Hitting two EoT off a coco is going to be...wait for it...madness.
Card is good. Don't evaluate it like Bob, it's not Bob and not designed to hang out low to the ground and ride out cheap cmc spells to get you CA.
Go ahead and stick my Arlin kord in the bin and take 4, now I'll draw for my turn and continue to play the game and draw my next random card for the turn of which they have zero information. Sure stick my Chandra in the bin so I can't juice up my hand that I've been stock piling off this guy for 3 turns now...and take 6 to the face. Please excuse me while I den protector/megamorph my cards back. Thank you.
I mean if you want a lower cmc value town creature run abbot of keral keep . I'd run this in a coco deck or midrange red deck and not try and grind 1-2 damage hits and top end off him. Menance is really just gravy and he favorable trades with a ton of the formats 3 toughness creatures if he has to get down to business.
Grants not all in the same list, but it's more playable than people are giving it credit for. By all means, keeping trash talking it so I can get them on the cheap...Ty.
There are 4 stores within 30 min of me in the coastal Carolinas. They all have quirks that irritate me, and I don't understand some business owners...
Store A) super nice store and not dependent on only magic, which is nice. They jack the prices on singles and supplemental prices through the friggin roof and the owner isn't very socialble until you break through that outer shell. I was happy to buy packs there, but I generally avoided singles like the plague. $400 for ftv:20? Yeh no thanks...
Store B) currently play here and my biggest pet peeve is the inventory system online is just wrong for anything earlier than like theros. It's annoying but the owner is actually a cool guy and in general the guys that work there are fun. They at slowly updating th inventory system too. The crowd is nice, but very competitive. It's not uncommon for 10-20 people from this store to hit an open or GP with 8 hours.
Store C) they dabble in magic and have a small set of singles for sale, like 30ish? They rarely have what I'm looking for and always try and cross sell me to other hobbies. I like driving my purchase, not being guilt tripped into inventory you shouldn't have purchased and is rotting on your shelves.
Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
Wait... where are these fishy people folks are talking about? Just looking through the set of every card spoiled so far the only thing vaguely fishy is the cheeks of the guy in the back of Welcome to the Fold.
Artwork used in the last story article has a fishy looking guy with a knife. I don't think we've seen the card yet, if it gets one.
Couldn't follow the forum the last couple of days properly and had to skim over some posts.
I think the evidence with tamiyo's journal entries and flavor texts of clue tokens is rock solid. Definitely they were hinting at Ugin's warning. The question that remains is "why?" I will say that is pretty compelling and undeniable evidence in favor of eldrazi involvement when before we had, at best, minor artwork suggestions (Thraben Inspector and Paranoid Parish-Blade).
But I just can't wrap my head around Emrakul.
Reasons:
- I will start with what is most evident: this is not how eldrazi operate in Magic. This is how I would have liked they operate, because it is more in tune with what Lovecraft envisioned, but I don't recall there being a single piece of lore that the eldrazi can influence planes without actually being there, physically. Kozilek and Ulamog were in Zendikar laying waste to it, and there are ALWAYS eldrazi spawn. Granted, we don't know that much about the eldrazi and Emrakul especifically, but I can't grasp this change from 'Galactus/Kaijus' to 'Cthulhu/Ogdru Jahad'.
- Nahiri's motivations. Yes, she is not monowhite anymore, thankfully. That said, she just killed vampires, which are generally bad and sided herself to the growing cults of Innistrad. Why? If she is planning to call Emrakul, she knows what he will do... he will wipe out everyone. No need to kill vampires, no need even to align with humans. Sure, the humans might be helping her to call Emrakul, she might need their help. But... (incoming next point).
- Why do the cultists look like fish, and not eldrazi? Why does the tide matter at all? Why all the mistery and cryptoliths leads up to drownyard temple? Is a water temple the portal to Emrakul? That makes no sense. The constant hints of sea creatures make much more plausible to be something from the sea. I don't understand how, if we are to accept Emrakul, all these problems will be solved.
