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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 4:38AM
#11
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I had a blast with a blue/green souldbond deck at the prerelease. Went 5:2 with it, mostly by sheer luck, though. It was funny how people kept telling me about how my Flowering Lumberknot was bad, after they lost to it. A fun mechanic, but the reminder text was hard to understand. It took three matches until someone pointed out to me that you can't "repair" already paired creatures. (Of course only after I paired my creature to a defender just for fun.) The judge even had to go and look it up on the internet or something. Also it didn't offer much for the Achievement Card* to cross out  *please do that again, it was sooo amazing
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 5:55AM
#12
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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Soulbond is the one part of AVR I'm looking forward to playing. But having had a scheduling conflict for the prerelease, and a really busy summer with lots of games to play, it looks like I won't actually get to play it at all. Which is a bit of a pity. Dear Wotc,
Please find a new name for New World Order. I'm not arguing whenever or not it's a good policy for magic to have, but the name is extremely ironic. New World Order, when heard by those outside magic design, brings to mind evil power elites plotting to take over the world via a cunning masterstroke after centuries of plotting. I don't think it is good PR to associate your design plans with the Sith from Star Wars or with western perception of Communism. Also, the phrase just sounds super sinster.
As I said last time this came up - speak for yourself. Many of us are aware that "New World Order" just means a way of arranging/organising things that's, erm, new. There have been very many things branded as the "New World Order" since the English language formed; if you happen to associate the phrase with just one or two particularly negative ones, and find it sinister for that reason, all that means is that you've only encountered (or noticed) the particularly sinister subset of those many things.
It may well be worth R&D trying to find a different phrase for the sake of people who do take it the way you do, but please recognise that you're not speaking for "everyone outside Magic design" but just a small number of people who have the associations you do.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 6:15AM
#13
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I'm so disappointed that this is their "fixed" banding. I suspected it was going to be, due to the thematic similarity, but mechanically it's nothing like banding, and I'm really looking want a fixed banding. I fear that they're going to call this a short term victory for new banding and back burner it for a long time again.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 8:05AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jan 11, 2010
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Dear Wotc,
Please find a new name for New World Order. I'm not arguing whenever or not it's a good policy for magic to have, but the name is extremely ironic. New World Order, when heard by those outside magic design, brings to mind evil power elites plotting to take over the world via a cunning masterstroke after centuries of plotting. I don't think it is good PR to associate your design plans with the Sith from Star Wars or with western perception of Communism. Also, the phrase just sounds super sinster.
Do you really suspect that was unintentional? It's been evidenced many times that MaRo is a fan of ironic humour, even specifically as it pertains to Magic design - he regularly refers to "destroying Magic" as one of his career goals. I suspect he's fully aware of its sinister implications, and simply considers that a humourous bonus on an otherwise accurate term.
Irony is generally only a bad thing if the person being ironic doesn't realise it. When irony is evoked intentionally, we generally regard that as a sign of wit...
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 8:07AM
#15
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I think soulbond is an intelligent design, and putting them in a set with flicker effects makes for interesting combat trickery. Flavourwise, it doesn't make much sense that a creature that gives, say, deathtouch, doesn't have deathtouch itself, but I suppose it is easier to remember if none of the creatures have the paired ability until paired.
I did find soulbond harder to track than I thought it would be. A shame that a token crappy in-pack advert slot wasn't given to a "sideways orientated bond card" which you could lay over / under a pair of cards to show that they are bound. I would find that much more useful than the needlessly pointless poison counter token from last year.
The only downside is that I think soulbond will dominate limited games a little too much because of the imbalance between the power of soulbond (and, moreso, soulbond plus flicker) versus the general lack of instant speed removal. I find the message from Wizards that "these cards are more powerful than you think" is interesting - most people I draft with never for a moment thought that these cards weren't incredibly powerful from the outset.
I much prefer it to miracle, which I hope never to see again. I wouldn't mind if well designed soulbond cards made an appearance in a future set though.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 9:37AM
#16
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I did find soulbond harder to track than I thought it would be. A shame that a token crappy in-pack advert slot wasn't given to a "sideways orientated bond card" which you could lay over / under a pair of cards to show that they are bound. I would find that much more useful than the needlessly pointless poison counter token from last year.
Thats how I felt too. And it also felt that you should be able to repair creatures as they come down, that was played wrongly all prerelease and even judges made mistakes. Ya with blinking and sometimes paired creatures not doing anything for a while it was easy to forget which ones were in a pair. It ended up playing much worse than I was hoping it would, as this mechanic looked fun and wizards has been making mechanics pretty bad for a while now. They even ended up making flashback feel bad.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 11:12AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2010
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I'm so disappointed that this is their "fixed" banding. I suspected it was going to be, due to the thematic similarity, but mechanically it's nothing like banding, and I'm really looking want a fixed banding. I fear that they're going to call this a short term victory for new banding and back burner it for a long time again.
Mark just says they both try to group creatures, that's their only similarity. Really, an even more key difference is that want attempts to group two creatures, and the other attempts to group multiple creatures. Subtle difference.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 11:14AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2012
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..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />It may well be worth R&D trying to find a different phrase for the sake of people who do take it the way you do, but please recognise that you're not speaking for "everyone outside Magic design" but just a small number of people who have the associations you do.
Well if you put the phrase into any internet search engine, the first few pages still show the conspiracies that the phrase dredges up. Anyway, my response: 1) the positive uses came later, so it's more likely that people came across the first meaning first 2 ) that the associations were in fact the orginal meaning, so the new positive things are a rebranding of the orginal term.
Do you really suspect that was unintentional? It's been evidenced many times that MaRo is a fan of ironic humour, even specifically as it pertains to Magic design - he regularly refers to "destroying Magic" as one of his career goals. I suspect he's fully aware of its sinister implications, and simply considers that a humourous bonus on an otherwise accurate term.
Irony is generally only a bad thing if the person being ironic doesn't realise it. When irony is evoked intentionally, we generally regard that as a sign of wit...
Intentional or not, MaRo invokes NWO to justify a number of changes in design that he believes are postive, but the name makes the message awkard sometimes. Like in this article, I actually agree with the change, but the name used to justify that change made it a harder sell. I don't have a super serious problem with the name, but if the goal was to convince me that the design changes associated with NWO are great, the name (and name is marketing) doesn't help further that goal, as funny as it may be.
I, for one, welcome our new Sith Overlords.
Best response to the mess I've created yet.
I much prefer it to miracle, which I hope never to see again. I wouldn't mind if well designed soulbond cards made an appearance in a future set though.
Second. I can think of many fun things to do with soulbond. Miracle, maybe one or two.
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1 year ago ::
May 14, 2012 - 2:10PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2012
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at the release party I made a red-green beatdown deck. Red has little soulbond, but I would have loved it if there was more for it. Seems like it was another example of "cool mechanics should be blue" thinking. Blue has even fewer communitarian aspects than red, which I like to think of as a color of swift justice and rage, not selfish destruction. But anyway, I lost my first game to a Gisela, then broke my opponent in half when I paired Lightning mauler and Wolfir Silverheart. Third game I lost due to mulligans. I won my next match, using mauler as the main facilitator. Red provided the speed and removal my big green guys needed to win. I lost next match due to incorrect plays, but won the next when my opponent didn't have a plains in the deciding game and couldn't miracle Entreat the Angels. So soulbond is very powerful in all colors. And, a word on black: its perception as being bad will lead to it being open alot and meaning those who do draft it will get some great cards, and will be able to dip into other colors when they see bombs. Black will be back!! (and I love miracles as much as soulbond, btw)
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