Man...look at this.
So, my first issue is that it takes way too long know who is speaking. The god of death, Erebos is strongly hinted at but confusion is no place for a hype trailer. I've watched it 4 times now so yeah, it's most certainly erebos but this breaks with the previous two trailers, which highlighted NEW gods (Helios and Xenagos, respectively).
Second, why is this talking about a "Hero's journey beginning"? This is the last block in the set and if Erebos is the narrator of this scheme, shouldn't it be about the ending? Look at this as an issue that compounds the first problem.
Next, why is the line "A champion risks everything for the greater good" accompanied by images of people bonding? There's no reason for this schism.
Nor for the next scene at :58, where we are supposed to take comfort at what looks like a child in terror. What?
Finally, this trailer is disconnected from the other two, which were about the plane of Theros and its problems, to be solved by a champion, but this trailer is all about the champion alone. We have no idea what's become or to come of the plane, the war, the conflict!
Ugh.
Showing posts with label theros. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theros. Show all posts
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
The Theros Problem
After the Theros draft experience, I ended up talking with Sean a bit about the Theros set. You may recall Sean from his work on the Soradyne set, a fan made MtG set that I helped out a little on.
Sean hates Theros. Hates it. I had my own views on the set which were also not that positive and the draft experience didn't really bring me around. Talking to Sean though has brought up a few ugly points about Theros that I think are worth talking about.
First: it's bland. They've turned Elspeth into Gordon Freeman, essentially. She's referred to by her name only sometimes in card flavor text, more frequently called the Hero and I believe they did it to have players project themselves onto her. The use of Archenemy-like challenges in the pre-release supports this theory, in my opinion: we can take the same actions she does and thus pretend, in some manner, to be her.
Except that by removing personality from one of the major Planeswalkers, they sacrifice the very thing that makes her interesting. Elspeth isn't interesting because she's a Planeswalker, she's interesting because she's a character. Worse, Elspeth is the lens that they want to shine Theros through! But if the lens is boring then what does that do to the plane?
This 'blandening' is what is behind Sean's biggest issues with Theros: According to him (and WotC, so he's not out on a limb), it's about heroes, gods and monsters. Yet those things aren't arranged in a compelling narrative so we don't have the political dynamics of Ravnica, the horror movie conflict of Innistrad or the war on Mirrodin.
We have heroes, who don't get to act very heroic and are frequently ill-defined. See Fabled Hero as a great example: we don't know who the hero is, nor the poet, yet apparently there's a story written about him. He's not the only issue though. When I take a look at the legendary permanents of Theros, I am unable to see who is in opposition to one another. What does Daxos want that conflicts with Tymaret? Forget the mechanics for a moment, just push this into what we know about Theros. Who is in conflict, and why? Theros does a very poor job of setting that up.
From a mechanical perspective, heroes cause another problem: Why do they only get bonuses when you target them? Why not any player? Heroes are defined by actions taken under dire circumstances in opposition to overwhelming odds. Let's just use that as a loose definition. Since the heroes don't trigger off the spells of opponents (or teammates!) you have a lost opportunity to have those creatures demonstrate some kind of heroic activity. They just do what every creature in Magic does which is get better when you do things to buff them.
Since we don't know what the central conflict of Theros is and why those heroes need to be arranged in opposition to it, why is it important that they get better, beyond this being the most bland expression of the Hero's Journey?
The monsters in Greek myth usually spawned from the naughty actions of the gods themselves and were sometimes sent to destroy or punish the citizens. Think of it like Batman's Rogue's Gallery: he has one of the best because the great villains are often reflections of him (and, as a result, his audience.)
