This set has a lot of power creeping one drops it feels like
UW Spirits is my pet deck and I've been looking for a good extra 1-drop to play, messed around with the mediocre Topplegeist a lot. This card is excellent.
New Sorin seems really cool in some Vampire aggro/midrange stuff to cheat out a 5-drop you could also play the normal way. Blood baron of Vizcopa is probably a good choice
"Resonating Summons" tutors for 2 creatures into your hand for 3GG at instant speed. Useful somewhere?
Tried Elvish Reclaimer in BG Midrange last night. The land-tutoring ability is quite expensive and a bit slow, but man do some decks rage when you tutor for multiple Field of Ruins in a single game! I can also imagine this guy completely making fun of Blood Moon.
Tried my Leyline of Abundance-Freed From the Real Green Ramp deck against Jund last night and it actually won close to half the games (granted, Karn, the Great Creator is overpowered), one of them notably with the combo. I'm thinking of making a thread for Freed Abundance builds!
"Resonating Summons" tutors for 2 creatures into your hand for 3GG at instant speed. Useful somewhere?
if my RG ponza is not on hiatus right now, I would have tried adding a copy there. Instant speed makes it worthwhile. Grab an inferno titan and a glorybringer at end of opponent's turn. Local meta is too fast to use ponza right now, but will still get a copy of resonating summons to use someday when ponza is good again.
In order to not just be an EtBT land, you need to have spent 2 mana on something that turn and then sac those lands, which UW control usually isn't doing unless it's later in the game and you wrath/deploy a walker. Plus, the deck tends to need both blue and white mana, so trading away duals doesn't actually feel like a win 100% of the time. The interaction with Teferi is neat, but I don't think I want to play it just for that.
It forces you to spend your 3 mana all at once, and a large chunk of the deck is 1-2 mana spells. If you have an opt, counterspell, and path, you don't get to play two different colors of spell with that 3 mana. No Dovin's Veto, no Detention Sphere, no T3feri. I don't think there's enough upside to justify making the manabase physically awkward each time you play this land, and it's terrible to see in your opening hand unless you have 2 other lands you don't mind losing.
Usually you do not want to play a bad card (Blood Sun) to enable an okay-ish card (Lotus Field). They would need to result into something broken (like Amulet + Karoo land) that it is really worthwhile. Also, keep in mind that Blood Sun costs 3, which also sucks.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
So, Lotus Field's ETB tapped drawback is negated by Amulet of Vigor. The obvious comparison would be bouncelands, which also ETB tapped and tap for multiple mana, but bouncelands have other advantages that make them worthy of inclusion in Amulet:
Pseudo card advantage. If I have two Forests and a bounceland, I can get up to 4 mana in play off those alone. Three Forests, or two Forests and a Lotus Field only gets to 3 mana.
Scales better with extra land drop effects. With Amulet out, Lotus Field gives you a one-shot boost of 3 mana. Playing a bounceland gives you a one-shot boost of 2 mana. That seems worse at first, but with extra land effects, Lotus Field gets overtaken. You can play bounceland, tap it for 2 mana, return it to hand, then play it again for another 2 mana. You can't do that with Lotus Field because it makes you sac, not bounce.
Bouncing Tolaria West. Self-explanatory, TW's ability must be activated from hand, not the graveyard (i.e. where Lotus Field would send it).
In short I don't expect it to see long-term play in Amulet. In the short term people might try it out, like they did with Arboreal Grazer, then they'll realize it's not great and cut it.
The other (much more exciting) possibility is Restore Balance, since it kills your own lands, and having one Lotus Field to your opponent's one Island or whatever post-Balance is much more advantageous for you. It is a little slow since it ETBs tapped though. Nevertheless, Tolaria West can grab it, so you can just play one copy and still have a total of 8 kill-my-lands effects (4 Greater Gargadon and 4 TW into Lotus Field).
Kethis is hilarious. It is possible to turn 3 infinite mana off of him with a pair of mox ambers, and because you can play legendaries from the graveyard you have an easy way to use that mana.
