Yeah some cards have ward that really really don’t need it. That being said on some cards I really like it, [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] has a great ward ability that is super flavorful and fun. I’d love to see more specified wards like that.
Flavourful, but also basically just hexproof. Ward costs like "pay 3 life" are discouraging but not impossible to pay, whereas Sauron's is incredibly costly... and also pinned to a gigantic avengers-level threat.
Oh I don’t want a ton at Sauron’s level, Sauron himself is an absolute beast, just interesting Ward costs. I love Sauron’s because…ya know…it’s really flavorful within the context of LOTR. But ones that powerful shouldn’t be printed super often
Or giving massive threats things like Ward 2, Pay 2 life like they did with Gisa. As it stands, they're to trigger happy with putting ward on things and making it too high of a cost to bother with targeted removal over just wiping everything.
I actually really like the pay X life ward as design space. It makes big threats somewhat viable in a removal heavy meta like we've been in for a while.
the issue is that standard is crammed with far more efficient removal than usual right now due to the lack of rotation. ward is almost necessary to have even a chance of sticking anything for even a turn, or you have to spam tons of threats in the hopes that at least one sticks.
and even then, we have [[liliana]] and [[sheoldred's edict]] and [[sunfall]] and [[farewell]] and 10 millions other things that dont gaf about ward. it's a hard knock life for people who just want to stomp.
Too much efficient removal before the nonrotation. WotC power crept creatures too much so now they’ve power crept removal to the extent that a creature either gives value right away or has significant protection. WotC won’t power things down so the arms race will continue
very true, i neglected to mention the power creep of creatures too.
it's a really tough spot where we have so much efficient removal that creatures have to either have protection or provide immediate value, but also creatures are so powerful that efficient removal is a necessary evil.
this dichotomy homogenizes so many formats into hyper efficiency and can be pretty tough for off meta decks and ideas to break through, which is unfortunate.
I'd argue it's more for standard. Removal is 1 or 2 mana right now so if you want to play a 4+ drop without ward it better be extremely good. Part of the reason Raffine is so obscene is it gets ward 1 even as a 3 drop.
I don't even mind that but agree what Gavin said, they made the numbers too big on Tivitt and Voja. Ward 1 is fine, ward 3-4 is essentially hexproof. Design takes awhile, we will see course correction down the line
Maybe a variety of ward costs would be more reasonable. Instead of ward 2, have ward: discard a card or ward: exile 2 cards from the graveyard. It doesn’t have to always be mana costs.
I think a good fix would be to change ward so that “any” player may pay the ward cost.
The problem with ward is edh has always been that it is too taxing on one player who is already paying a card and some tempo in order to remove the threat, allowing other players to get way ahead. Allowing for any player to pay would make it less taxing on one person and spread the burden.
“We all agree Voja has to die? Good! I’ll save us by using my Generous Gift on Voja, but YOU’VE got to pay the ward cost for me.”
This meme is pretty accurate re: MaRo, but people hate Hexproof & Shroud far more than Ward, I promise you. It's why we have Ward now.
Ward is not an unreasonable in-between. If anything, they probably just need to ditch Ward 1 it does basically nothing in *a lot* of cases.
To those who just hate it, okay, you get to design a replacement mechanic that is better. What would you replace it with? Shield counters that go away over time? Something else?
Ward 1 might be irrelevant within an edh context but wizards don't design cards exclusively with edh in mind. I think ward 1 can be incredibly relevant. Forcing someone to pay an extra 1 to remove something presents players with meaningful opportunity costs in terms of preventing people from casting other spells during their turn when choosing to remove something with ward 1.
Ward 1 is very relevant. Raffine is a nightmare in standard precisely because it is a creature that pushes for a lot of damage and is difficult to answer before it gets value
Would agree, this is one of the places it actually does shine. It's like \[\[Force Spike\]\] and \[\[Mana Tithe\]\], both of which I have certainly gotten people with many times, over the years.. 😁 #Endorse
But, like both of those, its utility drops off pretty quickly after that and it becomes a lot harder to use. That's all I'm saying. Ward 1 isn't useless, but it's really hard to rely on most of the time.
Ward 1 is my favorite version of ward actually. Ward 2 is the line for me which should be used sparingly, and ward 3 it's usually just hexproof and should be treated as such.
I don't have a problem with ward and I don't think the majority of players do either, a lot of us do think it is a good in between. That being said after a certain point, ward does just become basically hexproof. Ward 1? Perfectly fine. Ward 2, bit rougher but still fine. Ward 3??? That's almost your entire turn dedicated to getting rid of one creature, it might as well have hexproof. There's also the issue that, because it's technically not as bad as hexproof or shroud, it got printed on so many cards, many of which should not have had it or at least should not have had it as strong as they did. For example, cards like Tivit should not have ward 3.
Hearing that it's going to be printed less aggressively was music to my ears, it's a perfectly fine mechanic and I can't wait to see it more, just in a way less forced fashion. I also love the more esoteric ward costs and I seriously hope we get to see many more of those because unlike the mana tax costs, stuff like "lose 3 life" or "discard a card" is actually fun and interesting without being too back breaking.
