...and 4 other creatures already on the field, ready to attack.
They ended up getting +17/+17 apiece, punching through a 40-toughness board and taking out the owner from more-than-full life (he'd been using Twilight Prophet to drain us considerably). Other opponent couldn't stop me from finishing him off on my next turn.
Ulvenwald Tracker does not normally like to involve its fragile 1/1 body in the fights it instigates, but when the opponent is a Birds of Paradise...
Generous Patron goes nicely in Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or any other deck with a heavy Proliferate theme. Here, I'll put a counter on two of YOUR creatures, and I'll draw two cards. Then during my end step, guess what? I'm so generous, you can have two MORE counters and I'll draw two MORE cards! (+more if you choose to proliferate any other opponents' creatures that had gained counters through other means.)
Swamp, rit, pitch creatures to Putrid Imp, Reanimate Delver, which reanimates Kiki-Jiki, which taps to copy Delver, which reanimates Conscripts, proceed to combo out.
You can replace 1 of the 3 creatures with Entomb and it'll still work.
Or, alternatively, if you have another card that nets mana (such as Sol Ring) in addition to the Ritual, you can replace all 4 creatures with Buried Alive and combo off with only 5 cards.
Should I do something about it? Naah, just pass turn.
Opponent predictably attacks with Gilder Bairn then activates the ability to double Venser's counters. My response: flash in In Bolas's Clutches to steal Venser, who still gets the counters but on my side of the field instead.
Opponent B has just played Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Then he passes the turn. On my turn, I decide I'll take advantage of the doubled damage and attack Opponent A with a 7/7 for 14 damage, then deal with Gisela postcombat. (I only have sorcery speed removal for her at the time.)
Go to attack. Opponent A plays Deflecting Palm, preventing the damage then throwing it back in my face, redoubled to 28.
I was playing Mairsil, the Pretender and had Tree of Perdition, Quicksilver Elemental, and Aetherling caged. The mono black player played a boardwipe, so I tap out of blue mana to put the flicker ability of aetherling and tree's ability on the stack. My friend playing an Animar, soul of elements morph deck flipped Jeering Instigator gaining control of my Mairsil, activated the tree ability, setting me to four, and then let the boardwipe resolve, killing me with the mono black player's Blood Artist.
Also, Jeering Instigator's trigger doesn't work on other player's turns...unless the mono-black player somehow flashed in a board wipe on Animar's turn
More a funny little moment than a crazy play, but one of our games comes down to a 1v1. My opponent, playing Edric, Spymaster of Trest, taps out for a Time Warp, and I respond with Negate for lethal.
No, I don't mean the Negate let me untap and beat him on my turn; I mean the Negate was lethal.
Since Battlebond release is coming up, and I don't think I've seen any articles from Wizards on this...
I know in 2-Headed Giant draft, the players on a team pick cards together, 2 at a time, and add them to a shared pool, from which they construct their decks. Is there a generally-accepted way to decide who gets to keep which cards from the shared pool after the draft is over? This could really matter given some of the valuable reprints in Battlebond (Doubling Season, for one, which is likely to be worth more than the entire rest of the pool put together, making it impossible to "fairly" split the pool even if you wanted to try that).
I can think of a few possible ways to resolve this:
1) "Odd player"/"even player"--Before the draft starts, the team agrees to give 1 of its members dibs on all cards taken from Packs 1 and 3, and the other dibs on all cards taken from packs 2 and 4.
Pros: Very simple. Similar to regular drafting, where whoever's lucky enough to open an expensive card gets to keep it. Cons: Could result in highly unbalanced hauls if one player opens 2 chase rares and the other none.
2) Divide the pool as fairly as possible, but roll a die to resolve unavoidably unbalanced scenarios (in the Doubling Season example, whoever wins the die roll would take the Doubling Season and their teammate would get the rest of the pool).
Pros: Players with different needs can get exactly what they need, and it should result in a relatively balanced haul for both members of the team. Cons: Could take a while to look up and separate the cards by value, even if limited to non-bulk; unbalanced situations still come down to luck
3) Method 2, but if the pool ends up divided unevenly, whoever got less value can take cards from the other player's trade binder equal to approximately half the difference in value (so both players end up with the same net value).
Pros: Can ensure both players on the team end up with as close as possible to the same net value, regardless of the makeup of the pool. Cons: Requires both players to have cards-for-trade on hand; will take even longer than Method 2 to resolve; depending on the makeup of the players' trade binders (one has only cards that are far too expensive for the price difference), may still not result in an equal haul for both players.
What do you think? Do you know what you/your store is going to do? Are there any other methods for splitting the pool that you're going to try or have heard about? I imagine in most cases people will be able to come to an informal agreement after the draft even without specifically using one of these methods, but for the cases where it might not be so easy (chase rares) I think it will be important to decide on a method ahead of time to avoid arguments later.
