Maybe Adapt will play better than people expect? Jump Start was hated on when it was first revealed as a bad flashback but in practice it works pretty well.
I fully expect Adapt to be a perfectly functional workhorse of a mechanic, at least in limited. Having an instant-speed mana dump to improve your board presence is nothing to disregard. The problem is that the two cards we've seen so far have been far from attractive when it comes to stats and costing.
Would she be OP if she got to draw for every creature you had a counter on? I don't think so in standard.
She would need to cost a lot more mana to stay at rare, even with lower stats.
I would happily trade the etb ability with an Adapt trigger to draw 1 for each creature with a counter though. That way she could stay at the same cmc.
She's on curve, conditional cantrip, and you can kick her at any time (provided she doesn't have any +1/+1 counters on her) to make her 8/8 with trample.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Mark confirmed adapt mechanic is just more fixed version of monstrosity just like the did with shroud/hexproof
You can actually use the activation more than once monstrosity only had one shot if counters are removed it had to be blinked or return from hand or graveyard to do another trigger
Would she be OP if she got to draw for every creature you had a counter on? I don't think so in standard.
She would need to cost a lot more mana to stay at rare, even with lower stats.
I would happily trade the etb ability with an Adapt trigger to draw 1 for each creature with a counter though. That way she could stay at the same cmc.
I mean Tishana, Voice of Thunder draws a card for every creature, has P/T equal to your hand size, and isn't all that great in Standard. I'm not convinced, as the +1/+1 counter requirement is a bit more work to make happen.
Yeah, because she draws for every creature, that was my point. The hoop to jump through is much easier, so the mana cost should be higher. Tishana's also a Mythic. Should we keep stating obvious things? Zegana needs creatures to have counters on them when she enters the battlefield. Unless you're trying to play her in a format with Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker, or Affinity, it's more work to get multiple creatures with +1/+1 counters on them on the battlefield. In Standard, if you play her turn 4 and have an adventurous Merfolk Branchwalker and a Jadelight Ranger, I see no problem with Zegana drawing two cards. Tishana doesn't care if you just have 13 throwaway tokens, you will draw 14 cards. No hoops. Just draw them. So she should cost more.
How is this a 'fixed' monstrous mechanic?
It still can only be used once by itself. I guess if you could dump the counters somehow for cheap, but thats seems like a huge stretch. Rest is yet to been seen, but unlike Izoni, Niv 3.0, this rare is, at the moment, outclassed.
How is this a 'fixed' monstrous mechanic?
It still can only be used once by itself. I guess if you could dump the counters somehow for cheap, but thats seems like a huge stretch. Rest is yet to been seen, but unlike Izoni, Niv 3.0, this rare is, at the moment, outclassed.
It's "fixed" because you don't have to keep track of whether it's "monstrous" or not (as those guys could get counters from elsewhere). This way if it's got counters, it can't Adapt, and if it doesn't it can. And, also, its flavor gives it more design space - the adapter doesn't have to turn "monstrous", it can just adapt slightly, etc.
It's not in itself a bad mechanic, honestly. This card is not likely to be the wow card for the mechanic (or if it turns out to actually play well it'll be an omnipresent boring efficient beater). But the previous set wasn't very hype-worthy when it comes to mechanics. Surveil was obviously potentially nuts (and it's yet to be properly explored in Pauper and other wider formats where there's more to be done with it). Undergrowth was potentially exploitable, and is good on the few cards that have it which are actually good (Kraul Harpooner is a fine ole card, Kraul Foragers are bound to find a home in Pauper and Moodmark Painter can just kill people in multiple formats. The rest of the mechanics didn't even look like they have much potential or anything and were met with a resounding "meh".
So it's not cards like these that I'm interested in for this set - we know they're most likely to be meh. It's individual mono-colored cards which will be the truly silly stuff, judging from the previous set. I think it was like that on purpose, and that it will be like that again. We'll get some kick-ass uncommons and likely borderline busted rares and possibly a cycle of silly mythics.
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"Masques Block is the worst block ever! There's not one decent card in there! The whole internet say's so, you're literally the only person who ever said it was good!" - random noob in a conversation with an Eldrazi.
Do we know who is the leader? It can't be a planeswalker since we know Dovin, Domri and Kaya are the planeswalkers.
Someone on twitter pointed out that the Simic mage that we see on the booster pack is actually holding the same trident from Prime Speaker Zegana's art.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
A terrible boring mechanic that will be fringe playable only on a couple of cards like monstrosity was, then
From the guild that gave us graft and evolve, i expcted more.
But why? As far as I remember, the only Graft or Evolve card that saw any serious competitive play was Experiment One. Monstrosity was a perfectly fine limited mechanic, and I was actually expecting to see it make a comeback as the Gruul mechanic this time around. I see no problems here.
How is this a 'fixed' monstrous mechanic?
It still can only be used once by itself. I guess if you could dump the counters somehow for cheap, but thats seems like a huge stretch. Rest is yet to been seen, but unlike Izoni, Niv 3.0, this rare is, at the moment, outclassed.
It's 'fixed' in that it plays better when in an environment where many cards interact with counters - note that 'better' is not necessarily 'more powerful', but just primarily 'cleaner' - though there might be power-wise benefits, this design of Zegana tells a different story. It's just an efficient cantripping creature where there is not necessarily any interaction needed.
There are plenty of those really fine-tuned rares recently that have just three different ways to matter to a theme that are all relatively minor and matter in different ways/situations, but are sold by an efficient body. Par for the course, though I wouldn't disagree with statements that the course is ill-chosen.
