It's that time of the year again! New block, new mechanics (...and a skulking* Metalcraft), and most importantly: a new Limited format to cut open and dissect innovate upon. So let's get started
Energy
It's too early to say exactly how Energy will play out in this set, since it's more a matter of knowing the acquisition, effects, and energy costs, but having a couple rare/mythic cards to give us an idea helps. I get the feeling that most cards are going to be fairly bland; they more than hinted at effects in the panel when showing the literal drawing board for ideas on lower-rarity effects. I think we're going to end up seeing, for example, the scholar/looter effect only it requires 2-3 energy instead of mana.
That said, regardless of what effects exist, Energy strikes me as the kind of mechanic where it'll be a balance between producers and users. By this, I mean I foresee it playing out rather similarly to Ingest and Processors, only some of the 'Processors' in Kaladesh will also 'have Ingest', if that makes sense. I'm hoping they'll show us a few energy cards in the Limited previews to give us a better idea.
Vehicles / Crew
I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of stories about how people misplayed Vehicles because of the printed P/T in the bottom right... even though it's technically not a Creature without a crew. Additionally, the fact that they do not have haste when Crewed barring other cards or the Vehicle itself granting it.
More to the point, I see the following happening:
- Dwarf tribal where 'becoming tapped' matters, with a few enablers like Sky Skiff being top picks.
- Pseudo-Emerge/Exploit, in that you can convert your 'useless' creatures into Crew at no danger to themselves, provided you can meet the total power threshold. This I think is the major usage of Vehicles: to give your creatures something to do when they can't get through on their own (but the Vehicle might), and/or enable surprise blocks.
- SkysovereignScoop.dec (Such a bomb, geez.)
Fabricate
And here we get to what I am predicting to be the 'best for last' mechanic. There is so much synergy that Fabricate has with the known Energy and Vehicles cards I just don't know how to start. Fabricate is pretty much a giant welding torch for enabling Vehicles and the known Energy cards while standing on its own two feet at the same time. I really want to see what the uncommons for Fabricate are going to look like, but again I really want to know how many Vehicles and Energy-matters cards we're going to get because what they do is obviously going to determine where Fabricate will fill in the gaps.
In a vacuum, though, we're already getting some fairly efficient cards. White doesn't get 3/3 for 3 often, and the other common alternative is nearly Patagia Viper. Black and blue's rendition on Fabricate are where I'm most interested in seeing the stats.
* See what I did there? 'Metalcraft' showing up in small numbers, skulk, ha ha.
I'm pretty hyped on this set as the mechanics seem skill intensive as there are a ton of decisions to be made with crewing artifacts and whether or not to replicate. Based on the current design of the cards released, it seems like vehicles will play far more like exploit rather than emerge. The common (2 mana 2/3 flier) and uncommon (4 mana 6/1 trample) point towards the vehicles being only really efficient if you are crewing them up with replicated guys, since you are not happy crewing them with a 3 mana 2/3 or 3/2 like you would be if you emerged them out. Also not really seeing the replicate synergy with energy just yet: the white rare is the only one that cares about creatures generating energy, no?
I'm cautiously optimistic about Kaladesh Limited based on the cards spoiled so far. It seems as if the set's core mechanics are omnicolor and not relegated to certain color pairs, shards, or wedges like many block mechanics have been of late. For instance, Madness was only in U/B/R and Investigate in Bant colors. What this meant for Limited was that the most powerful synergies for color pairs tended to be extremely obvious, leading to on-rails drafting, as you picked the cards that played into your color pair's allotted mechanics. At the same time, drafting around a mechanic meant drafting a certain color combination. Formats like this could certainly be fun, but quickly became stale, playing with and facing similar decks over and over. Hopefully Kaladesh, with mechanics that look to be evenly dispersed throughout the color pie, will lead to more open-ended drafting and a Limited experience that stays fresher for longer.
Oh, and it would be nice if development doesn't screw up bigtime a la SoI block and release cards that make for a decidedly higher amount of non-games (looking at you 2-drop Werewolves and crazy Vampire synergy plays).
I'm very much looking forward to a limited environment with choices and decision trees instead of this 'new Innistrad' crap where 95% of the game is about curving out and the other 5% about not flooding out. Jesus I hate these last two sets for limited. Constructed's pretty fun tho.
