They've already spoiled a card called "Sword of Dungeons and Dragons" in the next UN set. Which got me thinking...
If they, the WotC R&D people, asked YOU to design a new, never before printed Magic card and told you it was for the new UN set and that it HAD to have the same name and evoke the same flavor as a spell from the D&D Player's Handbook, what would you come up with? Please include casting cost, type of spell (sorcery, instant, etc), describe the art in words, or link a pic if you want to mock one up, and remember that it can't just a be "I'd reprint Lightning Bolt!". Also, I'm not looking for monsters from the Monster Manual per se, but rather spells from the Player's Handbook. Any relatively recognizable D&D spell is fine, but for reference I'm thinking mostly of the 3.0 and 3.5 versions, though older stuff would be perfectly fine. Here's my first idea:
Melf's Acid Arrow
Instant
Cost G
Put two -1/-1 counters on target creature with flying. At the beginning of the next upkeep, put two -1/-1 counters on that creature.
Art: An elf wizard magically hurling a green arrow-shaped effect at a flying dragon, demon, or something.
If I summon Exemplar of Strength while I have, say, Simic Initiate in play, with one counter on it, can I stack the triggers and choose targets such that the Initiate puts its one counter on the Exemplar and the Exemplar dumps its negative counters on the Initiate? My first thought is yes, all I have to do is declare, when the Exemplar hits the table, that I'm putting the triggers on the stack and at that time I choose tsrgets, then when the abilities resolve, FIRST the Graft ability happens, thus causing the Initiate to die anyway, THEN the Exemplar's trigger tries to resolve, sees that its target is no longer there, and whiffs.
For that matter, I could choose to target the Exemplar's counters onto, say, Tatterkite and the target would be legal, but the ability would resolve and do nothing, right? Or if I gave the target of the counters Shroud in response to the ability somehow, etc.
Have you considered Congregation at Dawn and/or Satyr Wayfinder? You can use the Congregation at the end of the opponent's turn to stack the top of your deck with two Vengevines and a Wayfinder, with the Wayfinder on top, then go to your turn, draw the Wayfinder, play it, use it to put two Vengevines in the graveyard, possibly get another land, then play another creature and go to work with the vines. Just an idea.
I played in three Eternal Masters drafts over the weekend. My impressions:
BG Elves is not as strong as I thought it would be, it did not do well in the games I saw. I didn't play it though. Nausea is a card, as is Prodigal Sorcerer and the red honden. People draft your Llanowar Elves and Eyeblight's Endings for other decks. It also lacks a decent green overrun, which is a crime against green magic, to me. Centaur Chieftain is not so hot in this deck. You really want Rally the Peasants, which is not in your colors, but there is the ability to splash white for it. I didn't see anyone do that though. Sadly, you'll need to splash white and red to be able to flash it back. Hope for the prismatic lens I guess? Other decks are just better, from what I could tell. I personally think it needed at least one really superior Elf at rare, like Ezuri, to power it, or maybe Priest of Titania at uncommon. Also, there are no X spells to ramp into ereally, except Green Sun's Zenith. The lack of Disintegrate disappointed me in this set, actually.
WR aggro is good. Rally the Peasants is a common, an instant, and a legit bomb, I think. It too has problems with Nausea, but is faster and can rebound with cards like Beetleback Chief and Mogg War Marshall. There's no equipment for your Squadron Hawks, but there is Rally, and it works. You can probably get Goblin Trenches really late in the draft if anyone opens one, since it requires two colors and isn't a creature or removal.
WU fliers is good too. Bona-fide Counterspells at common, plus Memory Lapse, blue card draw and white removal/lockdown enchantments are good, and the creatures are good enough. Phantom Monster at common, Mistral Charger, Squadron Hawk, Wonder, Warden of Evos Isle, Serra Angel, etc. Thunderclap Wyvern, as a mini-overrun, is better than both Centaur Cheiftan and Flame-Kin Zealot in so far as it's the same CC as both, has flash, doesn't require threshold, and gives permanent +1/+1 to your other fliers while in play.
I agree that Coalition Honor Guard is a beast.
A friend of mine made a really fun UR Burning Vengeance deck with many flashback/retrace cards. He managed to burn a guy for 20 using only Flame Jabs to activate Burning Vengeance(s) and went 3-1 overall (he and opponent IDed in final round of swiss, I think). We both did well, my only loss with UW fliers was to him, and I definitely could have made it closer if I hadn't punted game two away on stupid plays.
I left the weekend thinking that every white deck want's to go wide and Rally the Peasants for the win. WR gets to reuse it and has the best token making machine. Also, if you get Gamble, you can gamble with an empty hand and get Rally, then discard the rally to the gamble and just flash it back, all for a grand total of 2RR. UW fliers is also very good. It has better control elements and evasive creatures. I put a Prismatic Lens in my UW deck to be able to flash the rally back and it happened one time. Opponent did not see it coming.
