We finally get a modal DFC that can enter the battlefield untapped, and all it's asking is to Bolt ourselves. The other side is two 4/4 flyers that grant indestructible to everyone else, which makes for a decent finisher spell in Limited.
7 mana for that effect doesnt seem reasonable, or even mythic. Having the option to play it as a land instead is... well it shouldnt weaken the other mode, and if you NEED the land youre behind and that 3 damage is going to hurt. The life payment also doesnt feel white at all.
I dont know, so far this set feels extremely mediocre. Too many ideas with poor execution.
Slap some fetchlands in as box toppers, itll sell. We dont need effort.
Hmm. So at 7 mana you're never going to be able to combine its grant of indestructability with a wrath, and at sorcery it's never defensive in that respect. So really it allows your other dudes to swing in for an unbothered attack, while giving two 4/4s back to block. I dunno, I kinda like Unbreakable Formation for that.
I wonder if white weenie in standard wants 3 or 4 of these?
If you’re the aggro deck a bolt or two to the face doesn’t matter much and these mean you can basically play four less lands in your deck. Sure these will just be worse plains 90% of the time, but when you flood in 1 in every 10 games or so, this card means that four of your lands aren’t dead draws. Also casting it allows you to swing in without being afraid of blockers and it gives you two 4/4s to help defend. Then your opponent faces a hard decision, do they let you untap with two 4/4 fliers or do they try to survive another turn and save their board wipe until they can kill everything?
Why? Couldn't this just give every creature you control indestructible? 7 Mana is the same as playing Entreat the Angels for x=2 without Miracle. Well the card provides indestructible until your next turn which could be good in commander but it is really expensive.
Seems extremely weak at mythic in multiple formats. We knew they were dialing back the power level, but it seems dialed WAY back so far.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
This seems acceptable for standard/arena and draft, but white keeps getting these clunky angel producers in its parts of cycles. I already didn't like it when it came to Empyrial Storm, but at least that one scales with the commander and can be built around more easily.
This can easily slot into a land slot without slowing you down and the life payment is negligible in commander both with higher starting life and white's natural incidental lifegain such that this can give you a small bit of flood protection late in the game when you topdeck it. But two 4/4 angels are nearly irrelevant in the larger scheme of what happens commander.
As an instant it could have protected creatures from a board wipe and created surprise blockers/attackers without having to tap out.
As a cheaper spell that scaled with opponents, it could have been more efficient in a format where white already has trouble ramping.
Having the basic type plains, it could have had synergy with the original Emeria.
It feels crazy that the green uncommon Recover land feels more usable/useful than this mythic despite this ostensibly slotting into decks with less disruption. As a land slot, you can't even get it back with Sun Titan or enable other non-basic lands that are checking for basics / basic types.
And coming from Empyrial Storm, I remain frustrated that white gets these clunky 4/4 tokens when the blue one copied artifacts, the red one copied spells, and the green one was effectively a polymorph. I want my cards to do interesting things.
But yes. I'm sure that standard / arena players will be able to use 8 power for 7 from a land slot just fine.
Lands with proper titles that aren't legendary are one of my biggest pet peeves in the game. I am not a fan of these DFCs (or DFCs in general, honestly), so this is just a big fail for me all around.
Could be pretty deece in Commander. 7 mana is obviously a lot, but "indestructible until your next turn" is a powerful way to protect your board, ensuring that if any player decides to Wrath, you will come out on top. 3 life is also not a huge deal in Commander, so realistically this is borderline just a Plains with upside in many decks.
Other than Commander, though, I think the "non-Angels" clause kinda kills it. Because of that clause, I simply can't think of any deck that could slot this on a 1v1. If the protection clause applied to the Angels, yeah, it would be a very versatile card that you can cash in lategame to put 8 power on board and ensure you can untap with it, while still having a hefty triple-white cost to balance it out. As-is, even with the low opportunity cost of it also filling a land slot, I think I'd still rather play something like Mystic Sanctuary or Castle Ardenvale.
