Defiance is wacky good, yeah. If I had to pick between Defiance 2-3 and Tormenting Voice 1-2, I think I'd go with Defiance. I also think it's worth running the full complement of Visions. I get the joke of Broken Concentration, but I think I'd rather have Negate or Dispel at all times of day. I've always been wary of Geistblast because so many of the creatures I actually care about survive it, but I can see the point. I've been really disappointed by Thing in the Ice and ended up replacing them with mainboard Weavers, but that's probably just a meta thing.
We already have spot removal, mass removal, and a snapcast effect. Thinking through all the other big, splashy effects red has access to that would make sense on an expensive creature, I'm guessing it'll be a combination of haste and an extra combat step.
All this shuffling trying to add up who can return how fast doesn't seem to take into account the odds that Ajani shows an interest in playing space cop here. In a vacuum I'd be inclined to agree that, like Tamiyo, Ajani's more inclined to stay a cooperative neutral to the superfriends, but knowing that the next block is under Bolas' direct control... If I recall correctly, Ajani's the only person in all of Magic to get in a fight with Bolas and not regret it, right? If Gideon and pals just strut into Bolas' little spark farm, Bolas doesn't have much of a reason to allow them to move around at all. Maybe a numbers advantage that big would win out, maybe it wouldn't, but Bolas' inclination seems to be to treat interlopers like this as gnats to be swatted. But if Ajani shows up, with backup, that's starting to look like a fair fight. It'd put him into scheme mode, allowing whoever the chance to poke around and unearth details before a big confrontation. In that context, I think it sounds reasonable that Ajani teams up here. It also supplies a route to put someone back on Theros for when Dack springs Elspeth and Ashiok's whole business starts to pay off.
Im so thorned about it. On the one hand, I´m really glad that the Gatewatch didn´t just HERPDERP destroy Emrakul. I hate that BFZ block was so easy for them. I like that Emrakul manipulated them all the way.
On the other hand i hate that Emrakul is now on Innistrad which means that another return to Innistrad will once again be focused on Emrakul and mutations.
Not necessarily. This attack wasn't Emrakul's idea, and we see here that she finds a live plane being mutated by her presence as wrong and to be avoided if possible. It's Nahiri's cryptolith trap that dragged her in and forced her to stay; once those are knocked down, it seems likely that a freed Emrakul will just retreat back into the eternities.
When Sorin left Zendikar knowing it would be consumed(in the first block) he already knew Nahiri was sealed and that she could help, when Ugin awoke from his cocoon the first thing he said to him was what happened to her, and he said to Sorin that whatever he had done to her he should find her, of course Sorin was lying, he knew perfectly well where she was, he knew that the three toghether maybe could hold a chance against the eldrazi, still he left zendikar to it's fate. He never cared about Innistrad either and that's why Olivia knew that he was lying when he asked to be releesed from the stone prision. Nahiri has done to Sorin everything Sorin deserved. If she could handle onle the Eldrazi, she would have saved Zendikar. If a plane must suffer, it is from all of them Innistrad. Emrakul consumes planes, and if it is not Innistrad it will be another plane. So:
- she can't trap the eldrazi anymore
- she need help , but he forsaken her plane because of his own interests.
- not only he didn't help her, she moked her
- not only she didn't apologyse, he trapped her for a 1000 years.
- he dosen't care about the fate of the people of Innistrad, in fact he sees humans a vampire cattle.
So Nahiri's act are reasonable for a person that has suffered so much, that has been despised, tortured for centuries. She is not evil, she is vegeant, and because there are moral arguments for her actions, she is not only red, but boros. Maybe one day she will find out about Zendikar or Ugin and she will find peace, but the internal logic of her actions are not mad nor evil.
I don't know how things operate in 2-edgy-5-me-land, but around causing genocide out of a petty grudge is evil and irrational.
Also you're still ignoring she doesn't intend to trap Emrakul. How desperate.
Getting conned into helping Cthulu eat your home planet is "petty", huh?
It's not lightning strike because they're trying to support big red as a control color right now. See Chandra Flamecaller, Nahiri the Harbinger. It's not working out because the meta is so distorted around Company.
If you find it hard to keep track of the total number of prowess triggers, I've seen players use dice to denote and keep track them. I'd advise to use a different color of dice than the color you normally use when doing this so they aren't confused with the dice you use to keep track of counters on permanents.
The thought occured to me during Khans block, but failing to update dice seems like an even easier mistake to make than "whoops I said it was a 4/5 but there's been four triggers this turn". It hasn't come up either way, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my breath.
If I announce my prowess triggers every time I cast an eligable spell, then miscount and tell my opponent a low p/t when prompted, would a judge rule the triggers retroactively missed despite me announcing them?
The motivations behind the Highland Lake cycle just got a bit clearer, for those playing along at home: the Planeswalker decks that are replacing intro decks have unique cards, and their contents are standard legal with their parent block. The uncommon no-perks cycle are designed to be staples of those decks, so they won't be rotating out of standard in the near future, even when BFZ/SOI rotate. The Khans lifegain cycle contribute to a slowing down of the format, so they wrote up a batch of ten that wouldn't mess with the tempo they want to build in any given environment. The ally color ones are even functional reprints; they just didn't want to bump into the problem of "whoops, how do we do an Elfhame Palace on Innistrad, a plane with no elves".
The first thing I think of when "revolts in India" is brought up is Ghandi's protests. To describe it as a long shot would be generous, but a Magic block about a society that tries to solve its problems with grown-up words instead of a big sloppy world war would be interesting.
I just don't understand why new planeswalkers are introduced so often on their home plane? Why do they all planeswalk right back where they came from? No curiosity what other planes there might be? Already in perfect control of their planeswalk abilities after ignition, so they can easily return?
Feels so illogical to me. Tamiyo-style is more plausibel and interesting. A Planeswalker on his homeplane feels no more than a legendary creature.
Well, recall that Tamiyo's involvement in ISD was "and also Tamiyo was there, I guess." With the push to make the plot matter again, new walkers are going to have to do a thing, and not all of them are going to have Gideon's hero complex. Debuting them on their homeworld prepackages that, considering Wizards' predisposition to "the whole world is threatened by something" plots.
Didn't think they were going to do Mongrel again, much less give it an upgrade. Color me surprised. Of course it's green, though...
The thought occured to me during Khans block, but failing to update dice seems like an even easier mistake to make than "whoops I said it was a 4/5 but there's been four triggers this turn". It hasn't come up either way, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting my breath.