Where does Polukranos come from? Hythonia? Does anyone know? I'm sure WotC does but I don't. These are the legendary threats and we as players don't know why we need to defeat them. Now, on a mechanical level, I've already gone into the issue of how I feel this mechanic is often unclear but from a story perspective, I don't know why these monsters are there, beyond; Because the audience expects them and I don't understand how monstrosity sets these creatures apart except that WotC didn't want to use Kicker. These are awful reasons. Hythonia is way less interesting than Visara the Dreadful, and Visara's only reason to be in Onslaught was as a pit fighter in the Cabal's fighting tournament. However, there were pit fighters! And a tournament! She was also one of two gorgons on the entire plane, so where did she come from?
There are questions that have answers and they are set inside a conflict that players understood. Elspeth is being pushed into a conflict of what or with whom, exactly?
The gods would seem to be the answer there but they don't seem to be fighting with each other. They don't speak at all in flavor text so there's very little way for players to understand why these gods need Elspeth at all and mechanically they don't clearly oppose one another, despite being very strong representations of their color.
Which brings us to the issue with top-down design. A failure of flavor becomes, to me, a failure of design and even mechanics. If one doesn't properly express the world and its conflict in recognizable ways when standing atop the top-down mountain, then clearly there is an issue there. The heroes aren't heroic, the monsters aren't distinctive and the gods are just there. If that conflict was expressed mechanically or via flavor text, then there would be a basis for a story that is truly keyed into Theros's as a place. Instead, this conflict could be anywhere and that weakens the block as a whole.
Sean hates Theros. Hates it. I had my own views on the set which were also not that positive and the draft experience didn't really bring me around. Talking to Sean though has brought up a few ugly points about Theros that I think are worth talking about.
First: it's bland. They've turned Elspeth into Gordon Freeman, essentially. She's referred to by her name only sometimes in card flavor text, more frequently called the Hero and I believe they did it to have players project themselves onto her. The use of Archenemy-like challenges in the pre-release supports this theory, in my opinion: we can take the same actions she does and thus pretend, in some manner, to be her.
Except that by removing personality from one of the major Planeswalkers, they sacrifice the very thing that makes her interesting. Elspeth isn't interesting because she's a Planeswalker, she's interesting because she's a character. Worse, Elspeth is the lens that they want to shine Theros through! But if the lens is boring then what does that do to the plane?
This 'blandening' is what is behind Sean's biggest issues with Theros: According to him (and WotC, so he's not out on a limb), it's about heroes, gods and monsters. Yet those things aren't arranged in a compelling narrative so we don't have the political dynamics of Ravnica, the horror movie conflict of Innistrad or the war on Mirrodin.
We have heroes, who don't get to act very heroic and are frequently ill-defined. See Fabled Hero as a great example: we don't know who the hero is, nor the poet, yet apparently there's a story written about him. He's not the only issue though. When I take a look at the legendary permanents of Theros, I am unable to see who is in opposition to one another. What does Daxos want that conflicts with Tymaret? Forget the mechanics for a moment, just push this into what we know about Theros. Who is in conflict, and why? Theros does a very poor job of setting that up.
From a mechanical perspective, heroes cause another problem: Why do they only get bonuses when you target them? Why not any player? Heroes are defined by actions taken under dire circumstances in opposition to overwhelming odds. Let's just use that as a loose definition. Since the heroes don't trigger off the spells of opponents (or teammates!) you have a lost opportunity to have those creatures demonstrate some kind of heroic activity. They just do what every creature in Magic does which is get better when you do things to buff them.
Since we don't know what the central conflict of Theros is and why those heroes need to be arranged in opposition to it, why is it important that they get better, beyond this being the most bland expression of the Hero's Journey?
The monsters in Greek myth usually spawned from the naughty actions of the gods themselves and were sometimes sent to destroy or punish the citizens. Think of it like Batman's Rogue's Gallery: he has one of the best because the great villains are often reflections of him (and, as a result, his audience.)
