My favorite thing about werewolves is one of their support cards, Moonmist. Like Tovolar it forcibly transforms your werewolves, but unlike him it only specifies “Human.” This leads to weird interactions like humans with disturb looking at the moon and instantly dying.
my favorite thing about moonmist is that it instantly kills the flipwalkers from magic origins. They transform, realize they have no loyalty counters, and immediately die.
The biggest problem with the old transform wolves was that they really only work against control decks since it's more likely they won't cast a spell on thier turn other than that you usually never transformed them and even if you flipped them very likely you accidentally re flip them or the opponent would likely get two spells thank god the new day and night mechanic is so much better and solves some problems they had
Even back then though Innistrad was in standard alongside New Phyrexia and everybody was running ratchet bomb. Before they changed the ruling ratchet bomb was literally a 2 mana one sided board wipe since most werewolves used wolf tokens and transformed cards had a mana cost of 0 initially.
Really do love the magic content now, especially since I've been playing since shards and your channel also got me back into YGO, so I'm happy to continue watching with the new direction, if I know I'd personally love to see one on the various mechanics for the ravnica guilds both in original and RTR, especially since some guilds went from having terrible effects like orzhovs haunt mechanic to the busted extort mechanic.
I think the best way to fix future ones for good would be to give the frontsides some sort of mana sink, like duskwatch. Being able to get minor, repeatable spell effects through playing creatures could be interesting.
After spending years working on custom werewolf design, I have reached the conclusion that they have two interconnected problems in their design that amplify the other. The first is that the inhererent toothlessness of the human half, and the other is that their mechanic is built around tempo strategies, NOT AGGRO ones. As an example, suppose you cast a werewolf that enters as a 3/2 with first strike, with a human side that exiled target permanent for as long as it was human. Normally your opponent would just cast 2 spells to nerf the card, however if they did so they would lose their board's progress. This forces your opponent to consider which side they can tolerate more, playing at a disruptive tempo you can work around. Side note: If you also give this werewolf madness, then they have to consider this conundrum at all times as you could just madness them out in response to 2 spells being cast. (Daybound/nightbound undermines these strengths and is therefore a mistaken solution to the problem unless they support both separately to also make aggro versions work.)
That's good but not a real fix imo. Activated abilities are a lot more limited in power compared to spells, so usually it's almost always better to put mana into spells over abilities. Activated abilities are there for grindy long games where you've run out of cards, which is a little counter to what a wolf aggro deck would want to do in ending games quickly.
As a fan of werewolves, it being literally the first deck I ever played, this is fair. Also, the card Moonmist, being a fog for Werewolves, transforms all Humans, not just werewolf humans. Delver of Secrets can be transformed by it, which I wonder if Wizard ever considers when making humans that transform.
Perhaps they could make werewolves more powerful by adding more Immerwolf-type effects which read "Non-Human Werewolves you control can't transform." If werewolves were printed which prevented one's werewolves from transforming back into humans, that could be quite the boon.
The design goal was to punish typicals control draw go play patterns but the faces were not strong enough to match a control deck that just keep playing one spell on it's turn.
Maybe it already exists but I think something like unnatural moonrise but at instant speed would be great for the pack. Another couple unique werewolves that see play in other non wolf decks would howl pack piper and avvabruck care taker. Beast cards for stompy decks ahaha
Personally, I'd like to see a video on leveling cards. I assume the mechanic failed since I haven't seen any after the initial release (my guess would be because it's too slow and/or costly for not much benefit), but the mechanic came out when I was playing Magic a lot, so it's always stuck with me as one of the mechanics I actually tried to play with purely because it was a new system being added to the game.
Seems that they prefer the "level up" style of cards that require a specific mana cost to level up, instead of sinking into it a little at a time until you hit a level. Like that one Kithkin, Spirit, and Phyrexian
Another noteworthy thing about duskwatch recruiter is that it shared a standard format with collected company, so if your opponent had to pass the turn and you had mana up, it could be a lose lose to deal with recruiter
I'm a little sad that you ignored the (arguably) best Werewolf support card in INI, Moonmist. Instant speed, 1G, turn all your Humans into their Werewolf forms, and fog all non-wolf/werewolf damage. Also, hilariously, worked on Delver of Secrets.
Another keypart about the new werewolves is that most of them are good while on human form and great while transformed. On contrast the old werewolves felt more like there were weak/decent (even by 2011 standards) while on human form and good/great while transformed.
@@ich3730 It's also a werewolf problem. Even compared to how they worked back in the day, old Werewolves were below rate on their human side (read: the side they'll spend most of their time on) and many were only 'on rate' on the werewolf side. Midnight Hunt gave us a LOT more werewolves that are perfectly playable on the human side.
@@ich3730 I like when creatures are powerful. It makes the board more about the combat step than the stack,and means that 4 other colors can actually compete with blue. In vintage, legacy, pauper, and Cedh, you basically have to play blue in every deck.
@@jackalcoyote8777 goblins are pretty good in pauper, without any blue sources. Of course your not playing them for goblins and combat though, but for an infinite loop.
The original werewolves were so exploitable with their old transformation mechanic in Commander. *Tovolar, Dire Overlord* who can force transformations of human werewolves during your turn, made them work properly. There's also Immerwolf, which prevents non human werewolves from transforming. Surprised that werewolf staple wasn't mentioned
Honestly, if you're suggesting in a playgroup that all werewolves have Daybound/Nightbound, usually no one would argue with that. In my playgroup I'm known for having a lot of knowledge about the game, it's mechanics the reason for some. When I told them I would like to have all werewolves work the same way, they actually thought they were supposed to after Midnight Hunt dropped, since it makes complete sense. Trust me, I feels so good when you're playing Mayor of Avabruck and it naturally enters the battlefield on its backside when it's night, instead of coming down and buffing all of your non existing humans
@@cc_rex5017 this. And I bet when MTG arena does a remaster of Innistrad next summer werewolves will have the daybound/nightbound mechanic instead of their old one... sad Immerwolf wont be in there though since its not part of the set being remastered
The best way to describe this failure is this: The transform ability its suited best for stalling or long therm strategies but the werwolve archetipe as a whole was thought for agressive agroo. If you check the most successful transforming cards they are usually on those control decks.
Not necessarily. Cloistered Youth, Loyal Cathar, Heir of Falkenrath are best in aggro, Delver in tempo, Archangel Avacyn in midrange. DFCs have very different conditions, it's not possible to generalize them.
@@fernandobanda5734 he meant specifically the transform condition they used on the werewolves. Also, dfc just means double faced card, the word you're looking for is tfc
@@BassBaseAce "If you check the most successful transforming cards they are usually on those control decks" I don't think any Werewolves are used in any control deck, let alone the most successful ones.
@@fernandobanda5734 they’re talking about the werewolf transform condition not all transform cards. Obviously if delver just flipped back into a 1/1 at the whim of your opponent it wouldn’t exactly be the tempo powerhouse it is
Agreed, I have the most fun playing werewolves. The key is to have plenty of activated ability options on the battlefield to sink your mana into, like howlpack piper or monster’s manual
You choose not to play spells on your own turn and use instants to attack your opponents actions and enchantments/discourage them from playing multiple spells in a turn
@@coebaltraizure6137 But on the original mechanic, it looked for total spells cast, not cast by player whose turn it was. If held off on casting any spells, and successfully triggered the transformation, when your opponent went to cast a spell, and you flash something in, that's 2 spells cast on your opponent's turn, welcome back to the shitty human side. It's a mechanic that only works even kind of reliably if you bypass the check entirely. The new version is a big improvement, as you're not hoping that your opponents are topdecking lands to FUNCTION, but if you're running a werewolf deck, you're still running as many ways to take control of the day/night cycle as possible.
Back in the original Innistrad, werewolves had two cards that made them kind of viable. Immerwolf, which pumped your werewolves and stopped them from transforming back to the human side, and Moonmist, which was a one sided fog that transformed your human side werewolves at instant speed. Moonmist in particular let you flood the board and then swing out to for a big hit, but that also made you very dependent on hitting a single card to reliably flip your werewolves. The day/night cycle also has one real big problem of its own. Namely that it's a state that has to be tracked for the rest of the game once introduced. Especially given how a lot of werewolves are strong in decks without a whole bunch of werewolves, I've seen a lot of games where the day/night cycle gets introduced early, the creature that started it goes away, and then like 5 turns later, both players realize they forgot to track day/night and its now relevant again because another daybound card gets played. It would have been a nerf to the mechanic, but I would have kind of liked day/night to go away at the end of turn if no cards that care about it are in play. Honestly, I think the biggest problem for werewolves is lack of focus. There's a whole bunch of ways that the weakness of the mechanic could be addressed, and the solution they chose was all of them, which means each individual direction doesn't have the depth to really support a deck. There's a few good aggro ones that can reliably flip by just going under the opponent's deck, but not so much they can really build an aggro deck. There's some with flash, but not enough that you can play werewolves as a flash deck. There's some with mana sinks, but not enough and not powerful enough to really offset that as something to do instead of playing more to the board. There's good support cards that make it easier to flip or stay on the good side, but there's not enough to really build around it consistently, and your deck is still vulnerable to a single point of interaction. There's good value ones that want to flip a lot, but there's not enough to build a deck focused around just them. Of the options, I think flash and mana sinks are the most interesting. Giving werewolves some kind of mana sink that would let them put werewolves into play without casting them would be particularly neat. Fixes the problem of needing to decide between empowering your board or developing your board, and would be pretty worth it, even if you have to pay a premium for the creatures you got in this way. Or something similar to ninjutsu, where you can trade creatures in play for creatures in hand.
I'm glad someone mentioned Immerwolf. I got into a lot of these tribal decks in college, and always struggled to make werewolves viable. Immerwolf helped, but triggering each flip individually or relying on hitting Moonmist made it too slow to aggro. I ended up getting much more mileage out of esper spirits, and it remains one of my all time favorite decks.
