As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
I'm pretty sure, that it will deal commander damage as a planeswalker. Being a commander is just something that is true about the card. So, even if Kytheon, Hero of Akros transforms to Gideon, Battle-Forged it's still the same card, thus still your commander. It doesn't care about the name or if it leaves the battlefield. Otherwise Clone Commanders like The Mimeoplasm couldn't deal commander damage and commanders in general have to start over dealing 21 commander damage everytime they reenter the battlefield.
I just looked at the rules and I'm also pretty sure that's the case.
First we have "Being a Commander is not a characteristic, it is a property of the card and tied directly to the physical card. As such, "Commander-ness" cannot be copied or overwritten by continuous effects. The card retains it's commanderness through any status changes, and is still a commander even when controlled by another player."
This means that your flipped Commander is still your Commander, since it is the same physical card.
Second, "If a player has been dealt 21 points of combat damage by a particular Commander during the game, that player loses a game."
Since your flipped Gideon is still your Commander, his damage counts to the damage dealt by Kytheon.
None of the Origins PWs are really Commander-playable. The one that comes closest is probably Nissa, and she's worse than Freyalise, Omnath, Ezuri, Yisan, et al. Jace's +1 and ult are irrelevant, Liliana's abilities are largely irrelevant for the work you have to put into flipping her, Gideon's too small in a big-mana format, Chandra's just bad (1 damage? 3 damage? 2 damage? In my 40-life battle cruiser format?), though she does have some utility in killing small utility creatures. Nissa's the closest to playable as she flips T5ish, but to what benefit? When I have 7 lands I don't want to be playing a Phyrexian Arena that dies every other turn.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
Didn't say it was going be top tier, but a planeswalker that can win through Commander damage is still a completely new addition to the format, and I'm sure some people will try it. It's probably best used with anthems and effects that buff your attacking creatures, like Exalted.
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
None of the Origins PWs are really Commander-playable. The one that comes closest is probably Nissa, and she's worse than Freyalise, Omnath, Ezuri, Yisan, et al. Jace's +1 and ult are irrelevant, Liliana's abilities are largely irrelevant for the work you have to put into flipping her, Gideon's too small in a big-mana format, Chandra's just bad (1 damage? 3 damage? 2 damage? In my 40-life battle cruiser format?), though she does have some utility in killing small utility creatures. Nissa's the closest to playable as she flips T5ish, but to what benefit? When I have 7 lands I don't want to be playing a Phyrexian Arena that dies every other turn.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
Didn't say it was going be top tier, but a planeswalker that can win through Commander damage is still a completely new addition to the format, and I'm sure some people will try it. It's probably best used with anthems and effects that buff your attacking creatures, like Exalted.
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
Doesn't that mean that you get a great opportunity to uptick her?
Play her T3, play Fleshbag Marauder T4, boom flipped lily, everyone is down a creature, you gain a 2/2, AND everyone discards a card.
None of the Origins PWs are really Commander-playable. The one that comes closest is probably Nissa, and she's worse than Freyalise, Omnath, Ezuri, Yisan, et al. Jace's +1 and ult are irrelevant, Liliana's abilities are largely irrelevant for the work you have to put into flipping her, Gideon's too small in a big-mana format, Chandra's just bad (1 damage? 3 damage? 2 damage? In my 40-life battle cruiser format?), though she does have some utility in killing small utility creatures. Nissa's the closest to playable as she flips T5ish, but to what benefit? When I have 7 lands I don't want to be playing a Phyrexian Arena that dies every other turn.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
Didn't say it was going be top tier, but a planeswalker that can win through Commander damage is still a completely new addition to the format, and I'm sure some people will try it. It's probably best used with anthems and effects that buff your attacking creatures, like Exalted.
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Totally incorrect.
Commander is a quality of the card. No matter what side is active the card is your commander. As a walker he will still win through general damage, twice as fast.
Your information on Liliana is spot on and very much the way I'm going to build her
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
None of the Origins PWs are really Commander-playable. The one that comes closest is probably Nissa, and she's worse than Freyalise, Omnath, Ezuri, Yisan, et al. Jace's +1 and ult are irrelevant, Liliana's abilities are largely irrelevant for the work you have to put into flipping her, Gideon's too small in a big-mana format, Chandra's just bad (1 damage? 3 damage? 2 damage? In my 40-life battle cruiser format?), though she does have some utility in killing small utility creatures. Nissa's the closest to playable as she flips T5ish, but to what benefit? When I have 7 lands I don't want to be playing a Phyrexian Arena that dies every other turn.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
Didn't say it was going be top tier, but a planeswalker that can win through Commander damage is still a completely new addition to the format, and I'm sure some people will try it. It's probably best used with anthems and effects that buff your attacking creatures, like Exalted.
