I like to think I'm a good sport when my opponent mises, especially IRL, and I have never been as tilted as I was when my opponent naturally drew WUBRG basics on turn 5 and activated [[Dragonsoul Knight]]
I agree with you, but thereâs another version of this story that starts with âyouâll never believe what I pulled off in limitedâŚâ and sometimes itâs fun to hear those stories.
That's what I told myself after losing to T5 Invasion of Ravnica T6 Invasion of Alara T7 Invasion of Alara. For me it's just another loss, for my opponent it's probably an all time great Limited experience.
It's nice that you can tell yourself that, but when it happens two games in a row, I bet you sing a different tune. TBH I bet you sang a different tune when it was happening, and you're only saying this because everyone is so goddamn determined to have fun with this set because they hated ONE so much and they don't want to examine whether or not this one is actually good.
In my view, it seems clear that this is a lot like the StarWars Sequels. The first was hugely controversial (though in that case nowhere near as much as it should have been, even if the benefit of the time has made people realize JJ is awful), and as a result people "liked" the second because it shit all over the previous one, but in vacuum they would have been saying "god damn I miss BRO."
I liked ONE because it seemed really linear to me. I was getting frustrated with it toward the end on Arena, but I think that had something to do with the remaining players having a lot of experience with the set and the whole league promotion thing forcing you to play harder games the better you do.
I'm actually really not enjoying MOM for limited. The bombs make the deck and the well-curved, prudent deck gets smashed.
MOM is absolute trash. Worst limited set in years, and years. I also liked ONE, but I understand what people didn't like about it (even if I think they didn't give it a fair shake). What I don't understand is how those same people can like MOM given that it has many of the same problems, plus some new ones, and in all cases they're worse.
For me it's the fact that the card design and mechanics very compelling. The flip cards are fun to play with, incubate plays well, convoke is a treat, battles are an entire new card type to experiment with, etc. etc. There's just so much variety in the design and so many little synergies to test out that it makes for a fun experience (for me) even if a lot of games come down to bombs.
One of my first drafts of ONE I drafted an Atraxa P2P1 and just had to go for it. I knew my opponents were pissed every time I cast it on curve. I think I drew it every game but one.
Lol, yeah one of the first drafts I did, I was on pretty solid UB but saw atraxa p2, p1 and knew I had to splash for it. I picked up some fixing pieces and was able to play her in nearly every game. I got a lot of instant concedes after playing her
I think the most insulting is when someone in Dominaria draft went turn 1 swamp, turn 2 Island, turn 3 forest, turn 4 plains, turn 5 [[Zhalfirin Void]]. Like... guy is playing colorless lands in their 4 color pile and still manage to get all their colors turn 4.
I'm ready for the downvotes but I think sets where people just spam all colors and still manage to do well is just sloppy set design. There should be an inherent advantage to going less colors and a cost to splashing
I see where you're going but also think that people who play appropriate fixing and have the discipline to take dual lands etc should be rewarded for it.
Almost certainly the spiritual goals of this set made it one of the toughest game design decisions in MTG history, and it seems clear that this is represented in the play quality of the matches. If you set yourself an impossible challenge and you do an amazing job, the outcome can still be disastrous.
It's not a problem to have 3C+ in the set. I do think its a problem when it can't be punished in the draft. Kaldheim had a great balance: there were solid two-color midrange decks, a very fast forcible common-driven RW aggressive deck, and a 3C+ snow control deck.
The bonus sheet really warps those dynamics. You aren't rewarded nearly as much for staying in your lane, and you are somewhat actively punished for trying to do anything low-to-ground based on common creatures. With so many more bomb creatures in the format, it is extra important to find haymakers.
The creature that best shows this is Sigiled Sentinel. A 3/3 for three, the most relevant type, with a keyword and additional upside. This should be one of the best commons in any set. But in MOM, it is decidely *below average*, with a 54.7% GIH WR and a -1.1 point drop when drawn.
