Eurgh... landfall. Can we really have a less interesting mechanic. Here, have a reward for doing something you do in the game anyway... so dull, and unthinking.
Dude, Landfall is one of the BEST mechanics ever precisely because it rewards you for doing something you do in the game anyway.
I'll have to agree. I didn't played during Zendikar so I was on the same boat, but playing Landfall in Magic Origins really made me rethink the mechanic. It really fixes a major feel-bad in Magic by making your land drops exciting - Lands are both essential and oh-so-very-boring, but Landfall fixes that. Once you play a game and start hoping to topdeck a lategame land to pump your whole team for a massive game-winning swing you realize that Landfall is great.
I like Devoid. Both MaRo and Khans hinted strongly at "Colorless matters", and at first I thought it was a narrow gimmick, but its interactions with Artifacts, Awaken and Morph actually made me rethink the whole thing. I can see a dedicated Colorless deck, which is cool, but the potential for Devoid/Morph/Artifact/Landfall decks hybrids are what really get me pumped.
I kind of want to see what they do with Awaken and Land matters. Just hope that Awaken isn't just a "It's Kicker that nets you a dude, but that dude is also a land! lawl". Anyway, I think it's a good mechanic and I hope it doesn't gets Cipherfied.
Ingest is ughhh. Narrow, parasitic and uninteresting. Sure, "let's see what they do with the exile matters wheee"... whatever. Cast exiled spells. Play exiled cards. Get some bonus out of exiled permanents. Yeah, I get the idea already. Bet they did this to make the Eldrazi seem like a faction instead of just "some colorless dudes".
I really really hope to be proven wrong at Ingest. But right now I can pretty much see what kind of cards they'll print with this. And I can already predict that the small Drones will Ingest while the big Eldrazi will benefit out of it. Because that's what a deck needs to be playable - winmore when you play your 8 mana bombs after hitting your opponent 3~4 times.
Is it just me or is "Awaken" amazing in control decks?
"Here use these spells early game to survive till late game, don't worry about running creatures, when you have board control and lots of mana just turn your lands into creatures."
value value value, and actually requires smart play as you don't want to needlessly lose lands.
I hate how a card with Devoid still have a colored mana in it´s cost, that makes it so unflavorful.
I disagree. In MtG, te five Colors are very important and meaningful. Those creatures are Devoid of the importance and meaning that their mana costs would normally confer. Or, hey there's this!
I am both confused by and somewhat hate devoid at the same time. I am confused by it because I wonder if the ability applies only while it is in play or if it is colorless in all zones. The reason I hate it is because I normally play commander and have a colorless deck. Even if they are colorless in all zones, I still won't be able to use them in my deck because I can't have any lands that produce colored mana to play them (all part of the color identity rules, which this complicates as well)
I hate how a card with Devoid still have a colored mana in it´s cost, that makes it so unflavorful.
I disagree. In MtG, te five Colors are very important and meaningful. Those creatures are Devoid of the importance and meaning that their mana costs would normally confer. Or, hey there's this!
Is it a color? Is it not? Why put a color on a card that´s clearly colorless?
Anyone else bothered that they are dialing back protection, just to have the ghostfire mechanic....which kinda goes around protection anyway...I'm guessing it was too confusing.
I hate how a card with Devoid still have a colored mana in it´s cost, that makes it so unflavorful.
I disagree. In MtG, te five Colors are very important and meaningful. Those creatures are Devoid of the importance and meaning that their mana costs would normally confer. Or, hey there's this!
Is it a color? Is it not? Why put a color on a card that´s clearly colorless?
To avoid color pie breaking/bleeding I'm guessing. This way they can put in more eldrazi/colorless cards with colored abilites without worring about too much breaking or bleeding happening.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Is it just me or is "Awaken" amazing in control decks?
"Here use these spells early game to survive till late game, don't worry about running creatures, when you have board control and lots of mana just turn your lands into creatures."
value value value, and actually requires smart play as you don't want to needlessly lose lands.
