The abilities they put on the 3 cc cascade spells are... interesting. I'd say ardent plea is better, but it's still nothing spectacular. I'd be willing to bet they didn't make them better for the same reason they didn't print any 2 or 1 (besides the multicolor thing) cc cascade spells: it would have wrecked extended/legacy/T1.
If the spells themselves had actually been decent, I could easily see a deck that played expensive cards with cheap cycling, and 4x each of the spirit guids, and 1 or 2 rediculous suspsend cards with no casting cost. Hell, the deck might work anyway.
What happens if you cascade into an Ancestral Vision, or something else without a mana cost? Can you still play it?
...Aw, man. We've finally hit two cards I will legitimately never want to play. The rest of the set has been fantastic, or passable at worst. These cards? Just Plain Bad.
Other cards have appealed to the Johnny in me, or at least the Timmy, or have been elements of clever design and smooth formatting. These cards are none of those things. The first is an overcosted vigilance enabler with a couple of mediocre side-tricks attached (untap a land to get back one of the too many mana you spent on this thing). The second basically reads "1RB: Cascade at sorcery speed," for which I would much rather just add another 1-2 cost spell.
Snake: Did they just print a blue-green Terminate? The only downside is that it can be killed in response, which might not be the worse thing. Of course, it is not as good against decks with cheap removal like Red, but Black or White must use a powerful card like Terror, Terminate, or Path to save their creature. So they just used a spot removal card on a 1/1 snake...not that bad really. Also, it kills Wall of Denial.
Snake: No, they printed a blue/green Condemn; it can only take out attacking creatures.
There sure are a lot of snakes in this set. Why does this sound like something that would be in Zendikar?
I'd agree with you except that Nacatl has appeared on this set's cards, and they're totally the same flavor.
And it looks like they've found a clever way to print creature kill in blue/green. Actually, this is a really smooth design; it lets green do something it needs to do without feeling at all off-flavor.
I really like this as a way to intelligently predict what will happen in future sets, rather than just looking at name and expansion symbol.
The shift from Moor's Color Matters to Lara's Gold Matters was a sensical one. From Gold Matters? I dunno. We can probably kick out Poison and Graveyard, at least from this line of speculation.
Hm. Maybe Card Type Matters? We've seen bonuses to playing artifacts and enchantments in this set (granted, there always are, but maybe a few more than usual), maybe the next set will be about bonuses for playing any given card type. Colored artifacts contribute a lot to that, as well.
Also, Naya Sojorner's marks the first occurrence of the contraction "it's" in a card. In a grammatically incorrect fashion too.
"Whenever you cycle Naya Sojourners or it's put into a graveyard from play..."
Interesting observation. I can just see the templating team going "Augh! Everything fits exactly, but there's just one space too many! Where can we take something out!"
Regarding grammar, what's wrong with it? When it is put into a graveyard, when it's put into a graveyard. Same thing.
Looks to me like the only real "information" he gives us is a comment on flavor. And it's probably true that the Nephilim are not originally from Ravnica. Look at their flavor text: "When it awoke...." Not when it was born, but when it awoke. And on Might of the Nephilim: Before the first stone was laid or the first elf-child born, the power of the nephilim was gathering.
Personal flavor theory, the Nephilim are from some sort of precursor to Ravnica. It existed for a long time, and then a Very Bad Thing happened to it (maybe around the time of the Brothers' War and the first rift, if they're feeling time spiral-y), horrible catacylsm, sulphur raining from the sky, etc etc. The entire population of the plane was wiped out except the five from the set, who were put into a deep sleep for a bajillion years until the events of Ravnica woke them up (they do actually appear in the books of their home plane, unlike some random rares).
That's got no basis in fact or established flavor except random musings, but if that's the case, travelling to the Nephilim's home plane would either be time travel (not really a problem) or the reawakening of the rest of the Nephilim in "Ravnica 2."
Wow. I love this set so much more now. Before it had good cards, but now... I'm just totally vorthosing out over how well the art and flavor text mesh with the flavor. Martial Coup. Exploding Borders. Goblin Razerunners. Fusion Elemental. Giltspire Avenger. I really feel like there's a huge multiplanar war on as every being that can takes up arms to conquer a new realm or defend their own.
In the color pie blue is #1 when it comes to the flying ability. Black is 3rd and Red is 4th.
Right, this is just like Sedraxis Specter. It doesn't NEED the blue for flying, but if it didn't it would be weaker and cost more. Blue is the color of the most efficient fliers; for the same size and effects, a black/red creature would have had to cost two to three more.
NOTE, however, that it's not a "may" clause, so it does not play well with enchantments of your own. That said, maybe an Enchanted Evening to combo?
I've got one of these myself, and I find it works best by focusing entirely on getting the Overlord out first, and then using his wonderful ability to tutor as often as humanly possible. Figure out a good order to get cards (I like Dormant for draw, followed by Quick so you can play slivers in response. "I Terror your gemhide sliver." "In response, tutor for Crystalline and play it."), and proceed from there.
A couple of recommendations: Sliversmith is a convenient token generator, though not a sliver. Amoeboid changeling seems like it would be useful if you had any important non-slivers, but as is it's just not contributing all that much. Finally, WARD SLIVER is awesome and necessary.
