Yeah, this article was a bit rushed and disorganized. It tosses some ideas out, but they're not fully formed before it jumps around to other stuff. If it felt rusty,listen to that feeling.
I disagree with most of its conclusions, but that's a separate matter. You shouldn't force yourself to rush so much. Take the time to say what you want to say.
This card is a combination of unplayable, overpowered, totally out-of-color, and unnecessarily complicated.
There is no reason for it to hit anything other than creatures. None. Monoblack does not get vindicate. Heck, monoblack doesn't even get Twinstrike for 5 mana. It definitely doesn't get Rack and Ruin, even if you put it on a card with a ludicrously swingy drawback. What are you smoking?
And the whole "This can also be a five-mana bone splinters" thing isn't worth the extra complexity.
Why do people think this is well-designed card? This thread makes no sense.
This card reminds me a lot of Maralen of the Mornsong - a powerful ability that is specifically designed to create interesting casual situations and be not very good in tournament play.
5 mana is just way too much to pay for the card drawing ability, not because it can't be worth 5 mana, but because it can't wait that long and still be relevant - it isn't worth 5 mana all at once - compare it to Harmonize, which comes down a lot faster and easier, and gives you three cards right away, rather than having to wait three turns.
This also looks like one of those wrong answers on one of Mark Rosewater's quiz -- a black 2/5 in this block or standard format doesn't really gain anything from being indestructable. You already can't terror it, shriekmaw it, use nameless inversion on it, or burn it, and it can already block pretty much anything it needs to without dying. With all the remove from the game effects (oblivion ring, unmake, crib swap), control effects (Sower of Temptation), bounce (cryptic command) and -1/-1 counters (Shadowmoor block) floating around, and with Wrath and Damnation both available and neither seeing much play, indestructability is pretty meaningless.
I mean, nobody plays Timber Protector.
But the main point is that good card draw comes in three flavors -- card draw that you can do cheap and early, card draw that starts early (like cantrips) and builds up slowly over the first few turns of the game (like Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena), and card draw that lets you reload once you're out of gas (everything from Sift to Fact or Fiction). This is incremental card draw that starts late in the game -- that's not so good.
This is an interesting card to throw down in a 2hg game or a multiplayer game, but it's useless in duels.
Shards of Alara is about the five planes of Alara, which are split apart by color.
This strongly implies that it will push monocolor, not multicolor, decks.
This is very sound interblock design with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, since Tribal and Hybrid both have interesting interactions with monocolor.
Also the whole idea of "filigree" probably refers to colored mana symbols in mana costs -- the more powerful creatures will have more monocolored mana symbols. Consider that several cards in Future Sight referenced the number of colored mana symbols in costs, and that Patrician's Scorn, which shows a spirit with filigree, rewards playing both monocolor and hybrid.
The planeswalkers are two-color, because they are exactly that -- they walk between the planes.
My guess is that they will reprint the shocklands in 11th, in order to signify a big shift and enable more color mixing so that the combination of Alara and whatever comes afterward feels different from Lorwyn/Alara standard.
Art of scantily clad warrior women and sort-of-women in sword and sorcery stuff predates Magic by half a century.
There are any number of reasons you could mention as to why women are depicted like this in the Fantasy genre, but they're all beyond the scope of just Magic.
There's a reason other than color pie that manamorphose is in red and green and costs 2. Red and green are the colors that most often depend on tight mana curves and making their one drops, especially when used together.
Manamorphose doesn't just take up a spell slot, it takes up a 2-drop slot. This puts a lot more restriction on when it can be useful in R/G decks.
Say your deck wants to have 12 one-drops to maximize its speed and efficiency. You can't put in manamorphose instead of those one-drops, because then you just increasingly manascrew yourself and hurt the consistency of your deck.
So, you put in manamorphose instead of a two-drop. Fine. You get into the ideal situation, which is that you have the card in hand and can play it turn 2. But because you want to play a 2-drop right now, you're really hoping you draw a 2-drop to make the most out of your mana.
Oops, you draw a one-drop, and you don't have another one-drop in hand -- so you either go to the face with a burn spell early or you burn for 1. Not very efficient use of your mana. Frowntown.
Oops, you draw a three-drop. Play a one-drop, and either waste a mana, waste a burn spell, or mana burn.
Oops, you draw a land. Play a one-drop, and either waste your mana, waste a burn spell or mana burn.
Remember, early creatures do more damage and are more efficient uses of mana than early burn spells, so if you have to use your burn to use the mana manamorphose gives you because you didn't draw a relevant 2-drop, then you're making your deck worse.
On turn 3 it gets even more complicated, because you want to play a 1 drop and a 2 drop, and because you probably have a card or two less in hand. your options to play it off shrink.
