We Need To Talk About Ward 

Nice video, Vince! Sorry I stole your video topic. Guess I have... Ward - Make a Video Explaining Ward

Gavin did kinda hit on it by looking at Voja and Tivit but... My BIGGEST problem with ward is that when it's larger numbers it can feel like hexproof at most stages of the game, even in commander. Tempo still matters in commander, even if it is more casual. But they wouldn't have printed actual hexproof on the card. So the card feels pushed in most games, because the ward is acting like the keyword it shouldn't have. Ward is really best at 1, 2, and unique costs like discard a card or pay life. 3 and higher, and it runs into the "im basically hexproof, but im given power like im not actually hexproof."

Decks change. People change. But ward, ward never changes

Maybe the MTG Goldfish crew was right, and the 9 wrath meta is the way forward now that spot removal isn't as viable.

Horobi, looking at creatures with Ward: *You have no power here*

I think Ward in of itself is a good mechanic when it does something more than make your opponent pay one extra mana. We've seen this with Black cards that have Ward, instead of just paying 1 extra mana, your opponent has to decide if they want to sacrifice a permanent or discard a card, which not everyone is going to be able to do or want to do. I'd like to see we do more with the other colors, like White having your opponent choose things like you gaining a life or making a token, Green lets you search for a basic or put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control, red deals damage to them or they sacrifice a land, blue has you draw a card a card or they bounce a permanent to their hand. There's some excellent space here that makes it more interesting than just a Poorman's Hexproof, but it also shouldn't be pushed to the extreme its being used.

Ward: go next door and get me pepper chicken with shrimp fried rice.

Ward is fine as long as the cost isn't ridiculous. Ward 3+ may as well be hexproof in most instances cause it will practically cost you the whole turns worth of mana to deal with it and often will result in whatever it is going uncontested without a wipe in my experience. But I do like alternate ward costs like paying life or sacking something. Sauron having one of the most insane alternate ward costs I think.

"Ward, we need to talk about the Giant Beaver."

To copy/paste my comment on Gavin's video on this subject yesterday: The issue is that MTG designers seem to ignore that Ward, like Hexproof and Shroud, should be on a limited number of cards. In all of Magic, there are around: 250 cards with hexproof, 120 with shroud, and over 110 cards with ward despite the mechanic only existing for 3 years. Think about that… Ward has nearly 1/2 the number of cards that Hexproof has, a mechanic that’s existed since 2011, and within a set or two will have more cards than Shroud, a mechanic that’s existed since 1994. Ward is being handed out like candy to cards that frankly shouldn’t have it. Powerful cards are kill on sight because they are powerful. They don’t need to have built in protection. For example, if I play Kaalia the Vast, I full expect my opponent to kill Kaalia immediately if I don’t have some sort of protection available for her. Someone playing Voja or Miirym as their commander knows it’s a kill on sight card… they should be required to work to protect it, not have that protection built in so they don’t need to do anything. All three keywords should be used as appropriate, but they really need to be included in the casting cost better. Going back to Voja as a recent example: a 5/5 trample vigilance for 5 that makes +1/+1 counters and draws cards seems fair… why does it also need Ward 3, and where is the mana value going to show that? Like… even without Ward 3 it’s arguably worth 5 mana, so why doesn’t it cost even more for having such great built in protection? Basically, Hexproof would cause a card to cost 1 - 2 extra mana, but it doesn't seem like ward is increasing the CMC of the cards it's on, it's just being put on cards with no thought to that element of the design.

Ward 1: A small tax for interacting with the permanent, encourages opponents to pick something else to target Ward 2: A serious defense for the permanent, usually gets to stick around at least until an opponent untaps and you may get to untap with it even if it's an obvious "remove on sight" target Ward 3: Don't put it on something you would immediately rule out hexproof for Ward 4+: Keep it conditional, like on Iymrith Ward--Pay 2 life: Neither the permanent's controller nor the opponent feels great after a removal spell, but neither feels awful, either Ward--Pay 3 life: The permanent's controller is starting to feel better about it being removed Ward--Discard a card: It really hurts, but sometimes the two-for-one is worth it, particularly with cards that can do stuff from the graveyard In any case, use it sparingly and keep it flavorful.

My issue with ward is twofold. One, it's another protection effect that while, "strictly worse than hexproof," it can be slapped on to more cards because of this and shows less restraint in design. Two, it makes single target removal less effective, pushing players into playing more board wipes. I have no problem with board wipes, but a lot of players do, so I have to hear more people moaning about "slowing the game down."