NVM, the mox loses its summonable trait once cast.
Cavalier of Squall looks strong. 5/5 body with a brainstorm attached. Needs a heavy investment into blue, but seems worth it. Espescially in decks that could blink him.
We get yet another Future Sight variant in Mystic Forge, which is a 4-generic-mana artifact that only lets you cast the top card of your library if it's an artifact or colourless nonland card, but at least taps (and makes you pay 1 life) to get a land off the top of your library. It does seem better than Experimental Frenzy in Affinity, but can it see play anywhere else?
I've already seen brewers come up with ideas for how to involve Colossus Hammer in a Turn 2 kill in Modern. It seems rather fragile to me, though, and it's got no infinite mana back-up plan when you're against blockers and all you have are 3 combo cards...
Tale's End is an almost-Trickbind that might counter a legendary spell some day. Will it see play anywhere?
Brought Back is like 2-mana Second Sunrise if it brought back only 2 things max. Will any deck want to abuse it?
We get yet another Future Sight variant in Mystic Forge, which is a 4-generic-mana artifact that only lets you cast the top card of your library if it's an artifact or colourless nonland card, but at least taps (and makes you pay 1 life) to get a land off the top of your library. It does seem better than Experimental Frenzy in Affinity, but can it see play anywhere else?
Lantern can probably play it too. Anyways, Affinity was already using Frenzy to good effect, and this is a better version of that in that it lets you get away from red, and instead play blue for better 3 mana cards. Also, while the first thought with the tap to exile ability is to remove lands, it can also allow you to remove things that cost too much mana, so there is less risk to running too many 3 or 4 drops (Frenzy hitting Frenzy was always the worst). Or, if you need a specific answer (like a Bomat Courier to get a hasty win in), this can always dig an extra card deeper with a tap.
Last few cards before the spoilers floodgates open!
Might Bag of Holding become a slow draw engine? It gets faster at actually producing CA with ramp and mass self-discard, though.
Glint-Horn Buccaneer is a 2/4 with Haste for 1RR. Not only does it loot for 2 mana while you attack with it, it also pings each opponent for 1 whenever you discard a card. Breakable somewhere?
It does have Turn 2 redundancy with Magnetic Theft, but if my testing with the Leyline of Abundance-Freed From the Real-Birds/Hierarch infinite combo is any indication, the London mulligan won't make it consistent enough, and your opponent will have a blocker or removal by Turn 2 surprisingly often.
Full spoiler up now!
Pattern Matcher looks fun to search for more redundant but good creatures. If only it didn't cost 4 mana and require a creature-heavy deck...
Salvager of Ruin costs 3 generic mana, is a 2/1, and can sacrifice itself to recur a permanent card to your hand that got into the graveyard from the battlefield this turn. Worse Eternal Witness, I know....
It does have Turn 2 redundancy with Magnetic Theft, but if my testing with the Leyline of Abundance-Freed From the Real-Birds/Hierarch infinite combo is any indication, the London mulligan won't make it consistent enough, and your opponent will have a blocker or removal by Turn 2 surprisingly often.
You also need to take into account how there isn't any redundancy for the hammer itself. Sure, there are tutors available, but the combo simply doesn't work against most of the format once you pass the turn 2 surprise threshold. All of the equipment attachment cards are pretty lousy if drawn in multiples, without equipment, or slightly too late.
Salvager of Ruin costs 3 generic mana, is a 2/1, and can sacrifice itself to recur a permanent card to your hand that got ito the graveyard from the battlefield this turn. Worse Eternal Witness, I know....
It does have a few advantages over Eternal Witness, though. First of all, it's colorless, making it easier to cast, and, more importantly, an artifact. Its activated ability lets it synergize with Scrap Trawler to grab a 2 or less CMC artifact alongside an egg or a Mox Opal that turned into a Lotus Petal via the legendary rule. Having the ability be a sacrificing activated ability rather than an ETB also lets you loop two copies, potentially with the help of Semblance Anvil or some other form of cost reduction.
