Both true. But I don't think Heliod will REPLACE Assemble. I think it fits differently in the meta. Assemble is a great card to drop and protect with counter magic to provide an inevitable win. Heliod is obviously more powerful in a raw sense, but doesn't seem like the answer UW midrange/control wants really.
As to the comparison of Heliod with Assemble the Legion think of it like this:
Heliod comes down turn 4. On turn 5 you pass and make a 2/1 eot. Swing on turn 6 make another dude eot. Swing with 2, another dude eot. FINALLY on turn 8 you can make 2 eot.
Assuming you hit EVERY land drop (really pretty unlikely not tapping to draw cards) and don't spend mana on almost anything else the damage goes like this:
Assemble doesn't require any mana commitment after casting, deals more damage in the same time frame and also makes it harder to block, as they need roughly twice the number of blockers. Also, you don't have to hit magical christmas land drops.
Heliod seems like a good control card that might outdo Assemble the Legion because its faster and does a whole lot more.
Also, why would they reprint Corrupt in M14 then come out with a functional reprint that actually is about as good right away: Gray Merchant of Asphodel? Are they pushing mono black?
Assemble the Legion doesn't really see play outside of control which doesn't really want to tap out to make creatures. Also, Assemble adds damage way faster when hit on curve.
Corrupt is not really like the Gray Merchant outside of general effect, certainly not a functional reprint. Corrupt goes off swamps which almost ALWAYS will be more than your devotion in a normal game of standard or draft. Very different cards.
@johnnybgood23, I and probably some others here are not saying this fits in the nut curve, nor are we saying this is necessarily the dream card in all scenarios. But I do think your original read of it "it seems bad" is just wrong. It may not see play as their may not be a deck for it or the spots may have other flat out better cards but the card is very strong.
You seem to be missing some details about deckbuilding. No one WANTS to mana flood, no one WANTS to be wrathed the point is that this card guards against those contingencies while also added a static ability to your board state.
Scenario (a fairly common one): Let's say you keep a loose hand or are playing against a great deck or just get flooded. Your in red green or some other aggroy/midrange deck playing against control or flash or another midrange deck. You've got six lands and this after a bunch of play and your opponent is low on life.
Now you have a 3/3 for 3 with haste, uncountable, at instant speed for at LEAST the next 3 turns. Draw land? You have more. Draw gas? Well then you have gas! Closing out games against a control deck is so hard because they are able to lock up the game with counters and wraths. This card is great against both.
Every card with Haste costs MORE because of this. You add this card to a deck with cards that are aggressively costed without haste and you get a great return.
I just don't think there's a place for a red deck that spends 6 mana and a land for a hasty 3/3 even if that can be repeated. If anything it's anti-control tech out of the sideboard and only a 1-of at that. Even then why would you bank on flooding out? Chandra helps you actually push through damage while going through cards. I could go on but I'll just go on record saying it's not good.
You should look back some time at old forum posts regarding things with repeatable effects. They are almost always worded like yours conjuring the worst possible scenario to describe them and they are very often wrong. The point is about incremental advantage, not thundermaw bombyness.
Yes, you are right. 6 mana and a sac'd land for a hasty 3/3 is bad. But against a deck where red is forced into an attrition game a REPEATABLE 3/3 with haste every turn can be very powerful.
Now statistically, if you said every single card was absolute crap and would never see tournament play, you'd actually be right more often than not. No one would congratulate you though because that is easy and it is likewise much harder to predict what WILL see play. I am not saying this will be a four-of in a deck, nor did I ever. I did say that this effect is very powerful. I honestly don't think you can really argue that point.
Sorry but I think it's unplayable. Fervor is unplayable.. Plus the card doesn't make sense. You're a red deck but you're running non-haste creatures (to take advantage of hammer effect) and then you're also running tons of land because you can burn some off for Trained Armodons..? What red deck plays a large volume of non-haste creatures over 3 CMC (after you play Hammer) and has lands left to play with? I just don't understand it. Sorry, it just seems bad to make. Theros's flavor and design has been in-freaking-credible for the most part but this one has me scratching my head.
