I'll take you up on this one by doing my favorite thing: Origin-like versions of non-Gatewatch planeswalkers!
Vraska, the pariah - 1BG
Legendary Creature - Gorgon Assassin
Deathtouch
Other creatures with Deathtouch you control get +0/+X, where X is //'s toughness.
Whenever a creature with Deathtouch you control deals combat damage to a creature or planeswalker, put a +1/+1 counter on //, then if there are 3 or more +1/+1 counters on her you may exile her, and if you do, return her to the battlefield transformed under her owner's control.
1/3
-------------------------------------------- Vraska, the punisher
Legendary Planeswalker - Vraska
+2: Creatures with Deathtouch you control are indestructible until your next upkeep.
-3: Destroy target permanent. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle their library
-8: You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature with Deathtouch you control deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game"
Starting loyalty 3
Next: a Wolf or Werewolf commander that can encourage actual tribal synergies!
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
Did you even read the original post from Sheldon?
I did, an I reiterate my question: talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
All this is fascinating, really, but you people are neglecting to talk about the most important aspect: even assuming that combos are as bad for the format as you're making them out to be, what would you actually DO about it? Ban them all? Good luck with that, the card pool is too vast to block ALL possible ways this format offers to get to combos, and with new cards designed every few months (and the devs making it clear that they have no interest in checking ALL CARDS EVER DESIGNED whenever they create a new one in order to make sure it doesn't combo with anything else) people will always find new ways to pull off "I drop this and I win" situations, simply because the alternative is to attack into 120 HPs (often protected by fort/stax/pure control strategies) wth a bunch of creatures, and quite frankly nobody's got time for that.
So yeah, my opinion is that combos are a necessary evil in that they're the fastest and most efficient way of breaking the board state of otherwise oppressive decks, while your opinion is that a mentality like mine is damaging for the format... But the point here is that neither opinion really matters, because no realistic solution can be adopted either way. Combos are a toxic way of combating decks/strategies that are arguably even more toxic: in order to get rid of all the toxicity, you'd need to ban half the card pool, and then people would probably still find ways to be toxic. If my experience in videogame development is teaching me anything, is that you should never underestimate the ability your playerbase has of finding new and exciting ways to be toxic.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
Question: why did you not consider Ob Nixilis Reignited for this? His ultimate gives you an emblem that hurts people when you draw. Yawgmoth likes to draw. Seems decent enough.
So, after LOTS of testing, this is a list I've put together that I feel quite comfortable with. Th idea is to just keep throwing stuff into the graveyard until I'm ready to lose to Bojuka Bog reanimate a two-creature win combo with Victimize or Living Death. The combos in question are Izoni+Craterhoof and Mike+Trike.
A card I really want to run, having recently acquired it, is Diabolic Intent, but I really don't know what to cut for it.
Nah, Teyo was never supposed to be the new face of the game. Making shields (even if they're cool geometrical glowy shields) and blocking things isn't the most exciting kind of power. From a marketing perspective, a woman with flames for hair is much more eye-catching.
Personally, since I tend to run into a similar problem with my dredge cards, the solution I'm considering is to just run a lot of Forbidden Alchemy/Frantic Search effects. Lotleth Troll could also be good.
You know what's funny? That in the OP you said "you might like Sidisi if you don't want this deck to depend too much on your commander", but I'm now considering her for the opposite reason: I have a full-on dredge deck that focuses entirely on self-milling and then reanimating a pair of creatures that can form an infinite combo (Mike+Trike, for example), and since it is a Golgari deck, I'm using Izoni as the commander... But while she's great for exploding once a combo is set in place, until then all she's doing is sitting in the command zone looking pretty. I'm not always going to draw a card capable of putting a dredger in my graveyard, so I wanted a commander capable of starting the self-milling chains, and Sidisi seems perfect for that with her effect.
So yeah, I'm currently in the process of expanding from Golgari to Sultai, the first important test coming up tomorrow (the hardest part, as usual, is fixing the mana base accordingly): as soon as I've locked a list I'm comfortable with, I'll post it here. I'd love to get your advice and feedback
Those are not bad points. Just for the sake of comparison I did try my hand at the Mardu version and came up with this, which does feel a lot more stable. Unearth is a card I had not considered, but it's actually pretty good in this deck: a part of m wants to cut Lightning Helix so as to run two Thoughtseize while maximizing Seasoned Pyromancer, but in multiple occasions during my testing the life gain has proved decisive.
