For what it is it definitely doesn't feel mythic, although because it is a story point it will be mythic.
It's Mythic because putting this into a deck with enough high-cost cards in Limited (like, say, Emerge cards) is a one-sided wipe for 2R. That is disgusting in limited, and if you don't first pick it you are bad and should feel bad.
I guess the key to breaking past the normal rate on small Red creatures is being a Falkenrath vampire: first the Gorger as a 2/1 for R with upside rather than a drawback, now the Reaver as a 2/2 for 1R without a drawback.
I know it is mostly a joke you did there, but Wizards did mentioned that they were intentionally pushing back Red's burn power so they could buff... well, everything else. So the reason why the ratios are broken is actually because Incendiary Flow is a sorcery.
Ashiok, Emotion Weaver1RG
Planeswalker - Ashiok
+2: Target opponent discards a card at random, then draws a card.
-X: Exile target creature with converted mana cost X from an opponent's graveyard, then put an X/X red and green Incarnation creature token with trample on the battlefield.
-10: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You may put up to three creature cards in his or her hand or graveyard on the battlefield under his or her control. Then, for each creature that player controls, you may have it fight another creature.
Accursed Lore1BR
Creature - Avatar
As Accursed Lore enters the battlefield, exile an instant or sorcery card from a graveyard.
Accursed Lore's power and toughness are each equal to the exiled card's converted mana cost.
When Accursed Lore dies, each opponent casts a copy the exiled spell. He or she chooses the targets for that copy.
*/*
Slit Thought1(U/B)
Instant
Target opponent reveals the top seven cards of his or her library. You may choose a card amongst them and sent that card to the graveyard. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of the library in a random order.
Draw a card.
As for the card itself, absolutely bananas. Her +1 is amazing, and while not technically straight-up protection, it does strongly disencourages your opponent from attacking or blocking. If her +1 doesn't stops opponents, well her -2 will surely do. To top it off, her Ultimate does not seems that unrealistic to reach, and even though it's not as game-ending as her previous version, it's still extremely powerful with the appropriate mana sinks.
My only gripe is that she's a nonbo with her journal.
Pitch Emrakul, Aeons Torn EOOT, activate for 5, have a 16 total power and a Flying, Protected Annihilator 6 on your upkeep. Just need a reliablbly free discard outlet.
"When Emrakul is put into a graveyard from anywhere, its owner shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library."
That is a triggered ability instead of a replacement effect as it usually is. Works just fine if you activate it in response.
As for the card itself, man dat flavor. Not terribly overcosted either. I mean, Black reanimation costs 5, so zany Colorless reanimation with an upside should cost around 7. Would love this card for EDH reanimation in mono- decks if it costed just 1 less to either activate or cast.
I wonder if they ever actually pulled back for a second and looked at the tribes as a whole. Last Innistrad, Zombies worked on the back of Diregraf Ghoul, Gravecrawler, and Geralf's Messenger. Humans ran off of Doomed Traveler, Champion of the Parish, and Mayor of Avabruck. Vampires started with Stromkirk Noble, and topped out at Olivia Voldaren. With this set, humans are in that 1-2cc sweet spot, while every other tribe is getting 3-5 drops that are mostly unplayable trash because they can't keep up with the sweet curve on Humans.
What a design fail.
While I agree they dropped the ball majorly in Zombies in Shadows over Innistrad, Vampires are still very playable this time around, Werewolfs are decent-ish as a tribe but still have some good cards, which is not that different from what it was back then (Huntmaster of the Fells + Kessig Wolf Run... man, these cards were insane) and Spirits sucked majorly back then and still suck majorly nowadays (with the sole exception of Geist of Saint Traft, except that was Bant Hexproof and we don't talk about Bant Hexproof anymore).
My only gripe is that they pushed Humans a bit too much this time around.
Couldn't have given it Hexproof, Wizards? Sweet. Now my World-Ending Extraplanar Titan can die to Bone Splinters.
If I cast this and my opponent reveals Bone Splinters out of his hand in my extra turn, I will be laughing like a madman. Except I'm not the one that will get the short end of the stick. "Yeah, nice card you got there. Why don't you go ahead and just -3 yourself?"
