I would really love to get that RNA draft on MTGA going but I did not go to prerelease, so i missed out on the code. Anyone giving away a spare code would be greatly appreciated <3
The question is: can you build a reasonable midragnge deck from cards that want to be flickered?
If not, you're out of luck. Flickering is strong, but it only doubles up on already strong things your deck is doing. Flickering a good ETB creature is a powerplay, giving you some tempo, but only if it isnt a 0 for 1.
EDIT: remember that the last time flicker was viable in standard (and I don't mean the copy-cat mess) was Innistrat-RTR, where the commonly used flicker effect was Restoration Angel, a very reasonable threat itself, while not playing Cloudshift, which is much more competitively costed than what we have now. Also, we had mad payoff cards like Thragtusk, Armada Wurm and Trostani, Selesnya's Voice.
On the other hand, RTR standard was busted powerlevel wise, so maybe I'm way off here.
This would be a good time to revisit proliferate if they decide to go planeswalker heavy. It's a great complement to the cards in GRN/RNA too.
In a recent podcast (can't remember which exactly) MaRo said that Proliferate was considered multiple times for sets in the last years, but was deemed to bee too strong every time. I really doubt that we would see that mechanic now with Simic and Gruul coming up, god forbid in a planeswalker-heavy set. That would be busted as all hell.
I mean Borbo is getting old sure but Domri's whole plan was just dump a bunch of boar summons on the guy? Thats it. No one before Domri tried that? How does that work logically
Meanwhile we got Isperia who can read minds here and is actually a spellcaster getting tooled by Dovin and Vraska. Yeah yeah the Ghost Council might never considered a Ghost Killer existing but Isperia got no excuse for not casting a protection against stone gaze spell on herself. She knows what a Gorgon is.
Niv is more why is he not building the device himself.
Kaya killing the Ghost Council the one I buy the easiest but that is more cause she got help Tesya who presumably had some sort of plan to handle the Ghost Council during her failed revolt. Also why would the Ghost Council not be mages? Tesya is a mage one of her ancestors is on the council. Ergo I think the assumption yeah the Ghost Council is rich but also those Rich Guys are Spellcasters as well. One would assume Orzhov contracts are magical contracts not just pen and paper.
I agree that some of the old character's end seem a bit lackluster, but I don't think you can really complain that wizards didn't "sell" the story right if you are discussing bits of information and speculation during spoiler season. I'm pretty sure the story team will adress these guild leadership changes in more detail than what essentially seems to be a protcol in the art book.
Unpopular opinion time - I don't think it's unreasonable to have questions about a person's disposition after this conversation (which is what the conversation between an "average" player and a STAX player fundamentally is)
Lil' Timmy: I think it's fun to play Magic! I like to play cards! If I can just play my cards, I am happy!
STAX the Destroyer: I think it's fun to deny you the thing you find fun. I can only have fun by ensuring you cannot play any cards. At all.
Now, it's also fair that someone can be STAX the Destroyer and be a genuinely lovely human being, but that doesn't mean I don't have questions about how you reconcile "Good person" with "my joy comes from ruining your night". It's a social game and everyone has their own definition of fun. Also, often what's fun is "winning" and thus, all games inevitably have someone who didn't have the most fun because there is only one winner. But it feels different to say "I have fun when I win - so unfortunately, you have to lose" and "I have fun when my opponents are unable to do the thing they came out for". That's like saying the only way you can enjoy a movie is if you go to the theater and scream or play with flashlights the entire time - I get you have a right to choose what's fun, but the thing you find fun is actively harming everyone else's experience and that makes me suspicious. Or as another example - if we all have dinner together, saying "I can only enjoy my meal if I get all the bread sticks and if no one orders what I order" is a little weird and odd and rude, but saying "I can only enjoy this meal if I throw everyone else's plates in the trash so they can't eat" feels actively malicious in a way that's quite different and worrying.
I do agree saying "STAX=competitive" or even "MLD = competitive" is wrong, and I appreciate the art and skill that goes into playing STAX well. I understand that for some folks it's about the puzzle of earning a flawless victory - nothing personal or malicious about it, it's just a hard and unique playstyle. But I don't think Sheldon is elite or a creep for automatically having some biases against people who can only find joy in playing a game by making the game unplayable to everyone else at the table.
100% agreed.
Playing a game together means everyone gets to participate in playing the game. Taking 20 extra turns or locking someone out from playing the game is the exact opposite of mutual participation.
Uuugh hard pass for EDH. Tutoring commanders are the epitome of lame. So I heard there is this cool format where every game plays out uniquely and sometimes you have completely different cards even though you play the same deck? Well here is Vannifar, ready to fix this... ehm... most intersting part of the format? Yuck.
Could this not have been a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter but for creatures? Something like Evolutionary Leap that puts the creature directly into play? Thats so much more interesting and enjoyable.
Yeah that interaction works out. If both Zegana, Utopian Speaker and Sage of Hours are in any graveyards and you have a Necrotic Ooze and some way to boost +1/+1 counter creation, you will get to take extra turns for 4UG.