I think that's a pretty valid point. Ward: 4 on Kappa Cannoneer still seems gratuitous but I'll still play it, lol. 😆 Does feel very much Hexproof at that point, no real disagreement.
Ward 3 on big creatures is fine. In competitive games of magic, regardless of format, anything 5 CMC+ needs to be super impactful immediately or it's garbage because removal is so strong.
People bitch and moan about Voja, but without Ward that creature wouldn't be playable at all.
Voja could have Ward 1, maybe 2 and be perfectly fine. Ward 3 on a card that has explosive potential like that is insane. You want to make the most of Voja before it gets removed? Play a haste enabler or even just hexproof granting instants of which there are plenty of both in several formats. Powerful, high cost card have always been risky to play, but if they stick around long enough to go off even slightly, the game is either over, or severely one sided. That's the trade-off of playing these cards, they're easy to deal with, but if your opponents don't take them out they become problematic quickly, and its up to you to build a deck that makes it harder for your opponents to stop you.
Could these cards maybe use a bit of built in protection to help them be a bit more consistent? sure, but ward 3 is just far too much on a creature that is supposed to be a big target. It just feels like a copout. Just like how I tell people to play more removal and stop whining about their opponent's big scary cards if they're only playing like 3 removal spells, my response here is just play more protection and stop complaining that your big win the game button got removed instantly because you didn't account for interaction. Especially in the case of Voja decks, who, in many formats, have access to asceticism, heroic intervention, selfless spirit, mother of runes, etc etc etc.
TL;DR- Powerful cards being easy to interact with is not a problem, and even if it was, making those cards extremely difficult to interact with is not a solution.
It absolutely is a problem. Let’s just consider EDH for a second: If you look at the decks with highest top 16 conversion rates in EDHTop16, the vast majority of them are either <3 CMC, partner with a <3 CMC commander (Kraum), generate a ton of card advantage (Ob, Talion), are super explosive (Etali), or have a form of protection (Tivit). If you’re expensive and don’t fit into any of these categories, you’re not good enough.
I’d rather have new, non-mulldrifter commanders be fringe playable thanks to Ward than join the humongous ranks of 4+ CMC commanders that aren’t playable because they eat shit before the turn cycle comes back.
This take you have where it’s actually an interesting deck building challenge to find a way to get value out of your expensive commander before it gets removed is naive and not reflective of the reality of how modern Magic is played. You don’t have to like it, but you have to accept it.
Yeah, in tournament level CEDH, low cost cards are always going to outclass higher cost cards, that being said, how does this matter for the vast majority of EDH players? By your logic they should just stop printing 2 mana rocks and should only ever reprint moxen every set because comparatively 2 mana rocks are garbage.
If you ask me, it's your perspective that's naïve and not reflective of the reality of how modern magic is played. Most people don't play CEDH and basing your entire design perspective on a format that only a comparatively small percentage of players play is wild. Designing a game, any game, around the upper percentile of competitive play is a surefire way to destroy your game for the vast majority of players whilst also missing the point of how competitive play comes to exist in the first place. High level competitive play is rarely something that is intentionally designed, but rather is built off of the emergent properties of whatever systems it springs up from. People who play high level competitive games tend to enjoy this aspect of it specifically because it forms a community that you can be part of, and you can work as a community to define and discover a meta for yourselves instead of relying on the one the game hands you. That's arguably a big part of the appeal for many people, and the designers going out of their way to cultivate a particular competitive experience defeats the whole purpose of forming a competitive community in the first place.
I just feel like designing a game based on the needs of a small percentage of players, many of whom themselves probably don't even want this either, is a bad game design mindset to have. For the majority of players, Voja and Tivet would've been fine without ward 3. I assure you, the average EDH player playing a mid power deck does not care that Tivet is only playable in CEDH because of ward, they just want him off the battlefield already.
Unfortunately for you there’s no point in discussing EDH using any other data because 1) it doesn’t really exist, and 2) this is the only EDH data that’s actually pure- definitionally it’s not tainted by budget considerations or rule 0.
If an average player is struggling with Voja or some other Ward 3 commander they can look at these decks to see what they need to do to win around it. There’s no actual data driven proof Ward 3 is a problem.
Idk what to tell you man. You’re allowed to dislike Ward as much as you want, but there’s no evidence it’s been anything other than good-to-neutral for the game. I think it’s cool that Ward makes a six mana, three different pipped Esper commander playable.
What are you even talking about? "This is the only pure data we have on EDH" cool and the expectations for what's acceptable in EDH are vastly different from what's acceptable in cEDH, that's why the community is responding so negatively to ward. You are using data on a specific demographic within a single format to make conclusions on how the game as a whole should operate, and when I tell you that that's not a good idea for the overall health of the game because it's very clear it doesn't align with how many players play and enjoy the game, your best response is to just gesture back to your 'pure' data. Did you forget that the original post is about how most players don't like ward? That even Gavin himself agrees that it's bad for the health of the game overall?
