MTG Salvation

The Horn of Valhalla item in D&D spawns (presumably Human) Berserkers when you blow into it. So it's quite correct here for it to not make angels.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Quote from ShiroeTheEnchanter »

I guess Tezzeret decided to renew his relationship with the Phyrexians.

Tezz is getting pettier and pettier as a villain since Kaladesh.

Enh. Tezzeret going to the Phyrexians just makes too much sense after War of the Spark.

1) He is well aware of them.
2) He needs protection after his (admittedly not-completely-voluntary) support of Nicol Bolas and a lynchpin of his plan every bit as much as Liliana. And unlike Liliana, he didn't even try to redeem himself.
3) He has something (the Bridge) that the Phyrexians desperately want.

Taken all in all, they are by far his best natural allies, for the moment at least.

Quote from Caranthir »

I am surprised how ... repetitive and uninventive some of the names ssem to be.

Keimi (the toad) and Kaima (the kami)
Kura (the green dragon) and Kuro (Pitlord)
Kosei (the o-bakemono hermit) and Yosei.
Katsumasa and...well... Tatsumasa.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

TATSUMASA?! OMG - yessss the UW deck is ALL ME SIS

Katsumasa, Jenrik. With a K.

Japanese has far fewer sounds in its language than English. (Roughly half.) This does lead to a more repetitive sound to particularly names.

Donaldus33: How is paying two mana to make each player discard two overcosted? It compares similarly to Delirium Skeins at 3 cards for 3 mana...

Except for the snow lands themselves, every Snow card we've seen is UG, no? Guess we know their draft archetype...

Morophon is awesome. I am very happy, especially given the WUBRG opening it up to all 5 colors.

BestOfThree: Yes, it would cost 2. Cleric Tribal gets to double down on this with Edgewalker.

Some of these arts are amazing.

Name-drop on Liliana, awesome.

Tamiyo is likely the best improvement over the English.

I like how the Wanderer pops.

I find myself also liking Ashiok (who looks terrifying) and Kiora. Probably best action shot of her, not excepting Temple of the False God.

Maybe instead of a case of English I'll get three boxes of English and three of Japanese. I theoretically can read the language... ><

Quote from thatmarkguy »

Quote from Manite »

Okay, now we can have Cavern of Souls for planeswalkers. Seriously, what were they thinking? Are they going to include a card that gives planeswalkers you control indestructible or hexproof or something?

Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor makes this cost more?

Kasmina only increases the cost by 2, no? It's not '2 per PW'. If I read the card correctly, Kasmina says 'spells that target a PW you control (among other things) cost 2 more'. So it is only a binary check: 'Does the Elderspell target a PW you control? If yes, increase cost by 2. If no, don't increase cost by 2.'

What an interesting set of cards. The art on Jace's Ruse is quite awesome.

Quote from EasyLover »

I can not comprehend yall hype. It's just another sb-card to me. I was afraid that Dimir (once again) can only mill.
When will they finally make mill more creative & viable ??
Like that:

Mill 4. If a land was milled this way, add 2 mana, if creature, return one from your grave back to
hand. If anything else, make them lose 3 life.

Of course you could only choose 1 of these.

While I am very sympathetic to UB players wanting something other than mill, expecting an Uncommon Ashiok PW to be something other than Mill I think is a bit too much. As noted, this card is a 3-mana answer to the biggest issue surrounding mill decks (cards that simply won't go away), while also milling.

Quote from Gizlivadi »

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

Do actual people actually care that they made Aragorn black?

Yes, some people who care both for Magic the Gathering (THE Trading Card Game par excellence) and Lord of the Rings (one of the last, if not the last true and exemplar modern product of a particularly European -specifically Germanic and Norse- sensibility and heritage), care that their favorite game represents their most beloved cultural product well.

When it comes to Tolkien, I think people should realize that a big section of the fans don't just see his works as "generic fantasy world". They see a manifestation of a culture they identify with. Just like the Japanese would see Ruruoni Kenshin or other Samurai/Yokai/etc stories. Everyone is entitled to feel pride for their culture. Does that mean that nobody else can enjoy Samurai anime or LOTR? Of course not, but that doesn't mean people are obligated to take well the inclusion of external ethnicities (for commercial reasons, at that) in your traditional/mythological/historical setting. Case in point: Dragon Ball Evolution. Heck, even Rings of Power to an extent.

100% agree with all of this. Plus there is inherent double standard. Imagine the outrage if they made a savannah/African style plane and then had a tribe of white skinned red haired people? This wokeness for no reason but wokeness needs to stop. And no this has nothing to do with artistic license.

There are things that are worth complaining about and things that aren't.

Who made you the arbiter of what I and others can think and react? But that's okay I will meet your dismissal with a dismissal of my own, join my ignore list. No need to hear more from a closed mind.

I bet money that you didn't object to the casting in Speed Racer, Argo, Prince of Persia, Dragonball, Airbender, Lone Ranger, Batman Begins, or almost any American made movie ever set in Egypt.

You would lose money. British have been cast as Egyptians, Asians, etc. for decades and I find it disingenuous as well. But here is a sure bet, join my ignore list as well for calling some of us racists. Nothing further from the truth. Small words from a close minded "open minded" person.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

I was pumped for a LotR set. I don't play Commander but was going to collect some for my long time love of LotR and Tolkien, what actually got me into fantasy and gaming. I will not purchase any of this product either sealed or singles. I hope others of like minds will vote with their wallets as well.

