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[divisionbyzorro]

From the Vault: Lore

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-vault-lore-2016-02-29

Delve deeper into the events that shaped the Multiverse—and show your opponents that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it! This limited-edition set includes cards from throughout Magic's history that are renowned for both their power and the stories behind them. Surprise your foes with blasts from the past they'll have to see to believe.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

so draw cards

 

[Santiako]

Fifteen premium foil cards and one token, including three with new art.

Can that token be anything but Marit Lage? (Hopefully that means Dark Depths is in it too)

Also, that pic is obviously Momir Vig.

 

[bigkrev]

Storm Scale article up on Tarkir mechanics

Megamorph is the lowest-scoring mechanic of all time.

Storm Scale Rating: 9

This mechanic would rank lower, except it was so poorly received by the players. My guess is if we ever wanted it to come back, we'd just refer to it as morph and have the +1/+1 counters spelled out. I think we might have forever burned the name "megamorph" (which was a goofy name to begin with).

 

[kirblar]

Yeah thats gotta be dark depths.

 

[The Technomancer]

Can that token be anything but Marit Lage? (Hopefully that means Dark Depths is in it too)

Also, that pic is obviously Momir Vig.

Watch one of the cards be Kher Keep

 

[Daedardus]

Storm Scale article up on Tarkir mechanics

So, Madness is Level 8 but it's coming next set? Lol.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

MaRo was pretty down on megamorph too, he liked the idea of an alternate morph though.

 

[charlequin]

Storm Scale article up on Tarkir mechanics

Man, megamorph is a reaaaaally bad name.

I'm wasn't 100% serious when I wrote it, but to be fair, they've done a really poor job with mono-red mythics so far in the Modern Masters line. I mean, if you break it down...

I'm not even suggesting they'll do a "good" job per se, just that there's a specific thing they're very unlikely to do which is to upgrade a specifically non-mythic card to mythic.

When I went through last night I came up with pretty much the same list that you did, but that seemed like plenty to me if you only have to fill two slots and your goal is really just "not garbage" rather than "super exciting" -- plug in Past of Flames for the non-creature and 1-2 of Warren Instigator, Thundermaw Hellkite, or Urabrask for the creature slot(s), that's at least all cards significantly above bulk level.

So, Madness is Level 8 but it's coming next set? Lol.

He says right in the article that he doesn't change the rating when they actually pick something to come back. He's said Madness is an 8 for years and years, and he's specifically hinted at it being the mechanic "they never thought would ever come back" in discussing SOI.

 

[bigkrev]

So if it's "Stories behind them", stuff light Lightning Helix and Bonfire of the Damned are in this, right?

Spoiler

Foil Modern Masters 2 Tarmogoyf?!?

 

[Daedardus]

He says right in the article that he doesn't change the rating when they actually pick something to come back. He's said Madness is an 8 for years and years, and he's specifically hinted at it being the mechanic "they never thought would ever come back" in discussing SOI.

I'm more surprised that they did bring it back if he thought it was so difficult to implement. But as he said he's not the only one deciding.

 

[The Technomancer]

I'm more surprised that they did bring it back if he thought it was so difficult to implement. But as he said he's not the only one deciding.

Development signed off on it

I'm going to laugh if it ends up being another Delve

 

[bigkrev]

Development signed off on it

I'm going to laugh if it ends up being another Delve

As long as they don't make 0 or 1 casting cost Madness abilites (outside of Fiery Temper), they should be fine.

I fully expect them to fuck up and make a Time Warp with 1U Madness on it though.

 

[ThLunarian]

What was the card that Mike Long had hiding in his lap that one time? I know it was from the ProsBloom deck. Maybe Cadaverous Bloom is in? Or was it Squandered Resources?

 

[bigkrev]

What was the card that Mike Long had hiding in his lap that one time? I know it was from the ProsBloom deck. Maybe Cadaverous Bloom is in? Or was it Squandered Resources?

I think including 2 copies of Explore would be a more relevant example to the current playerbase

 

[ultron87]

I don't feel like by "lore" they mean famous stories from the Pro Tour. I'm expecting Legacy Weapon and stuff like that. Obviously some that are more expensive than Legacy Weapon.

 

[OnPoint]

Lore seems so loose as a concept. I'm curious as to how they'll tie this together as a product.

I'm not even suggesting they'll do a "good" job per se, just that there's a specific thing they're very unlikely to do which is to upgrade a specifically non-mythic card to mythic.

