As some have mentioned on the MtG Reddit, these three gods have story implications, in that each one exists to fulfill a different part of Nicol Bolas's plan for Amonkhet, and this plan informs their ability design. The Scorpion God, as shown in the most recent story article, exists to kill the current gods of Amonkhet: thus its effect pertains to -1/-1 counters, which can kill indestructible creatures. The Locust God is meant to destroy the Hekma (maintained by Kefnet): thus its effect pertains to drawing cards. Lastly, the Scarab God is meant to turn to people and corpses of Nakhtamun into Eternaals: thus its effect basically Eternalizes things without specifically having the keyword.
It's like Sedris without red, with zombie synergy and can steal opponent's dead creatures while denying them. Go in zombie, mills, and reanimation deck, can be all three.
Good God (pun intended), this is what I wanted out of the Gods. Seriously, I want to make an EDH deck for the Scarab and Locust Gods so bad right now! Wizards really made up for the Amonkhet Gods.
1. The 1st ability is nonsense.
2. The last ability is still clunky nonsense.
3. The only interesting this on him is that he gives creatures in your graveyard Eternalize 2UB. Or would, but doesn't, because why use the keyword for the keyword effect?
These designs are painful. Slaps in the face to Gods. Slaps in the face to naming conventions. Slaps in the fact to good design.
Ok, I just seem to look at the command zone clause in a rather differt way: If a card looks good as a commander and also works around the extra cost, that just makes the card even more feasible as a commmander in my eyes. (Was that even a correct english sentence? Not a native speaker... '^^)
Also, I like how this guy essentially eternalizes creatures without using the key word.
That's a fine way of looking at it - you're seeing it as a way to subvert the extra cost, which is okay. I'm seeing the extra-cost as a reasonable mode of payment for "invulnerability" of being a Commander and since the card is already invulnerable in a large way, I feel like it takes away from that specialty (since it doesn't really utilize the Command Zone once it's out, effectively making the Command Zone a failsafe for graveyard-hate at best).But it's not wrong to not rely on the Command Zone that much (in fact, it's probably better in many aspects).
Plus, for this card in particular... I play Grimgrin as my UB Zombie/Clone Commander and I do have ways to subvert the cost as well... if I was playing Gisa and Geralf I would heavily consider replacing them with Scarab though.
Is it just me or is this one the best of the trio by far?
The scorpion's triggered ability is decent but not great. The locust's is very strong especially when built around, but I think the scarab is slightly better (once again, especially if you build around it).
But the activated abilities for the other gods are so overcosted. 3 mana for single -1/-1 counter? Terrible. 4 mana to loot one card? Even worse. But four mana to create a 4/4 token with the best set of abilities from any creature in any graveyard, plus it lets you scry 1 and drain 1 at your upkeep and potentially have other tribal synergies... that's soooo much better.
As for stats, the scorpion is a 6/5 for five, which is very efficient. The locust is a 4/4 flyer for six, but the evasion is relevant. The scarab is the worst in this category but still a 5/5 for five with amazing other abilities so it can be forgiven.
Another thing I love about this card: Dimir colors but it's not mill! Honestly, the flexibility and potential in this cards is amazing! I cna't wait to pre-order it!
I have no interest in it for Modern or EDH (not saying it's not good in EDH, I just don't care to play it) but I am very happy to see it.
1) IT IS NOT MILL!!!! PRAISE BOLAS!!!
2) UB are the colors of the actual control cards, this is as close as they have really come to reflecting that
3) IT'S NOT MILL!!!!
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
As some have mentioned on the MtG Reddit, these three gods have story implications, in that each one exists to fulfill a different part of Nicol Bolas's plan for Amonkhet, and this plan informs their ability design. The Scorpion God, as shown in the most recent story article, exists to kill the current gods of Amonkhet: thus its effect pertains to -1/-1 counters, which can kill indestructible creatures. The Locust God is meant to destroy the Hekma (maintained by Kefnet): thus its effect pertains to drawing cards. Lastly, the Scarab God is meant to turn to people and corpses of Nakhtamun into Eternaals: thus its effect basically Eternalizes things without specifically having the keyword.
The Locus God is a flavor fail, they even notice this in the article for it.
It cannot destroy the enchantment and the 1/1 tokens are even explicitly terrible against the prevent 1 damage from the Hekma.
