Are Free Spells Becoming Too Powerful?
General forum
Posted on May 2, 2024, 6:24 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In the early days of the game, spells that could be cast for no mana were supposed to be a desperate last resort by incurring a cost other than mana, but, in recent years, free spells have become very powerful, such as the free spells from Ikoria Commander (most notably Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship) and the flare cycle from the upcoming Modern Horizons 3, so I wonder if free spells are becoming too powerful.
What does everyone else say about this? Are free spells becoming too powerful?
As a side note, I severely dislike that the flare cycle requires sacrifice of a non-token creature, as not all colors excel at creature recursion.
I think the flares will probably be less powerful than Fierce Guardianship but decks will have access to both, and it does feel very snowballey in nature. It's like, Monologue Tax is much worse than Smothering Tithe but many decks can just play both.
My main problem with 0 cmc interactions is that having a lot of them makes board assessment less and less possible. You could usually look at somebody tapped out and say, well, at most they have one Force of Will so odds are they don't have it, but when there are enough 0 mana interactions in enough colors, it becomes impossible to reason out your best plays.
Part of me thinks that the problem stems from how relatively limited bans are in commander. The RC really wants to have rule 0 do most of the work, and then by having a lot of probably problem cards in the format interaction becomes a premium, and then wizards uses it as a selling point. Hey there are new 0 cmc interactions, or better board wipes, or new tax or punish effects like Orcish Bowmasters. They are kind of bandaids that aren't anywhere near as needed in other formats because they are much more active in bannings.
Personally, I worry about these new cards, just because I'd much rather play a format with too many problems rather than too many answers. Like, I can think, I should run more artifact removal or something, but I can't think, oh I should not play big spells whenever people might have free counters if there are too many free counters.
May 2, 2024 9:15 p.m.
wallisface says... #4
Just following on from what Niko9 posted, I get that having more free spells in what is supposed to be a casual format would be a problem. The large deck-size and singleton rule means players can easily run one-of-each copy, and in a format where you have 3 opponents that will certainly make it a lot harder to assess the boardstate.
However, my commentary above was based on Modern… I couldn’t care less about edh (as many people will already know), so i’m not as worried with that formats direction (any format Wotc actively pays attention to inevitably gets warped into a mess imo, and there’s numerous larger issues with Wotc focusing on edh than just the free-spells).
From a 1-v-1 60-card format perspective, these so far feel pretty safe. There’s a limit on the density of free spells you can realistically put into a deck (for example, Merfolk likely remove Force to fit blue-Flare into it) - and generally the number of lines a deck could play are predictable (provided you know the meta), so it’s a lot easier to grasp the current state-of-play, and what an opponent is likely representing even when tapped out.
The bigger global issue with free spells is Wotcs recent push towards having lots of efficient card draw. In the past free spells were kept in-check by card drawing generally costing a premium, and so forcing card-disadvantage to use them. With cards like The One Ring concepts like card-disadvantage can quickly cease to be an issue - powering up free spells immeasurably. HOWEVER, unlike the previous iterations of MH free spells, these still require you pay something (i.e cast a creature), so they’re a bit less-free, and less abusable than other cycles, imo.
May 2, 2024 9:31 p.m. Edited.
wallisface For sure, in 60 card the flares seem like they won't be a problem, that's a great point! I don't even think the flares will be very good in cEDH or anything, I just think it's a big problem in casual commander where sometimes it feels like they prey on player's want to optimize decks little by little. I mean, I don't think that Esper Sentinel has ever, ever actually won me a game of edh, but just the fact that it makes so many decks slightly better has sold so many copies. I don't know, it's just a different feeling when you find some cool new tech card that fits your deck perfectly rather than wizards just printing something slightly different or slightly better in the color you're playing.
And yep, I agree that card draw is getting a little out of hand, or at least card splashable card draw. Draw in blue never felt too bad, even if Brainstorm was very good, the cards blue had to play used to be objectively less powerful 1 for 1, so it evened out. With things like The One Ring it adds powerful draw into every color, and that's pretty broken. I think the London Mulligan also plays a part in it. Players being able to just mulligan with little cost because if they hit their draw engine it didn't really matter how deep they went, that's unhealthy gameplay on a pretty big scale.
