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mad bum
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by mad bum » Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:17 pm

I vaguely remember affinity, I stopped playing magic a long time ago but I remember my friends bitching about it to no end when it came out, everyone just netdecked the same 0 cost turn one shit. Anything past that is beyond me.
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Just Some Random Guy
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Just Some Random Guy » Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:20 pm

Le Redditeur wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:10 pm
Well, maybe not in Vintage and Legacy (since there are enough artifact-hate in these formats), but just look at the Modern/Standard/Mirrodin block banlists and you'll find half of the Affinity deck is there - the artifact lands, Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, Cranial Plating, etc. I got the current banlist and I counted - Mirrodin block as twenty cards on the banlist, 6 more cards than the Urza block. And all the banned cards are cards Affinity ran.
I'm not sure what you mean by "on the banned list." The high number you cite indicates we're talking all of them (after all, in Legacy, only 1 card is banned from Mirrodin, Skullclamp, but 7 are from Urza's block), as in, a card that was ever banned (or restricted, but for brevity's sake I'll use "banned" to describe either) in any notable format at any time. However, I can't get to 20 even by that definition. The best I can come up with is 19, and that's including Commander and its infamously arbitrary banlist:
The 6 artifact lands (Standard, Block, Modern (except Darksteel Citadel))
Arcbound Ravager (Standard, Block)
Disciple of the Vault (Standard, Block, Extended)
Aether Vial (Extended)
Skullclamp (Standard, Block, Extended, Modern, Legacy)
Chalice of the Void (Vintage)*
Thirst For Knowledge (Vintage)*
Chrome Mox (Modern, Vintage)*
Cloudpost (Modern)*
Second Sunrise (Modern)*
Seething Song (Modern)*
Trinisphere (Vintage)*
Panoptic Mirror (Commander)*
Sundering Titan (Commander)*

So I'm not sure where we get the 20 from, unless I'm missing one, which I probably am. Still, you claim that all of the cards banned from Mirrodin block were played in Affinity, but that's not true; all of the cards with asterisks after them saw little to no play in any Affinity deck. And Skullclamp, while played in Affinity, was a huge problem in other decks (ironically, while Skullclamp was legal, I believe the best deck in Standard was actually Goblins).

EDIT: My mistake, Thirst For Knowledge did see some real play in Affinity in Standard. However, its eventual restriction in Vintage was unrelated to Affinity (the deck or the ability), and it was later unrestricted.
Affinity was a degenerate mechanic because it made the game very much like Yugioh - you don't have to pay for anything you're casting anymore. Atog + Disciple of the Vault was the first win condition, then Arcbound Ravager provided an ever better substitute for Atog, then Cranial Plating + Ornithopter/Somber Overguard, then they basically gave up on trying to balance Affinity for Artifacts, and in the new Mirrodin block they came with a different form of Affinity that isn't nearly as good.
But again, look at the cards you just listed here. Only one actually has Affinity for Artifacts (Somber Hoverguard), and it's the least important of the bunch.

That's my point. Affinity for Artifacts, the ability, is actually perfectly fine. If we look at that big list of banned cards from Mirrodin block, not a single card with Affinity for Artifacts is there. The degenerate cards were the ones that didn't have that ability and would have been a problem even without the cards with the Affinity for Artifacts ability (albeit perhaps less of a problem). You can't have a Storm deck without the Storm cards or a Dredge deck without the Dredge cards, but you can easily have an "Affinity" deck without a single Affinity for Artifact card, as a quick look at the Affinity decks in Modern and Legacy demonstrate. That's because the problematic cards weren't the ones with Affinity for Artifacts on them. Looking at it in retrospect, it seems that people's enmity for the Affinity for Artifacts ability was unfair, as its only crime was commonly being used with cards that were, even without the aid of the Affinity for Artifacts cards, extremely powerful and in fact downright degenerate in some formats.
I wouldn't say Delve is worse than Affinity because I can think of only two cards that abused it - Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise. Of course, they abused it hard, that's why they're banned everywhere but Vintage (they're still restricted there), but the mechanic on itself has the same potential of wrecking the game (mana cost reduction). Magic is balanced towards mana costs, and whatever card or mechanic that changes that is a potential disaster.
It might be true that only Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise got outright banned, but first note that they even got restricted in Vintage, a format that doesn't have a single card Dredge or Affinity-related card on its restricted list. That says something right there. And the two saw a good amount of play in Standard even, especially Dig Through Time, despite it being much harder to abuse them in that format.

