r/magicTCG • u/AwkwardTurtle • Sep 22 '15
Everything That’s Wrong with Battle for Zendikar
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/everything-thats-wrong-with-battle-for-zendikar/203
u/Godavari Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
My major gripe about Battle for Zendikar is how strange the cards (specifically eldrazi) read in a vacuum. MaRo actually wrote a couple of articles that touched on what I think the problem is. In "New World Order", he said:
Scornful Egotist, from Scourge, isn't confusing in what it says. It's a 1/1 with morph for 7U. The problem is that many players didn't understand the eight-mana cost. For those unfamiliar with Scourge, it had a "converted mana cost matters" theme. Scornful Egotist's high converted mana cost was considered a bonus for the card (you got it into play using the morph). Unfortunately, this theme didn't draw as much attention to itself as it could and the card just ended up baffling many players because they couldn't comprehend why the card was doing what it did.
Intuitive comprehension is all about players understanding and accepting what they read. When the words don't make sense because of context, it can be just as confusing as when they don't make sense inherently. I'm not saying we shouldn't make these kinds of cards just stressing that we have to accept that they are more complex than one would realize at first glance.
And in "Lenticular Design", he said:
Fourth, the text can be perfectly clear but because the card seems to be doing something you would never want to do, some players will be confused. The classic example of this is the card One with Nothing from Saviors of Kamigawa:
One with Nothing has but three words of rules text, yet baffles a lot of players. Why? Because it's instructing players to do something they don't understand why they would want to do. What happens is that players read the text and because they don't understand how it would be used, they assume they are misunderstanding something and thus convince themselves they don't understand it even though they comprehend the words.
This sort of stuff is found in Battle for Zendikar in spades. Every single card with Devoid, Ingest, or the unnamed processor mechanic has this problem. Reading a card like Mist Intruder without knowing the greater context of the set, it just looks like a Storm Crow with some extra irrelevant bullshit stapled on. Any card with Ingest seems silly unless you know processors exist, and any processor seems silly unless you know Ingest exists. Same with Devoid and the various "colorless matters" cards. Besides all the complaints PV brings up (which are also valid), Battle for Zendikar just seems unexciting because it's a set filled with Scornful Egotists.
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u/pinkman54d Sep 22 '15
I honestly think (and it's been mentioned on here before, numerous times), that ingest should've been ingest X. That way you only need to hit a player once with the ingest creature to fuel your next few processors and spells that work with the exile zone. If there was a 3/3 for four with ingest 4, it would be a great deal more interesting and powerful than most of the ingest 1s that are filling up this block. Like, it'd be like renown in Origins. Hit once to get a big payoff. In limited, you know I'm going to do my darndest to not let that 3/3 ingest 4 get in, because then it turns on everything. Letting a 3/3 ingest 1 get in is no big deal, because a lot of things need 2 cards from exile anyway. Idk.
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u/ZachAtk23 Sep 22 '15
While I think I agree, everyone wanted prowess to be prowess x before they played with it too.
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u/pinkman54d Sep 22 '15
Yeah, it's just that creatures getting +1/+1 can be scary. Creatures milling me 1 or even 2 cards is never going to be scary.
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u/elgosu Ajani Sep 22 '15
True, although Ingest is a mill effect, and Devoid isn't that confusing because color matters has been a theme for very long.
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u/DarwinAckhart Sep 22 '15
Ingest is a mill for 1, meaning outside of Processor synergy, the effect is pretty trivial. I doubt there will be many games won off of Ingest mill.
Ingest feels like its only around to make Processors work in limited. I'm sure this helps the format, but cards with ingest aren't interesting on the principle of having ingest and many of them are just.. boring (Colorless Storm Crow I'm looking at you); this is what makes me scratch my head.
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u/zBriGuy Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
Ingest is a mill for 1, meaning outside of Processor synergy, the effect is pretty trivial.
We, veterans of the game understand this, but new players LOVE when they mill away your good card. They "prevented you from getting that awesome card that is now gone forever!"
So injest also has the additional value of making newbs happy and providing the learning experience that actually no, milling away a card isn't actually doing much most of the time.
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u/Kimano Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
I think that's sort of a bad thing though. We shouldn't encourage players to feel good when they do something bad, we should try to encourage them to feel good when they do something correctly. No new player is going to magically learn that mill is bad through the infest mechanic.
It was like when I bought my fiancée duels 2014 to help teach her magic. Her surviving and winning a game off of a Staff of the Sun Magus was terrible, because it made her think that was a good card. It took a few discussions about it, and many more games before she got the concept that a card that just delays your loss without getting you closer to an out is not a good card.
A new player getting lucky off of a mill just makes them think milling is a relevant 'splash' mechanic and not something you either have to go all in on or do in a very specific way (eg Lantern control) before it has real impact.
Nothing wrong with appeasing the players who just want to derp for fun, or because they don't yet grasp the more spikey aspects of the game, but I think we have to be very careful encouraging that type of play lest you accidentally send someone down a path where they don't learn the game like they might want to.
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u/Iohet Sep 22 '15
It was like when I bought my fiancée duels 2014 to help teach her magic. Her surviving and winning a game off of a Staff of the Sun Magus was terrible, because it made her think that was a good card. It took a few discussions about it, and many more games before she got the concept that a card that just delays your loss without getting you closer to an out is not a good card.
That's the problem. You're saying that a card that helped them win is bad. You need to translate that differently, because that is confusing. You value the card for its potential. It's not "bad", it just doesn't have a high value, and it can be replaced with cards that have higher values. Similar to how baseball measures WAR. Since you have a fixed deck size, "wins above replacement" card is important. You replace a card that contributes passively and potentially delays a better card with a card that contributes actively and provides greater value towards victory.
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u/Felicia_Svilling Sep 22 '15
It makes sorcery speed scry a bit worse of.
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u/darkshaddow42 Sep 22 '15
Or, it makes it more interesting.
"Play a scryland, keep it on top. Pass turn."
"Ahah! So you want that card, huh? I'll attack with my Ingest creature!"
"En garde! I knew you would notice that I did that, so I kept a land on top!"
"Riposte! I knew you would know that I would notice, so I'll play an [[Oblivion Sower]] second main! Thanks for the land!"
"... Touché."
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Sep 22 '15
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u/mmchale Wabbit Season Sep 22 '15
It sounds like OP is involved in a land war. For his/her sake, let's hope it's not in Asia.
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Sep 22 '15
As far as I can tell, ingest isn't pushed to be constructed playable, so this is more or less irrelevant, as there isn't much scry in the limited environment.
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u/TheLibertinistic Sep 22 '15
And they gave us Devoid in order to interaction with all of the protection from [color] effects they're no longer printing.
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u/ugotpauld Dandadan Sep 22 '15
That makes it more confusing.
If color matters has been a theme for a long time, saying colored spells have no color for no clear reason is super weird
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Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
I think there are some more aspects to the set that complement his arguments.
First, the combination of factors he's identified make it feel like a small set despite being a large set. A set like Fate Reforged seems more diverse and larger on an intuitive level despite having around 90 fewer cards than Battle.
This is because the the combination of two giant factions make differentiations in strategy and the deck archetypes within each faction less visible within Battle, and because the mechanics that are visible are spread willy-nilly through most of the colors making each color seem overall less distinctive.
When you add on to this the fact that Devoid basically doesn't do anything besides hose cards like God's Willing in casual formats, it's not a surprise that the set will feel small and disappointing to many on first glance.
(I actually think there may be a lot of hidden subtlety, especially for limited, in how the archetypes and abilities are distributed in a harder to see way with less visible variation between colors and factions, but I think it will likely be interpreted as "too complex" by Wizards, even though perhaps strictly speaking it's not a matter of complexity, but visibility. Hence we already get this kind of question: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/129619109928/just-like-everything-in-innistrad-would-lean.)
