I like the idea behind a plot where the heroes failed to keep the Ancient Elder Evil imprisoned, and now they're coming to wreak destruction on everything. And the art of course is astounding, makes me wish cards were two feet wide.
I think i had a disconnect between the text and the card shown next to it.
oh, that explains it.
That threw me, too.
Okay, so, with Sacred Ground, the land dies and then stays dead because it was destroyed by the rules, not by something controlled by the opponent. Prost!
A: Surprise, when you bring in strange corner-case cards, answers change! If you know that the order of your library will matter mid-search, which is only possible with our Pancake Wurm and a tiny number of cards that produce mana and manipulate the library at once, then you must very strictly keep the library order maintained. In fact, put the top few cards aside before you pick up the library just to make sure no one thinks you're rearranging it.
However, in any normal situation with searching, you can rearrange your library for ease of searching - say, to pull out two cards you want to consider to the front.
Is this just because Chromatic Sphere is a poorly-worded card that causes you to draw a card as a mana ability?
The other thing I'm not sure of is whether Explore should be Rampant Growth. I think Explore is better because it cycles late-game; but otoh if you already have an Avenger or Baloths in play Rampant Growth would be better; but I think the problem this deck is going to have is that Avenger and Baloths are going to have extremely short lifespans.
The Visionaries and Leatherbacks are mostly just there to be speedbumps. The deck should only need to make it to the sixth or seventh turn to 'go off', playing a big stack of tokens, possibly making them huge with Beastmaster's Ascension or Overrun, and crushing the opponent into a fine paste.
RUN THORNLING. Not running Thornling in this deck is like playing Jund without BBE, Boros without Steppe lynx, or Vampires without Nocturnus. This deck should ABSOLUTELY have Thornling in it.
But it's soooo expensive- 7-ish mana for four-ish damage per turn, unreliably? Sure, it's extremely resilient (except to the most common point-removal spell in the format). But this is an aggro deck, one way or another. You need to be killing fast and consistently. Thornling belongs in some kind of aggro-control deck, maybe; not aggro.
I'm not sure about the land count and I don't even know if Garruk is necessary, frankly. This is more of a combo deck than an aggro deck and he seems to just slow me down. The deck is already a bit on the slow side, killing roughly on turn 7, but at least it does so with gusto. Attacking for several dozen damage on turn 7-9 should be expected; little of it is trample but it's spread among so many creatures that they certainly won't have any hope of blocking it all.
Day of Judgment is certainly a jerk, but at least if it wipes your team a Wolfspam Elemental(or either of the other token-makers if you have a Harrow, Explore, or a ready Expedition) can just redeploy a pile of hurt the next turn.
Consider this an extremely greedy build, not anywhere close to a final one.
Edit: On second thought, I wonder if a turn 5 kill could be done consistently by ramping into a lot of creatures by turn 4 and then Overruning on turn 5
I'm not seeing it. The card's trying to do two different things- it's a Serra's Anthem effect, so you want a bunch of cheap creatures; but it's a reanimator effect, so you want big fat fatties and ways of getting them into your 'yard. The only thing that makes sense is turn 5 Baneslayer Angel followed by the opponent killing it with Terminate or countering it or something followed by turn six Anthem with the kicker to get the Angel back. That's a pretty sweet play but it's pretty rare and the WWW in Anthem+kicker's cost relegates the plan to a heavily-White deck that I can't really see existing.
OTOH swiss army knife cards like this have a way of being sleepers; see Reveillark. not that Anthem is in 'lark's league.
it's not like it kept Baneslayer Angel from ... being arguably the best creature ever printed.
okay, no.
Why are people so omgwtf about BSA? I can't think of any deck I would consider playing that wouldn't see it drop and, rather than pooping its pants like everyone thinks, yawn and obliterate it with a one- or two- mana spell.
there's nothing broken or even all that spectacular about BSA. I don't even find it all that good. The reason it's $a bajillion is because it's a mythic angel.
This is true, and it makes me sad. Remember what they said about counterspells? Countering your awesome big monsters with just UU is too often unfair, and too often unfun. I totally agree with that... but yet now extremely cheap and effective removals are causing exactly the same problem.
