Giant and Doggo
Sets (MoM) April of the Machines Previews
- Thread starter Velrun
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Giant and Doggo
Man, we're being spoiled for Red 2's lately! I love this card. Prowess+Trample is a winning combination we haven't really seen before, and the ability to get double prowess plus ward on transformation is huge. I definitely think this card could definitely be a great choice.
Not terribly enamored with the set mechanics in a cube context. I don't think battles offset their cost of inclusion, phyrexian tribal I'm not going to give a second of consideration, and I don't like "counters matters" much, I would rather creatures get +2/+2 for one turn than +1/+1 permanently. I think incubation tokens are cool design-wise, but I don't see myself adding them, and the card designer in me dislikes backup, but I could actually see myself trying that one out, the gameplay of it is interesting to me, if the right card comes along. That leaves convoke, with a card nobody else probably cares about coming through.
I'm not too sold on Convoke as a mana cheat ability, it feels like a bit too much of a build-around, especially on this card where the effect is also quite narrow and requires your spare mana to be available, but I do like the extremely open-ended question this presents. It's exactly the kind of card I want to be great in my cube environment. It's explosive, requires commitment, and has a lot of room for creativity.And it's a storm enabler.
I'm not too sold on Convoke as a mana cheat ability, it feels like a bit too much of a build-around, especially on this card where the effect is also quite narrow and requires your spare mana to be available, but I do like the extremely open-ended question this presents. It's exactly the kind of card I want to be great in my cube environment. It's explosive, requires commitment, and has a lot of room for creativity.
I guess this could be cool if you have some rituals to follow it up with. Manamorphose 3 times, anyone? The big issue is that 6 is a huge initial investment, and you ideally want multiple creatures to make this work. I guess something like Baral helps a lot, but that's not really a card you tend to see in multiples.
I'm not too sold on Convoke as a mana cheat ability, it feels like a bit too much of a build-around, especially on this card where the effect is also quite narrow and requires your spare mana to be available, but I do like the extremely open-ended question this presents. It's exactly the kind of card I want to be great in my cube environment. It's explosive, requires commitment, and has a lot of room for creativity.And it's a storm enabler.
I will say this; there seems to be an increasing trend of having a set introduce a gimmick permanent and frequently make reference to it in the abilities of creatures in the set. Things care explicitly for treasures, or care explicitly about powerstones, or mention battles explicitly. It leads to really bad interoperability of these different cards.
I have noticed this trend as well. I think it's a function of the end of the block model: most of these mechanics won't be in more than one or two sets during an entire year's cycle, so they need to include both a higher density of the effect and more self-referential cards in the main set in order for the "deck" to work.
This is also partially a function of Commander's influence on the game. According to MaRo, in order to support a commander deck with a mechanic, you need 6 times as many cards with the mechanic when compared to a 60 card deck. This is why so many legendary creatures are being printed, which enable an entire mechanic by themselves: to reduce the burden of the required density of a keyword in the main set.
Luckily, this paradigm is actually helpful for Cubers since it helps us get enough cards to fill out an archetype with something new in our Cubes. For example, you can build a Toxic archetype deck in a lower power environment with just cards from All Will Be One.
I suppose that's true. I just am bummed by sometimes having to disregard a card because it uses one of these "poisonous" mechanics. But that is a very cube specific concern of course, I understand the sets are designed for many different kinds of play.
For what it's worth, I think the majority of recent mechanics (outside of the literal poison cards) have been pretty open-ended. It's not like an Alliance card can't go into any Cube without causing mechanical issues– the mechanic is open-ended enough to slot right with only one or two cards. Even the more narrow new things like Powerstone Tokens still have plenty of applications in Cubes where they fit the theme. I think it's more of an issue of "do I want to include this extra complexity on my list" and not "this mechanic is too narrow and self-referential to make work in my Cube."
Yeah, there are cards that otherwise read interesting and could have neat interactions but I tend to just avoid them completely with any explicit mention of something that isn't already native and common to my environment.
I've always liked Wicked Wolf from ELD as a card, it's cleaner to me than that fight Hydra from a Core Set a while back, but I don't have nearly enough Food producers for it to be more than just flavor text in most scenarios or a false signal for my drafters at worst. Same if it's a one-off mechanic that doesn't explicitly explain what it does on the card itself like Glorious Protector from KLD or cards that make Powerstones in BRO. It's just not worth the hassle to have to explain things like that in the middle of a draft if someone is unfamiliar with a hyper specific mechanic or reference.