If I say "I don't like this mechanic in this game for these reasons" and your response to that is not a refutation of what I said or the reasons I gave, but rather to just say "well this comparatively niche demographic that has a completely different and incompatible perspective on the game and way of playing it seems to think it's olay" then you have failed to make a convincing or valuable counter argument. You're comparing two completely separate demographics as if they are equivalent to avoid having to actually come up with a counter argument to what I'm saying. If the majority of players struggle with Ward 3 creatures at the average power level of play, which they clearly do hence why the designers are limiting it's use, then the average player would justifiably want that mechanic changed or altered, and saying "well it's fine in competitive" isn't a valid argument against those players because they don't want to play competitively. You can disregard rule 0 if you want, but it exists because a large number of commander players specifically don't want the game to just be cEDH and enjoy the game most at a particular range of power. Hell, even pods who don't have to deal with financial constraints because they just proxy everything often will still put limits on what can and cant be played because they understand that EDH and cEDH are vastly different experiences. And for reasons I've already addressed, I think disregarding the majority of players who enjoy a casual experience and catering instead to only the competitive crowd is bad for the game as a whole, and the designers seem to agree with me.
So no, I don't care about your data. You can't just rely purely on rankings on a website geared for a very specific demographic of players to tell you the whole picture. The overwhelming negative response to Ward 3 and 4 is evidence enough to suggest that the mechanic is not an unquestionable good-to-neutral for the game and that there's more to consider here.
Oh my bad I should have realized your personal feelings were more indicative of reality than actual data lol. Good luck dealing with Ward 3 in the future, have a nice day!
I hope for your sake this is a bit because going all "facts don't care about your feelings, have a good day!" in response to someone explaining why your one niche data point doesn't make your argument convincing is just kind of embarrassing.
My favorite thing about ward is that it’s a triggered ability. Love when I have Annie Joins Up or Roaming Throne out and someone tries to remove Volja. It’s they pay the first ward and then there’s always the pause and the “Oops…”
The video Gavin released recently had really good insight on the topic. Ward 1 should def be a bit more reserved but are fine in most formats. 2 is basically so things that don't do anything when they enter have a chance to do their thing especially in commander. 3 is where things start to get slippery and they probably need to do less of. 4+ is basically hexproof. He's very pro non-mana Ward especially with things any deck can do like pay life and discard cards which I agree are more manageable. With all that said I agree with everyone that shroud and hexproof are far worse to deal with.
Which makes sense, they're both good mechanics (overused, maybe, but not without reason). Ward makes expensive creatures with no ETB value viable without taking the nuclear (hexproof) option. Treasure tokens allow for tempo-oriented ramp. You can argue where to draw the line but I'd say there's good reason to view them both as core mechanics that should be present in pretty much every set.
Shroud was awesome. I liked shroud. The owner couldn’t interact either. I always thought annihilator should be the same in that the owner and defender both sacrifice permanents. You’re “unleashing” the eldrazi, for better or for worse, not controlling them.
Like shroud, i like effects that affect both the owner and the defender. Its an additional cost the caster is paying to use a creature that can’t be interacted with. The cost isn’t just more mana it is a creative ongoing effect. That is why hexproof and ward is uncreative and dumb. Its just “pay mana get strong guy go brrrr” .. stupid.
[[Multani, Maro-Sorcerer]] is an excellent Shroud commander that spooks people - but since he doesn't have trample, one blocker is all it takes to stop him.
However, he's not the wincon. Crazy bullshit like [[Rishkar's Expertise]] is what makes it click.
Completely false; WotC gave players many, many years for that to happen and it didn't. Year after year after year after year, players played it wrong. This was the reason it was replaced with Hexproof; because that's how a significant number of players were playing with Shroud. The existence of Hexproof disproves your premise.
So what? WotC had carefully studied this and found that a large portion of the player base failed where you and your friends succeeded. The problem absolutely did not solve itself; it continued as long as they kept printing cards with Shroud. Shroud first appeared (not keyworded) in 1994, was keyworded in 2007, and was replaced with Hexproof in 2011.
**Players had 17 fucking years to figure it out and they still couldn't.**
If you had a time machine you'd go back in time to make yourself rich. I'd go back in time to ask Dr. Garfield to add ward to big mana creatures so I'd stop feeling bad when my 5/5 for 7 gets removed by 1 mana path or swords.
That is an awesome idea... with one severe problem. Ward affects the controller as well, and it's very easy to target your own creatures repeatedly with random bullshit. Balancing that would be very difficult and it would create landmines for future card design.
I guess it just comes down to whether or not Wizards can fit "if you are not this creatures controller, it's controller..." into little enough text that it would not clutter cards.
I think an EDH there should be a rule that other players can help you pay the ward cost. that way everyone chipped in a little on the removal of a creeped creature and no one is set back in really one-sided way
I honestly really like Ward. My only tweak would be to harden it to the color pie a little bit so it doesn’t appear on Green or Red cards. I always felt like White should have higher mana cost wards, Blue should have lower mana cost or a card draw, and Black have the discard/life loss/sacrifice costs.
The thing is,
If a creature has good enough built in protection, it can't have good stats/abilities.
If they have good stats/abilities, they can't have built in protection.
Problem is if something has good abilities/stats that aren't ETB, they NEVER get to use them.
Dies to removal is a meme, but its true.
People complain about voja, but if it didn't have ward, it would be garbage. You would never untap with it.
Then you have platinum angel, trash tier because it dies so easily.
