MTG Salvation

So, if the Faerie is already out, Swing with it, they do some combat trick to block or it gets targetted by removal and you flash in Restoration Angel. Next main phase you cast it again and return the Angel to your hand for the same trick. You can also return the Lyev Skyknight to your hand to get another EtB trigger.

T1: Judges Familiar
T2: Judges Familiar, Faerie Imposter returning a Judges Familiar
T3: Lyev Skyknight
T4: Hold Restoration Angel to blink the Skyknight to target removal or blink the Faerie (so you can bounce your Skyknight) to mass removal, Restoration Angel to blink the Skyknight at opponent's EoT
T5: You've got 8 power flying, Cast Azorius Charm to either give your guys Lifelink, or Bounce a Blocker, or Bounce an attacker in response to removal. Hold a Cloudshift to make sure things stay ugly.

We've seen many of the cards in the new RTR and there's been a lot of complaining that one guild is too powerful and another isn't powerful enough when some have had more of their cards spoiler than others. I decided to do a break-down of the cards spoiled so far and what guild they are aligned with by their guild mark and mechanics.

AzoriusIzzetGolgariRakdosSelesnyaBelow are the cards that aren't part of a specific guild but by its actions will most likely fit with the guild it's posted in

Azorius

Izzet
Guttersnipe - damage on casting Instants and Sorceries is straight up Izzet's alley
Pyroconvergence - "The Izzet are an equation that turns lunacy into explosions" - Leonos, Azorius Arbiters

Golgari
Death's Presence - Autoscavenge with Golgari flavor text
Vraska the Unseen - Planeswalker that is lined up with the colors in Golgari and meets the 'death' portion of its requirements, making the tokens is 'almost' life.

Rakdos

Selesnya
Slime Molding - Make a nice token to Populate



Finally, below are the cards that don't appear to fit with any guild in the set or specifically mention having no guild affiliation like in the flavor text of Fencing Ace.

Angel of Serenity - almost seems to be Azorius but it's being so much broader than Detain really sets it aside in my mind
Fencing Ace - Flavor text alone places it here
Pricinct Captain - Though it generates tokens like Selesnya, the flavor text and clothing in the artwork suggests no guild affiliation
Faerie Imposter - Will function great with Azorius, but appears to have no other connection to the guilds
Jace, Architect of Thought - No surprise here, Planeswalkers have never been 'stamped' in the past, not even Koth the Hammer from Mirrodin
Skyline Predator - a fast flying beefcake, not much else
Sphinx of the Chimes - Info on RTR says that Sphinxs with the exception of Isperia have stayed unaffiliated
Syncopate - a new counterspell that doesn't have any aparent affiliation
Desecration Demon - Nice creature but seems to fit AVR more than RTR
Ogre Jailbreaker - Though he likes the Guildgates he doesn't care which
Pack Rat - Most Easily abused by Selesnya, but totally out of their colors
Underworld Connections - Aaaalmost fits Golgari in that you gain from your loss, but still seems a shakey connection.
Guild Fued - Anyone can come and fight, just clean up when you're done
Axebane Guardian - Neat card, but nothing special for the guilds
Gatekeeper Vine - Though he likes the Guildgates he doesn't care which
Wild Beastmaster - Neat flavor, but no guildness
Worldspine Wurm - Big beats with treats, no gold for guilds
Chromatic Lantern - I makes all colors for all colors combos
Transguild Promenade - Everyone can come and party for any colors

As more spoilers come out I will add them to the list where they best fit.
For this initial post it appears that the guilds have received about an equal amount of spoilers with Azorius a little on the lighter end of the scale with 9 cards to the 13-14 of each of the others.

Quote from Cambrian

No flash in angel in response to them entering combat to detain their best attacker. This way you get any hasty nonsense they might have and you'll be able to attack with both on the next turn.

T3: play the knight, detain the best target
T4: play land, attack with the knight, pass the turn. Rewind their hastey creature and untap your lands. As they enter combat flash in the angel and detain the best target.
T5: Attack with both.

There, made it betters :). Being able to cast two 4 cost spells that totally slows down your opponents gameplay and speeds up yours all on your opponent's turn is what it's all about.

after looking at the guild mechanics spoiled so far (Azorius-Detain, Rakdos-Unleash, Selesnya-Populate, Izzet-Overload, Golgari-Scavenge) I am most impressed with Detain. Each ability has its advantages and disadvantages and is well suited to the appropriate guild but Detain just sounds so fun to play with.

In a color combo that already has access to some extremely unfair plays you can combine this Justiciar with Cloudshift, Restoration Angel, Conjurer's Closet, and even Deadeye Navigator! You also have access to Snapcaster Mage and all of the goodness that he can make happen for you with more Cloudshifts, Rewinds, and Azorius Charms. I think Azorius control is going to be something to have to deal with in the future.