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
Doesn't that mean that you get a great opportunity to uptick her?
Play her T3, play Fleshbag Marauder T4, boom flipped lily, everyone is down a creature, you gain a 2/2, AND everyone discards a card.
I will fight anyone who says Chandra is bad, but Lily is going to be the best commander of the bunch.
So what's your plan - you're going to go out of your way to flip her T3-T4, and then what? Pray that she climbs the latter to her ult? Beat down with your 2/2 menace? She has no good long-game, and is an arguably worse LotV - who's already pretty bad in EDH. Remember, your decks full of 2/1s and 3/1s, so you've accomplished your "goal" as soon as she flips - which amounts to a Delirium Skeins, 90% of the time. Woo-hoo.
I don't like Nissa, but Gideon and Liliana are both going right into my Anafenza duel deck.
Also, Gideon is very appealing as Duel commander. 1 drop 2/1 creature who flips into 4/4 indestructible PW. Great for commander dmg and useable with wraths etc.
I'm in. But I think Gideon and Lili will be the most expensive out of those 5.
Liliana is stronger than she looks. Combo's with Lark-Guide-Saffi and a sac outlet at Sorcery to make infinite Zombies. Point being, she hits on a ton of points in just the right way. She could definitely see Modern play, even.
I also super like Chandra's Ignition. Maybe one of the best Red wipes at Sorcery, in terms of what it does. Only, that flavor text seems really odd for not having you sacrifice the creature.
None of the Origins PWs are really Commander-playable. The one that comes closest is probably Nissa, and she's worse than Freyalise, Omnath, Ezuri, Yisan, et al. Jace's +1 and ult are irrelevant, Liliana's abilities are largely irrelevant for the work you have to put into flipping her, Gideon's too small in a big-mana format, Chandra's just bad (1 damage? 3 damage? 2 damage? In my 40-life battle cruiser format?), though she does have some utility in killing small utility creatures. Nissa's the closest to playable as she flips T5ish, but to what benefit? When I have 7 lands I don't want to be playing a Phyrexian Arena that dies every other turn.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
Didn't say it was going be top tier, but a planeswalker that can win through Commander damage is still a completely new addition to the format, and I'm sure some people will try it. It's probably best used with anthems and effects that buff your attacking creatures, like Exalted.
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
Doesn't that mean that you get a great opportunity to uptick her?
Play her T3, play Fleshbag Marauder T4, boom flipped lily, everyone is down a creature, you gain a 2/2, AND everyone discards a card.
I will fight anyone who says Chandra is bad, but Lily is going to be the best commander of the bunch.
So what's your plan - you're going to go out of your way to flip her T3-T4, and then what? Pray that she climbs the latter to her ult? Beat down with your 2/2 menace? She has no good long-game, and is an arguably worse LotV - who's already pretty bad in EDH. Remember, your decks full of 2/1s and 3/1s, so you've accomplished your "goal" as soon as she flips - which amounts to a Delirium Skeins, 90% of the time. Woo-hoo.
Black Sun's Zenithing a loaded table with that Emblem is "no good long game"? Her ult literally means "Any Non-Eldrazi Titan or Blightsteel returns to play under your control end of turn". It snags utility dudes like Burnished Hart, any creature you can kill (Prophet of Kruphix, Goblin Welder, other broken stuff). Heck, said Fleshbag Marauder becomes "2B: At the beginning of the each end step, each player sacrifices a creature. You gain control of those creatures at the beginning of the next end step".
Her late game is ridiculously attrition based, it's insane. Ghoulcaller Gisa, Lily Ult, and Grave Titan is going to swarm people down in no time (Hint, have Lily Ult, Ghoulcaller Gisa on the table, and play Titan; get two 2/2 zombies (4 power of Zombies). Tap Gisa, sac Titan for 6 more zombies (15 total power of zombies) Titan comes back end step, two more zombies (19 power for 7 mana in one turn).
And that's in Mono Black. Add haste and a sac outlet (Phyrexian Altar would be best) and Gisa could literally do it every single end step for 16 power for free. With any sac outlet other than the Altar, it's "B: put 8 2/2 zombie tokens into play".
