I'm not too surprised considering how many of them treat women, even their own wives. I remember this little bit about a growing modern japanese holiday on January 31. (Valentine's day is a day for women to give gifts to men in Japan)
The Japan Aisaika Organization encourages husbands to follow five golden rules on Beloved Wives Day, including getting home early - which in Japan means by 8 p.m. - calling wives by their name rather than the traditional “Mother,” and looking them in the eyes.
So here's the cancel with the set specific upgrade for this set. Wizards makes one of these pretty regularly.
Scars of Mirrodin had Stoic Rebuttal
Innistrad has Dissipate
Ravnica had Counterflux and Render Silent
So we get Dissolve with set mechanic of scry 1. The rarity is a tweak for limited. Stoic Rebuttal and Cancel are common, but Dissipate is uncommon and the two from RTR was rare...so there is not "set" position for it.
Black's identity clashes with the hero mentality. Black is not the self sacrificing hero that seeks to help others and make a better world. They want to know what is in it for them. You can't use the normal tools to judge what makes a black hero. Think about it, anytime you argue more of an antihero character, their actions often thought of to be white-black.
I can argue Liliana was the hero of innistrad. Humanity was doomed on that plane until she intervened; however her hero status isn't clear cut. She didn't do it with the intent of helping others, a key part of being a black hero.
Wizards can't win in this scenario.
If you leave them all God, you have some appalled that you didn't distinguish between the gods depicted as female and the ones depicted as male and you lumped them all under the "male word", and thus you are sexist.
If you do put in Goddess, then you are assuming male is the default and females are an exception, which makes you a sexist.
The only thing that concerns me is this is in the same standard as Jace, Architect of Thought and they will often be played together; meaning the wrong people will make the wrong choices and the non-chosen cards may go to the wrong place.
The choice for the target must still be legal. Your opponent still controls the spell, so anything hexproof is still not legal. Protection from white stops white sources from targeting, so that doesn't work either. If you don't have a legal choice, the spell is illegally cast and goes back to your opponent's hand.
3 drop planeswalker naturally defend themselves by being cheap. Jace Beleren can't protect himself at all, and he's considered good.
It's actually a fine 3 drop as it represents a vague threat.
It may stall the aggro player by making them attack it, and 5 loyalty is a decent amount to start at. If they ignore it, they risk you pulling value from it and still stalling the aggro player out.
It's a strange walker, the second ability is the actual ultimate. It's closest cousin is Jace, Architect of Thought's ultimate. Nowhere as consistent, but much faster. The big 3rd ability just is there to feed the 2nd.
Thoughtseize will be interesting in standard. If the mana fixing is becoming worse, T1 Shock -> Thoughtseize makes aggro happy. Starting at 16 is awesome even if they take your best card.
The legendary scale is higher, but it's an enchantment block and not a legendary block.
I doubt wizards set as miserable as saviors of kamigawa's "cards in hand" mechanic as they learned inward tension (holding cards in hand vs playing them) was not a good way to go about things. This was proven in how "skipping land plays" became landfall triggers in Zendikar, which shifted away from inward tension and towards rewarding players for something they already want to do.
The mechanics so far do not seem to have as much interblock synergy; so we will have to see what else they have for us.
Looking at the sphinx, it makes more sense for the player to skip the combat phase of the additional turn. Similar to how Savor the Moment skips the untap step
The Pretzel burger I find ruins the salt balance of the burger. One of the main parts of a burger was the balance between the meat, which must have a strong flavor and the bread which, after the initial burst of flavor, mellows out the salt in your mouth. The pretzel itself is fine, I enjoy that the bread has more presence in the burger, but that may just be the sugar in the pretzel dough.
Most impressive was a misprint collection. This misprint collection is magnificent and he has stuff that if extremely rare, like one of the 3 test foil dragon whelps. He doesn't bring it to the shop on a weekly basis; for obvious reasons.
He has alpha playtests cards and other more interesting pieces (test prints, extremely bizarre miscuts, different backs etc) He's always a joy to run into, he always has stories about getting these misprints and his collection.
Echo/Narcissus
Golden Apple
Persephone
Scars of Mirrodin had Stoic Rebuttal
Innistrad has Dissipate
Ravnica had Counterflux and Render Silent
So we get Dissolve with set mechanic of scry 1. The rarity is a tweak for limited. Stoic Rebuttal and Cancel are common, but Dissipate is uncommon and the two from RTR was rare...so there is not "set" position for it.
Toshiro Umezawa was mono-black hero in magic. Mind you it contrasts with Konda, Lord of Eiganjo the white villain of the story.
I can argue Liliana was the hero of innistrad. Humanity was doomed on that plane until she intervened; however her hero status isn't clear cut. She didn't do it with the intent of helping others, a key part of being a black hero.
If you leave them all God, you have some appalled that you didn't distinguish between the gods depicted as female and the ones depicted as male and you lumped them all under the "male word", and thus you are sexist.
If you do put in Goddess, then you are assuming male is the default and females are an exception, which makes you a sexist.
It's actually a fine 3 drop as it represents a vague threat.
It may stall the aggro player by making them attack it, and 5 loyalty is a decent amount to start at. If they ignore it, they risk you pulling value from it and still stalling the aggro player out.
It's a strange walker, the second ability is the actual ultimate. It's closest cousin is Jace, Architect of Thought's ultimate. Nowhere as consistent, but much faster. The big 3rd ability just is there to feed the 2nd.
I doubt wizards set as miserable as saviors of kamigawa's "cards in hand" mechanic as they learned inward tension (holding cards in hand vs playing them) was not a good way to go about things. This was proven in how "skipping land plays" became landfall triggers in Zendikar, which shifted away from inward tension and towards rewarding players for something they already want to do.
The mechanics so far do not seem to have as much interblock synergy; so we will have to see what else they have for us.
He has alpha playtests cards and other more interesting pieces (test prints, extremely bizarre miscuts, different backs etc) He's always a joy to run into, he always has stories about getting these misprints and his collection.