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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-04-25 08:37:42)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-04-25 08:37:42)
Vitenka says a lot of stuff like that. Haha.
oh man, i want to hear you elaborate on that
Honestly? Don't care at all; I vaguely play eternal and sometimes play a draft. I've never followed sets and blocks and crap like that - it's all pointless design-wankery as far as I can see.
https://twitter.com/wrapter/status/504008747081928704
I was kind of put off by all the build up in MaRo's article. This just seems like a natural choice, and what they've been building up to ever since Lorwyn/Eventide. I'm honestly surprised it took them this long.
well, time to re-tool my block plan. can't be using old WotC tech
anyway this seems fine, i don't play standard anyway (just limited) so all good news from where i'm sitting
MaRo's said that they'll be more aggressive with reprints in the expansions now to make up for not having the core sets.
I suspect that expert expansion design won't be altered that much by this shift (other than maybe discarding the practice of avoiding certain obvious designs previously left for a third set) and that the "perennial staple" now will be introduced in the same way as those extra cards in the M15 Intro Packs. Rather than vanilla creatures, we'll see the intro packs (possibly with a new code series) bringing into standard cards like Chandra's Fury, Prey Upon and Duress instead.
I liked the current arrangement with interesting core sets, but I like the reasoning for the new structure and think it will work better.
I hope there IS a decent on-ramp for beginners, but it's possible that can be a separate product, it doesn't have to come out as part of standard. That means there may be no introductory draft product, but either maybe that's ok, people can learn with preconstructed decks and then make the leap to drafting the current expansion, or maybe stores will offer "beginner" drafts somehow (either with wizards producing permanent-core non-standard-legal booster packs, or drafting non-sanctioned boosters made up of old core set cards?)
I almost never have time to make a constructed standard deck, so I already expect it to have rotated before I've played with it once or twice, so the shorter rotation doesn't make as much difference to me. Although I wish it was easier to build "a werewolf deck" or "a sliver deck" and have a format less competitive than modern but more competitive than casual you could play it in. Maybe block constructed (or "consecutive block constructed"?) should get support??
My major concern is that as someone who gets most of his cards with a single booster box and drafts, this means I have MUCH less time to accumulate/get the value cards on top of them rotating faster, I strongly suspect Khans block will be the last I will buy booster boxes for.
I wonder if that new product line is Magic Origins.
Metamorphosis
I'm fine with the changes. I like core sets, actually, but I'll gladly give them up for more, faster-paced blocks. I'm not that active in Standard, so the faster rotation schedule hurts, but I'm not the type of player it was meant to help. I'm glad that Standard will be better for the Standard players. On his Tumblr, MaRo said that a new product line is being created for newer players to replace the core sets.
I think the biggest problem with banding is that there are two ideas that need to be put forward. 1. What constitutes a band? 2. How again is this damage redirection thingy happening? Every time someone wraps their head around one of those things, they tend to forget how the other one worked. Hmpf.
Also thought of this: "Whenever this creature attacks, you may remove it from combat. If you do, target creature gets +X/+X until end of turn." At least it's a little closer to intent than Ghost Warden.
Ug. Maybe all banders should just have Exalted instead. I suppose that's always an option.
Maybe "Creatures in a band may attack in a group with shared toughness. Of the group take lethal damage, only one dies." Only better worded.
And deathtouch.
That's amazing. I love it. The only problem is how it interacts with combat abilities like first strike, flying, and lifelink.
Too bad banding isn't just, like, "Creatures with banding may attack in a group with shared power and toughness."
Oh, hey, I forgot to add sacrificing. Yup, they should sacrifice if I don't want the ability to create indestructible attackers every turn. So that would be:
Icatian Phalanx
Creature - Human Soldier
Sacrifice Icatian Phalanx: Target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn, and prevent all combat damage to target creature this turn. You may use this ability only before blockers are declared.
2/4
Hmm. It's a bit lumpy. And it doesn't do a good job of expressing that the Phalanx could probably take the hit in a band...
I don't know. I'm really starting to think that Psuedoband is the best idea. It does a good job of reminding you of what banding was, but doesn't bother trying to do much of anything. It just looks at all those rules and says 'nah'. I'd rather just have a bigger creature, thank you.
I wish I had some maple syrup, because I fear I'm going to be doing some tall stack waffling over here.
That seems about as reasonable as you'll get in Homelands Restored if you don't want two abilities.
