Is It Better To Have Powerful But Broken Sets Or Weak But Balanced? | Dies To Removal Episode 39
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- Did you miss out previous episode about Magic: The Gathering's Constant Artificial Rotation? Check it out here: • Magic: The Gathering's...
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Did you miss out previous episode about Magic: The Gathering's Constant Artificial Rotation? Check it out here: czcams.com/video/yrNZ1MIY1t0/video.html
Brian, perfection doesn't exist because it's subjective, expect "great" or "epic" instead
I wonder if Prof has ever encountered a cheater whilst playing a game of magic haha
@@21Kikoshi Given the prevalence of mana weaving, yes, definitly
@@Greg501- True, but in a scenario when he knew it was happening and did something about it.
Did you hire a new editor recently, or did I just never notice in the past? I like it either way!
Just two things:
I think some of the disinterest in new planes and old could be attributed to the speed at which they’re pumping out new sets. Without the block system we’re just being bombarded with a new plane every other week.
That fetchland reprint has one major difference from masterpieces, masterpieces are in the packs, box toppers are in the box. If I’m drafting or I can only buy loose packs there’s a 0% of getting those cards. Not everyone buys whole boxes, or gets their boxes with the toppers still included.
My cousin loved Kamigawa and still plays MTG but isn’t hyped at all about Neon Dynasty.
“I liked the classic Japanese homages. It’s literally ruining what I liked about it. Fun dimir commander stuff though.”
They tried to get fans of Japanese history and fans of cyberpunk garbage but I think they’re gonna end up missing on both.
New planes are not interesting because they introduce a new planeswalker every time, and than it follows with introduction of that new planeswalker to the Gate Watch. And the Gate Watch is what killed Magic and its story telling.
@@JStack Your cousin hit the nail on the head for my misgivings with the Neon Dynasty. Its ironically less unique now.
@@mindustrial They have luckily stepped away from the gatewatch for now though. Since Eldraine there has, to my knowledge, been no mention of the gatewatch within the story. The introduction of new planeswalkers in every set is older than the gatewatch though.
Really good points!
Great point on the "meme wedding" feeling of the Crimson Vow set. That was something I noticed and it seemed odd but didn't really understand why exactly it was bad.
Some art in it is cool and it has good cards for spirit tribal, a few decent werewolves and vamps. But wasn’t my favorite set. Olivia and toxrill were pushed to the moon and became more expensive than they should have been
You need to give the editor a raise for this episode. I know it’s simple editing but I’m laughing so hard 😂😂😂
Agreed times a million. Whoever is editing is doing great!
Last time someone said that he did lol
Yes!
40:35 was just such a punch out of nowhere. I was rolling!
Can State four fact that that editor was absolutely bored of watching that video and was just trying to have some fun absolutely needs a raise
An idea popped into my head that may or may not be related: They go back to blocks, but give each set a significantly different flavor to show that planes aren't like star wars planets that just have one biome; there could be different cultures and conflicts in far off regions of Tarkir and Kaladesh for example, which pull from the same worldbuilding roots but take things in a notably different direction. Maybe there's a city in Tarkir where many lesser dragons make up a sort of nobility and they each have their own ambitions and allies in the internal power struggle, or a more rural area of Kaladesh where aether is very scarce which fuels superstition and causes large conflicts. (Hopefully I'm not making a fool of myself with my ignorance to the details of how planes actually work.)
While I think it would be cool to explore different regions within the same plane, you don't need block sets to do that. You could just return to an existing plane and explore a different region. Outside of Dominaria though, all planes have had a defining gimmick, so it would require a new conceptualization of what defines a plane and distinguishes them from other planes.
I am personally fan of block sets though since they allow for more immersion and better storytelling.
This reminds me of the first few years of sets, where they thoroughly explored all the different realms of Dominaria (for example) over a dozen sets. It's a good idea and I'd like to see it too.
When I first started magic, and didn't known anything about lore, I thought that was what the idea behind it was.
That Kamigawa was just a country in this world because, well - japan is also just a country in our world. That Mirrodin was some metal wasteland off in the east, and Ravnica some sprawling cityscape central to a continent.
And I found that idea fascinating, because imo fantasy in general tends to be way too monocultural. Hell, when I learned that this wasn't the case, that disappointment made me start writing my own fantasy stories to have a fantasy world that diverse.
@@AricHaldan0782 Well, Ixalan has an obvious sequel in another location; the Sun Empire launching an invasion of Torrezon was heavily hinted at in the epilogue
@@AricHaldan0782 That's why Dominaria is my favourite plane by a good margin. They spent so much time there it got really fleshed out, and felt like a real place instead of a pile of tropes.
I'd rather make tools work together instead of getting full blown engines in every card. The latter is dangerously boring, often invalidates tons of older cards and is therefore permanently damaging.
Well said!
Hear hear
Your comment explains the biggest problem with MTG that no one talks about. Decks use to be built around certain game machanics and themes. now cards go into every deck that if you dont play you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
"Must remove or lose" cards are one thing, "must remove or lose" cards that are also X for 1 are just nuts...
My favorite part of the format has always been finding cards that make your commander “work,” not cards that take your 1-card engine and just break it beyond belief.
I’d rather they print more cards like Emmara, Soul of Accord than cards like Urza
Hands down you guys are my favorite MTG podcast. You and Vince have that perfect mix of chemistry, witty banter, and insight. I hope you guys keep collaborating like this.
Wow, thank you!
The MDFC’s are everywhere in Commander, and also the fetches, of course. ZR is great for us, albeit underrated, or so it seems here.
Imagine talking about ZR and not even mentioning the greatest design of the last 2 years: MDFC lands, which are still absolutely relevant in standard to modern, and greatly improve the issue of flooding.
Bala ged recovery is touching 4 bucks at uncommon
And almost all of them are playable. The mythic ones are basically auto include in all commander decks.
