I also like MaRo pointing out (again) that a) they listen to feedback but b) it takes a while to turn feedback into results.
I hope players of the game see this and realize that their feedback is important, as is their patience and trust that they are being heard.
The sad and disheartening thing is that they needed the feedback to begin with. I mean, someone in power actually thought using the same five planeswalkers over and over was a good idea? It wreaks of uncreative, non-playing business people sticking their noses where they don't belong.
Never made logical sense to me that Counterbalance could count Wear//Tear as a 1 or a 2 when revealed from the library, but if Dark Confidant hit it, it was always a 3. Fixing this rule makes these interactions more intuitive going forward while simultaneously eliminating an undesired interaction or two. Win all around.
It's a pitty that it never made logical sense to you, because it was indeed quite logical. Split cards are two cards with two converted manacosts. When another card looks at the splitcard and asks: "What's your converted mana cost?" It will get one answer from each card on the split-card. So in case of Wear//Tear, Wear looks at the symbols in its upper right corner and says: "Two." and at the same time, Tear looks at its symbols in the corner and answers: "One."
So when Counterbalance asks: "What's your manacost?" The answer will be "Two." and "One." - so it counters every spell with converted manacost of two and every spell with cmc of one.
When Dark Confidant asks: "What's your manacost?" The answer will be the same: "Two." and "One." - so you lose two life and you lose one life for a total of three life.
Except "1 and 2" is not the same as "1 or 2" which is how Counterbalance used to interpret it.
Is your converted mana cost 3? Yes!
Is your converted mana cost less than 3? Yes!
Is your converted mana cost 1? Yes!
Just one more reason why having an "announcement day" is a bad idea. There's one thing you want to wait on? Well, now everything else has to be delayed too.
I don't think it's a coincidence that standard started going downhill the moment they decided that one-drop mana creatures made the format "too fast". Hopefully things have gotten bad enough that they are forced to realize their mistakes and they can start to undo all the "environment-crafting" they've done.
To be clear... you think this standard would be better if it was T2 Saheeli into T3 Felidar, rather than T3 and T4?
No I don't mean that it's the lack Elvish Mystics that are the problem, it's the philosophy behind getting rid of them. They had a specific "idea" in mind of how they wanted standard to play and started removing basic utility like cheap removal, burn, and mana creatures. The result is a clunky format.
I don't think it's a coincidence that standard started going downhill the moment they decided that one-drop mana creatures made the format "too fast". Hopefully things have gotten bad enough that they are forced to realize their mistakes and they can start to undo all the "environment-crafting" they've done.
If CFB wants to host every event it can only mean it's profitable to do so. Which isn't surprising considering entry fees have doubled in a few short years.
Back on topic though; mythic rares are what is destroying Standard, ever so slowly. If you look at a common and a mythic rare, the fundamental power level difference in the 2 cards is determined by a tiny rarity symbol. Mythic rare is giving WOTC this area to create cards that cause imbalance card vs card. They feel they can push a cards power level if they make it a Mythic Rare...thinking it wont cause problems...thats the reason the "legendary rule" exists for cards. Imagine being able to have 4 eye of ugin? There is no restriction on Mythic Rares so all Wizards is doing is taking a Hill Giant creature, and turning it into Verdurous Gearhulk just because its "rarer." Well, that doesnt stop a person from playing 4 of them in their deck.
I agree with this. A small fraction of cards are simply way more powerful for their cost than other cards. This severely restricts deckbuilding and results in far too many "goodstuff" decks.
Players like themes, synergies, and linear strategies. Maybe not all the time, but they should be an option at least.
-instead of three WMCQs there is one "Nationals" (Which, for Canada, will probably be held in Toronto every year)
-no more GPTs
They've taken tournaments away and added nothing. What garbage.
They are adding PTQs to all GPs
My mistake, you are right. But those PTQs are only accessible to people who are already going to GPs. So it's a case of the rich getting richer. The only large, official WOTC tournament within 1000KM of where I live was the WMCQ which we now lost (I can guarantee "nationals" isn't going to be anywhere near here).
