Ran RUG Monsters at FNM. Had 1 villainous Wealth in mainboard. Only black sources were carytid and 2 mana confluences.
Was playing against RG Monsters and top decked Wealth late. Cast it where X=20. Two stormbreaths, Xenagos planeswalker, Xenagod, Polukonos and he scooped before getting to all 20.
Cast it against RW burn for X=5. Got two little burn spells and two spells that were not optimal to play at that time so not that great. If I could of cast reflecting palm the next turn against him?
Really wondering about timing as well. When you look at similiar cards, they are all much more clear.
Chandra clearly states end of turn on her zero. Stolen goods says until end of turn. Genesis Wave changes the zone of cards you do not cast immediately. So does Epic Experiment. psychic intrusion expliciately states you can can them while they are still exiled.
The cards are exiled first. Then it states you may cast those cards but it never says immediately, end of turn, nor in future.
Gathering gives us nothing of use in the rules update.
Gatherer states:
You cast the cards one at a time as Villainous Wealth is resolving, choosing modes, targets, and so on. The last card you cast will be the first one to resolve. Ignore timing restrictions based on the cards’ types. Other timing restrictions, such as “Cast [this card] only during combat,” must be followed.
Basically, you have to cast them during resolution because Wealth is a sorcery. If a spell or activated/triggered ability lets you cast something, you have to do it while it's resolving unless it says otherwise. To compare your examples:
Chandra, Pyromaster needs the clause on her 0 to function the way they want -- as pseudo-card draw for one turn only. Otherwise you'd have to do it during resolution, like her -7.
Stolen Goods has the until end of turn clause as a conscious decision to make it better. Presumably development decided it would be too weak if you had to cast the single stolen spell during resolution. With Wealth, you're expected to hit multiple cards, so it's okay if some are useless.
I suspect Genesis Wave and Epic Experiment put the leftovers in your graveyard because it's your own deck, and you'd rather have stuff in your graveyard than in exile. In KTK standard, you'd rather not fuel your opponent's delve if you can avoid it, and in general you're happy to leave their stuff exiled. Serves 'em right.
Psychic Intrusion is another power-level one -- they already make you pay 5 mana for Intrusion and then more for the stolen spell. Making you do it immediately would be just too much.
Note that I don't believe the "sacrifice another creature:" template is right for every card. Something like Arcbound Ravager for instance is nebulous enough in concept that being able to sacrifice itself could make sense. I'm of the opinion that the template should be chosen based on the concept of the card.
Wizards agrees. They only template with "sacrifice another creature" when the effect (A) applies to the creature with the ability, (like Blood Bairn, Scourge of Skola Vale, Kheru Bloodsucker, and Butcher of the Horde), or (B) simply doesn't make sense flavorwise (like [c]Kheru Dreadmaw -- the crocodile doesn't eat itself). The rest of the time, they use "sacrifice a creature" if there's no reason not to.
One thing I have noticed: Although I haven't followed all new cards, I have noticed a general trend that WotC won't print any "sacrifice a creature: this creature gains something" abilities anymore. Instead they print "sacrifice another creature". I think the argument they gave for that wording in Blood Bairn was that it was "more intuitive" that way, and that sacrificing a creature to its own ability is "unintuitive".
The thing is, if the change is done purely to make the card "more intuitive", it's a bad change, because it weakens the card. Being able to sacrifice the creature itself makes the ability stronger and more versatile.
You might consider that not everyone gets precisely the same things you do out of the game of Magic. For instance, you clearly prefer to maximize the flexibility and power of all cards in all scenarios, which is fine. But many other people, in addition to appreciating the more intuitive templating from a learning standpoint, also appreciate it from an aesthetic perspective. We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
That doesn't mean our likes are right and yours are wrong, but everybody should at least be on the same page about why Wizards has made certain changes before attempting to discuss whether we like those changes or not.
It only wins combat against morphs if your opponent is absolutely desperate to block. Otherwise nobody is throwing a morph in front of a 2/1 that can come right back to the battlefield the same turn.
Isn't that what's usually meant by "this creature wins combat vs ____"? Like, Hill Giant wins combat against Gray Ogres in a general sense, regardless of whether someone in the world is chump-blocking one right this second.
Regardless, it comes to the same thing -- it's a 1-drop that can, at best, be chump-blocked by the most common creature in the format (2/2 Morph), and that's all kinds of cool in an aggressive deck.
