This will one day be one of those cards a bunch of blokes are going to sit down and make a challenge that they all have to have an EDH deck with this as the only way they are allowed to win, and then just see what happens as a result.
Speaking of thing in the ice, it's like that one card came and the rest are all sort of so so of the recently spoiled. Wonder if they blew all their steam on the first reveals and now we are going to get all the okay and draft stuff spoiled.
It's a bit early to go doom and gloom for the set without even seeing any of the planeswalkers, the 8 other mythics, or the plethora of rares to come.
Besides, I would argue that Elusive Tormentor is relatively strong for just how difficult it is to kill and how easy it is to enable madness with it, and the rest of today's spoilers beyond Soul Swallower were all commons or uncommons, which don't typically have a high percentage of Standard playables anyways.
Who stated that SOI was to be the third set in BFZ block?
I always thought they basically jammed three sets into two, and SOI was always going to be the next block.
The problem is people glazing over a question MaRo said on his tumblr. He admitted that there was initial work done on a third set before they decided on the two-block paradigm, and that it would feature Emrakul. However, in that same post, he also said that absolutely no Creative besides the concept of Emrakul being on Zendikar was done for the set, and it never even left design.
Yes, there was a "third set" being designed, in the same way that Duke Nukem Forever was in "development" for the first of its fifteen years of it.
I wasn't told which parts my thoughts are eye and mimic. Wizards relayed the info to my source.
So can you confirm us that's more than one card ?
He can confirm that a WotC employe said that something or things from Eldrazi deck will get the banhamer...
Didn't Aaron Forsythe literally say in the GP Detroit stream that they were looking into banning cards to bring Eldrazi into line without completely destroying the deck?
This literally is just a thread about something told to the entire public over four hours ago.
There's obviously a lot of good cards being brought up here, but the card I feel that is being the most underrated in the wake of all of these new mythics and rares is Duskwatch Recruiter//Krallenhorde Howler.
I'm probably wrong on assessing it's power level since I took a break from Standard for a year, but as a player intending to go into Werewolves once SoI comes out, that card just sings to me. It just hits so many bases. It's a bear with card draw that curves perfectly into giving you something to do without playing a spell, allowing it to flip into Werewolf side that offers that bit of "ramp" for your pack. I realize it's not perfect, but seriously. It does die to removal, but so do a lot of powerful creatures. And I realize that the reduced cost on your creatures means it's likely to flip back to Human side afterwards, but I'm absolutely OK with -1/-1 to gain a massive board boost on turn 4 and getting to dig for creatures again.
Honestly, I will not be surprised if this is one of the top Werewolves in the set at all.
I realize this is probably wrong. In fact, the biggest hole here is that we're already seeing two walkers with blue (Tamiyo and Jace) and two with black (Sorin and Liliana) in the block, but I figure there needs to be a decent counter-theory to it being the Emrakul, so why not?
Right, so Ashiok. The nightmare planeswalker. The one who, by Word of God, "travels the Multiverse in search of designs for the perfect embodiment of fear." Yeah, Ashiok went to Theros, but if that is true, Innistrad is just a treasure trove for them. The sheer amount of Gothic Horror here is brutal. These people should have the most inherent fear out of all of them. But they also have hope in the form of Avacyn and her angel army. For all we know, Ashiok got their desire for inflicting terror by being an initial Innistrad resident (though their clothing, name, and biology don't fit very well).
Now, who do we know who's on Innistrad right now? Sorin, and, from art, Nahiri. Both of these planeswalkers are very old, and have seen some nightmarish things, the Eldrazi being one of them. Each of them have their own major fears about their home plane breaking down as well. Sorin only cares that his Innistrad survives, while Nahiri has shown concern for Zendikar's well-being. Based on the flavor text of Structural Distortion, Nahiri believes that Zendikar has been destroyed by the Eldrazi. Given that we saw nothing of her on Zendikar during BfZ, though, how would she know anything of the extent of the damage caused? Instead, I would surmise that Ashiok allowed those latent fears about Zendikar's use as a prison for the monsters to fester, creating an illusion that it was consumed for her. She believes this to be fact, and is now attacking Innistrad in vengeance.
Similarly, Sorin is concerned first and foremost about the possibility of the Eldrazi coming to Innistrad. Ashiok can take that fear and use it as their weapon. Notice how, in every sighting of "Emrakul", it's in a rather shadowy form? Such as, perhaps, Ashiok's shadow-head? There is no Emrakul on Innistrad. The entire monster is a nightmare concocted from Sorin's worries. Of course, Ashiok likely cannot comprehend anything of the titan, and as a result can't make a more physical copy of her. They can only assume, based on what they have gathered from Sorin, that they have the ability to warp reality. Thus, the turning of the angels.
