What are Reddit's favorite Turn Based Apps?
Magic: The Gathering
Dwarf Fortress
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Faeria
Civilization
Fire Emblem Heroes
Darkest Dungeon
The Battle for Wesnoth
Card Hunter
Xenonauts
Legend of Grimrock
Shadowrun Returns
HUMANKIND
Tales of Maj'Eyal (ToME)
Heroes of Might and Magic II
Tanks of Freedom
TripleA
Advanced Strategic Command
CHRONO TRIGGER
Hearthstone
Age of Civilizations
Final Fantasy Tactics
Top Reddit reviews mentioning Turn Based Apps:
Dwarf Fortress a deep management simulation/roguelike with text based graphics. To grossly oversimplify - think Dungeon Keeper done in the style of NetHack. The learning curve is considered somewhat steep but there is an active and usually helpful/friendly following.
A turn based tactics game. Completely free, open source, but excellent quality. Lovely music, and really surprisingly great campaigns. There's also online multiplayer.
Blog post! https://civilization.com/news/entries#civilization-vi-alexander-the-great-leads-macedon
Did you hate Alex in Civ V? Be prepared to renew those feelings. He has TWO unique units, a stronger version of the Barracks, and he wants to rule the world. Seriously, I've only played one game against him and I hate him every bit as much as I hated his previous Civ-incarnation. You've been warned.
Maro, a famous part of Magic: The Gathering's dev team, did a talk on 20 lessons learned in 20 years at Wizards of the Coast (link that includes a written and video version: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-1-2016-05-30)
Here's the relevant quote from lesson 5:
>Often when we are playing around with new ideas in R&D, we ask ourselves, "Is this interesting or is this fun?" Is this a card that's neat to read and think about or is this a card that's enjoyable to play? Because the latter is going to get you closer to creating the emotional response you're trying to build with your game.
This is a lesson that is hard to learn, to internalize and work on. It happens with artists, game designers, D&D dungeon masters, etc, and it happens with annoying frequency with League devs. Too often the focus isn't on what makes the better game but the focus is on showing off how creative a designer/artist/developer you are.
There's a lot of mish-mash of trying to show off design skills, misguided attempts at trying to make a good game, and creating something that stays fresh. Riot does a very good job when you think about the scope and scale of their changes, it's just that when they miss, they miss hard.
Leader - Montezuma I - This is a special edition for those who preorder, but it unlocks for everyone 90 days after official release.
National Ability - Aztecs can use their builders to rush construction of Districts.
Leader Ability - Gifts for the Tlatoani - Luxuries give amenities to extra cities, each individual luxury gives additional military power.
Unique Unit - Eagle Warrior - Replaces the standard warrior, but can turn defeated enemies (But not Barbarians!) into Builder units.
Unique Infrastructure - Tlachtli - In the Entertainment District. Gives amenities, faith, and Great General Points.
I CAN'T SPELL SHIT YO.
It's a really expansionist civ. My guess is that you pump Eagle Warriors, and then invade your immediate rivals. You use these in order to build up districts, so that your cities become powerhouses. You also make sure that your enemies have the luxuries you don't have, so that you can be more powerful as you attack your next target.
IN A SPECIAL BONUS EDITION:
New Wonder! - Huey Teocalli
This wonder probably gives a ton of faith, as it was the place where Aztecs did their blood sacrifices. Maybe it gives a small burst of faith upon every kill? It's in the blog post.
And then there is this quote from part 2 of that same series.
>Your players don't need to love everything, but they need to love something. Something has to draw them into your game, something they feel strongly about. Don't worry that the players will hate something. Instead, worry that no one will love anything. Things that evoke strong responses will most often evoke strong responses in many directions, meaning it's almost impossible to make some players love something without making other players hate it. In fact, some players enjoy hating what other players love. So stop worrying about evoking a negative response and start worrying about evoking a strong response.
Get hype!
For the impatient: Starter Pack ETA is ~6-8 hours from now, obviously without DFHack or Therapist. I'll update this comment with a link to the less-stable pack when it's uploaded ;-)
Looks like I was too pessimistic about the release date - I was guessing December (well, recently - I started at March 2017!).
Don't forget to check out the development page - it's got a great list of upcoming features.
I'm actually really really really excited that Toady is planning a whole series of smaller releases. I love the big overhauls, but smaller cycles with bugfixes make the existing game so much smoother to play :-)
Contribute to the wiki! Without you, you early adopter you, new players would be lost in a twisty maze of features, all alike.
[mod hat on] If you have questions, please use the questions thread.
/braindump over, looking forward to playing later this evening.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/valentines-day-mini-announcement-day-2018-02-14
"Here's the deal: We're cooking up a big Announcement Day sometime after the release of Dominaria but before we get all the way to Core Set 2019. That Announcement Day will look deeper into Magic's future and what plane or planes we'll be visiting after said core set. We'll make a whole to-do about it. Yes, we're announcing another announcement. It's kind of our thing."
1) Does not MTG have rotating formats, so that no meta gets too entrenched as only few most recent sets are in play?
https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/standard-formats-magic-gathering
2) Also, does not MTG have "limited" (draft) games, where you take turns drafting cards from boosters.
