RIP Galvanic Bombardment in standard. Though maybe some people will prefer it for the late game? Not me though.
Galvanic Bombardment is vastly superior for most midrange and controlling decks, and will continue to see heavy play in decks that want 1 mana red removal. Shock might see play as well since there are a decent number of creatures that will die to a shock, but three toughness is a pretty important number too.
Well it was about time WOTC solved the color philosophy problem of having black as the removal color but being always second to white thanks to path to exile.
Except that despite the very real and sometimes very hefty drawback attached to Path, it is still an order of magnitude more powerful than anything black has to offer by virtue of exile being relevant and being completely unconditional. Don't get me wrong, Push is premium removal in modern, but black is still playing second fiddle : (
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?
Yup, this opens up other possible ways to build a company combo deck in modern. Name Goblin and profit. Not a huge difference for the current card pool afaik, but with the right amount of tutoring later on there is potential to want to revisit this as a way to eschew green and/or white from your lists.
After Aether Revolt is released there are going to be a few different paths to take toward playing Paradoxical Outcome that didn't exist before. This monument will be one of them, but I honestly don't know that it will be any better than the current options, and as far as new paths to blaze, I want to see what a Sram, Senior Edificer deck with Bone Saw and Cathar's Shield looks like first.
That's a good way to look at it baseline, and we have several of those in standard collecting dust right now, so we definitely need a number of additional (preferrably 1-2 mana) artifacts to go along with it and some good payoff spell (If this just makes faster Emrakul's I'm going to go postal) to take advantage of the mana reduction. I do look forward to seeing what people come up with.
That is sweet. On first read my brain told me it made 1/1s and I approved, but 2/2s? Yessss. X=1 is Manic Vandal and that card was very playable. Then each additional vandal only costs 2 generic mana? That my friends is fantastic.
Very different than Adaptive Automaton. Automaton can hit the battlefield last and pump your guys, this has to be in play already to have any effect on your other creatures. This of course does leave counters behind if you manage to get any though which is nice.
Whir of Invention- a "fixed"ish Chord of Calling for artifacts could be rather absurd in standard depending on what else is coming, and is definitely worth exploring in modern. It is more restrictive in CC than Fabricate due to the triple blue and the inability to break it up into two payments, but instant speed and convoke improvise makes for one hell of a tutor. If nothing else, this is an instant staple for EDH.
Decommission- I would lament that our Disenchant costs 3 mana, but revolt is basically morbid on steroids (which I'm surprised noone has seemed to jump on yet), so this prolly falls somewhere close to Appetite for the Unnatural or an instant speed Terashi's Grasp, both playable but unexciting sideboard cards.
Silkweaver Elite is interesting. It likely costs one too much for constructed play, but it could be another elvish visionary for rally decks if that's something they are into.
Sweatworks Brawler is likely too slow to matter in standard, but it is yet another card worth thinking about for affinity in modern. As often as that deck activates their Mox Opals on turn 1, this could easily be a turn 1 3/3. There is likely a build out there that would utilize it well.
Sram's Expertise- Holy @#$@#$@# a cycle of these? Can't wait to see the rest, and their associated legends (especially Yahenni) I suppose this one is pretty bad with Restore Balance and Living End, but I could see a list that aims to cast this then drop a Bitterblossom or Intangible Virtue. Even just dropping down 3 tokens and then a removal spell seems pretty solid most of the time. It is interesting how bad this can be if your opponent's followup is Yahenni's Expertise plus answer to your free spell.
Reminds me at a glance of Talara's Battalion but actually castable (and lacking trample of course). Revolt is just an easier morbid so I wouldn't be surprised if this hit the battlefield as a 4/3 with great frequency.
Soooo... its essentially pay G: get 1 energy? With a bonus 3/4 option?
Not exactly, If you have the energy, you must pay the energy as templated so you can't just use it as an energy charger.
It is still a 3/4 on turn 2 if you have double untapped green sources and this in your opener.
T1: elephant, bounce it
T2: elephant, bounce it, replay elephant.