I just took a closer look at Behind the Scenes. Apparently the activated ability requires white mana? If that's the case you could probably drop the blue for white and use high-toughness creatures and/or drone tokens. Also I notice you already had the Tide Drifter in there, sorry I missed that the first time.
I'm currently playing around with a RUG Assault Formation deck (in a different thread). I personally dislike the defenders (Jaddi Offshoot and Guardians of Meletis) except against aggro matchups, which you should be able to win without the life gain anyway. I think you should probably consider/try the following cards:
Sidis's Faithful is just awesome, it's got more toughness than Jaddi Offshoot, isn't a defender, and has a come-into-play ability that help you in the mid to late game.
Any card you might consider that can get you a bunch of little 1/1 drones can be a game winner with either of the enchantments in play.
Cards like Anticipate and the Vessel can dig for combo pieces you need and you can probably devote at least 4 slots to them.
Tide Drifter makes your other devoid creatures better, not to mention pumping the tokens.I don't know how many lands you want coming into play tapped, but there's a card like that for every 2-color combination.
Fauna Shaman + Illusionist's Bracers + Kozilek, Butcher of Truth = tutor up a creature once per turn for one green mana. How it works: activate Fauna ability, (bracers copies it, so you can search for 2 creatures when they resolve), discard Koz as part of the cost, Koz's ability triggers as soon as it hits the graveyard, resolve that and shuffle Koz back into your deck, along with the rest of your graveyard, then search for two creatures and put them in your hand. Choose Kozilek as one of those creatures and you can do this again next turn when Fauna untaps.
use one of the above combos to produce infinite saprolings, that plus Cream of the Crop + Gaea's Anthem gives you the ability to sort your deck such that it ends up in any order you want. On the other hand, you could just float like 100 mana and the summon Omnath, Locus of Mana. When it hit's the table, you can sort your deck in one fell swoop.
The saprolings come into play as 2/2 creatures. Each one hitting the table allows you to look at the top two cards of your deck, put one on top and the rest on the bottom in an order of your choice. It turns out that doing this repeatedly allows you to "bubble sort" your deck, as the programmers would say.
mono red (not even?) "infinite" turns combo:
Final Fortune imprinted on Isochron Scepter + Sundial of the Infinite = you get an arbitrary number of turns (of your choice) before your opponent ever get's another one. How it works: play the scepter and imprint the Final Fortune on it. Activate the scepter to take an extra turn. End the turn via the Sundial before the beginning of that turn's ends step (or in response to the delayed trigger even). The "lose the game" effect, officially, doesn't happen and you get infinite free turns. For two generic mana.
add Sapseep Forest to any of the above and you get infinite life gain (assuming you have two green permanents)
add Sprout Swarm to any of the above and you get infinite saproling tokens
If they, the WotC R&D people, asked YOU to design a new, never before printed Magic card and told you it was for the new UN set and that it HAD to have the same name and evoke the same flavor as a spell from the D&D Player's Handbook, what would you come up with? Please include casting cost, type of spell (sorcery, instant, etc), describe the art in words, or link a pic if you want to mock one up, and remember that it can't just a be "I'd reprint Lightning Bolt!". Also, I'm not looking for monsters from the Monster Manual per se, but rather spells from the Player's Handbook. Any relatively recognizable D&D spell is fine, but for reference I'm thinking mostly of the 3.0 and 3.5 versions, though older stuff would be perfectly fine. Here's my first idea:
Melf's Acid Arrow
Instant
Cost G
Put two -1/-1 counters on target creature with flying. At the beginning of the next upkeep, put two -1/-1 counters on that creature.
Art: An elf wizard magically hurling a green arrow-shaped effect at a flying dragon, demon, or something.
For that matter, I could choose to target the Exemplar's counters onto, say, Tatterkite and the target would be legal, but the ability would resolve and do nothing, right? Or if I gave the target of the counters Shroud in response to the ability somehow, etc.
Am I doing this right?
BG Elves is not as strong as I thought it would be, it did not do well in the games I saw. I didn't play it though. Nausea is a card, as is Prodigal Sorcerer and the red honden. People draft your Llanowar Elves and Eyeblight's Endings for other decks. It also lacks a decent green overrun, which is a crime against green magic, to me. Centaur Chieftain is not so hot in this deck. You really want Rally the Peasants, which is not in your colors, but there is the ability to splash white for it. I didn't see anyone do that though. Sadly, you'll need to splash white and red to be able to flash it back. Hope for the prismatic lens I guess? Other decks are just better, from what I could tell. I personally think it needed at least one really superior Elf at rare, like Ezuri, to power it, or maybe Priest of Titania at uncommon. Also, there are no X spells to ramp into ereally, except Green Sun's Zenith. The lack of Disintegrate disappointed me in this set, actually.
WR aggro is good. Rally the Peasants is a common, an instant, and a legit bomb, I think. It too has problems with Nausea, but is faster and can rebound with cards like Beetleback Chief and Mogg War Marshall. There's no equipment for your Squadron Hawks, but there is Rally, and it works. You can probably get Goblin Trenches really late in the draft if anyone opens one, since it requires two colors and isn't a creature or removal.
