Interesting card, but I think all of the Converge cards are way underpowered. Unless it's easy to play five colors in the next standard, I foresee few Converge cards rising to the top. It's certainly not a limited based mechanic.
So far I do think this set is severely underpowered and honestly all over the place. I can't see any real themes (okay, I can see Zendikar vs Eldrazi fairly clearly) but the Eldrazi don't feel as synergized as they did the first time around.
I feel like they handicapped a lot of cards that didn't need to be handicapped so far.
Its not an easy mechanic to balance or make particularly attractive to build around, thats for sure. When sunburst existed, it was in a draft with cards like pentad prism and dawn's reflection, and I expect we'll see limited enablers like that here (or if we don't, geez), but any mechanic can produce at least a few pushed and playable cards- even if its hard to balance, some can wind up too high instead of too low. Engineered Explosives comes to mind. That said, I don't see what this mechanic does beyond rehashing sunburst in a less inspired ability word format.
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Oona, Queen of the Fae
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Not really a ton of 6-power creatures in limited, so if it turns out that there's actually a way to reliably make all five colors, then this will be good there. I kinda doubt that's likely, but I guess anything's possible.
If it weren't for the whole schtick about this set not being a battlecruiser format, I could believe that we're just not seeing the key commons that are going to make the set coherent. But they said they want to make it reasonable to win by curving out, which means they didn't just put a bunch of crappy cards in the set so that Raid Bombardment could shine. Instead apparently they put a bunch of crappy cards in the set so that they could save all their good ideas for a set without full art lands and lottery fetches.
Guys, mind control is not uncommon anymore, deal with it, not in any shape or form, this is rare for limited, get on with your lives.
Yes, Mind Control is now rare, but a worse version of it should not be.
Yes worse version... I fail to see how a way to permanently steal their creature is worse than one where they get their creature back.
Probably because you need four different colors to make this worth it, which could mean making your mana base awful to do so. Until we see a land/mana dork that can make all colors I'm sure this will only be stealing small things and if someone wants to spend 5 mana to take that 2/X then they can go right ahead.
Guys, mind control is not uncommon anymore, deal with it, not in any shape or form, this is rare for limited, get on with your lives.
Yes, Mind Control is now rare, but a worse version of it should not be.
Yes worse version... I fail to see how a way to permanently steal their creature is worse than one where they get their creature back.
Probably because you need four different colors to make this worth it, which could mean making your mana base awful to do so. Until we see a land/mana dork that can make all colors I'm sure this will only be stealing small things and if someone wants to spend 5 mana to take that 2/X then they can go right ahead.
Depends what that 2/x does. And looking at the current mana, 5c isn't hard
This is better than Mind Control with regards to the current Standard because at least this doesn't give your opponent an easy 2 for 1 when they blow your Mind Control up with Dromoka's Command. That is not saying this card is great, but the comparison is pretty poor in the context of the upcoming Standard, unless by some reverse miracle Dromoka's Command is not good enough to see play.
Who knows, maybe 5 colour control will be a thing again. At least these Converge spells happen to be in a colour pair with access to excellent mana ramp and mana fixing. Sarkhan Unbroken will be happy to provide colours 4 through 5.
I remember MaRo stating that they wanted to save full-art basics for a set that needed something extra to help it sell well, and as a result, I refused to believe that our return to Zendikar would meet that criterion.
With the majority of these other spoilers, it looks like the principle of my skepticism was horribly wrong; this set really needed more oomph unless the later spoilers are bonkers.
Honestly I think you're onto something with that. What we've seen so far is underwhelming in most peoples books I've read, and I've barely formed an opinion on it. It could very well be a conscious move to pump up an unimpressive showing. Like RTR, this has nothing that made zendikar nor rote memorable. More pseudosunburst like this and fifth dawn will seem like something more than a box of serum visions
The people commenting on the trash art hit a point I definitely agree with though, even the recent sets I'd chalk up to poor R&D&D at least had great art direction as a redeeming quality.
The quote from Maro needs to be posted else I call it bonkers cuz I doubt anyone in sane mind would announce such thing. Why not instead make a better set?
The quote from Maro needs to be posted else I call it bonkers cuz I doubt anyone in sane mind would announce such thing. Why not instead make a better set?
His quote didn't mean "a set that plays like garbage". He means a set that maybe doesn't have an inherent draw to it (like going back to a beloved place, fetches coming back, wedge set, etc.)
