Are people still seriously dense enough to say that enemy fetches won't be in the set? We were explicitly told that Wizards will not be doing half-cycles of lands in block sets. We got the allied fetches in Khans, couple Wizards' statement with other hints, the enemy fetches will be in Dragons. You have to be a complete idiot to believe otherwise.
While I still think enemy fetches will show up in Dragons, this article certainly casts doubt. After all, what reason would there be to include them if the 5 factions in Dragons are allied colored? I can see where others are seeing that this article starts to lean towards allied colored factions and in a set based around allied colored factions, allied fetches are all that is needed. I can understand some people believing enemy fetches won't be in based on the possible evidence present in this article.
There is still the possibility they will include them since there are bigger reasons to include them. Maybe they want to show changes between the two timelines. Maybe they want to make sure they provide a full cycle a dual lands for block constructed. Maybe they want to adhere to the expectation people may have. Maybe they just want to increase the supply of enemy fetches.
In any case, I think it is understandable to be skeptical after this article.
Trample takes into account Lethal Damage marked on the defending creature. It doesn't care that the creature doesn't die and since Indestructible doesn't remove damage, all of the damage can be trampled over to the defending player since the creatures have already been dealt lethal damage.
What occurs to me amidst all the speculation is this. given that wizards (whoever it was, whenever it was) has stated that sets of lands would always be a full run and all colors would be evenly represented (whatever the exact words were), has it occurred to anyone that the fetchlands, while dealing with specific colors, do not actually create any at all, and could therefore be considered not a part of their statement? I mean they already went against what they said with the pain lands in m15, So how seriously can one really take what they say? Personally i hope the others are in dragons, but I'm not counting on it. I really wouldn't be surprised if they put them in the next modern masters to try to sell ten dollar packs to people trying to round out their collections of holo marked fetches.
The statements made around full cycles of lands were in regards to blocks, not individual sets. Others have clarified these statements on here as well which at least explains a way they "got away with" printing a half cycle of lands in M15. M15 isn't part of a block and they felt they needed those lands for Standard without needing the full cycle.
MaRo has stated that he views the fetches as dual lands, so if this viewpoint is held by others in R&D, we can assume the fetchlands would be held to the same standard as any other dual land cycle.
I personally feel that enemy fetches will be in Dragons, especially with the latest Uncharted Realms, but nothing is concrete now. We will know more in the next few weeks.
Grouphug is also a big one for me. I don't necessarily try to kill that person right away, but I will start targetting all of their permanents with Grouphug effects to keep them off their game plan.
Otherwise, if I don't know the playgroup, The Mimeoplasm, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and Animar are generals I at least watch out for. I know other generals can be degenerate, but these seem to be the ones that lean towards more infinite combo type wins or 1 shot kills.
In this case, you pay for Extort during the ability resolving. You can do this by tapping Cabal Pit to pay the extort cost and you won't go below 1 life. Here is how it plays out:
Extort Triggers
Extort Resolves and you tap Cabal Pit to pay the Mana, going down to 0 life
You gain 1 life from Extort and your opponent loses 1 life and you go back to 1 life The trigger from Cabal Pit goes onto the stack (there is no trigger) You lose a life from the trigger and go back to 1 life
EDIT: Cabal Pit doesn't have a trigger, but the end result is still the same since, as Dilithium mentioned, SBA's are not checked in the middle of an ability resolving.
All damage is dealt simultaneously so it is one instance of life gain. Archangel of Thune will trigger once in this case.
Note that something like Lightning Helix works a little differently. You would gain life off the 3 damage (because of lifelink) and gain 3 life off the the part of the spell that has you gain life. So, you would gain 6 life total with 2 triggers.
Based on this rule, it looks like you can turn it face up:
701.31b Any time you have priority, you may turn a manifested permanent you control face up. This is a special action that doesn't use the stack (see rule 115.2b). To do this, show all players that the card representing that permanent is a creature card and what its mana cost is, pay that cost, then turn the permanent face up. The effect defining its characteristics while it was face down ends, and it regains its normal characteristics. If the card representing that permanent isn't a creature card or doesn't have a mana cost, it can't be turned face up this way.
While you may not have enough devotion, Purphoros ability doesn't do anything until after it has been turned face up. This means that while it is face down, it is still a creature card (regardless of devotion) and the rules allow any creature card to be turned face up
Oh, and for the record, you are the one doing circular logic. You are arguing that the sets, or in this case, the 2 blocks, are linked, therefore the codenames are linked, and because the codenames are linked, the sets, or in this case, the 2 blocks, are linked
Nope, you seem to misunderstand my argument. I am not arguing that the codenames are linked, because the codenames are linked. It's exactly the opposite (as you said yourself just two paragraphs above that:
Your argument is that because the codenames are linked, the blocks are therefore linked. Well, the phrase is Blood Sweat and Tears, not Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Fears, and I am not talking about the codename of magic sets, just the general phrase.
