General Enchantments not ruining your day

[Mondschwein]

I'm not able to articulate my exact thoughts in English, so here's the short version:

- most important effects on enchantments can be found on a body too -> the more cards interact with each other, the more interactive is the whole gameplay of the cube
- you need to have a certain density of enchantments to make enchantment removal relevant, so enchantments plus removal both take slots, and those interact in kind of a bubble -> less interaction
- even those 'flexible' removal spells you listed are nothing more than necessary evil to me. seriously, who cares about a 2/3 or 3/4 vanilla? exile target card from a graveyard? gain 4life? not interesting in my opinion.
- enchantment removal is exclusive to some colours, which is another thing I dislike. I give certain colours certain kinds of effects, but being able to deal with something shouldn't be exclusive
- having no enchantment removal at all actually opens up some design space, too, although I think I won't go that route.

now I'm going to bed, but I wanted to answer something.

 

[sigh]

Are you also not running artifacts for the same reason? So just creatures and ways to interact with creatures? No equipment, no mana rocks, etc?

 

[ravnic]

Yes, one important aspect you kinda ignored here is, that those 2/3s and 3/4s also kill artifacts. And while it is already pretty nice to remove two out of four or five permanent types (depending on yes or no to planeswalkers), there are even more flexible options. White can just add a bunch of O-Ring effects to cover enchantment removal and green has cards that destroy noncreature permanents, which also included artifacts, planeswalkers and lands. And while blacks pool of answers is limited, we can expect it to grow. And so far it seems to be creature OR enchantment removal what black gets. So it is not true that these answers exist in a vacuum with the threats they exist for.

I think you're not wrong. Demistify isn't a good card and shouldn't be in cubes. And global enchantments should be beatable without direct removal. However, I think you're taking this too far. In reality most cards are more flexible and interactive.


One aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet: Control decks really want sweepers, even at lower power levels. And thus they would prefer Phyrexian Arena over Graveborn Muse or Dark Confidant.

 

[sigh]

Red historically gets around fiddly stuff like enchantments and artifacts by simply destroying the opponent. Hard to benefit from your shiny Bident of Thassa with 0 life.

 

[Dom Harvey]

What if you make red and black your enchantment colours so that tension is less likely to occur but you still get to run sweet cards

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Also I'm curious if this opinion that enchantments should be minimised is based on play experience with your cube or from having just tinkered with the card list? Don't take me wrong, but sometimes it's easy to get a hunch about some property of one's cube that really should be treated as a hypothesis to be checked through play testing.

 

[Velrun]

What if you make red and black your enchantment colours so that tension is less likely to occur but you still get to run sweet cards

That’s a fun idea!
If you do this, then I would suggest going for a 360 cards cube and nothing bigger. Otherwise you diminish this effect.

 

[Mondschwein]

Yeah, no artifacts, too. This has another reason: while colourless cards can be the glue that holds archetypes together, I really like colour restrictions. It will be interesting to find out which kind of fixing would be the best in such an environment.

Also I'm curious if this opinion that enchantments should be minimised is based on play experience with your cube or from having just tinkered with the card list? Don't take me wrong, but sometimes it's easy to get a hunch about some property of one's cube that really should be treated as a hypothesis to be checked through play testing.

The idea came from playing retail draft/other cubes, but you're obv right, it will need a bunch of testing.
It's a heavy theorycraft, but at least a bit of experience was gathered beforehand.

@ ravnic
As mentioned before, I also don't add any artifacts to the cube. I thought about adding equipment but don't think they'll actually end up in the list. Planeswalkers are also a no-go because they suck pretty hard as most of them were designed as snowbally value engines that will eventually end the game (=shit design). That's actually a shame, since PWs could have been attackable and therfore more interactive enchantments.