Shield counters where better designed ward you can't change my mind

I think the issue is that the prescence of Ward rarely factors into the cost, even when the Ward ability might as well be hexproof. Voja and Sauron might as well have Hexproof, but they aren't costed accordingly.

Ward 2 is such an interesting mechanic, becuase it looks so unamusing but when you realize your go for the throat cost 4 and thats basically means deciding between timewalking yourself to answer the thing, or letting it run rampant and you realize its true power. I loved Gavin's video on it. I love your take. Its a cool mechanic, we just all missevaluated a bit.

Non mana ward is based

I just got back into MtG recently after a long time being away. When I left, they just keyworded shroud (it was Lorwyn/Shadowmoor) and had it on a bunch of stuff and that felt almost oppressive but was balanced in that you paid a high price to play it. Coming back and reading about hexproof and ward just feels.... _immensely_ powerful. Being able to buff/manipulate targets while your opponent can't is just so strong.

As primarily a limited player, I definitely appreciate Ward, particularly since removal feels like it keeps getting more and more abundant at lower and lower mana, so ward is a way to keep your bombs feeling fun without resorting to hexproof, which is often unfun.

My solution to Gavin’s double Shock vs. a Ward (2) Toughness 4 creature = total 6 mana problem is to make it like the ability of Clergy of the Holy Nimbus and Knight of the Holy Nimbus.

I like how flexible ward is as a mechanic. Ward pay 3 life is really good on an aggressive creature. On a value engine not so much. Ward, "sacrifice a creature" and "discard an instant sorcery or enchantment" can be brutal depending on the state of the game but not always. Ward 2; on a two mana 1/1 that grows every turn is not gonna save the creature forever but it might save ot long enough for you to win.

Gisa, the hellraiser has ward 2 and pay 2 life

@2:26 We have the very playable Shadow Spear. What colourless permeant turns off Ward abilities as cheaply? (In many cases, Ward is better than Hexproof to actually protect your creatures). To illustrate this better, if every creature that has Ward, they just gained Hexproof, then your meta would be around dealing with and circumventing Hexproof. Shadow Spear’s price will climb accordingly and you will want to draw/tutor the Shadow Spear (same goes for lands like Arcane Lighthouse). The only counter play to Ward is ‘cant be counted’ spells. Until that anti Ward tech is printed on more playable spells, you cannot in an alt way disable Ward (iff the Ward tax is too much of a tempo loss).

better play testing is needed most. With arena, they have a readily exploitable venue for play test. While they may insist that they do not want consumers to see cards while in development, they would have a difficult time justifying it. This does not mean open up play testing to all of Arena, but more likely a carefully currated population which still needs to be large. This would be a big marketing win as well as beneficial to the overall quality of each set.

One thing I really love about ward (as someone who plays Fleshgorger with cheat-death cards) is that you can let your opponent pay the ward cost, then respond to the spell that targeted it.

Wouldn't the solution be to include start making "ward hate" cards. Cards that either get an extra effects if you pay the ward or can ignore ward and get a smaller benefit. So... examples... RR instant - Deal target 2 damage. If the target has a ward cost that you paid deal 4 damage instead. 1R Instant - Deal target 3 damage. Players and permanents with shroud or hexproof can be targeted. If the target has ward you may choose to not pay the cost. If you target a player or permanent with with shroud, hexproof or ward you deal 1 damage instead unless the ward cost was paid. 2 Artifact - 1 {tap}: When target permanent with Ward is targeted by a spell or ability you control the owner must pay 2 or the ward cost (your choice). If they don't the cost of the triggered ability becomes 0. 1 {tap}: Permanents with Shroud or Hexproof lose the the effect of the ability against your spells and abilities until end of turn. They also gain 2: Counter target spell or ability targeting [name]. 2U Sorcery - When you cast this spell make a copy on the stack. Return target creature or artifact to it's players hand. While this spell is on the stack, as a part of their casting cost, when you target a permanent that has ward with a spell or ability you may choose to ignore the ward cost. Afterwards remove this spell from the stack. While this spell is on the stack, as a part of their casting cost, spells and abilities you control can target players and permanents with shroud or hexproof. Afterwards remove this spell from the stack. This a bit wordy, but with rules short hand that could avoid the need to treat ward and shroud/hexproof separately. Alternatively you could change the core ward rules. - You only need to pay the ward cost of a permanent once per turn. - You only need to pay the ward cost of a permanent once per turn but a ward 1 cost must be paid each additional time you target the permanent that turn. - You get 2 generic mana when pay a ward cost. If the Ward cost is 1 or 2 you instead get 0 or 1 mana respectively.

