Aww, all the posts I had made to contribute to this project are gone. Curse you, EU privacy policies!
Anyway, I have been testing Approach like we discussed: on the plus side, if you can cast it while Varina is out then you're more or less guaranteed to redraw it by the next turn, making it ridiculously easy to win off t. On the minus side, the card is really telephoned: your opponents will KNOW that you're planning to cast it next turn, and they'll keep a counter open for it. This means that you need to pack counters of your own in order to protect Approach... Which is both very mana intensive and problematic in terms of overall deck balance, as it forces you to lean more on the control-heavy, counter-reliant side, which is not what Varina should be doing. So yeah, all in all Approach was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Have you had any luck with it?
I agree with you when it comes to Dovin's characterization: on Kaladesh, he was perfectly neutral and conpletely focused on doing what, in his point of view, was the right thing. And that made him a fantastic foil for Tez and created and interesting dynamic with the Gatewatch in general, and with Chandra in particular. Making him a full-on bad guy who's best buds with Tez is a major mistake, as it takes away his most interesting characteristic.
I want in this so badly. As a fan of both D&D and Magic, I applaud you for coming up with such a cool idea.
That said, here's my attempt at a card that depicts foraging:
Quail Hunting1G
Instant
Destroy target creature with flying. Gain life equal to that creature's toughness. "Don't give me that look. I know you elves are vegetarian, but this is all the food we're gonna get, so eat up."
Your friend's assessment is correct, but he's forgetting one detail: he CANNOT activate an ability "onto the creature entering". He can activate it in response to Karador being CAST, but if he does that, the ability will resolve WHILE KARADOR STILL ISN'T ON THE FIELD, which would be pointless for obvious reasons. So he needs to wait for Karador to actually be on field... But if that happens, if Karador resolves, then you as the turn player have priority, and so you can declare that you're casting a creature from grave: your friend can then respond to that in order to kill Karador, but even if he does, the creature you declared as being cast from the grave will still get to resolve and come into play afterwards.
MtG is about psychology as much as it is about deckbuilding and luck of the draw: strategic misplays can and will decide games, and as such, getting the opponent frustrated so that they will make more such mistakes IS a legitimate wincon.
You need to learn to accept the fact that you're playing MtG for fun... And so are your opponents: but their definition of "fun" might be different from yours. No point of view is absolutely wrong or absolutely right, just accept that people who are different from you exist, and learn to optimize your playstyle so as to deal with them.
Think nothing of it, and do let us know how it goes. Honestly, your current deck is quite good in general, not just for kitchen table casual, when it comes to spells: unfortunately the land base is very much a non-optimized one, and so you will still incur the risk of cloggy hands... But within the confines of kitchen table casual that shouldn't be too much of a problem, or at least I hope so.
For the longest time, Phyrexian Tower and Phyrexian Altar had been this for me, thank God UM happened. Teferi, Temporal Archmage is a pain to find in my area (in general all cards from all precons are, because you won't find the precons themelves anywhere and those who did get them are playing the cards and won't sell them), which is a pity because he could be so good in my Aminatou Superfriends deck.
Gosh, all these elaborate arguments on the fine points of set design are so intimidating. I still have much to learn
Anyway, a thought I feel like contributing is this: taking a card, calling it crap, coming up with a stronger card and saying "I wish this was in that crap card's place" is not the same thing as IMPROVING that card. "Improving" means making it better at what it does: of course, the issue here is that our 4 mana bat doesn't really do much of anything... But then if you're gonna "improve" it, your goal should be making another card that doesn't do much of anything, but that can be more appealing/fun somehow. Taking a completely different card that is way better and saying "here, go with this instead" is not an improvement, it's a replacement.
Dovin has the advantage of being very good with complicated systems and used loopholes. Remember the episode of Futurama with the Central Beurocracy? That is the Azorious Guild, who cares about common sense when you are technically correct about the Laws.
I guess? But even so, being good at answering what is essentially a trivia quiz, even if you are indeed the best at it in all of recorded history, should not be grounds for being handed such an important position so easily.
