It feels Magic has generations, sets that feel like they have something different, sometimes by way or card art, or by changes in rules. Alpha through The Dark feel separate from Fallen Empires through Alliances, Mirage block to Rath cycle, and so forth, and so forth. Sometimes there seams to be a divide, found in power level, story, or card value.
For some reason, I just cannot shrug off the feeling that Return to Ravnica through Kaladesh was a really weak point, across the board. When I trade, I avoid most cards from those sets outside of rare & mythic non-basic lands and Planeswalkers.
As I look for collections to buy online or through sales apps, I avoid anything from late 2011 to 2016. Which is odd, as those are the sets that are usually being sold, like someone tried to get into Magic and decided to bail during the 2012 - 2016 years.
Is it just me, or am I onto something? Don't get me wrong, when those sets were released, I easily got the cards I wanted from trading, drafts, sealed events, and Puca Trade, but after that, no mas for me. Now when it comes ti Innistrad block (the original) or earlier, I'm down to keep getting those singles for either my own decks or Puca Trading.
So, who else feels the sentiments that those sets are old hat? And if so, do you feel that Amonkhet & Ixalan have breathed new life into Magic? And if you are still agreeing, wheat then sets them apart? What is the 2012 - 2016 sets lack that Amonkhet & Ixalan have?
Thanks for sharing your opinions, very curious to what others will say.
This is a good thread! I haven't seen a response to your post yet I don't agree with, but this is something I personally enjoy researching, and while the answers are many and complicated, the primary reason can be summed up thusly:
The shift of power from spells to creatures
The first, and strongest example of this is Baneslayer Angel (M10, M11) which is a little before RTR, but it's the granddaddy (grandmammy?) of current design. We've obviously seen creatures powering up as time went on, just look how Jackal Pup and Savannah Lions of old are considered draft chaff, at best, now. But Baneslayer Angel? This was monocle-popping when it was revealed. It looks relatively tame now, but it started the now hallowed tradition of creature combat as king. Serra Angel was considered broken in the earliest of times, but by Baneslayers day, not so much. This freaking angel was the a red-hot threat, and from it on to today, you can count most standard metas in terms of "the deck to beat helmed by X creature".
Today it's between Ramunap Red with Hazoret and every other deck using Scarab God. Before that it was nutty stuff like Thundermaw Hellkite, Angel of Serenity, and the (not blue) Titan Cycle. Exception here for Caw-Blade, since that was mostly Jace and the swords, but without Squadron Hawks (its namesake) and Stoneforge Mystic, would that deck have made us so miserable?
The other big change around this time is new world order. NWO gets blamed for a LOT of things, but the primary directive is how the game deals with commons, nothing more. However, the reach of NWO is vast, as Mark Rosewater (lead designer) says "if your mechanic isn't at common, it isn't your mechanic". Basically, something needs to be easy enough to grasp to be at common, or it won't make the cut. We can argue all day whether that's dumbing down the game or now, but it DOES tend to create mechanics without a lot of baggage and are easier to pick up (on average)
Combine this with the uptick in creature power and the shift of common design priority, and you have a huge paradigm shift in card design.
Let's consider RTR for a moment. Detain, Populate, Overload, Scavenge and Unleash. 4 of those are creature mechanics, and 1 (overload) is spell. This makes sense, as Blue and Red are allotted the smallest number of creatures. (White, green, black, red/blue, in order)
Let's sashay on down to gatecrash with Battalion, Bloodrush, Extort, Evolve, cipher. Again, 4 are creature mechanics (all but extort). Cipher is only on spells, BUT it requires a creature, and thus combat to use. Extort is mostly on creatures, but it's not dependent on them, so we'll consider a spell mechanic.
You can see this in most recent sets, the number of mechanics that require/encourage creatures/combat dwarfs that of spells. In fact, the most effective one (since it was granted evergreen) of them all, Prowess, although a spell mechanic in name, requires a creature.
I can name plenty more examples, but to keep my (not brief) argument somewhat more brief, let's look at black and red. Red's slice of the color pie has traditionally been Burn spells and weenies (mostly spells) but as others have mentioned, Bolt, being too powerful a spell these days, red has had to gain some of that power in its creatures. Thundermaw Hellkite, Monastery Swiftspear and Young Pyromancer are excellent examples of that shift in power. (I do believe all but thundermaw see play in modern/legacy, but please correct me if I'm wrong!) By yesteryears standards, these things would be considered ba-roken.
