New Phyrexia Previews

Ransac

CPA Trash Man
In Standard, Valakut decks can simply ignore the New Negator and outrace a 5/5, Stoneforge Mystic decks can outrace by attacking with a creature equipped with the pro-black Sword of Feast and Famine, Control decks can drop Gideon Jura, U/B infect can outrace with Skittles, Kuldotha Red wins before it hits the battlefield. Go for the Throat, Journey to Nowhere, Into the Roil, Wall of Tanglecord, Condemn and the various Control Magic cards can all deal with the Negator.

It's just not that scary of a card in this Standard.

Ransac, cpa trash man
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Maybe so. That's Standard for you. In Legacy, this would be a huge boon to aggressive black decks. I would definitely play it if not for the fact that it will probably cost too many dollars and aggro is for sissies I'd rather work on combo decks. Also, I've been too swamped with school to actually build decks anyway, but whatever. Still, I can say what, as far as I can tell, is the same sort of thing you're saying, using Legacy and cards that have already proven to be good (although in this case it would seem unnecessary, as this card is so obviously powerful even without testing it). For example, Tarmogoyf. It is a fact that Tarmogoyf is a super-powerful creature and we both know that lots of decks use it because it's so good, but look at all the decks that can ignore it, just like you said for this new card...

Belcher doesn't care if the opponent plays a Tarmogoyf at all. Not even a little bit. Dragon Stompy can fly over it and outrace it. Stiflenought runs right over it. High Tide doesn't care and outraces it. Tendrils doesn't care and outraces it. Affinity can outrace it or fly over it or make creatures too big for it to compete with. Lands can overwhelm it with threats. Dredge outraces the crap out of it. Enchantress has over 9,000 ways to deal with it. Painter sidesteps it. Stax locks it down. Burn outraces it. And so on. Basically every deck in Legacy either aims to bring the opponent down despite the card, outrace it, neutralize the threat, or is using Tarmogoyf itself anyway. It can be countered, hit by Swords, held at bay by Moat or whatever, etc. But it's still one of the cards that, not only is good enough to see play, but defines the format.

Seems like one can do that sort of analysis on any card, no matter how good it is (maybe not Black Lotus, but whatever). Although I'm guessing now that maybe that your point was more specifically tied to something about the current Standard format, and some comment on it? Like I said, I don't know the current Standard at all. I don't know that I could name a single archetype in the format (without checking your post in which you just provided some names). Is that what you meant? Is it just because black is too weak already? Or is the format so busted already that this card wouldn't have an impact? Or some other reason?
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Maybe so. That's Standard for you. In Legacy, this would be a huge boon to aggressive black decks. I would definitely play it if not for the fact that it will probably cost too many dollars and aggro is for sissies I'd rather work on combo decks.
I think the fact that it costs 4 mana is more prohibitive than anything else. It's a nice finisher in a control deck, but so far monoblack control doesn't really work. There's a deck like Trainwreck and the Gate. In the gate it could replace Abyssal Persecutor.




[4x] Dark Confidant
[4x] Abyssal Persecutor --> Powercreep Negator
[4x] Gatekeeper of Malikir
[3x] Faerie Macabre
[3x] Vampire Nighthawk

//Spells
[4x] Innocent Blood
[4x] Deathmark
[4x] Duress
[4x] Wasteland
[3x] Cabal Therapy

//Artifacts and Enchantments
[4x] Bitterblossom
[3x] Umezawa's Jitte

//Mana
[16x] Swamp
You're not beating combo with this list though. But anyway, it's not as if I think this card will break magic. The thing that's bothering me is how clearly this card demonstrates that Magic has already been broken. Even that I could live with, if Wizards would stop making it worse again and again. By now it's just a matter of time before they print something that will replace 'goyf and KotR as the king beaters. And we've come a long way since Ernham Djinn was even considered for a deck, let alone be the beater of choice. There are commons in standard that are worth more than my Ernies. There are probably even commons in standard that are better than my Ernies... And that sucks.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
So what I'm gathering from reading this thread is that there's a nostalgic beat where one wishes cards would remain the same, power-wise?

