Let's talk about MaRo

He's a good scapegoat and has talent at taking pressure away from the rest of the Magic team.

I'm not a fan of his, but he could leave tomorrow and I doubt anything would change.

He's a better designer than all of tg

His Drive to Work Podcast is great. Guy seems really down to Earth for getting shit on so much by the community over things out of his control.

MaRo'mrakul.

While I do not agree with everything he thinks, he seems to be genuinely trying his hardest to make Magic as best it can be in the area he actually does control. Development, on the other hand, seem to have their heads up their asses on what makes for good formats, despite their constant fuckups, and Creative can't write worth shit.
Also, he hates the Reserved List just as much as any of us.

...

He's a good designer when it comes to making a marketable set. The sets themselves aren't particularly good.

>spoiler
Source?

His job is to be the Minister of Propaganda. He is basically a professional shit-spinner.

I disagree but that seems like a matter of taste rather than objectively he's bad

10/10, would run in Jund Hellbent.

It's going to be ass looking through his blog, because of how much damn shit gets posted there constantly, but it's rather limiting on Wizards on what they can and can't do and really doesn't help them at all. And was started before he even began working there.
Though if I recall the thing that REALLY bothers him the most is the inability to make flying first strike 2/2s for 1WW which he keeps doing accidentally, since the Big Fancy Stuff that everyone wants isn't under his purview

>Celebrity worship syndrome (CWS) is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes overly involved with the details of a celebrity's person and life.

Just play the fucking game, he doesn't Love you back.

>He's a better designer than all of tg
That's not at all difficult. Maro isn't even to blame for most of the things Veeky Forums hates, and almost everything Veeky Forums does blame Maro (or anyone at Wizards) for is things that either would have been impossible for them to know (spoilers: the WotC office cannot playtest a game as well as thousands of magic players) or are honestly good decisions for the game and it's marketing ("Jacetice League" and diversity being the two biggest).

Veeky Forums flipped their shit that he said they don't want to print a lot of Red cards that deal ludicrous amounts of damage, because it amounts to being the same as removal. Veeky Forums flipped their shit as if he didn't want Red to have anything good, when he just meant they don't want cards that might as well be pic related.

>Though if I recall the thing that REALLY bothers him the most is the inability to make flying first strike 2/2s for 1WW which he keeps doing accidentally, since the Big Fancy Stuff that everyone wants isn't under his purview
What do you mean? Also, I don't want a flying first striker. That sounds terrible.
I also do think he can be too strict on the colour pie, or just arbitrary (Beast Within is perfectly fine in Green and terrible in blue)

I wonder if he wishes he could just work on Duel Masters instead. Is Maro a landfag like a lot of mtg players? Because if so, then I guess DM isn't for him.

>Reserved cards are cards that will never be printed again in a functionally identical form.
>A card is considered functionally identical to another card if it has the same card type, subtypes, abilities, mana cost, power, and toughness.
Shouldn't it be fine as long as it's not an Elemental Spirit?

pic related

I like how boom blade is worst that doom blade despite being functionally the same spell, all because of the samantics of destroying vs. dealing damage.

Thunder Spirit - with a different name and creature type - would be a good common for draft in various situations.
They are incapable of printing a 2/2 flier with first strike at 1WW because Thunder Spirit is on the Reserved List.
Just creature type apparently doesn't count for Reserved List purposes, apparently - as far as their legal team is concerned, at least. Same with adding Snow to the duals.
He worked on Duel Masters when it first came out and helped come up with the mana system there, and currently thinks it's not a good idea BECAUSE you're guaranteed a perfect curve

He feels that mana is one of the most important parts of Magic. I believe it's "The Colour Pie" (even if early stuff ignored it), "Mana", and "the Collectable Card Game Format"

Oh, that's why. Although there are similar things. I assume it's more "I wish this aspect wasn't inviolate" as opposed to "I specifically want to print this card".
magiccards.info/query?q=o:flying, o:first o:strike pow=2 cmc=3&v=card&s=cname

Yeah, but still. They don't want a bunch of cards like Blasphemous Acts except sparingly.

Exactly, I don't think there should be a ton of blasphemous acts floating around, I just get a chuckle out of Boom Blade. (The name is rad as hell though)

>is things that either would have been impossible for them to know (spoilers: the WotC office cannot playtest a game as well as thousands of magic players)
one of the things that still makes me like WotC is they are pretty good about admitting when something they did was a total fuckup, and why.

