The Genius Behind MTG's First New Card Type in 15 Years - Extra Credits
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ส.ค. 2023
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Looking across the last 15 years of Magic the Gathering, we noticed the genius game design of their newest card, Battles! A card that gives players, the ability to have all their turn one fun and their big monsters too! Will this card forever change the dynamics of MTG?
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3:15 That’s where burn spells can come in! Using Twinferno and Lightning Strike to flip my Invasions of Ergamon or Zendikar in my Etali deck in Arena is very satisfying!😄😊
I think the person who wins the die roll should get to choose if they are choosing or if they want to defer the choice to the opponent and then whichever player didnt choose gets to Scry 1.
Dude, you are so far off on this video. You clearly aren't an expert on nearly all of the topics that you make videos on. You also don't seem to consult with experts very often. Yet you make a video that positions you as an expert and people (are slow enough to) take that info as truth and spread it around. You should really think about what you are doing.
You are like the news. You will latch on to anything that you think will get you views so you can make money. You don't care how your product affects the world you will just do and say anything for your own bottom line.
There's a problem with this: battles ended having basically little to no impact outside of their ETB effect, even in limitted.
Eh some of the clunky high health battles were like this, but the threat of the backside flipping definitely impacted the pace of the game, and most of the 2 mana or 3 defense battles were easy to flip over
In limited*
Thats not true at all. Think of invasion of gobakan for example. And the level of decision making they introduce is in nad of itself a boon
The design wasn’t pushed aggressively, which I think is good for new mechanics. (Scaling with the “Storm” scale)
It's a work in progress, we'll definitely see some better implimentation of the new card type soon.
I actually wonder if this isn't just a lesson learned from more powerful low-cost play, but also from their previous new card type, Planeswalkers. Playing a Planeswalker card effectively gives *yourself* more health, as they are threatening cards that have to be dealt damage (usually in the form of combat damage) to remove from the board.
I've tossed down a walker to distract the opponent from my real plan or to buy myself a turn so often
That’s the genius of planeswalkers, you play them to distract your opponent and essentially gain life. Buying time for longer games can be cruicial for control decks.
There’s too many “destroy target planeswalker” cards and abilities for them to really impact combat as much. I can’t even remember the last time I actually attacked one; I just play the hell out of Fracture.
To be fair, I play Commander almost exclusively.
Yes exactly. Favorite deck I ever made was bant superfriends just making planeswalker ticking time bombs while field wiping and countering
@@iDog-kv8ncthat is exclusively a commander problem. In 60 card formats planeswalkers are far from guaranteed so plenty of decks ditch planeswalker removal for competitively costed creature removal. It doesn't help that there isn't really a boardwipe that hits planeswalkers so superfriends decks are hard to answer
The "Corpo overkill" card sent me to the stratosphere.
Yeah, but the IRS card is a hard counter to it so it's balanced as long as they don't have a Cayman Islands land card in play.
Netrunning Intensifies
It was a nice lampshade though, admittedly a needed one. If they posted a video praising MtG without at least mentioning the Pinkerton scandal, there'd definitely be people asking some not so nice questions about it.
@@charemchavrutah indeed, it was hilarious AND needed. Love it
Rule #3 of retail: Nothing succeeds like excess. *Nothing.*
If you want to *really* sink your teeth into a 'First Turn is OP' connundrum, try tackling the vertical wall of power creep that is Modern Yu-Gi-Oh, where decks have reached the point they can win on the first turn *when going second.*
What decks were you specifically talking about? Looking at the yu gi oh fandom site and yugipedia, it seems like zero-turn-kills are extremely rare and dependent on very specific circumstances.
I'm also not sure what you mean by "Modern Yu-Gi-Oh", since ZTKs have been possible since the release of Exodia in 2002 and one of the first consistent FTKs was through Magical Scientist released in 2005.
Would take years for that to happen but also it's inevitable unless they prevent something that breaks the resource system of MTG in half. Since the reason you can just FTK with Kashtira or draw your entire deck out is the lack of a resource system.
Like would MTG even reach Gem Knight levels? Lyrilusc seems so far away, there's also Predaplant Verte Anaconda needing to exist in MTG. Pre Erata Firewall Dragon seems like a nightmare if it was in there, The tribute for damage and cycling cards, seems like a time traveler would need to trip somewhere for the game to get to Yugioh levels.
@@tomshraderd4915 while there is no true ZTK deck in Yugioh, barring the statistically impossible "open all 5 pieces of Exodia," there are now monsters for some decks that let them start making plays during the opponent's first turn.
phienex is a TH-cam channel, he has a video titled "Turn 0 Cards" where he goes over some of the cards that let you play Turn Zero.
"THIS IS STUPID!!! I WON ON TURN 0! Yu-Gi-Oh!" by yacine656 is a gimmick/staged replay of a game of Yugioh done as a holiday special.
Tearlaments+Ishizu is the worst offender by far back when it was at its strongest. 3 Havnis, 3 TearKash, 3 Agido, and 3 Kelbek meant there was a good chance you opponent could start milling themselves and you during your first turn, and they could start making a board of interruptions quickly.
Turn one wins when going first (or turn zero) is a thing in vintage mtg.
@@TheMrGazoline and I love it.
surprising you didn't mention planeswalkers with good effects that can be used after casting and a strong passive. they are basically decent sorceries that your enemy is forced to kill, basically giving you more HP. but most players only find them frustrating to deal with.
It is because of working like extra hit points, they work more like overpriced healing or underpriced enchantments.
Either you are never able to get rid of them, meaning they stop working as extra health and start working as cages, or they don't stop your gameplan and you just ignore them and stems roll your opponent.
Planewalker are way overkill. They're basically a engine of advantage.
