Long time inactive. I doubt anyone here remembers me.
I'm pretty out of the loop so this idea might seem asinine, but a little while ago I had an idea for dedicating the vast majority of the sideboard to significantly changing the character of the deck, by containing Disciple of the Vault, Moriok Rigger and black mana sources.
The theory is that fighting disruption with disruption is often counterproductive, because it can slow the deck down enough that it ends up giving your opponent enough time to disrupt you anyway. So instead, throw the whole idea of the quick combo win out the window and morph it into a quasi-aggro deck. It is helped by the fact your opponent will almost certainly side out all his creature hate after Game 1.
If you like Tolarian Winds, may I suggest Whirlpool Warrior? For one more mana, you get a similar effect when it comes into play, but you can reuse it for R, and best of all, after you Sunrise, you can reuse it twice more. Also, I've noticed on turn 3 you may be waiting for a Lotus Bloom to come into play but you don't have enough Eggs to make use of your mana, if you're not worried about it being removed (or feel probably won't be, especially games 2/3) you can drop it to hopefully improve the quality of the last few cards in your hand.
There was a thread on this over on the Wizards boards long ago (and it's likely still there), RoP2uu had decided to convert the deck from it's Legacy version.
It basicly looked exactly the same, only without the Timespiral cards.
There was another one that was much longer and had considerably more debate in the SCG forums, but it's lost now.
Regardless, the first build there is probably the best for goldfishing and probably my favourite deck ever :D, partially because of creating it, partially because of the great times you can have goldfishing it (I still sometimes do it now, purely for fun) and how confusing (almost deliberately built that way) it can be for people. Given that Cephalid Coliseum could be innocently recognised simply as a draw spell, for instance, it might take a long time to realise it can be Summer Bloomed into play and then target them an infinite number of times.
The Auratouched Mage is sick in Extended and further. For one, 5W for an 11/11 trampler. If you're ever going to pay six mana for a creature, make it that one. It's not you're restricted to that either: you can have a small toolbox, too.
The most combolicious use I can find is using Abduction, Shade's Form, False Demise and Patten of Rebirth all in the deck. Any sacrifice effect is then repeated over and over again, then you get a final creature, say a Kokusho. It becomes 5W, have a sacrifice engine: You win. Pretty nifty, though I wish it wasn't so slot intensive.
Eternal Witness x4 will help ensure you get the Warp back for extra uses. Wood Elves, Deranged Hermit will help increase your permanent count, to make bigger and bigger warps.
Warp World looks quite interesting. It's not really that hard to break. If you have more permanents in play and more permanents in your deck than an opponent, it can be a fairly simple easy game winner. For a more combo focused use, lots of CIP creatures (Eternal Witness, Deranged Hermit (also upping the permanent count handily) and perhaps stuff like Gilded Lotus which both provides mana to play the card and when flipped into. Or perhaps trying to get enough permanents to luck into 4x Kokusho. Whatever, I'm sure a combo is quite doable, whether it's constructed viable enough remains to be seen. It probably won't be, but probably quite a fun casual combo.
Edit: There's also potential for the enchantment clause to stop some Pandenomium style victories occuring. Though, there certainly still are potential uses like that.
I must say that all the commons powerlevel will push the overall goodness of the set over both Champs and Mirrodin. Barely over Mirrodin though.. Drafting this will be fun..
Power Level does not necessarily equal fun... only when you get spoiled the cards, then they're quickly boring and overused. Or they were just overhyped in the first place.
Perhaps I should clarify. Certainly cards are always overrated, but I think a lot of people (or maybe just me ) are psyched about the overall feel of this rumor season.
It just appears to me that it's not really any different to many other sets in the hype, nor are the cards revealed looking particularly good compared to other sets.
Also, the order of how cards are spoiled also matters. Fifth Dawn got a lot of hype with a lot of good stuff spoiled early, and then as the filler commons were spoiled people liked it less, and the impression ending up sticking, a cognitive bias. Ravnica still has a long way to go, the set's impression could swing rapidly.
Wrong, every set is seen as OMG WEAKEST SET EVAR when the full spoiler is released. Hell, look at Mirrodin or even Odyssey, they were thought to be weak.
But the full spoiler isn't released, is it? And in the midst of the spoiler season, so many cards create an "OMG THIZ IS SO AWESOME. GO <SET>!" Even if it is true, if people are getting excited over too many cards legitimately, it's probably a bad thing anyway. A set with a high power level doesn't mean it's going to be fun.
Master Warcraft: Really neat. The dual mana cards are going to be picked very high in limited because even if you're not running both of the colours (which makes it awesome), it allows you to be flexible and be able to commit to either one of the colours, quite a bit like an artifact would. I see things happening like a W/X player considering splashing Red, and has more reason to due to being able to use their mountains to play a certain card. As for the card itself, I'm surprised it took so long to be made. It's very powerful in limited, with a large clogged up board you could get stupid amounts of card advantage. Very versatile. You can use it as "all your guys are unblockable this turn", "expensive Fog", "potential Fog + force some of your guys to attack and die" or "potential unblockable + force some of your guys to block this turn and die". A rare yes, but a bomb indeed. Perhaps a bit more skill needed than random undercosted fatties, as the versatility will mean there may be many interesting moves with it, allowing you to potentially overlook an approach that will mean the game is won in two turns. In constructed, much less interesting due to less creature combat, but will likely see SB play at the least, due to the high power in any creature based showdown. In casual, this could be very deadly, with a higher amount of fun creature decks, that see themselves get Plague Winded for 4 mana.