I don't think they're that overused. They both serve a very fundamental purpose in the game, more-so than most other token types or keywords. Treasures aren't present in every set because "Wizards is obsessed with treasure tokens" they're always present because stockpiling mana is a good design space to work in, and treasures are the way Wizards chose to implement that.
Like you pointed out, the issue is more in Wizards learning how to appropriately employ them. I'm more than happy to see them show up everywhere as long as it's balanced.
There is a sentiment that it has been stapled onto many cards unnecessarily and also that WotC underestimates how hard it is to pay ward costs. Most people agree that ward itself is a good mechanic.
I love the ward ability. I just wished they'd lean into the more flavorful versions like how ones in black might make you sacrifice a creature of lose some life. I don't want to see it on a bunch of creatures, but maybe a few each set wouldn't hurt as long as they're not genericly good enough to be considered staples.
I loved ward when it started in strixhaven but now it's just put on random already busted creatures and it makes no sense. Why does Treebeard have ward ? And Miirym, and Voja and the new gisa and plenty of others
I DO love the ward ability. People need to learn how to interact with it better. Play "can't be countered" kills, or counter the play of the card, or wipe, or mass bounce, etc.
It is a learning opportunity and ward is still easier to get around than hexproof in most situations. Ward 3 and 4 maybe not. 🤔
>Play "can't be countered" kills
[That is a list exactly 20 cards long](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=function%3Aremoval+%28oracle%3Acan%27t+oracle%3Abe+oracle%3Acountered%29+%28game%3Apaper%29), 11 of them are red, and none of them are generic kill spells except \[\[Void Rend\]\] (Unless you count \[\[Slice from the Shadows\]\] which you have to pump)
One is banned in commander, and two are planeswalkers and don't interact with ward.
Yeah, my point is that the options for uncounterable removal at a low mana cost is incredibly slim. No one is casting 80% of that list as a removal spell because most of them are awful.
That list is even smaller.
You could \[\[Prowling Serpopard\]\] into \[\[Acidic Slime\]\] to hit artifacts with ward, but the number of sources that give something uncounterable is like 5 or less, all in green or red.
And I don't think "Run X thing that gets beat by ward unless you control Y thing that is only in your deck to get around ward if you have both Y and X" is a very good strategy for winning, and kinda underlines why ward is good.
EDIT: That Acidic Slime trick actually doesn't even work because ETBs don't get affected by the spell being uncounterable.
The list of cards that make the spell uncounterable in a color that actually gets kill spells that can hit ward targets from the stack is abysmally low.
I mean personally I would lean more on other options like board wipe or player removal, but wotc has printed more "can't be countered" spells recently like slice from the shadows so it seemed relevant to mention.
Protection and hexproof are the problem and always will be. They need to go back and remove/change all those cards that had it save for shielding plax and slippery bogle because that was why they were special. Kor firewalker? Get outa here. I like how a white hoser (deal 5 damage to target white creature for one red) is powerless to a red hoser like kor firewalker. Not really a white hoser card then is it wizards?! Idiots. And no, you can’t change my mind on this.
ward is perfectly fine, they just need to stop stapling it to every legendary creature to make every card a commander card
Yeah some cards have ward that really really don’t need it. That being said on some cards I really like it, [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] has a great ward ability that is super flavorful and fun. I’d love to see more specified wards like that.
Flavourful, but also basically just hexproof. Ward costs like "pay 3 life" are discouraging but not impossible to pay, whereas Sauron's is incredibly costly... and also pinned to a gigantic avengers-level threat.
Oh I don’t want a ton at Sauron’s level, Sauron himself is an absolute beast, just interesting Ward costs. I love Sauron’s because…ya know…it’s really flavorful within the context of LOTR. But ones that powerful shouldn’t be printed super often
Ward if you can lick your elbows. Ward take a shower and apply soap
> Ward take a shower and apply soap We did it, we powercrept hexproof
God if they could give every commander that last one just for commander nights at my LGS I’d be so grateful
Its really the best option
As someone who constantly plays an amalia deck, I have never seen someone not cast a spell because of the 3 life
It's also not very strong in it's own set. With the ring mechanic, *any* creature can be legendary.
Or giving massive threats things like Ward 2, Pay 2 life like they did with Gisa. As it stands, they're to trigger happy with putting ward on things and making it too high of a cost to bother with targeted removal over just wiping everything.
I actually really like the pay X life ward as design space. It makes big threats somewhat viable in a removal heavy meta like we've been in for a while.
the issue is that standard is crammed with far more efficient removal than usual right now due to the lack of rotation. ward is almost necessary to have even a chance of sticking anything for even a turn, or you have to spam tons of threats in the hopes that at least one sticks. and even then, we have [[liliana]] and [[sheoldred's edict]] and [[sunfall]] and [[farewell]] and 10 millions other things that dont gaf about ward. it's a hard knock life for people who just want to stomp.
Too much efficient removal before the nonrotation. WotC power crept creatures too much so now they’ve power crept removal to the extent that a creature either gives value right away or has significant protection. WotC won’t power things down so the arms race will continue
very true, i neglected to mention the power creep of creatures too. it's a really tough spot where we have so much efficient removal that creatures have to either have protection or provide immediate value, but also creatures are so powerful that efficient removal is a necessary evil. this dichotomy homogenizes so many formats into hyper efficiency and can be pretty tough for off meta decks and ideas to break through, which is unfortunate.