This format seems to be exactly what you are looking for - looking through opened new packs and figuring out a way to build a deck.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/formats/booster-draft
In Magic: the Gathering, packs have a slot for a tip/token card.
For example, for the set M11 (the first time the slime was released) all the tokens are shown here.
You can use a token if you wish, but at more casual events even dice or coins are used to represent the token
WotC's explanation! on the matter was a bit nebulous and it was widely presumed (and partially confirmed!) that the banning was done to add a "shake-up" to an otherwise stable format to add excitement to the Pro Tour, which was Modern format at the time.
This isn't a mistake as you can tell by the first line of this token article saying "You've seen all of Dominaria's cards (if not, check out the Card Image Gallery)"
Move over Kavu Titan, we got a better one.
Here's an old article by MaRo about Kicker, in which among other things he describes that when he realized that Kavu Titan had kicker he started losing more games because he wasn't as aggressive with the card has he was previously. Good lesson for people.
There's a story about the god of knowledge on theros talking to his oracle about being one spot in the multiverse and what troubles the "worldwalkers" as he calls them.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/kruphixs-insight-2014-06-11
> They hadn't known what to make of Avacyn at first. She was an angel, one of them, and yet not. They could not sense her, the way they could other angels. She was cold, opaque, reserved. Sigarda knew many humans felt the same way about her and her ilk—there were many reasons it was difficult for angels to have close relationships with mortals. But among each other, there was usually the joy of shared purpose, of the connection that one angel can only experience with another of her kind.
> Avacyn shared no connection with the other angels.
It's safe to say Sigarda has absolutely no idea. As for the other Powerpuff girls - well, they're dead now so that's not very relevant.
Besides the vampires, it hasn't been confirmed of any non-planeswalker who knows, and is still alive, as of Eldritch Moon.
Considering how faithfully Adams has stuck with his development roadmap and how many items on that list are still white goals he hasn't begun work on yet, I'll be astonished if we see 1.0.0 drop in the next ten years. There aren't really other games like this.
oh christ...
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/
Just look at the website and you'll already feel overwhelmed I'm sure. (It's a download for the computer)
Go in dry and don't come back until you're flat and shiny in the front parts.
The events of Avacyn Restored only happened about a year ago in-universe. A year to figure out her plan and set up all the cryptoliths seems legit.
And Sorin was always cagey about Nahiri's location, but (at least as of Tarkir block) it was clear he did know where she was but didn't want to reveal that information.
>Ugin's eyes swiveled back to Sorin. "Where is the hedron mage? Where is Nahiri?" > >The notion of shame had long since evaporated from Sorin. Over the millennia, Sorin's human frailties and neurosis had grown, blossomed, and withered away—he was as immune to regret as he was to old age. And yet, for the first time in years, an uncomfortable feeling grew within him, an unpleasant itch, the sense that he was responsible—solely—for something important going awry. It wasn't remorse exactly, just a dull, discordant echo ringing in the space where remorse had once resided. > >"She is—not here," said Sorin, to no particular patch of air. > >"That is clear," said Ugin. "I inquired about her whereabouts. Is she still on Zendikar? We should rejoin her, as soon as I am able to travel." > >"I do not believe that she is there," Sorin said carefully. > >Ugin's neck pleats fanned in irritation. "Speak facts, you vague thing. She's dead?" > >"No," said Sorin. "She lives." The fuller extent of the truth was not something Ugin needed to know at this time, in Sorin's estimation. "I think I may know where she might be."
From "Sorin's Restoration". Like, dude is clearly trying not to lie to Ugin while still not revealing what he knows.
Yup
> Though not in the reminder text of the mechanic, the legendary "partner with" cards that reference each other can, together, be your commanders in the Commander format!
Sealed GPs in 2013 were. It's been a few years since limited GP entry in the states has been sub $50 USD. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/grand-prix-atlanta-event-information-2014-02-18
For the record, they banned it because they wanted to take mono red down a notch, not because it was too powerful. If they wanted to ban the most powerful red card (at the time,) they would have banned Hazoret and/or Bomat.
Much of the original Weatherlight crew - as is the current one - are very much one-note characters, visibly unique and very marketable.
I think the problem with the Gatewatch has more to do with rotating writers than it did a particular lack of depth. Compare Beyer's Chandra to, say, L'Etoile's. Both are conflicted characters, but something as basic as what makes her tick seems to not quite mesh together.
Meanwhile, all the Teferi stories you've likely seen in the last decade or so were written by Wells, who has a very clear picture in mind. It's also why, whether you find Raff endearing or irritating, it's at the very least consistent internally and between stories.
A booster box of Iconic Masters would be the sweetest thing. Last year I got a box of Eternal Masters, and pulled a Mana Crypt.
What I'll actually get is probably nowhere near as cool. Maybe socks.
> As soon as these intruders are gone, Zendikar will be my throne, my palace, my playground.
The demon depicted has a quadruple-horn design similar to Abyssal Prosecutor, but otherwise doesn't seem to be any named character that we know of.