I thought zendikar rising was fantastic
And I am absolutely in love with my Tazri Party EDH deck, which is like 40% ZR cards and is just a blast to play.
I’m commenting early, but I would say lower level sets can blossom later on after more cards come out. Ixalan was criticized for that, and yet lots of those cards are commander staples. Or search for azcanta was important in modern till around the start of horizons. Whereas oko et al. harmed sets requiring tons of bans.
Hour-Ixilan-Dominaria was a great Standard.
Yes it was a literal Battle of the Gods with Scarab and Hazoret being the 2 best decks but they didn’t force out other strategies.
It wasn’t until Wilderness Rec entered the picture that Standard fell apart again.
More low power sets are great for the game.
@@ZakanaHachihaCBC you and I remember that standard season very differently…
@@TrainmasterGT Standard with Hour, Ixilan and Dominaria wasn’t bad.
Esper Control and RDW were the best decks but not so much that other strategies weren’t viable.
It and Guilds standard were fine until Allegiance came out and printed Wilderness Rec, and then War with Tef3 and Tamiyo.
@@TrainmasterGT I honestly liked standard back then as well. Though I did miss the BW vampire tokens from just before Dominaria, the format was pretty interesting with multiple different types of decks. What was your gripe with the standard of that era ?
@@AricHaldan0782 it was basically all Temur/4c energy decks and Burn. Energy could beat Burn slightly more than half the time, and Burn could beat everything that beat Temur. The net result was effectively a two-deck format where trying anything outside the binary was basically suicide. It felt less diverse than even the Uro-Nissa era pre-ZNR, because even then there were 5 or 6 different viable decks even though most of them revolved around Uro.
I'd rather them air on the side of weaker BUT INTERESTING. There were sets that achieved that in 2021 - Strixhaven and AFR absolutely did a good job with this. Broken cards can be boring as fuck and often are while tons of less powerful cards and mechanics can be incredibly fun and interesting as well as lend a hand to a healthier and less toxic/salty play environment.
I 100% agree. For me, I care more that limited is fun, has strong flavor, and feels fresh. For me, Strixhaven totally hit those, so even if it doesn’t have a ton of cards for commander or eternal formats, that’s fine with me (and as an EDH player, I don’t WANT a bunch of cards in each set). Of course, there has to be some stuff for constricted, and standard especially, but I think they can still push towards new design space without breaking everything
Forgotten realms was interesting and had some super fun cards.
I loved Strixhaven until it came to the Learn mechanic. Wishing cards into your hand that fix whatever problem you have at the time made most other playable cards in Strixhaven pointless and narrowed deck building to the point where you couldn’t play without them in any colours.
I still see them regularly in Standard and I hate it.
My favorite set of the last few years was probably Theros:BD. So many cool sagas, constellation was one of the better 'parasitic' mechanics, not to mention awesome buildarounds like Enigmatic Incarnation. Kroxa even is clearly a powerful card, but it never broke anything in Standard even when Lurrus was in the format.
Uro was a mistake, but the rest of the set was pretty good, none of the other Escape cards were nearly as problematic.
@@user-et3xn2jm1u Absolutely, escape was a really fun interesting mechanic with a reasonable cost. The irony is with all the graveyard hate in current standard I don’t think Uro would even be that broken anymore, especially if they upped the mana cost for formats like Alchemy and Historic.
Here's the thing about crimson vow in relation to other magic sets. The art and the general setting/settings of magic is really cool/interesting... BUT in all honestly how many ways can wizards mix up "Powerful dragon" or "Human Solder" or "Shambling Zombie"? Sure you can give them greek/norse/whatever paint jobs but its all going to blend together especially when the decades start to blend together. Crimson Vow feels like an attempt to add some more interesting theming to these general genre brush strokes. Problem is, like you said, cards like wedding ring really don't do much outside the bare basics of the theme. Reading the lore makes the whole thing much more interesting that just "wedding but vampires", but a lot of the story is just lost on the cards. Hell most of the set isn't even wedding stuff, I can easily see timmy completely missing the wedding stuff all together if he opened the packs with normal cards.
I start with a Layline of the void in my first hand. He cracks his fetchland, I case 4 Archive traps. I play a island and Dream Twist on him. Pass turn back to him.
What about when your opponent is playing Show and Tell and they mill Emrakul?
I was waiting for the Professor to say something like
Hold up Vince. How are you going to just skip my turn 0 play? Judge!!
@@jadegrace1312 Emrakul never enters the graveyard as it is sent directly to exile.
@@thisbymaster Right, leyline.
The editing at 40:35 honestly made my morning. Keep up the good work!!
I like how in Vince's rant videos he's just as hyped up as the prof. is and in these videos he's the soft-spoken voice of reason
Maybe Kaldheim didn't resonate with the community as a whole, but it did with me. It absolutely deserved a block worth of content, and a world with so much room for exploration and with so many possibilities for design got a single set in a maze of other recent releases.
I loved Kaldheim too. Does not need to be powercreep cards to sell a set. With Kaldehim they had a cool new world, a great mechanis in Foretell, flavorful and nice artworks. Its default for me was that there was too much going on with many mechanics and sub-theme that in the end gave the set a feel that it was two sets cramed into one. And I dislike that the Sagas were too nich with their abilities and there was no other card or mechanics that cared about them. But, nonetheless, Kaldheim left me a good impression and one that looks like creative had many ideas and where all WotC staff had fun working on it. That is what it takes for me to make a set good and interesting. I think we can add that Kaldhein did not have a low powerlevel and at the same time appart form Elrund's Epiphany (as far as I know) there is not a buch of cards that were worth banning. The set as a whole was well balanced.
Concur, Kaldheim was one of the best in years. I love the showcase, the God's really feel great.
