I know that. What I'm saying is that if I'm playing Golgari and my Rakdos opponent drops his big bomby creature with unleash but decides NOT to unleash it (because he needs the thing to block on my turn when I want to swing for the win, for example), can I scavenge one of my creatures away to give his creature with unleash a +1/+1 counter so his creature can't block?
Read the reminder text and the article again. I'm not making this up.
Until the set is actually played, I'm going to guess that you can do that. Much like how I thought of Mind Controlling cards in AVR with Traitorous Blood or Zealous Conscripts combo'ed with Cloudshift and/or Ghostly Flicker. I had to wait for a friend to ask a judge that said the creature you stole from an opponent will be yours until it left the battlefield again.
Do you have any evidence other than the artwork to suppose that signets will be in RtR?
And yet, that was perfectly fine to label them as CONFIRMED for many people in the forums here, which caused plenty of people on other sites to see it a gospel, and ebay started filling up with preorders. Had we not had the Shocks... it would have been a mess.
As for signets... I would say that the idea we have 10 pieces of art that look to be charms, and 10 pieces of art that are similar but different... and that anyone with a MTGO online account can see these Signets. They won't repeat art on different cards, and they wouldn't bring together a cycle of art and promote them heavily if they weren't being used.
Yes, they can be something other than signets. But the evidence is stronger for signets than against shocks IMO.
And yet, that was perfectly fine to label them as CONFIRMED for many people in the forums here, which caused plenty of people on other sites to see it a gospel, and ebay started filling up with preorders. Had we not had the Shocks... it would have been a mess.
As for signets... I would say that the idea we have 10 pieces of art that look to be charms, and 10 pieces of art that are similar but different... and that anyone with a MTGO online account can see these Signets. They won't repeat art on different cards, and they wouldn't bring together a cycle of art and promote them heavily if they weren't being used.
Yes, they can be something other than signets. But the evidence is stronger for signets than against shocks IMO.
And yet the artwork was added to mtgo all at the same time, while other cube artwork was also updated...it's reasonably likely that the signets are being added to the mtgo cube when it goes live (in the lul between rtr paper and online), and are not in fact in this block.
I want to weigh on the mechanics as well, and order them for power:
5) Unleash
The worst of the bunch. Ultimately, it barely changes anything, and is almost close to no keyword at all. You get a +1/+1, which is such a small bonus that it rarely affects anything later than t3rd and on.
On the other side, you lose blocking which seems like a high price, but is also construed as meaningless if the deck it's used for can't afford to block anyway.
Above all else, you can completely ignore this mechanic entirely, which just adds to the meaninglessness to it. The only hope for design space? A guy with Unleash and "as long as ~ has a +1/+1 counter on it..." This could basically fix a pointless mechanic by literally restructuring it.
4) Scavenge
It's very basic and narrow, even more narrow than Unleash. But unlike Unleash, it actually matters. It is essentially a creature with a tagged on flashback ISavagery. It costs a lot of mana because it is a free spell after all. A massive pump is simple, but not weak.
They have their prestigious place in certain decks as we've seen in the past, but this mechanic takes it further because it is entirely free on a creature you may arguably wanted to begin with. A neat design space that they've already promised for the mechanic is */* creatures with Scavenge.
3) Populate
It definitely has the potential to be the most powerful mechanic, but it needs good cards to do it. It does a very specific action, but that action is pure advantage. I don't think there will be more than 1 card that makes a token, then populates, and has an aggressive cost.
I think you're going to need synergy with a deck that include populate, you can't just throw them in. You need to have a tokens sub-theme, and that makes it a difficult mechanic to gauge. It could be on any number of cards- a CCall variant, a SPassage variant, an HotPure variant, or even an OBaloth variant.
There's a lot of space for the mechanic, and it's power will depend on the cards they make. They could easily break it if they give too much support, and they do have a history of breaking token-involving cards, so this mechanic may go to the top.
2) Detain
Like Populate, you could make a million cards that involve detaining stuff, and that makes it difficult to judge as the best mechanic here. The key difference is that detain is not raw advantage, provided you have the necessary synergy. Instead, it's just pure power: you play these cards in your deck and you get free mini-removal pieces. This mechanic is easily broken just by printing something that detains on an every-turn-basis, or if you even figure out something like CCloset + these cards.
