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We don't need path. The historic removal is fine.
But seriously, why was Flame Tounge Kavu not included.
We don't need path. The historic removal is fine.
But seriously, why was Flame Tounge Kavu not included.
I see this question a fair amount, drostandfound. Cards were excluded from Jumpstart on Arena because of power level, coding costs, and/or play pattern - and Flametongue Kavu was in the last category.
The fact that FTK's trigger is mandatory and can hit your own creatures creates board states that are both punishing and stagnant. If I have one in hand and you have no creatures, I literally can't cast it without it killing itself - so I'm incentivized to do nothing. And if you ever play a creature with 4 or less toughness, not only will it die, but you've actually enabled me to play my creature and start attacking you - so you're incentivized to do nothing, too. That makes for an especially unpleasant and drawn-out case, so we decided to swap it out.
That said, we saw a fair amount of regret and frustration in response to the Jumpstart swaps, and we do understand where that was coming from. When a similar case arose again with the Mystical Archive, we took a different approach, and we'll see how that works out for us. (But just to be clear, FTK and all of the other replaced cards will still be replaced in the return event.)
In theory, I understand this argument re: Flametongue Kavu, but in practice it doesn't make much sense since [[Goblin Commando]] from Jumpstart did get added to Arena anyway, and it has the same play pattern as Kavu.
It's a question of risk. There's basically no risk that Goblin Commando will see significant play outside of the Jumpstart event. Flametongue is a better card and carries more risk, and we chose the path of caution. Suffice it to say, we are exploring other paths going forward - again, in part because of what we saw during Jumpstart.
I understand why things like FTK is being excluded from the re-run, but honestly think for cards like Lighting Bolt (that were even included in the Archives, so are part of the Arena client at this point), people would be much happier with the "original" cards, even if we can't really play them outside of Jumpstart (or friend challenge).
Is it because its too early to evaluate how the Mystical Archives approach was received or is there some other reason?
The Jumpstart versions of the cards do not exist on Arena. Lightning Bolt is the only replaced card that does now exist on Arena, and one random Mystical Archive card in the middle of the Jumpstart event is likely to raise more questions than it answers.