MTG Salvation

All this banfiesta is one of the many reasons I happily don't play Standard since theros block.

But also, yeah, it letting Encore other legendaries is not irrelevant.

Yep, especially with stuff like Sliver Legion, Moritte of the Frost or Morophon, the Boundless

Quote from Sliverologist »

I don't see any reason this should be its own card-type and evergreen. It's not blowing me away. Tribal seems more noteworthy and they stopped doing Tribal.

Players can directly attack a card type that's not a planeswalker. Not only that, but unlike planeswalkers, it's not you, but your opponents actually that have to defend it and your job is to deplenish his counters in order to "defeat it", another unique concept never seen before in paper Magic. Not to mention how even visually this got a template so unique you can't even look straight this card in order to read it. It even got his own subtypes and good luck on defending the position that a card should have subtypes of something that is already a subtype if this wasn't a card type. If all this package together doesn't sound enough a novelty to justify a new card type, I don't know what would make it for you.

This deserves much more his card type than Instants deserve to have it's own card type (as MaRo said many times, if they had to redo Magic all over, Instant would be just a subtype of sorceries). Or global Enchantment/Artifacts for that matter, seeing how mechanically they can be absolutely identical nowadays and now only the flavor differentiate them enough to justify them as separate card types (one could argue you could batch them together in something called like "Artificial" permanents, opposed to natural and living things and that's why Return to Nature and many cards can destroy always both).


If anything, for a whole new card type that should be core of the game and evergreen in every set like every card type I'm bothered they choosed to call them "Battles" and not something more generic that could fit from a flavor perspective, in many more things, like Quests or Missions or Events for example, that could include Battles, but not only (so this card could had been something like "Quest - Battle"). But "Battle - Siege" seems already a bit too narrow for my tastes, and doesn't leave creatively space for non-combat based things, and this potential feels kinda wasted, especially since we just discovered you don't even need to attack with creatures in order to defeat a battle.

Quote from HighHolder »

Terrible design. overcomplicated and annoying. Discourages attacking the player like walkers so makes aggro suck more. I hope they are all awful

I think you simply didn't get how Battles actually work. Aggro decks aren't remotely harmed by this.

Not a lore expert of Tolkien but from what I read on wikipedia about Tom Bombadil, seems the books really do put emphasis on the fact that it's old, ancient and eldest, (with all his names like Forn, Orald, Iarwain all meaning "old/ancient"), so I agree with everybody saying that "Elder Bard" would had nailed completely, and be even faithful to the aura of mistery about his nature.

I would had said that they preferred to use "God" for gameplay and mechanical reasons (same as preferring Halfling over Hobbit) because God tribal it's an actual thing in EDH, but then again I remembered how in Warhammer 40k they used Nekron and C'ton instead of Zombies and Horror/Demon, so as usual I hate WotC for the inconsistency.

"Black Aragorn totally makes sense"

What does not make sense for sure is wasting 4+ pages of this forum only to comment the skin of a fictional character instead of commenting the actual cards.
You don't like black skinned aragorn because it is not canon with his official book appareance? cool, but don't make it such a big deal, let's move on. The more you rant and are upset about this, the more doubts you raise about the good faith of your complainings.


WotC make also genderwashing since forever about almost all angels being females, but I don't see players getting outraged each time a new female angel is spoiled out. Heck, they even made Teysa Karlov with clearly asian features in one art, and I didn't see 4 pages of people complaining of why Teysa was not consistent with her previous canonical appeareances. The fact that some people rage much more when they see black skin, really tells a lot about said people.


EDIT: also, who says that "black Aragorn makes totally sense"? Literally nobody is defending this position, so you are making a problem out of nowhere. Everybody agree that is not the correct depiction, some people just don't care, that's all. And why they don't care? because this is a card game, and the only thing that ultimately matter is how the card play out, not how accurately the art is depicted by the artist.


EDIT2: About Aragorn, is clearly a commander card, and it's actually pretty good on what it does for that format. But only because it's not modern viable it won't mean necessarily that we won't see many modern viable cards in the set. Modern Horizon sets didnt gave only Ragavans and banned cards, but also Piru and Morophon, stuff specifically aimed for commander players. Even the "oh, but Aragorn is a high profile character" doesn't hold water as an argument. Modern Horizon set's posters childs were literally high profile characters like Serra and Dakkon Blackblade and they proved to not be modern viable.So Just wait and see.