)
I am SPECULATING that because I believe the codenames are linked (said link is obviously open to interpretation - I would however argue that because blood, sweat and tears are linked AND tears and fears are linked both CAN be linked[both are names of bands aside from phrases]; imagine some basic logic to make it more obvious, I'll put it in math terms: if A => b => C AND C=>D then A =>B=>C=>D; Basically, imagine there is a Set 1 consisting of A, B and C and a set 2 consisting of C and D. There clearly is an intersection with the element C. I'm simply saying there MIGHT be a union set 3 consisting of set 1 and set 2, because set 1 and set 2 are "linked" by their intersection. So perhaps in set 3 they other elements might all be connected as well as part of a larger set.)
Once again, the connection is strenuous as best - as I pointed out several times. Yet, I do believe it is a valid argument given the information we have. Whether it is true that there will be an overarching storyline for each 2 blocks (like Lorwyn block) or not, we will see.
While I can see where you are coming from, I agree with signofzeta on this one. The reason the codenames are linked is because they had to be, not because of any sort of underlying connection between the sets or blocks themselves. They did this so they wouldn't reveal anything about the upcoming block structure changes. For example, if they told us the code names for the next three sets were "Bread", "Butter", and "Purple", everyone would know there is something up since the last doesn't fit with the first two.
The way they did it was to come up with 3 codenames where the last code name fit with the previous 2 and the 4th so it wouldn't look suspicious when giving us the first 3.
That is why we got Blood, Sweat, Tears, Fears and Lock, Stock, Barrel, Monkeys. While your note about "Blood, Sweat, [and] Tears" and "Tears [for] Fears" both being band names (linking them in that way), "Lock, Stock, [and] Barrel" and "Barrel [of] Monkeys" don't appear to have any such correlation. MaRo has spoken to this on his blog before and confirmed this was the driving force behind these codenames. Here is the relevant link:
That's what I liked about it when I thought about it last night. It doesn't disrupt anything. It only filters your mana and replaces itself. Even without the threat of Blood Moon, it might make our combo faster when we don't have the right mana when we need it. The only problem about the maindeck is that it doesn't DO anything really. In the SB against land hate, it can really help. Even in the rare situation where you have enough mana to pay for a Summoner's Pact upkeep, and they kill your 2nd green source with something like a Fulminator Mage, you can filter your XG green into GG or your Boros Garrison from RW to UU for Pact of Negation
*edit*
@daviusminimus
Well, that’s kinda what I was thinking. Manamorphose gets you out from UNDER a Blood Moon, while Seal can’t. Yes, if you can land it before a Moon, you have access to blowing up a Splinter Twin in addition to stopping a Moon. All they have to do is play Cryptic Command to bounce your Seal EOT before they land Moon, and if you don’t have that one forest in play already, you’re toast. I was trying to think of ways to win AFTER a Moon is dropped rather than try to beat a Moon. They just have too many permission spells. And In combination, yes, Seal and Manamorphose is awesome. You can play Manamorphose, filter the mana and drop Seal. That’s a LOT of space to add x4 of both tho…
And as for Titan after a bloom: You’re right, you’re just dropping Mountains. The power of the card is lost. But what else are you going to do? Without the Manamorphose, you can’t even play the Titan, or Ruric Thar, or the Sigarda, or ANYTHING. I’d rather have a Titan in play swinging for Mountains than sitting there with my thumb up my bum waiting for their Twin to happen. That’s why I’m going to be testing with Wurmcoil in my board along with some combination of Manamorphose / Seal of Primordium and see how it plays out.
I’m really only concerned with Twin because we fair pretty well against other decks. Discard hurts, but other than that, our deck is like Dredge. It doesn’t have much to fear until game 2 with the SB. So, I feel that the key to this deck staying in Tier 1 is the SB. In the interviews with the guys who piloted the deck at the Pro Tour, all they kept saying was ‘we fixed the SB to match the meta.’ Their maindeck is really not too much different from any other Bloom deck. Their SB was tweaked to reflect the meta. I think that any deck that runs red will be running Moon. It hurts Abzan, our deck, and plenty of others in the format, so I think it’ll see more and more play.