Time will tell what it ends up becoming, but it really doesn't take much to turn detain into free removal. If the pieces exist, a tempo detain deck would be powerful-- the ability to play on-the-curve creatures every turn and detain every turn would be overwhelming; and effectively turn detain into a free removal spell you get with your solid creatures.
1) Overload
This mechanic is interestingly at the top, mostly because we already know every Overload card, there's very little design space for this mechanic. And the space is awesome. Still, consider what it is:
a) Blue or red
b) Instant or sorcery
c) targets
d) Affects every possible target beneficially for you
e) Overload can't be cheaper than the cost.
There's not much else worth exploring. The thing is, these are all fairly good cards. In MtG, choice is power; it is a game where Charms, Commands, Split Cards, and Kicker are amazing. Control likes choice the most-- they play towards the long game, and so those choices can be critical over the course of a long game. And having targeted removal or mass removal is a big deal.
Overall, this mechanic promises some great cards, for all decks; it gives everybody a choice to use a targeted effect early on where it matters, or a hefty effect later for when it still matters. The mechanic has very little design space, but that design space practically promises some good cards, and that's why it's a shoe-in for a speculator's bet on most influential mechanic from this set.
(By the way, e. exists because it doesn't make flavorful sense to overload a spell by using... less mana. This is actually a little sad, because you could open up design space if it was allowed. There are some very cool niche cards that could come to be like BluSZenith or Prosperity, or PotForge or FRift.)
I agree that the art was not confirmation; however, I did think you were being stubborn in saying "wait" when the pointers were piling up.
I was agreeing that they were likely Shocks. I just have learned from doing this since Darksteel that you don't confirm something based on likelihood. We've seen plenty of seasons where guessing and jumping the gun led to people spending $30 a pop on cards that ended up being junk rares. I'd rather caution on the side of looking stubborn than flying the OMG banners and being called a liar.
That doesn't answer the problem that, at the time RtR was finalised, WotC were talking like signets were too strong to print.
They might have chosen to have the signets redrawn to show the changes that have taken place in the emblems since Dissension. Two of these have been packaged in the Duel Decks, but I don't necessarily see that means the signets will be reprinted in a new set and pitched back into Standard. Maybe the new-art signets are rewards for something.
I remain open to the possibility of their being reprinted, but on balance think it less than 50% likely. Get some evidence to overcome WotC's publically-stated opinions and I'll consider it.
Sure I could see what you're saying as possible. However I just don't think they'd cross the promotions if they weren't going to print them. They've said plenty of times they didn't like something and turned around and did it. Random Discard was one, and sure enough Hypnotic Specter was printed in the very next core set. I think the trick is wether or not they can "control" what they don't like. Much like the dislike for "paying life" for casual players... well they gave them common dual lands. It's incredible they did that, but I think that was very much a justification.
Like I said, a common mana rock cycle would have been preferable.
In multicolor sets you just need dual common, despite the existance of artifacts that taps for mana (mana rocks is how you xalled iti guess). Casual and limited reasons. Mana rocks doesnt solve the problem alone because they take up a non land slot. And in any case theres need for both to make a functional limited. Every multicolor set so far have a cycle of common multicolor lands and a cycle of mana rocks.
This is much, much better then RAV bounce lands who sometimes were worse at fixing consistency issues in bugdet decks and limited then basic lands. Theres also some interactions between other cards and those lands.
I think the principal proof of Signets being in is not that there is art for them, but that said art was used as the very first promotional batch of art along the Guild Leaders and Gates cycles.
They're in, don't sweat it. Limited will be incredible and maybe Standard won't suck to UW all season because of 5CC
I think the principal proof of Signets being in is not that there is art for them, but that said art was used as the very first promotional batch of art along the Guild Leaders and Gates cycles.
They're in, don't sweat it.
Or they could just very well be Signet replacements, just like how the Guildmages are being replaced.
Wow, you simply couldn't be more wrong about the Ravnica karoos. They're probably the best non-rare mana fixing lands ever and better than most rare cycles, especially in limited!!
You are still underestimating them :/ Actually they were the best mana fixing lands (as in: provides nothing but mana) for limited of all time (including rares - e.g. original duals). They were so good that THEY got splashed (e.g. playing UB in GB without any blue cards)!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Hail to the speaker, hail to the knower; joy to he who has understood, delight to they who have listened." - Odin
You are still underestimating them :/ Actually they were the best mana fixing lands (as in: provides nothing but mana) for limited of all time (including rares - e.g. original duals). They were so good that THEY got splashed (e.g. playing UB in GB without any blue cards)!