Ignoring it isn't wise unless your just aggro deck
Planeswalkers just aren’t relevant to the speed of limited formats since they’re only at rare or mythic. War of the Spark being the exception, of course.
You also don't attack your own planeswalkers. One of the keys is that slower decks can't hit an aggro deck for 5 and get value, that just loses a blocker and the aggro deck is still alive. Now you can attack a battle instead and get a chance to build your board and stabilize
@@ODDnanref true , it design flaw to give +ability. One reason ako was broken beside coming in on turn 2.
All planewalker should have - ability
Worth mentioning that battles absolutely need their ETB (enter the battlefield - the slightly weaker short-term effect that happens when they first enter play and before they flip) to do what you’re describing and swing games against fast aggro. Spending your Mana on a battle that doesn’t do anything until you attack it (which might not always be possible or advantageous) leaves you extra exposed to aggro threats so it’s important they create tokens or (as in the case of Invasions of Tarkir and Gobakhan) give you the option to remove an enemy’s creature from the field or card from their hand.
or in short - increasing your enemy’s life total isn’t so great when yours is already under 5
the consequence of this in constructed play is that aggro decks won’t often play battles unless their ETB is at least viable (Regatha) or they are rather easy to flip because they begin with relatively few defense counters compared to the power of the transformed version (Zendikar) or in the best cases, both (Gobakhan and arguably also Zendikar)
@bumfricker2487 in even shorter: Battles have to be really good to be playable. Otherwise, they don't change the game at all.
@@bumfricker2487 correct I was looking at top 8s and I didn't see really any battles in the main deck. 4C Control ran Invasion of Zendikar for the ramp and I saw one with a copy of Invasion of New Phyrexia for the 2/2 knights with vigilance. If they see no play or if they are used for the etb of the card then they make no difference. Do I want to play a battle when my opponent has Sheoldred in play? If they want to make aggro weaker then they need to print better staples for other archetypes.
yea, this is why flip cards have never really catch, we had them for a long time, and unless they are basically broken, there is little point to play them since you only ends up worsening your situation
This video, while the topics and research were generally accurate, made it sound like battles were introduced specifically to counteract speedy limited formats and turn 1 being relevant. That’s not really how limited formats work though, once a limited format is made, its set in stone as cards from a set. Different limited formats also have different speeds, ONE had a blazingly fast format, but BRO was grindy as hell. On top of that, battles as a card type were introduced not to slow limited down, but as a top down representation of a big event happening in the story.
I agree. I like the general idea of the video, but it felt like it was missing a lot of context. It also made it seem like Battles are a new card type to solve a problem, but didn't note that battles aren't slated to return (that we know of) for a while. It might be a whole year before we see it again and there will be a lot of limited formats between now and then.
I also would argue that planeswalkers at uncommon served a similar function in War of the Spark limited 4 years ago. It made decisions much harder and that format was much more swingy than MOM.
This seems like: "we got theory but didn't bother to check data". One of best way to screw cool design when numbers/math behind cards don't go along.
@@beyondthedeckboxyea I think the “turn 1 was slow until battles” is a huge overstatement. Planeswalkers definitely up the anti and was a turning point for magic. But saying turn one monsters didn’t do anything is a complete lie. As magic progressed, they gave us soooo many choices to ramp quickly, turn 1 artifacts, mana dorks, turn 1 ramp spells. There’s no excuse that turn one is slow because usually peeps can cast an etali at turn 3. Not to mention discover, cascade, sneak attack, prowl etc. which allows people to eke out big creatures and spells with no mana cost. So yea it’s very very easy to cast emrakrul, promised end.
I'm not so sure I agree here. The front half of battles tend to be just a bit below the power curve so they're unlikely to catch you up if you're behind, the main thing required to slow down games.
And if you're already ahead, they're easy to flip and can often speed up games (as flipped battles tend to be well above the power curve)
I looked at some stats from the database of 300.000 draft MoM games. The battles were picked in 78,86% of decks and the decks without battles finished games 21% faster then the ones with them. And the curve is clear: more battles in the deck longer the games.
@@Atulack What were the winning percentages? I've never really played battles in limited where my game plan was to attack them. I use them to get the front face effect and almost never attack them unless I'm playing a weird strategy or a midrange pile o value. Just attacking face is the best plan.
The last new card type before Battles? Planeswalkers in 2007 which were delayed a whole set. They were first made to be in the final set of Time Spiral block, Future Sight, but it was a sub 200 card small set, so that initial cycle of 5 was instead put into the fall set Lorwyn. Core sets at the time were 100% reprints and had the summer slot. Planewalkers were originally meant to be not appearing in every set. They also had their own pseudo legendary rule based on not having more than one of the same subtype in play.
Planeswalkers as well fit a similar space as battles, though also the opposite. They have their own "health" in the form of loyalty, and have that aspect of giving you secret bonus health as your opponent takes resources to reduce the planeswalker's loyalty to 0. However the whole reason your opponent would want to focus them out is due to the consistent value they generate, as well as powerful "ultimate" abilities, that could all but end the game if nothing is done to the planeswalker for a few turns. In that way 'walkers end up making the game take longer while at the same time seeking to make them shorter.
They differentiate from battles however because instead of giving your opponent more "health", they give yourself health instead, and their value right away helps push you towards beating your opponent sooner. Battles meanwhile make you yourself take the game slower as you weigh your options and split your attention. It's subtle, but ultimately a better approach to a similar goal of sorts.
@@Tuss36 early PW had neutral or bad value on +X though, meaning playing them was about keeping them alive to use the -X abilities that actually had value. so they were basically strong creatures that your enemy could target, and if you wanted value from them, you had to protect them. it was when they started making PWs with passives and strong abilities that could be used as soon as they were on the table, or neutral/good +X abilities, that they started becoming good cards to slow down the game, since the opponent HAD to deal with them, instead of just trying to kill you before you could get any value from them... though most people consider them a bit frustrating to play against.
