What if they have a static ability that gets better as they gain more loyalty.
for example:
loyalty <= 4 scry on upkeep
loyalty <= 6 draw on upkeep
loyalty > 6 scry then draw on upkeep
Starting loyalty of 2
activate +2 loyalty
This one you would always want to tick up but perhaps there are some with different abilities and you could try to finesse it depending on the game state.
Is arms down palms forward the default planeswalker pose?
If you could fire spells from your palms with fancy hand movements it would be your default position too.
But I am a planeswalker based on all the marketing...
I guess I just prefer when they are shown doing something or taking some sort of action. Hell even Jace looks like he's doing something or going somewhere not just chargin up my spell.
Guessing the uncommon planeswalkers will be like the sagas, maybe only tick down with some minor effects that could work well in sequence so they help you do a thing but don't outright win for you, maybe even have a leaves the battlefield "ultimate" similar to phase 3 of sagas.
Is arms down palms forward the default planeswalker pose?
At first blush, the mechanics seem a bit lackluster, but if you think about how they interact with other ravnica mechanics (and not just in this block but previous ones) in the same color some are quite elegant.
Afterlife keeps creature on board for convoke, populate, evasivenes helps betalion, and mentor onto some 1/1 flyers seems good.
Adendum is a sort of call back to forcast, helps bolster the spells matter cards in blue with the inevitable instants and support creature decks with simic.
Adapt is a bit unfortunate that it doesn't really interact with previous simic mechanics but since it's instant speed it helps you keep up the adendum cards and other instants in blue
Riot can give counters so probably plays well with Adapt as there is probably going to be stuff to do with it, plus the haste helps batalion, mentor, the original gruul mechanic (bloodrush?), even spectacle (for the discounted type spectacle cards at least)
Spectacle also works well with the agressive style of boros and on the discounted spells could be good with Izzet spells mater cards and evasive dimir cards help trigger this mechanic.
I'm excited to see how it all plays out and how it can work well with the previous ravnica sets and interguild mechanics.
It feels like they are bifurcating the game. Probably pushing competitive to Arena, and leave casual to paper. Competitive needs all the "best" cards so they want to push that to the market which they control, casual is ok with predefined product (commander, dual decks, guild kits, etc...).
Being a player with no asperations of "Going Pro" I don't really care about this, other than the fact that this will put pressure on the local stores where I like to draft and play a couple times a month. It's going to push all the people that are trying to be one of the 32 to stay home and play on arena, and who is going to be buying singles to make their standard deck if paper is pretty much the casual format now, so it will force the store to charge more for the drafts and other product to make up for the loss of volume.
All speculative at this point, as who really knows how this will shake out but it does feel like paper will take a hit. But I don't think it will die as I think paper creates more long term "stickyness" to the game than digital does.
I personally don't like tutors as I hate "Wild Cards" in all games as it just feels lazy.
If someone is not tutoring for a combo piece then that's kinda boring (trying to reduce the variance in an inherent varied format), and if they are not looking for a combo piece then why do they need the tutor at all, just add more of whatever it is that you usually tutor for in the deck instead of just throwing in a tutor. Sure it's likely a sub par version of whatever they were tutoring for but at least they didn't have to pay the extra tutor cost plus waste everyones time shuffling again. I'm more ok with "tutor for a land", or "tutor for an enchantment", rather than tutor for anything, at least you need to get the right tutor. Perhaps if there was more tutor hate such as mindsensor and the like that could sit a bit better with me.
I do think land destruction can be ok if used sparingly specifically non-basic hate. Not saying blow everything up, but Green player ramping out too fast, set them back a bit, greedy mana bases, take them off some colors (as there should be a downside to playing more colors, as dual lands shouldn't be strictly better basics), utility lands shouldn't be untouchable. Should be used as more of a scalple than a chainsaw though.
Are we sure that she will actually be taken at the end of this Arc? Yes the card says that he own's her debt but can he actually collect it? Perhaps Karn, Teferi, Gideon, Chandra, Jaya are able to "rescue" her from him. Perhaps one of them dies in the process and Liliana gets a new lease on life and a chance to redeem herself.
The set is very tribal heavy and personally I felt it was not truly meant for sealed, but definitely going to be an exciting Draft format to be apart of! I also was able to make a ton of trades to nearly finish up my Standard RR deck and picked up some key staples in Modern.
While it is tribal I felt the tribes that share a color also share some synergy. Evasive blue merfolk help raid. Explore helps ramp out dinos as well as treasure. Lifegain also helps you hold off in white to drop some 7+ drops. The sealed format seems fine to me but if you don't have an overwhelming amout of one tribe you do have to look for those parallel synergies.
