We had that in Return to Ravnica. It wasn't interesting either.
I was under the impression that the storyline for the block hyped up the dragon's maze as something that would drastically shift the concentration of power on the plane or like completely alter the balance of power on the plane from the guilds. Also there was also that business about the gateless movement and the amount of unrest on the plane that was ultimately ignored and didn't amount to anything once we got to the end of the block.
To me at least, it felt like they were weaving another plane shattering apocalypse scenario that would forever leave the plane changed, but then realized half way through that Ravnica, being: The City of Guilds, would be far less compelling as a setting if it didn't actually have guilds.
True, it's not as good for Kaalia, but the fact that it triggers on ETB and LTB makes it so much more abusable, and being able to exile rather than simply destroy is even better.
I'll second this. I always seem to come back to them.
Some cons, to be fair:
1) "NM" foils from older sets can be pretty cloudy and will always be curled. New (Standard) foils are typically NM.
2) Sometimes my envelope will contain a cash refund for a card that they weren't able to find, with no explanation. C'mon, folks, you have my email address. Let me know ahead of time.
3) The site itself is painful to use. Some sort of floating cart would be a significant improvement, or even a series of checkboxes so that I could add a number of items to my cart at once.
4) Photos would be nice.
However, their prices and selections are pretty tough to beat, and in the end that's what's important to me. I will definitely keep shopping there.
Point 2 just happened to me in the recent order I bought from them. I can't say that I'm dissatisfied since they did send cash in place of the card, but it would be nice to have some notification beforehand.
Alright that's it. Flash of inspiration. Global warming themed deck. Turning lands into islands to represent rising sea levels. This sounds amazingly awful.
In the past I've had a few local contacts that traveled extensively so they could source cards for me from their worldwide network. But I've since lost contact with them so I'm also trying to find an efficient way of acquiring foreign cards at not unreasonable costs. If you can find a good way please do let me know.
I don't fault people for not knowing certain words. But I do fault them if they refuse to change when corrected. Being wrong because of ignorance is one thing, but being willfully wrong is another thing entirely.
This comes up most often when I hear people mispronounce Garruk's name.
Using the stack has nothing to do with the ability to apply replacement effects or else the mine couldn't end up with counters because the replacement effect that puts them on there doesn't have time to act.
Well, it would have been fun to have you at my latest Judge Conference, then: in this thread, I'm simply saying what they taught me there.
After reading through that thread and the thread linked there, I believe I see where the point of confusion comes from.
If a game action were to do something, then it's not an effect and wouldn't be replaced by doubling season as in the case of words of wilding and the draw step.
In this case, we have a special action putting the land into play, but the special action doesn't do anything beyond that. It is the ability on the vivid lands that creates that replacement effect of them entering the battlefield with charge counters. So that effect should be replaced by doubling season.
Yeah, its almost as if they're making creatures that are just as powerful as other spells. How dare they!
The claim is that old spells were too powerful. That's fine, by all means reduce the power level of spells. But why would they then increase the power level of creatures to match the power level of the old spells. That simply creates a new imbalance.
As the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. If spells are overpowered and creatures are underpowered, then lower the power level of spells by a bit and raise the power level of creatures by a bit until a happy medium is reached. By simply switching the roles, they are making the same mistake with the roles reversed. This is quite disappointing as it shows that they haven't learned from their mistakes after making magic for 20 years.
To use the pendulum analogy that they love to throw at us. If the pendulum swinging to one extreme was undesirable, why would the pendulum swinging to the same extreme on the other side be desirable?
Honestly I don't get why people bring up the lands thing so much. How often is he actually hitting lands in your games? Shouldn't be often. Unless they just don't have a different non-creature permanent, the choice is to usually hit something else (barring 'problem lands')
It's because players play efficiently, and with the heavy trend of playing lots of etb creatures and then reusing them for additional value, abusing SP is probably the most efficient way of advancing your board while hindering everyone else. As always doing something once isn't the problem, it's the ease and occurrence of doing it over and over again.
One other thing to consider is exactly how many noncreature permanents can you expect a player to have out at any one time. I'd wager a good portion of nonland noncreature permanents are mana rocks. Blowing those up is akin to blowing up land. Besides that, having too much stuff out is definitely a negative most of the time since it makes you a target and vulnerable to mass removal. So after 2-3 SP triggers, the next ones could easily start hitting lands.
