I think it's pretty funny how this keeps happening. Stuff gets errata'd until it doesn't work at all, or doesn't do what it was meant to do, or is too complicated and annoying to play with (not to mention, the text sounds like a philosophy textbook). I think, however, that it's cool that Priest of Gix will work better in my Unearth deck again.
I think they are changing the errata primarily for the casual crowd. Most people don't play the cards with errata anyway, so for the cards that play signifigantly different, they are just going to put them back the way they were intended to play. Errata will just be used to make the cards clear (in a tournament setting). If something is broken, they will just ban it.
That's because it was designed around the art, and the art was terrible. Oh, sure, it was pretty, but it didn't give you any clue as to what the card should have done. Almost any of the other art options would have made a better card in the end, IMHO.
I disagree, the mistake was choosing instant/sorcery as the card type. Those types are cards are inherenty boring, there is only so much that you can do with a 1-time effect and have it still be playable. (i.e. reasonable casting cost)
Think about instants/sorceries that have been released recently, the only ones that have been exciting basically read 'you win the game.' Tooth, Rude Awakening, Sway of the Stars, they are all huge splashy game winning effects.
If the card was a permanent of some type more possibilities would have been available since permanents can slowly win the game over time.
Be that as it may, the options the people chose among came from WotC. We're not seeing even 1% of the submitted mechanics, if the card stinks it's not the voter's fault but rather WotC for presenting us such poor choices.
You are assuming that there were better choices, I don't think that is a fair assumption. After seeing dozens of submitted ideas here and other sites I wasn't impressed by the selection, most of the ideas were terrible.
Remember this cad was designed by hte same people that overcosted Forgotten Ancient to keep the toughness up and created a card that enabled infinite LD in an attempt to design an ANSWER to LD.
You realize that the public did nothing but vote on the options presented by Wizards. The people voted on 10 rather bland mechanics. I guess we'll never know if these were really the best 10 mechanics of all the lot that were submitted. Even if the choice of mechanics was boring, the card would have been fine as a 1UWInstant. Where was our chance to vote for that?
It would have been overpowered at that casting cost, at least that is what development stated. I am willing to give R&D the benefit of the doubt that they picked the best mechanics available to them, they do develop the game full-time after all. I think what we learned is that:
a) Designing Top-Down is hard
b) Instants and Sorceries are boring without a block mechanic to play with
c) R&D is better at this than we are
that sux. Oh well the card sux, the art sux, and it is poorely desighned. Wizards messed up big time with this. I loved having the selecting the art bit, but it went downhill from their, with very poor options for many of the choices.
BTW-I am very curious about what doesn't fit the Azorious Senate, perhaps the senate is all male or something silly like that.
Explain to me how Wizards screwed up? The readers created this card, if you would like to assign blame, assign it to the readers of magicthegathering.com.
Eh...that better not be all it does otherwise its inferior to giant growth. Which is saying a lot because not many pump spells are inferior.
There really aren't any pump spells that are strictly better than GG. They all cost more, this spell costs less, so it can't give a bigger boost than +3/+3.
Just a little thought: Haven't WotC said they'll not errate creature types for creatures not reprinted.. As far as I know Lord of Atlantis is not reprinted in 9th, so are they gonna change the creature type to merfolk? or just leave it as it is?
Nothing is certain with WotC, they have said a lot of things that are 'general guidelines' that they go back on.
They don't like random discard - the reprint Hypnotic Specter
They don't like having rare lands - the reprint pain lands
They don't think you should have easy access to enemy colors - the reprint enemy painlands
EDIT: If they errata a card (Goldin King) to be a goblin, then all goblin kings every printed are also goblins regardless whether the card says it or not.
Also, Goblin King is NOT playable in extended, unless it is a one-of. Giving your opponent's creatures mountainwalk and +1/+1 is not a good thing.
Well, I recall the Invasion dual's were quite playable in their day, and to this day still I believe. Anyway... I agree with you, the painlands are rare, we don't even need to debate this one
Let's hope for some great new art on the lands, ay?
