I think we'll eventually see most of the things listed in the article.
The tell-tale sign is their doing away with blocks. Now we can stop off at Theros for a single set, then Alara, then Ulgothra, then two sets for Zendikar, then one set for Kamigawa then two sets for Lorwyn>Shadowmoor (Shadowmoor>Lorwyn?) and then a couple of new worlds.
The return sets I've listed would have previously been 3 and a half blocks under the two block paradigm, and under the 3 block paradigm only two and a core sets.
So that's 6/7 worlds visited in the time it previously took for 3 or 2. This won't happen all the time but the potential is there were it once was not.
And that's just world revisits - we can still get fresh blocks for Vryn and Shandalar and other Magic-original/real-world inspired places. Then there's the stuff like themes and mechanics.
I think a Viking world is majorly overdue, we're more likely to see that soon.
I'm intrigued at the idea of a Western world, if guns are considered too modern. Crossbow Western?
Samut: *Sparks and walking away*
Bolas: Hold, *pulls her back*, interview time. Would you like to serve your Lord and Savior, God-Pharaoh?
And then Samut defiantly tells Bolas to get bent, impressing the entire Gatewatch.
Then she punches the dragon, KOing him.
So the Gatewatch ask her to join their club.
Merfolk need some reprints, Vampires have real potential to gain some legendary gems.
Humans make for a good 'normal' race to contrast Slivers while also making a fine three-way match with Merfolk and Vampires.
Slivers would be taking advantage of the opportunity to tease their return to standard in the fashion of those two later core sets pre-Origins. (And maybe they will actually show up soon?)
I remember being laughed at for suggesting top gets banned over a year ago, a few others had similar experiences.
I'm talking real harsh arrogance and condescension for daring to make the suggestion.
It took WotC a long time to finally come around to it, and it's clear they were being very generous.
For all the folks who felt in their bones top should be banned, but toughed it out, this is some nice validation.
Now we're the ones who get to laugh =)
This is like Splinter Twin all over again.
My question is simple:
If a trigger ability where the trigger condition is cycle, does it mean that when cycle is put in the stack, or mean that when cycle is resolved?
This is triggers 101. When you pay the cycle cost, the cycling ability goes on the stack. This triggers Sphinx, and then Sphinx's trigger goes on the stack above the cycling. It will resolve first. After you scry, the cycle resolves. This is exactly how it worked in old Rift and Slide formats and it's how it works today.
This is hardly 'triggers 101.' That's a belittling sentiment which I think ignores the specific difficulty some people are having with understanding what goes on.
The confusion doesn't lie with how triggered abilities work, but with the Additional Rules cycling is given.
"An ability triggers only if its trigger event actually occurs. An event that's prevented or replaced won't trigger anything." (CR 603.2f)
It is understandable that people would assume from this intuitive rule that cycling would be considered a completed 'event' where a trigger is concerned, when the discard and draw parts are completely fulfilled.
The new wording, intended to make it cleaner, actually makes it more confusing by reinforcing the assumption above.
"Whenever you cycle or discard a card" implies "whenever you discard a card, or whenever you discard a card, then draw a card to fulfill the conditions of a cycling event."
Taken literally you would even infer that you could trigger two events from cycling - one for the discard cost of cycling, and another for the cycling event itself.
This may be lost on older players, but if you gave this a fresh look; if this were a new mechanic that you had never seen before, it's how you would assume it works. Even if you aren't new, but had only experienced cycling in Alara block.
The reason cycling even works the way it does with this trigger - to be clear, you do get to scry before you draw - is not because of 'triggers 101' but because of an exception to everything I've said above given to cycling by the Additional Rules.
"'When you cycle [this card]' means 'When you discard [this card] to pay a cycling cost.'" (CR 702.28c)
That additional rule conflates the completion of the cycling event with the cost.
This creates a disparity when you ask someone "What does cycling mean?" Vs "No, what does cycling really mean?"
The intuitive response would be "'Cycling' means discarding a card, then drawing a card after you activate its Cycling ability."
The correct response is "'Cycling' means discarding a card to pay the activation cost of a cycling ability."