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I also super like Chandra's Ignition. Maybe one of the best Red wipes at Sorcery, in terms of what it does. Only, that flavor text seems really odd for not having you sacrifice the creature.
I do like Chandra's Ignition a lot though. Besides being fight damage (Of all the cards that pair with Basilisk Collar...) and leaving you with one creature a la Duneblast, but also gets you some free damage to the dome, and if you do it before combat, also lets you swing in unguarded. I can see it being tech in Voltron decks.
If Gideon 3 works the way he should in Commander, he's pretty damn sweet. If not, he's pretty much an inferior Gideon Jura, and should see play in decks that run GJ.
Nissa I've already mentioned seems really good just to draw cards and get extra lands. I'm betting she'll play well with whatever "Lands matter" mechanic we'll see in Battle for Zendikar.
I want to like Mizzium Meddler, but I'm just a little iffy about only getting to redirect when he ETB's. I would've taken him at his current stats except instead of getting to redirect on ETB, he had "U: Redirect target spell or ability to Mizzium Meddler" and basically just made it a worse Spellskite (that sees ridiculous amounts of play in Modern moreso for getting this ability with phyrexian mana, being an artifact which can be played in any deck, and being an 0/4 for 2 mana).
Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen. Because apparently, Elves needed an offensive Wellwisher. Also, why put an ability with an attacks trigger and reach, an entirely defensive ability on the same creature?
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"When does a man die? When he is hit by a bullet? No! When he suffers a disease? No! When he ate a soup made out of a poisonous mushroom? No! A man dies when he is forgotten!" Currently Piloting: EDH BGGlissa, The Traitor - Recursion (Primer) WBRKaalia of The Vast URGRiku of Two Reflections WUBSydri, Galvanic Genius UBRamirez DePietro GWKrond, The Dawn-Clad GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician RGOmnath, Locus of Rage
I am happy about one thing with Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen: He's from Lorwyn.
This indicates we'll have at least 5 different legendaries associated with the planeswalker's storylines, meaning we get at least 10 total new legendaries. It's not Kamigawa tier, but it's a nice boost.
That said, I'm curious to hear opinions on Nissa and Liliana for Karador, Ghost Chieftain. They both seem to be very solid low-mana investment value engines in a deck that is always looking for value engines.
I am in the process of ravamping my Karador. I just added a bunch of sac outlets, and am now reworking the creatures, so your question about Liliana is interesting. As a deck that is very grindy and full of attrition, she could do some work. Making everyone discard a card each turn is pretty decent, and Karador is always full of ways to protect her. Even upticking for the discard and then downticking to recur a utility creature isnt bad. Slow, yes, but another cog in the recursion machine that is Karador. She would be worth testing, but I personally dont think she is worth the current $20 price tag. Unless I open one at the prerelease, I'll wait until she drops below $10 before snagging one.
On a different note, I must have missed the TPS report about Elves being low on the number of lords available to that particular tribe.
It takes almost 0 effort to flip Liliana, Heretical Healer. A nontoken creature you control needs to die. In black! Here's a semi-comprehensive list of creatures you can cast turn 1 / 2 and use to activate Lili after you cast here on turn 3
And Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is not irrevelant on turn 3. Discard is useful, reanimation is great, and her ulti makes you wish someone would boardwipe...
As far as I am aware it still does not count as Commander damage... Your commander is Kytheon, Hero of Akros, not Gideon, Battle-Forged. When he flips he re-enters the battlefield as a new card with a new english name (quite literally in this case)...
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
Doesn't that mean that you get a great opportunity to uptick her?
Play her T3, play Fleshbag Marauder T4, boom flipped lily, everyone is down a creature, you gain a 2/2, AND everyone discards a card.
I will fight anyone who says Chandra is bad, but Lily is going to be the best commander of the bunch.
So what's your plan - you're going to go out of your way to flip her T3-T4, and then what? Pray that she climbs the latter to her ult? Beat down with your 2/2 menace? She has no good long-game, and is an arguably worse LotV - who's already pretty bad in EDH. Remember, your decks full of 2/1s and 3/1s, so you've accomplished your "goal" as soon as she flips - which amounts to a Delirium Skeins, 90% of the time. Woo-hoo.
Black Sun's Zenithing a loaded table with that Emblem is "no good long game"? Her ult literally means "Any Non-Eldrazi Titan or Blightsteel returns to play under your control end of turn". It snags utility dudes like Burnished Hart, any creature you can kill (Prophet of Kruphix, Goblin Welder, other broken stuff). Heck, said Fleshbag Marauder becomes "2B: At the beginning of the each end step, each player sacrifices a creature. You gain control of those creatures at the beginning of the next end step".