Thank god for triple ROE flashback drafts.
Gotta disagree with this. I've been killing the 8-4's, on a run of four 3-0's in a row right now, in EMN/EMN/SOI draft and it isn't my experience that you need to be a curve out deck to be successful. As with basically any format you do want to at least be playing a blocker/removal by turn 3, but you can definitely play for a long game and win that way. The defensive tools are fantastic and the aggro cards/synergies aren't as scary as they were in pure SOI. Heck, last night I won with a very durdly GUb deck, even living the dream and drawing my entire deck one game thanks to Noose Constrictor + Gitrog Monster + Groundskeeper (I was digging trying to find my stall-breaker and it was literally the last card in my deck, Decimator of Provinces). Two days ago it was a controlling UB deck with a zombie subtheme. Yes, you can draft an aggro curve-out deck, but I'd say those are less than 50% of my decks overall.
I just wanted to quickly say that for now, I consider vehicules to be equipments and think they should be treated as such. An artifact that need a body to wield it. The fact that the detail of the mechanic is different is not too important for me. The only really significant difference is that the stats and ability don't add up. (i.e. a flyer crewing a vehicule doesn't make it fly.)
Given that it's almost certain we'll be getting good artifact removal at common and that it will be main-deckable, I don't even think the fact that sorcery-speed creature removal is dead against vehicules is not very important.
I just wanted to quickly say that for now, I consider vehicules to be equipments and think they should be treated as such. An artifact that need a body to wield it. The fact that the detail of the mechanic is different is not too important for me. The only really significant difference is that the stats and ability don't add up. (i.e. a flyer crewing a vehicule doesn't make it fly.)
Given that it's almost certain we'll be getting good artifact removal at common and that it will be main-deckable, I don't even think the fact that sorcery-speed creature removal is dead against vehicules is not very important.
The fact that you can play a creature with a vehicle on board and immediately crew it with that creature makes it more important to have instant speed removal for the vehicle. While a common sequence for equipment would be equipment -> guy -> next turn equip which sorcery speed removal can deal with in general and generate a tempo advantage, vehicles suffer no tempo loss from the equip, and can attack immediately. I wouldn't say that vehicles make sorcery speed removal unplayable, but they certainly become worse as the format appears to have good vehicles at common and uncommon. To play a little bit of devil's advocate, I'm also not sold on artifact hate being maindeckable in this format: there aren't any mechanics that explicitly want artifacts, and I think it's unlikely that we'll see that many artifact creatures besides the vehicles and servos (which probably aren't plentiful enough to maindeck shatter effects).
Until I see some sort of "Energy matters" card that isn't clunky, I'm remaining skeptical that the Energy mechanic will be viable at any point that it's legal in standard. Will wizards just print energy cards in this set? Will it come up in the next set too? Will there be support for it beyond that? That will have a pretty big impact on how successful the mechanic is. Lately I see some neat things, but, it feels more like wizards is just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.
Vehicles seem like a trap card to me. They have some potential, some vehicles more than others, but, you could end up time walking yourself if you're not able to maintain some sort of board presence with creatures. If you have creatures that are good enough to protect or big enough to avoid removal, why would you want to tap them down to attack with something else? I get that there will be scenarios where vehicles do well, but there are plenty more where they won't. Seems like high risk, low reward............at least so far with what's been spoiled.
As far as fabricate goes........is just naming the ability Sandsteppe Outcast. While I like the ability, it's not exactly earth-shattering. wizards does this all the time, or they just slightly alter an old keyword, rename it, and pass it off as something new.
I'm not nearly as excited about the mechanics of this set as I have been with others. There is way less synergy with these than there is with madness/delirium/emerge. There are some strong cards in Kaladesh for sure, but, mechanics-wise, it feels like a dud to me.
Vehicles are tough to evaluate for sure, but Wizards' development teams have been pretty on top of making sure mechanics are good in limited lately, so I think it's premature to be as down on them as some people here are. Fabricate seems like it could go a long way towards negating the inherent card disadvantage that vehicles have.
