It says "the first new card type since Alpha." Tribal shouldn't be counted out because it wouldn't be "new" in Lorwyn; the bolded statement wouldn't make sense if they weren't ignoring Tribal as a card type. And also ignoring Mana Source. (See: Dark Ritual from Mirage, Fifth Edition, Tempest, and Urza's Saga)
Hence, Tribal is not out of the running. Having said that, I agree with urzassedatives that Lorwyn block could be about anything at this point. All we've seen is some elves in the book description, and some merfolk in Inquest. Nothing to ruffle your feathers about.
--The Towel--: I like that aggro approach, and it's much truer to the best Extended versions. It's not for me though. I'm a control player at heart, with a soft spot for engines. You go ahead and play the aggro build; I'm content playing the version made to beat aggro. I must admit, Bob has never been so happy in a deck with 25 lands. Also, I don't know how I missed Gemstone Mine. Definite inclusion. I insist, however, that the deck can function without the graveyard if necessary, especially if you're running Bob! Aggro transform may not be quite so necessary.
I guess the decision I have to determine through playtesting is which of Hierarch and Enforcer is the superior card at 2WG to stave off aggro. (and whether I need more land search. Sylvan Scrying and Edge of Autumn probably have some power here...)
T3h_Pimp: you ninja-edited out the comment on how the deck dies to D-storm? It's true. The only answer I see is Aven Mindcensor (a bit janky). I'm counting on Seething Song not being in 10th. EDIT: Sleight of Hand is confirmed out, and Rule of Law is practically insta-win, and castable very early (before their third land drop, assuming one simply loses first game.)
Oh yeah, I should try Tarmogoyf. That would get crazy once dredging has started. Again though, you generally don't dredge in the early game. You just set up mana and maybe draw cards.
I meant MartyrTron. It's played by random people on MWS and serious people in my city alike, so for me at least, it seems relevant. My point is that Molten Disaster is strong against any self-sacrificing creature, including all creatures in a deck with Gargadon.
MajoraX: you're right about too many Terramorphic Expanse. I'll cut one or two, probably replacing them with Mountain or Temple Garden. I feel 25 lands is close to correct. I'm wary of Edge of Autumn, for it too sucks the basic lands out of my deck, and the land sacrificing portion, shared by Gargadon, seems unnecessary currently; I rarely find myself in a position where I actually want lands in my graveyard. I have many outlets to do so, and it's not even necessary. It's not a bad thing thanks to Loam, making cards like Boom and Flagstones better, but it rarely serves me.
As for cutting white, I feel that the life-gain is very important in the aggro matchup, and the splash is quite easy to pull off with all the nonbasics and Birds. Two other strong pulls to the colour are Horizon Canopy and Flagstones.
As for Call of the Herd, Mike Flores once said, "Zvi Mowshowitz once said that there is no reason to play cards that cost four or more mana that don't win the game all by themselves." It seems to me that Elephant is usually worth my mana more, despite costing me an extra card. I'll experiment though. Mystic Enforcer is a card I've always liked, and hadn't considered for this deck. It might be stronger than Hierarch.
I want to point out that dredging with Loam usually doesn't start until you've drawn Assault, unless you're very short on land. If that's the case, you probably don't have 4 mana anyway.
Feel free to test it yourself. On Magic Workstation my record is 14-4. (I'm not claiming this is representative of what it would get at a tournament; these numbers are only useful for comparing against other MWS tests.)
I basically looked at some generic extended lists and found parallels in T2, adding in some neat synergies:
Terramorphic Expanse/Flagstones/Horizon Canopy + Boom is good. Boom almost never actually kills your land.
Bust often leaves you with two mana creatures and a Sacred Foundry off Flagstones.
Burn spells supplement Assault to increase the reach so as to not require Loam, in case it gets Extirpated.
4 life-gain spells, both dealing with creatures, work together to give aggro a rough time.
Horizon Canopy dredges Life from the Loam. This is a pseudo-replacement for the Onslaught cycle lands that create a card-drawing engine in extended. In the lower-power Standard, this is sufficient.
This is the second draft of the sideboard, this time trying to salvage a control matchup that's rough unless Boom and Bust show up. Molten disaster is very underrated: it works wonders on Martyr of Sands or creatures wanting to be sacced to a suspended Greater Gargadon.
Despite the high number of nonbasics, Magus of the Moon isn't problematic, as it only makes it easier to find RRR for Assault, facilitating its own death. Blood Moon is a greater challenge, only solved by Krosan Grip in SB, or by dropping Bird or Wall early. Ivory Mask is very scary. I'm counting on the fact that it's relatively unplayed.
