MTG Salvation

Quote from bone_doc

I would as well. More cards like Thalia would be desirable.

I dunno if I'd go THAT far, thalia is a little too far in the opposite direction, to where she's too boring.

A good example of what I mean is a general I just built around, toshiro umezawa. It's cheap and efficient, but still has a cool ability that can be built around, without paying a bunch of extra for high p/t when you really just want the ability.

Quote from bone_doc

He just means that we shouldn't expect the legends to cater specifically to EDH like the commander ones did.

i disagree with that too. I think they're smart enough to realize that including exclusive legends in these decks will make EDH players buy them and move more product. If they print some crap legends they lose out on that whole demographic.

Also I don't feel like most of the commander deck legends really catered overly to EDH. Sure, karador was clearly built to be a general, but ruhan is sort of the opposite of EDH strategy, and a lot of the others could have passed for non-commander legends.

Anyway it doesn't have to be "made for commander" to be a good general. Personally I'd prefer some smaller, more efficient generals instead of big expensive "EDH cards".

OK, look, all of these examples (and I'd still disagree that some of them would be considered cycles, per se) involve some sort of flavor with the storyline or whatever. afaik this is sort of a standalone thing without a storyline behind it to justify a "flavor cycle" or whatever. Sure, ninjas will be a ninja tribal deck, but savage auras doesn't sound tribal at all.

It's not impossible for it to be a cycle of something else, I guess, but I still put the odds squarely in favor of a wedge legend cycle.

Personally I don't care that much, though, as long as there's some good legends I don't care too much if they're wedge, shard, allies or enemies. I'd only be disappointed if they were monocolored and/or lame.

Quote from Jaxck

It is also important to note that this set is Planechase and such contains cool new legendaries simply as a gimicy favour to EDH players.

Why does it matter why they're in there? People can care about whatever part of this release they want to.

Quote from Barinellos

Doran the Siege Tower and all the other legends from Lorwyn.

See but that's not a cycle. it's a bunch of legends in a set that was about multicolor tribes. Besides being multicolor legends they have nothing in common.

and not that it matters, but they also don't add up evenly as suggested.

Quote from Panic_Puppet

Just because one of the legendaries is a wedge creature doesn't necessarily mean the others will be. They specifically printed 2 new wedge colour legendaries for each combination with the commander precons. The cycle could quite easily be one that has "do X, then do X again" - in the case of this guy, its cascade.

except that, unless they ALSO happen to be wedges, they wouldn't really be a cycle by the most common definition. Nobody calls the transmute cards "the transmute cycle" because, although they have an element in common, they're all in the same colors. The only other way I've heard "cycle" used is for a c/u/r cycle, which is really unbelievably unlikely to happen with URG legends.

Quote from PorcelainGod

That, taken with the fact that we are only getting 4 decks so a clear all 5 wedge cycle would be very hard has had me thinking option B for a long time. We may get a messy cycle like URG, UB, RGW, and BW. There are only 4 because we only have 4 decks, and each color shows up twice. I'm not saying that the last two are necessarily what we are going to get but they worked with the math.

See, now this makes me happy. We have an idea that isn't based in the idea that the cycle was made for Commander.
What other abilities would work with that though.
Cascade
We could see an agro card with either Battle Cry or Exalted twice.
Proliferate has been done twice on a card before, but not a creature.
Scry twice could be fun.
Landfall twice could be very broken, but also fun to see.

1) Wizards has never, to my knowledge, having seen every card, done an asymmetric "cycle" with 2-3 colors cards like that. I think it's far more likely that we'll get an incomplete cycle, and my best guess for the excluded triad is GBW since Doran already gives them +1 legend over the other wedges.

2) I don't know why you're annoyed with people seeing this as a gift to EDH. Clearly wizards is playing that angle by spoiling a big splashy legend first and including a cycle in the set. It doesn't matter whether it's intended for EDH or not (and clearly it is or they wouldn't mention it. They know how much more popular EDH is than planechase) - good/cool legends will see EDH play regardless of the rest of the decks or the "intent" of the set (and again, I guarantee the intent, at least partially, of the legends is to entice EDH players to buy).

