I think I remember Rosewater saying that Wizards decided (after some experimentation) that enchantments shouldn't tap or have activation costs. This odd "artifact enchantment" mashup seems like a way around it; it doesn't feel too clunky to me.
I quite like both effects of The Floss Pick of the Gods, actually. I used to run Coastal Piracy, and it wasn't half bad. Makes me miss my lower powered cube, it does...
Adding a superfluous type to a card to cheat on a self imposed design rule sounds like the epitome of clunky to me. If enchantments shouldn't tap, writing the word "artifact" on the type line doesn't change that.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
There isn't much to distinguish between 'continuous' artifacts and non-equipment enchantments. In the past, the only real difference is what color kills them or plays them. Plus, we've had colorless enchantments and colored artifacts.
By trying to avoid static abilities on artifacts and tap abilities on enchantment, they are trying to keep their identities separate. I mean, before we didn't have equipment, so auras could carry a lot of weight. Now they have to try to make auras stronger and equipment weaker. Also, they took naturalize out of white to help differentiate.
This set is like type-line-soup, and while I don't think it really helps with that goal, it does allow them to make cards that the new design style doesn't encourage. I don't feel it's clunky. In my opinion, that would be like complaining that the creation of negative numbers is clunky because we already had numbers that worked. I'd actually argue that it's more elegant, but not any simpler on the surface. It makes the things you really want to do easier.
I hope they manage to make auras more interesting. They were already the weakest of all the card categories and then equipment got introduced in the same design space but were almost always better from a gameplay standpoint. So now you've got this category of cards where even the most powerful incarnations are limited-only fodder unless you are either Rancor or an efficiently costed cousin of Animate Dead.
The Level Up type auras are hopefully not all they have up their sleeve.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
Enchantment artifacts are like printing sorceries with flash in your "sorceries matter" set.
That about sums it up.
If they wanted to get rid of activated/tap enchantments and continuous artifacts that is fine. But the silly part is after 20 years this would be the first evidence of it, and with neither item being very common I think it will come off as forced.
I am not going to pile on until I see too many more cards but this things is overly clunky almost as much as the Hydra.
Why couldn't they have used the fight keyword on that. It would have made the monstrous ability really strong and easy to read. And there is no way it would have been to overpowered.
I really got the double sided werewolf cards in Innistrad. It felt top-down and while it could have been done on a split card, I ended up liking it quite a bit.
And as far a cube, there should be slim picking in this set if it is enchantment themed.
A big enchantment creature should be quite pushed seeing as every colour other than red has a very cheap and easy way to deal with it. That should be interesting at least.
I'm also not a fan of the tacked-on Enchantment type, but I'm sure that there's more to the set than that.
I'm surprised by the negative reaction here. I believe that when it comes to flavor, having the greek gods be "Enchantment Creatures" is hitting the nail on the head.
It's important to remember that most of the greek gods also represent and embody specific concepts and emotions. Gaia is the goddess of Earth in one sense, and is Earth itself in another. Eros is the god of love in one sense, and is the emotion of love in another. Therefore, the gods and by extension their tools are also embodiments of universal concepts in the mortal world (enchantments).
I'm hoping that the god cards follow this idea. For example, if Tartarus (god of the abyss) were to be a card, it would be flavorful and cool for him to be a God Enchantment Creature with the game text of Magus of the Abyss + something else (and while pretending they never printed Magus of the Abyss).
enchantment creatures don't bother me too much as long as there's some element of both card types present. enchantment artifacts, on the other hand, are incredibly lazy and pointless. they obviously exist solely to increase the count of enchantments in the set without having to actually design more enchantments. if that card is in fact in the set (I can't really trust the official spoiler after that polukranos crap) it is a bad sign for the design of the set in general.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
I'm assuming that Enchantment in this block indicates that a card is relating to the gods. I suppose they could have invented a new card Type, maybe θεων (by, with, for or of the gods), but that would have limited the mechanic within the set, similar to Arcane cards in Kamigawa. As long as the Enchantment type in this block is used both for flavour and mechanics, I don't have a problem with it being "tacked on". If the Theros gods are theistic and anthropomorphic it is probably necessary for them to have two card types to reflect the duality of their transcendent and immanent nature. I hope and expect that Enchantment cards won't be used for mundane magic in this set, but rather the favour (Auras) and influence (Global Enchantments) of the gods.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
I buy this from a flavor perspective if they wanted it to be a super magical weapon of the gods. As long as everything with two Types is also Legendary and related to the gods, I'm willing to buy it for this set. Sure it's lazy, but there are some flavor justifications and it could make interesting card interactions.
