The Magic the Gathering Community -

[Ebonic Tutor]

I'm starting to think Yorion's set to get banned on Monday, though Lurrus is on the chopping block too. I'll admit I'm not the best judge of creatures too, though I am a filthy casual.

It'll be Lurrus before Yorion in Modern, Legacy, and/or Vintage even if the results I've been hearing about are any indication, though both wouldn't surprise me.

Like I've legit heard talk of banning Companion in Vintage (Only things banned in Vintage are manual dexterity cards, ante cards, conspiracies, and Shahrazad. Quite a few cards restricted to 1 per deck though) from some of the judges I know. Not that I expect them to actually pull the trigger on it but from what I've heard about Lurrus it might have to be done.

 

[AnotherPleb]

It'll be Lurrus before Yorion in Modern, Legacy, and/or Vintage even if the results I've been hearing about are any indication, though both wouldn't surprise me.

Like I've legit heard talk of banning Companion in Vintage (Only things banned in Vintage are manual dexterity cards, ante cards, conspiracies, and Shahrazad. Quite a few cards restricted to 1 per deck though) from some of the judges I know. Not that I expect them to actually pull the trigger on it but from what I've heard about Lurrus it might have to be done.

Yorion's a Standard ban as the meta's devolved into Yorion decks or bust, though I see what you mean about Lurrus getting the banhammer in those formats.

Companions in general were horrible design space, as they're a guaranteed curve-out. I think MaRo's pissed that nobody bought into Brawl as a format, since Companions are forcing it on all constructed formats.

 

[breadandcircuses]

The real thing is that they needed to get rid of the Reserved List and tell the investors to fuck off. There's not a single court in the world that's going to side with the people that invested all this money in fucking cardboard.

Now, I'm not saying they should reprint these cards in standard legal sets, but I think the idea would be to...

I don't know.

Do what they did with like... Tempest on MTGO. Reprint the whole of Tempest and release it as it's own thing with new borders. Wouldn't that be cool? Do it as the Masters set that they stopped doing.

And just do that. All the older sets that don't qualify for Modern.

Bam!

Thank you, I just saved Magic, I take payment in solid platinum bars.

 

[Memento Malum]

You can tell that the suits at WOTC are getting antsy. Maro's been doing twitter polls and asking leading questions on social media more than usual. Companion may not be the most busted mechanic ever, but its definitely the most annoying. It homogenizes decks, encourages repetitive play patterns, removes interaction from the game, and thats all on top of being just generally powerful. Why yes, I would like an extra card drawn, that can't be attacked via hand disruption, and guarantees a combo piece on curve.

Companion broke the eternal formats (Vintage is 56% Lurrus Storm, with the best performing non-companion deck being dredge at under 6% of the metagame), Standard is terrible with 7 mana cards being cheated in on turn 4 on a regular basis, and WOTC continues to try and undercut the LGS with their Secret Lair series, which are what looks to me an attempt to bring cosmetic microtransactions (macro, more like) to a paper game. What a shitshow.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Fetches and shocks in Pioneer would have given the format Modern-level consistency with only a fraction of the land hate Modern has. Ignoring that fact is a bit shortsighted

Pioneer has Pain, Check, Temples, Shocks and Fabled Passage, as well as the new Tricycles (and those aren't good enough except for specifically Jeskai. Fetches aren't going to push the needle -that- much..except for making Mystic Sanctuary Fetchable which would be a huge problem.

WOTC has explicitly stated that they don't want Fetches in Standard and Pioneer because it slows game play, that is a fact I don't know why you are arguing it.

That is a fair point, although the fact that so much of the power in the creatures in standard is all based on them ETBing feels like it's a bit too little. It's insane, as you do point out that Heartless Act is so strong.

The ETB effects have almost no bearing, the only "ETB" focused deck in the top meta is The Elemental tribal deck.

The Lukka deck runs Agent sure, but "polymorph a token into a threat" would work just as well with Akroma, Zetalpa, DreamTrawler, Giselbrand. If not for Yorion the deck probably would just run Trawler tbh. The problem with Creatures at the moment is resilience, even the mono-red Obosh deck has resilience in it's creatures because if Anax is on the field a boardwipe just does nothing.

This is why the "Overpowered" Gyruda deck vanished after a week because as soon as you decided to Run Heartless Act/Dire Tactics/Swift End/Mystical Dispute the deck just folded.

I'm starting to think Yorion's set to get banned on Monday, though Lurrus is on the chopping block too. I'll admit I'm not the best judge of creatures too, though I am a filthy casual.