While I'm from the same era and have the same rememberances, I just don't think it's possible over 16 or so years of Magic, with so many sets out. I mean, sure, those cards "set the standard" back in the day because Magic was still in its infancy and it was so open-ended. It still is, but Magic has matured. Trying to hold onto cards and keep their power level is hopeless, to use a word. Either the card keeps the power level which means every card after it needs to be less powerful, or cards that come after it exceed its power and become the new "standard". The former stifles growth while the latter, while perhaps contributing to this "power creep" mentioned before, keeps Magic growing.

And probably not everyone is interested in getting such "old cards" anyway :)
 

Ransac

CPA Trash Man
I think I'm just a little miffed whenever they print cards that make older cards obsolete (Blightsteel Colossus > Darksteel Colossus), but I understand the logic they have in wanting players to keep buying cards.

Now, I personally don't think this new Negator is that much better than the old Negator (if at all). The Ritual/Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors accelerant comment makes this point. Also, since the cost encourages mono-black, there won't be much room for it at all as Mono Black is not a viable (competitive) archetype today. There was an article either on SGC or CF recently where someone stated that going mono-colored in Legacy, unless you're tribal, is simply wrong.


Ransac, cpa trash man
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
So what I'm gathering from reading this thread is that there's a nostalgic beat where one wishes cards would remain the same, power-wise?
I definitely have experienced something like that. However, in this specific case, and in the problem Shabbaman thinks it's indicative of (and if I understand him correctly, I agree with him entirely), there's more to it than that and nostalgia is not really the issue. Now, I can't pretend that I can always reliably parse out where it's connected to nostalgia or something like that, but I think Shabbaman's Ernham Djinn example is one way to elucidate this.

Remember when Ernham Djinn was a good card? Ernhamgeddon and all that? Ernham Djinn hasn't changed. And it didn't lose any of the synergies it had with other cards. In fact, sets that came later provided more cards that could be used to support it. The most obvious explanation (and the one that I think should be our default assumption if we're going to have one) is that as more and more sets were released, some cards that were of a higher power level than Ernham Djinn were released. And as the quantity of these cards grew, Ernham Djinn became outdated. This, as you say, would be pretty much unavoidable if the game is going to grow.

But consider other cards from the same era that were strong back then. Maybe not the egregiously broken ones like Mishra's Workshop or Necropotence, because they might complicate things (actually, I'm sure that they would). What about things like Zuran Orb, Dark Ritual, Brainstorm, Force of Will, Infernal Contract, Sol Ring, Winter Orb, and such? Every card is different (excepting the ones that aren't), but most of cards that were the best at what they did in the 90's still are. Just so long as they're lands, instants, sorceries, enchantments, or artifacts (with those last two, I suspect it also depends a bit on the specific type of function, but I digress). Creatures from older sets, on the other hand, have become obsolete. A creature that was printed back then that is still good is the exception now, rather than the rule, wherease for most non-creature cards, it's the other way around (if it was good then, it's probably still pretty good).

Now, this by itself is not a bad thing. WotC has certainly determined in the past that they wanted the power-level for some effects to be scaled differently than old cards did (Lightning Bolt being replaced by Shock and such, or even the "shocklands" as successors to the old dual lands). Maybe it's the case that there's been a general trend of treating non-creature things that way and scaling up the power of creatures (or creature-centered cards like creature enchantments and the like). Perhaps this is not only what has been going on, but it's the best thing for the game and we'd all be bored to death if WotC had taken a different approach. I have no idea how to make such an assessment.