I get that draw is maybe a good overall feature because it evens out mana floods/bricks, but for a format with a large and older card pool like modern, most of those cards are not balanced for games that have that much draw. Tron almost never whiffs now, and that absolutely blows my mind. Hitting a brick on Tron was like the one downside it always had and now it's just, well, I guess you can't cast a Ragavan off of Tron, so...mid...
Ultimately I do wonder if The One Ring will get banned in modern though. The way it plays with cascade is one of those things where I feel like neither player really has fun in that match. Protection plus card draw really shores up the random aspect of cascade way too well. The one ring really feels like something that should have been in commander only. Even if it's rough in edh, at least it's not, one ring drew me a new one ring, rough.
May 2, 2024 10:22 p.m.
sergiodelrio says... #6
omg dat Nethergoyf tho
(apologies for the off-topic post, but the OP made me check spoilers and I went ermagherd)
May 3, 2024 6:28 a.m. Edited.
plakjekaas says... #7
As for your sidenote, the whole idea of free spells is that the spell will cost you something different than mana. All previous free spells in MH sets required you to exile a card from your hand, and only is able to Pull from Eternity. That never limited their usefulness. Especially because you would need the additional card to be in hand, to actually pay for the spell, which has no bearing on your ability to reimburse the costs.
Every color has playable creatures, though not every deck will want to play creatures to enable a free Cultivate or a free Cancel. I want to see what the other effects are before complaining that black will have an easier time to get their cost refunded, for what possibly could still be a free Alms of the Vein at the cost of a creature.
May 3, 2024 9:03 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
wallisface, I am lamenting that because I fear that this may be a new trend: first, there was Sheoldred Flip, then, there was Rakdos, Patron of Chaos, and, now, there is this flare cycle, so I am worried that all sacrifice effects in the future, either voluntary or involuntary, may specify non-token permanents, which completely invalidates the purpose of token decks to produce disposable cannon fodder; Demand Answers gives me hope that the previous cards are rare exceptions, but I noticed that it specifies sacrificing an artifact, not a creature, and, until recently, it was far easier to generate creature tokens than artifact tokens, and also easier to reanimate creatures than artifacts, but we have already discussed this issue, so there is no need to discuss it, any further.
May 7, 2024 9:52 p.m.
wallisface says... #9
DemonDragonJ yeah I think you know all-too well by now that I consider that a “feature” and not an “issue” ;)
May 7, 2024 11:44 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #10
The nontoken clause is really only being used once or twice a set at the most, because edicts are, in general, the weakest form of removal. The strongest edict without that clause was Liliana of the Veil, and she was only in control or midrange shells that were designed to kill everything and strip the opponent of resources. These same sets have had Extract a Confession which is sorcery and requires evidence to be the stronger version, Zoyowa Lava-Tongue, Tithing Blade Flip,Vraska's Fall, Voracious Fell Beast, Pyretic Prankster Flip, and Braids, Arisen Nightmare.
If they absolutely have to make free spells, I'm glad they have a real cost so you can't Flare turn 1 off a Khalni Garden or get a free spell with any of the long list of Young Pyromancer effects.
May 8, 2024 9:42 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
wallisface, I fully respect your opinion, and have no problem with it, but I do dislike how I seem to be the only user here who dislikes all the restrictions that WotC has been imposing upon the game, recently, as the fact that they design the game does not mean that they know what is best for it; we, the players, know what is best for the game, since we are the ones who play it, but that is a discussion for a different thread.
SteelSentry, the example that you provided is exactly the reason for which I am upset at the "non-token" restriction on the flare spells, but I am satisfied with all of the other examples that you provided, in addition to Pitiless Carnage and Baron Bertram Graywater (which, by the way, is one of the rare few instances in which I agree that the "once per turn" restriction is justified), so I am not too worried, at this moment, that WotC is restricting the options of the players.
May 8, 2024 8:31 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #12
Also, SteelSentry, please forgive the double post, but how, exactly, are edicts the weakest form of removal, when they bypass hexproof, indestructible, and protection?
May 8, 2024 8:33 p.m.
wallisface says... #13
DemonDragonJ to answer “edicts being the weakest form of removal”, it’s because the opponent is getting to choose what is being removed. There is a very good reason why targeted removal is overwhelmingly seen more in competitive play - because making your opponent sacrifice their most-useless creature is often just not useful enough.
