I honestly don't understand the outcry some people are having with these werewolves. I'm a huge werewolf fan, my favorite deck in Innistrad-Scars standard was a RUG delver deck that ran Mayor of Avabruck, Daybreak Ranger, and Huntmaster of the Fells alongside a ton of instant speed disruption to more easily flip my wolves. I, like many others, was irritated when Avacyn Restored dropped werewolves and DFC entirely, and gave us the Wolfir in return.
But this is totally different from that. We got werewolves, they're just in a different fashion than we used to get them, and that's fine. These werewolves even synergize fantastically with 'traditional' werewolves, so they'll play well together outside of weirdness with Immerwolf. And we just had another set of werewolves, so we'll have both the old style and the new style existing together. We're seeing an evolution of werewolves, not a devolution of them.
I am *loving* the aesthetic of the werewolves, and the warped creatures in general, in this set. This set avoids the problem I had with BFZ, where the Eldrazi all looked mostly similar. The varied takes on what an Eldrazified creature is are very visually interesting, especially since Werewolves often ended up looking kind of same-y for me on their flipped sides. It also probably helps that I loved Bloodborne, which also combined Gothic Horror and Eldritch Horror.
But the sheer backlash against the adding of the 'Eldrazi' type to these werewolves is baffling to me. Yes, they *are* twisted versions of the werewolves we loved, but that doesn't mean I love them any less now. I think it's neat seeing a variation on my favorite tribe, and I'll add them to my decks and appreciate the variety.
Wizards isn't 'not caring' about a section of the playerbase, let's not get dramatic about this. I'm disappointed about the werewolf legend too, although werewolves would have needed something *insanely* broken to be good in EDH so I didn't really even expect much, but some of the hyperbole in this thread is really astounding.
Edit: I'm not saying you have to like the new aesthetic, that's totally a matter of personal taste, but some of the reactions in this thread are going way far beyond just "oh, i don't like the way that looks".
Innistrad is my favorite set and plane, and I am adoring the Eldrazi corruption of it. This piece is an excellent meld of refined gothic horror tropes and strange, alien biological horror. Pieces like this feel like an extension of the plane, not an unnecessary perversion. Love that ram's head she's now acquired.
As for the actual card, this thing has a steep transformation cost, but it does inflict the same cost on your opponent while upgrading you to a 6/5, so that more than makes up for it. If there's some B/x tokens deck, I could see this finding it's way in. Don't think this is one for the actual vampire deck, but that's fine.
I love how these synergize with normal werewolves by giving you something to do with your mana during your turn so that your wolves can all flip. Awesome design.
Promising stuff this first day. The common Meld pair will be fun to try and grab in limited, and the other two look legitimately playable. Both halves of the Writhing Township look playable on their own-- a 2/3 for 3 that puts two additional creatures tapped and attacking is very good, and a land that can grant haste has potential as well. And then if you just happen to have both cards out, you can meld and get a gigantic attacker out of nowhere.
Bruna and Gisela also have some great potential for seeing standard play. Gisela is a cheaper, smaller Baneslayer Angel, which is honestly enough said. 4/3 instead of a 5/5, but being 4 mana instead of 5 is huge. This is also a weaker standard than when Baneslayer last flew the skies, so she'll be good here. Bruna is seven mana, but she's definitely worth it. A 5/7 vigilant flying body is pretty good, but the ability to ressurect an Angel or Human upon it being *cast* is crazy. Even if your opponent counters it, you get an effect. And what an effect it is. If Gisela fell in battle earlier, you get to bring her back, but there are also a bevy of playable cards that are incidentally humans that you might have played, and Archangel Avacyn is a fine target for Bruna's ability in case Gisela isn't there.
The sheer amount of inevitability Bruna represents is very appealing--if Gisela died earlier in the game, you get to play Bruna and instantly put your opponent on the back foot. They need to have an instant speed answer right then, or Brisela is going to make things extremely difficult for them. Brisela dodges a *huge* amount of removal, provides a massive wall that represents *nine* life gained if she blocks, and is a clock your opponents are going to have a hell of a time outpacing. Certain decks will be almost unable to beat her.