Concerning the people who wonder who the next big villain will be: assuming Bolas really does bite it in WAR, my theory is that Tezzeret will claim that mantle. Remember, Dragon Ascendant is a trope, and Tezzeret has long been established as being The Starscream. Tez is now one with the Planar Bridge, right? And the Planar Bridge makes it possible to transport across planes beings that are undead/close to undead and not fully organic, right?
Doesn't "undead/close to undead and not fully organic" remind you of someone? Someone with whom, I hasten to add, Tez has already interacted in the past?
Am I crazy for not even considering this card for my Rakdos Standard deck? It's just that, when it comes to dealing damage on my turn, I'm already equipped quite well, so I'm honestly struggling to imagine a situation in which I would be happier to see this than Light Up the Stage. Honestly, Light Up is a card I'd run in 2000 copies if I could, and considering it and Risk Factor are my only noncreature 3 mana cards, I really cannot find a way to justify making room for this in a deck that already has the more versatile (on the account of being instants) Shock and Lightning Strike. In no way a bad card, just one that struggles to satisfy me in a deck that already has plenty of other cards I'd rather topdeck.
Is this a fair assessment, or should I look at it from a different perspective?
So, I'm going to ask straight away the question that is most important to me, as I really value you guys' opinion here. Even without telling you about the details of the (very simplistic, as that is not the main focus of this exercise) plot, and even without providing details on the flavor and reasoning behind each card, am I managing to get those across just with the names of the cards, their effects and, most importantly, the flavor texts?
Anyway, I have been testing Approach like we discussed: on the plus side, if you can cast it while Varina is out then you're more or less guaranteed to redraw it by the next turn, making it ridiculously easy to win off t. On the minus side, the card is really telephoned: your opponents will KNOW that you're planning to cast it next turn, and they'll keep a counter open for it. This means that you need to pack counters of your own in order to protect Approach... Which is both very mana intensive and problematic in terms of overall deck balance, as it forces you to lean more on the control-heavy, counter-reliant side, which is not what Varina should be doing. So yeah, all in all Approach was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Have you had any luck with it?
That said, here's my attempt at a card that depicts foraging:
Quail Hunting 1G
Instant
Destroy target creature with flying. Gain life equal to that creature's toughness.
"Don't give me that look. I know you elves are vegetarian, but this is all the food we're gonna get, so eat up."
You need to learn to accept the fact that you're playing MtG for fun... And so are your opponents: but their definition of "fun" might be different from yours. No point of view is absolutely wrong or absolutely right, just accept that people who are different from you exist, and learn to optimize your playstyle so as to deal with them.
Also:
You should play online, then.
... I'll see myself out.
Anyway, a thought I feel like contributing is this: taking a card, calling it crap, coming up with a stronger card and saying "I wish this was in that crap card's place" is not the same thing as IMPROVING that card. "Improving" means making it better at what it does: of course, the issue here is that our 4 mana bat doesn't really do much of anything... But then if you're gonna "improve" it, your goal should be making another card that doesn't do much of anything, but that can be more appealing/fun somehow. Taking a completely different card that is way better and saying "here, go with this instead" is not an improvement, it's a replacement.
I guess? But even so, being good at answering what is essentially a trivia quiz, even if you are indeed the best at it in all of recorded history, should not be grounds for being handed such an important position so easily.
Concerning the people who wonder who the next big villain will be: assuming Bolas really does bite it in WAR, my theory is that Tezzeret will claim that mantle. Remember, Dragon Ascendant is a trope, and Tezzeret has long been established as being The Starscream. Tez is now one with the Planar Bridge, right? And the Planar Bridge makes it possible to transport across planes beings that are undead/close to undead and not fully organic, right?
Doesn't "undead/close to undead and not fully organic" remind you of someone? Someone with whom, I hasten to add, Tez has already interacted in the past?
Is this a fair assessment, or should I look at it from a different perspective?