...crazy Skull Shamans sacrificing people on top of the pyramids to please their God...
Wizards is not going to print a Magic set like that. Ever. Too many reasons why, but most because it would likely be viewed as disrespectful to Central and South American native cultures.
Indeed. It doesn't matter how accurate such brutality would be. When emotions are involved, things get complicated.
So... showing the sacrifices that these cultures practiced is wrong, but showing the brutality of conquistadors and pirates is okay?
We humans are very good at double standards.
Anyway, I'm not that interested in the Dinos personally. Pirates on the other hand....
Most of these complaints are from kids who can type from the safety from behind their monitors. Pay no mind to these worthless unconstructive posts, this set is awesome. The end.
Oh please. We literally just got the list, and no one has played it yet. It's too early to call it good OR bad with any degree of certainty. Calling it trash and calling it amazing are both equally unconstructive.
As far as commander potential, I think the set looks a bit disappointing, at least at first glance. None of the new commanders I think have any real legs. The mono-colored commanders are just too weak, brass and gizarth require bad creature types at high density, leaving Vona and Tishana. Tishana will certainly see play but personally as a non-fan of zegana, she looks like more of (roughly) the same for UG. Vona would have been interesting, except for the timing restriction that absolutely wrecks him, at least so far as I'm concerned. Generally having a permanent-based solution is a bit risky anyway, since any savvy opponent will kill him before trying to do any shenanigans, but with the timing restriction to boot you can't even punish them in retaliation before he dies.
There are other cards with potential for commander in the 99, but as someone who already owns a cradle, diamond valley, and maze of ith, the flip cards are less exciting than they'd otherwise be for me. search for azcanta might actually be my favorite card from the set.
Sadly, many dino decks are more than likely going to be the same until Explorers of Ixalan (possible reprints), and Rivals of Ixalan (new dinos) come out.
For now
But agreed like you said when rivals of ixalan arrives they will be better they will get quite
But I'm still making a dinosaur deck even though they got a slight bad start but still a lot of fantastic stuff though. I mean I can use some vanilla creature I mean in my Kozilek deck I use eldrazi devastator
Most of these complaints are from kids who can type from the safety from behind their monitors. Pay no mind to these worthless unconstructive posts, this set is awesome. The end.
Oh please. We literally just got the list, and no one has played it yet. It's too early to call it good OR bad with any degree of certainty. Calling it trash and calling it amazing are both equally unconstructive.
As far as commander potential, I think the set looks a bit disappointing, at least at first glance. None of the new commanders I think have any real legs. The mono-colored commanders are just too weak, brass and gizarth require bad creature types at high density, leaving Vona and Tishana. Tishana will certainly see play but personally as a non-fan of zegana, she looks like more of (roughly) the same for UG. Vona would have been interesting, except for the timing restriction that absolutely wrecks him, at least so far as I'm concerned. Generally having a permanent-based solution is a bit risky anyway, since any savvy opponent will kill him before trying to do any shenanigans, but with the timing restriction to boot you can't even punish them in retaliation before he dies.
There are other cards with potential for commander in the 99, but as someone who already owns a cradle, diamond valley, and maze of ith, the flip cards are less exciting than they'd otherwise be for me. search for azcanta might actually be my favorite card from the set.
This.^ I don't think opening your wallet for every product WotC puts out helps the game nor do I think constantly moaning about it and still shelling out for it. Leave a single comment of complaint then don't buy from that set. Or temper your buying and buy some singles, but don't buy boxes. Kaladesh decks will still be around and very viable so build one of those decks if you want to keep playing the game; while waiting to see where this set goes. In business, money speaks louder than words; once WotC sees the low money then they will go and look at the words to see where players are having problems.
I am disappointed by this set mostly because I was expecting a Meso-American set, you know, Warriors dressed as Jaguars and crazy Skull Shamans sacrificing people on top of the pyramids to please their God, instead we got Pirates vs Dinosaurs set. Meh.
We knew this was going to be Pirates and Dinos the set for a long time now. There are still distinct Mesoamerican elements with the Sun Empire and other stuff, but it's not literally Aztecs.set.
The made vampires represent the catholic church's conquistadors. There is something if you are looking for type casting.
