Cellar Door looks bad. As a card, would you like a 3 mana 2/2 bear? Because this is costing you a card as well. Maybe if they reprint Mistveil Plains this would be 'meh' ('5' mana for a 2/2 (because tapping the MP for it's ability is equivalent to tapping it for mana), but it wouldn't cost you a card at that point).
Volley seems like an interesting precedent. There's been a lot of card advantage token makes spoiled at this point. If Volley's indicative of the 1/1 removal cards (like incinerate instead of bolt) they generally seems expensive. And then there's Blasphemous Act as the pyroclasm on crack... It seems like games are going to be huge attrition slug fests with lots and lots of clogged board states.
Also like to point out that as a 2/2 entering the battlefield, it'll trigger Mentor of the Meek. 5 mana for a 5/4 white (my favorite) human (relevant race in block) soldier (my favorite tribe) that replaces itself?
I'm really enjoying some of the art... And the same discussion earlier about Swanland makes me think that Steve Argyle isn't going to be very prominant in the set (Liliana excluded...)
Transform is going to suck in any format other that dueling standard. 8 man grand melee? 7 man star? Emperor? Pfft, good luck relying on them being any one thing.
Sorta... You draw a card, his sphinx triggers. He resolves drawing 2 cards causing yours to trigger twice, which the first resolves and triggers his twice and leaving one trigger on the stack, and the top resolves causing his to trigger twice....
Basically, you go back and forth drawing 2 until you decide to stop and decline the rest of the triggers on the stack...
Also, since there'll be a stack of unresolved triggers, there can be lopsided amounts of cards drawn.
you draw one,
he draws two, two triggers on the stack.
you draw two, one trigger pending for you, two more added for him.
he draws two, one pending for you, one pending for him, two added for you, you decline.
he draws two, you decline.
you decline.
Possibly dumb/noobish question here: But with the way the effect is worded, would it be an effect that's "automatically" and "instantly" activated as soon as you try and cast him?
In other words, if my opponent pays the mana to cast him, would I still be cast a counterspell (Cancel, Mana Leak, etc) or would it not be able to occur because the Abolisher's effect is already active even before completely resolving?
He has to resolve first. While he's just a spell on the stack, feel free to counterspell away, or unsummon him on your turn. You wouldn't however, be able to unsummon him in response to him getting equipped with a sword of Body and Mind (thus giving him Pro-Blue, and immunity to your unsommon in the future)
I think generally white plays instants in combat, not end of turn. Every other color plays instants end of turn normally. The big deal about making you deal with it on your turn is that it balances the tempo of the games out, which white generally lacks. It removes the other's colors' "I'm going to wait 1.9 turns to make a decision on this play" ability, and makes them "fight fair" to white's standards. No more "Okay, spend all that mana to equip and then get unsummoned/dismembered" crap that destroys white's tempo.
Mirran Crusader has Protection from Green, using one of the appearances of the word "green".
EDIT:
"Zenith" is in the Mirran orb 7 times, and Phyrexian orb 4 times... a cycle split across the factions, maybe?
Green is M2 / P3.... this could be a phyrexian card.
I don't see them aligning basic lands. It would create issues with building faction-aligned decks, and to my knowledge, there's no place to print the watermarks.
Conflux, Alara Reborn, and Worldwake don't have basic lands. They've included Shards/Zen lands in their booster packs. Check gatherer.wizards.com for type "basic" and you'll get no matches. RoE was a Big set as well, so it had basic lands.
In SOM, there are the 5 aggro lands like Darkslick Shores. They're all Mirran Aligned, and their templating refers to them by name (2 instances in the SOM Orb).
In MBS, what if there's the mirror cycle? Aggro lands with Enemy Color Pairs.
We have not seen any red cards spoiled yet. The web comics have Koth fighting for his homeworld.
The Orb has the word land appear 3 times for Phyrexian aligned cards. Once for Mirran aligned cards. "Contested" "War" "Zone" shows up twice each in the Mirran-cards Orb. We have spoiled Art by Chou confirming that name.
What if:
Contested War Zone is a Mirran Affiliated Red/White Aggro Land.
"Super Contested War Zone" is an Unaffiliated Blue/Red Aggro Land.
And the 3 remaining B/G, W/B, G/U lands are Phyrexian affiliated lands.
Red could have very little Phyrexian watermarks (There's a 2R and 2RR Phyrexian card, but no other CMC <=4) in this set. The story arc playing out like Vulshok/Red are the last bastion of homeland fighters.
I think R/W may still be Mirran affiliated since the Phyrexian infection just spread to them this set. It has a more established foothold in blue because it started in SOM so that Land could cancel out the affiliation.
This could explain why there's an apparent broken cycle in MBS and allow room for other unaffiliated cards since they could be 50/50% aligned to either faction.
**(Side note, MBS Product Info page on wizards.com says "A new planeswalker card is included." All singular reference to Tezzeret who's on the packs. No Karn the planeswalker in this set)
Volley seems like an interesting precedent. There's been a lot of card advantage token makes spoiled at this point. If Volley's indicative of the 1/1 removal cards (like incinerate instead of bolt) they generally seems expensive. And then there's Blasphemous Act as the pyroclasm on crack... It seems like games are going to be huge attrition slug fests with lots and lots of clogged board states.
Yes Please!
kikiki mamama
We All Float Down Here
I'm really enjoying some of the art... And the same discussion earlier about Swanland makes me think that Steve Argyle isn't going to be very prominant in the set (Liliana excluded...)
They're CMC 0 per Aaron Forsythe.
Aaron's tweet about it
Basically, you go back and forth drawing 2 until you decide to stop and decline the rest of the triggers on the stack...
Also, since there'll be a stack of unresolved triggers, there can be lopsided amounts of cards drawn.
you draw one,
he draws two, two triggers on the stack.
you draw two, one trigger pending for you, two more added for him.
he draws two, one pending for you, one pending for him, two added for you, you decline.
he draws two, you decline.
you decline.
He's drawn six cards to your three.
He has to resolve first. While he's just a spell on the stack, feel free to counterspell away, or unsummon him on your turn. You wouldn't however, be able to unsummon him in response to him getting equipped with a sword of Body and Mind (thus giving him Pro-Blue, and immunity to your unsommon in the future)
http://www.steveargyle.com/?cmd=gallery_ext&art_id=397
Mirran Crusader has Protection from Green, using one of the appearances of the word "green".
EDIT:
"Zenith" is in the Mirran orb 7 times, and Phyrexian orb 4 times... a cycle split across the factions, maybe?
Green is M2 / P3.... this could be a phyrexian card.
Conflux, Alara Reborn, and Worldwake don't have basic lands. They've included Shards/Zen lands in their booster packs. Check gatherer.wizards.com for type "basic" and you'll get no matches. RoE was a Big set as well, so it had basic lands.
I don't expect 20 basics in this set.
In SOM, there are the 5 aggro lands like Darkslick Shores. They're all Mirran Aligned, and their templating refers to them by name (2 instances in the SOM Orb).
In MBS, what if there's the mirror cycle? Aggro lands with Enemy Color Pairs.
We have not seen any red cards spoiled yet. The web comics have Koth fighting for his homeworld.
The Orb has the word land appear 3 times for Phyrexian aligned cards. Once for Mirran aligned cards. "Contested" "War" "Zone" shows up twice each in the Mirran-cards Orb. We have spoiled Art by Chou confirming that name.
What if:
Contested War Zone is a Mirran Affiliated Red/White Aggro Land.
"Super Contested War Zone" is an Unaffiliated Blue/Red Aggro Land.
And the 3 remaining B/G, W/B, G/U lands are Phyrexian affiliated lands.
Red could have very little Phyrexian watermarks (There's a 2R and 2RR Phyrexian card, but no other CMC <=4) in this set. The story arc playing out like Vulshok/Red are the last bastion of homeland fighters.
I think R/W may still be Mirran affiliated since the Phyrexian infection just spread to them this set. It has a more established foothold in blue because it started in SOM so that Land could cancel out the affiliation.
This could explain why there's an apparent broken cycle in MBS and allow room for other unaffiliated cards since they could be 50/50% aligned to either faction.
**(Side note, MBS Product Info page on wizards.com says "A new planeswalker card is included." All singular reference to Tezzeret who's on the packs. No Karn the planeswalker in this set)