I'll definitely put her in my 5-color Superfriends-
That sweet, sweet Emblem is absurdly easy to get with Proliferate or Clockspinning
(and her +1 is above average there, too).
I actually really do like her +1, but it isn't sufficient protection in a multiplayer environment. You lock down one threat, but there's going to be at least two other players who aren't going to want you to have her emblem. I can see running her in a deck built around manipulating loyalty counters I guess, it's an archetype I tend to overlook.
EDH, on the other hand, is more like a monster truck rally. It's more about the spectacle than the race, the games go long, and it's not usually clear who's in the lead until there's only one truck left.*
Single player EDH is like two guys smacking each other with pillows... until one of them pulls out a shotgun.
Unless if it is never actually made like the Tatsumasa's token.
That card was printed during Kamigawa, before they started adding tokens for every token producer to packs. The only reason they wouldn't print the kraken token is if they feel that because the emblem isn't a card, they don't need to. I would hope that there's A) another card that produces kraken tokens and B) they feel that emblems producing tokens would justify printing the tokens.
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She wants a ride on the pony, dude.
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Limited defense that also enables opponents to block for free. Ah well a build-up setup like Simic or something might still be able to use that.
-1: Explore - the selling point of the card. Not bad but might as well turn into a 4 CMC Explore + Healing Salve.
Ultimate... is pretty powerful but also kinda weird. It doesn't seem that hard to disrupt her getting there. However once you do it's a fast-moving clock. That the token comes at end of turn just makes it nasty.
I'm not sure where to put her into as UG is not really a control-setup, which she seems to invite to.
I guess you can use UG's high toughness to make a pillowfort to get her online with ultimate.
Otherwise you can "just" run her as double-Explore in a Big Green setup with Big-Garruk?
I'll actually go against my earlier statement and say that she seems interesting but also it's uncertain what to do with her, where her home is.
Whether people want to believe it or not, Kiora is a bad card. +1, and the ultimate are unusable, the latter because its unreachable. You will be able to -1 her for a turn and for 4 mana before she gets destroyed. Oh, and she has 2 loyalty. This card will see 0 serious play. Standard is the only place for her, and she crumbles to everything. No place in modern at 2 loyalty, and no place in EDH unless you enjoy playing explore for a mana.
Spoken exactly like someone who has never played EDH, at the least not friendly EDH. Most people have absolutely no threats until turn 5-6, and kiora can very easily be played on turn 2 or 3. Thats 2-3 free turns to plus her, and when someone finally gets a creature on board, kiora just keeps them doing nothing. Her ult is a serious possibility, not to mention a repeatable explore is nothing to smirk at. T1: land sol ring, T2: Land, Kiora, Land, T3 Land Land, holy crap I have 7 mana?!?
Crazy stuff happens in EDH, planeswalkers are fun, and the simic guy is usually the one with all the creatures to defend anyway. This is a casual powerhouse, and not every mythic has to see "serious" play, fringe decks exist and most people aren't playing for trophies and thousands of dollars.
The art if fine, but... It doesn't seem to reflect her "green part", or am I missing something?
As for her playability, I think beyond limited she's just bad. Don't really have much to say here... Well, 2 starting loyalty for 4 cmc, with her plus ability pretty much irrelevant... IMO, she's more like Nissa-level of 'walker. Nuff said.
can her +1 protect her from damage your opponents control until next turn? if it is like that... then she is very most likely imbalanced. with a 9/9 finisher when you get an emblem.
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A team should be as happy as a meal - TEAM HAPPYMEAL
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tronGR
Buy All the planeswalkers!!!
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
Spoken exactly like someone who has never played EDH, at the least not friendly EDH. Most people have absolutely no threats until turn 5-6, and kiora can very easily be played on turn 2 or 3. Thats 2-3 free turns to plus her, and when someone finally gets a creature on board, kiora just keeps them doing nothing.
Does your "friendly EDH" not run removal? Yea, the serious threats are not generally in play until turn 4-5, but in the mean time I would hope you are all carefully negating potential problems.
On another note, it says target permanent not target creature. Maybe this means that we will get the full cycle of manlands in the next block/core set?
Nah, I think it's to piss at the gods even when they are non-creature (Purphoros for instance).
And Mutavault was mentioned before.
Hmm... seems like I've actually been nathed while writing this.
TBH I'm a little sad that you can only target opponent's permanents and not your own. It could have said "another target permanent" to not be cheesy and target herself.
Painlands you said? Nope, not feeling it.
Mostly because it limits how you can play her. If your opponent doesn't have any permanents (because they are weird or dropped something that removed the board) you cannot activate her +1.
To me that seems kinda sloppy.
And like a bright one said: Weird that she doesn't break the card frame.
Having two loyalty really ****s on this. To protect it, you have to +1 it, but by the time it's at a safe enough loyalty to start using it, you might as well use it's third ability. Since it only protects itself against one threat, that's impossible against aggressive decks.