I was wondering why Immerwolf and Moonmist weren't mentioned in the video. I remember getting hammered by my sister's werewolf deck when she'd get those cards out.
I agree, the lack of focus is a huge deal. The decks that want Spellrune Painter are different from the decks that want some of the others. If you mix old werewolves and new, support cards like Moonmist or Unnatural Moonrise only boost some of your cards. And even at heart, it's a dual-type tribe, so even typical pick a tribe cards only affect Wolves or Werewolves, but not both. Tovolar's presence at least solves some things, since instead of focusing on transforming, you only need three wolves/werewolves in play. Then Tovolar will force it to night for your turn and let you play normally. Even double spell if you want. And you just need to untap with your board intact. Still tough, but not impossible.
Whats even funnier is having day/night cycles in decks that have nothing to do with werewolves. The celestus is an artifact that gives you a mana of any color, can be tapped and pay 3 generic to force a day/night shift and in any d/n shift you can discard 1, draw 1 and gain 1 life. Is mostly used as a mana rock that loots sometimes for free in standard
As a suggestion for a new video, as a new player I hear about "ramping" and understand that some cards are made for this idea. Maybe reviewing some of the better ramp cards, both from a modern perspective and the whole of Magic's history could be cool.
i wanted to build a werewolf commander deck but there are just so many bad cards .. if the old ww just got an errata to day and night cycle ill think of it again, maybe
@@ich3730 well ... no. there is no other WW tribal commander. but i play a tovolar commander deck and it works well enough. including old werewolfs. i do have games where i start slow but i should add that its my very first magic deck so there is room for optimization.
One thing that should be mentioned here is the old ruling about transformed cards not having a cmc, and since Ratchet Bomb was in the original Scars/Inni, that meant there was a built in counter to the entire tribe since you could board wipe a werewolf player’s entire field for 2 mana
Werewolves did have a support card called "Immerwolf" that both gave them +1/+1 and made it so non-Human Werewolves didn't transform. The only real problems with it were that it 1. was a 2/2 for 1GR, 2. had no protection, and 3. was the biggest target aside from Mayor in a dedicated Werewolf deck. Werewolves also had possibly the most powerful Fog in all of MtG with Moonmist. It not only selectively Fogged things (it prevented all damage not dealt by Wolves and Werewolves, meaning you could swing with a board full of little guys, wait until after blockers were declared, and then end up killing everything with no losses), it also transformed all Humans before the damage prevention went through (which 1. turned all your Werewolves into their better forms for attacking or blocking and 2. technically meant it transformed Insectile Aberration back into Delver of Secrets, because Aberration kept its Human typing). Werewolves were one of the tribes in Innistrad that worked a lot better than the mechanics let on. People didn't like them because they either didn't like or didn't understand the playstyle the tribe forced you into: you don't play selectively, you play your permanents ASAP and only hold on to Instants. Sure, your opponent can do things to make them transform back on their turn, but they're still a problem for your opponent until they transform back, and you're playing smart, you've got a Moonmist in-hand and no other cards to play.
Sadly werewolves are a stax archetype in flavorful but not very staxy colors. Werewolves would have greatly benefit from a Naya commander that supports the tribe and breaks parity with things like Rule of Law effects. I was very sad with Tovolar because while it fixes some of the tribes flaws but it really doesn't fix all the issues and that's supporting the fact that they play really really well in stax and stax is more in blue and white. I did Kodama/Bruse Tarl as my commander(s) because it gives me that Naya color pairing and breaking parity with Rule of Law effects. It does somewhat work but it's not perfect.
As I say in my Tovolar Werewolf tribal deck. Tovolar makes the werewolves function. It's other cards that make them dangerous. Even for Gruul creatures, both sides are kind of small.
I feel like Werewolves could be somewhat salvaged if they gave them decent activated abilities on the frontside, so that if you decide to not cast any cards to trigger the transformation you aren't literally just skipping your turn. Skipping your turn is a ridiculous downside, especially when your opponent can just destroy the creatures you're trying to flip before it gets to your turn again.
While the Day/Night cycle isn’t ideal, it at least helped the issue just a bit. Also with Tovolar out, the mechanic is not as frustrating thankfully. I never ran into too many issues while playing my Tovolar deck
Small correction: the day/night cycle from the Daybound mechanic is not an upkeep trigger. It happens before you untap at the start of the turn and cannot be responded to. (Any abilities that trigger as a result will go on the stack at the start of the upkeep.)
@@Kakerate2 so he did say "at the beginning of your upkeep" at 7:40 and day/night happens in the middle of the untap step. Permanent that have phased out or have phasing phase in and out, day becomes night or night becomes day, then all Permanents untapped simultaneously
I think a really simple way to fix the "Bad vs Good" side mechanic of wearwolf's is too instead have it be Support vs Aggro; essentially make the front side about drawing card, making mana and building up your board state. While the backside is about profiting from attacking your opponents and buffing attacking creatures. I also think an elegant solution to the day/night cycle mechanic is to instead limit it to the player themselves; this is so that the pod themselves are not tracking whether it's day or night and the tribe has a lot more control over whether they flip or not. Plus also I feel the Day/Night cycle mechanic should trigger from a card mechanic instead, with something like "Call of the Night/Day"; a good example would be an expansive enchantment that lets the player at their upkeep choose whether it is the day time or night time for their board. Just some thoughts I cam up with.
if the condition were reversed, transforming the human face when casting 2 or more spells would encourage the aggro strategy, leaving your opponents the choice of doing nothing to weaken the werewolves, I think that small change would fix this tribe
You need a playlist of Failed Mechanics! I’m casually designing a card game, and a series dissecting why certain mechanics failed in magic is scrumptious
Interesting that I won two different PTQs with werewolves back in original Innistrad. They had some key support cards you left out, namely Moonmist, a 2 drop instant that was a one sided fog and flipped all humans, Full Moon's Rise, a 2 drop enchantment that gave werewolves+1/+0, trample, and could be sacced to regenerate them, Immerwolf which made them not transform back (came out in Dark Ascension), and Daybreak Ranger which was repeatable removal for Delver of Secrets
Werewolves didn't fail, they do their gimmick alright, the problem is lack of a decent variety of werewolves and the fact that they can revert back to their usually weaker counter part a little too easily.
Bruh I can't get over brutal "cather" 😂 we gotta get a proofreader on these scripts edit: a big reason Graveyard Trespasser is popular right now in standard/pioneer isn't really because it's a werewolf. It's more because it has on on-rate body (3/3) or sometimes above as a 4/4 AND can exile cards from graveyards. This is really important against a lot of the meta right now, where there is a lot going on in the graveyard (Tenacious Underdog, Kroxa, Greasefang, Storm the Festival), which becomes very annoying when paired with efficient removal in black which allows to easily put cards in GYs. Additionally, it has the effect of dealing 1 to your opponent while you gain 1 which can add up over time (just 3 life over the course of a game isn't trivial). Lastly, its ward makes you discard a card which effectively make it go 2-for-1 with most common forms of removal. It's an overall great card, but it could probably be printed without the transformation and still see play lol
@@coolcow5193 In pioneer it's really good when paired with Pramikon Sky Rampart. A common way to get Greasefang onto the field is to use Can't Stay Away combined with mill effects to get the vehicles in the yard more easily.
I *love* werewolves. I've had a foiled out werewolf Commander deck since before there was even a legendary werewolf (not to mention a good one). The issues you discussed are completely correct, but the worst part is that they're really fixable with technology that MTG has had since Dark Acension: make more werewolves with Huntmaster of the Fells style abilities. "When ~ transforms into (werewolf side) it deals 3 damage to any target." "When ~ transforms into (werewolf side) put a +1/+1 counter on it." "When ~ enters the battlefield or transforms into (human side) draw a card." Not a joke, Afflicted Deserter is one of the best cards in my commander deck for this reason, *despite being a 3/2 for 3R*. Your werewolves are going to flip back and forth, and for flavor reasons I don't think they're likely to change the conditions for transforming them (too much), so what they should be doing is doing something whenever they transform. If they wanted to be really smart about it they would give abilities that have a cost, so you can spend your mana on your opponents turn too. Oh, also Wizards should just errata werewolves to have Daybound/Nightbound. It would take like 4 hours to fix that whole mess and then I wouldn't have to spend 5 minutes explaining why my Mayor of Avabruck transformed back into a human but my Tovolar's Huntmaster didn't.
I really wish Wizards would errata the old Werewolf cards. Unfortunately, Wizards doesn't really like to errata cards like Konami will with Yugioh which means some cards that could be fixed will continue to languish.
Maro actually wanted to errata all of the old werewolves to follow day/night, and got blocked on it. It's why whenever a werewolf deck sits down at tables with me, I kinda just look around and immediately propose it as a houserule in commander.
Agreed. They should have either erratad the old cards, or kept the same templating. But the one thing that bothers me most is Arlinn’s new card. In lore, she is supposed to have control over her transformations, and this was reflected in her original card being able to flip back and forth when you activated certain abilities. But the new one ignores that and binds her to the day/night cycle.
Always wondered, with the original mechanic, would it have been too strong to swap the conditions, basically saying to your opponent "until I run out of cards, if you want my creatures to not be oppressive, you have to not cast spells on your turn" Like I get the flavor fail there, but honestly it seems like such a cooler mechanic that way
It is sad, I like the general Idea of the Werewolves . But i have to agree, the Transformation ability is really problematic. In my Commander deck with Tolovar as Commander, as well as Moonmist, Celestus and Unnatural Moonrise, they are playable but not strong.