It's basically a fancy, strange alternative to discard.
Compare Herald of Anafenza which says "whenever you activate Herald of Anafenza's outlast ability" and Flamespeaker Adept, which doesn't even trigger until after you finish a scry event.
If you somehow removed a scry instruction and prevented it from happening, Flamespeaker Adept wouldn't trigger. Herald of Anafenza specifies the trigger is when the outlast ability activates, rather than 'when this outlasts.' That just leaves an activation requirement for the trigger, which doesn't care if the ability is countered. It didn't complete an 'outlast' event, but it only cares about the outlast activation event.
Flamespeaker Adept, on the other hand, doesn't care about someone attempting to scry, just that they do it or not. "Did you scry?" Yes, or no.
If you were to counter someone's cycling activation with something like Stifle or Disallow, the game still considers that player to have 'cycled,' for triggering abilities even though they, well, didn't
So all up, triggers do seem to work intuitively. That's not where the confusion lies. The confusion comes from that weird Additional Rule for cycling.
For a pretty basic mechanic, that Additional Rule makes it pretty clunky.
It's just something to get used to, though it's certainly something else Wizards could streamline.
All the 'scorned Johnny' talk is some wolf in sheep's clothing business. People don't choose decks like this for the love of having an interactive, challenging match against an opponent. They do it to feel clever and score cheesy wins against unaware opponents at an FNM.
Wanna know what does dumb the game down? When strategies like this enter the collective common knowledge of competitive play and every game against these kinds of decks just feels like going through the motions because the gameplay is so linear.
Design intention should count for something, and it hurts the spirit of the game when there's rules incentive to overlook split cards unless a rules exploit can yield a busted payoff. It's arguably clever for those who make the initial discovery that a part of the game is broken, but once the cat's out of the bag, it's just a broken part of the game.
There's nothing wrong with unintuitive interactions being patched up in a game. This is damage on the stack all over again.
The complaint with removing damage on the stack was that it dumbed down the game.
Honest critical examination however showed damage over time itself dumbed down the game.
It limited choices and removed consequences. It gave situations where a player got to have their cake, and eat it too.
For instance, a Sakura-Tribe Elder would be able to block a Dark Confidant, trade with that Dark Confidant and fetch you that land.
It wasn't intuitive that you could do that, but once you knew, there was no reason not to.
Now you have a meaningful decision to make - trade creatures? Or chump block and get the land?
This split card cmc rule streamlining is very similar in spirit - though it applies mostly to deckbuilding.
For instance, prior to this streamlining - there's not much reason to put Boom/Bust in a deck if you're not going to exploit Boom's 2cmc somehow.
In a competitive sense, why play it clean when you can play it dirty? What's the point?
It also makes any split card that isn't a combination of two lopsided cmcs like 2 and 5 much less appealing. "Oh? I can't cascade/expertise-cheat the heavy side? Meh."
That mindset suggests that for these cards to improve, Wizards needs to release more cards to cheat them in with. Which only exasperates the problem.
Following this new streamlining, we all get to take a fresh look at split cards. In the long run this will lead to greater deckbuilding variety, not less, albeit more subtle. We kill a few obnoxious archetypes to give more options across the board.
It's generally much more preferable to have more streamlined rules. Even at GPs you get people asking rules clarifications for this sort of stuff, and it slows games (and tournaments) down.
Keep in mind tournament attendance isn't just made up of grinders - there's people who might main a deck they have blinged out and only have time to play a fraction out of the year.
Decks like Bird Brain and Khari Zev Breaking are just the sort that go from cute to busted meta-warping overnight if the right releases come out.
Now if they'll just do something about the zero cmc suspend cards. However, the rules are clean enough and there's only a handful of them. So we'll just see individual bans if anything.
I'd think twice about investing in a Living End deck if you don't already have most pieces. Amonkhet block could give it quite a shot in the arm.
Seriously the new forum templating is hideous.
I searched for this thread as soon as I saw the change. I thought there was some error with my browser or something.
The previous forum layout breathed, was easy on the eyes and very easy to navigate.
