The mechanics are terrible and mostly geared toward Limited. Tribute is just another bland rehashed mechanic involving +1/+1 counters. Allow it to do something cool or make it a low cost fat dumb dork. Monstrosity is mechanically different but conceptually similar. Monsters start off as vanilla dorks which threaten to do something drastic while getting fatter at the same time. It's a pity because there is so much untapped potential and ideas to differentiate the various types of monsters and make them unique instead of just making them become "bigger and bigger" to hard sell the fact that they're monsters.
Inspired is a clunky mechanic and obviously designed for Limited to urge players to take on an aggressive role to gain mileage from the Inspired abilities. Flavor-wise, I'm not seeing how untapping a creature leads to it being "inspired"? Miracle is about getting a lucky topdeck, a "miracle", I get that. I don't get that vibe from Inspired. Anyhow, a mechanic that requires setting up, either by a few turns or by playing narrow cards to support it doesn't translate well into Constructed.
I share the same sentiments as many people regarding Bestow. Wizards try their best to negate the innate disadvantages of Aura spells and yet they are so afraid to go all the way to support it, just to play safe and avoid any potential mistake. Aura spells aren't the offenders, Hexproof dudes are the ones who exploit them. Print less hexproof dudes, make the Bestow spells more reasonably cost, everyone will be happier.
Besides that, the Gods' predictability and all, it is quite a disappointing set. I feel that they are too focused on making the 3 big categories of heroes, monsters and gods, and miss the fact that within each category, there is still so much room to expand design on the individual ones.
Phenax's mill ability isn't exactly a shocker since that's WoTC's stance for UB for quite sometime. But why in the blue hell must every god involve creatures to be effective?
This set is meant to be 'story first' then make the mechanics fit that story. Your complaints about monstrous are pretty on point, but your suggested fix would end up needing some hideously overpriced drop costs to do that. A second summon (to borrow from Yu-Gi-oh!) mechanic is to allow the monsters to become big threats without actually having to sink the mana initially. Because if Ember Swallower did have "During your upkeep put a +1/+1 counter on Ember Swallower, and each opponent sacrifices a land." or even "target opponent sacrifices a land." it would require a steep increase in cast cost from the 4 it's at.
I'm not even sure how you get from "Bestow" to "Living Weapon," and given that Equipment Artifacts don't need a solution for being two for one'd based on how Enchantment Auras work? You're not actually giving anything new to work with on the table. Bestow is clunky to word, but given that if it wasn't people would spend hours arguing over how it works and giving judges ulcers? I think I'm fine with clunky since the mechanic is flavorful enough.
...You do realize that Scry was added later, and not actually part of the top down flavorful set philosophy right? That it was there to rebalance certain cards to make them more playable and just happened to fit the flavor of Theros? And that the Scrylands are strictly there to give access to another dual land in standard without the aggro speedy mess that was last Standard with Check Lands (rarely enter tapped) in all colors, and Shock Lands (only enter tapped when you don't want them right now) in all colors meaning that 3 color GoodStuff was ENTIRELY VIABLE? The land choice was to tone down standard by leaps and bounds compared to InnBlock/RavBlock standard. None of that is meant to be flavorful, like all the obviously made to balance standard rares the set has.
Bonus, all your 'flavorful' ideas would be inherently worse, hard to play, jank not even standard would dare to use for additional land. And would only mean the Gates might see play outside of Maze's End.dek. I know most players would have loved to see a reprint of the Lorwynn Filter lands, or the searchlands in all colors, but that's not going to happen right now with Shocks in Standard.
