Annihilator 1 or 2 is fine imo especially on creatures costing so much any more gets annoying and if that's not the only thing they do.
If it was just one permanent when they attack , I wouldn't hate it as much.
Annihilator 1 or 2 is fine imo especially on creatures costing so much any more gets annoying and if that's not the only thing they do.
I mean, that's why Mark Rosewater has one of the largest bodies of written work on game design in the English language.
Everything Thats Wrong with Battle for Zendikar
Paulo goes nuclear on BfZ, getting into the mess that are the mechanics and highlighting the sets incompatibility with the other sets in standard.
Everything Thats Wrong with Battle for Zendikar
Paulo goes nuclear on BfZ, getting into the mess that are the mechanics and highlighting the sets incompatibility with the other sets in standard.
so anyone else thinks that they might have intentionally decreased the power level with BfZ and then included the expedition lands so the set still sells?
so anyone else thinks that they might have intentionally decreased the power level with BfZ and then included the expedition lands so the set still sells?
so anyone else thinks that they might have intentionally decreased the power level with BfZ and then included the expedition lands so the set still sells?
As for Paulo's article, I agree with everything he says, but goddamn does it feel like PVDDR writes a bunch of articles bitching about ___________. I legit wonder if CFB makes him the whipping-boy who has to write the articles that bitch about formats, design, etc. so that the rest of their writers don't get flak from WOTC.
It's a draft thing. Devoid is basically a marker to tell people that those spells play well in an Eldrazi deck.There are a handful of Eldrazi that care about colorless cards and all of the devoid spells either exile things, make scions or care about colorless spells. The two exceptions seems to be Turn Against and Processor Assault. The latter at least makes sense since it acts like a Processor, but the former seems to just be colorless for flavor reasons.Devoid on creatures is fine. But I'm baffled that they made so many devoid and straight up colorless instants and sorceries when they literally just announced that they're basically phasing out Protection, which is like the one interaction where a spell's redness or blueness actually matters. Without that all they have are "reduce colorless spell costs by 1" effects which...aren't pushed or particularly relevant.
To temper my support of his article a little, his point about Awaken is spot on, his point about allies is correct (but trifling, just look at the card) and his point about Devoid is pretty arguable. Devoid exists for gameplay and flavor reasons which are completely legitimate and some reasonable synergies (e.g. Titan's Presence) actually do exist.
Complaints about Devoid are completely baffling to me tho. It'd be one thing if devoid cards cost more because of devoid but they don't.
What the fuck is with the art in this set
[IM]http://media.wizards.com/2015/images/daily/cardart_NissasExpedition.jpg[/IMG]
Nissa looks like an off-model moment in a cheap anime
I was surprised by the number of Rally abilities that don't stack with themselves. Cards that get you multiple allies in a single turn almost don't matter because so many of the triggers just grant a keyword, so multiple triggers become redundant.
I'd disagree that devoid is being sold as a big mechanic. Many of the design and development articles on Wizards' site have pointed out during design it wasn't a named mechanic at all. Originally, they just wanted to use a colorless indicator sort of like the ones you see on the Pacts, but focus testing showed that players didn't get it, so they moved it into the text box.I don't think the problem with devoid is about power level, it's more about design. It's being sold as a big new mechanic in this set when the reality is that devoid isn't a mechanic at all. Mechanics do a thing and, by defining that thing, reify it in the Magic ecosystem, allowing design to play off of it. But colorless spells don't need definition. Colorless spells have existed since Alpha, and they were so far from being a keyworded mechanic that they were left up to the art direction to communicate.
If there's a new mechanic in devoid, it's not "this spell is colorless." It's "this colorless spell costs colored mana." Which is kind of a mechanic (although it's still more or less just a characteristic), but obviously it's basically a negative one. Basically it means the set is just a set with a higher than normal frequency of colorless cards, without the corresponding deckbuilding flexibility that would normally come along with that (because they created a mechanic to get rid of it).
So it's just a set with lots of colorless cards. Well, the reality is that Magic mostly doesn't care about colorless cards. Gatherer only shows 116 cards that reference "colorless" and the majority of them are creating colorless tokens. I dug through them and I found four cards pre-BFZ that actually benefit from having more colorless cards -- Ghostfire Blade (creatures only), Eldrazi Temple (Eldrazi only), Eye of Ugin (Eldrazi spells/creatures only), and Tomb of the Spirit Dragon (creatures only). Which means that a card like, say, Adverse Conditions, which is a devoid non-Eldrazi Instant, has literally no cards that interact with its colorless status in the entirety of Magic. It's defined only by exclusion -- being devoid means that cards that would normally care about blue instants don't care about this one.
So it's almost the perfect example of a "mechanic" that does nothing, interacts with nothing, and creates no new design space. Is that "transgressive?" I mean, in the sense that they're charging money for it, I guess.
That art is from M15.What the fuck is with the art in this set
Nissa looks like an off-model moment in a cheap anime
Also, you've missed a whole bunch of cards that would make colorless matter more. In standard, Ugin, for one, doesn't exile colorless permanents. Ultimate Price also misses them. In wider formats, they get around cards like Apostle's Blessing, Kor Firewalker and Iona..
I'm guessing you're referring to Wurmcoil Engine?
To temper my support of his article a little, his point about Awaken is spot on, his point about allies is correct (but trifling, just look at the card) and his point about Devoid is pretty arguable. Devoid exists for gameplay and flavor reasons which are completely legitimate and some reasonable synergies (e.g. Titan's Presence) actually do exist.