I also think this is a 16 land format even though you have high CMC costs. Treasure and Explore help you make your land drops or pay for those 7 drops. Also not too many mana syncs so having land 8+ is real diminishing utility.
I went 2-1 at my prerelease. I started WG dino's since I had what I thought were decent dino synergy. The tapper on attacks and a couple flyers including the one that taps opponents creatures on etb, but somehow my opponent seemed to be more proactive and I just couldn't race them so I pivioted to UG with a splash of red and black.
The Merfolk surprised me with how well they played. All the explore helps you churn through your deck and get them big enough to at least mount a decent defence against larger creatures, plus they have some good tricks. The 3/2 unblockable plus pick up one of your value merfolk to either explore again or add more counters on etb was really good. I also have to agree that River Herald's Boon is a blow out in the merfolk deck. So many 2 for 1's with that card.
In general it seems somewhat easy to splash for a 3rd/4th color bomb/removal due to treasure and explore.
Cards I was not overly impressed with.
Fleet Swallower: I did mill someone but it didn't get there very quickly and 6/6 is not as impressive as it would be in other sets. It's likely a mill 10 trade with there big creature or 2 creatures. Again not terrible but it is 7 mana to cast so I think you could do better.
Sword Point Diplomacy: I didn't expect it to be great but I like this kind of card but this just seems to mean you get to draw all your lands and opponent takes 3 damage. Not the worst but not worth going out of your way for.
Priest of the Wandering Sun: Just wanted to try it. It does gain you a bit of life if you have it and a dino in your opening hand so the fact it does't really block is mitigated. I had a sword tooth to get late game but 5 mana to search it up is quite a bit.
Dowsing Dagger: This was my promo and it is beautiful, but giving your opponent 2x 0/2's is annoying. By the time you can flip this it's almost better to keep the +2/+1 side as you obviously have some evasive threat that could get past all those plants. Only play if you have evasion and only flip if you really need to ramp or get that extra color.
So, basically you will either play Dinosaurs or you will lose to Dinosaurs, that's how sealed will be going for everyone. As for drafts, that stupid equipment that gives creatures flying will be a 1st pick common in this set, no matter what colors you're playing or what archetype, that common is a FIRST pick...mark my words.
So I started as WG dino's but found that there just wasn't enough play to them. If your opponent has any removal then your done. Round 2 I switched to UG Merfolk and liked it much better as they have quite a bit of evasion to pressure the opponent and can grow to decent size to prevent being run over and decent tricks to back them up. I saw some good pirate decks too as the raid train seems to be easier to get rolling than I initially expected. All in all a fun time. While it is a tribal set different tribes play decently together. Evasive merfolk help pirates, life gain helps ramp into dinos, treasure helps splash/ramp for big finishers. I think with all the treasure 3+ color decks are viable and 16 lands are probably all you need since there don't seem to be many mana sinks late in the game plus explore helps you get to your lands faster. This will be a fun set.
As for the equipment I think there are enough destroy artifacts/ kill a flyer that it won't be a big player. Sure you can get gotten by it but it's not unbeatable strategy.
There was certainly something... strange about the rarities in this pre-release. My friend and I played in *ALL* the pre-releases and pulled only 3 (very bad) mythics in all those boxes and all our prize packs. Same with everyone across the board. Very, very few Planeswalkers - and out of all the events this entire weekend, only 5 Jaces, none of which were the foil or the promo? Horrible, horrible. I couldn't believe it. Even the certain uncommons were unseen at all. Ixalan's Binding? Nowhere to be found. Perilous Voyage? I didn't see a single one at all - literally at all.
I don't know if the Buy-a-box packs threw off their metrics or mathematics or what, but pulling Arcane Denials back to back to back across from someone else who did too, the only Axis of Mortality were two pre-release promo ones, everyone getting the same batch of rares... Something in this set is off. This is the first pre-release my friends and I left without even seeing the Planeswalkers we wanted at all. In SOI, I walked out with two Arlinn Kords, in EMN, I had three Tamiyos by the end of the night's trades. Ixalan... No one had Jace at all. 2/5 were a RUMOR that someone pulled them.
Expecting to get a Mythic let alone a specific Mythic is never going to be a guarantied proposition. As for no mythics one of my opponents got 2 Varaska's which is unlikely but possible and I got a regular Axis of Mortality (wish I had basically anything else though).
Why, just WHY is Jace doing something physically difficult like hanging from an air ladder (or whatever it's called), looking like he seriously took to the gym and now shows off? His.. his image! That's Gideon stuff! Where did the supernerd mentality go?
Edit UW control can also now establish a thick lock with Jura and Trial Gideons in the board together.
