MTG Salvation

Quote from orlouge82 »

Quote from ThyLordQ »

Not just full-art, premium full art.

The fact that it's foiling makes me think Full Art lands aren't going to be an Amonkhet booster pack thing. But one can hope!

Standard Showdown also returns May 6, which is actually really cool, but I wish that Wizards would maybe run it concurrently with FNM so that the two events don't compete with one another.

I really doubt that running it the same day as FNM is a good idea, the idea is to get more people playing Standard not just piggy back it onto another tournament. It also makes it harder for casual fans to understand why FNM would have different prizes for a short period of time.

Quote from SonicChaos »

I think the price of the fat packs did get jacked up above MSRP though just because they were in there. The individual prices were still low, so in reality the increase in fat pack prices made no sense. Would love to see them in packs, but who knows. They might be Program only for all we know.

Some LGS did charge more for BFZ fat packs due to the 80 full-art lands they were also more difficult to find in stores like Target because those lands helped sell the fat packs.

Quote from prismatic elf »

Quote from jshrwd »

I hope this means that they will print more color-specific hate.
That was always my favorite part of Magic: off-color hate like Lifebane Zombie, Witchstalker, or even Encase in Ice.

I agree, But I would like to see more global hate cards like Chill, Warmth, and Story circle. Perish, Hibernation would keep green creatures in check and gives A out against hexproof.

While I could see them printing the other color hate cards you specified Chill is just wayyy too strong, take it from someone who plays red decks like once in a blue moon. Chill is ridiculous getting one down on turn 2 just makes red slow down to a crawl and usually by the time they have enough mana to start casting spells again a second chill comes down and all of a sudden shock costs 5 mana.

The biggest problem with the card is red has no way to interact with chill besides trying to play more lands, it's similar to say Light of Day a card that basically just single handily destroyed any aggressive black deck since they had no way to interact with it.

Quote from pulli23 »

Quote from TBuzzsaw »

Quote from Charm_Master3125 »

What deck benefits the most from the bans? UW flash.

Yes they lost reflector mage. It's not an insignificant card to lose. But GB Delirium lost its only true endgame threat, RW CARZ lost its primary tool to push damage through a clogged board, and while Marvel can play ulamog instead, the difference in what it dies to is incredibly significant. UW flash took a minor hit and watched its two worst matchups straight-up VANISH.

Wizards somehow managed to ban 3 oppressive cards and turn a 4-deck format into a 1-deck format. WTG wizards. WTG.

Flash played Copters too.

Well for UW flash both heart of kiran and eathersphere harvester were "stronger" than smuggler's copter, or at least on par.

Heart of Kiran might be close in power level though I would argue it goes in vastly different decks assuming both were legal, but Aethersphere costs 1 more mana and doesn't loot so its a step down despite its 2 extra toughness.

Quote from SpinifexV »

Frankly, it's the same reason we have had Standard Showdown packs: lower Standard attendance. Wizards is a company first and foremost and lower sales and players scare them more than any backlash over bans in standard. They asked the pros and made surveys about how Kaladesh Standard was. The answer was "not fun". Emrakul, the Promised End is not fun to play against; Reflector Mage is not fun to play against. They felt they had to go in order to keep the game fun and interesting. Some may disagree with the changes, others might (despite the value we lose) but they certainly felt pressure to "save" the Standard format.

Smuggler's Copter, on the other hand, is too ubiquitous: every aggro and midrange deck has to play 4. It limits what decks are performing and what removal sees play.

Copter is a really dumb card, when I first saw it I was thinking "Umm why would you make a card that goes into every aggro deck 100% of the time as a 4 since it slots into almost anything with a good number of creatures?" I mean even some of the cards they have claimed were pushed a little too hard like say Snapcaster or 2 mana Jace still did not go into almost every deck of a certain type.

The card also benefited from being almost 100% immune to sorcery speed removal which is just ridiculous. So it's a ridiculously pushed card that has the benefit of dodging a lot of removal since nowadays they don't just make all removal instant speed.

There is a lot of solid fixing in Kaladesh, and we will still see 2 packs of that set in draft. Making a land that taps for every color in the rare slot also adds more, and we have a terramorphic expanse type card with the Renegade Map which fits the theme of the set much better.

I really don't think people will be struggling to make their 3 or maybe even 4 color deck work in draft due to a lack of fixing.

Just to make a point here about Planeswalkers and reprints the only time we ever really had Planeswalker reprints was in core sets. They have hardly ever put old Planeswalkers into the non-core sets and have regulated those to side products. Those that were actually expecting Liliana of the Veil in SOI or EMN were really kidding themselves. The Planeswalkers are paramount to basically every storyline in MTG these days and they need to make new ones to keep them relevant to the story line.