I run a werewolf deck in commander and my friends can pretty much counter it by hard-targeting Tovolar the second he hits the board. I’ve been able to adjust with a few artifacts and some real winner wolves that came out in the Crimson vow set: Howlpack Piper, Cemetery Prowler, hollowhenge overlord, and Avabruck caretaker really help protect your wolves so you can skip turns more often. And cast wolves and wolf tokens for free or for cheap with abilities. It was weird to me how the best wolves came out in the vampire set?
one thing they could have done was giving the spells that make it instantly night (like Unnatural Moonrise, or even the Celestus) the abily where, if you made it night that way, it couldn't go back to day until your next turn. this way you could get instant value for making it become night, but didn't have the dumb thing where if you cast Unnatural Moonrise and, in the same turn, a werewolf, you actually did nothing because at the end of the turn it will be day again. and maybe add more, cheap spells that gave you easy access to night, or like artifacts or enchantments that gave you value but said "if this is the only spell you cast this turn, it becomes night as if you didn't cast any spell".
A friend of mine had this really annoying poison deck that I had such a hard time dealing with. Some sort of annoying flyer he used. But somehow my werewolf deck was one of the ones that bested him. I used the whole transform thing to control the flow of play. While human defend while wolf rage and attack. I didn't have much problem with in my play group but none of use ever really broke out like top stuff so either way I had fun
Surprised you didn't bring up Immerwolf, wolves and werewolves get +1 which can add up with other cards that do that, But also forces Werewolves to stay transformed. It's been a must in any Werewolf deck I've made. In play my opponents target Immerwolf in hopes of flipping my cards
There were more better support cards for the first werewolves that were meant to solve the issue. One was moonmist, an instant that made it so it would transform all humans, and prevents all combat damage to wolves and werewolves. The other was Immersewolf, a wolf creature that made it so your non-human werewolves can’t transform. But I can see why they still wouldn’t make it in standard during its time anyways. Sure, Moonmist flips all of your werewolves, but unless you win that turn, all your opponent would have to do is cast one more instant speed spell to transform them all back. And the only form of protection Immersewolf has is intimidate. If you have both of these cards at the same time, all an opponent would have to do is lightning bolt your wolf to counter the combo when you could just use moonmist on your other non-werewolf transforming humans to skip their flip requirements and get better mileage out of it. Werewolves are mostly going to be a Commander deck, where the tribe gets more love just as a community, rather than the harsh competitive side of the other formats.
Couple things: 1. Moonmist doesn't prevent combat damage to wolves/werewolves, it prevents all combat damage not dealt by wolves/werewolves. Big difference. 2. Old werewolves transformed back if a player cast two or more spells, not if two or more spells were cast collectively. Another big difference.
You brought up a lot of insightful points in this video that I am inclined to agree with. Personally, I think werewolves need more decent mana sinks like Child of the Pack to help develop the board.
I just got into MTG last year with the return to innistrad and werewolves are my favorite tribe. It's so frustrating how the new mechanic doesn't work with the old one.
Unless you're playing on tournaments (FNM, Modern, Pioneer, etc.) just ask the people you're playing with. I did it and they actually asked me what I meant by that, since they all assumed that all the old werewolf cards would be changed to work with Daybound/Nightbound. And if you're playing Commander, changing some rules is basically the spirit of the format
This reminds me of mabinogi duel, where we had the beast man cards, wich each would transform if a condition met and distranaform if another condition met One of them, beast woman Jane was absoluttelly broken simply because her comdition was easy to fulfil and her beast mode was invencivble, while having a good effect to distup your opponents board
8:15 while this is good for the werewolf players, it's PAIN for literally everyone else, having to keep track of day and night when playing paper. Even worse in commander. Just huge nuisance.
as the werewolf player i make it my responsibility to keep track of the day and night cycles, so i just have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing and I'm not usually in a pod larger than 4-5 players (including myself) so its not that hard
I have a long and storied history with Werewolves. Been playing them in EDH/Commander since 2015 and I've explored a lot of avenues to get around their harsh restrictions. Back in the day I tried some light stax pieces and a lot of Flash effects from things like Vedalken Orrery. Then I moved them into Naya colors to go heavier into the white Stax pieces. THEN Tovolar showed up and fixed every single problem the archetype ever had.
In standard mtga, I made it to mythic top 1% using a mid range werewolf deck. They are viable with cards that trigger the night time event in their mechanics like piper or arlinn.
Sounds a bit vague tbh. Which colorless deck? Is legacy lands a colorless deck? Which landless deck? Is affinity with 2 islands a manaless deck? If not, there is literally just one archetype that doesnt play lands and its explained in 2 mins.
When I saw the thumbnail, I didn't know they had a werewolf archtypes in Yu-Gi-Oh, then I clicked on the video and realized what card game he was talking about lmao. It's funny how the strongest tribal in the werewolf themed innistrad is zombies
All Wizards need to do is swap the requirements for the Day/Night cycle. If you needed to cast two spells to make it night, it would encourage you to flood the board like you want. And if your opponent has to play no spells to depower your werewolves, it would make it a painful choice for them to make.
I have a day/night werewolf deck on MTG arena. I think it's fun and i manage to win games with it. Albeit i'll admit, it's only playing casually and not trying to climb ranked or anything. Tovalar and avabruck caretaker are fairly scary if you have even a moderate amount of werewolves on the board.
Genuinely, the one thing they had to do is just make it so that they'd flip if *YOU* cast no spells that turn. Having your opponent involved in this mechanic is simply ridiculous. Edit: Oh nice. I guess Wizards figured that out too, heh.
This reminded me of Inspired, another mechanic that looked promising, but it still failed to catch in several formats, honestly I haven't seen it in play, barely exists in Commander thanks to King Macar the Gold-Cursed.
Tovolar is one of my favourite commander decks. But it already is more of a wolf deck and the werewolves in the deck will probably get sacrificed on the altar of future wolf printings.
The idea about not having a good or bad side but simply caring that day changes to night vice versa was actually a mechanic in Midnight Hunt in red, white and blue. However, it was just a low-powered Limited theme with no real aspirations to be in Constructed.
I didn't realise until I started watching this video, but one thing that has always confused me. Right up until this moment. Was that I struggled to remember/understand the front side flip condition. Requiring A player to not cast spells, is just sooooooo bad. My mind struggled to internalise it because even on a subconscious level, I can feel that it doesn't work. Now if you simply flip around the flip condition triggers, werewolves become MUCH more effective. If they flipped when someone casts 2 or more spells, then you're pressuring your opponent. "Cast too much shit, and you're gonna get hit". And if they do so, say they are 'forced' to play in order to curve out. Then you're opponent now has to deal with the "You've either got to cast something that can kill my big scary werewolf. Or take a hit, and do nothing for a turn in order to protect yourself". This way around, the dynamic is totally different. The threat is there. And it's 'balanced' in that your opponent can still interact with it. Have a kill spell? No problem, transform all day long.
Without even having tried to build a list like this, I think with werewolves you need to find the right mix of just good instant-speed interaction cards as well as cards that let you circumvent "casting" a card. e.g. Aether Vial or Vivien's Arkbow and even Bag of Tricks to allow you putting creatures directly into play instead of having to cast them and cards like Krosan Tuskers Cycling ability letting you ramp and draw a card without that counting as having played a spell. Also permanents with good mana sink abilities to get around having to cast stuff: e.g. the very obviously for that purpose designed Kessig Wolf Run but also also lands or generally cheap permanents with instant speed abilities to do stuff at the end of your opponents turn, when you're holding up instant speed interaction (like a counterspell or removal) and don't get a reason to cast it (e.g. lands that produce creature tokens like Kher Keep.) Also relevant permanents (including equipments and auras) with flash. Play anequipment with flash on their turn, and later in the game, the equip ability is just one more way of spending your mana for relevant effects. Ghitu Firebreathing (2 mana flash aura: spend R to give +1/+0) can be cast on opponents turn, untap and on your turn you can pump up scary attacker. Talons of Falkrenratz is very similar, is slighty more expensive but has the upside that it requires generic mana in your not-just-red-deck. But even without build in Mana Sink abilities, there's a lot of decent Flash Auras to pump or protect your Wolves at instant speed. Eel Umbra is a good one I think. (2 mana, +1/+1 and gives totem armor to protect against removal) I'd probably try to lean into green/red/blue because blue gives access to a lot of good instant and flash cards, as well as Alchemists Refuge, a land that let's you play permanents at flash. (But Emergenze Zone is also good). Also Ride The Avalance (2 mana instant, next spell has flash and comes into play with X +1/+1 where X = casting cost) Basically, make REALLY sure that besides maybe a setup turn early you never ever have to cast anything ever again on your own turn constantly pressuring your opponent to double spell on their turn while you're still not skipping any plays. It's still going to be a bit janky, but it sounds like a lot of fun.
Kayther? 🤣 Jesus Christ dude Cathar is pronounced “KuhTHARR.” Language is the most sacred shared tradition, it sounds really bad when people shit on it.
I know this is probably about paper cards, but the problems exist in digital (& mtga alchemy specifically) as well. I laddered up to Diamond1+ no problem last season running a version of Gruul Werewolves + Bard Class. Bard Class allowed you to get Tovolor and Arlinn down for 2 r/g mana each. Super powerful! Now with Bard Class gone and so many kicker mechanics & fast removal from the new Dominaria set, the wolf deck is just way too slow even with modifications. We need way more 3-4 drops with actual value that can provide decent options to tech and stay on the board for more than one turn- no matter the rarity. Rahilda is the only werewolf who has survived in my Gruul deck this season for her excellent utility, and she misses her pack!
If a person is 'expecting' 'A Mechanic' to win their game for them... they aren't playing it right... My Werewolf Deck makes my opponent debate if it is wise to let it stay day or try and survive the Night..... Aka... using the Mechanic properly... you should always make the Opponent question their fate like mine does... but of course it isn't the 'Generic Deck'... New Users may choose... granted mine is only like a 70% win if they call something right at the right time... that devastates me... not the Mechanic... half the time I want them to Choose weather it is Night or Day... as I will force it the other way if I want ;) All Mechances are 50/50... if you put the right balance... anything is possible.... but I do find above 70% extremely hard... and there are some that destroy it that I see... but everything is Chance.... you do as you... they do as they do... you win or you loose... end of story
A card who help a lot to this deck and aslo fix the problem of the transformation is Immerwolf: "Intimidate. Other wolf and werewolf creatures you control get +1/+1. Non-Humans werewolves you control can´t transform."
