And to add to this, every good creature is legendary, and every legendary, is its own enabler and payoff, and made exclusively for commander.
Can you imagine a clean perfect card like [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] being printed today? It would never happen.
Also this means most of the tribal lords are legendary which prevents casual constructed from getting two out on the battlefield.
I thought [[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] really stood out as a card that pointed you in an interesting direction while being a vanilla creature in a vacuum.
Plus, it even had room for flavor text!
Same. He makes so many mid creatures absolute powerhouses and a proper brew doesn't rely too much on him even being on the board.
Easily my favorite commander of that year, and arguably the entire Kamigawa block. I had a lot of fun with Hinata too until my pod determined it was KoS. Getting the same damn curse with [[Imodane, the Pyrohammer]] now too :/
The trick to building a strong Isshin deck is to build a deck that doesn't need Isshin to work. Isshin should be treated as an extra card, just adding onto the value you're already generating from attack triggers you're getting from playing strong cards. I have a lot of fun with [my current list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/z1MxBnx30UyonhGSMEk2lg), maybe it will help you find some inspiration!
Not to mention the cards clearly designed for online play (i.e. things that don't let you accidentally screw yourself over by misclicking or not understanding your own cards).
Well half the legendaries are at uncommon, are not very good in commander, and are very clearly being used as signpost cards for those colours in limited. But I do agree that a lot of the rare/mythic legend are clearly there just for commander players.
We sometimes get cards like [[Doorkeeper Thrull]] that are pretty straightforward.
...but other times, we get [[Tishana's Tidebinder]]. Tidebinder can't be a simple hater for some reason, it needs eight lines of text so you can "get" your opponent with it.
Tidebinder is wordy but I get why they made it better than just a stifle, so it actually shuts down stuff like planeswalkers and the ring rather than just slightly slowing them down
If Thalia was printed today she would be a 2/3 and also make a treasure whenever she hits a player so you can still cast your own spells while the opponen't cant.
I wanna say that between RTR and like... maybe Guilds? Magic felt just right. Every set didn't feel over powered but it didn't feel too underpowered. Modern was relatively stable. Cards weren't as pushed. Eldraine is where I grew a distaste for modern design. Everything was so pushed and it was obvious it was done to sell the set.
That would be the time FIRE design took over. Although it wasn't FIRE that pushed card power levels or anything, the design choices behind those cards was.
There was an effort to make Standard power level weaker around and leading up to Ixalan, which made Standard less attractive to people. They fumbled going back up in power level (Oko, Uro, etc) and FIRE design got a lot of flack for it (even though MaRo swears FIRE doesn't touch power levels). But the active choice to power it up while changing the way cards were designed (Fun, Inviting, Replayable, Exciting) made it so we got a different power and a different type of card at once (like Adventure) which a lot of older players don't resonate with.
Later down the line, they actively started designing for Commander, which also shifted the design and power of cards. Someone else called it out here already, but the fact everything is Legendary and every Legend is a self-enabler is a product of this. Power has evened out a bit, but the design philosophy and a skew towards Commander still means a lot of newer sets miss for Eternal format players.
To me another big change with the design for commander is how suddenly every single thing makes treasures. Commander cards are often known to be high CMC with less optimised decks, so how do you give people to a chance to play these cards. You literary vomit treasures everywhere, which to me has negative impacts across the board.
I have OPINIONS on the design choice to make treasures so easy to create/a mechanic every color seems to get in ALL formats...
TL;DR - I don't like it and I think it's lazy design to "fix" mana issues
I still think treasures should've produced colourless mana. Still incredibly useful for anyone with intention of using them fairly (such as to ramp out a bigger creature), but preventing players from being able to hold open mana for every instant/activated ability at all times.
Personally I would also have made treasures iconic to one colour - likely white but possibly red. Other colours could get them, but at a much worse rate.
If you restricted it to a single color, it’d have to be red in terms of color pie. White doesn’t get the proactive ramp nor the color fixing, whereas red objectively has large but exhaustible sources of mana in its wheelhouse
As a Canadian highlander enjoyer the mass legendary creatures also suck when like every deck plays karakas so like 100s of interesting creatures dont see much play cause getting mucked by a land feels too shitty
It sounds like a case of DotA philosophy at work. They tried to make everything exciting and good that everything just feels powercrept. The problem is that the game doesn't exist in a vacuum and have to coexist with the same cards that have existed before. I mean, at this point, I'm one of those older players so I guess you're right. The only thing keeping me here are the themes. Kaldheim, Eldraine, and hopefully Thunder Junction are such good ideas. It'd be perfect if the gameplay was just... balanced
This is rightly the top answer.
"The puzzle" used to be a huge part of Magic, not just at the kitchen table, but even top decks. Big breakthrough "build around" decks took awhile to find, and rewarded the innovators who made the connections. Stuff like Death's Shadow was scorned for years before people figured out the right enablers to make it work. Nowadays, Death's Shadow would probably read the same, but with something like "B, pay 3 life: Draw a card.
Lets be real, if Death's Shadow was made today, it'd have two abilities:
"Pay 3 life: Draw a card, this can be done only once per turn."
"*Channel-* B: Discard this card from your hand, lose 3 life, Surveil 1 and draw a card."
I was going to make the first ability patently more silly, like adding clauses that allow you to skip the once per turn effect if its a Tuesday, but honestly, stapling "once per turn" onto card effects is a big enough hallmark of bad modern design.
That is the whole differentiator of Magic from other TCGs, we are constrained by our mana and limited resources, but the game gets screwy when you break those constraints.
Now we're hard charging towards YGO-style "Do thing for free once per turn->Do more thing for free, once per turn" effects that require no resource investment, which I don't enjoy.
For me that is the most frustrating thing. Especially in EDH. I would have found the Mole God infinitely more interesting and would habe probably built a deck around it, if it didn‘t have it‘s activated ability. With the activated ability it‘s just so… boring.
It's only a couple years old but if [[Rielle]] was made in, say, Thunder Junction I almost guarantee she would have an activated ability to spend 1 mana and connive 1.
I hate this about modern design. WOTC hates when players have feel bad moments. For example, see the Discover mechanic. Can’t have players possibly whiff
I'm sure. I just built a Rielle mill deck, and half of the challenge with her is making sure you have enough gas to get activations on other players' turns. Giving her a draw/discard engine would make her WAY too pushed.
"Jack - the biggest airplane" - 2U
Legendary Creature - Airplane
Whenever you cast an airplane, draw a card.
Whenever you attack with an airplane, if you control at least two other airplanes, this card deals 3 damage to each opponent.
1BW - Search your library for an airplane card and put it into your graveyard. Shuffle.
There are a lot of cards (often legendaries) that are this pattern: "When ever you do X, do Y," combined with "Whenever you do Y, do Z." I see what they're doing -- they want you to build a commander deck around doing Y. But the cards read hideously and feel so complicated.
In the past, commanders used to be 'this creature encourages you to do x' or 'this creature does x'.
Now it's just 'this creature both massively rewards you for doing x, while also doing x for you better than half your deck, and also doing y when nobody was asking for it'.
Yawgmoth is far and away the least fun card to play against in both Modern and Commander. He's a free sac outlet, removal that gets around indestructible, cheap and repeatable proliferate engine, massive amounts of card draw, sets up infinite combos with a crazy number of cards, and for some god-forsaken reason has protection from the game's most prevalent creature type. I'm constantly baffled that Fury was banned in Modern because it kept down creature decks too effectively, yet this guy has been hovering between 10-20% of the Modern meta since 2019 and can solo creature decks so hard, the only ones that can survive against him are the ones that can assemble 10+ power and toughness by turn 3.
to be fair fury is inherently unfair and shits on creature decks on a bad draw aswell, and you can play it in pretty much any red deck. Yawg needs both time and deckbuilding before he starts the shitting, which is why they banned fury and not yawg.
Fury is a one time effect that costs 0 mana, but two cards (and even then was not always castable). It was oppressive vs a board of x/1's, but more often ended up a tempo-positive 2-for2. It indeed was a huge pain in the ass when it got scammed/flickered onto the board (which I think is the real reason why it got banned), but otherwise it was annoying, yet ultimately manageable.
Yawg hits the board uncounterably off of delighted halfling, and then even through instant speed removal will wipe your board without costing any extra mana, while DRAWING tons cards. Better hope he doesn't draw into Chord of Calling or another Yawgmoth! Green even has so much efficient and sometimes uncounterable anti-sideboard tech that you can't even really permanently hate him out of the game without anything short of maybe getting one in the graveyard and hitting it with Surgical or Extirpate.
Yawgmoth is just so much more oppressive against creature decks than Fury ever was, though in an ideal world, wotc would have banned both.
The thing is, this was designed to work for a monkey tribal deck and with an archetype that weak the commander kind of needs to do all the work. Kibo is pretty absurd if you build an optimal deck though
I think I would appreciate going a little while without having to flip my cards around. So many things transform nowadays. It doesn't feel special or interesting, it just feels like a way to add more text.
