I'd totally be fine with it if they had printed it in the archenemy set or in commander or something. That way you could have it in legacy and it's not too crazy. But printing it in standard, in the middle of a graveyard based block, what the hell were they thinking? Why would you actively try to shut down like 25% of the cards in your block with one colorless mana? I can't think of one deck around right now in standard that this card doesn't just make worse.
But I guess it's a good thing that mental misstep is a thing still. I'll just be adding them up to 4 in the SB.
I don't get how sun titan isn't the be all end all finisher for this deck. He comes out, and brings a clone out(if not 2), and another card. The only thing they can do to get a 1 for 1 is day it all away. Which is where unburial rites shines because they have to day 3 times in a row. All while you are getting o-rings and lands out of the grave. Plus vigilance is big, a lot of the time I take a beating until I get sun titan and crew out, and with them I can always attack because I don't have to worry about the rebound attack even if I'm at low life.
And it's not even like "the sun titan package" is random stuff you'd never run if sun titan wasn't a card. It's all legitimate stuff.
Sure grave titan is good, but he's not THE ideal finisher. He can be a one of, but sun titan should always be a 3 of.
I favor ponder. It gives you more options than think twice. You look 3 cards deep, and lets you set up your next 2 turns. Think twice gives you no options, just cards. I'd rather have more options and less cards. Especially in a deck with a fickle mana base, and where you need to draw the right answer at the right time or you just die.
Also, if you have a hand and your best plan is to ponder turn one, mulligan. Ponder is for mid-game answer digging. On turn one, you don't even know where the game is going, or even what your opponent is playing. How do you know what you need?
All the stuff that green has in standard right now, has been in green for a very long time. Green is going to have a lot of power cards drop out soon too. Lotus Cobra, Vengevine, Fauna shaman. Primeval gets dropped in power level a little since all the utility lands fall out.
I'm generally happy with the balance of colors. Blue and white could be toned back a little bit, but they aren't vastly overpowered.
Instead of whining how people will see you draft picks, why not learn how to adapt to the new environment. Those that can exploit the information, will benefit whale those who can't will likely end up with bad decks.
Let them cut you out of green after you windmill slam your garruk down. That just means the other colors just opened up. Usually higher level drafters won't do that though, because they'll know you are totally into green now, and they can just take the best of the other 4 colors. In a good draft, people aren't out to make your deck worse and hate draft constantly. They are usually more about making their deck as good as possible, and if that means passing you a big fat green mythic in pack 2-3 so they can take an on color removal, or smaller bomb, they'll do it with no problem.
As for curving out... I had sealed (not drafting) in mind when I made that statement. You could get some god awful card pool that gives you little to play until turn 4. If the other player drops any flip card before then, you are going to be at a serious disadvantage (on top of already having a crappy card pool to begin with)
You can't make these statements yet. You have only seen (as of now) 49 cards of the set. You don't know what sort of removal they have included, or what cards there are that deal with this sort of problem. Sure, it COULD be a problem, but we can't tell yet because 1) we haven't seen the whole set, and 2) we haven't gotten to play it yet.
Knowing that in the past few blocks, R&D has really paid attention to how a set works in limited; I'm pretty confident that they already thought about the fact that every color may need to be able to play spells more often.
I like it for casual, because its flip cards with more art and text.
I hate it for competitive, because it takes time to take cards out of sleeves/dig through your stuff for the real card/check to make sure that you have a copy of the real thing for each checklist card.
I really think the best way for constructed is to just put the actual card in a sleeve and play it like normal. When it transforms, just pull it out of the sleeve. It takes all of 2 seconds to do.
The checklist thing should really only be for when you aren't playing in sleeves.
My only ***** is with how it's going to be harder to keep stuff a secret in draft. You don't want to get a first pick garruk and then get totally knocked out of green because someone happened to see the back of the card.
Given a little more thought, I think the only thing that bothers me mechanically is the exclusion of the word "may". This makes a play mistake that neither player spots immediately a potential disqualification, depending on the tournament level. Again, flavor-wise this is spot-on, as in a majority of fantasy canon werewolves don't choose when they can transform. Just more headaches for judges.
So far, it seems like werewolves are the only one that isn't a may. And that makes sense because I've never seen a werewolf just be like "nah, I'm not gonna change this time". All the other transform cards are flipped by a activated ability, or a triggered ability with a may. There are quite a few more trannies to be spoiled though, so I may be wrong, but based on current cards it seems to make sense.
Also, drafting will now all be done under the table.
Yeah, I can't really think of a decent way to handle them in draft. It's super against to rules to draft under the table. You'll probably just have to hold the cards so nobody can see them, and then slip a tranny under your drafted pile.
I don't really get all the madness about them. Just use sleeves and there isn't a problem. If you are in some situation where you don't have sleeves, just use the checklist card. If they are as common as the eldrazi spawn tokens, you'll have a stack per draft for the taking.
The only other way you could do this sort of thing is to have token cards for every guy with transform, which is even worse because you can't include 3 different tokens in one pack. So you'd end up having situations where you'd have to either have the transformed side memorized or carry around a stack of tokens for every draft just in case.
There's a bug where if you do any sort of limited type of game, and don't have a decklist picked, it won't let you start a game. Right now, you have to just pick any decklist, and start the game, and then it will load up and you'll have your packwar deck.
Maybe look for another 3 drop. Glissa isn't bad, and you get her back if you get the exarch with her, but it seems like you want to always upgrade with this deck, and exarch isn't an upgrade from glissa.
Also, obliterator is an auto include in this deck. At least as a one of, if not 2.
But I guess it's a good thing that mental misstep is a thing still. I'll just be adding them up to 4 in the SB.
And it's not even like "the sun titan package" is random stuff you'd never run if sun titan wasn't a card. It's all legitimate stuff.
Sure grave titan is good, but he's not THE ideal finisher. He can be a one of, but sun titan should always be a 3 of.
Also, if you have a hand and your best plan is to ponder turn one, mulligan. Ponder is for mid-game answer digging. On turn one, you don't even know where the game is going, or even what your opponent is playing. How do you know what you need?
I'm generally happy with the balance of colors. Blue and white could be toned back a little bit, but they aren't vastly overpowered.
Let them cut you out of green after you windmill slam your garruk down. That just means the other colors just opened up. Usually higher level drafters won't do that though, because they'll know you are totally into green now, and they can just take the best of the other 4 colors. In a good draft, people aren't out to make your deck worse and hate draft constantly. They are usually more about making their deck as good as possible, and if that means passing you a big fat green mythic in pack 2-3 so they can take an on color removal, or smaller bomb, they'll do it with no problem.
You can't make these statements yet. You have only seen (as of now) 49 cards of the set. You don't know what sort of removal they have included, or what cards there are that deal with this sort of problem. Sure, it COULD be a problem, but we can't tell yet because 1) we haven't seen the whole set, and 2) we haven't gotten to play it yet.
Knowing that in the past few blocks, R&D has really paid attention to how a set works in limited; I'm pretty confident that they already thought about the fact that every color may need to be able to play spells more often.
I really think the best way for constructed is to just put the actual card in a sleeve and play it like normal. When it transforms, just pull it out of the sleeve. It takes all of 2 seconds to do.
The checklist thing should really only be for when you aren't playing in sleeves.
So far, it seems like werewolves are the only one that isn't a may. And that makes sense because I've never seen a werewolf just be like "nah, I'm not gonna change this time". All the other transform cards are flipped by a activated ability, or a triggered ability with a may. There are quite a few more trannies to be spoiled though, so I may be wrong, but based on current cards it seems to make sense.
Yeah, I can't really think of a decent way to handle them in draft. It's super against to rules to draft under the table. You'll probably just have to hold the cards so nobody can see them, and then slip a tranny under your drafted pile.
The only other way you could do this sort of thing is to have token cards for every guy with transform, which is even worse because you can't include 3 different tokens in one pack. So you'd end up having situations where you'd have to either have the transformed side memorized or carry around a stack of tokens for every draft just in case.
Also, obliterator is an auto include in this deck. At least as a one of, if not 2.