MTG Salvation

Felidar Sovereign as an intro pack rare is a nice bone from WotC

Quote from clan_iraq »

Yeah that logic makes no sense to me. If creatures were equally powerful with spells, you'd want to have more spells, which are disposable and often cantrip or 2-for-1 and otherwise require less continued investment due to their once-off nature, and less permanents which can serve as mana dumps and get swept by sweepers if you board too many.

No wonder you consider that logic to make no sense

You clearly don't understand the value of repeatable damage off a single investment of mana

Quote from Anteaterking »

I think people complaining about sets or cards should read Sam Stoddard's articles (and MaRo's during spoiler season, even if you can't stomach him the rest of the time). A lot of these questions get answered in the M Files and in the other articles.

"Why don't Allies do the +1/+1 thing anymore?" has been asked a lot. From the most recent Latest Developments article:

"What we tried to do differently with the Allies in Battle for Zendikar was to make their rally triggers less about permanent +1/+1 counters, as they had been in the original Zendikar block. As much as possible, we wanted for players to have really powerful game-enders like Tajaru Warcaller, but when the game just comes down to playing Allies on turns one through five and each time permanently boosting them, basically asking your opponent to have a Wrath or not, we found that the gameplay was very repetitive no matter which combination of Allies you chose to put in your deck."

Not only that but some people on here *****ed and moaned endlessly about R&D abusing +1/+1 counters

And now those same people ***** and moan about them not being there

Quote from flyingtiger »

Quote from Canadian Guy of Wrath »

Quote from Barook »

Quote from ThyLordQ »

And finally, the biggest thing that I've been seeing, especially from MaRo's most recent tumblr posts is that, the placement of BFZ on their new block chart caused problems.
They went from three sets to two, and that caused a lot of condensing, and that caused space issues. When you design more than you have room for, problems happen.

If you condense 3 sets into 2, shouldn't there be more good cards instead of less? Born from the Gods suffered because they put all the good stuff into Journey into Nyx.

The set is bad and they know it's bad, that's why they put those ugly, half-baked Expedition lands in last minute to have a seller which the masses are going to gobble up anyway, regardless of quality.

No because a set only has room for so many good cards

Because according to so many on here anything good in Limited only is not actually good

OK, then why even design for constructed formats at all? Why even have a Standard when Block exists? Why even allow Modern and EDH to be sanctioned at FNM? So much of the game already revolves around Limited...even Modern Masters, which are REPRINT sets, have to be draftable. I understand that not 100% of any given set can be good in Limited and constructed, but for BFZ that percentage has got to be in the low single digits.

Considering this kind of reaction is common when a set releases I will reserve judgement

It's certainly possible that due to the switch to the 2 set blocks BFZ block might suffer for it but we don't know yet

And so much of the game revolves around Limited because it's the main driver of sales of packs (and it's awesome)

Quote from jar75 »

Quote from Yamahako »

Quote from vandertroll »

Quote from Yamahako »

Quote from vandertroll »

I'm starting to believe that the reason they didn't bump Dispel to uncommon or awaken rare is because of the uselesness and small number of instants in this set.

There are 31 instants in this set. What would be a "normal" number of instants in a set?

How many of them are playble?

All of them... the only magic card that can't be played is Evermind. Don't make other people do your work for you. Why don't you identify which ones you feel aren't playable - in what formats - and why? You stated there were a small number of instants in this set - there aren't. It appears that sorcery and instant spells were played with in this set so that some traditional spells were switched from one type to another (instant ramp spell, instant land destruction, etc.)

But the instant ramp spell will be played in standard. It's nuts. In limited Dispel will be solid because there are instants you have to stop. In standard Dispel will be useful because there are lots of good instants in Origins and Kahns block. Other formats already have it.

Dispel is awful in limited. It's completely unplayable.

It's a sideboard card

Hardly unplayable: if your opponent has an awesome instant speed removal spell then you might side it in and blow your opponent out

I think I'm starting to get a grasp of why so many posters on here suck at Limitedand therefore think it's all luck based

Quote from Darkbrew »

stoneforge is a tutor. what in this set tutors?

bring to light one of the few cards that has modern playerd interested. a vanilla 8 10 for 8 isnt suddenly going to become insane unless they stop printing removal... which is possible!

Why do you care about what people are thinking about playing?