I should have defined playable a little more closely. They cannot be used as the basis for color consistency in tournament quality constructed decks. They can support a splash color, sure. They can substitute for better lands in a pinch, but no one would try to run a two color deck on the backs of the invasion lands.
These were also 5-Color lands, as opposed to a cycle of dual-colored lands.
Piley
OK, we'll try it another way. There have NEVER been playable duals lands at uncommon. So pointing to unplayable dual-lands at uncommon and using that as evidence that painlands will also be uncommon is rather silly.
Also -- Look at all set releases Since 8th... All the multi-color lands (and talismons) were uncommons in them as well.
Piley
The explanations on why your analysis is wrong are below, but powerful lands are always rare.
Tendo Ice Bridge
City of Brass
Glimmervoid
Forbidden Orchard
The multi-lands that restrict mana growth in some way are listed at uncommon, they either come into play tapped (Invasion lands). They remain tapped if you use them for colored mana (CHK lands), or you have to tap them first before you get colored mana (Mirrodin's Core)
Those drawbacks have prevented those lands from being tournament playable. I'm guessing that R&D was hoping that if they took the painlands away leaving only marginal lands as the replacement, people would be forced to use the underpowered lands. But that didn't happen, instead multi-colored decks (that aren't base green) just don't exist at the top levels of competition because the mana-bases are so weak.
Many of the ideas here are completely impossible to do - or would actually work in the opposite manner people believe.
I think people are starting to see just how hard it is to run a forum. We do welcome your ideas, and will read and consider them all. Just because I've been doing it for years doesn't mean I think I know everything. Same goes for Seds and the other mods too, I'm sure. That said, not much is coming up here that hasn't either been denies in the past, or tried and failed.
EDIT: Seds is right. Some simple rules, which are already in place, would help.
1) Obey the Rumor Mill Guidelines.
2) Obey the MTGSalvation rules.
3) Follow netiquette.
4) Read threads before posting - no exceptions. If you post something without having a clue what you're talking about, you're going to get ignored, probably deleted, and perhaps even warned if you do it enough times.
I'm not sure if the technology would allow it, but requiring a specific word count in posts (at least in the Rumor Mill) would cut back the 'this is so fake' posts that seem to flood new rumors. Another possible technical solution would be to delay activating new accounts for 24 hours or something similar to discourage people from registering for the sole purpose of spamming threads.
These aren't meant to be fool proof methods by any means, but they could slow down the flood to the point where mods could hand out appropriate punishments for those that post without reading and understanding the forum rules.
The guild mana would be a better way of saying you may spend either W or R for this mana, lands that produce wouldn't really make any sense, as Guild mana doesn't exist only W, U, B, R, G and colorless.
I'd expect to see some lands as we've speculated here, but I feel that Wizards has a great opportunity to finally produce efficient dual lands, and Rav's theme is just begging for these.
Some great specualtion here guys.
It would only make sense if there was a restriction on when you could use the alternative mana, otherwise the multi-colored card could be used in a mono-colored deck.
the reason this would be allowable is because of the background. You don't need to MEMORIZE what the symbols mean, you just need to know that these newfangled little thingers mean you can pay whatever colors the background is made of. Plus, they'd probably put reminder text on all the cards with room to do so.
That leaves anyone who is color-blind at a distinct disadvantage when playing with those cards. Also, alternative mana-symbols would be a huge turn-off to players that only buy new cards occassionally, or after a long hiatus. Say someone decides to buy a booster after a year or two of not playing (cause they hear that WotC released the next Invasion) they take a look at cards with symbols they don't understand then toss the cards in the dumpster because the basics of the game, the thing that has tied EVERY set together (the mana symbols) aren't the same. There is no way to decipher what those symbols do without game text on the card. And if you are going to put that much game text on the card, then what function do the alternative symbols play beyond, 'they look cool.'
I agree with everything that Kultcher said about limited play as an argument against slow rolling the guilds out. Additionally, I don't think that the alternate casting cost that has been proposed encourages play around a color-pair guild. It encourages you to play blue/white together, but does nothing to encourage you to play the guild.
