Scepter of Empires + Crown of Empires + Throne of Empires = Nearly insurmountable advantage, by way of extremely cost efficient, back-breaking abilities.
Primeval Titan + lands = Inevitable win, with very little method of disrupting
...I'm not saying this isn't fun, because it's awesome, but without, say, each piece getting slightly better with a second coming down (i.e., if you have just scepter and crown you can do 2 damage a turn and the guy you tap doesn't untap next step), it's never, ever, going to be good enough.
Druidic Satchel seems interesting...probably not good enough for any real constructed format (too much mana for the only sometimes useful effect), but I'd definitely run this in limited, feels like a Crystal Ball-type value card that will win any game that sees it on the battlefield for more than a few turns.
Buried Ruin, now that seems interesting. I like how it glues both blocks together. There should be more effort like this, I think, in Core Sets, making sure the previous block gets a little support along with the next one. As far as how good it is, probably not seeing a ton of play, but it's a nice effect on a land.
And I've got to say, the super-cynical part of me sees that Ben Bleiweiss makes a point to be on at midnight and spoil to everybody ChannelFireball's card, plus link to the Visual Spoiler stuff which is all from other websites, and wants to call it a shameless marketing ploy by StarCity... Of course I recognize that this is a ridiculous claim, but it bears mentioning.
ChannelFireball seems to have been struggling as of late as far as making money off their articles is concerned...Perhaps they are using the 'downtime' to restructure, and getting rid of some people? I know I'm just jumping to conclusions and there's no evidence there, but the site's been down for a few days now...Seems suspicious that the store would work fine the whole time, yet articles would take such a long time to fix.
Two stories, since I just discovered this thread and have an old one.
RoE draft at a local card shop. Don't recall what my opponent was playing, not too important. I was R/G ramp, splashing Drake Umbra. Using a spawn token I'd made the turn before with Spawning Breath, I laid down a turn 5 Rapacious One. My opponent foolishly tapped out, and had no flyers. Next turn, I peel the Drake Umbra, cast it on my Rapacious One, and swing for 8...and drop a post-combat Ulamog's Crusher. Turn 6, at 12 life and facing down an 8/7 flyer and an 8/8 annihilator is kind of rough...
A more recent draft on MTGO, I was playing in the triple MBS queues around release time, drafted a very aggressive W/R deck. I drop an Accorder Paladin and 2 Leonin Skyhunters, getting him down to only 15 before he completely locks up the board, and I start mana flooding badly. He taps out one turn, leaving my board intact...And I cast end of turn Master's Call, then untap and cast a Mortarpod and a Concussive Bolt. 17 damage out of nowhere, he was stunned.
Now, usually I reserve judgement until later on these sorts of things, but with half the set spoiled thus far, it's looking grim. The phyrexians are getting abundant amounts of very high quality cards, I've seen quite a few bomb uncommons spoiled for them already, between the infect Mind Control, the infext 5/5 for 6, the exiling Rack and Ruin...And from the looks of it, Mirrans in return aren't getting very much. Go For the Throat is awesome, sure, and perhaps Battle Cry cards are a lot better than I'm giving them credit for...But it appears that Mirrans are going to get stomped, hard.
Am I jumping the gun here? Maybe the Mirrans will suddenly have a plethora of awesom stuff spoiled in the next week that won't let them be dominated in limited? I dunno, I don't really see that happening.
Yeah, this seems tailor-made for Grand Architect. With the right shell you could lay down a Wurmcoil Engine on turn 4 or 5 consistently.
Anybody else thinking that the Architect is going to be completely nuts with this set? I mean, we already knew he had a lot of potential, but they seem to be feeding him with all sorts of awesome interactions...Maybe we might actually see him as viable now in some sort of Standard artifact deck?
People keep saying, 'Infect is sooo unfair, you have to sit back or you lose!'
...so?
Ever heard the phrase, 'misassignment of role = game loss'?
Infect in SSS demonstrates this perfectly. You just can't approach it the way you do other decks. Period.
Untamed Might is to infect as burn spells are to red decks. Think of it this way...It's turn 6. I'm playing mono-red, and I attack you with a 2/2 and a 3/3. You have no creatures, both Condemn and Jace's Ingenuity in your hand, but only enough untapped lands to cast one of them. You're at 11, and I have 4 cards in hand. Within a few turns, you'll have complete control of this game. What's your play?
Pretty obvious...you have to use the Condemn. Getting to a low life total against red, especially when he has cards in hand, is just too dangerous, considering he, in all likelihood, has a plethora of burn at the ready. Waiting for a better time to cast your removal, trying to use your life total as a resource here, is greedy, and may cost you the game.
Now, imagine this scenario.
