Is White getting better?

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BeneTleilax
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
If the format is going to continually get worse it should do so while making white better instead of worse
I don't think this format needs to get continuously worse, and especially not that we, as players should advocate for that.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
Bene, my weird definition of broken makes more sense when you don't edit my post like a soundbite for a local news channel
Right, but that's still a definition you only gave after I made my post saying I didn't want more broken cards. I was responding to Pokken there, who wanted a white Dockside. I agree with you on everything of substance, it seems. If you're more interested in picking apart my posts than finding common ground, then I don't really see what either of us have to gain.

If your definition of "broken" includes Apparition and Lion Sash, then by all means, I want more of those for white. Maybe they would be broken by someone's standards from 2014, I have yet to meet that person in the present day. I don't want more Docksides, in any color. Does that make sense?
Crystal. But what you are ignoring, is that in my post, I stated that more docksides are inevitable. I was also saying that I'm happy when white gets cards like Skyclave because they are at least playable. Hence why I used quotation marks around the word broken. The ultimate goal is to get to the point where all colors get the same power level of cards. Would I prefer that Wizards stop printing busted cards in all colors so all colors are balanced? Absolutely. But we all know that's not going to happen. So why not let white in on the game before the decade is over.

You want common ground? OK, I don't want anymore busted cards printed. Boom, common ground. However, wotc WILL print more busted cards. So let's make some of them white. That's all I'm saying tiger. If wotc's goal is to make money by selling packs, which is basically gambling, best way to do so is put shiny chase cards that everyone has to have in said packs. In it's the dna of how the company operates and everyone knows it. We agree to it. Would TBD have sold half as many packs without the expensive and powerful bomb mythics and rares? I don't think so. In a world where money doesn't exist and we all play MTG in a Utopia, yes no more busted cards would be printed and the game would be better. We don't live in that world.

You might not want bombs in those packs, but wotc needs bombs in those packs.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

That ship is halfway around the world printing new fire strategy cards and drinking Mai tais

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Post by Wallycaine » 2 years ago

I think a pervasive, and incorrect, view is that Wizards prints "broken" cards on purpose, so they just have to do that on purpose in white. But that's not how any of this happens. If it was, why would Dockside Extortionist, the card being cited over and over again as an example of a broken card, have been purposefully put in a commander deck, rather than at mythic in a supplemental set? One of those choices makes Wizards *way* more money, since Wizards sells the decks of Mystic Intellect for the same price as any other Commander 2019 deck, but can move way more supplemental products if there's a chase mythic in it.

So it's perhaps worth examining that assumption. Wizards is continually trying to balance between making cards interesting without making them broken, and there's going to be misses in both directions. So yes, broken cards may continue to happen, but they're not going to be able to be "aimed" at a particular color because *they're not aimed at all*.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
2 years ago
I think a pervasive, and incorrect, view is that Wizards prints "broken" cards on purpose, so they just have to do that on purpose in white. But that's not how any of this happens. If it was, why would Dockside Extortionist, the card being cited over and over again as an example of a broken card, have been purposefully put in a commander deck, rather than at mythic in a supplemental set? One of those choices makes Wizards *way* more money, since Wizards sells the decks of Mystic Intellect for the same price as any other Commander 2019 deck, but can move way more supplemental products if there's a chase mythic in it.

So it's perhaps worth examining that assumption. Wizards is continually trying to balance between making cards interesting without making them broken, and there's going to be misses in both directions. So yes, broken cards may continue to happen, but they're not going to be able to be "aimed" at a particular color because *they're not aimed at all*.
OK. Broken cards are a mistake not the intention. Let's go with that. I like Mark Rosewater, and Verhey and the rest of them. I think they do try to make balanced cards. Why are none of the broken cards white, regardless of whether they were intended to be broken? Maybe, and this is just me speculating, it's because card draw, treasure creation, unconditional tutoring, mana generation, and any and all common methods of making a busted card are just not in pie for little ol white.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
Why are none of the broken cards white, regardless of whether they were intended to be broken?
Because white's been the latest color to be buffed for EDH (it's been fine, and often dominant, in every other format) and they've learned from prior instances. I remember when UG was considered a trap in EDH, because they had no decent spot removal for creatures. Do you agree with their decision to take off the safety rails for that color combination? Even five years ago, red was the "worst" color, and they did better, but do you think either the color or the format is better for Dockside or Underworld Breach? The method for improving a color/color pair is not infusing it with random busted cards.

