Good call on the strive = replicate. The game has been around long enough where some of the mechanics definitely overlap. While I understand the flavor behind Tribute (pay tribute to me, or I'll come back larger and more angry), the rest are just blah. Hopefully we get some new and interesting stuff next block.
I think that perhaps it would be worth revising the mantra that promo reprints and flashback drafts don't influence card prices. While this is often true, we've had some recent counterexamples. I think your logic holds for cards that are heavily played. Chase mythics, duals, FoW all take a little dip when released as promos but they typically recover very quickly as you say.
The cards that take a stronger dip are rare cards that don't see as heavy play (LED, for example) and cards whose formats are losing popularity (pauper).
It's been several months since the last set of Urza's and Masques block flashback events and the prices of most of the relevant commons are still way, way down. They have generally recovered a bit from their nadirs but are still far from where they were before. This pattern also hold for many of the rares from these blocks. Rares like Replenish, Rofellos, Phyrexian Tower and so forth that are valuable but don't see heavy play are still WAY down in value. LED is another prime example, which is down $50 off its peak after being printed as a MOCS promo. It's still expensive, yes, but the promo versions can be had for much less than the ~$100 price tag on the original printing.
So yes, these reprintings don't really dent the price of cards that see very heavy play... but for cards that are more niche or on the downswing they can have a substantial and lasting impact on prices.
I also keep thinking the abbreviation is JIN! JOU sounds wrong.
Tribute, Bestow, Heroic and Inspired has to be one of the worst sets of mechanics in Magic history. They all seem designed for super-casual play. Which is fine, but not 4 out of 4. But most importantly, they're dull. Basically, the basic template for all of them is, "Do this thing, a creature gets +1/+1 or more". Heroic and especially Inspired sometimes do something more interesting (in JOU there's a few examples that you mention), but in general they're pretty meh.
Isn't Strive more like Replicate than Multikicker? In fact, isn't it JUST Replicate? (A strictly worse Replicate, actually, since Replicate would create a series of spells, while with Strive you just have to counter the one). Theros block gave me a bad feeling, particularly considering MaRo was involved. Like if after 20 years (or 10 years for MaRo), they're starting to running out of ideas.
How do you tell that Kruphix is female? It has no face and almost no body, but those arms and hands look pretty male to me (I see it's referenced with a male pronoun by various people online, but in the 30-second check I've just done there weren't official sources).
Then again, you also call Eidolon of Rhetoric with a female pronoun, and that's essentially Cicero in the art. :)
You missed the sheep! Baa!
(And it's getting some love, judging from that price!)
UWR looks great. Think I might try it. I think Junk reanimator is dead, but Junk Midrange is going to be a thing. I hope Chapin does a deck tech this weekend. Great job as always.
I've said it before and I guess I have to keep repeating it. Just because someone gets to design something does not mean they should reinvent the wheel. Unfortunately that is what happened here except with the things that really didn't work too well in v3...those they kept. Everything else they broke which brings up another platitude/bit of wisdom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Which is another way of saying If something works bring it with you into the next design. Don't throw it out just because you can...
And especially don't try to sell the changes now that you have broken what wasn't as something fantastic like those Emperor's New Clothes as that (!!) smacks of deception and manipulation. That is what really infuriates me about the beta. I have nothing good to say about the Online team right now except "Thanks for bringing Tribal back...to the Titanic."
Remember when duals were reprinted in ME4 but then were at their highest point ever just a few days ago before VMA was announced? It will take a while, but prices of staples will go back up.
From those Glassdoor reviews, it appears that the only people at WotC who are happy and have fun and know what they're doing are MaRo and the people who work with MaRo. Which is something I can easily believe.
"Learn about your product from a ground level" is a suggestion that seems to encapsulate the problems with the beta. I try and build decks in beta, and I keep thinking that who designed that interface is honestly trying to do their best, but none of them had a lot of "frequent-builder miles" under their belt when they started. Resulting, for instance, in the interface somehow feeling like it expects for you to just look at the cards you have in your collection and build something with those.