EDIT: I feel like my wording here is still ambiguous. What I'm trying to say is that 3-drop Morph creatures are going to be commonplace, and said Morph creatures can't do better than merely chump-blocking Bloodsoaked Champion. They can always not block, obviously, but that's kind of the point, isn't it? You want to get damage in.
Bloodsoaked Champion - This is probably very bad outside of very aggressive Raid-oriented decks; maybe C- overall, B ish in a deck that can leverage it for something, unplayable in a fair number of decks. All the high toughness in the set makes a 2/1 that can't block look pretty questionable.
I suspect this may be more powerful than that.
To be sure, it's not gonna break through any walls all by itself, but it's a 2/1 for B that can bring itself back in a pinch (attack, die, return to battlefield in second main). It comes out turn 1, it guarantees on-demand Raid triggers for the entire game, and it straight-up wins combat against Morphs. To me, that looks like aggression, synergy, and card advantage all in one card. Like you said, it's no good on defense, but I expect it's going to be a very formidable member of any aggressive deck.
I keep seeing people complain that all the Delve cards are overcosted, but I haven't seen a single person give a point of reference or other justification for the statement.
Seriously, what's the basis for comparison? Have you played with the cards yet? Have you performed some sort of theoretical analysis of the expected number of cards in the graveyard for various styles of decks, given the newly-spoiled tools for graveyard interaction?
Or are you just complaining because you like it when people write down small numbers more than when they write down big numbers?
This is the new homelands, this set has a lot of crap in it. Actually the actual metagame is not going to be affected that much when ravnica rotate, we only have to change 2 or 3 cards with some equivalent of khans and there you go, same decks.
I think you're mixing up your ill-conceived comparisons -- you're supposed to be complaining about how weak Theros is, not Return to Ravnica. You're implying that the pre-rotation metagame is dominated by Theros.
In any case, on behalf of all of your Standard opponents for the next 4 months or so, I would like to say that I think your proposal of barely changing your decks at all with a handful of obvious substitutions is a great idea and you should definitely do it.
I read through the idea of using Whip of Erebos or the Termur Acendancy with this to great effect, but what happens if you Clone this guy and then attack? I imagine the Clone will go out, but will it come back? and if it does will it come back tapped and attacking as whatever you want as you just copied anything on the field you wanted?
Not a judge, but...I think that's correct. The self-exile and return is all one single ability that triggers when you declare attacks; it doesn't care about anything that may change about the creature after it goes off. And since the Clone re-entering the battlefield is a new object, it doesn't retain any of its old characteristics (same as with any normal blink effect).
Satyr Wayfinder, Nyx Weaver and Commune with the Gods still exist. Any of those will give plenty of fuel to the Delve cards, and you will be putting useless lands and non-creature spells into the graveyard while milling. You could probably run Nighthowler and Delve cards in the same deck and still have plenty of utility from both.
If you set up the deck correctly, you should have fresh compost to sort through each turn. Leave the tasty bodies, delve the chaff. It's not like those cards are total losses if you actually have to pay some of the colorless mana by actually tapping lands.
My point, the point of the thread was not to attack Delve cards. I think the Delve cards and enablers are fine. The only problem is that Theros Dredge and KTK dredge have opposite ideas of what to with the graveyard. Theros wants to win solely by putting cards in the graveyard as quickly as possible and just keeping the number high, KTK wants to win by depleting the graveyard for Delve cards and slowly filling it back up. [...]
I don't see anywhere you refuted the original point, though -- the Theros cards don't care about putting cards in the graveyard; they almost exclusively care about putting creature cards in the graveyard. And in the process of getting them there, you're inevitably going to end up with tons of otherwise-useless lands, instants, sorceries, and even the occasional enchantment or planeswalker.
With existing Standard tech, all those cards are completely wasted. Every time you play your Commune with the Gods and hit 4 lands and another Commune, it's a total miss. Tossing Delve into this mix means even your misses become hits. That's quite synergistic.
Here is my list so far of rares and mythics that I believe should be knocked down a rarity.
Before I start with the whole point-by-point rebuttal thing, I'd like to make it clear that I don't want to come across as scornful or dismissive. But I do disagree with your assessments of the overall power and complexity of the cards you've listed.
Herald is a 1-drop that, left to its own devices, simultaneously builds both up and out. It is very much a rare.
Wingmate Roc This just does not feel like a mythic at all.
Wingmate Roc is a mythic on board impact alone, but I realize this argument is not convincing to many. I certainly won't argue that it lacks the at-a-glance "wow" factor.
Here you're just wrong. Being able to copy any nonland permanent is inherently very complex. You just don't feel like it's complex because it's easy to understand what it does (comprehension complexity) and it doesn't have a bunch of lines of text with extra abilities (board complexity). But the strategic complexity is way the hell up there.
Not only does it massively impact the board state, it does so conditionally at instant speed. The strategic choices for tap-no-untap at instant speed are much deeper than those for simple tap at instant speed, and the Ferocious clause adds to this.
Again, it's all about the board complexity. Having things uncounterably gain flying and bounce things at instant speed is a solid effect, and the card's existence means you must keep it in mind as a constant possibility. On its own, it's not much, but the complexity adds up.
I think you're underestimating the inherent complexity of morph cards. You keep arguing that a common/uncommon creature + a common/uncommon effect should inherently be common/uncommon. But that's not how it works -- morph is a complicated ability, and the fact that you may understand it very well doesn't change that fact. That added complexity is going to show up in the rarity.
Avalanche Tusker basically just has provoke, actually, slightly less complicated provoke. Brontotherium was an uncommon and it at least has trample.
No argument here. But while the simplicity bothers you as part of a trend, I don't mind because I see it as one of the few relatively non-complex rares. I still think the total power + complexity makes it easily a rare.
Surely you're not suggesting that free graveyard-scry 2 every turn isn't worthy of a rare? It soars past the threshold for both strategic complexity and power. An uncommon Sultai Ascendancy would be disgusting.
You guys do know there's a set number of Mythic and Rare slots that they fill, right? People are constantly talking about rarity as though Wizards spends all of design just making cards at random, and then spends development figuring out what rarity they should be.
I mean, yeah, cards frequently get bumped up or down during design, but it's not like they make a big leviathan and then go, "oh damn, this has too many abilities; I guess it's a Mythic now." In fact, there's an article up that talks about Pearl Lake Ancient's development specifically. In particular, notice that it was designed from scratch to fill a specific slot, and that they had a specific reason they ended up giving it Prowess.
Quote from Article »
Later in development, Khans was being testing in our FFL. Much like real-world Standard, the metagame can change from aggressive decks to control decks. At this point, control decks were doing well. But when one control deck played another, the matches took way too long. Control decks didn't have any threats that were sufficiently strong against other control decks. Since control decks were doing so well at this point, it didn't seem correct to create a threat that was strong against a wide variety of decks. Instead, we wanted something that was specifically good for control decks against control decks.
[...]
We tested this Djinn and it was fun. However, the mechanic of casting a spell to make your 6/7 creature slightly stronger seemed out of place to some people. We removed it, and resumed testing. About a week later, we had games between control decks where each player had an Enlightened Djinn on the battlefield, but nothing was happening; the 6/7 bodies created a stalemate. We tried the same games with the Djinns once again having prowess. Soon enough, there were two Djinns on the table, and a flurry of spells ensued. While seemingly out of place, prowess was a lot of fun on a 6/7!
What annoys me the most about Khans is the total lack of synergy between clans.
Outlast and Prowess both make bigger creatures, while Ferocious grants bonuses for bigger creatures. 3-power creature with Prowess + Crater's Claws = value.
Prowess grants bonuses for playing instants and sorceries, which go directly to the graveyard. Delve benefits from having cards in your graveyard.
In any case, it's very difficult to say how well different clan abilities play together without having the full set. The kinds of synergies that emerge in Standard between factions are often dependent on a handful of very specific cards. There could be a single Jeskai-watermarked mythic with a Prowess ability that makes See the Unwritten completely bonkers for some reason. We just don't know.
I don't play Commander, though I am sympathetic to the frustration and disappointment of having certain color combinations be limited by a lack of available commanders.
That said, I'm not convinced that there is room to make all the khans viable in the format. In addition to being designed for Standard first and foremost, the khans also have to represent their clans and play nice with their respective clan mechanics. Sometimes, it's just not possible to do all that and be a great standalone commander. Honestly, I do believe your best bet is another wedge-colored commander product.