Where does Polukranos come from? Hythonia? Does anyone know? I'm sure WotC does but I don't. These are the legendary threats and we as players don't know why we need to defeat them. Now, on a mechanical level, I've already gone into the issue of how I feel this mechanic is often unclear but from a story perspective, I don't know why these monsters are there, beyond; Because the audience expects them and I don't understand how monstrosity sets these creatures apart except that WotC didn't want to use Kicker. These are awful reasons. Hythonia is way less interesting than Visara the Dreadful, and Visara's only reason to be in Onslaught was as a pit fighter in the Cabal's fighting tournament. However, there were pit fighters! And a tournament! She was also one of two gorgons on the entire plane, so where did she come from?
There are questions that have answers and they are set inside a conflict that players understood. Elspeth is being pushed into a conflict of what or with whom, exactly?
The gods would seem to be the answer there but they don't seem to be fighting with each other. They don't speak at all in flavor text so there's very little way for players to understand why these gods need Elspeth at all and mechanically they don't clearly oppose one another, despite being very strong representations of their color.
Which brings us to the issue with top-down design. A failure of flavor becomes, to me, a failure of design and even mechanics. If one doesn't properly express the world and its conflict in recognizable ways when standing atop the top-down mountain, then clearly there is an issue there. The heroes aren't heroic, the monsters aren't distinctive and the gods are just there. If that conflict was expressed mechanically or via flavor text, then there would be a basis for a story that is truly keyed into Theros's as a place. Instead, this conflict could be anywhere and that weakens the block as a whole.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Theros Draft
And now that I've gotten one whole draft done...I don't really care. I managed to make a U/B deck that I thought had enough cheap flyers to make an interesting aggro deck but it never panned out. I had opened Curse of the Swine in pack one so I figured; hey why not? I also included in my build a Triton Fortune Hunter that probably shouldn't have been there. I probably should have played more black, as I had some discard and decided not to play it thinking that a 1/3 creature for 4 really wasn't worth my time. My error was not realizing that discard was a form of removal. On further reflection, I was seeing a lot of green early on and probably should have gone into that color over black.
Other things I've learned: Bestow is a pain in the ass. It made all the games go long and felt very grindy and uninteresting. I have a dude. Three turns later I have a much bigger dude. You're killing my dude so now I have a smaller one that isn't all that awesome. Great.
Big effects are ugly; Noah drafted a deck that essentially got to 6 mana and then blew opponents out of the water. It worked (it certainly helped that he had an Elspeth), and kudos to him for taking that strategy but it didn't really feel very engaging when I played him to make decisions that didn't matter for 5+ turns and then lose.
I guess this would be a drawback for most of my games: I would play weaker creatures, try to get a toehold in and then wait and wait until I could Bestow bad creatures in order to try and Voltron a decent creature. Sometimes that worked but mostly it just wasn't much fun, even when it did. Waiting too long means the opponent has time to get their board set up and I didn't have effects that could really recover from that, despite having more Griptides and Voyage's Ends than I knew what to do with. The scry never felt like it mattered and Griptiding a creature that has been Bestowed means that yes, they have weaker creatures now...but they also have more.
Maybe I should try it again but I don't really feel encouraged to do so: this format didn't scratch an itch in my brain. Perhaps the Theros-Born of the Gods run will be different and I'll take a swing at it then.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Study as a Virtue
I've been looking over Theros since it's been spoiled, trying to dig up the positives in a set I'm not seeing much value in. Oh sure, the obvious values are there; Planeswalkers are good, gods are good, multicolored stuff will be helpful etc. Everybody knows this. But the part that intrigues me is always the unsolved problem one: what is good that people underestimate or insist is bad?
I don't think there's much to underestimate in Theros and all the stuff that is bad is...bad. Aggro as an archetype is non-existent, which is fine because removal doesn't kick in until turn 4 at best. Everyone is predicting 7+ turn games and assuming Scry will let them hit the lands they need. With Scry being on about 20 of 229 cards, 13 at common, I think they might be overestimating how useful Scry will be. That doesn't mean it won't be helpful but to really make consistent decks I believe it would need to be available in higher numbers. So once again: slower format, grindy games.
