Calling someone a racist for disliking the publication of content from a company which has historically used "charity" as a predatory approach to raise money, is a bit comical.
Anyways. i might actually buy this SL and I hate SL products to date. Really dig this.
Very interesting set. Not much I am personally interested in, but that is fairly common these days. Will likely try out Usher of the Fallen and Immersturm Predator
There are a lot of snow matter cards that you can center a theme around for lower powered cubes to build an archetype around... to say otherwise, kind of suggests you are a cube owner not particularly a cube designer.
As for just changing your basics to snow basics, I don't have an issue with that. But even then, these cards don't cut the mustard for most average Cubes.
I don't know what you are meaning by the difference between cube owner and designer. I assume that everyone who has a cube, does modifications on their own which makes every cube owner a designer. I highly doubt that people copy a cube online and leave it like that forever.
Owning a Cube, evaluating a card, and making a cut - isn't the same as curating an entire environment for you Cube to provide players. My intention was not to sound condescending (I apologize if that is how it came across), but merely say that the two are different processes entirely.
The snow matters theme only works for low-low power, you are right. This is the reason why it is not interesting for standard nonpower vintage cube, which
is still the most popular cube. Of course, you can also include Snowbasics in your draft picks, but that is obviously no option for standard nonpower vintage cube. In addition, some Snow cards are way to powerful for midpower cube, like Icefang Coatl, Astrolabe, Dead of Winter, Skred, etc. even Blood on the Snow (of course unless you don't play Snowbasics instead of basics).
I don't really have anything to say on this bit, I think you and I are in agreement here.
It is pretty clear that you just play Snow basics if you want to play Snow cards in vintage cube and that you will have to do something more elaborate if you want a real snow theme which would imply drafting Snowlands because it is pointless otherwise.
You initially stated that "Snow is not really a theme". My counter argument is that, it is should you actually want to play snow cards and ultimately a lower powered Cube. The premise being that no snow card is individually good enough to be anything more than a fringe card in world where vintage cubes are the standard.
Less cards means more streamlined and more super competitive decks. "Subpar" cards are more than just filler. They represent the surprise factor in edh where your "subpar" cards ended up winning the game or made the game more interesting.
This is a pretty important aspect to discuss. I think a lot of people get so upset that Commander is becoming a less casual format, and I think that is true to some extent. It people want to preserve the casual nature of the format as much as possible, reducing deck size isn't the way to do it.
There are a lot of snow matter cards that you can center a theme around for lower powered cubes to build an archetype around... to say otherwise, kind of suggests you are a cube owner not particularly a cube designer.
As for just changing your basics to snow basics, I don't have an issue with that. But even then, these cards don't cut the mustard for most average Cubes.
I would rather be able to get counters out of any creature and not just humans, but eh. I also enjoy the utility that comes with this dragon that Aristocrat does not have.
I don't think these cards are really all that good for most Cubes. As always, I welcome strong themes for lower powered Cubes that can be more interesting than your average Cube, but otherwise I think that is all these cards offer so far... unfortunately.
This account smells like a MTG designer casually explaining to everyone why the snow mechanic wouldn't be in the set... lol
I wish! I would love to be a professional game designer. I'm just long time player (a friend bought a starter set back in '94 and we'd play all the time as kids) who really loves the flavor of the game. Oddly, not much for following story outside of the Wiki summary sections, though.
Frankly, I wish it was in the set; I love the idea of mana having different qualities and wish it was used more (also, would love to see more than just Snow and Phyrexian mana), but I would get why they didn't include it.
Account started today
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Hefty knowledge of snow in MTG
You used a semicolon and sufficient punctuation on the internet.
