So WoTC's policy is that LD is unfun, especially below 3CC. That said, I think R and W need LD to counter G's ramp and to fight against manabases that get greedy.
I think there can be a place for LD at 3 mana, but it has to be somewhat weaker than Stone Rain or have drawbacks. For instance:
Encroaching Desolation2R
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a land.
Or this:
Tectonic Shift1RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Its controller may search his or her library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle his or her library.
Or this:
Tremorclaw1RR
Creature-- Elemental (R)
Haste
When Tremorclaw dies, target player sacrifices a land.
3/1
Or this:
Fade into Ignominy1WW
Sorcery
Shuffle target enchantment or land into its owner's library.
Or even this:
Barren Tranquility1W
Enchantment-- Aura
Enchant target non-Plains land
If enchanted land would produce mana of any color, it produces colorless mana instead.
Bonus:
Grand Equalizer3WW
Creature-- Human Cleric
Each opponent who controls more creatures than you can't play creature cards. The same is true for artifacts, enchantments, and lands.
3/3
Shuddering Ground2RR
Enchantment
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under his or her control this turn, that player sacrifices a land.
Magmatic Implosion2RRR
Sorcery (R)
Each player may sacrifice any number of lands. Then, Magmatic Implosion deals damage to each player equal to twice the number of lands that player controls.
stone rain is pretty fine. just make sure a format doesn't have 8 or more cards that disrupt a persons mana base on turn 2 and suddenly 3cc land destruction is doing the right sort of oppression again.
I don't like how often magic seems to shy away from the subject of lands in it's design. They are just a necessary evil in design that you need to draw to play all your cool cards. More interaction, and more thoughtful interaction with lands, where they are and how they can be utilized is the answer. You keep neglecting it and you end up with the zaniness of loam decks etc when they do get printed because no one really knows how good interacting with lands can be. Zendikar cards are awfully cool because they add to those resources you sorta have to have in your deck, but more cards that card about lands moving into other zones or interact with them in many zones might even make land destruction less of a damning proposition.
I wonder if a 5 or 6 cc Armageddon with a heavy colour commitment would be too oppressive.
But like what about 5cc armageddon with like 3-4 colour saturation and maybe even more than one colour. I'm sure it'd be an interesting format with 5cc geddon. I imagine decks would have to be built to either have a resilient presence early in or be disruptive.
I can see having a lot of fun in that environment and it being very easy to get a grasp of quickly.
1RR Goblin Ransacker
Creature - Goblin Warrior
When ~ etb, tap target land. It doesn't untap during it's controller's untap step for as long as you control ~.
3/1
Like void said, LD isn't inherently bad. The problem is the same one as playing 30+ counterspells or Channel+Fireball: they're not fun.
I don't believe Armageddon is fun at any cost. It will pretty much always lock a player out of the game. Making it difficult for the opponent to win is fine. Making it impossible means they just shouldn't have shown up in the first place. The game has to be designed to be fun for all players.
I think (a reasonably priced) Armageddon only a not-fun card if:
1) You're sick of it, yeah sure, we get that way with most powerful cards, it's nice to have a break when an effect has a big impact and suddenly the wings can stretch again.
2) You aren't playing around it. If it cost 5-6 mana I don't really see it being a problem to play around it in any well crafted format, and man are there ways to get in a good game, before, after or in spite of an expensive sorcery that only influences the lands on the table.
3) The format is for some reason not very well intentionally designed and is absolutely ripe for land destruction decks. Now that would be a damn shame, and probably wouldn't be any fun.
Wildfire is a very similar card to armageddon. It really forms a nice upward cap to the format that you know might turn up in any given match. It has more of an effect on board position than armageddon, and that made it both more ripe for abuse and harder to get an advantage from, now there is a cool card. I even remember playing against those killer magnivore decks in kami-rav and boy was that about the least fun you could get out of a standard match of land disruption (besides masques tapdown decks) but people were very capable of building their decks to not give the wildfire-magnivore dekc an easy time messing with them. Those decks preyed on how greedy the format had become and preyed on bad players but you didn't have to give them an advantage in the deck building stage and they were easily disrupted in game and couldn't claim to have a really good game against most decks in the format without teching very specifically.
I think we need to remember that magic players are smart and the game evolves, if you are having trouble with your sixdrop deck because wildfire is a relevant aspect of the format, maybe you will start playing something that isn't a sixdrop deck or maybe you'll start splashing black to run duress or something. Geddon effects are just another big flashy cap to think of in a metagame, they will come down if you let them and usher your game into it's new post wildfire era, same as wrath of god ushers you into the new era of no creatures, but it's the sort of thing players adapt to very quickly and I hope RnD has the foresight (and forescythe) to develop around. Geddon can be a really fun card and something that changes the game in a way that is more than just frustrating, just probably not at 4 mana.
