First off, I want to say that I do love the cycle for limited and who knows possibly constructed. Decent p/t and good abilities all around. The one thing that I cannot get over is the fact that while the cycle is great, it's not completely even. Theres an elephant in the room (looks at you Paragon of Open Graves).
Why oh why is his three mana to activate when all of the others are only one mana? Is deathtouch that much better than the others? Really? I was trying to think of other abilities that could have been used for blacks paragon and I was thinking possibly intimidate? But even still, is it because you can activate them at instant speed? Just make it so you can only activate as a sorcery and problem solved, since none of the others really are affected by not being activatable at instant speed. I just don't like uneven cycles, maybe it's a little OCD, but c'mon son!
Perhaps deathtouch is a bit more "valuable" in the list of combat tricks than flying, trample, vigilance, and haste. It's the only one that can guarantee destroying any "regular" blocker.
Something that bothers me a bit, though, is how there's reminder text for each of the other four abilities aside from flying.
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How to use card tags (please use them for everybody's sanity)
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format Minimum deck size: 60 Maximum number of identical cards: 4 Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
For symmetry reasons an activity cost of B would look better, I agree. It would possibly make it too good in limited, though. Green really gets the short end of the stick in this cycle (horrible body, bad ability)...
The other thing that bothers me about Paragon of Open Graves is how he is a warrior.
All the other colors have one of their more iconic creature classes. Blue is a wizard, green is a druid, red is a warrior, white is a soldier.
The other thing that bothers me about Paragon of Open Graves is how he is a warrior.
All the other colors have one of their more iconic creature classes. Blue is a wizard, green is a druid, red is a warrior, white is a soldier.
And he's a Skeleton - an iconic type for Black as well.
Ha didn't even notice. I feel 'cleric' may have been a better choice for type. May have made it a tiny bit better with all the cleric stuff in black. Plus two warriors in the same cycle just doesn't seem right to me.
Again, I feel like if they made it so one could only activate as sorcery it would have been fine (for all of them). Or changing it from deathtouch to lifelink or intimidate perhaps.
Cycles normally aren't even for a balancing reason, The slith cycle had the blue and white one cost 3 mana while black red green (and colorless) were all 2.
A more recent and probably better example would be the emassary cycle of uncommon creatures with bestow from theros. They are all 3/3s for 4 but the two that make their abilty harder to block (red and white) cost 7 to bestow instead of 6. Deathtouch is just way better than trample on an instantly applyable ability, gang blocking becomes horrible and you can't just eat crappy creatures
I understand the reasoning behind it (deathtouch is by far the better activated ability in combat thanks to how it screws up the ability to block and makes any chump blocker able to kill nearly anything) but the lack of symmetry of Paragon of Open Graves (2B cost ability and Skeleton tribe) in an otherwise perfectly symmetrical cycle (all 3+N, all 2/2, all give +1/+1 to other creatures of the same colour, all have single same colour creature targetting N,T ability, all are Human tribe) irks me for some reason.
Cycles in no way have to be symmetrical (in fact a lot of cycles are only held together by a lose concept and differ hugely in terms of cost, typing etc.) BUT to go to the effort with 4/5 just makes the single exception look and feel strange.
I think trample or Haste or flying or Vigilance and +1/+1 are better
Also look that all others' ability cost 1 mana while open graves cost 3...
deathtouch for 3 has no surprize value...( if you see 3 manas opens you will not attack into a chump blocker...)
Open graves ability is much more defensive than offensive ( you attack and op chump block it...). The blue one may make a much more surprise blocker ( oponent attacking and forgeting that you have hin and one island up...). all the others have pure agressive abilities.
They're limited fodder. In limited, deathtouch is a considerably strong evergreen mechanic when you can repeatably put it on any creature. This is to just balance it so it is not overpowered and not just outright better than the others
Haste, Vigilance, and Trample are only good during your turn. Flying allows a ground creature to block a flying during the opponent's turn. Deathtouch can be used any turn and makes your creature into a Murderer.
Typically, R&D likes to have cycles come out one of two ways: All five the same, or a 2/3 split. Look, for example, at the keywords on the Titans and Souls. Therefore, when one of them out of whack, creating a 4/1 cycle, it's typically development to blame. My guess is that they playtested the black paragon at B,T, and found it was too powerful in limited. At that point, they could either switch keywords on it, which is difficult given the dearth of other creature keywords in black, or add some mana to the activation.
First off, I want to say that I do love the cycle for limited and who knows possibly constructed. Decent p/t and good abilities all around. The one thing that I cannot get over is the fact that while the cycle is great, it's not completely even. Theres an elephant in the room (looks at you Paragon of Open Graves).
Why oh why is his three mana to activate when all of the others are only one mana? Is deathtouch that much better than the others? Really? I was trying to think of other abilities that could have been used for blacks paragon and I was thinking possibly intimidate? But even still, is it because you can activate them at instant speed? Just make it so you can only activate as a sorcery and problem solved, since none of the others really are affected by not being activatable at instant speed. I just don't like uneven cycles, maybe it's a little OCD, but c'mon son!
Thoughts? Is it just me?
Something that bothers me a bit, though, is how there's reminder text for each of the other four abilities aside from flying.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format
Minimum deck size: 60
Maximum number of identical cards: 4
Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
All the other colors have one of their more iconic creature classes. Blue is a wizard, green is a druid, red is a warrior, white is a soldier.
Again, I feel like if they made it so one could only activate as sorcery it would have been fine (for all of them). Or changing it from deathtouch to lifelink or intimidate perhaps.
A more recent and probably better example would be the emassary cycle of uncommon creatures with bestow from theros. They are all 3/3s for 4 but the two that make their abilty harder to block (red and white) cost 7 to bestow instead of 6. Deathtouch is just way better than trample on an instantly applyable ability, gang blocking becomes horrible and you can't just eat crappy creatures
Cycles in no way have to be symmetrical (in fact a lot of cycles are only held together by a lose concept and differ hugely in terms of cost, typing etc.) BUT to go to the effort with 4/5 just makes the single exception look and feel strange.
Machius proudly supports R_E's right to Rumour!
Also look that all others' ability cost 1 mana while open graves cost 3...
deathtouch for 3 has no surprize value...( if you see 3 manas opens you will not attack into a chump blocker...)
Open graves ability is much more defensive than offensive ( you attack and op chump block it...). The blue one may make a much more surprise blocker ( oponent attacking and forgeting that you have hin and one island up...). all the others have pure agressive abilities.
just it.
Some extra damage to the face isn't really changing the outcome of combat. Trample is not and has never been a combat trick.
Generals meant to be drafted first in a single pack of 6 cards.
And here is the actual cube, meant to be drafted in 4 regular sized packs. (60 card decks)