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Ableist Kinkshamer posted:Does this mean we can expect the cube queues to pay out in VMA packs? Sounds sweet, either way. I tend to doubt it, although obviously the VMA events will pay in VMA. Vintage events literally don't fire now that they don't pay in VMA. They should probably just pay in VMA even when the set isn't in "print." Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 19:48
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The cube always pays out in whatever draft they've brought back to accompany it, so it'll almost certainly be VMA packs.
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Nov 3, 2014 20:16
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sarmhan posted:The cube always pays out in whatever draft they've brought back to accompany it, so it'll almost certainly be VMA packs. The travesty is that I can no longer just force mono red and take it all. 
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Nov 3, 2014 20:24
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Re: That Sultai Delver player that looked like he was out of his depth against Dredge? Welp: quote:What is the best deck in Legacy? Why?
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Nov 3, 2014 20:54
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Ciprian Maricon posted:If it ever got to the point where design was breaking the color pie too often and it was detrimental to the game they could just stop. You know, like they have readily identified established mechanics or design choices that were problematic and then didn't hesitate at all to correct. Why do you think all the random color bleeds are in core sets and supplemental products? It's not that they decide to save them for their lower-sale releases, it's that the bleed cards in sets Maro has more direct control over (expert expansions) get cut or changed. One of the most important things in any game based on a division of mechanics (like Magic or TF2) is that a color/class has weaknesses. If Maro didn't hate on color bleed so much it would show up far more often and actually have a detrimental effect on the game.
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Nov 3, 2014 20:56
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What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:02
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Lieutenant Centaur posted:What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me. Because people didn't understand that it was japan. Basically bad marketing. It's hard to say how theros would have been treated in a Kamigawa fasion since Greek Myth just has more personality-wise. Legendary and Arcane as themes tend to catch some flak but from the perspective of top-down you can't really look at a card like Sickening Shoal and just get that this card is somehow ghostly ailments killing your guy. Zoness fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:03
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Lieutenant Centaur posted:What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me. It was actaul Japanese mythology stuff and not anime.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:04
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I mean c'mon, tell me if done correctly who wouldn't buy Duel Decks: Ninja's vs. Samurai'sTerrible Horse posted:It was actaul Japanese mythology stuff and not anime. Well, I didn't mean that 100% literally, I should have phrased it better.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:06
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Lieutenant Centaur posted:What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me. It wasn't Asian/Kawaii, it was pretty focused on the mythology, and nerds aren't too familiar with that. It still had pretty cool flavour, it just wasn't immediately recognizable, and defied what was actually expected. Also, the power level was low after Mirrodin, and it was sandwiched between Mirrodin and Ravnica blocks, which are very much loved.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:06
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Serperoth posted:It wasn't Asian/Kawaii, it was pretty focused on the mythology, and nerds aren't too familiar with that. It still had pretty cool flavour, it just wasn't immediately recognizable, and defied what was actually expected. To be fair the power level wasn't low in and of itself- it was that it wasn't comparing to ravager affinity. They printed a real hoser for affinity in saviors but by then affinity was actually banned out of the format (iirc ravager + artifact lands). As for limited pros like LSV cite CCC and CCB as one of the best draft formats ever because soulshift was actually neat in limited. Zoness fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:07
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Lieutenant Centaur posted:What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me. It came immediately after Mirrodin and the power level disparity was huge. Splice and Soulshift were both linear mechanics that required you to run a bunch of cards that used them in order for them to work. Saviors had an awful Hand Size Matters theme that punished you for playing cards. Some idiots didn't get that Japanese mythology is awesome.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:08
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So I mentioned Judges tower as a cool and fairly insane timewaster format several weeks ago. Someone local finally collated the list they have been using here. Here are the rules again: -All players have infinite life. -All players have infinite mana. -If you break a rule, you lose. -All players share a ~250 card deck and a graveyard. You own every card you draw for purposes of things like Homeward Path. -Begin the game with 0 cards in hand. (Judges have a handicap starting hand size equal to their judge level) -You must play every card in your hand as soon as legally possible. All optional modes are mandatory, to the extent that you can fulfill them (ex. casting Mnemonic Wall with an empty graveyard is legal, but if there’s any spells in the yard you must target one with Mnemonic Wall’s ETB trigger). -You must activate every activated ability of permanents you control once per turn per legal target as soon as legally possible. -Always activate abilities from the bottom of the card up (for instance, if you satisfy Mosswort Bridge’s hideaway requirement you must activate it on upkeep, not the mana ability). -If a spell or ability has X in its mana cost, X is always 5. -You must attack with all legal attackers and block with all legal blockers whenever the option is presented to you. -Play the game until there’s a winner, that winner gets a point, then exile all permanents, all cards in the graveyard, and all cards in hands and start the next round. When the deck is empty, the player with the most points wins! -Basically, this game is the opposite of Magic. Drawing cards is bad, sacrificing creatures is good. Taking turns is bad, skipping turns is good. Proxy that poo poo and get playing it is so mindbending and fun!