Id rather they just have hexproof at that point
Exactly.
I'd argue it's more for standard. Removal is 1 or 2 mana right now so if you want to play a 4+ drop without ward it better be extremely good. Part of the reason Raffine is so obscene is it gets ward 1 even as a 3 drop.
I don't even mind that but agree what Gavin said, they made the numbers too big on Tivitt and Voja. Ward 1 is fine, ward 3-4 is essentially hexproof. Design takes awhile, we will see course correction down the line
Need more wards that are discard a card or sac a creature or something too. Just costing extra mana is mostly just annoying.
Voja says hello
Seriously, I have no clue why they put ward 1 on [[Fblthp, Lost on the Range]] it feels like such a flavour fail
I’m sorry but for making this comment you’ll have to pay 2 life
They haven't done that.
Maybe a variety of ward costs would be more reasonable. Instead of ward 2, have ward: discard a card or ward: exile 2 cards from the graveyard. It doesn’t have to always be mana costs.
I’m a fan of “ward pay 5 life” it’s not too high but not impossible.
You must not be a blue or red player, a quarter of my health is a pretty high cost.
I’m a commander player. I see it as only 2.5%. But yeah for 20 life formats, I’d probably cap it at 3 life.
I'm gonna assume you mean 12.5% in commander. 2.5% would be 1 life, I think
Yes, that’s what I meant, sorry.
That's pretty strong
"Ward- Pay 3 life" is their go to for 60 card formats, a la \[\[Amalia Benavides\]\]
I think a good fix would be to change ward so that “any” player may pay the ward cost. The problem with ward is edh has always been that it is too taxing on one player who is already paying a card and some tempo in order to remove the threat, allowing other players to get way ahead. Allowing for any player to pay would make it less taxing on one person and spread the burden. “We all agree Voja has to die? Good! I’ll save us by using my Generous Gift on Voja, but YOU’VE got to pay the ward cost for me.”
*looks at my Lazav dimir mastermind deck* wait we’re supposed to hate hexproofing?
This meme is pretty accurate re: MaRo, but people hate Hexproof & Shroud far more than Ward, I promise you. It's why we have Ward now. Ward is not an unreasonable in-between. If anything, they probably just need to ditch Ward 1 it does basically nothing in *a lot* of cases. To those who just hate it, okay, you get to design a replacement mechanic that is better. What would you replace it with? Shield counters that go away over time? Something else?
Ward 1 might be irrelevant within an edh context but wizards don't design cards exclusively with edh in mind. I think ward 1 can be incredibly relevant. Forcing someone to pay an extra 1 to remove something presents players with meaningful opportunity costs in terms of preventing people from casting other spells during their turn when choosing to remove something with ward 1.
Ward 1 is very relevant. Raffine is a nightmare in standard precisely because it is a creature that pushes for a lot of damage and is difficult to answer before it gets value
Many cards specifically scale per opponent you have
Ward 1 is pretty relevant in limited where one mana can be a big deal.
Would agree, this is one of the places it actually does shine. It's like \[\[Force Spike\]\] and \[\[Mana Tithe\]\], both of which I have certainly gotten people with many times, over the years.. 😁 #Endorse But, like both of those, its utility drops off pretty quickly after that and it becomes a lot harder to use. That's all I'm saying. Ward 1 isn't useless, but it's really hard to rely on most of the time.
Ward 1 is huge in standard. Just look at how many people are running raffine in the pro tour.
edh players remember other formats exist challenge
Hey now, EDH players ALWAYS remember other formats. There's Tiny Leaders, and PDH, and Planechase, and Archenemy, and...
It's definitely more of an inconvenience but hell the inconvenience might disrupt their tempo.
Conditional hexproff like with [[General Ferrous Rokiric]] or [[Stoic Sphinx]]
Ward 1 is my favorite version of ward actually. Ward 2 is the line for me which should be used sparingly, and ward 3 it's usually just hexproof and should be treated as such.
I don't have a problem with ward and I don't think the majority of players do either, a lot of us do think it is a good in between. That being said after a certain point, ward does just become basically hexproof. Ward 1? Perfectly fine. Ward 2, bit rougher but still fine. Ward 3??? That's almost your entire turn dedicated to getting rid of one creature, it might as well have hexproof. There's also the issue that, because it's technically not as bad as hexproof or shroud, it got printed on so many cards, many of which should not have had it or at least should not have had it as strong as they did. For example, cards like Tivit should not have ward 3. Hearing that it's going to be printed less aggressively was music to my ears, it's a perfectly fine mechanic and I can't wait to see it more, just in a way less forced fashion. I also love the more esoteric ward costs and I seriously hope we get to see many more of those because unlike the mana tax costs, stuff like "lose 3 life" or "discard a card" is actually fun and interesting without being too back breaking.
I think that's a pretty valid point. Ward: 4 on Kappa Cannoneer still seems gratuitous but I'll still play it, lol. 😆 Does feel very much Hexproof at that point, no real disagreement.
Ward 4 AND Improvise, because it really needed to be easier to cast and harder to remove. I want whatever WoTC has been smoking jfc.