When I went through last night I came up with pretty much the same list that you did, but that seemed like plenty to me if you only have to fill two slots and your goal is really just "not garbage" rather than "super exciting" -- plug in Past of Flames for the non-creature and 1-2 of Warren Instigator, Thundermaw Hellkite, or Urabrask for the creature slot(s), that's at least all cards significantly above bulk level.

You're probably right about them not upgrading Guide, and I'd be happy about it (though I'd have been happier if it got printed in BFZ). It's almost certainly going to be included, so rare is perfect for it. I won't be shocked if the mythics end up something like Thundermaw Hellkite and Tibalt

Spoiler

OK, OK, I'm kidding, Koth if its going to be a 'walker, but probably Bonfire will get it

. I feel like Past in Flames is possible but is more likely to be in Eternal Masters since it sees such little play in Modern.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I expect stuff like Mirari, Skyship Weatherlight, Legacy Weapon, that kind of stuff. The trouble is that most of the cool story-relevant things are not exactly chase cards.

 

[ultron87]

First thing I thought of was that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir would be a shoe-in as a midrange value card with some lore behind him but he's already in FTV: Legends.

 

[OnPoint]

First thing I thought of was that Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir would be a shoe-in as a midrange value card with some lore behind him but he's already in FTV: Legends.

Cool, so we'll get the creature Venser instead

 

[Angry Grimace]

Cool, so we'll get the creature Venser instead

Creature Venser is in FTV: 20. Mirari is in FTV: Relics.

Also, what's the deal with this countdown clock that ends on Thursday on the Shadows Over Innistrad page? Has that been there and I just didn't see it?

 

[Angry Grimace]

Edit: this was SUPPOSED to be an edit, not a double post >_<

I'm wasn't 100% serious when I wrote it, but to be fair, they've done a really poor job with mono-red mythics so far in the Modern Masters line. I mean, if you break it down...

MM2013: Kiki Jiki (good), Ryusei (bad)
MM2015: Comet Storm (lol), Kiki Jiki (good)

So 2/4 mono-red mythics in the two Modern Masters sets are good and they're printings of the same card. Yes, I know Kiki isn't post-Alara as you said, but when I really look at Modern-legal mono red cards that could be mythic that could also use reprintings, I'm not coming up with much.

Here's a list of already-mythic cards I guess they might consider: Bonfire of the Damned, Past in Flames, Thundermaw Hellkite, Urabrask the Hidden, Koth of the Hammer, Inferno Titan, Warren Instigator, any number of Chandras, Tibalt (lol), the boring INN and DKA dragons, Stormbreath Dragon (if Theros is included, which I don't think it will be)

Here's a loose list of things I suppose could use an upgrade to a slot that aren't mythic: Goblin Guide, Through the Breach, Akroma Angel of Fury, Reiterate, Pyromancer Ascension

When I look at the list of mythics, it's just not a very exciting list. Some cards are more likely than others, obviously. If they do the praetor cycle then Urabrask is obviously a lock. Thundermaw Hellkite is probably your best bet for a creature, and people do love their dragons, so that might be an easier pick. Also some of those cards might be claimed by Eternal Masters, shrinking the pool even further. All things considered it's a pretty meh list. I'm not saying they're "too dumb" to pick something else, which I think is unfair of you to insinuate. And please tell me what I've left off that would be an awesome inclusion -- maybe I'm overlooking something. I'm just saying what's available just isn't super exciting and maybe bumping up Goblin Guide solves the "red mythics aren't exciting" problem these sets seem to have. That said, I'd love if they left it at rare.

The answer isn't to "fix" a red mythics isn't that pack EV needs to be generally higher. You could get away with Ryusei in MM1 because pack EV was so high (arguably TOO high). Pack EV in MM2 was bloated around 14 of the Mythics.

 

[charlequin]

I'm more surprised that they did bring it back if he thought it was so difficult to implement. But as he said he's not the only one deciding.

A big part of the wiggle room on the Storm Scale is that Rosewater approximates what other teams think about something and they can be more liable to change. If a mechanic's an 8 because he thinks it played terribly (or it was super unpopular like Megamorph) then the underlying factors probably won't change that much over time, but other departments change things up faster. In the case of Madness, the big problems were rules and development; the former they seem to have solved, and the latter isn't super scary since they've already had experience with less broken Madness in Time Spiral.

I fully expect them to fuck up and make a Time Warp with 1U Madness on it though.

The other like long-term truism I think holds is that R&D fucks up all the time, but they almost never fuck up on things that are completely obvious. When they bring back broken mechanics they're generally much less dangerous -- the much bigger danger is something that has obvious red flags but is new enough that they trick themselves into believing they don't apply. They know what an overpowered blue Madness deck looks like so nobody in development is gonna sign off on a card like that even if it's actually totally fair.