My first comment to my brother after looking at the complete spoilers was, 'The Vampire art is stunning.' And given that I play Orzhov a lot anyway....
Typical "this set is garbage" posts everywhere. Yeah, it probably does look like garbage when you just looked at a bunch of limited filler, but there's good stuff as well, and some cards are just meant for limited. Playing limited as well as constructed will make the final day of spoilers a lot more enjoyable. Dinosaurs (and the other tribes) are by no means completely unplayable in constructed and they will be getting further support in Rivals and probably Dominaria too. No one's forcing you to play the limited filler just because it has the dinosaur creature type. There are a fair number of decent cards for every tribe.
The lack of BG and WU uncommons irritates me to no end. With BG, at least, they actually made an effort to produce a draft archetype (explore matters), so why not give it an uncommon? WU was less defined (I was hoping it would be vehicles matter, but it clearly isn't) but it still could have used an uncommon for WU's stereotypical flying control deck. If the implication is that you generally shouldn't be playing BG or WU limited, then doesn't the colors unbalanced in that only red can pair up with any color? I'm still going to have to try making the BG explore deck anyway, just to see if it works, but I feel like BG and WU cards and better-supported draft archetypes would have been really easy to implement and they would have given a nice yet equally well-defined alternative to tribal strategies.
I feel like this set's mechanics were underutilized. There were only five vehicles, and none of them seem particularly good. I totally get pulling back on their power level from Kaladesh, but now they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Clearly they're still figuring out how to balance vehicles properly. At least they won't warp limited like they did Kaladesh. Still, it would have been nice to see a few more of them. Brining back the mechanic to make only five cards seems like a waste, and think they missed the opportunity to make a WU vehicle draft archetype.
Explore didn't appear as much as I hoped, and it's all over the place in terms of color distribution, just in case making an explore deck wasn't difficult enough anyway. There's zero repeatable explore at common and uncommon. I feel like Emperor's Vanguard's ability could have easily appeared on an uncommon. They also missed the chance to do "target creature explores" or even "each creature you control explores". Hopefully they try this in Rivals; the second set often expands the design space of mechanics from the first.
Enrage was criminally underused as well. An enrage matters deck seems difficult to build in both limited and commander simply because there aren't that many cards with the ability. Raid got plenty of appearances but it's not very exciting. Yeah, it's a good mechanic, but not a great one. It plays well and it rewards you for doing what you should be doing anyway, but it's not terribly innovative or exciting. The only mechanic that I think was a home run in this set was the DFCs.
Interestingly, there's not much as much tribal at common and uncommon as one might expect. I guess this shows they learned their lesson from Lorwyn? The pirate and dinosaur factions definitely feel more tribal-focused while the merfolk and vampires feel more mechanic-focused: the GU draft archetype relies as much on +1/+1 counters as merfolk tribal, and the same goes for WB with life gain and vampires, but the other two can go in various directions as long as you play lots of pirates or dinosaurs. There are definitely some tribal cards at lower rarities, but not many, which as someone who isn't a fan of tribal I can appreciate. They also took measures to make the tribal cards less parasitic: merfolk that can target themselves with "put a +1/+1 counter on a merfolk" abilities and a lot of creatures that only require one creature of certain creature type to get a buff (even if you're not drafting tribal you're likely to be able to trigger them consistently just because those creature types are so common in their respective colors).
The keeper cycle is interesting. Trilobite is a creature type now, and apparently they're going for a battlecruiser magic/ramp subtheme in limited. On one hand, tribal strategies tend to be aggressive so it seems counterintuitive for them to try this. But dinosaurs are often big and expensive, while vampires and merfolk both seem to want to grind out the game with incremental advantage (one with life gain, the other with counters). Pirates seem like the only truly aggressive tribe, and even they have some slower aspects. And Ixalan won't have overpowered vehicles or exert creatures ruining the format. Unlike Amonkhet and Kaladesh, there might actually be a chance to use synergies and slower strategies before you get ran over by undercosted and evasive beaters at appallingly low rarities. Explore and treasures in addition to the regular amounts of green and artifact ramp seem to make the keeper abilities (and expensive dinosaurs) actually attainable goals in limited. Those same factors will also make it possible to play tricolor, usually RGW or UBR of course. It won't always be the correct option to play tricolor in this format but the option is there for when you want it.
