I also agree there wont be a 10 PW cycle. Just seems like the wrong thing to do. It ruins the unique feel that each one has. My only question about planeswalkers is if we will ever see them them in the second or third set of a block. It seems a little weird to have them just pop in in middle of a story, as opposed to when we see them at the beginning of a block, where we see that this is the plane they like to hang around.
I would say go U\R counter burn...
drop a mauler
counter whatever you can (mauler still gets +1\+1 counters even the spell gets countered)
and burn to make sure he gets through the blockers and nothing else stays on the board.
Bant, although perhaps a little generic, is exciting for me nonetheless. Just judging from the artwork it looks like they put a lot of work into this shard.
Naya has excellent flavor and artwork, I love the cat-people.
I'd like to know a little bit more about Esper.
Grixis has cool demons with weird bone like structure, really cool imo. I will absolutley love ths shard if it has Delve.
Jund, as mentioned by others, has been a little left behind although it can still be redeemed through mechanics.
I would love to see Delve as a Grixis mechanic. Everything is already in place to take advantage of it. Memory Sluice yourself on turn 1 and you now have 4 colorless mana in addition to your two lands on turn 2. I would say that's a nice effect. You can also have Dreamborn Muse to make sure your graveyard is stocked and perhaps best of all Jace can stock your hands with threats and then let you play them all with his last ability.
Just want to point out here that Nobilis is better than the Liege when you play Springjack Shepard. First off , you get 5 goats instead of only 3 and secondly, you get 2/1 attackers as opposed to 1/2.
I actually run both the Liege and Nobilis in a R/W deck that has the Shepard, RotH, and shared animosity with mirrorweave to finish everything off. As for the mana curve I tossed in some coldsteel hearts and coalition relics. Not the most reliable deck, but really fun to mirrorweave 6 goblin soldiers into 17/4 Nobilis, and have your opponents creatures stay 3/4.
I love wither and would love to see it an a core set (although seeing it in a corset would be weird). However assuming that WotC actually doesn't take my personal preferences into account, can wither grok it? I admit that it is a setting based mechanic but compared to most recent mechanics I think wither is the most likely one that you can show to someone who has not seen the set and he wouldn't be completely mystified.
I can see them going enemy color in Conflux, but if you want to get into the translation of conflux (blending, flowing together) then the most likely thing is a 6th color that has a little bit of each other color.
Ajani Vengeant certainly has a more powerful finisher but its first two abilities are worse off.
I think the key to Vengeant is locking down your opponent long enough to pull off the game finisher.
I made a deck for him focused on tapping out your opponent, along with some Prison Terms and a clash theme. I would post it here but I don't know how to do the decklist thing.
Well, there a lot of cards on that list that just feel wrong to me to be in SoA, but we don't know everything yet so i can't exclude them.
I agree that Blade of the Sixth Pride and Nacatl War Pride have a Naya feel to them but nothing is guaranteed there since WotC has given all of the reprinted cards from Future Sight new art (as far as I know anyway).
So I have to say that I can expect to see Arcanum Wings (due to one of the Shards having an enchantment sub-theme, I think it was Bant? and aura swap being a cool aura mechanic) and Sarcomite Myr (due to Esper artifact sub-theme, colored artifacts seem the best way to bring fun artifacts to a shard). I know you crossed off Sarcomite Myr for being a Myr but I see a Vedalken guy in the Esper wallpaper so a Myr may not be out of the picture.
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Merrow Levitator
2 Immaculate Magistrate
3 Sky Weaver
3 Femeref Archers
3 Lys Alana Bowmaster
4 Greatbow Doyen
4 Jagged-Scar Archers
4 Mind Bend
4 Evolution Charm
2 Raking Canopy
Lands (24)
10 Forest
10 Island
4 Flooded Grove
If you meet RDW run for your life
4 Bramblewood Paragon
4 Nettle Sentinel
3 Tattermunge Maniac
4 Winnower Patrol
4 Talara's Battalion
3 Wren's Run Vanquisher
4 Llanowar Elves
3 Garruk Wildspeaker
Spells (11)
4 Giant Growth
3 Squall Line
4 Obsidian Battle Axe
1 Pendlehaven
19 Forest
Though I doubt you want to build a deck around this.
what califrag said
Naya has excellent flavor and artwork, I love the cat-people.
I'd like to know a little bit more about Esper.
Grixis has cool demons with weird bone like structure, really cool imo. I will absolutley love ths shard if it has Delve.
Jund, as mentioned by others, has been a little left behind although it can still be redeemed through mechanics.
Now we just have to wait to see what delvelops.
4 Ballynock Trapper
4 Springjack Knight
4 Goldmeadow Harrier
Spells (22)
4 Pollen Lullaby
3 Entangling Trap
4 Redeem the Lost
4 Prison Term
3 Rebellion of the Flamekin
4 Lash Out
4 Ajani Vengeant
Lands (22)
11 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Rugged Praerie
I actually run both the Liege and Nobilis in a R/W deck that has the Shepard, RotH, and shared animosity with mirrorweave to finish everything off. As for the mana curve I tossed in some coldsteel hearts and coalition relics. Not the most reliable deck, but really fun to mirrorweave 6 goblin soldiers into 17/4 Nobilis, and have your opponents creatures stay 3/4.
While I agree that aura swap can be limited as a mechanic I can think of two situations where it will be different than arcanum wings.
1. An aura with a higher mana cost but with a lower swap cost.
2. CARDNAME
Enchantment- Aura
When cardname leaves play return target nonland permanent to its owners hand.
Aura Swap (insert cost here)
This way you have a recursive ability that you get to use whenever you swap.
Ajani Vengeant certainly has a more powerful finisher but its first two abilities are worse off.
I think the key to Vengeant is locking down your opponent long enough to pull off the game finisher.
I made a deck for him focused on tapping out your opponent, along with some Prison Terms and a clash theme. I would post it here but I don't know how to do the decklist thing.
I agree that Blade of the Sixth Pride and Nacatl War Pride have a Naya feel to them but nothing is guaranteed there since WotC has given all of the reprinted cards from Future Sight new art (as far as I know anyway).
So I have to say that I can expect to see Arcanum Wings (due to one of the Shards having an enchantment sub-theme, I think it was Bant? and aura swap being a cool aura mechanic) and Sarcomite Myr (due to Esper artifact sub-theme, colored artifacts seem the best way to bring fun artifacts to a shard). I know you crossed off Sarcomite Myr for being a Myr but I see a Vedalken guy in the Esper wallpaper so a Myr may not be out of the picture.