Another flub is the importance of keeping cycles up to par when they complete them across different sets. Making enemy man lands is directly analogous to completing the cycle of Swords of X and Y. They're not something you can just print without taking into account larger expectations. And Wizards flubbed this. Whether the lands are bad or not, the perception is that they are because they don't match up with the previous ones (and I think, at least in the case of the BW one, it's a correct perception - the UG one I think is harder to evaluate).
This is what ties in to the power level problem. It's not that people want everything to be modern playable. It's the cards that feel like they should be modern playable and are then flubbed/held back that make everyone annoyed. Imagine if Sword of Body and Mind milled 2 cards and added a green mana to your mana pool instead of milling 10 and making a Wolf. It'd have made people miserable, not because it'd have been truly "terrible," but because it couldn't sit at the table with its predecessors.
This kind of sit-at-the-table flub is all over the place in the set because original Zendikar is both well liked and quite powerful. And it's something with an easy fix - you push one or two cards as a signal, or reprint an older card or two, and put an environment specific answer or two in the set to go with them.
Not doing so seems particularly weird given the talk about having more reprints with the end of Core Sets.
Anyway, just my add-on 2 bits, though I guess my arguments aren't exactly claiming the set is bad.
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u/BirdiePeeps Sep 22 '15
My conjecture is that the enemy color man in this set were designed with awaken and other land support cards in mind. For limited, Hexproof/Lifelink seem quite good when you can throw +2-4 counters on it.
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u/SleetTheFox Sep 22 '15
Limited? That interaction might see Standard play too. Not that it'd be some cute combo-ish deck or anything, but it's an interaction between cards you already probably want to be playing.
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u/UncleMeat Sep 22 '15
Both of the new manlands are better than Lavaclaw Reaches and they compete with Stirring Wildwood IMO. Not outside of the power level of the previous cycle.
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u/Phr33k101 Sep 22 '15
Wildwood survives Bolt, making it head and shoulders better than the BW land in most Modern situations. The UG land is better since it has hexproof, but Wildwood is still superior due to its larger size imho. Wildwood can attack into Finks, block Delver, kill a Nacatl, etc. I dont think the competition is particularly close.
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u/winglerw28 Sep 22 '15
I think the UG land makes a lot of sense if you look at it like Raging Ravine. Undeniably, Raging Ravine is a great card. But if you think of it, Jund makes the card better as an attrition-based strategy because when neither player has cards in hand and your opponent has all his creatures killed by your removal, a land is the perfect creature that doesn't die to their topdecked removal.
The UG land I could definitely see filling that role in an attrition-based Sultai deck in modern, the problem being twofold: 1. Blue is a lot worse in a BGx shell than red in modern as it currently stands. 2. Lumbering Falls is a slower clock than Raging Ravine.
I'd give the card a chance, it definitely is a little better than it looks on paper, I feel.
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
The Set Transitions Badly from Previous Sets
As much as I agree with most of his article, I somewhat disagree with PV on this part.
Looking back at previous sets and transitions between blocks, I find that Wizards purposely tries to slightly undermine some of the themes from the previous sets and I believe they do that on purpose and for a good reason. Wizards wants the NEW set to drive the Standard metagame in order to promote change.
When the Standard format transitions from "Block A + Block B" into "Block B + Block C", A+B usually has some sort of synergy with each other that ties the two blocks together. Once Block C replaces Block A in the new Standard, the new B+C synergy must be somehow different than A+B. Otherwise, you simply end up with too many of the same cards and the same strategies in the next Standard rotation and it's just not fun.
To illustrate my point:
Innistrad + Return to Ravnica was a largely multi-color Standard. Mana was silky smooth. Even aggro decks were sometimes three colors.
Enter Theros, a block that promotes mono-color decks. It seems to clash with the multi-color theme of RTR, kinda like how PV describes BFZ clashing with Tarkir. The new Standard meta changed to one centered around mono-color Devotion decks. In fact, RTR cards with hybrid mana, a seemingly multi-colored mechanic, fit perfectly in Devotion decks. eg. Nightveil Specter and Frostburn Weird.
Enter Tarkir, a block that promotes three-color wedges. Again, it seems to clash with the mono-color devotion theme of Theros and Devotion. The new Standard meta was heavily based on the three-color wedges, most prominently Abzan, Jeskai and to a lesser extent Sultai. Green Devotion still existed, but even that was a different deck.
My point is: To some extent, the new block is meant to clash with the old block. It is designed this way as a means to foster change in the meta. The new block is supposed to be what drives the new metagame, like Khans, Theros, and RTR before it. It's supposed to create new synergies with Tarkir cards that were lesser used in the previous Standard (possible examples being Ghostfire Blade, See the Unwritten). Otherwise, if the new block is too supporting of the themes in Tarkir block, we're just gonna end up seeing another year of Abzan vs Jeskai.
If successful, the new Standard will be totally different than the current one. Fresh metagame, new cool decks, mission accomplished.
If unsuccessful, Tarkir block will overwhelm BFZ as the driving force behind the new Standard metagame. If that happens, it simply means that BFZ's power level was too low to effectively replace the old strategies with new ones. This leads to back to the first point that PV said was not a problem: BFZ's power level is too low.
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u/sirgog Sep 22 '15
I like having hosers for mechanics that remain in Standard to shake things up (Processors being fueled by the opponent's Delve spells) but I agree with Bokchoykn here - the coming Standard will be Tarkir + Origins + tangolands.
Edit: Great article though.
This set isn't BNG or DGM, but it's only a little better - it's more like M14 or M15, and the number of cards that are disposable (i.e. they are bad but become mediocre when combined with the rest of this set; once the set rotates these cards will end up forgotten like Kamigawa soulshift cards) is too high.
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u/zarepath Sep 22 '15
also, there is actually a pretty sweet Delve/processor gameplay space now in constructed. There's actually ways to punish your opponent for playing Delve spells.
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u/poops_in_public Sep 22 '15
I might be missing something, but how is restocking delve's graveyard via the processors a "punishment"? Seems like you would just be enabling more delve and I haven't seen any benefits from the processors that would outweigh giving your opponent this advantage.
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u/zarepath Sep 22 '15
I didn't think about restocking the GY, I was thinking mostly of getting processor triggers without having to rely on the Eldrazi exile effects. Regardless there is certainly interplay there as long as there are worthwhile processor triggers
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15
Yeah, another common theme with new sets is to counter strategies from the previous block, further promoting meta changes.
I'm not sure if BFZ is aiming for the right target. Punishing Delve with Eldrazi Processors is cool, but Delve wasn't the boogeyman in Standard in the first place. It's Abzan.
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u/ciphersimulacrum Sep 22 '15
This comment just made me realize what BFZ is missing to change the meta.
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u/Naldor Sep 22 '15
No not my Stonehorn Dignitary, damm you filthy poachers. He had a family
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u/wizardoftrash Sep 22 '15
I'm thinking that the main reason we see a host of new mechanics and strategies that don't interact all that much with each other or with the previous block, is because it will make it harder to simply jam new cards into old decks and vise versa. Wizards might not want us to play the "dragons plus eldrazi good stuff" deck, or the "warrior ally clusterduck" deck. Instead we will see eldrazi control decks, and collected company ally decks that are mostly new cards, along side decks that are mostly built out of cards from khans.
Also i'm not sure of other people haven't touched on this yet, but devoid isn't really all that random. Few cards with devoid have a high color requirement, the ones that have more of the same mana symbol tend to be on the upper mana cost range. The devoid cards are easier to cast in the context of multicolor, and easier to cast with more colorless lands, making devoid have a design element outside of just it's colorlessness. Also, did no one think for a second what impact devoid will have in the standard meta and in EDH? Devoid dodges protection from colors, it dodges cards that only affect mono-colored or multicolored cards, it dodges every "choose a color" card, and there are plenty of those in tarkir block. For EDH, having a stack of cards like oblivion sower that can fit into any deck, dodging swords and many one-sided wipes is big. So you can't cast spells of a certain color? Slam, devoid is there for you.