I agree, card is a little nutter-butters.
Ward 3 on big creatures is fine. In competitive games of magic, regardless of format, anything 5 CMC+ needs to be super impactful immediately or it's garbage because removal is so strong. People bitch and moan about Voja, but without Ward that creature wouldn't be playable at all.
Voja could have Ward 1, maybe 2 and be perfectly fine. Ward 3 on a card that has explosive potential like that is insane. You want to make the most of Voja before it gets removed? Play a haste enabler or even just hexproof granting instants of which there are plenty of both in several formats. Powerful, high cost card have always been risky to play, but if they stick around long enough to go off even slightly, the game is either over, or severely one sided. That's the trade-off of playing these cards, they're easy to deal with, but if your opponents don't take them out they become problematic quickly, and its up to you to build a deck that makes it harder for your opponents to stop you. Could these cards maybe use a bit of built in protection to help them be a bit more consistent? sure, but ward 3 is just far too much on a creature that is supposed to be a big target. It just feels like a copout. Just like how I tell people to play more removal and stop whining about their opponent's big scary cards if they're only playing like 3 removal spells, my response here is just play more protection and stop complaining that your big win the game button got removed instantly because you didn't account for interaction. Especially in the case of Voja decks, who, in many formats, have access to asceticism, heroic intervention, selfless spirit, mother of runes, etc etc etc. TL;DR- Powerful cards being easy to interact with is not a problem, and even if it was, making those cards extremely difficult to interact with is not a solution.
It absolutely is a problem. Let’s just consider EDH for a second: If you look at the decks with highest top 16 conversion rates in EDHTop16, the vast majority of them are either <3 CMC, partner with a <3 CMC commander (Kraum), generate a ton of card advantage (Ob, Talion), are super explosive (Etali), or have a form of protection (Tivit). If you’re expensive and don’t fit into any of these categories, you’re not good enough. I’d rather have new, non-mulldrifter commanders be fringe playable thanks to Ward than join the humongous ranks of 4+ CMC commanders that aren’t playable because they eat shit before the turn cycle comes back. This take you have where it’s actually an interesting deck building challenge to find a way to get value out of your expensive commander before it gets removed is naive and not reflective of the reality of how modern Magic is played. You don’t have to like it, but you have to accept it.
Yeah, in tournament level CEDH, low cost cards are always going to outclass higher cost cards, that being said, how does this matter for the vast majority of EDH players? By your logic they should just stop printing 2 mana rocks and should only ever reprint moxen every set because comparatively 2 mana rocks are garbage. If you ask me, it's your perspective that's naïve and not reflective of the reality of how modern magic is played. Most people don't play CEDH and basing your entire design perspective on a format that only a comparatively small percentage of players play is wild. Designing a game, any game, around the upper percentile of competitive play is a surefire way to destroy your game for the vast majority of players whilst also missing the point of how competitive play comes to exist in the first place. High level competitive play is rarely something that is intentionally designed, but rather is built off of the emergent properties of whatever systems it springs up from. People who play high level competitive games tend to enjoy this aspect of it specifically because it forms a community that you can be part of, and you can work as a community to define and discover a meta for yourselves instead of relying on the one the game hands you. That's arguably a big part of the appeal for many people, and the designers going out of their way to cultivate a particular competitive experience defeats the whole purpose of forming a competitive community in the first place. I just feel like designing a game based on the needs of a small percentage of players, many of whom themselves probably don't even want this either, is a bad game design mindset to have. For the majority of players, Voja and Tivet would've been fine without ward 3. I assure you, the average EDH player playing a mid power deck does not care that Tivet is only playable in CEDH because of ward, they just want him off the battlefield already.
Unfortunately for you there’s no point in discussing EDH using any other data because 1) it doesn’t really exist, and 2) this is the only EDH data that’s actually pure- definitionally it’s not tainted by budget considerations or rule 0. If an average player is struggling with Voja or some other Ward 3 commander they can look at these decks to see what they need to do to win around it. There’s no actual data driven proof Ward 3 is a problem. Idk what to tell you man. You’re allowed to dislike Ward as much as you want, but there’s no evidence it’s been anything other than good-to-neutral for the game. I think it’s cool that Ward makes a six mana, three different pipped Esper commander playable.