Yeah,this was clearly an overflow set for the cards they couldn't fit into modern horizons. This set also has a heavy commander/EDH theme just like horizons did. Either that or power creep has just gone up a few more ticks. Every card seems value driven and under costed. Such as Cavalier of Night. Destroy a creature, life link and replaces itself. Okay.
I swear, this set could have been sold as a Modern Horizon's, and nobody would blink. A lot of things look close to broken.
im pretty doubtful that the contents of this set and mh1 were connected in any way. the teams were designing for different environments with little/no overlap. id consider diabolic edict getting a reprint slot when liliana's triumph was placed into WAR a testament to how insulated the design teams were.
ive seen quite a few comments regarding 'power creep' being showcased in this set, and id have to disagree. mtg has largely avoided the pitfall of power creep due to the small(er) curated cardpool in a rotating standard format and limited design parameters. however this doesnt mean that sets or standard environments cant or wont vary significantly in 'power' (in the abstract). the last few sets have been above average in strength in addition to good mana, this in turn demands power in other designs to keep the standard meta churning.
i mean just look at various past standard environments/sets and the decks that were played. plenty of similarly strong or stronger cards show up. arcbound ravager, stoneforge, delver, the titan cycle (primeval, etc), snapcaster mage, thragtusk, jace VP, gearhulk, scarab god, etc, etc. those are just on the creature front. once you look at noncreature stuff its not even a contest when comparing over the years.
Scheming Symmetry is the only card that really stands out to me and isn't a reprint. Veil of Summer has its uses but it's a SB card. Mystic Forge is kinda, sorta a reprint (Experimental Frenzy).
I don't think Elvish Reclaimer is that good. The obvious comparison is to Knight of the Reliquary, but Knight 1) did not have a cap on its P/T gains and 2) activated for 0 mana. Both these factors unlock the combo kill with Retreat to Coralhelm, which remains the most notable thing Knight has ever done in Modern.
Thunderkin Awakener is a nice build-around-me. It goes pretty well with Unearth since both Awakener and the obvious reanimation target (Ball Lightning and its variants) have haste. There's plenty of support cards, from Flamekin Harbinger to find both halves, to Spark Elemental which hits for less but requires less setup (you can cast it and let it die on T1 instead of having to Loot), to Hellspark Elemental as alternative discard fodder for Looting. Low toughness means you're weak to removal (even weak removal like Gut Shot) and first strike blockers, so that will probably hold it back.
Aside from cards already talked about, two of them stand out for me that no one has brought up:
Woodland Champion. There's enough token generation on curve to make this a green Ajani's Pridemate. T2 Woodland, T3 Spectral Procession, Seasoned Pyromancer or all-in Devastating Summons + a 2cmc token creator. That puts on a lot of pressure on board, letting you go wide and tall at the same time. Woodland is a totally fair but unassumingly strong card.
Dread Presence. Whenever a swamp etb, choose one: draw 1 and lose 1 life or 2 dmg to ANY target and gain 2 life. Really, any target? So, I can kill planeswalkers and clear the board with swamps. There's a lot of strong land ramp in modern, enough to turn Dread into a draw engine to draw more ramp then kill your opponent.
Dread Presence. Whenever a swamp etb, choose one: draw 1 and lose 1 life or 2 dmg to ANY target and gain 2 life. Really, any target? So, I can kill planeswalkers and clear the board with swamps. There's a lot of strong land ramp in modern, enough to turn Dread into a draw engine to draw more ramp then kill your opponent.
Four mana is a lot to pay in modern without ramp, though. Plus, it's technically a 5 drop because you'll want to hit your land drop on the turn you play it. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Fetchlands is a good way to net a lot of value from it, though.
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UW Spirits is my pet deck and I've been looking for a good extra 1-drop to play, messed around with the mediocre Topplegeist a lot. This card is excellent.
New Sorin seems really cool in some Vampire aggro/midrange stuff to cheat out a 5-drop you could also play the normal way. Blood baron of Vizcopa is probably a good choice
Could be interesting, it does remove the Hexproof from the land, though,
so you become vulnerable to GQ and Field.Edit: wait, I was thinking Blood Sun only hit a named land. It turns off the destruction abilities of every land, as well. This could be cool.
