There is general outrage over the powering down of removal and this is one more example of wotc making piss poor removal compared to only a few yeara ago.
Also loving the unc cavern of souls. Gonna need 4 or 5 for commander decks.
There is general outrage over the powering down of removal and this is one more example of wotc making piss poor removal compared to only a few yeara ago.
Also loving the unc cavern of souls. Gonna need 4 or 5 for commander decks.
Clearly it can't be the effect itself, can it? Instant speed exile a creature or planeswalker? (the incidental life gain is mostly irrelevant) It's the mana cost, isn't it? 4 is "too much" for Modern despite the fact that I see people paying 4 for spells/effects in Modern quite often? Maybe it is...maybe it isn't...but in Standard it will become *the* go-to removal for many decks alongside Unlicensed Disintegration or Abrade.
I concur with you about the land--use it alongside cavern and start churning out the tribals.
Unclaimed Territory gives me hope for the future of Magic land bases. Walk the Plank - flavorful but highly inferior removal. How in the world did we go from the still-bad Doom Blade to THIS? Not that I really care - outside of limited this will see next to no play.
If Walk the Plank were an Instant, I would certainly play it over Doom Blade any day of the week. Not hitting black creatures is WAY more restrictive than not hitting merfolk.
As a sorcery, it'll still see play, but it won't be quite the BB kill spell Standard format staple the way that Grasp of Darkness is.
But Dwarves fit really well in both, red and white.
Green Merfolk are a little stretch, but I can see it with the right world. Although I think black fits them best as a secondary color.
White Zombies were super weird, but since they were honored people now serving their living people, and looked completely different, I really liked them.
White Vampires feel to me like they thought "Hm, we must come up with something crazy this time. Just make it different, don't care about reason"
I personally think White isn't a bad color for Vampires, although it would make more sense if they were Orzhov. White can be evil too - in fact, the evil of White is usually in thinking it knows better than anyone else in every possible way, and then making people conform to that standard, be it through war, politics, or simply using magic to prevent people from doing things any other way. That arrogance seems very vampiric to me. "You'll do things my way, because I want it that way."
Green Merfolk are a little stretch, but I can see it with the right world. Although I think black fits them best as a secondary color.
Merfolk have been drifting toward GU for awhile (Eventide's selkies and RtR block's merfolk were generally Simic-aligned). Actually, it's surprising that they weren't in those colors earlier in MTG's history. Acting as protectors of the sea -- or even just caring about the ocean in general -- is a pretty G or GU trait, and it seems that the the Ixalan merfolk have a pretty strong exploration element, which is also very G.
I'm curious what makes them black? The fact that some have racial supremacist beliefs? That philosophy is actually BW rather than just mono B. The only sets that had black merfolk was the Shadowmoor block (excepting Vodalian Zombie from Invasion, which is black because it's a zombie), and what made them black was the fact that they went from being helpful guides of Lorwyn's waterways (UW) to malicious bandits who steal from other races who live along Shadowmoor's rivers.
I would be surprised if Wizards doesn't do more GU merfolk in future sets.
Wizards doesn't have to totally reinvent the wheel when they already have formulas that work - a little tweak goes a long way. Besides, enough years have passed since the titans and victim of Night that it's doesn't feel like Wizards is cramping their own style.
Slight tweaks are boring. What motivates me to buy Magic cards are unique effects that can make for interesting and novel game states in games I'm going to play. Besides playing heavily curated formats like Standard/Draft, there's not a lot of incentive to purchase worse versions of the same core design concept. Doubly so if you've been playing the game for almost two decades.
You're statement about worthy goals of powercreep management and getting slapped in the face with mediocrity is so nearly contradictory that it made my face twitch.
Taken in the context of the sentence which followed it, the statement isn't contradictory at all. I understand managing power creep and instantiating certain effects in Standard/Draft often necessitates the creation of "bad" cards or strictly worse versions of older designs. I simply don't think they make appealing promo cards; better to choose cards that explore new design space instead of (low power) retreads.
Long live Inferno Dino. To me, it's a MUCH cooler card than the lame giant of yesteryear. From the art, to the creature type, to the rarity and balance. It's a far superior design.
But mechanically-speaking, it's incredibly similar. A 6CMC Red creature that ETBs with a burn-effect worth roughly 3 mana. The main differences are Creature subtype and the fact that Titan is far more pushed developmentally, for better or worse. There's not a strong argument that one design is much better than another given the similarity, and I certainly don't think that a simple subtype swap is at all meaningful, nor the kind of design I want to see WotC encouraged towards.
