I probably missed something, how did he get to 27/27 in your scenario?
multiple activations, and you can do it after blockers are declared. So if all your mana is from land sources, it becomes
3 mana = 3/3
6 mana = 9/9
9 mana = 12/12
12 mana = 27/27
That means Radha can be a 3 turn clock at 6 mana avaible (more likely 2, if she got in a hit) and 1 turn clock at 12 mana.
which is a pretty scary payoff for a card that's already mostly equivalent to courser of kruphix before that ability. These decks hit 6 mana fast with their uro/spiral ramp and have no problems flooding 12+ lands onto the battlefield midgame.
I want to sound an alarm here that this could be another sleeper "ruins your standard" card. Courser of Kruphix was a powerful value engine that saw a lot of play. This is similar value engine, better aggressive body worse defensive and less information revealed. But its also stapled to an end-game win condition. Its like you take your courser's draw package and give it an ability rivaling spawnsire of ulamog. Yikes. Because decks with cards like growth spiral, uro, titan of nature's wrath and this will have no problems accelerating out land drops, and 6 lands turns this into a 9/9 first strike, but once it hits that critical 12th land you suddenly get a ridiculous 27/27 first strike that can end the game in one attack. Yeah, no evasion, no protection, but it seems extremely dangerous to have an already efficient draw/ramp pieces that's equivalent to a previous all-star card and staple a mana dump that wins you the game onto it. It would be like if they reprinted Priest of Titania but gave it a fireball activated ability
Someone else pointed out to me a more direct instant win combo than converted it into tooth & nail
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate + Sorin's Vengeance + Searing Wind is a modern legal "20 damage to your face" on the spot in all 3 permutations.
its a big improvement over cheating in emrakul + xenagos since there's far less ways to interact with it, no chump blockers, no removal, no combat step. It is blanked by leyline of sanctity however
well, this needed comprehensive rules changes to make it work, so I have no idea how it actually interacts with stuff
will be interesting to read the notes
Given the pestilent spirit precedent, I am sad it doesn't have trample and just directly states the effect. But trample might have caused a whole bunch of issues when you staple it to other spells with complicated effects
No matter what choice your opponent makes, you get to put at least 2 creatures from your library onto the battlefield. Of course, such a combo is pretty silly since you'd want some redundancy in combo pieces and this just makes it into tooth & nail #5-8 while needing you to run a few of those other big spells
Huh well that's going to be its own combo archetype. Jumps right past recycle and into bananas territory
Without a deck built around it to ramp mana beyond 4 or cast from the graveyard, this is deceptive since it will make you discard your hand after casting it, which might whiff your ability to combo off. But in decks like legacy with LED or modern with rituals, you might be able to resolve it and keep chaining that turn and win.
I think the combined choices of restabilizing a board with draw engines, an extra +2 storm count in LED decks, a notable defense against aggro or a silver bullet attack combo and the ability to ramp +3 mana/+1 storm in LED after an untap or recur countered/milled/used combo pieces is a pretty gigantic package for a card which might have very little / zero deckbuilding cost for a lot of existing archetypes. Many other cards with flashback or graveyard value have been analyzed on the 'last knife when you're out of bullets' effect, giving you some means to claw back when you're in a stalled lategame state. But those cards all had up front opportunity costs. Lurrus can be all upside, an 8th card in hand that you draw every game. And when it can help power out ANT/TES combos or be its own value engine when goldfishing, then its not just a backup plan.
Just to put it into perspective, before breach was banned (yeah, derp), they were already running Sevinne's Reclamation in mainboards as a way to recur breach. This does it from the sideboard without needing to tutor it or get it into your bin with 5 mana. And with storm already having LED, Petal & Wishclaw as targets, it seems like too good a free 8th card to pass up. It might even convince more decks to run thinning baubles
So is this going to wind up banned in some formats?
This gives lots of eternal combo decks a disgusting level of consistency. You're not only starting with an 8th card in hand, but its a combo engine. You can cast this off black lotus or lion's eye diamond and then recast them the same turn, and the next turn, you'll have 6 mana available. In legacy you can cast LED -> crack LED -> cast Lurrus from sideboard -> cast LED from graveyard, next turn crack LED -> cast underworld breach from graveyard or crack LED -> cast LED from graveyard -> crack LED -> flashback past in flames with +1 mana open. All on top of whatever you're doing normally.
Burn decks with splash mana have basically 0 opportunity cost to run this, giving them extra lategame reach. All you give up is the protection of basic lands- already given up for RB- and you can start recurring goblin guides, eidolons, swiftspears, etc.
There are plenty of archetypes that can't slot this in, sure, like any stoneforge packages or gurmag angler, and combo has to give up simian spirit guide. But we're talking about deck building where black combo vintage archetypes would gladly give up their 1-of restricted necropotence if it meant having Lurrus in their sideboard recurring mox/lotus/chalice/vault/sol ring.