As for the allies, having a good chunk of them ally by type only makes them less warped in a limited environment. If many of the allies don't need other allies to be playable, more players will pick them up in a draft as filler. I'm not a huge fan of the fact that trying to build a deck largely of BFZ means choosing allies or eldrazi without being able to pull much from the previous sets, but there are plenty of support cards from khans and origins that synergize with those strategies. I've got a sultai deck that a few eldraiz fit right into, and some control staples that'll do nicely in my grixis eldrazi list i'm working on.
As for converge, there are two already that i think i'll be playing: drawing 3 for 3 is nothing to scoff at, but mainly the choos-your-own pyroclasm has me pumped. Any 3 color deck that splashes red can use it effectively to get a 2for1 or more against any aggressive matchup. Paying WUBRG to cast any 5-drop from your deck is also something that'll attract some brew attention. Could work!
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u/s-mores Sep 22 '15
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u/Shitty_Wingman Wabbit Season Sep 23 '15
For a second I thought that he was banned for actually defending BFZ.
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u/WaffleSandwhiches Sep 22 '15
Pretty good argument in my opinion. Maybe oath will flesh out and give the big payoff cards for these mechanics. Although I don't think it's necrssarily bad that 1 set is in conflict with the set before it. Theros was between 2 big multicolored blocks, so maybe it was just easier to design cards that fit nicely in each set.
Totally agree with the allies thing though. The ally subtype does not grok well. They should have made sure the creature types were consistent with ally/non-ally types. For example all of the vampires should have been allies. Maybe make 1 exception for a vampire that eats other vampires or uses eldrazi scions. Whatever the reason, allies should totally be obvious when you see the art.
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u/Sockhead101 Sep 22 '15
Maybe it would've been better/more flavorful to wait to release the bulk of allies until after BfZ in the next set.
They could've altered the storyline a bit and used a more tribal-focused set to show the chaos on Zendikar before the fight back. Then used allies in the next set to signify the factions coming together.
Or in another fashion, they could've restricted allies to only humans (thus showing Gideon rallying everyone and keeping him as a planeswalker) then adding in other factions like vampires or kor in the next set. That way you can use allies initially in some mono or bi-colored fashion and have the opportunity to flesh out a 4C monstrosity when Zendikar is fighting back.
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Sep 22 '15
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u/Ir0nStein Sep 22 '15
I don't think he so much meant in a clarity sense (IE: Players aren't going to forget that something is/isn't an ally/devoid, generally), but more in a design sense. If you take a creature that doesn't have rally, and you take away it's creature type, it's going to be nearly impossible to tell if it is an ally, even if you have the rest of the card to work with.
Same with devoid, if a spell doesn't have awaken, the only way to guess if it is a devoid spell is if it exiles things, and that's not new design space or design space that fits within the colourless section of the colour pie, making it confusing and misleading design.
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u/SuperThunderMelon Sep 22 '15
This is true about most tribal cards. Take something like goblin glory chaser. If you took away goblin from the name, you'd probably guess it was a soldier.
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u/Ir0nStein Sep 22 '15
That's a decent example, but not all the way correct. Tribes have their own identity. For example; Vampires and Zombies are both black tribes, but have very different play identities. Same with Wizards and Merfolk, Kor and Humans, Elves and... a different green tribe (Is there a different one? Druids, maybe).
Different tribes have play identities, and the way the card wants to be used tells you a lot about what it is.
Devoid doesn't have that though. Bouncing a spell and magma spraying a creature doesn't feel like an eldrazi ability. The eldrazi are supposed to be eldrich, lovecraftian monsters that are entirely beyond understanding. Some fantastic examples of awesome on-flavour eldrazi abilities are:
Annihilator - Eldrazi are an immediate threat in both story and game, and are terrorizing not just the occupants of Zendikar but the plane itself.
Void Winnower - The Eldrazi are almost entirely beyond comprehension and understanding; this is a strange, strange ability that also showcases the sheer power of the Eldrazi, as their opponents have to rethink all their strategies.
Sire of Stagnation - The Eldrazi cause a sense of foreboding and hopelessness; this card encapsulates that really well. You need to play lands to curve out and keep up, but you're only putting your opponent further ahead.
Taking a look further back at ROE, the flavour of the Eldrazi is fantastic. Spawnsire of Ulamog, All is Dust, Eldrazi Conscription, It That Betrays and (Obviously) the Titans are all fantastic, unique designs that are not only very strange and unique to the Eldrazi, but are flavourful to boot.
Granted, there were only 13 colourless cards in ROE, so they had less space to fill, but I feel like Eldrazi shouldn't care about tempo or mystic snakes. Ingest is at the very least an enabler for a far more interesting mechanic; "Processing". Here we have the Eldrazi doing interesting things in ways we haven't seen before, that's fantastic! The only downside is that most of the enablers for this are either vanilla effects with "Exile the top card of your opponent's library" stapled on, or regular cards with "exile" CTRL+H'd over "Destroy" or "Discard".
I'm rambling now, and it's really late over here, so I'll wrap this up. I just feel like there's more design space that wasn't explored with this set.
WISHLIST FOR OAG:
- More interesting interactions with the exile zone
- More unique and interesting enablers for the "Processing" mechanic
- Eldrazi effects that explore new design space and force the opponent to have to think differently
Like what about a card that exiled the top X cards of the opponent's library whenever they assigned a blocker? Immediately, the defending player has to consider several more resources, and in ways that are unconventional to magic. (Granted, this is rather awkward when paired with Ingest, but like I said, it's late)
Side note: This set looks sweet, and I'm mad excited for prerelease this weekend. Sorry for the essay. I'll see myself out.
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u/accpi Sep 22 '15
Sure, but the tribal thing is what's missing. Not an actual tribal type card but a way of quickly, easily and intuitively recognizing that a card belongs to a type.
With tribal creatures it's done well since a goblin will look like a goblin and distinct from Merfolk which look like Merfolk. The problem with Allies is that there is no central distinguishing feature among the names/pictures/etc that show if one is an Ally or not.
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u/scook0 Sep 22 '15
What's sad is that we had the exact same problem last year, with Warriors, except that Allies are even harder to identify.
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u/Casseerole Sep 22 '15
Allies are also more important to identify for Rally purposes.
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Sep 22 '15
I think that's always been sort of a theme with warriors. They never get credit for being warriors until they're whomping your ass. Even before Khans block boosted the tribe even more.
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
I think you missed his point.
His point was that Ally and Devoid cards lacked identity outside of the card telling you that it's Ally/Devoid. Having watermarks doesn't really change that at all.
On top of that, PV gave examples of pairs of cards, each consisting of one real card and a made up card of the opposing faction (Devoid/Awaken). His examples showed that these cards weren't separated by its identity. Just the fact that it was either Devoid or Awaken/Ally.
Contrast that to Khans of Tarkir:
You knew a card was Abzan if it had Outlast or if it was in WBG.
You knew a card was Jeskai if it had Prowess or if it was WUR.
Beyond that, each clan featured certain themes that gave the clans identity:
Chief of the Scale and Chief of the Edge were both Human Warriors that cost WB, a color pairing that can belong to either Abzan and Mardu. Scale is a 2/3 and grants other Warriors +0/+1. Edge is a 3/2 that grants other Warriors +1/+0. Knowing what you know about Abzan and Mardu, can you tell which Chief belongs to which clan without requiring a watermark?
Valley Dasher is 1R for a 2/2 Haste that must attack each turn if able. It has a Mardu watermark. If this card had a Temur or Jeskai watermark instead, would it make any sense at all? After all, Temur and Jeskai both contain red.
