So I'm just looking to get peoples thoughts and opinions, I am unable to attend this sets Pre-Release, but for those of you who have, I have 3 questions for you all.
1. What card was your MVP?
2. What card was worse than you thought it would be?
3. What card was better than you thought it would be?
MVP: Frontline Medic, won every time he he hit the field... I think he will will be a staple in Boros Humans. With Boros charm backup on your opponents turn he is crazy.
Worst: Hellraiser Goblin, thought he would be nuts with battalion.... Cost me a game haha. He can be awesome but then again he can be horrible. I'd stay away
Better: Domri Rade, I probably drew almost 30 cards with him in 6rds... I played 17 land with a Boros charm, 1 ground Assault, 1 madcap skills, 2 mugging, 2 Domri Rades and 1 pit fight. He did a lot of work, I think he might be constructed viable honestly... I kept drawing gas which allowed me to do 1 for 1 trades until my opponents ran out of cards. Which let me be very aggressive with my attacks since I drew creatures. I didn't think he was going to be all that great but he thoroughly changed my mind and I'm trying to finish a play set just in case he skyrockets in value.
Madcap Skills, is crazy also.... That card does work!
1) Fathom Mage on games where I got really lucky, and Nimbus Swimmer in games where I got Nimbus Swimmer. With a Nimbus Swimmer and a Cloudfin Raptor I often found myself closing out games.
2) Honestly, most of the cards in my deck were pretty poopy in comparison to my opponent's ultra synergy decks. It was kind of bad, and most of the cards I expected to do pretty poorly, so it's hard to say.
3) I was pretty surprised by how good Nimbus Swimmer and the Skyblind staff were. Making your creatures virtually unblockable along with Green and Blue's evasion based gameplay could often ruin someone's day if they didn't have enough removal or damage.
2: Angelic Edict - for that price I thought it was an instant, even tried to cast it as one.. thankfully the opponent caught the mistake and let me know so I didnt do it agian.
3: Court Street Denizen - it went nice with my x2 Skyknight Legionnaire, and I also didnt have access to much removal, so every bit helped.
Truefire Paladin was also pretty damn good.
I think I did damn good specially since I didnt get any huge bombs like gideon or the angels.
oh and I did run the red primordial.. he was really good too. i cast him 2 out of the 3 times I had him in hand. and both times i did cast him it flat out won me the game or turned it to my favor significantly.
1. Sunhome Guildmage was always a very powerful presence. If I had three mana and could slip in for some damage, he could pump my attackers. If the opponent was filling the board with blockers and stalling the game, he could churn out 1/1s for my eventual alpha strike. He was instrumental in every match I won.
2. I was very excited to pull a Crypt Ghast, but he simply was not up to par in Limited. Granted, I probably should have seen that coming, as he works best if you have a lot of Swamps, and in GTC sealed you want to play at least two, preferably three colors, so he ended up being just a Syndic of Tithes for double the price.
3. I was mostly underwhelmed by Gift of Orzhova when I first saw it in the Card Image Gallery, but having played with it I can easily say it's a Limited all-star. Slap it onto a creature of any respectable size (I'd usually put it on a Wojek Halberdiers) and it becomes a force to reckon with, swinging for a lot of evasive damage and giving you a bunch of life. Granted, there's always the danger of a 2-for-1, but if you use it right you will pretty much always be able to swing at least once with it, and it will MORE than earn its keep if you do.
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Someday, I will own all of the dragons. All of them. 43/111, approximately 39% complete. Over a third done.
(calling it now; there will be a cycle of Legendary dual lands with Basic Land types in Theros block)
... AAAAAAAAND I was wrong
Clan Defiance, people repeatedly exclaimed, "How am I supposed to play around that?" Every time I cast it my opponent would question my explanation. People just didn't believe what the card did.
Shambleshark, it was a 2/1 for UG more often than I wanted, the Flash was never relevant.
Simic Charm, I never got to use the hexproof mode, primarily because AEtherize was the most common removal spell I faced and secondarily because I rarely got above 4 lands throughout the tournament. Reacting was much harder with how land light most of my games were. But still Simic Charm was great every time I drew one of my 2 copies.
1-Executioner's swing. Three times I was looking down the barrel of a Gruul Ragebeast and this card let me kill it off as soon as it dropped and still have mana for an extort.
2-Nothing disappointed me in my pool, but I saw a lot of battalion stuff that fell short of what I thought it would.
3-Merciless Eviction.
Honorable Mention goes to Guardian of the Gateless. Eats board swings.