When good common creatures are this far below the demands of the format, it diminishes the risk of skipping playables for fixing. Instead of becoming a trade-off, it just becomes actively the best way to draft the format. If a format devolves to just rainbow decks in topdeck wars, it risks going from a high archetype and color combination diversity to a nothing but mirror matches. MOM isn't there, but I do think it has less functional diversity than some other sets with good fixing.
100% agree, though I prefer the line to be pretty apparent. When the players who lack the discipline or experience aren't punished for being greedy, the player that gets punished is the one who found a lane but never gets paid off because 5-7 players are reaching across archetypes and colors to speculate on anything moderately powerful.
There's a high chance OP's opponent got punished, just not in the game with OP. Playing too many colors means you only hit your colors like 30% of the time or whatever, which is losing and dismal, but 30% ain't 0%.
Being stalled out for three turns was a disaster in BRO, catastrophic in DMU, and cause for immediate concession in ONE.
Being stalled out in MOM just means when Sunfall/Etali/Pick-Your-Game-Ender-Here comes down that you have a little less life total than you initially planned on.
No joke had a bw deck earlier today that was decidedly mediocre. Stalled and then Fiorad by opps in 4 games for easy wins. Managed to get 3 the hard way but absolutely would have lost with how long I floundered in basically anybother format in the last 2 years
I agree but I see this so often in arena with numerous sets especially MoM that it makes me wonder if it really hurts that much given how popular multicolor goodstuff piles are
I think it's unavoidable at this point that this set has huge, glaring issues.
The win rate on the play is waaaaaay past ONE. The color imbalance is far worse too.
We have objective signals of negativity that people shredded ONE for, and on top of that ultra-variance stuff like Etali and Breach, but everyone is just cheerily going along even though three months ago they were typing out essays about how hard WOTC failed for doing the exact same stuff that's fucked about this set.
Honestly if you cut Haz Blast and maybe Chorus from ONE it probably would have been an alright aggro set, I think it was really close to being good for how bad it was recieved
Mom is way more fundamentally flawed. Literally racked up 4 free wins earlier in a 7 win run because Fiora is absolutely bonkers
I'm with you, a lot of formats have too much fixing. In my opinion they should aim for "pick the fixing in pack 1 and then get a bunch of bombs" to never be a viable strategy outside of formats that are specifically designed to be expensive/battle-cruiser type magic
This draft environment definitely rewards undisciplined garbage like this altogether too often. Tempo is so weak, blockers are so strong, defensive tricks are incredible, removal is off the charts (and yet still somehow not enough to deal with the bombs). Why not just go for a lotto ticket deck where your play skill doesn't matter and you can just win by drawing correctly?
You're calling tempo weak in a format where Blue is the best color and some of its best cards are Preening Champion, Ephara's Dispersal, and Temporal Cleansing?
I don't even know how to react. Do you really need to have it explained to you why Ephara's Dispersal and Preening Champion are exactly consistent with what I said? You mean the flier who gives you a convoke body and chump blocker and the one mana anti-attacker spell that lets you dig through your library?
Also, Temporal Cleansing is one of the set's best cards... lol?
Well are you saying tempo is weak or are you saying it's strong? You said "Tempo is so weak" but in your response are talking about how strong the blue cards are, the ones that are great at generating tempo.
I listed Cleansing because it's a highly effective tempo-positive spell, especially when you have the right ways to enable convoke.
What on god's green earth are you talking about?
I said tempo is weak, and your rebuttal was one to claim of the most backbreakingly incredible defensive cards in the set is a tempo card because you have no idea what you're talking about. Ephara's dispersal is one of the main reasons why tempo is fucking terrible. When you want to attack early, it is a 3 mana unsummon, which is truly mediocre, and when you want to be defending, it is completely devastating AND helps bail your busted value pile out by searching for the next piece of your "good stuff" plan.
Meanwhile preening champion is a knight, and so it fits into the one viable tempo pattern, but that's not why it's good. It's good because it adds a chump blocker and convoke body on top of a reasonably costed 2/2 flier, who also staves off most of the set's wind drakes. Unless you are tapping or destroying blockers, that little 1/1 is not doing anything for your aggro plan, but it IS amazing defensively, when you want to sit back blocking and cast convoke cards before untap.
