Ixalan reveals and what to expect so far

Tilwin90

WotC released some really interesting articles yesterday that contain a lot of insightful information regarding Ixalan. Here are some of the facts so far:

- Vehicles will make a return in Ixalan. This means Saheeli might stick around and her build-around Vehicles must not be as parasitic in the long run. Remains to be seen if they are here to stay for good.
- Vraska will appear as a planeswalker - see Vraska's Contempt as a revealed card. It's a question if this will happen in Ixalan or the upcoming set, and if she will be BG (hopefully yes!)
- Jace will once again be featured as a monocolored-blue planeswalker.
- Double-faced cards return. Remains to be seen whether in MTGPQ they will be implemented differently, depending on how many of them will be non-creatures. Only one revealed so far.
- Haven't seen a triple-colored card in a while, so I am really excited to see two mythics of this nature revealed already. Remains to be seen whether they will be translated as such in MTGPQ - might be dangerous due to color pie breaks which are already a problem with cards such as Reason//Believe allowing green to have access to direct card draw, Anguished Unmaking allowing black to destroy supports, and Farm//Market giving blue the opportunity to exile attacking creatures...
- Some really interesting mechanics.
    -- Enraged seems like an obvious "trigger on taking damage" creature effect
    -- Raid makes a return and Explore is a new keyword.
- Gold tokens return as Treasure tokens and have quite a theme around it - hopefully they are the block's supports in MTGPQ too. This makes the loss of Kaladesh servos less painful for planeswalkers relying on supports (such as Tezz2).
- There is a bit of a tribal theme - Dinosaurs, Pirates, Vampires and Merfolk. Since there are only four of them it's hard to tell the colors they will settle in. So far we have
    -- Red: Dinosaurs and Pirates
    -- Green: Dinosaurs and Merfolk
    -- Blue: Merfolk and Pirates
    -- Black: Pirates and Vampires
    -- White: Dinosaurs and Vampires
It would be interesting to have two shards (Naya and Grixis) and two pair-colors (Orzhov and Simic) as the color split of the tribes.

In a different article, MaRo admitted upon the parasitic nature present significantly in Kaladesh. Hopefully this is also something MTGPQ can also learn from in the future.

Firinmahlazer

I can only hope that they don't keep Fate is Rarely Fair around.  

wereotter

I'm curious what they're going to do with raid as it's a mechanic that rewards you for attacking, but in Puzzle Quest, attacks happen at the end of turn now matter what.

TheDragonHermit

So I heard you like Enraged so I put Enraged in your Enraged so you can Enrage while you Enrage.

Waschecht

@Tilwin90 thanks for the great article!!
what are you referring to with parasitic nature in KLD?

ElfNeedsFood

Is that to say that raids will do double damage only in enraged matches?

wereotter

Waschecht said:

@Tilwin90 thanks for the great article!!
what are you referring to with parasitic nature in KLD?

• Too parasitic

"There are a lot of different ways to look at a set. One way is to examine how much the set allowed you to enhance decks you already had rather than force you to build new ones. Kaladesh does poorly in this category. R&D has a term, "parasitic," which describes a mechanic that requires you to play with more cards from the same set because the thing it wants isn't anywhere but that one set.

"A classic example of a parasitic mechanic is energy. Energy wants you to have other cards that both gain you energy and allow you to spend it, neither of which exists outside of Kaladesh block. We tried to build energy cards that could stand on their own, but no matter what we did, they always got better if you played them with other energy cards.

"We had hoped Vehicles could be something players splashed into other decks, but the best way to use them ended up being a deck that supported Vehicles along with a lot of Vehicles. This theme wove its way through the entire design. Yeah, the cards could be played with other cards, but not nearly as efficiently as with the cards from Kaladesh. I believe this parasitism is the biggest strike against the block."

Direct quote from the Mark Rosewater article discussing Kaladesh and it's shortcomings.

Mainloop25

TheDragonHermit said:

So I heard you like Enraged so I put Enraged in your Enraged so you can Enrage while you Enrage.

Noooooooooooo... 