I do not think this new "Powercreep Negator" is indicative of the aforementioned trend, though. That trend might exist. And it would be appropriate to call it "powercreep." However, the trend I seem to be observing and that I am not comfortable with, is not that old. There's more than just a gradual scaling up of the creatures as sets have been printed over the years. There's something more extreme. Ransac's Blightsteel Colossus example just might be the poster child for it. When Darksteel Colossus first came out, I was mainly annoyed with it because of the "indestructable" mechanic (I thought it was a silly idea) but I appreciated that it was very, very powerful. Polar Kraken was an 11/11 for eleven mana, but so hosed by drawbacks that it was only barely playable. This was a creature that raised the bar for big creatures. It even made what had once been good artifact creatures to Tinker out (like Phyrexian Colossus) look silly. This was somewhat balanced by the fact that it had the double-edged "if it would be put into a graveyard ability" like Serra Avatar and the prohibitive mana cost. Darksteel Colossus didn't break the game. But it was very, very powerful and popular as a win condition. I saw it put into play with Tinker, Sneak Attack, Tinker, Show and Tell, Tinker, Oath of Druids, and even hardcast by decks running massive artifact mana production (Metalworker and such). Also Tinker. After Darksteel Colossus was printed and up until Inkwell Leviathan was printed, if you were going to use Tinker to search for a creature, it had better have been Darksteel Colossus. Then after that you ran both and used the one more appropriate for the situation. The card was successful because it was so big (the number of creatures naturally bigger than 11/11 at that time was surely something I could count on one hand), had trample, and was so resilient against removal. Resilient because it had a stupid ability that I hated. But man, it was good.

Blightsteel Colossus, in contrast, has infect. WotC took a card that hit the game like a train, a card that raised the bar for big creatures you cheat into play, gave it infect, and decided that making it cost one more mana would totally balance that out. This isn't some card they printed years later that, oops, just happened to be better than Darksteel Colossus. This is obviously intended to be a better version of Darksteel Colossus. It's not like they tried to be subtle about it. IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME EXCEPT IT HAS INFECT AND IT COSTS ONE MORE MANA. I MEAN, COME ON.

Of course, they want to sell cards. And if they make the new cards more powerful than the old cards, we have an incentive to buy the new cards in order to remain competitive. But this trend can't continue at this rate without becoming completely ridiculous. Whoops, too late. It already did that.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Now, I personally don't think this new Negator is that much better than the old Negator (if at all). The Ritual/Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors accelerant comment makes this point. Also, since the cost encourages mono-black, there won't be much room for it at all as Mono Black is not a viable (competitive) archetype today. There was an article either on SGC or CF recently where someone stated that going mono-colored in Legacy, unless you're tribal, is simply wrong.
Mono-black? Hm, I don't get it. The card doesn't say anything about anything bad happening if you cast a non-black spell. And this thing is an obvious shoe-in for B/U or B/W. You do use dual lands, right?
 

Ransac

CPA Trash Man
I do.... and play in an environment where Tectonic Edge/Wasteland (depending on format) is very common.


Ransac, cpa trash man
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
If your metagame is anything like what I've been seeing, Wasteland is so prevalent because almost every single deck uses nonbasics. It can be a problem for tempo (or a bigger problem if the opponent is using Wasteland alongside Crucible of Worlds in the right deck), but the advantage of immunity to Wasteland (in most cases) is far outweighed by the disadvantage of not being able to splash colors. You know this already. Pyrexian Ubernegator costs BBBB, but that's not particularly more susceptible to Wasteland obstacles than other four-mana cards.
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Oversoul makes my point much more eloquently ;) But there's something else besides making my creature cards obsolete:

