Although I have used the LED interaction many times to power out Ad Nauseum, I think that this is a huge positive step for Magic even though it nerfs a certain interaction. There is something profoundly unintuitive about floating mana between Upkeep and Draw steps in order to play a spell you've just drawn with mana from your Upkeep.
Under 5th Edition rules, this was not possible as you could not play anything during the Draw Phase (antiquated term); I see this as a return to the original rules in a way. Same thing with combat damage on the stack - this was not possible prior to 6th Edition rules.
The more and more I think about it the more these changes make me mad, I understand that for the games wizards tested(most likly just limited, block,and standard, with some discussion of extended and the eternals) the effects would be small. But the effects upon eternal players get larger every time i think about it, archtypes i have long enjoyed at multiplayed tables like slide are now just piles of cards and some great little critters like anurid brushhopper, and tribe elder leave a bad taste in my mouth. my decks built around wish back flashback cards, or wishing a rfg flash is over until wizards inevitably prints a card that can fill this role but not seek cards in the sb(goodbye versatility) and with necro leaveing classic some might have wished for ad naseum to fill in the gap, wellllllllllllllll the innoculous little mana burn rule removes the chance of useing lion's eye diamond in conjunjuntion with the draw step to start that combo.
I am sad to see the end of combat tricks and card advantage for players who pay more attention and have the mental capacity, It one of the reasons magic has always had a more mature audince I just hope this works out better than i expect.
1) We can't do it on the WotC boards, and for good reason. There's no way to get a boycott going on the WotC boards that won't get removed and/or you banned.
2) We overestimate the amount of people we have on our 'side'. The amount of people that read the internet message boards, article sites, etc are far fewer than most people realize. To say that we are a very small minority is an understatement. I'd wager about 5% of Magic Online players read the internet sites about it, and probably and even smaller percent of regular Magic Paper players.
3) We overestimate the anger of our own group. How many that are angry now will be angry enough to actually boycott? How many would start and quit? The answer is usually quite surprising. What feels like a huge amount of anger is surprisingly quick to fade as we feel the tug of new cards, new sets, and new fun that we're missing.
And that's of course assuming that everyone that's angry about this angry enough to boycott. Personally, I'm not even close enough to that level of anger about any of these changes. A few of them are frustrating, and I'm still not a fan of the combat damage change yet... I may change over time.
But I think that anyone that attempts to boycott over this will be dismayed by the actual results of said actions. :( Of course everyone is free to choose their own reactions to this change and I don't fault anyone for whatever they personally feel is the right thing to do.
As for an option to play 'the old way'. I can certainly ask about it but my gut reaction is that there's no way in Yawg's name that they'll set it up like that. Since as soon as any card comes along that is functionally dependent on the new rules would then require coding work to keep it working with the old rules as well. I just don't see WotC being able to handle that or even try it. :( But I will pass the question along to those I know from WotC.
Actually, I expect that these changes will actually SLOW combat down some.
At least when multiple blockers and/or banding occurs.
With these new rules, you not only have to decide who to block with whom, but then the attacker has to review your blocking decision, then decide in what order to allow the blocking to occur, and finally then decide how much damage to apply to each blocker (in so much as it's possible to now).
A big time slowdown? I don't think so, but I'd certainly expect it to be slower.
--
What really scares me is how many bugs I expect these rule changes (all of them except the simple language changes) are going to introduce into the client, both from a pure coding stance and from getting an effective user interface stance. I'm expecting tons of "oh ****, I misclicked that" losses for quite awhile.
Also I have little belief/trust that they are going to be able to code all of these interactions/errata correctly on the first (second, tenth, etc) try.
Expect to see tons of misapplied damage results, stuff dying that shouldn't of, stuff not dying that should of, mana being drained from your pool at the wrong times, etc.
When 6th edition new rules were announced. It was a really big deal; but ultimately more play situations opened up. For instance, being able to cast a draw spell then let it resolve, then respond again to that first spell was not possible under 5th edition rules.
I don't agree with all the changes (Burning Wish can't get back a Life from the Loam that's been Extirpated for example), but these changes will definitely make the game play better, faster, and smarter.
RE: "Profiteering"
Wake up, this is a game that you _BUY_ cards and packs for. If you want to stay competitive or just try out new cards you're going to have to offer something of value to acquire it. Ultimately, every decision that Wizard of the Coast makes is about the bottom line. Maybe this has nothing to do with it profit, and more to do with developing a health, growing player base. I'm all for expanding the player base, at what, the expense of mana burn? Sure! At the expense of a small trivial part of the combat phase? Why not!