I loved kaldheim so much. I wish I was able to draft in person when it came out, but looking back at these cards, the art - everything is amazing. Same with forgotten realms too imo
I'm with you Kaldheim was great. I enjoyed it and Strixhaven the most of recent sets.
Maybe not a full block, but two sets would have been great in my opinion.
I would probably lean on the side of weaker and balanced, but it would just be weaker compared to sets like Eldraine, they don’t need to be as weak as stuff like Forgotten Realms and Dragons maze, but balance is good because it lets people play their way a little more in limited and constructed environments. I’m certainly no too opposed to powerhouse cards in standard formats like Thragtusk and Seige Rhino and SOI Avacyn, while those are top cards it can give people something to aspire to in finding a way to beat the top cards while others might join them. A good balanced set might have a good check card against one of the powerhouses at the cost of being pretty narrow compared to everything else and that is ok! Then as far for standard sets impact on older formats, I like where it was about ten years ago where there might be a couple of big hitters in a year and that’s it with some potential role players as well, I don’t really enjoy the standard sets heavily impacting modern, I can understand with modern horizons some but these new powerful cards have knocked off some of the real fun and cool archetypes that existed in modern especially but even legacy some too. Maybe that is the mtg boomer in me but I just don’t feel as though it is fun with more powerful sets to constantly be chasing the next best thing in older formats.
I disagree with you in regards to Forgotten Realms. I think Forgotten Realms is exactly the power level they should aim for. There are over a dozen cards from that set that have made it into standard decks. Some of them commons and uncommons.
The cards from Forgotten Realms that see play are good, but not game winning. They are synergistic pieces as opposed to the powerhouse bombs that the other sets brought into the format.
Eldraine made Oko.
Zendikar made Omnath.
Kaldheim made Epiphany.
Those are bomb cards that warp the format around them.
In contrast, Forgotten Realms made Class cards, creature lands, Portable Hole, Lymrith (blue mythic dragon), Deadly Dispute, goblins, Prosperous Innkeeper, and many other cards. There are also cards that had potential to see standard play but were pushed out by other sets. Goblins, Dungeons, Mono Black Sacrifice, and some others were good, but not strong enough to contend with Eldraine. When Eldraine rotated, they were not strong enough to go against Epiphany, and Cat Car.
Despite the set being overpowered by other set, it still acts as support for those stronger sets.
Prof, you definitely hit the nail on the head with WotC leaning way to heavy into "tropes". Its sorta like watching a tv show or movie and they utilize a heavily leaned into trope - I can't help but roll my eyes!
I loved the Editor’s Notes, text on the screen, and various animations. Awesome addition to what is normally just the two of you talking. Outstanding!
As a recent returnee to magic who mostly plays limited and commander - AFR was, to my own surprise, my favorite set of the year. It felt like a fully fleshed out idea that had a good draft experience, a unique and flavorful identity, some spikey cards for various formats, and a rolling dice just has good play feel. The overall power level almost never entered my mind because I was engaged at the table
Companion honestly felt like someone really, REALLY wanted to both push commander into standard and also copy the success of Hearthstone's "if you build your deck this way you get a bonus" mechanic. Hearing that it was Mark Rosewater behind that makes a lot of sense. Cause it felt like someone driving a bulldozer through the game's design process with a single minded goal.
"Deck Rules" style mechanics could have been really cool. I feel the problem is that they were tied essentially not only starting off the game with 8 cards, but that 8th card being guaranteed "enabler". Another problem is that not all restrictions were built equally, with Yorion being a big offender in a deck that can easily run a bunch of value permanents to bounce back and get even card advantage.
@@KreuzDrache Yorion is a worse offender in Standard, but Lurrus is absolute lunacy in eternal formats and easily the most broken companion overall. Yorion enables weird 80 card blink decks that didn't exist without it, even if it is a bit too strong. Lurrus is an insane value engine that requires almost no specialization (because most permanents in those formats are already 2 cmc or less) and subsequently demands to be in every deck with cheap permanents. You can fit Lurrus in just about any kind of deck with minimal restrictions - there are aggro, midrange, and control decks that can and do use Lurrus. He fits into a ridiculous variety of decks and pushes out a number of higher-cost cards in the process, and there's no way the design team didn't realize it would happen when they printed a low-cmc-based value engine into formats where most things are low cmc already. Lurrus changed the character of those formats by giving cheap-permanent-based decks a new long game option they didn't have before, and it's almost an accidental inclusion in many decks. Yorion in Standard brings together a singular broken deck - Lurrus bends entire formats around his sheer utility.
@@noesunyoutuber7680 Ah alright then.
I am sorry, I am not familiar with the older formats, since I only touched upon Arena's standard and draft formats when I came back to the game momentarily about a year ago.
But I can definitely see how Lurrus can be a problem in older formats where lower CMC is prefered to begin with, even if it was just one Lurrus.
Heh, Lurrus would be pretty funny with Black Lotus though lol. Opponents probably wouldn't be laughing admittedly.
Brian, we need to band together and help Dev. He’s in no way asking for it but he needs it and if there’s anyone to champion it, it’s you. With great power…
Did you just suggest Banding?
This
Dev?
Who?
@@elipetrou9308 Simply Better MTG channel
i remember few years back when I was talking about all the weak cards in standard. Boy would wish the power creep didn't happen. Live and learn. However I would say I was generally wanted more power full and playable answer or value pieces are uncommon not chase mythics you need to have to play the deck you want.
There was actually an article on the mothership about this decision: “Play Design: Lessons Learned”. I started playing around the time they cited as trying to shift down the power level of cards, so I felt this first-hand, and what they discussed in the article was how low power is not feasible to balance. They cited cards like Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Smuggler’s Copter as examples of pretty decent cards that were warping the Standard environments. None of those cards see a whole lot of play in other formats but the rest of the cards in their respective sets (barring other similar cases of slightly-out-of-order cards) were pushed down in power and therefore couldn’t compete. Nowadays, even the mid-tier decks feel like they have a chance. I’ve still beat out crazy meta stuff on my janky mono-black blood tokens deck, which is way different to what it was like when it was Vehicles, Hazoret, and absolutely nothing else.
