Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[kirkusjones]

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[Venedrex]

Oldmanyellingatcloud.jpg

"Now listen here you young whippersnapper, back in my day we had silver bordered cards and a single multiverse and we liked it. We had to walk up the hill in the snow both ways to get to the LGS to build our character." "Yeah, whatever gramps."

[Wallycaine]

If I sticker a reserved list card with a sticker changing it's name, can Wizard's reprint that card?

Stickers are removed at the end of the game, so you'd have to keep playing that game for at least 2 years for it to be legal

[DirkGently]

I've been thinking about it, and my dislike for Un sets in commander basically boils down to 3 things, in order of importance:

1) I really do not want any strategy implications on anything outside of the game. The card Blurry Beeble single-handedly ruined the unstable draft environment for me because it became strategically important to wear sunglasses indoors (which, if you haven't tried it, makes it a lot less comfortable to play card games with small text). I don't want "good strategy" to mean getting good at staring contests, or Where's Waldo-ing some hidden card, or being able to think of a keyword within a time limit, or wearing the right colors, or any of that crap. Those things are (arguably) fun to read, but I do not want to play with them. I'm glad those things still have some differentiation from legal cards, but I get the strong feeling that MaRo and others within WotC think that commander, as a "casual" format, should be more open to those sorts of mechanics. To which I say, absolutely not. Commander is fun because a friendly strategy game is fun. If you start putting strategic value on things like "how many people are in the room?" and "what time of day is it?" and "is there someone nearby who knows how to play magic?" then it sucks all the fun out of being strategic, because it's really not fun to metagame those things. "I'd love to play my Syr Cadian, Knight Owl deck, but I'll have to wait until after 6:15. Oh, and we'll need to play in a crowded place so my Gimme Five is effective." Excuse me while I vomit.

2) I don't think un-sets are properly tested. The card X is the perfect example. If you have ever played against it, even one time, you'll quickly realize that playing against a card that your opponent can use to blank your draws - and turn them against you - turn after turn is extremely unfun. Simply adding a sorcery-speed only clause would have trivially fixed the problem, as it has for virtually every other repeatable discard engine ever printed. I can only assume that the culprit was insufficient testing - by which I mean nonexistent testing. As such, I don't trust the process that un-sets go through to be properly vetted. Clocknapper is another good example of a card that reads cute and plays like late-stage melanoma. I don't want unsets dumping a bunch of broken cards directly into commander. It's bad enough with commander precon exclusives.

3) I think the flavor is usually kind of cringe. This is a distant third place in terms of my concerns, though.

[Lifeless]

As one of a presumably small number of people who have an Un-cube my sadness is immeasurable. Nothing like printing a whole set of constructed legal Chaos Confetti after already pissing in my cereal by removing silver borders.

[Igzex]

I'm pretty sure the really silly cards are getting the acorn stamp so I doubt we're gonna end up with stuff like Stop That being legal.

[NZB2323]

I feel like I'm an old man yelling at a cloud, because I loved the first un set, but now have absolutely no interest. Part of it is that now we have D&D, Dinosaurs, silly secret lairs and all sorts of sets that if they really wanted to print silly cards I feel like they could make a silly set where the cards are legal and made for constricted play.

Take Magar of the Magic Strings. What makes this an un card?

[kirkusjones]

I feel like I'm an old man yelling at a cloud, because I loved the first un set, but now have absolutely no interest. Part of it is that now we have D&D, Dinosaurs, silly secret lairs and all sorts of sets that if they really wanted to print silly cards I feel like they could make a silly set where the cards are legal and made for constricted play.

Take Magar of the Magic Strings. What makes this an un card?

The art and the "performer" type, I guess? I was asking myself the same thing when I saw it.

[5colorsrainbow]

Maro layed out what they used to decide what's acorn still (paraphrasing what he said) ~32:25


-Doesn't work in the rules (he uses last strike as something that while players understand the rules doesn't like, also see Far Out )

-reference some thing out side of the tournament definition of magic mechanics (names, art, flavor text, watermarks, expansion symbols, ect)

- requires interaction with outside people

- anything that involves physical dexterity

- references anything outside of the game (calls out time of day )

-if it didn't just feel right, he couldn't show the cards that day but noted a number of cards that weren't acorn where changed after play testing said the card didn't feel right in black boarder.

As for Magar when originally made Maro thought it wouldn't work in the rules as it was suppose to "literally" turn instant and sorceries into creatures that then had their Instant/sorcery as an effect. Later they found that with the right rules template it would be eternal legal. (My own thought) this seems similar to how they figured out how to give trample to burn spells by spelling out how the excess damage it dealt to a player.

