So I have recently started sleeving up my magic cards and getting back into the spellsplinging action after a few year hiatus. You never really stop playing this game lol. I have had some initial thoughts on the state of the game, but figured I would keep them to myself for now, as they were probably just knee jerk reactions. After being back for a month, winning 3 of 4 of my local game store's drafts and being able to to put together some tier 1 one stuff on arena, I guess now would be a reasonable time to talk about something that seems like an absolute face palm to me.
Teferi.
This card poses a serious issue to the state of the game.
Firstly, my initial feeling when I came back was, daaaammmmnnnnn, these cards got super powerful. I mean, I recall what an uproar Psychatog was back in the day, reading some of the mythics, its like, wow..... that would have never been printed back in 2004 lol. I understand its not "back in the day," but needless to say, we are no longer in the 2/2 for 2 is the epitome of efficiency, kansas anymore.
I have been trying to put together something like Mirari's Wake from the days of judgment and scourge. It was one of my favorite decks to play, and for some reason everytime I see March of Multitudes, I think decree of justice. Needless to say, this required 4 copies of Teferi, and thus began my journey down, what I think is really unfortunate rabbit hole. *I would just like preface also, that this commentary is coming from the position of a guy CASTING and smashing face with Teferi, not the other way around. Im not some salty scrub getting muckled by this guy, and therefor saying the card is OP.
1.) No standard legal magic card should nearly eclipse the $50 dollar mark. I think thats just insane, especially to a new player. Magic has never been cheap, dont get me wrong, but nearly 2 hunge on a playset for standard is bonkers, and actually deters new players. Call of the Herd debuted at 20. Cranial Extraction and Thoughtseize were similar. Hell, I have literally cast Morphlings in sanctioned play and never in Urza's block did they come close to 50 a clip... Even then 80 on a playset was steep.
a.) Its not as if Teferi just found a niche and it sky-rocketed in value. From the second R&D printed out a proxy of their first Teferi incarnation, they new that this was going to be the nut high. It kind of makes me cynically wonder if they were just looking for a cash grab. Its concerning to me that Wizard's can now influence market prices so drastically by what they are printing. Where apparently the power ceiling has been completely smashed to bits, theres really not a lot stopping wizards from printing these whales every few sets and completely inflated the market. I don't particularly think that's a good place to be. It also inherently sets up you for the skeptics to start questioning their ethics on print runs.
2.) The whole "denver mulligan" or whatever people refer to it as, where you get to scry after a mull, was instituted so that there were less games that "didnt really feel like you were playing magic." Sure, your opp gets mana screwed, you take the W, but its kind of bittersweet. So hey, introduce a mechanic that tries to circumvent that. Awesome. Cool. Im all for it. But then, to print a card, whose very nature is: "draw, go, draw, go, draw, go draw go, teferi, draw, go, draw, go..." seems counter-intuitive to me. If Wizard's is concerned about the lack of interactivity during games, Im not sure how this guy even hit the printing presses.
3.) Teferi's emblem is absurd. Lord knows if they still eratta cards, but in no way, shape of form, should his emblem trigger for every card you draw. For example: Chemister's Insight. The emblem says whenever I draw a card I can exile a perm. I have emblem in play, cast chem insight.... It defies everything that feels right to me, that the teferi then triggers twice effectively, allowing me to exile two perms because I draw 2 cards off a single spell. On surveil triggers for example, its not as if Dimir Spybug gets 2 counters if you have one card that says "surveil 2." This to me just seems again to be over the top powerful, and super uninteractive, especially for new players.
These are just some quick thoughts, but Id be interested in hearing other opinions on this matter.
Lorewise, the explanation as to how he got his spark back makes an equal amount of sense. IE: none. Jhoira basically just pulled it out of her ass and handed it back to him.
1. Price: This is not a problem with Teferi, this is a problem with the secondary market. The card makes Control exist, not good, EXIST, in Modern, and so demands a high price as its both Standard, and a Modern, staple.
2. The Vancouver Mulligan (as named as it was a Vancouver GP it was first legal/used in) is to try and smooth out the pain of not getting to play, due to harsh mana flood/screw. Teferi as you noted comes down Turn 5. In Standard you better have answers, and be applying pressure. In Modern, you could quite simply have lost by Turn 5. Over those 5 turns, you got to play Magic, and a resolved Teferi, is not even lights out, in either format.
3. Being able to Ultimate is a 'game win' for...nearly every Walker, especially ones that see play. That said it STILL wont actually win the game, as your opponent may just untap and burn you out.
All told, you have an issue with Teferi that is personal. There is nothing inherently wrong with the card, and you cannot blame the Design team, for the Secondary Market.
This isnt even something we can call a supply issue, as I see stock across my 3 normal vendor sites. Teferi is played in one of the best Modern decks, is a Mythic, and that Modern deck is one (many) people have wanted to exist for years. If its Standard top tier as well? Yeah its going to sit in that $50-$60 dollar range.
