If you view the library as the planeswalkers bag of tricks, and the ghost can just appear randomly and force you to basically "go mad," it really sings flavorwise.
Also, I'm shocked people are still thinking this card is remotely good in pod decks. Sure, it's a great way to get him out faster... but you can't respond with his ability to Pod's trigger... also you want to be able to use half of the cards you'll end up dumping into the yard... Sure a deck using a Pod don't have to be Pod decks... but it's the best use of that card to have a toolbox... not a "ramp" card for a ghost... throwing Pod in would just snuff up 2-4 slots in a deck that wants to abuse that crazy ability.
I think it's a cool, yet very risky card. It could shuffle into your library and not mill alot, but on the other hand, it could mill >half your deck. To me it feels like Ad Nuaseum in a way. Great for combo decks, but no so much for non-combo ones.
Countermagic is the smell before rain, the sun on the horizon and the chocolate chips in my mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the first time I saw a woman naked and the first time I smelled perfume. It's that feeling you get when you know you're right.
But most of all; it's the feeling of playing Magic
I dislike this card for the same reason I dislike Skabb Ruinator; they have "Vengevine Syndrome".
If I showed this card to someone, and asked them to guess the rarity, most of them would guess Rare. Nothing about this card seems mythic to me. What it seems like is that WotC designed some bonkers Blue self-mill deck that showed promise, so they made all of the components mythic, which is exactly what they said they wouldn't do.
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This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Mark my words, Visions Beyond is going to sky rocket in playability in U/W spirits. Just based off of this and Mindshriker alone, you mill yourself like none other setting up flashbacks along the way and turning on Visions Beyond for card advantage and keeping your creatures alive or buffing their damage.
You want to have a toolbox deck running a guy that mills your tools away every time you activate his ability?
Snapcaster in a deck with 9 instants/sorceries, 3 of which are counters, seems like an absolutely fantastic idea. If you want to lose.
@gcaliber: he isn't legal when Hawk is.
"Yay, I get to be harsh because I'm on the Internet."
It was more of a skeleton list than anything. The point of the deck would be more of using both your deck and your graveyard as your toolbox since you would be able to do recursion with Snapback Mage + Noxious Revival/Visions and run great GY cards like Skaab Ruinator and Boneyard Wurm (a card I forgot) while still having Pod. You wouldn't be trying to do everything all at once with the GY and Pod: you just transition from early Pod shenanigans to a very powerful lategame in Snapcaster Mage, Skaab Ruinator, Boneyard Wurm, and this guy.
It might just suffer from not being able to run enough cards. While I think 9-10 cards for Snapcaster is fine (you will probably have at least one in your opener and milling with the Phantasm will assuredly find more), it might just be too many slots
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"I don't know why people say a double-edged sword is bad. It's a sword. With two edges." - Kamahl, Pit Fighter
I think this is a great card, reminds me of when I first went to disneyland in the haunted mansion when the hobo ghost "hitchhiked" home with us (and everyone else who looked into the mirror on the way out)
Next person to say Sorin is becoming w/b will be teleported to Jin-Gitaxias' labs with a sign saying 'everything usable except for the brain'.
We have been practically told it won't happen. If (and this is an if so large it alters weather patterns) Sorin adds a color, it will likely be red. And even then, hedonism (which seems to be the main argument for) is still black. Self-indulgence is black.
I dislike this card for the same reason I dislike Skabb Ruinator; they have "Vengevine Syndrome".
If I showed this card to someone, and asked them to guess the rarity, most of them would guess Rare. Nothing about this card seems mythic to me. What it seems like is that WotC designed some bonkers Blue self-mill deck that showed promise, so they made all of the components mythic, which is exactly what they said they wouldn't do.
Ya, I'm not exactly sure why Skaab and this are mythic rare, but on the plus side, people seem to be complaining a little less about how this is 'the worst set ever' since Skaab showed up at mythic.
Even though I expect it to plummet in price a few weeks after launch unless a REALLY impressive post rotation pod deck shows up.