No problem, by flavor, we normally mean "constructive simulation." That is, in a sense, how well the design of the card serves to immerse you in the game. Here's a good read on flavor in Magic.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/savor-flavor/what-flavor-2010-05-26
Gary is the heart and soul of the magic community in Scotland. It's been a while since I've played competitively, but he frequently makes sure people can attend big tournaments, both by lending out pieces of his (vast) collection and by driving people to neighbouring (or even not-so-neighbouring) cities so they can compete. The first PPTQ I top-8'd was thanks to Gary both lending me cards to finish my deck and providing transport for myself and others to attend the tourny in a city several hours drive away. He also single-handedly props up the Legacy scene. Last time I was at the shop and playing he had 10+ legacy decks built that he'd happily lend out for people to play in tournaments, allowing a lot of people to try out a format they'd otherwise never be able to afford to.
Beyond this, he helped the card games society at one of Dundee's universities grow by offering big discounts on purchases to the society so that they could get their members cards for less.
He's a complete legend, the nicest guy you could ever meet. If you're ever in Dundee in Scotland, swing by Highlander Games and more likely than not he'll be around helping out (or drafting at a glacial pace). I'll have to pop back through soon to see the trophy!
Here's a ~7 year old interview with him if you want to know more bits and pieces:
Ghalta, Primal Hunger
10GG
Legendary Creature - Elder Dinosaur, Rare
Ghalta, Primal Hunger costs X less to cast, where X is the total power of creatures you control.
Trample
12/12
And then from part 3:
> In my 20 years at Wizards, I've done a lot of groundbreaking things. Every time, someone (usually many people) comes out of the woodwork, full of passion and purpose, telling me all the reasons why the unconventional new thing is a bad idea. "You can't do that!" "It's too risky!" "It will hurt the game!"
>I've also created my share of boring mechanics. Yet very few people ever had the passion and purpose to stop me from making those mechanics. Why? Because people fear challenging the players more than boring them, but I think that's backward. When you try something grandiose and it fails, the players forgive you because they recognize you were trying to do something awesome. They respect the attempt. They stick around to see what you'll do next. But when you bore your audience, there's no such forgiveness, because making the same mistake is not the same as making a new one. When you bore your players, they resent you. Sometimes they stop playing.
This was due to intentional scarcity, though. Which was done to prevent another outcry of "devaluation" from collectors and store owners like when Chronicles was released.
That sentiment had led to the creation of the Reserved List at the time. Predictably, catering to that same sentiment led to higher prices for regular players.
FWIW WotC has already said there will probably be no changes.
> Speaking of which, we do not anticipate making any changes to Modern with the January 15 announcement. We're sensitive to the timing of that announcement relative to the Pro Tour, and only would make a change if it were very clearly needed. Given the current state of the format, we believe that will be extremely unlikely.
Maro agrees with you:
> Welcome to the first week of Future Sight previews! I'm quite excited to show you what is in my opinion one of the most innovative sets I've ever been involved in the design of, with only Unglued and Unhinged giving it real competition. (Hmm, maybe that's why R&D keeps joking that I've snuck through a third Un-set.)
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/future-now-part-i-2007-04-09
Obligatory "There's the Door" response
TLDR it creates a board state that forces your opponent to activate Door to Nothingness targeting themselves, targeting you, or do nothing. The last two options simply present the choice again.
I mean, /u/professorstaff made a fair point in his review of this product: If we're copying the shitty parts of Pokemon, why not also copy the actually good parts. The foil alternate art versions of high demand cards to keep demand in some form of check, the additional boosters, the foil alternate art commons... etc.
But let's be honest here, this specific product was as hastily cobbled together with no real thought behind it as it could possibly be made.
It's a box featuring old Chandra art from Kaladesh on a plain background, with 2 (seemingly arbitrary) foil rares from Aether Revolt, 1 booster from Amonkhet, 1 booster from Hour of Devastation and 1 booster from Ixalan, 1 set of foil basic lands with pre-comissioned art from Mark Pool (Commander 2016 lands), one spin down die and one tiny "poster" which. The only way for this to scream any more "cobbled together from spare parts" would be if the spin down were left overs from some old surplus pro-... OH WAIT THEY ARE! THEY'RE OLD PLANESWALKER SPINDOWNS!
Fuck me, this couldn't possibly be any more of a lazy cash grab.
At a prerelease event you will get a new, unopened Rivals of Ixalan prerelease kit, you wouldn't bring your old Huitli/Jace ones.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/event-types/prerelease
The prerelease kit is 6 booster packs and you build a 40 card Limited deck with those cards.
Continuing a long tradition of humorous bug fix updates!
>For instance, a human trading company called the Present Hall was wildly successful trading various leathers and bones for crafting, and eventually had enough clout to open a branch warehouse inside a dwarf fortress for the first time. Can't resist that draltha leather. This turned out to be a strategic error, as two short years later, a forgotten beast obliterated the fortress, the warehouse, and killed everyone inside. So, what's the correct response? Close the destroyed branch? No, no, you stimulate the (non-existent) economy by hiring local. Forgotten beast, you're the new (ruined) warehouse administrator, congratulations!
