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3 years ago ::
Oct 07, 2010 - 5:03PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2008
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Latest Developments, which goes live Friday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 07, 2010 - 10:03PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 26, 2004
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First! Okay, with that nonsense out of the way, my comments: 1. I love the breakdown of the Runeclaw Bears decision tree. It's second nature to most experienced Magic players to make decisions like that without thinking about them, but there's still processing power being used, it's important to be reminded of how big the decision is even if it's pretty automatic. 2. The part about giving the block's keywords to all your spells makes me very sad, because of how very many cases there are where it can't be done. "All creatures you control gain persist" would break the game in half because of Spike Drone  and its relatives. "Spells in your hand have forecast" doesn't work at all, despite the fact that forecast is a keyword rather than an ability word. Out of all Ravnica's ten keywords, the only one that could be given away was replicate. I found this tragic. Luckily Scars gives us both granted Infect (not globally yet, but I'm betting this'll happen in some form, since there's no rules reason why it can't and it'd be no more powerful than something like True Conviction  ) and granted Proliferate, so that's cool. 3. The mention of instant-speed proliferate makes me hope there's an instant later in the block which does nothing other than proliferate twice. Unless you have a Contagion Engine out, there's no way your Spike Drone can bushwhack a Runeclaw Bear and survive; being able to turn a losing battle into a winning one when Wizards refuses to print any more +2/+2 counters requires access to a double-proliferate surprise, so I hope we get one. And I'd regard the card as an interesting puzzle if it was just "Proliferate, proliferate", while if it does anything else it'd seem win-more.
My New Phyrexia Writing CreditsMy M12 Writing CreditsAs far as the benefit of the rest of Magic is concerned, gold cards in Legends were executed perfectly. They got all the excitement a designer could hope out of a splashy new mechanic without using up any of the valuable design space. Truly amazing.
--Aaron Forsythe's Random Card Comment on Kei Takahashi 
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 2:50AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Feb 25, 2010
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My jaw dropped a little while reading the first part of this article, bearing in mind he discussion that was prompted on the forums after last week's article in which Tom wrote:
"Do I want a random card, or do I want to deal 2 damage to something? They're a little simpler to play with if you just get to do both." Tom LaPille, 1st October 2010.
Compare and contrast that comment with:
"making cards simpler would make the game less fun" Tom LaPille 8th October 2010
So the spellbombs got to have their effect and draw you a card because that was simpler. And making cards simpler is less fun. Ergo the new spellbombs are less fun than the old ones?
An excellent point that was made in defence of wotc regarding the spellbombs was pointing out that Tom had said they wanted to keep complex, challenging choices, but they wanted to restrict them to matters of attacking and blocking. Fair enough, I don't agree, but fair enough. But now we have this comment from today's article:
"Dragon Broodmother puts a complicated choice to its controller every upkeep, and I watched several players at the Alara Reborn Prerelease struggling to figure out what to do with a fresh token."
So now we're back to being a fan of complex decisions, and this one is not related to matters of attacking and blocking (ok, obviously the number and size of creatures you have affects combat, but almost everything affects combat in some way, including at least 3 of the 5 new spellbombs).
I suppose the best answer comes from another Wotc employee who made the following excellent point in the forums last week:
"Not every card has to be made as simple as possible, and not every card has to be made as skill-testing as possible. Different crowds enjoy different things. There is not one overriding philosophy that guides this, but a instead an overall goal that requires course corrections on both sides to achieve."
An insightful, sensible and nuanced point. But personally I can't shake the feeling that the spellbomb-simplifying decision was wrong, especially given the author's own words here about the importance of decision-making in Magic, and that this is a little bit of a 180.
"Personally, I believe $50 is the roof that someone will pay for a Standard card, Mythic or otherwise." - Ben Bleiweiss, StarCity Games
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 5:54AM
#4
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Earlier in the week, this website posted Chapin's machine red list. It uses the throne, described here as weaker than clasp, as its proliferate engine instead of the clasp, described as contructed worthy.
Based on the contents of this article, it appears that development has no idea that saccing something is the better way to proliferate with the current card pool than to pay 4 mana. I hope it ends up not mattering too much, but this article indicates that R&D may have grossly underestimated the speed the game will play in practice. Besides, its not like they've done that recently...
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 6:51AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2010
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From very early in the process, this was meant to be a cool Constructed card.
Really? One -1/-1 counter on one creature when it comes into play, and then proliferating for four mana and a tap? Looks expensive for a small benefit. The super-sized version of it has a higher casting cost but a better c-i-p effect AND for the same activation cost will wipe out most opponents' boards. The clasp is a good card in the right Limited or Draft deck, but I'll be very surprised to see it getting much Constructed play.
