and as for “friends forever” I guaranteed you the MTG variants that appear in the list eventually will be reworded to “partner” or “Partner with X”
Can't be Partner, "Friends forever" cards don't partner with Partner cards and vice-versa and doing so would be functional errata, while Partners With wouldn't work if there are more than two Friends Forever cards (which is very likely). It seems the idea is to specifically isolate those cards on their own group.
That said, I don't like the "Friends forever" thing though, if it were me I'd just make a new mechanic that partners characters based on a special category, like for example "Friends with The Fellowship" for the LotR crossover. Maybe they didn't do it because they don't want to make special categories that they would have to change on functional reprints, but still.
As for the cards themselves... Eh, they are fine. Jim is decent as far as Boros legends goes, which is... not much of an accomplishment, really. Eleven has cool new design space, a spellslinger deck that wants you to have big draw spells instead of casting a billion spells per turn while also having enough safety valves to not be broken, but on the other hand, I know exactly how 99% of people will pilot Eleven (read: Turns) and I hate it.
Field of the Dead is the tip of the iceberg, because while it's obnoxious as hell at least 2/2 Zombies take some time before they win the game. The World Tree was the real last straw. That stupid card plus Golos says "do whatever the hell you want once you hit 5 mana". You can literally play Ultimatum Tribal with Golos consistently and there's nothing anyone can do about it unless the rest of the table happens to have some land hate before you start vomiting Commander's strongest spells at them. And God help you if the Golos player happens to run Petrified Field. To this announcement I say "good riddance" and let the Golos players either cry or learn how to build decks for once.
The constant stream of zombies is what gives you a completely free bonus that happens to keep you alive and wins the game at some point.
If someone goes the for the tree, thats totally cool, a 5-color deck that wants to play all kinds of wacky mana cost cards is janky enough that this is as casual friendly as possible.
Golos is a artifact for gods sake, how is a table not able to simply kill it over and over again forever ?
(and while you dont need mass land destruction, its really just some very specific lands that you "always" tutor first as they are so much more busted than anything else, and that is the worst sin of EDH , repetitive gameplay if a player does the exact same steps every time).
The problem with the Tree is less "zany build-around for big costs" and more "perfect consistency, every game, by adding 1 card to your 99". I do agree Field's inevitability is a pain in the ass too, but the 5C deck having a better manabase than every other non-mono deck in the table is where I draw the line.
Either way, the real good news out of the announcement that I haven't noticed before:
We’ve talked to the folks in Studio X and they understand the problems created by generically-powerful five-color commanders that don’t have WUBRG in their mana cost. We don’t expect similar cards to come from them in the future, so a surgical strike now makes sense.
Genuinely great news. Less Golos, Kenriths and Esikas and more Codies and Tiamats please.
Eloise seems pretty overcosted, but she's okay. She bridges two strategies that don't have enough support on their own (in this case Investigate and Surveil) and gives them a cohesive theme that works on Commander (in this case Aristocrats). At the very least, she seems fun to brew around with. Not sure what's the deal with a simple sleuth being this big though - hell, she's as strong as Sigarda.
Gorex is really cool, kinda like a bizarro-Dredge creature that also gives you value. A fun card that has a simple goal and is straightforward to build around, just fill your graveyard and give your turtle boots.
As for the 99 cards, not much to say. Prowling Geistcatcher is probably the strongest card of the batch in the right deck, should give you crazy value in the right board plus can potentially go infinite with a few Clone effects and a sac outlet. Out of the "fair" cards, however, I like Curse of Restless Dead because targeting that one Landfall player can easily give you like 10 tokens for 3 mana, and Ghouls' Night Out not because I'm a sucker for horrible puns but also because as everyone knows you often don't need to attack with creatures in Commander to get good value out of them.
Thank the Heavens. While Golos is a cool card, it's just too good for multiple reasons, and it feels bad to play against.
The biggest offender is the first target is always Field of the Dead and then its a game of getting zombies for free.
Field of the Dead is the tip of the iceberg, because while it's obnoxious as hell at least 2/2 Zombies take some time before they win the game. The World Tree was the real last straw. That stupid card plus Golos says "do whatever the hell you want once you hit 5 mana". You can literally play Ultimatum Tribal with Golos consistently and there's nothing anyone can do about it unless the rest of the table happens to have some land hate before you start vomiting Commander's strongest spells at them. And God help you if the Golos player happens to run Petrified Field. To this announcement I say "good riddance" and let the Golos players either cry or learn how to build decks for once.
