One thing I didn't mention when it comes to rebalancing sunfall would obviously be changing "Exile" to "Destroy". The card would be more in line when it comes to power level/counterplay (might be a bit weak if untouched other than that change). This would change the fundemental concept of the card as an Exile sweeper though. There are more interesting ways to balance it while retaining the exile imo.
The fact that the token is an artifact creature is also annoying since you can't destroy it with go for the throat. Seems like a small thing, but it comes up a lot in my experience.
I forgot to mention that as well. Thanks for commenting! So many things to say about this card xD You could argue that this can be an upside and downside ig, since some decks have artifact hate, although usually not in the main deck though.
6 mana. Demote 'exile all' to 'destroy all'. 4 mana (hear me out), still exiles all - but your OPPONENT gets the Incubator token, meaning the sweeper an incredibly specific hate card for things 'die' triggers or graveyard synergies.
The thing I really hate is having to play into it. I know the Sunfall is likely coming turn 4/5 but I need to play into it, I cant sit there and bait it out. I need to end the game before Atraxa takes over or control gets to a position where I can't win. Playing around stuff like Wandering Emperor is a bit of an interesting mind game. But playing around Sunfall is basically just praying they don't have it.
I'll add that you also don't want good "answer" cards to be able to double as "wincons" because a lot of the balance relies on having to choose between cards that keep you alive and cards that can win you the game. If the incubate token had defender or if instead of making it you gained life or drew a card, Sunfall wouldn't be even remotely as good of a card because it would only help you stay alive. Also, the amount of colored mana in the cost also would help balance this card since most of the decks who want it are 4-5 color "good stuff" piles. It would still not make it fair, but at least running it would have a deckbuilding cost.
Love this series! The incubate token which effectively gobbles the entire field into a your own creature is nuts. Farewell is also v good but Sunfall is a bigger difference maker. Glad you said “best sweeper in the format” because it’s not even close (for standard/alchemy)
The issue with farewell is being able to choose any number of modes. It just lets you pick and choose whatever fucks your opponent the most. If it were always all the effects or only up to 2 it would be much more fair. Also, planeswalkers being the only value engines it doesn't hit is also an issue because we're now only getting one walker per set.
I think it's helpful to compare this card to white sun's twilight, which does a similar thing where it has a double swing. I find that card really frustrating as well, but it's better in that it destroys, not exiles, and needs two more mana to get the destroy effect.
I felt the need to revisit this video, since the release of bloom burrow Sunfall has become completely oppressive due Caretakers talent because now not only do they get to exile all your creatures (hosing gy recursion) but now they also get to draw a card from the incubate token. Then later then can level up the talent and the tokens get +2/+2. Those two cars combined make any control deck completely oppressive and if they land a single clean sunfall on more than 3 creatures then you might as well just scoop instantly.
I’m glad this video was made, my exact thoughts on the card. It’s rough to play against. I’m excited to build around Vein Ripper from MKM, but Sun Fall pretty much ruins any opportunity to benefit from the card.
Sunfall is without doubt a strong card, maybe to strong. But instead of ranting about it, have a look at why it exists and is needed: All this aggro BS and MRW decks thats been going on for as long as at least I've been playing this game. Sunfall is a card that at least enables control/ramp decks.
This is such a dumb poop card... Personaly board wipes and counter spells annoy the sh it out of me. Instead of a dumb timeless format i woud like to see a format without board wipes and counter spells. I will keep dreaming...
Ahhh, a creator after my own heart. Just got to Mythic, and I was Sunfalled, just sunfalled no exaggeration, over 100 times. I’m fine with all the other removal, they are for the most part fair, one for one, conditional removal, at least it’s in my grave, or under an enchantment or artifact. But, exiled, and now my opponent has a 7/7 for 2 cost and my board is gone. Nah. This card is cheese, hate it. Fun fact played quite a few games into the top 1,000 Mythic, haven’t seen Sunfall once, odd.