I'm somewhat surprised about the flak that vehicles are getting in this thread. Let's take Bombat Bazaar Barge as an example. Say average case scenario, your curve is Grizzly Bears -> Vampire Noble -> Bombat Bazaar Barge -> Vampire Noble. If your deck is aggressive and you're beating down, then you don't care about tapping the follow up vampire noble, in which case you just played a 4 mana 5/5 attacker, which is clearly insane. If you've fallen behind, then you can leave your creatures back and block with a huge 5/5 guy. On offense, the barge is just straight up a 4 mana 5/5, and on defense, the body will be big enough to kill anything they try to attack with, in which case tapping the noble still doesn't matter as the threat of blocking as a 5/5 just eats their guy. Vehicles are also resilient to removal, as they do not open you up to getting 2 for 1ed since you either keep the vehicle or the crew. Now, the worst case scenario is your opponent clears your board and you have no crew left, but the fact that you can just play a dude next turn and turn on your vehicle means that it's hard for the vehicle to be completely dead assuming you have a good amount of creatures in your deck.
It's important to envision cards in their average case scenario, as emerge has taught us, the cards played much closer to having a good curve into them than their fail case scenario, which signifies to me that the scenario I envisioned up there should probably be the basis upon which to evaluate these vehicles. I'm somewhat convinced that Bombat Bazaar Barge and Fleetwheel Cruiser will be high picks around Wretched Gryff level. Demolition Stomper is way sketchier: I'm guessing you need Terror of the Fairgrounds type of cards that can singlehandedly crew it in order for it to be good, or else you're just tapping down most of your board. Ovalchase Dragster is probably great in the aggro decks, and trades up on defense in a pinch.Skysoverign, Consul Flagship is clearly a windmill slam bomb.
My current takeaways would be:
1. Vehicles are much better in aggro decks than in defensive ones because aggro decks don't care if they don't have blockers, and can take advantage of the undercosted stats.
2. Vehicles with low crew costs (especially 1) need more synergy in order to work well, and therefore need to be built around more Crewing a Sky Skiff with a Vampire Noble feels bad, but crewing that with a 1/1 servo feels good.
3. Vehicles around 2-3 crew cost can be crewed with on curve creatures, and probably have the stats to make them a good fit in most decks. Bombat Bazaar Barge is a card that I can see playing in most decks.
Disagree with the generally negative view of vehicles. I see the comp to equipment from the "need to have another creature" standpoint, but in other respects they are dramatically different. Vehicles are generally more efficient mana-wise and most important they can and will trade for opposing creatures.
Vehicules are pretty much equipment in the sense that:
1. You need to spend two cards to get one body.
2. It's useless without another crature in play.
As such, I expect that you won't put too many vehicules in your deck. The fewer real creatures you have, the more devastating each removal gets. The good part is that trading with a vehicule leaves the crew alive.
Also, given these two drawbacks, I don't consider vehicules to be undercosted for their power. If you add together the vehicule cost and crew cost, they're not a bargain. What they do is allow to have a larger, over-the-curve body. Just like equipment. That being said, obviously getting a above-the-curve body backed by removal can end games quick.
I think we've seen enough of the set to say that artifact destruction will be playable main-deck. There is a disconnect in saying that common vehicules are good and artifact destruction not main-deckable...?
Vehicules are pretty much equipment in the sense that:
1. You need to spend two cards to get one body.
2. It's useless without another crature in play.
As such, I expect that you won't put too many vehicules in your deck. The fewer real creatures you have, the more devastating each removal gets. The good part is that trading with a vehicule leaves the crew alive.
Also, given these two drawbacks, I don't consider vehicules to be undercosted for their power. If you add together the vehicule cost and crew cost, they're not a bargain. What they do is allow to have a larger, over-the-curve body. Just like equipment. That being said, obviously getting a above-the-curve body backed by removal can end games quick.
I think we've seen enough of the set to say that artifact destruction will be playable main-deck. There is a disconnect in saying that common vehicules are good and artifact destruction not main-deckable...?
I was thinking more about the density of artifacts in the set - we've seen a fair amount of uncommon targets, but without a good amount of common artifacts, I'm not sure if it's worth the risk of having a completely dead card against certain decks.
Spoiler season tends to spoils few commons. When the full set is out, I expect there be a sizable amount of common artifacts.
Whether or not they're worth destroying is another question, since you aren't too happy shattering a puzzleknot, for instance. We'll have to see, but I could see it going either way. There aren't any metalcraft-esque keywords in this format to necessitate the existence of a lot of artifacts, so I'd be surprised if we got many artifact creatures besides vehicles and servos.