As for black, another powerful spell color, it's creatures usually had a trade. Juzan Djin is (was) huge, but it dealt damage to you. Carnophage was a 2/2 for 1, but again, damage to you. Basically you paid a heavy price for efficiency. Can you imagine how expensive Phyrexian Obliterator would have been in Alpha? Fallen Empires? It's just absurd. and it doesn't see much (if any) tournament play because it's still not good enough! Griselbrand? Where's the downside to that guy? Mana cost? That's nothing for the reanimator color.
But the most fun we can look at for both of these, and how much the game has changed, is their "grizzly bears".
In Innistrad, Black got Walking Corpse, a 2/2 for 2. As a common, this didn't create much hubbub except to us historians. This was HUGE. Green got this first, obviously, took a while for white and blue. But Black? They've had plenty of bears, but always with a can't block or some other kind of downside. No more. Gutterskulk came out soon after in GTR with 2 relevant types (zombie rat) and was followed soon after by even more...with upside! Dhund Operative, Olivia's Dragoon, Khenra Eternal are all black bears with an upside. Then red gets Falkenrath reaver in EMN, its first bear, preceded by the already wheel breaking falkenrath gorger and insolate neonate.
Why am I bringing up all these crappy cards that nobody uses or cares about? That's the problem. These things that break a fundamental "law" of old magic, creatures must be inneficient based on color, is are NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH. We don't even notice it's a thing anymore. If your creature isn't absurdly costed with an ETB effect, it's not good enough.
And because this power goes into creatures, it has to come from somewhere; spells.
Bolt is too powerful. Counterspell is too powerful (hello cancel!) Land destruction is too powerful at 3, and is now much less common. Control decks need top-tier creatures to win, e.g. torrential gearhulk.
What you're seeing is very real, and does happen to start around (just a little before) 2011. I'm a Timmy, so this is a good change for me. Casting an Ancient Brontodon is what keeps me warm at night, but I feel for everyone who feels the game has moved from a place they love to something they don't. The first reply, increase in Battlecruiser Magic is very apt. Magic is now less chaining spells and combos and more turning sideways, and that is by design.
Whew that was longer than expected, but as you see, this is a topic I love to discuss
Neat card but, Creatures: The Gathering continues for yet another set.
I sense an old timey Blue player
Well ol timey is relative, I started playing in Urza's Block. I admit I like stack interaction and spells more, but I can appreciate a complex board state as well They promised us that they would print more powerful spells, but I am not getting that vibe :).
I started then too, we're old timers compared to these young turks with their Rhonas and Baneslayer angels! In our day we had 4/4's for 3, with echo!
But nah, I feel for you. I personally am overjoyed at the time we live in, I like the board better than the stack, and the more muscle we have on creatures the better. But it is directly inverse to spell power, especially compared to the way it was pre-M10. I hope they balance the scales a little more to make both parties happy!
Can someone explain to a simple plebeian like myself why these lands are rare? My tiny mind tells me that these are objectively bad without actual fetchlands in the set (for standard). What am I missing?
Mainly for limited purposes, but these are a tad too powerful for the common/uncommon slot because they have the double land type on them.
It's also a little bit for reprint equity, as in these are a guaranteed way to get value into packs and thus consumer confidence in buying sealed product. If these were less than rare, there'd be a flood of them and they'd be worth next to nothing, but at rare, it drives excitement for people to purchase product from them.
But why Cat Snake? Creative easter egg? Challenge? Incoming tribal matters? Or just for the lulz?
Because Wizards wants to jump on the internet hype train by combining everything with cats. Cat Monkey was the first step, now Cat Snakes. (Also, I know a lot of people who own ferrets who refer to them jokingly as 'cat snakes'.)
To be fair, these things predate wizards as they were already mythical beasts. The name is modern, but the animal is ancient.
Still, this is probably here to appease the internet, and cats, the official animal of the internet. No complaints here!
Judging by your earlier comments, you set yourself up for that one; Counterspell hasn't been in a standard set in god only knows how long, and there was no indication that it would appear here.