It's turn 6. I'm attacking you with 2 Blackcleave Goblin s and a Cystbearer. You currently have 4 poison counters, and control a Summoning sick Barrage Ogre, an Iron Myr, and an Embersmith. You're tapped out on lands, and you have 2 more creatures in hand and artifacts to go with your 'smith. You know that you will take over this game if you are given time. Opponent's at 16, 3 cards in hand. What do you do?
Not blocking everything here is usually suicide. Yeah, he may not have it...But what do you lose from blocking? Embersmith is good, yes, and Iron Myr can be tossed in a turn...But they aren't nearly as good as, you know... not being dead.
You have to approach infect like this. Taking early damage, then stabalizing is, quite often, a horrible idea. Instead, trade. Block all the time. Cystbearer and Ichorclaw Myr are hard to block, yes, and Plague Stinger flies. That's what removal or double blocks are for. Corpse Curs hurt this trading plan, sure. But then, when they're just recurring guys, they lose a ton of speed, which is making their plan actively worse.
Infect is good, don't get me wrong...But, like any and every strategy, it has its weaknesses. Learn to play against the deck, not the inividual cards, and you'll find you do a whole lot better.
Well, they won't reuse any effects seen on the other swords. That leaves out lifegain, damage to a creature, drawing a card, and returning a creature from the graveyard. My best guess would be:
Sword of Peace and Passion 3
Artifact Mythic
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from white and from red.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, target creature that player controls can't attack or block until your next turn, and destroy target land.
Equip 2
Sword of Life and Death
Artifact Mythic
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from green and from black.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, put 3 +1/+1 counters on it, and that player sacrifices a creature.
Equip 2
I have a super power to create conversation bubbles among a group. That is, I can pick a person, and talk to them while having others at the same distance completely oblivious, even when I point to the others or mention any of their names.
Talking to one of my friends about this forum, mentioned a funny quote in a user's 'flavor text'... I meant signature, we had a good laugh on that one.
Alas, Darksteel Colossus wasn't reprinted in M11. Most expensive thing to shape into would be the Platinum Emperion, and that's a pretty fragile basket to put your eggs into. If there is a huge, near invincible fatty printed in scars, maybe, but right now there isn't really anything scary to cheat into play that way.
So, as the title implies, I'm thinking of picking up a few copies of FTV: Relics to hold onto. Thing is, I'm not sure that the price will rise over time, as was the case with the paper releases of those FTV products.
Would it be a good investment to buy a few copies? And if so, how long would I be sitting on them before I could see any reasonable amount of return? The fact that anybody can purchase them, as opposed to the limited amounts that paper players see, makes me question whether it's worth the money at all. Thoughts?
2) Is the movement of Nantuko Shade due to other cards moving around it or due to it moving itself? It might be more helpful in future updates to list the prices you're selling instead of just what moved and how much.
From what I understand, RE doesn't do this because he wants to avoid the entire 'You're advertising on this site, no fair, whaaaah!' comments that would inevitably rise. Jeff can post his prices because he doesn't have an online site that he sells from (or, at least, he doesn't have one that we know about). It's literally 20 seconds extra time to click on his link in his signature and find the prices there, so there isn't much of anything gained by him posting those.
So all equipments suck? Because you need creatures for them.
A 1/1 for one with lifelink is not bad in and of itself. It does get better with a lot of different type of cards, even if you ignore the second part. But that second part is just gravy, and warrants a deck being built with it in mind, especially with all the other good lifegain stuff that exists in standard.
Not all equipment sucks. Just the creature. If you can spend the first 3 turns of the game playing lifegain spells and your opponent has done NOTHING, either a) You would have won with most anything anyway, or b)He'll have a removal spell. Then what? All of a sudden, when you're topdecking 'gain 8 life' all the time, he's topdecking cards that affect the board, and his creatures get to say 'deal 18 damage to target player' because none of your cards can stop him. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool creature, but competitive decks just can't afford to waste a slot on a 1/1 that has minimal impact no matter what turn of the game it is.
Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin = Infinite damage, win the game
Primeval Titan + lands = Inevitable win, with very little method of disrupting
...I'm not saying this isn't fun, because it's awesome, but without, say, each piece getting slightly better with a second coming down (i.e., if you have just scepter and crown you can do 2 damage a turn and the guy you tap doesn't untap next step), it's never, ever, going to be good enough.
Buried Ruin, now that seems interesting. I like how it glues both blocks together. There should be more effort like this, I think, in Core Sets, making sure the previous block gets a little support along with the next one. As far as how good it is, probably not seeing a ton of play, but it's a nice effect on a land.
And I've got to say, the super-cynical part of me sees that Ben Bleiweiss makes a point to be on at midnight and spoil to everybody ChannelFireball's card, plus link to the Visual Spoiler stuff which is all from other websites, and wants to call it a shameless marketing ploy by StarCity... Of course I recognize that this is a ridiculous claim, but it bears mentioning.
