The "this creature" part is actually for rules clarity when it comes to tokens and copies. People still get confused when an ability or permanent is copied. The rule people have to remember right now is that "any text on a card that is the name of the card only refers to this card itself" and now no one needs to remember that rule. Pokemon has had this templating for years to great effect. It was a long time coming actually.
@@jakegray1723 An ability that uses a card's name in that way is different and would not be changed. Gruff Triplets' second ability doesn't refer to the card itself but the name of the card instead.
I think the plan is to have standard be a “build your own ice cream sundae bar” with foundations playing the part of the ice cream machine and the other sets being the seasonal toppings.
That's kinda what they're doing. It's just that making an entire new set each year full of cheap reprints, just to keep the cards legal is pretty bad, so keeping it legal for a long time to come is a better way to go about it. I'm not too found of flashy new names for the same thing either, but continuing with the core[next year] naming convention for this set really makes no sense.
@@Krunschy I feel like having a couple cards that never ever rotate sort of kills the point of standard, and even then, this is another incentive for wizard to push on the powercreep which people have been complaining in standard for a while, since keeping players without buying new cards is not desirable from wizards business perspective. In fact, that was the entire reason why Wizards introduced Modern Horizons and the supplementary sets, so they could introduce powercreep and push for chase cards into modern directly. I do not expect anything from this set besides a complete trainwreck.
There is a board game called smash up where you combine two half decks that are themed then you play against each other. Its basically jumpstart + planechase iirc
Actually smash up is essentially manaless manaless marvel snap. Each location has a point value that causes it to be scored. It works pretty well because every deck basically only cares about having the highest number at each location when it "breaks"
I hate smash up because you cannot customize either half deck at all. It forces you to play cards in the half deck that you would never choose if building a deck yourself. I understand it is simpler for people that didn't build decks before or want to spend the time researching to see what they like versus dislike but I never want to play smash up again. Jump start may be good for helping new players learn how to play but it is too often terrible playing after you have played tears and have a collection and you find your jumpstart packs have cards so bad you would not even draft them in limited. Both also force you to play styles and mechanics people would never choose for themselves.
I had no idea foundations was intended to be like a new standard and being back old staples. I started back in 7th edition and stopped for a very long time after mirrodin. Kind of exciting to hear the names of cards I recognize from my childhood.
Every year, pokemon releases a "trainers toolkit." It has 2-ofs of min rarity staple trainer cards (read: not the actual pokemon) and usually a relevant promo pokemon that supports many different decks. I believe the cards chosen are mostly from the most recent block, meaning they will be in rotation for 3 years. It keeps standard cheap, and makes standard easy to enter. So it's cool to see MTG take a page from that.
Notice this year's Trainers Toolkit looks like it'll have more than one support Pokémon other than Squawkabilly ex? Think I saw the Tsarugi with Look at top6 cards in deck and grab a supporter from those. Anyways hope it's like that 😅
@@herpderp66 except there's no block as they mostly won't share lore, flavor, sinergies, mechanics and set names. It was better with blocks but There's no intention doing that.
@@errrzarrr they do make sets with synergies between each other even if they are from completely different planes. An obvious example is how every bloomburrow lizard also happens to an Outlaw
@@distractionmakers I'm kinda surprised you'd be for this tbh. Many of the spells mentioned are Eternal format staples that are outside of the benchmarks of either Standard of Pioneer. Power creep notwithstanding, I'd worry that reprinting these makes the formats too similar to each other, though there's definitely room to bring some high impact reprints into Pioneer for sure.
The problem with trying to create an evergreen-keyword for "when X enters the battlefield do Y" is that Trample is never Trample 1 vs Trample 2. So in that sense it does behave more like Heroic or Descend. I was going to say that there's no precedent for this but then I remembered Mill is technically now an Evergreen Mechanic with variability in execution (Mill 2, 3, etc). Who knows maybe one day they'll just put "ETB: gain 3 Life" because that's literally how we've all referred to it for years now. So it will end up just like Mill did.
@@distractionmakers Possibly something to do with 'when (this thing) enters the battlefield' vs 'when (that thing) enters the battlefield'. Or just inertia (I'm reasonably sure there was a period of time when the only reasons 'mill' and 'summoning sickness' weren't official terms in the game rules was because those in charge of such things had spent so long telling the players that they weren't that changing their position on the matter just... wasn't a thing that registered as a valid option to consider any more.)
I think just using “ETB” is basically the same as something like “battlecry”. Its basically the same as landfall right? Landfall cant be 1 or 2 because it always has a different effect. So: “ETB: you may search your library for a land, put it on the battlefield tapped” Is the same as “Landfall: whenever you play a land, you may deal 3 damage to any target”.
"On Summon". And define "Summon" on the rule book as entering the battlefield. Then you can have "On Summon from hand..." instead of "When this enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand...".
@@zbaschtian UU mana leak would actually be a very interesting design. They print alot of 1U pay an additionnal 2 +what ever small effect nowadat but I wonder how UU mana leak would turn out.
What I'm excited about is that I will already know a lot of these cards, and if I don't a lot of them are fairly simple. When I play these days I feel like I'm just trying to read stuff as fast as I can.
Well, the change from 'creature name' to 'this creature' I'd say is, on balance, a good thing... though it does cause a bit of head scratching regarding Non-creature cards that refer to themselves. Do they say 'this instant' 'this sorcery' 'this enchantment' etc? Because, if not, the player now has to learn two seperate rules for the exact same thing. And if so, have fun with 'this artifact creature' 'this enchantment creature' and so on (ok, they're still creatures, so it doesn't straight up break... but then there's vehicles and gods, or any other card that isn't Normally a creature, then becomes one via the effect of another card, which has text that refers to itself) "Enter", on the other hand, which is news to me (not having been keeping up with new magic stuff for a while), on first encounter, I hate. It's a significant reduction in clarity for a new player, unless Wizards has started providing acutally useful rule books in their new player products. It would be Better if it was an ability word (which would automatically send the player looking for the rule for this particular ability rather than trying to figure out a regular English sentence that is straight up Missing required elements), though I still wouldn't be super keen on the word 'enter' ... not that I can think of a better one and they Probably haven't already used it for something else, so it wouldn't really be a Bad choice.
They've brute forced bad ability names before, they can do it again. If they really do find nothing, they could even symbol it, cos ETB effects are easily as common as tap symbols now, possibly more common.
The move from "Cardname" to "This [insert card type]" is interesting. It definitely makes sense just from a design perspective-- saves space/is more efficient wording and communicates the same information more directly; the confusion the old (technically current) wording sometimes caused was very easy to quickly explain to anyone confused by it, but it was still there, so they probably figured the game is complicated enough, why not get rid of any bit of confusion that's this easy to get rid of. It's part of a trend of little moves that make Magic a slightly better designed game generally, but IMO slightly worse as a fantasy game. "Enters", "shuffle", and "this creature" are all streamlined wordings*, but they don't have the same feel to them. *("this creature" could actually probably just be "this")
I really thought about what could be reprinted and my issue is: what about Pioneer? Pioneer right now is in a great place, maybe it needs a few cards like bolt/path to exile, but If we reprint them in foundation what will be the difference between Pioneer and Standard? Anyways cool video as usual, I'm happy to hear your thoughts about Foundations and I'm really looking forward to it!
anyone who thinks bolt wouldn't destroy pioneer clearly does not play the format. It needs NEW interaction spells that can keep up with the constant 2 for 1 midrange slop cards like fable and the wandering emperor, not old ones that just really efficiently punish 1 for 1 threats, which already suck. There also needs to be more cards that can punish unfair decks. Things like magebane lizard and knight of autumn is what the format needs, not lightning bolt and counterspell. Also, cards like lightning bolt remove so much design space because they never design sidegrades for cards like this. There are a ton of interesting cards in between shock and bolt, or in between cancel and counterspell, but if you cross that line and go all the way, there's no longer any room for innovation without also power creeping formats like modern and legacy.
