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[charlequin]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";179316712]
How did this guy become the arbiter of an entire plane?
[/QUOTE]

By solving the dumb riddle a snooty dragon made to be a pain in the ass?

 

[Etrian Oddity]

Is finding your spark basically the mortals "leveling up" to becoming a planeswalker? Like they accomplish a tough task then boom, übermensch.

 

[WanderingWind]

Is finding your spark basically the mortals "leveling up" to becoming a planeswalker? Like they accomplish a tough task then boom, übermensch.

Nah, see they hit puberty and then some stressful situation activates their X-Gene spark and they find themselves with strange and unusual powers that causes them to be hated and feared by humanity.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Okay what is wrong with Alara? I hated Conflux and Reborn but Shards is probably my favourite set of the last decade and Conflux had Cascade which I made one of my favourite casual decks with. When everything in your deck has Cascade and every first spell you play each turn gets cascade you just vomit your stuff onto the board.

Alara brought me back to MtG big time, I was so close to stopping.

 

[Firemind]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";179316712]Man, every single one of those characters is acting like a total badass except Jace, who is a petulant child.

"They're ethereal, extra-dimensional beings that can't be interacted with in a meaningful manner? Well fuck you and your tens of thousands of years of insight, you're just a dumbhead and I'm leaving to kill them all!"


How did this guy become the arbiter of an entire plane?

Meanwhile, they made Kiora and Ob Nixilis have super fun personalities.[/QUOTE]
I would be too. What's so special about Zendikar? It's just a bunch of pretty landscapes with floating rocks and hedrons. Fuck y'all, I'm leaving.

 

[ElyrionX]

No UR manland?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

No UR manland?

if that one ends up good it'll be expensive af

Would be interesting if it was just like UR 2/1 haste first strike

And they should make a clone planeswalker with "name becomes the copy of target creature or planeswalker except it's name is still name" it would be the minus effect + and 0 idk.

Haste would be, like, the actual worst.

I'm guessing a (reverse) loot ability when dealing combat damage to players.

Hence the first strike too but 3/1 might also be fine. Low toughness in exchange for being able to attack right away, first strike since otherwise it'd just be bad, so far the new manlands only had 1 Keyword ability each.

 

[Firemind]

Haste would be, like, the actual worst.

I'm guessing a (reverse) loot ability when dealing combat damage to players.

 

[Daedardus]

First strike isn't blue at all, that would be more likely a WR manland.

Maybe: 1UR: 2/1 whenever deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

First strike isn't blue at all, that would be more likely a WR manland.

Maybe: 1UR: 2/1 whenever deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.

true but thieving (I wonder why this isn't a keyword yet with as common as it is and more often than not on thieves) would be really strong, maybe too strong.

The flavour of an animate land infiltrating and stealing documents or something is hilarious though.

 

[Firemind]

i mean, haste literally does nothing because it enters into play tapped

 

[A Serious Man]

Undergrowth Champion is stupid good in a Scales deck, maybe even better than Managorger Hydra at the 3 slot. Retreat to Kazandu is pretty nice as well. I'd love to fit Drana in some how but double black is hard to splash and Shaman of the Great Hunt may just end up fitting better. The fact that he has haste has won me so many games, it's not hard for the deck to swing for 10 on turn four when he drops and after that you've won unless they cast Crux or something next turn. Almost nothing is rotating out of the decklist I'm currently using so I'm excited to see how much better it gets.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

i mean, haste literally does nothing because it enters into play tapped

UR becomes a creature gains haste flying and untaps if it's your beginning of combat phase use only once per turn

way too complicated and I'm just dumb.

 

[Daedardus]

true but thieving (I wonder why this isn't a keyword yet with as common as it is and more often than not on thieves) would be really strong, maybe too strong.

The flavour of an animate land infiltrating and stealing documents or something is hilarious though.

Yeah drawing might be too strong but it's the only thing UR really has in common besides copying/modifying spells, although 'thieving' seems to be more green than red. WR will surely have first strike though.