The monstrous counters which I'm proposing aren't +1/+1 counters. I don't get it why Wizards rely so heavily on +1/+1 counters as mechanics in recent times, but that's another story altogether. How about if Ember Swallower kept its stats (alternatively, cost 1 more mana or more red mana reliance for balance), and gain the ability to destroy a land when it deals damage to the opponent, with a triggered ability at the beginning of the end step to deal 4 damage to all creatures by removing 4 monstrous counters? Powerful? Yes. Broken? I think not. IMO, giving them efficient mana cost-power ratio and further put +1/+1 counters on them to sell them as big, scary monsters isn't that creative at all. So, you say story first before mechanics. So the story is that monsters are big dumb dorks that rely on the planeswalker (player) to invest a bazillion mana in them to somehow a 'monstrous' threat?
I realized that my version of Bestow would work in the reverse of the one we have now, and it fails to meet the flavor of 'bestow' so I'll give you that. As for the lands, I know that they are a necessary evil to balance Standard, but in the first place, why is that necessary? In recent memory, we have Faeries, 5C Control, Jund, Caw-Blade, Delver, BTE dominating the metagame, and you might have thought they would have learnt something by now, but nope. I don't remember such problems existing back in Kamigawa/Ravnica, Ravnica/Time Spiral Standard. Power creep existed but was introduced into each color uniformly. Every color, every archetype had their chance to be top dog. GW Glare, Gruul, Zoo, Angelfire, Solar Flare, UB Dralnu, Dragonstorm. Every deck, every archetype had a distinct unique strategy, rather than just beat face in recent times. The fact that 3C can be called goodstuff in Standard and Modern is the testimony for their failures. Back then, only FOUR or FIVE colors would be categorized as goodstuff. Why do we consumers have to pay for their mistakes? I sure don't like it when they force their solutions on us.
My ideas are inherently bad, hard to play, jank? How big of a MaRo fanboy are you? Have you sleeved up the current Theros set up and gave it a spin, and then tried my ideas for a change? I guess nope to both so please don't be pretentious. I'm not saying Wizards' ideas are THAT terrible, and in fact, I'm pleased with the overall strength and playability compared to DGM/M14, but only that it failed to nail the flavor on the spot. And if you think the current mechanics are that easy to play compared to mine, tell that to the bloke who's confused whether the Bestow card goes to the yard when the target dies, or whether a card paid with Bestow cost can be countered by Essence Scatter.
Theros offers some pretty interesting cards with distinct flavor (Chained to the Rocks, Rescue from the Underworld), but fail to capture the flavor and deliver in the area of mechanics.
A monster becomes 'monstrous' only when you sink a bazillion mana in it? I feel that there should be an incremental build to make the monster a looming threat to create tension during the game. For instance, having Ember Swallower gain a monstrous counter and have it destroy a land during the upkeep, when it deals damage to the opponent or the many other different possibilities to make each monster unique, and have it affect the board e.g. 4 damage to all creatures ala Wildfire when a threshold of counters is hit, to keep things interesting. Instead, the current iteration of Monstrosity we have now just makes the monsters dumb dorks before you hit critical mana to go big.
As someone have mentioned, Bestow is wordy and clunky. It's the same ability written twice. That's awfully redundant! That restricts creativity because a physical card has its word limitation. If instead, Bestow cost works similarly to Living Weapon (put a token into play and enchant it), I feel that more design space could have been freed up. Yes, that would lose the novelty of having a Enchantment Creature card type, but it is merely a novelty which would fade away in time but leave behind a plethora of rules nightmare (see DFCs although Huntmaster of the Fells is way too OP to not play in Modern despite the hassle).
Wizards promoted Theros as a top-down design block and they gave us the awful Temple cycles. I thought nothing could be worse than DGM's cluestones but I was wrong. So, anything and everything that linked to spirituality has scry. How original is that? Temple of Abandon requires you to sacrifice or bounce a creature to fully utilize its mana? No, it has scry. Temple of Silence causes you the inability to cast spells on your turn but have access to the mana on your opponent's turn to kill whatever they churn out? No, it has scry. You call that top-down design? I reckon this would be too difficult to balance so a simple uniform effect such as, if your devotion to the 2 colors is more or equal to 3, comes into play untap, or comes into play tapped with scry 1. It would act as a reverse Scars land with the ability of the current iteration as an alternative. Anything, something other than just scry 1 would have made these lands more exciting than they are now.
