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[duxstar]

I will do what I normally do and build 5 mono color decks , then build the g/w, and g/u, and u/w decks. Then branch out to splash for fixes to weaknesses , thing is I have no clue where to branch too from there. Will definitely be interesting to see where standard ends up. I just hope it isn't all draw go control , do nothing for 7 turns or blistering fast mono red with nothing in between.

The only reason I dont build control decks is because I really dont know how, and they are usually hard to build for an unexpected metagame.

 

[Firemind]

Don't worry. Jeskai is there to shatter your dreams.

 

[Yeef]

It's not some fundamental, inalienable principle of draft formats that 2/2s should be good. Having to draft around some new set of goals is what makes each format fresh and provides the opportunity for skill-testing. In this case, the basic version of ROE is not that hard to learn -- tell someone to pick from eldrazi ramp, wall tribal, spells matter, and levelers as their archetypes and everything else falls into place pretty quick.

The goal is consistency. Telling someone to draft a certain way is fine for more enfranchised players that constantly draft, but there are tons of people who only get to draft a format like 2 or 3 times before the next one shows up.

The trick seems to be to just avoid printing cards that clash with the goals of the draft format. Khans was really good at this. There aren't very many bears because they wanted players to focus on morph. The bears that are in the set typically either have abilities to make them more dangerous or are morph creatures themselves. If they really wanted to do another Battlecruiser format, I don't think it'd be too shape the set that way.

 

[Matriox]

I was pretty certain I wanted to go BWx post rotation. Abzan has been notably good this go around, but I really want to use Mardu.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Even with a massive portion of the spoilers to be revealed, Temur really does have a massive pile of great cards.

4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Nissa, Sage Animist
4 Savage Knuckleblade
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Dragonlord Atarka

2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
3 Sarkhan Unbroken

3 Radiant Flames
4 Crater's Claws
2 Stubborn Denial

4 Frontier Bivouac
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Cinder Glade
4 Lumbering Falls
2 Mountain
2 Island
3 Forest
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon


Certainly something worth keeping in the back of your head while the spoilers roll out, if nothing else.

I could even see overlooked cards like Whisperer of the Wilds making it in depending on how things pan out.

 

[Yeef]

Since the manlands are split, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the BG and WB ones to end up in Oath, just as a "screw you" to Abzan.

 

[Firemind]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177859415]Even with a massive portion of the spoilers to be revealed, Temur really does have a massive pile of great cards.

4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Nissa, Sage Animist
4 Savage Knuckleblade
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Dragonlord Atarka

2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
3 Sarkhan Unbroken

3 Radiant Flames
4 Crater's Claws
2 Stubborn Denial

4 Frontier Bivouac
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Cinder Glade
4 Lumbering Falls
2 Mountain
2 Island
3 Forest
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon


Certainly something worth keeping in the back of your head while the spoilers roll out, if nothing else.

I could even see overlooked cards like Whisperer of the Wilds making it in depending on how things pan out.[/QUOTE]
What's Jace gonna flashback? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 

["God's Beard!"]

What's Jace gonna flashback? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Fireball them suckas

 

[Giant Panda]

So I think all three planeswalkers look pretty good, but Gideon looks the best. I was pretty wrong about the Origins walkers though, so what do I know.

So far though I see no reason to think Abzan won't continue to dominate. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of the mechanics of this block so far though outside of Awaken. Converge seems too dependent on playing 3-5 color decks that will require expensive lands, Ingest maybe should have been Ingest X, and Allies just seem really parasitic.

 

[Angry Grimace]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";177859415]Even with a massive portion of the spoilers to be revealed, Temur really does have a massive pile of great cards.

4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Nissa, Sage Animist
4 Savage Knuckleblade
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
2 Dragonlord Atarka

2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
3 Sarkhan Unbroken

3 Radiant Flames
4 Crater's Claws
2 Stubborn Denial

4 Frontier Bivouac
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Cinder Glade
4 Lumbering Falls
2 Mountain
2 Island
3 Forest
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon


Certainly something worth keeping in the back of your head while the spoilers roll out, if nothing else.

I could even see overlooked cards like Whisperer of the Wilds making it in depending on how things pan out.[/QUOTE]

Jace makes no sense at all in this deck dude you have no cards to flashback

 

["God's Beard!"]

