I wouldn't joke with that. Few months ago I read an article where MaRo said everything that he would "fix" if he had a time machine to talk with Garfield and Instants were one of those "fixes". He said he would make everything sorcery and just give Flash and the Instant supertype to some select stuff.
My opinion on MaRo has a decreased alot by this.So he wants to turn Magic into Hearthstone...
I could see where you are coming from...if that is what MaRo actually said. I know some people don't like some of the things MaRo does, but his comment did not mean he would get rid of instants and it is misleading to suggest that is what he was talking about.
Instead, he said he would make Instant a supertype that could then go on Creatures, Enchantments, Artifacts, and Sorceries. It was meant as a flavorful representation of flash instead of needing the Flash keyword. His point was that instants are nothing more than sorceries being cast at instant timing.
It is possible that it would minimize the number of instant sorceries compared to the number of instants we have, but it was completely hypothetical and in no way did it reflect a desire to eliminate, or greatly reduce, the number of instants in Magic.
On topic though: I am greatly disappointed by this set. I understand that it has quite a few limited cards and it looks like it may be fun un limited. However, I don't play limited. I plan Modern and EDH and there seem to be fewer cards in this set that are playable in either of those formats when compared to previous sets.
That is not to say the set is inherently bad (assuming it is good for limited). It just does not have much of interest to me and the formats I play.
I'm super excited for Zulaport Cutthroat and Smothrring Abomination.
I think I've nailed down why these rotation threads are more *****y than my ex wife.
It's just change, and people have trouble with it. I'm sad it's going, this new thing isn't the same so it's bad, it's not what it was, it can't be like it was, where are these things I wanted... It's like a juvenile maelstrom worthy of a psychology thesis.
The King is dead! Long live the King! (Well next week anyway.)
Wizard: I see the set differently, but then I am primarily a Limited player.
As far as Commander goes, if the UR deck in this year's Commander product indeed has an Artifact Commander, things like Herald of Kozilek look good. (In addition to all the Thopter shenanigans from Origins, of course.)
I am also hoping for a WB commander that works with all of the Vampire lifegain matters cards.
I wouldn't joke with that. Few months ago I read an article where MaRo said everything that he would "fix" if he had a time machine to talk with Garfield and Instants were one of those "fixes". He said he would make everything sorcery and just give Flash and the Instant supertype to some select stuff.
My opinion on MaRo has a decreased alot by this.So he wants to turn Magic into Hearthstone...
Honestly I lost positive opinion of MaRo after the RTR block, it was only after Theros that I started thinking it was time for him to step away from the design team, now that we are here at Zendikar I feel that it is time to just walk him behind the Wizards of the coast building and put him out of his misery ol'yeller style.
Ever since Innistrad it has just been a constant lowering of not just power but also uniqueness. Most new mechanics do not make me go "OOOH I wonder if this new thing will interact well with some of the old stuff I like."
As I theorized in the past, I'm betting WOTC wants Origins to represent the jump-off point for a new version of Magic. In the distant future, "modern" as it is today will run through KTK and a new era will start with Origins.
I have no doubt that they'll announce an "Postmodern" format at some point, but I doubt they'll ever set a cutoff for Modern-legal cards. New stuff will continue to be legal in Modern, it's just that old stuff won't be legal in the new format.
And I'm not sure what the cutoff point would actually be. I think one of the priorities of "Postmodern" would be to dial back some of the manabase trends that dominate Modern, so I'm not sure that you'd want BFZI to be legal in that format (even if the Expeditions aren't technically BFZI-legal, you can still obtain them in BFZI packs, so it would create some confusion, I think.)
All in all, I believe "Postmodern" will happen in the next 5-10 years, but I'm not convinced that we've entered that era, yet. Modern appears to still be going strong.
I wouldn't joke with that. Few months ago I read an article where MaRo said everything that he would "fix" if he had a time machine to talk with Garfield and Instants were one of those "fixes". He said he would make everything sorcery and just give Flash and the Instant supertype to some select stuff.
