Definite high pick in draft, 4 toughness is the magic number in this environment thus far. Already daydreaming of pairing him with frostburn weird, lobber crew, and guttersnipe... just add instants!
Personally, I love it, BEACAUSE it's terrible and silly. Sometimes, it's really easy to lose sight of what makes Magic fun in the first place. If the point of the game was only to win, we'd be doing nothing but playing mirror matches of overpowered decks. Sometimes, you just need to enjoy the process. Last night, i played a deck full of Wild Evocations, and watched an entire multiplayer game spiral out of control due to a Curse of Echoes-ed Scrambleverse. And we all had a blast with the sheer goofiness of it all. Did I win, or even expect to? Absolutely not. But we had lots of fun, and this lovely little goblin will find it's way into a deck of mine soon, for that exact reason.
Personally, I doubt well see cross-guild keyword combos, or any original RAV keywords returning. I think they learned their lesson from Time Spiral block about too many keywords and too much complexity.
Honestly, Dimir is both the hardest and the easiest keyword to expand upon. There are tons of effects that would be entertaining with cipher, but none of them will be any kind of popular if they are still so expensive to play. The problem is that they really have no choice but to play it safe, because if mishandled, cipher gets overpowered in a hurry. Say you have dark banishing with cipher, what do you make it cost? At five or maybe even four mana people might call it unplayable, but any less than four is getting dangerous. Cipher is probably the most difficult to design mechanics they've printed in years. I don't expect them to flirt with disaster, I think the likeliest thing we see is more expensive splashy effects, like a demonic tutor or control magic with cipher for six.
At this point, we all know that all 10 guilds and guild mechanics are making their return in DGM. But being that we've all had time to play with them with in their respective sets, what would you like to see them do to expand on them this time? Some of the mechanics, like battalion, unleash, and cipher have lots of design space to be played around with, but others, like populate and extort, seem too narrow to really progress beyond what we've already seen. What would you like to see in DGM?
I'm playtesting a casual UG deck and came upon a question concerning Cytoplast Root-Kin and evolve creatures. Assuming I have a Fathom Mage in play as a 1/1. If I play the Root-Kin on my next turn, how many counters do I put on the Mage? Does the evolve trigger occur and put a counter on the mage, and then the Root-Kin's trigger resolve and put a second counter on it? Or do the triggers occur simultaneously, and I just put one counter on the Mage for the evolve trigger?
I'm playtesting a casual UG deck and came upon a question concerning Cytoplast Root-Kin and evolve creatures. Assuming I have a Fathom Mage in play as a 1/1. If I play the Root-Kin on my next turn, how many counters do I put on the Mage? Does the evolve trigger occur and put a counter on the mage, and then the Root-Kin's trigger resolve and put a second counter on it? Or do the triggers occur simultaneously, and I just put one counter on the Mage for the evolve trigger?
I agree. My problem with it really is that it's so prohibitive, it feels like almost every cipher card feels like one of those uncastable mythic rares that is supposed to do crazy things but never actually happen in magic reality. I don't think a guild mechanic should work this way, especially when the RtR mechanics just worked so well - so effortlessly.
That's because none of the RTR mechanics were made with competitive constructed in mind. The only mechanic that sees widespread play is unleash, solely on the strength of Cackler and Chainwalker. Detain, Scavenge, Overload and Populate all work really well in limited, or in the instance of maybe one or two cards seeing constructed play in total. They aren't overpowered, or underpowered. Just fun and flavorful.
When you talk about the mechanics of GTC, most again fall into "flavorful and fun" and not into the realm of Landfall, Cycling, Imprint, or Kicker. Except for Cipher. Cipher is by far the most powerful mechanic of the block, when taken in a vaccuum. It's not only a free spell mechanic, it's designed to be a repeatable free spell mechanic. It's the only mechanic out of 10 that has the potential to be flat-out busted if not handled cautiously. It makes even innocent effects like one-time non-selective discard, or one-shot single card draw effects dangerous. So your options become "aggressively costed degenerate spells with splashy effects", "Overcosted spells with splashy effects", "aggressively costed spells with boring but strong effects", and "Overcosted spells with boring but strong effects". People would complain at boring spells, and they can't aggressively cost them without risking broken cards. So they put boring effects on cheap cards and splashy ones of rares.
I agree, 2U is probably the correct cost. I am just so disgusted with all of the high cost ciphers. Not really happy with wizards for basically making an entire guild mechanic to be really quite bad.
I want to play blue, but I am pushed into decks that use WRG this block. I could play control, but I like these colours more and more.
I really don't think Cipher should have made it out of design as is. It's a beautifully flavorful idea, and extremely creative, but inherently flawed. There really isn't a middle ground for cipher. You either cost the cards aggressively and have a flat-out busted mechanic, or you play it safe and have people complain about how overcosted and unplayable it is.
