Can everyone please stop complaining about Ixalan?

Mburn7

Look, we've been waiting months for this, and we're all a little antsy. 
And yes, the spoiled cards so far seem a bit meh.

But here's the problem.  ONLY A DOZEN CARDS HAVE BEEN SPOILED.
There are like 100 cards in the set.  Chill out until you see them all.

Also, and I cannot stress this enough, THIS HAPPENS EVERY SET.
Kaladesh was seen as a garbage set when it came out, and energy was seen as a useless mechanic.
Aether Revolt was seen as useless outside of a couple mythics.
Amonkhet was called an underpowered answer to power creep when it came out.
Hour of Devastation was seen as a meh set as well.

Even specific cards were undervalued.  Rashimi was called a junk mythic on the forums for weeks after she was spoiled.  Visions of Brutality was seen as completely useless until a couple of weeks ago.  I guarantee that there will be complaints to nerf a bunch of Ixalan mythics in a month or two.  I GUARANTEE IT. 

So stop whining about the dozen cards that have been spoiled (a couple of which actually seem pretty good to me) and wait to actually play with them a bit before passing judgement.

Mainloop25

Who thought Hour of Devastation was a meh set? I only ask because it looked strong out the gate. And Amonkhet had fun and interesting cards at common/uncommon level. If there are a lot of great cards still left to spoil, then they sure chose a lot of the wrong ones so far. 

Matthew

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

I honestly don't remember people thinking as poorly of Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation as you seem to think most people on here did. In fact, one of the biggest strengths of this block is that it had good cards spread across all rarities.

Visions of Brutality is still not that great of a card. It's mana cost is far too high. The only thing that really makes it worth using is a janky, broke-as-a-joke rare. At best, it's a neat trick deck that can be put together for some fun messing around.

Drewster

Matthew said:

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

I honestly don't remember people thinking as poorly of Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation as you seem to think most people on here did. In fact, one of the biggest strengths of this block is that it had good cards spread across all rarities.

Visions of Brutality is still not that great of a card. It's mana cost is far too high. The only thing that really makes it worth using is a janky, broke-as-a-joke rare. At best, it's a neat trick deck that can be put together for some fun messing around.

I like energizing gems with Dovin Baan. The energize mechanic I do not expect to be put in a set again for years if at all.

Mburn7

Matthew said:

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

I have exactly none of the mythic energy cards, and yet my Dovin energy deck wins pvp and pve events incredibly consistently.  The only real issue with the energy mechanic is you can't really splash it without the mythics, you need to commit an entire deck to it.  But the synergy between the cards is fantastic.

I honestly don't remember people thinking as poorly of Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation as you seem to think most people on here did. In fact, one of the biggest strengths of this block is that it had good cards spread across all rarities.

I agree with the second half of this, AMK and HOU turned out to be very good sets.  and you'll notice I didn't say they were hated out of the gate like Kaladesh was.  But I definitely remember the same conversions happening about how it seemed the devs were trying to reduce power creep at the cost of powerful cards.  And plenty of cards were seen as bad and only later found to be actually very good (Resilient Khenra and Oketra's Last Mercy come to mind fastest)

Gunmix25

Matthew said:

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

Couldn't have said it better myself.  The power needed to generate and utilize the cards with energy were all given to mythics... 

Froggy

I find the first post in this thread insightful.

Only because I was unaware of anyone complain about Ixalan. I am part of a massive chat and there isn’t any complaining. There is interest and engaging talk about hopes and expectations or not. These things are very different than complaining. And yes, my group consists of well over 50 players.

I guess we just have to wait and see what we get with Ixalan!

Gunmix25

Drewster said:

Matthew said:

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

I honestly don't remember people thinking as poorly of Amonkhet or Hour of Devastation as you seem to think most people on here did. In fact, one of the biggest strengths of this block is that it had good cards spread across all rarities.

Visions of Brutality is still not that great of a card. It's mana cost is far too high. The only thing that really makes it worth using is a janky, broke-as-a-joke rare. At best, it's a neat trick deck that can be put together for some fun messing around.

I like energizing gems with Dovin Baan. The energize mechanic I do not expect to be put in a set again for years if at all.

Voting never here....

Kardynal

Forums are for feedback.

GrizzoMtGPQ

@Matthew if you have the energy holy trinity - Dynavolt Tower, Gonti's Aether Heart, and Aetherworks Marvel and you run them in AJ2 you will find energy is a very awesome mechanic. Maybe you don't have them and if so then you really don't know. But you need to have the good cards to know what you're talking about.

Matthew

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

@Matthew if you have the energy holy trinity - Dynavolt Tower, Gonti's Aether Heart, and Aetherworks Marvel and you run them in AJ2 you will find energy is a very awesome mechanic. Maybe you don't have them and if so then you really don't know. But you need to have the good cards to know what you're talking about.

I think you missed a critical portion of my initial comment. I'll repost it for you, but this time with only the relevant bit:

Matthew said:

"...they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall."

All three of the cards you've just described to me are locked up behind the brick wall I mentioned. In order to even have those cards at your disposal, you need to have A) been around for a while; B ) gotten very lucky; or C) spent a lot of money. Lightning Runner is the only other card I can think of that I would say is equally as efficient, but again, it's a mythic.

I have Lightning Runner, Tower, and Heart myself; still no Marvel yet. I've played around enough with those three cards though to know that it's really not something I care to use. It's just a very gimmicky mechanic in my opinion.

Gideon

No. It’s my prerogative.