I strongly dislike Battle in this set between the ugly card frame and being a clunky DFC mechanic, so pretty much every card that explicitly mentions them is out for me.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Yeah one single Fortell or Morph card is especially egregious, even if there was a version of Glorious Protector with reminder text.
"Yes, I'm playing this card face down, yes I'm allowed to do this, no you can't see it, no I'm not cheating" etc etc etc
A one off powerstone, or food card though? I think that's fine (given reminder text). I ran rolling earthquake for ages with 0-1 horsemanship creatures in my cube and it was mostly a card I'd be playing anyways with the occasional amusing novelty.
I'll be honest, the idea of excluding a perfectly reasonable magic card because it says the word battle on it seems insane to me.
Like if tomorrow, this gets spoiled:
That card is great! That's a lovely burn spell with great gameplay effects! I'd cut magma jet for that anyday (And not just because 3 > 2, I also like scry 1 over scry 2, less fiddly)
Completely fine if you're thinking to yourself: Well, all the battle cards so far do seem really wordy, and the ones that don't are missing for me on power level.
Less cool if you're thinking: "I saw the word battle and stopped reading, 0/10, give up on these shit cards wotc"
"Yes, I'm playing this card face down, yes I'm allowed to do this, no you can't see it, no I'm not cheating" etc etc etc
A one off powerstone, or food card though? I think that's fine (given reminder text). I ran rolling earthquake for ages with 0-1 horsemanship creatures in my cube and it was mostly a card I'd be playing anyways with the occasional amusing novelty.
I'll be honest, the idea of excluding a perfectly reasonable magic card because it says the word battle on it seems insane to me.
Like if tomorrow, this gets spoiled:
That card is great! That's a lovely burn spell with great gameplay effects! I'd cut magma jet for that anyday (And not just because 3 > 2, I also like scry 1 over scry 2, less fiddly)
Completely fine if you're thinking to yourself: Well, all the battle cards so far do seem really wordy, and the ones that don't are missing for me on power level.
Less cool if you're thinking: "I saw the word battle and stopped reading, 0/10, give up on these shit cards wotc"
Love it. Part of me wants to call it my favorite card of the set, but also, that's a lot of stuff.
What I like about it:
It's a 1/3 looter! To be honest, I've still been happy with the OG Merfolk Looter until this point, but the other two toughness makes a big difference here for this kind of card.
That it's a legend and a legends-matter card. I've got enough legend support in my list that just grinding through your deck is going to be neat. Late-game upside. I know the back of the card is a novel, but the reminder 5/5 text really illustrates most of what you need to know, and the similarity in format to Phyrexian makes it simpler to parse once you do flip it. Five mana and two life isn't terrible for turning this thing into a real beating after you're done digging through your deck.It's definitely going to make it in. For those with smaller lists, I wouldn't cut 2MV Jace for this, but pretty much any other looter is going to look worse after this.
I prefer the "legendary-matters" theme of this more than the "non-human + humans matters" theme of the similar Winota, Joiner of Forces, and the ability to play it with haste potentially. Not sure if I want it all the same, but I'm always interested in more historic support, interesting ways to draft Boros, and one-card archetype enablers.
Here's the other art for this one, but it's a rare situation where the Theros star art is more comprehensible than the normal art! I can't imagine getting rid of Mardu's mommy, but I do like this a lot as a card to play Magic with, so I'll need to figure out if I'd like to double up on this wedge like I did for Naya or if I can get similar satisfaction from making an EDH deck.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Christ I didn't even talk about spoilers
This is an annoying little bugger, half Archon of Emeria, half Thalia, Heretic Cathar. Honestly with what I've played of Archon, you don't need to be facing down a storm deck for locking out multispelling to be effective.
The symmetrical nature means occasionally you'll exclude this from a deck with haste creatures, but this card is super interesting
Again, they're here using a lot more words than I'd like, but the front is "target card in their hand costs 2 more", the flip condition is super achievable at 3 damage, 1W is a super reasonable mana cost but not thoughtseize levels of power, and the back is a bit of an anthem (Which looks great for refunding some of the time invested in breaking this siege) and a bit of a protection spell.
All those parts are sweet!
Also occasionally you'll kill a 3/3 or whatever with it, and hit your land drop.
This is an annoying little bugger, half Archon of Emeria, half Thalia, Heretic Cathar. Honestly with what I've played of Archon, you don't need to be facing down a storm deck for locking out multispelling to be effective.
