Loving the cards in this set compared to BFZ, but the the Titans losing is just comical and was a huge punt by the design team. Zendikar should have died at the hands(tentacles?) of Ulamog and Kozilek.
Oldwalkers probably could have if they tried. Ugin didn't want them destroyed because he didn't know what their purpose was is in the grand scheme of things. And I have a feeling that whatever that purpose is will come back to bite our heroes in the posterior in a few more blocks.
Why? It makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
No, it doesn't. Have you seen the flak DC is getting for daring to create its shared universe? "TOO MUCH LIKE MARVEL!" And mind you, Justice League came way before Avengers. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League, and the public knows this, but still give DC crap for doing it after Marvel. This brand that nobody really knows anything about coming out of the woodwork with its own teamup movie would get even worse treatment. None of these characters are in the zeitgeist, so there's literally no logic to copying a huge movie franchise's story beats instead of coming up with a unique story that Marvel would never tell.
Essentially, why go see the Magic movie try to be the avengers when you can go watch the real thing in Infinity War or the original in Justice League?
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In other news, Hedron Alignment has me all hot and bothered. Can't wait to start fudging with it.
Hedron Alignment is a waste of a card slot, absolute garbage. It does nothing and is near impossible to pull of as an alternative win. Hexproof means you will have a monumental task getting it exiled and in the graveyard. You need something that makes you sac your own enchantments/permanents or you'll have to mill it into your GY. And you'll need something akin to oblivion sower to exile one but if you hit two your screwed, plus you better hope an Eldrazi processor doesn't UN-exile it.
Complete and utter junk, worst at win ever maybe worst card.
The card isn't meant for competitive, it's meant for fun. Why do some players have the notion that all cards are for them? Also you can target permanents you own with hexproof. There's also a bunch of other ways to exile cards than what you mentioned.
Yeah I know it's not for competetime so you can stick your snob comment in your... Anyway regardless of the format I predict this will work all of zero times anywhere ever. In the formats where there are the tools to do this, ie vintage/legacy/modern it is too slow. And in standard there just aren't enuf ways to do it. There are cards to do it, but not in any matter efficient enuf to get it done while still fielding a deck competitive enuf to keep you alive while doing it.
And if you are relying on well it could be done in casual, then I'd say that is the worst casual environment ever. Either it will be to slow or if it's fast/efficient enuf I'd say that's not casual.
Zero times anywhere ever is a pretty audacious statement. I plan to bring this to FNM at least once before Delve rotates; if I 0-4 I'll just go home and tweak the deck, if I 4-0 I get a kick out of making a silly card playable. Sure, it'll get smashed by "real" decks, so what? A given Magic release has to serve a lot of different masters, so it doesn't make any sense to complain about one card that appeals to a particular playstyle.
Will Bonds of Mortality see sideboard play against Boggles in Modern?
If bogles is as issue in your meta it really does hose them good and proper though you'd need to follow it up with an exile effect as totem armour would still provide protection to a degree and you can't block a 10/10 first striking trampler...
Bonds of mortality Is something I've been wanted for an edh deck so yeah for that!
Hedron Alignment is just... thank you for printing more cards like this, I love this so much.
Reality Smasher looks like it'll be a good constructed card, 5/5 for 5 with trample and haste is already very good but with frost titan like self protect making your opponent required to 2 for one it is just incredible.
Love that Chandra too, that zero ability is awesome and you can use here ultimate the turn she hits!
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.
And tbh, I'm kinda disappointed they're barfing all of the important story elements onto the cards now. As epic as the art and flavor text look, I feel the event's impact is lessened without some sort of build up beyond the story blurb on the side of a booster box. Anyone could open one of these in a pack and go "Oh crap, what's going on here? Oh well, i guess the guys win so whatevs"
Um... read Uncharted Realms maybe?
Of course, and I do, but what about the people who don't? They'd also be less inclined to read UR because the story's already spoiled for them. Maybe it is or isn't a bad thing, but the old way forced people to read UR if they wanted to know the story, but the person would have to care enough to do it. In the new way, the people who wouldn't care about the lore can still follow the story now, but there's still the chance people are less likely to read the story. Of course, if there's anything showing that the number of hits on UR stories have actually gone up since the change, I'd gladly concede.
Bonds of Mortality is just SICK. NOONE is safe! Not Gideon, Ojutai, or anyone else! And it draws you a card... And it's an uncommon. I can see this a 4 of in some kind of JUND build.
Loving the cards in this set compared to BFZ, but the the Titans losing is just comical and was a huge punt by the design team. Zendikar should have died at the hands(tentacles?) of Ulamog and Kozilek.
