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[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I like the idea of the Eldrazi now incubating inside Zendikar ready to burst out like bugs from a ripe fruit, but Rosewater has also said that he hopes the next Zendikar set is sans Eldrazi so they can get back to "adventure world"

sounds boring.

 

[Ashodin]

Trying really hard to appeal to the shipping crowd

 

[Angry Grimace]

I mean, they are trying to turn it into YA basically

That's not an inherently disparaging comment, they're just doing it poorly

As far as I can tell, everyone in the Gatewatch has a bunch of pent up lust for the other.

Gideon and Chandra were already hot for each other before the story started.
They had a little of that with Chandra and Jace in Zendikar 1.
There's been a ton of Jace/Nissa mind-sex.
Jace wishes he was cool like Gideon-senpai
Chandra and Nissa are pretty much bosom buddies 2 chapters after they met.

 

["God's Beard!"]

I'm working on a new format called Artificer.

• 60 card singleton
• Legendary Artifact you start the game with
• Artifact can be "upgraded" as the game goes on
• # of mana in artifact cost = number of colors you can use in your deck (0 = colorless, 5+ = 5)

it's not finished yet, so there will probably be "bans" of what can be used as your legendary artifact.

My anti-variance format:

70-card decks, no sideboards, no mulligans and no card limits. Each player starts with 20 life. Matches are 35 minutes long with no draws, one game. When time is called, the game is decided by the first life total adjustment beginning on the next turn. (Goes up, that player wins, goes down, that player loses.)

The match begins with both player's decks face up on the table for 5 minutes before the round starts. When round time begins, both players shuffle their decks back in, look through their decks for 6 cards, put them in their hand and shuffle their library. Then the match continues as normal.

 

[Santiako]

Something Awful.

Thanks.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I wish Canadian Highlander was a real format people played although they should probably ban the Moxen and Lotus since there's still too great of an incentive to play them.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I wish Canadian Highlander was a real format people played although they should probably ban the Moxen and Lotus since there's still too great of an incentive to play them.

Doesn't it chew up most of your points to play those cards? For relatively little gain in a 100-card deck?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

We had a weird rule when I was a kid playing MTG we called all mana, basically you could all lands in your hand into play turn 1. No idea why it's stupid af.

I just want to make Planechase into a format where you actually chase someone.

 

[aidan]

I wish Canadian Highlander was a real format people played although they should probably ban the Moxen and Lotus since there's still too great of an incentive to play them.

I just found out the other day that a bunch of regulars at my LGS, Yellowjacket Comics & Toys in Victoria, BC, invented Canadian Highlander. Pretty cool.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Doesn't it chew up most of your points to play those cards? For relatively little gain in a 100-card deck?

It does, but Moxen are completely overpowered so its worth using your points on them. What I actually want is for it to be a real MODO format.

 

[Ashodin]

I just found out the other day that a bunch of regulars at my LGS, Yellowjacket Comics & Toys in Victoria, BC, invented Canadian Highlander. Pretty cool.

Yellowjacket is where the Loading Ready Run dudes hangout at, so no surprise.

 

[Giant Panda]

I mean, make no mistake, no matter what MaRo says, land is a bad design. It's such a bad design that it warps almost every aspect of competitive -- best of threes, constant revisions to mulligan rules, etc. Everything has to be built around the 10% chance that your hand is dead when you draw it.

There are lots of possibilities for improving it, too, it's just that Magic more or less came first and everybody else was just iterating on land.

* Let players start with a strong land in play (L5R)
* Let players tutor up lands in turn one (L5R again)
* Let players convert cards in their hand into land (that one Marvel Heroes game)
* etc.

But I don't think they'll actually fix lands any time soon because so much is already built around the concept.