Nothing questionable here, just the facts I'm afraid. I'm quite glad I got him at $13 though.
You sound a bit like me, so let me tell you my perspective:
1. If you stopped playing several years ago, you just learned about the mythic rarity! Yes, it is absolute bull*****. WOTC decided to make a fourth tier of rarity to create really pushed, constructed-playable cards without breaking limited play too often by further reducing their rate. This means that every single standard will have a $40-50 card. WOTC actually fixed this by adding masterpieces, which were alt-art foil cards that wouldn't be standard legal unless a normal version was in the set, but that was even at a lower print rate than mythics. As a result, many players *****ed and moaned that buying sealed product turned into a lottery (for those trying to buy a case and sell the contents at a profit, anyways). Kaladesh cards capped around $20-25 because it had these super cards. Then they did them in Amonkhet and they tried to do this weird hieroglyphic font and museum-display style border that looked awful to most people. Rather than go back to older better versions, they opted to stop and only print these when "a set's flavor" called for it....because lore sells so much.
2 and 3. WOTC didn't want you to sit there for three turns not doing anything because you had to mull to four and still couldn't do *****. Teferi won't even be in play until turn five, turn four at best with a manadork or something. You have a chance to prepare and plan accordingly. I do agree that they screwed up by letting teferi tuck itself back into the deck to create its loop win condition. That should be errata'ed in my opinion, thus forcing UW decks to run Dream Eater, Lyra, etc to try to actually win.
Teferi is held in check right now by UW itself not having the best manabase among color pairs. That will change in a few months, which I expect to also see one of two things happening: First, Teferi is banned early on in Ravnica Allegiance standard. Second, at least one low-cost planeswalker answer that is generic enough that many decks can slot one or two in the main, kinda like hero's downfall.
The "reason" Teferi is back as a planeswalker is pretty simple, they literally needed a "black" planeswalker and they needed to make it "guaranteed" good so people play it.
Thats forced diversity and WotC loves that.
Teferi is stupid because its too easy to cast.
The card can totally be crazy, but then at least add some colored mana to its casting cost.
3UW is even easy to splash.
In a vacuum Teferi isnt just crazy, he has to work with the spells in the set, so untapping 2 lands actually does really carry value.
And they need to have flash/instant speed too, so thats quite demanding, but we got plenty of these, even in standard, even more so in modern.
Search for Azcanta is a card they NEVER would have printed back in the days, or make it cost at least 4U or even crazier costs.
They just push the cards they want to see play so hard that they are "guaranteed" to see play. Each set gets its share of "Modern" boosted cards, so that kind of card is simply undercosted so much that it even is remotely considered for modern.
And of course theres the issue of making good cards also easy to splash, so literally every deck has to play them and not playing them is just terrible wrong.
In the end thats all old news, its just how they make sets now.
They choose some decks in their testing league and just ensure these decks are pretty much exactly what they will see in the format.
They even print specific answers to the cards they want to see play, to ensure non of them gets out of control.
To some degree thats important, but it has the tremendous problem of producing a super artificial format that has as less surprises as possible, beside the "mistakes" WotC is making, and they just keep doing mistakes over and over and over ; modern you could even consider a format filled with cards that are all some form of "mistake" by WotC in some shape or form, its all about doing the most busted stuff you can do, with the most busted manabase you can get, and play the most busted hate-cards to fight all the craziness, and 4+ mana cards are pretty much unplayable, unless you use it to combo win on the spot (and we consider 7 colorless to be a 3-drop with tron lands).
You totally could make Teferi "fair" , but then you have to make all the cards "fair" , and then we just end up with all cards have a real balance, so "rarity" isnt really boosting a cards powerlevel (at some point they did exactly that, so rares would be rares because they do something special or are just important story characters, but they didnt just get a flat +2/+2 to power and toughness or -2 colorless mana to the casting cost just because they are rare, mythic rarity just made all of that even worse).
Seriously look at Rekindling Phoenix , its a freaking 4/3 flyer for 2RR , and its even better than indestructible.
Its a obscene card with a insane mana cost, its WAY too cheap, and its only fair in a format filled to the brink with removal that answers it cleanly, avoiding its mechanic altogether (hello, Lava Coil, Vraska's Contempt, Settle the Wreckage) and many more).
Its like they intentionally make stupidly powerful mechanics to avoid removal and then in the same format, just print cards that exile and avoid that mechanics.
Very lazy design, but the "mistakes" still exist.
Standard always gets some kind of card thats just grossly undercosted for what it does, and then the entire format somewhat evolves around that card, as decks that can play it, and decks that just play the designed answers to that card.
Its an artificial format , and its powerlevel is focused in a bunch of cards and everything has to work around with.