Oh God, Devious Cover-Up and do-nothing control is back. Just... why Wizards.
Other than that unfortunate bit of news, Search Party Captain is actully pretty neat, attack with one and it's a tweaked Priest of Ancient Lore, attack with two and it's a beefed up Elvish Visionary. Moonrager's Slash is premium removal and gives Werewolves a lot of reach. Will probably see Constructed play.
And while the card itself is pretty underwhelming... I love the art of Rotten Reunion.
Oh, so we have 21 mythics in this set, and this demon gets to fuel a lot of graveyard strategies in the set. I sit a good thing or a bad thing that this will never exist in the same Standard as Escape?
Oh, this is quite nice. I've been toying with Demon Tribal before rotation which was very fun but not as competitive as the Eldraine/Ikoria nonsense that it had to compete with, and have been thinking if it was still playable without the best Demonsin the format. I'm still not sure if it is good enough post rotation but this at least opens up a new possibility. This with Diregraf Rebirth and Wake to Slaughter supported by Burning-Rune Demon and Dream Devourer is at least an interesting graveyard/reanimation shell to toy with.
Seems like an Astronomer entering the game would turn it to night...
I mean, it makes sense though. The effect only triggers at change so while the astronomer arrives at day, he can only do his job when it changes to night.
As for the card itself, it's pretty deece. UR is a cool Day/Night color combo since both not playing spells during your turn (read: leaving interactive spells up) and casting two spells a turn (read: casting a buncha cheap cantrips like Izzet usually does) are very easy to achieve and filling up your graveyard is definitely something Izzet wants to do, doubly so with Flashback on the format. I'm not sure if a bear that helps you setup is where you want to be with Izzet in Constructed, but hey, Goblin Electromancer saw play and crazier things have happened.
If big tokens were a thing in Standard, I'd say "this seems flexible enough, you can retrigger ETBs, revive Spirits, kill that one pesky Advent of the Wurm token and hey, maybe sometimes tapping your opponent's creature might be good too!".
I mean... it still CAN kill the 4/4 Elemental left by Mascot Exhibition, which is... fine, I guess. But unless I'm doing some REALLY degenerate stuff with ETBs, I'd rather just play something else.
Now I am really keeping my fingers crossed we get The Unluckiest... I believe I read somewhere that he's a Planeswalker. Can anyone find anything that backs that up?
Huh, I just noticed something very interesting but entirely unrelated.
Look at the art description for Curse of Disturbance. The "Setting" segment says Grixis but the "Location" is a "wide boulevard". There has been a theory floating around that New Capenna is actually in Alara, with the description of "Angels built it but demons took over" lining up with this theory plus Elspeth's involvement being confirmed. If THIS is how Grixis looks post Conflux... I might actually buy this "Capenna is Alara" theory.
OK, the Unluckiest doll got me good. We need a card for that poor guy already.
As for the card itself, it's neat that we finally got a Curse Commander but she doesn't seems THAT great? I mean draw 2 is neat but you'll have to attach the Curse to yourself first and then ensure Lynde survives a whole turn cycle, OR you could blow up the Curse at the last minute and then move it around which would be great were it not for the fact you are playing the worst colors to get rid of Enchantments.
Also, note that reattaching the Curses to yourself is NOT optional. Sure, you may want to make that poor schmo with Curse of Misfortunes as miserable as possible but you'll also find out you don't want him to die too soon because the Curses will come back to you and moving them around once per turn really ain't fast enough. On the plus side, this does encourages good gameplay since spreading out the love is the best way to ensure a sudden player death won't be followed by your own, plus from the current wording Curse reattachments should get around player hexproof, but still forces you to err on the side of caution, especially against Bane of Progress-like effects.
I guess I still like the design, and I'd rather much get an underpowered Commander rather than the next Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, I just wish she wasn't so slow.
Did this and Defend the Celestus got mixed up in the file? It feels like this should be the card that pumps your dorks and Defend the Celestus should be the card that puts bodies on the field...
That said, I don't like the "Friends forever" thing though, if it were me I'd just make a new mechanic that partners characters based on a special category, like for example "Friends with The Fellowship" for the LotR crossover. Maybe they didn't do it because they don't want to make special categories that they would have to change on functional reprints, but still.