You likely just netdeck so people discussing what could be run doesn't matter, it's all about what is run

And, at this time, no BFZ card id being run anywhere

Also nice moving of the goal post there "this tutor was bad" "uh no, it could tutor thing X and Y when it was printed and those cards are still insane" "yeah well there's no tutor in BFZ" NEWFLASH: there are things that allow you to search your library in this set. Again, you should really try to READ THE CARDS instead of just reading decklists.

You need to improve your game

You constructed-only players usually get around 15-20 cards a set to play with.

Until someone makes a new deck that does well at a few GPs. Then you all make that same deck and start whining about card prices because everyone is netdecking the same deck as you.

Should I go get this same thread that was made for every set release this site has been around for?

He's an ally that taps for any colour with haste

I think the five colour deck is taking shape

Wow

Instant speed, colourless, exile a permanent?!

Talk about awesome!

It starts off quite curled unfortunately. A few days under a good cookbook, no worries. Particularly if you double sleeve.

Quote from Dantes

Pretty certain it's actually a very cogent observation, that is applicable on multiple levels.

It probably isn't completely accurate and is a step too far. However, a better, more likely claim, is that most people protesting this cycle is giving in to a gut reaction, without really looking at all of the pros and cons. When you look at what the card does, it's easy to say "that's just a common RtR-block Gate with scry 1 tacked on"; in reality, while this may be true from a certain point of view, it has nothing to do with whether or not the cards are powerful. I said it before and I'll say it again, scry 1 is a very powerful mechanic to put on a 'free' drop like a land, as on turn 1 you can usually drop one with no major tempo loss, scuffing a potentially bad topdeck, while in the late game when you don't really need land drops as much, these become much better than shocks, because they make sure that the top deck has a better chance of being what you need (or, at least, that there is a lesser chance of the top deck not being what you need). Because of this, I'd probably say that these are powerful and playable. However, when just blurting out a gut reaction and not really analyzing what cards do at different points in the game (and in different decks with different strategies) it's easy to just say "wow that sucks," especially if a lot of other people seem to share that viewpoint. A lot of other powerful cards, such as JTMS and Delver of Secrets, garnered that kind of attention pre-release, and now look where they are (to be fair to JTMS, people always thought he was good, they just thought he was 'maybe playable as a 2-of in dedicated control' kind of good, rather than $150 format-warping good).

Now, for my own two cents, I think these are probably best in Midrange, especially Red/Green Midrange with lots of creatures. Midrange generally tends to not value turns 1-3 all that much, and really want to build up lots of creatures. This cycle allows Midrange to fix mana early and shuff non-useful cards off the top deck, thus allowing for more bomb draws and more of a guarantee of good stuff later, when the deck gets going. These are probably worst in aggro, which needs to drop BTEs on turn 2, and so if you have to drop one of these on turn 2 or later, then it becomes big negative value for you. Aggro probably won't play these lands, but aggro tends to want to win quickly, and these help you in the mid/late game more than early, so they aren't really build for aggro in the first place. That said, if Theros releases and aggro becomes less dependent on a lightning-fast, multiple-BTEs-on-turn-2 playstyle, then they could be viable. One way or another though, these seem like good lands.

Here you go.

Quote from Canadian Guy of Wrath

There's a full stop in the line of text on Thundermaw Hellkite

"When Thundermaw Hellkite enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to each creature with flying your opponents control. Tap those creatures."

The damage is prevented since protection but the Angel is still tapped because the full stop indicates that the creature getting taped isn't conditional on the damage being dealt.

I'm no template expert but I think that if the full stop were replaced by an "and" Baneslayer Angel wouldn't get tapped but that's just speculation on my part.

The "full stop in sentence" theory makes perfect sense to me and is better than a judges "cause the soup man says so" declaration (if got my joke; points to you). Excellent use of rational and wisdom sir.