I guess this is the final piece of information I needed to realize that I despise what MaRo does to/thinks of the game.
May as well all play Hearthstone. And god I hate that game (yes I do play it.....despite not actually enjoying it 75% of the time)
Well, still so happy my preorder for a box got cancelled. And to think I was ever upset about it!
While this set seems like it's lacking in playability in terms of eternal formats, this set has tons of cards that could see play in Standard. A much larger amount than usual, due to the synergy-based mechanics and possible deck types from this set.
Off the top of my head, this set has made available to us:
1. Multiple Eldrazi/colorless decks. You have the option of playing a Grixis-based tempo deck with cards like Forerunner of Slaughter and Dust Stalker, that has access to some seriously playable counterspells in the form of Spell Shrivel, which is going to be a hard counter that exiles most of the time, Horribly Awry, a card that can catch multiple early-game creatures that also exiles, and Ulamog's Nullifier, which is a better Mystic Snake if you can pay the Processing cost, which, thanks to all the counterpells with exile and ingest, should be possible. Brutal Expulsion is also great in a tempo deck, and Ghostfire Blade even gets you a cheap equipment to help make your creatures better. Wasteland Strangler is another great possible reward for being in this archetype.
2. A slower Eldrazi Midrange/Control deck is also available to us. We have the counterspells from the previous deck, Transgress the Mind is a possibly potent card now that thoughtseize is gone, and the ability to go for the longer game and try to ramp into something like Sire of Stagnation or use Blight Herder and Oblivion Sower to get to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I've also been messing around with a control deck that uses enchantments like Silkwrap, Stasis Snare, Quarantine Field, and Suspension Field to exile cards, and then use those creatures for fuel for the processors. The deck also could very feasibly run Herald of the Pantheon and some of the enchantment support from Origins.
3. A more traditional Eldrazi ramp deck, focusing on Eldrazi spawn, centered in Green and Black, that doesn't need the processors or ingest that much, outside of possibly Blight Herder.
4. A UWx awaken deck is totally possible, as you can eschew traditional finishers for Awaken spells, and you get to have a much more flexible deck. You could go with black for the third color to gain access to Ruinous Path, or green for some more land synergies, and you can also use awaken on manlands in order to make them have some extra oomph.
5. Allies might not quite be there yet, but the pieces are definitely there for a deck. I don't know what the deck will look like, but with a super-playable planeswalker and several allies in the set, along with a multicolor land, there's definitely something there.
And that's just decks made with cards primarily from this set, who knows what else can be done with Khans block added to the mix. Mana is also going to be way better this coming standard, and 4-color decks are a definite possibility. Converge, just in general, is more appealing in this coming world. I know I'm experimenting with adding red to my Esper Dragons list.
This standard should be a deckbuilder's paradise, and I'm really looking forward to it.
I get the feeling they balanced the devoid stuff around an assumption that Herald of Kozilek is in play. A card like that forces one to either go high so its 'balanced' with it in play, or broken/undercosted when it is in play.
If there are enough colorless spells/instants/whatever that make a difference in Standard (which I dont play) I dont know but that card is a pretty good enabler.
While this set seems like it's lacking in playability in terms of eternal formats, this set has tons of cards that could see play in Standard. A much larger amount than usual, due to the synergy-based mechanics and possible deck types from this set.
Off the top of my head, this set has made available to us:
1. Multiple Eldrazi/colorless decks. You have the option of playing a Grixis-based tempo deck with cards like Forerunner of Slaughter and Dust Stalker, that has access to some seriously playable counterspells in the form of Spell Shrivel, which is going to be a hard counter that exiles most of the time, Horribly Awry, a card that can catch multiple early-game creatures that also exiles, and Ulamog's Nullifier, which is a better Mystic Snake if you can pay the Processing cost, which, thanks to all the counterpells with exile and ingest, should be possible. Brutal Expulsion is also great in a tempo deck, and Ghostfire Blade even gets you a cheap equipment to help make your creatures better. Wasteland Strangler is another great possible reward for being in this archetype.
