MTG Salvation

Is Ram Through the best candidate mono-green removal option we’ve seen in a while? Instant Rabid Bite that actually makes tramplers ‘trample’. On a beefy Avatar of the Resolute, thy could do some heavy lifting.

Quote from Xcric »

ridiculously overcosted even for putting the ability in black at common. clearly made just to keep escape in check in limited.

Which is basically the same as they did when they called this Final Reward in the Embalm-Eternalize-And-Gods-that-didn't-like-to-die Amonkhet block.

Quote from Courier7 »

Worst case scenario: this is a 6/6 for only 4 mana with no real downside

Permanently losing P/T when it would take damage ... feels to me like a pertinent downside. Chump blockers (with nonzero power) shrink it.

It’s Grapple with the Past in slow motion.

I mean on a single-consumer level, ignoring this doesn’t hurt anyone. But the raised - and valid - concern, is that WotC is clearly printing cards for direct resale based on their secondary market value. Which raises all sorts of red flags people are well within their rights to discuss - be it WotC losing the support of the companies that sustain the secondary market (and buy tonnes of product they might stop buying if they lose faith in their supplier undercutting them with reprints), to concerns that WotC might now deliberately withhold reprints from randomized sets to make secondary market prices go up so they can issue high dollar value reprints direct.


These are discussionworthy concerns whether any single consumer is saying yes or no with their wallet to this instance.

Quote from seilaoque »

how long it has been since the last standard with this many banned cards?

There are 4 banned cards in the current Standard.

For the last ~8 months of Kaladesh-Amonkhet-Ixalan-Dominaria-M19 standard, there were 7 cards on the Standard ban list.

Quote from Mishotem »

By the way, according to at least one article, the cards in the C/U slots are included at their original rarity. So Demonic Tutor is in that pool for black C/U, for instance.

While it’s true that the cards in the 12 C/U slots are showing the rarity symbol of the set they’re reprinted of... this doesn’t necessarily mean Demonic Tutor is one of the 242 on the two dedicated black sheets. There’s also the dedicated pre-m15 sheet that will have cards of all rarities - that’s the sheet I expect notable old sub-rares like DT and Lotus Petal and Rhystic Study to appear.


(Edit) oh, I just reread the article. It does specify Demonic Tutor is on a Black C/U sheet (but lotus petal isn’t on the artifact c/u sheet, it’s on the pre-m15 sheet)

I think just like DRS being weaker in fetchless world, the lack of fetches is also going to make Fatal Push less of a staple than people are thinking. In Modern, so many of the biggest threats cost 2 or less anyway but when you need to hit a 3-4 cost you can often sync it with a fetch-crack turn to make 3-4 cost creatures targetable. I think in Pioneer, there will be a higher proportion of creatures costing 3-4, and not nearly as convenient a way of enabling Revolt as Modern/Frontier have.

I’m amused at what this does on printed 0/0 creatures that are loaded with +1/+1 counters on etb. This is basically a +3/+3 enchant and cantrip for 2 mana, a pretty good rate.

I wonder if this is a cycle. A counter that’s cheaper against blue ... creature removal cheaper against black, direct damage cheaper against red, fight cheaper against green, damage prevention cheaper against damage from a white source?

Bond. Discipline Bond.

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Quote from Impossible »

Quote from SyntheticDreamer »

Quote from Impossible »

I like the card, but "Massacre Girl" is a pretty terrible name for a legendary creature.

But that's her name.

Doesn't make it less terrible. It's like calling Nissa just "Vital Force" or Chandra "Torch of Defiance". The only character that should be referred to by title only is The Ineffable, and he's been dead for centuries that this point.

Disagree. It's a well-used and rock-solid trope to have a character who no longer goes by their name, but is instead known only by a nickname, title, or another moniker. This is a very well-established and VERY old literary technique. Not simply literary, either, but in real life for people whose names are not known, although their actions are. See Jack the Ripper. They become or start off as urban legends.

Moreover, it makes perfect sense for a thrill-kill assassin in the guild of over-the-top-performers to have just such a memorable stage name, who is not known by anything else. Her name and history are intentionally a mystery. There's a bounty on her head. She keeps getting away with murder, mass murder, literally. No one knows her by anything but Massacre Girl, just like Jack the Ripper, etc. Why would anyone know her name, including we the audience? That would break the mystique.

Massacre Girl is essentially a Ravnican urban legend that we the audience get to see is real, but still don't get to know her name and history. Only her deeds. Which includes massacres with no witnesses left alive, it seems.

The fourth mana is the land you attack with.

And the talent agent, stunned almost to the point beyond speech, manages to stammer out "Wh-what the hell do you call THAT act?"

And the performers reply in joyous unison, "THE ARISTOCRATS!"

Dies to Artificial Evolution for U
...half the time.

Quote from thatmarkguy »

Quote from Rakath »

Quote from Legend »

Krasis - why not xxGU?

Because the big body you get out of the big casting is a part of the balancing. If it came out as a 2/2 for 6 it'd be... not great.

I mean it *could* have its last line written as "Enters the battlefield with twice X +1/+1 counters" (we just saw a "Twice X" card in Sanguine Sacrament) It would be clunky and confusing (note: halving-with-rounding is also clunky), but it would be behaviourally comparable to this implementation at even numbers, and inegible for casting at odd numbers.

And casting with odd numbers will eek out just enough value (putting it at 5/5 in a format with a 4 damage burn) that it's worth the clunky half-with-rounding when the alternative is also going to be clunky to write out.

And that corner case when you can't even.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

A bit off topic but what do most in this thread want to see? The hobby become more affordable or less affordable?

I'm personally for more affordable. $14 MSRP packs don't get us there.

Really? Because nearly every staple card reprinted in this "unobtainably expensive set" has considerably dropped in price. Which is good for all the complainers who want the benefits of price drops without the ugly part of buying and opening packs. Win-win, never get your hands dirty.

The cards in the set become more affordable because of being printed in this set. People are buying and opening packs because the EV contained in the packs is higher than the price of a pack on average.

You're complaining about... what? That the cost is a little higher? Even though you're not paying it? You're not buying packs for that much? But you still get all the benefits of price reduction of every card included? Sounds like a strange stance to have.

I've been saying in recent days that this set needs downshifts, but now that they're here...I still want to complain. Lol. I suck.

Quote from Ratrek »

Quote from The Fluff »

On another thing. Is there some modern deck that's hot on Manamorphose right now? Two people pm'd me today on facebook asking to buy the manamorphose set that I have on sale.

It's a staple for Storm and you generally see it in Mardu Pyromancer. For a common/uncommon it's a reasonably expensive card, so everyone who wants them are looking for deals.

The new steam kin deck also runs it, its fine in 8 whack as well (actually really good there). It essentially lets you run a 56 card deck as it cantrips with zero negative once you have the mana requirement.

This is one of the reasons mishra's bauble, probe and wraith all saw a bump over the last two years. They effectively lower the deck size restriction for those all in builds for resources (life, time, etc.) that tend to be expendable in those shells.

It doesn't look like much at first blush, but running the hypergeometric distribution on a 56 card deck is kind of eye opening. When prices on cavern of souls so far out weigh unclaimed territory and you realize that is actually going to impact a smaller number of games than having a smaller deck...the price becomes easily justifiable.

Wizards din't exactly match my arbitrary and vague, but in some cases also weirldy specific expectations, so obviously this set is a representation of everything what's wrong with modern MtG. I hope Wizards hires me soon so I can make a good set for once.