Post by sdfkjgh on Nov 22, 2018 20:23:15 GMT
Welcome back to No Reservations II. I don’t know if I’m refreshed after that extended break, but we’re here now, so let’s get to it.
However, before we begin, I promised a bit of signal-boosting (for whatever little it will do, considering this column), so, to YouTube username bugs bunny, aka www.mtggoldfish.com username shyguygamer, here’s your shoutout. The deck looks sweet, but I haven’t had any time to even gather the cards for it, unfortunately. I just really like the underlying concept. Plus, your execution of it seems like it could make a dent in at least a local metagame. Bravo/a! ::clap::
And now, on to business.
• 48 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 105 cards get a Standard reprint.
• 42 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•102 cards bibbity-bobbity-boo’d, then POOFed out of existence.
• Dark Ritual is added to The New Revised Reserved List.
•Naked Singularity, Bronze Tablet, Jeweled Bird, Rebirth, and Tempest Efreet have likewise been removed from reality.
BSQ: 255/303, or 84.{bar}1584%.
And now, part 1 of 3 of Alliances.
And that’s it for this episode. We jumped around a bit in order to consolidate the badly executed land cycle, but next week should be a bit more normal.
Ral: Oh, please. This column? Normal? You couldn’t hope to approach normal even with a complete reworking of your brain chemistry to classically neurotypical.
Teferi, I’m a little bit tired, would you be so kind as to handle this?
Teferi: THE POWER OF SULTAI HOSPITAL COMPELLS YOU! OUT! OUT, DAMNED NUISANCE!
Ral: YOU’RE JUST PROVING MY POINT! *Vanishes in a puff of banishment*
Thank you, kind Son of Zhalfir.
Teferi: Don’t mention it. I believe you were about to tabulate the tally.
Right! Again, thanks. Our tally so far:
• 52 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 110 cards reprinted in Standard (with, in this episode, Ashnod’s Cylix, Balduvian Trading Post, Heart of Yavimaya, Soldevi Excavations, and Chaos Harlequin all getting downgraded from
to 
).
• 43 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•105 cards sent to the cornfield
• Dark Ritual has been added to The New Revised Reserved List.
•Naked Singularity, Bronze Tablet, 7Jeweled Bird7Jeweled Bird, Rebirth, Tempest Efreet, and Rishadan Port have also been sent to the cornfield.
BSQ: 265/317, or 83.59621451104101%. Such cards, much bullshit. Wow!
Join us the next two weeks for the penultimate, then the final episodes of Alliances, then the very special treat for you all the week after that.
But, until then, thanks to our Editor Daij_Djan, on behalf of Teferi, Ral Zarek, and all the other voices in my head who just won’t SHUT UP, this is sdfkjgh, saying toodle-oo!
However, before we begin, I promised a bit of signal-boosting (for whatever little it will do, considering this column), so, to YouTube username bugs bunny, aka www.mtggoldfish.com username shyguygamer, here’s your shoutout. The deck looks sweet, but I haven’t had any time to even gather the cards for it, unfortunately. I just really like the underlying concept. Plus, your execution of it seems like it could make a dent in at least a local metagame. Bravo/a! ::clap::
And now, on to business.
• 48 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 105 cards get a Standard reprint.
• 42 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•
• Dark Ritual is added to The New Revised Reserved List.
•
BSQ: 255/303, or 84.{bar}1584%.
And now, part 1 of 3 of Alliances.
{Holy fucknuts, they didn’t know how to properly gauge rarity back then!}
Ashnod’s Cylix 106, downgraded from to ; see provided examples for comparison.
Price
First off, let’s get these three out of the way right away. Now that we’re leaving Magical Christmasland, we can perform an honest, unclouded appraisal of Ashnod’s Cylix.
It’s just ok. It’s kinda nice that it can hit any player, and the fact that the targeted player is the one who decides which card to keep is a good mitigating factor, but at the end of the day, it’s just a Millstone with some added card selection, and when has Millstone1 ever been good?