The changes do nerf a few certain cards. Ok, I can live with that. It also makes attacking more rewarding as you tend to lose less attackers now. That's a good thing and you will see increased aggressiveness in limited and standard play. Naturally, Extended and Eternal formats won't care at all, which is why I'm saddened by the change in functionality in the Wishes.
Side note, Mark Gottlieb, AKA Mr. Rules Lawyer, has been making cards behave as printed for the last few years. Time Vault, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, Flash, et al. At some level this disturbs me since it changes years of power level errata on cards that have high potential for abuse into abusing power houses. I'm not sure what the modus operandi his department is running on to drive these sweeping decisions; but I would like to find out.
Yep, upon further inspection, the sky *is* falling... In other news..
Wizards is always trying to shepherd the game into the future. MTG has a natural erosion rate in it's player base and the way you maintain the status quo is to bring in new players at the rate you lose old players. It is generally agreed that the upcoming rule changes will make the game simpler to play and teach. This will be good for the health of the game.
Consider the introduction of Texas Hold 'em in the poker world. There were probably alot of purists and 7 card stud players who thought Hold 'em was a joke. Dumbed down and too easy to play, only two cards to keep track of etc etc. WhOops, hold 'em seemed to work out for the entire poker world, and then some. Now, there is much more room for playing more complex games because of the large player base that Hold 'em has created. This analogy could hold true for magic, though it's improbable that MTG would take off to the same degree as poker.
With the upcoming rule changes, at first, the complexities of play will be diminished, but WoTC can make up for that by designing new cards with the new rules in mind. WoTC is thinking long term with this move, to expand the player base and to be able to keep producing a great game. From WoTC's perspective, this is a self interested decision to be sure, but greedy, I would say no.
@Jacobs, good luck with the boycott. I'll be enjoying M10 and ME3 when they come out online.
P1P13 -- I can't think of a single reason why to take the Silencers over the Welkin Guide. Even if you don't think you'll play it, it's still way more devastating to play against than an opposing Silencers.
We can boycott magic until they fix this mistake. I know some of us are addicted to it at various levels, but maybe if Wizards realizes they are hurting their profits more than helping them with this change, they will listen to their LOYAL CUSTOMERS and revert back to what we all love. I still stick to what I said about giving us a feature to play magic the "right way" online. At least paper players can decide whether or not to put combat damage on the stack. With the new rules, online players will be forced to change. My prediction is this crap is going to lead to more people playing combo and control so they don't have to fool around with combat crap as much.
This is what I believe to be the case as well, as that's an intuitive way for it to work (and they seem to be all about the intuitive things today).
The only thing I'm thinking will happen is that if an effect goes on the stack from First Strike damage (like 'whenever this creature deals damage ' will allow players to respond to that triggered ability and hence, make a change to the blocking creatures at that point.
"I'm sure WotC know what they're doing."... They want to earn more money. Witch is easily understandable, and they do so by trying to get new players into mtgo. By "simplifing" the rules.
And that's something I'm NOT ok with.
When they introduced mythic rares I switched to pauper for contructed play. I couldn't afford them. But the game was still has fun and tacticaly tricky. Now do I think the combat phase change (and in a lesser mesure the mana burn change) is gonna change that alot ? Maybe not. But I believe this is only the first step for Wizard. Now this, then that, then another thing... In the end the game is going to look like Pokemon or Yuh-Gi-Oh!. That's not the game I have loved for more than ten years. Wizard being greedy is going to kill Magic in the long term and I believe it is sad.
The other day I tried to play a game of MLB 2010 for the XBOX 360 with my dad but there were too many buttons and things going on so he gave up. Clearly the fact that my dad couldn't play the game due to it's complexity is an issue that Microsoft/XBOX should look into.
I think they should scrap all of their current controllers, and make new ones that only use a D-Pad and and A and B buttons, like old-school Nintendo. It's much less complex this way and will be so much easier for people to play. Sure some of the other 360 games won't work as well with just 2 buttons, but think of the new game design ideas they can come up with utilizing these new simple controls.
More importantly, think of all the new players XBOX will get now that the controls are so simple.
They haven't addressed FS directly yet (that I know of).