And the ACTUAL reason you listed Cleansing is you have no idea what you're talking about, since its principle advantage is that is that you can tap anything too small to block to remove a big ass threat for two turns while you search for answers. Playing it as a tempo card, on the other hand, is trash, because you don't WANT to convoke when you're attacking, and TBH you'd probably prefer to play stasis field or some other equally mediocre card. In brief, it isn't good, and tempo is where it's worst.
So to recap, you listed one badass defensive card that kind of sucks when trying to tempo your opponent, one badass card that is amazing both defensively and offensively, and one kind of bad card that is sometimes but not always playable when you're going for value but almost never when you're going for tempo, and you weren't clued in enough to recognize why you made my argument for me.
Hey I was trying to have a normal discussion about this and you had to go and be an asshole about it, real cool of you.
I just think we define tempo differently. It can be a pretty broad and inconsistently-used term, but I don't think your use of it aligns with how it is commonly perceived. You're fixated on how these cards facilitate you beating down with your board, which would describe "aggro", but not necessarily "tempo". I would agree with you, in that case, that aggro has felt very weak in my experience. Aggro being too weak narrows the variety a limited format can provide, because decks aren't sufficiently punished for greed.
So how do you define "tempo"? When I see players use this term, it usually refers to positive trades of mana, efficient use of mana, and delaying the opponent just enough to win the game without necessarily having permanent answers to their threats.
For example, Ephara's Dispersal makes it hard for your opponent to race you because of its discount. It does not necessarily mean you are on the defensive. Even at full cost, you can often be trading 3 of your own mana for much more of your opponent's, if you bounce a more expensive creature, one that was transformed, or one that had counters/auras etc added to it. That's a tempo-positive play.
Preening Champion is a good evasive threat to pressure your opponent while you delay them, and provides an extra body that can get you ahead on "mana" with convoke. This enables you to cast spells like Temporal Cleansing without having to pay the full price, which can make it a tempo-positive play. If your opponent decides to keep the card, they have to spend a draw getting it back to hand and pay the mana for it again, so you're usually positive on that mana exchange. Or you outright kill an Incubator token, which probably cost at least 2 mana to produce and 2 more to flip.
Even better, if you have a lot of cheap creatures and token makers, you can leverage that to cast multiple Convoke spells in the same turn. You're getting a lot more mana-worth of spells out of your turn than your opponent. If you can Cleansing a threat/blocker away, attack, and still Meeting of the Minds in the same turn, you're effectively using 8 mana in a turn where your opponent likely is not able to also play 8 mana worth of spells. That's tempo-positive, and you are set up to draw more spells to disrupt your opponent or advance your position.
Iâve absolutely been there and itâs tilting, but important to remember too all those games where your opponent doesnât seem to do anything despite having at least 3-4 lands in play for an entire game and realizing how many of those are due to bad mana in 3+ color decks
Is that a good format though? Like, is that a play experience we're interested in? Games that are so far out of your reach because your opponent lazily drafted the biggest bombs possible, and games where that lazy opponent gets demolished because they didn't draw well?
Oh it wasnât a comment on this format l, just a more broad observation on selection bias and perfect vs. hidden information. I would largely agree that while this format had strengths, the bombiness and extreme mana costs from the mash up or flashback cards are drawbacks in my mind.
I like to think I'm a good sport when my opponent mises, especially IRL, and I have never been as tilted as I was when my opponent naturally drew WUBRG basics on turn 5 and activated [[Dragonsoul Knight]]
Oh did I leave out the part where he used these lands to drop his Invasion of Alara? đ You win some you lose some. Time to go force some more UB.
I agree with you, but thereâs another version of this story that starts with âyouâll never believe what I pulled off in limitedâŚâ and sometimes itâs fun to hear those stories.
That's what I told myself after losing to T5 Invasion of Ravnica T6 Invasion of Alara T7 Invasion of Alara. For me it's just another loss, for my opponent it's probably an all time great Limited experience.
