Magic The Gathering

[Oddjob OTP]

Also tards on Arena love lifegain decks (and cat oven) more then life itself. No one knows why. Most standards you can maindeck lifegain hate and be mostly assured it will hose 1 in 5 decks you face (right now, there is no lifegain tribal deck worth shitting on but at least you fuck with half of what Shelodred does so that's something). In explorer it only really fucks angel tribal but thats probably worth only a few sideboard cards. Historic you hit heliod tree combo decks which are common enough to probably be worth it.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Part of why Life Gain is popular is probably burn being the cheapest deck in both person and Arena to build, so it turns into a retarded game of the burn deck and the deck that beats the burn deck. I know I ran burn just because when I came back most of my shit had rotated and I had a ton of common and uncommon wild cards but very few rare and mythic slots. Now I have burn and a control deck, though even in my control build I'm still running a healthy amount of life gain (Shelodred, the 3/3 anti grave werewolf, etc) as burn is super common in every tier up to Platinum which I reached just doing the daily stuff.

Most Arena players are really bad.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Most standards you can maindeck lifegain hate and be mostly assured it will hose 1 in 5 decks you face (right now, there is no lifegain tribal deck worth shitting on but at least you fuck with half of what Shelodred does so that's something).

If you play Bo1, yeah. In Bo3, they don't really exist - and it isn't like there's a lot of lifegain hate, either. There's that knight that some people have tried to shove into monoblack shells, and there's that silly 4/3 for 3 from the new set. It just folds really, really hard to you boarding in more removal.

Frankly, Brother's War finally made me unable to ignore the fact that standard has settled into a prolonged period of "pick your colors, and then just pick the good stuff in them." When I first started the game, there was a bit more choice in construction and synergy was relevant since rares and mythics which were pushed weren't so bad - compare Brimaz to Myrel, for example. I assume it's been the case that you just shove in auto-includes for some time, but I guess I didn't really play in enough past standard formats for long enough to notice.

The limited seems pretty alright, although it feels a lot like a light prince format coming off the back of Dominaria's excellent pauper one. If you get Wurmcoil, you'll probably get like 5 free wins... though it is true that there's a surprising amount of exile-based removal at common this time around.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Frankly, Brother's War finally made me unable to ignore the fact that standard has settled into a prolonged period of "pick your colors, and then just pick the good stuff in them." When I first started the game, there was a bit more choice in construction and synergy was relevant since rares and mythics which were pushed weren't so bad - compare Brimaz to Myrel, for example. I assume it's been the case that you just shove in auto-includes for some time, but I guess I didn't really play in enough past standard formats for long enough to notice.

I feel like the problem is that the "fun" cards with real deck building costs are hilariously expensive relative to their deck building cost. You can and should throw Sheoldred in every deck with black mana because it's cheap straight forward and powerful but have fun trying to live long enough to cast chaotic transformation or brilliant restoration or over the top in a deck built to profit off it.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

You can and should throw Sheoldred in every deck with black mana because it's cheap straight forward and powerful but have fun trying to live long enough to cast chaotic transformation or brilliant restoration or over the top in a deck built to profit off it.

Yeah, but consider even Tezzy. He's 4 mana, his ability applies on both turns (so you can activate a bankbuster on your opponent's turn for free), his + is card advantage with enough artifacts, his - can protect him and give you tempo (especially with powerstones), and his ultimate is pretty easy to hit and leads to insurmountable advantage... and he's completely unplayable.

He synergizes well with a ton of stuff that's in the format, but all of that synergy amounts to flat nothing in the face of "I play this pushed card, now I play this pushed card, now I play this pushed card gg"

 

[Retink Retunk]

He synergizes well with a ton of stuff that's in the format, but all of that synergy amounts to flat nothing in the face of "I play this pushed card, now I play this pushed card, now I play this pushed card gg"

That's the problem with everything being so pushed, you just play good stuff piles and looking into the top decks of standard all of them are labeled some form of midrange, most of them don't really run much removal, and Wrath effects almost don't exist, probably because every card is an army of one so even if you wipe the board the second you pass initiative they just play one card and it's enough to dominate the field again.

Prototype doesn't help either, and while I like the idea, the cards are strong enough that they're just great in both modes and if anything the non-prototyped version is just a small perk and not the main mode you want to play the card in when it feels like it should be the opposite, in that the prototype shouldn't have the primary ability or a weaker version of the ability but they'd probably have to do double face cards for that, but maybe they could have just done the bracket thing.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Wizards of the Coast filed a C&D against Card Conjurer:



Has WotC been ramping this up, due to the financial situation with Hasbro becoming more and more of an issue?