If nothing else, it would produce the strongest power divide yet between the most expensive decks and the average, as the color increasingly depends on broken (not "broken" since you apparently define those terms differently) mythics, rather than strategic and deliberate expansion across rarities, to compete. If you want to play broken white cards, run Sramstorm. It already exists. It's repetitive, expensive, uninteractive, and dependant on drawing key busted cards. Everything you seem to want for the color as a whole.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
Why are none of the broken cards white, regardless of whether they were intended to be broken?
Because white's been the latest color to be buffed for EDH (it's been fine, and often dominant, in every other format) and they've learned from prior instances. I remember when UG was considered a trap in EDH, because they had no decent spot removal for creatures. Do you agree with their decision to take off the safety rails for that color combination? Even five years ago, red was the "worst" color, and they did better, but do you think either the color or the format is better for Dockside or Underworld Breach? The method for improving a color/color pair is not infusing it with random busted cards.

If nothing else, it would produce the strongest power divide yet between the most expensive decks and the average, as the color increasingly depends on broken (not "broken" since you apparently define those terms differently) mythics, rather than strategic and deliberate expansion across rarities, to compete. If you want to play broken white cards, run Sramstorm. It already exists. It's repetitive, expensive, uninteractive, and dependant on drawing key busted cards. Everything you seem to want for the color as a whole.
Firstly, take a chill pill. Secondly, Sram is a moderate deck by most standards that runs budget crap like Accorder's Shield and folds to one edict effect. Thirdly, I don't know where you're getting the UG is weak in EDH from, since blue has always been good in EDH. Green may have been weaker ten years ago, but blue has always been good. A precon could beat a Sram deck. As far as safety rails go, those went away right around the time green started drawing cards off of creatures. In fact, I bet the Wilhelt precon has a better chance of winning than the average Sramstorm deck.

The strongest mono-w deck uses Heliod and Walking Ballista to shred people. Sram is very well balanced in my opinion. So yeah I'd like to see more Srams. As much as I love to continue discussing this, I have to let you believe what you will and vice-versa. We'll have to just agree to disagree. Heck, I'll even let you get the last word so you can (win?) the argument. Gotta go, it's been fun. Edit, just one more post I promise :)
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
those went away right around the time green started drawing cards off of creatures.
Ah, so in Mirrodin. Also, UG was considered a trap combination back in 2014. Blue was always strong, but needed support from a color that had decent spot removal, with the exception of glass-cannon decks like Azami. You had Edric, but he was in the same place as Sram now, but with wraths in the place of edicts.

At least now you are clearly arguing that they should stop testing and balancing white cards on the whole, rather than claiming you're just in favor of more strong, interesting cards like Lion Sash. I want more Lion Sashes and Apparitions, and less broken cards in any color. I think that's a reasonable aspiration, as a player.

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Why are none of the broken cards white, regardless of whether they were intended to be broken?
Some thoughts:

Firstly, I would define 'broken' cards as cards that are banworthy. Esper Sentinel, while a very powerful card, is not banworthy, which means that it isn't a broken card. On the other hand, Rogue Refiner was banned in Standard, suggesting it is, in fact, a broken card.

Secondly, I don't think WotC wants for cards to be banned - I'm sure their data shows that when cards are banned, that harms their profits. They do want to print strong cards to sell packs, but they don't want to wreck Standard in the process, nor do they want to lose players that are upset when their deck is banned.

Looking at the historical data - in which White cards end up banned at a significantly lower rate than that of other colors - I would say that this suggests one of two things. The first possibility is that White's color pie is inherently weaker than that of other colors - as mentioned, stuff like mana generation and card draw are powerful abilities, and they aren't in White's color pie. However, I don't think this is the actual reason why so few White cards end up banned. If White were consistently weaker than other colors, WotC could trivially tweak numbers to help it out. Indeed, we do see new cards printed for it - stuff like Esper Sentinel, Prismatic Omen, and Lion Sash have clearly been printed with the intent of helping White, and I don't think it is WotC's intent that those cards be weaker than the tools given to other colors (assuming equivalent rarities). I would assume that WotC tries to roughly balance all colors based on their internal testing.

