Nobody really hyping up Urza because they want to lock in their copies at a reasonable price first?
I hate this card for a weird reason: with infinite mana, this card wins on Magic Online on the spot but not in real life.
It's the shuffle your library part, plus you can only play one land per turn. Four horseman problem basically.
Not really. You exile the card so it doesn't matter if you exile 1 land or 20. You don't have to play the card to get it out of the way so not having a land drop is irrelevant; you will always exile the top card. There doesn't seem to be a good reason you can't shortcut this as the library is random after the first shuffle so a reasonable shortcut would seem to be to not shuffle beyond the first time if you plan on just exiling your entire library or, at least, a large number of cards at once.
Nobody really hyping up Urza because they want to lock in their copies at a reasonable price first?
I hate this card for a weird reason: with infinite mana, this card wins on Magic Online on the spot but not in real life.
It's the shuffle your library part, plus you can only play one land per turn. Four horseman problem basically.
No, it wins on the spot in real life as well. If you shuffle your library once and exile the top card with his ability, your deck is still randomized - a judge will let you shortcut it by going shuffle, exile until you're done, and then proceed. The same thing happens with Minds Desire in paper.
Since it's "until end of turn", not at once, the lands thing doesn't even matter, too.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Good think KCI is banned, because it would have yet another way of getting its creatures in or out of the bin.
Maybe Jeskai Thopter Sword becomes a thing?
"Blazing Chant" costs 2R and is like a Sphinx-Bone Wand that cannot hit creatures, but it unfortunately gives all your opponents 10 life each first. I suppose there's always Tainted Remedy...
Goblin Engineer is a 1/2 for 1R, Entombs an artifact when it ETB, and can sac any artifact and reanimate an artifact that has cmc 3 or less for R, t at instant speed. The usual shenanigans with stuff like Ichor Wellspring and more consistent (and pop-up) Ensnaring Bridge will come up, but can we make this guy excellent?
I sort of automatically assumed Scour All Possibilities had a flashback of 3 to be a Think Twice-Preordain hybrid, but at flashback 5 it's not playable.
Collected Conjuring makes me sour because the creaturecasters get instant speed and us poor spellslingers are stuck with sorcery
White Force.. I expected nothing and was still disappointed.
Gives of Runes and Regrowth might have a spot somewhere? Not sure where.
It feels like midrange is getting the shaft right now up to this point in spoilers, nothing looks that playable yet, not unless Runes slides into Abzan midrange or something.
Good think KCI is banned, because it would have yet another way of getting its creatures in or out of the bin.
Maybe Jeskai Thopter Sword becomes a thing?
That unannounced preview card seems to me more like a catch-all sideboard card, since he is talking about damping sphere, but a better one at that, that deals both with aggro and tron.
Please stop talking about "wasted" mythic slots... every mythic slot that has a bad card is a success, we want the good cards at common, uncommon and rare in that order preferably.
This x1000. Complaints about unplayable competitive mythics represent a type of uncritical meme that is highly popular/contagious but totally indefensible. We don't want extremely playable mythics. We want playable cards at all other rarities to keep those prices lower. We also don't want the kind of strange, flashy, unique effects we see at mythic that only benefit a few decks. We want clean, generic spells that help multiple decks in the format. These kinds of spells lend themselves to lower rarities anyway.
It feels like midrange is getting the shaft right now up to this point in spoilers, nothing looks that playable yet, not unless Runes slides into Abzan midrange or something.
1. BG Rock will play the BG land. I know you are worried that these lands will further hurt midrange strategies by allowing other decks to refuel on resources, but we simply don't know how this advantage will impact BGx itself. BG Rock has never before had access to this kind of effect, and it might benefit BG Rock more than it does an opposing deck. We know that Rock will be able to play at least a few copies of the land. The Push comparison is also misplaced because Push is simply not a widely played top-tier card right now, which suggests it doens't have much to do with BGx's comparative struggles these days. Top decks just don't play Push: Tron, Humans, Dredge, Phoenix, UW Control, Hardened Scales, Burn, Amulet, Titan Shift, etc. It's really just GDS and the other BGx decks. I personally think a big reason BGx doesn't have desired performance is lack of cantrips and velocity, as the deck struggles to find the right answer to every deck in the format. Basically every other top strategy has their versions of these spells, or just a critical mass of redundant cards. The canopy/horizon lands give BGx a tool it never previously had: a cantripping tool to get it over midgame slumps. We've all seen BGx players fall apart after early disruption into a mediocre clock that an opponent topdecks out of. Hopefully these lands give an extra tool to fight that.
