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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 3:28PM
#111
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2008
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Even though you feel like desgin did a good job in bringing the world into existence there were huge issues from a storyline perspective (mainly continuity issues) and you can't really succesfully create a world without a legitimate storyline going on. I hope next set will have a better story but i don't have high expectations given creative team's recent failiures and unwillingness to get into details. Doug has been talking on irrelevant stuff for the last couple months instead of explaining more core topics like Venser's age or Tezzeret's ever changing personality.
Beyer thrives on irrelevancy. It gives him super strength.
I'm not sure it matters, though, if they can create a solid story experience through the cards. That would probably be the best option at this point, what with the novel line quickly sinking to Mirrodin/Onslaught era quality levels.
You should come chime in in the F&S discussion on this topic...
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 3:40PM
#112
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Regarding the rage about the lack of means to remove poison counters: I for one think this was a better choice than including ridiculously narrow, block-specific hosers like Minamo's Meddling  or Rend Spirit  . Burn the Impure  is close enough as it is, but at least it's kinda like Volcanic Hammer  in an infect-free environment. Lord knows I don't need more of that kind of card in my box.
We get hundreds of new cards each year. Does it really matter some of them are narrow and specific? If that's what it takes to make that year's limited more enjoyable, I think it's a small price to pay.
Ummmm.... I was talking about Necropotence  . Clearly you weren't around for the "Necro Summer" but, trust me, that ability is a lot closer than I want to see. The "end step" part REALLY wasn't an issue for decent players...
Yes it is! If that wasn't on the card, it would be exponentially more broken than it is now.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 4:26PM
#113
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2001
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A spell that can deal 13 damage to multiple creatures for one mana (and yes, I mean 13 damage multiple times)
My guess is:
Library-Firestorm
R
Sorcery
Mill 4 cards from your library to deal 1 damage to target creature. You may repeat this process any number of times.
My logic is that the number 13 is relevant for some specific reason. So I started wondering how a spell would do 13 to a creature but not 14. If you assume a deck of 60 cards, and a starting hand of 7, that leaves 53. 13 * 4 is 52. So you could mill up to 13 times with a standard sized deck, but not 14.
The big danger to a card like this is what it does to eternal formats with dredge legal decks. I guess those formats have FoW, MM and such to keep a card like this in check.
13 damage to 13 creatures for one mana... did you reprint Firestorm  ?
Neither of these fits what MaRo said. The first can still only do 13 damage to one creature, while the second is too specific - nowhere did he say 13 creatures (and Firestorm won't normally be able to do that much anyway, though it is possible).
Jeff Heikkinen
DCI Rules Advisor since Dec 25, 2011
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 4:36PM
#114
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Date Joined:
Jul 30, 2004
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"Pick a side. Help determine the outcome of the war. PSYCH!!!"
Let's be honest though, would it be financially or even physically possible for the results of a prerelease to influence an entire set that comes out only 3 months later? (rhetorical question, obviously)
Depends how much lead time there is on getting the cards to the printers and shipping them.
Obviously, with all the investment in infect, proliferate, living weapon and general Phyrexian tech, the third set of the block was always going to have a large Phyrexian presence mechanically, but, from a flavour perspective, what would a Mirran victory look like? Could the Mirrans win without adopting and adapting the weapons of the enemy? An invasive counter-agent to the oil would give the Mirrans access to infect and proliferate. One of the more plausible scenarios for a Mirran victory would have been for them to ally with one Phyrexian faction against the rest - or wait for the inevitable Phyrexian civil war and encourage all sides to neutralise each other.
However the Mirrans win, post-Phyrexian Mirrodin would never have looked like classic Mirrodin - even if every drop of oil were wiped from existence, you'd still have a plane littered with Phyrexian technology and survivors who understood it well enough to defeat it - how long before native Mirrans start to use ideas gleaned from that knowledge? Could they resist the temptation to use it to help them rebuild?
Both mechanically, and from a storyline perspective, most, if not all, of the cards from New Phyrexia would also fit Mirrodin Pure - I'd have to look through the flavour text to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that at least two thirds of the cards could be printed for either set with just an expansion symbol change, most of the rest with relatively minor changes to flavour text, and maybe half-a-dozen or so cards replaced with mechanically different ones. Hey, Karn Liberated  even reads like a card designed for Mirrodin Pure that somehow ended up in New Phyrexia by mistake...
Provided there's a short enough lead time that you haven't started the print run before the data from the Besieged prereleases comes in, it would be perfectly possible to have the two files (with 90%+ overlap) prepped and not actually decide which one to email until the last moment... How far in advance of release that last moment is, I don't know - I wouldn't be surprised by anything between 2 and 6 months.
If Wizards actually wanted to let players determine the outcome of the Mirran-Phyrexian War, rather than dangling it in front of us and yanking it away, they could have. It would have meant doing things a bit differently - maybe pushing back the release of the third set, or maybe leaving the third set ambiguous and resolving the storyline with an online comic, or something, but there are ways it could have been done.