This handsome devil only prevents countering of creatures, not spells, enchants, etc. Or, if we want to bring back the age old argument of "Dies to Doomblade" well, there's that. This thing dies to a stiff breeze.
Blue just got Disallow last set, which is a damn fine counterspell, but I feel for you that Blue has been lackluster in the counter department for the past few years. Then again it seems that way because of the stranglehold it had on early Magic, but there's no undoing history.
We'll have to wait and see what's in store for Blue this set, so you may be happy, or even angrier.
Please be joking. There better be an insane amount of countermagic and something Modern playable. Otherwise this is downright insulting.
Why so?
Countermagic in the modern MTG era is already a joke as is, no need to rub salt in the wounds.
While I agree with you, I take great shameful joy in that this is the first green card spoiled after the giant middle finger of all the blue invocations and not a single mono-green (yes, I'm aware the god will be one, which means blue gets another)
Enjoy all these wildly powerful counters from Magic's History! And also a snake cat, in case you get any ideas
Okay, so if I has five 6/6 creatures attacking Watcher in the Web he will not be put into the graveyard? What was confusing me was the 5 toughness that Watcher in the Web had. I have read that -x/-x spells could put a indestructible creature in the graveyard? How are the two scenario's different. Both actions are causing the creatures toughness to go to zero and or less. As I understood it indestructible only meant the creature couldn't die with target spells that say, "destroy".
1. Correct, if the watcher blocks all 6/6 creatures, it will be dealt 35 damage (5 6/6 creatures). The game then checks (called a state based action) and sees a creature with 5 toughness, and 35 damage, and it would normally be destroyed. But since this spider has indestructible, lethal damage and other effects that say "destroy" would no longer kill it. Wrath of God (destroy all creatures. they cant be regenerated) would not destroy it, damage from a spell would not destroy it, nor would lethal damage (from combat) destroy it. Indestructible protects it.
2. -x/-x are different, and they can be a confusing difference. -x/-x can reduce a creatures toughness to 0. so, if your opponent casts a spell to give your spider -5/-5, the spiders toughness would be reduced to 0. It no longer HAS toughness, and dies. This is different from damage; the spider still has 5 toughness, but it has (in thise case) 35 damage on it. Indestructible prevents a creature from being destroyed by lethal damage, since it still, technically, has toughness, where -x/-x spells remove any potential toughness it could have
An opponent had both an Aegis Angel and a Watcher in the Web on the battlefield. The Watcher in the Web was made indestructible by the Aegis Angel ability. I declared 5 attackers and my opponent assigned the Watcher in the Web to block all five. The second creature did enough damage to make it lethal damage. My opponent tried to say because the [c]Watcher in the Web[/c} was indestructible he could block all five creatures and still not be destroyed by the damage. I don't see this as being correct and wanted to know the actual ruling on the play.
Your opponent was correct. The angel gave the spider indestructible, which means that lethal damage does not destroy it. If your creatures had trample, the trample damage would have gone over the spider, but it still would not be destroyed.
Note that damage is NOT removed from creatures until the end of the turn. So, if you dealt lethal to the spider (5 or more damage) it would live, but if you then destroyed the angel before the end of the turn, the spider would no longer have indestructible, and would be killed since all damage is NOT removed until the END of the turn.
I didn't even think about the possibility of vehicles being a new thing and carrying the border along into other blocks. I guess in that respect, the border is fairly versatile. Still ugly
If you weren't throwing shade, then ignore this comment Hard to get tone from text!
No shade! Just what I stated, as you said you hadn't seen the panel, simply reserve judgment until you have.
If the only issue was the mic time, then yeah I totally agree too. He kind of plodded along and didn't really form a question until the last moment. But I can't say it would have been in good taste for them to cut off/rush a fan who was praising and raising concerns about the direct source of inspiration for the set. I for one was very interested regardless, as I too was wondering just what exactly they'd use from Indian culture other than "the vibrant colors."
Ok, ty! Was afraid I was coming across as a jerk complaining about questions for reasons other than I intended (still can't wait to watch the video, though) My favorite questions are ones that expound upon lore/worldbuilding personally, as questions about returning mechanics/troll jokes/etc. seem like a waste of time, when we could get some desperately needed flavor out of the devs while we they're there.