You don't actually need both rules -- if you put one of those rules in, people will adjust their land balance to take advantage of it. So I'd just put in the first option and let people run like 12 lands instead. But I think you've tuned it too weak because you made it too general. The big problem with mana isn't the ongoing danger of topdecks, it's the vital importance of getting enough land in the first hand to play the game without getting so much that you can't play the game.

I would basically just print this:

Magical Gift
Land
T: C.
Pay 2 life: If this is your first turn, search your library for ~ and a basic land, reveal them, and put them into your hand. Play this ability only once per game and only if ~ is in your library.

You can probably get away with just running two of these.

I've been brainstorming a variant that has a separate deck of lands from the actual spell cards. Players would then have the choice to draw from the land deck or the spell deck whenever they have the ability to draw. There would have to be a minimum of 20 lands or something to retain some variance in which lands you draw.

On the positive side, this would get rid of mana screw and mana flood as you could precisely control the number of lands that you had access to. Additionally, since you still wouldn't know exactly which lands you drew, color screw would still exist, which I consider a good check on silly good-stuff decks. Players would have to use up more of their draws on the land deck to search for their colors in multi-color decks.

On the negative side, there are a lot of Magic cards that rely on the lands and spells being in the same deck, so they would either have to be banned or have their functionality changed. Even the cards that work with lands split out could have balance problems as the cards that interact with the library or lands have all been balanced around the current set up.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I've been brainstorming a variant that has a separate deck of lands from the actual spell cards. Players would then have the choice to draw from the land deck or the spell deck whenever they have the ability to draw. There would have to be a minimum of 20 lands or something to retain some variance in which lands you draw.

On the positive side, this would get rid of mana screw and mana flood as you could precisely control the number of lands that you had access to. Additionally, since you still wouldn't know exactly which lands you drew, color screw would still exist, which I consider a good check on silly good-stuff decks. Players would have to use up more of their draws on the land deck to search for their colors in multi-color decks.

On the negative side, there are a lot of Magic cards that rely on the lands and spells being in the same deck, so they would either have to be banned or have their functionality changed. Even the cards that work with lands split out could have balance problems as the cards that interact with the library or lands have all been balanced around the current set up.

I think Force of Will (e.g. anime magic) does something like that.

 

[Ashodin]

So the big theory on r/magictcg is that the fall set is KALDHEIM, the snowy viking plane.

For anyone who is unsure, this plane first appeared in Planechase (2009) and then the logo and new planeswalker appeared in DotP 2014.
2 years after Kiora was first revealed in DotP 2012 they printer her in Theros block.

Other speculation include some random new Egypt plane, but I like the 2 years - new plane theory.

 

[The Technomancer]

I've been brainstorming a variant that has a separate deck of lands from the actual spell cards. Players would then have the choice to draw from the land deck or the spell deck whenever they have the ability to draw. There would have to be a minimum of 20 lands or something to retain some variance in which lands you draw.

On the positive side, this would get rid of mana screw and mana flood as you could precisely control the number of lands that you had access to. Additionally, since you still wouldn't know exactly which lands you drew, color screw would still exist, which I consider a good check on silly good-stuff decks. Players would have to use up more of their draws on the land deck to search for their colors in multi-color decks.

On the negative side, there are a lot of Magic cards that rely on the lands and spells being in the same deck, so they would either have to be banned or have their functionality changed. Even the cards that work with lands split out could have balance problems as the cards that interact with the library or lands have all been balanced around the current set up.

I actually playtested this exact idea for a class in game design a couple years ago, and ended up not very satisfied with it. I mean, definitely play it for yourself and give it a try, but I observed that the color variation was much less of an issue than you think it would remain (unless you're in like a 4 color deck) and the games did feel less exciting for the ability to consistently curve out. It works in a casual setting when you're not sure what other player's decks are, but I tried it with a few more competitive decks with some of my friends outside of class also and it felt noticeably more mechanical.

