Page 4 of 5 FirstFirst 12345 LastLast
Results 61 to 80 of 83

Thread: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

  1. #61
    Site Contributor

    Join Date

    Jun 2013
    Location

    Philadelphia, PA
    Posts

    1,658

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by Helga View Post
    ITT: Frustrated Elves/Storm players who deem S&T players dumb to cope with their never ending losses to Sneak & Show and Omnitell.

    Get off your elitist high horse and stop masturbating on the high "skill-intensity" of your decks.

    To quote PVDDR, someone who actually knows something about this game:

    The second misconception is that you should play a more complicated deck to make use of your superior skill. It is true that good people can play more decks and will have more choices, including some complex decks that other people can’t play, but it’s not because you can play something that other people can’t that you should; sometimes a simple deck will win more than a complicated deck, and it’s not because other people will win as much with it as you will that it’s not the better choice. Basically, if you are an 8 with a deck that everyone is a 5 with, or an 8.5 with a deck everyone is an 8 with, well, 8.5 is still the better choice for you.

    People also seem to think that a deck being more complicated is a quality. They think it sets them apart as an elite class of players who can play it and they use the fact that they chose that deck for bragging rights. This is silly; being more complicated is not a quality, it’s a downside. A deck like Doomsday is worse to play because it’s complicated, not better.
    Aside from this being out of place in a thread dedicated to how much people like/dislike certian cards, no one was making the argument that Show and Tell decks are bad (in a competitive sense) because they're simple, nor have I noticed anyone call for a ban. People are saying that they don't like the card because it presents basically no interaction aside from 'do you have a counter?'. I'm well over 0.500 against Show and Tell strategies, and when you win you're usually goldfishing them while holding up countermagic.

  2. #62
    Site Contributor
    thecrav's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2010
    Location

    Houston, Texas, USA
    Posts

    1,097

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Just wanted to point out that the question was not what cards are bad design, no fun, etc. The question was what do you love and hate, which frequently results in answers that maybe aren't so easy to rationalize. There's no need to get upset that someone dislikes the thing you like or vice versa.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dice_Box View Post
    You don't get to play the most powerful cards in the format and then bitch when someone finally says no. You also don't get to bitch that it's not fun when someone finally tells you no instead of voyeuristicly watching you masturbate with Cantrips.

  3. #63
    Land Destruction Enthusiast
    Megadeus's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jul 2012
    Location

    Kennesaw, GA
    Posts

    5,572

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Agreed. I beat show and tell with dead guy regularly. It's just not an interesting or complicated deck in any way. I just disagree with the deck being a skill testing deck. It's fine to play a simple 2 card combo deck if you just want to win. Whatever. I just think it's a dull card that is slightly, but not overly, oppressive.
    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Cheese View Post
    I've been taking shitty brews and tier 2 decks to tournaments and losing with them for years now. Welcome to the club. We meet for cocktails after round 6.
    Quote Originally Posted by Stevestamopz View Post
    Top quality german restraint there.

    If I'm at the point where I'm rage quitting, you can bet your kransky that I'm calling everyone involved a cunt.

  4. #64
    ಠ_ಠ
    Pastorofmuppets's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jul 2009
    Location

    NJ
    Posts

    1,125

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Great article. I feel like it's hard to write a fair-sounding, opinion-oriented article about a game with an objectively-focused community. My only gripe is that you don't like Hymn for its variance. The real thing that makes Hymn awesome is the kind of shells that usually play it. Granted, it's been approached with a less-obtuse design before with cards like Gerrard's Verdict and Blightning, but Ritual-Hymn-Duress is probably my favorite turn 1 play outside of Christmasland grips for Ad Nauseam decks.
    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    ... It feels like a bummer to spend so much time not talking about the game and more time arguing over whether Dega or Mardu is the better name for a three color deck you'll never see in Legacy.

  5. #65
    Greatness awaits!
    Lemnear's Avatar
    Join Date

    Oct 2010
    Location

    Berlin, Germany
    Posts

    6,998

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by Helga View Post
    ITT: Frustrated Elves/Storm players who deem S&T players dumb to cope with their never ending losses to Sneak & Show and Omnitell.

    Get off your elitist high horse and stop masturbating on the high "skill-intensity" of your decks.

