Why Have There Been So Few Damage Prevention Effects, Recently?
General forum
Posted on May 29, 2020, 8:39 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In the early days of this game, there were plenty of effects that could prevent damage, such as the circles of protection, Story Circle, or Righteous Aura, but such effects are now far less prominent in the game, recently. WotC still does print such effects, of course, but they are not nearly as prominent as they once were, and they are more often single-use effects, rather than repeatable effects, which I find to be unfortunate, so I am wondering why that is.
What does everyone else say about this? Why have there been fewer damage prevention effects, recently?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
berryjon, when and why was Prodigal Pyromancer "phased out," to use your phrase? I thought that it was the replacement for Prodigal Sorcerer?
May 29, 2020 8:57 p.m.
Sorcerer got colour shifted in Planar Chaos into , and was last printed in a standard legal set in Core 2011, nearly 10 years ago. Now, not to say that this mechanic has gone away entirely, as there's a Mutate creature whose name eludes me who can to deal X damage to any target where is the number of times it's mutated.
May 29, 2020 10:05 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #5
I think rather than "it just slows down the game" or "it's too complicated", it's actually because the only reason you'd want to run such an effect is if you want to make it so someone can't ever kill you.
Simply put, the cards suck unless you have all of the Circles in a pile and just sit around activating the abilities so that you don't die. And even then it's "did I draw the right color?", so it ends up being a binary effect.
In the end, they're so bad that the only way they can be good is if they become hyper oppressive.
Now, for damage prevention in general, like on Instants.... it's weird. It's also mostly because it's either 'OP' or useless. The effect just doesn't see play, and Wizards doesn't want to push it because suddenly White would be unstoppable. Same thing with lifegain -- Wizards has printed support cards, but it's never been tier 1 or 2 in anything but Standard, and that's only recently.
I'd call damage prevention, and 'pingers', an "edge mechanic" -- a mechanic that is absolute trash because if it was any better it would be unbeatable. It's actually a common phenomona: Sin Prodder, had it been , would have dominated Standard, Modern, and probably Legacy. As it is, it's a 3/2 that maybe draws cards. Had it been 2 mana, however, even if it was a 2/1, it would be a real threat. Coming down early in aggressive decks and turning Lightning Bolts on top into extra damage is fine, especially if you're running cards like Skewer the Critics and Wizard's Lightning.
May 30, 2020 7:52 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
berryjon, what is wrong with Prodigal Pyromancer? I do not believe that it is too complicated; it is actually one of the most simple and straightforward cards in the game.
TriusMalarky, Righteous Aura does not require a player to choose a single color; it prevents damage from any source, as long as the player can pay is cost, so I do not understand why that card is not more popular.
May 30, 2020 8:29 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #7
Righteous Aura costs life. The only time it is actually useful is when it's targeting something that deals a ton of damage. I mean, if it's 3 or 4 damage you're literally paying to prevent 1-2 damage. The amount of damage has to be 5 to even be considered Healing Salve, and even then repeatable conditional Healing Salve isn't that great. So really, it's garbage unless your opponent is playing Eldrazi Titans, Dark Depths, Ghalta, Primal Hunger, Titanoth Rex, etc.
May 30, 2020 11:12 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
TriusMalarky, in that case, do you think that WotC shall eventually print a better version of that card, at some point, in the future?
May 30, 2020 11:21 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #9
A way to just spam and be immortal? I think they banned Oko the Broko because he made it so other people couldn't play the game.
May 30, 2020 12:51 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
TriusMalarky, that is why life loss exists; the crucial difference between it and damage is that life loss cannot be prevented, as can damage. Or, as an alternative, there can be effects that do not allow damage to be prevented, such as Everlasting Torment.
May 30, 2020 12:53 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #11
And every top deck in every format runs Bump in the Night clones by the truckload?
It would force every deck to be using Black for 'loses x life' effects or a stupid alternate win con. I, for one, don't want to have to play against control for all eternity. It would also softban the color Red and all creatures without Infect.
May 30, 2020 1 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #12
Sorry for double post, but there's a reason we only get the trash we have. Effective damage prevention would immediately kill the game.
May 30, 2020 1:01 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #13
TriusMalarky, I disagree with that, because, as long as damage prevention effects require payment, as do both Story Circle and Righteous Aura, they will not be overpowered.
May 30, 2020 1:22 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #14
The thing is it's repeatable. Arcanis the Omnipotent is a solid card in EDH(too high CMC for anything else) because it's repeatable Ancestral Recall.
Now, Recall's good on it's own -- but look at effects like Firebreathing(: this creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn). The fact that you can do it over and over again makes it absolutely amazing.
Anything that can be repeated multiple times per turn at only a cost of mana is really good. I mean, imagine Circle of Protection: Red against Burn. You play it t2 and then t3 forward you can prevent damage from 3 sources each turn, eventually growing to the point where Burn just can't ever kill you. The problem is it's only good against red cards. You'd have to run Enlightened Tutor in a mono-white prison deck in a format without FoN or FoW to be able to make Circles halfway good, and even then you can just run Runed Halo and not have to be worried about extra mana or specific colors.
May 30, 2020 10:30 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #15
TriusMalarky, that is why Righteous Aura is such an interesting card; it forces the player to think strategically. Since it costs 2 life to activate its ability, the player will use it only when preventing 3 or more damage from a single source; otherwise, it is not worth the cost, meaning that their opponent can attack them repeatedly with a swarm of smaller creatures, and the player with the aura would lose more life from paying for the ability than they would from the creatures.
May 31, 2020 8:44 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #16
It is an interesting card, yes. It could be fun to brew around. But it costs 2 life. Think of it this way to gain 1 life is pretty bad. I mean, for 5 life is a garbage spell. I'd say you need to be preventing 5-6 damage at the very least for it to be worth your time. Otherwise, play Turbofog. You can always reanimate Spore Frog every turn with Lurrus of the Dream-Den or something. It prevents more damage -- all of it -- for the same price.
berryjon says... #2
The short answer is because it slows down the game.
The longer answer is because damage prevention and reduction adds a layer of complexity and memory issue to the game that Wizards doesn't want. It's the same logic they used when they phased out Prodigal Pyromancer and his ilk. To much confusion, they think, for players to understand what is going on.
May 29, 2020 8:52 p.m.