You're missing the big purposes for this: They need a threat so large no single PW could solve, but TOGETHER they can. They need to win, otherwise the Gatewatch fails at its first and primary purpose. They need their first win, and it needs to be a spectacular win, to unite the GW together. Furthermore, if Zendikar is destroyed, WotC loses that property for revisiting. It's lose-lose for WotC's PoV.
Now, will the NEXT Gatewatch intervention go so easily? Probably not; there is always a wrinkle in the second story. But it makes perfect sense for their first outing as the GW to be a success or the idea fails.
We also know a few factors that benefit Chandra here. Most notably; she can use Ghostfire, which we know can harm the Eldrazis. Furthermore, she already noted that Zendikar's wildness makes her own magic wilder, more unpredictable. But with the whole plane itself now fighting against the Eldrazis, chances are it acts more like a focus. Then, there's the whole leyline focus she gets with help of Nissa and Jace. All those things combined mean it's basically a perfectly aligned combination. Had this fight taken place anywhere else...tle Eldrazis would've won with ease.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Reality Smasher will see play, at least as sideboard versus control. 5/5 haste/trample for 5 is a good starting point for Standard, and it can't be removed without two-for-oneing yourself.
Now if only wizards would print a way to kill things without targeting them.
No, it doesn't. Have you seen the flak DC is getting for daring to create its shared universe? "TOO MUCH LIKE MARVEL!" And mind you, Justice League came way before Avengers. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League, and the public knows this, but still give DC crap for doing it after Marvel. This brand that nobody really knows anything about coming out of the woodwork with its own teamup movie would get even worse treatment. None of these characters are in the zeitgeist, so there's literally no logic to copying a huge movie franchise's story beats instead of coming up with a unique story that Marvel would never tell.
The reason DC is getting flak for its shared universe is because they're doing a half-assed job of it. Before Marvel made the Avengers, every single one of the protagonists had already been established:
Iron Man in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. The Incredible Hulk in The Incredible Hulk. Nick Fury and the Black Widow in Iron Man 2. Thor and Hawkeye in Thor. Captain America in Captain America.
They put the work in, and they leveraged this work to make a movie about the heroes of four different movie lines teaming up to fight aliens.
DC is not willing to put this work in. They had to reboot the Nolanverse movies because that trilogy has a definite end, and the Green Lantern was crap from what I've heard, but they're still making their ensemble movie for the Justice League even though only one of them - Superman - has been established in a leadup movie, and even that one is pretty crap.
Reality Smasher will see play, at least as sideboard versus control. 5/5 haste/trample for 5 is a good starting point for Standard, and it can't be removed without two-for-oneing yourself.
Now if only wizards would print a way to kill things without targeting them.
Most non-targeting removal spells are sorcery-speed, so Haste still gets value in. Point is, it's a tough creature to efficiently turn aside as a control player.
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Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
The "yeah, I'll keep watch" on Chandra's Oath flavor text is further proof that they are trying to not only do their own Avengers / Justice League, but also match the cringeworthy Hollywood lines and clichéd one-sided personalities. Card is nice, though.
The "yeah, I'll keep watch" on Chandra's Oath flavor text is further proof that they are trying to not only do their own Avengers / Justice League, but also match the cringeworthy Hollywood lines and clichéd one-sided personalities. Card is nice, though.
How dare they have a varied cast of characters. Chandra is already anything but one-dimension, she's the typical comic relief character you'd imagine her to be from quotes like this, but the thing that brought her back to Zendikar was mostly guilt and sensse of responsibility.
What I mean is that I don't think their characters are unique or full-fledged or well-developed or anything. Magic has become a bit too obsessed with tropes for my tastes lately, and I feel this flies in the face of the brand's potential. For example: I think planeswalkers have a lot of potential, as they aren't really like anything on the current pop culture zeitgeist; they could be their own trope. But instead of developing them as something truly unique, WotC is settling for a glorified superhero group, which is a riff on the latest ephemerous Hollywood obsession. Chandra is basically the Human Torch, with the very same snarky lines. It's probably a good decision when it comes to gaining mainstream audiences in a somewhat easy way, but still massively disappointing from a storytelling perspective.
TL;DR: they could have a Harry Potter (new IP that sets the standard in a particular genre), but are settling for a Percy Jackson (a less-than-exciting ripoff).
Loving the cards in this set compared to BFZ, but the the Titans losing is just comical and was a huge punt by the design team. Zendikar should have died at the hands(tentacles?) of Ulamog and Kozilek.
