Let's talk about lands

gogol666

TheExaminer said:

EDHdad said:

TheExaminer said:

Nissa piligrimage was clearly a design mistake tho, it is way too strong for its cost and rarity. At that time devs didnt realize how strong gem conversion is.
I think the cycling duals are pretty much fair in terms of effect/cost ratio. 

Did they figure out the error before or after they came up with Rishkar's Expertise?

Nissa's Pilgrimage is a perfectly fair card.  The only imbalance comes from the fact that they didn't give something similar to the other colors, at a slightly higher cost.

It is fair, but at the same time it is too good. 
If I compared Nissa's Pilligrimage to paper magic cards, it would not be Black Lotus, but more like Dark Ritual.
Dark Ritual is not good enough to get banned in any of the formats, however everyone knows that DR is powerful, the card has been played regularly in every deck that has use for 3+ black mana, and the card is never ever getting reprinted in a newer (non-master) set. Instead, we are getting a bunch of Pyretic Rituals.

Similarly, developers never made a single support converter, with conversion/cost ratio even close to pilligrimage (although gilded lotus might have been the one, I have no idea, never played with it).

Rishkar's expertise, hour of promise and similar are beyond my understanding though, I have no idea why they continue making cards like this.

Ramp spells have a single function: cast the other more expensive spells faster. If you need two turns to cast a land and then it might speed the casting of the next spell on the third turn, the land is mostly useless. Ramp spells that start having an effect on the board the next turn should be castable in a single swap (eg 7 mana cost max as corrupted grafstone), while ramp spell that impact the board on the same turn can cost slightly more (eg 10 mana as thunderherd migration). 
I agree rishkar's expertise is overpowered, but I never felt hour of promise to be broken.
Also, nissa's pilgrimage is too cheap, but I've never seen it as broken either: after all green is the ramp color.

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wereotter

I would say thunder herd migration is close. Sure it’s not the OP bomb Rishkar’s Expertise was, but I’ve yet to have it fail to provide me multiple matches when I play it. 

FindingHeart8

wereotter said:

I would say thunder herd migration is close. Sure it’s not the OP bomb Rishkar’s Expertise was, but I’ve yet to have it fail to provide me multiple matches when I play it. 

to me, it's a 30/50/20 gamble.  30% of the time it combos off multiple matches, giving me at least 2x the amount of mana invested in casting it (love those times!).  50% of the time it makes 1 or 2 matches, giving me a bit more mana to make it worth it, but nothing too crazy.  20% of the time it misses with no matches and sets my opponent up for an almost-guaranteed 2-3 extra swaps and being able to cast most-to-all of their hand.

Gunmix25

*turns on SaltnPepa music track*

"Let's talk about [lands,] baby
Let's talk about you and me
Let's talk about all the good things
And the bad things that may be

Let's talk about [lands.]"

Don't you all lie now, you sang it in your head didn't ya?

Sorry this joke had been running in my head for days now. I just had to post it! lol

Mainloop25

Rishkar's expertise, hour of promise and similar are beyond my understanding though, I have no idea why they continue making cards like this.

Oktagon for the most part stopped making these kinds of cards, and for the better. Storm The Vault is still way too OP for the rarity. 

Mark_Tedin

EDHdad said:

BTW, one of the most glaring omissions in the game are the cycle of basic lands - Forest, Mountain, Swamp, Island, Plains.

They could be super common supports (so common that everyone just has them and they aren't in packs).  Possibly they would come in with 3 shields and then convert 1-2 gems to the appropriate color, for a casting cost of 3-6 mana.

its a good idea to add origens set or next core set

ElfNeedsFood

Mainloop25 said:

Rishkar's expertise, hour of promise and similar are beyond my understanding though, I have no idea why they continue making cards like this.

Oktagon for the most part stopped making these kinds of cards, and for the better. Storm The Vault is still way too OP for the rarity. 

I guess I’m in the minority that feels rarity should be about quirkiness or special use cases and not raw power. A common and a rare should be costed similarly for what they do. Maybe the common is a more vanilla creature and the rare has an ability but lower stats or higher cost but don’t make a card strictly better because it is less common...