And even setting aside Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise, look at Tasigur and Gurmag Angler. While not problematic enough to get banned, they're Legacy and Modern staples and were a big force in Standard while legal.

So I can't really see Affinity for Artifacts as that problematic of an ability, certainly not so when compared to Delve.

I also know this is major sperg on my part, but let me have my stupid hobby I care way too much about.
Last edited by Just Some Random Guy on Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Just Some Random Guy » Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:52 pm

mad bum wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 12:17 pm
I vaguely remember affinity, I stopped playing magic a long time ago but I remember my friends bitching about it to no end when it came out, everyone just netdecked the same 0 cost turn one shit. Anything past that is beyond me.
Affinity (when I just write "Affinity" I'm referring to the deck rather than the mechanic) drove a lot of people away. It wasn't just that it was an insanely good deck, it was an insanely good deck that was a drag to play against because it just rolled straight over whatever you were trying to do (at least the later similarly dominant Caw-Blade let you play a game of Magic against it, you just would inevitably lose to its card advantage).

Affinity did benefit considerably from some factors in Standard, however. When Onslaught block was also in the format, Onslaught's powerful synergies provided a rival to Affinity. Things like Goblins, Eternal Slide, and Tooth and Nail were good decks that were able to keep Affinity mostly in check. However, then Onslaught rotated out and was replaced with Kamigawa, one of the most infamously underpowered blocks in the history of Standard. With nothing from Kamigawa able to keep up with Affinity the same way the Onslaught-based decks could, it quickly took over Standard.

One can easily see the enmity towards the deck by how brutal they were in bannings. They didn't just weaken Affinity with their bannings in Standard, they killed it. If they had just banned the artifact lands, then Affinity would probably have been brought down to a reasonable power level. Still a good deck, but not the powerhouse it was before, much like Caw-Blade after Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic got banned. But players were irritated enough with the deck that they went further and made sure the deck was gone in the format, though they were much more even-handed towards it in Extended and later Modern, weakening it but keeping it as a good deck.

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Le Redditeur
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Le Redditeur » Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:38 pm

The Affinity deck in Standard usually ran 4 cards with Affinity - Frogmite, that 7 mana 4/4 dude, that 5 mana draw 2 sorcery, and Somber Hoverguard (which later on was the preferred Affinity guy because he had flying). You're right, it wasn't the mechanic itself that was the win condition - but the sheer amount of advantage that it generated by only these 4 cards plus all the other synergies - Thirst for Knowledge, Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, that "1 mana, sac an artifact, deal 4 damage" instant... the problem is, mechanically, Affinity for Artifacts will always have the potential for disaster, because it cheapens spells to just a fraction of their mana cost - the only way to make it "balanced" is by printing only terrible Affinity cards. It's very similar to Delve - it wasn't a problem until Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time appeared.
Just Some Random Guy wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:52 pm
One can easily see the enmity towards the deck by how brutal they were in bannings. They didn't just weaken Affinity with their bannings in Standard, they killed it. If they had just banned the artifact lands, then Affinity would probably have been brought down to a reasonable power level. Still a good deck, but not the powerhouse it was before, much like Caw-Blade after Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic got banned. But players were irritated enough with the deck that they went further and made sure the deck was gone in the format, though they were much more even-handed towards it in Extended and later Modern, weakening it but keeping it as a good deck.
Affinity almost killed Magic - I remember Mark Rosewater said so in one article. The tournament attendance for that particular year tanked horribly, mostly because everybody was fed up of trying ways to counter an evidently uncounterable (on that meta) deck. I don't know even if banning only the artifact lands would have mattered - you still had the Spellbombs, Welding Jar, Ornithopter, and other cheap artifacts. Not as good, of course, but since they had tried (and failed) to reign it in with the previous bans, they decided to go nuclear.