2. As a whole, this kind of observation points to an underlying fear that is just not warranted at this point. 80% of the set is unrevealed, or whatever high percentage is remaining. They might just spoil Vindicate tomorrow for all we know. Or a Wasteland variant that disproportionately benefits midrange. It just takes 1-2 cards out of 250. And this doesn't even count mis-evaluations of known cards. Take a card like Narset from WAR, for example. She's probably the best planeswalker in the set across all formats, or at least a top 3 contender, but she had comparatively little hype when initially revealed. We might already have our Narset and not know it yet. We need to be patient and not give into fearful comments when so many cards are unknown, and the impact of known cards is unknown.
Nobody really hyping up Urza because they want to lock in their copies at a reasonable price first?
I'm almost positive that this will either be banned or unofficially shunned from Commander (it's true home). It's wholly irrelevant to Modern, and just... really encourages broken awful play lines in Commander. It's an enabler and payoff all in one card. It's GROSSSSS.
It's not irrelevant IMO, it makes the Thopter-Sword combo generate inifinite mana that you can use for the Mind Desire ability and win on the spot
NOOOO! Why did they have to give Neoform a Horizon Canopy land? Jokes aside, those lands are instant staples.
I tried building around Nimble Mongoose in Tribal Flames Zoo (featuring Might of Alara) and BG Delirium (featuring Gnarlwood Dryad), didn't feel like I got anywhere. The fastest way to dump cards into your graveyard is with Mishra's Bauble and Street Wraith, and that puts you in Death's Shadow's alley (you want to crack a whole bunch of fetches for Shadow too). But the problem is that Mongoose has shroud and can't be pumped with Mutagenic Growth or Temur Battle Rage.
Tried building Astral Drift too. Felt like Restoration Angel would do the same thing but take up a lot less deck space. The cool thing about Drift is that you can play maindeck artifact removal in the form of Dissenter's Deliverance, and you have a pseudo Snap-bolt combo in Eternal Witness + Path to Exile. Unfortunately the deck doesn't do much unless you draw Drift, and you don't have a good secondary cycling payoff in Lightning Rift (Drake Haven and Faith of the Devoted cost too much).
The red enchantment is basically Guttersnipe that doesn't die to removal. Combos with Kavu Predator, but so does Fiery Justice, and a Kavu Predator deck probably isn't going to have a lot of instants or sorceries to go for the combo kill.
"Scale Up" looks really dangerous in Infect. It cannot stack with other copies of itself when applied to the same creature, but it notably sets base power and toughness (to a cool 6/4) for only G at sorcery speed without making its target lose abilities.
Well, Slivers are back! Hopefully some of the needed ones exist alongside these ones. The unearth doesn't look too bad on the whole and great for sideboards. I am not sure of the Mythic one. I do hope though that we get Crystalline, Hibernation, and Muscle Sliver! They would be decent reprints at this stage. I am hoping for some good rare slivers providing taxing, card advantage (like scry/card draw), or other graveyard interaction abilities!
From the article it looks like Slivers will play a larger role in this set, so reprints, functional reprints, and new abilities. I know that I am going to be brewing my sliver decks with some of these new ones in mind!
"Scale Up" looks really dangerous in Infect. It cannot stack with other copies of itself when applied to the same creature, but it notably sets base power and toughness (to a cool 6/4) for only G at sorcery speed without making its target lose abilities.
It is indeed scary in Infect, it enables more T2 kills.
Maybe they want Infect to be the "unfair" deck of choice for the format so midrange strategies that rely on traditional forms of interaction (discard, counter and removal) have a better chance?
I used to play infect years ago, when Tron (the deck I hate the most nowadays) was a bye.
Now, with ballista, I'm staying away from infect, even with this beauty of a pump spell.
Funny how tron was a bye for my burn, infect, and rug scapeshift decks years ago, and now it's a pretty bad MU. Will wotc hear my tears and get something out of tron?
When I saw today's previews were slivers my heart sank a little. Why are they so wicked that they didn't spoil counterspell already? I bet they said, well, day1 goes for force, next monday counterspell.
Just because it isn't 90/10 in infect or burn's favor anymore doesn't mean its a bad matchup. Besides, those sorts of decks are the ones that benefit most from the canopy lands.
Well, Slivers are back! Hopefully some of the needed ones exist alongside these ones. The unearth doesn't look too bad on the whole and great for sideboards. I am not sure of the Mythic one. I do hope though that we get Crystalline, Hibernation, and Muscle Sliver! They would be decent reprints at this stage. I am hoping for some good rare slivers providing taxing, card advantage (like scry/card draw), or other graveyard interaction abilities!
