What do you think of the new Threshold Mechanic?

Mburn7

For those that missed it, Threshold in MTGPQ will read "A Threshold ability is active for as long as there are X or more cards with the same name as this card in your graveyard."

Based on the new cards with this mechanic that were posted, it appears most threshold values will be 4-7.

So, what do you all think?

FindingHeart8

Seems awesome. I'm already thinking of deck ideas!

I'm somewhat biased because they put it on old cards (Odyssey block, oh the nostalgia!) and the ability seems very Johnny (my #1 mtg play style).  Also I see a card or two from the beloved Modern Horizons, I hope they'll bring out more!

Whether it's good or not...mmmm probably underpowered, but it's fun, especially with the Insect Monk land.

I say lets give it a try!

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FindingHeart8

Seems awesome. I'm already thinking of deck ideas!

starfall said:

These are my initial thoughts:

Cards with the same name as

That's bad. You're going to have to dump a lot of stuff in your graveyard to trigger Threshold. Why wait to have 7 copies of anything in your graveyard when 4 or 5 copies of Beacon Bolt will kill anyone. Unless the cards themselves are as powerful as Beacon Bolt, and they are very much not. Give a creature +3+3? Kill a single creature? Deal 4 damage to a single creature? No thanks. Not worth the effort.

What are the strategies for dumping a lot of cards in your graveyard?

Very little apart from Surveil. Drowned Secrets is good (particularly with Surveil). Maybe Underrealm Lich. There's a bottleneck in design here.

Threshold X

There's a reason why WOTC didn't make cards with Threshold X; it's to make keeping track of threshold cards in your hand as easy as possible.

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Onto the specific cards themselves:

Parity in power

Each color now has a Chrome Mox. I'd have rather seen the green one be better at generating mana and the blue one worse.

Overengineering

I'm sure we'll play with these new powerful Chrome Moxes in each color regardless of what the other effects on the card are, but the specific Threshold effects are so underpowered that they're not worth having 40 words on each card for. There IS a cost to needless complexity in the game, and that's the fact that the game get slower and slower, as we're all witnessing. Look at that 'Threshold 4' on Nantuko Monastery... exactly how many times will that be relevant in a game? Don't just write extra text on cards just because you can. Think about whether it's worth having there. Is it really worth Nomad Stadium saying "Lose 2 life, then Threshold 3: Gain 4 life at the start of your turn"? Why doesn't it just read "Gain 2 life"? It's so much simpler, and it'lll animate faster, too. Complexity isn't inherently bad (in MTGPQ even more than in paper, because decks contain a smaller variety of cards in MTGPQ), but clearly the game is slowing down; witness Adapt, or Vanguards, or even Servos.

You some legitimate points. Example: I also think that "Cards with the same name," would be difficult to activate unless you're facing a PvE boss with 200+ HP.  

What if it was "Cards with the same color/type?"  That could speed it up (I know those are other actual mtg abilities but since not every mtg ability is coming to this game we might have some wiggle room)

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Azerack

Seems pretty cool. Lets wait and see if its good

There's a PW I'm looking very forward to trying out with these Threshold lands. Liliana 4. I've been using her with Deathbridge Chant and it's been very effective once I get the T1 ability going.
Now with these I can see a mix of that and the Threshold to make things even more entertaining.

That being said, I don't see every PW being able to make immediate use as she will, but I have seen enough library discard cards out there that it should be useful, especially since it's only going to be in Legacy, where ALL cards are available.

But.. we'll see.. 

IM_CARLOS

Seems awful. Why did they design this?

Lools like a lame version of graveyard abuse with bolt and underlich king.

I think of graveyard cleaning cards that rarely see play. But if this is a winning option they will see a lot more games. 

Verdict: At first look meh, on second look meh too. 

Bil

Meh

I think it is an interesting concept, but the conditions to trigger threshold are too heavy as it as been pointed out.

Wouldn't it be satisfying if the condition was "X cards with threshold" instead of "X cards with the same name" ?

WiLDRAGE

Seems awful. Why did they design this?

The problem with this mechanic is that the cards need to be good enough to play without Threshold being active or so powerful that you want the Threshold every time.  There's no middle-ground.

And as we've seen with Undergrowth, this is not the case and that's a mechanic that works on any creature and can be fed with things like Gather the Pack and Growing Rites of Itlimoc.  Without limits, Undergrowth would probably have been too good, but with the current limits, most cards aren't worth the setup it takes to make them relevant (with a few exceptions that are Mythics).

Most Threshold abilities on creatures are stats boosts (most of them insignificant) that won't scale with reinforcements since they are not enter the battlefield effects.  Take Krosan Beast as an example, a 1/1 that becomes an 8/8 with Threshhold is pretty nice until you realize that reinforcing it is meaningless.

Threshold on spells is both better and worse in that they scale better once Threshold is achieved but achieving it is going to be harder since there are only so many ways to dump spells into the graveyard without having to draw them first.  This again means that the payoff has to be worth the effort and I don't see that happening.

mrixl2520

Seems awful. Why did they design this?

Hard to get cards with lack-luster abilities that are only playable in a small handful of formats?!? Thanks I hate it!

wereotter

Seems pretty lame. I think it'll bomb, but want to play it first anyway

Threshold, as a comparison, in paper magic just cared about the total number of cards in your graveyard. In this game, they have to have the same name, which makes getting to that number harder for no reason. This may end up more balanced than I'm thinking on reading it, but it does seem like a lot of work to get any benefit at all.

Kinesia

Seems pretty cool. Lets wait and see if its good

These are the kinds of lands we've been asking for. The Threshold effects are just for flavour in my opinion, I don't care about them, but occasionally they'll trigger.

Incidentally... Doesn't it look a bit like the new cards including all those lands, are the Dryad's deck? Because that Dryad can activate the threshold affects...

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