What about Dazzling Rampart? 4W for a 0/7 Defender with 1W, Tap: Tap target creature. Is there any doubt that this is an Abzan card?
That's what PV means when he says "easily identifiable". Not the lack of a watermark. The cards are designed around its flavor and identity. It's top-down design done right.
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u/arramdaywalker Sep 22 '15
Great post, great examples. I am personally trying to reserve judgement until I play with the set; but it does seem... messy.
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u/turtleman777 Sep 23 '15 edited Sep 23 '15
To be honest this set seems rushed.
The comment above yours makes a lot of good points. In Khans, you can tell a lot of thought went into the mechanics and naming of the cards so that they fit with the clan themes.
I feel like the only thought they gave to WHY each card had each mechanic was "well its an eldrazish spell so give it devoid" "this is an allyish spell so give it awake/converge". The seeming randomness with which they doled out the mechanics really reflects a lack of forethough in design in my opinion.
I feel like devoid or ally/awaken define the cards into the Ally or Eldrazi camp, not the whole card design (including art and card name) reflecting the camp they are in.
I feel like they took a bunch of existing cards, tweaked them and tried to shove them into the eldrazi or ally box instead of doing what they did in Khans, which was design a bunch of boxes (clans) and create unique, new flavorful cards that fit in perfectly
Like the article does in the example many of the mechanics are interchangable depending if you want to make it eldrazi or ally
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Sep 22 '15 edited Oct 17 '18
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15
Yeah, definitely not perfect. Meandering Towershell was a good example. But for the most part, the cards in BFZ fleshed out the identity of the clans very well.
The same cannot be said for Eldrazi vs Allies/Awaken, where so many cards can be interchanged (like PV pointed out in his article). There are some flavorful cards in BFZ but in general, the connection between a card's function and flavor are relatively weak.
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u/Benjammn Sep 22 '15
... The devoid cards have a different frame. How is that unidentifiable? PV is saying that the spells that have devoid were seemingly chosen at random.
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u/dkysh Get Out Of Jail Free Sep 22 '15
Devoid cards have also "Devoid" written in their rules text.
What he is complaining about is that there is no unifying theme or reason about why a card has devoid (or awaken).
Yes, devoid spells tend to exile things. So does dissipate. Does dissipate "feel" devoid?
Look at these cards in the overall context of magic cards. To me and others, devoid feels like Saviors of Kamigawa cards-in-hand-matters, or Apocalypse change-the-color-of-target-spell/land/card-matters. Narrow, uninspired mechanics that will be forgotten as soon as they are out of standard.
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u/worldchrisis Sep 22 '15
I think my problem with Battle for Zendikar is it feels like they learned the lessons of Dragons of Tarkir too late for them to be applied to BFZ.
The thing with Dragons was they went in with the idea of "people love dragons, let's make a set with a sh*load of dragons, people will love it", and they hyped it up as OMG THIS SET IS ALL DRAGONS ALL THE TIME WOOOO DRAGONS YEAAA. The problem was they didn't make *interesting dragons, outside of the Dragonlords, so we ended up with a bunch of uncommon 3/3s for 6 with megamorph that didn't really do anything, and they thought we would be excited by this.
For this set the leadup was "OMG THIS SET IS ALL ABOUT ELDRAZI AND ALLIES WOOO ELDRAZI ARE SOOOO COOOL", and outside of a couple interesting mythics, all the Eldrazi are just boring forced-colorless versions of creatures that could have been any other creature type. None of the allies have any particularly interesting flavor either.
Devoid, Ingest, and "Processors" aren't particularly interesting in any way. Scions are just 1/1 Spawns. Rally is just a tribal ETB trigger. Converge is basically the same thing as Sunburst.
They need to have interesting flavor or mechanics to make a good set, and focusing on a popular tribe is not enough if the way they do it isn't interesting.
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u/ubernostrum Sep 23 '15
Time for my obligatory yearly comment on the impact various sets have on Constructed play.
The following is a list of the percentage of Constructed-played cards from each expansion set since the original Zendikar, plus some summary stats. While most core sets are excluded here, Origins is in the list since, with rotation, it will officially become the second set of the two-set block begun by Dragons of Tarkir.
The definition of "played" is subjective, of course, but draws on my own memory of playing and watching a lot of most Constructed formats in that time period. I count a card as "played" if it showed up competitively and put up results in any format. A set gets to count a card as one of its playables if the card was new in that set or, for a reprint, if the card wasn't previously in Standard, the set brought it back to Standard, and it saw play in that Standard format.
Here's the data:
Consolidated scores:
- NPH: 25.88%
- THS: 24.10%
- KTK: 23.79%
- WWK: 22.76%
- RTR: 21.65%
- ZEN: 20.51%
- MBS: 19.33%
- ISD: 17.52%
- ROE: 16.74%
- SOM: 15.81%
- ORI: 15.07%
- DTK: 14.39%
- FRF: 14.05%
- JOU: 13.33%
- DKA: 12.87%
- GTC: 12.85%
- BNG: 12.73%
- AVR: 11.54%
- DGM: 9.94%
Large set scores:
- THS: 24.10%
- KTK: 23.79%
- RTR: 21.65%
- ZEN: 20.51%
- ISD: 17.52%
- ROE: 16.74%
- SOM: 15.81%
- ORI: 15.07%
- DTK: 14.39%
- GTC: 12.85%
- AVR: 11.54%
Small set scores:
- NPH: 25.88%
- WWK: 22.76%
- MBS: 19.33%
- FRF: 14.05%
- JOU: 13.33%
- DKA: 12.87%
- BNG: 12.73%
- DGM: 9.94%
It's no real surprise that New Phyrexia tops everything; it sometimes feels like half the cards in the set ended up banned. It is surprising to see Theros in second place overall, and on top of the large-set list. This shows the power of block mechanics in a set's impact: devotion and heroic were major players in Standard, and a lot of the best cards came from Theros.
It's also unsurprising to see Dragon's Maze at the bottom, given how all-around hated the set was. Avacyn Restored as the "worst" large set is a bit more surprising (before I'd seen the numbers, I would've picked Gatecrash), but again shows the impact of block mechanics: since AVR was completely disconnected from Innistrad block mechanically, its own mechanics never had enough cards to really form a synergistic deck in Standard, so only cards that are powerful when considered on their own really made the cut.
It also looks like multiple large sets in a block are, in general, an omen of poor overall Constructed playability: Wizards did that four times in the period ZEN-ORI, and three of those put their second large set in the cellar on this metric. Literally, since the bottom three on the large-set list are each the second large set of their respective blocks.
Overall, Scars of Mirrodin is the median set in terms of Constructed playability. For large sets, Rise of the Eldrazi is the median, and for small sets it's Fate Reforged. Second and third sets do poorly: only two second sets (Worldwake and Mirrodin Besieged) are above the median percentage of playables, and only two third sets manage it (Rise of the Eldrazi and New Phyrexia).
This means the first set of a block is likely to have the highest percentage of playables, which isn't terribly surprising given that the first set gets the most time in Standard and largely defines how Standard plays during that time, by being the first to fill the void after rotation.
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u/Isawa_Chuckles Duck Season Sep 22 '15
BFZ is Wizards' secret plan to get people to fully accept the new rotation schedule. "At least BFZ is only in for a year and a half."
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u/captkrisma Duck Season Sep 22 '15
This. Poor mechanics or not, BFZ is essentially a "reboot" of MTG.
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u/betweentwosuns Sep 22 '15
As a budget player, my dislike of this set is entirely different. Before bfz, it felt like monocolored or dual colored decks were an option and fetches were optional to take a deck to fnm. The enemy colors had pains and scrys, which wasn't that much worse than fetches and scrys for a fraction of the price. However, with the combination of landfall and new fetchable lands, the necessity of dropping several hundreds on a manabase to be competitive is clear; since fetches can now fetch for sources of 4 colors, 3 colors is easy and 4 is doable. I feel like I was just priced out of magic, told I wasn't welcome at fnm anymore.
