If this, the Wedge set, quite possibly the only Wedge set we'll get for some time, didn't have a mechanic that worked in the WBG deck only, people would be furious. Hell, people were mad when they looked at Naya and didn't see the "mechanic" at all.
...
It would be like if Esper got all those Artifact Matters cards, but the artifacts were all colors, as opposed to fitting within the Shard. And I'm noting Esper because it serves as another point. If the WGB wedge became Fortifications, and they had to make it unique and therefore made colored artifacts, it might start treading on Esper's toes in the eyes of the public.
Yeah. I think M16 has some potential.
I was thinking they could print an artifact heavy set, with a mix of generic artifacts and esper friendly ones. This is why I mentioned the core set in the earlier post, they may be printing more generic stuff in block and we might see better support for different concepts because of that.
Innistrad is also an example, black didn't have miracles.
As a person who likes playing this game and as a result wants it to be more interesting while being worth my time and money my thoughts on the set:
- THe morph mechanic coupled with activation costs of at least 3 different colors has gone awry and feels out of place in this set. Mostly overcosted activations and nearly 80% of the morph cards not feeling like they do something worth their costs makes it look bad.
- Delve costs need to be one less. We understand that delve is an abusable constructed mechanic. But by upping the delve costs until only one or two delve spells can be cast in a game, delve cards are outclassed by their normal counterparts. Afterall we don't get bonus points for using delve cards or exiling cards out of our graveyard save a rare raksha.
- Outlast only as a sorcery and tap to outlast seems too slow.
- Some cards don't feel multicolor at all. e.g. ABzan guide.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics, and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.
Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
My main problem with Khans actually isn't the power level or the flavor. As with Theros, It's the mechanics, they're just plain boring and seem like a lazy move in design. Ravnica gave us interesting abilies like battalion, blood rush and populate that almost intuitively fit into their guild's respective colours. Even though very few cards with these made it into Modern, playing with these cards still made for some pretty fun gameplay in standard.(scavenge too would've been great only if it weren't so over costed) Theros lacked that kind of feel. Khans mechanics fall short too.
Ferocious- seems too narrow, forces you into a very narrow line of game play where you have to hold up mana and and spells to protect your 4/x so you can ensure that ferocious triggers.
Prowess- might actually have real standard potential in some kind of tempo build.
Outlast- the worst one out of the five
Delve- a good ability in theory, but most of these are too over costed to be useful.
Raid - might be good, all depends how it works in its respective deck.
Actually, on second thought the mechanics don't seem all that bad. Not Theros bad, but nowhere near Ravnica good.
I keep seeing people complain that all the Delve cards are overcosted, but I haven't seen a single person give a point of reference or other justification for the statement.
Seriously, what's the basis for comparison? Have you played with the cards yet? Have you performed some sort of theoretical analysis of the expected number of cards in the graveyard for various styles of decks, given the newly-spoiled tools for graveyard interaction?
Or are you just complaining because you like it when people write down small numbers more than when they write down big numbers?
My main problem with Khans actually isn't the power level or the flavor. As with Theros, It's the mechanics, they're just plain boring and seem like a lazy move in design. Ravnica gave us interesting abilies like battalion, blood rush and populate that almost intuitively fit into their guild's respective colours. Even though very few cards with these made it into Modern, playing with these cards still made for some pretty fun gameplay in standard.(scavenge too would've been great only if it weren't so over costed) Theros lacked that kind of feel. Khans mechanics fall short too.
Ferocious- seems too narrow, forces you into a very narrow line of game play where you have to hold up mana and and spells to protect your 4/x so you can ensure that ferocious triggers.
Prowess- might actually have real standard potential in some kind of tempo build.
Outlast- the worst one out of the five
Delve- a good ability in theory, but most of these are too over costed to be useful.
Raid - might be good, all depends how it works in its respective deck.
Actually, on second thought the mechanics don't seem all that bad. Not Theros bad, but nowhere near Ravnica good.
Ferocious is going to be pretty narrow, but I can see some of the cards being very good in Monsters/Sarkhan decks. The payoff is there if you can keep your fierce on. I agree that Outlast looks to be limited-only, probably because they thought Abzan was good enough already. Tapping and paying mana at sorcery speed for one lousy +1/+1 counter is just sad. And they were just plain scared of Delve.
Overall the set looks on par with Gatecrash for power level, which is pretty good but not great. Also, fetches are pretty lackluster if you have to fetch basics, but I'm happy they reprinted them.