Also, Oko was absolutely a cavalcade of last-minute decisions culminating in his power level mess according to the article. Dead-on with that speculation.
The problem with Eldraine standard wasn't so much that it had pretty broken cards, but it was that every broken card was in green and blue. What players hate about metas is the staleness, the problem is that you grow numb to see an Oko and an Uro beat you every game every day. If Eldraine had a high power level distribuited in many colors that would be sweet, but there was legitimally no reason to play anything else than the "Blue Green Good Stuff" package. All decks were all samey and with the exact same play patterns.
The other eldraine problem was that very few other cards had any impact from the other sets. It meant that mono red with embercleave, bonecrusher and the knight dude were there for 2 years. The same with adventure cards and such.
Oh I remember during spoil season for Throne of Eldraine that everyone in my circle was saying things along the line of “Man it’s nice to see an underpowered set after War of the Spark.” Did we ever whiff on that evaluation.
Also I love Kaldheim personally. It’s my favorite set of the last six years.
Kaldheim was the first set since I started playing magic (WAR) that felt like actual old school classic magic to me. Both the world and card designs. I would say its the second most fleshed out plane behind Dominaria.
Kaldheim would've been so much better as a block.
I also remember people saying it was a power down set too lol
@@faultier1158 All of the new planes would have been. They wouldn't have been pushing to get all of the Great stuff into one set's design. Maybe Adventures would have been the start of MDFCs if they were thinking about doing it for 2-3 sets rather than just one. Maybe they'd have recognized that Foretell absolutely NEEDS a way to look at the face-down exiled cards and force a "discard" of it to prevent countermagic being the only way to deal with some of those powerful spells if they were doing 3x as much Foretell design. We'd have had more dungeons and opportunities to Venture into them for different reasons.
Sure, they wouldn't have been able to do 8 different planes over the past 2 years if they did that but 2-3 planes a year depending on whether they do an AFR and make the "Core" set thematic or not feels like a better use of the release schedule.
@@krimhorn 8 different planes over 2 years is a terrible idea and it shows in how undercooked some of them were - Arcavios from Strixhaven being the worst example, because if you ask anyone what the name of that plane is they'll probably assume it's "Strixhaven" (which it wasn't, Strixhaven was just the school) and you can't really fault them for that because Arcavios is a weird and forgettable name and the titular school was 90% of that set's focus.
"I want a little-bit-broken, and you want..."
"Perfection."
Borg approved.
Eldraine brought me back into the game after a years-long break, and it was so fabulous for drafting at my lgs.
Arena did Eldraine draft so dirty. That's easily the best draft format of the modern era and it got completely ruined by bot drafting.
Eldraine draft was such a great and flavorful format. I miss constantly having a gingerbread man with a spear hit people
I wasn't around for eldraine but I saw the drawbridge card and it blew my mind. Best mechanical flavor I've ever seen.
@@Tacklepig My go-to gal was the lucky clover. I drafted at least 1, sometimes 2 every draft.
I loved the flavor of Eldraine, but the Adventure mechanic alone is broken as heck. They've turned Exiled (removed from game), into a second hand.
Your points about Crimson Vow actually hit on my main problem with Eldraine as a setting. Other top-down worlds felt like they were more about capturing the overall feel of the source material rather than referencing specific things. Sure, we got the occasional Delver of Secrets, or Rescue From the Underworld, but they were exceptions - for the most part, original Innistrad was about capturing the overall atmosphere of gothic horror than in pointing to specific gothic horror stories. Theros evoked the feel of Greek mythology more than it said "Hey, remember this one specific thing that happened in Greek mythology?".
Eldraine, on the other hand, felt like it was all about the references. Look, here's a Cinderella card, here's a Jack and the Beanstalk card, here's a Hansel and Gretel card. It made it feel less like a cohesive world and more like a collection of (incredibly obvious and on the nose) references.
I hear many times, and I include myself into this, that with the fast pace, increased quantity of products coming and constant spoilers, players are starting to feel disconnected and having hard time to feel hyped. The thing now feels more like a pump&dump product that is disposable. Focusing on quantity rather than on quality. Well, i'm wondering how this affects the ones that make this game. Maybe the pace and sheer amount of products they have to work on is just making them disconnected.
I heard others argue that Universe Beyond is a solution to WotC Creative starting to lack ideas. Well, when I hear WotC saying they return to Zendikar for the 3rd time and their goal is to capture the essence of the OG Zendikar and when they return to Innistrad for the 3rd time and they say lets go back to the OG gothic horror feel,...that is reahashing what was done in the past and not really innovative. And when you look at the stories for MID and VOW they seems just like background stories that were setup in only one pitch meeting. Now we are heading to Kamigawa and the MID and VOW stories will have no connection with it. I miss when they had some storyline that was going on from set to set. Does not need to be a story ark that last for 3 years. Bit, they could have one story ark per year and I think that would be great.
Porf is right that each set should be an homerun. That should be our expectation and WotC expectation when making a set. That does not mean that's what will happen, but at least they would try. Currently, I feel like they lowered the bar when it comes to making sets. It feels more rushed than in the past. Feels like they spend less time working on them. And I feel like appart from Ikoria, they fear to push the enveloppe, experiment and be innovative. Feels like they stick to comfort zone and what worked in the past. Kamigawa may be the exception i was waiting for tho. Really crossing fingers that they put all their heart in the making of this one.
It does sound like less frequent sets would be a good move.
