8 Mechanics They'll Never Use Again in Magic: the Gathering
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2024
- Dive into the mystical world of Magic the Gathering (MTG) as we explore the bygone era of its gameplay mechanics! 🎩✨ In this video, we're delving deep into the archives to uncover the secrets of MTG's discontinued mechanics that once shaped the battlegrounds of this iconic game. From the tactical formations of Banding to the high-stakes gamble of Ante, each mechanic added a unique twist to the game's strategy.
🔮 Banding: Unite your forces and learn how this mechanic allowed players to form powerful alliances on the battlefield.
🎲 Ante: Discover the original risk-reward aspect of MTG where stakes were high and every game could shift your collection.
🌿 Regenerate: Unravel the mysteries of this survival tactic that let creatures dodge death and return to fight another round.
😜 Gotcha: Get a glimpse into the playful side of MTG with this quirky mechanic that turned the tables with a word.
❄️ Cumulative Upkeep: Understand the escalating challenge posed by this mechanic that tested players' resource management skills.
Whether you're a seasoned planeswalker or new to the realm of MTG, this retrospective is packed with fascinating insights and nostalgic moments. So, grab your decks and join us on a journey through MTG's history - you might just discover some hidden gems to inspire your next game!
Don't forget to hit like, subscribe, and ring that bell for more magical content! 🔔
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A couple people are getting confused here so I want to put this out there. These are all mechanics that Mark Rosewater has given a storm scale rating of 10 meaning, in his words, "I never say never, but this would require a major miracle."
There is likely a handful of keywords that aren't included that could be but he hasn't given them a storm scale rating. There is no use in arguing that a mechanic "isn't that bad" when I am citing THE head designer for Magic: the Gathering.
I thought the set Outlaws of thunder junction, should have had all horses have "Horsemanship" lol
@@raykoonce5474 I absolutely agree. As weird / dumb as it sounds... It would have been funny and a clever nod to the past.
The funniest thing about ante is it wasn't even banned strictly for the gambling aspect. There are nine cards with ante and if they weren't banned you could play four copies of each of them. If you're not playing a game with ante then you remove them from your deck before the game starts but after your deck is checked if it's legal. Your 60 card deck is now 24 cards, combo city.
Fear is such a flavorful mechanic. Intimidate is not. Why would a green creature frighten a black/white/blue/red creature but not another green one?
The flavor of Fear is that black and artifact creatures lack this emotion and it just fits so well.
Most deprecated mechanics were replaced with understandable reasons. Mechanically, i'll like to see Shroud from time to time. It's Hexprooof with a pretty smart built in drawback and i prefer it over Ward. Flavorwise, Regenerate and Fear/Intimidate are really evokative and it's a shame they didn't work out.
I agree with the shroud comment. They made ward to be the fair way to do hexproof, when shroud did a great job at it. I do think there are a lot of magic players that miss that shroud stops everyone, just in the same way that a lot of players miss that protection also protects a creature against your own auras.
And yeah, its a shame when we lose words for keywords that could be something cooler. Personally, I think the word Rampage could evoke something gruul where its like trample but then it does something extra/different.
@@HarrisontheManaDorkI think Mark Rosewater has said that (newer) players had trouble with shroud. They kept enchanting their own shroud creatures for instance. In that sense hexproof is the 'fixed' shroud. But both mechanics lead to less interactive and that's why we got ward... oh well.
@marcodaddario3965 they have sort of brought back regenerate only now they spell it out like "Cost - tap this creature, it gains indestructible until end of turn."
@@marcodaddario3965 Shroud was just too confusing for many players and admittedly, the biggest continual confusion comes in the way that auras can attach to creatures with Shroud, but not when they're cast. It also feels bad to not be able to target your own things and Hexproof was the way to be less confusing, but also clearly too broken
I do believe they are still using Shroud in universes beyond releases on occasion. It's not frequent and it may be unsatisfactory for some people.
Banding is a fun mechanic, not a good one but there's some interesting things you can do with it... Anything that triggers when it's blocked or takes damage works well with it Tolarian enchanter is a favorite of mine. There's stuff that kills things when blocking, stuff that draws you cards... As for remade versions of it I believe Mutate an equally confusing keyword could qualify as a version of banding, several creatures combining their abilities to attack as one.
It definitely a neat mechanic but both it and mutate have too many moving parts.
You start to understand it and throw a wrench into the mix and you need an old judge and a new judge.
You can totally dominate a game of 40 cards with it. I have a unlimited vandalism hero deck that gets crazy strong at no time.