I have to say I completely agree- with Path AND O-Ring AND Journey AND Terminate, it's just too easy to knock a player completely out of the game with removal, especially in a creature-heavy format. I used to be able to play Silvos, Rogue Elemental, and be reasonably certain that he was going to crush face (if he managed to hit play fast enough, games tended to end around turn 6 back then). I really want to play big fat fatties like Wrecks-it-all here, and if Wizards is pushing the game in a creature-based direction (as opposed to decks like The Deck and Draw-Go, which might not summon anything until they were ready to end the game), then they should stop printing such good removal. It shouldn't cost less than 4 mana to unconditionally get rid of any creature IMO; either that, or there shouldn't be more than one card in the format that does it (like if there was JUST Path, that would be okay). Then we can see the giant-monster-on-giant-monster beatdowns cards like this are designed for.
Yeah, but most of those sucked, or was really hard to use! Come on, no one ever used any of those except Vindicate, Terminate, Terror, Pernicious Deeds; and Boomerang just gets tempo. And don't forget Fire//Ice, which I even played in red-green because Fire alone is good. But even then it only does 2 damage. Except maybe Vindicate, none of that removal is as good as what's around now.
'course, back then, the threats too were Blastoderm and Saproling Burst; not exactly the best targets for point-removal.
edit: 'course on the gripping hand, maybe WotC should go back to the game's roots of two wizards chucking spells at each other, instead of this new-fangled creature arena thing they've got going on. Get off my lawn!
combo doesn't work chief- doomgape doesn't trigger if it wasn't in play at the start of the upkeep. However, if Doomgape was already in play, then you can feed it the creature Dawn got; meaning you can feed it the same creature every turn.
But yeah, against Jund it's insane. "I'll hit you for an unblockable five as well as cast that Blightning for free."
The fact that every single major archetype has an easy answer to this guy pretty much kills it as viable for constructed. "But it dies to-!" is a perfectly good argument against a card, to good players.
4R: a 4/3 goblin 4RR: a 4/3 goblin and 2 damage 4RRR: a 4/3 goblin and 4 damage 4RRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 6 damage 4RRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 8 damage 4RRRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 10 damage 4RRRRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 12 damage
so it really only makes any sense after about 9 or 10 mana- before that, you get an inefficient creature and a negligible amount of burn; but when you're spending a lot you get a bad chump blocker and a burn spell that can't target creatures...
If it's the man-land, its mechanics probably involve a single mountain-top, a hideous monolith-crowned citadel, emerging from the waters with cosmic majesty and turning into a dripping Babylon of elder daemons, nothing of this or of any sane planet.
Ia! Ia! The goat with a thousand young!
oh, that explains it.
That threw me, too.
Okay, so, with Sacred Ground, the land dies and then stays dead because it was destroyed by the rules, not by something controlled by the opponent. Prost!
Is this just because Chromatic Sphere is a poorly-worded card that causes you to draw a card as a mana ability?
4 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4 Khalni Garden
4 Wolfbriar Elemental
4 Avenger of Zendikar
4 Rampaging Baloths
4 Elvish Visionary
3 *
4 Harrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Explore
* could be either Garruk Wildspeaker, Beastmaster's Ascension, Overrun, Eldrazi Monument, or Soul's Majesty. I haven't decided yet.
The other thing I'm not sure of is whether Explore should be Rampant Growth. I think Explore is better because it cycles late-game; but otoh if you already have an Avenger or Baloths in play Rampant Growth would be better; but I think the problem this deck is going to have is that Avenger and Baloths are going to have extremely short lifespans.
The Visionaries and Leatherbacks are mostly just there to be speedbumps. The deck should only need to make it to the sixth or seventh turn to 'go off', playing a big stack of tokens, possibly making them huge with Beastmaster's Ascension or Overrun, and crushing the opponent into a fine paste.
But it's soooo expensive- 7-ish mana for four-ish damage per turn, unreliably? Sure, it's extremely resilient (except to the most common point-removal spell in the format). But this is an aggro deck, one way or another. You need to be killing fast and consistently. Thornling belongs in some kind of aggro-control deck, maybe; not aggro.