It's disappointing to see so many plain-jane cards here. Thematically they're wonderful but mechanically they don't add anything to the game or explore the space in an interesting or dynamic way.
That doesn't mean there isn't any fun to be had. One neat little theme I've noticed are the cycle of spells that target up to two creatures-Dauntless Onslaught, Triton Tactics, etc. They did this in Urza's Saga too, with Rack and Ruin, Symbiosis, etc. They also had cycles of 'growing' enchantments, similar to the Boons of Theros but as global enchantments, such as Recantation or Discordant Dirge.
I hope that these callbacks were on purpose. I realize they may not mean much to newer players but to me it demonstrates that WotC still values its history. Urza's block was a pretty dark time for the game because of the insane Blue combo decks that were powered by broken artifacts, despite being the enchantment block. What that means is that there is a whole host of overlooked ideas from that block that can be given legs again with modern design knowledge. When I see connections like Cutthroat Maneuver and Symbiosis, I feel a bit more confident about the future. I may not like this set but it's possbile that there will be cool things to uncover in block.
It's also possible that this set starts things off very slowly, with an improving draft and sealed format coming up as we go. I hadn't considered that until recently but one way to generate some excitement for the third set in a block (one that historically WotC has generally seen decreased sales numbers on) might be to really add in more balance in the form of removal, aggressive creatures, and spell or permanent interactions in those sets, creating something more dynamic as time goes on.
Let's call me cautiously optimistic.
I don't think there's much to underestimate in Theros and all the stuff that is bad is...bad. Aggro as an archetype is non-existent, which is fine because removal doesn't kick in until turn 4 at best. Everyone is predicting 7+ turn games and assuming Scry will let them hit the lands they need. With Scry being on about 20 of 229 cards, 13 at common, I think they might be overestimating how useful Scry will be. That doesn't mean it won't be helpful but to really make consistent decks I believe it would need to be available in higher numbers. So once again: slower format, grindy games.
It's disappointing to see so many plain-jane cards here. Thematically they're wonderful but mechanically they don't add anything to the game or explore the space in an interesting or dynamic way.
That doesn't mean there isn't any fun to be had. One neat little theme I've noticed are the cycle of spells that target up to two creatures-Dauntless Onslaught, Triton Tactics, etc. They did this in Urza's Saga too, with Rack and Ruin, Symbiosis, etc. They also had cycles of 'growing' enchantments, similar to the Boons of Theros but as global enchantments, such as Recantation or Discordant Dirge.
I hope that these callbacks were on purpose. I realize they may not mean much to newer players but to me it demonstrates that WotC still values its history. Urza's block was a pretty dark time for the game because of the insane Blue combo decks that were powered by broken artifacts, despite being the enchantment block. What that means is that there is a whole host of overlooked ideas from that block that can be given legs again with modern design knowledge. When I see connections like Cutthroat Maneuver and Symbiosis, I feel a bit more confident about the future. I may not like this set but it's possbile that there will be cool things to uncover in block.
It's also possible that this set starts things off very slowly, with an improving draft and sealed format coming up as we go. I hadn't considered that until recently but one way to generate some excitement for the third set in a block (one that historically WotC has generally seen decreased sales numbers on) might be to really add in more balance in the form of removal, aggressive creatures, and spell or permanent interactions in those sets, creating something more dynamic as time goes on.
Let's call me cautiously optimistic.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Theros, or: When is a Mechanic Not A Mechanic
A healthy portion of Theros has been previewed at this point so I feel like it's OK to talk about it. The usual caveats of: I still haven't played with these cards, apply, so things are still subject to change.
To begin: it appears to be a very slow set. I would be OK with this if it brought some interesting mechanics out, things that might change the way the game is thought of but I'm just not seeing that, so far. So let's talk about the mechanics.
Devotion isn't a mechanic. It is a condition. If you meet the condition, you get the prize and the way Magic is currently structured, you get something even if you don't meet that condition. However, Devotion will exist regardless of you having a card that cares about it. It is very much like Landfall in this respect, as people play lands with or without Landfall except that Landfall feels more active: you play a land and something happens.