Im half asleep give me a break

 

[charlequin]

Between turtleland and new Kiora I think Temur might be getting what it needs

I hope so! She's definitely synergistic with what Temur wants to do. (And especially with Sarkhan Unbroken.)

MTGS seems to think they're fake, but I can't read moonrunes and MTGS very quickly jumps to the conclusion everything is fake (I got an image of Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh and Crocodile posted it there and they "confirmed it fake" and then it turned out to be real a month after the fact), so its very hard to say.

MTGS is always wrong about a) whether a card is real and b) whether a card will be good.

Reading Maro's article, I realize I'm just not a fan of top down design. The game should always come first. Creating interesting mechanics, working on both block and interblock synergies, and fun designs first and then shoehorning the flavor just seems better to me than starting with the flavor and figuring out how they can represent it mechanically in an interesting way.

Innistrad is entirely top-down and it's like the best thing they ever did. If anything the problem with this set is that they produced mechanically sound designs for the Eldrazi that don't actually fit their intended flavor.

Khans fetches , Tango lands, tri color tapped lands , and now enemy manlands.

I don't think it's a coincidence that out of this list, only the fetchlands are reliable about giving you mana the turn you play them (and even then only if you get basics, not tangos.)

I imagine the goal here is to make 3-color manabases still very viable but not make 5-color that easy, which I think is probably what will happen. The last time we had a broken 5-color manabase problem, it was because Vivid lands + Reflecting Pool meant that you could reliably produce five colors by turn two. It'll be much harder to pay WW, then GGG, then BBBB in this Standard.

-8 you get an emblem " whenever a creature come into battlefield under you control , you can have it fight with target creature" and put 3 8/8 blue octopus into battlefield.

Surprising absolutely no one, this is far and away my favorite planeswalker ultimate of all time.

 

[traveler]

Innistrad is entirely top-down and it's like the best thing they ever did. If anything the problem with this set is that they produced mechanically sound designs for the Eldrazi that don't actually fit their intended flavor.
.

We don't have the same issues with the set then- my problem with Eldrazi isn't flavor; it's that they're boring. Casting big dudes for big mana just isn't my thing, and now, I don't even have annihilator to guarantee some decent value for my huge investment if I get chump blocked all day or killed after a swing.

Even worse, all the mechanics seem boring at best, and highly derivative/non-mechanics at worst. The non-returning mechanics for this set are calling colored cards colorless, sunburst applied to more than just 1/1 counters, a Kicker cost that does the same thing on every card, and exiling single cards off the top of someone's deck. Those all seem terribly boring to me and only the last one even seems new. Granted, this could totally just be due to time- as I play more and more of the game over the years, new mechanics are inevitably going to make me recall prior ones. I just feel like it's way worse this time.

I also don't think Innistrad constructed was that great. Inn limited, sure; that was the best thing ever, but that doesn't prove flavor driven approaches work in general or that bottom up design won't generally produce more interesting to play sets; it only shows that top down CAN yield a decent set.

 

[Exokell]

Kiora seems bad for me. Now Ob, hes the shit nitz.

 

[Hackworth]

First time I read this I was like "it's only one octopus why should I care" but that ult is amazing now I've actually read it. Every set should have at least 24 points of cephalopod damage.

 

[inthrall]

I like Ob-Nix, though I suspect never wanting to + him vs mono-red could be an issue in standard. Kiora looks like a lot of fun, though I'm not a huge fan of the art this time around. Man lands being back is good news though!

 

[Matriox]

"+1 Untap up to one target Hangarback Walker and up to one target land that was used for Hangarback Walker's ability", Did I read that correctly?

On a side note, I love that I can use her +1 politically in EDH.

 

[OnPoint]

Wait.

-8 you get an emblem " whenever a creature come into battlefield under your control , you can have it fight with target creature" and put 3 8/8 blue octopus into battlefield.

How does this not go infinite with itself? Can the octopi not fight each other when they enter at the same time?

 

[ultron87]

The Krakens aren't part of the emblem.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Wait.



How does this not go infinite with itself?

Read the actual card, not the awkward translation

 

[The Technomancer]

Wait.



How does this not go infinite with itself? Can the octopi not fight each other when they enter at the same time?

Hm?

 

[OnPoint]

The Krakens aren't part of the emblem.

Ooooooh

Read the actual card, not the awkward translation

Lololol oh

 

["God's Beard!"]

