I...hate...Eternal Witness

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Chaos Turtle

Guest
Ferret said:
I helped a few of them make a mistake by selling away some good cards to these jerks.
Are you by chance missing a "not" or similar negative in this sentence?

(Feel free to delete this if you fix it.)

I thought you left because you were immersed in Everquest? :confused:
I thought it was Asheron's Call... no wait, that was Wakefield.
 

Ferret

Moderator
Staff member
Chaos Turtle said:
Are you by chance missing a "not" or similar negative in this sentence?

(Feel free to delete this if you fix it.)
Fixed - thanks for pointing that out. It does look a bit ridiculous.

Chaos Turtle said:
I thought it was Asheron's Call... no wait, that was Wakefield.
Naw, it was neither. I don't like online games that much. The only two I've played w/ any enthusiasm were The Sims Online (a simulation of real life - which means it's filled w/ 90% jerks and the best thing to do is never leave your own house) and MTGO (which is like going to a gaming stores except you can usually hide from the jerks...)

Naw, it was a complicated time when I didn't have time for the game...

-Ferret

"I still don't, but at least I can keep up w/ the CPA..."
 
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Notepad

Guest
Killer Joe said:
Really!? On Sunday of the BoK PR I traded for lots of good stuff and, in fact, in my area trading at PRs is the BEST time and place to trade.
Wow, I wish I lived in a nicer place like that. The nearest prereleases around here are San Jose/San Francisco area, and anybody who knows the pro scene *knows* that the SF Bay Area has this inferiority complex because of the East Coast guys. So, they act all lamer fake wannabe-big dude. And their barns. And their barns' barns. Etc. So in the end you have all these posers pretending to be the biggest flaming pile of poo since Zvi.

It makes trading hard in the first place. Makes trading at PRs outright impossible.
 
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Notepad

Guest
They need to make an x-pak for the Sims where you can declare martial law, then have people join the border patrol and shoot aliens. Man, that would be fun!

What? I'm not being specist, here! I mean illegal aliens! Oh, wait...
 
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Rooser

Guest
@Spiderman: How wise was it to make this the featured thread and then come in here and start yakking about the Ferret's absence and all? We demand more discussion of Eternal Witness! Less discussion of Sims online! Demand, demand!

@Duke: If it's any consolation, which it won't be, I said what I said simply to cheese you off. Think carefully about how much of what I said actually made sense, ("The 90's called and they want their fear of change back?" What does that even mean?), and also observe the careful placement of smilies, (If you look hard enough, you'll notice that they both appear right after my two faux-insults). Come now, I told you to learn how to play better right after you had just yelled at everyone for telling you to build a better deck. Did you really think I was serious? I was teasing you. It was a joke. I was winding you up and waiting for your oh-so-predictable defense-babble to spill all over the place. People on this forum have been doing it to you for some time, (Remember when train asked you if your screen name referred to John "The Duke" Wayne?). You take the bait just about every time. You're way too easy of a target, and until you learn to lighten up, I'm going to keep punishing you by jerking your chain.

Just remember, you are the one the one responsible for your own feelings. If a magic card or a post on a message board upsets you, that's your decision, not mine.

But, if you want to actually argue with me, let's review your posts:

You last post to me said many things, but the most important strand was this:

Duke said:
What I hate is playing against players who play different decks but again and again having to face the same wash, rinse, and repeat strategy using the same one card.
This, of course, is a perfectly reasonable sentiment. In this post you criticized me for not reading what you had said, and assured me that you were not angry at Eternal Witness because it was powerful and beating you all the time but because you were sick of seeing people use it uncreatively. Fine.

However, if you are truly interested in being "fair enough" consider the language of every one of your posts before that one.

Duke said:
... In other words, totally out of control. I have played against decks that would totally sieze to function should this card be removed from their grasp. ... The card is slightly overpowered. And I hate it. ...
Duke said:
... the card is too powerful for my tastes. ... What's even more lazy is not being able to work a rusting brain long enough to understand the difference between hating a card because someone lost their dignity to it, and hating a card because it is essentially rather powerful, even on its own. ...
Duke said:
... when I walked away from such battles, whether I had lost or won, I usually just shake it off because the opposing decks usually had beat me using plenty of cards, not 2 or 3 cards, such as the case of the Witness. ...
Duke said:
... Sure it's not pretty being beaten by Raffinity, for example, but I think a lot of its cards are so easy to deal with its not even funny. I've faced many powerful cards. But having played the environment for about 2 months, I can safely say that even now, Eternal Witness is an underrated card, and its power is rather obvious and even arrogant. ...
Now, if your anayltical skills are really as keen as you seem to think they are, you will have to agree that these statements imply the following things:

1) You think EW is really powerful, perhaps even too powerful.
2) You hate Eternal Witness because it is powerful. (Not, as you would claim later, because it was being used uncreatively)
3) The fact that there are many decks who's success hinges on this one card bothers you.
4) You don't mind losing to an arsenal of weapons, such as those seen in Affinity decks, but you really hate to lose to a small core of cards, especially when Eternal Witness is one of those cards.