    To quote PVDDR, someone who actually knows something about this game:

    The second misconception is that you should play a more complicated deck to make use of your superior skill. It is true that good people can play more decks and will have more choices, including some complex decks that other people can’t play, but it’s not because you can play something that other people can’t that you should; sometimes a simple deck will win more than a complicated deck, and it’s not because other people will win as much with it as you will that it’s not the better choice. Basically, if you are an 8 with a deck that everyone is a 5 with, or an 8.5 with a deck everyone is an 8 with, well, 8.5 is still the better choice for you.

    People also seem to think that a deck being more complicated is a quality. They think it sets them apart as an elite class of players who can play it and they use the fact that they chose that deck for bragging rights. This is silly; being more complicated is not a quality, it’s a downside. A deck like Doomsday is worse to play because it’s complicated, not better.
    This bullshit is totally misleading in terms of identifying why people hate S&T. It's not because of losses, as the fact that the deck is really vulnerable to discard, but because the deck(s) don't interact with anything other than counters and even Dodge stuff like Thalia/Teeg/Chalice/Thorn/etc., a luxury position decks like Belcher or Storm do not have and neither can rely on a ridiculous redundancy S&T decks offer or the protection via FoW.

    I think it's legitim to question the relation of difficult and power in modern MTG design.
    www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!

    Join us at Facebook!

    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

  6. #66

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    As an intermittent player of Patriot, I play four of the most hated cards in Legacy: Delver, TNN, Gitaxian Probe (who knew?), and, of course, Brainstorm. Maybe we should redub it 'Hatriot'?

    On the other hand, as someone who learned Legacy (insofar as I know it at all) playing Merfolk, I would propose we give the most infamous merfolk of all some, er, 'silvergills': "As an additional cost to cast True-Name Nemesis, reveal a Merfolk card from your hand or pay {3}." Merfolk would still be Tier 1.8 (if that?) and everyone else would be spared the least interactive fish of all.

  7. #67
    Greatness awaits!
    Lemnear's Avatar
    Join Date

    Oct 2010
    Location

    Berlin, Germany
    Posts

    6,998

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by mikek View Post
    As an intermittent player of Patriot, I play four of the most hated cards in Legacy: Delver, TNN, Gitaxian Probe (who knew?), and, of course, Brainstorm. Maybe we should redub it 'Hatriot'?

    On the other hand, as someone who learned Legacy (insofar as I know it at all) playing Merfolk, I would propose we give the most infamous merfolk of all some, er, 'silvergills': "As an additional cost to cast True-Name Nemesis, reveal a Merfolk card from your hand or pay {3}." Merfolk would still be Tier 1.8 (if that?) and everyone else would be spared the least interactive fish of all.
    WotC just didn't find space in the textbox for that, because of the "protection from player" explanation lol
    www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!

    Join us at Facebook!

    Quote Originally Posted by Echelon View Post
    Lemnear sounds harsh at times, but he means well. Or to destroy, but that's when he starts rapping.

    Architect by day, rapstar by night. He's pretty much the German Hannah Montana. Sometimes he even comes in like a wrecking ball.

  8. #68
    Member

    Join Date

    Jul 2013
    Location

    Texas
    Posts

    1,184

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    I love two-for-ones, engines, high-value cards and breakable symmetric effects. Cabal Therapy, Zealous Persecution, Innocent Blood, Lightning Helix, Lingering Souls, Bloodghast, Veteran Explorer, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Green Sun's Zenith, Young Pyromancer and Thalia are some of my favorites. I'm a sucker for most Charms.

    Hitting on both sides of a Therapy is an incomparable feeling in Magic. Actually, my ideal play is dredging a Darkblast into Souls and Therapy with a Pyro in play.

    I love deceptively underpowered cards that are in fact total hellions. Mother of Runes, Siege Rhino, Repeal, Courser of Kruphix. I'm also obsessed with buildarounds. Would love to build a deck that can cast Mystical Teachings to find Notion Thief, or abuse Ion Storm.