 

[Firemind]

Huh. I didn't know 1v1 EDH has its own banlist. Seems to be monitored separately from the official site too.

Some of them make sense though, Serra Ascendant is a straight up dragon with lifelink for one mana. Even in multiplayer it's always stupid when someone plays it t1. Also, it's really stupid how stuff like Mishra's Workshop and Tabernacle aren't banned yet in multiplayer. They should consider banning Sol Ring too. Having someone be basically up two lands because he or she was lucky enough to have it in hand makes for some mind-boggingly one-sided games.

 

[A Serious Man]

.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Huh. I didn't know 1v1 EDH has its own banlist. Seems to be monitored separately from the official site too.

Some of them make sense though, Serra Ascendant is a straight up dragon with lifelink for one mana. Even in multiplayer it's always stupid when someone plays it t1. Also, it's really stupid how stuff like Mishra's Workshop and Tabernacle aren't banned yet in multiplayer. They should consider banning Sol Ring too. Having someone be basically up two lands because he or she was lucky enough to have it in hand makes for some mind-boggingly one-sided games.

A lot of the busted stuff gets left alone in multiplayer because drawing a Sol Ring turns you into the Archenemy.

 

[Firemind]

Woah, EDH uses the Partial Paris Mulligan rule? When did that happen? We've just been using the one free mulligan rule this entire time haha.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Woah, EDH uses the Partial Paris Mulligan rule? When did that happen? We've just been using the one free mulligan rule this entire time haha.

We never partial. It makes decks too strong.

 

[Firemind]

We never partial. It makes decks too strong.

Yeah, with busted artifacts this makes a lot of sense, but in 1v1 where those cards are banned, this is actually perfect. Hm. Now I'm struggling if I should build a 1v1 EDH deck. It's a change of pace since using your normal EDH decks can lead to very dumb games 1v1.

 

[kirblar]

Okay what is wrong with Alara? I hated Conflux and Reborn but Shards is probably my favourite set of the last decade and Conflux had Cascade which I made one of my favourite casual decks with. When everything in your deck has Cascade and every first spell you play each turn gets cascade you just vomit your stuff onto the board.

Alara brought me back to MtG big time, I was so close to stopping.

Alara plays horribly in limited, there's not nearly enough mana-fixing in the set and what does exist is absurdly slow/terrible. The mechanics don't have synergy- there's not even a mechanic for Esper! Cards like this:

at common is beyond horrible for limited play and for casual/new players as well. There's also tons of bomby cards with low mana costs that are difficult to cast reliably on curve, and ridiculous 2-for-1 removal spells like Agony Warp and Branching Bolt mixed in among the trash commons, leading to absurd differences in power level within packs.

So much doesn't work in the set and it has to get bailed out by the next two, which end up doing a much better job (Conflux is the best set in the block by a mile.)

I understand sets that do a swing and a miss, but there's so much fundamentally wrong with the set in how it is structured and plays that I can't wave off as "trying something new" because it was the third "gold" block.

 

[Firemind]

Why are those specific commons horrible for limited play? You keep bringing it up and dodging it beyond Esper has no identity (which they do).

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Alara plays horribly in limited, there's not nearly enough mana-fixing in the set and what does exist is absurdly slow/terrible. The mechanics don't have synergy- there's not even a mechanic for Esper! Cards like this:


at common is beyond horrible for limited play and for casual/new players as well. There's also tons of bomby cards with low mana costs that are difficult to cast reliably on curve, and ridiculous 2-for-1 removal spells like Agony Warp and Branching Bolt mixed in among the trash commons, leading to absurd differences in power level within packs.

So much doesn't work in the set and it has to get bailed out by the next two, which end up doing a much better job (Conflux is the best set in the block by a mile.)

Can't speak much for that since I only played prerelease limited back then but I had a lot of fun making decks based on the shards with.

Still don't like Conflux and reborn was whacky.

 

[kirblar]

Why are those specific commons horrible for limited play? You keep bringing it up and dodging it beyond Esper has no identity (which they do).

....really?

