That's fair. I just never liked them from the jump and always found them to be clunky in implementation. Wishes being more open-ended never really bothered me (to be fair, it's also before my time), but tying in this mechanic to lesson cards as the only target(s) made it far less appealing to me. At least wishes can actually get good cards ala Karn wishboard, but lessons are just so unimpressive and weak that I never had any interest in messing with them from the jump. Strixhaven was just a big miss all around for me so I definitely wasn't the target audience for this.
Yeah, this is definitely a problem in that new mechanics just don't have the depth necessary to be worth exploration most of the time.
Variants of kicker or things that deal with +1/+1 counters like Backup are easy enough to integrate with pre-existing cards, but there are a hell of a lot of cards nowadays that are printed to mention one off mechanics that make them awkward for inclusion outside of a dedicated Limited or Standard environment. There's just not enough room for these mechanics to breathe and really make them feel special. Like Streets of New Capenna was from a year back and I can't recall the majority of mechanics in that set off the top of my head despite having 3-4 cards from the set in my cube.
). Riptide exists only so that Magic players can grow and learn from each other. When that stops happening, Riptide stops existing. For growth and learning to happen, comments should largely be characterized by genuine curiosity about other forum members -- not negativity about the cards, not ammo-gathering for a witty clapback, and not the monopolized discourse better left for blog posts.