I thought most of the eldrazi look great though.What the fuck is with the art in this set
Nissa looks like an off-model moment in a cheap anime
Also, you've missed a whole bunch of cards that would make colorless matter more. In standard, Ugin, for one, doesn't exile colorless permanents. Ultimate Price also misses them. In wider formats, they get around cards like Apostle's Blessing, Kor Firewalker and Iona.
Devoid is there for a good reason.
How many of you realized this was not an artifact creature the first time you saw it? Be honest.
I mean, if that's the problem, then again, that's an art direction problem. A problem that can be solved by a better card frame does not need to be a mechanic.
It's being sold as a big new mechanic in this set when the reality is that devoid isn't a mechanic at all.
Yeah, your creature suite with that many Wormcoil Engines looks more like a RG Tron deck, also known as Eldrazi Green, to me. Here's an example deck from a recent tournament.
Yeah, I don't think of Devoid as one of the sets big mechanics. Colorless Eldrazi is the mechanic/theme, Devoid is just a method of indicating certain cards are colorless despite colored mana symbols in their cost. You don't draft/build a 'Devoid' deck so much as you build a colorless deck which slots in those Devoid cards. They had to make colorless cards with colored costs because of issues with previous sets based on colorless themes and keywording it like this is the clearest way to communicate to players that certain cards with colored mana symbols remain colorless. His point about Awaken is spot on though. It's unfortunate that they just kind of tacked it onto some cards since I think it's a cool version of Kicker. I'd rather see it attached to cards that are more thematically appropriate or interesting like Earthen Arms it can either further pump the land it's Awakening or interact with other cards in the set and previous block in decent ways. Earthen Arms your Gideon, Ally of Zendikar for a bigger body or use it in concert with the rest of your Hardened Scales/Anafenza/Hangarback deck.
There's some reasonable synergy there with Ugin and Titan's Presence, which is ridiculously good removal if you're playing a synergistic deck.
No, I mean if you make a deck with a colorless or devoid theme, they're both payoff cards for doing it.huh these two cards synergise in no way at all, I don't get it? Do you mean Ugin and Titan's presence synergise with devoid?
This was literally the assumption for what would happen with the new Eldrazi. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter if almost none of them are constructed playable.I'd like to see someone build a Devoid/Ingest deck using some of the new Eldrazi, and then one-side wrath someone with Ugin's minus ability, keeping all of their own permanents.
Sperling's great.
Owen's great.
Keeping it real (and snarky) is a good thing.
so anyone else thinks that they might have intentionally decreased the power level with BfZ and then included the expedition lands so the set still sells?
The power level wasn't the problem. Theros had a similarly low power level, but the mechanics were both extremely flavorful and fun to play in a way that BFZ just isn't.Its a shitty low power set. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna have fun with it.
But the actual answer is, trying to take two formats people loved (one without good reason) and jam them into one was never going to work very well. It's like trying to jam Ravnica together with Mirrodin and hoping it will somehow come out coherent.
What the fuck is with the art in this set
http://media.wizards.com/2015/images/daily/cardart_NissasExpedition.jpg[/IG]
Nissa looks like an off-model moment in a cheap anime[/QUOTE]
[quote="OnPoint, post: 179625401"]The art direction was wonky for Origins too. It has me kind of worried for the future.[/QUOTE]
At least a higher percentage of the art in Origins actually seemed finished. I honestly believe a significant percentage of the art for BFZ is just [I]not done. [/I]I don't want to speculate on why because it doesn't matter, but I'm on record from the earliest art reveals for this set saying that the art is really bad. Like, shockingly bad. The first art for Khans was the Mardu Clan on the cliff and it looked amazing, instantly told the story and got everyone hype for Wedges on the spot because the art direction was so good. For Magic Origins, Karla Ortiz' Liliana paintings were the only art we had for months and it didn't matter because in both composition and execution it was some of the most successful art in the history of the game. Those two paintings alone illustrated the tone of ORI so well it's all they needed to advertise their set.
BFZ got a stack of art for its first reveal and it all looked like shit. The colors and composition were all over the place and it didn't evoke any particular emotion from the characters that helped us know what's going on. It was legitimately poor art direction.
No, I mean if you make a deck with a colorless or devoid theme, they're both payoff cards for doing it.
I mean, I'm certainly planning to run out that Eldrazi deck I made until I lose too much and go back to just running dumb 'ol Jeskai with Mantis Riders ahoy
in the sense that Ugin doesn't exile your creatures, that makes sense.
Even if it does well wouldn't you end up facing mirror matches after a while and doesn't it crumble to tragic arrogance/planar outburst
But Ulamog doesn't even beat Abzan Charm. :3The plan is to get Ulamog out and crush all their hopes and dreams
But Ulamog doesn't even beat Abzan Charm. :3
But Ulamog doesn't even beat Abzan Charm. :3
It couldn't be possible that this is why we haven't seen any commander stuff could it? I don't know how early things have to be done to get out to printers, so I might just be grasping at straws.
Ulamog with Dispel backup?
Christ, the new eldrazi are just bad.
I would argue new Ulamog isn't particularly worse than old Ulamog, really.
I only now noticed it's underwater.
I know a low of people seem to hate the card, but I just think Fathom Feeder is one of those annoying (for your opponent) cards nobody really wants to attack into and manages to not be a completely miserable topdeck.
Deathtouch is fucking obnoxious to attack into.