4-mana O-ring I understand, but it could have been common at that rate.
I don't think you play limited.
I actually only play limited... and what I meant is that there is often overcosted removal in white at common for limited purposes, for example pacifism effects & variants at 3-5CC. I think an unconditional removal at 4mana comes late enough to not break anything, and balances out big bombs. Plus if it's common, you can o-ring their o-ring too. Of course, in a set with big dragons, I understand they might want to make removal less common, but I'm not sure how much this will be relevant in limited, there's plenty of ultra-efficient low-cost creatures now, it might end up being like Ixalan where ultra-fast pirate decks (hello cutlass) killed dino players before they could cast anything.
For some reason, I find cards with self-explaining names to be hysterically funny. Like, look at Vigilant Baloth: it's literally a baloth with Vigilance. That makes me laugh so hard, I can't really explain why.
I think the until your next turn is there as a drawback to balance the card, not a bonus. It allows the opponent to play sorcery speed mass removal such as Golden Demise. And then, since it was until next turn, they gave it reach for mor flexibility, so you can use it offensively or defensively.
In a lifegain deck, this can easily be a 20/4 lifelink or more, that seems quite strong. 2 hits and you're in Felidar Sovereign win range.
And if it's in combat, the "exchange" is essentially free:
- You're at 20 life.
- You attack, before damage, exchange, it becomes 20/4 and you are at 4 life, after damage you are back at 24 life and this stays at 20/4 (no "end of turn" clause).
W can give it protection to "evade" blockers, and in a WG build you can easily give it trample too.
In its desire to always be correct and consistent, Magic's rules templating has always opted for the Chicago Manual of Style's method of referring to a person of unknown gender: "he or she." Or "him or her" or "his or her."
There are a lot of reasons not to like those phrases. For me, the problems are that they take up a lot of words and that no one actually talks that way. People use the singular "they" all the time conversationally, and as language changes, the rules of proper usage have relaxed enough that we're comfortable switching to it now. Hooray!
What's not hooray-worthy, unfortunately, is that there aren't any cards in Duel Decks: Elves vs. Inventors that use the new template. But as an example, check out the current and future text for Duress.
Current:
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Dominaria Oracle update:
Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a noncreature, nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
And if this change, in addition to saving words, makes our card text more inclusive for people that don't identify as either a "he" or a "she," that's super awesome as well.
*rolls eyes*
It's obvious the intent wasn't that and people just had to latch onto it and push it as an agenda-filled move when it was always obvious they did it solely because it makes cards less wordy than they needed to be. So of course Wizards now has to pat themselves on the back over including wording that makes helicopters feel involved.
In any case, the intent SHOULD have been to make the text more inclusive, and then, if it makes it shorter, well that's super awesome as well.
Presenting something fundamental, such as being respectful and inclusive, as a kind of aftertought, is a bit lame, but hey, better than nothing I suppose.
If we got ritual from Alpha, maybe we can skip bolt and get Chain Lightning instead. But it shouldn't eat up Legends spots from stuff like Tabernacle, Underworld Dreams or Moat. Maybe they'll troll us and send in an orifinal elder dragon mythic...
I went 4-1 with an ultra fast BR pirate deck - except the match I lost due to bad draws, almost all other games was me winning turn 5-6 while still at 20 life before they really did anything. I had the forerunner and the red Elder dino as back-up plan, but I could have as well dropped them, I got to the point of casting the red elder only once for it to be waterknotted right away.
Generally it went something like:
Turn 1 a one drop (I had about 5 of those)
Turn 2 Goblin Trailblazer
Turn 3 Pirate's Cutlass swing for 4+
Turn 4 give it double strike, swing for 8+, with menace it's rare they already had 2 creatures, and in that case i had some removal.
"You get the city's blessing for the rest of the game"... Reading this, there might be only 1 City's blessing to share. The text could totally mean that if you get the blessing, then your opponent plays an Ascend spell he will "get THE city's blessing for the rest of the game".
Remember how the monarch mechanic was supposed to be an iteration of that? You pass the monarch around, you might as well pass the city's blessing as well. That would make it a bit more interactive. Sure, as long as you have 10 permanents it doesn't matter, but if your opponent steals it and then kills some of your stuff you might not be able to ascend again.
People focus on the abilities themselves, and how they are black border but the important point here is the variance and its effect on gameplay. The variance here is huge and he will change games in any direction in totally unpredictable ways, which is the main point. I knew the importance of variance, but watching the unstable draft with Maro on Game Knights really put it up in my face. Just with d6 rolls, the games became quite impredictable and crazy swingy, so imagine with this (d20 lists).
In other words, the variance on this is already unstable enough, not allowing any strategic planning whatsoever. "Standard" abilities keep the complexity of the card in check from a gameplay perspective, which is a nice design. A d20 random list of silver-bordered abilities would be too much. It's the same (sane) design logic behind the fact that each Very Cryptic Command and Everythingamajig have around 1 silver-bordered ability and the rest are black-bordered: complexity control in design. Unstable has a much higher tolerance to complexity than standard sets, but it is not infinite.
Thank you for this editorial. Stance should be taken against harassement in the boldest and loudest way. And the political discussion here is 100% pertinent to subject whatever commenters may say, rape culture is systemic, and the current toxicity in the public political sphere leads to a clear normalization of hate.
I actually only play limited... and what I meant is that there is often overcosted removal in white at common for limited purposes, for example pacifism effects & variants at 3-5CC. I think an unconditional removal at 4mana comes late enough to not break anything, and balances out big bombs. Plus if it's common, you can o-ring their o-ring too. Of course, in a set with big dragons, I understand they might want to make removal less common, but I'm not sure how much this will be relevant in limited, there's plenty of ultra-efficient low-cost creatures now, it might end up being like Ixalan where ultra-fast pirate decks (hello cutlass) killed dino players before they could cast anything.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin
4-mana O-ring I understand, but it could have been common at that rate.
And if it's in combat, the "exchange" is essentially free:
- You're at 20 life.
- You attack, before damage, exchange, it becomes 20/4 and you are at 4 life, after damage you are back at 24 life and this stays at 20/4 (no "end of turn" clause).
W can give it protection to "evade" blockers, and in a WG build you can easily give it trample too.
In any case, the intent SHOULD have been to make the text more inclusive, and then, if it makes it shorter, well that's super awesome as well.
Presenting something fundamental, such as being respectful and inclusive, as a kind of aftertought, is a bit lame, but hey, better than nothing I suppose.
Apologies, was writing this quickly on the subway and wasn't thinking. Came here to correct it ;).
Tabernacle, Underworld Dreams orMoat. Maybe they'll troll us and send in an orifinal elder dragon mythic...I had both the Captain's Hook and the Pirate's Cutlass, but the key card was Buccaneer's Bravado, I had two of those and it was killer.
Generally it went something like:
Turn 1 a one drop (I had about 5 of those)
Turn 2 Goblin Trailblazer
Turn 3 Pirate's Cutlass swing for 4+
Turn 4 give it double strike, swing for 8+, with menace it's rare they already had 2 creatures, and in that case i had some removal.
Remember how the monarch mechanic was supposed to be an iteration of that? You pass the monarch around, you might as well pass the city's blessing as well. That would make it a bit more interactive. Sure, as long as you have 10 permanents it doesn't matter, but if your opponent steals it and then kills some of your stuff you might not be able to ascend again.
In other words, the variance on this is already unstable enough, not allowing any strategic planning whatsoever. "Standard" abilities keep the complexity of the card in check from a gameplay perspective, which is a nice design. A d20 random list of silver-bordered abilities would be too much. It's the same (sane) design logic behind the fact that each Very Cryptic Command and Everythingamajig have around 1 silver-bordered ability and the rest are black-bordered: complexity control in design. Unstable has a much higher tolerance to complexity than standard sets, but it is not infinite.