I replied to you in the last thread but I'll repeat here since this is where the discussion should be anyway.
You are making a very common mistake looking at a cards two abilities and saying "neither one of these is that good". Remember options are good. Conversely, Vexing Devil which gave 2 "great" abilities was bad because it gave the two options to an opponent.
More importantly, you are missing the power of the card. Don't think of the haste as for the rest of the deck (though surely it'll help from time to time) but in conjunction with the instant speed 3/3s.
The easiest way for a red deck to lose is flooding out. This card ensures that all you draw is hasty gas, even if its a land. Sweeper coming up? No problem. Sorcery speed removal? Don't sweat it.
Now, granted, cards are impossible to adequately evaluate before a format starts. Hell, desecration demon was deemed powerful, then unplayable and now it's everywhere. I'm not betting my life that this is a staple but I will say it is flat out wrong to say this card's effect is not very, very powerful.
Am I the only one that thinks the Hammer is bad? Fervor is unplayable and sacrificing lands for 3/3s isn't great either. And what red decks want to play a bunch of non-haste creatures and then lands to turn into Trained Armodons? Sorry, seems bad.
You realize that the easiest way for a red deck to lose is to flood out right. The point is not to give all the creatures in your deck haste. The point is that once you hit a critical mass of lands, every land you draw is a 3/3 haste for 3. Oh yeah, at instant speed.
Cards are notoriously hard to evaluate (obviously) but this effect is very, very powerful.
Not only have they destroyed everything I care about in game play, and made every single set worse than every single set before it, and changed the focus of decks from fun, and made cards more expensive, now they are practically extorting money from us with this prerelease. It's almost like stealing.
I don't understand how a company can run when literally everyone at the top is doing their best to alienate the player base.
Geez, first the Syrian government uses chemical weapons on innocent civilians then this. Worst week ever.
Even if it was only $40 like the msrp says I would still only get one. Why? Because I'm not greedy like countless other people. Sorry, but you should feel like a jerk for getting more than one. There is a limited supply of these things and you would feel bad if you were that one kid who didn't get one because the guy in front of you bought the last 4...
You realize that there is a limited quantity of all cards out of print, right? Is it greedy to buy a playset of Mox Diamonds?
I can't even wrap my mind around this criticism. Most of us are buying these cards to play with them.
I got 3. 2 at MSRP and one for $100. I look forward to finishing up a playset of Jaces as it is the only card keeping me from a few legacy decks.
Not all magic players live in the USA. Here down south we have 2 proper LGS for the whole country (one on the capital the other is located on the far end of the country) the one i go to does not do a good job of keeping up with special products. Orders overseas are often missplaced or lost etc.
I am not angry at this set from the day jace was spoiled i am angry at this set since the day i found out magic 20th aniversary reward to all the players was going to be some limited product. To be more exact i was not as mad till M14 was spoiled completly devoid of old favorites and bland as a whole. I would have prefered something like the graveborn deck to the travesty that is and will continue to be FTV: YEARLY CASHGRAB.
You realize that Wizards makes less on FTV series than nearly any other product they release right? Also, the whole crash grab phrase is a joke that no one over 12 takes seriously. I'm assuming that it might be a language barrier thing here though. Wizards is a company and, yes, it's true, tries to make money. It's just ironic that they are called out for this (when it's something they must do to exist) ESPECIALLY when it's the product from which they make the least.
This also isn't a "reward to all the players". I don't know where you heard that. It's just false. It is a different limited release than normal to signal the 20th anniversary. Likewise, no one ever said M14 was going to be what you hoped. Basically, your entire post is either misinformation or just your own bitterness that the product isn't what you wanted it to be masquerading as a complaint that the company has wronged you.
tl;dr: nothing of note in your post except your own personal opinion that the 20th anniversary is not being marked in the way you expected/wanted.
