It can look like non-sense until you do the math for the plays and it becomes obvious that putting in spells that can spontaneously untap all your lands at 4 cmc can lead to some very big plays when there is also enchantments that ramp as well in the format. I think without the mana-dorks at 1 cmc they could probably have put in something like Turnabout (yes I'm using that card a lot in this discussion, but it's one of the best blue cards in terms of utility ever printed), as it would net potentially 6 mana on turn 4 instead of 7 mana, but given that is enough to snap back the card again using something like Torrential Gearhulk to then play something else for 5 or 4 mana and that can be pretty nasty in standard. Realistically it would probably all happen turn 5-6, though, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad and I'm thinking in magical x-mas land.
Honestly now that I'm thinking on it I don't think that card would be busted in current standard and may actually give blue decks legs. You could basically stall an opponent out and then finish them off or ramp into something and finish the game faster. Ugh, but that is why I don't like their R&D. They probably think that is too much power so they don't print it, or it's too complicated for the average player playing and don't print it. This coming from the same guys who printed freaking Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, whose perfectly chiseled face is now burned into every players collective psyche. Those sideburns man, those SIDEBURNS!
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I played in 3 flights of the pre release. Not a huge sample, but I found the set to be very good for a limited set. I went 4-0 playing BRG, 3-0-1 playing BWR, and 3-1 playing RW. Flights consisted of 40 players, 38 players, and 26 players respectively.
With in the set, there is plenty of removal to deal with what you will come across. Plenty of combat tricks. Nice curve for every color.
All that being said, I am not sure outside of the new Gideon will see much play prior to the next rotation in Standard. The power level seems low.
It is the first pre release I have really enjoyed in a while, even though I got no money cards.
I just came back. I went 1-3-0. That's right. THREE opponents against which I drew because of time constraints. The time alotted was the normal amount, by the way. Having played slower sets before, looking at you anything with eldrazi, I know that this has NEVER happened before. And I'm not the only one who had this happen to them today, either, out of a pool of 16 people.
That is the exact experience I ended up having. I said earlier I pulled Glorious End and literally used it just to end the game a few times so we could all move on with our lives. I tend not to be a super competitive person anyway at pre-release and hate being the one to hold up the matches. I was 2/0/2 but really this was like bad deck vs bad deck anyway. I'll say this much, when Glorious End works it really works. When it flubs though you basically just made the leap of faith and were found wanting.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I was talking about exhaustion. Turnabout seems quite strong.
That was also an uncommon, btw. Urza's saga is like the one set I wish they would just reprint the entire thing as a flashback block because it had so many great cards in it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
There plenty of super powerful synergy "Explosions" that will simply end a game on the spot.
Games dont go long unless nobody draws anything, or doesnt have anything and still wastes time for the turn.
----
We had not a single draw in 2 PreReleases in this set, not a single game in time with 58 people and 32 in the second.
So unless you really "try" to be slow, the bombs win the games quickly in this set.
Even a lowly 7/7 wurm will do the trick, if that gets enchanted by the +1/+1 trample cartouche it will wreck the strongest creature they have and simply attack for 8 two times and thats the game.
Glorybringer, Archdemon and its rare bomb friends ask for answers right away or the game is over and theres not really much answers for them (its like each color has just 1 premium removal at common and your best bet is to be absolutely sure you use it when its necessary).
----
The "gods" win games very quickly too, if you play a normal game, these will start eating creatures by attacking and especially the green one is a ridiculous bomb that is always active (way too easy to use it, in worst case, you pump your other creature and attack for like at least 9 damage).
All that said, removal is "rare" and a lot of aggro decks have to make sure they have some form of reach to kill opponents when they start casting 6 drops each turn as having the answer for that 1 giant blocker is the difference of losing or winning on the spot.
There plenty of super powerful synergy "Explosions" that will simply end a game on the spot.
Games dont go long unless nobody draws anything, or doesnt have anything and still wastes time for the turn.
----
We had not a single draw in 2 PreReleases in this set, not a single game in time with 58 people and 32 in the second.
So unless you really "try" to be slow, the bombs win the games quickly in this set.
Even a lowly 7/7 wurm will do the trick, if that gets enchanted by the +1/+1 trample cartouche it will wreck the strongest creature they have and simply attack for 8 two times and thats the game.
Glorybringer, Archdemon and its rare bomb friends ask for answers right away or the game is over and theres not really much answers for them (its like each color has just 1 premium removal at common and your best bet is to be absolutely sure you use it when its necessary).
----
The "gods" win games very quickly too, if you play a normal game, these will start eating creatures by attacking and especially the green one is a ridiculous bomb that is always active (way too easy to use it, in worst case, you pump your other creature and attack for like at least 9 damage).
