Sets Hour of Devastation Thread

ahadabans

ahadabans

I'm really not upset about the mechanics or having few includes for my list. I greatly favor older cards anyway, so it's not a problem. I'm more annoyed with the lack of fixing. In particular, this annoying BS where Wizard's starts a land cycle and then waits a billion years to finish it.

To put this into perspective as I see it, what if Microsoft came up with a really great feature for an office product - say Excel - but only half implemented it. And then slated the full implementation for 5 years out... just because. Here's a cool half-feature in Excel 2015! We'll get around to the full release in like 2020 or thereabouts to build some tension!

The Tango lands were sweet too. Yet another cool half-finished idea courtesy of our ADHD mothership.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Allied fixing is the norm because allied color pairing is the norm. This "half" land cycle "bullshit" is pretty much dictated, or at least inspired by the color wheel. I don't mind too much either, I can just print proxies for the missing lands.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

Onderzeeboot said:
Allied fixing is the norm because allied color pairing is the norm. This "half" land cycle "bullshit" is pretty much dictated, or at least inspired by the color wheel. I don't mind too much either, I can just print proxies for the missing lands.
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"Allied color pairing is the norm" is a fair defense, because it has been the norm, but Mark Rosewater (and others) have said repeatedly that over-emphasizing allied pairs to the detriment of enemy pairs was a mistake, and that printing full land cycles is important and something they're committed to, because it makes the game better.

I understand they want to save the potential $$$ for a set down the road; that's a fine business angle to take, sure. And I'm pleased with HOU overall, don't get me wrong! But it doesn't make it any less disappointing when you're hoping for the completion of a cycle utilizing a mechanic we aren't guaranteed to see dusted off anytime in the next 2-4 years.

I'm aware that proxies are an option, but I don't use them currently; I've never seen a method that seemed reliably high-quality for my tastes, and I never know what group or seller to trust to get them from, either. If someone wants to privately link me to their favourite proxy process or producer, by all means; maybe I'll become a convert. But in the meantime, I think it's certainly a valid complaint to say that it's a shame they didn't print a full cycle when there really isn't any justification outside of $$$ (which, again, I accept as reasonable) and Standard balance.
 
Velrun

Velrun

As I've said before, Ahadabans, your problem can be solved with custom cards. There's no need to make a big thing about it.

Secondly I strongly believe it is better for the game (not our cubes but the game) to not have everything given to us right away.

Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation had plenty of mana fixers. As did Ice Age, Onslaught, Lorwyn, Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad and so on even though they only had the first half of the ten lands.

I will say though, you are totally in your right to come here and complain about Wizards design choices. It is, after all, what forums are half-way all about ;)
 
Velrun

Velrun

Missed a few points and I'm going to make up for it now.

1.

ahadabans said:
How would you know this? I don't think we know each other (though I guess I could be wrong).?
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I don't know this. I never said I knew. I said I believe.

Velrun said:
I believe you are in no position to say "It's like the people making these decisions don't even know how the game works.
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2.

ahadabans said:
How long have you played Magic? Do you not feel like you are in a position to accurately judge good and bad decisions the company makes with the game?
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I have played Magic regularly since Tempest from October 1997. So that's twenty years in a few months. However I started playing non-regularly when the game was released with two friends from school.

Yes I believe I am in a position to judge but there is no way to be sure. I have five years of education in the files of business finance and game designs. Basically how to make a company like Blizzard or Hasbro. My vote does not count more than yours (!) but you asked and there's my answer.


3.

RavebornMuse said:
I'm aware that proxies are an option, but I don't use them currently; I've never seen a method that seemed reliably high-quality for my tastes, and I never know what group or seller to trust to get them from, either. If someone wants to privately link me to their favourite proxy process or producer, by all means; maybe I'll become a convert.
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I have, for six years now, made proxies of custom card designs that satisfy my demanding taste. Here's my advise. You can use MSE and you need to find some serious high quality artworks. Then you need Cute PDF and a PDF converter. Finally you need to find the best and most expensive printing company in your country and make them print the high quality prints on a 110 gram silk paper. You can also have them cut the cards exactly on borders if you do not want to spend hours on doing so. It will make for some excellent results.

----------

Sorry about the delay. I really wanted to answer all questions but do not always have the time.
 
