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Aug 29, 2012 -- 3:36PM, S1AL wrote:

Aug 29, 2012 -- 4:09AM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Hexproof is awesome. At least on green creatures. It should've never gotten into blue.

Kinda like the story of Flash.

No. No, no, no. Green is already gobbling up huge portions of the color pie. It currently has kill, flash, hexproof, draw, haste, efficient creatures at every CMC, and even occasionally branches out into burn or counters. Green has the largest section of the color pie in modern magic design, and it's not even close.

Also, Blue and Red are the colors of instant speed "stuff." Putting flash creatures into White and Green is just silly. At this point it's nonsensical that Black doesn't get it, because hey, the color pie only applies on rare occasions.

Okay, there are a few things that need to be addressed here. Aside from the fact that some of the things you mention have pretty much always been green to some extent (like haste) while others are in at most one or two cards in green (like the "burn" of Hornet Sting ), and your concerns specifically about flash and hexproof, the largest issue is that you mistake mechanical identity for color identity within the color pie. It is not, at least not entirely.

(spoilers for easier scrolling)
1. There is more to a color's mechanical identity that just the mechanics themeselves:  Spoiler: Show

All colors of magic need to accomplish basically similar things. You need creatures to engage in combat. You need combat tricks. You need removal or some sort to answer an opponent's threats. You need ways to hammer damage through in the late game, like evasion. You need card advantage. You need tempo. If any color lacks access to these, it will get stomped by a color that does have it. In the earliest days of Magic, it was possible to try to give one or two colors exclusive access to one form of advantage, as blue had with raw card advantage. Those days are over. We too readily identify those advantages, and doing it that way would reduce Magic to a more complex form of Rock, Paper, Scissors, where one color's advantages can be said to trump some other color's 90% of the time. All the colors need access to some form of any given advantage. Each of those advantages don't need to spread evenly over the colors. After all, a single color that has access to the majority of all form of advantage would be overpowered, and each form of advantage spread perfectly evenly across all colors would defeat the point of having colors at all. But still, the advantages have to be there somewhere, in some way. All colors have basically the same objectives.

What differentiates colors is their flavor themes, and these have solidified fairly well over the years. White is the color of community. Black is the color of ruthless, quick power. Blue is the color of ego. Red is the color of passion. If all colors are similar in their objectives, all colors are also as different as possible in their themes. Bridging the two are the colors' mechanical identities.

For example, more than anything, White wants to be White Weenie: it wants cheap creatures that work well together to be more than the sum of their parts, to command the early game, and if all else fails to have reset buttons that knock the game right back to the early stages where it is strongest. Red wants to be Sligh (or rather, settles on Sligh because it can't have 40 Lightning Bolt s): a bunch of burn for the late game, and a bunch of cheap beaters with low toughness, haste, and utterly irrelevant drawbacks that are essentially burn on legs in the early game. Blue always wants to be Draw Go, the deck of perfect non-interaction: counter what matters, bounce what's inconvenient, avoid combat with unblockability, and gas up until it wins its game of solitaire before you win your "fair" match. They all have their answers, threats, and sources of advantage, just filtered through the color's particular idiom. That's mechanical identity.

The objectives arise because the colors are all playing the same game. The themes make the colors feel different. The mechanical identity actually makes the themes mean something concrete. But the the thing is, the actual mechanics that make that identity happen leave a lot of wiggle room. For example, if White Weenie wants little guys who work well together, what does that mean? Does that mean mechanics that actually glue creatures together, like Banding, Exalted, and Soulbond? Does that mean creatures that can claim some tempo by each pulling more than their own weight, say by blocking multiple creatures, having Vigilance, or (again) Exalted? Does it mean creature who synergize well, as by tribes, lords, anthems, and (again) Exalted? Does it mean getting some form of card advantage by getting more than one creature out of a card, say through tokens, Goldmeadow Lookout , Squadron Hawk s, or the Mercadian Masques block Rebels? Does it mean cheap, ready effects that can pile up to to turn any weenie you have left over in the late game into a true Voltron-style threat, say by auras or equipment? Well, the answer to all of these questions is the same: yes.

