It depends on if they make these counters an evergreen thing or not. If they choose to only have them in ikoria then that would be a reason you have to play something else. Even if they do print more cards with them temporary effects give the designers more design space consider that p/t modifying spells still temporarily adjust rather than just add counters.
Why play Shock with Lightning Bolt existing? Magic has always had cards that are better than other cards. Most players would call both Kindled Fury and Heightened Reflexs unplayable garbage so the fact that one is obviously better than the other is irrelevant because they are both awful. You won't be seeing keyword counters outside of Ikoria for a while if at all so the reason to play the temporary effects would be because they are the only options available.
Why play Shock with Lightning Bolt existing? Magic has always had cards that are better than other cards. Most players would call both Kindled Fury and Heightened Reflexs unplayable garbage so the fact that one is obviously better than the other is irrelevant because they are both awful. You won't be seeing keyword counters outside of Ikoria for a while if at all so the reason to play the temporary effects would be because they are the only options available.
Its not entirely irrelevant , but its power creep.
If a card is outstanding good it sets a bar, and other cards have to compare against it.
So if cards get universally better, anything else gets outclassed as they are strictly worse, pretty much all the time.
Thats BAD , but its impossible to avoid, unless they would honor a baseline of powerlevel.
So yes, Lightning Bolt is the perfect example of a card that sets the bar for an entire format to evolve around.
Any 3 toughness creature suddenly becomes a lot worse and anything that can survive 3 damage is tremendously more valuable.
stuff like that shapes formats.
Slowly creeping in powercreep doesnt have an effect right away, but it will shift the bar up.
----
The "counter" mechanics are much easier to handle for the game digital, as its a "thing" to visible show on a card.
Effects that are just until end of turn would also be displayed as some kind of "icon" and its easy to think thats just a counter.
Mixing both, counters and untilEndOfTurn effects gets messy, so chances are they will just use counters if they can (and i hate them with a passion, as handling these little counters if a deck uses a lot of them is annoying as fk).
To the untrained eye, the simple answer is you wouldn't, the same way you're unlikely to play raging goblin when legion loyalist exists.
However, is heightened reflexes strictly better? This is the metric you should use to accurately answer your question.
One could argue that if the opposing player has hex parasite or something similar in their deck, your target could easily lose it's first strike which would otherwise be retained by kindled fury albeit only (but at least) until the end of turn. With solemnity in play, your target would never even gain first trike to begin with.
A better example would be asking why anyone would or should play lance when cartouche of solidarity exists? (not only because the cartouche is strictly better...excluding artwork of course which is subjective, but also because it's legal in any format which allows lance)
The main reason to not use them is that you are playing standard wherein two years they won't be legal. As for other formats, the main reason not to use them is that they aren't nearly strong enough to be used in those formats. Just like when Lightning bolt was legal you wouldn't find anyone playing shock or its counterparts and yet when it rotated flame pillar, Magma spray, and the like saw play.
Strictly better in "magic" terms means in almost any feasable way better.
You can of course always find some reason its not "always" better, but that doesnt matter.
The ability counters are strictly better than until end of turn effects.
Just like a oldschool dual land is strictly better than the tapped land versions.
So please explain... Why did solemnity go up from one dollar to ten (cad) at the beginning of April when these new counters first appeared?
Are you suggesting it was just coincidental, or perhaps because it inadvertently prevents Gideon Blackblade from entering with loyalty and he's the new sleeper card to fear?
Unlikely. It's my interpretation that enough players (and merchants) realized these new cards which place ability counters on creatures will be good, or at least potentially viable enough for formats like pioneer and commander, which in turn means the right answers for sideboards to be prepared for the eventuality of such increasingly more popular threats have to be taken into consideration. People started buying them, unsurprisingly, and they shot up.
Now I wonder aloud... Unlikely as it may be, if every white sideboard in pioneer eventually has one or more copies of solemnity specifically to deal with the rise of these new counters, could we truly say that Reflexes in that format is still strictly better than Fury? If you were stargazing on Theros and the gods asked you to chart every constellation in the known universe, would your task ever be complete?
Personally, I'm not so sure.
EDIT
@DudeFromDenmark: This is almost like asking "Why ever play creatures which deal normal damage from now on when counterparts with the same cmc have an attack bonus in the form of infect, first strike, double strike, trample, or lifelink?".
At the end of the day, it really comes down the players' goals in deck building and the flavor they want their decks to have.