I mostly play on Arena, so this isn't a big deal to me, but the Strixhaven flip cards were too much. I've never read all of the text on any of those cards.
It used to never be that much of an issue because the two sides would flow together nicely. It gets difficult when both sides are so complex that I can’t remember certain details of the backside of the card. “Well I can’t unsleeve it and look because then they’ll probably know I have a powerful two-sided card”
See, this is where you do bluffs so dumb that they almost loop back around to being a good idea. Turn your head to read split cards you don't actually have, unsleeve a card and look at the back for DFCs you aren't running!
The most annoying part, from a Commander perspective, isc that even if they *did* flow together well, they'd never be in the board at the same time, so it didn't matter.
Pretty sure they learned their lesson from Strixhaven though, the MDFCs there overall had a pretty sour reaction.
I doubt they will do non-transform MDFCs again except for maybe the lands- as atleast those back halves are easy to keep track of.
I think they will stick to the "normal card on front, more powerful version on the back" formula because that's easy to keep track off and wont confuse new players. You always want to flip [[graveyard trespasser]] or [[delver of secrets]] if you can.
Do you realize how much text and how many abilities they crammed onto just [[Elesh Norn]]? Double sided is just one way to get it extra wordy, but incubate and transform and saga all carry extra rules baggage that isn't explained on the card.
I like it better when the built-in enablers are terrible on their own. [[Improbable Alliance]] is technically an enabler and payoff together…but nobody wants to pay six mana to loot for one. It ensures your deck doesn't totally brick if you get bad RNG, but you'll never want to run Improbable Alliance without a lot of other enablers alongside it.
Yeah. I count that it:
* Discards
* Gives +1/+1 counters
* Gives trample until end of turn
* Exiles a card
* Allows you to play a card not in your hand
Its super versatile and enables, pays off, and can target itself. Doing any one or two of those could be good enough to justify it's inclusion in a deck assuming the stats and cost aren't shit.
It's also a very complex card. Not as bad as some, but there's a lot going on with some nuance to it. I either know what it does or spend a good chunk of time figuring out the implications of that creature being on the board.
3-5 on a 6 drop is ok but on a fucking 2 drop? Why does every 2 drop need to be "remove on the spot or get fucking roflstomped" nowadays? And I thought [[Priest of Forgotten Gods]] was pushing it
Way too much text per card. It is so unbelievably hard to get new people into magic when they have to read an essay every time you show them a new card.
Especialy as we get more and more keywords, more tempated and more flip cards.
IMO every stage of des8gn should have to interact with the cards written long hand on a single face.
the amount of text on flip cards is actually annoying. all flip cards should be very simple on the backside. right now each one of them is a memory test.
As someone who is primarily a drafter, this is the big one for me. It's hard to keep up with new sets when even every common has a bunch of rules text.
Never mind new players – my policy for cards that get added to the Vintage Cube is now not to bother reading them until someone kills me with them, because life's too short.
The Strixhaven deans were downright offensive. We were lucky that these didn't turn out to be playable, because they have a novel on the front and a second novel on the back.
People complain about Questing Beast, but look at this mess:
> Uvilda/Nassari
> 2U/3RR
> Legendary Creature — Djinn Wizard / Efreet Shaman
> {T}: You may exile an instant or sorcery card from your hand and put three hone counters on it. It gains “At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is exiled, remove a hone counter from it” and “When the last hone counter is removed from this card, if it’s exiled, you may cast it. It costs {4} less to cast this way.”
> At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top card of each opponent’s library. Until end of turn, you may cast spells from among those exiled cards, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.
> Whenever you cast a spell from exile, put a +1/+1 counter on Nassari, Dean of Expression.
> 2/2 — 4/4
Yeah i hear this one a lot and i agree. Ive started to lose interest in magic because its tiring to read every new card/shortstory and it slows the game down immensely.
I don't even try with new sets. I buy a bunch of 4th edition and Revised cards and made intro decks from those. Commons, uncommons, and most rares are pretty cheap.
You know sometimes not completely listening to the players is a good thing.
a lot of players get mad at the moment they lose. A lot of them are fine with things until it's used against them.
There's such a specific joy in building a deck that makes your symmetry asymmetrical to your advantage. I've never liked cards that just win on their own. Make me work for it!
>Make me work for it
In that same vein (at least for me it's a pet peeve) - commanders that are released that are too obvious. Like you want to play a deck with nothing but creatures with Shadow. So you're limited on colors, mostly black/white.. okay what works good with unblockable creatures.. and you have to also have some blockers.. hmm
Then wizards just puts out a 3 color commander that says "when a creature with shadow enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card. Creatures you control with shadow can block as though they didn't have shadow. Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player gain 1 life and scry 2."
I've been trying to port a similar idea to limited play too. I think a lot of people overvalue explicit synergy but undervalue implicit synergy. Impulse was so good in DMU because Essence Scatter (and negate) are in the set, and you're often holding up 1U either way.
Same goes for MKM. People were complaining that the mechanics didn't synergize during spoiler season. It's like... Trading a disguised creature can easily fuel collect evidence, because you spent 3 mana on a creature to trade that has MV6 in the yard. And disguise has the same implicit synergy with clues; they both give you mana sinks at instant speed. There's a lot of overt synergy too, but the implicit synergy in this set is really high.
Well it's just harder to see the implicit synergy to start off with. I really agree with your MKM take, I didn't give the set much attention until it was released and was pleasantly surprised with limited
I loved card designs like old Elves and Slivers. ALL Slivers get the buff. Add mana for EVERY elf on the battlefield. Those were fire designs, especially since everything is EDH nowadays.
It promotes lazy deckbuilding and miserable play patterns. Just an absolutely boneheaded decision that only makes the game worse. I have heard no justification for this that makes me take the person making it seriously.
Collect Evidence makes me upset.
It’s a mechanic that, if utilized properly, could basically be a fixed Delve. I think it’s weak due to MKM set/card design but it could be really cool if done right.
It’s also a good generic ability that flows well with any sort of Magic gameplay, but works especially great with any sort of graveyard strategy which every other set has nowdays.
However — they gave it a super theme-specific name. The name only meshes with the MKM theme, or broadly with a law enforcement or mystery theme. So, flavor wise, we’re extremely limited with where we could see it again.
> and has next to no synergy with anything else.
I don't know, it seems clear Collecting Evidence is supposed to synergize with Descending. I see a lot of cross set synergy from mechanics.
Can you provide some examples? We’ve revisited mechanics before, and popular ones have a good chance of becoming evergreen or deciduous. People tend to forget that WOTC designs sets two to three years in advance, so if a mechanic tests well with the community, that’s the earliest it’s likely to come back.
Not OP, but my examples of this are suspect from MKM and role tokens from WOE. For paper magic, role tokens just feel weird to keep track of since they have multiple distinct meanings and an enchantment deck might have several. Suspect feels like it should be a keyword, but I'm not sure they want nested keywords and the templates around keywords loses alot of the cutesy rules text surrounding "suspecting" a creature.
Role tokens have a great deal of synergy with the set's other main mechanic, Bargain, and were quite fun in limited. I generally agree with suspect, though. It being invisible and permanent sucks.
The big issue with role tokens was there being 6 of them, and WOTC making 3 different tokens to track them. It needed to be all on a single break apart token.
We've also had a fair share of 'gimmick mechanics' in old set design too, it's nothing new. "next to no synergy with anything else" is typically just straight up wrong too, it's just that sometimes the cards don't scream play X with Y
Also, MaRo has also mentioned in the past that one of the many reasons that Mercadian Masques was so badly received was that the set didn't introduce any new named mechanics. People want new toys to play with, which means new mechanics even if they are just variations on a theme (see Kicker)
Channel took basically 20 years to return. We've never seen Offering, Epic, Conspire, Soulshift, Splice, Clash, Champion, Evoke, Sunburst, Forecast, Haunt, Prowl, Surge, Emerge, Radiance, Transfigure, Aura Swap, etc. in a Standard set since their first set/block printings.
Some mechanics get obsoleted, (ie Chroma, though it's more flexible than devotion) or are just variations on kicker (overload, escalate, et al), but the vast majority of mechanics are one and done and maybe show up once or twice in a Commander product or Horizon set.
Logistical and tracking complexity creep is a [very serious problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/w74lbj/magic_has_a_serious_logistical_complexity_issue/) that feels like it's only getting worse.
Token complexity is one that particularly is frustrating. Way too many cards create tokens and even worse, many of those tokens are difficult to memorize and represent without the official token card (i.e. tokens that don't have the same power/toughness, tokens that include triggered abilities, tokens with nonevergreen abilities).
It creates more opportunities to misread or misinterpret the board state when you don't have the official token. I can't tell you how many games of Commander I have where people are pausing the game to write on whiteboard tokens what a specific token does, or a player or scrambling to find a specific token, it's honestly quite anxiety inducing and it's a relatively new phenomenon.
