if you're in topdeck mode with 50 lands in play and nothing else, would you prefer drawing a Black Lotus or a Colossus of Sardia?
No card is better than some other card 100% of the time.
Wolfir is better than every bestow guy 99% of the time.
And you can say that with 100% confidence having never played a Bestow card? I gave you one example where Bestow is better just on theory, and yet you seem to think that as you play you'll never see any other situations where Bestow might be better?
@Rakath: Wouldn't you honestly rather use Spectral Flight on Daxos than a Bestow-creep on CMC 4+ if you had the chance? Even while assuming all the risk of it getting 2-for-1'ed (you're most likely on turn 4 here with 4 lands and 2 open mana after casting Spectral in UW - possibly UWx).
I even doubt that Daxos will be much of a fuzz but all things considered, speed(/cost) is the greatest weakness on Bestow.
Yes, generally, that'd be the better call as it gets Daxos online earlier. BUT, even with the extra turn wait to put on Nimbus Naiad, it isn't a bad choice. Especially since, two turns earlier on T3 if you didn't have Daxos, you can play Nimbus Naiad as a creature to have a creature. While Spectral Flight sits and waits for it's time.
It's the modal aspect that separates Charms from each component at 1 CMC lower. You're paying more because you have more toys.
Just came back from the pre-release and in that format at least I can safely say Bestow rocks! It's very very good. Along with heroic its just pure value. Phalanx leader is an all star!!
Neither mode is really aggressively pushed by itself, but the modes provide distinctly different options in a vacuum and something like that would almost certainly see play in decks like Aristocrats that feature an abundance of sac outlets.
I had this thought initially too but came to realize that this mechanic would never be printed for limited, purely because you pay 1W, chump their big threat, and gain a major threat yourself from it.
That's the reason why I had to brainstorm that Bestowed-bonus could only apply to Enchanted Creature or the card itself if it was cast as a creature - so the "drop-off" is vastly weaker and doesn't make sac-outlets or pure limited play horribly agonizing to play against.
Personally I would have loved the mechanic just as you describe it but in practice, it would ruin limited totally as every bestow-card quickly would turn into sick double-threats. Both as an aura on their bomb or turning into a bomb when you would kill their Bestowed-bomb and the "drop-off" turns out to be close to a Serra Angel using only 2 mana.
Another idea could be to simply make the choice between playing as creature or as enchantment (aka be a DFC-like with two optional play-able modes). However that doesn't address auras weakness and thus doesn't solve anything. This is also just as lazy a design as the current and I don't think many would prefer this type.
Then I came up with the idea to make the Bestow-portion which only affect Enchanted Creature or {this card} if {this card} is played as a creature, while the "drop-off" would then still give you value for a failed Bestow-target or the usual 2-for-1 but it wouldn't be staggering to play against but still worthwhile in risk for the user.
Aka "Would I play my 3/2 First Strike for 1WW or Bestow my 2-drop for 1W to give it +1/+1 and First Strike while risking that my opponent blasts him or sweeps next turn so I'll be stuck with a 2/1 (which I paid 1W for in the first place, which is also perfectly acceptable for the gambit)"
The important part IMO would be to limit the aura-portion to not be too crazy as that would make them limited horrible to play against and would result in what we see now with vastly overcosted effects.
Keeping the Bestowed-bonus relevant and within reasonable cost means it can be played as a gamble boost for your other threats while securing that a sweeper/kill-spell leaves you behind a creature and not that much a loss in tempo.
Alternative you can play it as a relevant creature (with the drawback/"bonus"? of being an Enchantment).
This mechanic would seem attractive to me because it gives the choice between playing a relevant creature or play an improvement on another relevant creature while securing presence after kill-spell/sweeper. Even if that presence is less than what I could have played the creature for in the first place but that wouldn't turn my other relevant creature into something more until the sweeper hit.
Another idea for Bestow was to make it have a cost to turn from Aura into Creature (whether it could be activated as an instant or simply triggered could be another discussion). Flavorwise it would make sense as it might seem "logical" to conjure some mana to turn an ideal/faith into a figure.
Mechanic-wise it would still present some issues with 2-for-1 scenarios but it gives breathing room to playing a 1W aura to give +1/+2 and turn into a Serra Angel - like Armchair's version - for 1WW or 2W.
It would conjure the idea of a sac-outlet to somehow "cheat" out good creatures earlier in the game by sacrificing your enchanted creature. Overall that seems like a working flavorwise mechanic as ritual sacrifice is not unknown to appease gods and gain favor.
