Magic The Gathering

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

MaRo recently posted a "lessons learned" article that I'm sure some around here might enjoy.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/lessons-learned-part-4

With lines like...

The only Failure in Ixalan was the Tribal aspects because sets heavily designed around specific Tribes are always failures in the short term because Standard is simultaneously not deep enough for Tribes, and too deep for Tribes.

I know it sounds Oxymoronish, but there are too many cards for a dedicated tribal deck to really compete because you have to play really bad cards and those don't compete with just having a pile of the strongest cards...and not enough card depth for the Tribes to have enough playables. Shit even now outside of Legacy Tribal decks just aren't really amazing, Humans doesn't have the card quality to compete in Modern these days.

The Only playable Tribal deck these days is Elves.

Edit : For the record, Ixalan was one of the cores of the Top decks in the very last time standard wasn't unbalanced trash.

 

[Flexo]

The only Failure in Ixalan was the Tribal aspects because sets heavily designed around specific Tribes are always failures in the short term because Standard is simultaneously not deep enough for Tribes, and too deep for Tribes.

Oh! Thank you for reminding me what I REALLY wanted to clip out of that article. (I had forgotten.)

I ended up making the call to have four factions, each with its own typal reward. (We've stopped using the word "tribal" in R&D as numerous consultants have stressed that it carries negative connotations, so we now use "typal" to mean "creature type mattering mechanically.")

 

[Oddjob OTP]

The only Failure in Ixalan was the Tribal aspects because sets heavily designed around specific Tribes are always failures in the short term because Standard is simultaneously not deep enough for Tribes, and too deep for Tribes.

I know it sounds Oxymoronish, but there are too many cards for a dedicated tribal deck to really compete because you have to play really bad cards and those don't compete with just having a pile of the strongest cards...and not enough card depth for the Tribes to have enough playables. Shit even now outside of Legacy Tribal decks just aren't really amazing, Humans doesn't have the card quality to compete in Modern these days.

The Only playable Tribal deck these days is Elves.

Edit : For the record, Ixalan was one of the cores of the Top decks in the very last time standard wasn't unbalanced trash.

I'd say 4c Elementals and Eldrazi Tron are both top tier tribal decks playable in Modern although apparently merfolk, humans, elves and goblins are still pretty popular. Pioneer gets pretty good tribal decks in various flavors of angels, humans, and spirits but elves and goblins are also OK.

 

[Retink Retunk]

The Only playable Tribal deck these days is Elves.

Man, I remember the days of Lackey pushing Goblins to top tier status in Legacy. it's kind of sad to see how warped and obnoxious things have become.

Oh! Thank you for reminding me what I REALLY wanted to clip out of that article. (I had forgotten.)

They must be really hard up for ESG points.

 

[I'mma real anime gurl]

Lord of the Rings is only propped up because wizards put a chase card in it.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Lord of the Rings is only propped up because wizards put a chase card in it.

I don't even think there are any real chase cards, 99% of it would be unplayable in standard, most of it is unplayable even in commander.

The 1/1 Ring is worth a billionty dollars sure but is there anyone outside of Content Creators who really think they are going to get it? and how will it retain Value if The One Ring itself..it really isn't playable (Outside of Arguably in EDH I haven't played it yet to actually test it)

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I don't even think there are any real chase cards, 99% of it would be unplayable in standard, most of it is unplayable even in commander.

The 1/1 Ring is worth a billionty dollars sure but is there anyone outside of Content Creators who really think they are going to get it? and how will it retain Value if The One Ring itself..it really isn't playable (Outside of Arguably in EDH I haven't played it yet to actually test it)

I know AspiringSpike is shoving it into decks as he does. Oddly enough the landcycling commons are seeing about as much play as anything in modern so that living end decks can get even more degenerate and only need like 14 lands.

Also, in fairness to WotC it has several good reprints and Orcish Bowmaster seems like it will be a superstaple for black decks in Legacy and Vintage

 

[Flexo]

The 1/1 Ring is worth a billionty dollars sure but is there anyone outside of Content Creators who really think they are going to get it? and how will it retain Value if The One Ring itself..it really isn't playable (Outside of Arguably in EDH I haven't played it yet to actually test it)

You sure about it not being playable? It apparently was put into the prerelease packs as one of those alt-arts you can get and it's still retaining like $30 value.