I think a lot of people are going to see the seven CMC cost for Bruna and dismiss her out of hand, but I think that'd be a mistake.
I think Innistrad survives, but unlike with Zendikar, I won't be disappointed when that happens. We've gotten the foreshadowing of the Helvault being a sliver of the Moon, and with Sorin's limited understanding of Lithomancy, the Helvault was able to trap Avacyn, Griselbrand, Nahiri, and all sorts of powerful beings. I could absolutely accept that the Moon itself could be used to house Emrakul. Not to mention, we'll have the entire Gatewatch, Liliana and her Chain Veil, Tamiyo, and possibly Nahiri and Sorin against the titan this time around, so it's way more palatable than last time.
I'd actually love the idea of Emrakul being sealed into the moon, becoming the Eldritch Moon in truth, and then having a permanent effect on the plane of Innistrad going forward. Innistrad is saved from destruction and Emrakul is stopped, but there isn't an underlying theme of hope of rebuilding like there was in Zendikar. Innistrad's mortals might band together, perhaps under Sigarda, and they'll have to work to figure out their place in a world permanently warped by Emrakul's madness. It's a heavily phyrric victory.
I think an ending like this would be better than just having Innistrad be destroyed. Emrakul's potency as a villain isn't reduced because it would take a tremendous amount of work to stop her, and she ends up still controlling/actively corrupting an entire plane. Ideally we lose some important named characters as well, though this story is already doing way better than Zendikar did by killing off Avacyn, Angel of Hope.
One thing that's different about this time around with the Eldrazi, as opposed to BFZ, is that I actually wouldn't mind an ending where Emrakul gets temporarily defeated and sealed away. Unlike Oath's asspull of an ending, a possible path to victory--sealing Emrakul in the Moon--has already been foreshaowed, and it would make perfect sense. Not to mention, we have the full Gatewatch, Liliana and the Chain Veil, Tamiyo, and quite possibly all three of the original jailers of the Eldrazi if Ugin shows up all here to bring their might to bear against Emrakul, as opposed to just four planeswalkers against two titans. These odds are much more interesting.
In general, this set is redeeming the Eldrazi for me after BFZ's abysmal story. I spent every week of BFZ's story dreading how it was going to end and ruin everything, whereas I'm pretty confident that they'll get it right here.
This is everything I wanted Battle for Zendikar to be. I love that we're getting right into it--Emrakul rises, and all hell breaks loose. I love the 'all are one' theme that Emrakul has here. It makes the Hanweir Chronicle more interesting now, as we see the villagers' process towards becoming 'one'. The "'mrakul" bits felt silly at first but I got into it pretty quickly, once the story kept going. Now it feels delightuflly mad and creepy.
I love the twisted Bruna/Gisela hybrid. Love it.
Jace probing Emrakul and getting a 'coherent' response back was also awesome. Ulamog and Kozilek ended up feeling like mindless beasts, Emrakul hearkens back to what the Eldrazi were originally described as.
This feels like Bloodborne, and that is high praise coming from me. We enter a gothic horror world, that feels slightly off, before a keystone guadian is killed and the world takes a nosedive into a horror beyond such mundanities as the living dead and restless spirits. Hell, the Great One from Bloodborne is even named the Moon Presence. I'm loving this.
And the art for Emrakul herself is stunning. Seeing the greatest horror of the Multiverse hovering over the spires of Innistrad is breathtaking, and the trailer scene of Liliana's zombie horde charging Emrakul got me more hyped than I could have imagined.
I feel like people aren't realizing how powerful this card is for Standard play. If you're playing a deck built around achieving Delirium, this card slots right in, and it gets crazy. If you have delirium, Emrakul costs 9, and she can very possibly fall lower. She can come out earlier than Kozilek and Ulamog, and I think people are seeing the 'take an extra turn' text and thinking that cancels out the effectiveness of the Mindslaver effect, but it doesn't at all.