Her late game is ridiculously attrition based, it's insane. Ghoulcaller Gisa, Lily Ult, and Grave Titan is going to swarm people down in no time (Hint, have Lily Ult, Ghoulcaller Gisa on the table, and play Titan; get two 2/2 zombies (4 power of Zombies). Tap Gisa, sac Titan for 6 more zombies (15 total power of zombies) Titan comes back end step, two more zombies (19 power for 7 mana in one turn).
And that's in Mono Black. Add haste and a sac outlet (Phyrexian Altar would be best) and Gisa could literally do it every single end step for 16 power for free. With any sac outlet other than the Altar, it's "B: put 8 2/2 zombie tokens into play".
Let's get this out there right now: Liliana's not going to ult. When she ults it will be insane, but she won't ult because you're at a 3-man table with (hopefully) competent MTG players. You can continue pointlessly fantasizing about what happens when she will ult, but LotV doesn't even ult in EDH, and her ult's far more underwhelming. You're flipping her T3-T4 and saying "Go, don't touch my Liliana for 4 turns so I can win the game!" - what do you think is going to happen? If her ult was -7, yes, it would be scary. But at -8 it's not going to happen.
Lilly's not ulting (at any table full of reasonable people playing reasonable cards) - now how's your endgame?
Liliana has a usefulness in certain kinds of decks. The card is obviously not irrelevant in a format with this many cards, and avenues of play. Stax builds, Teysa Combo/Atrrition, Karador Recursion. I don't think she's great outside those kinds of strategies and don't think she could lead a deck super well. As a commander I think she's meh, and I feel this way for all of them except Gideon. They're all very supportive in their roles in my eyes and perhaps that's a flavor win, them being young and new to it and all
Jace is being added to my Dralnu to see if he puts in any work.
Also I was really upset Nissa wasn't a Druid edit: or good.
Honestly, I really like all of the Legendary flip-walkers. I don't see myself making any of them as Commanders - I don't think any of them are particularly stellar as Commanders, though I expect them to be functional. I mean, here's the thing. We already got planeswalkers we could use as Commanders. Why do we expect these to be designed well for EDH? Just because they're Legendary? I mean, ultimately, the one I think is best in our format is Nissa (just my opinion), but she's the one being heralded as trash by players of other formats. There's no way these guys can be good in everything (and we shouldn't want them to be *cough*TMS*cough*). These are like, the main attractions of the last core set ever. They had to be appealing to more than just us. I'm going to give them a shot in some 99s if I can get my hands on them and that's the extent of it. I'm pretty happy with that.
Liliana has a usefulness in certain kinds of decks. The card is obviously not irrelevant in a format with this many cards, and avenues of play. Stax builds, Teysa Combo/Atrrition, Karador Recursion. I don't think she's great outside those kinds of strategies and don't think she could lead a deck super well. As a commander I think she's meh, and I feel this way for all of them except Gideon. They're all very supportive in their roles in my eyes and perhaps that's a flavor win, them being young and new to it and all
Jace is being added to my Dralnu to see if he puts in any work.
Also I was really upset Nissa wasn't a Druid edit: or good.
Yeah, I'm loving the thought of putting Lili in my Teysa deck - if something's not dying every turn, the deck's doing something wrong, so she'll flip quickly, she leaves behind another body (and a black one at that, so Teysa gives me another token when it inevitably dies), then when she flips, she can reanimate most of the creatures in the deck. Anything else, like her surviving long enough to hit a discard activation and/or more reanimation, is a bonus.
As you say, she's certainly not a "good stuff" type card which you can throw into any B deck willy nilly, but in the right ones I can see her being an excellent card.
gideon seems REALLY efficient. I can't imagine anyone playing isamaru anymore as a voltron commander, even with no intention to flip him. On the other hand, he's fairly low impact as a build-around, other than as a very efficient voltron. His +2 is pretty weak and his +1 is okay, I guess, if you make a board-wipe focused deck. A 4/4 is really not very scary, especially if you're forced to pay every turn to reequip stuff, and auras are straight out. Seems like more of a standard card than a cool commander to me.
chandra is just awful. standard, sure, whatever, but for EDH? oh god she's so bad. Her human form is pretty awful, her ability is trash and red can't generally cast too many red spells in this format before running out of juice. maybe were it commander damage, but it isn't. Her +1 is awful for the same reason. Her -2 is way overcosted for the likelihood it won't have a great target in this format. And the -7 is decent I guess, but it's very hard to reach and still a very slow kill. She's only good for dealing player damage, which is just awful in EDH.