It isn't odd, its because Sunfall sucks and top aggro players know how to play against control. T1 recruitment officer, t2 Adeline, T3 Knight-Errant draw 2, you're 3 turns away from Sunfall and they can just activate Officer until you die. Take it from someone who plays exclusively control for many years now, there's no way in hell you're getting anything more than a 2/2 token if your opponent is good and isn't playing a shit deck.
Halfway through January 2024 and this card is STILL a problem in standard. Literally if your opponent is running white, sunfall and Farewell city, which severely impacts creature based decks especially graveyard based decks. The fact you can only play so much knowing your creatures can get taken to a single sided negative wrath effect, you get outclassed too fast. As soon as the spell is played, it pretty much is gg for any player not running counter magic. This card is severely broken and is creating a one sided meta where control dominates most midrange and pretty much every aggro player. A set incubate 5 or 6 would be much more realistic, but a turn 5 sweeper into a turn 6 14/14 for the cost of 7 total mana, not to mention the card advantage of taking 5-8 creatures for the BENEFIT OF THE CASTER is CRAZY. Every other game im seeing this card in standard ranked and events, and it does have a MASSIVE feel bad vibe to be losing in game currency consistently to poor match ups of white against anything else. BAN THIS CARD
I'd still love to see you talk about farewell. idk if it's still on your roster but as someone who enjoyed playing re-animators and value engine effects like enchantments/artifacts it was the bane of every off meta deck I tried to make.
Actually enchantments was the reason why I switched from BG Midrange to Esper Control with Sunfall and Farewell. In current Standart BG is helpless against enchantments and is forced to play totally shitty removal like Tear Asunder
@@xenonchikmaxxxthe problem is that there's a few enchantments that are fucking insane. The issue is that since farewell hits enchantments for free, decks that are trying to do cool non optimal things get absolutely destroyed by farewell. Brotherhood's end doesn't do this, because it forces you to make a choice and won't hit your janky artifacts unless they become threatening enough.
@_Ve_98 yep, the same for creatures, actually. We have several insane 3 drops like Squee, Adeline or Raffine that just don't trades 1to1 with removal and requires a board sweeper, unkillable Gods that require exile, so meta is packed with farewells and sunfalls, and interesting creatures like Tortoise are far behind
Sunfall is ass, sorry. Might be decent in the context of control cards, mostly because constructed control cards nowdays are on the power level of draft chaff, but compared to similarly priced aggro cards it isn't even close. They play Anim Pakal, you have to sweep. They play Adeline, you have to sweep. God forbid, they play one of those and Knight-Errant, you have to sweep immediately AND they're card positive. You're literally always losing tempo because every damn 3 drop is a fucking game-ending threat that makes tokens/draw cards/comes back from the graveyard/grows huge/all of those. I exclusively play control, and more often than not I'm cutting Sunfalls for more spot removal, or White Sun's Twilight. The incubator token is just not relevant when you have to blow up your 5 mana removal on 1 or 2 creatures.
I started magic in the tail end of neo, so my first standard deck was made of snc cards because i went all in for the store's prereleases. My first deck was a token deck i made myself which my friend then tweaked. After that my friends pushed me to monored and monowhite because the token strategy was just not viable. The only other deck I've taken was esper legends and thats for the bigger non fnm strats. The only reason I've actually returned to the token strat (without much of the usual worries) is because kutzil flanker was printed, my sideboard is filled with it and it compensates me for the usual sunfall = incubate token my tiny creatures can't deal with. Yeah sunfall is pretty bad because even if you built a deck to get ahead of all the 1 for 1 efficient removals, they will still wipe and profit.
Here me out, both players get a incubator token 🧐 Or something along those lines. Depending on how many creatures are exiled. Maybe their token should cost X mana for how many are exiled, getting a 10/10 for 2 mana is insane
I see your point but I would also mention that creatures and cards in general have gotten much better over the years and specifically better against destroy effects. Given that, I think it's sensible to also make sweepers scale in power level or at least be more exile based. So in order to balance sunfall I would mainly change the incubator token clause but still move in this direction when it comes to sweeper design philosophy.