They also won't be printing any ridiculously pushed cards that they had to worry about for 2 years or so when it was in standard like Snapcaster Mage. I guess with the quicker rotation system they can justify some more pushed cards since they will rotate faster, but Snapcaster required them to analyze every cheap instant/sorcery for standard, and how it interacted with Snapcaster before print. Even before they completely nixed core sets we were not getting that many reprints for formats like Modern. If they really want to push reprints besides sets like Modern/Eternal Masters they can offer more reprints of noteworthy cards in side products like Commander, Conspiracy, and/or Duel Decks.

Quote from SnowBunny »

"the set isn't going to be full of eldrazi they said" "you will love it! They said"

Well this card is only partially eldrazi, I mean this card doesn't really count as a 100% true Eldrazi card like say Benthic Infiltrator.

Quote from midnight_baker »

In a Standard defined by tokens and Thraben Inspectors, Skulk seems bad.

Slam first pick in limited though. Skulk's worked well enough in limited that I think I can compare this guy to Looter il-Kor, which is strong enough for cube, and on top of spewing 3/2s, this guy lives in a format with Madness and Delirium.

With the new set coming we should see some meta shifts, also it's not like every matchup is against tokens. It's a popular deck but it's not like you go into a tournament and face it 85% of the time. You also have to factor in that a lot of the tokens that deck makes are bigger than a 1/1, so in some cases they will not be able to block.

Quote from Greenlexluthor »

Whelp, looks like LotV is about to hit a stupidly high price that it really doesn't warrant.

I would have been blown away if LotV was reprinted in this set, they rarely put reprints of planeswalkers into expansions like Return to Ravnica, or Theros etc... They did show up more in core sets but now that those are gone they are going to be making mostly new ones in sets like this. Especially when their actions are paramount to the storyline, Liliana is a huge deal in this set and a reprint while nice for those that need copies it would not have as much of an impact as a new planeswalker especially in the lore.

Annihilator is a ridiculously swingy ability and it's led to a lot of ridiculous blowouts. I will say though old Kozilek had no form of protection he would die to any number of removal spells. Pretending that the old Titans were all notoriously hard to kill is completely ridiculous. Newlamog is easier to kill but it has double the ability when you cast it to make up for that. You also have trouble comparing Emrakul to Emrakul sure if your cheating one into play the old one is still the king, but when cast from hand I have rarely if ever seen someone pay the full 15 for Emrakul, meanwhile i think I will see New Emrakul cast a lot more often since it will cast 8-9 very often in the late game. New Emrakul is the best in the late game anyways, casting him on turn 3-4 or something is usually less impressive with the turn stealing effect.

Quote from Impossible »

It's unfortunate that he doesn't have any specific werewolf synergies though. No "All wolf and werewolf creatures you control get +1/+1" or anything like that, which is kind of my biggest complaint about him. Without any sort of lord ability he kind of just feels like a creature version of Arlinn, which tempers my enthusiasm.

Still, at least we finally have a legendary werewolf!

I think he probably fits more of the I am a tough werewolf and will help out random guys with my human side, but once I go into werewolf form i just straight up murder someone.

You don't have to be a lord to prove you are the legendary werewolf, especially for a tribe like werewolf that has more of a loner aspect to them in most media.

I have a friend that absolutely loves the color purple, I'm sure he will be very excited about the color of these booster boxes.

Seems like a fine card, it's not Huntmaster but Huntmaster is pretty insane. I will be blown away if Werewolf decks become a thing in Standard and this guy is not a part of them.

I think this is what people wanted...

20 Emrakul, the Game Ends
Legendary Creature - Eldrazi
When you cast Emrakul target player loses the game.
Flying, Indestructible, Hexproof, Trample.
When Emrakul deals damage to a player that player loses the game.
When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.
20/20


There ya go a really "fun" and interactive card to play with folks. So much fun and interactivity had from this version!!!!

This card will cost 8-9 mana on a regular basis unless you are ramping up a storm with things that don't hit the graveyard. At 8-9 mana it is cheaper than Mindslaver if you are casting Mindslaver and activating it the same turn.

Quote from Northjayhawk »

Might not be standard playable, but it could be something in modern, since they would have an easier time casting it.

The effect is worse than mindslaver, but mindslaver doesn't give you a 13/13. They will be up a card, but they couldn't do anything about it on your turn if it resolves, and on their mindslaver turn you can throw their whole team away on a terrible attack.

It also has the benefit of being pro all the removal in modern, since in modern sorcery speed removal is a rarity. 99% of all removal in modern is instant speed...

This thing is MUCH harder to kill in modern, without a doubt.