And there goes hundreds of dollars from my collection with Force at rare. Terrible. Skullclamp is a mythic, but FoW at rare? I'm all for VM making things more accessible to people, but the price drop here (and duals, most likely) is just too much.
Combine that with having to use the Beta and I'm starting to think about selling it all :(
That link to glassdoor was interesting, but not exactly unexpected. The employees are saying the same thing I have been, that wotc is not a tech company and is doing it wrong. Basically every employee that wrote on Glassdoor said they loved working with their favorite games but wotc sucks in all other ways.
Hasbro needs to start by taking control and firing most managers that are not R&D. Every single person involved in decision making for mtgo should be fired, along with all the incompetent programmers. Worth should be fired with prejudice.
It might be interesting to have a 'no offtribe tokens' rule. They'd still be playable in spirit or bird respectively, just not splashed as free good stuff.
I do like the Auxiliary rule as presented, as it neatly handles one side of the problem.
Maybe I didn't specify it well enough (are you feeling nitpicky today?), but that section of the article had two subsections:
Subsection 1: Let's classify and discuss the type of ways you can use off-tribe creatures in Legacy Tribal Wars, including the sneaky ones.
Subsection 2: A new ruling for Pure Tribal events.
Do I at any point say, "And from now on, cards that generate creatures different from your tribe are banned from Pure events"? Because that would be kind of a necessary wording when announcing a new rule while announcing another, entirely different rule. (And that rule would be huge and hated by many, myself included.)
Spectral Procession and Battle Screech aren't examples for Type 3, because as I say, they're not creature cards, so they don't fall under the "including off-tribe creatures in your deck" discussion. They're mentioned to stress the idea that there's indeed no way to play entirely "pure" even under Pure rules (and what could we do about that? Ban every token creator, including things like Elephant Guide? What about Master of Waves?), and illustrated for the sake of people who didn't remember what they were and didn't feel like clicking on the links. I should have probably found a couple of examples of different colors that don't feel so close mechanically, like maybe Necrogenesis or Awakening Zone.
Plus, make no mistake, white has tons of strong ways to put tokens into play (Lingering Souls, Midnight Haunting, Promise of Bunrei, Timely Reinforcements), so that strategy's key is actually Honor of the Pure. Spirit, in particular, is even a flavorful type for the white humanoid tribes, because they represent the spirits of their fallen who come back to help. (Bird, not so much).
Semi-unrelated: several Angels are eligible Auxiliaries for Spirit.
Aside from Ambassador Laquatus and Oona, other potential wincons include Mindshrieker, Spikeshot Elder, Flamekin Spitfire, Scalding Devil, Flamewave Invoker, Reckless Embermage, Kumano, Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius, Shivan Hellkite, Orzhov Guildmage, Duskmantle Guildmage, Scholar of Athreos or Lich Lord of Unx. Oona is the most mana and activation efficient.
When I first played Dragon, it ran ambassador laquatas (I know I spelled that wrong.) as the win condition. Deck is fun to play, makes a very small percentage of the vintage metagame, like about 1% according to mtgtop8.com
Fair enough. I'd suggest changing 'Now, Pure Tribal demonizes them all equally, but that's mostly designed to punish the Type 3 of off-tribe inclusions' to 'Pure Tribal demonises them all equally except the sneaky technicality type 3 cards, but that's mostly designed to punish the Type 3 of off-tribe inclusions' :)
It does seem a bit odd that fully half the examples you provide for Type 3, the type of card you don't want in the event, can be played in the event without restriction. Or is it just me?
we old magic farts often forget about those just starting out and usually craft our articles toward the over-immersed-in-magic-knowledge community of players. I knew everything in this article for oh so many years but it's great to see it expertly delivered from a player coming off one year of learning the game who is now sharing what he learned with the new padowans.