Hmm, this seems quite good. Could reasonably be casted for 9~8 mana (just with lands, creatures, instants and sorceries, all which are pretty easy to accomplish - Vessel of Nascency and the Oaths ensure that the Enchantment is also pretty easy), which is amazingly powerful on its own. Will probably be a replacement for Dragonlord Atarka in the current Standard, filling a similar niche of huge flying cow finisher. Atarka had more immediate impact and could be exploited more easily with her ETB trigger, but Emrakul is stronger body-wise, does not require two specific colors and is more resilient.
To top it off, her effect trigger is pretty much a Time Walk, giving you an extra turn to do your stuff, except stronger because you can do stuff with your opponent's cards. The only drawback this effect has in comparison to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is the lack of pseudo-Haste. However, the synergy between her pro-Instants and the Time Walk effect is definitely not to be underestimated, making her a very difficult threat to take down, with her biggest maindeck weakness being Wrath effects. And, hey, if people need to sideboard Clip Wings or Stasis Snare to take down your Emrakul, well... mission accomplished. People sideboarding to take down cards is a sign of a powerful card.
CRAZY THEORY TIME: Based on Vessel of Nascency's extremely weird wording and Emrakul's flavor in Eldritch Moon, plus Emrakul's Delirium flavor and the necessity of each Eldrazi having their "weird mechanic" (Ulamog's Ingest, Kozilek's C matters), maybe we'll be getting a new card type this block? Considering they did made what is pretty much a sixth color in the last block, a new card type does not seems too far-fetched. EVEN CRAZIER THEORY TIME: The new card type will be inspired on Curse of the Fire Penguin, aka. something that "overrides" a card and transforms them into Eldrazi. Maybe taking advantage of DFC mechanics?
Now I need an explanation as to why Nahiri is accepting to cause harm to thousands of innocent lives so she can bring her vengeance upon Sorin. The innocent have nothing to do with her quarrel with Sorin.
I think it's pretty simple: As far as Nahiri can tell, Zendikar is pretty much lost already, a whole plane devoured out of mana. So she needs another one to seal the Eldrazi in. In her own mind, she's not "harming thousands of innocents", she's saving the Multiverse the same way Sorin and Ugin did the first time around with the Eldrazi. The ultimate W mentality: Sacrifice the few for the many.
The fact she just happened to find a perfectly suitable plane that she wanted to annihilate anyway is just a cute bonus.
EDIT: Just thought of something. Nahiri studied the Helvault throughly as she waited for Sorin, and probably knows how it works, correct? Well, it's mainly made of moon silver, as they already pointed out.
What if she turns the moon itself into a giant Helvault? Thus, she will attempt to seal Emrakul in there. She probably knows very well the consequences will be dire, as they were in Zendikar with the Roil. Thus, sealing Emrakul there, she creates a moon that resonates the very same madness that afflicted the Innistradians... an Eldritch Moon.
#tinfoilhats
I don't understand why the hell vault route is considered lazy writing by some. It answers so many questions about Nahiri that bothered me. If Nahiri cares so much about zendikar where was she when the eldrazi were freed? In the helivault. Nahiri is a Kor and shouldn't be immortal post mending why didn't she age? She was trapped in the helivault. Why didn't she try to save Zendikar by fighting the eldrazi. Because she knew she couldn't win and wouldn't it be fantastic to lure them away from Zendikar and trap them on another plane like what happened in the first place. She may not of dealt with Kozilek or ulamog but she seems to have gotten the the worst one of the three off Zendikar.
It completely eliminates any logic behind Sorin's actions in the past few years. Why would he go protect Zendikar if he already refused it once with dire consequences? What's he doing there in original Zendikar anyway? He knows he can't do jack without Nahiri, so why bother? Why would he leave Innistrad when he knows the Helvault was released and Nahiri (aka. the powerful planeswalker girl whose was such a huge threat to the plane even Avacyn figured she had to kill her) was royally pissed? And no, I don't accept the "maybe he didn't knew Helvault was destroyed" excuse. Remember the Cursemute? Yeah, kinda hard to miss a few planar scale spells in your home world. Hell, what's the whole purpose of seeking Ugin? Since the beginning, Ugin insisted that Nahiri helped back then because both of them couldn't do jack without Nahiri.