I think the main issue with LD is that it leads to uninteractive games. If your opponent is low on lands, they might lose without casting any relevant spells. If they're flooded, you might spend two turns destroying lands they don't really need, while being beaten to a bloody pulp. I think those two scenarios occur often enough to put LD on the "no fun"-list. It also leads to fairly inconsistent decks.
While I don't see LD as ever being a solid strategy without being degenerate, it could be a good at punishing greedy mana bases or slow decks with big spells. Eg, as a sideboard plan. It's very hard to make it work as intended though. I remember drawing multiple Spreading Seas' against Jund in previous Standard and it usually locked them out of the game. Tectonic Edge is nice there, I think. Perhaps that if-clause could be used on spells too.
Your cards:
Molten Surge is fine imo. It'd be decent in the current standard as it requires players to widely use non-basics. As an answer to utility lands, it'd have to be a sick land as you're trading a card for it.
I really like Tremorclaw. There are very few creatures that promote Pacifism effects and defenders, but this is one of them.
Oppressive aggro leads to games that are less interactive than LD games. Affinity was the worst offender in recent years, Naya Blitz second.
Stone Rain was fine - in fact it was universally considered a very fringe tournament card for most of its Standard legality. The problem card in the last real LD environment was Chrome Mox, which allowed turn 2 Stone/Molten Rain to be too common.
On the other hand, Plow Under and Armageddon were indeed oppressive cards. Armageddon was reprinted in Planar Chaos at 5R and saw little play (Boom//Bust) and so it is not a problem at 6 mana - at 5 it might be oppressive, however. I do not want Armageddon effects to be particularly good.
White doesn't destroy lands, without destroying all lands[...] Additionally LD is not a protection against Ramp. Ramp is a protection against LD: losing one land out of 8 is a lot more survivable than losing one land out of 3/4.
Well, perhaps I've been thinking of things in terms of EDH, where Ramp is one of the more powerful strategies. Anyway, you're probably right, and Armageddon is what white LD usually happens.
That said, how about letting white do temporary land disruption? Grand Equalizer and Barren Tranquility are examples of what I have in mind for what "non-Geddon White LD" could be like.
Well, the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that the reason land destruction is weaker than it used to be is not that spot removing troublesome lands is bad, it's that mana denial is bad. No one likes playing against decks that just destroy your lands and make everything miserable.
Stone Rain was fine - in fact it was universally considered a very fringe tournament card for most of its Standard legality. The problem card in the last real LD environment was Chrome Mox, which allowed turn 2 Stone/Molten Rain to be too common.
On the other hand, Plow Under and Armageddon were indeed oppressive cards. Armageddon was reprinted in Planar Chaos at 5R and saw little play (Boom//Bust) and so it is not a problem at 6 mana - at 5 it might be oppressive, however. I do not want Armageddon effects to be particularly good.
I agree with you three. I don't want stonerain.dec to be viable: I just want LD to be a supplement to whatever a deck's plan is.
Take Tremorclaw, for instance: it can be run in, say, an RDW deck as a creature that essentially can't be blocked. Magmatic Implosion, on the other hand, is a 'Geddon that can be dodged if you don't mind taking a huge amount of damage to the face. Most of the time, life won't matter if you can play all your cards and win beforehand: however, if you're staring down a huge amount of attackers, Magmatic Implosion could spell your doom.
... It's fair in a world w/o Birds of Paradise. The chance here to cast a t2 LD is sufficiently low very low (you need a G t1 and RR t2). It could also be:
Sure. Aggro can be oppressive. I think it has gotten a bit fast lately, but at least there are general answers to it. What do I side in against LD? Life from the Loam is the only effective card I can think of.
When LD existed there was LD hate, such as Sacred Ground.
You could also side cheap mana sources, such as mana dorks or mana rocks. WotC was never concerned with making ,ulçtiple LD hates because LD was almost never very competitive.
When LD existed there was LD hate, such as Sacred Ground.
You could also side cheap mana sources, such as mana dorks or mana rocks. WotC was never concerned with making ,ulçtiple LD hates because LD was almost never very competitive.
Turn 5 aggro decks that used LD as disruption were often viable in competitive play, most notably during Mirrodin block, after the Affinity banhammer massacre.