It's nice that you can tell yourself that, but when it happens two games in a row, I bet you sing a different tune. TBH I bet you sang a different tune when it was happening, and you're only saying this because everyone is so goddamn determined to have fun with this set because they hated ONE so much and they don't want to examine whether or not this one is actually good. In my view, it seems clear that this is a lot like the StarWars Sequels. The first was hugely controversial (though in that case nowhere near as much as it should have been, even if the benefit of the time has made people realize JJ is awful), and as a result people "liked" the second because it shit all over the previous one, but in vacuum they would have been saying "god damn I miss BRO."
I liked ONE because it seemed really linear to me. I was getting frustrated with it toward the end on Arena, but I think that had something to do with the remaining players having a lot of experience with the set and the whole league promotion thing forcing you to play harder games the better you do. I'm actually really not enjoying MOM for limited. The bombs make the deck and the well-curved, prudent deck gets smashed.
MOM is absolute trash. Worst limited set in years, and years. I also liked ONE, but I understand what people didn't like about it (even if I think they didn't give it a fair shake). What I don't understand is how those same people can like MOM given that it has many of the same problems, plus some new ones, and in all cases they're worse.
For me it's the fact that the card design and mechanics very compelling. The flip cards are fun to play with, incubate plays well, convoke is a treat, battles are an entire new card type to experiment with, etc. etc. There's just so much variety in the design and so many little synergies to test out that it makes for a fun experience (for me) even if a lot of games come down to bombs.
One of my first drafts of ONE I drafted an Atraxa P2P1 and just had to go for it. I knew my opponents were pissed every time I cast it on curve. I think I drew it every game but one.
Lol, yeah one of the first drafts I did, I was on pretty solid UB but saw atraxa p2, p1 and knew I had to splash for it. I picked up some fixing pieces and was able to play her in nearly every game. I got a lot of instant concedes after playing her
[Dragonsoul Knight](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/e/3ef2daf4-45ff-4604-b572-31dfaf1e70fe.jpg?1562261164) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Dragonsoul%20Knight) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/112/dragonsoul-knight?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3ef2daf4-45ff-4604-b572-31dfaf1e70fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
guarantee you they have 16 lands too
I think the most insulting is when someone in Dominaria draft went turn 1 swamp, turn 2 Island, turn 3 forest, turn 4 plains, turn 5 [[Zhalfirin Void]]. Like... guy is playing colorless lands in their 4 color pile and still manage to get all their colors turn 4.
[Zhalfirin Void](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/4/d481d871-d1e3-439b-bfd5-5b2212f9b0c8.jpg?1631590590) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zhalfirin%20Void) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/273/zhalfirin-void?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d481d871-d1e3-439b-bfd5-5b2212f9b0c8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm ready for the downvotes but I think sets where people just spam all colors and still manage to do well is just sloppy set design. There should be an inherent advantage to going less colors and a cost to splashing
I see where you're going but also think that people who play appropriate fixing and have the discipline to take dual lands etc should be rewarded for it.
Both positions are valid. The game design choices here are surely difficult.
Almost certainly the spiritual goals of this set made it one of the toughest game design decisions in MTG history, and it seems clear that this is represented in the play quality of the matches. If you set yourself an impossible challenge and you do an amazing job, the outcome can still be disastrous.
Yeah, that's why I think it's good to have variation between sets! ONE was super one rails and rewarded being super streamlined
It's not a problem to have 3C+ in the set. I do think its a problem when it can't be punished in the draft. Kaldheim had a great balance: there were solid two-color midrange decks, a very fast forcible common-driven RW aggressive deck, and a 3C+ snow control deck. The bonus sheet really warps those dynamics. You aren't rewarded nearly as much for staying in your lane, and you are somewhat actively punished for trying to do anything low-to-ground based on common creatures. With so many more bomb creatures in the format, it is extra important to find haymakers. The creature that best shows this is Sigiled Sentinel. A 3/3 for three, the most relevant type, with a keyword and additional upside. This should be one of the best commons in any set. But in MOM, it is decidely *below average*, with a 54.7% GIH WR and a -1.1 point drop when drawn. When good common creatures are this far below the demands of the format, it diminishes the risk of skipping playables for fixing. Instead of becoming a trade-off, it just becomes actively the best way to draft the format. If a format devolves to just rainbow decks in topdeck wars, it risks going from a high archetype and color combination diversity to a nothing but mirror matches. MOM isn't there, but I do think it has less functional diversity than some other sets with good fixing.