White is a lot like Green in that is has several mechanics that don't make much sense together, except through the lens of their greater mechanical identity, which allow the cards to meet objectives while staying on-theme. So what is Green's theme? In a word: "Fight". Green wants creatures that can win a fight, profit from a fight, and ultimately spells that force a fight. The keyword for Green the last few years has been "growth", but really that's just a stepping stone to something big, which just means it can more easily win a fight. It has abilities like Reach that work against Blue's attempts to evade a fight. It has combat tricks like Giant Growth that just increase power and toughness for a fight. It has "evasion" like Trample that doesn't let you evade at all, merely force through damage even as you fight. It has lot of big dudes that are good in a fight, and the majority of its tempo cards are mana dorks and land fetchers that let you take shortcuts towards an otherwise fairly-costed big dude.

But a lot of the other elements have been lacking. For example, raw green card advantage has a spotty history, limited to a few standouts like Fecundity , Glimpse of Nature , and Harmonize . It's only recently that we've gotten more on-theme card advantage (any card advantage really), like Hunter's Insight , Rot Wolf and Garruk, Primal Hunter . Green removal has been a little better, but is usually limited to punishing fliers with cards like Hurricane , Gale Force , Crosswinds .... (In fact, let us also consider Desert Twister , Freyalise's Winds , Katabatic Winds , Maddening Wind , Cyclone , Tornado ... does anyone understand why Blue gets elemental air, but Green gets almost every kind of wind?) It's only recently that we've gotten on-theme, fighting-matters (or rather, power-matters) removal like Prey Upon and Arachnus Web .

These recent expansions are not contrary to the color pie, but are necessary to keeping Green relevant to the game. If Green were focused on one form of advantage while completely rejecting another (say, by focusing on mana-building tempo while ignoring card advantage) it would just get stomped in one direction where it lacks the advantage (against Blue's card draw) and in another where it has some advantage, just not as much so as another color (say, against Red's combat-focused tempo, which outraces Green's rush to get in a single, large threat). It can be jarring during the transition -- much in the way the attempt to move Blue towards a more interactive mechanical identity has led to a brutal combination of good-enough spells like Mana Leak and good-enough beaters like Delver of Secrets -- but it's better to transition than it is to let the color wither on the vine.

Now, to wind back to some specific mechanical concerns, abilities like Shroud, Hexproof, and Flash fit into Green's "fight" identity. Shroud existed in green almost first (see Autumn Willow ) because it's a good defense against enemy color effects (Black's removal and Blue's bounce), but not so much against allied color effects (White and Red's board sweepers). If you want to kill a creature with Shroud, you need to engage it in combat. But at the same time, Shroud undercuts some of Green's identity. After all, you can't use combat tricks like Giant Growth. Hexproof keeps the thematic benefit, but cuts the counter-thematic drawback. Yes, creatures with Hexproof are stronger than creatures with Shroud. It requires a more delicate balancing act. Still, if used correctly, it fits Green's theme better.

Flash is a different story altogether, mostly because Flash in Blue and Flash in Green are almost completely different animals. In Blue, creatures get flash because you want a creature with an on-color enters-the-battlefield effect, but Blue's effects are all metamagical. You cast a Blue creature taking advantage of Flash because you want to counter a spell, or flashback an instant, not because you want the body right away. Sometimes you can find felicitous circumstances where you can take advantage of both, but that's not the typical usage. In Green, Flash is just another form of creature speed, and all speed -- Haste, Vigilance, and Flash -- just means more, better combat. In Green, you flash in a creature because you actually want the creature to block. There's no ulterior motive, just combat.

Aug 30, 2012 -- 7:26PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Yes the Goblin is worse, that's the point. And yeah it's more about limited than standard anyways. But really, how is the first bolded part a 'fact'? Have you playtested it? Agains, Wizards has. Stop dressing things you say as facts and then say I don't consider all the facts.