I think that this set looks pretty good for limited. They didn't push one mechanic too hard like they did with vehicles in Kaladesh and exert in Amonkhet (though it could be argued that they didn't push most mechanics hard enough). There's a lot of synergy but it's not like they're awkwardly forcing mechanics at you, like what Amonkhet did with embalm and eternalize. There's a lot of interesting effects at all rarities, common included. Hell, even the vanilla creatures have synergy because of tribal. Tribal is definitely there but it's not too forced. Most color pairs have a tribal theme but also a mechanical theme beyond "play lots of [creature type]s". Aggressive, slow, and midrange decks all look to be somewhat playable. Explore and treasures will offer a lot of versatility for both mana curves and how many colors you play. There seem to be fewer cards that are bombs in any deck than usual and more that are powerful only when built around, which should be more skill-testing. Only time will tell if the limited is as good as it looks, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic.
SultaiAscendancy: I think that Favorable Winds is meant to be the 'WU Archetype Uncommon'... may be wrong, though.
As for the BG one, almost certainly it's the 4-tribe Raise Dead. As pointed out upthread (and by myself elsewhere), BG is one the two combinations that encompasses all 4 tribes.
It's also one of the very few cards that rewards you for playing lots of tribes. A sure oddity in a Tribal set.
I think a lot of people complain about sets because of the way the spoilers are done. 90% of the good stuff is shown the first week and sometimes even earlier, then the final week you get some things here and there and finally friday you get a boatload of the set but its all the forgettable junk that will never see play in any format. And because that's what's most fresh in their minds, that's what they loosely base the set on. I always thought that wotc should spread it out evenly, a bunch of commons, handful of uncommons, a couple rares and a mythic everyday.
At first glance, Explore looks really boring. So many cards are just "when ETB, explore". Would it really be too much to throw a bit of variety in there? I mean, all cards have the reminder text, new player's can't be that incompetent, right?
I think Wizards played it too safe with this set. There are too many reprints and not really a lot of cards that stands out and wants to be build around. Dinosaurs are fun, Vampires doesn´t really has anything going for them and Merfolk seem non-exsisting. Explore mechanic sounds fun on paper but the cards are just horrible must of the times which doesn´t really make it worth it.
A lot of french vanillas, but that's not damning - they've been the backbone of the game since Air Elemental and Savannah Lions. The thing these boring draft commons have going for them that other sets frequently don't is that they have pretty reasonable bodies for their costs. The only two I think are egregious are the 4/2 for 2R and the conditional 3WPhantom Monster. Other than that, 2/1 Haste for 1R, 6/6 Trample for 4GG and 5/5 Trample Haste for 4R are all fine Magic cards that I wouldn't be embarrassed to play in limited and would have jammed like crazy as a kid.
Explore looks bad, and the common Enrage dude doesn't look good, but I like the multiple Fight cards in green, the tribal support in all colors and the aggressive angle blue has in this set. It also has enough niche Constructed-oriented cards that I expect it to at least have heavy sideboard representation going forward.
I think merfolks are going to be more prominent in Rivals. I never really cared for the tribe but man are these nice, i'm really hoping Rivals brings some cool ones
I wasn't expecting any more casual dino cards (yeah I won't shut up about that deck), but I counted 6-7 new includes within this last spoiler. This will probably be my favorite set yet. I'm a sucker for dinos man.
Edit- and they made not One, but TWO fight cards with dinos in the art. Yasss.
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My favorite flavor text: Time of Heroes
Feel free to tell me yours!
I really like sets like this. Not because I think it's amazing, but rather because I think it isn't. I appreciate that WotC took their time to make sure their are no Gideon, ally of zendikar or glorybringer type of cards that guarantee you win in limited and immediately spike in price. sets like this work to the advantage of people that like to brew and think about the interactions to make a deck good. Of course there are people that hate this set already, because is no clear cut best chase rare or mythic that warps limited at best or the meta overall at worst. I hope they keep making sets like this, because they help keep the meta fresh and not just the same old top 2-3 decks. not that standard at the moment is bad, I just think this set is a positive direction for the game= flavorful cards, strong but not busted rares, mythics that feel mythic (like it should be a 1 of in a deck) and awesome artwork. good job wizards.