I was never really against the “exile” part of Sunfall from a balance perspective in Standard. Since as you said, that is just a response to the state of the game. The incubator token is the big culprit. Thing is, their design philosophy only leads to massive power creep. Which in my opinion is just very uninteresting and leads the game down the path of less player agency/decision making, whether it be while deck-building or in game.
The card simply does too much for 5 mana. It exiles the entire board which prevents any form of graveyard recursion or effects that count the graveyard size. It sweeps the board of all threats while getting around indestructible AND it gives the opponent an instant speed use token that scales with the level of impact on the other player.
Sunfall is the card I hate the most as I play mono black aggro, I can't even recover my stuff from the graveyard or trigger my own graveyard exile upsides like graveyard trespasser, and after the fact, the token created by it is an artifact creature, son it can't be targeted by go for the throat, I just get wrecked in the ramp control matchups.
@@mrJerro2112 What kind of advice is that?, just don't play cards against control lmao, idk if you are salty against aggro players or you just don't know the matchup
Shatter the sky is another good design for 1 sided or upside sweepers too but white usually destroys everything dusk to dawn is like a reverse shatter. Black has those sorcery sweeps that keep your side alive entirely like crippling fear and witch's vengeance.
I wonder how much things like the indestructible granting legend land pushes sunfall to exile. I personally think sunfall is a necessary evil to deal with a plethora of powerful go wide decks in the format, sweeping once just often isnt enough it feels like I hate esper so im definitely biased lol
Sunfall cost with board presense is 7 mana. We already had White Sun's Twillight for 7 mana which also heals you for 5 and spawns 5 tokens which can finish one opponent in 2 turns. Cards just became stronger than in Depopulate times and nothing more. Same with creatures - we didn't have Atraxas and Etalis in the past.
I don't think Sunfall is broken, it can played around. For sure it's a powerful sweeper and I reckon in Commander games it can cause massive havoc but the high cost means a fast combo or aggro can end the game before they get to 5 mana. I've found the weakness of Sunfall to be how it's often telegraphed 2-3 turns in advance and you can adjust strategy to it. My most competitive deck is rdw and if I see white player not playing any creatures, I'm pretty sure they are waiting for the right moment drop Sunfall. The key is to balance your board state so you will get in decent damage and not overcommit. If they exile 2 low-cost creatures they've spent a turn's worth of mana to exile expendable creatures and only get a measly 2/2 token that's too weak of a blocker or is easily burned. What to do after that depends. If they cast Atraxa or some other big threat, they don't want to play another sweeper so then you are free to play rest of creatures and hopefully overwhelm defences to take them to shock/lightning strike range.
It's reasonable theory. But in practice after printing of Sunfall we saw periodic dominance of creature decks like monored, esper legends, several types of humans, selesnia enchantments. Even midranges like BG feel themselves good. Also format now have so huge amount of reanimation or "return to hand" tools that "destroy all" just wouldn't solve/reset anything.
I agree that an exile sweeper is necessary in Standard. But the issue is with the exact way the card was implemented. At the end of the day, the core problem is wizards’ fundamental design philosophy of creating even more powerful cards to answer/outpace other powerful cards. Creating a never-ending cycle of power creep that feeds into more toxic designs.
Mono red, humans, and enchantments can all win on or before turn 5, or tax Sunfall, and esper has access to counterspells. It doesn't prevent creature decks as a whole from being viable, but it does gatekeep which ones can be viable.
Weird take. Sunfall isn't even that strong. Atraxa decks aren't even that strong. Imagine picking the not busted card in a not busted deck. IMO Sunfall is fine as a different version of Phyrexian Rebirth. You speak of no counterplay as if actually playing cards is the only counterplay when in fact every one knows strong aggro decks can put up lethal damage with just a few creatures and sandbag the rest when playing against these type of decks. They also likely have the option of just killing you out right before turn 4/5.