Mburn7

wereotter said:

I'm curious what they're going to do with raid as it's a mechanic that rewards you for attacking, but in Puzzle Quest, attacks happen at the end of turn now matter what.

I thought about that, maybe they make it "if you control another un-disabled creature" (since I'd assume many of them are ETB effects) which would simulate the second-main phase style of play this requires.  Or they just cut out raid all together (I think they did this in Innistrad with an ability that didn't translate well)

Kinesia

I've loved the BG Gorgon's for a long time, would very much like Vraska to appear!

The feel of this set seems alright, I was a bit skeptical but it might be cool.

TheDragonHermit

But seriously, we already have an Enraged mechanic, how confusing will that be with a new one?

khurram

TheDragonHermit said:

But seriously, we already have an Enraged mechanic, how confusing will that be with a new one?

What we have is not a mechanic but just a mode of game which should have been gone when SOI rotated out.

Kinesia

khurram said:

TheDragonHermit said:

But seriously, we already have an Enraged mechanic, how confusing will that be with a new one?

What we have is not a mechanic but just a mode of game which should have been gone when SOI rotated out.

It has it's place. Personally I'd like _more_ interesting game modes and _more_ different "match requirements", not less, not the same ones over and over all the time.

wereotter

Mburn7 said:

wereotter said:

I'm curious what they're going to do with raid as it's a mechanic that rewards you for attacking, but in Puzzle Quest, attacks happen at the end of turn now matter what.

I thought about that, maybe they make it "if you control another un-disabled creature" (since I'd assume many of them are ETB effects) which would simulate the second-main phase style of play this requires.  Or they just cut out raid all together (I think they did this in Innistrad with an ability that didn't translate well)

Some are ETB, and some are static triggers that happen every turn if you attacked. 

Gunmix25

khurram said:

TheDragonHermit said:

But seriously, we already have an Enraged mechanic, how confusing will that be with a new one?

What we have is not a mechanic but just a mode of game which should have been gone when SOI rotated out.

I actually like Enraged mode. It helps speed up the events so as not to be a chore; especially when taking refreshes into account. It also encourages strategy when building for such events, knowing how long it takes to set up a particular combo and when to activate it for the most effect when Enraged kicks in.

Dave808

Anyone have an eta on the new set?

Rhasget

Dave808 said:

Anyone have an eta on the new set?

Ixalan is released sep 29th in paper but with a new development team coming in the usual 2-3 weeks delay for MTGPQ might be off.

Dave808

Rhasget said:

Dave808 said:

Anyone have an eta on the new set?

Ixalan is released sep 29th in paper but with a new development team coming in the usual 2-3 weeks delay for MTGPQ might be off.

Thanks for the info!

Furordraco

Rhasget said:

Dave808 said:

Anyone have an eta on the new set?

Ixalan is released sep 29th in paper but with a new development team coming in the usual 2-3 weeks delay for MTGPQ might be off.

Thats a highly positive expectation...if we are lucky the set will be delayed for 1 or 2 months, and then if its still not out.... we start worrying for the future of the game

TheDragonHermit

I have to wonder if the new team will push booster crafting further back to help get the new card set out faster. <sarcasm> That worked great last time it was done didn't it. </sarcasm>

wereotter

Furordraco said:

Rhasget said:

Dave808 said:

Anyone have an eta on the new set?

Ixalan is released sep 29th in paper but with a new development team coming in the usual 2-3 weeks delay for MTGPQ might be off.

Thats a highly positive expectation...if we are lucky the set will be delayed for 1 or 2 months, and then if its still not out.... we start worrying for the future of the game

Barring any delays from the transition to the new team, they've actually gotten really speedy about releasing cards from new sets into the game. Eldritch Moon, for example, launched in paper form end of July but didn't make it into the game until sometime in October that year. Kaladesh shortened its release time down from three months to about two, and the trend continued to the point that Hour of Devestation's cards were put up for preview only a week after the paper set launched.

I would anticipate a quick turn around on getting Ixalan into the game as new cards more than anything else are the money maker for the developers.