The whole Night/Daybound stuff annoyed me, cause no matter what someone is always casting a spell. SO you always HAD to have things that would help keep them transformed, which your opponent would try to get rid of ASAP if they weren't already nuking your Werewolves. Edit: That and the minor minor gripe of pulling them out of the sleeve to flip them.
I’m biased because I’ve loved werewolves since their debut in the original Innistrad block but yes….they’ve been pretty bad over the years with some exception(I’m looking at you huntmaster of the fells). That said the Day//Night mechanic fixed a lot of the issues the archetype had IMO
I think Werewolves should have been a standalone tribe on non-flip cards... making the backside and frontside individual cards... then using art/flavor in the Werewolf cards to imply they are Humans in the set. This could even let you have a red or green Werewolf card in the set, that's like a mockery of a blue, white, or black Human. Because they aren't the same card physically, it's just implied. The same way most of the Tarkir block, or even all of Lorwyn are not flip-cards when their world changes.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Howlpack Piper. It's 4 mana 2/2 that lets you cheat out werewolves from your hand for 2 mana each. I'm a big fan of midrange werewolves and this card is the only reason it remotely works. I think more strong card effects like Piper could have made werewolves much better, it allows you to spend your mana and do stuff without actually casting spells.
There's two other overlapping big issues with werewolves, and that's that they are tied to both the dual-faced card (DFC) mechanic, and lore-wise to Innistrad. This causes logistical issues with printing more werewolves, as any given set can only have so many DFC'S, especally when the werewolves need to be concentrated in RG for Mana purposes. Likewise, being tied to DFC'S means that werewolves can't just show up in a random set like the other tribes can. This leads to a mechanic that can't show up in most sets, and when it does show up, there's limits on how many cards they can make in a single set.
I thought about trying to make a werewolf tribal deck with the recent Innistrad set but the day/night mechanic is still hard to play around. In Arena, it'll be tough to make it work, even in Historical format. I might have better luck with MTGO with a bigger card list to work with but only being able to cast a single spell per turn to keep it night is going to make that difficult. I know there are some generic cards that can be used for tribal decks like Coat of Arms, Maskwood Nexus, and quite a number of Changeling cards. What would be some good ones to use for tribal decks?
Ppl are taking a lot of different messages from this. But to me this is a cool study in a mechanic that can be a powerful four-of, but can't be the basis for a synergy deck. And that's an eternal question in magic. "This +1/+1 counters deck is cool, and two of the cards in it are standard playable. But do they work together?" I'll be thinking on this for a while
something else werewolves got "recently" is mana abilities that allows them to play the deck without casting, a good example of that is howlpack piper, which allows you to play a card from your hand for 1 green+1 and by taping it, then you can untap it if you played a werewolf that way, not only does it allow you to play your biggest werewolves on turn 5 (piper cost 4), but it also allows you to flood the board without casting a single spell, meaning that it then becomes night. Its backside effect also allows you to search 1. IMO what werewolf lacks is a card that fully control the day/night cycle. Something like an artifact you can tap for free to change the time would be nice. add something like +1/+1 to all of your werewolves and you would be set to go
Always seemed to me like the warewolf triggers were backwards. Shouldn't the creature punish you for sitting on your duff like demons typically do? This would create design symmetry among the forces of evil and make warewolves more aggro-friendly. Just me though.
They knew huntmaster of the fells was good, that's why it's a non-legendary mythic. This is sort of how wizards of the money opperates, by making function, stand alone cards mythic, and letting archtypes be hyped and die when lower rarity members don't work. It's kinda like when konami wanted to go komoney and put every single searcher of every archtype at ultra or higher for a while, before realizing that was dumb.
Two possible solutions would be to make it only care about you and/or only on your turn, or to make it only look at non-wolf/werewolf spells. If it only cared if you had cast 0 or 2+ spells on your turn, ignoring the enemies turn and spells, it'd be much easier to control. If it looked at non-wolf/werewolf spells, werewolves would be self-synergistic without needing to all have flash; you could curve out with werewolves while still transforming them.
Honestly transforming old school werewolves wasn’t too bad with cards like Moonmist and eventually Immerwolf. The biggest offender and reason why people didn’t play werewolves was ratchet bomb. Ratchet bomb was in standard still when Innistrad came out and it was a 2 colorless mana one sided board wipe against werewolves. Transformed cards had a mana cost of 0 until WotC finally changed the rules only just recently. If your entire board was transformed and tokens, ratchet bomb just ended your game.
Gruul Werewolves can get up to around 70% win-rate for me on MTGA so I think the tribe is fairly successful. Too many people build the decks either with not enough werewolf, or go too all-in without any interaction support.
what would be cool were Were wolves with mana-costing abilities on their front side. That way you could still put mana into some card advantage or +1/+1 counters etc without casting any spell
I realized it doesn't really fit into the current law but I would love to see them make a new iteration of werewolves based off of Classic, pri pre Hollywood era mythology. In other words wolves that could transform at will and are wolves gifted various forms to be protectors of nature there's a nature not cursed humans who flipped when the moon changed. Again I realized this doesn't really fit into how Inistrad works. But it would give the cards some much needed value and allow those of us who Study various pathologies to make a theme deck back that isn't tied to Hollywood movies. Note: most stories of werewolves being cursed humans came from fear of natural wolves and usually popped up in the 1800s.
Huntmaster of the Fells was a good start, but the fundamental issue with werewolves is relying on a mechanic with too much variance. In order to make a good werewolf card, you either have to be able to completely control the day/night mechanic or simply make a card that's useful on both sides. The other issue is that the few good werewolves tend to not have much strong synergy with each other. Duskwatch Recruiter doesn't really combo with Huntmaster other that being sporadic card advantage, Graveyard Trespasser is out of color and really only cares about graveyard hate, an the lords like immurwolf are just underpowered to be used in current magic meta (but that's mostly a lord thing in general, not specific to werewolves).
werewolves would be fine if they had errated the Old Werewolves to Day/Nightbound. Cuz the two different flipping mechanics is the only factor that keeps werewolves from beeing a high tier tribe. It would be such an easy change, which would bring so much joy to the players of that tribe and would be a really nice support for the tribe.
They are kinda built for limited. WotC tries to put in sets mechanics to allow boardstalls to be broken as rounds going to extra turns is bad for organized play. If the game ends in a top deck war, drawing a single land makes the werewolves flip, and it becomes nearly impossible to flip them back. It puts pressure on players to stay proactive or get run over. I think it's more fitting for the setting, sometimes those mechanics are obnoxious (invokers aren't subtle, and exert was just stupid).
Yeeeeah I don't care. Midnight Hunt werewolves are fucking awesome, and as long as you build your deck right, you can benefit from night buffs and out duel your opponent.
As a person who only plays limited formats, Werewolves were never failures. They were always interesting in Limited. I can understand calling them failures from a Constructed viewpoint though.
I am a noob when it comes to MTG so I'm not sure if this would be broken but I think they should have made some kind of cards that would encourage/force players to use the day/night mechanic to the controllers advantage by having a card out which would trigger value of some kind during the end phase for each player affecting only the werewolf/human cards not flipped getting X or a +1/+1 or draw a card per creature, etc the low cost spell/creature when removed would trigger a cycle change regardless achieving the goal plus a potential perk. Another idea perhaps a card with a count down which would shift the time of day with a big bonus unless ended early but still shift the time of day regardless.
Geist of St. Traft did not come out the same set as Howlpack resurgance, a better example would be Mausoleum wanderer Good vid. Maybe you could try to explain why banding failed
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My favorite thing about werewolves is one of their support cards, Moonmist. Like Tovolar it forcibly transforms your werewolves, but unlike him it only specifies “Human.” This leads to weird interactions like humans with disturb looking at the moon and instantly dying.
oh wow never thought about that
my favorite thing about moonmist is that it instantly kills the flipwalkers from magic origins. They transform, realize they have no loyalty counters, and immediately die.
Sadly moonmist doesn't work on daybound werewolves
Flipwalkers and humans that transform into auras die. Other humans transformed by moonmist will be fine.
Guess they were destered by what they saw.
The biggest problem with the old transform wolves was that they really only work against control decks since it's more likely they won't cast a spell on thier turn other than that you usually never transformed them and even if you flipped them very likely you accidentally re flip them or the opponent would likely get two spells thank god the new day and night mechanic is so much better and solves some problems they had
Even back then though Innistrad was in standard alongside New Phyrexia and everybody was running ratchet bomb. Before they changed the ruling ratchet bomb was literally a 2 mana one sided board wipe since most werewolves used wolf tokens and transformed cards had a mana cost of 0 initially.
Really do love the magic content now, especially since I've been playing since shards and your channel also got me back into YGO, so I'm happy to continue watching with the new direction, if I know I'd personally love to see one on the various mechanics for the ravnica guilds both in original and RTR, especially since some guilds went from having terrible effects like orzhovs haunt mechanic to the busted extort mechanic.
I don't play magic at all but your voice is so smooth I could listen to it all day
I think the best way to fix future ones for good would be to give the frontsides some sort of mana sink, like duskwatch. Being able to get minor, repeatable spell effects through playing creatures could be interesting.
After spending years working on custom werewolf design, I have reached the conclusion that they have two interconnected problems in their design that amplify the other. The first is that the inhererent toothlessness of the human half, and the other is that their mechanic is built around tempo strategies, NOT AGGRO ones.