As a new player (4-5months) with some commander decks and almost no standard experience. I think foundations will be nice, it sounds really amazing and i’ll definitely consider buying it.
I love that the final bit exemplifies how hard it is to design a single card that works in both 1v1 and multiplayer. The Goad mechanic has been one of the best shots at it, somewhat powerful in a 4p game, nigh useless or even detrimental when it comes down to 1v1. My personal shot at "Commander Bolt", base cost (2, maybe more)(R): ~ costs 1 less for each time you've cast a commander from the command zone. It deals 3 to any target. Copy it for each spell you didn't control cast from a command zone this game named differently from each other spell cast from a command zone this game. Each copy must target a different target if able.
I would suspect the "enters templating change" is due to arena - there the text can be easier just "loaded into the digital card" when you just define the variable in the backend ... but that is just my "basic programming knowledge based" suspicion.
I get that you were memeing at the end, but I really want a commander card that Duress's each opponent. For commander Lightning Bolt, I've really been liking Ghostfire Slice. 4 damage for 1 mana if an opponent has their multicolored commander out.
I always thought Standard was "thriving", as Arena's premier format. Being able to draft the new sets whenever (limited being so closely tied to standard), find matches with anyone and of all types, get as much Magic as one could want. And new sets constantly keeping it fresh and exciting. Personally, I didn't really see the need to shake up something that might never come back to what it was (considering EDH). But I'm fine with WotC trying new stuff.. I guess! They've shown they aren't really good at balancing, anyway. Nothing they do will make me buy cards.
Yeah, it’s by far the most popular Arena format, and it’s growing in popularity in paper too. My little game store, which hadn’t done a standard FNM in years, is now doing standard store championships.
@@janmelantu7490 agree modern unironically is dying in my LGS. and standard player is way more consistent and steady. also flagship championship help a lot too. but if we think about it. isnt this just coming full circle? areena killed paper standard, but also revive paper standard wheen more people play and raelizee how fun it is. i mainly EDH player that play standard in arena pretty consistently. and honestly... im thinking of getting into paper standard haha! im one of the the living subject of this fenomena!
When I was playing, draft (which is not standard) was the default format for Friday Night Magic where I live. Helped balance out the effect of the mix of 'almost complete novice' and 'gets high enough in the tournment scene that they actually have to travel to other countries to compete' (and everything in between) players we'd get, among other things. People's budgets also tended to run towards 'buy a whole box up front when the set comes out' or 'buy three packs at a time no more than once a week' (which... cost the same as participating in the FNM draft game where you got 3 packs, plus an extra if you won or (litterally, it was RNG) got lucky, so why not?) Casual play was pretty much entirely EDH or 'default rules' (which in practice usually came out as 'vaguely standard adjacent' between new players having limited access to non-recent cards, netdecking, and people experimenting with possible tournament decks (most constructed tournaments at the time being Standard format). )
Cube includes non Basics, the basics are added to your deck after. Like normal drafting. I think the idea with the collection bundle is like the old deck builders toolkit but with more cards, semi randomised.
@@Ricky_Evans1611 Gavin is the one who said "I have a pretty wild prediction" Forrest is the one who said "Ok" Forrest's face is the one who motioned as if to indicate "_(here we go again)_"
A downside to making an even shorter version of the enters templating is that the statement "all triggered abilities start with when or whenever" will no longer be true. The upcoming template also creates consistency between "when this creature enters" abilities, "when a land you control enters" abilities, "when this creature enters or attacks" abilities.
Feels like a good place to print duress and spell pierce. Doubt we see shock as it was in mkm but would also make sense. Printing omniscience into standard is wild with reenact the crime right there for another 30ish months, but this is going to be commander foundations again loke every other product, if it has more than 30 playable cards for standard i'll be surprised.
Up to a degree, sure. It's very likely the set helps establish the core tenets of the format and to feature cards that enforce these. I'd expect more specialized hosing such as Crypt to be printed into sets that care about the affected resource, such as LoTV printed into Duskmourn.
After foundations standard will have 10-13 sets in it. Meaning that foundations will be 8-10% of the available card pool. I dont think theres all that much risk of it homogenizing standard.
I also initially thought about 'summoned', but the 'enters the battlefield' keyword needs to clearly encompass all the ways a creature can enter the battlefield. I think 'summoned' could confuse some players into thinking it would only apply when they cast the creature instead of reanimating or blinking it.
Cubes are usually 360-540 cards, 12-15% of which are fixing lands. However, you can have four player cubes with 180+ cards, so you could theoretically draft a starter collection. It’s probably not balanced or designed for that though. You could also make it a “desert cube,” which basically means that there are no lands in the land box and you have to pick them during the draft.
The unique standard play patterns came from the block format imo. Youd never see tempered steel or affinity if there only 1 out of the entire formats sets was artifact based instead of almost half of them
Ironically, we also come right out of a couple years where there was a consistent thematic cross-set mechanical identity: DFCs For a while I thought they were doing this on purpose, spacing out different DFC flavors across sets from Zendikar to March of the Machine. They never did quite do anything overarching with the mechanic, despite the fact there's a consistent set of synergies and hosers: blink, bounce, etc. They could be doing the same now that Shenanigans at Markov Manor and Universes Beyond: Scary Movie are both using face-down creatures and Tarkir 2: Electric Boogaloo is slated to come out next year. They likely won't, because they're too busy pleasing their Marvel overlords, but they could.
It's gotta be a cube- you sleeve 'em all up the same, pull your favorite cards to go to your LGS and play standard, and then slot them back in when your friends come over for game night to draft. Modular, simple, accessible, and customizable- plus, its a cube that you can play with strangers at the LGS where you dont have to break down all the archetypes to new friends! Everyone already knows whats in the cube, so you only have to call out a few pet cards youve subbed in for personal flaire.
@@marcoottina654 In the video they were talking about ETB effects, how Wizards is shortening it, and that they should probably keyword it at this point.
I'm sure you're right that it will be nice for designers to have known quantities in standard, but that does cut both ways. Llanowar elves, for example, majorly restricts what can be done at 3mv, and now any mistakes in that realm last three years.
Feels like there's untapped space in the lifegain department yet. They've moved that direction quite a bit over the past decade and these past sets have included a lot more "can't gain life" cards, which means either they expect to become more useful later on, or they were intended to counter the decade-long progress in lifegain.
6:10 as far as my knowledge goes, the kroft answer is because it would move from a Triggered Ability (which interacts with spells like Stifle) to a Keyword. If you want an example, the Aura Spirit Link does not give lifelink, even in the Oracle text, but the aura Lifelink does. The wording would need to be changed as well, as all triggered abilities use "when, whenever, at" those words are rules wise "keywords" for something being a Triggered Ability, and are very useful for telling a player what they can and can't Stifle. The descriptive text would need to say "Upon entering the battlefield this creature _" or something similar.
I really hope Foundations meaningfully lowers the price of Standard but I'm not too convinced. I would love to get into Standard again after having not played standard in years. But the decks cost more than my Pioneer deck did! And they rotate. I'd rather be secure in my $200 purchase of Pioneer Izzet Phoenix instead of $350+ for standard Orzhov Midrange. The value proposition is even worse when compared with my commander decks. I just built a new EDH deck for about $90 and I'm planning on playing it for many years. But where I worry with Foundations not lowering the prices enough is when you look at the concentration of prices in standard decks. A lot of the cards are pretty cheap, but a few cards stand out and inflate the price. This makes me envision a world where your 1/3 foundations part of your deck is dirt cheap which is great but the flavoring part that comes from the quarterly sets spike just as hard or harder than they are now and the decks are pretty much just as expensive. I would be playing Standard every week at my LGS if (not just the budget aggro) decks were $80-$100 and rotation wouldn't bother me. I'd probably buy 1 deck a year even. But as deck prices are I just don't feel the format is approachable in paper. I would love Foundations to change that and prove my fears wrong.