Imo they were bad for limited because they represents sort of a luck gambit. If you draw then in appropriate time you have one extra mana. But if you draw it in your first hand without any oher lands you're screwed. And in 40 mana deck, playing 2~3 bounce lands, the chances o drawing only then is even higher.
Imo they are good cards that makes for bad games. Just my opnion though.
I'm only a little disappointed they can't work a Future Sight mechanic into a guild. Though I think Delve in Dimir in Gatecrash would be the most likely candidate.
I'm only a little disappointed they can't work a Future Sight mechanic into a guild. Though I think Delve in Dimir in Gatecrash would be the most likely candidate.
I would have said that it doesn't make sense thematically and that it's too narrow as a mechanic to make many designs from, but then again they printed unleash.
What I'm saying is that if I'm playing Golgari and my Rakdos opponent drops his big bomby creature with unleash but decides NOT to unleash it (because he needs the thing to block on my turn when I want to swing for the win, for example), can I scavenge one of my creatures away to give his creature with unleash a +1/+1 counter so his creature can't block?
Read the reminder text and the article again. I'm not making this up.
I'm still waiting on some sort of official answer to this if there is one.
Soulbond on the card is adequate, it's just complicated. The logic is sound, though.
(You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
So when either he EtB, or another unpaired creature EtB ("another" implying that he is unpaired), you may pair them. They remain paired while you control them. The key is people didn't realize that "another" means that both share a quality, the state of being unpaired.
Soulbond's reminder text didn't adequately explain the ability. We need a better answer for this than a guess.
It's not exactly a guess, it's just not "official".
Still, it's pretty obvious. The reminder text right on the cards says "It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it". So it can't. The ability doesn't say "If you used Unleash it can't block", it says "If it has a counter it can't block". So however the counter managed to get there doesn't matter. If it has a counter, it can't block. There is no distinction between "+1/+1 counter from Unleash" and "+1/+1 counter from Scavenge" or Graft or something else. I don't see the argument for how it could work any other way.
Soulbond on the card is adequate, it's just complicated. The logic is sound, though.
(You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
So when either he EtB, or another unpaired creature EtB ("another" implying that he is unpaired), you may pair them. They remain paired while you control them. The key is people didn't realize that "another" means that both share a quality, the state of being unpaired.
This actually proves my point. No one realizes that Soulbond has an intervening "if" clause.
""When this creature enters the battlefield, if you control both this creature and another creature and both are unpaired, you may pair this creature with another unpaired creature you control for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control" and "Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, if you control both that creature and this one and both are unpaired, you may pair that creature with this creature for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control.""
This means that you must answer the conditions both when the trigger is put on the stack and when it resolves. It comes up more than you might think, and it's just not on the text of the card.
Still, it's pretty obvious. The reminder text right on the cards says "It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it". So it can't. The ability doesn't say "If you used Unleash it can't block", it says "If it has a counter it can't block". So however the counter managed to get there doesn't matter. If it has a counter, it can't block. There is no distinction between "+1/+1 counter from Unleash" and "+1/+1 counter from Scavenge" or Graft or something else. I don't see the argument for how it could work any other way.
Sigh. Yes, that is how Unleash works. The question is regarding how Scavenge works, and specifically whether or not one can target an opponent's creature with it.
Sigh. Yes, that is how Unleash works. The question is regarding how Scavenge works, and specifically whether or not one can target an opponent's creature with it.
Wait, that's your question? The reminder text says right on it "target creature". Until they issue some official errata, that's how it works.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Until the set is actually played, I'm going to guess that you can do that. Much like how I thought of Mind Controlling cards in AVR with Traitorous Blood or Zealous Conscripts combo'ed with Cloudshift and/or Ghostly Flicker. I had to wait for a friend to ask a judge that said the creature you stole from an opponent will be yours until it left the battlefield again.
And yet, that was perfectly fine to label them as CONFIRMED for many people in the forums here, which caused plenty of people on other sites to see it a gospel, and ebay started filling up with preorders. Had we not had the Shocks... it would have been a mess.
As for signets... I would say that the idea we have 10 pieces of art that look to be charms, and 10 pieces of art that are similar but different... and that anyone with a MTGO online account can see these Signets. They won't repeat art on different cards, and they wouldn't bring together a cycle of art and promote them heavily if they weren't being used.
