MTG Salvation

Well, the jerks who bought out Fluctuator must be feeling pretty proud of themselves right now. Not sure what else to do with it, outside maybe Noose Constrictor shenanigans in Standard. Cool design, though.

Better Geistblast will be taking Geistblast's spot in my Melek deck. Kill guy attempting massive Genesis Wave / Sphinx's Revelation, copy Expropriate seems solid.

Blatant Thievery comes to mind. Assuming you're playing with four plus people, Expropriate can be Blatant Thievery AND Time Stretch at the same time. Bribery and Rite of Replication are other options that will still make you the primary target but not loathed for days like looping time magic will.

...that said, I'm absolutely going to be adding this to my Melek deck and abusing the hell out of it with time magic, because I'm a bad person.

1. Bolas is appropriately nuts. I doubt he makes a big splash in Standard, outside of being a possible Marvel target, but in Grixis EDH decks (particularly himself and Crosis, the Purger) he's a total house. You'll probably never use the ult, but everything else is pretty solid, and gaining loyalty to Mind Rot (with exile!) all your opponents every turn is gas. Only downside: not much immediate board impact, though if you hit the right thing off his +2, that can change. Two thumbs up.

2. Black EDH decks are drooling over Bontu's Last Reckoning, but in any other constructed format I just don't see it. How many formats allow you to essentially take a turn off after wrathing? Add in that it does nothing to hit Gideon or HoK and it seems like this barely lets you stem the bleeding at all. MAYBE against a vomit-your-hand deck in Modern like Elves or Affinity, but I'm not sure what shell it would slot into for that.

3. Samut is hot garbage, for two reasons. One, while Tooth and Nail as a planeswalker ultimate fits nicely and is probably long overdue, her other abilities are weak as hell. I mean, Forked Bolt? Really? Two, her sparking means that Djeru probably won't, which means that instead of an interesting character at a moral crossroads with B/W leanings, we get another generic R/G "I'm cool because I'm a rebellious loose cannon" cardboard cutout for the Gatewatch. While my hope is that the last Story Spotlight shows Bolas eating her, I won't hold my breath.

I'm genuinely shocked to see this, as someone asked Maro about Final Fortune and he responded that it wasn't the kind of thing they put in red anymore. Never would have guessed they'd do it with Time Stop. Pretty sweet design and a potential monster for red-based aggro.

Counterpoint: the interaction with the new Gideon is bad and they should feel bad. Platinum Angel didn't even exist the last time Final Fortune was legal; putting a three-mana Angel effect into Standard with this, where the Fortune equivalent also effectively counters any removal for the effect, seems short-sighted. That said, I'm still very glad this card exists. It just makes me wish even more that Gideon of the Trials didn't.

Nevermore on steroids. My Ojutai enchantment pillow fort has been wanting a chance to lock out multiple commanders at once, and this more than does the trick. Amusing that if it sees play in Standard, it's most likely going to be naming Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

Never made logical sense to me that Counterbalance could count Wear//Tear as a 1 or a 2 when revealed from the library, but if Dark Confidant hit it, it was always a 3. Fixing this rule makes these interactions more intuitive going forward while simultaneously eliminating an undesired interaction or two. Win all around.

Quote from icehippo »

It's disappointing to see Entomb as an Invocation as the flavor of that card fits so perfectly into the actual set.

They're not putting an instant-speed graveyard tutor/delirium enabler into this Standard, especially when the most vocal aspects of the player base have been *****ing about the lack of graveyard hate for three sets now. Sorry.

On topic: it's a good spread of powerful stuff, but nothing in green is admittedly a bit surprising, particularly when this might be the most perfect set ever for the biggest troll Masterpiece of all time. There's still plenty of room for interesting things in the next set (keeping fingers crossed for Bolas-themed Damnation), and I'm sure one of them will be something like Natural Order, which seems to fit the "only the strong survive" theme of the plane.

Pauper gets another toy. Not sure how strong this will be in this Limited, but with some of the beastly removal we've seen, it should be at least a solid playable.

"Awful mythics" is a touch of an exaggeration. While Ryusei, Keiga, and Jugan weren't lighting anyone's fire, at the time every other mythic was worth at least the cost of the pack (remember, original MSRP was $7, not $10). Granted, only Confidant, Goyf, Clique, and SoFaI were over $25 at the time, but the others still had solid value. Most still do; heck, outside the Kamigawa dragons (one of which is still $15+), the next lowest today is Kiki-Jiki, and that's only because he got another reprint in MM15. While it's not quite MM15's "60% of these are worth $25+" lottery, that's still a pretty sizable haul, and a few of them even went UP in value after a short time (the MM versions of both Swords are worth more than the originals, and Goyf was actually worth MORE after this printing until they printed it again in MM15).

On topic: I figured once the fetches were announced that this was ruled out by virtue of the fetches devouring EV. Who would have guessed that Wizards was serious this time about making Modern more affordable? What are we at now, three bulk rares out of approximately 40 rares and mythics revealed? That's nuts!

Thought for sure one of the white mythics would be Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Guess with most of the reprint equity swallowed by fetches and Damnation, they felt the need to dial it back at mythic a touch (would explain Temporal Mastery over Tamiyo/Consecrated Sphinx/Omniscience as well). Suppose it also makes sense not to double up on mythic angels with Linvala in there as well. Not a bad choice by any means, just a little surprising.

Quote from another505 »

Planar Cleansing for my Hazezon Tamar deck. As long as I have lands, I get my huge amount of tokens to replace my board immediately. I love how it removes everything except land, so against a creature, enchantment, artifact or even planeswalker decks, they all get cleared off. And playing Hazezon, i have plenty of mana anyways.

Second. If you're running Noyan Dar, it's a win condition. If you're running a white-based ramp a la Karametra, it tends to put you way ahead on board.

If people are going to suggest stuff like Sunblast Angel, then I'm going to toss in Phyrexian Rebirth, which can straight-up kill someone with a haste enabler. Also unlisted so far, Catastrophe either helps bring you back from behind or seals the win if you're ahead. If you're willing to pump the mana into it Forced March can do work, as can Molten Disaster (unrespondible Earthquake is nothing to sneeze at).

I've opened a few. The "modern history" packs have all been either RTR or Journey. I've pulled some decent stuff from them (Ishkanah, Tamiyo, Blood Crypt) so I don't think they're mapped. Pretty sure they're just those "3 packs + promo" torn up and repackaged into a more palatable form. Besides, a Liliana is a Liliana, but the Mystery Box could be anything! It could even be a Liliana!

Well, this saves me $20 I would have used for Glimpse of Nature for Freyalise. Another auto-add in a set full of auto-adds to my various decks. I like this block.