RoE draft at a local card shop. Don't recall what my opponent was playing, not too important. I was R/G ramp, splashing Drake Umbra. Using a spawn token I'd made the turn before with Spawning Breath, I laid down a turn 5 Rapacious One. My opponent foolishly tapped out, and had no flyers. Next turn, I peel the Drake Umbra, cast it on my Rapacious One, and swing for 8...and drop a post-combat Ulamog's Crusher. Turn 6, at 12 life and facing down an 8/7 flyer and an 8/8 annihilator is kind of rough...
A more recent draft on MTGO, I was playing in the triple MBS queues around release time, drafted a very aggressive W/R deck. I drop an Accorder Paladin and 2 Leonin Skyhunters, getting him down to only 15 before he completely locks up the board, and I start mana flooding badly. He taps out one turn, leaving my board intact...And I cast end of turn Master's Call, then untap and cast a Mortarpod and a Concussive Bolt. 17 damage out of nowhere, he was stunned.
Am I jumping the gun here? Maybe the Mirrans will suddenly have a plethora of awesom stuff spoiled in the next week that won't let them be dominated in limited? I dunno, I don't really see that happening.
Anybody else thinking that the Architect is going to be completely nuts with this set? I mean, we already knew he had a lot of potential, but they seem to be feeding him with all sorts of awesome interactions...Maybe we might actually see him as viable now in some sort of Standard artifact deck?
People keep saying, 'Infect is sooo unfair, you have to sit back or you lose!'
...so?
Ever heard the phrase, 'misassignment of role = game loss'?
Infect in SSS demonstrates this perfectly. You just can't approach it the way you do other decks. Period.
Untamed Might is to infect as burn spells are to red decks. Think of it this way...It's turn 6. I'm playing mono-red, and I attack you with a 2/2 and a 3/3. You have no creatures, both Condemn and Jace's Ingenuity in your hand, but only enough untapped lands to cast one of them. You're at 11, and I have 4 cards in hand. Within a few turns, you'll have complete control of this game. What's your play?
Pretty obvious...you have to use the Condemn. Getting to a low life total against red, especially when he has cards in hand, is just too dangerous, considering he, in all likelihood, has a plethora of burn at the ready. Waiting for a better time to cast your removal, trying to use your life total as a resource here, is greedy, and may cost you the game.
Now, imagine this scenario.
It's turn 6. I'm attacking you with 2 Blackcleave Goblin s and a Cystbearer. You currently have 4 poison counters, and control a Summoning sick Barrage Ogre, an Iron Myr, and an Embersmith. You're tapped out on lands, and you have 2 more creatures in hand and artifacts to go with your 'smith. You know that you will take over this game if you are given time. Opponent's at 16, 3 cards in hand. What do you do?
Not blocking everything here is usually suicide. Yeah, he may not have it...But what do you lose from blocking? Embersmith is good, yes, and Iron Myr can be tossed in a turn...But they aren't nearly as good as, you know... not being dead.
You have to approach infect like this. Taking early damage, then stabalizing is, quite often, a horrible idea. Instead, trade. Block all the time. Cystbearer and Ichorclaw Myr are hard to block, yes, and Plague Stinger flies. That's what removal or double blocks are for. Corpse Curs hurt this trading plan, sure. But then, when they're just recurring guys, they lose a ton of speed, which is making their plan actively worse.
Infect is good, don't get me wrong...But, like any and every strategy, it has its weaknesses. Learn to play against the deck, not the inividual cards, and you'll find you do a whole lot better.
Sword of Peace and Passion 3
Artifact Mythic
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from white and from red.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, target creature that player controls can't attack or block until your next turn, and destroy target land.
Equip 2
Sword of Life and Death
Artifact Mythic
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from green and from black.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, put 3 +1/+1 counters on it, and that player sacrifices a creature.
Equip 2
Perhaps too strong, but that's my thoughts.
Would it be a good investment to buy a few copies? And if so, how long would I be sitting on them before I could see any reasonable amount of return? The fact that anybody can purchase them, as opposed to the limited amounts that paper players see, makes me question whether it's worth the money at all. Thoughts?
From what I understand, RE doesn't do this because he wants to avoid the entire 'You're advertising on this site, no fair, whaaaah!' comments that would inevitably rise. Jeff can post his prices because he doesn't have an online site that he sells from (or, at least, he doesn't have one that we know about). It's literally 20 seconds extra time to click on his link in his signature and find the prices there, so there isn't much of anything gained by him posting those.
Not all equipment sucks. Just the creature. If you can spend the first 3 turns of the game playing lifegain spells and your opponent has done NOTHING, either a) You would have won with most anything anyway, or b)He'll have a removal spell. Then what? All of a sudden, when you're topdecking 'gain 8 life' all the time, he's topdecking cards that affect the board, and his creatures get to say 'deal 18 damage to target player' because none of your cards can stop him. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool creature, but competitive decks just can't afford to waste a slot on a 1/1 that has minimal impact no matter what turn of the game it is.