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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

kirblar

Member
That's actually a good idea. Perhaps the best one I've heard for that slot. In color and gives you an extra turn of sorts. If Consuming Contract was Demonic Tutor, Mindslaver and one more thing similarly powerful ability at 3-4CMC or less I could get behind it. Unfortunately it wasn't ever going to be that so.......
I didn't get 47/50 on the GDS2 test for no reason. :p
 
sporemound.jpg
Image.ashx

So...this draws the game?

This is based on leaked spoilers, so you have to assume that R&D actually made the ability a "may" ability if the card is real, but....
 

noquarter

Member
Mindslaver
So they would probably make it CMC 6-7 then and still wouldn't be playable. Blood in the Watering Can looks like it could be fun anyways.

You choose the token at the time Populate resolves, so the only way it can not do anything is if they have no tokens at all.
That's what I tried to explain, but wasn't being heard and didn't care to wait for the judge. Oh well, I'll push more next time. Thanks for the response.
 
That's what I tried to explain, but wasn't being heard and didn't care to wait for the judge. Oh well, I'll push more next time. Thanks for the response.

I know it's late at this point, but it's always correct to wait for the judge. It's not just you involved here - it's everybody else who will play against that player in the future. It may be annoying at the time, but the return on investment for bringing in the judge is huge.
 

OnPoint

Member
I know it's late at this point, but it's always correct to wait for the judge. It's not just you involved here - it's everybody else who will play against that player in the future. It may be annoying at the time, but the return on investment for bringing in the judge is huge.

Yup. Like the guy who tried to miracle Bonfire me for 1 at the start of his turn 3 after I played Thalia on my turn two. The judge backed me up that he could do it, but he would be miracling his spell with X equalling 0 since he only had two lands in play. He was not happy, but that's how it works, and when you're right, you're right. I wish Grizzly Bears read "When this card enters the battlefield, you win the game" but it doesn't.
 
So what do you guys think about Blood Baron of Vizkopa? He's not really destined for greatness is he? I picked him up in a draft; I'm thinking I should just go ahead and sell him now, right?
 
What am i missing?

Since the Saprolings are lands, each time a new Saproling enters the battlefield, you have to put another Saproling onto the battlefield. As it's worded there, this is a non-optional trigger. This means that an infinite number of Saprolings are put onto the battlefield. More importantly, Saprolings never stop entering the battlefield. Which means no player ever gets a chance to advance the game state. You either destroy the creature or the enchantment at instant speed, or the game is forced to draw.
 

Lucario

Member
Consuming Contract lost? That was the best card in there by a mile.

Blood in the Watering Can is a distant second.

Revenge of Necromancy wouldn't be playable in cube at B. I really hope it doesn't win, it's just going to go into some "hey look what wizards built for me" discard decks.
 

OnPoint

Member
So what do you guys think about Blood Baron of Vizkopa? He's not really destined for greatness is he? I picked him up in a draft; I'm thinking I should just go ahead and sell him now, right?

I like him a lot, but I don't think he's going to be a true force. Probably a great sideboard card against a deck that uses non-blue removal, since most red removal doesn't handle 4 toughness. I wonder if I could put together some sort of Esper-Auras deck that uses him, though any white or black enchantments aren't going to do him any good at all, so that idea is probably stillborn. Maybe he could be a finisher in the Aristocrats? I think the one that everyone is underestimating is Aetherling, honestly.
 

JulianImp

Member
I thought Consuming Contract stood more of a chance, but it seems players distile drawbacks on cards so much that black, the color of bargaining with dark forces, is slowly being neutered into having little to no downsides on its cards. What I like about drawbacks is that they allow cards to cut some mana costs or add powerful abilities to balance the downsides, and removing them means every card has to cost an awful lot of mana if it has a moderately powerful effect. Oh well...

I'll be voting for Blood in the Watering Can since it's the more interesting card of the bunch, and it's slightly different from oversold cemetery in that it can trigger once for each player's turn. Cards that ask you to pay life as a cost (such as some bat card from Darksteel) could be used on each player's turn to return copious amounts of creatures back to your hand. I only hope its mana cost is reasonable (3 would be powerful, 4 would be below average, and anything over 5 mana would sadly be unplayable in Standard).

Sporemound looks like a really odd choice for a common card, since it's kind of complex, and I thought this kind of effects on common were against their New World Order. I would've liked it a lot more at uncommon or rare as a 1/1 with "Sporemound gets +1/+1 for each Saproling you control", since it would be fine as a large beater without evasion, but I guess it's a fine card as far as power level goes for commons.
 
