Ok when I have willbreaker on the battlefield and then cast word of seizing what happens at the end of turn? Do I maintain control of the permanent or would it go back to its owner/previous controller?
So, here is what happens:
Cast Word of Siezing on an opponent's creature (since Willbreaker only works on creatures, the interaction is only for creatures).
Willbreaker triggers
Willbreaker resolves. You now control the creature because of Willbreaker.
Word of Siezing resolves. You now control the creature because of Word of Siezing.
End of turn: Word of Siezing's effect ends and the creature goes back to its previous owner. In this case, because of Willbreaker's effect, that happens to still be you.
Controller! Ownership doesn't change during a game unless when playing for ante.
You will retain control of the creature even when Word of Siezing's effect ends. Note, that it wil still have haste until end of turn.
The control change effect ends at the same time the creature loses haste, in the cleanup step, when WoS's duration ends.
You are correct. I don't know why I put "owner" when obviously everything being affected is the controller.
The point about haste was that even though control changed before Word of Seizing resolved, Word of Seizing still gives it haste until end of turn. I didn't want the OP to think that because Willbreaker has a control effect that it somehow affected the part of Word of Seizing granting haste to the creature.
You will attack with Essence of the Wild. This will trigger Mardu Ascndancy. You will get a token that enters as an Essence of the Wild. You will then be attacking with 2 6/6 creatures. There are no further triggers from this interaction since the token is put onto the battlefield attacking.
Also, the creature from Mardu Ascendancy is still a token, even if it is a copy of Essence of the Wild.
Ok when I have willbreaker on the battlefield and then cast word of seizing what happens at the end of turn? Do I maintain control of the permanent or would it go back to its owner/previous controller?
So, here is what happens:
Cast Word of Siezing on an opponent's creature (since Willbreaker only works on creatures, the interaction is only for creatures).
Willbreaker triggers
Willbreaker resolves. You now control the creature because of Willbreaker.
Word of Siezing resolves. You now control the creature because of Word of Siezing.
End of turn: Word of Siezing's effect ends and the creature goes back to its previous owner. In this case, because of Willbreaker's effect, that happens to still be you.
You will retain control of the creature even when Word of Siezing's effect ends. Note, that it wil still have haste until end of turn.
Krosan Grip for me. It's mostly Nature's Claim's fault, but Beast Within and cards like Deglamer/Unravel the Aether just blow it away in my opinion. Plus the creatures in green that can be sacced to destroy artifacts/enchantments along with the ETB variety for the same cost.
My opinion of this card has changed over time and I think it is outclassed by many things, in my deckbuilding experience anyways.
This was one I thought of too as I have cut it from every deck in favor of Reclamation Sage. However, I am slowly coming back around to it and I may start including it again (in some builds anyway). I am not sure yet, but being able to shut down a Pernicious Deed or Oblivion Stone is pretty nice.
I have slowly been replacing my Bounce Lands (Golgari Rot Farm for example) in decks, especially with the new Zen Duals taking up spots. I don't play in a meta where LD is very prevalent so the potential tempo loss from losing the land is mitigated. However, I have been noticing that the benefits (bouncing my Vesuva or Bojuka Bog) hasn't been enough to offset the fact that I sometimes don't have a turn 2 or 3 play because I am playing one.
One card that I started playing right away was Perilous Vault as a second Oblivion Stone. However, I found pretty quickly that the exile effect hurts me a lot. I still have it in a couple decks that don't care about recursion. but others have dropped it entirely.
I am slowly getting to the same place with Decree of Pain. I have slowly been picking up more Damnations to fill out slots and Toxic Deluge is huge. I do like that Decree gets me a lot of card draw, but it often isn't enough to because I waited 4-5 turns to cast it.
I stopped playing Planar Cleansing pretty much completely. When I started, I liked it because it was a white board wipe that took out everything for 2 mana less than O-Stone (though Oblivion Stone can spread out over 2 turns). However, being a Sorcery and needing 3 white limits its impact.
I know there are others, but these are the ones off the top of my head.
As a counterpoint to the general statement "fast mana should be banned", you could use Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Kiora, Master of the Depths to theoretically get 4 "free" mana on turn 2 and at least 10 mana on Turn 3. It isn't necessarily about fast mana. It is about consistency and resiliency. The sample data shown above suggests that Titan doesn't get that much mana that quickly often enough to be a problem.
