Card/Deck Low Power Card Spotlight

KhitriyKrab

KhitriyKrab

Let's gather some incidental token support here! Sorry if the power band is too wide.

Large threats:




Removal with good rate and Polymorph shenanigans:



Profit from tokens dying by going tall and tying it to the Counters theme or regaining the board:








Or generate an overwhelming card advantage:




I feel this can just leave some decks with no way to win the game with a gravestorm not too high:


Also, what a strange card. Does anyone feel it shouldn't be Blue?
 
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LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I was browsing Scryfall, and I came across this little fellow that seems fantastic for a bar cube (or other format where having a bunch of throwaway creatures to feed to edicts is uncommon):



I don't have a good place to test it right now, but on paper the play patterns it opens up seem pretty interesting. I like that villain is saccing a creature to get the privilege of trading another creature with the Marauder, and like how it interacts with combat tricks more than something like Shakedown Heavy. I even like that it's a 3/1 instead of a 3/2, because that makes it really tempting to chump.
 
KhitriyKrab

KhitriyKrab

It's interesting to think that while it's actually strictly worse than 3/1 unblockable for {1}{B}{B}, the fact that it gives the opponent an option to make a mistake makes it seem better.
 
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LadyMapi

LadyMapi

One of the cool things about designing a cube is that you get to realize that a card can be good and bad at the same time.

From a winning the game perspective (which is the one that playing Magic trains you to take), a 3/1 unblockable is 100% strictly better because there isn't much counter-play outside of "use removal, idiot". Slice from the Shadows is a strictly better version of Death Wind because it makes villain's decision to run counterspells or creatures with ward meaningless. Ogre Marauder is worse than a color-shifted Latch Seeker is worse than a color-shifted True-Name Nemesis, and so on and so forth.

From a designing a format perspective, your goal is to make sure that both players have agency over the game and both have a good time. Both players having to "negotiate" over whether or not Ogre Marauder gets to be a color-shifted Latch Seeker or a 2-for-1 trade opens up more room for skill expression and stories than if one player just gets to click the "do 3 damage a turn" button repeatedly. And that's a good thing! Ogre Marauder is worse than a color-shifted Latch Seeker, but is probably more fun for both players. If players need Slice to push through ward and counters, maybe you should cut some ward and counters.

That said, I wouldn't run it in a format where Cruel Edict wasn't a reasonable spell - if there are a bunch of 1/1 tokens running around to feed to edicts it's basically a severely nerfed Cursed Minotaur, and that's just disappointing.
 
safra

safra

a 3/2 menace for 3 now that's a game piece. no comment on all this ogre business but it feels a little cute to me, not unlike all the other punisher mechanic spells
 
Karshtakavaar

Karshtakavaar

Getting to take something 'cute', reveal its complexities and thereby make it mechanically interesting is engaging all on it's own, and lets you learn a ton about the game even outside that 'cute'-ness.
Look at the absolute insanity that is the success of Dandan as a format - I have watched people I was convinced would never improve at Magic become significantly better in 40-card limited games after playing Dandan before and between rounds for like two months. Is that because their only other regular Magic is EDH? Probably. But it's still valuable (In the context of understanding Magic. Not so much in the "Would shell out $100 for a playset of scuffed foils.").
 
ravnic

ravnic

Karshtakavaar said:
Is that because their only other regular Magic is EDH? Probably
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It is really astonishing to me how many absolute basics of playing Magic are lost to people who only come from Commander. No hate. I love it when people come to this game and I don't care how good you are, but it's still fascinating how learning the game has changed over the years. In the most recent Cube Open tournament, I played against a guy in my very own Ravnica block cube. He was enfranchised. I could tell because he knew cards and Magic lingo, he even complained that I had a formerly banned now "game changer" because I was playing Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - annoying, but dies to Last Gasp and Galvanic Arc and Putrefy and Seal of Doom and others. And he had absolutely no concept of tempo and card advantage!

The first game against me he gave away because he constantly sacrificed real cards to Thoughtpicker Witch. He seemed to think that this was a mean play. But I already had a superior board position, because he was not hitting all his land drops and I had been developing my board decently. So it just made it so much easier that he threw away three real creatures he paid mana for, just to slightly manipulate my draws.

Game two was even more baffling. He cast Shambling Shell on three, followed it up with Moldervine Cloak swung for six, I took it. In my turn I Repealed the creature, so his aura fell off, a huge tempo swing. He continued to dredge it back, swing for six again. I knew I could take it one more time because I had drawn a real removal spell. When I got rid of his one threat (while also casting another creature) he even said "I will just continue doing that" like he was really giving it to me. I tried to be friendly and chill but still said something like "If you believe that will win you the game". He wasted two more draw steps and another six mana to rebuild his DIY Craw Wurm, which at this point, couldn't even attack into my board anymore.

