What do we think of Sieges?

[Morganator 2.0]

With March of the Machine we got the new battle card type with the accompanying siege mechanic. Now that we've had some time to play with them, what do we think of them? Which sieges are your favorite? Do you have any memorable stories involving a siege?

[robort]

I think they were meh. You get an effect and then have to waste resources on it to get the 2nd effect. Even after doing 2 prereleases for this set they just were meh. In limited when you have only 20 life I would rather be aiming to take your 20 life. Why waste damage resources to defeat you later when I can defeat you now. Basically it delays the inevitable of someone dying.

[CleanBelwas]

I think Battles are a cool and interesting new card type. I'm excited to see what other battle types we get in the future (ambush, skirmish etc.) and how they will be flavourfully represented.

With regards to Sieges specifically, I think they're fine in limited and have been occasionally cool in constructed (specifically EDH).

In limited, the effects on the front side are usually decent enough to include anyway and the beauty of them is that you don't have to attack them if it's more beneficial to go straight at life totals (as Robort alluded to), but you can if you want. In the few sealed / draft events I played in, I found myself including them fairly regularly because the front sides are all fine, and attacking them probably half the time depending on board state.

In EDH, the only place I've played with them is in my Atraxa, Grand Unifier deck. The idea of the deck is to one day get the elusive "Draw 9" from Atraxa's ETB ability, so I've included multiple of each card type. The Battles I included were:

Invasion of Amonkhet - card is just good
Invasion of Moag - Fairly creature heavy, combat based deck so front side does a lot of work
Invasion of New Capenna - Subtheme of phyrexian tribal so front and back are both good here
Invasion of Vryn - Sift with potential upside is fine

Part of the effectiveness of these battles in this deck is that Atraxa typically attacks very favourably, so flipping the battles is usually pretty simple. Not sure how much I'd be rushing to put battles into other decks without the "card types matter" theme and ease of flipping.

I'm also finalising my first draft of my Battle Cube (https://deckstats.net/forum/index.php/topic,69602.0.html) which, all going well, will hopefully have it's first play on Friday. I'll report back when we've played it. I have a strong feeling battles are going to be a lot more fun and exciting when they are the whole focus.

[ApothecaryGeist]

I agree with @robort.


For limited play, the front side is all you can count on.  Five to seven combat damage is 25-35% of my road to victory.  I can only afford to aim that at a Siege if I'm already winning.  These are win-more cards.


I had already figured this going into the prerelease.  I was underwhelmed by Battles.  But not surprisingly so.


I have not yet played with them in EDH.  Nor have I seen anyone play any.  I suspect they will be used as political pieces.  That could be interesting in a multiplayer format.  I can see them being used as an outlet to get attack/damage triggers without actually hitting a player.


The only Battle I am curious to try out, is putting Invasion of Ikoria into my Eggs deck.

[Landale]

For the most part, they're underwhelming sorceries that stick around to help devotion count. Only a small handful even caught my attention, Amonkhet, Fiora, Innistrad, Karsus, Segovia, and Tarkir to be exact.

[WWolfe]

I'm kind of ehh on them. I might try Innistrad and New Capenna out at some point, but they're not something I've rushed out and grabbed nor are they something that's a priority to grab.

I was originally going to preorder Innistrad but decided against it.

[Morganator 2.0]

I have to agree with the other users; this mechanic was clearly made for commander and not 20 life formats.

I've seen Invasion of New Capenna used a few times. People love their tribal decks. I've also considered using Invasion of Amonkhet in The Scarab God, but haven't gotten around to it. The front-half gives a lot of small advantages, and the back half is what my deck is already trying to do (albeit at sorcery speed). I just don't know if it's worth a slot, because by the time Scabby God comes out, I'm going to be putting that 3 mana towards his ability.

[12aptor1nfinity]

I am going to try Invasion of New Capennain my EDH deck. My commander is Liesa, so 4 flying damage can hopefully 1 shot this right away. The theme and the battle-in-a-battle sound fun.

All the posts in here make sense to me, upvoted!

Maybe we see this in another battle type like CleanBelwas was saying, but I am surprised the sieges don’t give the defending player some advantage while they have it alive. Maybe just not enough room for more text on the card.

[BlackFox0117]

I wish WotC had made it to where the backside gets cast by whomever removes the last counter, unless it gets removed by the protector, in which case it just gets put into the graveyard. Would make them way more prominent in multiplayer formats

[fire5167]

More clutter added to the game. Now if I want to play a game of Commander I need to be familiar with the Undercity, Ringbearers, Battle Mechanics, and Contraptions. I do not doubt that WotC will readjust the next Battle subtype to be needlessly complex only for it to be either absurdly broken or completely obsolete. I would not be surprised if 99% of Magic players forget Seiges even exist five years from now.

