Thought exercise: a char-op thread in 5e

[koz]

There is no 'elegance' in designing boring shit. Although the fact it's anti-Spiral makes sense - in more than one way.

Edit: Also, 'top-down design' is the same 4rry bullshit that 'exception-based design' was - a justification by LaPille and MaRo to print retarded shit that didn't work and was overcosted and boring, and then attribute it to some theoretical standpoint nobody gives a fuck about and that doesn't mean what they say it means.

[Neurosis]

I haven't played MAGIC for the better part of 2 years. I'm not sure what Innistrad is though I've seen the boosters.

Innistrad's a block that really exemplifies M:tG's current focus on a "top-down" approach to card design, that is come up with the flavor (werewolves, zombies coming out of graves, etc.) and then figure out how to most elegantly fit them in the rules.

For example, Blue, the innistrad theme is 'mad scientist'. The 'insanity' part is represented by self-discarding (as in the past making other people discard cards was often flavored as an attack on their sanity)


so you have a card like:

the discarding represents your loss of sanity as you do your wacky frankenstein experiments (note it is a common card, so it is meant to be simple, introduce mechanics, and later on be replaced as you get more uncommons/rares)
self discarding sucks though, because when you reach zero you lose, unless...

play this and your mad plans, your xanatos gambit, whatever, you win even when you'd lose because you're a god damn mad scientist whose seen his grand experiment come to fruition.

Seems like there also might be a mechanical issue with having cards with no back...

You have proxy cards to represent them, they come in the booster pack with a checklist. This was done because it's the only way to preserve full card art and detail. Double cards are visually jarring and those rotating ones in Kamigawa are really ugly and a jumble to look at.

They've also distributed the complexity a good way through common->rare and overall the learning curve has been reduced.
So the combination of more intuitive to grasp design and a controlled introduction of complexity has lead to a steady increase of M:tG sales, new people are actually entering the game.

This is awesome and I immediately want to make a deck around it.

/offtopic

[koz]

First-off, don't - self-mill is a stupid strategy, and even in blue, that thing is bitch-hard to protect. Secondly, try not to use anything from this block in any deck you make - you'll be better off for it.

[RadiantPhoenix]

First-off, don't - self-mill is a stupid strategy, and even in blue, that thing is bitch-hard to protect. Secondly, try not to use anything from this block in any deck you make - you'll be better off for it.

First of all, self-mill and playing from the graveyard is a very good strategy in Vintage (the format where almost everything ever printed is legal), where it goes by the name of Dredge; that just isn't one of the better ways of doing it there.

Second, I don't think you would be well advised to avoid, for example, this card if you're running its color:


This guy is also pretty good, but less so:

[koz]

RadiantPhoenix: Cool story, except nothing in Innistrad actually adds to it. It just shuts it down by Grafdigger's Cage.

Also, I highly, highly doubt Schwarz was designing a new Vintage deck. Just putting it out there.

[Neurosis]

I don't actually engage in tournament play, so it'd have been a new "whatever" deck which is the awkward category most of my decks fall into; not enough power for type 1, not new enough for anything else.

Dredge is the way to go if I actually wanted to make a self-mill Vintage deck, but I was mainly just intrigued with the idea of playing around with Laboratory Maniac as a bizarre win condition.

[Guyr Adamantine]

Innistrad did add a few cool toys to my zombie-farming deck.

[koz]

Innistrad did add a few cool toys to my zombie-farming deck.

And somehow, Onslaught added more.

[RadiantPhoenix]

RadiantPhoenix: Cool story, except nothing in Innistrad actually adds to it. It just shuts it down by Grafdigger's Cage.

Laboratory Maniac might end up being a useful addition to dredge, as might Gravecrawler, but I see your point (kinda).

Also, I highly, highly doubt Schwarz was designing a new Vintage deck. Just putting it out there.

This is probably true.


I personally don't like Innistrad as much as many other blocks, but it's mostly because I don't like the horror genre, not because I think the cards are bad.

[koz]

RadiantPhoenix: Cool story, except nothing in Innistrad actually adds to it. It just shuts it down by Grafdigger's Cage.

Laboratory Maniac might end up being a useful addition to dredge, as might Gravecrawler, but I see your point (kinda).

Also, I highly, highly doubt Schwarz was designing a new Vintage deck. Just putting it out there.

This is probably true.


I personally don't like Innistrad as much as many other blocks, but it's mostly because I don't like the horror genre, not because I think the cards are bad.

'

Your first comment shows that you've never played Dredge. Your second shows that your evaluation of what cards are good is suspect at best.

Dredge is a deck that quite literally laughs at anything in Innistrad designed to help it, because the way it wins has nothing to do with having no cards in library or even (in the Vintage case) casting anything. Nothing whatsoever in Innistrad adds anything you care about to Vintage or Legacy Dredge. What it does do is add a massively powerful hate card - Grafdigger's Cage. That, however, is not meant for Dredge decks to use - it's meant to kill them. Am I making sense yet?

