Creature limit implications

QuiksilverHg

Anyone else struck that with tribal decks the three-creature limit is going to be even more annoying?

There’s a do-nothing human that reduces the cost of dinosaurs, but it takes up a creature slot on the board severely limiting the amount of offense you can put out by playing dinosaurs.

Can we give more thought to allowing 4 or 5 or even unlimited numbers of creatures on the board?

khurram

Maybe but I'd get a feel of the changes Ixalan brings to the table first.

Stormcrow

Ehh, the do-nothing human has defender (so it can chump block for a turn while you drop some dinos, then go away so you can summon more dinos). Plus it's just an uncommon. I'm more skeptical about whether the token generators, like their Vampire tribe which seems to be big on both 1/1 tokens and reinforcing (and there are few things as unimpressive as reinforcing a 1/1 token) really take into account the board limit.

But the 3-creature limit was something that tripped up Hibernum pretty often as well, the effect it has on the way cards (and PWs!) need to be designed is easy to underestimate. My biggest hope is that the devs will be willing, if certain mechanics aren't playing out the way they'd hoped, to go back and tweak the cards they've released.

wereotter

or that "do nothing human" maybe makes a human tribal deck? This doesn't have to be a tribe that's on Ixalan, you could just as easily throw that into an Arlinn werewolf deck for a buff, or make an aetherborn tribal deck if you wanted.

Also I frequently run 4 creatures in any deck for two reasons: one I want to ensure creature drops, and three isn't quite enough when you run into bad luck. Also because with as much removal is out there, I like having another creature in reserve ready to drop as soon as one is out. So, in my opinion, getting three creatures of the same type shouldn't be too hard.

Kinesia

4 is a good number (but the 4 can include tokens) because if they cast something out you can just play something over the top. I do it often in blue/black.

AdriA

It was the first thing I thought when I saw the vampire token generator and the enraged dinosaur. I think some abilities may not work the way it suposed to be

wickedwitch74

First off, the restriction to three creatures does harm to Green and White because those are the colors that have historically employed "go wide" strategies.

With that option taken off the table, control decks have the upper hand. One spell takes out a creature that has been reinforced umpteen times.

This also makes sweeper spells less valuable than they should be.

Adding an additional creature slot would really be a great way to highlight a Tribal Themed set.

Many of the red cards that temporarily steal a creature do so even if you already have three on the board, meaning that the game has the bandwidth to handle a fourth creature slot.

It looks a bit ugly, and would require some development work, but I think the game would greatly benefit from such an effort.

wereotter

AdriA said:

It was the first thing I thought when I saw the vampire token generator and the enraged dinosaur. I think some abilities may not work the way it suposed to be

Enrage will be interesting to see how it works out. I can see it pairing off with Knightly Valor to ensure those triggers land, or you could do it yourself with Furious Reprisal or Dual Shot in legacy

Gideon

I thought enrage was just a double damage event that no one likes. I must have gotten enrage and enraged confused but it does make me feel that way when I’m playing in one of those events so I guess it accomplishes the desired effect.

ZW2007-

My issue with the do nothing human 0/4 is that it costs 13 and will die before you ever come anywhere close to making up for its mana cost. It saved you from 5-40 damage? Great, it saved you one turn of that much damage while you could have been investing that 13 mana elsewhere. Not to mention that there is a red creature, same type and rarity, with the same dino cost reduction that costs 3 less mana to cast, has 2 power so it can actually do some damage, AND has an additional ability on top of it all (an ability that perplexes me because you have to hit an activate to give dinos haste, but if you want them to have haste, you haven't cast them yet; and if you have, they don't need haste 99% of the time). Oh and the two cards with the same cost reduction have different wording. A better functionality to bypass the creatures in play: "If this card has full mana in your hand, dinosaur creatures cost X less to cast". You pay for it's effect and hold onto it. It clogs up an extra card in hand. Don't allow its ability to stack.

Creatureless decks are ideal a lot of the time precisely because removal is too efficient. If I'm going to take my time and reinforce a 13 mana creature twice for a total of 3 cards and 39 mana, I shouldn't lose it to a 4 mana blue bounce spell. Cheap removal should remove a reinforcement of the creature. You bounce my 24/24 stack of 3 8/8s? I still have a 16/16 in play. I don't think this should apply universally to all removal. Eliminate the competition shouldn't wipe my board for 1 mana and 15 damage to you. Wrath of god or fumigate? Those should still wipe the slate clean. Same goes for spells like exert influence. They should steal a single reinforcement/copy of the creature. Last Emrakul's corruption I lost to a deck that literally did nothing besides cast one exert influence for 10 mana, stealing my stack of 3 Ulrichs that I invested 47 mana (two hard cast at 18 mana, 1 triggered from a reason//believe gem at 11 mana) to put into play. This got a hair off topic but I think the change to removal would be a more reasonable change than allowing 4-5 creature slots. It doesn't entirely solve the issue you have but it could alleviate it a bit (and I would think it would be an easier change to the overall game).