Rather, I would argue that the reason we don't end up with broken White cards is that White's color pie is easier to balance. A card like Prismatic Omen is certainly powerful, but the ceiling isn't actually that high - even if it were ': exile target nonland permanent', the ceiling is still a 1-for-1 removal spell - comparable to Swords to Plowshares. On the other hand, how strong a card like Persist is depends massively on the environment - if there are cheap effects to fill the graveyard and strong creatures to reanimate, it could be a dominant card... but if it lacks support, then it will see zero play. Similarly, Treasure Cruise can be broken or unplayable depending on how much support exists in the format.

As a result, when WotC balances cards, their margin of error for White cards is much wider than it is for other colors... so even if they mess up in some percentage of cases (and they will mess up occasionally), the white cards are less likely to end up broken/banworthy than the cards in other colors.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
those went away right around the time green started drawing cards off of creatures.
Ah, so in Mirrodin. Also, UG was considered a trap combination back in 2014. Blue was always strong, but needed support from a color that had decent spot removal, with the exception of glass-cannon decks like Azami. You had Edric, but he was in the same place as Sram now, but with wraths in the place of edicts.

At least now you are clearly arguing that they should stop testing and balancing white cards on the whole, rather than claiming you're just in favor of more strong, interesting cards like Lion Sash. I want more Lion Sashes and Apparitions, and less broken cards in any color. I think that's a reasonable aspiration, as a player.
Yep, I'm an evil monster who wants no testing, You've exposed me to the world. No matter what I say, you'll have what you think is a crushing comeback, and so will I. To me, Mirrodin proves my point. To you it's the nail in my coffin. We can dance around all day. You think you're right, I think I'm right. I don't hate testing cards. I just think that Wotc should apply the same metric to all cards.

If we're making pushed crap in 4 colors, do it in five. If we wanna make balanced cards, do it in all five colors. Don't leave one color out in the cold. That's all I'm saying. Let's have a bet. When SNC spoilers come out, let's look through the cards and compare which colors got the best ones. I would be happy to be proven wrong and admit that white got the best stuff. It's good your passionate about this, it means you love it.

So do I. It just rankles with me to see a game where one faction is worse than the other four. I might not have the right answer on how to fix this issue, I just want it fixed. Maybe your way is best. Time will tell. I've been playing this game since 2017, which is probably a lot less than you have. I'm not that experienced or that cunning. I'm no great designer for sure. My solution might stink. But I just want the next five years to be different.

I brought up Skyclave and the others because I love seeing them and think they are good. I love balance, and I don't want pushed cards left and right. I appreciate the effort and joy of making well balanced cards. I just get drained seeing one part of the game lag behind the others for so long. It may be wrong to want a jet engine kickstarter to white, but it's my emotional response. Wotc's way is probably for the best in the end. I've never been happier with how White has been as a color as this last couple of months. I want to see more of this and less nonsense from the other colors.

I'll concede the argument to you. You win.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
If we wanna make balanced cards, do it in all five colors.
I want to make balanced cards, and think we as players can most effectively argue for balanced cards.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
If we wanna make balanced cards, do it in all five colors.
I want to make balanced cards, and think we as players can most effectively argue for balanced cards.
I agree. Bit o history on me. I used to play a lot of Historic. I mean, a lot. Like grinding to Mythic as a bad player lot. My favorite deck? Sultai Control with Uro. While playing that deck, every chance I'd get, on reddit or twitter or wherever, I'd argue we needed an Uro ban. I was thrilled when he got the axe, even though he was the lynchpin card of my favorite deck. I knew he was warping the format around him and he needed to go. I was a true monster then for sure. Turn four Nissa, Who Shakes the World. Good times. For me anyway lol.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
I knew he was warping the format around him and he needed to go.
Good call.

MaRo also hinted that white was getting more land recursion, which might give it a way to ramp. On the other hand, I reckon it's one of the worst ways to go about it, as it would make the color even more dependent on fetchlands. The fetch-shock/triome strategy would also further incentivize running white as a splash color for three+ color decks. They'd need to print more affordable fetch-like lands, like Fabled Passage, at least for white, to avoid it being a monkey's paw solution.

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Post by Venedrex » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
I knew he was warping the format around him and he needed to go.
Good call.