What I see as its weaknesses are most predominatly abilities of other guilds. If your opponent makes more creatures than you can handle by using Populate, Scavenges counters onto a creature that isn't tapped, or Unleashes too many hastey guys (though Cloudshift and Restoration Angel shine here too) you may find yourself in a tough situation. This fits soo well with the Azorius theme in maintaining law and order. The moment you begin to lose control, the world falls into anarchy.

Just thought I'd add an important distinction with these two cards. If you're at 6 life while you control the Convalescant Care it will Not trigger at the beginning of your upkeep even though if it did the Sulfuric Vortex will resolve first. The Care has something called an Intervening If clause. This clause will check for the trigger condition to be true both upon the triggering and upon the resolution. If the condition isn't true during either one or the other it won't trigger/will fizzle.

If you're at 5 life the two triggers will go on the stack, active player's first and then the non-active player's. This will have the Vortex resolve and then the Care which, as stated, will draw you a card. If you're at 2 life, the Vortex resolving first will kill you before the Care can draw you a card. If you're at 6 life the Care won't even go on the stack even though you would have less than 5 life by the time it Would resolve if it did trigger.

Okay, I'm building my first EDH deck and need some input from the community. The theory behind the deck I want to make is in making my opponents pay waay too much for their spells. My General of choice, of course, is Grand Arbiter Augustine IV. I want to build this with not only similar effects, but also Mirror Gallery and Clone effects.



These are just some preliminary ideas and I could really use some input on what others think would work well, know would give me an issue, or is just plain not right.

Quote from Artscrafter

If you suspect that your opponent will fetch Phyrexian Metamorph, you can blink Sigarda in response to Reshape. Once your opponent has started to resolve Reshape, there are no further opportunities to respond. The choice of what Clone-style cards copy is made as the card enters the battlefield (this is technically a replacement effect, so it does not use the stack.)

But if you were to 'blink' the angel in response it would not change the outcome. As your blink effect resolves (ex. Cloudshift) you will be required to perform all actions you are capable of performing, Exiling the Angel and then returning the Angel all during the resolution of that spell. When the Reshape resolves your opponent will still be able to fetch out the Metamorph to kill your Sigarda to the Legend Rule.

The only way to prevent this would be with an effect that Exiled the creature and setup a delayed trigger to return them, in much the same way as Venser the Sojourner, or just plain moved the creature to another zone permanently like with Unsummon

The game will always have another cleanup step until there was one where a player did not receive priority. If you had an ability trigger off of you discarding during your cleanup step, or otherwise somehow got priority during the cleanup step the game would keep cycling through them until you didn't get priority.

514.3. Normally, no player receives priority during the cleanup step, so no spells can be cast and no abilities can be activated. However, this rule is subject to the following exception:

514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger "at the beginning of the next cleanup step"). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another cleanup step begins.

You can also choose to have it enter without copying a creature. In this case it will be a 0/0 Artifact Creature - Shapeshifter named Phyrexian Metamorph with a mana cost of 3(P/U) and a +1/+1 counter making it a 1/1

702.82. Unearth

702.82a Unearth is an activated ability that functions while the card with unearth is in a graveyard. "Unearth [cost]" means "[Cost]: Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step. If it would leave the battlefield, exile it instead of putting it anywhere else. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."

(Bolding and underline is my own)

Because the ability only interferes if the permanent would go anywhere except Exile, your Blink effects won't be modified and the card will return as a permanent with no memory of being unearthed. Beyond that, because the wording on Cloudshift and most other 'blink' effects refer to the card specifically and not the zone specific 'Exiled card' (Imprint cards like Duplicant) it will be able to track it to another zone if the 'Blink' was modified. This can be seen in a game of Commander, if you 'Blink' your commander, you can send him to the Command Zone instead of Exile. The 'Blink' effect will then return that card to the battlefield from the Command zone. If you Exile a commander using Duplicant and send the commander to the Command zone instead, the Duplicant won't track it and effectivly be a 2/4 vanilla creature.

I had this question posed to me a minute ago and presented an answer, but would like to just confirm this before I call it definite for the player.

Player A casts Exhaustion targeting Player B Twice. Will the affected permanents untap during their second or third untap step from the time they were cast?

I believe it won't setup a 3-turn delay. The ability has two parts, the effect and the duration. They are not replacement effects (don't contain the word 'instead' or 'if <condition>, then') so they cannot be ordered and wait around for the following turn. All they do is setup 3 redundant new gamerules that state a player can't untap the permanents of those qualities during their uptap step, the rules only apply to that one untap step though.

I just need to confirm it is as I thought, thanks!

I had a chance to play it last night and am pretty happy with the results. I discovered a couple 'dead' cards and got some advice on improvements. It's not quite 'there' but it's close. What would be some good tweaks to this?