"Hey walking wallets...errr valued players, we at Wizards want to show you our new card, Badkiller Archon. Just like Baneslayer Angel, but with a different creature type, fewer keywords abilities, and it costs a few more mana. Isn't that exciting! Wait...where are you all going? "
Walk the Plank is a great twist on Victim of Night and oozing with flavor of the set. Plank is not stepping on Victim of Night's toes. Wizards is just using it as inspiration to create another hit. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
It's not really that great a twist. Both are spells for BB, in a set with strong tribal themes, that destroy creatures with a subtype targeting restriction. Mechanically, they are extremely similar designs with both even sharing the same quirks of flavor-fails that are downstream of the design templating; just as Demons, the sources of all evil and monstrosity on Innistrad, could be Victimized By The Night, so too can a Sea Serpent, Fish, or Octopus be made to Walk the Plank and die.
All of these cards are just boring from the perspective of a long-timer primarily concerned with the mechanics of the game.
But Dwarves fit really well in both, red and white.
Green Merfolk are a little stretch, but I can see it with the right world. Although I think black fits them best as a secondary color.
White Zombies were super weird, but since they were honored people now serving their living people, and looked completely different, I really liked them.
White Vampires feel to me like they thought "Hm, we must come up with something crazy this time. Just make it different, don't care about reason"
What's wrong with coming up with something crazy? It's better than seeing more of the same and keeps things a bit more interesting. Also, I don't know why you believe that they don't care about reason. We've only seen these cards officially spoiled and no reason is being said for these vampires yet, but I guess it's fine to jump to conclusions about them not having any or not caring.
While we didn't get any mono blue ones we saw that on Ravnica that vampires could be blue, as well as black, as some were psionic. Are those vampires the same as the white ones on Ixalan? I would not have minded seeing a mono blue vampire there.
All of these cards are just boring from the perspective of a long-timer primarily concerned with the mechanics of the game.
As you noted earlier in your post, you've been playing for nearly two decades. I'm not normally one to be the white knight for Wizards but c'mon man. You're still getting new cards with fresh ideas which after 20 years of annual product releases at minimum is absurd. Every industry reuses old product with a new skin to refresh it. I realize that your primary complaint was that these PROMOS specifically were what you were bored of but you're looking at it through a pretty narrow lens...
The dinosaur isn't MECHANICALLY a brand new design - but it shows off the art direction, the atmosphere, and the brand new creature-type for this plane. It's a flavor home run. Wizards clearly isn't trying to use the promo to sell the super-duper OMG powerful competitive capabilities of the cards - they're using the promo to sell the flavor of the plane. They're trying to get you excited about the story and identity of the plane because that is what enfranchises a large population of players.
The evidence of this idea is supported via their other two promos. A white vampire and Walk the Plank; a card that references the other unique aspect of this plane, pirates. Again, these are designed to showcase the plane itself, not just the individual cards.
Also, keep in mind, that nearly everything you have said to support your opinion that these are boring cards (except the flavor-fail about drowning an octopus) is based solely on the mechanics themselves. There are far more qualities to each card than just the mechanic on them. So, it doesn't surprise me at all when you find something boring when being so tunnel visioned.
One last thing, I would love to see a card that said destroy target non-merfolk, non-sea serpent, non-leviathan, non-octopus, non-squid, non-fish, non-whale, non-elemental, etc. C'mon, that would be ridiculous! But how else could you avoid this "flavor fail." Reality is, it is a limitation of the nature of the game, not a flavor fail. This card makes perfect sense flavorfully.
One last thing, I would love to see a card that said destroy target non-merfolk, non-sea serpent, non-leviathan, non-octopus, non-squid, non-fish, non-whale, non-elemental, etc. C'mon, that would be ridiculous! But how else could you avoid this "flavor fail." Reality is, it is a limitation of the nature of the game, not a flavor fail. This card makes perfect sense flavorfully.
Don't forget, it shouldn't hit creatures with flying, islandwalk, or islandhome, and it shouldn't hit artifact creatures, and it shouldn't hit zombies or other undead, and it shouldn't hit water elementals, and it shouldn't...
Unclaimed Territory gives me hope for the future of Magic land bases. Walk the Plank - flavorful but highly inferior removal. How in the world did we go from the still-bad Doom Blade to THIS? Not that I really care - outside of limited this will see next to no play.
