Magic sets aren't always strictly chronological - they mostly follow a linear timeline, but we've had a few sets that go back to explore things that happened in the past in the lore but have never been shown on cardboard. M19 looked at the origins and "youth" of the Elder Dragons, how that shaped Bolas and Ugin as characters, and how Bolas became a planeswalker. The Core Set with the flipwalkers was like this too, looking back at how the Big Five mono-color walkers first sparked and the events leading to their sparking.
I am unsure what game you are playing because MTG surely is not it.
So dispute what I said with facts instead of making snarky comments without point.
Taleran has, by highlighting some absurd claims. Cards interacting with one another in synergistic ways, which is the core notion of a combo, is a central element of this game and its design, and always has been. Regardless of finite or infinite, claiming that MTG does not have the ideas of combo in its core design seems willfully misguided.
Well, it's splashy. But kinda boring since it's just throwing a bunch of burn around. A Dragon legend that cares about Treasure; now that would be exciting.
Balan, Leonin Captain, I think at 6 mana you get the equipment to your hand, not the battlefield. At least based on similar cards; Godo and Nazahn. It being a 'random' tutor helps in that regard but because you can easily make it a guaranteed tutor it doesn't help much. Probably would have to cost at least 7, or 8 and have a larger body or more abilities.
I would take another read of Godo and Nazahn. One is a direct tutor to the battlefield for 5R and the other is to hand, EXCEPT if it meets a specific condition (the condition of being Hammer of Nazahn), in which case it is also directly to battlefield and because of the condition, equipped too. I'm really not seeing how either card is a good example for an argument that 6 CMC with two of it colored can't tutor to field with limitations - one tutors to field unconditionally, the other tutors to field based on a specification.
Godo has the same body, a better tutor, and can be argued to have a more impactful other ability. Nazahn has a noticeably better body, a usually worse tutor, and an other ability that works with your whole board and can provide some evasion. Balan's tutoring seems perfectly fine, but he's probably overall weaker than the two examples that share the similar tutoring. He'll usually be just a very straightforward beater, and without deck manipulation he could often be an expensive beater that isn't actually that big a threat. He might be able to get away with a 4/4 body, or a more interesting secondary ability.
Ichor = the phyrexian oil which is what corrupted karn on Morrison till vensor sacrificed himself to save him
I don’t believe the phyrexians May have finally cracked it on traveling though planes
Yes, and the point people keep repeating is that WotC has repeatedly stated that it's normal oil on Fountain of Ichor. No Phyrexians on Ixalan.
And lots of people are predictably, and somewhat justifiably, very annoyed by this because there's no good reason to name it Fountain of Ichor if they didn't want to invoke speculation - the word doesn't even have anything to do with oil outside of MTG's use of it as an alias for Glistening Oil. If you draw your definition from English in general, it's a badly chosen nonsense name. If you draw your definition from the context of MTG, it's yet another obnoxious red-herring meant to stir speculation, which I would have thought they would learn to do better or not do at all by now.
Edit: Ichorid references the correct, actual English meaning. Ichor Slick is very likely to be The Oil, actually, as the presence of trace elements of the Phyrexian invasion was a significant thematic part of Future Sight and Time Spiral - here's an article about the constant evocation of the Mask of Yawgmoth.
I would hope that they would have learned by now from other foreshadowing and red-herring flops that showing us black, oily goop with that specific aesthetic and sinister flavortext wording as a misdirect or "joke" will play pretty poorly to a lot of people.
Seems much likelier to imply that Ixalan was already compromised at some point in the past, either by Karn's wanderings when he was dripping the oil all over the multiverse, or perhaps even by some off-branching of the original Phyrexians.
I don't know how many times I can make my point about "tactical" (read: exploitative) scooping encouraging a meta to skew toward non-interactive combo as an archetype immune to being wrenched by scooping. If people know that needing to deal damage to a player or target a player's board will expose them to petty methods like the spite scoop, they have a very direct incentive to build in ways that don't require those vulnerabilities so that they don't have to experience the supreme "feelbads" of a play being stolen by someone taking their ball and going home.
EDIT: One of my all-time favorite wins was off of a copy of someone else's T&N, memorably sniping a victory off my friend's play when he KNEW my deck was better equipped to use the spell and packing copy spells. That interaction would have been impossible in a speed-scooping meta/with a player who supports speed-scooping, he would have just forfeit on the spot instead of accepting the play.
I don't know how many times I'll have to reply with the same counterargument - if people wanted to build decks with the utmost power in mind, speed scooping would be basically irrelevant because uninteractive combo is the most powerful option regardless. Most people don't do that, ergo we can assume that they aren't building for maximum power. A rarely-relevant thing like speed-scooping is unlikely to suddenly turn them all into combo players if they didn't want to do that in the first place.
And as always - if you don't like the rules, you can always amend them. Or campaign to wotc/the RC to change them.
As for your example, it's a fine example for pointless spite scooping but not for TACTICAL scooping. Does anyone in this thread who hates tac scooping even understand what tac scooping is? Your friend has no bargaining room because (1) you would have no reason to back down even if he did threaten to scoop, and (2) either way your friend will lose the game, so he has nothing to gain. As soon as you've revealed the copy spell in hand, your friend has lost. In that circumstance, he may as well let you kill everyone to start the next game faster, rather than scoop and prolong it.
I have watched that exact skew in a several metas - getting to play out your lines instead of having them thrown in your face is a strong incentive.
As for my example, it was a tac scoop because we were playing fundamentally different kinds of decks - (1) I personally on principle have no reason to back down to a scoop ever, but in a more hypothetical context regarding the example, the copy play was a hail mary and if I didn't land it, I did not have the board presence to impact the game for much longer. It was that play or be dead in the water, which for players without a policy of Go Ahead And Scoop I Don't Negotiate Like That would be plenty of reason to back down. (2) Due to circumstances related above, if he could have gotten me to back down, the rest of the table (including him) had the presence to almost certainly grind me out before I got anything else done.
EDIT: A corollary to my point is that by discouraging interaction, tac-scooping encourages a more boring, linear approach to the format by punishing "clever" just-under-the-line plays where someone ekes out a win or dodges a blowout by smartly interacting with the board or game state.
I don't know how many times I can make my point about "tactical" (read: exploitative) scooping encouraging a meta to skew toward non-interactive combo as an archetype immune to being wrenched by scooping. If people know that needing to deal damage to a player or target a player's board will expose them to petty methods like the spite scoop, they have a very direct incentive to build in ways that don't require those vulnerabilities so that they don't have to experience the supreme "feelbads" of a play being stolen by someone taking their ball and going home.
EDIT: One of my all-time favorite wins was off of a copy of someone else's T&N, memorably sniping a victory off my friend's play when he KNEW my deck was better equipped to use the spell and packing copy spells. That interaction would have been impossible in a speed-scooping meta/with a player who supports speed-scooping, he would have just forfeit on the spot instead of accepting the play.
Yes, similar to how it doesn't work for Zada. Soul's Fire can only satisfy the single specified target of either if both the Target Creature You Control and Any Target are the same.
Sorry for the disinformationand thanksfor the correction. It's a weirdly worded alternate cost since it seems that it lets you cast the spell as usual but then after costs are locked in exchanges the mana you pay for it with life.
Nothing about the templating suggests an alternate cost. I'm so tired of Eli making rulings supported only by Eli Says or Eli Thinks It's Like This and not the card text or CR, see the debacle with Mairsil and Quicksilver Elemental.
I mean for crying out loud, he then almost immediately discusses an interaction with split cards that suggests the exact opposite.
As long as you are mindful of stack sequence, yes. In fact, with enough fodder and another sac outlet, you can sac Bontu on ETB to set up drawing her back if you feed enough other stuff into her trigger.
Jiv's right. Banning Cryo is how we save the format.
Taleran has, by highlighting some absurd claims. Cards interacting with one another in synergistic ways, which is the core notion of a combo, is a central element of this game and its design, and always has been. Regardless of finite or infinite, claiming that MTG does not have the ideas of combo in its core design seems willfully misguided.
So, legendary Hellkite Tyrant-like?
I would take another read of Godo and Nazahn. One is a direct tutor to the battlefield for 5R and the other is to hand, EXCEPT if it meets a specific condition (the condition of being Hammer of Nazahn), in which case it is also directly to battlefield and because of the condition, equipped too. I'm really not seeing how either card is a good example for an argument that 6 CMC with two of it colored can't tutor to field with limitations - one tutors to field unconditionally, the other tutors to field based on a specification.
Godo has the same body, a better tutor, and can be argued to have a more impactful other ability. Nazahn has a noticeably better body, a usually worse tutor, and an other ability that works with your whole board and can provide some evasion. Balan's tutoring seems perfectly fine, but he's probably overall weaker than the two examples that share the similar tutoring. He'll usually be just a very straightforward beater, and without deck manipulation he could often be an expensive beater that isn't actually that big a threat. He might be able to get away with a 4/4 body, or a more interesting secondary ability.
And lots of people are predictably, and somewhat justifiably, very annoyed by this because there's no good reason to name it Fountain of Ichor if they didn't want to invoke speculation - the word doesn't even have anything to do with oil outside of MTG's use of it as an alias for Glistening Oil. If you draw your definition from English in general, it's a badly chosen nonsense name. If you draw your definition from the context of MTG, it's yet another obnoxious red-herring meant to stir speculation, which I would have thought they would learn to do better or not do at all by now.
Edit: Ichorid references the correct, actual English meaning. Ichor Slick is very likely to be The Oil, actually, as the presence of trace elements of the Phyrexian invasion was a significant thematic part of Future Sight and Time Spiral - here's an article about the constant evocation of the Mask of Yawgmoth.
I have watched that exact skew in a several metas - getting to play out your lines instead of having them thrown in your face is a strong incentive.
As for my example, it was a tac scoop because we were playing fundamentally different kinds of decks - (1) I personally on principle have no reason to back down to a scoop ever, but in a more hypothetical context regarding the example, the copy play was a hail mary and if I didn't land it, I did not have the board presence to impact the game for much longer. It was that play or be dead in the water, which for players without a policy of Go Ahead And Scoop I Don't Negotiate Like That would be plenty of reason to back down. (2) Due to circumstances related above, if he could have gotten me to back down, the rest of the table (including him) had the presence to almost certainly grind me out before I got anything else done.
EDIT: A corollary to my point is that by discouraging interaction, tac-scooping encourages a more boring, linear approach to the format by punishing "clever" just-under-the-line plays where someone ekes out a win or dodges a blowout by smartly interacting with the board or game state.
EDIT: One of my all-time favorite wins was off of a copy of someone else's T&N, memorably sniping a victory off my friend's play when he KNEW my deck was better equipped to use the spell and packing copy spells. That interaction would have been impossible in a speed-scooping meta/with a player who supports speed-scooping, he would have just forfeit on the spot instead of accepting the play.
EDIT EDIT: Post editing is acting screwy as hell.
Nothing about the templating suggests an alternate cost. I'm so tired of Eli making rulings supported only by Eli Says or Eli Thinks It's Like This and not the card text or CR, see the debacle with Mairsil and Quicksilver Elemental.
I mean for crying out loud, he then almost immediately discusses an interaction with split cards that suggests the exact opposite.