Sultai are great color for a graveyard commander deck, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Muldrotha, the Gravetide and The Mimeoplasm all make awesome graveyard deck commanders. Including Zegana, Sage and boosts to +1/+1 counters suggest a heavy thematic focus on +1/+1 counters, so if you want to be doing that, maybe Atraxa, Praetors' Voice would be the go-to commander. If you go all-out on the +1/+1 cou nter theme, there are lots of cards and very nice combos and synergies. If you rather want to focus on your graveyard theme, I would recommend to go for overall synergies there instead of specific combo pieces that have little functionality on their own. E.g. Necrotic Ooze works super well with other graveyard goodies such as Havengul Lich, Whisper, Blood Liturgist and Avatar of Woe...
You will probably get better results when focussing on one theme OR the other, but commander is a format all about doing whats fun for you, so if you want that +1/+1 counter graveyard combo deck - you do you!
I understand that request to mean "a commander thats technical legal but not a functional commander". So here we go:
Zendikar, Bereft of Soul2C
Legendary Land Creature - Avatar T: add C
~ can't attack or block unless you control a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain and Forest.
8/8 Once pristine, now no more than a husk, yearning for rebirth.
NEXT: A BGR commander that sacrifices creatures for interesting effects.
The GMG to Ravnica is definetly a World book rather than a simple Plane Shift document. However, my enjoyment of the book is much more on the side of appreciating MTG instead of really wanting to play DnD in the Ravnica setting. I'm just not a big fan of urban adventures in DnD.
I too once sought to have a collection of EDH decks in all 32 color combinations but soon ran out of inspiring ideas as to what to build. I find that more than color combinations, it is unique card choices, strategies and deck mechanics that are engaging. Once I built an EDH deck around a certain theme or mechanic I simply can't be bothered to repeat those in another deck. My goal is that in each of my decks, the ~10 most exciting cards for that deck are also unique to that deck, or at least fulfill a different function.
Most Kaalia of the Vast decks are some combination between Demon, Dragon and Angel tribal. I once saw a Animar, Soul of Elements deck that was both hydra and Elemental tribal. Saproling and Fungus go hand in hand.
If not, you're out of luck. Flickering is strong, but it only doubles up on already strong things your deck is doing. Flickering a good ETB creature is a powerplay, giving you some tempo, but only if it isnt a 0 for 1.
EDIT: remember that the last time flicker was viable in standard (and I don't mean the copy-cat mess) was Innistrat-RTR, where the commonly used flicker effect was Restoration Angel, a very reasonable threat itself, while not playing Cloudshift, which is much more competitively costed than what we have now. Also, we had mad payoff cards like Thragtusk, Armada Wurm and Trostani, Selesnya's Voice.
On the other hand, RTR standard was busted powerlevel wise, so maybe I'm way off here.
In a recent podcast (can't remember which exactly) MaRo said that Proliferate was considered multiple times for sets in the last years, but was deemed to bee too strong every time. I really doubt that we would see that mechanic now with Simic and Gruul coming up, god forbid in a planeswalker-heavy set. That would be busted as all hell.
that causes memory issues and would take some kind of counter to represent the addendum being active.
I agree that some of the old character's end seem a bit lackluster, but I don't think you can really complain that wizards didn't "sell" the story right if you are discussing bits of information and speculation during spoiler season. I'm pretty sure the story team will adress these guild leadership changes in more detail than what essentially seems to be a protcol in the art book.
100% agreed.
Playing a game together means everyone gets to participate in playing the game. Taking 20 extra turns or locking someone out from playing the game is the exact opposite of mutual participation.
Could this not have been a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter but for creatures? Something like Evolutionary Leap that puts the creature directly into play? Thats so much more interesting and enjoyable.
Sultai are great color for a graveyard commander deck, Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Muldrotha, the Gravetide and The Mimeoplasm all make awesome graveyard deck commanders. Including Zegana, Sage and boosts to +1/+1 counters suggest a heavy thematic focus on +1/+1 counters, so if you want to be doing that, maybe Atraxa, Praetors' Voice would be the go-to commander. If you go all-out on the +1/+1 cou nter theme, there are lots of cards and very nice combos and synergies. If you rather want to focus on your graveyard theme, I would recommend to go for overall synergies there instead of specific combo pieces that have little functionality on their own. E.g. Necrotic Ooze works super well with other graveyard goodies such as Havengul Lich, Whisper, Blood Liturgist and Avatar of Woe...
You will probably get better results when focussing on one theme OR the other, but commander is a format all about doing whats fun for you, so if you want that +1/+1 counter graveyard combo deck - you do you!
Zendikar, Bereft of Soul 2C
Legendary Land Creature - Avatar
T: add C
~ can't attack or block unless you control a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain and Forest.
8/8
Once pristine, now no more than a husk, yearning for rebirth.
NEXT: A BGR commander that sacrifices creatures for interesting effects.