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[Farside]

I picked up a red and green Welcome deck and learning the rules and flow of play. Some questions:

1. Why the second main phase? What am I supposed to be doing here?
2. These two are really basic, but I just want to confirm: A) Blocking creatures aren't tapped, but tapped creatures cannot block. B) All creature HP is regained after the player's round ends, but not during the round/phase.
3. If I want to dive in, should I go for a Planeswalker deck? or boosters? or single cards (as I seem to remember someone saying this is the best option to build a deck)?
4. I'm gonna get smeared the first few games, right?

 

[Violet_0]

You have to rely on commons and uncommons being the only new information, so you'll find no solace there.
Speaking of which, we are now rivals (of Ixalan) meaning I'm now shipped with you.

this shipping madness needs to stop
there's still a couple surprises left, such as the planeswalkers. But really, at this point I'll take anything over whatever this is

Spoilers of Ixalan started three months ago. We can still discuss them. I do wonder though, are you really a junior is or that just a cruel tag?

honorary junior. I lobbied long and relentlessly for a tag

 

[Justin]

"those aren't tentacles" - Kiora

oh god when does the spoiler season start

September 11th.

 

[LuciusAxelrod]

1. Why the second main phase? What am I supposed to be doing here?

I think it's generally a good idea to do things as late as possible, just to leave your options open (or to make your opponent think you have options when you really don't).
Say you have creatures you want to attack with and a creature spell in your hand that you want to cast. If you cast the creature in your first main phase before you attack, then you will have less mana (or no mana at all) to spend on instants during your attack. If you wait until your second main phase to cast that creature, then you can cast instants during combat if you have to (or at least make your opponent hesitant to cast their instants).

 

[Farside]

I think it's generally a good idea to do things as late as possible, just to leave your options open (or to make your opponent think you have options when you really don't).
Say you have creatures you want to attack with and a creature spell in your hand that you want to cast. If you cast the creature in your first main phase before you attack, then you will have less mana (or no mana at all) to spend on instants during your attack. If you wait until your second main phase to cast that creature, then you can cast instants during combat if you have to (or at least make your opponent hesitant to cast their instants).

That makes sense. So, in the first phase, play land, attack with what is on the board (unless you can use a creature with haste to inflict massive damage), and save mana for instants. Second main phase, play creature or artifact. Thanks!

 

[SigmasonicX]

I picked up a red and green Welcome deck and learning the rules and flow of play. Some questions:

1. Why the second main phase? What am I supposed to be doing here?
2. These two are really basic, but I just want to confirm: A) Blocking creatures aren't tapped, but tapped creatures cannot block. B) All creature HP is regained after the player's round ends, but not during the round/phase.
3. If I want to dive in, should I go for a Planeswalker deck? or boosters? or single cards (as I seem to remember someone saying this is the best option to build a deck)?
4. I'm gonna get smeared the first few games, right?

1. The first main phase is before combat, and the second is after. In the early days, combat was a "special action" you could do once during your one main phase, but making it a normal phase with a main phase on either side simplified things. A good rule of thumb is that you want to cast things as late as possible, so you want to cast creatures in the second main phase. There are exceptions, of course.

2. That's correct. Note you can declare a creature as a blocker and then tap it for an activated ability, and it will still block. Similarly, if your opponent blocks you, tapping that blocking creature won't stop it.

3. If you know what you're doing and have a particular deck in mind, buy singles. If you just want to experience a different kind of deck, buy a preconstructed one like a Planeswalker Deck. Generally, you shouldn't buy booster packs unless you plan to use them for a draft with your friends or something. Otherwise, you should only interact with them while playing at a store event or if they are prizes.

4. *shrug*

 

[Justin]

2. These two are really basic, but I just want to confirm: A) Blocking creatures aren't tapped, but tapped creatures cannot block. B) All creature HP is regained after the player's round ends, but not during the round/phase.

These are all correct.

3. If I want to dive in, should I go for a Planeswalker deck? or boosters? or single cards (as I seem to remember someone saying this is the best option to build a deck)?