I realize this sounds harsh, but I really don't see how they add any benefit to the game that needed to be filled.

[WWolfe]

I would not be surprised if 99% of Magic players forget Seiges even exist five years from now.

To be honest, I forgot they existed until you bumped this thread. I lost interest in even the ones I thought I would playtest once I saw one in action. No one in my playgroup runs them anymore. Several tested them out and found them disappointed.

[EMaxxi]

More clutter added to the game.

Kinda...

I think it's strange they went with double-faced cards as the first implementation of Battles. I'm expecting future sets to have single-faced battles that *you* have to protect from the opponent, as a way to slowly phase out planeswalkers... though it seems PWs are still popular.

Wilds of Eldraine having 0 Battles is a sign that not even WotC is 100% sold on this new card type.

[stuffnsuch]

I realize this sounds harsh, but I really don't see how they add any benefit to the game that needed to be filled.

There is at least one very specific benefit they fill; one that is very important and Battles not only fill the need, but do so in a brilliant and nearly perfect way.  Battles address power creep and have the potential to be able to adjust the game's pacing and flow.   Essentially, flipping a Battle functions similarly to giving your opponent 3-7 extra life depending on the Battle.  This means, that, as WotC prints Battles into the game, they're also printing a slight slow down of the game as well.
Battles are exactly what they claim to be, a "battle" that can, but doesn't necessarily, turn the tide in the overall war.  Ideally, a good Battle would be good but not great to play without flipping, challenging to defeat, and then massively rewarding once defeated. There's also the potential for Battles that you defend which give a bonus until defeated, or that must be attacked until defeated and give you a bonus after they're defeated.  There are so many cool design spaces for Battles, but even with just sieges, they are really fun in limited, make for much more interesting games in casual formats, and represent the possibility of something that could actually even help more established and competitive formats to have more game diversity.  I think they didn't want to go too hard on the initial run of Battles, but they'll likely return to them soon, with something a little different and maybe a few more pushed ideas until they start becoming relevant in Modern or even Legacy, but they wanted to avoid altering the game too much on their first time out, which is good, since that shows they're learning from pushing the Lorwyn planeswalkers a little too hard (though no one really plays them any more either).
As for your complaint about having to know 4 different mechanics (Undercity, Ringbearers, Battle Mechanics, and Contraptions), you seem to have forgotten about Riot and Provoke and Affinity and Retrace and Suspend and Bushido and Dredge and Delve and Scry and Flying and Goad and Channel and Haste and Ward and Trample and Prowess and Adapt and Exert and Manifest and Unearth and Madness and dozens more.  There are hundreds of mechanics that you need to know to play the game, but most, if you don't know, someone will fill you in.  Sure, I get Fading and Vanishing mixed up all the time and it's confusing, but if it doesn't explain it on the card, I can always look it up.  Knowing how a siege works is not any more of a problem than me playing a dragon with Amplify in my Ur Dragon deck.  Most of the time, I just explain it and we move on, just like any card that my table's not familiar with.  Don't equate having to explain how a card works with too much complexity.  That would count out like 90% of the cards in the game for many players.

[Morganator 2.0]

There is at least one very specific benefit they fill; one that is very important and Battles not only fill the need, but do so in a brilliant and nearly perfect way.  Battles address power creep and have the potential to be able to adjust the game's pacing and flow.   Essentially, flipping a Battle functions similarly to giving your opponent 3-7 extra life depending on the Battle.  This means, that, as WotC prints Battles into the game, they're also printing a slight slow down of the game as well.

How does it help with power creep if no one chooses to use them? As we've seen from this thread, very few are going to be used frequently, and almost entirely used within Commander.

[Landale]

Thinking on it some more, the main issue is just that they give too much benefit to your opponent. They get the "extra health" it provides, they get to determine if you can flip it unless they're in so bad a position you could just kill them instead, and the rewards for pushing through all this generally do not even match the effort required though a few do.
Tying the removal of counters to something you're already trying to do, dealing damage to the player, destroying their stuff, or killing their creatures, would've been more ideal than sending yourself off on a detour.

The fact that they're double faced cards is also a problem since you need to keep taking them out of their sleeves to flip them or have an extra placeholder card and more completely clear sleeves to hold them.  These types of cards are just obnoxious in general, and from what I can see with the people I play with is that people just do not want to deal with that sort of hassle.