 

[Retink Retunk]

Wizards of the Coast filed a C&D against Card Conjurer:

View attachment 3890676

Has WotC been ramping this up, due to the financial situation with Hasbro becoming more and more of an issue?

I have no idea what this is, but looks like a custom card creator. Here's the text from the website error page

CARD CONJURER​

I'm sorry.​

On November 3rd, 2022, I received a cease and desist for Card Conjurer.​

​

Today, November 18th, I’m taking it down.​

​

I wish there were another way. I tried everything I could. The fact is, Wizards wants it down, and so I must comply.​

​

I initially received an email from Reynolds Law requesting that I take down my website because it uses copyrighted and trademarked material from Wizards of the Coast. I responded by explaining my situation and how I believed that Card Conjurer respected the fan content policy.​

​

I also asked why Card Conjurer is being C&D’d but not other custom card creators that don’t provide Wizards’ copyright notice, put card frames behind paywalls, have been around longer, and have more users. I was told that Wizards “enforces its rights… as it deems appropriate.”​

​

Ultimately, their attorney listed some examples to warrant taking down Card Conjurer.​

1) verbatim copying of Card text and card art (I can remove card imports)​

2) messing with their legal notice by placing cardconjurer.com under their copyright (ok? I can remove that)​

3) Card Conjurer “reproduces, displays and allows the copying and distribution of many of the MAGIC: THE GATHERING trademarks and logos”​

​

Notice that this does not mention copyrights, just trademarks and logos. These primarily include the mana symbols, among other things.​

​

No one is allowed to use these trademarks without licensing, but as we all know, there are plenty of sites, products, and other content that use these symbols all the time. Unfortunately, now that I’m on WoTC’s radar, Card Conjurer can’t get away with it as everyone else does.​

​

I understand that Wizards has the right to protect its intellectual property and that the fan content policy includes a clause for arbitrary takedowns. I’m just disappointed that Card Conjurer can no longer do what so many other fan sites have done for years, and continue to do.​

​

So for these reasons, I have no other choice but to take down Card Conjurer.​

​

I have to be thankful that they asked me to take it down before pursuing legal action.​

​

However, this completely destroys me. I know I’m only 20, but Card Conjurer feels like my life’s work. I taught myself how to code in high school by starting Card Conjurer. I was really proud of it, and it means a lot to me personally.​

​

I’m immensely disappointed to have to take away Card Conjurer from the community. I can’t describe how much I loved seeing what everyone was making with it. I genuinely appreciate all the emails, tweets, and direct messages from over the years.​

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I’ll miss being tagged in posts with custom cards, blinged commanders, dank memes, cosplayer crossovers, and all the other cool stuff you’ve been making with it.​

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Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me along the way, especially my Patreon members, who enabled me to provide Card Conjurer for so long. I’ll be canceling all memberships and refunding the last month. Sorry to let you all down.​

​

When Wizards announced MTG 30th Anniversary Edition, the community responded by embracing proxies. Now, I believe that this C&D is Wizards’ counter-response.​

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I’m sorry to everyone who’s affected by this. I wish there were a way I could fight it.​

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I still love the game, but this is a sad day for the Magic community.​

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Once more, thank you so much to all of my supporters:​

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Spoiler: Name dump

Kobe P.