As an example, suppose you cast a werewolf that enters as a 3/2 with first strike, with a human side that exiled target permanent for as long as it was human. Normally your opponent would just cast 2 spells to nerf the card, however if they did so they would lose their board's progress. This forces your opponent to consider which side they can tolerate more, playing at a disruptive tempo you can work around.
Side note: If you also give this werewolf madness, then they have to consider this conundrum at all times as you could just madness them out in response to 2 spells being cast. (Daybound/nightbound undermines these strengths and is therefore a mistaken solution to the problem unless they support both separately to also make aggro versions work.)
What Werewolves need is activated abilities so you can still do something useful on your turn by using your mana and still make it night
That's good but not a real fix imo. Activated abilities are a lot more limited in power compared to spells, so usually it's almost always better to put mana into spells over abilities. Activated abilities are there for grindy long games where you've run out of cards, which is a little counter to what a wolf aggro deck would want to do in ending games quickly.
As a fan of werewolves, it being literally the first deck I ever played, this is fair. Also, the card Moonmist, being a fog for Werewolves, transforms all Humans, not just werewolf humans. Delver of Secrets can be transformed by it, which I wonder if Wizard ever considers when making humans that transform.
I really enjoyed this video, hope to see more from this series
Perhaps they could make werewolves more powerful by adding more Immerwolf-type effects which read "Non-Human Werewolves you control can't transform." If werewolves were printed which prevented one's werewolves from transforming back into humans, that could be quite the boon.
The design goal was to punish typicals control draw go play patterns but the faces were not strong enough to match a control deck that just keep playing one spell on it's turn.
3:11 "An incredibly ricky play" haha
Maybe it already exists but I think something like unnatural moonrise but at instant speed would be great for the pack. Another couple unique werewolves that see play in other non wolf decks would howl pack piper and avvabruck care taker. Beast cards for stompy decks ahaha
They should make an enchatment: Call of the full moon: all werewolves have flash.
Personally, I'd like to see a video on leveling cards.
I assume the mechanic failed since I haven't seen any after the initial release (my guess would be because it's too slow and/or costly for not much benefit), but the mechanic came out when I was playing Magic a lot, so it's always stuck with me as one of the mechanics I actually tried to play with purely because it was a new system being added to the game.
Seems that they prefer the "level up" style of cards that require a specific mana cost to level up, instead of sinking into it a little at a time until you hit a level. Like that one Kithkin, Spirit, and Phyrexian
Another noteworthy thing about duskwatch recruiter is that it shared a standard format with collected company, so if your opponent had to pass the turn and you had mana up, it could be a lose lose to deal with recruiter
I'm a little sad that you ignored the (arguably) best Werewolf support card in INI, Moonmist. Instant speed, 1G, turn all your Humans into their Werewolf forms, and fog all non-wolf/werewolf damage.
Also, hilariously, worked on Delver of Secrets.
I thought werewolves were seeing meta play in arena during Midnight Hunts release
Another keypart about the new werewolves is that most of them are good while on human form and great while transformed. On contrast the old werewolves felt more like there were weak/decent (even by 2011 standards) while on human form and good/great while transformed.
I've basically cut all but THE standout old werewolves from my werewolf commander deck.
thats not a werewolf problem, thats powercreep lol xD Cards being baseline "Good" and then in some cases "broken" is the modern design standard...
@@ich3730 It's also a werewolf problem. Even compared to how they worked back in the day, old Werewolves were below rate on their human side (read: the side they'll spend most of their time on) and many were only 'on rate' on the werewolf side.
Midnight Hunt gave us a LOT more werewolves that are perfectly playable on the human side.
@@ich3730 I like when creatures are powerful. It makes the board more about the combat step than the stack,and means that 4 other colors can actually compete with blue.
In vintage, legacy, pauper, and Cedh, you basically have to play blue in every deck.
@@jackalcoyote8777 goblins are pretty good in pauper, without any blue sources. Of course your not playing them for goblins and combat though, but for an infinite loop.
The original werewolves were so exploitable with their old transformation mechanic in Commander. *Tovolar, Dire Overlord* who can force transformations of human werewolves during your turn, made them work properly.
There's also Immerwolf, which prevents non human werewolves from transforming. Surprised that werewolf staple wasn't mentioned
Honestly, if you're suggesting in a playgroup that all werewolves have Daybound/Nightbound, usually no one would argue with that. In my playgroup I'm known for having a lot of knowledge about the game, it's mechanics the reason for some. When I told them I would like to have all werewolves work the same way, they actually thought they were supposed to after Midnight Hunt dropped, since it makes complete sense. Trust me, I feels so good when you're playing Mayor of Avabruck and it naturally enters the battlefield on its backside when it's night, instead of coming down and buffing all of your non existing humans
@@cc_rex5017 this. And I bet when MTG arena does a remaster of Innistrad next summer werewolves will have the daybound/nightbound mechanic instead of their old one... sad Immerwolf wont be in there though since its not part of the set being remastered
The best way to describe this failure is this: The transform ability its suited best for stalling or long therm strategies but the werwolve archetipe as a whole was thought for agressive agroo. If you check the most successful transforming cards they are usually on those control decks.
Not necessarily. Cloistered Youth, Loyal Cathar, Heir of Falkenrath are best in aggro, Delver in tempo, Archangel Avacyn in midrange. DFCs have very different conditions, it's not possible to generalize them.
@@fernandobanda5734 he meant specifically the transform condition they used on the werewolves. Also, dfc just means double faced card, the word you're looking for is tfc
@@fernandobanda5734 I think they meant the transform condition for werewolves specifically, not dfc's in general
@@BassBaseAce "If you check the most successful transforming cards they are usually on those control decks" I don't think any Werewolves are used in any control deck, let alone the most successful ones.
@@fernandobanda5734 they’re talking about the werewolf transform condition not all transform cards. Obviously if delver just flipped back into a 1/1 at the whim of your opponent it wouldn’t exactly be the tempo powerhouse it is
The flavour of werewolves is so good. Failed mechanic or not, werewolf tribal is still one of my favourite decks
With Tovolar as commander is great
I love them
Agreed, I have the most fun playing werewolves. The key is to have plenty of activated ability options on the battlefield to sink your mana into, like howlpack piper or monster’s manual
"What condition should we set to this entire archetype of creatures? Ah yes, hoping nobody plays the game for a turn"
Who approved this.
You choose not to play spells on your own turn and use instants to attack your opponents actions and enchantments/discourage them from playing multiple spells in a turn
@@coebaltraizure6137 But on the original mechanic, it looked for total spells cast, not cast by player whose turn it was.
If held off on casting any spells, and successfully triggered the transformation, when your opponent went to cast a spell, and you flash something in, that's 2 spells cast on your opponent's turn, welcome back to the shitty human side. It's a mechanic that only works even kind of reliably if you bypass the check entirely. The new version is a big improvement, as you're not hoping that your opponents are topdecking lands to FUNCTION, but if you're running a werewolf deck, you're still running as many ways to take control of the day/night cycle as possible.
Just cast the mana to active card abilities
Then, if they catch up by playing more spells later, you penalize them!
This is why I really liked the eldrazi werewolves, they just had a mana cost to transform and couldn’t transform back to the first side
When Midnight Hunt came out, I instantly became a fan of werewolves. The issues never bothered me
figures
Profile pic checks out
Same here
I’m not sure he really considered midnight hunt when making this video
@@Chace957 he did at the end
Back in the original Innistrad, werewolves had two cards that made them kind of viable. Immerwolf, which pumped your werewolves and stopped them from transforming back to the human side, and Moonmist, which was a one sided fog that transformed your human side werewolves at instant speed. Moonmist in particular let you flood the board and then swing out to for a big hit, but that also made you very dependent on hitting a single card to reliably flip your werewolves.
The day/night cycle also has one real big problem of its own. Namely that it's a state that has to be tracked for the rest of the game once introduced. Especially given how a lot of werewolves are strong in decks without a whole bunch of werewolves, I've seen a lot of games where the day/night cycle gets introduced early, the creature that started it goes away, and then like 5 turns later, both players realize they forgot to track day/night and its now relevant again because another daybound card gets played. It would have been a nerf to the mechanic, but I would have kind of liked day/night to go away at the end of turn if no cards that care about it are in play.
Honestly, I think the biggest problem for werewolves is lack of focus. There's a whole bunch of ways that the weakness of the mechanic could be addressed, and the solution they chose was all of them, which means each individual direction doesn't have the depth to really support a deck. There's a few good aggro ones that can reliably flip by just going under the opponent's deck, but not so much they can really build an aggro deck. There's some with flash, but not enough that you can play werewolves as a flash deck. There's some with mana sinks, but not enough and not powerful enough to really offset that as something to do instead of playing more to the board. There's good support cards that make it easier to flip or stay on the good side, but there's not enough to really build around it consistently, and your deck is still vulnerable to a single point of interaction. There's good value ones that want to flip a lot, but there's not enough to build a deck focused around just them.
Of the options, I think flash and mana sinks are the most interesting. Giving werewolves some kind of mana sink that would let them put werewolves into play without casting them would be particularly neat. Fixes the problem of needing to decide between empowering your board or developing your board, and would be pretty worth it, even if you have to pay a premium for the creatures you got in this way. Or something similar to ninjutsu, where you can trade creatures in play for creatures in hand.
I'm glad someone mentioned Immerwolf. I got into a lot of these tribal decks in college, and always struggled to make werewolves viable. Immerwolf helped, but triggering each flip individually or relying on hitting Moonmist made it too slow to aggro. I ended up getting much more mileage out of esper spirits, and it remains one of my all time favorite decks.
I was wondering why Immerwolf and Moonmist weren't mentioned in the video. I remember getting hammered by my sister's werewolf deck when she'd get those cards out.
There is a werewolf that can put them onto the battlefield, Howlpack piper
I agree, the lack of focus is a huge deal. The decks that want Spellrune Painter are different from the decks that want some of the others. If you mix old werewolves and new, support cards like Moonmist or Unnatural Moonrise only boost some of your cards. And even at heart, it's a dual-type tribe, so even typical pick a tribe cards only affect Wolves or Werewolves, but not both.
