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.
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.
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.
Love the Crucible reprint. Hate the upshift to mythic. WotC doesn't pay attention to the secondary market though right.
You don't think they do? I believe they exactly looked at the secondary market and wondered how they could make more money, in turn, they need to sell more packs. How do they do this? Put cards like this in at Mythic. It is simple economics. WOTC makes nothing on the secondary market and if they "give" away all the really good cards, they sell less product.
On the flip side, they didn't have to reprint this card at all and that negatively impacts the secondary market in some eyes by having cards continue to go up in price. This move keeps this card from rising and most likely since it isn't new art, will lower the price to a more reasonable level.
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Deylios
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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.
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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.
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You don't think they do? I believe they exactly looked at the secondary market and wondered how they could make more money, in turn, they need to sell more packs. How do they do this? Put cards like this in at Mythic. It is simple economics. WOTC makes nothing on the secondary market and if they "give" away all the really good cards, they sell less product.
On the flip side, they didn't have to reprint this card at all and that negatively impacts the secondary market in some eyes by having cards continue to go up in price. This move keeps this card from rising and most likely since it isn't new art, will lower the price to a more reasonable level.
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Just more Dragon to love.