Vanilla Creatures Are Dead, Long Live Vanilla Creatures!
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- Опубликовано: 4 сен 2024
- An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss vanilla creatures, or creatures with no additional ability, and why they are important in card games.
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Gavin Valentine www.gavinvalen...
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Thumbnail Artwork: Isamaru, Hound of Konda by Christopher Moeller
I have a mini collection of 74 Fortress Crabs. I came second on a prerelase night for Innistrad by picking up 7 Fortress Crabs and some random equipment from the pool, and after that people at the lgs just started handing me any Fortress Crabs they had instead of putting them in the bin. I love them ❤
Haha that’s incredible
Could there be a way to have all of them in one deck?
Yeah if only you could do a rat ball style deck (a crab bisque deck if you will)
@@Grogeous_Maximus Really bad cube format
Could also play 99 copies of the same card if youre playing Chilean Lowlander
I miss the little lore snippets that came along with vanilla creatures. There's so much text dedicated to abilities/rules now, there's no more space for world building
My favorite card since i was 12 has been Enormous Baloth. Rest in Peace sweet prince. I hope you can eat fruits, plants, small woodland animals, large woodland animals, woodlands, fruit groves, fruit farmers, and small cities in the sky.
Wish I could heart this twice 😆
Badass art and badass flavor-text, what more do you need?
This was one of the first cards I got, I think a neighbour gave me it with some other random cards. This was way before I even knew what Magic really was about. I always thought that the art looked cool, and it still is.
"If you are online watching RUclips and talking about Magic, you are probably not a casual player" THANK YOU. I've been saying this for like 2 years.
I used to spend a lot of time on Hearthpwn and when I realized the proportions of how many people complained online versus play the game, I realized it took a very invested (and usually unhappy) player to actually go online and seek out conversation and discourse. Everybody else (the casual majority of the playerbase) is chilling, enjoying the game, and not thinking about it much when they're doing something else.
Or they're leaving without saying so, while being filled in with some newb to take their place.
This is true of most things. The most invested are the loudest, for better or worse. The overwhelming majority just goes with the flow until whatever it is doesn't work for them anymore, and then they move on.
My poor dopamine-starved brain is incapable of comprehending how someone could remain interested in something without thinking about it constantly.
There's a shocking amount of people who don't get this. It's like there are two kinds of casual, the true casual and the invested casual, and the catch is that the invested casuals think they're the true casuals. The reality is that they're generally not.
@@PhoenicopterusR It depends what the point of comparison is. There’s casual in contrast to invested, and then there’s casual in contrast to professional.
@@PhoenicopterusR once you're invested in anything such that you're seeking out more information on it, you're no longer casual. You may not be obsessed like a true hardcore player, but you're no longer casual.
The funny thing is that whether these players are competitive or not is irrelevant, and they don't seem to know that. You can be hardcore into something and still enjoy it at a non-competitive level. You can be a casual player, and be competitive. The level of investment is all about the time spent.
There actually is one 2/2 for 2 in blue, without a downside, in Thunder Junction, it's called Archmage's Newt.
A 2/2 for 2 with a big upside even
I'd go as far as to call this a color pie break
Ruxa, Patient Professor is a "vanilla creatures matter" card/commander. They have three abilities, 1)"When x enters or attacks, return target creature with no abilities from your graveyard to your hand. 2) Creatures with no abilities get +1/+1 and 3) You may have creatures you control with no abilities assign their combat damage as though they weren't blocked.
So it has graveyard recursion, global stat buff, and psuedo-evasion all on one card, for all of your no ability creatures. Does ALL of that even do enough to make vanilla creatures worth it? Idk if it does.
My favorite vanilla to is the 3/1 for 2. It wears equipment and enchantments well and is begging to trade way up in value with a combat trick. It really shows off the way your decks cards and gameplan can interlink together.
I still run a Selesnya “Zoo” deck featuring Savannah Lions, Isamaru, Loam Lion, Watchwolf, Fleecemane Lion, alongside Thrill of the Hunt, Bathe in Light, and Moldervine Cloak! It is awesome!
It goes back to the FIRE era realization that complexity is no longer the #1 obstacle for new players, excitement is. So they opted to design cards that make a new player excited on first read.
This, 100%. I think the proliferation of video games is much of this - complexity is less of an issue for the increasing number of new players who have played many games before! Back when understanding alternating turn order, life totals, resource systems (in general), creature health was a step new players had to make, vanilla creatures helped keep the game approachable, but nowadays most new players have probably played a video game that introduced them to half or more of these things.