MVP: Wrecking Ogre- Every game I drew this card and got to five mana I won. This guy packs a massive punch when bloodrushed or when normally played. One game I played him, then bloodrsushed Rubblehulk on him for 18 damge (my opponent was at 17 with me at 1 after his alpha strike). Next game, I bloodrushed him onto my unblocked 7/7 Rubblebelt Raider.
Loser: Alpha Authority- I tried out Alpha Authority at first since I thought that hexproof would be relevant and I had the 6/5 can only be blocked by two or more creatures dude. Well, what I realized is that removal is bad in this format, most of it is burn, and if you do it right, you can just use cheap bloodrush to protect your dude. And with bloodrush, I only had two games where 6 mana creatures mattered so the 6/5 wasn't that good either.
Winner: Zhurr-Taa Swine- Great card. The fact that he is essentially a Lava Axe for three mana or a big beefy attacker/blocker for 5 is awesome. Having two of him in my pool was great, especially when I bloodrushed one copy onto another that was attacking then played Miming Slime to get a 10/10. Good times...
MVP: Merciless Eviction, This thing turned a losing game into a winning one everytime it hit the table.
Worst: Treasury Thrull, I either had him on the backfoot of my Merciless Eviction and helped me build my creatures back up, or it would just be a bother to get on the board at all.
Better: Hold the Gates, I pulled 4 gates in playable colors and thought I'd give this a shot and wow was I not let down. With most of my creatures being flyers this thing let be get in for lots of damage.
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Luck isn't the only reason I win. Just most of the reason.
MVP: Honestly, probably Aetherize. No card generated nearly as much value for me throughout the night. I used it to blow my Simi opponent's evolve creatures, my Dimir opponent's Ciphered creatures, my Gruul opponent's buffed creatures, and my Boros opponent's battalion. The only opponent it wasn't great against was Orzhov.
Worse than I thought: Every rare I pulled. Especially Fathom Mage. By the time it comes out, it's not triggering evolve on much, and my games went so quickly I rarely was able to utilize its ability. Fathom Mage was, for all intents and purposes, a 4cmc 1/1 chump blocker for me.
Better than I thought: Where do I start? Wasteland Viper + Pit Fight is crazy good, especially in Simic where the viper can trigger evolve on your 1/1s. Simic Fluxmage was very, very nice. Mystic Genesis won me several games. And Elusive Krasis just gets silly. Hard to just choose one card for this category.
MVP: Arrows of Justice Lets you send in your battalion like you don't care. Stuff will die on your opponent's side while you stay perfectly safe.
Worse: Legion Loyalist My Boros pack rare. I only drew it once, and I never wanted to play it.
Better: Bomber Corps It should be illegal to kill so many creatures with that guy. I got rid of pretty much all small Simic evolvers before they could do anything, as well as a bunch of small creatures getting in the way of my battalion. This guy got rid of more creatures than any removal spell in my deck.
1. Frilled Oculus. Puts so much pressure on the opponent and mana sinks in the process. Having 2 out was awesome.
2. Fathom Mage. Even though it did give me plenty of card advantage, it was still a 1/1 for 4 that doesn't evolve anything. Should also mention Simic Manipulator because it's way too slow and doesn't scale as fast as your opponent's curve.
3. Totally Lost. I was already a fan, but this was brilliant in every shape and form.
I went Simic 3-1, lost the last match on a misplay. I splashed red for Gruul Ragebeast and the 7/6 wurm.
MVP: Definitely Prime Speaker Zegana. Pulled it in my guild pack, got it out at least once every match I played turn 6 off a turn 5 adaptive snapjaw, almost always ended games the next turn.
Worse than I thought: Probably Fathom Mage. Granted, I only ended up playing it once, but I drew it once a match and never really wanted to play it. Love the promo art though.
Better than I thought: Gyre Sage, pretty much only because I had low expectations. It takes off really quickly and gets nuts fast. I really underestimated Simic in general, I didn't think I was going to do well without Experiment One, Cloudfin Raptor, or Elusive Krasis, but I ended up with a pretty good deck.
MVP: [/b]Sapphire Drake. Once I played it, way to win the game. Instant impact on board. Honorable mention to Mystic Genesis (that came in my guild pack and was one of the best draws in topdeck mode that I've ever had) and Act of Treason (allowed me to hit for exact 15, when the opponent had that much life, after stealing his Frontline Medic).[b]
Worse: [/b]Realmwright. I knew it was stupidity to play it, but, I had this bet on splashing for three or four red cards with Gruul Keyrune on deck, and I thought this was a good idea to fix mana on early game. If I used it effectively twice, it was much. But, then again, it was my fault to expect something from this.[b]
Better: [/b]Drakewing Krasis. Served as evolve enabler, has a nice body and for some reason I wanted to burn copies of it when I saw it spoiled. Honorable mention to the EXCELENT Simic Fluxmage, that I had luck to pull two ofs, and both had great value when on field.[/b]
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(Give your LGS judge a hug. He deserves it.)
