Unreleased and New Card Discussion

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
2 years ago
WOTC: Hey, look at these Kaldheim previews, we made more B/G elves, just like you always like!

Nexus Playerbase*: Ugh, elves again, why can't they make cards for new, different tribes?

WOTC: It's time for Modern Horizons 2, and instead of making B/G elves again, we're doing a new, different tribe in squirrels!

Nexus Playerbase*: Ugh, why are there so many squirrel cards, it's almost like they had to make up a whole bunch because it's effectively a new tribe.

WOTC: *stares into camera*

(*I'm not saying these sentiments are all from the same people, just that they're both complaints that got repeated a bunch during each preview season.)
It's also not inconsistent if they were. If you've been a fan of an undersupported tribe for a long time, getting more support for a tribe that already has a ton feels rough, as does a sudden wave of support for a joke tribe. Personally, I'm fine with squirrels getting support, my issue is that Chatterfang feels deliberately out of place in terms of art and flavour. If it was instead flavoured as a swarm of squirrels with the same text, that would be fine. If it was one of the Mirari mutated squirrels with different abilities, that would be cool. If it was from a new plane of squirrelfolk that played on squirrels' place in some real-world mythology or general archetypal resonance as tricksters, that would be fine. However, making it an edgy, neon-striped anthro with a mohawk feels painfully out of place with the tone of Magic. Naming it "Squirrel General" is so bland as to border on a fourth-wall break.

Also, I have a bit of a conspiracy theory that R&D planned out this reaction. MaRo frequently tried to conflate "squirrel support" with general fan wishes. Someone would send him a question on Blogatog asking for better CA in white, or ways to deal with enchantments in RB, and he'd respond along the lines of "I also wish I got to make more squirrels, maybe someday we'll both see our dreams come true". When stuff like Acorn Catapult got made, he'd hype it as not just an easter egg reference to one of his hobby horses, but the symbolic attainment of long-shot player hopes. Thus, this sudden and garish support for squirrel tribal seems almost designed to divide the community. It says, in the context of the synecdoche MaRo's built for years "If we give players too much of what we ask for, it will be at the expense of the flavor, tone and setting of the game". It's an implicit demand that players regulate their own and others hopes for their hobby, and be wary of compromise.
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Dragoon
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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
Tribal legends are inherently rather boring - remember the blowback Ulrich of the Krallenhorde got? Purportedly not a werewolf legend. So since then any sort of tribal legend has the tribe prominently plastered onto it, and there's a rather finite number of ways you can do that.
I think the best tribal legends are the ones that don't necessarily explicitly support the tribe, but support what the tribes does best. That way, you can build your deck in a tribal way, but still have some other options that happen to also synergize with what the tribe does. Another option is to cover one of the main weaknesses of the tribe but it becomes a bit more niche. A few ideas that came to my mind are:
  • A dragon that doubles noncombat damage, as there are a lot of dragons that can burn creatures or players. That would leave room for actual burn spells or even fighting spells (looking at you, Foe-Razer Regent).
  • A hydra that doubles the X value of X spells (see Unbound Flourishing) or doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on creatures (see Kalonian Hydra).
  • A werewolf that transforms all humans werewolves you control or prevent them from going back to human form (same ability as Immerwolf).
As you can see, this type of design already exists, but I think what people want is seeing it on legendary creatures, that's it. That's why Ulrich of the Krallenhorde // Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha was not very well received. He was not what people expected him to be. You can be tribal and do something else that just drawing cards or giving the tribe +1/+1.