1. Buffing creature stats is a cheap way to impress people. Okay, face it, Ernham Djinn had some room for improvement. I guess most of you figure "1 p/t equals 1 mana, in green, plus a little bit mana if you're not green, and then a little bit for a good ability" is what defines a creature card. There's been Kird Ape (ah, a classic creature that is still good enough to play), so good that it was once banned in Extended. Even if we'd ignore major offenders like Tarmogoyf, Legacy Zoo is full of Kird Ape lookalikes. A few years ago we saw Watchwolf (3/3 for WG), where the multicolor was supposedly a drawback (OK, it's a drawback). But people were impressed with the efficiency of the card. Now, nobody is still playing Watchwolf, because Wild Nacatl is a 3/3 for 1 mana (no drawbacks, only situational like Kird Ape). Sure, the cards are good, but it's no innovative design. Wizards is getting lazy.
2. Cheaper creatures change the game. Take a card like Shadowmage Infiltrator. At first glance you'd think such a card would make for a good deck. Now, it had the bad luck to be in the same block as Psychatog, but I think it's not a good thing that it's better to just smash someone's head in for the same amount of mana. It doesn't make sense to build around Shadowmage Infiltrator. Tough luck you say, and okay, tough luck (not personally, I never had any Shadowmage Infiltrators anyway, it just seems like a shining example to me). But there's another side of it: if you would be considering creatures that are good enough, Shadowmage Infiltrator is not on that list. There's also no creature like Shadowmage Infiltrator (assumption, doesn't really matter in this example anyway) on that list, because that doesn't exist. Yet. Because in the next set, Wizards will print Shadowmage Infiltrator plus 1 p/t for the same CC. Printing increasingly stronger creatures will make the number of creatures that are worth considering smaller.

I've bolded the points I wanted to make, I'm not really to the point. But Wizards is lazy and destroying the game in the mean time. Perhaps my language is a bit strong, but it's between "lazy and destroy" and "lacklustre and lame". Like Oversoul shows what happened with Blightsteel/Darksteel Collossus... who'd still consider tinkering Phyrexian Processor or Masticore? These cards are very different than Blightsteel Collossus, but not on the same power level. So eventually Wizards will print an improved Phyrexian Processor and we'll all be wowed (until they print an improved Blightsteel Collossus).

There's another effect. Some cards are so absurdly strong that they can't ever be improved: Force of Will for example. Or Lightning Bolt. For a long time, Counterspell was in this category. Or Wrath of God. But even with Counterbalance/Top around control decks in Legacy aren't strong enough to beat Zoo (well, granted, in a vacuum it could, but it's close). Because creatures get stronger, the whole dynamic of the game is changing: isn't a control deck that does "build up to four mana, Wrath and stabilise with some fat flyer" a cornerstone of this game? I don't think that's true anymore. Perhaps that is where nostalgia comes in. Or perhaps I'm old, or perhaps I'm not playing enough standard to appreciate new sets. I don't know. But "1 p/t equals 1 mana" and "build up to four mana, Wrath and stabilise with some fat flyer" is how I think of M:TG, and that view of the world is under tension.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
It's starting to sound like I need to split the thread and move it to Magic Issues :)

I hear what you're saying. Heck, I still can't get myself to play with Planeswalkers and all that, just because they're still pretty "new" to me. But looking at the big picture

Oversoul said:
And if they make the new cards more powerful than the old cards, we have an incentive to buy the new cards in order to remain competitive.
I assume that this depends on the environment you're playing in. And knowing you Oversoul, you tend to play in Vintage/Legacy/older environments rather than Standard, correct? So are you telling me that every time a new set comes up, the decks in those environments are upended because people need to buy the cards to compete? Or are those decks changed by one, two, cards?

Shabbaman said:
Wizards is getting lazy.


I've been hearing this for years :) Probably since Tempest or Urza's Saga ;)

Shabbaman said:
Printing increasingly stronger creatures will make the number of creatures that are worth considering smaller


Again, I assume this depends on the environment AND format, which I assume is again Vintage/Legacy since Standard or limited environments such as drafts don't care as much.

How many creatures were used in those environments anyway? If a stronger creature comes along, it makes more sense that it will replace the obsolete creature and keep the numbers stable, rather than shrinking them. Have such decks over the years indeed seen a decrease in number of creatures used (and assuming replaced?)

Shabbaman said:
But Wizards is lazy and destroying the game in the mean time.
That would mean Magic is losing players. But I really don't think so... again, no offense, but it's a common refrain throughout Magic or whenever sets come out or "extreme" rules changes are made (such as 6th). But Magic is still going strong...

Again, I agree with you guys sentiment-wise; I like my old cards because they're familiar and I'm used to them. But since we don't seem to have an "abundance" of "new players" here to offer their point of view, I have to say that Magic's state doesn't exactly bear out your statements, though of course I recognize their personal anyway.
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Well, they're not really destroying it. Sales are at a record high, so it can't be that bad. But I do illustrate what I mean, and that's that the game is changing from what was a reasonably constant for a long period of time (the argument of 1 mana p/t and wrath). As Wizards made clear some time ago that getting new players was the most important goal, it does make sense to make new cards more powerful. Because they don't have leftover Ernhams. More likely, they don't even think Magic is about "1 mana p/t and wrath" or something like that.

How many creatures were used in those environments anyway? If a stronger creature comes along, it makes more sense that it will replace the obsolete creature and keep the numbers stable, rather than shrinking them. Have such decks over the years indeed seen a decrease in number of creatures used (and assuming replaced?)
I don't think so. If you print creatures that are more aggressively priced, it makes more sense to win through beatdown. Utility and control creatures are underpriced compared to the latest and hottest creature on the block. Compare Shadowmage Infiltrator and Tarmogoyf; why bother with drawing a card if you can kill in three swings?
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I would think utility and control would have similiar cards to keep the aggressively priced beatdown creatures in check, getting similiar aggressively priced utility and control cards.
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Indeed. That was the last point I was making. But I figure there are some cards that are too good to be improved upon. Can you imagine a WoG for 3 mana?
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Ah. I missed that you were trying to make it :)

You mean just a "vanilla" Wrath or one with seemingly restrictions that probably could be gotten around, with creativity (or with Dream Halls)? :)
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I assume that this depends on the environment you're playing in. And knowing you Oversoul, you tend to play in Vintage/Legacy/older environments rather than Standard, correct? So are you telling me that every time a new set comes up, the decks in those environments are upended because people need to buy the cards to compete? Or are those decks changed by one, two, cards?
Really, this has always varied. I remember before Legacy even existed, when some players in Vintage and the old 1.5 expressed the hope that the sets with the new card faces wouldn't introduce anything particularly valuable and that they could keep on using their decks consisting entirely of the old card face for years to come. Mirrodin crushed that (kind of a silly sentiment, although I myself am still attached to the old cardface design). I think that since Legacy started, it's been a few key cards from a new set that would enter the metagame with any significant amount of presence. For a given deck, it could potentially be none, but often there'd be something too good to pass up. It's always varied over the years though. I could speculate on proportionally how many cards have been added to the pool of staples in Legacy or Vintage for each set and what the trend might be, but without the numbers (and there's not that much data anyway, because the number of sets that have been printed in total is really not that big), it wouldn't be much more than guessing. I don't know that WotC ever even made a concious decision to print more powerful creatures in order to force Legacy veterans to invest in new cards. I mean, I doubt that it's anything so simple as that. Maybe I'm biased by what I've seen in the past, but I generally assume any effect that new cards or other developments from WotC has on Legacy (and Vintage, perhaps moreso) is a largely accidental side effect of something they had in mind for rotating formats or non-limited play. That is, unless there's evidence to the contrary. Sure, the Zendikar block has had a huge impact on Legacy, but that didn't mean WotC printed those sets with those cards with that in mind.