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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
adornedpouncerpromo.jpg
angelofcondemnation.jpg
sunscourgechampion.jpg
nimbleobstructionist.jpg
riddleform.jpg
supremewill.jpg
abradepromo.jpg
earthshakerkhenra.jpg
hourofdevastation.jpg
claimfame.jpg
bloodwaterentity.jpg

These all seem cool. Not too bad for 199 cards, I'm not so sure what everyone's up in arms about
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Yeah, here are the cards I am looking at--and keep in mind I am notoriously disagreeable about adding new cards:

Champion of Wits
earthshaker khenra
ramunap excavator
leave // chance
sunscourage champion
supreme will
Razaketh's Rite
burning-fist minotaur
Hope tender
claim // fame
farm // market
struggle // survive
grisly survivor
beneath the sands

Abrade, doomfall, and supreme will should probably be cube staples. Consign // oblivion is also reasonable as disperse with upside. Than there are a few other reasonable cards I am sure I am leaving out.

If you want to go and brew up an original cube (aka no one), this is where I would be starting:

Shefet Dunes,
Ramunap Ruins
Ipnu Rivulet
Ifnir Deadlands
Hashep Oasis

A tribal theme built into the mana base is pretty good, and you could have the format be about recurring lands as a card advantage engine, graveyard velocity, and the difficulties of color fixing, with a bias towards artifacts or morphs as a solution.

Its unfortunate that they didn't print the rest of the cycling lands, and yes some cube formats get left out by the generally lower power level, but the Nix comparison feels weird and angsty.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Onderzeeboot said:
Allied fixing is the norm because allied color pairing is the norm. This "half" land cycle "bullshit" is pretty much dictated, or at least inspired by the color wheel. I don't mind too much either, I can just print proxies for the missing lands.
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I'd argue that's not really true. ABU had the full cycle of duals (well, not alpha but only due to a misprint excluding Volcanic Island). Allied wasn't favored over enemy when the game was created. That idea came later with expansions and IMO they never should have let it stay unbalanced for long. If you make an allied block, make an enemy block right after it.

Again, I think this argument of "allied is the norm" is being made solely from a story/lore standpoint which is ignoring the mechanical problem it creates with the actual game itself. There is no inherent advantage to running enemy color pairs despite what the lore might say. And if you automatically have worse fixing by doing it, you are limiting the number of truly viable color combinations. I realize this is largely moot in cube because we have access to so many cycles and can balance it. But that's the point right? It's a fundamental design parameter that virtually every cube follows because to not do it weakens your meta. Why is Wizard's doing it?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
They want to print duel lands, but don't want every block to play like a multi-colored block.

Yes, their are marketing advantages, but they do this with the land cycles as late, even the ones no one cares about. And most magic players don't really care about the types of cycles that we are prone to get angsty about.

But I feel you might prefer a more cynical explanation, revolving around corporate betrayal and greed or some form of soul less incompetence, which just seems way overblown to me.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
ahadabans said:
Why is Wizard's doing it?
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Now that is a good question. They've been printing full cycles of powerful gold uncommons in all ten color pairs for a while now. Was it Theros (four years ago) where they started this? So, WotC has at least somewhat backed enemy color pairs for a while now. So maybe it's something else? Maybe they just don't like printing 10 lands in a set? I vaguely remember MaRo saying something on this topic...

Ok, I can find a source from 2013 that quotes MaRo:

R&D has come around on dual lands and now believes that we have to try and give the audience access to all ten pairs as much as we can.
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And Theros (hey, I've seen that name before!) did indeed feature all ten scrylands. To be fair though, nowhere does it say they will print all 10 lands in a cycle, and indeed they've been alternating for the last few blocks. ORI had enemy painlands, BFZ had ally battle lands, BFZ and OGW had enemy creature lands, SOI had ally reveal lands, KLD had enemy fastlands, AKH had ally bicycle lands. So, it kinda all adds up as far as supported mana bases in Standard go, it just seem that they are indeed less willing to devote 10 rare slots to lands. This is only becoming more of an issue after they switch to one set blocks, so I don't expect this "policy" to go anywhere soon.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Onderzeeboot said:
Now that is a good question. They've been printing full cycles of powerful gold uncommons in all ten color pairs for a while now. Was it Theros (four years ago) where they started this? So, WotC has at least somewhat backed enemy color pairs for a while now. So maybe it's something else? Maybe they just don't like printing 10 lands in a set? I vaguely remember MaRo saying something on this topic...

