T1, elf; T2 Atarka command (3 damage and ramp) and temple, T3 Dragon Tempest and Fénix; T4 THIS. (2 4/4 with haste and 3 damage)
I'll outdo you there. T2 Thaumaturge, T3 Hordeling Outburst, T4 Dragon Tempest + Assault force for 4 4/4 dragons and 4 simultaneous dragon triggers each worth 4 (they all see each other), totalling 32 damage after attacks. In other words, you can basically clear their board with dragon triggers and then finish them off with your hasty dragons.
Of course, christmasland has no Bile Blights.
Yeah, you'd better believe that this ever becomes a thing that any deck running black will be packing 4 Bile Blights. And Crux of Fate.
I could still see it being a thing since Thaumaturge makes this effect so cheap and there are plenty of cheap token spells in the format right now (and there will be even more with dragon fodder in DTK).
EDIT: Wow, just noticed some discussion about how this card isn't red. Everyone remembers Devour, the mechanic for Jund, the red-centered shard of Alara, right? Devour is very red, and this card exemplifies the same principle (sacrificing a bunch of smaller things to FEED THE DRAGONS!! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY DRAGONS, says Red)
Jivanmukta, it's funny you should ask people to listen to Maro's podcast for insight into these things. I went back and transcibed a portion of the Scourge set breakdown where he talks about the creation of Form of the Dragon. It's about 5 minutes into Part 2, if you want to listen to it yourself. Here you go:
“Next, Form of the Dragon.
Costs 7 mana 4 Red Red Red. It’s an enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, you deal 5 damage to target creature or player, at the end of the turn your life drops to five, and creatures without flying can’t attack you. YOU HAVE BECOME A DRAGON!
Now when I talk about top-down cards, Vorthosian. Cards for Vorthos, cards which are dripping with flavor, this is the example. This is probably Brian (Tinsman)’s best design. This is, like, I think if you ask Brian the best thing he ever designed at Wizards, this might be it. The thing is quite quite beautiful. I would later make fun of it in Unhinged with Form of the Squirrel.
Now, this card is interesting. So one of the abilities of the card, obviously it does 5 damage every turn, you breathe fire, you do damage to whatever. Red does that fine. Drop your life total to 5, ehh, red will do stuff like that. It’ll make you take, you know, have some gain and some loss.
The last one though, can’t be attacked except by flying creatures, you might know that as MOAT, Moat is a white card, it is not a red card. One of the big debates on this card is that this ability isn’t red, this is a white ability. So at the time, what we said is, look, the card is going for this overall effect, the overall effect is that you are a dragon. It is important that you are a dragon that you are flying, because we make dragons fly. Okay, we’re going to make you, the player, fly. And we decided, you know, one of the things that’s important to realize is…
One second. Sorry, my mirror was bent.
One of the things we realized was that sometimes you can bend the color by a little bit when the overall flavor is so strong. Like while, that ability in a vacuum is not red, the ability as a whole is very red. Turning yourself into a dragon is very red. It definitely has a risky quality to it. It definitely has, the card evokes a very sense of red and so we let it go.
It is careful. You have to be very careful where and how you bend the color pie. You don’t want to break it. The big thing here is, it is not like red is supposed to be particularly vulnerable to ground creatures and somehow giving red this ability lets red undo some inherent weakness built into the color. So when you are messing with the color pie, it’s important that you don’t undo what the colors are supposed to not be able to do. And this is not that, it’s not like red doesn’t have means to protect on the ground, so we felt that it is okay."
He specifically calls out Form of the Dragon as a beautiful design, and given how recently he said this, the age of the card shouldn't be a factor. And though he mentions caution with regard to bending the color pie, but that it's okay because the ability doesn't completely get rid of an innate weakness the color is supposed to have. I would argue that putting Moat onto a card is a far bigger bend of the color pie than allowing red to destroy some creatures. In the end, the card is evocative of changing a swath of creatures into Dragons, and the mechanics were made secondary to that.
Edit: Grammar
Watched it the day it came out as I do with all the podcasts.