I couldn't resist.
Archangel's Light was intentionally made to "safe."
>The big question about this card seems to be: Why is this a mythic rare? A good question, as this card very easily could have been a rare. So, here's what happened. The card that filled this slot for most of design and development was a weirder giant effect involving life gain (I'm not telling you what it is because although it got rejected, I think we might be able to salvage part of it). Playtesting showed the card might be problematic and at the last minute it was decided to swap it out for a different card.
>What this meant was two things:
>1. The card had to match the preexisting name and art. This forced us to consider cards that had something to do with life gain.
>2. The card had to be something development had total confidence in printing, meaning it had to be on the lower side of power. The reason we shoot low in this situation is if we miss the card will still be safe enough to print. R&D has been burned multiple times making a last minute switch that ended up with a broken card in the environment (Skullclamp and Umezawa's Jitte being two famous examples).
>I'll be the first to admit that this card doesn't quite have the sexiness of most mythic rares. It can produce a very large effect (for example, late game, this card could easily gain a player 40 or 50 life), so it does have some "potential for awesomeness" (R&D's loose guideline for mythic rare). With more time and less restrictions, this card would most likely have ended up at rare.
According to Tom LaPille, really bad commons are sometimes used to balance the colours in Limited.
Still, they seem to be doing it less these days. Even the worst cards in recent sets aren't that bad.
I always fight people when they talk about 'dumbing down the game' as if reducing complexity is a binary smart/dumb switch.
Mark Rosewater talks a bit about complexity (Meddler quoted him in a daily gameplay thought) - https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/piggybacking-2012-08-16. He doesn't outright say it, but the concept of complexity killing your game (but wanting to add it) basically goes to selective complexity.
If we assume a game has an upper threshold of complexity before it enters a death-spiral of inaccessibility, a designer's job is to into it in smart ways.
I'm reading the internal emails of the change, and this one wasn't made easily. There's definitely some complexity lost around jungle tracking if you're really good at it (see OP), but I suspect it had to do with the broad inaccessibility of "the complexity" to most regular players and the lack of clarity around the numbers themselves (and inconsistency when compared against laning CS scores). I wonder if the lead designer will hit me for pulling out an email thread, but it's good so he'll have to forgive me:
"Functionally speaking, laner CS is a rough approximation for how much power you've derived from farming the map, provided you're a reasonably skilled player, and as a learning point that even relatively new players can understand (once pointed out) - get better by increasing that number. Jungle CS does not presently serve that function, but instead subs in as a fairly precise way of tracing the enemy jungler's movements around the map provided you're a very high skill jungler.
Are these two radically different functions valuable? Is it acceptable that the one number is used in such different ways? How much value would there be in having laner-style CS functionality for junglers? If we change it, are we obligated to provide a different way of tracking the enemy jungler?""
I dunno, I'm just quoting him.
Half correct. If Masterful Ninja is destroyed, it goes to the graveyard and is no longer in your hand.
See the FAQ here
For what it's worth, they can still discard once they've got more than seven cards. (Per MaRo, your program is still a hand. (Also in the FAQAWASLFAQPAFTIDAWABIAJTBT) And since they'll always have at least five cards, it won't take them too long to get up to that number.
It's still a really fun combo, though, especially if you can flicker the Meddling Kids. (Good thing Meddling Kids isn't a horse.)
I mean they didn't use the word 'cheat' at all. That said, I agree 'ruled that it was intentional' is quite strong.
At PT IXN there was this statement:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptxln/disqualification-in-round-6-2017-11-03
"because the detailed investigation could not clarify that this was simply a mistake, the decision was ruled that the action was a misrepresentation of the game state, and to preserve the integrity of the tournament, the player was disqualified"
probably just not the same author, but I think this approach is a more reasonable one to use. Of course, I don't have any insight into either case to know whether there was genuinely more certainty about it being intentional in either case
New-ish. They're the artist that did the "Kiran's a hugger" comic a couple weeks ago. But aside from that, I think that and this are the only comics Kitano Lirio's done.
It's from a really old article that OP didn't bother to use a Wayback Machine for to see how it was supposed to look at the time.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/riddle-me-2013-08-08
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/missed-trigger-update-2013-02-04
This article is from a few years ago, so there may have been a more recent update, but I think it's accurate enough.
Short version: if a player unintentionally misses their own trigger, their opponent has the option of whether or not to point it out and make it happen anyway, or to let it slide and have it fail to occur. So yes, in competitive play, she's too late.
Also in a previous Uncharted Realms Episode 3 of Dominaria we get this tidbit: "Jhoira had a backup plan if the stone had been destroyed or drained, but it was something she would rather hold in reserve."
Looks like Jhoira was going to power the Weatherlight with the powerstone holding Teferi's spark if necessary.
Nissa's retcon still annoys me to no end.
TL;DR: Nissa was a bad elf supremacist that started to see the error in her ways and then Origins happened and all that doesn't matter.