Nazgul are uncommon and apparently holding at $10-12 right now too.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

You sure about it not being playable?

Outside of Commander? I would be surprised if the One Ring was playable, Modern is kind of too fast for a 4 Mana Draw 1 card these days and almost every deck has an alternative that is cheaper or does it's thing faster and better.

Tron has Karn the Great Creator
The Multi Color Piles have Fable
Hammer Time is way too fast for that.

Looking at some results pages I see a Mono-GreenTron running it as a Karn Wishboard Piece (which makes complete sense tbh) and An Omnath Deck running 4 of which also makes sense given Omnath's second Trigger, but the Omnath List looks to be a Japenease Tournament and those fuckers run all sorts of weird ass shit sometimes.

Like I said, I have to actually play with it myself a few times to decide, though I would think that Modern is way too fast most times for a Durdle card to be worth a slot. (Note: I would probably 100% change my mind if Yorion were around still, He powered Durdle shit up big time)

Nazgul are uncommon and apparently holding at $10-12 right now too.

That happens all the time with the stupid "Can play more than 4 of" in this deck except for 7 Dwarves, Relentless Rats has like 8 Printings and its still a 2 Dollar Uncommon because of the Sick Degenerates that want to Run Relentless Rat EDH. I kind of think the two "Chase" cards in a year are gonna be the Naz'guls and the Bowmaster.

 

[Flexo]

That happens all the time with the stupid "Can play more than 4 of" in this deck except for 7 Dwarves, Relentless Rats has like 8 Printings and its still a 2 Dollar Uncommon because of the Sick Degenerates that want to Run Relentless Rat EDH. I kind of think the two "Chase" cards in a year are gonna be the Naz'guls and the Bowmaster.

Yeah I want to make an "american dragons" EDH deck utilizing dragon's approach and that card is like... $3. Meaning a minimum playset of 5 is $15.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Yeah I want to make an "american dragons" EDH deck utilizing dragon's approach and that card is like... $3. Meaning a minimum playset of 5 is $15.

Just make a bunch of Custom Godzilla Proxies for Dragon's Approach called "Someone found Oil"

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Protection from Everything is nearly a timewalk against a lot of aggressive decks, there's a fairly narrow use case for it in Modern yeah but I can see it being in the conversation for any deck that's already leaning control. If you are playing 3feri maybe this makes sense in your deck. Also there are very few answers to a resolved indestructible artifact, Haywire mite is the only common one I can think of if you're up against a green saga deck I guess.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Protection from Everything is nearly a timewalk against a lot of aggressive decks,

The problem is 4 Mana against burn is probably asking a lot.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Oh! Thank you for reminding me what I REALLY wanted to clip out of that article. (I had forgotten.)

Good grief that's stupid.
It's often the case the tribal is not a racial thing (off the effortless top of my head neither Soldiers, Clerics, Wizards, Knights, Warriors, Rogue, Samurai are fucking species). Tribal is a decent shorthand and the only people who scream "it's a racist thing" are racists and racists who never stop obsessing over race and pretend that doesn't make them racist.

"Typal." Should have slapped whoever said that. Bet they play Slivers.

 

[Logistical Nightmare]

The lotr limited environment seems like ass. I've been grinding some drafts on arena, and even with some sick pulls to build around, I think I've only won one draft. It feels like there's too much going on, and I keep running into new cards that I didn't even see in spoiler season. sealed is fine, and I've had better luck there, but beyond the nice boost to food, a lot of the same problems with armies still exist, games go long on the regular. maybe I'll change my mind after an in person draft, but the set feels over engineered to fit the flavor, something it doesn't even do well.

You sure about it not being playable? It apparently was put into the prerelease packs as one of those alt-arts you can get and it's still retaining like $30 value.

It's in the bundles as a set with sam, frodo, and gollum. according to the tcgplayer listings it's still running just over $55 a piece for the foil copy you get for just buying the bundle???? something doesn't feel right here

 

[Oddjob OTP]

The lotr limited environment seems like ass. I've been grinding some drafts on arena, and even with some sick pulls to build around, I think I've only won one draft. It feels like there's too much going on, and I keep running into new cards that I didn't even see in spoiler season. sealed is fine, and I've had better luck there, but beyond the nice boost to food, a lot of the same problems with armies still exist, games go long on the regular. maybe I'll change my mind after an in person draft, but the set feels over engineered to fit the flavor, something it doesn't even do well.