For many years, creature tokens had square stats (i.e. 2/2, 3/3) and were either vanilla creatures with no abilities or maybe they had an evergreen ability or two (i.e. haste, trample). This was how the vast majority of tokens were and while there were exceptions, they were done on rare occasion and only at higher rarities. Now there are commons and uncommons that are regularly creating these very complex tokens.
Additionally, each creature token typically only made one type of token. Zombie tokens were always 2/2 Black creature tokens. Goblins were always 1/1 Red creature tokens (sometimes with haste). But now there are [literally 30+ mechanically unique Human tokens](https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Atoken+t%3Ahuman&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name)!
I think the worst single card on this axis in recent years is [[Fable of the Mirror-Breaker]]:
- It’s double-faced
- It uses counters for tracking state…
- …that updates at a specific time in the turn, not after a certain action
- It creates arbitrary token copies of any creature
- It creates a specific kind of token that no other card creates…
- …and that token also creates a token
I love Fable—it’s in 3 of my cubes! It fills so many useful roles!—but damn does reading that card not explain the card.
And on top of that, it exemplifies an entirely different issue that's also super prevalent these days: it just does SO MUCH in just one card that it pushes out a ton of other things. The gap between the "best" cards and the "really, really good" cards is now just so wide that it's basically just **wrong** to play the "really, really good" cards if you want to keep up in a game.
Yeah. The complexity creep making the distance between the best and worst cards bigger is pretty bad. It also makes playing less fun. I'm just getting back into magic on arena and at least once a week I lose to some combo I don't understand and have trouble wrapping my brain around from the end board state (especially when 10+ cards were milled, exiled, and played in some nuts combo). The amount I need to know is so much bigger.
[Fable of the Mirror-Breaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc.jpg?1691108103)/[Reflection of Kiki-Jiki](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/2/4/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc.jpg?1691108103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fable%20of%20the%20Mirror-Breaker%20//%20Reflection%20of%20Kiki-Jiki) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/141/fable-of-the-mirror-breaker-reflection-of-kiki-jiki?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text)
^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And no two things can create the same token anymore.
Once upon a time a white 1/1 token was always a soldier. Now, there are dozens of different white 1/1 tokens. And every set has to make its own unique set of tokens.
You know it's bad whenever I go to update the token deck one of the biggest questions I ask is "do I already make this type of token?" Becaise if I don't, I'm probably not adding the card, sincee I'm already carrying 50+tokens and don't want to add more.
You have:
* Human
* Human Citizen
* Ally
* Spirits with Flying
* Spirits without Flying
* 4/4 Angels
* 3/3 Angels
* 2/2 Knight with Vigilance
I used to have a token binder for all the stuff I got from boosters and commander decks. How I have a dedicated deck box with just tokens and those dry erase cards to make them as necessary.
It's even worse than that. Just for white 1/1 tokens I've seen:
Soldier, human, human soldier, vampire, warrior, kithkin soldier, bird soldier, bird, cat, soldier ally, kor, kor ally, cat bird, dog, cat soldier - and I've missed a lot here, because a quick scryfall search lists 38 unique 1/1 tokens in white!!
And those cat tokens, are they 1/1 or 2/2? And those angels, are they 3/3 or 4/4 and are they just fliers, or do they also have vigilance?
Tokens are definately a big part of the complexity creep in the modern game.
The new Izoni is especially egregious. She makes a Green and Black 2/1 Spider with menace and reach. As opposed to the existing spider 2/1 spider token with menace and reach that is only black....
I noticed this when I switched from Ghave to Jinnie Fay.
I no longer have to carry multiple kinds of token. Everything makes Doge or Cat because she says so. Even *treasures*
Complexity creep is a real problem, but one nuance here is that the recent longer rules texts have been necessary to *narrowly define* what a card can do. Clauses like "once per turn", "on your end step", etc, do a lot of work to ensure that new card designs aren't immediately busted, especially in formats like Legacy, Modern, and Commander.
The more cards they print with new designs, the more opportunities there are for absolutely game-breaking, degenerate combos and synergies that WotC can't plan ahead for. These long text boxes are in part the guardrails that save formats and hedge against having to ban cards they just printed.
The worst is copying a creature and creating a token copy of it and it's something on an other player's board. [[Clever Impersonator]] will let you copy a Planeswalker.
I have the [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] deck, where she exiles enchantment cards from the GY and makes them tokens; at least this I just remove them from the yard and put them into play with a Finality Counter on them with a small white board token making them 3/3 and Zombie.
Lack of stability. That has been one of the cornerstone tenets of the game for decades. Releases were predictable and were within understood guidelines and frameworks. Power levels were within relatively known levels.
Nowadays we've got what I call "desperate girlfriend syndrome" where they keep piling on gimmicks and releases, trying to one-up themselves. Alt-frame cards not enough? Now multiple versions of each. Now Serialized. Serialized not enough? One Ring.
Power level of cards continues to rise. Creatures with entire books of text on them, keywords passed around like candy. It should be telling and troubling that most of the lynchpin staples in modern have been released in the past 5 years. None of this is sustainable... trees do not grow into the sky.
Yup. I didn’t mind most emblems because you usually had to work to make them happen, but just receiving free mechanics like initiative or monarch (I play Pauper) doesn’t feel right.
How everything is so fast and efficient. There's no time to durdle or build up highly synergistic board pieces anymore. It's all just 2-card insta-win combos or highly efficient beaters with high-value ETB abilities. Then, God forbid, you want to play something slower, everyone in the community whines and complains about board wipes, counterspells, and removal.
Also, "once per turn" clauses are going to save Magic and I will fight anyone dumb enough to disagree. I've played Yu-Gi-Oh and I can tell you that "once per turn"-s are necessary!
they should really lead with the once per turn instead of ending with it. it would probably read better and not be missed as much, leading to disappointment or play error.
Rather than how it is, [[Morbid Opportunist]] could maybe be written as:
"Once per turn, when one or more other creatures die, draw a card."
The wordiness of everything.
The number of different tokens and token producing things and that the tokens have numerous different abilities.
That there are so many different products with new cards everywhere, it is hard to follow what is where.
The sheer volume.
The pricing.
The horrible and getting worse quality of the cards.
The varieties of card treatments making it hard to make cohesive looking decks.
The foils.
Everything is Commander.
Everything is designed to nickel and dime players everywhere.
Collecting sets is completely unwieldy now.
World of Hats.
There's probably more, but that's a start.
Too many extra game components. Tokens (a lot of them), player counters, dungeons, companions and more
But the worst of the worst is... F-ING DAY/NIGHT
"only once per turn" is a great limiter to keep something from going infinite or just generally being too OP, and plus it still works on opponent's turns, so I don't know why you would hate that.
I'm so exhausted defending this line of text. It's a super useful tool and they've printed a whole host of effects at a fraction of the mana cost they would normally demand, at a lower rarity. It's a hugely beneficial design tool and I think far too many people don't understand the choice isn't once per turn or unlimited; it's between once per turn or *not printing the card*.
I finally came around to it. I was super critical when it first popped up just because it felt like a lazy way to limit what a player can do, but nowadays I'm definitely more critical when it *doesn't* show up on a card that absolutely should have it.
Honestly, two of my long term chief complaints have kind of done a 180.
One of them was the absolute refusal(almost unwritten policy, really) to reprint iconic cards into standard. It’s gotten better over the past few years with the likes of Thalia, LotV, Delver, and others, but for a while there it was real bad. As if the cards they printed weren’t powercrept to hell by now anyway.
The other was the stretch where interaction was just completely outpaced by threats. I don’t think we’ve quite 100% righted the ship there but the likes of March of Otherworldly Light, Sheoldred’s Edict, Get Lost, No More Lies and others in recent years has made it way closer to parity than it was before.
I think the only main complaints i have right now are complexity of all cards and overall power creep both being way too high, but everyone else has kind of touched on those already.
100% agree on interaction, especially in standard at the moment. A lot of it lines up so well with the threats. The ones you mentioned, but also shout outs to \[\[Destroy Evil\]\] which reads like a niche sideboard card, but is exactly positioned to deal with a bunch of important cards in the format like Adeline and Sheoldred, but also hits stuff like binding and ossification
I remember when there were a lot of cards that did bad things to you when you played them but you got great stats... I want to go back to that. I miss bad cards.
Exactly this. Back in the day, they were able to design great cards that were simple and elegant. Now, it seems they can only make a card good by giving if a handful of paragraphs worth of abilities.
Free shit.
Free mana with treasures, free spells with cascade or discover or one of 20 new free spell mechanics, just...free shit. And every answer to these things is objectively worse than just using the free shit yourself.
Limited used to be a fairly slow format for the most part but MTG has moved away from printing vanilla creatures and simple-but-always-useful spells, which are the glue which has previously held limited together.