On the sentence of “we, the players, know what is best for the game”, I could not disagree more. People are notoriously bad at properly evaluating what is best for them - not only in the hobby sense, but also in life (we can see this from the overwhelming amount of self-inflicted health-conditions, gambling addictions, obesity rates, etc etc throughout the world). People like to think they know what’s best, but are generally terrible at actually evaluating the implications if what they want.
I would 1,000,000% prefer Mtg to be managed by a company that has a clear direction on what the game should be and what they want out-of it, rather than its playerbase, which has a notoriously dubious grasp on the colour-pie, game-theory, the actual rules of the game, and game-balancing.
If you look at a random selection of fan-made cards online, it’d be pretty easy to assume that 90% of the playerbase don’t even know how Magic works as a game.
May 8, 2024 9:11 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #14
I already upvoted, but I would like to express a more thorough support of the second paragraph of the previous post.
The majority of MtG's player base are not game designers, don't know good game design in general, and are bad at knowing what game design is good for Magic in particular. The number of people making insane formats and wanting to implement asinine changes to the mana system to "fix" it are proof of just how horrible your average magic player is at game design.
May 8, 2024 10:04 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
wallisface, Gidgetimer, you definitely are making well-reasoned points, at least about the game, but I most certainly know what is best for myself, and I would never allow anyone else to tell me what is best, for me, but that is, again, a subject for another thread.
As for fan-made cards, I agree that many of them are made by people who do not understand how this game works, but I still severely dislike the complete disconnect between the designers and players, a disconnect that exists in nearly every game ever made, and one that I dearly wish did not exist.
May 8, 2024 10:15 p.m.
wallisface says... #16
DemonDragonJ Wotc literally has teams of people responsible for market research, for gathering player feedback, for analysing the health of formats, for working out what players like and dislike. Heck, one of the lead people in the company has his own blog where he answers mostly-inane questions on repeat, and gets constant feedback about sets.
The designers certainly and assuredly know what most players like and dislike. They generally do a decent job of translating that into a working game.
The fact they don’t act on every poorly-thought-out whim doesn’t mean they’re not listening to the community.
(also, they definitely mess things up, we’ve seen from past messes like Magic-30 that there’s room for improvement on the sales-side of the spectrum)
May 8, 2024 10:36 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #17
Edicts are incredibly powerful in their niche situations, but overall, a non-stipulation edict usually doesn't preform well outside control shells that just need more ways to kill things. Mono-B devotion used to be far and away the most popular deck in Pauper, which had maindeck copies of Chainer's Edict and more in the sideboard, which you'd think would make them more than prepared for strategies that go all in on one creature, but even Bogles and Mono-W Heroic had a good number of ways to just create trash to insulate themselves, either incidentally with auras like Cartouche of Solidarity or just keeping a hand with two Bogles in it on the draw. I play Lili in Standard right now and almost every time she goes -2, +1, dead, and the +1 isn't guaranteed. If you expand from creature to other types of permanents, there is just piles and piles of artifact trash on everyone's board in almost every format. I played Braids, Arisen Nightmare in commander and you may as well just not put any artifacts in the deck at all, it's a waste of a trigger to use them.
May 8, 2024 10:52 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #18
DemonDragonJ the disconnect you talk about between the game designers and yourself, is because you, as the player, need just to think about your fun, while the game designers have to think about everybody's fun. I've said before that from the arguments you make on this forum, it shows that you only want for your stuff to not "get got" by the restrictions, usually showing your contempt for game balance in relation to powerful effects.
Do you fight your doctor when he tries to prescribe you medicine? Even though he knows that would be best for you? How will you ever learn anything if you don't let people tell you what could be better than the current situation, that shows the closed-mindedness that would make you, probably, not that much of a game designer.
wallisface says... #2
You’ve got conflicting statements here - if the Flares could sacrifice tokens they would most certainly be too strong. Questioning the strength of these cards while simultaneously wanting them stronger doesn’t make a lot of strength.
I personally want to see these cards being played before passing judgement. I like that they require deckbuilding which is more creature-inclusive, and because a creature has had to be sacrificed, you’ve likely still paid some form of mana cost at some point in this lifecycle. But time will tell how much impact they have. My first impression is that they’re weaker than the MH2 cycle (or, at least less-abusable).
May 2, 2024 6:37 p.m.