Was it worth it?

FindingHeart8

so Ixalan has almost been out for a full day, and I haven't had a moment of time to invest in it (I'd say it was because of Valentine's day but with this handsome mug none of y'all would probably believe me ).  How're the new cards?  Do a lot of them feel playable to the point of replacing some of the cards in your better decks?  Did it feel like it was worth the crystal investment?

I'm kinda wondering if I should get a few premium packs, or just wait and slowly accumulate them through free packs/event rewards/etc.

khurram

When the option is between nothing and something, after months of starving for new cards, then yes it was worth the crystal investment. There wasn't anywhere else i could spend those crystals in my case.

As for the cards, well i got a few playable ones.
Its a pain in the head trying to work a dino deck.
Pirates are a little easier but still janky.
Vampires just seem horrid. Whoever bet that they would be "broken as hell" just lost their bet.
Explore is underwhelming. Every creature just seems to have explore 1 which isnt much.
Enrage is next to useless.
Merfolks caring about buffs was overplayed. They dont care that much.
Treasures are alright though. 
Hautli's abilites seem very underwhelming.

Across Ixalan,The event is the best thing so far.
I like the design. 

FindingHeart8

I get what you're saying on the something is better than nothing, but my other options is that I could follow the advice of other threads and buy more HoD packs, or just save up to nab Hautli when she comes out for crystals.

Part of me wants the new cards now.  The other part thinks that if these cards are really so bad (overall), I might get more satisfaction out of slowly winning them through events, thus appreciating them more because further delayed gratification.

ArielSira

I'm liking it so far. The manacost of several cards has been lowered (awesome). Across Ixalan = advanced TG; runes, a booster pack, purple and 10 crystals for about 4 matches. Explore is great (a different version of Avaricious Dragon's ability) and either boosts your creature or gives you mana matches (explore 1 = 2 gems).

I did spend more crystals on the discounted HOU premium packs though.

Theros

No it's not worth it. None of the mythic or masterpiece is worth compared to previous cards that are not considered broken. The abilities are just too weak for the price and rarity. Octagon over did it in trying to prevent power creep.
let me give you an idea:

Aether Vial: Its a masterpiece that look good on paper. Gives 1 shield to the first creature in hand and gain 1 shield each turn. Destroyed when you cast a creature
The problem is that it starts at 1 shield only. Previous card such Oracle's Vault (mythic), Pyramid (mythic), all monuments (uncommons), Talent and all gem changers ( from common to mythic) are more efficient. In fact, in 1 gem match you get  more mana than what Aether vail does in 5 turns.
Pro: Best looking card in game
Cons: worst card ever made for a masterpiece, no reason to include it.
Pyramid and Oracle had higher starting shield which made them useful

Unclaimed territory (mythic). Nissa's pilgrimage (common) is much better. Corrupted graphone (rare) and all other support gem changers are better and cheaper. Restriction on having 3 creatures of same type to convert 3 gems to loyalty color is huge set back and seriously not worth it.

Vanquisher's Banner (mythic). The ability is still too expensive compared to other cards at lower rarities. The restriction on having 3 creatures from same type is huge. Too many alternatives at lower levels and lower cast cost exist.

Sanctum Seeker: should have been a white card to be useful. 

The list is too long, its just to give you an idea.
In conclusion, in trying to avoid power creep, Octagon have made unplayable cards that are inferior to cards that were not considered OP or even underpowered.  I suggest not to buy any premium from the set. Don't make costly mistakes like I did. You're fine without any ixalan in your decks (Most of them are worthless despite the recent reduction in cost). 320 is too much for mediocrity.

I suggest Octagon to check new cards against previous ones to see if they are worth the cost/rarity. May be Octagon is not well acquainted with the game 

Sarahschmara

I stopped playing for a while when BFZ came out because I just couldn’t get enough synergy. I had a similar problem with the energize mechanic (although to a much lesser degree thanks to an active coalition). This set reminds me of those sets. It’s frustrating to see potential but not actually be able to do anything about it. 

In case you were wondering, I bought 7 PPs and got more or less the results I was expecting. I have 97 of the new cards so I’ve got a fair amount to play with... but I’m missing the synergy.  