M:tG Rules Advisor
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 4:36PM
#115
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2001
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You guys should pay more attention to what the article says, " As always, let me be clear that while everything I say is true, I'm purposefully not telling you everything." So a planeswalker with 5 loyalty abilities probably means, it has a +5 and a -5, and some other ability. Misleading is misleading on purpose!
You would do well to take your own advice. Leaving information out, which is all he says he's doing, is not the same as being intentionally misleading in what is there. And frankly, even if MaRo did do that, MaRo, being over the age of 13, is not the sort of person who thinks the way of doing so that you're suggesting is at all clever.
Jeff Heikkinen
DCI Rules Advisor since Dec 25, 2011
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 4:37PM
#116
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Date Joined:
Jul 26, 2011
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Why is everyone talking about the planeswalker? Who cares?! You'll all get to see what it is in just a couple of weeks, then never EVER actually get your hands on one. Though it would be cool if it was a classic horror film character... Planeswalker - Dracula? ... Planeswalker - Frankenstein?
Anyway, I want to talk about Commander (EDH)! I discovered it last year and absolutely love it. My favorite format by far and I have 8 EDH decks now. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. The Commander sets that came out this summer were great... old favorites (especially Sol Ring) and great new cards. There's some great interacting in the decks but everything felt balanced at the same time. Some of my friends like just playing with the pre-cons even though they have their own Commander decks.
So Maro, is this something that we can expect to see every summer? I hope so
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 5:49PM
#117
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Also, I'm predicting that this planeswalker will be some species of pancake, as that's the only art that would fit into the narrow space left on the card.>>>>>
I see return of Flumphs!!! And horrible comedy!
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 6:29PM
#118
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Date Joined:
Jul 27, 2010
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exchange life with number of cards in graveyard?
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 7:07PM
#119
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2006
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So how does this new, 5th stage, differ from the 2nd stage, with sets like Weatherlight or Tempest block that were more story based than ability based. Sounds to me like R&D just decided that players prefer a story over raw mechanics.
I think in the second stage any overlap between setting and mechanics was coindental. Sometimes they made it work, like Shadow representing phased beings in the plane. Other times you had an enchantment theme to indicate Urza's fight with Phyrexia. (Though arguably there was a temporal theme with Echo and the untap mechanic.) But it wasn't a very top-down approach. Now I sense R&D is more confident in the ability to create mechanics. So they'll say "OK, Werewolves. What mechanical connection can we put on a bunch of cards that indicates lycanthropy?" And I guess this is a good thing, though it might get harder for cards to play together. For example, Zendikar/Worldwake was mechanically about lands, so they had you playing lots of lands. This yielded lots of mana, which led into Multikicker. It also set up Rise of the Eldrazi's big-mana theme balanced between the Eldrazi and Level Up. All working together mechanically. But if the keywords don't come early, you could get mechanic mismatch and a lot of cards that don't play together. Scars may have provided cover for this since the sides were intentionally split. Infect and Metalcraft don't play together at all, but you can say "ha ha that's on purpose". If werewolves and ghosts don't mix well though your blocks may feel narrowly linear. Too soon to say but I'd be concerned. Which segues into my comment on the article in general ... --------------- Mark, at the risk of pushing your article length, I'd like your State Of Design columns to remember more history. Specifically, past goals that were intended as "from now on" but reviewed one year after then never again. Things you wanted to work on 3 years ago are still good to do, right? One of my favorites was a goal to, as you said "design between blocks". Lorwyn creature types in Time Spiral and Shadowmoor blocks was a fine hit. Then Shadowmoor's color-matters was a reasonable connection to multi-color. And then ... multicolor needs lands? OK then lands leads to big mana, but then what? I guess if anyone actually played Level Up they could proliferate or something? It feels like this trailed off, and instead became "let's hide a good card 2 blocks early". Sure, Knight of the Reliquary  was better after Zendikar and Stoneforge Mystic  wasn't broken before Scars, but that's not really block coordination. And as I said above, I suspect this will only get worse with the new, more top-down approach. But moreover, I'd like you to continue looking back to old goals to see how they're being maintained. Since The State of Design is all about Magic's long-term, you'd do well to look further than 1 year back.
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2 years ago ::
Aug 22, 2011 - 7:18PM
#120
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2005
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I think Prisoner's dilemma is a perfectly good analogy. In prisoners delimma, if one person "rats", then that person gains over the other person. If neither person "rats" then they both do moderately well, but if they both "rat" then they both get harmed.
However, in the prisoner's dilemma, given that one person rats, then the other person is still better off ratting than not ratting. The reverse is true in the game of chicken (although the term "rat" isn't used there).
Likewise with drafting infect, if neither player drafts infect, then it's a wash. If one drafts infect but the other doesn't, that person is going to have a great deck. If both draft infect, then they probably are both going to lose. It's not a perfect analogy, but it makes his point. The problem is that it tempts you with the "you could do really awesome if you draft me", but the downside of trying and failing really sucks.
If drafting infect were a prisoner's dilemma, then it would be correct to draft infect even if everyone else were drafting infect. That clearly isn't the case. If everyone else is drafting infect, then you are far better off not drafting infect. That is indicative of a game of chicken, not a prisoner's dilemma.
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