so did anyone besides me notice the striking similarity of this card's art to the depictions of the districts of Vivek in Marrowind?
that aside...the card isn't bad, its not amazing...its just kinda so-so and blah! i can certainly see the card having its uses but i still dont like it.
i'm just trying to figure out why this deck is running blue...i'm sure its probably because of the new shadowmage (w/o fear mind you) it basically looks like a bad take on Black Hand from COK Block adding a 2nd color, um for flavor? i'm thinking u may want to try something like this:
(maybe run 4 U/B duels over swamps for the U/B Guildmage in the SB?)
4 distress and 4 Blackmail may not be nessesasy for the maindeck and could be replaced by more creatures, Manriki-Gusari, more removal...but i think with the Hypnotic Specters they are that much more powerful, another creature that should be concidered is the underlooked at Foul Imp and depending on what the metagame ends up looking like Sink into Takenuma could be a better discard option than the Distress/Blackmail option, but 1 way or another i think a mono black build may just end up being superior to a U/B build.
this card doesn't really seem particularly exciting...but its certainly not bad. and Elvish Warrior for an extra mana doesnt really seem like a great deal to me...the fact that it can self-recur with its dredge ability makes it at least descent, but often i'd rather just draw a new card and hopefully draw something better than a 2/3 even in limited. maybe there will be some good way to make use of your graveyard to maximize the usefulness of dredgeing, such as a threshold like ability or maybe a new Lyugroyph? (i could never spell that darn thing) sorta thing, or maybe some graveyard recurrion (aside from the new Zombify ) limited i gve it a 2.5/5 and for constructed 0.5/5
well it said its a 1 CC reprint...that seems kinda vague to me, thay could mean that its a 1cc reprint of a card that once costed say 0 or 2 mana...like maybe a 1 drop lotus pedal...
as for if it is a straight reprint its prob just Crop Rotation back to replace sylvan scrying and reep and sow for those pesky Urza lands...or maybe they will be really really really nice and reprint Fyndhorn Elves...so in T2 u can run LLanowar Fyndhorn and Birds....just think of the ensuing stupidity that would occur in T2...but my vote is its probably Crop Rotation or some CC Changed Reprint of something like Lotus Pedal.
i cant really say i hate that anything made it into 9th ed...i mean sure there are some bad cards but what the heck do you expect its the base set...i'm actually most disapointed at Maggot Carrier going away, just in time for Hypnotic Specter to come back and hand of cruelty in SoK and Dark Confidant coming up in Rav, i think it may well have finally found a constructed home had it still been in the base set...and for those whineing about City being gone, they put all 10 painlands in, what the heck do you need city for?
i know its probably a little early to be talking about what will be good in limited, but from what we know so far of the set there are definatly some bombs, the blue kirin is basically an air elemental with a 2ndary win condition built it...i'm sure the rest of the kirin will be decent in limited too...the maro cycle looks to be decent as well some obviosly better than othersthe black one probably the best as it doubles as a wrath and the blue one comes slightly behind in 2nd with its nice flying ability, but truthfully, i'm still not sold completely on the maro cycle being all that great....anyone remember maro....when was the last time it saw play? um i rest my case...the red and green rare channel crit will both be good, actually id venture to guess that all the creatures with channel will be at very least playable in limited if not really good. i'm sure there will be more cards in the set that will be good in lemited, but alas we dont really even know most of the commons, which is the true basis for limited play so i guess we'll be able to figure that out in the next few days
kinda odd that we only know 1 card from SoK so far as i believe official Wizards.com previews start this coming Monday...wizards' must have really tied up some loose ends keeping any leeks at bay.
can anyone confirm that this monday is the start of the previews, it should be because its the 1st monday of the month of the prerelease, but i havn't seen anything at wizards that confirms this.
well i'm not sure what this ability is going to do...but for those of you that think it'll be like Kicker....i'll ask you to try to remember that they just had Entwine in the last block which was very much like a kicker varient, so i highly doubt that they will be doing another ability that so closely resembles kicker so soon...
that aside...the card isn't bad, its not amazing...its just kinda so-so and blah! i can certainly see the card having its uses but i still dont like it.
4 Blackmail
4 Distress
3 Kiku's Shadow
4 Sickening Shoal
4 Ogre Marauder
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Dark Confidant
3 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
4 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Tomb of Urami
20 Swamp
(maybe run 4 U/B duels over swamps for the U/B Guildmage in the SB?)
4 distress and 4 Blackmail may not be nessesasy for the maindeck and could be replaced by more creatures, Manriki-Gusari, more removal...but i think with the Hypnotic Specters they are that much more powerful, another creature that should be concidered is the underlooked at Foul Imp and depending on what the metagame ends up looking like Sink into Takenuma could be a better discard option than the Distress/Blackmail option, but 1 way or another i think a mono black build may just end up being superior to a U/B build.
as for if it is a straight reprint its prob just Crop Rotation back to replace sylvan scrying and reep and sow for those pesky Urza lands...or maybe they will be really really really nice and reprint Fyndhorn Elves...so in T2 u can run LLanowar Fyndhorn and Birds....just think of the ensuing stupidity that would occur in T2...but my vote is its probably Crop Rotation or some CC Changed Reprint of something like Lotus Pedal.
thanks for the clarification about when the previews start, its much appreciated.
can anyone confirm that this monday is the start of the previews, it should be because its the 1st monday of the month of the prerelease, but i havn't seen anything at wizards that confirms this.
Instant
Target permanent loses all abiblities as long as it remains in play.
Enchantment
Activated Abilities can't be countered
creature Cow
whenever ~ attacks it doesnt untap durring your next turn's untap step.
6/6
creature Bird Dog
discard a card: ~ gains flying until EOT.
2/2
next Elephant
Instant
as an aditional cost to play ~ discard a card at random
~ deals 5 damage to target creature or player and 2 to you
next: Honor-Worn Shaku
Enchantment
whenever a Permanent is tapped for the 1st time each turn untap it.