4 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
4 Khalni Garden
4 Wolfbriar Elemental
4 Avenger of Zendikar
4 Rampaging Baloths
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Harrow
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Explore
Day of Judgment is certainly a jerk, but at least if it wipes your team a Wolfspam Elemental(or either of the other token-makers if you have a Harrow, Explore, or a ready Expedition) can just redeploy a pile of hurt the next turn.
Consider this an extremely greedy build, not anywhere close to a final one.
Edit: On second thought, I wonder if a turn 5 kill could be done consistently by ramping into a lot of creatures by turn 4 and then Overruning on turn 5
I'm not seeing it. The card's trying to do two different things- it's a Serra's Anthem effect, so you want a bunch of cheap creatures; but it's a reanimator effect, so you want big fat fatties and ways of getting them into your 'yard. The only thing that makes sense is turn 5 Baneslayer Angel followed by the opponent killing it with Terminate or countering it or something followed by turn six Anthem with the kicker to get the Angel back. That's a pretty sweet play but it's pretty rare and the WWW in Anthem+kicker's cost relegates the plan to a heavily-White deck that I can't really see existing.
OTOH swiss army knife cards like this have a way of being sleepers; see Reveillark. not that Anthem is in 'lark's league.
okay, no.
Why are people so omgwtf about BSA? I can't think of any deck I would consider playing that wouldn't see it drop and, rather than pooping its pants like everyone thinks, yawn and obliterate it with a one- or two- mana spell.
there's nothing broken or even all that spectacular about BSA. I don't even find it all that good. The reason it's $a bajillion is because it's a mythic angel.
I have to say I completely agree- with Path AND O-Ring AND Journey AND Terminate, it's just too easy to knock a player completely out of the game with removal, especially in a creature-heavy format. I used to be able to play Silvos, Rogue Elemental, and be reasonably certain that he was going to crush face (if he managed to hit play fast enough, games tended to end around turn 6 back then). I really want to play big fat fatties like Wrecks-it-all here, and if Wizards is pushing the game in a creature-based direction (as opposed to decks like The Deck and Draw-Go, which might not summon anything until they were ready to end the game), then they should stop printing such good removal. It shouldn't cost less than 4 mana to unconditionally get rid of any creature IMO; either that, or there shouldn't be more than one card in the format that does it (like if there was JUST Path, that would be okay). Then we can see the giant-monster-on-giant-monster beatdowns cards like this are designed for.
Too bad white has so much RFG removal, which suuuuucks... I want so badly to use Thrinax as an answer to Wrath.
Yeah, but most of those sucked, or was really hard to use! Come on, no one ever used any of those except Vindicate, Terminate, Terror, Pernicious Deeds; and Boomerang just gets tempo. And don't forget Fire//Ice, which I even played in red-green because Fire alone is good. But even then it only does 2 damage. Except maybe Vindicate, none of that removal is as good as what's around now.
'course, back then, the threats too were Blastoderm and Saproling Burst; not exactly the best targets for point-removal.
But anyway, Path to Exile and Journey to Nowhere are light-years beyond what was around back in the day.
edit: 'course on the gripping hand, maybe WotC should go back to the game's roots of two wizards chucking spells at each other, instead of this new-fangled creature arena thing they've got going on. Get off my lawn!
well, I disagree that Baneslayer is that good, but I'm not going to take the thread any farther off track.
*ahem* giant tentacle monster! rawr! Japanese schoolgirls beware!
combo doesn't work chief- doomgape doesn't trigger if it wasn't in play at the start of the upkeep. However, if Doomgape was already in play, then you can feed it the creature Dawn got; meaning you can feed it the same creature every turn.
The fact that every single major archetype has an easy answer to this guy pretty much kills it as viable for constructed. "But it dies to-!" is a perfectly good argument against a card, to good players.
4RR: a 4/3 goblin and 2 damage
4RRR: a 4/3 goblin and 4 damage
4RRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 6 damage
4RRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 8 damage
4RRRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 10 damage
4RRRRRRR: a 4/3 goblin and 12 damage
so it really only makes any sense after about 9 or 10 mana- before that, you get an inefficient creature and a negligible amount of burn; but when you're spending a lot you get a bad chump blocker and a burn spell that can't target creatures...