Either they're doing a really good job this time of having control over the better spoilers, or this set is just going to be what we should expect from now on: slow and long-game focused, considering this is the first official block of nu-standard.
I like the formatting of Skyrider Elf. If they had made this similarly with an , it would have felt significantly more rare, though they probably would have had to make it more than one color to balance it. You shouldn't be able to permanently steal a card for 1-mana, but this card feels severely limited as is.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
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You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Perhaps they intentionally slowed down this particular Standard format to make some key features of the last two blocks relevant? Morph creatures being decent depends on them being at least somewhat worth the investment of 3 mana for a Grey Ogre, and a super fast format is not likely to be the one where 8+ cost creatures get to shine.
What's funny is making the roof of card power a little bit lower actually allows for more cards to be playable, which it seems is the largest gripe made by lots of 'serious' players. The problem is that this particularly odious part of the player base sees the issue from the opposite perspective: they think that cards should be made better to account for the power of other cards. Given that power is relative, this change is ultimately irrelevant in the context of Standard. With regards to Eternal formats, not that many cards are likely to be relevant in the first place, so trying to increase this number is probably not worth the time nor the effort. Wizards is better off spit balling cards that might need to be banned into Modern like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time than actually working towards making more average cards appealing in that format, and older formats. Those two cards have not been detrimentally powerful to Standard, and like Kolaghan's Command, demonstrate the utter subjectivity of what makes good cards.
I don't see how Converge in Standard will be that hard to pull off when they are Dual Lands that can be searched out using Fetchlands. Might take a bit of setting up, but since you don't plan on doing this until turn 5, it really ain't going to be that hard. The only premier threat this does not allow you to steal at face value is Dragonlord Atarka, which happens to be an obscene Magic card and is one of the hardest creatures to answer in the format.
It targets creatures with equal or lesser power, not converted mana cost. If you pay WUBRG for it, you can steal quite a few six mana creatures (e.g. Dragonlord Silumgar, Dragonlord Dromoka, various BFZ things).
That's better than I thought (not hard) and at least the 4-5 colour levels are useful, but it's still not good enough, for what's effectively a WUBRG sorcery it feels like you should be able to steal anything targetable (after all even though sorcery steal is a bit better than Control Magic effects, the current price of those effects is a much easier 3UU (Persuasion) for any creature).
Perhaps they intentionally slowed down this particular Standard format to make some key features of the last two blocks relevant? Morph creatures being decent depends on them being at least somewhat worth the investment of 3 mana for a Grey Ogre, and a super fast format is not likely to be the one where 8+ cost creatures get to shine.
What's funny is making the roof of card power a little bit lower actually allows for more cards to be playable, which it seems is the largest gripe made by lots of 'serious' players. The problem is that this particularly odious part of the player base sees the issue from the opposite perspective: they think that cards should be made better to account for the power of other cards. Given that power is relative, this change is ultimately irrelevant in the context of Standard. With regards to Eternal formats, not that many cards are likely to be relevant in the first place, so trying to increase this number is probably not worth the time nor the effort. Wizards is better off spit balling cards that might need to be banned into Modern like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time than actually working towards making more average cards appealing in that format, and older formats. Those two cards have not been detrimentally powerful to Standard, and like Kolaghan's Command, demonstrate the utter subjectivity of what makes good cards.
Well they did make cards intentionally for older formats for a time Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void were intentionally made to impact vintage and legacy. They stopped once they realized they were just throwing too many wrenches into those old formats by printing cards like that.
In what universe? If you build a deck like that, and ever draw that hand, I will personally come to wherever you live, perform complicated acts of awestruck ********, then disembowel myself to escape the world that allowed something like this to occur and validate you.
To those (including WOTC) that say limited excuses bad rares: limited can justify why it isn't uncommon, it cannot justify why it is rare. In other words, if the dev team realized that it would work as an uncommon they should have simply axed it, rather than making it rare. Design, what with maro seeming the champion of why such things cannot be at uncommon, should stop making them if they know they will end up as contructed-useless and limited-unseen.
I really hope we start to see some enablers for converge (more than Sylvan Scrying, as awesome as that one is). Running five colors in Limited is pretty much impossible, even in sets Alara, the Ravnicas and Khans.
You would assume it's because of limited, but I'm pretty sure that if I'm playing janky 5 color in limited I don't want to waste 5 mana to gain control of something that's not an Eldrazi. Why does this exist again?