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Nov 3, 2014 21:08
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bhsman posted:Re: That Sultai Delver player that looked like he was out of his depth against Dredge? Ok, so the answer to my question about how you get to the finals and not know how Dredge works is... dumb luck? Must be nice.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:10
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I think Kamigawa's flavor was cool in itself, but it got kind of repetitive in some ways. Way too many green cards that were sort of vague masses of plant matter, for example.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:10
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Plus Kamigawa was kind of garbage from the standpoint of people who really love actual Japanese mythology and folklore. Zorak and Chorocojo can attest to that. They made a whole bunch of bad creative decisions and intentionally made the block weak (after coming off the heels of Mirrodin) so unless you really liked drafting with cards whose names you have a hard time remembering there wasn't much to be excited about.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:11
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suicidesteve posted:Ok, so the answer to my question about how you get to the finals and not know how Dredge works is... dumb luck? Must be nice. Dredge isn't a deck with high exposure -- lot of people don't even think it's a "real strategy" or "playing real magic" Kabanaw posted:Plus Kamigawa was kind of garbage from the standpoint of people who really love actual Japanese mythology and folklore. Zorak and Chorocojo can attest to that. They made a whole bunch of bad creative decisions and intentionally made the block weak (after coming off the heels of Mirrodin) so unless you really liked drafting with cards whose names you have a hard time remembering there wasn't much to be excited about. I'm going to combine Soratami Mirror-Guard with Wicked Akuba in my deck that has a side-plan of using Scuttling Death to recur my Thief of Hopes to get back more Wicked Akubas. What do you mean this strategy makes no sense?
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Nov 3, 2014 21:11
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bhsman posted:Re: That Sultai Delver player that looked like he was out of his depth against Dredge? a bit further down the page from that. 
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Nov 3, 2014 21:19
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Kamigawa had a bunch of mechanics that were super linear and garbage outside of the set. If it had powerful cards and the Standard environment power levels weren't being messed with and pissing a lot of people off I am sure the set would have done much better.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:21
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rabidsquid posted:Kamigawa had a bunch of mechanics that were super linear and garbage outside of the set. If it had powerful cards and the Standard environment power levels weren't being messed with and pissing a lot of people off I am sure the set would have done much better. This isn't exclusive to Kamigawa but Kamigawa is arguably the worst it was. It's not like Affinity did much outside of Mirrodin or Astral Slide did much outside of Onslaught, with regards to Standard formats.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:24
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The trouble with the argument from clearly defining the colors' strengths and weaknesses for the good of the game design is that the ship has utterly and completely sailed on the idea that a deck with primarily green mana (or whatever) won't be able to remove creatures with effectively little or no practical drawback despite being a "green deck." If you think people should have to go all-in on being e.g. green mages, and accept that because they are green mages they won't be able to deal with creatures as well, then sure, I'll play that game. But saying that green mages casting a de facto oblivion ring with actual green mana in a flavorful fashion is verboten, but it's fine for "green mages" to cast the white oblivion ring in their otherwise green deck using the 8356435 high quality dual lands that these same designers have saturated the game with and removed much of the meaningful counterplay to in any format newer than Legacy... Well, that's just po-tay-to po-tah-to as far as I'm concerned at this point.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:24
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Zoness posted:Dredge isn't a deck with high exposure -- lot of people don't even think it's a "real strategy" or "playing real magic" But anybody who plays legacy even somewhat regularly knows how it works. You screw with their graveyard and strategically make your own dudes dead or you die very quickly. People I know who play Dredge like it specifically because it isn't "real Magic." I'm just thinking how many decks this guy could have run into where he would have just lost because he has no idea what they're doing. Dredge is one of the simpler of the "not playing Magic" decks. What would he have done against Omnitell, Breakfast Burrito, etc? He only beat Storm because his opponent screwed up; his one play (Forcing Carpet of Flowers) was actually pretty bad given his hand. No I'm not bitter that I can't even win a GPT because some jerk playing Belcher keeps turn 1 kills against my I-just-need-to-not-draw-6-lands-in-a-row-oh-look-I-drew-6-lands-in-a-row hands. 2 weeks in a row. Have fun going 0/2 drop in Jersey I guess. It sure was fun not playing Magic. 