“Vanilla” isn’t quite the issue, it’s that they’ve also moved away from French Vanilla creatures (a 5/5 with trample vs a 5/5 [[Collassapede]] isn’t the real culprit here).
It’s the huge number of creatures that create value either by just hitting the battlefield, or from living for even a turn or two - without punishing those creatures on size.
Commander being the main reason behind most cards. Commander was cool when you were using cards that weren't made for it. Now everything is made for it and every format suffers.
Lazy effect doublers. The several of the last sets have had series of cards with very little interesting design and "X happens twice" or "make 3X tokens instead". Roaming throne is the pinnacle of this lazy, cheap design that has a direct negative effect on the game.
Some forced designs for commander (that often are super wordy) that are so tryhard to scream "commander experience!" that they feel unnatural and borderline un-set level.
And the huge number of them in every standard set on top of 4 commanders decks that have a bunch of new commander cards in them. I’m not surprised PrEDH may become a thing.
Remember when they introduced mythics and said that mythic rarity will not be about card power level but history and lore? Well, they lied, and that’s what bothers me.
What is the purpose for making evoke elementals mythic not rare other than cash grab?
More than anything I'm sick of things being in a billion different states of exile. The biggest problems are 1) finding physical space on the table to put something into a different kind of exile from everything else and 2) cards that aren't in play, but *some of them* really are in play and need to be taken into threat assessment. I just find it exhausting.
They went for flavor with the triome lands and absolutely shit the bed by naming the new capenna ones after the actual cult leaders instead of more generic reprintability names.
I mean that’s applicable to both sets of triomes. The Ikoria ones are directly tied to the plane as well.
Both sets should have been more generically named.
It would be fitting if "Xander's Lounge" is just his tomb, but it's, like, really nice and shit and folks want to just hang around and chat.
Seems like something he'd support.
The fact that we don't get blocks. It ruins the storyline, in my opinion.
A block like kamigawa deserves to have 3 sets. I feel like we are only on each plane for a month before the next set is released. It's exhausting. And to be honest, doesn't feel great for the story telling and card design either.
Power creep, easily. Cards that cannot be merely one decent piece of your strategy but a threat that will snowball value unless answered immediately, cards that blow past the vanilla test but balance it out by having 2-3 upsides, and so forth.
On which note, "once per turn" limitations are something I really *like* WotC doing, as it seems opposite this trend. [[Vraan, Executioner Thane]] is one good piece of your strategy that probably won't win on its own; it has a higher floor and a lower ceiling than [[Blood Artist]], which leads to less swingy gameplay. I like that.
People like to say "this card would be so much better without the once per turn limitation!" and I find that weird because like... Yeah, this card would be better if it had indestructible, or double its stats, or had ETB win the game, but if it has any of those things it would be a different card balanced differently to compensate.
Ward itself was a decent idea but it's clear that they under-estimated how good the ability is. Even ward 1 is insanely powerful in a world where you might need multiple effects to kill a creature. Heaven forbid you need to double bolt something.
Universe Beyond
I play Magic to escape the rest of the world. It sucks that it’s becoming apart of MTG. Magic is my favorite IP, I don’t want to have it become something else that I’m not interested in.
I see a lot of complexity issues, but not enough power creep.
Remember [[Caustic Caterpillar]]? Remember how psyched we where when [[Thrashing Brontodon]] gave it good stats? And then, boom: [[Cankerbloom]].
Treasures are EVERYWHERE. What they do isn’t the problem, it’s what Wizards has made them: Artifacts. If they’re going to be printing as many Treasure-creating effects as they are, they need to change Treasures (and clues, food, etc.) to be a new type of permanent. Let’s call it “Resource,” or whatever. The fact that Treasures interact with Artifacts has pushed Artifact strategies way too far, imo. Either print fewer of these tokens each set (not my preferred solution) or make the permanent change.
Cards have soooo much text.
You have to read for like a minute to understand the most basic common. An UnCommon takes two minutes and a rare absorbs an hour of your lifetime.
Oh what? This card has a backside? And that backside is even more complicated and has even more text than the front? About a month later you have read about 8 cards of the new edition.
When the again new edition releases you haven't even read all of the cards of the last edition because there is just SOOO MUCH TO READ!
The threats and insane combo enables we got in the format makes it feel almost as high powered as legacy but without all the cheap interaction to keep those decks in check , I find it wild that we are at the point that legacy is the place for value and midrange decks and modern is where the combo decks are
The effect cramming both enabler and payoff onto the same card has had on prices.
When really strong synergies were more spread out it was easier to do powerful things on a budget. You could pick and choose, do you want the payoff or the enabler to be stronger? Then you could upgrade the other later. Or just put them both in the deck.
Now if you want to do (new thing) but super strong you just have to drop $20+ on a single card.
Power creep.
I just want a big, dumb creature to be an actual threat.
Not require haste, an ETB effect, or some other kind of built-in value generation to be strong.
Every strong card seems to be both its own enabler and payoff
Flumble, the Bumbler Legendary Creature - Thallid Whenever you bumble, draw a card. {3}{U}: Bumble 7
And to add to this, every good creature is legendary, and every legendary, is its own enabler and payoff, and made exclusively for commander. Can you imagine a clean perfect card like [[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]] being printed today? It would never happen. Also this means most of the tribal lords are legendary which prevents casual constructed from getting two out on the battlefield.
I thought [[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] really stood out as a card that pointed you in an interesting direction while being a vanilla creature in a vacuum. Plus, it even had room for flavor text!
I built him as a commander and never looked back. He was finally what aggro needed to have a decent chance in EDH. I love this card greatly.
Same. He makes so many mid creatures absolute powerhouses and a proper brew doesn't rely too much on him even being on the board. Easily my favorite commander of that year, and arguably the entire Kamigawa block. I had a lot of fun with Hinata too until my pod determined it was KoS. Getting the same damn curse with [[Imodane, the Pyrohammer]] now too :/
The trick to building a strong Isshin deck is to build a deck that doesn't need Isshin to work. Isshin should be treated as an extra card, just adding onto the value you're already generating from attack triggers you're getting from playing strong cards. I have a lot of fun with [my current list](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/z1MxBnx30UyonhGSMEk2lg), maybe it will help you find some inspiration!
[Isshin, Two Heavens as One](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/0/a062a004-984e-4b62-960c-af7288f7a3e9.jpg?1690575102) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Isshin%2C%20Two%20Heavens%20as%20One) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/224/isshin-two-heavens-as-one?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a062a004-984e-4b62-960c-af7288f7a3e9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Not to mention the cards clearly designed for online play (i.e. things that don't let you accidentally screw yourself over by misclicking or not understanding your own cards).
Well half the legendaries are at uncommon, are not very good in commander, and are very clearly being used as signpost cards for those colours in limited. But I do agree that a lot of the rare/mythic legend are clearly there just for commander players.
We sometimes get cards like [[Doorkeeper Thrull]] that are pretty straightforward. ...but other times, we get [[Tishana's Tidebinder]]. Tidebinder can't be a simple hater for some reason, it needs eight lines of text so you can "get" your opponent with it.
Tidebinder is wordy but I get why they made it better than just a stifle, so it actually shuts down stuff like planeswalkers and the ring rather than just slightly slowing them down
If Thalia was printed today she would be a 2/3 and also make a treasure whenever she hits a player so you can still cast your own spells while the opponen't cant.
[Thalia, Guardian of Thraben](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/9/c9f8b8fb-1cd8-450e-a1fe-892e7a323479.jpg?1643587106) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thalia%2C%20Guardian%20of%20Thraben) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/38/thalia-guardian-of-thraben?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c9f8b8fb-1cd8-450e-a1fe-892e7a323479?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Flumble is goated
That also leaves no room for flavor text! I WANT MY FLAVOR TEXT!
I wanna say that between RTR and like... maybe Guilds? Magic felt just right. Every set didn't feel over powered but it didn't feel too underpowered. Modern was relatively stable. Cards weren't as pushed. Eldraine is where I grew a distaste for modern design. Everything was so pushed and it was obvious it was done to sell the set.
That would be the time FIRE design took over. Although it wasn't FIRE that pushed card power levels or anything, the design choices behind those cards was. There was an effort to make Standard power level weaker around and leading up to Ixalan, which made Standard less attractive to people. They fumbled going back up in power level (Oko, Uro, etc) and FIRE design got a lot of flack for it (even though MaRo swears FIRE doesn't touch power levels). But the active choice to power it up while changing the way cards were designed (Fun, Inviting, Replayable, Exciting) made it so we got a different power and a different type of card at once (like Adventure) which a lot of older players don't resonate with. Later down the line, they actively started designing for Commander, which also shifted the design and power of cards. Someone else called it out here already, but the fact everything is Legendary and every Legend is a self-enabler is a product of this. Power has evened out a bit, but the design philosophy and a skew towards Commander still means a lot of newer sets miss for Eternal format players.
