Excellent article! It really got me thinking. Before I even clicked the link, my first thought was "it's gotta be Lightning Bolt, right?" Now I think I'm firmly in the Dismember camp, and here's my reasoning:
Bolt is an excellent benchmark for what creatures are strong in modern, but not for what creatures are potentially unfair. If bolt was banned, the benchmark for burn would shift to something like Burst Lightning or Incinerate, and several more 3-toughness creatures might start to see play, like Vampire Nighthawk. The same decks would probably exist in similar proportions, but decks that lean on red removal would slow down slightly. Bolt tends to help you win games more than it stops you from outright losing them.
If Dismember was banned, many decks would lose their best (most maindeckable) answer to the only popular combo that really threatens to be unfair in the format (Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin, or even Restoration Angel + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker), causing it to show up in larger proportions than it already does. The splashability and single-mana cost are key here, since Exarch can tap a land before going off and only black and white have other maindeckable "hard" answers. It also kills enough commonly played creatures (that bolt does and doesn't kill) to keep it relevant outside of the Twin matchup. Dismember really is the format's "oh $#!+" answer.
Abrupt Decay is amazing, but the versatility of targets is compromised by strict color costs. It's an auto-include whenever possible, but it just can't be played in enough decks to be considered "glue" in my opinion.
TL;DR - Bolt is a bread-and-butter spell that defines the format, but Dismember keeps it in check, making it the closest analog to Force of Will with regard to it's function in the metagame. I also think graveyard hate in general is extremely important for keeping unfair decks in check.
This is actually a really cool card. Dont like that it does basically nothing when it isnt entering or leaving. Cards like that are fun if they are recurrable, which enchantments are tricky to do this with..
Still cool though
If it cost 3 or less, Sun Titan could recur it, which it would then immediately kill. Ironic. We could consider renaming it to "Blot out the Sun Titan."
I just want a cheap-scavenging, over-costed creature. Maybe something like:
3GGBB
4/4
Scavenge 1GB
It's a little hard to gauge whether or not this is feasible. It's obviously strong in decks that want it, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable.
Seems like Jund will like him a lot. Junk Reanimator a big no no though they like their stuff dead. I'm wondering if it changes creatures that have scavenge already? Dread Mangler for 3 is much easier than for his original 5.
I believe he gives scavenge creatures a second instance of scavenge and you can choose to pay either cost.
Where did you get such prices? I have never seen Decay under 10 preorder, hellkite under 15 and griselbrand under 15 O_o
It helps if you know several sites with less traffic. I managed to grab the last three 7.99 abrupt decays from a site I've never heard mentioned on these forums, and that was an hour before StarCity or ChannelFireball even listed decay.
Creatures are normally foil cards in intro packs, because creatures make a better face for a deck than a land, or a spell would ever be. Perhaps Overwhelming stampede is the foil rare for that M11 deck because it is a good card, and it has a rhino on it. I just don't think this deck will attract the attention of newer players, because we have a dragon, a guy on a winged horse thing, some monster with tentacles and teeth, 2 headed horse, and for this deck, it is just a land, which seems to have some dormant thing, as if the art is depicting a passive looking creature, I mean land. It turns 8/8 but it isn't really shown in the art. I can say this. If a new guy comes in, and he has to pick from 5 RTR intro packs, and that person has no prior information about what each deck is about, and the clerk isn't a huge magic guy, chances are, this deck will be picked the least. I just don't think Grove of the Guardian is a good eye catcher for new players.
This is a perfectly fine speculation, and I dare say I'd even agree. What I don't get is the prejudice against tokens. But whatever. Opinions are opinions.
I was also going to start a new thread saying that Return to Ravnica's packaging is blue, Gatecrash's packaging is probably red (looking at the Gatecrash Pro Tour banners in the mothersite and all), and to top it off, Sinker's packaging will probably be a cream color, so basically the reverse of the original Ravnica block, where Ravnica was cream colored, guildpact was red, and dissension was blue. I didn't because I know there are those people who think I pulled this information out of my ass, and they would gladly use that itchy trigger finger and say "TROLL".
Go ahead, just don't start with "over-reliance on red and blue color schemes is a bad thing." That's the sort of thing that sends people into troll-calling.
People also say, oh, you must look at the real decklist before you can judge. This is the speculation boards. I put the fact that this deck is all about populate, which really only works on TOKENS, and this deck has a non-creature card that makes a token as the foil card. This led me to conclude that non-creatures outweigh creatures. In case you didn't get it, and I will re-iterate this TIME AND TIME AGAIN, this deck will have more non-creature CARDS (Sorcery, Instant, Enchantment, Land) than creature CARDS, you know the ones that say creature-blah on the typeline? Rather than having a GW costed 3/3 creature, it would be the same cost, but be a sorcery that makes a 3/3 token. What WOULD HAVE been a creature is now a sorcery. This deck could even be equal in the amount of creatures and other spells. And for the record, you know those token cards that come with booster packs? Yeah, those don't count as Creature CARDS. They aren't 1 of the 60 cards in this deck.