They do nothing. Even a beginner quickly realizes they do nothing. They're not even marginally playable, they're completely useless. It's why you dumb these effects at uncommon (lucky charms) so they don't shit up packs in limited.

You have those cards alongside cards like this:

which are absolutely ridiculous blowout value- it's too extreme a spread.

Then, good luck casting a card like Rhox War Monk on curve.

 

[A Serious Man]

It's hard to test decks when every person on MTGO is some smirking idiot trying to keep the Tutelage dream alive. For whatever reason they're always the ones who get mouthy when they lose as well.

 

[Firemind]

Sets can't have bad cards anymore at common? There have been variants of healing salves and soul feasts since the dawn of magic. You can't just put good cards at every rarity without a number of stinkers. Otherwise the draft environment would quickly turn sterile. Likewise, you can't just print bad cards. There needs to be a proper balance, one that doesn't upset the balance between the five colours. And contrary to popular belief, Onyx Goblet isn't completely unplayable.

Esper doesn't have a mechanic because its synergy is artifacts. I agree it wasn't very developed in the first set, which they amended in Conflux with a variety of 'artifacts matter' cards. There shouldn't be a hard rule that states every faction should have a mechanic. If you impose yourself that, you get duds like Radiance, Replicate and Forecast. It's not like a draft deck only consists of cards of one faction. You can have Exalted creatures in your Naya deck and you can have Unearth creatures in your Jund deck. Cards should synergize better with each other within their mechanic, but there are examples where that doesn't happen (Unleash, Detain, above-mentioned mechanics). It's not the end of the world because in the end it's all about the colours, not the mechanics. Look at Innistrad. Every colour combination has its own identity which isn't tied to a mechanic.

As for manafixing, Shards of Alara had better fixing than Return to Ravnica. The former is also more balanced because all five factions are available from the start, whereas Return to Ravnica starts with 5 of the 10 factions.

 

[kirblar]

Marginal cards should be at common.

These are outright bad and completely unplayable.

As for manafixing, Shards of Alara had better fixing than Return to Ravnica. The former is also more balanced because all five factions are available from the start, whereas Return to Ravnica starts with 5 of the 10 factions.

My head just exploded. This is an absolutely absurd statement.

The fixing is absolutely better in RTR.

RTR is balanced (minus Pack Rat) around those 5 factions. 5 being missing is not an issue.

There shouldn't be a hard rule that states every faction should have a mechanic.

"We luv artifacts" is parasitic and doesn't interact with other shards. It's bad design.

 

[Firemind]

Have you played both formats? It was fairly difficult to play a three coloured deck with 3xRTR, because they wanted you to focus on the individual guilds unlike the original Ravnica block.

3xSOA had the panoramas at common which could fetch three colours and the trilands at uncommon. RTR had shocklands at rare. Shards also had tri colour mana rocks and various cycling cards with colourless costs should you need to dig for lands. There is no other way around it: Shards has better mana fixing.

 

[Magic Pancake]

I think its more that while RTR's mana might have been technically worse, as a two colour set it needed it much less. I was just getting back into magic during Conflux/AR, but even I remember how bad the mana was trying to go three colour.

As to the synergy between shards, I actually found that to be a high point for the set. I loved how both exalted and devour were good ways to get 5 power creatures, and how unearthed guys were perfect food for devour. I agree that artifacts was out of place, but I wish more sets would have the themes blend into each other more.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I think its more that while RTR's mana might have been technically worse, as a two colour set it needed it much less.

Yep. Guildgates/keyrunes were nice-to-haves, but you really didn't need them to draft RTR.

 

[kirblar]

Have you played both formats? It was fairly difficult to play a three coloured deck with 3xRTR, because they wanted you to focus on the individual guilds unlike the original Ravnica block.

3xSOA had the panoramas at common which could fetch three colours and the trilands at uncommon. RTR had shocklands at rare. Shards also had tri colour mana rocks and various cycling cards with colourless costs should you need to dig for lands. There is no other way around it: Shards has better mana fixing.

.....that's the point when it's a two-color set?

