Well the original Zendikar block was very mono-coloured... There were only 3 gold cards (including one planeswalker) in the block bar the man-lands and enemy fetch lands... That said Wizards seems less hostile (I'm not sure that's the right word) to gold cards than they were when the first Zendikar block came out (Ravnica into Time Spiral into Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, into Alara meant that we had about five years of easy colour fixing multicoloured decks completely dominating Standard and Wizards wanted to reinforce mono-coloued ideas). So while I doubt, given the original lore of Zendikar, there will be the same kind of multi-coloured themes that were in Theros, I think that there might be more gold cards in this block than there were in the first Zendikar block.
For people complaining about Clash of Wills rarity, uncommons like this are given their rarity depending more on how good they are in limited formats as opposed to how they are used competitively or how powerful they are compared to cards printed in other sets. Clash of Will effects are strong in limited and while this card isn't an early pick or a draft around, playing against a deck running three or four of these and three or four Cancels (or whatever common counter spell they print) would just be unfun.
I also like the flavour of Clash of Wills, it makes sense that the "play UX counter target spell unless your opponent plays X," would be called "Clash of Wills"- just like Murder made so much sense even though flavour it's strictly worse substitute for Doom Blade. It will also see play in decks which just want a reliable and flexible counter effect, even if it does lack the bonuses of Syncopate or Condescend.
I think people are underestimating this guy's power, in the right shell he's a complete aggro and token hoser, regardless of his p/t (although I'm sure all control players want him to have at least 4 toughness). The skill level required to play him properly is very high, but for the players who are that good, this guy is a bomb. An instant speed removal effect, that could wrath an entire army, or dodge protection and leave you with an untouched, if not improved, board is powerful - even if it results in you being dropped to 1 life. Moreover, this card is incredibly difficult to play around if you are playing any other wrath effects in your deck; your opponent may wait until he has lethal, or hold back attackers, if you are sitting with 5 manna open on the board, letting you drop a Supreme Verdict or End Hostilities on your turn while avoiding the damage you would have taken normally. Obviously this makes working out the balance of cards in a control deck using this guy difficult, he's definitely not an auto four of; but he is a great sideboard card and if fast aggro decks feature heavily in the developing meta in either modern or standard, this card will be one of the answers control players will have for it.
Totally agree.. have yet to see a successful 3 color aggro deck
Naya Zoo, Bant Hexproof and some builds of Mardu Aristocrats (although that was more combo based) are a few examples I thought of straight away. So long as mana fixing is quick and easy aggro decks can be three colours. With fetchlands and mana confluence it's very likely that aggro decks can get this card out fast enough. In modern, fetches and shocklands make 3 coloured aggro ridiculously easy to build (at least in terms of mana base).
Would control pay +1 for a non exiling syncopate that also burns to the face?
Probably not, generally the more mana before the X the weaker the counter spell is, especially since it will usually only deal 1-3 damage. Think about it this way, what you would rather pay 3 mana for, a hard counter like Cancel or Dissolve, or "counter target spell unless its controller pays 1, that spell's controller takes 1 damage", or even "counter target spell unless your opponent plays 2"?
UX counters like Syncopate are played because they are lesser versions of Mana Leak, which can counter your opponents 2 drops if you're on the play and 3 drops if you're on the draw. The only format this is marginally good in is Commander, where you have the time to generate the mana needed to make this card effectively UR4 "counter target spell unless its controller pays 4, that spell's controller takes 4 damage." Even then, that's not as good as it initially sounds.
Definitely jumping on this bandwagon, brilliant card - possibly one of the best 3/2 for 2 conditional red beater that's been printed. My only concern for it in standard, and potentially limited, is a lack of good 1 drops slowing it down. Unlike Chainwalker this girl requires consistent turn 1 attackers to be effective. The current 1 drops in the new rotation are okay with Frenzied Goblin and Firedrinker Satyr giving a decent base, but I'm hoping for a decent red 1 drop in Khans, especially for limited. Of course we have over 180 more cards and an entire expansion to go, so I'm going to be a little optimistic about this. However, even when you're in the unideal position of having to play her without raid, a 2/1 that can get past most early control and midrange blockers is good.