On the Zendikar Rising expedition box toppers I think you're missing one major point. There are people who don't buy cards by the box, whether that's because it's out of reach financially or they just like to pick up a few loose packs here and there and that's the way they choose to experience a new set. Masterpieces, even though averaged out to be 1 in every 4 boxes, could still come out of ANY booster pack like a Willy Wonka golden ticket. That has a huge appeal for a vast majority of casual players.
I think these middle of the road sets are EXACTLY what we want. There’s something for everyone through the year.
Zendikar Rising: My favorite draft format of last year
Ikoria(without companion): Tons of fun stuff for commander
Crimson vow: flavor town and GOOD vampires for singleton
Great vid!
Overall from my personal experience, a playgroup consisting of mostly medium power decks has been a healthy and fun way to play the game. No one feels discouraged to play and everyone has an urge to build new decks frequently.
I agree! I took distance from a playgroup because I was tired to have games turned into archenemy against that one player that always play busted decks and becomes a treat by turn 3 all the time and win by turn 7 almost every time. I was building my decks in an attempt to try to match this powerlevel and didn't found it fun nonetheless. Now when I build new decks I seek for fun gameplay and interesting concepts.
I can't berate The Professor for wanting perfection. It's unreasonable to genuinely *expect* perfection every time, but it's important to keep the ideal in mind. By aiming for perfection, we achieve excellence.
I will always love balanced, lower level limited magic.
Why? MH2 had powerful but is balanced and has plenty of archetypes.
@@daveSoupy MH2 was a fun draft format, but that doesn't mean low level limited isn't also a great deal of fun. There's something special about weaker levels of magic where it doesn't rely as much on strong effects and relies more on combat and evergreen mechanics. For example, I loved AFR limited as well and that set wasn't powerful.
Or... we just need cards like Thoughtseize, Siege Rhino, Pithing Needle and Reanimate in every single deck.
All i want for Christmas is a compilation of all intros / cold cuts of this podcast.
Loved... LOVED... the opening sketch!!
I personally prefer ixilan to eldraine. No use in having a lot of cool mechanics if they’re power crept out of relevance.
Try using classic type 2 (Ice age, fallen empires 4 edition, chronicles) Mirage block and tempest block as benchmarks, That era had a cool mix of Aggro mono colored or control decks and control decks, It had Geddon and land destruction, Mill and Counterpost, burn and stompy decks and even a powerful Mono white deck with cataclysm. It had combo decks like prosbloom and necro storm the variety of decks available then made standard (classic type 2) fun to play
Hat's off to the editing! Maybe even a gangster's hat! (49:48)
I really liked how naturally this conversation flowed in and out of topics based on the broader theme. Great job!
We're sure as heck being charged for perfection. I have no problem expecting WotC to bring their A game, every set.
Since we know that sets are worked on about two years in advance I am convinced that the issues that came from ELD from a power perspective directly led to the “only activates once per turn” text we are now seeing that totally powers down mana cards.
The other day I read MaRo saying: "Players are bad at evaluating card cost." When they do a once per turn restriction it is usually because the effect is strong for the cost of it. If they would not put that restriction they would have to cost the card more. I would add that I like this once per turn restriction for the simple reason that I find it boring when playing games where my opponents takes turns that last very long because their deck can abuse multiple trigger effects that even sometime can go almost infinite. So that once per turn clause help in having some triggers and then "pass the turn" without waiting more than 20 mins before it comes back to my turn.
Loving the additional edits, not over the top but adds a lot to the video!
29:48 petition to gift the editor a nice magic card just for this moment lol
Ha I’ll take it.
The big difference, at least for me, between the Masterpieces and the Box Toppers is that you need to buy an entire box to get a topper - with the Masterpieces, as long as you played enough limited, you had a chance to get one. Lots of players don't buy boxes, but they do draft a lot - the box toppers mean that they're not in the running to pull one.
Personally, I loved AFR, even though it is considered a "weak" set. Drafts felt fun and engaging. I stopped going when the new Innistrad sets came out.
The editing was fantastic. Love to see it
Couldn't have said it better. 35:55-36:10.
Literally the exact thing they have done. Wow, well put.
Gimmick set of old Magic: "This set is all creatures!"
Gimmick set of current Magic: "This set is Vampire Wedding!"
Or cringy american style magic college set with as cheesy storyline as it can get... or dnd set that instead of giving you insight on dnd lore focuses on the power of friendship... seriously some of the sets could be an un- set and it would fit.
@@Igor369 I think being a college set was by far the best part of Strixhaven, that could have been a fun jumping-off point for the dark wit the game used to show often. The problem is the execution was just too toothless and marketable to actually work. The flavor text on newer versions of Frantic Search ("It took the banning of temporal manipulation at Tolaria West to teach its students the value of time") is a perfect example of how Magic could have done a college theme (that is, following the question "what happens when you inject magical realism into a college setting?"). As a college student, I immediately saw the humor in that card.
Instead, Strixhaven feels like boneless Ravnica, with "guilds" replaced by "schools." Hell, imagine what a college on Ravnica would look like - Azorius administrators who care about maintaining order and their reputation above all, Rakdos students performing blood sacrifices at keggers, Gruul football players getting busted for using growth magic to trample other teams, Orzhov business majors whose parents literally sold their souls to get them admitted, Boros student activists short on experience but long in action, Simic students trying to explain that their "homework" ate their dog, you could imagine how that place would be complete chaos.
Strixhaven doesn't have any of that - the closest it gets is the Green/Black school being gross all the time, like if the Golgari's obsession with decay was played for cheap laughs. It's seemingly too afraid to explore any of the negative aspects of its color pairs or setting the way Ravnica did, resulting in this whimsical and sanitized portrait of a generic "magical school." Even the Black/White school, who are clearly supposed to be the Slytherin-esque pretentious evil school, just come across as blandly smug little shits with no depth. Also they shoot magical ink at people to express that they're the literary school (because R&D apparently has no other way to make things feel magical than themed variations on slinging fireballs), which is so resoundingly uncreative it physically hurts me. They didn't start with "college," they started with "school subjects" (art, literature, math, biology, and combat because Magic just can't get away from generic fighting), assigned each of them to a color pair, and then just lost interest.
