Casual Card Hall of Fame Discussion

[turgy22]

By the way. Which sets will I be on the committee for? I forget how this thing works. I vaguely remember members rotating every other set, so that will mean I'm voting on the next 5 sets after Shadowmoor, which are Eventide, Shards, Conflux, Alara Reborn, and Zendikar. Are we going to be including M2010, since it introduced new cards?

Also, what's the timeline for advancing to the next set? Shadowmoor came out in May 2008, so I assume we're either delaying votes by about 18 months after each set release or things just haven't caught up to the newest sets. I'd like to stay on top of things from now on, but I usually go straight to the Games forum when I come here, so I might miss the next round of nominations.

Oh and I forget... are committee members allowed to nominate cards or do we just do the voting? I notice neither Oversoul nor Spidey nominated a card for Shadowmoor.

 

[Spiderman]

You're on the committee for 6 sets total, so five more. We will be inclusing M10.

We're catching up on old sets since I kinda forgot about this for a while. The guideline we agreed upon was to wait a year after a set's release to vote on it, so we're just catching up right now. I'll post Eventide's thread on Monday.

Committee members aren't allowed to nominate cards, just vote.

 

[Ransac]

I think Reaper King is a perfectly fine addition to this list. Turgy22 is right: it screams casual.

I kinda wanna build a deck around him now.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[theorgg]

Reaper King was the right choice. Oona is exciting, and gets the whole Timmy vibe when you read it, but when you pay four every turn, milling one guy out and overrunning two others with faries, it just doesn't seem very casual. Fun, yes-- casual, not really.

 

[Spiderman]

I thought Helix Pinnacle was the best out of the nominees, but there was only three and four people nominating! C'mon guys...

 

[Shabbaman]

The set sucks. Only helix pinnacle can win.

 

[turgy22]

I don't know. I wasn't really thrilled with Helix Pinnacle. I liked Figure of Destiny and Primalcrux, but neither was nominated. Not saying HP wouldn't have won anyway, but the choices presented weren't great representatives of the set.

 

[Spiderman]

Word.

 

[Ransac]

To be fair, I did promote other cards I thought was nomination worthy (FoD included). I looked at Primalcrux, but never strongly considered it.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah, but we need actual people to nominate them... where is everyone?

 

[Ransac]

They've gone into hiding since you and Forsythe took over. They're plotting a revolution...

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[rokapoke]

I don't really follow the new sets. At all. Ergo, I make no nominations.

 

[TomB]

Same here...

 

[Spiderman]

I don't either, only what I've played with in Mindmaster, but I still look over the set and check out any cards whose names grab my eye and seem to lend themselves to "casual play". So at least there's some more nominations

 

[train]

I don't think there should have been any reservations for helix Pinnacle... who had them and why?...

 

[Ransac]

I think the issue was more that there wasn't that much of a pool to choose from, so Helix was (rightfully) given an unfairly shallow victory. I still believe it was the right choice out of the set, but it doesn't say much for the history books for what it went up against.

Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[turgy22]

Like, I said, I wasn't thrilled with it. I just think it's a boring card (speaking of design, not playability - I've never played with or against it). It's basically just an alt-win mana sink that they put a huge number on. There was nothing particularly new or innovative or flavorful about it. Just 100. And shroud. Because if it didn't have shroud, it would suck. I think any one of the alt-win enchantments from the Odyssey block are more "casual" (esp. Battle of Wits) and none of them won for their respective sets, so I felt disinclined to vote for a card when a more deserving (IMO) card was left out. Had Figure of Destiny been nominated, I probably would have voted for it, since it's more of a new idea.

So, there's a little glimpse into my thought process. For anyone wondering, here are all the things I put into consideration when casting my vote (in order of importance):
1. Historical significance. Does the card hold a special place in Magic history outside of the tournament scene? Has it inspired new formats or other cool cards?
2. Innovation. Is the card a new and creative idea? Does it break old rules and have the potential to inspire new cards in the future?
3. Casual play relevance. Is it particularly fun or dominant in casual games? Would I want to build a deck around it?
4. Flavor. Does it have a particular quality outside the rules text that makes it fun? Do the name, flavor text, and art all fit the mechanic?

In the case of Helix Pinnacle, obviously the first factor is moot. The set's too new to see any long-term impact of the card on the game.
The second factor, as stated above, is where the card failed, IMO. It's a new twist on an old idea, and not particularly special in that regard. It just has a big number.
The third factor is what separated HP from the other nominees. I never played with the card myself, but Ransac laid out a pretty good argument for it. There are a lot of ways to build a deck around it and playing kitchen-table magic with a stack of 100 counters and trying to keep track of them is awfully fun.
The fourth factor is another meh. Name, art, ability... nothing on the card does anything for me in that area.

So there's where my reservations come from. Everyone was enthusiastic about it, which I took into consideration, but only Ransac gave any reason why. Had more people come out and said "Helix Pinnacle is teh awsome... here's why..." then maybe the enthusiasm would have spread to me, but as it was, I just saw a card that's actually been sitting in my MTGO account because I never felt it was particularly interesting.

 

[Spiderman]

I pretty much go with 2 and 3 when I vote. I'm not sure I was *that* enthusiastic about it , but yeah, it was better than the other two when breaking it down like that. But I would have liked to see more nominees as well.

Perhaps we should put in a stipulation that there must be X (I'm thinking 5 to start off) nominees before a vote is made, coming back to the set if necessary.

 

[Shabbaman]

I think I was pretty clear why Helix pinnacle is a good choice. I still think it's part of a hidden subtheme in the set. I really don't see how Figure of Destiny is a casual card. The card is simply insanely strong. It's not that I can't see it's appeal: the card is very strong and the evolution mechanic has flavor. But there's no one in the world that would ever say "wow, you made a figure of destiny deck".

Yes, Helix pinnacle is a lame alternate win condition. But alternate win conditions are rare, which makes them special to begin with. The card itself is also pretty good, as it has a low CC to slip through permission and it's hard to get rid of because of shroud; this is also what makes the card very different from the other alternate win conditions.

 

[Oversoul]

I thought I wasn't going to support Sarkhan Vol. I still think of him as stealing Fires of Yavimaya's thunder. Definitely not my favorite card in the set.

I almost sided with Orgg on Flameblast Dragon. To an extent, I already regret not doing so, but my thinking is that Flameblast Dragon is yet another in a long series of the same thing. How many big, red, flying dragons do we need? They've been coming out since the beginning of the game and some of them are more interesting than this new one and some of them are stronger cards and some of them are both of those things. Flameblast Dragon looks like something that, if I were looking at a new set list and saw it, I would immediately pass over as uninteresting. There are already a couple dozen big, red, flying dragons. I can't see myself ever playing it, as one of its predecessors is probably too much better for whatever my purpose is. In contrast, Sarkhan Vol is only like one other card I can think of (Fires) and is probably better than it (which is the main reason I am bitter about it anyway, since I liked Fires). I could easily see myself using Sarkhan Vol in a deck.

The other two I don't care for at all. I kind of wish someone had nominated one of the really cheesy cards from this set. I don't think any of them would have won, but I'd have pushed for them. Especially Lich's Mirror.