It would be interesting to make a cube that lets banding shine. Focus entirely on creatures, combat tricks, and other things that put tactical play in the combat phase front and center.
@@Oneiroclast you can do it with a commander deck if you use goad and lure effects.
I recall a card that my friends and I treated as a "Gotcha" card, even though it wasn't, and that was Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table). Every time someone said "Goblin SWAT Team" (slaps the table), whether they controlled Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table) or not, we all had to slap the table within 5 seconds. Otherwise, each player who controlled a Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table) would be allowed to put a +1 counter on each their Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table). It was absolutely the wrong way to play Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table), but we all loved playing Goblin SWAT Team (slaps the table) like that anyway.
Banding was good in Limited but not in Constructed. In Constructed, you often want to leak damage through to chip away at your opponent’s life total. The only reason why the rules were confusing was because it worked differently on offense or defense and there was no internet back then.
But back in the day I often could explain Banding to newbies in one sentence.
I hope Level up returns in a future set.
Aside from Hexdrinker from Modern Horizons 1, it's only even been printed in Rise of the Eldrazi.
Just the keyword itself sounds very RPG-like. The main problem is that you have to be willing to sink mana into it to level it up. Which can be bad if your opponent has a removal spell with your creature's name on it.
Ante and Shandalar (the Microprose MTG world) were amazing together
Ironically, the Storm Scale 10 mechanics for power level like storm and dredge and eminence do get occasionally reprinted. But not banding!
The reason why Ante was banned from magic is because back in the 90’s when WotC was expanding their market by going to places like Brazil where gambling is illegal. That is why they had to give up on it.
Interesting...I thought it would've been to stop brawls from occurring in schoolyards over losing your best card.
Banding is easily explained as “my group of creatures is treated as if it’s one creature in combat and I get to choose how to assign combat damage dealt to that group instead of how you would normally be able to”
If they rephrase some of the reminder text I think it could be possible to bring it back but it’s definitely not strong enough to really want it back anyway…
Banding is bad enough, but "Bands with other..." is a whole 'nother level of confusing since it, contrary to the naming, isn't just a limited form of Banding. There are subtle differences that change how it operates.
Another mechanic that could be a good example of deprecated mechanics is infect from Scars block. And how poison counters kinda went full circle from a fixed amount per damage (like pit Scorpion or Virulent Sliver), to infect and then nerfed back to fixed numbers in the toxic mechanic.
Also, another reason why landwalk fear and intimidate were retired isn't just the unblockablity, it's that it is a very matchup dependent mechanic. Esther your opponent plays the right color to Block and the ability is almost useless, or they don't and it's way too strong
Infect is a funny beast on its own too because infect came out in 2010, but poison counters have been around since the 90s. They've been constantly trying to figure out how to make poison work in a way that isn't too strong that it is broken, but isn't so weak that no one plays it.
There was also psychic vortex: enchantment UU2, at the end of your turn, discard your hand and sacrifice a land. Cumulative upkeep: draw a card
In an Izzet Commander deck, Braid of Fire works really well with 'Cheat for Flash' (ex. Leline of Anticipation, Gandalf, Friend of the Shire, or Negall, Stormrunner) Makes using that mana a lot easier.
Kids today will never know the thrill of a high end ante game…in my group..we each had a “ante box”.. only rated qualified and all of the cards had to be mutually approved..it would get crazy!
For Banding to be useful, the creature needed to be at least 1/2 (so you could distribute damage with no one dying) but most were 1/1. The ones that weren't were WAY over costed. A 3W 2/2 trample. Or Mishras War Machine, a 7 mana 5/5 with a discard every upkeep. If Mesa Pegasus were 1/2, it would have been used. Banding wasn't that complicated.
If they all get attacked together I can see it working with Deathtouch. I think Ante would be cool if instead of giving them they are temporarily traded until end of event. Also for got Fading, Rampage, Horsemanship, Bushido, Echo and Phasing.
Remeber when MaRo introduced the Storm Scale and then printed more cards with Storm and Anihilator. Pepridge Farms remebers.
I am sad sometimes that saying "I cast Lure on Thicket Basilisk and move to combat" no longer causes the shudder of fear it once did.