Is it just me, or is Black moving away from "player loses life" effects to just ordinary damage-dealing effects? Why now? I thought the un-preventability of Black life loss was supposed to set it apart from Red direct damage. This isn't the only card that does it...Belzenlok and other card drawing spells are now damaging the controller instead of causing the controller to lose life.
This is one of the strongest non-Cube decks I've ever drafted; I pulled off a triple 2-0 with it. Somehow I got passed a Profane Procession for Pack 1 Pick 3 (!!!), so I immediately snapped it up and moved into B/W Vampires/Control. There was a lot of B/W removal going around in all three packs and only one other Vampire drafter in the pod, so I had plenty of good choices. Not to mention, somehow the bomb rares just kept coming....All the lifegain made Arguel's Blood Fast and Champion of Dusk well worth it, and after I used some big-creature removal, Ascend-activated Golden Demise cleaned up whatever was left, ending board stalls in a heartbeat. (Assuming I didn't get Procession out and effectively win on the spot.) If anything could beat the deck, it would be a hyperaggressive deck that goes under Profane Procession or a hexproof voltron deck, but I managed to avoid running into either.
He left out an important question: does "Just a second" count tapping permanents as moving them, making Slaying Mantis essentially uncounterable by non-free counterspells unless your opponent floated mana for some reason?
I thought this topic title was a joke until I saw the card appear in the HoD spoiler section....
I think for Standard this should not be thought of as "Horse tribal" so much as "Lifegain tribal". Turn a Sacred Cat sideways, drop this postcombat, get an indestsructible 5/5 end of turn. Maybe it goes in the tokens deck? The indestructibility means your opponent has to deal with this card separately before they can Fumigate your galloping army. (And if you get two of these out...well...tough luck to your opponent unless they're running Declaration in Stone.)
Notable that it has the magical 5 toughness and 5 CMC that together dodge a lot of Standard-playable removal. It's unfortunate that there's no Radiant Fountain or similar land in Standard (unless I'm forgetting something) that you could drop Turn 5 before playing this to get an easy trigger, but lifelink creatures will do the job.
Well, this is a Gift that was worth waiting for! Extremely appreciated after the resounding dud that the mysterious Vial of Dragonfire turned out to be.
My initial thoughts are that it might be possible to build around this in a RW deck--R for discard to get 6 creatures into the bin (Tormenting Voice and Cathartic Reunion, maybe even Insolent Neonate depending on how all-in you want to go) and W for an alternate way to cheat this out in case the Gate plan doesn't come together. Finally, an artifact worth reanimating! Toss in the Gearhulks of bothcolors for additional Refurbish targets and Eternalize fodder (one that gets you more gas or more options in the yard, and one that culls the board a bit--but still allows you to keep the Cataclysmic Gearhulk as the creature and the Gift as the artifact).
Most of the aftermath cards had some synergy if you cast the second half after the first. Struggle to Survive kinda does because you can use Survive to shuffle back the creature you killed. But Farm to Market? I got nothin'. At least it's strictly better than Divine Verdict.
Torment of Venom looks like some nice evil fun in Limited, and Torment of Hailfire...I look forward to laughing evilly as I cast this for big values in my burn-themed spellslinger Vial Smasher/Kraum EDH deck.
Casting Rise of the Dark Realms and responding to your own spell by tapping Jace's Archivist...
...with a Craterhoof Behemoth in your hand...
...and 4 other creatures already on the field, ready to attack.
They ended up getting +17/+17 apiece, punching through a 40-toughness board and taking out the owner from more-than-full life (he'd been using Twilight Prophet to drain us considerably). Other opponent couldn't stop me from finishing him off on my next turn.
Generous Patron goes nicely in Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or any other deck with a heavy Proliferate theme. Here, I'll put a counter on two of YOUR creatures, and I'll draw two cards. Then during my end step, guess what? I'm so generous, you can have two MORE counters and I'll draw two MORE cards! (+more if you choose to proliferate any other opponents' creatures that had gained counters through other means.)
1) Swamp
2) Dark Ritual
3) Putrid Imp
4) Phyrexian Delver
5) Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
6) Zealous Conscripts or another creature that can untap Kiki-Jiki on enter
7) Reanimate
Swamp, rit, pitch creatures to Putrid Imp, Reanimate Delver, which reanimates Kiki-Jiki, which taps to copy Delver, which reanimates Conscripts, proceed to combo out.
You can replace 1 of the 3 creatures with Entomb and it'll still work.
Or, alternatively, if you have another card that nets mana (such as Sol Ring) in addition to the Ritual, you can replace all 4 creatures with Buried Alive and combo off with only 5 cards.
Playing Tuvasa the Sunlit vs Atraxa, Praetors' Voice superfriends. I start the game with Leyline of Anticipation in play.
Opponent brings out Narset Transcendent and Venser, the Sojourner along with a Gilder Bairn, ready to double and ultimate one of them next turn.
Should I do something about it? Naah, just pass turn.