That is just gonna mean that the next pair of companions are up to break the format, That is why they are such an absurd problem in the Eternal stuff, the card pool is deep enough that if you ban one set of companions, there will be decks that use the others that will rise up because when you have a card pool of a decade plus finding -good- cards to fit the restraints isn't remotely difficult.

Fast mana wasn't geared specifically for Commander, it's something that people grabbed after the fact. There's a lot being designed specifically for commander that's speeding the format up a lot though, and it's pretty worrying design.

No it wasn't, but it hurts commander just as much as cards printed just for commander are (and I dislike cards just for commander too, it makes every too samey because the majority of your deck slots are taken up by ubiquitous cards.)


Of Note : I would like to point out, the (twice now) reformatting of Blocks has not helped anything at all, The 2 Ravnica sets were fine because they acted as a balance to each other with restraints..but since then you have had to have all the power and the answers in the same set for sealed/drafts ect you end up with having to literally print a counterspell/killspell/every set so while the answers don't seem to as good as the creatures if they ever stop printing resilience into creatures you are going to see some real bad shit.

Also Ravnica cycles out this year..you think standard now sucks? Wait until the mana turns into absolute fucking trash because everything not a basic comes into play tapped.

Companion may not be the most busted mechanic ever,

It objectively is though. Lurrus is more powerful as a card than Timetwister(a power nine card) is.

 

[Mamillionaire]

I recently came back to Magic only to realize that WotC dropped the Block design philosophy, specifically that contained sets can be expected to share mechanics . I fully expected new adventure cards to be introduced in Theros (which thematically could make a lot of sense) or new Ikoria cards that synergize with or create food tokens for instance. Apparently they decided “larger more discrete” sets are better. What the fuck were they thinking? Not only do I believe this new design philosophy encourages power creep and embarrassing mistakes like Oko, companions ect. but what’s worse is it cheapens any new mechanics they introduce (good or bad) immensely. When’s the next time we’ll realistically get to see new adventures or companions even, 10 to 15 years if ever? Are we really stuck with the same half dozen or so awkward companions from one set for the foreseeable future or until they hope everyone forgets about them?

Maybe I’m mistaken or missing something, my lens into the Magic scene is pretty narrow as I just started playing again via Arena after 2020 core released.

 

[breadandcircuses]

So Oko was pretty bad.

Companions are worse.

Was Escape bad in Theros or did I miss something?

(Also, I'm pretty sure Food is gonna go Evergreen much how Treasure has and Clues should have.)

 

[Opiophile]

Pioneer has Pain, Check, Temples, Shocks and Fabled Passage, as well as the new Tricycles (and those aren't good enough except for specifically Jeskai. Fetches aren't going to push the needle -that- much..except for making Mystic Sanctuary Fetchable which would be a huge problem.

WOTC has explicitly stated that they don't want Fetches in Standard and Pioneer because it slows game play, that is a fact I don't know why you are arguing it.

The ETB effects have almost no bearing, the only "ETB" focused deck in the top meta is The Elemental tribal deck.

The Lukka deck runs Agent sure, but "polymorph a token into a threat" would work just as well with Akroma, Zetalpa, DreamTrawler, Giselbrand. If not for Yorion the deck probably would just run Trawler tbh. The problem with Creatures at the moment is resilience, even the mono-red Obosh deck has resilience in it's creatures because if Anax is on the field a boardwipe just does nothing.

This is why the "Overpowered" Gyruda deck vanished after a week because as soon as you decided to Run Heartless Act/Dire Tactics/Swift End/Mystical Dispute the deck just folded.



That is just gonna mean that the next pair of companions are up to break the format, That is why they are such an absurd problem in the Eternal stuff, the card pool is deep enough that if you ban one set of companions, there will be decks that use the others that will rise up because when you have a card pool of a decade plus finding -good- cards to fit the restraints isn't remotely difficult.



No it wasn't, but it hurts commander just as much as cards printed just for commander are (and I dislike cards just for commander too, it makes every too samey because the majority of your deck slots are taken up by ubiquitous cards.)


Of Note : I would like to point out, the (twice now) reformatting of Blocks has not helped anything at all, The 2 Ravnica sets were fine because they acted as a balance to each other with restraints..but since then you have had to have all the power and the answers in the same set for sealed/drafts ect you end up with having to literally print a counterspell/killspell/every set so while the answers don't seem to as good as the creatures if they ever stop printing resilience into creatures you are going to see some real bad shit.

Also Ravnica cycles out this year..you think standard now sucks? Wait until the mana turns into absolute fucking trash because everything not a basic comes into play tapped.



It objectively is though. Lurrus is more powerful as a card than Timetwister(a power nine card) is.

Before I stopped playing, I built the Yorion Lukka deck with the wildcards I had built up. I only had 1/2 of the rare lands I needed, filling the rest in with basics and shitty taplands. Despite this, I still won 60-70% of my matches, and was in high Platinum tier ranked.