If you guys are determined to stick with this template, then please at least allow some palette swapping options or just use the old hues of blue+gray.
Also please consider allowing the template to fit a widescreen desktop monitor. Some of us still use websites without the aid of a phone!
It's nice there's more features being added to the site, sure. But the main attraction to the site is the discussion forums.
I for one love Gremlins and Devils. Also Minotaurs and Satyrs in Theros!
Goblins are nice, but are best in an appropriate setting. Same goes for the other 'characteristic' races.
I don't want to see Elves on every dang plane. Dominaria, Lorwyn, Alara, Zendikar, Ravnica, Mirrodin, give me a break! All of those planes had goblins too. It can get really samey.
Humans are always nice to see. Of course I agree there should be worlds we don't see them on at all, like Lorwyn. Though they still had Elves and Flamekin.
Humans are also easily relateable and contrast other races from our normality.
People are really boring if they like the more human characters :/
I get it's cool to hate on humans too, but you might be surprised to find such a perspective comes off dull, pretentious and itself boring to many people.
The fact is Gremlins, Devils and Vampires in red really spiced up Kaladesh and Innistrad in a way that shoehorning Goblins never could.
Magic Duels has shortcuts for several rules intended to make the gameplay more straightforward.
But most cards that target creatures can target both ally and enemy creatures. Travel Preparations can target two enemy creatures and Forked Bolt can target two allied creatures.
There's a couple of reasons behind this.
1) Brevity. It usually takes up more space for an effect to specify opponent's creatures. "Target creature an opponent controls" is shorter than "target creature."
2) Versatility. It's a plus for fringe cases like beneficial spells targeting Illusions. Travel Preperations can also turn off Undying on creatures like Hound of Griselbrand
You could give one of your own creatures a counter, give the opponent's undying creature a counter, and then blast the opponent's Hound with a Lightning Strike, and it won't come back. Whereas normally you might have to use two Lightning Strikes.
3) Functionality. Cards like Swerve can only function in the game rules if the changed target is still legal. To Swerve an opponent's Lightning Strike back at them, Lightning Strike itself must be capable of targeting the opponent themselves.
It might be a bummer that your Illusions work the way they do, but the idea they were going for with the Illusion's design was to have fairly strong combat creatures that vanish when someone actually tries to interact with them. Lord of the Unreal grants your Illusions hexproof, which prevents them from being targeted in the first place.
The tell-tale sign is their doing away with blocks. Now we can stop off at Theros for a single set, then Alara, then Ulgothra, then two sets for Zendikar, then one set for Kamigawa then two sets for Lorwyn>Shadowmoor (Shadowmoor>Lorwyn?) and then a couple of new worlds.
The return sets I've listed would have previously been 3 and a half blocks under the two block paradigm, and under the 3 block paradigm only two and a core sets.
So that's 6/7 worlds visited in the time it previously took for 3 or 2. This won't happen all the time but the potential is there were it once was not.
And that's just world revisits - we can still get fresh blocks for Vryn and Shandalar and other Magic-original/real-world inspired places. Then there's the stuff like themes and mechanics.
I think a Viking world is majorly overdue, we're more likely to see that soon.
I'm intrigued at the idea of a Western world, if guns are considered too modern. Crossbow Western?
And then Samut defiantly tells Bolas to get bent, impressing the entire Gatewatch.
Then she punches the dragon, KOing him.
So the Gatewatch ask her to join their club.
...I really hope this doesn't come to pass.
Vampires (BR)
Humans (GW)
Slivers (WUBRG)
Merfolk need some reprints, Vampires have real potential to gain some legendary gems.
Humans make for a good 'normal' race to contrast Slivers while also making a fine three-way match with Merfolk and Vampires.
Slivers would be taking advantage of the opportunity to tease their return to standard in the fashion of those two later core sets pre-Origins. (And maybe they will actually show up soon?)
Vampires (BR)
Elves (G)
Merfolk (U)
Mostly hoping for Merfolk
I'm talking real harsh arrogance and condescension for daring to make the suggestion.
It took WotC a long time to finally come around to it, and it's clear they were being very generous.
