Ok to start off with, this might be my new favorite commander. Esper is my favorite color combination and I've enjoyed all three of my sharuum, Arcum, and Karn decks (also Merieke). Now that we've made Karn obsolete with this massive improvement, we can basically combine the best aspects of all the decks and throw them together (along with new syngeristic cards - e.g. thornbite staff - and cards that Karn would have run if it had access to Esper - e.g. Open the Vaults and Transmute Artifact) to make this new masterpiece.
The list below is just a starting point to make sure that I'm not missing anything important, and I can work on focusing the deck from there.
I'm not super concerned about the mana base right now, I'll probably just transpose my Sharamum manabase over. The list is at 141 right now, so I have a fair amount to cut, I just would rather overshoot it and make sure I don't miss anything. Optimizing this decklist will be very difficult because there are probably 200 cards good enough to mainboard. (e.g. cards that focus better on comboing off, or aggroing , or taking advantage of lifelink or deathtouch, etc).
Don't put too much stock in that though. Diaochan was $80 before she was reprinted in a really limited release set and that super limited release card is $6. The P3K cards almost can't even be factored in here because they aren't that good but because of their rarity they are worth a **** ton.
FYI, on opening day last time the BUG deck was way more valuable than all the others. It had a bunch of known commodities and 2 playable generals in arguably the best color scheme. It is now worth the least of the 5.
Go for the decks that have good commanders and new cards, not reprints.
This guy has it right and if looking at value, this is the way to look at it.
P3K: All the P3K cards will become *nearly* worthless. None of the ones reprinted see much of any play and their price was due to rarity. That's no longer an issue. (And it's nice that Wizards is making these available for people who want them, now I just need my imperial seal reprint). Hua Tuo, Honored Physician and Strategic Planning might stay a bit more than the others because their better than the rest, we'll see.
New Cards: As for value in the new cards, Wizards has been kind enough to identify those for us (of the new cards). We've got Unexpectedly Absent, True-Name Nemesis, and restore (with, IMO, True-Name Nemesis being the most likely to see the most play *midrange decks + fish. AND it's probably too good for reprinting for modern / standard). Depending on how well they perform, any one of these could be worth more than the $25 for the box, so these are the guys I would try to stock up on (though Restore seems the most likely to be printable in an expansion (with fetches) or strong GY theme to tank its eventual value). I'm also a big fan of Toxic Deluge as a splashable 3cc wrath in black, but I'm sure I'm wrong because someone else would have pointed that out by now. Also several of these could settle in the 5ish range if they see enough play (a la stranglehold / Homeward Path). Finally, of the new legends, looking at kaalia of the vast it appears that one of the generals can climb relatively high if its popular enough, suggesting that if any of the new commanders get played a lot, they might retain their value. IMO the bird, blinker, and esper karn are the "best" but it's hard to evaluate (particularly because polling last time and this time didn't yielded anything useful except that Kaalia was SLIGHTLY favored).
Other Reprints: All the individual card values of reprints will tank, Baleful Strix is probably the most likely to retain much of its value because it ALREADY sees legacy play and the original printing was a fairly limited print-run (with goblin sharpshooter & Karmic Guide being the other two potential outliers). Also Sol Ring and Command Tower should retain their value (eventually) because people will always want to pick them up (the same reason why Eternal Witness / Lightning Greaves are still a couple of dollars despite 100 printings).
tl;dr
IMO singles in a year
Top Value: True-name nemesis, Restore, Unexpectedly Absent,
Middle Value: Command Tower, Sol Ring, Karmic Guide, Goblin Sharpshooter, MAYBE a new general
It's a Trap: P3K, everything else
I'm going to go with Esper, though only for the secondary commander (which I'm REALLY excited to build with). But really, if it's one of the other 2 blue decks that gets the 3/1 merfolk, that's the one I'm going to go with. The card *MIGHT* end up being more expensive than the MSRP so I figure I should pick it up naow and at least there will be staples throughout all of the decks.
Now that I see it, I am surprised it hasn't been printed before this. Seems very powerful and probably has some rather broken application. Best I can think of is double wasteland and legacy elves abusing the new legendary rule to great effect with 2 gaea's cradle's. Though all around a powerful and versatile ramp spell in formats with fetchlands.
Skittles is just a good mono-black commander, there are plenty others like him, and he's not great as a finisher in multiplayer compared to dudes like maga (which can hit the whole table), Erebos (useful effect + CA), etc.. He's a real killer in 1v1 though (as I use him)
Corrupted Conscious isn't that great, you can give your own 10/10 infect to surprise kill someone, or you can steal someone elses fatty, but if this card is EVER a problem in a meta, it's because the decks don't spot enough spot removal and are being appropriately punished.
Grafted Exoskelleton, This is probably the biggest offender on the list, it goes in ANY deck and turns any evasive creature into a 2-3 turn clock AND is repeatable. Not nearly enough people use this card and it is VASTLY underrated. However, changing the rules on a whole strategy should not happen because of 1 card. It's also not dominating the EDH world, so I don't see it as a real problem.
Tainted Strike - I've never done this but one of my friends would run this in his Bx decks so that when someone attacked an opponent with a 9+ power dude he could one-off them. It was always really funny and this (legitimate and fun/ny strategy) would completely disappear with 15 or 20 poison limits.
Triumph the hoards - no more powerful than cradelhoof, overwhelming stampede, or any number of other overrun effects that just end the game
blighsteel colossus - thsi is only really an issue when it's cheated out via sneak attack or other mechanism, if someone is hard casting a 12 drop, they deserve to win with it if they can. At the point though where it's blightsteel + sneak attack (or whatever other way to cheat it out you use) you're at a 2 card combo, there are so many better 2 card combos out there that who really cares?
Inkmoth nexus - also very good, but just an "ok" card overall. If this is a problem then try running more land destruction (a generallu good idea considering how many powerful lands exist)
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All of that being said, even if there were problem cards, who cares? EDH is full of broken stuff and that doesn't mean that it needs special rules to compensate to make combo STRONGER. Attaking with dudes scales terribly with higher life totals and more people (it's really easy to do 20 damage with an aggro deck, it's much harder to do 120...), making combo / control better by removing ANOTHER way to attack players life totals seems counterintuitive.
If you're having problems with poison, your problem is not poison, it's your lack of running cheap instant speed removal.
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Finally, this thread gets made ever 1-2m. I kindly suggest you see the other 15 polls with the same result and read through the threads if you're interested
I think I am one of the few disappointed in this card, but not in the card itself. Naya is what Naya does...Im more disappointed in how they drop the ball and even before the card comes out they are Errata this. Should of noticed that before printing. you know there are going to be some players out there who will "forget" that part and abuse those who don't know about it or don't keep up in commander as they do with standard.
This is what I am annoyed about too. First off, the card does not become automatically "broken" with x=0 as a possibility (it just opens up some fun combo potential); someone made the decision though that it was worth it to errata a newly printed card, which is just bad and reflects poorly on Wizards. That will be what this card is about now... (even if there is more that it is about)
Wish his draw ability couuld be activated from the command zone, would make this guy rather fun to build around, blind obedience for days...Oh well, all the other spoiled generals look to be better at this point.
On a side note, with 4/10 of the 3 color commanders spoiled, it seems reasonable to guess that each color will get a "can do stuff from the command zone" general and a "when you cast this do x, where x is somehow related to mana you spent on this dude"
In a 100 card deck, you still want 35-40 lands. That leaves you with 64 cards (36 land).
You need your "fast" combo to win and probably a backup. That leaves you with 58 cards (6 "combo" cards).
Then there're probably 10-20 disruption spells you want (as previously mentioned aven mindcensor, counterspells, etc). That leaves you 43 cards (15 utility).
Then you want ALL the fast mana (and jet medallions) artifacts to ramp the first 2-3 turns. That's another 10 cards. That leaves you 33 cards (10 ramp).
