And that, abruptly, sends Aggron straight back into his rage.
<You're supposed to be SMART. Yet you see your death, right in front of you, and have a chance to avoid it, and throw it AWAY? How did idiots like YOU ever do this to me? Mutt! Kill!> And with a little boost from Aggron, the dog, its eyes afire, tears into the vedalken blocking the door.
Assuming no tricks...
Aggron kicks the bodies aside contemptuously and strides into the corridor, his summons following in his wake.
Discard 1x Golgari Rot Farm to give the mongrel +1/+1 and turn it red, and attack the Sages with it. That should kill them and leave the mongrel up.
It says on the card, "until end of turn effects end."
This is correct. Stuff like Giant Growth does end. But triggered abilities, like the one on Ball Lightning, use the stack. And if you activate this in response to them....well, they get removed from the stack. Ball Lightning would trigger another one and die (I am just now realizing) because it triggers at the end of each turn. But I think the copy effects I mentioned would not.
That's basically the awesomest thing it does. Incandescent Soulstoke's creatures stay around. Ball Lightning stays around. Kiki-Jiki's copies stay around. Hell, the Standard-legal Splinter Twin copies stick around, giving you something else to do with the aura if you're not comboing off.
Aggron buries one paw in the fur of the mongrel dog, even as he twines mana with the other. <Well, gentlemen? You're just as curious as the last lot, aren't you? I'll make you a deal--if you tell me all you can about this facility, I'll explain my mana to you. I can tell it's not natural here. Or you can block my path, and I set my pet here on you, and you die knowing nothing.>
Aggron finishes with his other hand; he's crafted another green mana orb and two elves to help him, and he's surrounded by a strange aura the vedalken cannot begin to understand. The elves take up positions on either side of the dog, their faces identically conveying the expression of sarcastic inquiry that Aggron's own cannot.
During first main phase, play a Forest, use both forests to make two Skyshroud Rangers and use the Swamp and the Signet to make a Dark Heart of the Wood. Not done with the turn; waiting to see what the vedalken do.
Dammit, I really needed a break from that last fight. This is going to be painful. Aggron flings his goblin--and his tail--in the path of one of the approaching squads of vedalken. The goblin severs the jugular of one, then Aggron's tailblade takes out a second, and finally the death cloud the goblin releases leaves the third choking on the floor and totally unable to fight. Aggron barely manages to keep himself free from the other two squads, though, and even though he keeps his mobility, they still land several hits.
With a grimace at spending such a precious resource, Aggron draws on his last elvish guide. Using the mana she grants him and his own dark mana, he forms a mana-refining signet; then he draws out a green mana orb from his own internal resources and transmutes it through the signet into a savage mongrel.
Block one sage with Goblin and tail. Use Goblin ability to finish off the sage.
Fair enough. Aggron with access to ten mana at the start of a fight is OP anyways.
Aggron has no choice but to suffer the incoming attacks. However, he s no longer filled with disgust. I may have caused this, but I'm not turning into a lab rat again! Time to get serious.
Aggron rolls away from the clutches of the vedalken, bruised but hardly captured. He breathes deeply, feeling the place around him, sensing its mana. Carefully, he draws out some black mana, and summons a rotten goblin to defend himself.
They're so damn weak. It's not even a challenge to kill them. And they don't even die clean. If the one they were experimenting on rose from the operating table and slew them, they would feel only surprise, maybe chagrin. Not guilt. Never guilt. Their kind don't even understand it.
Have I spent all this time trying to get a worthless revenge?
Aggron is suddenly filled with disgust. He doesn't even bother to finish the last vedalken. He just shoves the blue-skinned being away as he turns to face his new enemies.
This card is certainly very random. The execution is horrific, though.
"Okay, we'll just put all these cards in a pile. What, there's four players? Twenty-four nonland permanents, because he keeps making those tokens?, Let's see, roll a D4 for each one....24 rolls....okay, yeah, you can go to the bathroom, we're gonna take a few minutes to resolve this."
<Study this,> Aggron snarled. With a jerk, he threw the limp body away from him, hurling it into one of the vedalken. As the other one--the one who talked about studying him--tries to get to the portal controls, Aggron tackles him, pinning him to the ground and tearing into his body with his claws. With a stroke, Aggron swipes with his tailblade, slicing through the vedalken's neck. More blood fountains into Aggron's face.
It was just too easy.
Aggron gets up and slowly, menacingly, advances on the final researcher. <There will never be another of my kind. Ever. Your fellow 'researchers' did this to me. Were you conscious when your etherium was bound to your bones? Were you dragged, screaming, against your will, into the lab? Were you subjected to test after test, never knowing which nerve was about to burst into flame?>
The shock of portal transit brings Aggron's thoughts back to coherence, for a moment anyway. He manages to take stock of his surroundings. He registers, briefly, that these vedalken are not the ones who actually did the work on him. Some part of his mind suggests that he should slow down, figure out who these vedalken are, find out where he is.
But Aggron really doesn't care. He can tell, just by looking at the vedalken's face, what kind of being it is. It's the kind that would dissect him for the secrets his body holds, and take joy in each discovery. It's the kind that would ignore his cries of pain and rip into his body with a knife. The memories of its kind are seared into Aggron's mind deeper than anything, deeper than his ability to speak, deeper than his connections to mana. Being tortured into sentience leaves an impression.
And Aggron's not drugged and half-starved anymore. His mind isn't struggling with the horrors around it at the same time it grapples with the concept of himself. He's not shackled to an operating table or surrounded by guardian golems.
He's free.
Aggron doesn't bother with mana, or tactics, or precision, or anything. His tailblade sinks almost effortlessly into the vedalken's back, sheering apart layers of etherium. But that's not enough. Aggron grabs the hapless researcher, opens his jaws, and clamps down on the vedalken's neck. With a savage ripping motion, he attempts to tear the researcher's head from its shoulders, even as he sinks his tail into the body again and again. Blood and ichor are spraying everywhere, but Aggron barely notices. To the other researchers, it must look like something out of a nightmare.
Oh, yes. Aggron remembers. And this time he knows it's not a mistake.
<kill you kill you kill you kill YOU Kill YOU KILL YOU KIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU>
Aggron's mental voice crescendoes into a scream that grates on the minds of the other two in the lab. All semblance of reason melts away, and he jumps and for the second time that day hurls himself recklessly into a portal. It's not a good habit.
Jace, Master of Illusions 1UU
+1: Target player puts the top five cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
-3: Can't read.
-8: Can't read.
Chandra <something> 2RR
+1: Target creature gains haste until end of turn.
-3: Discard a card. Chandra deals damage to target creature or player equal to the discarded card's converted mana cost.
Can't read the last one.
My guess is fake, based on this. Chandra's two legible abilities have no synergy with one another, and the first one can't be used without a creature on the battlefield. WotC doesn't make planeswalkers like that.
I and one of my friends skipped Game Day because of Caw-Blade.
I have been *****ing about Jace since his release and have lost interest in Standard since Caw-Blade started roflstomping it.
I am so incredibly psyched about this you have no idea. I was literally alone in the apartment, and I started cheering when I read this announcement.
I am glad to see that Wizards is not so blue-biased that they allowed this deck to live. This gives me some real faith in the caretakers of my favorite card game.
<You're supposed to be SMART. Yet you see your death, right in front of you, and have a chance to avoid it, and throw it AWAY? How did idiots like YOU ever do this to me? Mutt! Kill!> And with a little boost from Aggron, the dog, its eyes afire, tears into the vedalken blocking the door.
Aggron buries one paw in the fur of the mongrel dog, even as he twines mana with the other. <Well, gentlemen? You're just as curious as the last lot, aren't you? I'll make you a deal--if you tell me all you can about this facility, I'll explain my mana to you. I can tell it's not natural here. Or you can block my path, and I set my pet here on you, and you die knowing nothing.>
Aggron finishes with his other hand; he's crafted another green mana orb and two elves to help him, and he's surrounded by a strange aura the vedalken cannot begin to understand. The elves take up positions on either side of the dog, their faces identically conveying the expression of sarcastic inquiry that Aggron's own cannot.
Life: 8
Field: 1x Wild Mongrel, Q
2x Skyshroud Ranger, Q and SS
1x Golgari Signet, T
1x Swamp, T
2x Forest, T
Yard:
1x Moment's Peace
1x Assassinate
Exile:
3x Echoing Decay
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
With a grimace at spending such a precious resource, Aggron draws on his last elvish guide. Using the mana she grants him and his own dark mana, he forms a mana-refining signet; then he draws out a green mana orb from his own internal resources and transmutes it through the signet into a savage mongrel.
Use Elvish Spirit Guide ability.
Play 1x Golgari Signet
Play 1x Forest
Play 1x Wild Mongrel with Forest through Signet
Life: 8
Field: 1x Wild Mongrel, Q
1x Golgari Signet, T
1x Swamp, T
1x Forest, T
Yard:
1x Moment's Peace
1x Assassinate
Exile:
3x Echoing Decay
3x Elvish Spirit Guide
Any special reaction to the green mana?
Aggron rolls away from the clutches of the vedalken, bruised but hardly captured. He breathes deeply, feeling the place around him, sensing its mana. Carefully, he draws out some black mana, and summons a rotten goblin to defend himself.
Life: 12 (had 18 at the end of the fight with Lou)
Field: 1x Festering Goblin, Q
1x Swamp, T
Yard:
1x Moment's Peace
1x Assassinate
Exile:
3x Echoing Decay
2x Elvish Spirit Guide
By the way, will there be any problems channeling green mana? I know he's in Esper.
They're so damn weak. It's not even a challenge to kill them. And they don't even die clean. If the one they were experimenting on rose from the operating table and slew them, they would feel only surprise, maybe chagrin. Not guilt. Never guilt. Their kind don't even understand it.
Have I spent all this time trying to get a worthless revenge?
Aggron is suddenly filled with disgust. He doesn't even bother to finish the last vedalken. He just shoves the blue-skinned being away as he turns to face his new enemies.
"Okay, we'll just put all these cards in a pile. What, there's four players? Twenty-four nonland permanents, because he keeps making those tokens?, Let's see, roll a D4 for each one....24 rolls....okay, yeah, you can go to the bathroom, we're gonna take a few minutes to resolve this."
Next turn, the guy who is disadvantaged:
"lol wrath"
...........
It was just too easy.
Aggron gets up and slowly, menacingly, advances on the final researcher. <There will never be another of my kind. Ever. Your fellow 'researchers' did this to me. Were you conscious when your etherium was bound to your bones? Were you dragged, screaming, against your will, into the lab? Were you subjected to test after test, never knowing which nerve was about to burst into flame?>
<ANSWER ME!>
But Aggron really doesn't care. He can tell, just by looking at the vedalken's face, what kind of being it is. It's the kind that would dissect him for the secrets his body holds, and take joy in each discovery. It's the kind that would ignore his cries of pain and rip into his body with a knife. The memories of its kind are seared into Aggron's mind deeper than anything, deeper than his ability to speak, deeper than his connections to mana. Being tortured into sentience leaves an impression.
And Aggron's not drugged and half-starved anymore. His mind isn't struggling with the horrors around it at the same time it grapples with the concept of himself. He's not shackled to an operating table or surrounded by guardian golems.
He's free.
Oh, yes. Aggron remembers. And this time he knows it's not a mistake.
<kill you kill you kill you kill YOU Kill YOU KILL YOU KIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU>
Aggron's mental voice crescendoes into a scream that grates on the minds of the other two in the lab. All semblance of reason melts away, and he jumps and for the second time that day hurls himself recklessly into a portal. It's not a good habit.
+1: Target player puts the top five cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
-3: Can't read.
-8: Can't read.
Chandra <something> 2RR
+1: Target creature gains haste until end of turn.
-3: Discard a card. Chandra deals damage to target creature or player equal to the discarded card's converted mana cost.
Can't read the last one.
My guess is fake, based on this. Chandra's two legible abilities have no synergy with one another, and the first one can't be used without a creature on the battlefield. WotC doesn't make planeswalkers like that.
I have been *****ing about Jace since his release and have lost interest in Standard since Caw-Blade started roflstomping it.
I am so incredibly psyched about this you have no idea. I was literally alone in the apartment, and I started cheering when I read this announcement.
I am glad to see that Wizards is not so blue-biased that they allowed this deck to live. This gives me some real faith in the caretakers of my favorite card game.