I agree that so long as Stormbreath is around this guy will be under valued, but in block and after rotation he could be good. The problem is that you aren't always going to have a creature to attack with, and a 3/4 flier with minimal life gain just isn't good enough on it's own. If it, and it's token had lifelink, that might be a different story but as it stands it's just okay. Still a nice curve topper for a white weenie deck.
I really like this guy, because regardless of you board position he's always doing something positive. His +1 ability is helpful in all sorts of ways, gaining life, buffing creatures - even if you just have one dude its a useful way of stabilising your board position. His -2 seems a little over costed, but is still powerful and if you need a creature he provides a good one. His ultimate might not win games straight away, but it can stop you opponent from winning the game in the right circumstances, especially against control and mid-range decks. With him, Elspeth, Ajani, Garruk and Nissa I might try test an Azban super friends deck.
So the OP already gives us a large amount of information to work with, combined with the basic ways in which the colours work and clues from M15 I think their are a few possibilities for the various wedges.
Azban - A "long game mechanic".
Azban is the wedge I think I digress the most from the broad patterns appearing in this forum. Rather than being reanimation, toughness, wall tribal or combat orientated, as many people have implied, I feel Azban mechanic will probably revolve around "life gain matters" (although most of the above themes will probably appear in Azban as well). WBG is the wedge which has the most cards which gain life, and Azban is a white dominated wedge and gaining life is one of the things white does best. Moreover, gaining huge amounts of life usually results in longer, slower games and is generally an integral part of W, WB and GW control strategies.
There are several potential life gaining mechanics, for example if high toughness is a thing you could have a form of reverse lifelink (I'm not sure if it has ever appeared on a card before...). There could also be a mechanic where you gaining life makes creatures stronger. Personally I feel the best and most elegant way to set up a "life gain matters" mechanic would be to have a reverse Morbid mechanic - let's call it "Vitality". As with Morbid, "Vitality" would trigger on the condition that you gained life that turn. Effects could vary from putting +1/+1 counters on creatures when they enter the battlefield, to improving spells or giving creatures entirely new abilities.
Jeskai- A mechanic which forces your opponent to "second guess what's going on".
As with a lot of people I immediately thought of ninjitsu for the Jeskai mechanic, it fits perfectly into the trickery theme, however it has already been pointed out that Ninjutsu is a very limited tribal mechanic, which works brilliantly on a few select cards, but is not really worded in such a way that it can be simply replicated. Because I am a huge Ninjutsu fan I thought that perhaps a more flavourly neutral and flexible "Ambush" keyword could be printed. As with Ninjutsu, once blockers have been declared you can pay a cost to return a creature you own to your hand and put a creature into play, however unlike Ninjutsu,creatures with Ambush can be played on either blocked or unblocked creatures - making combat far more unpredictable. I also thought that Ambush creature could also replace blockers, but that seems too complicated and if you want to surprise your opponents with blockers you have flash. Ambush also feels like a more red and white mechanic, since it is more combat centered than Ninjutsu, I could easily see a mono red "vanilla" X/1 with ambush which acts like a conditional burn spell, or a mono white first striker.
Jeskai could also have an instant speed/ instants matter mechanic, since its what URW has the most in common.Perhaps we could see a return of the Trap cards from Zendikar, but I don't think traps were popular enough to grant a second printing, it also is too dependent on what your opponent is doing. So I think if Jeskai is instant orientated we might get something relatively new.
Sultai - A mechanic which is a way to "manipulate resources".