Unfortunately their cost is higher than usual so they're not all that good in the early game.
Is it a color? Is it not? Why put a color on a card that´s clearly colorless?
The mana cost of a card is not the same thing as that card's color or colorlessness. This actually has precedent as far back as Legends with the 0-mana Kobolds. There's also Transguild Courier from Dissension. Would you say that those colored cards with colorless mana costs make no flavorful sense either?
Just hope that Awaken isn't just a "It's Kicker that nets you a dude, but that dude is also a land! lawl".
That is literally what Awaken is (except that its an alternative cost rather than a additional cost). You pay more mana and it turns one of your lands into a creature.
Just hope that Awaken isn't just a "It's Kicker that nets you a dude, but that dude is also a land! lawl".
That is literally what Awaken is (except that its an alternative cost rather than a additional cost). You pay more mana and it turns one of your lands into a creature.
It can also be used to make your land creatures bigger.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Im digging every single detail on those new mechanics. love the cards. To me, the weirder, yet still cool and flavourful, the game turns it self into, the better
I hate how a card with Devoid still have a colored mana in it´s cost, that makes it so unflavorful.
I disagree. In MtG, te five Colors are very important and meaningful. Those creatures are Devoid of the importance and meaning that their mana costs would normally confer. Or, hey there's this!
Is it a color? Is it not? Why put a color on a card that´s clearly colorless?
Devoid do not put colors on a colorless card, it's literally the opposite.
Say the awaken spell is a pump spell for example....will the spell see the creature it creates before you have to declare a target?
Say you have: Woodland InfusionG
Instant (U)
Target creature gets +2/+2
Awaken 3 - 3G
Could Woodland Infusion target your awoken land?
My assumption is no because A) You'd have to have a target when you cast it and B) You do things in the same order it appears on the card.
The answer is definitely no, but not just by effect ordering - the targeting happens at cast time, whereas the land doesn't become a creature until the spell resolves.
I disagree. Theres no thinking to Landfall. It´s all about herpderp casting a landfall card BEFORE you cast a land. How fun
Here's how lands work normally later in the game:
1. Do I need this land right now? If yes, play land. If not, go to 2.
2. Do I need to bluff something? If yes, hold land. If not, go to 3.
3. Do I need to protect against non-targeted discard? If yes, hold land.
Landfall puts some more complexity into those decisions.
I disagree. Theres no thinking to Landfall. It´s all about herpderp casting a landfall card BEFORE you cast a land. How fun
Here's how lands work normally later in the game:
1. Do I need this land right now? If yes, play land. If not, go to 2.
2. Do I need to bluff something? If yes, hold land. If not, go to 3.
3. Do I need to protect against non-targeted discard? If yes, hold land.
Landfall puts some more complexity into those decisions.
This. Landfall seems super simplistic at first glance, but there is a bit more complexity to it than meets the eye.
Are the new Devoid cards also colorless when not on the battlefield? For example, can you cast Blue Elemental Blast targeting the new Forerunner of Slaughter while it's on the stack? If you had a card that said "Opponent discards all black cards" would it affect Dominator Drone while in that player's hand?
No, that's probably why reminder text says "This card is colorless" and not "This creature is colorless".
Landfall: Surely the signature mechanic of Zendikar blocks. Not a overly synergistic mechanic (aside from green ramp, fetch lands and cards that let's you return lands for your hand to play then again) there's isn't much to do with it.
You can say that again.
But nonetheless this is one of the best mechanics ever made because in limit, by itself, Landfall partially fixes one of MTG most annoying things which is flooding in a long game. It also enables 18 and 19 land decks, giving support for the big eldrazi.
I'd have to strongly disagree with this. While MaRo and the rest of WotC really love to pat themselves on the back for Landfall, it's not that great a mechanic.