If Walk the Plank were an Instant, I would certainly play it over Doom Blade any day of the week. Not hitting black creatures is WAY more restrictive than not hitting merfolk.
As a sorcery, it'll still see play, but it won't be quite the BB kill spell Standard format staple the way that Grasp of Darkness is.
Keep in mind, in Standard not so long ago, Roast was a thing. Like, a nearly $2 uncommon thing. And it failed-to-kill a lot more things than this (flying things; things with >5 toughness), in addition to having all the same weaknesses as this for being a 2-cost sorcery. Hell, Roast hit its valuation peak in a standard that had 5 dual-Manlands (which sorcery-speed removal has a terrible time dealing with).
Standard seems generally OK with 2-cost sorcery speed removal. Vehicles can be trouble just like manlands, but I don't think that'll stop this from being played. (A Merfolk deck taking over the meta, now THAT could keep this out of mainboards).
I don't think it's much of a debate really. Contempt is far, far worse. It may still be played though. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if we never see something as potent as hero's downfall again, they are really pushing planeswalkers these days.
My greater concern is walk the plank as a replacement for grasp of darkness. If black doesn't have good instant 2 mana removal, I don't really see the color being anything but support. There are still some very good black cards after rotation, of course, but if its instant speed removal is trash against cards like Glorybringer, which fatal push doesn't hit and contempt is horribly inefficient against, one of the main reasons to play black goes down the drain.
My greater concern is walk the plank as a replacement for grasp of darkness. If black doesn't have good instant 2 mana removal, I don't really see the color being anything but support. There are still some very good black cards after rotation, of course, but if its instant speed removal is trash against cards like Glorybringer, which fatal push doesn't hit and contempt is horribly inefficient against, one of the main reasons to play black goes down the drain.
I know what you mean. Currently, the only cmc 2 removal spell in black which isn't Grasp is Die Young, which is sorcery slow and requires energy. Well, okay--Battle at the Bridge (which actually has value since it nets you life while it drains a creature) but for the most part all we will have left in that color will be sweepers and conditional removal. hrm...actually, I shouldn't underestimate Hour of Glory--sure, it costs 4 but it is definitely worth it.
I do find it fascinating, though, that that one extra mana makes so much difference between the two spells.
I think their design thinking was that the AKH Gods would be dominant creatures in this standard (who knows, they may yet), which is why the removal is exiles (Hour of Glory, Vraska's Contempt) and -1/-1 effects (or a more overt example is Hour of Devastation, which strictly strips off indestructible before dealing damage).
I don't think standard quite came together like they forecast it would. They may have consciously decided to print the 4-cost exile instants thinking that would be perceived 'better' in this standard than 3-cost destroy instants that couldn't cope with Gods... and the meta never really went to the Gods, so people just saw the costing premium without really realizing any benefits.
They weren't about to print a better Hero's Downfall (IE, make it exile or special-behaviour-for-gods at the same cost). When they added 2 benefits to the new HD (exile and lifegain), a cost ratcheting of one was inevitable.
Fleet Swallower can't be real, can it? When it attacks target player puts the top half of their library (rounded up) into their graveyard? So with a mana dork you cast it on turn 4, then on turn 5 you attack with it and cast Fraying Sanity on that target opponent (presuming you hadn't already cursed them with it) during your second main phase to mill the rest of their library = good game.
Fleet Swallower can't be real, can it? When it attacks target player puts the top half of their library (rounded up) into their graveyard? So with a mana dork you cast it on turn 4, then on turn 5 you attack with it and cast Fraying Sanity on that target opponent (presuming you hadn't already cursed them with it) during your second main phase to mill the rest of their library = good game.
It's an unplayable card in Standard. That combo is slow and easy to disrupt.
In the history of Magic there have been 2-3 times where mill was a competitive deck type, and during those times the mill enablers were insane. This is nowhere near competitive, so I wouldn't worry over it.
Oh, I wasn't going to worry about it; rather, I was only noting that it will be one of those fringe decks you see every now and then that manages to pull a game win out of thin air.
As far as "easy to disrupt"...well, I suppose you could always Servant of the Conduit on turn 2, Prowling Serpopard on 3, then land the Swallower on turn 4 or 5 since it can't be countered. At that point, they will have to disintegrate it or spend a lot of energy. If Part the Waterveil can win an FNM then so will this idea, from time to time, but I concur--it won't be showing up at more competitive tournaments.