Skullclamp: they published the design history that lead to that fuckup.
JtMS: even the community didn't understand how powerful that was for quite some time, and when it did distort the metagame so hard, they published a full description of their reasoning for the banning.
Mental Mistep: again, reason why they made it, and why it didn't work.

>Red
They also flipped their shit when he started giving red more options, because he thought they were too narrow of a color.
IIRC He was the voice behind red getting more card draw through rummage, random discard, exile-play, etc.
Solidify red as temporary control effects, mainly creatures, but also spells, other permanents.

>thinks it's not a good idea BECAUSE you're guaranteed a perfect curve
Then he's just narrow minded because you can always offset consistency in one area by making other things less consistent, but it's hard to do the opposite. A powerful albeit random mechanic can shift decks to being less predictable, but a mechanic that increases consistency can throw everything out of balance.

I want to see some mechanical representations of Love in Red. Call it "Lovestruck Martyr" or something and Spellskite's effect would be perfect for Red. It already has redirect effects.

Actually. I spent way too long making this.

I feel like it would make more sense as something like "Sacrifice ~: Counter target spell that targets you", which is almost an acceptable color bleed.

Possibly. I was going more for a "jump in front of the spear" sort of thing. But I couldn't find a good image of that. I don't know if an actual counter would really be Red. But then again, I was wrong about Red getting Redirect effects. Only one it gets is Wild Ricochet (which is also a spell copy effect).

>Reserved List
>legal team

what? is there even a legally binding contract or document that states Wizards can't print Reserved List cards other than collectors being mad as their investment suddenly become worthless?
I look at it like comic books. An issue printed in the 1940s will be very valuable compared to a newer reprint because of rarity. then again, I don't know what the reprint policy for comic books

"A promissory estoppel is the legal principle that a promise is enforceable by law when the promisor (person making the promise) makes a promise to the promisee (person being promised) who relies on it to his or her detriment."
Basically, because Wizards of the Coast made a promise all those years ago, anybody who bought cards on the reserved list under the assumption that they'd not be reprinted (or claimed they did) could sue the pants off of Wizards if they reprinted anything on the list.

>An issue printed in the 1940s will be very valuable compared to a newer reprint because of rarity.
That is true, a NM Beta lightning bolt goes for +$100 while a new one goes for ~$2, but that's because it's been reprinted so many times.

But stuff like the Dual Lands and Power 9 haven't been printed since 1994, they would probably tank a little from people who have white bordered versions selling them just to get the new ones (kind of like Force of Wills and other cards reprinted in Eternal Masters did) which are actually cheaper due to not being as old. But they know the collector market is going to be fucking livid at them for breaking a ~20 year old promise, so they won't do it.

>is there even a legally binding contract or document that states Wizards can't print Reserved List cards
Literally this, yes. The specifics are under gag order, but that's the gist of it.

I believe Maro is shackled. I really want to. I opened Urza block packs, and my fondest years in the game were during Apocalypse. He's got magic in him. But when he started talking about slow-rolling cardnames and mechanics to "keep the design space open" and not printing certain mechanics, though super fun, because they were unintuitive... I knew they had locked up his inner child to keep it in the closet for slow quarters or a player base crash. We gotta set him free. Gotta set the game free. Go back to when the art and creative direction came up with new fusions of fiction and mythos, with bold and ambitious projects like decade-spanning storylines with complex characters. I'm tired of having to be apologetic for my favorite game because of pricy cardboard or angsty "writing".

Help me, Veeky Forums. Please.

There was a provision in the reserve list that allowed them to print special foil versions of the cards, but that was taken out after people got pissed that Mox Diamond and to a lesser extent, Karn, Silver Golem was reprinted in FtV Relics despite being on the reserve list.

They can still print cards that are on the reserve list as gold bordered non-legal cards and as oversized cards, but that's only been done for Sliver Queen and Karn, Silver Golem so far, at least as far as I'm aware.

>"keep the design space open"
And then they go and print fucking investigate.

I'm convinced that Investigate was the trial run for Assemble, and that we're going to get Riggers in Poo in the Loo.

I don't care how impossible it is, I WANT TO HABEEB!

What are you complaining about?