The point is, since the very beginning, it was clear Sorin was fighting the Eldrazi because 1) It was a threat to the entire multiverse, including his plane; 2) He made a deal with his three companions to return if things went awry; and 3) He could reseal them if needed. The Helvault explanation blasts all three. with Sorin making extremely shortsighted decisions and then suddenly seeking something he knows is impossible against all odds while he knows a more direct threat (Nahiri) is seeking vengeance against him specifically.
An interesting tidbit...Nahiri mentions coming into contact with a mad planeswalker at one time. Do we know who this is already or might it be foreshadowing for a future plot? Or just a random piece of information?
Took me a minute, but this is almost certainly Ob Nixilis. He seems pretty in control of his evil plans so "mad" is a bit strange, but they have a well-established history.
That seems... odd. Ob is evil, sure, but "mad" is not a term that I would ever use to describe him. We don't really know much about Nahiri's past aside from the titan-sealing bit and her sealing Ob's spark, so it could just be someone we've never heard about or met before. You're probably right, though.
Aside from Ob, the only two that could fit the bill of a mad, very old pre-Mending 'Walker would be Ramaz (which, being a servant of Bolas, could easily be immortal himself, just like Lili) or Ashiok (which considering who he/she/it is, wouldn't be surprising to be an immortal pre-Mending 'Walker either), so Ob is the most likely. And even though "mad" is surely an odd description for Ob, as he's far more scheming and cruel rather than plain mad, this is all from Nahiri's perspective, so it fits. There are some older pre-Mending Planeswalkers, but most of the mad ones are also dead by now so wouldn't make sense to bring that up.
As for the story... Well, I already stated how I feel about Wizards going with the "Sorin imprisoned Nahiri in Helvault" route. It's stupid, lazy writing that leaves more questions than answers and ends up with massive plot holes altogether. That aside, it's actually a pretty cool story. A very efficient way of making your villain relatable, and it ties a few loose ends as well. I also like how this consolidates Nahiri's WR colors as well. She's driven by her anger and madness, but ultimately her goal is to save the Multiverse - at least in her own mind, as I'm pretty sure she'll try to imprison the Eldrazi into Sorin's plane. She'll save the Multiverse from the threat of the Eldrazi, and gets sweet sweet revenge as a bonus.
Riku, the Two Awakened2RUG
Planeswalker - Riku
Whenever you cast Riku, the Two Awakened, put a copy of Riku on the battlefield with three loyalty counters, except his type is Reflection instead.
{+1}: Choose up to one target creature or player, then reveal the top card of your library. If it is an instant, sorcery or creature card, put it in your hand. Otherwise send it to the graveyard and Riku deals 1 damage to that target.
{-2}: Put a creature on the battlefield that's a copy of target creature.
{-2}: This turn, the next time you would cast an instant or sorcery spell, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.
{3}
Way to dismiss everything without official confirmation. It may be just that MaRo goofed and the tweet was erased because it was misleading not spoiling. Nahiri's words in the cards accuse Sorin for what happened in Zendikar not for being imprisoned in the Helvault. If she was, it may have been accidentally, without Sorin noticing. Note that he was positively puzzled about not being able to sense her when she started looking for his old allies.
Trust me, I would LOVE to be wrong. I'm just pointing out why it would be horrid writing if that's the route they are going with. As I said myself, I really would love to see the source myself to confirm.
Sorin's puzzlement at Nahiri's whereabouts is likely being retconned.
They can't retcon his absurdly stupid decision to go seek for Ugin when he knows a crazy, destructive Planeswalker was just released. Or to go try to protect Zendikar from the Eldrazi after refused earlier on with drastic results. Or to attempt to seek Ugin to fight the Eldrazi when he KNOWS the only girl that could seal them was imprisoned by him.
It's Mythic because putting this into a deck with enough high-cost cards in Limited (like, say, Emerge cards) is a one-sided wipe for 2R. That is disgusting in limited, and if you don't first pick it you are bad and should feel bad.
I know it is mostly a joke you did there, but Wizards did mentioned that they were intentionally pushing back Red's burn power so they could buff... well, everything else. So the reason why the ratios are broken is actually because Incendiary Flow is a sorcery.
