This seems very average to me. I feel like this had to be 3 mana to make any real waves. At 4 mana it's an EDH card as the effects are simply too slow to come online and the stats are too average to make up for it.
The logic is that that's your answer as you explained it. the Bolt SL drops on the 4th, the Birds SL drops on the 5th. Spoilers begin on the 4th. So the timing works out.
If bolt and birds are in the set, they'll be spoilerized on the 4th and 5th respectively. If they arent spoilerized then, then it is a fairly safe bet they're not in the set.
Or maybe not so safe, because you can get the superdrop until the 15th. It would certainly match Hazbrodian logic to try to sell something for $30, and if that doesn't work try to sell it again for $170.
You can argue it the other way, too, though: wait for the Super Drop completely finish before so people who need those cards spend the premium mark-up before revealing they'll be in $4 boosters next month. Personally I think that was one of Maro's "tricks" though, as Llanowar Elves, Unsummon and Giant Growth also fit his teaser.
I do agree to keep anticpations low
By the way another example not to get your hopes up counterspell fits too and they would never gift that spell for modern players
Counterspell isn't really too good for modern. It wins on versatility, but most the decks it's good against there is already a better counterspell in Modern for. The question would be more about printing it into standard, which hasn't happened for pretty much 20 years now, it wouldn't surprise me if it one day happens, but for now it seems unlikely as it doesn't seem the direction they are currently taking with regard to how they wish Magic to be played. A lot of the reasons used against Lightning Bolt are true of Counterspell too, in a format with Counterspell, like all the 3 mana with boon counterspells they print become unplayable basically. WOTC seems to have the opinion they don't want counter magic to be good because they don't think it's fun to play against, and that's probably the main reason I can't see it in Core Set 2021.
Unless Maro is being very loose with "tournament played" there really isn't much on that list that would be an interesting reprint. Most the other playable stuff is either printed all the time like Negate or just no chance it's getting reprinted like Dark Ritual. You could maybe buy Wrath of God if it wasn't for the regeneration clause. You also have a feeling like this Core Set will be used to put cards into Pioneer that they want in the format, from that point of view Birds and Bolt probably make most sense.
I am also feeling Azusa for the Human Monk. The prowess cards make no sense unless prowess is otherwise in the set. The only thing slightly putting this down is that then this would feel a really pushed Core set, but then again Core sets normally sell relatively poorly so maybe you have put to push it hard to sell it.
By what definition is Lightning Bolt broken, it has been banned to my knowledge. Its not even been format warping for decades, it's just a staple in the formats it's legal in like many cards.
One thing I do wonder though is obviously the set was printed when Obosh, the Preypiercer wasn't meant to be nerfed, would they really print it with such an insane obvious interaction out of the gates, but then who knows what the play design team see recently given the past year.
This seems a huge mistake to me. Why they didn't just ban the problem companions is beyond me. Not only is this a huge headache in adding text to the card that does not exist it renders most the companions completely unplayable so is completely pointless. Decks aren't going to pay 7 mana for Umori or 8 mana for Obosh even over 2 turns. And ironically what you're left with is the companion this least effects is Yorion which they may still dominate as a result, so what's the point? They'd have been way better off just banning Yorion and the other problem companions.
This "fix" just ends up annoying casual players/decks everywhere that they can't play the cards as intended, nerfing the flagship mechanic of the last set to the point it's virtually unplayable even in casual. Stuff like this causes a huge hit in consumer confidence, how can you get excited about the new flashy mechanic if they can just nerf it to oblivion a month later?
Lightning Bolt would see lots of play in pioneer in red decks, but let's not pretend it would break the format. A lot of the current top decks it does very little against. Creatures are getting more efficient all the time, and the more efficient creatures get the weaker an effect like Lightning Bolt gets.
Looking into the cards that have 20+ reprints with 5+ different arts I almost feel like the reprints have to be Birds of Paradise and Lightning Bolt. Here's the list:
Presuming it's a reprint of note and not something like Duress that's in every other set, what else can the 2 reprints really be? The only tournament playable cards on this list that haven't been printed in a standard set in a while that they would actually print into standard seems like Birds and Bolt to me.
