Why would WotC care about "upsetting" certain die-hard modern fans?, they can still play modern with Goyf all the want. Collectors no longer care if it is printed in yet another set (I know I don't). If anything, this will make some printings more valuable as people will want to play their favorite version in standard. Remember, Goyf was once a standard legal card before and it wasn't the end all be all.
The story that will be used will be tied to the current set of cards. Do you honestly believe Hasbro and WotC would not take an opportunity to help sell more product and get more young adults involved with the game? For those of you that have read the Book you might imagine a story that follows more in detail what happened up to and including the War that was written in the novel. These companies are not looking to please some old fans of story lines of the past that only helps Netflix's bottom line, they want to tie in the series to current product releases in order to drive more sales.
What's with all the sacrifice effects in this set?
With all the sacrifice happening, (assuming Liliana is about to do the same) it makes sense from a story that we are about to have our own version of Magic the Snappening.
Now that they have sold nearly 6k of these sets at 250 a piece. This is roughly 1.5 million dollars. Does anyone think they will ever offer these types of promos in boxes again? I know I sure don't.
For those that are saying his Ultimate is meh... I don't know what world you live in, but getting a 4/4 creature at the end of my turn and a 4/4 creature at the end of your turn means that I have 2 4/4 creatures to attack with on each of my turns. Add Viven into the mix and creatures are just going to be flying out of this deck.
So you run it in decks where your deck was built to profit from a symmetrical boardwipe. Like, say, Afterlife. Or Undying.
But very few of those decks would prefer to blow up their whole board over just keeping the creatures and swinging in with them... And if you are introducing undying, you are now looking at formats that have Wrath of God/Day of Judgment/Supreme Verdict/Terminus.... and this card doesnt come close to those cards in power...
A card is not typically designed with other formats in mind. If it good in Modern or Legacy, then that is just a bonus. This card will see play in standard in the obvious Orzhov control or Esper control decks. The land makes this viable. You probably aren't wanting to cast this one on curve per say. I see it more of lets jam up the board with little guys early. Wipe the board then proceed to play win cons and go into spot removal. All things Esper or Ozhov do very well.
Wish this was 2 mana rather than 3. At 3 mana it does not seem quite impactful enough. But we shall see
Then again I am glad they did not churn out another extremely pushed 3 mana walker like Liliana of the Veil
If you are on the play and it is turn 3, you can remove a loaded up Tony Hawk from the board, it totally destroys Golgari mid range decks. At 3 mana it is just fine. I think this card will see some play in Esper control main board as it deals with Izzet drakes Jumpstart mechanic as well. The fact it messes with 2 of the main decks in the format I would expect a 1 or 2 of include in your Orzhov or Esper decks. Her neg one is very bleh, so I'm not going to comment on that, but having some graveyard hate is pretty nice.
Yes that might be, but from my experience, that will not always happen in Jeskai, as you will not have the chance to curve out in every game - either the mana don't work or your spells. And most UW Decks will for sure like to play some colorless utility lands I think, and then Sabatoge clearly becomes much better. It's not just all about the optimal settings. You can clearly have double blue on turn 3 and double white on turn 2. But you will not always be in that place and if you can't cast your Counterspell and your wrath, that's really bad.
With Hallowed fountain and the buddy lands, 1 white on turn 3 is not as difficult as you think is. In Jeskai you will have 16 "dual" lands that have white in them along with any basic white you might be playing. There is less of a concern about hitting 1 white than before. Just from a UW perspective 1 white even with todays mana base isn't difficult as most of your higher cmc spells have double white to cast so you have to tailor your mana base to be able to cast those on curve. Jeskai already is playing Clairon which has white in in and is casting it on turn 3.
I think this card is really overrated from players, that don't like playing against Teferi and Control.
As said above: Sinister Sabotage is much better - if you have played with Dissolve or Sabatoge, you will know. And with this Casting Cost (which is really hard on Turn 3 sometimes), I can't see it beeing played over Sabatoge and which decks wants more than 4 Cancels? And the life may be relevant in some minore situations, but 3 life is not that much, if you see all the creatures nowadays. When Renewed Faith was reprinted, many thought it would be as good as it was in the past, but 2 life are not that good against the decks from today. And the same is true for Absorb, which was for sure good when it was first printed, but now we have better Cancels and mostly 3 life will not safe you one more turn.
And when I see, that it might be good against Aggro - I mostly board out all my expensive countermagic, as you need much cheaper interaction and what will you counter with this on Turn 3? I can't see this really seeing any major play in Standard - and in older formats, no one will play 3 mana Counterspells, even the 2 mana ones are mostly bad.
So on turn 3 it is too difficult to have 1 white mana, but on turns 4 and 5 you expect to have 2 for either Settle the Wreckage or Cleansing Nova in a control deck? I play almost exclusively blue white control and Absorb is going to be a 4 of with Sabotage being dropped to 2 or pulled completely.
Countering someones lightning strike and making it a 6 point life swing to my favor is pretty sweet.
Honestly I don't think this will see any play. The only reason Ionize sees play is because 1UR is easier to cast in some mana bases than Sinister Sabotage's 1UU. Absorb not only is harder to cast than Sabotage, the extra effect is generally speaking weaker. You're only playing Absorb after you've already put in a full playset of Sabatoges and frankly not even hard core control decks need that many Cancels. Might as well run some cheaper or alternatively useful counters at that point (Disdainful Stroke, Syncopate, Spell Pierce, ect...).