@@Tuss36 At least battles are acard i can detroy of my oppents battles if you destroy them just makes thingss worse for you. I also think FRast games are tehbane of magic.
trying apease tourney playeers rt rahter than casual players has almost killed casual magic. DEs cks shouild neger win consistantly before turn 6. And, p;ent of useful ommons for decades at 1 mana mana elves drawing and many others existed d LLAnowar elves is G for 1/1 that increase your mana. SHock that does 2 damage. Nmble Mongoose. Arcbound Worker, Putrid Imp, Basking Rootwalla, Carrion Feeder, Quirion Ranger, are common one drops from older sets
As someone who started playing 4 years ago so fast decks have been all decks I did not realize how helpful battles are.
they aren't... decks have a goal and you just go for that goal, battles don't matter. This dude is off so often it isn't even funny but it seems that everybody has forgotten the wisdom of the past not everything on TV is true.
@@thomgizziz the point the video made isn't completely wrong, but it makes it seem like battles see a lot of play when most don't. When more battles get released with better etbs it might matter more.
I've been playing M:tG from beta. This video is not accurate about what the game was like in the 90s.
@@thomgizziz Yeah, battles don't slow down the game because you aren't forced to include them, so aggro decks are just going to keep playing fast cards instead.
@@IVIaskerade Dude making the video always pretends to be an expert on topics that he knows little about. He spends a little time learning about something and then to a lay person it seems like he knows what he is talking about. In reality all he ends up doing is spreading a bunch of lies he doesnt even know are lies to a bunch of people who also spread the incorrect info.
And people wonder why there is so much misinformation in the world. It is the blind leading the blind out there and they all think they can see.
I'm just here for David's amazing mtg art
David was super pumped to do this episode!
Nice idea, in theory. In practice, it doesn't seem like they've had much impact in constructed formats, though it's still early days yet. I'd expect more of an impact from this card type in future sets.
This video is about limited, not constructed.
@@ElPanadero18that's because no one's going to go through the mental gymnastics to address standard.
I have not interacted with MTG in a few years but when I saw Battles my immediate thought was "I would never want to play them in constructed cause they actively slow me down. They need to have a clear "I WIN THE GAME" effect if they fall to make it worth being included in a winning strategy." but yeah ... in limited this might be a different story.
@dakotapanah5490 even in limited, I haven't seen them much
In the recent Arena cube both Invasion of Gobakhan and Invasion of New Phyrexia have wrecked me recently, due both to their front and back sides. The card type has legs, they just need more implementations of it.
Interesting. I have watched a number of high level games that use Battles, but I always see them played only when the player knows that they will be able to immediately flip them. That does serve the purpose of delaying attacks by a turn, but it doesn't require anything of the player on defense because they're always going to be in a position where they can't or won't do anything in the brief time the Battle is on the field before being flipped.
As other people have pointed out, Planeswalkers have had more of a need to attack / need to defend / make my opponent need to attack sort of thoughtful dynamic.
I definitely don't think the analysis of this video was very on point. In limited I think they're either trash or broken. I see them more as Plane's Walker's rather than an extension of your opponents life points. Your opponent's protecting it, but your opponent's really protecting themselves. Because it's so rare to get dupes of combo pieces in limited, I'd say you're not as likely to pop off in time for Battles to be as worth it, as you'll be dead by that point.
That's p much the only time I ever see them.
Correction, your description of Battles actually applies to the subtype Siege. By default, Battles are yours to defend like Planeswalkers. Sieges change that rule making you determine an opponent to defend it. Of course, all Battles we currently have are Sieges, but it's an important distinction to make for when we start getting non-Siege Battles.
One of the players shown in the video was clearly someone with vitiligo. That is almost never seen in anything, let alone a video talking about WotC adding cards which changed MTG. I fully approve of seeing this player and hope they appear in the future as well.
Seconded
Hard agree, very cool to see representation that isn't made a big deal
And considering that to do so adding a bit more time and therefore money means this was no small choice. Good on ya'll!
I loved seeing that!
Ah, I'm not the only one who noticed. And I agree, representation for people with vitiligo is long overdue.
do people even use battles?
There's like 2 playable battles
Invasion of ikoria can be used for creature tutoring
Occasionally, my eldrazi list runs invasion of alara
I have a couple in some decks, but they don't come out all that often
Covered here are the positive effects for limited and constructed, and I would also add that Battles provide a new dynamic to Commander, where choosing the defending player is a meaningful decision and their low HP makes low damage combats fun and relevant to the game (again?)! 😊
Good point. The defending player needs to weigh up whether they need to block a weak creature from doing chip damage to a Battle, or can afford to let it go. It's not like a Planeswalker, where you lose something tangible with each hit.
the problem with battles in limited is the same problem that planeswalkers have in limited. yes, you can attack your battles and get your bonus etc etc, but often times the best strategies are to either counter the effect, or just ignore them altogether. oh you attacked your battle and got a 4/4 creature or a cool enchantment? cool, I have a 1-2 mana response to make all that effort worthless
Well. There are cards that allow you to damage planewalkers and battles without attacking them. Imho analyzing battles without taking those cards into account is a little bit shortsighted.
If you made the effort worthless, you still spent a card on it. That's good.
One thing that modern EC has in common with MTG is that while Magic inflates a players health by 37% with battles, EC inflates video length with 37% ads (5:31) 🤯🤯🤯
Seriously tho. I got to what I thought was the half way mark and then bam the video was over and there went 3 or 4 minutes of ads.
