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We're all just here for the deep Urza lore - Talking about Magic: The Gathering!
- Thread starter Bulgakov
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- i'd tap that magic wotc
Balrog
(He/Him)
I got one from a pack as well. I'm putting it in Yenna because I'm a similar monster.I'm actually thinking about slotting it in my Calix enchantment deck, because I am a monster.
So there's a lot I could talk about with my impressions of Foundations. But I will start with just one: it's definitely gonna make constructing Standard decks in Arena very fun right now for, like, not-top-tier decks. I'm looking forward to making like, a Wizards deck and a Faeries deck, you know?
"Not-top-tier decks" is going to be an important qualifier about standard for the rest of time, because while I think foundations is actually a good thing combining it with every other damn thing they've done to the format is going to push the power level to the absurd, as if it weren't already there.
Which is a problem when it's the only format you can ever realistically power down to prevent outright powercreep forever.
Which is a problem when it's the only format you can ever realistically power down to prevent outright powercreep forever.
I think there's only exactly one card added in Foundations that has me concerned about being legal for 5 years: Llanowar Elves. There are so many good 3 drops right now, and that also seems to be the sweet spot mana value they are targeting for "really good cards" to have.
I mean, my one-sentence rundown would be that it's a pretty opaque and unimportant rules change to anyone engaging with the game casually. Anyone claiming that the sky is falling is overreacting or generating clickbait headlines. They've change how combat damage is assigned in combats involving multiple blockers in such a way that the needle has tilted ever so slightly further towards favouring attacking versus defending.
Again, I think foundations itself (and having a set that's always in standard for long times) is a pretty good idea.
3 year rotations, making 6 standard sets a year and the pressure on every set to be all viable in eternal formats are all going to crush standard, though it's already a good amount of the way there anyway.
they changed the way blocking works to make it less advantageous for defenders in situations where multiple creatures block one attacker and the defender has a combat trick in hand. it's pretty esoteric, even for me, and only really impacts the highest tier of players (ie, the folks who knew this was even a legal rule in the first place).
They are still a staple of Draft and Sealed, which is also where you end up multi-blocking the most as well.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with shivam and say that it's not esoteric or opaque, it's just how combat with multiple blockers has worked for the past 15 years. Up until today, if an attacking creature was blocked by more than one creature, the attacking player would choose the order in which damage was dealt to those creatures, and you had to assign damage to them in that order. You also had to assign lethal damage to each creature in line before you could assign damage to the next one. This is still in the "declare blockers" step. Then, after the order was declared, the defending player would get priority one more time before moving to damage, so if they had a trick they could potentially save their first creature.
(Side note, I hope this doesn't sound condescending but I promise I am asking genuinely: do people not know this? I am legitimately surprised to hear it being described as something only "the highest tier of players" knew, because in my experience, that's just...the rules of the game. I certainly am not in that tier! And I know Magic has a lot of rules, but I always thought combat was one of the things everyone understood.)
Back to the question at hand, here's what's actually changed with Foundations: attacks and blocks are declared same as before, but if a defender declares multiple blocking creatures on a single attacker, the attacking player doesn't order blockers anymore, and they no longer have to assign lethal damage to a particular creature. Instead, after blocks are declared, the defending player doesn't know how the attacker is going to assign their damage. Damage is now assigned immediately in the damage step, not when blocks are declared. The defending player still gets priority before damage, but the attacking player doesn't reveal any information about how they're assigning damage until after the defending player's final chance to respond to it. I know Kirin asked for a one-paragraph explanation but it'll be easier to show why this matters/is different with some practical examples.
Previous rules: I attack with a 4/4. You double block with a 2/2 and a 3/3 and you have a Giant Growth in hand. I have to choose the order in which damage is dealt, so I put the 3/3 in front (assigning 3 damage to it and the last 1 to the 2/2). Before moving to damage, you cast Giant Growth on your 3/3 to turn it into a 6/6, keeping both your creatures alive and killing mine.
New rules: I attack with a 4/4. You double block with a 2/2 and a 3/3 and you have a Giant Growth in hand. I no longer have to choose an order for blockers, so I pass priority. You get priority before damage and cast Giant Growth on your 3/3. Since you now have a 2/2 and a 6/6, during the damage step I assign all my damage to your 2/2. My creature dies and so does one of yours.
One more example with the new rules: I attack with a 5/5 and you block with a 4/4 and a 3/3. Before damage you cast a Giant Growth on your 3/3. Because I no longer have to assign lethal damage to anything*, I assign three damage to your 6/6 and two damage to your 4/4. My creature dies and yours survive...but then in my second main phase, I cast Slagstorm and deal three damage to each creature, wiping your board.
So is it a big deal? It's not necessarily a "sky is falling" change, but as a few people have mentioned, it makes blocking (and in particular, blocking with combat tricks available) worse. It removes a level of agency and a decision point from the defending player. It also makes things like damage doubling effects much better, since the attacking player can now assign less combat damage to a creature and still kill it, meaning they could potentially kill more blockers than they could under the old rules. (This one is admittedly more of an edge case.) And to bring it around to what @SabreCat asked above, you don't see many combat tricks in constructed formats (outside of stuff like Heroic decks), but they get played in basically every game of limited. The rule change may not make a difference in every game, but it absolutely tips the scales in favor of the attacking player in a way that will let them win more games where they'd otherwise get blown out by a defensive combat trick.
