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Magic: the Gathering - Oath o/t Gatewatch |OT| Look again, the mana is now diamonds!

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Ashodin

Member
O beautiful for blasted skies
For bloodstained waves of death
For purple Cephalid majesties
Which make one hold his breath!

DOMINARIA, DOMINARIA

Urza shed grace on thee
And saved thy brood from Yawgmothhood
From C to shining C!


I want to go back man.
 
Honestly not sure why they haven't bothered to even bring him up in what, 7 years (not counting being a random dude in M13).

Yeah I think there's a fundamental error where they thought "oh look, all these guys doing secrety stuff for Bolas will show everyone he's still a player!" would work and it really doesn't. Magic does environmental villains well, and individual villains who can appear on-screen decently. Unless you can make their threat environmental, though, there's no way to make an individual who hides out somewhere else and never does anything directly threatening.
 

OnPoint

Member
The problem with Bolas is that they have him positioned as a puppet master, but there are no clues or evidence as to what his strings are pulling. Like, at all. Either he is so good that it's all going as planned and is completely in secret (bad for the audience) or they have no idea what they're doing with him and will eventually retcon a story/plan together to make him relevant again. I honestly wish it was him causing the issues in Innistrad so the 'mystery' of Bolas would start to unveil a bit.
 
The problem with Bolas is that they have him positioned as a puppet master, but there are no clues or evidence as to what his strings are pulling. Like, at all. Either he is so good that it's all going as planned and is completely in secret (bad for the audience) or they have no idea what they're doing with him and will eventually retcon a story/plan together to make him relevant again. I honestly wish it was him causing the issues in Innistrad so the 'mystery' of Bolas would start to unveil a bit.

Bolas is Nahiri.
 

JulianImp

Member
I knew it!!!

But seriously. I can't understand their plan of inaction with him. They gave him a whole core set where he was the focus... and he did zero.

It's always like he shows up for a second, says "But it was me, BOLAS!" and then vanishes again until next time. His schemes are supposedly so above everyone else that they make no sense, and he still manages to lose to neo-walkers in spite of supposedly being the ultimate chessmaster because reasons.
 
It's always like he shows up for a second, says "But it was me, BOLAS!" and then vanishes again until next time. His schemes are supposedly so above everyone else that they make no sense, and he still manages to lose to neo-walkers in spite of supposedly being the ultimate chessmaster because reasons.
I'd love for Garruk to just randomly off Bolas since Nicol has degenerated into "he doesn't care because he's so strong!" drivel.

I miss Garruk a lot . :(
 

Nikodemos

Member
I knew it!!!

But seriously. I can't understand their plan of inaction with him. They gave him a whole core set where he was the focus... and he did zero.
Because, between the mindless ferocity of the Eldrazi and the all-permeating insidiousness of the Phyrexians, Bolas just comes off as "oh, it's that asshole again". It's kinda hard to get a working angle out of that.
 
Further tricking out my Zur the Enchanter EDH deck. Going full voltron gonna be pretty annoying. Pacifying (not literally) hexproof creatures, feelsgoodman.

Next up is beefing up the land base which is gonna hurt.
 
Further tricking out my Zur the Enchanter EDH deck. Going full voltron gonna be pretty annoying. Pacifying (not literally) hexproof creatures, feelsgoodman.

Next up is beefing up the land base which is gonna hurt.

I was going to make a Zur Deck, but I was concerned that it was going to be too much tutoring, which would make games too similar. Have you found that to be a problem?
 
I was going to make a Zur Deck, but I was concerned that it was going to be too much tutoring, which would make games too similar. Have you found that to be a problem?

Lots and lots of shuffling, often you're just the police dealing with any threat on the board but you can also just tutor up Necro pay a bunch of life and end the turn with 7 counters in hand.
There's also the option to go into stasis lock or if you want to make yourself especially popular Standstill.

Telepathy is my secret tech to make the rest of the player seem more dangerous than me.

It's only as linear as you make it would be my conclusion.