Generally this idea is to take the current Bestow-mechanic and slice the cost in two, so it's actually affordable to play individually and can possibly be worked on by Johnny-players. It still presents risks, so it might not be much Spike-like but you can work around that by keeping mana to transform the Bestow-creep if its target is blown to bits.
Overall I agree with most that the Bestow-mechanic itself is really good but the resulted costs is way above the line, and TBH I'm not surprised. But like Armchair says, they could have been a lot more creative on Bestow, just figure that I conjured 3 examples of substitutes in this post and Armchair had his. Each may appeal to some or none at all but I think the majority of us could agree that those mechanic seems somewhat more interesting than what Bestow is, in my eyes; lazy designed and overcosted.
What really annoys me is that this is Wizards attempt at reviving auras and IMO it failed (at least for this set) and would most likely result in not getting an alternative of Bestow (aka those mechanics I brought up as substitutes will most likely never see the light of day) and now it might take a couple of years before Wizards will attempt to revive auras again.
I was not a fan of the non-interactive Hexproof-deck and thus was rather excited to spot the Celestial Archon and thought "It's the promo-version so it's not gonna be overly good. We'll get something else which will blow our minds for an aura with this new mechanic to salvage Auras." But that seems to not be the case for me.
Well the idea is that the creatures themselves are not purely physical. They are from the nethery type thing that is Nyx. So they become pure essence when attached and their abilities become the target's and so forth.
In limited I got some great use tonight at the prerelease with some. Now, as for the ones that might make the cut for standard I can only think of Boon Satyr for the moment. That's mainly because I have worked a lot with my son trying to plan his deck so I focused on R and G for him.
Time will tell but I think it will end up being 80% a limited thing and not many in standard using it.
For constructed, well, just because it doesn't have broken cards, it doesn't make it a bad mechanic.
I don't believe people have said that the mechanic is bad, just that the result is not construct-worthy and that have caused some disappointment for people who likes auras and hoped to get auras somewhat revived with this mechanic.
Even though I don't think the mechanic is bad I can see why this mechanic needs to be charged at such high cost and in that way I'd say the design is bad to allow construct-playables.
Mostly this is due to the somewhat lazy design of "pool a ****ton of mana into an aura you could normally get for a much lower cost, and if you're out of luck; here's a small compensation in comparison to the additional mana you paid".
Like I and a few others have already mentioned the design or execution of this mechanic could have been tweaked to allow construct-worthy cards while not being broken.
Almost all keywords tend to be limited only, I can only think of a few like cascade, storm etc. which are constructed mostly. And as usual there are just 1 or 2 cards with the keyword that are constructed worthy.
For bestow it's boon satyr, won't be some format defining card but it's solid in the green aggro decks.
For monstrosity it's stormbreath dragon and fleecemane lion. The latter is great and the first will see play because it's positioned quite well (flying rocks in upcoming constructed).
Heroic doesn't really have a constructed card at the moment, but fabled hero or anax and cymede will see play somewhere down the line I think.
Overall I think they are all great keywords. Bestow especially because it presents decisions, especially if the bestow cost isn't that much more expensive than the normal one. They could have made more fun and construced worthy cards with it though.
Heroic is quite fun too but unfortunately targeting your own creatures is pretty much terrible in constructed unless it's some gay hexproof/allin build.
Monstrosity is cool but pretty straightforward, a little boring but plays well for limited.
I'm not sure you can fairly say Theros by itself is behind the entirety of Kamigawa. Lets wait until the block is finished before we make ignorant statements.
Bestow might be overcosted, but if it wasn't it would make limited unplayable. I won myself a game with bestowed Celestial Archon to fly over a Colossus of Akros that would become monstrous (and lethal) next turn. And that was the only card in my that could've saved me in one of the games at the pre-release.
Nitpicking, but Modern is not an eternal format and thus can't be used to count "Eternal Playables" (not that that is a good measure of how good a set is).
Um correct me if I am wrong but I thought you could counter a bestow card? Surely the bestow cost is just an alternative cost for the spell with a different effect? Surely when your bestowing it, before it enters the battlefield, it is still an enchantment creature which means you can counter it using Swan Song, Annul, Essence Scatter or Psychic Barrier?
Let's have some fun and see how unintuitive and goofy Bestow can get!
Question #1
I attack you, you declare blocks and before damage, you cast Boon Satyr with Bestow targetting your blocker to save it. I have Essence Scatter in hand.....do you cry?