WU fliers is good too. Bona-fide Counterspells at common, plus Memory Lapse, blue card draw and white removal/lockdown enchantments are good, and the creatures are good enough. Phantom Monster at common, Mistral Charger, Squadron Hawk, Wonder, Warden of Evos Isle, Serra Angel, etc. Thunderclap Wyvern, as a mini-overrun, is better than both Centaur Cheiftan and Flame-Kin Zealot in so far as it's the same CC as both, has flash, doesn't require threshold, and gives permanent +1/+1 to your other fliers while in play.
I agree that Coalition Honor Guard is a beast.
A friend of mine made a really fun UR Burning Vengeance deck with many flashback/retrace cards. He managed to burn a guy for 20 using only Flame Jabs to activate Burning Vengeance(s) and went 3-1 overall (he and opponent IDed in final round of swiss, I think). We both did well, my only loss with UW fliers was to him, and I definitely could have made it closer if I hadn't punted game two away on stupid plays.
I left the weekend thinking that every white deck want's to go wide and Rally the Peasants for the win. WR gets to reuse it and has the best token making machine. Also, if you get Gamble, you can gamble with an empty hand and get Rally, then discard the rally to the gamble and just flash it back, all for a grand total of 2RR. UW fliers is also very good. It has better control elements and evasive creatures. I put a Prismatic Lens in my UW deck to be able to flash the rally back and it happened one time. Opponent did not see it coming.
Tide Drifter
Brood Butcher
Catacomb Sifter
Sidisi's Faithful
Vessel of Nascency
Anticipate
Woodland Stream
Submerged Boneyard
Sidis's Faithful is just awesome, it's got more toughness than Jaddi Offshoot, isn't a defender, and has a come-into-play ability that help you in the mid to late game.
Any card you might consider that can get you a bunch of little 1/1 drones can be a game winner with either of the enchantments in play.
Cards like Anticipate and the Vessel can dig for combo pieces you need and you can probably devote at least 4 slots to them.
Tide Drifter makes your other devoid creatures better, not to mention pumping the tokens.I don't know how many lands you want coming into play tapped, but there's a card like that for every 2-color combination.
Fauna Shaman + Illusionist's Bracers + Kozilek, Butcher of Truth = tutor up a creature once per turn for one green mana. How it works: activate Fauna ability, (bracers copies it, so you can search for 2 creatures when they resolve), discard Koz as part of the cost, Koz's ability triggers as soon as it hits the graveyard, resolve that and shuffle Koz back into your deck, along with the rest of your graveyard, then search for two creatures and put them in your hand. Choose Kozilek as one of those creatures and you can do this again next turn when Fauna untaps.
use one of the above combos to produce infinite saprolings, that plus Cream of the Crop + Gaea's Anthem gives you the ability to sort your deck such that it ends up in any order you want. On the other hand, you could just float like 100 mana and the summon Omnath, Locus of Mana. When it hit's the table, you can sort your deck in one fell swoop.
The saprolings come into play as 2/2 creatures. Each one hitting the table allows you to look at the top two cards of your deck, put one on top and the rest on the bottom in an order of your choice. It turns out that doing this repeatedly allows you to "bubble sort" your deck, as the programmers would say.
mono red (not even?) "infinite" turns combo:
Final Fortune imprinted on Isochron Scepter + Sundial of the Infinite = you get an arbitrary number of turns (of your choice) before your opponent ever get's another one. How it works: play the scepter and imprint the Final Fortune on it. Activate the scepter to take an extra turn. End the turn via the Sundial before the beginning of that turn's ends step (or in response to the delayed trigger even). The "lose the game" effect, officially, doesn't happen and you get infinite free turns. For two generic mana.
Argothian Elder + Wirewood Lodge + Wild Growth or just any land that taps for more than one green mana (e.g. Lotus Vale) = infinite mana
Krosan Restorer (with threshold) + Maze of Ith + any land = infinite mana (during combat only)
Magus of the Candelabra + Umbral Mantle + Vernal Bloom + 4 forests = infinite green mana, infinite land untaps (so infinitely large Blinkmoth Nexus, for example)
Argothian Elder + Sword of the Paruns + Keeper of Progenitus + 2 forests = infinite green mana, infinite land untaps (so infinitely large creatures via Heart of Yavimaya for example)
Krosan Restorer (with threshold) + Staff of Domination + any 3 lands that, combined, tap for 5 or more total mana = infinite mana, life, creature taps, creature untaps, land untaps, and draws
add Sapseep Forest to any of the above and you get infinite life gain (assuming you have two green permanents)
add Sprout Swarm to any of the above and you get infinite saproling tokens
Seeker of Skybreak + Illusionist's Bracers + any man-land (e.g. Dryad Arbor) = infinite mana (+ Endbringer = infinite 1-point damage pings, and if you have Blinkmoth Nexus you get infinite card draw as well)