Ashnod’s Cylix 106, downgraded from
to ; see provided examples for comparison.Price
{Equivalencies}
Crystal Ball
Price
Gilt-Leaf Seer
Price
Mystic Speculation
Price
How the hell did THIS get in here? I can’t even find a price for it! (risqué link warning)
Crystal Ball
Price
Gilt-Leaf Seer
Price
Mystic Speculation
Price
How the hell did THIS get in here? I can’t even find a price for it! (risqué link warning)
First off, let’s get these three out of the way right away. Now that we’re leaving Magical Christmasland, we can perform an honest, unclouded appraisal of Ashnod’s Cylix.
It’s just ok. It’s kinda nice that it can hit any player, and the fact that the targeted player is the one who decides which card to keep is a good mitigating factor, but at the end of the day, it’s just a Millstone with some added card selection, and when has Millstone1 ever been good?
{The ORIGINAL karoo.}
Balduvian Trading Post 107, downgraded from to ; see below.
Price
Balduvian Trading Post, like the other members of its cycle (Heart of Yavimaya, Kjeldoran Outpost, Lake of the Dead, Soldevi Excavations, and, to a lesser extent, Sheltered Valley and Thawing Glaciers) show the inherent dangers of loose cycle design. The fact that I could even mention those last two as being part of the cycle, and you thinking that I’m being perfectly reasonable for doing so just further illustrates my point.
Why do some of the main five tap for
and one color (Balduvian Trading Post & Soldevi Excavations), while others (Heart of Yavimaya, Kjeldoran Outpost, & Lake of the Dead) do not? Why do most of the main five have such minor extra abilities that they barely push the whole card into (Balduvian Trading Post, Heart of Yavimaya, & Soldevi Excavations), while the others are game-endingly powerful? Why isn’t Sheltered Valley legendary, if its first ability is essentially the legend rule? Why wasn’t the designer of Thawing Glaciers told that their card slowed the game down too much due to all the extra shuffling? Why weren’t the people responsible for giving Thawing Glaciers the green light immediately fired for doing so? Why haven’t I, after ranting & raving so much about grouping them all together, just gone and done so?
I can only answer that last one, and the answer is that they’re so different from each other, that I need to keep them separate in order to best provide equivalent cards for each, thus, once again, proving the dangers of loose cycle design. The “Karoos” I listed are perfect examples of tight cycle design, while the FateReforged runemarks are an excellent example of semi-loose cycle design.
Balduvian Trading Post 107, downgraded from
to ; see below.Price
Balduvian Trading Post, like the other members of its cycle (Heart of Yavimaya, Kjeldoran Outpost, Lake of the Dead, Soldevi Excavations, and, to a lesser extent, Sheltered Valley and Thawing Glaciers) show the inherent dangers of loose cycle design. The fact that I could even mention those last two as being part of the cycle, and you thinking that I’m being perfectly reasonable for doing so just further illustrates my point.
Why do some of the main five tap for
and one color (Balduvian Trading Post & Soldevi Excavations), while others (Heart of Yavimaya, Kjeldoran Outpost, & Lake of the Dead) do not? Why do most of the main five have such minor extra abilities that they barely push the whole card into (Balduvian Trading Post, Heart of Yavimaya, & Soldevi Excavations), while the others are game-endingly powerful? Why isn’t Sheltered Valley legendary, if its first ability is essentially the legend rule? Why wasn’t the designer of Thawing Glaciers told that their card slowed the game down too much due to all the extra shuffling? Why weren’t the people responsible for giving Thawing Glaciers the green light immediately fired for doing so? Why haven’t I, after ranting & raving so much about grouping them all together, just gone and done so?I can only answer that last one, and the answer is that they’re so different from each other, that I need to keep them separate in order to best provide equivalent cards for each, thus, once again, proving the dangers of loose cycle design. The “Karoos” I listed are perfect examples of tight cycle design, while the FateReforged runemarks are an excellent example of semi-loose cycle design.
{Ok, smartmouth, here’s the rest of them, rapidfire-style.}
Heart of Yavimaya 108, downgraded from to .
Price
Kjeldoran Outpost 49
Price
We got the fixed version in Legion’s Landing (Price), we no longer need the original that was, let’s be honest here, just a wee bit too easy to use in a deck, & a smidgen too inexpensive to activate.
