Man, I would play Air Elemental on flavor reasons alone!
Not the most playable, but definitely one of those mid-curve toppers to fill out your deck. What with treasure tokens around, it's not impossible to get those out a turn early, and at that, a 4/4 flyer will deal with the other huge amount of flyers in this format.
Kinda surprised Colossodon Yearling didn't get updated either, even though that's easy to miss. It was a recent card after all.
Maybe Maro or WOTC should've made a poll on Twitter for the community to post which cards they think should be Dinos? That way they could've had a good list to start off with, since the whole history of Magic makes it easy to miss cards.
Just as an aside, Temmet's ability kills Jace's tokens, and Ragavan isn't around when the ability triggers.
That said, the plan for Skyship Plunderer into Jace is extremely strong, and the main feature worth exploiting into a powerful turn 4 either via Admiral Beckett Brass, or that 2UU Flash pirate siren.
In Standard, T3: Swinging with Skyship Plunderer to loot, proliferate on Jace to 5, swing T4 again, and ult Jace for 3 Jaces at 1 cmc and 2 2/2 Bears for no mana, so you can play your 4 drop on-curve is... Really good.
Also, as has been discussed quite a bit on multiple threads here, Wizards has been very rigorous about not using fire arms (at least not non-magical ones) in MtG. Magical ones like in Kaladesh (which arguably also featured tanks and mecha) are fine though.
Anything that has loading time, honestly, is fine. It just has to match the idea of "can we feasibly show a mage fighting against this?" So energy-charge weapons that take a bit to fire and/or have slower velocities or flintlocks, etc. could easily work. Six-shooters could work as magical-focus objects working on mana reserves and said people could take several hits, like they do with arrows and such already. Its just a matter of worldbuilding, where something like a full-auto obviously is out of place for anything but a hail-of-arrows burst of action, but lesser weapons can be balanced over to more fantasy-based analogues.
Pirates using these to open up a raid before charging in with a cutlass seems fine, but they'd have to appear less lethal or efficient than they were in real life (obviously). Which is easy when everyone can channel magic or take several hits, etc.
I don't see what all this fussing about Innistrad is. There's at least one other continent to explore with elves and non-lupine lycanthropes. And they havent even touched the story of the UBR skeleton, horror lord who stumbled through a suspiciously tree shaped planar portal and found himself on a snow covered mountain overlooking a city of industrious elves ruled over by a jovial WR giant. Lets stop whining about the past and look forward to the future.
Tl;Dr- it comes down to your preferred playstyle. I prefer Censor, but if you'd rather play it safe (say a control-heavy meta), Peek is more your speed.
Peek is better in two situations:
-One, where you're going into an unknown field (say a GP), and do not have a good read on what your opponents will have.
-Two, when casting spells actively matters. Ex: Storm. Peek is really good for this deck, as it cantrips and informs you if you're good to go (say you have Warrens and they have a Supreme Verdict, it's a no-go).
Censor, on the other hand is good when:
-One, you know your meta, and are not particularly worried about their hand or would rather force them to have it, anyways. But hey, another Censor may be that counter you dig into or have already to back up your combo anyways to their answer.
-Two, You're looking to better your odds on decks that aim to curve out, so countering their Turn 2/3 drops (or T4 on game one) is a major swing in your favor.
Very fringe cases care about the fact that Censor cycles, but Peek is cast. Besides the aforementioned Storm, against an Eidolon of the Great Revel, Censor will safely dig for outs, but Peek will hurt. The werewolf transform mechanic really doesn't matter in current metas, but if you really wanna spite someone trying to run it without dedicating sideboard slots, Peek will keep em humans more often than Censor.
I'd love full prints of the mural, and the Bolas cardstock print, but Gideon and Chandra's skewing looks very awkward. Nissa's is definitely the best.
Honestly, these would've been way cooler with a different frame. As-is, the art style and graphic design of the frame are at-odds and that causes a lot of the visual dissonance we're experiencing (on top of the skewing from the bigger picture).
Might buy into my post-rotation UR Dynatower deck if prices dip more due to Standard failing.
Guardian is a cool cat, especially with the new cat lord, but I doubt Wizards would ban a face PW (even if it saw no other major play in it's Standard tenure til now-and it'd help Temur Tower outside of Cat Combo)
Now if only Harsh Mentor hit ability triggers or also cared about PW activations.
Artifact matters seems like a given following a well-artifact block, as well as the recurrent RW Equipment themes that've been running around since BFZ.
Visions of desolation 1UUB
Sorcery
Quickening UU (You may pay UU as when you cast this card. If you do, you may cast it as tough it had flash.)
Each opponent sacrifices all his or her creatures and planeswalkers. Then, target player draw cards equal to the number of creatures and planeswalkers in all graveyards.
Such heavy blue weight seems very awkward and un-blue for heavy grave emphasis and death. See: Bolas' extra weight towards Black in general, and sac-draw effects are typically black like Morbid Curiosity; etc.
Also, the effect could be made cheaper by making it double-edged; and the draw effect goes to both sides (split evenly? not philosophically black and moreso a hand-Balance, but, perhaps justifiable). That way you'll usually gain the upper hand, but it'll kill you too in the copy cat scenario - unless you have more cards in your deck than they do while one of their pieces is flickered, so they cant't respond with some 30 cats and Saheeli dying on board, making them draw out before you do). In another application, each player just draws for each guy they sac, and since they'll have to discard to hand size at the end of their turn when you'd play it, you'll be up on them for a little bit.
Here's one iteration on the design: Visions of DesolationUUBB
Sorcery
You may cast ~ as though it had flash if you pay 1 more to cast it.
Each player sacrifices all creatures and planeswalkers he or she controls. Then each player draw cards equal to the number of permanents he or she sacrificed this way.
This is a split and streamlined version, but you can tweak it as you like. It's a very cool card concept you can spin in tons of ways, good job!
As for mine...
Andera, the World-Grave
(Legendary?) Land
{T}, Sacrifice a land: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool.
Whenever a land is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card. (discarding a land will trigger this again)
-Purpose: to provide an efficient engine for mulch strategies to find and play the pieces they need, while not being overly efficient outside of this particular strategy.
Mulch is an ability in my set that sacrifices a land to boost a spell's effectiveness or give a creature another effect, and other permanents care about lands going to the grave while in play (either from the battlefield or from anywhere at higher rarities).
Agreed with magac on Filtered Thoughts being a cheap Sphinx's Rev if it saw play, so it'd need to be balanced a bit more.
As for Weirwood Counsel, it's a cool ability! Solid limited power house, and being able to trigger and synergize with token decks would really help push a G/W or G/X token strategy if the set goes a different direction, alongside pumping up utility creatures or things along the likes of Gudul Lurker, etc.
It'd be nice if it gave itself a small buff in the same way like a kicker to give itself another counter later in the game, but that's not too important, as it's more of a cog in the machine rather than an entire machine alone.
Here's a common (probably should be uncommon in hindsight) from the same set as Heir of Autumn:
Vesper BondsWW
Enchantment
When ~ ETBs, two target creatures can’t attack or block until ~ leaves the battlefield. If either of those creatures leaves the battlefield, sacrifice ~. In the twilight, all you have are your prayers.
Flavor seems evident enough, yeah? Though it is a bit too strong for common, and I already have a way for white to deal with creatures at common in the set so this is getting bumped to uncommon. Functionally, this might have to cost 1 more, since I'd rather it Pacifism two creatures rather than only lock off attacking (but that could be an alternative). The other way I'd design the card is to disallow attacking, and force both creatures to have to block together if they wanted to block at all, then the same sac clause. Not sure how to word that, though.
Not the most playable, but definitely one of those mid-curve toppers to fill out your deck. What with treasure tokens around, it's not impossible to get those out a turn early, and at that, a 4/4 flyer will deal with the other huge amount of flyers in this format.
Maybe Maro or WOTC should've made a poll on Twitter for the community to post which cards they think should be Dinos? That way they could've had a good list to start off with, since the whole history of Magic makes it easy to miss cards.
T1: This
T2: Skyship Plunderer
T3: Jace, Cunning Castaway, tick up and Plunderer trigger on it.
T4: Admiral Beckett Brass or leave up mana for Dreamcaller Siren, tick up Jace through Plunderer trigger; ult Jace.
This set is great.
That said, the plan for Skyship Plunderer into Jace is extremely strong, and the main feature worth exploiting into a powerful turn 4 either via Admiral Beckett Brass, or that 2UU Flash pirate siren.
Anything that has loading time, honestly, is fine. It just has to match the idea of "can we feasibly show a mage fighting against this?" So energy-charge weapons that take a bit to fire and/or have slower velocities or flintlocks, etc. could easily work. Six-shooters could work as magical-focus objects working on mana reserves and said people could take several hits, like they do with arrows and such already. Its just a matter of worldbuilding, where something like a full-auto obviously is out of place for anything but a hail-of-arrows burst of action, but lesser weapons can be balanced over to more fantasy-based analogues.