It depends on what your are interested in. It is never good just to buy packs to open them. Many people are of the opinion that limited is the best way to get started. See if there are any LGSs near you that run drafts. It is a great way to learn the game and build up a collection.

4. I'm gonna get smeared the first few games, right?
Probably... I only started playing a few months ago and after doing 2 drafts a week I still have only gone 2/3 or better a handful of times. The most suprising part of when I just started was just how deep the game is strategy wise and drafting adds in a whole extra level. If you don't worry about winning an instead learning then every game no matter how badly you lose will be fun. If I am playing someone experienced I like to note plays I was confused about then after the match go back and ask them what they would have done.

 

[Farside]

2. That's correct. Note you can declare a creature as a blocker and then tap it for an activated ability, and it will still block. Similarly, if your opponent blocks you, tapping that blocking creature won't stop it.

Hmm... that seems weird. Thanks for the response.

Justin: Nice advice about better players. Thanks!

 

[SigmasonicX]

That makes sense. So, in the first phase, play land, attack with what is on the board (unless you can use a creature with haste to inflict massive damage), and save mana for instants. Second main phase, play creature or artifact. Thanks!

Some people will argue that by default, you shouldn't play lands until the second main phase either, but that consistently makes me forget to play the land at all. So yeah, just play it in the first main phase.

 

[Farside]

Some people will argue that by default, you shouldn't play lands until the second main phase either, but that consistently makes me forget to play the land at all. So yeah, just play it in the first main phase.

But playing in the second phase leaves you without the mana in the first phase, though. Or am I confused?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

But playing in the second phase leaves you without the mana in the first phase, though. Or am I confused?

It's about giving the opponent less information during the combat step. It's fairly high level though.

 

[Justin]

But playing in the second phase leaves you without the mana in the first phase, though. Or am I confused?

Correct. It goes along with what LuciusAxelrod said about playing things as late as possible. If you are sitting on 5 mana and your opponent knows that at 6 mana you can cast your big spell, you dont want them to know that you have that 6th land till as late as possible. If they are sitting on a removal spell, see you drop the 6th land in the 1st main then move to combat they might just make the blocks and take the damage. If you dont drop the land then they dont know if you have that 6th land and might use a removal spell during combat that couldve been used on your big 6 mana spell.

Like SigmasonicX said, just play the land on during your first main phase until your are more experienced. You dont want to be the guy who asks "Did I play my land this turn?" all the time.

 

[Poodlestrike]

But playing in the second phase leaves you without the mana in the first phase, though. Or am I confused?

If you need the mana for combat instants, or pre-combat sorceries/etb creatures, play it then. Otherwise, having the card in your hand is better than not having it, if only for the psychological "maybe it's something nasty" factor.

Hardly the end of the world either way, though.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Some people will argue that by default, you shouldn't play lands until the second main phase either, but that consistently makes me forget to play the land at all. So yeah, just play it in the first main phase.

The only thing you really gain is information advantage via having more unknown cards in hand, but at the same time you also gain an advantage of theoretically having more mana available to play something interactive if necessary. From a pure strategic standpoint you'd be required to think about it every turn, but I never do that and always drop it ASAP.

Spoilers of Ixalan started three months ago. We can still discuss them. I do wonder though, are you really a junior is or that just a cruel tag?

It's a tag, but whether his/her actual user status is set to junior depends.

 

[Violet_0]

It's a tag, but whether his/her actual user status is set to junior depends.

I can still make threads and vote in polls. My mom was right, I'm a fake

 

[Daedardus]

I can still make threads and vote in polls. My mom was right, I'm a fake

Real juniors can't vote in polls? That's like 20% of the fun of GAF taken away. Hope I never get juniored.