Tried Elvish Reclaimer in BG Midrange last night. The land-tutoring ability is quite expensive and a bit slow, but man do some decks rage when you tutor for multiple Field of Ruins in a single game! I can also imagine this guy completely making fun of Blood Moon.
Tried my Leyline of Abundance-Freed From the Real Green Ramp deck against Jund last night and it actually won close to half the games (granted, Karn, the Great Creator is overpowered), one of them notably with the combo. I'm thinking of making a thread for Freed Abundance builds!
if my RG ponza is not on hiatus right now, I would have tried adding a copy there. Instant speed makes it worthwhile. Grab an inferno titan and a glorybringer at end of opponent's turn. Local meta is too fast to use ponza right now, but will still get a copy of resonating summons to use someday when ponza is good again.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
In order to not just be an EtBT land, you need to have spent 2 mana on something that turn and then sac those lands, which UW control usually isn't doing unless it's later in the game and you wrath/deploy a walker. Plus, the deck tends to need both blue and white mana, so trading away duals doesn't actually feel like a win 100% of the time. The interaction with Teferi is neat, but I don't think I want to play it just for that.
It forces you to spend your 3 mana all at once, and a large chunk of the deck is 1-2 mana spells. If you have an opt, counterspell, and path, you don't get to play two different colors of spell with that 3 mana. No Dovin's Veto, no Detention Sphere, no T3feri. I don't think there's enough upside to justify making the manabase physically awkward each time you play this land, and it's terrible to see in your opening hand unless you have 2 other lands you don't mind losing.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
The other (much more exciting) possibility is Restore Balance, since it kills your own lands, and having one Lotus Field to your opponent's one Island or whatever post-Balance is much more advantageous for you. It is a little slow since it ETBs tapped though. Nevertheless, Tolaria West can grab it, so you can just play one copy and still have a total of 8 kill-my-lands effects (4 Greater Gargadon and 4 TW into Lotus Field).
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
NVM, the mox loses its summonable trait once cast.
The only deck I can see using it is a "Wizards' Naban deck" like this one - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-99-31-tix-uw-naban-modern
It can replace Wistful Selkie there though it'll make Silvergill Adept less consistent and Master of Waves worse so it it is probably not good enough.
It doesn't seem better than Elite Guardmage though, for 1-more mana you get 3-toughness instead of 1 and 3 more life.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I've already seen brewers come up with ideas for how to involve Colossus Hammer in a Turn 2 kill in Modern. It seems rather fragile to me, though, and it's got no infinite mana back-up plan when you're against blockers and all you have are 3 combo cards...
Tale's End is an almost-Trickbind that might counter a legendary spell some day. Will it see play anywhere?
Brought Back is like 2-mana Second Sunrise if it brought back only 2 things max. Will any deck want to abuse it?
Being able to counter a planeswalker is a nice offset to Trickbind. I think it sees at least some sideboard play.
Lantern can probably play it too. Anyways, Affinity was already using Frenzy to good effect, and this is a better version of that in that it lets you get away from red, and instead play blue for better 3 mana cards. Also, while the first thought with the tap to exile ability is to remove lands, it can also allow you to remove things that cost too much mana, so there is less risk to running too many 3 or 4 drops (Frenzy hitting Frenzy was always the worst). Or, if you need a specific answer (like a Bomat Courier to get a hasty win in), this can always dig an extra card deeper with a tap.
This card is very, very good.
Competetive: Lantern Control, MonoR Phoenix, Dredge
Meta-Dependant: Modern Cheeri0s, Esper Spirits, Wilderness Teachings , Modern Elves, All-in Death's Shadow, Aristocrats, BW Death&Taxes
Fun own projects: Spireside Industries, UB Scrapyard, Thundercat Worship, Dirty Kitten, RB Rock, Eternal Toolbox
Might Bag of Holding become a slow draw engine? It gets faster at actually producing CA with ramp and mass self-discard, though.