But, I'd assume it'll go something like this:
You attack, I block, you decide order of damage assignment (if multiple blockers), First strike damage is applied, state-based status checked (creatures killed by first strike damage are removed), Normal damage is applied by any remaining creatures, state-based status checked again, combat ends.
So just like (new) normal with an extra state-based check, but no opportunity to take priority and actually DO anything.
First stike: dealt first in the combat damage. I imagine that if it triggers something it might be able to be responded to before regular damage. That would seem to be the intuitive answer.
Otherwise, it just gets dealt to the creatures in the damage order you set up for the creature that you're attacking with.
The only time that you'd be assigning both first strike and regular damage from multiple attacking creatures is likely to be with banding (or a set of defending creatures that can block multiple attackers).
In that case, your first strike creatures would deal damage to the first creature blocking, then, if that damage would be lethal they continue on to the next and the next until all the first strike damage is accounted for, then the normal damage would be dealt in the same manner.
As for what's nerfed? A lot.
Anything that changes power/toughness at instant speed.
Anything that sacrifices for an effect.
Anything that has an activated ability that changes zones.
And much more...
I'd love to see a full list of all the cards that these changes nerf compared to a list that they help. Astral Slide and any blink effects seem to be pretty worthless, as does everything from Prophecy (not that any of it was that great to begin with). Bounce got hosed.
How is first strike damage going to work? Isn't that going to be stacked in some way since that damage has to be dealt first, thus giving us a window to deal damage then remove that creature from combat before it's hit with damage?
I like how you took the deck a bit more budget, and the inclusion of Tower Above was pretty good. Perhaps the only additions I'd consider is Masked Admirers, or Cream of the Crop which would help either draw some cards, or fix your library and both are cheap.
P1P1: Completely agreed, when I see a common or another uncommon taken over this or Wooly Thoctar, I think someone has done something wrong.
P1P7: Have you ever sided in shore snapper? It's fun, because my reasoning with that card is a bit like yours, but I have never played it. Welkin guide is playable.
P2P1: I like the pick here, but you should have abandoned it when you stopped seeing black in CFX. Look at how your manabase ended and think how it would have been without it.
P2P8: By better options I guess you mean Bolas. Mace makes any flier a threat, and it isn't so much of a straint on your mana. In any case, you need guys to hold the ground, so it isn't a bad pick at all.
P2P9: Unsummon, even if it's just for the tempo. It's a very pretty card with fliers when you trade 5/6 mana for 1.
P2P13: Countersquall is at least a decent SB card, and sends a better signal.
P3P1: Finest hour is a beating, finishes games faster than Bolas, comes into play faster than Bolas and with a UW base and savage lands, is a better splash. But you really need 2 drops too, so I don't know.
P3P6: Persecution is a nice trick / removal, architects is just filler.
P3P8: Threser would probably have been at least a 3/3 most of the time, but you're really lacking 2 drops.
Thanks for taking the time to post this and congratulations on winning the draft.
PS: Your EV is higher in swiss, 12 packs > 11 packs.
As far as I can tell the big winner of the change is Trample, and the big losers is sacrifice effects and instant speed bounce. You can no longer soak up trample damage with a chump blocker and then sacrifice it or bounce it. Unsummon type effects take a huge hit in the fact that you can't create lethal attacks or blocks and then bounce your guy to save him and kill your opponent's creature. Activated Regeneration also looks a bit better as well as you won't have to activate a regeneration shield unless your opponent commits to assigning combat damage to that creature.
This change is so much bigger than the whole mana burn going away debate. And people were already griping pretty heavily about that, when that was just a rumor.
I think the hardest part is going to be unlearning all the habits I've gotten into with waiting until after damage is on the stack to do something.
Interesting draft...one of the more thought provoking ones Ive seen.
In pick one I may have gone either with your pick or the Thunder. Depends on my mood personally.
Pick three..wow. Do you take the signal that Naya is open and go for the power card or just take the much more reliable Sanctum Gargoyle. I insta clicked the Titanic Ultimatium but I'm probably terrible for doing that. I would have gone 5-color or Naya from then on. The rest of the picks in pack one say Naya would have been pretty good but w/e. Its almost certainly the wrong pick to take the Ultimatium.