[Venedrex]

Not sure if anyone will see this, and I suspect fewer will care, but I feel like I should at least call myself out on my own hypocrisy. Earlier in this thread I made some statements that I'd like retract. Specifically something something about Gandalf. No one called me out on it, but, uh yours truly is the proud purveyor of several schemes and sets that could only be described as Universes Beyond. And while I still don't like the whole sticker acorn thing, I can't in good conscience not own up to the fact that I've been a massive hypocrite for dunking on the same stuff I like to do as a designer.

Anyways, just wanted to come clean before someone else points out my glaring foolishness. Feel free to send me any and all copies of Gandalf to sign as punishment. (Of course, since Gandalf will no doubt be a 30.00 mythic at minimum, I doubt anyone will take me up on the offer). Carry on everyone, I'm off to eat some humble pie.

[BeneTleilax]

I feel like Venedrex hit it on the head here. All this stuff feels like a custom set, not any one in particular to me, but a custom set. I reckon the definitive quality of a custom set, compared to an official one, is that it's only been made with one set of hands. It's the same as fanfiction; there's a certain syndrome that comes out of the absence of mediation. That's all fine for a custom set, that's all fine for fanfiction. If you're making those, more power to you.

But what a publisher's job is, is to intermediate. In the age of the internet, unmediated art is free. Enough people write, or paint, or design games as a hobby for their own selves. What requires hierarchy, logistics and a pay structure is the editing; having competent people in the room who can corral the designers, and the designers being obligated to listen. It's the checks and the curbs on wayward design and it's getting everyone in the same rooms. That's why we pay for packs.

Now, with Horizons II and much more with this, it feels like those intermediators have left. When I designed custom cards, mostly for kicks with my high school friends, I read MaRo's design articles pretty avidly, and he'd throw in, often, his own slush pile cards. Those looked like custom cards too, and not just because they lacked art, I remember noticing that and feeling impressed with myself, like "hey, maybe I can design as well as MaRo". And that's what these sets really look like to me, even more than custom sets in particular: MaRo's slush. If MaRo were out here, posting on the custom set forum, I'd be quite impressed at his work. But if I'm paying for them, that means I'm paying a whole lot of %$#%$#% to rubberstamp and freeload off a couple guys' ideas without contributing anything to a real process.

The other thing I think about is how we all eventually stopped playing with each other's custom cards, back in highschool. Not because people would put broken stuff in their own decks, we grew out of that. But we realized sometime later that the most fun of cards like that has already been had when they were designed.

[RedCheese]

Woow. i didnt even bothered reading the sticker thing for been too long and thinking it was jsut an unset thing. But they are going to be legal in eternal formarts? Jesus Christ what a joke this is.

[illakunsaa]

In theory I like stickers. It's cool they stay on even after changing zones so they can be played in multiple archetypes and the game aid "solves" the riding dilu horse problem. I wonder how playable the cards are. There are some cool thing I could do with Marchesa, the Black Rose or Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.

I really don't get how last strike doesn't work but stuff like Panglacial Wurm does.

[PrimevalCommander]

I'm not interested in stickers at all. I suspect it could be easier to track than ability counters from Ikoria, however neither of those interest me all that much. Ability counters make tracking difficult, stickers maybe less so, however the way they work just sounds cumbersome.

[Mookie]

Been thinking about stickers more, and my current position is that I'm fine with them mechanically, but I have concerns about the physicality and logistics. Mechanically speaking, they're a mix of ability counters and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, so they work fine in the rules. I actually appreciate that the fact that they have text on them and thus can support significantly more complicated abilities than what can be represented by a counter - there is a lot of design space in giving arbitrary text boxes to cards.

As for the actual physicality of the stickers... hard to evaluate without actually playing with them. Is it a pain to remove the stickers? Will they work well with sleeves? Will they leave any residue on the cards / make them sticky? How many times can the stickers be reused / moved around?

Finally, I have concerns re: the logistics of stickers - you need to have a minimum of ten sticker sheets, which may not fit in a deckbox. Additionally, you'll need to replace those sticker sheets occasionally if you lose any of the stickers, or if they stop being sticky. There may also be issues re: forgetting to remove stickers after a game - if they end up being used competitively, I wouldn't be surprised if someone eventually got a game loss for marked cards.

...anyway, I'm open to trying out sticker cards if any of them are both strong enough to be played in EDH and on-theme for my decks. Probably won't keep them in any decks long-term though.

