Even as a grizzled modern player who started in alpha, this card caught my eye and gave me a warm happy feeling.
I haven't felt so pleased and joyful about a new set in years. Probably since Innistrad. Or actually... Maybe longer. I look at this set and I get that child-like feeling of wonder that hasn't really been rekindled properly since earlier sets like Weatherlight. If there's only one thing we take away from dominaria, it's that intangible sense of something bigger happening behind the scenes, and a rich living world to be discovered. Frankly I'm impressed and surprised in a way i didn't expect. Huge kudos to everyone involved at WotC on this one. It's early days but this may end up being a contender for my favourite set of all time.
The power at uncommon is fantastic, in fact the power across all rarities seems to be very well considered - way better than normal. Good to see rares taking up most of the functional power and mythics being the splashy fun stuff.
And can we appreciate the art direction for a moment? Stunning. And the artists themselves really outdid anything I've seen previously (taking the set as a whole, not nitpicking individual cards)
I'd say that this set seems like something of a Renaissance. It's new yet familiar, innovative yet exactly what magic should be.
It's a great time to be a magic player.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
At quick glance, just over 70% of the creatures in this set are x/3 or less; I don't count the two 0/0 creatures since their stats are not set. The average casting cost for all these creatures is, surprisingly, exactly 3 mana--on average you are paying 1.9 mana for an x/1, 2.64 mana for an x/2, and 3.58 mana for an x/3. Shivan Fire and Vicious Offering can deal with the smaller things for only 1 or 2 mana while Wizard's Lightning can deal with all of them for 3 mana, presuming you aren't getting the discount.
Over 80% of the creatures are x/4 or less; you can deal with them in combat with Gideon's Reproach for only 2 mana.
Stepping up a bit we find that just over 90% of the creatures in this set are x/5 or less and they have an average cmc of 3.38; on average you pay 4.53 mana for x/4 and 5.22 for x/5. If you don't mind sorcery speed, then Fight with Fire deals with all of these for only 3 mana--not a bad deal, despite the speed. If speed is the issue then sacrifice a creature for the kicker cost on Vicious Offering.
Only 25 creatures have flying; I did not crunch their average cost but Pierce the Sky kills all of them.
No creatures are inherently indestructible even though a few of them have an activated ability which can give them, or some other creature, that ability. Only one creature is inherently hexproof--Cold-Water Snapper--even though there is an aura which can give a permanent that ability.
Cast Down kills only 68% of creatures in this set--there are a lot of legendary creatures, as you well know, but Eviscerate kills everything, as does Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. On the exile side, Settle the Score in black and Blessed Light in white. I didn't look at the green removal spell(s) just yet--a typical "creature fight" effect and I haven't double-checked for edict effects (if I recall, one of the sagas does that).
Jaya's Immolating Inferno is the only scalable damage spell--if x >= 4 you should be getting maximum value from it.
Anyway...I know a common complaint lately has been "removal is bad" so this set looks to be reversing that trend, at least if we compare the average cost of removal against the average cost of creatures you will see in Limited.
At quick glance, just over 70% of the creatures in this set are x/3 or less; I don't count the two 0/0 creatures since their stats are not set. The average casting cost for all these creatures is, surprisingly, exactly 3 mana--on average you are paying 1.9 mana for an x/1, 2.64 mana for an x/2, and 3.58 mana for an x/3. Shivan Fire and Vicious Offering can deal with the smaller things for only 1 or 2 mana while Wizard's Lightning can deal with all of them for 3 mana, presuming you aren't getting the discount.
Over 80% of the creatures are x/4 or less; you can deal with them in combat with Gideon's Reproach for only 2 mana.
Stepping up a bit we find that just over 90% of the creatures in this set are x/5 or less and they have an average cmc of 3.38; on average you pay 4.53 mana for x/4 and 5.22 for x/5. If you don't mind sorcery speed, then Fight with Fire deals with all of these for only 3 mana--not a bad deal, despite the speed. If speed is the issue then sacrifice a creature for the kicker cost on Vicious Offering.
Only 25 creatures have flying; I did not crunch their average cost but Pierce the Sky kills all of them.
No creatures are inherently indestructible even though a few of them have an activated ability which can give them, or some other creature, that ability. Only one creature is inherently hexproof--Cold-Water Snapper--even though there is an aura which can give a permanent that ability.