Yes, they can be something other than signets. But the evidence is stronger for signets than against shocks IMO.
And yet the artwork was added to mtgo all at the same time, while other cube artwork was also updated...it's reasonably likely that the signets are being added to the mtgo cube when it goes live (in the lul between rtr paper and online), and are not in fact in this block.
5) Unleash
The worst of the bunch. Ultimately, it barely changes anything, and is almost close to no keyword at all. You get a +1/+1, which is such a small bonus that it rarely affects anything later than t3rd and on.
On the other side, you lose blocking which seems like a high price, but is also construed as meaningless if the deck it's used for can't afford to block anyway.
Above all else, you can completely ignore this mechanic entirely, which just adds to the meaninglessness to it. The only hope for design space? A guy with Unleash and "as long as ~ has a +1/+1 counter on it..." This could basically fix a pointless mechanic by literally restructuring it.
4) Scavenge
It's very basic and narrow, even more narrow than Unleash. But unlike Unleash, it actually matters. It is essentially a creature with a tagged on flashback ISavagery. It costs a lot of mana because it is a free spell after all. A massive pump is simple, but not weak.
They have their prestigious place in certain decks as we've seen in the past, but this mechanic takes it further because it is entirely free on a creature you may arguably wanted to begin with. A neat design space that they've already promised for the mechanic is */* creatures with Scavenge.
3) Populate
It definitely has the potential to be the most powerful mechanic, but it needs good cards to do it. It does a very specific action, but that action is pure advantage. I don't think there will be more than 1 card that makes a token, then populates, and has an aggressive cost.
I think you're going to need synergy with a deck that include populate, you can't just throw them in. You need to have a tokens sub-theme, and that makes it a difficult mechanic to gauge. It could be on any number of cards- a CCall variant, a SPassage variant, an HotPure variant, or even an OBaloth variant.
There's a lot of space for the mechanic, and it's power will depend on the cards they make. They could easily break it if they give too much support, and they do have a history of breaking token-involving cards, so this mechanic may go to the top.
2) Detain
Like Populate, you could make a million cards that involve detaining stuff, and that makes it difficult to judge as the best mechanic here. The key difference is that detain is not raw advantage, provided you have the necessary synergy. Instead, it's just pure power: you play these cards in your deck and you get free mini-removal pieces. This mechanic is easily broken just by printing something that detains on an every-turn-basis, or if you even figure out something like CCloset + these cards.
Time will tell what it ends up becoming, but it really doesn't take much to turn detain into free removal. If the pieces exist, a tempo detain deck would be powerful-- the ability to play on-the-curve creatures every turn and detain every turn would be overwhelming; and effectively turn detain into a free removal spell you get with your solid creatures.
1) Overload
This mechanic is interestingly at the top, mostly because we already know every Overload card, there's very little design space for this mechanic. And the space is awesome. Still, consider what it is:
a) Blue or red
b) Instant or sorcery
c) targets
d) Affects every possible target beneficially for you
e) Overload can't be cheaper than the cost.
So what does that buy us? Very few cards if you think about it. What can we really expect out of this mechanic? FSlash or FWave, Blaze or Earthquake, Unsummon or Evacuation, Jump or ItSkies, and AStrobe or CRiot.
There's not much else worth exploring. The thing is, these are all fairly good cards. In MtG, choice is power; it is a game where Charms, Commands, Split Cards, and Kicker are amazing. Control likes choice the most-- they play towards the long game, and so those choices can be critical over the course of a long game. And having targeted removal or mass removal is a big deal.
Overall, this mechanic promises some great cards, for all decks; it gives everybody a choice to use a targeted effect early on where it matters, or a hefty effect later for when it still matters. The mechanic has very little design space, but that design space practically promises some good cards, and that's why it's a shoe-in for a speculator's bet on most influential mechanic from this set.
(By the way, e. exists because it doesn't make flavorful sense to overload a spell by using... less mana. This is actually a little sad, because you could open up design space if it was allowed. There are some very cool niche cards that could come to be like BluSZenith or Prosperity, or PotForge or FRift.)
I was agreeing that they were likely Shocks. I just have learned from doing this since Darksteel that you don't confirm something based on likelihood. We've seen plenty of seasons where guessing and jumping the gun led to people spending $30 a pop on cards that ended up being junk rares. I'd rather caution on the side of looking stubborn than flying the OMG banners and being called a liar.