-Yawg
*Second Edit*
If I was to add it to the main (instead of just subbing 4 Seal of Primordiums for 4 Manamorphose in the SB), I think I'd be looking something like this:
I have the Forest maindecked, but still in the air about if it should be an Island. If you're going with the manamorphose tactic, you really don't need to rely on that one land anymore. You basically have 4 cards that can pull you out of the hole if you're holding a Seal in hand, and 5 cards if your holding the Hive Mind package in hand. Not to mention the Wurmcoils if you want to board them in. Also, I don't know if it's TOO MUCH anti hate out of the board with 3 WcE AND 4 Seals, and I haven't even begun to think about what comes out and what goes in, but there's my work in progress...
Idea as to something that I think would work well. Granted it's a 3 drop, but if you run Ancient Stirrings it's easy to find I think. Chromatic Lantern, just see blood moon and say "So?" It's not color restrictive like the seals can be found with the stirrings, and can fix your mana like manamorphose ... seems to be pretty good I think. Granted for the bounce lands you go from making 2 to 1 mana, but under the moon your doing the same thing anyway.
Ideas, Comments?
Also guys, anyone ever thought of running Vault of the Archangel against decks that do a lot of damage quickly? I was thinking like burn etc. Figured it would do better against burn than the Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion against that deck if you have a lot in your meta.
I have been hurt pretty hard by Blood Moon and I was able to get out from one by floating mana for a Nature's claim, but I have been trying to find better alternatives. I like the idea of Chromatic Lantern since it not only lets you get rid of blood moon with Seals or Claims, but can help fix mana for Pact triggers if necessary. I will definitely try this in the sideboard and see how it performs.
I actually took out my single Forest since it doesn't do much against Blood Moon (no real way to get to it and it won't allow me to cast Titan). It is probably a mistake, but other than not being able to find a land off of Path, it hasn't really hurt me. In its place I put Vault of the Archangel. I put this in because of trouble I had against Phyrexian Obliterator. I played one game where I got by 2 Obliterators, and then my opponent dropped a third and I couldn't deal with it. Vault of the Archangel lets me kill the Obliterator with only 1 damage so I only have to sacrifice 1 permanent. The lifegain has also been relevant in other matchups. I think having it in the Main is useful against a number of strategies.
Thanks. One other thing guys... Could someone explain what happens when you get two amuletes on the board?
Each amulet creates its own trigger. So, if you play a Simic Growth Chamber, this is what happens:
Bounce Trigger, and 2 Amulet triggers go on the stack in the order you choose.
Most likely you put the Bounce trigger first, followed by both Amulet Triggers.
First Amulet trigger resolves to untap your land. You can then tap it for mana (floating 1 U and 1 G)
Second trigger resolves untapping it again. You can float mana again (getting 2 U and 2 G total).
Bounce trigger resolves and you bounce a land.
So basically, you can net a large amount of mana with multiple Amulets. Playing Summer Bloom or Azusa first gets you plenty of mana to cast Titan or Hive Mind.
It also lets you activate Sunhome off of a Titan attack trigger with just 1 Boros Garrison fetched up along with it since it will untap twice.
Getting the Canonist in play in response to a spell will do nothing to that spell. It has already been cast by the time you get priority to do anything to get it to the battlefield.
You could do this as long as you have a way to give your creatures flash (such as with Yeva, Nature's Herald).
You would do this:
Cast Elvish Harbinger
When it enters the battlefield, it triggers along with Minion Reflector. You stack them any way you want.
In this case, the original Harbinger's trigger resolves, and you get an elf on top.
In response to the Minion Reflector copy ability, you flash in Elvish Visionary to draw the card you searched for.
Then, you pay the 2 for the Reflector's trigger, create a copy of Harbinger, get another Harbinger trigger and search for another elf.
Without giving creatures flash, there is no way to manipulate the stack to do what you want.
The first three actions are legal, but your opponent cannot target Prognostic Sphinx while it is on the stack with Hero's Downfall. If they are trying to Downfall it, then I suppose they let it resolve, so it is now on the battlefield. Since it got to the battlefield, you can definitely discard a card to give it hexproof to protect it against Hero's Downfall.
Redraw the Borders - RW
Enchantment
Whenever a land is untapped, exile it, then return it to the battlefield under it's owner's control.
This would screw with shocklands (but not pain lands or filter lands, which don't see play) and while giving manlands summoning sickness. It's also a defense against Merfolk and Amulet of Vigor.
