Hmmm... this strikes me as one of the better infinite mana outlets for blue. It doesn’t instantly kill your opponent but being able to draw your deck, gain infinite life, play any card in your deck for free, and throw down a bunch of counters and tokens, drain your opponents to oblivion.
Honestly, just the ability to scry through your deck with the mad mage’s dungeon to get out Jace or Labman out for free before going drawing a single card with the goblin producing dungeon is enough to be an instant win-con.
Seems nice in the same sort of way that Temur Sabertooth is nice. Do not be surprised if it pops into a random cEDH list here or there.
Oh look, more unplayable dungeon chaff. And this is rare, just wow.
If I had any faith in play design I would believe maybe I am just massively underrating dungeons, but given they have got it wrong time after time the last few years I really don't, so I more think they have just massively overrated the mechanic and there isn't a single playable dungeon card shown so far.
For one thing, the mechanic has a ton of different options, and getting players to venture three or four times every turn would not only melt their brains but also take away the feeling of progress that's so much fun in going slowly.
Guess we won't get an enabler that merely costs mana to enter dungeons.
Dude, paying mana to enter a dungeon would be fairly awful unless it cost exactly 1 mana to do so. Even at 2 mana per venture, I could not imagine paying 6-14 mana to complete any of those dungeons on a regular basis. Given the cost of everything else dungeon-related, I am not holding my breath for a card that lets us pay a single mana.
Edit: 3 mana to venture twice is also not totally terrible for edh or slower games, though that would be the highest worthwhile rate outside of infinite mana scenarios.
I think that steve_man put it fairly nicely.
1. It represents a fast clock that essentially has haste.
2. It plays really well in slower and more responsive decks that may rely on the inevitability (and allowing mana to stay open for counters until end step)
3. It trades well with most things very well and can essentially "regenerate" for whenever it does so, meaning this this card can play a defensive role as well.
4. It plays well with self-mill and discard outlets.
5. There are plenty of decks out there that simply don't have the means to respond to this thing.
This is one of the cards that kind of blurs the line between "baneslayer" and "mulldrifter" in my opinion. It doesn't have an ETB and it doesn't offer immediate value beyond beneficial trades and blanking kill spells (the latter of which would be aimed at this card fairly rarely unless your opponent is about to win) but the speed, inevitability, and synergy with discard/sacrifice/mill effects really makes up the difference for me.
When this dies, it and the top card of your library are exiled and you can cast either of those two cards, meaning that you gain an opportunity to cast the skull every time it dies.
That Divine Intervention ability can tutor for Divine Intervention, which is fun.
Otherwise, I'm always a fan of 3-drop tutors like fabricate or solve the equation as most end up costing $2+ in the long run. This is a relevant body so I am a fan.
kavu climber sure has come a long way. This seems like a decent card for limited, acting as a common top-end that has some minor evasion and replaces itself.
So...interesting question: do you run this guy in a dragon tribal Commander deck?
On the one hand, it seems natural to give that deck one of the few available one-drops that fit and territorial hellkite can do some serious work with this guy.
On the other hand, triggering this card will often involve attacking with 2 dragons (as most low drops have 4-5 power) to slam down a third... which seems like some dangerous over-extension.
Are they testing waters to erata cards rather than banning them?
It would not surprise me one bit.
With Magic being played more online than ever before, functional errata makes more and more sense.
I'm sure WotC doesn't enjoy paying the salaries for an entire development team only to have that team be completely outsmarted by the player base before sets are even released, time and again, and subsequently have their hands tied, unable to fix the problems they missed.
How many more packs would they have sold if Oko had gotten errata instead of the hammer? Omnath? Quite a few, I'd bet.
And let's be honest, they HAVE been releasing functional errata. The companion nerf and the Phyrexian creature type update both change the functionality of printed cards. You can split hairs and say it's not, but I disagree.
There are plenty of concerns about this. Transferring that digital errata over to physical cards would cause a lot of grief (I imagine that blink players wouldn't like losing agent of treachery as a payoff, for example). If the errata allows cards to be unbanned in standard in just the digital client, we end up with two (even more) divergent standard metas.
What I am hoping for as a "best-case scenario" is that when Wizards bans a card in standard, they will not ban it in historic but make a nerfed version available for just that format instead. The upcoming event seems to be a historic event, after all, and having a different variant of cards for the purely digital format of historic would likely have the least risk of "splashback".
I know for a fact the Bant-chantress deck is getting revealed first. I know it, because I will become nasty otherwise.
I hope not. That one sounds like the most boring one of the bunch. I'm hoping Loading Ready Run doesn't slow-roll this one though.