Uh, I was talking about how you completely ignored that Faithless Looting saw print, and is better than the Blue equivalent...

Anyone who has played INN limited complained about Stalker. Bolded part is my point exactly. Hexproof can be pushed in green more, Thrun can be a more powerful card than Traft, because of the decks they go into. My original point was that hexproof is more dangerous in blue than in green.

LOL. No. Stalker was not powerful in limited in comparison to, well, everything in white/green or most of the rest of the cards in Blue. "Ping you for 1 every turn" is not that great, and there wasn't much in the way of bonkers equipment. Plus the format was so fast that, even if you did get that dagger out and equipped, the other decks would probably just race you. I played a LOT of Innistrad limited (probably 100 drafts), and I never once complained about Stalker.

And Thrun is a more powerful card than Traft who has seen as much play as Traft. The difference is that The deck that can best utilize Traft is a better deck on the whole than the decks that can utilize Thrun. This has nothing to do with which color hexproof is more dangerous in. Regeration + Hexproof is actually one of the most potent ability combos ever printed. Far more than Flying + Hexproof will ever be.

Another one of those 'facts', I presume?

I dunno, is a 5/3 flying hexproof indestructible card good as an aggro curve-topper? Gee, I wonder...

No, because green lacks those powerful instants and sorceries. Yes, it's not 1 thing, it's always a combination, it's not just flash. But again, the shell in blue is stronger than the one in green. Making the ability more dangerous there.

Green lacks powerful instants and sorceries? Say what? This isn't 2001 anymore. Green has the 3 tutors that see play in Standard. It has a ton of utility creatures. It has Crushing Vines and other utility spells. Are you just ignoring that all of these cards exist?

Oh, and for the record, the most degenerate tribal deck spawned by Lorwyn is Elves, not Faeries. 

Oh sure, Caw-Blade and Delver are equally hated. Basically, whenever a deck with counterspells is getting too dominant, people don't like it. 

You're absolutely right that this is actually liked by the niche. Many loved the Caw-Blade mirrors for being skill intensive. But again, this is something subjective. This is not something everyone will grow into eventually. Some like that playstyle, some don't.

I'll also agree that blue has value as a safety valve. 

What blue is supposed to be is a really tough question for Wizards at the moment. It can't be what it has been historically, because that's been driving people away from the game.

Blue decks have never driven people away from the game. Affinity drove people away from the game. The absurdity that was Time Spiral Block dropped sales among casual players, but it didn't drive them away from the game. Even RIGHT NOW, with a U/W deck as the dominant force, tournament attendance is higher than ever. I just played at the SCG open in Denver, and it had 60% more players than last year. Montana had its first PTQ since 2005. Blue decks are not driving people away

Also, Delver and Caw-Blade are/were not draw-go. Not even slightly. They play most of their spells on their own turns, are usually doing stuff from turn 1 til the end of the game, and are HIGHLY interactive in creature combat and board state.

I'm also confused as to why it matters if some people "like" playing with/against U/W tempo decks. If they're casual players, that's pretty easy to get around. If they're more competitive players, well, at least it's not Valakut. There are always going to be decks that some people don't like. Casual players have the option of just not playing them. The rest of us deal.

Ignored for what? I wasn't talking about individual cards, but about design philosophy. All I'm saying is that Wizards is careful with looting in red. Red Merfolk Looter is deemed to strong for limited, whereas better Red Careful Study is deemed fine for constructed. Cards have different purposes.

Or R&D just got it wrong the first time around? In much the same way that Inferno Titan was weaker than the other 4 because burn is much easier to control than utility?

Stalker wasn't that powerful no. What it was, was annoying. It was unfun. And that, moreso than power level, gets people complaining.

I dunno about the people you play with, but I only ever hear people complain about powerful "un-fun" stuff. Because if it's not powerful, who cares? It's not going to win, so how does it matter?

Define "as much play".

