Agree with OP, albeit maybe not that extreme. The spoiled stuff already looks much more fun to me than Theros block in general, but I doubt they've solved their power issues. They just keep printing things at 1 or 2 mana too much. And I'm not really asking for a ton of overpowered stuff either, just some cards that appear playable outside of standard, specifically Modern. EDH doesn't count.
And to the guy that said Scars was a horrible block...you do remember that's the block that has New Phyrexia right? Scars block ended up with a ton of playables.
Certainly disappointed because Modern feels great right now and Theros Standard has been so boring to me. So I would have loved to see the pros duke it out in the fun format.
That said if Khans is good enough to overtake Theros some in small Standard in a couple of months maybe it'll be alright. Khans has a lot of work to do.
I'd expect it could go as low as the 6-8$ region but probably not any lower. Any lower than 8$ and I'd grab them immediately.
Plenty of comparisons to Thoughtseize, but that has remained expensive because it's an essential card to multiple deck styles, essentially anything touching black. It's also very frequently a 4-of split across main/sideboard.
As strong a card as Chord is in the right deck doesn't have that same flexibility. Card demands you be playing a lot of green and it generally wants a lot of mana.
Cool card. Like a less restrictive but slower Liv Sivvi. Could be good enough for std.
So if someone removes Yisan in response to a first time activation, will you get to search for cmc 1 or 0? Don't know if the trigger remembers the # of counters before removal.
1. No fetchlands.
2. No free spells (example: Gitaxian Probe)
3. No Toughtseize (Duress and its ilk are fine)
Goyf would probably be playable in a format like that, but I doubt it would be a big deal. Heck you can probably drop one of those 3 conditions if you're assured Scavenging Ooze in the format as well.
It's going to take some seriously powerful commons and uncommons getting spoiled for this not to be a high pick in limited. That or the limited is like ZEN and super fast.
Only question is if it's good enough for constructed. And it could be. This and thoughtseize in the same deck makes Quicken look more interesting.
Should be playable. Unfortunately doesn't answer the god stuff as they appear to all be indestructible but there shouldn't be a shortage of other targets. Dodging D-Sphere, chained to the rocks, and every creature that's also an enchantment seems relevant.
Some posters here hit the nail on the head. In the Good Ol' Days, Black did a few things:
1) Discard effects
2) Killed creatures
3) Most powerful effects and creatures, with negative / risky side effects.
4) Ritual
5) Graveyard abuse
Now, Discard has actually not been a whole lot worse. The best discard spells printed in black are still Duress, Thoughtseize, IoK, Hymn to Torach, Mind Twist, and Cabal Therapy, many of which are quite recent. That pillar doesn't get the same VOLUME of love it used to, but Black is still quite good and unique for this effect.
Black has totally lost its monopoly on removal, however. It's removal spells tend to stick with Black's traditional difficulty in generic removal, so its best spells tend to have restrictions (Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, Diabolic Edict). White has the best creature removal suite by far (Swords, Path) and it tends to get oodles of general purpose removal in each set. Also, for historical reasons, White is the color of mass removal. There's no real reason this shouldnt move to Black, but there ya go. Black tends to be a factor in the best removal (Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay) but never alone.
The power creep on creatures probably hurts black the most. As a poster above said, black has totally lost its monopoly on overpowered creatures because other colors get better ones. Phyrexian Negator was astounding in its day. Phyrexian Obliterator saw almost no play.
Ritual effects simply moved to Red wholesale, which makes sense for flavor reasons, but left black without any ramp at all.
Black still gets graveyard abuse, but it depends on the specific cards in the format. Recently all colors got flashback so Black wasnt' unique here.
My recipe for fixing black is, therefore:
1) Don't improve discard effects -- they're fine -- but print more of them at once. Ensure we always have at least two playable 1cc discard spells in standard at once at all times. Or, re-introduce some of the cards forcing a random discard. If they reprinted Hymn to Torach, or even a Hymn that wasn't random, Black would immediately look more attractive.
2) Ensure Black always has at least one very good removal spell with a drawback. Dismember was nice, but should have cost B instead of 1 as its real mana. Murder is a fine start, but it was underpowered. Ashes to Ashes is a great example of a very powerful black removal spell with a drawback.
3) Fix the balance between the power creep of creatures and what Black wants to do. Just go ahead and print a 5/5 for 1BB that costs a point of life each turn as an upkeep cost. If a card costing 1WG can be a 4/4 with an upside, I don't see why this is unreasonable.
Something else you can do is have Black use other resources more aggressively. Life totals are more precious than ever before, since Magic has become much faster than it used to be. Give Black a 6/6 for BBB that requires the owner to either sac a land or exile two cards from a yard as its upkeep or an additional casting cost. They've really tried hard to do exactly this with things like Desecration Demon and Abyssal Persecutor, and kudos to them for that, but Black needs drawbacks that are less black and white, less "terrible / doesn't matter" than these cards.
4) Stop giving other colors access to the graveyard. Take this ability away from Green. It doesn't make sense in green. Green should be the color of natural decay and growth. Give Green "Delve" or a similar ability. Make reanimation or recovering cards EXCLUSIVE to Black.
Excellent post. Agreed wholesale.
We all know it won't happen, but I think a nice potential touch for black could be non-basic land destruction at a not-stupid cmc.
Other potentials could be a doom blade variant that ignores die/leaves play effects.
Black could also be the color that "cares" the most about dedication to it, lets see more spells that reward the player for casting via BBB or BBBB, etc.
Good card, getting slightly overhyped right now.
It's got an mostly irrelevant tribe, and is just a 2/2 in original form so there's no shortage of things that can just block it and people are indeed playing augur. Still of course can take you to value town but that's going to require your opponent playing along.
Oh and NO WAY this should be a mythic. Great example of wizards outright abusing that. It's not like avacyn sold less because they put resto and cavern at rare.
And to the guy that said Scars was a horrible block...you do remember that's the block that has New Phyrexia right? Scars block ended up with a ton of playables.
That said if Khans is good enough to overtake Theros some in small Standard in a couple of months maybe it'll be alright. Khans has a lot of work to do.
Plenty of comparisons to Thoughtseize, but that has remained expensive because it's an essential card to multiple deck styles, essentially anything touching black. It's also very frequently a 4-of split across main/sideboard.
As strong a card as Chord is in the right deck doesn't have that same flexibility. Card demands you be playing a lot of green and it generally wants a lot of mana.
So if someone removes Yisan in response to a first time activation, will you get to search for cmc 1 or 0? Don't know if the trigger remembers the # of counters before removal.
2. No free spells (example: Gitaxian Probe)
3. No Toughtseize (Duress and its ilk are fine)
Goyf would probably be playable in a format like that, but I doubt it would be a big deal. Heck you can probably drop one of those 3 conditions if you're assured Scavenging Ooze in the format as well.
Only question is if it's good enough for constructed. And it could be. This and thoughtseize in the same deck makes Quicken look more interesting.
Excellent post. Agreed wholesale.
We all know it won't happen, but I think a nice potential touch for black could be non-basic land destruction at a not-stupid cmc.
Other potentials could be a doom blade variant that ignores die/leaves play effects.
Black could also be the color that "cares" the most about dedication to it, lets see more spells that reward the player for casting via BBB or BBBB, etc.
It's got an mostly irrelevant tribe, and is just a 2/2 in original form so there's no shortage of things that can just block it and people are indeed playing augur. Still of course can take you to value town but that's going to require your opponent playing along.
Oh and NO WAY this should be a mythic. Great example of wizards outright abusing that. It's not like avacyn sold less because they put resto and cavern at rare.