MTG Salvation

Quote from sleeper agent 2.0 »

All four are tutors. Some people don't seem to see that - took me a minute too because I forgot the second part of sterling grove. They were probably trying to avoid straight up tutors as much, so got a little creative.

The owl foiling is weird! But these are interesting choices and I like the art. Especially the Seb McKinnon art - I hope they reprint sterling grove in a non-foil format with that art. Maybe commander legends?

Exactly. The theme was clearly tutors.

Seb impresses me more and more with each new release.
I only wish Wizards started giving him more chase rares or mythic cards.
He's certainly earned it in my opinion, and when I first met him a few years back he seemed disappointed that he hadn't done a planeswalker (yet).
I wonder if he reads these forums and sees the positive reactions from his fan base.
Once the social distancing thing subsides, I'd love to see him again to congratulate him in person for all his recent contributions since I'm a local fan, purchase a new playmat or two, and get some recent playsets of his signed as well (I'd probably get every card he's ever done signed which I don't already have if it didn't tire his wrist). I would even invite him over to inspire him with my view and music (not that he requires any), or let him record something using my keyboard if he wanted to since he's also a musician. I realize of course that I could simply mail him cards for signing, but I prefer a more live interaction with those who are so talented, humble, and personable.

I would probably include this in my Melek, Izzet paragon deck.
It's faster than swarm intelligence
However, thousand-year storm is still better

Quote from Vapor621 »

I don’t think you guys realize that you only get ONE fetchland per BUNDLE. Not ONE per LAIR.

Exactly. Even if you order 20 bundles there's still no guarantee you'll even end up with a playset of scalding tarns.
Either way, just including one is incentive enough to tempt some of us.

The arts are great, but I wish they would focus more on cards which are not only playable, but already in low supply.
It's not as if anyone was having difficulty acquiring enough birds (of paradise), geese, or (foil) bolts for cheap

Quote from Shiroe The Enchanter »

Sterling Grove is an used in EDH Enchantress decks that are heavy on enchantments. Maybe, it's not quite a random pick by Wizards.

Agreed.

Uril, The Miststalker and bant decks definitely want this.

Privileged position is great, but often not enough protection on it's own, and this also functions as a second copy of enlightened tutor when needed. Beyond that, Seb is an extremely nice person and talented artist, so I'm happy for him, and look forward to getting at least two copies of this grove with eager anticipation to eventually get signed for the aforementioned commander decks.

Quote from Kamino_Taka »

The thing about solemnity shooting up in price is because of the counters but not in a way you think it is. It is due do Luminous Broodmoth being able to combo with.

Generally I agree with Only here if you need to find cornercases where the counters are worse then they are strictly better.

Fair enough.
Admittedly, I'm not as up-to-date with the current meta as I would be under normal circumstances (if there ever was such a thing) but even that combo feels a bit underwhelming considering the recent powercreep across the board.
Is there even a free sac outlet in pioneer which allows for an infinite loop?
What's the backup plan when the combo gets easily disrupted by thoughtseize or any number of efficient removal cards which deal with the moth?

Quote from TheOnlyOne652089 »

Strictly better in "magic" terms means in almost any feasable way better.

You can of course always find some reason its not "always" better, but that doesnt matter.

The ability counters are strictly better than until end of turn effects.

Just like a oldschool dual land is strictly better than the tapped land versions.

So please explain... Why did solemnity go up from one dollar to ten (cad) at the beginning of April when these new counters first appeared?
Are you suggesting it was just coincidental, or perhaps because it inadvertently prevents Gideon Blackblade from entering with loyalty and he's the new sleeper card to fear?
Unlikely. It's my interpretation that enough players (and merchants) realized these new cards which place ability counters on creatures will be good, or at least potentially viable enough for formats like pioneer and commander, which in turn means the right answers for sideboards to be prepared for the eventuality of such increasingly more popular threats have to be taken into consideration. People started buying them, unsurprisingly, and they shot up.

Now I wonder aloud... Unlikely as it may be, if every white sideboard in pioneer eventually has one or more copies of solemnity specifically to deal with the rise of these new counters, could we truly say that Reflexes in that format is still strictly better than Fury? If you were stargazing on Theros and the gods asked you to chart every constellation in the known universe, would your task ever be complete?

Personally, I'm not so sure.

EDIT
@DudeFromDenmark: This is almost like asking "Why ever play creatures which deal normal damage from now on when counterparts with the same cmc have an attack bonus in the form of infect, first strike, double strike, trample, or lifelink?".

At the end of the day, it really comes down the players' goals in deck building and the flavor they want their decks to have.
Ultimately, your mistake is assuming that we're all "Spikes"; that we all play primarily to win, and as such only want to play the best (or contextually best) possible cards available (relative to the other cards in the formats they're legal in) for whichever archtypes we enjoy piloting, when in fact that may not even be the highest priority of the player (in fact for many, it isn't), who perhaps may not even have the budget for purchasing, or even physical access to every possibly card they might be better off with in lieu of a (more often than not) strictly worse variant; cards which they may even prefer because of their art, or some random unquantifiable nostalgic value related to its history of use or when it was first acquired.