I was thinking of playing dinosaurs over pirates until I saw Fiery Cannonade, hot damn. I'll take my one-sided (in non-mirrors) instant Pyroclasm, thank you very much.
I really like sets like this. Not because I think it's amazing, but rather because I think it isn't. I appreciate that WotC took their time to make sure their are no Gideon, ally of zendikar or glorybringer type of cards that guarantee you win in limited and immediately spike in price. sets like this work to the advantage of people that like to brew and think about the interactions to make a deck good. Of course there are people that hate this set already, because is no clear cut best chase rare or mythic that warps limited at best or the meta overall at worst. I hope they keep making sets like this, because they help keep the meta fresh and not just the same old top 2-3 decks. not that standard at the moment is bad, I just think this set is a positive direction for the game= flavorful cards, strong but not busted rares, mythics that feel mythic (like it should be a 1 of in a deck) and awesome artwork. good job wizards.
The main problem I got with this set that hopefully will be resolved come Dominaria is that half of the cards are in the Rivals set. Dinosaurs feels like they really need something to even compete against what is now four color energy, and the hate they printed to attack energy and ETB is not exactly easy to incorporate. That and I'm hoping that some of these tribes don't go through the entire "lets hate everyone out of the format before they get to shine" routine that we just had with Aether Revolt going into Amonkhet.
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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!
A 3 mana enchantment for mill that asks you to attack. :/ Mill is dead until Rivals. Great. Awesome. fantastic.
March of the Drowned should have targeted Zombies also. To hit Drowned cards. That would have been a nice reprint, but alas, poor regenerate is too complex for people.
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Wanted -Zombie Foils and older expensive Zombie stuff. High Priority- Beta Z Master/ Int. Collector's Edition.
- While Hijack's flavor text is pretty bad, it at least gets bonus points for making me envision Angrath in a leather mini-skirt wielding a vacuum cleaner and singing that Queen song.
The flavour text is pretty straightforward: He can't leave Ixalan, and no amount of pillaging and ship-taking changes that situation.
The "bonus points" bit makes way less sense to me than the flavour text.
I think Ixalan is a far better set than Kaladesh was on a lot of fronts. The primary issues Kaladesh had were the same kind of problems Time Spiral did back when it came out. They introduced a mechanic that is just completely annexed from the existing rules of magic with Energy and introduced a great mechanic in the later half of the set, then completely hosed the set before anyone actually got to build something using the mechanic that was actually good enough to compete. Ixalan feels very back to basics on what it offers. Yes, we have tribal in the format, but there's no energy, vehicles are more like foot notes, and the developers did layout the ground work better on what archetypes they are wanting to push.
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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!
There's an article at channel fireball that sums up my feelings of this set and I'll provide a link to it. This set reinforces existing archtypes in standard, it gives modern blue decks a new card draw spell, but overall, it's a commander set in disguise. Wizard's seems to be eating design space for the casual crowd and for weak tribal cards. Not dinosaurs, but the the other tribes that aren't on par with dinosaurs. Also, this set caters to certain colors while other colors get archaic draw, removal and discard.
We humans are very good at double standards.
Anyway, I'm not that interested in the Dinos personally. Pirates on the other hand....
As far as commander potential, I think the set looks a bit disappointing, at least at first glance. None of the new commanders I think have any real legs. The mono-colored commanders are just too weak, brass and gizarth require bad creature types at high density, leaving Vona and Tishana. Tishana will certainly see play but personally as a non-fan of zegana, she looks like more of (roughly) the same for UG. Vona would have been interesting, except for the timing restriction that absolutely wrecks him, at least so far as I'm concerned. Generally having a permanent-based solution is a bit risky anyway, since any savvy opponent will kill him before trying to do any shenanigans, but with the timing restriction to boot you can't even punish them in retaliation before he dies.
