Thoughts about Vanguards (was - Greg and Vanguards)

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  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,227 Chairperson of the Boards
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    I agree that adding "supports" to the word adds unnecessary confusion. Simply calling them vanguards would have sufficed and made things more clear to the general user.
  • Machine
    Machine Posts: 789 Critical Contributor
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    To make things worse, Demolish will cast if only an enemy Vanguard is on the board. This should be fixed, just like when Demolish was able to target indestructible gems.

    All these cards that ONLY interact with Vanguards seem to be very meh at first sight. I don't see myself including cards just to counter someone using a Vanguard. Maybe I will if the meta changes, but right now all these cards seem pretty underwhelming (next to useless).

  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    Machine said:

    To make things worse, Demolish will cast if only an enemy Vanguard is on the board. This should be fixed, just like when Demolish was able to target indestructible gems.

    All these cards that ONLY interact with Vanguards seem to be very meh at first sight. I don't see myself including cards just to counter someone using a Vanguard. Maybe I will if the meta changes, but right now all these cards seem pretty underwhelming (next to useless).

    This is a potential long-term problem. I get the impression they're going to use vanguards more in the future, yet nothing from Origins can interact with them. This means that they're going to introduce an ongoing game mechanic while forcing players to constantly get new cards in order to do anything about it.
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,227 Chairperson of the Boards
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    It really doesn't make sense that Vanguards can be fetched by abilities or spells that target supports, but can't be destroyed by abilities or spells that target supports
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    starfall said:
    wereotter said:
    Machine said:

    To make things worse, Demolish will cast if only an enemy Vanguard is on the board. This should be fixed, just like when Demolish was able to target indestructible gems.

    All these cards that ONLY interact with Vanguards seem to be very meh at first sight. I don't see myself including cards just to counter someone using a Vanguard. Maybe I will if the meta changes, but right now all these cards seem pretty underwhelming (next to useless).

    This is a potential long-term problem. I get the impression they're going to use vanguards more in the future, yet nothing from Origins can interact with them. This means that they're going to introduce an ongoing game mechanic while forcing players to constantly get new cards in order to do anything about it.
    If they print as many cards which affect only Vanguards in future sets as they did in this one, it won't be a problem. There are way too many of these cards in WAR, and unfortunately almost all of them are too niche in their use to be playable.
    Yes, but it's still a problem if you have to pull new cards every time a set comes out to deal with an evergreen game mechanic. It would be like if there was no support destruction or no creature destruction abilities in Origins at all so you were forced to keep current on every new set of cards just to play the game at all.

    My opinion remains that if you're going to have a set of evergreen mechanics and an evergreen set, then that set has to have ways to interact with the mechanics.
  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    starfall said:
    wereotter said:
    starfall said:
    wereotter said:
    Machine said:

    To make things worse, Demolish will cast if only an enemy Vanguard is on the board. This should be fixed, just like when Demolish was able to target indestructible gems.

    All these cards that ONLY interact with Vanguards seem to be very meh at first sight. I don't see myself including cards just to counter someone using a Vanguard. Maybe I will if the meta changes, but right now all these cards seem pretty underwhelming (next to useless).

    This is a potential long-term problem. I get the impression they're going to use vanguards more in the future, yet nothing from Origins can interact with them. This means that they're going to introduce an ongoing game mechanic while forcing players to constantly get new cards in order to do anything about it.
    If they print as many cards which affect only Vanguards in future sets as they did in this one, it won't be a problem. There are way too many of these cards in WAR, and unfortunately almost all of them are too niche in their use to be playable.
    Yes, but it's still a problem if you have to pull new cards every time a set comes out to deal with an evergreen game mechanic. It would be like if there was no support destruction or no creature destruction abilities in Origins at all so you were forced to keep current on every new set of cards just to play the game at all.

    My opinion remains that if you're going to have a set of evergreen mechanics and an evergreen set, then that set has to have ways to interact with the mechanics.
    I don't think it's a problem as long as decent control cards are printed at common and uncommon, like Demolish was.

    In fact, if they're planning to run more Block events like like RaW, they should probably get into the habit of printing everything that's necessary to make the game function in each block; WOTC do that with paper, after all.
    What I'm understanding, though, was that they're going to be interpreting more planeswalkers going forward as vanguard supports rather than playable planeswalkers to build decks around. So if there's not a planeswalker heavy set, then there won't be as many reasons for Wizards to create planeswalker hate in the set. Which will mean not as many new cards created to deal with the situation of vanguard supports.
  • madwren
    madwren Posts: 2,227 Chairperson of the Boards
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    To their credit, they did give everyone a free Vanguard support destroyer (Ugin the Ineffable) and there is an uncommon Vanguard destroyer (Despark) that seems pretty solid.

    However, every silver bullet you put in a deck dilutes its effectiveness.  Surely, they know this, and are deliberately attempting to force you to choose what your deck combats, rather than having a one-size-fits-all solution.



  • wereotter
    wereotter Posts: 2,064 Chairperson of the Boards
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    madwren said:
    To their credit, they did give everyone a free Vanguard support destroyer (Ugin the Ineffable) and there is an uncommon Vanguard destroyer (Despark) that seems pretty solid.

    However, every silver bullet you put in a deck dilutes its effectiveness.  Surely, they know this, and are deliberately attempting to force you to choose what your deck combats, rather than having a one-size-fits-all solution.



    I'm thinking more along the lines of a year or two from now when you don't have War of the Spark to play with, but still have vanguard supports to contend with. I'm not saying it's a problem right now, but I anticipate it becoming an annoyance as time goes on.
  • ZW2007-
    ZW2007- Posts: 812 Critical Contributor
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    Well the typical set has 2-3 planeswalkers. If they are using those planeswalkers to make more planeswalkers instead of vanguards, there won't be very many vanguards in the future. I honestly have no clue how they plan to balance that fact and still make vanguards. Actually, I do, but I'm tired of giving them ideas. Fewer vanguards, fewer cards that deal with them, and less of a reason to care. What they really ought to do though, is go back and retool certain cards that did destroy planeswalkers and make them destroy vanguards. Bedevil is a prime example:



    The PQ version:


    Change the lose 3 life to destroy an opposing Vanguard. There aren't as many clear cut options to change in Origins but something as simple as Disperse could be tweaked to bounce a Vanguard if the opponent has no creatures in play. And here I go giving ideas anyways...
  • IM_CARLOS
    IM_CARLOS Posts: 640 Critical Contributor
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    As far as I can see are vangards not a problem yet. Yes they are very solid compared to other support, but not meta warper like other supports (omni, stv). 

    Time will tell. But at least fetching for supports and other effects should be not effecting vangard supports to make this rule consistent.

    But consistency is not the first word that come in mind, when you think about the game... 

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