I can't just say it is Emrakul. If it is, there is better be some really masterful sotrytelling ahead to connect all the dots from these scattered plot points, because I don't see what the Magic version of Old Ones can connect with this Innistrad Storyline. From mindless alien invaders to sinister corrupts that work in the shadows from the outskirts of reality? Really, really weird change.
We do know that the eldrazi spawn physical manifestations during plane consumption, but we don't know at what point that happens and if it's impacted by them being physically locked in a corporeal form on that plane. It's a little detail and a stretch, but I think changing the signs of "eldrazi exposure" is a good move if that's what they're doing. We know there are physical manifestations based on the sorin/nahiri short story where they were attempting to defend a plane before it collapsed when eldrazi aren't imprisoned. We have no clue as to the lineage of what they were fighting against though.
Emrakul affects biology per the art book, but maybe the deformities and fishiness are the beginnings of how that change is showing itself? It's definately more lovecraft-esque as his descriptions of Wilbur's body in the dunwhich horror was very jellyfishish to me, so it jives to some extent.
We don't know why nahiri is on a rampage exactly. it's fairly clear imo that she intends to subject innistrad to the same fate as zendikar, because of beef with Sorin. Maybe she's diverted the ley lines to screw with the white mana of the plane hence the shift in the angels? Maybe she's made a huge mana beacon for emmy? Maybe it's an unwanted consequence of just mucking around with a planes mana? I think in drana's short story they mention broken planes, or planes needing to be fixed/mended or something?
There is probably going to be a lot of horror trope/story eldrazi overlap and shoe horns if this turns out to be the case to fit everything in a finite amount of space. 500ish cards seems like plenty of avenue to tell the story, but it's a really limited medium and these pictures are the only thing we have to add minute detail to the stories.
Zendikar did have the roil, so maybe weird tidal patterns were always attributed to that. Even though kozilek distorts reality, maybe emrakul is exerting a smaller gravitational force itself now that it's outside of innistrad? We neve had a before/after tidal picture of zendikar like we do of innistrad. I'm grasping at straws here but we really don't know. Somethings up with the water and were not sure what at this point, but I'm a huge fan of all the artworks so far.
If nahiri believes she's doing what is "just" to punish sorin for his transgressions, losing an entire plane of horriffic, clearly not white creatures isn't out of the realm of possibility for character development. Not every white character has to embody the "every life matters no matter how small" scope. She also doesn't know that they are able to be killed, have been know led down to 1 effective eldrazi (aside from surprises...), or likely how far she'll get before sorin intervenes.
If half my race was wiped out by a single individual and someone came to me and was like hey, get your guys ready for war...this wasn't okay. I'd follow that person regardless of grudges because my fricking people are half encased in stone and dead.
Edgar could probably be trying to figure something out himself if he is indeed still alive. We don't know, and it's nice not knowing everything about every character. Makes storyline filler articles enjoyable reads.
Besides I think it's kind of flavorful with springs ultimate anyway. Maybe him and Olivia didn't have such a tenuous relationship compared to the rest of the vampires?
Madness does not work with Sin Prodder as stated earlier.
Correct, but Madness is not being proposed here. Poster is correctly pointing out that Fiery Temper as the card that is currently in standard, not Lightning Bolt. The upshot is that it will actually deal 3 damage to an opponent (paired w/Sin Prodder) due to its casting cost of 1RR. Effectively, they can take 3 now (mill it) or take 3 a few moments from now (draw it).
Exactly this. With collected company in a easy splash color this guy can peel a ton of damage off the top of your deck and you can find ways to get him in at EoT. Sure stick my coco in the yard and take 4, while I draw this maybe a land maybe another threat and the game resumes. Coco EoT and hitting two sin prodders? That's crazy...2-3 rounds of answer me now or I win just from drawing extra crap you don't want to or can't deal with. In a mid range red deck, which is obviously where standard is being pushed how is this guy not good? Yeah the downside of drawing a land is there, but hey my opponent may make me discard that land and take zero (whatever lands suck if I curve out at 4 after I have 4) or I get an extra card.