Cast Down kills only 68% of creatures in this set--there are a lot of legendary creatures, as you well know, but Eviscerate kills everything, as does Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. On the exile side, Settle the Score in black and Blessed Light in white. I didn't look at the green removal spell(s) just yet--a typical "creature fight" effect and I haven't double-checked for edict effects (if I recall, one of the sagas does that).
Jaya's Immolating Inferno is the only scalable damage spell--if x >= 4 you should be getting maximum value from it.
Anyway...I know a common complaint lately has been "removal is bad" so this set looks to be reversing that trend, at least if we compare the average cost of removal against the average cost of creatures you will see in Limited.
Interesting analysis, but it lacks a comparisson to other sets.
Also you forgot to provide the context for the "removal is bad" quote, I think. The complaint most often - in my reading - referred to Constructed, specifically Standard. You probably see where I am going with this: The removal will not be judged by the ability to answer threats from this set alone, but all of Standard. Depending on the cards that get picked up for Constructed this might be e. g. good news for Cast Down, or conversely may create a dynamic meta-game where Cast Down is picked up to answer nonlegendaries and can be answered with legendaries which may be answered by shifting e. g. to Vicious Offering (which seems like a fairly playable card to me - especially is Fungi take off, but even just by itself).
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I have to say this is a beautifully designed set and it is so much more nostalgic or even iconic than the Masters 25 set which looked like it was thrown together haphazardly by a bunch of drunken employees.
Couldn't agree more. This set is the first time I've been excited about a set in some time. Between the Challenge Decks and Dominaria perhaps WotC is starting to show some promise. Last time a set was anywhere close to decent like this was Conspiracy 2.
Interesting analysis, but it lacks a comparisson to other sets.
Also you forgot to provide the context for the "removal is bad" quote, I think. The complaint most often - in my reading - referred to Constructed, specifically Standard. You probably see where I am going with this: The removal will not be judged by the ability to answer threats from this set alone, but all of Standard. Depending on the cards that get picked up for Constructed this might be e. g. good news for Cast Down, or conversely may create a dynamic meta-game where Cast Down is picked up to answer nonlegendaries and can be answered with legendaries which may be answered by shifting e. g. to Vicious Offering (which seems like a fairly playable card to me - especially is Fungi take off, but even just by itself).
I suppose I should caveat that to read "these numbers are for Limited/Sealed only". I haven't had a chance to apply them into the context of Standard, other than to note that Cast Down will be able to take out about 90% of all creatures--there are 42 legendary creatures in DOM but only 45 legendary creatures in KLD through RIX. As things stand right now, about the only legendary creatures you are likely to see when facing an opponent in Standard are Hazoret, Scarab God, Ghalta, and maybe Rhonas. Vicious Offering is a natural inclusion into current black/white token strategies, to be certain--not only will you -5/-5 a creature but it enables revolt, as well.
I know better than to try and analyze things for the context of Modern or Legacy--I leave that to people more well-versed in those formats than I am.
Even as a grizzled modern player who started in alpha, this card caught my eye and gave me a warm happy feeling.
I haven't felt so pleased and joyful about a new set in years. Probably since Innistrad. Or actually... Maybe longer. I look at this set and I get that child-like feeling of wonder that hasn't really been rekindled properly since earlier sets like Weatherlight. If there's only one thing we take away from dominaria, it's that intangible sense of something bigger happening behind the scenes, and a rich living world to be discovered. Frankly I'm impressed and surprised in a way i didn't expect. Huge kudos to everyone involved at WotC on this one. It's early days but this may end up being a contender for my favourite set of all time.
The power at uncommon is fantastic, in fact the power across all rarities seems to be very well considered - way better than normal. Good to see rares taking up most of the functional power and mythics being the splashy fun stuff.
And can we appreciate the art direction for a moment? Stunning. And the artists themselves really outdid anything I've seen previously (taking the set as a whole, not nitpicking individual cards)
I'd say that this set seems like something of a Renaissance. It's new yet familiar, innovative yet exactly what magic should be.
It's a great time to be a magic player.
So much this. For me Magic: The Gathering = Dominaria
Overall the basic land AWs are not as good as I'd hoped. Still a bit miffed that the new Meandering River is the only callback to Timespiral era geography (come on, that was just 60 years ago...). Would have greatly preferred more callbacks to that instead of the random Thran structures, which look pretty uninspired for the most part.
