for many years, so aside from the broken cards of the Beta era and around 40-50 other cards(FOW, LED, etc.) there is nothing from sets of days gone by that "compare" with sets of today, regardless of the arbitrary titles you may apply.
They better have merfolk in the fall set... or heck even better... Kira will be the hero of avacyn restored and she will bring with her a ton of awesome merfolk to save the day from the demons ;)
Thanks for pointIng that out. I'll make it a point in my next one to make sure the cost is easy to find.
You're not alone, I really liked this editorial too. I don't claim to be the best at analyzing what the effects of the author's revisions would mean for the game, but I 100% agree that much of the card design is overly cautious, disappointing, and feels like it misses a lot of opportunities on innovation and mechanic~theme synergy.
I was very excited when the initial spoilers rolled in, but have since cancelled the box I preordered and switched entirely to singles purchases (was planning on +/- $110 for the set, but reduced to about $30). I'm now just waiting for the huntsmaster and lich to fall in price, which I think will be inevitable. None of the deck archetypes I started working for standard got the support I was anticipating; no new quality burn spells, and not many good pod finishers (maybe vorapede).
Actually Doomed Traveler has proven to be more than mediocre-but-playable in aggressive decks. And of course cards like cleaver make it much better but it's still early in the draft and I can get it or something else. I'm not gonna give up a slot of my deck to make someone else's deck weaker. It's not like I'm giving up a 8 tix card or anything.
I can see mulliganning that hand but I don't think it's clear. I think it's one of those cases that there isn't a correct answer. You can either mulligan or keep and both plays involve risks.
As for B&R:
I played in the era of 4 Strip Mines. Never again, please - especially not in a format with Crucible and Thorns. Of course, if you really want Shops back, this might be a start. I agree that unrestricted Strip Mine would not break the format, but it could easily turn off enough players to keep events from ever firing. Same with Balance. Gettting wrecked by those cards over and over again is not fun.
Tinker gets too many broken things, and gets them too cheaply. Can't unrestrict. If you wonder what the format might be like, go read the coverage of PT New Orleans - a/k/a PT Tinker.
Consult is too good. Back circa 2000, I played a lot of Counterslivers. Consult was the best card in that deck - an instant speed tutor that puts the card in your hand for B is really, really good. It would be better now. Demonic Consultation is the second best spell costing B ever printed. (What's the best? - here's a hint: it will never, ever appear online. Answer below)
Wheel might be okay now, but not if Wizards intends to spread the release of the P9 over a couple sets, or over time. The only way it could be unrestricted now is if the plan is to have Classic convert immediatly to Vintage B&R once the P9 hits. Otherwise, keep wheel restricted so that releasing the P9 is easier, unless you want to boost Tendrils decks in the short run. (FWIW - my prophecy is that P9 will appear 6 months after the new version goes live, if it proves it can handle growth in the online player base.)
The one area where I could see some flexibility is Mana Vault, Mana Crypt and maybe even Sol Ring. In the event you covered, there was one Sol Ring and zero Vaults and Crypts. More importantly, the only cards that have multiple colorless mana in the casting costs were Jace, FoW, Gush and Yawg Will. These decks don't need double or triple colorless mana. What decks would? Shops would like them, but what could Shops cut for a non-threat, non-lock piece? Storm decks could try them - but colorless mana does not chain as well as RRR and BBB mana acceleration. The only deck that would be really happy with unresticted Vaults and Rings might be the mythical (so far) four Memory Jar deck, and that seems to prefer LEDs.
Just my $0.02.
PRJ
Best spell for B ever: Contract from Below.
I have never watched "Thank You for Smoking." I'll try and check it out. No promises, I've been busy lately.
"The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses" by Schell is my game design bible. There is no better book for game design. Reading it will make you a better designer. It is not a false statement, it what I genuinely believe. I would not hire a designer who is unfamiliar with that book.
And yea, this *OP ED* article is based on my personal opinions, which in turn have been formed during my tournament magic career, which has included pro points. When I don't like X or Y, it is usually because it could be playable in a specific metagame, but isn't. I don't want my articles to run too long, so I don't write essays on every card. The point of the article is about design of the new set, not how to properly evaluate cards at a tournament level, though the two are connected. But thank you for the advice regarding 'This card is badly designed because...' I'll try and take it for the next set.
