I'm pretty sure people are being excessively harsh on party. Yes, a full party is optimal, but the cards are also costed so they're bat ***** insane with a full party. They're so over the top stupid then that there's no comparison unless you count Ancestral Recall that's so broken it hasn't been seen since Unlimited. I think people are forgetting that party creatures already count as party of 1 alone. Party of 2 is quite effective.
Can you provide some clear examples?
I think youre grossly over estimating its potency somewhere
All the good payoff cards are noticeably concentrated in black. In fact, a black-based party deck could well be viable.
But the power level is only part of it. It's the fact that each of the tribes in party had tribal support cards printed which didn't interact with the party mechanic at all, meaning that there were five distinct mechanics in the set marked more so by their tension than synergy (to say nothing of the other mechanics... there is a bit of a play experience redundancy with kicker which is mostly because of kicker's design). So you get clerics who care only about clerics and clerics who care about (full) party, and so on with the other four. Some of that space could have been spared for traps, expeditions, or, if not those exact mechanics, something similar. And that would have been vastly more interesting than yet another set with a tribal subtheme. That would have meant a set with an overall higher level of complexity, though. I think the current design rules against complexity are starting to exhaust the design space that lies within this scope. They're going to have to up the complexity threshold to get us out of the rut we're in.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I just find it very unfortunate that a lot of the in-tribe synergy cards didn't pull double duty for party and so ended up eating a lot of space in the set for minimal (!) benefit. The next installments are likely to incorporate some of the innovations you have in mind though I suspect it will always be inherently conservative.
Having a board state with four different creature types is not quite magical Christmas land but it's on the verge of that. Meh.
Does anyone actually like party? I mean, to actually play with versus the general flavor concept. I feel like there's fairly broad consensus that it's the mechanic that sunk the set, which does not bode well for the D&D set if we have even more of this.
Maybe? I think there's some potential in a WUB build as that trio has some of the better party payoff cards and have a really flush history in the four tribes with really good potential candidates to expand the party with creatures that you both want to play, contribute to a bigger gameplan, and/or protect the party. I think it'd still be pretty casual, and I don't see it making a big splash outside of Limited and constructed formats more focused on fun than fine-tuned competition.
Am I overly invested in building around party? No, not really, but if I were, I'd probably run Tazri as a commander focusing only on WUB. I think the biggest hurdles party decks face are consistently getting a full party and keeping that party on the board. WUB likely has the best tools to assemble a party and keep it around, and they have a few party payoffs that are worth it. The red and green party payoffs just aren't worth it.
I think Linvala really made a strong impression for me that the mechanic wasn't understood to need potent payoffs. There are some good full party payoff effects but I can't help but wonder what could have been with different mechanics.
Part of the issue could be addressed if they just adjusted the level of complexity they'd allow. Like the aforementioned Expedition Healer. If it were something like:
~ has lifelink as long as you control another Cleric, first strike as long as you control a Rogue, vigilance as long as you control a Warrior, protection from non creature spells as long as you control a Wizard. Then you'd get a little bit for Cleric redundancy but also jives with full party.
I like the MDFCs in principle, because they fix mana screw/flood. But DFCs are a pain in the ass in paper, and I still don't know how to feel about Wizards apparently wanting to flood the game with them throughout the next year.
The landfall cards are fine.
I really don't like the party mechanic. It feels really weak outside of Limited, and the creative behind it is uninspired (Allies weren't much better though). It's kind of disheartening that we're going to get even more boring, milquetoast DnD stuff next year…
I'm all about the MDFCs, but I mainly play Arena so that helps. If it's any consolation, I think the tedium of swapping out card faces in sleeves will probably fade as it becomes muscle memory.
Does anyone actually like party? I mean, to actually play with versus the general flavor concept. I feel like there's fairly broad consensus that it's the mechanic that sunk the set, which does not bode well for the D&D set if we have even more of this.
Seems like they have the same problem revisiting Zendikar as they did with Ravnica.
First Ravnica block was the best, partially because of all the innovative card designs, but also because it had an organic creative feel to it. There were lots of individual features like the nephilim that weren't popular in and of themselves but added character to the setting. These were stripped out during the revisits and replaced with more of the features that marketed well, resulting in a blander, more generic plane. By the third visit I dread ever going back.
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All the good payoff cards are noticeably concentrated in black. In fact, a black-based party deck could well be viable.
But the power level is only part of it. It's the fact that each of the tribes in party had tribal support cards printed which didn't interact with the party mechanic at all, meaning that there were five distinct mechanics in the set marked more so by their tension than synergy (to say nothing of the other mechanics... there is a bit of a play experience redundancy with kicker which is mostly because of kicker's design). So you get clerics who care only about clerics and clerics who care about (full) party, and so on with the other four. Some of that space could have been spared for traps, expeditions, or, if not those exact mechanics, something similar. And that would have been vastly more interesting than yet another set with a tribal subtheme. That would have meant a set with an overall higher level of complexity, though. I think the current design rules against complexity are starting to exhaust the design space that lies within this scope. They're going to have to up the complexity threshold to get us out of the rut we're in.
I just find it very unfortunate that a lot of the in-tribe synergy cards didn't pull double duty for party and so ended up eating a lot of space in the set for minimal (!) benefit. The next installments are likely to incorporate some of the innovations you have in mind though I suspect it will always be inherently conservative.
Having a board state with four different creature types is not quite magical Christmas land but it's on the verge of that. Meh.
I think Linvala really made a strong impression for me that the mechanic wasn't understood to need potent payoffs. There are some good full party payoff effects but I can't help but wonder what could have been with different mechanics.
Part of the issue could be addressed if they just adjusted the level of complexity they'd allow. Like the aforementioned Expedition Healer. If it were something like:
~ has lifelink as long as you control another Cleric, first strike as long as you control a Rogue, vigilance as long as you control a Warrior, protection from non creature spells as long as you control a Wizard. Then you'd get a little bit for Cleric redundancy but also jives with full party.
I'm all about the MDFCs, but I mainly play Arena so that helps. If it's any consolation, I think the tedium of swapping out card faces in sleeves will probably fade as it becomes muscle memory.
Does anyone actually like party? I mean, to actually play with versus the general flavor concept. I feel like there's fairly broad consensus that it's the mechanic that sunk the set, which does not bode well for the D&D set if we have even more of this.
First Ravnica block was the best, partially because of all the innovative card designs, but also because it had an organic creative feel to it. There were lots of individual features like the nephilim that weren't popular in and of themselves but added character to the setting. These were stripped out during the revisits and replaced with more of the features that marketed well, resulting in a blander, more generic plane. By the third visit I dread ever going back.