I forgot to tell youtube to stop recommending me these guys
@@freddiesimmons1394 The thing is I really like their older(and I mean first starting out) content but all their modern content tends to rub me the wrong way more often than not
I think one of the smartest things about battles from a design standpoint is that they gave them a subtype, “siege”. This leaves plenty of room for them to explore the design space of battles and tweak their mechanics. I could see them making battles that you put on your own side and your opponents have to attack them, or battles that both players can attack and whoever flips the battle gets the prize. Regardless, I’m very intrigued to see how they handle battles in the future.
Casual Matt, well played :-)
As an aside, I love the both artificial and yet very real lines that are drawn to divide gaming communities, often along such lines as ‘casual’ and ‘pro’ or ‘tournament’ and much more often actually revolve around how a given player enjoys playing the game.
The MtG design team have some excellent thoughts on this that, quite honestly, helped me discover how I like to play *every* game, and really helped me enjoy my MtG experience more.
I’ve no idea if you’ve discussed this area, particularly with the theme of how players/participants in a game tend to divide themselves along artificial lines that are not the actual lines their preferences divide them along, but it would be great to see you do something like this - with or without reference to MtG (who I really do hold up as a design paragon in this area) and I think it would help a lot of people. We still see so much discussion across so many gaming communities of perceived divisions which, as with most divisions in life, are not the actual divisions.
Someone with your platform could really help people in this area! :-)
You mean like the Timmy/Johnny/Spike player archetypes? Timmy wants fun and big effects. Johnny wants wild combos and original gameplay. Spike wants to win. They have been guiding design from the early days of Magic. There is also Melvin and Vorthos, Melvin is all about mechanics and numbers, Vorthos is about theme and lore.
Love the video very interesting dive into the design of magic and battles but I wanted to add fun fact "dungeon" is actually it's own card type despite the fact that you can not put dungeons into your deck only ways to "venture into the dungeon" which will allow you to create a dungeon in your command zone just and interesting tid bit of rules nuance some cards that let you name a card type such as serra's emissary can name dungeon since it is a card type.
This was actually a surprisingly nice feature and a great design decision. Some feedback to you, it could be a lot of help if you described what battles do a bit more in depth and made a solid example to really feel the effects of it.
They do a thing when they come into play, and when they take enough damage they flip and do something else. They're so varied it's kinda hard to be more specific than that.
@@seanheath4492 and his analysis of it is just wrong. It may slow your opponent down or it may do nothing. You could be better off just playing a creature rather than wasting your time dealing with a battle. The dude thinks he is an analytical genius but his track record shows he is terrible at analyzing everything and is rarely correct.
agree - as an ex-mtg player even I didn't understand it at all
@@Belbecat Are you saying you didn't understand his explanation (such as it was) of what a battle does, or why they were introduced?
@@seanheath4492 how they worked based on this video's explanation alone.
As a magic superfan, I really appreciate all the visual references in this episode!
Oh my gosh! Seeing Chandra, Liliana, Teferi, and Emerkul in the EC art style made my day! ❤
I hope we get more EC mtg videos! Heck! It be really cool if EC and Tolarian Community College did a crossover to talk mtg.
They really nailed battles on all fronts. I think on the majority of printed battles so far the ETB effect is incentive enough to cast and the backside is powerful enough to justify attacking it, which was probably a really hard line to walk. I'm just bummed they won't be showing up in every set
Drafting has been the thing that's kept me in Magic over other games.
It's a brand new format every few months and I don't have to worry about buying play sets of all the new hotness.
I wish more computer games (that are NOT microtransaction-based) had draft-like modes. The ability to look at a limited but meaningful pool of elements and try to cobble together a 'build' from it, without feeling like you need to chase a global optimum 'meta', really makes a game engaging for me.
@@05Matz The reason most other games don't do limited formats is because it requires you start thinking about it in the design/development phase of the set. You can't just make a set full of filler and throw in 3 chase rares anymore, all the filler cards matter.
Magic's had it's own hiccups with limited. IIRC, the first limited Pro Tour was the Mirage pre-release and the players meeting was WotC discussing the rules with everyone. Something like "infinite basic lands" was introduced later. You only got access to the land in the Tournament Pack.
If you watch limited games of Yugioh, for example, they still use a 40 card minimum, which means they usually have to open about 20 packs to have a usable deck. In hearthstone, you draft 30 cardsand have to play them all, so if you speculate and it doesn't work out, the card is still in your deck. Something as simple as a smaller minimum deck size is not as obvious as it seems, apparently.
@@randommaster06 I suppose that's true, it makes any marginal or useless mechanics/cards/components-of-randomization more painful because they displace things you want, but I also mean in a wider array of genres than just straight CCGs. A 'draft' mode for Mechwarrior or more general Battletech games (provided the unit customization level is kept more towards tabletop Battletech/MWO than MW5 or similar heavily simplified systems) could be fun, for example. Getting a big bundle of assorted salvage and trying to put together as many viable and synergistic builds as possible before a battle, having to 'make things work' on the fly rather than chasing a global standard of perfection, knowing that the opposing force also has to improvise rather than bring a tested build.
I'm sure the mixture of randomness and structure (having the space one is optimizing within redefined by random chance to present a novel 'optimization landscape' every time, then being able to work within it freely to regain a feeling of control and mastery) is transferable to any genre of tabletop or computer game where competitive build customization is a feature.
@@05Matz The only thing I wanted to point out is that WotC has put in a lot of work to get draft to where it is. Any CCG/tabletop game can do it, you just need to make sure people have a usable pool ~95% of the time.
I'm not familiar with MW. How do you get to customize your stuff? Is it cards or figures? Also, how does the product get packaged?
So I guess to better answer your question, customization is not dependant on possession of specific products like a deckbuilder, it's more that players are encouraged to come to new builds organically through circumstance and experience in campaign play like a Dungeons and Dragons player would, and then encouraged but not required to purchase and kitbash-together several official figures to better visually represent any custom units they become particularly attached to, instead of continuing to proxy them with standard figures simply attached to custom character sheets.