Maybe I am missing something, but this looks like it would be the worst card to play against Amulet of Vigor. It essentially gives infinite mana. For example, if I am playing Bloom Titan and have an Amulet of Vigor in play, and you have this enchantment on the field:
I drop a Simic Growth Chamber and Amulet triggers and Growth Chamber triggers to bounce a land. I stack the triggers so I uptap first. Your enchantment triggers before I bounce, and in response to the trigger, I tap for 2 mana. Trigger resolves to blink the land, so it comes back tapped, and the process starts over. I can stop the loop by returning the bounce land to my hand.
Then, I cast Primeval Titan and fetch up Boros Garrison and Slayers' Stronghold. They both untap due to Amulet and in response to them being blinked, I activate Slayers' Stronghold. I bounce Boros Garrison to stop the loop. When I attack, I bring out Gruul Turf and Kessig Wolf-Run. Again, flicker Gruul Turf a bunch of times and activate Wolf Run for lethal, bouncing Gruul Turf to end the loop.
I am not sure how this is supposed to hose Amulet. I suppose it could prevent the player from ever playing another land besides a bounce land since it always has to be bounced to stop the loop, but that seems like it won't matter since the player is getting infinite mana anyway.
1) Only Alesha will trigger Lightmine. If you control Lightmine, you can stack the triggers so Lightmine resolves before Alesha's ability, which means only one damage is dealt. If you choose to return a creature with Alesha first, it still won't trigger Lightmine, but it will still count as an attacking creature for Lightmine's ability, so 2 damage would be dealt.
If your opponent controls Lightmine, the triggers go on the stack in APNAP order, so Lightmine will resolve before you bring a creature back with Alesha.
2) Yes, you can do this
3) Yes, Pentavus is a valid target because its power is 0. Note that a creature like Tarmogoyf would depend on the situation since its power and toughness are not static due to a CDA (Characteristic Defining Ability) so it will not always have 2 or less power.
While I still think enemy fetches will show up in Dragons, this article certainly casts doubt. After all, what reason would there be to include them if the 5 factions in Dragons are allied colored? I can see where others are seeing that this article starts to lean towards allied colored factions and in a set based around allied colored factions, allied fetches are all that is needed. I can understand some people believing enemy fetches won't be in based on the possible evidence present in this article.
There is still the possibility they will include them since there are bigger reasons to include them. Maybe they want to show changes between the two timelines. Maybe they want to make sure they provide a full cycle a dual lands for block constructed. Maybe they want to adhere to the expectation people may have. Maybe they just want to increase the supply of enemy fetches.
In any case, I think it is understandable to be skeptical after this article.
The statements made around full cycles of lands were in regards to blocks, not individual sets. Others have clarified these statements on here as well which at least explains a way they "got away with" printing a half cycle of lands in M15. M15 isn't part of a block and they felt they needed those lands for Standard without needing the full cycle.
MaRo has stated that he views the fetches as dual lands, so if this viewpoint is held by others in R&D, we can assume the fetchlands would be held to the same standard as any other dual land cycle.
I personally feel that enemy fetches will be in Dragons, especially with the latest Uncharted Realms, but nothing is concrete now. We will know more in the next few weeks.
Otherwise, if I don't know the playgroup, The Mimeoplasm, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and Animar are generals I at least watch out for. I know other generals can be degenerate, but these seem to be the ones that lean towards more infinite combo type wins or 1 shot kills.
Extort Triggers
Extort Resolves and you tap Cabal Pit to pay the Mana, going down to 0 life
You gain 1 life from Extort and your opponent loses 1 life and you go back to 1 life
The trigger from Cabal Pit goes onto the stack(there is no trigger)You lose a life from the trigger and go back to 1 lifeEDIT: Cabal Pit doesn't have a trigger, but the end result is still the same since, as Dilithium mentioned, SBA's are not checked in the middle of an ability resolving.
Note that something like Lightning Helix works a little differently. You would gain life off the 3 damage (because of lifelink) and gain 3 life off the the part of the spell that has you gain life. So, you would gain 6 life total with 2 triggers.
Based on this rule, it looks like you can turn it face up:
While you may not have enough devotion, Purphoros ability doesn't do anything until after it has been turned face up. This means that while it is face down, it is still a creature card (regardless of devotion) and the rules allow any creature card to be turned face up
While I can see where you are coming from, I agree with signofzeta on this one. The reason the codenames are linked is because they had to be, not because of any sort of underlying connection between the sets or blocks themselves. They did this so they wouldn't reveal anything about the upcoming block structure changes. For example, if they told us the code names for the next three sets were "Bread", "Butter", and "Purple", everyone would know there is something up since the last doesn't fit with the first two.
