Meld is interesting and will undoubtedly be fun, but there's one thing that could make me hate it. If one card is foil while the other isn't, that will annoy me to no end.
If you were to play this on Mirrorwing Dragon, would the Mirrorwing Dragon's effect of copying the spell activate after giving control to the opponent, therefore causing them to have to give control of all their creatures on the field to me?
...I've been hyping SoI since the teaser. It's a return to my favorite setting in magic after all.
Mine too!
That's to say it was, right now I'm definitely over it. Quite possibly over Standard for some time too, and I only play Standard. I can only hope Kaladesh pushes out anything from BFZ and SOI because I don't know if I can take any more of this.
That's your prerogative. I'll reserve my judgment on the set itself until I actually have a chance to play and draft it. With SOI, I hyped the setting, but did the same.
I don't find Innistrad's pushing of horror tropes nuanced. It was always top-down based on horror tropes, but that was pretty much all it was.
I'm going to go ahead and not-so-respectfully disagree.
The conflicts on Innistrad were never just Humans vs. Monsters. There were many factions, vampire lineages had different styles as did the different werewolf pack. Heck even the zombies had factions (or well, skaabs I guess) thanks to Gisa/Geralf.
And the angelic hosts in the different flights.
Now it's been reduced to "everyone vs. the Eldrazi" and pretty much all the existing flavor of the plane has been lost.
Perhaps I chose my words there poorly. I meant that the conflict itself was rather simple. Any nuance was a way to push more tropes into the set.
Using eldrazi to get some pseudo cosmic horror into the lore of the plane is something that expands on Innistrad, and gives them more to work with should they return again or print cards in supplemental products.
They keyword being "some".
Like I said, Shadows over Innistrad did this reasonably well - though I were always wary of that personally. What we got now is quite different though. It's not just that the "cosmic horror" trope came in and murdered everything else, it also murdered the whole "horror" aspect. Part of the allure of Innistrad, for me personally anyway, was that the place were reasonably dark. Not oppressively dark, just enough that you got a feel for hidden plots and sinister motivations.
That's all gone with the Emrakul reveal, now it's just a grand melee for all the marbles.
This is simply a big event in the plane's history though. If it only stayed 'reasonably dark', why go back? Something needed to happen (At least WotC seem to think so). It just so happened that it took a darker turn this time around.
I suppose my problem with BFZ was that Zendikar didn't have much of an identity. Innistrad does.
Fair.
I suppose my problem with EMN is that Innistrad used to have an identity. Now it doesn't.
Innistrad still has an identity. It's a horror plane. BFZ brought us to a very vanilla setting in comparison and OGW did very little to change it up. That set could have been "Battle for 'insert plane name here'" and it wouldn't have been any better or worse. SOI did a much better job of showing what Innistrad is all about. Eldritch Moon doesn't seem like it should or could have happened on any plane except Innistrad (although maybe that's just the Bloodborne fan in me talking).
Soul Separator is so messy, but I don't know how they could have done a coll effect like that otherwise.
Voldaren Pariah/Abolisher of Bloodlines has a powerful effect, but I'm not sure it's worth it in a format with powerful spot removal. The 'target opponent' clause also hurts the card.
To put it in horror movie terms, it was a gothic horror plane. Now it's a slasher plane.
Innistrad was scary because the unexpected could happen, you didn't know what horror lurked near or how to fight it, and even the people were one step away from trying to eat you without any need for mind control or mutations.
Now it's all about a franchise villain we've seen a million times slowly walking towards you with his invulnerable plot armor, exept we already know the killer is not invulnerable and will be beaten by the end, we've watched this movie before and the aesthetic overhauls don't do much for the plot.
Invincible evils don't work in serialized storytelling, that's why people don't take Galactus, Thanos, Darkseid or Daleks seriously anymore, why Resident Evil went full sci-fi and why Scary Movie did better than all the movies it was making fun of.
Innistrad wasn't and isn't scary.
And I don't think Emrakul is a villain (or evil for that matter) in this story. Just a means to an end.
I went into more detail about that in my first post in the thread.
Anyway, I don't mean destroyed as in "reduced to ash" but rather "alienating existing demographics" and in that it's already a terrible success.