I don't see how its much different from the 'factions' in Innistrad, where they just renamed things from real life...Like, Ghosts became Geists, Werewolves....were Werewolves. Skaabern was just an exact copy of frankenstein.
If all Innistrad had given us was cards like "Evil Vampire" and "Big Bad Werewolf" and "Scary Geists", if all it had done is stuck with that tribal elemental with the groundwork of what bases they wanted to touch, then it would have been a pathetic set flavorwise. Thats the world building groundwork you lay where you get all the structures in place before you develop the finer aspects. KTK pretty much stops there. You have the tribes and their defining characteristics, but where is the fine work built out of it? Innistrad had unremarkable flavorless filler cards like abbey griffin, darkthicket wolf, falkenrath noble, etc that just painted by the numbers of their world building. But it also had cards that took the set's subject material and built it into some flavor homeruns, for example loyal cathar, delver of secrets or rooftop storm- cards that were telling stories.
Theros block had its rescue from the underworld and king macar, the gold-cursed, hundred-handed one and some other goodies. I'm not seeing that in KTK. I'm seeing filler, and I'm seeing more filler. Uninspired vanilla output of world building, without being wrought into anything special
The reason that the world building feels a bit incomplete is because we already know it's not going to move forward. There's not that much commitment because this is a present-past. We're about to go back in time to the past, change it up, and end up in the present-present.
They built a world to destroy it. We see what it could have become, but what lingers around the edges are cards like Alabaster Kirin and Venerable Lammasu.
This is the "Sarkhan goes time traveling" block. Not the wedge block. Wedges are just a fun little thing they could do to add personality to the world before they wash it away.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A voice for Timmy.
Commander R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
How about the 2 Delve draw spells (especially the instant one that lets you select the best 2 cards from your top 7)? Or the Delve kill spell, Delve 4/4 trampler, Anafenza, and a few other Modern/Legacy playables.
Treasure Cruise looks great to me. The instant that digs through seven cards I am not so high on. The decks that would go for that seem like they would want to use their graveyard too. The kill spells are OK, but unexciting. We've been able to situationally kill big creatures for low amounts of mana for a while now. The 4/4 trampler seems fine, but unexciting. I'm not demanding a Delver or Tarmo, but a Tombstalker would have been exciting. Anafenza looks worse than Smiter to me. Same size, worse cost, relevant ability, not immune to Remand/Mana Leak/Liliana. Plus it's a legend. Hard to believe we got Brimaz not too long ago.
How about the 2 Delve draw spells (especially the instant one that lets you select the best 2 cards from your top 7)? Or the Delve kill spell, Delve 4/4 trampler, Anafenza, and a few other Modern/Legacy playables.
Treasure Cruise looks great to me. The instant that digs through seven cards I am not so high on. The decks that would go for that seem like they would want to use their graveyard too.
While that is true, even exiling just 4 cards with it in Modern gets you a Fact or Fiction (that digs deeper for 2 cards but doesn't put the cards into your graveyard).
The kill spells are OK, but unexciting. We've been able to situationally kill big creatures for low amounts of mana for a while now.
In Modern, we've been stuck with Dismember and Disfigure as black 1 mana removal spells. U like them, Murderous Cut can hit large creatures without life-loss. It has some potential.
The 4/4 trampler seems fine, but unexciting. I'm not demanding a Delver or Tarmo, but a Tombstalker would have been exciting.
Agreed. I wish that the tombstalker-like creature in Khans wasn't so anti-synergistic with itself.
Anafenza looks worse than Smiter to me. Same size, worse cost, relevant ability, not immune to Remand/Mana Leak/Liliana. Plus it's a legend. Hard to believe we got Brimaz not too long ago.
While in most cases I'd agree with you, Melira Pod is always looking for ahead of the curve creatures that are hatebears and give +1/+1 counters for Kitchen Finks. Besides, Brimaz was very pushed.
The blue delve card will be great for all of the 'combo" decks in standard.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Wolfman about lack of Conspiracy spoilers-
"I'd say this about guarantees that it won't be up till this Friday, but considering the current track record, the ETA is now probably two weeks after the set has been out."
Quote from Sirius_B
Speak for yourself, if drawing *****-headed wurms makes social justice warriors cry I'll make it my favorite hobby.
Am I the only one disappointed we didn't get a complete cycle of battlemages or ultimatums? Many of the cycles of Shards remain incomplete.
Not feeling the wedge love right now.
Am I the only one disappointed we didn't get a complete cycle of battlemages or ultimatums? Many of the cycles of Shards remain incomplete.