I'm not saying the following are bad, just what I remember (editing this post as I remember them):

Jhoira of the Ghitu
Squee, Goblin something
Dragonstorm
Angel's Grace
Figure of Destiny
A green rare that starts with V and ends with the word Ancients or something? I think it's a creature..
Woodfall Primus
Engineered Explosives
Some Skeletal Vampire thing?
Death Cloud
Lotus Bloom
Life from the Loam
Extirpate
Stonehewer Giant
Kira
Meloku
Scion of Oona
Oona Queen of Fae
Divinity of Pride
Demigod of Revenge
Aethervial
Arcbound Ravager
Cryptic Command
Blood Moon
Doubling Season
Green entwine card that makes your lands 2/2 and untap them
Molten Diaster
Tooth and Nail
City of Brass
Glimmervoid
Red thing that has suspend 9 and you sac permanents to remove counters
Gifts Ungiven

Quote from Canadian Guy of Wrath

If anything I'm surprised at how Ben keeps popping in even though it seems there are quite a few posters on here who have nothing nice to say about SCG

SCG is too expensive for my tastes, I leave it at that.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion! I prefer to let people speak their minds, because you can't grow as a person (or a business) unless you can address the negative feedback, along with processing the positive feedback.

Having said that: We buy to meet demand, and not to corner markets. I am surprised about people saying "SCG has shady business practices" because I've had a large degree of transparency about how we operate (supply and demand in 99% of cases). I think that sometimes people use "shady business practices" as a synonym for "business practices I don't agree with", and the two are entirely different beasts.

For the record:
* I think Modern Masters is underprinted. I sent a couple of unsolicited messages to some Wizards employees over the past few months letting them know that the product was going to be well over MSRP, because of it being a limited print run, and imploring them to increase the print run from whatever numbers they had planned (I have no clue what those numbers were, but based on selling out of Avacyn Restored, Innistrad, R2R, and the Commander's Arsenal issues last year, the answer is "Wizards is printing conservatively on everything at this point". I have no clue how many boxes are being printed of MM, I just know that it's not enough to meet demand.

*I don't want to charge $300 a box presale for a Booster Box product - but we also would have been out of stock completely at $225 or $250 based on rate of sales at those price points.

*This is the first Booster Box product in my ten years with the company where I'm not sure we'll be able to offer Singles presales. I *THINK* we will, but the numbers we are getting are so tight against what we're selling that A) The quantities of each card we'll have for singles is miniscule, and B) If any of our distributors short us product or miss a ship date (or a package gets delayed), we would end up not being able to fulfill orders. It's important to me that 100% of people that order Modern Masters Booster Boxes as a presale get those boxes, so I'm likely going to leave us a large window of boxes "on hold" between now and physically getting the boxes in, to make sure we can fill all orders.

* I'm 99% sure we'll see a Modern Masters 2 down the road, due to the huge success and demand on this product. My guess is that it'll be a bi-annual product (every other year), but I could see it being an annual release. (FWIW - I think it'd be better to have a larger print run and do it bi-annually, then have a smaller print run and do it annually).

* I'm 99% sure that one of the following would happen for MM2: Either cards that are currently not Modern Legal (But are too powerful for standard) will be printed in MM2, making them Modern Legal (think: Armageddon / Nev's Disk level effects), OR Wizards will try to get the format to a point where they can unban Jace, TMS, and make it the selling point of the set (like they did with Tarmogoyf this time around).

- Ben Bleiweiss
- General Manager, StarCityGames.com

It has Falkenrath Aristocrat, Thragtusk, Thundermaw Hellkite and of course Hellrider to compete with. Post-rotation it'll still have to be better than Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch, Spark Trooper, the new Chandra (?) and any other red-based aggro curve-topper we get in M14 or Theros. I just don't see it making the cut. This is no Koth of the Hammer, not even close.

I'll come out and say it: it's not good enough for Constructed. It's easy to prepare for a 5 mana haste guy without trample/evasion (removal aside, chump block). If you look at all the playable 4-5 cmc creatures in standard they all have either: (a) some kind of resilience to removal, (b) evasion, (c) provide card advantage ('tusk) and/or (d) super evasion (Hellkite).

You have to appreciate its 'cool' factor but let's not get carried away.

Quote from Canadian Guy of Wrath

But it could also be devastating if the opponent is tapped out

The upside on this is considerable enough to not simply be disregarded

More words of wisdom from the poster of Wrath. You can't "simply disregard" any creature as it'll eventually kill you. The question is 'how many conditionally pretty good cards are you playing?'

if this polls was "What would you last pick?" I would say the Z.T. Ancient.

The possibilities are endless.....of what your opponent can do with 10-12 mana during their next turn....

The fact that he is an undercosted 7/5 for 5 mana is completely negated by the fact that now your opponents can now play their overcosted fatties, and/or just straight up win the next turn....