I am a little surprised to not see the white shrine (loyal legions), as it is an early play that your deck is very much lacking, and it makes myr tokens. With a parallel lives, the card can win the game by itself quite easily. Just another thought when tweaking this. The last thing I thought of was another one for the aggro matchup - Timely Reinforcements. This is probably better in the theoretical sideboard, so I'm not surprised you left it out. 6 life and 3 or 6 tokens is a pretty big game. They don't support the myr theme unfortunately, but surviving until you can sweep the board or drop your haymakers is pretty important.
Doomed Traveler is the definition of mediocre-but-playable, mostly for the reason that his value is very strongly determined by the rest of your deck. Since you didn't have Cleaver or any additional draw to a Humans deck at that point (although you did later), I think "mediocre" is a proper description for that exact pick.
Your R2G3 keep seems pretty bad - you can run a rather-meaningless 1-drop, and approximately 27% of the rest of your deck is mountains. You're only around 60% to peel a mountain by turn 4 - and only 3 other cards in your ENTIRE DECK are meaningful to peel by then otherwise (literally, Fiend Hunter, Haunting, Blazing Torch). You basically just lose over a third of the time assuming the opponent does anything at all, and another third you'll have difficulty recovering because you're drawing lands and trading one-for-one while he is playing out threats and not spending cards on 1/1 speed bumps.
And that assumes deck parity! You have to toss that. Hell, the hand was almost a mull to 5 anyway.
but I started during legends and bought a whole booster box of the Dark when it came out. My first event deck was 115 cards, my 2nd one 73. Then I made Land Tax/Land's Edge. My fifth deck, Ball Lightning/Blood Lust mono-red nearly won something at an event (but didn't)... really needed Berserks to push it up a tier (had the Taigas).
And I even mentioned in the article that perhaps the comparison with the Dark wasn't fair, which is why I also compared extensively with Worldwake.
First, I agree with Paul above - you definitely need a sweeper for those aggro decks, so if you're cutting Rebirth, you replacement should be DOJ, not another pump effect. The white spellbomb could also help against those aggro decks, while helping you dig towards your turbine or parallel lives (the two engine cards this deck needs one of to win). All in all, looks like a fun deck. Might take it for a spin myself.
Just a personal preference, but I like matches a little better than single games. I guess then you'd have to build a sideboard, but you could at least take it into the tournament practice room and see how it holds up against the "net decks" or other more tournament-ready decks. If you're just looking for a casual deck to have some fun and win with, that's great, but maybe you should say that up front.
Just my 2 cents. Good article though, looking forward to the next one.
When they print another set I like, I'll take an overall positive tone. Comments are along the lines of 'who do you think you are to criticize wizards!' -- I expect that. It is hard for me to take a neutral stance in an OP ED, because then it wouldn't be my actual opinion. With Innistrad, I took a positive tone in the beginning, and got even *more* flack about being a negative nelly. This point of a design critique is to critique... not cheer lead the set. At least this time I was clear about it being an OP ED.
Mark Rosewater is actually a great guy in person, and I don't have any vendetta against him. But I don't think he did a good job as lead designer with this set. More of a case of 'like that man, dislike his work on *this* job.' And Rosewater has had great sets too.
I don't feel comfortable marketing my own creations in a MTG article. They aren't magic, and when I read self-promotion like that in other articles it makes me feel dirty. I'll think about it more for the future... maybe when I need the money more. Maybe when certain projects have shipped.
Thanks for commenting.
Grats on episode 50 fellas. I listened too it on my run home last night, which helped numb the pain :/
I don't think either Flash / Tinker and definately not Strip Mine (agree wtih Zach 100%) should come off restricted list. Healthy debate though boys, i was laughing quite a bit.
Keep the episodes coming. May you have infinity more!!
Instead of Tempered Steel include 4x Day of Judgment which solves the "I died the turn before I could cast Phyrexian Rebirth" issue. DOJ is a super cheap card so no excuse for not including it.
First of all I didn't pick a mediocre card over a bomb. I picked a solid card that I would play for sure over a bomb I would have to splash for or even not play at all. I don't really like splashing in this format.
Moon Heron is certainly better than Rebuke in an aggressive deck. Rebuke is a fine card and Moon Heron isn't spectacular or anything but at that point I was pretty sure I wouldn't be playing white because it just hadn't been coming. The following pick showed that white was simply not having any good cards in the packs.