Monstrosity has long been on the list of mechanics that mechanically fit Simic very well - both by playing with +1/+1 counters (which shouldn't be green-blue's only mechanical identity, but clearly turned out to be Simic's) as well as using them as a clean representation of actively improving a creature. It also cleanly addresses the issues that many had with monstrosity back in the day with regards to counter-removal interactions. It's good that Simic shares no color with Boros. ^^
Whether you like adapt or not, it clearly is meant as only a minor aspect of Zegana, and she seems meant as something that has a shot at Standard play. And the size seems relevant right now.
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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]
It stats are made to be effective, and if its a 4/4 that draws a card, it will see play, if thats what the card is doing 99% of the time.
But thats all it really is, late game fat, boring ...
They really removed anything remotely interesting from this Ravnica and replaced it with generic filler crap cards ... How could they possible allow this to happen ? Quality Assurance probably all in vacation time or non existent.
I would happily trade the etb ability with an Adapt trigger to draw 1 for each creature with a counter though. That way she could stay at the same cmc.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/181252702918/hey-mark-i-wanted-to-give-my-input-on-adapt-i
Basic he saying it’s just monstrosity but he made it a new mechanic so you can use it multiple times
Monstrosity you only had one shot and can never do it again (unless blinked ofcoarse)
So basicly updating a fixed mechanic just like they did with shroud when they introduced hexproof
She's on curve, conditional cantrip, and you can kick her at any time (provided she doesn't have any +1/+1 counters on her) to make her 8/8 with trample.
On phasing:
Mark confirmed adapt mechanic is just more fixed version of monstrosity just like the did with shroud/hexproof
You can actually use the activation more than once monstrosity only had one shot if counters are removed it had to be blinked or return from hand or graveyard to do another trigger
Do we know who is the leader? It can't be a planeswalker since we know Dovin, Domri and Kaya are the planeswalkers.
Waste of time on here. Until this card is on a decklist most users on here will simply say the card is poop.
Once it is netdeckable however, then the narrative changes.
I mean Tishana, Voice of Thunder draws a card for every creature, has P/T equal to your hand size, and isn't all that great in Standard. I'm not convinced, as the +1/+1 counter requirement is a bit more work to make happen.
Niv isn't the Mythic, either, could be a similar situation.
Yeah, because she draws for every creature, that was my point. The hoop to jump through is much easier, so the mana cost should be higher. Tishana's also a Mythic. Should we keep stating obvious things? Zegana needs creatures to have counters on them when she enters the battlefield. Unless you're trying to play her in a format with Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker, or Affinity, it's more work to get multiple creatures with +1/+1 counters on them on the battlefield. In Standard, if you play her turn 4 and have an adventurous Merfolk Branchwalker and a Jadelight Ranger, I see no problem with Zegana drawing two cards. Tishana doesn't care if you just have 13 throwaway tokens, you will draw 14 cards. No hoops. Just draw them. So she should cost more.
It still can only be used once by itself. I guess if you could dump the counters somehow for cheap, but thats seems like a huge stretch. Rest is yet to been seen, but unlike Izoni, Niv 3.0, this rare is, at the moment, outclassed.
More like memory issue is what it is
It's not in itself a bad mechanic, honestly. This card is not likely to be the wow card for the mechanic (or if it turns out to actually play well it'll be an omnipresent boring efficient beater). But the previous set wasn't very hype-worthy when it comes to mechanics. Surveil was obviously potentially nuts (and it's yet to be properly explored in Pauper and other wider formats where there's more to be done with it). Undergrowth was potentially exploitable, and is good on the few cards that have it which are actually good (Kraul Harpooner is a fine ole card, Kraul Foragers are bound to find a home in Pauper and Moodmark Painter can just kill people in multiple formats. The rest of the mechanics didn't even look like they have much potential or anything and were met with a resounding "meh".
So it's not cards like these that I'm interested in for this set - we know they're most likely to be meh. It's individual mono-colored cards which will be the truly silly stuff, judging from the previous set. I think it was like that on purpose, and that it will be like that again. We'll get some kick-ass uncommons and likely borderline busted rares and possibly a cycle of silly mythics.
Someone on twitter pointed out that the Simic mage that we see on the booster pack is actually holding the same trident from Prime Speaker Zegana's art.
It isn't terrible,
but it's very much in the "do-they-even-EDH" vein of the legendaries from the first half of the set.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
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
Maybe not ever...
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=sideboard/mi02/stdecks
Who doesn't remember fondly the good ol' days of UG Madness?
It's 'fixed' in that it plays better when in an environment where many cards interact with counters - note that 'better' is not necessarily 'more powerful', but just primarily 'cleaner' - though there might be power-wise benefits, this design of Zegana tells a different story. It's just an efficient cantripping creature where there is not necessarily any interaction needed.
There are plenty of those really fine-tuned rares recently that have just three different ways to matter to a theme that are all relatively minor and matter in different ways/situations, but are sold by an efficient body. Par for the course, though I wouldn't disagree with statements that the course is ill-chosen.
Monstrosity has long been on the list of mechanics that mechanically fit Simic very well - both by playing with +1/+1 counters (which shouldn't be green-blue's only mechanical identity, but clearly turned out to be Simic's) as well as using them as a clean representation of actively improving a creature. It also cleanly addresses the issues that many had with monstrosity back in the day with regards to counter-removal interactions. It's good that Simic shares no color with Boros. ^^
Whether you like adapt or not, it clearly is meant as only a minor aspect of Zegana, and she seems meant as something that has a shot at Standard play. And the size seems relevant right now.
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."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Many thanks to DNC at Heroes of the Plane Studios
It stats are made to be effective, and if its a 4/4 that draws a card, it will see play, if thats what the card is doing 99% of the time.
But thats all it really is, late game fat, boring ...
They really removed anything remotely interesting from this Ravnica and replaced it with generic filler crap cards ... How could they possible allow this to happen ? Quality Assurance probably all in vacation time or non existent.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