    Despite my B&R rantings, I'm ambivalent towards Brainstorm, Delver, Ponder, Treasure Cruise. In fact I play Delver in Modern and love flipping the little guy. Cards I really hate are:
    Tarmogoyf — I am more than comfortable admitting that this is partially related to its price. But I also hate how it dominates other 2cmc and 3cmc creatures and pushes more interesting cards to the fringes.
    True-Name Nemesis — Similar to Goyf, but even more annoying at times. Takes all the interaction and gamesmanship out of combat.
    Counterbalance — Compare to Chalice of the Void. This is way undercosted, overpowered, and unfun. Even without SDT it's a nightmare because sometimes they just have it.
    Jace, the Mind Sculptor — It's a brainless I win button.

    I think Natural Order is perfectly fine. Requires two colored mana, that you have a creature with certain characteristics on board, as well as one with certain characteristics in your library. I loathe Wirewood Symbiote though, but for no reason other than Elves is annoying to play against.

  9. #69
    itsJulian.com - Legacy Videos
    Julian23's Avatar
    Join Date

    Apr 2007
    Location

    Munich / Germany
    Posts

    3,141

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by Helga View Post
    People also seem to think that a deck being more complicated is a quality. They think it sets them apart as an elite class of players who can play it and they use the fact that they chose that deck for bragging rights. This is silly; being more complicated is not a quality, it’s a downside. A deck like Doomsday is worse to play because it’s complicated, not better.[/I]
    He is right though. Except for the part about it being a downside. It's neither good nor bad.

    Especially for a deck like Doomsday, you get relatively little out of your mastery of the deck these days. It used to be different but the deck just doesn't provide as much relative value for mastering as it was the case 5-10 years ago. One could say that a person who thinks he/she is a good competitive player because he/she has mastered Doomsday and brought it to an important tournament...has actually actually shown to be a rather weak competitive player because he/she selected an underpowered deck.
    The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
    1. Discuss the unbanning of Land Tax Earthcraft.
    2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
    3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
    4. Stifle Standstill.
    5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
    6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
    7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).

  10. #70

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Love:
    - Life from the Loam
    - Intuition
    - Goblin Welder
    - Thalia

    Hate:
    - Counterbalance
    - Griselbrand
    - Show and Tell (I go back and forth on this)

  11. #71
    Is Cancer

    Join Date

    Jul 2014
    Posts

    1,146

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Hm.. I think I love:
    -Cabal Therapy
    -GB staples: Bob, Lily, TS, Abrupt Decay, DRS

    in general because of the ways the shell interacts with itself.
    I also love:
    -Sensei's Divining Top
    -Thopter Foundry/Pyro (all the tokens!)
    -Life from the Loam (good luck playing Nerd!)

    I hate:
    -TNN. It's just an obnoxious design. TNN just makes the game so "Who can get double-beaters faster and race" or "who can equip and race first"
    -BSK. This was the derpiest card designed before TNN. What a pile of derp.
    -Terminus..
    -Counterbalance..
    -TC. I don't think it's ban-worthy; but it helped get rid of Tombstalker (who is cool as hell) and makes Bob much worse.
    -Thalia. I use her a lot in the side, but what a pile of obnoxious.
    -Griselbrand

    You can probably tell I'm really really tired of miracles. Also, I think Sneak Attack is meaner than S&T. SA allows top-deck wins and is the real "problem" in S&T that is difficult to solve. You can't Karakas your way through it, you can't Lily it, you can't decay it, you can't counter the dudes. I think it's a weaker card in general, but the real reason SneakShow wins so much is that black decks can strip their entire hand and still lose to a single topdeck if they squirted a SA out.
    Quote Originally Posted by Nestalim View Post
    Wrong. Gideon Emblem protect you from losing and you can even open your binder and slam some cards on the board, not even the HJ can DQ you now.

  12. #72
    Pray for Rain
    Tammit67's Avatar
    Join Date

    May 2010
    Location

    Philadelphia, PA, USA
    Posts

    1,534

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by tescrin View Post
    -BSK. This was the derpiest card designed before TNN. What a pile of derp.
    BSK? What's that?
    Matt Bevenour in real life

  13. #73

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    While not all Legacy playable anymore...