Your worst case scenario is if you need that forth land drop and they know it and make you pitch it. I wouldn't run this with weenies like bob. I'll happily run it In a deck of mostly 2cmc+ Cards. Yeah sometimes I hit trash with abbot of keral keep and sometimes he's a beast and wins me games. I see being the same.
I did like the story and the world building is much appreciated. The smaller scale plane wide struggles help set the mood much better in this block imo.
What I didn't like, and this is about the other stories too, was that instead of actual twists and plot changes were just not told certain things to keep us in suspense and it feels...cheesy? I dunno. Like Mia has one quiver but is apparently pretty handy with a crossbow? How does she practice? Frog footprints leading away from the pen? You mean to tell me the villages made fake frog prints to throw her off and they were just like well...feed it the girl. I dunno, slippery slope to madness there. In the presumably 20-30 min it takes to shepherd sheep to the water they skinned and dressed an entire flock? I didn't like the ending, at all. The rest of the story made up for it somewhat, but I felt like the end as cobbled together for word count purposes after the climax. Mia could have been a fun character to follow around, join the ranks of Thalia/Odric/Sigarda or replace those characters after they die. World building is fine, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity for a return character or legendary creature.
Personal pet peeves aside, I feel like our feedback is getting to them and so far the articles are moe polished and enjoyable altogether. This writing was better than some of the other stuff they out out for BfZ, kudos there. I felt like it appropriately hit a style meant for a few different age groups/tastes. That's hard to do and a few of the dialogue pieces I didn't like I could deal with for this reason.
Can we please get scooby doo references up in here? Ludavic can make a "mystery machine" or give Odric a Great Dane. Grisly scene on a kill spell of a blond haired dude in a white shirt and orange ascot. I need this. Bad. Don't squander this opportunity wizards.
Aite, this is awesome. Let's do some speculating...
So what if sorin bound Nahiri on zendikar so that she'd be in stasis with the eldrazi and not age so that she could pretty much be tied to defending the multiverse from them (a riff off the nahiri trapped in the hel vault theory). She gets out, is pissed, and was affected similar to tazri by kozilek the whole time. So now she's going to make these inter planar mana beacons for Them to come consume specific mana rich (or broken? Or whatever their deal is) planes. She's still angry at sorin (maybe kozilek's influence prayed off her desire to harm a specific person she doesn't have fond feelings for).
She goes to innistrad first because screw sorin, that's why. So the in-fighting and madness is due to her realigning the planes mana to serve two purposes, reduce the planets defense system and hide her trail. Jace ends up digging for all these lose ends and finally figured out emrakul is just being called over after its too late to stop it.
There wouldn't necessarily be a physical manifestation of eldrazi if the feeding has only just begun maybe? Not sure what the time frame is on that.
The art book stated that emrakul distorts biology (hence the skinless wolf with 4 eyes, the youths with disformaties, etc.). Just the wind kind of flies in the face of this theory but there are plenty of mutated humans in the artwork so far. So I think there's more evidence then not.
Eldritch moon could be the answer for them trapping emrakul, I.e. Jace realigns the hedron network with tamiyo and Lilliana's help and sticks Emmy in there for "safe keeping."
Innistrad is safe, for now (ooo spooky plot hook for the next horror sequel), and everyone calms the junk down with Sigarda as head angel and founding a new safe haven for humans.
I've t3 a few times with g/b elves through attrition, like on the draw hibernation level. The deck is very fast sometimes. It's relatively cheap (minus the cavern of souls and horizon canopy) and pretty easy to pilot. Sideboard options don't seem great and everyone has sweepers. It can be frustrating but I've had great success with it at fnm and larger events. Only one you mentioned that I can chime in on really.
As much as I'd love a reprint I think she has a few pretty big strikes against her.
1. She is actually fairly close to the origins Lilliana. I'm not saying they're the exact card, but they tick up on discard, and the origins has a much more unique and flavorful -, reanimate my a creature to achieve her desired affect is much more lilli I think.
2. Like it or not the pricey lilli is a big potential chase card for eternal masters or the next incarnation of modern masters. Heck Jace, the mind sculptor caused local stores around me to price ftv:20 at like $300.00...wizards will want a piece of the pie.