Liliana is pretty cool. She's efficient, fairly easy to trigger for the right deck, and the zombie is a nice add. She also grows quickly and has a very strong ult, but her +2 means she really needs the right deck. Her -x is good utility but doesn't really work for straight reanimation, so I think a fair amount of thought needs to be paid to what kind of deck she wants. I suspect it's a fairly low-curve stax deck, has lots of sacking on both sides, and lots of recursion to exploit her +2, using her ult for a lock of some sort perhaps.
Nissa is really strong. As a value etb creature, she's not even a good target for removal, and she auto-flips every time you replay her while paying for her next playing. Her +1 is good enough that it's hard to ignore, although her other abilities are somewhat weaker. Her -2 is ok if you need a blocker, but a 4/4 isn't defending much, and it puts her to 1. Her ult is very hard to get to, and seems risky, although I guess she probably puts at least 6 lands onto the battlefield by her presence so overall you're still doing ok if you get wiped. Overall she reminds me of azusa, except less powerful and more value-driven goodstuff. Still, undeniably solid card.
Jace is...man, jace is super interesting. A 0/2 looter for 2 is fine to begin with, though since the flip isn't optional you could argue he's worse than that. He has absurd starting loyalty, but his +1 is pretty putrid (combos with vedalken shackles sorta?) and his ult is pretty awful too, especially considering all the crappy +1s you suffered through while keeping him alive. But his -3 is awesome, pure awesome. I'm not sure if it's breakable per se, but it's definitely intriguing, especially considering how cheap he is to play and flip. I wish it let you cast it until your next turn, though, to give instants more value, but I'm probably nitpicking. I'm not sure if he's actually very good, but for a 2-drop walker he's a hell of a lot more interesting than the previous attempt.
Let's get this out there right now: Liliana's not going to ult. When she ults it will be insane, but she won't ult because you're at a 3-man table with (hopefully) competent MTG players. You can continue pointlessly fantasizing about what happens when she will ult, but LotV doesn't even ult in EDH, and her ult's far more underwhelming. You're flipping her T3-T4 and saying "Go, don't touch my Liliana for 4 turns so I can win the game!" - what do you think is going to happen? If her ult was -7, yes, it would be scary. But at -8 it's not going to happen.
Lilly's not ulting (at any table full of reasonable people playing reasonable cards) - now how's your endgame?
I don't think that's fair at all. First of all, she upticks rather quickly. If you flip her immediately, she could ult as early as turn 6, potentially earlier with the right ramp, which ofc you're playing if you're dedicating a deck to her ult. On top of that, of course you're playing board wipes and targeted removal and tutors for them so you can protect her, all of which become golden if she ults. Is that easy? No, it's still fairly hard to ult her in multiplayer, but it's also hard to win in multiplayer, and her ult kind of just wins in multiplayer in a casual-ish group. More realistically/competitively, in the stax-y build of her, I think she can probably maintain control of the board, downticking occasionally to bring back fleshbag and whittling down hand sizes, until she runs people out of gas and ults when they can't put pressure on her anymore.
So...our new Elf lord legendary is a slightly worse Rhys the Exiled? I say slightly worse cuz you don't need the lord pump, Elves have damn plenty of those, no access to B (which you should play Nath if you want GB elves), no self preservation ability, and a blocking ability on a guy you want to swing with. Why did they make him so much like Rhys? I mean...come on, they're even from the same plane. WTF WIZARDS! There is no reason at all to play this guy over Rhys!
Edit: Oh wait...Dwynen only gains life for each ATTACKING elf you control, instead of Rhys' gain 1 life for each you control regardless of attacking or not.
Let's get this out there right now: Liliana's not going to ult. When she ults it will be insane, but she won't ult because you're at a 3-man table with (hopefully) competent MTG players. You can continue pointlessly fantasizing about what happens when she will ult, but LotV doesn't even ult in EDH, and her ult's far more underwhelming. You're flipping her T3-T4 and saying "Go, don't touch my Liliana for 4 turns so I can win the game!" - what do you think is going to happen? If her ult was -7, yes, it would be scary. But at -8 it's not going to happen.
Lilly's not ulting (at any table full of reasonable people playing reasonable cards) - now how's your endgame?