The ironic part of this is that I'm pretty sure Illusion will end undefeated at some point while running Lord of the Unreal, and in that case, I'll purify it! :)
"Does this mean that the non-creature type 3 good stuff cards you mention are going to be cut out?"
What do you mean? In other formats? They're already out of Pure, of course.
And I wasn't seriously disappointed. It was just a humorous observation. But one can be cutthroat while not rehashing the same list again and again. It's my duty not to applaud this kind of approach, which however still remains perfectly legitimate. But when you have a kid that can get A, and is content to aim for B-, don't you feel the need to tell him, "C'mon, you can do better than this?"
Also, please don't confuse what I allow with what I want. "I disapprove of what you build, but I will defend to the death your right to build it."
It's an excellent idea to add God or a Lord as an Auxiliary to the Pure format.
I agree with your opinion about Gods that they are like Planeswalkers. As, I have added Gods to my previous two Pure decks unintentionally, then realized again and again that they are creatures. It's somehow natural to think them as auxiliary by their design.
And yep, Elesh is a she. You can already tell in the card's art from her posture, body type, hands, and the way she has pages that keep her dress up like a queen. There's also official art (and not) where you see her face under her "hat" (which is probably organic), like in Marrow Shards. In her own card the hat is often mistaken for her entire head, but looking closely you can see she's actually under it and looking to the right, not to the left. Excellent design by Igor Kieryluk.
Didn't know the Worldgorger combo used Oona as a wincon these days. I guess she's one of the few creatures (the only one?) that you can reanimate and dump infinite mana into for an instant win that doesn't even require attacking. That's nice for Oona, who never really got any attention elsewhere.
Wrong account.
I thought I read somewhere that Kruphix was female? I could definitely be mistaken though. However it appears that Rosewater is playing coy with this one: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/76014943454/is-kruphix-male-or-female
Good call on the strive = replicate. The game has been around long enough where some of the mechanics definitely overlap. While I understand the flavor behind Tribute (pay tribute to me, or I'll come back larger and more angry), the rest are just blah. Hopefully we get some new and interesting stuff next block.
I think that perhaps it would be worth revising the mantra that promo reprints and flashback drafts don't influence card prices. While this is often true, we've had some recent counterexamples. I think your logic holds for cards that are heavily played. Chase mythics, duals, FoW all take a little dip when released as promos but they typically recover very quickly as you say.
The cards that take a stronger dip are rare cards that don't see as heavy play (LED, for example) and cards whose formats are losing popularity (pauper).
It's been several months since the last set of Urza's and Masques block flashback events and the prices of most of the relevant commons are still way, way down. They have generally recovered a bit from their nadirs but are still far from where they were before. This pattern also hold for many of the rares from these blocks. Rares like Replenish, Rofellos, Phyrexian Tower and so forth that are valuable but don't see heavy play are still WAY down in value. LED is another prime example, which is down $50 off its peak after being printed as a MOCS promo. It's still expensive, yes, but the promo versions can be had for much less than the ~$100 price tag on the original printing.
So yes, these reprintings don't really dent the price of cards that see very heavy play... but for cards that are more niche or on the downswing they can have a substantial and lasting impact on prices.
I also keep thinking the abbreviation is JIN! JOU sounds wrong.
Tribute, Bestow, Heroic and Inspired has to be one of the worst sets of mechanics in Magic history. They all seem designed for super-casual play. Which is fine, but not 4 out of 4. But most importantly, they're dull. Basically, the basic template for all of them is, "Do this thing, a creature gets +1/+1 or more". Heroic and especially Inspired sometimes do something more interesting (in JOU there's a few examples that you mention), but in general they're pretty meh.
Isn't Strive more like Replicate than Multikicker? In fact, isn't it JUST Replicate? (A strictly worse Replicate, actually, since Replicate would create a series of spells, while with Strive you just have to counter the one). Theros block gave me a bad feeling, particularly considering MaRo was involved. Like if after 20 years (or 10 years for MaRo), they're starting to running out of ideas.