Spoiler: Name dump

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Paul C.​

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Alex W.​

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Aaron C.​

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Ancestral MTG​

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Sheepwave​

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Yunas​

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Ritchie T.​

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Aurelian M.​

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The Bell-Horwaths​

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Bradley C.​

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Endiron​

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John C.​

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Benjamin D.​

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Brent O.​

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Elry​

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Edward E.​

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Avery D.​

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Zachary C.​

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TheSapphireTri​

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Rhys W.​

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Ross G.​

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James M.​

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Westane​

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Kerby​

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Taya​

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Aibis D.​

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Alex​

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Dominic F.​

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Brendan R.​

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SE​

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Connor S.​

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Adjicio​

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Makoto Takahashi​

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Molta​

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Morgan S.​

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Jonathan D.​

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Jay S.​

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James T.​

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Devin L.​

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Palmer S.​

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Brian G.​

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Ken M.​

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Frank O.​

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Ken Z.​

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Fabien S.​

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Trentyn D.​

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Geovani N.​

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Travis P.​

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Frank R.​

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Georg H.​

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dave​

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Josh C.​

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Leo H.​

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Dawid S.​

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Mason L.​

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Andreas H.​

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Ben S.​

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Ap0c4lyptyc​

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MTG FOR DUMMIES​

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Sam E.​

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Tim L.​

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Lewis​

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Jayson M.​

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Justin J.​

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Sam B.​

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Damian Z.​

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Montana K.​

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Clark P.​

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Augusto V.​

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Charles R.​

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Pugg​

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Morgan F.​

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Jesse H.​

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Saoirse T.​

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Julian N.​

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Sean A.​

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Johnny S.​

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Stef B.​

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Jovanny S.​

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Junkman​

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Marco S.​

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Donnis H.​

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nullJaeger​

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Michael W.​

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Navin K.​

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Nicholas P.​

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Chikara K.​

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David C.​

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Aaron J.​

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Leif T.​

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Martin C.​

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Rodney F.​

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Will A.​

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Samuel T.​

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Donovan M.​

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Nathan C.​

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Neal M.​

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Edward V.​

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Mike S.​

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DaveO J.​

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Logan D.​

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Marcos N.​

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Austin T.​

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Joel T.​

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Geoffrey T.​

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Jimmy M.​

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Gwynayne W.​

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Guillaume D.​

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Adam T.​

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Ben K.​

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Tom B.​

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Brittany C.​

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Swimmaf​

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Austin M.​

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Karl G.​

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Louis C.​

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ChayGamin​

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What I do next is uncertain. I don't think I'll abandon Card Conjurer, but I must shut down for now. I hope to return in the future with a new version, oriented towards fully custom cards for game designers. But unfortunately, the days of being a custom Magic card creator are over. It was great while it lasted.​

​

​

​

—Kyle​

 

[namelesstacotruck]

Should respond by just open sourcing everything possible with minimal possible removals.

 

[Maratus volans]

FFG bought the property a few years back and relaunched it as an LCG with some intention for community driven stuff (there was even a card created by vote on the web) but well... that's a story for another day. It has since released a final co-op set and is now considered a "complete" game.

To continue this tangent just a little bit:

I played the FFG L5R game in the core set and the first cycle and it struck me then as a game with a definite expiration date on it. The game could be fun but it could also be a dull, frustrating resource management slog. It felt like there were a lot of instances where you'd run into analysis paralysis at critical moments in the game and either give yourself a headache working out your odds or just say, "Fuck it, I'll just see what happens." The original L5R already had a pretty deep combat system and plenty of decision points outside of that so I don't really get why they grafted the fate system on top of things.

Regardless of their reasons, making a game that complicated and math-y definitely limits its appeal. I stopped playing by the end of the first cycle because the player base in my area vanished. People just weren't enjoying it. It's too bad because I like L5R's world and I think there's potential for a good game in the vein of the first one but without some of its more frustrating aspects, but FFG's take sadly wasn't it.

 

[Retink Retunk]

You know, I'm kind of surprised there isn't a reanimator deck in Standard. There's a ton of ways to get things into your library and several 5 mana return an artifact to play, so combine that with Fleshgorger, City Leveler, and Phyrexian Portal and you have a rather strong base. The rest can just be removal and disruption.

I'd build it for the fun of it, but it would take way too many rares and mythics for me to care to grind out in Arena for a fun deck.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

You know, I'm kind of surprised there isn't a reanimator deck in Standard. There's a ton of ways to get things into your library and several 5 mana return an artifact to play, so combine that with Fleshgorger, City Leveler, and Phyrexian Portal and you have a rather strong base. The rest can just be removal and disruption.

I'd build it for the fun of it, but it would take way too many rares and mythics for me to care to grind out in Arena for a fun deck.

There are many, Boros (or Naya if you want to be technical) existed since last standard basically doing boros control things with kiki and a few white/treasure ramp spells and then trying to cast Invoke Justice to reanimate Velomachus Lorehold (or Titan of Industry). Might move into artifacts to use the artifact reanimator too but then it should probably go Mardu for the 7/5 menace lifelink ward artifact creature since that's probably the 2nd best reanimation target after Titan of Industry.

Jund Midrange sometimes plays the 5 mana reanimate saga as a value play to bring out Titan of Industry, but like most of the midrange piles how into this as a plan they are varies by the builder's interest. I think it's probably not as good as just building around Windgrace and ramping

Dimir can work on the reanimate plan but kind of lacks much to do outside of it

There's also a azorious control deck that works like you envision.