My writeup at the time was that Magic has so much of its variance baked into the land system that removing that without replacing it elsewhere hurt the overall experience. I said that a game built from the ground up with additional variance could work. Then Hearthstone came out, which was basically exactly what I was thinking of (consistent mana, more explicit randomness in cards) and...well, Hearthstone is a good games, but I think a lot of its problems show up there

 

[Angry Grimace]

Sealed Leagues on MTGO start March 2

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/waiting-hardest-part-2016-02-24

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

LSV is streaming their game atm

http://www.twitch.tv/lsv

 

[Giant Panda]

I actually playtested this exact idea for a class in game design a couple years ago, and ended up not very satisfied with it. I mean, definitely play it for yourself and give it a try, but I observed that the color variation was much less of an issue than you think it would remain (unless you're in like a 4 color deck) and the games did feel less exciting for the ability to consistently curve out. It works in a casual setting when you're not sure what other player's decks are, but I tried it with a few more competitive decks with some of my friends outside of class also and it felt noticeably more mechanical.

My writeup at the time was that Magic has so much of its variance baked into the land system that removing that without replacing it elsewhere hurt the overall experience. I said that a game built from the ground up with additional variance could work. Then Hearthstone came out, which was basically exactly what I was thinking of (consistent mana, more explicit randomness in cards) and...well, Hearthstone is a good games, but I think a lot of its problems show up there

Interesting. I haven't actually tried it but what you say makes sense. There's got to be some way to tweak things to make improve it, but it would probably require the game to be designed around the mechanic from the ground up as you say. Don't people hate the Hearthstone cards variance?

I think Force of Will (e.g. anime magic) does something like that.

Force of Will has started to actually caught on a bit at my LGS. I started to look into it but as soon as I saw anime moe shit I was nopenopenopenope

 

[OnPoint]

So the big theory on r/magictcg is that the fall set is KALDHEIM, the snowy viking plane.

Other speculation include some random new Egypt plane, but I like the 2 years - new plane theory.

Where'd they get the logo from? And will they bring back snow-covered lands? Interesting...

 

[Ashodin]

I think the empty throne is the last change to the conspiracy page.

I bet there's a "throne card" that you can pass around to each player or something weird like that lol

Where'd they get the logo from? And will they bring back snow-covered lands? Interesting...

Well it's from Duels of the Planeswalkers 2014. So they've at least concepted the plane and logo.

Secondly, I'd be all for more snow mechanics. As it is, it's really tough to build a snow commander deck.

 

[Xis]

Sealed Leagues on MTGO start March 2

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/waiting-hardest-part-2016-02-24

You don't get near as much gameplay per dollar as the old leagues (Here you buy 6 boosters and play 5 games, in the old ones you bought 8 boosters and played 20 games), but I'm still interested.

Where'd they get the logo from? And will they bring back snow-covered lands? Interesting...

DOTP 2014

 

[Firemind]

I read the barebones Canadian Highlander site and I don't understand the points list. Why is Hermit Druid a 5? Why is Doomsday a 3? Why is Birthing Pod even on the list?

 

[OnPoint]

Also I'm supremely disappointed in the payoff for the disobeying of Ugin. They should have held it for several blocks and had him show up pissed off and scared but looking for help because of two new powerful Eldrazi titans born in the place of the other two wreaking havoc on another plane. What we have instead is uncertainty and a little bit of tension but ultimately an alliance (though shaky) between the Gatewatch and the dragon. Lame.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Force of Will has started to actually caught on a bit at my LGS. I started to look into it but as soon as I saw anime moe shit I was nopenopenopenope

Even as an avid manga reader, reader of too many god awful Light Novels and

Spoiler

being able to name too many hentai artists than I'd be proud to admit

, I cringe every time someone brings out anime style tokens in EDH.

My shop often tried to get me into Weiß Schwartz but otherwise I only ever see YuGiOH.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I read the barebones Canadian Highlander site and I don't understand the points list. Why is Hermit Druid a 5? Why is Doomsday a 3? Why is Birthing Pod even on the list?