2. A slower Eldrazi Midrange/Control deck is also available to us. We have the counterspells from the previous deck, Transgress the Mind is a possibly potent card now that thoughtseize is gone, and the ability to go for the longer game and try to ramp into something like Sire of Stagnation or use Blight Herder and Oblivion Sower to get to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I've also been messing around with a control deck that uses enchantments like Silkwrap, Stasis Snare, Quarantine Field, and Suspension Field to exile cards, and then use those creatures for fuel for the processors. The deck also could very feasibly run Herald of the Pantheon and some of the enchantment support from Origins.
3. A more traditional Eldrazi ramp deck, focusing on Eldrazi spawn, centered in Green and Black, that doesn't need the processors or ingest that much, outside of possibly Blight Herder.
4. A UWx awaken deck is totally possible, as you can eschew traditional finishers for Awaken spells, and you get to have a much more flexible deck. You could go with black for the third color to gain access to Ruinous Path, or green for some more land synergies, and you can also use awaken on manlands in order to make them have some extra oomph.
5. Allies might not quite be there yet, but the pieces are definitely there for a deck. I don't know what the deck will look like, but with a super-playable planeswalker and several allies in the set, along with a multicolor land, there's definitely something there.
And that's just decks made with cards primarily from this set, who knows what else can be done with Khans block added to the mix. Mana is also going to be way better this coming standard, and 4-color decks are a definite possibility. Converge, just in general, is more appealing in this coming world. I know I'm experimenting with adding red to my Esper Dragons list.
This standard should be a deckbuilder's paradise, and I'm really looking forward to it.
I completely agree, there's a lot of meat here for deck building. If you look close as well - there's a pretty good UG Converge/Tempo deck and a pretty solid Black/White life-gain vampire-ally deck that looks like a heavy hitter.
BFZ feels more like a bad Rise of Eldrazi than Zendikar. They have failed to catch the theme of Kors, Merfolks, Vampires, Eqipments and especially Trap cards. And Allies are not even close enough to the previous ones.
I've never seen anyone not "get it" so hard. Bravo sir. You win the award.
Am I reading Bane of Bala Ged right? Really? My second favorite Eldrazi in the set after Ulamog is an uncommon?? Also, does this kind of question the whole idea of annihilator being gone due to it being too OP?
No. They just brought back un-keyworded annihilator as a nod most likely. It does enable the processors.
Annihilator is a problem as a keyword mechanic -- if there are many cards that share the mechanic, the chance you suffer an unfun loss to slow annihilation increases. But it shouldn't be a problem when it's on one card. Also note that all creatures with Annihilator were actually more expensive than this
Well... maybe we should talk about Unnatural Aggression. First good instant speed fight spell. Wooo.
I don't know. I tried being with the hype, but I'm just not feeling this set. I'm not saying it isn't good, there just is too much going on. Can't really wrap my head around it all. Landfall is much weaker than before. Eldrazis are cool. Thats pretty much it. I am excited to see lots of stuff to brew with Ghostfire Blade. This should be fun.
I wouldn't joke with that. Few months ago I read an article where MaRo said everything that he would "fix" if he had a time machine to talk with Garfield and Instants were one of those "fixes". He said he would make everything sorcery and just give Flash and the Instant supertype to some select stuff.
I guess this is the final piece of information I needed to realize that I despise what MaRo does to/thinks of the game.
May as well all play Hearthstone. And god I hate that game (yes I do play it.....despite not actually enjoying it 75% of the time)
Well, still so happy my preorder for a box got cancelled. And to think I was ever upset about it!