One last thing, I would love to see a card that said destroy target non-merfolk, non-sea serpent, non-leviathan, non-octopus, non-squid, non-fish, non-whale, non-elemental, etc. C'mon, that would be ridiculous! But how else could you avoid this "flavor fail." Reality is, it is a limitation of the nature of the game, not a flavor fail. This card makes perfect sense flavorfully.
Don't forget, it shouldn't hit creatures with flying, islandwalk, or islandhome, and it shouldn't hit artifact creatures, and it shouldn't hit zombies or other undead, and it shouldn't hit water elementals, and it shouldn't...
It sounds like a great Un-card: Destroy non-creature creature. If the non-creature is a creature, destroy non-creature permanent instead.
Could I say Cavern Of Souls is strictly better than Unclaimed Territory or could anyone actually conceive of a scenario where Unclaimed Territory is better?
Back in the day, people used Arcane Denial on their own spells to draw three cards. You cannot do this with Cavern.
But that's wrong. The card draw from Arcane Denial isn't dependent on actually countering the spell. So yes you can.
Given wizards history, Walk the Plank is average to okay removal as far as 2 cmc removal goes. It isn't instant speed, but at least the restriction is only merfolk (so don't use it in those situations). I don't think we will get an unconditional 3 cmc removal that is mono-black in the current standard since there is already something like it at 3 cmc with unlicensed Disintegration, but we may see something in an upcoming set to tide that issue.
I'm not really feeling it for Ixalan, though. This entire set feels very bad and unless there is something amazing to yet get spoiled, I don't see how it is going to displace any deck currently running kaladesh and Amonket block stuff.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
That land is bonkers! Super excited to see that they made Cavern of Souls an uncommon (basically).
Ok. I've seen many references to this. Am I missing something here? One card makes your creatures uncountable and the other produces multi-colored mana... How are these things the same? Like even remotely? Two completely different cards right?
Given wizards history, Walk the Plank is average to okay removal as far as 2 cmc removal goes. It isn't instant speed, but at least the restriction is only merfolk (so don't use it in those situations). I don't think we will get an unconditional 3 cmc removal that is mono-black in the current standard since there is already something like it at 3 cmc with unlicensed Disintegration, but we may see something in an upcoming set to tide that issue.
I'm not really feeling it for Ixalan, though. This entire set feels very bad and unless there is something amazing to yet get spoiled, I don't see how it is going to displace any deck currently running kaladesh and Amonket block stuff.
Murder is in standard right now. Granted for only a month more, but still.
Could I say Cavern Of Souls is strictly better than Unclaimed Territory or could anyone actually conceive of a scenario where Unclaimed Territory is better?
Back in the day, people used Arcane Denial on their own spells to draw three cards. You cannot do this with Cavern.
But that's wrong. The card draw from Arcane Denial isn't dependent on actually countering the spell. So yes you can.
Yeah, cavern is still actually better here because your spell still resolves. You just get to draw three cards for 2 mana.
Given wizards history, Walk the Plank is average to okay removal as far as 2 cmc removal goes. It isn't instant speed, but at least the restriction is only merfolk (so don't use it in those situations). I don't think we will get an unconditional 3 cmc removal that is mono-black in the current standard since there is already something like it at 3 cmc with unlicensed Disintegration, but we may see something in an upcoming set to tide that issue.
I'm not really feeling it for Ixalan, though. This entire set feels very bad and unless there is something amazing to yet get spoiled, I don't see how it is going to displace any deck currently running kaladesh and Amonket block stuff.
Murder is in standard right now. Granted for only a month more, but still.
Just realized I said current standard when I probably was thinking of the future standard after stuff rotates. Murder kind of slips under the radar a lot for some reason, though.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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There is general outrage over the powering down of removal and this is one more example of wotc making piss poor removal compared to only a few yeara ago.
Also loving the unc cavern of souls. Gonna need 4 or 5 for commander decks.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Clearly it can't be the effect itself, can it? Instant speed exile a creature or planeswalker? (the incidental life gain is mostly irrelevant) It's the mana cost, isn't it? 4 is "too much" for Modern despite the fact that I see people paying 4 for spells/effects in Modern quite often? Maybe it is...maybe it isn't...but in Standard it will become *the* go-to removal for many decks alongside Unlicensed Disintegration or Abrade.
I concur with you about the land--use it alongside cavern and start churning out the tribals.
If Walk the Plank were an Instant, I would certainly play it over Doom Blade any day of the week. Not hitting black creatures is WAY more restrictive than not hitting merfolk.
