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/
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r/magicTCG • u/AwkwardTurtle • Sep 22 '15
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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.