Also, what's the deal with this countdown clock that ends on Thursday on the Shadows Over Innistrad page?

The reveal event that the oversized cards are at, would be my guess. EDIT: It wasn't there yesterday.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Madness isn't that hard to design for. You don't *have* to design it as a Miracles-mechanic where its a constant cost reduction. It can easily be designed mostly as a mechanic to give you value off of symmetrical discard.

 

[OnPoint]

Creature Venser is in FTV: 20. Mirari is in FTV: Relics.

Also, what's the deal with this countdown clock that ends on Thursday on the Shadows Over Innistrad page? Has that been there and I just didn't see it?

http://i.imgur.com/mRTMpoW.png[/IMG[/QUOTE]

First thing that caught my eye about that:

[img]http://i.imgur.com/9MeceMT.jpg

I don't think it means anything? But it's right where my mind went.

 

[Angry Grimace]

There's a new description there as well:

"On the plane of Innistrad, humanity is beset on all sides. Horrors stalk in the shadows. Terrors scratch at doors in the night. Only grim determination and staunch faith in their guardian archangel, Avacyn, keep them alive in this nightmarish realm. But odd things are afoot: the forces that had protected them have been twisted into something dark and strange."

 

[Crocodile]

The issue with Madness is that when they brought it back in Time Spiral, it was mostly awful. If Madness is a returning mechanic, they obviously want it to be a headlining mechanic - i.e. something you can build a deck around and win Standard tournaments at least if not impact older formats. They may want to avoid the Odyssey implementation but they are going to have to aim higher, both enablers and the actual spells, than they did in Time Spiral.

As an aside, I wonder what about Delirium is good/different enough that they are fine printing that but won't touch Threshold with a ten foot pole.

 

[kirblar]

See minijace for the issues w thereshold

 

[Angry Grimace]

The problem with Delirium and Madness to me is that they both reward flip Jace way too much. Flip Jace is 94 tickets on MTGO right now.

Flip Jace is not anywhere near as good in Modern as advertised so its kind of dumb we have this random ~80 dollar card floating around.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Yeah need to flip my baby jaces for Snapcasters before rotation

 

[Angry Grimace]

It makes me laugh that Maro's obviously trolling with this article by putting Threshold (which has a "fixed" version in SOI) and Madness (which is just straight up in SOI) on his 8 and 9 of the Storm Scale article.

 

[charlequin]

Madness isn't that hard to design for. You don't *have* to design it as a Miracles-mechanic where its a constant cost reduction. It can easily be designed mostly as a mechanic to give you value off of symmetrical discard.

There's also some tricks they do a lot with spell mechanics these days that they haven't done with madness yet, e.g. adding an "if you played this for its madness cost" trigger and not reducing the price much.

As an aside, I wonder what about Delirium is good/different enough that they are fine printing that but won't touch Threshold with a ten foot pole.

There's a much bigger constraint on deck construction and you have to jump through more hoops to make it work.

 

[Angry Grimace]

There's also some tricks they do a lot with spell mechanics these days that they haven't done with madness yet, e.g. adding an "if you played this for its madness cost" trigger and not reducing the price much.



There's a much bigger constraint on deck construction and you have to jump through more hoops to make it work.

Yeah, that's kind of what I mean, playing a spell for its Madness cost can be beneficial in a lot of ways that doesn't necessarily have to be "play Arrogant Wurm for 2G at instant speed" so my guess is that it's a mechanic that once you fix the rules issue with how it works (which they did), there's a lot you can do with it that isn't obviously OP in the way Delve is OP since the hoop you jump through with Madness is still more problematic than Delving.

 

[Crocodile]

I'll have to dig into the archives to find more info on it but I never got the impression that WOTC disliked Threshold because it was too easy to obtain.

 

[Giant Panda]

I'm surprised Rebound did so well in their market research for Khans Block. It is a good mechanic, but it was only in one set and wasn't on a single constructed quality card that I can recall.

 

[Crocodile]

I'm surprised Rebound did so well in their market research for Khans Block. It is a good mechanic, but it was only in one set and wasn't on a single constructed quality card that I can recall.

Rebound was a returning mechanic from Rise of the Eldrazi. Multiple cards with rebound from that set have seen Constructed play (if only breifly). Distortion Strike and Staggershock I think being the most successful but I remember Consuming Vapors and Emerge Unscathed getting a little play too (I think).

 

[charlequin]

I'll have to dig into the archives to find more info on it but I never got the impression that WOTC disliked Threshold because it was too easy to obtain.