The symmetrical nature means occasionally you'll exclude this from a deck with haste creatures, but this card is super interesting
Again, they're here using a lot more words than I'd like, but the front is "target card in their hand costs 2 more", the flip condition is super achievable at 3 damage, 1W is a super reasonable mana cost but not thoughtseize levels of power, and the back is a bit of an anthem (Which looks great for refunding some of the time invested in breaking this siege) and a bit of a protection spell.
All those parts are sweet!
As much as I bemoan sorcery on a killspell, it's not a write off for me, and the incentives here are super interesting. You do get to sorcery murder a 5 toughness thing if that's what you need it to do, or you can "cycle" this against a mana dork and dig real deep if you need something specific.
Also occasionally you'll kill a 3/3 or whatever with it, and hit your land drop.
You know I just might be. "Firebreathing" is also big gains on something like this as well, and I've found this same activation really nice on Phoenix of Ash
There’s a difference between thinking this and: “I saw the word battle and stopped reading, because I don’t play with enfranchised players (but do play with new players), and don’t want to overwhelm them with all these Magic concepts”
I’m considering removing every reference to “planeswalkers” for this reason as well. Just different design goals I guess, but a little harsh to call that “less cool”
I'll just disagree here as I think the mechanic itself is too clunky to be worth the additional text and I'm mostly hoping for it to go the way of Tribal or tucked away forever like Energy.
Evergreen mechanics are a-ok with me for references, and if they did that with Battle someday I'd probably come around, but right now they just feel inelegant as a mechanic. It just looks like unnecessary complexity for fringe cards and I'd rather not subject drafters to that. But hey that's just me, I also hate Un-Cards as a concept so I'm definitely not the target market for unnecessary frills on cards.
Cube is already a complex format to navigate and I have other draft enhancements so every bit that I can optimize with the actual cards themselves helps in the long run for players who will never spend as much time as me looking over the cube. The exploration in my cube comes from being able to parse through card interactions and note synergies throughout the draft process. Bogging drafters down with one off references here and there for a card type I'm likely to never include seems unnecessary and detrimental. The cleaner the design the better, and Battles pretty much curb stomp that principle for me.
That comment read less like "avoiding complexity for new players is uncool" and more like "hoping for the failure of an entire card type and all cards that mention it is uncool."
There's nothing wrong with keeping things simple for newer players. Hell, I'm actively cutting everything in my battle box without reminder text for that very reason! But it does get a bit tiresome to read a sea of comments where people are just relentlessly attacking new cards before they've even had a chance to play with the set. We've seen this in most new releases for the past couple of years, but the hate is uniquely bad this time. Whether it's here, reddit, twitter, discord, or anywhere in between, there's a host of people with knives out for battles. The fact that the pessimistic sentiment is spilling over into cards which have literally nothing to do with the battle mechanic other than triggering or being able to target battles is absurd. It doesn't even seem like a big enough addative distraction to matter on the cards in question– no one cutting Deeproot Wayfinder from their Golgari Midrange deck because it has the word Battle in the text box.
People usually don't react well to change, but it's tiring and old by now. The detractors are just acting uniquely irritable this time.
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most of these battles are really powerful cards!
i PROBABLY won't run them myself due to DFC, but i'm helping my peasant cube buddy get some proxies of them printed for his cube, and i'm really looking forward to playing with them on his cube nights. modal permanent that cares about the combat step AND can go into value midrange pile (the best cube deck) is p much always cool in my book.
i PROBABLY won't run them myself due to DFC, but i'm helping my peasant cube buddy get some proxies of them printed for his cube, and i'm really looking forward to playing with them on his cube nights. modal permanent that cares about the combat step AND can go into value midrange pile (the best cube deck) is p much always cool in my book.
The weird thing about Battles is that it feels like they're trying really hard to force them to be a thing. Compare this to the last card type they added to the game (planeswalkers) — the first set with planeswalkers literally only had them as a single cycle:
They were all pretty dang simple, had a pretty conservative power level, and took up a tiny corner of the set's real estate. It literally took twelve years before we got a set where planeswalkers were a major mechanical focus (Lorwyn was in 2007, WAR was in 2019). By that point, everyone knew how they worked. What they're doing with Battles is equivalent to if they had introduced Planeswalkers in WAR with the promise that "these are going to be a big part of the game going forward" (c.f. the whole "MOM will change Magic forever!" comment).