3. I'm not sure how people would react to coming off of bfz with chase cards into a situation with her available in boosters. I know my store will sell packs like hotcakes but it drives the price of all other tradable cards down. You end up with an environment of 2-3 reasonably achievable cards that sell/trade over 5.00 as everyone scrambles for that one card.
4. Assuming sorin is B or B/X, she's fighting for space with heretical healer and ob nix in that color. Not sure how saturated you want it to be? Color pie presence isn't my forte, I gravitate to competitive decks that I find fun.
However I don't think she's too powerful for standard. Although B/W with lilli is going to be a heck of a control deck to where I don't realistically see non hasty creature decks competing after just the few spoilers we've already had. That's some highly efficient hate starting after t2...with strong finishers and a sprinkling of life gain.
So the basic idea is a kytheon/champion on t1, t2 drop emissary or a few into a surged goblin giving everything haste and swing bunches. Next turn swing with atarka's for victory.
Kytheon and champion are your heavy beaters that grow
Goblins enable kytheon flips and insane t2/3 damage output via haste
Command and bolt for pushing through damage
Emmissary and priest give you free creatures and surge
Mayor and hamlet captain act as your lords.
Swiftspear, knight, and zealot are extra beaters to get damage in.
I tried making the deck redundant if possible and that's why the mana base is so painful. I don't have an issue racing to turn 3 and found the deck pretty favorable against other aggressive strats. I have a positive win rate against infect for example. Sideboard is always in flux which is why I didn't include it. If SOI gives us a two drop human lord that's solid, I'd rotate out the beaters and mayors for it. I swap in path of exile in place of commands when I need to interact with specific creatures for matchups that require it.
No collected company because 4 mana is a pretty big investment and I don't want to see more than 3.
Holding up 2 cards, such as a emissary and bushwacker can help you get back in the game after a board clear if you expect them. Redundancy helps vs discard also. All in all its a bunch of fun and super fast, red has some bonkers humans. The goblins just add so much synergy with the free mana "ritual" creatures to not include them.
I know my color base isn't GW like OP, but I think the strat is similar enough to share. Go go humans! (+some tiny help from goblins )
What makes me think that Sigarda isn't corrupted from looking at her new art is that
It didn't depict her earlier art in the story, unlike the other two sisters (trying to depict a before and after shot);
The art was used in the story wherein Sigarda showed no signs of falling under the same corruption as her sisters;
The art itself doesn't really depict Sigarda as being corrupted at all. There's no blood/red streaks anywhere, her weapon isn't misshapen, and she doesn't look NEARLY as threatening as her newly-corrupted sisters do. Also, notice the streak of sunlight trying to break through the cloud behind her. Symbolism for Sigarda herself? A ray of light fighting desperately against a barrier of darkness?
I would bet good money that she remains uncorrupted in this story.
I would add that her outfit doesn't change in the same ways the others do, her staff isn't different or corrupted, there is light in the background of her photo. It looks more sorrowful than baleful.
Just wanted to mention Sigarda is the only one without a metal weapon. Her staff looks entirely wooden to me in the new art and old. It further drives home nahiri's influence on the other flights given her aptitude for metallic weapons and Sigarda's Hexproofiness.
Also, the flights gave me a wizard of oz vibe for some reason. I dunno, Si-Glenda the Good type feel.
Sorry if this gets lengthy, but speculating is fun...
So we after today's article we know sorin created avacyn around the same time that nahiri left to find him 1000 years ago. Assuming sorin is searching for an answer to the vampire consuming their entire food supply, enter nahiri. She "builds the construct" of avacyn into which sorin brings to life. I think of other stories such as the one about Feldon of the third path and how different colors align with this sort of thing.
Additionally, maybe avacyns collar (her symbol) is a way for the mana of the plane to be directed and empower her. so a slight adjustment changes her whole protocol because she taps into the leylines for everything. It's like her foundation. Which nahiri could have helped structure.