Thats the way they WANT to have it, and a lot of casual players also enjoy it, as the good creature/planeswalker they pulled is truly good, rather than what big creatures did in the past, as removal way too cheap and dealt with everything easily ; today creatures get immediatly value and even more value if they are not instantly killed, and most importantly, they have to be hard to kill too, so you need to play the rare removal spell, as the common version just cant deal with the bombs, especially as creature removal alone doesnt work anymore if your targets are planeswalkers and creatures (thats why the single black removal that kills creatures and planeswalkers is pretty much always guaranteed to see play, as its the only reasonable answer the color gets, no choices, you have to play it).
I've played a TON of Limited, for the first time in...decades, on Arena, and all of what was posted by the last 2 folks here (regarding the gameplay, you can keep your social issues) is true.
Rekindling Phoenix is NUTS in a limited removal game.
Teferi is NUTS when he comes down and is easily splashed. Personally I dont have an issue with the tuck, but I dont have an issue with Lantern Control or UR Prison either..
Cards are pushed for constructed intent, and Modern is a format of mistakes. Top to bottom.
1. Price: This is not a problem with Teferi, this is a problem with the secondary market. The card makes Control exist, not good, EXIST, in Modern, and so demands a high price as its both Standard, and a Modern, staple.
...
3. Being able to Ultimate is a 'game win' for...nearly every Walker, especially ones that see play. That said it STILL wont actually win the game, as your opponent may just untap and burn you out.
These two points are really important. Cards don't hit stupid high prices unless they're played a lot in multiple formats, so complaining that Teferi is pushing $50 and Standard cards shouldn't do that is silly. It's not a Standard card, it's a multi-format card, and one of those formats is Standard.
And most Planeswalker ultimates can win you the game. Many of them on the spot, unlike Teferi. From Chandra Ablaze to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Planeswalker ults put you in a much better position that your opponent.
I play esper control and although teferi gives me a reason to splash white - chromium, the mutable is what packs a lot of my punch. Teferi can be answered and there are plenty of hexproof threats in standard right now that give Control decks fits.
Teferi is fine for modern and honestly if you wanna gum up your hand with 1-2 copies on average I'm cool with that because the games you play against me are going to feel like a mulligan to 5.
As for the price, I agree it's not WotC fault. It is 100% the secondary market. Also, you're comparing a meta 14+ years ago in a totally different economy. Even at 3% inflation a year you'll see what used to be an $80 playset top $120 14 years later...
If this is the price people are willing to pay then it will absolutely sell for that price. Period.
Draw-Go is unfun. Even if a hard counter in Standard now costs 1UU and a cantrip hard counter costs 3UU, it's still unfun.
Removal is unfun. We should never remove each other's creatures. Even if Doom Blade falls by the wayside in favor of Murder or Grasp of Darkness, and Lightning Bolt is a fond memory, removal is still unfun.
Discard should cost BBB just to force an opponent to discard the card of his or her choice.
Basically, if bad players have trouble with it, it's unfun.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Oh, I'm aware, there is a reason the Standards between Khans and Guilds sucked, and its exactly what you describe. Poor Answers, pushed Threats, lack of interaction.
The current standard, tons of removal, card selection, and a potent Control finisher(s) means, the game is healthier than its been in a LONG time (again, since Khans) and surprise surprise, its reflected in the general reception of the format.
The "reason" Teferi is back as a planeswalker is pretty simple, they literally needed a "black" planeswalker and they needed to make it "guaranteed" good so people play it.
Thats forced diversity and WotC loves that.
Or, as part of a storyline based on the game's history they picked a whole bunch of characters with history in the game, and as a few of those characters are pretty much immortal WotC figured they could bring those characters back as cards.
Storywise, it's not like spark transfer hasn't happened before in magic, and it's not like "character tries to help friend and accidentally ****s up" isn't a major theme of MtG storytelling. Related: if Shiv explodes in the next Dominaria storyline you owe me $50.
And what's with the "forced diversity" comment?
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
The "reason" Teferi is back as a planeswalker is pretty simple, they literally needed a "black" planeswalker and they needed to make it "guaranteed" good so people play it.
Thats forced diversity and WotC loves that.
Or, as part of a storyline based on the game's history they picked a whole bunch of characters with history in the game, and as a few of those characters are pretty much immortal WotC figured they could bring those characters back as cards.
Storywise, it's not like spark transfer hasn't happened before in magic, and it's not like "character tries to help friend and accidentally ****s up" isn't a major theme of MtG storytelling. Related: if Shiv explodes in the next Dominaria storyline you owe me $50.
Eh, its a fair point, just horrible execution. "Broadening" the appeal of the game by increasing diversity & adding more relatable characters is good for any business. Doll companies started doing it for the that exact reason.
Now, regarding Teferi as a card, he's excellent but not broken. I have a bigger issue with the planeswalker subtype existing in the first place.
Its not a fair point at all. Teferi was thematic to the set, consistent with the lore, and is a character from many of Dominari's sets. This is not 'forced diversity', and its dog whistle level dialog that is below worthless.
