Magic The Gathering

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Constantly printing new dual lands and multicolor lands just makes manabases lazier. It’s a shame they’re trying to bin shock lands the same way they did refuges, but that’s the only way to sell sealed product and make money. I spent a little bit of time updating my Yuriko deck the other day and after all of the nonbasic lands were totaled up there wasn’t a lot of room for basics.

Well the big problem is that..basically they have filled the design space of good ones.

You have Pain, Fetch, Filter, Battlebond, DFC Pathways, Shock, Check Lands, Fast Lands, Slow Lands, You have the Horizon Lands. That is two cycles a year that they could reprint and basically only reprint them once every 5 years just about.

What are we going to do have more shitty "enters the battlefield tapped" garbage that are usually worse than basic lands.

I’m not fond of the idea that swords isn’t as powerful as it used to be,

The Big Reason is the printing of Prismatic Ending, which is super easy to get to Converge 3 and hits any permanent type.

 

[nekrataal]

What are we going to do have more shitty "enters the battlefield tapped" garbage that are usually worse than basic lands.

Don’t tempt them, I think they believe that those are what players want. Fluff be damned, I’m sure you can find a way to include reprinted cycles of dual lands somehow. They printed the innistrad check lands in dominaria, how hard could it be to do that with other cycles?

The Big Reason is the printing of Prismatic Ending, which is super easy to get to Converge 3 and hits any permanent type.

That card on top of other cards like esper sentinel and skyclave apparition meant you had to make major upgrades to even decks like death and taxes.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Don’t tempt them, I think they believe that those are what players want. Fluff be damned, I’m sure you can find a way to include reprinted cycles of dual lands somehow. They printed the innistrad check lands in dominaria, how hard could it be to do that with other cycles?

Oh we are going to, but they won't ever be relevant. Like we have cycles like The Reveal Lands/Snarls that are a dollar each that will get reprinted before good shit, and a few incomplete cycles that were shitty that they will complete but at this point even two color EDH decks have plenty of good options without using shitty lands that 100% of the time enter the battlefield tapped.

 

[nekrataal]

Oh we are going to, but they won't ever be relevant. Like we have cycles like The Reveal Lands/Snarls that are a dollar each that will get reprinted before good shit, and a few incomplete cycles that were shitty that they will complete but at this point even two color EDH decks have plenty of good options without using shitty lands that 100% of the time enter the battlefield tapped.

The only reason most of the shitty enter play tapped lands are even reprinted is because of draft. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them complete the amonkhet cycle duals because of that.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Even in standard if I play more than 2 colors I only run like 0-3 basics, and most of them come in untapped. I don't know that there's much room left for designs for duals unless they start making just better versions of utility lands that are also duals.

I'd love some more Zendikar DFCs though.

 

[Stab You in the Back]

Massive WotC shill, The Magic Historian, did a Secret Lair opening on his channel yesterday. $40 for five cards, and they come out of a fresh pack massively curled. He ignores their condition, but literally every comment on the video except one talks about the curling. He doesn't address any of the curling comments, but responds to the one non-curling comment (buried down like 30+ comments deep). Its embarrassing that Wizards is selling a $40 product this shoddy.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

at least all the power creep has given us interesting formats where players' individual decision-making ability regularly influences the outcome of games, right?

...oh wait a minute

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Unfortunately all the power creep since Kaldheim has been in blue (and maybe green top ends and black removal if you want to be generous), oopsie

At this point I'm pro banning Alrund's even though it's the least unfair of turn's 3 win cons because anything that knocks turns down a notch is good. The other wincons (Liar and Hullbreaker) are completely impossible to interact with unless the turns player is just trash and outspeeding turns/izzet dragons before it hits 6 mana has become the litmus test of the entire format.

Also I've been playing a good deal of Sultai Cultivator and nerf rock, scissors is fine. Sincerely, paper.

 

[cuddle striker]

Unfortunately all the power creep since Kaldheim has been in blue (and maybe green top ends and black removal if you want to be generous), oopsie

At this point I'm pro banning Alrund's even though it's the least unfair of turn's 3 win cons because anything that knocks turns down a notch is good. The other wincons (Liar and Hullbreaker) are completely impossible to interact with unless the turns player is just trash and outspeeding turns/izzet dragons before it hits 6 mana has become the litmus test of the entire format.