As for the cards themselves... Eh, they are fine. Jim is decent as far as Boros legends goes, which is... not much of an accomplishment, really. Eleven has cool new design space, a spellslinger deck that wants you to have big draw spells instead of casting a billion spells per turn while also having enough safety valves to not be broken, but on the other hand, I know exactly how 99% of people will pilot Eleven (read: Turns) and I hate it.
Either way, the real good news out of the announcement that I haven't noticed before:
Genuinely great news. Less Golos, Kenriths and Esikas and more Codies and Tiamats please.
Gorex is really cool, kinda like a bizarro-Dredge creature that also gives you value. A fun card that has a simple goal and is straightforward to build around, just fill your graveyard and give your turtle boots.
As for the 99 cards, not much to say. Prowling Geistcatcher is probably the strongest card of the batch in the right deck, should give you crazy value in the right board plus can potentially go infinite with a few Clone effects and a sac outlet. Out of the "fair" cards, however, I like Curse of Restless Dead because targeting that one Landfall player can easily give you like 10 tokens for 3 mana, and Ghouls' Night Out not because I'm a sucker for horrible puns but also because as everyone knows you often don't need to attack with creatures in Commander to get good value out of them.
The World Tree was the real last straw. That stupid card plus Golos says "do whatever the hell you want once you hit 5 mana". You can literally play Ultimatum Tribal with Golos consistently and there's nothing anyone can do about it unless the rest of the table happens to have some land hate before you start vomiting Commander's strongest spells at them. And God help you if the Golos player happens to run Petrified Field. To this announcement I say "good riddance" and let the Golos players either cry or learn how to build decks for once.
Other than that unfortunate bit of news, Search Party Captain is actully pretty neat, attack with one and it's a tweaked Priest of Ancient Lore, attack with two and it's a beefed up Elvish Visionary.
Moonrager's Slash is premium removal and gives Werewolves a lot of reach. Will probably see Constructed play.
And while the card itself is pretty underwhelming... I love the art of Rotten Reunion.
As for the card itself, it's pretty deece. UR is a cool Day/Night color combo since both not playing spells during your turn (read: leaving interactive spells up) and casting two spells a turn (read: casting a buncha cheap cantrips like Izzet usually does) are very easy to achieve and filling up your graveyard is definitely something Izzet wants to do, doubly so with Flashback on the format. I'm not sure if a bear that helps you setup is where you want to be with Izzet in Constructed, but hey, Goblin Electromancer saw play and crazier things have happened.
I mean... it still CAN kill the 4/4 Elemental left by Mascot Exhibition, which is... fine, I guess. But unless I'm doing some REALLY degenerate stuff with ETBs, I'd rather just play something else.
As for the card itself, it's neat that we finally got a Curse Commander but she doesn't seems THAT great? I mean draw 2 is neat but you'll have to attach the Curse to yourself first and then ensure Lynde survives a whole turn cycle, OR you could blow up the Curse at the last minute and then move it around which would be great were it not for the fact you are playing the worst colors to get rid of Enchantments.
Also, note that reattaching the Curses to yourself is NOT optional. Sure, you may want to make that poor schmo with Curse of Misfortunes as miserable as possible but you'll also find out you don't want him to die too soon because the Curses will come back to you and moving them around once per turn really ain't fast enough. On the plus side, this does encourages good gameplay since spreading out the love is the best way to ensure a sudden player death won't be followed by your own, plus from the current wording Curse reattachments should get around player hexproof, but still forces you to err on the side of caution, especially against Bane of Progress-like effects.
I guess I still like the design, and I'd rather much get an underpowered Commander rather than the next Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, I just wish she wasn't so slow.
Still an extremely solid card, from what we've seen from 2022 Standard in Arena results, 4/4s and 5/5s are very important P/Ts so this kills Iymrith, Desert Doom, Goldspan Dragon, Esika's Chariot (and its cats!), Gnarled Professor, Immersturm Predator and Old-Growth Troll, while also dealing with Alrund's ravens, Lolth's spiders, Pests, two out of three Mascots and Clarion's spirits. And so far from what we've seen from Midnight Hunt, not many 6/6s to worry about either, so all you need to be mindful of is Koma, Cosmos Serpent.