 

[Farside]

I appreciate all the replies. I'll try some of these strategies out in Magic Duels to get the hang of them.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

thread confuse

 

[Boogiepop]

Admittedly this is only a half-hearted complaint, as it's sourced from second-hand knowledge at best and I was never too deep in the lore at all... but does is it right to say that Magic kind of tends to lean heavily on "corruption" stuff, and if so does that bug anyone but me? Like, whenever I hear someone describe a Magic set/block, it seems to be all "cool place is introduced, but then it inevitably gets corrupted and/or blown up or something" (which again, is to be fair, me hearing people describe this stuff than actually being directly familiar, so apologies if I'm off-point). The one I distinctly recall pissing me off was that I left the game when Mirrodin was starting and found the world really cool... and then years down the line, when I checked in on the game again, I was told "Oh yeah, that's New Phyrexia now, and everything's all f^&$ed up, and Karn is corrupted (though I just googled this, and apparently this got undone?)" Just... kind of bugged me.

I dunno, I guess I just like cool things and want to see a ton of that and neat worldbuilding, but it seems like it's always getting torn back down before long. Which admittedly is a Magic thing in general from my rough lore knowledge, so it's more a me problem where I'm more like, I want Magic to be more to my tastes, which probably isn't fair, I guess.

And again, sorry if I am off-point, as the more I typed of this, the more I realized how half-baked my knowledge/sources that I'm basing this off of are.

Edit: Honestly it probably comes down to me wanting Magic to be a little less focused on the "dark" type storylines/themes that are, from what I know, its bread and butter. Like, I just would love it for the overall tone to be more "fun", but I realize that's probably me asking Magic to ditch part of its identity. (I realize there is "fun" stuff, but I feel like the "dark" parts tend to overshadow/overwhelm that.)

 

[SigmasonicX]

Admittedly this is only a half-hearted complaint, as it's sourced from second-hand knowledge at best and I was never too deep in the lore at all... but does is it right to say that Magic kind of tends to lean heavily on "corruption" stuff, and if so does that bug anyone but me? Like, whenever I hear someone describe a Magic set/block, it seems to be all "cool place is introduced, but then it inevitably gets corrupted and/or blown up or something" (which again, is to be fair, me hearing people describe this stuff than actually being directly familiar, so apologies if I'm off-point). The one I distinctly recall pissing me off was that I left the game when Mirrodin was starting and found the world really cool... and then years down the line, when I checked in on the game again, I was told "Oh yeah, that's New Phyrexia now, and everything's all f^&$ed up, and Karn is corrupted (though I just googled this, and apparently this got undone?)" Just... kind of bugged me.

I dunno, I guess I just like cool things and want to see a ton of that and neat worldbuilding, but it seems like it's always getting torn back down before long. Which admittedly is a Magic thing in general from my rough lore knowledge, so it's more a me problem where I'm more like, I want Magic to be more to my tastes, which probably isn't fair, I guess.

And again, sorry if I am off-point, as the more I typed of this, the more I realized how half-baked my knowledge/sources that I'm basing this off of are.

They've acknowledged this problem, and have largely put more effort into ending a world's story in such a way that they can easily go back and have it be similar to the way it was before. Notably, Kaladesh had a change in government and nothing else happened to the world itself.

The reason why they consistently went for global devastation is because that's simply easier to demonstrate on cards that you aren't guaranteed to see in any particular order. Now that they are shifting away from blocks and are more willing to have just one set on a world, they will probably shift even more away from this.

 

[Boogiepop]

They've acknowledged this problem, and have largely put more effort into ending a world's story in such a way that they can easily go back and have it be similar to the way it was before. Notably, Kaladesh had a change in government and nothing else happened to the world itself.

The reason why they consistently went for global devastation is because that's simply easier to demonstrate on cards that you aren't guaranteed to see in any particular order. Now that they are shifting away from blocks and are more willing to have just one set on a world, they will probably shift even more away from this.

Ah, cool. That's nice to hear.

 

[Farside]

Does WoC publish a physical copy of the Magic comprehensive rulebook?

 

[Santiako]

Does WoC publish a physical copy of the Magic comprehensive rulebook?

It's getting updated with every set release so I don't think so.

 

[LuciusAxelrod]

Does WoC publish a physical copy of the Magic comprehensive rulebook?