You cast her, and then your opponent is very likely going to be unable to deal with her that turn outside of Stasis Snare, and you get a 13/13 trampling flier who also dodges a ton of removal. And then you get their turn, and you get to make Emrakul have a lot more text than she actually does. Emrakul very likely has the text "destroy target creature" on her, since you can just run whatever creature you want into Emrakul's waiting embrace, and set up all sorts of awful combat scenarios if you have other creatures. You get to use all their Planeswalkers in the least beneficial way. Emrakul gains the text of 'target opponent discard X cards', as you get to cast all the spells your opponent has that you can in the absolute worst ways. You can cast all their sorcery speed removal on their *own* creatues, or on other creatures you have if you absolutely must. Emrakul can turn into an absolutely absurd X-for-1 and leave your opponent helpless, untapping on their extra turn with a devastated board and hand, facing down a 13/13 monster of a card.
Emrakul can lock up a game you're winning, destroy stalemates, and salvage a failing boardstate. She's way better than people are giving her credit for.
This is such a neat design. I love that it ends up having 'delirium', fitting for the source of Innistrad's madness. This is a great payoff for building your deck around delirium, as casting this for 8 or 9 is huge. Getting to Mindslaver an opponent and just wreck their hand and board state as much as possible, running their creatures into a 13/13 monstrosity. And the protection from instants is genius design, since Emrakul is safe from your opponent's removal when you cast it, and then you get to take your opponent's turn and use all their sorcery-speed removal on other things.
Sorry for the bump but I've always found this deck extremely interesting. Have you continued to play with it? Have you shelved it? Anything new you've tested?
I still have it together, though I don't play it as much mostly because my playgroup got really, really sick of it. They weren't huge fans of the deck's consistency. I still enjoy pulling it out every once in a while, though.
I've mostly only made changes adjusting the ratio of cantrips and mana dorks--I've gone up on the latter, down on the former, but the major improvements I've made have been Pemmin's Aura and Freed from the Real. With enough allies they go infinite with Harabaz Druid, and can make infinite non-blue mana with Bloom Tender on the field depending on your field. This deck happens to have a mana sink in the commmand zone so they can allow for some surprise combat wins, as well as just allowing me to easily go through my deck. They also have utility with Sea Gate Loremaster if the Druid isn't available for some reason, or with one of the mana dorks that provides multiple green mana if you happen to need that.
Hey, glad to see someone else is playing a deck like this. I have two different playgroups i play in, one being significantly less competitive than the other, so I'll be maintaining two versions of The Gitrog Monster, one with infinite combos, and one that still has them, but doesn't focus on getting them out. I went a bit deeper on the discard/light stax plan.
Some cards I've been liking in testing:
Volrath's Dungeon: This is a good way to put the hurt on someone's hand, and you can keep doing it as long as you're able to keep discarding lands. Your opponents will almost certainly just pay 5 life the turn they're able to, but that first turn you can get a good amount of use out of it.
Raven's Crime: Retracing it draws you a card, and like Volrath's Dungeon, you can focus down a problematic player's hand. This one works particularly well wtih Cabal Coffers.
Recycle/Null Profusion + Reliquary Tower: This creates a stupid powerful draw engine, and even without the Tower in play, you can still abuse having a max hand size of two by using the cleanup step to discard lands and continue to go through your deck a little. Note, however, that you have to play Recycle/Null Profusion *before* playing Reliquary Tower, thanks to timestamps.
Mesmeric Orb: A great source of card advantage, since each instance of mill is a separate possible trigger for The Gitrog Monster.
Bottomless Pit: Despite the random nature of this card, we're still going to come out ahead a decent amount of the time with it, and it hurts our opponents even more.
Nightmare Void: The Gitrog Monster loves dredge, and a repeatable source of targeted discard is quite good for stopping control decks and slower combo decks from setting up.