As the system is sadly not quite balanced perfectly (preferring backwards-compatibility wherever possible throughout its many-decade history over re-balancing existing items in new editions), custom units are generally kept to 'friendly' games and campaigns with limited resources and engineering time, with tournaments more often involving player-made combinations of existing units, but rules DO exist for calculating a point value of custom units if you want to run balanced games using them.
Reminds me of when Hearthstone released a legendary creature that turned your 30 cards deck into a 40 cards one, and also increased your maximum health to 40, but required you played singleton. Really shifted play patterns around!
You're thinking of two cards. Prince Renathal gives you 35 life (used to be 40, they nerfed it) but increases your minimum deck size to 40 (which is a downside because it lowers consistency). Reno Jackson fully heals you when it enters if you have no duplicates.
@@stevenpoche6988Wow some crazy stuff has been coming to the game since I left.
I see a lot of people bringing up planeswalkers and how they are similar in that they give your opponent more health and have good effects that can swing the game in your favour, but that their consequences are that most people don't like dealing with planeswalkers and find them annoying.
The two main differences in why I don't feel battles will be treated the same as a planeswalker really comes down to that planeswalker present a constant threat to your opponent on the board, while battles just have that ETB to worry about until it is flipped. Secondly, the battle is something you as its controller has to deal with and attack it, while your opponents are the ones who have to attack a planeswalker.
One issue is that (at least in the set where they were introduced), battles were mostly not worth playing in agro decks. Thus it slowed down everyone other than the fastest decks in the format. That said, that might be fixable with pushing the ones that fit the agro plan a bit more.
This is not true though? Invasion of Regatha is great in aggro. Invasion of Belenon is pretty explosive in a deck that goes wide (even though it turned out a bit weaker than when first evaluated). Invasion of Eldraine and Amonkhet limited your opponent's options while rewarding you for the evasive creatures in those colors. Any battle that gives you removal or a body is pretty decent in a proactive deck.
I had mostly the opposite experience that you describe in March of the Machine limited. Many games, I felt like I was playing well and making good decisions. Then turn 6 or 7 someone plays a huge bomb and those first few turns basically didn't matter. Game's over now.
Edit: They keep talking about making the game "swingy" and that's exactly what I don't want. "Swingy" does not equal fun. Interesting decision points make a game fun. There's no decision to be made in casting your big bomb that wins you the game on the spot if not answered. And if that's happening every game, every game feels the same.
I blame that on the bonus sheets (in that set’s case, the multiverse legends) Bonus sheets really mess up limited in my opinion (full of either dead cards for limited like the brothers war artifacts that don’t work there or obscenely powerful bombs like the legends). They should be kept in the set boosters (not used for limited) if you ask me.
@@jackmcnally8706I liked them in limited
This video actually just kinda exposes how poorly they understand Magic....
@@jackmcnally8706then they just need to pick different cards
I enjoyed what they did with duelmasters. Instead of having lands, every card could be played AS a land. This meant that even when you were having turns of 'play land, pass', exactly which card you played as a land could have large concequences for the game. It was a real choice.
It's not a fun choice, though. It's the kind of choice that makes you go "Man, I wish I'd seen the future four turns earlier" if you are inexperienced.
@@fernandobanda5734 I consider those some of the only fun choices. Often in card games, once a deck is made, playing the deck doesnt really have much choice. There's difficulty and nuance, but often times its a matter of playing the most optimal numbers. Thats easy.
This is ussually a real choice. Something I can look back at and see a better player would have won with. Something that actually rewards me when I'm able to see 4 turns ahead.
@@___i3ambi126 I understand, and fun is obviously subjective (it's very hard to talk about it in a meaningful way). But it's the kind of fun that's only there for the spikiest of players while actively discouraging beginners, or even just people who don't want to focus on mixmaxing microdecisions that on the surface shouldn't matter. Most people (not just beginners) would rather allocate their mindpower in the creatures they play, when they choose to attack, and the flashy stuff that turns the game around.
I don't mind some people actually liking that, but I wouldn't in a million years recommend something like that for a new game, unless the goal was to attract very competitive players (which is in itself a very likely recipe for disaster). This is why I characterized it as "not fun" broadly.
This gave me a bit of an urge to go back to playing "Magic: The Gathering Arena", but making decks can be such a confusing thing. Perhaps you could make a video on how to craft a good deck! It would be very appreciated.
They have a full MTG series. It’s a good watch, so you can check it out if you’d like.
@@ethankennan212 Right now its to late for me to check the videos but by seeing the titles there doesn't seem to be a explicit guide on how to create a deck. Maybe "The Stack" and a little of "What's in a colour", but i can't check then right now.
Some good decks for new players are Mono Red Aggro and Mono Blue Tempo. Both decks can be quite effective even when working on a budget (you can find budget lists online that use only a few or even 0 rares). If you want something more meta, you can look up a tier list for whatever format you want to play.
@@mister_r447 Tolarian Community College has some deck building videos that might help, including one if you're wanting to dip your toes into the Oathbreaker format, Oathbreaker's a format that fans made then WotC made official, btw.
I would suggest checking out KeyForge or Solforge as an alternative game. Ask around your area first if you're friends and game spaces are interested in it with you, then explore it.
Basically, both are "buy a deck, it's pre-constructed, play it as-is, like a fighting game character. Learn it's strengths and weaknesses." Solforge being that your whole deck is locked in, and the gameplay is a resource generation race. And Solforge allows you to mix two half-decks which gives you a slight bit of constructed control, and it also has a gimmick where your cards level up during play.
As a Commander player who knows about the Battles, I don’t understand the point about faster decks utilizing them and thus giving their opponents more health. What Battles are even worth diverting your damage away from your opponent? It’s at odds with the philosophy of a faster deck. Regardless, really awesome video. Battles are super rad.