Some examples of why a player may prefer kindled fury:
-their deck has a Kindle subtheme, runs sootstoke kindler, rekindled flame (+hand disruption), etc
-their deck has a Fury theme with embodiment of fury, cyclops of eternal fury, fury of the horde, akroma, angel of fury, etc
-their deck is Minotaur (or more specifically zombie minotaur) tribal.
-their deck is red/blue, and they prefer a card with blue in the art's color scheme to pump their Insectile Aberration (or whatever)
-their deck only contains cards with art by Craig J Spearing

Quote from Card Slinger J »

So unless quarantine laws are different in each state / province, ALL Local Game Store (LGS) owners are already breaking the law just for operating non-essential businesses. In other words they're not legally allowed to sell their products to customers with an online presence via e-commerce, mail deliveries, and curb-side pickup be damned. If they can't stay in business because the "stay at home" order tells them not to then they literally have no choice but to liquidate everything they have because they're no longer able to sell.

Then the question becomes how are they going to liquidate their inventory If they're not even allowed to physically enter their store? The product HAS to go somewhere. It can't just be sitting around collecting dust while they wait until they can open shop again just to pay off small business loans / rent they can't even owe to their landlord only for them to go bankrupt permanently. Since the U.S. Government can't even help fund these businesses with the loans necessary to pay off their landlord they're already screwed either way.

I would argue that gaming is critically essential (for mental health), as much as, if not more so than access to liquor stores which literally sell a harmful carcinogenic substance that only increases the odds of illness and premature death, and have remained open (at least in Canada) throughout this entire ordeal. Even SQDC (weed) stores in Quebec are classified as an "essential" service. How ironic for something which was illegal less than two years ago!

Case in point: Humanity is best defined by the games we play, and more accurately by how we play them.

Life is full of: players, competition, adversaries, teams, zones (each with their own sets of rules), cheaters, resources, trade, timing restrictions, winners, and losers.

In essence, gaming is in our nature, everywhere in society, and an integral part of our very existence.

To the untrained eye, the simple answer is you wouldn't, the same way you're unlikely to play raging goblin when legion loyalist exists.

However, is heightened reflexes strictly better? This is the metric you should use to accurately answer your question.
One could argue that if the opposing player has hex parasite or something similar in their deck, your target could easily lose it's first strike which would otherwise be retained by kindled fury albeit only (but at least) until the end of turn. With solemnity in play, your target would never even gain first trike to begin with.

A better example would be asking why anyone would or should play lance when cartouche of solidarity exists? (not only because the cartouche is strictly better...excluding artwork of course which is subjective, but also because it's legal in any format which allows lance)

Haven't seen a recent update about other platforms since late February, but if it's any consolation, I'm equally anxious to play Arena on Xbox One!
Suffice it to say that my (admittedly old) PC isn't meant for gaming and barely has the specs to run it even on low video settings.
It's quite a demanding piece of software!

Call it a hunch, but my gut tells me that in light of the Covid-19 situation, it's likely we'll soon see "virus" (and possibly "bacterium") as creature types in the not-too-distant future.

What do you guys think?

-Could infect return as a mechanic soon?
-Could our heroes, villains, and those caught in between be infected by something even more insidious and transmissible than phyrexian oil?
-Could they be shrunk down and forced to battle the infection (and each other) on a microscopic plane?
-Could the viruses and bacteria grow to previously unseen macroscopic or colossified proportions?
-Could an infection spread through nature and turn all forests to swamps?
-Could there be a new faction of healers, or perhaps a tribal lord which gives all clerics a vulnerability to viruses, bacteria, and creatures with infect (perhaps they receive double damage from said sources), but also gives them the ability to heal other creatures by tapping to removing infect (-1/-1 counters), or self-sacrificing to prevent damage from such sources until end of turn.

The card designs and narrative possibilities are endless!

Quote from Rezzahan »

Additionally, an ability that can work from the battlefield and doesn't explicitly state that it functions in/from another zone, functions only while the card is on the battlefield. So the Thaumaturge can only trigger while on the battlefield.

Thanks for clarifying.

I realize this is normally the case, but somehow thought that since it's returning to the field and there by the time the spell finishes resolving and distributing counters, perhaps it can "look back" to see that it was one of the creatures (or more accurately creature cards) which was targeted whilst in the grave

Cool, but unfortunate. Thanks.
If only "card" was in there... *sigh*
I was hoping those two could be best friends

Can Battlefield Thaumaturge reduce the cost of Call of the Death-Dweller by 2 or will it only work when targetting creatures already on the battlefield?

Also, if the thaumaturge is one of the creatures being returned and receives one or both counters, will heroic also trigger?

Wow, haven't seen punch-out tokens since the Duelist ones printed for Fallen Empires (which I still have)!

Quote from Max Rebo »

Christmas Land
t1: forest, elf
t2: island, kinnan, elf, elf
t3: 9 mana

Modern...
t1: forest, elf
t2: island, kinnan, mox amber, elf, elvish archdruid
t3: 13 mana
or:
t0: leyline
t1: forest, elf
t2: island, kinnan, mox amber, nissa, untap, swing, paradise druid/sylvan cryatid (good bodyguards for nissa)
t3: how much mana?!