Don't forget card tags: Elsha of the infinite grafdigger's cage
And they don't work together. grafdigger's cage specifically forbids the casting of any spells from the library, so Elsha's second ability won't work while grafdiffer's cage is on the field.
I love this card, and it's design is pretty nice, but with so many 5 color designs recently, I feel it's been cheapened and makes me wonder what the point of running commanders in less colors when they keep making commanders that do what they do, but in all colors.
I reckon because you don't generally need 5 colors to do everything a deck might want to do? 2-3 colors will net you all the specific removal and answers, without having to either shell out for a massively expensive manabase or risk getting color-screwed.
True. However, Urza, Lord High Artificer is what makes Winter Orb dangerous because if Urza, Lord High Artificer is out, he can just use any artifact for mana, mana rock or not, for mana so his/her lands only untapping one per turn is no longer a big deal. He can also just tap Winter Orb before his turn so he isn't effected by it at all. Also, Winter Orb is just one example of how Urza, Lord High Artificer can lock out games. The Commandzone and Jumbo Commander did a deck tech on him on YouTube and displayed how to pull off some of the easy/one sided game locks.
Also, until a player gets an artifact removal, this is going to give the Urza, Lord High Artificer player a massive advantage being able to progress rapidly while others are progressing very restrictively.
I had a bad gameplay experience with this so I am definitely coming at this one sided and probably sound like I'm complaining a lot (which I am, LOL). I just feel that in a format where getting ahead on mana is such an advantage, it doesn't seem fair to have a Commander that can so easily mana ramp, especially in the color blue. Then in addition, have an easy way with multiple different artifacts to just lock out the game.
Yeah, I don't disagree that this wasn't fun and that the Urza player's deck is probably too optimized for your meta. The only thing that I disagree on is that this indicated that Urza itself is in any way broken and needs to be banned. The player could have had a similar mana-advantage by focusing on an artifact based manabase and the like. Urza might make it a bit easier, but I don't think he is required for this tactic. The ramp you mention is also something that a number of green decks should be able to keep up with, unless the urza player plays lots of 0-cost artifacts, in which case he needs to play a lot of costly draw spells.
So he just basically emptied his hand to play that, meaning it all falls flat if someone blows up the winter orb on the next turn. And he could only play this because he drew a sol ring in the first place. In effect, he could have the same set-up on turn 2 without urza by playing sol-ring and a mana rock.
I mean, it obviously isn't fun to play against this, but Urza isn't the enabler of this tactic, winter orb+sol ring is.
I am rather curious how a mono-blue deck managed to get 6 mana on turn 2.
Anyway, I don't think he'll get banned anytime soon (but I'm not an expert at all). He doesn't really do things that are uniquely broken, and it's not that hard to run some artifact destruction to shut him down.
If you don't enjoy playing against him, and this is a deck in your local playgroup, sharing that sentiment might not be a bad thing. Commander is first and foremost a social game, and its everyone's job to ensure everyone is having fun. If no one likes playing against such hard-lock decks, then its reasonable to agree to just no play such decks
Would you be willing to pay $7 for normal set booster packs? It wouldn't surprise me to learn that each of these arts cost about as much as 2-3 'regular' arts to commission.
Then there's also the thing about different tastes. There probably exist people that like the 'boring fantasy-realism' arts more than these stylized works, so by making both styles they make sure to have something for everyone.
I don't see anything wrong or degenerate about that deck either. You don't even run Congregation at dawn, which is the only card I could see catching flack in a deck like that if you're in a strict no tutors meta.
However, it might be worth checking your deck optimization with that of the rest of the table. You mentioned they run infinite combo decks, which is an interesting sign, but there're infinite combo decks and then there're infinite combo decks. If their decks just run a single 3-card infinite combo that they read about on the internet once, and the rest of the deck is random jank, then its an entirely different deck then if it runs 5-6 infinite combos and a full suite of tutors, enablers and cards that keep them alive until they play their combo.
That having been said, people that build decks around infinite combos shouldn't be complaining about a relatively fair beatdown deck like Gishath. There's a lot of ways that deck can be interacted with, all they have to do is play it.
Fool's Demise only targets the creature when it is attached to it. It does not target when the effect resolves as it does not use the word target in the resolving effect, so hexproof would not prevent the effect of the enchantment from resolving once it has already been attached.
Hmm, precon Oko doesn't look all that bad. Copying a creature can lead to some interesting possiblities/shenangians, especially with the semi-indestructible tacked on.
Interesting. Will is almost pure red here, so that makes his sister pure blue. I'm really hoping for cards (more than one) that benefit from having both in play. I can imagine that if you were to trigger their respective +1's (would be out of place for Rowan to have a minus ability), something cool, or at least synergistic will happen. Having cards that interact w/ both of them in place can really open a lot of design space.
Ehm, are we looking at the same card here? Will and Rowan are both in the card. Furthermore, Will is the blue mage, Rowan is the red mage
Player 1 controls the decision-making of player 3, but nothing else. Any effects that player 3 plays that refers to stuff they own or control only refers to stuff player 3 owns. Likewise, anything they cast that only affects stuff they don't own/control can be used to target stuff player 1 owns (stuff like an overloaded vandalblast would still blow up all of player 1's artifacts, for example). Player 1 might be the puppet-master for a turn, but that doesn't change who owns or controls what. So Venser referring to 'permanents you own' only refers to permanents player 3 owns.
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong but Rosewater said there were only three planeswalkers in the set. I guess maybe he wasn’t counting the BaB promo or something?
Will all the Adventure cards get this full-art treatment or is this some special version? I need them anyway, just wanna know if it's gonna cost me an arm and leg...
Given the additional cost attached, and the fact that trump cards can be played any time as long as you've got the health, I think they should be cards that set up a situation in which you can win quickly, but don't guarantee the win by themselves. So board-wipe effect like Damnation are good, but plague wind would be too strong as it sets you up to win right then and there if you've got a big enough boardstate. One thing you could do is look at the [color] sun's zenith cards and make trump cards based around their effect with a set value for X. That'd give you a creature tutor, a board-wipe, card-draw and token generation. I'd skip the red version, as that one could win the game by itself if it did too much damage.
Elsha of the infinite
grafdigger's cage
And they don't work together. grafdigger's cage specifically forbids the casting of any spells from the library, so Elsha's second ability won't work while grafdiffer's cage is on the field.
I reckon because you don't generally need 5 colors to do everything a deck might want to do? 2-3 colors will net you all the specific removal and answers, without having to either shell out for a massively expensive manabase or risk getting color-screwed.
Yeah, I don't disagree that this wasn't fun and that the Urza player's deck is probably too optimized for your meta. The only thing that I disagree on is that this indicated that Urza itself is in any way broken and needs to be banned. The player could have had a similar mana-advantage by focusing on an artifact based manabase and the like. Urza might make it a bit easier, but I don't think he is required for this tactic. The ramp you mention is also something that a number of green decks should be able to keep up with, unless the urza player plays lots of 0-cost artifacts, in which case he needs to play a lot of costly draw spells.
I mean, it obviously isn't fun to play against this, but Urza isn't the enabler of this tactic, winter orb+sol ring is.
Anyway, I don't think he'll get banned anytime soon (but I'm not an expert at all). He doesn't really do things that are uniquely broken, and it's not that hard to run some artifact destruction to shut him down.
If you don't enjoy playing against him, and this is a deck in your local playgroup, sharing that sentiment might not be a bad thing. Commander is first and foremost a social game, and its everyone's job to ensure everyone is having fun. If no one likes playing against such hard-lock decks, then its reasonable to agree to just no play such decks
Then there's also the thing about different tastes. There probably exist people that like the 'boring fantasy-realism' arts more than these stylized works, so by making both styles they make sure to have something for everyone.
However, it might be worth checking your deck optimization with that of the rest of the table. You mentioned they run infinite combo decks, which is an interesting sign, but there're infinite combo decks and then there're infinite combo decks. If their decks just run a single 3-card infinite combo that they read about on the internet once, and the rest of the deck is random jank, then its an entirely different deck then if it runs 5-6 infinite combos and a full suite of tutors, enablers and cards that keep them alive until they play their combo.
That having been said, people that build decks around infinite combos shouldn't be complaining about a relatively fair beatdown deck like Gishath. There's a lot of ways that deck can be interacted with, all they have to do is play it.
Ehm, are we looking at the same card here? Will and Rowan are both in the card. Furthermore, Will is the blue mage, Rowan is the red mage
He might have been referring to 3 planeswalker cards, as will and Rowan seem to be sharing a single card if this leak is to be believed:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/813676-eld-will-and-rowan-dont-know-if-it-is-real-looks
I believe the frames shown here are alternates that are only in special boosters. This article discusses more about it. https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/project-booster-fun-2019-07-20