Doesn't make it less terrible. It's like calling Nissa just "Vital Force" or Chandra "Torch of Defiance". The only character that should be referred to by title only is The Ineffable, and he's been dead for centuries that this point.
You know the set is going to be insane when people are poo-pooing a 5/4 trample for 4 cms with repeating card advantage and no downside.
Not like this is a new phenomenon. Creatures that need to both survive a turn and get in for combat damage before accruing value tend to be weaker than they look. Like, how often will this card be better than just casting Golgari Findbroker? And how often will it be worse because it dies immediately?
It seems like a pretty "meh" card to me. Good for Limited, obviously, but that's about it.
They’re all in good fun when that’s the desired effect of the interactions... and also not the point since the point is that the issue is the interaction with the cards other people play, not your own two card combos.
And what do you know, a lot of them actually see significant play in EDH already, meaning it is more likely an opponent will have one of these cards in their deck when you play your Lattice.
Come on, man. At least pretend to address the point.
If the issue is, as you said, the unfortunate and unintended interaction with the cards other people play, that issue applies equally -- if not more so -- to Mycosynth Lattice. I listed almost 40 cards that will absolutely destroy a game if played into a Lattice, regardless of who controls it. And a good portion of those cards already see widespread play in EDH. Meaning that even IF YOU play YOUR LATTICE with noble intentions, it is highly likely SOMEONE ELSE at the table will have one of the listed cards and be able to ruin the game on accident. Thus, if that's the reason PS is banned, because of it's unintended game wrecking by the non-PS player using Deathgrip or Iona, Lattice (and by extension, Evening) should be banned as well.
I’ve played Mycosynth Lattice to lock people out and I’ve played against Evening x Aura Thief. They’re all in good fun when that’s the desired effect of the interactions... and also not the point since the point is that the issue is the interaction with the cards other people play, not your own two card combos.
That sure is a lot of cards that interact poorly with Mycosynth Lattice. And what do you know, a lot of them actually see significant play in EDH already, meaning it is more likely an opponent will have one of these cards in their deck when you play your Lattice. As opposed to... Deathgrip? Yes, clearly Painter's Servant is the one that needs to be banned.
Assuming you've built with this in mind, 4 mana isn't terribly borderline. With 28 hits (so less than half the deck), you're looking at a 93% chance of hitting at least one creature, and likely (65%) having some room for selection. If you've built a low to the ground deck, the same 28 hits nets you an 86% chance of hitting on 3. So it's most likely to start hitting on 4, in a deck that's properly built for it. And in those decks, turning extra lands into dude selection is going to be printing money, since it likely doesn't need many lands.
And those are also the decks that can't really afford to be taking turns off to play do-nothing enchantments that won't advance their gameplay until turns later. These are a lot of hoops to jump through to give your 3 or 4 drops flash, and there is a pretty massive downside when you do actually miss and get straight nothing. It's just not worth it, especially while Vivien Reid is still in the format. A green deck looking for a way to keep drawing gas is almost certainly better off just playing her instead. At least in Standard.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Okay then, in Standard, at what cost do you think it's correct to start activating this? 3 seems ambitious. 4 is pretty borderline. 5? Is the plan to play this on 2 and then just wait 3 turns for any payoff? CoCo this is not.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
That's a pretty optimistic reading. Vivien's Arkbow is only good a very specific situation, one in which you have enough mana to cast anything in your deck and are in top-deck mode. That's it.
That card seems fine in Limited but borderline unplayable anywhere else.
On an aesthetic note, the artwork looks great but the frame is extremely distracting to me. I didn't realize it was an artifact at first. The legendary crown thing takes up so much border space and appears to be solid green instead of having the same effect that colored artifacts usually have.
Hybrids actually tend to be more restrictive, because you can't let one color do things that it normally couldn't do. We've seen green deal damage equal to the number of creatures it controls, but never equal to number in the graveyard (that I can remember off the top of my head). This seems ok for Black, especially as they are testing with Black damage right now, but this would be a new addition to Green if it were true outside of a graveyard-centric set.
I mean, sort of. Invert isn't really something you'd see printed as a mono-red card nowadays, though. Despite what they say ("hybrid has to be something either color could do alone") they clearly often play fast and loose with those rules because otherwise hybrid cards would be both boring and quite limited. Not to mention this is a set with 36 Planeswalkers, so having colors slightly step outside their normal pie in order to be able to deal with PWs seems like an exception specifically for this set.
I'm inclined to believe the removal spell is real. Or at least something I wouldn't be surprised to see in the actual set, even if it turns out to be fake.
It seems like a pretty "meh" card to me. Good for Limited, obviously, but that's about it.
If the issue is, as you said, the unfortunate and unintended interaction with the cards other people play, that issue applies equally -- if not more so -- to Mycosynth Lattice. I listed almost 40 cards that will absolutely destroy a game if played into a Lattice, regardless of who controls it. And a good portion of those cards already see widespread play in EDH. Meaning that even IF YOU play YOUR LATTICE with noble intentions, it is highly likely SOMEONE ELSE at the table will have one of the listed cards and be able to ruin the game on accident. Thus, if that's the reason PS is banned, because of it's unintended game wrecking by the non-PS player using Deathgrip or Iona, Lattice (and by extension, Evening) should be banned as well.
- Akroma's Vengeance
- Austere Command
- Bane of Progress
- Cleansing Nova
- Consulate Crackdown
- Creeping Corrosion
- Energy Flux
- Fracturing Gust
- Furnace Dragon
- Hammer Mage
- Hellkite Tyrant
- Hurkyl's Recall
- Kalemne's Captain
- Kataki, War's Wage
- Magus of the Disk
- Merciless Eviction
- Nevinyrral's Disk
- Pulverize
- Purify
- Rampage of the Clans
- Rebuild
- Reduce to Dreams
- Scrap Mastery
- Seeds of Innocence
- Serenity
- Shatterstorm
- Subterranean Tremors
- Void
- Wave of Vitriol
That sure is a lot of cards that interact poorly with Mycosynth Lattice. And what do you know, a lot of them actually see significant play in EDH already, meaning it is more likely an opponent will have one of these cards in their deck when you play your Lattice. As opposed to... Deathgrip? Yes, clearly Painter's Servant is the one that needs to be banned.That card seems fine in Limited but borderline unplayable anywhere else.
On an aesthetic note, the artwork looks great but the frame is extremely distracting to me. I didn't realize it was an artifact at first. The legendary crown thing takes up so much border space and appears to be solid green instead of having the same effect that colored artifacts usually have.
I'm thinking one of the new PLaneswalkers has the Time Stone. I really hope this set ends with an infinite loop of "Bolas, I've come to bargain!"
I'm inclined to believe the removal spell is real. Or at least something I wouldn't be surprised to see in the actual set, even if it turns out to be fake.