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Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-04-19 17:51:49)
Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-04-19 17:51:49)
By the way, this might be a fine time to mention to all Multiverse's recent new members that The Community Set is intended to be open to all. It's probably not especially clear where to get started, but I think we'll shortly be asking for uncommon designs for each of our six factions, so if you want to come up with some ideas for uncommons for a multicolour-versus-monocolour set, feel free.
Oy! That's a lot of reading, writing and editing. I need a soda.
Technically, you need to make one of those combinations of mana. Two Fire-Lit Thickets only make . But I agree. It's a better card.
It looks like Mossfire Valley and friends would just be worse than Fire-Lit Thicket, generally.
Anyway, to respond to the original question: Yes, I do agree with those criteria. I think the checklands are pretty much the perfect dual lands for the core set. They're easy to understand and at a great power level.
I remember reading, when tenth edition came out that Maro expressed regret that they were forced to use Yavimaya Coast and Caves of Koilos in the core set. That's why, when Odyessey came out, they made sure to use generic names on the rare land cycle (Mossfire Valley et al.)... which is kind of funny, since those 5 never appeared in a core set. They're due some day, I guess. Either them, or a set of lands like them that also produce colorless.
I don't think the rule so much is that Wizards won't put rare off-world lands in the core set, so much that they try to make promotable lands generic in the first place.
What I mean is that a complete set of simpler duals duals than be occasionally reused in expert expansions would be a valuable asset. Not many of the dual land sets qualify for that (in fact, there are so few 10-lands sets that we can expect a few of them to be completed, especially upon revisiting the planes they came from).
I think you're a bit wrong, Alex. While Wizards has indeed been making an attempt to add some planar flavor into core sets, and had a sort of "tour of the planes" theme in M13, I'm pretty sure I read a statement from Maro somewhere stating that they try to print dual lands with neutral flavor. That way they can reprint them in whatever set they think is necessary. That's why the shocklands don't have guild-specific names, after all.
The "plane neutral" requirement is an old myth that refuses to die. If it was ever true of core sets, it hasn't been for a long time, but I don't think it ever was: Adarkar Wastes was in lots of core sets, the Caves of Koilos and Yavimaya Coast are storyline locations, and so on; more recently we've had characters like Odric, Master Tactician and Krenko, Mob Boss, who are from Innistrad and Ravnica respectively but were introduced in core sets.
I'd love to see Coastal Towers with basic land types, but I don't think it'll happen for some time, because they'd be inherently overshadowed by the shocklands even though they're usually better than Guildgates.
Rare dual lands are always a tricky proposition. On the one hand, experienced players are usually rather excited to get a dual land as their rare in a booster (because they're very valuable, because they go in so many tournament decks, because good duals are mostly kept to rare, because that sells more packs for Wizards). On the other hand, new players are usually not very excited at all about dual lands, and there's not much that can be done about that. I imagine lots of kitchen-table newbies cracking Ravnica packs were even disappointed in the shocklands they opened (until they made it to a FLGS with people with trade binders). The one exception to that that occurs is the Celestial Colonnade cycle, especially notable for Creeping Tar Pit and Raging Ravine. Those were popular both with newbies and with tournament players.
I'd emphasise "Simple". You want people to see them, get them, use them. Drawbacks are needed ofr obvious power-level concerns; but they shouldn't be fiddly.
ETB tapped Tri-lands seem promotable to rare. Might require a few more years for people to appreciate that move, though... Alara uncommons aren't really in short supply yet.
I don't see why we can't get something similar to Tainted Isle and company. Taps for colorless, or U/B if you control an Island or Swamp. Just Glacial Fortress with the etb tapped switched with colorless, I suppose.
Also, I wonder if we'll ever see "When this land enters the battlefield, search your library for a Mountain or a Forest and put it into play..." Better than Wooded Foothills because you don't pay the 1 life, but worse because you got to choose as soon as you play it. Seems kind of broken. Which only reminds me how broken those damn Foothills really are.
Discardlands (~ ETBs tapped unless you discard a card) will happen, but probably not in the core set. Basic taplands are still an option, if only because the basic set of allied-color ones is not plane-neutral. I wonder if the move to more uncommon doesn't mean there will now be duals at that rarity again?