[Gentle Giant]

I'm not sure how I feel about the stickers from a practical point of view, as @Mookie also mentions, but mechanically it's a very interesting addition. I like the extra tools it gives to augment cards, something which counters could never have done in an acceptable manner (you could almost see it as backgrounds++). Yes, auras and equipment are a thing, but this can go directions both of those can't (and it seems they're more willing to let you add keywords to creatures, which most of those don't do either). They say that the non-acorn cards aren't costed competitively, so I'm not too worried about their impact in EDH and will probably try to make a janky deck with it.

This might sound weird, but I think merely the uneasiness a lot of you are feeling is already part of what makes this a good mechanic (at least in WotC's books): innovation should trigger a reaction, and it's better to have a group be negative and another positive than an all-around 'meh'.

[DirkGently]

They say that the non-acorn cards aren't costed competitively

Link?

Magar looks pretty strong to me tbh. I'm very wary of un-cards being insufficiently tested, so the less they push them, the better imo.

[Rumpy5897]

Once they figured out this stuff is black border, they must have brought on actual testing. Prior un-sets could skimp on this part of the process as if it's busted beyond belief nobody cares as it's not legal anywhere. But this is not the case now.

As for the stickers, meh

[Gentle Giant]

They say that the non-acorn cards aren't costed competitively

Link?

Magar looks pretty strong to me tbh. I'm very wary of un-cards being insufficiently tested, so the less they push them, the better imo.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/6 ... -and#notes

the-haberdashery asked:
Has WotC considered separating Commander and Legacy/Vintage legality? It seems like that would solve the problem of uncards in the 60-card formats while still allowing EDH players to use them.

Mark Rosewater's answer:
We were very conservative with the costing of the eternal cards. I'm not saying nothing could end up getting played (maybe weird interactions create something new), but nothing was close to being pushed. We don't expect Unfinity to have a big impact on Legacy and Vintage. A lot of this concern is more hypothetical than practical.

[5colorsrainbow]

Been thinking about stickers more, and my current position is that I'm fine with them mechanically, but I have concerns about the physicality and logistics. Mechanically speaking, they're a mix of ability counters and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave, so they work fine in the rules. I actually appreciate that the fact that they have text on them and thus can support significantly more complicated abilities than what can be represented by a counter - there is a lot of design space in giving arbitrary text boxes to cards.

As for the actual physicality of the stickers... hard to evaluate without actually playing with them. Is it a pain to remove the stickers? Will they work well with sleeves? Will they leave any residue on the cards / make them sticky? How many times can the stickers be reused / moved around?

Finally, I have concerns re: the logistics of stickers - you need to have a minimum of ten sticker sheets, which may not fit in a deckbox. Additionally, you'll need to replace those sticker sheets occasionally if you lose any of the stickers, or if they stop being sticky. There may also be issues re: forgetting to remove stickers after a game - if they end up being used competitively, I wouldn't be surprised if someone eventually got a game loss for marked cards.

...anyway, I'm open to trying out sticker cards if any of them are both strong enough to be played in EDH and on-theme for my decks. Probably won't keep them in any decks long-term though.

Some clarification on the stickers that touches on some of those questions.

[Serenade]

I missed that stickers eternal playable. We will ban them in our group.

[Dunharrow]

People are way too worked up about the stickers. You need another card to instruct you to use a sticker first. These cards are not good. Nobody is playing Carnival Carnivore. Wicker Picker is more playable, but do you realize that you would need to 'kick' 3 creatures in order to give one of them infect. Or 4 of them to make your creature a 7/4?

The payoffs are no so good that it is worth playing bad cards and spending extra mana. And if anyone wants to do this, go for it. After setting up for 4 turns to make a slightly better creature, I will kill it and move on.

Don't get me wrong, stickers should have all been Acorn. But I just do not believe there is any risk about any of this being a problem for constructed.

[Lifeless]

That's not really a fair assessment considering we've seen an extremely small portion of the set. I'm simply not going to get behind anything disposable. All it's going to take is for 1 card to be constructed playable for this to become troublesome.

[5colorsrainbow]

That's not really a fair assessment considering we've seen an extremely small portion of the set. I'm simply not going to get behind anything disposable. All it's going to take is for 1 card to be constructed playable for this to become troublesome.

As noted from the tumblr post you don't actually need the stickers if you don't wanna use them, slips of paper are allowed similar to tokens and counters.

[Lifeless]

Sure, they could also be noted with pencil and paper and I guess they're not that much worse than Ikoria ability tokens but I'm still not on board.