Not liking BFZ is fine, but since people can't seem to source check:
"First, I would make instant a supertype rather than a card type. There wouldn't be instants and sorceries. All nonpermanent spells would be sorceries. Then the subset that now are called instants would be instant sorceries. Permanents wouldn't have to have flash. Oh, that's another keyword I forgot to mention. It allows you to play permanents when you can play instants. They would just have an instant supertype. There would be instant creatures, instant artifacts, and instant enchantments. This would allow us to have one less keyword, make rules text less wordy and finally have a single word for nonpermanent spells."
nowhere did he say it was because Instants are bad, or that the supertype would only be on a few cards, just that it would have made templating more tidy
I could see where you are coming from...if that is what MaRo actually said. I know some people don't like some of the things MaRo does, but his comment did not mean he would get rid of instants and it is misleading to suggest that is what he was talking about.
Instead, he said he would make Instant a supertype that could then go on Creatures, Enchantments, Artifacts, and Sorceries. It was meant as a flavorful representation of flash instead of needing the Flash keyword. His point was that instants are nothing more than sorceries being cast at instant timing.
It is possible that it would minimize the number of instant sorceries compared to the number of instants we have, but it was completely hypothetical and in no way did it reflect a desire to eliminate, or greatly reduce, the number of instants in Magic.
On topic though: I am greatly disappointed by this set. I understand that it has quite a few limited cards and it looks like it may be fun un limited. However, I don't play limited. I plan Modern and EDH and there seem to be fewer cards in this set that are playable in either of those formats when compared to previous sets.
That is not to say the set is inherently bad (assuming it is good for limited). It just does not have much of interest to me and the formats I play.
I think I've nailed down why these rotation threads are more *****y than my ex wife.
It's just change, and people have trouble with it. I'm sad it's going, this new thing isn't the same so it's bad, it's not what it was, it can't be like it was, where are these things I wanted... It's like a juvenile maelstrom worthy of a psychology thesis.
The King is dead! Long live the King! (Well next week anyway.)
WOOOOO
It's a variant on the Husk. oooooo
Selling some cards I don't want.
Generally less than tcg mid.
As far as Commander goes, if the UR deck in this year's Commander product indeed has an Artifact Commander, things like Herald of Kozilek look good. (In addition to all the Thopter shenanigans from Origins, of course.)
I am also hoping for a WB commander that works with all of the Vampire lifegain matters cards.
Honestly I lost positive opinion of MaRo after the RTR block, it was only after Theros that I started thinking it was time for him to step away from the design team, now that we are here at Zendikar I feel that it is time to just walk him behind the Wizards of the coast building and put him out of his misery ol'yeller style.
Ever since Innistrad it has just been a constant lowering of not just power but also uniqueness. Most new mechanics do not make me go "OOOH I wonder if this new thing will interact well with some of the old stuff I like."
Yep, both have a 1 way ticket into my Teysa EDH deck. Vampiric Rites might find its way in there too
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
And I'm not sure what the cutoff point would actually be. I think one of the priorities of "Postmodern" would be to dial back some of the manabase trends that dominate Modern, so I'm not sure that you'd want BFZI to be legal in that format (even if the Expeditions aren't technically BFZI-legal, you can still obtain them in BFZI packs, so it would create some confusion, I think.)
All in all, I believe "Postmodern" will happen in the next 5-10 years, but I'm not convinced that we've entered that era, yet. Modern appears to still be going strong.
I guess this is the final piece of information I needed to realize that I despise what MaRo does to/thinks of the game.
May as well all play Hearthstone. And god I hate that game (yes I do play it.....despite not actually enjoying it 75% of the time)
Well, still so happy my preorder for a box got cancelled. And to think I was ever upset about it!
Off the top of my head, this set has made available to us:
1. Multiple Eldrazi/colorless decks. You have the option of playing a Grixis-based tempo deck with cards like Forerunner of Slaughter and Dust Stalker, that has access to some seriously playable counterspells in the form of Spell Shrivel, which is going to be a hard counter that exiles most of the time, Horribly Awry, a card that can catch multiple early-game creatures that also exiles, and Ulamog's Nullifier, which is a better Mystic Snake if you can pay the Processing cost, which, thanks to all the counterpells with exile and ingest, should be possible. Brutal Expulsion is also great in a tempo deck, and Ghostfire Blade even gets you a cheap equipment to help make your creatures better. Wasteland Strangler is another great possible reward for being in this archetype.