I've been too busy to do much MTG this week but I've been playing jund chaotic transformation in standard which is more of a transmorgify deck then reanimator but sometimes you turn a treasure into Phyrexian Portal and then you're a reanimator deck.

 

[Flexo]

To continue this tangent just a little bit:

I played the FFG L5R game in the core set and the first cycle and it struck me then as a game with a definite expiration date on it. The game could be fun but it could also be a dull, frustrating resource management slog. It felt like there were a lot of instances where you'd run into analysis paralysis at critical moments in the game and either give yourself a headache working out your odds or just say, "Fuck it, I'll just see what happens." The original L5R already had a pretty deep combat system and plenty of decision points outside of that so I don't really get why they grafted the fate system on top of things.

Regardless of their reasons, making a game that complicated and math-y definitely limits its appeal. I stopped playing by the end of the first cycle because the player base in my area vanished. People just weren't enjoying it. It's too bad because I like L5R's world and I think there's potential for a good game in the vein of the first one but without some of its more frustrating aspects, but FFG's take sadly wasn't it.

I have the full game but didn't get to play in as many tournaments as I wanted.

But man you are right it is a processing power workout. Just FYI they did invent an alternate play mode that streamlined a lot if you ever wanted to give it a try.

I actually liked the fate mechanic in theory. It was a way to keep the board state from getting too locked and really pushed you to go "use it or lose it" playstyle. It also allowed them to have "creature destruction" in a way (remove fate effects) without it feeling as bad as outright destruction. You just lost your man a turn (or two) sooner than you thought. I think probably the worst thing about it (and I played some of original 1E version of L5R late in its life) is that it rarely had "rules of thumb" you could keep in mind. If anything, sometimes there were rules that seemed to go against each other i.e. If a guy is bowed, they don't contribute power, but you can still use their game text.

A lot of later development makes sense when you learn the team for making the game was reduced to like... one guy.

MtG and Force of Will (the degenerate anime version of MTG that is just... so much better*) always bugged me because so often it seems to end up being a fancy game of "war." (Keyforge... kind of avoids this and I can't say why) It's no wonder EDH has gotten so popular since it avoids that feeling.

L5R scratched that itch like you had to be tactical in a game, that you could never coast to victory on a card.

*

Spoiler: game autism

Ok so if you haven't played or looked at it, Force of Will is like literally a refined MTG. I'm going to explain it using MTG terms but obviously they have their own terms in the game to avoid legal hassle.

• So you have a "commander" which leads your deck - they are a specific card type - often 2 sided. Will explain why shortly.
• You have your main deck of spells, enchantments, creatures etc.
• Then you have a side deck which is your lands.

Both decks are shuffled. On your turn, you can tap your commander to draw the top card of your land deck and put it into play. When you reach the point of having enough, you can pay a cost to then have your commander enter the battlefield as a big creature to fight. Though they can still tap to generate lands (but if you do that, no tapping to attack...). Anyway, IIRC, almost every commander was designed so that their front side is a kind of enchantment, "board affecting" mode, and then the backside has their creature stats as well as a "kick ass fight" kind of mode/game text.

Again - it was like magic, perfected. But the fools had to go and put counterspells in green...

Part of why Life Gain is popular is probably burn being the cheapest deck in both person and Arena to build, so it turns into a retarded game of the burn deck and the deck that beats the burn deck. I know I ran burn just because when I came back most of my shit had rotated and I had a ton of common and uncommon wild cards but very few rare and mythic slots. Now I have burn and a control deck, though even in my control build I'm still running a healthy amount of life gain (Shelodred, the 3/3 anti grave werewolf, etc) as burn is super common in every tier up to Platinum which I reached just doing the daily stuff.

Most Arena players are really bad.

It doesn't help that Arena has probably the WORST dailies I had ever seen in a game. IIRC, 10 VICTORIES a day? Not games - victories. And not against the computer either, you had to do it against people.

Given how the games could run, heck yeah I can understand the temptation of "I'm going to build something to get through these games ASAP." It was just hard to justify building a creative or fun deck to fart around with when that would add hours of additional time to your already spending a hours just to daily. (that's assuming optimum play time too and you don't run into either the system or the opponent timing you out) Change the daily to just "play" 10 games against a human opponent and I would wager you'd start seeing more random decks out there as it would be less cost for people to experiment.