When I started and the best free MtG story were web comics and short planeswalker bios, Nissa Revane was an elf supremacist, wary of other races. She secretly experimented with black mana after learning in Lorwyn.
Then she freed the Eldrazi. And her tribe was exterminated in the Worldwaker story. To me that was one of the best stories I had read, along with some of the Khan-timeline Tarkir stories.
From the Worldwaker you could see Nissa starting to think a different way, she found a new power in the heat of the moment (animist powers) and I could see her growing on me.
Then they just trashed everything I knew and loved about Nissa and made her what she is today.
>Aaron and I loved this card. It was perfect. The problem was we weren't allowed to say "destroy target player." Why? Because the game didn't allow that. "But it could," I argued. "Players would get what it meant."
>"No," said the rules manager (Mark Gottlieb at the time). "We have a template to make another player lose and it is 'Target player loses the game.'"
Brandon Burton plays high-level Magic with physical assistance from his mother, and has won a GP while doing so.
Not really.
"There was a time at the very beginning [of Commander] when we did make cards like Flusterstorm and Scavenging Ooze to create some Legacy shots and to make the product more appealing. [...] But what we've found is that Commander players don't usually want cards like this (Flusterstorm is an...unusual fit in most Commander decks, to say the least), and that when these cards do hit, it's often because they're incredibly powerful—which usually means they're not the most fun cards. (I'm looking at you, True-Name Nemesis.) Legacy players don't generally want cards like True-Name Nemesis that are unfun in one-on-one added to their formats, anyway. (Which is probably true of most players for most formats!)
Now, when we're designing Commander sets, we try to be very careful when thinking about cards for Eternal formats. Play Design does careful passes to try and make sure everything is safe for Legacy and Vintage. And if we do think there's any chance that a card might show up in Legacy or Vintage, we try to make it something reactive rather than proactive. Those cards have a much lower chance of being an issue; Flusterstorm answers a problem, whereas True-Name Nemesis causes one."
-Gavin Verhey, "Know Your Audience"
Creatures are summoning sick because they are (nowadays) materialized from the Aether, they're confused about where they are now and what's going on. Haste creatures typically don't care about what's going on and will just go out and fight because that's what they want to do.
Normal creatures created from the aether are just a generic copy of that creature, not focusing too much on the specifics since any, for example, Goblin Guide will be more or less the same for the purposes needed. You have to focus extra hard if you want a specific Legendary creature (For example, Griselbrand).
Lands represent leylines of mana in which the player (planeswalker) can tap into and access to cast their spells.
The player calls upon other planeswalkers for assistance when you play a Planeswalker card. Their loyalty represents how loyal they are to you. Once they reach 0 loyalty, they planeswalk away since they've decided it's too risky to help you anymore or are tired from casting their ultimate.
Information might have changed from the last time I've checked, but stuff like the original rulebook (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/original-magic-rulebook-2004-12-25) explains a good amount of lore-related questions for the game mechanics.
Duel Commander is its own format, unaffiliated to WOTC, and WOTC does not follow it.
You're looking for this page.
And, of course, here's the accompanying blog post: https://civilization.com/news/entries#civilization-vi-jayavarman-vii-leads-khmer
Steam Community mirror: http://steamcommunity.com/games/289070/announcements/detail/1459589062992510501
The cards in the decks are based off a peice of chinese literature called "Classic of Mountains and Seas" which is less of a narrative and more of a travelouge (the article described it being like a monster manual or setting book from D&D or another tabletop rpg). The decks are meant to be less of a story themselves and more of a glimpse into a possible chinese themed plane that the rest of magic could visit in the future.
Well she's clearly been a lifter for a while now, but she's moved on from instagram lifestyle fitness lifting to lifting to compete.
If you look up the alpha booklet online it clearly shows creatures in front.
Here's an article with scans of the book, showing creatures in the front of each player's area.
I really don't know why that's something people started saying. I learned how to play in Ice Age, and no rule book I saw at that time or since said to put lands in front. So unless somewhere between ABU and Ice Age they switched the images in the rulebook and then switched it back, no rule book has ever suggested to put lands in front.
It started as a way to confuse the game state because there weren't solid rules about how to do it, and the excuse people gave was just "that's how I learned it."
I suspect the Duel Decks died to make more room for the Annex line (see https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/product-architecture-how-product-made-2017-12-06 ).
The Challenger decks fill a niche, the same niche the Event decks used to fill, that of a preconstructed product aimed at Standard Constructed players.
Because the Phyrexians looked like monsters, and it's easy to make an intimidating or scary monster.
Getting players to resonate with stuff like [[Hana Kami]], a flower barfing up more flowers, is tougher.
I will find the post later but Maro has said that some of the themes of Kamigawa just didn't resonate with the player base at all.
EDIT: I don't think this is the exact article I'm remembering but it's close enough (emphasis mine)
> While designing Theros, we were very conscious of one of the shortcomings of Kamigawa block. That block contains a huge mass of cards that reference specific Shinto mythological creatures unknown to the majority of Magic's audience. These cards, which were intended to be resonant, did not, in fact, resonate with most of the players.
