Photo Op sure is everything I hate about un-sets. It's overpowered, it's a pain in the ass, it's a rules nightmare, it requires advance preparation…
How does one pose like a Black Lotus anyway?
The same way you pose like any card, depending on how much you want to follow the spirit of the rules.
3) pose holding the card
2) make a halfhearted attempt and tell a friend to comment the right card
1) make a zerohearted attempt and comment the right card yourself
I'm thinking the best card in a vacuum is maybe Umezawa's Jitte? With a prop that might actually be guessable, although why bother when you have the previous 3 options.
Photo Op sure is everything I hate about un-sets. It's overpowered, it's a pain in the ass, it's a rules nightmare, it requires advance preparation…
To me it just seems like an incredibly overt attempt to game social media algorithms. On the plus side, you might find out ahead of time who's willing to publicly make a fool of themselves just to try to eke out an edge in a game.
I'd be concerned that they might be pretty breakable, but outside of that they seem like fun designs tbh. Macie in particular could be built around one of quite a few different effects with tutors, more of a grab-bag of powerful options with less direct synergy, etc. They don't seem overly straightforward to me, although ofc they might end up having very strong linear lines that would emerge if they became popular.
A good posterchild for commanders I find boring to build would be Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile. He doesn't really do anything except give you a big payoff for casting the 34 5c spells in the format. So pretty much any decklist with him is going to include most of those as a starting point, and then lands and ramp to cast those reliably, and then that's probably about the decklist. I doubt there's much variance between Jenson decklists. That doesn't necessarily mean he'd be boring to play, although he probably is.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2022 12:32 pm
by tstorm823
It's a genuine tragedy that Claire D'Loon, Joy Sculptor is an acorn card. It's a unique effect, an A+ name, and a sick route to try and Battle of Wits in commander.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:36 pm
by Ruiner
Captain Rex Nebula is my favorite legend of the set. I get Zap Brannigan vibes from him.
(I sure hope no one is taking an Un- set seriously…)
Okay I'm sorry but I dislike this sentence a lot.
For one thing, this is a set with eternal-legal cards. Whether or not they're intended to be funny, they can be played in real games. Their strategy implications are every bit as "serious" as any other set release. And the card in particular we're talking about is eternal legal.
For a second thing, whether you're playing un- or regular magic, "serious" strategy and "serious" rules are still very much an important part of the experience. Would it be too "serious" to play a land on your first turn? Would it be too "serious" to pay mana to cast your spells? Would it be too "serious" to stop your opponent from drawing a 10-card starting hand? Magic is built on layer upon layer of rules and strategy. That's the framework that allows the "non-serious" fun to happen.
I sure hope no one is taking this card game that seriously…
I wasn't into it at first, but I'll probably pick up all of the alternate art cards for my collection. Reminds me of the Space Needle (there's a lot of midcentury modern artwork in it).
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 2:03 am
by duducrash
I don't personally care for unsets TBH. But this seems like a fun draft
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 2:58 am
by RxPhantom
This set...I just. Ugh. Tickets, stickers, and attractions all seem like cool Un-ideas, but having all three together looks like a mess. Stickers especially seem wrong for black border. I'm not normally someone who rabidly blames Maro for everything simply because he's Magic's most public-facing employee, but...
Unfinity feels like the end result of Maro putting his head three feet up his own ass. I don't say that lightly. Maro rules and is generally wonderful, but I know Un-sets are his baby so my reservations about this set feel tied to him. I know I'm being rather cynical here, but it's like he's trying to force us into loving Un-sets like he does. He loves laughy laughy joke cards, so now we all have to love laughy laughy joke cards. Can a card game jump the shark*? Stickers especially seemed shoe-horned into eternal legality in a way that feels wrong.
I have to say that the flavor is pretty excellent, though I miss when the Un-sets were a meta commentary on the game and its players.
*in honor of Cobra Kai devolving into a bad Disney Channel show from 15 years ago, I'd like to permanently change the term "jumping the shark" to "paralyzing Miguel."
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:41 am
by Guardman
I don't want to say problem, but I think part of all this is that Unsets are places were new ideas can be tested and iterated. Maro constantly talks about how things that were tested in Unsets eventually make there way to standard in some form or another. So it is really a place for Maro to push his ideas in whatever direction he wants to test them and let his mind run wild.
I sure hope no one is taking this card game that seriously…
I'm sorry, I got the impression most of us cared about the game after spending hundreds or thousands of hours talking, brewing, and playing it.
I feel like I must be missing something. All I said is that Rex doesn't look like an interesting or powerful build. If people want to build him because they enjoy his flavour (or anything else about him), by all means do.
But personally his lack of compelling synergies means he doesn't appeal to me, unless someone else sees something I'm missing. Wanting a strategically compelling commander is "taking the game too seriously"? It's a strategy game…