Is this possible......?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on Jan. 23, 2015, 5:21 p.m. by ChiefBell
With Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time banned in modern quite a few decks lost ammunition they needed to be effective. The loss of treasureC in particular instantly turned delver from a top contender to a tier 2 deck.
So, question: do you think it is likely or even possible that wizards will act upon this and print weaker alternatives?
Could we see something like:
- sorcery - delve, draw two cards.
Can wizards change a set near to its release date? (Third set in khans will be out somewhat soon). Do you think they care about the loss of key decks enough to print weaker alternative post banning? Is this a good idea or a bad idea? It would sort of be like wizards taking a second attempt haha.
Note: this is not a discussion about how right or wrong the banning was.
I'm not sure that they couldn't if they really wanted to. What i mean is that im sure they have the resources to change a card or two 6 months or so before release. But equally I don't think theres any evidence to back this up? Or am I wrong? Have there been cases where wizards have come out to say they were still designing 6 months before release? (Or even later)
January 23, 2015 5:42 p.m.
They knew full well what would happen by banning them, which is why they felt they needed to ban them. There are alternatives out there, pretty much use what was being used before. Or get your creative juices running and create something knew.
January 23, 2015 5:44 p.m.
grumbledore says... #5
i have no idea and I'm nowhere near being qualified enough to be posting my opinion here, lol. but, i have to assume though that every single card added to a set has to be tested in every format all the way back to vintage. plus the art has to be finalized, print runs and such setup with factories off shore.. thats a heinous amount of work.
January 23, 2015 5:46 p.m.
But that doesn't answer the question. There is the possibility that they could legitimately have a second shot.
You confuse my question for: did they know what would happen? When really it's 'do they care enough to perhaps try something else as a replacement'
January 23, 2015 5:46 p.m.
scrotality: I believe it has been stated previously that wizards barely consider modern and vintage when printing new cards. They design almost exclusively for standard. This makes sense because they do have a history of making mistakes!
Therefore less play testing goes into new sets than you may think.
January 23, 2015 5:49 p.m.
grumbledore says... #9
yea that makes sense. i was thinking about this more and it just seems like a herculean feat to try and design something like that.
January 23, 2015 6:02 p.m.
CommanderOfBolas says... #10
They mostly test cards for standard and limited, they rarely test for older formats. this is because they can ban cards in older formats, but they really want to avoid that in standard. Anyway, I think they banned Dig Through Time in modern because it was almost as good as cruise, so your suggested card would likely still be good. unfortunately, I think they really have only 2 options if they wanted to try again. either A) make it 2 colors, or B) make it cost 3 Blue. 2 colors still makes it playable, but requires a few extra hoops, whereas the 3 blue would probably just make it unplayable. so I would prefer option A. I don't think they would try again, although I don't entirely doubt the possibility. It is really hard to tell without the information about when they stop making changes to a set. I imagine they keep making changes until they are fine with everything mechanically, but I don't think they would add a card that they didn't already plan on making.
January 23, 2015 7:01 p.m.
Kirito_swo says... #11
Yea they dont test new sets for older formats, just the standard format
January 23, 2015 7:05 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #12
They print the cards and packaging a good deal ahead of time right? Like 6 months at least. So changing a card would mean they would have to throw all that away.
January 23, 2015 7:37 p.m.
Delve won't be in DTK, if I'm understanding correctly. Same with Prowess and Ferocious. I might be wrong, but I think they're getting rid of those mechanics.
January 23, 2015 7:39 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #14
If there's one thing I've learned about wotc over the years it's that literally anything is possible with with them....they do wtf they want yo
January 23, 2015 7:56 p.m.
grumbledore says... #15
Well.. They are wizards amiright? Gandalf law, bitches!
January 23, 2015 7:58 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #16
Honestly though, i don't think they care enough to make that kind of last minute change like that. I do however suspect that they're going to play a little more attention in the future. Not to say there won't be another situation like this because we all know there will be but I'm sure they'll at least try to keep some balance
January 23, 2015 8:11 p.m.
this is kind of on topic kind of missing the point at the same time. from what I understand Aurelia, the Warleader wasn't finalized until very shortly before her release having reworked her several times. but she wasnt remade due to a banning of another card and trying to fill said void
January 23, 2015 9:51 p.m.
So it seems clear that wizards can work on sets shortly before release.
