3. Unholy Hunger - Meh. Pseudo Flesh to Dust reprint is fine. It is unconditional removal, so we're doing a little better than Flatten/Throttle from the last few sets. I won't be excited to pick this first, but I might find that it happens from time to time.
2. Shambling Ghoul - Coming in tapped is a minor drawback to playing a 2/3 for 2 in black. This will sparkle in aggressive decks, but still play nicely from an efficiency standpoint otherwise.
1. Reave Soul - Defeat was decent enough; hitting 3 power creatures for the same cost seems pretty good. The majority of the time this will clear most your opponents early drops and will do a number on almost every evasive creature.
I've still got my fingers crossed that we have slightly better common removal spell in the set.
You guys get that, as an equipment, this can be moved to any creature you want, right? It's cheap to play, cheap to equip and doesn't take much to be completely bonkers. That seems appropriate for a rare equipment to me.
I suppose my question is do people care about their rarity distribution? Shouldn't we more care about playability and fun?
Wizards isn't concerned about mechanic distribution at Mythic Rare. They balance the mechanics across the other cards, but they've never really been focused on mechanics at mythic, they just want the mythics to be 'special' or 'unique.'
With a block focused on equally-powerful clans (and now broods), you have to balance things so they can have equal viability as an archetype. I compared KTK and FRF and the distribution of mechanics is almost the same for each clan with only a few exceptions. Almost the same number of commons, and uncommons, and in most cases, rares and mythics. DTK doesn't show that same distribution. Having two mythics with formidable potentially makes G/R a more powerful archetype when there is supposed to be a reasonable balance between all five broods. I find it kind of odd that they would seem to work so hard to balance the distribution, then make it very different in DTK. Exploit seems like a very fun mechanics, yet we've only seen 2 cards that shows what it can do. Compare that to Delve, with 2 mythics and 4 rares and 19 cards in total (11 from KTK)... it's just a far cry.
With your example, there is only one mythic with Delve in your example (Empty the Pits) and it's borderline unplayable. Mark Rosewater has said in the past that the archetypes are what you find at common and uncommon, not rare, and definitely not at Mythic. The majority of the mythics in KTK didn't use any of the set mechanics, and Outlast isn't represented at Mythic Rare at all. There's a big difference between balance and mechanic distribution, and balance is significantly more important than whether or not a particular mechanic is represented at Mythic Rare.
I suppose my question is do people care about their rarity distribution? Shouldn't we more care about playability and fun?
Wizards isn't concerned about mechanic distribution at Mythic Rare. They balance the mechanics across the other cards, but they've never really been focused on mechanics at mythic, they just want the mythics to be 'special' or 'unique.'
These dragons woudn't get this amount of hate if they weren't getting special previews
That's the point though. They're only getting previews because they're dragons. They're mediocre creatures at best, and possibly unplayable at worst. It's a waste of preview spot, that could have been used to show something that's more interesting or creative.
It's weird because we got the uncomon gold dragons cycle already spoiled without any previews and they were actually interesting dragons.But instead of them we got this terrible cycle of dragons
That's true. Not all creatures can be good, obviously, but I don't understand why this cycle was bumped to uncommon. It feels really bad. I can't imagine that warped limited that much, unless it actually made the format worse.
These dragons woudn't get this amount of hate if they weren't getting special previews
That's the point though. They're only getting previews because they're dragons. They're mediocre creatures at best, and possibly unplayable at worst. It's a waste of preview spot, that could have been used to show something that's more interesting or creative.
Based on my German courses quite long ago, I would say that the translation is wrong at the moment: the "dragonic" condition is to deal damage to the controler. Base damages are for the creature.
Text should be:
Dragon Roar? 1R
Instant Uncommon
As an additional cost to cast ~, you may reveal a Dragon card from your hand.
~ deals 3 damage to target creature.
If you revealed a Dragon card or controlled a Dragon as you cast ~,~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
I think this is what the translation says, just not edited well for readability.
2U Look at the top two cards of your library.
Manifest one of those cards then put the other on the top or bottom of your library
Imho the best manifest card, and really strong in limited.
You can look at it as a grey ogre, that scries 2, with additional benefits.
If you are running a morph centric draft, at worst this does not cost you any tempo, filters your deck, and lets you scry one.
Or it allows you to turn that land into a 2/2, and bottom the other land.
Overall i think the card is very strong in limited, and if it would have been an instant nearly constructed worthy.
Thoughts?
If this was an instant it would be completely broken. As is, it is a very powerful limited card, and comes in under Disdainful Stroke making it a very strong play later on.
The only places I wouldn't like to revisit would be Theros and Lorwyn - not because I don't like then but because they seem somewhat limited in terms of setting.
Not excited about it happening any time soon, but I would like to revisit Theros if for no other reason than to see if R&D can do an enchantment block right the second time.
This is easily the best uncommon spoiled so far. Near-bomb in limited, definitely first pick territory. Fringe standard playable if it weren't for Siege Rhino. There may be a way to exploit ETB triggers, even if no one has really made that happen yet.
2. Shambling Ghoul - Coming in tapped is a minor drawback to playing a 2/3 for 2 in black. This will sparkle in aggressive decks, but still play nicely from an efficiency standpoint otherwise.
1. Reave Soul - Defeat was decent enough; hitting 3 power creatures for the same cost seems pretty good. The majority of the time this will clear most your opponents early drops and will do a number on almost every evasive creature.
I've still got my fingers crossed that we have slightly better common removal spell in the set.
With your example, there is only one mythic with Delve in your example (Empty the Pits) and it's borderline unplayable. Mark Rosewater has said in the past that the archetypes are what you find at common and uncommon, not rare, and definitely not at Mythic. The majority of the mythics in KTK didn't use any of the set mechanics, and Outlast isn't represented at Mythic Rare at all. There's a big difference between balance and mechanic distribution, and balance is significantly more important than whether or not a particular mechanic is represented at Mythic Rare.
Wizards isn't concerned about mechanic distribution at Mythic Rare. They balance the mechanics across the other cards, but they've never really been focused on mechanics at mythic, they just want the mythics to be 'special' or 'unique.'
That's true. Not all creatures can be good, obviously, but I don't understand why this cycle was bumped to uncommon. It feels really bad. I can't imagine that warped limited that much, unless it actually made the format worse.
That's the point though. They're only getting previews because they're dragons. They're mediocre creatures at best, and possibly unplayable at worst. It's a waste of preview spot, that could have been used to show something that's more interesting or creative.
I think this is what the translation says, just not edited well for readability.
If this was an instant it would be completely broken. As is, it is a very powerful limited card, and comes in under Disdainful Stroke making it a very strong play later on.
Not excited about it happening any time soon, but I would like to revisit Theros if for no other reason than to see if R&D can do an enchantment block right the second time.