v2.1 Release Notes *Updated (5/22/17)

EDHdad

That's why I think all objectives should be achievable using commons and uncommons.  Remember that boss which could give itself 50 life for 9 loyalty and most of its cards were big life gaining cards and it had over 300 starting life?  And the objective was "win in 4 rounds or less" or whatever.  Anyway, that's a stupid objective.  And one which would have never been implemented if the testing was done with commons and uncommons.

ElfNeedsFood

Now combine that Ornithopter with Lightning Grieves and you have a terror beyond Mythic proportions!

In all seriousness, I'm excited for limited if for no other reason than it will force us to put our pigs on a shelf and find new combos. 

madwren

Yay Amonkhet! The jury will be out on new events/any reward changes until we see them, of course. However, I'm intrigued by the changes caused by eliminating SOI/BFZ. We all knew this would probably happen at some point, and SOI/EMN in particular dominate the metagame.  It'll be nice to give KLD/AER decks some room to breathe.

However, I'm not really a fan of leaving Origins in the mix. We could all use a break from Hixus and TSN and Gaea's Revenge, among others.

I'm also not a fan of every PVP event being two days, either. I rather liked the one-and-done nature.

I'll end on a positive --yay tiebreaker change. Much needed. Kudos.

EDHdad

That's the theory.  The reality is that they'll sell you that set's version of pig for the everyday low, low price of $39.99.

Laeuftbeidir

Does the introduction of standart have an impact on the current Tier System? 

Thuran

Sounds like fantastic changes! 

I avoided moving up into platinum, because I knew i could not compete with SoI cards that I did not have access to. This announcement now gives me a reason to move up, since my collection will actually be competitive now  

I assume the daily pvp events will cost crystals, same as current trials? 

Overall great stuff, hoping we avoid gamebreaking bugs, but sounds good, and god knows we have been missing good news lately! Kudos! 

octal9

LakeStone said:

Hoping to get the cards out on Thursday or Friday to share.

Excellent. I'll be looking for it on Thursday

gruntface

Tie breaker updates are great to hear (not that I ever really need to worry about that ha).

Always thought the dissenting voice on this approach was odd and glad that the team recognize this is a huge gain for players with minimal impact to the game as a whole. Nothing material about a handful of players getting improved rewards.

Kudos

Hibernum_JC

shteev said:

LakeStone said:

Embalm lets you return creatures as token copies of their original creature when you match an activated gem after they have been destroyed

Activate 1? Activate 1 is TERRIBLE.

LakeStone said:

Exert is linked to an activated gem that counts down by 1 at the start of each of your turns. When you either match it or its count gets to zero, the ability is activated.

Those countdown gems are pretty bad too. Are these going to activate when your opponent pops them, or will he counter the effect if he does this?

[edit] It's probably time to finally balance TSN, tho, now.

There's quite a few things in here, so I'll address them one by one!

Embalm is not necessarily Embalm 1 (although it is, on most cards that have Embalm). I am well aware that Activate 1 can be difficult to hit, however there is a difference with Embalm and regular Activate 1 cards: multiple copies of cards with Embalm in your graveyard will Activate multiple gems (contrary to stacking cards with Activate 1, which have a single Activate gem no matter what). So in essence, it's better than Activate 1, not to mention that until you do match them they'll always either be there or come back if your opponent matches them, because the creatures will be in your graveyard (and can't quite get removed from there). 

Overall it works very well, and is a lot less "in your face" like Energy is.

As for Exert, the countdown gems won't activate when your opponent pops them, and they'll come back like normal Activated gems. The logic behind Exert is they are Activated gems that are essentially guaranteed to trigger (provided your opponent doesn't match them) as opposed to normal Activated gems that are more difficult to trigger.

As for rebalancing cards from Origins, we'll see as time goes if it becomes a necessity. We like that some cards will become staples of certain colors, but obviously if something becomes a major problem we will address it. 

Gaitreli said:

So since aftermath wasn't listed as a mechanic are you not including those cards in the set, or are you splitting them in half? 

Also are we to expect the Amonkhet Invocations soon just so people can make a reasonable decision about purchasing masterpiece packs in the near future. 

Aftermath, as a mechanic, was entirely cut from the card set. As a note, we regularly cut mechanics from sets when they do not make any sort of sense, and Aftermath made no sense in the game. This means that no Aftermath cards were included in the game. I would have liked to have some of them, but there were also art issues with them (the art on the cards is quite small, and as such creates problems for us when translating the art to our game).

Infested said:

I worry about objectives that are set without considering the lack of old cards. E.g. several white walkers can finish in 5 or less rounds, so 5 or less should be an objective. Well deploy was removed and this is likely no longer possible. 

We will be keeping a close watch on objectives, but as for objectives in Amonkhet events we have scaled back on certain objectives which are generally not the most fun to play (such as the speed objectives).

madwren said:

Yay Amonkhet! The jury will be out on new events/any reward changes until we see them, of course. However, I'm intrigued by the changes caused by eliminating SOI/BFZ. We all knew this would probably happen at some point, and SOI/EMN in particular dominate the metagame.  It'll be nice to give KLD/AER decks some room to breathe.