About the "when this creature enters", they could just make "ETB: effect" the official formatting. Or even just "on entry". I assume there's a concern about too rapidly changing one of the oldest phrasings in the game. {Added} I could also see a future where when in however many years, Foundations 2 comes out, And now there is a Foundations Only format. Could be fun. :)
You can have a lightning bolt that works in standard and also gets stronger as players die in commander. "Super lightning bolt deals 3 damage to any target for each player who has lost the game"
I’ll tell you why they are going to “This creature” as opposed to naming it specifically, and it isn’t because of any game mechanic. It’s the Lean Manufacturing train - it’s just an easier and more “efficient” process.
I get how u can be worry about the baseline for standard being too high and thus pushing power creep even higher in standard, BUT, I think there's another option: keep the power ceiling to the same height, but raise the floor to create a narrower gap between the worst cards and the best cards. Makes games against new players and budget decks a more interesting due to a more level card quality.
That doesn't actually work, because over any significant period of time, design mistakes above and below the median power level accumulate, so a deck built with the best cards just ends up at a higher mean power level.
If they make a standard cube or toolkit to make people go back to standard, I would probably play it. Standard is expensive, I was in it for years and now that I play commander I don't have to get rid of my cards anymore. With a 5 years Foundation staples card, maybe there could be less variation but at least one could count on that cards to not rotate and they could play standard again. I like it actually. And Jumpstart is the icing on the cake - being such a good format to play casually too
15:25 100% agree - I think this is the point of Foundations. And then 17:45-18:15 I think this actually will end up severely damaging the game. Most people will inevitably, at some point, want the more exclusive versions of their cards (if they really enjoy the hobby), which will make the higher exclusivity of them simultaneously more and less appealing (more because it's more exclusive, less because it now has a higher price point to obtain), which will probably lead to more people over time leaving the game in general than it will people playing the game. How often do we hear about people collecting sports cards now? Sports cards did something very similar to this, and I think that ultimately played a part in why people don't really collect sports cards anymore.
My main complaint about standard in general is its almost just as powerful as pioneer. Which is an issue for me because the general power level and efficiency of a format is the biggest factor in how a format feels and how metas shake out. Part of the advertisement issue of standard because of this issue
...or we could just finally take advantage of WoTC annexing EDH and drop the starting life total to a reasonable number. Let's not break Legacy; it's all we Boomers have. :)
I sense the templatimg change to when this creature enters is for new player accessibility. The ____ (self referntial creature name) enters the battlefield wording was the single most confusing thing to me as a new player. It made me feel like it was referring to if another card with that name entered the battlefield. Obviously once I got the hang of it, it was no big deal, but I do think it's non intuitive, and the updated version is much more new player intuitive. Making it a keyword, as you suggest, would probably not help the new player issue.
Enters - Do X. (When this permanent enters, follow these steps) The reminder text is likely only required on commons, uncommons and introductory product.
@@zbaschtian Not to mention only gets included if there's space and is in a distinctly different typeface indicating that it is, in fact, just reminder text.
I feel like it'd have to be "Entry" or something like that so as not to feel like a caveman version of a regular English sentence. Also, and I've put no thought into this and will be wrong about it, I thing most keywords aren't in that tense, right? Like a creature has flying but not flies. Or vigilance and not... holds strong? I guess there's usually not a place for the indicative mood in the lingo unless it is an action. Go old school. CIP. Comes into play. "CIP: Draw a card" It's a bad idea that will amuse oldheads.
WoTC is not going to print more powerful cards into Standard/your proposed Foundations format regardless of rotation cadence. Even if they can be more flexible with short-term power level, they still need to think about Pioneer support, which currently has some very specific power level goalposts that haven't been moved frequently since pretty much the inception of the format. Printing Lightning Bolt or Counterspell into a short Standard rotation wouldn't just be a quick burst it power level for the new format; it'd fundamentally change the Pioneer identity and metagame. That said, I am definitely not opposed to revising Pioneer's identity. There's a ton of past Eternal staples that currently have no home outside of EDH, and there's little reason for Pioneer not to be it. The format is already fast enough that 2-mana ramp and more powerful countermagic makes sense, so Mana Leak, a Rampant Growth variant and at least one powerful mana rock seem like a good next step. Heck, if you want to make things extra spicy, reprint the ten Signets or Talismans. Likewise, white is missing a good one-mana creature catch-all, and the format is land-dependent enough that Path to Exile could make sense. Black could use a good monocolored reanimation option for 3-4 mana (a new 3mv sorcery + finality counter seems reasonable; Makeshift Mannequin could be spicy too). Every color is missing incentives to go beyond a 4mv curve top (Overlords are a step in the right direction). And spot nonbasic interaction needs to be stepped up a notch, without going overboard. Every color should have at least some proactive ability to deal with Nykthos and Lotus Field without costing too much sideboard opportunity cost, and the specialized artifacts are not cutting it. Beyond that, there's tons of good targets to reprint into Pioneer and enable casual and quirky strategies: Bouncelands, Isochron Scepter, some of the original Innistrad Werewolves and Vamps, more Goblin and Merfolk staples, better Equipment, Eternal Witness, etc. I think as long as you clearly define the goalposts for Pioneer and Standard, there's a lot you can do to improve things over the next 5 years. I'm pretty sure they have a goalposts doc somewhere, but it's a good exercise to define one from the community's standpoint. So far this is what I see as immovable for Pioneer's identity: - Creature and combat-centric. - No viable dedicated land denial (LD, Blood Moon, etc.) - Spells cost mana (pitch is out, cost reduction is allowed. Exception: leylines). - No reliable way to combo off before turn 3 (tutors, noncreature enablers, self-mill critical mass). - No unconditional mass removal for less than 4 mana (format's already moving beyond this). - No cheating permanents into play before turn 4. - No unconditional countermagic for less than 3 mana. - Soft resource denial only. Standard adds: - Heavily combat-centric. - No reliable noncreature ramp for less than 3 mana. - No unrestricted creature removal for less than 3 mana. - No unconditional reliable one-mana discard. - No resource denial that can't be walked around (mostly taxing). There's probably more I'm missing, and these are definitely debatable.
Elder Lightning Dragon Bolt {R} Instant Deal X damage to up to 3 targets, where X is 15% of your starting life total. You may not deal more than X damage to a player and any of the spells they control this way.
Standard is really good right now, but... I would love to play a format like Foundation + Block Constructed. People seem to really want to return to a block structure, but from a story perspective, they've been doing one year arcs that build on a bigger story (kind of like Weatherlight) for a few years now. If I have a complaint about Standard right now, it doesn't encourage blocking because there are so many combo pieces in a three year rotation. Love me some Savannah Lions, and living card games are such a good idea.
@@jamesgreenwood1703 Is that as much of a boogeyman in bo3? I was gonna jump back on to the Magic train when I saw what the standard meta looked like with Bloomburrow, but Duskmourn legitamately made me rethink that for just how juiced they made aggro. I love aggro, but I also love not being ostracized for my deck being too good.