I imagine people that live in areas that are well-supported by WOTC have no idea how crappy things have gotten in these past few years for the rest of us. Three years ago we had three local PTQs a year (150-250 players) plus the WMCQ. Now we get nothing from WOTC. Even PPTQs suck because the nearest RPTQ is always over 1000KM away. And quite frankly, compared to most of the world we don't even have it that bad.
Cesar (first pro tour) had Weldfast Engineer , another artifact creature and some flying vehicle on the field, says "combat ?" opponent says ok, he tries to crew the vehicle to get the trigger on the flyer, opponent calls judge since he's in declare attackers so can't crew and missed Weldfast's trigger.
Judge ruled that "combat" is shortcut for "declare attackers" and not "go to pre combat phase", twitch and twitter lost their mind because Cesar can't speak english and blamed language barrier
In this case though, when he says "combat," imo he is passing priority in his mainphase to go into pre-combat phase, when he enters the pre-combat phase, the first thing that happens is weldfast engineer's trigger goes on the stack, so he wouldn't be able to target his vehicle if it wasn't already crewed.
That's not how the shortcut works.
Saying "combat" means "go to combat phase", stopping in Pre-combat main phase is rarely relevant and therefore is always skipped unless one of the player clearly says they keep priority on this phase.
Cesar's intention was 100% clear, the play he wanted to make is 100% logic, he failed in communication, and the trigger is considered missed since he gave priority without clearly explaining his thoughts. It's not on his opponent to assume he's making the optimal play.
He should have crewed in main phase because Welfast's trigger goes on the stack before he gets priority and would have to target the other artifact creature.
The fact that both phases have the word "combat" in them is pretty confusing, but anyone who faced the Cryptic command vs manland interaction knows how it works...
That may be "the way it is" but it's absolute BS. There is a phase called "Combat". There is a step called "Beginning of Combat". It makes absolutely no sense for "go to combat" to mean ANYTHING but entering the combat phase. Especially when the guy has a freaking Beginning of Combat trigger! Whoever "decided" what that shortcut means is not good at their job, plain and simple.
The sad and disheartening thing is that they needed the feedback to begin with. I mean, someone in power actually thought using the same five planeswalkers over and over was a good idea? It wreaks of uncreative, non-playing business people sticking their noses where they don't belong.
Except "1 and 2" is not the same as "1 or 2" which is how Counterbalance used to interpret it.
Is your converted mana cost 3? Yes!
Is your converted mana cost less than 3? Yes!
Is your converted mana cost 1? Yes!
That is not "quite logical".
No I don't mean that it's the lack Elvish Mystics that are the problem, it's the philosophy behind getting rid of them. They had a specific "idea" in mind of how they wanted standard to play and started removing basic utility like cheap removal, burn, and mana creatures. The result is a clunky format.
It's a real shame what's happening to the game.
I agree with this. A small fraction of cards are simply way more powerful for their cost than other cards. This severely restricts deckbuilding and results in far too many "goodstuff" decks.
Players like themes, synergies, and linear strategies. Maybe not all the time, but they should be an option at least.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=13333
My mistake, you are right. But those PTQs are only accessible to people who are already going to GPs. So it's a case of the rich getting richer. The only large, official WOTC tournament within 1000KM of where I live was the WMCQ which we now lost (I can guarantee "nationals" isn't going to be anywhere near here).
I imagine people that live in areas that are well-supported by WOTC have no idea how crappy things have gotten in these past few years for the rest of us. Three years ago we had three local PTQs a year (150-250 players) plus the WMCQ. Now we get nothing from WOTC. Even PPTQs suck because the nearest RPTQ is always over 1000KM away. And quite frankly, compared to most of the world we don't even have it that bad.
-instead of three WMCQs there is one "Nationals" (Which, for Canada, will probably be held in Toronto every year)
-no more GPTs
They've taken tournaments away and added nothing. What garbage.
That may be "the way it is" but it's absolute BS. There is a phase called "Combat". There is a step called "Beginning of Combat". It makes absolutely no sense for "go to combat" to mean ANYTHING but entering the combat phase. Especially when the guy has a freaking Beginning of Combat trigger! Whoever "decided" what that shortcut means is not good at their job, plain and simple.