That's not much of a hoop to jump through. Alternately, with no energy in your pool it is a 3/4 for GGG which while not particularly good is still sized well for current standards swaths of 2/3s and 3/2s.
Another scenario when your energy pool is dry is to use this as a card that reads G: crew target vehicle, gain 1 energy.
Can also use this as a 1 mana creature to sacrifice with the trigger on the stack if we get a good sac outlet and enough reason to want to build around zulaport cutthroat
So Ral wasn't here as a concerned member of the Izzet guild. He wanted to talk to Jace as a Planeswalker. "What is it, then?"
"An irregular planeswalk." Ral's mind paused, either to let that sink in or to come up with how to form the next thought. "Someone planeswalked away from Ravnica in a manner that was...anomalous."
"What? Who? How do you know this?"
"You've seen the clouds outside, Beleren. Don't make me do all the work."
"Project Lightning Bug?"
"There you go."
Jace furrowed his brow. "I thought that was shut down after we sabotaged the results."
"It was, officially." Ral's thoughts coiled in on themselves. Images of magically-created lightning storms and sensitive sensor mechanisms swam through his mind, along with memories of conjuring careful half-truths while Niv-Mizzet's hot breath bore down on him.
Jace couldn't help tilting his eyes to the side, to see Ral's expression. Worry lined the man's forehead.
Ral's mind continued. "The detectors still trigger when someone planeswalks. I glance over the results from time to time, but mostly I keep them hidden from Niv-Mizzet and most of my guild. I reached out when I saw Vraska's planeswalk."
Jace was deeply un-thrilled to hear the gorgon's name.
"She left Ravnica," Ral thought, "with no destination."
"No destination?"
"She didn't planeswalk to a plane. Only from one."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Exactly."
"A flaw in the detectors?"
Ral gave an impatient flick of his hand. "The experiment performed perfectly. The pattern of the departure was authentic, but the endpoint recorded as anomalous. Vraska hasn't been seen since. It's like she planeswalked into a void."
Partner is such a damn lazy mechanic. Oh we didn't want to actually come up with more 4 color cards, we just wanted you to pair the RW partner card with the UB partner card or something. Not to mention, will it be a recurring theme each year/more commanders with partner will be printed because if not then you can only have a pair of commanders from just this years' decks.
More like design space for 4 color cards is extremely limited and difficult to create without feeling like it's phoned in (kinda like that stupid angel). I am completely unsurprised that there is only one 4 color general per deck, but I really expected better than what they presented us with. Hopefully the rest of them don't just follow the formula of "combat ability (or flash) from each color plus keyword ability found in 3 of the 4 colors (and the 5th color) or keyword appropriate for use on artifacts", or whatever their paint by numbers scheme is.
I really dislike the partner mechanic as well. It's the same terrible vein of ideas as planeswalkers that you can use as commanders. "HEY GUYS!!! Check out this way that we are changing the rules of your format for cards from this set!!!" is not a cool gimmick imo.
Galvanic Bombardment is vastly superior for most midrange and controlling decks, and will continue to see heavy play in decks that want 1 mana red removal. Shock might see play as well since there are a decent number of creatures that will die to a shock, but three toughness is a pretty important number too.
Except that despite the very real and sometimes very hefty drawback attached to Path, it is still an order of magnitude more powerful than anything black has to offer by virtue of exile being relevant and being completely unconditional. Don't get me wrong, Push is premium removal in modern, but black is still playing second fiddle : (
Yup, this opens up other possible ways to build a company combo deck in modern. Name Goblin and profit. Not a huge difference for the current card pool afaik, but with the right amount of tutoring later on there is potential to want to revisit this as a way to eschew green and/or white from your lists.
Which is great, kinda like this lil' guy...
There are already some almost there versions with my favorite being the one that is also a Metalwork Colossus deck: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-paradoxical-colossus/
After Aether Revolt is released there are going to be a few different paths to take toward playing Paradoxical Outcome that didn't exist before. This monument will be one of them, but I honestly don't know that it will be any better than the current options, and as far as new paths to blaze, I want to see what a Sram, Senior Edificer deck with Bone Saw and Cathar's Shield looks like first.