The panoramas were awful and slow, as were the mana rocks. (Keyrunes the only decent version so far since they let you use the excess mana.) Cycling was not enough to fix the fundamental issue- you could not reliably play your cards on curve. If you drafted Tower Drake or Rhox War Monk or Sprouting Thrinax- casting it on T3 or T4 was unlikely to happen in most games because you'd literally need to draw three basics or a triland to pull it off. If you drew a Panorama, you'd have to spend 2 mana (counting the panorama) to turn it into a basic for the next turn.

This is why in Conflux/ARB you saw all the basic landcycling added at 2cc, to help alleviate this issue. It was a huge design flaw that led cards to getting stuck in players' hands. (I remember this. It was not fun.)

 

[Crocodile]

1) Gates > Panoramas (There were Gate-matters cards and the Panoramas were slower since they cost you 2 mana to fix)

2) Keyrunes > Obelisks

3) RTR is a two color format and Shards is a three color format (cards like Wolly Thoctar and friends only exasperated the problem). The quality of fixing in a format is inherently relative to the color demands of the format. The fixing in Shards wasn't good enough to support a 3 color format. The fixing in RTR was good enough to support a 2 color format. Ergo, RTR has better fixing. It's both that simple and obvious

Also, Shards was clearly ravaged by the retroactively applying New World Order to the set. There is straight up jank everywhere. Packs got empty fast (AVR style) or were filled with uncastable cards. Considering balance, the Shards themselves were not balanced relative to each other. Esper not having a named mechanic isn't an issue but rather that the deck was near unplayable in 3x Shards unless you got the NUTZ (those Goblets taking up slots didn't help). Shards was just an awful set and the block 100% proved they returned to the Gold well way too soon.

 

[Firemind]

Yep. Guildgates/keyrunes were nice-to-haves, but you really didn't need them to draft RTR.

Oh, definitely. I was talking in absolutes.

Personally, I didn't like how you were constricted into those five guilds. Izzet for example was almost unplayable without a third colour. So you either had to draft Azorius or Rakdos cards, but the mana fixing just wasn't there, so you'd just be screwed a number of times because you weren't lucky enough to get the right guildgate.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Oh, definitely. I was talking in absolutes.

Personally, I didn't like how you were constricted into those five guilds. Izzet for example was almost unplayable without a third colour. So you either had to draft Azorius or Rakdos cards, but the mana fixing just wasn't there, so you'd just be screwed a number of times because you weren't lucky enough to get the right guildgate.

Izzet was great in limited sealed at least it's just that Rakdos had too good an aggression. Otherwise it could have worked.

 

[Firemind]

If you drafted Tower Drake or Rhox War Monk or Sprouting Thrinax- casting it on T3 or T4 was unlikely to happen in most games because you'd literally need to draw three basics or a triland to pull it off. If you drew a Panorama, you'd have to spend 2 mana (counting the panorama) to turn it into a basic for the next turn.

Those cards still seem fine to me on t5/x? Shards wasn't an especially fast format and it had plenty removal. Nnot just multicoloured removal. Like Branching Bolt was only strictly better than Resounding Lightning if you had two targets which doesn't happen all that often.

This is why in Conflux/ARB you saw all the basic landcycling added at 2cc, to help alleviate this issue. It was a huge design flaw that led cards to getting stuck in players' hands. (I remember this. It was not fun.)

This I agree with. Conflux fixed a lot of things.

1) Gates > Panoramas (There were Gate-matters cards and the Panoramas were slower since they cost you 2 mana to fix)

Like I said, Shards wasn't as fast a format as RTR which was dominated by bears. The panoramas were fine. Most of the common three colour creatures cost 5 mana.

2) Keyrunes > Obelisks

Comparing uncommons to commons. The cluestones would be a better analogy. The cluestones were unplayable even in the five colour decks, whereas it wasn't unheard of to play the obelisks up until Conflux.

 

[kirblar]

Those cards still seem fine to me on t5/x?

It's not- it meant the cards were a trap that wasn't obvious in the least, especially if you had lots of 3color cards and were trying to play the more marginal ones.