AdriA

wereotter said:

AdriA said:

It was the first thing I thought when I saw the vampire token generator and the enraged dinosaur. I think some abilities may not work the way it suposed to be

Enrage will be interesting to see how it works out. I can see it pairing off with Knightly Valor to ensure those triggers land, or you could do it yourself with Furious Reprisal or Dual Shot in legacy

Agreed... both enrage and explore are interesting abilities. Explore can be useful along with landfall abilities in legacy.

There is a white dinosaur in paper magic that also creates tokens using its enrage ability and if it is the same ability in puzzle quest then it might be better an extra creature slot. It can be the same situation when I am using crested sunmare’s ability in the battlefield and my hand is full of creatures, kinda annoying. The thing is I have to put less creatures in the deck and probably draw less creatures during the battle. So, 4 creatures slots can be a solution.

FindingHeart8

ZW2007- said:

My issue with the do nothing human 0/4 is that it costs 13 and will die before you ever come anywhere close to making up for its mana cost. It saved you from 5-40 damage? Great, it saved you one turn of that much damage while you could have been investing that 13 mana elsewhere. Not to mention that there is a red creature, same type and rarity, with the same dino cost reduction that costs 3 less mana to cast, has 2 power so it can actually do some damage, AND has an additional ability on top of it all (an ability that perplexes me because you have to hit an activate to give dinos haste, but if you want them to have haste, you haven't cast them yet; and if you have, they don't need haste 99% of the time). Oh and the two cards with the same cost reduction have different wording. A better functionality to bypass the creatures in play: "If this card has full mana in your hand, dinosaur creatures cost X less to cast". You pay for it's effect and hold onto it. It clogs up an extra card in hand. Don't allow its ability to stack.

Yeah I was also confused reading some of these new abilities.  Makes me think suspect some of the actual Ixalan card mechanics may not align with the wording of the cards.

I can understand it could be more complicated with complex cards like void winnower and such, but these cards seem very straightforward.

A guess a counterargument would be that these are the beta versions of these cards, but with less than a week to release I'd be skeptical of that.

DBJones

What if they added an extra creature slot for tokens only? The only issue I can think of its giant piles of drakes, and having one extra creature isn't going to make a big difference in that case.

ILikePancakes

DBJones said:

What if they added an extra creature slot for tokens only? The only issue I can think of its giant piles of drakes, and having one extra creature isn't going to make a big difference in that case.

The issue would be a gigantic zombie or wurm , plus three other creatures.

Kinesia

Tokens would then be obligatory in every deck to compete.

wereotter

Creature tokens created from non-loyalty abilities could then, in theory, be single-shield supports that give +x/+x to the first creature. Would have its own set of pros and cons, biggest I can think of being the massive defender in an otherwise token deck. (Also this would fix how broken Prized Amalgam is since the zombie tokens wouldn't enter as creatures)

Kinesia

Interesting idea, would nee a bunch of testing and refinement.
Changes the "support" landscape as well though and stops you having _solely_ token decks.

Skiglass6

DBJones said:

What if they added an extra creature slot for tokens only? The only issue I can think of its giant piles of drakes, and having one extra creature isn't going to make a big difference in that case.

I would rather the extra slot be for defender and reach creatures only.  Also not allow movement of a non-defender to be moved there from a spell or support. 

Kinesia

Skiglass6 said:

DBJones said:

What if they added an extra creature slot for tokens only? The only issue I can think of its giant piles of drakes, and having one extra creature isn't going to make a big difference in that case.

I would rather the extra slot be for defender and reach creatures only.  Also not allow movement of a non-defender to be moved there from a spell or support. 

That would end up very messy and non-intuitive. So the token from knightly valor would be there but not anything it gave defender to?

There would be so many things that would confuse people even more than the current situation. A better fix (to the current issues) might be that even when a defender is disabled it counts as having defender for positioning (so things don't move almost randomly sometimes.)

Skiglass6

Kinesia said:

Skiglass6 said:

DBJones said:

What if they added an extra creature slot for tokens only? The only issue I can think of its giant piles of drakes, and having one extra creature isn't going to make a big difference in that case.

I would rather the extra slot be for defender and reach creatures only.  Also not allow movement of a non-defender to be moved there from a spell or support. 

That would end up very messy and non-intuitive. So the token from knightly valor would be there but not anything it gave defender to?

There would be so many things that would confuse people even more than the current situation. A better fix (to the current issues) might be that even when a defender is disabled it counts as having defender for positioning (so things don't move almost randomly sometimes.)

Well knightly valor would not be in the defender/reach slot specifically because it has vigilance and not defender/reach. I feel this scenario would make chump blocking more viable by not taking up 1/3 of the creature slots with a weak creature.  My thought of not allowing a non-defender creature be moved to this extra slot so you couldn’t just cast mantle of webs and cheat a forth creature on the field.

Kinesia

No, but then you are forced to play defender/reach creatures in _every_ deck or you lose out on a bonus slot.
If the game had been designed that way it would be different, but it would take a lot to change things now.