MTG Salvation

I think the Green one gives Haste to all your creatures not Trample.

The Black one is so disappointing compared to the other four. Why coouldn't it just reanimate from all graveyards? The White gets you 60 power wide, the Blue one (potentially) gets you a super full hand and two mroe turns to wreck with it, the Green one gets you two creatures and potentially semi-Craterhoofs your army, and the Red one gets you two spells form the yard and can copy them both 2 more times.

The black one has to target the creatures, can only kill 3 creatures, is restricted to X toughness, and then only reanimates from your graveyard? The others all feel better and more powerful because you can build into them, the Black one relies on the opponents having creatures you can even target and then relies on YOUR graveyard being full, leading to the first half the card wanting to be in a Black control deck and the later half in a combo-aggro graveyard deck.

Just meh.

Quote from Mystic_X »

Quote from TearingEons »

I was pretty stoked about Afterlife when it was announce and couldn't wait to see what tricks they'd come up for it. Then the spoilers started to drop and it was clear it wasn't gonna get the same love that the other mechanics, especially Riot and Adapt, were getting. Even Addendum looks better balanced than Afterlife. It'll be good for limited, but not for Constructed or EDH.
There's no one drop because they did basically that in Guilds. The creatures we did get this set just feel underpowered. I know that you get one or more bodies when they die, but most don't do anything interesting aside from that. Even the mythic was just ok. The only two that look decent are Ministrant of Obligation and Orzhov Enforcer. Afterlife didn't even get a spell to grant it to your creatures like Riot did.
The other four mechanics for this set all involve some sort of choice, while Afterlife was just there.
If I am mis-evaluating things, please correct me, I'd love to think better of this mechanic.

Uhm....Have you not seen Teysa Karlov?
Are you also forgetting about Divine Visitation?!
Ajani's Last Stand grants a form of afterlife as does open the graves
Lest we forget that deathbloom thallid creates a token when dying as do doomed dissenter, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, hunted witness, and martyr of dusk.
Orzhov also got Kaya's Wrath, an unconditional 4-mana sweeper (which is something we haven't seen in standard since Supreme Verdict)

Afterlife is good as is.
Any more support and some would likely complain it's broken.

I have to disagree, also there is a TON of Exile removal being played in standard. If there was less of it than yes I could see them reining in Afterlife. Also the mechanic itself is strong, but they really didn't handle the synergies well. Teysa is horrible without something on the board, Elenda doesn't start doing anything until you have her on the board and your stuff has to start dying post turn 4. Ajani's Last Stand is meh against aggro. Kaya's Wrath has a very strict cost to it and isn't what an Aristocrats deck would want to be doing. Yes, we have some other Aristocrat style creatures, but I don't think you have ever played an Aristocrats deck before. Aristocrat decks play lots of small creatures that need big synergy or pay-off cards, because the creatures themselves aren't very strong. A deck full of 2/2s that die into a 1/1s is okay, but not going to win you games. The big trick for Aristocrat decks is the sacrifice outlets and we got some very slow and clunky ones this time around. This is important given to my first point of how much exiling there is right now to combat decks like G/B. Without that fast sac outlet to get around that Settle, Coil, and Contempt I really don't see the deck performing very well.

So does Radical Idea look interesting for any Graveyard Control/Tempo decks? Other than that didn't see anything from today's previews that would be good in Modern. On another note, Jump-start is looking awful so far, like WotC played it too safe and over-costed (think Cypher from RtR). Hopefully, the previews today are the lowest power level in the set.

Direct Current is AWFUL. 3 mana sorcery Shock that requires another 3 mana and discard to deal another 2 damage, is terrible. Radical Idea just.... I don't know on first look it feels like a bad Think Twice. That discard in the Jump-start mechanic, just really really feels bad on these cards that it looks like WotC decided to cost very safely (aka under-powered).

Is this the new spoiler strategy WotC was hinting at for this set? Spoil all the Limited fodder first and save the power cards for later? Not really excited after this preview, it is only the first day, but I do prefer it, if they would spoil at least one Rare/Mythic a day, rather than day of Commons and maybe an Uncommon.

Quote from Slaugh »

It returns all zombies on curve, interesting. Now they need to print 3 playable zombies, but I know they'll never do that.

Diregraf Ghoul, Graveyard Marshal, Death Baron ? Still need more playable Zombies with the Amonkhet ones leaving, but just saying.

Mainly Mono red aggro, r/b aggro and u/w control for standard. Humans for Modern. Grixis Delver for Legacy. Best looking cards out of DOM: Karn, Lyra, Teferi, History of Benalia, and Goblin Chainwhirler.

I think this might make it in standard, but I really wish it was a 3/4 (to survive bolt for modern). This is pretty bland for a Rare (I know Nantuko Shade was a Rare, but there is a big difference between now and then).

Quote from idSurge »

Its also different, as it has the untapped, tap for colourless.

I've had this conversation before, but functionally similar but different cards leads to a critical mass of effects that can be built on to create a deck.

I was hoping for a Lake of the Dead effect, but oh well.

The BBB card also underwhelms me.

Yep, Black looks very "safe" out this set, lots of 5+cc cards. I guess this is whats happens when they print another Black removal spell at 2cc. Shade would maybe make it if it had another ability, or was a 3/4 (could play it turn 3 without it dying to a bolt).

Good enough to bring standard Zombies back? The four slot was kinda empty.

I don't think this is even very good in mono-black EDH. They have repinted/newly printed enough utility lands, that I would recommend playing those over the number of basic swamps you would have to pack to make this useful. This is no Cabal Coffers, not even close to a good "fixed" version. I dub it Crappy Coffers and may it rot in the bargain bin.

Anyone see Wizard's attempt to "fix" Cabal Coffers? I will call it Crappy Coffers, I think Shrine to Nykthos is just better in Mono-Black; but ramp in colors other than green always draws some second looks.

It ticks me off, I play Heroclixs (also by Wizkids) and our minis are not near this nice, plus some especially lame design decisions and lame game elements have been prevailing for a while, effectively killing play in my area. It really stinks when the two collectible games you like to play are both suffering from poor management and design at the same time.

Ink blotting is also still a fairly valid issue with the set: https://imgur.com/a/tHOE5
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/848jg8/randomization_is_not_the_only_issue_affecting/

Ink blotting is also still a fairly valid issue with the set: https://imgur.com/a/tHOE5
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/848jg8/randomization_is_not_the_only_issue_affecting/