In order to do anything, Summer Bloom requires other cards. If you drew Song, you could cast it and flashback Past in Flames to go to work. Bloom requires a bounce land and an Amulet on field in order to do anything.
Also, there is a huge difference between "fast mana" and "mana acceleration". If anything, acceleration doesn't net you mana advantage on the turn it is played (if and when it does it's almost always banned (Grim Monolith)), while fast mana does exactly that. Arbor Elf cannot ever, under any known/unknown circumstances on this Earth be discussed as a "fast mana" card. Summer Bloom, with or without the help of Amulet of Vigor, can.
I get where you are coming from and the distinction you are making. Arbor Elf was simply a similar example of getting a lot of mana relatively early (turn 3 for 10 mana). However, it may have just muddied the waters of the discussion, so I will drop that analogy.
Getting back to Seething Song and Summer Bloom, the point still stands that the shell for Storm allowed for Seething Song to accelerate quickly and keep its storm count growing. With Past in Flames, it allows for even more use out of it. Summer Bloom is a one shot effect which I agree is powerful, but within the Bloom Titan shell it is not broken. I still don't think the two cards are necessarily comparable and banning one does not mean the other should be banned.
Wizards may ultimately feel differently, but I don't think the deck, even with Summer Bloom, is oppressive/fast/ubiquitous enough to warrant a banning.
Even as a Bloom player, I still want to see Hive Mind go though. I don't think that is really broken either, but only Blue can interact with it in any meaningful way and it just leads to very unfun games. I watched a game once where a BUG player played against it and ripped apart Bloom Titan by exiling all the Titans in the player's library and then ended up losing to a top decked Summoner's Pact (they had 2 Hive Mind in hand so they couldn't get them to discard them both). The game went on pretty long though showing that interaction can shut down the Titan win-con.
Completely anecdotal, but a lot of the younger drafters at my store tend to pick up packs of BFZ for their prize to try and rip an expedition. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was the norm among a fair amount of players.
This is what I do. I decide to go for BfZ for prize packs for the Full Art basics, but mostly for the Expedition lottery. I have only pulled one though . I decided not to pick Origins because I don't really have a use for Jace and he is the big money card. Liliana isn't bad either but I don't have a good use for her either.
However, when Oath is released I can already tell that I will be excited to open these packs (whereas BfZ was always just 'meh'). There are already quite a few EDH playables spoiled, and I wouldn't mind most of the Expeditions as the filters are good for Modern and I play 8 of the other 10 in EDH. The only one I would be disappointed to open is Tectonic Edge and honestly the one I am most looking forward to getting at some point is the one I don't play in anything (Forbidden Orchard). I just like the art on it that much
I am sure everyone is different, but I wouldn't be surprise if BfZ is currently opened because of the Expedition lottery and from a money standpoint, I think BfZ still has the more valuable Expeditions in the Fetches. Wasteland in Oath is nice, but the fetches still beat out the other 19 in Oath by a wide margin (in my opinion). Maybe people will keep opening them hoping to get fetches.
As a counterpoint to the general statement "fast mana should be banned", you could use Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Kiora, Master of the Depths to theoretically get 4 "free" mana on turn 2 and at least 10 mana on Turn 3. It isn't necessarily about fast mana. It is about consistency and resiliency. The sample data shown above suggests that Titan doesn't get that much mana that quickly often enough to be a problem.
In order to do anything, Summer Bloom requires other cards. If you drew Song, you could cast it and flashback Past in Flames to go to work. Bloom requires a bounce land and an Amulet on field in order to do anything.
Thank you.
I was also just trying to point out that other card combinations can produce more mana than Summer Bloom. I am certainly not suggesting that the power level of the two is anywhere near each other. This simply illustrates that just because Summer Bloom can ramp and Seething Song can ramp (and Arbor Elf can ramp), that doesn't mean that Summer Bloom is on the same level as Seething Song in terms of power or oppressiveness. Summer Bloom in Bloom Titan is fine. Seething Song in Storm is broken.
Data is cool, provided it's relevant and that the sample size is reasonable.
However, I don't think data can help answer the simple question: If Amulet Bloom doesn't need to have any cards (most notably Summer Bloom) banned and is healthy for the format as is, then why is Seething Song still on the banned list?