You think magic has a turn one problem? Try watching a turn one play for competitive Yugioh, it lasts no joke 37 minutes.
It ranges from that to just 5 minutes with Kashtira.
when playing the game irl, with friends, instead of online or at a tournament, it often helps to basically talk about the kind of game you want to play, cause it's still entirely possible to have those big long games so long as everyone's on the same page and using the right decks, and there's a gentlemen's agreement not to use overpowered cards in the early game
I don't know, I haven't noticed them having much impact, mostly because even in limited they aren't that great without a dedicated battles strategy. It's almost always better to just attack the opponent. This seems to be because in practice 3 defense is far too easy, and 5 defense is far too hard, with 4 defense being a mixed bag. I think there were much broader design decisions across the whole set *outside* of battles that made the limited environment a little slower. A bigger effect was probably having so many transforming creatures, allowing just about every deck type to include more lower-cost creatures to gum up the battlefield early without giving up on higher-level power and combo synergy later on.
Also it makes pushing damage through more meaningful, even if you aren't rush down.
You might tank 5 damage to the face, that doesn't really impact a lot, but if those 5 damage are headed for a battle, the stakes of the combat are a lot higher.
Only if the pay off is really good. But in limited you almost always win just by attacking over multiple turns, so the payoff has to get you there faster than the attack. In constructed you can win in various ways, but the battle needs to be really backbreaking to justify putting it down and using creatures to attack it.
I think they are right about the theory behind battles but in practice, it didn’t really work out that way. Aggro decks aren’t flipping battles because it taking a turn off to gain future advantage lets the opponent stabilize, control and midrange decks might be flipping battles but whether the opponent has 20 life or 50 doesn’t matter much when your plan is to outvalue with midrange or shut them out with control. There is a couple of battles that get played in some decks, but they haven’t really slowed down the game in any meaningful way.
What was that creature in unglued or unhinged that required 4 cards be played but it's like insanely powerful?
I'm reminded of that when he mentions 8 mana costing creatures
I love when I win games because my opponent kept attacking their battle
I've noticed this. I play a lot of commander and LOVE putting battles in my decks. I do this because of the psychological effect on my oponents. Because LP is just a resource to spend, you don't always have to block everything, meaning that if you are sure you're oponent does not have a trick up their sleave to kill you in one turn, you're free to swing out. However, with battles, even if you can tank a hit, that doesn't mean that the battle can. And if you swing out then you are leaving that card, that is potentially very dangerous wide open. Overall it prevents me from taking more damage than it saves my oponent. They are GREAT at stalling for time while I set up my board state.
Just a correction, battles themselves don't flip. It is a property of Sieges, a subtype of battles. The devs have said future Battle cards could work differently
I use to have a play group where we would rule 0 a few things.
We would rule out high impact low mana spells, infinite combos, and suppressive control that hard limits others.
It was meant to try and allow others to play big things to see rare instances normal play wouldnt see.
As somebody who often has only one headphone on just cause it helps me be more aware of my home or environment, I appreciate that the two Matts at the end isn't completely separated into left and right channels and there's a little bit of the opposite side Matt on each side. Makes listening to the video way less annoying.
This is one where I’m gonna need to see some citations because it feels like this is one of the videos where theory is presented as reality. I’ve never really seen anyone, owner or defender, give a rip about battles beyond the etb. Only a handful of backsides really seem worth sacrificing damage for, and even then just barely.
That seems so odd to me. I have a lot of battles in my common/uncommom cube and for several of them the backside is almost always worth the damage. Invasion of mercadia, vryn, zendikar, and dominaria.
If it takes a low powered custom format to make battles work, battles don't work.
or you can just play the battle and ignore attacking it. At a certain point the only reason you'd attack a "battle" is to get it back into your graveyard. Or my favorite, you play a battle, then you cast a 1 CMC spell "Return target nonland permanent your opponent controls to their hand" and that target is the battle you just played.
In addition to *many* other problems I have with battles, not once have I seen them improve a game, as you describe or otherwise.
One problem with battles, is that like Planeswalkers, they don't really have life, they have counters. The counters are removed when damage is dealt, but I have also already seen several decks that play the battle, and then cast something obscure that just removes all the tokens from it, and BLAMO!
Or you just zap the thing with a few lightning bolts. It does take away damage you would be dealing towards your opponent, but decks that have them, inherently have either more damage, or a way to simply bypass them. They are a delay tactic yes, unless what they put out in turn actually accelerates your opponent's death, which some do decently enough.
Battles are pretty fun. In Commander they become especially interesting. So far, Invasion of Ikoria and Invasion of Fiora are my favourites.
I played magic a bit as a kid as like a tertiary card game, but I don't really remember it much at all beyond the absolute most basic of mechanics. Having said that I spend my entire childhood and a good portion of my adult life playing card games competitively (I'm between card games right now since my last one died off a few years ago and haven't found one to catch my interest since). A bit ago my friends wanted to play a game of 5 headed dragon so one of them loaned me a deck, I wanted to play monocolor since I didn't want to deal with a multicolor deck while learning the game, and the only monocolor he had was a colorless artifact deck. I enjoyed the basic playstyle concept of the deck, but he had made some incredibly obvious mistakes that I was able to identify within a couple turns and only became more apparent as the game went on (had too much mana for the deck size, included cards that literally could not be played and even if they did work they served no function in the deck and could totally have been removed because it was well over the minimum deck size, seemed to have multiple competing themes with zero synergy beyond all being colorless, etc). When I pointed these obvious mistakes out I was told that because I was unfamiliar with magic I had no idea what I was talking about.