There are other cards with potential for commander in the 99, but as someone who already owns a cradle, diamond valley, and maze of ith, the flip cards are less exciting than they'd otherwise be for me. search for azcanta might actually be my favorite card from the set.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
For now
But agreed like you said when rivals of ixalan arrives they will be better they will get quite
But I'm still making a dinosaur deck even though they got a slight bad start but still a lot of fantastic stuff though. I mean I can use some vanilla creature I mean in my Kozilek deck I use eldrazi devastator
This.^ I don't think opening your wallet for every product WotC puts out helps the game nor do I think constantly moaning about it and still shelling out for it. Leave a single comment of complaint then don't buy from that set. Or temper your buying and buy some singles, but don't buy boxes. Kaladesh decks will still be around and very viable so build one of those decks if you want to keep playing the game; while waiting to see where this set goes. In business, money speaks louder than words; once WotC sees the low money then they will go and look at the words to see where players are having problems.
I Stream MTGO on Twitch: broodwarjc
I also post recordings of those streams on Youtube: broodwarjcavidgamer
Standard Deck:
BUPirates
Modern Deck:
B8-Rack
The made vampires represent the catholic church's conquistadors. There is something if you are looking for type casting.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
The lack of BG and WU uncommons irritates me to no end. With BG, at least, they actually made an effort to produce a draft archetype (explore matters), so why not give it an uncommon? WU was less defined (I was hoping it would be vehicles matter, but it clearly isn't) but it still could have used an uncommon for WU's stereotypical flying control deck. If the implication is that you generally shouldn't be playing BG or WU limited, then doesn't the colors unbalanced in that only red can pair up with any color? I'm still going to have to try making the BG explore deck anyway, just to see if it works, but I feel like BG and WU cards and better-supported draft archetypes would have been really easy to implement and they would have given a nice yet equally well-defined alternative to tribal strategies.
I feel like this set's mechanics were underutilized. There were only five vehicles, and none of them seem particularly good. I totally get pulling back on their power level from Kaladesh, but now they've gone too far in the opposite direction. Clearly they're still figuring out how to balance vehicles properly. At least they won't warp limited like they did Kaladesh. Still, it would have been nice to see a few more of them. Brining back the mechanic to make only five cards seems like a waste, and think they missed the opportunity to make a WU vehicle draft archetype.
Explore didn't appear as much as I hoped, and it's all over the place in terms of color distribution, just in case making an explore deck wasn't difficult enough anyway. There's zero repeatable explore at common and uncommon. I feel like Emperor's Vanguard's ability could have easily appeared on an uncommon. They also missed the chance to do "target creature explores" or even "each creature you control explores". Hopefully they try this in Rivals; the second set often expands the design space of mechanics from the first.
Enrage was criminally underused as well. An enrage matters deck seems difficult to build in both limited and commander simply because there aren't that many cards with the ability. Raid got plenty of appearances but it's not very exciting. Yeah, it's a good mechanic, but not a great one. It plays well and it rewards you for doing what you should be doing anyway, but it's not terribly innovative or exciting. The only mechanic that I think was a home run in this set was the DFCs.
Interestingly, there's not much as much tribal at common and uncommon as one might expect. I guess this shows they learned their lesson from Lorwyn? The pirate and dinosaur factions definitely feel more tribal-focused while the merfolk and vampires feel more mechanic-focused: the GU draft archetype relies as much on +1/+1 counters as merfolk tribal, and the same goes for WB with life gain and vampires, but the other two can go in various directions as long as you play lots of pirates or dinosaurs. There are definitely some tribal cards at lower rarities, but not many, which as someone who isn't a fan of tribal I can appreciate. They also took measures to make the tribal cards less parasitic: merfolk that can target themselves with "put a +1/+1 counter on a merfolk" abilities and a lot of creatures that only require one creature of certain creature type to get a buff (even if you're not drafting tribal you're likely to be able to trigger them consistently just because those creature types are so common in their respective colors).
The keeper cycle is interesting. Trilobite is a creature type now, and apparently they're going for a battlecruiser magic/ramp subtheme in limited. On one hand, tribal strategies tend to be aggressive so it seems counterintuitive for them to try this. But dinosaurs are often big and expensive, while vampires and merfolk both seem to want to grind out the game with incremental advantage (one with life gain, the other with counters). Pirates seem like the only truly aggressive tribe, and even they have some slower aspects. And Ixalan won't have overpowered vehicles or exert creatures ruining the format. Unlike Amonkhet and Kaladesh, there might actually be a chance to use synergies and slower strategies before you get ran over by undercosted and evasive beaters at appallingly low rarities. Explore and treasures in addition to the regular amounts of green and artifact ramp seem to make the keeper abilities (and expensive dinosaurs) actually attainable goals in limited. Those same factors will also make it possible to play tricolor, usually RGW or UBR of course. It won't always be the correct option to play tricolor in this format but the option is there for when you want it.