Nahiri is a native kor and we don't know if she had any real way of surviving old age post mending. So sorin, as a precaution, has her build the hel vault for him as a way for avacyn to trap demons so they don't just remanifest after death. Sorin sticks nahiri in there sometime later to "preserve her." Nahiri spends X years in said prison that's steeped in black magic because of what's in there which manifests itself in a psychological change.
So after the vault is broken, nahiri is out and gets her bearings. She's angry, leaves to go to zendikar after some period of time (slowly dissipating amnesia maybe?) and goes to zendikar and planeswalks into a completely decimated area that's been consumed already by ulamog.
She leaves zendikar because without sorin/ugin the plane may as well be lost (remanants of her long exposure to black mana surfacing as hopelessness) and goes back to innistrad to subject it to the same fate. Ugin specially said he didn't tell them the Titans were killable. If she can successfully lore the eldrazi to innistrad, she can just travel the multiverse and lure them to uninhabited planes thereafter. She just wants revenge on sorin for, in her eyes, leading to her homes destruction to selfishly preserve his.
We know selfishness is a strong trait of his a because ugin outright speaks to that quality to Jace. You have to be some kind of self centered if that's the first thing they think about you when Come up in conversation.
I think thing in the ice is just another horror trope, I think tying it to marit lage takes away a plot hook for going back to other planes. Somethings up with the moon though.
I do think the moon has a negative influence on innistrad and maybe something was captured there to secure the safety of the plane. I think the old sea God/horror is a call out to lovecraft mythos and not an actual plot hook.
Eh I dunno, story today was awesome for sure and I'm super hyped to just get my hands on all of this flavor. If it was up to me the WotC would never do a large scale battle sequence again because this is already light years above BFZ block for me.
Card is good. Don't evaluate it like Bob, it's not Bob and not designed to hang out low to the ground and ride out cheap cmc spells to get you CA.
Go ahead and stick my Arlin kord in the bin and take 4, now I'll draw for my turn and continue to play the game and draw my next random card for the turn of which they have zero information. Sure stick my Chandra in the bin so I can't juice up my hand that I've been stock piling off this guy for 3 turns now...and take 6 to the face. Please excuse me while I den protector/megamorph my cards back. Thank you.
I mean if you want a lower cmc value town creature run abbot of keral keep . I'd run this in a coco deck or midrange red deck and not try and grind 1-2 damage hits and top end off him. Menance is really just gravy and he favorable trades with a ton of the formats 3 toughness creatures if he has to get down to business.
Quick fun support suite:
matter reshaper
silverfur partisan
Chandra flamecaller
Arlin kord
firey temper
thunderbreak reagent
avaricious dragon
collected company
greenwarden of murasa
Eldrazi...lol
Grants not all in the same list, but it's more playable than people are giving it credit for. By all means, keeping trash talking it so I can get them on the cheap...Ty.
Store A) super nice store and not dependent on only magic, which is nice. They jack the prices on singles and supplemental prices through the friggin roof and the owner isn't very socialble until you break through that outer shell. I was happy to buy packs there, but I generally avoided singles like the plague. $400 for ftv:20? Yeh no thanks...
Store B) currently play here and my biggest pet peeve is the inventory system online is just wrong for anything earlier than like theros. It's annoying but the owner is actually a cool guy and in general the guys that work there are fun. They at slowly updating th inventory system too. The crowd is nice, but very competitive. It's not uncommon for 10-20 people from this store to hit an open or GP with 8 hours.
Store C) they dabble in magic and have a small set of singles for sale, like 30ish? They rarely have what I'm looking for and always try and cross sell me to other hobbies. I like driving my purchase, not being guilt tripped into inventory you shouldn't have purchased and is rotting on your shelves.
Store D) this is the worst offender...I've literally walked in this store and asked the owner if I could but boosters of a recent set. Nope sorry, I'm sold out. Okay, what about this set? Sold out of those too. We play this charade for 30 seconds until I'm just flat out asking if he has any magic cards for sale that aren't laughably bad singles singles. Nope, he replies into a blank stare. Then I ask him when his next shipment is coming in he says he doesn't know. HOW IS THIS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS. Blows my friggen mind...if $100 bill walked into my store, you bet I'd do whatever it took to keep it in my register. I give him another year or so, he's not entrepreneur material.