I was convinced that I, as someone who had effectively one game of magic under my belt, could do better than my friend who had been playing for 15 years. I went home, went to an MTG deckbuilding site, and started researching cards for my colorless artifact deck. After building the deck and printing proxies (I was only gonna be playing with friends, no point in buying cards for a game that I'm only ever gonna play casually with my friends on rare occasion) I challenged that friend to some games against his best deck. Now, my plan *was* to playtest my deck and determine what could be eliminated to refine it since with only theory crafting and ghost handing I was only able to get it down to like 73 cards and I want to get it down to 60 before I can really call it "ready" to prove my point about deck building (since the deck being oversized was one of my primary complaints about the deck I borrowed, 73 is still much smaller, but still), but I pretty consistently *destroyed* all his decks and I think this late-game bomb card problem is the difference. He seems to enjoy slow decks that let him do cool things in the late game, but I built a cheap aggro/snowball deck that starts building a large board early and gets exponentially more powerful overtime. Cheap crap means I can usually start doing damage by turn two, or even turn one if I draw Gingerbrute, and by turn five I'll be able to do several dozen damage in a single attack that's a pain to block given the sheer numbers. His decks don't really do *anything* until around turn 7 and by that point I've already won the game 80% of the time and on the rare games where he actually gets his engine going before I win, I have such a strong advantage that it doesn't matter. The last time we played I tried suggesting he start running cheaper cards so he can at least *defend* himself, but he said the problem isn't that his deck is too expensive, it's that *I* run all kinds of cheap stuff, completely missing that that was my entire point, I run cheap stuff *and I win*. Granted, my deck isn't *all* cheap stuff, I do have some powerful late-game cards in there if I need them, but it really does seem like I have the winning strategy, at least compared to him.
I still want to get some real playtesting in to figure out how to fine-tune the deck, since I took this up as a personal challenge anyway, but so far I've only had the opportunity to test against the one friend and at this point he seems pretty clearly terrible at magic, or at least deck building. Hopefully my other friends will pose a greater challenge, but considering they all tell me he's supposed to be really good at magic, I'm not expecting much. I'm not really interested in taking the deck outside my group, though, largely due to my usage of proxies, but also because I only picked the game up because my friends play it in the first place, if I'm gonna look for a new play group I'm gonna do it for a game that speaks more to me personally than magic ever did.
I feel like Sagas are also achieving this.
They add value but it's broken over multiple turns so even a one drop take till turn 3 to pay off completely.
Sagas are also a new card type that came out in the last 15 years
I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I love the inclusion of a player with vitiligo. :)
Glad to see you guys cover MTG, and I do agree that battles--conceptually--are quite fun; I cannot wait to see them in large enough numbers to make decks out of them!
Also, [[Vampire Hexmage]] does mess with battles a lot, especially [[Invasion of Ikoria]]. I'd make a modern deck out of it if it wasn't so expensive to get into modern; Imma stick with pauper thank you very much.
The other fascinating thing about battles is that you're basically giving yourself a handicap when you play it. While it does act like your opponent has more life, you're the one functionally giving it to them. It's a risk-reward mechanic which is always more interesting than just a harder opponent.
But this is how it always was. You have aggro, control, mid range, ect battles didn't change this formula up. Just looked up a few top 8s and very very few decks run any battles in the main deck. I saw 4C Control but they ran Invasion of Zendikar for the ramp and a copy of Invasion of New Phyrexia for the pay off of X 2/2 knights with vigilance. Invasion of Gobakhan is in a few side boards the tax effect is good and the pay off is one of the better ones. I'm sure that was the intended effect of introducing battles but if they aren't played then it doesn't help.
This was one of my favorite channels from way back and I cannot believe I only now got it back in my recommended. Exciting stuff
I like how you explained how battles are bad. It's almost never worth it to attack battles.
"How do battles slow down games? Well, maybe the aggro player will stupidly play a battle and attack it, thus giving the opponent a chance to play their 7-mana bomb they never could have cast if the aggro player just didn't play the battle!"
Great video, got me excited to try Magic again!!! Impressive when an institution keeps improving, especially after an improvement creates new issues. So much easier to fall back and slowly decay vs adapt and evolve. Sounds like a super fun version of the game I grew up on, especially the make it easier to get to the leviathans (like Leviathan) part
I think another interesting TCG Topic would be to talk about how even a few select hits on the ban list and a difference in mindset and deck building practices can lead to vastly different meta games. Seeing as if you look at Yu-Gi-Oh! and it's 3 modern formats (TCG, OCG, Master Duel) you do see quite a bit of overlap. Tearlements, Branded, and Spright are all top tier but at the same time there's quite a difference in viable decks. Seeing as in the OCG you're going to see a lot more staple hand traps and other forms of disruption where possible which at times will lead to less explosive plays;leading to longer games times;which can give some decks the time to set up while at the same not allowing decks that can't play through this increased level of disruption to be viable. While in the TCG however there's quite a bit less of these sources of disruption. A lot of people will run Call By, Ash, Nabiru, Imperm, and Negates in the Extra Deck but not too much beyond that unless our deck as some extra space. Of course meaning a deck typically has a lot less to play through to be viable.
And for YUGIOH this year we got a new monster type since cyberse in 2017.
I really like the new battles, and even had a friend who had me design him an entire commander deck centered around using their effects. While building that deck, I realized that battles are way easier to flip than one might think.
I am a little surprised to see you not discussing targeted damage spells. MANY of the targeted damage spells (like "lightning bolt") are going to be right in that damage range to flip them without wasting your creatures at all. "Any target" damage abilities and spells are becoming much more common due to the power creep, and as such mitigating many of the good effects that battles have.
Even two of the new battles themselves can destroy other battles and flip them.
I remember a casual game against a dude and his turn 1 was a 1-cost 4/4 with the effect that I could counter it by paying 4 life. His turn 2 was another. Down 8 life in the first two turns in order to keep them from getting dudes with mid-game power level turns 1 and 2.