Just a heads up to collectors: They changed the Japanese card stock in 2016 for the Kaladesh release. They had this to say:
...people may notice an additional stiffness in the cardstock, and the very observant might note that the cards will fluoresce differently under UV light than previous Japanese printings.
Based on the article then and the current announcement now, I think it's reasonable to expect the cards to have a different look and feel as you authenticate them. If you have any Chinese-sourced proxies, make sure you take the time to compare the Japanese cards against these ones as it will be important as certain chase cards are identified and bubble up in value for Dominaria and all sets going forward.
Different articles at the bottom
> Another Dominaria experiment we'll be continuing was the introduction of Firesong and Sunspeaker, a legendary Minotaur creature only available as a Buy-a-Box promo (not even showing up in booster packs). Going forward, we'll be continuing this promotion, offering a mechanically unique Buy-a-Box promo card at local game stores with each major set release for the foreseeable future. Grab your booster box from your favorite local game store to get your extra-special promo.
How dare Wizards of the Coast oppress me with an openly transgender character in January of 2015? I can't believe that WotC is suddenly so anti-cis almost three years later!
> The problem was, by the time we wrote out all the text for the "programming" part of the card, there wasn't any room left, so the Commander rider text had to be left off.
Of course, Maro went on to errata it anyway, so no harm done.
It's funny how often commander creates tension on supplementary products that wouldn't have existed, say, five years ago. Especially the whole "should this lord be legendary?" dilemma, previously acknowledged with Pride Sovereign, and now with Earl of Squirrel.
As a Christian, I'm kicking myself for not realizing this sooner.
You know what though- all things considered, I can't help but think that this is deliberate. The darkest dungeon game, IMHO is Dismas's redemption story.
We start with the highwayman comic. Dismas is nothing more than a murder, and it's only after gunning down a child that he fully realizes the monster he's become.
Dismas isn't a young man, if his character image is anything to go by. Who knows how many lives he's taken. How many people he's robbed. How Mapuche injustice he's committed over the course of his life.
At the start of the game, dismas is a broken man seeking redemption- the game itself hints as much. The opening cut scene you get after making a new game file ends with the haunting line, "the old road will take you to hell. But in that gaping abyss... we will find our redemption."
What separates the Dismas from the various brigands and thieves you fight in the game? It's not just that Dismas is on another side- it's that he's left his old life behind in a vigorous (and potentially martyrous) pursuit of driving out one of the greatest evils in the world.
Also, I've got my theory that Dismas was the one the Ancestor sent the letter to, and is actually the Ancester's bastard son with some prostitute from when the Ancestor was much younger (it's been well established that the Ancestor was a unrepentant hedonist). But this is more pure speculation than anything else.
TL;DR Dismas is my favorite darkest dungeon character. I'm a sucker for redemption themes.
>If you don’t know the R&D story of Skullclamp then you’re probably an idiot. Let me educate you:
Revised: September 1, 2017
The following cards are banned from vintage play:
25 cards with the Card Type “Conspiracy.” Click here for list.
9 cards that reference "playing for ante." Click here for list.
Chaos Orb
Falling Star
Shahrazad
According to this, they just chatted with the D&D Branding Team to get Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. Getting their art probably wasn't any more of an issue.
Play Dwarf Fortress. The UI takes some getting used to, but holy hell is it the most intricate, fucked up game you can play.
Use the resources available to you and have as much patience as possible. If you ever understand it, it will be the most !!fun!! you have had in a game.
No worries, WoTC didn't think of it too. Or at least they did and came to the conclusion it doesn't work.
EDIT: As /u/SEND_DOGS_PLEASE correctly noted, the last paragraph under "Fighting a Planeswalker" is incorrect. A recent rule change and errata changed how non-combat damage against Planeswalkers work. When a damage-dealing spell says "any target", "target player or planeswalker" or "target opponent or planeswalker", it can target a planeswalker to damage it and to reduce its loyalty counters.
> Our love is like the river in the summer season of long rains:
For a little while it spilled its banks, flooding the crops in the fields.
But soon it will evaporate with the dry heat. Like Day from Night,
I'll live my life apart from you, just glimpsing you across the sky,
because you cannot change, my dear, and nor can I.
- Jenny Scott, The Love Song of Night and Day
Yeah, they revised the rule a couple years ago. Now they can play FNM and the like, but with black-out dates, but nothing seriously competitive. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/wizards-announces-wizards-play-policy-2015-01-30
It's doesn't so much have a learning curve as a learning cliff, but I've yet to find another game anything like it. I've heard it described as a "combination of Dungeon Keeper and the Sims, if all your minions were manic-depressive alcoholics".
On a related note, the cardstock used in Japanese cards (since Kaladesh) is 100% recyclable.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/new-japanese-cardstock-2016-09-19
Dwarf Fortress is free. The Steam version will have an official tileset, new music, and Steam Workshop integration, but if you're willing to play with ASCII graphics (or use a modded tileset), then you can download the game from the developer's website.