Sorry about the trolling. I will expect to see fairness though and you giving anyone that posts about the price being unfair or wizards not caring about their customer base as that is blatant trolling because they know it will incite an argument which is by definition, the exact meaning of the word trolling. Thanks.
Sorry, that's not going to happen.
These forums thrive off of complaints, gripes, and general childish antics and entitlement.
The mods have zero motivation to try and cut down on the inane comments of people endlessly complaining about a premium product that they don't want to pay for (and, of course, don't even need to play the game). Can you imagine how much less traffic this site would generate if not for 300 page threads of people complaining that a limited edition product is limited?
I find it strange how difficult it is for some people to look at the other side of the coin and see another persons point of view. It really isn't that hard to understand why a person would be upset about this.
Actually, it really is.
Let me rephrase. It is easy to see that someone is feeling "darn, there is something cool that I want because I can't/am not willing to pay or travel for it". It is easy to see that some magic players feel entitled to all cards and not JUST all cards that they could want to play and be competitive, but that they should have easy cheap access to all foil, limited edition, rare versions of said cards. I've been a part of the community long enough (it takes a good 10 seconds for this to seep in) to recognize that this is the primary "feeling" of the online crowd. Oh, and they also usually want "their" cards to have some sense of value, go figure.
What I cannot understand, despite your post is that someone thinks they have a reasonable point here. They. Just. Don't.
There is an argument to be made against the limited print run of Modern Masters, since the cards are needed to play in the format. Still, most reasonable people seem to agree that wizards tried to balance the balls and get the best of all worlds. Plus it was a test since it hadn't really been done before.
This promo is strictly for aesthetic reasons, there is literally NO argument for any wrongdoing or unfairness. Unless you count, "but I want one and feel like I deserve it because I want it" as an argument.
Now if they were only giving it away to people based on their skin color we'd have a problem. This is just freaking advertising!
They did not include Thoughtseize, Mutavault, Damnation, Wrath of God and Noble Hierarch in Modern Masters because they can easily be reprinted in Standard legal sets. What they did in Modern Masters is reprint all modern staples that are broken for the current Standard (Tarmogoyf, Kiki-Jiki, Dark Confidant, Cryptic Command Etc.) and just added some more modern staples to make a product. Kiki-Jiki can't be reprinted due to combo with Restoration Angel, Dark Confidant and/or Cryptic Command together with Snapcaster Mage in Standard is scary. Tarmogoyf can't be reprinted in Standard legal sets.
Having said all that. I do believe Thoughtseize is coming back soon. If not in M14 then in Theros. Theros can possibly include both Wrath of God and Damnation.
Actually, Noble Hierarch cannot be easily reprinted because it has a specific keyword. One that, unfortunately, was JUST used and thus shouldn't return for a while. To be honest, I find NH the most baffling omission from MM for this very reason.
My only explanation is that they just made a mistake and forgot about it or it's in FTV20. In either case it REALLY sucks. It's an expensive, important, hard to find card that could have very easily been in M13 or MM...
Starcity Games! When they learned about Modern Masters, they hit up all the big Magic sites and used they SUPER DEEP pockets to buy all the Modern Staples. Heck, they even bought some from our local game store here!
Starcity has an inside ear to Wizards and they tend to know things ahead of time. When ever you see a price jump on Star City, they know something! lol.
But yeah, Star City did buy out all of Cardkingdoms Fetch Lands, Thought Seizes and so forth awhile back, SUPER JACKING the price. It is the equivalent of how Becket controlled sports card prices before eBay made cards more widely available.
Cyriss07
Yes! This!
Come on, wake up SHEEPLE. Fight the big bad evil SCG, the only thing you have to lose is your Chains of Mephistopheles!
Both true. But I don't think Heliod will REPLACE Assemble. I think it fits differently in the meta. Assemble is a great card to drop and protect with counter magic to provide an inevitable win. Heliod is obviously more powerful in a raw sense, but doesn't seem like the answer UW midrange/control wants really.