Still, the basics by Demitar (Dimitar?) Marinski are great. And the Urborg one and the Lunter island I guess.
Some more basic land observations:
- There's now another top art for the "Wizards doesn't know what Islands are" joke album (the underwater city)
- The Weatherlight can be seen in every "Thran structure" art
- Why does every Mark Poole basic have an archway except for the Forest?
If you'd rather have throwbacks to a "meeh" block in terms of both gameplay and story perspective than a throwback to what was probably the most important civilization in the entire MTG multiverse, then you're pretty short sighted, buuuuuuuuuuuut i think it would be pretty cool to have a gas mask as a legendary equipment, like you said despite everything the Time Spiral block in terms of story was very important to the plane, having some sort of relic from the time (like a gas mask) would be pretty neat.
I love the basic plains and swamps, the islands as always are a little boring, the mountains were pretty "meeh" and i don't know what to think of the forests.
As for why Mark Poole has archways in his art, artist have a bad habit of putting things they are attracted to or find cool in their work, even if it is irrelevant (i for one like drawing/painting hidden tentacles close to my characters/landscapes)
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BWG
Art student, EDH lover and a strong believer that Delver has the best design in all of MTG.
Yeah his ult is 'you win the game' unless they are stomping you and have a mass of tokens or something.
Hes good.
Actually, no, his ultimate doesn't win you the game at all. You win the game by getting your opponent's life total down to 0 or making him draw all his cards. Teferi does none of those things, and that's why he's not a good control planeswalker. A control planeswalker needs to win you the game in order to be good. Just look up every control planeswalker that was ever succesful and every control planeswalker that was not and this will become very clear.
Teferi will be a failure just like Dovin Baan and Narset, unfortunately, because I have been longing for a good blue/white planeswalker for a long time.
Jace, Architect of Thought didn't win you the game, and he was necessary in Control in Return to Ravnica Standard.
Narset was a failure because she had no removal options, and it was easy to whiff with her. Dovin failed because he only stopped one thing that was already on the board from fatally hitting him, and only drew you a card with some life gain with his minus.
Teferi's +1 draws and untaps two lands to provide some avenue for counter backup, and his -3 removes a threat presumably long enough to keep it from killing him or you.
I can't say with 100% certainty if he'll succeed in Standard, but at least I'm willing to give him a chance to prove himself.
Jace AoT has an ultimate that can win you the game, unlike Teferi, that's exactly what I was saying. Nahiri is another very comparable planeswalker that saw play in control decks for the same reason. A planeswalker that can eventually win the game is a huge deal for a control deck, because it allows you to play less or no "pure" threats that don't advance your control game. Planeswalkers that only create card advantage have to compete with other removal and draw spells and usually lose out to instants and cheap removal during deck building.
Jace's ultimate wasn't the primary reason he was played in RTR-THS Standard. His +1 helped keep you and himself alive by weakening all your opponent's mobs, and his -2 helped you dig for answers. This helped you buy time and build up resources until you plopped down Elspeth or Aetherling for the win. Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict also existing helped.
Nahiri's ultimate is a threat because she ticks up to it rapidly, so you are forced to keep your attention on her, but her first two abilities are also very useful.
I don't get your fixation with walker ultimates when most ultimates are near impossible or why you're eager to dismiss Teferi.
Jace AoT has an ultimate that can win you the game, unlike Teferi, that's exactly what I was saying. Nahiri is another very comparable planeswalker that saw play in control decks for the same reason. A planeswalker that can eventually win the game is a huge deal for a control deck, because it allows you to play less or no "pure" threats that don't advance your control game. Planeswalkers that only create card advantage have to compete with other removal and draw spells and usually lose out to instants and cheap removal during deck building.
Sure, Jace AoT "wins you the game," as long as you or your opponent have a win-con somewhere in either of your respective decks that isn't immediately answered by your opponent. If Jace AoT is your only threat, and you just use his ult to cast another one from your own deck and something like a Siege Rhino from your opponent's that is immediately killed, Jace doesn't really do a whole lot for you.