Nah... but Gorgon's Flail on Prodigal Sorcerer makes people angry... especially with Freed from the Reel!
no Rampage? 🥺
Yes but bending is even more complicated because of two other keywords
Trample and death touch
If one of your creatures has death touch that is in the band and one of your creatures has trample how it will work is killing damage has to be assigned first so you allocate the death touch damage to be applied and then all of the creature with trample doze through but that only accounts for the deathtouch creatures power
Basically you have to block with a additional creature for each one of the death touch creatures power to get into the trampled damage
Also when a band is blocking trample is the problematic interaction
Because they are blocking as a group Bandung has a weird interaction were you actually can assign more damage then killing damage without having trample hit you
How this works is the entire band has the combined toughness to block the creature with trample then you assign all of the damage to one creature technically there wasn't any assess damage but because of how it was assigned it doesn't travel over
It made the thing more complicated than even that but these are some rough rulings that I have seen judges actually put forth on Banding
Thing is, they could explore Culumative Upkeep even more. (Triggered abilities that helps others, additive effects if it leaves play, etc.).
I feel the same way about Fading as well, mechanics that were never fully fleshed out.
Are there any other keywords that haven't appeared in awhile that you want them to bring back?
There are a few that I'm nostalgic for that I'd love to see more.
Devotion from Theros. We saw it in Theros Beyond Death but anything that rewards you for staying mono colour just does something for me. Chroma is a mechanic that could've been in the video but I didn't have enough I wanted to say about it but I like it.
Delve is another contender for this spot. We haven't seen it fully done since Tarkir block but holy crap, it is too powerful. Like Treasure Cruise is 8 mana and still warped formats. I'd love to get more of it but I don't expect it anytime soon.
Shadow.
Banding can be awesome. You can eat a Ball Lightning with a Timber Wolves for instance. Banding trumps trample.
I've been trying to use the lands that give your legends banding. No good luck but it's fun.
It has always puzzled me how people struggle with understanding banding.
There's a card coming out in Bloomburrow that's basically an upgraded version of Afterlife.
Banding needs to be brought back it's not confusing at all
Back when Mirage and Visions were new, we would completely ignore any rules text that had phasing b/c we just didn't understand it.
I don't see how menace could replace intimidate when it's a whole different tactic being played.
In simple terms, it was just another way for these colours to get evasion.
@@HarrisontheManaDork it works against mono colored decks mostly but not so much multicolored. Idk I've always seen it as fair game but I also play legacy so most people aren't a fan haha
My personal favorite commutative upkeep card would be hibernation. And put it on the battlefield, so basically I return you get yourself whatever creature you want and it progressively gets bigger and more threatening, and if you'd rather play the creature in your hand and get rid of hibernation then so be it.
I have a banding card in my War of the Spark Krenko deck - Baton of Morale. Lets krenko band with a goblin token so that he can safely get through. I know i could just run an equipment to make him unblockable, but it's a flex to run it!
I kept waiting for Phasing to make an appearance, but I guess that wasn't as loathed as some of the other mechanics.
I love that a 1/1 with Banding basically Fog's a creature with Trample 🍻
cumulative upkeep no longer exist? are u sure? and if i say it's only sliglhy different? for exemple: static prison have an upkeep non cumulative each precombat main fase
Yes, I'm sure.
That is just an upkeep trigger. Upkeep triggers aren't going anywhere. The difference would be if Static Prison Required you to pay more and more energy each turn.
You should make a list now of mechanics you think either should get a full return or have a cameo in a sey
@@HarrisontheManaDorkgood point, personally a list of mine wood be mutate and kamigawa upside down cards
After they gave a card from Murders "Clash" I wanna see more of it. It's a really fun mechanic that's really balanced from my testing
The main problem is rhat banding and bands with other works slightly different 😅
Hellbent should not come back. Because a hellbent deck would pretty much need to be a wombo combo deck since you straight up can't keep gas for later.
Ante belongs in a draft-specific set like Conspiracy.
Surprised "Grandeur" wasn't on that list.
Surprisingly, Maro puts it at a storm scale of 5 meaning that it needs the right conditions to work but he's optimistic about it returning.
It is a cool mechanic that'd be interesting to see them explore more but it is definitely a victim of commander becoming the face of the game.
@@HarrisontheManaDork yeah, they'd really need to put it on a legendary dude(s) that you could take multiples of like the Nazgul or 7 dwarves.
didnt they just did an out of place common legendary recently?
Skulk could be on this list? I do enjoy some casual commander "Behind the Scenes" shenanigans (as well as horsemanship).
@MC-kf7ve horsemanship
Not flying from one set that was made as an interductery product for the Asian market that has never been reprinted and will likely never be reused. Yeah it's a good choice.
Bushido is another I doubt will be seen again at least not likely to be seen again.
I assume this list is non-exhaustive then because I would have assumed that Infect would never see new support. Then again, I guess Toxic is the replacement to Infect. Ironic though because Toxic is infinitely better.
