Cards that rarely/never see play

EDHdad

True, but it gives them an out. "The fact that you can see that Reave Soul at 3 mana is much preferable to Complete Disregard at 12 mana indicates that you are an advanced player with superior card evaluation skills."

alextfish

A few of EDHDad's cards are role players for certain circumstances. Nivix Barrier / Guardians of Meletis / Maritime Guard are a useful accompaniment to Turn to Frog for low/mid level Jaces (otherwise you get beaten up by a frog). Angel's Tomb goes well with Knightly Valor. Pharika's Disciple is useful to low-level Nissas as a target for buff effects in a faint gesture towards allowing green board control. Catacomb Slug was useful for low-level Liliana.

Mage-Ring Responder is a role player in the opposite way: a really bad card for the AI to play against low-level players so that it gives them a chance to win!

Some of them are utterly rubbish, yes, but couldn't really be anything but. Brilliant Spectrum has to have converge and can't really do anything except draw cards... I can't see any way MTGPQ could have made that a playable card given the way they chose to implement converge and given how weak card draw is in MTGPQ.

But most of EDHDad's list: yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Please, please, make most of these cards 33% cheaper, and open up more interesting deckbuilding choices.

Some of them are especially glaringly bad. Angelic Gift versus Stratus Walk and Complete Disregard versus Reave Soul - how do developers manage contrasting costs like that? It must have been spectacular oversights of the preexisting cardbase. And the temporary debuffs like Hydrolash and Eyeblight Massacre are utterly useless, given how much huger creatures and life totals are in MTGPQ versus MtG. They'd be borderline-playable in certain very specific decks if they cost {1}.

And most BFZ cards saying "colourless" are particularly unplayable given the utter failure to understand devoid on the part of the MTGPQ devs. Molten Nursery and Vile Aggregate are meant to benefit from all devoid cards. They'd be useless even at {1} while devoid fails to mean colourless.

Hibernum_JC

I'll say that some of the cards EDHdad are very powerful, but they require either comboing to show their true potential or are tech choices that will apply to certain things if the meta goes a specific way.

For example:

Hallowed Moonlight - If Garruk or Kiora become very widespread, this is a total MVP (almost totally shuts down Garruk and gets rid of Kiora's biggest threat with her Octopi).

Hedron Blade - Was obviously put in place to let smaller decks get rid of big Eldrazi (which is it's role in paper Magic) - right now they aren't super played, but who knows?

Languish - Is a perfect definition of Black's "Pay for Power" mantra. It's actually pretty cheap massive creature removal, and it can do a lot of damage.

Painful Truths - Is absurdly good with Ob Nixilis (I sort of designed the card to work great with him). Get his 3rd ability on the board and work to get this to 5 Converge and watch the damage fly.

etc.

I could go on and on, but as some other people have said, not every card can be good - by definition some cards will be better than others, and that's okay.

The other thing to consider, right now, is that the focus is on Quick Battle, where speed is the most important factor. When Events start rolling in, speed will definitely not be the most important factor (completion is) so speed becomes a lot less relevant, and slower cards do become much more appealing.

Meto5000

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The other thing to consider, right now, is that the focus is on Quick Battle, where speed is the most important factor. When Events start rolling in, speed will definitely not be the most important factor (completion is) so speed becomes a lot less relevant, and slower cards do become much more appealing.

Not for nothing JC, but Events have been "Coming Soon" since December 10th.

EDHdad

It isn't that the cards aren't useful. It's that most of them are overcosted compared to other cards.

Hallowed Moonlight:

Compare with:

Hedron Blade:

This literally does nothing unless your opponent has a colorless creature. The paper version gives the equipped creature a permanent +1/+1 buff.

Compare with:

Languish:

In paper Magic, this costs 4 mana and would kill nearly anything which also costs 4 mana. It famously did not kill Siege Rhino. If this card is to translate to this game, it should probably do at least 6 damage and should probably cost no more than 10 mana.