And once you get into topdeck mode, while it might help you dig for a burn spell, if you pull out a card that you can't use the 2 mana on (which is going to be about a 50% probability in most aggressive decks with 1-drops + land, and that's assuming you already have as much mana in play as you want to play the top of your curve), congratulations, you just mana burned yourself.
And if you don't cut a 2-drop for it, then you gum up your mana curve and it becomes a lot harder to use even numbers of mana without burning yourself.
It becomes apparent in a lot of cases in which you can actually play the card,you're really just better off with the 2-drop.
As for the overhype on persist, there have been many formats in which Wrath doesn't kill all your creatures. They're called block constructed. Block constructed didn't kill Magic, and neither will the persist mechanic, which, by and large, was very carefully places on inoffensive creatures that won't be able to abuse it in the way you're imagining.
I think these much more likely to be plants for "Rock," which might be a prehistoric or early-historic Dominaria set -- from whence we get the cards Muraganda Petroglyphs and Imperiosaur.
It's also probably an aura-themed set, because of the idyllic tutor plant in Morningtide (in a block with less than 20 enchantments to search for).
We know the next mini-block isn't enchantment-themed, because Maro said it didn't have a theme of a previous block. And we know there's probably an enchantment block coming up relatively soon because of idyllic tutor (unless it's also a plant for post-rotation extended).
And the flavor text of the Future duals have the sense of both a larger-than-life prehistoric world and an enchanted setting -- stories of creation, hints of cavemen or giant monsters, and a more overtly "this is a magical, enchanted place" vibe than you get from most other nonbasic lands.
The thing pulling all this together is the idea that you would not want to be loading up creatures with special abilities in a set with a lot of auras. That would make the auras useless. No, a set that favors auras would also favor vanilla creatures, because it frees up the niche for the auras to have a more unique role as purveyors of "enhanced creatures."
Plus, both themes push for making the creatures in general very big, which is popular with the kids, which speaks to the Time Spiral duals, and which is consistent with Imperiosaur and Muraganda Petroglyphs.
Form and function. Elegance. It looks like MaRo all over.
Honestly, they probably won't make a MTG movie -- the other properties would work better.
But if they do, I think the best movie they could make would involve Magic players. The fictional characters would have to make some sort of appearance (if only in fantasy sequences), but a movie about a kid trying to make the Pro Tour that added in elements of the game sort of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-style (surrealistic, but skewing younger, like a brighter Limony Snicket's) could actually be pretty decent.
The movie they'd actually make would probably be somewhere between The Last Starfighter and The Neverending Story -- about a kid who gets sucked into the world of the cards or meets the guys from the cards and goes on a Magical adventure to find all 5 colors of mana or something like that.
They wouldn't do a straight Magic plotline story. I can practically guarantee it.
I can see the pitch meeting right now,
"We're making a movie about cards, boyos, and you're telling me there's no cards in the movie? Go back to the drawing board! I want to see cards, boyos, cards! It's Rounders meets The Lion King. And throw in some action and some eye candy! It writes itself!"
When a card is reprinted, except for the Time Spiral Timeshifted cards, the look and flavor of the card is made to fit the set it is printed in, not the set it originally came from.
Two examples:
Juggernaut -- The look is totally different, the flavor text is different, no effort is made to make it look or feel like the card from Alpha.
[CARD]
Dark Heart of the Wood
[/CARD] -- It's not some revelation that Savra went back to Dominaria and went to the Dark Heart of the Wood there -- this is the place as it exists on Ravnica -- there's no reference to the old card.
So, futureprinted cards can be assumed to match the look of Future Sight more than the set that they are pre-printed from or reference.
[CARD]
Mistmeadow Skulk
[/CARD]is another great example -- the creepiness and aggressiveness of the art is much more fitting of Time Spiral Block and Future Sight in particular than it is of Lorwyn. Goldmeadow Lookout is closer, but it's still not as bright or cheery as Lorwyn.
So, if you see a reprint of other cards from Futuresight, expect that Wizards will tell the artists to go by the current style guide for the current set, not the old art. Same with flavor text.
The elder has a fun combo with Vesuvan Shapeshifter.
Have the shapeshifter copy the elder by the end of your opponent's turn.
When it's your upkeep, stack the shapeshifter's kinship trigger first, followed be the shapeshifter's turn face-down trigger, then the elder's trigger.
The elder will let you look at the top card of your library -- if it's a treefolk, a shaman, or has changeling (or is Mistform Ultimus -- see, Ultimus, you're not done spoiling trivia questions yet!), you get to play it. If it doesn't, you have an opportunity after turning the shapeshifter facedown to copy something else in play that shares a type with the top card and play it.
Or you can just use a Velis Vel instant or amoeboid changeling, which both would probably work better than runed stalagtite, because you can play them when you reveal them.
I disagree with most of its conclusions, but that's a separate matter. You shouldn't force yourself to rush so much. Take the time to say what you want to say.
There is no reason for it to hit anything other than creatures. None. Monoblack does not get vindicate. Heck, monoblack doesn't even get Twinstrike for 5 mana. It definitely doesn't get Rack and Ruin, even if you put it on a card with a ludicrously swingy drawback. What are you smoking?
And the whole "This can also be a five-mana bone splinters" thing isn't worth the extra complexity.
Why do people think this is well-designed card? This thread makes no sense.
It's a good card, but it's not the best in its slot, even for just a beater, in any format,
which means it will be relatively affordable after the first few months,
Which will be awesome, because it will help people who can't afford Tarmogoyfs to build good green decks.
This card reminds me a lot of Maralen of the Mornsong - a powerful ability that is specifically designed to create interesting casual situations and be not very good in tournament play.
5 mana is just way too much to pay for the card drawing ability, not because it can't be worth 5 mana, but because it can't wait that long and still be relevant - it isn't worth 5 mana all at once - compare it to Harmonize, which comes down a lot faster and easier, and gives you three cards right away, rather than having to wait three turns.
This also looks like one of those wrong answers on one of Mark Rosewater's quiz -- a black 2/5 in this block or standard format doesn't really gain anything from being indestructable. You already can't terror it, shriekmaw it, use nameless inversion on it, or burn it, and it can already block pretty much anything it needs to without dying. With all the remove from the game effects (oblivion ring, unmake, crib swap), control effects (Sower of Temptation), bounce (cryptic command) and -1/-1 counters (Shadowmoor block) floating around, and with Wrath and Damnation both available and neither seeing much play, indestructability is pretty meaningless.
I mean, nobody plays Timber Protector.
But the main point is that good card draw comes in three flavors -- card draw that you can do cheap and early, card draw that starts early (like cantrips) and builds up slowly over the first few turns of the game (like Dark Confidant and Phyrexian Arena), and card draw that lets you reload once you're out of gas (everything from Sift to Fact or Fiction). This is incremental card draw that starts late in the game -- that's not so good.
This is an interesting card to throw down in a 2hg game or a multiplayer game, but it's useless in duels.
This strongly implies that it will push monocolor, not multicolor, decks.
This is very sound interblock design with Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, since Tribal and Hybrid both have interesting interactions with monocolor.
Also the whole idea of "filigree" probably refers to colored mana symbols in mana costs -- the more powerful creatures will have more monocolored mana symbols. Consider that several cards in Future Sight referenced the number of colored mana symbols in costs, and that Patrician's Scorn, which shows a spirit with filigree, rewards playing both monocolor and hybrid.
The planeswalkers are two-color, because they are exactly that -- they walk between the planes.
My guess is that they will reprint the shocklands in 11th, in order to signify a big shift and enable more color mixing so that the combination of Alara and whatever comes afterward feels different from Lorwyn/Alara standard.
Anything that you can't beat at all without a sideboard probably doesn't belong in casual.
And if you play something in casual and win more than, say, ten games with it in a row, you should probably try it in tournament practice.
Art of scantily clad warrior women and sort-of-women in sword and sorcery stuff predates Magic by half a century.
There are any number of reasons you could mention as to why women are depicted like this in the Fantasy genre, but they're all beyond the scope of just Magic.
There's a reason other than color pie that manamorphose is in red and green and costs 2. Red and green are the colors that most often depend on tight mana curves and making their one drops, especially when used together.
Manamorphose doesn't just take up a spell slot, it takes up a 2-drop slot. This puts a lot more restriction on when it can be useful in R/G decks.
Say your deck wants to have 12 one-drops to maximize its speed and efficiency. You can't put in manamorphose instead of those one-drops, because then you just increasingly manascrew yourself and hurt the consistency of your deck.
So, you put in manamorphose instead of a two-drop. Fine. You get into the ideal situation, which is that you have the card in hand and can play it turn 2. But because you want to play a 2-drop right now, you're really hoping you draw a 2-drop to make the most out of your mana.
Oops, you draw a one-drop, and you don't have another one-drop in hand -- so you either go to the face with a burn spell early or you burn for 1. Not very efficient use of your mana. Frowntown.
Oops, you draw a three-drop. Play a one-drop, and either waste a mana, waste a burn spell, or mana burn.
Oops, you draw a land. Play a one-drop, and either waste your mana, waste a burn spell or mana burn.
Remember, early creatures do more damage and are more efficient uses of mana than early burn spells, so if you have to use your burn to use the mana manamorphose gives you because you didn't draw a relevant 2-drop, then you're making your deck worse.
On turn 3 it gets even more complicated, because you want to play a 1 drop and a 2 drop, and because you probably have a card or two less in hand. your options to play it off shrink.
And once you get into topdeck mode, while it might help you dig for a burn spell, if you pull out a card that you can't use the 2 mana on (which is going to be about a 50% probability in most aggressive decks with 1-drops + land, and that's assuming you already have as much mana in play as you want to play the top of your curve), congratulations, you just mana burned yourself.
And if you don't cut a 2-drop for it, then you gum up your mana curve and it becomes a lot harder to use even numbers of mana without burning yourself.
It becomes apparent in a lot of cases in which you can actually play the card, you're really just better off with the 2-drop.
As for the overhype on persist, there have been many formats in which Wrath doesn't kill all your creatures. They're called block constructed. Block constructed didn't kill Magic, and neither will the persist mechanic, which, by and large, was very carefully places on inoffensive creatures that won't be able to abuse it in the way you're imagining.
It's also probably an aura-themed set, because of the idyllic tutor plant in Morningtide (in a block with less than 20 enchantments to search for).
We know the next mini-block isn't enchantment-themed, because Maro said it didn't have a theme of a previous block. And we know there's probably an enchantment block coming up relatively soon because of idyllic tutor (unless it's also a plant for post-rotation extended).
And the flavor text of the Future duals have the sense of both a larger-than-life prehistoric world and an enchanted setting -- stories of creation, hints of cavemen or giant monsters, and a more overtly "this is a magical, enchanted place" vibe than you get from most other nonbasic lands.
The thing pulling all this together is the idea that you would not want to be loading up creatures with special abilities in a set with a lot of auras. That would make the auras useless. No, a set that favors auras would also favor vanilla creatures, because it frees up the niche for the auras to have a more unique role as purveyors of "enhanced creatures."
Plus, both themes push for making the creatures in general very big, which is popular with the kids, which speaks to the Time Spiral duals, and which is consistent with Imperiosaur and Muraganda Petroglyphs.
Form and function. Elegance. It looks like MaRo all over.
Just a theory, anyway.
But if they do, I think the best movie they could make would involve Magic players. The fictional characters would have to make some sort of appearance (if only in fantasy sequences), but a movie about a kid trying to make the Pro Tour that added in elements of the game sort of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-style (surrealistic, but skewing younger, like a brighter Limony Snicket's) could actually be pretty decent.
The movie they'd actually make would probably be somewhere between The Last Starfighter and The Neverending Story -- about a kid who gets sucked into the world of the cards or meets the guys from the cards and goes on a Magical adventure to find all 5 colors of mana or something like that.
They wouldn't do a straight Magic plotline story. I can practically guarantee it.
I can see the pitch meeting right now,
"We're making a movie about cards, boyos, and you're telling me there's no cards in the movie? Go back to the drawing board! I want to see cards, boyos, cards! It's Rounders meets The Lion King. And throw in some action and some eye candy! It writes itself!"
Two examples:
Juggernaut -- The look is totally different, the flavor text is different, no effort is made to make it look or feel like the card from Alpha.
[CARD]
Dark Heart of the Wood
[/CARD] -- It's not some revelation that Savra went back to Dominaria and went to the Dark Heart of the Wood there -- this is the place as it exists on Ravnica -- there's no reference to the old card.
So, futureprinted cards can be assumed to match the look of Future Sight more than the set that they are pre-printed from or reference.
[CARD]
Mistmeadow Skulk
[/CARD]is another great example -- the creepiness and aggressiveness of the art is much more fitting of Time Spiral Block and Future Sight in particular than it is of Lorwyn. Goldmeadow Lookout is closer, but it's still not as bright or cheery as Lorwyn.
So, if you see a reprint of other cards from Futuresight, expect that Wizards will tell the artists to go by the current style guide for the current set, not the old art. Same with flavor text.
Have the shapeshifter copy the elder by the end of your opponent's turn.
When it's your upkeep, stack the shapeshifter's kinship trigger first, followed be the shapeshifter's turn face-down trigger, then the elder's trigger.
The elder will let you look at the top card of your library -- if it's a treefolk, a shaman, or has changeling (or is Mistform Ultimus -- see, Ultimus, you're not done spoiling trivia questions yet!), you get to play it. If it doesn't, you have an opportunity after turning the shapeshifter facedown to copy something else in play that shares a type with the top card and play it.
Or you can just use a Velis Vel instant or amoeboid changeling, which both would probably work better than runed stalagtite, because you can play them when you reveal them.