Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[Fate]

its on the last page LLD

hexproof has its counters, supreme verdict and shit still kill it

WHERE ARE THE COUNTERS TO CHEAP ASS INFINITE BOUNECS/COUNTERS/DETAINS HUH?

[TheButtonmen]

hexproof

[TheButtonmen]

alternatively kicking their deck in the nads and them watching them fail to actually do anything.

Cards like this, this, this or this are all great for making complicated decks completely fall apart.

The one deck I actually still own is built around Bloodbond March, it laughs at bounce, kill and counters.

[kdowns]

Fucking Enchantment decks...

[hasdgfas]

Good. Hexproof is like the biggest design flaw of magic as it is currently printed, and it certainly the most non-interactive and unfun mechanic.

Annihilator was also pretty terrible

[Thestatusquo]

You could interact with that ability pretty easily, though, and the cards you couldn't really interact with that well cost 3000000 mana.

[GreyICE]

what

Urza saga "untap X lands when you cast this"

Was downright worst mechanic ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. There is no card printed with that mechanic that does NOT make me want to rip the damn card apart and pee on it.

Gave us winners like Frantic Search (best example of a card that is fundamentally unfair even though it's weak ever, maybe except Lotus Petal), Treachery, Time Spiral, Palinchron, etc.

[Sudo_Nym]

Comes into Play borders on unfair, too- I don't mind creatures having powerful abilities, because usually, you at least have the option of removing the creature before it becomes an issue. Come into Play abilities don't have that option, unless you're in blue- and there are some many ways to recycle that ability that it can rack up an advantage the opponent can't stop.

[GreyICE]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

[chamber]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

Primeval titan, in the context of valakut, had a pretty unfair citp ability, it was really close to just being 'I win the game'.

Edit: I think Planeswalkers kind of ruined that subset of creature that was very powerful, kind of expensive, but did nothing right away. Planeswalkers tend to be comparably difficult to answer, but can all do something the turn they come down. Thats why most creatures these days either cost 1-2 mana, or have some immediate effect on the board in the 3+ spot (be that through haste or a citp ability).

[Sudo_Nym]

No cip ability was horribly broken on its own. It was always about the fact that they combine better and combs more easily than they seem in a vacuum. It doesn't help when Wizards compounds it with blink.

On cast has that potential, too, except that there aren't many good cards yet with good on cast abilities, outside of the elf. So far, the rest is either too overcosted, or too random.

[Sudo_Nym]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

Primeval titan, in the context of valakut, had a pretty unfair citp ability, it was really close to just being 'I win the game'.

Yeah, that's exactly what I' m talking about. Calamity on its own isn't too bad, but the way it combines with stuff like Titan and Scapeshift illustrates my point. And now we've got Thrag, Huntmaster, and Resto in standard.

[GreyICE]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

Primeval titan, in the context of valakut, had a pretty unfair citp ability, it was really close to just being 'I win the game'.

Edit: I think Planeswalkers kind of ruined that subset of creature that was very powerful, kind of expensive, but did nothing right away. Planeswalkers tend to be comparably difficult to answer, but can all do something the turn they come down. Thats why most creatures these days either cost 1-2 mana, or have some immediate effect on the board in the 3+ spot (be that through haste or a citp ability).

Fair enough, but 6 mana cards follow different rules, thanks to the 5/6 dichotomy.

Anyway, I don't think the category of 'expensive creatures that take a while to work' was never one that was truly tournament viable. The closest I remember was Akroma, and she was mostly just to seal the game up (and did something when she came down anyway). Other than that, most expensive things have always needed to do things immediately at the tournament level.

It's one of the reasons planeswalkers were made, beyond the marketing/theme. The design space for incremental advantages were artifacts/enchantments, and those really lacked counterplay (playing W/G or W/G/R? No? Have a counter? No? Sucks to be you).

[chamber]

Gradual advantages are almost always fair. I have a tough time thinking of a comes-into-play mechanic that was inherently broken except Palinchron (even Worldeater dragon wasn't about what happened when it came into play). Chunking out the game with expensive incremental advantages is usually fun.

Now on-cast mechanics can be absurd. Bloodbraid elf?

Primeval titan, in the context of valakut, had a pretty unfair citp ability, it was really close to just being 'I win the game'.

Edit: I think Planeswalkers kind of ruined that subset of creature that was very powerful, kind of expensive, but did nothing right away. Planeswalkers tend to be comparably difficult to answer, but can all do something the turn they come down. Thats why most creatures these days either cost 1-2 mana, or have some immediate effect on the board in the 3+ spot (be that through haste or a citp ability).