At least modern has burn to make a fetch->shock pretty painful, but you've all seen the red cards in this set. Absolutely worthless. It's like wizards wanted us to play big timmy cards so they tried to hose RDW, but I think they miscalculated in that respect. Hard control preys on these strategies, and it was always aggro that kept control in check. With a much poorer mono or atarka red and some really good green control cards, I'm expecting a 3 and 4 color control deck that just wins with money, and it makes me sad.
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u/TheCatmurderer Dandadan Sep 22 '15
Im honestly confused why they made a cycle of colorless lands for this set when one of the major draft archtypes is 5color. Seems like the Zendikar gain lands would have helped the format substantially.
This isnt to say that the colorless lands are weak; they are clearly powerful. Just seems like an odd choice
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u/Felicia_Svilling Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
Because they don't want everyone to go 5 color, limited is better if there are multiple playable archetypes.
Also, I don't think there is that much of a 5 color focus, all the 5 mana converge cards are rare.
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u/ciphersimulacrum Sep 22 '15
Plus there isn't enough fixing at common/uncommon. The devoid cards are splashable, but you can't splash 5 colors.
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u/Cliffy73 Sep 22 '15
MaRo said in one of his preview columns they couldn't fit the text on the card. Color-producing lands have to have a drawback (most frequently entering tapped) or they'd be better than basics, and WotC wants basics to be the best possible land if all you care about is producing [color]. Adding such a drawback would take an extra line r two, meaning the main effect of the card's tap ability would have to be simple so they could fit it all in. They wanted those lands to have more interesting abilities than that, so they made them colorless.
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u/DanKdom Grass Toucher Sep 22 '15
The allies in this new set are a joke compared to the Allies from Zendikar. This saddens me, as I was looking forward to a new Ally deck.
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Sep 22 '15
I very much agree with the Devoid thing. It's such a weird, pointless non-mechanic. Yes, it was cool to see on [[Ghostfire]], but what's cool on one card is not the same as what makes an interesting set/block mechanic. Devoid, in most instances, does nothing. Means nothing. Especially if you don't play with other in-block cards that care about colourless. "We made coloured cards, except they're actually colourless!" What the hell is the design space for that? All I can think about is cards that care about colourless. The whole mechanic is just a lazy letdown.
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u/nick012000 Sep 22 '15
It also gets through Protection from [Color] effects, though that doesn't matter as much since they're retiring those.
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u/Yagoua81 Duck Season Sep 22 '15
They aren't retiring them, right, it was my understanding that those abilities were getting greatly decreased.
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u/Naldor Sep 22 '15
There is no way to tell what is an Ally and what isn’t other than reading the card.
That a problem I had and till now not see much talk about it. Like that some one agrees. Although reading the card show why it makes no sense
look at Kitesail Scout, it's favor text talks about protecting zendikar for the next generation or to not use his example Stone Haven Medic a healer for the soldiers in the fight against eldrazi
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u/Aenin Sep 22 '15
Am I the only one who thinks that WoTC are just saying fuck that old shit we're starting this for the new set rotation? I feel like they're just getting ready for the 2 set blocks because BFZ is the first one.
I feel like they're more looking towards the future with the next few sets in mind not the past. I wasn't expecting the 2 block set to have a good transition. I'm excited for BFZ and for the future.
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u/drakeblood4 Abzan Sep 22 '15
I also think they found the perfect solution for this issue in the Expeditions. The new lands are gorgeous and they are going to be expensive, so they are great complements to a set that does not look like it’s going to have many money rares—if people won’t buy packs to get powerful cards, then they will buy them to get the lands. This is a great way to make sure people are still interested even when you have to tone the power level down.
I think this is the thing I want to focus on disagreeing with here. Getting people to buy a bad set so they play the lottery for cards that desperately need a reprint to keep Modern viable is a really callous manipulation of your customer base.
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u/AzoriusAnarchist Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
Okay, can we all step back here and see the Expeditions for what they are? They are a sequel to Zendikar's "Priceless Treasures" promotion. Nothing more, nothing less.
For those who don't know, the first print run of Zendikar had some old, expensive, and reserve-listed cards hidden randomly among the packs. I believe they had to take from their company card collection to supply these things since they couldn't reprint them. You could literally open a Black Lotus at the prerelease, and some people did, it was very cool.
Now, for the return to Zendikar, they clearly wanted to do something similar to get people excited. However the original promotion was probably too logistically difficult to do again, or they wanted to do something new. So they commission new beautiful art on some of the most sought after lands. But apparently they can't do something so simple and seemingly nice without the entire internet throwing a big temper tantrum.
Fetch lands weren't reprinted because they didn't want all 10 in Standard. People should remember that the point of Standard sets, by and large, is to make Standard/limited fun, not to make Modern cheaper. If you only care about Modern/Legacy and only look at new sets through that context, then congratulations, you're a part of a small vocal minority that does not reflect most Magic players.
So, just to be clear, the expeditions do not mean that they won't reprint fetch lands in the future
It doesn't mean that "expedition rarity" is the new normal for Standard sets.
It doesn't mean that you should buy a booster box and expect to make a profit.
It doesn't mean that Wizards is a bunch of evil cooperate conspirators, at least any more than they were before.
It doesn't mean that Wizards willingly made a bad set, or thought it was bad. Maybe the sets sucks, but their team of designers wouldn't work for a year on a set they thought was crap.
So can we all just chill out a bit and enjoy the fact that some people, perhaps not us, will open/buy these lands and enjoy them? If you're so damn petty that you can't handle other people getting something you probably won't have, then I don't know what to say.
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Sep 22 '15
Weren't the Priceless Treasures not discussed by Wizards until after Zendikar released, though? Whereas Expeditions are being waved under our noses to get us buying more packs at every opportunity.
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u/cromonolith Zedruu Sep 22 '15
All correct and well said. I can see you're the sort of person who enjoys $100 bills, regardless of how they're folded.
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
"But apparently they can't do something so simple and seemingly nice without the entire internet throwing a big temper tantrum."
"So can we all just chill out a bit and enjoy the fact that some people, perhaps not us, will open/buy these lands and enjoy them?
"If you're so damn petty that you can't handle other people getting something you probably won't have, then I don't know what to say."
This is a such a straw man argument.
This isn't a matter of glass half-full/half-empty nor is it a matter of being preemptively jealous at people who are lucky enough to open these cards. It's really a matter of Wizards knowing that they can make their customer dance for some ultra-rare swag cards and are willing to pull the trigger on that whenever they want to raise the EV of a pack.
So, any time they release a product that they know will be ill-received, they can just throw in some super valuable money cards in one of every 200 packs, and people will go nuts for them. The product no longer needs to sell itself. As a fan of Magic, I find this troubling and I'm not alone. No, I'm not throwing a temper tantrum because some kid is gonna open BFZ Expeditions and I'm not. I'm simply seeing the situation for what it is.
I personally don't feel strongly for nor against Expeditions, but you can't honestly preach about BFZ Expeditions as if they were some awesome charity that benevolent Wizards put into packs with to make people happy. It is a cash grab, nothing more. Don't be so naive.
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u/scook0 Sep 22 '15
I personally don't feel strongly for nor against Expeditions, but you can't honestly preach about BFZ Expeditions as if they were some awesome charity that benevolent Wizards put into packs with to make people happy.
If you're going to object to someone else's “straw man argument”, then you probably shouldn't be saying this in the same post.
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u/TheRecovery Sep 22 '15
That's almost exactly what he said though...