I think that a lot of Wizard's current design policies aren't really doing themselves any favors - in that blog Maro talks about colour combinations needing identities and I think that is a very wrong way to look at multicolor cards.
Take some older multicolour cards like Lim-Dûl's Vault, Sky Spirit or Fires of Yavimaya - the cards are multicoloured because they mechanically pull from each colour. A R/B card isn't inherently "Rakdos" and I think design shouldn't paint themselves into a corner this way but it seems to be all they talk about for the past few years.
It is the same "problem" with people getting confused at cards that have watermarks for clans and others that don't - it the end it mechanically shouldn't matter and cards should not be designed with that goal in mind.
I think you're focusing on the part of Hypothesizer's link where MaRo says "Having a wedge block pushes you heavily toward having factions of some kind which even more narrows the design space"? If so, I'd argue you have the cause and effect backwards -- the design space isn't limited because they insist on making clans with identities; clans with identities are basically necessary to have any design space at all.
If you look at the article MaRo wrote about multicolor design philosophy, you'll notice you're mostly describing cards that use methods 1-3. But for reasons described in the article, these sorts of designs have a limited amount of space. There are only so many ways to make a WU card with a white ability plus a blue ability, or a shared ability at a lower cost.
The reason they talk about giving identities to the color combinations is so they can make use of method 4 -- granting a keyword or ability that is explicitly associated with the faction. Yes, this brings its own set of constraints, hence the "narrowing the design space" mentioned on the blog, but without clans, you just have a puddle of multicolored cards that happen to favor wedges and not shards for no good reason.
This is quite a bold statement for something that essentially boils down to opinion.
Personally, I prefer limited over competitive constructed by a large margin, so talk for yourself.
Not to mention that limited generates LOTS of money for WotC, so it's just natural they try to make the limited experience as good as possible.
Plus, as has already been mentioned, an enormous portion of all opened packs (a majority?) are opened for Limited play, which makes it a huge contributor to the secondary market.
And anyone who prefers constructed Standard must understand this on some level, because if I asked how many packs I should buy to make my Standard deck they'd immediately tell me packs are for chumps and I should buy singles. Where do you think the singles come from?
Basically, you have to cast them during resolution because Wealth is a sorcery. If a spell or activated/triggered ability lets you cast something, you have to do it while it's resolving unless it says otherwise. To compare your examples:
Speaking of flavor...You might consider that not everyone gets precisely the same things you do out of the game of Magic. For instance, you clearly prefer to maximize the flexibility and power of all cards in all scenarios, which is fine. But many other people, in addition to appreciating the more intuitive templating from a learning standpoint, also appreciate it from an aesthetic perspective. We like the fact that Butcher of the Horde can't eat itself to give itself lifelink, because that's inane.
That doesn't mean our likes are right and yours are wrong, but everybody should at least be on the same page about why Wizards has made certain changes before attempting to discuss whether we like those changes or not.
Regardless, it comes to the same thing -- it's a 1-drop that can, at best, be chump-blocked by the most common creature in the format (2/2 Morph), and that's all kinds of cool in an aggressive deck.
EDIT: I feel like my wording here is still ambiguous. What I'm trying to say is that 3-drop Morph creatures are going to be commonplace, and said Morph creatures can't do better than merely chump-blocking Bloodsoaked Champion. They can always not block, obviously, but that's kind of the point, isn't it? You want to get damage in.
To be sure, it's not gonna break through any walls all by itself, but it's a 2/1 for B that can bring itself back in a pinch (attack, die, return to battlefield in second main). It comes out turn 1, it guarantees on-demand Raid triggers for the entire game, and it straight-up wins combat against Morphs. To me, that looks like aggression, synergy, and card advantage all in one card. Like you said, it's no good on defense, but I expect it's going to be a very formidable member of any aggressive deck.
Seriously, what's the basis for comparison? Have you played with the cards yet? Have you performed some sort of theoretical analysis of the expected number of cards in the graveyard for various styles of decks, given the newly-spoiled tools for graveyard interaction?
Or are you just complaining because you like it when people write down small numbers more than when they write down big numbers?
In any case, on behalf of all of your Standard opponents for the next 4 months or so, I would like to say that I think your proposal of barely changing your decks at all with a handful of obvious substitutions is a great idea and you should definitely do it.
That's kind of hilarious.
