Magic The Gathering

[Flexo]

Fires is a shitty card, and we got another year of it in standard.

What baffles me is if you go back and look at this article:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/make-no-mistake-2003-11-10-0

This is one of my personal blunders. I started trying to create a simple replacements for cantrips (Cards that cost a card but essentially not mana) and ended up with a mechanic that fundamentally broke the game. The free mechanic, for those that do not recognize the nickname, are spells found in the Urza's Saga block that when played untap a number of lands equal to the spell's converted mana cost. (Time Spiral, Frantic Search, Tolarian Winds, etc.)​

​

This mechanic proved to be fundamentally broken. The major problem with it was that players used it as a means of mana generation. Normally, a mechanic can be fixed with costing, but the free mechanic had the weird property of improving as the mana cost was raised. The valuable lesson R&D learned with this mechanic was that not everything created in design can necessarily be balanced in development.​

Mark and them should KNOW that circumventing the mana costs in the game always breaks it.

Scroll down the article a little further...

The lesson here is that the card designers have to learn to respect the past. If something's was broken before, odds are it might be broken again.​

Was weed recently legalized in Seattle? That's the only thing that explains some WotC decisions.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Was weed recently legalized in Seattle? That's the only thing that explains some WotC decisions.

They wanted to push the power of standard up a bit, which was fine but..WotC needs to stop doing shit that they know doesn't ever work well long run..like FUCKING GRAVEYARD MECHANICS.

 

[Woke Capitalism]

Right now, fast mana is a huge problem in standard. You used to have mana dorks like Llanowar Elves and ramp spells like Rampant Growth. These were good at getting you ahead on mana, but the Elves sucked if you drew them late game and rampant growth wasn't great past turn 3 or so. You can't just spend your entire turn doing nothing.

Then we get cards like Growth Spiral and Uro. They both draw you a card no matter what, so they're always playable. Then you get a land onto the battlefield. There's several cards that have a semi-landfall theme, and on top of that lands are HARD to interact with. You can bolt a bird, but you can't always remove a land. So, you're getting card advantage plus mana ramp.

That's not even the most broken thing though! Right now, standard consists of decks trying to cheat a 7 mana 2/3 into play. Why? This 7 mana 2/3 steals permanents. Not creatures, permanents. And there's so many ways to get him onto the battlefield! You have Winota, where you can attack with a 1/1 soldier and drop the Agent onto the battlefield as early as turn 4. You can use the new Lukka planeswalker to exile a token and smash Agent onto the battlefield. You can, of course, ramp up into him using Uro or Growth Spiral and the mana dorks, but that's not even good enough.

Plus, companions are nuts. Yorion asks you play an additional 20 cards in your deck. So, let's play a bunch of cyclers and card draw, and the extra cards don't matter. Then, after you get your Fires of Invention on the field, cast a spell, cast Yorion, blink your Fires, and cast ANOTHER spell. Triple mana, huzzah! And if you blink an agent or Teferi, you can steal another card and bounce Yorion to repeat!

I am so tired of standard now. Ikoria was just bad.

 

[Flexo]

Right now, fast mana is a huge problem in standard. You used to have mana dorks like Llanowar Elves and ramp spells like Rampant Growth. These were good at getting you ahead on mana, but the Elves sucked if you drew them late game and rampant growth wasn't great past turn 3 or so. You can't just spend your entire turn doing nothing.

Then we get cards like Growth Spiral and Uro. They both draw you a card no matter what, so they're always playable. Then you get a land onto the battlefield. There's several cards that have a semi-landfall theme, and on top of that lands are HARD to interact with. You can bolt a bird, but you can't always remove a land. So, you're getting card advantage plus mana ramp.

That's not even the most broken thing though! Right now, standard consists of decks trying to cheat a 7 mana 2/3 into play. Why? This 7 mana 2/3 steals permanents. Not creatures, permanents. And there's so many ways to get him onto the battlefield! You have Winota, where you can attack with a 1/1 soldier and drop the Agent onto the battlefield as early as turn 4. You can use the new Lukka planeswalker to exile a token and smash Agent onto the battlefield. You can, of course, ramp up into him using Uro or Growth Spiral and the mana dorks, but that's not even good enough.

Plus, companions are nuts. Yorion asks you play an additional 20 cards in your deck. So, let's play a bunch of cyclers and card draw, and the extra cards don't matter. Then, after you get your Fires of Invention on the field, cast a spell, cast Yorion, blink your Fires, and cast ANOTHER spell. Triple mana, huzzah! And if you blink an agent or Teferi, you can steal another card and bounce Yorion to repeat!