2. The part about giving the block's keywords to all your spells makes me very sad, because of how very many cases there are where it can't be done. "All creatures you control gain persist" would break the game in half because of Spike Drone and its relatives. "Spells in your hand have forecast" doesn't work at all, despite the fact that forecast is a keyword rather than an ability word. Out of all Ravnica's ten keywords, the only one that could be given away was replicate. I found this tragic. Luckily Scars gives us both granted Infect (not globally yet, but I'm betting this'll happen in some form, since there's no rules reason why it can't and it'd be no more powerful than something like True Conviction ) and granted Proliferate, so that's cool.
LaPille seems to have a habit of overstating things a bit, like introducing something by saying "It seems inoxerable" when he means "We try to, when it makes sense". Of course, this habit is completely harmless, just a quirk of writing style, or at least it would be if people here on the forums weren't so pedantic or insanely nitpicky.
The only one of Ravnica's keywords that already has already been given away was replicate, but considering that WotC is now willing to reuse keywords, that doesn't mean more couldn't be printed some day. An enchantment that reads "all cards in your hand have convoke" would be very powerful at a low CMC but completely and totally useless at a high CMC. Or I'd like to see an enchantment that simply reads "Hellbent - all creatures you control get +2/+0 if you have no cards in hand." Simple. To the point.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 7:09AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2006
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2. The part about giving the block's keywords to all your spells makes me very sad, because of how very many cases there are where it can't be done. "All creatures you control gain persist" would break the game in half because of Spike Drone and its relatives.
Then again, they often find ways to do something close to that while preventing it from being broken in half. For Persist, that was Cauldron of Souls  .
 Magic The Gathering DCI Rules Advisor Don't hesitate to post rules question in the Rules Q&A forum for me and other competent advisors to answer : http://community.wizards.com/go/forum/view/75842/134778/Rules_Q38A
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 7:55AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 24, 2003
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My jaw dropped a little while reading the first part of this article, bearing in mind he discussion that was prompted on the forums after last week's article in which Tom wrote:
"Do I want a random card, or do I want to deal 2 damage to something? They're a little simpler to play with if you just get to do both." Tom LaPille, 1st October 2010.
Compare and contrast that comment with:
"making cards simpler would make the game less fun" Tom LaPille 8th October 2010
So the spellbombs got to have their effect and draw you a card because that was simpler. And making cards simpler is less fun. Ergo the new spellbombs are less fun than the old ones?
Wow, way to take a quote out of context in a lame attempt to prove a point!
Another consideration is that in many cases, making cards simpler would make the game less fun, and in those cases we don't.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 8:01AM
#8
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From very early in the process, this was meant to be a cool Constructed card.
Really? One -1/-1 counter on one creature when it comes into play, and then proliferating for four mana and a tap? Looks expensive for a small benefit. The super-sized version of it has a higher casting cost but a better c-i-p effect AND for the same activation cost will wipe out most opponents' boards. The clasp is a good card in the right Limited or Draft deck, but I'll be very surprised to see it getting much Constructed play.
While Contagion Clasp only puts a -1/-1 counter on a creature itself, you would be doing way more than just manipulating that single -1/-1 counter if you have it in your deck. While Contagion Clasp won't see play in every deck out there, it is really strong in a deck packing a lot of cards that use counters.
Also, it is a little better since you can play it on turn two rather than turn six. I agree though that by turn six, it is made obsolete by Contagion Engine. But until you reach six mana, you should probably have something that can Proliferate during that time. Thrummingbird has to make it through to the opponent, Steady Progress only happens once, and Throne of Geth needs artifacts to sacrifice in order to work.
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 9:07AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jan 28, 2003
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Contagion Clasp is probably going to get a lot better in Constructed once we've got more of Scars block to work with. Right now, the best use for it seems to be putting loyalty counters on planeswalkers, but there will eventually be more things to do with it.
- Doug
"Collectability is just a code-word for ripping you off." - David Sirlin
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3 years ago ::
Oct 08, 2010 - 11:00AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Feb 25, 2010
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Wow, way to take a quote out of context in a lame attempt to prove a point!
Another consideration is that in many cases, making cards simpler would make the game less fun, and in those cases we don't.
It's a fair cop! 
I must be feeling even more mean-spirited than usual today. Apologies all round.
"Personally, I believe $50 is the roof that someone will pay for a Standard card, Mythic or otherwise." - Ben Bleiweiss, StarCity Games
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