Magic has a couple of vanilla synergy pieces, notably Jasmine Boreal of the Seven, Muraganda Petroglyphs, and Ruxa, Patient Professor (who is, of course, a bear). Maro is regularly asked for more vanilla synergy pieces on his blogatog, but he's explained that there just isn't much design space for it left.
I love vanilla and french vanilla creatures. I use them liberally in my cubes, especially the Elementary Cube, which is all about getting a grip on the fundamentals of Magic through draft.
I think this is really indicative of a larger issue with magic in that they (Wotc/Maro) act like every new set/ card design absolutely MUST push some type of boundary forward (which for them it probably does bc revenue is known to dip for "weaker" sets) and that, in turn, means that things like core sets and vanilla creatures are seen as not desirable, which is a shame. I'd love to draft a lower-power set again with fewer keywoards and branching mechanical rebrandings...would also help get my friends into it.
0:35 the first LotR set was actually the most recent printing of a new truly vanilla creature (and the most recent vanilla even if we count reprints), however it was not found in packs. In a set of 60 card precons there was printed 2 (I think) vanilla creatures, one of which being Goblin Assailant, which is just a red bear.
Goblin Assailant is a reprint, as is Knight of the Keep, the other LTR vanilla.
Vanilla creatures are still in the game.... they're just called tokens now.
Even a ton of the tokens today aren’t vanilla creatures. Whether they have haste trample etc
@@jareddumke5300 oh man, good point!
@@jareddumke5300 French Vanilla. But yeah you get tokens now that say "sac and counter" or "deal 1 upon death".
Even if vanilla creatures aren't played in a set, they still have value in a set for worldbuilding and lore :D
Also just a clarification that fusion elemental was actually printed in conflux originally and reprinted in brothers war commander.
Great vids! Thanks for insightful topics!
I've made a couple of card games over the years, and one thing I've always stuck by is the bears and blades test. If your game is interesting enough at a systems level to where you can have fun playing with just grizzly bears and doom blades, you're on the right track. I think taht vanillas need to be in the game as a benchmark, even if they would suck in constructed.
I was REALLY hoping that after the last plot point, where the planeswalkers (mostly) all lost their sparks, that wizards would do a power reset. Reel everything back in and start the power creep all over again.
They've already established a pattern of planeswalkers being gods before there's a snapback. The mending.. and whatever this last event called it. Use those universal resets as a clean slate. Each reset is also the perfect time for new players to onboard easily. But they'd have to stop pushing commander cards in standard sets.. so maybe that was too optimistic..
I think its a weird situation where vanilla creatures are too complicated for newer players to appreciate.
If you have 10 vanilla creatures with various stat lines, an experienced player can conceptualize how the various creatures trade with each other, or how valuable their stats are relative to the baseline.
A newer player sees a 3 mana 5/3 and doesnt really have a frame of reference for what situations it could be good. But a 3 mana 1/1 that makes snake token every turn already has a strong theme and a power that a new player can easily conceptualize. Theyll dream about making millions of snakes.
Yeah, I feel like a new player cannot even conceptualize the power curve, which is integral to magic. Once they can do that for each color, they're not a new player anymore. They have grasped "the meta" in the most basic sense and the difference between colors and playstyles.
In all fairness, Combat math just doesn't matter that much in constructed formats nowadays. Think about it the next time you are playing or watching some games. 90% of the time in constructed formats, it is incredibly obvious when you should or shouldn't attack and you play accordingly. Combat math is far more important in limited where combat tricks and other stuff exist and where removal is at a premium and board wipes are non-existent so board states get larger and more cumbersome.
EDIT: Interestingly enough, they have managed to keep Lands "vanilla", and that increase in "text" has not really affected them the same way.. and people don't even notice!
Can you imagine if they continued to print Vanilla creatures that had to keep up with today's standards to stay relevant? They would all probably be "Gigantosaurus".
I wonder if WotC has moved away from them because of such a reason (preventing a different type of "power creep").
The reality is that they could easily make a handful of vanilla creatures, that could be recycled through sets as needed, for each color, and have them be relevant but not be power crept.
Green, to start with since it IS the creature color, could easily have a GG 4/5 vanilla. It gives an aggro green deck, or any deck that can afford the double pip, a beefy creature without the work of Goyf. It also doesn't really undermine Goyf, because Goyf is more easily splashable, while potentially getting much bigger.