However once you get to The Dark or Fallen Empires, you'll have to deal with creatures that actually have banding built in like Icatian Phalanx. How would you phrase the ability in those cases?
Splitting banding into two separate abilities is a good idea I didn't think of. It's going to look funny printed 7+ times on 7+ cards, though. I really was hoping for something I could keyword, but maybe that's not in the cards.
Hmm... maybe we could combine the two? Because both those abilities are present when a creature is banding, it could be:
, Tap an untapped Bird you control: Target creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn, and prevent all combat damage to target creature this turn. You may use this ability only before blockers are declared.
I could drop that last sentence. I just tossed it in there to get as close to the principals of banding as I could. This doesn't really allow you to do the opposite... chumping the other creature so you can keep a bird. But there's no version where I keep everything...
The reminder text does include banding as a blocker: "If any creatures with banding a player controls are blocking or being blocked by a creature, that player divides..."
I wonder whether you could give Soraya and Beast Walkers two abilities? Soraya the Falconer I think could have:
>
, Sacrifice a[n untapped] Bird: Target creature deals no combat damage this turn.
, Tap an untapped Bird you control: Target attacking creature gets +1/+1 UEOT.
>
That I think still works out as less words than the banding reminder text...
I'd go with breaking it up; give some creatures "Sacrifice ~: Target creature deals no damage this turn" which is, functionally, most of block-banding; and for the attack, I'd go with either granting fight to things, or making things un-blockable. So capturing most of what you can do with banding, without going to the complexity of it.
Heh. Yeah, this is an uphill battle, and one with no winning solution. Unfortunately, I'm trapped by the goals of my set, and by cards like Beast Walkers. Most of the other cards aren't giving me this sort of problem. I just happened to stumble into one of the greatest sinkholes that Magic design has to offer.
For reference purposes, here's banding's reminder text. It's a doozy:
Banding (Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding a player controls are blocking or being blocked by a creature, that player divides that creature's combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it's being blocked by or is blocking.)
What's crazy is that that's not even the full extent of banding, since it doesn't include banding as a blocker. When you group block a creature, and at least one of them is a bander, you get to divide up how the creature deals combat damage among your creatures. And just to throw one absurd twist in this complication, this runs directly against how combat damage is assigned post Magic 2010 rules. You don't choose the order that creatures are assigned damage... you can fan it out. If you block a Grey Ogre with two Beast Walkers, you can spread the damage between the two and absorb it all, killing the Ogre and keeping your Walkers alive.
Man, it takes far too much energy to explain the mechanic. It's cool once you 'get it', but it sure doesn't grok easy.
For starters, I've come up with four possible solutions off the top of my head, though, I'm eager to hear others:
Haven't been people been trying to come up with a "better" banding for quite some time? It may be a doomed effort. It's not something that's likely appear in Magic 2016 (though neither is shroud, which appears in this set). I guess that shouldn't prevent you from trying, though. I'll be honest: I'm not even sure what banding does. I've never played with it, so I've never bothered to learn anything about it.
You know, I started this comment on the card Beast Walkers in my set Homelands Restored, but I wanted some opinions, and I was afraid I'd bury the conversation over there, with me adding 3 cards a day or so, so I moved it over here.
The problem: In Homelands Restored, I'm trying to 'fix' Homelands, specifically by balancing the power level, and making the mechanics look like they belong to modern magic. Cards should look like they could be reprinted in Magic 2016. That's impossible to do with some cards (Apocalypse Chime, for example), but I'm doing what I can.
That's the goal. The goal is not to design new cards to prove how clever I can be. I'm not going to use a fancy pair of suspenders, when a boring belt can keep the pants in place.
Banding, however, is proving to be a particularly tricky problem. It only pops up on Beast Walkers and Soraya the Falconer. But if I plan to do Fallen Empires Restored and The Dark Restored at some point, then I'm looking at seven cards with banding. Maybe more, if I decide to 'restore' more sets than that.
What I need is a simple solution that could appear on cards in Magic 2016, features as much of banding as could be considered reasonable, but also didn't try to be clever about it. Ideally, someone reading the card should say "Oh, that makes sense.", "That seems pretty obvious." or, best case scenario (which I don't expect here.) "Oh. I thought that's how it worked in the first place. Weird." All that, and it needs to be repeatable, since it's bound to appear on 7+ cards
Any suggestions?