I mean, their power level should be obvious. Hermit Druid and Doomsday both win instantly, and Birthing Pod seems crazy beyond belief in a 100-card singleton format.

 

[The Technomancer]

One of my friends uses Bellsprout Pokemon cards as Saproling tokens

That remains the cleverest and best token substitution I've seen

 

[Ashodin]

Force of Will has started to actually caught on a bit at my LGS. I started to look into it but as soon as I saw anime moe shit I was nopenopenopenope

yeahhhhhhhh it's starting to catch on everywhere. I'm sure the people who imported it are happy, but eugh, the art.

Big titted anime waifus and gangly bishonens + dragons

I like how it's "swordsman"

 

[ultron87]

"J/resonator" is an actual term with gameplay implications? That hurts me.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

yeahhhhhhhh it's starting to catch on everywhere. I'm sure the people who imported it are happy, but eugh, the art.

Big titted anime waifus and gangly bishonens + dragons

I like how it's "swordsman"

IIRC there's no genders in written japanese.

One of my friends uses Bellsprout Pokemon cards as Saproling tokens

That remains the cleverest and best token substitution I've seen

I can live with that, maybe I can use my foil dark blastoise for something.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I can live with that, maybe I can use my foil dark blastoise for something.

Sounds like an epic Marit Lage to me

 

[Firemind]

I mean, their power level should be obvious. Hermit Druid and Doomsday both win instantly, and Birthing Pod seems crazy beyond belief in a 100-card singleton format.

But they're not even good in normal EDH? The only difference is that you can play power nine but they're also worth a lot of points so then you need to build a 200+ card singleton deck. Good luck with that I guess.

 

[Giant Panda]

Even as an avid manga reader, reader of too many god awful Light Novels and

Spoiler

being able to name too many hentai artists than I'd be proud to admit

, I cringe every time someone brings out anime style tokens in EDH.

My shop often tried to get me into Weiß Schwartz but otherwise I only ever see YuGiOH.

I enjoy realisticly proportioned anime too, but I feel dirty just seeing some of that Force of Will art.

 

[Ashodin]

IIRC there's no genders in written japanese.


I can live with that, maybe I can use my foil dark blastoise for something.

yeahhhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

yeahhhhhhhhhhhh

that's it just the German version, Turtok

 

[Ashodin]

I'd like to point out that the exciting conspiracy stuff is when MTG marketing and social media get to really work together and come up with something cool like this.

Plus it's even better when not spoiled by leaks.

 

[aidan]

Is that dragon named Sylvia?

 

[Wichu]

IMO Yu-Gi-Oh is the most visually appealing Japanese TCG. It has a consistent look and feel to the cards just like Magic (none of that unreadable full-art shit, though the cards really need to be a little bigger), and the art style is consistent and light on unnecessary fanservice. Also their wizards look cool as shit. Too bad the game is unbalanced competitively, because it's really fun to play too.

I'd like to point out that the exciting conspiracy stuff is when MTG marketing and social media get to really work together and come up with something cool like this.

Plus it's even better when not spoiled by leaks.

I hope they do another ARG-type thing again. I really enjoyed the one they did for Dack Fayden

Spoiler

and not only because I was the first to complete it </brag>

 

[aidan]

IMO Yu-Gi-Oh is the most visually appealing Japanese TCG.

I dunno...

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Can't stand the Yu Gi Oh art even when I played it for a year and watched the first couple shows, which were also awful.

Worst thing YGO did to me is make me give away all my mtg cards at the time...

 

[Firemind]

I bought exactly one Yugioh pack in my lifetime and I got this rare.

Like, on top of having ugly art, what does it even do?

 

[Ashodin]

you play it in defense mode so it blocks a shit ton of damage

 

[ultron87]

So it's just a vanilla with really good stats?

 

[Ashodin]

So it's just a vanilla with really good stats?