To me this is the main issue, not the speed of the deck. WotC has demonstrated their willingness to keep fast mana cards on a short leash regardless of the decks overall performance or metagame share. While it is true that Storm was a very popular deck online at one point (don't remember how popular but it was a budget deck for what I recall), it's overall power level was about up there with modern Bloom decks, maybe even slightly less since they were prone to a wider range of disruption, that popularity didn't translate well to paper events and the deck, or should I say card, was still axed.
One might debate if Summer Bloom falls under the "fast mana" category, but I'm not really sure how else I should define a card that enables you to cast Primeval Titan on turn 2, even if it's only once in every ten games. To make matters worse, it's not even genuine fast mana since the mana (lands) that card cheated into play can still be used on the next turn. In that sense it is a unique card in the bloom deck since almost any other deck I care to recall had to compensate that form of mana advantage with card disadvantage as the mana they generate is temporary and has to be used on the turn you played the card or it is wasted.
To keep it short, it's really hard to argue that Summer Bloom is a fair card when you take into consideration the fact that most, if not all, relevantly similar mana producers, are banned from the format. What makes Bloom so special?
The difference is that Summer Bloom is harder to set up. Summer Bloom requires 2 other cards to be useful (Amulet of Vigor and a bounce land) along with Titan or Hive Mind to actually cast. Yes, it can be cast a turn earlier than Song, but to get to a turn 2 Titan, you will typically only end up with 2 lands in play anyway (before Titan hits the battlefield) with possibly 1 being a bounce land. Sometimes you will end up with just the bounce land depending on what lands were in your hand. Other plays could certainly get you more lands in play with Bloom, but then you are probably not getting a Turn 2 Titan in that case. If you are playing a deck that doesn't use Bounce lands, you would need a hand with at least 5 lands in the first 8 cards (on the play) to make full use of it. That is why the bounce lands and Amulet are key to the deck.
I understand that if Titan resolves, the number does go up, but that is because of the synergy of the cards together, not because Summer Bloom itself is allowing for permanent mana in the deck. It is a small distinction, but I think it is important to note since you need a specific 5 cards in your first 8 to get a Turn 2 Titan (non-bounce land, bounce land, Amulet of Vigor, Summer Bloom, Titan). If you try to get a turn 2 Hive Mind win, you also need a Summoner's Pact. That is a lot of cards devoted to getting early wins.
Ktkenshinx pointed out that the "before turn 4" win percentage for Storm with Seething Song was much greater than what Bloom Titan can achieve and that is ultimately the difference between the two cards/decks.
As a counterpoint to the general statement "fast mana should be banned", you could use Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Kiora, Master of the Depths to theoretically get 4 "free" mana on turn 2 and at least 10 mana on Turn 3. It isn't necessarily about fast mana. It is about consistency and resiliency. The sample data shown above suggests that Titan doesn't get that much mana that quickly often enough to be a problem.
The only problem is that we have no way of putting this into perspective, because what don't know what # of < turn 4 wins should be "allowed". I imagine people's opinions differ on this, and until we answer that question it's impossible to say whether or not the deck should be banned.
Your data says that the deck wins on turn 2 or 3 in 10% of its wins, which is definitely a significant percentage of the time.
Totally disagree. 10% seems incredibly low. Infect definitely wins before turn 4 in 10%-20% of games. I remember testing Seething Song Storm a long time ago and that deck was winning before turn 3 in around 20%-25% of games.
10% does indeed seem small enough, but that is also only the percentage of its wins. I think all games (including losses) should be included in determining a "before turn 4" win percentage. In that case, based on the sample, it only wins 6% of all games played before turn 4. After all, if we discount all of a deck's losses when determining a win percentage, we could probably come up with a deck that wins on Turn 2 during at least 50% of its wins, but loses over 90% of its games overall because of the deck structure. Disregarding the losses to determine a win percentage artificially inflates the number.
Just a thought regarding the newest batch of spoilers:
Crumbling Vestige seems like it would be Simic Growth Chamber 5-8 in Bloom Titan. Is this more likely a sign that some piece of the deck is going to be banned, or perhaps a signal it's here to stay.
