|
11 months ago ::
Jul 20, 2012 - 10:08AM
#1
|
|
|
This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 9:36PM
#2
|
Date Joined:
Jan 20, 2004
|
Because you can't allow players to explore if all the options aren't possible. For example, let's say that cards that looked bad were always actually good. Well, then players learn that any card that looks bad isn't and then it's hard for you to create cards that can grow to surprise the players.
Isn't this true in the reverse as well? If you make cards that look good (to some people) but they always turn out bad, isn't that going to make that player realize that those types of cards are always bad, and thus they'll never be used?
I'm specifically referring to combo enablers (i.e. Johnny cards) printed since roughly Time Spiral. As examples: Furnace Celebration, Burning Vengeance, Barren Glory, Near-Death Experience, Ad Nauseaum (in rotating formats). If everyone knows the combo enablers are always Good-Bad cards, won't they just become Bad-Bad cards? Does R&D want Johnny, Combo Player  to always feel bad because he's playing Bad-Bad cards thinking they're good?
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 10:25PM
#3
|
|
|
Good article, but I think that especially for better players, Jund's first impression was actually the worst of the five. I was just starting to really understand the game around that time, and how card advantage/tempo/mana/other stuff really interacted. I remember the night Mycoloth  was previewed, I had been through a long day and checking the preview was the last thing I did before sleeping. I remember reading it once, thinking something along the lines of "wow, you have to commit five mana, a card, and an army of guys for the chance to attack with a bigger army of guys in a couple turns, unless they have removal in which case you just gave up your army and got nothing for it." I did some quick math and realized that it takes three turns for Mycoloth to even start helping you on the attack [math plus example in spoiler below for those interested] Spoiler:
Show
[example: Turn 5: attack with X dudes, play Mycoloth and sacing X dudes. Turn 6: get 2X dudes, but they can't attack. Turn 7: Attack with 2X dudes, get 2X more dudes (you now have 4X). Total damage dealth from turns 5-7 at this point is 3X, the same amount as if Mycoloth had never happened (and that's if the dudes you devoured were 1/1; you're actually behind what you could have had at this point if you got rid of bigger guys.) Turn 8: Attack with 4X dudes. You're finally doing more damage than you would have without Mycoloth. Anyways, I immediately dismissed the card as completely umplayable due to the massive initial downside. The next morning I woke up and read the article again and was a lot less dismissive. I mean, I had been kind of right, the guy was not going to win any tournaments, but I saw that he had a lot more going for him than I first noticed. For one thing, I remembered that he played multiplayer, where long-term board presence matters. I also noticed how good he could be even if you commit just one or two tokens to the devour trigger. Plus, my mind had somehow skipped over just how cool it is to get a bunch of guys every turn. Compared to exalted's drawback of not being to attack with all your creatures, devour makes you pay a way bigger downside, leading to what is in my opinion honestly the worst first-impression mechanic in the history of the game. [If we're only counting individual cards, One with Nothing  might take the title, but it's still close.]
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 10:31PM
#4
|
|
|
I'm specifically referring to combo enablers (i.e. Johnny cards) printed since roughly Time Spiral. As examples: Furnace Celebration, Burning Vengeance, Barren Glory, Near-Death Experience, Ad Nauseaum (in rotating formats). If everyone knows the combo enablers are always Good-Bad cards, won't they just become Bad-Bad cards? Does R&D want Johnny, Combo Player to always feel bad because he's playing Bad-Bad cards thinking they're good?
The problem with combo decks is that they are very binary. If the combo deck is too good, then you see it in tournements everywhere, and you have to side in very specific cards to stop them fast enough. But if it's considered one turn too slow? It's never played at ALL.
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 10:44PM
#5
|
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2009
|
I'm a big fan of Banding, and when Exalted came out, I kind of figured it was a new, simplified take on that old mechanic. Any new version of Banding generally gets me excited. In Exalted's case, it went something like:
first impression=good
last impression=perfect
This is one mechanic I'd love to see go evergreen.
