As previously stated, the CONCEPT of Consuming Contract is unique and creative and really cool. The problem is that none of the stated effects are worth losing the game, taken individually or as a group. If I'm losing the game in four turns, by my own hand, give me something better than sign in blood and murder. Say your opponent just Wrathed, then the Murder ability is useless and you get no value out if the card for one of your four remaining turns. Or that you draw this late, when killing one creature may not matter, and you're already too low on life for sign in blood to be benficial. There are too many scenarios where you're putting yourself on a four turn clock for no real benefit.
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of giving yourself 4 turns to win in exchange for a powerful effect. The flavor is awesome. But give me something that will actually help me win in those 4 turns. Give me a tutor, or mass card draw, or god forbid one free spell. If you print this as is, with a low cost, it's a flavorful dollar rare. Give me legitimate effects at say 5 or 6 mana, and watch it make memorable games.
My problem with Consuming contract atm, is that as currently worded, if there isn't a dude on the board, you lose out on one of your four turns. After all, you can't choose a mode if there isn't a target for it, and one of those modes is killing a creature. I'd probably prefer if it was bumped up a little in power and made "destroy all creatures", both eliminating the targetting concern and adding some power.
Infect means that the creature deals damage in the form of poison counters, so the Inkmoth Nexus will end up dealing no damage to Melira's controller, since he/she can't gain poison counters.
Not quite the correct conclusion. Damage is still dealt, but no poison counters are gained, and no life is lost. Therefore, anything that triggers off of damage being dealt still triggers, but no actual life change happens. It's similar to Platinum Emperion.
I can't find the source I thought I had, but that's fine.
If we assume it happened after the mending, so he could create another one but didn't want to replace avacyn, why not make an angel that still gives his plane hope, but doesn't replace her (Just becomes a second-in-command when she returns)?
I mean, if he cares about them he would help them if possible, right?
It's also possible that he spent much of the time he was there looking for Avacyn. He may have had a plan similar to what you're thinking of on the back burner, but for all we know, creating another thing of Avacyn like power would require he steep the shell of an obscure extinct mollusk on the other side of the blind eternities in the discharge of the turtle that carries the world on its back (which only happens once a millennium) for four hundred years. Or something equal strenuous.
It is always greatly amusing when it's that 1% chance of just not working. But yes, odds wise, as long as you save it for something important, you can make it work for you.
... That is a traditional christmas food here. But I have to admit that I even I can't fathom how it was created...
Also, I've been pondering whether or not I should just quit my job tomorrow, after 3 days. Telemarketing just drives me crazy, I've been stressed ever since I started, been crying like mad, haven't been able to eat or sleep properly due the stress the job is causing me...
Unless you really really need the money, I'd probably suggest quitting. If you feel really obligated to them, let them know you'll finish out the week and then quit. Telemarketing isn't for everybody, and they'd rather have someone able to do the work than someone going crazy from the stress... not to mention it's obviously better for you to not be that stressed.
I'm afraid this won't be the case. Smokestack (Igor Kirlyuk) kind of confirmed that all new slivers will be following the new design.
I don't think that's exactly what he's asking about, though? Basically, and I could be misinterpreting the question, but he's hoping that these are considered 'Shandalar Slivers' as a distinct group from the 'Rathi Slivers', which would be the old style sliver. Obviously, we won't be seeing the Rathi slivers again if that's the case, but it allows that separation in headspace, if that makes sense?
Derp, giving them flying for instance wouldn't then open them up to spells that only target/damage flying creatures? You are why its dumbing down
Yes, because I always pack anti-flying spells in my sliver decks in case A) my opponents are playing slivers and B) I get my winged sliver out.
The point behind things like this is because corner interactions like that, strategically, don't make up for the loss in mental room caused by having it as a global change. The point isn't to dumb down the game, but make it so you don't have to have five million interactions memorized just to make a move, allowing you to spend more mental space on actual interaction and strategy.
Here, lets give an example: Chess. What if there was a rule that if you move three of your pieces in a specific order, you can move a pawn to the left on your next play? Would that add much strategic depth to the game? Would it, in fact, come up much at all? Yet if you want to play at a good level, you'd have to memorize it, just in case. Can you think of any such rule that would add strategic depth? Now this is a game of 6 to 8 movement types, with simple rules. And yet it obviously isn't greatly improved by adding extraneous interactions, at least in my humble opinion. Magic is a game that already has thousands of interactions to memorize, yet you really think they're 'dumbing down the game' by boiling it down to the level where strategic play is what wins games, rather than rote memorization and knowing more about what happens than your opponents?
The actual result of all that hand-waving is robotic/CG looking dudes with dreadlocks.