*edited because I can't spell
This card remind anyone else of the movie?
Artwork used in the last story article has a fishy looking guy with a knife. I don't think we've seen the card yet, if it gets one.
We do know that the eldrazi spawn physical manifestations during plane consumption, but we don't know at what point that happens and if it's impacted by them being physically locked in a corporeal form on that plane. It's a little detail and a stretch, but I think changing the signs of "eldrazi exposure" is a good move if that's what they're doing. We know there are physical manifestations based on the sorin/nahiri short story where they were attempting to defend a plane before it collapsed when eldrazi aren't imprisoned. We have no clue as to the lineage of what they were fighting against though.
Emrakul affects biology per the art book, but maybe the deformities and fishiness are the beginnings of how that change is showing itself? It's definately more lovecraft-esque as his descriptions of Wilbur's body in the dunwhich horror was very jellyfishish to me, so it jives to some extent.
We don't know why nahiri is on a rampage exactly. it's fairly clear imo that she intends to subject innistrad to the same fate as zendikar, because of beef with Sorin. Maybe she's diverted the ley lines to screw with the white mana of the plane hence the shift in the angels? Maybe she's made a huge mana beacon for emmy? Maybe it's an unwanted consequence of just mucking around with a planes mana? I think in drana's short story they mention broken planes, or planes needing to be fixed/mended or something?
There is probably going to be a lot of horror trope/story eldrazi overlap and shoe horns if this turns out to be the case to fit everything in a finite amount of space. 500ish cards seems like plenty of avenue to tell the story, but it's a really limited medium and these pictures are the only thing we have to add minute detail to the stories.
Zendikar did have the roil, so maybe weird tidal patterns were always attributed to that. Even though kozilek distorts reality, maybe emrakul is exerting a smaller gravitational force itself now that it's outside of innistrad? We neve had a before/after tidal picture of zendikar like we do of innistrad. I'm grasping at straws here but we really don't know. Somethings up with the water and were not sure what at this point, but I'm a huge fan of all the artworks so far.
If nahiri believes she's doing what is "just" to punish sorin for his transgressions, losing an entire plane of horriffic, clearly not white creatures isn't out of the realm of possibility for character development. Not every white character has to embody the "every life matters no matter how small" scope. She also doesn't know that they are able to be killed, have been know led down to 1 effective eldrazi (aside from surprises...), or likely how far she'll get before sorin intervenes.
Edgar could probably be trying to figure something out himself if he is indeed still alive. We don't know, and it's nice not knowing everything about every character. Makes storyline filler articles enjoyable reads.
Besides I think it's kind of flavorful with springs ultimate anyway. Maybe him and Olivia didn't have such a tenuous relationship compared to the rest of the vampires?
Exactly this. With collected company in a easy splash color this guy can peel a ton of damage off the top of your deck and you can find ways to get him in at EoT. Sure stick my coco in the yard and take 4, while I draw this maybe a land maybe another threat and the game resumes. Coco EoT and hitting two sin prodders? That's crazy...2-3 rounds of answer me now or I win just from drawing extra crap you don't want to or can't deal with. In a mid range red deck, which is obviously where standard is being pushed how is this guy not good? Yeah the downside of drawing a land is there, but hey my opponent may make me discard that land and take zero (whatever lands suck if I curve out at 4 after I have 4) or I get an extra card.
Your worst case scenario is if you need that forth land drop and they know it and make you pitch it. I wouldn't run this with weenies like bob. I'll happily run it In a deck of mostly 2cmc+ Cards. Yeah sometimes I hit trash with abbot of keral keep and sometimes he's a beast and wins me games. I see being the same.