I think its pretty lame that some people think stone rain is too powerful. back in the mercadian masques day, control was really powerful. you would go to a tournament and every non-creative soul that was there ran with counterspell, foil, daze, etc in their decks. you had to pretty much ask permission to play cards, which is ridiculous. Stone rain is fine, imo, and should be either reprinted or a new version similar to it should be reprinted. it's a good thing that nowadays creatures are more abundant and more powerful.
Do you guys think that very targeted land destruction could be printed. Maybe some things like
Island hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target island
forest hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target forest
complex hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target nonbasic land
Or how about something like
tax destruction 1R
sorcery
destroy target land unless an opponent pays 1
unfun stuff 1B
sorcery
destroy target land unless an opponent discards 2 cards.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I think its pretty lame that some people think stone rain is too powerful. back in the mercadian masques day, control was really powerful. you would go to a tournament and every non-creative soul that was there ran with counterspell, foil, daze, etc in their decks. you had to pretty much ask permission to play cards, which is ridiculous. Stone rain is fine, imo, and should be either reprinted or a new version similar to it should be reprinted. it's a good thing that nowadays creatures are more abundant and more powerful.
I remember playing the Rising Waters deck, but I also distinctly remember mono-White Rebels being a force to reckon with. A single Ramosian Sergeant and the Rebel deck wouldn't need to cast a single spell for the rest of the game.
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I think there can be a place for LD at 3 mana, but it has to be somewhat weaker than Stone Rain or have drawbacks. For instance:
Molten Surge 2R
Sorcery
Destroy target nonbasic land.
Or this:
Encroaching Desolation 2R
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a land.
Or this:
Tectonic Shift 1RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Its controller may search his or her library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle his or her library.
Or this:
Tremorclaw 1RR
Creature-- Elemental (R)
Haste
When Tremorclaw dies, target player sacrifices a land.
3/1
Or this:
Fade into Ignominy 1WW
Sorcery
Shuffle target enchantment or land into its owner's library.
Or even this:
Barren Tranquility 1W
Enchantment-- Aura
Enchant target non-Plains land
If enchanted land would produce mana of any color, it produces colorless mana instead.
Bonus:
Grand Equalizer 3WW
Creature-- Human Cleric
Each opponent who controls more creatures than you can't play creature cards. The same is true for artifacts, enchantments, and lands.
3/3
Shuddering Ground 2RR
Enchantment
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under his or her control this turn, that player sacrifices a land.
Magmatic Implosion 2RRR
Sorcery (R)
Each player may sacrifice any number of lands. Then, Magmatic Implosion deals damage to each player equal to twice the number of lands that player controls.
----------------------------
Club Flamingo Wins: 10
----------------------------
EDH Decks
BG Vicious Varolz | RW Jor Kadeen, the Mean Machine | RG Atarka: Muh_Dragons.dec (WIP) | WU Brago, Blink Eternal (WIP)
----------------------------
I don't like how often magic seems to shy away from the subject of lands in it's design. They are just a necessary evil in design that you need to draw to play all your cool cards. More interaction, and more thoughtful interaction with lands, where they are and how they can be utilized is the answer. You keep neglecting it and you end up with the zaniness of loam decks etc when they do get printed because no one really knows how good interacting with lands can be. Zendikar cards are awfully cool because they add to those resources you sorta have to have in your deck, but more cards that card about lands moving into other zones or interact with them in many zones might even make land destruction less of a damning proposition.
I wonder if a 5 or 6 cc Armageddon with a heavy colour commitment would be too oppressive.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
LD is always fair as a sort of spell, but never as an archetype.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
I can see having a lot of fun in that environment and it being very easy to get a grasp of quickly.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
1RR Goblin Ransacker
Creature - Goblin Warrior
When ~ etb, tap target land. It doesn't untap during it's controller's untap step for as long as you control ~.
3/1
I don't believe Armageddon is fun at any cost. It will pretty much always lock a player out of the game. Making it difficult for the opponent to win is fine. Making it impossible means they just shouldn't have shown up in the first place. The game has to be designed to be fun for all players.
Mechanic Creator's Contest III- Winner
[Clan Flamingo]
1) You're sick of it, yeah sure, we get that way with most powerful cards, it's nice to have a break when an effect has a big impact and suddenly the wings can stretch again.
2) You aren't playing around it. If it cost 5-6 mana I don't really see it being a problem to play around it in any well crafted format, and man are there ways to get in a good game, before, after or in spite of an expensive sorcery that only influences the lands on the table.
3) The format is for some reason not very well intentionally designed and is absolutely ripe for land destruction decks. Now that would be a damn shame, and probably wouldn't be any fun.