Teferi's ult, by contrast, will completely eradicate your opponent's board state -- lands included. I've ult'ed Venser often enough to know how devastating tacking an "Exile target permanent" clause is onto things you'd normally be doing as part of the game, except that Teferi's ult can only target your opponent's permanents, and you automatically draw cards at the beginning of each of your turns. Presumably, if you're playing Teferi in a UW or UWx control or midrange shell, you have a lot of other ways to draw cards besides the one you pull during your draw step. For example, casting Memory from your yard will allow you exile seven of your opponent's permanents (lands would be a great bet). And Pull from Tomorrow becomes a mass removal spell.
And Teferi nets you cards and mana each turn he pluses. Not true of Jace AoT's plus.
Jace's ultimate wasn't the primary reason he was played in RTR-THS Standard. His +1 helped keep you and himself alive by weakening all your opponent's mobs, and his -2 helped you dig for answers. This helped you buy time and build up resources until you plopped down Elspeth or Aetherling for the win. Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict also existing helped.
As someone who played a walker deck during RTR-THS Standard that routinely won games through ult'ing planeswalkers, I can attest that this is true. I rarely, if ever, ult'ed Jace. I +1'ed against aggro decks until I could Verdict, and then -2 when I needed more cards. Elspeth or Kiora won the games for me 99% of the time (or sometimes the occasional Wurm token that was buffed with one of two Ajanis).
I don't get your fixation with walker ultimates when most ultimates are near impossible or why you're eager to dismiss Teferi.
"near impossible" is a bit of a stretch. It's difficult to ult walkers, sure, but Teferi is going into the same Standard as his Oath, which should make ult'ing walkers FAR easier.
And the five mana used in casting the Oath won't seem like such a big deal if you use it to blink something like a Cataclysmic Gearhulk or a Cloudblazer.
I have to say this is a beautifully designed set and it is so much more nostalgic or even iconic than the Masters 25 set which looked like it was thrown together haphazardly by a bunch of drunken employees.
This all the way. I`m not keen on Masters sets in the first place, but A25 was just awful. I didn´t even find it particularly fun to draft. This, on the other hand, is the set that has had me the most excited since RTR/GTC*. It´s this set that´s the 25 year celebration the game deserves.
*Personal reasons: I had a RW Standard deck that I loved right before GTC came out, so GTC was huge for my own specific wants and needs.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Deeply disappointed in this set. So much artwork is generic, repetitive, bland and quick ‘n dirty digital in ‘style’. So much flavour text.. doesn’t have any, or is simply embarrassingly bad. So many cards are mediocre at best.
I had such high hopes, which no doubt hasn’t helped.
Oh well. Could be the next non-core set is amazing, so yeah.
Deeply disappointed in this set. So much artwork is generic, repetitive, bland and quick ‘n dirty digital in ‘style’. So much flavour text.. doesn’t have any, or is simply embarrassingly bad. So many cards are mediocre at best.
I had such high hopes, which no doubt hasn’t helped.
Oh well. Could be the next non-core set is amazing, so yeah.
Art and flavour text I won't argue since that's highly subjective, and not really relevant to gameplay (art has some gameplay influence in terms of knowing what card is what, but not much beyond that).
The mediocre cards thing on the other hand leads me to ask a few questions: What do you want from this set? Did you want most cards to be Modern/Legacy-playable? What other set are we using as a baseline for what this set should have been? Original Zendikar? Original Innistrad? Urza's block sets? Mirrodin? Are these expectations taking into account how the cards interact with the present card pool or future card pools in future rotations, or even in other formats?
"near impossible" is a bit of a stretch. It's difficult to ult walkers, sure, but Teferi is going into the same Standard as his Oath, which should make ult'ing walkers FAR easier.
And the five mana used in casting the Oath won't seem like such a big deal if you use it to blink something like a Cataclysmic Gearhulk or a Cloudblazer.
That's an interesting way to look at it. I guess we'll see how often Teferi manages to get his ult off.
So, can you commit to whether you think the set is bad because too strong, or bad because too weak? Because you seem to be deliberately being generic enough in complaining on both sides of the aisle (do you think it'll be gamebreaking and degenerate, or do you think it'll be gimped and lame?) that you'll be able to claim "See guys I was right, you were all wrong!" if the set proves either to strong or too weak. Which seems to be like more of a play for attention and crowing opportunity than an honest criticism.
A lot of words in those two posts for absolutley nothing to be said. What is your point, complaint, praise, rant or whatever? Talking in Circles makes no sense.