Whereas a mechanic, to me, only exists if you have the card. Take the untap mechanic from Eventide. You get a specific effect from a particular branch of cards. If you don't have the card, you don't get the effect. But Devotion? You probably have met the Devotion conditions already, there just was a very narrow list of cards that cared about it.
What's boring about Devotion is that you don't activate it. I referenced Landfall's similarity for a reason: there was a small subset of cards in Zendikar block that cared about how many lands you had in play, like Scute Mob or Dragonmaster Outcast. But they didn't have Landfall and they weren't lynchpins of that block, they were an extra. Devotion feels like this: you just have a bonus where you didn't before, whereas with Landfall you play a land then you get cool things.
It feels better, more active. Devotion feels boring, as though I could win without it and getting it won't keep me from losing in a critical situation.
Monstrous is like...the worst Kicker I ever met. I really don't like the execution of this mechanic. Everything is expensive and the effects have been awful for the cost. A 6/8 that can block 100 creatures for a 10 mana investment (Hundred-Handed One), an 8/8 that turns a land into an Island for a 12 mana investment (Sealock Monster.) For 11 you get to sacrifice 3 lands and get a 7/8 in return that has no other abilities (Ember Swallower.)
Ugh. But to make sure that you are able to get to your 10+ mana investments, there isn't much removal, so no problem right?
I disagree. I find this mechanic to be one that provides me with stuff I don't need. Getting a 5/5 for 4 mana is already a pretty good deal! Paying 3 mana to do 1 damage to another creature and making it a 6/6 is not a good deal. Why should I do this when I could swing for 5, bait out any removal they have, and then put that 3 mana towards another 5/5? Yay, Polukranos, World Eater.
No, this slowdown is all done to keep Limited formats from being crazy and that. is. boring. We need some crazy Limited formats.
What I really don't like is: how do you tell when a creature is Monstrous? The game doesn't want to give you an indication, as the +1 counters that a creature has on it could come from so many places that it could get confusing. Worse, if you remove the +1 counters, is the creature still Monstrous? I presume it is but how do you tell, now? What's to keep someone from reactivating that ability? This ability is apparently meant to be used once per game and it doesn't keep track of itself very well. It probably isn't a big deal in block and there will certainly be clarifications as the set further revealed, but combined with even Return to Ravnica's mechanics? It's incredibly easy to imagine complicated board states due to muddied information.
The lack of clarity Monstrous has extends into Theros's final new mechanic, Bestow. I feel it is an inelegantly structured but at least practical way to solve the 2 for 1 problem that happens with most creature enchantments. (In brief: if you kill the creature that an Aura is targeting while the Aura is on the stack, they both go to the graveyard.) When this ability first appeared, there were multiple questions about what happens when the card is on the stack as an Aura and the creature it's targeting is destroyed.
This is because Bestow does something that, as far as I know, has never been done before in Magic: the card changes 'midstream' and becomes a creature on the stack, should its target as a Aura spell go away. It is a creature on the stack anyway, because of its type but this is still weird.
Got that? Maybe not? Essentially: this is a creature unless you cast it as an Aura. And if for any reason the creature that this now-Aura would/does enchant goes away, the Aura becomes a creature. Ah, the heck with it: the rules have been posted here.
It is, again, extremely expensive. Why should I ever use this enchantment that costs 7 to give a creature +4 when I can just cast the 4/4 creature for 5? Because getting from 5 to 7 mana is very, very challenging, even in Limited formats.
On the upside Theros is slow. The removal is apparently weak (black is the least-revealed color at the time of this writing) and it's looking like Onslaught block Limited, where you hang on tight for your bomb and ride that pony to victory. Scry is there to help people hit their land drops so they can build to that 7+ mana zone but I'm not seeing a lot of mana production spells just yet. I am wondering how grindy games will become because when you have grindy formats, Blue tends to be the color that does the best, and Magic really doesn't need more awesome Blue formats.