To my understanding, the point of the Snow supertype was to denote entities or magics that were permeated by the magic of the Ice Age. Of course, the Ice Age was started by the Sylex blast, which shifted the weather patterns, but the magics of the blast created The Shard and permeated the planes, creating the ice Age. Originally (in the Ice Age set) it was just the Snow Covered Lands, and then mechanics referencing those, but with the retcon created by Coldsnap I believe the intent was that things birthed of the Ice Age, and the magics that kept it going a supernaturally prolonged time, had the quality of being imbued with the magic of ice, cold, and Snow. Even the retconned mechanical flavor of mana having the quality of Snow plays into this. The idea that the mana itself is warped and chilled by the magics of the Ice Age and is now able to fuel those magics and perpetuate them is very flavorfully aligned with the idea that the Snow supertype no longer denotes something simply covered in snow, but something that's been thoroughly steeped in the magics of frost, rhyme, and pure cold.
I mean, with 10 realms, it would be cool for the frost giants to be from a Snow fueled plain, but then you'd need Snow Lands aligned with just that realm, which is logistically daunting. I mean, they do frequently do art for different lands that each tie to a realm (when they have different nations, shards, etc.), but to have just 1, maybe 2, islands with the Surtland artwork have the Snow supertype would be a nightmare in draft (and I say this as someone who espouses the idea that Magic should be made for the home players first, and tournament and collector considerations should be a distant 97th place)(also totally guessing that the 10 realms may tie to the different tribes, which each appear to be two color, so each realm will likely feature on 1 land of each of the appropriate types, but that is very unfounded conjecture). I would not be surprised if they considered Snow, and then ran into these logistical issues and sidelined it. Also possible is that they did in fact fully support Snow, but it is for only 1 (or maybe a few) realms and it just isn't that large a component of the set and we've yet to see it.
Edit - Just adding a though. Maybe now that we are thoroughly in the 1 Set Block, with a new plane almost every set design ethos (at least I recall this being a set that from start to finish was part of that, as were the last few since Dominaria if I am indeed remembering correctly), Kaldheim may be designed with a "Return to Kaldheim" in mind already and we'll only see a few of the Realms this visit. It's possible we'll see a different mix of a few Realms each visit and on a future visit to Kaldheim we'll get the Snow Realms.
This account smells like a MTG designer casually explaining to everyone why the snow mechanic wouldn't be in the set... lol
Glaciers exist all over the world, hell the state I live in sees snow 3 months out of the year and has 25 different glaciers in the park not even 50 miles away... Nobody thinks of my state as a snow state... It is a state of cattle, wheat farms, and grizzly bears.
Glaciers are not snow, they are ice, and they exist in tons of places around the world where the is not a hell of a lot of snow.
There isn't always snow in Iceland, Norway, or the rest of Scandinavia. This isn't an Ice Age, or anything else for snow to necessarily be an auto include mechanically. This is a set about bringing aspects of a culture to the forefront: Tribalism, pantheons, combat, and mysticism...
It doesn't need snow to feel incredibly similar to older Scandinavian flavor.
Anyways...
I suspect Runes will be artifact tokens that allow you to foretell. Perhaps a variant of scrying where you exile the card and draw it the following turn if you pay like 1 or something, otherwise it goes to the bottom of your library or graveyard?
I used to play Damia, Sage of Stone back in 2011 when it first released. Recently, I have been wanting to build Damia once again. However, in 2020, the format is radically different than it was almost a decade ago. There are a few problems that I am even facing as a seasoned player of the format. Nowadays, most commanders play significant roles in winning the game by enabling you to do something. Damia's ability is pretty archaic in this sense, because all it really does is draw you cards. This is why you are seeing old and outdated lists, time has not been kind to these generic Commanders that don't inherently offer you a way to win a game, written in their textbox.
Establishing your Endgame
The first thing I would do, is establish how you are going to win - is it a combo? Commander damage? Regular combat damage? Is your intention to even win, or just group hug it? This is probably, at least in my opinion, the most important part of building your deck. You want the deck to be coherent regardless of what direction you take it. Consistency and redundancy is key.