I like the fact that WotC STILL can't detect obviously broken cards in playtest, BTW. They printed Smuggler's Copter when it was damn clear it was too good and EVERY deck would end up running it. They did the same thing with that cat that flickers a permanent, knowing pretty well it would enable an infinite combo with Saheli. It's a wonder that they didn't manage to kill Magic yet.

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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Just Some Random Guy » Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:05 pm

Le Redditeur wrote:
Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:38 pm
The Affinity deck in Standard usually ran 4 cards with Affinity - Frogmite, that 7 mana 4/4 dude, that 5 mana draw 2 sorcery, and Somber Hoverguard (which later on was the preferred Affinity guy because he had flying). You're right, it wasn't the mechanic itself that was the win condition - but the sheer amount of advantage that it generated by only these 4 cards plus all the other synergies - Thirst for Knowledge, Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, that "1 mana, sac an artifact, deal 4 damage" instant... the problem is, mechanically, Affinity for Artifacts will always have the potential for disaster, because it cheapens spells to just a fraction of their mana cost - the only way to make it "balanced" is by printing only terrible Affinity cards. It's very similar to Delve - it wasn't a problem until Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time appeared.
Well, before Khans of Tarkir, there were a total of two cards ever printed with Delve, so it didn't have much of an opportunity to get broken.

Though when talking about the Delve cards, I completely forgot about another obvious offender: Become Immense. While not the sole reason Gitaxian Probe got banned in Modern, I do think it was a big contributor.
Affinity almost killed Magic - I remember Mark Rosewater said so in one article. The tournament attendance for that particular year tanked horribly, mostly because everybody was fed up of trying ways to counter an evidently uncounterable (on that meta) deck. I don't know even if banning only the artifact lands would have mattered - you still had the Spellbombs, Welding Jar, Ornithopter, and other cheap artifacts. Not as good, of course, but since they had tried (and failed) to reign it in with the previous bans, they decided to go nuclear.
When did they try to reign it in with previous bans? The only previous ban was Skullclamp, and I don't count that because that card would have warranted banning even if Affinity had never existed. In fact, while Skullclamp was around, Goblins appeared to have been the best deck.

Now, it is true that Affinity would have been able to still make use of those cards you cited, but they're not nearly as good. That's my point: Ban the artifact lands and Affinity would have still been a good deck and part of the metagame, but wouldn't have been the oppressive force it was. Just like how Caw-Blade remained a good deck after Jace and Mystic were banned but ceased being something like 50% of the format. I think the reason for their differing actions was that unlike Affinity, some people actually really liked Caw-Blade as a deck in Standard.
I like the fact that WotC STILL can't detect obviously broken cards in playtest, BTW. They printed Smuggler's Copter when it was damn clear it was too good and EVERY deck would end up running it. They did the same thing with that cat that flickers a permanent, knowing pretty well it would enable an infinite combo with Saheli. It's a wonder that they didn't manage to kill Magic yet.
Actually, they didn't know it at all. They've admitted that they completely missed that combo in testing. Of course, that just changes the question from "how did you think this combo was a good idea?" to "how in the world did you not see this combo?"

Though, much like Smuggler's Copter, part of the problem was environment. They had been continually making answer cards like removal or discard worse and worse. And when you have no good way to answer your opponents' threats, the best thing to do is to just play those threats yourself. The new Emrakul would have been fine had there been any graveyard hate (how do you have a graveyard themed block and not include any playable graveyard hate?!), and Aetherworks Marvel would have been contained had there been a card like Pithing Needle available.