Mirror-Mad Phantasm... it certainly calls out for a deck, but I'm not sure exactly what it wants just yet.
I'd say Dredge, but it's far too slow for it.
There's certainly a reason for this card to be, but I just don't think we have all the pieces for it yet. Maybe we'll get an enchantment that deals 1 damage to a 'cursed' player whenever a card from their library is put in their graveyard or something.
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Brian Tinsman, Set Designer :?mana::snow::snow:
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block. "Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
And sure enough minutes later after I question the missing pieces, we get a look at the Lab Maniac...
Glorious.
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Brian Tinsman, Set Designer :?mana::snow::snow:
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block. "Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
if this card were printed in any other block it would not be mythic, but because of the nature of the flavor i wholeheartedly disagree with you.
Flavor seems to be in direct contrast with the "mythic-ness" of this card. What's so mythic about a crazy ghost? Isn't this set full of crazy ghosts? Maybe if he were a legend I could understand, but as is there's nothing that tells me he's any more special than Dearly Departed or Mindshreiker other than he's scared of his own reflection.
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
First off, love the card. Secondly, I can see it's non-mythicness, but it also feels mythic to me. How many creatures flicker like this with an added bonus on top? Feels very unique, although I think you could argue about that for other rares as well.
At any rate, onto the card... it seems pretty powerful to me. A 5 power creature in blue for 5 with evasion that can protect itself for cheap? Sign me up. It reminds me of Morphling in a weird way, except with less mana investment but more downside (which can be turned to upside in the right deck). This is miles ahead of Argent Sphinx, which I had high hopes for.
It will rarely force you to mill your entire deck, and even then, you can run Buried Ruin + Elixir of Immortality to shuffle it back in. I love it alongside Molten-Tail Masticore as well, giving you ammo to end the game quickly. Visions of Beyond is obvious, Mindshrieker seems good, sprinkle in some flashback spells and maybe a Jace, Memory Adept or two and you might just have a mid-range Dredgeish deck already formed. Everything else revealed from this point forward is just icing on the cake.
Will this (or ISD generally) enable some graveyard-based combo deck? Necrotic Ooze and Myr Welder are both cards, and Postmortem Lunge can let you launch a combo piece from the yard to go off.
We lose Khalni Gem to rotation, and various Myr Galvanizer combos seem like they need too many moving parts, but maybe something will come together?
I think this is a great card, reminds me of when I first went to disneyland in the haunted mansion when the hobo ghost "hitchhiked" home with us (and everyone else who looked into the mirror on the way out)
huh.... so i guess slag fiend just got broken wide open?
i knew it would get broken at some point!
haha =D
Suprisingly enough this deck can go off fairly quickly...with proxies I can have a flung 10 point slag fiend and a scrap yard salvo on the 5th-6th turn consistently. I just wish there was a way to make it more like a 4th-5th turn consistently for the competitive scene...
Next person to say Sorin is becoming w/b will be teleported to Jin-Gitaxias' labs with a sign saying 'everything usable except for the brain'.
We have been practically told it won't happen. If (and this is an if so large it alters weather patterns) Sorin adds a color, it will likely be red. And even then, hedonism (which seems to be the main argument for) is still black. Self-indulgence is black.
Suprisingly enough this deck can go off fairly quickly...with proxies I can have a flung 10 point slag fiend and a scrap yard salvo on the 5th-6th turn consistently. I just wish there was a way to make it more like a 4th-5th turn consistently for the competitive scene...
there probably is.
turn 1 birds of paradise is probably the best you can manage. so i guess the deck would be RUG in colour.
fill the deck full of expendable card draw, and go for the phyrexia's core engine with ichor wellspring and mycosinth wellspring.
any artifacts that produce mana or cards are good.solemn simulacrum seems positive.
with enough ramp, you'll be looking at a turn 3-4 phantasm, then it's just a case of milling yourself for a bunch.