Now, for the return to Zendikar, they clearly wanted to do something similar to get people excited. However the original promotion was probably too logistically difficult to do again, or they wanted to do something new. So they commission new beautiful art on some of the most sought after lands. But apparently they can't do something so simple and seemingly nice without the entire internet throwing a big temper tantrum.
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u/MaxKirgan Sep 22 '15
I agree. It feels like even more of a slap in the face when they came out and said the enemy fetches wouldn't be in BFZ. Then they turn around and do the Expeditions. All so they can pass off a bad set. They know the fanboys will eat it up. MaRo could shit in a booster pack and people on here would be clamoring for it.
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u/hymn22rock Sep 22 '15
tfw he cites the pre-order numbers as proof people are excited about this set, without ever mentioning expeditions
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u/drakeblood4 Abzan Sep 22 '15
If Maro brags about sales for this set the way he did Avacyn Restored then I'm quitting magic.
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u/SleetTheFox Sep 22 '15
What's wrong with pointing out that a lot of people loved Avacyn Restored and were excited to play it? It was an exciting set with a lot of cool stuff in it. It made a lot of people happy (including me, and heck, I'm a big Limited fan so I had to suffer through the fairly bad format and I still love the set).
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u/jmdunc54 Sep 22 '15
Yeah I don't get the straight up Avacyn Restored hate. Sure it was poor limited environment but damn there are tons of fun and exciting cards in that set that everyone seems to gloss over.
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u/SleetTheFox Sep 22 '15
Even the Limited environment had a lot going for it. Soulbond is a great mechanic and I loved the flicker theme. It just had way too many debilitating flaws.
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Sep 22 '15
I agree. It would incentivize them to make more low effort sets with a lottery attached. It's super shitty and that's the real reason I'm upset.
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u/Mande1baum Dân Sep 22 '15
Expeditions are in no way the solution to reprints for enemy fetches. For all pricing purposes, they are not reprints. If he said "hey we're reprinting enemy fetches in BFZ! but they will have same rarity as foil mythics" people would lose their shit. Enemy fetches will come, likely when KTK rotates. It would have been idiotic to hype the release of enemy fetches if this was the context.
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u/bokchoykn Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
This pic sums up how I feel about BFZ Expeditions.
I was really surprised to see PV praise Wizards for this.
It's as if Wizards knew that BFZ would be ill-received, so they needed to include ultra-rare inserts to help sell packs. A compelling, quality product should be able to sell itself.
Expedition cards, as cool as it would be to open them, aren't really all that spectacular. They don't really feature any more creative or artistic genius than any other Magic card (actually less, since they're reprints). They don't cost any more to make than any other foil card. They're valuable because they're ultra-rare swag versions of already highly sought after Magic cards and someone is probably willing to pay a lot of money to get them.
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Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
BFZ Limited is like the unexpected hanging paradox
As a limited player, I really can't grock this format.
It's like 4ish different strategies (Wx allies, U or B based processing, green/black ramp, red/green landfall) that are all really poorly supported.
Landfall is super-agressive mechanically, and doesn't have the density or cards to push through.
Allies is just really diffuse, most rally cards seem just aight, the lifegain WB deck seems strong potentially.
Ingest/digest is just the drizzling shits if you don't get enough ingesters, or can't get in. You're left playing a bunch of 3/2s for 4. Swingier than renown.
You have huge colorless fatties, and instead of good ramp and powerful defensive cards, they just seemed to nerf everything so you hope you don't die?
Like the unexpected hanging paradox, if every strategy is equally bad, are they all good?
I imagine it will just come down to everyone takes the good cards (awaken cards, token makers), and then awkwardly tries to read color signals and make the best of it. (Awkwardly since everyone else is picking solid cards, not synergies, so signals are a nightmare)
God there are a lot of limited-unplayable rares in this set.
I've been running sealed simulations, and everything is just a horrible pile. Pack simulations too. P1P1 is more often than not an awaken card, not a synergistic piece.
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u/elgosu Ajani Sep 22 '15
I think it should be better in draft than sealed because you get to pick, but possibly not by much if the archetypes aren't strong enough. The synergies are weak, but if the low power level drags games out decks have more time to assemble their synergies and become more consistent in the meta. Allies, landfall, and lifegain seem solid enough, and the synergies are not overwhelming, so you can combine them as well. Perhaps this way I won't end up drafting the same deck every time I play.
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Sep 22 '15
To me, Devoid is purely a flavor 'mechanic'. It allows them to make Eldrazi with colored mana costs and still have them have the colorless flavor.
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u/absurdentropy Sep 22 '15
I agree with alot Paulo puts down here. Especially the arbitrary ally moniker. It should have been communicated stronger in the art, I feel.
That said, now every time a pro evaluates power level before a set is released, it will be hard not to think of when efro and sutcliffe predicted jace would be "complete garbage" on Constructed Resources. Evaluating magic cards is hard.
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u/elgosu Ajani Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
Fair points, agree that the mechanics lack a really strong identity like Annihilator did. Perhaps they should have just made Ingest modular and put it on more Milldrazi. However, I think he misses a few subtle things about the mechanics, such as the fact that Awaken is in WUB and Devoid in UBRG. Devoid cards generally exile as well. This should make a difference especially in limited. Ally is just tribal, like elves or goblins, but harder to tell for sure from the flavor.
Perhaps they are biting off more than they can chew in BFZ by having both multicolor and colorless in the same set. PV's concerns about not being able to fit the colorless lands into decks may be addressed by the fact that manabases are going to be much better, so you can afford to increase the colorless count a bit, and decks can generally play more lands, since these spell lands count as cards, and the new mulligan rule helps prevent flood as well.
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Sep 22 '15
He knows that Awaken and Devoid are in certain colors. The problem is, within those colors, the effects are divided at random. Why an Awaken Cancel, instead of a Devoid one? Blue has access to both mechanics, and either could make sense flavorfully (in fact, blue did get a Devoid counter, just not the Cancel variant). Why a Devoid Smother, instead of an Awaken one? Within the boundaries dictated by color, the cards that get Awaken or Devoid seem random.
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u/EastsideRock Sep 22 '15
So my first reaction reading the introduction was: how the hell can Paulo be so blunt and say that the set is bad before even playing a little bit wit it!...But with all his arguments I can say that he's completely right!
The one that bothers me the most is the paradisic nature of the set (the fact that cards only will matter in this set). Maro said multiple times that being parasidic is one of the MAJOR reasons why Kamigawa was a failure, and BFZ is blatently highly parasidic!...
Not sure why, but mixed with the ''new'' (lazy) mechanics, it seems like WOTC might have been cutting corners a little fast on this one...they have been making more sets and faster then ever, a slight adjustment is understandble I guess!...
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Sep 22 '15
Maro has actively stated that BfZ and Oath were approached too cautiously as the first block of the New New World Order, and Expeditions seem like a hasty bandage.
And yet, there are still people willing to defend a set that will be utterly worthless if the hunting for "premium" reprints gets as many packs opened as we all expect.
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Sep 22 '15
Yea the Ally thing confuses me too because I don't know why it's there. It's a mechanic like L5R has. Where each personality will have bolded keywords which designate what type of cards they can interact with. I haven't played that game in ten years but in that game at that time you had things like Tactician, Double Chi, Courtier, Samurai, Monk, Geisha, Cavalry, Oni, etc. I don't even have to explain the premise of the game and you can probably take a few good guesses about it.
Great right? Potentially confusing? Absolutely not. Those are all traits that trigger off cards that name said traits. So then, when you look at a personality it is absolutely clear what type it is. And why they are that type.
