It can be used offensively on an opponents upkeep to color screw them or turn off non basics that cause problems, if only for the turn. Cabal coffers is much less scary if it's a mountain or island, and the same goes for other problematic lands...glacial chasm, gaea's cradle, nykthos, etc.
It can be used offensively on an opponents upkeep to color screw them or turn off non basics that cause problems, if only for the turn. Cabal coffers is much less scary if it's a mountain or island, and the same goes for other problematic lands...glacial chasm, gaea's cradle, nykthos, etc.
Yep. Hit cradle or coffers during their upkeep. Also fixes your mana and enables landwalk, which is relevant in blue. Also, if you happen to have a card that hates on certain types...
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Birds aren't really a good tribe in Commander since you can only have 1x Soulcatchers' Aerie, which makes me sad. There's actually a handful of decent bird generals too, Kangee, Aerie Keeper, Soraya the Falconer, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician... my favorite legendary aven being Lieutenant Kirtar, and he's always a lot of fun, though he doesn't lend himself to a tribal synergy. Dream Thrush is fancier than Storm Crow. There's a lot of fancier Storm Crows out there. Some of them are strictly better, even. I wonder why this card isn't green-flavored? Maybe the plants underneath him are illusions.
Birds aren't really a good tribe in Commander since you can only have 1x Soulcatchers' Aerie, which makes me sad. There's actually a handful of decent bird generals too, Kangee, Aerie Keeper, Soraya the Falconer, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician... my favorite legendary aven being Lieutenant Kirtar, and he's always a lot of fun, though he doesn't lend himself to a tribal synergy. Dream Thrush is fancier than Storm Crow. There's a lot of fancier Storm Crows out there. Some of them are strictly better, even. I wonder why this card isn't green-flavored? Maybe the plants underneath him are illusions.
It's not green because it isn't adding to the land, it's changing its nature. Green would make it that type "in addition", while blue completely overwrites its original nature into whatever type you choose. Green would love making a forest also be a plains, as it is a form of growth, but would hate turning a forest into a plains, as it fundamentally changes its nature. Such change is at the center of blue's philosophy. Blue has long gotten magical hack sort of effects, of which this is one. Blue likes to say "yeah, that's a nice forest, but I really need it to be a plains right now so let's magically cut down all the trees and grow some grass" or "That mountain needs to produce blue mana, better knock it down then flood the area". In the art, green would respect the nature of the desert, and create flourishing oases of forest life, or would flood parts leaving desert islands, or would introduce desert flora to make a desert plains, or would fill in the depressions with shallow stagnant pools for desert swamps, because green values the nature of the desert and its place in the environment. Blue says the desert sucks and just turns the whole damn desert into whatever it feels should be there instead, because whatever blue wants is better than the stupid desert. Green sees the desert as part of the natural order, and a wise mage helps the desert reach its full natural potential. Blue sees the desert as a wasteful mistake of nature, and unproductive stretch of land enabled by an imperfect natural system begging to be perfected by the wise and creative mage into tracts of productive land that enable the mage to work even more magic. Unless, of course, the blue mage needs a desert, then he'll throw a bunch of sand on the nearest land and call it a marvel of defensive engineering.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
The art sells it, I'd want it for that reason alone.
But as non-basic land hosers, these guys always come up handy in multiplayer. This one's a little better than some I've seen, since it has flying. And yes, there's dozens of these, Reef Shaman, Kavu Recluse, Orcish Farmer, and my favorite name Slimy Kavu, just to name a few.
My meta is absolutely infested with decks that abuse specialized lands. The only caveat is that there's plenty of repeatable non-basic land destruction on a body already, such as Dwarven Miner, albeit most of it's in red. So it's a niche purpose.
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For 3 mana, this card would've been pretty damn good.
For 4 mana, this card would be playable, but nothing spectacular.
For 5 mana, this card would've been poor.
It's 6 mana.
It's in contention for being the worst angel in the game.
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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.
For 3 mana, this card would've been pretty damn good.
For 4 mana, this card would be playable, but nothing spectacular.
For 5 mana, this card would've been poor.
It's 6 mana.
It's in contention for being the worst angel in the game.
You know what's sad? The very next year, Urbis Protector arrived in Gatecrash. Same CMC, but actually tons better. It gives you more total power and toughness and it's a card I could actually see being run in budget Alesha or Trostani builds.
Thank you, Avacyn Restored, for restoring my faith in horrible trash commons.
Fury is a 3/5 for the same cost, which is usually better than the token
Curator is cheap and has protection from artifacts. Both are relevant
Avenging Angel is a mana cheaper and can keep coming back, your choice. This ability can actually be relevant.
Gabe is bigger and can get abilities.