To your credit, you did also have a few moments where your hatred of "uncreativity" shined through. Still, before I showed up you had made no effort whatsoever to explain your hatred of EW beyond, "it's powerful." I can make two logical deductions from this.

1) You are full of it. As soon as somebody criticizes you, you backpeddle and change your story.

OR

2) You have very poor communication skills.

I'm inclined not to think of you as dinhonest, so deduction 1 is right out. Therefore I think it is reasonable to suggest to you that you are very bad at explaining yourself to people. For all of your long-winded intelli-babble, you are remarkably bad at expressing your point of view in a way that makes sense to most of us.

I see now that you have disdain for EW because many people are using it as a crutch. Because you find yourself facing many decks, but one card. Because for all the creative things one could be doing with a deck of magic cards, most of your opponents are unable to escape the black hole of creativity that is Eternal Witness - Everyting from Kiki-Jiki to Astral Slide to Crystal Shard to Evacuation to Ninjas can find itself heavily leaning on the Witness. If this is how you feel, fine, but you really should have said as much in your first post.

And if I'm still wrong about what you are saying, fine, but I challenge you to explain what exactly about Eternal Witness you find so troublesome and what exactly you don't. And in plain English this time!

It's a little uncivil for you to say one thing, mean another, and then insult all of our intelligences when we misunderstand you. I hope one day you will grow up and realize that if you are to enjoy your stay amongst us lower humans, you must learn the value of good communication. It is a tool for expressing ideas, not a tool for wagging your e-penis.

Now, if you would like to return to actual debate over the card, I think it would do you well to reconsider what I said earlier:

rooser said:
I think the fact that it is a creature is the very reason it somehow seems wrong to you to find it in every other decklist. Are you bothered by the proliferation of efficient burns spells or cost-effective cantrips or the black removal du jour? Probably not. But a creature with similar flexibilty? OH NOS!!!1!~!
Your complaint against the card seems to hinge on the fact that it can fit into any deck with green. A valid complaint if you are making it. This is the same logic that keeps Ancestral Recall on the restricted list. If it were unrestricted and common, it would be an automatic four-of in any deck that could splash blue. And Eternal Witness is indeed a card with a similar and undisputed advantage attached to it. (Ironically, this line of argument does circle back to "I hate the card because it is powerful, durf durf.") My question, which ye-of-excellent-reading-skills seem to have missed somehow was "Why does this particular versatile card bother you so much when others don't?" And keep in mind that this is an actual question. I'm not saying to myself "Hah hah, I've got him know! This will surely stump him!" but rather "Gee, I really honestly wonder why Duke hates this versatile card over other versatile cards. I really hope he gives me a concise, flame-free answer."
 

Killer Joe

New member
is THIS the "Suck Thread"? :rolleyes:

Eternal Witness should've been printed as a Rare (period!)

It could join the ranks of other cards that 'woulda, coulda, shlouda been Rares':

~Eternal Witness
~Cranial Plating
~Fact or Fiction
~Flametongue Kavu
~Fire // Ice
~Rancor
~Counterspell
~Skullclamp

.....maybe, Island? :D
 
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jorael

Guest
Why can't commons and uncommons be good? The cool thing about M:TG is that you don't need expensive rares to build good decks. Sure,some rares make a deck better, but if every 'very good' card would be a rare, prices would go through the roof.I think it's cool that rare-lite decks can even be tournament worthy (U/G madness, Affinity).

Some of the cards you mentioned are too good (according to Wizards current standard). Making them rare would not solve that, only make them more expensive.
 
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DÛke

Guest
Oh. Rooser. I'm impressed. You've actually given me a good reason to discuss as opposed to deal with kids.

Eternal Witness is overpowered for the following reasons:

1. At 1GG, it sees a lot of play, and a lot of money, too. At 2GG, it would still see good play and would still cost more than the average good uncommon in terms of how much money you have to pay to get it. It is a design flaw.

2. I enjoy very much a good duel. I have no problem with losing, as long as my match did so with grand talent, or any talent, for that matter. I also have no problem with facing "net decks." In fact, I think my matches against them tend to be easier than facing an unknown deck with actual talent behind it. What I really don't like is seeing 1 card again and again, exploited across many decks; Eternal Witness sees heavy play in U/G decks, B/G decks, have seen it in Shrine decks, in Kokusho decks, in Plow Under decks, in all kinds of Green decks and also G/R decks. And that's just the beginning. Now, other than basic lands, to me it seems obvious that a card is overpowered when it has the capacity to be played in that many decks, and function rather perfectly, too. Especially for an uncommon. However, given the current Standard environment, I have yet to face another card that's injected to so many decks, and not just for looks either, but for sheer abusive power. That said, if the card was good enough to play in 2 or 3 decks, I wouldn't mind it very much - but when I play against 10 different decks and 8 out of them, being completely different and yet pack the Eternal Witness, some of depending on the Witness more heavily than others of course - what that says to me is that our fellow players have found a card that's easy enough to play, which to me is not a pretty thing. Would it be better for me to say that I don't hate what the Witness does, but I hate what can be done with the Witness, and how easy it is?