Voted for Blood since Revenge knocked out the GAF-entry. Also, I think it's hilarious how Revenge is essentially the Black-version of that Green mythic M14 Enchantment that was spoiled earlier.
 
Final Two for YMTC is up: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248d

For the love of all that is true and just, I implore everybody to vote for Blood in the Watering Can. That card has the highest chance in being played in the most formats be it Standard Constructed, Limited, Cube, Casual 60 card decks, EDH and other broader multiplayer formats. Cards like Megrim and Geth's Grimoire have seen little to no use outside of casual 60 cards decks. History has shown these types of cards to be win-more. A vote for "Blood in the Watering Can" is a vote for a card the MOST amount of people can enjoy.

But Blood is really really boring...


Revenge has some really fun/busted interactions with Wheel cards, e.g. Whispering Madness.

Also, Megrim was used with Wheel effects like Memory Jar as the kill card during Combo Winter when Jar got emergency banned.
 

JulianImp

Member
Voted for Blood since Revenge knocked out the GAF-entry. Also, I think it's hilarious how Revenge is essentially the Black-version of that Green mythic M14 Enchantment that was spoiled earlier.

Except for the very relevant fact that it doesn't trigger whenever you do something you'd probably be doing anyway, but rather when you play a very specific kind of deck and your opponents still have cards in hand they can discard. I used to like Megrim, but nowaday I'd much rather have a Nyxathid that hits on its own, a slightly more expensive or colored The Rack that keeps dealing damage when your opponent has run out of cards to discard or a bomb like Sire of Insanity. Cards that specifically do stuff whenever an opponent discards often don't do enough on their own, draw unneeded animosity towards you in multiplayer games and often end up being "trap" skill-tester cards.

Besides all that, Revenge is awfully wordy and unclean for such a simple and one-minded efect. BitWC at least is more elegant and cohesive in its design, like the cards I liked from previous YMTC (Forgotten Ancient and Crucible of Worlds). I guess having to design a colored enchantment inherently reduced the creative space compared to an artifact or utility land... it's a shame this YMTC had to end up like this, really.
 

kirblar

Member
Blood in the Watering Can is a distant second.

Revenge of Necromancy wouldn't be playable in cube at B. I really hope it doesn't win, it's just going to go into some "hey look what wizards built for me" discard decks.
Ari just pointed out on twitter that Blood in the Watering Can is a miserable, miserable card to play against, since you get punished for aggression.
 
I am planning on buy one of THESES for my girlfriends birthday. My question is what cards and how many cards come in the "Selesnya Guild Packs with Grove of the Guardians Promo"? I know it comes with 5 RtR boosted but what is inside the pre-made pack and how many cards come in it?
 

ultron87

Member
The discard one is cute but not actually very good.

Yeah, it probably isn't that great, but the kind of deck is encourages, even if it is only in casual play, is the pits.

I am planning on buy one of THESES for my girlfriends birthday. My question is what cards and how many cards come in the "Selesnya Guild Packs with Grove of the Guardians Promo"? I know it comes with 5 RtR boosted but what is inside the pre-made pack and how many cards come in it?

I believe it should be this: http://mythicspoiler.com/selesnyaguildpack.html
 

Crocodile

Member
But Blood is really really boring...


Revenge has some really fun/busted interactions with Wheel cards, e.g. Whispering Madness.

Also, Megrim was used with Wheel effects like Memory Jar as the kill card during Combo Winter when Jar got emergency banned.

Well boring is subjective so I won't argue with you there but if your argument for a card being AT ALL playable is "it's good with broken cards like Memory Jar and Wheel of Fortune" then I don't think I'll be super receptive.

Ari just pointed out on twitter that Blood in the Watering Can is a miserable, miserable card to play against, since you get punished for aggression.

Most good cards are misreable to play against. Even some bad cards are miserable to play against. No Mercy is a card I feel punishes aggression more than Blood does and nobody flips out about that card, why would we flip out over this one?

The discard one is cute but not actually very good.

Agreed. Which is part of the reason I don't want to open it in my Magic packs. The other being that Blood has more applications in more formats and I think will make more people/groups of people happier.
 

kirblar

Member
Most good cards are misreable to play against. Even some bad cards are miserable to play against. No Mercy is a card I feel punishes aggression more than Blood does and nobody flips out about that card, why would we flip out over this one?
Not really. There's a big difference between say, Phyrexian Arena or Blastoderm compared to JTMS or Geist.

There's "strong, but answerable", and then there's "actively makes you want to rage."
 

Crocodile

Member
Not really. There's a big difference between say, Phyrexian Arena or Blastoderm compared to JTMS or Geist.

