What do you all think of the format from browsing the cards? Me? I think this is gonna be a grindfest. Expect plenty of stalled boardstates and a much higher win-by-draw-out than usual. 1-for-1 removal will be valued less, while evasive creatures will be ranked much higher, especially those with Embalm. The strongest decks will be those that can assemble repeatable boardstate advantage. IOW, ALWAYS firstpick Oketra's Monument!
I was hopeful for the dream of a grindy limited format at first, then the first hits came with Exemplar of Strength, Ahn-Crop Crasher, and Crocodile of the Crossing. These are uncommons, surely the commons aren't going to be nearly as aggressive as these. Say hello to Renegade Freighter 2.0 and his 2 drop trio of aggression: Hooded Brawler, Bitterblade Warrior, Nef-Crop Entangler, and Gust Walker. My initial read on the format is that the best decks are either aggro or combo oriented. The strongest common based strategies seem to revolve around beating down, or cheating out huge guys such as Soul Stinger. There is definitely some sort of UB cycling combo deck, but that seems to revolve mostly around uncommon win conditions. The grindiest deck appears to be UW embalm, but the cards in this set reminds me of SoI UW, where you had a bunch of mediocre creatures that were trying to play a fair game and win through the skies, but the creature quality was just too weak to actually compete with the degenerate things that other colors were doing. Set review coming shortly!
Yeah, I really doubt this is going to be a grindy format, like, at all. The set is absolutely full to the brim with giant beaters and exert rewards players for both attacking and not blocking, so racing is going to be the order of the day a high percentage of the time. White looks to be all about the grind, but I don't see how white has the tools to keep up with more aggressive strategies when all its advantage is tied up in mana sinks.
Your creatures don't have to Exert. They can just bash in as a bear or block like a bear as normal, and then when the board favors an Exert trigger, they do it. Besides, most Exert creatures are offensively statted and aren't very good blockers anyway, so for instance, Gust Walker dealing 1.5 flying damage across 2 turns is probably the best move to do in congested boardstates. Plus, there are enough untap tricks out there where opponents have to respect the possibility of a back-to-back Exert trigger.
There is some kind of Demir cycling strategy going on in limited, that much I've worked out. I'm still checking out green and white, thought there was an orzhov aristocrats strat cropping up, but given that requires at least two rares to work I don't think that is the case.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The crasher is a 3 mana 3/2 haste, and a 3 mana 1.5/2 haste in situations where it would otherwise not force through any damage. You're underestimating the amount of power that exert gives to creatures that would otherwise be useless or trade in the current board state. I hope I'm overestimating this since I'd love for the format to be grindy, but I'm not too hopeful that this is true.
There's definitely an aggressive red green deck out there that builds itself, but there are also a lot of cards that look like they can lead to a grindier format. Greater Sandwurm, Scaled Behemoth, and Desert Cerodon all suggest to the GR player that they play a slower strategy, though. There's definitely a strong late game in every color, and as long as people are trying to generate value through cycling and embalm, the format will slow down to compensate. I think that there are strong aggro decks in the format, but I don't think it's an aggro format.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
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My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
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Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.