Compare to:

Painful Truths:

Compare to:

Ob Nixilis' 1st Ability (draw 2 cards for 3 loyalty)

HomeRn

EDHdad wrote:

It isn't that the cards aren't useful. It's that most of them are overcosted compared to other cards.

Languish:

In paper Magic, this costs 4 mana and would kill nearly anything which also costs 4 mana. It famously did not kill Siege Rhino. If this card is to translate to this game, it should probably do at least 6 damage and should probably cost no more than 10 mana.

Compare to:

That's a very BAD comparison for Languish there. Languish is a board clearing debuff (the way JC states that it "does damage" is misleading...) designed to get rid of excessively hard targets in return for debuffing your own board. All of the cards you compare Languish to are all inferior to Languish's true purpose: AoE board clearing! Not to mention getting rid of something that's hex-proof. Or Undergrowth Champion... remember, debuffing isn't damage or direct destruction - so it shouldn't trigger the ability...!

Meto5000

HomeRn wrote:

That's a very BAD comparison for Languish there. Languish is a board clearing debuff (the way JC states that it "does damage" is misleading...) designed to get rid of excessively hard targets in return for debuffing your own board. All of the cards you compare Languish to are all inferior to Languish's true purpose: AoE board clearing! Not to mention getting rid of something that's hex-proof. Or Undergrowth Champion... remember, debuffing isn't damage or direct destruction - so it shouldn't trigger the ability...!

Unless something's changed, spells that give negative toughness like languish actually do damage not debuff. The developers have said this is working as intended - take that as you will.

EDHdad

The only Hexproof creatures in this game are Gaea's Revenge (6 toughness) and Plated Crusher (6 toughness).

If Languish did -12/-12 to each creature until End of Turn, it would be the awesome board wipe it's being billed as.

At -4/-4 until the end of your turn, it doesn't kill anything that you should be worried about. Abbott of Kheral Keep, Akoum Firebird, Akoum Hellkite, Alhammaret High Arbiter, Angelic Captain, Archangel of Tithes, Avaricious Dragon, and those are just the A's.

In black, if a creature is giving you a problem, you can just kill the creature. The reason I can't compare this to a black board wipe is that there aren't any black board wipes. Through some quirk of fate, the only true board wipes in this game are in blue and green, which are the colors least likely to have board wipes in paper Magic.

HomeRn

Meto5000 wrote:

HomeRn wrote:

That's a very BAD comparison for Languish there. Languish is a board clearing debuff (the way JC states that it "does damage" is misleading...) designed to get rid of excessively hard targets in return for debuffing your own board. All of the cards you compare Languish to are all inferior to Languish's true purpose: AoE board clearing! Not to mention getting rid of something that's hex-proof. Or Undergrowth Champion... remember, debuffing isn't damage or direct destruction - so it shouldn't trigger the ability...!

Unless something's changed, spells that give negative toughness like languish actually do damage not debuff. The developers have said this is working as intended - take that as you will.

That better not be true. Otherwise Undergrowth Champion would be "broken" to the point that it would need EXTREME rebalancing. Also, can you bring up the quote that mentioned that it was working as intended as I would like to know how long ago that was?

@EDHDad - I forgot about the problem with languish... how most creatures that see play usually have 5+ toughness - especially with level 60 PW decks. However, that card would still be decent against the new Gideon that focuses on Ally creatures. Many of the good that I've seen do not have the toughness to survive a Languish cast without reinforcing (bar Veteran Warleader as she gets huge quickly!).

Hibernum_JC

Meto5000 wrote:

Hibernum_JC wrote:

The other thing to consider, right now, is that the focus is on Quick Battle, where speed is the most important factor. When Events start rolling in, speed will definitely not be the most important factor (completion is) so speed becomes a lot less relevant, and slower cards do become much more appealing.

Not for nothing JC, but Events have been "Coming Soon" since December 10th.

I know.

I can still say it's Coming Soon(tm), but sooner than before. Much sooner, in fact!

As for cards, I can always change them. Rebalancing is a huge part of my duties, and as such cards can always, always change.