Tormented is a solid wall that can attack, and legit in Doran.
Haunted is probably the worst. Avenging, Fury, and Voice compete for second worst. My vote is for Voice. In limited being able to get a 3/3 flyer back from a kill spell, even at the cost of a draw, is more powerful than tacking on a 1/1. So is a 3/5 flyer vs a 3/3 and a 1/1 usually, even disregarding the normally irrelevant rules text. In commander, the same holds true. Yeah, you can blink it. That's the only reason it competes.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
But there's always curving out of Rest in Peace to consider here. Also, it's worth getting the creature token on MTGO for that rarely seen artwork, it's like an adventure
Protection from artifacts isn't that relevant. It prevents you from holding a sword, and it doesn't give much evasion or blocking superiority over what flying already does. It would be a useful evasion ability without flying; with flying, it pretty much only lets you get past thopter tokens and Steel Hellkite. Cards like Tower of the Magistrate and Apostle's Blessing let you force off an opposing creature's equipment, or offer other options besides protection from artifacts.
Gabriel only gets one of the abilities, so you lose out on the flying you expect from an angel if you want first strike or trample (because odds are you don't actually want rampage). He does have the advantage of being a legendary creature, though, so he could be your commander. He's still a 4/4 french vanilla for 7, though.
It's more relevant than a 3/3 flier and a 1/1 dork for 6 freaking mana, to be fair, pauper sideboard against affinity? Apostle's Blessing only works on your own guys, though.
It's more relevant than a 3/3 flier and a 1/1 dork for 6 freaking mana, to be fair, pauper sideboard against affinity? Apostle's Blessing only works on your own guys, though.
Yeah, we aren't talking just Commander, in which case shed be a lot worse. Even still, she can Bloch Wurmcoil and Steel Hellkite all day, which is better than what the other angels are offering. I suppose Haunted works in group hug. If we are talking strictly commander, rather than worst overall, Voice is better than the 3/5 for 6, because the ability to generate tokens with blink matters more than stats, and is probably better than Avenging. In 60 card or draft, it's the worst alongside Haunted (though haunted is more aggressive and you might bank on killing your opponent before they can kill it). I'd draft any of those angels, except haunted and maybe the curator in a format with few relevant artifacts (it's more than fine in its native draft format) over Voice. Voice was bad in AVR when soulbond meant the extra body was more relevant, fields could get crowded making larger evasive creatures better, and both creatures had mechanically relevant types. That was its best chance to succeed outside of crap cube, and it still got picked at the end of packs. She's so bad Emrakul didn't bother to convert her.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Cute card with some strong possibilities. Hard to find a good deck for it though, but if you want to steal lands, this is one of the better options, to be honest.
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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.
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Popular in Zedruu, since it's harder for an opponent to get rid of a land than a creature, for example, and doesn't put you down in resources like a simple Donate effect.
I'd rate them all ahead of voice. Though Seraph us close.
The plotter though, what an underated card. Even without ways to abuse it, you can always trade an island for a sweet nonbasic like Ancient Tomb. Where it gets stupid is when you include a few non mana producing lands in spell slots, or rely on depletion lands. Send Pendrall Vale over, it has the same effect no matter who controls it. Send over glimmervoid to the guy with no artifacts. Tap Rainbow Vale for mana then give it away. Glacial Chasm's upkeep getting too painful? Lots of fun to be had!
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
He's a cost effective way to hijack a Homeward Path at very least. And if you're already stealing stuff, you probably need to steal that Homeward Path anyway.
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EDH playing competitive Magic cast away
Current Decks GTitania midrange RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
Think of this like a Ghost Quarter on a body. The important part is taking away a powerful land, not giving them garbage. This card is pretty decent land removal for a non-green deck, especially before Acidic Slime was printed.
Edit: Oh wait, this is from Invasion, so it was a Domain enabler.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Yep. Hit cradle or coffers during their upkeep. Also fixes your mana and enables landwalk, which is relevant in blue. Also, if you happen to have a card that hates on certain types...