Just the fact you could have a completely empty hand and board in a long game with nothing but lands and mana rocks, and then cast this from your sideboard, then cast snapcaster from your bin, and use it to flashback yawgmoth's will, resolve a ton of rituals/rocks and pull a win out of nowhere- how nutty is that?
This is less of a design & development failure than BFZ. It could have been worse.
They made a set, its not pretty, mistakes were made, a lot of patchwork holds it together, but it works. Its a functional set. It treads heavily into trodden ground and especially blurs the lines of 'arbitrary markers' like BFZ did (what does it mean to be a 'colorless' permanent? What does it mean to be an 'enchantment'?), and it didn't flesh out its scope even as much as the original Theros did (I know what an enchantment on Theros 1.0 was, and it wasn't an artifact equivalent). Escape just remixed older graveyard recursion mechanics with both the risky 'reusable indefinitely' clause as well as the self-limiting resource clause. Its a clunky mashup but at least designwise it both gives a payoff and a safety valve to keep it in check, again, not pretty, but functional. And the story, well, at least they have a clear vision in mind, its telling a coherent narrative, just not fleshed out, not given the resources it should have. Oh well. It could have been BFZ, it could have been worse.
You could do worse than a 3/5 lifelink flying as a blocker but it does feel pretty desperate if you didn't just cast him. One big advantage of baneslayer angel was just how heavily it stabilized your board on the block, because an opponent swinging in with anything less than a 6/6 was going to lose 1 creature and shave off 6-10 damage, so even if they were still trying to run past you with a swarm of weenies the combat math would go against it. A 3/5 flying lifelink isn't as good as a 5/5 flying first strike lifelink but at least if you were desperate to hold it back after you untap with it, you could potentially use instant speed draw spells as combat tricks to make it a 4+/5 and kill off a 4/4.
does it really? Only in a very stretched definition of the terms. It doesn't really generate card advantage and it doesn't really protect itself and even to become an evasive body it needs to eat limited resources. Its a very slow card that needs to both tie up and eat a lot of your mana base to function. This you just slap it down with 1+ cards in your hand and you're able to untap and swing while playing the rest of your deck normally
Combat math and evasive body large enough to swing in and control a board or gain enough lifelink to offset the crackback
Card advantage or otherwise value engine that keeps asserting a dominant board state beyond just being a big dumb beater
Protection from removal you can use while tapped out or at low cost to be able to tap out for it and not just die 1:1 to a murder
Many have two of those factors. But how many have had all three? Chromium is a scary 7/7 flier that's hard to deal with, but if someone can just rush around him he's not going to develop more card advantage or gain life for you. Prognostic Sphinx can keep generating some value (not CA though) and protect itself, but its a 7 turn clock.
This poops card advantage, protects itself with no mana cost after you tap out for it, can swing big enough in the air to both close out a game and make that big life total swing like baneslayer angel, with the upside that it also might jump up to ~7 power when you add in draw spells.
Between being an undercosted beater on curve and rather absurdly large recursive self-reanimator that can come back multiple times, I feel like this might be getting a whole bunch of underestimation. Getting a 12/12 out of your graveyard for 6 mana is the kind of thing you'd be happy to do in a reanimator strategy, but this is doing it in one card not a combo. Its not as all-in winning as an eldrazi or a certain card drawing demon, but we're still talking about a 12/12 that eats your opponents board if he sticks for a turn. In a deck that isn't running other escape cards to compete with it or other graveyard payoffs, you might be seeing this come down as a 6/6, trade with a creature or two or a kill spell, then come right back as a 12/12 that absolutely needs to be answered, and even if it does get answered, it might come back a few turns later as a 12/12 again.
Escape is naturally a dangerous recursive mechanic by letting it occur multiple times, threatening to be oppressive. But of all the other cards spoiled, none impact board state enough to be scary. The biggest after this is a 5/6 gatekeeper. This is a 12/12 that can eat several creatures
multiple activations, and you can do it after blockers are declared. So if all your mana is from land sources, it becomes
3 mana = 3/3
6 mana = 9/9
9 mana = 12/12
12 mana = 27/27
That means Radha can be a 3 turn clock at 6 mana avaible (more likely 2, if she got in a hit) and 1 turn clock at 12 mana.
which is a pretty scary payoff for a card that's already mostly equivalent to courser of kruphix before that ability. These decks hit 6 mana fast with their uro/spiral ramp and have no problems flooding 12+ lands onto the battlefield midgame.
