It's gonna be like this for quite a bit, WoTC has found that making creature centric blocks garner the biggest audience, so for the foreseeable future, Magic will be creature centric.
I played a Green White Angelic Accord deck. I never put Angelic Accord into my deck because I never got enough enablers, but I mention it because I drafted a Brindle Boar over a Rootwalla in hopes of getting there. My deck was pretty good, I had 3 Pacifisms, a Serra Angel, and a Path of Bravery. I ended up taking the Pacifisms over synergistic cards (3 predatory slivers) which I sorta regreted latter on.
I ended up drawing Path of Bravery every game of every match and it let me just attack every turn because it wins every race. So I won all my matches in a fairly boring manner.
I think the card is actually very good, but its build around card and I don't think the rest of BG are strong enough to support it. Maybe a BUG control deck, but that seems just worse than the Esper version since they already have Planar Cleansing.
Actually, no you're not. There are cards that depend on graveyard order (like Death Spark), so you are not allowed to just re-order your graveyard any way you want.
Granted, I don't think any of those cards are in Standard at the moment, but that doesn't change the fact that you aren't supposed to shuffle your graveyard.
In formats without cards that care about graveyard order, you can order your graveyard however you want.
I feel like they could of made a cooler mythic anthem. This one is pretty eh. I think it will a fair bit of play because many decks could use a good anthem effect. It's mechanic is also pretty deep, and does several things at once (Protects you from wraths, gives a dude haste if it's off the top, makes wraths onesided, etc)
Honestly, I like spike mythics sometimes. We really don't get very many of them, and it's sweet to see how they can push the limits in the game in various ways. I wish Development could design top down better though because many of their cards are obviously theirs.
But yeah, this card is good and will see play. It's second ability is pretty hard to understand on exactly how good it will be.
If your deck can't take advantage of a flood of extra, colored mana at the cost of a 4cmc, 4 color counterspell, you're deck isn't optimal. Period.
If you have 4 mana you should probably trying to kill the table that turn or the next, really at 4 mana you have better things to be doing rather than trying to counter a spell.
First of all, the card is still unconfirmed, so we don't know what exactly it does. Second, AFAIK, no one is complaining because of the cost, but because it's Auto-Include #237 in the last couple of blocks, in a disturbing trend to up the ante in Commander.
I don't understand how this ups the ante in Commander; it doesn't seem good enough to play in optimal decks. I think what you're trying to say is that it is above the power curve in your specific play group. I don't know how WotC can stop printing good cards because they'll be more available than old cards so some playgroups will have a power increase. I agree that this card will negatively impact groups at a midish power level, but the cold reality is that power levels arms race will happen in those groups eventually without a conscious effort to stop them. If you truly think this card is too powerful for your playgroup, talk to the person playing it and have them stop.
I think I'd first try to make the deck with Crypt Ghast before this dude. His effect is obviously powerful, but he needs what are essentially broken enablers that I doubt they'll print.
To be fair the ban list does have a bunch of unfair fair cards. I don't even know why this thread still exists because the reasons behind the ban list are not apparent to the average Magic, the Gathering player, and discussions in this thread are usually circular and nonsensical.
I really wish the Rules Council or someone knowledgeable would post a good article on the reasoning and purpose of the EDH banlist. (This probably already exists, and I'm probably just clueless).
I think the first thing you need to do is figure out what power level you are trying to target your deck at. A lot of very powerful card draw in EDH is legal at fairly low monetary prices. I would caution against putting in too much card draw, and playing more spells that interact with your opponents (creatures, interesting permanents, reactionary spells). That said I've often found Tidings hits the sweet spot for a deck.
I can see how the new Mana Drain is pretty obnoxious, since the old one isn't played because of card availability. But meh, it's not the end of the world, goodstuff decks are barely ever fun to play against or with anyway, and WotC can't stop printing good cards because of it.
The new clone is seriously fine; it's not better than any of the current options as far as I can tell. If people want to stuff their decks with clones that's their choice.
Meh, I'd rather play Stolen Identity over the new Clone, you get the second copy sooner, and you can use the copies to kill legendary creatures to kill legendary creatures. Ya, you have to hit someone, but it's a multi player game someone is bound to be open.
Mana drain is good even if it costs +2 more, I think it's fine... I mean you can play regular Mana Drain in EDH.
Well, Merciless Eviction is already around. Also, this card is sweet, I want to make an EDH deck with it. In standard it should be pretty good too.
I ended up drawing Path of Bravery every game of every match and it let me just attack every turn because it wins every race. So I won all my matches in a fairly boring manner.
In formats without cards that care about graveyard order, you can order your graveyard however you want.
If you want something with a high powerlevel you're talking about cards like Ancient Tomb, the card disadvantage Moxs Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond, maybe Temple of the False God
White has some cool ones like Serra Sanctum and Knight of the White Orchid.
But yeah, this card is good and will see play. It's second ability is pretty hard to understand on exactly how good it will be.
If you have 4 mana you should probably trying to kill the table that turn or the next, really at 4 mana you have better things to be doing rather than trying to counter a spell.
I don't understand how this ups the ante in Commander; it doesn't seem good enough to play in optimal decks. I think what you're trying to say is that it is above the power curve in your specific play group. I don't know how WotC can stop printing good cards because they'll be more available than old cards so some playgroups will have a power increase. I agree that this card will negatively impact groups at a midish power level, but the cold reality is that power levels arms race will happen in those groups eventually without a conscious effort to stop them. If you truly think this card is too powerful for your playgroup, talk to the person playing it and have them stop.
I really wish the Rules Council or someone knowledgeable would post a good article on the reasoning and purpose of the EDH banlist. (This probably already exists, and I'm probably just clueless).
The new clone is seriously fine; it's not better than any of the current options as far as I can tell. If people want to stuff their decks with clones that's their choice.
Mana drain is good even if it costs +2 more, I think it's fine... I mean you can play regular Mana Drain in EDH.