    Love:
    Nevinyrral's Disk
    Counterspell
    Meekstone
    Icy Manipulator
    Winter Orb
    Serra Angel
    Stasis
    Mana Barbs
    Armageddon
    Rishadan Port
    Wrath of God
    Aether Vial
    Mangara of Corondor
    Hymn to Tourach
    Hypnotic Specter
    Terminus
    Sensei's Divining Top
    Birthing Pod
    Green Sun's Zenith
    Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
    Mother of Runes
    Back to Basics
    Blood Moon
    Wasteland
    Eidolon of the Great Revel

    I enjoy playing cards that allow for complex choices, toolboxing, cards that lock up the game, or that punish particular strategies or greedy manabases. While I miss the days of yore sometimes, I also appreciate that one can now play control decks with creatures in them, which can be fun. Really I hate very few individual cards, but would rather play against (or with) a prison deck any day of the week than against solitaire playing combo decks. But people can play those decks, as long as other decks have the tools to deal with them I have no complaints. Based on the above, it's probably pretty easy to guess what decks I currently play :)

  14. #74
    Is Cancer

    Join Date

    Jul 2014
    Posts

    1,146

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by Tammit67 View Post
    BSK? What's that?
    Batterskull
    Quote Originally Posted by Nestalim View Post
    Wrong. Gideon Emblem protect you from losing and you can even open your binder and slam some cards on the board, not even the HJ can DQ you now.

  15. #75

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by tescrin View Post
    Batterskull
    Which makes me think...I don't actually dislike stoneforge mystic, in fact the card is cool and has the design potential to allow for a lot of different options and is a pretty useful tutor effect.

    I like cards that allow for this sort of decision making in game...cards that allow you to say "which card to I need to get out of my deck to deal with this board state and what I predict as the future board state" and then make that play.

    The problem is when they print these cards like batterskull...griselbrand...legendary eldrazi...that are head and shoulders better than anything else that could fill their role and that pander to the lowest common denominator of magic player.

    Now, instead of stoneforge being a nifty tutor effect that allows the player to make a decision, you know exactly what they are going to pull out of their deck 99% of the time...batterskull. Nothing else even compares.

    Just like with reanimator or show and tell...you know everytime...here comes griselbrand...here comes emrakul...here we go again. There are lots of other examples of this type of card design and power creep recently with all types of cards, not just creatures, but I would say this is a clear design path that I "hate". It makes for such stale and repetitive game play.

    The funnest type of decks to play and play against are the toolboxes, the synergistic decks, and the decks where the games are won through incremental advantage in my opinion. Not the "does this spell resolve? OK I probably win" experience or the generic goodstuff decks.

  16. #76
    ಠ_ಠ
    Pastorofmuppets's Avatar
    Join Date

    Jul 2009
    Location

    NJ
    Posts

    1,125

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by eays View Post

    Now, instead of stoneforge being a nifty tutor effect that allows the player to make a decision, you know exactly what they are going to pull out of their deck 99% of the time...batterskull. Nothing else even compares.

    I've gotten to the point where I'm running 2 Batterskull and tutoring them up when I combo out on turn 2/3 with Modern Relic Quest because it's near-impossible to race and a BS'd Skyfisher shuts down 90% of my meta. Granted my meta's almost all aggro, but it's insane that I'm getting more consistent wins with BS than Argentum.
    Quote Originally Posted by TsumiBand View Post
    ... It feels like a bummer to spend so much time not talking about the game and more time arguing over whether Dega or Mardu is the better name for a three color deck you'll never see in Legacy.

  17. #77
    banned

    Join Date

    Jul 2013
    Location

    black metal bed room
    Posts

    2,188

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by eays View Post
    Now, instead of stoneforge being a nifty tutor effect that allows the player to make a decision, you know exactly what they are going to pull out of their deck 99% of the time...batterskull. Nothing else even compares.
    Stonehewer Giant is nice. It'll be bett... I mean interesting, if SFM worked similarly to Giant. Well, but there are 20k bad cards already so maybe SFM is good as it is.


    Quote Originally Posted by eays View Post
    Just like with reanimator or show and tell...you know everytime...here comes griselbrand...here comes emrakul...here we go again. There are lots of other examples of this type of card design and power creep recently with all types of cards, not just creatures, but I would say this is a clear design path that I "hate". It makes for such stale and repetitive game play.
    I'd add "boring" somewhere into the last sentence, but yeah...



    Cards I like:
    Mystic Enforcer
    Knight of the Reliquary
    Green Sun's Zenith
    Windswept Heath
    Swords to Plowshares

  18. #78
    Member
    GoblinZ's Avatar
    Join Date

    Dec 2010
    Location

    Beijing/Shenzhen
    Posts

    370

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Quote Originally Posted by Bed Decks Palyer View Post



    I'd add "boring" somewhere into the last sentence, but yeah...


