Retrospectives, part 8: Urza's Saga
May 21st 2011 00:19
Judging by the way people talk about the Urza’s Saga block now, you would think it only had five cards in it: Tolarian Academy, Memory Jar, Tinker, Yawgmoth’s Will, and Yawgmoth’s Bargain. In other words, it provided the five most overpowered cards since the original Moxes, leading to a period known as “Combo Winter,” and absolutely nothing else.
But those cards were all banned from tournament play at some point. That constituted an acknowledgment that they were a mistake, and were not intended to be as powerful as they turned out to be. The official story is that the design and development teams for all three sets in the Urza’s Saga block were much smaller than for modern sets, and as such these cards’ interactions with other ones were missed because none of them looked dangerous in a vacuum. The story goes on to explain that the bannings led to a high-profile wave of hirings, mostly of former professional players like Randy Buehler and Aaron Forsythe, and significant changes in the way sets were designed and developed.
Once they were gone, the tournament scene that resulted was surprisingly healthy, at least in Standard. Extended’s banlist was managed differently, and some cards that were banned in Standard remained legal there. This contributed to the reign of Trix, one of the most powerful combination decks that has ever existed; it seems to never have been considered problematic enough for any of its parts to be banned there. But in what was even then the most-supported tournament format, Tempest’s aggressive creatures and blue control elements appeared prominently in the wake of Combo Winter. Red decks and green decks were also very strong, fueled by the Urza block’s powerful creatures and the legendary Exodus rare Survival of the Fittest. Contrary to what some would have you think, creatures have not always been pitifully weak.
This, of course, is before you even get into the possibilities for casual play. The block was filled with countless sub-constructed-quality cards and synergies that many people had fun playing around with then, and continue to now. It’s one of the parts of my collection I most enjoy looking through when I’m not in a mood for building decks, as the aesthetic elements of it remind me of fantasy novel covers and comics from the 80s and early 90s.
What, then, are the lessons of the Urza block? Certainly, the need for Research and Development to design cards with their potential interactions in mind, and not merely in a vacuum, was one of them. But there is a related, and perhaps more troubling, one. Now, as then, Standard constructed tournaments are dominated by a small number of strategies that keep most of the available cards out of contention. Unlike the Urza block, though, the small handful of cards that are stifling the environment are not mistakes. This time, the dominant cards were deliberately set to their power level – witness the developer interviews and comments on how the Titans are “what they’re willing to print,” and how they're a positive step in the development of expensive creatures (despite the fact that other six-mana creatures like Champions of Kamigawa’s dragon legends were playable without invalidating other cards). Urza’s Saga destroyed tournaments because of carelessness. The current problems were deliberately set upon us, presumably with the intention of creating cards that people would want or need to chase. Between those, which would you prefer to deal with?
But those cards were all banned from tournament play at some point. That constituted an acknowledgment that they were a mistake, and were not intended to be as powerful as they turned out to be. The official story is that the design and development teams for all three sets in the Urza’s Saga block were much smaller than for modern sets, and as such these cards’ interactions with other ones were missed because none of them looked dangerous in a vacuum. The story goes on to explain that the bannings led to a high-profile wave of hirings, mostly of former professional players like Randy Buehler and Aaron Forsythe, and significant changes in the way sets were designed and developed.
Once they were gone, the tournament scene that resulted was surprisingly healthy, at least in Standard. Extended’s banlist was managed differently, and some cards that were banned in Standard remained legal there. This contributed to the reign of Trix, one of the most powerful combination decks that has ever existed; it seems to never have been considered problematic enough for any of its parts to be banned there. But in what was even then the most-supported tournament format, Tempest’s aggressive creatures and blue control elements appeared prominently in the wake of Combo Winter. Red decks and green decks were also very strong, fueled by the Urza block’s powerful creatures and the legendary Exodus rare Survival of the Fittest. Contrary to what some would have you think, creatures have not always been pitifully weak.
I know a guy who refers to this as the “green Ancestral Recall.”
This, of course, is before you even get into the possibilities for casual play. The block was filled with countless sub-constructed-quality cards and synergies that many people had fun playing around with then, and continue to now. It’s one of the parts of my collection I most enjoy looking through when I’m not in a mood for building decks, as the aesthetic elements of it remind me of fantasy novel covers and comics from the 80s and early 90s.
What, then, are the lessons of the Urza block? Certainly, the need for Research and Development to design cards with their potential interactions in mind, and not merely in a vacuum, was one of them. But there is a related, and perhaps more troubling, one. Now, as then, Standard constructed tournaments are dominated by a small number of strategies that keep most of the available cards out of contention. Unlike the Urza block, though, the small handful of cards that are stifling the environment are not mistakes. This time, the dominant cards were deliberately set to their power level – witness the developer interviews and comments on how the Titans are “what they’re willing to print,” and how they're a positive step in the development of expensive creatures (despite the fact that other six-mana creatures like Champions of Kamigawa’s dragon legends were playable without invalidating other cards). Urza’s Saga destroyed tournaments because of carelessness. The current problems were deliberately set upon us, presumably with the intention of creating cards that people would want or need to chase. Between those, which would you prefer to deal with?
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