So that's my theory. Feel free to ridicule or contribute, depending on your preference.
Honestly, if Emrakul is on Innistrad, or even in any block for the next two years, that has to be one of the top ten worst things EVER in Magic history. It's a terrible concept all the way around. Mechanically, we jump from one set that cares about giant colorless fatties fighting the colored small guys to a set about....giant colorless fatties fighting the colored small guys. Storywise, we get the same dumb story about fighting against a swarm of alien monstrosities twice in a row. It will be boring, it will feel rehashed, and worst of all, it will detract from what might have been a really cool Innistrad story. It's already cool enough to imagine the entire plane realizing Avacyn's existence is only to farm the human population for vampire sustenance. It's cool enough to have the angel become corrupted because the humans have become too powerful, causing a loophole in Sorin's magic that makes them attack what they once protected. There's no reason to turn it into BUT THEN EMRAKUL SHOWED UP AND IT WAS ALL HER WARPING THE ANGELS AIN'T THAT DANDY!
Everyone always seems to want the Eldrazi to show up in every block, but really, you don't ACTUALLY want them to keep showing up. Look at how negative the community has reacted to the swarm of low-costed Eldrazi, making them boring and straying from what they initially were. You can't make them keep showing up, because that is not what Cthulu mythoids are about. They are about beings beyond comprehension, something so abnormal and terrifying that they drive men and beast to madness. That's why they worked initially in ROE; they were gigantic, rare, and destructive. Now in BFZ block, we see them much more commonly. That was necessary for design perspectives, but the Eldrazi did lose a bit of their story when they became an army. Granted, that's fine for a block. After all, the two titans and their high-ranking brood still create the atmosphere of the initial Eldrazi. However, if we have an entire year of the same Eldrazi with the same reduction in power, they will become boring. Mundane. Expected. Just like when Slivers became like Predator, the community will become disillusioned with the Eldrazi. Bring the Phyrexians to Innistrad if you really need to tie a backwater plane to a greater evil. Don't do it with something we just spent six months hearing about.
I really don't think there was any way for the Izzet land to be good...I mean, what were the options? This one, which is the best they could make it, but it still dies to every removal in any format if you even dare to try to switch the p/t. Then you could have prowess, which would be terrible when including an activation cost. Finally, you could give it a loot ability, which while maybe enticing, is also sometimes never going to take effect.
Nissa's Oath is cool for the cantrip and playable for that. Making a superfriends deck is a much weaker application of it.
With the new use of legends as story characters, I wonder if Linvala will be incorporated into the story going fowrad.
Conversely, Omnath didn't see any light in the BFZ story, while Lorthos did despite not getting a card. I realize Omnath, Locus of Rage has Kozilek corruption in the background, which makes me hope he shows up in the next couple months, but I don't think Linvala is necessarily going to get any story time in comparison to Kalitas, Jori En, Ayli, and even Mina and Denn (whose story and card spoiler is next Wednesday anyways). After all, despite being a pretty famous legend, Linvala doesn't really have anything notable that we know of, she just seems like a typical angel. I feel if we see an Angel show up, Iona makes more sense.
I guess it is true that no matter how hard you try, anything sarcastic needs a /s afterwards.
I figured, but felt the need to take the joke a bit more.
And really, I look at Standard lists now and just don't get it.
I look at Standard lists now, look at my wallet, and cry. If I even want to bother coming back to Magic right now on a budget, all I feel I can make is a mono-red aggro deck.
It showcases how little thinking time people invest before posting a card evaluation that noone so far has pointed out that the creature type this is intended to be used with the most is NOT allies.
It's a bit early to go doom and gloom for the set without even seeing any of the planeswalkers, the 8 other mythics, or the plethora of rares to come.
Besides, I would argue that Elusive Tormentor is relatively strong for just how difficult it is to kill and how easy it is to enable madness with it, and the rest of today's spoilers beyond Soul Swallower were all commons or uncommons, which don't typically have a high percentage of Standard playables anyways.
The problem is people glazing over a question MaRo said on his tumblr. He admitted that there was initial work done on a third set before they decided on the two-block paradigm, and that it would feature Emrakul. However, in that same post, he also said that absolutely no Creative besides the concept of Emrakul being on Zendikar was done for the set, and it never even left design.
Yes, there was a "third set" being designed, in the same way that Duke Nukem Forever was in "development" for the first of its fifteen years of it.
Didn't Aaron Forsythe literally say in the GP Detroit stream that they were looking into banning cards to bring Eldrazi into line without completely destroying the deck?
This literally is just a thread about something told to the entire public over four hours ago.
