Why is everyone so ANGRY! (Enraged Matches)

babar3355

Enraged was introduced in the Terrors in the Shadows event (which always gets tinykittied when acronymed) in the SOI block.  For those that weren't playing at the time, Emrakul was making everything go cray-cray on Innistrad.  People were turning into werewolves, villagers were going nuts even their benevolent angel Avacyn became a blood thirsty angel of death.  What a cool concept to have an in game clock (5 turns) before everyone went bonkers and started doing double damage in this event.

But why is everyone still so ANGRY?  We were enraged in EMK (still makes sense), but also in EmO, FirF, ToTP, ToA, and Arena.  Didn't we trap that crazy Eldrazi in a moon?  Why is everyone still going bonkers?

But seriously,  enraged was an interesting mechanic but should not be the baseline for all PvP events.  It really screws up the pace of the games and adds a lot of tedium to the events. Sometimes it makes things easier, sometimes much more challenging, but it always impacts how we play and build.

If the dev's want to make the events more challenging, I believe there needs to be some new ideas on how to make that happen.  I think the community is utterly sick of enraged events 2-4 times per week.  (I think it makes sense in TotP.. although rotating between other "overlays" than enraged, supercharged and legendary would be even better.)

Here are some ideas that ZW2007- posted a few months ago.  I am sure the devs and community can come up with a lot of interesting ideas to add spice to the game.

https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/642083#Comment_642083

I have a lot of ideas for planes effects:

-The first card you draw each turn is drawn from the top of your opponent's deck. \

-You may activate your planeswalker's first loyalty ability for free each turn. (Still limited to one planeswalker ability per turn.)

-Loyalty matches are tripled. -[Insert color here] gems give +10 mana, all other colors give -2. (Planeswalker's specific mana gains are negated by this effect.)
 

-Whenever you cast a card, fetch the next card of that type from your deck, it is free. Cards cast for free this way cannot trigger this effect.

-Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under you control, it deals damage equal to it's power to your opponent.

-Whenever you cast a card, your opponent discards a card.

-Creatures can't attack.

-The first spell you cast each turn is returned to your hand and gains full mana

-Players may have 4 creatures on the battlefield.

-All supports cost 5 less and enter the battlefield with 5 shields. At the beginning of your turn, each support you control loses 2 shields.

-Damage dealt to your opponent by creatures, spells, or abilities controlled by you is dealt to you instead.

-Activate 1: gain 100 life.

-When you planeswalk to [insert name here (Kaladesh if they name planes in this way)] energize the board. Overload 3: something.

I know some of these ideas only work, or work better in the context of Zach's original idea.  But these are some great ideas and I believe the community can figure out some fun overlays to add to the game so that we have more variety than plain vanilla, enraged, supercharged, or legendary.

Laeuftbeidir

Totally agree. Enraged is.. Meh. Especially in combination secondarys like cast 570 vehicles, or win with 10 health.. It's just no fun anymore.

madwren

Thanks for picking up the torch, I couldn't bear to make yet another anti-enraged thread.

ZW2007-

I'm ZW2007- and I approve this message. (Even though the forum transition butchered the formatting of my original post.)

UweTellkampf

Yes. Please remove enraged matches. Wouldn't miss them in any event.

PersonMan

Agreed.  

I would really like one vanilla event per day (just default rules, with unrestricted format) and one special event per day.  The special events could have different special rules, various restricted formats, rotating into different rules and formot combinations.  

Then in addition, there should always be a Training and Trial of the Planes event. (No reason there shouldn't always be one of each available). 

Steeme

I think they should just push the enraged mode to start around the 10th round or so.  I like the explosiveness of when it happens, but I think it just happens way too early, especially with the kludgy deck distribution.  Sometimes I don't even draw my third embalm creature until way too late in the match.

madwren

Not to mention that the slower Standard environment means you have much less of a chance to react to massive AI cascades, thereby emphasizing luck more than previously.

wereotter

Not only all this, but enraged matches make you have to act against your best interests in order not to finish off a match before you can meet objectives.

Opponent has 50 life and you have a 20/20 zombie token pile, but you've only lost 2 of 4 creatures.... better kill my 20/20 zombie pile and hope that my opponent doesn't cascade some game winning play and beat me while I try to meet the objective.... 

(this could just as easily be a complaint regarding counter productive objectives as it is about enraged, but when the two meet, it's even more problematic)

Sirchombli

I have definitely whiffed on more than one objective thanks to the anger. It often comes down to miss an objective and win, or die next turn. It's especially awkward in EO. 5 vehicles is a lot to land without killing them, so you end up playing an awkward deck full of janky commons and uncommons. Which also means you're essentially playing the same deck with different removal in each node. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. A new twist would certainly be welcome  

Mainloop25

I will always add my support to a thread that is "anti-enraged mode". 

AresOmega

I dislike enraged mode. I find myself not playing any event that has enraged mode active with the exception of the coalition events.