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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 7:13PM
#51
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Date Joined:
May 18, 2002
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Might Sanctuary Cat  , as complete fodder, on the other hand not exist? I've seen people play it at the Release party this weekend.
Are you suggesting that Sanctuary Cat wouldn't have been played if it was a Nova Cleric clone?
I don't think I would maindeck Nova Cleric  , no. I don't really understand the question.
The limited players who would use a Cat would leave it in the sideboard pile if it were a clone of Nova Cleric instead of Devoted Hero?
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1 year ago ::
Feb 05, 2012 - 8:07PM
#52
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The thing that got to me about this article was how absolutely boring and useless the actual Multiverse comments were. They didn't give much insight into the card development process, most times they involved a single developer having a monologue with himself, they are often cryptic and are just plain devoid of content which adds anything to the article.
I realise that most of the actual card making goes on in meetings involving personal interaction ("While most of the work on a set happens offline in meetings and playtests ..."), that there are probably many comments which we are not privy to seeing and that the writer can explain what each comment means however it doesn't take away from the fact that they just plain don't add anything at all to the article.
The ultimate illustration of this for me is the fact that you could remove all the multiverse comments from the article, remove or modify at most a handful of sentences from the remaining article and you would have almost exactly the same content in the article!
My nascent writing journal/blog can be found here.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 06, 2012 - 1:37AM
#53
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Might Sanctuary Cat , as complete fodder, on the other hand not exist? I've seen people play it at the Release party this weekend.
Are you suggesting that Sanctuary Cat wouldn't have been played if it was a Nova Cleric clone?
I don't think I would maindeck Nova Cleric , no. I don't really understand the question.
The limited players who would use a Cat would leave it in the sideboard pile if it were a clone of Nova Cleric instead of Devoted Hero?
Oh I see now. Answer: no, they would also play Nova Cleric .
But:
- You're asking the question the wrong way. At least according to MaRo's philosophy. You have to ask how much you can take away, not how much you can add. Or else every card would have 10+ abilities. Would you still play Nova Cleric if it has 2 more abilities? Hell yes.
- Cards aren't designed in isolation anymore, especially not commons, they design them to fulfill a specific role in the set. Sanctuary Cat is fulfilling a role that Nova Cleric couldn't.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 06, 2012 - 2:16AM
#54
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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Sanctuary Cat appears pretty unashamedly - blatantly, even - to be pandering to the "cats are cute" crowd. And doing so quite successfully: at my prerelease (which was capped at 64 people), there were two different people trying to trade for all the copies of Sanctuary Cat they could. I wouldn't trade them mine, because I wanted to show it to my 18 month old daughter. The famously opinionated willpell called it his " favorite "vanilla" creature in history".None of this has anything to do with ever putting the card in a deck. It could have been a 0/1 and still generated this effect. (In fact, the flavour might have been better.) It's like Steamflogger Boss  , but not taking up a rare slot, just turning one of the "disposable Limited common" slots into a "disposable Vorthos common" instead.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 07, 2012 - 7:46PM
#55
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Date Joined:
May 23, 2007
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You guys realize you're all gushing over two weaksauce Portal  cards  , right?
"Choke on your cleverness." -- Stranglehold  flavor text
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1 year ago ::
Feb 10, 2012 - 1:01PM
#56
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2008
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It's funny; I wish every game of Magic were about the slow accumulation of incremental advantages, and he wishes none of them were. Oh well, obviously someone there is on my side or Mulches and Desperate Ravings wouldn't be printed.
Thankfully, yes, someone understand that an incremental build-up of advantages is a fun and interesting/challenging way to win. Much more fun than one-sided blow-outs or "Your bomb is better than my bomb" games. At the prerelease I played B/W weenies and managed to win the tourney, but every match as a barnburner filled with lots of calculated attacks and blocks, interesting combats, and small incremental build-ups of advantages. And I loved every minute of that tourney.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 10, 2012 - 1:11PM
#57
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Date Joined:
Jan 16, 2008
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every turn you're having to think about the thirty-plus cards in your opponent's graveyard, and you can't really interact with those cards without altering your deck significantly.
"Add Nihil Spellbomb  " = "alter your deck significantly"? That aside, good article. I generally don't get much from these multiverse dump articles, but there was good commentary here. And last week's article was really good, despite my failure to have commented on it.
This has been one of the most disappointing lines from Wizards this whole block (MaRo chimed in on this too during his set review). For some reason, they bring back Flashback (a great mechanic) and then shy away from making many instants with it because "People don't pay attention to the graveyard and we don't want to punish them for that."
This statement is bad for two reasons. Firstly, Players DO pay attention to the graveyard during the GRAVEYARD MATTERS block. I have been asked "Can I see your graveyard?" more often in the last 6 months than I had in years. Even bad players know that in a block where Graveyard is the focus, you should pay attention to that.