Ok, I can find a source from 2013 that quotes MaRo:



And Theros (hey, I've seen that name before!) did indeed feature all ten scrylands. To be fair though, nowhere does it say they will print all 10 lands in a cycle, and indeed they've been alternating for the last few blocks. ORI had enemy painlands, BFZ had ally battle lands, BFZ and OGW had enemy creature lands, SOI had ally reveal lands, KLD had enemy fastlands, AKH had ally bicycle lands. So, it kinda all adds up as far as supported mana bases in Standard go, it just seem that they are indeed less willing to devote 10 rare slots to lands. This is only becoming more of an issue after they switch to one set blocks, so I don't expect this "policy" to go anywhere soon.
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Here is the closest you will get to an official explanation. The sum of it:

While it would be possible to make every Standard environment have the exact same and powerful mana fixing, it would make a lot of the environments begin to feel homogeneous—and take away a powerful resource we have for fluctuating the power of Standard.
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Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
Funnily enough the enemy pairs have had much better mana in Standard for the past year and a bit - OGW creature lands + Kaladesh fastlands/Origins painlands (when Eldrazi were more relevant) vs Shadow lands/BfZ lands (both of which demands lots of basics and don't want you to use the utility lands scattered around various sets)
 
S

Salmo2

Velrun said:
As I've said before, Ahadabans, your problem can be solved with custom cards. There's no need to make a big thing about it.
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I like playing with legos, but I would never want to make my own lego blocks. This, to a degree, is how I feel about custom cards in magic, and without putting words into ahdabans' mouth it seems like it's what he feels too. It's a real thing, and there's nothing wrong with making your own cards but you gotta understand the majority of us would rather a big box of legos instead of a lego press. Maybe you're comfortable tinkering with that press, and that's cool, but shit man legos are pretty friggin great as is, and I feel magic is too. Any issues I have are not big enough to really make me want to improve the game in my own devices, as it's an awesome game already.

Like, if I was missing a piece I wanted, I wouldn't want to just make that piece, as I think finding a worthy alternative is more fun than just forcing in the thing I think should be there. 'Restrictions breed creativity' and such, which can def be true for that creativity in making your own cards but I think there's a beauty and certain elegance in figuring out what works with what you already got in that big box of legos or cards or whatever.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Salmo2 said:
I like playing with legos, but I would never want to make my own lego blocks. This, to a degree, is how I feel about custom cards in magic, and without putting words into ahdabans' mouth it seems like it's what he feels too. It's a real thing, and there's nothing wrong with making your own cards but you gotta understand the majority of us would rather a big box of legos instead of a lego press. Maybe you're comfortable tinkering with that press, and that's cool, but shit man legos are pretty friggin great as is, and I feel magic is too. Any issues I have are not big enough to really make me want to improve the game in my own devices, as it's an awesome game already.
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I respect that decision and I respect you and Ahadabans.

However it was part of a solution to his problems. Either custom or have patience. As I wrote several times, and as he agreed to in the end, there are many good reasons why Wizards rarely print ten new and rare dual lands in the same set or block. How to deal with the situation is equally as important as to rage upon it.
 
S

Salmo2

Velrun said:
I respect that decision and I respect you and Ahadabans.

However it was part of a solution to his problems. Either custom or have patience. As I wrote several times, and as he agreed to in the end, there are many good reasons why Wizards rarely print ten new and rare dual lands in the same set or block. How to deal with the situation is equally as important as to rage upon it.
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Yeah I just don't take internet rage about magic cards *too* seriously. At the end of the day, I bet ahdabans still feels really great about his cubes and in time I imagine all the fixing problems will resolve themselves as they slowly have been.

For what its worth, I respect the decision to make custom cards too. It's not something I'm too interested in at all and I don't think I would play a cube with them too many times, but I think as long as you don't push the power levels too much and try to make similar or adjacent cards it can work. Maybe that's a philosophy you do or don't agree with, but it doesn't really matter what I think as I'm sure your cube is fun with the customs as magic is a great game with a lot of possibilities, both for the actual cards and the things you could imagine.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I'm going with patience. I tried the proxy thing and was unhappy with doing that. There's an ascetic/collector aspect to building a cube and proxy's ruin that a bit for me. It's fine. I'm butt hurt because we now have two allied dual land cycles with basic land types. Having tried a few configurations of lands, I feel single fetch double basic land dual is the best combination. That has forced me to run duplicate copies of shock lands, which is fine. I've just been looking forward to getting away from that ever since we got the tangos. Now these sweet bicycles and they keep me waiting. Grrr....
 
Velrun

Velrun

Salmo2
It seems to me that you and I share many of the same demands we have for custom made cards.

If you make the home-made cards in a high enough quality, in a low enough quantity, as simple as possible and without pushing any power floor or ceiling... then people will sometimes question which cards are Wizards of the Coast and which cards aren't. My goal for the custom cards in my cube is for people to notice them as little as possible in a way where they can fill in the holes I believe we're missing.

Ahadabans
Great! :)
 
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