I agree with the picks up until Pack 2 Pick 8. The Zombie shuts down so many decks...especially with the 3-color guys in the third pack. I'd stock up on the pro-green ones. Then pick 9 I would have gone for the Ancient Ziggurat. Might not run it depending on how many spells vs. creatures you get but if your playing the Salvage Slasher then the deck is prolly not all that good...Hes never made the cut for me.
Pack 3 Pick 6 I'd be more tempted by the 2/3 flyer. Just that you want to control the air and youll probably get that 3/6 defender all the way up to last pick. At that stage in the draft you have 4 2-power flyers and only two removal (three if you count the bounce guy). If your opponent drops that guy then its bad for you.
I think you built the deck very well and showed some nice skills killing that guy on the Sanctum Gargoyle returning the Para-Strix turn. Grats on winning the draft.
Oh, by the way, clearly right to take Nicol Bolas. Its quite easy to splash a single red. Very nice how you drafted and built the deck to get you to him in pack three. Stayed focused on getting to the late game. Its a key to drafting.
First, I'd like you to admit you havn't actually tested this, even though your latest reply gives this away.
Burn + a little draw is not a trump against MUC.
Burn (as a deck) is already 50-50 against MUC. Burn is inherent card disadvantage and, when it wins against MUC, it is because it was just too fast, not because it over-CAed MUC.
By trying to play the draw game, you are slowing down the deck at no real gain since all your "draw" cards don't actually draw when countered. For example, Mulldrifter is just a slow Exclude target for MUC instead of being another burn that could seal the game before MUC takes total control.
The only (possible) exception is Deep Analysis, which is at most +1 if they choose to counter both ends (which might or might not be the best play, depending on the situation) and that's if they don't simply Faerie Trickery it (most lists run a few Trickery these days).
A single Spire Golem will go the distance for them while you need half the burn in your whole deck to resolve (excluding Torch) to win.
That being said, I am not a big fan of these theoretical discussions. We could go on for pages (which many people love to do) and still disagree while simply playing the matchup will make the answer clear. To keep in theme, practical results trump these discussion. "lulthyme" online if you interested in actually playing this matchup.
Id agree wholeheartdly about the Verdant if Green wasnt his overwhelmingly main color. I would be hesistant to run it also.
However, it is his main color and it can easily win the game by itself. Just because it has a bad interaction with one card, Abundance, doesnt make it incorrect for the deck.
Also, I dont think anyone was arguing very strongly for the Grizzly Bears?
Finally, if I have a Viridian Shaman I probably would play it. The Golem dies to that. Therefore, you add a removal spell to a number of decks by having an artifact guy. If they see this decks Flute and Plat angel then they would probably side in more artifact removal, making the Golem even worse game 2 and 3.
Just personal opinions of course. I would play the single more expensive card that wins games by itself over a single card that can be played more consistently.
Yep, this makes it so that the attacker in a 1 for 1 trade gets the advantage.
Now:
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 block. We assign damage, you try and save your creature via Giant Growth, I shock the creature via shock. We both lose our creatures, you lose Giant Growth I lose Shock.
Soon:
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 blocks. I pass, you play Giant Growth. I play Shock. You lose your Giant Growth and 2/2 I lose a Shock.
Or-
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 blocks. I pass, you pass, both creatures die. You still have the Giant Growth I still have the Shock.
It would seem like trying to make 1 for 1 trades on defense with the intention of saving the creature will be more risky than before.
The example I expressed on the WotC board with improved Giant Growth effects is based on multiple blockers and being able to save creatures downstream from the giant growth effect. natedawg gave a great example:
Blocking a 3/3 with three 1/1's allows a giant growth to save the 1/1's when before they would have all died. Of course that assumes that the attacker doesn't have trick as well, but that's the point of the example. Pump spells can save more than one creature now whereas before that was no way for that to happen.
We can debate this back and forth forever, but it won’t get us anywhere. Personally, I believe the combat damage change sucks. Hammy... can you start petitioning for MTGO to allow us a way to play by the old rules? (similar to the way they gave us Prerotational Extended formats awhile back). I ask you to do this because I know how involved and informed you are in the MTG community + I wouldn’t know where to start. That seems like a fair and easy solution to make everyone happy. Maybe it could be a checkbox feature that allows you to play with combat damage on the stack… seem doable?
Although I have used the LED interaction many times to power out Ad Nauseum, I think that this is a huge positive step for Magic even though it nerfs a certain interaction. There is something profoundly unintuitive about floating mana between Upkeep and Draw steps in order to play a spell you've just drawn with mana from your Upkeep.