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I don't think it's lazy design. Specifically for the weapons of the Gods. I mean, they can't be Equipment because regular creatures wouldn't be able to use them, so just the presence of the weapons enhance the creatures you control. It's a physical object that has a magical aura around it - an enchantment artifact!
I just really want some good Auras for my Peasant cube.
I hope we also see a couple of good graveyard stuff too because Greek mythology has a lot of dead stuff in it.
people complain too much about the titans being a cycle of cube bombs. There is no way each god will be cubable. I want one or two of them, I'll say the green and blue ones, to be cubable because those colors want fatties(which I'm assuming the gods are fatties).
Let's hope Heliod isn't an aggro 1-drop then... We're more at risk of the gods having to be hard cast to get full effect and/or shuffled out of the graveyard as a limiting factor, similar to the Kamigawa divinities or Eldrazi.
When speculating about this block, my mind keeps returning to Kamigawa, but I guess we have to trust in Wizards to have learned from past mistakes. Or at least print a piece of incredibly broken equipment.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
A rare card with five words of rules text in which one of the words is “planeswalker”
Could possibly be "Destroy target X or planeswalker". It could be enchantment, artifact or land to make it interesting.
When I see Healing Salve, I'm often like "Oh girl, I wish I could turn every card into this." Thanks they removed the gain life part, otherwise this would have been broken.
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I quite like both effects of The Floss Pick of the Gods, actually. I used to run Coastal Piracy, and it wasn't half bad. Makes me miss my lower powered cube, it does...
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By trying to avoid static abilities on artifacts and tap abilities on enchantment, they are trying to keep their identities separate. I mean, before we didn't have equipment, so auras could carry a lot of weight. Now they have to try to make auras stronger and equipment weaker. Also, they took naturalize out of white to help differentiate.
This set is like type-line-soup, and while I don't think it really helps with that goal, it does allow them to make cards that the new design style doesn't encourage. I don't feel it's clunky. In my opinion, that would be like complaining that the creation of negative numbers is clunky because we already had numbers that worked. I'd actually argue that it's more elegant, but not any simpler on the surface. It makes the things you really want to do easier.
The Level Up type auras are hopefully not all they have up their sleeve.
That about sums it up.
If they wanted to get rid of activated/tap enchantments and continuous artifacts that is fine. But the silly part is after 20 years this would be the first evidence of it, and with neither item being very common I think it will come off as forced.
I am not going to pile on until I see too many more cards but this things is overly clunky almost as much as the Hydra.
Why couldn't they have used the fight keyword on that. It would have made the monstrous ability really strong and easy to read. And there is no way it would have been to overpowered.
I really got the double sided werewolf cards in Innistrad. It felt top-down and while it could have been done on a split card, I ended up liking it quite a bit.
And as far a cube, there should be slim picking in this set if it is enchantment themed.
Totally agreed. Hopefully there are only a few of these Artifact Enchantments and they did some really good stuff to make the enchantment theme work.
I predict at least one Enchantment Land.
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I'm also not a fan of the tacked-on Enchantment type, but I'm sure that there's more to the set than that.
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It's important to remember that most of the greek gods also represent and embody specific concepts and emotions. Gaia is the goddess of Earth in one sense, and is Earth itself in another. Eros is the god of love in one sense, and is the emotion of love in another. Therefore, the gods and by extension their tools are also embodiments of universal concepts in the mortal world (enchantments).
I'm hoping that the god cards follow this idea. For example, if Tartarus (god of the abyss) were to be a card, it would be flavorful and cool for him to be a God Enchantment Creature with the game text of Magus of the Abyss + something else (and while pretending they never printed Magus of the Abyss).
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I just really want some good Auras for my Peasant cube.
I hope we also see a couple of good graveyard stuff too because Greek mythology has a lot of dead stuff in it.
Kinda doubt it, though.
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When speculating about this block, my mind keeps returning to Kamigawa, but I guess we have to trust in Wizards to have learned from past mistakes. Or at least print a piece of incredibly broken equipment.
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"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." -Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
A rare card with five words of rules text in which one of the words is “planeswalker”
Could possibly be "Destroy target X or planeswalker". It could be enchantment, artifact or land to make it interesting.
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