After losing his third match he proclaimed: "I don't know what else I could have done!"

Maybe this has something to do with these pushed commander cards these days all generating tons of card advantage and enabling themself and snowballing with no investment needed. I believed my Ravnica cube was beginner friendly, but now there are players like this guy, enfranchised players, unable to win a simple 1 vs 1, 20 life, 40 card match.
 
Karshtakavaar

Karshtakavaar

ravnic said:
Maybe this has something to do with these pushed commander cards these days all generating tons of card advantage and enabling themself and snowballing with no investment needed. I believed my Ravnica cube was beginner friendly, but now there are players like this guy, enfranchised players, unable to win a simple 1 vs 1, 20 life, 40 card match.
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Winning a draft with 3+ colour jank built around your draft chaff shouldn't-have-been-a-first-pick Legend used to be a way to dunk on your pod -now it just means you forgot which night was open table EDH, and they needed one more to get a pod of six.
 
KhitriyKrab

KhitriyKrab

It will always be baffling to me how EDH is the format through which people are introduced to the game now. I have no qualms about why it's attractive to people, but it seems just so intimidating to learn. The game is already complex to teach (so much so you need to plan the training journey ahead; I've taught a person last year from zero to have a cube partner, so I should know) and legitemately hard to learn, and I simply can't imagine how all these newbies manage learining about blockers not tapping and Llanowar Elves not fetching Forests and priority while juggling unique cards from THREE other players and not offending anyone by attacking. No wonder there's no headspace left for tempo.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Oh, and another thing commander players often don't do when you put them into a context of real 1-vs-1 Magic is to sideboard. Recently in my cube one player had a red aggro deck with Bloodrage Brawler but only very little things to actually discard (mostly just one Rootwalla). She lost game one against a mono blue deck with 2-3 ways to bounce her threats, but she just kept Bloodrage Brawler in, despite some very decent sideboard options, and got the minotaur bounced three times in game two.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

KhitriyKrab said:
It will always be baffling to me how EDH is the format through which people are introduced to the game now.
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My suspicion is that it's less intimidating. A new player who just got into EDH can just kinda sit off in a corner and durdle because they aren't villain's sole focus and they don't have to worry about any deck adjustment until they feel ready (vs. 1v1 Magic where sideboarding is an integral part of playing a match). My impression is that most people who play EDH don't really care about what other people's cards do (which you can get away with because you aren't villain's sole focus) and not attacking saves brain space because you don't need to learn the finer points of combat math.

It also probably helps that you get a specific character to latch onto, instead of having to learn what different deck archetypes do.

EDIT: Specifically thinking about people who primarily play EDH not having the skills to play 1v1 Magic... I kinda wonder what a format designed around teaching a particular skill would even look like? I have a vague sense of what a sideboarding crash-course would look like (probably a mini-master variant, or other similar perpetual draft), but I'm not sure how you'd make a tempo-focused environment that isn't punishing to someone without a good grasp on tempo.

(Note to self: next time I make a cube, come up with a mascot for each archetype. That might make it more legible.)
 
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KhitriyKrab

KhitriyKrab

Á-propos of Commander issues: how's this for an environment with no (other) explicit "Vengeance" synergies (and no Phoenix tribal, obviously) but a traditionally Riptidean high volume of playing creatures from the Graveyard?

 
ravnic

ravnic

Should work decently well with a good base body as fallback plan. But I would avoid it for all it's trinket text, suggesting themes that aren't there.
 
ravnic

ravnic



I'll show you now a few 4-drops that have been (very) good but unproblematic in my cube and you tell me if that Toph seems more dangerous to you than these.

 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Toph is better than all of those, but if your environment doesn't get overrun by Zimone, you'll be perfectly fine with her. She's a sweet card that I would pick up if not for her price. Earthbending is an insanely satisfying mechanic.

I think she should be considered a 5-drop anyways, because like her friends Rampaging Baloths and Avenger of Zendikar, it feels pretty bad to play her on-curve without a landfall trigger prior to passing the turn.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

ravnic said:
Maybe this has something to do with these pushed commander cards these days all generating tons of card advantage and enabling themself and snowballing with no investment needed.
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I believe this is part of it.

There's this trend in games, not just Magic, where a substantial chunk of players go to "do their thing", rather than play "the hard way". That is, they just slam their cards and go for it, ignoring what the opponent might do, if it's the right play or any other important decisions. It's like going all-in every time: It's a bad strategy, but when it wins, it wins hard enough that it doesn't matter what the opponent does. A good example of this is playing into wraths. The right play is to hold back, but most players on Magic Arena will just slam down everything, making games a coin flip around whether you drew the wrath or not.

Unfortunately, this kind of play patterns are supported by the design team, so players become even more entrenched on them.
 
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