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9 months ago ::
Sep 14, 2012 - 5:42PM
#1
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This thread is for discussion of this week's Making Magic, which goes live Monday morning on magicthegathering.com.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 16, 2012 - 9:23PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2004
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The expectation with cycles is that they are a cycle: they hit all subsets that "get" the cycle:
If you have three rarities, one for each; now, we have "four" effective rarities, and so will hit all four -- common, uncommon, rare, mythic.
If you have two-color cards, one for each two color combination.
And if you have ten guilds, you spread the cycle across them. Creating an obvious cycle and then limiting it is like breaking the comedy rule of three: only do so when the violation of the expectation -- breaking the rule -- is the joke. Otherwise, it would be like making a "cycle," but only putting Golgari, Azorius, Simic, and maybe Gruul in it. Or three of out five, or omitting the uncommon in a vertical cycle, etc.
If you break the rule, make the payoff worth it, don't do it for giggles.
"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)
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9 months ago ::
Sep 16, 2012 - 11:31PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Nov 18, 2007
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 1:29AM
#4
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You botched your trivia question. A non-charm with charm in the name? How could you possibly have forgotten about Charm School?
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 1:39AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Apr 22, 2008
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You say the guild leaders in the original Rav cost two of each of the guild's colors. Then you go on to say that only 4 of the guilds kept their guild leader. Why does Isperia cost two white and two blue if she wasn't her guild's leader?
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 2:06AM
#6
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You say the guild leaders in the original Rav cost two of each of the guild's colors. Then you go on to say that only 4 of the guilds kept their guild leader. Why does Isperia cost two white and two blue if she wasn't her guild's leader?
He's explained this incredibly badly - if I remember correctly the legends that had the double mana costs were the 'big monsters' while those with single costs were the smaller, humanoid legends. In most cases the big monsters were the guild leaders, with the exception of simic (whose leader was momir vig, not experiment kraj) and azorius (whose leader was grand arbiter augustin IV, not Isperia)
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 2:36AM
#7
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2004
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On the Gate lands: I'm delighted to see common Coastal Tower  -alikes, especially in enemy colours. In enemy colours the shocklands are about the only variant of that mechanic that have ever been printed (there are loads of ally-colour variations, but almost all at rare). It'll be great to be able to slurp up loads of these common lands for assorted casual decks. I look forward to seeing what things care about the Gate type. As Qilong hinted, I'll be rather disappointed if many of the cycles being set up in RtR are missing their other halves in Gatecrash.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 6:20AM
#8
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2011
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On the Gate lands: I'm delighted to see common Coastal Tower -alikes, especially in enemy colours. In enemy colours the shocklands are about the only variant of that mechanic that have ever been printed (there are loads of ally-colour variations, but almost all at rare). It'll be great to be able to slurp up loads of these common lands for assorted casual decks. I look forward to seeing what things care about the Gate type.
As Qilong hinted, I'll be rather disappointed if many of the cycles being set up in RtR are missing their other halves in Gatecrash.
Of everything we've seen, I wouldn't count on the uncounterable cycle being continued -- there's no special flavor reason why every guild needs an uncounterable spell, unlike the charms and the gates.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 8:29AM
#9
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- Warm, wet and squishy inside
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I am skeptical about how the gate lands aren't "strictly worse" than the shock lands. While I can follow your argument, changing a card's type doesn't carry a lot of weight unless it's something you do a lot. Being a Goblin matters a lot; being "Arcane" did not matter as much as you seemed to think it did at the time. The signets did a lot of heavy lifting for the original block; they shouldn't be forgotten. Telling me that the commons had "more power than intended" is disheartening too. I'm convinced that one of the reasons Ravnica was popular was because of the powerful common mana-fixers. The signets (like Boros Signet  ) were both common and perfectly matched to the set's theme. I think the common lands ought to have been farther removed from the rare lands. It's too easy to look at the two cards side by side and say "Oh, that's what playing rares buys me". I think it was also great that the commons showed up in tournaments in good decks.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 17, 2012 - 9:42AM
#10
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So I followed this game for many years. I initially got into as Revised was getting hard to find. My buying and playing ebbed and flowed, and over the years the game kept moving in directions that just weren't for me. Now I didn't expect WOTC to change the game just for me, but I wasn't alone in many of my criticisms. Last year, my issues with the game came to a head with the one two punch of Command Tower  (a narrowly designed card only playable in one format) and then the dual faced cards that basically broke the game for me. And I quit. I never got around to selling my sizable collection because I had seen too many people on the forums complain about quitting the game and it being difficult to get back in after selling off their cards. So I said to myself, maybe I'll give it a year, see what changes. And now, it has. I didn't mention above, but one of the other problems I long had with MTG was the constant slotting into rare of the dual lands, essentially making it so you had to have money to play the game well. And now you've finally put the taplands where they belong, at common. I'm honestly glad to see this change, it's long overdue, and it's making me reconsider buying a few packs here and there, but the truth is the lack of a LGS nearby, and the lack of a casual play group makes me realize it will just be more cards to sit on the shelf and gather dust. Maybe if this guildgate cycle had come sooner, I would have been able to weather the storm of the dual faced cards and would still be a customer, but unfortunately it's too little, too late. I am glad though that all the kitchen table players, the cube groups, the pauper groups, will all now have a good mana fixing solution, I don't think the game is for me anymore.
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