The same could be done for all colors, keeping stats and costs relevant to that particular color. Black could go either more offense or more defense, or even do one of each, as Black tends to have beefy 1/4s as easily as it has 5/1s. White could split the difference and be a 3/4 for WW, or a 2/3 for 1W. Red goes more aggro, but weaker stats for the cost, and Blue would typically get a more defensive creature for a slightly increased cost.
It can be done, such that, at a minimum, the creatures are usable in draft. And if a GG 4/5 ends up seeing some Constructed play, then so be it.
Additionally, and more along the lines of what I'd love to see, is more quality French vanilla cards in the game, with costs that made them actually useful to be considered for deck building.
@@Xoulrath_ The idea of recurring cycles of expensive-pip mono-color creatures would be a way to go!
And "French Vanilla" should be the standard and the norm.
@@DanielRedMoonvanilla and French vanilla both have places in the game, you pay for stats and abilities, so all you have to do to make both cards fair and balanced is you get fair stats for a cost when you don't get an effect with it
I LOVE Stiff Breeze. It would get played in a ton of decks.
It does break the color pie a bit and also the flavor doesn't quite do it. A stiff breeze doesn't kill anyone.
So I think, what you want to do instead is something like
"Tap Target creature. If it's toughness if 2 or less, put a stun counter on it." or some variety on this. That way it still plays with the idea of low toughness creatures being more affected by strong winds.
And to extend on that, how cool would be a global version of the effect, eg. an instant for about 4-5 mana: "Return all creatures with toughness two or less to their owners hands. Tap all creatures. Put a Stun counter on all creatures with toughness 4 or less."
So what ends up happening is, the tiny stuff gets blown back to their owners hand, the medium sized dudes with 3 and 4 toughness have to get back on their feet and everything with toughness 5 or greater is like "well this was a bit of an inconvenience".
@@paulszki yeah it would be great in black
Loved this episode! Big fan of vanilla creatures, they’re my favorite because of the simplicity and awesome flavor text, less is more!
I’m currently building a Jasmine, Boreal of the Seven Pauper Commander deck with only vanilla creatures, it’s awesome :)
I think vanilla creatures are great for showing what the floor is for each color and setting a foundation for all other cards seen thereafter.
I can't imagine there's a lot of room left for new vanilla creatures, but reprinting old ones won't always be viable for new planes WotC may develop. It's an interesting dilemma
They could just print skins of vanilla creatures to repurpose them for new planes and draft environments, the same way they do skins for secret lairs.
The starter kit Lord of the Rings product had vanilla creatures with no abilities. Goblin Assailant and Knight of the Keep.
"Wait you can make dr who put on the one ring???" is the modern version of "Wait you can make a hawk wield a magic sword???".
Dr. Who can't wear the One Ring, 'cause it isn't an equipment...
wait... WHY ISN'T THE ONE RING AN EQUIPMENT??? Horrifying.
@@lucasriddle3431 It's not an equipment because the player will never willingly give it away.
I think that cube idea would be great. I don't know if they could manage to build one without stuffing it full of cards for commander or power crept cards.
I do love commander, but when my favorite deck takes 2 pregame actions to reveal an extra deck and companion respectively. Together with two commanders because of differently worded partner. It is impossible to call it a good environment for new players.
Vanilla's have a hard time making an impact in anything but draft. Seeing as a lot of cards have abilities that scale, So anything under a 1 mana 3/3 or a 2 mana 4/4 would probably be out scaled by cards with text (while probably dominating limited and not being a rare, as it is a vanilla).
That cube idea is amazing, keep it simple, give it some good reprints, and have it function as a finely tuned cube.
This way, its amazing for new players, as drafting is fun, and has a lot of replay value. While also being great for experienced players, as a starting point for their own cube, for the reprints or because its a fun cube.
Oh the cards you're also wanting to put up on screen when referencing "commanders that care about vanilla" are:
Jasmine Boreal of the Seven
Ruxa, Patient Professor
I still miss the previous Legend rule. Being able to use clones and such as removal was such interesting tech.
Drive to work podcast 444, Mark Rosewater goes into the design restrictions and constraints of designing a "Vanilla Matters" mechanic.
I think vanilla creatures aren't being printed anymore is really because they're entirely defined by their stats and mana cost. like a 2 mana 2/2 doesn't need a "new" 2 mana 2/2, because they're exactly the same, even if the new one has new art and name. For commander especially, any vanilla creature you could ever want of any stat and mana cost combo exists already, we don't need more. Imo vanilla cards shine in creativity when they're like Isamaru or Gigantosaurus, where their rarity or stat spread IS their identity, which I do wish they would print more of.