 

[traveler]

Edit: Wrong thread!

 

[Firemind]

It's not- it meant the cards were a trap that wasn't obvious in the least, especially if you had lots of 3color cards and were trying to play the more marginal ones.

Sprouting Thrinax was used as a payoff card in Devour decks and was defensively solid on its own. Tower Gargoyle is a 4/4 flier which is never bad at any point. The only "bad" 3colour uncommon creatures were Rhox War Monk, Fire-Field Ogre and Woolly Thoctar. You still had Battlemages, Bull Cerodon, Blood Cultist, Kiss of the Amesha, Necrogenesis at uncommon which weren't as hard to cast. This whole 'can't cast my spells' argument is a bit overblown.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Okay what is wrong with Alara? I hated Conflux and Reborn but Shards is probably my favourite set of the last decade and Conflux had Cascade which I made one of my favourite casual decks with. When everything in your deck has Cascade and every first spell you play each turn gets cascade you just vomit your stuff onto the board.

Alara brought me back to MtG big time, I was so close to stopping.

Cascade being horrible probably has something to do with why they aren't revisting it

 

[kirblar]

Sprouting Thrinax was used as a payoff card in Devour decks and was defensively solid on its own. Tower Gargoyle is a 4/4 flier which is never bad at any point. The only "bad" 3colour uncommon creatures were Rhox War Monk, Fire-Field Ogre and Woolly Thoctar. You still had Battlemages, Bull Cerodon, Blood Cultist, Kiss of the Amesha, Necrogenesis at uncommon which weren't as hard to cast. This whole 'can't cast my spells' argument is a bit overblown.

Name the best common card in Shards draft.

Spoiler

Akrasan Squire

That THAT card was it speaks to the curve problem I'm talking about - you needed to compete with these dumb aggro decks in draft.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Cascade being horrible probably has something to do with why they aren't revisting it

Cascade is awesome not for any serious play but as a casual non serious deck it's a lot of fun.

 

[Firemind]

Elspeth?

Not even sure which card you're referring to. Shards wasn't a curve format like RTR block. Necrogenesis ruled the ground. It's more like the original Ravnica block, only with shittier mana and more restrictive costs.

 

[kirblar]

Elspeth?

Not even sure which card you're referring to. Shards wasn't a curve format like RTR block. Necrogenesis ruled the ground. It's more like the original Ravnica block, only with shittier mana and more restrictive costs.

Edited to be more precise. The nut high deck was tiny exalted shitters if you could get it.

 

[OnPoint]

Going back to the UR manland convo.

This is what I expect to see.

Palisade Falls

T: Add U or R to your mana pool

1UR: Palisade Falls becomes a 2/1 creature
with Prowess until the end of the turn.​

 

[Angry Grimace]

It's hard to test decks when every person on MTGO is some smirking idiot trying to keep the Tutelage dream alive. For whatever reason they're always the ones who get mouthy when they lose as well.

Literally the first game of league I played today was a terrible Tutelage deck I beat on an accidental keep no problem.

He got angry when he lost handily.

 

[Firemind]

Edited to be more precise. The nut high deck was tiny exalted shitters if you could get it.

:shrug

The table could only support one exalted aggro deck and red has Vithian Stinger at common and Blood Cultist at uncommon. You also have Jund Charm at uncommon. And tons of removal.

 

[kirblar]

If a Shard/Wedge format's rewarding you for mono-colorish decks, that's...not good.

Evan Erwin ‏@misterorange 3m3 minutes ago

As of yesterday, I no longer work at StarCityGames. Been a wild ride. Excited for the future. More news as it develops.

Holyshitballs

 

[OnPoint]

If a Shard/Wedge format's rewarding you for mono-colorish decks, that's...not good.

Holyshitballs

What does Evan leaving mean?

 

[Hero]

People liked Alara? Really??

 

[kirblar]

What does Evan leaving mean?

I have absolutely no idea.

Explains why Evan was suddenly doing non-SCG branded stuff like the podcast tho.

Also, no set review for fans of those.