MaRo also hinted that white was getting more land recursion, which might give it a way to ramp. On the other hand, I reckon it's one of the worst ways to go about it, as it would make the color dependent on fetchlands to ramp. They'd need to print more affordable fetch-like lands, like Fabled Passage, at least for white, to avoid it being a monkey's paw solution.
Yeah, I think you're right about that. One of my favorite avenues they've gone down are cards like Teleportation Circle. Love me some flicker value in mono-w.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

Venedrex wrote:
2 years ago
One of my favorite avenues they've gone down are cards like Teleportation Circle. Love me some flicker value in mono-w.
Yeah, it's why I've build Feather around flicker effects. My only worry is that the strength of white's flickers might cap the power of their ETB effects, which are an increasingly important part of creatures in this format. Spirited Companion, Solitude and even the humble Dawnbringer Cleric are a good sign, though.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
2 years ago
I think a pervasive, and incorrect, view is that Wizards prints "broken" cards on purpose, so they just have to do that on purpose in white. But that's not how any of this happens. If it was, why would Dockside Extortionist, the card being cited over and over again as an example of a broken card, have been purposefully put in a commander deck, rather than at mythic in a supplemental set? One of those choices makes Wizards *way* more money, since Wizards sells the decks of Mystic Intellect for the same price as any other Commander 2019 deck, but can move way more supplemental products if there's a chase mythic in it.

So it's perhaps worth examining that assumption. Wizards is continually trying to balance between making cards interesting without making them broken, and there's going to be misses in both directions. So yes, broken cards may continue to happen, but they're not going to be able to be "aimed" at a particular color because *they're not aimed at all*.
I don't think they print broken cards on purpose (and I ever claimed that), but I do know for a fact that they "push" cards on purpose. And you end up with a broken card when it is pushed and they go too far. White needs more pushed cards that could end up broken. They need to take risks and print higher powered cards in white.

We know that in the last few years of their Fire strategy we've seen tons and tons of very pushed cards. Just that almost none of them end up in white because they've got some kind of assumptions (like Hullbreacher would need to cost more mana in white, for some reason?)

They need to do two major things to fix the Fire strategy in my opinion:
1. ADD MORE MANA PIPS (to all pushed cards!)
2. relax their backs on pushing white cards. They can just let them be a mana cheaper or have a slightly more powerful effect that would be cheaper in another color for "reasons". It's fine.



Teleportation Circle Esper Sentinel Smothering Tithe are all great recent examples of cards that could stand a double white mana cost (and a slightly bigger push where Sentinel is concerned to go with the increased cost to WW). Teleportation Circle could cost 1WW and be *great* but not *insanely busted*. Smothering Tithe could also cost 1WW and be fine, or even 2WW.

I should add making Dockside Extortionist cost RR would be night and day better for the game without materially decreasing the card's power level. Mohr Pips! (costing 1RR would have really balanced it out a lot)

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
(like Hullbreacher would need to cost more mana in white, for some reason?)
Pokken, Hullbreacher got banned. We don't need more Hullbreachers, in any color. Also, they seem to be backing off FIRE, although they haven't admitted it yet, likely for internal ass-covering reasons.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
(like Hullbreacher would need to cost more mana in white, for some reason?)
Pokken, Hullbreacher got banned. We don't need more Hullbreachers, in any color. Also, they seem to be backing off FIRE, although they haven't admitted it yet, likely for internal ass-covering reasons.
The point is more that they seem to think powerful effects have to cost more in white, which is a problem with why white pushed cards end up medium.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago



No Colossal Dreadmaws for white? This cannot stand!

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Post by Calcifer » 2 years ago

Along with white's improved reanimation spells in recent sets, I think one way forward for the colour are strong threats that can be cashed in twice, or "reanimate" themselves. Disturb is the most recent example of this, but previous mechanics that follow this principle include Embalm, Eternalize, Escape, and even Flashback.

https://scryfall.com/search?q=ci%3Aw+%2 ... ique=cards

These tend to be draft mechanics and only one or two cards from each mechanic are arguably playable in a fair mono-w deck, and collecting even those under one commander doesn't lend itself to a unified theme necessarily. But, in future commander sets it would be neat to see these mechanics being tapped into again specifically to lend white a hand. Proactive threats in the 4-5 MV range with a second mode would make for a resilient midrange strategy compatible with white's increasing pool of board wipes.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
(like Hullbreacher would need to cost more mana in white, for some reason?)
Pokken, Hullbreacher got banned. We don't need more Hullbreachers, in any color. Also, they seem to be backing off FIRE, although they haven't admitted it yet, likely for internal ass-covering reasons.
They likely could print a Hullbreacher card that just limited its abilities to not function on your own turn. Doing so would disable most of the playable wheel cards from functioning without somehow jumping through the extra hoop of giving them flash. If you can take the proactive play of wheels away from Hullbreacher the pool of egregious cards shrinks a lot and also forces you to potentially try to break it with cards used less frequently on their own merit like Teferi's Puzzle Box which could still be powerful with what I described but generally isn't a card that is worth playing on its own merit.