With existing Standard tech, all those cards are completely wasted. Every time you play your Commune with the Gods and hit 4 lands and another Commune, it's a total miss. Tossing Delve into this mix means even your misses become hits. That's quite synergistic.
Herald is a 1-drop that, left to its own devices, simultaneously builds both up and out. It is very much a rare.
Wingmate Roc is a mythic on board impact alone, but I realize this argument is not convincing to many. I certainly won't argue that it lacks the at-a-glance "wow" factor.
Here you're just wrong. Being able to copy any nonland permanent is inherently very complex. You just don't feel like it's complex because it's easy to understand what it does (comprehension complexity) and it doesn't have a bunch of lines of text with extra abilities (board complexity). But the strategic complexity is way the hell up there.
Not only does it massively impact the board state, it does so conditionally at instant speed. The strategic choices for tap-no-untap at instant speed are much deeper than those for simple tap at instant speed, and the Ferocious clause adds to this.You might be right about complexity here. At the same time, it's possible that having such an effect at uncommon would be format-warping for Limited.
Again, it's all about the board complexity. Having things uncounterably gain flying and bounce things at instant speed is a solid effect, and the card's existence means you must keep it in mind as a constant possibility. On its own, it's not much, but the complexity adds up.
I think you're underestimating the inherent complexity of morph cards. You keep arguing that a common/uncommon creature + a common/uncommon effect should inherently be common/uncommon. But that's not how it works -- morph is a complicated ability, and the fact that you may understand it very well doesn't change that fact. That added complexity is going to show up in the rarity.
No argument here. But while the simplicity bothers you as part of a trend, I don't mind because I see it as one of the few relatively non-complex rares. I still think the total power + complexity makes it easily a rare.
Surely you're not suggesting that free graveyard-scry 2 every turn isn't worthy of a rare? It soars past the threshold for both strategic complexity and power. An uncommon Sultai Ascendancy would be disgusting.
I mean, yeah, cards frequently get bumped up or down during design, but it's not like they make a big leviathan and then go, "oh damn, this has too many abilities; I guess it's a Mythic now." In fact, there's an article up that talks about Pearl Lake Ancient's development specifically. In particular, notice that it was designed from scratch to fill a specific slot, and that they had a specific reason they ended up giving it Prowess.
Outlast and Prowess both make bigger creatures, while Ferocious grants bonuses for bigger creatures. 3-power creature with Prowess + Crater's Claws = value.
Prowess grants bonuses for playing instants and sorceries, which go directly to the graveyard. Delve benefits from having cards in your graveyard.
In any case, it's very difficult to say how well different clan abilities play together without having the full set. The kinds of synergies that emerge in Standard between factions are often dependent on a handful of very specific cards. There could be a single Jeskai-watermarked mythic with a Prowess ability that makes See the Unwritten completely bonkers for some reason. We just don't know.
That said, I'm not convinced that there is room to make all the khans viable in the format. In addition to being designed for Standard first and foremost, the khans also have to represent their clans and play nice with their respective clan mechanics. Sometimes, it's just not possible to do all that and be a great standalone commander. Honestly, I do believe your best bet is another wedge-colored commander product.
I think you're focusing on the part of Hypothesizer's link where MaRo says "Having a wedge block pushes you heavily toward having factions of some kind which even more narrows the design space"? If so, I'd argue you have the cause and effect backwards -- the design space isn't limited because they insist on making clans with identities; clans with identities are basically necessary to have any design space at all.
If you look at the article MaRo wrote about multicolor design philosophy, you'll notice you're mostly describing cards that use methods 1-3. But for reasons described in the article, these sorts of designs have a limited amount of space. There are only so many ways to make a WU card with a white ability plus a blue ability, or a shared ability at a lower cost.
The reason they talk about giving identities to the color combinations is so they can make use of method 4 -- granting a keyword or ability that is explicitly associated with the faction. Yes, this brings its own set of constraints, hence the "narrowing the design space" mentioned on the blog, but without clans, you just have a puddle of multicolored cards that happen to favor wedges and not shards for no good reason.
Plus, as has already been mentioned, an enormous portion of all opened packs (a majority?) are opened for Limited play, which makes it a huge contributor to the secondary market.
And anyone who prefers constructed Standard must understand this on some level, because if I asked how many packs I should buy to make my Standard deck they'd immediately tell me packs are for chumps and I should buy singles. Where do you think the singles come from?