The article was one of the most interesting I've read in awhile. Good job, Mr. Rosewater.
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 11:03PM
#6
|
Date Joined:
Oct 23, 2003
|
I'm a big fan of Banding, and when Exalted came out, I kind of figured it was a new, simplified take on that old mechanic. Any new version of Banding generally gets me excited. In Exalted's case, it went something like:
first impression=good
last impression=perfect
This is one mechanic I'd love to see go evergreen.
The article was one of the most interesting I've read in awhile. Good job, Mr. Rosewater.
Exalted is a very good mechanic; it encourages attacking every turn in a manageable amount, which keeps the game moving without ending it prematurely. However, since it encourages one particular playstyle, I don't think it belongs in every set. I'd say it's more like Flashback; a cool mechanic I'd like to see often, but not all the time.
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2012 - 11:21PM
#7
|
|
|
Because you can't allow players to explore if all the options aren't possible. For example, let's say that cards that looked bad were always actually good. Well, then players learn that any card that looks bad isn't and then it's hard for you to create cards that can grow to surprise the players.
Isn't this true in the reverse as well? If you make cards that look good (to some people) but they always turn out bad, isn't that going to make that player realize that those types of cards are always bad, and thus they'll never be used?
I'm specifically referring to combo enablers (i.e. Johnny cards) printed since roughly Time Spiral. As examples: Furnace Celebration, Burning Vengeance, Barren Glory, Near-Death Experience, Ad Nauseaum (in rotating formats). If everyone knows the combo enablers are always Good-Bad cards, won't they just become Bad-Bad cards? Does R&D want Johnny, Combo Player to always feel bad because he's playing Bad-Bad cards thinking they're good?
Omniscience  has just made significant ripples in the Legacy Grand Prix, while Restoration Angel  turned the Naya Pod combo deck into possibly the best deck in Modern. A year ago we had Splinter Twin and Pyromancer's Ascension in Standard. They're not bad-bad cards plenty of times.
EDIT: and in Limited, we just had the awesome Spider Spawning  !
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 12:13AM
#8
|
Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2004
|
Because you can't allow players to explore if all the options aren't possible. For example, let's say that cards that looked bad were always actually good. Well, then players learn that any card that looks bad isn't and then it's hard for you to create cards that can grow to surprise the players.
MaRo, Cylian Elf  is just bad. You wasted cardboard to fit in a terrible card that wouldn't even get last-picked except out of desperation. There are lessons that cards that are bad in all respects shouldn't get printed. Something more novel, in the Grizzled Leotau  variety where you plot in a novel power/toughness, or a "drawback" with benefit, and really nothing else, would serve MORE than Cylian Elf . It's what appeals about some of your new vanilla creatures versus others you've produced of late, a feature that I really suspect you can enforce by going forward with the Future Sight concept of "extending" the art, as in Nessian Courser  . That way, the visual appeal because a secondary aspect to back them up against their "bad" reputation.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 12:24AM
#9
|
|
|
Cylian Elf isn't a last pick. It isn't even bad. It is strange using that as an example of a bad card and not something like viashino skeleton  .
|
|
|
|
11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 12:27AM
#10
|
Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2004
|
Cylian Elf isn't a last pick. It isn't even bad. It is strange using that as an example of a bad card and not something like viashino skeleton .
OK, my bad. I will disagree about Cylian Elf being that bad, but it is actually BAD. I certainly recall a grand number of these bloody things ending up on offer next to a single lone land, and one never played, while drafting Alara -- from myself or the table. Perhaps there is some other familiarity, but it is a pretty bad card when all you are doing is looking at a spread of them, Rochester, or peering through the set list (that is, the different reasons you'd be looking at the card in the first place).
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
|
|
|
Kicker Aggro (Invasion Block)