I have hated turns decks since time walk. But I don't think it needs banned, it's a good top end for blue. Just because I personally hate it isn't meaningful. hullbreaker is a bitch though.

It's too big for legacy so it's not common in my format. I only hate it when I'm playing standard which isn't as often.

I drafted the new set again, there's so much chaff these last few, it's homelands era with a few bombs thrown in to get the coomers worked up. not worth the ten bucks I threw in for it.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I have hated turns decks since time walk. But I don't think it needs banned, it's a good top end for blue. Just because I personally hate it isn't meaningful. hullbreaker is a bitch though.

It's too big for legacy so it's not common in my format. I only hate it when I'm playing standard which isn't as often.

I drafted the new set again, there's so much chaff these last few, it's homelands era with a few bombs thrown in to get the coomers worked up. not worth the ten bucks I threw in for it.

I would not be surprised if Hullbreaker makes it into legacy reanimator, at least as a sideboard card. Suddenly you can break up any deck that cares about nonland permanents being in play and protect your cards from expensive spells just by casting ponder with a 7/8 body.

Also he's one of the few good reanimator targets that doesn't get bounced by Karakas.

 

[cuddle striker]

I would not be surprised if Hullbreaker makes it into legacy reanimator, at least as a sideboard card. Suddenly you can break up any deck that cares about nonland permanents being in play and protect your cards from expensive spells just by casting ponder with a 7/8 body.

Also he's one of the few good reanimator targets that doesn't get bounced by Karakas.

I want to build a good sneak and show deck around him. it'll be less anticipated than pulling out kozi

I think toxie might have an eventual home in dredge/reanimator as a board wipe against WW. I've seen it once and it was good.

I go back and forth with what I'm playing, my preference is always toolbox stompy but dredge sings to my heart.

 

[Barracuda Joe]

One of my favorite things about archelos is the fact that you can make a super interesting manabase using his amulet of vigor effect. All sultai bouncelands, the slow lands, the guildgates + gateway plaza + plaza of harmony, lotus field, a myatic sanctuary that always comes untapped, zagoth triome, and 3 basics is the bulk of what I run in archelos stax. The main reason I don't use duplicate basics is so I can alway get my card off tainted pact, or go pact thoracle. I wouldn't be running pact thoracle id it weren't for how much it taps down and keeps things locked under orbs and trinisphere, I don't want to lock people down and not have a merciful wincon.

Important note: Archelos Sultai Stax is Des' "gravity bomb" deck if it were made with the help of >2 braincells.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Unfortunately all the power creep since Kaldheim has been in blue (and maybe green top ends and black removal if you want to be generous), oopsie

It's most pronounced in cards like Chariot, Epiphany, Borrower, Bonecrusher, every single card in MH2, etc but their guiding philosophy of "don't print good things that require decision-making or have any form of drawback" generally makes everything fucking stale.

The other wincons (Liar and Hullbreaker) are completely impossible to interact with

White and black have the 2-cmc removal cards which do a decent job against them both, so long as you remember to keep them boarded in the matchup in standard. Of course, those cards also do absolutely nothing against the rest of the deck and are dead up until they play those wincons, so it doesn't exactly feel great. Might not be as much of an issue if Lier and Hullbreaker weren't randomly pushed as fuck for no apparent reason, but the modern design team really seems to like goldfish games and solitaire.

It doesn't help to think back to cards like Pearl Lake Ancient or Ojutai or Sphinx's Rev or big Elspeth and compare them as control wincons/engines to "let's have two really strong effects, slap on flash, slap on uncounterable, and also put it on a great statline" and "you can re-use all of your cheap removal without any penalty whenever you want, also no-one can counter it" nevermind the ability to back up both of those cards with a turns spell that you hide from all interaction in exile until a rainy day. Who doesn't love a format where there's no reason not to slap down all of your removal the absolute instant that you can and there's no point in ever worrying about overextending?

 

[Oddjob OTP]

It's most pronounced in cards like Chariot, Epiphany, Borrower, Bonecrusher, every single card in MH2, etc but their guiding philosophy of "don't print good things that require decision-making or have any form of drawback" generally makes everything fucking stale.