    [/cards]


    I think we can play any interactive games in other format, but only legacy or vintage allows people to do such crazy things, which may be appealing to some playeres like me...

    love: Daze, Nimble Mongoose, Dark Confidant, Hymn to Tourarch, Goblin Matron, Imperial Recruiter, Rishadan Port, Blood Moon, Sinkhole, Cursed Scroll

    As for hate, I can make a list that I used to hate:

    Tarmogoyf (stupid design)
    Wild Nacatl (I really hated this card in the past, but when zoo was gone I really miss it now)
    Deathrite Shaman (too strong for one mana)
    Griselbrand (stupid but when I began to play SNT I get used to it)
    TNN ( cannot describe how stupid it is)
    Any planeswalkers ( cannot get used to this kind of thing when I was back to mtg in 2010 after a 4 years break)

    And I don't hate delver, although it is stupid enough, it revived gro archetype like Canadian Thresh in 2011...but now it is over flooded in the meta...
    Team Blood, Beijing.
    Currently play: Sneaky Show/ Lands

  19. #79
    The green Ancestral
    ESG's Avatar
    Join Date

    Mar 2010
    Location

    Seattle, WA
    Posts

    1,308

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    I love the article, Carsten, and it inspired me to similarly reflect. In the process, it brought to the foreground what kind of player I am.

    I'm a Johnny-Spike. I like to win, but I prefer to win on my own terms. I like build-around-me cards and multi-card combos. I like to have a lot of freedom and creativity in designing a deck, and sometimes my stubborn Johnny impulses lead me to play brews that are less competitive. My favorite color in Magic is green. My least-favorite color in Magic is probably white, although the color that irks me most often is blue. I love the tools that blue gets to wield, but it has always struck me as tragically unfair that other colors don't come close in terms of the power level of their mechanics. Healing Salve vs. Ancestral Recall is the classic comparison. As far as my personal favorites, well, if you designed a card at 1G, you'd likely be part of the way there.

    LOVE
    Survival of the Fittest

    This is my favorite card in all of Magic. It incentivizes playing with lots of creatures rather than lots of spells, and it allows you lots of room for customization, to the point that you can run lots of 1-of creatures. This adds a lot of variety to the games, even though your primary gameplan is going to revolve around locating and resolving your Survival. It plays well with enter-the-battlefield abilities, which are my favorite kinds of creatures in Magic, and the graveyard, which is my beloved sandbox.

    Cabal Therapy

    Cabal Therapy is a gem. Its power level scales with your ability as a player, and I adore the Brainstorm-Therapy dance where each player can try to next-level the other. The card also interacts with the graveyard, which is icing on the cake.

    Fact or Fiction

    One great feature of Fact or Fiction is how it involves the opponent, allowing him or her to split the piles. Magic needs more cards like this: ones that involve both players.

    Argothian Enchantress, Life from the Loam, and Dark Confidant

    Card-drawing effects, or a reasonable substitute, that aren't blue. When card advantage means so much in the outcome of a game, it's prudent to bleed that effect into other colors unless you want blue to be the dominant color in a format.

    Krosan Grip, Abrupt Decay, and Slaughter Games

    Hard counterspells have been overpowered for much of Magic's history due to their efficiency at answering any type of spell, and they have long been miscosted -- Force of Will laughably so -- which is why there is no Counterspell or even Mana Leak in modern-day Standard. Split second is a clever way to circumvent countermagic. Uncounterability is a little ham-fisted, but it opens up new opportunity. In Legacy, the tempo plan of sticking a threat and protecting it with soft permission was a lot more bedeviling before the existence of Abrupt Decay. Ditto for the way-overpowered combination of Sensei's Divining Top plus Counterbalance. Slaughter Games is the card that Cranial Extraction always should have been, and Slaughter Games is still barely played in this format.

    Maze of Ith

    Amazingly flavorful: Your creature gets lost in the maze. Not being able to produce mana is a reasonable drawback.

    Smokestack

    Plotting ahead and judging when to tick up the Smokestack can be a nice skill-tester. Plus, I love blowing up permanents. I'm not a huge fan of prison archetypes -- I like both players to be able to play Magic -- so I hope I can carve out a new and different home for this card in the future.