Design is in the actual details, not the hand-waving blather.
For you, perhaps. Some of us enjoy the 'hand-waving blather', and enjoy looking to see how it was incorporated into the designs. Just because you don't enjoy something doesn't mean other people won't, so dismissively commenting as though every single explanation in this thread is a personal attempt to convert you is a bit... overblown. I understand that by the same token, just cause I like it doesn't mean you have to, but it sounds like the understanding doesn't go the other way.
Sewer Nemesis andthe previously-mentioned Lord of Extinction are great. Krosan Tusker would be agreat addition. Though his mana cost isn't too low, you can get him into the graveyard easily, and profit, too, giving you a landdrop and a card towards helping to pay for his scavene cost later.
Unfortunately, Sewer Nemesis isn't really synergistic with Valroz. Basically, as soon as Sewer Nemesis hits the graveyard, it 'forgets' which opponent you picked, and thus is a 0/0 when scavenged. Lord, though, I have to endorse again. Plus, he'll even count himself when you scavenge him.
Plated = Steelform for +2cc and +1/+1 P/T
Bonesplitter = Battle for +1cc and +1/+1 P/T
Horned = Groundshaker for +4cc and +3/+3 P/T
Heart = Blur for +1cc and +1/+1 P/T
so far they have taken an old Sliver card, pumped its P/T by +1/+1 and increased the casting cost. Only Striking and Janus I mean Sentinel have been well costed and pushed for their benefits.
None of which went from two to five. In fact, the only one with an even slightly comparable split is groundshaker, which actually belongs in the "+1cc and +1/+1 P/T", considering the closest comparison is Battering Sliver. Yes, they cost slightly more... because they give slightly more benefit. In some of those cases, it actually improves the card. For example, I'd personally rather run Blur over Heart, because being a 2/2 matters a lot in a deck that's trying to build off the base stats.
You dont have a clue what you are talking about.
Overcosted in relation to other threats/answers in the current format.
Who cares what TSP slivers were like?
there is a gulf of difference between cmc 2 and cmc 5, giving something a slightly bigger body doesn't help.
These slivers are universally worse than the old ones. Without the drawback in the mecahanic, they can not be as aggressive with effects.
I'm genuinely confused. Which sliver used to cost 2 but now costs five? Honestly, I only see improvements in the costing of these slivers... The vigilance granting one is right on curve, and the first striking one is undercosted compared to previous slivers Talon Sliver
I never really played slivers, but I tested it and I can recognize slivers as slivers from art alone. Including spinneret sliver.
Besides they get Strengths. Spinneret sliver didn't turn into a spider, he got web spinning powers, but was still shaped like a sliver.
Also the strength of humans is definitely Not their shape. We are pretty poorly designed in that respect. After seeing what the other slivers can do with a tail and claw humanoid legs are especially inferior.
Actually, evolutionarily, there are a number of strengths of the bipedal form, specifically ours. In addition to better ability to support larger braincases relative to body-weight (and before you say slivers have no need for brains, I'd point out that mindless does not mean they don't have a use for something that relays information from the hivemind more efficiently), bipedalness gives better leverage for attacking with the arms. Plus, we're better endurance runners for it, mostly aided by our butts. So yeah, lots of good traits for a hunting species. After all, that's what we were when it came about.
Think about it logically. If bipedalness was evolutionarily 'bad', would we have evolved in that way? It's not universally good, but it's certainly not universally poorly designed.
Huh... I think you're right. It looks like it says "Enchanted permanent has indestructible." Which means that "indestructible" is finally becoming a keyword instead of a weird, nebulous "characteristic" or whatever it has been up until now. Interesting.
It's also possible that's just a change for the sake of Duels of the Planeswalkers, and not something that will affect the paper game.
where has it been said/confirmed that m14 slivers were from shandalar and not rath-dominaria? i was under the impression that core sets weren't specific to one plane, and if they were, i naturally assume its dominaria.
The flavor text for Battle Sliver quotes a Thunian scout. Thune is a place on Shandalar. While it's possible these slivers are from another place and just moved to Shandalar, they've obviously been there long enough for people to think of them as normalish and not just 'what the hell is that arrrrgh'. Therefore, the assumption at the moment is that they've been there long enough to be called "Shandalarian slivers".
My problem with Consuming contract atm, is that as currently worded, if there isn't a dude on the board, you lose out on one of your four turns. After all, you can't choose a mode if there isn't a target for it, and one of those modes is killing a creature. I'd probably prefer if it was bumped up a little in power and made "destroy all creatures", both eliminating the targetting concern and adding some power.