That's only so true, because you still have things like tribal concerns and what you want, sure there's a spread, but if you look at say dwarf tribal, they have a 1 mana 1/1 for vanilla cards, the closest they will get otherwise is from effects that don't matter like enslaved dwarf which is a 1 mana 1/1 that can sacrfice itself to give plus 1 damage and firststrike to a black creature, smaller tribal could really get a lot of help with some vanilla creatures that are just good stats for the cost, particularly in low power settings where people aren't trying to win with a combo that goes off gives infinite mana and invite draw
I think Jumpstart and Jumpstart 2022 were sets that fill that role you guys mentioned at the end - a boxed experience that new players can just open and play. I'd like to see more of those
I feel like the extinction of vanilla creatures is a way of avoiding power creep. What stats would a vanilla common 2 mana green creature need to have to even see play in draft? 3/3? 3/4? If you start playing with stats like that, then it would start warping creatures with abilities around it.
I have a casual Jasmine, Boreal of the Seven Commander Deck. It has all three Vanilla support cards in it, as well as the best lineup I could find for mono-White, mono-Green, and Selesnya colored vanilla creatures(in terms of cost-to-stat ratio) in it, and outside of the Jasmine and Ruxa the only creatures in it that have anything resembling abilities are a handful of white and green adventure cards that are a "vanilla" creatures on one side of the card. Also made sure that and enchantments or other stuff to buff the creatures do not turn them French Vanilla, thus losing the ability to use Jasmine's effect.
In November, MTG is coming out with Foundations, the standard-legal, draftable replacement for Core for the next 5-ish years. It includes the likes of Llanowar Elves, Omniscience, Day of Judgement, and a new "Anthem of Champions" that's a simple +1/+1 anthem for GW. Regardless of what they put into it, it's going to be the new baseline of MtG for multiple years.
Something I like more about MtG vanillas over YGO vanillas is that they set a baseline expectation of what the powerlevel of the each color's creatures are. YGO has since the dawn of time had vanillas that could be the hottest garbage or backbreaking for no rhyme or reason, and while it was the only way you got flavor text, it was all generically badass stuff that doesn't reflect the card's stats at all. With MtG, you know that if a creature is going to be more powerful than the vanilla rate, it will either: cost more mana to play; reduce the statline to make it easier to remove; or give it a detrimental ability. You could also increase the rarity, but that's more of an accessibility hurdle than actual game balance. We're long past the days where there's only three copies of a Rare in a given game store's region to trade for; now you can just buy a playset online or proxy it.
I digress. Do you want a Grizzly Bears that's also able to tap for mana like Birds of Paradise? Make it a 1/1 for 1G that can tap for one or two colors of mana, now you have a Quirion Elves. There was a general structure to what values and abilities were "worth" a certain amount of mana cost or P/T to compensate. Now? We get a 1R 2/2 that can sorcery-speed tap itself to give one of your creatures Haste, as a common; a better Grizzly Bears in Red whose creatures are supposed to be a full 1 mana more expensive than Green. What does Green get in the same set? A 1/3 for 1G that can tap for any color of mana. Not strictly better Bears because it's 1 power, but it's pretty darn close with that extra toughness.
It also doesn't help that FIRE design doesn't resonate with me. Might be because I'm primarily an EDH player, but instead of thinking, "Wow, this card is so cool. I want build around this." I think, "Ah, more sparkly value engines. I guess these other cards can slot into the decks I already have as sidegrades to cards that are already in there." They're powerful and exciting, but not inspiring, if you get what I mean.
Man, I love the idea of them selling a full playable cube for each set with maybe some variance to it. If it were at the price point of say, an old draft booster box, I'd totally buy that. And I don't even play MtG anymore!
They do have a vanilla commander released in the Strixhaven set: Ruxa Patient Professor; mono green bear;
Whenever Ruxa, Patient Professor enters the battlefield or attacks, return target creature card with no abilities from your graveyard to your hand.
Creatures you control with no abilities get +1/+1.
For each creature you control with no abilities, you may have that creature assign its combat damage as though it weren’t blocked.
What I like about that design is that the recursion effect doesn't work on tokens, but the other two effects do, because that's the easiest way to do vanilla matters.
Don't forget Jasmine of the Boreal. It helps you cast vanilla creatures and punishes opponents for not playing them
I really like vanilla creatures because they can effectively be these conduits for synergies and payoffs by having various traits that other cards can reference. If you have a 2/1 Goblin for RR, that's decent enough, a bit below rate, but since it's a Goblin it works well with Goblin Warchief and Goblin Grenade. Its mana cost sets it up for being used in Devotion decks and the P/T can probably also be referenced somehow (Tetsuko Umezawa, for example)
Vanillas really are underrated in card game design
I’ve been designing a card game and one of the first things I did was make a “learn kit”. During development, I quickly realized that vanilla is so necessary to help alleviate the hurdle of information to learn a TCG.