I mean, yeah they require a creature and are difficult to 2 for 1. But the parallels don't go all the way. You're not allowed to shoot the creature underneath boar umbra and leave the boar umbra alone on the battlefield unable to do anything without assistance. But if you wipe all non-vehicle creatures, you get that effect. Based on what we've seen so far they aren't going to swing tempo nearly as hard as umbras either, no one is going to swing for 5 turn 3 or anything.
It should be noted that Fabricate has ever only two modes; either you get the counters, or the Servos. It reads that you can't, for example, use "Fabricate 2" to generate one creature and one counter.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Vehicles have a downside compared to equipment in that equipment can help one of your creatures trade up and the equipment stays on the battlefield to be used again, whereas a vehicle dies in that combat. This to me is a huge difference. The relative worth depends upon the details such as casting and activation costs, so vehicles could be better than equipment, but to me they are different enough that a comparison is very difficult.
I like the design concept of vehicles and I suspect that I will play some of them. Spending two cards for a 2/3 flyer (which is one of the spoiled vehicles) does not seem like good value to me at all so I would probably only play this one if I had somewhat free token generators but there are other vehicles which do seem worth playing.
Vehicles have a downside compared to equipment in that equipment can help one of your creatures trade up and the equipment stays on the battlefield to be used again, whereas a vehicle dies in that combat. This to me is a huge difference. The relative worth depends upon the details such as casting and activation costs, so vehicles could be better than equipment, but to me they are different enough that a comparison is very difficult.
I like the design concept of vehicles and I suspect that I will play some of them. Spending two cards for a 2/3 flyer (which is one of the spoiled vehicles) does not seem like good value to me at all so I would probably only play this one if I had somewhat free token generators but there are other vehicles which do seem worth playing.
Yeah, I think Crew 1 vehicles are very different things than Crew 3 vehicles. The former seems to be bad outside of decks that have cheap guys to enable them such as servos, whereas you probably wouldn't mind adding the latter into most decks as you'll probably have a random 3 mana 3/2 lying around.
I'm not saying this would be a good strategy, but let's keep in mind that you can turducken vehicles. I.e. crew a Smuggler's Copter with a 1/1 Servo, then use that to crew a Bombat Bazaar Barge. The flavor of stuffing a servo inside a vehicle and then stuffing that vehicle inside another is pretty weird, but ... in a pinch, you can do it.
I'm not saying this would be a good strategy, but let's keep in mind that you can turducken vehicles. I.e. crew a Smuggler's Copter with a 1/1 Servo, then use that to crew a Bombat Bazaar Barge. The flavor of stuffing a servo inside a vehicle and then stuffing that vehicle inside another is pretty weird, but ... in a pinch, you can do it.
It's pretty obvious that Kaladeshi artifice is all about robots in disguise; Vehicles on Kaladesh are secretly Transformers, obviously!
But on the serious, I think we know enough now to make a few inferences on some mechanics. Vehicles still have the jury out until the rest come in next Friday (when the set is all up on the gallery), but as far as Energy goes I'm very very interested from a Limited standpoint, and the +2E Thriving common cycle was kind of startling, particularly the blue and red ones. If that cycle is an idea of how common Energy creatures are going to be, my head is probably going to spin.
Fabricate is Limited glue like Cycling, except it's "choose your own adventure" kind of glue, based on what I suspect are either your Vehicles in play and/or how you are producing Energy for your hungry hungry hippos. For example, I would not be particularly surprised to see something like a Vehicle that generates Energy based on how many creatures crew it, and/or awards Energy if it connects (think Rapacious One for a comparison.)
I have to say that I'm annoyed by cards like thriving turtle. It's a 1/4 for a single mana by itself and can grow bigger easily. This will block all day long. Yeah, it needs to attack to grow, but if you drop it turn one, there is little risk in attacking with a 1/4 on turn 2. horned turtle used to cost 3 mana...
I have to say that I'm annoyed by cards like thriving turtle. It's a 1/4 for a single mana by itself and can grow bigger easily. This will block all day long. Yeah, it needs to attack to grow, but if you drop it turn one, there is little risk in attacking with a 1/4 on turn 2. horned turtle used to cost 3 mana...
(And larger than life is a sorcery, so you can't be blown out by it.)