Under 5th Edition rules, this was not possible as you could not play anything during the Draw Phase (antiquated term); I see this as a return to the original rules in a way. Same thing with combat damage on the stack - this was not possible prior to 6th Edition rules.
The more and more I think about it the more these changes make me mad, I understand that for the games wizards tested(most likly just limited, block,and standard, with some discussion of extended and the eternals) the effects would be small. But the effects upon eternal players get larger every time i think about it, archtypes i have long enjoyed at multiplayed tables like slide are now just piles of cards and some great little critters like anurid brushhopper, and tribe elder leave a bad taste in my mouth. my decks built around wish back flashback cards, or wishing a rfg flash is over until wizards inevitably prints a card that can fill this role but not seek cards in the sb(goodbye versatility) and with necro leaveing classic some might have wished for ad naseum to fill in the gap, wellllllllllllllll the innoculous little mana burn rule removes the chance of useing lion's eye diamond in conjunjuntion with the draw step to start that combo.
I am sad to see the end of combat tricks and card advantage for players who pay more attention and have the mental capacity, It one of the reasons magic has always had a more mature audince I just hope this works out better than i expect.
The problem about boycotts is...
Well. There are a few problem about boycotts.
1) We can't do it on the WotC boards, and for good reason. There's no way to get a boycott going on the WotC boards that won't get removed and/or you banned.
2) We overestimate the amount of people we have on our 'side'. The amount of people that read the internet message boards, article sites, etc are far fewer than most people realize. To say that we are a very small minority is an understatement. I'd wager about 5% of Magic Online players read the internet sites about it, and probably and even smaller percent of regular Magic Paper players.
3) We overestimate the anger of our own group. How many that are angry now will be angry enough to actually boycott? How many would start and quit? The answer is usually quite surprising. What feels like a huge amount of anger is surprisingly quick to fade as we feel the tug of new cards, new sets, and new fun that we're missing.
And that's of course assuming that everyone that's angry about this angry enough to boycott. Personally, I'm not even close enough to that level of anger about any of these changes. A few of them are frustrating, and I'm still not a fan of the combat damage change yet... I may change over time.
But I think that anyone that attempts to boycott over this will be dismayed by the actual results of said actions. :( Of course everyone is free to choose their own reactions to this change and I don't fault anyone for whatever they personally feel is the right thing to do.
As for an option to play 'the old way'. I can certainly ask about it but my gut reaction is that there's no way in Yawg's name that they'll set it up like that. Since as soon as any card comes along that is functionally dependent on the new rules would then require coding work to keep it working with the old rules as well. I just don't see WotC being able to handle that or even try it. :( But I will pass the question along to those I know from WotC.
Actually, I expect that these changes will actually SLOW combat down some.
At least when multiple blockers and/or banding occurs.
With these new rules, you not only have to decide who to block with whom, but then the attacker has to review your blocking decision, then decide in what order to allow the blocking to occur, and finally then decide how much damage to apply to each blocker (in so much as it's possible to now).
A big time slowdown? I don't think so, but I'd certainly expect it to be slower.
--
What really scares me is how many bugs I expect these rule changes (all of them except the simple language changes) are going to introduce into the client, both from a pure coding stance and from getting an effective user interface stance. I'm expecting tons of "oh ****, I misclicked that" losses for quite awhile.
Also I have little belief/trust that they are going to be able to code all of these interactions/errata correctly on the first (second, tenth, etc) try.
Expect to see tons of misapplied damage results, stuff dying that shouldn't of, stuff not dying that should of, mana being drained from your pool at the wrong times, etc.
When 6th edition new rules were announced. It was a really big deal; but ultimately more play situations opened up. For instance, being able to cast a draw spell then let it resolve, then respond again to that first spell was not possible under 5th edition rules.
I don't agree with all the changes (Burning Wish can't get back a Life from the Loam that's been Extirpated for example), but these changes will definitely make the game play better, faster, and smarter.
RE: "Profiteering"
Wake up, this is a game that you _BUY_ cards and packs for. If you want to stay competitive or just try out new cards you're going to have to offer something of value to acquire it. Ultimately, every decision that Wizard of the Coast makes is about the bottom line. Maybe this has nothing to do with it profit, and more to do with developing a health, growing player base. I'm all for expanding the player base, at what, the expense of mana burn? Sure! At the expense of a small trivial part of the combat phase? Why not!