You're missing the big purposes for this: They need a threat so large no single PW could solve, but TOGETHER they can. They need to win, otherwise the Gatewatch fails at its first and primary purpose. They need their first win, and it needs to be a spectacular win, to unite the GW together. Furthermore, if Zendikar is destroyed, WotC loses that property for revisiting. It's lose-lose for WotC's PoV.
Now, will the NEXT Gatewatch intervention go so easily? Probably not; there is always a wrinkle in the second story. But it makes perfect sense for their first outing as the GW to be a success or the idea fails.
I completely disagree. 1. People care more about the Eldrazi titans than they do planeswalkers 2. Sacrificing one plane to heighten then drama associated with the Eldrazi is well worth the cost 3. Dumping and creating planes happens all the time and there is infinite design space to do both 4. The planeswalkers we have now a days are shadows of there former selves. Its completely unrealistic that Jace and his band of merry men could so easily succeed when other planeswalkers of much greater power had failed over and over again.
This easy victory completely undermines the mythos that wizards has been cultivating with the Eldrazi titans. They might as well be another demonic bad guy or some crappy god from Theros or a praetor from New Phyrexia.
The "yeah, I'll keep watch" on Chandra's Oath flavor text is further proof that they are trying to not only do their own Avengers / Justice League, but also match the cringeworthy Hollywood lines and clichéd one-sided personalities. Card is nice, though.
How dare they have a varied cast of characters. Chandra is already anything but one-dimension, she's the typical comic relief character you'd imagine her to be from quotes like this, but the thing that brought her back to Zendikar was mostly guilt and sensse of responsibility.
Loving the cards in this set compared to BFZ, but the the Titans losing is just comical and was a huge punt by the design team. Zendikar should have died at the hands(tentacles?) of Ulamog and Kozilek.
You're missing the big purposes for this: They need a threat so large no single PW could solve, but TOGETHER they can. They need to win, otherwise the Gatewatch fails at its first and primary purpose. They need their first win, and it needs to be a spectacular win, to unite the GW together. Furthermore, if Zendikar is destroyed, WotC loses that property for revisiting. It's lose-lose for WotC's PoV.
Now, will the NEXT Gatewatch intervention go so easily? Probably not; there is always a wrinkle in the second story. But it makes perfect sense for their first outing as the GW to be a success or the idea fails.
I completely disagree. 1. People care more about the Eldrazi titans than they do planeswalkers 2. Sacrificing one plane to heighten then drama associated with the Eldrazi is well worth the cost 3. Dumping and creating planes happens all the time and there is infinite design space to do both 4. The planeswalkers we have now a days are shadows of there former selves. Its completely unrealistic that Jace and his band of merry men could so easily succeed when other planeswalkers of much greater power had failed over and over again.
This easy victory completely undermines the mythos that wizards has been cultivating with the Eldrazi titans. They might as well be another demonic bad guy or some crappy god from Theros or a praetor from New Phyrexia.
The Eldrazi aren't the heroes; the GW is. More people like the Joker than Batman, but that doesn't mean he should win in The Dark Knight. WotC are setting this group up as the new Faces of Magic; ever since Origins their faces are plastered across MTG's art. This is the first outing that puts them "together" and WotC wants them to have a success, not a failure, as their first outcome. If they didn't, you might preserve the "menace" of the Eldrazi, but you've completely undermined the heroes and proven them ineffective, weak and useless. They might as well stay home or run far, because their is nothing they can do against powerful foes. Heroes often succeed where "more powerful" mentors fail: Dumbledore can't stop Voldemort, Yoda and Obi-Wan can't stop the Sith, Elrond, Gandalf and Galadriel can't take the Ring to Mt. Doom.
Yeah, its the classic "heroes unite to stop ultimate menace" that is as old as dirt, but it sells well because it works. Sorry that WotC doesn't share your interest in a dystopian Magic setting.
Note on Inverter of Truth. You can play it with Hushwing Gryff (which rotates; thought it was in Origins instead of M15) to get around the downside in standard. Other downsides you can avoid:
And that's about it. Maybe that's enough for BW/C stompy deck? Play on-cast instead of ETB creatures to get around your own Gryff and play big midrangey stuff.
With 4RG, Clan Defiance deals 4 damage to a creature and a player (or a second creature). To do the same with Fall of the Titans, you'd need 8R, or if you have, say a R card in your hand to activate surge, 4RR. So only by jumping through hoops you get the same efficiency with the only added tiny benefits of needing only red, not having a limitation for targeting the second creature and being able to target a second player.
Nowadays, as a rule of thumb, when comparing a new card to an old card it's the safer bet to say that the older card is stronger. "Too strong for standard", even.