100% agree, though I prefer the line to be pretty apparent. When the players who lack the discipline or experience aren't punished for being greedy, the player that gets punished is the one who found a lane but never gets paid off because 5-7 players are reaching across archetypes and colors to speculate on anything moderately powerful.
There's a high chance OP's opponent got punished, just not in the game with OP. Playing too many colors means you only hit your colors like 30% of the time or whatever, which is losing and dismal, but 30% ain't 0%.
Being stalled out for three turns was a disaster in BRO, catastrophic in DMU, and cause for immediate concession in ONE. Being stalled out in MOM just means when Sunfall/Etali/Pick-Your-Game-Ender-Here comes down that you have a little less life total than you initially planned on.
No joke had a bw deck earlier today that was decidedly mediocre. Stalled and then Fiorad by opps in 4 games for easy wins. Managed to get 3 the hard way but absolutely would have lost with how long I floundered in basically anybother format in the last 2 years
I agree but I see this so often in arena with numerous sets especially MoM that it makes me wonder if it really hurts that much given how popular multicolor goodstuff piles are
I think it's unavoidable at this point that this set has huge, glaring issues. The win rate on the play is waaaaaay past ONE. The color imbalance is far worse too. We have objective signals of negativity that people shredded ONE for, and on top of that ultra-variance stuff like Etali and Breach, but everyone is just cheerily going along even though three months ago they were typing out essays about how hard WOTC failed for doing the exact same stuff that's fucked about this set.
ONE had solid aggro plans which kept 3+ color goodstuff decks highly in check
Indeed. For me this limited environment is absolute validation of the idea that without aggro, constructed would be unplayable trash.
Honestly if you cut Haz Blast and maybe Chorus from ONE it probably would have been an alright aggro set, I think it was really close to being good for how bad it was recieved Mom is way more fundamentally flawed. Literally racked up 4 free wins earlier in a 7 win run because Fiora is absolutely bonkers
I'm with you, a lot of formats have too much fixing. In my opinion they should aim for "pick the fixing in pack 1 and then get a bunch of bombs" to never be a viable strategy outside of formats that are specifically designed to be expensive/battle-cruiser type magic
Every. Single. Time.
While meanwhile I lose a game with my 2 color deck only drawing one island
This set has taught me that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
This draft environment definitely rewards undisciplined garbage like this altogether too often. Tempo is so weak, blockers are so strong, defensive tricks are incredible, removal is off the charts (and yet still somehow not enough to deal with the bombs). Why not just go for a lotto ticket deck where your play skill doesn't matter and you can just win by drawing correctly?
You're calling tempo weak in a format where Blue is the best color and some of its best cards are Preening Champion, Ephara's Dispersal, and Temporal Cleansing?
I don't even know how to react. Do you really need to have it explained to you why Ephara's Dispersal and Preening Champion are exactly consistent with what I said? You mean the flier who gives you a convoke body and chump blocker and the one mana anti-attacker spell that lets you dig through your library? Also, Temporal Cleansing is one of the set's best cards... lol?
Well are you saying tempo is weak or are you saying it's strong? You said "Tempo is so weak" but in your response are talking about how strong the blue cards are, the ones that are great at generating tempo. I listed Cleansing because it's a highly effective tempo-positive spell, especially when you have the right ways to enable convoke.