*Creatures with trample still have to assign lethal damage to their blockers before excess damage tramples over.
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Oh well, yeah, that's all a lot of potential for trouble.
I think they wanted to make this change because it aligns with their trend to make Limited games play out faster. There will be slightly fewer situations where the board is completely stalled for several turns (in favor of the attacker, yes).
This is...not a good trend, though. Plenty of recent sets (most notably All Will Be One and Karlov Manor) have had awful limited environments because they were just too fast to have meaningful games. And I like playing aggro! But it's no fun to have entire formats where that's the Clear Best Strategy and any other deck will just lose if it doesn't have a turn 2 play.
While I agree "things need to be slower in limited" I think this change is fine. It's a much clearer rule.
It does make blocking worse, backing being bad is usually the top sign of a bad formant. But if they also stop pushing stuff that makes blocking worse a bit it can even out, they've already agreed limited has been to fast the past year and want to slow it down.
MKM was a bit unfairly maligned, but I lothed LCI because if you want a format that's fast and stupid that was it so I may be biased. At least MKM was about 2-3 drops instead of 1 drops.
It does make blocking worse, backing being bad is usually the top sign of a bad formant. But if they also stop pushing stuff that makes blocking worse a bit it can even out, they've already agreed limited has been to fast the past year and want to slow it down.
MKM was a bit unfairly maligned, but I lothed LCI because if you want a format that's fast and stupid that was it so I may be biased. At least MKM was about 2-3 drops instead of 1 drops.
Ha, speaking of Embercleave, I did win 1 match because of Leyline Axe in my Foundations pre-release on Friday. I'm actually thinking it's not a terribly good Equipment in Limited because of how expensive it is. Even in the one game where I had it in my opener it was... clunky.
As a Special Guest card, which show up in roughly once in every 64 packs. You'll probably never see it in your drafts and it's not Standard-legal either.
Happy new Standard in MTG Arena day.
I am thinking about... Rakdos Goblins. I'm thinking it's mostly Mono-Red Goblins, splashing for some combination of Disturbing Mirth, Vengeful Bloodwitch, Alesha, and/or Immerstum Predator. So, more or less a Foundations Rakdos deck heavily leaning Goblins. If I can fit a Chainsaw in there too I would be ecstatic.
I am thinking about... Rakdos Goblins. I'm thinking it's mostly Mono-Red Goblins, splashing for some combination of Disturbing Mirth, Vengeful Bloodwitch, Alesha, and/or Immerstum Predator. So, more or less a Foundations Rakdos deck heavily leaning Goblins. If I can fit a Chainsaw in there too I would be ecstatic.
Any non-zero number of games lost to embercleave is a problem.
I promise that you'll lose more games to the damage assignment changes than you will to Embercleave.
There's a 1.5% chance of opening a Special Guest card in any given pack, and there are 10 potential Special Guests. That means any time you open a Foundations pack, there's a 0.15% chance of seeing Embercleave. You're going to be way better served playing around any of the common combat tricks in the set, or any of the other bomb rares in the set, than a card you're effectively never going to have to play against.
Look, I'm not a fan of Special Guests either, specifically because they create a massive power imbalance on the very rare occasions someone in your draft opens one, but given that there's a 96.5% chance of that not happening*, I would rather focus on the cards I'm way more likely to see.
*Across the 24 packs opened in a draft, the chances of seeing a particular Special Guest are about 3.5% according to this probability calculator.
Look, I'm not a fan of Special Guests either, specifically because they create a massive power imbalance on the very rare occasions someone in your draft opens one, but given that there's a 96.5% chance of that not happening*, I would rather focus on the cards I'm way more likely to see.
*Across the 24 packs opened in a draft, the chances of seeing a particular Special Guest are about 3.5% according to this probability calculator.
It's like 3MV Oko or Mana Drain in OTJ. There is a correct number of certain cards to include in a limited environment and sometimes that number is Zero.
FWIW OTJ is a great limited set hindered by having far too many bonus sheets while Foundations seems pretty much normal.
FWIW OTJ is a great limited set hindered by having far too many bonus sheets while Foundations seems pretty much normal.
Agreed all around. OTJ had some color balance issues (and absolutely too many bonus sheets) but overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.
I don't like bonus sheets in any limited environment, personally, but at least Special Guests are so exceedingly rare that they're mostly not worth thinking about.
So I have been rocking some Boros Burn on the ranked ladder, and that deck is surprisingly good in this current Standard meta. The hardest stuff it has trouble with is Dimir, and Sheltered by Ghosts.... which is also true for a lot of other competitve decks. And it's not just in best-of-one either, because I've played some matches in best-of-three too.
Screaming Nemesis can be sideboard or main deck. But it's just 20-24 burn spells, and some combination of prowess and burn damage creatures. And the Red case for card draw.
Been jamming this in standard: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-dimir-demons-dmu
Has mana costs above 1 and actual downsides on its cards where sometimes I just kill myself.
Has mana costs above 1 and actual downsides on its cards where sometimes I just kill myself.