As someone who started magic 15 years ago and didn't really play for last 6 or 7 years I was really shocked with some cards when I decided to make a new deck thi year. I'm not yet sure if I like it or not.
Also it was nothing more irritaiting than not being able to play long enough to play my Lord of Extinction with nice impact.
Fun fact:
Both the Deprogram guys (far-left) and J.J. McCollough (Tory) are on Nebula.
I have never seen a battle used in any game I’ve played since they came out, I thought about running one or two in my windgrace deck but quickly decided against it.
The whole video is about limited, it was stated in the first sentence. The battles are used in 78,86% march of the machines draft decks according to the database of 300.000 arena games. They are heavily played.
Being played in limited is not a high accolade. Especially since average drafters are not very good.
Maybe this was the idea behind battle of the events I've played at.I have never once seen somebody actually used them
I love watching videos like this, because these problems just aren't problems in commander. and you can really see why its the fastest growing format
My favorite way to play magic is to have turn -1 win where I never built the deck to never have a win condition and I just play collosal dreadmaw for 20 minutes until the other player kills me
For Commander format; I propose an alternative rule set for battles: battles are not assigned a defender, anybody may attack or defend a battle but who ever ‘pops’ it will benefit from the flip, not only the owner of the battle.
One unforseen side effect of battles is pretty obvious, the aggro player just doesn't run them. Unless they are drastically worth it, aggressive limited decks didn't even really care about battles in MoM. It did help AGAINST aggro, and opened up some more viable strategies, but you could definitely still get steamrolled very quickly. It also gives control more options, so it made control decks even more obnoxious in limited, especially since control decks were incintivised to play creatures due to convoke shenanigans.
Unintended consequence : making Tarmogoyf (and similar) happy.
I'm doubtful that battles will have this effect long term, given that you have to play it yourself i don't think aggro decks will go with cards whose purpose is "slow down the game"
Given that aggro decks focus on killing you as fast as possible, certain battles that deal chip damage and have low health exist for them. I think one mono red 2 or 3 does that.
I hadn't watched Extra Credits since they were on the Escapist, and it's kind of soothing to see they haven't changed a thing in, what, fifteen years? Still putting out videos with high-quality animations and sensible-sounding theories that are extremely, extremely wrong.
If i sit down at a commander table one more time and hear "forest, sol ring, arcane signet, birds of paradise" im going to commit a crime.
Building your deck around one strategy If it's powerful enough is a very good game plan
March of the Machine (the set that introduced battles) limited while definitely not as fast as some previous sets' limited, was still quite snowbally, part of that was the multiversal legends sheet effectively adding an extra rare to every pack, but part of it was also that after flipping a battle you had often added power to your board equal to the defense on top of the effect when you played the battle.
I agree that it's snowbally but if the battles didn't give you something to win the game faster than if you hadn't attacked them, there'd be no point in attacking them.
Mana Ritual Ritual Sengir
More seriously, I am fascinated by how cleverly you guys reframed the design team massive wishy washy vision and incompetence.
Cool thoughts! So far battles haven't caught on in constructed too much, but I can see the benefits, and I hope Wizards is paying attention to this!
Love these videos! Keep them coming!🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤
I hope they add more battles to new sets. Flipping into Tefri is wild
I have never seen a battle played except for in MOM draft (where they were first included) and when I drew one this morning
Ad insert so good that I stuck around for the whole bit.😂
I have never seen a battle played in any format ever even limited
I’m also interested to see how battles might be different when they aren’t siege type!
often people play battle just for ETB effects and do not care whatsoever with attacking them and if they do it is to speed up the victory with whatever boon they expect to receive
Congrats on putting both Matts on different ear bud speakers at the end.
Literally cues like I'm in the middle of a conversation. Editor, teach us your ways
Downside is that they printed Glissa, Sunslayer which lets you punch face and then deal damage to a battle if you succeeded in punching face, AND is has first strike + deathtouch so it's very good at punching face or wiping board :(
I love how much understanding of Mtg went into this video.
Yea I i used to run a goblin blitz burn deck, so my first turn was often 'play land, play raging goblin, attack '!
It's still very counterintuitive feeling to me that you're attacking your own card, and your opponent is protecting something you own. I haven't played enough with them to say whether they do positively affect game tempo ... the flavor is just strange to me.
Agreed.
I'll be honest since those battles dropped I have never seen a person put it in a constructed deck ever in the 4 different stores I tend to play in.
Turn one has always been a thing since Llanowar Elves.
@2:00 Shudderwock had this effect on the Witchwood expansion of Hearthstone. The playerbase went nuts.
Love you guys... this episode didn't *feel* very accurate or well researched though, leaving me a bit confused where your information was drawn from.
The episode is written by James Portnow, a game designer and avid player of MTG.
Yeah, as someone who plays a ton of limited and consumes a lot of content about it, this felt like a layman's take on current Magic. Especially since experienced drafters ended up staying away from picking most battles.
The last time I played M:TG regularly was probably 1995. I would probably be so lost if I tried to pick it up again today.
To be fair, we've yet to see the full extent of battles. Right now we've only seen Sieges, a specific type of battle. We may see some in the future that vary from currently seen battle design.
So when is the Extra Credits Secret Lair Drop coming? I need that alternate art for Invasion of Tarkir/Defiant Thundermaw
Resident Yu-Gi-Oh player here to say be thankful that wizards pay more attention to game balance than Konami. Our game has slowed down recently but mainly because every deck can reliably make gigantic combos, break a ridiculous board and then establish it's own OR one turn kill, but almost never both, and depending on the decks involved that can happen repeatedly over the course of a game via constant resource recycling and easily break the 45 Minnie round timer in game 1