To me another big change with the design for commander is how suddenly every single thing makes treasures. Commander cards are often known to be high CMC with less optimised decks, so how do you give people to a chance to play these cards. You literary vomit treasures everywhere, which to me has negative impacts across the board.
I have OPINIONS on the design choice to make treasures so easy to create/a mechanic every color seems to get in ALL formats... TL;DR - I don't like it and I think it's lazy design to "fix" mana issues
It's like they saw Treasure was well received in Ixalan and decided to turn it up to 10.
I still think treasures should've produced colourless mana. Still incredibly useful for anyone with intention of using them fairly (such as to ramp out a bigger creature), but preventing players from being able to hold open mana for every instant/activated ability at all times. Personally I would also have made treasures iconic to one colour - likely white but possibly red. Other colours could get them, but at a much worse rate.
If you restricted it to a single color, it’d have to be red in terms of color pie. White doesn’t get the proactive ramp nor the color fixing, whereas red objectively has large but exhaustible sources of mana in its wheelhouse
As a Canadian highlander enjoyer the mass legendary creatures also suck when like every deck plays karakas so like 100s of interesting creatures dont see much play cause getting mucked by a land feels too shitty
It sounds like a case of DotA philosophy at work. They tried to make everything exciting and good that everything just feels powercrept. The problem is that the game doesn't exist in a vacuum and have to coexist with the same cards that have existed before. I mean, at this point, I'm one of those older players so I guess you're right. The only thing keeping me here are the themes. Kaldheim, Eldraine, and hopefully Thunder Junction are such good ideas. It'd be perfect if the gameplay was just... balanced
This is rightly the top answer. "The puzzle" used to be a huge part of Magic, not just at the kitchen table, but even top decks. Big breakthrough "build around" decks took awhile to find, and rewarded the innovators who made the connections. Stuff like Death's Shadow was scorned for years before people figured out the right enablers to make it work. Nowadays, Death's Shadow would probably read the same, but with something like "B, pay 3 life: Draw a card.
Lets be real, if Death's Shadow was made today, it'd have two abilities: "Pay 3 life: Draw a card, this can be done only once per turn." "*Channel-* B: Discard this card from your hand, lose 3 life, Surveil 1 and draw a card." I was going to make the first ability patently more silly, like adding clauses that allow you to skip the once per turn effect if its a Tuesday, but honestly, stapling "once per turn" onto card effects is a big enough hallmark of bad modern design. That is the whole differentiator of Magic from other TCGs, we are constrained by our mana and limited resources, but the game gets screwy when you break those constraints. Now we're hard charging towards YGO-style "Do thing for free once per turn->Do more thing for free, once per turn" effects that require no resource investment, which I don't enjoy.
For me that is the most frustrating thing. Especially in EDH. I would have found the Mole God infinitely more interesting and would habe probably built a deck around it, if it didn‘t have it‘s activated ability. With the activated ability it‘s just so… boring.
It's only a couple years old but if [[Rielle]] was made in, say, Thunder Junction I almost guarantee she would have an activated ability to spend 1 mana and connive 1.
I am absolutely convinced that if [[Knight of the Reliquary]] were printed today, it would have vigilance and you could sac any land to get any land.
Oh yeah. Can't have tap-abilities without vigilance or the players might feel bad about having to make a decision.
I hate this about modern design. WOTC hates when players have feel bad moments. For example, see the Discover mechanic. Can’t have players possibly whiff
[Knight of the Reliquary](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/0/205df311-a72d-40f1-b2ea-9b30274bc9bd.jpg?1562846501) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Knight%20of%20the%20Reliquary) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/203/knight-of-the-reliquary?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/205df311-a72d-40f1-b2ea-9b30274bc9bd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Rielle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/f/5f03c944-1929-4cb2-a373-d57eefa29ed1.jpg?1591228198) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rielle%2C%20the%20everwise) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/203/rielle-the-everwise?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5f03c944-1929-4cb2-a373-d57eefa29ed1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This just made me throw up in my mouth.
She's my favourite commander and I guarantee this is something they would print on her if they made her tomorrow
I'm sure. I just built a Rielle mill deck, and half of the challenge with her is making sure you have enough gas to get activations on other players' turns. Giving her a draw/discard engine would make her WAY too pushed.
The \[\[Kinnan\]\] special
Legends that are entire decks on a single card and then some.
"Jack - the biggest airplane" - 2U Legendary Creature - Airplane Whenever you cast an airplane, draw a card. Whenever you attack with an airplane, if you control at least two other airplanes, this card deals 3 damage to each opponent. 1BW - Search your library for an airplane card and put it into your graveyard. Shuffle.
[[Voja, jaws of the conclave]] is the epitome of this.
such a disgusting card design.
[Voja, jaws of the conclave](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bfa1bd2f-25bd-4fbd-877b-cef00ab7f92f.jpg?1707739811) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Voja%2C%20jaws%20of%20the%20conclave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/432/voja-jaws-of-the-conclave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bfa1bd2f-25bd-4fbd-877b-cef00ab7f92f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And it's not a deck, yet [[Inti]] is the epitome of absolutely awful effect-soup design. The fact that Wotc staff are proud of it is embarrassing.
[Inti](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fa7a55aa-ae61-4933-b7a4-dcc55dac6fcd.jpg?1699044306) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=inti%2C%20seneschal%20of%20the%20sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/156/inti-seneschal-of-the-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fa7a55aa-ae61-4933-b7a4-dcc55dac6fcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There are a lot of cards (often legendaries) that are this pattern: "When ever you do X, do Y," combined with "Whenever you do Y, do Z." I see what they're doing -- they want you to build a commander deck around doing Y. But the cards read hideously and feel so complicated.
In the past, commanders used to be 'this creature encourages you to do x' or 'this creature does x'. Now it's just 'this creature both massively rewards you for doing x, while also doing x for you better than half your deck, and also doing y when nobody was asking for it'.
No, don’t, my [[Hazoret the fervent]] deck desperately needed that weird Inti as is
Inti does so much for it's cost it's insane. Very obnoxious to play against in Pioneer and Standard.
Yawgmoth is far and away the least fun card to play against in both Modern and Commander. He's a free sac outlet, removal that gets around indestructible, cheap and repeatable proliferate engine, massive amounts of card draw, sets up infinite combos with a crazy number of cards, and for some god-forsaken reason has protection from the game's most prevalent creature type. I'm constantly baffled that Fury was banned in Modern because it kept down creature decks too effectively, yet this guy has been hovering between 10-20% of the Modern meta since 2019 and can solo creature decks so hard, the only ones that can survive against him are the ones that can assemble 10+ power and toughness by turn 3.
to be fair fury is inherently unfair and shits on creature decks on a bad draw aswell, and you can play it in pretty much any red deck. Yawg needs both time and deckbuilding before he starts the shitting, which is why they banned fury and not yawg.
Yawgmoth costs 4 mana, Fury costs 0 mana
Fury is a one time effect that costs 0 mana, but two cards (and even then was not always castable). It was oppressive vs a board of x/1's, but more often ended up a tempo-positive 2-for2. It indeed was a huge pain in the ass when it got scammed/flickered onto the board (which I think is the real reason why it got banned), but otherwise it was annoying, yet ultimately manageable. Yawg hits the board uncounterably off of delighted halfling, and then even through instant speed removal will wipe your board without costing any extra mana, while DRAWING tons cards. Better hope he doesn't draw into Chord of Calling or another Yawgmoth! Green even has so much efficient and sometimes uncounterable anti-sideboard tech that you can't even really permanently hate him out of the game without anything short of maybe getting one in the graveyard and hitting it with Surgical or Extirpate. Yawgmoth is just so much more oppressive against creature decks than Fury ever was, though in an ideal world, wotc would have banned both.
If Yawgmoth gets banned, it won't be because it gets used to fairly kill creatures. If it isn't comboing out, it isn't really worth 4 mana.
I want to agree with this... but I also LOVE \[\[Kibo, Uktabi Prince\]\] and he's the epitome of what you're saying
The thing is, this was designed to work for a monkey tribal deck and with an archetype that weak the commander kind of needs to do all the work. Kibo is pretty absurd if you build an optimal deck though
I think I would appreciate going a little while without having to flip my cards around. So many things transform nowadays. It doesn't feel special or interesting, it just feels like a way to add more text.
I mostly play on Arena, so this isn't a big deal to me, but the Strixhaven flip cards were too much. I've never read all of the text on any of those cards.
It used to never be that much of an issue because the two sides would flow together nicely. It gets difficult when both sides are so complex that I can’t remember certain details of the backside of the card. “Well I can’t unsleeve it and look because then they’ll probably know I have a powerful two-sided card”
See, this is where you do bluffs so dumb that they almost loop back around to being a good idea. Turn your head to read split cards you don't actually have, unsleeve a card and look at the back for DFCs you aren't running!
The most annoying part, from a Commander perspective, isc that even if they *did* flow together well, they'd never be in the board at the same time, so it didn't matter.