The deck is just so resilient with Yorion being in your hand every game. Being able to play Fires, and then blink whatever answer or threat you can play is beyond broken. Half the time people just scooped from blinking Elspeth Conquers Death a time or two.

I heard Seth from MTG Goldfish mention that this coming Monday will be a B&R for Brawl, Legacy and Vintage. I'm guessing Lurrus is gone in the older formats, but we'll have to wait a while longer for Modern. I very much doubt WoTC will ban companions in standard, since they have banned so many cards the last few years, and it just looks really bad to ban your featured set mechanic.

I have completely lost hope that Magic will ever be truly great again, unless Hasbro cleans house and removes all these faggot uber-lefties poisoning the game with their ideology. I miss sexy magic babes and cool dudes, now we just get manly looking women and faggy, wimpy guys like Jace from Ixalan. Low T as fuck, just how they like it.

 

[Ebonic Tutor]

So Oko was pretty bad.

Companions are worse.

Was Escape bad in Theros or did I miss something?

(Also, I'm pretty sure Food is gonna go Evergreen much how Treasure has and Clues should have.)

Uro pretty much replaced Oko in Urza decks in modern. Quite a few of em even dropped the thopter-sword combo, and now they have added Yorion to the mix.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

faggy, wimpy guys like Jace from Ixalan. Low T as fuck, just how they like it.

Hey Ixalan Jace was great.

He Romanced Gorgon Waifu, got all his Memories back and completely cucked Azor like he did the Other Sphinx. Say what you want about the rest of what has gone down in the past few years, with the exception of how it ended(Vampires won that poll WOTC you cheating faggots) Ixalan was cool as fuck.

Edit : And Double faced Cards should be a fucking evergreen mechanic.

 

[Opiophile]

Hey Ixalan Jace was great.

He Romanced Gorgon Waifu, got all his Memories back and completely cucked Azor like he did the Other Sphinx. Say what you want about the rest of what has gone down in the past few years, with the exception of how it ended(Vampires won that poll WOTC you cheating faggots) Ixalan was cool as fuck.

Edit : And Double faced Cards should be a fucking evergreen mechanic.

I haven't paid attention to lore in quite a while, and I wasn't knocking Ixalan as a set. I enjoyed some of the cards, and like the theme. I just hated the way they drew Jace, compared to JTMS or any previous Jace. He just looked so stringy and weak.

I would say I'll just stick to EDH, but WotC is doing a fine job of shitting that up now too. Luckily, you can just set whatever rules you want with your playgroup and it doesn't matter much. My IRL friends have a house rule for non EDH magic, only cards printed before Onslaught are playable. It's a lot of fun.

I'm interested to see what kind of mental gymnastics MaRo and the Play Design team use to justify companions, and the inevitable next disaster. I don't understand how they haven't learned that they can't make new mechanics that cheat on mana, or use the graveyard to help pay for things. It's always broken and had never worked. Itst like WotC had been making the same mistake over and over for 10 years now.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I haven't paid attention to lore in quite a while, and I wasn't knocking Ixalan as a set. I enjoyed some of the cards, and like the theme. I just hated the way they drew Jace, compared to JTMS or any previous Jace. He just looked so stringy and weak.

the tdlr is that Jace going against Bolas triggered a mindwipe spell from another Planeswalker called Ugin who Bolas had almost killed before and sent Jace to Ixalan where he couldn't get out, he meets Vraska who is looking for an artifact on the plane and became a pirate captain to do it.

Along the way he gets his full memories (including his self lobotomization before going to Ravnica) so he has his full Telepathic training and actual personality now. Which is why he told Liliana to fuck off at the end of Dominaria.

Also JTMS jace looks like he shops at Hot Topic.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

You can tell that the suits at WOTC are getting antsy. Maro's been doing twitter polls and asking leading questions on social media more than usual. Companion may not be the most busted mechanic ever, but its definitely the most annoying. It homogenizes decks, encourages repetitive play patterns, removes interaction from the game, and thats all on top of being just generally powerful. Why yes, I would like an extra card drawn, that can't be attacked via hand disruption, and guarantees a combo piece on curve.

Way back in the day, I remember reading an article by one of the Magic bigwigs about the mana cost increase for tutors: he said that one of the valuable lessons of the early game was that "you get the card that you get, not the card that you want." Companions break that rule by, as people have pointed out, being essentially a Commander that you can play in any format including, well, Commander.

Who needs the Otter when you have Hivemind to copy WarpWorld 3 times.