In Standard it is much better than Sinister Sabotage as the life gain on turn 3 will get you to your 4th and 5th turns to sweep the board against any agro deck. Then the Teferi train kicks in and "all aboard".
We also get Hallowed Fountains, making casting this much easier as well. Blue White decks got the card it needed to fend off all the agro and burn that is going on.
It looks like there hasn't been much movement in this thread, but I figured I would share what I have done so far:
I called their phone line (1-800-408-0052) and got the message that they could not take my call due to high call volume.
I emailed CustomerService@HasbroToyShop.com and have received no response.
I attempted to open a Chat on their shop.hasbro.com website but they have disabled it.
At this point, I expect that the negative response and the complaints they are receiving are legitimately overwhelming them to the point where they can't do anything else. I don't think it is a willful ignorance of the issues but, without their communication, it is hard to tell.
I ended up finding Hasbro's Consumer Care phone line on Google which was different than the one above as the number above is for the Toy Shop specifically and the one I called is a more general number. I called 1-800-255-5516. This time I was finally able to get through to a person after about 10 minutes on hold. She told me that my order was voided and that nothing happened with it. She offered to submit a new order for me for 1 unit instead of the 2 I ordered. I asked her what this means for the other person I ordered one for since they stopped trying to submit an order once mine was successful. She said they were SOL.
The next issue came about when trying to submit the new order. Since it is a new order, they needed my credit card info which I provided. But, the charge was declined because I still had a pending charge from Hasbro for the original $549. There was no mention of when this charge would be released. I ended up using my debit card.
At the end of it, it appears that I now have a successful order for 1 unit instead of 2 like I ordered. It still does not show up on my account online, so I am not totally positive that things are going through.
Also, since I was upset mostly at the situation and what led to it more than not getting my full order, I emailed Brian Goldner, the CEO of Hasbro. I got the email off Google so I am not even sure it is the right email address, but it was cathartic to at least vent about the situation. If it does go to the right person, at least that is something. I fully expect it to be ignored so it isn't really something that I expected to achieve anything beyond me voicing my complaints.
I just tried the number you posted for the Hasbro Customer Care line and it is now closed. At this point I would love to know if I am getting 1, 2 or none of the ones I order and got an order number for.
I initially thought my order went through, but after checking the order history, it doesn't exist nor does the charge on my card. I too have an order number and confirmation that my sets should ship today 10/3/2018.
I tried to call customer service to see what was up, and was greeted with a message that there are too many calls and that I would have to call back later.
I'm vexed at the archaic back end of Hasbro's site and that their phone systems can't handle call backs or a serious number of callers.
Deylios
Deylios
With all the sacrifice happening, (assuming Liliana is about to do the same) it makes sense from a story that we are about to have our own version of Magic the Snappening.
A card is not typically designed with other formats in mind. If it good in Modern or Legacy, then that is just a bonus. This card will see play in standard in the obvious Orzhov control or Esper control decks. The land makes this viable. You probably aren't wanting to cast this one on curve per say. I see it more of lets jam up the board with little guys early. Wipe the board then proceed to play win cons and go into spot removal. All things Esper or Ozhov do very well.
If you are on the play and it is turn 3, you can remove a loaded up Tony Hawk from the board, it totally destroys Golgari mid range decks. At 3 mana it is just fine. I think this card will see some play in Esper control main board as it deals with Izzet drakes Jumpstart mechanic as well. The fact it messes with 2 of the main decks in the format I would expect a 1 or 2 of include in your Orzhov or Esper decks. Her neg one is very bleh, so I'm not going to comment on that, but having some graveyard hate is pretty nice.
With Hallowed fountain and the buddy lands, 1 white on turn 3 is not as difficult as you think is. In Jeskai you will have 16 "dual" lands that have white in them along with any basic white you might be playing. There is less of a concern about hitting 1 white than before. Just from a UW perspective 1 white even with todays mana base isn't difficult as most of your higher cmc spells have double white to cast so you have to tailor your mana base to be able to cast those on curve. Jeskai already is playing Clairon which has white in in and is casting it on turn 3.
So on turn 3 it is too difficult to have 1 white mana, but on turns 4 and 5 you expect to have 2 for either Settle the Wreckage or Cleansing Nova in a control deck? I play almost exclusively blue white control and Absorb is going to be a 4 of with Sabotage being dropped to 2 or pulled completely.
Countering someones lightning strike and making it a 6 point life swing to my favor is pretty sweet.
In Standard it is much better than Sinister Sabotage as the life gain on turn 3 will get you to your 4th and 5th turns to sweep the board against any agro deck. Then the Teferi train kicks in and "all aboard".
We also get Hallowed Fountains, making casting this much easier as well. Blue White decks got the card it needed to fend off all the agro and burn that is going on.
I just tried the number you posted for the Hasbro Customer Care line and it is now closed. At this point I would love to know if I am getting 1, 2 or none of the ones I order and got an order number for.
Deylios
I tried to call customer service to see what was up, and was greeted with a message that there are too many calls and that I would have to call back later.
I'm vexed at the archaic back end of Hasbro's site and that their phone systems can't handle call backs or a serious number of callers.
Ah well, if it was meant to be it will.