As something who doesn’t interact with commander I think ward is great. There are overturned and egregious cards to be made with any mechanic, but having a tool that makes expensive creatures not trade down so hard is great for formats dominated by hyper efficient 1 mana removal

So, most of the players at my store in DFW Texas really like OTJ, the flavor, and the cowboy stuff. even the humor. i think when you are surrounded by earnest examples of people who are into all this cowboy stuff all the time it's kind of nice to have product that pays some homage to it also acknowledge and lean into how goofy it is sometimes. I really appreciated how campy some of this stuff was.

Amazing how much goodwill Gavin's video seems to have bought with the community.

Ward - sacrifice a permanent On mishra tamer of mak fawa is overlooked af.

Ward 3 is basically hexproof.

@3:30 There are some conditional cards that have ward 4 and some of these are not even commanders but playable creatures with super ward: Iymrith, Desert Doom Tyrranax Rex Winged Boots Kappa Cannoneer Neverwinter Hydra Tyranid Harridan I am glad this list is short and hopefully we see some very different Ward costs (maybe OR’d together costs so you can either sac something or pay mana cause you are flooded. Concurrently Ward costs are AND’d together.)

I really like ward, more specifically, I like ward that makes you pay a cost other than mana. Vein ripper is one of my favorite examples. "Ward: sacrifice a creature" is most certainly a cost, but not an unpayable one. I personally would love to see more of that.

The main difference between Ward and Hexproof/Shroud is players really need to pay attention to what they do. Recently I had a game playing an Arahbo deck, in which I played Sovereign Okinec that really got out of hand at one point (dealing 68 trample dmg in one turn) and one turn one of the players tried to destory Okinec with I believe Feed the Swarm (or some other single removal), BUT he had only one open mana, forgetting that Okinec has Ward 2. If it was Hexproof, we'd just say "you can't target him" but with Ward, it was "Can you pay 2 more? If not, it's countered" so yeah, this way Okinec was still on the board and opponent was down one removal spell from hand.

6:00 the fact that they cant depict actual guns, makes this cowboy set feel extremely weird

Before this set I was worried we'd never see a fair commander again. But then I got Miriam Herd Whisperer. I think people will look back fondly on this set, for all its issues (Kellen).

I've run into problems at the casual commander table due to the way Ward had to be worded. If someone cast Murder on a creature, but forgot it had Hexproof, it was very easy to roll it back, as the action would have been illegal anyways. With Ward countering the spell unless you pay the cost, it gets awkward asking the table if they can roll it back to keep their spell, or they get the feel bad moment as the opponent has to let their spell be countered and wasted.

"look over the main set of thunder junction and only see 1 legendary with ward attached to it" did you forget about Gisa?

So far, I've seen a huge variety of Ward costs. 1, 2, 3, Sacrifice a creature, Discard a Card, Discard Enchantment, instant, or sorcery, Sacrifice a legendary artifact or creature... there's a lot of ways to go about it. It's a versatile keyword, so I don't think it's going anywhere anytime soon. (Ban Voja please.)

Looking back at a lot of commanders I've made over the past year, it's startling how many have just incidentally had Ward on them, for one reason or another. Wilson/Raised by Giants, Karlach/Cultist of the Absolute (grants Karlach Ward), Fblthp, Lost on the Range.... It's not like I'm going out of my way looking for Ward commanders, either. They usually have other mechanics that I'm interested in, and Ward just shows up.

this is a comment i made on gavins video regarding ward - I feel like you can split things into 3 abilites - ward which is NEVER a mana cost but instead a cost befitting it (black creatures have ward pay life for example) then you can easily do cards that cannot be target by spells ... simple easy and means threats cannot be dealt with easily but abilities still get through so evoke or tap to destroy abilities become fruitful and then on the opposite side you could do cannot be the target of abilities - means spells have high function but targeted removal from permanents alreayd in play is less threatening.

I mean, pretty much every set is loaded with Legendary creatures to cater to commander. A while back, I was curious how that compared to when I started playing back around Shard of Alara. There were 15 Legendary Creatures. In the entire *block*! And this was when the Core Sets were all reprints, and there weren't many expansions outside the 3 that made up the block each year.