Torgaar, Famine Incarnate + Sorin's Vengeance + Searing Wind is a modern legal "20 damage to your face" on the spot in all 3 permutations.
its a big improvement over cheating in emrakul + xenagos since there's far less ways to interact with it, no chump blockers, no removal, no combat step. It is blanked by leyline of sanctity however
will be interesting to read the notes
Given the pestilent spirit precedent, I am sad it doesn't have trample and just directly states the effect. But trample might have caused a whole bunch of issues when you staple it to other spells with complicated effects
Well, if there's a pride deck, this is copies #5-8
take a pile of:
No matter what choice your opponent makes, you get to put at least 2 creatures from your library onto the battlefield. Of course, such a combo is pretty silly since you'd want some redundancy in combo pieces and this just makes it into tooth & nail #5-8 while needing you to run a few of those other big spells
Without a deck built around it to ramp mana beyond 4 or cast from the graveyard, this is deceptive since it will make you discard your hand after casting it, which might whiff your ability to combo off. But in decks like legacy with LED or modern with rituals, you might be able to resolve it and keep chaining that turn and win.
Just to put it into perspective, before breach was banned (yeah, derp), they were already running Sevinne's Reclamation in mainboards as a way to recur breach. This does it from the sideboard without needing to tutor it or get it into your bin with 5 mana. And with storm already having LED, Petal & Wishclaw as targets, it seems like too good a free 8th card to pass up. It might even convince more decks to run thinning baubles
This gives lots of eternal combo decks a disgusting level of consistency. You're not only starting with an 8th card in hand, but its a combo engine. You can cast this off black lotus or lion's eye diamond and then recast them the same turn, and the next turn, you'll have 6 mana available. In legacy you can cast LED -> crack LED -> cast Lurrus from sideboard -> cast LED from graveyard, next turn crack LED -> cast underworld breach from graveyard or crack LED -> cast LED from graveyard -> crack LED -> flashback past in flames with +1 mana open. All on top of whatever you're doing normally.
Burn decks with splash mana have basically 0 opportunity cost to run this, giving them extra lategame reach. All you give up is the protection of basic lands- already given up for RB- and you can start recurring goblin guides, eidolons, swiftspears, etc.
There are plenty of archetypes that can't slot this in, sure, like any stoneforge packages or gurmag angler, and combo has to give up simian spirit guide. But we're talking about deck building where black combo vintage archetypes would gladly give up their 1-of restricted necropotence if it meant having Lurrus in their sideboard recurring mox/lotus/chalice/vault/sol ring.
Just the fact you could have a completely empty hand and board in a long game with nothing but lands and mana rocks, and then cast this from your sideboard, then cast snapcaster from your bin, and use it to flashback yawgmoth's will, resolve a ton of rituals/rocks and pull a win out of nowhere- how nutty is that?
They made a set, its not pretty, mistakes were made, a lot of patchwork holds it together, but it works. Its a functional set. It treads heavily into trodden ground and especially blurs the lines of 'arbitrary markers' like BFZ did (what does it mean to be a 'colorless' permanent? What does it mean to be an 'enchantment'?), and it didn't flesh out its scope even as much as the original Theros did (I know what an enchantment on Theros 1.0 was, and it wasn't an artifact equivalent). Escape just remixed older graveyard recursion mechanics with both the risky 'reusable indefinitely' clause as well as the self-limiting resource clause. Its a clunky mashup but at least designwise it both gives a payoff and a safety valve to keep it in check, again, not pretty, but functional. And the story, well, at least they have a clear vision in mind, its telling a coherent narrative, just not fleshed out, not given the resources it should have. Oh well. It could have been BFZ, it could have been worse.
does it really? Only in a very stretched definition of the terms. It doesn't really generate card advantage and it doesn't really protect itself and even to become an evasive body it needs to eat limited resources. Its a very slow card that needs to both tie up and eat a lot of your mana base to function. This you just slap it down with 1+ cards in your hand and you're able to untap and swing while playing the rest of your deck normally
consider cards like drogskol reaver, Ætherling, Chromium, the Mutable, Pearl Lake Ancient, consecrated sphinx, nezahal, primal tide, etc etc. How many of these have matched all the following criterion?
Many have two of those factors. But how many have had all three? Chromium is a scary 7/7 flier that's hard to deal with, but if someone can just rush around him he's not going to develop more card advantage or gain life for you. Prognostic Sphinx can keep generating some value (not CA though) and protect itself, but its a 7 turn clock.
This poops card advantage, protects itself with no mana cost after you tap out for it, can swing big enough in the air to both close out a game and make that big life total swing like baneslayer angel, with the upside that it also might jump up to ~7 power when you add in draw spells.
Escape is naturally a dangerous recursive mechanic by letting it occur multiple times, threatening to be oppressive. But of all the other cards spoiled, none impact board state enough to be scary. The biggest after this is a 5/6 gatekeeper. This is a 12/12 that can eat several creatures
might be a $6.50 common by 2029
gotta account for inflation