I really want Mutate to get more support. But I assume it wont ever again. Not because it's broken, but because it's a ruling nightmare for judges.
What about rampage I was one that saw very small amount of actual cards with it The one I believe I remember is craw giant or claw giant I believe it was a 6-3 or an 8-3 rampage 2 and costed six. I was a little surprised it wasn't there and fear is still seen and regeneration is also still seen but those two as you said aren't seem very often. Hey there's even a new assassin's Creed card that gives all your characters fear so there is that
I'm building a commander draft cube that uses ante cards!
I miss regenerateI used to love silvos rogue elemental and spiritmonger back in the day
1. The reason why Banding was "taken out" was it just made sense for a player to block how they want and with what they want. So in truth Banding was simply given to all creatures.
2. Ante is pretty self explanatory. Basically this was gambling. And as many know, gambling is illegal in quite a few states, provinces and countries. And to top this all off. This was originally marketed towards kids. On top of what was already said.
3. Regenerate is kinda funny as this is more or less due to power creep. In its infancy Regenerate was really just used for combat tricks. To be fair, I feel like the argument of "annoying shield" is just dumb when Totem Armor exists. If anything this was to appease the Deathtouch fanboys
4. Intimidate was actually fun and really didn't get why it was chopped. When Landwalk exists. It was simply a different way of doing so. Bring this back!!
5. Gotcha is an "Un" mechanic so duh it is prolly never coming back.
6. Ah Cumulative Upkeep, the bastard child of old school magic. The reason why this isn't around? Proliferate. With so many ways to just add counters to these cards. They are simply unplayable now. Sure a Hex Parasite, Hex Mage and the like. But they are SO niche
Banding was dope and it is super easy to understand. I hate how people pretend it is so hard. It is not hard it os that banding creatures are just super weak
Was that worlds away in London Ontario?
It is!
12:10 I thought mana burn was done away with long before Coldsnap.
I thought the same thing, but it was removed in September 2007, a year or so after Coldsnap's release.
@@Imerias2 It is bizarre that it lasted all the way into the "modern" frame era.
Exterminator Magmarch came out this year and has Regenerate.
@@thetimebinder Yeah, I talk about it in the video.
It is from Modern Horizons 3 which is designed for more established and experienced players. It'll never show up in standard again.
Here's an odd and very specific case of an ability that could be given the keyword treatment as it functions similarly to keywords that would debut fully formed years later.
MH3 granted a handful of enchantment creatures Bestowe, effectively removing the typical implicit risk of getting 2-for-1'd which define auras as a subtype, while equipment creatures got Reconfigure on the artifact side of modification, but unlike Bestowe, has the flexibility of modality.
But what about a creature type that itself is not an enchantment creature with an activated ability at sorcery speed thru which it becomes an aura attatched to another creature (it loses all other card types when in this mode) and unattaches and reverts the aura to the original creature, effectively Reconfigure for auras?
Because this was basically the defining ability of the forgotten brain slugs from the Rath cycle known as Licids.
Perhaps Transplant? Maybe a portmanteau of slug and enslave, Enslug?
What, if any, are your thoughts on the matter, Syr?
I think bestow started back in OG Theros as a way to make auras more playable. That 2 for 1 is enough for a lot of people to steer clear of them especially in limited gameplay.
What you're describing makes me think of something like Mutate but then it works from the board rather than the hand. Either way, I think it'd be interesting but I think it constantly runs the risk of being too complicated.
Throw a wrench into the mix and watch the whole thing go boom.
@HarrisontheManaDork Thank you, Syr, for serving up a heapin helpin of cognitive comida.
I am gonna need to have myself the neurological equivalent of an after dinner nap to digest this adult serving of food for thought.
I miss rampage on creatures
About banding: No, I can't see it, it's f'ing simple, especially compared to the walls of text from the recent 10 or so years of magic. Sheesh, it's not that complicated. (Excuse my burp from the salt marshes here.)
And about regenerate: it went through iterations and finally landed on an oracle text that worked better with the stack, but admittedly was more unintuitive. Regenerate as an effect that simply meant something like: when the creature dies, you can pay this to say "nu-uh" is pretty simple to understand.
And another thing, gotcha: I do love me some stupid cards, but I was always annoyed with the cards that were overly dependent on the english language being spoken at the table. Some of us don't speak english, when given the option not to.
I'll take my Old Fogey and my Dauthi Embrace and slither back to my Salt Marsh now...
(Nice rundown of the mechanics and nice video, though.)
They should bring back ante
Banding is less confusing than mutate.
I miss Rampage.