Nothing. All I want is Heroes vs. Monsters spoilers.
Worse than I thought: nothing in particular played worse than I expected
Better than I thought: Wildwood Rebirth, the card did anything that a gruul deck could want. It could bring back a creature that ate removal as a worst case scenario, but even better than that it basically acted like a Snapcaster Mage for bloodrush cards getting back all the best pumps when you needed them.
Skaarg Guildmage won me a few games this weekend. I didn't mind being mana flooded when I had him down and my 4/4s seemed to be bigger than all the other cards in this set.
Played Simic, ended up 4/2 getting crushed by 2 bomby boros decks with good curves.
MVP: Sapphire Drake. This guy was awesome, granting flying to my army and evolving pretty much everything.
Better than expected: Ivy Lane Denizen was pretty good, I expected him to be worse, given that I didn't have to many green creatures. But he fed my Guildmage, Fathom Mage and Sapphire Drake.
Worse than expected: Zameck Guildmage. Don't get me wrong, this guy is great. He's just a lot slower than I imagined he'd be, given his low activation costs and I only drew one card during the whole tournament.
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DCI Level 1 Judge
Currently playing: EDH
BBB Ob Nixilis, the Fallen BBBRGW Mayael the AnimaWGRWUB Merieke Ri Berit BUWHighlander GWU Bant Midrange UWG
1. Metropolis Sprite and Elusive Krasis. The faerie was useful as a lot of people weren't using fliers, so she could peck away (or I could used Forced Adaptation and her ability to beef her up). The fish mutant was amazing, as he served as a great blocker until he had enough power to strike for significant damage. Honorable mention to Ivy Lane Denizen.
2. I hate to say it, but Fathom Mage. I had two of her in my deck, and I never seemed to get her out when I needed her. When I did draw her, I opted to use more aggressive creatures like Drakewing Krasis. She'll be much better for casual play.
3. Hydroform. It saved me a couple of times from certain death, when really I just threw it in there because I couldn't think of anything else.
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"Everything falls apart. But living things fall apart in the most fascinating ways."
—Mowagh the Gwyllion, Fang Skulkin
1. What card was your MVP?
2. What card was worse than you thought it would be?
3. What card was better than you thought it would be?
I appreciate any info you can relate
2. Death's Approach
3. Madcap Skills
Worst: Hellraiser Goblin, thought he would be nuts with battalion.... Cost me a game haha. He can be awesome but then again he can be horrible. I'd stay away
Better: Domri Rade, I probably drew almost 30 cards with him in 6rds... I played 17 land with a Boros charm, 1 ground Assault, 1 madcap skills, 2 mugging, 2 Domri Rades and 1 pit fight. He did a lot of work, I think he might be constructed viable honestly... I kept drawing gas which allowed me to do 1 for 1 trades until my opponents ran out of cards. Which let me be very aggressive with my attacks since I drew creatures. I didn't think he was going to be all that great but he thoroughly changed my mind and I'm trying to finish a play set just in case he skyrockets in value.
Madcap Skills, is crazy also.... That card does work!
2. Simic Fluxmage (Too slow!)
3. Simic Manipulator (This card was a beast once it got rolling)
2) Honestly, most of the cards in my deck were pretty poopy in comparison to my opponent's ultra synergy decks. It was kind of bad, and most of the cards I expected to do pretty poorly, so it's hard to say.
3) I was pretty surprised by how good Nimbus Swimmer and the Skyblind staff were. Making your creatures virtually unblockable along with Green and Blue's evasion based gameplay could often ruin someone's day if they didn't have enough removal or damage.
2. Legion Loyalist Barely ever got battalion and when I did he was killed immediately
3. Homing Lightning Saved my life way too many times to count.
won 2/0 (simic)
won 2/0 (gruul)
lost 1/2 (dimir/simic)
won 2/0 (gruul)
lost 0/2 (simic)
1: MVPS = Ghor-Clan Rampager, Legion Loyalist, Daring Skyjek
2: Angelic Edict - for that price I thought it was an instant, even tried to cast it as one.. thankfully the opponent caught the mistake and let me know so I didnt do it agian.
3: Court Street Denizen - it went nice with my x2 Skyknight Legionnaire, and I also didnt have access to much removal, so every bit helped.