Its terrible, especially as they knew about it.
They just hope people dont care (and most wont, but for flavor its as terrible as you can design a card as it completely misses the story function it should have).
That's a fine way of looking at it - you're seeing it as a way to subvert the extra cost, which is okay. I'm seeing the extra-cost as a reasonable mode of payment for "invulnerability" of being a Commander and since the card is already invulnerable in a large way, I feel like it takes away from that specialty (since it doesn't really utilize the Command Zone once it's out, effectively making the Command Zone a failsafe for graveyard-hate at best).But it's not wrong to not rely on the Command Zone that much (in fact, it's probably better in many aspects).
Plus, for this card in particular... I play Grimgrin as my UB Zombie/Clone Commander and I do have ways to subvert the cost as well... if I was playing Gisa and Geralf I would heavily consider replacing them with Scarab though.
Yeah, being unable to benefit from Rooftop Storm with this as a commander bugged me for a moment there, by the way. However, that might a) balance out how he works around the command zone and b) be worked around easier by scrying into a Conspiracy with his first ability.
Don't forget that there's going to be a functional reprint of Conspiracy in Ixalan - except it only costs 2U. Play both of them and you can double your chances of assembling the combo.
I think I'm in love... He's just so good in EDH and there are a ton of ways to build around him. Zombie tribal? Check. Clone stuff with stupid effects? Check. Steal things from your opponents? Check. He and Lazav will be besties!
The gods kind of lend themselves to particular strategies, albeit they do enable themselves it seems not great to run them too far outside their synergies.
The Scarab God outside a Zombie Deck? Might be good, if you can fill yours or the enemy graveyard with good creatures. I could see myself bringing back something as simple as a Gifted Aetherborn for some value
This card is incredible, draining your opponent every turn and getting rid of awful draws, even if it is just one or two, is great, even without the rest of the card. Then you have the ability to steal creatures from your opponents graveyard and make, most likely, better versions of them. Finally add on recursive and a 5/5 body. In a control shell this looks amazing and in EDH it looks fun. You can almost always get at least a drain+scry 1 by activating it at end of turn, making sure your draw isn't completely terrible, and you've got a 4/4, with possibly an ETB effect you get value from, and a 5/5 to swing with.
Even if your opponent is also playing control you can potentially steal their Torrential Gearhulk in response to their counter flashing back a counter of your own, and if it's another Gearhulk you countered you get to do it again. This thing is amazing, works great in zombie EDH, either as the Commander or in the 99, or even just for fun in some U/B steal/clone deck. It works great in Standard as a control finisher and might even make U/B zombies a thing. Just sitting there and draining for 1-3 every turn is great, scrying for 1-3 is even better, and stealing the stuff you kill in the colors best suited to do it is even better. Will it show up in Modern? Doubtful, but it's still a fun card.
I don't say this often, but this is an all star, and I can easily see this in Standard.
1. The 1st ability is nonsense.
2. The last ability is still clunky nonsense.
3. The only interesting this on him is that he gives creatures in your graveyard Eternalize 2UB. Or would, but doesn't, because why use the keyword for the keyword effect?
These designs are painful. Slaps in the face to Gods. Slaps in the face to naming conventions. Slaps in the fact to good design.
Why? WHY?
1. Why is draining them and scrying nonsense?
2. You know you can steal your opponents creatures, right? That's why it doesn't give them all Eternalize.
3. Recursion is great.
That's a fine way of looking at it - you're seeing it as a way to subvert the extra cost, which is okay. I'm seeing the extra-cost as a reasonable mode of payment for "invulnerability" of being a Commander and since the card is already invulnerable in a large way, I feel like it takes away from that specialty (since it doesn't really utilize the Command Zone once it's out, effectively making the Command Zone a failsafe for graveyard-hate at best).But it's not wrong to not rely on the Command Zone that much (in fact, it's probably better in many aspects).
Plus, for this card in particular... I play Grimgrin as my UB Zombie/Clone Commander and I do have ways to subvert the cost as well... if I was playing Gisa and Geralf I would heavily consider replacing them with Scarab though.
Yeah, being unable to benefit from Rooftop Storm with this as a commander bugged me for a moment there, by the way. However, that might a) balance out how he works around the command zone and b) be worked around easier by scrying into a Conspiracy with his first ability.