Rootkin: Too many drawbacks over Llanowar Behemoth. Hopefully, it will end up with some differences that are big enough for it to matter. Then again, if they allow for some "landless Convoke deck" with some Green Kobold guys, this could be a good way to use your random weenies once you've dropped your fatties.
Leashling: Ephemeron style, only artifact and -1/-1 without flying. Limited filler.
Glaze: Hmm. Goblin Cohort style. If it cost 2U or there were many highly aggressive blue guys, it would be interesting in some super fast Sligh deck. Higure Vanguard perhaps, or just some deck with plenty of random blue fliers.
Zephyr: 5 mana for some random Wall that screws with tempo a lot? Bad.
Purebred: About 2 mana overcosted. At say, 1WW, it'd be a Horned Turtle with an extra toughness and small lifegain ability, decent for limited. At 3W, poor but would find its way into limited decks. At 4W, it's just too much.
Glare: What's with all the "give lots of guys haste in a turn" things? The Flame Zealot and this? If you're going to alpha strike from a Bidding, play Mass Hysteria or something.
Hmm. It'd be cool if there could be many, many Convokers, which allowed some kind of land free or very limited land deck. Perhaps some guy with a Molder Slug ability for lands...?
I'm pretty out of the loop so this idea might seem asinine, but a little while ago I had an idea for dedicating the vast majority of the sideboard to significantly changing the character of the deck, by containing Disciple of the Vault, Moriok Rigger and black mana sources.
The theory is that fighting disruption with disruption is often counterproductive, because it can slow the deck down enough that it ends up giving your opponent enough time to disrupt you anyway. So instead, throw the whole idea of the quick combo win out the window and morph it into a quasi-aggro deck. It is helped by the fact your opponent will almost certainly side out all his creature hate after Game 1.
Here's my very first thread (I think) of it (old Extended): http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=273300
There was another one that was much longer and had considerably more debate in the SCG forums, but it's lost now.
Regardless, the first build there is probably the best for goldfishing and probably my favourite deck ever :D, partially because of creating it, partially because of the great times you can have goldfishing it (I still sometimes do it now, purely for fun) and how confusing (almost deliberately built that way) it can be for people. Given that Cephalid Coliseum could be innocently recognised simply as a draw spell, for instance, it might take a long time to realise it can be Summer Bloomed into play and then target them an infinite number of times.
The most combolicious use I can find is using Abduction, Shade's Form, False Demise and Patten of Rebirth all in the deck. Any sacrifice effect is then repeated over and over again, then you get a final creature, say a Kokusho. It becomes 5W, have a sacrifice engine: You win. Pretty nifty, though I wish it wasn't so slot intensive.
Beware of Legends. "Whee, 2 Rorix Bladewings! Oh wait..."
That removes quite a lot of possibilities, actually. For example, Zo-Zu and Azami. It helps Kokoshu, though.
Edit: There's also potential for the enchantment clause to stop some Pandenomium style victories occuring. Though, there certainly still are potential uses like that.
Power Level does not necessarily equal fun... only when you get spoiled the cards, then they're quickly boring and overused. Or they were just overhyped in the first place.
It just appears to me that it's not really any different to many other sets in the hype, nor are the cards revealed looking particularly good compared to other sets.
Also, the order of how cards are spoiled also matters. Fifth Dawn got a lot of hype with a lot of good stuff spoiled early, and then as the filler commons were spoiled people liked it less, and the impression ending up sticking, a cognitive bias. Ravnica still has a long way to go, the set's impression could swing rapidly.
But the full spoiler isn't released, is it? And in the midst of the spoiler season, so many cards create an "OMG THIZ IS SO AWESOME. GO <SET>!" Even if it is true, if people are getting excited over too many cards legitimately, it's probably a bad thing anyway. A set with a high power level doesn't mean it's going to be fun.
It's just that, "have you seen this????" is the same deal for every single spoiler season ever.
Rootkin: Too many drawbacks over Llanowar Behemoth. Hopefully, it will end up with some differences that are big enough for it to matter. Then again, if they allow for some "landless Convoke deck" with some Green Kobold guys, this could be a good way to use your random weenies once you've dropped your fatties.
Leashling: Ephemeron style, only artifact and -1/-1 without flying. Limited filler.
Glaze: Hmm. Goblin Cohort style. If it cost 2U or there were many highly aggressive blue guys, it would be interesting in some super fast Sligh deck. Higure Vanguard perhaps, or just some deck with plenty of random blue fliers.
Zephyr: 5 mana for some random Wall that screws with tempo a lot? Bad.
Purebred: About 2 mana overcosted. At say, 1WW, it'd be a Horned Turtle with an extra toughness and small lifegain ability, decent for limited. At 3W, poor but would find its way into limited decks. At 4W, it's just too much.
Glare: What's with all the "give lots of guys haste in a turn" things? The Flame Zealot and this? If you're going to alpha strike from a Bidding, play Mass Hysteria or something.
Goblin: Filler. Reprint probably. Nothing remotely new.