Tried out my deck idea really quickly goldfishing with this list based on Key:
// Lands
4 [ROE] Eldrazi Temple
19 [US] Island (2)
// Creatures
3 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Sea Gate Oracle
// Spells
3 [ZEN] Into the Roil
1 [M10] Cancel
1 [ROE] Dreamstone Hedron
4 [FUT] Foresee
4 [US] Voltaic Key
4 [M10] Time Warp
4 [M11] Time Reversal
4 [SH] Mana Leak
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [WWK] Everflowing Chalice
I'm not sure the list has enough early game disruption / speedbumps, but it worked at least. Approximately turn 6 I was able to go off quite easily, setting up roughly infinite turns (or near infinite enough to count, they would definitely be dead) with Emrakul and as many Time Warp as I could cast. The Key and Chalice combo was monstrous, generating a TON of mana at a growing rate. In one game my board had an Everflowing Chalice with 6 counters and 3 Voltaic Key (not that that much mana was really necessary).
It was a lot of fun, using every piece of card search I could to try to find Time Warps (Scrye making it pretty easy) and take more turns and once I had finally run out simply Time Reversaling and going back up to 7 in hand and a library full of Warps to ensure I could continue.
Voltaic Key seems like it would be good with Everflowing Chalice, but when you think about it if your Chalice is at 1 counter it breaks even, if it's at 2 the Key generates only +1 total mana, and if it's at 3 then you're already at 9 mana independent of the Key.
However, I think Key + Chalice shenanigans might be able to set something up with Time Reversal, since you can actually generate a significant amount of mana by an earlyish turn. A single Key and a Chalice @ 3 is 12 mana on turn 7 if you hit all your land drops, meaning you've got 7 mana to abuse with your Time Reversal. Hitting a Time Warp there with another Key will set you up with 15 mana the next turn (hey there, Emrakul!) and you can probably go infinite(ish), with more Time Reversal, Time Warp, and the extra turn you took off Emrakul (not that you really need that many turns of attacking with a 15/15 Flying Annihilator 6).
My assumption is that either Oblivion Ring will simply be reprinted in Scars, or similar cards to alleviate your fears will be printed in that set (or perhaps in M11, as we don't have the entire spoiler).
With Shards rotating out both Oblivion Ring and Maelstrom Pulse will be out of the format based on what we know now, and even with them around Planeswalkers are extremely powerful, so I find it unlikely that those two answers will leave without some kind of suitable replacement(s).
That sort of logic has mostly gone away. Wizards no longer allows for "do anything, as long as it feels in color" because that gave Blue and Black some things they never should have gotten. White as an amalgamation of all colors is similar to this, and I really don't think that's a smart idea to give it almost no weaknesses. It can deal with any permanents, has the best creatures (both big and small), the best of the "symmetrical effects" part of the pie, outstanding hosers (just compare Kor Firewalker and Celestial Purge to something like Ignite Disorder), as well as being decent in all roles and parts of the game (early, mid,and endgame).
Though I do agree that the color pie does need to be broadened a bit. Maybe this is the problem...White is getting fleshed out now, while other colors aren't currently getting as much love. While White is a color that can play many roles and have a lot of mechanical depth, colors like Red and Green (and Blue currently) are kinda in a situation where they are either completely one-track as far as playable mechanics go (Red), or in a position where they are floating around with lots of good cards, but no real identity, existing mostly as splash colors (Blue and Green).
I agree with your evaluation of White but I think attributing it to some kind of color pie issue is inaccurate. I consider it more a result of the push for White to be good (as a purposeful turnaround of its typical label as bad in Magic history) and its currently highly powered cardpool.
Consider White in Rise of the Eldrazi Limited, where it is considered far and away the worst color and labeled by many pros as close to undraftable. Some pros have gone so far as to say they don't want to open a Gideon Jura P1P1 so that, despite Gideon's ridiculous individual power, they will not be inclined to take it and thus play with the rest of the mediocre White cards.