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Nov 3, 2014 21:25
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rabidsquid posted:Kamigawa had a bunch of mechanics that were super linear and garbage outside of the set. If it had powerful cards and the Standard environment power levels weren't being messed with and pissing a lot of people off I am sure the set would have done much better. Bushido and Ninjitsu were definitely a little too on the nose. I keep wondering if we'll see those again but with less specific names.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:25
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A big barrier to me liking Kamigawa was that it felt like 90% of the creatures were 3/3s or worse for like 6 or 7 mana.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:27
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I like how the majority of the top 8 is either "I don't give a poo poo about Treasure Cruise" or "My deck hosed over Treasure Cruise anyway."
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Nov 3, 2014 21:33
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mango sentinel posted:A big barrier to me liking Kamigawa was that it felt like 90% of the creatures were 3/3s or worse for like 6 or 7 mana. I didn't play back then, but I can only imagine that Bushido just made creature combat worthless. Why block unless you were straight about to die?
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Nov 3, 2014 21:37
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AlternateNu posted:I didn't play back then, but I can only imagine that Bushido just made creature combat worthless. Why block unless you were straight about to die? In CCC? because you traded to soulshift back your other spirits. In CCB? because you didn't want a ninja shifted in to devastate your board. This isn't Zendikar sized creatures and levels of evasion, in limited the set mechanics incentivized trading and creature sizes were pretty trade-friendly. Kamigawa block (CCC and CCB, at least) was actually pretty interactive and IIRC Huey, BenS and LSV all cite it - CCC more so than CCB at least - as a great limited format. Also it was a format where milling - both naturally and as an active dedicated strategy - were possible ways to win so that owns. I'd also argue some cards were just mechanics that people didn't really grasp - like the Deceivers. Looking at Harsh Deceiver it took 14-year old me who had played magic for about a year a really long time to realize that the point of the two abilities was that I should peek and bluff with those creatures. Maybe I'm dumb but I feel like that kind of indirect interaction is hard to use. Also people probably didn't like the Soratami bounce your own lands mechanic even though moonfolk own. Zoness fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:41
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Count Bleck posted:I like how the majority of the top 8 is either "I don't give a poo poo about Treasure Cruise" or "My deck hosed over Treasure Cruise anyway." This is why I feel like Treasure Cruise will be safe for a little while in Legacy. It's not brutally overpowered, it's just another really strong card among many, and the metagame will adapt. Discard gets worse, graveyard/draw hosers get better, life gain and sweepers start getting played over spot removal, and the world turns.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:44
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PhyrexianLibrarian posted:This is why I feel like Treasure Cruise will be safe for a little while in Legacy. It's not brutally overpowered, it's just another really strong card among many, and the metagame will adapt. Discard gets worse, graveyard/draw hosers get better, life gain and sweepers start getting played over spot removal, and the world turns. I can see it possibly getting banned from Modern due to being the driving force that makes Delver about 90% of the decklists played, but then, we could also just run graveyard hosers.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:45
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Yeah, if it isn't banned under the Ancestral Visions rule (it's way too efficient for its cost), it'll get banned under the Green Sun's Zenith rule (every deck of that colour starts by running 4 of them, reducing deck diversity). I actually think Hatebears/Maverick are in a good place right now, between Thalia + Gaddock Teeg + Scavenging Ooze + Rest in Peace. Plus Maverick can splash red for Punishing Fire, which is a huge beating against Delver decks.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:50
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Zoness posted:In CCC? because you traded to soulshift back your other spirits. mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Nov 3, 2014 |
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Nov 3, 2014 21:53
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Lieutenant Centaur posted:What made Kamigawa so bad? Samuari, Ninja's and the whole Asian/Kawii poo poo that fantasy nerds seem to love would seem like big sellers to me. Turns out Shinto mythology is actually weird as poo poo and not kawaii at all. It was a block filled with weirdly named cards that most players didn't know what the hell they were referencing or what they were supposed to be. Plus most of the mechanics turned out to be pretty lacklustre and the power level was relatively low.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:54
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Kamigawa is one of my favorite sets flavorwise (note: I know basically nothing about actual Japanese mythology). The flavor on cards like Wandering Ones, Night of Souls' Betrayal and Yomiji, Who Bars the Way is soooo good. Unfortunately, it seems most people expected Goku and Naruto cards from the Japanese set. Mechanically it was a mess. The legendary theme was way exaggerated and didn't play all that well, Splice into Arcane and Soulshift were extremely insular mechanics, and most cards suffered from WotC taking a swift downward turn from Mirrodin's power level. Ninjitsu is an awesome mechanic, however. I hope it comes back some day as a more flavor neutral keyword (Infiltrate or whatever).