Against Control, it gets a little more interesting. The minus ability does a lot, but it's competing with Jace. Drawing one card and possibly playing an extra land is a lot weaker than choosing cards out of the top three.
I have to agree with the sentiment that this card is over costed. It would have been okay at three, with only one loyalty, because it would just be a terrible Rampant Growth against most decks. That extra mana just makes it a terrible Rampant Growth that can take a hit for you, with a very slim chance of being anything more, except against true blue control. With Abrupt Decay in Standard, it would have really balanced out nicely.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
My playgroup is considering quitting standard for good because of this one. We can't stop laughing at this card. I actually misread all of her abilities for being halfway decent. Sure, let us all escape into a dream world where burn doesn't exist. This is what you get:
Soldier of the pantheon plunges right through her +1
Hero's downfall is sort of relevant, would you rather fof with Jace or explore(legal in modern btw) for 4 cmc. Really!?
C'mon, you really can't wait one more turn to play your Urban Evolution?
Emblem: They are 9/9s, the Krakens could at least have trample. ****, at least Vraska wins if her tokens deal damage to you.
mono-U has 8 birds. Its like they deliberately designed her to get pecked to death.
at 4 mana, the control player has more than enough time to d-sphere Kiora before she sets off.
Where's the synergy? Wheres the simic flavor? I understand walkers are usually hit or miss. But seriously, she needs to take notes from my dude Tibalt. Imagine, you can get the same card advantage for less mana, by chance however
Well, then again...you're losing anyway with junk *** mythics.
Really like the card, love the art. I just hope she actually features in the story in some way. But i'm not stupid enough to get my hopes up over that.
To be fair here starting loyalty doesnt matter that much anyway because every black deck is running a playset of Hero's Downfall and shutting down a single creature against aggro is not enough on turn 4 so they will probably ignore it and Lightning Strike you instead.
But im not one of these people who dismiss cards outright so maybe she turns out to be decent in the end although Im not interested in her since Im more of a black mage and would like to see a decent black walker in standard again.
I remember people underrating Ashiok when she first came out, and she turned out pretty decent.
Same with Kiora. At first glance the 2 loyalty is really low for the mana cost, but perhaps she will play out well once everything is revealed?
At least she's bonkers in limited (like any other planeswalker)
@Soulflame: While Ashiok was underestimated at first, her popularity has withdrawn heavily.
Out of 20 Esper lists on MTGtop8 only 4 ran her maindeck, and that was 1-2 copies. Jace AoT was often 4-of and big Elspeth a 1-3-of, except a few cases where she was left out.
However I think it's quite clear that Kiora might have a chance at standard, a certain appeal to EDH and casual, but very limited application to Modern and no existence in Legacy.
Edit: I wonder if we'll see her in a derped Big Green deck with Simic Charm, Plasm Capture and Big Garruk. Simply use her as a ramp-tool to hit those big fatties or build a pillowfort around her to let her ultimate.
Very great card in specific spot/MU in standard (mirror control, control vs midrange), beautiful art and cute ability. A bomb in not-cutthroat EDH environment.
If only standard would become a decent format ...
- L
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"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
I really like Kiora. I've been hoping for her for awhile now.
She isn't broken by any means, but both her abilities can be very useful depending on the situation.
There are countless magic games that are made by 1 creature and this can be a good top deck or a bad one.
I love her and will get at least 1 to match my fav Walkers, alongside Tamiyo
At the moment though, she's hosed too easily by aggro, and she's a lot of work in control match-ups.
We'll have to see what the rest of the set does for her, but right now, she's too fragile.
Standard:
UR Ral Combo
Modern:
U Merfolk
R Goblins
Commander
RB Grenzo, Dungeon Warden
R Feldon of the Third Path
I actually really do like her +1, but it isn't sufficient protection in a multiplayer environment. You lock down one threat, but there's going to be at least two other players who aren't going to want you to have her emblem. I can see running her in a deck built around manipulating loyalty counters I guess, it's an archetype I tend to overlook.
I really like her, sure, three loyalty would have been nice, but eh, that's how it happens sometimes.
On building a Celestial Kirin Stax EDH:
That card was printed during Kamigawa, before they started adding tokens for every token producer to packs. The only reason they wouldn't print the kraken token is if they feel that because the emblem isn't a card, they don't need to. I would hope that there's A) another card that produces kraken tokens and B) they feel that emblems producing tokens would justify printing the tokens.
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Limited defense that also enables opponents to block for free. Ah well a build-up setup like Simic or something might still be able to use that.
-1: Explore - the selling point of the card. Not bad but might as well turn into a 4 CMC Explore + Healing Salve.
Ultimate... is pretty powerful but also kinda weird. It doesn't seem that hard to disrupt her getting there. However once you do it's a fast-moving clock. That the token comes at end of turn just makes it nasty.