How do you tell that Kruphix is female? It has no face and almost no body, but those arms and hands look pretty male to me (I see it's referenced with a male pronoun by various people online, but in the 30-second check I've just done there weren't official sources).
Then again, you also call Eidolon of Rhetoric with a female pronoun, and that's essentially Cicero in the art. :)
You missed the sheep! Baa!
(And it's getting some love, judging from that price!)
UWR looks great. Think I might try it. I think Junk reanimator is dead, but Junk Midrange is going to be a thing. I hope Chapin does a deck tech this weekend. Great job as always.
I've said it before and I guess I have to keep repeating it. Just because someone gets to design something does not mean they should reinvent the wheel. Unfortunately that is what happened here except with the things that really didn't work too well in v3...those they kept. Everything else they broke which brings up another platitude/bit of wisdom: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Which is another way of saying If something works bring it with you into the next design. Don't throw it out just because you can...
And especially don't try to sell the changes now that you have broken what wasn't as something fantastic like those Emperor's New Clothes as that (!!) smacks of deception and manipulation. That is what really infuriates me about the beta. I have nothing good to say about the Online team right now except "Thanks for bringing Tribal back...to the Titanic."
That UWR deck looks pretty sweet.
Remember when duals were reprinted in ME4 but then were at their highest point ever just a few days ago before VMA was announced? It will take a while, but prices of staples will go back up.
From those Glassdoor reviews, it appears that the only people at WotC who are happy and have fun and know what they're doing are MaRo and the people who work with MaRo. Which is something I can easily believe.
"Learn about your product from a ground level" is a suggestion that seems to encapsulate the problems with the beta. I try and build decks in beta, and I keep thinking that who designed that interface is honestly trying to do their best, but none of them had a lot of "frequent-builder miles" under their belt when they started. Resulting, for instance, in the interface somehow feeling like it expects for you to just look at the cards you have in your collection and build something with those.
And there goes hundreds of dollars from my collection with Force at rare. Terrible. Skullclamp is a mythic, but FoW at rare? I'm all for VM making things more accessible to people, but the price drop here (and duals, most likely) is just too much.
Combine that with having to use the Beta and I'm starting to think about selling it all :(
That link to glassdoor was interesting, but not exactly unexpected. The employees are saying the same thing I have been, that wotc is not a tech company and is doing it wrong. Basically every employee that wrote on Glassdoor said they loved working with their favorite games but wotc sucks in all other ways.
Hasbro needs to start by taking control and firing most managers that are not R&D. Every single person involved in decision making for mtgo should be fired, along with all the incompetent programmers. Worth should be fired with prejudice.
It might be interesting to have a 'no offtribe tokens' rule. They'd still be playable in spirit or bird respectively, just not splashed as free good stuff.
I do like the Auxiliary rule as presented, as it neatly handles one side of the problem.
Maybe I didn't specify it well enough (are you feeling nitpicky today?), but that section of the article had two subsections:
Subsection 1: Let's classify and discuss the type of ways you can use off-tribe creatures in Legacy Tribal Wars, including the sneaky ones.
Subsection 2: A new ruling for Pure Tribal events.
Do I at any point say, "And from now on, cards that generate creatures different from your tribe are banned from Pure events"? Because that would be kind of a necessary wording when announcing a new rule while announcing another, entirely different rule. (And that rule would be huge and hated by many, myself included.)
Spectral Procession and Battle Screech aren't examples for Type 3, because as I say, they're not creature cards, so they don't fall under the "including off-tribe creatures in your deck" discussion. They're mentioned to stress the idea that there's indeed no way to play entirely "pure" even under Pure rules (and what could we do about that? Ban every token creator, including things like Elephant Guide? What about Master of Waves?), and illustrated for the sake of people who didn't remember what they were and didn't feel like clicking on the links. I should have probably found a couple of examples of different colors that don't feel so close mechanically, like maybe Necrogenesis or Awakening Zone.