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Personally, I'm mostly intrigued by Backup, the new Convoke cards, and some of the one-off designs (not the pair legends, though — my eyes just kinda slide off of them).
Hey, ravnic, want to see a pushed statline?
They were all pretty dang simple, had a pretty conservative power level, and took up a tiny corner of the set's real estate. It literally took twelve years before we got a set where planeswalkers were a major mechanical focus (Lorwyn was in 2007, WAR was in 2019). By that point, everyone knew how they worked. What they're doing with Battles is equivalent to if they had introduced Planeswalkers in WAR with the promise that "these are going to be a big part of the game going forward" (c.f. the whole "MOM will change Magic forever!" comment).
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Personally, I'm mostly intrigued by Backup, the new Convoke cards, and some of the one-off designs (not the pair legends, though — my eyes just kinda slide off of them).
Hey, ravnic, want to see a pushed statline?
Do you not think that this is due to a plethora of mechanics that have looked to "expand" gameplay in recent years that have failed?
If you keep seeing these new implementations just not work, mostly due to adding logistical complexity to an already complex game, then it's not very surprising that longer term players would be more skeptical the 4th or 5th time around. Logistical complexities in paper aren't just additive distractions; they're a legit block to get around for people parsing through physical cards. MDFCs aren't great to deal with in paper due to excess text and having to physically flip cards to remember wordy backsides. Simple enough on something like ZNR spells that flip into a tapped land, but it is especially bad with set specific mechanics or something with excess text ala Cosima, God of Voyage. I think there's a big difference between mechanics we've had in the past like Monarch, Adventures, or the original implementations of Sagas that were easy to understand. These are simple to parse after one go and they work virtually the same across the board.
There's a fine line that shouldn't be crossed, a lot of it usually comes down to logistical complexities in paper, and it looks like they've been pushing that WAY more often in recent years. If we go through a list of recent new mechanics/gameplay elements in the last 3-4 years, there look to be quite a few blunders.
Learn? Mediocre mechanic overall and has virtually disappeared by not finding a long-time home in older formats or most cubes. Mostly low power level, but also leads to weird despite how much talk there was around here upon release. I don't think we'll be revisiting this anytime soon.
Ability counters? Not necessarily a bad idea, but quite annoying to track in paper Magic. Doubly so if you have something like +1/+1 counters present which also require physical tracking. Fine in something like Arena where the program can do the work for you, a nightmare if you ever wanted to Voltron something with abilities in paper. Just try playing Kathril, Aspect Warper one time.
Companion? Straight up terrible for the game long term though not necessarily tedious like these other elements. Actually simple to understand and make work, but was a bad idea for different reasons. Made many of us especially wary moving forward as the designers seemingly missed the power of a virtual 8th card for Constructed.
Dice-rolling? Rather poor implementation as this degree of variance does not create enjoyable gameplay if your goal is to win a game. It's one thing to roll die towards a collaborative conclusion ala D&D campaigns or certain board games where it benefits all, another when the roll determines the outcome in a 1v1 scenario where the goal is to ultimately win. Magic already has enough variance built in that introducing another way to get screwed just did not land. Also having to keep of various types of die if you branch into Commander cards (D4, D6, D8, D20) is ridiculous.
Dungeons and Initiative? Very clunky having to introduce a whole new mini-game element to the game that requires tracking, doubly so for Initiative which apparently has a changing rule set based on whether or not you're already in a dungeon. We're not likely to revisit this much, but the damage has already been done as far as Legacy goes.
Day/Night? Just terrible to keep track of in general. Weird stuff with how certain cards interact upon flipping and abysmal in paper where cards in your hand can be affected on ETB depending on the state. Simple online, but a nightmare to deal with in paper.
Even if I play zero battles in my cube, having a card mention it DOES create additional complexity for a drafter that isn't intimately familiar with everything Magic. It'll wind up being ultra specific text ala the next time a Rat you control does X or the next time you Boast do Y. If you want to include those in EDH or something constructed for fringe interactions by all means go for it, but I don't think this is a good idea in a cube environment most of the time unless you go deep on a mechanic. There just isn't a reason to introduce additional elements unless they add to your environment in some way. Battles will likely play well within a given Limited environment where they matter, but it's definitely much clunkier than something like one-sided Sagas (double sided sagas are mostly bad unless they flip into something familiar and iconic like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker) or Planeswalkers which are gameplay pieces that don't require additional upkeep in understanding. Complexity for the sake of complexity isn't good design most of the time.
