Quick question, I control two Tribute to the World Tree. If a 1/1 creature enters the battlefield under my control, the first resolving trigger will give it two +1/+1 counters, and the second will draw me a card, because its power is now 3 or greater, correct?
Am I the only one who wishes it was six damage instead, just because f@#k Oko, Thief of Crowns? Like I know he's banned basically everywhere, but I feel he still deserves the hate lol.
Unfortunately not. Now if the damage boost had been written as two separate abilities, one of which pumps red sources and the other pumping artifact sources, the Goldhound *would* indeed deal 3 damage, so that is something to keep in mind for the future.
I love that the goblin counts the number of artifacts all your opponents control, not just the player you're attacking. I can't wait to be one shot by this stupid card because some idiot decided they wanted to have a smothering tithe in play LOL
The fact that this is fetchable with Urza's Saga is HUGE in older formats. Up until now, the only way you could answer your opponents Saga with your own was to tutor a Pithing Needle, which yes, does work, but it also locks you out of your own future Sagas. It also exiles, which means it can take out indestructible artifact lands and things like Kaldra, Compleat. Just a very, very solid card that will absolutely see play in multiple formats most likely.
If the Toxic keyword works as (I think most) people believe (in that it's basically "when this creature deals combat damage to a player they get X poison counters" or similar), I think it will make draft a lot more enjoyable than New Phyrexia with the actual Infect mechanic.
I remember one of the problems with infect in draft was simply the fact that it's draft. You aren't going to be getting to draft nothing but infect creatures, meaning half of your creatures deal regular damage and half of them deal poison, so you end up with the "I've done 26 damage to my opponent this game, but it was 17 regular and 9 infect" that just felt awful. If all the creatures that give poison counters ALSO do regular damage when they hit players, I think it's a huge step up, at least in limited.
Well that's certainly *one* way to make a Gruul legend that makes your creatures effectively unblockable in a lot of situations. I mean, when you opponent needs to have 4/4s just to trade with your Saproling tokens, they probably are just never going to block unless they are about to lose the game lol.
New Braids seems great. Stats are reasonable for the cost, and the ability triggering during your endstep means it can do something right away. Now you do need to build around it a little by having cards you actively want to sacrifice (like a Doomed Traveller-style card), so that while you might not always get the specific two for one you want, you still get one regardless of your opponents choice.
The other, and I think more interesting way to build with new Braids, at least in 60 card formats, is to build it with the idea that your opponent *won't* be able to sacrifice anything, so you'll always deal 2 and draw a card. Think stuff like Blood Tokens or, even though they are rotating out of standard, the Omen cycle from Theros. There are plenty of decks that either have no enchantments/artifacts in them, or very few, and if you do something like turn two Omen of the Forge, turn three Braids, sac the Omen, you're almost always going to deal 2 and draw a card.
Oh hi, Kalitas, we've missed you in standard. 4 mana, 3/4 body with a keyword ability, makes creature tokens when opposing creatures die (in this case only 1/1s, but it also triggers off of token creatures dying now), and can say the tokens it makes to pump itself and also draw cards. Yea, Kalitas was great, and this card seems great. It's notably much less good against very aggressive decks, as it doesn't have lifelink, but it is better in most every other style matchup. Notably, being able to cash in the tokens for cards is a very very nice upside, effectively letting all your removal spells cantrip as the game goes long.
I really hope we get some phyrexian action on Innistrad. We need to know which corruption is stronger, that of the phyrexians, or that of Emrakul, an eldrazi titan. My money is on Emrakul, but it would be great to see the two sides fighting each other, sort of like in the old Godzilla movies when you had like Godzilla versus Mothra. Although, I can also see it being likely that with Tamiyo being compleated and her intimate knowledge of what's in the moon, the phyrexians just kinda don't go there because they don't want to deal with that lol
Ok, this is a little bit of a weird one, so bear with me. Player A is executing the Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead loop, and has as other relevant permanents being flickered an Altar of the Brood and an Island, so they have both an arbitrary amount of mill triggers and blue mana. They also have an Ancestral Recall in hand that they plan to break the loop with targeting their opponent once their library is empty to win the game. However, unbeknownst to them, Player B has one copy of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn in their deck.
Now for the actual question. Under what circumstances can Player A win the game with the Ancestral Recall? Obviously, if Player B is getting milled out for the first time and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is in the bottom 3 cards of their library, player A can just cast Ancestral Recall targeting player B with the shuffle trigger on the stack and win the game. But, in any other library configuration, the shuffle trigger will resolve, effectively resetting the game state to the beginning of the mill loop. At what point of this loop does the game become a draw (unless someone elects to take a voluntary action, like Player A casting the Ancestral Recall on themselves to try and find another way to break the loop?
Seems like it could be a solid role-player in a standard Naya tokens deck (if one emerges). The fact that the same card can either be a kill spell or wincon if you've established a big enough board of creatures while at the same time having the backup mode of making 2 tokens if your board *isn't* wide enough seems pretty good. In my experience you should never undervalue cards that are both enablers and payoffs for a strategy, as they tend to over perform by helping reduce the "wrong half of the deck" problem.
I really hope a lot of these sagas are good in standard. Less because of how cool they are (or not), but more because the midrange decks that these sagas support keep getting squeezed out of standard formats by the combo of agro and decks that go way over the top. So if these sagas are good, then that means midrange is probably good.
So a new commander who breaks most every spell that has an x value determined by number of targets or has a high base generic mana cost but lots of targets in Jeskai colors...interesting?
I remember one of the problems with infect in draft was simply the fact that it's draft. You aren't going to be getting to draft nothing but infect creatures, meaning half of your creatures deal regular damage and half of them deal poison, so you end up with the "I've done 26 damage to my opponent this game, but it was 17 regular and 9 infect" that just felt awful. If all the creatures that give poison counters ALSO do regular damage when they hit players, I think it's a huge step up, at least in limited.
The other, and I think more interesting way to build with new Braids, at least in 60 card formats, is to build it with the idea that your opponent *won't* be able to sacrifice anything, so you'll always deal 2 and draw a card. Think stuff like Blood Tokens or, even though they are rotating out of standard, the Omen cycle from Theros. There are plenty of decks that either have no enchantments/artifacts in them, or very few, and if you do something like turn two Omen of the Forge, turn three Braids, sac the Omen, you're almost always going to deal 2 and draw a card.
Now for the actual question. Under what circumstances can Player A win the game with the Ancestral Recall? Obviously, if Player B is getting milled out for the first time and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is in the bottom 3 cards of their library, player A can just cast Ancestral Recall targeting player B with the shuffle trigger on the stack and win the game. But, in any other library configuration, the shuffle trigger will resolve, effectively resetting the game state to the beginning of the mill loop. At what point of this loop does the game become a draw (unless someone elects to take a voluntary action, like Player A casting the Ancestral Recall on themselves to try and find another way to break the loop?