As for gameplay issues, people who are arguing in favor of MaRo said that downgrading it to uncommon will lead to unbalanced Limited games. While I understand the reasons behind the decision, I ask, since the team already knew that the lands would be poorly received by constructed players, why did they not consider a design overhaul or a detailed review to discuss its long-term implications? That's the very least they could do for us consumers. Enough with the "it's for Limited! well, and uhhh, Standard, I guess?" argument, because Limited/Standard is just a portion of Magic which lasts for 1-2 years. It is a trading card game with various Eternal formats which will last till the day Magic dies. I'm not asking for Dark Confidant quality Modern staples for every single card but I'm just asking for a balanced set with something for everyone. It's obvious judging from the recent trends, design revolves around Limited (to gain FNM attendees?), and cater to Commander because it is gaining popularity, and randomly throws a bone to competitive players (Voice of Resurgence, Scavenging Ooze, Thoughtseize) to hopefully leash them but know they're not the main target audience because constructed players usually turn to the secondary market for singles which Wizards has no share in. No matter what category of consumer we fall into, all customers have to feel equally important to contribute to the health of the game.
I thought nothing could be worse than DGM's cluestones, and these lands came along. So, anything related to divinity or spirituality has scry. That's just plain lazy design. At least give them scry 2 to increase their playability. Or if the devotion to the 2 colors is more or equal to 3, it comes into play untapped. It would play out as reverse Scar lands although relying on devotion might not make it as reliable. To make up for the loss in reliability, only then, putting scry 1 on it might provide players enough incentive to use it in Constructed formats other than Standard. It might also lead to interesting decisions in games for eg. should I kill the opponents' creature on the upkeep of his 4th turn to keep him off devotion on the land so that he can't cast Xenagos etc. whereas right now, what you see is what you get. The current design is just terrible and will be played in Standard only because of a lack in options.
ok i will say this - not trying to be a jerk -
but im tired of the "oh but m13 was so fun in limited, m14 will be fun in limited"
who cares about limited.
we want good cards. that have worth or are real good.
at the end of the day a crappy card thats a "bomb" in limited is still a hunk of poop
I agree. It seems as if that's the only argument to justify bad cards is that they have a role to play in Limited. While that is all fine and dandy, the balance with the other formats must be struck. After all the fun and experience at Limited events, what do you get? You get what you pulled during the drafts. What can you do with them? Collection's sake, dabble in trading, or more importantly, use those cards in a Constructed event. No one wants to keep bad cards. If those cards go in the bin right after the events, Wizards has achieved short term gain but long term loss.
Alright, let's just say certain cards, bad cards, or cards that seem out of place exist for the sake of Limited. Why can't the power level be high but across the board? Think original Ravnica. Why must power level be kept low to keep things 'fair'? It's all relative. If Blue gets JTMS whereas other colors get crap, it seems 'unfair', but if there are measures in those colors to keep such powerful cards in check, it's fair game for all. Of course, power level shouldn't be raised too high too fast or else it obsoletes older cards or strategies e.g. Titans. A gradual upward power level curve present in original Ravnica and Innistrad would be ideal, at least for me.
#1 Guild mechanics didn't 'evolve' enough, no pun intended
Each guild gets a grand total of 2 cards with its guild mechanic and they did more or less the same ol' stuff which was already covered in RTR/GTC.
Unleash continues its identity as a dumb aggro mechanic. Can't they create a card which makes it beneficial NOT to unleash it? No, not being able to block is not a big deal at all. Something like a 1BR 2/2 creature which gains haste, first strike or lord for dudes with +1/+1 tokens when unleashed, or draw 1 card lose 1 life every upkeep if otherwise? Flavor-wise, it could be a Rakdos general who leads his troops into battle, or is a manipulator behind the scenes.