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Nov 3, 2014 21:54
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I've been heavily considering building Hatebears for Modern after I finish up Blue Tron, it looks like fun. I understand that my version of 'fun' is making my opponent as miserable as possible. But that's only for Modern. I like to throw big things around in Standard. Edit: Oh my god the flavor text on that card is amazing.
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Nov 3, 2014 21:55
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I have literally no loving idea what people are trying to argue about the colour pie at this stage but feel that MaRo handles it pretty well, actually. (And will continue to advocate people trying to play rarity-limited formats if they want to see what a strongly colour-pie limited game looks like.)
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Nov 3, 2014 21:58
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Count Bleck posted:I've been heavily considering building Hatebears for Modern after I finish up Blue Tron, it looks like fun. Kamigawa block is easily my favorite flavor-wise. Again, I know very little about Japanese mythology, but the designs on the spirits, the flavor text, and the naming conventions really stuck with me. Allstone posted:I have literally no loving idea what people are trying to argue about the colour pie at this stage but feel that MaRo handles it pretty well, actually. (And will continue to advocate people trying to play rarity-limited formats if they want to see what a strongly colour-pie limited game looks like.) Some people think green should be able to o-ring creatures and have have tiny fliers, provided the flavor on the card is sufficiently "green." Others, such as Maro (and myself) believe that the mechanics of the color pie should determine what cards get printed, as flavor can be used to justify anything. And there is a third, small group mucking around here who think that thanks to the easy splashibility of colors thanks to quality mana-fixing, the color pie is blurred enough that printing cards that bleed effects is irrelevant at worst.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:04
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Also with regards to the insular block thing - Rav was actually full of spirit cards and sacrifice effects that worked well with soulshift. The gooniest deck ever of that time - Ghost Dad - actually used the hell out of this inter-block synergy. Splice, yeah, that's not working well outside of Kamigawa block, Sweep and Epic are poo poo but that's third set syndrome on top of everything else, but I'd argue Ninjutsu, Bushido, and Soulshift weren't necessarily mechanically parasitic. Plus some arcane cards like Kodama's Reach worked fine as non-arcane reprints (i.e. Cultivate).
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Nov 3, 2014 22:07
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Bushido and Ninjitsu are totally fine and I can only expect them to come back, the problem is that splice onto arcane and soulshift were so heavily reliant on themselves made it too parasitic to work.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:12
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I am bad at magic so i play boss sligh. I beat people down with a stack of commons/uncommons. They get so mad that they didn't even get a chance to play their foil Sarkhan. It is the gooniest of decks.
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Nov 3, 2014 22:12
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Were the Kamigawa names that hard to remember? I don't find Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran any easier to remember than Adamaro, First to Desire.Zoness posted:Also with regards to the insular block thing - Rav was actually full of spirit cards and sacrifice effects that worked well with soulshift. The gooniest deck ever of that time - Ghost Dad - actually used the hell out of this inter-block synergy. Yeah, and Ravnica came out after Kamigawa. When Kamigawa was released, spirits weren't a thing, and by the time Ravnica came out, Kamigawa wasn't the current block anymore so its reputation was already solidified. (And spirits were only added to Ravnica at all because Soulshift was so insular.)
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Nov 3, 2014 22:13
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