What I didn't like, and this is about the other stories too, was that instead of actual twists and plot changes were just not told certain things to keep us in suspense and it feels...cheesy? I dunno. Like Mia has one quiver but is apparently pretty handy with a crossbow? How does she practice? Frog footprints leading away from the pen? You mean to tell me the villages made fake frog prints to throw her off and they were just like well...feed it the girl. I dunno, slippery slope to madness there. In the presumably 20-30 min it takes to shepherd sheep to the water they skinned and dressed an entire flock? I didn't like the ending, at all. The rest of the story made up for it somewhat, but I felt like the end as cobbled together for word count purposes after the climax. Mia could have been a fun character to follow around, join the ranks of Thalia/Odric/Sigarda or replace those characters after they die. World building is fine, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity for a return character or legendary creature.
Personal pet peeves aside, I feel like our feedback is getting to them and so far the articles are moe polished and enjoyable altogether. This writing was better than some of the other stuff they out out for BfZ, kudos there. I felt like it appropriately hit a style meant for a few different age groups/tastes. That's hard to do and a few of the dialogue pieces I didn't like I could deal with for this reason.
Can we please get scooby doo references up in here? Ludavic can make a "mystery machine" or give Odric a Great Dane. Grisly scene on a kill spell of a blond haired dude in a white shirt and orange ascot. I need this. Bad. Don't squander this opportunity wizards.
So what if sorin bound Nahiri on zendikar so that she'd be in stasis with the eldrazi and not age so that she could pretty much be tied to defending the multiverse from them (a riff off the nahiri trapped in the hel vault theory). She gets out, is pissed, and was affected similar to tazri by kozilek the whole time. So now she's going to make these inter planar mana beacons for Them to come consume specific mana rich (or broken? Or whatever their deal is) planes. She's still angry at sorin (maybe kozilek's influence prayed off her desire to harm a specific person she doesn't have fond feelings for).
She goes to innistrad first because screw sorin, that's why. So the in-fighting and madness is due to her realigning the planes mana to serve two purposes, reduce the planets defense system and hide her trail. Jace ends up digging for all these lose ends and finally figured out emrakul is just being called over after its too late to stop it.
There wouldn't necessarily be a physical manifestation of eldrazi if the feeding has only just begun maybe? Not sure what the time frame is on that.
The art book stated that emrakul distorts biology (hence the skinless wolf with 4 eyes, the youths with disformaties, etc.). Just the wind kind of flies in the face of this theory but there are plenty of mutated humans in the artwork so far. So I think there's more evidence then not.
Eldritch moon could be the answer for them trapping emrakul, I.e. Jace realigns the hedron network with tamiyo and Lilliana's help and sticks Emmy in there for "safe keeping."
Innistrad is safe, for now (ooo spooky plot hook for the next horror sequel), and everyone calms the junk down with Sigarda as head angel and founding a new safe haven for humans.
1. She is actually fairly close to the origins Lilliana. I'm not saying they're the exact card, but they tick up on discard, and the origins has a much more unique and flavorful -, reanimate my a creature to achieve her desired affect is much more lilli I think.
2. Like it or not the pricey lilli is a big potential chase card for eternal masters or the next incarnation of modern masters. Heck Jace, the mind sculptor caused local stores around me to price ftv:20 at like $300.00...wizards will want a piece of the pie.
3. I'm not sure how people would react to coming off of bfz with chase cards into a situation with her available in boosters. I know my store will sell packs like hotcakes but it drives the price of all other tradable cards down. You end up with an environment of 2-3 reasonably achievable cards that sell/trade over 5.00 as everyone scrambles for that one card.
4. Assuming sorin is B or B/X, she's fighting for space with heretical healer and ob nix in that color. Not sure how saturated you want it to be? Color pie presence isn't my forte, I gravitate to competitive decks that I find fun.
However I don't think she's too powerful for standard. Although B/W with lilli is going to be a heck of a control deck to where I don't realistically see non hasty creature decks competing after just the few spoilers we've already had. That's some highly efficient hate starting after t2...with strong finishers and a sprinkling of life gain.
3 arid Mesa
4 copperline gorge
1 razorverge thicket
2 sacred foundry
2 stomping grounds
2 mana confluence
1 mountain
4 champion of the parish
4 monastery swiftspear
4 burning-tree emissary
4 hamlet captain
2 mayor of avabruck
2 ash zealot
3 priest of urabrask
4 reckless bushwacker
3 goblin bushwacker
1 knight of the reliquary
4 lightning bolt
So the basic idea is a kytheon/champion on t1, t2 drop emissary or a few into a surged goblin giving everything haste and swing bunches. Next turn swing with atarka's for victory.