MTG is so large now that it does not need vanilla anymore. People love the game so much that they evangelize it so thoroughly that they babystep friends to learn the game and play together.
Without this, the game would not grow. But thanks to this nature, MTG will grow anyway.
I think my best argument for why vanilla creatures should stick around is that it gives a clear upgrade target in precons helping players learn how to customize their decks and evaluate cards.
@@distractionmakers I think WOTC has lost control of MTG, and we the players need to create our own formats and metas to preserve anything left. Commander is self policed. Cube-ism is on the rise. Kitchen Table Magic is the most popular format.
The corporate need for profit and limitless growth is leading to power creep and the mixing of the Color Pie, as well as more short sighted decisions that stave off the inevitable for another set. Longer rotations leads to power creep. Selling to Modern and Commander players leads to power creep.
MTG is rolling down the hill, trying to keep the momentum going as long and as fast as possible. But it doesn't have any brakes.
Yargle and Multani, the evolution of a vanilla creature surviving in a power crept environment and they still managed to add a paragraph of flavor text to it ;p
Vizzerdrix was a staple at my kitchen table magic group back in the day
Have you seen the mtg commercial though? 😆
@@distractionmakers Vizzerdrix and Kezzerdrix are family goals, those fluffy bunnies will take no disrespect
I think an issue with looking at any instance of power creep before around Kamigawa, is that they were really still figuring out the game. Any set that has cards like choke, summer bloom, dark ritual, or other equally busted or color pie breaking cards are clearly sets that aren't quite at the baseline of figuring out the game fully. I think up until the power of the creatures became comparable to the power of the spells, they were more tuning and correcting than power creeping
One of my prized possessions is a playset of 4 vizzerdrix. Such an icon
the 'most complicated label' was in an FBI report, because all their nerds and super-computers couldn't crack it, that report was from around 2008-09.
According to Gavin, Blue just got its first 2 mana 2/2 in OTJ in the form of Archmage's Newt. It's far from Vanilla, but interesting nonetheless. While there is certainly some power creep in current day Magic, it is pretty wild to say that it's taken nearly 30 years for the non-creature oriented color to have an on-rate 2 drop.
So in other words the colors don't matter anymore.
I think vanilla creatures that can be augmented and imbued with effects and abilities by quipments, enchantments etc. is a timeless concept that is impervious to power or complexity creep and will always have a place in any tcg basically...
I'd argue that it's actually essential for balancing against power and complexity creep and provides some much needed simplicity as well as variety to the playstyles available in the game.
We in fact do have a vanilla commander in the form of my boy Ruxa, Patient Professor! Ironically also from Strixhaven the last plane to have a true vanilla.
About Marvel Snap I absolutely hate the High Evolutionary, because literally after the very first tutorial I wondered to myself if there's something for these initial vanilla cards to keep up with the power scaling of the other cards, as I liked the characters and got curious to build a deck with them once I obtained more cards. Then I discover about the High Evolutionary, THE card to build a vanilla creatures deck, and his power is to just give each of those creatures a unique ability at game start? completely undermining the vanilla part of the deck and just making it a "reduce power" archetype.
Like Ruxa does give abilities to the creatures, but he's consistent on his effect, affecting each creature equally, and only does so while on board making him a tool and a strategy, High Evolutionary just asks you to imagine what if these vanilla cards were "real cards"
So there's a card called Jasmine Boreal of the Seven who is a mana dork for vanilla creatures and makes vanilla creatures unlockable by creatures with abilities. They could make other creatures/cards that do similar things
The problem with this design space is that your deck doesn't actually do any thing if your vanilla enhancers get removed. Sure, not every deck needs to be competitive, but there's more than that going on here. You're dedicating a set's card slots to "boring" cards, you'd need a critical mass of vanilla creatures. Which then other than the couple of players that like doing weird things these cards get relegated to draft chaff. Honestly I don't blame them for thinking it's not worth the effort.
My favorite card is a vanilla, Eager Cadet (7e). That will never change.
MTG Foundations being announced seems to be the exact thing to be that baseline + cube for standard. Would love to hear your thoughts on the set (maybe once we know more what's in it?)
Basic creature, like basic land. Make an effect that cares about the basic supertype?