The changes do nerf a few certain cards. Ok, I can live with that. It also makes attacking more rewarding as you tend to lose less attackers now. That's a good thing and you will see increased aggressiveness in limited and standard play. Naturally, Extended and Eternal formats won't care at all, which is why I'm saddened by the change in functionality in the Wishes.
Side note, Mark Gottlieb, AKA Mr. Rules Lawyer, has been making cards behave as printed for the last few years. Time Vault, Phyrexian Dreadnaught, Flash, et al. At some level this disturbs me since it changes years of power level errata on cards that have high potential for abuse into abusing power houses. I'm not sure what the modus operandi his department is running on to drive these sweeping decisions; but I would like to find out.
Yep, upon further inspection, the sky *is* falling... In other news..
Wizards is always trying to shepherd the game into the future. MTG has a natural erosion rate in it's player base and the way you maintain the status quo is to bring in new players at the rate you lose old players. It is generally agreed that the upcoming rule changes will make the game simpler to play and teach. This will be good for the health of the game.
Consider the introduction of Texas Hold 'em in the poker world. There were probably alot of purists and 7 card stud players who thought Hold 'em was a joke. Dumbed down and too easy to play, only two cards to keep track of etc etc. WhOops, hold 'em seemed to work out for the entire poker world, and then some. Now, there is much more room for playing more complex games because of the large player base that Hold 'em has created. This analogy could hold true for magic, though it's improbable that MTG would take off to the same degree as poker.
With the upcoming rule changes, at first, the complexities of play will be diminished, but WoTC can make up for that by designing new cards with the new rules in mind. WoTC is thinking long term with this move, to expand the player base and to be able to keep producing a great game. From WoTC's perspective, this is a self interested decision to be sure, but greedy, I would say no.
@Jacobs, good luck with the boycott. I'll be enjoying M10 and ME3 when they come out online.
P1P13 -- I can't think of a single reason why to take the Silencers over the Welkin Guide. Even if you don't think you'll play it, it's still way more devastating to play against than an opposing Silencers.
We can boycott magic until they fix this mistake. I know some of us are addicted to it at various levels, but maybe if Wizards realizes they are hurting their profits more than helping them with this change, they will listen to their LOYAL CUSTOMERS and revert back to what we all love. I still stick to what I said about giving us a feature to play magic the "right way" online. At least paper players can decide whether or not to put combat damage on the stack. With the new rules, online players will be forced to change. My prediction is this crap is going to lead to more people playing combo and control so they don't have to fool around with combat crap as much.
This is what I believe to be the case as well, as that's an intuitive way for it to work (and they seem to be all about the intuitive things today).
The only thing I'm thinking will happen is that if an effect goes on the stack from First Strike damage (like 'whenever this creature deals damage ' will allow players to respond to that triggered ability and hence, make a change to the blocking creatures at that point.
"I'm sure WotC know what they're doing."... They want to earn more money. Witch is easily understandable, and they do so by trying to get new players into mtgo. By "simplifing" the rules.
And that's something I'm NOT ok with.
When they introduced mythic rares I switched to pauper for contructed play. I couldn't afford them. But the game was still has fun and tacticaly tricky. Now do I think the combat phase change (and in a lesser mesure the mana burn change) is gonna change that alot ? Maybe not. But I believe this is only the first step for Wizard. Now this, then that, then another thing... In the end the game is going to look like Pokemon or Yuh-Gi-Oh!. That's not the game I have loved for more than ten years. Wizard being greedy is going to kill Magic in the long term and I believe it is sad.
OMG......my mother plays standard when I'm not watching? Did not see that one coming.....lol
Great podcast guys! Keep up the good work!
The other day I tried to play a game of MLB 2010 for the XBOX 360 with my dad but there were too many buttons and things going on so he gave up. Clearly the fact that my dad couldn't play the game due to it's complexity is an issue that Microsoft/XBOX should look into.
I think they should scrap all of their current controllers, and make new ones that only use a D-Pad and and A and B buttons, like old-school Nintendo. It's much less complex this way and will be so much easier for people to play. Sure some of the other 360 games won't work as well with just 2 buttons, but think of the new game design ideas they can come up with utilizing these new simple controls.
More importantly, think of all the new players XBOX will get now that the controls are so simple.
They haven't addressed FS directly yet (that I know of).