If you consider this card as flavorfully evocative as Form of the Dragon I'd suggest that you get your Vorthos card revoked. They are completely different levels of "wow this card is something special". So no, I don't accept your FotD. In addition FotD was done in a way that there really was no other way to express it mechanically except by breaking it. This card is not only out of pie, but it has mechanically taken the easy way to make it cleaner. Red sacrifices its own, red deals damage to others. Red doesn't target and destroy. There are many ways they could have kept the same feeling of "Dragons eat everything" without it breaking so many standards. FotD only really breaks one (the moat), the rest of the card is very Red mechanically. I am not opposed to the IDEA of the card, but the execution based on mechanics and the (somewhat) absurd defenses people are giving toward the card. It shows a lack of understanding or concern about the game, and it comes up often. Which is why I implore people to actually learn about color balance and design/development before discussing things with those who have.
T1, elf; T2 Atarka command (3 damage and ramp) and temple, T3 Dragon Tempest and Fénix; T4 THIS. (2 4/4 with haste and 3 damage)
I'll outdo you there. T2 Thaumaturge, T3 Hordeling Outburst, T4 Dragon Tempest + Assault force for 4 4/4 dragons and 4 simultaneous dragon triggers each worth 4 (they all see each other), totalling 32 damage after attacks. In other words, you can basically clear their board with dragon triggers and then finish them off with your hasty dragons.
Of course, christmasland has no Bile Blights.
Yeah, you'd better believe that this ever becomes a thing that any deck running black will be packing 4 Bile Blights. And Crux of Fate.
I could still see it being a thing since Thaumaturge makes this effect so cheap and there are plenty of cheap token spells in the format right now (and there will be even more with dragon fodder in DTK).
EDIT: Wow, just noticed some discussion about how this card isn't red. Everyone remembers Devour, the mechanic for Jund, the red-centered shard of Alara, right? Devour is very red, and this card exemplifies the same principle (sacrificing a bunch of smaller things to FEED THE DRAGONS!! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY DRAGONS, says Red)
Except devour was on creature cards that got bigger if they ate something, not on spells that just made them into new creatures. You also couldn't devour your opponent's creatures.
Your example was off, but this type of effect is in red's color pie, ala things like Hellion Eruption and some old goblin card I can't think of, but it is a stretch of red's color pie that only very rarely happens. The only thing about it that I don't particularly like being red is being able to target your opponent's creatures with it (even if you won't be doing that very often).
Why is this card red? LOLDRAGONS isn't a good enough reason.
somewhat similar to the old devour mechanic.
Red does not destroy opponents (nonwall) creatures without damage.
Sorry, for some reason I thought you had to sac your own dudes to make dragons. I was thinking lots of Goblin tokens, sac some of them, turn them into dragons. That kind of thing has been red before, but you're right - if it's a mass Rapid Hybridization at sorcery speed it doesn't make much sense.
Watched it the day it came out as I do with all the podcasts...This card is not only out of pie, but it has mechanically taken the easy way to make it cleaner.
Jivanmukta, I like this card it seems fun and has potential to build around. As for breaking the color pie and you being in complete agreement with MaRo:
Quote from Jivanmukta »
You do understand that I am in complete agreement with the head designer of magic. While I am not (and have no desire to be) a magic designer, I have philosophical legs to stand on regarding this topic.
Please see MaRo's Tumblr for his take on this. His answer is brief because he is traveling today, but it outright states this card is in Red's part of the pie.
Quote from MaRo »
Don't you think the Assault of the Dragons card ought to blue?
People keep saying Red is too narrow and we ought to bleed a few more things into Red’s slice of the color pie. Okay, we did. TurnIng creatures into Dragons felt very Red. And yes, flavorwise, exiling would probably have been better than destroying.
Indeed. Saw it. This still shows that it is a NEW thing and not based on any of the previous cards shown as "precedent." If this is a thing they will be doing in the future that's fine. My arguments were towards people who were offering up madness like Cinder Cloud as justification.
