Oh, and those 3 creature decks... everyone hated them. They won by countering every spell your opponent cast and then killing them with a 3/3 flyer over an excruciating number of turns.
Hah! 3/3 Flier? The creature of choice in those evil control decks everyone hated? Blinking Spirit. How crappy is it to be killed by Blinking Spirit?
The only deck people hated more was The Prison, which was extremely powerful, and also left you sitting there with no way to do anything (i.e. no untapped lands) and simply spent 20 turns drawing cards until they found their wincon.
Are people still having trouble understanding how this card works?
Each non-land permanent is assigned to a player at random.
Players do not exchange whole sets of permanents, each permanent gets a controller chosen at random--it may move to a new player, or it may stay with the player who has it.
Sorry, these have to be fake. Chandra's +1 ability says "Target creature" pretty clearly. If it were real it would be "Creatures you control", "Up to one target creature" or it would have another + ability. As it is seen here its ability to + is dependant totally on there being a creature to target, and they don't design walkers that way.
There is a white card missing between Archangel of Strife #7 and Crescendo of War #12. In the 4 spots we only have: Austere Command, Bathe In Light, and Congregate. The new card is white since Scavenging Ooze doesn't fit in-between. So Unkown new card is White, and is named something after AR and before CO.
Scavenging Ooze is Green as the Mirror Mastery list has an extra card in the list (I had to check because my number crunch list only showed 1 open spot and I needed 2). Mirror Mastery colors are URG. Counterpunch which Scavenging Ooze is in is BGW. They only share green, so to remove a card from Mirror Master to fit a card from Counter Punch it had to be green.
From that Scavenging Ooze has to fit somewhere between Hydra Ominvore #161 and Tribute to the Wild #175. That means Invigorate, Kodama's Reach, Krosan Tusker, or Magus of the Vineyard is out (only cards from Mirror Mastery that fit inbetween) and Scavening Ooze is added.
I could be wrong but that is what I am deducing.
I didn't double-check all your work there, but do we have a picture list for Mirror Mastery? Each of the other green decks has Cultivate but not Kodama's Reach. It seems somewhat unlikely that just this one green deck would have both, so if there is indeed an extra card, that would be my guess as to what it is.
Flusterstorm only counters instants and sorceries.
So it is usually inferior to Stifle and Mindbreak Trap, and is a Spell Pierce that misses important card types.
And vintage doesn't push up the value of new cards in any significant way.
As a solution to storm, Flusterstorm is superior to Stifle, because Stifle is beaten by either Force of Will or Mental Misstep, while this is not.
Mindbreak Trap is also beaten by FoW.
If I have a deck running blue, and I'm concerned about Storm combo, I would sideboard at least 3 Flusterstorm. It's more versatile than MBT.
OTOH, you can run MBT in any color.
EDIT: Oh, you can also add Pact of Negation in addition to FoW, as many storm decks run or SB Pact instead or in addition to Force.
Alpha Myr, Tidehollow Strix, and several of those other cards were already in Duels of the Planeswalkers, so I don't expect their appearance here has anything to do with M12.
You can clearly see the top of the word "gain" peeking out from the edge of the packaging. There's nothing else you can "gain" except life. The lack of a "may" just means the trigger isn't optional. It seems that there's more than just lifegain as part of the trigger due to the length of the text line, so we'll see what the rest does eventually.
Actually, you can "gain" control of a permanent, or a spell, or ability on the stack.
At least originally. Ultimately the content of the list ended up being based upon the quality of the card, as it was basically designed to protect the value of the collectible aspect of a collectible card game. So the desireable Memory Jar made the list, but the less powerful Karmic Guide did not.
Thanks for bringing this up. I had forgotten that after a certain point (looks to me like the split lies between Mirage and Tempest blocks) not every single rare was put on the reserved list.
Prior to that point, 100% of rares were put on the reserved list (assuming they weren't reprinted within a certain timeframe, basically the next core set after the original set came out).
For spot 132:
For spot 96:
EDIT: Also, we could put one of the following cards at spot 191 in italics, if we wanted to...
(I've left out cards I find very unlikely)
EDIT2: Possible (sensible) reprints for spot 162
EDIT3: For spot 159
Hah! 3/3 Flier? The creature of choice in those evil control decks everyone hated? Blinking Spirit. How crappy is it to be killed by Blinking Spirit?
The only deck people hated more was The Prison, which was extremely powerful, and also left you sitting there with no way to do anything (i.e. no untapped lands) and simply spent 20 turns drawing cards until they found their wincon.
They might not all be intro pack rares.
If it really is a cycle, then here's what I hope for:
Green -
Regrowthor Eureka orDesert TwisterNevermind, Eternal Witness and Angel of Despair makes these less likely
Red - Wheel of Fortune
White - Balance
Both Serra Angel and Sengir Vampire started out as Uncommons.
They were bumped to rare later, and have recently been returned to their original rarity.
I am glad they bumped Thran Golem down to uncommon. It was a goofy rare.
Each non-land permanent is assigned to a player at random.
Players do not exchange whole sets of permanents, each permanent gets a controller chosen at random--it may move to a new player, or it may stay with the player who has it.
Garruk Wildspeaker disagrees with you.
I didn't double-check all your work there, but do we have a picture list for Mirror Mastery? Each of the other green decks has Cultivate but not Kodama's Reach. It seems somewhat unlikely that just this one green deck would have both, so if there is indeed an extra card, that would be my guess as to what it is.
I think he meant Homeward Path, not Command Tower.
As a solution to storm, Flusterstorm is superior to Stifle, because Stifle is beaten by either Force of Will or Mental Misstep, while this is not.
Mindbreak Trap is also beaten by FoW.
If I have a deck running blue, and I'm concerned about Storm combo, I would sideboard at least 3 Flusterstorm. It's more versatile than MBT.
OTOH, you can run MBT in any color.
EDIT: Oh, you can also add Pact of Negation in addition to FoW, as many storm decks run or SB Pact instead or in addition to Force.
Actually, you can "gain" control of a permanent, or a spell, or ability on the stack.
Agree I'd like to see City of Brass, but you weren't quite specific enough.
It would be the first non-foil black bordered new frame City of Brass.
8th Ed foil City is already black bordered in the new frames.
I hope that if they do reprint CoB, it'll be with the 5th/6th art (Tom Wänerstrand).
Thanks for bringing this up. I had forgotten that after a certain point (looks to me like the split lies between Mirage and Tempest blocks) not every single rare was put on the reserved list.
Prior to that point, 100% of rares were put on the reserved list (assuming they weren't reprinted within a certain timeframe, basically the next core set after the original set came out).