I actually like this more than Praetor's Counsel for a lot of EDH decks. The difference between 6 and 8 mana is pretty huge in EDH--just because 8 mana is reachable, doesn't mean the 6 mana effect isn't still worth taking over it. Whenever you're casting Praetor's Counsel, how often do you really need *every* card in your graveyard? Usually, 3-4 would have sufficed for taking over a game. Praetor's Counsel didn't really have much competition in the 'mass regrowth' style of card, with the exception of the narrower Creeping Renaissance, but this seems like a worthy challenger. In most midrange and control decks, this will likely do Praetor's Counsel's job better. However, decks that care about getting back a lot of lands specifically will want Praetor's Counsel more.
I actually rather like Avacyn's Judgement. Roiling Thunder isn't actually that far from being playable in standard, and for 1 R less and at possible instant speed, it likely gets there. This card solves a problem every fireball has by not being dead in your hand in the early game--if your opponent is being aggressive, this does a fine job of stomping out their creatures on turn 2. It's not *great* at this job, certainly, but it'll still do it. And once madness comes into the mix you have a pretty insane source of damage. This can give you much-needed 2 for 1s against aggro, punch through planeswalkers, and kill your opponents directly. This card scales well, and looks playable in some sort of control strategy alongside Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Nahiri, and Chandra, or in the BR madness vampire tribal deck. This card isn't particularly exciting, but I think it's very solid.
The angel is funny, but they were too careful with it.
This card is hysterical and I'm so very glad it exists. The fact that you can be forced to kill yourself with it is hilarious. This is the kind of jank rare I like to see--bad, sure, but it makes you want to build around it anyways.
I like the cryptoliths on most of the arts--not the swamp, but the rest. I actually like that they stick out, as they show a sense of 'wrongness' without being too obtrusive.
As for the cards, I think dismissing Sin Prodder as another punisher effect isn't fair to the card. It might not end up being playable anyways, but a 3/2 for 3 with Menace is pretty decent. It's not great or anything, I'm not saying that, but it's fine, and you'll be happy to have that on the field. So there is a pretty decent floor for how bad this card can be. It's not like something like Vexing Devil, Browbeat, and other punisher cards that have two wildly different effects that happen once. Additionally, this trigger happens multiple times, and your opponent is always going to pick the one that hurts them the least, but that will still push you towards winning no matter what they pick. You get either free damage or free card drawing. And if there's a land on top of your library, your opponent is going to send it to the graveyard but that just means that you, the red deck, are less likely to draw a land next turn, and that's still a worthwhile effect. And it does this every turn, for no additional investment, while Sin Proder is also attacking and helping its own effect, because as your oppponent's life total gets lower, they're going to have to let you draw the card more often.
This card isn't good in a deck where you want to draw specific cards, but in a deck like a red aggro deck where your cards are pretty interchangable, his effect gets much better because you're just trying to convert all your cards into damage anyways. and the 'feel bad' of "oh, they milled that card I was going to draw for some damage and now I can't cast it" is actually pretty meaningless, since it's just the same thing as if you were never going to draw that card anyways, and for every time that happens there will be a time that that mill gets you closer to a card you wanted more, so it balances out.
But this is totally different from that. We got werewolves, they're just in a different fashion than we used to get them, and that's fine. These werewolves even synergize fantastically with 'traditional' werewolves, so they'll play well together outside of weirdness with Immerwolf. And we just had another set of werewolves, so we'll have both the old style and the new style existing together. We're seeing an evolution of werewolves, not a devolution of them.
I am *loving* the aesthetic of the werewolves, and the warped creatures in general, in this set. This set avoids the problem I had with BFZ, where the Eldrazi all looked mostly similar. The varied takes on what an Eldrazified creature is are very visually interesting, especially since Werewolves often ended up looking kind of same-y for me on their flipped sides. It also probably helps that I loved Bloodborne, which also combined Gothic Horror and Eldritch Horror.
But the sheer backlash against the adding of the 'Eldrazi' type to these werewolves is baffling to me. Yes, they *are* twisted versions of the werewolves we loved, but that doesn't mean I love them any less now. I think it's neat seeing a variation on my favorite tribe, and I'll add them to my decks and appreciate the variety.
Wizards isn't 'not caring' about a section of the playerbase, let's not get dramatic about this. I'm disappointed about the werewolf legend too, although werewolves would have needed something *insanely* broken to be good in EDH so I didn't really even expect much, but some of the hyperbole in this thread is really astounding.