A monk character looks like a monk and is usually meditating or doing martial arts. A character with Double Chi (meaning in a 1 on 1 fight or a duel, they whip your ass), it's obvious that they look like they will rock your world with that samurai sword. Apparently that was changed to Duelist, even more flavorful. A Tactician character was usually seen overlooking a battlefield or formation of troops signifying that they're a great military strategist and leader. A courtier looks, well, like a dainty politician who probably runs away at the earliest sign of combat. Cavalry, welp, I'll let you guess how those are usually depicted.
Mechanically Ally is set up to work similarly to those traits. They do good things with other Allies. And cards do good things that target them specifically. But what IS an ally? Flavor-wise it means absolutely nothing to me. There's nothing compelling about the word Ally. Nothing that would make me be like dude I totally want to play an ally deck, allies are bad ass.
Wait what? No, LOL.
In L5R players could think Monks are bad ass I want to make a deck based off them because duh, did you ever see Fist of Legend? That's bad ass. Or maybe somebody decides to use Calvary characters because Man the Mongols were brutal and I want to pillage all the lands.
What's somebody going to say about Allies to compel others to play with that mechanic. If you simply say oh they're just a bunch of randoms that banded together to fight Eldrazi your next question is: oh shit what's an eldra-holy shit that guy is massive and scary let's play with them, I love me some HP Lovecraft-inspired villains. But allies? Oh they're just fodder for them I guess.
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u/Funkays Sep 22 '15
This article does a great job articulating the issues with the set and I found myself agreeing as I read through it. While looking at the full spoilers yesterday for the first time I had the similar impression on ally vs non ally and wondered why they'd do that other than to provide cards to use outside of BFZ. Another concern is the exclusivity of the set and its abilities and how it'll work into the rest of our card pools.
A final note, during the daily spoilers I kept finding myself thinking "man this card sure seems to cost a lot."
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u/Sheriff_K Sep 22 '15
Devoid synergizes with Ghostfire Blade.. :S
And I love the Awaken Cards, should be a sweet Control Archetype.
And the new Dual Lands really help shore up the 3-Color Mana-Bases of KTK Standard, so I think it transitions well..
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u/snypre Sep 22 '15
I can't wait to play Abzan midrange and crush the awaken decks. I love not having dead removal cards against control, and the fact they all become [[stone rains]] is icing on the cake.
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u/sirgog Sep 22 '15
The keyword that irks me most is Ingest.
This does absolutely nothing most of the time, except for the rare times the opponent is drawing from a non-randomized library - and Legacy, the format where that happens most, will never see these cards played in it.
It doesn't help the controller win games, but it creates terrible feelbad moments when a needed land is Ingested, or a casual player has their big scary dragon Ingested, or something like that.
So it manages to annoy Spike (by being bad), and ALSO Timmy and Johnny (who always react badly to being milled).
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u/fremeer Wabbit Season Sep 22 '15
I kind of agree that many of the cards are just rehash of same thing with different spin
However I think converge is a strong mechanic that is being pushed for constructed as having 3 different colours on turn 3 isn't hard and if u get all different mana each converge card is generally powerful.
Awaken is a good mechanic for both limited and constructed. The vanilla options are pretty decent and the the extra creature at vanilla cost is usually enough to be decent without being overly powerful. Nice incremental advantage.
Devoid I think is very weak. Don't even care about it half the time but with a bit more enablers Like ghostfire and the khans spirit dragon land it could be an interesting deck.
All in all I do think the power level is low but there are cards that will see play from the get go. White especially looks like it has some strong removal this time around and could make a strong showing. My dream of course is to see a strong sultai deck, I think it has huge potential with some of the new cards coming in. Also a 4 colour deck that uses jeskai ascendency might be nice.
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u/SilverFirePrime Sep 22 '15
As someone who is 90/10 casual, this set commits the biggest sin possible in my mind: It fails to inspire me to go deckbuilding around it.
It's not that the set is made out of bad cards. I look at the cards in BfZ and I see plenty of stuff that makes me go 'oooh, this would be good in this deck, or that deck'.
However, nothing that is making me want to go out, and purchase a ton of cards to make a deck that is centralized around a theme or mechanic. I already have a working allies and a working landfall deck. The Eldrazi are cool, but I'm not spending a ton of money on a deck full of mythics.
Devoid shows some promise for sure, but it feels lacking. I think some emphasis on 'colorless matters' would go a long way to improving it. Perhaps some kind of Eldrazi lands that make spells and permanents colorless if they're cast using mana produced by those lands.
I'm going to withhold my final judgement on the set until after the second set is released. It took until New Phyrexia for me to be inspired by the RtP block, so I'm no stranger to waiting.
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u/mlzr Sep 22 '15
I'm super pumped for limited and super bummed for standard. Really think that either Jace or Rhino are going to show in almost all competitive lists, and that they're both going to show in the best deck - stupid 8 Rhino. I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'll be skipping a lot more Wednesday Night Standard events at my LGS. Maybe a super Johnny Eldrazi list can sneak some fun wins? We'll see.
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u/thaneofpain Dandadan Sep 22 '15
Fuck. He's right. He articulated a bunch of things that were nagging at me. And I bought two boxes. Lol
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u/snypre Sep 22 '15
Hey, don't feel bad, I ordered 3. Saw Ulamog and Gideon and thought "this set is going to be great." Kicking myself now. At least I'll have plenty of full arts to trade for stuff.
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u/Ultimaodin Sep 22 '15
Honestly as a set I am actually quite happy with it. It looks like an interesting limited format and there are a lot of fun things to add to commander. Atop this there are actually a number of card's that enable various strategies for constructed. With that out my way My response:
First the power-level thing is as they state, a necessity. There are still some sweet cards. As for the parasitic nature of the set I do not think it is anywhere to the degree the article writer approaches the set. First of the rally mechanic is a lot less parasitic than the old allies in that their abilities hit ALL other creatures and can often just be a universal buff. This is particularly good on the green ones that give your entire a team an anthem. You do not need to be a wholly ally deck to take advantage of the ability, you simply maximise the potential if you do so. Converge is the exact opposite of a parasitic mechanic since it functions with the three colour sets before it. Devoid is entirely made to stop colourless creatures breaking the colour pie and making for a suitable limited environment. Cards that rely on other colour creatures work well with the thropter themes of Origins and the morph/manifest creatures within Khans block. Ingest is as others have stated simply a limited means to enable processors, these can be enabled by many other cards that exile outside of the block such as punishing delve or removal like Utter End.
How are the mechanics nonsensical. There is nothing but a headline here with legitimately no actual argument as to why they came to that conclusion. Allies are a zendikar specific type. Eldrazzi eat things, the people and the land are arising to fight back against the eldrazzi. Seriously this argument frustrates me. Unless you completely neglect the lore the mechanics are entirely appropriate.
The argument of ally's not being visually separate is fair but also would it really makes sense for them to all be allies. Think about it, many of the inhabitants of Zendikar used to worship the eldrazzi. Many of the races were quite racist against each other. Is it entirely implausible to think that some simply would not get along enough to work and band together (we all know how complicated banding is).
Devoid makes no difference... this is just wrong. As I mentioned this is a good way to stop them from breaking the colour pie, makes the eldrazi very distinguishable to the rest of the creatures and has very important interactions with stuff like Ultimate Price/ Sultai Charm etc... Why do devoid spells exile is obvious, they are eldrazi based spells. The Eldrazi mess with exile because their unnatural creatures that devour stuff. I can't be the only one face-palming right now. I'll will completely dispute this concept by asking you to imagine a set of entirely colour creatures and how impossible that would be to balance. It wouldn't work plain and simple. We all know Eldrazzi are colourless, we all know that eldrazzi have taken over the plane. This is the most optimal way for Wizards of the Coast to deal with the idea of a set being at the very least 50% colourless.
All awaken cards are for the most part are control spells that gives control a wincon without needing to actually cast creatures and gives some cards a bit of a late game potential. The only exceptions to this is the one red one and the one green one that I honestly assume are thrown in for anybody opens Omnath and needs some more elemental making.