The whole set also seems to think being academically-themed justifies extremely wordy, fiddly cards, which doesn't help matters because it often squeezes out all the room for flavor text on cards with very generic effects. I'd love to know what Devastating Mastery is the mastery of or which school it belongs to, but I can't because it needs its entire textbox to tell me it's a sideways Wrath of God reference.
@@Igor369 in other news. Un-sets now black border.
Lots of great analysis here. I think we need to spend more time on what do we want sets and cards to do, before asking whether they should be pushed or boring. Do we want stability in older formats? How important are diverse metagames? How much do we care about parity between top tier archetypes and lesser archetypes? Do we want to prioritize fun and strategic gameplay over balance? Do we want to prioritize synergy and role playing cards, or cards that super powerful with no constraints?
I feel like how we answer those questions really informs how we view sets like Modern Horizons - which have produced a balanced and diverse modern game with fun gameplay, but have completely disrupted the existing format, created barriers for entry to new and enfranchised players alike and which also have changed the nature of gameplay such that decks are now full of cards that are 3-for-1s with no drawbacks which can single-handedly run away with the game.
I personally think that the MH type of design is bad because cards having no drawbacks is not strategically interesting, not during deck building and not during play. Esper Sentinel or Ragavan or Urza’s Saga are cool, interesting designs - but they are auto-includes in any modern deck that can run them. That isn’t strategically interesting and isn’t healthy for the format long-term. Those cards are also auto-includes in commander decks, where the 99 are slowing being populated with those cards as defaults in every deck.
Uro was the paradigm of this type of design in standard. Replaces itself, ramps, gains life, recurs (with a huge body) and repeats. And companions generally had literally no opportunity cost despite the deck building requirements, in addition to giving commander like consistency to standard decks.
I agree with the comments that interesting not powerful is the key.
Love the kinetic typography of "in the regard".
This was a really good episode that I watched all the way through. Bravo guys!
Prof, your thoughts about the vampire wedding set are really interesting. I recently rewatched the Rhystic Studies episode about Theros (Theros: Pastoral & Pastiche), and it's an interesting answer to what you're thinking about. Theros Beyond Death seems a set where WotC tried to dive deeper into the Theros setting rather than a specific theme, but the result was kind of flat because too much of the set felt like a reference back to original Theros block. If TBD had been more Crimson Vow (focusing on a very specific theme), it might have had a bigger impact. Other than the overpowered cards, I don't really remember much of the set itself. On the other hand, CV is a lot more memorable - for me at least - because it's so focused on the wedding theme. I don't personally like the vampire wedding theme, but it's definitely something I'm going to remember more.
SHOUT OUT TO DEV -- WE'RE THINKIN ABOUT YA BUD!!
lost my mind at the editing on this episode's "YOU HAVE A CZcams CHANNEL" section. absolutely top tier stuff
Awesome socks! Also loved that shirt, "Let's Summon Demons". 😁
I agree with the Professor that measures should be taken to prevent mistakes, but I do think there's a limit to that. There's always going to be a margin of error and you can only reduce that to a certain extent, because some mistakes will be harder to spot. That's why I believe we should aim for a mid-level power for sets where they affect standard, but they don't or hardly affect eternal formats. The margin of error makes it likely that some cards will be more powerful than intended and those exceptions are enough to keep eternal formats interesting, especially since the same will happen with mechanics and sets in general where every once in a while you're going to have sets and mechanics which turn out more powerful than intended. If you're going to aim for Innistrad/Eldraine powerlevels every time you're going to have a bunch of sets that are too strong because of this margin of error and the powerful, but balanced sets will be overshadowed by the broken sets. Similarly the powerful but balanced cards will be overshadowed by the broken ones. In fact, I believe that is exactly what happened with Throne of Eldraine and War of the Spark.
The flavour discusssion is something else entirely and I don't think it is linked with powerlevel. It's perfectly possible to create an underpowered set in a new, flavourful or experimental setting or to create an overpowered set in a rehashed and safe setting, such as Ravnica or Innistrad. Wotc should always strive for interesting settings, but they can do that without pushing powerlevels. I do think a return to multiple sets per setting would make it more interesting though since I believe it's more fun and immersive if the sets tell a story together. I feel like the structure of two or three sets allows the story to have a proper setup/buildup and seperate that from the conclusion of the story, which makes it a lot better at driving curiosity and creating immersion. Even Crimson Vow could have been interesting as a setup towards a bigger plotline rather than just as a random event that doesn't seem to have major consequences. In addition it would give the creators more time to hash out each setting since they don't need to start from scratch with every set.
10 years ago when I played standard and legacy there were almost 0 standard bans. The sets felt well tested and balanced.
With standard sets well tested and balanced for standard that ment there weren't as many gamebreaking, overpowered monster-cards that everyone had to play. The metagame felt more diverse to me. So the only cards that needed banning in legacy were cards that had special interactions with older cards that are very hard to test against.
They did that almost perfectly for more than a decade. The only crazy offenders I can remember were Valakut and affinity.
Now? There are standard, alchemy bans every couple weeks and every set. It really seems like they push out overpowered stuff on purpose to sell shit to commander players and then need to mostly ban those.... It's really annoying if they cannot even design their own game anymore....
The main problem is that they are not designing for standard anymore and killed organized standard. They try to do too many things with their standard sets and therefore ruin the standard enviroment.
Noone wants shit like questing beast and oko in standard. These just push other colors/cards/decks out of the metagame. Where is the choice?