Don't forget that there's going to be a functional reprint of Conspiracy in Ixalan - except it only costs 2U. Play both of them and you can double your chances of assembling the combo.
It's not quite functionally the same. Conspiracy overwrites the original creature types, while the Ixalan one adds to them.
We need more Zombie Commanders. There isn't enough variety. This one is very geared toward mass tokens, and control. Something you don't see in most of them.
I'm trying to find room for it in Gisa & Geralf, my deck's purpose is definitely to use my graveyard and re-cast from there. I am more of a solid tribal whereas this would lead you to an army but not much care about their overall abilities. Scarab God will probably use Endless Ranks/Lili the Last Hope/Cemetery Reaper/Cryptbreaker/Lich Lord of Unx/Conspiracy to do most of its dirty work. But it really wants to get in play and start making copies, not sit back and cast a bunch of zombie creatures.
I keep trying to pre-order this but no one has it up yet.
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Wanted -Zombie Foils and older expensive Zombie stuff. High Priority- Beta Z Master/ Int. Collector's Edition.
1. The 1st ability is nonsense.
2. The last ability is still clunky nonsense.
3. The only interesting this on him is that he gives creatures in your graveyard Eternalize 2UB. Or would, but doesn't, because why use the keyword for the keyword effect?
These designs are painful. Slaps in the face to Gods. Slaps in the face to naming conventions. Slaps in the fact to good design.
Why? WHY?
So how would you have designed this guy then?
Also, regarding their naming scheme, they have the names they do because no-one knows what their names actually are. Rhonas remembered what The Scorpion God used to be as he was dying, but Rhonas never told anyone what its name was.
So the purpose of The Locust God is to destroy the Hekma, the purpose of The Scarab God is to command the Eternals, and the purpose of The Scorpion God is to kill the remaining five gods?
Neat!
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Another amazing God ! All of them are perfectly suited for a longer, grindy Control game. + Bolas in this very Deck.
Very strange though that this Gawd has a static ability, opposed to the others. But this can scale so absurdly, or do nothing.
Obviously its activated ability stands out the most in terms of power.
Super-pleased with this cycle that i even turn sides from Selesnya (always in me) to Grixis Control for trial.
Mayne how crazy itd be if we now surprisingly get a Selesnya God to rebalance the power & fight back d:)
The Scarab God is nothing like I predicted,
but it's one of the coolest UB commanders ever printed! The Mimeoplasm will be auditioning this one for sure!
(side note: I would guess this means Zombies are out for C17)
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Mayne how crazy itd be if we now surprisingly get a Selesnya God to rebalance the power & fight back d:)
As crazy as that would be, I doubt that would happen as these are in Grixis colors specifically because of Bolas, and there are only 8 Gods in the story.
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Very similar to a certain group of 3 titans, one that devours the physical (exiling and -1/-1 counters remove indestructible), one who warps physics/magic (both draw cards) and one who was supposed to rebirth life, but warps life instead if the first titan wasn't around to do his job (Both require a stocked graveyard to be optimal).
I love the corrupted Gods.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
2. The last ability is still clunky nonsense.
3. The only interesting this on him is that he gives creatures in your graveyard Eternalize 2UB. Or would, but doesn't, because why use the keyword for the keyword effect?
These designs are painful. Slaps in the face to Gods. Slaps in the face to naming conventions. Slaps in the fact to good design.
Why? WHY?
That's a fine way of looking at it - you're seeing it as a way to subvert the extra cost, which is okay. I'm seeing the extra-cost as a reasonable mode of payment for "invulnerability" of being a Commander and since the card is already invulnerable in a large way, I feel like it takes away from that specialty (since it doesn't really utilize the Command Zone once it's out, effectively making the Command Zone a failsafe for graveyard-hate at best).But it's not wrong to not rely on the Command Zone that much (in fact, it's probably better in many aspects).
Plus, for this card in particular... I play Grimgrin as my UB Zombie/Clone Commander and I do have ways to subvert the cost as well... if I was playing Gisa and Geralf I would heavily consider replacing them with Scarab though.
The scorpion's triggered ability is decent but not great. The locust's is very strong especially when built around, but I think the scarab is slightly better (once again, especially if you build around it).
