We once had a tournament where random 4 man pods were made and the winner was determined by points under these rules:
Winner: 4 points.
Last survivor of the table: 3 points.
Beat a player with combat damage: 3 points.
Beat a player with commander damage: 2 points.
Beat a player with poison: 2 points.
Beat a player with non-combat damage: 2 points.
Beat a single player by infinite combo: 1 point.
Win by non-infinite/stall alternate win condition: 3 points.
Win by infinite combo or stalling into concession: -2 points.
These rules did make the tournament quite fun cause everyone could play however they wanted, they just had to pay the price in points of winning thru non-interactive odious means or reap the benefits of a victory well earned, which as much as Merieke and other Espers may cry about, is much harder and more commendable than their 2-card combos and stalls. The tournament ended up being won (with all five new commander decks as the prize) by a Ruric Thar voltron player who didn't win a single table but had the most opponents beat thru combat and Ruric damage.
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- calamity_unbound
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Member for 12 years
Last active Wed, Jul, 8 2020 20:40:34
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You make a fair point that there's not a dedicated commander that aligns with those particular strategies. I still would have liked to see a little more innovation on Kadena other than cost reduction and card draw. Sure, it's powerful, but there's Animar who does the cost reduction angle a little better and there are plenty of card draw engines these days that synergize with playing creatures.
Maybe something like "whenever you turn a creature face up, you may turn another creature face down" or "pay xyz: exchange control of target face down permanent you control and a permanent that an opponent controls". Something a little off the wall that would also make good use of manifest mechanics.
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Iona makes sense, I just don't know why it took so long for it to get the axe.
Painter's Servant is a neat unbanning. I can't think of any immediate decks I want to put it in, but having access to another unique-ish effect is cool.
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That's completely understandable. The list I posted here shouldn't run you much more than $50 and each of the pieces can be upgraded over time. Whatever you decide to go with, good luck!
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I loved that too, that art was a home run.
Also digging Reprobation, it's a decent Darksteel Mutation clone.
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Draft is irrelevant here, unless your LGS is going to hand out Snow basics to use for land slots. Unless you have really consistent pulls in sealed, or just draft every Snow spell in each pack you can, I don't see this ever having Deathtouch in limited.
That's the biggest issue I have with the card is that it's best function (a 2cmc instant removal spell) is entirely dependant on your board state. At it's floor, it's a single target fog that cantrips, and that doesn't feel like a rare effect to me in a set that's supposed to turn Modern on its head.
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Your point isn't entirely wrong, but keep in mind that having a Jace planeswalker in play is a much easier criteria to hit than having 10 permanents. Having a 2U Mana cost vs a 1UU one is also slightly easier to hit, and as mentioned you can't entirely ignore Kefnet making this an Ancestral Recall.
All of that said, it's still not likely than not that we're not going to see this as a serious card in any constructed formats.
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If I play at a tournament or in my LGS, I swap out the fakes for their lesser versions that I don't own at least one real copy of and just go with it. I won't sit there and lie to people that are playing for any kind of prize, it makes my victories hollow and cheats honest folk. I understand the allure of faking those power levels in front of strangers, though, as we've all sat down in front of the guy with a deck of fully foiled fetchs, signed Mark Poole islands, and a Diamond Valley that you can't stop drooling over. Playing that guy is rarely fun, no one likes feeling inferior because they don't have the funds to throw away (or invest) in a game they play once a week to unwind. When it comes down to it though, skill will almost always beat card power, and you'll also come across those players who obviously bought expensive cards because they thought it would make them good at the game. Skill is developed by making the most of the least (which is a good reason why limited is such a good way to develop strong player habits, imo).
Purchasing a set of fake ABUR duals doesn't hurt WoTC in the slightest. I'm not going to go crack a pack and pull one. Fakes of cards that released 15+ years ago and are virtually guaranteed to never see another reprint don't take any money away from Wizards or Hasbro. If anything, I'd make the argument that by tracking any kind of sales data on those fake cards could finally give some incentive to create a long term plan to dismantle the reserved list. If and when it goes, collectors should be given the opportunity to cash out and have plenty of warning that their priceless heirlooms are about to take a financial nose dive. The rarity and price of many of these cards drive a market for fakes. Make these items attainable and watch the fake MTG market dry up. There are a lot of legitimate collectors out there, but there's a lot of scummy practices out there as well, prentices that have created vacuums on almost all valuable reserved list cards. To see all of that topple down would be great, and I don't think anyone would lose sleep if ol' Rudy lost his butt on his "Alpha Investments".
The only real issue I take with fakes on the player side is anyone attempting to pass these off as real cards for the purpose of trading. That's about the scummiest thing you can do, and anyone taking part in that should have their teeth kicked in for trying to take advantage of any other player.