    Wall of Roots and Shield Sphere

    I like Walls. I often wish Walls were better, but these are excellent. Wall of Roots is ramp and a formidable blocker. It plays well with Survival of the Fittest and effectively has haste and vigilance. Shield Sphere requires zero investment, saves your hide for many turns, and has been an unassuming combo piece in the past. All in all, if a creature doesn't have the ability to attack, it can be pushed a bit.

    The Sword cycle
    Equipment is a good thing. Enchantments were frustrating because they let you get 2-for-1'd all the time. Having a piece of weaponry remaining on the battlefield to be picked up by another creature is a very flavorful game mechanic. I do think Batterskull is considerably overpowered and definitely should not have a bounce ability, and there's no way Jitte needs three abilities. I like the Sword cycle due to the rich mythology of swords (Excalibur, The Sword in the Stone, etc.). Sword of the Ages and Runesword were cool-looking but lacked the power befitting a legend. The Sword cycle has just the right power level, I feel: epic but not busted.

    Ball Lightning

    More amazing flavor from maybe the most flavorful set in Magic: The Dark. The trample was perfect, leaving your opponent with a jolt even when blocking. All right, I'm getting all nostalgic now. Let's move on to the cards I loathe and my arguments for why they detract from the game.

    HATE
    True-Name Nemesis

    This creature has my vote for the most uninteractive, feel-bad creature in all of Magic. It takes combat out of the equation and renders the majority of removal spells irrelevant. Most offensively, there is no real cost or drawback attached to it, meaning that it outclasses other creatures in virtually every situation. True-Name face-offs are typified by playing more True-Names than the other guy or by equipping yours first. There's also the disgusting display of both players equipping True-Names with a Batterskull and often a Sword and/or a Jitte: Life totals swing back and forth, hardly mattering, and the game comes down to whichever player dies of boredom first -- or, OK, who draws a way to destroy the equipment.

    Council's Judgment

    Council's Judgment is the patch for the virus that is True-Name Nemesis, and the way it contorts the rules to target without targeting is embarrassing. Two wrongs don't make a right, WOTC. Just ban True-Name in one-on-one formats and move on.

    Rishadan Port

    This card is an abomination, and I say that as someone who loves, loves, loves land destruction. It often functions as an uncounterable, replayable Silence and results in one player tapping lands (and not otherwise playing spells) to prevent the other player from doing anything. I like that Rishadan Port can cut someone off a color or coax someone to crack a fetchland, but I strongly dislike how multiple Ports lock someone out of playing Magic. Basic lands already harbor the disadvantage of producing only one color of mana, so they really ought to be exempt from the Port. Rishadan Port also slows the game down, adding lots of extra repetitive and irritating actions.

    Iona, Shield of Emeria

    Now we're on the big, dumb, overpowered creatures category. Part of an enjoyable game of Magic involves both players being able to cast spells. Iona prevents the opponent from casting most, or all, of their spells. See the problem? Due to WOTC's obstinacy/obliviousness, Iona was one in a string of ridiculously overpowered fatties that had the minor drawback of being legendary. This left people scrounging for answers, and Karakas was the best one. Unfortunately, that has been the case with almost all of these big, dumb, overpowered creatures, which is why Karakas is a $150 card now. Creating problems that need to be fixed with a card printed a decade and a half earlier and which can't be reprinted is just poor game management. Containment Priest is a step in the right direction.

    Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

    So Necropotence and Mind Twist are banned, but this card does both? Hmmm. Oh, wait, it's legendary: Must be safe! The fact that this card was in the same environment as Mental Misstep and Force of Will was extremely problematic.

    Mental Misstep

    Thank goodness this spell goosed the format for only three months. Misstep battles were insipid and immediate, and part of the joy of deck building is variety. Having to automatically include Missteps, or really go out of your way to blank opposing Missteps, was perverse.