Thraben Sentry is certainly better than Nightbird's Clutches. I really hate Nightbird's Clutches. I don't like Feeling of Dread either but at least that one is cheaper to flashback and also prevents creatures from attacking, so it is good in certain deck. Clutches however is usually very not good enough and I certainly wouldn't take it over a solid creature.
I opted to not play Rally in the main because I already had better tricks and I don't like overloading on those. Rally is one of those cards that once in a while it wins you a game you would lose otherwise but most of the time does close to nothing.
I almost always play 17 lands. I need to hit my land drops at least until turn 3 and I also don't want to have my bomb stuck in my hand.
JustSin... you missed this part: "The deck costs about 8 tix overall making it ridiculously affordable."
You can only blame yourself for losing to a bomb in R2G2. You should have picked up that card. Unlikely that you would play that (even though at that moment you were thinking about white-blue, and then it is easy to splash), but you picked up a really mediocre card instead. Other notable questionable picks: Moon Heron over Rebuke with the comment: best card of the pack. No, it's not. And "only card for me" is not something you should have said about Thraben Sentry when there was Nightbird's Clutches in the pack. And I think this deck could have worked with 16 lands. Finally, Rally the Peasants. How could you leave it out? Did you actually read that card? It is perfect for your deck.
being an article on building a cheap deck I have to say I expected some comment about cost... my only guess was that this was less than 12 tix and that's based off a kind of fly by comment, that being said the deck looks like a lot of fun, Myr Battlesphere was one of those 'junk' rares that I LOVED
I get the impression I'm the only one that thought the article was spot-on.
Once I digested the spoiler, I canceled my plans to go to the prerelease.
The set is very weak and not at all what I was anticipating for the follow-up
to Innistrad. I thought that innistrad was a great set and I was looking
forward to the prerelease and I have to admit that I was disappointed with
what WOTC cooked up. The set is weak. I don't look forward to cracking open packs
that are full of cards that have no practical application anywhere.
Personally, I liked his opinions (and that is the key here: "his opinions")
on how to jazz up some of the cards in the set. I'm sure everyone has opinions of
their own on how to fix cards. There's no reason to flame him over that. Here's an
idea: write your own article and include your ideas on fixing some of the crap in
Dark Ascension!
People, don't make excuses for Wizards of the Coast. They pay flunkies good money
to do that already. Don't put a flunky out of work!
I don't understand many things about this article. For example "useful cards". In what format? And you just describe what they do, no reasoning why they are useful and why the others aren't. Some other cards which might be useful: Increasing Devotion (to human decks, instead of the Monk), Undying Evil, Hellrider, Markov Blademaster, Huntmaster of the Fells. And additionally if some decks are played, like werewolves, spirits, curses, then those cards.
In general: there are several new cards every year. Do you really want all of them to be playable? And not just as a possible sideboard card, but really good card? That would just mean that older cards would fast become unplayable. Do you think that would be good?
Fateful hour: I'm sure the designers considered other possibilities and choose 5 as the best. It works only the real dark times, when there is immediate danger. That's why they choose the number which can be easily reached by single spells.
Curses: I think lot of people underestimates the power of Curse of Misfortunes. Suppose you play one, and the opponent doesn't destroy it immediately. From your next turn you can have mana to counter everything what would destroy it. First turn you search for something which messes with the plans of the opponent (Curse of Death's Hold if he has many creatures, the blue one to automatically counter his counters, or the white one, which you have in your blue-black deck as a singleton and couldn't even play otherwise). Next turn Curse of Thirst (3 damages on his turn), then the red curse (again, you cannot play it normally), that's 8 damage next turn, and any other Curse next time. If curse of Misfortunes would cost 2, you could play it before he has mana to counter it, and then you could counter everything he tries to do against it. He's dead at the beginning of his 6th turn.
Wrack of Madness for one red: that card kill almost everything it can target, including Titans and Blighsteel Colossus.
Hellrider with undying? That's a powerful finisher for red decks with small guys even this way. Black Cat with undying? If you have any sacrifice outlet, it is a hymn to tourach at worst. Yes, I think I would put that in basically any deck with sacrifice outlets. Tower Geist gives you an acceptable body and a card now. Should it also give you a good body and another card in case it dies?