But, I'd assume it'll go something like this:
You attack, I block, you decide order of damage assignment (if multiple blockers), First strike damage is applied, state-based status checked (creatures killed by first strike damage are removed), Normal damage is applied by any remaining creatures, state-based status checked again, combat ends.
So just like (new) normal with an extra state-based check, but no opportunity to take priority and actually DO anything.
First stike: dealt first in the combat damage. I imagine that if it triggers something it might be able to be responded to before regular damage. That would seem to be the intuitive answer.
Otherwise, it just gets dealt to the creatures in the damage order you set up for the creature that you're attacking with.
The only time that you'd be assigning both first strike and regular damage from multiple attacking creatures is likely to be with banding (or a set of defending creatures that can block multiple attackers).
In that case, your first strike creatures would deal damage to the first creature blocking, then, if that damage would be lethal they continue on to the next and the next until all the first strike damage is accounted for, then the normal damage would be dealt in the same manner.
As for what's nerfed? A lot.
Anything that changes power/toughness at instant speed.
Anything that sacrifices for an effect.
Anything that has an activated ability that changes zones.
And much more...
I'd love to see a full list of all the cards that these changes nerf compared to a list that they help. Astral Slide and any blink effects seem to be pretty worthless, as does everything from Prophecy (not that any of it was that great to begin with). Bounce got hosed.
How is first strike damage going to work? Isn't that going to be stacked in some way since that damage has to be dealt first, thus giving us a window to deal damage then remove that creature from combat before it's hit with damage?
I like how you took the deck a bit more budget, and the inclusion of Tower Above was pretty good. Perhaps the only additions I'd consider is Masked Admirers, or Cream of the Crop which would help either draw some cards, or fix your library and both are cheap.
P1P1: Completely agreed, when I see a common or another uncommon taken over this or Wooly Thoctar, I think someone has done something wrong.
P1P7: Have you ever sided in shore snapper? It's fun, because my reasoning with that card is a bit like yours, but I have never played it. Welkin guide is playable.
P2P1: I like the pick here, but you should have abandoned it when you stopped seeing black in CFX. Look at how your manabase ended and think how it would have been without it.
P2P8: By better options I guess you mean Bolas. Mace makes any flier a threat, and it isn't so much of a straint on your mana. In any case, you need guys to hold the ground, so it isn't a bad pick at all.
P2P9: Unsummon, even if it's just for the tempo. It's a very pretty card with fliers when you trade 5/6 mana for 1.
P2P13: Countersquall is at least a decent SB card, and sends a better signal.
P3P1: Finest hour is a beating, finishes games faster than Bolas, comes into play faster than Bolas and with a UW base and savage lands, is a better splash. But you really need 2 drops too, so I don't know.
P3P6: Persecution is a nice trick / removal, architects is just filler.
P3P8: Threser would probably have been at least a 3/3 most of the time, but you're really lacking 2 drops.
Thanks for taking the time to post this and congratulations on winning the draft.
PS: Your EV is higher in swiss, 12 packs > 11 packs.
I agree with Jacobs.
Could we start some kind of petition that we dont want this stupid change with damage not being on the stack??
It feels like MTG is going to be a 5+ age game in near future...:/
As far as I can tell the big winner of the change is Trample, and the big losers is sacrifice effects and instant speed bounce. You can no longer soak up trample damage with a chump blocker and then sacrifice it or bounce it. Unsummon type effects take a huge hit in the fact that you can't create lethal attacks or blocks and then bounce your guy to save him and kill your opponent's creature. Activated Regeneration also looks a bit better as well as you won't have to activate a regeneration shield unless your opponent commits to assigning combat damage to that creature.
This change is so much bigger than the whole mana burn going away debate. And people were already griping pretty heavily about that, when that was just a rumor.
I think the hardest part is going to be unlearning all the habits I've gotten into with waiting until after damage is on the stack to do something.
Interesting draft...one of the more thought provoking ones Ive seen.
In pick one I may have gone either with your pick or the Thunder. Depends on my mood personally.
Pick three..wow. Do you take the signal that Naya is open and go for the power card or just take the much more reliable Sanctum Gargoyle. I insta clicked the Titanic Ultimatium but I'm probably terrible for doing that. I would have gone 5-color or Naya from then on. The rest of the picks in pack one say Naya would have been pretty good but w/e. Its almost certainly the wrong pick to take the Ultimatium.
