Colors of Magic

Khaalis

I have grown to HATE this event. Events like this are the reason you're having trouble getting and keeping players, and I say this as a pretty long term player now.

1. 16 matches is way too many for far too little reward.

2. On the topic of rewards, I'd far rather get 1 Guaranteed Non-Dup card per color pack than a pack of 5 garbage cards considering the huge annoyance of the game play and time investment in this event.

3. Troll decks (decks using nothing bu Mythic and Masterpiece cards) abound and make if VERY difficult for people to actually achieve a decent rank for rewards. If you want to keep using Pauper, Peasant rules in these events, then change the event to be locked to those rarities, like the newer Silver Duel where the decks are Restricted and change the first secondary to something else. Otherwise its simply not fair to players who are trying to achieve Rank for rewards.

Tremayne

@Khaalis - I also find this a tedious event. The main problem (in my view) is that everyone has “solved” the event. Every round two cards are cast - as a rule - both cards are typically some form of removal but sometimes it is a card that gives damage. That ends up being very long and boring matches. Which mainly comes down to drawing the right cards at the right time.

1. For a non-dupe PMA card, then some effort has to be made. I would like it to be no more than 8, but that is probably too low. How many matches do you think is suitable?
2. Totally agree, but for newbies I’m not sure they agree
3. Mythic+ cards do not bother me that much. The players using this method is often hampered by casting one or less card per turn. I suspect that they have given up and just go for progression.

I think that you are right in this event needs some revitalisation. But I would be surprised if it drives players away - I think players quickly figures out that some events are not for them and just don’t play them.

Janosik

I enjoy CoM but I do think it's a bit of a slog atm. For a start, I think 12 games would be better than 16.

To my mind, the main problem with the current iteration of CoM is that control is much better than beatdown... which is to say it's easier to destroy your opponent's stuff than it is to build up the amount of stuff that you have on the board.

Control has 1 for 1 options like like Ray of Ruin, and Tolarian Geyser, but also great options that generate better value than that, like Harbinger of the Tides, Downwind Ambusher, Cracked Skull, Kaito Dancing Shadow, Terror Tide, Deem Inferior (it's easy to reduce DI's cost down to 11!) and Conclave Naturalists. And let's not forget the ever looming shadow of Painful Quandary, easily one of the best cards in the format (and certainly widely played!), which can often reduce a player to casting only a single card a turn, a devastating reduction in their power.

But where are the options for increasing your board presence, rather than reducing your opponent's? Most creatures you play die to a single 1 for 1 without generating extra value. Where are the extra value cards? There's Khalni Garden, that's a great one! There's... um... Well there's Enduring Innocence which generates a lot of loyalty, even after it's dead, but it doesn't deal much damage to your opponent. And then there's.... um... well there's barely anything else, is there? Razorkin Hordecaller, perhaps? Not very powerful, is it?

We do have creatures like Warden of the Inner Sky, which build up card advantage by drawing cards, and they certainly help against Painful Quandary, but because of the rules of the game in CoM, you are prevented from playing those extra cards at a faster rate than the default (except in exceptional circumstances.... like playing Grist, for example. Hey, now I come to think of it, should Grist's Corrupt gems *really* be able to add mana to cards in the graveyard? Don't the rules state that 'cards can't gain mana?')

As Goz points out above, you don't have to limit yourself to cards that cost <=11 mana, there are some great higher costs card advantage cards like Connecting the Dots and Assemble the Players to build up your board presence, but they take 2 turns to cast rather than one, which is a lot longer to get going! A Greg playing heavy control can really punish you for that.

So the current cardpool means it's easier to destroy your opponent's stuff than to build up your own. But wait, there's more!

Each node has an additional effect which kills creatures; matching a black gem in the top node can -X/-X, and matching a red gem in the bottom node can deal damage. There's a positive balancing effect in the top node, where a blue match creates Thopters (and Thopters often provide a considerable part of my offensive strategy!) but there's no balancing effect in the bottom node (you can give a creature +X/+X with a white match, but that bigger creature is still going to die to a simple 1 for 1 effect)

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And so! While CoM is too long at the moment, just as big a problem is the fact that some of the games are an interminable slog with Greg just killing everything you put on the board every turn. Even if you win games like that it can take ages (Doesn't it feel to you like some Dakkons just play 10 powerful control cards and have basically no way to damage you other than slowly pinging away with Dakkon's first ability?!!?!?!)

I'm not sure we need the different effects for matching different colored gems to be changed, altho, they could be! Maybe some free creatures in the bottom node, similar to the Thopters in the top node, would do it?

But I do think Webcore need to spend just a little bit of time actually designing a few cards that are good in CoM for each set, and, given the current cardpool, they should start with the cards that build up board presence rather than cards that reduce your opponent's.

I think it makes business sense for Webcore, too! There's a limit to the number of broken chase cards for Standard like Ghalta and Mystical Teachings they can put into a set before the whole game falls apart... but what they can do is include a wide variety of chase cards for a wide variety of different events!

I feel like the last iteration of Standard, when Paladin Class was legal, had a better cardpool for CoM than this one does, didn't it? And I feel like we can get back to that experience again with a little curation of new cards.