Fair enough, but 6 mana cards follow different rules, thanks to the 5/6 dichotomy.

Anyway, I don't think the category of 'expensive creatures that take a while to work' was never one that was truly tournament viable. The closest I remember was Akroma, and she was mostly just to seal the game up (and did something when she came down anyway). Other than that, most expensive things have always needed to do things immediately at the tournament level.

It's one of the reasons planeswalkers were made, beyond the marketing/theme. The design space for incremental advantages were artifacts/enchantments, and those really lacked counterplay (playing W/G or W/G/R? No? Have a counter? No? Sucks to be you).

Expensive is a relative term, there always was a point that was too expensive, I think that point has come down considerably over the time I've been playing.

[GreyICE]

Actually it's gone up then down. Used to be any win condition that cost more than 3, or maybe 4, was practically pointless.

Rose to Akroma, and the rise of the hyper expensive cards, and then dropped down again.

[Sudo_Nym]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

[GreyICE]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

Well it's also balanced around the math of the game (7 card starting hand, 1 card per turn (yes p/d). With this math, at 24 cards, you can expect to reach ~5 mana on turn 5 without acceleration.

6 mana cards have a higher threshold because 6 mana basically requires acceleration or card draw (resources invested) to come out before around turn 8, and because turn 6-8 is way late. Due to this you'll notice a HUGE threshold between what makes a playable 5 and what makes a playable 6.

[hasdgfas]

Friend and I found a hilarious bug in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 today.
We were playing Planechase and were at this plane.

Instead of working correctly, the chaos ability triggered for every non-planeswalk roll of the planar die. You can imagine the results.

[chamber]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

Well it's also balanced around the math of the game (7 card starting hand, 1 card per turn (yes p/d). With this math, at 24 cards, you can expect to reach ~5 mana on turn 5 without acceleration.

6 mana cards have a higher threshold because 6 mana basically requires acceleration or card draw (resources invested) to come out before around turn 8, and because turn 6-8 is way late. Due to this you'll notice a HUGE threshold between what makes a playable 5 and what makes a playable 6.

I haven't done the math right now (and don't care to) But based in my memory of an article I read on this, 5 drops don't typically hit until turn 6 with 24 mana sources out of a 60 card deck, with 1 draw a turn. (math that's too simplistic has needing 5/24ths your decks mana, which should work out to 12.5 cards proportionally, which is turn 5.5 on the draw, and turn 6.5 on the play

[GreyICE]

Well, how expensive a card should be to be balanced always depends on the surrounding environment. My main issue with the game is the speed of it- it feels very much like games either end quickly, or stretch to eternity, with little in the way of middle ground.

Well it's also balanced around the math of the game (7 card starting hand, 1 card per turn (yes p/d). With this math, at 24 cards, you can expect to reach ~5 mana on turn 5 without acceleration.

6 mana cards have a higher threshold because 6 mana basically requires acceleration or card draw (resources invested) to come out before around turn 8, and because turn 6-8 is way late. Due to this you'll notice a HUGE threshold between what makes a playable 5 and what makes a playable 6.

I haven't done the math right now (and don't care to) But based in my memory of an article I read on this, 5 drops don't typically hit until turn 6 with 24 mana sources out of a 60 card deck, with 1 draw a turn. (math that's too simplistic has needing 5/24ths your decks mana, which should work out to 12.5 cards proportionally, which is turn 5.5 on the draw, and turn 6.5 on the play

Sure, but the good part is that if you don't have 5 mana, you probably have something that's not a 5 drop to play. It's why most standard aggro decks top out with ~3-5 5 drops.

Very rarely does an aggro deck run a 6. Only ones I can think of are mono-red things, or ones where they're cheating a bit on mana/curve/draws. Even midrange decks don't like them much.

[Nuwen]

drafted an angel of serenity!

[Fate]

I think Knights of Infamy+Stonewright on a Hellholeflailer and saccing it is my new favorite kill combo

mainly because I thought of it myself and it goes through bullshits deliverance

[Thestatusquo]

For anyone who plays online and is fairly serious, MTGO PTQ is tomorrow morning at 7am Pacific.

RTR Sealed, 30 tix.

[xRECKONERx]

30 tix, ew

[Thestatusquo]

The prize support is fantastic. Shrug. Winner gets a PT invite and 1000$, essentially and a complete foil set. Second gets a complete non-foil set. Then prizes down to 200th place or so. Shrug.

It's not more expensive than any other important paper sealed event.