I'm calling it right now- worst rare in the set. Even good limited players will find better bombs at common and uncommon no sweat. Worst. Episode. Ever.
I really do predict this to be our worst rare in set award winner. I'd be happier opening a jar of eyeballs, so I think anything worse is highly unlikely. This card wont just have zero constructed potential, but not be significantly better than a mass of ghouls in a draft.
The "yeah, I'll keep watch" on Chandra's Oath flavor text is further proof that they are trying to not only do their own Avengers / Justice League, but also match the cringeworthy Hollywood lines and clichéd one-sided personalities. Card is nice, though.
How dare they have a varied cast of characters. Chandra is already anything but one-dimension, she's the typical comic relief character you'd imagine her to be from quotes like this, but the thing that brought her back to Zendikar was mostly guilt and sensse of responsibility.
So use that. Make it something like "For the people who died here. I'll keep watch."
Hedron Alignment is the best thing I've seen in years. I really like how it actually DOES something on it's own, unlike the previous "win the game if" enchantments. Being very hard to remove and having the ability to help find more copies is just amazing. I can't wait to see the decks people come up with for this one.
Bonds of Mortality. What a fantastic hate card for EDH! Wow! The fact that it replaces itself is what really makes it playable, IMO. Cool card. Nice rarity choice too! Would feel lame at rare but feels extra powerful at uncommon.
Fall of the Titans seems pretty powerful. Oath of Chandra is..about what I expected, I guess. Don't really like that 3 damage spells have been relegated to RARE and hitting ONLY creatures, but I don't feel that Wizard designed this card as the template replacement for Searing Spear type cards, so I'll let it slide. Definitely my least favorite Oath so far though.
The story it depicts is quite literally metaphorically feces.
No, they literally did try. Several times. They couldn't.
As TFS Vegeta said, "POWER LEVELS ARE BULLSH--!"
No, it doesn't. Have you seen the flak DC is getting for daring to create its shared universe? "TOO MUCH LIKE MARVEL!" And mind you, Justice League came way before Avengers. The Avengers are Marvel's version of the Justice League, and the public knows this, but still give DC crap for doing it after Marvel. This brand that nobody really knows anything about coming out of the woodwork with its own teamup movie would get even worse treatment. None of these characters are in the zeitgeist, so there's literally no logic to copying a huge movie franchise's story beats instead of coming up with a unique story that Marvel would never tell.
Essentially, why go see the Magic movie try to be the avengers when you can go watch the real thing in Infinity War or the original in Justice League?
In other news, Hedron Alignment has me all hot and bothered. Can't wait to start fudging with it.
Your mods are terrified of me.
Zero times anywhere ever is a pretty audacious statement. I plan to bring this to FNM at least once before Delve rotates; if I 0-4 I'll just go home and tweak the deck, if I 4-0 I get a kick out of making a silly card playable. Sure, it'll get smashed by "real" decks, so what? A given Magic release has to serve a lot of different masters, so it doesn't make any sense to complain about one card that appeals to a particular playstyle.
If bogles is as issue in your meta it really does hose them good and proper though you'd need to follow it up with an exile effect as totem armour would still provide protection to a degree and you can't block a 10/10 first striking trampler...
"Yeah dangit, I'll watch the plane. Now go away!"
CHECK OUT MY TRIBAL CUSTOM SET KREVAN
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/custom-set-creation-and/530273-krevan-the-first-set-in-a-tribal-block
Hedron Alignment is just... thank you for printing more cards like this, I love this so much.
Reality Smasher looks like it'll be a good constructed card, 5/5 for 5 with trample and haste is already very good but with frost titan like self protect making your opponent required to 2 for one it is just incredible.
Love that Chandra too, that zero ability is awesome and you can use here ultimate the turn she hits!
Of course, and I do, but what about the people who don't? They'd also be less inclined to read UR because the story's already spoiled for them. Maybe it is or isn't a bad thing, but the old way forced people to read UR if they wanted to know the story, but the person would have to care enough to do it. In the new way, the people who wouldn't care about the lore can still follow the story now, but there's still the chance people are less likely to read the story. Of course, if there's anything showing that the number of hits on UR stories have actually gone up since the change, I'd gladly concede.
enchanting Witchstalker with Raised by Wolves
You're missing the big purposes for this: They need a threat so large no single PW could solve, but TOGETHER they can. They need to win, otherwise the Gatewatch fails at its first and primary purpose. They need their first win, and it needs to be a spectacular win, to unite the GW together. Furthermore, if Zendikar is destroyed, WotC loses that property for revisiting. It's lose-lose for WotC's PoV.