Pretty much ever deck running Green since Thrun's printing has had him as a 1-2-of, minimum. He was in Valakut, Naya, Bant lists, every pod list that was well-designed, every mono-green deck, etc. Traft has seen standard play in exactly one list. It just happens that that list is dominant and that Traft's value relative to Thrun's has gone up as WotC has decided to make sweepers worse and worse.

Aggro decks have no use for a 5-drop that doesn't impact the board immediately. It baffles me you have to wonder about that.

Angel immediately impacts the board... and then it crashes in hard. No, it doesn't have haste, but they haven't decided to bleed the color pie that much yet.

Yes, I'm going to ignore anything that puts " Crushing Vines " and "powerful" together. It's an important roleplayer, well-positioned in the meta, but to call it powerful...

Again, facing a bunch of forests for a Wolfir Avenger and a Crushing Vines is nowhere as effective as a bunch of islands for a Snapcaster Mage and a Mana Leak .

Ah yes, let's compare a good, but not spectacular, green creature and an important metagame spell against the most powerful Blue creature of the last decade and the best counterspell that can be printed under modern design philosophy. That seems fair. No wonder you've come to these conclusions...

I'm not saying Caw-Blade is draw-go, and I'm certainly not saying it isn't interactive. I am saying it drives people away from the game, and that's also what Wizards is saying (and has actual factual data for).

They never once said this. They said it had a degenerate effect on the metagame. The fact that tournament attendance was down (they said it had "started dropping") at the time was mostly due to the fact that it was the end of a solved season. Tournament attendance is always dropping around August.

What people "like" matters because Wizards wants to make money and has chosen to make the game that appeals to the masses. Playing magic is a voluntary activity, people won't do it if they don't like it. Far from all competitive players deal. For the majority Wizards has to work to accomodate them.

Here's the thing: WotC has decided to throw the things liked by their older players under the bus in order to draw in more customers. They have then combined the increase in recent sales (largely due to better marketing, an economic downturn that drives hobby gaming, and the introduction of mythic rarity) with their new design philosophy and said "hey, guys, it's working!" The problem is that the game is now, more than ever before, losing players who have been around since the Ravnica era. And new players don't last. My local store has watched 50-80 people show up to play since opening in May, but they're only keeping about 15 of them because the rest have decided that the game is way too expensive, too time-consuming, or too solvable. Yes, I have actually ahd people complain that Magic (At least the standard format) is too easy to figure out.

What WotC is forgetting is that the new generation has grown up on strategy gaming and connects the dots a lot faster than people did 20 years ago. Yes lowering the barrier to entry is a good thing. Lowering the skill ceiling is not. And the massive increase in prices due to mthics is actually going to hurt them in the long run. 

Aug 29, 2012 -- 3:36PM, S1AL wrote:

No. No, no, no. Green is already gobbling up huge portions of the color pie. It currently has kill, flash, hexproof, draw, haste, efficient creatures at every CMC, and even occasionally branches out into burn or counters. Green has the largest section of the color pie in modern magic design, and it's not even close.

Blue is easily the color with the largest color pie section in modern Magic. Mill, bounce, blinking, controlling permanents, counterspells, redirecting spells, copying spells, bringing back spell cards from your graveyard, flying creatures, flash, card draw, deck manipulation, clone effects, artifact searching, artifact mana, tapping, untapping, hexproof+shroud, efficient creatures with drawbacks (Especially the illusion tribe), efficient creatures like merfolk, free spells, unblockable creatures, forcing attacks and blocks, power and toughness manipulation, Windfall effects, and creature type and color manipulation.

I'd say the current order of color pie % is like this.

1. Blue
2. White
3. Green
4. Black
5. Red

Aug 29, 2012 -- 3:36PM, S1AL wrote:

Also, Blue and Red are the colors of instant speed "stuff." Putting flash creatures into White and Green is just silly. At this point it's nonsensical that Black doesn't get it, because hey, the color pie only applies on rare occasions. 

Green is the color of creatures and creature combat. In order to make Green more interactive beyond "herp derp swing", Flash is necessary.

Aug 31, 2012 -- 6:41PM, TobyornotToby wrote:

Hm, which one was wrong then? =)

Probably the signature creature that saw almost no Standard play.