I am so tired of standard now. Ikoria was just bad.

WotC keeps swearing they have a "future-future-league" on staff filled with former pro players to test how the environment will be years down the road with upcoming sets.

Ikoria makes me wonder if that group is still around or what because how in the world can you miss those interactions?

The only charity I can give them is that I know a year or so ago WotC was really futzing with rotation - first saying it would be X number of sets, then it would be Y sets. If my calculations are correct, that FFL tests things 2-3 years out, Ikoria would be being tested right around when this rotation flip-flop was happening. So MAYBE (just maybe) they were testing it in one environment and then WotC changed the policy that completely flipped that environment when it was too late for FFL to test the new environments.

(I am curious if everyone is still in a big hugbox in the company or if yellings and blamefests are breaking out.)

 

[Woke Capitalism]

They had a play design team that was hired after...I think Kaladesh? That standard saw so many bannings. War of the Spark was the first set that they had input into, though not total input. Throne of Eldraine was the first set they had input into from start to finish. The result? Oko. I have no faith in them being able to balance anything. These are the people that were only using Oko's +1 to elkify their own stuff and didn't think to turn all your opponent's threats useless permanently.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

The result? Oko.

That wasn't even the design team, that was the play testers being absolutely retarded.

Edit : And to be fair EVERYONE thought Oko sucked when it was previewed.

(I am curious if everyone is still in a big hugbox in the company or if yellings and blamefests are breaking out.)

I bet the Hugbox is still happening..and will until the lockdowns are all done..and people just don't show up at standard FNMs.

 

[Flexo]

They had a play design team that was hired after...I think Kaladesh? That standard saw so many bannings. War of the Spark was the first set that they had input into, though not total input. Throne of Eldraine was the first set they had input into from start to finish. The result? Oko. I have no faith in them being able to balance anything. These are the people that were only using Oko's +1 to elkify their own stuff and didn't think to turn all your opponent's threats useless permanently.

Here's what they claimed in 2016.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/ffl-faq-2016-04-22

Key paragraph.

Sets tend to be in the FFL for about six months total. Much like how we release four sets a year, we also have similar FFL periods relating to those sets. The idea is that whenever a set is released, we are finalizing the next year's set in the same time frame. For instance, when Khans of Tarkir came out, we were looking at the real-world results of the first few weeks of Standard and the Pro Tour to see if there was anything major that we missed as we were finalizing Battle for Zendikar.​

So when war of the spark came out is when they would have been testing ikoria. (The sets & rotation shakeup were 2 years prior.)

I did check. There was this article on the FFL of WotS.

First Look: War of the Spark Future Future League

Andrew shares decks from War of the Spark testing to illustrate how Play Design pushes mechanics to the limit in the Future Future League.

magic.wizards.com

Let's see.... *checks archive* why that seems to be the LAST FFL article they ever posted. Even though the article says we should get one every quarter. Hmmmm......

EDIT: oh yeah. I decided to check the author's archive.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Mark and them should KNOW that circumventing the mana costs in the game always breaks it.

Scroll down the article a little further...

The lesson here is that the card designers have to learn to respect the past. If something's was broken before, odds are it might be broken again.​

Was weed recently legalized in Seattle? That's the only thing that explains some WotC decisions.

Seattle has a statue of Lenin. If there's one place in the US so high on it's own farts that it can convince itself that this time their galaxy brains can make a bad, broken, unworkable system good, it would be right there.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Here's what they claimed in 2016.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/ffl-faq-2016-04-22

Key paragraph.

Sets tend to be in the FFL for about six months total. Much like how we release four sets a year, we also have similar FFL periods relating to those sets. The idea is that whenever a set is released, we are finalizing the next year's set in the same time frame. For instance, when Khans of Tarkir came out, we were looking at the real-world results of the first few weeks of Standard and the Pro Tour to see if there was anything major that we missed as we were finalizing Battle for Zendikar.​

So when war of the spark came out is when they would have been testing ikoria. (The sets & rotation shakeup were 2 years prior.)

I did check. There was this article on the FFL of WotS.

First Look: War of the Spark Future Future League

Andrew shares decks from War of the Spark testing to illustrate how Play Design pushes mechanics to the limit in the Future Future League.

magic.wizards.com

Let's see.... *checks archive* why that seems to be the LAST FFL article they ever posted. Even though the article says we should get one every quarter. Hmmmm......

EDIT: oh yeah. I decided to check the author's archive.
View attachment 1309710

I see, Ikoria was so bad it made the FFL neck themselves.

