MTG Salvation

I kinda like this, mainly as a way to get my friends who still seem overwhelmed when I’ve invited them to draft (or make a sealed deck) to get use to the idea of opening a pack and making a deck.

Basically they don’t have to do on the spot judgements on card quality or keep track of mana curve and creature/spell ratios. While to most people those things is what drafting is about, there is something to be said in getting new players use to playing limited decks with brand new cards without the complications of deck construction.

I’ve seen a lot of new players draft, then go 0-3 in matches and blame themselves for how they built their deck. While their deck construction ability is partially to blame a lot of their losses are also due to making bad decisions while they played. In essence I think there is a tendency for new players to learn less from their mistakes when playing after drafting if they decide to place all of the blame on their own deck construction rather than their gameplay.

I normally am really good on rules interactions, but this one stumped me and everyone else at the table last night. I was about to cast Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, my friends new this because I got lucky when sacrificing Haunted Fengraf and Elesh was the random card return to my hand. One of my friends had Vesuvan Shapeshifter face down on their side of the table, which also was known info.


What we couldn’t figure out is if he could turn the shapeshifter face up to copy Elesh Norn before Norn’s -2/-2 killed it and most of his morph creatures. My gut tells me he could not do that, because Norn’s ability is a static ability and therefore is a state based action, but turning morph creatures face up doesn’t use the stack and the shapeshifter’s ability isn’t a trigger, it just turns face up as whatever it’s copying.


So what happens here? Does my opponent get to copy Norn or does the face down shapeshifter die before it can turn face up (it was a 2/2 with no toughness pumping static effects on his side of the board)?

My Zurgo Helmsmasher deck doesn’t mind this, a cantripping wrath seems great actually, but I agree that it’s rather a niche use case when it comes to indestructible Voltron commander decks.

White commander decks that are good at rebuilding board presence faster than opponents might also use this, such as my Bruna, the Fading Light deck which likes waiting on casting Bruna until after a board wipe and grabbing Emeria Shepherd or Reya Dawnbringer from the graveyard (that is if Gisela, the Broken Blade or Avacyn, Angel of Hope haven’t been found yet).

Funny that Elspeth Conquers Death‘s first chapter can actually exile lands, but only lands with a CMC of 3 or greater. So in a format like EDH it could possibly answer a transformed Growing Rites of Itlimoc/Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun and other Ixalan block transform lands, so long as their cmc is 3 or greater.

While I had realized would be extremely unlikely that Theros Beyond Death would make new versions of all the gods from the first Theros block, part of me still hoped that would be the case. Now that it’s clear this won’t be happening I’m moving my hopes to Commander Legends, I really wish WOTC will complete the new cycle of Theros Beyond Death gods in this product by printing new versions of the 8 multicolored gods that were left out.

Quote from AnImAr_ »

Sol Ring becomes juiced Basalt Monolith. Basalt Monolith ramps out an Eldrazi by itself. Nyx Lotus becomes stupid.

Basalt Monolith and Grim Monolith go infinite with this since it makes them produce 9 colorless, 3 (or 4) of which can be used immediately to untap them.

These titans are going to be fun with Rhythm of the Wild for uncounterable casting and haste when they escape to get ETB & attack triggers in the same turn.

Quote from Crispen_Smith »

It seems weird that the other members of the cycle are enchantment creatures and the blue entry is not. He also doesn't have an enchantment related ability. So, while he does fit in terms of name there are lots of legends of the <name>, the <ominous thing> variety. I'm on the fence for now.

I’m guessing he’s not an enchantment because of the limited amount of space available in the card type line, WOTC must have decided making him an Elemental Giant was worth him not being able to also be an enchantment. There is a giants matter card in Eldraine (and probably more to come in Ikoria) and there is the Elementals matter theme of M20. He could also could not be an enchantment simply because they wanted to limit the amount of ways people can trigger constellation at instant speed.

Some cards I haven’t seen mentioned yet with this card are Agent of Treachery and Into the Story. Agent can be cast on curve the turn after Thryx and be uncounterable, and if your opponent had 7 or more cards in their graveyard Into the Story is an instant speed, uncounterable pay 1UU to draw four cards with Thryx in play.

This can counter all of the Eldrazi titans except Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and even with the original Emrakul it still counters the “take an extra turn” ability unless they pay 4. Seems super strong at first glance and forces your opponent in standard playing Hydroid Krasis to either have a counter for this or leave 8 mana open (or 4 mana if they want to pick between the ability or creature half of the Krasis). It almost makes Gadwick, the Wizened the better creature draw spell in some respects if you think your opponent has this counter, since Gadwick’s draw is an ETB and does not go on the stack at the same time you cast him.

This feels like it could have some place in a pioneer bogles deck, sure the 3 cmc is a top end thing, but it’s nice that it acts like an aura that provides it’s own creature should another threat be required (though it’s unprotected) and it draws cards.

Quote from knto »

Quote from Ryperior74 »

This was one of the leaked cards from earlier still incrediable to see a card with the permanent exile bounce trick

They do this with all the exile target spell effects. I don't think they were able to get the wording to work where it wasn't confusing. Imagine if it said exile target spell until X leaves the battlefield. Is the spell recast? How does it get back on the stack? Do permanents go to the battlefield? What about instants and sorceries? Is this like when you exile a manifested instant/sorcery? Basically it would require a lot of specific rulings for a corner case that generally won't come up at low level play.

They did the recast thing without a problem on Spell Queller. I’m guessing the main reason why it returns the spell to the owner’s hand rather than letting the person cast it for free is that it would become way too abusable with Teferi, Time Raveler, since he could bounce the enchantment to reuse again and his static ability would completely stop people from casting that spell again if the card was worded like queller.

Quote from Flamebuster »

Really? They put a Soldevi Machinist/Vedalken Engineer onto a legendary permanent? Really?



'buster

Don’t forget about Renown Weaponsmith which is currently in standard. Having two of these effects might be interesting especially if we see a tutor reprint of some kind like Open the Armory or Steelshaper’s Gift. I’d also mention Stoneforge Mystic, but M20 rotates before the fall Zendikar set.

This is a neat card for Heroic decks. While the auras re-entering don’t trigger heroic since they’re not spells that are being cast (and also they don’t target), that doesn’t really matter if what the deck wants to return is Ordeal of Heliod and/or Ordeal of Thassa and attach them to creatures with multiple +1/+1 counters already on them to get additional value out of the odeals sacrifice triggers.

It’s Narrower than breach since it only brings in red and artifact creatures, but hard to answer once on the battlefield.

Feels similar to Bedlam Reveler in some ways, in that the decks that want this are most likely only going to pay for the escape cost and not it’s normal casting cost. Maybe mono red Arclight Phoenix in standard might want one or two copies of this as extra discard fodder.