Tamiyo fills in the draw, I think, better than Rites. Rites gives the benefits to you And your opponents. Dropping a Tamiyo after Gideon has made all of their creatures attack him seems to be well setup for drawing cards. Even if Gideon uses his ability again and dies in the attack, you will have drawn so many cards you'll have access to lots more fog effects. It's not meant to be Turbofog because it plays a much slower game. It's more a Planeswalker deck that uses the Fog to keep the board state under control till the 'walkers stabilize.

Gideon's not the only win-con, in fact, unless you have another fog in hand he'll seldom attack. By the time he hits, I imagine that most of the fogs you've drawn will be used. I expect the game to be won by the tokens that come off of Garruk and Elspeth after *** effects leave them a clear field as well as Inkmoth's comming in with Swords on. Gideon's a solid beater, but not the only out.

You're probably right on the Thrummingbird and Contageon Clasp. I'll make that swap. The clasp can double as low level removal as well

This is a deck idea I came up with about a week ago. I built it on TappedOut.net and it seemed to play well but havn't had a chance to build one in real life and test it against the meta. Though it look similar to Turbofog, it's not and is meant to be played a lot slower. The concept is pretty simple, use Fog effects to slow down the board until your planeswalkers can take over the game. It's initial build has 8 Fog effects main deck that can be flashback'd with Snapcaster or Noxious Revival as well as the psuedo-fog of Gigeon's first ability. There are also 5 ***-esque effects that can also be snapcasted/Noxious Revival'd. The deck also makes use of some synergetic combos like Gideon's first ability and Timayo's second ability, Merfolk Looter and Terminus with Noxious Revival, and Garruk's deathtouch wolves and Terrifying Presence to take out even First and Double Strike creatures.



Why run all of the swords? The current meta is wide open. We see players playing mono-White, White/Blue, White/Blue/Black, White/Red, White/Green, mono-Blue, Blue/Black, Blue/Black/Green, Blue/Red, Blue/Red/Green, mono-Black, Black/Red, Black/Green, mono-Red, Red/Green, and mono-Green. There are even some 5 color decks floating around! Until the field stabilizes I opted for a good spread of swords that Gideon or a 2/2 Wolf would Love to wear ;). Swords are good, but they are too agressive for this build. Investing the mana to cast it will either leave you with not enough to cast your Fog or your 'walker.

Below is a discussion of each Sideboard/Maybecard entry and why it's there.

Day of Judgment - Good against FRites and Creature based agro decks, would get brought in in the place of a Garruk and a Tamiyo
Ratchet Bomb - Good against tokens and all-in red. I know 2 isn't enough, but thought the Fog effects may already be good enough to hold out. I'd pull 2 Elspeth for this
Thrummingbird - With the number of Planeswalkers out, being able to Proliferate each turn against a deck without flyers is pretty strong, especially paired with the Inkmoth Nexus. This would take the place of the two Merfolk Looter and a Terminus
Contageon Clasp - a good form of early game removal and can help Proliferate your planeswalkers later. It would take the place of 1 each of Tamiyo, Elspeth, and Garruk
Swords - The most effective color sword would take the place of the other two main deck
Torpor Orb - Good against Birthing Pod and Soulbond as well as Heartless Summonings decks. They'd take the Place of 2 Snapcasters and a Tamiyo in these matchups.
Hex Parasite - If Planeswalkers catch back on, this is a good way to keep them under control
Karn Liberated - okay, if you're trying to control the board state with Planeswalkers this guy Needs to be considered
Ratchet Bomb - More is better...
Spellskite - Can redirect a kill spell meant for an animated Gideon or you
Moonmist - With a few ways to generate Wolf Tokens this seems like it has solid potential

I playtested a little bit last night and it seemed to play really nicely, though I agree that the Thrummingbird wouldn't work and I'm glad I pulled it before playing. Against the burn matchups I found myself wanting a Witchbane Orb for targeting burn and against Boros Tokens I needed the Orb as well to stop the Hellrider. One real weakness I discovered this had is against Grand Abolisher because the Fog needs to be played on their turn. I'm hoping the combo of Noxious Revival and Day/Terminus in response to him being dropped will allow me to handle him.

This is just my first revision of the design of this deck and I am building a functional version. Before I get too commited in buying all the cards, though, I wanted to get some input on how the community thinks it stands right now and what changes you all would recommend.

Edit 5/10/12: Added Moonmist to Maybecards
Edit: Removed Thrummingbird and added Contageon Clasp per Profani's suggestion
Edit: Added Jace, Memory Adept to Maybecards per Profani's suggestion
Edit 5/11/12: Dropped the swords and added Divine Deflection and 1 more Day of Judgment in its place maindeck and 3 O-Rings and 3 Witchbane Orb in its place Sideboard; Brought in 1 more Ratchet Bomb in place of the sideboard Day that was put maindeck; Added 3 Clinging Mists to Maybecards