Wizards missed Copy Cat combo?!?
Standard forum
Posted on Feb. 3, 2017, 5:36 p.m. by clayperce
So I'm reading this article by Sam Stoddard from Wizards, and I'm pretty much Shocked by Sam's comment about Felidar Guardian:
We did miss the interaction with Saheeli, however, and that has led to some ... interesting decks in Standard. While we were pushing for more combo decks in Standard with Aether Revolt, this is not the kind of deck we would intentionally take a risk with. In hindsight, Felidar Guardian definitely should've said "creature or artifact."
Whoa. I mean, it's impressive they admitted the mistake. But really, Wizards? Really?!?
Your thoughts?
Yes, it is amazing that they missed that combo... But you missed the important piece of information clayperce... Ragavan was almost a Pirate Monkey! A Pirate Monkey!
February 3, 2017 7:16 p.m.
Yeah, I was really surprised as well. I thought that Shock was printed at least in part because of its excellent ability to stop the combo.
February 3, 2017 9:18 p.m.
I don't even play Standard, but this REALLY shows they need fresh blood in their testing team (or maybe replace it altogether or have rotating teams for each set... I don't know).
I was under the impression that WotC tries to have more control over the powerlevel of cards and avoid printing things that can easily lead to broken interactions...
I think I've read most of the latest articles from Stoddard and it amazes me that every time it's something that's close to "sorry, we suck at deckbuilding and therefore have no how to evaluate cards"
-> in any serious company if you have major fck-ups like that in a row they show you the door
February 4, 2017 2:32 a.m.
At first I thought that Copy Cat was an attempt to bring Modern Players back to Standard, but the more I thought about how it happened on the heels of some bans the more I was convinced that it was a mistake.
A costly mistake.
The printing of Winding Constrictor was also a silly thing to do. was already strong and they added another piece to that puzzle to make it virtually unbeatable.
The price Wizards will pay is that dedicated Standard Players such as myself are already considering playing less this season, which means less money put into the coffers.
Those who are playing the Tier 1 decks will find it frustrating as the field of Players becomes smaller. There will be two to three decks they will play against, which won't be as fun.
The only way to rescue Standard at the moment is for someone to break the winning streak of the popular decks, or for the ban hammer to come down again.
I predict that neither of these things will happen and Wizards will have to look at how to smooth things out for the next season.
February 4, 2017 4:30 a.m.
I also loathe Winding Constrictor because it continues WotC's longstanding tradition of taking powerful non-creature effects like Hardened Scales and putting them on creatures that are above the curve. Did Winding Constrictor really need to be a 2/3 in a format with Shock?
February 4, 2017 8:27 a.m.
clayperce I agree it should have said creature. cause the broken possibilities with this card in modern is just messed. plus the bounce effect has been proven to be broken on several cards. they were not doing their jobs as designers by putting permanent. you can bounce anything. I've bounced lands with it. play a land, tap for felidar bounce a land comes back untapped. It really is busted and now that they have that great team calling banneds on standard cards. :/ (should have never happened) but they dont need to pay attention to the small details. cause if the card is busted then it gets banned. so yeah the combo is busted. but what are you going to do felidar will be banned before we know it.
February 4, 2017 8:55 a.m.
I'm not fallowing what everyone means by Shock
Its a good card but most creatures in this set are 2/3 which it doesnt kill it. in the block yeah. but who is going to swing with the most important trigger on your board. pump it with a support or just an old school pump like Ornamental Courage, or Blossoming Defense. Shock can be good but Im not seeing anyone play it effectively in standard.
February 4, 2017 9:05 a.m.
Shock stops the Copy Cat combo because you redirect the damage to Saheeli Rai as soon as she drops down to 1 loyalty, killing her so that she can't put another Felidar Guardian on the field.
February 4, 2017 9:15 a.m.
They should pay more attention to the p/t of creatures when adding spells on them:
For example, for 2 mana getting a 2/3 creature vanilla creature is okayish. Add a powerfull ability on at while making it , is already super strong... then they add an upgrade/second ability to the first... if we keep the abilities on Winding Constrictor at that manacost it should've been a 1/2 or 2/1, the ability easily makes up for the creature starting very weak.
Lame_Duck says... #2
It surprises me less than the idea that Wizards intentionally printed a Splinter Twin-esque combo in Standard but, especially after the recent bans, R&D really does seem to have been dropping the ball recently.
February 3, 2017 5:56 p.m.