I'm also avoiding land destruction, as that would mean emphasizing on the game's biggest inherent flaw: mana screw.
Seriously, I thought a lot about this whole topic. Not only in the sense of gameplay and deckbuilding, but also drafting. I want to tighten the powerband as much as possible, with usually interesting cards or strong payoffs to draw a player into the archetype, but not through obvious picks. Having sideboard cards like enchantment removal that will wheel a lot doesn't add to the draft experience imho, though I get why people add them since boarding actually is another interesting aspect of the game (Bo3 is real Magic, f**k off Bo1).

Phyrexian Arena vs Dark Confidant
I wouldnt even add Dark Confidant because there are like hundreds of reasons I lower the powerlevel, the creatures that are draw machines demand you to do certain things (connecting, casting spells). Synergy > Goodstuff is part of my design philosophy, with only control being actually goodstuffy (but slow) and in the role of the fun police, since the cube is board-centric and combat-heavy.

We'll see if I'm taking anything 'too far'. The whole project might fall to the ground and shatter, but I'm definitely not ready to give up yet, since I'm one player who always sees the little 'flaws' and wants to get rid of them. Maybe I'll just grow by failure, which would be fine, since I'm having a blast just thinking about the possibilities.

 

[Mondschwein]

btw it's not that I completely ignore enchantments. Auras would be the exception to the rule, since on a creature they can be interacted with. I also thought about adding Demonic Pact as a build-around, but without the removal available, that card might actually end up too good. Sweet cards like Burning Vengeance, Ongoing Investigation and Ulvenwald Mysteries or the many sac outlets, and ofc Astral Drift and the like, made it hard for me to decide, but with everything in mind, I came to the conclusion that this is the route I take, and so far, it feels like it opened up more cards to choose from, since even if you run enchantment removal, of which you'll never run as much as creature removal, enchantments will always feel hard to remove and thus being high picks in draft, which is something I dislike.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Those are some hot takes Mondschwein :eek: So only creatures, instants, and sorceries (assuming utility lands are also off limits, as they are harder to interact with than artifacts). I'm just going to quote Velrun here, because saga's really feel like a very happy and balanced crossover between enchantments and planeswalkers.

“Are enchantments ruining your day? Try Sagas. Enchantments with a self-destruct button.”

 

[Mondschwein]

Man, you all should read the opener of this thread.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Man, you all should read the opener of this thread.

But... have you considered sagas?
















For real though, I forgot about that part, sorry

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Also, do let us know how it turns out. This is some radical and exciting design space!

 

[Erik Twice]

Useful card to have to make sure enchantments are kept under control, or unforgivable break of the color pie?

Magic's "color pie" is extremely flawed in execution and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Let me be radical for a bit. In a card game, all factions should be able to perform basic actions such as drawing cards and interacting with the opponent. They should just be able to do so in different ways, reflecting their philosophies.

Making it impossible for colors to interact with half of the permanent types in the game just punishes players for matchups they have no control on. Think about it, is the game more fun or more balanced if only some colours can deal with enchantments?

Still, I haven't found enchantment removal to be overly necessary. I want these enchantments (and artifacts) to be core pieces of decks and, hence, allowing them to be easily blown up would prevent cool decks from working. I just rebalance the rest of the archetype so that, for example, Survival of the Fittest is not a game-winner but a strong engine.

 

[ravnic]

I'm not nitpicking, just asking out of interest: What about instants/sorceries? For the most part, only one color can interact with opposing spells on the stack: blue via counterspells. Yes, you can always do stuff in response, but what does it matter against a strong card draw spell? So casting a sorcery against non blue is similar to casting an enchantment against mono red. You might say that enchantments are more problematic becaude they have an ongoing impact on the game, but honestly a resolved Concentrate has too.

Please don't take my posts as offense, I am honestly interested design philosophy and even more so in your cube list. I am just trying to also give some arguments why including certain things in a list isn't bad design.

 

[Mondschwein]

@ Onder:
I obv will let you know, but I fear it might take some more time.