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Post by Wallycaine » 2 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
2 years ago
Rumpy5897 wrote:
2 years ago
Tribal legends are inherently rather boring - remember the blowback Ulrich of the Krallenhorde got? Purportedly not a werewolf legend. So since then any sort of tribal legend has the tribe prominently plastered onto it, and there's a rather finite number of ways you can do that.
I think the best tribal legends are the ones that don't necessarily explicitly support the tribe, but support what the tribes does best. That way, you can build your deck in a tribal way, but still have some other options that happen to also synergize with what the tribe does. Another option is to cover one of the main weaknesses of the tribe but it becomes a bit more niche. A few ideas that came to my mind are:
  • A dragon that doubles noncombat damage, as there are a lot of dragons that can burn creatures or players. That would leave room for actual burn spells or even fighting spells (looking at you, Foe-Razer Regent).
  • A hydra that doubles the X value of X spells (see Unbound Flourishing) or doubles the number of +1/+1 counters on creatures (see Kalonian Hydra).
  • A werewolf that transforms all humans werewolves you control or prevent them from going back to human form (same ability as Immerwolf).
As you can see, this type of design already exists, but I think what people want is seeing it on legendary creatures, that's it. That's why Ulrich of the Krallenhorde // Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha was not very well received. He was not what people expected him to be. You can be tribal and do something else that just drawing cards or giving the tribe +1/+1.
Worth pointing out that Chatterfang, Squirrel General, the "dumb tribal card" of the day, *does exactly that*. He can be a squirrel tribal card, or he can just be a weird doubling season in your command zone. And yet... still getting lambasted for being a "dumb tribal general".

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
2 years ago
I think the best tribal legends are the ones that don't necessarily explicitly support the tribe, but support what the tribes does best.
As you can see, this type of design already exists, but I think what people want is seeing it on legendary creatures, that's it. That's why Ulrich of the Krallenhorde // Ulrich, Uncontested Alpha was not very well received. He was not what people expected him to be. You can be tribal and do something else that just drawing cards or giving the tribe +1/+1.
Ulrich is also... just not a good general? Werewolves really need some support not to suck in multiplayer because of how they are designed. Ulrich was additionally hyped for years before being released, so players had much higher hopes than they do of most archetype generals.

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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
2 years ago
Worth pointing out that Chatterfang, Squirrel General, the "dumb tribal card" of the day, *does exactly that*. He can be a squirrel tribal card, or he can just be a weird doubling season in your command zone. And yet... still getting lambasted for being a "dumb tribal general".
I personally like Chatterfang, Squirrel General. I don't really care about squirrels, but I like the shenanigans you can pull out with him, even without entering combo territory. He's certainly more interesting than a dumb anthem effect in the command zone.
BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Ulrich is also... just not a good general?
I don't think Ulrich's power level is the problem here. Him being better with the same design probably wouldn't make people that wanted a werewolf tribal legend any happier. It's really a design problem more than an efficiency problem.

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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

I like Tourach, Dread Cantor quite a bit. I can't see actually playing him myself and I'm sure some folks will wish he was higher impact but in general he's a flavor win.
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Post by JovialJovian » 2 years ago

I've used Ulrich several times in the 99, he's not great as a werewolf commander, and I think a lot of people get stuck there with him, rather than examining his merits independent of his type line. Wanting to transform back and forth a lot puts him at odds with almost all of the other werewolves, he flourishes in a different deck from the rest of his tribe.

I'd rather we got more cards like Ulrich, where it takes some thought to use them, and less cards like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, where the design team was obviously doing their homework on the day it was due and slapped together a generic value commander that slides right into an already popular deck, yawn.

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
2 years ago
I don't think Ulrich's power level is the problem here. Him being better with the same design probably wouldn't make people that wanted a werewolf tribal legend any happier. It's really a design problem more than an efficiency problem.
Him being on-the-face-of-it mediocre is certainly a compounding factor, because it meant no-one wanted him except those who wanted a Werewolf tribal general. He saw niche play in some midrange thing in standard for a month, iirc? I also think that there were too many compounding factors for Ulrich to be a good example of how the community normally treats tribal generals. He was hyped up for literal years, and the players who wanted him knew that they wouldn't have another shot at a tribal general for years more, at least.

Unrelatedly, is Skophos Reaver the first time we've gotten capslock in flavortext? It reads like I'm getting shouted at by a 13 year old 40k fan.
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
I feel you're ignoring the correct point of view, i.e. mine - all tribal decks are dumb and boring and should never be made by anyone.
As a rule of thumb I think having tribal sub-themes in your decks is more interesting than just grabbing every creature of one type, throwing them into a pile, and calling it a deck. Jaya Ballard, Task Mage has a goblin tribal sub-theme because Moggcatcher is such a neat card and because Goblin Matron for Squee, Goblin Nabob synergizes so well with the commander.

That being said I feel honor bound to tell you that Changeling tribal is awesome, has super interesting gameplay and people should stop building it so that my deck seems more original. A good amount of the deck's sweetness is that by the deck's nature you can't just grab every Changeling, throw them in a pile and call it a deck. It'd be awful if you did that. Actual brainpower is required to build the deck.