 

[Retink Retunk]

It doesn't help that Arena has probably the WORST dailies I had ever seen in a game. IIRC, 10 VICTORIES a day? Not games - victories. And not against the computer either, you had to do it against people.

Given how the games could run, heck yeah I can understand the temptation of "I'm going to build something to get through these games ASAP." It was just hard to justify building a creative or fun deck to fart around with when that would add hours of additional time to your already spending a hours just to daily. (that's assuming optimum play time too and you don't run into either the system or the opponent timing you out) Change the daily to just "play" 10 games against a human opponent and I would wager you'd start seeing more random decks out there as it would be less cost for people to experiment.

@Flexo It's so much worse than that. It's basically a daily quest that gives you 500-750 gold and 250 xp for doing X thing, and then a daily chain that gives you 50xp and 250->100->100->100->random card -> 50gold -> random card -> 50 gold -> etc for 10 wins total. You also have a weekly that gives you I think 250 xp a win (might bet 500 and I'm just remember it wrong) for 15 wins.

Considering a pack is 1k gold and a draft is 10k or 5k if it's a quick draft but has lower prize support. I can go infinite with sealed or draft, but a bad pool or run cripples your resources and takes ages. The XP rewards are bullshit too, without the bonus reward track you have to buy, you get a reward every other level, which is a pack, and it's 1k experience per level.

Just building one deck makes me not want to play the game once I've finished building it, and I remember when decks were a healthy mix of different rarities but outside of a few utility cards everything is a rare or mythic now. It's absurd. Even mono red burn has almost 20 rares in it these days, the mono white weenie deck has 65 rares and mythics (What the actual fuck?), but at least mono blue has only 5 rares main deck, but that's the most miserable deck to play as you just lose randomly to your own draws too often.

 

[Maratus volans]

@Flexo: not sure why I can't reply to you, but...

I didn't play late L5R. I remember seeing some of the previews from the first set of the second cycle, but IIRC not all of the clan packs were out when I stopped. It does sound like things went...kind of the way I'd expected they'd go.

I get that the Fate system was designed to put practical constraints on board size and to prevent board stalls, which could be a problem in the first L5R. Also, it let them control the number of creatures in play without having to resort to the first game's system of having everyone in a losing combat die, which made seizing and maintaining a tempo lead absurdly important and, combined with province destruction, meant you were always one bad combat away from spiraling into an unwinnable situation.

FFG L5R's unwinnable situations felt like they snuck up on you a lot more often. You'd look at the board one turn and suddenly realize, "Wait a minute, I'm on seven fate but my opponent has banked thirteen and they somehow have a better board position than I do...what?" IIRC Lion had that way worse than the other clans but there were a lot of micro decisions in every clan about fate management that could snowball into a situation where you were stuck almost permanently behind. In other words, it felt like Fate solved the problem of, "how do we cap army sizes without using total army destruction like in the prior game" but introduced a host of new problems and headaches. I think they maybe could have cracked that problem by having an RTS-style "food" cap, determined by your stronghold, where every guy cost a certain amount of food to keep around and you'd be able to free up food by dismissing guys on your turn or having them die to spells or effects.

As for FoW, I saw it and it looked like EDH: Waifu Simulator Edition, so I never dug into it.

 

[Retink Retunk]

Wizards had a reprint policy? Well, it's gone regardless but might just be temporary.

Rudy would make a fun KF member with his brand of autism.

 

[LobsterBoy669]

Wizards had a reprint policy?

Yes, the Reserved List. Essentially a big list of cards that can never be reprinted. The list includes a lot of obvious large value cards like the Power Nine, the original dual lands, all of the stupidly strong stuff from the Urza's sets, etcetera. The RL came about after 4th edition and Chronicles sunk the value of certain high value cards with reprints. WotC appeased the collectors by saying "Hey, here's a list of cards that will never, ever be reprinted, so don't worry, they won't lose value."

They kept it up for years but at some point decided that, hey, actually this thing fucking sucks and we're not doing it anymore. The cards that were already on the RL would stay there, just nothing more would be added. That said, Mark Rosewater has said on multiple occasions that he would love to get rid of it altogether.

Now, here's where things get interesting. See, WotC technically has no legally binding requirement to keep up the RL. But because of the concept of "promissory estoppel" they've kinda fucked themselves. Promissory estoppel is essentially "we made a reasonable verbal/written promise that we wouldn't do <thing>, and we won't ever break that promise." Their promise in this case would be that they'd never reprint the RL cards. If they were to break that promise, under the concept of promissory estoppel, any big time MTG collector with multiple tens of thousands of value tied up in their collection could theoretically sue for financial damages, because their RL cards would naturally lose value through reprints.

