MTG Salvation

Quote from Dechs Kaison

Not possible. You put the fate counter on the Eye, then you only lose what you have to sacrifice to cast anyway.

If you want to destroy something you have to sac it, in which case you can be dogpiled. Think of it as a Choice of Damnations type effect and you see what i'm trying to say. Yes you don't HAVE to sac it but then you've already sunk 4 mana and a card into the effect...

I think the card is better than it seems if you read it as ":6mana:, :symtap:, sac: bring the OP player back down to your level"

Eye of Doom
Artifact- Rare
ETB everyone puts a fate counter on a nonland permanent
:2mana:, :symtap:: Destroy everything with a fate counter on it

It's like an anti-O-Stone. Sweet. A sneaky way to let red and black destroy enchantments, and green, creatures. It's really good if one person is running away with the game but really bad if that person is you... I like it and I hope they print more creative answer cards like this. It definitely challenges the color pie but not in a real stupid way like Beast Within and such... you could lose a lot more than you stand to gain by casting this!

Also pretty hilarious with Triad of the Fates, for more janky fun there

EDIT: I see the spoiler xml is a little slow... this card was spoiled yesterday??

Also Doubling Season part 3? The symmetrical version cometh. I wonder how many are worth running in decks that want this effect until at some point you're better off tutoring for one...

Baleful Force: Love that they're completing this cycle. Seems pretty awesome even if no one really will take it seriously, it's still a fun, bomby card.

Curse of Chaos: CURSES ARE BACK! I LOVE some of the curses we have already. Marking a player for death is a fantastic multiplayer mechanic. I hope we see at least a cycle of these. Looting on every attack seems pretty solid and I could see this going pretty nuts with goblins and any red token deck as a way to fly through your deck to find that Decree of Annihilation you otherwise have a hard time tutoring for.

Bane of Progress: I think a fair number of us have been expecting a card like this to be printed and here it is: ETB artifact/enchantment-ageddon. Blinkable and reuseable and really doubles down on green's intensely focused commitment to creatures. It seems cool now but I have a feeling this card will eventually cause more complaints than good feelings. I would have liked a trigger this good to have been a "cast" trigger that couldn't keep the board locked down as easily (or at least you have to bounce it). I expect a noticeable uptick in Torpor Orb usage as this guy is adopted into the player base.

Gahiij, Honored One: Cool legendary beast. Kinda funny that you can play it and Gisela in the same deck. Pretty gross with some tokens and overall just a nice way to encourage players to attack other players instead of you. Ultimately a good fit in the 99 of another token deck but maybe not the best general.

Neukzar, the Mindrazer: Don't get how zombies get to damage you for drawing cards (or how vampires can cast instants and sorceries when attacking) but whatever, this guy is awesome. Make everyone draw and kill them while doing it? SEEMS GOOD. There's tons of ways to handcycle in the colors and take advantage of it with stuff like Geth's Grimoire. I smell a Windfall reprint in this set. Also awesome in the 99 right alongside guys like Psychosis Crawler. I'm certain I will build this guy in the future. I feel like 5 is a little steep but that's probably because I think the Howling Mine effect is a bit unnecessary.

These spoilers are gettting *really* good. I'm totally hooked now for the rest.

Esper dude is awesome! Gain life, grind em down... so much pillowfort/stax shenanigans. And yet another funky command zone interaction. Well of Lost Dreams never felt so good!

Too bad that foil is almost certainly an oversized one

Bird Wizard? SEEMS GOOD

Tapping down opponents lands is pretty silly. Actually the first card I thought of when I saw our new Bird Wizard overlard was Edric! Drop this T3 with a couple weenies and tap down their lands... suddenly you have a pretty damn oppressive 1v1 general. I don't normally make proclamations like this so early but I would not be the least bit surprised if six months to a year down the road if this card sees a 1v1 ban.

It's a lot more balanced in multiplayer of course, but even then there are Stasis/Static Orb/Winter Orb shenanigans to happen there to keep the game under control. I'm a little bummed that this card is basically uncounterable with no general tax for an extra because I like being able to interact with my opponents' cards... but it's kind of a cool idea and the potential for future cards to reference the Command Zone is pretty exciting.

Another Echo Mage snuck its way in there. Meletis Charlatan. 2U, 2U/tap to allow a spell's controller to copy it. Only works on your own spells though (effectively)?? What's up with that? Seems pretty good with Training Grounds though which is something Echo Mage is a bit limited with.

New Colossus is pretty dope. Lots of flavor there. I won't feel nearly as bad dying to this as I do Blightsteel.

Burnished Hart is solid colorless ramp. A better Armilliary Sphere that is a creature. Seems ill with Sun Titan.

Horizon Chimera + Well of Lost Dreams = :1mana:: draw a card and gain a life. That's a cool card for sure.

Really surprised how many red common and uncommon spells are just an extra to scry 1. It seems kind of lazy to me.

Labyrinth Champion seems like the only guy with Heroic I would care about at all. Shocking for 2 every time you pump is sweet. I guess I'm looking forward to playing him in limited...

Prescient Chimera is pretty cool, scrying 1 every time you cast an instant or sorcery. Too bad it's just a 3/2 flyer for 5 otherwise. Again, another silly good limited card that is intriguing but the effect isn't really there in Commander.

Breaching Hippocamp is yet another Pestermite for Kiki-Jiki.