You can even see this with the last time they printed an infinite combo in Standard by accident, Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin. The deck was good, but not an issue, and a huge reason for that was the fact there were good answers to it, most notably Dismember, which any deck could run. Of course, Exarch and Splinter Twin just makes them missing the cat combo even more confusing, because you'd think it would have taught them to pay very close attention to effects like that.

Though probably the crowning achievement recently in wondering how a card got through development was Hostage Taker. Unlike the other mistakes, this one didn't really affect anything in the game, as its problem was fixed with errata before it was officially released, but it's a case that's baffling to overlook because unlike Smuggler's Copter or Felidar Guardian, it was a problem all by itself. Smuggler's Copter was a problem because of the environment, Felidar Guardian was only an issue because of it comboing with another card, but Hostage Taker needs no other card to be an issue, actually quite literally in fat.

To explain, Hostage Taker was a creature that would, upon entering play, exile a creature or artifact until Hostage Taker left the battlefield. This isn't a particularly unique ability, as several other cards have done similar things, like Banisher Priest. The problem with Hostage Taker is, unlike every single previous instance of the ability, they didn't specify it had to be another creature. This meant that if the card was cast while no other artifacts or creatures were in play, it would be forced to exile itself, come back, exile itself again, come back, exile itself again, and so on creating an unescapable infinite loop that would instantly draw the game.

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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Guest » Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:32 pm

This is the gayest conversation DHI has ever had.

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Kugelfisch
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Kugelfisch » Thu Nov 02, 2017 12:54 am

VoiceOfReasonPast wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:56 am
Kugelfisch wrote:
Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:16 am
I can immediately think of a Tarmogoyf deck that's build around dredge and Experiment One.
Power equal to the number of different card types in all graveyards? That sounds like a bitch to keep track of outside of video games.
You flashkicked a Ryu as Guile. You're close, what's he going to do on wakeup?
Tarmogoyf is the fucking Ryu of Magic. Everyone and their mothers know about him. Shit, you play against a deck that plays green in a format where the Goyf is legal, you bet your balls and your life savings it's going to be a Goyf on turn two unless the guy mulliganed four times and looks really unhappy. I can't stress enough how popular that creature is.

What I'm saying is that knowing at what power it is will come so natural to you that you'll have a harder time to remember your name than knowing what power it is at any given time ingame. Plus, you can demand the cunt to put counters on it and messing that up is grounds for disqualification. Land, creature spell, instant, sorcery, enchantment, aura, planeswalker. It's going to be a 7/8 at it's strongest, likely a 3/4 when it comes out on turn two already. 3/4 for two is batshit.
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Poonoo » Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:09 am

Guest wrote:
Wed Nov 01, 2017 11:32 pm
This is the gayest conversation DHI has ever had.
Guestposting wasn't a mistake. This U Gay Bro and Magic the Gathering of Autsim talk makes you all look like Cuckson.
Old Black Man wrote:
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Also Lupa’s grandmother? Please, we know that hag was alive and well back then. She’s like the dude from Highlander, only a cunt.
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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Stranger » Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:11 am

I think it's hilarious that a board dedicated to shitposting about e-celebrities filled with people who are socially awkward and prone to nerd behavior now has at least two people calling a few nerds talking about nerd things gay for doing so.

Self awareness.
"I currently have 274 pounds of lean mass. My nurse explained that since she'd just seen me walk a quarter mile that I basically was ripped underneath all of this fat." - Arnold Boogienigger

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Re: TFS got copyright struck again

Post by Stranger » Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:12 am

In a topic about some nerds dubbing over their favorite dead anime, no less.
"I currently have 274 pounds of lean mass. My nurse explained that since she'd just seen me walk a quarter mile that I basically was ripped underneath all of this fat." - Arnold Boogienigger

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