The point is this;
There exist some number of players (a not insignificant number as it turns out) that dislike Eldrazi in general and/or the Eldrazi-fication of Innistrad in particular. The current plot line alienates those players and there's no turning back on that, regardless of how the block ends (most likely with Emrakul defeated/driven off and the plane saved) because the bad taste won't wash away.
Meanwhile there's no upside. Destroying Innistrad won't draw in any new players, at best it won't mean anything to them. And the people who are fine with how things turned out, like yourself, would have been equally fine had things not turned out this way. Or not revisiting Innistrad and/or the Eldrazi plot line at all at this point in time.
Personally I don't find Eldritch Moon to expand upon the Innistrad tropes but rather the opposite, they're being contracted into the same Eldrazi-vs.-Non-Eldrazi for-all-the-marbles plot line that Zendikar went trough. Innistrad's classic take on gothic horror was always much more nuanced than that, and distinctly different from what's being pushed in Eldritch Moon.
Given the actions of some characters, I would have been disappointed were it not Emrakul. I'm indifferent to eldrazi (and I think they were done infinitely better here than in BFZ/OGW), but I've been hyping SoI since the teaser. It's a return to my favorite setting in magic after all.
I don't find Innistrad's pushing of horror tropes nuanced. It was always top-down based on horror tropes, but that was pretty much all it was. Using eldrazi to get some pseudo cosmic horror into the lore of the plane is something that expands on Innistrad, and gives them more to work with should they return again or print cards in supplemental products.
I suppose my problem with BFZ was that Zendikar didn't have much of an identity. Innistrad does.
Decks like Melek, Izzet Paragon love any form of library manipulation, scry included. Grenzo, Dungeon Warden also loves scry for bringing out his creatures.
Hokori, Dust Drinker
Grip of Chaos
Living Plane
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Dimensional Breach
Kataki, War's Wage
Blue
Braids, Conjurer Adept
Conjured Currency
Perplexing Chimera
Black
Horobi, Death's Wail
Red
Furnace of Rath/Dictate of the Twin Gods
Pandemonium
Warp World
Whims of the Fates
Widespread Panic
Artifact
Possessed Portal
Winter Orb/Static Orb
Nim Deathmantle
Ishkanah, Grafwidow
Provided you have delirium, it will get infinite tokens and colorless mana.
Gaea's Cradle/Cabal Coffers
Deserted Temple
Rings of Brighthearth
For this one to work, cradle needs to tap for 4 and coffers needs to tap for 6.
Argothian Elder
Maze of Ith
Infinite mana during the combat step.
Yeah, that happened.
Perhaps I chose my words there poorly. I meant that the conflict itself was rather simple. Any nuance was a way to push more tropes into the set.
This is simply a big event in the plane's history though. If it only stayed 'reasonably dark', why go back? Something needed to happen (At least WotC seem to think so). It just so happened that it took a darker turn this time around.
Innistrad still has an identity. It's a horror plane. BFZ brought us to a very vanilla setting in comparison and OGW did very little to change it up. That set could have been "Battle for 'insert plane name here'" and it wouldn't have been any better or worse. SOI did a much better job of showing what Innistrad is all about. Eldritch Moon doesn't seem like it should or could have happened on any plane except Innistrad (although maybe that's just the Bloodborne fan in me talking).
Eternal Scourge is decent. Hard to remove creatures tend to get played, and there's still the Food Chain combo.
Geier Reach Sanitarium will work wonders in Gitrog and Daretti.
Soul Separator is so messy, but I don't know how they could have done a coll effect like that otherwise.
Voldaren Pariah/Abolisher of Bloodlines has a powerful effect, but I'm not sure it's worth it in a format with powerful spot removal. The 'target opponent' clause also hurts the card.
Wharf Infiltrator can be good in the decks that want it.
And I don't think Emrakul is a villain (or evil for that matter) in this story. Just a means to an end.
Given the actions of some characters, I would have been disappointed were it not Emrakul. I'm indifferent to eldrazi (and I think they were done infinitely better here than in BFZ/OGW), but I've been hyping SoI since the teaser. It's a return to my favorite setting in magic after all.
I don't find Innistrad's pushing of horror tropes nuanced. It was always top-down based on horror tropes, but that was pretty much all it was. Using eldrazi to get some pseudo cosmic horror into the lore of the plane is something that expands on Innistrad, and gives them more to work with should they return again or print cards in supplemental products.
I suppose my problem with BFZ was that Zendikar didn't have much of an identity. Innistrad does.