Not quite the correct conclusion. Damage is still dealt, but no poison counters are gained, and no life is lost. Therefore, anything that triggers off of damage being dealt still triggers, but no actual life change happens. It's similar to Platinum Emperion.
It's also possible that he spent much of the time he was there looking for Avacyn. He may have had a plan similar to what you're thinking of on the back burner, but for all we know, creating another thing of Avacyn like power would require he steep the shell of an obscure extinct mollusk on the other side of the blind eternities in the discharge of the turtle that carries the world on its back (which only happens once a millennium) for four hundred years. Or something equal strenuous.
Unless you really really need the money, I'd probably suggest quitting. If you feel really obligated to them, let them know you'll finish out the week and then quit. Telemarketing isn't for everybody, and they'd rather have someone able to do the work than someone going crazy from the stress... not to mention it's obviously better for you to not be that stressed.
I don't think that's exactly what he's asking about, though? Basically, and I could be misinterpreting the question, but he's hoping that these are considered 'Shandalar Slivers' as a distinct group from the 'Rathi Slivers', which would be the old style sliver. Obviously, we won't be seeing the Rathi slivers again if that's the case, but it allows that separation in headspace, if that makes sense?
Yes, because I always pack anti-flying spells in my sliver decks in case A) my opponents are playing slivers and B) I get my winged sliver out.
The point behind things like this is because corner interactions like that, strategically, don't make up for the loss in mental room caused by having it as a global change. The point isn't to dumb down the game, but make it so you don't have to have five million interactions memorized just to make a move, allowing you to spend more mental space on actual interaction and strategy.
Here, lets give an example: Chess. What if there was a rule that if you move three of your pieces in a specific order, you can move a pawn to the left on your next play? Would that add much strategic depth to the game? Would it, in fact, come up much at all? Yet if you want to play at a good level, you'd have to memorize it, just in case. Can you think of any such rule that would add strategic depth? Now this is a game of 6 to 8 movement types, with simple rules. And yet it obviously isn't greatly improved by adding extraneous interactions, at least in my humble opinion. Magic is a game that already has thousands of interactions to memorize, yet you really think they're 'dumbing down the game' by boiling it down to the level where strategic play is what wins games, rather than rote memorization and knowing more about what happens than your opponents?
For you, perhaps. Some of us enjoy the 'hand-waving blather', and enjoy looking to see how it was incorporated into the designs. Just because you don't enjoy something doesn't mean other people won't, so dismissively commenting as though every single explanation in this thread is a personal attempt to convert you is a bit... overblown. I understand that by the same token, just cause I like it doesn't mean you have to, but it sounds like the understanding doesn't go the other way.
Unfortunately, Sewer Nemesis isn't really synergistic with Valroz. Basically, as soon as Sewer Nemesis hits the graveyard, it 'forgets' which opponent you picked, and thus is a 0/0 when scavenged. Lord, though, I have to endorse again. Plus, he'll even count himself when you scavenge him.
None of which went from two to five. In fact, the only one with an even slightly comparable split is groundshaker, which actually belongs in the "+1cc and +1/+1 P/T", considering the closest comparison is Battering Sliver. Yes, they cost slightly more... because they give slightly more benefit. In some of those cases, it actually improves the card. For example, I'd personally rather run Blur over Heart, because being a 2/2 matters a lot in a deck that's trying to build off the base stats.
I'm genuinely confused. Which sliver used to cost 2 but now costs five? Honestly, I only see improvements in the costing of these slivers... The vigilance granting one is right on curve, and the first striking one is undercosted compared to previous slivers Talon Sliver
Actually, evolutionarily, there are a number of strengths of the bipedal form, specifically ours. In addition to better ability to support larger braincases relative to body-weight (and before you say slivers have no need for brains, I'd point out that mindless does not mean they don't have a use for something that relays information from the hivemind more efficiently), bipedalness gives better leverage for attacking with the arms. Plus, we're better endurance runners for it, mostly aided by our butts. So yeah, lots of good traits for a hunting species. After all, that's what we were when it came about.
Think about it logically. If bipedalness was evolutionarily 'bad', would we have evolved in that way? It's not universally good, but it's certainly not universally poorly designed.
It's also possible that's just a change for the sake of Duels of the Planeswalkers, and not something that will affect the paper game.
The flavor text for Battle Sliver quotes a Thunian scout. Thune is a place on Shandalar. While it's possible these slivers are from another place and just moved to Shandalar, they've obviously been there long enough for people to think of them as normalish and not just 'what the hell is that arrrrgh'. Therefore, the assumption at the moment is that they've been there long enough to be called "Shandalarian slivers".