The way they did it was to come up with 3 codenames where the last code name fit with the previous 2 and the 4th so it wouldn't look suspicious when giving us the first 3.
That is why we got Blood, Sweat, Tears, Fears and Lock, Stock, Barrel, Monkeys. While your note about "Blood, Sweat, [and] Tears" and "Tears [for] Fears" both being band names (linking them in that way), "Lock, Stock, [and] Barrel" and "Barrel [of] Monkeys" don't appear to have any such correlation. MaRo has spoken to this on his blog before and confirmed this was the driving force behind these codenames. Here is the relevant link:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/95738121343/so-why-fears-instead-of-toil-which-would
I have been hurt pretty hard by Blood Moon and I was able to get out from one by floating mana for a Nature's claim, but I have been trying to find better alternatives. I like the idea of Chromatic Lantern since it not only lets you get rid of blood moon with Seals or Claims, but can help fix mana for Pact triggers if necessary. I will definitely try this in the sideboard and see how it performs.
I actually took out my single Forest since it doesn't do much against Blood Moon (no real way to get to it and it won't allow me to cast Titan). It is probably a mistake, but other than not being able to find a land off of Path, it hasn't really hurt me. In its place I put Vault of the Archangel. I put this in because of trouble I had against Phyrexian Obliterator. I played one game where I got by 2 Obliterators, and then my opponent dropped a third and I couldn't deal with it. Vault of the Archangel lets me kill the Obliterator with only 1 damage so I only have to sacrifice 1 permanent. The lifegain has also been relevant in other matchups. I think having it in the Main is useful against a number of strategies.
Each amulet creates its own trigger. So, if you play a Simic Growth Chamber, this is what happens:
Bounce Trigger, and 2 Amulet triggers go on the stack in the order you choose.
Most likely you put the Bounce trigger first, followed by both Amulet Triggers.
First Amulet trigger resolves to untap your land. You can then tap it for mana (floating 1 U and 1 G)
Second trigger resolves untapping it again. You can float mana again (getting 2 U and 2 G total).
Bounce trigger resolves and you bounce a land.
So basically, you can net a large amount of mana with multiple Amulets. Playing Summer Bloom or Azusa first gets you plenty of mana to cast Titan or Hive Mind.
It also lets you activate Sunhome off of a Titan attack trigger with just 1 Boros Garrison fetched up along with it since it will untap twice.
Getting the Canonist in play in response to a spell will do nothing to that spell. It has already been cast by the time you get priority to do anything to get it to the battlefield.
You would do this:
Cast Elvish Harbinger
When it enters the battlefield, it triggers along with Minion Reflector. You stack them any way you want.
In this case, the original Harbinger's trigger resolves, and you get an elf on top.
In response to the Minion Reflector copy ability, you flash in Elvish Visionary to draw the card you searched for.
Then, you pay the 2 for the Reflector's trigger, create a copy of Harbinger, get another Harbinger trigger and search for another elf.
Without giving creatures flash, there is no way to manipulate the stack to do what you want.
Maybe I am missing something, but this looks like it would be the worst card to play against Amulet of Vigor. It essentially gives infinite mana. For example, if I am playing Bloom Titan and have an Amulet of Vigor in play, and you have this enchantment on the field:
I drop a Simic Growth Chamber and Amulet triggers and Growth Chamber triggers to bounce a land. I stack the triggers so I uptap first. Your enchantment triggers before I bounce, and in response to the trigger, I tap for 2 mana. Trigger resolves to blink the land, so it comes back tapped, and the process starts over. I can stop the loop by returning the bounce land to my hand.
Then, I cast Primeval Titan and fetch up Boros Garrison and Slayers' Stronghold. They both untap due to Amulet and in response to them being blinked, I activate Slayers' Stronghold. I bounce Boros Garrison to stop the loop. When I attack, I bring out Gruul Turf and Kessig Wolf-Run. Again, flicker Gruul Turf a bunch of times and activate Wolf Run for lethal, bouncing Gruul Turf to end the loop.
I am not sure how this is supposed to hose Amulet. I suppose it could prevent the player from ever playing another land besides a bounce land since it always has to be bounced to stop the loop, but that seems like it won't matter since the player is getting infinite mana anyway.
If your opponent controls Lightmine, the triggers go on the stack in APNAP order, so Lightmine will resolve before you bring a creature back with Alesha.
2) Yes, you can do this
3) Yes, Pentavus is a valid target because its power is 0. Note that a creature like Tarmogoyf would depend on the situation since its power and toughness are not static due to a CDA (Characteristic Defining Ability) so it will not always have 2 or less power.