Question #2
I attack you for lethal, BEFORE BLOCKERS, you flash in Boon Satyr without bestow (to obviously save yourself and block) and I have Annul in hand....do you cry?
Question #3
You have Cavern of Souls naming Satyr. I attack you, you declare blocks and before damage, you flash in Boon Satyr with bestow, tapping Cavern of Souls to pay the cost for the Boon Satyr, targetting your blocker to save it. I have Counterspell in hand.....do you cry?
Question #4
I cast Replenish with Boon Satyr as the only enchantment in my graveyard. I control a Sphinx of Jwar Isle. As Boon Satyr EtB, can I attach it to the Sphinx?
Have fun, I predict many people will get these wrong sadly. The rules are so goofy and unintutive. Bonus points if you get the answers right without lookin up the rules (looking up card text is fine). If you have to look up the rules, no special prize for you, you are just doing what you should be doing when a set comes out.
#1-bestowing makes it a non creature spell E.Scatter can't target it
#2-Annul will counter regardless since its always an enchantment
#3-Can't use Cavern mana to bestow. Though honestly not 100% sure on this.
#4-No bestow is an alternate cost. Satyr comes in without the option since Replenish just returns it to the field not to your hand.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Personally, I think they could have been a bit more creative with bestow.
They all seem to be "Bestow: Pay extra mana, staple this creature to another creature"
They could have done a LOT more than that.
First of all, they could have included alternate costs for bestow instead of just mana. That's most common in black, but it isn't unknown in other colors.
What I'd REALLY like to see is bestow effects where "enchantment mode" is different from "creature mode"
For example, maybe something like:
Angel of Holy Strength: 3WW
Flying
4/4
Bestow, 1W: the enchanted creature gets +1/+2
Neither mode is really aggressively pushed by itself, but the modes provide distinctly different options in a vacuum and something like that would almost certainly see play in decks like Aristocrats that feature an abundance of sac outlets.
Maybe some bestow creatures that can act as enchantment based removal like pacifism, claustrophobia, or dead weight when enchanted to a creature would be nice. Control would probably love that. Lock their stuff down with soft removal bestowers and then later wipe the board with a wrath and swap your soft-removal over to creature mode.
The issue with that plan is some hideous self-sacrifice builds can turn that into budget playing the Bestow Creature as a Creature well before turn count.
T1: One Drop
T2: Angel of Holy Strength
T3: Sac your One Drop using something that costs 3, Angel of Holy Strength is now a 4/4 Flying creature without sickness and swings.
This idea is cool, but it'd be pretty aggro with the right cards. Which I think is the opposite of what Wizards wants right now.
close, very good. You missed 3, you can tap cavern to pay for bestow, I'll just counter it still.
You can tap Cavern to pay for it, but you can't use the coloured mana from Cavern to cast it, which is the part that matters. It can be countered, not because of any weird loopholes in the rulings, but simply because of the way Cavern works.
Of course you can construct cardpools in which a card is playable. You can do it for any card.
You clearly have little idea of how this game works if you can't comprehend the meaning of my statement. Bestow cards' time probably won't come until RtR block rotates out and we're left with a slower environment.
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You clearly have little idea of how this game works if you can't comprehend the meaning of my statement. Bestow cards' time probably won't come until RtR block rotates out and we're left with a slower environment.
Saying a card will be good when all the other cards are gone isn't something that needs to be said.
You clearly have little idea of how this game works if you can't comprehend the meaning of my statement. Bestow cards' time probably won't come until RtR block rotates out and we're left with a slower environment.
So you can tell me how fast a future standard is going to be based on one set out of the five that will be present upon rotation? I would love to have your powers of divination.
You clearly have little idea of how this game works if you can't comprehend the meaning of my statement. Bestow cards' time probably won't come until RtR block rotates out and we're left with a slower environment.
You don't know that RtR rotating will slow down the format. Huey could well end up being blazing fast, to say nothing of BotG or JiN. Also if it takes a whole year for a mechanic to be played, they're doing it wrong. I should be toying around with Theros mechanics when it first comes out, I'll be working with Huey by then.
I have to say,as of now Bestow seems like a bit of a miss for constructed. Hopefully the other sets will have some more interesting cards because the marquee mechanic should have some standout cards.
You can tap Cavern to pay for it, but you can't use the coloured mana from Cavern to cast it, which is the part that matters. It can be countered, not because of any weird loopholes in the rulings, but simply because of the way Cavern works.
