hiding place

[zeus-online]

I think you're seriosly underestimating glare.....!
Against any weenie strategy, this card will just kill them.....make their attacks useless, remove their blockers.....you know...pretty much win the game!

/Zeus

[dandan]

Actually both of them can win you games, whereas Hiding Place 'merely' helps you not lose. Hierach beats whilst Glare clears a path, Hiding Place does nothing offensively. It really is more like Teferi's Moat than Moat, OK but hardly broken.

You're being pedantic. To clarify: Neither Glare nor Hierarch are as strong cards in a board control vs aggro matchup as this one.
I'd also point out that in the sort of matchup we're talking about, not losing pretty much = winning for the control deck because it will have a far superior long game. What it needs to do is buy enough time to reach the long game, and this card will buy loads of time.

I wasn't trying to be pedantic, the word 'merely' was used to acknowledge the importance of not losing but both Glare and Hierach help you 'not lose' as well as helping you win. I in no way want to say that Hiding Place isn't a strong card in the right deck - which is exactly the sort of power level we want! However against aggro, by the time you tap out to cast this, you may well be low on life and there are a fair number of Flying creatures around, as well as burn, bounce and especially after SB, enchantment destruction. It is by no means an auto-win.

In short, I agree that this card could be good in the right deck. That is no reason to weaken it. The fact that I can come up with two recently printed cards that are at least as strong as Hiding Place and have the same casting cost add a lot of weight to this opinion. Both Glare and Hierach have proven themselves in Type II, Hiding Place is fine IMHO.

[Evenpence]

This card kicks ass.

Do it.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Moreover, this costs less than teferi's moat, which is arguably worse, and is off color in green for the moating ability. I think this card should cost at least 4GW, since I'd rather have a bad moat than one with the potential to be broken.

Also, another big problem with this card is that it is similar to stasis; against decks that have no or few ways to deal with it, it wins the game, but in an unfun way, by just saying "you can't do anything". Wizards has said how much they dislike cards like that, so they would make sure to make any like that weak.

And Dandan, comparing this to Loxodon Heirarch, would you rather G/W has an effiecient beater, or a card that stops creatures attacking, an ability that goes against much of what the guild stands for? I'd rather G/W gets the creature, and save most of the locking enchantments for other color combonations (yes, glare is in this guild, but that's because it has good synergy with the token making strategy of G/W)

[dandan]

I'd rather GW has the beater, of course but that is no reason that GW can't get a defensive enchantment- White the colour of defence, Green the colour of Enchantments. I totally agree that some decks could cast a 4cc Gold Aura, then pick off creatures using Red or Black whilst hoping not to see any Enchantment or Land destruction or bounce and that they would be able to lock the game in this way. So what? Even that scenario still needs a kill card. Why not just play the stupid elephant and pick off any fatties and just win?

Perhaps it is just because I like Arboria (a card they'd never print now) but I really can't see a problem here. Defensive 4cc Gold Auras have to be at least potentially good or they are a waste of space. This one IS potentially good. Doesn't Story Circle also shut down many decks? Doesn't Wrath of God kick aggro in the nuts? Even in the right deck, this card might still be as useful as a chocolate teapot (how many cheap flying creatures can WW put out these days?), so it being very good in some circumstances is an asset not a liability.

[Godder]

Dueling Grounds is cheaper and owns weenie strategies. This is no better, so I think it's fine.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Rather than try to push the envelope on this card, can we just limit it to casual play and cost it at 3WG? I think everyone can be happy with that, and that way it would cost only as much as teferi's moat. Creatures can't attack you is a pretty strong ability, so I'm just really wary of pushing the power envelope just because we can.

[dandan]

I wouldn't play this in any game for 5 mana. It is only good against huge swarms and fat ground-pounders. Sun Droplet at 2 mana is a far better response to aggro. For 5 mana you can have Blinding Angel and actually swing for 2 whilst staring at those helpless non-fliers. You are saying that if we made this 5 mana, it wouldn't make the cut in constructed, I agree.

To justify an increase in mana cost, you have to stand up and be counted saying this is better than Glare and Hierach. It isn't.