I mean obviously I don't think Teferi was a bad inclusion but last time I got involved in this kinda discussion I got the thread locked for swerving into real world politics and copped a warning for calling someone a racist so I should probably just leave TOO to be mad.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
Its not a fair point at all. Teferi was thematic to the set, consistent with the lore, and is a character from many of Dominari's sets. This is not 'forced diversity', and its dog whistle level dialog that is below worthless.
Im not arguing forced affirmative action here. You are correct regarding theme, lore, etc. The "forced diversity" comment he made is exactly what i meant by "horrible execution". He took it down a road it didnt need to go
Teferi is another example of overly pushed mythics, but it's nothing new, and it's nothing specific to him. He's just one card that is insanely good goodstuff. Chandra, Torch of Defiance was printed with the same intention, Liliana, the Last Hope before that, and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar before that. The first planeswalker like that was Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and it was obvious from the beginning that it was an unbalanced card design. They wouldn't print a four mana enchantment that gave you a brainstorm every turn, so they shouldn't have printed a card that was much more powerful.
From a design perspective, the idea is that they can occasionally flaunt the traditional principals of balance to make a pushed card with the assumption that other powerful cards in the format will keep it from being degenerate. It's a dangerous game, and it's not strong design. The text-book case is Grave Titan: never would they print something like a 9/9 or even 10/10 for six mana in black with no drawback, so why did they think it was okay to print something dramatically better? Because they wanted the titans to be good. And it is good. And it didn't break the format, but it's still a very poorly designed card. I would argue that cards can be made interesting enough to be mythic, and be great cards without simply justifying the rarity by shaving 1 or 2 off of what the card would cost if it were rare, which is exactly what they do. Look at Doom Whisperer next to rare black seven-drops, and you'll see the power level is about equal.
This is a serious flaw in the modern age of card design, and it leads to problems. A big part of it is that it's easier to predict how well goodstuff will do than more adventurous designs. They didn't exactly know what they had with Skullclamp. They knew what they were doing with Bitterblossom (another card which wantonly flaunts design norms), and they did it anyway. I think there are serious problems with this kind of design, but it is they only sure way to give Modern players tools they can use. It's also the easiest way to curate the playable colors. Mono-red never dies, and they are always trying to keep decks like that from being too dominant by printing flashy bombs.
As far as Teferi goes, this may be his time in the sun, but nobody gets to stay in the sun forever. Wait until the next set when they print the next overly pushed card, and you can bet it probably won't be in Teferi's colors. 'Tis the way of Standard, and one of the reasons I don' play the format.
Eh, its a fair point, just horrible execution. "Broadening" the appeal of the game by increasing diversity & adding more relatable characters is good for any business. Doll companies started doing it for the that exact reason.
First off, welcome back! I know how overwhelming the game can seem after a long hiatus, but don't worry or let first impressions fool you.
The market corrects over time, and there are ways to avoid falling into the trap of buying expensive standard staples which often don't hold post rotation.
Teferi is very strong, this we can agree on. However, so are countless other cards in recent sets. And yes...Back in the day <insert reminiscent music here> green stompy decks played craw wurms and force of nature. But wait! Now there's Ghalta, carnage tyrants, aggressive mammoth, and lest we forget terra stomper which isn't even competitive by today's standards! What about Karn, flip Bolas, and Chandra who just rotated out, as well as both 3-drop Lilianas, BFZ Gideon, etc. Cards were all pushed and overpriced on the secondary market. Some hold, and some lose post rotation. It's a matter of popularity and supply. The player base has increased, and the market is fickle. Every set now is bound to have absurdly pushed cards, but they all have vulnerability.
You're concerned about Teferi draw/go with countermagic in hand?
You have cheap answers: banefire and inescapable blaze just to name a couple in addition to the aforementioned tyrant. Slap a blanchwood armor on it and Teferi is crying.
The money trap is thinking you have to play every high end card to win when you can have just as much fun and win your local FNM events by brewing with cards which go under the radar but still perform well, or by knowing the local competition well enough to play a counter-meta deck which doesn't necessarily cost much to buy or trade into either.
You don't even need to play multicolored decks and you can save on shocklands and checklands. Mono blue can be dirt cheap to build and tempest djinn is great at 3CMC, possibly better than any other card in the cycle because you can protect it with siren stormtamers (which is ironically an uncommon worth triple the rare djinn).
The strength of cards is always relative to the other cards in the format, and even the cards which seem strongest in theory have weaknesses in practice.
This is problem with this site comments like that go unpunished all the time.
Not sure how a returning iconic character who has been in multiple sets and is virtually immortal returning and resparking is Forced Diversity. Karn has gotten a spark what twice? Besides its not like Teferi, Karn or Jaya did much of note in the actual Dominaria Storyline...they didn't really help with Belzenlok and they jobbed out Urgoros or whatever his name is.
Now granted the execution on the respark was BS and the Dominaria story was not great in my book too much focus on Lili and Jhoira if you ask me. Not to mention Dominaria has basically made a full recovery in 60 years or so.