Not feeling the wedge love right now.
Probably, yes.
If we got wedge battlemages and ultimatums, I guarantee you that there would be people be whining about lazy design, blatantly copying Alara, etc.
Really, I do not understand why we should necessarily have wedge battlemages and ultimatums here. That was specifics of Alara block.
And we got plenty of other nice wedge cards.
Ultimatus were tied to Alara but the Battlemages were before. They were from the Planeshift and were a great way of having a mono-colour interacting with other colours. I mean just look at Stormscape Battlemage.
For me, it is a good way to distinguish the feel between shards and wedges. One are getting something, the other not.
That is the same logic that gave allied color pairs good manafixing and didn't give any to enemy color pairs.
My big issue with Theros was that limited sucked as soon as BNG hit the market, and the standard environment that's been around since Innistrad rotated out has gone virtually unchanged. I'm looking forward to fresh limited and standard environments.
Also, the complainers always seem to fail to bear in mind that the quality of a card in a format is relative to the rest of the cards in the block. If you're unhappy that there aren't many, if any, cards that will find a place in an eternal format (with the exception of fetchlands, which already existed), then fine. I'm not going to argue with that. But Wizards didn't design this set for modern/legacy/etc. It was made for limited/standard, and most of the cards getting a lot of flack look like they could be very powerful in the upcoming, as-yet-unkown-by-anyone standard/limited metagame.
Powerlevelwise, its perfectly true, cards don't exist in a vacuum, they are relative to their standard/limited. But designwise, flavorwise, this sets a stinkeroo.
Having looked through the spoiler I don't think the set is that bad, actually there are quite a few interesting cards, imo. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Theros.
I'm getting the impression that WoTC only put fetches in this set just so that it would sell. Otherwise I don't this set would sell very will. Having said that, now that Modern players are satisfied with their new fetches, and near perfect manabase, it remains to be seen what will be done to keep the demand up for the following set.
I like the idea of where it's going. Lower the power creep to establish an environment where higher mana costing cards have a better chance of being played.
I also love seeing all the bad players complain about the power level and back it up with "well at least there's legacy"
"Psssh, this set ain't good enough for me, I play Legacy!" is pathetic and indicative of an utter lack of understanding of the game so chances are you don't even play Legacy, or if they do, they likely suck because they can't even see the good stuff in this set
Populate and Conspire decks? Do you even play Modern? In case you didn't know, it is a comptetitive format. Cute stuff like 5 drops used in populate decks does not matter for Modern.
However, I am confident that the fetchlands, Sarkhan, most of the charms, and Dig Through Time will see Modern play.
If Modern is that tight of format, I can see why now Magic doesn't bother to support it. A format that is just going to crush the fun of deck building under the boot. If "competitive" players are just going to stick with what works, then there is no point in supporting that format.
This set looks amazing in limited to play around with. You can just do outlast deck and have all the abilities, a UG tempo deck that has a reason to splash red for removal (I wanna turn 1 Embodiment of Spring), and morph. Morph is a really thing to do in draft, and whoever played with morph knows the mind games that you can do. Like never stop morphing, then grab the ghostfire blade and have 4/4 forever.
If you were to remove the fetches from this set, it is financially worse than Dragon's Maze.
Apart from the fetches, there is no way I would bust open packs for what is other than a few cards, bulk rares and bulk mythics.
This set does not have a Voice or a Blood Baron or any card at that power level which Dragon's Maze did.
WOTC isn't stupid. They knew this set would sit in their warehouse if they didn't print money cards like the fetches to sell it.
If Modern is that tight of format, I can see why now Magic doesn't bother to support it. A format that is just going to crush the fun of deck building under the boot. If "competitive" players are just going to stick with what works, then there is no point in supporting that format.
Modern is a constructed format with known decks that anyone who doesn't want to get crushed by has to keep in mind. You can bring your "populate deck" to an event, but you're most likely going to get crushed. There is no such thing as a "populate deck" or a "convoke deck". Those are mechanics. Having those mechanics in cards that are legal for modern doesn't mean there is a "(mechanic) deck". So, when evaluating a card, we look for things that fit in decks that are already established, or a final missing piece to a rogue deck that may make it competitive, or simply a new card that is powerful enough and has enough synergy with other cards so that you can build a new deck out of it. Wingmate Roc is none of those things. Before you can try and populate a token with another card that will probably not stick on the battlefield anyway, you're getting attacked for 2 trillion damage by 1 trillion flying tokens with haste. If a card isn't good enough for a format like modern, then it's just not good enough. You can try to make it fit into something or build around it, but if it's too slow and/or weak, it just won't work. And you can't get mad at the format for that. It's enough that standard has been slowed down to boring midrange decks, no need to change modern as well.