The most obvious Sultai mechanic is Dredge, which already an iconic BGU deck. However, because Dredge is already so iconic I doubt it will be printed. Delve is probably a better option for a returning mechanic as it is both balanced and mechanically sound within all three colours. However, I'm not sure if turning your graveyard into a resource counts as "resource manipulation". Moreover, the few pieces of art we have for Sultai imply that they are necromancery, so a graveyard focus would make sense. Nevertheless Black, Blue and Green are all brilliant at turning nearly anything into a resource and were certainly the most flavourful colours when Phyrexian Mana was introduced (although as with Ninjutsu, Phyrexian Mana is way to linked to a specific group to count as resource manipulation). They are also the colours who like to dig through their libraries the most, so perhaps we'll get Transmute or a variant of it where, for a price, you can dig through your library or graveyard to get the recourse you need, but I can't think of a balanced variation of Transmute.
Mardu - A mechanic which "Plays into their aggression"
We already know what the Mardu's Khan looks like, and he's a bad ass. Mradu's red nature makes them want to attack, which makes me feel that Rampage, Battlecry, Bloodthirst or Unleash could all make a comeback as the Mardu mechanic. Otherwise Mardu cards could simply have a large number of "attacking matters" cards with out a specific keyword. However, the white element of Mardu means that while they are going to violent and bloodthirsty, they are also going to be somewhat ordered and hierarchical and thinking of the last Asian centered block I thought they might have a reverse Bushido, where attacking makes a creature stronger. "Bloodlust" could read Bloodlust X ~ gets +X/+X so long as it is attacking.
Temur "we wanna have the toughest creatures."
Any colour combination dominated by green will go for big guys and want to be large and in charge and as Might Makes Right implies, being the biggest creature may be important. As with Naya, I feel Temur might not get a specific keyword, but instead they will have a lot of cards which care about who controls the biggest creatures. Perhaps a pack mentality mechanic where your creatures all become more powerful if you control the biggest guy on the battle field. However, I could also see them gaining a mechanic which helps them grow their creatures - perhaps not quite Evolve, but something similar, a way of triggering premanent (+1/+1 counter) growth in their creatures based on their surroundings.
I dont think enchantments are supposed to have tap abilities generally, besides a few oddballs in like Future Sight. Otherwise they are too close to artifacts...
Could however be like Phenax and grant your creatures a tap ability.
Wizards seems like they are generally disappointed with how the Izzet turned out in Return to Ravnica due to it not being as appealing to the Johnny demographic as they would like. This probably doesnt mean anything, but what it could mean is a pushed UR god because expectations are high and they know it is an EXTREMELY popular color combination.
I dont think we have enough info to really guess the mechanics, but there are some neat ideas on here that look pretty cool. Knowing that he is the god of storms and lightning helps, but that could go in all sorts of directions.
What about a mix of two, sorta like how Mogis is kind of a mix between The abyss and sulfuric vortexish? That opens it up to blue and red enchantments rather than the limited UR enchantments I linked to
If your hypothesis is correct I could see Keranos having a revamped version of Mirror Sheen, maybe at a lower, or none existent cost, but it hits a random target.
Keranos, God of Lightning UR3
Legendary blah, blah, blah...
God ability.
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery card you may copy it, if you do chose the target for the new spell at random.
5/6
I mean it would be terrible, but also kinda cool and really fun on the kitchen table.
He costs 5, he will barely ever be a creature, the effect alone is not that great = won't really see play outside of EDH like all of these gods.
I think you are being a little too quick to judge these gods, especially Xenagos. While I would agree that most of the scenarios being thrown around here come straight to you from Magic X-mas Land, to me, as a more aggro oriented player, Xenagos reads, so long as Xenagos is in play, its controller has the beatdown. Against control, he allows you to recover very quickly from sweepers and leaves your opponent constantly vulnerable to a potentially deadly attack, against midrange decks, he insures that you dominate combat in the time they are supposed to be taking back the game and against aggro he insures that you have the advantage almost every time you enter combat - in aggro vs aggro he who has the biggest, fastest guys wins, and an active enchantment Xenagos insures that you have the biggest, fastest guys - always.