Nor is Teferi the First Pushed Walker. Chandra, TOD was pushed. Lili has 2 Pushed Walkers. Jace has one as well. Ugin has one. Karn has 1.5 will see how new Karn does in the future.
As for how strong he is...he is mostly being carried by his own strength and search...the overall quality of the Blue and/or White cards has not exactly been exceptional during most of Teferi's Time in Standard.
You are right about these things. Just from a mental appropriateness point of view (totality of cost is not the only consideration), even if mythic rarity were preserved for the good things it does for limited versus rarebomb sliding scale vis-a-vis color pie and power creep that even exists with a LOW number of cards playable in Standard (see original Why Bad Cards/Bad Rares Exist articles), it doesn't excuse those kinds of price tags for rotating cards, even if that particular one will stay good. They did that on purpose and everyone who stinkeyes on it while still playing is just bound to be like the buildup of steam that eventually leads to a steam whistle outburst. Such a valuation is disconnected from the alleviation of boredom that making more inconspicuously good cards would entail and the concentration of them into the scheme that was foisted here could even be seen as coherent and that it doesn't matter. But creative factors suffer. Whether the whole thing is any good suffers massively, where "is any good" has a LARGE stake in "Standard is good". Modern is making the designers screw up Standard in terms of cards like these. Simply decreasing the scarcity of the mythics and working with that in a flatter bomb rare superbomb rare limited spectrum would have to be the level 1 answer. Whether new good cards go into Modern seems like a question that should share its stake in "card is good or card is not good at ALL, downvote into oblivion classic saltiness thread" with Extended. Clearly this.
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"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
Planeswalkers also usually tend to more expensive then they should regardless of quality and are now the face of Marketing for WOTC.
It would make no sense for your main marketing tool not to produce powerful cards of that type of your main characters on a regular basis. Not every Walker needs to be pushed sure but I expect 2 Pushed Walkers a Year at minimum.
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Teferi.
This card poses a serious issue to the state of the game.
Firstly, my initial feeling when I came back was, daaaammmmnnnnn, these cards got super powerful. I mean, I recall what an uproar Psychatog was back in the day, reading some of the mythics, its like, wow..... that would have never been printed back in 2004 lol. I understand its not "back in the day," but needless to say, we are no longer in the 2/2 for 2 is the epitome of efficiency, kansas anymore.
I have been trying to put together something like Mirari's Wake from the days of judgment and scourge. It was one of my favorite decks to play, and for some reason everytime I see March of Multitudes, I think decree of justice. Needless to say, this required 4 copies of Teferi, and thus began my journey down, what I think is really unfortunate rabbit hole. *I would just like preface also, that this commentary is coming from the position of a guy CASTING and smashing face with Teferi, not the other way around. Im not some salty scrub getting muckled by this guy, and therefor saying the card is OP.
1.) No standard legal magic card should nearly eclipse the $50 dollar mark. I think thats just insane, especially to a new player. Magic has never been cheap, dont get me wrong, but nearly 2 hunge on a playset for standard is bonkers, and actually deters new players. Call of the Herd debuted at 20. Cranial Extraction and Thoughtseize were similar. Hell, I have literally cast Morphlings in sanctioned play and never in Urza's block did they come close to 50 a clip... Even then 80 on a playset was steep.
a.) Its not as if Teferi just found a niche and it sky-rocketed in value. From the second R&D printed out a proxy of their first Teferi incarnation, they new that this was going to be the nut high. It kind of makes me cynically wonder if they were just looking for a cash grab. Its concerning to me that Wizard's can now influence market prices so drastically by what they are printing. Where apparently the power ceiling has been completely smashed to bits, theres really not a lot stopping wizards from printing these whales every few sets and completely inflated the market. I don't particularly think that's a good place to be. It also inherently sets up you for the skeptics to start questioning their ethics on print runs.
2.) The whole "denver mulligan" or whatever people refer to it as, where you get to scry after a mull, was instituted so that there were less games that "didnt really feel like you were playing magic." Sure, your opp gets mana screwed, you take the W, but its kind of bittersweet. So hey, introduce a mechanic that tries to circumvent that. Awesome. Cool. Im all for it. But then, to print a card, whose very nature is: "draw, go, draw, go, draw, go draw go, teferi, draw, go, draw, go..." seems counter-intuitive to me. If Wizard's is concerned about the lack of interactivity during games, Im not sure how this guy even hit the printing presses.
3.) Teferi's emblem is absurd. Lord knows if they still eratta cards, but in no way, shape of form, should his emblem trigger for every card you draw. For example: Chemister's Insight. The emblem says whenever I draw a card I can exile a perm. I have emblem in play, cast chem insight.... It defies everything that feels right to me, that the teferi then triggers twice effectively, allowing me to exile two perms because I draw 2 cards off a single spell. On surveil triggers for example, its not as if Dimir Spybug gets 2 counters if you have one card that says "surveil 2." This to me just seems again to be over the top powerful, and super uninteractive, especially for new players.