@@fastpuppy2000 it either top 8’d or won a bo3 tourney. I really liked the comparison I saw someone make of the fact that it is tibalts trickery level good. Which means that basically they either have it and win or don’t and lose. So not much of a skill/decision making process compared to a regular bo1/bo3 match
@@jamesgreenwood1703 Damn. It did seem like the latest iteration of "there's no way this doesn't break something", and yeah. Hasn't Yugioh been going through a similar thing off and on for the last 5-ish years? Something happened to game designers that rotted their brains into only balancing around having a card or not. I guess it's balancing around win rate and not so much play experience (not that those are in opposition). If a deck loses half the time, but it loses to itself, that ain't a balance worth pursuing.
Mana Leak? You're getting Cancel and you'll like it! Being serious though, every draftable set has to have their 3 mana "counter target spell + do the thing that the set wants you to do," so I doubt they'll blank out that design space for 5 years.
I would love Counterspell and Lightning Bolt in standard. Id also include thoughtseize and path to exile as well. The problem with Mana Leak is that its super easy to splash. In early Innistrad standard there were a lot of deck just splahing vlue for mana leak
New MTG Constructed (Rotating Eternal) format: - commons rotate after two years - uncommons rotate after four years - rares rotate after eight years - mythics rotate after…never Bring in all mythic rares since Shards of Alara.
The inverse rarity system would be absolutely hilarious, though. And maybe even fun! Rotate out first the mythics, then the rares, then the uncommons. We then get a Pauper format with some new trinkets every single Standard rotation.
Hell no, this sounds like a nightmare to track and enforce. There's so few commons and uncommons with Constructed impact that you might as well just state this as a non-rotating Eternal format where casual and budget decks are banned.
Foundations + 1 year rotation format sounds excellent, specifically as someone who does prerelease or draft for basically every set. Between foundations and whatever I get in limited I could probably have 90% of the deck I needed on hand. Easy to make the jump to pick up the rest and play the format.
if you dont like red aggro in Type I play thalia. Mono W zoo has more control elements that tax non creature spells (the mono R prowess triggers) and has removal via exile/tappers, and creatures with flash. There is more than one aggro archetype and they dont always have to be red, that is just the one that people classically gravitate towards.
i might be speaking from ignorance but is this very different from core sets? they used to just reprint a core chunk of cards every year to make sure they didn't rotate out of standard. is this even a new idea? did the elimination of core sets of correlate with the decline of standard?
@@distractionmakers Didn't the older core sets stick around until they printed a new one? I thought that was the reason that old booster packs said "You need Magic the Gathering to play." They thought of it like a board game where each edition was just... Magic. You played the most updated Magic + the expansions you want/are legal.
Pioneer is seriously lacking on 2MV ramp. It supports different archetypes than Elves, so I think it's a good format shakeup. I'd go for Farseek over Rampant Growth to provide better Pioneer support for Domain and multicolored tho, especially with Surveil Duals and Trilands available.
They have each opponent lightning bolt. Its called dragon's approach. Should it be 6 damage. Yes, in fact why stop there, fill your deck with damage doublers and copy spells. You can run one in the command zone. If games go too long its the red decks fault, their role is to put a clock on things. I'm very pro reprint lightning bolt, in fact maybe its time we get a 1 mana 4 damage spell, maybe magic can handle it now
If Lightning Bolt is in Foundations it'll be a Rare or a Mythic. Standard actually has a turn 2 kill in Mono Red right now so if Bolt IS in the set its gonna be INSANE.
I feel like magic is going through the same transition that yugioh did. Old School yugioh and modern yugioh are different games. In a few years I think we are going to look at standard and it will not be the same game as 5 years ago.
Love where that idea was headed… “Deal 2 damage to each of your opponents. Repeat for each opponent you have.” Doesn’t power creep the historical piece that is Lightning Bolt, but still scales up a bit for Commander.
I feel like these comments about standard were made using information from a year ago and you guys only had a cursory glance at what some people were saying on reddit in preparation for this video.
Here’s the link to Gavin’s Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastditchgames/bullets-and-teeth-and-aliens?ref=him1bs
The "this creature" part is actually for rules clarity when it comes to tokens and copies. People still get confused when an ability or permanent is copied. The rule people have to remember right now is that "any text on a card that is the name of the card only refers to this card itself" and now no one needs to remember that rule. Pokemon has had this templating for years to great effect. It was a long time coming actually.
How does something like Gruff Triplets work in that context, then? Just wondering
Yeah basically every new player I've ever seen has had to ask about this at least once. It's better to just fix it, I like the change
@@jakegray1723 An ability that uses a card's name in that way is different and would not be changed. Gruff Triplets' second ability doesn't refer to the card itself but the name of the card instead.
"This" is good enough, functionally and from clarity point of view. While the "creature" part is extra text and adds no clarity.
The problem with "this creature" is when type-changing occurs and players say "it's not a creature so does it not work now?"
I think the plan is to have standard be a “build your own ice cream sundae bar” with foundations playing the part of the ice cream machine and the other sets being the seasonal toppings.
Haha I like this analogy.
There was a suggested link in this comment that directed me to searching ice cream sundae bar 😂
JUST GO BACK TO 3 SET BLOCKS AND ONE CORE SET PER YEAR ALREADY.
BUT MONEY
Nah
That's kinda what they're doing. It's just that making an entire new set each year full of cheap reprints, just to keep the cards legal is pretty bad, so keeping it legal for a long time to come is a better way to go about it.
I'm not too found of flashy new names for the same thing either, but continuing with the core[next year] naming convention for this set really makes no sense.
old man yells at cloud. imagine wizards never trying to innovate... not a reality i want to be a part of
@@Krunschy I feel like having a couple cards that never ever rotate sort of kills the point of standard, and even then, this is another incentive for wizard to push on the powercreep which people have been complaining in standard for a while, since keeping players without buying new cards is not desirable from wizards business perspective. In fact, that was the entire reason why Wizards introduced Modern Horizons and the supplementary sets, so they could introduce powercreep and push for chase cards into modern directly. I do not expect anything from this set besides a complete trainwreck.
There is a board game called smash up where you combine two half decks that are themed then you play against each other. Its basically jumpstart + planechase iirc
Actually smash up is essentially manaless manaless marvel snap. Each location has a point value that causes it to be scored. It works pretty well because every deck basically only cares about having the highest number at each location when it "breaks"
I hate smash up because you cannot customize either half deck at all. It forces you to play cards in the half deck that you would never choose if building a deck yourself. I understand it is simpler for people that didn't build decks before or want to spend the time researching to see what they like versus dislike but I never want to play smash up again. Jump start may be good for helping new players learn how to play but it is too often terrible playing after you have played tears and have a collection and you find your jumpstart packs have cards so bad you would not even draft them in limited. Both also force you to play styles and mechanics people would never choose for themselves.
@mrcatchingup so it works, is what you're saying?
It's a noob friendly draft, that can have value if you crack it open.
I had no idea foundations was intended to be like a new standard and being back old staples. I started back in 7th edition and stopped for a very long time after mirrodin. Kind of exciting to hear the names of cards I recognize from my childhood.
It does feel like a great welcome back for old players.
Every year, pokemon releases a "trainers toolkit." It has 2-ofs of min rarity staple trainer cards (read: not the actual pokemon) and usually a relevant promo pokemon that supports many different decks. I believe the cards chosen are mostly from the most recent block, meaning they will be in rotation for 3 years. It keeps standard cheap, and makes standard easy to enter. So it's cool to see MTG take a page from that.
Notice this year's Trainers Toolkit looks like it'll have more than one support Pokémon other than Squawkabilly ex? Think I saw the Tsarugi with Look at top6 cards in deck and grab a supporter from those.
Anyways hope it's like that 😅
Games discussed in this video:
MTG
Netrunner
Lord of the rings
Arkam Horror
Game of Thrones
you're the hero we need, thank you
clear evidence that we are not just a magic channel!
The ‘One year’ format is basically just old block constructed with a little twist.
Great. Block was one of the best formats AND the best way for new players to jump in.