 

[Flexo]

I see, Ikoria was so bad it made the FFL neck themselves.

LOL i seriously cannot stop laughing at that image.

MaRo walks into the FFL testing room and just every person in the league is just swinging from the ceiling.
Mark picks up the Ikoria cards and looks around the room.
"So no objections then?"

 

[Fervent Champion]

Looks like the whole "no more Masters set" lasted all of 18 months.

Announcing Double Masters

Announcing Double Masters, a set filled to the brim with powerful, popular reprints and two rare or mythic rare cards in each pack!

magic.wizards.com

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Looks like the whole "no more Masters set" lasted all of 18 months.

Announcing Double Masters

Announcing Double Masters, a set filled to the brim with powerful, popular reprints and two rare or mythic rare cards in each pack!

magic.wizards.com

Ugh

THIS IS A STRANGE TIME TO ANNOUNCE A NEW PRODUCT MUH COVID.
Jesus fucking Christ with the shits using black lotuses to wipe his ass. They act like the entire world should just stop forever.

LOL Kaalia of the Flatchested

 

[Fervent Champion]

Ugh

THIS IS A STRANGE TIME TO ANNOUNCE A NEW PRODUCT MUH COVID.
Jesus fucking Christ with the shits using black lotuses to wipe his ass. They act like the entire world should just stop forever.

LOL Kaalia of the Flatchested

At this point I'm just glad we're getting another decent reprint set. I can't believe they're doing what will probably end up being collectors boosters for a master's set.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

At this point I'm just glad we're getting another decent reprint set. I can't believe they're doing what will probably end up being collectors boosters for a master's set.

I am never mad at Reprints, I don't buy masters sets anyways the only packs I ever buy are for drafts or what I get out of a fat pack.

 

[Flexo]

Looks like the whole "no more Masters set" lasted all of 18 months.

Announcing Double Masters

Announcing Double Masters, a set filled to the brim with powerful, popular reprints and two rare or mythic rare cards in each pack!

magic.wizards.com

Well now there's a winner for dumbest name of a magic set.

Who in the world is naming these things? "jump-start" sounds like a fun time, but that name sucks too. (If you don't want to do "magic smash up" then call it something like "mtg blender" or something.)

we'll be replacing Collector Boosters with something we're calling VIP Edition (for this product only)

Oh come on! "Collector boosters" and "draft boosters" actually made sense from a labeling perspective.

Why do they keep futzing with the names of stuff? MaRo has talked before about easing new players into the mtg world. You know what makes stuff easier for new players? Consistent labeling.

It is kind of funny they "doubled up" the articles on it though.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/also-announcing-double-masters-2020-05-21

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

WotC keeps swearing they have a "future-future-league" on staff filled with former pro players to test how the environment will be years down the road with upcoming sets.

Ikoria makes me wonder if that group is still around or what because how in the world can you miss those interactions?

The only charity I can give them is that I know a year or so ago WotC was really futzing with rotation - first saying it would be X number of sets, then it would be Y sets. If my calculations are correct, that FFL tests things 2-3 years out, Ikoria would be being tested right around when this rotation flip-flop was happening. So MAYBE (just maybe) they were testing it in one environment and then WotC changed the policy that completely flipped that environment when it was too late for FFL to test the new environments.

(I am curious if everyone is still in a big hugbox in the company or if yellings and blamefests are breaking out.)

Are they same pro players who thought Trading Post would be the biggest thing in Standard back in 2014?

Also, R&D at WotC is two years, doesn't always seem that way though. It's probably more like two months of actual playtesting then shitting themselves for the other 22 months and hype up sets.

Looks like the whole "no more Masters set" lasted all of 18 months.

Announcing Double Masters

Announcing Double Masters, a set filled to the brim with powerful, popular reprints and two rare or mythic rare cards in each pack!

magic.wizards.com

It's not a Master's set though it's a "Double Masters set". Marketing is stupid at times, but the people who fall for this are even dumber.

 

[Fervent Champion]

I am never mad at Reprints, I don't buy masters sets anyways the only packs I ever buy are for drafts or what I get out of a fat pack.

I can't say I blame you, I normally only get them as prizes for FNM. The last actual box I bought was of Modern Horizons, which is one of my favorite draft formats in recent years.

 

[Flexo]

This meme version of Agent of Treachery DesolatorMagic posted made me laugh.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Maro : Hey do you know what people want? Balanced Cards and Good mana? NOPE

PEOPLE WANT SHITTY TATTOO ART ON THEIR CARDS!!!!!!

 

[anti SJW]

This could be very bad for WOTC

Are they trying to be like Naughty Dog?