Now all that said, who knows what the fuck they're doing. I'd normally just assume they're updating the policy or even just the site, but it's awfully funny timing given that the 30th anniversary collector's edition was announced not too long ago.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Just building one deck makes me not want to play the game once I've finished building it, and I remember when decks were a healthy mix of different rarities but outside of a few utility cards everything is a rare or mythic now. It's absurd. Even mono red burn has almost 20 rares in it these days, the mono white weenie deck has 65 rares and mythics (What the actual fuck?), but at least mono blue has only 5 rares main deck, but that's the most miserable deck to play as you just lose randomly to your own draws too often.

Do you mind if I ask what deck you’re building that requires so many rares/mythics? I have two 60 card decks that have gotten me to platinum (black/blue mill deck and mono white soldier aggro) that only have about 10 rare/mythic cards each

My equipment/warrior deck that is almost only comprised of rare/mythic cards has only ever gotten into the low gold tier

 

[Flexo]

@Flexo: not sure why I can't reply to you, but...

I didn't play late L5R. I remember seeing some of the previews from the first set of the second cycle, but IIRC not all of the clan packs were out when I stopped. It does sound like things went...kind of the way I'd expected they'd go.

I get that the Fate system was designed to put practical constraints on board size and to prevent board stalls, which could be a problem in the first L5R. Also, it let them control the number of creatures in play without having to resort to the first game's system of having everyone in a losing combat die, which made seizing and maintaining a tempo lead absurdly important and, combined with province destruction, meant you were always one bad combat away from spiraling into an unwinnable situation.

FFG L5R's unwinnable situations felt like they snuck up on you a lot more often. You'd look at the board one turn and suddenly realize, "Wait a minute, I'm on seven fate but my opponent has banked thirteen and they somehow have a better board position than I do...what?" IIRC Lion had that way worse than the other clans but there were a lot of micro decisions in every clan about fate management that could snowball into a situation where you were stuck almost permanently behind. In other words, it felt like Fate solved the problem of, "how do we cap army sizes without using total army destruction like in the prior game" but introduced a host of new problems and headaches. I think they maybe could have cracked that problem by having an RTS-style "food" cap, determined by your stronghold, where every guy cost a certain amount of food to keep around and you'd be able to free up food by dismissing guys on your turn or having them die to spells or effects.

Yeah, they tried to streamline it with "fate" being like your food idea (less tokens to keep track of, you already needed to monitor fate & honor). Lion actually became overpowered apparently in later sets. Almost every clan did eventually get a 0 cost dude.

One of the other issues is that because everyone was capped at 7 per turn (though Unicorn did eventually get a stronhold that bent that), anything which could shuffle around fate was insanely powerful. Magic has card advantage? L5R has fate advantage. Like Scorpion having a 0 cost counterspell (well 0 in fate, it did kind of cost honor), which meant if you actually paid for an event, they could counter it and now be up even more in the fate game. Sometimes I wonder if they had done something like an "upkeep" cost. You had to decide how much to invest on character the moment you played them - meaning a 4 cost guy could actually cost you 6 if you wanted them to stick around for 3 turns. But then your opponent could play something like "Cloud the Mind" (for 1) and blank their text box. Don't you wish now you could get that extra 2 fate back? Maybe if instead of fate on the characters, the game had something like... upkeep. Where you had to decide how much you wanted to bank for next turn and how much you wanted to pay to keep your investments.

I dunno. Give skirmish mode a try sometime see if you like it any better.

As for FoW, I saw it and it looked like EDH: Waifu Simulator Edition, so I never dug into it.

It largely is, hence why it's disappointing that it's such a good version of magic that solves the land problem and it looks like it still hit powercreep.

 

[Maratus volans]

Power creep is an inevitability in any game that isn't a self-contained single release, I think. Eventually you exhaust all the interesting designs with good gameplay at a given power level and your options from there are either to recycle or to increase power. One of those moves product and the other gets your players complaining that you're out of ideas.

MtG only got away with gentle creep for as long as it did because it started off with some truly busted cards and then dialed things back after that. Once planeswalkers came out and became the default for card advantage, and the shift to NWO required them to do more ETBs on creatures, Magic got stuck on a permanent upward power creep trajectory.