MTG Salvation

Quote from JasonFin

I'm surprised to see so few people talking about Aetherling.

I mean, normally the complaint about every expensive or even semi-expensive creatures is "dies to removal." This guy doesn't. It really doesn't. That's impressive in a creature that can easily do 20+ damage in four hits.

Armadillo Cloak's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson stole Aetherling's spotlight.

But yes, Aetherling is very good: with just :1mana::symu::symu: available every turn, it can hit for 5 every combat phase regardless of the opponent's board presence and dodge removal all day. Better yet, you can sweep the board while keeping your threat around, which is just perfect for control.

I suppose the only big downside of Aetherling, aside from having to get past countermagic, is that you need to have at least one extra available when you cast it, in order to give it a chance to survive until the next untap step.

The Give half of Give // Take reminds me of Gyo...

Anyway, I was building a :symu::symb: EDH Lazav deck based on Clone-like creatures and creature-copying noncreature spells, but Progenitor Mimic is really tempting me to change it to :symg::symu::symb:.

Am I the only one who read this card's name and immediately thought of Exdeath from Final Fantasy V?

I want a few copies of Darth Sidious... oops, I mean, Lazav, just because of DAT ART.

Lazav: "Come to the Dark Side... we have cookies. And countermagic."

Consuming Aberration... another card that will be joining my ever-increasing collection of creatures that grow bigger with full graveyards.

Must have a playset.

Quote from St@rWizard

Rakdos Charm gets destroy artifact and Golgari gets destroy enchantment... yeah, makes zero sense. Gruul and Boros/Orzhov should get those. Destroy enchantment, alone, no restrictions, is WHITE. Looks like they forced these removal in B/x charms to give Black decks a reason to splash for removal of that kind, but why not Rakdos and Orzhov then? I'm disappointed.

I can think of two reasons for allowing Golgari Charm to nail enchantments:

1. Green IS a color that destroys enchantments on a regular basis, only its spells usually destroy enchantments AND artifacts, not just enchantments. The reason Golgari Charm hits only enchantments is to be different from Rakdos Charm, which already hits artifacts.

2. Golgari and other decks that exploit/abuse the graveyard absolutely need to have fast and reliable answers against ultimate GY hosers such as Rest in Peace as soon as they appear, so I find it justifiable, especially with all the graveyard hate WotC has been printing lately.

Quote from tomthumb

Golgari has gotten way too much love in this set. Golgari Charm alone will make control unplayable because it and abrupt decay destroy sphere and charm counters divine verdict. Terminus won't work without a ponder like effect, and good luck with that.

Teminus won't work without library manipulation? That's a funny thing to say, because Bonfire of the Damned doesn't seem to have that kind of problem.

"Countering" Supreme Verdict doesn't mean much for Zombies anyway; Geralf's Messenger is more than happy to die once, Gravecrawler can always be recast, Lotleth Troll already regenerates on its own and Blood Artist is happy when everyone dies. Hitting the same things Abrupt Decay already does is just redundant, especially because, unlike the Decay, the Charm can be countered (and Dispel is back, btw).

Quote from tomthumb

Not against zombies, it's too fast. As for other control decks being viable, Jund midrange is not control, it is midrange. If we had a few decent counter spells and cavern did not exist maybe control would be viable, but that is certainly not the case now. Yu-gi-oh: the gathering

Quote from tomthumb

Control usually had finishers, but creatures were not the centerpiece of the deck-you are being obtuse for the sake if being obtuse. The sad thing is that people are responding by telling control players to brew. I wonder if they said that during Caw standard or mental misstep legacy? I doubt it. Sorry, control is dead. As for counters, I like counters and don't want to play magic if they don't exist. Other forms of control exist, but there should always be playable countermagic.

Quote from tomthumb

Control has been dead for months in standard, so people were right about how recent sets would impact control decks. Control is not tier 1, which is why people are complaining. We want to play real decks, not jank, and it sucks that control isn't good enough to be real.

Is there any law/decree/whatever somewhere stating that control decks must always have Blue? Or that control should always be a permission-based strategy?
Countermagic DOES exist, and it IS playable; you just don't have any more hard and/or universal counters at 2CC. If that's not enough for you, then you should simply stop using countermagic as a crutch all the time and look for other control options.
Don't want to play? Fine. You're free to quit anytime you want; you can be sure that no one will miss you.