Almost every mechanic is just tweaking numbers e.g. Lyev Decree (I used to detain only 1 dude in RTR now I can detain TWO in DGM yippee!) or worse, tacked onto otherwise vanilla creatures as if we hadn't seen enough in RTR/GTC e.g. Battering Krasis. Although Graft wasn't competitive back in the days of original Ravnica, it covered more ground and provided more possibilities.
#2 Terrible guild champions
They're just a ragtag of existing spells or abilities and terribly fail flavor-wise. Vorel is infamously known as Gilder Bairn 2.0. Teysa is the 4/4 cripple with No Mercy. It's no wonder that guild champions who feature their guild mechanic are more well-received.
Tajic could have been a pseudo Hero of Bladehold, maybe add 1 token instead of 2, to make it more possible to trigger his battalion ability? Instead of an arbitrary +5, giving him +1 for each other attacking creature would better showcase how he depends on the strength of the Legion. Just giving it indestructability and an enormous arbitrary P/T battalion bonus seems really half-assed.
Of course, the Emmara/Voice of Resurgence fiasco left a bad taste in many players' mouths. Nuff' said.
#3 Waste of card slots, especially in such a small set
Cluestones are not necessary at all with all the Keystones and guild gates. If mana fixing is still a problem, just putting in 1-2 mana fixing artifacts e.g. Prophetic Prism in GTC would suffice, no? Someone also mentioned the Maze creatures and I agree. Even if it's for Limited, at least make them more playable at a lower CMC! Same goes for the Primordial cycle in GTC. It's a pity as they could have maximize those slots to fully flesh out the guild mechanics.
As I said in other threads, the dying clause on VoR is unnecessary. If that were to be taken away, it could be safely demoted to rare and the effect could be put back on Emmara (since the legend rule cannot be exploited via the dying clause), yet retaining its purpose as a control hoser. I see no point in hosing every single deck which runs removal. It's just stupidly pushed just to sell packs. I would be glad see its power level go down a notch if it meant that the rest of the set would bump up a notch, instead of the pile of junk we have right now.
They could have taken away the dying clause of Voice of Resurgence to bump the power level down to rare and give it to Emmara Tandris. This way, the legend rule cannot be exploited and while hosing control decks, doesn't hose every other deck (because most decks definitely run removals to interact with the opponent). In fact, even with the current state of things, the dying clause is redundant as it pushes the power level of Voice of Resurgence too high without the player actually putting in extra effort to make it work well. It seems Wizards are trying too hard to appease Spikes after a slew of a horrible rares, but now, they've offended Vorthos who are equally important as Spikes.
What was Wizards thinking when they made this card? It's bad not because of its ability (ok, it does make it suck to a certain extent), but as some other posters have said, it's a logistical nightmare for paper Magic.
Return to Ravnica block has been a disappointment so far. What happened to the awesome design philosophy of the original? Compare this turd with its counterpart in the original block, Gelectrode. Its design is of the overlap of its colors, blue's Prodigal Sorcerer ceding the role to red's Prodigal Pyromancer, red and blue are both heavy in spells etc. It was an elegant design which helped give Izzet its unique identity.
Compared that to now, "oh, red does this, blue does this, so i guess it's okay if it's a UR creature!" design philosophy is just so bad. Goblin Test Pilot doesn't showcase its blue identity. Even if it does, there will be a disconnect between the red and blue identity because they are working on the complements of UR instead of the overlap (intersect). I guess they just ran out of ideas for overlapping abilities.
I believe that was their justification for Abrupt Decay as well. "Well, uncounterable clause hasn't been on green spells, but green creatures such as Thrun has it, so it's fine!". How about the other half of the colors, black? Not only did they forcefully tack the uncounterable clause on black cards, they also went out of their way to justify including it on a green spell because it was only done on creatures in the past! Just really disappointing...