All that said, removal is "rare" and a lot of aggro decks have to make sure they have some form of reach to kill opponents when they start casting 6 drops each turn as having the answer for that 1 giant blocker is the difference of losing or winning on the spot.
From the feedback I'm seeing in this thread I think the take away is that this limited format is very swingy and that is probably normal given we had some similar feedback during Kaladesh. Overall, the feedback on Kaladesh pre-release was that it was better than Eldrich moon, and comparing this to Kaladesh, I'd say it was worse than the Kaladesh pre-release, but definitely far from the worst.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The thing is you can always find a powerful card even in a low power set. Go look at Kamigawa and you'll find Isamaru, Hound of Konda. The fact is the set is just weak and doesn't match up in power to something like Aether Revolt, which has Revolt cards like Fatal Push, high powered counter magic like Disallow, strong beaters like Heart of Kiran, a better glimmervoid in the form of Spire of Industry, the entire expertise cycle, etc. The only thing going for Amonkhet at the moment are the gods and some of the rares, with most of those being powered by pure hype and pixy dust.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I like the flavour and the limited was sweet so far
only problems I can see is with it in standard. A) is that it wouldn't have been tested for standard with BFZ block being in the format. B) is that I dunno how much it will change the format, as standard seems kind of stale right now. Maybe I'm wrong though
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Honestly now that I'm thinking on it I don't think that card would be busted in current standard and may actually give blue decks legs. You could basically stall an opponent out and then finish them off or ramp into something and finish the game faster. Ugh, but that is why I don't like their R&D. They probably think that is too much power so they don't print it, or it's too complicated for the average player playing and don't print it. This coming from the same guys who printed freaking Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, whose perfectly chiseled face is now burned into every players collective psyche. Those sideburns man, those SIDEBURNS!
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
With in the set, there is plenty of removal to deal with what you will come across. Plenty of combat tricks. Nice curve for every color.
All that being said, I am not sure outside of the new Gideon will see much play prior to the next rotation in Standard. The power level seems low.
It is the first pre release I have really enjoyed in a while, even though I got no money cards.
That is the exact experience I ended up having. I said earlier I pulled Glorious End and literally used it just to end the game a few times so we could all move on with our lives. I tend not to be a super competitive person anyway at pre-release and hate being the one to hold up the matches. I was 2/0/2 but really this was like bad deck vs bad deck anyway. I'll say this much, when Glorious End works it really works. When it flubs though you basically just made the leap of faith and were found wanting.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Spirits
That was also an uncommon, btw. Urza's saga is like the one set I wish they would just reprint the entire thing as a flashback block because it had so many great cards in it.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Games dont go long unless nobody draws anything, or doesnt have anything and still wastes time for the turn.
----
We had not a single draw in 2 PreReleases in this set, not a single game in time with 58 people and 32 in the second.
So unless you really "try" to be slow, the bombs win the games quickly in this set.
Even a lowly 7/7 wurm will do the trick, if that gets enchanted by the +1/+1 trample cartouche it will wreck the strongest creature they have and simply attack for 8 two times and thats the game.
Glorybringer, Archdemon and its rare bomb friends ask for answers right away or the game is over and theres not really much answers for them (its like each color has just 1 premium removal at common and your best bet is to be absolutely sure you use it when its necessary).
----
The "gods" win games very quickly too, if you play a normal game, these will start eating creatures by attacking and especially the green one is a ridiculous bomb that is always active (way too easy to use it, in worst case, you pump your other creature and attack for like at least 9 damage).
All that said, removal is "rare" and a lot of aggro decks have to make sure they have some form of reach to kill opponents when they start casting 6 drops each turn as having the answer for that 1 giant blocker is the difference of losing or winning on the spot.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
From the feedback I'm seeing in this thread I think the take away is that this limited format is very swingy and that is probably normal given we had some similar feedback during Kaladesh. Overall, the feedback on Kaladesh pre-release was that it was better than Eldrich moon, and comparing this to Kaladesh, I'd say it was worse than the Kaladesh pre-release, but definitely far from the worst.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The thing is you can always find a powerful card even in a low power set. Go look at Kamigawa and you'll find Isamaru, Hound of Konda. The fact is the set is just weak and doesn't match up in power to something like Aether Revolt, which has Revolt cards like Fatal Push, high powered counter magic like Disallow, strong beaters like Heart of Kiran, a better glimmervoid in the form of Spire of Industry, the entire expertise cycle, etc. The only thing going for Amonkhet at the moment are the gods and some of the rares, with most of those being powered by pure hype and pixy dust.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
only problems I can see is with it in standard. A) is that it wouldn't have been tested for standard with BFZ block being in the format. B) is that I dunno how much it will change the format, as standard seems kind of stale right now. Maybe I'm wrong though