Lands with proper titles that aren't legendary are one of my biggest pet peeves in the game. I am not a fan of these DFCs (or DFCs in general, honestly), so this is just a big fail for me all around.
They claim its the rules baggage of the supertype Legendary that makes things messy but I don't think that argument holds up. If there was a keyword Unique with no rules meaning and lands like this had it..that would be, literally, meaningless. I have no idea who would think that makes the situation better.
Lands with proper titles that aren't legendary are one of my biggest pet peeves in the game. I am not a fan of these DFCs (or DFCs in general, honestly), so this is just a big fail for me all around.
They claim its the rules baggage of the supertype Legendary that makes things messy but I don't think that argument holds up. If there was a keyword Unique with no rules meaning and lands like this had it..that would be, literally, meaningless. I have no idea who would think that makes the situation better.
Yeah, and balancing legendary lands has not always been a thing they've done, so I get it. I think it's stupid and lazy, but on some level I do get it. My feeling is don't name these lands like they're a legendary location if it's not a legendary card. When it started back in Ravnica 1.0, I did not like it and nothing has changed in the intervening 15 years.
This set is just shockingly underwhelming thus far. I know it’s only day two and there’s a lot left to be spoiled, but it’s a bit alarming.
The party mechanic seems to asking a lot for little return, the dfc taplands are cute but severely underpowered, and the only landfall and kicker stuff we’ve seen so far is pretty generic.
This feels oddly like a mix of the intentional depowering of Mercadian Masques and the overall mechanical whiff that was Battle for Zendikar.
The lands could all have a more interesting way to make them untapped.
This could be "reveal an Angel" and make it untapped.
And the spell needed to be an X spell, or one with kicker to get multiple tokens.
Its just a very very basic kind of card that does not feel mythic rare.
----
The fact they dont put any untap mechanics on the common / uncommon and not even the rare versions of this double faced cards is a very problematic indicator for me how they want to push mythic rare cards to be somehow more meaningful in constructed especially ; and that is as FORCED as it gets.
I dislike that a lot.
The entire mechanic also feels terrible in paper form.
I hate to flip cards, in sleeves its a pain.
a proper solution is to print proxy cards of the backside and just put them inside the sleeves instead of flipping the card inside ; the entire point of sleeves is to protect a card, not put in out and back in again all the time.
My feeling is that people are under-estimating the value of having a spell/land. Anything that let you cheat on land count is good, and these are not a dinky 1/3 and let you play untapped when needed.
My feeling is that people are under-estimating the value of having a spell/land. Anything that let you cheat on land count is good, and these are not a dinky 1/3 and let you play untapped when needed.
Its basically land-cycling for 0 mana to get the land.
So it is powerful to have that flexibility.
And these cards would be absolutely amazing if the spells would also be reasonable cards on their own.
But the spells are terrible and the land has to off-set that, so i have a very hard time to see any of these see play (fringe niche cases aside, something will be "somehow" useful for sure).
My feeling is that people are under-estimating the value of having a spell/land. Anything that let you cheat on land count is good, and these are not a dinky 1/3 and let you play untapped when needed.
You may very well be right. The issue for me (and I think maybe a lot of people) is that it's a mythic rare that isn't actually very good but is somehow also playable because it has a fail-case of being a land. It occupies a weird spot in deckbuildng headspace. But the spell half is overpriced for what it does and the land half is boring, smushing that together might make a playable card but not a flashy or exciting mythic - despite the first half attempting to be that.
The entire mechanic also feels terrible in paper form.
I hate to flip cards, in sleeves its a pain.
a proper solution is to print proxy cards of the backside and just put them inside the sleeves instead of flipping the card inside ; the entire point of sleeves is to protect a card, not put in out and back in again all the time.