Bil

A few cards may be worth the try , if you get lucky enough to pull one of them. Among 10 5-packs, i pulled almost none of them, but a few cards that could be fun to use if your dare building a deck around them. Overall nothing really competitive and nothing that could find any useful place, give enhanced power or more flexibility to any of my decks.

wereotter

I think there's some potential here. I don't have enough cards from each of the tribes to really see how it's going to work in the long-run, but pirates have some good, fun mechanics. Raid is easy to trigger and treasures really make the deck speed up. Captain Lannery Storm also really helps pump out the damage as you continue finding treasure.

Vampires seem too slow. Requiring your vampires to be reinforced before they give you a benefit makes them unnesicarily complicated, and leaves you at a real disadvantage when your one vampire that's been reinforced a couple times is destroyed. I think the tribe needed something other than Call to the Feast to reinforce your existing creatures. Maybe some of the cards that are kind of "meh" at the moment could have been made to reinforce one creature. Ritual of Rejuvenation seems like a good target for that effect.

Merfolk look like they will be pretty powerful for a deck built around them. Haven't pulled enough to say from experience.

Dinos seem the only one that's going to be a little odd. Considering creature restrictions, it will be hard to justify running the humans that reduce their cost or that gain a benefit from having them, except maybe just one human and 3 dinos. Additionally the tribe will suffer by not being able to cohesively play all the cards available to the tribe together. It's split across green, white, and red, but there is no planeswalker that is all three of those colors.

FindingHeart8

wereotter said:

Dinos seem the only one that's going to be a little odd. Considering creature restrictions, it will be hard to justify running the humans that reduce their cost or that gain a benefit from having them, except maybe just one human and 3 dinos. Additionally the tribe will suffer by not being able to cohesively play all the cards available to the tribe together. It's split across green, white, and red, but there is no planeswalker that is all three of those colors.

...yet

Prays to Octagon for a moral, Xenagos planeswalker so it can include white.

nerdstrap

The high amount of bugs and issues make this the worst release so far. The cards are overcosted and underpowered across the board. I had many crystals saved but I can’t spend money on the vault exclusives nor do I want to spend money on more crystals. Fix it ASAP Oktagon 

Bil

After second thoughts and a bunch of games, i would say that even the cards that looked fun at first sight are more often a pain in the **** because i would rather had something else in my hand at the moment. 

wereotter

FindingHeart8 said:

wereotter said:

Dinos seem the only one that's going to be a little odd. Considering creature restrictions, it will be hard to justify running the humans that reduce their cost or that gain a benefit from having them, except maybe just one human and 3 dinos. Additionally the tribe will suffer by not being able to cohesively play all the cards available to the tribe together. It's split across green, white, and red, but there is no planeswalker that is all three of those colors.

...yet

Prays to Octagon for a moral, Xenagos planeswalker so it can include white.

Xenagos got exiled, and can't be played again

I was kind of hoping that since they knew a white/green Huatli was coming in Rivals, that they would wait and combine the two cards into one planeswalker here that was all three colors.

adman149

My personal opinion is it wasn’t worth it. The pre release was a disappointment and seeing the entire set confirmed my disappointment. While I understand some people like ixalan, that’s totally their prerogative. We all have our own opinions. I however, will not be touching my long saved up resources for anything ixalan until they change up side objectives for events, as all the previous sets outclass ixalan still. If I get cards through events, cool, but I don’t count on mastering any of them unless I’m forced to use them. I guess the wait for rivals came sooner than expected for myself, as I know it has for others as well. 

ElfNeedsFood

@nerdstrap  I think “worst release ever” goes to the SWW releases where lots of people lost their accounts and we couldn’t effectively join any events. There are some of those issues with this update, but nothing to the extent we saw previously. “Least exciting”, now you might have something there...

Abenjes

reinforced Olivia doesn't generate vamp token while Mavren is in play.... really.........

Oktagon have been really good and have taken ages to get this release.I get you're always going to get a few bugs but c'mon they at least should have checked that deploy into Olivia and Mavren will  make tokens?

I really want to love this set.... Dinosaurs.... but until rivals is released the mechanics and the cards just can't compete with the power levels of the previous sets.

on a side note, thank you for Carnage Tyrant.. now go back and add the card text to prowling serpopard...