For one thing, it didn't really do much to prevent flood in long Limited games, because it was one of the chief reasons that ZZZ and ZZW were blazingly fast formats. Most 40-card decks in a Draft or Sealed could only trigger Landfall on their turn, giving enormous advantage to the beatdown. There really wasn't time to get out into the long game; one was probably dead before worries of flood on turn 7+ drifted into consciousness.
Second, Landfall doesn't have a lot of design space and doesn't play equally well with the different colors. Only Green has real ability to manipulate lands and heir entrance to the battlefield. Everyone else has to employ fetchlands or stuff like, perhaps, Sword of the Animist because they don't have ramp effects, be they of the Rampant Growth variety or the Summer Bloom type. Compare to mechanics like Cycling, Flashback, Morph, Kicker, Suspend, and whatnot that all played well with every color.
And blunting the impact of flood has been done before by other mechanics. Masques spellshapers like Waterfront Bouncer or Kris Mage allowed unwanted land to be filtered into spell-like effects. Odyssey-era discard critters like Wild Mongrel or Aquamoeba could turn lands into combat tricks to their bodies (to say nothing of enabling Threshold). And these sorts of mechanics could easily comport to every color, not giving 4/5 pigments the cold shoulder.
All-in-all, Landfall's merely an okay mechanic. Not bad, but not particularly great. I've never understood the critical praise for it.
So something of note: Dominator Drone would appear to be a vampire being parasitised and controlled by an Eldrazi drone. Hence the Black?
I think this is a good catch! This makes Devoid even more flavorful, as the color could be based on creature(s) they've consumed (Ally, Vampire, Kor, Elemental, Elf, etc) yet they are Devoid due to Eldrazi consumption.
For one thing, it didn't really do much to prevent flood in long Limited games, because it was one of the chief reasons that ZZZ and ZZW were blazingly fast formats. Most 40-card decks in a Draft or Sealed could only trigger Landfall on their turn, giving enormous advantage to the beatdown. There really wasn't time to get out into the long game; one was probably dead before worries of flood on turn 7+ drifted into consciousness.
Yeah, the large number of low costing landfall +2/+2 dudes essentially means no one blocks in Zendikar.
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I'll have to agree. I didn't played during Zendikar so I was on the same boat, but playing Landfall in Magic Origins really made me rethink the mechanic. It really fixes a major feel-bad in Magic by making your land drops exciting - Lands are both essential and oh-so-very-boring, but Landfall fixes that. Once you play a game and start hoping to topdeck a lategame land to pump your whole team for a massive game-winning swing you realize that Landfall is great.
I like Devoid. Both MaRo and Khans hinted strongly at "Colorless matters", and at first I thought it was a narrow gimmick, but its interactions with Artifacts, Awaken and Morph actually made me rethink the whole thing. I can see a dedicated Colorless deck, which is cool, but the potential for Devoid/Morph/Artifact/Landfall decks hybrids are what really get me pumped.
I kind of want to see what they do with Awaken and Land matters. Just hope that Awaken isn't just a "It's Kicker that nets you a dude, but that dude is also a land! lawl". Anyway, I think it's a good mechanic and I hope it doesn't gets Cipherfied.
Ingest is ughhh. Narrow, parasitic and uninteresting. Sure, "let's see what they do with the exile matters wheee"... whatever. Cast exiled spells. Play exiled cards. Get some bonus out of exiled permanents. Yeah, I get the idea already. Bet they did this to make the Eldrazi seem like a faction instead of just "some colorless dudes".
I really really hope to be proven wrong at Ingest. But right now I can pretty much see what kind of cards they'll print with this. And I can already predict that the small Drones will Ingest while the big Eldrazi will benefit out of it. Because that's what a deck needs to be playable - winmore when you play your 8 mana bombs after hitting your opponent 3~4 times.
"Here use these spells early game to survive till late game, don't worry about running creatures, when you have board control and lots of mana just turn your lands into creatures."
value value value, and actually requires smart play as you don't want to needlessly lose lands.