I think that this set looks pretty good for limited. They didn't push one mechanic too hard like they did with vehicles in Kaladesh and exert in Amonkhet (though it could be argued that they didn't push most mechanics hard enough). There's a lot of synergy but it's not like they're awkwardly forcing mechanics at you, like what Amonkhet did with embalm and eternalize. There's a lot of interesting effects at all rarities, common included. Hell, even the vanilla creatures have synergy because of tribal. Tribal is definitely there but it's not too forced. Most color pairs have a tribal theme but also a mechanical theme beyond "play lots of [creature type]s". Aggressive, slow, and midrange decks all look to be somewhat playable. Explore and treasures will offer a lot of versatility for both mana curves and how many colors you play. There seem to be fewer cards that are bombs in any deck than usual and more that are powerful only when built around, which should be more skill-testing. Only time will tell if the limited is as good as it looks, but for now I'm cautiously optimistic.
It hits things with its butt
As for the BG one, almost certainly it's the 4-tribe Raise Dead. As pointed out upthread (and by myself elsewhere), BG is one the two combinations that encompasses all 4 tribes.
It's also one of the very few cards that rewards you for playing lots of tribes. A sure oddity in a Tribal set.
Art comments:
Gilded Sentinel gives me Laputa vibes.
Jade Guardian - cool action shot, and seems like it could be good (in Limited) too.
Atzocan Archer apparently doesn't need a bowstring to shoot his arrow.
Love that art on Rummaging Goblin.
Shore Keeper - Trilobite HYPE! (I really like the "sac for 8 mana" common cycle btw)
Run Aground and One with the Wind, Ixalan Merfolk are beautiful (especially the blue-magenta ones)
Inspiring Cleric has a cool ceremonial scroll.
Demistify
Most awkward art: Sure Strike
Basics: Raoul Vitale > Min Yum > Titus Lunter > Christine Choi
A lot of french vanillas, but that's not damning - they've been the backbone of the game since Air Elemental and Savannah Lions. The thing these boring draft commons have going for them that other sets frequently don't is that they have pretty reasonable bodies for their costs. The only two I think are egregious are the 4/2 for 2R and the conditional 3W Phantom Monster. Other than that, 2/1 Haste for 1R, 6/6 Trample for 4GG and 5/5 Trample Haste for 4R are all fine Magic cards that I wouldn't be embarrassed to play in limited and would have jammed like crazy as a kid.
Explore looks bad, and the common Enrage dude doesn't look good, but I like the multiple Fight cards in green, the tribal support in all colors and the aggressive angle blue has in this set. It also has enough niche Constructed-oriented cards that I expect it to at least have heavy sideboard representation going forward.
Edit- and they made not One, but TWO fight cards with dinos in the art. Yasss.
Feel free to tell me yours!
The main problem I got with this set that hopefully will be resolved come Dominaria is that half of the cards are in the Rivals set. Dinosaurs feels like they really need something to even compete against what is now four color energy, and the hate they printed to attack energy and ETB is not exactly easy to incorporate. That and I'm hoping that some of these tribes don't go through the entire "lets hate everyone out of the format before they get to shine" routine that we just had with Aether Revolt going into Amonkhet.
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!
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
March of the Drowned should have targeted Zombies also. To hit Drowned cards. That would have been a nice reprint, but alas, poor regenerate is too complex for people.
Selling some cards I don't want.
Generally less than tcg mid.
The flavour text is pretty straightforward: He can't leave Ixalan, and no amount of pillaging and ship-taking changes that situation.
The "bonus points" bit makes way less sense to me than the flavour text.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
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!
In the first few paragraphs, he talks about how good red and temur will be in standard. Which, isn't a shock to anyone who plays competitive magic. Anyways, here's the link: https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/the-hard-truths-about-ixalan-standard/