Looks like UW will be able to durdle a lot until it wins with flyers...
I'm thinking the contrary: the thrive cycle suggests a very aggressive format. Putting +1/+1 counters on dudes in exchange for energy seems like a very snowbally mechanic, and I'm slightly worried that with cards like Voltaic Brawler and Vehicles, the format will devolve into a mix of SoI/Zendikar, where the entire format is about going off faster than your opponent. Hopefully I'm wrong and we get some more amazing removal at common/uncommon, and not too many thrive type of commons.
What do you guys think about flicker effects with fanricate around? As a specific example, do you think Acrobatic Maneuver could be a good card in a dedicated fabricate deck?
What do you guys think about flicker effects with fanricate around? As a specific example, do you think Acrobatic Maneuver could be a good card in a dedicated fabricate deck?
I think Acrobatic Maneuver is an awesome card. Having it in your deck means you have flexibility when it comes to Fabricate. This card is great in limited because it cantrips especially. If you're saving a dude from removal (which there's a lot of good removal at common/uncommon) this is a huge card advantage swing.
In white alone, these are the relevant limited synergies: Common Aviary Mechanic - Return another permanent you control (auras, artifacts, uncrewed vehicles)
Wispweaver Angel - Create a chain reaction – excellent inclusion with Ninth Bridge Patrol
And this is just in white! There are so many other great synergies + drawing a card. Let's not forget the relevant limited applications such as saving something from removal, saving a double block, preventing lifelink, crewing more vehicles, etc etc.
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cut open and dissectinnovate upon. So let's get startedEnergy
It's too early to say exactly how Energy will play out in this set, since it's more a matter of knowing the acquisition, effects, and energy costs, but having a couple rare/mythic cards to give us an idea helps. I get the feeling that most cards are going to be fairly bland; they more than hinted at effects in the panel when showing the literal drawing board for ideas on lower-rarity effects. I think we're going to end up seeing, for example, the scholar/looter effect only it requires 2-3 energy instead of mana.
That said, regardless of what effects exist, Energy strikes me as the kind of mechanic where it'll be a balance between producers and users. By this, I mean I foresee it playing out rather similarly to Ingest and Processors, only some of the 'Processors' in Kaladesh will also 'have Ingest', if that makes sense. I'm hoping they'll show us a few energy cards in the Limited previews to give us a better idea.
Vehicles / Crew
I'm sure we're going to hear a lot of stories about how people misplayed Vehicles because of the printed P/T in the bottom right... even though it's technically not a Creature without a crew. Additionally, the fact that they do not have haste when Crewed barring other cards or the Vehicle itself granting it.
More to the point, I see the following happening:
- Dwarf tribal where 'becoming tapped' matters, with a few enablers like Sky Skiff being top picks.
- Pseudo-Emerge/Exploit, in that you can convert your 'useless' creatures into Crew at no danger to themselves, provided you can meet the total power threshold. This I think is the major usage of Vehicles: to give your creatures something to do when they can't get through on their own (but the Vehicle might), and/or enable surprise blocks.
- SkysovereignScoop.dec (Such a bomb, geez.)
Fabricate
And here we get to what I am predicting to be the 'best for last' mechanic. There is so much synergy that Fabricate has with the known Energy and Vehicles cards I just don't know how to start. Fabricate is pretty much a giant welding torch for enabling Vehicles and the known Energy cards while standing on its own two feet at the same time. I really want to see what the uncommons for Fabricate are going to look like, but again I really want to know how many Vehicles and Energy-matters cards we're going to get because what they do is obviously going to determine where Fabricate will fill in the gaps.
In a vacuum, though, we're already getting some fairly efficient cards. White doesn't get 3/3 for 3 often, and the other common alternative is nearly Patagia Viper. Black and blue's rendition on Fabricate are where I'm most interested in seeing the stats.
* See what I did there? 'Metalcraft' showing up in small numbers, skulk, ha ha.
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
Oh, and it would be nice if development doesn't screw up bigtime a la SoI block and release cards that make for a decidedly higher amount of non-games (looking at you 2-drop Werewolves and crazy Vampire synergy plays).