The big developmental issues were that it's swingy (a lot of cards go from shit to broken, and all your Threshold guys turn on at once) and that decks that look to play for it are pushed into a degenerate play pattern. It's pretty rare for development issues to be "this mechanic is too good" because if something's always good you can price it effectively; it's usually "there are no spots to price this mechanic where it's not too good but also not too bad" or "this keeps us from printing too many otherwise reasonable cards."

I'm surprised Rebound did so well in their market research for Khans Block. It is a good mechanic, but it was only in one set and wasn't on a single constructed quality card that I can recall.

I'm not 100% confident that is only reflecting the Dragons survey. Also the Dragons mechanics are pretty poor in general so it's not hard for it to look better in comparison.

 

[Giant Panda]

I'm not 100% confident that is only reflecting the Dragons survey. Also the Dragons mechanics are pretty poor in general so it's not hard for it to look better in comparison.

That would make sense if they were incorporating past feedback as well. I guess Dragons had Formidable, Rebound, Megamorph, and Exploit. None of those were done in a particularly exciting way so by comparison Rebound would do decently. But when you start to look at the block as a whole, I enjoyed Raid, Prowess, Delve, Morph, Manifest, Dash, and Bolster more.

 

[Crocodile]

WOTC getting clever with this fictional newspaper. SOI spoilers are going to be ramping up soon it seems.

The big developmental issues were that it's swingy (a lot of cards go from shit to broken, and all your Threshold guys turn on at once) and that decks that look to play for it are pushed into a degenerate play pattern. It's pretty rare for development issues to be "this mechanic is too good" because if something's always good you can price it effectively; it's usually "there are no spots to price this mechanic where it's not too good but also not too bad" or "this keeps us from printing too many otherwise reasonable cards."

Swingy-ness has been an issue with Madness cards too - its something they could moderate if they wanted via costing. "All you dudes turn on at the same time" is also a problem of Delirium. All Delirium seems to do is shrink the number of decks that can run the cards (degenerate play I guess) since you need a specific variety of card types. At the end of the day, it would still encourage decks where you want to dump your hand or flip your library fast.

 

[charlequin]

But when you start to look at the block as a whole, I enjoyed Raid, Prowess, Delve, Morph, Manifest, Dash, and Bolster more.

They don't do a comprehensive post-block survey so they have to fudge a bit when looking at KTK and DTK mechanics together.

Swingy-ness has been an issue with Madness cards too - its something they could moderate if they wanted via costing.

I'd say there's a lot more room to make fair Madness cards than fair (as opposed to too good or too awful) Threshold cards. You definitely have more knobs to turn.

All Delirium seems to do is shrink the number of decks that can run the cards (degenerate play I guess) since you need a specific variety of card types.

Right, compare this to Legacy Threshold which is basically just the best overpowered Threshold critters (and Goyf) plus all the one-mana cantrip instants.

 

[Firemind]

FTV: Lore... so it'll be 99% chaff?

 

[OnPoint]

FTV: Lore... so it'll be 99% chaff?

Sounds like it'll basically be: FTV: Dark Depths if that guess is correct.

I just can't imagine what other Lore style cards would fit and be exciting.

 

[Ashodin]

FTV: Lore... so it'll be 99% chaff?

Commander stuff Yesssss Yesssss Yesssss

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Everytime I look at the decklist for a 4C Rally deck, I think "that deck looks like a pile of shit + Jace." Then I watch it play and I think "how does this deck ever lose?"

 

[SigmasonicX]

WOTC getting clever with this fictional newspaper. SOI spoilers are going to be ramping up soon it seems.

Really neat.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Everytime I look at the decklist for a 4C Rally deck, I think "that deck looks like a pile of shit + Jace." Then I watch it play and I think "how does this deck ever lose?"

Not having an answer to Kalitas and that Extraction spell

 

[Santiako]

I know is very recent, but I wouldn't mind seeing an alternate art Alesha in this FTV, as she seems to be a fan favourite. Me using her as my main EDH deck makes me very biased for this choice obviously.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Commander stuff Yesssss Yesssss Yesssss

Every FTV is "commander shit.box"

 

[V_Arnold]

I am about to start MTGO. Help me out here. Anything I need to know?

- I will have a monthly budget of around 20$
- I am fine with the idea of budget decks and pauper
- I do not know anything about drafting, and I do not think I will focus on it at all
- Something from my young days, but hey: I actually want to..open some boosters every now and then? is it a sin?

 

[Firemind]

- Something from my young days, but hey: I actually want to..open some boosters every now and then? is it a sin?

Yes if you open current draft packs. Cause the moment they stop offering draft queues, it'll crater in value.