You say something I find a bit funny, saying that power creep is unnecessary and then advocating or it as essentially a necessary component.
Also, wrath of god kills everything, thus making its power debatable.
As well, I find it an incredibly silly notion that everything needs to be standard or modern playable, which would require an immense amount of power creep.
Power creep has nothing to do with it, it is mathematically impossible to make every card playable. You can make the baseline as powerful as you want, but there will always be a baseline, there will always be cards above it, and there will always be cards below it. The cards above the baseline will always see competitive play, the cards below the baseline will never see competitive play, and the baseline cards may be used to fill holes in decks of mainly above-average cards, and may sit in the box with the below average cards. That's just how statistics work. But the OP isn't talking about it. s/he has made it perfectly clear that s/he has no problem with "bad" cards, as long as they fill a niche. The issue here is that s/he, along with many other players, do not recognize limited as a valid niche.
You can't really evade this, as you deride things for being designed for limited
This is exactly the problem. As long as you do not acknowledge Limited as a real format, there will always be cards designed for people you don't acknowledge as a legitimate demographic. You want to talk about No True Scotsman, this is a perfect example.
But cards like Thassa's Emissary cannot ever be played in standard nor modern.
Unlike Pillarfield Ox, which is useless because it doesn't replace itself (simply put; dies to removal -- in addition to not winning the game anytime soon), Thassa's Emissary is useless because of it's bestow cost, which is put on an completely unplayable level for no other reason than purposefully making it utterly useless outside limited[/card]
Thassa's Emissary's playability is only determined by the other cards in the format. If the baseline power level was low enough, it could be a top-tier card. It is not intentionally designed to be unplayable outside of limited, it is designed to be a 3/3 Ophidian for 3U and Bestow for 5U, and due to the nature of variance, it is incidentally below the baseline power. I recommend a change of thinking: Instead of looking at Limited as the reason bad cards exist (because it's not), think of it as the format where below-average cards (which must necessarily exist because that's just how statistics work) are playable.
The link you provided doesn't send me anywhere, just to Salvation's standard "Not Found" page, so I'm not sure if you're having the same issue I was having until getting my new computer with my tax refund, but it at least sounds similar. My computer was getting caught in a redirect loop when I tried to visit Salvation. Turns out Curse websites have that problem if your computer's time is not set correctly. Try the following:
Step 1: Right click on your time on the Windows Taskbar and select "Adjust date/time".
Step 2: Click on "Internet Time"
Step 3: Click on "change settings" and make sure it's set to "time.windows.com" and then press "Update Now".
Step 4: Manually adjust the date of your calendar to today's date and adjust the time to todays time and make sure the time zone is correctly set to your regions time zone.
Step 5: Close Chrome and re-open it and try to load the webpage that was having the issue.
According to the site I found this solution on, the issue can happen even with brand new computers with the time already set to time.windows.com if you don't hit "update now". If you're not on a Windows computer... I don't know how to help, this was the only info I could find on the issue.
I used to organize the cards in my hand in the order I intended to play them. What I found was that skilled opponents had a very easy time reading me - calling my bluffs, etc. and "random" discard always hit something I was about to need in the next turn or two. So I tried leaving my cards in the order I drew them instead. Same problem, turns out I would stare at important cards while evaluating my line of play. So I tried shuffling my hand under the table before and after looking at it. No such problems. I try not to be obnoxious about it, and if an opponent asks me to stop, I will, and I'll just be discrete about looking at my own hand.
Bolded part is important. How do you do random discard? Do you let your opponents pick from your hand?
NEVER do that in a tournament setting. Make him roll a dice or something. Letting your opponent pick cards out of your hand or facedown cards is fine if you're playing casually. If it's a tournament game, make sure the discard is indeed by making your opponent roll dice for the card.
If you use a dice to determine random discard, you never have to "bluff" or even shuffle your hand.
Oh yeah, I always do random discard with dice at a tournament. Or maybe shuffle my hand immediately beforehand and let them chose from face down if it's a casual environment like FNM and I don't happen to have dice handy. And random discard isn't even all that common any more anyway. When I said bluff, I meant things like swinging into an unfavorable board to make my opponent think I have a combat trick in hand. Or maybe I do have a trick, and it's a double-bluff. Or maybe I'll give my hand a real hard look and fiddle with my lands a bit before "deciding" to let a spell resolve. Do I have the counter? Or do I just want you to think I do? It's amazing how much tempo you can gain by just playing like you have a Mana Leak in hand, even if it's really just an Island you're sandbagging. Or if you make it just a little bit too obvious you're thinking about countering something, sometimes you can trick someone into not leaving up the 3. As long as it's not TOO obvious you're being too obvious. The thing is, it's a lot easier for a good player to pick up on your tells if you hold your hand in a predictable order. You don't have to be like Kibler, shuffling like crazy all the time, but a quick shuffle now and then is a big help in keeping a strong poker face. Or it does me, anyway.