EDHdad

As for cards, I can always change them. Rebalancing is a huge part of my duties, and as such cards can always, always change.

In my opinion, you've done an excellent job in the past of doing this, which is the reason I contribute to threads like this. I'm not trying to bust anyone's chops. Just providing a list of cards which could be improved. As someone else suggested, in most cases it would be as easy as lopping 33% off the casting cost.

In paper Magic, they have teams of people who do nothing but play test cards and tweak their costs and abilities. They have teams of people who do nothing but code cards for Magic Online, and teams of people who do nothing but fix bugs in Magic Online. Near as I can tell, it's you and a couple of other guys doing all of these things for this particular game, so I'd say you're doing very well, and I appreciate your efforts.

While we're on the subject, I would like to mention a card I think is very innovative. Gideon's Reproach is an instant in Paper Magic, and you've successfully turned it into a support. It can still be used as a combat trick. I think you did a really good job with it. I think that kind of card - a support with a huge shield that has an effect and then self-destructs, could potentially be a good design template to follow for other instants in Paper Magic. For example, a Counterspell could act the same way. If there was a blue support with 9 shield that would destroy the next card an opponent cast, then the opponent would have to play around that Counterspell, just like in paper Magic.

Note that in paper Magic, Gideon's Reproach does 4 damage to an attacking / blocking creature, just as Languish is -4/-4 to all creatures. But in this game, Gideon's Reproach does 6 damage (which is appropriate) while Languish still only does -4/-4.

Meto5000

EDHdad wrote:

Note that in paper Magic, Gideon's Reproach does 4 damage to an attacking / blocking creature, just as Languish is -4/-4 to all creatures. But in this game, Gideon's Reproach does 6 damage (which is appropriate) while Languish still only does -4/-4.

The number of "Relevant" creatures that Languish can remove is very low. If any of those creatures gets buffed or reinforced than forget about it. I think setting it to -6/-6 would be huge for the card - provided the mana cost stays the same or even goes down to 10. There's already a built in downside to the card since it affects your creatures too.

Irving

I actually use Languish in my Liliana deck *because* it's -4/-4 instead of anything bigger. It's a reanimator/flyers deck that kills creatures with Unholy Hunger and Graveblade Marauder, strips cards with Corrupt, brings back discarded Hangarbacks etc. with Dark Petition, and beats down with Kothophed and Priest of the Blood Rite. Languish wipes out many Chandra decks with Rambler/Stonewaker/Iroas's Champion, and Gideon decks with allies/Oracles/Lieutenants, without killing my guys.

That having been said, it's situational (there are times when something gets reinforced or buffed and it's useless, and it's just a discard target versus Outland Colossus & Skysnare Spider decks), and kind of expensive. Sometimes it's a blowout, which is great fun and why I play it, but it's probably not as good as another discard or kill spell (Don't have the black kill spells from BFZ, but Scour from Existence is an option). It wouldn't be remotely overpowered at 9, and it would be a tempting addition for the right deck and meta.

At -6/-6 it's functionally a board wipe, and I don't know if there's a deck that wants that in a world with no counterspells, weakened bounce, and fragile supports. (Maybe if we get some more good death triggers like Hangarback's! That would be a fun way to play.)

(eta: Board wipes are definitely useful in the later story mode battles where the opponent constantly has much bigger creatures than yours, though. Especially since MTGPQ rules mean that hexproof creatures live. Only beat the final battle with Great Aurora, Gaea's Revenge, and some luck.)

HomeRn

Irving wrote:

I actually use Languish in my Liliana deck *because* it's -4/-4 instead of anything bigger. It's a reanimator/flyers deck that kills creatures with Unholy Hunger and Graveblade Marauder, strips cards with Corrupt, brings back discarded Hangarbacks etc. with Dark Petition, and beats down with Kothophed and Priest of the Blood Rite. Languish wipes out many Chandra decks with Rambler/Stonewaker/Iroas's Champion, and Gideon decks with allies/Oracles/Lieutenants, without killing my guys.