I wasn't trying to say Counterspell isn't a good card. It most certainly is a good card. What I was attempting (and apparently failing) to say, was that Counterspell is not a broken card as so many of you seem to think. In point of fact, neither is Force of Will. The point of the matter is that the only broken counterspell I can think of, is Mana Drain... but alas, that card is only legal in Vintage, isn't it???
Counterspell isn't really all that broken, but I agree with R&D's assessment that it's too powerful for the current metagame; blue does just fine without it, as it turns out.
you seem to be greatly missing the point... yes, Black is under represented by one card (when compared to blue) but it is under represented by 2 cards when compared to Red, Green and White... the question then becomes... what will be the quality of the black cards, that R&D feels it justified to give black 2 less cards than the majority of other colors, while at the same time giving White back one of the best cards they ever printed for it...?
It's unusual that the colors are receiving uneven numbers of cards, but remember that this is a multicolor set. Just for example, Ravnica and Shards both had uneven numbers, as well. I expect that the total number of cards with black in their cost will be the same as the total number of cards with white in their cost, but most of those will be taken by multicolor cards.
As for quality? I don't know. I do expect that white will be getting stronger cards than everyone else, but it's white's turn. I would be surprised if there was any significant difference between black and the other three non-white colors, and it's too early to tell.
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Best play against it: Stifle the mana ability to cause your opponent to sacrifice four of their lands to no benefit for the price of :u:.
Edit: yaaaaaaaay!
What happens if you cascade into an Ancestral Vision, or something else without a mana cost? Can you still play it?
Other cards have appealed to the Johnny in me, or at least the Timmy, or have been elements of clever design and smooth formatting. These cards are none of those things. The first is an overcosted vigilance enabler with a couple of mediocre side-tricks attached (untap a land to get back one of the too many mana you spent on this thing). The second basically reads "1RB: Cascade at sorcery speed," for which I would much rather just add another 1-2 cost spell.
Snake: No, they printed a blue/green Condemn; it can only take out attacking creatures.
I'd agree with you except that Nacatl has appeared on this set's cards, and they're totally the same flavor.
And it looks like they've found a clever way to print creature kill in blue/green. Actually, this is a really smooth design; it lets green do something it needs to do without feeling at all off-flavor.
The shift from Moor's Color Matters to Lara's Gold Matters was a sensical one. From Gold Matters? I dunno. We can probably kick out Poison and Graveyard, at least from this line of speculation.
Hm. Maybe Card Type Matters? We've seen bonuses to playing artifacts and enchantments in this set (granted, there always are, but maybe a few more than usual), maybe the next set will be about bonuses for playing any given card type. Colored artifacts contribute a lot to that, as well.
Edit: A little bit Sarnath'd.
"Whenever you cycle Naya Sojourners or it's put into a graveyard from play..."
Interesting observation. I can just see the templating team going "Augh! Everything fits exactly, but there's just one space too many! Where can we take something out!"
Regarding grammar, what's wrong with it? When it is put into a graveyard, when it's put into a graveyard. Same thing.
Personal flavor theory, the Nephilim are from some sort of precursor to Ravnica. It existed for a long time, and then a Very Bad Thing happened to it (maybe around the time of the Brothers' War and the first rift, if they're feeling time spiral-y), horrible catacylsm, sulphur raining from the sky, etc etc. The entire population of the plane was wiped out except the five from the set, who were put into a deep sleep for a bajillion years until the events of Ravnica woke them up (they do actually appear in the books of their home plane, unlike some random rares).
That's got no basis in fact or established flavor except random musings, but if that's the case, travelling to the Nephilim's home plane would either be time travel (not really a problem) or the reawakening of the rest of the Nephilim in "Ravnica 2."
But not for a few years.
Awesome.
Right, this is just like Sedraxis Specter. It doesn't NEED the blue for flying, but if it didn't it would be weaker and cost more. Blue is the color of the most efficient fliers; for the same size and effects, a black/red creature would have had to cost two to three more.
(Also, hundredth post. Whoo.)
NOTE, however, that it's not a "may" clause, so it does not play well with enchantments of your own. That said, maybe an Enchanted Evening to combo?
I've got one of these myself, and I find it works best by focusing entirely on getting the Overlord out first, and then using his wonderful ability to tutor as often as humanly possible. Figure out a good order to get cards (I like Dormant for draw, followed by Quick so you can play slivers in response. "I Terror your gemhide sliver." "In response, tutor for Crystalline and play it."), and proceed from there.
A couple of recommendations:
Sliversmith is a convenient token generator, though not a sliver. Amoeboid changeling seems like it would be useful if you had any important non-slivers, but as is it's just not contributing all that much. Finally, WARD SLIVER is awesome and necessary.
Good list, happy hunting!
Counterspell isn't really all that broken, but I agree with R&D's assessment that it's too powerful for the current metagame; blue does just fine without it, as it turns out.
It's unusual that the colors are receiving uneven numbers of cards, but remember that this is a multicolor set. Just for example, Ravnica and Shards both had uneven numbers, as well. I expect that the total number of cards with black in their cost will be the same as the total number of cards with white in their cost, but most of those will be taken by multicolor cards.
As for quality? I don't know. I do expect that white will be getting stronger cards than everyone else, but it's white's turn. I would be surprised if there was any significant difference between black and the other three non-white colors, and it's too early to tell.