I view balance a bit differently than most people. Adding into it what the card does in regard to the game as a whole (limiting deckbuilding for example). It’s unbalanced in the same way many other cards in the meta are unbalanced, so if you view those as balanced then we would agree in a way. If what most people mean by balance is that you can beat it, then sure. But that’s just less interesting to talk about since it’s a bit reductive. Sunfall as a card is much harder to “beat” than a permanent you can interact with. Which is why the best decks are those that can handle Sunfall. Either way, my main gripe is with the card design. This series is mostly focused on that aspect. There’s always “counter play” to cards in some way, except here it forces you into specific decks/archetypes, which is exactly my issue. Instead of having a wider meta where you can sideboard specific cards to “counter” a problematic card. Some cards just existing in the meta greatly limit the potential decks you can play. Which goes against what makes mtg an interesting game imo.
@@krowzmtg It's in the inherent design of sorceries and instants that the number one way to "counter them" is by, well, countering them. There's not many ways to stop any sorcery or instant from doing it's thing unless it's one that specifically targets a creature or destroys creatures. Yes, exile is significantly different and there is no way to stop a sweeper that exiles outside of blue, but that honestly isn't the problem here. First off, seeing how a card is doing in the meta is a great indicator of if a card is designed well or not. The more decks that are running the same card, especially when it doesn't fit their archetype, the more likely it is to be an unbalanced card. Sunfall is seen in two, maybe three decks if Esper midrange is still alive. None of which are top of the meta right now. Despite the hate for it Atraxa and similar midrange piles are tier two. Sunfall is a SLOW sweeper. We had a sweeper for possibly three mana a few rotations ago and it didn't even perform that well. Aggro decks are the top of the metagame right now and Sunfall is doing very little to stop them. And we're not even talking just Esper either. Monored is of course doing fine, especially in Bo1. Golgari midrange is doing well and it's wincon is aggro. Mono white is putting up results. These decks are not only able to kill before the Sunfall can go off, but in the hands of a capable pilot can slow roll to make Sunfall inefficient and recover faster than the token can do any thing. You can't simply talk about the design of a card in a vacuum and say it's bad design. You have to look at the state of the game being played around it. This whole video talks about how every thing about Sunfall SHOULDN'T BE DONE! And yet it's not even a strong card in the current meta. Analyze what's going on around it to figure out what is making these points you're so against not even turn it into a good card. You can not like a card all you want. That's totally fine. But if you're gonna do a series like this there needs to be more thought put into the content, not just a bunch of subjective words.
I think we disagree on what we mean by “well designed”. I care more about the game design aspect and you seem to care more about the balance aspect. Games are meant to be fun to play, there are mechanics/ways to design cards that are more “toxic” than others. And introduce negative feelings in the playerbase. This is a flaw that most mtg cards have, and imo it’s the wrong way to approach designing a game. In my mind, there’s an ideal way to design cards to achieve the same desired effect that most of the cards I would deem to be “toxic” have. I don’t know why you think my videos shouldn’t be subjective, this topic isn’t one that has an “objective” answer. The choice is left to the viewer as to whether they want to watch or not. I am just here to share my opinions on game design theory. At the end of the day, you are not the target audience for these videos.
@@krowzmtg I am target audience because game design is a school that highly fascinates me. Please don't belittle some one who is trying to have discourse with you like that. Yes...maybe? You're kinda right that the topic doesn't have an objective answer? But you are making some statements that are obviously completely false, such as: "And introduce negative feelings in the playerbase. This is a flaw that most mtg cards have, and imo it’s the wrong way to approach designing a game." If this were actually true then don't you believe the game would had died off a long time ago? If majority of cards actually left a bad taste in peoples' mouths they would had stopped playing. Yes, we do have cards that obviously a lot of people have strong feelings about, whether they're positive or not. However, it's safe to say that the majority of cards, if Wizards' own claims to that standard is what really makes their money, is that majority of them are in fact positive. But you really can't design removal to not be "toxic". You can't design a competitive versus game where every one is going to be "happy". Some one is going to lose and that is inherently going to invoke bad feelings. Not to mention the fact that creatures are becoming stronger and stronger. Long gone are the days that players can play counterspells and removal with one wincon. The game's design has changed and when it's creatures get more powerful it's removal options must as well. Power creep is inevitable. Lastly, again on the subjective part: Yes, there is a lot of subjectiveness to game design, however there is also a lot of objective metrics to be used as well. Meta and sales are two such metrics I've already leaned on enough. To say that it's entirely subjectively is kinda naive.