Mental Magic is still better than Arena
The editing on this is spectacular lol
The editing is the best part of the video.
Kaldheim and ZR were my favorite in recent times, some good budget staples, cheap packs, commander stuff. Think I drafted Kaldheim with friends more than any other set and I used those cards in other decks. Idk it was a vibe more than any thing I get the point that it’s underwhelming haha
I think the part of the conversation missing here is factoring in *interesting* design. I personally vastly prefer weaker but interesting cards than stronger and boring cards, and a lot of the stronger cards when I last played magic were just, boring. There are plenty of decks and interactions that are harder to play and win with but people do it anyways because theyre interesting to play. Its part of the reason I stopped playing pokemon because the decks felt samey and MTG I feel is going in another direction where card design is not as varied, flavourful, or interesting.
I mostly play DCG 2020 on online platforms now because my LGS literally cannot get DCG from their supplier and the other one is selling a box for double msrp :D
Kudos to the editor of this video. Made the funny moment even better and really crack me up. Love the videos prof
The closing track is straight 🔥🔥🔥!
I kid you not.
A friend and I played “mental magic” during college once. We played 6 turns and were like “wait… lets just play actual Magic”
The first 6 turns of our game went exactly the way the “mental magic” game went. Card draws and all. It was a bit freaky.
I really think that many of those impressions could be a result of the heightened number of releases. Even if they design sets two years in advance doesn't mean they keeped the same amount of time for the design of each set, be it in flavor or other aspects (some mechanics like [[ cleave ]] felt very underwhelming creative-wise, they could just bring back kicker and not create "new" keywords to do the same thing).
With Crimson Vow and Midnight Hunt, I felt more flavor from midnight hunt with its new Daybound/Nightbound mechanic as well as clear emphasis on night and day as a theme (and how it gets disrupted). Crimson Vow felt more stale in comparison, even though the idea of a vampire wedding is not necessarily a bad one... but the execution didn't feel as thourough (Having a card called Wedding Ring is indeed a good example).
I didn't play Magic when original Innistrad released many years ago, but I played Shadows Over Innistrad and Eldritch Moon... and I agree that even if Midnight Hunt had a better flavor than Crimson Vow, it is still far from beeing on the same level in horrorific art or on point flavor, as if Wizards didn't have the time to do it justice.
Maybe their R&D team is not big enough to handle the new amount of releases, even if they design them far in advance. Even the Art department and the people responsible for naming cards may be understaffed for handling all those new releases. Who knows ?
But the impression I get is that not the same amount of time and effort was dedicated to each individual set (Commander Legends had amazing flavor wins and Eldraine had art and mechanics I loved). Maybe puting out so much more products is finally becoming detrimental even to the creation process... and not only to the customers flooded under the product tide that is the perpetual hype train.
I still found some cards in this return to Innistrad and AFR that I liked, but the amount from set to set seems to have substantially decreased over time. I want to see what Kamigawa has to offer in Neon Dynasty, but I might only pick up the new basic lands from that set if they don't nail art and flavor as in past sets.
I love the edits in this video. Whoever did it did a really good job
Just got into edh and love your vids, they've really helped me build my first deck
For me Eldraine was close to a perfect set and it's been a long time for since Ive enjoyed a set that much, Tarkir maybe or even OG Theros.
Ah I get why the new innistrahd doesnt jive with me
The wedding set has made innistrahd feel safe
It feels goofy and whimsical
Like is that what our gothic horror world has become?
Yeah, there was so much they could've done with a genre like gothic horror, but instead went a milquetoast route. They did a better job designing the zombies of Vow than they did the vampires. Still, that's no excuse for failing to make things magical. Prof was right about the everyday names for cards and the literal interpretations. Where's the magic in that?
That made sense however with the theme. Our current stint in innistrad doesn't really revolve around the lifes of the humans on the plane who are on the bottom of the food chain. Instead we follow the vampires and werewolfs, both the top of the food-chain on Innistrad. There is no reason to be scared if there is nobody who could scare you. Avacyn is long gone, the angels are borderline wiped out, and humanity is loosing itself in a new weird cult which means both vampires and werwols stand un-opposed.
Being a servant to bloodsucking monsters who rule the world now after the angel who protected everyone is DEAD and CTHULU recently ate 80% of things in the world and is now trapped in the moon you see every night is safe?
My favorite opening skit so far, knocked it out the park y'all
I have to echo the other comments here and say the editing was great, as was the rest of the discussion of course. I look forward to seeing what the 'wedding rings' of New Capenna are!
What they need to do is push the envelope in every set. Then before they go to print the cut the top 5 "best" cards in the set. Then move those to a supplement set so they don't waste the design.
it is difficult to predict the best cards in a set Oko for example was thought to be a mediocre planeswalker before release other cards only become broken when later sets are released, so it's difficult to do that
As the prof said. I'd rather have more throne of eldraine sets than Crimson vow and low power level standard sets like strixhaven too.
As a primarily limited player, it’s interesting to hear constructed takes on these sets.
I've wondering about the topic and the episode drops 20 minutes later, thanks Brian.
To paraphrase the creator Mr. Garfield. You need to have strong commons and not have the rares be too powerful. If not you get problems.
I get your point in that it’s much easier to fix and make changes in video games. I agree with it. With that said, I do want to correct that League of Legends take a bit. I’ve played League, have played ranked and followed competitive for many years: the #1 most talked about thing is how unbalanced the game is. They might have a massive staff looking into the problems, but they do a horrible job of balancing that game. Every time a new patch comes in which is about 20-25ish across the year, there are things so blatantly broken. The PBE server has long been no longer used to test things out and fix whatever necessary. It’s now a regular server that just allows people to try new things before their official release to the main server. Feedback from the players is virtually nonexistent. It’s been years since they truly took that into consideration.