Stalker has ended plenty of games. Not enough to be format-warping, but powerful enough.
Also, it's not about who I play with or who you play with. The point of these things is to look beyong one's own limited scope. The designers have talked a lot about how much complaints they've got about Stalker.

The only time I ever saw discussion of it was right after the set was released and people hadn't tried it yet. And, as it turned out, not a big deal. Rather like Vexing Devil...

Leading to the follow-up question, how much of a factor is Traft, or has he been, for that dominance? 

Btw, since Huntmaster and Restoration Angel, Thrun isn't good in Pod anymore.

A) Every Green deck with Pod should have at least one copy of Thrun... for rather obvious reasons. If there isn't one, there should be. There are still a lot of decks and a lot of board states against which he is simply amazing.

B) A 6-power hexproof 3-drop is pretty good... as long as people allow it to be exactly that. The primary problem being that people don't want to adapt to it. Yes, Traft is undeniably good. No, it's not particularly better than Thrun, and Hexproof is not better in Blue, and using Traft as an example is just horribly wrong in the first place. The part that makes it so good comes from the White mana, not the Blue.

For an aggro deck, 'impacting the board' is about impacting the attack step. Honor of the Pure and Thundermaw Hellkite impact the board immediately. What you say about Angel is purely speculation, and without any similar cases to look at (aggro decks playing 5-drops) I have a hard time believing it.

Baneslayer Angel was played in a large variety of aggro decks. Stop talking nonsense. You're acting like only Haste creatures or pseudo-haste effects get played in aggro, and that's just completely wrong.

Aug 31, 2012 -- 10:09AM, S1AL wrote:

Ah yes, let's compare a good, but not spectacular, green creature and an important metagame spell against the most powerful Blue creature of the last decade and the best counterspell that can be printed under modern design philosophy. That seems fair. No wonder you've come to these conclusions...

"Green lacks powerful instants and sorceries? [...] It has Crushing Vines and other utility spells."

"Regeneration with Flash is equally bonkers."

I'm just using what you are bringing up. 
Yes green has actual very strong cards like Green Sun's Zenith but those do not fit in the flash plan. My point this whole time. 

Once again, Faeries' best non-flash cards were not instants in 3/4 cases. 2 Sorceries, 1 Enchantment, and Cryptic Command. If you don't see how this completely counters your argument, I'm not sure what could possibly make it clear. Furthermore, in case you haven't played against it, Flash with Regen is absolutely NUTS. And honestly, they haven't even gotten around to making insanely good Green flash creatures yet... it's still mostly limited to White. And Red... well, basically nothing.

Maybe not on the site, but they have said such was the case on Twitter. 

Right. Sure. How 'bout you find a quote for this.

Yes it is possible Wizards' direction will bite them in the end. It will be interesting to see how this develops.

But again, it's not about new players versus older players. There are many older players who are now more invested in the game as well because they like the current direction and didn't really like how it was back in the day.

I know 3 kinds of older players: Those who have been here the whole time and mostly feel the same way I do (despite the fact that I've only been playing this game for a few years), those who have been absent for several years and now have jobs/money to get back into it, and casual players who are just as likely to complain about how Qasali Pridemage invalidates Watchwolf... I don't know any of the ones you're talking about.

Now, before we go off on this lovely tangent, I would like to clarify that I am only complaining about specific parts of the new direction. Some of them I like (more creatures that generate card advantage and better combat tricks, green being able to kill fliers, etc.). Some of them, on the other hand, are just bad for the game. Cavern of Souls is a horrendous long-term mistake. Pushing ramp as a regular archetype, when combined with the modern power level of expensive creatures, results in some very boring and degenerate decks. Green and White getting all the best tutors is just a joke. Blue not having any good card draw is painful. Blue getting a significant number of hyper-efficient creatures is also a huge problem and a terrible way to make up for neutering the rest of its slice of the pie.

In short, they did the same thing as always: saw something good and just took it way too far.