First off, can anyone explain this nugget of gameplay wisdom from MaRo's blog today to me? I don't care about the Outlast part. Just the last sentence.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post...why-was-it-not
tunainabag said: In regards to the mechanic outlast, why was it not allowed to be activated at instant speed (i.e on other player's turns or during combat)? Was it ever considered to be used at instant speed? And was it ever considered to just not have the tap ability? Thanks for everything you do.
The idea behind it was always you chose on your turn whether or not to use it. The flavor was do you sit out a turn to spend time baking you stronger.
I’ve talked a lot about how having the option to do things whenever cuts down on choice making which is key to good gameplay.
Now I'm not a fan but I will to play devils advocate and explain.
By making it a sorcery speed tap mechanic you switch the options from attack or block+activate to attack or block or activate. Unlike many other times where the smart move is simply to activate EoT for a few turn now it becomes a real cost as you cannot block either
That being said it seems like it will be a hard mechanic to push with that limitation.and that we will most likely get nothing out of the mechanic for us here. But meh we don't get much anyone it's the nature of playing this format.
Originally Posted by Bryant Cook
If you spend a turn baking you stronger, you can't have your cake and eat it too.The flavor was do you sit out a turn to spend time baking you stronger.
Seriously, it is true that MaRo spoke several times about how timing restrictions can make for more interesting gameplay. For example, if all creatures had flash, apart from some small corner cases you would always keep mana open until the last moment (see : Faeries). Having to cast sorcery-speed spells and using sorcery-speed abilities makes for a more dynamic game, since you have to decide on investing mana on your turn and doing so limits your options on your opponent's turn (countermagic, removal, combat tricks...).
I don't think that 'dynamic' is the right word. Making things sorcery speed can make for more difficult decisions. It also makes the abilities less potent....Having to cast sorcery-speed spells and using sorcery-speed abilities makes for a more dynamic game...
I could handle it if the abilities were more potent, but the outlast cards that have been spoiled so far seem like they'd be terrible in constructed formats.
I think the sentence is weird, I had to read it twice to decipher what (I think) it means. If it's "decision making is more frequent with timing restrictions than without, which leads to better gameplay", I tend to agree. It's not really important if you look at attacking, but what about blocking? Do you want your Outlast dude to stay on defense, or is it okay for him to tap to grow instead?
I'd like to compare it to damage on the stack, the M10 change wasn't that well received by some players, and I can see that. However, the game is more interesting and skill testing if you can't both deal combat damage and sacrifice Ravenous Baloth to gain life. Doing either but not the other is a restriction, and the card itself is definitely worse with the M10-damage rules, but the gameplay is far more interesting.
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They did remove combat damage from the stack for the same reason. As far as Legacy is concerned, Brainstorm is actually a good example of "durdle and keep it until shit hits the fan".If you spend a turn baking you stronger, you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Seriously, it is true that MaRo spoke several times about how timing restrictions can make for more interesting gameplay. For example, if all creatures had flash, apart from some small corner cases you would always keep mana open until the last moment (see : Faeries). Having to cast sorcery-speed spells and using sorcery-speed abilities makes for a more dynamic game, since you have to decide on investing mana on your turn and doing so limits your options on your opponent's turn (countermagic, removal, combat tricks...).
That said, more choices don't necessarily mean better gameplay, especially when they clash heavily like with Outlast.
The butchered Invitational card Rakdos Augermage is another great example for that. They went from a 2/2 bear with, once per turn activation for
to a 3/2 First Striker that needs to tap and costs
. They basically took an elegant design and shat on it for no particular reason. Why did it get a shittier casting cost and a combat body that massively clashes with its initial role as utility beater?
I would rather prefer synergetic effects that make cards interesting instead of cards that are intentionally made bad because of "HURR, bad choices are still choices, right?". I'm not even sure if Outlast is going to be good in Limited.
I also dislike how they recycled Naya's "mechanic" by slapping a keyword onto the cards and reducing the required power by one point.
I wonder what the future holds since the recent trend to design shit cards kinda started with Gatecrash and continues to this very day. They've already stated that with the new block structure, they could revisit old planes and mechanics more often. While that sounded pretty awesome at first, it seems more and more like a sign of laziness since they have to work out less new mechanics and can reuse world-building assets from previous blocks.
I must agree that "Hey look, I casted a Gofy" should not be a keyword.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Depends on how aggressive the format is and how often you have to go three-color. Issues surrounding mana fixing in Limited can slow down a format quite a bit, but if two-color decks are pretty good then the format speed will be greater. Outlast will be beastly in a slower format since there's less pressure to trade early and you'll have time to grind up a couple big guys and dominate combat with them. It will also be good if board stalls are frequent since you can build up one or two guys until they're big enough to either force x-for-1 trades or serve as walking Abysses.
My guess is this is a mid-speed format. It would be weird for them to bring back morph and then put it in a Draft environment where Grey Ogres are actively bad. Mardu (RBW) seems like it could be very aggressive but probably only as a two-color deck; trying to go three colors either means your variance is super high because of mana issues or you have to play Refuges/Banners to fix your colors and that slows you down. I actually think Temur (RUG) will cause the most headaches since Naya was beastly in Shards-block Limited. Casting big guys and bludgeoning your opponent to death with them is never* a bad strategy.