Evangel of Heliod could easily make 6 or more 1/1s on ETB. that has to have some value with Reveillark, right?

Not too much exciting revealed tonight but I do love me some more Echo Mage in my life so that's cool. Limited should be awesome for sure. Commander got some goodies but mostly if you aren't in mono-color your choices are pretty limited due to the lackluster implementation of bestow, monstrous and heroic for this 40-life format.

Quote from GFireflyE

An excellent review of the set, to-date.

So far, Purphoros would be the only card I get from this set...

Hammer of Purphoros?

Power creep is real and it's holding us back. I am thrilled with these legendary creatures that are less obvious power generals. We don't need more competition with The Mimeoplasm, Azusa, Prosh on the way in a couple months and such. We have enough oppressive, overtly powerful commanders who are remarkable for strong linear play and nothing else. I MUCH prefer more commmanders that you have to put a little work into to see them shine. More flavor. More tribal shenanigans. Less autodecks (build themselves). Lower CMCs for more reliable presence. More style! I would take one Triad of the Fates before ten Proshes.

Bravo so far, Theros guys. Keep up the good work and don't give in to creep when you can help it.

(I would have given the fates 1WB but whatever)

@Dirk Ruric Thar sucked? Really? Sounds pretty harsh to me. That guy dishes the pain, certainly moreso than Trostani.

Quote from acidfreeze

That blink ability feels like it should be on a U/W creature, since those are the blink colors. It's not as blatantly off as Daxos's ability, which I still think should've been on a U/B creature, but it still seems weird to me. As far as I can remember, the only W/B blink is the Ghost Council's self blink.

Blink is firmly in white's color pie. See Cloudshift, Sudden Disappearance, etc. just because blue can also do it doesn't mean commander blink needs to be on those colors.

The flavor of this card is amazing! You put a fate counter on something and literally spend white mana to save them or black mana to exile them to the underworld. It had to be WB to pull that off and it's one of my favorite designed cards in the set for these reasons.

FUN new general. Bringing something totally different to Orzhov. I love it. Untap it with Puppet Strings and it's actually not bad!

Quote from cryogen

He can counter enchantment creatures, which is relevant this block.

Technically yes but for general EDH usage that's not going come up that often unless you are metagaming against the God cards. I did say it was a different animal in-block.

Swan song cannot counter creatures, artifacts or planeswalkers. Negate for 1 more at least picks up everything but creatures, and it doesn't give them a 2/2 either.

This is a really intriguing card in block but it just doesn't counter enough in my opinion to make it worth the reduced cost. And you better hope they don't have a sword to strap to the flier.

Whip is better than it looks for this format. At least, a lot better than the other weapons. Lifelink adds up fast if you have ways to turn it into cards (how can black possibly do that?) and the reanimate ability is really good value if for some reason you are wanting to recast your dudes.

I do love that Wizards was VERY specific about preventing abuse of the card with such a wordy finger-wagging "exile it INSTEAD OF putting it anywhere else". It's like a mother telling her kids not to cheat when they're the banker in Monopoly. We weren't supposed to be able to do with with Unearth and we did it anyway so this is their "times infinity anything you say" comeback. Can't beat it.

Red devotion burner seems hilarious. Don't like that it asks you to have a big board already before it can be useful but red has been getting more looting effects lately so that will be less and less of a problem in the future.

Horsey is funny as hell. Death by Dragons- Trojan Horse edition.

Quote from FieryBalrog

I'm in the same boat. I was hoping for, at a bare minimum, an Enchantress effect. Even at 4 or 5 mana. I mean, that is pretty much the most iconic interaction with enchantments... and EDH decks can only play four proper enchantress effects, so even a 5 mana version would be welcomed. Pfeh.

We have like 130 cards to go. An enchantress effect would not be surprising, even at uncommon. Also we have the entire block for want of these things, not just the opening set... so let's reserve judgment for a little bit, shall we?

If you want to complain about Bestow cards, which are generally underpowered as a vanilla creature and overcosted as an aura, then that's understandable. But we haven't seen all the enchantments or mythics yet.

I will play the **** out of that new FoF variant.

Ok it's a "worse" FoF. FoF sets the bar so high that comment means almost nothing. It's the best draw spell ever behind Ancestral Recall. The fact that this comparison can even be made should tell you something.

This card is harder to use. If you want a specific card, and your opponent knows you want it too, it's going to be hard to get that card. The real skill comes in when you make the piles to play mind games with them. If they think you want a wrath, and you already have the wrath in hand, you can go 4 cards in one pile and wrath in the other, they give you the four cards, then you reveal your own wrath and laugh. And if any of those cards have flashback? You get those too! It is going to be tougher to get in your opponents' heads than with FoF since ultimately they make the final call, but it is still beastly to play and at instant speed to boot. Not to mention you can have player C give you the answer pile to player B's threat? Ridiculous.

By the way the Truth or Tale comparisons are silly, and stop making them. You only get to keep one card in that case so you can't really manipulate the pile size to your advantage. This is a totally new animal.

This card will see a ton of play and I will be a part of that for sure. Easily my favorite new card from this set!

Also the fancy praetor's grasp that lets you cast their off-color spells with your mana? Awesome. Between that and Daxon I really like the conscious change to the wording that gets around Commander color identity issues. This is what I was hoping for when Wizards committed more to design with Commander in mind.