I totally agree, Fatal. None of those cards should have been printed, and I would really love to hear an explanation from WOTC as to why those cards exist and what WOTC's vision of them was (if there was any forethought at all). Those are precisely the kind of massive instant-win bombs that hurt Legacy as a format. My view is that if WOTC designers want to print ridiculous stuff like that, they need to either tighten the restrictions (such as a wording that might say "Cannot enter the battlefield unless you actually paid the converted mana cost"), or increase the drawbacks of the card (such as Griselbrand making its controller lose half his or her life when it entered the battlefield), or they need to realize that other colors need some way to interact with those things outside of the stack. A lot of the time, it seems like WOTC's designers have never even played Eternal formats. I know this can't be true, because I know a number of people recently hired by WOTC, and they're great players who have definitely played at least Legacy, but it's awful to see a card like Enter the Infinite exist.
It's not acceptable to print cards like that and say, "Oh, it's OK because they have Force of Will to regulate things." WOTC totally bungled Mental Misstep, which I think was supposed to be a counterspell that other colors could play. Mindbreak Trap was a well-designed card. Deathrite Shaman was pushed a little too hard (really, why is it a 1/2 and not a 1/1, and why does it have three abilities when two would be fine?), but I'm glad it exists. We need real, playable, well-designed answers to things like Show and Tell and Griselbrand that aren't just counterspells. Given the stream of broken cards, I fully expect even more head-smackingly powerful cards in the future. True-Name Nemesis is going in the opposite direction of what I want for Legacy. This is yet another card that limits interaction between players, and protection from players is just absurd and even sounds stupid. How can this Merfolk have protection from essentially everything I could do? That makes no sense. It would have been very easy to word that card so that it fit in Commander and wouldn't dump on Legacy. Having to fight spells on the stack only really works for blue, and red blasts counter a few things but really aren't that good unless you are playing blue to amplify. For example, a Pyroblast just gets Forced by the combo deck, and then you're out of mana because they won the die roll and started out with a Lotus Petal and a Sol land. The Pyroblast is only really effective when you can Force back.
As True-Name Nemesis enters the battlefield, name a legendary creature.Originally Posted by ESG
True-Name Nemesis has protection from players with the named creature as their Commander.
there have always been combo. 2 cards combo are the best possibile and OmniShow is a 3 cards combo.
Not that hot. What makes TNN (and SNT) big is its flexibility. You can pack it alongside a creature based deck (Merfolk, SFN decks) and win with it alone while the other player is busy nuking everything else.
With an equipped TNN you have just to held counter for his sweepers. What else?
Edicts maybe? It would be amazing if Barter in Blood because the next sleeper uncommon in Legacy, because I seem to have an overabundance.
But yeah, this is the reason that I am surprised not to see something like a Bant Stoneblade approach building around TNN. TNN makes spot removal bad; a turn 1 Noble Hierarch/turn 2 True-Name gives at least one out against the aforementioned Edict effect, as would Stoneforge Mystic and maybe even Squadron Hawk(?? is that guy still A Thing??) After that you just counter everything not named Supreme Verdict, and there's probably some silly answer for that too.
I mean you're still assembling Voltron to an extent and I'm certain you can get out-aggro'ed, but TNN on its own seems like one of the strongest pairings with an SFM package. Probably *the* best, actually.
I don't know what you're trying to imply here but I'm very sincere in my criticism of TNN. It is a boring card because it is so incredibly non-interactive. The only answers are counters and very narrow -1/-1 effects that people now only want to play because of this one new card. It isn't interesting in any way, it is only powerful.
Barter in Blood will never be a thing because Damnation or even Toxic Deluge are simply better.
I don't think the complaints are about its power level but the fact that it's yet another efficient weenie with a reasonable ability that just happens to poop on guys that exist outside the color when Blue isn't supposed to one-up those colors in this particular arena.
Something something, Nacatl < Delver, Snapcaster "should be Red instead", something something Geist of St Traft very aggro and non-interactive, reasons reasons, True-Name is the best protection knight ever but ohshit it's Blue not White, something.
For my part I try to followup as many of my conversations in this vein with "it's not OP it's just the wrong fscking color", but other people are more vocal about their estimate of its sheer power. It is, in fact, at least as non-interactive as Geist of Saint Traft and in many respects more so because it literally just doesn't give a fuck about a *ton* of effects in the game. -X/-X effects are so far the best things, that and uncounterable Wraths (of which there's like… the one). That's the biggest PITA about it, there is just not a lot of built-in answers to it, and it's like… wtf why does Islands get such a mid-boss creature at 3 mana? Should be getting weird little bastards like Ophidian or Voidmage Prodigy or whatever, not these uber-protection guys that can chump block and swing unblocked and can't be StPed and shit. I dunno, it's just conceptually more fucked-up than anything.
No I know, I was being an ass. :B I left my sarcastic font in another thread
Good job. You've already proved yourself to be wotc's designers' superior.
TNN wouldn't be any more fun or interactive if it had been printed in white. I really don't think the color is the problem with the card. White is a top tier color in legacy anyway.
yey
I recall something not to long ago when Theros was being spoiled that MaRo and company half apologized for the state of the game, with Thragtusk and Thrun and Geist and Sigarda offering little no interaction between players, and that they were going to tone back on hexproof and stupid creatures in general. Then this.
I love this.
Wish they'd errata saying the above was the intended design of the card.