Rooser:
Why does this particular versatile card bother you so much when others don't?
Hopefully I've answered this question.

(And off topic, yes...I am bad at communicating my thoughts and feelings.)
 

Ferret

Moderator
Staff member
Rooser said:
@Spiderman: How wise was it to make this the featured thread and then come in here and start yakking about the Ferret's absence and all? We demand more discussion of Eternal Witness! Less discussion of Sims online! Demand, demand!
How odd? I didn't see much discussion of EW in your post - just a lot of ranting about another user's posting style. I think you're just having issues w/ the fact that he has a different opinion of it than you...

To be honest, I hate it too. It's annoying to see the same card become a "staple" in so many decks. It gets old real fast. Some cards are always fun to see in decks such as Howling Mine, Maze of Ith, even Black Lotus and The Moxen. This is because most of the time you only have to deal w/ them in small doses or they're restricted. Eternal Witness allows a player to keep bring back all of their annoyances and can work like a duplicate of the annoying cards. Also, because of this the player doesn't have to worry about adding in four other cards in their deck because it allows them to potentially have eight of the worst cards there. Trust me. I've seen it quite a few times on MTGO and it gets pretty annoying.

Rooser said:
"Gee, I really honestly wonder why Duke hates this versatile card over other versatile cards. I really hope he gives me a concise, flame-free answer."
Mr. Pot, you have a collect call from a Mr. Kettle...

-Ferret

"Not trying to defend, just pointing out the obvious..."
 
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Rooser

Guest
Ferret said:
I think you're just having issues w/ the fact that he has a different opinion of it than you..
No, actually, I have issue with the way he explains himself poorly and then insults everybody who argues with him, (And to a lesser extent, his violent hyperbole). Now that I have a better understanding of his complaint I have already said I completely understand his anger toward the card.

Ferret said:
Mr. Pot, you have a collect call from a Mr. Kettle...
But when I flame people it's cute! ;) (Well that and I usually don't mean it, either).

---

Okay, Dukey, I'm curious. What other cards have had this similar "easiness" to them? I think something like Ancestral Recall is the archetypical example of a card that does the type of bile-inducing creativity vortex problem you're complaining about. Can you list other cards that do the same thing?

On my side, I like versatile cards because of all the different things I can do with them. As a stoic, I must accept that I have no control over what my opponents do with the card, therefore I do not allow myself to be bothered by it. Yes, your typical FNM regular is probably performing all sorts of boring with EW - it just don't care, that's all. What concerns me is what my own options are, and EW provides me with a lot of options.
 
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DÛke

Guest
Rooser:

Okay, Dukey, I'm curious. What other cards have had this similar "easiness" to them?
I'm not sure. Ever since I came back to the game, I've played Standard only, and only through MTGO. In the current Standard environment, there are some rather powerful cards. But it's the case of almost any Standard environment at any given time; there are bound to be cards that will standout - there is no helping it, really. I don't care about "powerful" cards - they're only powerful because of the decks that they lead. Oh well. However, I care about cards that aren't that powerful, but are too playable and become staples rather quickly. I think Fact or Fiction was just such a card, even if it wasn't abused, it would still be one of Blue's best card drawing tools ever designed. I play Blue (and proud of it), and even I thought it was too playable when it first came out and was completely legal.

I honestly don't think there are any other annoying cards in current Standard. Powerful, yes...easily played, not really. Except for the Witness.
Rooser:
On my side, I like versatile cards because of all the different things I can do with them. As a stoic, I must accept that I have no control over what my opponents do with the card, therefore I do not allow myself to be bothered by it. Yes, your typical FNM regular is probably performing all sorts of boring with EW - it just don't care, that's all. What concerns me is what my own options are, and EW provides me with a lot of options.
Let me say that Eternal Witness is not some godly card; I've beaten her and her decks many, many times. That doesn't mean that it's a balanced card. Just because a card is easily beaten doesn't mean it is not flawed in its design. Eternal Witness is flawed. And that's what I despise.

And for the record, don't call me "Dukey."
 

Killer Joe

New member
I thought you once told us that that's how you say it (pheonetically) but write it to look like duke as in Duke of Earl.
 
C

Chaos Turtle

Guest
Ahem.
For your perusal.
http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/showthread.php?p=41722&highlight=Dukey

DÛke said:
You're not the only one who discovered how to say my name! Purple Girl always calls me "Dukey", or atleast, over PM she does. Sadely, you and Purple Girl are the only ones who figured it out! It's Dukey, not Duke.
On a quest! To bring truth! To the world!

Oh, DÛke, I got something for you. :embarassed: (You can just cut 'n' paste it into your post.) :p ;)
 
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