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
It's not green because it isn't adding to the land, it's changing its nature. Green would make it that type "in addition", while blue completely overwrites its original nature into whatever type you choose. Green would love making a forest also be a plains, as it is a form of growth, but would hate turning a forest into a plains, as it fundamentally changes its nature. Such change is at the center of blue's philosophy. Blue has long gotten magical hack sort of effects, of which this is one. Blue likes to say "yeah, that's a nice forest, but I really need it to be a plains right now so let's magically cut down all the trees and grow some grass" or "That mountain needs to produce blue mana, better knock it down then flood the area". In the art, green would respect the nature of the desert, and create flourishing oases of forest life, or would flood parts leaving desert islands, or would introduce desert flora to make a desert plains, or would fill in the depressions with shallow stagnant pools for desert swamps, because green values the nature of the desert and its place in the environment. Blue says the desert sucks and just turns the whole damn desert into whatever it feels should be there instead, because whatever blue wants is better than the stupid desert. Green sees the desert as part of the natural order, and a wise mage helps the desert reach its full natural potential. Blue sees the desert as a wasteful mistake of nature, and unproductive stretch of land enabled by an imperfect natural system begging to be perfected by the wise and creative mage into tracts of productive land that enable the mage to work even more magic. Unless, of course, the blue mage needs a desert, then he'll throw a bunch of sand on the nearest land and call it a marvel of defensive engineering.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
But as non-basic land hosers, these guys always come up handy in multiplayer. This one's a little better than some I've seen, since it has flying. And yes, there's dozens of these, Reef Shaman, Kavu Recluse, Orcish Farmer, and my favorite name Slimy Kavu, just to name a few.
My meta is absolutely infested with decks that abuse specialized lands. The only caveat is that there's plenty of repeatable non-basic land destruction on a body already, such as Dwarven Miner, albeit most of it's in red. So it's a niche purpose.
For 3 mana, this card would've been pretty damn good.
For 4 mana, this card would be playable, but nothing spectacular.
For 5 mana, this card would've been poor.
It's 6 mana.
It's in contention for being the worst angel in the game.
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.
You know what's sad? The very next year, Urbis Protector arrived in Gatecrash. Same CMC, but actually tons better. It gives you more total power and toughness and it's a card I could actually see being run in budget Alesha or Trostani builds.
Thank you, Avacyn Restored, for restoring my faith in horrible trash commons.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Fury is a 3/5 for the same cost, which is usually better than the token
Curator is cheap and has protection from artifacts. Both are relevant
Avenging Angel is a mana cheaper and can keep coming back, your choice. This ability can actually be relevant.
Gabe is bigger and can get abilities.
Tormented is a solid wall that can attack, and legit in Doran.
Haunted is probably the worst. Avenging, Fury, and Voice compete for second worst. My vote is for Voice. In limited being able to get a 3/3 flyer back from a kill spell, even at the cost of a draw, is more powerful than tacking on a 1/1. So is a 3/5 flyer vs a 3/3 and a 1/1 usually, even disregarding the normally irrelevant rules text. In commander, the same holds true. Yeah, you can blink it. That's the only reason it competes.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
But there's always curving out of Rest in Peace to consider here. Also, it's worth getting the creature token on MTGO for that rarely seen artwork, it's like an adventure
Gabriel only gets one of the abilities, so you lose out on the flying you expect from an angel if you want first strike or trample (because odds are you don't actually want rampage). He does have the advantage of being a legendary creature, though, so he could be your commander. He's still a 4/4 french vanilla for 7, though.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
It's more relevant than a 3/3 flier and a 1/1 dork for 6 freaking mana, to be fair, pauper sideboard against affinity? Apostle's Blessing only works on your own guys, though.
Yeah, we aren't talking just Commander, in which case shed be a lot worse. Even still, she can Bloch Wurmcoil and Steel Hellkite all day, which is better than what the other angels are offering. I suppose Haunted works in group hug. If we are talking strictly commander, rather than worst overall, Voice is better than the 3/5 for 6, because the ability to generate tokens with blink matters more than stats, and is probably better than Avenging. In 60 card or draft, it's the worst alongside Haunted (though haunted is more aggressive and you might bank on killing your opponent before they can kill it). I'd draft any of those angels, except haunted and maybe the curator in a format with few relevant artifacts (it's more than fine in its native draft format) over Voice. Voice was bad in AVR when soulbond meant the extra body was more relevant, fields could get crowded making larger evasive creatures better, and both creatures had mechanically relevant types. That was its best chance to succeed outside of crap cube, and it still got picked at the end of packs. She's so bad Emrakul didn't bother to convert her.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Cute card with some strong possibilities. Hard to find a good deck for it though, but if you want to steal lands, this is one of the better options, to be honest.
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.
As for Vedalken Plotter, hmm, way to give an opponent Sorrow's Path?
On phasing:
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I'd rate them all ahead of voice. Though Seraph us close.
The plotter though, what an underated card. Even without ways to abuse it, you can always trade an island for a sweet nonbasic like Ancient Tomb. Where it gets stupid is when you include a few non mana producing lands in spell slots, or rely on depletion lands. Send Pendrall Vale over, it has the same effect no matter who controls it. Send over glimmervoid to the guy with no artifacts. Tap Rainbow Vale for mana then give it away. Glacial Chasm's upkeep getting too painful? Lots of fun to be had!
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect