I never really had a really hard time with Thragtusk in the Standard environment, I had a much bigger problem with Bonfire of the Damned and miracles in general. The Miracle mechanic was so inherently luck-based that it just wasn't fun and definitely dumbed down standard for the period it was in there. People tend to reminisce about the good things they liked in the past so I think the "glory days" you have been told about is more about that, or the power level in general which was definitely higher.
I feel like in this draft you can run anywhere from 15-18 lands depending on your deck, there's a lot of swing. I have seen multiple white heroic decks playing 15 or 16 lands where their curve ends at 3. I have also seen green and black decks with 20+ mana sources where they need to hit their 5 and 6 drops on curve every game to win.
While the removal in this set does seem a bit weird, and a lot of it is definitely overcosted compared to things we've seen in the past, once you look a bit more closely you see that it's actually fine. You just have to lump your removal into your cheap removal and your expensive removal. There is a bit of a gap, but that's because there's also a gap in the creature size too. Theros has a lot of one toughness one drops and lots of giant five drops, and not as much in the middle. There are important early removal spells to kill their early creatures before or in response to a pump or enchantment, dealing one or two damage is usually sufficient. The late removal has to cost more, because a lot of the time, killing or bouncing a creature that the opponent has sunk multiple turns worth of mana and spells on will be a huge tempo play. It's for this reason that I think griptide will be phenomenal in this set. Paying four to six mana to kill a creature with auras and +1/+1 counters is pretty sweet.
Meh, I had somebody on the Friday night prerelease cast turn 1 Spire Tracer, turn 2 Mapcap Skills both games. I also had Mugging both games and blew him out. As other people have said, it's a high variance card. And the fact that there even are common solutions means it's not that bad. It's not like Invisible Stalker/Butcher's Cleaver, which had a whole 3 cards that could do anything about it, 2 being uncommon and the third being a rare. Also Devour Flesh isn't a particularly high pick and you can usually grab some for your sideboard to bring in against aura/gruul decks.
It was ambiguous as to whether the pack can include Hybrid cards with one color being off. I'm guessing that probably can't happen but it would've been nice if they had been extremely explicit.
I am confidant that they will not have hybrid cards that off by a color in the guild packs. While you could play a Rakdos Shred-Freak in a Golgari deck, the card is still considered a "red-black" card by the rules, and so is not the colors of your guild. And one of the reasons I posted this thread in the first place was so the fansites like mythic spoiler could update their information. If the guild packs only had watermarked cards like svenkasmagic has listed, the primer would have said so. If the guild packs would have cards from your guild excepting other guilds watermarked cards, they would have said so. But they said "will only contain cards from your guild or from your guild's colors" So if you're Selesnya, it will have white cards, green cards, or green-white cards. This seems unambigious to me.
I have not seen a thread about this yet. As per the prerelease primer on the mothership- http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/214 - we now know for sure the possible contents of the guild pack we will be getting at the prerelease. As per the article... "This booster, which you should use to build your deck, will only contain cards from your guild or from your guild's colors: eleven commons, three uncommons, a rare, and the foil Prerelease promo for your guild! For that rare slot, there is only one mythic rare you might open: your guild's leader." I figured that I should post this here, as the programs that have been being used to calculate sealed pools are all doing them wrong. For one, this pack has an extra common than a normal pack. For two, the pack can contain any card from either of that guild's colors, including other guild watermarked cards! For example, if you chose Azorius, you could get a Trostani's Judgment in your pack, even though it's a Selesnya card. You could even open a Mizzium Mortars in your Rakdos pack! I thought I should let people know, not only for general knowledge, but also so the guild packs being posted for practice sealed pools can be correct in the future. Good hunting this weekend!
AVR is not out of print, I am reminded of the constant rumors that Dragon Shields "aren't getting made anymore." AVR is a high selling set, and just like with M10, Wizards was unprepared for how much was going to sell, and so distributers have had a problem keeping it in stock. Unfortunately there are many LGS game store employees who interpret the distributer not having any of a product to that the product is "out of stock". Just like with M10, when everyone ran out barely a month after it came out, Wizards will make more. Now whether they make enough, or whether it actually goes out of stock 6 months down the line is another story.
I have this feeling that foil black cats and sanctuary cats are going to be worth a fortune... and that value will have nothing to do with playability.
Trigon of Rage isn't very good in a top-heavy deck. Trigon of Rage works great in infect (obv) and in low-curve very aggressive deck. A deck that wants to ramp into four drop five drop six drop is not a good candidate for Trigon of Rage; your mana is tied up every turn and all your monsters are so huge that the extra power isn't a big deal.
this. Also, I don't like rusted relic here either, but I loves me a vivisection with this many bombs to draw into.
*raises eyebrow* um... okay? In triple NPH, this one seemed so ridiculous I went and saved it, and then it got deleted. Sad... Anyway from what I can recollect it had 6! Lost Leonin, 4 Shriek Raptors, and 3 Enslaves. Along with some Souleaters, so more redundant removal, a Mutagenic Growth and a Caress of Phyrexia, it was very humorous.
There is a particular player who I know who is infamous for making play mistakes. I ran a ROE draft with a bunch of people and he drafted an actually good wall deck that I play first round. I play some small creatures and he plays rage nimbus... which he never activates. He then plays multiple vent sentinel's, which he never activates. He mistaps his mana so he can't use his wall abilities only it doesn't matter because he Never used them. I'm talking 6-10 play mistakes a TURN.
Regarding the original question of "bombs that let you win" - nothing has ever been as bad as Martial Coup. If it wasn't in Zendikar, Jwar Isle Sphinx would have been pretty amazing.
I am confidant that they will not have hybrid cards that off by a color in the guild packs. While you could play a Rakdos Shred-Freak in a Golgari deck, the card is still considered a "red-black" card by the rules, and so is not the colors of your guild. And one of the reasons I posted this thread in the first place was so the fansites like mythic spoiler could update their information. If the guild packs only had watermarked cards like svenkasmagic has listed, the primer would have said so. If the guild packs would have cards from your guild excepting other guilds watermarked cards, they would have said so. But they said "will only contain cards from your guild or from your guild's colors" So if you're Selesnya, it will have white cards, green cards, or green-white cards. This seems unambigious to me.
this. Also, I don't like rusted relic here either, but I loves me a vivisection with this many bombs to draw into.