MTG Salvation

link looks legit. the Mistform Ultimus watch image was 876, so this is probably the arcana for Thursday. the fact sheet, by comparing Guildpact's, should say something like this

[HTML]Set Name Dissension
Block Set 3 of 3 in the Ravnica Block
Number of Cards 165
Release Date June 2, 2006
Prerelease Tournaments May 20, 2006
Previews start
on magicthegathering.com May 2, 2006
Design Team ?? (lead)
?? 2nd designer
?? 3rd designer
?? 4th designer[/HTML]

the basic lands do EVOLVE. they get different art every set. and people have their favorites from different blocks. if you prefer black bordered ones with old card face, go ahead and put it in your deck. if you like the unglued or unhinged ones, they're fine too. basic lands are not the as boring as you make it out to be.

having different basic lands make it worse for deckbuilders. you have to relearn 20 different names every time a block rotates. that increases confusion. when you read a decklist, you know right away that a forest means this is a green deck. this benefits new and old players. when we critique a deck, we can tell right away if a deck has the right number of lands that produce a color.

Quote from Guesswork »

The main reason to do this is for constructed, let's be clear. And, to add some creativity to the printing of lands, which are all boringly the same.

there's been plenty of interesting lands from the last two blocks. if you can't see that, don't blame the R&D for your faulty vision.

so you want to remove basic lands and replace them with functionally identical cards. how is that interesting? you can have interesting lands without removing basic lands entirely. second, you jack up the prices to deckbuilding. players can use basic lands from older sets. you remove basic lands so people will have to spend money just for essential lands.

one can say it's a forest of buildings or mountain-like guildhouses, metaphorically speaking.

how would they pull off the idea of no basic lands? you need basic lands in limited and constructed. if the cards are not in the set, they are not legal for those formats. that means you can't play basic lands in block formats, and you have to rely on pulling the lands out of the packs.

it's a solid counter for a common. maybe we should expect something better at other rarities.

IF the drawback is comes into play tapped, why would the source compare it to the painlands instead of the taplands? Sure you can now have 8 painlands in your deck for the same 2 colors, but that may be too much damage. So that makes deck design even more interesting. How many painlands--both 9e and Rav editions--do you want in your deck? The new dual lands will probably not have the free colorless mana that 9e ones have. so they are not exactly strictly better.

There are some color pairs that don't have appropriate fetchlands, ie opposing colors. So if you play these colors, these new dual lands should improve your deck's mana consistency. Also, dual lands are not legal in Extended, so these would be the closest thing if they do have basic land types like the original duals.

If you want to use counters, it would be simpler to put it only if you did not pay the upfront cost. If you do pay, it would look just like an old dual land and without counters. Like this:

Land - Plains Island
As this comes into play, put a pain counter on this unless you pay 2 life.

If you tap this for mana and there is a pain counter on it, this deals 1 damage to you.

(Reminder text about basic land types.)

This is not a triggered effect. You take the damage as you tap for mana. Having basic land types and (pseudo-)triggered effects might have side effects with cards like Blanket of Night. Like, if you want to tap for B with Blanket of Night in play, you still take the damage. So they could make it like this:

Land
As this comes into play, put a pain counter on this unless you pay 2 life.

Tap: Add W or U to your mana pool. If there are pain counters on this, this deals 1 damage to you.

This is closer to the painlands because they lose basic land types. However, if Blanket of Night is in play, you can get B for free.

Quote from Dr. Pops »

So when they enter play, you make a choice. If you pay life, they become exactly like original duals. If you don't pay life, you get a drawback (duh). But where does it way this drawback HAS TO BE PAIN?

look at what you just quoted:

Quote from rancored_elf »

Instead of paying life each time you use them, you can choose to pay an up-front life investment, and from then on they're basically pain-free duals.

"Instead of paying life each time you use them." They're just like painlands except with painlands, you can tap for 1 at anytime pain-free.

so nobody agreed with me that they would say target as you play the spell.

if you're a beginner, you should buy the beginner's pack which comes with the basic rules that should tell you the difference between equipments and auras. besides, the current rules already state that local enchantments are attached, as do equipments.

something to do with freezing: Cryonics Research

i think they should make a set like chronicles, but this set has only creatures that need revised creature types. like old legends, creatures with extinct creature types, artifact creatures, and lords. they should have enough cards to make a small set.

i don't think they reprint any art older than mirage due to royalties.

ideologically, they don't match. if we want to go further, we need to reread their articles on why the colors choose their allies and opposites.

Even if 4/3/3 is correct, we also have to take into account the balance of colors in drafts and limited. If you look at the top four symbols and their constituent colors, you will see that there are two opposite (O) pairs and two allied (A) pairs. The two O pairs on the top take up four colors (RWGB), as do the A pairs (WGBU). Since there are 8 spaces for 5 colors, three colors will have to be represented twice and two colors just once. So, only two colors are behind by one: W,G,B are represented twice; R,U once. This is the closest to balance that can be achieved in this situation.

If the second set focuses on three new guilds, then we should assume that the new color-pairs are balanced with the first four. If so, then the next three color-pairs will be two opposite, one allied OR two allied, one opposite. Then the remaining guilds in the last set will follow the other combination--either 2O1A or 2A1O. Following the above purpose of balance, we assume that no color is over- or under-represented by more than one.

Assuming all the above--color ideology and limited balance--and assuming that they put the icons in 4/3/3 order, then I think the icons on the bottom will follow this order, from left to right:

WB / RU / RG || UW / BR / UG
O / O / A || A / A / O

WB guild symbol is the star or sun, which is the difference between night and day. In a way, it looks like an eclipse.
RU is the dragon containing Blue's flying, Red's fire.
RG shares the earth. The symbols also shows Green's forests and Red's fires.
UW is about planning and structure, which results in this geometric design.
BR shows a skull on fire, signifying the colors' destructive powers.
UG shares the water and storms. The symbol is a tidal wave in action.

The second set, Guildpact, will presumably get WB, RU, and RG guilds. By itself, all colors are represented, and red twice (balanced for drafting 3 packs of Guildpact.) This brings the block's total color count to 3 for BRGW and 2 for U.

The third set will then get UW, BR, and UG guilds by default. By itself, all colors are represented, and blue twice (again balanced for drafting 3 packs of the last set.) Now all the guilds and color-pairs are accounted for.

why not put in the other epics, especially the blue one Eternal Dominion, which is a super-Bribery.

milling can also be another victory path. perhaps a few mesmeric orbs or something.

arc-slogger + 10 red mana - 100 cards = good game

The comp rules differentiates between local-enchantment permanents and local-enchantment spells. Think of Morph and how Enchant can be very similar to it. That is, Morph has one rule for playing a spell and one rule for an activated ability to flip the permanent.

The Enchant keyword will most likely have dual abilities similar to Morph. Playing a local-enchantment spell requires targeting, but putting a local enchantment into play by any other methods does not require targeting. In fact, choosing a permanent to be enchanted happens before the local enchantment comes into play, not as it comes into play. When played as a spell, the chosen permanent is the same as the target of the spell. For other situations, the chosen permanent must be legal or else it is not moved at all--it stays in the other zone (e.g., graveyard) or on the currently enchanted permanent (e.g., if playing Enchantment Alteration).

One thing to remember is that the reminder text is for new players buying the new set. And in that set, there are no cards that can move local enchantments around. The only way to put them into play is to play them normally from the hand. So the important thing to put in the reminder text is that the target is chosen as you put the spell on the stack. In other words, the target must be legal before you can even play the spell. So I would word it something like this:

Enchant X (As you play this, chose target X. This comes into play enchanting the chosen X. An aura that enchants an illegal or nonexistent permanent is put into its owner's graveyard.)

The last sentence is taken directly from the comp rules section on state-based effect, but with aura replacing local enchantment.

the art for Battle of Wits has so many clues that they can't make it any more obvious: an actual battle in a library, burning books to reduce the library's size.

i'm convinced #14 is Contaminated Bond. The art depicts the bond by showing two versions of the skull, one for the player and one on the creature. The second clue is the dripping blood meaning the player loses his life. The curly horns are reminiscent of the old art for Bond.