The Chain Veil means it's two turns, mono black means they shouldn't have any creatures on the field during that time, and it's a +2, not a +1; This lily is harder to kill (especially early game), can actually be the commander among other things.
Lilly not ulting? Still playing Mono-Black and all the things that entails.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
You know, I had a Lim-Dul deck at one point that was effectively Black Stax. It always wished to have Braids, Cabal Minion as it's commander but well, that card is banned for very good reasons.
Now, let's look at Lily in terms of Stax. She plays very well with various symetric sacrifice effects, and once flipped will constrain your opponent's hands beautifully. She then provides a constant discard outlet, while you can pitch stuff that you can pull from your own grave (Whether it's through reanimation effects, her own effect or self-return effects a la Reassembling Skeleton), and since Lily came down so early (Turn 3 or 4, pending) she's not going to make it easy for opponents to deal with her. If Black-Stax ever wanted it's new general, this might be the best choice.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Omg, I now realized that I don't even read Planeswalkers Ult's when I see them. With the new Lili's ult, doubt it will ever happen. It's more important that the takes more hits than LotV when just using the + ability.
And even if the ult does happen, it's not that great. Yay, you get your creatures back. Hope you have one with a decent trigger, because you have to attack for probably 10-12 turns to end the game with them via combat. And in Mono-Black? Just not that great, play Marchesa, the Black Rose if you like this effect.
I don't think 100-card singleton stax has all the tools it needs outside of Esper unless you're doing something degenerate like T2 Braids. Even T2 Lilly isn't truly degenerate, and there's almost 0 chance of it flipping before T3.
On the other hand, they made Beetleback Chief a legendary creature. I'm excited for what Chandra's parents(?) bring to mono-red.
Trust me, they do. I'm not a great Stax builder but even I can whip up something that's going to piss one off tremendously. It may not be as consistant/constraining as in some other formats, but EDH Stax is definitely a thing.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Boo ya! Here's hoping I can pick up Pia and Kiran on prerelease weekend and slot this lovely couple into Citizen Cane. Just the token production is nice, throwing around damage, albeit expensive, is just gravy.
First we have "Being a Commander is not a characteristic, it is a property of the card and tied directly to the physical card. As such, "Commander-ness" cannot be copied or overwritten by continuous effects. The card retains it's commanderness through any status changes, and is still a commander even when controlled by another player."
This means that your flipped Commander is still your Commander, since it is the same physical card.
Second, "If a player has been dealt 21 points of combat damage by a particular Commander during the game, that player loses a game."
Since your flipped Gideon is still your Commander, his damage counts to the damage dealt by Kytheon.
Liliana, Defiant Necromancer is relatively irrelevant. She's never going to realistically ult (you can forget about her just sitting there for 3 turns in a row). Her +2's pretty bad, especially when you wasted one of your own cards on something like Death Cultist. Her - can't bring back anything decent unless no one attacks her for two consecutive turns, and still can't bring back black's great legends.
Also, "a creature just has to die;" that is, a creature other than Liliana. When a lot of EDH players don't even play creatures in the first couple turns of the game.
Finally, you're dead wrong about Gideon. Commander-ness is an intrinsic property of the card.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Doesn't that mean that you get a great opportunity to uptick her?
Play her T3, play Fleshbag Marauder T4, boom flipped lily, everyone is down a creature, you gain a 2/2, AND everyone discards a card.
Also, Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, and gravecrawler are all creatures that love dying, come down early, and fit easily into most combos.
I will fight anyone who says Chandra is bad, but Lily is going to be the best commander of the bunch.
Totally incorrect.
Commander is a quality of the card. No matter what side is active the card is your commander. As a walker he will still win through general damage, twice as fast.
Your information on Liliana is spot on and very much the way I'm going to build her
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Also, Gideon is very appealing as Duel commander. 1 drop 2/1 creature who flips into 4/4 indestructible PW. Great for commander dmg and useable with wraths etc.
I'm in. But I think Gideon and Lili will be the most expensive out of those 5.
I also super like Chandra's Ignition. Maybe one of the best Red wipes at Sorcery, in terms of what it does. Only, that flavor text seems really odd for not having you sacrifice the creature.
Black Sun's Zenithing a loaded table with that Emblem is "no good long game"? Her ult literally means "Any Non-Eldrazi Titan or Blightsteel returns to play under your control end of turn". It snags utility dudes like Burnished Hart, any creature you can kill (Prophet of Kruphix, Goblin Welder, other broken stuff). Heck, said Fleshbag Marauder becomes "2B: At the beginning of the each end step, each player sacrifices a creature. You gain control of those creatures at the beginning of the next end step".