Still, you see where the Rules Committee was coming from: imagine having a Twincast as a free 101st card hanging out in your command zone, giving Siegfried and Roy even more consistency and power.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Still, you see where the Rules Committee was coming from: imagine having a Twincast as a free 101st card hanging out in your command zone, giving Siegfried and Roy even more consistency and power.

Oh 100% it is just a freeroll for anyone who has the colors to use it, that is ban worthy. But I think it is hilarious the weakest of the lot is the one that gets banned.

 

[Lucifer's Rectum]

Honestly its good to see I'm not the only one who isn't a fan of how WOTC has been pushing commander-specific stuff over the top. I don't really like the idea of them printing things into the format, especially if it's going to be shit that's super pushed. Helping out weaker colors is one thing but I honestly think there's a problem when the best commanders by a huge margin for every color combination are either printed in precons or supplemental sets. Plus most of the time these are strictly better versions of already existing commanders, which just immediately obsoletes entire swaths of the game's history. And don't even get me started on how shitty the balancing has been, with certain combinations just being strictly better than everything else in both Commander AND Standard (*cough*simic*cough*). Idk, the game's just felt like it's getting increasingly less balanced and more skewed in certain directions with each set.

 

[Flexo]

I think MaRo's pissed that nobody bought into Brawl as a format, since Companions are forcing it on all constructed formats.

It's a shame. I tried arena in the last month during quarantine. I found myself playing nothing but brawl after awhile because it's pretty accommodating for new players. Just look at what your best cards are, put them together and go. You can fill in a few holes with your wild cards easily. I had pulled from some drafts and sealed tournaments the amazing Jeskai cards in ikoria (including Narset) and went to town in brawl. Even when I lost, there were only a few games I really despised. (Kennireth deck was dumb.)

If I was going to do much in paper, I would eagerly go to brawl where I only have to shell out $20+ for a card once, not 4 times.

They need to stop with some of these cards though. I mean i love Korvald, and even i think he's a degenerate card. (Still making a commander deck with him.)

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

It's a shame. I tried arena in the last month during quarantine. I found myself playing nothing but brawl after awhile because it's pretty accommodating for new players. Just look at what your best cards are, put them together and go. You can fill in a few holes with your wild cards easily. I had pulled from some drafts and sealed tournaments the amazing Jeskai cards in ikoria (including Narset) and went to town in brawl. Even when I lost, there were only a few games I really despised. (Kennireth deck was dumb.)

If I was going to do much in paper, I would eagerly go to brawl where I only have to shell out $20+ for a card once, not 4 times.

They need to stop with some of these cards though. I mean i love Korvald, and even i think he's a degenerate card. (Still making a commander deck with him.)

Korvald isn't bad unless you have Cat-Oven going, The worst thing in Brawl is "Blue Red Niv Mizzet" where they just Jam all the garbage counter spells and you don't get to play the game at all.

 

[Flexo]

Korvald isn't bad unless you have Cat-Oven going, The worst thing in Brawl is "Blue Red Niv Mizzet" where they just Jam all the garbage counter spells and you don't get to play the game at all.

Oh I have cat-oven in the deck (hello C+U combo) and it was still wrecking havoc even if I never saw them. And I mean the only thing I wild carded for that deck was Korvald. The entire thing was just bits of trash I had picked up from packs and all.

On the one hand - yes a commander that can turn random trash into gold is a great commander for beginners (since trash is all they'll have). The problem is those commanders are easily broken by the masters. Like off the top of my head... make Korvald a choice (draw OR +1/+1) would still have him be plenty good.

Spoiler: collection sperging

So i decided to double check my brawl deck. Other than Korvald, the only other cards in it that are rare+
Piper of the Swarm
Priest of Forgotten Gods
Dreadhorne Butcher
Assassin's Trophy
Midnight Reaper
Bedevil
Judith, tSD
Liliana, DGen <-- literally pulled her from a pack yesterday
Casualties of War
Izoni
3 shock lands
Temple of Malice

And I'm 90% sure most of the above I pulled out of the guild starters you would earn from doing beginner quests.

I did make a version of the deck trying to run Obosh as a companion.

 

[Lucifer's Rectum]

Korvald isn't bad unless you have Cat-Oven going, The worst thing in Brawl is "Blue Red Niv Mizzet" where they just Jam all the garbage counter spells and you don't get to play the game at all.

Tbh I think the blue green + optional third color "vomit my entire deck onto the board" decks are way worse in brawl. They're so greedy and generate so much advantage that no matter how many times you shut them down they just bounce right back.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Tbh I think the blue green + optional third color "vomit my entire deck onto the board" decks are way worse in brawl. They're so greedy and generate so much advantage that no matter how many times you shut them down they just bounce right back.

Those fold fast to an early board wipe though.