I have a friend named Liliana (though she more commonly goes by Lili), and I know of at least one other person with that name. I've seen a Nissa, a Nyssa, and at least one Chandra just in reading through Facebook comments.
Well, I'm glad to see the Doubling Season reprint, but it being mythic is sad. Hopefully this will at least pave the way to it getting reprinted in other supplementary sets?
And yeah, the Azra look neat. Hopefully, Kylem isn't the only plane that has them.
They're...okay. They feel a bit on the weak side, but I suppose that's because they can be commanders. It's too bad that because of them, though, we probably won't get any more planeswalkers in the set (and unfortunately, I highly doubt they'll show up outside of this set). Also, Rowan's +2 is terrible.
Agreed on the land destruction thing. It's not fun.
This was a weird prerelease for me. I had to leave early, so I only got to play two rounds, and I went 2-0 the first time and 0-2 the second. Match 1-1 was pretty even; match 1-2 felt bad because my opponent got mana flooded to the point of never getting to cast anything; match 2-1 was even-ish, but I fell foul of Urza's Ruinous Blast; and during match 2-2, I basically got mana flooded. At least I got one additional pack (which is remarkably consistent; I've been to three prereleases and gotten exactly one pack each time), actually got a good promo this time (History of Benalia), and pulled a decent mythic in the packs (Verix Bladewing).
Would they really do Devotion again? I thought it was an unpopular mechanic.
That's news to me, considering how I've always seen people singing that mechanic's praises. Truth be told, Devotion was one of the more (if not the most) successful mechanics that debuted in Theros block, and I'd find it odd if it didn't return in Theros return set. Monstrosity was also neat, and I wouldn't mind it returning.
Heroic was OK, and I could see it returning too, but I'm not a fan of it personally. Constellation was interesting, and they could have done a lot more with it to make enchantments-matter a viable thing, but it had the misfortune of only appearing in the third set.
Tribute and Bestow, on the other hand, were mechanics that just downright sucked. Tribute was bad, and Bestow could have been OK if the bestow costs weren't so high.
Don't forget strive, which was probably even worse with its costs than bestow was. In fact, most of the monstrosity cards had that problem as well. I actually found heroic a decent mechanic that was generally on decent cards (though I wish it had been "whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability" instead). Constellation was held back by needing to be on enchantments (which is why I made a tweaked version of it for a custom set I'm doing) and, as you set, only being in the third set. Inspired was another mechanic that was just kind of there.
Yeah, if it were most other people getting tricked into being Nick Balls's slave, I'd be pretty upset, but given that it's Liliana, I'm really not that distressed.
You guys realize this means that Bolas is super dead now because of plot no jutsu, right?
Good. His death never should have been retconned to begin with.
This. Kill him off finally, it's super lame that he's showing up here again. You have a creative team and can't just come up with another avenue for Lily's struggles? Enough Bolas, enough Eldrazi. Move on, creative team.
Yeah, I'm really freaking sick of Nicol Bolas. It's been, what, 4 straight blocks now that have involved him, either directly or indirectly? Granted, I'd at least rather see him than Phyrexia or Eldrazi (Bolas is already OP enough; we don't need more villains that are even more so and even harder to reason with), but just argh. And it really does not help matters that he's involved with my two favorite planes (Kaladesh and Ravnica).
On a side note, "Bolas" can apparently mean "balls" in Italian, and yes, they do use it in the same slang way that English speakers do, so he will forever be "Nick Balls" to me.
The Gateway looks good. There aren't enough cards in Dominaria that cheat out permanents. The Mending...not so much. For 5 mana at rare, especially in a color that's short on Sagas, I was really expecting it to do something more impressive. Doesn't help that without explicit support, it depends a good bit on luck and can whiff pretty hard (oh, the top 4 cards of your library were a sorcery, an enchantment, a planeswalker, and a land and your graveyard is empty? congratulations, you just spent 5 mana and 3 turns to ramp by 1).
These sets that aren't made for Constructed players (too much draft chaff) and aren't really for drafters (too expensive to do often) don't serve much of a purpose at all.