As a commander player, this cycle (I assume it's a cycle) seems like an absolute no-brainer for mono-color decks in the same way that the castle cycle from Eldraine was a no-brainer. If a land has the ability to enter untapped and add colored mana and has additional upside (even a tiny one), there's little reason not to use it in place of a basic land in most cases.
Seeing as the castles themselves are still hovering around the $1-2 mark, I hope that these things settle around $7-9 as mythics as I kind of doubt that they are good for too much outside of Limited/Mono-color Commander (though a black one may find a place with death's shadow if the spell half is even halfway affordable)
Please, mill me. Mill my important cards. Mill my lands. Mill it all. Because I will still deal 20 damage before you can mill 45 cards most every time.
My feeling is that people are under-estimating the value of having a spell/land. Anything that let you cheat on land count is good, and these are not a dinky 1/3 and let you play untapped when needed.
I definitely agree with you that people are underevaluating DFCs, but as I said above, I'm not sure where this card fits. Aggro? If your lategame fail-safe is a 7 mana spell, reconsider your life choices. Control? Okay, but the indestructible clause is useless and now you're playing a terrible land against Aggro just to maybe possibly get two Angels after you already stabilized. Ramp? You have Uro, Ugin and flexible X spells, you're not exactly looking for ways to dump your mana. Midrange? That would be my best bet, if currently W wasn't a terrible color for it and if it wasn't being crushed under the heel of Ramp.
So even if this card is better than it first seems - which I do agree it probably is - I still don't think it'll see play because I can't think of any deck where it's good.
I feel like U/W control style decks wouldn't mind a W producing land that can come in untapped if you need to that can also be a win condition. Not saying that these split land cards are on the same level as the companion mechanic, but I feel like a lot of people are underrating them for a similar reason...having free (or semi-free) access to extra spells over your opponent is really powerful. Even if you only cast the spell every once in a while, the opportunity cost of playing some CitP tapped lands is low in quite a few decks
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
We finally get a modal DFC that can enter the battlefield untapped, and all it's asking is to Bolt ourselves. The other side is two 4/4 flyers that grant indestructible to everyone else, which makes for a decent finisher spell in Limited.
Source: Luis Salvatto
Check out my Youtube channel where I upload MTG content videos twice a week!
Mtg Lifestyle
7 mana for that effect doesnt seem reasonable, or even mythic. Having the option to play it as a land instead is... well it shouldnt weaken the other mode, and if you NEED the land youre behind and that 3 damage is going to hurt. The life payment also doesnt feel white at all.
I dont know, so far this set feels extremely mediocre. Too many ideas with poor execution.
Slap some fetchlands in as box toppers, itll sell. We dont need effort.
Oh but this is also a land sometimes. Sure.
If you’re the aggro deck a bolt or two to the face doesn’t matter much and these mean you can basically play four less lands in your deck. Sure these will just be worse plains 90% of the time, but when you flood in 1 in every 10 games or so, this card means that four of your lands aren’t dead draws. Also casting it allows you to swing in without being afraid of blockers and it gives you two 4/4s to help defend. Then your opponent faces a hard decision, do they let you untap with two 4/4 fliers or do they try to survive another turn and save their board wipe until they can kill everything?
Seems extremely weak at mythic in multiple formats. We knew they were dialing back the power level, but it seems dialed WAY back so far.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
This can easily slot into a land slot without slowing you down and the life payment is negligible in commander both with higher starting life and white's natural incidental lifegain such that this can give you a small bit of flood protection late in the game when you topdeck it. But two 4/4 angels are nearly irrelevant in the larger scheme of what happens commander.
As an instant it could have protected creatures from a board wipe and created surprise blockers/attackers without having to tap out.
As a cheaper spell that scaled with opponents, it could have been more efficient in a format where white already has trouble ramping.
Having the basic type plains, it could have had synergy with the original Emeria.
I would have rather seen expensive versions of Ghostway, Second Sunrise, or Breath of Life in this slot.