Having a scaleable Hexproof is really cool. My favorite are the ones with Ward that don't really require people to pay mana, but to do a different action. Like, say, sacrificing a legendary creature ( looking at you, Sauron ) or paying 9 life. It's a cool space to innovate on.

A good mechanic is compatible with cards of Magic's past, making more things viable in some capacity. Ward does the exact opposite of that, making less efficient removal much harder to play. Cards like Generous Gift and Hagra Mauling start to feel pushed out of the format, and pet cards are cut entirely. Spin into Myth or Gild weren't even good to begin with, but now they're borderline unplayable.

I made a Nine Fingers deck as a Voltron using totem aura's and life link equipment and single mana counter spells to protect him from targeted removal after they would pay the ward cost. The point of the deck was to make people pay the 9 life then counter the spell lol.

Right.. you really gotta work to make those treasures. I kid I kid, I love when a commander is just a piece of the puzzle like OG quintorious

I think Ward in general is fine (especially at 1, maybe at 2) but should have been limited more into certain colors/color combinations. For instance, Voja having the same Ward cost as Tivit is, frankly, absurd to me. Tivit is already a powerhouse, but A: it can't swing the turn it drops, B: it costs 6 (as opposed to 5), and C: Esper is the most famous color for control effects, while Naya is not.

There's a balance with Ward that is hard to achieve where it's not impossible to remove the creature, but hard enough it's still worth playing it. Disguise walks that line. Because the Disguise cost is three, when playing it on curve your opponent can respond if they hit their 3rd land drop. It does limit the kind of removal to a one-drop and prevent a double spell turn. But that also limits the card to being a decoy for your hand, and if you get the payoff it's just icing on the cake. That reality made Disguise fun to pull off but kept it from becoming a mainstay in the meta. I think the best place Ward can go is to move to a modular design for the payoff: Ward 3 or discard a card/sack a land/pay 3 life.

I'm here for the Ward IFF there is proper interaction with it. The idea that a spell 'cannot be countered' is powerful (yes to keep Blue players in their place) but also balancing Warded creatures. Ideally there should be a mana rock which can activate to shut off ward+hexproof+shroud while helping you to cast an uncounterable spell. (Unless WotC wants to make Shadow Spear 2.0). Even just having a choose 3 modes destroy wrath (creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or then exile graveyards) would help to curb Ward (to be more alone the lines of Cleansing Nova and half of Farewell).

I feel like wards big thing for me at least is the psychological cost. It's hard to make me want to pay 4 to use a Swords on Voja compared to the 1 on any other non ward commander. It's like paying at a marked up value, and as the prof over at TCC says, Don't Pay Markups.

You can get around Ward also via "cannot be countered" which makes cards like Void Rend incredible good these days.

For me, the problem with ward is not so much the ward by itself, it's when ward gets combined with multiple other powerful effects. If Voja had a keyword or two removed, lost its card draw effect, and lost one or two points of P/T, then its ward would no longer be egregious (although the card would still be very strong, which just goes to show how much of a design mistake that card is). Similarly for Miirym; you could tune its abilities, cost, statline, etc such that the ward is no longer ridiculous. I think this is true with basically everything in MTG (there are of course going to be exceptions). For example, people have said that treasure tokens are fundamentally broken, but I disagree; I think there are a dozen or so specific treasure cards that are busted. Almost any mechanic on its own can be made either overpowered, balanced, or underpowered, depending on how it's utilised. And right now, the way they're utilising ward is by slapping it onto cards that are already extremely powerful, which is the part that they should reconsider, imo.

Ive always equated ward to being a Tax type effect like Smothering Tithe /Rhystic Study rather than worse hexproof.

I think Ward is a great mechanic. You can play cards that make your spell not counter able. You can also ask the table if they think the card is problem and say you want a favor if you remove it. But I do see how if everything does have ward that will be a problem.

I like that the legendaries of thunder junction lean more towards "unusual and interesting" more than strictly "powerful". However, the non-legendary cards definitely do the latter. There's a freaking 4 mana 6/5 trampler with no drawback that also has an activated ability in the graveyard to fetch you a land. and I thought the 3 mana 4/4 toxic creature from ONE was pushed in terms of stats per mana.