For all the folks who felt in their bones top should be banned, but toughed it out, this is some nice validation.
Now we're the ones who get to laugh =)
This is like Splinter Twin all over again.
This is hardly 'triggers 101.' That's a belittling sentiment which I think ignores the specific difficulty some people are having with understanding what goes on.
The confusion doesn't lie with how triggered abilities work, but with the Additional Rules cycling is given.
"An ability triggers only if its trigger event actually occurs. An event that's prevented or replaced won't trigger anything." (CR 603.2f)
It is understandable that people would assume from this intuitive rule that cycling would be considered a completed 'event' where a trigger is concerned, when the discard and draw parts are completely fulfilled.
The new wording, intended to make it cleaner, actually makes it more confusing by reinforcing the assumption above.
"Whenever you cycle or discard a card" implies "whenever you discard a card, or whenever you discard a card, then draw a card to fulfill the conditions of a cycling event."
Taken literally you would even infer that you could trigger two events from cycling - one for the discard cost of cycling, and another for the cycling event itself.
This may be lost on older players, but if you gave this a fresh look; if this were a new mechanic that you had never seen before, it's how you would assume it works. Even if you aren't new, but had only experienced cycling in Alara block.
The reason cycling even works the way it does with this trigger - to be clear, you do get to scry before you draw - is not because of 'triggers 101' but because of an exception to everything I've said above given to cycling by the Additional Rules.
"'When you cycle [this card]' means 'When you discard [this card] to pay a cycling cost.'" (CR 702.28c)
That additional rule conflates the completion of the cycling event with the cost.
This creates a disparity when you ask someone "What does cycling mean?" Vs "No, what does cycling really mean?"
The intuitive response would be "'Cycling' means discarding a card, then drawing a card after you activate its Cycling ability."
The correct response is "'Cycling' means discarding a card to pay the activation cost of a cycling ability."
It's basically a fancy, strange alternative to discard.
Compare Herald of Anafenza which says "whenever you activate Herald of Anafenza's outlast ability" and Flamespeaker Adept, which doesn't even trigger until after you finish a scry event.
If you somehow removed a scry instruction and prevented it from happening, Flamespeaker Adept wouldn't trigger. Herald of Anafenza specifies the trigger is when the outlast ability activates, rather than 'when this outlasts.' That just leaves an activation requirement for the trigger, which doesn't care if the ability is countered. It didn't complete an 'outlast' event, but it only cares about the outlast activation event.
Flamespeaker Adept, on the other hand, doesn't care about someone attempting to scry, just that they do it or not. "Did you scry?" Yes, or no.
If you were to counter someone's cycling activation with something like Stifle or Disallow, the game still considers that player to have 'cycled,' for triggering abilities even though they, well, didn't
So all up, triggers do seem to work intuitively. That's not where the confusion lies. The confusion comes from that weird Additional Rule for cycling.
For a pretty basic mechanic, that Additional Rule makes it pretty clunky.
It's just something to get used to, though it's certainly something else Wizards could streamline.
It's a safe, clean limited fodder card we can expect to see reprinted a lot.
All the 'scorned Johnny' talk is some wolf in sheep's clothing business. People don't choose decks like this for the love of having an interactive, challenging match against an opponent. They do it to feel clever and score cheesy wins against unaware opponents at an FNM.
Wanna know what does dumb the game down? When strategies like this enter the collective common knowledge of competitive play and every game against these kinds of decks just feels like going through the motions because the gameplay is so linear.
Design intention should count for something, and it hurts the spirit of the game when there's rules incentive to overlook split cards unless a rules exploit can yield a busted payoff. It's arguably clever for those who make the initial discovery that a part of the game is broken, but once the cat's out of the bag, it's just a broken part of the game.
There's nothing wrong with unintuitive interactions being patched up in a game. This is damage on the stack all over again.
The complaint with removing damage on the stack was that it dumbed down the game.
Honest critical examination however showed damage over time itself dumbed down the game.
It limited choices and removed consequences. It gave situations where a player got to have their cake, and eat it too.
