The biggest problem MW has: rule-uncertainty

[zot]

   yes. they were non-competitive designers creating an awesome thing and did not understand how to balance things properly. overall they did great, but a few glaring items made it through and had to be fixed after the fact. if you can design with a serious fixation on competitive balance, then everything else should fall into place and be solid generally.

   so when you have events, or competitive players showing up, they do not break your game. future sets have to be carefully tested as they are being created. as the card pool grows this becomes increasingly more time consuming. no one wants errata. but it is at times needed to fix things that get missed.

[Kelanen]

   yes. they were non-competitive designers creating an awesome thing and did not understand how to balance things properly. overall they did great, but a few glaring items made it through and had to be fixed after the fact. if you can design with a serious fixation on competitive balance, then everything else should fall into place and be solid generally.

Absolutely agreed. MW was an awesome design, but lacked something in the development. It was definitely not playtested as it needed - as well as the obvious few overpowered things once you start playing to win, rather than for theme, there's a whole bunch of stuff that's overcosted (whole traits in fact).

   so when you have events, or competitive players showing up, they do not break your game. future sets have to be carefully tested as they are being created. as the card pool grows this becomes increasingly more time consuming. no one wants errata. but it is at times needed to fix things that get missed.

Sadly, Bryan still has the same design philosphy, and is still making the same mistake (hence changing DoR from okay to broken, post-playtest).

[exid]

That's very interesting for me: i play to win, but nearly never competitive. I try to make create spellbooks that have a chance, but not too "closed"... for example i play defensives priestress but never built a turtle...
the bad design you mention is perhaps the reason why MW is really a game for me!

[Obsidian Soul]

I have played priestess for six years, and the turtle priestess only worked for the first six months before everyone figured out how to counter it.  It is just too easy for another mage to target your creatures (or you if you have nothing facedown) and murder them with their own creatures or otherwise incapacitate them.  For example, I have had people teleport and then tanglevine my Guardian Angels to get them out of the way (a Beastmaster or a Druid with a teleport wand is a pain, as is a Warlock or a Wizard who decides to invest in a few tangelvines).

[zot]

it is a great design. and great thematics. just that had they competitive players in the playtesters from early on, things would have been much more balanced for everything. some mins/maxes where competitive players could eek advantages, or enable superior tactics. but not enough to warp the game. enough where better strategy and tactics win generally but not always. I think that is the sweet spot for design. strong for competition, but still accessible to casual and them players and enable them to have a shot at wins too.
 

sometimes I think bryan just likes broken mechanics. which is really very bad for the game overall.

[werner]

(Pre nerf) I don’t understand how you can “just” finish off a priestess with 6 bims out since she can use them to heal herself or armor herself while she throws healing spells on top of that.

1: Sprint + Teleport / Forcepush
2: Summon something w/ Ranged (or just a Tegu) + Magebane/Ghoul Rot (@ Priestess)
3. Summon something + Direct Dmg

Summoning 6 HoBS would put you behind the 8-ball in this rushdown scenario. The times we saw Priestess win in the face of serious rushdown are when you counter the Rush with Armor and Summons, not more HoBS. Yes, I run Magebane and Ghoul Rot in every deck (should be Dark Only, IMO).

[Obsidian Soul]

You should also add Poison Blood.  I tend to run two Poison Bloods in every non-Holy deck just to act as Dispel bait, Nullify triggers, Regeneration prevention, etc.  While Holy can deals with them easily with Purify, it tends to be a problem for everyone else except Necromancers.

[Enti]

I admit that I am surprised that only roughly 50% of the community have the impression that the current convoluted rules are a problem.

My attempt at an explanation:

#1: Those people who were really bothered by it left long ago

#2: "Casual players" who are bound to have more trouble with the rules are not actively reading here

#3: Even people who admit that the rules are too complex by using easier house-rules vote for "nah, not to complex" to show off or sth.



My point remains, there were some nice ideas to make the upkeep phase easier, why not adopt those ideas?

Forbidding enchantment reveal obviously is obviously out of the question. Curse lock already is pretty weak and that would make him downright unplayable.