You play to win the game. The card is fine for casual decks and maybe EDH. Modern is a competitive format, and a 5-drop 3/4 flyer that conditionally brings out another 3/4 flyer just isn't enough.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
deckbox
have: sarkhan / liliana of the veil / phyrexian obliterator / avacyn, angel of hope / goblin guide / damnation / more
want: lorwyn thoughtseize / foil faeries / foil cryptic command / foil mutavault / foil restoration angel (non-promo) / more
If you were to remove the fetches from this set, it is financially worse than Dragon's Maze.
Apart from the fetches, there is no way I would bust open packs for what is other than a few cards, bulk rares and bulk mythics.
This set does not have a Voice or a Blood Baron or any card at that power level which Dragon's Maze did.
WOTC isn't stupid. They knew this set would sit in their warehouse if they didn't print money cards like the fetches to sell it.
The fetchlands were the first five cards put in the set, apparently. That seems to contradict that theory.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Yeah. I think M16 has some potential.
I was thinking they could print an artifact heavy set, with a mix of generic artifacts and esper friendly ones. This is why I mentioned the core set in the earlier post, they may be printing more generic stuff in block and we might see better support for different concepts because of that.
Innistrad is also an example, black didn't have miracles.
- THe morph mechanic coupled with activation costs of at least 3 different colors has gone awry and feels out of place in this set. Mostly overcosted activations and nearly 80% of the morph cards not feeling like they do something worth their costs makes it look bad.
- Delve costs need to be one less. We understand that delve is an abusable constructed mechanic. But by upping the delve costs until only one or two delve spells can be cast in a game, delve cards are outclassed by their normal counterparts. Afterall we don't get bonus points for using delve cards or exiling cards out of our graveyard save a rare raksha.
- Outlast only as a sorcery and tap to outlast seems too slow.
- Some cards don't feel multicolor at all. e.g. ABzan guide.
Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics,
and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
Ferocious- seems too narrow, forces you into a very narrow line of game play where you have to hold up mana and and spells to protect your 4/x so you can ensure that ferocious triggers.
Prowess- might actually have real standard potential in some kind of tempo build.
Outlast- the worst one out of the five
Delve- a good ability in theory, but most of these are too over costed to be useful.
Raid - might be good, all depends how it works in its respective deck.
Actually, on second thought the mechanics don't seem all that bad. Not Theros bad, but nowhere near Ravnica good.
Seriously, what's the basis for comparison? Have you played with the cards yet? Have you performed some sort of theoretical analysis of the expected number of cards in the graveyard for various styles of decks, given the newly-spoiled tools for graveyard interaction?
Or are you just complaining because you like it when people write down small numbers more than when they write down big numbers?
Ferocious is going to be pretty narrow, but I can see some of the cards being very good in Monsters/Sarkhan decks. The payoff is there if you can keep your fierce on. I agree that Outlast looks to be limited-only, probably because they thought Abzan was good enough already. Tapping and paying mana at sorcery speed for one lousy +1/+1 counter is just sad. And they were just plain scared of Delve.
Overall the set looks on par with Gatecrash for power level, which is pretty good but not great. Also, fetches are pretty lackluster if you have to fetch basics, but I'm happy they reprinted them.
The reason that the world building feels a bit incomplete is because we already know it's not going to move forward. There's not that much commitment because this is a present-past. We're about to go back in time to the past, change it up, and end up in the present-present.
They built a world to destroy it. We see what it could have become, but what lingers around the edges are cards like Alabaster Kirin and Venerable Lammasu.
This is the "Sarkhan goes time traveling" block. Not the wedge block. Wedges are just a fun little thing they could do to add personality to the world before they wash it away.
Commander
R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control
GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock
WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
Treasure Cruise looks great to me. The instant that digs through seven cards I am not so high on. The decks that would go for that seem like they would want to use their graveyard too. The kill spells are OK, but unexciting. We've been able to situationally kill big creatures for low amounts of mana for a while now. The 4/4 trampler seems fine, but unexciting. I'm not demanding a Delver or Tarmo, but a Tombstalker would have been exciting. Anafenza looks worse than Smiter to me. Same size, worse cost, relevant ability, not immune to Remand/Mana Leak/Liliana. Plus it's a legend. Hard to believe we got Brimaz not too long ago.