"I made a Redguard that looks like Kimbo Slice. He wrecks peoples' shit. And dragons." - Bignasty197
Ban the damn card! In my opinion the ban list is there for correcting design error. Why not use it? TNN was never meant for two player magic, so let's get rid of it!
I'm still almost sure it will happen soon ...
Or just ban it. It's effectively the same thing, except you won't get new people entering the format confused as to why their TNN deck doesn't work as expected.
I might say that TNN encourages a LOT of interactions between players ...
. outside the game
Now i like powerfull cards that crush my opponents. I think the metagame will adapt, i play storm and uxyz blade with nemesis and as stated multiple times TNN is by far inferior to clique in this case
It's just such a beating if you're playing fair. I don't think they can ban the card, it's not too strong for Legacy. It is ridiculous, though.
At least rounds won't ever go to time now!
Probably after all commanderdecks are sold out
But that's still besides the point. You've been able to draw your deck since Alpha if you had enough mana, just like Enter the Infinite. Functionally it does nothing that hasn't been done multiple times before, Enter the Infinite just happens to have a strong combination with something else. It's kinda like Millstone and Grindstone, they serve basically the same function but one happens to have a killer combo with Painter's Servant.
Yes, but as I pointed out, what it gains in power-for-its-mana-cost (12 mana to draw maybe 40 cards versus the 42 mana Braingeyser requires) is compensated for its lack of flexibility, namely the fact you can't cast it for less for a lesser effect. Even if you think the lack of flexibility is not enough to compensate and it should've cost more mana, that's a completely separate issue. There's no basic principles of Magic being violated here.There was no other card printed before which allow player draw so many cards for so low cost (counting resources as mana only).
And 4 of those cards have prohibitively high mana costs that make them fairly balanced (with the exception of True-Name Nemesis). I think you should be able to do some pretty broken stuff if you get that kind of mana at your disposal.Anyway conclusion:
WotC printing some really unfun, non-interactive cards last tmes:
- Emrakul
- Griselbrand
- Omnisience
- Enter the Infinite
- and now True-Name Nemesis
They are overlay just bad as a concept which is against of Magic as a game idea - interaction between two players.
The actual issue Legacy players have is Show and Tell, without which those mana costs would be a lot more relevant.
I offer no defense for True-Name Nemesis. My opinion of it has consistently been it should only work in multiplayer. But I guess that would sell fewer packs.
Design-wise yes, TNN is lazy, but here's my defense on why it won't break Legacy...
Some people like to look at Legacy like it's a collection of fair and semi fair decks, this isn't the situation and never will be.
Legacy is basically a random assortment of everything that's come to pass since the inception of Magic rolled into one. It's the most fair decks vs. semi fair decks vs. completely unfair decks. For a while recently Legacy was defined by fairish decks, and that's fine but we've always been aware that unfair decks exist and must be accounted for. Now Legacy has a card that is going to be hot for a minute that is the jam vs. fair decks but sucks vs. unfair decks, like completely sucks. The best comparison for TNN vs. combo is V Cliche is to TNN what Thalia is to Grizzly Bear vs unfair decks. For a long time combo was underrepresented (Mental Misstep era anyone?), now I feel we are in a period where fair decks are at a disadvantage. What happens next is most likely a shift to semi-fair decks, where you still have a 50%ish game vs. decks that are fair but meta'd vs. unfair decks and a 50%ish game vs. unfair decks. As this shift becomes more pronounced the power of TNN grows (Because TNN is pretty good vs. semi fair and fair decks, and the semi-fair decks which prey on combo will grow in popularity). As people start to view this as a weakness in the metagame the balance shifts back to unfair decks.
This is the same reason I can reasonably play Humans in Vintage. If people weren't expecting 4x Force of Will + 4x or more other counter Magic or 12x Spheres Humans would be a losing proposition always, the same way if people weren't going into a Legacy tourney expecting 4x Force of Will, ANT wouldn't run a bunch of discard and would win on turn 2 much for often. TNN is a metagame factor to be sure. Should every SERIOUS Legacy player have 4x in their collection, absolutely. Does TNN "Warp" the meta, yeah but not as much as Delver. Is TNN ban worthy? No, it's a metagame weapon vs. semi-fair and some fair decks, but it basically is a whiff vs. 1/3 of the expected meta. If anything TNN is a weapon for combo decks, a psychological weapon. By you preparing for a card 1/3 of the theoretical metagame doesn't give a fuck about, it gives that cross-section of decks an advantage vs. you and the people running that card. If there was a blind pick deck right now in Legacy it would be either RUG which can capitalize on the slow pace of TNN or combo in general for the same reason.
If you really think about it a Legacy (or any) Magic tournament is won or lost before you even register for the event in that's it's all in selecting the proper deck, the rest is just playing optimally.
big links in sigs are obnoxious -PR
Don't disrespect my dojo dude...
Sweep the leg!
The problem is the shitty gameplay. I play combo. I won't lose more because of the card. But it makes fair Magic less interesting and more uninteractive.
This. I play 4 color loam. Obviously my combo MU isn't amazing, but I have a shot. I play a Teeg in the board to bring in as a GSZ target. But since TNN I wanted to have a bit better game vs him, so I took out Teeg from my board, weakening my post board combo MU slightly so that I would have a better post board MU vs TNN decks.
That said, I still hate the card and everything that it stands for
I disagree with this. The majority of my losses during that period were to Reanimator (flush with its new Jin-Gitaxias) and Hive Mind. NO RUG was control/combo. NO Show was combo. Painter-Stone was combo. Mental Misstep suppressed some combo decks and strengthened others.
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