As a sorcery, it'll still see play, but it won't be quite the BB kill spell Standard format staple the way that Grasp of Darkness is.
I personally think White isn't a bad color for Vampires, although it would make more sense if they were Orzhov. White can be evil too - in fact, the evil of White is usually in thinking it knows better than anyone else in every possible way, and then making people conform to that standard, be it through war, politics, or simply using magic to prevent people from doing things any other way. That arrogance seems very vampiric to me. "You'll do things my way, because I want it that way."
Merfolk have been drifting toward GU for awhile (Eventide's selkies and RtR block's merfolk were generally Simic-aligned). Actually, it's surprising that they weren't in those colors earlier in MTG's history. Acting as protectors of the sea -- or even just caring about the ocean in general -- is a pretty G or GU trait, and it seems that the the Ixalan merfolk have a pretty strong exploration element, which is also very G.
I'm curious what makes them black? The fact that some have racial supremacist beliefs? That philosophy is actually BW rather than just mono B. The only sets that had black merfolk was the Shadowmoor block (excepting Vodalian Zombie from Invasion, which is black because it's a zombie), and what made them black was the fact that they went from being helpful guides of Lorwyn's waterways (UW) to malicious bandits who steal from other races who live along Shadowmoor's rivers.
I would be surprised if Wizards doesn't do more GU merfolk in future sets.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
Slight tweaks are boring. What motivates me to buy Magic cards are unique effects that can make for interesting and novel game states in games I'm going to play. Besides playing heavily curated formats like Standard/Draft, there's not a lot of incentive to purchase worse versions of the same core design concept. Doubly so if you've been playing the game for almost two decades.
Taken in the context of the sentence which followed it, the statement isn't contradictory at all. I understand managing power creep and instantiating certain effects in Standard/Draft often necessitates the creation of "bad" cards or strictly worse versions of older designs. I simply don't think they make appealing promo cards; better to choose cards that explore new design space instead of (low power) retreads.
But mechanically-speaking, it's incredibly similar. A 6CMC Red creature that ETBs with a burn-effect worth roughly 3 mana. The main differences are Creature subtype and the fact that Titan is far more pushed developmentally, for better or worse. There's not a strong argument that one design is much better than another given the similarity, and I certainly don't think that a simple subtype swap is at all meaningful, nor the kind of design I want to see WotC encouraged towards.
"Hey walking wallets...errr valued players, we at Wizards want to show you our new card, Badkiller Archon. Just like Baneslayer Angel, but with a different creature type, fewer keywords abilities, and it costs a few more mana. Isn't that exciting! Wait...where are you all going? "
It's not really that great a twist. Both are spells for BB, in a set with strong tribal themes, that destroy creatures with a subtype targeting restriction. Mechanically, they are extremely similar designs with both even sharing the same quirks of flavor-fails that are downstream of the design templating; just as Demons, the sources of all evil and monstrosity on Innistrad, could be Victimized By The Night, so too can a Sea Serpent, Fish, or Octopus be made to Walk the Plank and die.
All of these cards are just boring from the perspective of a long-timer primarily concerned with the mechanics of the game.
What's wrong with coming up with something crazy? It's better than seeing more of the same and keeps things a bit more interesting. Also, I don't know why you believe that they don't care about reason. We've only seen these cards officially spoiled and no reason is being said for these vampires yet, but I guess it's fine to jump to conclusions about them not having any or not caring.
While we didn't get any mono blue ones we saw that on Ravnica that vampires could be blue, as well as black, as some were psionic. Are those vampires the same as the white ones on Ixalan? I would not have minded seeing a mono blue vampire there.
As you noted earlier in your post, you've been playing for nearly two decades. I'm not normally one to be the white knight for Wizards but c'mon man. You're still getting new cards with fresh ideas which after 20 years of annual product releases at minimum is absurd. Every industry reuses old product with a new skin to refresh it. I realize that your primary complaint was that these PROMOS specifically were what you were bored of but you're looking at it through a pretty narrow lens...
The dinosaur isn't MECHANICALLY a brand new design - but it shows off the art direction, the atmosphere, and the brand new creature-type for this plane. It's a flavor home run. Wizards clearly isn't trying to use the promo to sell the super-duper OMG powerful competitive capabilities of the cards - they're using the promo to sell the flavor of the plane. They're trying to get you excited about the story and identity of the plane because that is what enfranchises a large population of players.