@@herpderp66 except there's no block as they mostly won't share lore, flavor, sinergies, mechanics and set names. It was better with blocks but There's no intention doing that.
Isn’t the card pool similar to old standard now? As sets are coming out so quickly.
3 Sets in one Block worked for 25 years.
Don't fix what isn't broken.
@@errrzarrr they do make sets with synergies between each other even if they are from completely different planes.
An obvious example is how every bloomburrow lizard also happens to an Outlaw
While set rotation is good, it can make new players nervous about buying cards. Having a selection that's always legal will help with that imo
Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Demonic Tutor (no more knockoffs), and Birds of Paradise. Let's play some real Magic.
pfft, you're paying mana for your spells and you call it real Magic? Peasant.
(sarcasm disclaimer)
Hahaha I’m here for it.
@@distractionmakers I'm kinda surprised you'd be for this tbh. Many of the spells mentioned are Eternal format staples that are outside of the benchmarks of either Standard of Pioneer. Power creep notwithstanding, I'd worry that reprinting these makes the formats too similar to each other, though there's definitely room to bring some high impact reprints into Pioneer for sure.
The problem with trying to create an evergreen-keyword for "when X enters the battlefield do Y" is that Trample is never Trample 1 vs Trample 2. So in that sense it does behave more like Heroic or Descend. I was going to say that there's no precedent for this but then I remembered Mill is technically now an Evergreen Mechanic with variability in execution (Mill 2, 3, etc).
Who knows maybe one day they'll just put "ETB: gain 3 Life" because that's literally how we've all referred to it for years now. So it will end up just like Mill did.
It is interesting for sure. They likely have a good reason for not keywording, but I can’t really figure out what it is at this point haha.
@@distractionmakers Possibly something to do with 'when (this thing) enters the battlefield' vs 'when (that thing) enters the battlefield'. Or just inertia (I'm reasonably sure there was a period of time when the only reasons 'mill' and 'summoning sickness' weren't official terms in the game rules was because those in charge of such things had spent so long telling the players that they weren't that changing their position on the matter just... wasn't a thing that registered as a valid option to consider any more.)
I think just using “ETB” is basically the same as something like “battlecry”.
Its basically the same as landfall right? Landfall cant be 1 or 2 because it always has a different effect.
So:
“ETB: you may search your library for a land, put it on the battlefield tapped”
Is the same as
“Landfall: whenever you play a land, you may deal 3 damage to any target”.
"On Summon".
And define "Summon" on the rule book as entering the battlefield.
Then you can have "On Summon from hand..." instead of "When this enters the battlefield, if you cast it from your hand...".
@@Stroggoii I really like this.
Mana leak only having 1-pip makes it better than counterspell in a ton of situations imo, would be way more prevalent
Easy solution: print a UU variant.
@@zbaschtian UU mana leak would actually be a very interesting design. They print alot of 1U pay an additionnal 2 +what ever small effect nowadat but I wonder how UU mana leak would turn out.
No more lies is a very playable card with UW cost, would be very good in standard for the blue tempo decks
What I'm excited about is that I will already know a lot of these cards, and if I don't a lot of them are fairly simple. When I play these days I feel like I'm just trying to read stuff as fast as I can.
Well, the change from 'creature name' to 'this creature' I'd say is, on balance, a good thing... though it does cause a bit of head scratching regarding Non-creature cards that refer to themselves. Do they say 'this instant' 'this sorcery' 'this enchantment' etc? Because, if not, the player now has to learn two seperate rules for the exact same thing. And if so, have fun with 'this artifact creature' 'this enchantment creature' and so on (ok, they're still creatures, so it doesn't straight up break... but then there's vehicles and gods, or any other card that isn't Normally a creature, then becomes one via the effect of another card, which has text that refers to itself)
"Enter", on the other hand, which is news to me (not having been keeping up with new magic stuff for a while), on first encounter, I hate. It's a significant reduction in clarity for a new player, unless Wizards has started providing acutally useful rule books in their new player products. It would be Better if it was an ability word (which would automatically send the player looking for the rule for this particular ability rather than trying to figure out a regular English sentence that is straight up Missing required elements), though I still wouldn't be super keen on the word 'enter' ... not that I can think of a better one and they Probably haven't already used it for something else, so it wouldn't really be a Bad choice.
They've brute forced bad ability names before, they can do it again. If they really do find nothing, they could even symbol it, cos ETB effects are easily as common as tap symbols now, possibly more common.
Prediction. This this could be called commander foundations once the full set is revealed.
That’s my fear too
i'm hoping this is their one actual standard set, to basically give themselves a green light to continue aiming every normal set towards commander.
The move from "Cardname" to "This [insert card type]" is interesting. It definitely makes sense just from a design perspective-- saves space/is more efficient wording and communicates the same information more directly; the confusion the old (technically current) wording sometimes caused was very easy to quickly explain to anyone confused by it, but it was still there, so they probably figured the game is complicated enough, why not get rid of any bit of confusion that's this easy to get rid of. It's part of a trend of little moves that make Magic a slightly better designed game generally, but IMO slightly worse as a fantasy game. "Enters", "shuffle", and "this creature" are all streamlined wordings*, but they don't have the same feel to them.
*("this creature" could actually probably just be "this")
I really thought about what could be reprinted and my issue is: what about Pioneer?
Pioneer right now is in a great place, maybe it needs a few cards like bolt/path to exile, but If we reprint them in foundation what will be the difference between Pioneer and Standard?
Anyways cool video as usual, I'm happy to hear your thoughts about Foundations and I'm really looking forward to it!
anyone who thinks bolt wouldn't destroy pioneer clearly does not play the format. It needs NEW interaction spells that can keep up with the constant 2 for 1 midrange slop cards like fable and the wandering emperor, not old ones that just really efficiently punish 1 for 1 threats, which already suck. There also needs to be more cards that can punish unfair decks. Things like magebane lizard and knight of autumn is what the format needs, not lightning bolt and counterspell.
Also, cards like lightning bolt remove so much design space because they never design sidegrades for cards like this. There are a ton of interesting cards in between shock and bolt, or in between cancel and counterspell, but if you cross that line and go all the way, there's no longer any room for innovation without also power creeping formats like modern and legacy.
The new product sounds kind of like an updated deck builders tool kit.
I loved these as a beginner in 2016. It was a nice introduction to cards and gave me an opportunity to learn
As a new player (4-5months) with some commander decks and almost no standard experience. I think foundations will be nice, it sounds really amazing and i’ll definitely consider buying it.
I just started playing magic! Sounds like a good time to buy some magic!
I love that the final bit exemplifies how hard it is to design a single card that works in both 1v1 and multiplayer. The Goad mechanic has been one of the best shots at it, somewhat powerful in a 4p game, nigh useless or even detrimental when it comes down to 1v1. My personal shot at "Commander Bolt", base cost (2, maybe more)(R): ~ costs 1 less for each time you've cast a commander from the command zone. It deals 3 to any target. Copy it for each spell you didn't control cast from a command zone this game named differently from each other spell cast from a command zone this game. Each copy must target a different target if able.
I would suspect the "enters templating change" is due to arena - there the text can be easier just "loaded into the digital card" when you just define the variable in the backend ... but that is just my "basic programming knowledge based" suspicion.
I get that you were memeing at the end, but I really want a commander card that Duress's each opponent.
For commander Lightning Bolt, I've really been liking Ghostfire Slice. 4 damage for 1 mana if an opponent has their multicolored commander out.
I always thought Standard was "thriving", as Arena's premier format.
Being able to draft the new sets whenever (limited being so closely tied to standard), find matches with anyone and of all types, get as much Magic as one could want. And new sets constantly keeping it fresh and exciting.