These lists are honestly a bit depressing. I'm sorry to see Trade Routes leaving. It never hurt anyone, and always felt like it almost made the cut of some cool synergistic land deck, but not quite. Very good for kids just discovering what synergy is. (and goes well with the reprinted Crucible of Worlds)
Also, as a regular permission player, I'm sad to part with Rewind and Mana Leak, being recompensed by the terrible Discombobulate, if I'm not mistaken. My only hope is that they're taking these two powerful counters out of the base set so as to print some new toys in the fall set, just as Remand rotates out, leaving us with only Rune Snag and Cancel, among niche counters.
Alright, I looked it up in Gatherer and it's there, but it's not there on MagicCards.info. Perhaps just an omission then. A simple enough explanation. These things bug me, that's all. I'm satisfied now. (Though if there's someone to email to ask to get it fixed...)
I believe I finally grasp everything about layers, in this case layer 3, but something about Volrath's Shapeshifter still bothers me. This is the original text:
As long as the top card of your graveyard is a creature card, Volrath's Shapeshifter is a copy of that card, except that Volrath's Shapeshifter retains its abilities. 2: Choose and discard a card.
Since then the ability has changed from a copy avility to a characteristic setting ability, which appears to be a text changing ability:
As long as Volrath's Shapeshifter is in play and the top card of your graveyard is a creature card, Volrath's Shapeshifter has the full text of that card and has "2: Discard a card from your hand."
However, it appears that if the top card of our graveyard is NOT a creature, it no longer has its 2-mana activated ability, which it would seem it once would have. Am I missing something here?
From the Crystal Keep rules summaries: "If the top card in your graveyard isn't a creature card (meaning a "Creature" or "Artifact Creature"), then it's just a 0/1 blue creature. [D'Angelo 1999/06/01]"
Many thanks for the interesting article, especially as it's from the point of view of a Vintage player and gives Standard players like me a fresh look. You got me thinking hard about some things and even changed my mind. I agree with you on almost all points.
The points I'd like to raise are the following:
1. Oboro Envoy, although containing this nefarious, evil hidden-meaning-original-intent that shouldn't be cause for errata, requires the consideration of another one of your own points: namely, allowing casual players and hardcore tournament regulars alike to play the same cards. On the surface, this may not be an issue, but analytical, scrutinizing, rules-embracing players such as ourselves aren't the norm -- in the casual crowd, far from it. I would even go so far as to say there is an enormous number of players that would glance over this card as printed, and (obviously without Oracle reference) play it as intended anyway, ending the effect at end of turn. This would also happen at limited tournaments, and smaller Standard tournaments. This would happen thousands and thousands of times all over the world, the poor errata folks, rules-nerds such as ourselves, squirming in their seats. It's Wizard's job to make sure cards are played the way the rules dictate, but it's also their job to do the opposite: make sure the rules reflect how the card is played. This card seems to be, for the most part, a special case in this respect.
2. I don't understand your stance on the interaction between "precedence" and "original text." Your original text reason makes sense to me: it's how I've always intuitively viewed how errata should work, in general. With this in mind, I read Time Vault's original text. "To untap it, you must skip a turn." I added emphasis to help illustrate my belief that the card does not give an invitation to put skipped turns on credit. You really do have to skip a turn. Shouldn't this original wording take precedence over, er, "precedence" (market values, combo decks built, etc)?
how "funny" would it be if the next 9 previews were all pain lands.
You can almost imagine some poor, innocent newbie on the 9th day eagerly refreshing the website to see if his precious Caves of Koilos were reprinted along with the other 9.;)
1. The 'Holy 24': 24 cards that have never left the base set. (bye bye stone rain!)
Just felt like commenting on this one. Remember that it used to be a "Holy 290" when Alpha was printed. This 290 has been slowly pared down to 24, soon to be 23. Has there ever been a Core Set to not take cards off this list?
That said, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to put just one new card in 10th, except that it won't be the Invitational card (and so won't happen), simply because when MaRo said it's not in Lorwyn, he was implying that it'd be in Morningtide at the earliest. Again, I wouldn't put much past him, but it would be awfully tricky even for him to try to catch us on the semantics like that.
The ratio of uncommons to rares in timeshifted PC cards is 3:1, meaning one rare every 4 packs on average. 45 timeshifted cards means 9 in each colour, likely 3-3-3 rarity distribution (correct me if I'm wrong) so 15 rares total. The math tells us that, if the above numbers are correct, 1 in every 60 packs will contain Damnation (or any given rare) on average.
Wizzpig said normal rares are 1 out of 40. I haven't done the math on this myself, but if it's true that means that the timeshifteds in this set aren't all THAT rare.
