Not much sense, part 2
May 18th 2010 06:59
It was long ago and far away,
The world was younger than today,
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.
-- Janis Ian, “At Seventeen”
If you read the first part, you know what we’re doing today. If not, read the first part now, then come back and read what we’re doing today.
The part of the article about Granger Guildmage is one of the absolute worst parts of “Not Their Time.” It starts off as a standard boring design story:
“Granger Guildmage is the most powerful and famous of the Mirage guildmages, and we had every intention of reprinting him. However, there was too much similarity between the Granger and other green creature with white and red abilities in the set, Thornscape Battlemage, also the most popular member of a cycle. One of them had to go.”
Blah blah, we make tough decisions, blah blah blah. Nothing here I haven’t heard before.
“While attempting to puzzle out which one to cut, Matt Cavotta happened by the pit and said, “Wow, I only have one card (illustration) in the 'bonus' cards.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Thornscape Battlemage.””
Wait.
You made a change to a Magic set to satisfy one artist’s vanity?
An artist who published articles on your website about how much worse other Magic artists are than him?
I . . .
I don’t think I have anything more to say about this. I don’t think I need to say anything more about this.
Spiritmonger’s story is one that exposes some of the holes in Wizards of the Coast’s supposed playtesting regime. Now that we’ve seen the rest of the Time Spiral block, it’s very difficult to believe that Spiritmonger was better than literally every other green creature in the block, especially the infamous Tarmogoyf.
Still, maybe we can’t blame Forsythe for this, because Future Sight hadn’t been released when he wrote “Not Their Time.” And besides, it’s just one card. Perhaps Spiritmonger would have done a lot of damage in Standard among Lorwyn’s tribal theme . . .
On the other hand, it’s neither an Elf nor a Warrior, so it would have had to play defense a lot of the time against Wren’s Run Vanquisher and her friends. Still, late-game it would have been ridiculous, as it’s nearly impossible to kill . . .
Well . . . um . . . I got nothing. And apparently, neither did Aaron Forsythe and the playtesting team.
Research and Development is understandably eager to prevent too many cards that can enable degenerate decks from appearing in an environment. Not only does it mess up tournament play – attendance plummeted in the days of Affinity – but it can spill over into casual play, where some people take a perverse kind of pleasure in showing up at kitchen tables with a deck that crushes people out of the blue in a single turn.
I’m glad they were vigilant enough to catch Anger. ‘Cause now there weren’t any cards like that in the Timeshifted set –
Oh, yeah.
So. They failed at assessing Time Spiral’s creatures. They failed at assessing its combo cards. Surely they managed to assess its control elements correctly? (More on that in part 3.)
Aaron Forsythe “would have been even sadder to bring back this fan favorite only to have it be a dud.” By this he actually means a dud from the point of view of tournament players; I can't think of a card that is truly useless to every part of the audience. If this is how the head of development thinks, I am curious why he keeps putting Serra Angel in the core set.
Serra Angel is one of the most beloved cards in all of history, but now the competitive scene won’t touch her with a ten-foot pole . . . mainly because Forsythe and his friends keep printing cards that you could have sworn are designed specifically to overshadow the most beloved cards in all of history in tournament play.
But hey, what would I know. I’m just an old guy who likes cards because they’re cool, not an “innovator” like Pat Chapin. Then again, I’m not a convicted felon either.
The final part of the deconstruction will be up soon on Orb of Insight, covering the really heavy ones – Crystalline Sliver, Meddling Mage, Serendib Efreet, and Capsize.
The world was younger than today,
And dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me.
-- Janis Ian, “At Seventeen”
If you read the first part, you know what we’re doing today. If not, read the first part now, then come back and read what we’re doing today.
The part of the article about Granger Guildmage is one of the absolute worst parts of “Not Their Time.” It starts off as a standard boring design story:
“Granger Guildmage is the most powerful and famous of the Mirage guildmages, and we had every intention of reprinting him. However, there was too much similarity between the Granger and other green creature with white and red abilities in the set, Thornscape Battlemage, also the most popular member of a cycle. One of them had to go.”
Blah blah, we make tough decisions, blah blah blah. Nothing here I haven’t heard before.
“While attempting to puzzle out which one to cut, Matt Cavotta happened by the pit and said, “Wow, I only have one card (illustration) in the 'bonus' cards.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Thornscape Battlemage.””
Wait.
You made a change to a Magic set to satisfy one artist’s vanity?
An artist who published articles on your website about how much worse other Magic artists are than him?
I . . .
I don’t think I have anything more to say about this. I don’t think I need to say anything more about this.
Spiritmonger’s story is one that exposes some of the holes in Wizards of the Coast’s supposed playtesting regime. Now that we’ve seen the rest of the Time Spiral block, it’s very difficult to believe that Spiritmonger was better than literally every other green creature in the block, especially the infamous Tarmogoyf.
Still, maybe we can’t blame Forsythe for this, because Future Sight hadn’t been released when he wrote “Not Their Time.” And besides, it’s just one card. Perhaps Spiritmonger would have done a lot of damage in Standard among Lorwyn’s tribal theme . . .
On the other hand, it’s neither an Elf nor a Warrior, so it would have had to play defense a lot of the time against Wren’s Run Vanquisher and her friends. Still, late-game it would have been ridiculous, as it’s nearly impossible to kill . . .
Well . . . um . . . I got nothing. And apparently, neither did Aaron Forsythe and the playtesting team.
Research and Development is understandably eager to prevent too many cards that can enable degenerate decks from appearing in an environment. Not only does it mess up tournament play – attendance plummeted in the days of Affinity – but it can spill over into casual play, where some people take a perverse kind of pleasure in showing up at kitchen tables with a deck that crushes people out of the blue in a single turn.
I’m glad they were vigilant enough to catch Anger. ‘Cause now there weren’t any cards like that in the Timeshifted set –
Oh, yeah.
So. They failed at assessing Time Spiral’s creatures. They failed at assessing its combo cards. Surely they managed to assess its control elements correctly? (More on that in part 3.)
Aaron Forsythe “would have been even sadder to bring back this fan favorite only to have it be a dud.” By this he actually means a dud from the point of view of tournament players; I can't think of a card that is truly useless to every part of the audience. If this is how the head of development thinks, I am curious why he keeps putting Serra Angel in the core set.
Serra Angel is one of the most beloved cards in all of history, but now the competitive scene won’t touch her with a ten-foot pole . . . mainly because Forsythe and his friends keep printing cards that you could have sworn are designed specifically to overshadow the most beloved cards in all of history in tournament play.
But hey, what would I know. I’m just an old guy who likes cards because they’re cool, not an “innovator” like Pat Chapin. Then again, I’m not a convicted felon either.
The final part of the deconstruction will be up soon on Orb of Insight, covering the really heavy ones – Crystalline Sliver, Meddling Mage, Serendib Efreet, and Capsize.
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