Heliod comes down turn 4. On turn 5 you pass and make a 2/1 eot. Swing on turn 6 make another dude eot. Swing with 2, another dude eot. FINALLY on turn 8 you can make 2 eot.
Assuming you hit EVERY land drop (really pretty unlikely not tapping to draw cards) and don't spend mana on almost anything else the damage goes like this:
T6: 2
T7: 4 (6)
T8: 6 (10)
T9: 10 (20)
T10: 14 (34)
T11: 18 (52)
T12: 22 (74)
T13: 28 (102)
T14: 34 (136)
T15: 40 (176)
T16: 46 (222)
Assemble comes down on T5 and requires no more commitment and grants haste so damage looks like this:
T6: 1
T7: 3 (4)
T8: 6 (10)
T9: 10 (20)
T10: 15 (35)
T11: 21 (56)
T12: 28 (84)
T13: 36 (120)
T14: 45 (165)
T15: 55 (220)
T16: 66 (286)
Assemble doesn't require any mana commitment after casting, deals more damage in the same time frame and also makes it harder to block, as they need roughly twice the number of blockers. Also, you don't have to hit magical christmas land drops.
Assemble the Legion doesn't really see play outside of control which doesn't really want to tap out to make creatures. Also, Assemble adds damage way faster when hit on curve.
Corrupt is not really like the Gray Merchant outside of general effect, certainly not a functional reprint. Corrupt goes off swamps which almost ALWAYS will be more than your devotion in a normal game of standard or draft. Very different cards.
You seem to be missing some details about deckbuilding. No one WANTS to mana flood, no one WANTS to be wrathed the point is that this card guards against those contingencies while also added a static ability to your board state.
Scenario (a fairly common one): Let's say you keep a loose hand or are playing against a great deck or just get flooded. Your in red green or some other aggroy/midrange deck playing against control or flash or another midrange deck. You've got six lands and this after a bunch of play and your opponent is low on life.
Now you have a 3/3 for 3 with haste, uncountable, at instant speed for at LEAST the next 3 turns. Draw land? You have more. Draw gas? Well then you have gas! Closing out games against a control deck is so hard because they are able to lock up the game with counters and wraths. This card is great against both.
Every card with Haste costs MORE because of this. You add this card to a deck with cards that are aggressively costed without haste and you get a great return.
You should look back some time at old forum posts regarding things with repeatable effects. They are almost always worded like yours conjuring the worst possible scenario to describe them and they are very often wrong. The point is about incremental advantage, not thundermaw bombyness.
Yes, you are right. 6 mana and a sac'd land for a hasty 3/3 is bad. But against a deck where red is forced into an attrition game a REPEATABLE 3/3 with haste every turn can be very powerful.
Now statistically, if you said every single card was absolute crap and would never see tournament play, you'd actually be right more often than not. No one would congratulate you though because that is easy and it is likewise much harder to predict what WILL see play. I am not saying this will be a four-of in a deck, nor did I ever. I did say that this effect is very powerful. I honestly don't think you can really argue that point.
I replied to you in the last thread but I'll repeat here since this is where the discussion should be anyway.
You are making a very common mistake looking at a cards two abilities and saying "neither one of these is that good". Remember options are good. Conversely, Vexing Devil which gave 2 "great" abilities was bad because it gave the two options to an opponent.
More importantly, you are missing the power of the card. Don't think of the haste as for the rest of the deck (though surely it'll help from time to time) but in conjunction with the instant speed 3/3s.
The easiest way for a red deck to lose is flooding out. This card ensures that all you draw is hasty gas, even if its a land. Sweeper coming up? No problem. Sorcery speed removal? Don't sweat it.
Now, granted, cards are impossible to adequately evaluate before a format starts. Hell, desecration demon was deemed powerful, then unplayable and now it's everywhere. I'm not betting my life that this is a staple but I will say it is flat out wrong to say this card's effect is not very, very powerful.