Love it!
This is actually genius
Around the time I first got into Magic, I was pretty fascinated with the "above the curve" green vanilla creatures like Kalonian Tusker and Leatherback Baloth. I thought they were good value for the cost, and thought about making a deck with just those creatures and a bunch of pump effects lol. As a result, "Ruxa, Patient Professor" became one of my favorite commanders since I could finally give all of those creatures a home, as Ruxa incentivises you to play actual vanilla creature cards. I agree that there isn't much more design space in the area of vanilla creatures, so I understand why they don't make more, since they would mostly just be copies of older ones unless they made strictly power-crept versions. It is kinda funny though that today you see above the curve creatures with multiple upsides but no above the curve vanilla creatures anymore.
1 hybrid mana legendry 2/2s could be relevant both in draft and perhaps for brawl/commander..
Dunno if cards using phyrexian mana would be considered vanilla - but they would have the upside of more space for flavor text and being simple on the board while effectively hawing lose life when cast kicker do not lose life (and ciker cost included in the nominal mana value - which would be slight upside for some mechanics like collect evidence)...
Also of course wacky stats would give synergy for some deck - fling that high power one use "butslam" with high toughness ones.. So for 60 cards max 4 of a kind formats those kind of vanilla creatures might be interesting - probably in 2 to 4 mana cost range..
Relevant creature types could also make vanilla creatures more viable and interesting for deckbuilding especially for beginners.
Sounds like you guys are describing a version of their "Game Night" product... if it was good lol
I think vanilla creature support would fall into that parasitic design you guys talked about a while ago. It would have to be something like an equipment that can only be put on a vanilla creature, but then it would have to be strong enough to make getting both puzzle pieces worthwhile.
The green strixhaven bear commander gives all vanilla creatures +2/+2
There were actually 2 vanilla creatures in the LOTR dual decks!
It’s true! I was referring to main sets, but who knows what that even means anymore haha.
Isamaru with plot coming next set.
I think another issue related to power creep is that vanilla creatures are almost impossible to adjust without making them broken or completely unplayable.
It's not that they are bad, it's that you can only tune them in very discrete amounts with no room between. It's just very easy to end up in a position where a single point of power/toughness is the difference between unplayable and broken.
This is why I think French vanilla is far better. Yes, it's slightly more complex, but it makes a world of difference in opening up the range of possible designs.
Would be fun to create a New Format called Vanilla or something like that
Shout out to Gurmag angler. I know he got crept out of modern, but he still proves that wizards could print playable vanillas if they were bold enough with the p/t.
Gurmag isn't a vanlla, it's what's called a "french vanilla". These are creatures with no real abilities other than keyworded ones that don't do a whole lot as far as interacting with the actual game, such as vigilance, trample, haste, etc.
I'm fairly sure he's still played in Pauper.
how to bring back vanilla creatures:
"creatures get -1/-1 for each ability they have"
Halfway through and I just noticed the coffin 😂
I totally agree with you that up until recently MTG has been slow on the Power Creep. And I mean up to the last 1 or 2 years. I say this because I played Pokemon TCG through their Online game. And it did not take me long to notice that Pokemon was built to Power Creep. In Pokemon TCG Online you start with Set 1 and have to build and earn your way to the newest most recent cards. I was like why do I get these older cards in Arena and I am guessing on Magic Online you don't start with Alpha, Beta, Revised or Unlimited Cards. On Arena you start with the most recent and have to build back. Now that is partially because of how they want you to play they want you to stay up with the Standard Format and also that on Arena they only have as far back as Shadows Over Innistrad outside of Anthologies and the likes. But Pokemon's Online game knows that their game is Power Crept and they want you to Grind and/or Pay to get to the new stuff which is the more powerful stuff.
20:31 delver of secrets though
And dragon rage channeler too
Guys, is the cup on the right from the Ultima video games?
Hmm good question…
Actually I know of at least one vanilla card design that's still lacking after all these years: a 4-mana 5+/5+
Every other mana value from 0 to 8 has had one or two vanilla creatures with power *and* toughness higher than their CMC
Yugioh has done a somewhat clever thing by printing cards that specifically support vanilla creatures/ provide upsides for having vanilla creatures in the deck.