@ ravnic:
First off, I didn't mean to say that it's generally bad design. It's just under the restrictions I follow. If your list dictates a (somewhat clear) pick-order, that actually also gives room for an entirely different kind of design. It's just not my jam (anymore).
About instants and sorceries:
most cards interact with creatures in some way, so every colour gets cards to interact on the stack (that's also a reason why I went down in powerlevel). Blue has counters, I'm still figuring out which fit best since I obv want them to be somewhat conditional, but no actual removal, which is something every other colour has (another thing I'm still figuring out, since removal also has to be somewhat conditional). A lot of pump/protection spells also act as counterspells, they're not as effective usually, but definitely more flexible (combat tricks) which makes up for it in such an environment. btw I'm not taking anything offensively, and I always hope that you'll get me right, too

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

In a similar vein, if you're playing a red deck you can't really interact with big creatures using burn, which is reds main way of interacting, which would encourage you to add another color. The disability to interact with parts of the game I think, is less of an issue than keeping your power band in check. If someone would play a bunch of game ending instants or sorceries (e.g. ancestral recall, timewalk) that you have to counter then not playing blue isn't really an option, and I think the same goes for artifacts and enchantments, it's not about removing them but making sure the the threats and answers are proportional to each other (and making sure you can race someone's threat with your own threat).

It's perfectly fine to want to design an environment without some of these elements, but since this isn't something we've seen emphasized in retail sets I don't think this is the experience that the set designers have had when play testing resent sets for limited.

 

[Mondschwein]

I completely agree Rasmus, and there will still be enough things people just can't interact with in a radical manner (getting rid of something). That's the nature of the game and what creates tension, for example if the aggro player will be able to k.o. the control player before they can turn around the game. I don't want to get rid of that, and it's not about having all the answers (except for control decks lol) but it's about maximizing interactivity.

Like I said, there are still enchantments that fall into consideration, since they're not too oppressive, but unlike big creatures, your deck could possibly never find a way to deal with it, even g2 or g3, just because there's no additional play to it other than removing the enchantment with the right removal. I don't know if I'm able to make my point clear on that one, and I think I see it as kind of an experiment.

It's perfectly fine to want to design an environment without some of these elements, but since this isn't something we've seen emphasized in retail sets I don't think this is the experience that the set designers have had when play testing resent sets for limited.

Personally, I think limited sets are generally flawed, especially because of the wide powerband. Lackluster vanillas and game-winning bombs aren't everywhere, but they pop up from time to time, which is actually a reason why a lot of magic players I know aren't playing limited anymore.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think strong enchantments and artifacts are some of the weakest parts of MTG design. The fact that they need an explicit card that says 'destroy target artifact' or 'destroy target enchantment' is pretty undesirable in my opinion.

My approach is to not run artifacts or enchantments that are so strong that they are a feel-bad if they stay in play. There's some artifact/enchantment removal, but it's super minimal in my cube, and a deck can expect to be fine running no such removal. Instead I focus more on the board, and since there are a fair amount of recursive threats in my environment, I run quite a bit of exile effects as a balance.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Honestly the way I treat most cards for power level concerns is "Can someone win through this card"

So True Name Nemesis? I mean maybe, but probably not.
Hexdrinker? There's a small ass window, and then you're in the above category
Young Pyromancer? That depends a lot, but it's certainly possible.
If you're adding something on the assumption it can be killed so people don't lose, don't add that card, artifact, enchantment, creature or otherwise.

 

[japahn]

Yeah, it's hard to formulate hard and fast rules to determine what's GRBS. I've been thinking in a similar way to Chris, except that I'm ok with people not being able to win through 6+ drops without creature removal. The reason is that you can't run many 6 drops in a deck, so if you forced the opponent to spend their ways to deal with creatures before that, you deserve to win with your 6-drop. Artifact and enchantment removal is much scarcer, so God-Pharaoh's Gift is not ok because in a significant number games you haven't drawn artifact removal at all even if your deck has some!

I like laddering power level and breadth of creature removal like I said in https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/bake-into-a-pie-and-removal-power-band.3201/ so that players have to consider "is this piece of removal too much to deal with this threat or should I save it for a 6-drop" instead of all removal being largely interchangeable.