Though I am a little sad that after Kelly Digges, I see that another man highly responsible for the gem that is Dominaria left Wizards.
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- Caranthir
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Member for 13 years, 10 months, and 14 days
Last active Tue, Nov, 13 2018 03:59:26
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Losing Miles had to hurt, indeed. I like your choice of team....playing with Miles and Phobeya together is one of my preferred combinations. Just add Harass and you got my fav "supervillain" team. But Sil is powerful with any high-damage super character.
Instead of names Zlovol ("malicious"), Pierakor (pierko - feather), Cisarzim (cesarz - emperor), Razia (raid, bust) we are getting Merrett, Leighbet, Tamsyn, Skormak, Ossett Weslyn, Aresaan, Baas Solvar Radley (sounds like something from Harry Potter), Devin Sidian (Star Wars?!) , Rook Atalay (a TURKISH surname...)
They even began? Unless you mean Dominaria, and that was a huge exception.
Thanks for summarizing. I had come to make this post and you already did
Yes, the whole Ral thing is strange. Either there is a retcon of the Amonkhet ending hanging in the air, or I do not know.
As for the rest: Aurelia's getting more reasonable explains why she was not manipulated into pro-Bolas, what I genuinely expected. It also fares bad for potential Feather returning, unless Aurelia somehow sacrifices herself.
Thumbs up for reminding that Jarad used to have control over insects. I wholly forgotten.
It was a regular trainwreck.
I have chosen Dimir as my kit, as I felt that Dimir is the least dependent on making your deck around the mechanic. You just use surveil for filtering and get to your good stuff.
The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No, really, a steaming pile of card c**p. No bombs in my colors, not even any good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame, Necrotic Wound), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages (two Devious Cover-Ups really do not help). Nightveil Predator? Heck no.
Literally the best things I had was a pair of Watcher in the Mist...
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination. From that, three Undercity Uprisings, two Rhizome Lurchers, etc. But again, I did not have even a friggin' Passwall Adept to push them through.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have the counters, removal and bombs I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, Nightveil Predator etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
I hope I'll like the drafts more
The Invasion part of Invasion block lasted a couple of months. The whole Phyrexian invasion of Invasion block about one year. I think you got the "many years" from the same source as the winter in Allegiance
The problem was...I have got REALLY bad kit. No bombs in my colors, no good stuff to get to. 2-3 removals (Price of Fame and something else), Ritual of Soot. Two Boros rares - Foundry and Tajic. For another rare, Mausoleum Secrets that had nothing relevant to tutor for.
No Artful Takedown, no Deadly Visits, heck, not even Disdainful Stroke or Sinister Sabotages.
From multicolored cards, I got about 11 BG cards, compared to 2-4 from any other combination.
(My friend, who took the last Golgari pack, got Hatchery Spider as promo, another in pool, foil Charnel Troll and Doom Whisperer. Well, it has to compensate somewhere. He went 4-1, losing only to an insane Boros mentor deck)
I made a BUg that I transformed into BuG after second round. To add insult to injury, I played all five rounds against the same colored decks (once just pure UB with a crapload of counters and removal), not even seeing other guilds in action. The games were painful to play. I managed to win twice, but it was a torture. The other decks usually even have both counters and removal I lacked.
Basically, every time it came to the point where the other deck showed me their bomb (Vraska, Nullhide Ferox, etc.) and then it ended quickly.
From what I have seen, Dimir was the most demanded guild, followed by Golgari. Izzet was the least.
You think it has snow in it.
And you think Allegiance is winter.
In other words, there is no official statement on this, that I asked about. Right?
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/798385-rna-art-previews-for-the-other-five-shocklands
- zero saprolings in either Selesnya or Golgari. Even in ART. Probably has to do something with the Devkarin fall from power in Golgari. No idea about Selesnya.
- zero weirds in Izzet (probably has to do something with Ral taking over, because there is generally lack of elementalist magic in Izzet, but predominant lightning magic, that happens to be Ral Zarek's specialty).
On a positive note...after not being mentioned ever in the first RAV block, and having one flavor (Rites of Reaping) in RtR, the Devkarin elves are finally given a card with their name on it. (Devkarin Dissident). It is especially funny for us Czechs, because as the very originator of this word, the author of original RAV books, Cory Herndon himself confirmed, the root of the word - devka - was indeed chosen by him intentionally, for meaning...well... b*tch/wh*re, fitting with their partially black affiliation.
Story-wise:
There were ten original signatories of the Guildpact (10 000 years ago). These were called paruns. These were:
- Razia
- Szadek
- Rakdos
- Niv-Mizzet
- Mat'Selesnya (a nature elemental)
- Cisarzim (aka Lord of Chaos,Gruul cyclops, wielding an ax called Skullhammer - really)
- Svogthir (Golgari necromancer. Over time, he replaced parts of his body until only his head was original, the rest of the body included giant parts, like aforementioned Cisarzim's torso.)
- unnamed elf for Simic, one from Vig's breed of elves
- Obzedat (in other composition than now)
- Supreme Judge Azor I (who, as we know now, was a sphinx)
During the original Ravnica block- card wise
- Razia (killed in story, replaced by firemane angel Feather, one of the heroes of the story)
- Szadek (killed in story, residing in Agyrem, that was later isolated from Ravnica after the mending)
- Rakdos (disabled in story, thrown in stupor in a lava pit)
- Niv-Mizzet (ran away at the end of the story after fighting the nephilim)
- Chorus of the Conclave - de facto killed by Savra, revived by a wolf and recreated from newborn dryads :-P
- Borborygmos (not appearing in story at all)
- Sisters of Stone Death (who imprisoned Svogthir long ago at the price of two of their original number of five, Savra freed Svogthir, reconstructed his body from vines, fungi and stones, used him to kill but one of the Sisters, then smaashing his original head and usurping the leadership, only to be killed by Szadek. Leadership taken by her brother, the hunter and bounty hunter Jarad, who ended up reanimating himself in the end of the story as a lich. Yeah, complicated. Svogthir continued to exist and later used Savra's dead body as host)
- Momir Vig, killed by Agrus Kos, no replacement known, guild probably temporarily dissolved until Zegana and the merfolk reemerged
- Obzedat (called the Ghost Council then)
- Grand Arbiter Augustin IV (turned out to be the main villain of the block, killed by Szadek and explosion, replaced by Leonos II)
Some of the "champions" here have absolutely zero role in the story (Circu, Tolsimir, Ulasht, Tibor and Lumia), whereas others were book characters (Agrus Kos is the main hero of the books, Teysa in books 2 and 3, Lyzolda (Izolda in books)plays a role in Dissension, the same goes for Experiment Kraj). Isperia is mentioned once (as Hesperia).
RiR block
- all the CCDD casting cost characters are guild leaders
- Aurelia (imprisoned Feather and usurped the guild)
- Lazav
- Rakdos (reemerged)
- Niv-Mizzet (returned)
- Trostani (entitled by Mat'Selesnya)
- Borborygmos (still, and still playing zero role in the story)
- Jarad (but almost nothing in common with the original Ravnica novel character)
- Zegana (whole guild reborn, rebuilt, restructuralized)
- Obzedat (still, give or take some individual ghosts)
- Isperia (taken over from Leonos and became more active)
Original Ravnica has a cycle of other legends, that were dubbed "champions". With the exception of Simic and Azorius, these were the CD characters. Simic has Kraj and Azorius Isperia.
RtR and GTC had only the leaders. DGM added the cycle of "maze runners" as CD-costed creatures.
This block breaks the symmetry, because some guilds have walker leaders + one legendary, whereas others have a "leader" and a "champion". But even the casting costs are not a determinator anymore, because both Trostani and Emmara have just CD cost. This also plays into the story that one of the legends is a leader and the other a representative of a "dissent" in the guild.
Yeah, but have they said anywhere that Allegiance is winter? Because the spoiled Allegiance images for (shock?)lands does not seem winter-y at all (Stomping Ground and Hallowed Fountain, the rest are indoors).
Is this confirmed?
Anyway, I am loving the autumn/gloomy/rainy feel. It REALLY helped to make the feel distinct from the previous two visits. And in some cases (I am looking at you, Trostani Discordant) the autumn even helped to convey the bad things happening. Because if your chief dryads look like withered wood and their leaves are falling....
They are all sporting unique arts, and the same are on boosters.
Similar thing happened with Dominaria, where the booster art of Teferi was actually from neither of his cards, but from the packaging of the PW deck.
Here, all of them are non-card arts.
Anyway, interesting to see an Izzet vedalken.
City WatchHaazda are still around as well...You mean Legion, right?