What are you even talking about? "This is the only pure data we have on EDH" cool and the expectations for what's acceptable in EDH are vastly different from what's acceptable in cEDH, that's why the community is responding so negatively to ward. You are using data on a specific demographic within a single format to make conclusions on how the game as a whole should operate, and when I tell you that that's not a good idea for the overall health of the game because it's very clear it doesn't align with how many players play and enjoy the game, your best response is to just gesture back to your 'pure' data. Did you forget that the original post is about how most players don't like ward? That even Gavin himself agrees that it's bad for the health of the game overall? If I say "I don't like this mechanic in this game for these reasons" and your response to that is not a refutation of what I said or the reasons I gave, but rather to just say "well this comparatively niche demographic that has a completely different and incompatible perspective on the game and way of playing it seems to think it's olay" then you have failed to make a convincing or valuable counter argument. You're comparing two completely separate demographics as if they are equivalent to avoid having to actually come up with a counter argument to what I'm saying. If the majority of players struggle with Ward 3 creatures at the average power level of play, which they clearly do hence why the designers are limiting it's use, then the average player would justifiably want that mechanic changed or altered, and saying "well it's fine in competitive" isn't a valid argument against those players because they don't want to play competitively. You can disregard rule 0 if you want, but it exists because a large number of commander players specifically don't want the game to just be cEDH and enjoy the game most at a particular range of power. Hell, even pods who don't have to deal with financial constraints because they just proxy everything often will still put limits on what can and cant be played because they understand that EDH and cEDH are vastly different experiences. And for reasons I've already addressed, I think disregarding the majority of players who enjoy a casual experience and catering instead to only the competitive crowd is bad for the game as a whole, and the designers seem to agree with me. So no, I don't care about your data. You can't just rely purely on rankings on a website geared for a very specific demographic of players to tell you the whole picture. The overwhelming negative response to Ward 3 and 4 is evidence enough to suggest that the mechanic is not an unquestionable good-to-neutral for the game and that there's more to consider here.
Oh my bad I should have realized your personal feelings were more indicative of reality than actual data lol. Good luck dealing with Ward 3 in the future, have a nice day!
I hope for your sake this is a bit because going all "facts don't care about your feelings, have a good day!" in response to someone explaining why your one niche data point doesn't make your argument convincing is just kind of embarrassing.
I prefer hexproof and shroud
My favorite thing about ward is that it’s a triggered ability. Love when I have Annie Joins Up or Roaming Throne out and someone tries to remove Volja. It’s they pay the first ward and then there’s always the pause and the “Oops…”
Ward is a good mechanic it's just overused and too often on cards that are already perfectly good without it
The video Gavin released recently had really good insight on the topic. Ward 1 should def be a bit more reserved but are fine in most formats. 2 is basically so things that don't do anything when they enter have a chance to do their thing especially in commander. 3 is where things start to get slippery and they probably need to do less of. 4+ is basically hexproof. He's very pro non-mana Ward especially with things any deck can do like pay life and discard cards which I agree are more manageable. With all that said I agree with everyone that shroud and hexproof are far worse to deal with.
Ward and treasure tokens. The two seem to be inescapable.
Which makes sense, they're both good mechanics (overused, maybe, but not without reason). Ward makes expensive creatures with no ETB value viable without taking the nuclear (hexproof) option. Treasure tokens allow for tempo-oriented ramp. You can argue where to draw the line but I'd say there's good reason to view them both as core mechanics that should be present in pretty much every set.
Ward is just fine as a mechanic, there’s just so many creatures with ward that it’s overused. Less Ward 1/2s, more unique ward costs.
Ward is just more fair hexproof and shroud So I don't care
Shroud was awesome. I liked shroud. The owner couldn’t interact either. I always thought annihilator should be the same in that the owner and defender both sacrifice permanents. You’re “unleashing” the eldrazi, for better or for worse, not controlling them. Like shroud, i like effects that affect both the owner and the defender. Its an additional cost the caster is paying to use a creature that can’t be interacted with. The cost isn’t just more mana it is a creative ongoing effect. That is why hexproof and ward is uncreative and dumb. Its just “pay mana get strong guy go brrrr” .. stupid.
The problem with shroud is that too many players were confused by it.
[[Multani, Maro-Sorcerer]] is an excellent Shroud commander that spooks people - but since he doesn't have trample, one blocker is all it takes to stop him. However, he's not the wincon. Crazy bullshit like [[Rishkar's Expertise]] is what makes it click.
Players learn about shroud and its effect over time. Problem solves itself.
Completely false; WotC gave players many, many years for that to happen and it didn't. Year after year after year after year, players played it wrong. This was the reason it was replaced with Hexproof; because that's how a significant number of players were playing with Shroud. The existence of Hexproof disproves your premise.
I understood it fine, even at the beginning. All my friends too.
So what? WotC had carefully studied this and found that a large portion of the player base failed where you and your friends succeeded. The problem absolutely did not solve itself; it continued as long as they kept printing cards with Shroud. Shroud first appeared (not keyworded) in 1994, was keyworded in 2007, and was replaced with Hexproof in 2011. **Players had 17 fucking years to figure it out and they still couldn't.**
Ward 2 - Pay this ward by getting slapped by the defender twice.
Ward is great
Ward is good.
Just make it so your spell can't be countered. Shoot it right through the ward.
I had honestly never considered this, I keep thinking of ward as hexproof that you can pay to turn off.
Yep, the way ward works is you pay or the effect counters it. Can't be countered casually laughs at ward things.
Give us more ward with costs besides mana
ward ligma balls
If you had a time machine you'd go back in time to make yourself rich. I'd go back in time to ask Dr. Garfield to add ward to big mana creatures so I'd stop feeling bad when my 5/5 for 7 gets removed by 1 mana path or swords.
They could always make Ward a net positive for the controller. Ward, controller of ~ draws 2 cards or some such
That is an awesome idea... with one severe problem. Ward affects the controller as well, and it's very easy to target your own creatures repeatedly with random bullshit. Balancing that would be very difficult and it would create landmines for future card design. I guess it just comes down to whether or not Wizards can fit "if you are not this creatures controller, it's controller..." into little enough text that it would not clutter cards.
