I can agree with some of the once per turn stuff, but the 'activate only as sorcery' is so not okay on some cards. I can agree with it on magda, like you said she is a 2 drop. But on cards like the new Olivia i just find it so uncool
i agree and i've been moaning about this since Osgir, the Reconstructor. resticting to sorcery speed shuts off so much flexibility both in deckbuilding and gameplay
The thing with once per turn, like "only at sorcery speed" and any other non mana based restriction is that I am glad they exist but the fact that they are going on basically everything is definitely a bad thing. I like welcoming vampire and morbid oppertunist, but loheel, chainer, and the new rakdos for chrissake did not need this restriction. the reason people are against it is that its being spammed everywhere instead of applied liberally.
I think "once per turn" absolutely is better overall, but there are too many insanely good cards without that restriction. The existence in both in commander makes it difficult to see cards with this design as good at all. In comparing the two teysa's, sure, new teysa with the clause is way more fair and strong, but compared to the old teysa with no restrictions, it doesn't matter how good the design is, it just looks straight up bad.
Once per turn is a good restriction on stronger effects and potentially gives you ways to play around it. For example new Kambal copying opponents' tokens can get pretty tough if you're on tokens yourself, so what you can do is intentionally not pay for a third players smothering tithe, giving kambal a treasure token to "burn" his ability, then play your X=10 token generation. Problem is, some older cards have comparable effects off the same ability without the restrictions, and with commander giving you access to the entire history of the card pool, new cards can look terrible.
Once per turn is a good restriction, it encourages building around doing something every turn (often including your opponents' turns) as opposed to finding loops, and after playing with some of these cards, I see that WotC has the ability to push cards a lot because of this restriction. The problem is that it's an ugly template. Magic players have been trained for literal decades to expect the costs for activated abiliities and the trigger conditions for triggered abilities at the start of the ability, once you get past the "boring parts" (I personally find that costs or trigger conditions are the things that draw me to cards, but for many they are the busywork you do to get the thing you really want) most players expect the rest of the effect to just be good stuff. To be hit with an additonal restriction right at the end turns many players away from really good cards, because it's not *as* good as they initially imagined in the process of reading.
Searching scryfall for "only if" shows that Arcum Sleigh as a very early example in Ice Age of a negative condition following a a cost and then an effect. The template as been ": . Activate only if " for quite some time.
I kinda agree, back whwn i first got into mtg (afr), i really wanted to play a dungeon commander deck, but most cards you could play in the same deck in commander were either outside esper, or once per turn. Like i got really excited seeing varis, only to see that hes opt and that makes him almost unusable as a dungeon commander, and more just a general creature mander. Id rather for niche keywords, just require it to be slightly harder but repeatable.
@@daltronius I mean, her effect isn't that hard to trigger, and most decks running her will probably use permanent sac outlets. So triggering her on your opponent's turns shouldn't be too hard. Delving into the dungeon 4 times in a turn cycle is still pretty good
I can agree with some of the once per turn stuff, but the 'activate only as sorcery' is so not okay on some cards. I can agree with it on magda, like you said she is a 2 drop. But on cards like the new Olivia i just find it so uncool
i agree and i've been moaning about this since Osgir, the Reconstructor. resticting to sorcery speed shuts off so much flexibility both in deckbuilding and gameplay
The thing with once per turn, like "only at sorcery speed" and any other non mana based restriction is that I am glad they exist but the fact that they are going on basically everything is definitely a bad thing.
I like welcoming vampire and morbid oppertunist, but loheel, chainer, and the new rakdos for chrissake did not need this restriction. the reason people are against it is that its being spammed everywhere instead of applied liberally.
I think "once per turn" absolutely is better overall, but there are too many insanely good cards without that restriction. The existence in both in commander makes it difficult to see cards with this design as good at all. In comparing the two teysa's, sure, new teysa with the clause is way more fair and strong, but compared to the old teysa with no restrictions, it doesn't matter how good the design is, it just looks straight up bad.
Once per turn is a good restriction on stronger effects and potentially gives you ways to play around it. For example new Kambal copying opponents' tokens can get pretty tough if you're on tokens yourself, so what you can do is intentionally not pay for a third players smothering tithe, giving kambal a treasure token to "burn" his ability, then play your X=10 token generation.
Problem is, some older cards have comparable effects off the same ability without the restrictions, and with commander giving you access to the entire history of the card pool, new cards can look terrible.
I agree that it's healthy design and frees up WotC to make more powerful effects.
Once per turn is a good restriction, it encourages building around doing something every turn (often including your opponents' turns) as opposed to finding loops, and after playing with some of these cards, I see that WotC has the ability to push cards a lot because of this restriction.
The problem is that it's an ugly template. Magic players have been trained for literal decades to expect the costs for activated abiliities and the trigger conditions for triggered abilities at the start of the ability, once you get past the "boring parts" (I personally find that costs or trigger conditions are the things that draw me to cards, but for many they are the busywork you do to get the thing you really want) most players expect the rest of the effect to just be good stuff. To be hit with an additonal restriction right at the end turns many players away from really good cards, because it's not *as* good as they initially imagined in the process of reading.
Searching scryfall for "only if" shows that Arcum Sleigh as a very early example in Ice Age of a negative condition following a a cost and then an effect. The template as been ": . Activate only if " for quite some time.
I kinda agree, back whwn i first got into mtg (afr), i really wanted to play a dungeon commander deck, but most cards you could play in the same deck in commander were either outside esper, or once per turn. Like i got really excited seeing varis, only to see that hes opt and that makes him almost unusable as a dungeon commander, and more just a general creature mander. Id rather for niche keywords, just require it to be slightly harder but repeatable.
@@daltronius I mean, her effect isn't that hard to trigger, and most decks running her will probably use permanent sac outlets. So triggering her on your opponent's turns shouldn't be too hard. Delving into the dungeon 4 times in a turn cycle is still pretty good