Wildfire is a very similar card to armageddon. It really forms a nice upward cap to the format that you know might turn up in any given match. It has more of an effect on board position than armageddon, and that made it both more ripe for abuse and harder to get an advantage from, now there is a cool card. I even remember playing against those killer magnivore decks in kami-rav and boy was that about the least fun you could get out of a standard match of land disruption (besides masques tapdown decks) but people were very capable of building their decks to not give the wildfire-magnivore dekc an easy time messing with them. Those decks preyed on how greedy the format had become and preyed on bad players but you didn't have to give them an advantage in the deck building stage and they were easily disrupted in game and couldn't claim to have a really good game against most decks in the format without teching very specifically.
I think we need to remember that magic players are smart and the game evolves, if you are having trouble with your sixdrop deck because wildfire is a relevant aspect of the format, maybe you will start playing something that isn't a sixdrop deck or maybe you'll start splashing black to run duress or something. Geddon effects are just another big flashy cap to think of in a metagame, they will come down if you let them and usher your game into it's new post wildfire era, same as wrath of god ushers you into the new era of no creatures, but it's the sort of thing players adapt to very quickly and I hope RnD has the foresight (and forescythe) to develop around. Geddon can be a really fun card and something that changes the game in a way that is more than just frustrating, just probably not at 4 mana.
Cube talk, design community and much much more!
Oppressive aggro leads to games that are less interactive than LD games. Affinity was the worst offender in recent years, Naya Blitz second.
Stone Rain was fine - in fact it was universally considered a very fringe tournament card for most of its Standard legality. The problem card in the last real LD environment was Chrome Mox, which allowed turn 2 Stone/Molten Rain to be too common.
On the other hand, Plow Under and Armageddon were indeed oppressive cards. Armageddon was reprinted in Planar Chaos at 5R and saw little play (Boom//Bust) and so it is not a problem at 6 mana - at 5 it might be oppressive, however. I do not want Armageddon effects to be particularly good.
Unfortunately, that already exists: Ruination.
Well, perhaps I've been thinking of things in terms of EDH, where Ramp is one of the more powerful strategies. Anyway, you're probably right, and Armageddon is what white LD usually happens.
That said, how about letting white do temporary land disruption? Grand Equalizer and Barren Tranquility are examples of what I have in mind for what "non-Geddon White LD" could be like.
I agree with you three. I don't want stonerain.dec to be viable: I just want LD to be a supplement to whatever a deck's plan is.
Take Tremorclaw, for instance: it can be run in, say, an RDW deck as a creature that essentially can't be blocked. Magmatic Implosion, on the other hand, is a 'Geddon that can be dodged if you don't mind taking a huge amount of damage to the face. Most of the time, life won't matter if you can play all your cards and win beforehand: however, if you're staring down a huge amount of attackers, Magmatic Implosion could spell your doom.
----------------------------
Club Flamingo Wins: 10
----------------------------
EDH Decks
BG Vicious Varolz | RW Jor Kadeen, the Mean Machine | RG Atarka: Muh_Dragons.dec (WIP) | WU Brago, Blink Eternal (WIP)
----------------------------
Stone Storm 1RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
... It's fair in a world w/o Birds of Paradise. The chance here to cast a t2 LD is sufficiently low very low (you need a G t1 and RR t2). It could also be:
Mud Rain :symbr::symbr::symbr:
Sorcery
Destroy target land.
Same principle, even more restrictive mana cost (except if you're BR deck).
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
When LD existed there was LD hate, such as Sacred Ground.
You could also side cheap mana sources, such as mana dorks or mana rocks. WotC was never concerned with making ,ulçtiple LD hates because LD was almost never very competitive.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Turn 5 aggro decks that used LD as disruption were often viable in competitive play, most notably during Mirrodin block, after the Affinity banhammer massacre.
Turn 1 Chrome Mox, Slith Firewalker
Turn 2 Stone Rain
Turn 3 Molten Rain
was one of the most devastating starts in Standard at the time.
That said, that deck was never oppressive, IIRC it was at the lower end of tier 1 decks.
Island hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target island
forest hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target forest
complex hate 1R
sorcery
destroy target nonbasic land
Or how about something like
tax destruction 1R
sorcery
destroy target land unless an opponent pays 1
unfun stuff 1B
sorcery
destroy target land unless an opponent discards 2 cards.
- Manite
I remember playing the Rising Waters deck, but I also distinctly remember mono-White Rebels being a force to reckon with. A single Ramosian Sergeant and the Rebel deck wouldn't need to cast a single spell for the rest of the game.