The dying clause on Voice is unnecessary. I can appreciate the hoser effects for control decks based on flash and instants, forcing the control player to cast a removal on Voice on their main turn, which gives the Selesnya player a window of opportunity to land his next threat with counterspell mana down. However, every deck runs removal to interact with the opponents, and adding the dying clause just a really bad decision to hose everyone. Voice will consistently produce at least one token unless some very niche removal is run e.g. Pillar of Flame but it's gonna be rotating out soon. I'd rather players improve their game, such as stated above, forcing opponents to deal with Voice and capitalize on a window of opportunity to apply further pressure, then spoon feeding players "oh, I'm just gonna do what I want because Voice will most probably generate card advantage without me lifting a finger to do anything".
Electrolyze has become prevalent lately and Vendilion Clique is soft to it. Even worse if you already have a Snapcaster Mage on the board and risk a blowout. She would shine in combo matchups, but combo is on the decline. IMO, 2 Path to Exile, 2 Spell Snare would be a balanced configuration to deal with Tarmagoyf because too many removal spells might be blanks against non-aggro decks. I tested the pure midrange version against Wafo Tapa's version and the matchup is really bad. Adding Cryptic Commands might give it a better chance against it.
Lightning Angel is my favorite card of all time and usually the poster girl of UWR strategies over the years, but sadly, it began to steadily lose favor when Baneslayer Angel was printed for the first time, and the printing of Restoration Angel more or less sealed the fate of Lightning Angel. The only upside to Lightning Angel is having vigilance which meant she can be played aggressively and defensively at the same time. But she doesn't even come close compared to Restoration Angel. Being able to surprise block, recur 187 effects, save Geist from combat are way too important in this format.
I've tested Aurelia's Fury and it's quite underwhelming. When I want to kill small creatures, it's not as efficient as Electrolyze. When I want to tap fatties such as Goyf, I'd rather have a Cryptic Command. When I want to preempt my opponent from casting spells, I'd rather have a counterspell to get rid of the spell for good, instead of delaying the inevitable. It's backbreaking against Storm but Storm has been nerfed. Never played against Eggs but it might have more relevance in that matchup.
One of the main reasons why it's underwhelming is that we can't consistently hit land drops every turn due to the lack of card draw to power a huge Aurelia's Fury. It might have more potential in Wafo Tapa's deck because of the increased amount of card draw but if I have a gazillion amount of mana, I'd rather cast Sphinx's Revelation, except maybe when the opponent is in burnable range.
Why isn't Cryptic Command played? The deck seems able to accommodate 2 Cryptic Commands if instead of splitting the early game counterspells, it adopts a playset of Mana Leak or Remand. Is it a mana issue or a curve issue, or something else?
An alternative would be playing Restoration Angels with 1-2 Venser, Shaper Savant. Venser has fallen off the radar for the later half of last year. Is it really that bad right now? He seems to be one of the few ways to counter Abrupt Decay and Supreme Verdict, and generally a catch-all answer for permanents that got past the counterspell wall.
When Gatecrash becomes legal, I'd probably try 1 Aurelia's Fury in place of the 3rd Electrolyze as well.
Noble Hierarch instead of Vial: Since only Vial and Witness are played at sorcery speed in this deck, Vial, while good, is unnecessary. Hierarch accelerates mana, sets up non-creature interactions, and powers down a turn 2 Shackles, which can end games by itself. If you like Vial, run Vial, though I'd strongly suggest that you remove Shackles from the list as well in that case.
Isn't the point of this deck creating a soft lock with Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command (bouncing Witness with another mode) + Aether Vial (to bring her in again without mana commitment)? While I kinda like your deck, it's way too 'fair'. It's hard to play fair in an eternal format such as Modern.
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Inspired is a clunky mechanic and obviously designed for Limited to urge players to take on an aggressive role to gain mileage from the Inspired abilities. Flavor-wise, I'm not seeing how untapping a creature leads to it being "inspired"? Miracle is about getting a lucky topdeck, a "miracle", I get that. I don't get that vibe from Inspired. Anyhow, a mechanic that requires setting up, either by a few turns or by playing narrow cards to support it doesn't translate well into Constructed.