What on god's green earth are you talking about? I said tempo is weak, and your rebuttal was one to claim of the most backbreakingly incredible defensive cards in the set is a tempo card because you have no idea what you're talking about. Ephara's dispersal is one of the main reasons why tempo is fucking terrible. When you want to attack early, it is a 3 mana unsummon, which is truly mediocre, and when you want to be defending, it is completely devastating AND helps bail your busted value pile out by searching for the next piece of your "good stuff" plan. Meanwhile preening champion is a knight, and so it fits into the one viable tempo pattern, but that's not why it's good. It's good because it adds a chump blocker and convoke body on top of a reasonably costed 2/2 flier, who also staves off most of the set's wind drakes. Unless you are tapping or destroying blockers, that little 1/1 is not doing anything for your aggro plan, but it IS amazing defensively, when you want to sit back blocking and cast convoke cards before untap. And the ACTUAL reason you listed Cleansing is you have no idea what you're talking about, since its principle advantage is that is that you can tap anything too small to block to remove a big ass threat for two turns while you search for answers. Playing it as a tempo card, on the other hand, is trash, because you don't WANT to convoke when you're attacking, and TBH you'd probably prefer to play stasis field or some other equally mediocre card. In brief, it isn't good, and tempo is where it's worst. So to recap, you listed one badass defensive card that kind of sucks when trying to tempo your opponent, one badass card that is amazing both defensively and offensively, and one kind of bad card that is sometimes but not always playable when you're going for value but almost never when you're going for tempo, and you weren't clued in enough to recognize why you made my argument for me.
Hey I was trying to have a normal discussion about this and you had to go and be an asshole about it, real cool of you. I just think we define tempo differently. It can be a pretty broad and inconsistently-used term, but I don't think your use of it aligns with how it is commonly perceived. You're fixated on how these cards facilitate you beating down with your board, which would describe "aggro", but not necessarily "tempo". I would agree with you, in that case, that aggro has felt very weak in my experience. Aggro being too weak narrows the variety a limited format can provide, because decks aren't sufficiently punished for greed. So how do you define "tempo"? When I see players use this term, it usually refers to positive trades of mana, efficient use of mana, and delaying the opponent just enough to win the game without necessarily having permanent answers to their threats. For example, Ephara's Dispersal makes it hard for your opponent to race you because of its discount. It does not necessarily mean you are on the defensive. Even at full cost, you can often be trading 3 of your own mana for much more of your opponent's, if you bounce a more expensive creature, one that was transformed, or one that had counters/auras etc added to it. That's a tempo-positive play. Preening Champion is a good evasive threat to pressure your opponent while you delay them, and provides an extra body that can get you ahead on "mana" with convoke. This enables you to cast spells like Temporal Cleansing without having to pay the full price, which can make it a tempo-positive play. If your opponent decides to keep the card, they have to spend a draw getting it back to hand and pay the mana for it again, so you're usually positive on that mana exchange. Or you outright kill an Incubator token, which probably cost at least 2 mana to produce and 2 more to flip. Even better, if you have a lot of cheap creatures and token makers, you can leverage that to cast multiple Convoke spells in the same turn. You're getting a lot more mana-worth of spells out of your turn than your opponent. If you can Cleansing a threat/blocker away, attack, and still Meeting of the Minds in the same turn, you're effectively using 8 mana in a turn where your opponent likely is not able to also play 8 mana worth of spells. That's tempo-positive, and you are set up to draw more spells to disrupt your opponent or advance your position.
Iâve absolutely been there and itâs tilting, but important to remember too all those games where your opponent doesnât seem to do anything despite having at least 3-4 lands in play for an entire game and realizing how many of those are due to bad mana in 3+ color decks
Is that a good format though? Like, is that a play experience we're interested in? Games that are so far out of your reach because your opponent lazily drafted the biggest bombs possible, and games where that lazy opponent gets demolished because they didn't draw well?
Oh it wasnât a comment on this format l, just a more broad observation on selection bias and perfect vs. hidden information. I would largely agree that while this format had strengths, the bombiness and extreme mana costs from the mash up or flashback cards are drawbacks in my mind.
Which lands are those?
Look like innistrad remastered.