Octopi being 8/8s checks out

 

[Angry Grimace]

Everyone is convinced the lady vampire on the game day mat is Drana and she's getting a new card.

I would laugh for hours if it was just a straight Drana reprint.

Wait.



How does this not go infinite with itself? Can the octopi not fight each other when they enter at the same time?

The emblem and the Krakens are separate parts of Kiora's third ability - the Krakens enter the battlefield as part of using Kiora's third ability, not from the emblem.

 

[Etrian Oddity]

Winter is coming.

 

[kirblar]

Maro Article

Maro admits RoE didn't follow New World Order. It is also one of the best limited formats ever per anyone who actually has decent experience playing limited. I wonder if there is a correlation ? Also says people hated Annihilator and that Level Up was too complex. People really hate fun (with the last mechanic anyway) don't they

Why is it bad for some players to learn that sometimes a Runeclaw Bear is a bad card in a format? That's kind of what makes every format different no? Why should you be expected to be able to do the same strategy in every format and be successful?

The Leopard sucks. Even after one landfall trigger its worse than a Steppe Lynx and has no crazy potential with fetchlands that Lynx and Geopede had. I guess that helps with the "attack all day" problem Zendikar had (though making it uncommon would have been a good help already) but it makes them trash in a lot of formats.

Good to see Enemy Manlands, didn't expect them until the next set.

Because when all the games go long, people get mana screwed less often and the better player wins more often.

Sadly, I strongly believe this is why we see so many hyper-aggro formats with regularity and its the unspoken dark side of this critique.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Sadly, I still think Bobby Nixon is the best of the PW even though he's pretty boring simply because his abilities are very straightforward and powerful.

 

[kirblar]

Ingest just isn't on enough stuff. There's a lot to be revealed still, but if that's their sinister mechanic for the Eldrazi the frequency so far is underwhelming.

Completely agree. It should have been on ALL of them, with varying numbers.

 

[duxstar]

There has to be a good pushed ally card somewhere right ? I mean sure there's the limited bomb in white and Gideon kinda works with allys but there has to be a a pushed constructed card right.

I'll happily take voice of resurgence ally lol

 

[OnPoint]

The emblem and the Krakens are separate parts of Kiora's third ability - the Krakens enter the battlefield as part of using Kiora's third ability, not from the emblem.

Yeah lol I get it now.

Sadly, I still think Bobby Nixon is the best of the PW even though he's pretty boring simply because his abilities are very straightforward and powerful.

Yeah he's the one who excites me the most

 

[charlequin]

We don't have the same issues with the set then- my problem with Eldrazi isn't flavor; it's that they're boring. Casting big dudes for big mana just isn't my thing, and now, I don't even have annihilator to guarantee some decent value for my huge investment if I get chump blocked all day or killed after a swing.

Same fundamental issue though! You get to ramp and big guys who are efficient and powerful by just taking the entirely practical approach, it's trying to accomplish something beyond that that gets you somewhere interesting.

It's true that Innistrad doesn't strictly prove that top-down designs are "better" or anything, but, like, BFZ is categorized as a bottom-up set anyway.

I would laugh for hours if it was just a straight Drana reprint.

I really doubt they're going to inaugurate the first ever reprint of a legendary creature in an expansion set with Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief.

 

[kirblar]

It's true that Innistrad doesn't strictly prove that top-down designs are "better" or anything, but, like, BFZ is categorized as a bottom-up set anyway.

The top-down emotional aspect is what was lost here, ironically.

 

[Wichu]

Everyone is convinced the lady vampire on the game day mat is Drana and she's getting a new card.

Well, she's wearing exactly the same clothes as Drana. Unless another vampire stole Drana's clothes?

 

[Firemind]

Hope they reprint Lust For War.

These eldrazi aren't so scary.

 

[Hero]

Like some of us said in the old thread, Eldrazi should've had annihilator 1-3. Those numbers are manageable and not completely backbreaking. That or every Eldrazi should have an on cast effect.

Edit: never mind, they all do. I guess that makes the two 10/10 card not as bad.

 

[charlequin]

Anyone else want to take their turn trying to explain to Rosewater why 10/10 vanilla creatures aren't frightening, since The Technomancer and I have both struck out already?

 

[kirblar]

Anyone else want to take their turn trying to explain to Rosewater why 10/10 vanilla creatures aren't frightening, since The Technomancer and I have both struck out already?

He thought Tribute was an awesome mechanic.