He's also not that difficult to make a creature, the current standard shows us that getting the 4 devotion needed to activate a god isn't that hard, and the 5 devotion you need to get Xenagos going isn't that difficult either, especially when cards like Domri Rade, Burning Tree Emissary etc. are in standard to help keep your creature count up. Overall Xenagos is a strong card, and I wouldn't be surprised if he features in a few top 8 decks over the next two years.
I'm not entirely sure this guy is worse than Bob, in the right context. Don't get me wrong, 99% of the time Bob is the better card, but this guy is a great combo piece if you can tap and untap him consistently.
Bob's weakness has always been that you can never turn him off and he's dangerous in multiples. Pain Seer is far less consistent, but if you control when you tap, and even better when you untap him, he is actually very potent. Multiple Pain Seers also aren't that much of a problem, since you can simply chose not to tap him.
Nevertheless, this will not dislodge Bob from his pedestal, but it might spawn a new form of black control if the right cards get printed.
I really like Ephara's synergy with both Heliod and Thasa, on a purely casual basis. Make a creature with Heliod, scry with Thasa, draw with Ephara.
Competitively, I think she could work in the right deck... but I'm not sure what that deck is. Detention Sphere and Master of Waves provide the a solid base, and her synergy with Thassa could see a strong UW deck, however will it be a tempo based midrange deck or a more traditional control deck... it will be interesting to see how this card develops in standard.
Maybe they'll make a Duskmantle Seer variant that doesn't suck this time around.
I think this is the most likely. I have a theory, although at the moment it might be a little far fetched - what if the blue black god (Phenax) had the Duskmantle Seer/ Dark Confidant ability as his first ability. While this might seem too good, given the new legendary rule, having an indestructible, legendary Dark Confidant, with out a decent sac outlet might be a bad thing. Moreover, it is likely that the BU god will have the lowest power and toughness of any god (he might be a 4/4 or even a 3/3), they could also temper Bob's ability by making Phenax cost 4, and/or by giving him an mediocre/over-costed activated ability.
Flavour wise it certainly works. Given our one line clue states that 'the seer' it could be that Phenax is one of the gods of prophecy, the other being Keranos. Of all the gods, we know the least about Phenax who might be the foreseer of pain and agony, or it could be that he/she is the god of thieves and spies who sells secrets to mortals at a price.
As I said earlier, this is a real shot in the dark, more of a gut feeling than an evidence based argument and given the amount of text on a Dark Confidant it doesn't seem too likely... then again Purphoros has just about as much text as my version of Phenax might need...
I also like the flavour of Clash of Wills, it makes sense that the "play UX counter target spell unless your opponent plays X," would be called "Clash of Wills"- just like Murder made so much sense even though flavour it's strictly worse substitute for Doom Blade. It will also see play in decks which just want a reliable and flexible counter effect, even if it does lack the bonuses of Syncopate or Condescend.
Naya Zoo, Bant Hexproof and some builds of Mardu Aristocrats (although that was more combo based) are a few examples I thought of straight away. So long as mana fixing is quick and easy aggro decks can be three colours. With fetchlands and mana confluence it's very likely that aggro decks can get this card out fast enough. In modern, fetches and shocklands make 3 coloured aggro ridiculously easy to build (at least in terms of mana base).
Probably not, generally the more mana before the X the weaker the counter spell is, especially since it will usually only deal 1-3 damage. Think about it this way, what you would rather pay 3 mana for, a hard counter like Cancel or Dissolve, or "counter target spell unless its controller pays 1, that spell's controller takes 1 damage", or even "counter target spell unless your opponent plays 2"?
UX counters like Syncopate are played because they are lesser versions of Mana Leak, which can counter your opponents 2 drops if you're on the play and 3 drops if you're on the draw. The only format this is marginally good in is Commander, where you have the time to generate the mana needed to make this card effectively UR4 "counter target spell unless its controller pays 4, that spell's controller takes 4 damage." Even then, that's not as good as it initially sounds.