Tovolar's presence at least solves some things, since instead of focusing on transforming, you only need three wolves/werewolves in play. Then Tovolar will force it to night for your turn and let you play normally. Even double spell if you want. And you just need to untap with your board intact. Still tough, but not impossible.
They have both flash and mana sink for werewolves
Whats even funnier is having day/night cycles in decks that have nothing to do with werewolves. The celestus is an artifact that gives you a mana of any color, can be tapped and pay 3 generic to force a day/night shift and in any d/n shift you can discard 1, draw 1 and gain 1 life. Is mostly used as a mana rock that loots sometimes for free in standard
As a suggestion for a new video, as a new player I hear about "ramping" and understand that some cards are made for this idea. Maybe reviewing some of the better ramp cards, both from a modern perspective and the whole of Magic's history could be cool.
Personally I play werewolves in commander. Very fun even if they aren’t very practical
i wanted to build a werewolf commander deck but there are just so many bad cards .. if the old ww just got an errata to day and night cycle ill think of it again, maybe
@@sadcyclops8909 use tovolar as commander. his effect lets you transform the old werewolfs
@@tetsuryu6107 Wait is there another werewolf tribal commander people would run? xD Its tovolar only for this tribe
@@ich3730 well ... no. there is no other WW tribal commander.
but i play a tovolar commander deck and it works well enough. including old werewolfs.
i do have games where i start slow but i should add that its my very first magic deck so there is room for optimization.
@@sadcyclops8909 this is asked a lot, but as always, wizards doesn't listen to the playerbase
One thing that should be mentioned here is the old ruling about transformed cards not having a cmc, and since Ratchet Bomb was in the original Scars/Inni, that meant there was a built in counter to the entire tribe since you could board wipe a werewolf player’s entire field for 2 mana
Brutal Cathar is not like Lhurgoyf or Fblthp. It is a real word with a real definition, spelling, and pronunciation.
He’s a real boy!
All of magic cards are made in the english language and can be pronounced phonetically when its not a real word
Werewolves did have a support card called "Immerwolf" that both gave them +1/+1 and made it so non-Human Werewolves didn't transform. The only real problems with it were that it 1. was a 2/2 for 1GR, 2. had no protection, and 3. was the biggest target aside from Mayor in a dedicated Werewolf deck.
Werewolves also had possibly the most powerful Fog in all of MtG with Moonmist. It not only selectively Fogged things (it prevented all damage not dealt by Wolves and Werewolves, meaning you could swing with a board full of little guys, wait until after blockers were declared, and then end up killing everything with no losses), it also transformed all Humans before the damage prevention went through (which 1. turned all your Werewolves into their better forms for attacking or blocking and 2. technically meant it transformed Insectile Aberration back into Delver of Secrets, because Aberration kept its Human typing).
Werewolves were one of the tribes in Innistrad that worked a lot better than the mechanics let on. People didn't like them because they either didn't like or didn't understand the playstyle the tribe forced you into: you don't play selectively, you play your permanents ASAP and only hold on to Instants. Sure, your opponent can do things to make them transform back on their turn, but they're still a problem for your opponent until they transform back, and you're playing smart, you've got a Moonmist in-hand and no other cards to play.
Sadly werewolves are a stax archetype in flavorful but not very staxy colors.
Werewolves would have greatly benefit from a Naya commander that supports the tribe and breaks parity with things like Rule of Law effects. I was very sad with Tovolar because while it fixes some of the tribes flaws but it really doesn't fix all the issues and that's supporting the fact that they play really really well in stax and stax is more in blue and white.
I did Kodama/Bruse Tarl as my commander(s) because it gives me that Naya color pairing and breaking parity with Rule of Law effects. It does somewhat work but it's not perfect.
As I say in my Tovolar Werewolf tribal deck. Tovolar makes the werewolves function. It's other cards that make them dangerous. Even for Gruul creatures, both sides are kind of small.
I feel like Werewolves could be somewhat salvaged if they gave them decent activated abilities on the frontside, so that if you decide to not cast any cards to trigger the transformation you aren't literally just skipping your turn. Skipping your turn is a ridiculous downside, especially when your opponent can just destroy the creatures you're trying to flip before it gets to your turn again.
While the Day/Night cycle isn’t ideal, it at least helped the issue just a bit. Also with Tovolar out, the mechanic is not as frustrating thankfully. I never ran into too many issues while playing my Tovolar deck
Small correction: the day/night cycle from the Daybound mechanic is not an upkeep trigger. It happens before you untap at the start of the turn and cannot be responded to. (Any abilities that trigger as a result will go on the stack at the start of the upkeep.)
did he say it was an upkeep trigger? Either way, the point about you disabling it by opt'ing on their EOT still stands.
@@Kakerate2 so he did say "at the beginning of your upkeep" at 7:40 and day/night happens in the middle of the untap step. Permanent that have phased out or have phasing phase in and out, day becomes night or night becomes day, then all Permanents untapped simultaneously
I think a really simple way to fix the "Bad vs Good" side mechanic of wearwolf's is too instead have it be Support vs Aggro; essentially make the front side about drawing card, making mana and building up your board state. While the backside is about profiting from attacking your opponents and buffing attacking creatures.
I also think an elegant solution to the day/night cycle mechanic is to instead limit it to the player themselves; this is so that the pod themselves are not tracking whether it's day or night and the tribe has a lot more control over whether they flip or not. Plus also I feel the Day/Night cycle mechanic should trigger from a card mechanic instead, with something like "Call of the Night/Day"; a good example would be an expansive enchantment that lets the player at their upkeep choose whether it is the day time or night time for their board. Just some thoughts I cam up with.
if the condition were reversed, transforming the human face when casting 2 or more spells would encourage the aggro strategy, leaving your opponents the choice of doing nothing to weaken the werewolves, I think that small change would fix this tribe
You need a playlist of Failed Mechanics! I’m casually designing a card game, and a series dissecting why certain mechanics failed in magic is scrumptious
Interesting that I won two different PTQs with werewolves back in original Innistrad. They had some key support cards you left out, namely Moonmist, a 2 drop instant that was a one sided fog and flipped all humans, Full Moon's Rise, a 2 drop enchantment that gave werewolves+1/+0, trample, and could be sacced to regenerate them, Immerwolf which made them not transform back (came out in Dark Ascension), and Daybreak Ranger which was repeatable removal for Delver of Secrets
Werewolves didn't fail, they do their gimmick alright, the problem is lack of a decent variety of werewolves and the fact that they can revert back to their usually weaker counter part a little too easily.
Unless you run an immerwolf. But now it's odd because you get a payoff for creatures transforming and reverting
Bruh I can't get over brutal "cather" 😂 we gotta get a proofreader on these scripts
edit: a big reason Graveyard Trespasser is popular right now in standard/pioneer isn't really because it's a werewolf. It's more because it has on on-rate body (3/3) or sometimes above as a 4/4 AND can exile cards from graveyards. This is really important against a lot of the meta right now, where there is a lot going on in the graveyard (Tenacious Underdog, Kroxa, Greasefang, Storm the Festival), which becomes very annoying when paired with efficient removal in black which allows to easily put cards in GYs. Additionally, it has the effect of dealing 1 to your opponent while you gain 1 which can add up over time (just 3 life over the course of a game isn't trivial). Lastly, its ward makes you discard a card which effectively make it go 2-for-1 with most common forms of removal. It's an overall great card, but it could probably be printed without the transformation and still see play lol
What is greasfang doing in the meta
@@coolcow5193 drifting mad curves brother
We all know that card is actually called "Brutal Catcher" anyway =D
@@coolcow5193 In pioneer it's really good when paired with Pramikon Sky Rampart. A common way to get Greasefang onto the field is to use Can't Stay Away combined with mill effects to get the vehicles in the yard more easily.
Anyone who says werewolves are bad has never fought a werewolf deck or has fought bad ones
I *love* werewolves. I've had a foiled out werewolf Commander deck since before there was even a legendary werewolf (not to mention a good one).
The issues you discussed are completely correct, but the worst part is that they're really fixable with technology that MTG has had since Dark Acension: make more werewolves with Huntmaster of the Fells style abilities.
"When ~ transforms into (werewolf side) it deals 3 damage to any target." "When ~ transforms into (werewolf side) put a +1/+1 counter on it." "When ~ enters the battlefield or transforms into (human side) draw a card."
Not a joke, Afflicted Deserter is one of the best cards in my commander deck for this reason, *despite being a 3/2 for 3R*.
Your werewolves are going to flip back and forth, and for flavor reasons I don't think they're likely to change the conditions for transforming them (too much), so what they should be doing is doing something whenever they transform. If they wanted to be really smart about it they would give abilities that have a cost, so you can spend your mana on your opponents turn too.
Oh, also Wizards should just errata werewolves to have Daybound/Nightbound. It would take like 4 hours to fix that whole mess and then I wouldn't have to spend 5 minutes explaining why my Mayor of Avabruck transformed back into a human but my Tovolar's Huntmaster didn't.
I really wish Wizards would errata the old Werewolf cards. Unfortunately, Wizards doesn't really like to errata cards like Konami will with Yugioh which means some cards that could be fixed will continue to languish.
Maro actually wanted to errata all of the old werewolves to follow day/night, and got blocked on it. It's why whenever a werewolf deck sits down at tables with me, I kinda just look around and immediately propose it as a houserule in commander.
Agreed. They should have either erratad the old cards, or kept the same templating. But the one thing that bothers me most is Arlinn’s new card. In lore, she is supposed to have control over her transformations, and this was reflected in her original card being able to flip back and forth when you activated certain abilities. But the new one ignores that and binds her to the day/night cycle.