... the biggest thing obstructing me to listening to Night Vale is that the whole thing is spoken... and my English listening comprehension skills are crappy. (I do understand spoken English, but I have troubles understanding what exactly was said...)
Yeah, being all audio is probably the biggest obstacle for most people, and the reason a lot of my friends can't get into it. I'd suggest reading transcripts, they're pretty widely available, but... To be honest, it would not be as enjoyable. A big part of what makes it so great is Cecil's brilliant comedic timing and the inflection he delivers it with. Reading along with a transcript as you listen is always an option if you are interested and that's the only barrier to you listening to it. But there's also nothing wrong with just not being interested. I'm not here to judge
I used to organize the cards in my hand in the order I intended to play them. What I found was that skilled opponents had a very easy time reading me - calling my bluffs, etc. and "random" discard always hit something I was about to need in the next turn or two. So I tried leaving my cards in the order I drew them instead. Same problem, turns out I would stare at important cards while evaluating my line of play. So I tried shuffling my hand under the table before and after looking at it. No such problems. I try not to be obnoxious about it, and if an opponent asks me to stop, I will, and I'll just be discrete about looking at my own hand.
The only alternative mulligan rule I've ever found satisfying is "Partial Paris" You chose X cards from your starting hand, set them aside, and draw X-1 new cards from the top of your deck. Repeat until you are satisfied with your hand, then shuffle the cards set aside back into your deck. I still prefer the traditional mulligan rule for standard 60 card magic games, but "Partial Paris" is good for formats like Commander with big decks, because it cuts down on shuffle time and helps work around the additional variance of such big decks. And I think it would work fine for a casual group. Though I would still recommend learning to build your decks better rather than just coming up with a variant rule to make up for the fact that decks with poor curves have issues drawing playable starting hands.
Well, by the dictionary definition of random, neither. Something is either random or it is not. If you mean which will create a more even distribution of cards, I would guess all mash, but I don't have any actual data to support that assumption... Honestly though, either will probably be enough to count as "sufficiently randomized".
... why? Why does it seem that no matter where I go, all I see is "you must listed Night Vale"?
Oh well, nice to have you back, DA.
Hey, if it's not for you, it's not for you, I'm cool with that. I'm not one of those pushy fans who's going to berate you for not liking something. Apologies on behalf of the fandom if you've been overloaded with people telling you to listen to it, I know that often will push people away from something they might otherwise enjoy. Or give a chance and decide it's not their cup of tea.
I can't imagine it's gotten any less painful. In fact, I would be disappointed in the lack of thoroughness if it had. Proper reeducation must by necessity be an excruciating process. So I am glad to hear standards are still as rigorous as ever, possibly more so. I don't look forward to having to go through it again, though. Such are the sacrifices we make in the name of security, I suppose.
(Also, if you didn't catch it, I was making a Night Vale reference in my earlier post. If any of you have not listened to Welcome to Night Vale, I highly recommend it.)
So I may be late to the party, but color me excited about Bitterblossom being unbanned in Modern. I think the format is a little too aggressive for Faeries to really thrive, but it's always been one of my favorite decks, so that was nice to see.
Greetings, my old colleagues. I must apologize for my extended absence from the library. It seems in the recent change of location I received incorrect directions to the new building, which seemed only to lead in circles. Apparently there was an issue with my scrying device's timekeeping subroutine, and it needed to be replaced before I could locate the library again.
(Curse websites seem to get caught in a redirect loop if your time is not set correctly, and my computer was old and buggy and unable to fix the issue, so yesterday when I finally got a new laptop was the first time I was able to get on Salvation since the forums moved here.)
At any rate, it is good to be back finally. Is anything required of me in order to return to my previous duties, or am I free to go about my business at any time?
The list included all the cards from Alpha that had rotated out of print before Fourth Edition along with all the uncommons and rares from Antiquities, Arabian Nights, and Legends. In addition, from Ice Age through Urza’s Destiny, all the rares had only one opportunity to get reprinted in a base set and after that they were added to the reserved list, never to be printed again.
The list had nothing at all to do with power level, and everything to do with protecting collector's value. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the backlash of a lot of cards secondary market value plummeting after Chronicles reprinted a lot of then-valuable cards en masse. People flipped that the cards they had paid a lot of money for were suddenly worth a mere fraction of what they paid for them, and WotC panicked and said "we're sorry, we'll never reprint old rares or uncommons again, we promise!" It didn't matter if those rares and uncommons they promised not to reprint were any good or not, they were trying to win back the customers faith in their product's value, so they made this sweeping blanket policy just in case any of them ever ended up as collector's items. They've revised the policy a few times, so some cards ended up being removed and some added due to the policy changes. Again, these changes were about perceived value or potential for future value, not power level.
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Venser
EDIT: 1337th post! Woo!