Lake of the Dead 50
Price
Lake is pretty unique, as “add
” shows up on only four cards. Plus, thanks to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Lake is childishlylaughably easy to abuse. Lake stays where it is.
Soldevi Excavations 109, downgraded from to .
Price
Quick storytime: about two months, to half a month before they announced the change (I can’t remember which), I emailed Aaron Forsythe asking him why, out of all the other cards that have scry, didn’t Soldevi Excavations, Darksteel Pendant, and Opt say scry 1, if that’s exactly what they were doing anyway? He answered back pretty quickly, saying that they’d look into it. Then, within a few months, they announced the change. I know, I know, USI, SNCA, GTFO!2
Sheltered Valley103
Price
So, it has the legend rule as its first ability, but it isn’t legendary; it lets you gain 1 life during each of your upkeeps, but only if you control three or fewer lands; and it only taps for – why does this exist again?
Thawing Glaciers; It’s too powerful for The Burn Pile, but too much of a mistake to keep it on The Reserved List. However, because of precedent, I’m forced to err on the side of power. 51
Price
We’ve all toyed with the fantasy of “What If…manascrew/flood were eliminated?” It would certainly be almost a completely different game (cf. Dredge). I know that MaRo himself has argued that they are essential features of the game, but I’d just like to see what it’d be like without them. I’m fairly certain that the Arena shuffling algorithm needs work, as the number of consecutive games I’ve lost to manascrew, then manaflood, then repeated, feels pretty damn statistically significant. It’s like 22 lands is too few, but 23 is too many.
Heart of Yavimaya 108, downgraded from
to .Price
{Equivalencies}
Pendelhaven
Price
Every single permanent that taps to give target creature +1/+1 until end of turn. Yes, this is a lazy copout, but I don’t wanna go searching for all of them, then winnowing out the false positives, etc. You all get what I’m talking about, right? Duskborne Skymarcher and all her ilk.
Pendelhaven
Price
Every single permanent that taps to give target creature +1/+1 until end of turn. Yes, this is a lazy copout, but I don’t wanna go searching for all of them, then winnowing out the false positives, etc. You all get what I’m talking about, right? Duskborne Skymarcher and all her ilk.
Kjeldoran Outpost 49
Price
We got the fixed version in Legion’s Landing (Price), we no longer need the original that was, let’s be honest here, just a wee bit too easy to use in a deck, & a smidgen too inexpensive to activate.
Lake of the Dead 50
Price
Lake is pretty unique, as “add
” shows up on only four cards. Plus, thanks to Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Lake is Soldevi Excavations 109, downgraded from
to .Price
Quick storytime: about two months, to half a month before they announced the change (I can’t remember which), I emailed Aaron Forsythe asking him why, out of all the other cards that have scry, didn’t Soldevi Excavations, Darksteel Pendant, and Opt say scry 1, if that’s exactly what they were doing anyway? He answered back pretty quickly, saying that they’d look into it. Then, within a few months, they announced the change. I know, I know, USI, SNCA, GTFO!2
Sheltered Valley
Price
So, it has the legend rule as its first ability, but it isn’t legendary; it lets you gain 1 life during each of your upkeeps, but only if you control three or fewer lands; and it only taps for
– why does this exist again?Thawing Glaciers; It’s too powerful for The Burn Pile, but too much of a mistake to keep it on The Reserved List. However, because of precedent, I’m forced to err on the side of power. 51
Price
We’ve all toyed with the fantasy of “What If…manascrew/flood were eliminated?” It would certainly be almost a completely different game (cf. Dredge). I know that MaRo himself has argued that they are essential features of the game, but I’d just like to see what it’d be like without them. I’m fairly certain that the Arena shuffling algorithm needs work, as the number of consecutive games I’ve lost to manascrew, then manaflood, then repeated, feels pretty damn statistically significant. It’s like 22 lands is too few, but 23 is too many.
{Oswald Hubert Loomis tries out a new costume.}
Chaos Harlequin 110, downgraded from to .