>not printing certain mechanics, though super fun, because they were unintuitive... I knew they had locked up his inner child to keep it in the closet
Why do you people act like complex and unintuitive things are better? Almost every time someone says this, or begs for Mana Burn or damage on the stack back, I always assume they either didn't actually understand those mechanics in the first place but think they did, or they want them back so that they can confuse people who don't understand them.

Investigate is a mechanically simple keyword whose potential is destroyed by the overly specific terms. It's almost as bad as ninjutsu and bushido.

I don't know if I agree. Investigate can be used on any plane ever, so long as there's a mystery. Ninjutsu and Bushido can only be used on a plane if there's ninja and samurai.

>Help me, Veeky Forums. Please.
You cannot be helped. You have to be so far gone down the rabbit hole to think that having decades-spanning storylines wouldn't bore the shit out of the core audience. You have to be out of your mind to think yourself capable of designing a better balanced set than RnD. Do you regularly create cubes full of custom cards, and have teams to playtest them in the various formats?
Investigate does not have very much design space, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Chroma had almost no design space, but they wouldn't have developed it into Devotion if they gave up on every mechanic that didn't work. Not every new mechanic needs to be so open as to get evergreened.

I think he's the hero Design deserves even if I would knife-fight him over his ideas on flavour and story delivery. Two things I doubt he has as much influence as Veeky Forums often assumes.

I think that for the most part Wizards is doing perfectly fine. But the one who makes all the story decisions Veeky Forums hates (like Jacetice League) is probably Doug Bayer.

I wonder if wizards found a reason to legalize gold-bordered cards, print a fuckton of the reserved list in gold, and then say, "Oops! We have no choice but to make all these gold borders legal now!"

The entirety of Beta was printed in Gold Borders, but that shit's less numerous than the original printing.

Don't forget Development, who handle power level stuff but can't find their ass with a detailed anatomy chart

If WotC wanted to, they could weasel their way around the RL. Look at Reverberate, Twincast, Plague Sliver and the new Donate.

To WotC, some of those RL cards are like a gold coin collection you inherited from your grandpa. If you are smart, you'll sell them only when you absolutely need to.

Collector's edition? They are very cheap compared to beta. I've bought them in the past just to have black bordered versions of revised/unlimited cards I own.

The price (on the power nine and dual lands) would go up an insane amount if they were considered legal.

This is true. There's zero percent chance that would ever happen though, starting with the simple reason that they aren't Magic cards. They are cut differently (sharp corners) and have different backs. Only usable in sleeves.

Most people with souls sleeve their cards, though.

I'm with you. I'm just saying that's reason enough for them to never consider the idea.

They allow Alpha only if sleeved, wouldn't be that much of a change. Not to mention all of the gold bordered tournament reproduction decks.

Honestly, if Wizards ever wanted to just go full "fuck the secondary market" they'd bring back the tournament reproduction decks, and then allow them to be played with sleeves in sanctioned events.

They got in shit for Reverberate IIRC - it wasn't different enough from Fork, and is part of the Shit Gotten Into with the FTV/Duel Decks foils like Karn and Negator that they'd done, and which they stopped doing soon after.
Twincast and Harmless Offering are different colored, so are definitely different enough for the reserved list to not apply, while Plague Sliver gets worse in multiples and is teeeechnically a hoser card as well so manages to slip by.

>(spoilers: the WotC office cannot playtest a game as well as thousands of magic players)
I know you think you can do better, but let's be honest you're full of fucking shit and Development does a phenomenal job all things considered. If you think Development team does a bad job, maybe you should try playing one of the other card games. I'll tell you a secret, though: they all tend to suck.

So, pretty simple. Make duals that hit you for 1 life ETB if there you control another copy - strictly worse in multiples - and moxes taht are also the color of the mana they produce - different color than the original, so technically okay.

Well yeah, other card games don't even HAVE separate development teams.
I was more talking about how they seem incredibly scared of everything and are afraid to take any risks...and thus any mistakes they make run wildly out of control instead

Hiya, Mark. How's your weekend going?

People didn't give much of a shit about Negator or Karn because they were worth less than $10 so it wasn't tanking the price that much anyway, it was Mox Diamond that people went nuts about, because it was actually a valuable card at the time.

The problem with the duals and moxen is that then players would get an entire extra playset to fuck around with, which would fuck up legacy/vintage. And the decks with the new duals still wouldn't be optimal, because the old ones were strictly better.

I'm sorry that you're too stupid to understand how the world works and think that you'd TOTALLY be the best card game designer ever (and you wouldn't even NEED a team!) but that doesn't mean shit.

Can you give me examples? I don't really play the pro formats. I know people bitch about certain decks, but most of the time it seems like the metagame clock is still at work. It also gets substantially harder for them to test formats.

I mean, I'm assuming you're talking about things like Eldrazi decks and Siege Rhino? I mean, as far as I'm aware these kind of "one best deck" problems are things they're trying to stop, they just don't have the necessary manpower (which is essentially "all of it") to even know about certain problems.

>they just don't have the necessary manpower to simply not print cheap and powerful Eldrazi when they know that Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple exist
You're the worst shill ever.

Ban the old versions, play the new cards. If the objective is to circumvent the RL, you are going to have to lose something in the process. A slight loss of power is not a huge deal if it infuses some life back into eternal formats, I think.

You have no idea how many players would quit the game if they banned cards from vintage.

Fuck, I don't even play vintage and I'd quit on principle alone.

Almost no decks in eternal formats max out on ABU duals

Yeah, but if the moxen/lotus worked the way he's suggesting you can bet that most decks would definitely use both playsets.

Considering that vintage players are a drop in the ocean of magic players and that making the format accesible would bring new players in, quitting seems an empty threat.

And rage quitting the game beacuse a format you dont even play got some cards banned seems insane. Its like setting your Focus on fire because Ford stopped making the Prius.

The whole point of vintage is to be able to play Lotus/Moxen. Otherwise, its just Legacy.

Again. Ban the old, play the new.

Might as well just play Yugioh at that point.

Nah, the new for example Lotus would have the text 'White Lotus is all colors. A deck can't contain both White Lotus and Black Lotus.' or some shit

I see the sense in that. But wouldnt it be better to play Vintage with a whole bunch of people, and not just a few?

They don't have the necessary manpower to know how format dominating something will be, no. The Future Future League can only do so much, and most of those players aren't amazing at the game. Again, Veeky Forums thinks they could do great even without a team, but Veeky Forums is fucking stupid.

People who try to give you a dose of reality aren't "shills".

You're full of shit. No one who doesn't care about Vintage would quit.

The fact of the matter is that they *can't* circumvent the RL. Banning the cards would still likely have those ancient collectors' lawyers on their asses, too.

Don't be fucking stupid. That doesn't even make sense.

That's why MtGO and the free versions exist.

No. Just play Legacy.

Legacy is stupid expensive too, because of Dual Lands.

They have circumvemted it already. Fuck, they did so this very week! They have already set the precedent that changing a card's color is enough.

You also can't donate something to yourself, though.

Wow. Dude, you have some pretty fucked up childhood issues. You are the kid who would rather play alone than share his toys.

Colourshifting something isn't the type of circumventing we're talking about here.

You also can't Donate to a team partner.

yes

Vintage without power nine is literally Legacy.

Vintage is already accessable, since all the super expensive cards can just be proxied (legally, even). Banning the most powerful cards won't do anything.

Not quite. There are other things that are banned from legacy, you know.

If you're more upset about Legacy, why are you only whining about Vintage?

I'm not playing Vintage/Legacy.
Hell, I've been lurking Pauper General all day.

>If you're more upset about Legacy, why are you only whining about Vintage?
Because Vintage is the one that he was talking about.

That is exactly what we are talking about. Two of the first examples were twincast and the new donate, and apparently, those are okay.

>They don't have the necessary manpower to know how format dominating something will be, no
>being this fucking dense
No one needs more than a second of thinking to see that printing something like this is a bad idea.

They did not care about Eye of Ugin.

No shit, faggot. For a second I thought they actually knew that card was real.

No, you missunderstand what I'm saying. They knew the interaction was stupid. They just didn't care because it wasn't in standard.

They balance for standard. If shit's broken elsewhere, they ban it.

So, Harmless Offering is an okay version of Donate, because of targeting issues. So, I guess this would be okay then

Selfish Recall
Instant U
Draw 3 cards.

Elsewhere meaning Modern.

>Investigate does not have very much design space
Does cycling have design space? Do cantrips have design space? You have to take into account how lightweight a mechanic is when asking how much design space there is.

Except they'd never print that because it's fucking stupid.