For instance, a Sakura-Tribe Elder would be able to block a Dark Confidant, trade with that Dark Confidant and fetch you that land.
It wasn't intuitive that you could do that, but once you knew, there was no reason not to.
Now you have a meaningful decision to make - trade creatures? Or chump block and get the land?
This split card cmc rule streamlining is very similar in spirit - though it applies mostly to deckbuilding.
For instance, prior to this streamlining - there's not much reason to put Boom/Bust in a deck if you're not going to exploit Boom's 2cmc somehow.
In a competitive sense, why play it clean when you can play it dirty? What's the point?
It also makes any split card that isn't a combination of two lopsided cmcs like 2 and 5 much less appealing. "Oh? I can't cascade/expertise-cheat the heavy side? Meh."
That mindset suggests that for these cards to improve, Wizards needs to release more cards to cheat them in with. Which only exasperates the problem.
Following this new streamlining, we all get to take a fresh look at split cards. In the long run this will lead to greater deckbuilding variety, not less, albeit more subtle. We kill a few obnoxious archetypes to give more options across the board.
It's generally much more preferable to have more streamlined rules. Even at GPs you get people asking rules clarifications for this sort of stuff, and it slows games (and tournaments) down.
Keep in mind tournament attendance isn't just made up of grinders - there's people who might main a deck they have blinged out and only have time to play a fraction out of the year.
Decks like Bird Brain and Khari Zev Breaking are just the sort that go from cute to busted meta-warping overnight if the right releases come out.
Now if they'll just do something about the zero cmc suspend cards. However, the rules are clean enough and there's only a handful of them. So we'll just see individual bans if anything.
I'd think twice about investing in a Living End deck if you don't already have most pieces. Amonkhet block could give it quite a shot in the arm.
I searched for this thread as soon as I saw the change. I thought there was some error with my browser or something.
The previous forum layout breathed, was easy on the eyes and very easy to navigate.
If you guys are determined to stick with this template, then please at least allow some palette swapping options or just use the old hues of blue+gray.
Also please consider allowing the template to fit a widescreen desktop monitor. Some of us still use websites without the aid of a phone!
It's nice there's more features being added to the site, sure. But the main attraction to the site is the discussion forums.
Goblins are nice, but are best in an appropriate setting. Same goes for the other 'characteristic' races.
I don't want to see Elves on every dang plane. Dominaria, Lorwyn, Alara, Zendikar, Ravnica, Mirrodin, give me a break! All of those planes had goblins too. It can get really samey.
Humans are always nice to see. Of course I agree there should be worlds we don't see them on at all, like Lorwyn. Though they still had Elves and Flamekin.
Humans are also easily relateable and contrast other races from our normality.
I get it's cool to hate on humans too, but you might be surprised to find such a perspective comes off dull, pretentious and itself boring to many people.
The fact is Gremlins, Devils and Vampires in red really spiced up Kaladesh and Innistrad in a way that shoehorning Goblins never could.
But most cards that target creatures can target both ally and enemy creatures. Travel Preparations can target two enemy creatures and Forked Bolt can target two allied creatures.
There's a couple of reasons behind this.
1) Brevity. It usually takes up more space for an effect to specify opponent's creatures. "Target creature an opponent controls" is shorter than "target creature."
2) Versatility. It's a plus for fringe cases like beneficial spells targeting Illusions. Travel Preperations can also turn off Undying on creatures like Hound of Griselbrand
You could give one of your own creatures a counter, give the opponent's undying creature a counter, and then blast the opponent's Hound with a Lightning Strike, and it won't come back. Whereas normally you might have to use two Lightning Strikes.
3) Functionality. Cards like Swerve can only function in the game rules if the changed target is still legal. To Swerve an opponent's Lightning Strike back at them, Lightning Strike itself must be capable of targeting the opponent themselves.
It might be a bummer that your Illusions work the way they do, but the idea they were going for with the Illusion's design was to have fairly strong combat creatures that vanish when someone actually tries to interact with them.
Lord of the Unreal grants your Illusions hexproof, which prevents them from being targeted in the first place.
Pretty cool, and quite plausible as a card although it would be pretty busted.