I share the same sentiments as many people regarding Bestow. Wizards try their best to negate the innate disadvantages of Aura spells and yet they are so afraid to go all the way to support it, just to play safe and avoid any potential mistake. Aura spells aren't the offenders, Hexproof dudes are the ones who exploit them. Print less hexproof dudes, make the Bestow spells more reasonably cost, everyone will be happier.
Besides that, the Gods' predictability and all, it is quite a disappointing set. I feel that they are too focused on making the 3 big categories of heroes, monsters and gods, and miss the fact that within each category, there is still so much room to expand design on the individual ones.
The monstrous counters which I'm proposing aren't +1/+1 counters. I don't get it why Wizards rely so heavily on +1/+1 counters as mechanics in recent times, but that's another story altogether. How about if Ember Swallower kept its stats (alternatively, cost 1 more mana or more red mana reliance for balance), and gain the ability to destroy a land when it deals damage to the opponent, with a triggered ability at the beginning of the end step to deal 4 damage to all creatures by removing 4 monstrous counters? Powerful? Yes. Broken? I think not. IMO, giving them efficient mana cost-power ratio and further put +1/+1 counters on them to sell them as big, scary monsters isn't that creative at all. So, you say story first before mechanics. So the story is that monsters are big dumb dorks that rely on the planeswalker (player) to invest a bazillion mana in them to somehow a 'monstrous' threat?
I realized that my version of Bestow would work in the reverse of the one we have now, and it fails to meet the flavor of 'bestow' so I'll give you that. As for the lands, I know that they are a necessary evil to balance Standard, but in the first place, why is that necessary? In recent memory, we have Faeries, 5C Control, Jund, Caw-Blade, Delver, BTE dominating the metagame, and you might have thought they would have learnt something by now, but nope. I don't remember such problems existing back in Kamigawa/Ravnica, Ravnica/Time Spiral Standard. Power creep existed but was introduced into each color uniformly. Every color, every archetype had their chance to be top dog. GW Glare, Gruul, Zoo, Angelfire, Solar Flare, UB Dralnu, Dragonstorm. Every deck, every archetype had a distinct unique strategy, rather than just beat face in recent times. The fact that 3C can be called goodstuff in Standard and Modern is the testimony for their failures. Back then, only FOUR or FIVE colors would be categorized as goodstuff. Why do we consumers have to pay for their mistakes? I sure don't like it when they force their solutions on us.
My ideas are inherently bad, hard to play, jank? How big of a MaRo fanboy are you? Have you sleeved up the current Theros set up and gave it a spin, and then tried my ideas for a change? I guess nope to both so please don't be pretentious. I'm not saying Wizards' ideas are THAT terrible, and in fact, I'm pleased with the overall strength and playability compared to DGM/M14, but only that it failed to nail the flavor on the spot. And if you think the current mechanics are that easy to play compared to mine, tell that to the bloke who's confused whether the Bestow card goes to the yard when the target dies, or whether a card paid with Bestow cost can be countered by Essence Scatter.
A monster becomes 'monstrous' only when you sink a bazillion mana in it? I feel that there should be an incremental build to make the monster a looming threat to create tension during the game. For instance, having Ember Swallower gain a monstrous counter and have it destroy a land during the upkeep, when it deals damage to the opponent or the many other different possibilities to make each monster unique, and have it affect the board e.g. 4 damage to all creatures ala Wildfire when a threshold of counters is hit, to keep things interesting. Instead, the current iteration of Monstrosity we have now just makes the monsters dumb dorks before you hit critical mana to go big.
As someone have mentioned, Bestow is wordy and clunky. It's the same ability written twice. That's awfully redundant! That restricts creativity because a physical card has its word limitation. If instead, Bestow cost works similarly to Living Weapon (put a token into play and enchant it), I feel that more design space could have been freed up. Yes, that would lose the novelty of having a Enchantment Creature card type, but it is merely a novelty which would fade away in time but leave behind a plethora of rules nightmare (see DFCs although Huntmaster of the Fells is way too OP to not play in Modern despite the hassle).