I feel like you’re still not quite understanding my perspective since it’s near impossible to get my full take across in writing. As you said, the majority of cards are positive, I agree. But shouldn’t you strive to design the least amount of those negative feeling cards? Or just reduce those feelings in general. In a way yes, more ppl will get frustrated at interaction, but my point was to reduce that frustration by changing the way you approach upside tied to removal (less board centric in the case of sunfall creating board presence). And not once did I mention that design doesn’t have an objective metric, I just find that to be the least interesting. Since everyone can observe those things. The subjectivity is what makes it interesting to talk about. Which is why I said you weren’t the target audience, since you seem to not be haply with how I approach these videos.
Sunfall is not overpowered for the current meta. I am sorry but aggro players refill their board with 4 5/5's in turn 5 just fine in this meta. Discover, draw, revive, what can't aggro decks do in this meta, as a control player what do you have? 5 years ago, you had amazing draw, counter-spells, amazing planeswalkers, what do you have now? Pretty much sunfall and a couple of removal spells, and a jace that is good for milling but has awfull board presence. If we take your suggestion and eliminate sunfall from standard or debuff it, then we would have ZERO control archetypes in standard. Sunfall is responsible for keeping alive a archetype that mtg is trying it's best to wipe off magic. I know this new generation only likes stupid aggro and mono white creatures, it sucks for us older players that actually learned this game when control was a very good archetype and we did not really on creature types to win games lmao.
Most people enjoy midrange actually. And it's often a misconception that control is hard to pilot and intellectual whereas aggro is not. Many control decks were as braindead as monocolor aggro, the play line is 99% of the time really obvious. Domain isn't hard to play. Traditional draw go control is about to die yeah, as it should, having no win condition and just wasting people time isn't fun for anyone. Domain is literally a control rampy deck. Just because this isn't the kind of control you like doesn't mean it's not. Control is more than viable in this standard in the form of Domain.
Having played on both sides I’d say I agree with both comments. Sunfall is clutch when an aggro deck can just put some 6/6s and what not by turn 3. Or when you know that at some point your opponent is gonna play a Virtue of Persistance at some point, in which case Depoulate just feels irrelevant. But it feels awful when you’re trying to commit to the board, putting your opponent to 0, who’s only ramping. Only to get double Sunfalled before an Etali or an Atraxa shows up. So maybe Sunfall is nonsense, but when you think about it, so is a big part the meta.
@@KayleJudicator aggro was not braindead in times of Gatecrush when your best 1 and 3 drops were Rakdos Cackler and Mogis Marauder and there was Supreme Verdic waiting for you on turn 4. But all this ranting in comments its just "I don't want to think how to play around sweepers". So people are actually defending braindead approach to aggro
Muy buen carta para control. Vale 5 pero resuelve muchos problemas incluidas las criaturas que regresan del cementerio. Incluso el costo es alto y a veces no llegas a usarla cuando te enfrentas a decks muy rápidos, con Thalia de por medio.
El problema es que Sunfall es que no está balanceado con el juego. Exilia las criaturas y aparte crea un token artefacto, por lo cual no puedes regresar cosas del cemento y esquiva a Go for the Throat. También gracias al maná actual en Standard, muchos otros arquetipos lo pueden jugar. Lo triste es que control no tiene muchas herramientas ahora.