You can call it absurd if you'd like, which I don't think is the case at all, but the reality is that some of us just aren't going to be gushing over the latest attempt at fucking around with core gameplay elements if it leads to clunky cards. That's just not appealing to some of us and Battles + associated cards look to be the latest iteration.
I mean, Learn actually saw a bit of play in Standard. It's just that it was pretty weak power-level wise (so it didn't break into eternal formats), can't be used at all in Commander (because it has a "no wishes" rule), and fits kinda awkwardly into Cube. I also think it's a little unfair to lump it in with a bunch of other mechanics that add overhead to the game, because it's not like wishes are a new concept in Magic.
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I feel like a lot of this comes down to the need to still needing to come up with a 2-3 new mechanics for every set (like they've always done) without the block structure slowing down the accumulation of new mechanics. Which... can I complain about the rate we get new mechanics for a moment?
The two Standards Scars of Mirrodin block was part of had fifteen and thirteen new mechanics respectively, with each block contributing six-ish new mechanics (Zendikar had some extras because I'm being generous and calling quest enchantments/multikicker/traps "new mechanics"), with both standards collectively having twenty-two new mechanics to learn, with the big ones getting 2-3 sets to develop.
Current Standard has something like thirty novel mechanics, depending on how you count them. If we stretch a little and count returning mechanics, the two older Standards get two extra mechanics each (kicker + imprint and imprint + flashback), while current Standard balloons up to forty-ish. That's a lot of complexity to keep up with.
The reason why older blocks accumulated new mechanics more slowly is that they were essentially just one big "main" set with a couple of smaller expansion packs that extrapolated on the stuff it introduced (both mechanically and lore-wise), with there only being a handful of exceptions (Innistrad, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Ravnica, Tarkir, and Zendikar — yes, Scars just so happened to be flanked by two of the five "bigger" sets). If you had a major new (or returning) ability or keyword (or frame! Innistrad added double-sided cards to the game), it'd be in roughly half of the sets in Standard.
Contrast that with the current design regime, where non-evergreen/deciduous stuff generally shows up in one set, with there being a couple of exceptions (the two Innistrad sets were an unofficial two-set block and had some extra overlap, while Powerstones were hinted at in Dominaria United and focused on in Brother's War). It honestly almost feels like the design team is consciously choosing to not repeat any returning mechanics until a set that used it rotates. Like, am I the only one who thought it was a little too neat and tidy that we got kicker in Zendikar Rising and then got it again in the first set after ZKR rotated?
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I feel like a lot of this comes down to the need to still needing to come up with a 2-3 new mechanics for every set (like they've always done) without the block structure slowing down the accumulation of new mechanics. Which... can I complain about the rate we get new mechanics for a moment?
The two Standards Scars of Mirrodin block was part of had fifteen and thirteen new mechanics respectively, with each block contributing six-ish new mechanics (Zendikar had some extras because I'm being generous and calling quest enchantments/multikicker/traps "new mechanics"), with both standards collectively having twenty-two new mechanics to learn, with the big ones getting 2-3 sets to develop.
Current Standard has something like thirty novel mechanics, depending on how you count them. If we stretch a little and count returning mechanics, the two older Standards get two extra mechanics each (kicker + imprint and imprint + flashback), while current Standard balloons up to forty-ish. That's a lot of complexity to keep up with.
The reason why older blocks accumulated new mechanics more slowly is that they were essentially just one big "main" set with a couple of smaller expansion packs that extrapolated on the stuff it introduced (both mechanically and lore-wise), with there only being a handful of exceptions (Innistrad, Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Ravnica, Tarkir, and Zendikar — yes, Scars just so happened to be flanked by two of the five "bigger" sets). If you had a major new (or returning) ability or keyword (or frame! Innistrad added double-sided cards to the game), it'd be in roughly half of the sets in Standard.
Contrast that with the current design regime, where non-evergreen/deciduous stuff generally shows up in one set, with there being a couple of exceptions (the two Innistrad sets were an unofficial two-set block and had some extra overlap, while Powerstones were hinted at in Dominaria United and focused on in Brother's War). It honestly almost feels like the design team is consciously choosing to not repeat any returning mechanics until a set that used it rotates. Like, am I the only one who thought it was a little too neat and tidy that we got kicker in Zendikar Rising and then got it again in the first set after ZKR rotated?