Wizards promoted Theros as a top-down design block and they gave us the awful Temple cycles. I thought nothing could be worse than DGM's cluestones but I was wrong. So, anything and everything that linked to spirituality has scry. How original is that? Temple of Abandon requires you to sacrifice or bounce a creature to fully utilize its mana? No, it has scry. Temple of Silence causes you the inability to cast spells on your turn but have access to the mana on your opponent's turn to kill whatever they churn out? No, it has scry. You call that top-down design? I reckon this would be too difficult to balance so a simple uniform effect such as, if your devotion to the 2 colors is more or equal to 3, comes into play untap, or comes into play tapped with scry 1. It would act as a reverse Scars land with the ability of the current iteration as an alternative. Anything, something other than just scry 1 would have made these lands more exciting than they are now.
As for gameplay issues, people who are arguing in favor of MaRo said that downgrading it to uncommon will lead to unbalanced Limited games. While I understand the reasons behind the decision, I ask, since the team already knew that the lands would be poorly received by constructed players, why did they not consider a design overhaul or a detailed review to discuss its long-term implications? That's the very least they could do for us consumers. Enough with the "it's for Limited! well, and uhhh, Standard, I guess?" argument, because Limited/Standard is just a portion of Magic which lasts for 1-2 years. It is a trading card game with various Eternal formats which will last till the day Magic dies. I'm not asking for Dark Confidant quality Modern staples for every single card but I'm just asking for a balanced set with something for everyone. It's obvious judging from the recent trends, design revolves around Limited (to gain FNM attendees?), and cater to Commander because it is gaining popularity, and randomly throws a bone to competitive players (Voice of Resurgence, Scavenging Ooze, Thoughtseize) to hopefully leash them but know they're not the main target audience because constructed players usually turn to the secondary market for singles which Wizards has no share in. No matter what category of consumer we fall into, all customers have to feel equally important to contribute to the health of the game.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree. It seems as if that's the only argument to justify bad cards is that they have a role to play in Limited. While that is all fine and dandy, the balance with the other formats must be struck. After all the fun and experience at Limited events, what do you get? You get what you pulled during the drafts. What can you do with them? Collection's sake, dabble in trading, or more importantly, use those cards in a Constructed event. No one wants to keep bad cards. If those cards go in the bin right after the events, Wizards has achieved short term gain but long term loss.
Alright, let's just say certain cards, bad cards, or cards that seem out of place exist for the sake of Limited. Why can't the power level be high but across the board? Think original Ravnica. Why must power level be kept low to keep things 'fair'? It's all relative. If Blue gets JTMS whereas other colors get crap, it seems 'unfair', but if there are measures in those colors to keep such powerful cards in check, it's fair game for all. Of course, power level shouldn't be raised too high too fast or else it obsoletes older cards or strategies e.g. Titans. A gradual upward power level curve present in original Ravnica and Innistrad would be ideal, at least for me.
Each guild gets a grand total of 2 cards with its guild mechanic and they did more or less the same ol' stuff which was already covered in RTR/GTC.
Unleash continues its identity as a dumb aggro mechanic. Can't they create a card which makes it beneficial NOT to unleash it? No, not being able to block is not a big deal at all. Something like a 1BR 2/2 creature which gains haste, first strike or lord for dudes with +1/+1 tokens when unleashed, or draw 1 card lose 1 life every upkeep if otherwise? Flavor-wise, it could be a Rakdos general who leads his troops into battle, or is a manipulator behind the scenes.
Almost every mechanic is just tweaking numbers e.g. Lyev Decree (I used to detain only 1 dude in RTR now I can detain TWO in DGM yippee!) or worse, tacked onto otherwise vanilla creatures as if we hadn't seen enough in RTR/GTC e.g. Battering Krasis. Although Graft wasn't competitive back in the days of original Ravnica, it covered more ground and provided more possibilities.
#2 Terrible guild champions
They're just a ragtag of existing spells or abilities and terribly fail flavor-wise. Vorel is infamously known as Gilder Bairn 2.0. Teysa is the 4/4 cripple with No Mercy. It's no wonder that guild champions who feature their guild mechanic are more well-received.
Tajic could have been a pseudo Hero of Bladehold, maybe add 1 token instead of 2, to make it more possible to trigger his battalion ability? Instead of an arbitrary +5, giving him +1 for each other attacking creature would better showcase how he depends on the strength of the Legion. Just giving it indestructability and an enormous arbitrary P/T battalion bonus seems really half-assed.
Of course, the Emmara/Voice of Resurgence fiasco left a bad taste in many players' mouths. Nuff' said.
#3 Waste of card slots, especially in such a small set
Cluestones are not necessary at all with all the Keystones and guild gates. If mana fixing is still a problem, just putting in 1-2 mana fixing artifacts e.g. Prophetic Prism in GTC would suffice, no? Someone also mentioned the Maze creatures and I agree. Even if it's for Limited, at least make them more playable at a lower CMC! Same goes for the Primordial cycle in GTC. It's a pity as they could have maximize those slots to fully flesh out the guild mechanics.
Return to Ravnica block has been a disappointment so far. What happened to the awesome design philosophy of the original? Compare this turd with its counterpart in the original block, Gelectrode. Its design is of the overlap of its colors, blue's Prodigal Sorcerer ceding the role to red's Prodigal Pyromancer, red and blue are both heavy in spells etc. It was an elegant design which helped give Izzet its unique identity.
Compared that to now, "oh, red does this, blue does this, so i guess it's okay if it's a UR creature!" design philosophy is just so bad. Goblin Test Pilot doesn't showcase its blue identity. Even if it does, there will be a disconnect between the red and blue identity because they are working on the complements of UR instead of the overlap (intersect). I guess they just ran out of ideas for overlapping abilities.
I believe that was their justification for Abrupt Decay as well. "Well, uncounterable clause hasn't been on green spells, but green creatures such as Thrun has it, so it's fine!". How about the other half of the colors, black? Not only did they forcefully tack the uncounterable clause on black cards, they also went out of their way to justify including it on a green spell because it was only done on creatures in the past! Just really disappointing...
I've tested Aurelia's Fury and it's quite underwhelming. When I want to kill small creatures, it's not as efficient as Electrolyze. When I want to tap fatties such as Goyf, I'd rather have a Cryptic Command. When I want to preempt my opponent from casting spells, I'd rather have a counterspell to get rid of the spell for good, instead of delaying the inevitable. It's backbreaking against Storm but Storm has been nerfed. Never played against Eggs but it might have more relevance in that matchup.
One of the main reasons why it's underwhelming is that we can't consistently hit land drops every turn due to the lack of card draw to power a huge Aurelia's Fury. It might have more potential in Wafo Tapa's deck because of the increased amount of card draw but if I have a gazillion amount of mana, I'd rather cast Sphinx's Revelation, except maybe when the opponent is in burnable range.
An alternative would be playing Restoration Angels with 1-2 Venser, Shaper Savant. Venser has fallen off the radar for the later half of last year. Is it really that bad right now? He seems to be one of the few ways to counter Abrupt Decay and Supreme Verdict, and generally a catch-all answer for permanents that got past the counterspell wall.
When Gatecrash becomes legal, I'd probably try 1 Aurelia's Fury in place of the 3rd Electrolyze as well.
Isn't the point of this deck creating a soft lock with Eternal Witness + Cryptic Command (bouncing Witness with another mode) + Aether Vial (to bring her in again without mana commitment)? While I kinda like your deck, it's way too 'fair'. It's hard to play fair in an eternal format such as Modern.