GRN Quick Review

Mburn7

Well now that we have had a couple days to play around with GRN, here are my initial thoughts.

Good:

-Rising Tensions is really well done!  The objectives are fun for deckbuilding without being too restricting, the ever-changing color and bonus abilities are cool and fun, and (of course) there's a mythic and tons of runes to be won!  Overall very well done.

-The cards are once again very well designed (conceptually).  There aren't many cards that seem blatantly overpowered in a vacuum, but there are definitely some great combos waiting to be found.

-Red has good spells again!

-Graveyard Shenanigans are better than ever!  And now we can actually see our graveyards!!!  I love it.

-The guild mechanics are great.  Convoke probably could have been a little better, but that's definitely tricky to play around with. Same goes for Undergrowth.  Surveil, Jump Start, and Mentor seem pretty fine so far (not perfect, but definitely good)

-There are also a lot of really good common/uncommon cards, which is always a nice thing to see in a set.

Bad:

-Divine Visitation is a total mess.  I mean, this might just be the worst implementation of a card in the history of this game, and that includes the one that would crash the game for months after its release (Prized Amalgam) and the uncommon that completely broke competitive play for a while (Runaway Carriage).  The card barely works, takes years to work when it does, and has faulty interactions with almost every other card out there.  Really, really poorly done.

-The rest of the bugs out there.  Every single one of Oktagon's sets have the same issues.  Cards don't work the 2nd+ time they are cast when creatures are involved.  Cards with multiple untargeted effects cannot be cast unless all of the untargeted effects have targets.  Cards do things different from what they say.  It was understandable for the first few sets because Oktagon was new at this.  It is really hard to keep excusing them.

-The elite packs have a ton of cards in them.  I get that this is probably to avoid what just happened with M19 where everybody was getting all the masterpieces (since you just needed a handful of mythics to guarantee them), but it is really disheartening to scroll through 3 pages of unowned mythics and masterpieces and realize that it will take years of jewels to have any reasonable shot at a masterpiece.

-No new coalition events.  Will we get more runs of Hour of Devastation and Return of the god Pharoah?  I sincerely hope not.
At least give me some more Trials if we absolutely must go back to Egypt

Anyone else have thoughts?  comment below.

wereotter

I think I’m going to disagree about jump start. This mechanic was tough to pull off without overhauling how tossing cards from your hand works, but if I want to toss my chemister’s insight to jump start a radical idea in my graveyard, I should automatically still be able to jump start that chemister’s insight later.

As it is now, it rarely makes sense to toss cards for this mechanic, and the fact that you can’t rearrange your graveyard to jump start the spell you need really hurts.

its made even worse when you consider the mythic rare support they added just to make the mechanic work as implemented in paper magic, and that this support doesn’t even work since it currently prevents your jump start cards in the graveyard from gaining mana when you throw away cards from hand.

Mburn7

wereotter said:

I think I’m going to disagree about jump start. This mechanic was tough to pull off without overhauling how tossing cards from your hand works, but if I want to toss my chemister’s insight to jump start a radical idea in my graveyard, I should automatically still be able to jump start that chemister’s insight later.

As it is now, it rarely makes sense to toss cards for this mechanic, and the fact that you can’t rearrange your graveyard to jump start the spell you need really hurts.

its made even worse when you consider the mythic rate support they added just to make the mechanic work as implemented in paper magic, and that this support doesn’t even work since it currently prevents your jump start cards in the graveyard from gaining mana when you throw away cards from hand.

Well, hopefully the bugs will be fixed so the Mythic works.  And I didn't realize you can't re-order the graveyard (haven't really tried jump start much, to be honest).

Still, I like the concept.  I really think it will shine with Cycling, since you're exiling those cards with mana anyway.  I do think it will be a nice way to get some extra use out of a Demolish or something that's stuck in your hand with full mana and no target.

Brakkis

On the new mechanics

Undergrowth - I think that if I didn't already have GtP, Itlimoc, and PGR, Undergrowth could possibly have some appeal (the uncommon and the common that get +x/+x on etb) but as it is, it seems like a weaker mechanic than what we're already capable of with GY shenanigans. The only Undergrowth card I could feasibly see myself using is the rare spell with flash that can give -12/-12 and even then, with all the options I have for untargeted removal, I don't see myself using this often, flash or not.

Surveil - I fail to see the appeal of the mechanic. I try to build my decks so that every card drawn has value and so I see no reason to pick and choose from my library which ones I draw and which ones I toss. The upside to surveil is more the 4 or 5 cards that trigger when you surveil, rather than the mechanic itself.

Jump-start - Another one I'm not seeing the value in. I don't foresee myself building mana on a card in hand so that I can exile it to cast a spell from the graveyard and exile that too. The best Jump-start card is Beacon Bolt and it would actively degrade itself by using up the spells in your graveyard. The cards with Jump-start aren't bad. The mechanic itself seems pointless.
 - I can see the value of this mechanic being much higher in a cycling deck but um... **** cycling.

Convoke - I legitimately see real value in this one: turning decent cards into cheaper decent cards. I hope to see more cards with it in RNA. Too bad March of the Multitudes is so buggy.

Mentor - Has some promise; however, too few cards were added with the mechanic. Fortunately, it does work when you give the creature with Mentor temporary and/or permanent buffs to power.