Achieving your Endgame
Once you have an idea of how you want to win, work out how you are going to get there. When I have too many cards to pick from, I will reduce this part to deciding if I want the deck to be completely streamlined or if I want it to be splashy and exciting. The latter means cards like Praetor's Counsel and Rune-Scarred Demon are on the table. The former means that I will instead have to think about tutor cards that are lower to the ground and avoid anything over 2 mana and maybe fudge for a Grim Tutor, but also running creatures of significance at your top-end. If you are scraping together what you have and making do with that, you are probably in the camp to the latter... and honestly I think that is where most the fun is anyways.
The other important part here, is that having a grasp on what your endgame is means you can determine if cards like Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun are even going to be impactful or not. I view Damia as being best when you are playing more of a passive game and grinding out a win using classic control fundamentals, so something like Growing Rites of Itlimoc isn't going to do much for me when I flip it. That does not mean you cannot make a creature heavy version of Damia, Sage of Stone though.
Finally...
If you are going to take the goodstuff approach in Commander, it is important not to get trapped evaluating a card simply on it own value but rather the value it provides to everything else within the deck. As I said before, consistency is key in commander and redundancy is your best bet of getting the deck to function as intended. Random Shardless Agents and Cryptoplasms should generally be avoided unless you deck is constructed around similar things.
For reference, my Mimeoplasm deck which is a midrange/control deck uses:
The Mimeoplasm is a very different card than Damia, Sage of Stone, but I would structure the skeleton pretty similar. I want to be drawing cards, playing bombs, and keeping mana up while I recur some of those bombs over the long game - since Damia doesn't inherently offer a way to win the game otherwise. If you don't want to use the recursion stuff, take those slots and turn them into additional creatures for toolboxing, or even planeswalkers that can help provide a board through sweeper or removal effects. Anyways, those are just my thoughts as someone who has once played Damia, and is looking to rebuild her in 2020/2021
Neat card for a more marginal archetype. Always a fan when they print cards like this to help bolster lesser archetypes for cube. It might not be the most powerful thing in the world, but neither are enchantment archetypes in Cube.
Well prety powerfull card. Maybe better or equal to her AoR (3cmc) card.
Because of the ultimate it is probably an auto include in superfriends. +1 is good with creatures with ETB effects (probably can see play with Yorion + Charming Prince)
The only problem in superfriends is that the +1 does almost nothing (mine only has like two creatures in it), though I guess it could be used politically. I do like the -3 for utility though.
She is in black where you have a lot of tutors for redundancy to utilize the few creatures you do run, particularly Arena Rector, but you can also target creatures other player's control which gives you a bit of a political angle while strapping a token for yourself onto any deals. I wouldn't say she is particularly insane or anything, but I like her for Atraxa, Praetors' Voice since you can hit various green creatures like Eternal Witness, Evolution Sage and a handful of others. The ultimate is significant, which isn't a common feature of many of these newer planeswalker cards.
Anyways. i might actually buy this SL and I hate SL products to date. Really dig this.
Owning a Cube, evaluating a card, and making a cut - isn't the same as curating an entire environment for you Cube to provide players. My intention was not to sound condescending (I apologize if that is how it came across), but merely say that the two are different processes entirely.
The snow matters theme only works for low-low power, you are right. This is the reason why it is not interesting for standard nonpower vintage cube, which
I don't really have anything to say on this bit, I think you and I are in agreement here.
You initially stated that "Snow is not really a theme". My counter argument is that, it is should you actually want to play snow cards and ultimately a lower powered Cube. The premise being that no snow card is individually good enough to be anything more than a fringe card in world where vintage cubes are the standard.
This is a pretty important aspect to discuss. I think a lot of people get so upset that Commander is becoming a less casual format, and I think that is true to some extent. It people want to preserve the casual nature of the format as much as possible, reducing deck size isn't the way to do it.
As for just changing your basics to snow basics, I don't have an issue with that. But even then, these cards don't cut the mustard for most average Cubes.