Ultimately, your mistake is assuming that we're all "Spikes"; that we all play primarily to win, and as such only want to play the best (or contextually best) possible cards available (relative to the other cards in the formats they're legal in) for whichever archtypes we enjoy piloting, when in fact that may not even be the highest priority of the player (in fact for many, it isn't), who perhaps may not even have the budget for purchasing, or even physical access to every possibly card they might be better off with in lieu of a (more often than not) strictly worse variant; cards which they may even prefer because of their art, or some random unquantifiable nostalgic value related to its history of use or when it was first acquired.
The thing about solemnity shooting up in price is because of the counters but not in a way you think it is. It is due do Luminous Broodmoth being able to combo with.
Generally I agree with Only here if you need to find cornercases where the counters are worse then they are strictly better.
The thing about solemnity shooting up in price is because of the counters but not in a way you think it is. It is due do Luminous Broodmoth being able to combo with.
Generally I agree with Only here if you need to find cornercases where the counters are worse then they are strictly better.
Fair enough.
Admittedly, I'm not as up-to-date with the current meta as I would be under normal circumstances (if there ever was such a thing) but even that combo feels a bit underwhelming considering the recent powercreep across the board.
Is there even a free sac outlet in pioneer which allows for an infinite loop?
What's the backup plan when the combo gets easily disrupted by thoughtseize or any number of efficient removal cards which deal with the moth?
They apparently use Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger to go infinite and their backup is being able to naturally get Kroxa out aswell.
AFAIK it's not top tier but that is one of the decks where solemnity actually sees play. (Atleast in Pioneer)
To the untrained eye, the simple answer is you wouldn't, the same way you're unlikely to play raging goblin when legion loyalist exists.
However, is heightened reflexes strictly better? This is the metric you should use to accurately answer your question.
One could argue that if the opposing player has hex parasite or something similar in their deck, your target could easily lose it's first strike which would otherwise be retained by kindled fury albeit only (but at least) until the end of turn. With solemnity in play, your target would never even gain first trike to begin with.
A better example would be asking why anyone would or should play lance when cartouche of solidarity exists? (not only because the cartouche is strictly better...excluding artwork of course which is subjective, but also because it's legal in any format which allows lance)
Interesting. Didn´t take these cards into consideration
EDIT
@DudeFromDenmark: This is almost like asking "Why ever play creatures which deal normal damage from now on when counterparts with the same cmc have an attack bonus in the form of infect, first strike, double strike, trample, or lifelink?".
At the end of the day, it really comes down the players' goals in deck building and the flavor they want their decks to have.
Ultimately, your mistake is assuming that we're all "Spikes"; that we all play primarily to win, and as such only want to play the best (or contextually best) possible cards available (relative to the other cards in the formats they're legal in) for whichever archtypes we enjoy piloting, when in fact that may not even be the highest priority of the player (in fact for many, it isn't), who perhaps may not even have the budget for purchasing, or even physical access to every possibly card they might be better off with in lieu of a (more often than not) strictly worse variant; cards which they may even prefer because of their art, or some random unquantifiable nostalgic value related to its history of use or when it was first acquired.
I see your point but as a player who is very much not a Spike but a Johnny who loves to build weird decks which main goal is not to win but to have fun, I still want to play cards that gives me good value.
It´s the same with a card like Pouncing Lynx. Why would i ever play Pouncing Lynx when i can play Youthful Knight and get a 2/1 with first strike permanently instead of only on my turn? I think it´s important to be realistic no matter if you´re a Timmy, Johnny or a Spike player.
As the Johnny player I am, I have been wanting to do a whole deck with a "As long as it´s your turn" and "As long as it´s not your turn" theme but everytime i start to ask myself "Why downgrade my deck when i could play cards that does the same thing but without drawbacks like Pouncing Lynx
EDIT
@DudeFromDenmark: This is almost like asking "Why ever play creatures which deal normal damage from now on when counterparts with the same cmc have an attack bonus in the form of infect, first strike, double strike, trample, or lifelink?".
At the end of the day, it really comes down the players' goals in deck building and the flavor they want their decks to have.
Ultimately, your mistake is assuming that we're all "Spikes"; that we all play primarily to win, and as such only want to play the best (or contextually best) possible cards available (relative to the other cards in the formats they're legal in) for whichever archtypes we enjoy piloting, when in fact that may not even be the highest priority of the player (in fact for many, it isn't), who perhaps may not even have the budget for purchasing, or even physical access to every possibly card they might be better off with in lieu of a (more often than not) strictly worse variant; cards which they may even prefer because of their art, or some random unquantifiable nostalgic value related to its history of use or when it was first acquired.
I see your point but as a player who is very much not a Spike but a Johnny who loves to build weird decks which main goal is not to win but to have fun, I still want to play cards that gives me good value.