Her late game is ridiculously attrition based, it's insane. Ghoulcaller Gisa, Lily Ult, and Grave Titan is going to swarm people down in no time (Hint, have Lily Ult, Ghoulcaller Gisa on the table, and play Titan; get two 2/2 zombies (4 power of Zombies). Tap Gisa, sac Titan for 6 more zombies (15 total power of zombies) Titan comes back end step, two more zombies (19 power for 7 mana in one turn).
And that's in Mono Black. Add haste and a sac outlet (Phyrexian Altar would be best) and Gisa could literally do it every single end step for 16 power for free. With any sac outlet other than the Altar, it's "B: put 8 2/2 zombie tokens into play".
I do like Chandra's Ignition a lot though. Besides being fight damage (Of all the cards that pair with Basilisk Collar...) and leaving you with one creature a la Duneblast, but also gets you some free damage to the dome, and if you do it before combat, also lets you swing in unguarded. I can see it being tech in Voltron decks.
If Gideon 3 works the way he should in Commander, he's pretty damn sweet. If not, he's pretty much an inferior Gideon Jura, and should see play in decks that run GJ.
Nissa I've already mentioned seems really good just to draw cards and get extra lands. I'm betting she'll play well with whatever "Lands matter" mechanic we'll see in Battle for Zendikar.
I want to like Mizzium Meddler, but I'm just a little iffy about only getting to redirect when he ETB's. I would've taken him at his current stats except instead of getting to redirect on ETB, he had "U: Redirect target spell or ability to Mizzium Meddler" and basically just made it a worse Spellskite (that sees ridiculous amounts of play in Modern moreso for getting this ability with phyrexian mana, being an artifact which can be played in any deck, and being an 0/4 for 2 mana).
Dwynen, Gilt-Leaf Daen. Because apparently, Elves needed an offensive Wellwisher. Also, why put an ability with an attacks trigger and reach, an entirely defensive ability on the same creature?
Currently Piloting:
EDH
BGGlissa, The Traitor - Recursion (Primer)
WBRKaalia of The Vast
URGRiku of Two Reflections
WUBSydri, Galvanic Genius
UBRamirez DePietro
GWKrond, The Dawn-Clad
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician
RGOmnath, Locus of Rage
Modern
UG Infect
This indicates we'll have at least 5 different legendaries associated with the planeswalker's storylines, meaning we get at least 10 total new legendaries. It's not Kamigawa tier, but it's a nice boost.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
I am in the process of ravamping my Karador. I just added a bunch of sac outlets, and am now reworking the creatures, so your question about Liliana is interesting. As a deck that is very grindy and full of attrition, she could do some work. Making everyone discard a card each turn is pretty decent, and Karador is always full of ways to protect her. Even upticking for the discard and then downticking to recur a utility creature isnt bad. Slow, yes, but another cog in the recursion machine that is Karador. She would be worth testing, but I personally dont think she is worth the current $20 price tag. Unless I open one at the prerelease, I'll wait until she drops below $10 before snagging one.
On a different note, I must have missed the TPS report about Elves being low on the number of lords available to that particular tribe.
The Mimeoplasm || Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher || Vial Smasher/Tymna Group Slug
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief || Talrand, Sky Summoner
Yidris - Unblockable Saboteurs || Kiki-Jiki, ETB breaker
Kess, Dissident Mage
Lilly's not ulting (at any table full of reasonable people playing reasonable cards) - now how's your endgame?
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Jace is being added to my Dralnu to see if he puts in any work.
Also I was really upset Nissa wasn't a Druid
GRWort, Control
UBDralnu, Reanimator
Draft my Peasant Cube.
Yeah, I'm loving the thought of putting Lili in my Teysa deck - if something's not dying every turn, the deck's doing something wrong, so she'll flip quickly, she leaves behind another body (and a black one at that, so Teysa gives me another token when it inevitably dies), then when she flips, she can reanimate most of the creatures in the deck. Anything else, like her surviving long enough to hit a discard activation and/or more reanimation, is a bonus.