Yeah, if you look at the stats on 17Lands you pretty much just force Rakdos, or at the least shove some black and red cards into whatever you're doing. Blue and green are piss poor like (nearly) always.

It's in the bundles as a set with sam, frodo, and gollum. according to the tcgplayer listings it's still running just over $55 a piece for the foil copy you get for just buying the bundle???? something doesn't feel right here

To the best of my understanding those bundles sold out quickly and you'll have a hard time finding one for less then 200% mark up. Maybe an intentionally shitty print run, maybe they sold out.

 

[derpherp2]

The only Failure in Ixalan was the Tribal aspects because sets heavily designed around specific Tribes are always failures in the short term because Standard is simultaneously not deep enough for Tribes, and too deep for Tribes.

I know it sounds Oxymoronish, but there are too many cards for a dedicated tribal deck to really compete because you have to play really bad cards and those don't compete with just having a pile of the strongest cards...and not enough card depth for the Tribes to have enough playables. Shit even now outside of Legacy Tribal decks just aren't really amazing, Humans doesn't have the card quality to compete in Modern these days.

The Only playable Tribal deck these days is Elves.

Edit : For the record, Ixalan was one of the cores of the Top decks in the very last time standard wasn't unbalanced trash.

I like wizards + shamans due to harmonic prodigy though.

Honestly, I just want more changelings with triggers on it.
Shames there's literally only one useable 1c wizard, iirc there's fucktons of shamans tho.

 

[Flexo]

The lotr limited environment seems like ass. I've been grinding some drafts on arena, and even with some sick pulls to build around, I think I've only won one draft. It feels like there's too much going on, and I keep running into new cards that I didn't even see in spoiler season. sealed is fine, and I've had better luck there, but beyond the nice boost to food, a lot of the same problems with armies still exist, games go long on the regular. maybe I'll change my mind after an in person draft, but the set feels over engineered to fit the flavor, something it doesn't even do well.

Interesting. Especially since the release notes for this set only had the "tempted by the ring" mechanic as new - everything else was a returning mechanic. Which isn't a bad idea on WotC's part - if you think this set will get a bunch of newbies into MTG, assume food and amass and all this other stuff is new to them etc. But then every card does look like a small book to read too.

It's in the bundles as a set with sam, frodo, and gollum. according to the tcgplayer listings it's still running just over $55 a piece for the foil copy you get for just buying the bundle???? something doesn't feel right here

Thank you for the clarification. (honestly! no sarcasm) I had heard about it third hand and was having trouble finding more info since any search for this set and "the one ring" just brings up a flood of endless articles about this stupid serialized card.

Oh and @Rich Evans Ayypologist - I'll grant that you were right to a point. It looks like this set is selling like gangbusters. But at a glance it's hard to see that it's doing well among the LotR fandom. A lot of the buying seems to be speculators chasing the serialized one ring.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I like wizards + shamans due to harmonic prodigy though.

Honestly, I just want more changelings with triggers on it.
Shames there's literally only one useable 1c wizard, iirc there's fucktons of shamans tho.

Harmonic Prodigy didn't come out of a dedicated tribal set though, like when I say "Tribal Sets are terrible inherently" I mean specifically blocks/sets focused from the top down on tribal synergies like Ixalan was, it makes a bunch of generally underpowered cards that are useful in only one archtype..most of which have more powerful cards available to them from non Tribal focused sets.

Like Harmonic Prodigy, Printing a Tribal Card is fine..focusing an entire set around Tribal cards is where things go wrong.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Harmonic Prodigy didn't come out of a dedicated tribal set though, like when I say "Tribal Sets are terrible inherently" I mean specifically blocks/sets focused from the top down on tribal synergies like Ixalan was, it makes a bunch of generally underpowered cards that are useful in only one archtype..most of which have more powerful cards available to them from non Tribal focused sets.

Like Harmonic Prodigy, Printing a Tribal Card is fine..focusing an entire set around Tribal cards is where things go wrong.

Lorwyn was ok, but it was also pushed and spawned a few new tribes in itself.