Count Bleck posted:

How far are we going back? RTR gave us Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman, as well as shocklands reprints. I'm fairly sure Supreme Verdict and Sphinx's Revelation see some fringe play in modern as well.

Voice of Resurgence is a Hatebears mainstay.

Theros block has Courser, Brimaz, and Keranos, I think Spirit of the Labyrinth saw a little play as well.

Innistrad has some stuff as well if we wanna go back three blocks.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

There are apparently good but boring rules reasons why you can't just jam creature subtypes onto things.
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/426
We're talking about standard here, so just Theros, M15 and Khans. There are obviously some eternal playables but not all that many. I guess the fact that there are lots of fairly viable decks all using different cards helps spread out the cost too.

quote:

Since the correlations are unique, all subtypes imply their types. If a card is a Goblin, it is by definition a creature, so "creature" hasn't needed to be said.
--Example: Fever Charm says "Deal 3 damage to target Wizard." Damage can't be dealt to a noncreature permanent, yet this card doesn't say "Deal 3 damage to target Wizard creature." It doesn't have to. "Wizard," by definition, implies "creature," so this shortcut can be taken.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

We're talking about standard here, so just Theros, M15 and Khans. There are obviously some eternal playables but not all that many. I guess the fact that there are lots of fairly viable decks all using different cards helps spread out the cost too.

rabidsquid posted:

Theros block is full of enchantment creatures with subtypes, giving actual enchantments creature subtypes seems needlessly complex. Maybe it wouldn't have been at the time but it definitely is now.

Irony Be My Shield posted:

The past few sets haven't had that much in the way of eternal playables I guess? And I guess Khans was opened so much that even the super chase lands are now at a reasonable cost.

Angry Grimace posted:

Except creature is an actual card type. I don't see how that's confusing in any way and in fact, it seems way more confusing to have Tribal as a card type that doesn't actually do anything since Tribal cards have to be other card types as well.

rabidsquid posted:

Are you suggesting that the word tribal is confusing because it's not a card type? I genuinely cannot understand why that would be.

Angry Grimace posted:

No, Tribal IS a card type.

rabidsquid posted:

I just genuinely don't see the issue here. This seems like an answer looking for a problem.

quote:

Q: Why is it that tribal is a type and not a supertype like legendary? Since it is an adjective, and because it seems more like an augmentation of the original card than an actual type of card, it seems strange and a little awkward to fit it as a type. Does this mean there will be tribal cards that are just tribal, or will they be like Bound in Silence, alterations of existing noncreature card types that allow them to have creature types? On that note, why did Bound in Silence have to be tribal at all? Why not just make it an Enchantment — Rebel Aura? Why can't the rebel subtype be used on noncreatures?
–Jacob, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

A: From Kelly Digges, Magic editor:

Rulesmeister Mark Gottlieb is out today tending his wombats, so I'll field your questions, which have appeared in the Ask Wizards box... oh, let's say "a few times."

Fair warning, though—the following is a feast for Melvin, and not for the faint of heart.

I'll start with the last question. Why was Tribal necessary at all? Why not just print an enchantment with the Rebel and Aura subtypes? That single card might seem innocuous, but the deeper issue here has to do with some very important rules that prevent some very silly things. See, rule 205.3d in the Comprehensive Rules states that—stop me if you've heard this one—each card type has its own possible list of subtypes, except for two pairs of types that share their list of subtypes. One such pair is instant and sorcery, allowing both of those to be Arcane; the other is creature and tribal.

If 205.3d didn't exist, we'd have a lot more freedom in adding subtypes to things. Instead of Arcane, we could have just made instants and sorceries that were Spirits! (That's ignoring the obvious problems that arise with splice.) Of course, we can't just have a generic list of subtypes, because it seems clear that Imagecrafter shouldn't turn things into Shrines or Equipment. So we could just define "creature types" as those subtypes that have been printed on a creature, right? (Well, or given to a creature, or created as a creature token...) That way Volrath's Laboratory can't make Forests. Oh, wait, crud, what about Dryad Arbor and Life and Limb? Now Mistform Ultimus taps for Green Mana, because Forest has been printed on a creature! This is what we call a Bad Thing, and we avoid the whole mess by keeping discrete lists of subtypes.

So we have 205.3d to keep the lists of subtypes separate (except the ones that share nice), and we have 205.3e to state explicitly that for cards with multiple types (such as Bound in Silence), each subtype gets correlated to the correct type. That second one keeps us from landing in the exact same trouble that 205.3d is meant to prevent.

Of course, that leaves the question of why tribal couldn't be a supertype like legendary or basic. The issue here is that subtypes are correlated with types, while supertypes aren't (205.3d again, in a big-ticket team-up with 205.4a). So what exactly would the tribal supertype mean? Would it mean that this object can have creature subtypes, or would it mean that this object's types can have creature subtypes correlated with them? The first causes big problems with 205.3d, and the second gets weird if the permanent starts losing types, as with Neurok Transmuter or Soul Sculptor. You could argue that tribal still applies to the new types, so the subtypes are kept, but then you've got something that works differently than other cards do when types change... These issues aren't necessarily intractable, but they're messy and counterintuitive either way, and everything works a lot more cleanly if tribal is a type. The rules do specify, however, that tribal always appears on cards that have at least one other type (that's 212.8a, for those keeping score at home).