From the article it looks like Slivers will play a larger role in this set, so reprints, functional reprints, and new abilities. I know that I am going to be brewing my sliver decks with some of these new ones in mind!
I wouldn't expect any slivers with the old symmetrical template. That style of lord breathed its last gasp in Tenth Edition and Time Spiral block.
When I saw today's previews were slivers my heart sank a little. Why are they so wicked that they didn't spoil counterspell already? I bet they said, well, day1 goes for force, next monday counterspell.
at this point im not even considering counterspell as a possible inclusion. so far we have flusterstorm, force of negation, prohibit, and exclude. maybe there are more permission spells, and maybe its even counterspell, however that line-up makes me think they passed it over this time around.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Why is Force of White so goddamn awful. White gets screwed in a cycle again. Like at worst I thought we get tokens or life gain and we ended up with something worse. I mean I guess you can dodge Anger of Gods but control mostly drops Terminus or 4 CMC Wrath
Nobody really hyping up Urza because they want to lock in their copies at a reasonable price first?
I'm almost positive that this will either be banned or unofficially shunned from Commander (it's true home). It's wholly irrelevant to Modern, and just... really encourages broken awful play lines in Commander. It's an enabler and payoff all in one card. It's GROSSSSS.
It's not irrelevant IMO, it makes the Thopter-Sword combo generate inifinite mana that you can use for the Mind Desire ability and win on the spot
I mean sure, but that is a clunky 3-card combo that would require either a tight build-around combo or hope that control elements keep you alive long enough. It'd be cute for FNM, and give you some "gotchas" but I don't see it doing any more than that.
No, it wins on the spot in real life as well. If you shuffle your library once and exile the top card with his ability, your deck is still randomized - a judge will let you shortcut it by going shuffle, exile until you're done, and then proceed. The same thing happens with Minds Desire in paper.
Since it's "until end of turn", not at once, the lands thing doesn't even matter, too.
http://mythicspoiler.com/mh1/cards/goblinengineer.html
Good think KCI is banned, because it would have yet another way of getting its creatures in or out of the bin.
Maybe Jeskai Thopter Sword becomes a thing?
Also, this announcement looks promising: https://www.cardmarket.com/en/Magic/Insight/Articles/Whats-More-Effective-Than-10000-Blades?fbclid=IwAR1j7UQySbRi8H2sTBDobLxIr9_Gq2LMc7aTlnexgboVB_MlDqPXhNuLRG8
UB Faeries (15-6-0)
UWR Control (10-5-1)/Kiki Control/Midrange/Harbinger
UBR Cruel Control (6-4-0)/Grixis Control/Delver/Blue Jund
UWB Control/Mentor
UW Miracles/Control (currently active, 14-2-0)
BW Eldrazi & Taxes
RW Burn (9-1-0)
I do (academic) research on video games and archaeology! You can check out my open access book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/the-interactive-past
"Blazing Chant" costs 2R and is like a Sphinx-Bone Wand that cannot hit creatures, but it unfortunately gives all your opponents 10 life each first. I suppose there's always Tainted Remedy...
Goblin Engineer is a 1/2 for 1R, Entombs an artifact when it ETB, and can sac any artifact and reanimate an artifact that has cmc 3 or less for R, t at instant speed. The usual shenanigans with stuff like Ichor Wellspring and more consistent (and pop-up) Ensnaring Bridge will come up, but can we make this guy excellent?
Collected Conjuring makes me sour because the creaturecasters get instant speed and us poor spellslingers are stuck with sorcery
White Force.. I expected nothing and was still disappointed.
Gives of Runes and Regrowth might have a spot somewhere? Not sure where.
With the white hair and considering she's a Mother of Runes reference card, it would not surprise me if she is indeed a Mother of Dragons homage.
That unannounced preview card seems to me more like a catch-all sideboard card, since he is talking about damping sphere, but a better one at that, that deals both with aggro and tron.
This x1000. Complaints about unplayable competitive mythics represent a type of uncritical meme that is highly popular/contagious but totally indefensible. We don't want extremely playable mythics. We want playable cards at all other rarities to keep those prices lower. We also don't want the kind of strange, flashy, unique effects we see at mythic that only benefit a few decks. We want clean, generic spells that help multiple decks in the format. These kinds of spells lend themselves to lower rarities anyway.
