I wonder how many people would be complaining lullmage mentor if it didn't have the second line it turns all your counterspells in 2-for-1s, helps be aggro-control, like merfolk is suppose to be.
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M10 shows a bit of a different look for merfolk, a creature with finned legs instead of the fish-tail, a creature no longer bound to water. It was a coordinated effort between us and the artists. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor Blocks showed us that, if we were going to do a lot of merfolk all at once, we needed to be able to show them in a large variety of settings—the first few underwater shots were fine, but the riverbank shots, and the wells, and the other methods for showing merfolk interacting with dry-land folk—it got hacky pretty fast, to us. This, plus the conceptual difficulty of imagining fish-people attacking on the same battlefield as minotaurs and elephants and whatnot, was hindering our ability to actually do merfolk in sets. We asked these artists to give us a shot at legged merfolk so that we could show them in a greater variety of settings.
It's funny that the really meh common is the best one in constructed. That merfolk guy really sucks. It just does. Allies aren't gonna be any good. Soul Stair is good in limited. 'nuff said.
And I hope that mefolk stay without tails just for this block. Because who will ACTUALLY live in the sea, now? We're getting furter away from the mountain, swamp, and island flavour. Forest, not so much. Plains, kinda.
The Merfolk needed a Lord ability instead of the counter with 7 dudes garbage. Counter= dude isn't terrible for a control deck though. But Guile is stronger, and he sees zero play, so I don't see control caring about a 2/2 that gets killed by Volcanic Fallout (or that can't fight a Stag 1v1).
And honestly, I think allies are going to be strong if they are all lords that leave counters (or similar). We know that there are quite a few of them in the set... The only downside, that Wizards is wasting space on a set specific theme, so if they suck, they are the new Arcane, or something just as janky.
The Merfolk needed a Lord ability instead of the counter with 7 dudes garbage. Counter= dude isn't terrible for a control deck though. But Guile is stronger, and he sees zero play, so I don't see control caring about a 2/2 that gets killed by Volcanic Fallout (or that can't fight a Stag 1v1).
And honestly, I think allies are going to be strong if they are all lords that leave counters (or similar). We know that there are quite a few of them in the set... The only downside, that Wizards is wasting space on a set specific theme, so if they suck, they are the new Arcane, or something just as janky.
From what we've seen of Allies thus far, I'm optimistic. Without any other Ally support, both Oran-Rief Survivalist and Kazuul Warlord are cost-efficient vanilla beaters. Obviously when you stack a bunch of Ally abilities together, they'll start to go bonkers. The mechanic is a lot like the Morningtide "only after me" Lord creatures (Sage of Fables), but a lot better since it'll be on more of your creatures.
I wonder what else we'll see...I hope that there will be a red ally with "deal 1 damage to target creature or player" at 1R or 2R, that would be awesome.
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A voice for Timmy.
Commander R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
He didn't require to keep them back in order to counter a spell.
Seriously.
That card screams bad design as loud as possible. If I have seven tokens around, I'm not really keeping them from attacking. That's a three turn clock. Unless another merfolk comes around granting vigilance or a "untap all merfolk creatures whenever a spell is played", that is.
That's not called bad design. That's called you don't like the card because it doesn't suit your narrow design philosophy. If wizards only design cards that "win" in the way you describe, the game would be really boring.
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"Wizards could put $100 bills in packs and people would complain about how they were folded." - from Dr Jeebus's Sig
The art for the Warlord is perfect, I don't like all of Kev Walker's work, but when he does something I like, I really like it. So ally cards are in Red and Green so far, does anybody know if Ally will only be 2 colored support?
i could see faeries happening alll over again with merfolk it says negate ur spell and get a free dude that can possibly become another free counterspell and dude that is rediculous especially with sleep as a finisher...
i could see faeries happening alll over again with merfolk it says negate ur spell and get a free dude that can possibly become another free counterspell and dude that is rediculous especially with sleep as a finisher...
Merfolk is already competitive, but A) the bits are rotating out of Standard and Extended is a whole different battlefield, and B) I don't think the deck has room for this. Not that I don't like the card, but I don't think it has it in it to be uber-competitive.
That's not called bad design. That's called you don't like the card because it doesn't suit your narrow design philosophy. If wizards only design cards that "win" in the way you describe, the game would be really boring.