So, if you find yourself in the incredibly rare situation where your opponent has 1 self-sacrificing non-land permanent on the board, and sacrifices that permanent before O-Ring resolves (in either a terrible misplay, or in an attempt to make you o-ring one of your own permanents), you can then pay 2WU and (effectively) discard a card for a 2/2 flying creature with flash?
That sounds horrendous.
In a vast majority of eternal applications, Spell Pierce will do the same things as this card without giving your opponent a clock (and still be more versatile, hitting planeswalkers and artifacts). Flusterstorm will be better in the applications Spell Pierce is not.
Esperblade won't play it.
RUG delver won't play it.
BUG doesn't need it.
Reanimator won't play it.
TES isn't touching it.
Show & Tell could possibly play it (mostly for the mirror & humility.dec)
Omni-Show won't play, pact is better
In modern you want to hit cranial plating, birthing pod, Karn, blood moon, thoughtseize, scapeshift and splinter twin. Pierce hits all of these, Swansong hits half. Of the half swansong even hits, pierce is usually just as good. I could see it possibly being better than pierce against Scapeshift. That's too narrow a choice for too little a percentage of the field.
Vintage Oath is about the only place I'd agree this card is solid.
Even in standard, there are better options.
This will see all kinds of play in legacy. It's essentially a 1cc hard counter for combo decks that don't give two craps about a flying bear. Its better than spell pierce for the simple fact that FoW is free and people sometimes DO have the two mana. This is the "sleeper" of the set and will be $$ sometimes in the distant future
I have a Talrand deck and he's absolutely brutal in it. The key is that all the support cards work really well with Talrand because he creates an army of drakes:
- Opposition creates a similar lock to deadeye + venser bouncing lands against a lot of decks
- Coastal piracy and the new blue legendary enchantment artifact both let you draw massive amounts of cards
- Coat of Arms / Eldrazi monument both let you win in just a few swings
- (for when the above aren't out) meekstone lets you attack while preventing most other decks from operating
- You don't need to run a single other wincondition in your deck (or anything besides draw / counter / utility cards) and can kill of an entire table fairly quick
Either way, totally run Invoke Prejudice - the single best mono U card ever printed for EDH
Ok to start off with, this might be my new favorite commander. Esper is my favorite color combination and I've enjoyed all three of my sharuum, Arcum, and Karn decks (also Merieke). Now that we've made Karn obsolete with this massive improvement, we can basically combine the best aspects of all the decks and throw them together (along with new syngeristic cards - e.g. thornbite staff - and cards that Karn would have run if it had access to Esper - e.g. Open the Vaults and Transmute Artifact) to make this new masterpiece.
The list below is just a starting point to make sure that I'm not missing anything important, and I can work on focusing the deck from there.
1 Sydri, Galvanic Genius
Artifact Creatures
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Voltaic Construct
1 Myr Retreaver
1 Junk Diver
1 Memnarch
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Mycosynth Golem
1 Shimmer Myr
1 Treskellion
1 Spellskite
1 Scarecrone
1 Duplicant
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Sharding Sphinx
1 Archbound Reclaimer
1 masticore
Colored Creatures
1 Trinket Mage
1 Treasure Mage
1 Vedalken Engineer
1 Thada Adel, Aquisitor
1 Grand Architect
1 Mikaeus, the unhallowed
1 Stoneforege Mystic
1 Master Transmuter
1 Indomitable Archangel
Utility Artifacts
1 Meekstone
1 Voltaic Key
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Mimic Vat
1 Trading Post
1 Clock of Omens
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Mindslaver
1 Darksteel Forge
1 Torper Orb
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Staff of Domination
1 Mirrorworks
1 Cauldren of Souls
1 Copy Artifact
1 Second Sunrise
1 Open the Vaults
1 Roar of Reclamation
1 Training Grounds
Ramp Artifacts
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Blinkmoth Urn
1 Guilded Lotus
1 Orzhov Signet
2 Mirrodin Talisman
1 Chromatic Lantern
1 Darksteel Ingot
Disruption
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 All is Dust
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Mana Drain
1 Force of Will
1 Wrath of God
1 Damnation
1 Supreme Verdect
1 Terminus
1 Hinder
1 Spell Crumple
1 STP
1 Aura of Silence
1 Return to Dust
Equipment
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Skullclamp
1 Whispersilk cloak
1 Thornbite Staff
1 Scroll Rack
1 Land Tax
1 Spinny Top
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye
1 Staff of Nim
1 Bident of Thassa
1 Reshape
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Fabricate
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampric Tutor
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Well of Lost Dreams
Land
37 Mana Producing Land
1 Eye of ugin
I'm not super concerned about the mana base right now, I'll probably just transpose my Sharamum manabase over. The list is at 141 right now, so I have a fair amount to cut, I just would rather overshoot it and make sure I don't miss anything. Optimizing this decklist will be very difficult because there are probably 200 cards good enough to mainboard. (e.g. cards that focus better on comboing off, or aggroing , or taking advantage of lifelink or deathtouch, etc).
Cards that I've cut
1 Pact of Negation
1 Filigree Angel
1 Scarecrone
1 UB Signet
1 UW Signet
This guy has it right and if looking at value, this is the way to look at it.
P3K: All the P3K cards will become *nearly* worthless. None of the ones reprinted see much of any play and their price was due to rarity. That's no longer an issue. (And it's nice that Wizards is making these available for people who want them, now I just need my imperial seal reprint). Hua Tuo, Honored Physician and Strategic Planning might stay a bit more than the others because their better than the rest, we'll see.
New Cards: As for value in the new cards, Wizards has been kind enough to identify those for us (of the new cards). We've got Unexpectedly Absent, True-Name Nemesis, and restore (with, IMO, True-Name Nemesis being the most likely to see the most play *midrange decks + fish. AND it's probably too good for reprinting for modern / standard). Depending on how well they perform, any one of these could be worth more than the $25 for the box, so these are the guys I would try to stock up on (though Restore seems the most likely to be printable in an expansion (with fetches) or strong GY theme to tank its eventual value). I'm also a big fan of Toxic Deluge as a splashable 3cc wrath in black, but I'm sure I'm wrong because someone else would have pointed that out by now. Also several of these could settle in the 5ish range if they see enough play (a la stranglehold / Homeward Path). Finally, of the new legends, looking at kaalia of the vast it appears that one of the generals can climb relatively high if its popular enough, suggesting that if any of the new commanders get played a lot, they might retain their value. IMO the bird, blinker, and esper karn are the "best" but it's hard to evaluate (particularly because polling last time and this time didn't yielded anything useful except that Kaalia was SLIGHTLY favored).
Other Reprints: All the individual card values of reprints will tank, Baleful Strix is probably the most likely to retain much of its value because it ALREADY sees legacy play and the original printing was a fairly limited print-run (with goblin sharpshooter & Karmic Guide being the other two potential outliers). Also Sol Ring and Command Tower should retain their value (eventually) because people will always want to pick them up (the same reason why Eternal Witness / Lightning Greaves are still a couple of dollars despite 100 printings).
tl;dr
IMO singles in a year
Top Value: True-name nemesis, Restore, Unexpectedly Absent,
Middle Value: Command Tower, Sol Ring, Karmic Guide, Goblin Sharpshooter, MAYBE a new general
It's a Trap: P3K, everything else
wow, this has to be one of the better generals printed. So now we get access to 3 color karn, with a substantial upside, on the cheap???
SUPER excited to play / build with this
Of all the infect cards, there are only a few that are actually playable in any circumstance, they are:
Skittles is just a good mono-black commander, there are plenty others like him, and he's not great as a finisher in multiplayer compared to dudes like maga (which can hit the whole table), Erebos (useful effect + CA), etc.. He's a real killer in 1v1 though (as I use him)
Corrupted Conscious isn't that great, you can give your own 10/10 infect to surprise kill someone, or you can steal someone elses fatty, but if this card is EVER a problem in a meta, it's because the decks don't spot enough spot removal and are being appropriately punished.
Grafted Exoskelleton, This is probably the biggest offender on the list, it goes in ANY deck and turns any evasive creature into a 2-3 turn clock AND is repeatable. Not nearly enough people use this card and it is VASTLY underrated. However, changing the rules on a whole strategy should not happen because of 1 card. It's also not dominating the EDH world, so I don't see it as a real problem.
Tainted Strike - I've never done this but one of my friends would run this in his Bx decks so that when someone attacked an opponent with a 9+ power dude he could one-off them. It was always really funny and this (legitimate and fun/ny strategy) would completely disappear with 15 or 20 poison limits.
Triumph the hoards - no more powerful than cradelhoof, overwhelming stampede, or any number of other overrun effects that just end the game
blighsteel colossus - thsi is only really an issue when it's cheated out via sneak attack or other mechanism, if someone is hard casting a 12 drop, they deserve to win with it if they can. At the point though where it's blightsteel + sneak attack (or whatever other way to cheat it out you use) you're at a 2 card combo, there are so many better 2 card combos out there that who really cares?
Inkmoth nexus - also very good, but just an "ok" card overall. If this is a problem then try running more land destruction (a generallu good idea considering how many powerful lands exist)
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All of that being said, even if there were problem cards, who cares? EDH is full of broken stuff and that doesn't mean that it needs special rules to compensate to make combo STRONGER. Attaking with dudes scales terribly with higher life totals and more people (it's really easy to do 20 damage with an aggro deck, it's much harder to do 120...), making combo / control better by removing ANOTHER way to attack players life totals seems counterintuitive.
If you're having problems with poison, your problem is not poison, it's your lack of running cheap instant speed removal.
----------------------
Finally, this thread gets made ever 1-2m. I kindly suggest you see the other 15 polls with the same result and read through the threads if you're interested
This is what I am annoyed about too. First off, the card does not become automatically "broken" with x=0 as a possibility (it just opens up some fun combo potential); someone made the decision though that it was worth it to errata a newly printed card, which is just bad and reflects poorly on Wizards. That will be what this card is about now... (even if there is more that it is about)
On a side note, with 4/10 of the 3 color commanders spoiled, it seems reasonable to guess that each color will get a "can do stuff from the command zone" general and a "when you cast this do x, where x is somehow related to mana you spent on this dude"
You need your "fast" combo to win and probably a backup. That leaves you with 58 cards (6 "combo" cards).
Then there're probably 10-20 disruption spells you want (as previously mentioned aven mindcensor, counterspells, etc). That leaves you 43 cards (15 utility).
Then you want ALL the fast mana (and jet medallions) artifacts to ramp the first 2-3 turns. That's another 10 cards. That leaves you 33 cards (10 ramp).
So like 30-40 tutors sounds right.
(1) reprint of nobel hierarch, it's either here or in MM2, so why not here?
(2) With the new legendary rule, legendary ABUR duals
This will see all kinds of play in legacy. It's essentially a 1cc hard counter for combo decks that don't give two craps about a flying bear. Its better than spell pierce for the simple fact that FoW is free and people sometimes DO have the two mana. This is the "sleeper" of the set and will be $$ sometimes in the distant future
- Opposition creates a similar lock to deadeye + venser bouncing lands against a lot of decks
- Coastal piracy and the new blue legendary enchantment artifact both let you draw massive amounts of cards
- Coat of Arms / Eldrazi monument both let you win in just a few swings
- (for when the above aren't out) meekstone lets you attack while preventing most other decks from operating
- You don't need to run a single other wincondition in your deck (or anything besides draw / counter / utility cards) and can kill of an entire table fairly quick
Either way, totally run Invoke Prejudice - the single best mono U card ever printed for EDH