That's a good way to look at it baseline, and we have several of those in standard collecting dust right now, so we definitely need a number of additional (preferrably 1-2 mana) artifacts to go along with it and some good payoff spell (If this just makes faster Emrakul's I'm going to go postal) to take advantage of the mana reduction. I do look forward to seeing what people come up with.
Very different than Adaptive Automaton. Automaton can hit the battlefield last and pump your guys, this has to be in play already to have any effect on your other creatures. This of course does leave counters behind if you manage to get any though which is nice.
Whir of Invention- a "fixed"ish Chord of Calling for artifacts could be rather absurd in standard depending on what else is coming, and is definitely worth exploring in modern. It is more restrictive in CC than Fabricate due to the triple blue and the inability to break it up into two payments, but instant speed and
convokeimprovise makes for one hell of a tutor. If nothing else, this is an instant staple for EDH.Decommission- I would lament that our Disenchant costs 3 mana, but revolt is basically morbid on steroids (which I'm surprised noone has seemed to jump on yet), so this prolly falls somewhere close to Appetite for the Unnatural or an instant speed Terashi's Grasp, both playable but unexciting sideboard cards.
Silkweaver Elite is interesting. It likely costs one too much for constructed play, but it could be another elvish visionary for rally decks if that's something they are into.
Sweatworks Brawler is likely too slow to matter in standard, but it is yet another card worth thinking about for affinity in modern. As often as that deck activates their Mox Opals on turn 1, this could easily be a turn 1 3/3. There is likely a build out there that would utilize it well.
Sram, Senior Edificer is a hell of a bear. Bone Saw and Cathar's Shield are both in standard along with Paradoxical Outcome and Aetherflux Reservoir so there is yet another avenue to try and take those two cards.
Sram's Expertise- Holy @#$@#$@# a cycle of these? Can't wait to see the rest, and their associated legends (especially Yahenni) I suppose this one is pretty bad with Restore Balance and Living End, but I could see a list that aims to cast this then drop a Bitterblossom or Intangible Virtue. Even just dropping down 3 tokens and then a removal spell seems pretty solid most of the time. It is interesting how bad this can be if your opponent's followup is Yahenni's Expertise plus answer to your free spell.
Not exactly, If you have the energy, you must pay the energy as templated so you can't just use it as an energy charger.
It is still a 3/4 on turn 2 if you have double untapped green sources and this in your opener.
T1: elephant, bounce it
T2: elephant, bounce it, replay elephant.
That's not much of a hoop to jump through. Alternately, with no energy in your pool it is a 3/4 for GGG which while not particularly good is still sized well for current standards swaths of 2/3s and 3/2s.
Another scenario when your energy pool is dry is to use this as a card that reads G: crew target vehicle, gain 1 energy.
Can also use this as a 1 mana creature to sacrifice with the trigger on the stack if we get a good sac outlet and enough reason to want to build around zulaport cutthroat
Well, since start your engines makes your dreadnaughts 9/11s I'm thinking the deck should be called "Inside Job".
Well, last we heard of Vraska, Ral Zarek tracked her planeswalking off of Ravnica with no destination which could jive.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/very-arena-2016-10-12
If only we could redeem our skyship stalker promos for these treasure packs.
More like design space for 4 color cards is extremely limited and difficult to create without feeling like it's phoned in (kinda like that stupid angel). I am completely unsurprised that there is only one 4 color general per deck, but I really expected better than what they presented us with. Hopefully the rest of them don't just follow the formula of "combat ability (or flash) from each color plus keyword ability found in 3 of the 4 colors (and the 5th color) or keyword appropriate for use on artifacts", or whatever their paint by numbers scheme is.
I really dislike the partner mechanic as well. It's the same terrible vein of ideas as planeswalkers that you can use as commanders. "HEY GUYS!!! Check out this way that we are changing the rules of your format for cards from this set!!!" is not a cool gimmick imo.