So why does it "sound like" a supertype? I can't speak to this one as easily, as I wasn't here yet when the decision was made, but as I understand it the name "tribal" was chosen because it's evocative and descriptive, and it's already associated with creature types for established players. Some people argue that it should be a noun, because all types are nouns (like instant... well, in some definitions), and not an adjective the way supertypes are (like snow and, um, world...).

Okay, I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek there, but what I'm saying is that these are "rules" we bend when the actual rules and creative needs dictate. Most players can play the game thinking that tribal is a supertype, or ignoring it entirely, and not be affected at all. If you need to know that tribal is a card type, odds are you already do.

Whew! We're done, and I didn't even have to say "tribals."

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Then there are plenty of Eternal-playable cards, but Deathrite Shaman was the last card that you could jam into whatever and have it perform spectacularly, and that versatility is what drives prices wild. I mean, Brimaz has won SCG Legacy Opens but other major archetypes have no interest in his exposed nipple.

Compare Snapcaster, which asks your deck to just be blue before he starts vomiting value at you.

AlternateNu posted:

Theros block also had Eidolon of the Great Revel, Anger of the Gods, and a reprint of Thoughtseize. RtR block also had Skullcrack and Boros Charm. And then Khans had Monastery Swiftspear and Tasigur. It is kind of funny how much power burn decks have gotten over the last few blocks.

Jabor posted:

Ultimately the reason Tribal is a card type (and not a supertype) is so that they could print Tarmogoyf as a teaser for Planeswalkers, while also introducing a new card type for it to count.

C-Euro posted:

Question for the floor- what's an "acceptable" number of eternal playables for a new block? For formats where things aren't rotating out, is there a certain number of new cards that need to be relevant in order to shake things up, or is that you need one or two cards that really make an impact? If you're trying to keep a non-rotating format fresh, which is better?

Sigma-X posted:

Didn't they use it in futuresight first? I thought there's a pacifism variant that is a rebel that they used to show off the mechanic.

Sigma-X posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for which duel decks are fun / to avoid from the recent releases?

My girlfriend is interested in magic and I want some fun/balanced decks to graduate her into once she gets bored of the trial decks I have.

Sigma-X posted:

Bumping this from a few pages ago,

Does anyone have any recommendations for which duel decks are fun / to avoid from the recent releases?

My girlfriend is interested in magic and I want some fun/balanced decks to graduate her into once she gets bored of the trial decks I have.

Sigma-X posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for which duel decks are fun / to avoid from the recent releases?

My girlfriend is interested in magic and I want some fun/balanced decks to graduate her into once she gets bored of the trial decks I have.

Sigma-X posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for which duel decks are fun / to avoid from the recent releases?

My girlfriend is interested in magic and I want some fun/balanced decks to graduate her into once she gets bored of the trial decks I have.

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

For a few years, Mana Source was a separate card type.

quote:

Tell that to the "mythics" cards, i'm pretty sure we will find common cards that are better than these... AAARGH but WTF! How it is even POSSIBLE to imagine a 9ccm card doing just... THAT playable?? And MYTHIC!

AT 4 ccm i'm not even sure this would have been used out of limited but 9??? COME ON!

Bugsy posted:

Yawgmoth posted:

It almost reads like that post I think was linked here where the guy who had only ever played Hearthstone (but had someone quick explain how to play magic to him one time) critiqued some expensive magic cards.

compton rear end terry posted:

I've been out of magic for a long time. Looking at recent winning standard decks. Since when can you build competituve standard decks for ~$200? The top 8 of GP Miami are all under $250.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

I don't want to call a dude out for not understanding wizard poker very well, but do you mean the dude in this thread who didn't understand why you would pay life for something and didn't think the shocks and bob are very good?

Babylon Astronaut posted:

I don't want to call a dude out for not understanding wizard poker very well, but do you mean the dude in this thread who didn't understand why you would pay life for something and didn't think the shocks and bob are very good?

Angry Grimace posted:

One cited example in that article:


This sounds like the flimsiest poo poo ever. I mean, just say that non-creatures, players and Planeswalkers can't be assigned damage, right?

quote:

Flavor
Each subtype makes flavor sense for its type. Furthermore, the subtypes don't merely describe or classify their cards, they say what those cards actually are in the Magic realm. A "Creature — Goblin Shaman" is a goblin shaman in the same way that I'm a human gamer. Honden of Infinite Rage is a Shrine.

As soon as "Land — Goblin" is printed, these distinctions crumble.

Rinkles posted:

Breaking your own staunchly defended rules is fine as long as it pertains to the latest set.

Serperoth posted:

There are cards at common that care about Dragons right? I'd say that still counts.

quote:

EDIT: Also, he could have just blamed development, there was a common Dragon (or even a cycle?)

Alaan posted:

Phyrexia vs. the Coalition is probably the worst balanced. Black vs. five color wonky mana base is just asking for trouble. Every other one I've played is pretty reasonably balanced though. I liked Izzet vs. Golgari and Sorin vs. Tibalt(Sure you end up with Tibalt, but his deck itself is fun)

Sigma-X posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations on recent duel decks for casual play?

Rinkles posted:

Breaking your own staunchly defended rules is fine as long as it pertains to the latest set.