Lost Caverns of Ixalan Spoiler 1! Ensnaring Bridge

Mainloop25

https://youtu.be/C6RTX7dyUac

Janosik

What? All creatures can't attack... all the time? Am I reading that right?

I think making this card like this is a mistake.

Don't get me wrong, it's very powerful, it's just what I'm looking for in my Ral control deck in Standard, I'll grab it the first time I see it in an elite pack in the vault and I'll play with it a lot. Oh, unless it's an "exclusive for cash" card, but let's leave that possibility to the side for now.

I just think that a card that stops all creatures attacking, all the time, is too good at what it does. Creatures are weak enough in MTGPQ as it is. A cheap, common 2/2 creature in paper must attack 10 times to kill an opponent with 20 life... even an 8/8 in MTGPQ is going to have to attack more than that, and it's probably not going to be common or cheap. You can, in general, play 3 2/2s in paper much faster than you can play 3 8/8s in MTGPQ, and in paper they don't all stack up on top of one another so you can kill them with a single removal spell, too.

I think a card like this acts as a further disincentive to play creatures as win conditions in Standard, and a further incentive to play combo/loop decks in Standard, and we've already seen on the forum in the past few months how opinion is divided on the presence of loop decks in MTGPQ.

I'd be happier to see this with at least some kind of constraint, like Hixus or No Mercy... it could still be really great, and still be well worth inclusion into a wide variety of Standard decks. Much as I'd like to see it tinkered with, I'd hate to see it nerfed into the ground.

Mainloop25

Yeah having it lose a shield per turn is probably a good change.

Keyler

Another card which make the game worst, even if you finally can break the support (which is very difficult if the opponent´s deck has lot of supports because you will break one at random each time) the battle become longer and longer. I think the cards that let no play to a player are not good for the game. Sleep with the Fishes, Lich´s Mastery, Test of talents, even Hixus can still now become a very bored game if you cannot destroy it and convert the battle into a frustrating experience instead a funny one. Mainloop25 solution seems a better solution but a deck built to play around this card can reinforce it easily or cast it several times, in my opinion a rework of the card would be better for the game.

Mainloop25

This means Darksteel Citadel is gonna go in a lot more decks now

madwren

A perfect example of why they should build upon the ability to target supports for removal.

Janosik

@madwren said:
A perfect example of why they should build upon the ability to target supports for removal.

It's high time the whole idea of targeting supports was explored deeply in MTGPQ. Oktagon, after many years, finally gave us the ability to target supports, but they buried it in the needless complexity of the Crystalize mechanic. Honestly sometimes I think they got paid by the word.... to them, all gameplay concerns seemed secondary to fitting as many lines of text on a card as possible.

khurram

@Mainloop25 said:
Yeah having it lose a shield per turn is probably a good change.

Sure, but then make it cheaper.

khurram

Or make the controller lose life but more than just the number of creatures. There needs to be a proportionate level of downside to that kind of control.

khurram

Or a clause like "whenever an opposing creature gains cant attack, this support loses one shield"