Think about it. If they cost the card drawer at 1U, they've made a curiosity that cantrips and doesn't 2-for-1 you. One more mana and it's too pushed for limited, and as it's costed now it's unplayable outside of limited.
Or at rare, where the effect is expected to be splashier than simply drawing a card or a Dark Banishing effect. Undercity Plague, seems like it needs to be about 2 mana less at first glance. But, when you think about it, what would you cost a card that made a player immediately sac 2 permanents, discard two cards, and lose two life, and then smallpox once a turn automatically until they draw removal? How do you cost that any LESS than 6 CMC?
Cipher is a flavorful, awesome mechanic in THEORY, but there was no real way for them to balance it enough to be strong and still be playable. Cipher turns an innocuous effect like Hands of Binding into an extremely strong common. That alone should tell you how strong the mechanic COULD be be if not costed prohibitively.
I think enchanments is probably the most likely. Planeswalkers could be cool, but i'd like them to add to the pool of them more first. Assuming they wouldn't have more than one version of a given PW character, that particular vault isn't THAT deep.
Allow me to speak for my casual compatriots when I say, "how can you tell he's a standard player? Because he hasn't got crap all over him. "
Honestly, Dimir is both the hardest and the easiest keyword to expand upon. There are tons of effects that would be entertaining with cipher, but none of them will be any kind of popular if they are still so expensive to play. The problem is that they really have no choice but to play it safe, because if mishandled, cipher gets overpowered in a hurry. Say you have dark banishing with cipher, what do you make it cost? At five or maybe even four mana people might call it unplayable, but any less than four is getting dangerous. Cipher is probably the most difficult to design mechanics they've printed in years. I don't expect them to flirt with disaster, I think the likeliest thing we see is more expensive splashy effects, like a demonic tutor or control magic with cipher for six.
Rakdos - abilities when unleahed, like Chaos Imps
Selesnya - ETB populate seems cool. Otherwise, more interesting tokens sound good.
Izzet - stealing/cloning effects with overload, maybe? Seems really narrow.
Azorius - more repeatable detain, like a tap ability.
Golgari - "when (cardname) is scavenged" abilities
Gruul - variable bloodrush abilities like Rubble Hulk, or creatures that get bonuses when attacking
Boros - love the above idea of tokens from battalion
Simic - more abilities involving removing or using counters
Dimir - either splashier abilities or lower costs on cipher spells. Playing with fire either way.
Orzhov - creatures that gain effects based on life gain, or opponents losing life
Thanks!
Thanks!
That's because none of the RTR mechanics were made with competitive constructed in mind. The only mechanic that sees widespread play is unleash, solely on the strength of Cackler and Chainwalker. Detain, Scavenge, Overload and Populate all work really well in limited, or in the instance of maybe one or two cards seeing constructed play in total. They aren't overpowered, or underpowered. Just fun and flavorful.
When you talk about the mechanics of GTC, most again fall into "flavorful and fun" and not into the realm of Landfall, Cycling, Imprint, or Kicker. Except for Cipher. Cipher is by far the most powerful mechanic of the block, when taken in a vaccuum. It's not only a free spell mechanic, it's designed to be a repeatable free spell mechanic. It's the only mechanic out of 10 that has the potential to be flat-out busted if not handled cautiously. It makes even innocent effects like one-time non-selective discard, or one-shot single card draw effects dangerous. So your options become "aggressively costed degenerate spells with splashy effects", "Overcosted spells with splashy effects", "aggressively costed spells with boring but strong effects", and "Overcosted spells with boring but strong effects". People would complain at boring spells, and they can't aggressively cost them without risking broken cards. So they put boring effects on cheap cards and splashy ones of rares.
I really don't think Cipher should have made it out of design as is. It's a beautifully flavorful idea, and extremely creative, but inherently flawed. There really isn't a middle ground for cipher. You either cost the cards aggressively and have a flat-out busted mechanic, or you play it safe and have people complain about how overcosted and unplayable it is.
Think about it. If they cost the card drawer at 1 U, they've made a curiosity that cantrips and doesn't 2-for-1 you. One more mana and it's too pushed for limited, and as it's costed now it's unplayable outside of limited.
Or at rare, where the effect is expected to be splashier than simply drawing a card or a Dark Banishing effect. Undercity Plague, seems like it needs to be about 2 mana less at first glance. But, when you think about it, what would you cost a card that made a player immediately sac 2 permanents, discard two cards, and lose two life, and then smallpox once a turn automatically until they draw removal? How do you cost that any LESS than 6 CMC?
Cipher is a flavorful, awesome mechanic in THEORY, but there was no real way for them to balance it enough to be strong and still be playable. Cipher turns an innocuous effect like Hands of Binding into an extremely strong common. That alone should tell you how strong the mechanic COULD be be if not costed prohibitively.
Oh, I'm loving this guy. I've got a janky Stuffy Doll/Pariah/Repercussion/Spitemare multiplayer deck that he'll play nicely with.
Blasphemous Acts and Chain Reactions for everyone!