Edit: I'm not saying you have to like the new aesthetic, that's totally a matter of personal taste, but some of the reactions in this thread are going way far beyond just "oh, i don't like the way that looks".
As for the actual card, this thing has a steep transformation cost, but it does inflict the same cost on your opponent while upgrading you to a 6/5, so that more than makes up for it. If there's some B/x tokens deck, I could see this finding it's way in. Don't think this is one for the actual vampire deck, but that's fine.
Bruna and Gisela also have some great potential for seeing standard play. Gisela is a cheaper, smaller Baneslayer Angel, which is honestly enough said. 4/3 instead of a 5/5, but being 4 mana instead of 5 is huge. This is also a weaker standard than when Baneslayer last flew the skies, so she'll be good here. Bruna is seven mana, but she's definitely worth it. A 5/7 vigilant flying body is pretty good, but the ability to ressurect an Angel or Human upon it being *cast* is crazy. Even if your opponent counters it, you get an effect. And what an effect it is. If Gisela fell in battle earlier, you get to bring her back, but there are also a bevy of playable cards that are incidentally humans that you might have played, and Archangel Avacyn is a fine target for Bruna's ability in case Gisela isn't there.
The sheer amount of inevitability Bruna represents is very appealing--if Gisela died earlier in the game, you get to play Bruna and instantly put your opponent on the back foot. They need to have an instant speed answer right then, or Brisela is going to make things extremely difficult for them. Brisela dodges a *huge* amount of removal, provides a massive wall that represents *nine* life gained if she blocks, and is a clock your opponents are going to have a hell of a time outpacing. Certain decks will be almost unable to beat her.
I think a lot of people are going to see the seven CMC cost for Bruna and dismiss her out of hand, but I think that'd be a mistake.
I'd actually love the idea of Emrakul being sealed into the moon, becoming the Eldritch Moon in truth, and then having a permanent effect on the plane of Innistrad going forward. Innistrad is saved from destruction and Emrakul is stopped, but there isn't an underlying theme of hope of rebuilding like there was in Zendikar. Innistrad's mortals might band together, perhaps under Sigarda, and they'll have to work to figure out their place in a world permanently warped by Emrakul's madness. It's a heavily phyrric victory.
I think an ending like this would be better than just having Innistrad be destroyed. Emrakul's potency as a villain isn't reduced because it would take a tremendous amount of work to stop her, and she ends up still controlling/actively corrupting an entire plane. Ideally we lose some important named characters as well, though this story is already doing way better than Zendikar did by killing off Avacyn, Angel of Hope.
In general, this set is redeeming the Eldrazi for me after BFZ's abysmal story. I spent every week of BFZ's story dreading how it was going to end and ruin everything, whereas I'm pretty confident that they'll get it right here.
I love the twisted Bruna/Gisela hybrid. Love it.
Jace probing Emrakul and getting a 'coherent' response back was also awesome. Ulamog and Kozilek ended up feeling like mindless beasts, Emrakul hearkens back to what the Eldrazi were originally described as.
This feels like Bloodborne, and that is high praise coming from me. We enter a gothic horror world, that feels slightly off, before a keystone guadian is killed and the world takes a nosedive into a horror beyond such mundanities as the living dead and restless spirits. Hell, the Great One from Bloodborne is even named the Moon Presence. I'm loving this.
And the art for Emrakul herself is stunning. Seeing the greatest horror of the Multiverse hovering over the spires of Innistrad is breathtaking, and the trailer scene of Liliana's zombie horde charging Emrakul got me more hyped than I could have imagined.