Except it is not Simic Growth Chamber. At best, it is a potential replacement for Tendo Ice Bridge. Since it doesn't bounce itself, it doesn't have the advantage Simic Growth Chamber does in that you can't cast a Titan or Hive Mind with one of these and Summer Bloom and Amulet of Vigor.
I think I have a wrong impression of the way this works so I'm hoping to get a clarification from the community.
I'm playing EDH and my commander is Meren of Clan Nel Toth. She is currently on the battlefield under my control as are 3 other vanilla creatures. My opponent plays Damnation and it resolves. I choose to move meren to the command zone instead of letting her go to the graveyard.
How many times (if any) does meren's second ability trigger?
My impression was since meren had been moved to exile by the time the creatures actually died her ability would not trigger and I would get no additional experience counters here. It seems others disagree. Hopefully someone can bring clarity to this situation for me.
Her second ability doesn't trigger at all. However, her first trigger (the one giving you experience counters) will trigger 3 times. It doesn't matter that you replaced Meren dying by having her go to the Command Zone. She will still see the other 3 creatures dying since the creatures all die at the same time (when Damnation resolves).
You will end up with a 3/3 that still has the trigger to create tokens when it dies.
When you flip the card, it will not have any time counters on it, since it is already on the battlefield. Not having time counters doesn't mean anything for Vanishing (at least not immediately). When you get to your upkeep, a trigger will go on the stack to remove a counter. However, since there are no counters, none will be removed. Since the "when the last is removed" clause is not met it will not be sacrificed.
When it dies later, for whatever reason, it will not have any time counters on it, so you will still get the tokens and they will have time counters as normal.
Basically I want to clear up if Vision is a valid target while it's in the graveyard for the -3 ability on Jace.
Yes, it is a valid target for Jace's -3. However, you won't be able to cast it, just like you couldn't cast it from your hand. Jace doesn't change the fact that Ancestral Vision can't normally be cast. You also can't suspend it since you can only Suspend from your hand.
In the scenario that a Kolaghan's Command is cast choosing the modes destroy artifact targeting a Spellskite and deal 2 damage not targeting Spellskite, can that Spellskite re-direct the target of the 2 damage to itself?
I was under the assumption that it could and there would be no problem, but just saw a ruling that it could not because Kolaghan's Command has 2 targets. Why would that prevent Spellskite from re-directing either or both of the targets?
Sure, you can do that. Since the modes each have the word "target" you can target Spellskite with both modes. Since the original caster of Kolaghan's Command could have targeted Spellskite with both modes, the controller of Spellskite can redirect the targets so both modes are targeting Spellskite.
You are correct. I don't know why I put "owner" when obviously everything being affected is the controller.
The point about haste was that even though control changed before Word of Seizing resolved, Word of Seizing still gives it haste until end of turn. I didn't want the OP to think that because Willbreaker has a control effect that it somehow affected the part of Word of Seizing granting haste to the creature.
Mardu Ascendancy
Essence of the Wild
You will attack with Essence of the Wild. This will trigger Mardu Ascndancy. You will get a token that enters as an Essence of the Wild. You will then be attacking with 2 6/6 creatures. There are no further triggers from this interaction since the token is put onto the battlefield attacking.
Also, the creature from Mardu Ascendancy is still a token, even if it is a copy of Essence of the Wild.
Cast Word of Siezing on an opponent's creature (since Willbreaker only works on creatures, the interaction is only for creatures).
Willbreaker triggers
Willbreaker resolves. You now control the creature because of Willbreaker.
Word of Siezing resolves. You now control the creature because of Word of Siezing.
End of turn: Word of Siezing's effect ends and the creature goes back to its previous owner. In this case, because of Willbreaker's effect, that happens to still be you.
You will retain control of the creature even when Word of Siezing's effect ends. Note, that it wil still have haste until end of turn.
This was one I thought of too as I have cut it from every deck in favor of Reclamation Sage. However, I am slowly coming back around to it and I may start including it again (in some builds anyway). I am not sure yet, but being able to shut down a Pernicious Deed or Oblivion Stone is pretty nice.
I stopped playing Angel of Despair after Ashen Rider came out. I also use Archon of Justice in some builds.
One card that I started playing right away was Perilous Vault as a second Oblivion Stone. However, I found pretty quickly that the exile effect hurts me a lot. I still have it in a couple decks that don't care about recursion. but others have dropped it entirely.
