Why Has WotC Stopped Printing Mass Damage Prevention (i.e., “fog”) Effects?
General forum
Posted on March 30, 2025, 4:44 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In these two posts, Mark Rosewater has stated that WotC has not printed very many mass damage prevention effects, better known as "fog" effects, after Fog, the first card to feature such an effect, because of "play design issues," and I severely dislike that decision, since I am very fond of preventing damage, so I am very curious about the exact nature of the issues to which Rosewater is referring.
What does everyone else say, about this subject? What issues do you believe are hindering "fog" effects from being more commonplace, and do you agree with Rosewater’s assessment of the matter? I certainly am interested to hear your opinions, about this.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
DarkKiridon, Inkshield is an amazing card, and I currently do not have a copy of it in any of my decks, but I certainly would not object to including it, in any of my future decks.
March 30, 2025 6:07 p.m.
wallisface says... #5
Potential issues include:
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them creating feel-bad moments
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stale gameplay
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overuse of defensive strategies
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unintended combat complexity (makes attacking too risky a process)
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narrow play-patterns
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exploiting one-off effects to create unintended situations
legendofa says... #2
My guess is that it's part of a general trend to encourage activity over inactivity. Something like Solitary Confinement and a good draw engine slows the game down pretty hard, and people will be reluctant to attack if they think their opponent's holding a pile of Fog, Darkness, Dawn Charm, and Ethereal Haze.
I like stall/turbofog/attrition-y decks, but they can occasionally devolve into both sides playing draw-go while staring at the board. If you're okay with that (and I generally am), there's no problem. But they've been working to encourage progress and interaction in games, so hard damage prevention, stax effects, and similar are being reduced. I don't think they'll go away completely; control is still one of the major archetypes.
March 30, 2025 5:42 p.m.