Just some food for thought.
Planeswalker - Ashiok
+2: Target opponent discards a card at random, then draws a card.
-X: Exile target creature with converted mana cost X from an opponent's graveyard, then put an X/X red and green Incarnation creature token with trample on the battlefield.
-10: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You may put up to three creature cards in his or her hand or graveyard on the battlefield under his or her control. Then, for each creature that player controls, you may have it fight another creature.
Accursed Lore 1BR
Creature - Avatar
As Accursed Lore enters the battlefield, exile an instant or sorcery card from a graveyard.
Accursed Lore's power and toughness are each equal to the exiled card's converted mana cost.
When Accursed Lore dies, each opponent casts a copy the exiled spell. He or she chooses the targets for that copy.
*/*
Next:
Angel of Serenity in B
Primordial Ooze in U
Meandering Towershell in WR
Instant
Target opponent reveals the top seven cards of his or her library. You may choose a card amongst them and sent that card to the graveyard. Put the remaining cards on the bottom of the library in a random order.
Draw a card.
Next: Maraxus of Keld
As for the card itself, absolutely bananas. Her +1 is amazing, and while not technically straight-up protection, it does strongly disencourages your opponent from attacking or blocking. If her +1 doesn't stops opponents, well her -2 will surely do. To top it off, her Ultimate does not seems that unrealistic to reach, and even though it's not as game-ending as her previous version, it's still extremely powerful with the appropriate mana sinks.
My only gripe is that she's a nonbo with her journal.
That is a triggered ability instead of a replacement effect as it usually is. Works just fine if you activate it in response.
As for the card itself, man dat flavor. Not terribly overcosted either. I mean, Black reanimation costs 5, so zany Colorless reanimation with an upside should cost around 7. Would love this card for EDH reanimation in mono- decks if it costed just 1 less to either activate or cast.
While I agree they dropped the ball majorly in Zombies in Shadows over Innistrad, Vampires are still very playable this time around, Werewolfs are decent-ish as a tribe but still have some good cards, which is not that different from what it was back then (Huntmaster of the Fells + Kessig Wolf Run... man, these cards were insane) and Spirits sucked majorly back then and still suck majorly nowadays (with the sole exception of Geist of Saint Traft, except that was Bant Hexproof and we don't talk about Bant Hexproof anymore).
My only gripe is that they pushed Humans a bit too much this time around.
If I cast this and my opponent reveals Bone Splinters out of his hand in my extra turn, I will be laughing like a madman. Except I'm not the one that will get the short end of the stick. "Yeah, nice card you got there. Why don't you go ahead and just -3 yourself?"
To top it off, her effect trigger is pretty much a Time Walk, giving you an extra turn to do your stuff, except stronger because you can do stuff with your opponent's cards. The only drawback this effect has in comparison to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is the lack of pseudo-Haste. However, the synergy between her pro-Instants and the Time Walk effect is definitely not to be underestimated, making her a very difficult threat to take down, with her biggest maindeck weakness being Wrath effects. And, hey, if people need to sideboard Clip Wings or Stasis Snare to take down your Emrakul, well... mission accomplished. People sideboarding to take down cards is a sign of a powerful card.
CRAZY THEORY TIME: Based on Vessel of Nascency's extremely weird wording and Emrakul's flavor in Eldritch Moon, plus Emrakul's Delirium flavor and the necessity of each Eldrazi having their "weird mechanic" (Ulamog's Ingest, Kozilek's C matters), maybe we'll be getting a new card type this block? Considering they did made what is pretty much a sixth color in the last block, a new card type does not seems too far-fetched.
EVEN CRAZIER THEORY TIME: The new card type will be inspired on Curse of the Fire Penguin, aka. something that "overrides" a card and transforms them into Eldrazi. Maybe taking advantage of DFC mechanics?
I think it's pretty simple: As far as Nahiri can tell, Zendikar is pretty much lost already, a whole plane devoured out of mana. So she needs another one to seal the Eldrazi in. In her own mind, she's not "harming thousands of innocents", she's saving the Multiverse the same way Sorin and Ugin did the first time around with the Eldrazi. The ultimate W mentality: Sacrifice the few for the many.