Ill be going the pod masty route soon. Adding in ooze for consistency's sake. Lab Guy to win the game. Looks fine to me. Boneyard wurm looks very strong also. Flashback mage as a 4 of to turn my birds into ancestral recalls. Deck looks so strong. Probably going to states with that exact build. All I'm looking for now is a good raise dead effect. If the get 2 guys back black card is the best I can get then it'll have to do.
Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Necrotic Ooze and Laboratory Maniac.
Nice. I like that it lets you go off with a freshly-cast Ooze, or activate the shuffle in response to an Ooze tap that would make you draw. I've been noodling around with a Jace's Archivist/Necrotic Ooze deck for a bit; here's a rough aggro-combo build:
It seemed like it was better to just step on the gas with the Ruinators rather than try to pack in protection for the combo. If you can't put on enough pressure to make your opponent tap out, though, you'd need counters and Spellskites so they don't just kill your Maniac and laugh as you mill yourself.
My other list ran Aether Adept, who is a house with Archivist, but here the 3-spot is too crowded. It would be nice to have a better recurring 2-drop than Reassembling Skeleton now that we're losing Bloodghast.
Is it better to run a singleton Mirror-Mad Phantasm and rely on tutoring for it, or run more and try to Surgical Extraction yourself in response to activating the Ooze? 5cc is hard to pod into, you might be able to go off sooner if you just plan on drawing into one and pitching it to Looter, Archivist, or even Civilized Scholar. Snapcaser Mage for redundancy on the Surgicals?
Nice list. Maybe a one or two of frost Titan? Need to sac that mirror mad guy. Also helps lock them out of a color to possibly prevent removal or counters.
Frost titan is a good idea. If you went that route you'd definitely want 2, since it doesn't do anyone any good to have him in the bin, and you wind up tossing a lot of your deck in there.
Remember too that if you pod into Phantasm instead of drawing and pitching him, you can sac him to Pod and fail to find. Maybe a creature with a sac outlet ability would work too.
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My MP Decks:
BKorlashB
WGSuperfriendsGW
GRBTorrent of SoulsBRG
UWDeath CannonWU
WUBRG5 Color AllyGRBUW
WUBMaster TransmuterBUW
Also, I'm shocked people are still thinking this card is remotely good in pod decks. Sure, it's a great way to get him out faster... but you can't respond with his ability to Pod's trigger... also you want to be able to use half of the cards you'll end up dumping into the yard... Sure a deck using a Pod don't have to be Pod decks... but it's the best use of that card to have a toolbox... not a "ramp" card for a ghost... throwing Pod in would just snuff up 2-4 slots in a deck that wants to abuse that crazy ability.
If I showed this card to someone, and asked them to guess the rarity, most of them would guess Rare. Nothing about this card seems mythic to me. What it seems like is that WotC designed some bonkers Blue self-mill deck that showed promise, so they made all of the components mythic, which is exactly what they said they wouldn't do.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
I'm starting to like this set more and more.
"Yay, I get to be harsh because I'm on the Internet."
It was more of a skeleton list than anything. The point of the deck would be more of using both your deck and your graveyard as your toolbox since you would be able to do recursion with Snapback Mage + Noxious Revival/Visions and run great GY cards like Skaab Ruinator and Boneyard Wurm (a card I forgot) while still having Pod. You wouldn't be trying to do everything all at once with the GY and Pod: you just transition from early Pod shenanigans to a very powerful lategame in Snapcaster Mage, Skaab Ruinator, Boneyard Wurm, and this guy.
It might just suffer from not being able to run enough cards. While I think 9-10 cards for Snapcaster is fine (you will probably have at least one in your opener and milling with the Phantasm will assuredly find more), it might just be too many slots
Ya, I'm not exactly sure why Skaab and this are mythic rare, but on the plus side, people seem to be complaining a little less about how this is 'the worst set ever' since Skaab showed up at mythic.
Even though I expect it to plummet in price a few weeks after launch unless a REALLY impressive post rotation pod deck shows up.
Mirror-Mad Phantasm... it certainly calls out for a deck, but I'm not sure exactly what it wants just yet.