And I agree, it would be a little difficult to cut off a fan saying how much they love the game, just wish said fans would focus on brevity, aka get to the point already
Sure it does. But nobody's complaining that Kaervak wasn't a trans-demi-otherkin on Jamuraa, were they? Mirage and Kamigawa remain two blocks where they did a good job of reflecting culture and mythology of the respective societies. Original Ravnica did a good job too.
The real issue is people trying to bring up stuff like "when are you going to do (insert less than 1% of the population) thing" and "you're culturally appropriating" when in reality Magic is a game and not real life.
They should start to get worried if the game goes downhill and not about narcissistic "it has to represent me" ideals.
Except that Wizards has done everything but make no connection with the real world? You may be imagining the chasm between game and reality. Because Wizards has been increasingly good with reflecting real life social issues and concepts in their game. Plus who is complaining? If like AirThrow, you have not even seen the questions posed, then I'd say just wait to do that before basing judgment on posters who are easily triggered by harmless questions that ultimately don't answer something they want to know about. Because there was nothing about cultural appropriation, the guy was praising wizards for them not relying on stereotypes and asking what then did they use from Indian culture. Not his fault they really expanded on the answers there (something, mind you, no one forced them to do. because you know, they actually are inquiries that they felt deserved effort)
--
Would it have been bad templating to have that say "Pay eight [energy symbol]"?
Can't tell if you're throwing me under the bus, but I like to think I've been pretty tame on that front, up to and including giving accolades to them myself, not complaining other than people who hog the mic and use up all the time.
If you weren't throwing shade, then ignore this comment Hard to get tone from text!
We try not to touch on the politicized nonsense here and moderators do their best to keep threads on topic and well away from those fun subjects, but world building panels get their Q&A time eaten up by people asking questions about social issues instead of design or story matters, and this was no exception. Most of the question time was spend on representation of race, ethnicity, body size, I kind of tuned out but maybe someone brought up autism spectrum? I'm far more interested in how the designers created a new environment with explicit constraints in mind like "Positive upbeat atmosphere to contrast with typical grimdark fantasy- ie no necromancy- but still keep black fully fleshed out yet not cartoony like lorwyn" or how the fabric of aetherworks is woven through the architecture and lifecycles of the ecosystem to the point the cities are almost living and breathing organisms- but instead we got to listen to whether wizards were misappropriating indian culture in a set about artificers.
Because race and culture have nothing to do with world building, right?
I think he meant that the questions were pointed as "how do you respect/appropriate (real world culture) with (fantasy world culture)" instead of disparaging that they talked about race and culture in general. I haven't seen it yet, but if someone was to spend the entire time talking about (real world) Japanese culture instead of Kamigawa culture, I'd be a little miffed too, because we have a limited time to hear the devs talk about the culture they made.
I could be wrong, not trying to start a flame war. Just prevent one!
This is a good thread! I haven't seen a response to your post yet I don't agree with, but this is something I personally enjoy researching, and while the answers are many and complicated, the primary reason can be summed up thusly:
The shift of power from spells to creatures
The first, and strongest example of this is Baneslayer Angel (M10, M11) which is a little before RTR, but it's the granddaddy (grandmammy?) of current design. We've obviously seen creatures powering up as time went on, just look how Jackal Pup and Savannah Lions of old are considered draft chaff, at best, now. But Baneslayer Angel? This was monocle-popping when it was revealed. It looks relatively tame now, but it started the now hallowed tradition of creature combat as king. Serra Angel was considered broken in the earliest of times, but by Baneslayers day, not so much. This freaking angel was the a red-hot threat, and from it on to today, you can count most standard metas in terms of "the deck to beat helmed by X creature".
Today it's between Ramunap Red with Hazoret and every other deck using Scarab God. Before that it was nutty stuff like Thundermaw Hellkite, Angel of Serenity, and the (not blue) Titan Cycle. Exception here for Caw-Blade, since that was mostly Jace and the swords, but without Squadron Hawks (its namesake) and Stoneforge Mystic, would that deck have made us so miserable?