Ramping is a great deal of what makes SP powerful. Having a creature is nice, and destroying permanents is powerful, but ramping is what leads to crazy board states. The cards I listed do this more efficiently. Yes some of them are symmetrical, but if your deck is built around ramping they should help you far more than the rest of the table. If SP didn't ramp I don't think we would be having a conversation about banning it right now.
That's not entirely true. Even if he didn't ramp, being able to destroy noncreature permanents is somewhat problematic. Actually, the real problem is that sylvan primordial can destroy lands. If he could only hit nonland noncreature permanents and didn't ramp, then I would agree that he's not a problem. But as he is printed, it's not unfair to call him a fusion of sundering titan and primeval titan. He has problematic elements reminiscent of both of those cards so it's definitely fair to be wary of him.
As a card, SP is a threat, an answer, ramp, and card advantage. That means when his presence in a deck allows the deck builder to forgo on including other cards that fulfill those roles. It's extremely versatile and not in the traditional sense of versatility of the modal cards. SP is all of those things at the same time.
I was under the impression that the storyline for the block hyped up the dragon's maze as something that would drastically shift the concentration of power on the plane or like completely alter the balance of power on the plane from the guilds. Also there was also that business about the gateless movement and the amount of unrest on the plane that was ultimately ignored and didn't amount to anything once we got to the end of the block.
To me at least, it felt like they were weaving another plane shattering apocalypse scenario that would forever leave the plane changed, but then realized half way through that Ravnica, being: The City of Guilds, would be far less compelling as a setting if it didn't actually have guilds.
Yes.
Point 2 just happened to me in the recent order I bought from them. I can't say that I'm dissatisfied since they did send cash in place of the card, but it would be nice to have some notification beforehand.
This deck has to happen now.
Being in the US, the availability would naturally be extremely low. Do the foreign cards have a similar level of scarcity in their respective regions?
This comes up most often when I hear people mispronounce Garruk's name.
After reading through that thread and the thread linked there, I believe I see where the point of confusion comes from.
If a game action were to do something, then it's not an effect and wouldn't be replaced by doubling season as in the case of words of wilding and the draw step.
In this case, we have a special action putting the land into play, but the special action doesn't do anything beyond that. It is the ability on the vivid lands that creates that replacement effect of them entering the battlefield with charge counters. So that effect should be replaced by doubling season.
The claim is that old spells were too powerful. That's fine, by all means reduce the power level of spells. But why would they then increase the power level of creatures to match the power level of the old spells. That simply creates a new imbalance.
As the old saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right. If spells are overpowered and creatures are underpowered, then lower the power level of spells by a bit and raise the power level of creatures by a bit until a happy medium is reached. By simply switching the roles, they are making the same mistake with the roles reversed. This is quite disappointing as it shows that they haven't learned from their mistakes after making magic for 20 years.
To use the pendulum analogy that they love to throw at us. If the pendulum swinging to one extreme was undesirable, why would the pendulum swinging to the same extreme on the other side be desirable?
It's because players play efficiently, and with the heavy trend of playing lots of etb creatures and then reusing them for additional value, abusing SP is probably the most efficient way of advancing your board while hindering everyone else. As always doing something once isn't the problem, it's the ease and occurrence of doing it over and over again.
One other thing to consider is exactly how many noncreature permanents can you expect a player to have out at any one time. I'd wager a good portion of nonland noncreature permanents are mana rocks. Blowing those up is akin to blowing up land. Besides that, having too much stuff out is definitely a negative most of the time since it makes you a target and vulnerable to mass removal. So after 2-3 SP triggers, the next ones could easily start hitting lands.
That's not entirely true. Even if he didn't ramp, being able to destroy noncreature permanents is somewhat problematic. Actually, the real problem is that sylvan primordial can destroy lands. If he could only hit nonland noncreature permanents and didn't ramp, then I would agree that he's not a problem. But as he is printed, it's not unfair to call him a fusion of sundering titan and primeval titan. He has problematic elements reminiscent of both of those cards so it's definitely fair to be wary of him.
As a card, SP is a threat, an answer, ramp, and card advantage. That means when his presence in a deck allows the deck builder to forgo on including other cards that fulfill those roles. It's extremely versatile and not in the traditional sense of versatility of the modal cards. SP is all of those things at the same time.