[zot]

   by this same logic a lot of people who left may have had the same opinion as the clear majority (55%) - a more likely possibility if the responses are an average. further the 50% you cite is incorrect. the poll numbers show  was closer to 40% think similarly to you. and there may be a lot who have no opinion either way. there are many who read the site but never post anything. so no real conclusions can be drawn from this.  nor can one conclude rules were the reason why folks left. perhaps that was the reason for some of them. we will not know. however that is not to discount some interesting suggestions. but to say hey the minority has it correct and we need to make serious changes does not follow.

[Enti]

Meh, I don't like this reasoning. It's too much in the direction of "we cannot know anything with certainty" a la David Hume.

Of course this poll is not a representative sample but despite that many active, probably experienced players have voted and you can interpret the findings.

[Puddnhead]

Forbidding enchantment reveal obviously is obviously out of the question. Curse lock already is pretty weak and that would make him downright unplayable.

For what it's worth, you can't gain the effect of enchantments revealed during upkeep right now as it is unless it's part of an attack sequence.  DoT must be revealed before the beginning of the upkeep, same with Regen.

What I'm saying with my change proposal is that all the effects that will affect each object during the upkeep go into a pool at the beginning of the upkeep.  If those effects have a cost, that cost must get paid BEFORE they go into the pool and I would propose to fix dissipate to be removed at the end of all effect resolutions hence:

1) Pay costs
2) resolve effects
3) remove dissipates.

The problem is that introduces steps into the upkeep phase which allows for crazy enchantment reveal timings.  THIS is why I say "no enchantment reveals during upkeep".  Another way of putting it would be "effects which were not in effect before the beginning of the upkeep do not get added to the pool of effects to resolve".

[Enti]

Yeah, I understand. You don't want to let them "borrow" mana and have the effect one turn earlier. But as I said, I don't see the need to change that particular rule. On the contrary, that actually leads to some interesting situations during the play.

For example if you reveal regrowth with your 10 channeling you already only have 6 mana for the next turn. The enemy can take that into account and you limit yourself - for the 2 regeneration you gained. I actually like that a lot, there are times when I play with my curselock that I don't have any mana for my turn because I revealed 2 curses during upkeep..

As I said, that feature makes MW more interesting and diverse, why do you feel the need to change that?

[SharkBait]

Yeah, I understand. You don't want to let them "borrow" mana and have the effect one turn earlier. But as I said, I don't see the need to change that particular rule. On the contrary, that actually leads to some interesting situations during the play.

For example if you reveal regrowth with your 10 channeling you already only have 6 mana for the next turn. The enemy can take that into account and you limit yourself - for the 2 regeneration you gained. I actually like that a lot, there are times when I play with my curselock that I don't have any mana for my turn because I revealed 2 curses during upkeep..

As I said, that feature makes MW more interesting and diverse, why do you feel the need to change that?

What you are pointing out here is still possible with Puddn's steps. Revealing after the channeling phase but before upkeep is still a timing possibility. Even now, the sequence described above is only possible if you reveal after the channeling step but before upkeep (since there are no steps in upkeep currently). Puddn's steps are for during the upkeep phase itself. No enchantments being revealed during the upkeep phase itself prevents someone from revealing healing madrigal (for example) after the remove dissipates step and getting a free round out of it.

This plays a little into the complex interactions part, but this is one of the complex interactions I like. I do agree on the whole though that the inconsistencies are a problem.

[exid]

#1: Those people who were really bothered by it left long ago

#2: "Casual players" who are bound to have more trouble with the rules are not actively reading here

#3: Even people who admit that the rules are too complex by using easier house-rules vote for "nah, not to complex" to show off or sth.

and some people like comlicate rules!

I didn't vote, because I think that a few rules are too complicate (i.e. bad ratio fun brought/complication) but that it's not a big problem, and no item said that.

[Puddnhead]

Just to further clarify and enhance shark's explanation:
The rules for revealing enchantments are that you may reveal an enchant immediately after any "step" in a sequence. The current upkeep phase has zero steps in it. It is illegal to reveal any enchantment during upkeep. However, the steps to a game round are:
Initiative, Channel, Upkeep, Planning, Deployment, etc. Therefore there is a step (channeling) after which you have mana and can reveal enchantments that will affect upkeep.
My proposed upkeep change has no effect on this mechanic. All it does is streamline interactions during upkeep while keeping the enchantment reveal problem out of the phase.
Honestly, Pillar of Righteous Flame should do its attack at the end of the round because it adds steps to a phase that shouldn't have them.