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Been a member here for over a dozen years. Playing since '95 just got lost in the twitch shuffle.
Deeply disappointed in this set. So much artwork is generic, repetitive, bland and quick ‘n dirty digital in ‘style’. So much flavour text.. doesn’t have any, or is simply embarrassingly bad. So many cards are mediocre at best.
I had such high hopes, which no doubt hasn’t helped.
Oh well. Could be the next non-core set is amazing, so yeah.
Agreed.
This is third-string fantasy art & writing, at best...and the card design isn't terribly inspired, either.
All these disconnected threads that would be interesting if they led anywhere.
Each set in Time Spiral Block really set a great standard through its use of overlapping ideas.
The sliver cycle that was built up through each successive set...the costless suspend cards that hearkened back to previous, broken cards...subtle, flavorful artifacts like Stuffy Doll...Shivan Meteor...land cycles...a complicated mosaic of design that gave us interesting cycles and reprints that interlocked with all the other cards inside and outside the block.
Not to mention...the removal of mana burn, the removal of the stack from combat...all of these successive moves have dumbed down the game at the cost of making it more accessible to newer players. Instead of retaining existing players and strengthening the game through old, abandoned programs like GURU, Hasbro is obviously directing changes from above by shoehorning customer service survey results into design.
I was looking forward to another block like Time Spiral...but if this set is an indicator, it's just paying lip service to ideas by offering a few under-costed effects and spells that dress up a whole parcel load of vanilla effects. The design is underwhelming and uninteresting.
Hopefully they'll do a great job with the new core set & reprint something neater than Juggernaut.
On a positive note...I do like BRAWL as an official format...wish they'd extend to Modern, as long as they slapped together a decent enough banlist for it.
TL;DR:
I wish the corporate perception of market trends didn't have a deleterious effect on the design and look of this game. I also agree with greywyn.
Green checks in with the 12th most valuable card in the set: Steel Lead Champion
While I applaud this card as its something Elves can use... nothing else has been added to arguably magic's weakest color.
What happen to green's bomb enchantments? Or simply an elf with an ability that's good on its own.
For Standard purposes, Llanowar Elves redefines green's place in the format. There's a reason it's the #1 card on Luis Scott-Vargas' top 10 constructed cards in the set - ahead of Karn and Teferi.
From a Modern perspective - SLC is everything Stompy wanted, and Elves will use too. Most sets add either 1 or 0 relevant cards to a color for Modern purposes. This time, green got 1. What did the entire Ixalan block do for Green Modern? Growing Rites as a rogue-deck novelty?
Most people that play merfolk in modern are still doing it Mono-u. mtgtop8 has Branchwalker as a ... 0.3%-of-decks card the past 2 months? That’s less than Growing Rites.
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My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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Even as a grizzled modern player who started in alpha, this card caught my eye and gave me a warm happy feeling.
I haven't felt so pleased and joyful about a new set in years. Probably since Innistrad. Or actually... Maybe longer. I look at this set and I get that child-like feeling of wonder that hasn't really been rekindled properly since earlier sets like Weatherlight. If there's only one thing we take away from dominaria, it's that intangible sense of something bigger happening behind the scenes, and a rich living world to be discovered. Frankly I'm impressed and surprised in a way i didn't expect. Huge kudos to everyone involved at WotC on this one. It's early days but this may end up being a contender for my favourite set of all time.
The power at uncommon is fantastic, in fact the power across all rarities seems to be very well considered - way better than normal. Good to see rares taking up most of the functional power and mythics being the splashy fun stuff.
And can we appreciate the art direction for a moment? Stunning. And the artists themselves really outdid anything I've seen previously (taking the set as a whole, not nitpicking individual cards)
I'd say that this set seems like something of a Renaissance. It's new yet familiar, innovative yet exactly what magic should be.
It's a great time to be a magic player.
Over 80% of the creatures are x/4 or less; you can deal with them in combat with Gideon's Reproach for only 2 mana.
Stepping up a bit we find that just over 90% of the creatures in this set are x/5 or less and they have an average cmc of 3.38; on average you pay 4.53 mana for x/4 and 5.22 for x/5. If you don't mind sorcery speed, then Fight with Fire deals with all of these for only 3 mana--not a bad deal, despite the speed. If speed is the issue then sacrifice a creature for the kicker cost on Vicious Offering.