Personally, I don't believe Ranger of Eos is a bad choice for M11. It's a strong card that is a major contributor to numerous deck choices that will most likely remain once Shards rotates. I think the "generic fantasy" / "Dominaria only" stance of M_ sets is understandable but not maintainable. The Core Set has always been a chance for Wizards to bring back nostalgic cards from old sets for another shot, and that has always been super exciting. Being hamstrung further by only being allowed to choose cards with the right names / references is a pointless endeavor going forward. There are two options: make sure nearly every tournament-viable card to be printed henceforth is generic enough to thus match this requirement, or to simply be loose with this restriction and let some worthwhile cards slip through the cracks. One choice is much easier and makes much more sense than the other.
I realize they circumvented this potential problem in M10 with numerous cards by creating differently named copies of those cards, but I'm pretty sure those were all commons (maybe some uncommons?). I (and many others) didn't mind replacing my 5 cent Counsel of the Soratami with 5 cent Divinations, but I'll certainly mind if I have to replace my $7 Ranger of Eos with a $7 "Huntmaster of Dominaria."
I saw this on another site, but someone was asking about the origins of darksteel. I don't know very much about Magic lore, but I believe this poster's ultimate point (the thread hadn't gotten this far yet) was that Darksteel Colossus is in M10 but darksteel is a material exclusive to Mirrodin.
Finally, Ranger of Eos seems fine in terms of the pie for White. Blue is the color most associated with drawing cards and thus an enabler based on drawing cards like the blue Jace's Erasure makes sense. White is the weenie color and thus an enabler based on running weenies like the white Ranger of Eos makes sense.
Gatekeeper is generally not played on turn 3 outside of mono black decks. The others all cost more than 3. The reason double color cards are castable in standard in two-color decks is because they tend to cost 4 or more. With a deck with all basics, getting 2 plains by the time you need to cast Day of Judgment is likely. Getting 2 islands consistently on turn 3 is less likely (you won't have it more than half the time).
There's a lot of this taken out of context. You won't have two islands by turn three more than half the time under what circumstances? If your deck is built properly you'll have it plenty of times. Carlos Romao built his GP Top 8'ing Super Friends deck (two main colors splashing a third) with three copies of Jace Beleren in it, whose cost mirrors AEther Master. If a deck wants him, it can most likely accommodate him by creating the proper manabase. Perhaps a full-fledged three color deck isn't the best place, but there aren't many of those at the moment anyway.
There's a ton of duals in the format to support it. If you're enemy colors you have Terramorphic, Evolving Wild, the appropriate tri-land (Crumbling Necropolis producing U and R) and the appropriate fetchland. If you're allied colors there are numerous duals to choose from, the M10 ones, the ZEN gainlands, the WWK manlands, and the aforementioned tri-lands, Terramorphic and Evolving Wild.
He is factually less easy to cast than the original Man-o'-War, but I don't think it's a huge hurdle to overcome, and I find it unlikely that his casting cost is what keeps him from seeing play. If he is strong enough, he will be played despite his casting cost.
Why do people seem to think this needs to be played in a Monocolored deck? People are currently playing Sedraxis Specter, Jace, and Gatekeeper of Malakir in the same deck. Or Vengevine, Jace, and Elspeth. There's no reason AEther Master has to be played in Monoblue. I guess it's possible there are better choices if you are not Monoblue, but I think this card does enough that in the right deck he's probably pretty good.
This card is obviously awesome in limited, but I think it is likely it will also be good in constructed. Gatekeeper of Malakir is really powerful, and this card is similar. It is easier to cast, and always hits what you want. Of course, sacrificing and bouncing are different things entirely, but it seems like a fair comparison to me.
Remember, this card can bounce your own stuff, so resetting Wall of Omens or Sea Gate Oracle is a possibility, and looping him to recast Vengevine (being a more expensive but generally stronger Kor Skyfisher) might be something to explore. Resetting your Augury Owl? Nice.
It seems to me that blue is getting to an excellent critical mass of tempo generating cards that will propel it to the late game. You can easily open on Khalni Garden / Halimar Depths, Augury Owl / Spreading Seas, and AEther Master / Sea Gate Oracle to disrupt / manipulate all while building a significant board of dorks to protect your Jace, the Mind Sculptor, or give you the turns you need to drop some mana production and hit All is Dust or Avenger of Zendikar or something.
A 2/2 isn't what it used to be offensively, so I'm not positive how viable this guy will be in a Fish style deck, but he's a good option to have and might be an important piece for that deck if it ends up being viable.
It's an "Expert", it's from esper, it's blue...and "new clothes" is probably casting cost, and if it's more restrictive then it's more coloured.
Perhaps for 2UU, but you might be right. The # being early doesn't help us much because I think the "new clothes" section at least implies that this is a new card but close to a reprint, which means we don't have much to go on considering the name. This "reprinting" also lets them drop the Artifact type from the creature, if it is indeed from Esper. This fact originally lead me away from Esper (as any Esper-based creature would be a colored Artifact and thus likely not in the core set) but a "reprinting" circumvents this caveat.
8.) Servant. For you, to you keeping friends down seems fun. Four trees is nice up in the air.
Fat Tapper 2U
Creature - ???
Defender (? to mesh with ZEN block?), flying U,T: Tap target creature.
0/4
@Daeres: I don't find that "Mini-morphling" particularly exciting to need to be nerfed as badly as you seem to think. I'm just translating the "three or four times" part as 3/4 toughness, which I feel seems fair enough. I wouldn't get excited about that creature in constructed at all... he costs 5 a lot of the time if you want to use Shroud properly, and constantly pumping mana into him to fly and keeping U open to Shroud all the time is a hefty cost. Morphling was powerful because he could do the above, but hit for 5 and still block their attackers. Mini can do none of these things, so I think he's fine. Good in Limited, but balanced if Uncommon I figure.
@Gaea's Regent: We already know that #6 is along the lines of a Sage Owl with Scrye as opposed to plain looking at the top 4. The question is how many cards the Owl can see, and I'd imagine any more than 2 would probably be pretty nuts. Cryptic Annelid had a pathetic body for its cost because of its Scrye capabilities and still cost 3U so if this new card is a 1/1 Flying for 1U, I think the only discussion is whether it has Scrye 1 or Scrye 2. For this one we're basically waiting for CaptainBlack to check back in and confirm/deny.
3.) Royalty now rejects you.
Royal rejection makes me think of banishment or exile. Blue has no cards with Exile in the name, but two with Banish: Banishing Knack and Surrakar Banisher. #78 is only a few after Sleep at #73 so with a number of S cards the number crunch could work out for Surrakar Banisher's favor, although I'm not sure how well the flavor works for a core set, since Surrakar is so specific and they're kind of moving away from that with their reprints.
7.) Servant. You you'll need a LOT of water 2 keep up. Related to Kal-El maybe? I bet 2/5ths at least. I'd say you've had that question three or four times already!
Mini-morphling 2UU
Creature - Elemental? Shapeshifter? U: CARDNAME gains flying until end of turn. U: CARDNAME gains shroud until end of turn.
3/4
I guess I'd better check if my new card fulfills the round, then. The first ability uses the mechanic of lands without using lands itself, while I'd think the second one uses lands any way you look at it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that at the very least the second ability counts.
Mindcrush SummonsB
Sorcery R
Multikicker 1B
Target player discards X+1 cards, where X is equal to the number of times Mindcrush Summons was kicked. Then, if that player has no cards in hand, put a 5/5 black Elemental creature token onto the battlefield. It has "This gets -1/-1 for each card in your opponent's hands."
// Lands
4 [ROE] Eldrazi Temple
19 [US] Island (2)
// Creatures
3 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [ROE] Sea Gate Oracle
// Spells
3 [ZEN] Into the Roil
1 [M10] Cancel
1 [ROE] Dreamstone Hedron
4 [FUT] Foresee
4 [US] Voltaic Key
4 [M10] Time Warp
4 [M11] Time Reversal
4 [SH] Mana Leak
4 [M11] Preordain
4 [WWK] Everflowing Chalice
I'm not sure the list has enough early game disruption / speedbumps, but it worked at least. Approximately turn 6 I was able to go off quite easily, setting up roughly infinite turns (or near infinite enough to count, they would definitely be dead) with Emrakul and as many Time Warp as I could cast. The Key and Chalice combo was monstrous, generating a TON of mana at a growing rate. In one game my board had an Everflowing Chalice with 6 counters and 3 Voltaic Key (not that that much mana was really necessary).
It was a lot of fun, using every piece of card search I could to try to find Time Warps (Scrye making it pretty easy) and take more turns and once I had finally run out simply Time Reversaling and going back up to 7 in hand and a library full of Warps to ensure I could continue.
However, I think Key + Chalice shenanigans might be able to set something up with Time Reversal, since you can actually generate a significant amount of mana by an earlyish turn. A single Key and a Chalice @ 3 is 12 mana on turn 7 if you hit all your land drops, meaning you've got 7 mana to abuse with your Time Reversal. Hitting a Time Warp there with another Key will set you up with 15 mana the next turn (hey there, Emrakul!) and you can probably go infinite(ish), with more Time Reversal, Time Warp, and the extra turn you took off Emrakul (not that you really need that many turns of attacking with a 15/15 Flying Annihilator 6).
With Shards rotating out both Oblivion Ring and Maelstrom Pulse will be out of the format based on what we know now, and even with them around Planeswalkers are extremely powerful, so I find it unlikely that those two answers will leave without some kind of suitable replacement(s).
I agree with your evaluation of White but I think attributing it to some kind of color pie issue is inaccurate. I consider it more a result of the push for White to be good (as a purposeful turnaround of its typical label as bad in Magic history) and its currently highly powered cardpool.
Consider White in Rise of the Eldrazi Limited, where it is considered far and away the worst color and labeled by many pros as close to undraftable. Some pros have gone so far as to say they don't want to open a Gideon Jura P1P1 so that, despite Gideon's ridiculous individual power, they will not be inclined to take it and thus play with the rest of the mediocre White cards.
Personally, I don't believe Ranger of Eos is a bad choice for M11. It's a strong card that is a major contributor to numerous deck choices that will most likely remain once Shards rotates. I think the "generic fantasy" / "Dominaria only" stance of M_ sets is understandable but not maintainable. The Core Set has always been a chance for Wizards to bring back nostalgic cards from old sets for another shot, and that has always been super exciting. Being hamstrung further by only being allowed to choose cards with the right names / references is a pointless endeavor going forward. There are two options: make sure nearly every tournament-viable card to be printed henceforth is generic enough to thus match this requirement, or to simply be loose with this restriction and let some worthwhile cards slip through the cracks. One choice is much easier and makes much more sense than the other.
I realize they circumvented this potential problem in M10 with numerous cards by creating differently named copies of those cards, but I'm pretty sure those were all commons (maybe some uncommons?). I (and many others) didn't mind replacing my 5 cent Counsel of the Soratami with 5 cent Divinations, but I'll certainly mind if I have to replace my $7 Ranger of Eos with a $7 "Huntmaster of Dominaria."
I saw this on another site, but someone was asking about the origins of darksteel. I don't know very much about Magic lore, but I believe this poster's ultimate point (the thread hadn't gotten this far yet) was that Darksteel Colossus is in M10 but darksteel is a material exclusive to Mirrodin.
Finally, Ranger of Eos seems fine in terms of the pie for White. Blue is the color most associated with drawing cards and thus an enabler based on drawing cards like the blue Jace's Erasure makes sense. White is the weenie color and thus an enabler based on running weenies like the white Ranger of Eos makes sense.
There's a lot of this taken out of context. You won't have two islands by turn three more than half the time under what circumstances? If your deck is built properly you'll have it plenty of times. Carlos Romao built his GP Top 8'ing Super Friends deck (two main colors splashing a third) with three copies of Jace Beleren in it, whose cost mirrors AEther Master. If a deck wants him, it can most likely accommodate him by creating the proper manabase. Perhaps a full-fledged three color deck isn't the best place, but there aren't many of those at the moment anyway.
There's a ton of duals in the format to support it. If you're enemy colors you have Terramorphic, Evolving Wild, the appropriate tri-land (Crumbling Necropolis producing U and R) and the appropriate fetchland. If you're allied colors there are numerous duals to choose from, the M10 ones, the ZEN gainlands, the WWK manlands, and the aforementioned tri-lands, Terramorphic and Evolving Wild.