CommanderOfBolas - the card I posited above doesn't let you choose which two cards you draw so it's just functionally worse than dig.
January 24, 2015 3:59 a.m.
shinobigarth says... #19
I'm sure they can make EMERGENCY changes at the last minute, but this situation is in no way an emergency.
January 24, 2015 3:20 p.m.
Yeh see this is the thing. I do not think this is a question of them not being physically able to - they obviously can if they really want to. It's more a question of whether they want or whether it's a good idea.
The other fact worth considering is that they probably knew that they were going to make these banning a good few weeks before they announced them.
January 24, 2015 3:26 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #21
yeah i don't think they considered Cruise would be played as an Ancestral or close to that in many decks so they thought they were being safe making it 7.
January 24, 2015 9:41 p.m.
They banned it on purpose. They wouldn't (and shouldn't) consider that these decks are worse now as a reason to need to print something to prop them up. They were decks people played with and won with before Treasure Cruise, and they still will be. They just won't be a full third of the top 8 in the format.
January 26, 2015 11:17 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #23
Also, I think that for most decks that would do - sorcery - delve, draw two cards, would probably be nearly as happy with Divination. It was the 'draw three' aspect of Dig (combined with the easy splashability) that really made it bonkers.
January 27, 2015 9:31 a.m.
Gorgosaurusrex says... #24
I don't think they'll print another delve draw spell in blue. 3 in a block would be a bit much from a standard and limited perspective - and that's all they care about, lol.
January 27, 2015 11:19 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #25
It seems wizards can never get high costed cards that have methods of lowering their cost to work properly. Almost none of the affinity cards were ever used in affinity decks in both standard and modern. And now with delve, they are used far too heavily. It think it is an area WotC just can't deal with at the moment because of their 4 card limitation. Such flexibility in costs would be better for card games that don't have a limitation in card amounts (there is one out there, where you can have like, 17 copies of any one card) because they are more accustomed and suited to deal with their high cost and yet potential for being extremely low cost.
Give WotC a few more years of making cards that are broken and have to be banned and they'll eventually reach a consensus on how to make these types of cards.
January 27, 2015 7:13 p.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #26
I think what it comes down to is deck design, really. Anytime you have a high-costed card with cost reductions built in, one of two things will happen - either it's easy to build a deck that includes those reductions, or it is difficult to do so.
If it's easy, then the cards are going to be verging on broken (unless the cost reduction only brings it down to a normal CMC, which defeats the point); if it's difficult, it will be largely unplayed.
January 27, 2015 8:08 p.m.
I think such speculations are baseless, since DTK won't have delve. Sultai (or Sultai-like brood) is getting new mechanic.
January 29, 2015 5:11 a.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #28
The final handoff from R&D to Typesetting happens about 6-7 months before the release of the set. It's extremely difficult to make changes after this. Also, making such changes without sufficient testing beforehand can cause its own problems (Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Arcbound Ravager are real examples of the potential consequences of last-minute changes).
As others have said, R&D doesn't make non-Standard, non-Limited formats a priority but if they really wanted to make Modern or Legacy Delver Tier 1 again (I have no idea why they would even care, but whatever) they still have a chance to put something in M16 or the Fall large set. It's way too late to change Dragons of Tarkir.
January 29, 2015 3:43 p.m.
Excitingly, it's just the "Fall Set" since we'll have switched over to just "Large/Large" blocks from there on out.
January 29, 2015 4:01 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #30
The new blocks are "Large/Small" (Metamorphosis) but yeah, there's still only one "Fall Set" so I guess there was never any reason for us to call it anything other than just that.
January 29, 2015 5:12 p.m.
What about banning it in standard so that blue wouldn't be too overpowered and having it draw two cards while paying 2 blue + delve?
January 29, 2015 8:28 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #32
It is not overpowered in standard Wic_Uber. Standard is too slow for it to be overly powerful.
January 29, 2015 8:51 p.m.
It's unlikely a card like that will appear in Dragons of Tarkir, but only because it's been stated that the only existing mechanics we'll see again in that set are Raid and Bolster. No Ferocious, Prowess, nor Delve in the next set.
grumbledore says... #2
i think that the cards in a given set are most likely finalized 6 months or a year before release. seems like the amount of testing required to make a set would be too large to just start inserting new cards in this kind of manner.
January 23, 2015 5:38 p.m.