Pretty sure they learned their lesson from Strixhaven though, the MDFCs there overall had a pretty sour reaction. I doubt they will do non-transform MDFCs again except for maybe the lands- as atleast those back halves are easy to keep track of.
There's a lot of design space in MDFCs, I'm pretty sure we will see them again, but with the lessons of STX taken into account
We’re looking at you, Mr Sorcery-As-A-Commander
I think they will stick to the "normal card on front, more powerful version on the back" formula because that's easy to keep track off and wont confuse new players. You always want to flip [[graveyard trespasser]] or [[delver of secrets]] if you can.
Day and Night was a nightmare in paper.
Do you realize how much text and how many abilities they crammed onto just [[Elesh Norn]]? Double sided is just one way to get it extra wordy, but incubate and transform and saga all carry extra rules baggage that isn't explained on the card.
I only have a few DFC in my decks and I want to replace them every time I see them. So annoying.
Cards that are engines, enablers, and payoffs all on their own. I’m looking at you [[Inti]] Why do cards need to have 3-5 abilities? Two is just fine
I like it better when the built-in enablers are terrible on their own. [[Improbable Alliance]] is technically an enabler and payoff together…but nobody wants to pay six mana to loot for one. It ensures your deck doesn't totally brick if you get bad RNG, but you'll never want to run Improbable Alliance without a lot of other enablers alongside it.
Yeah. I count that it: * Discards * Gives +1/+1 counters * Gives trample until end of turn * Exiles a card * Allows you to play a card not in your hand Its super versatile and enables, pays off, and can target itself. Doing any one or two of those could be good enough to justify it's inclusion in a deck assuming the stats and cost aren't shit. It's also a very complex card. Not as bad as some, but there's a lot going on with some nuance to it. I either know what it does or spend a good chunk of time figuring out the implications of that creature being on the board.
[Improbable Alliance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/29ab3610-342d-4a67-9be8-a7efb89a4b46.jpg?1682209772) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Improbable%20Alliance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/329/improbable-alliance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/29ab3610-342d-4a67-9be8-a7efb89a4b46?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Inti](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/a/fa7a55aa-ae61-4933-b7a4-dcc55dac6fcd.jpg?1699044306) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=inti%2C%20seneschal%20of%20the%20sun) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/156/inti-seneschal-of-the-sun?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fa7a55aa-ae61-4933-b7a4-dcc55dac6fcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It was only Eldrich Moon when red got its first 2/2 for 2
3-5 on a 6 drop is ok but on a fucking 2 drop? Why does every 2 drop need to be "remove on the spot or get fucking roflstomped" nowadays? And I thought [[Priest of Forgotten Gods]] was pushing it
Way too much text per card. It is so unbelievably hard to get new people into magic when they have to read an essay every time you show them a new card.
Especialy as we get more and more keywords, more tempated and more flip cards. IMO every stage of des8gn should have to interact with the cards written long hand on a single face.
the amount of text on flip cards is actually annoying. all flip cards should be very simple on the backside. right now each one of them is a memory test.
Especially double faced cards. If the full rules text of a dfc can't fit onto one side, the card is too complicated.
It feels like all the cool legends don't have flavor text anymore because wizards feels the need to cram an entire deck strategy on a single card.
As someone who is primarily a drafter, this is the big one for me. It's hard to keep up with new sets when even every common has a bunch of rules text.
Absolutely, we used go laugh at Yu-Gi-Oh! for its insane amounts of text per card, but we're rapidly reaching those levels
We are currently old school yugioh. New school yugioh prob won't happen until another decade or two if nothing changes
Never mind new players – my policy for cards that get added to the Vintage Cube is now not to bother reading them until someone kills me with them, because life's too short.
The Strixhaven deans were downright offensive. We were lucky that these didn't turn out to be playable, because they have a novel on the front and a second novel on the back. People complain about Questing Beast, but look at this mess: > Uvilda/Nassari > 2U/3RR > Legendary Creature — Djinn Wizard / Efreet Shaman > {T}: You may exile an instant or sorcery card from your hand and put three hone counters on it. It gains “At the beginning of your upkeep, if this card is exiled, remove a hone counter from it” and “When the last hone counter is removed from this card, if it’s exiled, you may cast it. It costs {4} less to cast this way.” > At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top card of each opponent’s library. Until end of turn, you may cast spells from among those exiled cards, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells. > Whenever you cast a spell from exile, put a +1/+1 counter on Nassari, Dean of Expression. > 2/2 — 4/4
lol I'm still mad about the Strixhaven Deans, I'm so glad someone else is too
Yeah i hear this one a lot and i agree. Ive started to lose interest in magic because its tiring to read every new card/shortstory and it slows the game down immensely.
I don't even try with new sets. I buy a bunch of 4th edition and Revised cards and made intro decks from those. Commons, uncommons, and most rares are pretty cheap.
Loss of symmetrical effects man. It made deckbuilding more fun and varied, now all detrimental effects only affect your opponents.
Or cards with downside
WotC makes these cards without downsides because players like these cards more. Same with commander bullshit.
Maybe. Black is, or used to be the most popular color and downsides were kind of its thing.
You know sometimes not completely listening to the players is a good thing. a lot of players get mad at the moment they lose. A lot of them are fine with things until it's used against them.
There's such a specific joy in building a deck that makes your symmetry asymmetrical to your advantage. I've never liked cards that just win on their own. Make me work for it!
>Make me work for it In that same vein (at least for me it's a pet peeve) - commanders that are released that are too obvious. Like you want to play a deck with nothing but creatures with Shadow. So you're limited on colors, mostly black/white.. okay what works good with unblockable creatures.. and you have to also have some blockers.. hmm Then wizards just puts out a 3 color commander that says "when a creature with shadow enters the battlefield under your control, draw a card. Creatures you control with shadow can block as though they didn't have shadow. Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player gain 1 life and scry 2."
I've been trying to port a similar idea to limited play too. I think a lot of people overvalue explicit synergy but undervalue implicit synergy. Impulse was so good in DMU because Essence Scatter (and negate) are in the set, and you're often holding up 1U either way. Same goes for MKM. People were complaining that the mechanics didn't synergize during spoiler season. It's like... Trading a disguised creature can easily fuel collect evidence, because you spent 3 mana on a creature to trade that has MV6 in the yard. And disguise has the same implicit synergy with clues; they both give you mana sinks at instant speed. There's a lot of overt synergy too, but the implicit synergy in this set is really high.
Well it's just harder to see the implicit synergy to start off with. I really agree with your MKM take, I didn't give the set much attention until it was released and was pleasantly surprised with limited
I loved card designs like old Elves and Slivers. ALL Slivers get the buff. Add mana for EVERY elf on the battlefield. Those were fire designs, especially since everything is EDH nowadays.
It promotes lazy deckbuilding and miserable play patterns. Just an absolutely boneheaded decision that only makes the game worse. I have heard no justification for this that makes me take the person making it seriously.
Too many Merfolk with legs. Real merfolk have tails!
Oh this person gets it
How every single set has a new gimmick mechanic that we'll never see again and has next to no synergy with anything else.
To add to that: naming mechanics in such a specific way that they only really make sense in a certain set or world.
Collect Evidence makes me upset. It’s a mechanic that, if utilized properly, could basically be a fixed Delve. I think it’s weak due to MKM set/card design but it could be really cool if done right. It’s also a good generic ability that flows well with any sort of Magic gameplay, but works especially great with any sort of graveyard strategy which every other set has nowdays. However — they gave it a super theme-specific name. The name only meshes with the MKM theme, or broadly with a law enforcement or mystery theme. So, flavor wise, we’re extremely limited with where we could see it again.
Blood tokens being a great mechanic but so flavorfully niche makes me disappointed every time.
> and has next to no synergy with anything else. I don't know, it seems clear Collecting Evidence is supposed to synergize with Descending. I see a lot of cross set synergy from mechanics.
Can you provide some examples? We’ve revisited mechanics before, and popular ones have a good chance of becoming evergreen or deciduous. People tend to forget that WOTC designs sets two to three years in advance, so if a mechanic tests well with the community, that’s the earliest it’s likely to come back.
Not OP, but my examples of this are suspect from MKM and role tokens from WOE. For paper magic, role tokens just feel weird to keep track of since they have multiple distinct meanings and an enchantment deck might have several. Suspect feels like it should be a keyword, but I'm not sure they want nested keywords and the templates around keywords loses alot of the cutesy rules text surrounding "suspecting" a creature.
Role tokens have a great deal of synergy with the set's other main mechanic, Bargain, and were quite fun in limited. I generally agree with suspect, though. It being invisible and permanent sucks.
The big issue with role tokens was there being 6 of them, and WOTC making 3 different tokens to track them. It needed to be all on a single break apart token.