Still prefer my Angels though, with Avacyn 3.0 I finally have an alternate commander to use. Gisela draws too much hate, even though Aurelia ends games much faster, for some reason
 
I played Commander tonight with my Oloro control/enchantment deck (no creatures in it) and it feels like it durdles too much or something. I had my Sanguine Bond combo broken so I couldn't win that way. I think that it needs more ways to finish the game.
I ended up winning by Commander damage with Oloro which isn't exactly how I want to do it.
 
I played Commander tonight with my Oloro control/enchantment deck (no creatures in it) and it feels like it durdles too much or something. I had my Sanguine Bond combo broken so I couldn't win that way. I think that it needs more ways to finish the game.
I ended up winning by Commander damage with Oloro which isn't exactly how I want to do it.

Isn't there multiple cards enabling the combo now, including creatures?
 
Isn't there multiple cards enabling the combo now, including creatures?

This is the main combo

tumblr_inline_mt8f5kL0xy1qdnwju.png
 

OnPoint

Member
Because, between the mindless ferocity of the Eldrazi and the all-permeating insidiousness of the Phyrexians, Bolas just comes off as "oh, it's that asshole again". It's kinda hard to get a working angle out of that.

That's a flaw with the planning and writing, not with Bolas as a character. It wouldn't be hard for a talented writer to make you care, they just don't seem like they're prioritizing his arc now or in the near future. But now that I think about it, he's minimally involved in about half of the current spinning storyline plates.
.​
  • The Eldrazi: He orchestrated their release and now Emrakul is on the loose.
  • Phyrexians: He sent Tezzeret there because of ...?.
  • Tarkir: He killed Ugin in the past and likely thinks him dead still.
  • He has no involvement in Ravnica or Theros or Innistrad that we know of.

That's 50% of what's up right now. So he's weaved in for sure, but it's just so minimal it's hard to even care.
 

ElyrionX

Member
I played Commander tonight with my Oloro control/enchantment deck (no creatures in it) and it feels like it durdles too much or something. I had my Sanguine Bond combo broken so I couldn't win that way. I think that it needs more ways to finish the game.
I ended up winning by Commander damage with Oloro which isn't exactly how I want to do it.

Play the standard blue combos like infinite mana into USZ? Or Enter the Infinite into Lab Man?

Yeah, attacking and winning with Commander damage definitely isn't what most players expect with Oloro LOL.
 

ElyrionX

Member
I was going to make a Zur Deck, but I was concerned that it was going to be too much tutoring, which would make games too similar. Have you found that to be a problem?

Zur is definitely a linear deck. Any commanders with built-in tutor abilities will inevitably be linear.
 

Bandini

Member
We talking Commander? I just got some new cards for my Narset deck yesterday!

Image.ashx
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Huge bombs are the most fun. Hopefully get to cast some spells tonight... with the nut draw I can start swinging with Narset on turn 3
 

pelicansurf

Needs a Holiday on Gallifrey
Boo, Narset deck. Do you get hated out each game? I would always kill you first (forever).

I have a mono-green stompy deck with Omnath as it's leader.

Then a new mono-white voltron with eight and a half tails as it's commander.

They're both pretty sweet.
 

Bandini

Member
Boo, Narset deck. Do you get hated out each game? I would always kill you first (forever).

Not really. I play 3 handed against the same two people 75% of the time, and the decks are all pretty competitive. I usually switch decks after a game or two; we each have a couple paper decks and we have a ton of printed proxy decks between us and a lot of the time we just randomize deck picks.
 

Firemind

Member
Narset is so busted that Temporal Manipulation and Capture of Jingzhou are now respectively $80 and $500.

wizards pls reprint in eternal masters kthxbai
 
I've seen a lot of people run Oloro as control decks, but I'm a sucker for theme/tribal decks, so my version is essentially life-gain tribal. Not running Felidar Sovereign though, I find that sort of win condition to be unfun.
 

ironmang

Member
Anybody else going to DC this weekend? Meeting with my teammates later tonight then discussing strategy for the ~3 hour car ride down. Love team sealed.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Kinda weird they didn't spoil Jace early, seems like they usually spoil the face Planeswalker before the normal set spoilers come out.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Drana is mai waifu.

She's just so much fun to throw into a deck. I've been playing B/R Dragons and I just dumped the Flamewake Pheonixes for Drana and it certainly doesn't seem particularly worse, and you get amusement out of pumping your whole team.
 
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