I propose that having a member of a guild in play will provide color fixing for other guild members. So for example, simple reminder text on guild creatures would read (Guild A1: Blue or White Mana may be used to pay for Guild A1 creatures) It would need to be tightened up a little obviously. By having the alternative casting cost come into play while it's in hand (with no regard to board) then powerful late game spells could be "splashed" without the limitation of having made the commitment to the guild. For example a Wrath variant for the Blue/White Guild could be something like
(UW)(UW)(UW)(UW)
Bounce all creature you control, destroy all creatures.
As you guys have proposed, that spell can be played in a mono-white deck. Where if it is something like
UUWW
Bounce creatures you control, destroy all creatures
If you control a permanent of Guild A1 any combination of U and W mana may be used to play this spell
In this scenario they are encouraging the use of other Guild A cards, yet the card is still playable outside of the Guild Mechanic (so playable in T, T1.5 and Extended)
I really like this one. Too bad they wouldnt mess with the templates like that.
You really think having to consult a rule book every time a card like this comes up is going to be 'fun?' I think that the guild symbols may have some bearing on the rules, but I'm willing to make a signifigant wager that it won't be in the form of replacing the standard mana symbols.
I think people got that. I just don't think that makes a great deal of sense -- it's already easy to exprese :symw::symu: as a cost, so creating a new symbol for it isn't really particularly sensible. Costs that can be paid with two types of mana (but only those two types) are a new thing, so creating a new symbol to allow for it makes more sense.
It's a pretty signifigant change to the rules as well. A cards color is represented by it's casting cost. The casting cost also plays into how some cards are played (such as the Patrons). There are certainly rule changes that could be made to accomodate this method of alternate casting costs, I don't see the benefits though and the drawbacks are pretty signifigant.
I think they are changing the errata primarily for the casual crowd. Most people don't play the cards with errata anyway, so for the cards that play signifigantly different, they are just going to put them back the way they were intended to play. Errata will just be used to make the cards clear (in a tournament setting). If something is broken, they will just ban it.
I disagree, the mistake was choosing instant/sorcery as the card type. Those types are cards are inherenty boring, there is only so much that you can do with a 1-time effect and have it still be playable. (i.e. reasonable casting cost)
Think about instants/sorceries that have been released recently, the only ones that have been exciting basically read 'you win the game.' Tooth, Rude Awakening, Sway of the Stars, they are all huge splashy game winning effects.
If the card was a permanent of some type more possibilities would have been available since permanents can slowly win the game over time.
You are assuming that there were better choices, I don't think that is a fair assumption. After seeing dozens of submitted ideas here and other sites I wasn't impressed by the selection, most of the ideas were terrible.
Remember this cad was designed by hte same people that overcosted Forgotten Ancient to keep the toughness up and created a card that enabled infinite LD in an attempt to design an ANSWER to LD.
It would have been overpowered at that casting cost, at least that is what development stated. I am willing to give R&D the benefit of the doubt that they picked the best mechanics available to them, they do develop the game full-time after all. I think what we learned is that:
a) Designing Top-Down is hard
b) Instants and Sorceries are boring without a block mechanic to play with
c) R&D is better at this than we are
Explain to me how Wizards screwed up? The readers created this card, if you would like to assign blame, assign it to the readers of magicthegathering.com.
There really aren't any pump spells that are strictly better than GG. They all cost more, this spell costs less, so it can't give a bigger boost than +3/+3.
Nothing is certain with WotC, they have said a lot of things that are 'general guidelines' that they go back on.
They don't like random discard - the reprint Hypnotic Specter
They don't like having rare lands - the reprint pain lands
They don't think you should have easy access to enemy colors - the reprint enemy painlands
EDIT: If they errata a card (Goldin King) to be a goblin, then all goblin kings every printed are also goblins regardless whether the card says it or not.
Also, Goblin King is NOT playable in extended, unless it is a one-of. Giving your opponent's creatures mountainwalk and +1/+1 is not a good thing.