I actually think that a small power demotion could have actually made Hullbreacher fine. It was a problem from the sum of everything it had (low cost + flash + being blue). Just making it white probably isn't enough but if you take away from it a little I think it can actually be an acceptable card.

I don't think that Hullbreacher white straight up is ok but I think if you make some compromises you can still functionally accomplish all the things but you probably can't just port it over to white and have the card be fine as is.
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Post by NZB2323 » 2 years ago

I really love Glorious Protector as a new white card. It's a great answer to one of the most broken cards in the format - Cyclonic Rift.

How about instead of printing broken cards for white they give white answers to broken cards. Don't like Dockside Extortionist? Give white a Collector Ouphe with flash. It's already in white's color pie, like Stony Silence and would be a nice answer that isn't broken.

Give white an answer to searching that isn't worse than Opposition Agent.

Give white a hatebear with flash that says players can't take extra turns. Give white a hatebear with flash that exiles a graveyard. Give white a better version of Alms Collector. (Maybe make it cost less mana)

If white is the color of balance let it balance out the most busted cards in the format.
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

NZB2323 wrote:
2 years ago
Give white an answer to searching that isn't worse than Opposition Agent.
You know, I 99% agree with your post, but this one's going to be very hard, I suspect. Opposition Agent is just such a stupid card. The main way I can think of making an anti-search effect that's both relatively reasonable and not strictly worse than Agent is by making it one or two mana. And even then, I think for it to be actually reasonable at such a cost, it'd need to be symmetrical, which means Agent would still be better in 99% of cases. The Agent being asymmetrical, having flash, and also functioning as a Praetor's Grasp on top of interfering with search effects is ridiculous. If it lacked any one of its clauses, it'd be a lot less ridiculous. If it lacked any one of its clauses and also cost 4 or 5 mana, it might even be a completely reasonable card. As is? As is, the fair version of Opposition Agent is Aven Mindcensor, a card that already exists and frankly should have been as far as asymmetrical search hate got pushed.
39 Commander decks and counting. I'm sure this is fine, and not at all a problem.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

NZB2323 wrote:
2 years ago
I really love Glorious Protector as a new white card. It's a great answer to one of the most broken cards in the format - Cyclonic Rift.
I do really like Glorious Protector but I also have issues with it from the standpoint that decks that are heavy on creature strategies often don't play at instant speed very well and keeping up four mana turn after turn is really hard for a number of those decks. In that sense I have a hard time running those sort of cards because the decks that are naturally very reactive and play at instant speed often don't take advantage of this type of card very well but the decks that do often have a hard time keeping the mana up to do so.
NZB2323 wrote:
2 years ago
How about instead of printing broken cards for white they give white answers to broken cards. Don't like Dockside Extortionist? Give white a Collector Ouphe with flash. It's already in white's color pie, like Stony Silence and would be a nice answer that isn't broken.

Give white an answer to searching that isn't worse than Opposition Agent.

Give white a hatebear with flash that says players can't take extra turns. Give white a hatebear with flash that exiles a graveyard. Give white a better version of Alms Collector. (Maybe make it cost less mana)

If white is the color of balance let it balance out the most busted cards in the format.
Most of the issues with hatebear concepts is that they are often all or nothing type of cards that when they whiff or aren't hitting the right player you are left with a bad bear creature. I would love to see more hatebear concepts that are possibly less intense in nature but make up for their all or nothing nature. That could be as simple as investigating on ETB or something of the sort but the fact that hatebears are often vanilla cards outside of their effect is in my opinion one of the biggest reasons they aren't played more. Most of them are very narrow in what they interact with and most of them don't generate value back (or do so in narrow conditions) for you but just try to hold opponents down.

I would love to see a three or four mana Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that has even a single shot card advantage effect to it like investigate. Or even some sort of on doing combat damage to it card advantage effect. The fact that hatebears are so narrow is part of what has been holding them back and we need ways to bring up their cost but also their value. Bringing up their cost will make them less of a problem for the 60 card constructed formats but also bring up the potential to add sustainability to them for commander.
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Guardian of Faith has been way more successful for me than Glorious Protector just by virtue of costing less (and it is epic in Breena where you keep your counters).

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