The next step will be testing the Grixis variant again with the changes discussed so far, to see if it can actually measure up in terms of consistency: I might actually try a Jeskai version too, although losing hand control, revival AND Fatal Push seems like it would be, at least on paper, a very bad trade.
The reason why I immediately went for blue was the obvious (and awesome) interaction with Ancestral Vision, but I do see other colors having potential. Seasoned Pyromancer looks like it could have potential, but I honestly would not run this deck without Young Pyromancer, the fields the latter can create are just too good.
Random thought, but does anyone else get the feeling that Glint-Horn Buccaneer is from Dominaria? The coat matches Hurloon minotaurs and there is no record of native minotaurs on Ixalan (which isn't to say there are none, we only visited one continent in full and got a passing visit to a second).
The decoration on his horns and the fact that he lives on a ship might even be a reference to Tarngarth.
Even without wheels, Varina will cause me to discard a lot, and since I have many forms of reanimation, the creatures will of course be the primary candidates for discarding... And then some funny guy drops Bojuka Bog and I'm dead. With Reclamation I stand a chance at saving at least some of my key creatures. And even when I'm not faced with such extreme situations, being able to at least partially negate Varina's downside seems nice.
Minor note: the way you worded the description of this ability makes it clear that X is the difference between the printed cost and the cost you pay. As such, the "where X is the difference between the converted cost and the amount you paid" line in the description seems kinda redundant. Here's how I'd word it:
"Incompleat X - When you cast this creature, you may reduce its casting cost by up to X, and if you do, it enters the battlefield with that many -1/-1 counters on it."
I'll take you up on this one by doing my favorite thing: Origin-like versions of non-Gatewatch planeswalkers!
Vraska, the pariah - 1BG
Legendary Creature - Gorgon Assassin
Deathtouch
Other creatures with Deathtouch you control get +0/+X, where X is //'s toughness.
Whenever a creature with Deathtouch you control deals combat damage to a creature or planeswalker, put a +1/+1 counter on //, then if there are 3 or more +1/+1 counters on her you may exile her, and if you do, return her to the battlefield transformed under her owner's control.
1/3
--------------------------------------------
Vraska, the punisher
Legendary Planeswalker - Vraska
+2: Creatures with Deathtouch you control are indestructible until your next upkeep.
-3: Destroy target permanent. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle their library
-8: You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature with Deathtouch you control deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game"
Starting loyalty 3
Next: a Wolf or Werewolf commander that can encourage actual tribal synergies!
I did, an I reiterate my question: talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
So yeah, my opinion is that combos are a necessary evil in that they're the fastest and most efficient way of breaking the board state of otherwise oppressive decks, while your opinion is that a mentality like mine is damaging for the format... But the point here is that neither opinion really matters, because no realistic solution can be adopted either way. Combos are a toxic way of combating decks/strategies that are arguably even more toxic: in order to get rid of all the toxicity, you'd need to ban half the card pool, and then people would probably still find ways to be toxic. If my experience in videogame development is teaching me anything, is that you should never underestimate the ability your playerbase has of finding new and exciting ways to be toxic.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
lose to Bojuka Bogreanimate a two-creature win combo with Victimize or Living Death. The combos in question are Izoni+Craterhoof and Mike+Trike.A card I really want to run, having recently acquired it, is Diabolic Intent, but I really don't know what to cut for it.
*obligatory "hot chick" pun*
Personally, since I tend to run into a similar problem with my dredge cards, the solution I'm considering is to just run a lot of Forbidden Alchemy/Frantic Search effects. Lotleth Troll could also be good.
So yeah, I'm currently in the process of expanding from Golgari to Sultai, the first important test coming up tomorrow (the hardest part, as usual, is fixing the mana base accordingly): as soon as I've locked a list I'm comfortable with, I'll post it here. I'd love to get your advice and feedback
The next step will be testing the Grixis variant again with the changes discussed so far, to see if it can actually measure up in terms of consistency: I might actually try a Jeskai version too, although losing hand control, revival AND Fatal Push seems like it would be, at least on paper, a very bad trade.
Theory: it's neither. It's actually Angrath's plane!
"Incompleat X - When you cast this creature, you may reduce its casting cost by up to X, and if you do, it enters the battlefield with that many -1/-1 counters on it."