Rising Tensions

I personally don't see how Rising Tensions is "great". It's passable. It comes across as just another TotP/AXLN with a little bit of extra flavor. The rewards are great. They're about the only thing that's great. The node timers not starting until you unlock the node and select a PW on it is poor design in terms of time. The objectives aren't anything new and honestly don't cause me to build unique decks to meet them.

- The lack of a new GRN Coalition event is awful.

Firinmahlazer

Aside from the card bugs and lack of a coalition event  I'm really pleased with GRN. Lots of card interactions. Fun mechanics (Surveil is great!). Rising Tensions is engaging, much more so than Across Ixalan. The game feels really fresh after a very "blah" M19.

Feden

Mburn7 said:

Bad:


-The elite packs have a ton of cards in them.  I get that this is probably to avoid what just happened with M19 where everybody was getting all the masterpieces (since you just needed a handful of mythics to guarantee them), but it is really disheartening to scroll through 3 pages of unowned mythics and masterpieces and realize that it will take years of jewels to have any reasonable shot at a masterpiece.

The Mythic+ packs are showing 12 cards for me, which seems in line with previous?

The odd part to me is that the mythic and MP cards that are in the Rare+ and Mythic+ are different. (i.e. Bloodbond March is in the current cycle of Rare+ packs but isn't in the current Mythic+ offering, which was the Omni issue IIRC. Although, they're telling us now so not really an issue, it's just odd that they're different again.)

wereotter

Brakkis said:

Surveil - I fail to see the appeal of the mechanic. I try to build my decks so that every card drawn has value and so I see no reason to pick and choose from my library which ones I draw and which ones I toss. The upside to surveil is more the 4 or 5 cards that trigger when you surveil, rather than the mechanic itself.

For me, I think surveil is an amazing mechanic. I get building your decks to make sure that all your cards are useful, but if you're staring down a Mishra's Self Replicator or Ghalta, and you need that Vraska's Contempt to take it out, being able to toss out the cards that won't help you from the top of your library is incredibly powerful in making sure that you get the best card of the options you put into your deck. This is especially true if you add in Enhanced Surveillance letting you dig 4 cards deeper for those perfect draws.

To me, surveil and mentor have been the strongest mechanics as implemented in this set, with the next best being undergrowth. Only problem with undergrowth is how slow it is, in my opinion.

Mburn7

Feden said:

Mburn7 said:

Bad:


-The elite packs have a ton of cards in them.  I get that this is probably to avoid what just happened with M19 where everybody was getting all the masterpieces (since you just needed a handful of mythics to guarantee them), but it is really disheartening to scroll through 3 pages of unowned mythics and masterpieces and realize that it will take years of jewels to have any reasonable shot at a masterpiece.

The Mythic+ packs are showing 12 cards for me, which seems in line with previous?

The odd part to me is that the mythic and MP cards that are in the Rare+ and Mythic+ are different. (i.e. Bloodbond March is in the current cycle of Rare+ packs but isn't in the current Mythic+ offering, which was the Omni issue IIRC. Although, they're telling us now so not really an issue, it's just odd that they're different again.)

Oh, I just looked at the entire pack cards.  Didn't realize there were different mythics in each pack

Tremayne

Well played D3/Oktagon. Without informing anyone you have taken a thing we had come to rely on and twisted it so we burn our jewels on packs that we thought contained the cards we really wanted. But in actuality they are not really available.

I am looking forward to see how you are going to mess with the player base the next time.

FYI - I’m referring to the mismatch of cards in the elite collection.

Feden

Ohhh, I actually never noticed you could tap on that view cards. Yeah, that does seem pretty bad that the two packs are different then.  You shouldn't have to check all 3. (or disregard the first one I guess, but that's not really ideal)

Theros

I did not like the way elite are bundled. Too many cards within the same pack.
Rising tension can be improved by adding more nodes to accommodate people from various time zones.

wereotter

Feden said:

Ohhh, I actually never noticed you could tap on that view cards. Yeah, that does seem pretty bad that the two packs are different then.  You shouldn't have to check all 3. (or disregard the first one I guess, but that's not really ideal)

Also, when you tap on just the banner, the packs will have the logo of the set they contain cards from. This can help you know if you even want to see what specific cards are in the packs

Feden

Thanks, that part I had noticed.

Definitely liking surveil as well.  Namely, Concoct fits well into many of my decks, just wish I could default to that side and not have to flip nearly every time (there's always something )

Theros

From now on, it would be helpful for octagon to add an option to filter out standard sets. This is much needed as more sets are added to avoid confusion.

WiLDRAGE

My biggest gripe, other than bugs, is with split cards.  If you draw a card and it gains mana on the same turn (for example, with Blue Sun's Zenith or GW Huatli's Ultimate ability), you don't get to choose which side gets the mana.  It will always cast the first half of the card.

Mburn7

WiLDRAGE said:

My biggest gripe, other than bugs, is with split cards.  If you draw a card and it gains mana on the same turn (for example, with Blue Sun's Zenith or GW Huatli's Ultimate ability), you don't get to choose which side gets the mana.  It will always cast the first half of the card.

That is definitely annoying, but I have a feeling it was done on purpose for balancing.

The "back" sides are almost universally more expensive (and thus "better") effects.  Giving those effects the mana on draw could be pretty busted with the right loops.  Keeping the cheap side as the one getting initially filled is a good way to keep them under control.