Only 25 creatures have flying; I did not crunch their average cost but Pierce the Sky kills all of them.
No creatures are inherently indestructible even though a few of them have an activated ability which can give them, or some other creature, that ability. Only one creature is inherently hexproof--Cold-Water Snapper--even though there is an aura which can give a permanent that ability.
Cast Down kills only 68% of creatures in this set--there are a lot of legendary creatures, as you well know, but Eviscerate kills everything, as does Yawgmoth's Vile Offering. On the exile side, Settle the Score in black and Blessed Light in white. I didn't look at the green removal spell(s) just yet--a typical "creature fight" effect and I haven't double-checked for edict effects (if I recall, one of the sagas does that).
Jaya's Immolating Inferno is the only scalable damage spell--if x >= 4 you should be getting maximum value from it.
Anyway...I know a common complaint lately has been "removal is bad" so this set looks to be reversing that trend, at least if we compare the average cost of removal against the average cost of creatures you will see in Limited.
Interesting analysis, but it lacks a comparisson to other sets.
Also you forgot to provide the context for the "removal is bad" quote, I think. The complaint most often - in my reading - referred to Constructed, specifically Standard. You probably see where I am going with this: The removal will not be judged by the ability to answer threats from this set alone, but all of Standard. Depending on the cards that get picked up for Constructed this might be e. g. good news for Cast Down, or conversely may create a dynamic meta-game where Cast Down is picked up to answer nonlegendaries and can be answered with legendaries which may be answered by shifting e. g. to Vicious Offering (which seems like a fairly playable card to me - especially is Fungi take off, but even just by itself).
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Couldn't agree more. This set is the first time I've been excited about a set in some time. Between the Challenge Decks and Dominaria perhaps WotC is starting to show some promise. Last time a set was anywhere close to decent like this was Conspiracy 2.
I suppose I should caveat that to read "these numbers are for Limited/Sealed only". I haven't had a chance to apply them into the context of Standard, other than to note that Cast Down will be able to take out about 90% of all creatures--there are 42 legendary creatures in DOM but only 45 legendary creatures in KLD through RIX. As things stand right now, about the only legendary creatures you are likely to see when facing an opponent in Standard are Hazoret, Scarab God, Ghalta, and maybe Rhonas. Vicious Offering is a natural inclusion into current black/white token strategies, to be certain--not only will you -5/-5 a creature but it enables revolt, as well.
I know better than to try and analyze things for the context of Modern or Legacy--I leave that to people more well-versed in those formats than I am.
So much this. For me Magic: The Gathering = Dominaria
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
If you'd rather have throwbacks to a "meeh" block in terms of both gameplay and story perspective than a throwback to what was probably the most important civilization in the entire MTG multiverse, then you're pretty short sighted, buuuuuuuuuuuut i think it would be pretty cool to have a gas mask as a legendary equipment, like you said despite everything the Time Spiral block in terms of story was very important to the plane, having some sort of relic from the time (like a gas mask) would be pretty neat.
I love the basic plains and swamps, the islands as always are a little boring, the mountains were pretty "meeh" and i don't know what to think of the forests.
As for why Mark Poole has archways in his art, artist have a bad habit of putting things they are attracted to or find cool in their work, even if it is irrelevant (i for one like drawing/painting hidden tentacles close to my characters/landscapes)
Art student, EDH lover and a strong believer that Delver has the best design in all of MTG.
Jace's ultimate wasn't the primary reason he was played in RTR-THS Standard. His +1 helped keep you and himself alive by weakening all your opponent's mobs, and his -2 helped you dig for answers. This helped you buy time and build up resources until you plopped down Elspeth or Aetherling for the win. Sphinx's Revelation and Supreme Verdict also existing helped.
Nahiri's ultimate is a threat because she ticks up to it rapidly, so you are forced to keep your attention on her, but her first two abilities are also very useful.
I don't get your fixation with walker ultimates when most ultimates are near impossible or why you're eager to dismiss Teferi.
Sure, Jace AoT "wins you the game," as long as you or your opponent have a win-con somewhere in either of your respective decks that isn't immediately answered by your opponent. If Jace AoT is your only threat, and you just use his ult to cast another one from your own deck and something like a Siege Rhino from your opponent's that is immediately killed, Jace doesn't really do a whole lot for you.