Truefire Paladin was also pretty damn good.
I think I did damn good specially since I didnt get any huge bombs like gideon or the angels.
oh and I did run the red primordial.. he was really good too. i cast him 2 out of the 3 times I had him in hand. and both times i did cast him it flat out won me the game or turned it to my favor significantly.
sig by Sioux
2. I was very excited to pull a Crypt Ghast, but he simply was not up to par in Limited. Granted, I probably should have seen that coming, as he works best if you have a lot of Swamps, and in GTC sealed you want to play at least two, preferably three colors, so he ended up being just a Syndic of Tithes for double the price.
3. I was mostly underwhelmed by Gift of Orzhova when I first saw it in the Card Image Gallery, but having played with it I can easily say it's a Limited all-star. Slap it onto a creature of any respectable size (I'd usually put it on a Wojek Halberdiers) and it becomes a force to reckon with, swinging for a lot of evasive damage and giving you a bunch of life. Granted, there's always the danger of a 2-for-1, but if you use it right you will pretty much always be able to swing at least once with it, and it will MORE than earn its keep if you do.
43/111, approximately 39% complete. Over a third done.
(calling it now; there will be a cycle of Legendary dual lands with Basic Land types in Theros block)
... AAAAAAAAND I was wrong
The Attention Deficit Guy URGU
2. Dutiful Thrull
3. Fathom Mage (I had an insane Simic pull)
DCI Level 1 Judge
Shambleshark, it was a 2/1 for UG more often than I wanted, the Flash was never relevant.
Simic Charm, I never got to use the hexproof mode, primarily because AEtherize was the most common removal spell I faced and secondarily because I rarely got above 4 lands throughout the tournament. Reacting was much harder with how land light most of my games were. But still Simic Charm was great every time I drew one of my 2 copies.
1. Crypt Ghast <--sooooo good with Extort
2. Smite
3. One Thousand Lashes
2-Nothing disappointed me in my pool, but I saw a lot of battalion stuff that fell short of what I thought it would.
3-Merciless Eviction.
Honorable Mention goes to Guardian of the Gateless. Eats board swings.
-True Blood
MVP: Wrecking Ogre- Every game I drew this card and got to five mana I won. This guy packs a massive punch when bloodrushed or when normally played. One game I played him, then bloodrsushed Rubblehulk on him for 18 damge (my opponent was at 17 with me at 1 after his alpha strike). Next game, I bloodrushed him onto my unblocked 7/7 Rubblebelt Raider.
Loser: Alpha Authority- I tried out Alpha Authority at first since I thought that hexproof would be relevant and I had the 6/5 can only be blocked by two or more creatures dude. Well, what I realized is that removal is bad in this format, most of it is burn, and if you do it right, you can just use cheap bloodrush to protect your dude. And with bloodrush, I only had two games where 6 mana creatures mattered so the 6/5 wasn't that good either.
Winner: Zhurr-Taa Swine- Great card. The fact that he is essentially a Lava Axe for three mana or a big beefy attacker/blocker for 5 is awesome. Having two of him in my pool was great, especially when I bloodrushed one copy onto another that was attacking then played Miming Slime to get a 10/10. Good times...
MVP: Merciless Eviction, This thing turned a losing game into a winning one everytime it hit the table.
Worst: Treasury Thrull, I either had him on the backfoot of my Merciless Eviction and helped me build my creatures back up, or it would just be a bother to get on the board at all.
Better: Hold the Gates, I pulled 4 gates in playable colors and thought I'd give this a shot and wow was I not let down. With most of my creatures being flyers this thing let be get in for lots of damage.
MVP: Honestly, probably Aetherize. No card generated nearly as much value for me throughout the night. I used it to blow my Simi opponent's evolve creatures, my Dimir opponent's Ciphered creatures, my Gruul opponent's buffed creatures, and my Boros opponent's battalion. The only opponent it wasn't great against was Orzhov.
Worse than I thought: Every rare I pulled. Especially Fathom Mage. By the time it comes out, it's not triggering evolve on much, and my games went so quickly I rarely was able to utilize its ability. Fathom Mage was, for all intents and purposes, a 4cmc 1/1 chump blocker for me.
Better than I thought: Where do I start? Wasteland Viper + Pit Fight is crazy good, especially in Simic where the viper can trigger evolve on your 1/1s. Simic Fluxmage was very, very nice. Mystic Genesis won me several games. And Elusive Krasis just gets silly. Hard to just choose one card for this category.
My custom sets:
Caeia Block (Released - Beta)
Generals of Dareth (In Design)
MVP: Arrows of Justice Lets you send in your battalion like you don't care. Stuff will die on your opponent's side while you stay perfectly safe.