As you say, she's certainly not a "good stuff" type card which you can throw into any B deck willy nilly, but in the right ones I can see her being an excellent card.
gideon seems REALLY efficient. I can't imagine anyone playing isamaru anymore as a voltron commander, even with no intention to flip him. On the other hand, he's fairly low impact as a build-around, other than as a very efficient voltron. His +2 is pretty weak and his +1 is okay, I guess, if you make a board-wipe focused deck. A 4/4 is really not very scary, especially if you're forced to pay every turn to reequip stuff, and auras are straight out. Seems like more of a standard card than a cool commander to me.
chandra is just awful. standard, sure, whatever, but for EDH? oh god she's so bad. Her human form is pretty awful, her ability is trash and red can't generally cast too many red spells in this format before running out of juice. maybe were it commander damage, but it isn't. Her +1 is awful for the same reason. Her -2 is way overcosted for the likelihood it won't have a great target in this format. And the -7 is decent I guess, but it's very hard to reach and still a very slow kill. She's only good for dealing player damage, which is just awful in EDH.
Liliana is pretty cool. She's efficient, fairly easy to trigger for the right deck, and the zombie is a nice add. She also grows quickly and has a very strong ult, but her +2 means she really needs the right deck. Her -x is good utility but doesn't really work for straight reanimation, so I think a fair amount of thought needs to be paid to what kind of deck she wants. I suspect it's a fairly low-curve stax deck, has lots of sacking on both sides, and lots of recursion to exploit her +2, using her ult for a lock of some sort perhaps.
Nissa is really strong. As a value etb creature, she's not even a good target for removal, and she auto-flips every time you replay her while paying for her next playing. Her +1 is good enough that it's hard to ignore, although her other abilities are somewhat weaker. Her -2 is ok if you need a blocker, but a 4/4 isn't defending much, and it puts her to 1. Her ult is very hard to get to, and seems risky, although I guess she probably puts at least 6 lands onto the battlefield by her presence so overall you're still doing ok if you get wiped. Overall she reminds me of azusa, except less powerful and more value-driven goodstuff. Still, undeniably solid card.
Jace is...man, jace is super interesting. A 0/2 looter for 2 is fine to begin with, though since the flip isn't optional you could argue he's worse than that. He has absurd starting loyalty, but his +1 is pretty putrid (combos with vedalken shackles sorta?) and his ult is pretty awful too, especially considering all the crappy +1s you suffered through while keeping him alive. But his -3 is awesome, pure awesome. I'm not sure if it's breakable per se, but it's definitely intriguing, especially considering how cheap he is to play and flip. I wish it let you cast it until your next turn, though, to give instants more value, but I'm probably nitpicking. I'm not sure if he's actually very good, but for a 2-drop walker he's a hell of a lot more interesting than the previous attempt.
I don't think that's fair at all. First of all, she upticks rather quickly. If you flip her immediately, she could ult as early as turn 6, potentially earlier with the right ramp, which ofc you're playing if you're dedicating a deck to her ult. On top of that, of course you're playing board wipes and targeted removal and tutors for them so you can protect her, all of which become golden if she ults. Is that easy? No, it's still fairly hard to ult her in multiplayer, but it's also hard to win in multiplayer, and her ult kind of just wins in multiplayer in a casual-ish group. More realistically/competitively, in the stax-y build of her, I think she can probably maintain control of the board, downticking occasionally to bring back fleshbag and whittling down hand sizes, until she runs people out of gas and ults when they can't put pressure on her anymore.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Edit: Oh wait...Dwynen only gains life for each ATTACKING elf you control, instead of Rhys' gain 1 life for each you control regardless of attacking or not.
Seriph0 on cockatrice
EDH Decks
WBGKaradorWBG
The Chain Veil means it's two turns, mono black means they shouldn't have any creatures on the field during that time, and it's a +2, not a +1; This lily is harder to kill (especially early game), can actually be the commander among other things.
Lilly not ulting? Still playing Mono-Black and all the things that entails.
Now, let's look at Lily in terms of Stax. She plays very well with various symetric sacrifice effects, and once flipped will constrain your opponent's hands beautifully. She then provides a constant discard outlet, while you can pitch stuff that you can pull from your own grave (Whether it's through reanimation effects, her own effect or self-return effects a la Reassembling Skeleton), and since Lily came down so early (Turn 3 or 4, pending) she's not going to make it easy for opponents to deal with her. If Black-Stax ever wanted it's new general, this might be the best choice.
And even if the ult does happen, it's not that great. Yay, you get your creatures back. Hope you have one with a decent trigger, because you have to attack for probably 10-12 turns to end the game with them via combat. And in Mono-Black? Just not that great, play Marchesa, the Black Rose if you like this effect.
On the other hand, they made Beetleback Chief a legendary creature. I'm excited for what Chandra's parents(?) bring to mono-red.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
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