You cast her, and then your opponent is very likely going to be unable to deal with her that turn outside of Stasis Snare, and you get a 13/13 trampling flier who also dodges a ton of removal. And then you get their turn, and you get to make Emrakul have a lot more text than she actually does. Emrakul very likely has the text "destroy target creature" on her, since you can just run whatever creature you want into Emrakul's waiting embrace, and set up all sorts of awful combat scenarios if you have other creatures. You get to use all their Planeswalkers in the least beneficial way. Emrakul gains the text of 'target opponent discard X cards', as you get to cast all the spells your opponent has that you can in the absolute worst ways. You can cast all their sorcery speed removal on their *own* creatues, or on other creatures you have if you absolutely must. Emrakul can turn into an absolutely absurd X-for-1 and leave your opponent helpless, untapping on their extra turn with a devastated board and hand, facing down a 13/13 monster of a card.
Emrakul can lock up a game you're winning, destroy stalemates, and salvage a failing boardstate. She's way better than people are giving her credit for.
And that art is just fantastic. Bravo, Wizards.
I still have it together, though I don't play it as much mostly because my playgroup got really, really sick of it. They weren't huge fans of the deck's consistency. I still enjoy pulling it out every once in a while, though.
I've mostly only made changes adjusting the ratio of cantrips and mana dorks--I've gone up on the latter, down on the former, but the major improvements I've made have been Pemmin's Aura and Freed from the Real. With enough allies they go infinite with Harabaz Druid, and can make infinite non-blue mana with Bloom Tender on the field depending on your field. This deck happens to have a mana sink in the commmand zone so they can allow for some surprise combat wins, as well as just allowing me to easily go through my deck. They also have utility with Sea Gate Loremaster if the Druid isn't available for some reason, or with one of the mana dorks that provides multiple green mana if you happen to need that.
Some cards I've been liking in testing:
Volrath's Dungeon: This is a good way to put the hurt on someone's hand, and you can keep doing it as long as you're able to keep discarding lands. Your opponents will almost certainly just pay 5 life the turn they're able to, but that first turn you can get a good amount of use out of it.
Raven's Crime: Retracing it draws you a card, and like Volrath's Dungeon, you can focus down a problematic player's hand. This one works particularly well wtih Cabal Coffers.
Recycle/Null Profusion + Reliquary Tower: This creates a stupid powerful draw engine, and even without the Tower in play, you can still abuse having a max hand size of two by using the cleanup step to discard lands and continue to go through your deck a little. Note, however, that you have to play Recycle/Null Profusion *before* playing Reliquary Tower, thanks to timestamps.
Mesmeric Orb: A great source of card advantage, since each instance of mill is a separate possible trigger for The Gitrog Monster.
Bottomless Pit: Despite the random nature of this card, we're still going to come out ahead a decent amount of the time with it, and it hurts our opponents even more.
Nightmare Void: The Gitrog Monster loves dredge, and a repeatable source of targeted discard is quite good for stopping control decks and slower combo decks from setting up.
The angel is funny, but they were too careful with it.
As for the cards, I think dismissing Sin Prodder as another punisher effect isn't fair to the card. It might not end up being playable anyways, but a 3/2 for 3 with Menace is pretty decent. It's not great or anything, I'm not saying that, but it's fine, and you'll be happy to have that on the field. So there is a pretty decent floor for how bad this card can be. It's not like something like Vexing Devil, Browbeat, and other punisher cards that have two wildly different effects that happen once. Additionally, this trigger happens multiple times, and your opponent is always going to pick the one that hurts them the least, but that will still push you towards winning no matter what they pick. You get either free damage or free card drawing. And if there's a land on top of your library, your opponent is going to send it to the graveyard but that just means that you, the red deck, are less likely to draw a land next turn, and that's still a worthwhile effect. And it does this every turn, for no additional investment, while Sin Proder is also attacking and helping its own effect, because as your oppponent's life total gets lower, they're going to have to let you draw the card more often.
This card isn't good in a deck where you want to draw specific cards, but in a deck like a red aggro deck where your cards are pretty interchangable, his effect gets much better because you're just trying to convert all your cards into damage anyways. and the 'feel bad' of "oh, they milled that card I was going to draw for some damage and now I can't cast it" is actually pretty meaningless, since it's just the same thing as if you were never going to draw that card anyways, and for every time that happens there will be a time that that mill gets you closer to a card you wanted more, so it balances out.