Correct, hence why I never brought up the colored part of Cavern, eh?:p
having played with bestow, id like to say that its TERRIBLE.
The aura is always overpriced/slow, the creature is always mediocre and even if you do manage to make it work (with herioc or something) the "bonus" of getting the bestow thing as a creature is terrible since the creature will be even less of a board presence by that time....
Uh not quite. Pretty sure infect and metal craft were all about constructed. Lets not forget man-lands either. The idea behind mechanics is so that you can make a constructed deck around that mechanic/idea. If I loved ally, I could make a constructed deck around allies. It is not very easy to make a constructed deck with bestow. I want my mechanics to have synergy and they do not have that now. Bestow is over costed, should you spend 7 mana for a archon/aura or should you use that 7 mana to get 10 life off your opponent while gaining 10?
Pretty sure that was the point of the 10 guild mechanics of RTR, so that each guild had their own different constructed feel.
Wasn't Infect primary in only two colors, and incidental in the other three? And Metalcraft appeared in all five colors but if you're running metalcraft your deck is trying for primary Gray/Brown?
Trying to compare a color identity mechanic (Guild keywords from Rav/RTR, Shard strategies from Alara) to 5C keywords is a bit of a loaded play. There wasn't a Flashback deck in Inn block (as opposed to DFC, also known as Werewolves .dek).
I would have rather seen the bestow mechanic to be double sided with one side as a creature and the other side as an aura.
Spiritual Angel WWW
Creature - Angel
Bestow: When this creature is destroyed, you may flip it and enchant target creature you control
3/3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelic Spirit
Enchantment - Aura
Target creature you control gains +1/+1 and Flying.
I would have rather seen the bestow mechanic to be double sided with one side as a creature and the other side as an aura.
Spiritual Angel WWW
Creature - Angel
Bestow: When this creature is destroyed, you may flip it and enchant target creature you control
3/3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelic Spirit
Enchantment - Aura
Target creature you control gains +1/+1 and Flying.
1. DFC is a logistical nightmare so Wizards won't do it unless they have a really good reason.
2. That isn't a really good reason, it's successfully less reliable and functional than basic Auras. It can't be used to buff/assist Devotion. It gives you nothing out of a board wipe. It's too close to Flips and Haunt, which were both equally lackluster.
Maybe, maybe if it was a global Enchantment, or started as an Aura, it wouldn't be quite the problem. But even then it wouldn't fit the Top Down Bestow is following.
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And you can say that with 100% confidence having never played a Bestow card? I gave you one example where Bestow is better just on theory, and yet you seem to think that as you play you'll never see any other situations where Bestow might be better?
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Yes, generally, that'd be the better call as it gets Daxos online earlier. BUT, even with the extra turn wait to put on Nimbus Naiad, it isn't a bad choice. Especially since, two turns earlier on T3 if you didn't have Daxos, you can play Nimbus Naiad as a creature to have a creature. While Spectral Flight sits and waits for it's time.
It's the modal aspect that separates Charms from each component at 1 CMC lower. You're paying more because you have more toys.
That's the reason why I had to brainstorm that Bestowed-bonus could only apply to Enchanted Creature or the card itself if it was cast as a creature - so the "drop-off" is vastly weaker and doesn't make sac-outlets or pure limited play horribly agonizing to play against.
Personally I would have loved the mechanic just as you describe it but in practice, it would ruin limited totally as every bestow-card quickly would turn into sick double-threats. Both as an aura on their bomb or turning into a bomb when you would kill their Bestowed-bomb and the "drop-off" turns out to be close to a Serra Angel using only 2 mana.
Another idea could be to simply make the choice between playing as creature or as enchantment (aka be a DFC-like with two optional play-able modes). However that doesn't address auras weakness and thus doesn't solve anything. This is also just as lazy a design as the current and I don't think many would prefer this type.
Then I came up with the idea to make the Bestow-portion which only affect Enchanted Creature or {this card} if {this card} is played as a creature, while the "drop-off" would then still give you value for a failed Bestow-target or the usual 2-for-1 but it wouldn't be staggering to play against but still worthwhile in risk for the user.
Aka "Would I play my 3/2 First Strike for 1WW or Bestow my 2-drop for 1W to give it +1/+1 and First Strike while risking that my opponent blasts him or sweeps next turn so I'll be stuck with a 2/1 (which I paid 1W for in the first place, which is also perfectly acceptable for the gambit)"
The important part IMO would be to limit the aura-portion to not be too crazy as that would make them limited horrible to play against and would result in what we see now with vastly overcosted effects.