Gunmix25

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

@Matthew if you have the energy holy trinity - Dynavolt Tower, Gonti's Aether Heart, and Aetherworks Marvel and you run them in AJ2 you will find energy is a very awesome mechanic. Maybe you don't have them and if so then you really don't know. But you need to have the good cards to know what you're talking about.

 if you never played extensively over a set period as a player who struggled to collect mythics that energized so he could use the set as a whole,  then you couldn't possibly know what he was talking about either. Just sayin'

Gunmix25

Matthew said:

GrizzoMtGPQ said:

@Matthew if you have the energy holy trinity - Dynavolt Tower, Gonti's Aether Heart, and Aetherworks Marvel and you run them in AJ2 you will find energy is a very awesome mechanic. Maybe you don't have them and if so then you really don't know. But you need to have the good cards to know what you're talking about.

I think missed a critical portion of my initial comment. I'll repost it for you, but this time with only the relevant bit:

Matthew said:

"...they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall."

All three of the cards you've just described to me are locked up behind the brick wall I mentioned. In order to even have those cards at your disposal, you need to have A) been around for a while; B ) gotten very lucky; or C) spent a lot of money. Lightning Runner is the only other card I can think of that I would say is equally as efficient, but again, it's a mythic.

I have Lightning Runner, Tower, and Heart myself; still no Marvel yet. I've played around enough with those three cards though to know that it's really not something I care to use. It's just a very gimmicky mechanic in my opinion.

I wanna hug you for this post... 

... but people might talk. O.o


I've only Aether heart, miner and the Tweety bird. Tweety was purchased via pack last spring. Aether and miner were BC'd. I still wasn't able to BC lightning runner or Tower ... I didn't have decent energizing mechanics despite starting in Nov. 2016 and collected tons of packs... I was STOKED when AHK came out. Playable mechanics made the game more fun for me

Matthew

Ah, I always forget about Miner. I got it early on. Tower was the only other Energize machine I managed to get before crafting, and I did not get it until after AER had been around for a while. My time during KLD/AER was more difficult than it could have been, definitely. As a coalition-mate of mine said, he got Lightning Runner very early, and "it trivialized objectives." The same can be said about Heart and Tower.

All of this points back to my original statement, which is that there was (and really, still is) a pretty large hurdle to clear in order to actually enjoy Energize.

deletedgone

I had a slightly different experience.  I didn’t get LR or Dynavolt (or whale or miner) until crafting - I did manage to win GAH. The energy events were never much of an issue.  Lots of decoction module, era of innovation, and PW abilities.  Koth with rare energy creatures also were reliable enough for one of the PVE 1.1 energy/speed objectives.

Of course, a good chunk of time was spent abusing Baral, so using energy effectively wasn’t really on the radar.

bk1234

Matthew said:

Energy is still a useless mechanic. There are a scant few cards that are able to make it even remotely worth using, and they are all locked away behind a mythic brick wall.

While I agree that the good energy cards are all mythic, it is hardly useless -- when you have those cards, it's easily the most fun mechanic we have. 

I'm playing a ton of energy this week in RotGP -- on 3.1 and 3.2 you can make huge, ridiculous creatures that quickly stomp over anything. 

Matthew

bken1234 said:

While I agree that the good energy cards are all mythic, it is hardly useless -- when you have those cards, it's easily the most fun mechanic we have. 

I'm playing a ton of energy this week in RotGP -- on 3.1 and 3.2 you can make huge, ridiculous creatures that quickly stomp over anything. 

Utility & usefulness, to me, equate to broad applicability. Energize (and Overload) cards, by their very nature, rely on other Energize cards to truly be effective and useful. As @Mburn7 mentioned up above, there is really no way, nor is there really a point, to splash Energize without the mythic cards. And even that can only really be said with any degree of truth about Lightning Runner and Dynavolt Tower. Because of this very short list of "splashable" cards, I find the mechanic to be without use.

To put things into perspective, let's look at the Embalm/Eternalize/Aftermath cards. As a general rule, these cards do not rely on others with these abilities to be useful. This is because they deal with one of the most well-established underlying principles of the game, namely, getting things into and out of the graveyard.

Talking about the usefulness of the Energize mechanic in and of itself is like saying coal-burning power plants are useful. Of course they are. But insisting on using them is overlooking better, more efficient and more applicable options. It is also pigeonholing oneself into using a mechanic that falls at the end of a dead branch of Magic's evolutionary tree. It's very likely that Kaladesh will not be visited again, and it's definitely likely that we won't see it for at least a very long time. That means that if you're dead-set on using it, you'll just be playing with the same limited list of cards for quite a while, potentially forever. That would very quickly get stale to me.

TL;DR - Yes, it's a unique mechanic, but the combination of its general inaccessibility and its bleak future outlook make using it essentially an academic exercise and nothing more.

Mainloop25

I'm on the Energy hate train. 

Volrak

Matthew said:

there is really no way, nor is there really a point, to splash Energize without the mythic cards.

While I agree with your overall sentiment, some of these assertions are a little too sweeping for my tastes.

A simple example of an energize splash without mythics, having both a way and a point, is Aethersphere Harvester.  It's perfectly serviceable for lifegain without any of the mythics, especially for a PW like Dovin or Saheeli, and still sees use today.

Mainloop25

Yeah Harvester is definitely a solid card  but I think in order to call a card effective at splashing energy, it has to reliably energize 2-4 gems a turn. That almost always requires mythics.