I'm probably wrong on assessing it's power level since I took a break from Standard for a year, but as a player intending to go into Werewolves once SoI comes out, that card just sings to me. It just hits so many bases. It's a bear with card draw that curves perfectly into giving you something to do without playing a spell, allowing it to flip into Werewolf side that offers that bit of "ramp" for your pack. I realize it's not perfect, but seriously. It does die to removal, but so do a lot of powerful creatures. And I realize that the reduced cost on your creatures means it's likely to flip back to Human side afterwards, but I'm absolutely OK with -1/-1 to gain a massive board boost on turn 4 and getting to dig for creatures again.
Honestly, I will not be surprised if this is one of the top Werewolves in the set at all.
Right, so Ashiok. The nightmare planeswalker. The one who, by Word of God, "travels the Multiverse in search of designs for the perfect embodiment of fear." Yeah, Ashiok went to Theros, but if that is true, Innistrad is just a treasure trove for them. The sheer amount of Gothic Horror here is brutal. These people should have the most inherent fear out of all of them. But they also have hope in the form of Avacyn and her angel army. For all we know, Ashiok got their desire for inflicting terror by being an initial Innistrad resident (though their clothing, name, and biology don't fit very well).
Now, who do we know who's on Innistrad right now? Sorin, and, from art, Nahiri. Both of these planeswalkers are very old, and have seen some nightmarish things, the Eldrazi being one of them. Each of them have their own major fears about their home plane breaking down as well. Sorin only cares that his Innistrad survives, while Nahiri has shown concern for Zendikar's well-being. Based on the flavor text of Structural Distortion, Nahiri believes that Zendikar has been destroyed by the Eldrazi. Given that we saw nothing of her on Zendikar during BfZ, though, how would she know anything of the extent of the damage caused? Instead, I would surmise that Ashiok allowed those latent fears about Zendikar's use as a prison for the monsters to fester, creating an illusion that it was consumed for her. She believes this to be fact, and is now attacking Innistrad in vengeance.
Similarly, Sorin is concerned first and foremost about the possibility of the Eldrazi coming to Innistrad. Ashiok can take that fear and use it as their weapon. Notice how, in every sighting of "Emrakul", it's in a rather shadowy form? Such as, perhaps, Ashiok's shadow-head? There is no Emrakul on Innistrad. The entire monster is a nightmare concocted from Sorin's worries. Of course, Ashiok likely cannot comprehend anything of the titan, and as a result can't make a more physical copy of her. They can only assume, based on what they have gathered from Sorin, that they have the ability to warp reality. Thus, the turning of the angels.
So that's my theory. Feel free to ridicule or contribute, depending on your preference.
Everyone always seems to want the Eldrazi to show up in every block, but really, you don't ACTUALLY want them to keep showing up. Look at how negative the community has reacted to the swarm of low-costed Eldrazi, making them boring and straying from what they initially were. You can't make them keep showing up, because that is not what Cthulu mythoids are about. They are about beings beyond comprehension, something so abnormal and terrifying that they drive men and beast to madness. That's why they worked initially in ROE; they were gigantic, rare, and destructive. Now in BFZ block, we see them much more commonly. That was necessary for design perspectives, but the Eldrazi did lose a bit of their story when they became an army. Granted, that's fine for a block. After all, the two titans and their high-ranking brood still create the atmosphere of the initial Eldrazi. However, if we have an entire year of the same Eldrazi with the same reduction in power, they will become boring. Mundane. Expected. Just like when Slivers became like Predator, the community will become disillusioned with the Eldrazi. Bring the Phyrexians to Innistrad if you really need to tie a backwater plane to a greater evil. Don't do it with something we just spent six months hearing about.
Nissa's Oath is cool for the cantrip and playable for that. Making a superfriends deck is a much weaker application of it.
Conversely, Omnath didn't see any light in the BFZ story, while Lorthos did despite not getting a card. I realize Omnath, Locus of Rage has Kozilek corruption in the background, which makes me hope he shows up in the next couple months, but I don't think Linvala is necessarily going to get any story time in comparison to Kalitas, Jori En, Ayli, and even Mina and Denn (whose story and card spoiler is next Wednesday anyways). After all, despite being a pretty famous legend, Linvala doesn't really have anything notable that we know of, she just seems like a typical angel. I feel if we see an Angel show up, Iona makes more sense.
I look at Standard lists now, look at my wallet, and cry. If I even want to bother coming back to Magic right now on a budget, all I feel I can make is a mono-red aggro deck.
I guess it is true that no matter how hard you try, anything sarcastic needs a /s afterwards.
It's obviously meant for Awaken Elementals.