These are just some quick thoughts, but Id be interested in hearing other opinions on this matter.
Thanks for reading, guys!!
none
Modern
UBG B/U/G control
BBB MBC
WUR Control
WWW Prison
RRR Goblins
Legacy
BBB Pox
UBG B/U/G Control
UWU StoneBlade
UW Miracle Control
Cards fine.
Spirits
I feel like what isnt completely irrelevant in your statement, is pretty questionable.
1. Price: This is not a problem with Teferi, this is a problem with the secondary market. The card makes Control exist, not good, EXIST, in Modern, and so demands a high price as its both Standard, and a Modern, staple.
2. The Vancouver Mulligan (as named as it was a Vancouver GP it was first legal/used in) is to try and smooth out the pain of not getting to play, due to harsh mana flood/screw. Teferi as you noted comes down Turn 5. In Standard you better have answers, and be applying pressure. In Modern, you could quite simply have lost by Turn 5. Over those 5 turns, you got to play Magic, and a resolved Teferi, is not even lights out, in either format.
3. Being able to Ultimate is a 'game win' for...nearly every Walker, especially ones that see play. That said it STILL wont actually win the game, as your opponent may just untap and burn you out.
All told, you have an issue with Teferi that is personal. There is nothing inherently wrong with the card, and you cannot blame the Design team, for the Secondary Market.
This isnt even something we can call a supply issue, as I see stock across my 3 normal vendor sites. Teferi is played in one of the best Modern decks, is a Mythic, and that Modern deck is one (many) people have wanted to exist for years. If its Standard top tier as well? Yeah its going to sit in that $50-$60 dollar range.
Nothing questionable here, just the facts I'm afraid. I'm quite glad I got him at $13 though.
Spirits
1. If you stopped playing several years ago, you just learned about the mythic rarity! Yes, it is absolute bull*****. WOTC decided to make a fourth tier of rarity to create really pushed, constructed-playable cards without breaking limited play too often by further reducing their rate. This means that every single standard will have a $40-50 card. WOTC actually fixed this by adding masterpieces, which were alt-art foil cards that wouldn't be standard legal unless a normal version was in the set, but that was even at a lower print rate than mythics. As a result, many players *****ed and moaned that buying sealed product turned into a lottery (for those trying to buy a case and sell the contents at a profit, anyways). Kaladesh cards capped around $20-25 because it had these super cards. Then they did them in Amonkhet and they tried to do this weird hieroglyphic font and museum-display style border that looked awful to most people. Rather than go back to older better versions, they opted to stop and only print these when "a set's flavor" called for it....because lore sells so much.
2 and 3. WOTC didn't want you to sit there for three turns not doing anything because you had to mull to four and still couldn't do *****. Teferi won't even be in play until turn five, turn four at best with a manadork or something. You have a chance to prepare and plan accordingly. I do agree that they screwed up by letting teferi tuck itself back into the deck to create its loop win condition. That should be errata'ed in my opinion, thus forcing UW decks to run Dream Eater, Lyra, etc to try to actually win.
Teferi is held in check right now by UW itself not having the best manabase among color pairs. That will change in a few months, which I expect to also see one of two things happening: First, Teferi is banned early on in Ravnica Allegiance standard. Second, at least one low-cost planeswalker answer that is generic enough that many decks can slot one or two in the main, kinda like hero's downfall.
Thats forced diversity and WotC loves that.
Teferi is stupid because its too easy to cast.
The card can totally be crazy, but then at least add some colored mana to its casting cost.
3UW is even easy to splash.
In a vacuum Teferi isnt just crazy, he has to work with the spells in the set, so untapping 2 lands actually does really carry value.
And they need to have flash/instant speed too, so thats quite demanding, but we got plenty of these, even in standard, even more so in modern.
Search for Azcanta is a card they NEVER would have printed back in the days, or make it cost at least 4U or even crazier costs.
They just push the cards they want to see play so hard that they are "guaranteed" to see play. Each set gets its share of "Modern" boosted cards, so that kind of card is simply undercosted so much that it even is remotely considered for modern.
And of course theres the issue of making good cards also easy to splash, so literally every deck has to play them and not playing them is just terrible wrong.
In the end thats all old news, its just how they make sets now.
They choose some decks in their testing league and just ensure these decks are pretty much exactly what they will see in the format.
They even print specific answers to the cards they want to see play, to ensure non of them gets out of control.
To some degree thats important, but it has the tremendous problem of producing a super artificial format that has as less surprises as possible, beside the "mistakes" WotC is making, and they just keep doing mistakes over and over and over ; modern you could even consider a format filled with cards that are all some form of "mistake" by WotC in some shape or form, its all about doing the most busted stuff you can do, with the most busted manabase you can get, and play the most busted hate-cards to fight all the craziness, and 4+ mana cards are pretty much unplayable, unless you use it to combo win on the spot (and we consider 7 colorless to be a 3-drop with tron lands).