Price
Yes, Chaos Harlequin is a bad card, but it’s not so abysmally bad as to warrant a place on The Burn Pile. I would’ve loved to’ve been able to knock it down to
, but I’m just savvy enough of Munchkinic tendencies to recognize that there’s incredible combo potential in the activated ability. Besides, everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?
Chaos Harlequin 110, downgraded from
to .Price
Yes, Chaos Harlequin is a bad card, but it’s not so abysmally bad as to warrant a place on The Burn Pile. I would’ve loved to’ve been able to knock it down to
, but I’m just savvy enough of Munchkinic tendencies to recognize that there’s incredible combo potential in the activated ability. Besides, everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?{And we were doing so well…}
Dystopia 52
Price
MaRo has said that hate cards should be more like Slay/Deathmark, and less like Perish/Nature’s Ruin. Guess which camp Dystopia is in.
Again, Dystopia is too much of a mistake forthis, but too powerful to leave alone, so I have to choose power.
Dystopia 52
Price
MaRo has said that hate cards should be more like Slay/Deathmark, and less like Perish/Nature’s Ruin. Guess which camp Dystopia is in.
Again, Dystopia is too much of a mistake for
{One look at this next card had my mind abuzzing with the multiplayer political possibilities. You just have to be willing to tarnish your soul with Neocon ideals. How very .}
I have no allies, only temporary, mutually beneficial ceasefires. 43
Price
Punisher mechanics like Browbeat have a long and oftentimes ignoble tradition, I’m glad that they’ve seemed to finally get it right with Risk Factor. However, Fatal Lore with all of its knobs, is an excellent example of lenticular design, perfectly suited to multiplayer.
Think of it like this: you’re in a 3-player game, one player is clearly out in front, and it ain’t you. You cast Fatal Lore, choosing the other non-dominant player, whom you know could knock the dominant player off their pedestal if they could only draw some cards. Because of those “up to”s, you don’t even have to destroy any creatures, and they don’t have to die to that Underworld Dreams the dominant player has out, before your “opponent” draws into a Naturalize effect.
Oh, did I neglect to mention that Underworld Dreams is the reason for such dominance? I guess I buried the lead. Sorry.
But you get my point, right? That Fatal Lore is made of multiplayer politics.
.}I have no allies, only temporary, mutually beneficial ceasefires. 43
Price
Punisher mechanics like Browbeat have a long and oftentimes ignoble tradition, I’m glad that they’ve seemed to finally get it right with Risk Factor. However, Fatal Lore with all of its knobs, is an excellent example of lenticular design, perfectly suited to multiplayer.
Think of it like this: you’re in a 3-player game, one player is clearly out in front, and it ain’t you. You cast Fatal Lore, choosing the other non-dominant player, whom you know could knock the dominant player off their pedestal if they could only draw some cards. Because of those “up to”s, you don’t even have to destroy any creatures, and they don’t have to die to that Underworld Dreams the dominant player has out, before your “opponent” draws into a Naturalize effect.
Oh, did I neglect to mention that Underworld Dreams is the reason for such dominance? I guess I buried the lead. Sorry.
But you get my point, right? That Fatal Lore is made of multiplayer politics.
{WARNING! UTTER TRASH ALERT!}
Floodwater Damn, this card sucks giant orange turds!104
Price
Floodwater Dam is just terrible, recognizably so, but the real card I wanna talk about is Rishadan Port.3
By the time I started playing, back in high school at North Hills Prep (the second high school I attended, but that’s a medication withdrawal story for another day), I had just missed the entire Masques block, but I still got to play with some of the cards. Quite the introduction to the game, huh? “Here’s this sweet-ass game that’s unfortunately in one of the lowest points it’s ever have, enjoy!”, said no one to me ever, no matter how accurate it would be.
Anyway, The Casque of Amontillado is an absolutely miserable card, and one that should’ve never made it to press. I’ve heard tell that mirror matches sometimes even devolved into suicide pacts of misery, depression, and hopelessness. That is why I hereby retroactively add it to The Burn Pile. “But what about the Power Precedent?” you may ask? I counter with the Top Exception: “When the misery caused by the card in question to both those playing with it and against it starts to outweigh the enjoyment of the game as a whole for any party, the card in question MUST be considered a Burn Pile-worthy mistake.”