20 years ago they would include a tiny rule book with starter sets that was about the dimensions of a card. If they did that these days it'd probably be five inches thick.

 

[Tunoku]

Got frustrated with Xmage and bought Sonic Mania and Wolfenstein. I can't seem to connect to the server anymore for some reason.

 

[Angry Grimace]

Admittedly this is only a half-hearted complaint, as it's sourced from second-hand knowledge at best and I was never too deep in the lore at all... but does is it right to say that Magic kind of tends to lean heavily on "corruption" stuff, and if so does that bug anyone but me? Like, whenever I hear someone describe a Magic set/block, it seems to be all "cool place is introduced, but then it inevitably gets corrupted and/or blown up or something" (which again, is to be fair, me hearing people describe this stuff than actually being directly familiar, so apologies if I'm off-point). The one I distinctly recall pissing me off was that I left the game when Mirrodin was starting and found the world really cool... and then years down the line, when I checked in on the game again, I was told "Oh yeah, that's New Phyrexia now, and everything's all f^&$ed up, and Karn is corrupted (though I just googled this, and apparently this got undone?)" Just... kind of bugged me.

I dunno, I guess I just like cool things and want to see a ton of that and neat worldbuilding, but it seems like it's always getting torn back down before long. Which admittedly is a Magic thing in general from my rough lore knowledge, so it's more a me problem where I'm more like, I want Magic to be more to my tastes, which probably isn't fair, I guess.

And again, sorry if I am off-point, as the more I typed of this, the more I realized how half-baked my knowledge/sources that I'm basing this off of are.

Edit: Honestly it probably comes down to me wanting Magic to be a little less focused on the "dark" type storylines/themes that are, from what I know, its bread and butter. Like, I just would love it for the overall tone to be more "fun", but I realize that's probably me asking Magic to ditch part of its identity. (I realize there is "fun" stuff, but I feel like the "dark" parts tend to overshadow/overwhelm that.)

It's nothing like Warcraft where practically every relevant character gets corrupted at some point and then you fight them and they either die or say "whoops my bad"

 

[charlequin]

You have to rely on commons and uncommons being the only new information, so you'll find no solace there.

"Iconic" "Masters" "Spoiler" "Season" is in like three weeks tho

 

[Imperfected]

Just to confirm... how worried should I be about you guys all being down on these Commander decks, with the Cat one in particular being the one I was interested in, despite seemingly getting the most dislike in here I think? Like, is it more of a "this isn't doing as crazy things as I'd like", or more of a "this is actively not a very good deck"? I was planning on using this as a cheap way of getting back into Magic and have a deck to play against friends without having to get into the arms race of constantly needing to upgrade and buy a ton of new cards and crap, which in past experiences has been the issue I run into with TCGs. And before the reveals the impression I seemed to get wherever I asked around were that these decks would be perfect for that. But now I'm getting kind of worried, what with how down on them everyone seems to be...

My honest assessment:

Dragons: This is a solid deck, you can pick this deck up and play it against anything short of "true" competitive (Turn <5 Combo) decks and it will hold up decently well. If you wanted to tweak this deck, there's honestly less to do to it than other decks; you're mostly looking at spending way too much to smooth out the mana base/improve the ramp and replacing a few under-performing cards with format staples.

That said, aside from maybe Ramos, I don't really see many of the cards printed for this deck being useful or interesting to people outside of this deck. You should buy this deck because you want to play this deck, which isn't why a lot of EDH players buy these, and why they're going to be down on it.

Vampires: This is a pretty good deck. There's more you can do to improve it than Dragons, and I feel like the top end of it is higher if you really throw money at it, but it's still a perfectly reasonable deck for someone to sit down and play with at any but the most cut-throat tables. This deck could get pretty expensive to upgrade, though, since a few of the vampire cards and good cards peripheral to vampires (hi Sorin) are both somewhat expensive and legitimately good inclusions.

