Am I missing something or is this card going to be absolutely bonkers in UW/x control? It's a 3 CMC, tempo-murdering removal spell that screws with your opponent's draws and curves out into a 2 for 1 (sort of) that gives you a blocker/win condition if need be.
Roil Spout 1WU
Put target creature on top of its owner's library.
Awaken 4 - 4WU (If you cast this spell for 4WU, also put four +1/+1 counters on target land you control and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste. It's still a land.)
Ah, thanks. Didn't manage to turn that up with my search.
As for the question of price, I guess I'm curious to know whether a full set of fetches would tend to go for more or less than the sum of its parts. It's not too hard to look up the prices, but it is difficult to find recent sales of entire sets of fetchlands for comparison.
Should I try to sell them now? I hear rumors of reprints, and they're all substantially more valuable now than when I acquired them. And, if selling is a good idea, does anyone have any idea what a fair price might be?
That falls under strategy, and this forum is for rulings only.
Although some clarification of the way combat works may help to avoid related questions in the future. Combat is a series of steps:
Beginning of combat
Declare attackers step
Declare blockers step
Combat damage step
End of combat step
During each of these steps, both players will receive priority to cast spells and activate abilities. That means that it may still be worthwhile to block with Platinum Emperion because your opponent may have instant speed removal, causing you to take all the damage of the attack, whereas blocking will prevent the damage by one non-trampling attacker.
No. The first step of casting a spell is putting it on the stack. Nettle sentinel's trigger isn't put on the stack until you finish casting it, so it will always be above the spell that triggered it.
Abilities can never be put on the stack anywhere except the top.
Except when two or more triggered abilities trigger at once. A spell will always go on the stack before any abilities its casting triggered, though, as in the OP's situation.
This totally depends on the kind of strategy you're going for, but I'll throw in some of the best spot removal ever printed: Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile.
I really don't care that much. Given a choice, I would probably go without the extra complication of tokens (I think dice are fun to play with, and like putting them on cards). However, as long as there is a benefit to using token-requiring cards in my deck, the complication is irrelevant.
CCG Decks has a sealed pool simulator that can do up to six packs at a time, I believe. I'm not sure what the point is, though. A simulator won't really provide you with any useful information that you don't already have by knowing the card distribution (1 rare/mythic, 3 uncommons, 10 commons, 1 basic land) in a pack and the cards that are in a given set.
As for buying a box: if your goal is just to gain a collection of random rares, uncommons and commons from whatever set, then a box is probably the way to go. People who tend to advise against it (like myself) probably don't have any need for random cards. Financially, it makes less sense than just buying cards that you need, but if you're not in the game for serious competition then financial concerns are probably not your priority. I do know how much fun opening packs is. Basically, it boils down to what you want: if you want the most win for your money, buy singles. If you want to have fun opening packs and getting random stuff, go ahead and get a box.
As people have said, the ratio depends on your meta. However, I would try to run at least one of each, because if they only see one of them game 1, they might assume that's all you run. Don't forget that you're also fighting an information war.
If I'm ever torn on a card choice, I always consider which one makes me the least predictable.
The problem with this is that one card can be objectively better in a given meta--GftT seems to be the consensus here--and you still will only have a 1/2 chance of getting it, as opposed to the Doom Blade. The information denied is negligible when compared to the relative effects of drawing a Doom Blade vs. a GftT.
Honestly though, I could see that same argument being made for Doom Blade too. I personally feel that it actually doesn't matter; there are not that many black or artifact creature bombs being played right now outside of Griselbrand and the occasionally random Wurmcoil Engine, so its a toss up. You're ideally going to want more than just 1 type of way to deal with them, so your spot removal suite isn't that important.
Doom Blade is significantly worse against the entire Zombies deck (minus Metamorph).
Right, I guess rereading the reminder text would've been useful there. So State-Based actions all occur simultaneously and not in any kind of layer order?
Roil Spout 1WU
Put target creature on top of its owner's library.
Awaken 4 - 4WU (If you cast this spell for 4WU, also put four +1/+1 counters on target land you control and it becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste. It's still a land.)
As for the question of price, I guess I'm curious to know whether a full set of fetches would tend to go for more or less than the sum of its parts. It's not too hard to look up the prices, but it is difficult to find recent sales of entire sets of fetchlands for comparison.
I have a full set of NM/SP Zendikar fetchlands from the good old days:
4x Arid Mesa
4x Scalding Tarn [1 foil]
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marsh Flats
Should I try to sell them now? I hear rumors of reprints, and they're all substantially more valuable now than when I acquired them. And, if selling is a good idea, does anyone have any idea what a fair price might be?
Although some clarification of the way combat works may help to avoid related questions in the future. Combat is a series of steps:
Beginning of combat
Declare attackers step
Declare blockers step
Combat damage step
End of combat step
During each of these steps, both players will receive priority to cast spells and activate abilities. That means that it may still be worthwhile to block with Platinum Emperion because your opponent may have instant speed removal, causing you to take all the damage of the attack, whereas blocking will prevent the damage by one non-trampling attacker.
Except when two or more triggered abilities trigger at once. A spell will always go on the stack before any abilities its casting triggered, though, as in the OP's situation.
Edit: forgot about trample. 5-11, depending on how the attacking player decides to assign damage.
As for buying a box: if your goal is just to gain a collection of random rares, uncommons and commons from whatever set, then a box is probably the way to go. People who tend to advise against it (like myself) probably don't have any need for random cards. Financially, it makes less sense than just buying cards that you need, but if you're not in the game for serious competition then financial concerns are probably not your priority. I do know how much fun opening packs is. Basically, it boils down to what you want: if you want the most win for your money, buy singles. If you want to have fun opening packs and getting random stuff, go ahead and get a box.
If you're also looking for colorless, Everflowing Chalice and Dreamstone Hedron are nice.
The problem with this is that one card can be objectively better in a given meta--GftT seems to be the consensus here--and you still will only have a 1/2 chance of getting it, as opposed to the Doom Blade. The information denied is negligible when compared to the relative effects of drawing a Doom Blade vs. a GftT.
Doom Blade is significantly worse against the entire Zombies deck (minus Metamorph).
Black Sun's Zenith for, say, 2 will cause a Strangleroot Geist with a +1/+1 counter to return to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter, right?
If yes, at what point do the two kinds of counters cancel each other out?