Opponent predictably attacks with Gilder Bairn then activates the ability to double Venser's counters. My response: flash in In Bolas's Clutches to steal Venser, who still gets the counters but on my side of the field instead.
My next turn, ultimate and proceed to win.
Go to attack. Opponent A plays Deflecting Palm, preventing the damage then throwing it back in my face, redoubled to 28.
Congratulations. I played myself.
Also, Jeering Instigator's trigger doesn't work on other player's turns...unless the mono-black player somehow flashed in a board wipe on Animar's turn
No, I don't mean the Negate let me untap and beat him on my turn; I mean the Negate was lethal.
How?
Him at 5 life as the turn started...
I tapped Cryptolith Fragment to cast the Negate: -1 life
My Guttersnipe triggered: 2 damage
My Vial Smasher the Fierce (one of my commanders, the other being Kraum, Ludevic's Opus) triggered: 2 damage
It took us several seconds to realize that I'd managed to shout "NO!" so loud it killed him!
I know in 2-Headed Giant draft, the players on a team pick cards together, 2 at a time, and add them to a shared pool, from which they construct their decks. Is there a generally-accepted way to decide who gets to keep which cards from the shared pool after the draft is over? This could really matter given some of the valuable reprints in Battlebond (Doubling Season, for one, which is likely to be worth more than the entire rest of the pool put together, making it impossible to "fairly" split the pool even if you wanted to try that).
I can think of a few possible ways to resolve this:
1) "Odd player"/"even player"--Before the draft starts, the team agrees to give 1 of its members dibs on all cards taken from Packs 1 and 3, and the other dibs on all cards taken from packs 2 and 4.
Pros: Very simple. Similar to regular drafting, where whoever's lucky enough to open an expensive card gets to keep it. Cons: Could result in highly unbalanced hauls if one player opens 2 chase rares and the other none.
2) Divide the pool as fairly as possible, but roll a die to resolve unavoidably unbalanced scenarios (in the Doubling Season example, whoever wins the die roll would take the Doubling Season and their teammate would get the rest of the pool).
Pros: Players with different needs can get exactly what they need, and it should result in a relatively balanced haul for both members of the team. Cons: Could take a while to look up and separate the cards by value, even if limited to non-bulk; unbalanced situations still come down to luck
3) Method 2, but if the pool ends up divided unevenly, whoever got less value can take cards from the other player's trade binder equal to approximately half the difference in value (so both players end up with the same net value).
Pros: Can ensure both players on the team end up with as close as possible to the same net value, regardless of the makeup of the pool. Cons: Requires both players to have cards-for-trade on hand; will take even longer than Method 2 to resolve; depending on the makeup of the players' trade binders (one has only cards that are far too expensive for the price difference), may still not result in an equal haul for both players.
What do you think? Do you know what you/your store is going to do? Are there any other methods for splitting the pool that you're going to try or have heard about? I imagine in most cases people will be able to come to an informal agreement after the draft even without specifically using one of these methods, but for the cases where it might not be so easy (chase rares) I think it will be important to decide on a method ahead of time to avoid arguments later.
2 Bishop's Soldier
1 Martyr of Dusk
1 Legion Lieutenant
1 Gleaming Barrier
2 Legion Conquistador
1 Sanguine Glorifier
1 Hostage Taker
1 Champion of Dusk
1 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Moment of Craving
1 Baffling End
1 Walk the Plank
1 Profane Procession
1 Golden Demise
1 Vanquish the Weak
1 Call to the Feast
2 Divine Verdict
1 Island
8 Swamp
7 Plains
I think for Standard this should not be thought of as "Horse tribal" so much as "Lifegain tribal". Turn a Sacred Cat sideways, drop this postcombat, get an indestsructible 5/5 end of turn. Maybe it goes in the tokens deck? The indestructibility means your opponent has to deal with this card separately before they can Fumigate your galloping army. (And if you get two of these out...well...tough luck to your opponent unless they're running Declaration in Stone.)
Notable that it has the magical 5 toughness and 5 CMC that together dodge a lot of Standard-playable removal. It's unfortunate that there's no Radiant Fountain or similar land in Standard (unless I'm forgetting something) that you could drop Turn 5 before playing this to get an easy trigger, but lifelink creatures will do the job.
My initial thoughts are that it might be possible to build around this in a RW deck--R for discard to get 6 creatures into the bin (Tormenting Voice and Cathartic Reunion, maybe even Insolent Neonate depending on how all-in you want to go) and W for an alternate way to cheat this out in case the Gate plan doesn't come together. Finally, an artifact worth reanimating! Toss in the Gearhulks of both colors for additional Refurbish targets and Eternalize fodder (one that gets you more gas or more options in the yard, and one that culls the board a bit--but still allows you to keep the Cataclysmic Gearhulk as the creature and the Gift as the artifact).
Torment of Venom looks like some nice evil fun in Limited, and Torment of Hailfire...I look forward to laughing evilly as I cast this for big values in my burn-themed spellslinger Vial Smasher/Kraum EDH deck.