Keeping the Bestowed-bonus relevant and within reasonable cost means it can be played as a gamble boost for your other threats while securing that a sweeper/kill-spell leaves you behind a creature and not that much a loss in tempo.
Alternative you can play it as a relevant creature (with the drawback/"bonus"? of being an Enchantment).
This mechanic would seem attractive to me because it gives the choice between playing a relevant creature or play an improvement on another relevant creature while securing presence after kill-spell/sweeper. Even if that presence is less than what I could have played the creature for in the first place but that wouldn't turn my other relevant creature into something more until the sweeper hit.
Another idea for Bestow was to make it have a cost to turn from Aura into Creature (whether it could be activated as an instant or simply triggered could be another discussion). Flavorwise it would make sense as it might seem "logical" to conjure some mana to turn an ideal/faith into a figure.
Mechanic-wise it would still present some issues with 2-for-1 scenarios but it gives breathing room to playing a 1W aura to give +1/+2 and turn into a Serra Angel - like Armchair's version - for 1WW or 2W.
It would conjure the idea of a sac-outlet to somehow "cheat" out good creatures earlier in the game by sacrificing your enchanted creature. Overall that seems like a working flavorwise mechanic as ritual sacrifice is not unknown to appease gods and gain favor.
Generally this idea is to take the current Bestow-mechanic and slice the cost in two, so it's actually affordable to play individually and can possibly be worked on by Johnny-players. It still presents risks, so it might not be much Spike-like but you can work around that by keeping mana to transform the Bestow-creep if its target is blown to bits.
Overall I agree with most that the Bestow-mechanic itself is really good but the resulted costs is way above the line, and TBH I'm not surprised. But like Armchair says, they could have been a lot more creative on Bestow, just figure that I conjured 3 examples of substitutes in this post and Armchair had his. Each may appeal to some or none at all but I think the majority of us could agree that those mechanic seems somewhat more interesting than what Bestow is, in my eyes; lazy designed and overcosted.
What really annoys me is that this is Wizards attempt at reviving auras and IMO it failed (at least for this set) and would most likely result in not getting an alternative of Bestow (aka those mechanics I brought up as substitutes will most likely never see the light of day) and now it might take a couple of years before Wizards will attempt to revive auras again.
I was not a fan of the non-interactive Hexproof-deck and thus was rather excited to spot the Celestial Archon and thought "It's the promo-version so it's not gonna be overly good. We'll get something else which will blow our minds for an aura with this new mechanic to salvage Auras." But that seems to not be the case for me.
In limited I got some great use tonight at the prerelease with some. Now, as for the ones that might make the cut for standard I can only think of Boon Satyr for the moment. That's mainly because I have worked a lot with my son trying to plan his deck so I focused on R and G for him.
Time will tell but I think it will end up being 80% a limited thing and not many in standard using it.
Standard
WBGWBGABZAN AGGROWBGWBG
Even though I don't think the mechanic is bad I can see why this mechanic needs to be charged at such high cost and in that way I'd say the design is bad to allow construct-playables.
Mostly this is due to the somewhat lazy design of "pool a ****ton of mana into an aura you could normally get for a much lower cost, and if you're out of luck; here's a small compensation in comparison to the additional mana you paid".
Like I and a few others have already mentioned the design or execution of this mechanic could have been tweaked to allow construct-worthy cards while not being broken.
For bestow it's boon satyr, won't be some format defining card but it's solid in the green aggro decks.
For monstrosity it's stormbreath dragon and fleecemane lion. The latter is great and the first will see play because it's positioned quite well (flying rocks in upcoming constructed).
Heroic doesn't really have a constructed card at the moment, but fabled hero or anax and cymede will see play somewhere down the line I think.
Overall I think they are all great keywords. Bestow especially because it presents decisions, especially if the bestow cost isn't that much more expensive than the normal one. They could have made more fun and construced worthy cards with it though.
Heroic is quite fun too but unfortunately targeting your own creatures is pretty much terrible in constructed unless it's some gay hexproof/allin build.
Monstrosity is cool but pretty straightforward, a little boring but plays well for limited.
Kamigawa wasn't actually that bad for Modern. Even if we just look at the first set (which is fair, because we've only seen one set of Theros) we got Through the Breach, Peer Through Depths, Desperate Ritual, Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker, Lava Spike, Gifts Ungiven, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, and Eiganjo Castle, which is a lot more than Modern is getting from Theros.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Nitpicking, but Modern is not an eternal format and thus can't be used to count "Eternal Playables" (not that that is a good measure of how good a set is).