As with Dragons, this is a deck you buy because you want the deck. There are one or two moderately interesting cards there in their own right, but for the most part it's built to do what it does and none of the pieces included are super interesting doing anything else. (The Roman Vampire's about the only one I could see people doing a build-around.)

Wizards: This deck is hilariously awful. You should not gift this deck to someone as their introduction to EDH unless you want them to think EDH is a game where you sit around and do nothing meaningful for a few hours. The only nice thing I can say about the way this deck operates out of the box is that you at least won't have to worry about drawing much aggro from the other players. (Except if you're playing with the Dragons precon they're probably going to stack curses on you because you're a hilarious easy pay-out for them.)

That said, this deck has some incredibly interesting cards that it isn't really using effectively at all (Kess and Mairsil) that I wouldn't be surprised to see some really kick-ass decklists (including basically none of the other cards from this deck) appear online for with a quickness, and if that happens this deck could actually become the most expensive of the bunch just for people buying it to get these cards.

Cats: This deck is really mediocre. I think it might be okay for 1v1 play, but it's too much of an Aggro deck to really be a solid choice for multiplayer. It's really, really good at hitting someone way harder than you'd expect way earlier than you'd expect, and as a result getting the entire table to bomb on it; unfortunately it doesn't really have the tools or value engine to follow up on that initial threat most of the time, it's really just like someone playing a Sorin, zapping you down to 10, and then shrugging while they get slammed straight out of the game.

There are some moderately interesting cards there, and unlike Dragons/Vampires there's enough under-performing cards in the deck you can gut the decklist and turn it into a shell for something completely different without losing some of the core synergies. (Arahbo doesn't actually need a Cats-only deck to function, anyway.) I think this would be the most interesting deck to pick apart and try to make work, though admittedly I don't find any of the Legendaries super interesting for building decks around in their own right.

-----

None of them are going to be the next Atraxa Deck, but in my opinion there's a good mix of the three kinds of decks you want to see on the shelves for Commander: legitimately good starter decks, decks that are basically just a vector to introduce cool new cards (Wizards), and fixer-uppers for the people who like to brew (Cats).

 

[SigmasonicX]

"Iconic" "Masters" "Spoiler" "Season" is in like three weeks tho

Ah right, forgot about that. It's an unusual enough situation that I feel like we should bring attention to it, like by creating a short-lived topic just for that tournament. Or maybe just a temporary thread title change for the Ixalan OT?

 

[Zocano]

"Iconic" "Masters" "Spoiler" "Season" is in like three weeks tho

Do we have even an inkling of an idea what Iconic Masters will cover?

Mana Drain reprint pls.

edit: Also, late to the topic, but I'm surprised people aren't seeing that Cats is super popular amongst the commander decks. All the cats in Amonkhet are rising a little and Brimaz has almost doubled. I really need to pick up a Brimaz for my cube...

 

[charlequin]

Admittedly this is only a half-hearted complaint, as it's sourced from second-hand knowledge at best and I was never too deep in the lore at all... but does is it right to say that Magic kind of tends to lean heavily on "corruption" stuff, and if so does that bug anyone but me?

There's kind of three different things here.

One is the straight-up corruption plotline where good characters get magically "tainted" and turn into mustache-twirling, scenery-chewing villains. I generally hate this in every Blizzard game and I hate it here, but they really only do it with the Phyrexians so it's not a big element of the game's storyline.

One is the thing where every world gets blown up. This is absolutely a real problem but they have acknowledged it, and finally just now made the change to their set structure that'll hopefully help get away from it -- this was driven more than anything else by the need to do multiple sets in every plane and have things change severely between them, so with the default visit being one set it'll be easy to avoid tacking on redundant apocalypses everywhere.

The last is just the game leaning "dark" instead of fun and I don't think it's actually that bad about it most of the time. Kaladesh is pretty light and upbeat overall, to pick one recent set. This last couple years has been worse than average, but almost entirely because of BFZ -- the first time around Zendikar was a pretty light and cheery setting overall, while this time the Eldrazi really dragged it into the dark column.