Modern:
UU TronU
URUR StormUR
RBWBurnRBW
EDH:
RBGProssh,skyraider of kherGBR
RKrenko,Mob BossR
URMelek,Izzet ParagonRU
RDaretti, Scrap savantR
WBTriad of fatesBW
I disagree. In MtG, te five Colors are very important and meaningful. Those creatures are Devoid of the importance and meaning that their mana costs would normally confer. Or, hey there's this!
Also a very interesting way to interpret Devoid cards!
Shards of awful never
Is it a color? Is it not? Why put a color on a card that´s clearly colorless?
To avoid color pie breaking/bleeding I'm guessing. This way they can put in more eldrazi/colorless cards with colored abilites without worring about too much breaking or bleeding happening.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Unfortunately their cost is higher than usual so they're not all that good in the early game.
The mana cost of a card is not the same thing as that card's color or colorlessness. This actually has precedent as far back as Legends with the 0-mana Kobolds. There's also Transguild Courier from Dissension. Would you say that those colored cards with colorless mana costs make no flavorful sense either?
Shards of awful never
That is literally what Awaken is (except that its an alternative cost rather than a additional cost). You pay more mana and it turns one of your lands into a creature.
It can also be used to make your land creatures bigger.
- Manite
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Devoid do not put colors on a colorless card, it's literally the opposite.
The answer is definitely no, but not just by effect ordering - the targeting happens at cast time, whereas the land doesn't become a creature until the spell resolves.
Here's how lands work normally later in the game:
1. Do I need this land right now? If yes, play land. If not, go to 2.
2. Do I need to bluff something? If yes, hold land. If not, go to 3.
3. Do I need to protect against non-targeted discard? If yes, hold land.
Landfall puts some more complexity into those decisions.
No, that's probably why reminder text says "This card is colorless" and not "This creature is colorless".
You can say that again.
I'd have to strongly disagree with this. While MaRo and the rest of WotC really love to pat themselves on the back for Landfall, it's not that great a mechanic.
For one thing, it didn't really do much to prevent flood in long Limited games, because it was one of the chief reasons that ZZZ and ZZW were blazingly fast formats. Most 40-card decks in a Draft or Sealed could only trigger Landfall on their turn, giving enormous advantage to the beatdown. There really wasn't time to get out into the long game; one was probably dead before worries of flood on turn 7+ drifted into consciousness.
Second, Landfall doesn't have a lot of design space and doesn't play equally well with the different colors. Only Green has real ability to manipulate lands and heir entrance to the battlefield. Everyone else has to employ fetchlands or stuff like, perhaps, Sword of the Animist because they don't have ramp effects, be they of the Rampant Growth variety or the Summer Bloom type. Compare to mechanics like Cycling, Flashback, Morph, Kicker, Suspend, and whatnot that all played well with every color.
And blunting the impact of flood has been done before by other mechanics. Masques spellshapers like Waterfront Bouncer or Kris Mage allowed unwanted land to be filtered into spell-like effects. Odyssey-era discard critters like Wild Mongrel or Aquamoeba could turn lands into combat tricks to their bodies (to say nothing of enabling Threshold). And these sorts of mechanics could easily comport to every color, not giving 4/5 pigments the cold shoulder.
All-in-all, Landfall's merely an okay mechanic. Not bad, but not particularly great. I've never understood the critical praise for it.
Wat. That's the whole premise. If they didn't it would literally do nothing. That's not unflavorful, it's the whole goddamn concept.
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)
I think this is a good catch! This makes Devoid even more flavorful, as the color could be based on creature(s) they've consumed (Ally, Vampire, Kor, Elemental, Elf, etc) yet they are Devoid due to Eldrazi consumption.
Yeah, the large number of low costing landfall +2/+2 dudes essentially means no one blocks in Zendikar.