I'd say Dredge, but it's far too slow for it.
There's certainly a reason for this card to be, but I just don't think we have all the pieces for it yet. Maybe we'll get an enchantment that deals 1 damage to a 'cursed' player whenever a card from their library is put in their graveyard or something.
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block.
"Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
if this card were printed in any other block it would not be mythic, but because of the nature of the flavor i wholeheartedly disagree with you.
Glorious.
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block.
"Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
Flavor seems to be in direct contrast with the "mythic-ness" of this card. What's so mythic about a crazy ghost? Isn't this set full of crazy ghosts? Maybe if he were a legend I could understand, but as is there's nothing that tells me he's any more special than Dearly Departed or Mindshreiker other than he's scared of his own reflection.
BTW I love this card, just not the "mythic" part.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
At any rate, onto the card... it seems pretty powerful to me. A 5 power creature in blue for 5 with evasion that can protect itself for cheap? Sign me up. It reminds me of Morphling in a weird way, except with less mana investment but more downside (which can be turned to upside in the right deck). This is miles ahead of Argent Sphinx, which I had high hopes for.
It will rarely force you to mill your entire deck, and even then, you can run Buried Ruin + Elixir of Immortality to shuffle it back in. I love it alongside Molten-Tail Masticore as well, giving you ammo to end the game quickly. Visions of Beyond is obvious, Mindshrieker seems good, sprinkle in some flashback spells and maybe a Jace, Memory Adept or two and you might just have a mid-range Dredgeish deck already formed. Everything else revealed from this point forward is just icing on the cake.
We lose Khalni Gem to rotation, and various Myr Galvanizer combos seem like they need too many moving parts, but maybe something will come together?
huh.... so i guess slag fiend just got broken wide open?
i knew it would get broken at some point!
haha =D
Suprisingly enough this deck can go off fairly quickly...with proxies I can have a flung 10 point slag fiend and a scrap yard salvo on the 5th-6th turn consistently. I just wish there was a way to make it more like a 4th-5th turn consistently for the competitive scene...
there probably is.
turn 1 birds of paradise is probably the best you can manage. so i guess the deck would be RUG in colour.
fill the deck full of expendable card draw, and go for the phyrexia's core engine with ichor wellspring and mycosinth wellspring.
any artifacts that produce mana or cards are good.solemn simulacrum seems positive.
with enough ramp, you'll be looking at a turn 3-4 phantasm, then it's just a case of milling yourself for a bunch.
outside of standard it gets a lot easier and more powerful.
ranger of eos fetches your slag fiend as well as goblin buswhacker for haste.
then it's just a case of having a bunch of awesome artifacts in your deck. maybe a mesmeric orb is the way forward.
Nice. I like that it lets you go off with a freshly-cast Ooze, or activate the shuffle in response to an Ooze tap that would make you draw. I've been noodling around with a Jace's Archivist/Necrotic Ooze deck for a bit; here's a rough aggro-combo build:
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Deranged Assistant
4 Skaab Ruinator
4 Jace's Archivist
4 Laboratory Maniac
3 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
24 Land
It seemed like it was better to just step on the gas with the Ruinators rather than try to pack in protection for the combo. If you can't put on enough pressure to make your opponent tap out, though, you'd need counters and Spellskites so they don't just kill your Maniac and laugh as you mill yourself.
My other list ran Aether Adept, who is a house with Archivist, but here the 3-spot is too crowded. It would be nice to have a better recurring 2-drop than Reassembling Skeleton now that we're losing Bloodghast.
Is it better to run a singleton Mirror-Mad Phantasm and rely on tutoring for it, or run more and try to Surgical Extraction yourself in response to activating the Ooze? 5cc is hard to pod into, you might be able to go off sooner if you just plan on drawing into one and pitching it to Looter, Archivist, or even Civilized Scholar. Snapcaser Mage for redundancy on the Surgicals?
Remember too that if you pod into Phantasm instead of drawing and pitching him, you can sac him to Pod and fail to find. Maybe a creature with a sac outlet ability would work too.