But the activated abilities for the other gods are so overcosted. 3 mana for single -1/-1 counter? Terrible. 4 mana to loot one card? Even worse. But four mana to create a 4/4 token with the best set of abilities from any creature in any graveyard, plus it lets you scry 1 and drain 1 at your upkeep and potentially have other tribal synergies... that's soooo much better.
As for stats, the scorpion is a 6/5 for five, which is very efficient. The locust is a 4/4 flyer for six, but the evasion is relevant. The scarab is the worst in this category but still a 5/5 for five with amazing other abilities so it can be forgiven.
Triggered Ability: Scarab > Locust > Scorpion
Activated Ability: Scarab > Locust > Scorpion
Power/Toughness: Scorpion > Locust > Scarab
Overall: Scarab > Locust > Scorpion
In my opinion, anyway.
I guess it's Geth 2.0. Lost some, gained some.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
I'm very torn between playing Zombies, or playing Bolas now.
1) IT IS NOT MILL!!!! PRAISE BOLAS!!!
2) UB are the colors of the actual control cards, this is as close as they have really come to reflecting that
3) IT'S NOT MILL!!!!
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
The Locus God is a flavor fail, they even notice this in the article for it.
It cannot destroy the enchantment and the 1/1 tokens are even explicitly terrible against the prevent 1 damage from the Hekma.
Its terrible, especially as they knew about it.
They just hope people dont care (and most wont, but for flavor its as terrible as you can design a card as it completely misses the story function it should have).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Don't forget that there's going to be a functional reprint of Conspiracy in Ixalan - except it only costs 2U. Play both of them and you can double your chances of assembling the combo.
The gods kind of lend themselves to particular strategies, albeit they do enable themselves it seems not great to run them too far outside their synergies.
The Scarab God outside a Zombie Deck? Might be good, if you can fill yours or the enemy graveyard with good creatures. I could see myself bringing back something as simple as a Gifted Aetherborn for some value
Even if your opponent is also playing control you can potentially steal their Torrential Gearhulk in response to their counter flashing back a counter of your own, and if it's another Gearhulk you countered you get to do it again. This thing is amazing, works great in zombie EDH, either as the Commander or in the 99, or even just for fun in some U/B steal/clone deck. It works great in Standard as a control finisher and might even make U/B zombies a thing. Just sitting there and draining for 1-3 every turn is great, scrying for 1-3 is even better, and stealing the stuff you kill in the colors best suited to do it is even better. Will it show up in Modern? Doubtful, but it's still a fun card.
I don't say this often, but this is an all star, and I can easily see this in Standard.
1. Why is draining them and scrying nonsense?
2. You know you can steal your opponents creatures, right? That's why it doesn't give them all Eternalize.
3. Recursion is great.
It's not quite functionally the same. Conspiracy overwrites the original creature types, while the Ixalan one adds to them.
I'm trying to find room for it in Gisa & Geralf, my deck's purpose is definitely to use my graveyard and re-cast from there. I am more of a solid tribal whereas this would lead you to an army but not much care about their overall abilities. Scarab God will probably use Endless Ranks/Lili the Last Hope/Cemetery Reaper/Cryptbreaker/Lich Lord of Unx/Conspiracy to do most of its dirty work. But it really wants to get in play and start making copies, not sit back and cast a bunch of zombie creatures.
I keep trying to pre-order this but no one has it up yet.
Selling some cards I don't want.
Generally less than tcg mid.
So how would you have designed this guy then?
Also, regarding their naming scheme, they have the names they do because no-one knows what their names actually are. Rhonas remembered what The Scorpion God used to be as he was dying, but Rhonas never told anyone what its name was.
Neat!
Very strange though that this Gawd has a static ability, opposed to the others. But this can scale so absurdly, or do nothing.
Obviously its activated ability stands out the most in terms of power.
Super-pleased with this cycle that i even turn sides from Selesnya (always in me) to Grixis Control for trial.
Mayne how crazy itd be if we now surprisingly get a Selesnya God to rebalance the power & fight back d:)
The Scarab God is nothing like I predicted,
but it's one of the coolest UB commanders ever printed!
The Mimeoplasm will be auditioning this one for sure!
(side note: I would guess this means Zombies are out for C17)
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
As crazy as that would be, I doubt that would happen as these are in Grixis colors specifically because of Bolas, and there are only 8 Gods in the story.