It feels crazy that the green uncommon Recover land feels more usable/useful than this mythic despite this ostensibly slotting into decks with less disruption. As a land slot, you can't even get it back with Sun Titan or enable other non-basic lands that are checking for basics / basic types.
And coming from Empyrial Storm, I remain frustrated that white gets these clunky 4/4 tokens when the blue one copied artifacts, the red one copied spells, and the green one was effectively a polymorph. I want my cards to do interesting things.
But yes. I'm sure that standard / arena players will be able to use 8 power for 7 from a land slot just fine.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Other than Commander, though, I think the "non-Angels" clause kinda kills it. Because of that clause, I simply can't think of any deck that could slot this on a 1v1. If the protection clause applied to the Angels, yeah, it would be a very versatile card that you can cash in lategame to put 8 power on board and ensure you can untap with it, while still having a hefty triple-white cost to balance it out. As-is, even with the low opportunity cost of it also filling a land slot, I think I'd still rather play something like Mystic Sanctuary or Castle Ardenvale.
They claim its the rules baggage of the supertype Legendary that makes things messy but I don't think that argument holds up. If there was a keyword Unique with no rules meaning and lands like this had it..that would be, literally, meaningless. I have no idea who would think that makes the situation better.
Yeah, and balancing legendary lands has not always been a thing they've done, so I get it. I think it's stupid and lazy, but on some level I do get it. My feeling is don't name these lands like they're a legendary location if it's not a legendary card. When it started back in Ravnica 1.0, I did not like it and nothing has changed in the intervening 15 years.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
it's just a shame that all of them are citp tapped lands instead of having some kind of interesting utility option
The party mechanic seems to asking a lot for little return, the dfc taplands are cute but severely underpowered, and the only landfall and kicker stuff we’ve seen so far is pretty generic.
This feels oddly like a mix of the intentional depowering of Mercadian Masques and the overall mechanical whiff that was Battle for Zendikar.
This could be "reveal an Angel" and make it untapped.
And the spell needed to be an X spell, or one with kicker to get multiple tokens.
Its just a very very basic kind of card that does not feel mythic rare.
----
The fact they dont put any untap mechanics on the common / uncommon and not even the rare versions of this double faced cards is a very problematic indicator for me how they want to push mythic rare cards to be somehow more meaningful in constructed especially ; and that is as FORCED as it gets.
I dislike that a lot.
The entire mechanic also feels terrible in paper form.
I hate to flip cards, in sleeves its a pain.
a proper solution is to print proxy cards of the backside and just put them inside the sleeves instead of flipping the card inside ; the entire point of sleeves is to protect a card, not put in out and back in again all the time.
----
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
you can only use one side your gonna stick with the land side most of the time even in commander
Its basically land-cycling for 0 mana to get the land.
So it is powerful to have that flexibility.
And these cards would be absolutely amazing if the spells would also be reasonable cards on their own.
But the spells are terrible and the land has to off-set that, so i have a very hard time to see any of these see play (fringe niche cases aside, something will be "somehow" useful for sure).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
You may very well be right. The issue for me (and I think maybe a lot of people) is that it's a mythic rare that isn't actually very good but is somehow also playable because it has a fail-case of being a land. It occupies a weird spot in deckbuildng headspace. But the spell half is overpriced for what it does and the land half is boring, smushing that together might make a playable card but not a flashy or exciting mythic - despite the first half attempting to be that.
agree it's not a friendly design
Looks like Zendikar without Eldrazi still has the low powerlevel of Battle for Zendikar... ... ...
Hope that the Party mechanic saves the day.
Maybe the only good spell/land is the Mana tide that ramp (as broken as it looks).
Seeing as the castles themselves are still hovering around the $1-2 mark, I hope that these things settle around $7-9 as mythics as I kind of doubt that they are good for too much outside of Limited/Mono-color Commander (though a black one may find a place with death's shadow if the spell half is even halfway affordable)
So even if this card is better than it first seems - which I do agree it probably is - I still don't think it'll see play because I can't think of any deck where it's good.