You realize that the easiest way for a red deck to lose is to flood out right. The point is not to give all the creatures in your deck haste. The point is that once you hit a critical mass of lands, every land you draw is a 3/3 haste for 3. Oh yeah, at instant speed.
Cards are notoriously hard to evaluate (obviously) but this effect is very, very powerful.
Not only have they destroyed everything I care about in game play, and made every single set worse than every single set before it, and changed the focus of decks from fun, and made cards more expensive, now they are practically extorting money from us with this prerelease. It's almost like stealing.
I don't understand how a company can run when literally everyone at the top is doing their best to alienate the player base.
Geez, first the Syrian government uses chemical weapons on innocent civilians then this. Worst week ever.
You realize that there is a limited quantity of all cards out of print, right? Is it greedy to buy a playset of Mox Diamonds?
I can't even wrap my mind around this criticism. Most of us are buying these cards to play with them.
I got 3. 2 at MSRP and one for $100. I look forward to finishing up a playset of Jaces as it is the only card keeping me from a few legacy decks.
You realize that Wizards makes less on FTV series than nearly any other product they release right? Also, the whole crash grab phrase is a joke that no one over 12 takes seriously. I'm assuming that it might be a language barrier thing here though. Wizards is a company and, yes, it's true, tries to make money. It's just ironic that they are called out for this (when it's something they must do to exist) ESPECIALLY when it's the product from which they make the least.
This also isn't a "reward to all the players". I don't know where you heard that. It's just false. It is a different limited release than normal to signal the 20th anniversary. Likewise, no one ever said M14 was going to be what you hoped. Basically, your entire post is either misinformation or just your own bitterness that the product isn't what you wanted it to be masquerading as a complaint that the company has wronged you.
tl;dr: nothing of note in your post except your own personal opinion that the 20th anniversary is not being marked in the way you expected/wanted.
Sorry, that's not going to happen.
These forums thrive off of complaints, gripes, and general childish antics and entitlement.
The mods have zero motivation to try and cut down on the inane comments of people endlessly complaining about a premium product that they don't want to pay for (and, of course, don't even need to play the game). Can you imagine how much less traffic this site would generate if not for 300 page threads of people complaining that a limited edition product is limited?
Actually, it really is.
Let me rephrase. It is easy to see that someone is feeling "darn, there is something cool that I want because I can't/am not willing to pay or travel for it". It is easy to see that some magic players feel entitled to all cards and not JUST all cards that they could want to play and be competitive, but that they should have easy cheap access to all foil, limited edition, rare versions of said cards. I've been a part of the community long enough (it takes a good 10 seconds for this to seep in) to recognize that this is the primary "feeling" of the online crowd. Oh, and they also usually want "their" cards to have some sense of value, go figure.
What I cannot understand, despite your post is that someone thinks they have a reasonable point here. They. Just. Don't.
There is an argument to be made against the limited print run of Modern Masters, since the cards are needed to play in the format. Still, most reasonable people seem to agree that wizards tried to balance the balls and get the best of all worlds. Plus it was a test since it hadn't really been done before.
This promo is strictly for aesthetic reasons, there is literally NO argument for any wrongdoing or unfairness. Unless you count, "but I want one and feel like I deserve it because I want it" as an argument.
Now if they were only giving it away to people based on their skin color we'd have a problem. This is just freaking advertising!
Actually, Noble Hierarch cannot be easily reprinted because it has a specific keyword. One that, unfortunately, was JUST used and thus shouldn't return for a while. To be honest, I find NH the most baffling omission from MM for this very reason.
My only explanation is that they just made a mistake and forgot about it or it's in FTV20. In either case it REALLY sucks. It's an expensive, important, hard to find card that could have very easily been in M13 or MM...
Yes! This!
Come on, wake up SHEEPLE. Fight the big bad evil SCG, the only thing you have to lose is your Chains of Mephistopheles!
Also, 9-11 was an inside job!