I don't have a problem with him on the cargo net as he should be able to physically climb a ladder, but the most ridiculous thing is the one glove on the torn sleeve side but barehanded other side makes it seem like Jace made that particular choice instead of just making him look beat up from his recent encounter (if that's what they were going for). I'm don't understand fashion but the composition is just weird... like socks but no pants sort of thing, unless he is trying to be the Michael Jackson of the Multiverse.
As for the card I like it. And the legendary rule thing fits best with jace anyway but it will be weird seeing an army of Gideon's since every one of his cards pretty much does the same thing you get built in redundancy.
The lack of blocking did make amonket a little one note, but I found that HOU now allows for blocking making the games a bit more interactive and interesting. Blocking is still risky with aflict and such but makes the decission interesting but at least blocking is possible because the threats are not evasive anymore (Gust walker and that 3/1 that get's extra power and first strike are not as frequent) and the answers are a bit better.
For draft (my preferred format) this is a boon. The problem with multiple sets belonging to one draft set was the opened cardpool was too diluted. 8 person pod only opened ~200 cards of the ~600 possible cards so if there is not enough similar cards to each other they make undraftable sets. The only triple set I've experienced that was half way decent was theros/born/nyx because the theme throughout was draft enchantments so even if you didn't see a particular card there were enough similar cards to sub in. Dragon's Maze was terrible because the only tie that bound everything was multicolor so drafting lands was the only way to go and there just wasn't enough to go around.
2 sets drafting together is the same issue. To really make it work you need cards that are mostly the same and who wants to open a bunch of the same cards.
Only big sets actually allows more diversity in individual cards within while also allowing for a cultivated draft experience while also enough varity to not see the same thing draft in and out. Side effect it diversifies the card pool for standard as well allowing for more viable strategies or changing how powerful an existing strategy is from release to release.
So far in this thread, most people went WX(x) where X is never red unless glorybringer or apparently hazoret the fervent. In my games I didn't run into any red either but all my opponents were playing white something. It just seems white plays nice with everything in this set. Draft will probably be different. Wonder if that was done on purpose with ol' NikkyB coming next set maybe red gets a bump up then.
Anyone have success with red yet? What are the other non bomb cards you ran?
for example:
loyalty <= 4 scry on upkeep
loyalty <= 6 draw on upkeep
loyalty > 6 scry then draw on upkeep
Starting loyalty of 2
activate +2 loyalty
This one you would always want to tick up but perhaps there are some with different abilities and you could try to finesse it depending on the game state.
But I am a planeswalker based on all the marketing...
I guess I just prefer when they are shown doing something or taking some sort of action. Hell even Jace looks like he's doing something or going somewhere not just chargin up my spell.
Also is that a Dovin imposter. No sixth finger!
Is arms down palms forward the default planeswalker pose?
Afterlife keeps creature on board for convoke, populate, evasivenes helps betalion, and mentor onto some 1/1 flyers seems good.
Adendum is a sort of call back to forcast, helps bolster the spells matter cards in blue with the inevitable instants and support creature decks with simic.
Adapt is a bit unfortunate that it doesn't really interact with previous simic mechanics but since it's instant speed it helps you keep up the adendum cards and other instants in blue
Riot can give counters so probably plays well with Adapt as there is probably going to be stuff to do with it, plus the haste helps batalion, mentor, the original gruul mechanic (bloodrush?), even spectacle (for the discounted type spectacle cards at least)
Spectacle also works well with the agressive style of boros and on the discounted spells could be good with Izzet spells mater cards and evasive dimir cards help trigger this mechanic.
I'm excited to see how it all plays out and how it can work well with the previous ravnica sets and interguild mechanics.
Being a player with no asperations of "Going Pro" I don't really care about this, other than the fact that this will put pressure on the local stores where I like to draft and play a couple times a month. It's going to push all the people that are trying to be one of the 32 to stay home and play on arena, and who is going to be buying singles to make their standard deck if paper is pretty much the casual format now, so it will force the store to charge more for the drafts and other product to make up for the loss of volume.
All speculative at this point, as who really knows how this will shake out but it does feel like paper will take a hit. But I don't think it will die as I think paper creates more long term "stickyness" to the game than digital does.
If someone is not tutoring for a combo piece then that's kinda boring (trying to reduce the variance in an inherent varied format), and if they are not looking for a combo piece then why do they need the tutor at all, just add more of whatever it is that you usually tutor for in the deck instead of just throwing in a tutor. Sure it's likely a sub par version of whatever they were tutoring for but at least they didn't have to pay the extra tutor cost plus waste everyones time shuffling again. I'm more ok with "tutor for a land", or "tutor for an enchantment", rather than tutor for anything, at least you need to get the right tutor. Perhaps if there was more tutor hate such as mindsensor and the like that could sit a bit better with me.