Secondly, it is bad to say what is essentially "Bad players mess this up so we won't do it." I know this is a well-beaten horse, but it still reads the same. MaRo said in his article that they decided not to reprint Defy Gravity because it could randomly cause a player not paying attention to walk right into a bad attack. This is called a play mistake. It is good that the game punishes people more for these play mistakes (therefore making them better as they learn from their mistakes) then leave it up to the cards and their relative power levels to determine the winner. As is it now, many of the cards with FB were weakened or made sorceries so that people wouldn't make play mistakes around them. As a result, those games where the mistakes might happen will now be determined more by the relative luck-value of the power level of the competitors' card pools. So the better player may now lose because his opponent has less opportunities to be bad, and thus the game just plays itself, solitaire style.
TL;DR There should have been more of a push for the graveyard to matter in the graveyard matters set.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 13, 2012 - 2:40PM
#58
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Date Joined:
Oct 23, 2003
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Secondly, it is bad to say what is essentially "Bad players mess this up so we won't do it." I know this is a well-beaten horse, but it still reads the same. MaRo said in his article that they decided not to reprint Defy Gravity because it could randomly cause a player not paying attention to walk right into a bad attack. This is called a play mistake. It is good that the game punishes people more for these play mistakes (therefore making them better as they learn from their mistakes) then leave it up to the cards and their relative power levels to determine the winner. As is it now, many of the cards with FB were weakened or made sorceries so that people wouldn't make play mistakes around them. As a result, those games where the mistakes might happen will now be determined more by the relative luck-value of the power level of the competitors' card pools. So the better player may now lose because his opponent has less opportunities to be bad, and thus the game just plays itself, solitaire style.
I think the theory is that there are different sorts of skill, so since games are less likely to be decided by keeping track of the graveyard, then yes, they're more likely to be decided by luck, but also more likely to be decided by clever use of available resources. They would rather have games revolve around that sort of skill than the ability to process an overload of information (such as Lorwyn block board states or the contents of all graveyards at all times).
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1 year ago ::
Feb 13, 2012 - 11:09PM
#59
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2006
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I think the theory is that there are different sorts of skill, so since games are less likely to be decided by keeping track of the graveyard, then yes, they're more likely to be decided by luck, but also more likely to be decided by clever use of available resources. They would rather have games revolve around that sort of skill than the ability to process an overload of information (such as Lorwyn block board states or the contents of all graveyards at all times).
I believe, and there have been numerous statements to this effect in columns over the last 6-12 months, their attitude is that bad players won't feel bad if they don't know why they lost. (Because that way they can rationalize "luck".)
- I lost to an onboard trick? Clearly my fault, emo time.
- I lost to a graveyard flashback? Again my fault, I'm gonna go cry that I hate this stupid game.
- I lost because I attacked 2 creatures into your Dispense Justice
 ? Well that's not my fault. I couldn't possibly play around you having metalcraft and leaving 3 mana open.
- I lost because you drew your bomb and I couldn't draw removal (disregarding the Doom Blade I used on your bear earlier)? Stupid shuffle. Especially on MTGO, that stupid buggy evil shuffler.
So the R&D goal has shifted from the "encourage people to play well" from years ago, into "fool the bad players into thinking they're better than they are." In light of that, this past weekend has to be a superb triumph for the new design philosophy. Not only did the Kibler/Finkel game come down to simple attacking and blocking (yay Portal Magic!). But you know those players who chump block on 20 because they hate to take damage? Every single one of them now gets to think "well I would have blocked there. I'm better than Jon Finkel!"
Free MTGO Tournaments you should be playing: Pauper (all commons) - Tuesday Nights, prizes by MTGOTraders Peasant (Pauper + 5 uncommons, with paper rarity) - Sunday Nights, prizes by MTGOTraders Silverblack (Modern-era Commons and Uncommons - Most Wednesday nights, prizes by MTGO Bazaar Heirloom ("Cheap" cards only, e.g. rares under 20 cents) - Sunday afternoons, sponsored by MTGOTraders Check the superbly-made Gatherling site for more. Other games you should try: Spectromancer - Online card game by Richard Garfield, available cheap on Steam. DC Universe Online - action-based MMO. Free to play. Surprised me how well designed it is. Simunomics - Free-to-play economy simulation game.
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1 year ago ::
Feb 14, 2012 - 2:28AM
#60
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Not only did the Kibler/Finkel game come down to simple attacking and blocking (yay Portal Magic!).
Not Portal Magic, but Magic. Magic is supposed to be about attacking and blocking. A game of stack-based interactions might be a better game, but it is not the game of Magic.
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Kicker Aggro (Invasion Block)