It's top end star rating, ****, so it can be used to special summon (anything 5* and above needs a monster on the field to sacrifice to summon it) as well.

 

[bigkrev]

As someone who has played a shit ton of Yugioh games on GBA, the early sets are kind of all over the place with regards to both power level and rarity. Stone unplayables at Ultra Rare, Commons easily outclassing Rares, and absurdly broken cards only salvaged by a B and R list.

 

[The Technomancer]

yeahhhhhhhh it's starting to catch on everywhere. I'm sure the people who imported it are happy, but eugh, the art.

Big titted anime waifus and gangly bishonens + dragons



I like how it's "swordsman"

What is it with card games and readability? Say what you will about the new Magic frames but I never need to squint to read 8 point font on a clashing background

 

[Ashodin]

If I create a TCG readability will balance with art.

 

[SigmasonicX]

So the big theory on r/magictcg is that the fall set is KALDHEIM, the snowy viking plane.

For anyone who is unsure, this plane first appeared in Planechase (2009) and then the logo and new planeswalker appeared in DotP 2014.
2 years after Kiora was first revealed in DotP 2012 they printer her in Theros block.

Other speculation include some random new Egypt plane, but I like the 2 years - new plane theory.

I don't get the logic behind this. Kiora isn't even from Theros, and we hadn't seen Theros until it was revealed. Plus, them creating a logo for the plane for DotP 2014 doesn't mean anything.

There is far more evidence for Kaladesh, namely that:
1. Kaladesh had an unusually detailed world in Magic Origins, compared to Vryn and especially Regatha.
2. Kaladesh is a combination of two heavily requested block themes: steampunk and India / South Asia.
3. An artifact-themed world would tie in well with the colorless matters themes of Battle for Zendikar, before it rotates out.
4. Leaks of Shadows over Innistrad have also revealed that the investigate mechanic incidentally creates artifacts, which would also tie into an artifact-themed world.

 

[Wichu]

As someone who has played a shit ton of Yugioh games on GBA, the early sets are kind of all over the place with regards to both power level and rarity. Stone unplayables at Ultra Rare, Commons easily outclassing Rares, and absurdly broken cards only salvaged by a B and R list.

Yeah, early Yu-Gi-Oh was shit. This was the rare in the first booster pack I ever got:

Stats that are strictly worse than basically everything. Other than the two cards you need to play and then 3-for-1 yourself with to summon him. It's beautiful in how godawful it is.

I have Worldwide Edition on the GBA, which is a really fun game. The AI is pretty competent and takes its turns immediately (unlike later games where it spends way too long thinking), the card selection is just big enough to not get old, playing against characters from the anime was pretty cool, and the sweet chiptune soundtrack tho.

What is it with card games and readability? Say what you will about the new Magic frames but I never need to squint to read 8 point font on a clashing background

Other than the metagame issues, the other thing I hate about Yu-Gi-Oh is that they always feel the need to cram a gajillion effects onto each card. In Magic, if someone plays a card I haven't seen before, I just pick it up and read it. In Yu-Gi-Oh, I just take my opponent's word for what it does because fuck reading that shit

 

[bigkrev]

That said, the Japanese Yugioh set names were the shit. I remember opening up an issue of Inquest Gamer and them having a price guide for a set called "Thousand Eyed Bible" and thought "THATS SO COOL!"
"Threat of the Dark Demon World" was pretty dope as well.

 

[The Technomancer]

Yeah, early Yu-Gi-Oh was shit. This was the rare in the first booster pack I ever got:

Stats that are strictly worse than basically everything. Other than the two cards you need to play and then 3-for-1 yourself with to summon him. It's beautiful in how godawful it is.

There's "its a new game so we're still figuring stuff out" and then, like basically 90% of all Fusion monsters for the first three years of that game's life, there's "wait does anyone over there actually playtest stuff to find out if its fun or not?"