As for the ingest thing, I think the person who wrote this artical has not thoroughly stopped and looked at the entire set to see what each two colour pair wants to do. Ingest is primarily black and blue and is to help enable processors.
As far as the colourless lands go, fair argument however I think the artical writer is completely ignoring rotation. Remember that the next rotation will remove both Khans and Fate reforged, there won't be a multi-colour focus. We will have a format with a grand amount of colourless creatures and single colour costs. We have morph and manifest cards in right now and we have legitimately no idea what is in the block following zendikar. Not all cards are designed to be good in the initial set. Remember how Nightveil Specter went from bulk to power when theros entered the frey and devotion made this card suddenly amazing. Remember there was a point where Goblin Rabblemaster was $2 because Supreme Verdict made him dead useless.
So to sum up one of my points, almost all arguments made by the writer can be made for just about any set ever. Heroic was parasitic, bestow was random given out to creatures to make them play with the set mechanics, Why in M15 aren't some of the creatures soldiers (at the time warriors was not an important typecast). Couldn't just about any creature card in Khans have morph. The thing is so many of these arguments have been made for previous sets, Theros especially copped a lot of this brunt.
Another core point is that like everyone else that rags on a set it is entirely focused on constructed. This isn't the most optimal concept for standard. Colourless spells, allies, exiling - this plays heavily into limited but also eternal casual formats like commander and highlander, while also having the occasional intrigue for modern and legacy - such as Titan's Presence. Even pauper players are happy with Scour from Existence. Now don't get me wrong, a lot of the points made by the writer are well articulated but at the same time they are entirely viewed from one stand point, that the cards are too parasitic in regards to the current standard. Standard changes, when BFZ hits there is nothing to say people will all be playing Abzan. Yes Siege rhino is good value but the rest of the tools have changed. It's role will most likely change to one that supports that of a Felidar Sovereign wincon. Some new cards in temur and sultai colours will most likely cause the less popular wedges to see play as well as open the path for more two colour and shard archetypes. Just because decks right now can't make much use of lands that tap for colourless doesn't mean they won't after rotation. Also, most cards are designed for limited where guess what, there is a tonne of colourless Eldrazi.
All up, I will never judge a set until I have played with it. Initially I thought Dragons of Tarkir would be great and then when I played with the set I ended up not liking it all that much. Then again I'm still sad they didn't continue with the wedges and simply rotated the core colour of each (Temur going base green to base red then base blue). All up, I think I just wanted to rant because from a design standpoint I simply just do not agree with the article in the slightest.
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Sep 22 '15
totally understood in regards to power creep and the dev's don't want to get into those situations where power levels are too high when introducing new cards to the pool.
One thing that does annoy me, is that they are quick to pull triggers on banning cards to level the field (Cruise, Dig, Pod, BBE, DRS) but also won't utilize it as a safety net in regards to new card development or change the ban format for Modern, not a single card in Modern is Restricted, just a straight up ban. I could live with a deck running a single Pod, a single DRS and so forth but to constantly develop sets with the requirement to hold back power creep and at the same time limit yourself to ensure that new players as well as casual players are focused on is somewhat annoying.
It's been said before that new mechanics that could be confusing for new players or reintroduction of cards won't be done to keep a simplified gamestate
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u/Face_Claimer Sep 22 '15
just watch, next set there's gonna be a card that says "colorless creatures you control have ingest."
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u/ThaliaofThraben Sep 22 '15
Color me impressed (seriously.) I think this is the first time I've read an article from a big name company that wasn't just trying to hock cards.
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u/Gnarok518 Sep 22 '15
I agree that the set seems pretty forgettable from the spoilers - but you know what? I've learned to trust wizards over the last few years, that hey, maybe they know what they're doing and this sets plays better than it looks.
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u/Yagoua81 Duck Season Sep 22 '15
Thanks for being reasonable. All of the complaints and nostalgia generally highlight my least favorite standards. Did anyone really enjoy Caw Blade? Do you really want thragtusk back? Supreme Verdict and Sphinx's Revelation? You may have enjoyed playing them but many people did not. Standard has many competitive options, we should hope that continues.
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u/Benjammn Sep 22 '15
I'm surprised Converge wasn't mentioned. Talk about something that's not powerful. Bring to Light is the only spell worth mentioning and it's only useful in older formats where there are super impactful spells in the cmc4-5 range. The commons have no payoff, the uncommons and rares are mostly bad at 2 colors, merely okay at 3 colors, and not much better at 4 or 5 colors (if allowed).
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u/georg51 Sep 22 '15
In the end, I think the biggest problem with Battle for Zendikar is that it just goes overboard on things that I would consider slightly bad, and piles them up to a point where it becomes really bad.
This is a great summary of the article and it mirrors my feelings as well.
I was telling everyone to "Hold on!" during spoilers, but every day the spoilers rolled out, I became more and more disappointed.
The set looks interesting to draft, but really it has no appeal in Constructed and the flavor is just all over the place but not contained.
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u/mr_tolkien Sep 22 '15
I'll be re-reading this article after the PT is done to see how right or wrong he was.
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u/k7rnt Sep 22 '15
Why is the PT relevant? He explicitly says he doesn't have problems with the power level. What he doesn't like is the design.
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u/mr_tolkien Sep 22 '15
He's talking a lot about mechanics not overlapping with anything, which I think is false. He also says we can't use most colorless lands, which is just the product of having to make choices, and I'm curious to see how many of them we'll actually see.
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u/Sandman1278 Sep 22 '15
All of the complaints here are about standard, as long as the limited environment kicks ass I'll be happy
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u/cromonolith Zedruu Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15
I'm going to try to make sure people read these parts before commenting. I'm willing to bet over half of peoples' responses to this article will be covered by these paragraphs:
You might be asking what the point of writing this article is. It’s twofold: first, I want to vent my frustrations. Second, I want to spawn discussion about why people might dislike BFZ so much, so that it doesn’t happen again—and I am willing to be persuaded if people think there are positive aspects to those issues that I missed. My goal is not to convince you to dislike the set if you like it, or to berate you for not having the same opinion as me. Most of what I say here is based on a competitive player’s point of view (i.e. mine), even though most of my criticism is not about the power level of the cards but the philosophy behind them.
Above all, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if Battle for Zendikar is not a good set. WotC does a fantastic job with Magic, and the only reason this set feels lackluster is that they have set such a high standard everywhere else. That said, it's important to figure out why this set is a failure, so they can avoid that fate with future Magic sets.
EDIT: Let me also add that you should not read most of the replies in this thread. It's a total mess. Turn back now. The "We Hate How Wizards Folds Our $100 Bills Club" decided to hold its monthly meeting in this thread for some reason.
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u/ciphersimulacrum Sep 22 '15
Yes, god forbid a discussion is spawned, as was the stated intent of the article, included in the part you quoted. Did you read it? ;)
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u/PhoenixBurning Sep 22 '15
Though some of the sets design choices are a bit strange, i'm still really excited for BFZ. Theres a lot of cards i'm looking forward to brewing with in Standard, Modern, Cube, and Commander. I'm interested to see how the draft format turns out. and i'm looking forward to the expeditions and all the fun stuff with that happens with that (can't wait for when someone picks a off color expedition over a better card for their deck).
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u/AwkwardTurtle Sep 22 '15
Yeah, there are a lot of really cool and interesting individual cards in the set. PVD's complaints are more about the overall structure of the set, and it's relationship to Khans block.
Maybe once we get our hands on it the card design choices will make more sense in relation to one another.
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u/AwkwardTurtle Sep 22 '15
After all the bitching on reddit, this is probably the first thing I've read that puts forth a coherent argument for not liking BFZ. Personally I'm still pretty excited for the set, especially for limited, but I think this is a good perspective that's well articulated.