There is a creature with ward 4, but it is conditional. Iymrith, Desert Doom has ward 4 if he's untapped. I think my issue with ward is a combination of what gets ward alot of times and the fact that it's design tends to default to the generic mana-cost. The first point is pretty self-explanatory. Big, game-winning pieces like Voja shouldn't have inherent protection like ward. If you're running something that pushed for it's archetype, you should be expected to at least protect it until it untaps. At the very least, it should be a ward 1, not 3. Something like Fblthp, besides just the theming being on-point, is a small dude that isn't really gonna rip the game apart by itself, so I think it's fine to give him a bit of lasting-power. Same with like the disguises. They're a pretty big investment of time and mana to use, so giving them a chance to resolve is fine. As for the second point? Well, I of the different forms of ward I like, I tend to prefer ones that force more unique costs that offer more interesting choices. Discarding cards, paying life, sacrificing permanents, I enjoy having stuff like that on ward costs, as it makes the decision making around it more interesting and can also lead to some more interesting interactions with your deck, forcing payments that might benefit your deck's strategy uniquely. I get that from a design-perspective, the generic cost is easier and less headache-inducing to implement as standard, but I'd like to see more ward costs experiment with other forms of costs for the effect that play into unique strategies, especially on legendaries made to be commanders.

So instead of having to have things like shadow spear and the lighthouse land and takes away hexproof, you get a mechanic that makes it so you don't have to use card slots just for removal. Now the card you want to get rid of is like hexproof, but built in get around to it. 3 mana is nothing.

Ward should only trigger once per turn.

Ward is 100% an improvement over Hexproof but the exact problem is that keep printing ward on stuff they would have never even thought about putting hexproof in the first place. The problem cards with ward are already heavily pushed without ward and could have easily had a second keyword that replaced ward completely and made more sense (Haste on Voja, Flash on Tivit, etc.) yet they went with essentially hexproof when that woudlve never been on the table even when hexproof was shroud (and had an actual downside).

Yeah, ward should have just been "This creature can not be affected by opponent spells that cost less than (?)" That essentially gets around the issue of early removal without literally giving your opponent a turn advantage because you're having to use 6 mana to use a 3 mana removal. It also has the potential to make high mana drop creatures less frustrating to spend a turn playing because you don't have to worry about them getting insta-countered or swords to plowshares immediately.

Candlestick Maker: Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice

Ward 1 = “I can work around that…” Ward 2 = “Well, that’s frustrating.” Ward 3+ = Scoop

we could have had something with Shield Counters but they kind screwed them over Shield counters prevent the next Destruction or Damage the permanent receives... this was very narrow and very easy to pop for free... Chump blocking a Shield Counter poped it for free. it could still be Exiled or Sacrificed there are a few ways this could have been way better and not as powerful as ward 1) Make the Shield Counter not include Damage, as any death by Damage is Destruction, so it was redundancy just to make the mechanic worse 1-2) if thats still too weak, just make it include Exile. but add that it doesn't prevent Sacrifice 2) Make it pop on any "target" meaning it still dies by combat and repeatable target effects serve as good ways to pop it before you remove it.

This is why I love edicts

Ward would be fine if it had more interesting ways of paying it. Like idk, make someone sac permanents, make them tap certain kinds of creatures to prevent them attacking, make them discard cards etc or a combination of these. Like Ward 1, Discard a Card. Ward 1, Sac a Legendary Permanent or something. When you just make it a flat mana cost then it makes interactions like Roaming Throne + Voja where suddenly you need to pay 6 extra mana to target something. It's ridiculous and incredibly boring at the same time.

❤❤❤ I'm such a fan of Thunder Junction! I've had a blast opening packs and building new commanders to test out over the next few weeks!!

PK: Gavin video on ward is very good. Me: Strongly Agree

I feel like ward is a well-designed mechanic but needs one slight tune-up: it should pivot more toward the way Sauron does it, where the cost is more interactive. Otherwise, I love the concept. Forces people to think more and is a hexproof you can get around, provided you can pay the cost!

Ward has a lot of design space left to be explored. It could be "pay 3 life" like sedgemoore witch, or draw a card, sacrifice a creature etc. All the ward x we got is boring.

I think the biggest problem with ward for me is we already had a more interesting "not as good" hexproof design in shroud. And we haven't gotten a lot of that in a while, which is a shame.

I want so much ward pay life cards, itd be really neat to make a sort of ward pay life aggro deck.