You totally could make Teferi "fair" , but then you have to make all the cards "fair" , and then we just end up with all cards have a real balance, so "rarity" isnt really boosting a cards powerlevel (at some point they did exactly that, so rares would be rares because they do something special or are just important story characters, but they didnt just get a flat +2/+2 to power and toughness or -2 colorless mana to the casting cost just because they are rare, mythic rarity just made all of that even worse).
Seriously look at Rekindling Phoenix , its a freaking 4/3 flyer for 2RR , and its even better than indestructible.
Its a obscene card with a insane mana cost, its WAY too cheap, and its only fair in a format filled to the brink with removal that answers it cleanly, avoiding its mechanic altogether (hello, Lava Coil, Vraska's Contempt, Settle the Wreckage) and many more).
Its like they intentionally make stupidly powerful mechanics to avoid removal and then in the same format, just print cards that exile and avoid that mechanics.
Very lazy design, but the "mistakes" still exist.
Standard always gets some kind of card thats just grossly undercosted for what it does, and then the entire format somewhat evolves around that card, as decks that can play it, and decks that just play the designed answers to that card.
Its an artificial format , and its powerlevel is focused in a bunch of cards and everything has to work around with.
Thats the way they WANT to have it, and a lot of casual players also enjoy it, as the good creature/planeswalker they pulled is truly good, rather than what big creatures did in the past, as removal way too cheap and dealt with everything easily ; today creatures get immediatly value and even more value if they are not instantly killed, and most importantly, they have to be hard to kill too, so you need to play the rare removal spell, as the common version just cant deal with the bombs, especially as creature removal alone doesnt work anymore if your targets are planeswalkers and creatures (thats why the single black removal that kills creatures and planeswalkers is pretty much always guaranteed to see play, as its the only reasonable answer the color gets, no choices, you have to play it).
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Rekindling Phoenix is NUTS in a limited removal game.
Teferi is NUTS when he comes down and is easily splashed. Personally I dont have an issue with the tuck, but I dont have an issue with Lantern Control or UR Prison either..
Cards are pushed for constructed intent, and Modern is a format of mistakes. Top to bottom.
Spirits
And most Planeswalker ultimates can win you the game. Many of them on the spot, unlike Teferi. From Chandra Ablaze to Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Planeswalker ults put you in a much better position that your opponent.
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Teferi is fine for modern and honestly if you wanna gum up your hand with 1-2 copies on average I'm cool with that because the games you play against me are going to feel like a mulligan to 5.
As for the price, I agree it's not WotC fault. It is 100% the secondary market. Also, you're comparing a meta 14+ years ago in a totally different economy. Even at 3% inflation a year you'll see what used to be an $80 playset top $120 14 years later...
If this is the price people are willing to pay then it will absolutely sell for that price. Period.
Are you new? Because this is MTGSalvation, where every so often, somebody will say:
All land destruction is unfun. This includes my blowing up your Gaea's Cradle/Tolarian Academy/Serra's Sanctum/Cabal Coffers/Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx so you don't run away with the game.
Draw-Go is unfun. Even if a hard counter in Standard now costs 1UU and a cantrip hard counter costs 3UU, it's still unfun.
Removal is unfun. We should never remove each other's creatures. Even if Doom Blade falls by the wayside in favor of Murder or Grasp of Darkness, and Lightning Bolt is a fond memory, removal is still unfun.
Discard should cost BBB just to force an opponent to discard the card of his or her choice.
Basically, if bad players have trouble with it, it's unfun.
On phasing:
The current standard, tons of removal, card selection, and a potent Control finisher(s) means, the game is healthier than its been in a LONG time (again, since Khans) and surprise surprise, its reflected in the general reception of the format.
Spirits
Storywise, it's not like spark transfer hasn't happened before in magic, and it's not like "character tries to help friend and accidentally ****s up" isn't a major theme of MtG storytelling. Related: if Shiv explodes in the next Dominaria storyline you owe me $50.
And what's with the "forced diversity" comment?
Art is life itself.
You shouldnt bother asking this stuff.
Spirits
Now, regarding Teferi as a card, he's excellent but not broken. I have a bigger issue with the planeswalker subtype existing in the first place.
Spirits
Art is life itself.
From a design perspective, the idea is that they can occasionally flaunt the traditional principals of balance to make a pushed card with the assumption that other powerful cards in the format will keep it from being degenerate. It's a dangerous game, and it's not strong design. The text-book case is Grave Titan: never would they print something like a 9/9 or even 10/10 for six mana in black with no drawback, so why did they think it was okay to print something dramatically better? Because they wanted the titans to be good. And it is good. And it didn't break the format, but it's still a very poorly designed card. I would argue that cards can be made interesting enough to be mythic, and be great cards without simply justifying the rarity by shaving 1 or 2 off of what the card would cost if it were rare, which is exactly what they do. Look at Doom Whisperer next to rare black seven-drops, and you'll see the power level is about equal.