More on topic,
  • Scurry Oak is pretty neat. I'm not sure why I like it, but it's my favorite squirrel card so far.
  • Liquimetal Torque is flippin awesome! Liquimetal Coating is a favorite of mine. Shattering Planeswalkers never gets old, so redundancy makes me happy.
  • Scion of Draco - Directly into High CMC matters you go!
  • Tourach, Dread Cantor is awesome. I'm not going to do anything with him but his design makes me very happy.
  • Lucid Dreams art is fantastic. Will pick up a foil because I like the art so much.
  • Chef's Kiss - I want to cast this, blow someone out and make the Chef Kiss motion.
  • Chatterstorm - Why does green get storm cards? Storm is pretty broke, let's keep it away from green for a while ok? Give it to white instead. Not sure why this peeves me so much but it does. :(

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
More on topic,
Nice little synergy with Modular as well. It's the kind of card I love to see, a niche sidegrade to a standard formula that invites cool, noncombo uses. With that and Arcbound Shikari I'm going to start writing up Zabaz. The more weird Boros decks the better!

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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

I feel like green getting Storm cards is just the natural progression of green getting literally everything.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

Lifeless wrote:
2 years ago
I feel like green getting Storm cards is just the natural progression of green getting literally everything.
Green had storm cards when storm was in flipping standard. This is a nearly 20 year old development, not anything new.
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Post by EonAon » 2 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
2 years ago
Zabaz, The Glimmerwasp

When was the last time we saw "W: Flying"?
As single pip it was White Shield Crusader Order of the Golden Cricket Stillmoon Cavalier otherwise its dual pip or on non white creatures/permeants

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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

Sure, every color had a splash of Storm. I'm saying there's no reason to lean into it, particularly for a mechanic that's the poster child for broken mechanics.

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Post by Wallycaine » 2 years ago

The hilarious part is that Green has had Storm cards literally as long as there's been storm. It's also the best color to develop it for a limited enviroment, since it has mana ramp to enable turns with a large number of cards.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
2 years ago
Lifeless wrote:
2 years ago
I feel like green getting Storm cards is just the natural progression of green getting literally everything.
Green had storm cards when storm was in flipping standard. This is a nearly 20 year old development, not anything new.
Everyone had storm cards when storm was in standard. Green, and green alone, getting a bunch of pushed storm support now feels frustrating, especially as it has the most pushed card-draw engines in the CZ recently. I for one dread the coming Chulane storm decks.

I think Road//Ruin is playable, an instant speed Cultivate that trades the second basic for a bad removal spell. GR ramp is always looking for more incidental upsides to spend spare mana on.

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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

Tourach, Dread Cantor makes me wish my playgroup would be into playing Legacy again (all we play is EDH). Throwing him into a casual monoblack suicide aggro deck could be pretty fun and effective there, dropping him turn 2 off of Dark Ritual with his kicker.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
That being said I feel honor bound to tell you that Changeling tribal is awesome, has super interesting gameplay and people should stop building it so that my deck seems more original. A good amount of the deck's sweetness is that by the deck's nature you can't just grab every Changeling, throw them in a pile and call it a deck. It'd be awful if you did that. Actual brainpower is required to build the deck.
I've built changeling tribal (sliver overlord with zirda companion lol) and tbh I didn't find it that interesting. Maybe I would have needed to exclude certain tribal lords to make it fun, but I found some really dominated the play patterns and just became my always-go-to whenever I drew or had a way to tutor them.

(yeah I'm obviously talking about Gilt-Leaf Archdruid)
Chatterstorm - Why does green get storm cards? Storm is pretty broke, let's keep it away from green for a while ok? Give it to white instead. Not sure why this peeves me so much but it does. :(
I don't know why it's called the storm scale when they keep making more storm. I thought the point was that storm was the least likely mechanic to come back.

I really can't understand anyone who would ever want to play storm. I cringe at myself when my turns take more than 2-3 minutes because I feel like I'm monopolizing the clock. It amazes me that some people can take 20 minute turns and just keep obliviously carrying on while everyone else is looking at their phones, trading, getting snacks, performing un-anaesthetized amateur dentistry, etc.