Azban - A "long game mechanic".
Azban is the wedge I think I digress the most from the broad patterns appearing in this forum. Rather than being reanimation, toughness, wall tribal or combat orientated, as many people have implied, I feel Azban mechanic will probably revolve around "life gain matters" (although most of the above themes will probably appear in Azban as well). WBG is the wedge which has the most cards which gain life, and Azban is a white dominated wedge and gaining life is one of the things white does best. Moreover, gaining huge amounts of life usually results in longer, slower games and is generally an integral part of W, WB and GW control strategies.
There are several potential life gaining mechanics, for example if high toughness is a thing you could have a form of reverse lifelink (I'm not sure if it has ever appeared on a card before...). There could also be a mechanic where you gaining life makes creatures stronger. Personally I feel the best and most elegant way to set up a "life gain matters" mechanic would be to have a reverse Morbid mechanic - let's call it "Vitality". As with Morbid, "Vitality" would trigger on the condition that you gained life that turn. Effects could vary from putting +1/+1 counters on creatures when they enter the battlefield, to improving spells or giving creatures entirely new abilities.
Jeskai- A mechanic which forces your opponent to "second guess what's going on".
As with a lot of people I immediately thought of ninjitsu for the Jeskai mechanic, it fits perfectly into the trickery theme, however it has already been pointed out that Ninjutsu is a very limited tribal mechanic, which works brilliantly on a few select cards, but is not really worded in such a way that it can be simply replicated. Because I am a huge Ninjutsu fan I thought that perhaps a more flavourly neutral and flexible "Ambush" keyword could be printed. As with Ninjutsu, once blockers have been declared you can pay a cost to return a creature you own to your hand and put a creature into play, however unlike Ninjutsu,creatures with Ambush can be played on either blocked or unblocked creatures - making combat far more unpredictable. I also thought that Ambush creature could also replace blockers, but that seems too complicated and if you want to surprise your opponents with blockers you have flash. Ambush also feels like a more red and white mechanic, since it is more combat centered than Ninjutsu, I could easily see a mono red "vanilla" X/1 with ambush which acts like a conditional burn spell, or a mono white first striker.
Jeskai could also have an instant speed/ instants matter mechanic, since its what URW has the most in common.Perhaps we could see a return of the Trap cards from Zendikar, but I don't think traps were popular enough to grant a second printing, it also is too dependent on what your opponent is doing. So I think if Jeskai is instant orientated we might get something relatively new.
Sultai - A mechanic which is a way to "manipulate resources".
The most obvious Sultai mechanic is Dredge, which already an iconic BGU deck. However, because Dredge is already so iconic I doubt it will be printed. Delve is probably a better option for a returning mechanic as it is both balanced and mechanically sound within all three colours. However, I'm not sure if turning your graveyard into a resource counts as "resource manipulation". Moreover, the few pieces of art we have for Sultai imply that they are necromancery, so a graveyard focus would make sense. Nevertheless Black, Blue and Green are all brilliant at turning nearly anything into a resource and were certainly the most flavourful colours when Phyrexian Mana was introduced (although as with Ninjutsu, Phyrexian Mana is way to linked to a specific group to count as resource manipulation). They are also the colours who like to dig through their libraries the most, so perhaps we'll get Transmute or a variant of it where, for a price, you can dig through your library or graveyard to get the recourse you need, but I can't think of a balanced variation of Transmute.
Mardu - A mechanic which "Plays into their aggression"
We already know what the Mardu's Khan looks like, and he's a bad ass. Mradu's red nature makes them want to attack, which makes me feel that Rampage, Battlecry, Bloodthirst or Unleash could all make a comeback as the Mardu mechanic. Otherwise Mardu cards could simply have a large number of "attacking matters" cards with out a specific keyword. However, the white element of Mardu means that while they are going to violent and bloodthirsty, they are also going to be somewhat ordered and hierarchical and thinking of the last Asian centered block I thought they might have a reverse Bushido, where attacking makes a creature stronger. "Bloodlust" could read Bloodlust X ~ gets +X/+X so long as it is attacking.