Curse of Exhaustion: Rule of Law is a possible sideboard card, make it one-sided but cost 1 more, that's perfect. This card is good against basically every deck. It it was cheap, it wouldn't be broken, but still it would change the whole Legacy metagame. Do you counter my threatening spell? Well, I have another one, and you cannot do anything.
Gather the Townsfolk as an instant wouldn't be broken of course. But there is such a card without the fateful hour thing, Raise the Alarm. Is it a bad card? No, it is not. Why would you make a strictly better version then?
Deadly Allure with draw a card? You know, Think Twice draws a card for 1U and 2U. Now you would add other good stuff to this spell, and change the costs to B and G? I'm glad you are not the head designer for the set.
tribal: it would make sense, but they decided they won't use tribal ever again. It didn't make too much sense, didn't add to much and was a bit confusing.
madness: they won't use a keyword on one card in the set, and they don't want to add too many keywords.
There are plenty among your suggestions which I could agree with (especially about the xxx Woods cards), but I think Wizards did a better job than you.
I'm not unsure abt which green creature to play. It's just that there is a real difference when I play goyfs and a dryad over all goyfs.
Splitting your characteristics of your threats helps you maneuvre around situations where one fails to be good anymore.
Take for example my advocation of my 2 standstill 2 ancestral vision nonbo in legacy for landstill (over a clean 4x of either) which i still stand by today if i am playing the same list.
A good card is only good in the context it is good in and there are situations whereby they fail to be as good. Goyf is generally stronger than dryad but the third goyf is nothing compared to the singular dryad which diversifies the way the game can be played without failing to provide a similar/better function in the situations whereby a dryad is indeed better than the goyf.
That aside, nice to see the podcast hit a milestone.
Hope that it continues to provide interesting classic discussions.
It's one of my weekly things i look forward to.
Also, I wonder where all the new classic players disappeared to. :(
I'm pretty sure the people who qualified for the champs wouldn't immediately liquify their decks...
While I dont think the set is so bad, my expectations were really high, perhaps because of how great innistrad was.
Just to see the metagame in Block or the archetipes in draft (burning, mill, GW, UB, etc) is enought to recognize innistrad was one of the best sets ever designed. Also the flavour was great and the drawing too.
But DKA falls a bit behind, at first glance it seems like the only defining card will be Sorin, and some other cards will get some play. In standard for example i dont see more than 10 cards finding a place.
Maybe im wrong, i hope im wrong.
The mechanich fateful hour doesnt seem interesting for constructed. I think the author made a point with the brimstone volley. Why would you want to be at 5 just to be eaten by a volley...
Undiying certainly is interesting, i look forward to it.
Then we have the curses, almost all unplayable, except for the -1/-1 and Curse of the Bloody tome, curses are not even playable in limited....I dont understand why they put so much effort creating a "possible deck" with enablers, sinergy, and all, if they make the power level so low
I've been a little out of touch the last few weeks. Why is shop out of the meta?
I like mtgo. It's fun. These cards seem fun. I like them. They are not as good as they could be, or as good as the past block. I think they are more fun though. Som block was fun but to broken and I think Mtgo needed to step back off the ledge. No annililator, No infect (thats a 2hg ref). I am gonna draft the daylights out of dark.
How on earth would permanently stunting your opponent's tempo and ability to answer threats for the rest of the game which also ensures that every counter you play will resolve for 2 mana (playable on turn one easily) be "fair" in Legacy/Modern exactly?
One major aspect of design is to follow past guidelines so that you don't constantly make your previously designed cards complete crap. You have two different benchmarks for correct costing of the Rule of Law effect, knocking down the price by a mana AND making the effect significantly better is not doing that at all.
but will give 3 fireballs for alot of content that is , at least, opinionated and grammatically well done. I disagree whole heartedly with the Dark comparison and question very much if you actually played Magic at that time, or simply read the cards and compared them with the timeframe that you do play Magic. To me that is a huge mistake, comparing sets, from 10 years ago even, to today. Magic as a game has had a HUGE power creep for many years, so aside from the broken cards of the Beta era and around 40-50 other cards(FOW, LED, etc.) there is nothing from sets of days gone by that "compare" with sets of today, regardless of the arbitrary titles you may apply.
They better have merfolk in the fall set... or heck even better... Kira will be the hero of avacyn restored and she will bring with her a ton of awesome merfolk to save the day from the demons ;)