Personally, I didn't really see the need to shake up something that might never come back to what it was (considering EDH). But I'm fine with WotC trying new stuff.. I guess! They've shown they aren't really good at balancing, anyway. Nothing they do will make me buy cards.
Yeah, it’s by far the most popular Arena format, and it’s growing in popularity in paper too. My little game store, which hadn’t done a standard FNM in years, is now doing standard store championships.
@@janmelantu7490 agree modern unironically is dying in my LGS. and standard player is way more consistent and steady. also flagship championship help a lot too. but if we think about it. isnt this just coming full circle? areena killed paper standard, but also revive paper standard wheen more people play and raelizee how fun it is. i mainly EDH player that play standard in arena pretty consistently. and honestly... im thinking of getting into paper standard haha! im one of the the living subject of this fenomena!
When I was playing, draft (which is not standard) was the default format for Friday Night Magic where I live. Helped balance out the effect of the mix of 'almost complete novice' and 'gets high enough in the tournment scene that they actually have to travel to other countries to compete' (and everything in between) players we'd get, among other things. People's budgets also tended to run towards 'buy a whole box up front when the set comes out' or 'buy three packs at a time no more than once a week' (which... cost the same as participating in the FNM draft game where you got 3 packs, plus an extra if you won or (litterally, it was RNG) got lucky, so why not?)
Casual play was pretty much entirely EDH or 'default rules' (which in practice usually came out as 'vaguely standard adjacent' between new players having limited access to non-recent cards, netdecking, and people experimenting with possible tournament decks (most constructed tournaments at the time being Standard format). )
Cube includes non Basics, the basics are added to your deck after. Like normal drafting. I think the idea with the collection bundle is like the old deck builders toolkit but with more cards, semi randomised.
awesome work guys i love your game theory based approach
@13:28 Gavin: I have a pretty wild prediction
Forrest: Ok
Forrest's face: _(here we go again)_
Which one is which?
@@Ricky_Evans1611 Gavin is the one who said "I have a pretty wild prediction"
Forrest is the one who said "Ok"
Forrest's face is the one who motioned as if to indicate "_(here we go again)_"
@@tldreviewI didn't watch, was just wondering which one was which when I read your comment 🤪
A downside to making an even shorter version of the enters templating is that the statement "all triggered abilities start with when or whenever" will no longer be true.
The upcoming template also creates consistency between "when this creature enters" abilities, "when a land you control enters" abilities, "when this creature enters or attacks" abilities.
Wouldn't it just be like an evergreen ability. Under the hood it still would have that text, but just not on the printed card directly?
@@humanfactorsio new players don't get to see under the hood so their chance for confusion would increase.
@@daveclarke1990 new players wouldn't know that original statement though.
Feels like a good place to print duress and spell pierce. Doubt we see shock as it was in mkm but would also make sense.
Printing omniscience into standard is wild with reenact the crime right there for another 30ish months, but this is going to be commander foundations again loke every other product, if it has more than 30 playable cards for standard i'll be surprised.
I definitely expect at least 30 playables
@@jadegrace1312 depends on how you class playables, i've bought less than 30 cards total from a lot of recent sets nevermind 30 different cards.
It could be a good place to put role players and sideboard cards to free up 'answer' slots in future sets - Tormods Crypt, Pithing Needle, etc.
I really like this idea.
Up to a degree, sure. It's very likely the set helps establish the core tenets of the format and to feature cards that enforce these. I'd expect more specialized hosing such as Crypt to be printed into sets that care about the affected resource, such as LoTV printed into Duskmourn.
What!?
After foundations standard will have 10-13 sets in it. Meaning that foundations will be 8-10% of the available card pool. I dont think theres all that much risk of it homogenizing standard.
Don't overthink the "enters" debacle. There is exactly one correct solution to this problem. I give you: "ETB:"
Keyword when creature enters: summoned
Sorcery Contested Realms uses Genesis
I also initially thought about 'summoned', but the 'enters the battlefield' keyword needs to clearly encompass all the ways a creature can enter the battlefield. I think 'summoned' could confuse some players into thinking it would only apply when they cast the creature instead of reanimating or blinking it.
Cubes are usually 360-540 cards, 12-15% of which are fixing lands. However, you can have four player cubes with 180+ cards, so you could theoretically draft a starter collection. It’s probably not balanced or designed for that though. You could also make it a “desert cube,” which basically means that there are no lands in the land box and you have to pick them during the draft.
The unique standard play patterns came from the block format imo.
Youd never see tempered steel or affinity if there only 1 out of the entire formats sets was artifact based instead of almost half of them
This is a problem for sure.
Ironically, we also come right out of a couple years where there was a consistent thematic cross-set mechanical identity: DFCs
For a while I thought they were doing this on purpose, spacing out different DFC flavors across sets from Zendikar to March of the Machine. They never did quite do anything overarching with the mechanic, despite the fact there's a consistent set of synergies and hosers: blink, bounce, etc.
They could be doing the same now that Shenanigans at Markov Manor and Universes Beyond: Scary Movie are both using face-down creatures and Tarkir 2: Electric Boogaloo is slated to come out next year. They likely won't, because they're too busy pleasing their Marvel overlords, but they could.
It's gotta be a cube- you sleeve 'em all up the same, pull your favorite cards to go to your LGS and play standard, and then slot them back in when your friends come over for game night to draft. Modular, simple, accessible, and customizable- plus, its a cube that you can play with strangers at the LGS where you dont have to break down all the archetypes to new friends! Everyone already knows whats in the cube, so you only have to call out a few pet cards youve subbed in for personal flaire.
“As _______ enters”
Should be “When summoned”
for flavor reasons ;)
are them triggered abilities or what? the "As ...." seems and seems not to be, since triggered abilities' textbox start with "when" or "whenever".
@@marcoottina654 In the video they were talking about ETB effects, how Wizards is shortening it, and that they should probably keyword it at this point.
I'm sure you're right that it will be nice for designers to have known quantities in standard, but that does cut both ways. Llanowar elves, for example, majorly restricts what can be done at 3mv, and now any mistakes in that realm last three years.
Urza's Rage standard Babyyyyyyy
Feels like there's untapped space in the lifegain department yet. They've moved that direction quite a bit over the past decade and these past sets have included a lot more "can't gain life" cards, which means either they expect to become more useful later on, or they were intended to counter the decade-long progress in lifegain.
Too many people will cry and whine if they add Lightning Bolt even though answers NEED to meet parity with the insane creatures in Standard.
i almost watched this video before i realized it wasn't about commander magic. dodged a bullet there.
6:10 as far as my knowledge goes, the kroft answer is because it would move from a Triggered Ability (which interacts with spells like Stifle) to a Keyword. If you want an example, the Aura Spirit Link does not give lifelink, even in the Oracle text, but the aura Lifelink does.
The wording would need to be changed as well, as all triggered abilities use "when, whenever, at" those words are rules wise "keywords" for something being a Triggered Ability, and are very useful for telling a player what they can and can't Stifle. The descriptive text would need to say "Upon entering the battlefield this creature _" or something similar.
Keyworded would still be a triggered ability.
White blue control gonna be so crazy with counter spell and 4 mana board wipes omg
I really hope Foundations meaningfully lowers the price of Standard but I'm not too convinced. I would love to get into Standard again after having not played standard in years. But the decks cost more than my Pioneer deck did! And they rotate. I'd rather be secure in my $200 purchase of Pioneer Izzet Phoenix instead of $350+ for standard Orzhov Midrange. The value proposition is even worse when compared with my commander decks. I just built a new EDH deck for about $90 and I'm planning on playing it for many years.