I've been hearing this for years :) Probably since Tempest or Urza's Saga ;)
I suppose that I have too. But a lot of that is probably attributable to unfair notions some players have about WotC. When Urza's block was new and had all those cards considered to be broken (some of them pretty tame compared to what we have now, though), a lot of people seemed to think that WotC got sloppy and designed the cards poorly, not heeding potential synergies and such. Possibly somewhat in response to that (or to Rath block, which also had a lot of powerful cards for the time), the sets that followed were generally less powerful (with some cards here and there being exceptions). But in retrospect, the Urza's block has a lot more cards that are fun to play with, and a lot of the stuff that followed it is dull and entirely unremarkable now. Some of the claims about brokenness don't even make sense in hindsight. There was a lot of whining about "free" cards like Cloud of Faeries: supposedly too good because by untapping lands, they paid for themselves. So that mechanic was deemed "broken" (I think WotC even admitted as much). But then they went and did the madness mechanic without players complaining (I didn't see anyone complaining about the mechanic anyway) even though most of the land-untapping spells aren't even any good now and the madness spells are probably of a bit higher power level in general (Basking Rootwalla is significantly crazier than Cloud of Faeries). Really, whether something goes over well with the players seems to depend a lot on whim, on what they were playing before, and such.

But I can't look at Blightsteel Colossus and not think that making that card was just plain lazy.

How many creatures were used in those environments anyway? If a stronger creature comes along, it makes more sense that it will replace the obsolete creature and keep the numbers stable, rather than shrinking them. Have such decks over the years indeed seen a decrease in number of creatures used (and assuming replaced?)
Hard to track if you want to be comprehensive, but if you choose to ignore rogue decks for the most part, then yes. Legacy used to support a more diverse field of creatures. Of course, that could be because the field of decks used to be more diverse, or it could be that players have begun gravitating toward certain archetypes, pushing decks that didn't actually get worse to rogue status just because they aren't being played much, or maybe because the format has become more popular and the caliber of decks has gone up, or maybe more players that also play Standard and/or Extended have been attracted to the format and are building decks with the cards they already have, or something else entirely. But it sure seems like the fact that a lot of the new creatures have been so powerful must have something to do with it...
 

Shabbaman

insert avatar here
Ah. I missed that you were trying to make it :)

You mean just a "vanilla" Wrath or one with seemingly restrictions that probably could be gotten around, with creativity (or with Dream Halls)? :)
I guess there are numerous ways to improve Wrath of God. To make it more effective you should be able to cast is sooner (before turn 4) or generate more card advantage with it. They could make it blue (you never know). They could make one with Phyrexian mana, then it's essentially free to play. They could make it a cantrip. I don't know, but there are many, many ways. It's just that the card isn't as good as it used to be, and the fact that it isn't as good anymore has to do with better creatures. "I tinker out Blightsteel Collossus." "Oh okay... Wrath of God?"
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Oversoul said:
a lot of people seemed to think that WotC got sloppy and designed the cards poorly, not heeding potential synergies and such.
Well, I don't know about "sloppy", but they did admit to not seeing some interactions, in general. But by Urza's Saga, they just about had the "two blocks in advance" thing down.

Oversoul said:
Possibly somewhat in response to that (or to Rath block, which also had a lot of powerful cards for the time), the sets that followed were generally less powerful (with some cards here and there being exceptions).
I don't know about "less powerful" (although the one the sticks out in my mind is Mercadian Masques), but due to Rath's fast environment, they did want to slow things down a bit. But again, since Urza's Saga came right after Rath, the "slowing down" didn't show up until after (Mercadian Masques again? :) )

Oversoul said:
But I can't look at Blightsteel Colossus and not think that making that card was just plain lazy.
Perhaps that card is merely geared towards the "Timmys".

Shabbaman said:
It's just that the card isn't as good as it used to be, and the fact that it isn't as good anymore has to do with better creatures.
Better creatures or different mechanics? You're obviously not going to Wrath a single creature unless you're up against a Wall, that was known back even in the beginning. Swords to Plowshares is probably still one of the best (since I don't know if there's an equivalent card that doesn't give life) cards for removal and obviously much better to use against a Colossus anyway. You're only going to Wrath when you're up against a horde, otherwise, yeah, it's an expensive single-double removal card, of which there are better options to complement a control deck.

So yeah, it was a great mass removal spell. And it still is.
 
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