MTG Salvation

Man, I really don't like Universes Beyond... but I can grudgingly admit these are kind of cool.

Quote from Phosphorus »

So I've given it a couple of days of thought, and my conclusion is twofold:

1. There are three-and-a-half major arguments for banning these in EDH.
2. None of them hold up.

2. "TWD doesn't belong in Magic, so we should ban it on principle."

Ever since 1999, we have had an entire set pulled straight from another property: Portal: 3 Kingdoms. We have another one coming next year. Saying what aesthetically is "part of the game" and what isn't is entirely subjective and capricious: to use it as reasoning for a ban is dangerous. I have already seen reports of people excited to get in/back into the game with TWD as an impetus. Do we gatekeep them from using the cards that sparked their interest in one of the largest formats just because? I hope not.

(As an aside, I started following the game back in OG Ravnica. The number of things I've seen described as "not belonging" in Magic by now is too long to count.)

Argument 2 is the only one you need, I don't think you represented it correctly.

First, I don't think your two examples of a precedent are very good. Portal: Three Kingdoms came out 20 years ago, and in case anyone forgot, wasn't tournament-legal for quite a while. It was a weird, ceremonial set that was never designed to be part of the Magic universe, and I wasn't particularly a fan of their decision to retroactively make it "real". But again, that wasn't their original intent, and it was 20 years ago, and it was based on an interesting and significant period in history. The Walking Dead is just a washed-up intellectual property with very little cultural weight.

You also cite the D&D set that's coming out. I gotta say, I'm not a fan of that either. But Magic and D&D have a long history together, and if we have to have a crossover Magic set, D&D is about the only thing approaching acceptable. Again, I don't love it, but I hardly think opens up the door for Shrek and Iron Man Magic cards.

Also, I'm not sure what your idea of something "not belonging" in Magic is. Do you mean stuff like Izzet sciencey cards or Kaladesh technology? Characters with no vowels in their name? Nothing I can think of comes close to just straight-up making cards for TV show characters. That's just on a completely different axis than anything else you could complain about not being Magicky enough.

Quote from SarahSophiaPeterson »

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. If it's "it ruins my immersion" then why are other, real-world, things allowed? (like Arabian Nights, Shakespeare quotes, or Frankenstein's Monster)

I'm inclined to believe that people are upset about mechanically unique cards being limited-released, and, if that is the case, WHY ISN'T THE RESERVED LIST BANNED IN ALL FORMATS?

I don't think you can compare stuff like Frankenstein's Monster to this. Yes, they shouldn't have made that card either. But the game was still new and they were still trying things out. Besides, Frankenstein (as well as Godzilla, I'd argue) are established, iconic elements of popular culture. I still don't like the Godzilla cards, but it's a hell of a lot better than just some TV trendy show that has well since peaked in popularity.

As for the reserve list, I can see your point. But the reserve list seems like a painful compromise they came to. They should know better than to do anything like that again.

To be fair, the card did peak around $6 last year, so maybe they thought it needed a reprint. But they also just reprinted it in Mystery Booster, so, uh, I got nothing. Absolutely no excuse to promote it to rare, since they've never done something like that to Path to Exile or Fatal Push. Even worse because the card doesn't even feel rare.

Man, I feel bad for Card Kingdom for trying to hype up their previews.

It's crazy, but this is actually the first ETB disenchant creature in white. Green has had loads of them at this point. Wish it had more of a Reclamation Sage body than Indrik Stomphowler, but it's not bad.

Quote from user-11102155 »

so they ban a 2 card win combo (karn and lattice) that costs 10 mana (usually) in total, that can basically go of turn 4 in ideal situations

now we have a 2 card win combo (heliod and balista) that costs 9 mana (usually) in total, that can basically go of turn 4 in ideal situations
AND WE WAIT AND SEE ? thank you wizards... guess i gotta cancel gp brussels...

Keep in mind Karn/Lattice is actually a 1-card combo, and it's colorless.

Quote from Randy M »

Big game hunter seems to be poaching white's schtick, although since it's removal it isn't exactly outside blacks color pie either.

"Wait, that's not totally in the color pie--but okay, I guess that's fine" is exactly the right reaction to a Planar Chaos card.

It's like Cloud Pirates except nothing can be better than Cloud Pirates

Ring of Gix and Angel's Feather? Not sure what the rope is.

EDIT: Okay, Angel's Feather looks nothing like that. It looks very familiar, though! My other thought was Paradise Plume, which doesn't look right either.

Wow, a spell that does nothing by itself. Hilarious.