• A card that gains all activated abilities of a certain subset of cards in a place it’s never done it before.
Graveyard and exile’s been done, almost certainly not going to be the command zone in a standard legal set, I’d say the library sounds tedious but anything is possible after companions, and on the battlefield is not only boring but has questionable value. I can’t think of another zone with open information, so maybe play with your hand or SB revealed and gain those activated abilities?
There is absolutely no way they print True-Name Nemesis into standard. They have done some crazy things in recent times, but this would take the biscuit, printing a card that is miserable to play against. It would be even more crazy to print this with an apparent set with Birds of Paradise, but it's not happening.
No matter how powerful companions are, and I think the mechanic was a mistake, I think flat out changing the mechanic drastically from how it's worded on the card is not the answer and sets a dangerous precedent that they can just print anything and it it's too powerful errata it later. This is especially true when a lot of people haven't even played with the cards yet, if you don't play online you probably haven't played with a companion once yet.
I feel like there are way too many casual players around the world on kitchen tables for you to just say a few weeks after a set release, you know that flagship mechanic we just printed, well it no longer works the way it says on the card it works like this. It will cause major headaches at LGS level (albeit they aren't really open right now) and just isn't intuitive to making the game accessible.
One of the other things is also I feel that a lot of the theoretical fixes to the mechanic just make most of them completely unplayable in most cases. Which of the companions would actually see play if the companion mechanic wasn't on the card. Many of them are 5 mana plays which rarely make major waves in competitive. Lurrus would probably be good enough in older formats where you could play something immediately for value, but it's already banned there. At that point it's not worth the hassle if your errata just means they don't see any play anymore.
As crazy an idea as I think companions were, I think it would be even more crazy to errata the mechanic 2 weeks after the set released in paper.
I will point out that the Mox Opal seems odd. These lists were emailed out as early as February but the Mox was banned in Modern (it’s primary home, to my knowledge) in January.
I’m wondering if we should take that as a sign of an impending un-ban (as with JTMS in eternal masters) but that would imply that wizards started planning to unban the card one month after they banned it... which would be all kinds of weird.
My best guess was that the list was taken from early planning from the set and that Mox has since been replaced with something else. Will be kind of funky otherwise.
They will finalise the set way earlier than January, probably like a year before release, at that time Mox Opal seemed in desperate need of a reprint.
I would say that leak seems very likely to be true. If you look at the number crunch between Blightsteel Colossus and Mana Crypt there are a huge number of artifacts in this set for a masters set. With that in mind you get the feeling Metalcraft is probably one of the supported mechanics for limited. With the double theme in mind I'm also strong expecting Chrome Mox to be in the set, as it's another one that's been creeping up for ages in need of a reprint, plus what other Mox can they realistically reprint?
I'm actually kind of curious, there looks to be around 80 artifacts in this set, what other big hitters are there primed for a reprint? You are probably looking at some of the Swords, Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, Aether Vial, Mishra's Bauble being in this set with that number of artifacts.
Will be a staple in EDH for sure as it works so well with so many mana rocks. Whether it sees any play is to be seen, I never had Leyline of Abundance down as busted, but turned out it was in the right shell. This does actually cost mana though as opposed to Leyline starting in play, and dies to pretty much everything. I would lean towards it doing nothing as I can't see it being more powerful than the Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath shells that already exist, but the effect has the potential to be very powerful.
This is the best of the spoiled companions by far. It's the cheapest and has the least restrictive deck building to boot. Expect this to see play at least far back to Modern, it may even creep into Legacy if there's a deck it fits in. In older formats you can basically have 8 cards in your hand to start the game with no deck restriction at all and then be able to immediately gain card advantage replaying a fetchland off its ability, that is super strong.
Was long overdue powering up the commons. I never fully bought into this idea of these types of cards being too powerful at common for limited. A powered up format does not = a less enjoyable limited format, and taking away the power from commons has both contributed to deck prices going up and making pack opening less worthwhile and fun when you will never use most of the cards in a pack ever.