Now, will the NEXT Gatewatch intervention go so easily? Probably not; there is always a wrinkle in the second story. But it makes perfect sense for their first outing as the GW to be a success or the idea fails.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yeah, I don't run red or black. I may just prefer to path their dude once Bonds is activated.
Now if only wizards would print a way to kill things without targeting them.
The reason DC is getting flak for its shared universe is because they're doing a half-assed job of it. Before Marvel made the Avengers, every single one of the protagonists had already been established:
Iron Man in Iron Man and Iron Man 2. The Incredible Hulk in The Incredible Hulk. Nick Fury and the Black Widow in Iron Man 2. Thor and Hawkeye in Thor. Captain America in Captain America.
They put the work in, and they leveraged this work to make a movie about the heroes of four different movie lines teaming up to fight aliens.
DC is not willing to put this work in. They had to reboot the Nolanverse movies because that trilogy has a definite end, and the Green Lantern was crap from what I've heard, but they're still making their ensemble movie for the Justice League even though only one of them - Superman - has been established in a leadup movie, and even that one is pretty crap.
Most non-targeting removal spells are sorcery-speed, so Haste still gets value in. Point is, it's a tough creature to efficiently turn aside as a control player.
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ricklongo and RicardoLongo on MTGO
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Visit my gaming blog: http://www.gamingsweetgaming.blogspot.com
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TL;DR: they could have a Harry Potter (new IP that sets the standard in a particular genre), but are settling for a Percy Jackson (a less-than-exciting ripoff).
*****
ricklongo and RicardoLongo on MTGO
*****
Visit my gaming blog: http://www.gamingsweetgaming.blogspot.com
****************
Check out Rick's Picks, my PureMTGO article series
****************
I completely disagree. 1. People care more about the Eldrazi titans than they do planeswalkers 2. Sacrificing one plane to heighten then drama associated with the Eldrazi is well worth the cost 3. Dumping and creating planes happens all the time and there is infinite design space to do both 4. The planeswalkers we have now a days are shadows of there former selves. Its completely unrealistic that Jace and his band of merry men could so easily succeed when other planeswalkers of much greater power had failed over and over again.
This easy victory completely undermines the mythos that wizards has been cultivating with the Eldrazi titans. They might as well be another demonic bad guy or some crappy god from Theros or a praetor from New Phyrexia.
So deep.
The Eldrazi aren't the heroes; the GW is. More people like the Joker than Batman, but that doesn't mean he should win in The Dark Knight. WotC are setting this group up as the new Faces of Magic; ever since Origins their faces are plastered across MTG's art. This is the first outing that puts them "together" and WotC wants them to have a success, not a failure, as their first outcome. If they didn't, you might preserve the "menace" of the Eldrazi, but you've completely undermined the heroes and proven them ineffective, weak and useless. They might as well stay home or run far, because their is nothing they can do against powerful foes. Heroes often succeed where "more powerful" mentors fail: Dumbledore can't stop Voldemort, Yoda and Obi-Wan can't stop the Sith, Elrond, Gandalf and Galadriel can't take the Ring to Mt. Doom.
Yeah, its the classic "heroes unite to stop ultimate menace" that is as old as dirt, but it sells well because it works. Sorry that WotC doesn't share your interest in a dystopian Magic setting.
Bellowing Saddlebrute - Becomes a 4/5 for 3B.
Ugin's Construct - Another 4/5, this time for 4 but with a worse downside.
And that's about it. Maybe that's enough for BW/C stompy deck? Play on-cast instead of ETB creatures to get around your own Gryff and play big midrangey stuff.
With 4RG, Clan Defiance deals 4 damage to a creature and a player (or a second creature). To do the same with Fall of the Titans, you'd need 8R, or if you have, say a R card in your hand to activate surge, 4RR. So only by jumping through hoops you get the same efficiency with the only added tiny benefits of needing only red, not having a limitation for targeting the second creature and being able to target a second player.
Nowadays, as a rule of thumb, when comparing a new card to an old card it's the safer bet to say that the older card is stronger. "Too strong for standard", even.
So use that. Make it something like "For the people who died here. I'll keep watch."
Bonds of Mortality. What a fantastic hate card for EDH! Wow! The fact that it replaces itself is what really makes it playable, IMO. Cool card. Nice rarity choice too! Would feel lame at rare but feels extra powerful at uncommon.
Fall of the Titans seems pretty powerful. Oath of Chandra is..about what I expected, I guess. Don't really like that 3 damage spells have been relegated to RARE and hitting ONLY creatures, but I don't feel that Wizard designed this card as the template replacement for Searing Spear type cards, so I'll let it slide. Definitely my least favorite Oath so far though.
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