Banding could work if they changed it to opponent must block all creatures with banding or not at all
Even then, it's one word trying to represent an even bigger mountain of text. By addressing the playability problem, the complexity problem is worsened
@@HarrisontheManaDork well I would drop the defense option
Most of the supposedly overly complex mechanics as they claim aren't really that complex or broken.
Intimidate does not properly replace fear for a primary reason and that is the fact that they haven't errated it to read something to the effect of can't be blocked except for creatures that share a color unless otherwise stated.
It is very easy as an experienced and established player to look at a mechanic now and think it isn't complex. Magic is making the barrier to entry as easy as they can. And yeah, complex =/= broken, just like simple=/= weak.
Saying intimidate doesn't replace fear, you're just being pedantic. The one was created to replace the other and besides corner cases, performs the exact same way.
@HarrisontheManaDork I'm not being pedantic I was saying that because they have not done the wording change that they should/ could it doesn't function the same way as the other though it might be similar the key difference is that fear does not care about the color of the creature that has it while the other does. The reason why this is important is because a creature that has fear doesn't have certain weaknesses that a creature with intimate absolutely does. For example if you have a field of non-black, non-artifact creatures you would either need to change your entire field to one of those to block the fear creature while a creature with intimidate can have its color changed and now it can be blocked by all of the creatures of that color in addition to whatever color(s) it already had and artifact creatures. This said intimidate has an extra benefit that fear doesn't and that is if the creature is colorless then only artifact creatures can block it.
Wouldnt playing a MTG game be considered a skill based game instead of luck based game, making Ante not gambling?
Regenerate is still around just not as much.
Banding, reverse trample.
How about Shadow?
Dauthi Voidwalker in 2021
WOTC: let's remove these mechanics because they're unintuitive or not fun to play
Also WOTC: Take the initiative, venture into the dungeon, The ring tempts you, **insert UB mechanics that are used in a single set and eventually get impossible to expect everyone to keep track of unless you have a phone or a token card with the mechanic explained with you**
Sales primarily to children? Yeah sure tell my pocketbook that
Did someone say gacha? I'm in.
Fitting, as Magic is the original modern gacha game.
Unblockable is still around but Fear was unfunny?
banding is fun just a absolute word soup of rules
ante is miserable ah yes let me randomly put a maybe valuable card into a pile my opponent if won can take what a garbage mechanic lol also yeh gambling
regenrate is a little messy it should be simpler " the next time this turn it is destoryed it isnt" is a weird ass clause because -1 counters i didnt destory it, sacrifice, wither, exile etc exist aking it kinda just worse indisructable
fear i mean menace i mean indimitade i mean yeh the same emchanic alot is kinda meh
most un mechanics are eather completly nonsense or broken in half gotcha is just nonsense
cumulative upkeep is just bad let me pay more for my card why lol bad (exept braides of fire that cards awesome)
Banding, I think it could be fun to play around with but I also think they've done a great job with the mechanics they've made to try to replace it.
Ante, obviously losing a $100 card is never going to feel great but I think that could be fun in a casual cube that just happens to feature Ante. Low stakes, more fun.
Regenerate, I really think "indestructible until end of turn" has been the best way to replace it.
Fear/Intimidate, unblockable cards should have answers that aren't just removal.
Gotcha, yeah, that is what Un Sets are for. Gotcha is just a miserable mechanic that kinda went against the spirit of the game.
Cumulative Upkeep, I think they could fool around with this a little bit but the default being that you just pay more to keep your cards around, that ain't fun.
Bring back Infect Wizard's. You cowards.
All still less annoying than ward😅
Yeah, when they announced ward, I was thinking "cool, its a more interactable hexproof" but I really did not expect every 3rd card to have ward.
Most of these mechanics weren't an issue back in the day, when the game was played mostly by dedicated "nerds", just like the older versions of D&D. Modern Magic got rid of them because normies started getting into the game and didn't want to spend much effort to learn the game, that's why rules such as mana burn or damage on the stack ceased to exist.
If you were an actual veteran you wouldn't be complaining about the disappearance of damage on the stack, because there used to be no stack at all, it was a batch system.
Secondly, you claim people back then actually learned the rules, but banding was discontinued because people weren't willing to learn it by 1997, 3 years after the game was released, what a tough playerbase.
You're just a whiny elitist that wants to complain because you can't feel special now that people are interested in the same hobby as you. I'd love for your kind to crawl in a basement somewhere and silently disappear while people enjoy the game in peace.
Get rid of annihilate. Please for the love of Allah, GET RID OF ANNIHILATE
That's almost exclusively an eldrazi thing and is only on bigger ones.