This is a serious flaw in the modern age of card design, and it leads to problems. A big part of it is that it's easier to predict how well goodstuff will do than more adventurous designs. They didn't exactly know what they had with Skullclamp. They knew what they were doing with Bitterblossom (another card which wantonly flaunts design norms), and they did it anyway. I think there are serious problems with this kind of design, but it is they only sure way to give Modern players tools they can use. It's also the easiest way to curate the playable colors. Mono-red never dies, and they are always trying to keep decks like that from being too dominant by printing flashy bombs.
As far as Teferi goes, this may be his time in the sun, but nobody gets to stay in the sun forever. Wait until the next set when they print the next overly pushed card, and you can bet it probably won't be in Teferi's colors. 'Tis the way of Standard, and one of the reasons I don' play the format.
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planetplane of hats. Dominaria has distinct geographical regions much like the real world, and characters from those regions have certain features in common, much like the real world. Magic depicted them all.Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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The market corrects over time, and there are ways to avoid falling into the trap of buying expensive standard staples which often don't hold post rotation.
Teferi is very strong, this we can agree on. However, so are countless other cards in recent sets. And yes...Back in the day <insert reminiscent music here> green stompy decks played craw wurms and force of nature. But wait! Now there's Ghalta, carnage tyrants, aggressive mammoth, and lest we forget terra stomper which isn't even competitive by today's standards! What about Karn, flip Bolas, and Chandra who just rotated out, as well as both 3-drop Lilianas, BFZ Gideon, etc. Cards were all pushed and overpriced on the secondary market. Some hold, and some lose post rotation. It's a matter of popularity and supply. The player base has increased, and the market is fickle. Every set now is bound to have absurdly pushed cards, but they all have vulnerability.
Teferi may be stronger than Venser, the sojourner, but he's certainly not as threatening as the scarab god
You're concerned about Teferi draw/go with countermagic in hand?
You have cheap answers: banefire and inescapable blaze just to name a couple in addition to the aforementioned tyrant. Slap a blanchwood armor on it and Teferi is crying.
The money trap is thinking you have to play every high end card to win when you can have just as much fun and win your local FNM events by brewing with cards which go under the radar but still perform well, or by knowing the local competition well enough to play a counter-meta deck which doesn't necessarily cost much to buy or trade into either.
You don't even need to play multicolored decks and you can save on shocklands and checklands. Mono blue can be dirt cheap to build and tempest djinn is great at 3CMC, possibly better than any other card in the cycle because you can protect it with siren stormtamers (which is ironically an uncommon worth triple the rare djinn).
The strength of cards is always relative to the other cards in the format, and even the cards which seem strongest in theory have weaknesses in practice.
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Not sure how a returning iconic character who has been in multiple sets and is virtually immortal returning and resparking is Forced Diversity. Karn has gotten a spark what twice? Besides its not like Teferi, Karn or Jaya did much of note in the actual Dominaria Storyline...they didn't really help with Belzenlok and they jobbed out Urgoros or whatever his name is.
Now granted the execution on the respark was BS and the Dominaria story was not great in my book too much focus on Lili and Jhoira if you ask me. Not to mention Dominaria has basically made a full recovery in 60 years or so.
Nor is Teferi the First Pushed Walker. Chandra, TOD was pushed. Lili has 2 Pushed Walkers. Jace has one as well. Ugin has one. Karn has 1.5 will see how new Karn does in the future.
As for how strong he is...he is mostly being carried by his own strength and search...the overall quality of the Blue and/or White cards has not exactly been exceptional during most of Teferi's Time in Standard.
You are right about these things. Just from a mental appropriateness point of view (totality of cost is not the only consideration), even if mythic rarity were preserved for the good things it does for limited versus rarebomb sliding scale vis-a-vis color pie and power creep that even exists with a LOW number of cards playable in Standard (see original Why Bad Cards/Bad Rares Exist articles), it doesn't excuse those kinds of price tags for rotating cards, even if that particular one will stay good. They did that on purpose and everyone who stinkeyes on it while still playing is just bound to be like the buildup of steam that eventually leads to a steam whistle outburst. Such a valuation is disconnected from the alleviation of boredom that making more inconspicuously good cards would entail and the concentration of them into the scheme that was foisted here could even be seen as coherent and that it doesn't matter. But creative factors suffer. Whether the whole thing is any good suffers massively, where "is any good" has a LARGE stake in "Standard is good". Modern is making the designers screw up Standard in terms of cards like these. Simply decreasing the scarcity of the mythics and working with that in a flatter bomb rare superbomb rare limited spectrum would have to be the level 1 answer. Whether new good cards go into Modern seems like a question that should share its stake in "card is good or card is not good at ALL, downvote into oblivion classic saltiness thread" with Extended. Clearly this.
It would make no sense for your main marketing tool not to produce powerful cards of that type of your main characters on a regular basis. Not every Walker needs to be pushed sure but I expect 2 Pushed Walkers a Year at minimum.