Difference being: you cant remove ward with Shadowspear, but you can remove hexproof

The issue is that standard forms of removal should *always* trade up on anything 4 or more costed, so costing usually 5-6 mana to remove a 5 mana kill-on-sight is really bad design

So. Let's say I have a golgari vanilla matters legacy deck. With 2 ancient tombs , 4 Herald of the Pantheon, and 3 petroglyphs. Would people run 4 Stampede Surfer (like I currently am running) for a potential 8 damage, turn four? (Nice against footfalls) Or is 4 a killer among us (from mkm) better at a 10 damage possibly turn four and a potential 12 damage turn five? 'A killer among us' being like a weird, slightly more powerful 'grave titan'. Of which I run a playset of in the sideboard.

I don’t mind steeper ward values on higher cost permanents that are dropping later game, but when Voja drops turn 3, that Ward 3 makes it almost impossible to remove for a turn or two. It really sucks in Arena brawl because there’s almost no way to interact with it until it’s already done its thing, and then you just have to pray for a board wipe.

@3:31 we have one commander with ward 4, it's "Iymrith, Desert Doom", but only if it is untapped.

that actually explains why only vihaan and obeka from OTJ interested me.

If you're sick of Hasbro/WotC, check out Sorcery Contested Realm. Its only one set a year which is perfect for busy dads like me and is a great option for a secondary TCG. Super fun, feels nostalgic for old MTG, hand painted art, cards have value, etc.

I feel like ward would be great for big boss monsters with not much else going on aside from being big assholes that either annoy you or swing for massive damage- if it wasn't as common as it currently is. Utility being resistant to interruption is pretty whack, especially when its _everywhere._

Ward needs to have more creative or interesting costs attached to them for it to be interesting. Otherwise it will always be "Diet Hexproof" or "hexproof, but it came go on better creatures." I'm not a game designer, but I always thought Sauron's "Sacrifice a legendary permanent" was a cool requirement. It's something hard, but not impossible to compliment his high cost, it requires a hard choice to be made by the person targeting, it's not just "do you pay the 2?"

Like this non-rant, balanced Reaction with Gavin's points in it to react to. More of this pls!

My biggest issue with Ward was how Gavin talked about it from a design perspective. Hearing Ward be included on cards because "players need it to stick around for a few turns to get value out of it" seems kinda handholdy. If I'm playing a big, splashy threat then removal is something I obviously have to consider. It should be on me as a player and deck builder to include ways to stopping interaction or protecting my value pieces from it. When he talks about Ward being included on cards because they might be targets of removal, it feels like Wotc doesn't trust me to run protection in my decks. Voja doesn't need ward because it should be the responsibility of the person piloting and building the deck to find a way to keep her on the board. Imo, removal should always stay cheap and efficient. Knocking a single card off the table should never be a herculean effort that consumes your whole turn. It's the role of the player playing that card to try and find a way to keep it around for as long as they need it.

For anyone who does not take a look at ward highest mana value is ward 10 on tarrasque as long as you cast it, nine fingers keene is ward pay 9 life (highest in life payment), and obvious to most people one of besr ward requirements which is Saucon, the dark lord at ward sacrifice a legendary artifact, or legendary creature.

I said so on Gavin's video as well but I think for me Voja feels like the last straw because the ward cost is the cherry on top of a pretty nonsensical sundae that could have been toned down in one of a half-dozen ways. I think my firmest stances with Ward are that: 1) Ward shouldn't be on legendary creatures that are already pushed; setting aside every other aspect of Voja, my biggest problem is that even assuming you do remove him on the spot, he's a 5 drop in elf typal - not only does your removal cost so much more, it also doesn't stick. They're going to recast Voja and you burned your whole turn to do it. EVERYONE has to take a turn removing him before the commander tax really gets problematic for a deck with so much ramp and so many dorks, and that's the problem. Even board wipes are few and far between and the Voja player is the most likely to build back quickly even if people draw into their wipes. It's notable that Voja isn't a problem in 60 card formats and I imagine a huge part of this is that he stays dead there. 2) Ward is INFINITELY more interesting when it's not a mana cost. People pushed back on Gavin's tweet over this, but I think this comes from a perspective of considering card advantage as the only thing that matters. Some of MTG's most powerful cards are inherently 2-for-1s like Force of Will/Negation, and I'd rather dump a couple of extra cards in EDH to deal with a threat that has "Ward - Discard two cards" than completely shatter my tempo, especially with all the recursion. Obviously it'll always come down to individual cases, but things like Annihilator and cards like Phyrexian Obliterator are much more frustrating to deal with than a discard tax, personally. Finally, on an unrelated note, "Outlaws of Commander Junction" is a hilarious Freudian slip, particularly since this is the set that brought us Obeka - as much as I love her, there are FOUR cards in the ENTIRE limited pool including bonus sheets and all of them are rare at minimum, she should have been part of BIG and not taken up a main set rare slot.