Storm the Vault is just too OP because it’s an automatic include, even in red decks. 

gogol666

Why everybody is so aeger to blame powerful cards, when the current standard is already a couple of turns slower than kaladesh?
I admit storm the vault is powerful, but it needs half your deck to be dedicated to supports and it needs a few turns before turning and it costs 11. Yes, when it flips it is powerful, but you have to jump in a few hoops before it does. Thus, it cannot be your swiss army ramp spell for any deck.
What I think we need are a variety of powerful strategies that feel different from one another and, of which, no one is dominant (I'm looking at you cycling). A good cycle of lands should enable more mana intensive strategies to be playable at the cost of one or more deck slots: if I can invest a couple of turns playing good lands, then in my third or fourth turn I might start to have a consistent mana input to play more expensive cards. 

Azerack

ElfNeedsFood said:

Mainloop25 said:

Blue has the best mana ramp in standard right now with Storm The Vault. That's weird. 

The only drawback to StV is it has ramp time to get it to flip...  once it flips...

Unless, of course, you have access to Spell Swindle and cast both at the same time? Then insta-change... 

Mainloop25

I admit storm the vault is powerful, but it needs half your deck to be dedicated to supports and it needs a few turns before turning and it costs 11. Yes, when it flips it is powerful, but you have to jump in a few hoops before it does. Thus, it cannot be your swiss army ramp spell for any deck.

But it really doesn't. All it needs is to be cast and two turns with one creature. Why wouldn't you build around it anyway, when you can fill up most of your hand with mana every turn once you have enough supports on the board? 

gogol666

Mainloop25 said:

I admit storm the vault is powerful, but it needs half your deck to be dedicated to supports and it needs a few turns before turning and it costs 11. Yes, when it flips it is powerful, but you have to jump in a few hoops before it does. Thus, it cannot be your swiss army ramp spell for any deck.

But it really doesn't. All it needs is to be cast and two turns with one creature. Why wouldn't you build around it anyway, when you can fill up most of your hand with mana every turn once you have enough supports on the board? 

I understand your argument and I don't agree: your examples too require conditions before you can use storm the vault properly (in this case two turns where a creature of yours attacks and the treasures are not destroyed).
I played against storm the vault and I knew it was better for me to answer it as soon as possible, but I always had time to do it. This, to me, makes storm the vault powerful but fair.
My real point in this thread is that the new lands are underwhelming to say the least and I think we should show d3/oktagon we are happy with strong cards which are also fair and can be answered while we despise weak cards with high Mana cost with little impact on the match.
I don't even think omniscience is too powerful in standard. The only real problem I see in standard right now is the Naru Meha / Siren's ruse infinite loop.

tfg76

Regarding StV: Most decks should play the maximum number of supports anyway. You never really want to play more than around 4 creatures since you'll just not be able to cast them all. That leaves 6 cards of either spells or supports, so playing 4-5 supports just makes sense.

The biggest core problem with this game is exactly that - there's no room for "weenie" strategies with lots of creatures, since you really only end up with 3. Those 3 better count!

gogol666

Azerack said:

ElfNeedsFood said:

Mainloop25 said:

Blue has the best mana ramp in standard right now with Storm The Vault. That's weird. 

The only drawback to StV is it has ramp time to get it to flip...  once it flips...

Unless, of course, you have access to Spell Swindle and cast both at the same time? Then insta-change... 

For 21 mana and your treasures are most likely going to be destroyed by storm the vault. Again you are attacking the wrong card or do you want another nerf?

babar3355

Everyone seems to be missing an important aspect of ramp spells.  They also lead to far faster loyalty gains.  So when THM hits and only produces 10 additional mana, it often does so by providing at least 2 more loyalty.  This can lead to a huge advantage very quickly.

I am not sure what the meta will look like once HoP rotates out (assuming they don't release more ramp), but it might be refreshing to not use it in virtually every deck I build.

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