Regarding casual, most casual players I know want their 5cc cards to DO SOMETHING. Hey, I've made Arboria/Thallid decks and Freyalise's Winds decks and even though Hiding Place is quite cool with Katabatic winds, it still doesn't actually do much that a whole host of more interesting cards can't do (Splintering Winds and Sun Droplet if you want to be defensive).

[PucktheCat]

Peacekeeper exists.  1/1s are easy to remove, but then, so is this.

I am not sure why everyone is so scared by a Moat-like card.  It isn't like Moat is all that good.  Too good for Standard, perhaps, but has it even seen significant play in Legacy?  Moat isn't a card we need to approach with a 10 ft. pole.  3 ft. will do just fine.

[asmoranomardicodais]

It isn't like Moat is all that good. 

First of all, I disagree with that statement. A card like this makes creature based decks unviable in Vintage. Plus, it obviously is good if wizards would print a multicolored variant that costs 1 more and only stops a fifth of the creatures (Teferi's Moat).

You know, to add more flavor and weaken the card a little bit, could we add "If you attack, sacrifice this"? Attacking would give away your hiding spot, and that also makes this card a least a little bit harder to stick into any deck you'd like. I'd then be fine with this being 2WG. Does anyone else like that solution?

[Nazdakka]

Peacekeeper exists.  1/1s are easy to remove, but then, so is this.

I am not sure why everyone is so scared by a Moat-like card.  It isn't like Moat is all that good.  Too good for Standard, perhaps, but has it even seen significant play in Legacy?  Moat isn't a card we need to approach with a 10 ft. pole.  3 ft. will do just fine.

The point of this forum is that we're designing cards the way Wizards do. That means Standard and Block are the main considerations, and Legacy and Vintage can be safely ignored (they can look after themselves). Whether you like it or not, this card would be a pretty ridiculous bomb in standard, because there WILL be quite a few decks which are either completely shut down or slowed to a crawl. Yes, it's probably better than Loxodon Hierarch, and yes, it's probably better than Glare of Subdual. Duelling Grounds is a lot weaker because it only hoses swarms, not fatties, and it doesn't produce dumb 'you can't killl me' scenarios in the same way. Peacekeeper is symmetrical, much easier to kill, and has a non-trivial upkeep cost. Oh, and Moat is a pretty ridiculous card. Take off your Vintage blinders.

I'd go along if you added 1-2 mana or implemented asmoranomardicodais' fix. This card is a lot better than Vintage players would think.

[Godder]

Duelling Grounds + any Regenerator shut down the offense pretty well, as I recall.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Duelling Grounds + any Regenerator shut down the offense pretty well, as I recall.

Hiding Place+ anything shuts down the offense pretty well, too. Just make sure that you get rid of their flyers, or just keep it in sideboard against decks it would totally demolish.

[PucktheCat]

Is Peacekeeper that much easier to kill, really?  This is killed by land destruction, enchantment destruction, any flying creature, and the odd forestwalker.  Bounce that can target land would do it too.  That's a lot of effects in many colors.  Peacekeeper is killed by direct damage and creature kill and, under some circumstances, land destruction.  That might be a bit easier to remove, but not a lot.  It is also a stronger effect, because it stops all attackers, is cheaper than this card, and in a single color.  It was also completely unplayed when it was in T2, and has in fact never seen significant play in any format to the best of my knowledge.

This is a card that destroys narrow decks.  Magic is full of effects that destroy narrow decks - its part of the design structure of the game.  Narrow decks are powerful because of their focus but vulnerable to hosers.  This card looks like nothing more than another hoser to me.  Would it affect the way people built decks in whatever set it was printed?  Sure, of course it would.  So does every reasonably playable card in a set.

All that would have to happen for this card to be completely unplayable would be a single important creature with forestwalk being printed in the same set.  As it stands there are natural counters to this card in all of the colors.  In any set where this was printed some care would have to be taken to ensure that playable answers were included, but given the range of possible answers that wouldn't be a heavy burden.

Take off your Vintage blinders.

I suggest you take off your blinders.  Just because Wizards hasn't printed a card recently doesn't mean that they wouldn't.  Wizards prints powerful effects and breaks its own rules almost every block.  They do it because cards that are push the limits are interesting.

The point of this forum is that we're designing cards the way Wizards do.