What I am thinking about this deck is that this deck probably wants you to have more tokens than actual creature CARDS, because the ace foil card is a token generator, well a one time token generator, which means, this deck is all about the tokens, and no space is wasted on regular creature cards if you can have a sorcery that creates a token.
So what?! Tokens are a legitimate archetype that new players should be exposed to, and a lot of token decks have more spells than creatures. Same with control decks. And storm/a number of other combo decks.
There's nothing bad about decks with more spells than creatures.
And tokens count just as much as creatures when they're in play. Lingering Souls may not be a creature, but it allows me to have access to 3 more creatures than if I ran a Lantern Kami in its place.
Also, there are token cards, you know. You can collect them just like creature cards and they're dirt cheap. I happen to like using them. They effectively allow you to inflate your creature count. And they count as permanents. This is a purely semantic argument.
I suppose that's fair, although it seems to be a loose cycle at best, and I suspect maybe not even intended, but rather a consequence of trying to make things harder to cast in a multicolored environment. The mythic rarity does add credibility, but does having Jace as a monoblue mythic mess with the chances for a completed cycle?
At any rate, I do suspect that the high cycle count is an effort to provide some balance amongst the guilds.
Well I wouldn't expect the overload cost to be 1 or 2 more. It would be pointless to play that hypothetical card over Mortars then because it will kill a lot more for less. That is to say if the overload cost 7 to bounce them all, and 6 to potentially "kill them all", more people would take the Mortars over the bounce overload. But yeah, no more than U for a normal cast.
That would depend on the rarity, though. At uncommon, vs the rare mortars, I could see it costing 1 more.
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Bolt is an excellent benchmark for what creatures are strong in modern, but not for what creatures are potentially unfair. If bolt was banned, the benchmark for burn would shift to something like Burst Lightning or Incinerate, and several more 3-toughness creatures might start to see play, like Vampire Nighthawk. The same decks would probably exist in similar proportions, but decks that lean on red removal would slow down slightly. Bolt tends to help you win games more than it stops you from outright losing them.
If Dismember was banned, many decks would lose their best (most maindeckable) answer to the only popular combo that really threatens to be unfair in the format (Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin, or even Restoration Angel + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker), causing it to show up in larger proportions than it already does. The splashability and single-mana cost are key here, since Exarch can tap a land before going off and only black and white have other maindeckable "hard" answers. It also kills enough commonly played creatures (that bolt does and doesn't kill) to keep it relevant outside of the Twin matchup. Dismember really is the format's "oh $#!+" answer.
Abrupt Decay is amazing, but the versatility of targets is compromised by strict color costs. It's an auto-include whenever possible, but it just can't be played in enough decks to be considered "glue" in my opinion.
TL;DR - Bolt is a bread-and-butter spell that defines the format, but Dismember keeps it in check, making it the closest analog to Force of Will with regard to it's function in the metagame. I also think graveyard hate in general is extremely important for keeping unfair decks in check.
If it cost 3 or less, Sun Titan could recur it, which it would then immediately kill. Ironic. We could consider renaming it to "Blot out the Sun Titan."
3GGBB
4/4
Scavenge 1GB
It's a little hard to gauge whether or not this is feasible. It's obviously strong in decks that want it, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable.
I believe he gives scavenge creatures a second instance of scavenge and you can choose to pay either cost.
Can't grab both Increasing Vengeance and Fling. Both are 2cc.
It helps if you know several sites with less traffic. I managed to grab the last three 7.99 abrupt decays from a site I've never heard mentioned on these forums, and that was an hour before StarCity or ChannelFireball even listed decay.
This is a perfectly fine speculation, and I dare say I'd even agree. What I don't get is the prejudice against tokens. But whatever. Opinions are opinions.
Go ahead, just don't start with "over-reliance on red and blue color schemes is a bad thing." That's the sort of thing that sends people into troll-calling.
So what?! Tokens are a legitimate archetype that new players should be exposed to, and a lot of token decks have more spells than creatures. Same with control decks. And storm/a number of other combo decks.
There's nothing bad about decks with more spells than creatures.
And tokens count just as much as creatures when they're in play. Lingering Souls may not be a creature, but it allows me to have access to 3 more creatures than if I ran a Lantern Kami in its place.
I just can't make that into a logical connection. The one time this happened before, it wasn't true.
https://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2011/themedeck
22 creatures, 14 spells
Also, there are token cards, you know. You can collect them just like creature cards and they're dirt cheap. I happen to like using them. They effectively allow you to inflate your creature count. And they count as permanents. This is a purely semantic argument.
Golgari is about expediting the cycle of life and death. I think a mini-Infest is perfectly on flavor.
I suppose that's fair, although it seems to be a loose cycle at best, and I suspect maybe not even intended, but rather a consequence of trying to make things harder to cast in a multicolored environment. The mythic rarity does add credibility, but does having Jace as a monoblue mythic mess with the chances for a completed cycle?
At any rate, I do suspect that the high cycle count is an effort to provide some balance amongst the guilds.
That would depend on the rarity, though. At uncommon, vs the rare mortars, I could see it costing 1 more.