As it stands, U/W control decks are poised to make a huge comeback, U/B is going to be shored up by the reprint of Thoughtsieze and the best card draw spell in years is going to be printed in U/R with Steam Augury. I cannot understate how relevant I think Steam Augury is going to be. Fact or Fiction was an absolute monster of a card for years in the formats it could be cast in and if it existed in Modern, every Blue deck would run it. Steam Augury alone could account for U/B/r or U/W/r decks taking center stage or it could even officially kick off the U/R Young Pyromancer deck as being 'legit'. (I think it's legit already but I'm not a professional.)
The return of Blue wouldn't bother me so much if there was a proper counterbalance: A way for other colors to have stack interactions that gave players options. But I don't see that: I just see ginormous creatures (which can now be turned into pigs), wordy and expensive abilities (which can be nullified with Blue) and flavor overriding function, without interesting interactions that would suggest a deeper format for Standard-or contributions to a larger format elsewhere.
Finally, and this is just a personal thing, I utterly despise the Enchantment Artifacts, something every god apparently has. Here is a case where, for flavor reasons, they are erasing the line between two card types that has been eroding for years. As a matter of fact, flavor is the thing that did the most to separate them, as artifacts would show players how machines worked on a plane and enchantments how magic could manifest. The melding of this strongly suggests that there's no reason for one of those card types to exist and I would rather have had an emphasis on enchantments doing something that artifacts just couldn't, or the acceptance that gods -gasp- use tools! Hell, how about a storyline where the tools of the gods are being destroyed and thus transmuted into enchantments run amuck? This is the enchantment block, right?
On the upside, there are only going to be 15 of them so perhaps it won't be the flavor wrecking ball I feel they are.
To begin: it appears to be a very slow set. I would be OK with this if it brought some interesting mechanics out, things that might change the way the game is thought of but I'm just not seeing that, so far. So let's talk about the mechanics.
Devotion isn't a mechanic. It is a condition. If you meet the condition, you get the prize and the way Magic is currently structured, you get something even if you don't meet that condition. However, Devotion will exist regardless of you having a card that cares about it. It is very much like Landfall in this respect, as people play lands with or without Landfall except that Landfall feels more active: you play a land and something happens.
Whereas a mechanic, to me, only exists if you have the card. Take the untap mechanic from Eventide. You get a specific effect from a particular branch of cards. If you don't have the card, you don't get the effect. But Devotion? You probably have met the Devotion conditions already, there just was a very narrow list of cards that cared about it.
What's boring about Devotion is that you don't activate it. I referenced Landfall's similarity for a reason: there was a small subset of cards in Zendikar block that cared about how many lands you had in play, like Scute Mob or Dragonmaster Outcast. But they didn't have Landfall and they weren't lynchpins of that block, they were an extra. Devotion feels like this: you just have a bonus where you didn't before, whereas with Landfall you play a land then you get cool things.
It feels better, more active. Devotion feels boring, as though I could win without it and getting it won't keep me from losing in a critical situation.
Monstrous is like...the worst Kicker I ever met. I really don't like the execution of this mechanic. Everything is expensive and the effects have been awful for the cost. A 6/8 that can block 100 creatures for a 10 mana investment (Hundred-Handed One), an 8/8 that turns a land into an Island for a 12 mana investment (Sealock Monster.) For 11 you get to sacrifice 3 lands and get a 7/8 in return that has no other abilities (Ember Swallower.)
Ugh. But to make sure that you are able to get to your 10+ mana investments, there isn't much removal, so no problem right?
I disagree. I find this mechanic to be one that provides me with stuff I don't need. Getting a 5/5 for 4 mana is already a pretty good deal! Paying 3 mana to do 1 damage to another creature and making it a 6/6 is not a good deal. Why should I do this when I could swing for 5, bait out any removal they have, and then put that 3 mana towards another 5/5? Yay, Polukranos, World Eater.