*Except in oddities like triple Zendikar.
This is just poorly worded. The essence of what he said is that the option to do things whenever cuts down on consequences of your decisions. If there is no real opportunity cost to do something, then it's hard to have 'good gameplay.' SDT is probably one of the best, most egregious examples of this - there is typically no real opportunity cost to activating SDT pretty much whenever.
For us graybeards, I am also reminded of Tempest-era draw-go. Forbid, Capsize, whispers, and a pile of counterspells meant that you literally never had to commit mana on your own turn to anything, and this same gameplan was reflected back in Time Spiral with Teachings strategies. Hell, someone has already mentioned Faeries - if you had a Bitterblossom, you just sat back and developed your mana, and waited for your opponent to finish their turn before you made real decisions. These are not widely regarded as high points by most players.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
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Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
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Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
I miss these days. I think they're trying to implement the "do your own things on your own turn" philosophy because of the the rise of Hearthstone, Yugioh and Android:Netrunner where you can't really do anything on your opponent's turn.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
They already tried this, to varying degrees of unsuccess. With Portal expansions. What are Instants anyway?
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In fairness, Magic is unique among most games which severely limit the number of things you can do when it isn't actually your turn. While that is such a defining trait of the game that it is not unreasonable to maintain it moving forward, it is true when people point out that limitations that force logical forks do actually encourage more choices during gameplay.
I think it's easy to conflate the terms "options" and "choices" in these situations. Most good players will recognize the best time to play a spell or effect that can be activated at any time (typically the end of your opponent's turn, all things being even), and for that player, the actual number of choices drops significantly when realizing that the sheer number of opportunities (options) to play that spell/effect create a time when one is clearly superior to all of them and is ideally played at that time.
I'm not talking about spells that are reactive in nature; it is clearly a mistake to try and cast Daze at the end of your opponent's turn, every time. But if we're talking about those Sensei's Divining Top-type effects that are just durdly and can just be activated "oh, you know, pretty much whenever", then the sheer number of times one can use it is totally irrelevant; there are only so many patently good times to activate it, and most of them are during your opponent's turn - not only that, but repetitively so. SDT can be spammed ad tappedoutium, before and after any shuffle or draw effects, and it's not nearly as "choice-inspired" as you might think. If you're throwing out all of the times when it is suboptimal to activate SDT as 'bad choices' and only looking at good times, then really your reasonable range of choices is more limited than it seems.
At least with Sorcery-speed effects you are required to take a look at your finite resources that aren't a mere cleanup step away from untapping and having to ask yourself if the cost is worth the effect. Maybe Legacy has been trained on the notion that such effects are downright worse than the previous kind, and they may well be in several instances -- I don't think that Outlast, for example, is a great pointer to an effect that is made more potent at Sorcery speed than Instant speed. What I do think, though, is that the concept of what constitutes a 'choice' should be more closely evaluated before anyone claims that Sorcery-speed effects necessarily make the game less choice-oriented.
I also agree with the concept of avoiding too much Draw-Go - pointing to Bitterblossom Fairies is a good call. You cast BB and you let the deck drive itself, and all your 'choices' are made for you. That they are all Instant effects with the possible exception of Thoughtseize and Jace the Goddamn Mind Sculptor is irrelevant; the sheer abundance in times the spells can be played narrows the good choices down to a sliver of "best times".
Or maybe TLDR is you guys should stfu and just play Prowess.dec
I certainly enjoyed it at the time; but the overwhelming majority of the playerbase (especially those that have started since 2007) do not. And it's hard to argue that de-emphasizing the end-of-opponents-turn and putting more time into the combat step hasn't done good things for the overall health of the game.
I think that many Legacy players don't appreciate how boring Instant-speed Magic is to watch - while it can be very fun to play because you have limited information, as a spectator, it often turns into will he or wont he. While we can derive enjoyment from watching (or playing) a game that involves a LOT of given knowledge about a situation, your average standard (or even Modern) player is not going to appreciate why the Brainstorm-into-Fetch play is so strong.
Hell, from a design standpoint, 'do things on your own turn' opens up a lot of space - it used to be that a card had to be INSANE to justify tapping out for it on your own turn, so only the best of the best got played. Now you have a variety of options, and you get to choose the one that is best for you (or for a given situation.) While I dislike a lot of the justification in the article about Sweepers, the upcoming lack of a reliable 4-drop answer to everything makes the 3-drops they are pushing more attractive than they would have been otherwise.
While I consider myself to be much more of an old-school mono-u draw-go style player - and I played with Forbid, and Faeries, and Teachings -I am enjoying the new 'style' of Magic in standard, and I am curious to see what happens when Sphinx's Rev goes away.