I like it
Gig is up my man, lol.
This account smells like a MTG designer casually explaining to everyone why the snow mechanic wouldn't be in the set... lol
Glaciers exist all over the world, hell the state I live in sees snow 3 months out of the year and has 25 different glaciers in the park not even 50 miles away... Nobody thinks of my state as a snow state... It is a state of cattle, wheat farms, and grizzly bears.
Glaciers are not snow, they are ice, and they exist in tons of places around the world where the is not a hell of a lot of snow.
There isn't always snow in Iceland, Norway, or the rest of Scandinavia. This isn't an Ice Age, or anything else for snow to necessarily be an auto include mechanically. This is a set about bringing aspects of a culture to the forefront: Tribalism, pantheons, combat, and mysticism...
It doesn't need snow to feel incredibly similar to older Scandinavian flavor.
Anyways...
Establishing your Endgame
The first thing I would do, is establish how you are going to win - is it a combo? Commander damage? Regular combat damage? Is your intention to even win, or just group hug it? This is probably, at least in my opinion, the most important part of building your deck. You want the deck to be coherent regardless of what direction you take it. Consistency and redundancy is key.
Achieving your Endgame
Once you have an idea of how you want to win, work out how you are going to get there. When I have too many cards to pick from, I will reduce this part to deciding if I want the deck to be completely streamlined or if I want it to be splashy and exciting. The latter means cards like Praetor's Counsel and Rune-Scarred Demon are on the table. The former means that I will instead have to think about tutor cards that are lower to the ground and avoid anything over 2 mana and maybe fudge for a Grim Tutor, but also running creatures of significance at your top-end. If you are scraping together what you have and making do with that, you are probably in the camp to the latter... and honestly I think that is where most the fun is anyways.
The other important part here, is that having a grasp on what your endgame is means you can determine if cards like Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun are even going to be impactful or not. I view Damia as being best when you are playing more of a passive game and grinding out a win using classic control fundamentals, so something like Growing Rites of Itlimoc isn't going to do much for me when I flip it. That does not mean you cannot make a creature heavy version of Damia, Sage of Stone though.
Finally...
If you are going to take the goodstuff approach in Commander, it is important not to get trapped evaluating a card simply on it own value but rather the value it provides to everything else within the deck. As I said before, consistency is key in commander and redundancy is your best bet of getting the deck to function as intended. Random Shardless Agents and Cryptoplasms should generally be avoided unless you deck is constructed around similar things.
For reference, my Mimeoplasm deck which is a midrange/control deck uses:
Creatures (18)
8 utility creatures, 10 fatty win conditions
Spells (35)
9 tutor effects, 8 counter spells, 6 recursion cards, 5 spot removal spells, 2 sweeper spells, then some card draw/selection
Artifacts (9)
5 mana rocks, 1 sweeper, 1 card draw, 2 utility
Enchantments (3)
2 card draw/selection, 1 recursion effect
Lands (34)
7 utility lands
The Mimeoplasm is a very different card than Damia, Sage of Stone, but I would structure the skeleton pretty similar. I want to be drawing cards, playing bombs, and keeping mana up while I recur some of those bombs over the long game - since Damia doesn't inherently offer a way to win the game otherwise. If you don't want to use the recursion stuff, take those slots and turn them into additional creatures for toolboxing, or even planeswalkers that can help provide a board through sweeper or removal effects. Anyways, those are just my thoughts as someone who has once played Damia, and is looking to rebuild her in 2020/2021
She is in black where you have a lot of tutors for redundancy to utilize the few creatures you do run, particularly Arena Rector, but you can also target creatures other player's control which gives you a bit of a political angle while strapping a token for yourself onto any deals. I wouldn't say she is particularly insane or anything, but I like her for Atraxa, Praetors' Voice since you can hit various green creatures like Eternal Witness, Evolution Sage and a handful of others. The ultimate is significant, which isn't a common feature of many of these newer planeswalker cards.