No, this slowdown is all done to keep Limited formats from being crazy and that. is. boring. We need some crazy Limited formats.
What I really don't like is: how do you tell when a creature is Monstrous? The game doesn't want to give you an indication, as the +1 counters that a creature has on it could come from so many places that it could get confusing. Worse, if you remove the +1 counters, is the creature still Monstrous? I presume it is but how do you tell, now? What's to keep someone from reactivating that ability? This ability is apparently meant to be used once per game and it doesn't keep track of itself very well. It probably isn't a big deal in block and there will certainly be clarifications as the set further revealed, but combined with even Return to Ravnica's mechanics? It's incredibly easy to imagine complicated board states due to muddied information.
The lack of clarity Monstrous has extends into Theros's final new mechanic, Bestow. I feel it is an inelegantly structured but at least practical way to solve the 2 for 1 problem that happens with most creature enchantments. (In brief: if you kill the creature that an Aura is targeting while the Aura is on the stack, they both go to the graveyard.) When this ability first appeared, there were multiple questions about what happens when the card is on the stack as an Aura and the creature it's targeting is destroyed.
This is because Bestow does something that, as far as I know, has never been done before in Magic: the card changes 'midstream' and becomes a creature on the stack, should its target as a Aura spell go away. It is a creature on the stack anyway, because of its type but this is still weird.
Got that? Maybe not? Essentially: this is a creature unless you cast it as an Aura. And if for any reason the creature that this now-Aura would/does enchant goes away, the Aura becomes a creature. Ah, the heck with it: the rules have been posted here.
It is, again, extremely expensive. Why should I ever use this enchantment that costs 7 to give a creature +4 when I can just cast the 4/4 creature for 5? Because getting from 5 to 7 mana is very, very challenging, even in Limited formats.
On the upside Theros is slow. The removal is apparently weak (black is the least-revealed color at the time of this writing) and it's looking like Onslaught block Limited, where you hang on tight for your bomb and ride that pony to victory. Scry is there to help people hit their land drops so they can build to that 7+ mana zone but I'm not seeing a lot of mana production spells just yet. I am wondering how grindy games will become because when you have grindy formats, Blue tends to be the color that does the best, and Magic really doesn't need more awesome Blue formats.
As it stands, U/W control decks are poised to make a huge comeback, U/B is going to be shored up by the reprint of Thoughtsieze and the best card draw spell in years is going to be printed in U/R with Steam Augury. I cannot understate how relevant I think Steam Augury is going to be. Fact or Fiction was an absolute monster of a card for years in the formats it could be cast in and if it existed in Modern, every Blue deck would run it. Steam Augury alone could account for U/B/r or U/W/r decks taking center stage or it could even officially kick off the U/R Young Pyromancer deck as being 'legit'. (I think it's legit already but I'm not a professional.)
The return of Blue wouldn't bother me so much if there was a proper counterbalance: A way for other colors to have stack interactions that gave players options. But I don't see that: I just see ginormous creatures (which can now be turned into pigs), wordy and expensive abilities (which can be nullified with Blue) and flavor overriding function, without interesting interactions that would suggest a deeper format for Standard-or contributions to a larger format elsewhere.
Finally, and this is just a personal thing, I utterly despise the Enchantment Artifacts, something every god apparently has. Here is a case where, for flavor reasons, they are erasing the line between two card types that has been eroding for years. As a matter of fact, flavor is the thing that did the most to separate them, as artifacts would show players how machines worked on a plane and enchantments how magic could manifest. The melding of this strongly suggests that there's no reason for one of those card types to exist and I would rather have had an emphasis on enchantments doing something that artifacts just couldn't, or the acceptance that gods -gasp- use tools! Hell, how about a storyline where the tools of the gods are being destroyed and thus transmuted into enchantments run amuck? This is the enchantment block, right?
On the upside, there are only going to be 15 of them so perhaps it won't be the flavor wrecking ball I feel they are.
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