Storm Scale: Amonkhet and Kaladesh
General forum
Posted on March 26, 2019, 9:36 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Mark Rosewater has posted his newest article about the storm scale, this time for the planes of Amonkhet and Kaladesh.
I agree with most of Rosewater's ratings, except for vehicles, which I wish were rated higher, because I see no reason for them to appear so frequently.
I see that the majority of these mechanics have high ratings, which means that they are unlikely to be reused in standard-legal sets, so I wonder, if the game ever returns to those planes, will those mechanics be used, again?
What does everyone else say about this? What are your thoughts on this subject?
I agree that Vehicles should have a higher storm rating; currently they're tied with the much more versatile, ubiquitous, and interesting Equipment, which seems wrong.
The conclusion on Embalm supports what I said when the name was released--it was a fine mechanic, but so limited in its flavour as to be skewed toward Amonkhet at the exclusion of other planes. I'm not sure I'm a fan of a keyword that receives a different Storm rating based entirely off what plane the set is on. If a mechanic is usable, I'd rather it always be in R&D arsenal, not limited by the story team.
I found the Afflict entry also very interesting, as it provides a neat little look into R&D's thought process. Here they designed a mechanic with a future set in mind--War of the Spark--but, once they started fleshing out War, they realized it just did not play well in War. I'm guessing the idea was that you would attack a planeswalker with a creature with afflict, so your opponent had to choose between protecting the planeswalker or losing some of their own life. That seems like it could have been pretty interesting, so I'm looking forward to what other mechanics will be used instead.
March 27, 2019 8:56 a.m.
cdkime I hadn't thought about the Afflict/Planeswalker interaction, that's super cool! Makes me wish that they had been able to work with it. Still, I'm stoked to see what we get in WAR.
Boza says... #2
On return vists, there will always be similarities, if not outright reusing of mechanics. Both Amonkhet and Kaladesh's mechanics were pretty tied to the current events on the plane, but embalm for Amonkhet and fabricate (or at least servos) are very like to be part of part 2 on those planes.
March 27, 2019 7:22 a.m.