No need to hear more from a closed mind.

Dude seriously, It's not much believable from you to call other people "close minded" when your only answer to them is just to literally close your mind by blacklisting so you can't even read them lol. About the pot calling the kettle black. (and of course he will not read this, since he blacklisted me as well )

Cards that let the opponent influence that card's effectiveness are difficult to make fun. I don't think WotC wants to build an entire mechanic around such a principle, especially if it's intended to be a huge thing, like a new card type.

Monarch and Initative are actually whole mechanics where are both fun, effective -when aggresively costed enough- and opponent got a chance to interact with to get the same benefits, so I wouldn't rule this out of the table. It sure takes good design skills and I suspect that Battles, like Planeswalkers will show up only sparingly at high rarities.

Commanderwise, this is a disappointing design beyond any belief. No red in mana cost (I was hoping for a WUBRG ability, perhaps in phyrexian mana related to do phyrexian things), same identical keyword soup of last Atraxa (fine but still lazy), uninspired card draw mechanic (we already saw this kind of ETB effects on the last Niv-Mizzet). At this point I will just use her original card for a truly phyrexian strategy, this is so generic, boring and give very little ideas on original deckbuilding.

Quote from OathboundOne »

Quote from HighHolder »

Right, thank you. She still seems sort of weak when she's supposed to be the most powerful one.

Keep in mind that Power is not synonymous with Strength. I mean, many of the most powerful people in the world are frail old men/women. Elesh Norn leads what has become the most powerful faction of New Phyrexia (and through them, New Phyrexia as a whole), but that doesn't necessarily mean that she's the strongest Praetor.

I think he just meant that they should've just give Norn a more generic -and so, more powerful ability- and he wasn't referring to the P/T stats. Elesh should've had either a low and aggressive mana value with an ability always affecting the game all time (like the new Sheoldred) or a massive mana cost with an epic ability that also will matter all the time (like the 10 mana Gitaxias). What we see is just a niche, mediocre effect that needs a specific deckbuilding to make it matter and that will just occasionally hose some decks. So Elesh is weak even if we consider your parameters.

Quote from Evil Never Dies »

Rules question : if I have a permanent that is both an artifact and enchantment (like the weapons of Theros Gods) I only need 1 card to fulfill the card requirements?

Yes a single Artifact Enchantment satisfies that condition.

Quote from lookingupanddown »

Quote from ChrisBP7 »

Quote from migrena »

Quote from Dontrike »

Quote from HighHolder »

Great news, now they can delay this trash indefinitely and print a real set. Seriously, paying money for cards that aren't legal is pure madness.

But some of them are legal this time, so that argument falls more flat than usual, and clearly people like it or they wouldn't be printing it. I'd rather have this than 100 more Secret Lairs or the next $15/pack limited set, or Double Feature.

they made some of the cards legal exactly because people were losing interest in unsets. this increases perceived value of set as people could sell cards potentially valuable for other formats. it's artificial increase of product value and it's a bad sign that they did this. i enjoyed ocasional unset draft but my lgss never sold even remotely close amount of unset product compared to normal sets.

Strange, from what I remember Unglued sold moderately well, Unhinged was a sale disaster because of overprinting as well as some bad designs and Unstable had to be reprinted multiple times because of the high demand. Were do you get 'people start to lose interest in unsets' out of that?

I've had multiple occasions of people tearing up silver-border cards in the middle of other people's games because they're "not real Magic." The general Magic community respect actual hornets more than silver border cards. Unstable sound extremely well on its Limited environment and full-art basics, but that wasn't enough for most people.

Oh, I DARE someone to try and rip up my silver border cards. That's a declaration of war and I don't think there would be anything left of the person that had the testicular fortitude to do such a thing. My property is my property, you can dislike Silver Bordered cards but you keep your disgusting hands off my expensive merchandise.

How I view the issue with completionist behavior in light of increased products per year.