The chief problem with Ward is it seems that they just don't value it properly. Ward 2/3 are meaningful protections, but often cost like trivial protection. Fancy ward costs like sacrificing or discarding are actually treated like nearly hexproof and cost suitably.

We need the fair version of Ward and Hexproof back: Shroud.

Ward 3 or ward 2 should often just be replaced with a reduction in cmc, or stat adjustments. If Voja was 4 mana, with slightly smaller stats but no ward, I think we have a much less offensive card. Easier to remove at combat to prevent triggers, but also easier for the voja player to replay. Fblthp is maybe an exception, because it feels like a weak puzzle piece that needs protection, so a higher ward cost feels appropriate.

I like ward at the moment. A previous answer to dies to doomblade by making everything a 2 for 1 was way more frustrating for me personally.

Correction: the new Gisa also has Ward 2, pay 2 life. So her and Fblthp

You forgot about another legend with ward, the new gisa, who has a triggered ability on crimes that make 2 2/2 zombies. it's so easy to commit a crime for 1 or 0 mana, unliscenced hearse, graveyard trespasser, etc.

Can't be countered causes are the best thing for ward Though i can also see design space for anti ward "This spell casts 3 less to cast if the target has ward" *or* "if an effect requires an additional cost to cast this spell you may ignore that cost"

The ward on Voja is essentially flavor text. You were likely not going to swords that dog, just to get hit by 10 elves anyway. You were going to send the Voja player back to the stone age anyway. I think people see the ability on a creature that was on a previously contentious commander Tivit and are saying the ward 3s are equal... but realistically they are not. When you wrath tivit you are always going down on card advantage, and the other players are just catching strays to remove a single threat. Where as Voja, Felix and a few of the other new ones are designed in a way where by them selves they are okay, but they are powerful with friends. Honestly, I wish Felix didn't have ward sometimes, so my Sabateurs would stop getting exiled. The real problem comes in that wraths have equally been pushed to be either 1 sided (Rift), extremely efficient (Deluge), or really oppressive (farewell).

Phage has long been my favorite commander and i totally get the "a commander thats not the engine but the pay off feels like a different game" Granted ive got my own hoops to jump through to even summon her but i like her so much more for MBC then a card like Ayara who is probably objectively better.

The ward sac permanents or discard cards is where it gets strong

We got ward 8 on that one sea monsters card, and that shit's hilarious

i love ward!!! its great to protect and its still possible to overcome, i hope they dont change it at all

It still somewhat worries me that Gavin assures Voja should have Ward 2 instead of 3, when it shouldn't have Ward at all.

I don't have as much an issue with ward as much as which creatures I see it on. Hell, give ward to weird stuff like grulnok self mill frog tribal. But Miirym, volja, Roaming throne etc are all so incredibly strong already that ward just makes them that much harder to kill. Octavia has ward 8 but I've yet to see anyone lament that.

I think that many of the things that were produced in the D&D sets were improperly implemented for example the tarrasque should have had either shroud or hexproof, but it didn't in addition to it should have either had regenerate or indestructible along side trample and other combat abilities but nope none of that was present. Instead it gets ward 10 which is able to be bypassed by spending (1) mana from over a dozen sources. Then they could have also given it a unique ability and I even have a name for it by the name of spell resistance or spell reflection. The ability would allow the controller of the tarrasque to change the target of any spell or ability that targets it to another target of the tarrasque's controllers choice. It could have a mana cost restriction of some kind either a minimum mana cost or a payment from the tarrasque's controller or maybe it makes the controller of the targeting spell to pay something extra to keep it from being redirected. Any of these options would have all been significantly better than what was received from Wizards.

Personally, I like that it has become a reoccurring mechanic, it has never felt too complicated, but spices up the game more than hexproof and shroud. (In my opinion)

Glad Gavin acknowledged that Kappa Cannoneer was a huge mistake. Good thing it's contained to Legacy and won't get stupidly printed into any other formats.