Hello everyone, I have a few questions regarding the developers’ decisions that seem quite controversial to me. Can anyone explain why this is being done and whether there have been any explanations for it?
The first question: Shaladrassil has identical corruption mechanics but does not actually have it. Because of this, we encountered a lot of bugs with this world tree that were present with corruption at the start. If Shaladrassil had initially this keyword, those bugs would not have existed from the beginning. This applies to other cards that have identical mechanics but lack the keyword, such as Witch’s Brew and Paladin’s Roll. Echo cards cannot cost less than 0, but these can, even though the mechanics are identical, so there are some weak combinations with these cards.
The second question: Why won’t the old elementals with the kindred mechanic receive this keyword? There are cards interacting with the kindred mechanic in the new expansion; why not strengthen it with old cards so that it has competitive viability in Wild?
The third question: The “inrage” mechanic was removed in 2018, but it is still being used; what was the point of removing it?
The fourth question: Wouldn’t it be better to redesign the old Reno cards under the new rules so that any changes apply to all cards instead of just part of them?
The fifth question: Why can’t I choose whether I want to play a card for mana or for health/corpses? For example, the Treant of the Festival of Legends costs 5 health; if I don’t have enough HP to play it, then it’s a dead card altogether. Why not allow the option to play it for 5 mana in that case?
I’m just going to say this for the shaldrassil corrupt, if you notice the cards aren’t corrupted as in the corrupt effect, they are corrupt versions of what the cards are based from, for example emerald drake becomes corrupted drake
Yeah, exactly, I’ve questioned this myself and all I could get out of people on the forums is that this is how they want to be doing things from now on because they don’t like overwhelming players (especially new ones) with too many keywords which one has to learn by heart
I found it to be an inadequate answer, but for the lack of better ones…I’ll take it
I also think sticking to the already existing keywoards is much more consistent and should prove to be easier in the long run, but yo, we’re not the devs
I was actually kind of surprised that the Raptor Herald was going to end the year with all the keywords on it. I figured they would assume that’s too confusing for most. I guess if it goes over well we might get combinations more often. Should be interesting to see if adding the 1 cost discount for adding Kindred to it on new set launch makes it more playable in certain decks.
The third question: The “inrage” mechanic was removed in 2018, but it is still being used; what was the point of removing it?
Enrage was never removed, the enrage cards just rotated to wild. It still exists. It’ no different from overkill, overheal, dredge, finale, forge… etc etc
They want keywords to be expansion-specific, unless the keyword becomes evergreen (discover, rush, tradeable, lifesteal…) or thematically relevant (magnetic was reintroduced in core for a year for example)
They want the game to be the easiest possible to read and understand rapidly what each card is supposed to do, so they don’t want to use keywords for a too small pool of them (in standard) which would result in new players having to learn a new keyword for every mechanic, instead of having the possibility to just read the card text
It should not be underestimated the additional step that is to wait for a keyword tooltip to show up, then to compile the information with the card
Not really identical
And it has to be pointed out that some differences are intended
For example, replaying a “corrupted” Shaladrassil from another card will recast a non corrupted shaladrassil and give non corrupted dream cards
That’s an important difference that may be intended
You may be overlooking how card texts would work
If you replace all “if you played an elemental last turn, do X” battlecries with “Kindred, do X” then you remove all the battlecry synergies from all those elementals
Seeing Ravasaur Matriarch and Steamfin Thief, that’s how we could expect it to happen
It could not work as Stoneborn Accuser that gains a battlecry, since infused cards are actually different cards, whereas kindred are not, so the elementals woul still not be battlecry minions in a lot of contexts
There are also some non-elemental cards with that text, so kindred wouldn’t work for them, but they could stay as they are they are not really an issue
However there are also some dual type minions with this battlecry, so giving them kindred would have another additional impact. Not to say it’s bad, but it’s a thing.
Only 17 cards ever printed and only 3 are in standard, so they just don’t want an underused keyword
Agreed that they should share the same text, whichever it ends up being
Either they don’t want players to accidentally spend mana on a card they didn’t have the alternative ressource for without noticing
Or they want that as a drawback for the card being “free” the rest of the time
I wouldn’t be against the mana alternative though, like… whatever
Thank you so much for such a detailed and clear answer to my questions. It was interesting to read, and for many reasons, I’m willing to agree. Before writing this post, these questions bothered me, such as why the warrior cards from the fair and the curator are still tied to specific types of creatures, rather than working as a warrior buffet, which is now the standard. However, perhaps this has a logic.