As for the cards in Innistrad being bad - they are awful. Every theme is boring and under-developed (and over-costed) mechanically. The best current deck in Standard is fucking Blue-White Humans, which is boring as shit and only really runs blue for Geist of Saint Taft and counterspells in the sideboard. I've played Standard with these cards, and it bores the fuck out of me. Hell, Scars of Mirrodin was passably average at best, and right now, it looks like an amazing success story full of interesting cards by comparison to the bland tripe that is Innistrad.

I place Innistrad on the same power level as Kamigawa. I long for Mercadian Fucking Masques over Innistrad, just to show you how awful it is. If you want to understand why I'm raging, read cards from blocks like Onslaught, Mirrodin (the old one) and Ravnica. Then come back and tell me with a straight face that Innistrad as a block doesn't suck stale cocks and fail.

[BearsAreBrown]

Just to continue the circle-jerk, this is one of the most boring Standard metagames I've ever seen. Tournaments are literally 80% U/W humans.

[koz]

Just to continue the circle-jerk, this is one of the most boring Standard metagames I've ever seen. Tournaments are literally 80% U/W humans.

This doesn't surprise me. Which is funny, because the last time I saw a Standard this dull was late Mirrodin-Kamigawa, where it was Mono-Blue Control mirrors. And, believe it or not, I'd rather that than this.

[Mask_De_H]

To be fair, in a U/W Weenie setup, the Oracle for U that turns into a 3/2 flier and the untargetable, unblockable 1/1 for 1U are decent to good roleplayers and you could probably find something for that Snapcaster thing to do in a control deck. But yeah, for the most part those cards are really uninspired.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Your first comment shows that you've never played Dredge. Your second shows that your evaluation of what cards are good is suspect at best.

The first comment was based on an article by someone else (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vint ... _Brew.html).

[nockermensch]

Where's that image macro about thread derailing again?

I wish I could say something to the current discussion, but I stopped playing MtG back when Serra Angel and Crawl Wurm were scary monsters. Sold my cards and bought some Changeling the Dreaming splatbooks, IIRC.

[Ice9]

Secondly, try not to use anything from this block in any deck you make - you'll be better off for it.

That's a bit of an overstatement - Innistrad does have some good cards, and a fair number that are decent. It's just not what I'd use for the majority of a deck, and that might be more on me finding it uninspiring.

[Ravengm]

Secondly, try not to use anything from this block in any deck you make - you'll be better off for it.

That's a bit of an overstatement - Innistrad does have some good cards, and a fair number that are decent. It's just not what I'd use for the majority of a deck, and that might be more on me finding it uninspiring.

The percentage of "playable outside drafts" is notably lower than other sets. Like, 2-5% instead of 5-10%.

[koz]

What Ravengm said, and then some. I would be very hard-pressed to find anything worth running in any deck from Innistrad that couldn't be done better with something else.

Starcitygames also appears to be down, but honestly, if anyone's found a better Dredge deck than Meandeck Ichorid or Manaless Ichorid using something from Innistrad, I have crow to eat.

[Ravengm]

What Ravengm said, and then some. I would be very hard-pressed to find anything worth running in any deck from Innistrad that couldn't be done better with something else.

Starcitygames also appears to be down, but honestly, if anyone's found a better Dredge deck than Meandeck Ichorid or Manaless Ichorid using something from Innistrad, I have crow to eat.

To be fair, Past in Flames actually shows up in modern a fair bit. I haven't been following Vintage or Legacy metagames recently, but I'd expect it to at least make an appearance, if only for the novelty factor. And Delver of Secrets is playable in Legacy, or so I hear.


Wizards seems to be going for the Marketing Appeal (tm) on their products recently. None of the advertising or word-of-mouth I hear is about mechanics or how perfectly sculpted the product is, but rather about "LOOK AT THIS THING. LOOK AT HOW IT'S AWESOME."

That goes for both Magic and D&D, though I'm pretty sure D&D is just jumping on the bandwagon. Tom LaPille moving to D&D doesn't help matters.

[koz]

RavenGM: That's... not something I had considered. About the marketing terms, I mean. It does, however, explain a lot. I'll concede PiF, though - that card is actually the best thing this block gave us. But hey, Masques gave us Rebels, and Kamigawa gave us Yosei. Even shitpiles have gems in them.

[MGuy]

Rebels are why I started playing MAGIC in the first place.

[koz]

Rebels are why I started playing MAGIC in the first place.

Wow, that's quite impressive. I only started because of the Onslaught morphs. Not the most newbie-friendly of entrances, but it was great fun anyway.