FindingHeart8

wereotter said:

FindingHeart8 said:

wereotter said:

Dinos seem the only one that's going to be a little odd. Considering creature restrictions, it will be hard to justify running the humans that reduce their cost or that gain a benefit from having them, except maybe just one human and 3 dinos. Additionally the tribe will suffer by not being able to cohesively play all the cards available to the tribe together. It's split across green, white, and red, but there is no planeswalker that is all three of those colors.

...yet

Prays to Octagon for a moral, Xenagos planeswalker so it can include white.

Xenagos got exiled, and can't be played again

I was kind of hoping that since they knew a white/green Huatli was coming in Rivals, that they would wait and combine the two cards into one planeswalker here that was all three colors.

I reallyreallyreallyreallyreally wanted to flag your message for a moment because you reminded me of that storyline trauma

but yeah I'm hoping for another 3 color planeswalker as well.  Bolas is great, now I want a good-guy 3 color walker lol.

Guess we'll have to wait until an upcoming set releases one

Theros

Octagon does not have enough game hours into this game to really be knowledgeable, especially for a new studio. This were the community comes in to help; we all want the game to succeed.
It would be helpful if someone could make a thread in which we, as community can compare/evaluate each ixalan card to previous sets and suggest ideas. We can also help in grammatical errors.
This will make it easier for them than browsing through different threads.

FindingHeart8

MADAFAKA said:

Octagon does not have enough game hours into this game to really be knowledgeable, especially for a new studio. This were the community comes in to help; we all want the game to succeed.
It would be helpful if someone could make a thread in which we, as community can compare/evaluate each ixalan card to previous sets and suggest ideas. We can also help in grammatical errors.
This will make it easier for them than browsing through different threads.

there was a thread where myself and a few other players volunteered our time to help, but Brigby said Octagon had everything under control already

julianus

So, I can provide some objective numbers from my packs, if that helps in evaluating your options.

Packs purchased: 7
Total new cards: 100
Duplicate cards: 82
Crafting Orbs: about 2500
Mythics: 0
Rares: 11
Uncommons: 40
Commons: 49

In terms of subjective opinion regarding the quality of the cards, I'd say they seem fairly weak overall, though I haven't played around with them a lot. I haven't noticed many that have a unique or unusual mechanic, the cards seem to be mostly copying effects from previous sets but with higher a cost. 

Of the cards I got, and considered in isolation from interactions with other cards in the set, these are the ones I might consider using on their own merits:

• Siren's Ruse: this has a unique effect and could be useful in certain situations. When it brings the creature back, it loses any buffs or reinforcement it previously had.
• Emergent growth: efficient buff + berserk card
• Dive down: cheap 1-turn hexproof. Could be usable in cases where you might know when the AI was going to use a targeted effect (e.g. Bolas' first loyalty ability)
• Legion's Judgement: standard version of Humble the Brute 
• Raider's Wake: standard version of Creeping Dread
• Fell Flagship: colorless creature with enemy discard on attack (i.e. Dreamstealer usable in any color)

Of course, I don't have many of the rare or mythic cards, there may be some more usable options there. But based on my experience, you'll have to open a lot of packs to get many of those.

Marvaddin

Well, I gathered around 3k crystals, thinking about to buy Ixalan, and also getting more orbs with the 50% bonus... Even bought a fat pack, which got me a guaranteed rare (Ixalan's Binding) and some other cards. Enough.

Then I started buying Origins fat packs, which are on sale. Thanks, Oktagon! You made my day easier.

First 1k crystals gave me this already, just cards I didn't have (and 2k+ orbs):

Uncommons: Vine Snare, Infectious Bloodlust, Gold-Forged Sentinel

Rares: Soulblade Djinn, Mage-Ring Responder, Priest of the Blood Rite, Talent of the Telepath, Exquisite Firecraft, Graveblade Marauder, Alhammarret, High Arbiter, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Ravaging Blaze
Mythics: Woodland Bellower, Molten Vortex, Zendikar Incarnate

Whirler Rogue even got jealous and also came, in the 1st free card I got after these packs

So, it was really worthy... to skip Ixalan, lol.

I intend to spend 1k more in Origins tonight. I will come and let ya know how worthy is to skip Ixalan

HelloKitty

I had 4k yellow crystals saved up. I bought 4 premium packs. I think that I'm done. I will earn packs through events.

That being said, I have played wily goblin!