However, I'm not really a fan of leaving Origins in the mix. We could all use a break from Hixus and TSN and Gaea's Revenge, among others.

I'm also not a fan of every PVP event being two days, either. I rather liked the one-and-done nature.

I'll end on a positive --yay tiebreaker change. Much needed. Kudos.

It's important to note that SOI/BFZ aren't going away at all. The PvE event that will be running from Monday through Thursday can be played with SOI/BFZ cards all you want, and we have other plans in the works for how we'll be using both older card blocks and older events. I unfortunately have nothing more to share about this at the moment because it's in very, *VERY* early stages, but you can rest assured that all the cards you have accumulated will have a long-term use, and in the short term can be used in the weekly PvE events.

Origins has to be in the mix because we otherwise would be severely cutting new players from participating in any sorts of events. Origins is a great set to start with because its mechanics are rather simple and the set complexity is low, and while it does have some powerful cards (the three you listed are definitely on top of the set's power cards) there are always difficult decisions to make when deck building. Sometimes you'll return more towards the newer sets, sometimes you'll pepper in some Origins cards, etc. It all depends on your collection and what goal you're looking to accomplish.

I'll keep monitoring this thread and try to answer questions as they come up. Thanks for the feedback guys!

Brigby

@EDHdad @Infested

Those are certainly some good points, particularly now that set restrictions are being placed on PvP decks. I'll be sure to pass along this feedback to the developers prior to them visiting objectives.

@Laeuftbeidir

Would you mind explaining your question a bit more? Are you wondering whether or not you will drop down in tier if certain cards become restricted from PvP decks?

@Thuran

I believe the weekend PvP events they are referencing are events such as 'Emergency Ordinance' or 'Fate is Rarely Fair', and to my knowledge those shouldn't cost crystals, but I will double check with the developers on that.

THEMAGICkMAN

@Hibernum_JC will you monitor this thread for more than 1 day? 

Laeuftbeidir

Sorry, it was just a quick thought - the current tier system is based on mastered cards. Since a lot of my cards are from the blocks I won't be able to use ( I really had back luck with kld mythics!) ,  I'll be way less competitive in pvp events than before. This will affect everyone, of course, but some more than others.. Maybe thinking about the tier might not have been the first logical step - An alternative matchmaking system on the other hand would make more sense now.
But even if it gets harder to compete, I highly appreciate the introduction of Standart!

blacklotus

With the introduction of limited sets that can be used in the new PvE events, certain PW will be severely hampered. Have you thought of that? Arlinn with no werewolves since werewolves are SoI/EM, Lili2 will be severely nerfed too since the best zombies and Oath of Liliana are SoI/EM. 

octal9

@Hibernum_JC

Any chance of an Arlinn rebalance? Standard is a big nerf for her.

Brigby

@blacklotus

I just wanted to jump in real quick and clarify that those restrictions will only be placed onto decks in PvP events from Kaladesh, Aether Revolt and Amonkhet. Most PvE events will be unchanged.

Having said that though, it's a good question, and I'll relay it to the developers so they know to keep those Planeswalkers in mind.

shteev

blacklotus said:

With the introduction of limited sets that can be used in the new PvE events, certain PW will be severely hampered. Have you thought of that? Arlinn with no werewolves since werewolves are SoI/EM, Lili2 will be severely nerfed too since the best zombies and Oath of Liliana are SoI/EM. 

Not to mention what happens to all the KLD PWs when all the energize cards drop out of the game.

blacklotus

Brigby said:

@blacklotus

I just wanted to jump in real quick and clarify that those restrictions will only be placed onto decks in PvP events from Kaladesh, Aether Revolt and Amonkhet. Most PvE events will be unchanged.

Having said that though, it's a good question, and I'll relay it to the developers so they know to keep those Planeswalkers in mind.

which means that Arlinn and Liliana2 will probably not be used in Amonkhet specific PvP events since they are not competitive anymore. I know that can be said for Gideon2 with his ally specific abilities. At least he can summon ally knights with his 2nd ability. 

blacklotus

shteev said:

blacklotus said:

With the introduction of limited sets that can be used in the new PvE events, certain PW will be severely hampered. Have you thought of that? Arlinn with no werewolves since werewolves are SoI/EM, Lili2 will be severely nerfed too since the best zombies and Oath of Liliana are SoI/EM. 

Not to mention what happens to all the KLD PWs when all the energize cards drop out of the game.

Built-in Obsolence. How nice. Another reminder to me for Not.Another.Dime.

majincob

@Hibernum_JC
Can we get word on if you plan on auto-converting dupes before implementing the new dupe system? I'd love to know if I can open my massive hoard of packs when 2.1 comes out or if I have to keep on with my poor collection in the face of a new standard environment I can't compete in since I have to keep holding my packs for maximum return later.

blacklotus

For anyone that thinks the new standard format hurts me, no it doesn't. I don't own any of the Big 5 OP SoI cards: Olivia, Pig, Ulrich, Bandit, Deploy. 

Limiting their use will actually help me place better, since all the times i lost my games, it's because of these 5 cards: Koth dropping Pigs and Olivias, or Arlinn with her Pig and Ulrich bombs. Or Nahiri with Deploying Olivias n Pigs...