Do we have even an inkling of an idea what Iconic Masters will cover?

Dragons and angels and shit.

 

[Imperfected]

Didn't they already say Iconic Masters is Dragons, Angels, Demons, Sphinxes, and Hydras(lol)?

 

[jph139]

You should not gift this deck to someone as their introduction to EDH unless you want them to think EDH is a game where you sit around and do nothing meaningful for a few hours.

...well, I mean, if we're being honest...

 

[Zocano]

I actually really like the 'new' aesthetic of the Phyrexians and how they are handled. The in fighting and very distinct styles between each "house" is cool and I think done slightly better than the Eldrazi were. I suppose partly because they can actually give them voices and character rather than UNKNOWABLE ELDRITCH ABOMINATIONS.

Dragons and angels and shit.

I saw talk of it being "timmy: the set" and wasn't sure if that was really going to be the case. I wonder how far back they will go because older creatures tended to be very... unattractive (play-wise).

 

[Crocodile]

Tales from Designing Commander 2017
* MaRo started his Head to Head polls precisely to determine what tribal decks to use for this.
* Bloodsworn Steward is based on Bastion Protector. They were going to form a full cycle, but decided not to. They'll make a super cycle if there's interest.
* Nazahm came from exploring the idea of including non-Commander cards in the command zone. The best concept to come out of that was a signature weapon, which was incorporated into this card.
* Stalking Leonin was originally a cycle, with the mechanic called vendetta, but the other designs just weren't as interesting.

EDIT: Commander decks should be easy enough to find in mass market stores and online. For card sleeves, I use Dragon Shield.

I'd add to this that the article confirms the Magus of the _____ is a super-cycle they intend to finish.

 

[Zocano]

I'd add to this that the article confirms the Magus of the _____ is a super-cycle they intend to finish.

What does "finish" look like in this case? There are a ton of different cards they could touch on.

 

[Boogiepop]

Oh hey, random question, but were there any actually good cards with Echo? I want to say the few I saw back in the day REALLY sucked pretty hard, so it got me wondering if the mechanic ever got especially used "right."

 

[charlequin]

Okay, so let's try to get some real Iconic Masters speculation going.

I think we can all agree that to be a success the set's EV needs to be generally in the neighborhood of EMA. If you look at that set today, it's got 14 cards you can open that pay for the pack on their own, with around a 16% chance of opening one in any given pack. They'd definitely want to hit at least those numbers on day one.

Didn't they already say Iconic Masters is Dragons, Angels, Demons, Sphinxes, and Hydras(lol)?

The exact quote is:

"Iconic Masters offers players a tour through some of the most powerful cards in over 20 years of Magic history. Featuring new artwork on many cards, the set brings an array of Massive Angels, Sphinxes, Demons, Dragons, and Hydras alongside some of our favorite and most memorable spells."

So that leaves us a little bit of wiggle room in the spells department, but does guarantee the set is gonna have a heavy, heavy Timmy bent and a lot of slots stuck with pretty low-value cards.

First off, let's look at those iconic creatures. There's exactly thirteen of them which are unreserved and whose cheapest printing goes for $10+. I'll bold the ones that seem like plausible options:

Zodiac Dragon ($125)
Avacyn, Angel of Hope ($26)
Consecrated Sphinx ($22)
Archangel of Thune ($22)
Atraxa, Praetor's Voice ($18)
Shithiryx, the Blight Dragon ($17)
Kokusho, the Evening Star ($14)
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund ($13)
Dragon Broodmother ($11)
Sigarda, Host of Herons ($11)
Linvala, Keeper of Silence ($10)
Maelstrom Archangel ($10)
Scourge of the Throne ($10)

(Zodiac Dragon could be reprinted but it'll basically go to zero as its value is entirely from being in P3K.) So okay, that's not too bad. The wildcard in this category for me is Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: a card that's never been reprinted, is on-theme, and runs a cool thirty bucks today.