The evidence of this idea is supported via their other two promos. A white vampire and Walk the Plank; a card that references the other unique aspect of this plane, pirates. Again, these are designed to showcase the plane itself, not just the individual cards.
Also, keep in mind, that nearly everything you have said to support your opinion that these are boring cards (except the flavor-fail about drowning an octopus) is based solely on the mechanics themselves. There are far more qualities to each card than just the mechanic on them. So, it doesn't surprise me at all when you find something boring when being so tunnel visioned.
One last thing, I would love to see a card that said destroy target non-merfolk, non-sea serpent, non-leviathan, non-octopus, non-squid, non-fish, non-whale, non-elemental, etc. C'mon, that would be ridiculous! But how else could you avoid this "flavor fail." Reality is, it is a limitation of the nature of the game, not a flavor fail. This card makes perfect sense flavorfully.
Keep in mind, in Standard not so long ago, Roast was a thing. Like, a nearly $2 uncommon thing. And it failed-to-kill a lot more things than this (flying things; things with >5 toughness), in addition to having all the same weaknesses as this for being a 2-cost sorcery. Hell, Roast hit its valuation peak in a standard that had 5 dual-Manlands (which sorcery-speed removal has a terrible time dealing with).
I understand Declaration in Stone saw some play, too.
Standard seems generally OK with 2-cost sorcery speed removal. Vehicles can be trouble just like manlands, but I don't think that'll stop this from being played. (A Merfolk deck taking over the meta, now THAT could keep this out of mainboards).
I don't think it's much of a debate really. Contempt is far, far worse. It may still be played though. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if we never see something as potent as hero's downfall again, they are really pushing planeswalkers these days.
My greater concern is walk the plank as a replacement for grasp of darkness. If black doesn't have good instant 2 mana removal, I don't really see the color being anything but support. There are still some very good black cards after rotation, of course, but if its instant speed removal is trash against cards like Glorybringer, which fatal push doesn't hit and contempt is horribly inefficient against, one of the main reasons to play black goes down the drain.
I know what you mean. Currently, the only cmc 2 removal spell in black which isn't Grasp is Die Young, which is sorcery slow and requires energy. Well, okay--Battle at the Bridge (which actually has value since it nets you life while it drains a creature) but for the most part all we will have left in that color will be sweepers and conditional removal. hrm...actually, I shouldn't underestimate Hour of Glory--sure, it costs 4 but it is definitely worth it.
I do find it fascinating, though, that that one extra mana makes so much difference between the two spells.
I don't think standard quite came together like they forecast it would. They may have consciously decided to print the 4-cost exile instants thinking that would be perceived 'better' in this standard than 3-cost destroy instants that couldn't cope with Gods... and the meta never really went to the Gods, so people just saw the costing premium without really realizing any benefits.
They weren't about to print a better Hero's Downfall (IE, make it exile or special-behaviour-for-gods at the same cost). When they added 2 benefits to the new HD (exile and lifegain), a cost ratcheting of one was inevitable.
It's an unplayable card in Standard. That combo is slow and easy to disrupt.
In the history of Magic there have been 2-3 times where mill was a competitive deck type, and during those times the mill enablers were insane. This is nowhere near competitive, so I wouldn't worry over it.
As far as "easy to disrupt"...well, I suppose you could always Servant of the Conduit on turn 2, Prowling Serpopard on 3, then land the Swallower on turn 4 or 5 since it can't be countered. At that point, they will have to disintegrate it or spend a lot of energy. If Part the Waterveil can win an FNM then so will this idea, from time to time, but I concur--it won't be showing up at more competitive tournaments.
It sounds like a great Un-card: Destroy non-creature creature. If the non-creature is a creature, destroy non-creature permanent instead.
But that's wrong. The card draw from Arcane Denial isn't dependent on actually countering the spell. So yes you can.
I'm not really feeling it for Ixalan, though. This entire set feels very bad and unless there is something amazing to yet get spoiled, I don't see how it is going to displace any deck currently running kaladesh and Amonket block stuff.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Ok. I've seen many references to this. Am I missing something here? One card makes your creatures uncountable and the other produces multi-colored mana... How are these things the same? Like even remotely? Two completely different cards right?
Murder is in standard right now. Granted for only a month more, but still.
Yeah, cavern is still actually better here because your spell still resolves. You just get to draw three cards for 2 mana.
Just realized I said current standard when I probably was thinking of the future standard after stuff rotates. Murder kind of slips under the radar a lot for some reason, though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!