Teferi's ult, by contrast, will completely eradicate your opponent's board state -- lands included. I've ult'ed Venser often enough to know how devastating tacking an "Exile target permanent" clause is onto things you'd normally be doing as part of the game, except that Teferi's ult can only target your opponent's permanents, and you automatically draw cards at the beginning of each of your turns. Presumably, if you're playing Teferi in a UW or UWx control or midrange shell, you have a lot of other ways to draw cards besides the one you pull during your draw step. For example, casting Memory from your yard will allow you exile seven of your opponent's permanents (lands would be a great bet). And Pull from Tomorrow becomes a mass removal spell.
And Teferi nets you cards and mana each turn he pluses. Not true of Jace AoT's plus.
EDIT:
As someone who played a walker deck during RTR-THS Standard that routinely won games through ult'ing planeswalkers, I can attest that this is true. I rarely, if ever, ult'ed Jace. I +1'ed against aggro decks until I could Verdict, and then -2 when I needed more cards. Elspeth or Kiora won the games for me 99% of the time (or sometimes the occasional Wurm token that was buffed with one of two Ajanis).
"near impossible" is a bit of a stretch. It's difficult to ult walkers, sure, but Teferi is going into the same Standard as his Oath, which should make ult'ing walkers FAR easier.
And the five mana used in casting the Oath won't seem like such a big deal if you use it to blink something like a Cataclysmic Gearhulk or a Cloudblazer.
*Personal reasons: I had a RW Standard deck that I loved right before GTC came out, so GTC was huge for my own specific wants and needs.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
I had such high hopes, which no doubt hasn’t helped.
Oh well. Could be the next non-core set is amazing, so yeah.
Art and flavour text I won't argue since that's highly subjective, and not really relevant to gameplay (art has some gameplay influence in terms of knowing what card is what, but not much beyond that).
The mediocre cards thing on the other hand leads me to ask a few questions: What do you want from this set? Did you want most cards to be Modern/Legacy-playable? What other set are we using as a baseline for what this set should have been? Original Zendikar? Original Innistrad? Urza's block sets? Mirrodin? Are these expectations taking into account how the cards interact with the present card pool or future card pools in future rotations, or even in other formats?
That's an interesting way to look at it. I guess we'll see how often Teferi manages to get his ult off.
Sounds like a Mega Man villain.
Cool name. He will find treasure if you "kick" him.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Agreed.
This is third-string fantasy art & writing, at best...and the card design isn't terribly inspired, either.
All these disconnected threads that would be interesting if they led anywhere.
Each set in Time Spiral Block really set a great standard through its use of overlapping ideas.
The sliver cycle that was built up through each successive set...the costless suspend cards that hearkened back to previous, broken cards...subtle, flavorful artifacts like Stuffy Doll...Shivan Meteor...land cycles...a complicated mosaic of design that gave us interesting cycles and reprints that interlocked with all the other cards inside and outside the block.
Not to mention...the removal of mana burn, the removal of the stack from combat...all of these successive moves have dumbed down the game at the cost of making it more accessible to newer players. Instead of retaining existing players and strengthening the game through old, abandoned programs like GURU, Hasbro is obviously directing changes from above by shoehorning customer service survey results into design.
I was looking forward to another block like Time Spiral...but if this set is an indicator, it's just paying lip service to ideas by offering a few under-costed effects and spells that dress up a whole parcel load of vanilla effects. The design is underwhelming and uninteresting.
Hopefully they'll do a great job with the new core set & reprint something neater than Juggernaut.
On a positive note...I do like BRAWL as an official format...wish they'd extend to Modern, as long as they slapped together a decent enough banlist for it.
TL;DR:
I wish the corporate perception of market trends didn't have a deleterious effect on the design and look of this game. I also agree with greywyn.
While I applaud this card as its something Elves can use... nothing else has been added to arguably magic's weakest color.
What happen to green's bomb enchantments? Or simply an elf with an ability that's good on its own.
From a Modern perspective - SLC is everything Stompy wanted, and Elves will use too. Most sets add either 1 or 0 relevant cards to a color for Modern purposes. This time, green got 1. What did the entire Ixalan block do for Green Modern? Growing Rites as a rogue-deck novelty?
I guess you don't play a lot of Merfolk, huh?