All the magic creatures I see in Facebook ads seem absurdly overpowered by the standards I was used to (up to Visions). Not...
All the magic creatures I see in Facebook ads seem absurdly overpowered by the standards I was used to (up to Visions), Not clear if this was a rebalancing of creatures against other spells, especially since combos seem more intentionally key
(Like how I played a L5R sealed deck game early in Portland once after like a decade and followers and items had clearly been rebalanced stronger against actions)
or just allowing power creep as a reason why people would use newer cards at all in open formats
The first big rebalancing toward creatures happened soon after you left, during Invasion Block. Then there was another around Ravnica 1, and another around the first Magic 20xx, the first Core Set since Alpha to have new cards. This was generally a very good move, as creatures are more interactive and gameplay got more interesting.
Then in like 2019-202 they kind of went insane and started breaking foundational rules of game design left and right and who the hell even knows what they’re doing, it’s a digital-first game now because they wrecked their ability for their cards to work in print.
@daniel-r-h:
They have released a few sets of digital-only cards to explore new options, but it is primarily still a print-card game with mechanics that work in print.
No, it isn’t. Ikoria doesn’t work in print - “first strike counter” is asinine. Strixhaven’s proliferation of tokens is not quite as bad, but it’s bad. They seem to have abandoned the effort to restrain complexity creep entirely, based on the mess that is Core Set M21. Double-faced cards are practically every set, and those are really not practical in paper. (Also, breaking down the firewall between Magic and D&D was idiotic. The Ravnica campaign setting book was a travesty and they just kept going.) Magic hasn’t quite given up on print but it basically has.
Remember “bands with other”?
bands with other was, during the entire decade where I paid relatively close attention to magic, consistently talked about in wotc stuff as the mistake mechanic. the bad one.
anyway @jiskblr releasing d&d setting books for popular magic settings only makes sense. d&d isn’t the ttrpg I would probably have chosen for ravnica, but it’s the one wotc owns. people want to play in those worlds, let them, it’s cool.
importing d&d settings into mtg, if they did that, makes zero sense tho. magic already has generic fantasy settings that work with their metaphysics or w/e. there’s no real value add
Do people want to play a Tenser planeswalker and summon Drizzt? Yeah. Do they want to play Knock as an instant and equippable vorpal artifacts? Also yeah. Do they care about minor antagonists from modules they’ve never heard of? No.
Okay, first of all, the D&D Magic set already exists, it came out this summer. There’s another one on the way, as a supplemental Commander set. Drizzt is a legendary creature, there’s no Tenser PW, but Mordenkainen is one. There’s even an original Planeswalker, Ellywick Tumblestrum, who was ported back into D&D canon in one of the recent modules, which has strange implications.
Second of all, the person complaining about Magic “giving up on print” is dumb as hell. Double-Faced Cards work very well in paper, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t still be using them 10 years after their debut. Ability Counters work just fine, they printed punch-out cards to just give you the tokens.
Mark Rosewater has made it very clear that paper Magic isn’t going anywhere. Paper’s sold better than ever this year, despite the pandemic. Also, somehow, Commander’s the most popular format, and you can’t play Commander on Magic Arena, which is the digital version people keep claiming is “killing paper Magic”!
The real joke is at this point they’re using properties they own to make 90s CCG reference sets. The Innistrad sets, vampires all fighting over blood tokens, are really Jyhad/Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, the second, Vampire: The Masquerade-themed Deckmaster game. Kamigawa, the samurai sets, are Legend of the Five Rings and Neon Dynasty, the Kamigawa cyberpunk set, is Rokugan 2000, a reasonably well-known AU fanfic.