Loved the comments about Lurrus. I got back into playing after not playing for a few years and introduced mtg to my friends. One of them got a companion in a booster they had bought, so I looked them up. Immediately after seeing Lurrus I knew that card was a game changer.
Showing up late I liked both the throne & zendikar sets.
Excellent and happy anniversary DS9!
"Gimmick vs innovation" . Spot on. Kudos. Companion is a blight on Magic's history. It never should have been a tournament legal mechanic.
Regarding the debate, personally, judging from Horizons sets, I 100% prefer "meh" sets, if the opposite is making Eternal formats "block constructed".
Great video, both of you.
Thanks for great conversation. 1 thing I guess you didn’t mention and I believe you should have in is: Ixalan: it was a semi-weak power-level set... but remember the lore behind it - original and touching? I collected the set only after reading “the flood”.. and I don’t care how valuable cards will be in the future... I just love that story. And will remember it in years to come. Same thing about Dominaria set: it wasn’t super-pushed, but strong. And It is my favorite set of last 10 years of magic
Amazing intro, I loved it!
Weak but balanced makes for more fun, because then you have to rely on wits and tricks to get through. Like turning your own creature into a 1/1 frog in order to make it unblockable to cause damage, which you can then use for bloodthirsty, or something else.
Yes. Relying on synergy rather than I play this one card that if my opponent doesn't immediately remove it, I win.
@@k9commander of course, that's a strategy in itself, Albiet a very straightforward and somewhat lacking one.
Limitations can bring in many innovations, but can also hamper as well. But i feel if power and limitations are balanced right, everyone wins.
It seems like every set that the Prof likes starts with “original”, I guess they should have just called it “original crimson vow” and he would have loved it
I like how comfortable these guy are talk about magic on CZcams that they don't mind chilling in the socks.
Loved the editing jokes! Keep it up! Nice disscourse
kaldheim was so good in the "eldraine without the broken stuff" dept, we do not talk about Alrund's Epiphany
Alrunds Epiphany wasn't broken, wtf. They legit went out of their way to make it not broken. It costs 1-2 mana more than these effects usually do and exiles itself, what else do you want? Them to not print extra turn spells at all?
@@Tacklepig With what epiphany has done to the arena standard meta, I can absolutely say yes. Its not fun to play my 9th epiphany deck out of 10 games I might play in a night.
@@Tacklepig The problem wasn't Epiphany itself but immediately printing a flashbackable fork spell and red mana ramp cards. But yes, I would argue never print extra turns into standard. It always causes issues.
Goldspan dragon, alrunds, chariot, bind of the old gods, god cycle, and more. I loved kaldheim
I mean, I would have just objected to him not waiting on pregame actions. Especially since he's certain to know I have a Gemstone Caverns in my opening hand *and* that he decided to go first.
The editor had a lot of fun with this one
subject aside this editing is really nice hope to see more (maybe not too much but it's a nice addition)
I'd die of happiness if an Eldraine block (two sets) was printed in Standard. I loved the theme and I think there are a lot of mechanical opportunities still left almost untapped.
Sets like Eldraine? If you want looser themes just go to Lord of Rings. Lets not taint mtg with your nerdom.
@@Torriotorres you know they’re literally making a LOTR set right? No need to be so rude bro.
@@Torriotorres "Let's not taint mtg with your nerdom" Chill, dude.
Imagine innistrad sets changing characters, being vampires figthing over the moon so they could be free from the sun, and a rustic werewolf weding, mantaining the rustic stile of midmigth hunt, I personally would have love that.
"That low flow doesnt quiTE get you where you wanna go"
I liked the discussion and feel the same way like prof about magic. I always bring the world of Esper as a good example
I love vampires, and I don’t mind the marriage as a centerpiece of the plot. But I think the themes and cards should’ve just focused on it being vying for political power and vampire bloodlines at war vs the theme of planning the wedding itself.
If every set is broken [maniacal laugh] no set is
Not really, it just means we're playing Yu-Gi-Oh.
"Wedding: The Set" was actually done to great effect in an older CCG - Shadowfist was (is? it's unclear as to whether or not it's technically still alive) a Wuxia Action Movie card game with a loose meta-story to it, and one of the sets was Red Wedding, where the main plot was "The Ice Queen, one of the four Monarchs of the underworld, is getting married to one of the Scrappy Heroes, what the heck?" and it was actually quite flavorful; storywise all the various factions and sub-factions had things to do at the wedding, from "interfere and prevent the alliance" to "turn everyone into monkeys" to "assassinate the bride and groom" to "replace the bride with an impostor" to "replace the bride's impostor with an impostor of the bride's impostor to assassinate the groom's impostor" to... okay, it got complicated, but it worked because "action movie weddings" are a big and flavorful trope, there were plenty of fun characters and set-pieces to introduce, and plenty of sub-tropes to add.
Crimson Vow failed to engage like that on a lot of levels. For one, not even all the vampires were invited! The story went on about how no, if you're not on the list, you're not welcome. There was a vague "we gotta stop it or they'll... be... powerful? I guess?" like Olivia and the other Vampires aren't ALWAYS scheming one way or another for more power, and so on. They leaned a LITTLE onto the wedding tropes and so on and so forth but not to the Red Wedding level.
Honestly, the Dracula alters were so much more evocative than the main characters of the set (though a lot of the SIDE characters in the set? those were great, those inspire me. Anje especially.)
It's only on a few cards, but they were gonna kill Sigarda at the end of the wedding. The goal was to stop them from killing sigarda!
But also they kinda just fixed the "eternal night" problem in the background while everyone else was distracted? It's really weird how all tovolar's old werewolf buddies didn't show up at the now-much-smaller celestus 2 party to try and stop them doing it a second time.
love your 8-bit ending
I liked Crimson Vow thematically. It was fun. Prof seems to have a very rigid view of what he feels is thematically acceptably for Magic.