I should have defined playable a little more closely. They cannot be used as the basis for color consistency in tournament quality constructed decks. They can support a splash color, sure. They can substitute for better lands in a pinch, but no one would try to run a two color deck on the backs of the invasion lands.
OK, we'll try it another way. There have NEVER been playable duals lands at uncommon. So pointing to unplayable dual-lands at uncommon and using that as evidence that painlands will also be uncommon is rather silly.
The explanations on why your analysis is wrong are below, but powerful lands are always rare.
Tendo Ice Bridge
City of Brass
Glimmervoid
Forbidden Orchard
The multi-lands that restrict mana growth in some way are listed at uncommon, they either come into play tapped (Invasion lands). They remain tapped if you use them for colored mana (CHK lands), or you have to tap them first before you get colored mana (Mirrodin's Core)
Those drawbacks have prevented those lands from being tournament playable. I'm guessing that R&D was hoping that if they took the painlands away leaving only marginal lands as the replacement, people would be forced to use the underpowered lands. But that didn't happen, instead multi-colored decks (that aren't base green) just don't exist at the top levels of competition because the mana-bases are so weak.
I'm not sure if the technology would allow it, but requiring a specific word count in posts (at least in the Rumor Mill) would cut back the 'this is so fake' posts that seem to flood new rumors. Another possible technical solution would be to delay activating new accounts for 24 hours or something similar to discourage people from registering for the sole purpose of spamming threads.
These aren't meant to be fool proof methods by any means, but they could slow down the flood to the point where mods could hand out appropriate punishments for those that post without reading and understanding the forum rules.
It would only make sense if there was a restriction on when you could use the alternative mana, otherwise the multi-colored card could be used in a mono-colored deck.
That leaves anyone who is color-blind at a distinct disadvantage when playing with those cards. Also, alternative mana-symbols would be a huge turn-off to players that only buy new cards occassionally, or after a long hiatus. Say someone decides to buy a booster after a year or two of not playing (cause they hear that WotC released the next Invasion) they take a look at cards with symbols they don't understand then toss the cards in the dumpster because the basics of the game, the thing that has tied EVERY set together (the mana symbols) aren't the same. There is no way to decipher what those symbols do without game text on the card. And if you are going to put that much game text on the card, then what function do the alternative symbols play beyond, 'they look cool.'
I agree with everything that Kultcher said about limited play as an argument against slow rolling the guilds out. Additionally, I don't think that the alternate casting cost that has been proposed encourages play around a color-pair guild. It encourages you to play blue/white together, but does nothing to encourage you to play the guild.
I propose that having a member of a guild in play will provide color fixing for other guild members. So for example, simple reminder text on guild creatures would read (Guild A1: Blue or White Mana may be used to pay for Guild A1 creatures) It would need to be tightened up a little obviously. By having the alternative casting cost come into play while it's in hand (with no regard to board) then powerful late game spells could be "splashed" without the limitation of having made the commitment to the guild. For example a Wrath variant for the Blue/White Guild could be something like
(UW)(UW)(UW)(UW)
Bounce all creature you control, destroy all creatures.
As you guys have proposed, that spell can be played in a mono-white deck. Where if it is something like
UUWW
Bounce creatures you control, destroy all creatures
If you control a permanent of Guild A1 any combination of U and W mana may be used to play this spell
In this scenario they are encouraging the use of other Guild A cards, yet the card is still playable outside of the Guild Mechanic (so playable in T, T1.5 and Extended)
You really think having to consult a rule book every time a card like this comes up is going to be 'fun?' I think that the guild symbols may have some bearing on the rules, but I'm willing to make a signifigant wager that it won't be in the form of replacing the standard mana symbols.
It's a pretty signifigant change to the rules as well. A cards color is represented by it's casting cost. The casting cost also plays into how some cards are played (such as the Patrons). There are certainly rule changes that could be made to accomodate this method of alternate casting costs, I don't see the benefits though and the drawbacks are pretty signifigant.