Ya know, while I respect that a lot of people probably just saw LRR on the list and tuned in specifically to get the list, I don't feel that they were "slow-rolling" the Witherbloom deck. Everything that they sent out was very transparent about them having their pre-prerelease and THEN spoiling the deck. Like, I had read announcements regarding that a couple days ahead of time.
LRR didn't do any of that annoying BS of just giving you a picture and drip-feeding abilities one line at a time like some previewers have. They didn't spoil one card between each match to force you to watch their entire event. They followed through with a plan that they made an honest effort to communicate in advance.
I do understand people who just want the spoilers and who don't want to sit through the rest. I personally think that LRR should have done the spoilers first as giving them out after a tournament of uncertain length means that they could not give you a definite time to tune in and get the info. I still don't feel that qualifies as slow-rolling, though.
Ride the Avalance
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Each creature you control that shares one or more colors with the colors of mana that land could produce get +2/+2 and gain haste until end of turn.
Honestly, just the ability to scry through your deck with the mad mage’s dungeon to get out Jace or Labman out for free before going drawing a single card with the goblin producing dungeon is enough to be an instant win-con.
Seems nice in the same sort of way that Temur Sabertooth is nice. Do not be surprised if it pops into a random cEDH list here or there.
Dude, paying mana to enter a dungeon would be fairly awful unless it cost exactly 1 mana to do so. Even at 2 mana per venture, I could not imagine paying 6-14 mana to complete any of those dungeons on a regular basis. Given the cost of everything else dungeon-related, I am not holding my breath for a card that lets us pay a single mana.
Edit: 3 mana to venture twice is also not totally terrible for edh or slower games, though that would be the highest worthwhile rate outside of infinite mana scenarios.
1. It represents a fast clock that essentially has haste.
2. It plays really well in slower and more responsive decks that may rely on the inevitability (and allowing mana to stay open for counters until end step)
3. It trades well with most things very well and can essentially "regenerate" for
4. It plays well with self-mill and discard outlets.
5. There are plenty of decks out there that simply don't have the means to respond to this thing.
This is one of the cards that kind of blurs the line between "baneslayer" and "mulldrifter" in my opinion. It doesn't have an ETB and it doesn't offer immediate value beyond beneficial trades and blanking kill spells (the latter of which would be aimed at this card fairly rarely unless your opponent is about to win) but the speed, inevitability, and synergy with discard/sacrifice/mill effects really makes up the difference for me.
Otherwise, I'm always a fan of 3-drop tutors like fabricate or solve the equation as most end up costing $2+ in the long run. This is a relevant body so I am a fan.
Turn 2 scale up, Terror of Mount Velus, win
I like that game plan.
Terror of Mount Velus wins you the game on the spot.
On the one hand, it seems natural to give that deck one of the few available one-drops that fit and territorial hellkite can do some serious work with this guy.
On the other hand, triggering this card will often involve attacking with 2 dragons (as most low drops have 4-5 power) to slam down a third... which seems like some dangerous over-extension.
Is it worth it?
There are plenty of concerns about this. Transferring that digital errata over to physical cards would cause a lot of grief (I imagine that blink players wouldn't like losing agent of treachery as a payoff, for example). If the errata allows cards to be unbanned in standard in just the digital client, we end up with two (even more) divergent standard metas.
What I am hoping for as a "best-case scenario" is that when Wizards bans a card in standard, they will not ban it in historic but make a nerfed version available for just that format instead. The upcoming event seems to be a historic event, after all, and having a different variant of cards for the purely digital format of historic would likely have the least risk of "splashback".
Ya know, while I respect that a lot of people probably just saw LRR on the list and tuned in specifically to get the list, I don't feel that they were "slow-rolling" the Witherbloom deck. Everything that they sent out was very transparent about them having their pre-prerelease and THEN spoiling the deck. Like, I had read announcements regarding that a couple days ahead of time.
LRR didn't do any of that annoying BS of just giving you a picture and drip-feeding abilities one line at a time like some previewers have. They didn't spoil one card between each match to force you to watch their entire event. They followed through with a plan that they made an honest effort to communicate in advance.
I do understand people who just want the spoilers and who don't want to sit through the rest. I personally think that LRR should have done the spoilers first as giving them out after a tournament of uncertain length means that they could not give you a definite time to tune in and get the info. I still don't feel that qualifies as slow-rolling, though.
Ride the Avalance
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Each creature you control that shares one or more colors with the colors of mana that land could produce get +2/+2 and gain haste until end of turn.
Or something silly like that.