Sure I could see what you're saying as possible. However I just don't think they'd cross the promotions if they weren't going to print them. They've said plenty of times they didn't like something and turned around and did it. Random Discard was one, and sure enough Hypnotic Specter was printed in the very next core set. I think the trick is wether or not they can "control" what they don't like. Much like the dislike for "paying life" for casual players... well they gave them common dual lands. It's incredible they did that, but I think that was very much a justification.
In multicolor sets you just need dual common, despite the existance of artifacts that taps for mana (mana rocks is how you xalled iti guess). Casual and limited reasons. Mana rocks doesnt solve the problem alone because they take up a non land slot. And in any case theres need for both to make a functional limited. Every multicolor set so far have a cycle of common multicolor lands and a cycle of mana rocks.
This is much, much better then RAV bounce lands who sometimes were worse at fixing consistency issues in bugdet decks and limited then basic lands. Theres also some interactions between other cards and those lands.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Grove of Gaurdians
They're in, don't sweat it. Limited will be incredible and maybe Standard won't suck to UW all season because of 5CC
Removed inappropriate language. -TK
That would require the Izzet and Golgari arts to be assigned to two different cards.
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
You are still underestimating them :/ Actually they were the best mana fixing lands (as in: provides nothing but mana) for limited of all time (including rares - e.g. original duals). They were so good that THEY got splashed (e.g. playing UB in GB without any blue cards)!
Imo they were bad for limited because they represents sort of a luck gambit. If you draw then in appropriate time you have one extra mana. But if you draw it in your first hand without any oher lands you're screwed. And in 40 mana deck, playing 2~3 bounce lands, the chances o drawing only then is even higher.
Imo they are good cards that makes for bad games. Just my opnion though.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
EDH
UG Prime Speaker Zegana GU
URW Walk the Path WRU
WB Pay the Ferryman BW
GG Bear Force One GG
BR The Punisher RB
UB Yo ho, Yo ho BU
RG SMASH!! GR
RR Krenko RR
WW Kemba WW
Non-EDH
GU Buddy System (Multiplayer politics)UG
UBEv'ry Day You're Shufflin' BU
That's strange, it should be that the card does what it says but it's strange for the person writing the article to mess up like that.
The writer was probably thinking "Why would anyone want to bump up someone else's creature?!"
to make unleash creatures unable to block, duh.
You got 99 attackers but I'm blocking with 1.
The Winner is Judge | 7
This Winner is Also Judge | 6
Club Flamingo | Lots
I would have said that it doesn't make sense thematically and that it's too narrow as a mechanic to make many designs from, but then again they printed unleash.
I already brought this up.
I'm still waiting on some sort of official answer to this if there is one.
You can scavenge into an opponent's un-unleashed creature to make it unable to block.
Better answer: wait for the FAQ.
Soulbond's reminder text didn't adequately explain the ability. We need a better answer for this than a guess.
Standard: W/R Aggro
(You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.)
So when either he EtB, or another unpaired creature EtB ("another" implying that he is unpaired), you may pair them. They remain paired while you control them. The key is people didn't realize that "another" means that both share a quality, the state of being unpaired.
Silverblade Paladin
It's not exactly a guess, it's just not "official".
Still, it's pretty obvious. The reminder text right on the cards says "It can't block as long as it has a +1/+1 counter on it". So it can't. The ability doesn't say "If you used Unleash it can't block", it says "If it has a counter it can't block". So however the counter managed to get there doesn't matter. If it has a counter, it can't block. There is no distinction between "+1/+1 counter from Unleash" and "+1/+1 counter from Scavenge" or Graft or something else. I don't see the argument for how it could work any other way.
This actually proves my point. No one realizes that Soulbond has an intervening "if" clause.
""When this creature enters the battlefield, if you control both this creature and another creature and both are unpaired, you may pair this creature with another unpaired creature you control for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control" and "Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, if you control both that creature and this one and both are unpaired, you may pair that creature with this creature for as long as both remain creatures on the battlefield under your control.""
This means that you must answer the conditions both when the trigger is put on the stack and when it resolves. It comes up more than you might think, and it's just not on the text of the card.
Sigh. Yes, that is how Unleash works. The question is regarding how Scavenge works, and specifically whether or not one can target an opponent's creature with it.
Standard: W/R Aggro
Wait, that's your question? The reminder text says right on it "target creature". Until they issue some official errata, that's how it works.