The other big change around this time is new world order. NWO gets blamed for a LOT of things, but the primary directive is how the game deals with commons, nothing more. However, the reach of NWO is vast, as Mark Rosewater (lead designer) says "if your mechanic isn't at common, it isn't your mechanic". Basically, something needs to be easy enough to grasp to be at common, or it won't make the cut. We can argue all day whether that's dumbing down the game or now, but it DOES tend to create mechanics without a lot of baggage and are easier to pick up (on average)
Combine this with the uptick in creature power and the shift of common design priority, and you have a huge paradigm shift in card design.
Let's consider RTR for a moment. Detain, Populate, Overload, Scavenge and Unleash. 4 of those are creature mechanics, and 1 (overload) is spell. This makes sense, as Blue and Red are allotted the smallest number of creatures. (White, green, black, red/blue, in order)
Let's sashay on down to gatecrash with Battalion, Bloodrush, Extort, Evolve, cipher. Again, 4 are creature mechanics (all but extort). Cipher is only on spells, BUT it requires a creature, and thus combat to use. Extort is mostly on creatures, but it's not dependent on them, so we'll consider a spell mechanic.
You can see this in most recent sets, the number of mechanics that require/encourage creatures/combat dwarfs that of spells. In fact, the most effective one (since it was granted evergreen) of them all, Prowess, although a spell mechanic in name, requires a creature.
I can name plenty more examples, but to keep my (not brief) argument somewhat more brief, let's look at black and red. Red's slice of the color pie has traditionally been Burn spells and weenies (mostly spells) but as others have mentioned, Bolt, being too powerful a spell these days, red has had to gain some of that power in its creatures. Thundermaw Hellkite, Monastery Swiftspear and Young Pyromancer are excellent examples of that shift in power. (I do believe all but thundermaw see play in modern/legacy, but please correct me if I'm wrong!) By yesteryears standards, these things would be considered ba-roken.
As for black, another powerful spell color, it's creatures usually had a trade. Juzan Djin is (was) huge, but it dealt damage to you. Carnophage was a 2/2 for 1, but again, damage to you. Basically you paid a heavy price for efficiency. Can you imagine how expensive Phyrexian Obliterator would have been in Alpha? Fallen Empires? It's just absurd. and it doesn't see much (if any) tournament play because it's still not good enough! Griselbrand? Where's the downside to that guy? Mana cost? That's nothing for the reanimator color.
But the most fun we can look at for both of these, and how much the game has changed, is their "grizzly bears".
In Innistrad, Black got Walking Corpse, a 2/2 for 2. As a common, this didn't create much hubbub except to us historians. This was HUGE. Green got this first, obviously, took a while for white and blue. But Black? They've had plenty of bears, but always with a can't block or some other kind of downside. No more. Gutterskulk came out soon after in GTR with 2 relevant types (zombie rat) and was followed soon after by even more...with upside! Dhund Operative, Olivia's Dragoon, Khenra Eternal are all black bears with an upside. Then red gets Falkenrath reaver in EMN, its first bear, preceded by the already wheel breaking falkenrath gorger and insolate neonate.
Why am I bringing up all these crappy cards that nobody uses or cares about? That's the problem. These things that break a fundamental "law" of old magic, creatures must be inneficient based on color, is are NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH. We don't even notice it's a thing anymore. If your creature isn't absurdly costed with an ETB effect, it's not good enough.
And because this power goes into creatures, it has to come from somewhere; spells.
Bolt is too powerful. Counterspell is too powerful (hello cancel!) Land destruction is too powerful at 3, and is now much less common. Control decks need top-tier creatures to win, e.g. torrential gearhulk.
What you're seeing is very real, and does happen to start around (just a little before) 2011. I'm a Timmy, so this is a good change for me. Casting an Ancient Brontodon is what keeps me warm at night, but I feel for everyone who feels the game has moved from a place they love to something they don't. The first reply, increase in Battlecruiser Magic is very apt. Magic is now less chaining spells and combos and more turning sideways, and that is by design.
Whew that was longer than expected, but as you see, this is a topic I love to discuss
I started then too, we're old timers compared to these young turks with their Rhonas and Baneslayer angels! In our day we had 4/4's for 3, with echo!
