First thoughts on Innistrad.
General forum
Posted on Aug. 30, 2011, 6:12 p.m. by Browncoat67
Hooooooowl at the Moon! Innistrad is upon us! Or is this just [B]Teen-Wolf III[/B]?
The first Innistrad spoilers are upon us, and the initial impression is, well, lackluster. While its nice to see some enemy duals to fix our mana, [B]theres a lot more lacking right now than there is to cheer for[/B].
Everyone I know is happy to see [B]Flashback[/B] make a return, and who wouldnt be? Its a clever mechanic thats easy to understand and allows your spells to serve double duty. Combined with the heavy milling theme thats obviously present in both M12 and Innistrad, Flashback is a natural choice. Among the cards bearing this mechanic revealed so far, Devils Play seems to be the strongest, with Travel Preparations possibly seeing some play.
So much for the good.
[B]Curse[/B] isnt really a mechanic at all, but a new sub-type of Aura. While Im sure there will be cards with things like Search your library for a curse and Remove curse its really a distinction without a difference. Saying Aura instead of Curse would have been just as effective. Cards which would have been playable or even good outside the set, will be completely restricted to block play. Arcane. Thats all Im sayin. Arcane. [B]Didnt they learn from anything from that set?[/B]
Among the new mechanics, [B]Morbid[/B] seems to be the most useful, or at any rate, the least bad. Reminiscent of Bloodthirst, it has the potential to be exploited, through sack abilities, the new Homunculus who pops quick-dying dudes into play, and bounce-then-replay tactics.
[B]Fight[/B]. Well, theyve keyworded and defined something that mimics a bunch of slightly different abilities. Is this a good mechanic? Well, its not bad, but its not particularly exciting. It feels rather French Vanilla, like Vigilance or First Strike. Theyre good, but their greatness depends entirely on what creature they appear on. The problem with Fight, and Morbid for that matter, isnt that they are particularly bad, rather that [B]they dont evoke any particularly strong emotion one way or the other[/B].
The last of Innistrads new mechanics doesnt have that problem whatsoever. [B]Double-Faced Cards [/B]have certainly evoked a strong reaction from the folks I know and its not a positive one. Im going to state right now as a first reaction [B]this is perhaps the worst designed mechanic R&D has ever put forth[/B]. Clunky and cumbersome are the polite words which have been floated. They printed a card which CANNOT be played without opaque sleeves. Not to mention the hassle of pulling them out and turning them over every time you Transform them. Talk about a time waster! [B]Not a fan of excessive wear and tear on your cards? Suck it up, buddy! [/B]Alternately go ahead and get EIGHT copies of every transformer you want to play. I cant wait to see the mythic one. Need a half-dozen copies of the Garruk flipper so you dont wear him out shoving him in and out of sleeves? Ready to shell out $180 to do it? Is it worth it?
Drafting and sealed deck are going to be a mess. While its showing some minor forethought to put in the checklist cards, I cant imagine how theyre going to have enough to represent every Double-Faced card you pull. They even say on the site these cards will be in many Innistrad packs, and if you use a checklist card for one, you MUST use checklist cards for all. Considering that each booster will have a Double-Faced card, and not every booster will have a checklist card [B]the numbers just dont add up.[/B]
And to wrap up this particular rant I cant help but point out how truly awful the werewolf transforming mechanic is. It appears as though theyre all going to have this switching ability. Theres really two problems here. First, its just not stable enough to be high-tier tournament worthy. Like coin-flip cards, you cant rely on them to do what you need them to do at any given time. Whats even worse, is that [B]your opponent has a measure of control over what its state is on your turn.[/B] Second, and Maro has discussed this several times in his design articles, they are a perfect example of excessive bookkeeping. Not only do you have to keep track of whats happening this turn, you have an upkeep trigger that checks last turn.
[B]We didnt need Maro to point out that Innistrad was a completely top-down set.[/B] Sadly, they seem to have sacrificed good mechanics for flavor. Im all for story/flavor guided sets. Im all for a good horror romp. But flavor and mechanics need to complement each other. When you start to sacrifice one for the other, well you get Kamigawa. Theres lots of cards left to be spoiled, and Im not ready to bash the whole set yet. I only hope that whats still to come is markedly better than what weve seen so far.
And just for the record, Frankenstein's Monster was really more of a golem than a zombie.
[B]Play On![/B]
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Justarsaus says... #3
well normally i only buy a box and a fat pack but with how this set is looking i am thinking about getting two boxes so far Justarsaus has been inpressed with both mechanics (still on the wall with transform the jonny part of me wants to love it but it seems like a pain in the butt to actually put in a deck) and the artwork so far oooooooooomg its nerdgasmic this may take the spot of my fav block eva
August 31, 2011 2:12 a.m.
I'm looking forward to a playset of Boneyard Wurm and Wreath of Geists . I bet they will be broken pretty soon. It looks like Elite Inquisitor will be an auto-include for white decks once Innistrad rotates in. Mikaeus, the Lunarch looks like a very amusing card to work with. Something tells me, very ironically, white could rule this block, or at least in standard.
August 31, 2011 10:31 a.m.
My impressions. WOTC is running out of ideas.
Flashback is a rehash.
Fight is just a lame rename, not a keyword.
Curses have always been there, just a new name
Morbid weird and not that good, trigger mechanic
Transform is lame and unneeded. Flip cards did the same thing without breaking the game for drafting and such. Morph did something similar, Level up did something similar, split cards did something similar. No it is a bad idea.
Yes overall the set looks fun, but they are not designing well at all.
September 1, 2011 2:22 p.m.
Justarsaus says... #7
WOTC reuses keywords all the time
fight is actually a keyword... instead of cards reading "this creature deals damage equal to its power to target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power to this creature." saves lots of space on cards sure it prob should have been introed in a core set but either way it works.
curses are new to the game why? its a subtype my guess is it will be something like traps or arcane only with enchantments
morbid i think has a chance at being good especially in a deck with lots of removal
with transform i don't think many spikes will play with it but johnys and timmys will def use it
mozerdozer says... #2
Don't like the Transform except for Garruk. A transforming Planeswalker will be interesting. Also, the fact that he transforms, means that in his starting state, he will most likely still be mono-green and then transform into black or green/black. So that makes my WG Caw deck still viable with him.
Also, Dark Ascension has a similar theme and design. So prepare for more of the same.
August 30, 2011 7:39 p.m.