Also would need to eratta cards like Moonmist to change day to night
Always wondered, with the original mechanic, would it have been too strong to swap the conditions, basically saying to your opponent "until I run out of cards, if you want my creatures to not be oppressive, you have to not cast spells on your turn"
Like I get the flavor fail there, but honestly it seems like such a cooler mechanic that way
It is sad, I like the general Idea of the Werewolves . But i have to agree, the Transformation ability is really problematic. In my Commander deck with Tolovar as Commander, as well as Moonmist, Celestus and Unnatural Moonrise, they are playable but not strong.
I run a werewolf deck in commander and my friends can pretty much counter it by hard-targeting Tovolar the second he hits the board.
I’ve been able to adjust with a few artifacts and some real winner wolves that came out in the Crimson vow set: Howlpack Piper, Cemetery Prowler, hollowhenge overlord, and Avabruck caretaker really help protect your wolves so you can skip turns more often. And cast wolves and wolf tokens for free or for cheap with abilities.
It was weird to me how the best wolves came out in the vampire set?
one thing they could have done was giving the spells that make it instantly night (like Unnatural Moonrise, or even the Celestus) the abily where, if you made it night that way, it couldn't go back to day until your next turn. this way you could get instant value for making it become night, but didn't have the dumb thing where if you cast Unnatural Moonrise and, in the same turn, a werewolf, you actually did nothing because at the end of the turn it will be day again.
and maybe add more, cheap spells that gave you easy access to night, or like artifacts or enchantments that gave you value but said "if this is the only spell you cast this turn, it becomes night as if you didn't cast any spell".
A friend of mine had this really annoying poison deck that I had such a hard time dealing with. Some sort of annoying flyer he used. But somehow my werewolf deck was one of the ones that bested him. I used the whole transform thing to control the flow of play. While human defend while wolf rage and attack. I didn't have much problem with in my play group but none of use ever really broke out like top stuff so either way I had fun
Surprised you didn't bring up Immerwolf, wolves and werewolves get +1 which can add up with other cards that do that, But also forces Werewolves to stay transformed.
It's been a must in any Werewolf deck I've made. In play my opponents target Immerwolf in hopes of flipping my cards
even if you only play 1 day/nightbound card, you still have to track if it's day or night for the rest of the game ( - :
I don't know man, I see werewolf decks on arena every day I play, and they seem to be fairly successful.
There were more better support cards for the first werewolves that were meant to solve the issue. One was moonmist, an instant that made it so it would transform all humans, and prevents all combat damage to wolves and werewolves. The other was Immersewolf, a wolf creature that made it so your non-human werewolves can’t transform.
But I can see why they still wouldn’t make it in standard during its time anyways. Sure, Moonmist flips all of your werewolves, but unless you win that turn, all your opponent would have to do is cast one more instant speed spell to transform them all back. And the only form of protection Immersewolf has is intimidate. If you have both of these cards at the same time, all an opponent would have to do is lightning bolt your wolf to counter the combo when you could just use moonmist on your other non-werewolf transforming humans to skip their flip requirements and get better mileage out of it.
Werewolves are mostly going to be a Commander deck, where the tribe gets more love just as a community, rather than the harsh competitive side of the other formats.
Couple things:
1. Moonmist doesn't prevent combat damage to wolves/werewolves, it prevents all combat damage not dealt by wolves/werewolves. Big difference.
2. Old werewolves transformed back if a player cast two or more spells, not if two or more spells were cast collectively. Another big difference.
You brought up a lot of insightful points in this video that I am inclined to agree with. Personally, I think werewolves need more decent mana sinks like Child of the Pack to help develop the board.
If they want you to not cast spells, then they should give you non spell things to do with your mana.
I just got into MTG last year with the return to innistrad and werewolves are my favorite tribe. It's so frustrating how the new mechanic doesn't work with the old one.
Unless you're playing on tournaments (FNM, Modern, Pioneer, etc.) just ask the people you're playing with. I did it and they actually asked me what I meant by that, since they all assumed that all the old werewolf cards would be changed to work with Daybound/Nightbound. And if you're playing Commander, changing some rules is basically the spirit of the format
This reminds me of mabinogi duel, where we had the beast man cards, wich each would transform if a condition met and distranaform if another condition met
One of them, beast woman Jane was absoluttelly broken simply because her comdition was easy to fulfil and her beast mode was invencivble, while having a good effect to distup your opponents board
8:15 while this is good for the werewolf players, it's PAIN for literally everyone else, having to keep track of day and night when playing paper. Even worse in commander. Just huge nuisance.
as the werewolf player i make it my responsibility to keep track of the day and night cycles, so i just have to pay attention to what everyone else is doing and I'm not usually in a pod larger than 4-5 players (including myself) so its not that hard
I have a long and storied history with Werewolves. Been playing them in EDH/Commander since 2015 and I've explored a lot of avenues to get around their harsh restrictions. Back in the day I tried some light stax pieces and a lot of Flash effects from things like Vedalken Orrery. Then I moved them into Naya colors to go heavier into the white Stax pieces. THEN Tovolar showed up and fixed every single problem the archetype ever had.
In standard mtga, I made it to mythic top 1% using a mid range werewolf deck. They are viable with cards that trigger the night time event in their mechanics like piper or arlinn.
What about the celestus?
Midnight Hunt definitely made it more viable and gave a lot of much needed support
Can you share your deck list? :D
This is very disappointing to hear :( I just started playing MtGA and wanted to build a Werewolf deck :/
The newest werewolf are much better so you can probably make it work
hey. i have been a red/green werewolves deck in MTGA
10:30 didn’t knew MTG had Pendulum cards lol
The real power up was Tovolar. Drawing cards dealing damage is crucial for aggro decks. It was the legendary the deck needed for edh
Ideas for videos: How a "insert keyword" deck runs?
Examples:
How a landless deck runs?
How a colorless deck runs?
Sounds a bit vague tbh. Which colorless deck? Is legacy lands a colorless deck? Which landless deck? Is affinity with 2 islands a manaless deck? If not, there is literally just one archetype that doesnt play lands and its explained in 2 mins.
When I saw the thumbnail, I didn't know they had a werewolf archtypes in Yu-Gi-Oh, then I clicked on the video and realized what card game he was talking about lmao.
It's funny how the strongest tribal in the werewolf themed innistrad is zombies
All Wizards need to do is swap the requirements for the Day/Night cycle. If you needed to cast two spells to make it night, it would encourage you to flood the board like you want. And if your opponent has to play no spells to depower your werewolves, it would make it a painful choice for them to make.
I have a day/night werewolf deck on MTG arena. I think it's fun and i manage to win games with it. Albeit i'll admit, it's only playing casually and not trying to climb ranked or anything. Tovalar and avabruck caretaker are fairly scary if you have even a moderate amount of werewolves on the board.
Genuinely, the one thing they had to do is just make it so that they'd flip if *YOU* cast no spells that turn. Having your opponent involved in this mechanic is simply ridiculous.
Edit: Oh nice. I guess Wizards figured that out too, heh.
This reminded me of Inspired, another mechanic that looked promising, but it still failed to catch in several formats, honestly I haven't seen it in play, barely exists in Commander thanks to King Macar the Gold-Cursed.
Tovolar is one of my favourite commander decks. But it already is more of a wolf deck and the werewolves in the deck will probably get sacrificed on the altar of future wolf printings.
The idea about not having a good or bad side but simply caring that day changes to night vice versa was actually a mechanic in Midnight Hunt in red, white and blue. However, it was just a low-powered Limited theme with no real aspirations to be in Constructed.
The Celestus has seen some constructed play.
Dawnrise cavalier saw standard play pre rotation
I didn't realise until I started watching this video, but one thing that has always confused me. Right up until this moment. Was that I struggled to remember/understand the front side flip condition. Requiring A player to not cast spells, is just sooooooo bad. My mind struggled to internalise it because even on a subconscious level, I can feel that it doesn't work.
Now if you simply flip around the flip condition triggers, werewolves become MUCH more effective. If they flipped when someone casts 2 or more spells, then you're pressuring your opponent. "Cast too much shit, and you're gonna get hit". And if they do so, say they are 'forced' to play in order to curve out. Then you're opponent now has to deal with the "You've either got to cast something that can kill my big scary werewolf. Or take a hit, and do nothing for a turn in order to protect yourself". This way around, the dynamic is totally different. The threat is there. And it's 'balanced' in that your opponent can still interact with it. Have a kill spell? No problem, transform all day long.
Without even having tried to build a list like this, I think with werewolves you need to find the right mix of just good instant-speed interaction cards as well as cards that let you circumvent "casting" a card. e.g. Aether Vial or Vivien's Arkbow and even Bag of Tricks to allow you putting creatures directly into play instead of having to cast them and cards like Krosan Tuskers Cycling ability letting you ramp and draw a card without that counting as having played a spell. Also permanents with good mana sink abilities to get around having to cast stuff: e.g. the very obviously for that purpose designed Kessig Wolf Run but also also lands or generally cheap permanents with instant speed abilities to do stuff at the end of your opponents turn, when you're holding up instant speed interaction (like a counterspell or removal) and don't get a reason to cast it (e.g. lands that produce creature tokens like Kher Keep.)
Also relevant permanents (including equipments and auras) with flash. Play anequipment with flash on their turn, and later in the game, the equip ability is just one more way of spending your mana for relevant effects. Ghitu Firebreathing (2 mana flash aura: spend R to give +1/+0) can be cast on opponents turn, untap and on your turn you can pump up scary attacker. Talons of Falkrenratz is very similar, is slighty more expensive but has the upside that it requires generic mana in your not-just-red-deck. But even without build in Mana Sink abilities, there's a lot of decent Flash Auras to pump or protect your Wolves at instant speed. Eel Umbra is a good one I think. (2 mana, +1/+1 and gives totem armor to protect against removal)
I'd probably try to lean into green/red/blue because blue gives access to a lot of good instant and flash cards, as well as Alchemists Refuge, a land that let's you play permanents at flash. (But Emergenze Zone is also good). Also Ride The Avalance (2 mana instant, next spell has flash and comes into play with X +1/+1 where X = casting cost)
Basically, make REALLY sure that besides maybe a setup turn early you never ever have to cast anything ever again on your own turn constantly pressuring your opponent to double spell on their turn while you're still not skipping any plays. It's still going to be a bit janky, but it sounds like a lot of fun.