I do think land destruction can be ok if used sparingly specifically non-basic hate. Not saying blow everything up, but Green player ramping out too fast, set them back a bit, greedy mana bases, take them off some colors (as there should be a downside to playing more colors, as dual lands shouldn't be strictly better basics), utility lands shouldn't be untouchable. Should be used as more of a scalple than a chainsaw though.
While it is tribal I felt the tribes that share a color also share some synergy. Evasive blue merfolk help raid. Explore helps ramp out dinos as well as treasure. Lifegain also helps you hold off in white to drop some 7+ drops. The sealed format seems fine to me but if you don't have an overwhelming amout of one tribe you do have to look for those parallel synergies.
I also think this is a 16 land format even though you have high CMC costs. Treasure and Explore help you make your land drops or pay for those 7 drops. Also not too many mana syncs so having land 8+ is real diminishing utility.
The Merfolk surprised me with how well they played. All the explore helps you churn through your deck and get them big enough to at least mount a decent defence against larger creatures, plus they have some good tricks. The 3/2 unblockable plus pick up one of your value merfolk to either explore again or add more counters on etb was really good. I also have to agree that River Herald's Boon is a blow out in the merfolk deck. So many 2 for 1's with that card.
In general it seems somewhat easy to splash for a 3rd/4th color bomb/removal due to treasure and explore.
Cards I was not overly impressed with.
Fleet Swallower: I did mill someone but it didn't get there very quickly and 6/6 is not as impressive as it would be in other sets. It's likely a mill 10 trade with there big creature or 2 creatures. Again not terrible but it is 7 mana to cast so I think you could do better.
Sword Point Diplomacy: I didn't expect it to be great but I like this kind of card but this just seems to mean you get to draw all your lands and opponent takes 3 damage. Not the worst but not worth going out of your way for.
Priest of the Wandering Sun: Just wanted to try it. It does gain you a bit of life if you have it and a dino in your opening hand so the fact it does't really block is mitigated. I had a sword tooth to get late game but 5 mana to search it up is quite a bit.
Dowsing Dagger: This was my promo and it is beautiful, but giving your opponent 2x 0/2's is annoying. By the time you can flip this it's almost better to keep the +2/+1 side as you obviously have some evasive threat that could get past all those plants. Only play if you have evasion and only flip if you really need to ramp or get that extra color.
So I started as WG dino's but found that there just wasn't enough play to them. If your opponent has any removal then your done. Round 2 I switched to UG Merfolk and liked it much better as they have quite a bit of evasion to pressure the opponent and can grow to decent size to prevent being run over and decent tricks to back them up. I saw some good pirate decks too as the raid train seems to be easier to get rolling than I initially expected. All in all a fun time. While it is a tribal set different tribes play decently together. Evasive merfolk help pirates, life gain helps ramp into dinos, treasure helps splash/ramp for big finishers. I think with all the treasure 3+ color decks are viable and 16 lands are probably all you need since there don't seem to be many mana sinks late in the game plus explore helps you get to your lands faster. This will be a fun set.
As for the equipment I think there are enough destroy artifacts/ kill a flyer that it won't be a big player. Sure you can get gotten by it but it's not unbeatable strategy.
Expecting to get a Mythic let alone a specific Mythic is never going to be a guarantied proposition. As for no mythics one of my opponents got 2 Varaska's which is unlikely but possible and I got a regular Axis of Mortality (wish I had basically anything else though).
I don't have a problem with him on the cargo net as he should be able to physically climb a ladder, but the most ridiculous thing is the one glove on the torn sleeve side but barehanded other side makes it seem like Jace made that particular choice instead of just making him look beat up from his recent encounter (if that's what they were going for). I'm don't understand fashion but the composition is just weird... like socks but no pants sort of thing, unless he is trying to be the Michael Jackson of the Multiverse.
As for the card I like it. And the legendary rule thing fits best with jace anyway but it will be weird seeing an army of Gideon's since every one of his cards pretty much does the same thing you get built in redundancy.
2 sets drafting together is the same issue. To really make it work you need cards that are mostly the same and who wants to open a bunch of the same cards.
Only big sets actually allows more diversity in individual cards within while also allowing for a cultivated draft experience while also enough varity to not see the same thing draft in and out. Side effect it diversifies the card pool for standard as well allowing for more viable strategies or changing how powerful an existing strategy is from release to release.
Anyone have success with red yet? What are the other non bomb cards you ran?