2. A slower Eldrazi Midrange/Control deck is also available to us. We have the counterspells from the previous deck, Transgress the Mind is a possibly potent card now that thoughtseize is gone, and the ability to go for the longer game and try to ramp into something like Sire of Stagnation or use Blight Herder and Oblivion Sower to get to Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. I've also been messing around with a control deck that uses enchantments like Silkwrap, Stasis Snare, Quarantine Field, and Suspension Field to exile cards, and then use those creatures for fuel for the processors. The deck also could very feasibly run Herald of the Pantheon and some of the enchantment support from Origins.
3. A more traditional Eldrazi ramp deck, focusing on Eldrazi spawn, centered in Green and Black, that doesn't need the processors or ingest that much, outside of possibly Blight Herder.
4. A UWx awaken deck is totally possible, as you can eschew traditional finishers for Awaken spells, and you get to have a much more flexible deck. You could go with black for the third color to gain access to Ruinous Path, or green for some more land synergies, and you can also use awaken on manlands in order to make them have some extra oomph.
5. Allies might not quite be there yet, but the pieces are definitely there for a deck. I don't know what the deck will look like, but with a super-playable planeswalker and several allies in the set, along with a multicolor land, there's definitely something there.
And that's just decks made with cards primarily from this set, who knows what else can be done with Khans block added to the mix. Mana is also going to be way better this coming standard, and 4-color decks are a definite possibility. Converge, just in general, is more appealing in this coming world. I know I'm experimenting with adding red to my Esper Dragons list.
This standard should be a deckbuilder's paradise, and I'm really looking forward to it.
If there are enough colorless spells/instants/whatever that make a difference in Standard (which I dont play) I dont know but that card is a pretty good enabler.
Spirits
I completely agree, there's a lot of meat here for deck building. If you look close as well - there's a pretty good UG Converge/Tempo deck and a pretty solid Black/White life-gain vampire-ally deck that looks like a heavy hitter.
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
I've never seen anyone not "get it" so hard. Bravo sir. You win the award.
My wife was on MTV with this video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUutIZg2EpU
So basically Kozilek confirmed for OOH
Emrkaul for the next set. Also, where is the eldrazi with the scythes for hands?
Also, Reclaiming Vines is a massive flavor fail. If it is channeling the power of Zendikar, then why is it destroying lands?
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Because its instant. Instant Landfall is super good.
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
Annihilator is a problem as a keyword mechanic -- if there are many cards that share the mechanic, the chance you suffer an unfun loss to slow annihilation increases. But it shouldn't be a problem when it's on one card. Also note that all creatures with Annihilator were actually more expensive than this
I don't know. I tried being with the hype, but I'm just not feeling this set. I'm not saying it isn't good, there just is too much going on. Can't really wrap my head around it all. Landfall is much weaker than before. Eldrazis are cool. Thats pretty much it. I am excited to see lots of stuff to brew with Ghostfire Blade. This should be fun.
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
7 "Green" Cards with Devoid
9 "Multicolored" Cards with Devoid
11 "Red" Cards with Devoid
13 "Black" Cards with Devoid
15 "Blue" Cards with Devoid
17 Non-Artifact/Non-Land Colorless Cards
Void Winnower approves.
I was hoping for a non-colored cost-reducer, but I guess that was too much to ask for. In standard.
In modern, we've got Cloud Key/Semblance Anvil for colorless options. Not the greatest...
nowhere did he say it was because Instants are bad, or that the supertype would only be on a few cards, just that it would have made templating more tidy
enchanting Witchstalker with Raised by Wolves
Thanks, missed that.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.