I think after this block they'll go back to normal rarities for a good long time. I've heard split opinions on the matter, some liking packs worth more money, and some disliking the difficulty of getting a playset of timeshifted cards that were already in short quantity, like Akroma or PsiBlast.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems obvious Pouncing Kavu knows it didn't make any sense to staff out Mishra, and knew he couldn't and was totally misinformed.
If I was there, I'd have stuck up for you, saying to Lightning Axe man that clearly he's gotta shuffle before anyone can play anything, and smarten up and look at your intent. That's what matters to me in a casual game (casual does not equal multiplayer, and vice versa). You intended to staff Mishra obviously.
Now, if I intend to Remand someone's Wrath, and then realize it was a stupid mistake, I shouldn't be allowed to take it back, because that's my fault. If two people say simultaneously "I Shock your goblin", however, give them a break and let them work it out. The poor guy's intent wasn't to respond to the first shock with a second just to be the one to get claim on the kill.
When I was a beginner, I was taught by someone who knew the very basic rules, and that was good enough for then. If I had questions, I figured it out. I wasn't an idiot and just 'figured it worked some (random) way'. Give them credit to ask questions. If they ask, answer and then elaborate.
As for what to go and teach them, as a beginner I really gained interest in the game when someone showed me deckbuilding. He didn't throw mana curves and scary analysis mumbo-jumbo at me though. He said pick a theme. He said pick 2 colours (or encouraged). He let me play crud gating creatures even if they were bad, but suggested FTK in addition. I learned.
In summary, I'd say elaborate on rules when they want to know something, suggest cards that fit their deck theme, and if they don't have a deck theme suggest ones they might want. Get them hooked on that idea of an 'idea to build a deck around'. They'll want to know about the best Elves or how Troll Ascetic works if you tell them that it's cool to build a deck based around a goal.
Hence, Tribal is not out of the running. Having said that, I agree with urzassedatives that Lorwyn block could be about anything at this point. All we've seen is some elves in the book description, and some merfolk in Inquest. Nothing to ruffle your feathers about.
I guess the decision I have to determine through playtesting is which of Hierarch and Enforcer is the superior card at 2WG to stave off aggro. (and whether I need more land search. Sylvan Scrying and Edge of Autumn probably have some power here...)
T3h_Pimp: you ninja-edited out the comment on how the deck dies to D-storm? It's true. The only answer I see is Aven Mindcensor (a bit janky). I'm counting on Seething Song not being in 10th. EDIT: Sleight of Hand is confirmed out, and Rule of Law is practically insta-win, and castable very early (before their third land drop, assuming one simply loses first game.)
I meant MartyrTron. It's played by random people on MWS and serious people in my city alike, so for me at least, it seems relevant. My point is that Molten Disaster is strong against any self-sacrificing creature, including all creatures in a deck with Gargadon.
As for cutting white, I feel that the life-gain is very important in the aggro matchup, and the splash is quite easy to pull off with all the nonbasics and Birds. Two other strong pulls to the colour are Horizon Canopy and Flagstones.
As for Call of the Herd, Mike Flores once said, "Zvi Mowshowitz once said that there is no reason to play cards that cost four or more mana that don't win the game all by themselves."
I want to point out that dredging with Loam usually doesn't start until you've drawn Assault, unless you're very short on land. If that's the case, you probably don't have 4 mana anyway.
Feel free to test it yourself. On Magic Workstation my record is 14-4. (I'm not claiming this is representative of what it would get at a tournament; these numbers are only useful for comparing against other MWS tests.)
4 Terramorphic Expanse
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
2 Temple Garden
2 Mountain
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Wall of Roots
4 Birds of Paradise
Spells
4 Seismic Assault
4 Life from the Loam
4 Lightning Helix
4 Boom/Bust
4 Incinerate
4 Harmonize
2 Krosan Grip
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Molten Disaster
4 Wreak Havoc
2 Cryoclasm
I basically looked at some generic extended lists and found parallels in T2, adding in some neat synergies:
- Terramorphic Expanse/Flagstones/Horizon Canopy + Boom is good. Boom almost never actually kills your land.
- Bust often leaves you with two mana creatures and a Sacred Foundry off Flagstones.
- Burn spells supplement Assault to increase the reach so as to not require Loam, in case it gets Extirpated.
- 4 life-gain spells, both dealing with creatures, work together to give aggro a rough time.
- Horizon Canopy dredges Life from the Loam. This is a pseudo-replacement for the Onslaught cycle lands that create a card-drawing engine in extended. In the lower-power Standard, this is sufficient.
This is the second draft of the sideboard, this time trying to salvage a control matchup that's rough unless Boom and Bust show up. Molten disaster is very underrated: it works wonders on Martyr of Sands or creatures wanting to be sacced to a suspended Greater Gargadon.Despite the high number of nonbasics, Magus of the Moon isn't problematic, as it only makes it easier to find RRR for Assault, facilitating its own death. Blood Moon is a greater challenge, only solved by Krosan Grip in SB, or by dropping Bird or Wall early. Ivory Mask is very scary. I'm counting on the fact that it's relatively unplayed.
Also, as a regular permission player, I'm sad to part with Rewind and Mana Leak, being recompensed by the terrible Discombobulate, if I'm not mistaken. My only hope is that they're taking these two powerful counters out of the base set so as to print some new toys in the fall set, just as Remand rotates out, leaving us with only Rune Snag and Cancel, among niche counters.
Since then the ability has changed from a copy avility to a characteristic setting ability, which appears to be a text changing ability:
However, it appears that if the top card of our graveyard is NOT a creature, it no longer has its 2-mana activated ability, which it would seem it once would have. Am I missing something here?
From the Crystal Keep rules summaries: "If the top card in your graveyard isn't a creature card (meaning a "Creature" or "Artifact Creature"), then it's just a 0/1 blue creature. [D'Angelo 1999/06/01]"
The points I'd like to raise are the following:
1. Oboro Envoy, although containing this nefarious, evil hidden-meaning-original-intent that shouldn't be cause for errata, requires the consideration of another one of your own points: namely, allowing casual players and hardcore tournament regulars alike to play the same cards. On the surface, this may not be an issue, but analytical, scrutinizing, rules-embracing players such as ourselves aren't the norm -- in the casual crowd, far from it. I would even go so far as to say there is an enormous number of players that would glance over this card as printed, and (obviously without Oracle reference) play it as intended anyway, ending the effect at end of turn. This would also happen at limited tournaments, and smaller Standard tournaments. This would happen thousands and thousands of times all over the world, the poor errata folks, rules-nerds such as ourselves, squirming in their seats. It's Wizard's job to make sure cards are played the way the rules dictate, but it's also their job to do the opposite: make sure the rules reflect how the card is played. This card seems to be, for the most part, a special case in this respect.
2. I don't understand your stance on the interaction between "precedence" and "original text." Your original text reason makes sense to me: it's how I've always intuitively viewed how errata should work, in general. With this in mind, I read Time Vault's original text. "To untap it, you must skip a turn." I added emphasis to help illustrate my belief that the card does not give an invitation to put skipped turns on credit. You really do have to skip a turn. Shouldn't this original wording take precedence over, er, "precedence" (market values, combo decks built, etc)?
Interested to hear your responses.
You can almost imagine some poor, innocent newbie on the 9th day eagerly refreshing the website to see if his precious Caves of Koilos were reprinted along with the other 9.;)
That said, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to put just one new card in 10th, except that it won't be the Invitational card (and so won't happen), simply because when MaRo said it's not in Lorwyn, he was implying that it'd be in Morningtide at the earliest. Again, I wouldn't put much past him, but it would be awfully tricky even for him to try to catch us on the semantics like that.
Wizzpig said normal rares are 1 out of 40. I haven't done the math on this myself, but if it's true that means that the timeshifteds in this set aren't all THAT rare.
I think after this block they'll go back to normal rarities for a good long time. I've heard split opinions on the matter, some liking packs worth more money, and some disliking the difficulty of getting a playset of timeshifted cards that were already in short quantity, like Akroma or PsiBlast.
If I was there, I'd have stuck up for you, saying to Lightning Axe man that clearly he's gotta shuffle before anyone can play anything, and smarten up and look at your intent. That's what matters to me in a casual game (casual does not equal multiplayer, and vice versa). You intended to staff Mishra obviously.
Now, if I intend to Remand someone's Wrath, and then realize it was a stupid mistake, I shouldn't be allowed to take it back, because that's my fault. If two people say simultaneously "I Shock your goblin", however, give them a break and let them work it out. The poor guy's intent wasn't to respond to the first shock with a second just to be the one to get claim on the kill.
As for what to go and teach them, as a beginner I really gained interest in the game when someone showed me deckbuilding. He didn't throw mana curves and scary analysis mumbo-jumbo at me though. He said pick a theme. He said pick 2 colours (or encouraged). He let me play crud gating creatures even if they were bad, but suggested FTK in addition. I learned.
In summary, I'd say elaborate on rules when they want to know something, suggest cards that fit their deck theme, and if they don't have a deck theme suggest ones they might want. Get them hooked on that idea of an 'idea to build a deck around'. They'll want to know about the best Elves or how Troll Ascetic works if you tell them that it's cool to build a deck based around a goal.