    Griselbrand

    Once upon a time, there was a card called Necropotence. It was awesome but OP. It got banned. Yawgmoth's Bargain was the fixed version. It was similarly awesome but similarly OP. It also got banned. Time went by and WOTC again ventured into the buncha-cards-for-life design space with Griselbrand. A killable Yawgmoth's Bargain seems OK in theory, but wires must've gotten crossed, because Griselbrand came out with the stats a regular fatty would have at such a mana cost. 7/7 flying and lifelink for 4BBBB is the kind of monster made for a core set. And then somehow Yawgmoth's Bargain found itself reincarnated within. Also, no one seemed to realize that if paying life to draw a bunch of cards is too powerful, then gaining the life right back afterward ... would obviously be even more -- nah, let's just print a ridiculously broken demon.

    Progenitus

    "Protection from everything" is an extremely lazy wording and a blatantly excessive ability. Progenitus is like an Unglued card that somehow was made legal. I'm OK with Emrakul and like the flavor of the annihilator ability, but annihilator six is too excessive. Four would have been plenty. I also don't feel it needs the protection from colored spells ability.

    Enter the Infinite

    From those who brought you big, dumb, overpowered creatures, this is the big, dumb, overpowered spell. Once again, this reads like an Unglued card. The fact that this was printed so soon after Omniscience was inexcusable.

    Terminus

    A one-mana Wrath of God. It's conditional, sure, but it happens to fit perfectly with cards you're playing already: stuff like Brainstorm and Ponder and Sensei's Divining Top. WOTC can be so exasperating. They say that creatures got a raw deal and need to be powered up on par with spells, and then they print a nuke for creatures that even hits cards that used to prey on control decks, like Ichorid and Bloodghast and Thrun, the Last Troll. The Miracle mechanic is a lousy one in itself, making topdecks even more impactful, and the "in hand but not obviously in hand" aspect adds unnecessary confusion. At least the mechanic is leagues better than flip cards.

    Jace, the Mind Sculptor

    I don't find Jace heinous like the other cards on this list, but fate-sealing is overpowered, and it's BS that he has four abilities. Killing a Jace is one of the most gratifying things for me. I personally think that Jace either should not have had the Brainstorm ability or should not have had a win-the-game ultimate, because if you are Brainstorming every turn, you are probably winning the game anyway.

  20. #80
    Site Contributor
    Admiral_Arzar's Avatar
    Join Date

    Feb 2010
    Location

    Denver, CO
    Posts

    1,289

    Re: [Article]Eternal Europe: Love//Hate

    Some things I like:

    LED
    Dark Ritual
    High Tide (& Time Spiral, of course)
    Aluren
    AEther Vial
    Life from the Loam
    Cabal Therapy
    Smokestack
    Moat
    Misthollow Griffin
    Hymn

    And plenty more. I like a lot of things in Legacy, which is why I keep coming back despite the obvious flaws in the format. As for things I hate:

    Delver of Secrets
    Counterbalance
    Griselbrand/Emrakul/Omniscience
    Gitaxian Probe
    Terminus
    True-Name Nemesis
    Jace

    Delver is the most overpowered offensive one-drop ever, and it's blue. Enough said. I have always hated Counterbalance, the lock is too easy to assemble and unlike Chalice/Trinisphere it doesn't force you to abstain from playing the best cards the format offers. Griselbrand and the other dumb high-cost bullshit printed lately turned a fun and interesting card (Show and Tell) into a boring, derpy combo deck that dodges most of the hate traditional combo decks have issues with while being far easier to pilot. IMO it is better for the format if strong combo decks are difficult to pilot. Gitaxian Probe has removed the mystery from Legacy. As someone who likes to play fringe decks, it's pretty difficult to surprise your opponent when they often have perfect information for next to no cost on turn one. Terminus and TNN together put the final nails in aggro's coffin. Aggressive decks need intense amounts of disruption and usually blue to have a shot against this nonsense, not to mention color pie arguments for TNN. While I have played plenty of Jace in my day, I hate that he has functionally pushed non-blue control decks out of the meta. Most such strategies are very good at killing creatures but have very few answers to Jace and thus fold to him.
    Lord of the Chalice

    Quote Originally Posted by Julian23 View Post
    Since playing against Spiral Tide provides a lot fun for both players is something only someone who's not had sex for quite a while could enjoy, I pull out GW Maverick.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brainstorm Ape View Post
    Spikes are supposed to enjoy winning by leveraging their talents, but this card can't fetch the most SKILL INTENSIVE card in all of Magic?

    Clearly aimed at Modern plebs, not gonna be a pillar of our format.
    Stompy Discord: https://discord.gg/6cesvkz

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)