I was really excited for BFZ before the spoilers. Now I'm trying not to cry.
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The real pain is, this card could read "all creatures" and it would be at least playable and have a meaningfull big effect if you cast it for lots of colors.
As it is, controll magic effects are particular powerfull in Limited, but this has lots of drawbacks that they totally "could" have done this at uncommon easily.
Such cards are dissappointing simply because they dont really feel like they deliver enough to be a rare.
Its not an easy mechanic to balance or make particularly attractive to build around, thats for sure. When sunburst existed, it was in a draft with cards like pentad prism and dawn's reflection, and I expect we'll see limited enablers like that here (or if we don't, geez), but any mechanic can produce at least a few pushed and playable cards- even if its hard to balance, some can wind up too high instead of too low. Engineered Explosives comes to mind. That said, I don't see what this mechanic does beyond rehashing sunburst in a less inspired ability word format.
I'd rather have Control Magic or even Dominate at Mythic
than this chaff at any rarity above Uncommon.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
If it weren't for the whole schtick about this set not being a battlecruiser format, I could believe that we're just not seeing the key commons that are going to make the set coherent. But they said they want to make it reasonable to win by curving out, which means they didn't just put a bunch of crappy cards in the set so that Raid Bombardment could shine. Instead apparently they put a bunch of crappy cards in the set so that they could save all their good ideas for a set without full art lands and lottery fetches.
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Standard Deck:
BUPirates
Modern Deck:
B8-Rack
And you also end up with the possible scenario of you targeting their Walker and them pumping higher than this would be for.
Yes, Mind Control is now rare, but a worse version of it should not be.
Yes worse version... I fail to see how a way to permanently steal their creature is worse than one where they get their creature back.
Probably because you need four different colors to make this worth it, which could mean making your mana base awful to do so. Until we see a land/mana dork that can make all colors I'm sure this will only be stealing small things and if someone wants to spend 5 mana to take that 2/X then they can go right ahead.
Depends what that 2/x does. And looking at the current mana, 5c isn't hard
Who knows, maybe 5 colour control will be a thing again. At least these Converge spells happen to be in a colour pair with access to excellent mana ramp and mana fixing. Sarkhan Unbroken will be happy to provide colours 4 through 5.
The quote from Maro needs to be posted else I call it bonkers cuz I doubt anyone in sane mind would announce such thing. Why not instead make a better set?
His quote didn't mean "a set that plays like garbage". He means a set that maybe doesn't have an inherent draw to it (like going back to a beloved place, fetches coming back, wedge set, etc.)
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
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What's funny is making the roof of card power a little bit lower actually allows for more cards to be playable, which it seems is the largest gripe made by lots of 'serious' players. The problem is that this particularly odious part of the player base sees the issue from the opposite perspective: they think that cards should be made better to account for the power of other cards. Given that power is relative, this change is ultimately irrelevant in the context of Standard. With regards to Eternal formats, not that many cards are likely to be relevant in the first place, so trying to increase this number is probably not worth the time nor the effort. Wizards is better off spit balling cards that might need to be banned into Modern like Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time than actually working towards making more average cards appealing in that format, and older formats. Those two cards have not been detrimentally powerful to Standard, and like Kolaghan's Command, demonstrate the utter subjectivity of what makes good cards.
That's better than I thought (not hard) and at least the 4-5 colour levels are useful, but it's still not good enough, for what's effectively a WUBRG sorcery it feels like you should be able to steal anything targetable (after all even though sorcery steal is a bit better than Control Magic effects, the current price of those effects is a much easier 3UU (Persuasion) for any creature).
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side note: Mycosynth Lattice, Chromatic Lantern, joiner adept and Celestial Dawn are fun with these Converge cards just like they where with sunburst (It's the same damn thing why didn't they just use sunburst?)
You would assume it's because of limited, but I'm pretty sure that if I'm playing janky 5 color in limited I don't want to waste 5 mana to gain control of something that's not an Eldrazi. Why does this exist again?
I was really excited for BFZ before the spoilers. Now I'm trying not to cry.
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Check out the Shop Thread
As it is, controll magic effects are particular powerfull in Limited, but this has lots of drawbacks that they totally "could" have done this at uncommon easily.
Such cards are dissappointing simply because they dont really feel like they deliver enough to be a rare.
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