That having been said, it's situational (there are times when something gets reinforced or buffed and it's useless, and it's just a discard target versus Outland Colossus & Skysnare Spider decks), and kind of expensive. Sometimes it's a blowout, which is great fun and why I play it, but it's probably not as good as another discard or kill spell (Don't have the black kill spells from BFZ, but Scour from Existence is an option). It wouldn't be remotely overpowered at 9, and it would be a tempting addition for the right deck and meta.

At -6/-6 it's functionally a board wipe, and I don't know if there's a deck that wants that in a world with no counterspells, weakened bounce, and fragile supports. (Maybe if we get some more good death triggers like Hangarback's! That would be a fun way to play.)

There is one on the way... just hasn't been released yet. Don't remember the name, but it is an 8/8 for 18 mana that summons a 5/5 elemental on any landfall by both players. And once that elemental dies, the 8/8 deals 5 damage to your opponent directly. So while it isn't a true on death effect, it will put a lot of pressure on your opponent!

Hibernum_JC

EDHdad wrote:

As for cards, I can always change them. Rebalancing is a huge part of my duties, and as such cards can always, always change.

In my opinion, you've done an excellent job in the past of doing this, which is the reason I contribute to threads like this. I'm not trying to bust anyone's chops. Just providing a list of cards which could be improved. As someone else suggested, in most cases it would be as easy as lopping 33% off the casting cost.

In paper Magic, they have teams of people who do nothing but play test cards and tweak their costs and abilities. They have teams of people who do nothing but code cards for Magic Online, and teams of people who do nothing but fix bugs in Magic Online. Near as I can tell, it's you and a couple of other guys doing all of these things for this particular game, so I'd say you're doing very well, and I appreciate your efforts.

While we're on the subject, I would like to mention a card I think is very innovative. Gideon's Reproach is an instant in Paper Magic, and you've successfully turned it into a support. It can still be used as a combat trick. I think you did a really good job with it. I think that kind of card - a support with a huge shield that has an effect and then self-destructs, could potentially be a good design template to follow for other instants in Paper Magic. For example, a Counterspell could act the same way. If there was a blue support with 9 shield that would destroy the next card an opponent cast, then the opponent would have to play around that Counterspell, just like in paper Magic.

Note that in paper Magic, Gideon's Reproach does 4 damage to an attacking / blocking creature, just as Languish is -4/-4 to all creatures. But in this game, Gideon's Reproach does 6 damage (which is appropriate) while Languish still only does -4/-4.

I really like what I've done with Gideon's Reproach, too. It's very different and it was basically a test to see if I could do this sort of behavior and see how it panned out.

As for cards and such, basically it's me for design/integration/balancing and a programmer that works with me for behaviors and bug fixing (and there are a LOT of bugs that crept up while working on the cards. We fix everything we find, and everything our QA finds, but in a game with such a huge amount of interactions there's always stuff that slips by). So I do what I can and work super hard at them, but obviously some stuff won't be perfect (R&D isn't perfect!). Considering the amount of people here vs how many work on a set at Wizards, yeah, it's a bit different.

nexus13

Getting Painful Truths to converge 5 seems pretty difficult.

shteev

Bravo. I'm so pleased a discussion about the unbelievably low power level of most cards is happening.

The release of this new set was tarnished the most, for me, by opening booster packs containing huge numbers of unplayable cards. If I'm going to pay 8 or more mana for a creature with 1 power, then it better have some useful ability, and it's just painfully obvious to anyone who has played more than 5 or 6 games that Makindi Patrol, Kozilek's Sentinel, Silent Skimmer, Eyeless Watcher, Tide Drifter, Grave Birthing, Katastria Healer, Benthic Infiltrator, Giant Mantis, Sludge Crawler, and Blisterpod aren't worth it. That's just one example of the way in which many new cards suck.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, we get Akoum Hellkite and Prism Array. They really aren't going to be able to print too many of these cards before this whole game collapses under power creep.

madwren

Gotta agree with those that point out how useless Languish is. In a world full of ubiquitous 6-toughness creatures, Languish is useless. I'm never facing a board state while playing black that makes me say "wow, I wish I had a Languish right now." Never. Not once.