Gotta disagree with this. I've been killing the 8-4's, on a run of four 3-0's in a row right now, in EMN/EMN/SOI draft and it isn't my experience that you need to be a curve out deck to be successful. As with basically any format you do want to at least be playing a blocker/removal by turn 3, but you can definitely play for a long game and win that way. The defensive tools are fantastic and the aggro cards/synergies aren't as scary as they were in pure SOI. Heck, last night I won with a very durdly GUb deck, even living the dream and drawing my entire deck one game thanks to Noose Constrictor + Gitrog Monster + Groundskeeper (I was digging trying to find my stall-breaker and it was literally the last card in my deck, Decimator of Provinces). Two days ago it was a controlling UB deck with a zombie subtheme. Yes, you can draft an aggro curve-out deck, but I'd say those are less than 50% of my decks overall.
Given that it's almost certain we'll be getting good artifact removal at common and that it will be main-deckable, I don't even think the fact that sorcery-speed creature removal is dead against vehicules is not very important.
The fact that you can play a creature with a vehicle on board and immediately crew it with that creature makes it more important to have instant speed removal for the vehicle. While a common sequence for equipment would be equipment -> guy -> next turn equip which sorcery speed removal can deal with in general and generate a tempo advantage, vehicles suffer no tempo loss from the equip, and can attack immediately. I wouldn't say that vehicles make sorcery speed removal unplayable, but they certainly become worse as the format appears to have good vehicles at common and uncommon. To play a little bit of devil's advocate, I'm also not sold on artifact hate being maindeckable in this format: there aren't any mechanics that explicitly want artifacts, and I think it's unlikely that we'll see that many artifact creatures besides the vehicles and servos (which probably aren't plentiful enough to maindeck shatter effects).
Vehicles seem like a trap card to me. They have some potential, some vehicles more than others, but, you could end up time walking yourself if you're not able to maintain some sort of board presence with creatures. If you have creatures that are good enough to protect or big enough to avoid removal, why would you want to tap them down to attack with something else? I get that there will be scenarios where vehicles do well, but there are plenty more where they won't. Seems like high risk, low reward............at least so far with what's been spoiled.
As far as fabricate goes........is just naming the ability Sandsteppe Outcast. While I like the ability, it's not exactly earth-shattering. wizards does this all the time, or they just slightly alter an old keyword, rename it, and pass it off as something new.
I'm not nearly as excited about the mechanics of this set as I have been with others. There is way less synergy with these than there is with madness/delirium/emerge. There are some strong cards in Kaladesh for sure, but, mechanics-wise, it feels like a dud to me.
It's important to envision cards in their average case scenario, as emerge has taught us, the cards played much closer to having a good curve into them than their fail case scenario, which signifies to me that the scenario I envisioned up there should probably be the basis upon which to evaluate these vehicles. I'm somewhat convinced that Bombat Bazaar Barge and Fleetwheel Cruiser will be high picks around Wretched Gryff level. Demolition Stomper is way sketchier: I'm guessing you need Terror of the Fairgrounds type of cards that can singlehandedly crew it in order for it to be good, or else you're just tapping down most of your board. Ovalchase Dragster is probably great in the aggro decks, and trades up on defense in a pinch.Skysoverign, Consul Flagship is clearly a windmill slam bomb.
My current takeaways would be:
1. Vehicles are much better in aggro decks than in defensive ones because aggro decks don't care if they don't have blockers, and can take advantage of the undercosted stats.
2. Vehicles with low crew costs (especially 1) need more synergy in order to work well, and therefore need to be built around more Crewing a Sky Skiff with a Vampire Noble feels bad, but crewing that with a 1/1 servo feels good.
3. Vehicles around 2-3 crew cost can be crewed with on curve creatures, and probably have the stats to make them a good fit in most decks. Bombat Bazaar Barge is a card that I can see playing in most decks.
1. You need to spend two cards to get one body.
2. It's useless without another crature in play.
As such, I expect that you won't put too many vehicules in your deck. The fewer real creatures you have, the more devastating each removal gets. The good part is that trading with a vehicule leaves the crew alive.
Also, given these two drawbacks, I don't consider vehicules to be undercosted for their power. If you add together the vehicule cost and crew cost, they're not a bargain. What they do is allow to have a larger, over-the-curve body. Just like equipment. That being said, obviously getting a above-the-curve body backed by removal can end games quick.
