"Unique hand". It doesn't say human and it doesn't say living. If you don't mind stretching the bounds of good taste, you could come up with plenty of tokens for this.
I like the way this is going. Gotta buy me some new tokens:
With both Animation Module and Durable Handicraft, any creature that enters the battlefield under your control, or +1/+1 counter being placed on your creatures, sets off the combo: 2: Create a 2/2 creature token. Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is a convenient, manaless token producer too.
Obviously, this isn't the same as Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek; notable differences being that there's no life gain attached, the mana cost is increased by a full 100%, and it almost always will require a third party to make the tokens/counters. Hyperbolic title aside, I think the comparison does bear some examining. Thoughts?
The solution for land tokens that I've found is to exile the card that creates the token. That way, you can use the exiled card as the token, whereas the graveyard is too often a relevant zone in the game.
I am very fond of Surrak, but is he not far too powerful to cost only 5 mana? In my opinion, a 6/6 creature with no abilities is perfectly balanced at 6 mana, and maybe a single ability could keep it at that cost, but, with all those abilities together, he should cost 7 or even 8 mana, in my mind. Also, why does he himself not have trample, despite granting other creatures that ability?
"He seems too powerful for standard. Why isn't he more powerful?"
You only have to make the comparison if you're talking about this card in a limited perspective. While some believe that sets' primary focus should be their limited environments, I find that short-sighted for two reasons:
1. A Limited environment lasts for 8-9 months (and as low as 3 months for smaller sets).
2. Wizards has already pointed out that sets developed solely for Limited have been overwhelming mistakes, such as Coldsnap.
Rather than Salvation being bad at Magic, you fail to view things from anything but your own myopic perspective.
I've seen this Coldsnap comparison thrown around a couple times now and I just wanted to emphasize that Coldsnap was a small set which had multiple cards (Feast of Flesh, Sound the Call, etc) as well as an entire mechanic (ripple) hat were essentially built around drafting. In no way does crafting the removal suite of a set to emphasize the set's mechanics make this a second Coldsnap.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect much high-power, low-rarity removal in this set because of the incentivization of morph; morph depends on overcosted vanilla 2/2s surviving in order for it to even be usable in any way. I would much rather get a chance to actually use this very cool, very anticipated returning mechanic without having my wobbly-dragon-fireball-pudding-spiders constantly immediately destroyed.
Not trying to fan the flames at all, I had the same knee-jerk reaction, I really did. But after thinking about it, I'm fine with this. And if it even has the chance of seeing fringe standard play, that's honestly good enough for me.
I could totally see this. My guess would be monocolored versions that trigger off of the other clan colors (for example, this seemingly Mardu one would be red and would trigger off casting a black spell or a white spell).
Opened a pretty mediocre set of packs, but got lucky and went 4-0. Some notes:
That Sungrace Pegasus is apparently a bomb. Dandruff horse won me so many games.
I won multiple games off of Runeclaw Bears, go figure. The format seems aggro-y enough to where you need to pay attention to your curve; they're road bumps early on and tempo-tastic late game with Return to the Ranks and Spirit Bonds.
I had dismissed Sunblade Elf, but it was awesome as an aggressive one drop that scaled later in the game. The anthem effect won me a couple close games.
It may seem cool to make the Coral Barrier bounce deck. Don't. It's not very good.
Hastened Inquiring2UR
Instant (Rare)
Each player discards his or her hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way.
Windfall? what about if it was: "…then each player draws cards equal to the total number of cards discarded this way."
Tactical warfare probably needs a "choose one" before the choices, and Presence of the Eternal seems maybe too good. Necrovore is awesome.
My girlfriend and I made each other decks last year. Did all the drawings and everything :). It's pretty fun but I agree that we should have included a few reprints in there.
So you want every single person who wants to play it to come to this forum and get pooped upon? Alright, let flow the dookie good sirs. I want to play it. I want to make a deck with Thassa and Keranos and that starfish and a bunch of other scryers. That sounds fun to me. And this + the starfish in limited actually seems pretty good (though admittedly I'm a terrible drafter lol).
Just because you cannot possibly imagine someone wanting to play this card doesn't mean the card is pointless. It means your imagination and sense of empathy suck.
I'm just gonna laugh when someone possibility storms into one of these dudes in standard. almost makes me want to make the deck.
I had a terrible version of this in Standard when Curse of Exhaustion was around. Now that there's actually some enchantment support? Oh it's on, and slightly less terrible.
I like the way this is going. Gotta buy me some new tokens:
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Rubber-Finger-Hands-Puppets/dp/B00RZQ1SMG/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1511195450&sr=8-7&keywords=rubber hand
Obviously, this isn't the same as Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek; notable differences being that there's no life gain attached, the mana cost is increased by a full 100%, and it almost always will require a third party to make the tokens/counters. Hyperbolic title aside, I think the comparison does bear some examining. Thoughts?
"He seems too powerful for standard. Why isn't he more powerful?"
I've seen this Coldsnap comparison thrown around a couple times now and I just wanted to emphasize that Coldsnap was a small set which had multiple cards (Feast of Flesh, Sound the Call, etc) as well as an entire mechanic (ripple) hat were essentially built around drafting. In no way does crafting the removal suite of a set to emphasize the set's mechanics make this a second Coldsnap.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect much high-power, low-rarity removal in this set because of the incentivization of morph; morph depends on overcosted vanilla 2/2s surviving in order for it to even be usable in any way. I would much rather get a chance to actually use this very cool, very anticipated returning mechanic without having my wobbly-dragon-fireball-pudding-spiders constantly immediately destroyed.
Not trying to fan the flames at all, I had the same knee-jerk reaction, I really did. But after thinking about it, I'm fine with this. And if it even has the chance of seeing fringe standard play, that's honestly good enough for me.
I could totally see this. My guess would be monocolored versions that trigger off of the other clan colors (for example, this seemingly Mardu one would be red and would trigger off casting a black spell or a white spell).
Creature - Wizard
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, draw a card.
1/1
That Sungrace Pegasus is apparently a bomb. Dandruff horse won me so many games.
I won multiple games off of Runeclaw Bears, go figure. The format seems aggro-y enough to where you need to pay attention to your curve; they're road bumps early on and tempo-tastic late game with Return to the Ranks and Spirit Bonds.
The white paragon is totally the best paragon because it's in white, the color with Triplicate Spirits and Raise the Alarm.
I had dismissed Sunblade Elf, but it was awesome as an aggressive one drop that scaled later in the game. The anthem effect won me a couple close games.
It may seem cool to make the Coral Barrier bounce deck. Don't. It's not very good.
Windfall? what about if it was: "…then each player draws cards equal to the total number of cards discarded this way."
Tactical warfare probably needs a "choose one" before the choices, and Presence of the Eternal seems maybe too good. Necrovore is awesome.
Just because you cannot possibly imagine someone wanting to play this card doesn't mean the card is pointless. It means your imagination and sense of empathy suck.
I had a terrible version of this in Standard when Curse of Exhaustion was around. Now that there's actually some enchantment support? Oh it's on, and slightly less terrible.