Rishadan Port is hereby sentenced to burn in the fires of oblivion.
Floodwater Damn, this card sucks giant orange turds!
Price
{Don’t be fooled by their ludicrously high power levels, these cards are also mistakes}
Mishra’s Helix
Price
Rishadan Port
Price
Mishra’s Helix
Price
Rishadan Port
Price
Floodwater Dam is just terrible, recognizably so, but the real card I wanna talk about is Rishadan Port.3
By the time I started playing, back in high school at North Hills Prep (the second high school I attended, but that’s a medication withdrawal story for another day), I had just missed the entire Masques block, but I still got to play with some of the cards. Quite the introduction to the game, huh? “Here’s this sweet-ass game that’s unfortunately in one of the lowest points it’s ever have, enjoy!”, said no one to me ever, no matter how accurate it would be.
Anyway, The Casque of Amontillado is an absolutely miserable card, and one that should’ve never made it to press. I’ve heard tell that mirror matches sometimes even devolved into suicide pacts of misery, depression, and hopelessness. That is why I hereby retroactively add it to The Burn Pile. “But what about the Power Precedent?” you may ask? I counter with the Top Exception: “When the misery caused by the card in question to both those playing with it and against it starts to outweigh the enjoyment of the game as a whole for any party, the card in question MUST be considered a Burn Pile-worthy mistake.”
{A seven-and-a-half-foot long, fifty-four-inch wide gorilla.}
Abby Something105
Price
”Huh. I guess King Kong actually does have shit on me.”
Gargantuan Gorilla is just bad, one in a long line of overcosted, over-restricted fatties, from before the time they realized that a superlatively high mana cost was restriction enough. Let’s move on, shall we? The stench is starting to get to me. I don’t know if it’s the feces or the failure, but it reeks!
Abby Something
Price
”Huh. I guess King Kong actually does have shit on me.”
Gargantuan Gorilla is just bad, one in a long line of overcosted, over-restricted fatties, from before the time they realized that a superlatively high mana cost was restriction enough. Let’s move on, shall we? The stench is starting to get to me. I don’t know if it’s the feces or the failure, but it reeks!
And that’s it for this episode. We jumped around a bit in order to consolidate the badly executed land cycle, but next week should be a bit more normal.
Ral: Oh, please. This column? Normal? You couldn’t hope to approach normal even with a complete reworking of your brain chemistry to classically neurotypical.
Teferi, I’m a little bit tired, would you be so kind as to handle this?
Teferi: THE POWER OF SULTAI HOSPITAL COMPELLS YOU! OUT! OUT, DAMNED NUISANCE!
Ral: YOU’RE JUST PROVING MY POINT! *Vanishes in a puff of banishment*
Thank you, kind Son of Zhalfir.
Teferi: Don’t mention it. I believe you were about to tabulate the tally.
Right! Again, thanks. Our tally so far:
• 52 cards stay on The Reserved List.
• 110 cards reprinted in Standard (with, in this episode, Ashnod’s Cylix, Balduvian Trading Post, Heart of Yavimaya, Soldevi Excavations, and Chaos Harlequin all getting downgraded from
to ).• 43 cards reprinted in supplemental sets.
•
• Dark Ritual has been added to The New Revised Reserved List.
•
BSQ: 265/317, or 83.59621451104101%. Such cards, much bullshit. Wow!
Join us the next two weeks for the penultimate, then the final episodes of Alliances, then the very special treat for you all the week after that.
But, until then, thanks to our Editor Daij_Djan, on behalf of Teferi, Ral Zarek, and all the other voices in my head who just won’t SHUT UP, this is sdfkjgh, saying toodle-oo!
{Footnotes}
| 1 | Price |
| 2 | Unwarranted Self-Importance, Shit Nobody Cares About, and you can prolly guess that last one. |
| 3 | I’m reminded of the following joke from Jingo: ”Do you know the difference between port and starboard? I don't. I've never even drunk starboard.” |