While that is true, even exiling just 4 cards with it in Modern gets you a Fact or Fiction (that digs deeper for 2 cards but doesn't put the cards into your graveyard).
In Modern, we've been stuck with Dismember and Disfigure as black 1 mana removal spells. U like them, Murderous Cut can hit large creatures without life-loss. It has some potential.
Agreed. I wish that the tombstalker-like creature in Khans wasn't so anti-synergistic with itself.
While in most cases I'd agree with you, Melira Pod is always looking for ahead of the curve creatures that are hatebears and give +1/+1 counters for Kitchen Finks. Besides, Brimaz was very pushed.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
"I'd say this about guarantees that it won't be up till this Friday, but considering the current track record, the ETA is now probably two weeks after the set has been out."
Quote from Sirius_B
Speak for yourself, if drawing *****-headed wurms makes social justice warriors cry I'll make it my favorite hobby.
Agreed. The Jeskai ultimatum would've been great.
That is the same logic that gave allied color pairs good manafixing and didn't give any to enemy color pairs.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Also, the complainers always seem to fail to bear in mind that the quality of a card in a format is relative to the rest of the cards in the block. If you're unhappy that there aren't many, if any, cards that will find a place in an eternal format (with the exception of fetchlands, which already existed), then fine. I'm not going to argue with that. But Wizards didn't design this set for modern/legacy/etc. It was made for limited/standard, and most of the cards getting a lot of flack look like they could be very powerful in the upcoming, as-yet-unkown-by-anyone standard/limited metagame.
But like is everyone expecting Deathrite,Abrupt, Resto, Snaps, Delver again?
For the love of god, fetch lands.
Although I will say there aren't cool uncommons and commons like Generator Servant for instance that I want a set of...
I also love seeing all the bad players complain about the power level and back it up with "well at least there's legacy"
"Psssh, this set ain't good enough for me, I play Legacy!" is pathetic and indicative of an utter lack of understanding of the game so chances are you don't even play Legacy, or if they do, they likely suck because they can't even see the good stuff in this set
Jeskai Ascendancy works with Convoke and Conspire.
Wingmate Roc clearly helps Populate decks.
Populate and Conspire decks? Do you even play Modern? In case you didn't know, it is a comptetitive format. Cute stuff like 5 drops used in populate decks does not matter for Modern.
However, I am confident that the fetchlands, Sarkhan, most of the charms, and Dig Through Time will see Modern play.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
:symr::symb: I hate your deck(Kaervek the Merciless)
Wait, how do I even hide it as a name title?
Kemba, Kostume
Ka...Oh god that's not a good alliteration.Wait, how do I even hide it as a name title?
Apart from the fetches, there is no way I would bust open packs for what is other than a few cards, bulk rares and bulk mythics.
This set does not have a Voice or a Blood Baron or any card at that power level which Dragon's Maze did.
WOTC isn't stupid. They knew this set would sit in their warehouse if they didn't print money cards like the fetches to sell it.
Modern is a constructed format with known decks that anyone who doesn't want to get crushed by has to keep in mind. You can bring your "populate deck" to an event, but you're most likely going to get crushed. There is no such thing as a "populate deck" or a "convoke deck". Those are mechanics. Having those mechanics in cards that are legal for modern doesn't mean there is a "(mechanic) deck". So, when evaluating a card, we look for things that fit in decks that are already established, or a final missing piece to a rogue deck that may make it competitive, or simply a new card that is powerful enough and has enough synergy with other cards so that you can build a new deck out of it. Wingmate Roc is none of those things. Before you can try and populate a token with another card that will probably not stick on the battlefield anyway, you're getting attacked for 2 trillion damage by 1 trillion flying tokens with haste. If a card isn't good enough for a format like modern, then it's just not good enough. You can try to make it fit into something or build around it, but if it's too slow and/or weak, it just won't work. And you can't get mad at the format for that. It's enough that standard has been slowed down to boring midrange decks, no need to change modern as well.
You play to win the game. The card is fine for casual decks and maybe EDH. Modern is a competitive format, and a 5-drop 3/4 flyer that conditionally brings out another 3/4 flyer just isn't enough.
have: sarkhan / liliana of the veil / phyrexian obliterator / avacyn, angel of hope / goblin guide / damnation / more
want: lorwyn thoughtseize / foil faeries / foil cryptic command / foil mutavault / foil restoration angel (non-promo) / more
The fetchlands were the first five cards put in the set, apparently. That seems to contradict that theory.