The fact she just happened to find a perfectly suitable plane that she wanted to annihilate anyway is just a cute bonus.
EDIT: Just thought of something. Nahiri studied the Helvault throughly as she waited for Sorin, and probably knows how it works, correct? Well, it's mainly made of moon silver, as they already pointed out.
What if she turns the moon itself into a giant Helvault? Thus, she will attempt to seal Emrakul in there. She probably knows very well the consequences will be dire, as they were in Zendikar with the Roil. Thus, sealing Emrakul there, she creates a moon that resonates the very same madness that afflicted the Innistradians... an Eldritch Moon.
#tinfoilhats
It completely eliminates any logic behind Sorin's actions in the past few years. Why would he go protect Zendikar if he already refused it once with dire consequences? What's he doing there in original Zendikar anyway? He knows he can't do jack without Nahiri, so why bother? Why would he leave Innistrad when he knows the Helvault was released and Nahiri (aka. the powerful planeswalker girl whose was such a huge threat to the plane even Avacyn figured she had to kill her) was royally pissed? And no, I don't accept the "maybe he didn't knew Helvault was destroyed" excuse. Remember the Cursemute? Yeah, kinda hard to miss a few planar scale spells in your home world. Hell, what's the whole purpose of seeking Ugin? Since the beginning, Ugin insisted that Nahiri helped back then because both of them couldn't do jack without Nahiri.
The point is, since the very beginning, it was clear Sorin was fighting the Eldrazi because 1) It was a threat to the entire multiverse, including his plane; 2) He made a deal with his three companions to return if things went awry; and 3) He could reseal them if needed. The Helvault explanation blasts all three. with Sorin making extremely shortsighted decisions and then suddenly seeking something he knows is impossible against all odds while he knows a more direct threat (Nahiri) is seeking vengeance against him specifically.
Aside from Ob, the only two that could fit the bill of a mad, very old pre-Mending 'Walker would be Ramaz (which, being a servant of Bolas, could easily be immortal himself, just like Lili) or Ashiok (which considering who he/she/it is, wouldn't be surprising to be an immortal pre-Mending 'Walker either), so Ob is the most likely. And even though "mad" is surely an odd description for Ob, as he's far more scheming and cruel rather than plain mad, this is all from Nahiri's perspective, so it fits. There are some older pre-Mending Planeswalkers, but most of the mad ones are also dead by now so wouldn't make sense to bring that up.
As for the story... Well, I already stated how I feel about Wizards going with the "Sorin imprisoned Nahiri in Helvault" route. It's stupid, lazy writing that leaves more questions than answers and ends up with massive plot holes altogether. That aside, it's actually a pretty cool story. A very efficient way of making your villain relatable, and it ties a few loose ends as well. I also like how this consolidates Nahiri's WR colors as well. She's driven by her anger and madness, but ultimately her goal is to save the Multiverse - at least in her own mind, as I'm pretty sure she'll try to imprison the Eldrazi into Sorin's plane. She'll save the Multiverse from the threat of the Eldrazi, and gets sweet sweet revenge as a bonus.
Planeswalker - Riku
Whenever you cast Riku, the Two Awakened, put a copy of Riku on the battlefield with three loyalty counters, except his type is Reflection instead.
{+1}: Choose up to one target creature or player, then reveal the top card of your library. If it is an instant, sorcery or creature card, put it in your hand. Otherwise send it to the graveyard and Riku deals 1 damage to that target.
{-2}: Put a creature on the battlefield that's a copy of target creature.
{-2}: This turn, the next time you would cast an instant or sorcery spell, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.
{3}
Next: A Planeswalker from Egyptian World.
Trust me, I would LOVE to be wrong. I'm just pointing out why it would be horrid writing if that's the route they are going with. As I said myself, I really would love to see the source myself to confirm.
They can't retcon his absurdly stupid decision to go seek for Ugin when he knows a crazy, destructive Planeswalker was just released. Or to go try to protect Zendikar from the Eldrazi after refused earlier on with drastic results. Or to attempt to seek Ugin to fight the Eldrazi when he KNOWS the only girl that could seal them was imprisoned by him.