He is factually less easy to cast than the original Man-o'-War, but I don't think it's a huge hurdle to overcome, and I find it unlikely that his casting cost is what keeps him from seeing play. If he is strong enough, he will be played despite his casting cost.
Remember, this card can bounce your own stuff, so resetting Wall of Omens or Sea Gate Oracle is a possibility, and looping him to recast Vengevine (being a more expensive but generally stronger Kor Skyfisher) might be something to explore. Resetting your Augury Owl? Nice.
It seems to me that blue is getting to an excellent critical mass of tempo generating cards that will propel it to the late game. You can easily open on Khalni Garden / Halimar Depths, Augury Owl / Spreading Seas, and AEther Master / Sea Gate Oracle to disrupt / manipulate all while building a significant board of dorks to protect your Jace, the Mind Sculptor, or give you the turns you need to drop some mana production and hit All is Dust or Avenger of Zendikar or something.
A 2/2 isn't what it used to be offensively, so I'm not positive how viable this guy will be in a Fish style deck, but he's a good option to have and might be an important piece for that deck if it ends up being viable.
This might be right. It's possible the "12913" clue is independent from the set # being 129, but if it's deliberate then the creature is likely a 1/3.
If that is true then rather than "pacifist" implying 0 power, it is more likely that the creature has Defender. Perhaps:
Wall of Fire's Replacement 1R or 2R
Creature - Elemental?
Defender, flying
R: CARDNAME gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
1/3
Perhaps for 2UU, but you might be right. The # being early doesn't help us much because I think the "new clothes" section at least implies that this is a new card but close to a reprint, which means we don't have much to go on considering the name. This "reprinting" also lets them drop the Artifact type from the creature, if it is indeed from Esper. This fact originally lead me away from Esper (as any Esper-based creature would be a colored Artifact and thus likely not in the core set) but a "reprinting" circumvents this caveat.
Fat Tapper 2U
Creature - ???
Defender (? to mesh with ZEN block?), flying
U,T: Tap target creature.
0/4
@Daeres: I don't find that "Mini-morphling" particularly exciting to need to be nerfed as badly as you seem to think. I'm just translating the "three or four times" part as 3/4 toughness, which I feel seems fair enough. I wouldn't get excited about that creature in constructed at all... he costs 5 a lot of the time if you want to use Shroud properly, and constantly pumping mana into him to fly and keeping U open to Shroud all the time is a hefty cost. Morphling was powerful because he could do the above, but hit for 5 and still block their attackers. Mini can do none of these things, so I think he's fine. Good in Limited, but balanced if Uncommon I figure.
@Gaea's Regent: We already know that #6 is along the lines of a Sage Owl with Scrye as opposed to plain looking at the top 4. The question is how many cards the Owl can see, and I'd imagine any more than 2 would probably be pretty nuts. Cryptic Annelid had a pathetic body for its cost because of its Scrye capabilities and still cost 3U so if this new card is a 1/1 Flying for 1U, I think the only discussion is whether it has Scrye 1 or Scrye 2. For this one we're basically waiting for CaptainBlack to check back in and confirm/deny.
3.) Royalty now rejects you.
Royal rejection makes me think of banishment or exile. Blue has no cards with Exile in the name, but two with Banish: Banishing Knack and Surrakar Banisher. #78 is only a few after Sleep at #73 so with a number of S cards the number crunch could work out for Surrakar Banisher's favor, although I'm not sure how well the flavor works for a core set, since Surrakar is so specific and they're kind of moving away from that with their reprints.
Mini-morphling 2UU
Creature - Elemental? Shapeshifter?
U: CARDNAME gains flying until end of turn.
U: CARDNAME gains shroud until end of turn.
3/4
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that at the very least the second ability counts.
P.S.:
That card is awesome.
Nice round everyone, some interesting submissions.
Sorcery R
Multikicker 1B
Target player discards X+1 cards, where X is equal to the number of times Mindcrush Summons was kicked. Then, if that player has no cards in hand, put a 5/5 black Elemental creature token onto the battlefield. It has "This gets -1/-1 for each card in your opponent's hands."