I am slowly getting to the same place with Decree of Pain. I have slowly been picking up more Damnations to fill out slots and Toxic Deluge is huge. I do like that Decree gets me a lot of card draw, but it often isn't enough to because I waited 4-5 turns to cast it.
I stopped playing Planar Cleansing pretty much completely. When I started, I liked it because it was a white board wipe that took out everything for 2 mana less than O-Stone (though Oblivion Stone can spread out over 2 turns). However, being a Sorcery and needing 3 white limits its impact.
I know there are others, but these are the ones off the top of my head.
Getting back to Seething Song and Summer Bloom, the point still stands that the shell for Storm allowed for Seething Song to accelerate quickly and keep its storm count growing. With Past in Flames, it allows for even more use out of it. Summer Bloom is a one shot effect which I agree is powerful, but within the Bloom Titan shell it is not broken. I still don't think the two cards are necessarily comparable and banning one does not mean the other should be banned.
Wizards may ultimately feel differently, but I don't think the deck, even with Summer Bloom, is oppressive/fast/ubiquitous enough to warrant a banning.
Even as a Bloom player, I still want to see Hive Mind go though. I don't think that is really broken either, but only Blue can interact with it in any meaningful way and it just leads to very unfun games. I watched a game once where a BUG player played against it and ripped apart Bloom Titan by exiling all the Titans in the player's library and then ended up losing to a top decked Summoner's Pact (they had 2 Hive Mind in hand so they couldn't get them to discard them both). The game went on pretty long though showing that interaction can shut down the Titan win-con.
However, when Oath is released I can already tell that I will be excited to open these packs (whereas BfZ was always just 'meh'). There are already quite a few EDH playables spoiled, and I wouldn't mind most of the Expeditions as the filters are good for Modern and I play 8 of the other 10 in EDH. The only one I would be disappointed to open is Tectonic Edge and honestly the one I am most looking forward to getting at some point is the one I don't play in anything (Forbidden Orchard). I just like the art on it that much
I am sure everyone is different, but I wouldn't be surprise if BfZ is currently opened because of the Expedition lottery and from a money standpoint, I think BfZ still has the more valuable Expeditions in the Fetches. Wasteland in Oath is nice, but the fetches still beat out the other 19 in Oath by a wide margin (in my opinion). Maybe people will keep opening them hoping to get fetches.
Thank you.
I was also just trying to point out that other card combinations can produce more mana than Summer Bloom. I am certainly not suggesting that the power level of the two is anywhere near each other. This simply illustrates that just because Summer Bloom can ramp and Seething Song can ramp (and Arbor Elf can ramp), that doesn't mean that Summer Bloom is on the same level as Seething Song in terms of power or oppressiveness. Summer Bloom in Bloom Titan is fine. Seething Song in Storm is broken.
I understand that if Titan resolves, the number does go up, but that is because of the synergy of the cards together, not because Summer Bloom itself is allowing for permanent mana in the deck. It is a small distinction, but I think it is important to note since you need a specific 5 cards in your first 8 to get a Turn 2 Titan (non-bounce land, bounce land, Amulet of Vigor, Summer Bloom, Titan). If you try to get a turn 2 Hive Mind win, you also need a Summoner's Pact. That is a lot of cards devoted to getting early wins.
Ktkenshinx pointed out that the "before turn 4" win percentage for Storm with Seething Song was much greater than what Bloom Titan can achieve and that is ultimately the difference between the two cards/decks.
As a counterpoint to the general statement "fast mana should be banned", you could use Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Kiora, Master of the Depths to theoretically get 4 "free" mana on turn 2 and at least 10 mana on Turn 3. It isn't necessarily about fast mana. It is about consistency and resiliency. The sample data shown above suggests that Titan doesn't get that much mana that quickly often enough to be a problem.
When you flip the card, it will not have any time counters on it, since it is already on the battlefield. Not having time counters doesn't mean anything for Vanishing (at least not immediately). When you get to your upkeep, a trigger will go on the stack to remove a counter. However, since there are no counters, none will be removed. Since the "when the last is removed" clause is not met it will not be sacrificed.
When it dies later, for whatever reason, it will not have any time counters on it, so you will still get the tokens and they will have time counters as normal.