Your endless whining will get you nowhere; if anything, it just makes you sound like an old man who clings to the past and refuses to live in the present, and only succeeds at annoying the hell out of people and tarnishing the reputation of blue players.
The same goes to all old-school blue "control" players out there who behave the same way. That's... really sad.

Wow, so many cards spoiled at once!

Signets didn't come back after all, but those keyrunes that are replacing them look interesting.

Red (and black) players finally gained another 2/2 for 1 mana (Rakdos Cackler). Current drawback: can't block. Not that it matters too much.

Rest in Peace is a card I really despise... It's going to be even harder for me to build a deck around my favorite creature (Lord of Extinction) now.

Quote from Grey Aven

I read these forms alot, but I dont post very often. Yet I feel the need to post on this.
I am not happy.
First this card Screams in every way INN or avaycn restored. Seriously, who do they think they are fooling. A red human that beats up necromancers. Unless there is some Ridiculous card that makes INN flashback viable or lets you CAST **** from your graveyard, I am extremely confused. I read the article, it seems they printed it to hose cards that arent even in this set.

Anyway, red deserves some love, including a powerful 2 drop. I dont understand why they stuck on this ******** out of place hate ablity on it. Why not print it at uncommon with out that ability so more people have access to it, or why not give it a kiln fiend like ability at rare, maybe +1/0 or +2/0 whenever you cast a red instant or sorcery.
Quite honestly, Its not that scary for zombies, it isnt really scary for tempo blue which only plays like 1 flash back card, namely the boogie snapman, and it just HURTS decks that arent even powerful. Why cant I play a flashback graveyard deck, in a freaking graveyard set!? If they dont print something that allows you to cast spells from your graveyard in RTR or makes flashback some how more powerful then it is I will be very disappointed in wizards.

Are you assuming Ravnica doesn't have necromancers, when a whole guild is based on the life & death cycle, thrives upon everyone's deaths and has a LICH for a Guildmaster?
Anyway, Wizards makes cards aimed to hate other sets'/formats' strategies all the time: Kataki, War's Wage was made to fight Affinity, Great Stable Stag was made to fight Faeries, Mindbreak Trap was made to fight Storm, Obstinate Baloth was made to fight Jund, and so on.

The amount of rage in your post suggests that you are/were working on a flashback deck... if that's the case, I'm afraid you have far worse things to be worried about than getting Bolted every time you cast something from the graveyard.
Also, a deck full of instants and sorceries that can't get rid of a 2/2 creature with no protection isn't worth being played anyway.

Quote from hittheroadjack

Hey, look! Even more graveyard hate! Because we really need to destroy any chance burning vengeance ever had of being a deck, huh?

You'd only take a single Bolt to the face before getting rid of the Zealot, at worst; it's not THAT serious, in Burning Vengeance's case.

It's funny how she seems to have been made to fight zombies even more than Snapcaster Mage: her flavor text shows a deep grudge against necromancers, she bolts the player for daring to cast Gravecrawler from the GY and she beats most of the zombies that see play in combat, including Geralf's Messenger before undying kicks in.

Quote from Fluxje

Also note that this is the first vampire that gives bonuses to non vampires ever printed

"OBJECTION!!!"
-Mephidross Vampire about that sentence.


That new B/G fungus also likes this vampire.

Quote from SengirVampire

Why rare? -.- This is plain stupid. If Oblivion Ring is simple enough for new players to be an uncommon in a base set, this has no reason to be a rare in an expert level set. It is the exact friggin same card 95% of the time, it surely won't break limited and will probably cost twenty times as much of an O-Ring just because of its stupid rarity, if not more. I can see an argument for Dreadbore being a rare (hitting planeswalkers and all) but not this.

Detention Sphere is pretty much Maelstrom Pulse with Oblivion Ring's advantage (it exiles instead of destroying) and drawback (it can be undone) attached to it. Pulse is a very strong card on its own right, so it makes sense that a card with the same destructive potential as it is rare (like Ring, you can also negate its drawback by sacrificing/destroying the Sphere in response to the ETB trigger).
Also, if Detention Sphere were uncommon, no one would want to play Selesnya, or any token-based strategy.

Quote from RickCorgan

Not really. You just have to play two of these on an empty board, and voilà. A forced draw shouldn't be this easy to pull off.