I haven't played Rimworld, but it may be the better option if a) ASCII graphics are a dealbreaker, b) a steep learning curve and hardcore gameplay are dealbreakers, or c) you like the sci-fi colony theme better than high fantasy.
> One day, a player goes to his local shop and buys a pack of Magic 2013. In it, he sees a copy of Rootborn Defenses. Magic booster packs usually have ten commons in them; none of those commons, though, tend to be from the next unreleased set!
> He goes to the Internet to share his news. There is much skepticism. The question everyone was asking was "How could that even happen?" He ends up contacting Wizards and we ask him to send in the card so we can figure out what is going on. Once we are done with our investigation, we had Erik Lauer sign the card (he designed it) and sent it back with a Selesnya banner signed by all the members of the Return to Ravnica design and development teams.
> So, how could that even happen? Here's my best guess. We print a lot of cards. As such, quite often, our printings are scheduled back to back, meaning the printer will print one Magic product, finish, and then set-up to do another printing of a different Magic product. My best assumption is that the printer in question printed a batch of Magic 2013. After that was done the printer moved onto other projects. At some point, the printer printed an early run of Return to Ravnica. Directly after that printing, it did a reprint for Magic 2013.
> When a printing is done, the printer cleans out the hoppers (i.e., where all the cards rest directly after being printed). Every once in a long while, the printer misses a card. Often, things get released chronologically upon being ordered or it's another run of the same product so no one notices. When the Magic 2013 reprint was done, the missed card got scooped up and packaged with the new printing.
> And that is (probably) how a Return to Ravnica card got sold in a Magic 2013 booster months early.
Far as we know, Ixalan's vampires are stupid powerful.
Emphasis on the stupid; consuming blood doesn't just(?) sustain them, but keeps them sane. Being deprived of blood heightens their senses and makes them all the more powerful. Adding to that, Vona outran Huatli chasing her by dinosaur for an inordinate amount of time*, and still had some fight left in her, it's safe to say she's a tough cookie.
Adding to that, there's cards like [[Deathless Ancient]] showing us that even entombed vampires aren't actually dead, and that the vampires of Torrezon are well aware of this.
I went back and checked, it was *nine hours of chasing her through rough terrain.
Yeah, before OP responded, I thought this was about Alesha. Who is canonically a trans- character, despite living in a fantasy world without HRT. Which, perhaps makes her better, because she's basically forced to be pre-everything.
Edit: I could have used her card art. But her card art is terrible imo.
Some trivia about Clone effects from MaRo: > Here's a little story most players don't know. For about six years Clone didn't work. Obviously, the card existed, as it was printed in Alpha, but for many years no one could work out the rules. The only solution was to stop printing it. That's why it appeared in Revised and then disappeared for many years. > I tried to bring the card back in Urza's Saga but the rules team at the time gave up and requested we change the card at the last minute.
According to the Announcement Article the new cards "will immediately be legal in Commander, Legacy, and Vintage", so I'm assuming black border.
I'm coming from Hearthstone (primarily constructed), and really loving MTGA!
- After the wipe, I know we will get our gems, but do you plan on giving all players some sort of premade decks or cards like we had before? After the wipe, would I need to buy alot of packs from the older sets?
- For players coming in late in any standard rotation - will content from older sets in standard rotation be free or discounted?
- How will nerfs/bans be handled? If I craft 4 mythics and it gets banned/nerfed will you offer a refund of wildcards similar to how Hearthstone does?
- Could you elaborate more on plans/ideas for normal constructed laddering? Are you thinking similar to other CCG's ladder systems with legend rank, rank floors, etc? Any ladder rank rewards? Ladder season length? (I like the quick constructed events but I think myself and others would also enjoy more details on regular laddering)
- What about Foils? How would they look? I would love something similar to HS or TESL. I liked how MTG duels let you add foils to the cards you wanted.
Thanks much!!!!
PS thanks for the communication and https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena/faq
I know it's more than a tiny detail, but I still am stoked that Fblthp became such a widespread meme that he got his own background story. I'd say it's a relatively tiny blip compared to the thousands of pages of story that is the whole of Magic lore.
Not too surprising, considering that it matches up perfectly with her sample voice line from the website.
"A mortal, powerless, takes up a blade and faces down death. That, too, is strength."
Although I will give you Geyadrone, she was Pre-Revisionist, and demons and angels are both mana constructs. That doesn't mean they're manmade, but they are indeed made of black mana, not living flesh. According to Doug Beyer here,
>Demons are similar, in that they are pure black mana made manifest.
it's mentioned somewhere in the aether revolt magic stories i think. It's comprised of ajani, tamiyo, and narset so far. but basically they have a little meeting every now and then
found it: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/release-2016-10-05
The Jeskai revere each type of mana as a kind of Fire:
- White - Soulfire
- Blue - Mistfire
- Black - Deathfire
- Red - Bloodfire
- Green - Vitalfire
- Colorless - Ghostfire
Deathfire and Vitalfire (Black and Green) are considered off limits as death magic is an abomination to the Jeskai and nature should not be controlled. Ghostfire mastery is only attained when a Jeskai can master the other three elemental fires, and they believe a Ghostfire master can transcend nature.