Worse: Legion Loyalist My Boros pack rare. I only drew it once, and I never wanted to play it.
Better: Bomber Corps It should be illegal to kill so many creatures with that guy. I got rid of pretty much all small Simic evolvers before they could do anything, as well as a bunch of small creatures getting in the way of my battalion. This guy got rid of more creatures than any removal spell in my deck.
2. Fathom Mage. Even though it did give me plenty of card advantage, it was still a 1/1 for 4 that doesn't evolve anything. Should also mention Simic Manipulator because it's way too slow and doesn't scale as fast as your opponent's curve.
3. Totally Lost. I was already a fan, but this was brilliant in every shape and form.
Have all of them.
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MVP: Definitely Prime Speaker Zegana. Pulled it in my guild pack, got it out at least once every match I played turn 6 off a turn 5 adaptive snapjaw, almost always ended games the next turn.
Worse than I thought: Probably Fathom Mage. Granted, I only ended up playing it once, but I drew it once a match and never really wanted to play it. Love the promo art though.
Better than I thought: Gyre Sage, pretty much only because I had low expectations. It takes off really quickly and gets nuts fast. I really underestimated Simic in general, I didn't think I was going to do well without Experiment One, Cloudfin Raptor, or Elusive Krasis, but I ended up with a pretty good deck.
UUUAzami, Lady of ScrollsUUU
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Vorel of the Hull Clade
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
WUBSharuum the HegemonWUB
GWURafiq of the ManyGWU
Jhoira of the Ghitu
MVP: [/b]Sapphire Drake. Once I played it, way to win the game. Instant impact on board. Honorable mention to Mystic Genesis (that came in my guild pack and was one of the best draws in topdeck mode that I've ever had) and Act of Treason (allowed me to hit for exact 15, when the opponent had that much life, after stealing his Frontline Medic).[b]
Worse: [/b]Realmwright. I knew it was stupidity to play it, but, I had this bet on splashing for three or four red cards with Gruul Keyrune on deck, and I thought this was a good idea to fix mana on early game. If I used it effectively twice, it was much. But, then again, it was my fault to expect something from this.[b]
Better: [/b]Drakewing Krasis. Served as evolve enabler, has a nice body and for some reason I wanted to burn copies of it when I saw it spoiled. Honorable mention to the EXCELENT Simic Fluxmage, that I had luck to pull two ofs, and both had great value when on field.[/b]
(Give your LGS judge a hug. He deserves it.)
Worse: Foundry Champion - Without a bunch of small critters to benefit from, he just doesn't do much.
Better: Truefire Paladin - This. Guy. Does. Work. Wow, I thought he'd be a generic two-drop, but he is a one man army.
Worse than I thought: nothing in particular played worse than I expected
Better than I thought: Wildwood Rebirth, the card did anything that a gruul deck could want. It could bring back a creature that ate removal as a worst case scenario, but even better than that it basically acted like a Snapcaster Mage for bloodrush cards getting back all the best pumps when you needed them.
I got to put Adaptive Snapjaw and Way of the Theif together for maximum fun a few times.
And obviously Prime Speaker Zegana was an absolute house, but Mythics should be.
And I really underestimated Nimbus Swimmer. I didn't play it the first 2 rounds, and then the last two rounds it won me several games.
[[b]B]DCI Level 2 Judge[/B][/b]MVP: Sapphire Drake. This guy was awesome, granting flying to my army and evolving pretty much everything.
Better than expected: Ivy Lane Denizen was pretty good, I expected him to be worse, given that I didn't have to many green creatures. But he fed my Guildmage, Fathom Mage and Sapphire Drake.
Worse than expected: Zameck Guildmage. Don't get me wrong, this guy is great. He's just a lot slower than I imagined he'd be, given his low activation costs and I only drew one card during the whole tournament.
Currently playing:
EDH
GWU Bant Midrange UWG
2. I hate to say it, but Fathom Mage. I had two of her in my deck, and I never seemed to get her out when I needed her. When I did draw her, I opted to use more aggressive creatures like Drakewing Krasis. She'll be much better for casual play.
3. Hydroform. It saved me a couple of times from certain death, when really I just threw it in there because I couldn't think of anything else.
—Mowagh the Gwyllion, Fang Skulkin
Basilica Guards were also really good... For chumping. Waaay worse then I expected.
Court Street Denizen was a lot better then I thought It got a lot of damage through for me. Also, Illusionist's Bracers were monstrous when equipped to Vizkopa Guildmage.
This sig is by the amazing Rivenor