There's "strong, but answerable", and then there's "actively makes you want to rage."

The later two cards are overall stronger than the former two. So they are both more fun on your side and less fun for your opponent. Isn't that always true when one talks about more powerful cards? Pretty much no mater what I'm doing, the more powerful that "thing" is, the more annoyed my opponent will be (and vice versa). It's not like we're talking Stasis or Moat where the game literally comes to a complete stop or "random chaos red cards" in EDH which can render the past 20 turns completely pointless. Even cards like No Mercy allow you to make meaningful actions, you're just punished for making certain ones. Anyway, I'm not seeing how Blood falls into Stasis or Moat (i.e. miserable) territory.
 

kirblar

Member
The later two cards are overall stronger than the former two. So they are both more fun on your side and less fun for your opponent. Isn't that always true when one talks about more powerful cards? Pretty much no mater what I'm doing, the more powerful that "thing" is, the more annoyed my opponent will be (and vice versa). It's not like we're talking Stasis or Moat where the game literally comes to a complete stop or "random chaos red cards" in EDH which can render the past 20 turns completely pointless. Even cards like No Mercy allow you to make meaningful actions, you're just punished for making certain ones. Anyway, I'm not seeing how Blood falls into Stasis or Moat (i.e. miserable) territory.
Repetitive gameplay is the big warning sign here- it encourages building a deck that does the same thing over and over and over and over again.
 

Crocodile

Member
Repetitive gameplay is the big warning sign here- it encourages building a deck that does the same thing over and over and over and over again.

Well I mean all decks regardless of strategy try to do the same thing over and over again. It's an engine card that converts one resource into another - that's kind of what they do? I'm not sure why that's a bad thing. Shouldn't we just stop printing cards like Birthing Pod, Green's Sun's Zenith, etc. then? I can understand issues if we have an overabundance of these types of cards but we most certainly do not. A sweet engine card every couple of sets seems well deserved. I'm not seeing some sort of inescapable hard lock here just a card with a lot of applications across a lot of formats.
 

JulianImp

Member
Well I mean all decks regardless of strategy try to do the same thing over and over again. It's an engine card that converts one resource into another - that's kind of what they do? I'm not sure why that's a bad thing. Shouldn't we just stop printing cards like Birthing Pod, Green's Sun's Zenith, etc. then? I can understand issues if we have an overabundance of these types of cards but we most certainly do not. A sweet engine card every couple of sets seems well deserved. I'm not seeing some sort of inescapable hard lock here just a card with a lot of applications across a lot of formats.

I've actually conciously avoided any kind of tutors when playing EDH because of that very thing. If I'm playing a 100-card deck full of singletons, tutoring for whatever I need seems like a disservice to the format's inherent randomness. If I want a consistent deck I'll play Standard, not any kind of highlander format.

Still, this card might look like it has lots of applications across several formats, but it all hinges on what its mana cost ends up being. 1 or 2 CMC would probably be pushing the card too far, 3 CMC would probably be the lowest they could go (at 1BB, I guess), 4 CMC would probably be safer but way harder to actually cast outside of Standard, and 5+ CMC would be overpricing the card into irrelevance.
 
Blood in Watering Can is boring in the sense that Raise Dead variants aren't that exciting. It even has a fairly close analogue in Phyrexian Reclamation, a card that hardly excites anyone. It can easily give you far more triggers than you could ever use and lends itself to repetitive board states. It's not hard at all to ping yourself on your turn so they'll have to cost it as such.

And the card seems bland from a flavor perspective; it's just an abstract intersection of abilities that will have to be papered over.

Well boring is subjective so I won't argue with you there but if your argument for a card being AT ALL playable is "it's good with broken cards like Memory Jar and Wheel of Fortune" then I don't think I'll be super receptive.

Whispering Madness does just fine and isn't broken. Chandra Ablaze too if you like.

There are many effects that can have cool synergies with it. Mindslicer, Smallpox, Anvil of Bogardan... Syphon Mind in multiplayer...
 

Crocodile

Member
I can pick up a box of Modern Masters at $225. I'll save it to do a draft but then keep all the cards. Seems good?

Blood in Watering Can is boring in the sense that Raise Dead variants aren't that exciting. It even has a fairly close analogue in Phyrexian Reclamation, a card that hardly excites anyone. It can easily give you far more triggers than you could ever use and lends itself to repetitive board states. It's not hard at all to ping yourself on your turn so they'll have to cost it as such.

And the card seems bland from a flavor perspective; it's just an abstract intersection of abilities that will have to be papered over.



Whispering Madness does just fine and isn't broken. Chandra Ablaze too if you like.

