I like the nostalgia of all the typeless supports, but there are some flavor fails. Like Andrew said, I played a deck with Hixus recently and needed two passes before I re-remembered that it wasn’t an enchantment that would trigger my other cards.
Its probably because in paper, Hixus is a creature. So he’s not an artifact, enchantment, land, or planeswalker for typing in PQ. Not saying he couldn’t be an enchantment here (I don’t think anyone would care, and he is from Theros where that would be possible anyway) but that’s probably the reason why he isn’t.
If you wanna kill him, you just need either untargeted support killing (Demolish is still solid), or enough white gem changing that you can match him quickly.
It’s not a knock on the game designers to have support removal with constraints on its use or applicability. Constraints make for more interesting competitive scenarios so that we aren’t simply jamming Demolish into every red deck.
And Demolish hasn’t always been a rock star. I recall a time on these boards when people were complaining that Storm the Vault put out too many support tokens, making it hard for a card like Demolish to hit it before it flipped. I know I definitely changed my support destruction strategy during StV’s time in Standard.
You might very well be right about that. I missed that announcement, I guess, although I also cannot find it right now, either. But I do see some people making that same comment as you when searching old posts.
Oktagon has announced in the past and continuously pushed for making their cards more like the paper mtg originals, with only occasional exceptions. While it is not out of the realm of possibilities to give hixus a support-type, it would be more probable that it is given a type that brings it closer to its paper mtg counterpart, not further.
Its funny, the constraints were announced to make it easier to destroy supports like Hixus (since they let you go after a specific support you are expecting to see) but since Hixus doesn’t have a support type in this case they seem pretty dumb.
Back in the days of white disable decks when standard had like 3 different disable supports, being able to only hit enchantments would have been super helpful (I don’t care about your land, I want to hit Cast Down, for example).
But yeah, Demolish is probably the best right now as long as it avoids tokens and you aren’t expecting to see a lot of vanguards.
Interesting comparison to Netrunner, which is a game I love but absolutely agree that that is a big problem with it.
The point of niche support removal is to target something specific that you are afraid of. If your deck can handle anything except a certain support but you don’t care about the rest, then you want something more targeted. There is no reason to have a spell to deal with each individual type of support, you might as well use the general stuff instead. I think we’re agreeing on this and just not expressing that clearly enough, to be honest lol.
Look I haven’t played in a while so I can’t speak to the specific meta. I will agree that nowadays there isn’t a specific type of support that is problematic, which is basically what you’re saying. My point is that IF there was a specific thing that you were worried about (say Sandworm Convergence back in the day or Godsend or something now) you could include a specific killer to deal with it.
To use Netrunner as another example, its like including some cards that give Link in your runner deck because you are worried that any trace effects will ruin your plans. Its useless most of the time, but in the specific times you need it you are happy to have it.
It isn’t that there aren’t any answers to it, there is plenty of support removal in standard that hits nonland supports and can take out Hixus. The issue bothering most people is that there isn’t a common catch all answer on the level of Demolish in other colors - and that when Hixus gets out of hand once in a while it is exceptionally obnoxious to play against. I’ve been there occasionally.
I personally find that getting nailed like that by Hixus is happening to me fairly rarely so I don’t have a real qualm with the situation as it is (now that Teferi can exile it without locking my team out for good). Turning it into an enchantment feels like it would make it too easy to remove and would just discourage people from ever playing it, a solution I would rather avoid.
The only way to make it close to original would be turn it into a creature. That seems like a bridge too far. Right now the card is more like “moat” than anything else, which is an enchantment
So far, Oktagon has not made many changes to cards created during the Hibernum days. Especially since it’s an Origins card, I wonder if they’ll even consider editing it.
Actually, given that we now have Flash - making it a creature with flash that does what the support currently does should be exceptionally easy. And, naturally, would make it so easy to dispose of as to not he worth playing.
Although i I suppose if it had low P/T you would be able to dissuade Greg from targeting it with removal by presenting bigger targets, keeping him locked down. Or they can give it Hexproof, which would make it harder to kill but still more manageable.
Either way, original Hixus is VERY easy to do with today’s mechanics.
@FindingHeart8
They just recently edited it to reactivate your creatures if it gets exiled rather than destroyed. So they are definitely not ignoring the card.