Yeah; I guess having "Do this and you'll at least stand a chance" advice was allowing too low a barrier of entry :(
Note that the high cost of common removal isn't new in Theros; it was the case in Return to Ravnica block as well. Trostani's Judgment, Angelic Edict, Explosive Impact, and so on. The reasoning I thought I'd seen for it was to make Draft pick choices more interesting than just "always take the removal". Any common removal that isn't extremely expensive will be rather restricted or conditional (Viper's Kiss, Smite, Mugging) or coloured-mana-intensive to restrict splashing (Annihilating Fire, Grisly Spectacle).
(As for low contrast, it'd take quite some contrast to be as bad as the power/toughness on old card frame white creatures. At least with this new change the text will always be white on black.)
what changes to card frame affects this site though? most of the changes affect physical cards , not online cards. you don't even use the bottom part to add set and copyright info.
my main argument against 8th ed frames is the low contrast makes sorting much harder than before, and harder to identify from afar or when scaled down. this has a huge effect on usability and ergonomics. this time it's even getting worse.
When 8th Edition and Mirrodin came out, loads of people found the modern card frames horrible, non-fantasy, dull and so on. But it'd be pretty odd if when creating this site I'd stuck to the 7th Edition card frames. At least, it would have been a deliberate statement that I wouldn't want to make.
In general people are usually very sceptical of any significant change in Magic (as in most other areas of life). Some of those changes turn out to have been for the better; there's always some people who prefer it the old way, but deliberately hanging on to the old way when the world has moved on would mark me as some kind of neophobe or seem to be making a statement that I Disagree With Wizards On This.
So I probably will make the change. Just not as a particularly high priority. (Sorry I haven't been able to make many Multiverse fixes recently, by the way. I've been busy prototyping board games that are on their way too publication. And, y'know, having a baby.)
Well one good thing to consider adding is the set information (and maybe card number) at the bottom of the card.
I agree. Not to mention I find the new look quite ugly :D
Merry winter solstice holiday of your choosing. That is, unless you going full on hipster with me, and celebrate the Feast of Saint Stephen.
"Christmas is too commercial. We like to celebrate a little holiday about the first Christian martyr. You've probably never heard of it. sniff."
If that's the case, then no holiday cheer for you. May I suggest the Roman Holiday of Saturnalia instead?
Merry new happy!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!
Part of the problem with Legendary is that, after a few cute tricks dealing with how they get sacrificed, there really isn't much to work with, design-wise. It's just a toggle switch, in the same way that you can write any word after the type em dash, and call it a theme. "All Legendary creatures get +2/+2" seems like a cool ability. But there's only so many times you can keep going to that well. "Target Legendary creature gets first strike." "Whenever a Legendary creature does X." etc., etc. Do that enough times, and you end up with a boring set. Or, in other words, you end up with Kamigawa.
That's not to say one can't get innovative with the Legendary design. It's just important to see the missteps for what they are. Personally, I think you could go rather far with a keyword mechanic that triggered off Legendary. That way, you can keep reinforcing how important Legendary creatures are, without constantly reinventing the Legendary bonus (and without constantly boring players with repetition of the word 'Legendary', since that will be in the reminder text.)
Instead of looking to Innistrad, I'd look to Coldsnap, and the use of Snow-Covered Lands. Over there, they proved that a special sheet can be used to have a real effect on the game... though, any player could play an off-color Snow land, and Snow lands are hard to get rid of, so maybe they aren't the great example I want them to be. I think the Snow theme worked perfectly for Coldsnap, but that required one special sheet worth of cards that any player could use, and a smattering of other permanents that produced snow in the regular line-up. In order to make a set that's 'about' Legendary permanents, you'd probably need a special sheet, a number of rares, plus numerous uncommons that dipped into theme. Otherwise, you might be able to insure that each player can get 3 Legendaries, on average, in their draft pool... but you can't guarantee those Legendaries will be castable...
well for uniform distribution, you just have to decide which rarity to follow and there's the number of unique cards you need. rares are about 1/60 in big set, so 60 unique cards. uncommons 1/20, so 20 uniques; commons 1/10. we can forget mythics' rate of 1 in 120.
also my numbers above are off because i didn't search correctly. there were only 20 and 13 DFCs in Innistrad and Dark Ascension, respectively.
they don't have to replace basic lands in the pack. it could be one of the common slots.
uniform distribution has the benefit of lower chance of getting the same card twice. however, is that a good thing? why can't two players pick their own copy of the same legend, or the same player picking multiples of the same legend (e.g. to get a better chance of drawing it in a game)?
also, it would be more interesting to design legends of varying rarities. simple ones like Isamaru can be common, and then there are crazy, cool ones that deserve to be rare or mythic.