I'm not sure where to put her into as UG is not really a control-setup, which she seems to invite to.
I guess you can use UG's high toughness to make a pillowfort to get her online with ultimate.
Otherwise you can "just" run her as double-Explore in a Big Green setup with Big-Garruk?
I'll actually go against my earlier statement and say that she seems interesting but also it's uncertain what to do with her, where her home is.
Spoken exactly like someone who has never played EDH, at the least not friendly EDH. Most people have absolutely no threats until turn 5-6, and kiora can very easily be played on turn 2 or 3. Thats 2-3 free turns to plus her, and when someone finally gets a creature on board, kiora just keeps them doing nothing. Her ult is a serious possibility, not to mention a repeatable explore is nothing to smirk at. T1: land sol ring, T2: Land, Kiora, Land, T3 Land Land, holy crap I have 7 mana?!?
Crazy stuff happens in EDH, planeswalkers are fun, and the simic guy is usually the one with all the creatures to defend anyway. This is a casual powerhouse, and not every mythic has to see "serious" play, fringe decks exist and most people aren't playing for trophies and thousands of dollars.
As for her playability, I think beyond limited she's just bad. Don't really have much to say here... Well, 2 starting loyalty for 4 cmc, with her plus ability pretty much irrelevant... IMO, she's more like Nissa-level of 'walker. Nuff said.
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV
UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tron GR
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
And Mutavault was mentioned before.
Hmm... seems like I've actually been nathed while writing this.
TBH I'm a little sad that you can only target opponent's permanents and not your own. It could have said "another target permanent" to not be cheesy and target herself.
Painlands you said? Nope, not feeling it.
Mostly because it limits how you can play her. If your opponent doesn't have any permanents (because they are weird or dropped something that removed the board) you cannot activate her +1.
To me that seems kinda sloppy.
And like a bright one said: Weird that she doesn't break the card frame.
You forgot Strionic Resonator just for 2 more tokens.
Against Control, it gets a little more interesting. The minus ability does a lot, but it's competing with Jace. Drawing one card and possibly playing an extra land is a lot weaker than choosing cards out of the top three.
I have to agree with the sentiment that this card is over costed. It would have been okay at three, with only one loyalty, because it would just be a terrible Rampant Growth against most decks. That extra mana just makes it a terrible Rampant Growth that can take a hit for you, with a very slim chance of being anything more, except against true blue control. With Abrupt Decay in Standard, it would have really balanced out nicely.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Soldier of the pantheon plunges right through her +1
Hero's downfall is sort of relevant, would you rather fof with Jace or explore(legal in modern btw) for 4 cmc. Really!?
C'mon, you really can't wait one more turn to play your Urban Evolution?
Emblem: They are 9/9s, the Krakens could at least have trample. ****, at least Vraska wins if her tokens deal damage to you.
mono-U has 8 birds. Its like they deliberately designed her to get pecked to death.
at 4 mana, the control player has more than enough time to d-sphere Kiora before she sets off.
Where's the synergy? Wheres the simic flavor? I understand walkers are usually hit or miss. But seriously, she needs to take notes from my dude Tibalt. Imagine, you can get the same card advantage for less mana, by chance however
Well, then again...you're losing anyway with junk *** mythics.
Removed censor evasion. -TK
But im not one of these people who dismiss cards outright so maybe she turns out to be decent in the end although Im not interested in her since Im more of a black mage and would like to see a decent black walker in standard again.
Same with Kiora. At first glance the 2 loyalty is really low for the mana cost, but perhaps she will play out well once everything is revealed?
At least she's bonkers in limited (like any other planeswalker)
This great banner was made by Topher
Out of 20 Esper lists on MTGtop8 only 4 ran her maindeck, and that was 1-2 copies. Jace AoT was often 4-of and big Elspeth a 1-3-of, except a few cases where she was left out.
However I think it's quite clear that Kiora might have a chance at standard, a certain appeal to EDH and casual, but very limited application to Modern and no existence in Legacy.
Edit: I wonder if we'll see her in a derped Big Green deck with Simic Charm, Plasm Capture and Big Garruk. Simply use her as a ramp-tool to hit those big fatties or build a pillowfort around her to let her ultimate.
CMC 1: Elvish Mystic
CMC 2: Sylvan Caryatid and Omenspeaker
CMC 3: Axebane Guardian, Wall of Frost
And aim for Arbor Colossus, Shipbreaker Kraken, Sylvan Primordial or derp with Worldspine Wurm.
If only standard would become a decent format ...
- L
"The problem isn't when Scissors says Rock is overpowered, it's when Paper says it is."
-Mark Rosewater
She isn't broken by any means, but both her abilities can be very useful depending on the situation.
There are countless magic games that are made by 1 creature and this can be a good top deck or a bad one.
I love her and will get at least 1 to match my fav Walkers, alongside Tamiyo
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=11394929#post11394929