Pirates using these to open up a raid before charging in with a cutlass seems fine, but they'd have to appear less lethal or efficient than they were in real life (obviously). Which is easy when everyone can channel magic or take several hits, etc.
Yo what? Where is this ever referenced? I NEED
Peek is better in two situations:
-One, where you're going into an unknown field (say a GP), and do not have a good read on what your opponents will have.
-Two, when casting spells actively matters. Ex: Storm. Peek is really good for this deck, as it cantrips and informs you if you're good to go (say you have Warrens and they have a Supreme Verdict, it's a no-go).
Censor, on the other hand is good when:
-One, you know your meta, and are not particularly worried about their hand or would rather force them to have it, anyways. But hey, another Censor may be that counter you dig into or have already to back up your combo anyways to their answer.
-Two, You're looking to better your odds on decks that aim to curve out, so countering their Turn 2/3 drops (or T4 on game one) is a major swing in your favor.
Very fringe cases care about the fact that Censor cycles, but Peek is cast. Besides the aforementioned Storm, against an Eidolon of the Great Revel, Censor will safely dig for outs, but Peek will hurt. The werewolf transform mechanic really doesn't matter in current metas, but if you really wanna spite someone trying to run it without dedicating sideboard slots, Peek will keep em humans more often than Censor.
Hope this helps!
Definitely considering finally building an EDH deck with this and the newly-spoiled Nazahn. Here's hoping the cat deck has some really cool reprints!!
Honestly, these would've been way cooler with a different frame. As-is, the art style and graphic design of the frame are at-odds and that causes a lot of the visual dissonance we're experiencing (on top of the skewing from the bigger picture).
Guardian is a cool cat, especially with the new cat lord, but I doubt Wizards would ban a face PW (even if it saw no other major play in it's Standard tenure til now-and it'd help Temur Tower outside of Cat Combo)
Now if only Harsh Mentor hit ability triggers or also cared about PW activations.
Such heavy blue weight seems very awkward and un-blue for heavy grave emphasis and death. See: Bolas' extra weight towards Black in general, and sac-draw effects are typically black like Morbid Curiosity; etc.
Also, the effect could be made cheaper by making it double-edged; and the draw effect goes to both sides (split evenly? not philosophically black and moreso a hand-Balance, but, perhaps justifiable). That way you'll usually gain the upper hand, but it'll kill you too in the copy cat scenario - unless you have more cards in your deck than they do while one of their pieces is flickered, so they cant't respond with some 30 cats and Saheeli dying on board, making them draw out before you do). In another application, each player just draws for each guy they sac, and since they'll have to discard to hand size at the end of their turn when you'd play it, you'll be up on them for a little bit.
Here's one iteration on the design:
Visions of Desolation UUBB
Sorcery
You may cast ~ as though it had flash if you pay 1 more to cast it.
Each player sacrifices all creatures and planeswalkers he or she controls. Then each player draw cards equal to the number of permanents he or she sacrificed this way.
This is a split and streamlined version, but you can tweak it as you like.
As for mine...
Andera, the World-Grave
(Legendary?) Land
{T}, Sacrifice a land: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool.
Whenever a land is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card. (discarding a land will trigger this again)
-Purpose: to provide an efficient engine for mulch strategies to find and play the pieces they need, while not being overly efficient outside of this particular strategy.
Mulch is an ability in my set that sacrifices a land to boost a spell's effectiveness or give a creature another effect, and other permanents care about lands going to the grave while in play (either from the battlefield or from anywhere at higher rarities).
As for Weirwood Counsel, it's a cool ability! Solid limited power house, and being able to trigger and synergize with token decks would really help push a G/W or G/X token strategy if the set goes a different direction, alongside pumping up utility creatures or things along the likes of Gudul Lurker, etc.
It'd be nice if it gave itself a small buff in the same way like a kicker to give itself another counter later in the game, but that's not too important, as it's more of a cog in the machine rather than an entire machine alone.
Here's a common (probably should be uncommon in hindsight) from the same set as Heir of Autumn:
Vesper Bonds WW
Enchantment
When ~ ETBs, two target creatures can’t attack or block until ~ leaves the battlefield. If either of those creatures leaves the battlefield, sacrifice ~.
In the twilight, all you have are your prayers.
Flavor seems evident enough, yeah? Though it is a bit too strong for common, and I already have a way for white to deal with creatures at common in the set so this is getting bumped to uncommon. Functionally, this might have to cost 1 more, since I'd rather it Pacifism two creatures rather than only lock off attacking (but that could be an alternative). The other way I'd design the card is to disallow attacking, and force both creatures to have to block together if they wanted to block at all, then the same sac clause. Not sure how to word that, though.