But they did know it was a problem when they were designing later sets. They mentioned in the Rampaging Ferocidon ban that it was intended as a counter:
>It's worth noting that Rampaging Ferocidon was designed at a time when Saheeli Rai–Felidar Guardian decks were coming to dominance in the real world, in part to counter those decks.
So they have definitely rolled out anti-something tech long after it stopped being a problem before.
Pretty interesting seeing 27-year-old Mark Rosewater's deckbuilding prowess. He actually played at a World Championship tournament in 1994 or so.
Also, I saw an interesting picture from this linked article where he elaborates on his story. Check out the binder on the table. Imagine this guy walking up to you today at your LGS. "You got any trades?"
I'm pretty sure the reasoning is something like 'we want Chinese players to be able to play this at their local FNM'
It's gonna be real weird if this is strong enough for GP level play. Are we gonna have two different metagames, one for China and one for everywhere else?
With the announcement of the continuation of Buy-a-Box promos, this is now another product that WotC has to toe the line to make sure it's not competitive.
>I’m Anton Strenger, Lead Designer for Civilization VI: Rise and Fall
https://civilization.com/news/entries/announcing-civilization-vi-rise-and-fall
So is Ed not the lead designer anymore?
Flip Bolas was designed once the set changed from Dom2 and became a core set focusing on Bolas backstory.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/creating-core-set-2019-2018-06-19
Off-topic
Can we take a moment to focus on this craptastic bit of web design?
// If the link's href is an anchor. add the gap to the scroll position for the fixed header jQuery("a[href^=#]:not(.ui-tabs-anchor)").click(function(e) { if ( !this.classList.contains("ui-tabs-anchor") ) { var target = jQuery(this).attr("href");
if(target != "#viewport" && target != "#" && !new RegExp('#most-read-articles-tab').test(target)) { jQuery('html, body').scrollTop(jQuery(target).offset().top - menuHeight); }
e.preventDefault(); } });
So you click a link that's like https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-online/magic-online-announcements-may-15-2018#_Downtimes_and_May which is sweet because with the anchor (i.e., the "#_Downtimes_and_May" bit) your browser scrolls down to that heading. And then you can press the back button to go back to the table of contents. Amazing 1990s technology!
But no, that is not good enough for Wizards' digital folks. Nooooo no no they needed this bullshit snippet of javascript that moves you down the page but doesn't visit the actual anchor link. That means you can't press the back button to go back to the table of contents. Magnificent 👌.
EDIT: Forgot the 👌.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/Commander-2018
"Choose your commander and carve your path to victory in this unique multiplayer Magic format. Call on powerful planeswalkers and deploy their signature strategies to make sure you're the last player standing."
In other game systems, like Magic, balance updates happen in regular intervals. How frequently can we expect a re-balancing of points? Outside of scheduled updates, if something is quickly shown to be unhealthy for the game, is the option of an emergency update to the app/points something you are willing to do?
Edit: context and desalination in an attempt to get a better answer Edit2: thanks u/Aroghast for desalinating the second half of my question
No speculation needed. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/returning-home-2018-04-02
"For years, when people ask if Richard would ever be on another design team, I always said all he had to do was ask. It then came to my attention that when Richard was asked if he'd ever be on another design team, he always replied he'd say yes if I ever asked. Well, years went by where the two of us were unaware we were each waiting on the other to say something. Once this was brought to my attention, I called up Richard and said, "How would you like to be on another Magic design team? I think I have the perfect set." As always, it was a treat to work with Richard on a design."
Unfortunately, they only raise corpses when they're in combat situations. Or perhaps fortunately, since the raised corpses are immediately hostile and try to kill the necromancers.
I think I'll report that as a bug.
Edit: Bug reported!
He's not mentioned at all in New Phyrexia flavour text. And the Steel Thanes, who want to be crowned Father of Machines, don't think about him at all.
Not that it matters much from a god-creation perspective. Even if they remembered a bit about him, any god they birthed would have little common with the original Yawgmoth.
This is actually a very diverse top 8. Everyone's distracted by the 2 KCI decks, but besides those there were:
- Jeskai Control
- GDS
- 2 Green Tron
- Bant Company
- Humans
That's a fantastic spread of decks. Compared to the GP Hartford, which was almost entirely linear, this had more "interactive" decks. I hate Tron as much as anyone with a soul, but it's a decent indicator of meta health for it to make it to the top tables, alongside control (Jeskai), midrange (GDS), and aggro/taxes (Humans).
Also, Bant Company made top 8. It's basically GW Company splashing blue for Reflector Mage and 4 counters in the side. (As an aside, this does speak to the surprising power of Reflector Mage in Modern.)
The only unfortunate thing is that there will likely be an uptick in KCI everywhere now. The third top 8 seems like what was needed to convince a lot of people to pick up the deck.
And most people will be slow with the deck for a few months, which could be painful to play against in paper.
Well sure, but you can also Show them The Door if they want to leave, which I think Hearthstone has the potential for but doesn't really want to let happen.