White and black have the 2-cmc removal cards which do a decent job against them both, so long as you remember to keep them boarded in the matchup in standard. Of course, those cards also do absolutely nothing against the rest of the deck and are dead up until they play those wincons, so it doesn't exactly feel great. Might not be as much of an issue if Lier and Hullbreaker weren't randomly pushed as fuck for no apparent reason, but the modern design team really seems to like goldfish games and solitaire.

It doesn't help to think back to cards like Pearl Lake Ancient or Ojutai or Sphinx's Rev or big Elspeth and compare them as control wincons/engines to "let's have two really strong effects, slap on flash, slap on uncounterable, and also put it on a great statline" and "you can re-use all of your cheap removal without any penalty whenever you want, also no-one can counter it" nevermind the ability to back up both of those cards with a turns spell that you hide from all interaction in exile until a rainy day. Who doesn't love a format where there's no reason not to slap down all of your removal the absolute instant that you can and there's no point in ever worrying about overextending?

Nothing actually removes them unless the blue player taps out or runs out of bounce spells and/or instants, if you target them with removal the blue player can't just counter they end up back in the blue players hand. Hullbreaker is even more unreasonable since it will be cast in your end step unless you bait the player into using it to block something during combat. You can fuck with the deck pretty hard with enough Test of Talents (until Liar comes down) and the strixhaven Mind Blank since it's the only good graveyard hate in the format but there's no reason to main deck that kind of hate against any other deck in the format and blue being the best solution to blue problems is terrible like always.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Hullbreaker is even more unreasonable since it will be cast in your end step unless you bait the player into using it to block something during combat

Massive threats like Hullbreaker should never have flash, fucking around with timing like that on threats has been a massive problem for years and I wish WOTC would stop that.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

if you target them with removal the blue player can't just counter they end up back in the blue players hand.

That might speak to the fact that I was mostly playing UW tempo decks and BR midrange decks, since I would usually get cheap stuff like fading hope into the graveyard and forcing them to use it to protect Lier would functionally be like timewalking them. For decks with less threats for them to spend the removal on, yeah, each fading hope being a double-use rescue for Lier and a rescue-bounce for the horror is stupid.

I didn't even realize horror could target itself with the bounce clause, I guess since I've been lucky enough to drain out fading hopes before it got cast each time. That's retarded.

 

[Maratus volans]

Who doesn't love a format where there's no reason not to slap down all of your removal the absolute instant that you can and there's no point in ever worrying about overextending?

I have to wonder if Commander and Modern being the two biggest ways to play Constructed Magic these days mean they're not developing as much for Standard anymore. I also have to wonder if the normalization of semi-regular bans has made them lazy - you don't need to find all the problematic interactions before you release the set if you can just use MTGO/Arena data and fix it later. Maybe having to develop and release a million new products a year means they don't have the time to test stuff anymore; maybe there's just been a brain drain on the team and they don't know what they're doing anymore. It's worth remembering that at some point Oko, Uro, and Once Upon a Time were all supposed to be in the same Standard together (with Veil of Summer in the sideboard) and this was apparently okay with them, and that Historic has seen near-constant bans since its inception.

Another thing I think is at play here is that they're trying to grow the game outside its core audience of neckbeards. Neckbeards will absolutely want to play a game where the careful sequencing and optimizing of your plays is required and rewarded, but normies don't, or don't want to often. Also, Commander is the default for casual Magic now, and a four player format with all sets legal is basically the poster child for emergent complexity. Printing cards with an obvious correct usage and little nuance helps ease normies into what would otherwise be a kind of overwhelming format.

 

[updoot farmer]

huh, Havent played since the harry potter pandering set, poked my head into mtg and holy fuck the art for new kamigawa is bland so far, neat basics excluded.

How the fuck do you fuck up cyberpunk? Hire some netrunmer artists or something fuck

 

[Flexo]

It's finally been posted to the public.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Good to see WotC make Jiraiya into a card.

Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, if you don't control a creature named Keimi, create Keimi, a legendary 3/3 black and green Frog creature token with "Whenever you csat an enchantment spell, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
1[G/U]: Tatsunari, Toad Rider and target Frog you control can't be blocked this turn except by creatures with flying or reach.