Power creep has nothing to do with it, it is mathematically impossible to make every card playable. You can make the baseline as powerful as you want, but there will always be a baseline, there will always be cards above it, and there will always be cards below it. The cards above the baseline will always see competitive play, the cards below the baseline will never see competitive play, and the baseline cards may be used to fill holes in decks of mainly above-average cards, and may sit in the box with the below average cards. That's just how statistics work. But the OP isn't talking about it. s/he has made it perfectly clear that s/he has no problem with "bad" cards, as long as they fill a niche. The issue here is that s/he, along with many other players, do not recognize limited as a valid niche.
This is exactly the problem. As long as you do not acknowledge Limited as a real format, there will always be cards designed for people you don't acknowledge as a legitimate demographic. You want to talk about No True Scotsman, this is a perfect example.
Thassa's Emissary's playability is only determined by the other cards in the format. If the baseline power level was low enough, it could be a top-tier card. It is not intentionally designed to be unplayable outside of limited, it is designed to be a 3/3 Ophidian for 3U and Bestow for 5U, and due to the nature of variance, it is incidentally below the baseline power. I recommend a change of thinking: Instead of looking at Limited as the reason bad cards exist (because it's not), think of it as the format where below-average cards (which must necessarily exist because that's just how statistics work) are playable.
Step 1: Right click on your time on the Windows Taskbar and select "Adjust date/time".
Step 2: Click on "Internet Time"
Step 3: Click on "change settings" and make sure it's set to "time.windows.com" and then press "Update Now".
Step 4: Manually adjust the date of your calendar to today's date and adjust the time to todays time and make sure the time zone is correctly set to your regions time zone.
Step 5: Close Chrome and re-open it and try to load the webpage that was having the issue.
According to the site I found this solution on, the issue can happen even with brand new computers with the time already set to time.windows.com if you don't hit "update now". If you're not on a Windows computer... I don't know how to help, this was the only info I could find on the issue.
Oh yeah, I always do random discard with dice at a tournament. Or maybe shuffle my hand immediately beforehand and let them chose from face down if it's a casual environment like FNM and I don't happen to have dice handy. And random discard isn't even all that common any more anyway. When I said bluff, I meant things like swinging into an unfavorable board to make my opponent think I have a combat trick in hand. Or maybe I do have a trick, and it's a double-bluff. Or maybe I'll give my hand a real hard look and fiddle with my lands a bit before "deciding" to let a spell resolve. Do I have the counter? Or do I just want you to think I do? It's amazing how much tempo you can gain by just playing like you have a Mana Leak in hand, even if it's really just an Island you're sandbagging. Or if you make it just a little bit too obvious you're thinking about countering something, sometimes you can trick someone into not leaving up the 3. As long as it's not TOO obvious you're being too obvious. The thing is, it's a lot easier for a good player to pick up on your tells if you hold your hand in a predictable order. You don't have to be like Kibler, shuffling like crazy all the time, but a quick shuffle now and then is a big help in keeping a strong poker face. Or it does me, anyway.
Yeah, being all audio is probably the biggest obstacle for most people, and the reason a lot of my friends can't get into it. I'd suggest reading transcripts, they're pretty widely available, but... To be honest, it would not be as enjoyable. A big part of what makes it so great is Cecil's brilliant comedic timing and the inflection he delivers it with. Reading along with a transcript as you listen is always an option if you are interested and that's the only barrier to you listening to it. But there's also nothing wrong with just not being interested. I'm not here to judge
Hey, if it's not for you, it's not for you, I'm cool with that. I'm not one of those pushy fans who's going to berate you for not liking something. Apologies on behalf of the fandom if you've been overloaded with people telling you to listen to it, I know that often will push people away from something they might otherwise enjoy. Or give a chance and decide it's not their cup of tea.
(Also, if you didn't catch it, I was making a Night Vale reference in my earlier post. If any of you have not listened to Welcome to Night Vale, I highly recommend it.)
So I may be late to the party, but color me excited about Bitterblossom being unbanned in Modern. I think the format is a little too aggressive for Faeries to really thrive, but it's always been one of my favorite decks, so that was nice to see.
(Curse websites seem to get caught in a redirect loop if your time is not set correctly, and my computer was old and buggy and unable to fix the issue, so yesterday when I finally got a new laptop was the first time I was able to get on Salvation since the forums moved here.)
At any rate, it is good to be back finally. Is anything required of me in order to return to my previous duties, or am I free to go about my business at any time?
The list had nothing at all to do with power level, and everything to do with protecting collector's value. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the backlash of a lot of cards secondary market value plummeting after Chronicles reprinted a lot of then-valuable cards en masse. People flipped that the cards they had paid a lot of money for were suddenly worth a mere fraction of what they paid for them, and WotC panicked and said "we're sorry, we'll never reprint old rares or uncommons again, we promise!" It didn't matter if those rares and uncommons they promised not to reprint were any good or not, they were trying to win back the customers faith in their product's value, so they made this sweeping blanket policy just in case any of them ever ended up as collector's items. They've revised the policy a few times, so some cards ended up being removed and some added due to the policy changes. Again, these changes were about perceived value or potential for future value, not power level.