Wizards doesn't reject cards based on vague feelings about their strength.  Instead they take interesting ideas and test them.  We don't have that luxury, but that doesn't mean we should simply reject ideas out of hand.  Our lack of testing should make us more inclined to accept interesting and challenging ideas, not less.  If Wizards took this forum's approach and rejected cards at the proposal stage without letting interesting ideas live long enough to be assessed more thouroughly we would play a much poorer game.

First of all, I disagree with that statement. A card like this makes creature based decks unviable in Vintage.

As a factual matter this is simply false.  Moat sees no play in T1.  Yawgmoth's Will and Tinker are the main reasons creatures don't see more play in Vintage, Moat is almost entirely irrelevant.  For proof, look at Legacy.  That format is almost entirely dominated by non-flying creature based strategies, at least one of which (Goblins) has no good answer to Moat, but the card doesn't see much play anyway.

Plus, it obviously is good if wizards would print a multicolored variant that costs 1 more and only stops a fifth of the creatures (Teferi's Moat).

I didn't say it wasn't good.  In fact, if you look I said it was "[t]oo good for Standard."  Teferi's Moat is a perfect example of how close to balanced Moat is.  Peacekeeper is another.  Teferi's Moat costs one more than Hiding Place, but is removed by far, far fewer cards (only enchantment removal, as opposed to enchantment removal, land destruction, flying creatures, and forestwalkers).  The "only stops a fifth of the creatures" line is pure sophistry.  Nearly every constructed deck has either one or at most two colors of creatures.  And, of course, Teferi's Moat hardly broke open the game when it was around.  It saw some play, if I recall, but not as a top tier card.

[Jacob Orlove]

In fact, we do some minor testing of the actual set as we put it together, so it's okay to make stuff that might be too good.

[Liam-K]

I would really like ot avoid anything that further clutters the text box.  I think the simplicity of the flavor should be mirrored by the simplicity of the effect.

I honestly feel this is printable.  I'd love to clock it but there's so much discussion going on that I feel like I shouldn't.

[dandan]

Would it matter a lot if you made it

'Creatures can't attack'
rather than
'Creatures can't attack you'
?

Personally I don't think it is necessary to weaken this but I think it would make a lot more sense to change it like that than increase the casting cost.

I'm still for the current version, just playing Devil's Advocate for the doubters.

[Matt]

I don't think you need to shut down ALL attacks; anyway that would make this extremely annoying in multiplayer. I think it should just be:

Enchant forest
You can't be attacked.
When a creature you control attacks, sacrifice Hiding Place.
Creatures with flying and forestwalk have "blah blah blah"

[Nazdakka]

Would it matter a lot if you made it

'Creatures can't attack'
rather than
'Creatures can't attack you'
?

Personally I don't think it is necessary to weaken this but I think it would make a lot more sense to change it like that than increase the casting cost.

I'm still for the current version, just playing Devil's Advocate for the doubters.

That's roughly the fix me and asmoranomardicodais have been arguing for. With the fix it's pretty much OK - no more annoying than Worship, anyway.

I guess my reason for disliking this was that I think it has combination of problems, both mechanically and power-wise. The mechanic isn't really any fun, and is liable to produce long, dull stalls and situations where one player just can't win, plus, Johnny can't really have fun breaking it. Those two flaws coupled with a high power level are the root of my dislike.

[asmoranomardicodais]

That's roughly the fix me and asmoranomardicodais have been arguing for. With the fix it's pretty much OK - no more annoying than Worship, anyway.

I guess my reason for disliking this was that I think it has combination of problems, both mechanically and power-wise. The mechanic isn't really any fun, and is liable to produce long, dull stalls and situations where one player just can't win, plus, Johnny can't really have fun breaking it. Those two flaws coupled with a high power level are the root of my dislike.

My opinions exactly.

[Liam-K]

I don't think you need to shut down ALL attacks; anyway that would make this extremely annoying in multiplayer. I think it should just be:

Enchant forest
You can't be attacked.
When a creature you control attacks, sacrifice Hiding Place.
Creatures with flying and forestwalk have "blah blah blah"

This is fine really, it just makes it ever so much text.  Even though moat is creatures without flying can't attack (anyone) I think that's seriously uncool in multiplayer.

Changed, and 24hrs

[Matt]

If it's too long, lose the forestwalk/flying junk. That's flavorful but it isn't necessary.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]