Kayther? 🤣 Jesus Christ dude Cathar is pronounced “KuhTHARR.” Language is the most sacred shared tradition, it sounds really bad when people shit on it.
I know this is probably about paper cards, but the problems exist in digital (& mtga alchemy specifically) as well. I laddered up to Diamond1+ no problem last season running a version of Gruul Werewolves + Bard Class. Bard Class allowed you to get Tovolor and Arlinn down for 2 r/g mana each. Super powerful! Now with Bard Class gone and so many kicker mechanics & fast removal from the new Dominaria set, the wolf deck is just way too slow even with modifications. We need way more 3-4 drops with actual value that can provide decent options to tech and stay on the board for more than one turn- no matter the rarity. Rahilda is the only werewolf who has survived in my Gruul deck this season for her excellent utility, and she misses her pack!
If a person is 'expecting' 'A Mechanic' to win their game for them... they aren't playing it right... My Werewolf Deck makes my opponent debate if it is wise to let it stay day or try and survive the Night..... Aka... using the Mechanic properly... you should always make the Opponent question their fate like mine does... but of course it isn't the 'Generic Deck'... New Users may choose... granted mine is only like a 70% win if they call something right at the right time... that devastates me... not the Mechanic... half the time I want them to Choose weather it is Night or Day... as I will force it the other way if I want ;)
All Mechances are 50/50... if you put the right balance... anything is possible.... but I do find above 70% extremely hard... and there are some that destroy it that I see... but everything is Chance.... you do as you... they do as they do... you win or you loose... end of story
A card who help a lot to this deck and aslo fix the problem of the transformation is Immerwolf: "Intimidate. Other wolf and werewolf creatures you control get +1/+1. Non-Humans werewolves you control can´t transform."
The whole Night/Daybound stuff annoyed me, cause no matter what someone is always casting a spell. SO you always HAD to have things that would help keep them transformed, which your opponent would try to get rid of ASAP if they weren't already nuking your Werewolves.
Edit: That and the minor minor gripe of pulling them out of the sleeve to flip them.
I’m biased because I’ve loved werewolves since their debut in the original Innistrad block but yes….they’ve been pretty bad over the years with some exception(I’m looking at you huntmaster of the fells). That said the Day//Night mechanic fixed a lot of the issues the archetype had IMO
I think Werewolves should have been a standalone tribe on non-flip cards... making the backside and frontside individual cards... then using art/flavor in the Werewolf cards to imply they are Humans in the set.
This could even let you have a red or green Werewolf card in the set, that's like a mockery of a blue, white, or black Human. Because they aren't the same card physically, it's just implied.
The same way most of the Tarkir block, or even all of Lorwyn are not flip-cards when their world changes.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Howlpack Piper. It's 4 mana 2/2 that lets you cheat out werewolves from your hand for 2 mana each. I'm a big fan of midrange werewolves and this card is the only reason it remotely works. I think more strong card effects like Piper could have made werewolves much better, it allows you to spend your mana and do stuff without actually casting spells.
There's two other overlapping big issues with werewolves, and that's that they are tied to both the dual-faced card (DFC) mechanic, and lore-wise to Innistrad.
This causes logistical issues with printing more werewolves, as any given set can only have so many DFC'S, especally when the werewolves need to be concentrated in RG for Mana purposes.
Likewise, being tied to DFC'S means that werewolves can't just show up in a random set like the other tribes can.
This leads to a mechanic that can't show up in most sets, and when it does show up, there's limits on how many cards they can make in a single set.
I thought about trying to make a werewolf tribal deck with the recent Innistrad set but the day/night mechanic is still hard to play around. In Arena, it'll be tough to make it work, even in Historical format. I might have better luck with MTGO with a bigger card list to work with but only being able to cast a single spell per turn to keep it night is going to make that difficult.
I know there are some generic cards that can be used for tribal decks like Coat of Arms, Maskwood Nexus, and quite a number of Changeling cards. What would be some good ones to use for tribal decks?
Ppl are taking a lot of different messages from this. But to me this is a cool study in a mechanic that can be a powerful four-of, but can't be the basis for a synergy deck. And that's an eternal question in magic. "This +1/+1 counters deck is cool, and two of the cards in it are standard playable. But do they work together?" I'll be thinking on this for a while
something else werewolves got "recently" is mana abilities that allows them to play the deck without casting, a good example of that is howlpack piper, which allows you to play a card from your hand for 1 green+1 and by taping it, then you can untap it if you played a werewolf that way, not only does it allow you to play your biggest werewolves on turn 5 (piper cost 4), but it also allows you to flood the board without casting a single spell, meaning that it then becomes night. Its backside effect also allows you to search 1. IMO what werewolf lacks is a card that fully control the day/night cycle. Something like an artifact you can tap for free to change the time would be nice. add something like +1/+1 to all of your werewolves and you would be set to go
Always seemed to me like the warewolf triggers were backwards. Shouldn't the creature punish you for sitting on your duff like demons typically do? This would create design symmetry among the forces of evil and make warewolves more aggro-friendly. Just me though.
They knew huntmaster of the fells was good, that's why it's a non-legendary mythic.
This is sort of how wizards of the money opperates, by making function, stand alone cards mythic, and letting archtypes be hyped and die when lower rarity members don't work.
It's kinda like when konami wanted to go komoney and put every single searcher of every archtype at ultra or higher for a while, before realizing that was dumb.
Two possible solutions would be to make it only care about you and/or only on your turn, or to make it only look at non-wolf/werewolf spells.
If it only cared if you had cast 0 or 2+ spells on your turn, ignoring the enemies turn and spells, it'd be much easier to control.
If it looked at non-wolf/werewolf spells, werewolves would be self-synergistic without needing to all have flash; you could curve out with werewolves while still transforming them.
Honestly transforming old school werewolves wasn’t too bad with cards like Moonmist and eventually Immerwolf. The biggest offender and reason why people didn’t play werewolves was ratchet bomb.
Ratchet bomb was in standard still when Innistrad came out and it was a 2 colorless mana one sided board wipe against werewolves. Transformed cards had a mana cost of 0 until WotC finally changed the rules only just recently. If your entire board was transformed and tokens, ratchet bomb just ended your game.
its so sad, I LOVE werewolves and the Mechanic behind them. BUT for competetive play or simply ranking in Arena these cards are not good enough..
Gruul Werewolves can get up to around 70% win-rate for me on MTGA so I think the tribe is fairly successful. Too many people build the decks either with not enough werewolf, or go too all-in without any interaction support.
what would be cool were Were wolves with mana-costing abilities on their front side. That way you could still put mana into some card advantage or +1/+1 counters etc without casting any spell
I realized it doesn't really fit into the current law but I would love to see them make a new iteration of werewolves based off of Classic, pri pre Hollywood era mythology. In other words wolves that could transform at will and are wolves gifted various forms to be protectors of nature there's a nature not cursed humans who flipped when the moon changed. Again I realized this doesn't really fit into how Inistrad works. But it would give the cards some much needed value and allow those of us who Study various pathologies to make a theme deck back that isn't tied to Hollywood movies. Note: most stories of werewolves being cursed humans came from fear of natural wolves and usually popped up in the 1800s.
Huntmaster of the Fells was a good start, but the fundamental issue with werewolves is relying on a mechanic with too much variance. In order to make a good werewolf card, you either have to be able to completely control the day/night mechanic or simply make a card that's useful on both sides. The other issue is that the few good werewolves tend to not have much strong synergy with each other. Duskwatch Recruiter doesn't really combo with Huntmaster other that being sporadic card advantage, Graveyard Trespasser is out of color and really only cares about graveyard hate, an the lords like immurwolf are just underpowered to be used in current magic meta (but that's mostly a lord thing in general, not specific to werewolves).
werewolves would be fine if they had errated the Old Werewolves to Day/Nightbound. Cuz the two different flipping mechanics is the only factor that keeps werewolves from beeing a high tier tribe. It would be such an easy change, which would bring so much joy to the players of that tribe and would be a really nice support for the tribe.
They are kinda built for limited. WotC tries to put in sets mechanics to allow boardstalls to be broken as rounds going to extra turns is bad for organized play. If the game ends in a top deck war, drawing a single land makes the werewolves flip, and it becomes nearly impossible to flip them back. It puts pressure on players to stay proactive or get run over.
I think it's more fitting for the setting, sometimes those mechanics are obnoxious (invokers aren't subtle, and exert was just stupid).
Yeeeeah I don't care. Midnight Hunt werewolves are fucking awesome, and as long as you build your deck right, you can benefit from night buffs and out duel your opponent.
As a person who only plays limited formats, Werewolves were never failures. They were always interesting in Limited. I can understand calling them failures from a Constructed viewpoint though.
I am a noob when it comes to MTG so I'm not sure if this would be broken but I think they should have made some kind of cards that would encourage/force players to use the day/night mechanic to the controllers advantage by having a card out which would trigger value of some kind during the end phase for each player affecting only the werewolf/human cards not flipped getting X or a +1/+1 or draw a card per creature, etc the low cost spell/creature when removed would trigger a cycle change regardless achieving the goal plus a potential perk.
Another idea perhaps a card with a count down which would shift the time of day with a big bonus unless ended early but still shift the time of day regardless.
Geist of St. Traft did not come out the same set as Howlpack resurgance, a better example would be Mausoleum wanderer
Good vid. Maybe you could try to explain why banding failed