I think MaRo meant to say that mechanically exiling would have been better. As for flavor, I think destroying is what's happening. I mean, these dragons are munching on the livestock here. They're not not shooing them off the battlefield.
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My favorite flavor text: Time of Heroes
Feel free to tell me yours!
I think MaRo meant to say that mechanically exiling would have been better. As for flavor, I think destroying is what's happening. I mean, these dragons are munching on the livestock here. They're not not shooing them off the battlefield.
Destroying is much more flavor appropriate than exiling in this case. Although putting tokens into play and having them fight the creatures is best.
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but there is still a typo in the thread's title. Not that it's a big deal or anything, but Akki_Akki or moderator, perhaps one of you could fix it just to sate my OCD, lol.
I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but there is still a typo in the thread's title. Not that it's a big deal or anything, but Akki_Akki or moderator, perhaps one of you could fix it just to sate my OCD, lol.
This bothers me but not as much as "Dragonlord Ujutai" *shudder*
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Don't need to speak it, only read it : )
Yeah, you'd better believe that this ever becomes a thing that any deck running black will be packing 4 Bile Blights. And Crux of Fate.
I could still see it being a thing since Thaumaturge makes this effect so cheap and there are plenty of cheap token spells in the format right now (and there will be even more with dragon fodder in DTK).
EDIT: Wow, just noticed some discussion about how this card isn't red. Everyone remembers Devour, the mechanic for Jund, the red-centered shard of Alara, right? Devour is very red, and this card exemplifies the same principle (sacrificing a bunch of smaller things to FEED THE DRAGONS!! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY DRAGONS, says Red)
Watched it the day it came out as I do with all the podcasts.
If you consider this card as flavorfully evocative as Form of the Dragon I'd suggest that you get your Vorthos card revoked. They are completely different levels of "wow this card is something special". So no, I don't accept your FotD. In addition FotD was done in a way that there really was no other way to express it mechanically except by breaking it. This card is not only out of pie, but it has mechanically taken the easy way to make it cleaner. Red sacrifices its own, red deals damage to others. Red doesn't target and destroy. There are many ways they could have kept the same feeling of "Dragons eat everything" without it breaking so many standards. FotD only really breaks one (the moat), the rest of the card is very Red mechanically. I am not opposed to the IDEA of the card, but the execution based on mechanics and the (somewhat) absurd defenses people are giving toward the card. It shows a lack of understanding or concern about the game, and it comes up often. Which is why I implore people to actually learn about color balance and design/development before discussing things with those who have.
T1: Land, Elvish Mystic
T2: Land, Mana Dork (like Elvish Mystic, Sylvan Caryatid, Rattleclaw Mystic,...)
T3: Land, Hordeling Outburst + Dragon Tempest
T4: Land, Assault Force = 25 damage with 4 lands and 5 other more or less specific cards... It is also notable, that 25 > 20 + Siege Rhino
Also, we don't need the pretty useless Battlefield Thaumaturge... And don't need the tokens to have haste!
Except devour was on creature cards that got bigger if they ate something, not on spells that just made them into new creatures. You also couldn't devour your opponent's creatures.
Your example was off, but this type of effect is in red's color pie, ala things like Hellion Eruption and some old goblin card I can't think of, but it is a stretch of red's color pie that only very rarely happens. The only thing about it that I don't particularly like being red is being able to target your opponent's creatures with it (even if you won't be doing that very often).
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Will senpai notice me if I learn about color balance and design/development before discussing things with those who have?
Feel free to tell me yours!
Perhaps Lully-chan. Perhaps.
Also this. I believe MaRo uses the term "polymorphing" a bit liberally as thats probably how they discuss it in house. http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/112886689613/you-misunderstood-the-flavor-of-assault-of#notes
Feel free to tell me yours!
Destroying is much more flavor appropriate than exiling in this case. Although putting tokens into play and having them fight the creatures is best.
(Probably not, though.)
This bothers me but not as much as "Dragonlord Ujutai" *shudder*