If you're that easy to annoy, there's no way you would ever have liked the set. They haven't even shown anything yet.

Honestly, LoTR fans are some serious haters. They love Tolkien so much that they hate everything based on it, and quote chapter and verse on why everything is wrong. I'm not into crossovers period, but I will remind the die-hard fans who hate their own fandom: it's more fun to like stuff than to hate it.

lotr is the grandfather of fantasty and tolken is the person that first gave elves point ears

Quote from Idiotic Specter »

The way people is cheated by corporations amuse me. Do you really believe Aragorn's being black is because WoTC is fair, anti-racist and kind? yeah sure.

Aragorn is black because it will sell cards. That's the wwhole point.

They hope it will sell cards. Honestly after the Rings of Power I do not see the LOTR fan base as a whole being all that warm and fuzzy about this.

The problem I have with WoTC doing what they did with Aragorn for "reasons" is that it sets up a situation where if anyone disagrees with it on either the lore holding true to Tolkien or even just the stupidity of it, they will be called names that have nothing to do with their opinion. The only thing that comes of it is controversy and a desire to divide people.

Quote from mikol »

Quote from Caranthir »

Quote from Gizlivadi »

So Aragorn being black seems to be a condition put in the general design sheet for the whole set, judging from the previous artwork we saw. Call me whatever you like, I don't like it. One thing is an artist's interpretation of a description, this seems like an intentional contradiction of the description. Don't be surprised if many fans don't like it. And yes, his skin color is not described in detail, but we all know how Tolkien intended Númenoreans to look.

Apparently they announced it last summer already, I just happened to not remember it...
https://boundingintocomics.com/2022/08/19/wizards-of-the-coast-race-swaps-aragorn-for-magic-the-gatherings-upcoming-the-lord-of-the-rings-tales-of-middle-earth-set-our-goal-is-a-modern-take-on-the-work-of/

I won't comment on it, because frankly, I have nothing polite to say. Except that I wonder how this face is "pale"...

Although the series offers very few details on Aragorn's physical appearance, we know he is tall and lean with "a shaggy head of dark hair flecked with grey, and in a pale stern face a pair of keen grey eyes."

i had to turn off facebook comments on a post due to racism

Frankly, are you surprised? This choice was guaranteed to cause a significant backlash.

And just to be clear - the fact that someone does not like this decision does not mean he/she/whatever is racist.

If this set is true to source Wizards might get a lot of €€€ from me.


If this set is not true to source Wizards get absolutely nothing from me.


Wizards doesn’t seem to want my money by the looks of it so far. They can put their personal socially and politically motivated “modern take” where the sun don’t shine. Keep that crap away from LotR and the card game in general. It’s so easy to just keep everything neutral and not cause any issues at all, but they intentionally want to keep pushing.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Prove us wrong.

The burden of proof is on you.

There's just literally not a single reason why this would be an intentional leak, and in fact, why WotC would do "intentional leaks" at all. And so many pieces of evidence why it wouldn't be a leak. If they want to distract people, they want to reach as many as possible. If they want to distract from a product that got negative backlash, they would try to reach everyone who saw the product, and since the 30th was shown on official channels, so the distration would be done on an official channel as well. Have someone drop a card from Brother's War on twitter or something. You know, Brother's War, the next set, a set that hasn't been previewed yet and that comes before All Will Be One?

And as the others have said, how exactly are a bunch of draft chaff commons (and one uncommon) exactly going to distract? It's not particularly flashy.

Just the whole argumentation is just insane. People want these conspiracy theories to be right and do the most complex mental acrobatics to justify it.

WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCS AND TROLLSSSSS

That's a nice sacrifice reward. The once per turn clause hurts it though. But I guess why.

'buster

Quote from Melkor »

'Once per turn' has turned so many potentially interesting cards into boring draft chaff that wouldn't see play in the most casual, theme based EDH deck. worst 3 words in the game. I can't remember the last time I saw those words on a card that didn't go in my box of 'coasters'

That seems to be an odd take on things. If something happening once per turn makes it terrible, I guess that land tax and sylvan library are terrible cards because they generally happen only once per turn and etb effects are even worse as you only get the effects once period.

I don’t think that “once each turn” is a mechanical problem. I have not heard many people complaining how esper sentinel, Kess, wirewood symbiont, Quirion Ranger, or As Foretold are worthless because of a once per turn limit. There have been effects printed that would legitimately be broken if not limited in this way.

The main problem with “once per turn” is purely psychological, IMO. You read the ability thinking that a random uncommon will let you kill the entire table with ease (because that seems likely?) and you hit the restriction right at the end. If this type of card read “at the beginning of your end step, if you sacrificed one or more permanents this turn, CARDNAME deals 2 damage to each opponent”, the card would be weaker but feel stronger (or at least get fewer complaints).

And to repeat the argument that keeps happening every time this comes out, the wording that wizards is using is the only wording that currently does what they want it to do. Checking for a condition at the beginning of a phase stops those effects from being used as “tricks” (no whispering
Wizards making a surprise blocker at instant speed, for example) which wizards wants for limited purposes. Saying “whenever XYZ the first time each turn” would lead to counterintuitive misplays (casting the forge boss using treasure would stop it from triggering on the turn you played it because you already had your first sacrifice, for example), which wizards wants to avoid. The current rules and wording templates give wizards no good options to signal the once per turn limitation at the start of an ability without making that ability mechanically worse in some way. I do not begrudge wizards for valuing quality of play over the psychology of how a card feels.