Why were creatures in early mtg so weak but other types of spells were so OP?
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
 Ape Out Shirt $21.68 |
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
Why were creatures in early mtg so weak but other types of spells were so OP?
Generally speaking, everything was weak in early M:tG compared to today. Alpha and beta had some absolutely insane cards due to the devs not having a handle on balance (not that they have a particularly good one now, but comparatively). After that, the game stayed relatively low-power until the Urza block, where non-creature cards absolutely shot off the charts. There was an attempt to reign this in for a while afterwards, and then more recently a big, conscious push on WotC's part to encourage "interactivity" (e.g. targeting things on the board) led to the high-value, competitively-CMC-priced creatures that we see today.
To make a long story short: A lack of playtesting.
You know what's weird is that playtesting games like this is probably the one good thing that machine learning software would actually be good at and people refuse to use it that way. Instead they make content with it, instead of testing content with it.
Magic is really hard to fully automate. I'm sure it's not impossible but it's hard
AI is for drawing, writing and other artistic pursuit.
Human are for menial work and mind-numbing paperwork.
Wait...
I've never seen AI writing that interested me. It mostly seems used to churn out erotica
>Force of Nature
>Shivan Dragon
/Thread
There were better creatures than those
>hypnotic specter
>sengir vampire
>serra angel
>juzaam djinn
>ernham djinn
Even the basic ass white knights/black knights were surprisingly good, especially paired with global enchantments to boost strength.
Also, while it kind of sucked, I had a soft spot for a deck I had way back in the day that centered on using a leviathan and Stasis to freeze everything up. Since Leviathan untapped by eating islands, skipping untapped didn’t slow it down.
You're cherrypicking. That's a notoriously underpowered set.
Magic had plenty of strong creatures, but they cost a lot of mana. Serra Angel. Fat Moti. OG Juzam. Erhnam. Fire/Earth/Air/Water Elementals. Every color had a big thing to hit the opponent over the head with.
And if you mean "good" creatures, White Weenie was an archetype from the get-go. Savannah Lions was considered OP because it broke the "1 power for 1 mana" rule. White Knight having first strike + protection put it above the rest as well. Same goes for Black Knight, Erg Raiders, Hypnotic Specter - backed up by a Bad Moon instead of Crusade. Green was a slow color, but it had mana dorks (Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise) and ramp (Untamed Wilds) so its heavy beaters dropped faster. Blue kinda sucked on its own unless you went fish with Lord of Atlantis & co backed up by Sunken City from The Dark, but Power Sink, Spell Blast, and of course Counterspell could remove big threats before they happened and let you drop your Air Elemental/Phantom Monster to punch face. Red, of course, had Goblins. Even if individual ones weren't that good, Goblin King turned them into threats, and direct damage compensated for their shortcomings.
To sum it up - individual creatures didn't need to be powerful because the game was designed with concern for overall balance rather than that of each card by itself. (And power 9 showed how that can be a miss sometimes too.)
this was considered the best creature in the game at some point
So good they put him in DOTA!
The creators were more enamored with making a card game rather than making a well functioning card game with tight rigid rules. That's why there's hundreds of creature types with most bleeding out across all colors, very few unique mechanics relegated to one color, sloppy as frick power/toughness levels, horrible mana ramp exploits, etc etc etc.
It's a fantastic concept but the entire game needs to be scrapped and rebooted with tighter limitations.
Because the game isn't called Creatures: The Gathering.
I'm more one to wonder why any vaguely important character has to have at least 3/3 even if they're just some scientist or Leonardo Da Vinci who apparently among his other feats can backdrop a bear.
a single creature can win the game alone, one 3 power creature represents infinite lightning bolts
>Why were creatures in early mtg so weak but other types of spells were so OP?
Because the game was designed that way. That was the intended balance. Threats were deliberately rather shitty so that the game would last longer than three turns.
You're asking the wrong question anyway. You should ask, angrily, why the frick creatures are so pushed now in Creatures: The Sidewaysing. Why is everything undercosted by at least 2 mana and produces insane value when it enters or dies? Removal doesn't even do anything anymore since everything that's not protected just created a token or let you draw a card or something. 4 mana 4/4 with multiple upsides isn't even notable anymore.
A 3/2 for 3 is respectable in OS magic though.
In fact he saw some fringe play in slight. But ball lightning is almost always stronger
Early mtg wasn't meant to be a back-and-forth strategy game on the board. It was more of a fantasy poker where you mulliganed for a good hand, spent a couple turns trading cards 1 for 1, and then comboed off for the win with your full house (or the opponenet did before you).