Plus, make no mistake, white has tons of strong ways to put tokens into play (Lingering Souls, Midnight Haunting, Promise of Bunrei, Timely Reinforcements), so that strategy's key is actually Honor of the Pure. Spirit, in particular, is even a flavorful type for the white humanoid tribes, because they represent the spirits of their fallen who come back to help. (Bird, not so much).
Semi-unrelated: several Angels are eligible Auxiliaries for Spirit.
Aside from Ambassador Laquatus and Oona, other potential wincons include Mindshrieker, Spikeshot Elder, Flamekin Spitfire, Scalding Devil, Flamewave Invoker, Reckless Embermage, Kumano, Niv-Mizzet Dracogenius, Shivan Hellkite, Orzhov Guildmage, Duskmantle Guildmage, Scholar of Athreos or Lich Lord of Unx. Oona is the most mana and activation efficient.
When I first played Dragon, it ran ambassador laquatas (I know I spelled that wrong.) as the win condition. Deck is fun to play, makes a very small percentage of the vintage metagame, like about 1% according to mtgtop8.com
Fair enough. I'd suggest changing 'Now, Pure Tribal demonizes them all equally, but that's mostly designed to punish the Type 3 of off-tribe inclusions' to 'Pure Tribal demonises them all equally except the sneaky technicality type 3 cards, but that's mostly designed to punish the Type 3 of off-tribe inclusions' :)
It does seem a bit odd that fully half the examples you provide for Type 3, the type of card you don't want in the event, can be played in the event without restriction. Or is it just me?
we old magic farts often forget about those just starting out and usually craft our articles toward the over-immersed-in-magic-knowledge community of players. I knew everything in this article for oh so many years but it's great to see it expertly delivered from a player coming off one year of learning the game who is now sharing what he learned with the new padowans.
Hey everyone!
Been playing a few more games with the Seismic Assault deck and have a couple more videos for you to check out.
Here's a match against GW Hatebears:
http://youtu.be/CW0Yhga5FkM
Here's a match against GR Shamans:
http://youtu.be/23tfA7EeALQ
No, no. It was just part of the analysis.
They might be purified in future, though.
I was referring to Battle Screech and Spectral Procession. Have they been banned in Pure?
The ironic part of this is that I'm pretty sure Illusion will end undefeated at some point while running Lord of the Unreal, and in that case, I'll purify it! :)
"Does this mean that the non-creature type 3 good stuff cards you mention are going to be cut out?"
What do you mean? In other formats? They're already out of Pure, of course.
And I wasn't seriously disappointed. It was just a humorous observation. But one can be cutthroat while not rehashing the same list again and again. It's my duty not to applaud this kind of approach, which however still remains perfectly legitimate. But when you have a kid that can get A, and is content to aim for B-, don't you feel the need to tell him, "C'mon, you can do better than this?"
Also, please don't confuse what I allow with what I want. "I disapprove of what you build, but I will defend to the death your right to build it."
It's an excellent idea to add God or a Lord as an Auxiliary to the Pure format.
I agree with your opinion about Gods that they are like Planeswalkers. As, I have added Gods to my previous two Pure decks unintentionally, then realized again and again that they are creatures. It's somehow natural to think them as auxiliary by their design.
Elesh in Phyrexian is extremely cool!
And yep, Elesh is a she. You can already tell in the card's art from her posture, body type, hands, and the way she has pages that keep her dress up like a queen. There's also official art (and not) where you see her face under her "hat" (which is probably organic), like in Marrow Shards. In her own card the hat is often mistaken for her entire head, but looking closely you can see she's actually under it and looking to the right, not to the left. Excellent design by Igor Kieryluk.
A great spoiler card we've got this time!
Didn't know the Worldgorger combo used Oona as a wincon these days. I guess she's one of the few creatures (the only one?) that you can reanimate and dump infinite mana into for an instant win that doesn't even require attacking. That's nice for Oona, who never really got any attention elsewhere.