I agree with the picks up until Pack 2 Pick 8. The Zombie shuts down so many decks...especially with the 3-color guys in the third pack. I'd stock up on the pro-green ones. Then pick 9 I would have gone for the Ancient Ziggurat. Might not run it depending on how many spells vs. creatures you get but if your playing the Salvage Slasher then the deck is prolly not all that good...Hes never made the cut for me.
Pack 3 Pick 6 I'd be more tempted by the 2/3 flyer. Just that you want to control the air and youll probably get that 3/6 defender all the way up to last pick. At that stage in the draft you have 4 2-power flyers and only two removal (three if you count the bounce guy). If your opponent drops that guy then its bad for you.
I think you built the deck very well and showed some nice skills killing that guy on the Sanctum Gargoyle returning the Para-Strix turn. Grats on winning the draft.
Oh, by the way, clearly right to take Nicol Bolas. Its quite easy to splash a single red. Very nice how you drafted and built the deck to get you to him in pack three. Stayed focused on getting to the late game. Its a key to drafting.
-M
im scared grampa
First, I'd like you to admit you havn't actually tested this, even though your latest reply gives this away.
Burn + a little draw is not a trump against MUC.
Burn (as a deck) is already 50-50 against MUC. Burn is inherent card disadvantage and, when it wins against MUC, it is because it was just too fast, not because it over-CAed MUC.
By trying to play the draw game, you are slowing down the deck at no real gain since all your "draw" cards don't actually draw when countered. For example, Mulldrifter is just a slow Exclude target for MUC instead of being another burn that could seal the game before MUC takes total control.
The only (possible) exception is Deep Analysis, which is at most +1 if they choose to counter both ends (which might or might not be the best play, depending on the situation) and that's if they don't simply Faerie Trickery it (most lists run a few Trickery these days).
A single Spire Golem will go the distance for them while you need half the burn in your whole deck to resolve (excluding Torch) to win.
That being said, I am not a big fan of these theoretical discussions. We could go on for pages (which many people love to do) and still disagree while simply playing the matchup will make the answer clear. To keep in theme, practical results trump these discussion. "lulthyme" online if you interested in actually playing this matchup.
Id agree wholeheartdly about the Verdant if Green wasnt his overwhelmingly main color. I would be hesistant to run it also.
However, it is his main color and it can easily win the game by itself. Just because it has a bad interaction with one card, Abundance, doesnt make it incorrect for the deck.
Also, I dont think anyone was arguing very strongly for the Grizzly Bears?
Finally, if I have a Viridian Shaman I probably would play it. The Golem dies to that. Therefore, you add a removal spell to a number of decks by having an artifact guy. If they see this decks Flute and Plat angel then they would probably side in more artifact removal, making the Golem even worse game 2 and 3.
Just personal opinions of course. I would play the single more expensive card that wins games by itself over a single card that can be played more consistently.
-M
Yep, this makes it so that the attacker in a 1 for 1 trade gets the advantage.
Now:
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 block. We assign damage, you try and save your creature via Giant Growth, I shock the creature via shock. We both lose our creatures, you lose Giant Growth I lose Shock.
Soon:
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 blocks. I pass, you play Giant Growth. I play Shock. You lose your Giant Growth and 2/2 I lose a Shock.
Or-
Your 2/2 attacks, my 2/2 blocks. I pass, you pass, both creatures die. You still have the Giant Growth I still have the Shock.
It would seem like trying to make 1 for 1 trades on defense with the intention of saving the creature will be more risky than before.
The example I expressed on the WotC board with improved Giant Growth effects is based on multiple blockers and being able to save creatures downstream from the giant growth effect. natedawg gave a great example:
Blocking a 3/3 with three 1/1's allows a giant growth to save the 1/1's when before they would have all died. Of course that assumes that the attacker doesn't have trick as well, but that's the point of the example. Pump spells can save more than one creature now whereas before that was no way for that to happen.
We can debate this back and forth forever, but it won’t get us anywhere. Personally, I believe the combat damage change sucks. Hammy... can you start petitioning for MTGO to allow us a way to play by the old rules? (similar to the way they gave us Prerotational Extended formats awhile back). I ask you to do this because I know how involved and informed you are in the MTG community + I wouldn’t know where to start. That seems like a fair and easy solution to make everyone happy. Maybe it could be a checkbox feature that allows you to play with combat damage on the stack… seem doable?