Also, undying and persist in the same set. This set is more ridiculous than Time Spiral and it's great. Menace, Deathtouch and Undying is also quite the combo. Makes your opponent need 4 creatures to kill it in combat.

Also, with the cycle complete, they really need to reprint Thornling with mirroring art!

Quote from Ryperior74 »

I Can speculate on the theft deck right away for hype cards defintely get Xanathar, Guild Kingpin, and Tasha, the Witch Queen while you can unless D&D universe cards can be reprinted in mtg universe commander decks safe bet those won't be reprints.

They certainly can be, legally. Thematically, they did reprint Improvised Weaponry in Jumpstart 2022 with the art that clearly depicts a mind flayer.

Quote from ilovesaprolings »

Quote from zoboso »

Because Reinterpret grabs from a small subset (your hand) while counterpoint grabs from the graveyard, in a graveyard deck that makes the new card automatically tailored for the current situation as compared to Reinterpret as you can oly work with what is in your hand and mostly could have cast anyways.

You starting with the premise that Reinterpret is a good card... which is not.

or they were just answering your question?

Quote from ilovesaprolings »

Why Reinterpret costs 4 and Counterpoint costs 5?

Because Reinterpret grabs from a small subset (your hand) while counterpoint grabs from the graveyard, in a graveyard deck that makes the new card automatically tailored for the current situation as compared to Reinterpret as you can oly work with what is in your hand and mostly could have cast anyways.

Time stamps only matter within a layer or sublayer. Otherwise, the order of the layers is what matters. Not that there is more than one relevant layer here (copy effects, layer 1). What's printed on the face of the card is the beginning point upon which all layers are applied. You can think of that as layer 0, if you like.

Quote from Pouncing Kavu »

Thanks! I was wondering about that, but I assumed the transformation has a later timestamp that takes precedent. I guess this is just one of those layer things?

Its actually the difference between the state of a card and the characteristics of a card.

A cards state, whether it's tapped, transformed, phased out, flipped, turned upside-down, is attacking or blocking isn't copied. Only a cards characteristics are copied. Your card transforms but it is still a copy so it's original characteristics don't matter.

Yes, but not right away. Since Saheeli creates a copy effect, the new copiable values overwrite what's printed on the card, wether the front face is up or the back. When the copy effect ends in the cleanup step, then you get the back face of the Gateway. Until then, you will have a tapped Mysterious Tome, even though the back side is up.

The flavor text of Verdant Outrider is interesting, but it does make it sound like basically all the courts are in shambles while, on the cards, most of them seem to be fine except for maybe Ardenvale.

Overall, Eldraine 2.0 goes a bit too much into the silly direction (whereas the first Eldraine set pretty much hit the sweet spot for me in terms of tone) and the cards don't to a very good job of telling you what's happening. Even filtering out only the story spotlights, it seems all over the place.

As usual, the aspects that are like the most are relegated to the side (I'd really like to know the story of the Redtooth elves and their curse which apparently gets broken by the Archon of the Wild Rose), but poor small company WotC didn't have enough money for side stories this time around, so the best I'll get is a low-effort blurb in the "The Legends of Wild of Eldraine" article.

Ok who’s tempted to bring a bag of coins and toss them at targets whenever you cast flick the coin?

with Zada, Hedron Grinder might as well word it as “make a number of treasure tokens equal to the number of creatures you control.” Then Ink-Treader Nephilim it becomes “make a number of treasure equal to the number of creatures in play.” Finally with Radiate or Radiant Performer. You throw in planeswalkers, battles, and players with all the creatures.

So hey guys. after all this years, Brothers War got me back to thinking about this deck. I was playing it a bit time to time and it was always fun and somewhat competitive, but kinda forgot about it with all the new stuff from MH1 and 2 ecc. But now seeing all the verious Bladecoil Serpent (which unfortunatly does not work well with Chief Engineer, as i was thinking when i first saw it), Cityscape Leveler, Platoon Dispenser ecc i want to give this deck a try to see if it is at least fun. Oh and btw we obviously got saga as well, which is... pretty good i guess. Anyone has some interest in this, or ideas from where to start now?

edit: not even with the one ring? we can really go off with that

As a massive Tolkien fan, Aragorn being black doesn't bother me. I still think it is stupid, but I can deal with it. Why can I deal with it? Because every single time a person or character of color shows up in Tolkien's work, that character is either evil or barbaric. That's a problem. And while I'm willing to give Tolkien the benefit of the doubt wrt racism, it is still a problem. Why do I think this is stupid? Because it is a cheap, predictable and corporate way of handling the issue.