1. BG Rock will play the BG land. I know you are worried that these lands will further hurt midrange strategies by allowing other decks to refuel on resources, but we simply don't know how this advantage will impact BGx itself. BG Rock has never before had access to this kind of effect, and it might benefit BG Rock more than it does an opposing deck. We know that Rock will be able to play at least a few copies of the land. The Push comparison is also misplaced because Push is simply not a widely played top-tier card right now, which suggests it doens't have much to do with BGx's comparative struggles these days. Top decks just don't play Push: Tron, Humans, Dredge, Phoenix, UW Control, Hardened Scales, Burn, Amulet, Titan Shift, etc. It's really just GDS and the other BGx decks. I personally think a big reason BGx doesn't have desired performance is lack of cantrips and velocity, as the deck struggles to find the right answer to every deck in the format. Basically every other top strategy has their versions of these spells, or just a critical mass of redundant cards. The canopy/horizon lands give BGx a tool it never previously had: a cantripping tool to get it over midgame slumps. We've all seen BGx players fall apart after early disruption into a mediocre clock that an opponent topdecks out of. Hopefully these lands give an extra tool to fight that.
2. As a whole, this kind of observation points to an underlying fear that is just not warranted at this point. 80% of the set is unrevealed, or whatever high percentage is remaining. They might just spoil Vindicate tomorrow for all we know. Or a Wasteland variant that disproportionately benefits midrange. It just takes 1-2 cards out of 250. And this doesn't even count mis-evaluations of known cards. Take a card like Narset from WAR, for example. She's probably the best planeswalker in the set across all formats, or at least a top 3 contender, but she had comparatively little hype when initially revealed. We might already have our Narset and not know it yet. We need to be patient and not give into fearful comments when so many cards are unknown, and the impact of known cards is unknown.
And yes, midrange needs that velocity and some card filtering.
Again, something like vindicate wouldn't phase us. Answers arent the issue at this point.
It's not irrelevant IMO, it makes the Thopter-Sword combo generate inifinite mana that you can use for the Mind Desire ability and win on the spot
I tried building around Nimble Mongoose in Tribal Flames Zoo (featuring Might of Alara) and BG Delirium (featuring Gnarlwood Dryad), didn't feel like I got anywhere. The fastest way to dump cards into your graveyard is with Mishra's Bauble and Street Wraith, and that puts you in Death's Shadow's alley (you want to crack a whole bunch of fetches for Shadow too). But the problem is that Mongoose has shroud and can't be pumped with Mutagenic Growth or Temur Battle Rage.
Tried building Astral Drift too. Felt like Restoration Angel would do the same thing but take up a lot less deck space. The cool thing about Drift is that you can play maindeck artifact removal in the form of Dissenter's Deliverance, and you have a pseudo Snap-bolt combo in Eternal Witness + Path to Exile. Unfortunately the deck doesn't do much unless you draw Drift, and you don't have a good secondary cycling payoff in Lightning Rift (Drake Haven and Faith of the Devoted cost too much).
The red enchantment is basically Guttersnipe that doesn't die to removal. Combos with Kavu Predator, but so does Fiery Justice, and a Kavu Predator deck probably isn't going to have a lot of instants or sorceries to go for the combo kill.
Regrowth is a nice one. An active Pyromancer Ascension, Regrowth in graveyard, and Manamorphose + Regrowth in hand is infinite draw. Channel the Suns instead of Manamorphose is infinite mana.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
From the article it looks like Slivers will play a larger role in this set, so reprints, functional reprints, and new abilities. I know that I am going to be brewing my sliver decks with some of these new ones in mind!
It is indeed scary in Infect, it enables more T2 kills.
Maybe they want Infect to be the "unfair" deck of choice for the format so midrange strategies that rely on traditional forms of interaction (discard, counter and removal) have a better chance?
Now, with ballista, I'm staying away from infect, even with this beauty of a pump spell.
Funny how tron was a bye for my burn, infect, and rug scapeshift decks years ago, and now it's a pretty bad MU. Will wotc hear my tears and get something out of tron?
When I saw today's previews were slivers my heart sank a little. Why are they so wicked that they didn't spoil counterspell already? I bet they said, well, day1 goes for force, next monday counterspell.
I wouldn't expect any slivers with the old symmetrical template. That style of lord breathed its last gasp in Tenth Edition and Time Spiral block.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I mean you'd need an elvish spirit guide to get the kill, though a might of old krosa would do the trick!
'A single germ can kill more soldiers than ten thousand blades'
so i guess e-plague or some variant of it? /shrug
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I mean sure, but that is a clunky 3-card combo that would require either a tight build-around combo or hope that control elements keep you alive long enough. It'd be cute for FNM, and give you some "gotchas" but I don't see it doing any more than that.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate