MTG Salvation

Quote from Mockingbird »

Did... did Wizards of the Coast just consciously give Eggs strategy players... an actual egg?

The name of the "eggs" archetype comes from Darkwater Egg, Mossfire Egg, Shadowblood Egg, Skycloud Egg, and Sungrass Egg.

I wouldn't have expected it, but I wish they had gone with "Eat some food", because that would make Yule Ooze more hilarious.

Quote from sleeper agent 2.0 »

Is the food an artifact, or some other permanent type?

Artifact. MaRo confirmed that hours ago (without telling us what Food tokens do), and the ability comes from the reminder text on Gilded Goose (which makes Food on etb as well as for 1G, t)

Quote from FetalTadpole »

Had another Yarok game yesterday and it was miserable. Nobody had removal the instant the Yarok player cast his commander, so he proceeded to ramp for free with Lotus Cobra, making it pointless to kill Yarok as he had so much mana it wouldn't even matter if he had to cast it again.

You seem to misunderstand how Lotus Cobra works. When a land enters under the Cobra player's control, that player adds a mana to their mana pool (two mana, in the case of Yarok). Mana in your mana pool empties at the end of each step and each phase of each turn. As soon as the Yarok player moves to the next part of their turn, any mana they got from the Cobra that they didn't already use ceases to exist.

Lands produce mana (generally). Mana is not lands.

Quote from FetalTadpole »

I was playing Surrak Dragonclaw all creatures, so no way to deal with Yarok without giving him four ETB triggers.

What? Yarok only doubles triggers, and only the triggers of permanents he controls. For most boardstates, you playing a creature won't give the Yarok player anything.

Quote from FetalTadpole »

The Yarok player takes two turns for every turn their opponents get

Once again, that's not how Yarok works.

Crackling Drake's power-setting ability is called a Characteristic Defining Ability. Because the Drake's CDA sets power and Volrath does not copy power, Volrath will not copy the Drake's CDA.

706.9d When applying a copy effect that doesn’t copy a certain characteristic, retains an original value for a certain characteristic, or modifies the final value of a certain characteristic, any characteristic-defining ability (see rule 604.3) of the object being copied that defines that characteristic is not copied. If that characteristic is color, any color indicator (see rule 204) of that object is also not copied.

Is Run Away Together a reference to Hunchback of Notre Dame? Or something else?

Either, depending on the game in question.

With Mana Maze and Painter's Servant, you essentially have an even more restrictive Arcane Laboratory (one spell period per turn, vs. one spell per player per turn). Is the same true when casting a morph spell, or is this another case of morph weirdness like Garruk's Horde+Zoetic Cavern?

Okay, I see what you're saying. I misunderstood you.

Quote from Drain Life »

I haven't seen commander damage be the reason somebody lost in over 10 years.

Whereas I see it weekly.

Ancient Stirrings isn't a search, but it can dig 5 deep for an artifact (or any other colorless card, like a land). Except for a colored artifact like Birthing Pod, of course.

Quote from FetalTadpole »

The Yarok player functionally gets two turns for each turn their opponents get.

I'm sorry, what? A Panharmonicon effect is nothing like an extra turn.

Quote from FetalTadpole »

Panharmonicon out of the command zone is oppressive and unfair.

We've already had that for wizards in Naban, Dean of Iteration and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, not to mention the Necro-monicon in Teysa Karlov. I don't see your crying to get them banned. Naban and Inalla even work with the Venser you're so worked up about.

Quote from MRHblue »

Quote from Lithl »

Quote from BaronCappuccino »

The only other card in recent memory that evoked a similar notion of breakability on release is Bolas's Citadel, and I'm hoping requiring colored mana saves it from a similar fate.

On the other hand, I would have preferred to see Citadel go long before Engine.

Have you been seeing it regularly? What are people doing that makes you want it gone?

Yes. I play Commander on Wednesdays and Sundays, with mostly distinct groups of people, and see it frequently in both groups. A resolved Citadel that isn't destroyed immediately has meant victory for that player roughly 70% of the time in my experience. The last time I saw Citadel not win, the player was already at 9 life because the aggro player had been focusing on him the entire game.

Quote from TheOnlyOne652089 »

Chaos Warp is a odd exception to red

Being fair, Chaos Warp is more like a single-target Warp World than a true exception. I would argue Beast Within is more of a break than Chaos Warp.

Quote from Perodequeso »

Rasputin Dreamweaver- marginal, fragile mana ramp

Marginal? He's one of the best blink commanders, IMO. Whereas cards like Roon do the blinking, Rasputin is an incredible blink target. Spend a couple mana to get 7 mana? Yes please! He instantly goes infinite with Eldrazi Displacer or Nim Deathmantle and any repeatable sac outlet that costs 3 or less mana to activate. He's an incredible target for Vanish into Memory (draw 4, discard 1, gain 7 mana). And if you're not using his counters for mana, he's also effectively a 4/8.

Quote from Melkor »

well it cannot be truly random, we don't have the technology, for it to be functionally 'randomized'

Well that's simply not true. The technology for true randomness absolutely exists. It can't be done without specialized-purpose hardware, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And any project that can't include special hardware can query random.org's API, which does use specialized hardware.

Quote from Melkor »

some cards will be printed more than others, and Wizards has the ability to control which ones those are.

That... has nothing to do with whether things are truly random or not.