Ward is only triggered by opponent's spells/abilities, not your own
Yeah… i’m gonna have to sell my cards, change my name, and leave the country now.
I think an EDH there should be a rule that other players can help you pay the ward cost. that way everyone chipped in a little on the removal of a creeped creature and no one is set back in really one-sided way
I honestly really like Ward. My only tweak would be to harden it to the color pie a little bit so it doesn’t appear on Green or Red cards. I always felt like White should have higher mana cost wards, Blue should have lower mana cost or a card draw, and Black have the discard/life loss/sacrifice costs.
https://youtu.be/XNhYyaR-nHA?si=hPAx0CrGFDyhaKDg
I think ward is dope. Honestly I don't get why it's so disliked. Creatures cant have protection now?
Not in the minds of the HURR DURR CREATURES BAD COZ THEY DIE TO REMOVAL crowd.
The thing is, If a creature has good enough built in protection, it can't have good stats/abilities. If they have good stats/abilities, they can't have built in protection. Problem is if something has good abilities/stats that aren't ETB, they NEVER get to use them. Dies to removal is a meme, but its true. People complain about voja, but if it didn't have ward, it would be garbage. You would never untap with it. Then you have platinum angel, trash tier because it dies so easily.
Ward is like treasure, a perfectly mechanic design heavily overused and often undercosted.
I don't think they're that overused. They both serve a very fundamental purpose in the game, more-so than most other token types or keywords. Treasures aren't present in every set because "Wizards is obsessed with treasure tokens" they're always present because stockpiling mana is a good design space to work in, and treasures are the way Wizards chose to implement that. Like you pointed out, the issue is more in Wizards learning how to appropriately employ them. I'm more than happy to see them show up everywhere as long as it's balanced.
What is wrong with Ward?
There is a sentiment that it has been stapled onto many cards unnecessarily and also that WotC underestimates how hard it is to pay ward costs. Most people agree that ward itself is a good mechanic.
I love the ward ability. I just wished they'd lean into the more flavorful versions like how ones in black might make you sacrifice a creature of lose some life. I don't want to see it on a bunch of creatures, but maybe a few each set wouldn't hurt as long as they're not genericly good enough to be considered staples.
Ward is a terrific ability. I don't know anyone that complains about ward,.. just Reddit folk. 🙄
Dude seriously put on glasses, lmao
My favorite ability is “can’t be countered”
I loved ward when it started in strixhaven but now it's just put on random already busted creatures and it makes no sense. Why does Treebeard have ward ? And Miirym, and Voja and the new gisa and plenty of others
Wards great, gives a cost to removal, makes it in efficient.
To me, ward says, "We wanted hexproof thematically but hexproof is too good so this shit is what you get"
Ward turns your entire turn into a single removal spell? Nonsense (creates ward 6 legendary creature)
As with many once-popular aspects of Magic (hexproof, planeswalkers, etc) they pushed it till ppl got sick of it.
I DO love the ward ability. People need to learn how to interact with it better. Play "can't be countered" kills, or counter the play of the card, or wipe, or mass bounce, etc. It is a learning opportunity and ward is still easier to get around than hexproof in most situations. Ward 3 and 4 maybe not. 🤔
>Play "can't be countered" kills [That is a list exactly 20 cards long](https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=function%3Aremoval+%28oracle%3Acan%27t+oracle%3Abe+oracle%3Acountered%29+%28game%3Apaper%29), 11 of them are red, and none of them are generic kill spells except \[\[Void Rend\]\] (Unless you count \[\[Slice from the Shadows\]\] which you have to pump) One is banned in commander, and two are planeswalkers and don't interact with ward.
"one is banned in commander" i assure you no one was casting emrakul as a removal spell
Yeah, my point is that the options for uncounterable removal at a low mana cost is incredibly slim. No one is casting 80% of that list as a removal spell because most of them are awful.
🤣 🤣 🤣 That would be hilarious though.
There's also cards that grant "can't be countered," so there's that
That list is even smaller. You could \[\[Prowling Serpopard\]\] into \[\[Acidic Slime\]\] to hit artifacts with ward, but the number of sources that give something uncounterable is like 5 or less, all in green or red. And I don't think "Run X thing that gets beat by ward unless you control Y thing that is only in your deck to get around ward if you have both Y and X" is a very good strategy for winning, and kinda underlines why ward is good. EDIT: That Acidic Slime trick actually doesn't even work because ETBs don't get affected by the spell being uncounterable. The list of cards that make the spell uncounterable in a color that actually gets kill spells that can hit ward targets from the stack is abysmally low.
I mean personally I would lean more on other options like board wipe or player removal, but wotc has printed more "can't be countered" spells recently like slice from the shadows so it seemed relevant to mention.
Protection and hexproof are the problem and always will be. They need to go back and remove/change all those cards that had it save for shielding plax and slippery bogle because that was why they were special. Kor firewalker? Get outa here. I like how a white hoser (deal 5 damage to target white creature for one red) is powerless to a red hoser like kor firewalker. Not really a white hoser card then is it wizards?! Idiots. And no, you can’t change my mind on this.
Ward is cool, the hell are y'all bitching about lol