But where I worry with Foundations not lowering the prices enough is when you look at the concentration of prices in standard decks. A lot of the cards are pretty cheap, but a few cards stand out and inflate the price. This makes me envision a world where your 1/3 foundations part of your deck is dirt cheap which is great but the flavoring part that comes from the quarterly sets spike just as hard or harder than they are now and the decks are pretty much just as expensive.
I would be playing Standard every week at my LGS if (not just the budget aggro) decks were $80-$100 and rotation wouldn't bother me. I'd probably buy 1 deck a year even. But as deck prices are I just don't feel the format is approachable in paper. I would love Foundations to change that and prove my fears wrong.
About the "when this creature enters", they could just make "ETB: effect" the official formatting. Or even just "on entry". I assume there's a concern about too rapidly changing one of the oldest phrasings in the game.
{Added} I could also see a future where when in however many years, Foundations 2 comes out, And now there is a Foundations Only format. Could be fun. :)
You can have a lightning bolt that works in standard and also gets stronger as players die in commander.
"Super lightning bolt deals 3 damage to any target for each player who has lost the game"
That “I have a lot of Savannah Lions” flex
They are my pride and joy
I’ll tell you why they are going to “This creature” as opposed to naming it specifically, and it isn’t because of any game mechanic. It’s the Lean Manufacturing train - it’s just an easier and more “efficient” process.
I get how u can be worry about the baseline for standard being too high and thus pushing power creep even higher in standard, BUT, I think there's another option: keep the power ceiling to the same height, but raise the floor to create a narrower gap between the worst cards and the best cards. Makes games against new players and budget decks a more interesting due to a more level card quality.
That’s a possibility for sure
That doesn't actually work, because over any significant period of time, design mistakes above and below the median power level accumulate, so a deck built with the best cards just ends up at a higher mean power level.
If they make a standard cube or toolkit to make people go back to standard, I would probably play it. Standard is expensive, I was in it for years and now that I play commander I don't have to get rid of my cards anymore. With a 5 years Foundation staples card, maybe there could be less variation but at least one could count on that cards to not rotate and they could play standard again.
I like it actually.
And Jumpstart is the icing on the cake - being such a good format to play casually too
Sweet Pot of Greed T-shirt!
15:25 100% agree - I think this is the point of Foundations.
And then 17:45-18:15 I think this actually will end up severely damaging the game. Most people will inevitably, at some point, want the more exclusive versions of their cards (if they really enjoy the hobby), which will make the higher exclusivity of them simultaneously more and less appealing (more because it's more exclusive, less because it now has a higher price point to obtain), which will probably lead to more people over time leaving the game in general than it will people playing the game. How often do we hear about people collecting sports cards now? Sports cards did something very similar to this, and I think that ultimately played a part in why people don't really collect sports cards anymore.
My main complaint about standard in general is its almost just as powerful as pioneer. Which is an issue for me because the general power level and efficiency of a format is the biggest factor in how a format feels and how metas shake out. Part of the advertisement issue of standard because of this issue
That’s a good point. 3 year rotation seems too long. Too many high power cards that stick around.
They only introduced counterspell to Modern via MH2. I don't think they'll introduce it to Pioneer already.
Better red card concept:
1000 years of Pain; deal 6 damage to all targets
...or we could just finally take advantage of WoTC annexing EDH and drop the starting life total to a reasonable number. Let's not break Legacy; it's all we Boomers have. :)
I sense the templatimg change to when this creature enters is for new player accessibility.
The ____ (self referntial creature name) enters the battlefield wording was the single most confusing thing to me as a new player. It made me feel like it was referring to if another card with that name entered the battlefield.
Obviously once I got the hang of it, it was no big deal, but I do think it's non intuitive, and the updated version is much more new player intuitive. Making it a keyword, as you suggest, would probably not help the new player issue.
no one runs divination but having it in the background as an option makes analyzing cards easier
Adding a keyword just adds even more text, because now we have the keyword, reminder text for what keyword means, and the effect itself.
Enters - Do X. (When this permanent enters, follow these steps)
The reminder text is likely only required on commons, uncommons and introductory product.
@@zbaschtian Not to mention only gets included if there's space and is in a distinctly different typeface indicating that it is, in fact, just reminder text.
Are core sets back now? Used to be probably the thing keeping type 2 together no idea why they ditched them.
Foundations is basically a core set. The new thing is it doesn’t rotate as normal.
Shock standard. I’m more excited for Foundations than any other magic set in the last 4 or 5 years
6:30 The most obvious solution is keyword it "Enters". So Thragtusk would say in that text field Enters, gain 4 life.
That could work.
I feel like it'd have to be "Entry" or something like that so as not to feel like a caveman version of a regular English sentence. Also, and I've put no thought into this and will be wrong about it, I thing most keywords aren't in that tense, right? Like a creature has flying but not flies. Or vigilance and not... holds strong? I guess there's usually not a place for the indicative mood in the lingo unless it is an action.
Go old school. CIP. Comes into play. "CIP: Draw a card" It's a bad idea that will amuse oldheads.
Combo are going to become more and more common
WoTC is not going to print more powerful cards into Standard/your proposed Foundations format regardless of rotation cadence. Even if they can be more flexible with short-term power level, they still need to think about Pioneer support, which currently has some very specific power level goalposts that haven't been moved frequently since pretty much the inception of the format. Printing Lightning Bolt or Counterspell into a short Standard rotation wouldn't just be a quick burst it power level for the new format; it'd fundamentally change the Pioneer identity and metagame.
That said, I am definitely not opposed to revising Pioneer's identity. There's a ton of past Eternal staples that currently have no home outside of EDH, and there's little reason for Pioneer not to be it. The format is already fast enough that 2-mana ramp and more powerful countermagic makes sense, so Mana Leak, a Rampant Growth variant and at least one powerful mana rock seem like a good next step. Heck, if you want to make things extra spicy, reprint the ten Signets or Talismans.
Likewise, white is missing a good one-mana creature catch-all, and the format is land-dependent enough that Path to Exile could make sense. Black could use a good monocolored reanimation option for 3-4 mana (a new 3mv sorcery + finality counter seems reasonable; Makeshift Mannequin could be spicy too). Every color is missing incentives to go beyond a 4mv curve top (Overlords are a step in the right direction). And spot nonbasic interaction needs to be stepped up a notch, without going overboard. Every color should have at least some proactive ability to deal with Nykthos and Lotus Field without costing too much sideboard opportunity cost, and the specialized artifacts are not cutting it.
Beyond that, there's tons of good targets to reprint into Pioneer and enable casual and quirky strategies: Bouncelands, Isochron Scepter, some of the original Innistrad Werewolves and Vamps, more Goblin and Merfolk staples, better Equipment, Eternal Witness, etc.
I think as long as you clearly define the goalposts for Pioneer and Standard, there's a lot you can do to improve things over the next 5 years. I'm pretty sure they have a goalposts doc somewhere, but it's a good exercise to define one from the community's standpoint. So far this is what I see as immovable for Pioneer's identity:
- Creature and combat-centric.
- No viable dedicated land denial (LD, Blood Moon, etc.)
- Spells cost mana (pitch is out, cost reduction is allowed. Exception: leylines).
- No reliable way to combo off before turn 3 (tutors, noncreature enablers, self-mill critical mass).
- No unconditional mass removal for less than 4 mana (format's already moving beyond this).
- No cheating permanents into play before turn 4.
- No unconditional countermagic for less than 3 mana.
- Soft resource denial only.
Standard adds:
- Heavily combat-centric.
- No reliable noncreature ramp for less than 3 mana.
- No unrestricted creature removal for less than 3 mana.
- No unconditional reliable one-mana discard.
- No resource denial that can't be walked around (mostly taxing).
There's probably more I'm missing, and these are definitely debatable.
