Levgre:
I feel you have a " The Sky is Falling " attitude towards the meta. I for one have been play testing for weeks now and find Solar Flare to be a real deck, Mono red and UW blades are all equally as good. The geist is a good creature for the blades deck ( good not broken). lets see the format shape and mold before we climb up on our soap boxes and demand the " The sky is Falling".
Vess, Geth's verdict, blacksun, despise, how many answers do you need. really look deeper into the whole of the the meta and you'll find what your looking for.
Surgical Extraxction is going to increase in play as the graveyard themed decks ( or decks that play with the yard) increase in play. I seem to think Snapcaster Mage in the right situation, could be used in both ways here. They cast the mage and you pull the best target befor they get the chance, you use the mage to yank even more from thier hand. Either way seems perfectly fine to me. Hell even our new vess, Surgical, and the snap could all fit in one hellish control deck..
I know this comes close to "dies to removal", but until Ratchet Bomb is gone, I can't get very excited by dedicated token decks.
~Sylv
Ok the sweeper problem, Day of Judgement, Blacksun Zenith, Ratchet Bomb, and all the other board wipes can really mean game over for you Opponent. ( wait what!) Yeah noone will see Freash Meat coming to double the number of Guys you have. All those 1/1 soliders tokens form Elspeth and Timely just became 3/3's instead. So if you simply ramp with Birtds to Parallel Lives and Timely Reinforcements you'll have 6 power on the field and 7 creatures, if they sweep your titan worth of power Fresh Meat you'll then Have 14 3/3 Beast and 42 power and the just got rid of thier blockers. This is what Sideboards are hate for the hate!
I do have a Question of the functionality of Parallel Lives. My understanding is the Effect is a replacement effect for the token generation cards. So Hero of Bladehold bings in 4 1/1's tapped and attacking( I think that is how this works). Dose the Effect Stack? The wording on the card reads "If an effect would put one or more tokens onto the battlefield under your control, it puts twice that many tokens onto the battlefield instead." it's the instead part that gets me. so if I have 2 Parallel Lives in play would the first trigger getting 4 then the second trigger getting 8? If that is the case, that is a swing for lethal. A WurmCoil Engine with 2 Parallel Lives out say to you opponent "don't even think of killing this thing" as you would get 8 3/3's.
As everytime a rotation and new block shake up Standard my head swims with new decks. The Card I keep coming back to is Parallel Lives. Double anything in magic and you'll find a build around concept. With so many cards that either come into play with tokens, make tokens on attack or leave behind tokens when they hit the grave is there a deck hidden in all that? Blade Splicer gives 7 power for the low cost of 3. Hero of Bladehold now swings for 12. Our new guest of Honor Geist-Honored Munk is a 5/5 with 4 flyers at the helm, and noiw a classic Wurmcoil Engine leaves behind 12 power. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite tops it all off. It was no Mistake that the cards ride a wave up of casting cost. Birthing Pod Could be designed to fit such a token deck, hmm maybe.
Now lets see possible support cars, Timely Reinforcements lets you be a little slower and get back in the game with 6 life and 6 1/1's. Beast Within can toss up a surprise 6 power to block. Elspeth Tirel puts even more tokens or just plus her to threaten a wrath of epic per portion.
Green even has tricks up it's sleeve with Garruk, Primal Hunter,Kessig Cagebreakers. All the ramp you need to hit some of these spells also lies in green. Going 3 colors for more control or gross things like Grave Titan just makes my head hurt. Add a minic vat for really funny shenanigans. Overrun hits so hard with just a handful of tokens. Imagin going turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Blade Splicer, turn 3 Parellel Lives, turn 4 after tadeing and them killing things to keep up Timely Reinforcements turn 5 Overrun.
So it's all upside for me. I love brewing decks of just about any off the wall idea but never try them out in fear of losing rateing. I would sleeve up one on the tier one decks and run the show at FNM, although my rateing was not good it was not bad sitting just under 1800. Now the cuffs are off and I can sleeve the decks I really want to play (wait for it)......because it's FUN. the new system will help breed inavation and no longer tie people to to tier one decks. go ahead play your silly decks what do you have to lose.
my shop sell pre sell boxes at $85 and a case comes in at $510. in the corse of 3 months I come in at around $100 to $200 store credit in a good season. bringing that preice down. I'm not one for foils and you get plenty with a case. I have always been able to trade off one foil for 2 regular. like the last set I got a foil primal hunter and 2 regular within a week traded off the foil for 2 and tada playset. prices are set so the shops can make a profit in poping packs. this is why some cards hold value long after the release and still have found a deck. the value has to stya for a little while. Star City Games gets most the blame in these kinds of talks as inflating prices. look eles where, E bay for instance or TCGplayer both have good prices. Most times if you really want to see what a card is worth just look at e bay Finished auctions and you'll find your value. as for pre ordering cards it's alwasy buyer beware.
I'm rare in the fact I buy a Case(6 booster boxes) every set. I try and build a playset of everything, regaurdless of the precieved value of any card. I just want 4! the hype helps me in the begineing as I'll end up with many extra copies of rares and boat loads of uncommon and commons that I can trade away for the missing bunch, then as prices settle down grab the remainder and finish the playset. I've been doing this for years and yes it's a chunck of change to ley down every 3 months. but one day me and my friends calculted the money they spend and I on magic, turns out I spend less then they do playing around in the singles market. so my advice "Go Big or Go Broke".
I for one Love the design of the flipping cards. Bats into Vampires and Humans into Werewolves is so full of flavor. Breaking the mindset is how this game will grow and stay fresh for years and years to come. It is not hard to just play with the Check list and have your flippin cards off to the side with your sideboard and bring them in if the spell resolves. Perfect Fit sleeves are clear on both sides and will protect the double sided cards from wear and tear. It's always scary to do something new and I understand the fear of the impact these cards will have. For all we know the cards will be unplayable in a in a tier one deck and all the net deckers will not even know they exsist..
I wish I had some friends who were serious testers and that I actually traveled to SCG events. Monogreen just may be a key to winning the metagame.
I've been to 6 SCG events and have had a blast, testing is all about finding time with someone eles. I play around on Cockatrice prefer it over the MWS. look for me in the user list screen name Osoroshii I'd be happy to let you bounce decks of the meta.
I feel you have a " The Sky is Falling " attitude towards the meta. I for one have been play testing for weeks now and find Solar Flare to be a real deck, Mono red and UW blades are all equally as good. The geist is a good creature for the blades deck ( good not broken). lets see the format shape and mold before we climb up on our soap boxes and demand the " The sky is Falling".
just to clear things up, Parallel Lives is a replacement effect, both carrie the clause "exil at the end of turn"
Ok the sweeper problem, Day of Judgement, Blacksun Zenith, Ratchet Bomb, and all the other board wipes can really mean game over for you Opponent. ( wait what!) Yeah noone will see Freash Meat coming to double the number of Guys you have. All those 1/1 soliders tokens form Elspeth and Timely just became 3/3's instead. So if you simply ramp with Birtds to Parallel Lives and Timely Reinforcements you'll have 6 power on the field and 7 creatures, if they sweep your titan worth of power Fresh Meat you'll then Have 14 3/3 Beast and 42 power and the just got rid of thier blockers. This is what Sideboards are hate for the hate!
Now lets see possible support cars, Timely Reinforcements lets you be a little slower and get back in the game with 6 life and 6 1/1's. Beast Within can toss up a surprise 6 power to block. Elspeth Tirel puts even more tokens or just plus her to threaten a wrath of epic per portion.
Green even has tricks up it's sleeve with Garruk, Primal Hunter,Kessig Cagebreakers. All the ramp you need to hit some of these spells also lies in green. Going 3 colors for more control or gross things like Grave Titan just makes my head hurt. Add a minic vat for really funny shenanigans. Overrun hits so hard with just a handful of tokens. Imagin going turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Blade Splicer, turn 3 Parellel Lives, turn 4 after tadeing and them killing things to keep up Timely Reinforcements turn 5 Overrun.
are you not speculating that the card will be good enough to play?
I've been to 6 SCG events and have had a blast, testing is all about finding time with someone eles. I play around on Cockatrice prefer it over the MWS. look for me in the user list screen name Osoroshii I'd be happy to let you bounce decks of the meta.