Quick shoutout for some good designs (imo)

[Sinis]

onering's comment about cards with drawbacks got me thinking about some of my favourites.

Check out Ravenous Demon / Archdemon of Greed. This card is one of my favourite designs out of Innistrad block, and it was part of a mechanic that didn't utilize much of the design space available and didn't see too much attention. The only other cards that demanded human sacrifice from original Innistrad Block were Fiend of the Shadows Deranged Outcast and Skirsdag Flayer, though a couple of other hungry creatures weren't picky but preferred humans (the famed Falkenrath Aristocrat|DKA and the obscure Falkenrath Torturer).

Ostensibly, needing to sacrifice humans specifically allowed design to turn the knobs up on this card. If you want, you could settle for an overcosted dork (usually a good call in Limited), but you could make it a real menace with a very specific dietary requirement.

For me, Ravenous Demon really caught the flavour of the demons from ages past I really enjoyed. Big power, but at a big cost. I got a lot of kicks out of playing Lord of the Pit|4ED and Herald of Leshrac (alongside Breeding Pit|FEM, of course) at my high school cafeteria table, and seeing a demon that demanded trade-offs to reach full potential again was really great. I personally find the current crop of demons to offer their power just a little too freely.

Now that I think of it, I look forward to using it in an upcoming Trynn, Champion of Freedom / Silvar, Devourer of the Free deck.

[Wallycaine]

I really think there's room for both? Like, sure, you can have fun with your Doran, the Siege Tower wall tribal... but that's not everyone's schtick? Not everyone is out here trying to wow you with their unique and weird deckbuilding skills. Sometimes people would just like to be able to build a deck around a theme and have it work out of the box. Having options like Arcades, the Strategist lets them do that without having to work hard at figuring out exactly how to build a deck around that theme.

In general, I think the new, limited designs are cool because they let them push the cards in other areas. I'd rather focus on praising the stuff we like that focus on bashing what you don't.

I think commander precons are the places for the ez-mode commanders that give you very obvious direction how to build, especially the face commanders. There are already a lot of those options, and they're always easily available in stores.

I also think that, ideally, commanders that give you a very obvious direction to build in shouldn't be as good as commanders that require more deckbuilding prowess. Arcades just being way better than Doran I think is kind of a bummer, since what's the point of building Doran as wall tribal anymore? If Arcades cost 6 (maybe buff his stats) then at least if you can navigate building Doran, you'd have a reasonable tempo advantage - that would be the ideal imo.

I think it's worth praising as well as bashing. Bashing is absolutely necessary imo. Sure, I don't have to build Korvold if I think he's a bad design. But I'll probably still end up playing against him, and that's going to impact my experience. I don't have the luxury of just ignoring designs I don't like.

I mean, a lot of that is simply age. Doran, the Siege Tower is a 13 year old magic card. We don't expect Doran, the Siege Tower to be at the same power level as Alpha creatures, so expecting current or recent cards to restrict themselves to the power level of commanders that would be teenaged today is... a bit of an ask. And there's plenty of reasons to still build Doran, ranging from him being a better personal beatstick, to offering different colors, to allowing you to not rely exclusively on defenders, even if that's a theme of your deck. If Arcades, the Strategist was an Abzan commander, there might be more to your argument, but just being different colors means they can fulfill different niches.

I'd also point out that having EZ mode commanders in standard allows people to build those wacky decks in standard too, which is a niche that people enjoy. And again, that means those commanders need to stand up to the current standards of cards and creatures, which means a Arcades that costs 6 just becomes untenable.

[DirkGently]

I think the general shift that annoys me is that, pre-2011, legends typically didn't push you in a really obvious direction. Sure, some were tribal, but not really that many. Most of them were at least relatively open-ended because they were designed standard-first. I think commander-awareness has really pushed wotc to make more and more legends with the express intent of building built around. Arcades as a standard deck sounds absolutely atrocious, what the hell are you going to do with a deck full of walls if you don't draw arcades, or he gets countered or removed? I really don't buy that argument.

But it's not all bad. I mean sometimes, just because something is pretty laser-focused, doesn't mean you can't do weird stuff with it. Creativity is still sometimes an option. But the push towards focused legendaries is a trend that tends to homogenize the majority of those lists.

Then on the flip side you've got commanders like Chulane and Golos that just reward you for doing basically anything. Those probably annoy me even more. Partly I guess it's just my general dislike of power creep.

But anyway, I like the design of these new legends. Akim I'll go ahead and hold up as, imo, particularly good design because he does direct you, but he's still open-ended. How hard do you push towards producing tokens on enemy turns, or do you just not worry about it and play the (usually more efficient) token producers for your own turn? Do you play bird tribal, or produce tokens of all sorts? How do you balance token production with token buffing to actually close out the game? Big buffs or small buffs? These are all considerations just within the scope of Akim's abilities, not even considering the broader plan of the deck, and whether you want to play more aggressive or more control.

Compare to Arcades, who I would argue really doesn't have such nuanced considerations. All you need is walls, and you jam all the cheap ones in because they cantrip. One simple thing that would have made me like arcades much much more - imagine if he only drew a card once per turn. You'd have to decide if you still wanted to go hard for walls, or maybe play a light wall theme. You could decide if you wanted to flash in walls to get the draw trigger on enemy turns, or just on your own. Maybe you'd want bigger, more expensive walls to get more bang for your buck. And when you're playing, you'd have to decide whether to go aggro and play walls without value, or wait to deploy them for maximum benefit. Also, his lower threat level means he's less likely to just get removed repeatedly and leave everyone with a subpar experience.

Mostly I just really love the use of "once per turn" triggers because it creates much more interesting gameplay imo. I'm really glad to see them using it so much.

[MeowZeDung]

I'll second that. I'm putting the final touches on an Akim deck and never felt constrained or forced down a well defined path. Getting to easily make a deck your own is much more fun and interesting.

[ilovesaprolings]

I don't know man, Elder Gargaroth...

At least it doesn't have any immediate value or built-in protection

Yes, a lot of people aren't attracted to anything that isn't absurdly broken. I don't think those people have a good understanding of the long-term health of the format. WotC not catering to those people is exactly what I want to praise.

Amen bro, let's hope wotc will listen. Righ now, it isn't.