1. I think that there are (and have always been) a number of players who have tried to collect (nearly) everything.
2. While I don't understand people who go out of their way to own cards like bramble armor for the sake of "completion", this habit is only actually harmful (or "pathologic") to people if it is causing them extreme anxiety and/or if it causes people to live beyond their means.
3. "completionist" behavior has always had a price that some people cannot afford.
4. I am going out on a limb to say that some of those people who have not been able to afford this behavior have always been present in the "Magic is too expensive as a hobby" camp, albeit less visibly than the highly vocal "Abolish the Reserve List" and "I should be able to afford eternal formats" groups.
5. More products being produced by WotC generally means a higher price of "completionist" behavior (especially if collectors care about things like different land arts).
6. The recent increase in products and cards and the corresponding increase in price to buy them all have put people who were previously able to engage in "completionist" behavior comfortably now being unable to continue this behavior.
7. While this is pure speculation on my end, I would guess that the increase in "collector complexity" (which is contributed to both by the number of products along with things like alternate treatments that cards are getting nowadays or The List) may also make things generally harder to keep track of for a large number of people, which may make the act of trying to collect everything a more stressful and time-intensive activity even if someone does have these funds.
8. Between the increased price and increased complexity, we have had a new wave of complaints regarding product/wallet fatigue as people who may have considered themselves whales in the past now find themselves feeling washed ashore.

Unless this is priced like a normal set, this feels like the most blatant cash grab ever. Even Masters sets feature some new art and some thought is put into what's being reprinted. This is just "Load image. Set to grayscale. Save image." a few hundred times. Obviously no preview season because there are 0 surprises.

I wish they'd just leave us alone until February and Kamigawa Neon Dynasty spoilers...

I'm glad that Magic: the Gathering is a property that supports the Murder of children, not a lot of IPs are that brave

Quote from Dontrike »

Quote from Evil Never Dies »

I'm pretty sure I already read this rant with the almost exact same words somewhere else multiple times. If you're so much upset of how the game is today, maybe is better for you to not play it at all anymore and let the other people enjoy it.

Ah yes the good ol' "if you don't like it leave" logic, because you can't not like things in something you enjoy, because if you do then it means you hate it.

Actually that's the argument held by signofzeta. Since he likes and wants old precons, we must have old precons. No matter if old precons were faulty products useful almost to no one. No matter if the majority of people like commander precons more. No matter if wotc sells more commander precon. Everyone must discard commander precons and accept old precons because signofzeta said so. His multiple and long rants are worth more than the opinion of everyone else.

I cannot wait for this to come out! My friends and I have been debating which cards will be in the Lair.

We are thinking: Ryu, Chun-Li, Sagat & M. Bison.

I know it is unlikely but part of me hopes they are all MDFs, that way we can get more characters.

Quote from Melkor »

It's not real, but that is so much better than the real thing.



Secret Lair should never have been mechanically unique, I can't express how muc that still bothers me.

They will put all mechanically unique Secret Lair cards on The List and reprint them in with MtG flavor.

Man **** Wizards for making this an online only. Would love this Sarkhan for my Ur-Dragon deck....
I really don't like this digital only stuff.

The different wordings do matter here.

Progenitus has a static ability with a replacement effect ("if X would happen, Y happens instead"). It applies at the moment Progenitus would be put on the graveyard: it goes to the library instead. This means Progenitus is not, at any point, actually on the graveyard. So it was not a creature card that was "put into a graveyard this way" for Selection.

Kozilek, on the other hand, has a regular triggered ability that uses the stack ("when X happens, Y also happens"). This means Kozilek first do goes onto the graveyard, then its ability triggers. The ability can't even be put on the stack while Necromantic Selection is still resolving, so Kozilek is still on the graveyard and can be selected and returned to the battlefield. The player still gets to shuffle whatever else is on their graveyard when the ability resolves later, though.

Magic will surely survive this. Maybe some of you won't, but, to be clear, Magic will probably survive that too. (Believe it or not, so will you.)

Anyone complaining these don't belong in Magic is hanging on way too tightly. Anyone complaining these drive Magic to an unaffordable place probably hasn't been playing Magic very long, tbh.

While I respect other folks' viewpoints and personal taste, I am unconvinced these are some horrible thing that simply should not exist.