Glint-Horn Buccaneer is a 2/4 with Haste for 1RR. Not only does it loot for 2 mana while you attack with it, it also pings each opponent for 1 whenever you discard a card. Breakable somewhere?
It does have Turn 2 redundancy with Magnetic Theft, but if my testing with the Leyline of Abundance-Freed From the Real-Birds/Hierarch infinite combo is any indication, the London mulligan won't make it consistent enough, and your opponent will have a blocker or removal by Turn 2 surprisingly often.
Full spoiler up now!
Pattern Matcher looks fun to search for more redundant but good creatures. If only it didn't cost 4 mana and require a creature-heavy deck...
Salvager of Ruin costs 3 generic mana, is a 2/1, and can sacrifice itself to recur a permanent card to your hand that got into the graveyard from the battlefield this turn. Worse Eternal Witness, I know....
You also need to take into account how there isn't any redundancy for the hammer itself. Sure, there are tutors available, but the combo simply doesn't work against most of the format once you pass the turn 2 surprise threshold. All of the equipment attachment cards are pretty lousy if drawn in multiples, without equipment, or slightly too late.
It does have a few advantages over Eternal Witness, though. First of all, it's colorless, making it easier to cast, and, more importantly, an artifact. Its activated ability lets it synergize with Scrap Trawler to grab a 2 or less CMC artifact alongside an egg or a Mox Opal that turned into a Lotus Petal via the legendary rule. Having the ability be a sacrificing activated ability rather than an ETB also lets you loop two copies, potentially with the help of Semblance Anvil or some other form of cost reduction.
Spirits
ive seen quite a few comments regarding 'power creep' being showcased in this set, and id have to disagree. mtg has largely avoided the pitfall of power creep due to the small(er) curated cardpool in a rotating standard format and limited design parameters. however this doesnt mean that sets or standard environments cant or wont vary significantly in 'power' (in the abstract). the last few sets have been above average in strength in addition to good mana, this in turn demands power in other designs to keep the standard meta churning.
i mean just look at various past standard environments/sets and the decks that were played. plenty of similarly strong or stronger cards show up. arcbound ravager, stoneforge, delver, the titan cycle (primeval, etc), snapcaster mage, thragtusk, jace VP, gearhulk, scarab god, etc, etc. those are just on the creature front. once you look at noncreature stuff its not even a contest when comparing over the years.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I don't think Elvish Reclaimer is that good. The obvious comparison is to Knight of the Reliquary, but Knight 1) did not have a cap on its P/T gains and 2) activated for 0 mana. Both these factors unlock the combo kill with Retreat to Coralhelm, which remains the most notable thing Knight has ever done in Modern.
Thunderkin Awakener is a nice build-around-me. It goes pretty well with Unearth since both Awakener and the obvious reanimation target (Ball Lightning and its variants) have haste. There's plenty of support cards, from Flamekin Harbinger to find both halves, to Spark Elemental which hits for less but requires less setup (you can cast it and let it die on T1 instead of having to Loot), to Hellspark Elemental as alternative discard fodder for Looting. Low toughness means you're weak to removal (even weak removal like Gut Shot) and first strike blockers, so that will probably hold it back.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Woodland Champion. There's enough token generation on curve to make this a green Ajani's Pridemate. T2 Woodland, T3 Spectral Procession, Seasoned Pyromancer or all-in Devastating Summons + a 2cmc token creator. That puts on a lot of pressure on board, letting you go wide and tall at the same time. Woodland is a totally fair but unassumingly strong card.
Dread Presence. Whenever a swamp etb, choose one: draw 1 and lose 1 life or 2 dmg to ANY target and gain 2 life. Really, any target? So, I can kill planeswalkers and clear the board with swamps. There's a lot of strong land ramp in modern, enough to turn Dread into a draw engine to draw more ramp then kill your opponent.
Four mana is a lot to pay in modern without ramp, though. Plus, it's technically a 5 drop because you'll want to hit your land drop on the turn you play it. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Fetchlands is a good way to net a lot of value from it, though.