Vanilla creatures also make drafting easier and faster. Whenever a new set drops, even the most veteran players have to slowly read every card. Vanilla creatures are often good picks in draft and can be understood at a glance
like you mentioned, marvel snap has an interesting take on this -- it has an archetype based around a card that gives all your cards without abilities the equivalent of +2/+2 (which is often more of a token strategy); and an archetype based around a card that, if it's in your deck, gives all your vanilla cards specific abilities at the start of the game, ie grizzly bears becomes "evolved grizzly bears" that lightning bolts on ETB or what have you. which maybe defeats the purpose? but a fun concept
Definitely interesting and takes advantage of the digital format.
it could be interesting to see a commander that has an ETB effect for vanilla creatures. Something like drawing a card or cascading could be really fun as a whole commander deck
Yargle and Multani were printed in 2023.
Multicolored. I know they’re vanilla, but if we’re looking for the most simple vanilla creature in a main set it was strixhaven.
Yugioh, particularly Rush Duel, has a lot of "vanilla matters" effects. You guys should look into Rush Duel if you haven't, it's interesting to see Konami's design philosophy in a rebooted vacuum. A lot of archetypes are built off weird synergies like sharing certain DEF values or levels.
Can I consider myself a "casual player" if I have literally never touched a mtg card, and only watch these videos because I find the discussion interesting?
I think they should just power creep vanilla creatures.
The absence of abilities and key words should be resulting in a much higher rate.
So 1 mana should give you a 2/2. 3 mana a 6/6.
Stiff Breeze should be a vanilla blue instant.
U
no text
:D
High Evolutionary is the Marvel Snap card in question, I think if I were to translate it into magic it might be something like Bant color identity, and the ability "when you cast a creature with no abilities, you may put a number of -1/-1 counters onto opponent's creatures equal to the casting cost of your creature". Or their pips since that'd be pretty powerful and ideally you'd cast this commander earlier in a vanillas deck.
idk, I kind of like the idea of a Vanilla Matters commander that punishes enemies for having very complex cards, so something that punishes them based on the number of abilities they have could also be fun. Especially if its like low cost colorless mana to cast, but with WUBRG tap draw a card so you can include all vanillas, perhaps allowing you to use colorless mana to cast creatures with no abilities.
Stiff Breeze is my favorite card....
Dragonball super tcg has some incentives for playing vanillas, yugioh occasionally does as well with things like blue eyes support cards.
I love that one 10/10 green dinosaur
MTG lacks a good intro-level offering for players. The Core Set used to be that - it was meant to be new player friendly, with some bombs and chase cards that the enfranchised players would want. That just doesn't exist now. Every set and product is an Expert+ level offering. So new players have a lot to struggle with if they want to get into the game - and WOTC doesn't seem to realize that the current players are buying more out of FOMO or for after market purposes than they are out of a genuine interest for the cards.
Bring back a core set - with vanilla creatures! Give me the experience of taking my young child to a game store and buying boosters with her that have cards she can understand that we can play with.
Agreed. I wonder how big of an issue not having an intro product is. I came across a channel the other day of players who had just played their first game. They had purchased the Dr. Who and LOTRs precons. They didn’t even know they could customize the decks. They thought you were just supposed to buy more decks to play against each other. In that context it makes sense. Why would LOTRs mix with Dr. Who?
Turn vanilla creatures into keyword iconic creatures
You can have unlimited number of iconic creatures in your deck rule
I wish MtG had more design space to make use of vanilla cards. Several other games have ways to build a strategy around, either using vanillas as fuel for an engine, using cards to put out a big vanilla at a significantly lower cost, or voltroning the vanilla.
Vanillas can still be used, they just need cards that help propell them past their mana value. Have a Tormenting Voice spell that can discard a vanilla to draw 3 or 4 cards, have a spell that digs through the deck for a 6 cost or higher vanilla and plays it for 3 mana. Give cards that push vanillas to the forefront by breaking conventional mana costs to compensate for the vanilla creatures' lack of inherent text.
Vanillas can very easily be utilized in a meta, should you offer them cards that gives them a home in the 60 or the 99.
Vanilla trib… er, kindred!
@@distractionmakers I guess? Idk, I was thinking more along the lines of token decks or artifact decks, not sure if I'd call those tribal or kindred since both can produce a wide array of strategies that "artifact tribal" isn't specific enough for a title.
Okay, hear me out; make support cards that make Vanilla creatures the NEW Slivers archetype -creatures that give non-token creatures without abilities flying+vigilance, enchantments that grant them hexproof+deathtouch, etc to give them wild keywords that are balanced by the underwhelming creatures being boosted.
The issue with this is that granting creatures without abilities abilities means they now have abilities and so are not affected by the cards that grant them abilities. Iirc that was one of the biggest challenges the design team had when trying to design a “vanilla matters” card (specifically a commander like Ruxa, Patient Professor)
You know someone is a casual player when they fundamentally misunderstand some pretty important rule in the game.
I love the idea of the "pre-con" style cube. I've got two cubes of my own but would absolutely buy one like that if appropriately costed and had some good cards with alt-arts as you mentioned. It's similar to what I've done with Jumpstart where I bought a box or two and kept the packs in-tact to be replayed as its own sorta cube thing.
I think the "New to magic cube" more or less exists in the form of Jumpstart, or it's one of their most successful for-casuals product anyway and sells reprints with alt art to enfranchised players and etc. I actually have a Jumpstart cube because I'm mainly an arena player, don't have a dedicated play group, but wanted to have some magic cards that I could teach people magic with, or give to folks who had no interest in deckbuilding, etc. I've taught a friend to play with them and I think they're essentially successful, the structure of Jumpstart packs does a good job showing the potential complexity of the game with 1-3 complex cards, while the rest of the pack is simpler support pieces. Although as an interesting sort-of counterpoint, I have some proxy canlander decks (vintage power level, mox in them, etc) for a similar reason, and that same friend played essentially the highest power level RDW that exists more easily and with less "Hold on, how does this work?" moments than Jumpstart. Which I think does speak more generally to how the trend away from efficient flexible templating (Lightning Bolt is so each to teach) has affected the new player experience.
There is a case to be made for cards having their primary function printed on the card and not in the rulebook.
You’re dead wrong Yargle and Multani are hype rn probably the best commander damage win con commander
Commander the gathering is not very inviting for vanilla creatures.
Unfortunately yes. Commander really has taken away so many things huh?
Yeah remember all those vanillas filled decks in standard, modern and vinted? Me neither.
@@pascalsimioli6777 no. But sets still had them because they were designed for 1v1 and vanillas are good for limited. Now that commander is the focus, they phased-out vanillas as a part of new sets because they don't play well in commander. All they did was make french vanillas the new basic creatures though so nothing was even fixed. Which is why I want vanillas back
Commander bad
@@kphaxx Actually no, I mainly play commander but the focus in commander is bad even for commander itself.
I hope they print some vanilla creatures in Modern Horizons 3.
Why can't they print vanilla's way above curve if they want them to be relevant? give us a 4/4 for 1G. Maybe that would be enough to see play?
In wrestling terms Magic is all high spots now.
You’ve never played cube? Tragic
“Ice a maru”… STOP!
They have done vanilla creatures in LoTR
Magic explored vanillas once i think it was literally a single card though 😂 a centaur if i remeber right i think it gives +2/+2
I think that removing vanilla creatures leads to even less new players, and essentially killing a game in a longer run. Magic was good at moving with development in a slow pace. Everything had i'ts place. The yearly core sets were great for starting players even if they fell short in selling numbers. Then the Jumpstart which was a good idea was used incorrectly, and overprinted as a add-on to already straggling with to much product variance sets. Now if you want to introduce someone you have to use Arena because there are no easy to play MTG products. On the other hand old players tend to criticize powercreep and leave the game because of it. That happens when you master balancing a tree on your finger and a corporate money comes with a power fan to help you.
Yup, good insights. This is actually something that was commented on when Hasbro’s stock was downgraded. The company has gone from being run like a legacy company (like LEGO) to a pseudo-tech company. Fast profits, caution to the wind.
There is a Marvel Snap card that more power to cards with no abilities (including tokens) and another that gives an ability to all cards with no abilities that started in your deck. They get to do complicated stuff with it because the digital format lets them "hid" secret abilities in the cards with no abilities that only come up if you play that archetype. But MtG could probably print a lord that gives vanilla creatures keywords based on the color pips they have.
Actually our hero on the left was right. There was a 3 mana 3/2 with just flavor text in lotr
It was in a precon right? I was referring to main sets, but who knows what that means any more.
A new product like Magic: Foundations?
Weird how that worked out 😆
"A new magic product like a cube that acts similarly to a living cars game". Just picked up a box of Jumpstart 2022, where you slap 2 packs of 20 cards and play with. Might not be purposed for draft, but technically doable. With anime alt art to draw in a new audience!
Is tarmogoyf a vanilla creature?
Hmm I’d say tarmogoyf is a step above French vanilla (vanilla with an evergreen keyword), so… vanilla chocolate chip.
I started Magic with a friend and an 8th edition starter smashing Visserdrix and Enormous Baloth against each other. I used to think that Giant Octopus, a vanilla 3/3 was such a wall for my G/R mid-range😂. Good times
French vanilla is where it's at!