SkywalterDBZ

Some cards I find particularly bad (mainly going over Black, since it's my color):

Skaab Goliath - 13 mana for a 6/9 Trample Berserker ... flat out broken, except for the drawback. Requiring you to have also spent the time and mana playing 2 other creatures which die or else it self destructs. Considering I rarely find use for creatures with stat lines lower than 4/4, it's like trading an 8/8 for a 6/9 for probably 30+ mana spent. Sure the earlier creatures might have put in some hits, but in most cases the turn you play Skaab you lose a turn of damage then do less total in the upcoming turns. File this guy under useless.

Mage-Ring Responder - 15 mana for a 7/7 ... again, an amazing base stat line, but too harsh a drawback. You go entire games without a 5 match, so this guy could be dead weight. That said, he's not nearly as bad as Skaab. He can become a blocker via effects or some characters like Nissa get lots of 5 matches. File this guy under niche.

Zulaport Cutthroat - 18 mana for a 2/2. This guy better do something absolutely miraculous for that stat line and nope ... not at all. His effect is neat, but he's made of glass and will likely be dead long before he provides any use. The whole Ally mechanic is way overcosted into this card. File this under useless.

Eyeblight Assassin - 10 mana for a 2/2. Effects like -1/-1 until end of turn just suck in my eyes (similar to why people are hating on Languish, but at least -4/-4 kills way more creatures that actually see play) because its too little. Even if it was do 1 damage this card would still be bad when you get soooo much more mileage out of 9 mana 3/3's and 4/4's like Hagra Sharp Shooter, which can do Eyeblights ability multiple times.

Nantuko Husk and Voracious Null - 10 mana for 2/2 (both). Both of these cards are plain bad when compared to the 9 mana cards mentioned above. The Husk is worse as its boost is temporary and which is actually useless if he's in the bottom most slot. Why conditionally get +2/+2 when I could get it free on Hagra. Sure I could maybe get a 6/6 out of him for a turn, but that's a bad response to getting your board wiped. Null on the other hand is permanent but again, you don't WANT to lose creatures, so pumping him intentionally is bad and avoiding pumping him is also bad.

Shambling Ghoul - 6 mana 2/2. No, just no. So many 7-9 mana options that just don't justify this cards "cheapness".


Those are just my some of the cards that I more objectively dislike after glancing at my collection. Black contains a lot more subjectively bad creatures which I just find to be so bad or niche that they won't get play, but the reasons have more to do with the gameplay rules than looking at the cards in a vacuum so I won't go into any more here. What I will say is often cards which might be OK in a vacuum are often ruined by the 3 creature maximum rule or the reinforcement rule keeping you from having multiples.

BigMao

Skaab Goliath - 13 mana for a 6/9 Trample Berserker ... flat out broken, except for the drawback.

I agree, the drawback is so negative that it makes this card unusable. On a more joking note, I do enjoy when the AI casts this creature and it immediately dies.

Zulaport Cutthroat - 18 mana for a 2/2. This guy better do something absolutely miraculous for that stat line and nope ... not at all

Agreed; this card is quite sad. Drana's Emissary is a good card for comparison, she's 17 mana for a 4/4 flying, and you gain one life / deal one damage at the start of each turn. A 4/4 flying is much more durable than a 2/2 non-flying creature, yet Drana's Emissary is still poor against decks that do a lot of creature destruction / return to hand.

Shambling Ghoul - 6 mana 2/2. No, just no.

I disagree actually. I think it's okay to have some common cards that are flat-out worse than rare ones, and this also happens in paper Magic a lot. If the rare cards weren't objectively better, it could be less satisfying to get them in packs.

One example is Orchard Spirit vs. Honored Hierarch. The latter has several abilities that make it far superior to the former, but as a rare card it takes a while to get. I certainly didn't mind running Orchard Spirit for my first few days playing MTGPQ, and finally getting Honored Hierarch (in a free booster!) was very satisfying.