It isn't really infinite because the exiling effect is optional ("you MAY exile").
The real issue has been addressed here:

Quote from telehax

To explain why it doesn't allow exiling other detention spheres, you simply need to imagine what would happen if you did.

Imagine one detention sphere in play, you then play another detention sphere, targetting the first with the ability, both leave play, then the second trigger brings them back.

Now, two triggers go on the stack, you target one of your opponent's permanents with the first one, and you target a detention sphere with the second. The second resolves first, repeating the loop, except with a trigger to exile something of your opponent's permanently at the bottom of the stack.

At any time you can break the loop by choosing to not take up the 'may' trigger, and you exile all your opponent's nonland permanents.

Basically, you'd be able to exile all of the opponents' nonland permanents (that can be targeted) with just two Spheres. That would be broken beyond words.

Quote from Sabre

Ah, I don't know.

Sure it is better O-ring but I don't know if it is that big of a difference. In one out of ten games you will exile two permanents instead of one. And it has the biggest O-ring's disadvantage - exiled thing can get back.

It is better in control vs control though, cause you can't Sphere another Sphere. It is so frustating when you O-ring your opponent's walker only to get your O-ring O-ring'd next turn :D.

So yeah this is a replacement in every UWx Control deck
-4 O-ring
+4 Detention Sphere

like Vapor Snag is for Unsummon.

Still I don't think that price of this will skyrocket nor do I see this as a chase-rare. I think that it's price will be a bit higher than O-rings (obviously) but not that much.

Great tech against tokens though. But still Sever the Bloodline is a worthy competitor and better card in some scenarios. I mean. Abrupt Decay will play in every deck with G and B... Damn I wish they didn't print that card. Hmm. Maybe we will start running Faith's Shield as a counter for Abrupt Decay and for some other reasons.

Players might still want to keep a couple of O-Rings in their decks in order to deal with opposing Spheres.

I have plans for a token deck... now I'm glad my primary goal wasn't to attack/block with them. Otherwise, I'd be really pissed about Detention Sphere.

Quote from Hierarch555

This, plus Infinite reflection, make for an impractical but funny deck especially with etb creature copies.

Infinite Reflection only changes nontoken creatures, so it doesn't work.

Quote from chaosof99

This card is a decent casual card. There are some fun things do be done with it. However, on its own, it simply doesn't do enough. Actually, it does nothing on its own, and I'm always wary of enchantments which have absolutely no impact on their own.

Will not see constructed play, but kitchen tables around the world will see this card a lot. Depending on the tokens available in the set, it could be a very good build-around-me card in limited though.

Glare of Subdual didn't do anything on its own, either... evaluating cards in a void can be misleading sometimes.
But yeah, this card's success will depend on the quality of tokens available to us, unlike Glare, who just required any kind of creature to do its job. Right now, that land that makes an 8/8 elemental token and tokens that are copies of creature cards (such as Cackling Counterpart's) are the best options.

Quote from Phykos

I can't believe more people aren't excited about the elemental in this thread. Shouldn't be sleeper status, it's versatility and power are quite apparent to me anyway. Never underestimate a 1 drop that can be a threat throughout the game. I mean it's not even hard to pump. 1 spell, and you have a permanent 3/3. They're counters people, it isn't just a cheap boost trick. Do people realize that?

That's because a lot of players are looking at their 1cc creatures like this: "if it's not a mana dork, a Delver or an important combo piece, it's useless."
I can understand why players look down on the elemental, though: you need to spend mana and a card in order to pump it, and most players immediately look down on that, specially when they look at the Golgari pump creature, Lotleth Troll, who requires just the card, no mana, and the card isn't exiled (its growth isn't as fast, though).
The status of a blue 1cc creatures causes the Nivmagus Elemental to be immediately compared to Delver, who has evasion and doesn't cost the player a card (or mana) to grow. Being a red creature, on the other hand, causes it to be compared to other red 1cc beaters such as Stromkirk Noble and Goblin Guide, who also offer power at no additional cost. Basically, most people are unwilling to spend cards and mana to make the Elemental big because they don't want to risk being 2-for-1'd should the opponent have removal at hand for it.

One thing is for sure, though: right now, Nivmagus Elemental has a useful niche as a hate card against Hive Mind decks, as it can eat the Pacts' copies the opponent gives you.