3) why would landfall twice be "broken"? Doesn't that sort of depend on what the landfall ability is? Unless you're saying it doubles existing landfall triggers of other permanents, but that would't follow the cycle since wanderer doesn't double other cascade abilities, he just has his own double ability.

Quote from Jiyor

Yet you left out the blue and white,besides hybrid, that has hexproof as well.That was the whole point of dropping fear and makeing intimidate non color specific.Hexproof is mostly in green with blue as secondary and mildly in white.Its utterly stupid to say "hexproof is ninja-y so green needs to be in the deck." when one of the ****ing colors that ninjas are is a color that has hexproof.
And to the underlined part....no...no they cant.Their style and flavor is pure blue and black.Theres nothing white,red or green about them.


@ PorcelainGod-OOOMMMGGGGG! Dont post stuff that comes from the mothership that clearly destroies peoples Jeff Goldblum styles logic jumps.
Back to serious now.People seem to ignore that part.Its like Commander is meth to some people.Even though the focus of this product is the planes/phenomena which is hammered home by the fact the decks are 60 cards and not 100, they still seem to think this is just commander masked under planechase.

Again, I'm not saying that ninjas make a lot of sense in green. If they hadn't said there was a cycle of multicolor legends then I would never think ninjas would be green.

But if there's a cycle of multicolor legends, and maelstrom worker is ostensibly the first of the cycle, then explain to me how ninjas ISN'T forced to be GUB in order to host the GUB legend in the cycle.

EDIT: and yes, of course the FOCUS of the decks as a whole is planechase, I'm not arguing against that. But I really only do drafts and EDH these days, so I'm most interested in the new cards, and especially new legends, since those are the cards I'm most likely to use. I've tried planechase a few times but really didn't like it. I'm a control guy at heart, the chaos aspect just doesn't jive with my playstyle, and I don't really like the extra luck aspect. I can see the appeal, but it's not for me. New legends, though, that I can get interested in, I don't care what the rest of the deck is. You can't really blame people for focusing on the aspect of the release that's most interesting to them.

Also, I think it's clear from the way wizards spoiled the first card as a multicolor legend that they also realize that this product will appeal to way more people with some cool legends for EDH. Planechase didn't sell terribly well last time, adding a bunch of rabid EDHers, like myself, to the target market will definitely sell a lot more of them. It'd be stupid for them to hype up EDH players by spoiling a wedge legend with a teaser for a cycle, and then NOT give us a solid EDH cycle. I sincerely doubt wizards is that stupid.

You think they'd say there was a cycle of legendary creatures "like this one" and then include a cycle of preexisting multicolor legends and no other new ones? that'd be pretty dickish imo. Not sure what they'd do for ninjas, either.

But excluding that possibility, if they said it's a cycle of legends and it starts with a wedge legend, how else could the cycle really be completed except for other wedge legends?

I'm not trying to blind myself with optimism here, I'm just reading what they wrote. There's a few slim possibilities under which we might not be getting new wedge legends. What do you think they mean if they say there's a cycle of multicolor legends, "like [Maelstrom Wanderer]" other than a cycle of wedge legends?

Quote from Antibus

I actually cut the multiples down to Sol Ring, Command Tower, and Steel Hellkite(sentimental reasons/birthday printed on the card). I don't intend to get more than one of anything besides basic land in the box unless it truly MUST go in ANY deck. If I have two decks out at a time, it's usually to lend someone who's thinking about getting into the format, and it'll be in colors that aren't in the deck I feel like playing that day. Hypothetically if I wanted to play Phelddagrif(WUG), I'd whip up Wort, Boggart Auntie(RB) for a friend to play with.

If you're using specialized cards (i.e. goblins for wort) how many of those really get put into other decks? seems like you'd just end up sharing manabases and tutors and a few other goodstuff cards. Wouldn't it be easier to just have a pool for your manabases and staples, and then keep the specialty cards under their corresponding generals?

At any rate, I think I prefer to just proxy the duplicates and let people know I've got the real versions in another deck.

Quote from Antibus

It's not just goodstuff decks. Worth, Phelddagrif, Ixidor, and Karona etc have plenty of stuff that wouldn't ever go into a goodstuff deck. So far it really hasn't been a hastle. I usually have one or two decks already separated, and it takes less than ten minutes to make a new one.

well but that's only true if your decks don't share any cards. Which, since sol ring is a card, should never be true.

if you've already got decks separated, is it really that different from just owning a bunch of staples and having your decks the normal way? I thought the idea of "[format] in a box" was that you only needed a playset of each staple, which means you could only really have 1 deck at a time separated out, unless they shared zero cards. And if you're buying multiples of the dual lands, fetches, mana crypt, top, and all the other expensive staples that go into almost every deck, then you're not really saving much money over just keeping the decks separated in the first place.

Call me crazy, but I feel like the downside to doing EDH in a box vs legacy in a box is that pulling 100 single cards from a big box would be a huge pain the ass. Plus there's a lot more variability in strategy since some generals make otherwise bad cards good. I mean, if you're only doing goodstuff type decks then you could maybe get the list down to 500. And even then, I don't think anyone wants to wait 15 minutes while you go through a decklist and pull all those cards out one at a time every time you change decks.

Has anyone actually pulled this off? I mean, I sort of like the idea, but logistically I think it's a lot more difficult for EDH compared to legacy or standard. I used to share like 30 cards between 3 EDH decks and that alone was a massively annoying logistics problem.

Quote from Totomo

I understand, but that's what the cards were originally made for. +flavor (this is commander after all.. and I feel weird to use the Horde merely as a 5c general)

So you're saying that you want horde reprinted without his elemental ability so we'll have a decent 5c general? That's not insane or anything.

Quote from Totomo

You are right, though I dislike both the dragon, the lord, and the horde, because they are so type-specific.. And the Child isn't as good as those aforementioned.

no offense, but if you think you need to be playing dragon tribal to use scion, or elementals for horde, you're not using them correctly.

Quote from Totomo

I just hope we'll get 4color commanders. It's probably the only thing we urgently need in Commander right now. That, and a decent 5-color dude.

possibility for the next commander product, but virtually impossible for planechase.

and wtf are you talking about no decent 5-color commanders? Scion of the ur-dragon is the general for arguably the best deck in the format, and horde of notions, child of alara, and sliver overlord are all very strong too. How about a decent general for RW, there's a color combo without anything decent to command.

Quote from PorcelainGod

Some food for thought for the people declaring that the ninja deck is 3 color.

So lets say the ninja deck has a new legend, then something like a Manalith color fixing card that can be in more then one deck. That leaves only 4 new cards. To justify dipping ninja into a 3rd color wouldn't all of those 4 have to be the new color? Then that would mean no new ninja in U or B. Is it really worth doing that in a Planechase product just to pander to Commander players?
Also even if all 4 of those cards are new ninja it would still mean only a total of 13 ninja, far too few creatures to make a NinjaEDH.

We also have to keep in mind that these are 60 card decks where multiple copies are allowed and if you take the 8 existing ninja and do this...

Higure, the Still Wind -1
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni -1
Mistblade Shinobi -3
Ninja of the Deep Hours -4
Okiba-Gang Shinobi -3
Skullsnatcher -4
Throat Slitter -2
Walker of Secret Ways -2
You suddenly have 20 creatures, enough to make a ninja deck. You could cut 4 multiples and throw in 4 Ornithopters and still get 20 creatures. It may not be the most competitive deck but it's still enough creature cards.

It kinda sounds like you talked yourself into the ninja deck not being green, and then talked yourself right back into the possibility. If there's even just 2 common green ninjas with 2-4 each, that would be a decent fraction of the deck to justify green's existence in it. I don't think anyone thinks green will be heavily in the ninja deck.

As I elaborated on in my reasoning, I wouldn't consider GUB ninjas much of a possibility if they hadn't stated that there would be a cycle of multicolor legends, ostensibly including maelstrom wanderer. But since they did, then one of my bulletpoints above has to be true, or ninjas HAS to be GUB. so which do you think is true?

-ninjas aren't in UB or UBx (seems unlikely since they've ONLY been in those colors).
-the spoiled legend isn't part of the cycle (again, seems unlikely, but it is POSSIBLE I guess. that'd mean a LOT of new legends, though with a cycle on top of this one.)
-the cycle isn't enemy triads. this is possible but it would be, imo, a major mislead on wizard's part. and realistically, assuming the spoiled legend is part of the cycle, how could the other legends complete the cycle without being enemy triads? maybe they're all red with 2 other colors? that's just weird and unbalanced. seems unlikely.
-one deck has multiple of the new legends. possible, but again I say unlikely if there are 4 legends (assuming that doran fills in for WGB). You'd need to have 1 four-color deck and 2 3-color decks, and then one deck doesn't get a new legend (it'd be the ninjas one) while another gets 2.

I'm pretty sure that covers all possibilities.

I actually considered I think all of those cards (except sewers, no offense...it's just a very weak card).

I do agree that I don't like loading up on nonblack killers, but usually there will be SOMETHING you can kill at a multiplayer table, and if you can kill anything then at least you can trigger the tragic slip in your graveyard to kill whatever you like. Also, the 3 I left in there were chosen for important reasons: horobi's whisper because I had sort of a spice into arcane theme, which is a really cool (if usually sort of crappy) ability, and it seemed really sick with toshiro since he can cast those instants twice, so he can splice all that crap on there twice and get a LOT of mileage out of it. murderous spoils is really more about the equipment than anything, and slaughter is very reusable, especially if you've got batterskull or something.

Hatred and Jitte were cards I was very surprised when I decided not to run them, but I had good reasons, and I think I made the right choice.

Hatred I would run in a nanosecond if this deck was for 1v1 play (or maybe if I was using xiahou dun as my general), but in multiplayer, are you really going to be able to use it TWICE for lethal? you're going to pay 19 life TWICE? Outside of long games with batterskull I really don't see it doing anything except killing the last enemy at the table, otherwise it's just too risky in multiplayer. and if people know you have it, you become much higher profile and people will be a lot more apt to kill toshi right away, damn the consequences, especially if they have no creatures.

Jitte is an extremely strong equipment, but I left it out because it really wants more tempo-based creatures. I don't think this deck wants to play toshi turn 3...more like turn 7, hopefully with protection ready and mana for removal available. By the time you're doing a lot of combat I think I'd rather have swords, which will give you protection as well as extra effects. And the +4/+4 that jitte gives, on average, will probably be massively outclassed by runechanter's pike. If Pike underperforms, though, I'll probably move jitte back in.

(incidentally, I also really wanted to include oathkeeper, takeno's daisho but eventually had to admit that nim deathmantle was better protection.)

I included skeletal scrying because originally I figured the deck would be dredging a lot, although now the dredge has been cut down to 3 cards (darkblast, stinky, and the land). I still think it has a lot of potential with the darkblast engine (darkblast + forbidden orchard) so I'm going to give it a try. But I agree that exiling instants is probably a bad move.

exsanguinate is definitely a possibility, with all the coffers action I can theoretically generate. Sorin is also possible although his existence, especially with all the tutors, could make me a big target.

Blade of the bloodchief is cool and I definitely considered it, but keep in mind the low mana cost isn't really that important to me - once I want to play toshi I should have plenty of mana to equip batterskull or the bigger equips. and I don't really like that killing him erases all the pumps, especially since it sort of non-bos with my mass removal + nim deathmantle, sadly.

quietus spike I didn't include because I felt it was counterproductive to the general damage goal. I'll just compare it to, say, barbed battlegear, a boring, crappy equipment. with battlegear you need 4 hits to kill from general damage. With spike, assuming they're at 40, you'll also kill them in 4 hits. And it doesn't give any snazzy extras like the swords or batterskull, or protection like deathmantle. all of my chosen equips offer at least 2 from the damage, protection, and extra effects categories, spike only really offers damage, and not so much that I'm enticed.

now that I'm thinking about it, xiahou dun, the one-eyed might be a good choice for this deck (as a card, not a general). maybe toss in some recursion with corpse dance or something? I think it bears thought.