Kytheon and champion are your heavy beaters that grow
Goblins enable kytheon flips and insane t2/3 damage output via haste
Command and bolt for pushing through damage
Emmissary and priest give you free creatures and surge
Mayor and hamlet captain act as your lords.
Swiftspear, knight, and zealot are extra beaters to get damage in.
I tried making the deck redundant if possible and that's why the mana base is so painful. I don't have an issue racing to turn 3 and found the deck pretty favorable against other aggressive strats. I have a positive win rate against infect for example. Sideboard is always in flux which is why I didn't include it. If SOI gives us a two drop human lord that's solid, I'd rotate out the beaters and mayors for it. I swap in path of exile in place of commands when I need to interact with specific creatures for matchups that require it.
No collected company because 4 mana is a pretty big investment and I don't want to see more than 3.
Holding up 2 cards, such as a emissary and bushwacker can help you get back in the game after a board clear if you expect them. Redundancy helps vs discard also. All in all its a bunch of fun and super fast, red has some bonkers humans. The goblins just add so much synergy with the free mana "ritual" creatures to not include them.
I know my color base isn't GW like OP, but I think the strat is similar enough to share. Go go humans! (+some tiny help from goblins
Just wanted to mention Sigarda is the only one without a metal weapon. Her staff looks entirely wooden to me in the new art and old. It further drives home nahiri's influence on the other flights given her aptitude for metallic weapons and Sigarda's Hexproofiness.
Also, the flights gave me a wizard of oz vibe for some reason. I dunno, Si-Glenda the Good type feel.
So we after today's article we know sorin created avacyn around the same time that nahiri left to find him 1000 years ago. Assuming sorin is searching for an answer to the vampire consuming their entire food supply, enter nahiri. She "builds the construct" of avacyn into which sorin brings to life. I think of other stories such as the one about Feldon of the third path and how different colors align with this sort of thing.
Additionally, maybe avacyns collar (her symbol) is a way for the mana of the plane to be directed and empower her. so a slight adjustment changes her whole protocol because she taps into the leylines for everything. It's like her foundation. Which nahiri could have helped structure.
Nahiri is a native kor and we don't know if she had any real way of surviving old age post mending. So sorin, as a precaution, has her build the hel vault for him as a way for avacyn to trap demons so they don't just remanifest after death. Sorin sticks nahiri in there sometime later to "preserve her." Nahiri spends X years in said prison that's steeped in black magic because of what's in there which manifests itself in a psychological change.
So after the vault is broken, nahiri is out and gets her bearings. She's angry, leaves to go to zendikar after some period of time (slowly dissipating amnesia maybe?) and goes to zendikar and planeswalks into a completely decimated area that's been consumed already by ulamog.
She leaves zendikar because without sorin/ugin the plane may as well be lost (remanants of her long exposure to black mana surfacing as hopelessness) and goes back to innistrad to subject it to the same fate. Ugin specially said he didn't tell them the Titans were killable. If she can successfully lore the eldrazi to innistrad, she can just travel the multiverse and lure them to uninhabited planes thereafter. She just wants revenge on sorin for, in her eyes, leading to her homes destruction to selfishly preserve his.
We know selfishness is a strong trait of his a because ugin outright speaks to that quality to Jace. You have to be some kind of self centered if that's the first thing they think about you when Come up in conversation.
I think thing in the ice is just another horror trope, I think tying it to marit lage takes away a plot hook for going back to other planes. Somethings up with the moon though.
I do think the moon has a negative influence on innistrad and maybe something was captured there to secure the safety of the plane. I think the old sea God/horror is a call out to lovecraft mythos and not an actual plot hook.
Eh I dunno, story today was awesome for sure and I'm super hyped to just get my hands on all of this flavor. If it was up to me the WotC would never do a large scale battle sequence again because this is already light years above BFZ block for me.
Edited for clarity and spelling.