I think we've seen enough of the set to say that artifact destruction will be playable main-deck. There is a disconnect in saying that common vehicules are good and artifact destruction not main-deckable...?
I was thinking more about the density of artifacts in the set - we've seen a fair amount of uncommon targets, but without a good amount of common artifacts, I'm not sure if it's worth the risk of having a completely dead card against certain decks.
Whether or not they're worth destroying is another question, since you aren't too happy shattering a puzzleknot, for instance. We'll have to see, but I could see it going either way. There aren't any metalcraft-esque keywords in this format to necessitate the existence of a lot of artifacts, so I'd be surprised if we got many artifact creatures besides vehicles and servos.
Is it fair to say that Vehicles have a lot of parallels to Totem armor?
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
I like the design concept of vehicles and I suspect that I will play some of them. Spending two cards for a 2/3 flyer (which is one of the spoiled vehicles) does not seem like good value to me at all so I would probably only play this one if I had somewhat free token generators but there are other vehicles which do seem worth playing.
Yeah, I think Crew 1 vehicles are very different things than Crew 3 vehicles. The former seems to be bad outside of decks that have cheap guys to enable them such as servos, whereas you probably wouldn't mind adding the latter into most decks as you'll probably have a random 3 mana 3/2 lying around.
But on the serious, I think we know enough now to make a few inferences on some mechanics. Vehicles still have the jury out until the rest come in next Friday (when the set is all up on the gallery), but as far as Energy goes I'm very very interested from a Limited standpoint, and the +2E Thriving common cycle was kind of startling, particularly the blue and red ones. If that cycle is an idea of how common Energy creatures are going to be, my head is probably going to spin.
Fabricate is Limited glue like Cycling, except it's "choose your own adventure" kind of glue, based on what I suspect are either your Vehicles in play and/or how you are producing Energy for your hungry hungry hippos. For example, I would not be particularly surprised to see something like a Vehicle that generates Energy based on how many creatures crew it, and/or awards Energy if it connects (think Rapacious One for a comparison.)
Past Ruminations
Links are broken, will fix in near future.
- Kaladesh
- Zendikar
- Rise of the Eldrazi
- Alara Reborn
- Innistrad <- Personal Favorite
- Dark Ascension
- Avacyn Restored
- Theros
- Return to Ravnica
- Tarkir
White gets tasseled dromedary as a 0/4 for 1 mana.
(And larger than life is a sorcery, so you can't be blown out by it.)
Looks like UW will be able to durdle a lot until it wins with flyers...
I'm thinking the contrary: the thrive cycle suggests a very aggressive format. Putting +1/+1 counters on dudes in exchange for energy seems like a very snowbally mechanic, and I'm slightly worried that with cards like Voltaic Brawler and Vehicles, the format will devolve into a mix of SoI/Zendikar, where the entire format is about going off faster than your opponent. Hopefully I'm wrong and we get some more amazing removal at common/uncommon, and not too many thrive type of commons.
I think Acrobatic Maneuver is an awesome card. Having it in your deck means you have flexibility when it comes to Fabricate. This card is great in limited because it cantrips especially. If you're saving a dude from removal (which there's a lot of good removal at common/uncommon) this is a huge card advantage swing.
In white alone, these are the relevant limited synergies:
Common
Aviary Mechanic - Return another permanent you control (auras, artifacts, uncrewed vehicles)
Glint-Sleeve Artisan - Get back a 3/3 blocker or make a chump and shrink him
Herald of the Fair - Combat trick for +1/+1
Ninth Bridge Patrol - GROW MY *****ES, GROW! (easy +1 counter), I really like this card, btw.
Propeller Pioneer - Get an emergency chump blocker or untapped 3 power flyer
Thriving Ibex - 2 energy in a pinch
Uncommon
Fairgrounds Warden - Change creatures that are exiled
Gearshift Ace - Untap Ace for first strike combat/possible re-crewing
Visionary Augmenter - Fabricate 2 (obvious at this point, yes?)
Wispweaver Angel - Create a chain reaction – excellent inclusion with Ninth Bridge Patrol
And this is just in white! There are so many other great synergies + drawing a card. Let's not forget the relevant limited applications such as saving something from removal, saving a double block, preventing lifelink, crewing more vehicles, etc etc.
JAMMIT DIM! I'm a DOCTOR not a DECKBUILDER!