It´s the same with a card like Pouncing Lynx. Why would i ever play Pouncing Lynx when i can play Youthful Knight and get a 2/1 with first strike permanently instead of only on my turn? I think it´s important to be realistic no matter if you´re a Timmy, Johnny or a Spike player.
As the Johnny player I am, I have been wanting to do a whole deck with a "As long as it´s your turn" and "As long as it´s not your turn" theme but everytime i start to ask myself "Why downgrade my deck when i could play cards that does the same thing but without drawbacks like Pouncing Lynx
Because Pouncing Lynx was released before Youthful Knight? It can also be card 5-8 if you're into that kind of thing? It can be card #2 in EDH. Because both Knight and Cat can't be targeted by Selective Snare at the same time. Because cat tribal is a thing? Somewhere on this planet block format still exists. Draft. Lots of reasons really.
Admittedly, there are cards that shouldn't exist in Magic. Ever. But all the ones you cited aren't it.
In the end though, you do you and play the cards you want. There is zero harm in letting others play with whatever card they want in whatever way.
Solemnity and Blitz Leech (in set with Heightened Reflexes) both do things to HR that they don't do to Kindled Fury. I don't see that as a reason to not "upgrade" if you were for some reason playing Kindled Fury in your casual 60 card or whatever. Heightened Reflexes is kind of not even a bad card in such a format, nice with deathtouchers. You wouldn't get a lot out of Kindled Fury in that deck.
a) Printing special tokens costs more money than standard ones, and the CEOs want to maximise profit.
b) Magic is already a complex game, and they've already had issues with overloading the boardstate to the degree that casual players quit the game for a while.
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“Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are.” Esmeralda Santiago Art is life itself.
I like the punch-out tokens from Ikoria except that the +1/+1 counter doesn't have a -1/-1 on the back. Might be kind of a cool project to entomb the counters in clear resin or something.
Maro said they can’t make keyword counters evergreen/deciduous due to requiring punch out cards to do keyword counters
To me why?... people will just make them themselves with 3d printers or paper or whatever they think of
Personally, I have always felt that the need for anything beyond a very limited number of counters should be beyond the scope of this game where Standard is concerned. It was one of the reasons that Frankenstein's Monster didn't become the norm. Why +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters don't usually appear in the same Standard meta. And one of the reasons why I strongly feel that they should never have explored deathtouch, lifelink, flying, etc as counters. At the point that WotC feels that punch out cards have to be necessary, that is the point that someone needs to stop and say, "maybe the complexity level is too high."
Not that I am against player that want "theme" or art connexion, but that just really what, a very very tiny portion of players and very very corner case.
You could even say I dont use Heightened Reflexes because of Muraganda Petroglyphs
No matter how you bend it, it still always better to have Heightened Reflexes than Kindle Fury
a 2/1 first strike is better than a vanilla 2/1.
Creature are way more pushed and pushed than they were before.
Just look at Questing Beast or Winota, Joiner of Forces and such.
A Shivan Dragon was considered very strong back then, today we have uncommon than are not even considered good card and are has strong like Volcanic Dragon
Because Pouncing Lynx was released before Youthful Knight? It can also be card 5-8 if you're into that kind of thing? It can be card #2 in EDH. Because both Knight and Cat can't be targeted by Selective Snare at the same time. Because cat tribal is a thing? Somewhere on this planet block format still exists. Draft. Lots of reasons really.
Admittedly, there are cards that shouldn't exist in Magic. Ever. But all the ones you cited aren't it.
In the end though, you do you and play the cards you want. There is zero harm in letting others play with whatever card they want in whatever way.
Except Youthful knight is older than Pouncing Lynx ;D. While I agree that there are reasons to play a worse card over a straight upgrade those are usually corner cases so overall it still tends to be better to use the better cards if you want that specific effect unless your synergy level is over 9000.
But I wholeheartedly Agree with your final statement no matter if it's a better or worse choice if you wanna play a card go for it.
I've watched people pervert what strictly better means over the years. It's more common to see people using it today, without much backlash, but in the past that wasn't the case.
Because Pouncing Lynx was released before Youthful Knight? It can also be card 5-8 if you're into that kind of thing? It can be card #2 in EDH. Because both Knight and Cat can't be targeted by Selective Snare at the same time. Because cat tribal is a thing? Somewhere on this planet block format still exists. Draft. Lots of reasons really.
Admittedly, there are cards that shouldn't exist in Magic. Ever. But all the ones you cited aren't it.
In the end though, you do you and play the cards you want. There is zero harm in letting others play with whatever card they want in whatever way.
Except Youthful knight is older than Pouncing Lynx ;D. While I agree that there are reasons to play a worse card over a straight upgrade those are usually corner cases so overall it still tends to be better to use the better cards if you want that specific effect unless your synergy level is over 9000.
But I wholeheartedly Agree with your final statement no matter if it's a better or worse choice if you wanna play a card go for it.
You are correct. It was a bad edit on my part since I wrote that part of my post in the context of the current Standard. My point was that one was printed before the other in this meta. So there was a time Youthful Knight wasn't even an option yet.
Now if we talk about other formats... why do we have 90% of the garbage cards? It's just a circular argument really. So my final point still stands. You do what you want to do.
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Ikoria introduced permanent counters like Heightened Reflexes which makes me question why we should play temporary effects ever again.
Why cast Kindled Fury when Heightened Reflexes is so much better?
To me it seems like WoTC just made temporary effects obsolete with the release of Ikoria and this "new mechanic" or am i wrong?
Its not entirely irrelevant , but its power creep.
If a card is outstanding good it sets a bar, and other cards have to compare against it.
So if cards get universally better, anything else gets outclassed as they are strictly worse, pretty much all the time.
Thats BAD , but its impossible to avoid, unless they would honor a baseline of powerlevel.
So yes, Lightning Bolt is the perfect example of a card that sets the bar for an entire format to evolve around.
Any 3 toughness creature suddenly becomes a lot worse and anything that can survive 3 damage is tremendously more valuable.
stuff like that shapes formats.
Slowly creeping in powercreep doesnt have an effect right away, but it will shift the bar up.
----
The "counter" mechanics are much easier to handle for the game digital, as its a "thing" to visible show on a card.
Effects that are just until end of turn would also be displayed as some kind of "icon" and its easy to think thats just a counter.
Mixing both, counters and untilEndOfTurn effects gets messy, so chances are they will just use counters if they can (and i hate them with a passion, as handling these little counters if a deck uses a lot of them is annoying as fk).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
However, is heightened reflexes strictly better? This is the metric you should use to accurately answer your question.
One could argue that if the opposing player has hex parasite or something similar in their deck, your target could easily lose it's first strike which would otherwise be retained by kindled fury albeit only (but at least) until the end of turn. With solemnity in play, your target would never even gain first trike to begin with.
A better example would be asking why anyone would or should play lance when cartouche of solidarity exists? (not only because the cartouche is strictly better...excluding artwork of course which is subjective, but also because it's legal in any format which allows lance)
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
You can of course always find some reason its not "always" better, but that doesnt matter.
The ability counters are strictly better than until end of turn effects.
Just like a oldschool dual land is strictly better than the tapped land versions.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
So please explain... Why did solemnity go up from one dollar to ten (cad) at the beginning of April when these new counters first appeared?
Are you suggesting it was just coincidental, or perhaps because it inadvertently prevents Gideon Blackblade from entering with loyalty and he's the new sleeper card to fear?
Unlikely. It's my interpretation that enough players (and merchants) realized these new cards which place ability counters on creatures will be good, or at least potentially viable enough for formats like pioneer and commander, which in turn means the right answers for sideboards to be prepared for the eventuality of such increasingly more popular threats have to be taken into consideration. People started buying them, unsurprisingly, and they shot up.
Now I wonder aloud... Unlikely as it may be, if every white sideboard in pioneer eventually has one or more copies of solemnity specifically to deal with the rise of these new counters, could we truly say that Reflexes in that format is still strictly better than Fury? If you were stargazing on Theros and the gods asked you to chart every constellation in the known universe, would your task ever be complete?
Personally, I'm not so sure.
EDIT
@DudeFromDenmark: This is almost like asking "Why ever play creatures which deal normal damage from now on when counterparts with the same cmc have an attack bonus in the form of infect, first strike, double strike, trample, or lifelink?".
At the end of the day, it really comes down the players' goals in deck building and the flavor they want their decks to have.
Ultimately, your mistake is assuming that we're all "Spikes"; that we all play primarily to win, and as such only want to play the best (or contextually best) possible cards available (relative to the other cards in the formats they're legal in) for whichever archtypes we enjoy piloting, when in fact that may not even be the highest priority of the player (in fact for many, it isn't), who perhaps may not even have the budget for purchasing, or even physical access to every possibly card they might be better off with in lieu of a (more often than not) strictly worse variant; cards which they may even prefer because of their art, or some random unquantifiable nostalgic value related to its history of use or when it was first acquired.