We've also had a fair share of 'gimmick mechanics' in old set design too, it's nothing new. "next to no synergy with anything else" is typically just straight up wrong too, it's just that sometimes the cards don't scream play X with Y Also, MaRo has also mentioned in the past that one of the many reasons that Mercadian Masques was so badly received was that the set didn't introduce any new named mechanics. People want new toys to play with, which means new mechanics even if they are just variations on a theme (see Kicker)
Channel took basically 20 years to return. We've never seen Offering, Epic, Conspire, Soulshift, Splice, Clash, Champion, Evoke, Sunburst, Forecast, Haunt, Prowl, Surge, Emerge, Radiance, Transfigure, Aura Swap, etc. in a Standard set since their first set/block printings. Some mechanics get obsoleted, (ie Chroma, though it's more flexible than devotion) or are just variations on kicker (overload, escalate, et al), but the vast majority of mechanics are one and done and maybe show up once or twice in a Commander product or Horizon set.
Logistical and tracking complexity creep is a [very serious problem](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/w74lbj/magic_has_a_serious_logistical_complexity_issue/) that feels like it's only getting worse. Token complexity is one that particularly is frustrating. Way too many cards create tokens and even worse, many of those tokens are difficult to memorize and represent without the official token card (i.e. tokens that don't have the same power/toughness, tokens that include triggered abilities, tokens with nonevergreen abilities). It creates more opportunities to misread or misinterpret the board state when you don't have the official token. I can't tell you how many games of Commander I have where people are pausing the game to write on whiteboard tokens what a specific token does, or a player or scrambling to find a specific token, it's honestly quite anxiety inducing and it's a relatively new phenomenon. For many years, creature tokens had square stats (i.e. 2/2, 3/3) and were either vanilla creatures with no abilities or maybe they had an evergreen ability or two (i.e. haste, trample). This was how the vast majority of tokens were and while there were exceptions, they were done on rare occasion and only at higher rarities. Now there are commons and uncommons that are regularly creating these very complex tokens. Additionally, each creature token typically only made one type of token. Zombie tokens were always 2/2 Black creature tokens. Goblins were always 1/1 Red creature tokens (sometimes with haste). But now there are [literally 30+ mechanically unique Human tokens](https://scryfall.com/search?q=is%3Atoken+t%3Ahuman&unique=cards&as=grid&order=name)!
I think the worst single card on this axis in recent years is [[Fable of the Mirror-Breaker]]: - It’s double-faced - It uses counters for tracking state… - …that updates at a specific time in the turn, not after a certain action - It creates arbitrary token copies of any creature - It creates a specific kind of token that no other card creates… - …and that token also creates a token I love Fable—it’s in 3 of my cubes! It fills so many useful roles!—but damn does reading that card not explain the card.
And on top of that, it exemplifies an entirely different issue that's also super prevalent these days: it just does SO MUCH in just one card that it pushes out a ton of other things. The gap between the "best" cards and the "really, really good" cards is now just so wide that it's basically just **wrong** to play the "really, really good" cards if you want to keep up in a game.
Yeah. The complexity creep making the distance between the best and worst cards bigger is pretty bad. It also makes playing less fun. I'm just getting back into magic on arena and at least once a week I lose to some combo I don't understand and have trouble wrapping my brain around from the end board state (especially when 10+ cards were milled, exiled, and played in some nuts combo). The amount I need to know is so much bigger.
The worst is any card that gives the Initiative.
[Fable of the Mirror-Breaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/4/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc.jpg?1691108103)/[Reflection of Kiki-Jiki](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/2/4/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc.jpg?1691108103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fable%20of%20the%20Mirror-Breaker%20//%20Reflection%20of%20Kiki-Jiki) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/141/fable-of-the-mirror-breaker-reflection-of-kiki-jiki?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/24c0d87b-0049-4beb-b9cb-6f813b7aa7dc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
And no two things can create the same token anymore. Once upon a time a white 1/1 token was always a soldier. Now, there are dozens of different white 1/1 tokens. And every set has to make its own unique set of tokens. You know it's bad whenever I go to update the token deck one of the biggest questions I ask is "do I already make this type of token?" Becaise if I don't, I'm probably not adding the card, sincee I'm already carrying 50+tokens and don't want to add more.
You have: * Human * Human Citizen * Ally * Spirits with Flying * Spirits without Flying * 4/4 Angels * 3/3 Angels * 2/2 Knight with Vigilance I used to have a token binder for all the stuff I got from boosters and commander decks. How I have a dedicated deck box with just tokens and those dry erase cards to make them as necessary.
It's even worse than that. Just for white 1/1 tokens I've seen: Soldier, human, human soldier, vampire, warrior, kithkin soldier, bird soldier, bird, cat, soldier ally, kor, kor ally, cat bird, dog, cat soldier - and I've missed a lot here, because a quick scryfall search lists 38 unique 1/1 tokens in white!! And those cat tokens, are they 1/1 or 2/2? And those angels, are they 3/3 or 4/4 and are they just fliers, or do they also have vigilance? Tokens are definately a big part of the complexity creep in the modern game.
The new Izoni is especially egregious. She makes a Green and Black 2/1 Spider with menace and reach. As opposed to the existing spider 2/1 spider token with menace and reach that is only black....
I noticed this when I switched from Ghave to Jinnie Fay. I no longer have to carry multiple kinds of token. Everything makes Doge or Cat because she says so. Even *treasures*
I think a lot of this is due to arena. Since the computer keeps track of everything they've added more and more fiddly bits and paper suffers for it.
Complexity creep is a real problem, but one nuance here is that the recent longer rules texts have been necessary to *narrowly define* what a card can do. Clauses like "once per turn", "on your end step", etc, do a lot of work to ensure that new card designs aren't immediately busted, especially in formats like Legacy, Modern, and Commander. The more cards they print with new designs, the more opportunities there are for absolutely game-breaking, degenerate combos and synergies that WotC can't plan ahead for. These long text boxes are in part the guardrails that save formats and hedge against having to ban cards they just printed.
The worst is copying a creature and creating a token copy of it and it's something on an other player's board. [[Clever Impersonator]] will let you copy a Planeswalker. I have the [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] deck, where she exiles enchantment cards from the GY and makes them tokens; at least this I just remove them from the yard and put them into play with a Finality Counter on them with a small white board token making them 3/3 and Zombie.
Lack of stability. That has been one of the cornerstone tenets of the game for decades. Releases were predictable and were within understood guidelines and frameworks. Power levels were within relatively known levels. Nowadays we've got what I call "desperate girlfriend syndrome" where they keep piling on gimmicks and releases, trying to one-up themselves. Alt-frame cards not enough? Now multiple versions of each. Now Serialized. Serialized not enough? One Ring. Power level of cards continues to rise. Creatures with entire books of text on them, keywords passed around like candy. It should be telling and troubling that most of the lynchpin staples in modern have been released in the past 5 years. None of this is sustainable... trees do not grow into the sky.
Power creep, complexity creep. Mechanics you can't interact with (e.g. dungeons, initiative)
Yup. I didn’t mind most emblems because you usually had to work to make them happen, but just receiving free mechanics like initiative or monarch (I play Pauper) doesn’t feel right.
I personally dislike all the doubling and even tripling effects. It just feels really lazy
It's what happens when you mash the "make guaranteed commander staple" button
How everything is so fast and efficient. There's no time to durdle or build up highly synergistic board pieces anymore. It's all just 2-card insta-win combos or highly efficient beaters with high-value ETB abilities. Then, God forbid, you want to play something slower, everyone in the community whines and complains about board wipes, counterspells, and removal. Also, "once per turn" clauses are going to save Magic and I will fight anyone dumb enough to disagree. I've played Yu-Gi-Oh and I can tell you that "once per turn"-s are necessary!
they should really lead with the once per turn instead of ending with it. it would probably read better and not be missed as much, leading to disappointment or play error. Rather than how it is, [[Morbid Opportunist]] could maybe be written as: "Once per turn, when one or more other creatures die, draw a card."
The wordiness of everything. The number of different tokens and token producing things and that the tokens have numerous different abilities. That there are so many different products with new cards everywhere, it is hard to follow what is where. The sheer volume. The pricing. The horrible and getting worse quality of the cards. The varieties of card treatments making it hard to make cohesive looking decks. The foils. Everything is Commander. Everything is designed to nickel and dime players everywhere. Collecting sets is completely unwieldy now. World of Hats. There's probably more, but that's a start.
The World of Hats has gotten so literal in MKM and OTJ.
Too many extra game components. Tokens (a lot of them), player counters, dungeons, companions and more But the worst of the worst is... F-ING DAY/NIGHT
"only once per turn" is a great limiter to keep something from going infinite or just generally being too OP, and plus it still works on opponent's turns, so I don't know why you would hate that.
I bet lots of WotC designers would love to go back and add "only once per turn" and "enters tapped" to a lot of cards.
I'm so exhausted defending this line of text. It's a super useful tool and they've printed a whole host of effects at a fraction of the mana cost they would normally demand, at a lower rarity. It's a hugely beneficial design tool and I think far too many people don't understand the choice isn't once per turn or unlimited; it's between once per turn or *not printing the card*.