Also; If new Design sucks, odds are that the old cards that we already have in Legacy will continue to be sweet. As long as we get the occasional Decay, or DRS, or TNN, I can't complain that I get to play 2 (or 3, or 4...) radically different formats a week.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
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Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
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Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
Can someone explain to me why a Legacy forum cares about new sets? New cards? New mechanics? Old mechanics on new cards? Don't you understand new sets are not for Legacy?. Aren't you happy enough with your format the way it is?
Or has it become so stagnate you wait on the edge of your seats for another Mental Misstep or Vengevine to shake things up? There's so many naysayers on this site nitpicking every little detail of cards that aren't even close to legacy playable.
You get to sit on your lazy ass while Wizards pumps out hundreds of new cards every few months and all you do it bitch (not all of you actually, just a few repeat offenders). It costs too much! I've seen this card/mechanic before! (no shit? a 20 year old game made a card similar to one before? how could they do this!) The art sucks! Flavor text sucks! All they care about is money! All they care about is new players! All they care about is BLAH!
Open your minds and enjoy this game and be thankful to Wizards.
Tsumiband seems like the only sensible frequent poster on here.
This is a Legacy forum. LEGACY. Why do you care so much about new cards?
Hello GhengisTom! Welcome to the internet.
Here people from all over the world get to complain about the things that bother them, no matter how small or insignificant.
For example, you get to complain about how people are always complaining! I'm certain someone won't like what you stated and will complain about how you complained about people complaining.
Ahem, literally the post above yours...
So, in order of your points:
1. We care about new sets, because every time WotC decides to print something designed for commander, or everytime they push a new mechanic too far, it has an immediate impact in Legacy. I would argue that we've had more legitimate cards enter the pool in the last 5 years than in the decade prior.
2. The internet was actually designed for 2 things originally: for people to get over-excited about something that inevitably is disappointing, and for people to bitch about something that isn't as bad as they say it is. Look it up!
3. We care about new cards specifically because many of us can recite the gist of flavor text from bad Tempest commons - looking at and learning about new cards is interesting. Even if some people seem to think they are crap.
Can someone explain to me why someone is complaining that people are complaining! All you do is come in to complain, when you could just be happy that people haven't complained at times in the past.
Check out my Legacy UBTezz Primer. Chalice of the Void: Keeping Magic Fair.
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Playing since '96. Brief forced break '02-04. Former/Idle Judge since '05. Told Smmenen to play faster at Vintage Worlds.
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Most of the 'Ban brainstorm!' arguments are based on the logic that 'more different cards should get played in Legacy', as though the success or health of the format can be measured by the portion of cards that are available and see play. This is an idiotic metric.
Dunno. Why are you doing that?
Also. Treasure Cruise. WTF?
No, by and large the people that take the time to complain on MTG the Source Your Source For Legacy are not happy with Legacy the way it is. 4x Brainstorm in EVERY DECK ZOMG (despite zero Brainstorm making the finals of last weeks SCG Open and the fact that the card is actually played in Aggro, Midrange, Combo, and Control decks, rather than in one definite archtype or strategy dominating the field) and TRUE NAME PROGENITUS (yes someone recently actually compared a 3 mana 3/1 to a 4 mana 10/10) are RUINING TEH FORMATZ didn't you know?
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Barring some ridiculous cards being hidding in the unspoiled half of the set, I suspect WotC intentionally went low power with Khans and probably the next few sets to sort of reset the power level of Standard so new players won't be intimidated.
Also, because fetchlands, no need to make good cards. /rolleyes
Yeah, it's played in a ton of decks. But having every deck be a cantrip-playing blue one homogenizes the gameplay feel of decks a lot, and there's the issue that not everyone enjoys the feel that comes with running blue card selection. Contrast Storm and Elves going off, for example. They do similar things for similar ends, technically speaking, but the actual mechanical operation of the decks just feels a lot different. Having Brainstorm be a near autoinclude for the whole damn format dramatically cuts down on that variety in texture.
3/infinity to 10/infinity for most practical purposes.
I'm also fucking tired about people underplaying TNN.
TNN is a card that forces combo deck style of interaction (race it or have a narrow out) that is readily just slotted into goodstuff decks. It requires next to no commitment in deckbuilding or in play - oh hey, a three-mana creature spell to completely take over the game. Wow. Deckbuilding, well, no requirements, you can just jam it and be sitting pretty. Worst case, it pitches to FoW.
Contrast with NO-Prog, if you will. It requires deckbuilding commitment to green and to being creature heavy so you have ready victims on board. Ingame, it costs 4 mana (a "magic number" where certain anti-broken things hate cards like Teeg turn on), is a Sorcery so falls victim to all the hyperefficient taxing counters that have seen print in recent years, and just casting it costs you board presence because of the additional cost. You also have a real risk of drawing and uncastable brick that makes 3-4 cards in your deck a hell of a lot worse.
Even with all those checks and requirements, it can still be a pretty damn dumb card.
TNN is even dumber. If you answer it, oh well, the opponent still has a rock solid goodstuff deck to play with. The effect is kind of OK, permissible when you have to build around it, work for it. TNN doesn't need any of that shit. Hell, it even has Awesome so if it's crappy you can just pitch it to Force.
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