Some examples of why a player may prefer kindled fury:
-their deck has a Kindle subtheme, runs sootstoke kindler, rekindled flame (+hand disruption), etc
-their deck has a Fury theme with embodiment of fury, cyclops of eternal fury, fury of the horde, akroma, angel of fury, etc
-their deck is Minotaur (or more specifically zombie minotaur) tribal.
-their deck is red/blue, and they prefer a card with blue in the art's color scheme to pump their Insectile Aberration (or whatever)
-their deck only contains cards with art by Craig J Spearing
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
Generally I agree with Only here if you need to find cornercases where the counters are worse then they are strictly better.
Fair enough.
Admittedly, I'm not as up-to-date with the current meta as I would be under normal circumstances (if there ever was such a thing) but even that combo feels a bit underwhelming considering the recent powercreep across the board.
Is there even a free sac outlet in pioneer which allows for an infinite loop?
What's the backup plan when the combo gets easily disrupted by thoughtseize or any number of efficient removal cards which deal with the moth?
I used to be a demigod, but now I'm an omnimage
AFAIK it's not top tier but that is one of the decks where solemnity actually sees play. (Atleast in Pioneer)
Interesting. Didn´t take these cards into consideration
I see your point but as a player who is very much not a Spike but a Johnny who loves to build weird decks which main goal is not to win but to have fun, I still want to play cards that gives me good value.
It´s the same with a card like Pouncing Lynx. Why would i ever play Pouncing Lynx when i can play Youthful Knight and get a 2/1 with first strike permanently instead of only on my turn? I think it´s important to be realistic no matter if you´re a Timmy, Johnny or a Spike player.
As the Johnny player I am, I have been wanting to do a whole deck with a "As long as it´s your turn" and "As long as it´s not your turn" theme but everytime i start to ask myself "Why downgrade my deck when i could play cards that does the same thing but without drawbacks like Pouncing Lynx
Kindled fury was already a suboptimal card before Heightened reflexes. See: Coordinated assault, Fervent Strike, Crowd's Favor, and Storm Strike.
For most of the others you even need to pay more mana. Fully Grown and Spontaneous Flight each cost more than Predator's Strike and Mighty Leap which is itself worse than Desperate Lunge
Because Pouncing Lynx was released before Youthful Knight? It can also be card 5-8 if you're into that kind of thing? It can be card #2 in EDH. Because both Knight and Cat can't be targeted by Selective Snare at the same time. Because cat tribal is a thing? Somewhere on this planet block format still exists. Draft. Lots of reasons really.
Admittedly, there are cards that shouldn't exist in Magic. Ever. But all the ones you cited aren't it.
In the end though, you do you and play the cards you want. There is zero harm in letting others play with whatever card they want in whatever way.
To me why?... people will just make them themselves with 3d printers or paper or whatever they think of
b) Magic is already a complex game, and they've already had issues with overloading the boardstate to the degree that casual players quit the game for a while.
Art is life itself.
Personally, I have always felt that the need for anything beyond a very limited number of counters should be beyond the scope of this game where Standard is concerned. It was one of the reasons that Frankenstein's Monster didn't become the norm. Why +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters don't usually appear in the same Standard meta. And one of the reasons why I strongly feel that they should never have explored deathtouch, lifelink, flying, etc as counters. At the point that WotC feels that punch out cards have to be necessary, that is the point that someone needs to stop and say, "maybe the complexity level is too high."
Not that I am against player that want "theme" or art connexion, but that just really what, a very very tiny portion of players and very very corner case.
You could even say I dont use Heightened Reflexes because of Muraganda Petroglyphs
No matter how you bend it, it still always better to have Heightened Reflexes than Kindle Fury
a 2/1 first strike is better than a vanilla 2/1.
Creature are way more pushed and pushed than they were before.
Just look at Questing Beast or Winota, Joiner of Forces and such.
A Shivan Dragon was considered very strong back then, today we have uncommon than are not even considered good card and are has strong like Volcanic Dragon
Except Youthful knight is older than Pouncing Lynx ;D. While I agree that there are reasons to play a worse card over a straight upgrade those are usually corner cases so overall it still tends to be better to use the better cards if you want that specific effect unless your synergy level is over 9000.
But I wholeheartedly Agree with your final statement no matter if it's a better or worse choice if you wanna play a card go for it.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
You are correct. It was a bad edit on my part since I wrote that part of my post in the context of the current Standard. My point was that one was printed before the other in this meta. So there was a time Youthful Knight wasn't even an option yet.
Now if we talk about other formats... why do we have 90% of the garbage cards? It's just a circular argument really. So my final point still stands. You do what you want to do.