Huh. At first I was like a lord for a creature type that's only existed for one expansion, doesn't have many playables and is unique to the plane of Kaladesh? And it's a hill giant? Yuck. But then I read that ability, and thought of Yahenni, Undying Partisan and Vampire Nightwalk and Zulaport Cutthroat and while it might not be a good tribal lord per se, it might be an important cog piece for an aristocrats deck.
I feel like people are really underestimating Pendulum of Patterns. Three life and draw a card for any color! Has to be a sideboard card for Legacy Burn in order to win the mirror, right?
That's not even in the same planetary radius as a playable card in legacy burn. 7 mana, even broken up into a payment of 2 and a payment of 5, is not efficient enough in any constructed format for just 3 life and a card. If you want to add lifegain to your legacy burn deck, lightning helix and soulfire grand master already exist. If you specifically want 3 life and a card, Reviving Dose does it for 3. If you want to go deep and play an expensive artifact to gain life surely Obelisk of Alara is a better choice?
Well that's interesting. I definitely foresee this finding a home alongside Paradoxical Outcome at least out of sideboards. While not a strict upgrade to negate for the aetherstorm decks, this is more maindeckable and allows a much greater degree of flexibility in terms of what is needed to protect yourself while going off. It isn't very good on its own, and it definitely is behind the mediocre Spell Shrivel on two counts if you can't improvise reliably, but in the right deck this is a 1 mana Mana Leak. If nothing else, this set is going to get me to revisit Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in modern to see if the new toys line up well enough.
Uh....yea no...so far this is definitely the weakest one revealed so far.
I strongly disagree with you here. The green expertise likely has the highest power ceiling, but is the kind of thing that is only good when you are already ahead. The texture of a deck that can play a 6 mana sorcery doesn't often lend itself to running a ton of creatures which makes it possible that it does little to nothing beyond cast a spell that costs 5. I can see situations where you have delirium and a grim flayer, you cast green expertise, draw 4 cards and get a free Ishkanah+babies, but that is an ideal case. In the ceiling cases (oh look I have emrakul or some other giant fattie they can't kill) you are already far enough ahead that this isn't likely the card that wins you the game. The floor of course is that you get literal nothing for your 6 mana after they kill your only creature. This one shares a similar floor in that it sometimes does actual nothing, but contextually, you actually WANT that situation in actual games of magic. This card provides a certain amount of expected value in that one of the things blue is missing is a way to come back when behind. Baral's Expertise being a sorcery really hurts it to be sure, but Torrential Gearhulk severely limits what they can print at instant speed for a while. It can still be an absurd tempo gainer to bounce your opponent's remaining board (you are playing some kind of removal yeah?)and dropping down a gideon or a glimmer of genius that you can now flashback next turn with a gearhulk.
Huh. That sure is an interesting Tidings variant. Slow to be sure and of variable utility, but what does your opponent's face look like in your head after you target the Torrential Gearhulk in your yard?
And what does their face look like when you use that gearhulk you just tutored up to cast Secret Salvage again lol.
Sadly it looks like confusion as Secret Salvage is a sorcery
Preordering cards? I used to preorder cards but then I decided that if I want to gamble with my money I will go to a casino. At least at the casino I can also get a double scotch, neat, while I throw my money away.
Yes, but at the casino they generally require one to wear pants. Unacceptable!
Yeah, I like it. Revolt should be a much easier hoop to jump through than processing so I would expect this to see play. It is interesting though that I am thinking of this as more likely to hit play on turn 4+ in standard where you can sac an Evolving Wilds or vessel first or drop it after a Yahenni's Expertise to finish killing your opponent's Ishkanah, Grafwidow. And of course, like all etb Revolt trigger creatures, obligatory mention that this guy is loads of fun with Eldrazi Displacer and potentially Panharmonicon
At 5 mana that is asking a lot for the decks that would want this kind of effect most, and limited to one counter per turn cycle and only on your turn, I don't see a bright future here, which I don't find disappointing at all. I don't want to live in a world where your first Ishkanah is 6 power but your second one is 22 power if the first one gets dealt with...
I do like that for being a riff on Triskelion, it actually cannot go infinite with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in the way Triskelion can.
Sure it does As others have pointed out, if that translation is correct, EDH now has a 2 mana Trike for infinite shenanigans that also provides a wincon for decks generating infinite mana. The combo elements of this block are everywhere.
There also seems to be a +1/+1 counters theme brewing in the set. Between this, fabricate cards, modules, the snake and the Thrumming Tern we got earlier, there could be some fun/janky sultai +1/+1 counters deck to find.
edit: oops, as Blazing Ragnarok points out below me, I needed to RTFC re: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Can still do some shenanigans with this guy, but it takes more work and another setup card such as the new Metallic Mimic or Hardened Scales. This makes him a snap add to my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck, but he isn't quite the freeroll that I first assumed, my mistake.
Maaaaaan. I NEED Bolas to smash the gatewatch to pieces. I am not super annoyed by the formation of the Jacetus league, and kinda feel like it was inevitable that we would get a planeswalker team of some sort eventually. The concern is that they are going off half cocked to take on Nicol freakin' Bolas. Forget for a second that he is one of the most careful planners in the multiverse and likely has an enormous number of traps waiting for any challengers. Forget that he has not only defeated Jace in mental combat before but manipulated him to do his bidding a few times already. Forget that he has been hard at work since the mending to restore as much of his former power (and immortality) as possible and has only been defeated by the one walker of the Gatewatch that we expect to be elsewhere during the events of Amonkhet. He is still as 25,000 year old elder dragon who will break the mind of any member of the gatewatch that he can physically touch. If we don't lose at least one member here I will be disappointed.
Jace would be a good candidate for elimination to create a reason for our first return to a returned plane; the events of Kaladesh could easily have been a manipulation by Bolas to get Jace to come to him so that he could make some move on Ravnica, but with the mysterious planeswalk to nowhere by Vraska I doubt that creative is done with Jace just yet (yay, plot armor).
Gideon would be another good candidate to be destroyed. We already have another white walker on the team and at some point I am certain that Elspeth will sign up. They should want some color balance in the league just for design elements, and how good of a demonstration of the bad guy's power would it be for him to kill the indestructible member of the team?
Liliana would actually be another candidate with a good story setup to be if not actually killed by Bolas, completely changed by emptying her mind and making her a true key/vessel for the return of the Onnake. Maybe Bolas was the Raven Man all along? Unlikely, but his plots could definitely be long enough to have started at the mending- why did he help her gain her immortality after all if he didn't have a plan for her?
I hope so, and with Tezzeret "becoming a bridge in his own right" and "returned to his mysterious masters" he could very well be making an appearance there to compleat a mission begun by the father of machines himself. As much as I love Dominaria, it might be time for them to write it off as a Phyrexian wasteland since they are prolly tired of requests from older players to return to a plane that new players haven't seen much of in almost a decade. Also, I can't be the only one that wants to see a hive of Phyrexian slivers can I?
This discussion actually makes me sad that there are rares with revolt. How cool would it have been if only the (un)common(er)s were revolting?
Yeah, the switch to curse may have been needed to keep the site open, but was a huge net negative to quality in terms of the forum's functionality.
That's not even in the same planetary radius as a playable card in legacy burn. 7 mana, even broken up into a payment of 2 and a payment of 5, is not efficient enough in any constructed format for just 3 life and a card. If you want to add lifegain to your legacy burn deck, lightning helix and soulfire grand master already exist. If you specifically want 3 life and a card, Reviving Dose does it for 3. If you want to go deep and play an expensive artifact to gain life surely Obelisk of Alara is a better choice?
Gotta love the Atog reprint in the artifact set. The flavor here is off the charts too. 10/10 would feed it mox opals.
I strongly disagree with you here. The green expertise likely has the highest power ceiling, but is the kind of thing that is only good when you are already ahead. The texture of a deck that can play a 6 mana sorcery doesn't often lend itself to running a ton of creatures which makes it possible that it does little to nothing beyond cast a spell that costs 5. I can see situations where you have delirium and a grim flayer, you cast green expertise, draw 4 cards and get a free Ishkanah+babies, but that is an ideal case. In the ceiling cases (oh look I have emrakul or some other giant fattie they can't kill) you are already far enough ahead that this isn't likely the card that wins you the game. The floor of course is that you get literal nothing for your 6 mana after they kill your only creature. This one shares a similar floor in that it sometimes does actual nothing, but contextually, you actually WANT that situation in actual games of magic. This card provides a certain amount of expected value in that one of the things blue is missing is a way to come back when behind. Baral's Expertise being a sorcery really hurts it to be sure, but Torrential Gearhulk severely limits what they can print at instant speed for a while. It can still be an absurd tempo gainer to bounce your opponent's remaining board (you are playing some kind of removal yeah?)and dropping down a gideon or a glimmer of genius that you can now flashback next turn with a gearhulk.
Sadly it looks like confusion as Secret Salvage is a sorcery
Yes, but at the casino they generally require one to wear pants. Unacceptable!
Hmmm, that actually makes more sense.
Yeah, that'd be the right way to spell it, but...
I agree, this is perfect.
The judges would have also accepted Vampire Lighthawk...
This card is great! As a primarily black and/or blue mage this set just keeps getting better.
Yeah, I like it. Revolt should be a much easier hoop to jump through than processing so I would expect this to see play. It is interesting though that I am thinking of this as more likely to hit play on turn 4+ in standard where you can sac an Evolving Wilds or vessel first or drop it after a Yahenni's Expertise to finish killing your opponent's Ishkanah, Grafwidow. And of course, like all etb Revolt trigger creatures, obligatory mention that this guy is loads of fun with Eldrazi Displacer and potentially Panharmonicon
Sure it does
As others have pointed out, if that translation is correct, EDH now has a 2 mana Trike for infinite shenanigans that alsoprovides a wincon for decks generating infinite mana. The combo elements of this block are everywhere.There also seems to be a +1/+1 counters theme brewing in the set. Between this, fabricate cards, modules, the snake and the Thrumming Tern we got earlier, there could be some fun/janky sultai +1/+1 counters deck to find.
edit: oops, as Blazing Ragnarok points out below me, I needed to RTFC re: Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Can still do some shenanigans with this guy, but it takes more work and another setup card such as the new Metallic Mimic or Hardened Scales. This makes him a snap add to my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck, but he isn't quite the freeroll that I first assumed, my mistake.
Jace would be a good candidate for elimination to create a reason for our first return to a returned plane; the events of Kaladesh could easily have been a manipulation by Bolas to get Jace to come to him so that he could make some move on Ravnica, but with the mysterious planeswalk to nowhere by Vraska I doubt that creative is done with Jace just yet (yay, plot armor).
Gideon would be another good candidate to be destroyed. We already have another white walker on the team and at some point I am certain that Elspeth will sign up. They should want some color balance in the league just for design elements, and how good of a demonstration of the bad guy's power would it be for him to kill the indestructible member of the team?
Liliana would actually be another candidate with a good story setup to be if not actually killed by Bolas, completely changed by emptying her mind and making her a true key/vessel for the return of the Onnake. Maybe Bolas was the Raven Man all along? Unlikely, but his plots could definitely be long enough to have started at the mending- why did he help her gain her immortality after all if he didn't have a plan for her?
I hope so, and with Tezzeret "becoming a bridge in his own right" and "returned to his mysterious masters" he could very well be making an appearance there to compleat a mission begun by the father of machines himself. As much as I love Dominaria, it might be time for them to write it off as a Phyrexian wasteland since they are prolly tired of requests from older players to return to a plane that new players haven't seen much of in almost a decade. Also, I can't be the only one that wants to see a hive of Phyrexian slivers can I?