But nah, I feel for you. I personally am overjoyed at the time we live in, I like the board better than the stack, and the more muscle we have on creatures the better. But it is directly inverse to spell power, especially compared to the way it was pre-M10. I hope they balance the scales a little more to make both parties happy!
I sense an old timey Blue player
Mainly for limited purposes, but these are a tad too powerful for the common/uncommon slot because they have the double land type on them.
It's also a little bit for reprint equity, as in these are a guaranteed way to get value into packs and thus consumer confidence in buying sealed product. If these were less than rare, there'd be a flood of them and they'd be worth next to nothing, but at rare, it drives excitement for people to purchase product from them.
To be fair, these things predate wizards as they were already mythical beasts. The name is modern, but the animal is ancient.
Still, this is probably here to appease the internet, and cats, the official animal of the internet. No complaints here!
Judging by your earlier comments, you set yourself up for that one; Counterspell hasn't been in a standard set in god only knows how long, and there was no indication that it would appear here.
This handsome devil only prevents countering of creatures, not spells, enchants, etc. Or, if we want to bring back the age old argument of "Dies to Doomblade" well, there's that. This thing dies to a stiff breeze.
Blue just got Disallow last set, which is a damn fine counterspell, but I feel for you that Blue has been lackluster in the counter department for the past few years. Then again it seems that way because of the stranglehold it had on early Magic, but there's no undoing history.
We'll have to wait and see what's in store for Blue this set, so you may be happy, or even angrier.
While I agree with you, I take great shameful joy in that this is the first green card spoiled after the giant middle finger of all the blue invocations and not a single mono-green (yes, I'm aware the god will be one, which means blue gets another)
Enjoy all these wildly powerful counters from Magic's History! And also a snake cat, in case you get any ideas
Man you just can't please some people
1. Correct, if the watcher blocks all 6/6 creatures, it will be dealt 35 damage (5 6/6 creatures). The game then checks (called a state based action) and sees a creature with 5 toughness, and 35 damage, and it would normally be destroyed. But since this spider has indestructible, lethal damage and other effects that say "destroy" would no longer kill it. Wrath of God (destroy all creatures. they cant be regenerated) would not destroy it, damage from a spell would not destroy it, nor would lethal damage (from combat) destroy it. Indestructible protects it.
2. -x/-x are different, and they can be a confusing difference. -x/-x can reduce a creatures toughness to 0. so, if your opponent casts a spell to give your spider -5/-5, the spiders toughness would be reduced to 0. It no longer HAS toughness, and dies. This is different from damage; the spider still has 5 toughness, but it has (in thise case) 35 damage on it. Indestructible prevents a creature from being destroyed by lethal damage, since it still, technically, has toughness, where -x/-x spells remove any potential toughness it could have
Your opponent was correct. The angel gave the spider indestructible, which means that lethal damage does not destroy it. If your creatures had trample, the trample damage would have gone over the spider, but it still would not be destroyed.
Note that damage is NOT removed from creatures until the end of the turn. So, if you dealt lethal to the spider (5 or more damage) it would live, but if you then destroyed the angel before the end of the turn, the spider would no longer have indestructible, and would be killed since all damage is NOT removed until the END of the turn.
Ok, ty! Was afraid I was coming across as a jerk complaining about questions for reasons other than I intended (still can't wait to watch the video, though) My favorite questions are ones that expound upon lore/worldbuilding personally, as questions about returning mechanics/troll jokes/etc. seem like a waste of time, when we could get some desperately needed flavor out of the devs while we they're there.
And I agree, it would be a little difficult to cut off a fan saying how much they love the game, just wish said fans would focus on brevity, aka get to the point already
Can't tell if you're throwing me under the bus, but I like to think I've been pretty tame on that front, up to and including giving accolades to them myself, not complaining other than people who hog the mic and use up all the time.
If you weren't throwing shade, then ignore this comment
I think he meant that the questions were pointed as "how do you respect/appropriate (real world culture) with (fantasy world culture)" instead of disparaging that they talked about race and culture in general. I haven't seen it yet, but if someone was to spend the entire time talking about (real world) Japanese culture instead of Kamigawa culture, I'd be a little miffed too, because we have a limited time to hear the devs talk about the culture they made.
I could be wrong, not trying to start a flame war. Just prevent one!