Elder Lightning Dragon Bolt {R}
Instant
Deal X damage to up to 3 targets, where X is 15% of your starting life total. You may not deal more than X damage to a player and any of the spells they control this way.
The wording on this doesn't sound right.
Wait a second!! This is just a fancy Core Set...
Wotc, give us yearly Core Sets you Mongs. I want Core Set 2024, etc...
There are three certainties in life: Death, Taxes, and that Core Sets will return no matter how many times WoTC kills them.
I wonder how much of the higher powers level is that existing players don’t want a box of existing shit cards
Seems likely haha
Standard is really good right now, but... I would love to play a format like Foundation + Block Constructed. People seem to really want to return to a block structure, but from a story perspective, they've been doing one year arcs that build on a bigger story (kind of like Weatherlight) for a few years now. If I have a complaint about Standard right now, it doesn't encourage blocking because there are so many combo pieces in a three year rotation. Love me some Savannah Lions, and living card games are such a good idea.
We found the leyline mono red player chat
@@jamesgreenwood1703 Is that as much of a boogeyman in bo3? I was gonna jump back on to the Magic train when I saw what the standard meta looked like with Bloomburrow, but Duskmourn legitamately made me rethink that for just how juiced they made aggro. I love aggro, but I also love not being ostracized for my deck being too good.
@@fastpuppy2000 it either top 8’d or won a bo3 tourney. I really liked the comparison I saw someone make of the fact that it is tibalts trickery level good. Which means that basically they either have it and win or don’t and lose. So not much of a skill/decision making process compared to a regular bo1/bo3 match
@@jamesgreenwood1703 Damn. It did seem like the latest iteration of "there's no way this doesn't break something", and yeah. Hasn't Yugioh been going through a similar thing off and on for the last 5-ish years? Something happened to game designers that rotted their brains into only balancing around having a card or not. I guess it's balancing around win rate and not so much play experience (not that those are in opposition). If a deck loses half the time, but it loses to itself, that ain't a balance worth pursuing.
Lightning Bolt 2.0- Deals 3 damage to any non-player target or 1 damage to up to 3 target players.
Lightning bolt and mana leak are both not legal in pioneer. You have to see this from a constructed perspective.
It shouldn't be Shock or Lighting Bolt. It should be Chain Lightning.
Bloodwitch is there instead of blood artist so that arena players dont have to select their opponent for each trigger.
Haha that’s fair. We’re just mentioning its presence as a non-rotating element in general.
We need to get y'all cubing some more, just to get more cube love in general
Speaking of, if y'all are ever in the Portland area and wanna draft a vintage cube hit me up!
the writing is on the wall; bolt format for sure! lets go!
Mana Leak? You're getting Cancel and you'll like it!
Being serious though, every draftable set has to have their 3 mana "counter target spell + do the thing that the set wants you to do," so I doubt they'll blank out that design space for 5 years.
I would love Counterspell and Lightning Bolt in standard. Id also include thoughtseize and path to exile as well.
The problem with Mana Leak is that its super easy to splash. In early Innistrad standard there were a lot of deck just splahing vlue for mana leak
Good point on the splashability. I just love U/x tempo too much 😆
I would love bolt and counterspell. Although thoughtseize definitely too strong and path is POSSIBLY too strong
I dig that Yugioh pot shirt, curious where it’s from?
He made it! I’ll bug him to put it online 😄
@@distractionmakers 🙏🙏🙏🙏 please and do and then let me know where I can pick one up
my prediction will be price of progress, counter spell, foil
New MTG Constructed (Rotating Eternal) format:
- commons rotate after two years
- uncommons rotate after four years
- rares rotate after eight years
- mythics rotate after…never
Bring in all mythic rares since Shards of Alara.
The inverse rarity system would be absolutely hilarious, though. And maybe even fun! Rotate out first the mythics, then the rares, then the uncommons. We then get a Pauper format with some new trinkets every single Standard rotation.
Hell no, this sounds like a nightmare to track and enforce. There's so few commons and uncommons with Constructed impact that you might as well just state this as a non-rotating Eternal format where casual and budget decks are banned.
Haha that is a really neat idea! 😆
I hope it's shock and something weaker them mana leak. Leave it space for the set cards to be above the foundations.
Foundations + 1 year rotation format sounds excellent, specifically as someone who does prerelease or draft for basically every set. Between foundations and whatever I get in limited I could probably have 90% of the deck I needed on hand. Easy to make the jump to pick up the rest and play the format.
I need commander bolt for my Indoraptor deck. Please my son is starving
22:46 I want a card that reads 1R: Instant: "Deal 2 damage. If you own a Commander, deal 4 instead."
Hydroblast and Mana Leak are needed imo
if you dont like red aggro in Type I play thalia. Mono W zoo has more control elements that tax non creature spells (the mono R prowess triggers) and has removal via exile/tappers, and creatures with flash. There is more than one aggro archetype and they dont always have to be red, that is just the one that people classically gravitate towards.
21:00 No More Lies is basically Mana Leak.
Unless UW suports a tempo archetype, it isn't.
i might be speaking from ignorance but is this very different from core sets? they used to just reprint a core chunk of cards every year to make sure they didn't rotate out of standard. is this even a new idea? did the elimination of core sets of correlate with the decline of standard?
This is similar to a core set, but doesn’t rotate. The idea of a mostly non-rotating group of cards in a rotating format is new to mtg.
@@distractionmakers Didn't the older core sets stick around until they printed a new one? I thought that was the reason that old booster packs said "You need Magic the Gathering to play." They thought of it like a board game where each edition was just... Magic. You played the most updated Magic + the expansions you want/are legal.
Looking at scryfall, I guess they just printed one every two years. I thought it was way more irregular for some reason. My bad.
I can tell these guys love RDW.
Rampant Growt or Cultivate Standard? the real question here we already have Llanowar Elves
Hmmm good question
Pioneer is seriously lacking on 2MV ramp. It supports different archetypes than Elves, so I think it's a good format shakeup. I'd go for Farseek over Rampant Growth to provide better Pioneer support for Domain and multicolored tho, especially with Surveil Duals and Trilands available.
control always has 4 mana white wrath, midrange (green) always has turn 2 three mana, wheres my lightning bolt for aggro
They have each opponent lightning bolt. Its called dragon's approach. Should it be 6 damage. Yes, in fact why stop there, fill your deck with damage doublers and copy spells. You can run one in the command zone. If games go too long its the red decks fault, their role is to put a clock on things. I'm very pro reprint lightning bolt, in fact maybe its time we get a 1 mana 4 damage spell, maybe magic can handle it now
Shock was reprinted in MKM and Lightning Bolt hasn't been in standard since M10. No way do they put Lightning Bolt in Standard.
Unfortunately bc Bolt is an all time favorite
If Lightning Bolt is in Foundations it'll be a Rare or a Mythic. Standard actually has a turn 2 kill in Mono Red right now so if Bolt IS in the set its gonna be INSANE.
Fyi, duskmourn made a pretty good deck thata like $100 and pretty competarive (azorious auras)
I feel like magic is going through the same transition that yugioh did. Old School yugioh and modern yugioh are different games. In a few years I think we are going to look at standard and it will not be the same game as 5 years ago.
I'm quite sure the whole point of foundation is that it doesn't rotate fast
"When this enters" seems short enough. "This creature" seems too wordy.
Love where that idea was headed… “Deal 2 damage to each of your opponents. Repeat for each opponent you have.”
Doesn’t power creep the historical piece that is Lightning Bolt, but still scales up a bit for Commander.
I feel like these comments about standard were made using information from a year ago and you guys only had a cursory glance at what some people were saying on reddit in preparation for this video.
What did we miss?
I hate "this creature" because i and other custom card creators have been using "this" since forever.
If they create a shorter rotation format than standard, it will kill standard.