Temur "we wanna have the toughest creatures."
Any colour combination dominated by green will go for big guys and want to be large and in charge and as Might Makes Right implies, being the biggest creature may be important. As with Naya, I feel Temur might not get a specific keyword, but instead they will have a lot of cards which care about who controls the biggest creatures. Perhaps a pack mentality mechanic where your creatures all become more powerful if you control the biggest guy on the battle field. However, I could also see them gaining a mechanic which helps them grow their creatures - perhaps not quite Evolve, but something similar, a way of triggering premanent (+1/+1 counter) growth in their creatures based on their surroundings.
If your hypothesis is correct I could see Keranos having a revamped version of Mirror Sheen, maybe at a lower, or none existent cost, but it hits a random target.
Keranos, God of Lightning UR3
Legendary blah, blah, blah...
God ability.
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery card you may copy it, if you do chose the target for the new spell at random.
5/6
I mean it would be terrible, but also kinda cool and really fun on the kitchen table.
I think you are being a little too quick to judge these gods, especially Xenagos. While I would agree that most of the scenarios being thrown around here come straight to you from Magic X-mas Land, to me, as a more aggro oriented player, Xenagos reads, so long as Xenagos is in play, its controller has the beatdown. Against control, he allows you to recover very quickly from sweepers and leaves your opponent constantly vulnerable to a potentially deadly attack, against midrange decks, he insures that you dominate combat in the time they are supposed to be taking back the game and against aggro he insures that you have the advantage almost every time you enter combat - in aggro vs aggro he who has the biggest, fastest guys wins, and an active enchantment Xenagos insures that you have the biggest, fastest guys - always.
He's also not that difficult to make a creature, the current standard shows us that getting the 4 devotion needed to activate a god isn't that hard, and the 5 devotion you need to get Xenagos going isn't that difficult either, especially when cards like Domri Rade, Burning Tree Emissary etc. are in standard to help keep your creature count up. Overall Xenagos is a strong card, and I wouldn't be surprised if he features in a few top 8 decks over the next two years.
Bob's weakness has always been that you can never turn him off and he's dangerous in multiples. Pain Seer is far less consistent, but if you control when you tap, and even better when you untap him, he is actually very potent. Multiple Pain Seers also aren't that much of a problem, since you can simply chose not to tap him.
Nevertheless, this will not dislodge Bob from his pedestal, but it might spawn a new form of black control if the right cards get printed.
Competitively, I think she could work in the right deck... but I'm not sure what that deck is. Detention Sphere and Master of Waves provide the a solid base, and her synergy with Thassa could see a strong UW deck, however will it be a tempo based midrange deck or a more traditional control deck... it will be interesting to see how this card develops in standard.
I think this is the most likely. I have a theory, although at the moment it might be a little far fetched - what if the blue black god (Phenax) had the Duskmantle Seer/ Dark Confidant ability as his first ability. While this might seem too good, given the new legendary rule, having an indestructible, legendary Dark Confidant, with out a decent sac outlet might be a bad thing. Moreover, it is likely that the BU god will have the lowest power and toughness of any god (he might be a 4/4 or even a 3/3), they could also temper Bob's ability by making Phenax cost 4, and/or by giving him an mediocre/over-costed activated ability.
Flavour wise it certainly works. Given our one line clue states that 'the seer' it could be that Phenax is one of the gods of prophecy, the other being Keranos. Of all the gods, we know the least about Phenax who might be the foreseer of pain and agony, or it could be that he/she is the god of thieves and spies who sells secrets to mortals at a price.
As I said earlier, this is a real shot in the dark, more of a gut feeling than an evidence based argument and given the amount of text on a Dark Confidant it doesn't seem too likely... then again Purphoros has just about as much text as my version of Phenax might need...