There are many effects that can have cool synergies with it. Mindslicer, Smallpox, Anvil of Bogardan... Syphon Mind in multiplayer...

You say Raise Deads are boring I say Megrim 3.0 is boring. *Shrug* Flavor arguments seem like a wash partially because you can use flavor to argue for/against anything and because these cards don't have their final name or art. I'm not sure how arguing the card is easy to trigger is going to make me dislike it. I'm also not sure why you're bothering to list combos with Necromancy. Do you think I don't know those cards exist? Do you think I've never played with/against a Megrim/Liliana's Caress/Geth's Grimore deck? Not only are those cards better than Necromancy (because you can straight up kill your opponent or always draw cards as opposed to some weird punisher-esque hybrid of both) but those sorts of deck SUCK. They always have and they always will, sorry :(

A vote for Necromancy is a vote for a card that only appeals to those who like discard decks but just gives them a worse version of a card they already have (unless the card has a Leyline-esque clause). A vote for Blood is a vote for a card a WIDE range of people can use and will likely be the BEST version of this effect if the cost is at all reasonable.
 
Pretty sure the Megrim variant's going to win, especially since there's a similar Green Mythic in M14.

I actually think Megrim is a poorly designed card. When I first started playing Magic, Megrim confused the hell out of me. Was it a creature? Why was it an enchantment? It looks and sounds like a creature, why isn't it? So sometimes creatures are enchantments and sometimes they're creatures? What's going on!?!
 

red13th

Member
What made you think it was a creature?
I remember being confused by "Auras" (back then Enchant "something"), but I was 10. I thought Enchant Creature enchanted all my creatures.
 

bigkrev

Member
I actually think Megrim is a poorly designed card. When I first started playing Magic, Megrim confused the hell out of me. Was it a creature? Why was it an enchantment? It looks and sounds like a creature, why isn't it? So sometimes creatures are enchantments and sometimes they're creatures? What's going on!?!

Uh, are you drunk?
Pretty sure your thinking of some other card :p
 
Certainly not! Remember, I'm talking about the very first time I started playing Magic (right around Magic 2010), as I'm first learning the rules and understanding how the game works.

Image.ashx


At the time, I didn't realize that "megrim" was actually a word. I thought it was a name made up for the card. This card's "name" sounds like a proper noun, has a picture of a creature on it snarling at the player, and it actively jumps out and harms the player when something happens. In terms of flavor, it feels like a creature that sits there and hits the player in certain situations. On top of that, my friends who taught me the game always called it a "he;" they said "Whenever you discard a card, he hits you for two."

So when I was learning the game, I dissociated creatures from creature spells, because Megrim was a creature to me (it just couldn't attack or block - it was an enchantment because it had to be mechanically). Because Megrim was taught to me as a creature that can't attack or block, my perspective on flavor was permanently skewed.

When I say "poorly designed," I'm almost exclusively talking about the modern art. I just went back and looked; the Seventh/Eighth Edition art doesn't have this issue. It doesn't look like a creature; it looks like someone in pain. It "feels" like an enchantment. Assuming you don't know that "Megrim" means "migraine headache," the modern card "feels" like a creature that's sitting there in the corner waiting to swipe at you.

At least, that was my experience with it. :)
 
Holy shit they just redid the Legend rule...

Each player can now have a copy of a Legend/Planeswalker on their side of the battlefield. If they play a second copy, they choose just one to sacrifice.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Holy shit they just redid the Legend rule...

Each player can now have a copy of a Legend/Planeswalker on their side of the battlefield. If they play a second copy, they choose just one to sacrifice.

Wat.
 
Phantasmal Image isn't really big tech in Modern at the moment anyway, but Geist (and to a lesser degree Thrun) just got harder to deal with.

Tron decks must be ecstatic. Yes thank you I will tick down my Karn, then play another one and activate it again.
 

OnPoint

Member
Holy shit they just redid the Legend rule...

Each player can now have a copy of a Legend/Planeswalker on their side of the battlefield. If they play a second copy, they choose just one to sacrifice.

So say someone Clones a creature they control with an enter the battlefield effect. Does it still trigger the ability, then die? Or would you have to choose the new one to not die, then trigger the ability
 

An-Det

Member
That's a fucking mistake changing the legend rule like that. Being able to nuke the opponent's was the built-in protection with these things getting really fucking good over the last 7 years. Awful change.
 
So say someone Clones a creature they control with an enter the battlefield effect. Does it still trigger the ability, then die? Or would you have to choose the new one to not die, then trigger the ability

Under the new rules, if I Clone my own legend, I get an ETB effect, and get to choose which one I want to live.
 
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