Right?! They're trying to have their cake and eat it and, so far, are simply failing at both.
I personally think that they'd be better served to skip the "draft-friendly" bit in favor of making it a solid set full of staple reprints. not even expensive stuff, just low-supply cards and things like lightning bolt that are always welcome reprints.
I agree, and I'd add that if a set is good, people are more likely to want to draft it whether it's designed for drafting or not. Besides, we already have Conspiracy for draft-centric sets.
Should have Hexproof instead of Reach and Trample.
Or hexproof and trample.
Card seems all right. Neat art, potentially a pretty decent-sized creature to stomp people with (though it's too bad that it's antisynergistic with mana creatures), and it can be recurred. It would go well with extra land drops (Azusa?) and self-mill.
So, if the multicolored cards are at least somewhat color-balanced, the only unknown one should be either RG, GU, or GUR, right? Among the rest, I counted 9 white, 8 blue, 9 black, 8 red, and 7 green cards.
I actually have a deck very similar to this, at least in terms of being a RW deck that uses copious small, cheap creatures to gain a lot of ETB triggers. Mine focuses less on the lifegain, though. (I have nothing against lifegain, but it wasn't really the point of that particular deck.) I don't have Norin or Purphoros (though I want to get both eventually) nor much in the way of good dual lands, but I do have Impact Tremors, Mentor of the Meek, Massive Raid, Cloudgoat Ranger, Outpost Siege, Cathars' Crusade, Hellrider, Anointed Procession, Twilight Drover, and I did include Burn at the Stake as well. I doubt it's competitive for Modern, but I only ever play casual anyway. Other cards I've considered for it or a similar deck include Auriok Champion, Call for Unity, Eerie Interlude, Elemental Mastery, Foundry Champion, In the Web of War, Jinxed Idol, Path of Bravery, Saltskitter, Springjack Shepherd, and Thraben Doomsayer.
And yeah, the Azra look neat. Hopefully, Kylem isn't the only plane that has them.
This was a weird prerelease for me. I had to leave early, so I only got to play two rounds, and I went 2-0 the first time and 0-2 the second. Match 1-1 was pretty even; match 1-2 felt bad because my opponent got mana flooded to the point of never getting to cast anything; match 2-1 was even-ish, but I fell foul of Urza's Ruinous Blast; and during match 2-2, I basically got mana flooded. At least I got one additional pack (which is remarkably consistent; I've been to three prereleases and gotten exactly one pack each time), actually got a good promo this time (History of Benalia), and pulled a decent mythic in the packs (Verix Bladewing).
Don't forget strive, which was probably even worse with its costs than bestow was. In fact, most of the monstrosity cards had that problem as well. I actually found heroic a decent mechanic that was generally on decent cards (though I wish it had been "whenever this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability" instead). Constellation was held back by needing to be on enchantments (which is why I made a tweaked version of it for a custom set I'm doing) and, as you set, only being in the third set. Inspired was another mechanic that was just kind of there.
Yeah, I'm really freaking sick of Nicol Bolas. It's been, what, 4 straight blocks now that have involved him, either directly or indirectly? Granted, I'd at least rather see him than Phyrexia or Eldrazi (Bolas is already OP enough; we don't need more villains that are even more so and even harder to reason with), but just argh. And it really does not help matters that he's involved with my two favorite planes (Kaladesh and Ravnica).
On a side note, "Bolas" can apparently mean "balls" in Italian, and yes, they do use it in the same slang way that English speakers do, so he will forever be "Nick Balls" to me.
Right?! They're trying to have their cake and eat it and, so far, are simply failing at both.
I agree, and I'd add that if a set is good, people are more likely to want to draft it whether it's designed for drafting or not. Besides, we already have Conspiracy for draft-centric sets.
Or hexproof and trample.
Card seems all right. Neat art, potentially a pretty decent-sized creature to stomp people with (though it's too bad that it's antisynergistic with mana creatures), and it can be recurred. It would go well with extra land drops (Azusa?) and self-mill.