This card is an absolute abomination. You can howl at the moon that it's not great in every deck, but that doesn't matter.its amazing in most decks. Printed in a single set at mythic rare. The decks that want this will be forced to pay stupid amounts to have access to it. Sol Ring has been printed something like 23 times at uncommon over the entire history of this game... And is still 3 to 5 bucks. And for what? What great game play does it offer commander tables? The lottery effect of just going "oops, I win".
We already have swaths of the commander players who don't like the auto include nature of sol ring. Hell me personally my distaste for sol ring is exactly that it creates lottery situations where someone just goes... Oh, sol ring into arcane signet. Turn 2 a 5 cmc commander with hexproof. Now we get to increase the chances of these stupid starts that create non games. People will play this lottery and steal games. To participate in this lottery you'll need to get a copy of this $200 card. It's infuriating. We ask for cool new legends to build around, and they jump the shark. This card feels like it was designed by someone down at the local card shop and marketed by people who don't have to pay for thier cards...
Interesting legendary creatures, especially those that could potentially be a commander tend to be scrutinized far more critically than the average cards, and I myself found the art lacking. Queen Marchesa is obviously dressed in a similar style and looks a hell of a lot better if I may say
As to the argument that the set itself has an agenda, I must say that while I too feel at odds with just how many female knights are depicted, the set also gives us the maidens in distress tropes. I've always liked the "Joan of Arc" characters in fiction and games, so a powerful knight chick is appealing to me, but it's so abundant here it's kind of off putting.
Gwyn is good, but requires a board state of specifically knights and equipment. Not an easy task in modern commander games, much less asking you to wait until turn 6 to do so. Mardu knights have realistically 1 real method of ramp in knight of the white orchid. I just feel like she would have been far more effective at 4/4 with menace OR Vigilance at 4cmc. It just seems marchesa provides better and more consistent value in those colors. Granted the equip at 0 for knights is cool, how often will you line up the stars to play both knights AND equipment, while doing your best to interact or advance your board state to get to and survive to 6cmc?
I hated kaledesh as a location/plane based on style and theme. It gave us a standard environment with dinosaurs piloting mechs/vehicles. I'm not naive enough to think that I was unique in this disdain though. I felt the same way about Arabian nights too. Not every set is going to appeal to every player. Hell initially I thought ravnica was going to disappoint as well considering the description of sprawling cityscape. Turned out I was incredibly wrong and my presumptions were wildly incorrect, just like with a return to zendikar, which I thought would be fantastic, but was let down.
In the same vein that some people are really not looking forward to this, I am very much so.
As a long time fan of the MBC archtype I've always lamented it not being a thing in modern, and though I don't think it can be at this stage I absolutely love the thought of utilizing a snow theme w/ snow-covered swamp, scrying sheets, Frostwalk Bastion and Dead of Winter. Now I'm not sure what would need to come down the path to give this concept teeth, but If i could take out a wish it would be:
2BB
sorcery
Affinity for Snow
Target player discards two cards at random.
We already have swaths of the commander players who don't like the auto include nature of sol ring. Hell me personally my distaste for sol ring is exactly that it creates lottery situations where someone just goes... Oh, sol ring into arcane signet. Turn 2 a 5 cmc commander with hexproof. Now we get to increase the chances of these stupid starts that create non games. People will play this lottery and steal games. To participate in this lottery you'll need to get a copy of this $200 card. It's infuriating. We ask for cool new legends to build around, and they jump the shark. This card feels like it was designed by someone down at the local card shop and marketed by people who don't have to pay for thier cards...
As to the argument that the set itself has an agenda, I must say that while I too feel at odds with just how many female knights are depicted, the set also gives us the maidens in distress tropes. I've always liked the "Joan of Arc" characters in fiction and games, so a powerful knight chick is appealing to me, but it's so abundant here it's kind of off putting.
In the same vein that some people are really not looking forward to this, I am very much so.
2BB
sorcery
Affinity for Snow
Target player discards two cards at random.