No, it is bad design. It is similar to putting First Strike on an unblockable creature.
Our first thought when we saw this was that together with the above and this, it made a tribe combo which was drafted for Lorwyn but judged to be too obnoxious for Type II.
You can play it in other formats though, because they're not as "serious". You can even think you're clever for building it.
And then you can take your opponent back to school for a good lesson in what a truly dull counter deck is like.
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"My will is my own. I won't bow to fate." - Volrath, Null Profusion
Plot of Dragon's Maze:
Niv-Mizzet plays Realmwright, chooses "Gate". Then a dramatic retelling of the ensuing argument.
Our first thought when we saw this was that together with the above and this, it made a tribe combo which was drafted for Lorwyn but judged to be too obnoxious for Type II.
You can play it in other formats though, because they're not as "serious". You can even think you're clever for building it.
And then you can take your opponent back to school for a good lesson in what a truly dull counter deck is like.
I was thinking about Merrow Commerce as soon as I saw him, too. I imagine a casual Legacy CounterTop merfolk deck with those two and Arcane Laboratory. Maybe a lot to get out, but it would be pretty funny....actually, you could never get that whole thing out in a serious Legacy environment, methinks. Casual, though, would be great.
He didn't require to keep them back in order to Unless another merfolk comes around granting vigilance or a "untap all merfolk creatures whenever a spell is played", that is.
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2U
Enchantment
Creatures don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, untap all creatures.
Lullmage Mentor pretty much sucks. I doubt highly that it will crack any competitive formats. I say this as someone who plays Merfolk in Legacy, so I'm probably prone to judging all Merfolk cards by a pretty high standard. But I don't see him being playable outside of casual.
Hopefully the rest of the Merfs in Zendikar are going to be awesome... I mean, Goblins are getting Warren Instigator, so we Merfolk lovers have to be due some juicy treats too, right?
Lullmage Mentor pretty much sucks. I doubt highly that it will crack any competitive formats. I say this as someone who plays Merfolk in Legacy, so I'm probably prone to judging all Merfolk cards by a pretty high standard. But I don't see him being playable outside of casual.
Hopefully the rest of the Merfs in Zendikar are going to be awesome... I mean, Goblins are getting Warren Instigator, so we Merfolk lovers have to be due some juicy treats too, right?
Merfolk Lackey anyone?!?!? LOL
Anyways, I see Lullmage Mentor with a CounterTop Engine in Legacy. He might make Grimoire Thef playable (which i doubt). If Lullmage Mentor does get play with CounterTop Engine, CounterTop's range might be pushed to 3
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I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
Anyways, I see Lullmage Mentor with a CounterTop Engine in Legacy. He might make Grimoire Thef playable (which i doubt). If Lullmage Mentor does get play with CounterTop Engine, CounterTop's range might be pushed to 3
Merfolk lackey would make me laugh so hard...
And I agree that the Mentor would work well with countertop, I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned that yet.
That's not called bad design. That's called you don't like the card because it doesn't suit your narrow design philosophy. If wizards only design cards that "win" in the way you describe, the game would be really boring.
Thank you.
It's not like merfolk could splash white to grant vigilance or untap by its own card pool. Maybe not in Zen, but our last block full of merfolk was pretty happy to untap itself every spell and every end step.
Allies look like they'll be strong enough. Sure they might be a limited cardpool for a tribal type of theme. But I still play my WRG Samurai in casual and it wins about 3 out of 5. Might not be the strongest out there but flavor and fun should count for something.
Lullmage Mentor may not be great now, but we haven't seen the rest of the block yet... Since M10 had some 'folk and now this, I can't imagine Wizards, in their money-grabbyness as of late, wouldn't print some good solid fishies in the rest of the block (err.. merfolk... there are "fish" in this set.. gah).
T2:
Tempered Steel:symw:
:symr::symu::symw: Birthing Pod:symr::symu::symw:
Legacy:
:symu::symb:
Four Horsemen
:symu::symb:
Thanks to Wrathchild for the Sig, it's perfect!!!
Thanks to Bookworm10 for the Avatar!
This.
M10 shows a bit of a different look for merfolk, a creature with finned legs instead of the fish-tail, a creature no longer bound to water. It was a coordinated effort between us and the artists. Lorwyn and Shadowmoor Blocks showed us that, if we were going to do a lot of merfolk all at once, we needed to be able to show them in a large variety of settings—the first few underwater shots were fine, but the riverbank shots, and the wells, and the other methods for showing merfolk interacting with dry-land folk—it got hacky pretty fast, to us. This, plus the conceptual difficulty of imagining fish-people attacking on the same battlefield as minotaurs and elephants and whatnot, was hindering our ability to actually do merfolk in sets. We asked these artists to give us a shot at legged merfolk so that we could show them in a greater variety of settings.
And I hope that mefolk stay without tails just for this block. Because who will ACTUALLY live in the sea, now? We're getting furter away from the mountain, swamp, and island flavour. Forest, not so much. Plains, kinda.
Draft it on Cubetutor!
And honestly, I think allies are going to be strong if they are all lords that leave counters (or similar). We know that there are quite a few of them in the set... The only downside, that Wizards is wasting space on a set specific theme, so if they suck, they are the new Arcane, or something just as janky.
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From what we've seen of Allies thus far, I'm optimistic. Without any other Ally support, both Oran-Rief Survivalist and Kazuul Warlord are cost-efficient vanilla beaters. Obviously when you stack a bunch of Ally abilities together, they'll start to go bonkers. The mechanic is a lot like the Morningtide "only after me" Lord creatures (Sage of Fables), but a lot better since it'll be on more of your creatures.
I wonder what else we'll see...I hope that there will be a red ally with "deal 1 damage to target creature or player" at 1R or 2R, that would be awesome.
Commander
R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control
GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock
WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
That's not called bad design. That's called you don't like the card because it doesn't suit your narrow design philosophy. If wizards only design cards that "win" in the way you describe, the game would be really boring.
Merfolk is already competitive, but A) the bits are rotating out of Standard and Extended is a whole different battlefield, and B) I don't think the deck has room for this. Not that I don't like the card, but I don't think it has it in it to be uber-competitive.
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UBRTezzUBR
UMono-Blue-ControlU
RUGRiku of Two ReflectionsRUG
No, it is bad design. It is similar to putting First Strike on an unblockable creature.
Is this close enough?
Our first thought when we saw this was that together with the above and this, it made a tribe combo which was drafted for Lorwyn but judged to be too obnoxious for Type II.
You can play it in other formats though, because they're not as "serious". You can even think you're clever for building it.
And then you can take your opponent back to school for a good lesson in what a truly dull counter deck is like.
Plot of Dragon's Maze:
Niv-Mizzet plays Realmwright, chooses "Gate". Then a dramatic retelling of the ensuing argument.
Ajani Goldmane makes it not bad design.
I was thinking about Merrow Commerce as soon as I saw him, too. I imagine a casual Legacy CounterTop merfolk deck with those two and Arcane Laboratory. Maybe a lot to get out, but it would be pretty funny....actually, you could never get that whole thing out in a serious Legacy environment, methinks. Casual, though, would be great.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
It's almost embarrassing how bad it is.
Intruder Alarm
2U
Enchantment
Creatures don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, untap all creatures.
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Hopefully the rest of the Merfs in Zendikar are going to be awesome... I mean, Goblins are getting Warren Instigator, so we Merfolk lovers have to be due some juicy treats too, right?
-Derek Walcott
Merfolk Lackey anyone?!?!? LOL
Anyways, I see Lullmage Mentor with a CounterTop Engine in Legacy. He might make Grimoire Thef playable (which i doubt). If Lullmage Mentor does get play with CounterTop Engine, CounterTop's range might be pushed to 3
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
Merfolk lackey would make me laugh so hard...
And I agree that the Mentor would work well with countertop, I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned that yet.
Thank you.
It's not like merfolk could splash white to grant vigilance or untap by its own card pool. Maybe not in Zen, but our last block full of merfolk was pretty happy to untap itself every spell and every end step.
Allies look like they'll be strong enough. Sure they might be a limited cardpool for a tribal type of theme. But I still play my WRG Samurai in casual and it wins about 3 out of 5. Might not be the strongest out there but flavor and fun should count for something.
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