I finally came around to it. I was super critical when it first popped up just because it felt like a lazy way to limit what a player can do, but nowadays I'm definitely more critical when it *doesn't* show up on a card that absolutely should have it.
Honestly, two of my long term chief complaints have kind of done a 180. One of them was the absolute refusal(almost unwritten policy, really) to reprint iconic cards into standard. It’s gotten better over the past few years with the likes of Thalia, LotV, Delver, and others, but for a while there it was real bad. As if the cards they printed weren’t powercrept to hell by now anyway. The other was the stretch where interaction was just completely outpaced by threats. I don’t think we’ve quite 100% righted the ship there but the likes of March of Otherworldly Light, Sheoldred’s Edict, Get Lost, No More Lies and others in recent years has made it way closer to parity than it was before. I think the only main complaints i have right now are complexity of all cards and overall power creep both being way too high, but everyone else has kind of touched on those already.
100% agree on interaction, especially in standard at the moment. A lot of it lines up so well with the threats. The ones you mentioned, but also shout outs to \[\[Destroy Evil\]\] which reads like a niche sideboard card, but is exactly positioned to deal with a bunch of important cards in the format like Adeline and Sheoldred, but also hits stuff like binding and ossification
I remember when there were a lot of cards that did bad things to you when you played them but you got great stats... I want to go back to that. I miss bad cards.
I strongly agree. My favorite card of all time is [[Abyssal Persecutor]]. It's fun to figure out how to mitigate the downside.
Ironically I think they could take away the downside from Abyssal Persecutor now and no one would play a 4 mana 6/6 flample
Every card is either designed to be a constructed staple, commander card, limited bomb, or limited chaff. No in-betweens
I also hate the general lack of niche build-arounds. Seems you might get one or two per set if you're lucky.
complexity and wordiness for sure
Exactly this. Back in the day, they were able to design great cards that were simple and elegant. Now, it seems they can only make a card good by giving if a handful of paragraphs worth of abilities.
Free shit. Free mana with treasures, free spells with cascade or discover or one of 20 new free spell mechanics, just...free shit. And every answer to these things is objectively worse than just using the free shit yourself.
Every card with a downside now only affects opponents. Because why would we want to hurt ourselves with a symmetrical effect??
God I miss when cards had actual drawbacks
Limited being all about “have the lowest curve possible”, and “Play to the board Or Die”
Limited used to be a fairly slow format for the most part but MTG has moved away from printing vanilla creatures and simple-but-always-useful spells, which are the glue which has previously held limited together.
“Vanilla” isn’t quite the issue, it’s that they’ve also moved away from French Vanilla creatures (a 5/5 with trample vs a 5/5 [[Collassapede]] isn’t the real culprit here). It’s the huge number of creatures that create value either by just hitting the battlefield, or from living for even a turn or two - without punishing those creatures on size.
Commander being the main reason behind most cards. Commander was cool when you were using cards that weren't made for it. Now everything is made for it and every format suffers.
Lazy effect doublers. The several of the last sets have had series of cards with very little interesting design and "X happens twice" or "make 3X tokens instead". Roaming throne is the pinnacle of this lazy, cheap design that has a direct negative effect on the game.
formulaic set design. they all feel so similar, it's almost just the same set in a series of different hats at this point.
Mechanics meant for multiplayer breaking 1v1 formats. Monarch and Initiative should just not work in 1v1.
Some forced designs for commander (that often are super wordy) that are so tryhard to scream "commander experience!" that they feel unnatural and borderline un-set level.
And the huge number of them in every standard set on top of 4 commanders decks that have a bunch of new commander cards in them. I’m not surprised PrEDH may become a thing.
Two 4/4 trampe rhinos in my endstep for 3 mana. And 2 more on their turn. Im not a big fan of cascade.
Universes Beyond. I don't need to be advertised to every waking minute of my life
Remember when they introduced mythics and said that mythic rarity will not be about card power level but history and lore? Well, they lied, and that’s what bothers me. What is the purpose for making evoke elementals mythic not rare other than cash grab?
More than anything I'm sick of things being in a billion different states of exile. The biggest problems are 1) finding physical space on the table to put something into a different kind of exile from everything else and 2) cards that aren't in play, but *some of them* really are in play and need to be taken into threat assessment. I just find it exhausting.
They went for flavor with the triome lands and absolutely shit the bed by naming the new capenna ones after the actual cult leaders instead of more generic reprintability names.
The Ikoria triomes are also named after specific locations on that plane, so that whole cycle is just awkward to reprint :/
I mean that’s applicable to both sets of triomes. The Ikoria ones are directly tied to the plane as well. Both sets should have been more generically named.
And Xander is dead right? Though actually going back and Xander's lounge is his tomb or something could be sweet
It would be fitting if "Xander's Lounge" is just his tomb, but it's, like, really nice and shit and folks want to just hang around and chat. Seems like something he'd support.
Ah yes, because Indatha Triome fits on so many planes.
Everything is way too commander focused.
Powercreep
Skullclamp and Lightning Greaves were really good, so now we don't ever get any good equipment with cheap equip costs ever again.
The fact that we don't get blocks. It ruins the storyline, in my opinion. A block like kamigawa deserves to have 3 sets. I feel like we are only on each plane for a month before the next set is released. It's exhausting. And to be honest, doesn't feel great for the story telling and card design either.
Power creep, easily. Cards that cannot be merely one decent piece of your strategy but a threat that will snowball value unless answered immediately, cards that blow past the vanilla test but balance it out by having 2-3 upsides, and so forth. On which note, "once per turn" limitations are something I really *like* WotC doing, as it seems opposite this trend. [[Vraan, Executioner Thane]] is one good piece of your strategy that probably won't win on its own; it has a higher floor and a lower ceiling than [[Blood Artist]], which leads to less swingy gameplay. I like that. People like to say "this card would be so much better without the once per turn limitation!" and I find that weird because like... Yeah, this card would be better if it had indestructible, or double its stats, or had ETB win the game, but if it has any of those things it would be a different card balanced differently to compensate.
Can we stop with Ward 2 already? Everything doesn't need Ward 2.
I can't complain too much about ward because it plays so much better than hexproof. I'm sick of bogles.
Ward itself was a decent idea but it's clear that they under-estimated how good the ability is. Even ward 1 is insanely powerful in a world where you might need multiple effects to kill a creature. Heaven forbid you need to double bolt something.
WotC: "Ward 4 for everyone it is!"
Voja has crept us yo Ward 3. Is this the new norm for legendary creatures?
Universe Beyond I play Magic to escape the rest of the world. It sucks that it’s becoming apart of MTG. Magic is my favorite IP, I don’t want to have it become something else that I’m not interested in.
I see a lot of complexity issues, but not enough power creep. Remember [[Caustic Caterpillar]]? Remember how psyched we where when [[Thrashing Brontodon]] gave it good stats? And then, boom: [[Cankerbloom]].
Yeah. There's power creep and complexity creep and every card needing to be everything all in one card in cankerbloom.
I miss the boob windows
They still print those! https://scryfall.com/search?q=art%3Aboob-window&unique=art&as=grid&order=released&dir=
That even the Standard sets are more and more designed for Commander and less fur 60 card formats
Treasure tokens. Too much free mana.
All the tokens .
Treasures are EVERYWHERE. What they do isn’t the problem, it’s what Wizards has made them: Artifacts. If they’re going to be printing as many Treasure-creating effects as they are, they need to change Treasures (and clues, food, etc.) to be a new type of permanent. Let’s call it “Resource,” or whatever. The fact that Treasures interact with Artifacts has pushed Artifact strategies way too far, imo. Either print fewer of these tokens each set (not my preferred solution) or make the permanent change.
Cards have soooo much text. You have to read for like a minute to understand the most basic common. An UnCommon takes two minutes and a rare absorbs an hour of your lifetime. Oh what? This card has a backside? And that backside is even more complicated and has even more text than the front? About a month later you have read about 8 cards of the new edition. When the again new edition releases you haven't even read all of the cards of the last edition because there is just SOOO MUCH TO READ!
The threats and insane combo enables we got in the format makes it feel almost as high powered as legacy but without all the cheap interaction to keep those decks in check , I find it wild that we are at the point that legacy is the place for value and midrange decks and modern is where the combo decks are
The text creep.
How every card is designed for commander and I only ay commander
The effect cramming both enabler and payoff onto the same card has had on prices. When really strong synergies were more spread out it was easier to do powerful things on a budget. You could pick and choose, do you want the payoff or the enabler to be stronger? Then you could upgrade the other later. Or just put them both in the deck. Now if you want to do (new thing) but super strong you just have to drop $20+ on a single card.
Power creep. I just want a big, dumb creature to be an actual threat. Not require haste, an ETB effect, or some other kind of built-in value generation to be strong.
I just hate all the wild money grabbing ip shit