His limitations are being put on full display lately.

 

[Hero]

Anyone else want to take their turn trying to explain to Rosewater why 10/10 vanilla creatures aren't frightening, since The Technomancer and I have both struck out already?

I doubt MaRo is tone deaf but do you expect him to admit something like that before the set is even out?

 

[Haly]

Does he not remember Krosan Cloudscraper?

 

[Crocodile]

Anyone else want to take their turn trying to explain to Rosewater why 10/10 vanilla creatures aren't frightening, since The Technomancer and I have both struck out already?

I already mentioned it to him on Twitter in the midst of a conversation I was having with him and someone else about "why bears being bad in RoE" is ok but I think he ignored me (or say it but didn't reply).

 

[Toxi]

Anyone else want to take their turn trying to explain to Rosewater why 10/10 vanilla creatures aren't frightening, since The Technomancer and I have both struck out already?

I don't understand the consternation. Getting an extra 10/10 upon casting means...

• Counterspells are only partially effective.
• Single target removal is half as effective.
• Two creatures are required to chump block instead of one.

So it's built-in protection and evasion for 20 points of power. That's plenty frightening for most casual players.

If there's anything I'd complain about, it's that in-general the Eldrazi are smaller than their Rise counterparts. Also, Devoid and Ingest both feel very parasitic.

Does he not remember Krosan Cloudscraper?

Krosan Cloudscraper dies to Terror, gets countered without issue, has no form of evasion, and has an upkeep cost. Comparing to Krosan Cloudscraper seems disingenuous.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

There's zero evasion. Zero ways to get extra value. It's not even good in Limited. It's complete junk.

 

[charlequin]

His limitations are being put on full display lately.

I think he's still very strong in terms of vision/block planning and I'd worry about somebody else stepping into that role at the moment, but it will be interesting to see what it's like when half the blocks are designed and developed by people other than Rosewater/Lauer.

I do wish Forsythe could get his hands dirty a little more, he always seems to have some perspective on how rule tweaks don't have to hurt.

I doubt MaRo is tone deaf but do you expect him to admit something like that before the set is even out?

I was hoping for something along the lines of "we didn't prioritize the eldrazi being terrifying."

EDIT: kirblar managed to get exactly this out of Maro on twitter. I'm now displeased but satisfied!

 

[The Technomancer]

There's zero evasion. Zero ways to get extra value. It's not even good in Limited. It's complete junk.

Dedicated Eldrazi deck might have enablers. Similar to the RB Haste giver maybe Trample or Flying comes from another one

 

[kirblar]

@maro254 "Weird/Alien" seems to have been the design concept, but "Existential Terror" is what they should be invoking.
0 retweets 0 favorites
Mark Rosewater ‏@maro254 5m5 minutes ago

@Kirblar024 We want to differentiate them from the Phyrexians who are the terrifying race.

Oh god, I just realized what happened.

Fucking poison.

Annhilator/Library eating play in that same space.and Rosewater has been hellbent on bringing it back. With NNP on the horizon.....

 

[charlequin]

Oh god, I just realized what happened.

Fucking poison.

LooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooL

 

[kirblar]

LooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooL

I was not expecting the horrifying part of this set to be their design decisions.

 

[Hero]

That seems backwards to me. I would be more terrified of giant Cthulhu looking monsters that devour everything in their path while Phyrexians seem to evoke more of the weird/alien stuff going on, eg the Praetor cycle.

 

[Toxi]

There's zero evasion. Zero ways to get extra value. It's not even good in Limited. It's complete junk.

One card making two creatures is a form of evasion, for the same reason Menace is a form of evasion.

Oh god, I just realized what happened.

Fucking poison.

Annhilator/Library eating play in that same space.and Rosewater has been hellbent on bringing it back. With NNP on the horizon.....

Urgh, I hope not.

That seems backwards to me. I would be more terrified of giant Cthulhu looking monsters that devour everything in their path while Phyrexians seem to evoke more of the weird/alien stuff going on, eg the Praetor cycle.

Phyrexia has been about grotesque horror since day one, and that has continued for all of their subsequent appearances. Elesh Norn has her skin flayed off for crying out loud.

 

[charlequin]

Between defending the full-art lands thing and trashing ROE Rosewater isn't on my good list today.

Urgh, I hope not.

NNP is definitely happening though it certainly sounds like poison isn't....