Counterspell isn't really too good for modern. It wins on versatility, but most the decks it's good against there is already a better counterspell in Modern for. The question would be more about printing it into standard, which hasn't happened for pretty much 20 years now, it wouldn't surprise me if it one day happens, but for now it seems unlikely as it doesn't seem the direction they are currently taking with regard to how they wish Magic to be played. A lot of the reasons used against Lightning Bolt are true of Counterspell too, in a format with Counterspell, like all the 3 mana with boon counterspells they print become unplayable basically. WOTC seems to have the opinion they don't want counter magic to be good because they don't think it's fun to play against, and that's probably the main reason I can't see it in Core Set 2021.
I am also feeling Azusa for the Human Monk. The prowess cards make no sense unless prowess is otherwise in the set. The only thing slightly putting this down is that then this would feel a really pushed Core set, but then again Core sets normally sell relatively poorly so maybe you have put to push it hard to sell it.
One thing I do wonder though is obviously the set was printed when Obosh, the Preypiercer wasn't meant to be nerfed, would they really print it with such an insane obvious interaction out of the gates, but then who knows what the play design team see recently given the past year.
This "fix" just ends up annoying casual players/decks everywhere that they can't play the cards as intended, nerfing the flagship mechanic of the last set to the point it's virtually unplayable even in casual. Stuff like this causes a huge hit in consumer confidence, how can you get excited about the new flashy mechanic if they can just nerf it to oblivion a month later?
Pacifism
Rampant Growth
Naturalize
Llanowar Elves
Giant Spider
Giant Growth
Fog
Birds of Paradise
Shock
Shatter
Lightning Bolt
Mind Rot
Gravedigger
Duress
Dark Ritual
Negate
Counterspell
Cancel
Disenchant
Air Elemental
Serra Angel
Armageddon
Wrath of God
Stone Rain
Presuming it's a reprint of note and not something like Duress that's in every other set, what else can the 2 reprints really be? The only tournament playable cards on this list that haven't been printed in a standard set in a while that they would actually print into standard seems like Birds and Bolt to me.
There is absolutely no way they print True-Name Nemesis into standard. They have done some crazy things in recent times, but this would take the biscuit, printing a card that is miserable to play against. It would be even more crazy to print this with an apparent set with Birds of Paradise, but it's not happening.
I feel like there are way too many casual players around the world on kitchen tables for you to just say a few weeks after a set release, you know that flagship mechanic we just printed, well it no longer works the way it says on the card it works like this. It will cause major headaches at LGS level (albeit they aren't really open right now) and just isn't intuitive to making the game accessible.
One of the other things is also I feel that a lot of the theoretical fixes to the mechanic just make most of them completely unplayable in most cases. Which of the companions would actually see play if the companion mechanic wasn't on the card. Many of them are 5 mana plays which rarely make major waves in competitive. Lurrus would probably be good enough in older formats where you could play something immediately for value, but it's already banned there. At that point it's not worth the hassle if your errata just means they don't see any play anymore.
As crazy an idea as I think companions were, I think it would be even more crazy to errata the mechanic 2 weeks after the set released in paper.
They will finalise the set way earlier than January, probably like a year before release, at that time Mox Opal seemed in desperate need of a reprint.
I would say that leak seems very likely to be true. If you look at the number crunch between Blightsteel Colossus and Mana Crypt there are a huge number of artifacts in this set for a masters set. With that in mind you get the feeling Metalcraft is probably one of the supported mechanics for limited. With the double theme in mind I'm also strong expecting Chrome Mox to be in the set, as it's another one that's been creeping up for ages in need of a reprint, plus what other Mox can they realistically reprint?
I'm actually kind of curious, there looks to be around 80 artifacts in this set, what other big hitters are there primed for a reprint? You are probably looking at some of the Swords, Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, Aether Vial, Mishra's Bauble being in this set with that number of artifacts.