I realize some people like it but imo it's the sort of mechanic wotc should know better to print. I make jokes about how tribal decks are boring but there's nothing really wrong with them. Storm is just not a good mechanic. It shouldn't exist and wotc should stop catering to people who like it.
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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

Out of Time seems fun. I'm sure there is some jank weird combo with maybe Opalescence or just some sort of flicker effect.

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Post by JovialJovian » 2 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
2 years ago
Lifeless wrote:
2 years ago
I feel like green getting Storm cards is just the natural progression of green getting literally everything.
Green had storm cards when storm was in flipping standard. This is a nearly 20 year old development, not anything new.
Except that they took Storm away from all colors after it proved too overpowered, named the Storm Scale after the mechanic, made Storm itself a 10 on that scale, and declared that it would never be brought back because it's impossible to balance.

Now they're bringing it back, but just for green.
I understand that the rest of the game has caught up to Storm, but that's not really a good thing, that the most overpowered keyword is no longer too overpowered to see print.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Huh, not sure what to make of out of time. Definitely a powerful enchantress enabler. Doesn't really do anything for ETB guys.

The power of not giving your opponents all their ETBs when dudes come back is pretty sick, and being able to blink it repeatedly seems good if you can get that up.

I'm sure that will see some play in something but it's niche and very interesting.

In modern, it's the 3 mana unrestricted sweeper that gets Tarmogoyf type fatties that control decks have always wanted, but unfortunately I think it comes at a time when control shells seems poised to be utterly dominant :P

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Post by tstorm823 » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
I don't know why it's called the storm scale when they keep making more storm. I thought the point was that storm was the least likely mechanic to come back.
Tangent: it's called the storm scale because storm was the obvious payoff at the end of problematic play patterns, and Wizards identified storm as the problem, instead of the fast mana and cantripping that caused the actual problems. It should never have been the storm scale, it should have been the fast mana scale, but for some reason they aren't keen to acknowledge that issue so forwardly.
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

Maybe I'm misreading, but I don't get the interest in flickering out of time. Out of time honestly seems pretty insane at least potentially - if people can't destroy the enchantment, you could easily just perma-remove everyone else's commander for more turns than an average game length pretty easily. I know it's pretty rare for my blasty-act to cost more than 1. 8 turns of removal against commanders seems borderline permanent to me. It's just a question of whether you can protect the enchantment, basically.

Hmmmmmm in Phelddagrif...

Also Suspend seems interesting. Especially funny with stifle effects against commanders.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
I really can't understand anyone who would ever want to play storm. I cringe at myself when my turns take more than 2-3 minutes because I feel like I'm monopolizing the clock. It amazes me that some people can take 20 minute turns and just keep obliviously carrying on while everyone else is looking at their phones, trading, getting snacks, performing un-anaesthetized amateur dentistry, etc.

I realize some people like it but imo it's the sort of mechanic wotc should know better to print. I make jokes about how tribal decks are boring but there's nothing really wrong with them. Storm is just not a good mechanic. It shouldn't exist and wotc should stop catering to people who like it.
I don't play storm, but I don't mind watching well-built spellslinger-type stormdecks go off. I don't just sit down to a game to play my own deck, but to watch other people's decks. To that end, involved wincons are interesting to watch. I get tired of seeing the same ones over and over, but storm typically varies in how its winning turn plays out: the pattern of draw spells and rituals, the near-misses, what gets recurred and what gets sacrificed. What's more, it often works around interaction during its winning turn in non-repetitive ways. My issue with green storm is that it has it too easy, at too low a deckbuilding cost. It doesn't need to do the interesting parts of storming out: correctly gauging when to go for a win and predicting and ordering the rituals, recursion spells and draw. It already has has passive card draw engines, ramp and the best general recursion in the format.

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Post by Ruiner » 2 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
I don't know why it's called the storm scale when they keep making more storm. I thought the point was that storm was the least likely mechanic to come back.
Tangent: it's called the storm scale because storm was the obvious payoff at the end of problematic play patterns, and Wizards identified storm as the problem, instead of the fast mana and cantripping that caused the actual problems. It should never have been the storm scale, it should have been the fast mana scale, but for some reason they aren't keen to acknowledge that issue so forwardly.
From what I recall "The Storm Scale" refers to likelihood of a mechanic returning in Standard, but doesn't really apply to sets and products made for other formats.

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