Let's have some fun and see how unintuitive and goofy Bestow can get!
Question #1
I attack you, you declare blocks and before damage, you cast Boon Satyr with Bestow targetting your blocker to save it. I have Essence Scatter in hand.....do you cry?
Question #2
I attack you for lethal, BEFORE BLOCKERS, you flash in Boon Satyr without bestow (to obviously save yourself and block) and I have Annul in hand....do you cry?
Question #3
You have Cavern of Souls naming Satyr. I attack you, you declare blocks and before damage, you flash in Boon Satyr with bestow, tapping Cavern of Souls to pay the cost for the Boon Satyr, targetting your blocker to save it. I have Counterspell in hand.....do you cry?
Question #4
I cast Replenish with Boon Satyr as the only enchantment in my graveyard. I control a Sphinx of Jwar Isle. As Boon Satyr EtB, can I attach it to the Sphinx?
Have fun, I predict many people will get these wrong sadly. The rules are so goofy and unintutive. Bonus points if you get the answers right without lookin up the rules (looking up card text is fine). If you have to look up the rules, no special prize for you, you are just doing what you should be doing when a set comes out.
#1-bestowing makes it a non creature spell E.Scatter can't target it
#2-Annul will counter regardless since its always an enchantment
#3-Can't use Cavern mana to bestow. Though honestly not 100% sure on this.
#4-No bestow is an alternate cost. Satyr comes in without the option since Replenish just returns it to the field not to your hand.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
The issue with that plan is some hideous self-sacrifice builds can turn that into budget playing the Bestow Creature as a Creature well before turn count.
T1: One Drop
T2: Angel of Holy Strength
T3: Sac your One Drop using something that costs 3, Angel of Holy Strength is now a 4/4 Flying creature without sickness and swings.
This idea is cool, but it'd be pretty aggro with the right cards. Which I think is the opposite of what Wizards wants right now.
You can tap Cavern to pay for it, but you can't use the coloured mana from Cavern to cast it, which is the part that matters. It can be countered, not because of any weird loopholes in the rulings, but simply because of the way Cavern works.
You clearly have little idea of how this game works if you can't comprehend the meaning of my statement. Bestow cards' time probably won't come until RtR block rotates out and we're left with a slower environment.
"Stoned players can't attack, block, or play spells or abilities."
Saying a card will be good when all the other cards are gone isn't something that needs to be said.
So you can tell me how fast a future standard is going to be based on one set out of the five that will be present upon rotation? I would love to have your powers of divination.
You don't know that RtR rotating will slow down the format. Huey could well end up being blazing fast, to say nothing of BotG or JiN. Also if it takes a whole year for a mechanic to be played, they're doing it wrong. I should be toying around with Theros mechanics when it first comes out, I'll be working with Huey by then.
I have to say,as of now Bestow seems like a bit of a miss for constructed. Hopefully the other sets will have some more interesting cards because the marquee mechanic should have some standout cards.
NEVER
We just happen to have, sometimes, certain cards with said mechanics be good enough
Boon Satyr is that card
Correct, hence why I never brought up the colored part of Cavern, eh?:p
The aura is always overpriced/slow, the creature is always mediocre and even if you do manage to make it work (with herioc or something) the "bonus" of getting the bestow thing as a creature is terrible since the creature will be even less of a board presence by that time....
Wasn't Infect primary in only two colors, and incidental in the other three? And Metalcraft appeared in all five colors but if you're running metalcraft your deck is trying for primary Gray/Brown?
Trying to compare a color identity mechanic (Guild keywords from Rav/RTR, Shard strategies from Alara) to 5C keywords is a bit of a loaded play. There wasn't a Flashback deck in Inn block (as opposed to DFC, also known as Werewolves .dek).
Spiritual Angel WWW
Creature - Angel
Bestow: When this creature is destroyed, you may flip it and enchant target creature you control
3/3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelic Spirit
Enchantment - Aura
Target creature you control gains +1/+1 and Flying.
1. DFC is a logistical nightmare so Wizards won't do it unless they have a really good reason.
2. That isn't a really good reason, it's successfully less reliable and functional than basic Auras. It can't be used to buff/assist Devotion. It gives you nothing out of a board wipe. It's too close to Flips and Haunt, which were both equally lackluster.
Maybe, maybe if it was a global Enchantment, or started as an Aura, it wouldn't be quite the problem. But even then it wouldn't fit the Top Down Bestow is following.