The "iconic spells" part is a little tougher. To start with there are about 300 total non-reserved cards worth $10 or more. If we limit that to what plausibly fits the "spell" descriptor and look at Instants, Sorceries, and Enchantments, that number goes down to 87. Of those, some possibilities that present themselves:

Grim Tutor ($195)
Mana Drain ($165)
Imperial Seal ($132)
Flusterstorm ($85)

These are all plausibly "iconic" spells that are played in Eternal formats, exciting for people to see, and will retain a ton of value even on a reprint. We wouldn't see all of them, but any one of these can fill the role Force of Will did in EMA and boost pack value and appeal pretty far.

Capture of Jingzhou ($390)
Temporal Manipulation ($35)
Time Warp ($15)


These are three differently extreme options for reprinting a casual-staple extra turn card; any of them would bring some decent value.

Doubling Season ($50)
Through the Breach ($40)
Goryo's Vengeance ($38)
Food Chain ($30)
Glimpse the Unthinkable ($28)
Mana Echoes ($24)
Mana Reflection ($21)
Omniscience ($20)
Glimpse of Nature ($19)
Sneak Attack ($18)
Patriarch's Bidding ($18)
Bribery ($16)
Tooth and Nail ($16)
Summoner's Pact ($16)

These are all cards with limited or no reprintings (Doubling Season, Sneak Attack and Bribery lead the count with one booster set reprint and one Judge promo each) that have some kind of actual use in either competitive decks or Commander and which fit the Timmy bent of the set (by caring about creatures or ramping you, mostly.)

There'll be some uncommons and commons that could fill out this value as well. Some decent options:

Ashnod's Altar ($9)
Gemstone Mine ($7)
Lotus Petal ($6)
Goblin Lackey ($6)
Shattering Spree ($5)
Eternal Witness ($5)
Lightning Greaves ($4)
Lava Spike ($4)
Remand ($4)


When I started this I figured that this set was doomed to be undervalued, but looking at these lists it's at least very possible to construct a pretty compelling list. What all am I forgetting here?

What does "finish" look like in this case?

One in each color, exactly like the other three cycles.

 

[Crocodile]

What does "finish" look like in this case? There are a ton of different cards they could touch on.

Not sure but we had a bit of this debate earlier. Gotta look for real iconic Green/White sorceries to crib.

Oh hey, random question, but were there any actually good cards with Echo? I want to say the few I saw back in the day REALLY sucked pretty hard, so it got me wondering if the mechanic ever got especially used "right."

Bone Shredder, Albino Troll, Ghitu Slinger, Avalanche Riders, Deranged Hermit, Keldon Champion, Karmic Guide, Stingscourger, Hammerheim Deadeye, Hunting Moa, Mogg War-Marshall and Crater Hellion are all good to great though as creatures get better with time, some hold up better than others.

 

[red13th]

These are a few cards I really want reprinted for cube purposes:

Rishadan Port
Mana Drain
Imperial Recruiter
Umezawa's Jitte
Armageddon/Ravages of War
Land Tax
Upheaval
Channel
Mind Twist
Imperial Seal
Opposition
Stoneforge Mystic
Worldly Tutor
Rolling Earthquake
Smokestack
Strip Mine
Tangle Wire

Out of these the ones I truly consider iconic are Mana Drain, Armageddon, Channel, Mind Twist and Strip Mine (lol no red). I can see those being in. Maybe Rishadan Port instead since Strip Mine is stupid.

Through the Breach fits well with the fatty theme I guess, Sneak Attack as already recently reprinted and they are pretty similar so I'd say TtB is more likely.
Out of the iconic types, I can see Baneslayer Angel and Consecrated Sphinx being shoe ins, maybe Thundermaw Hellkite. I'd say Griselbrand but he was just in MM17. Hydras... I have no idea.
If they go shards, Hellkite Overlord would be pretty cool too.

Damn I can't wait for Iconic Masters and Masters 25. So much potential goodness. One of those needs to have a SFM (at rare) and Jitte/Batterskull reprints.

 

[Imperfected]

I'd really like to see Doubling Season and Aether Vial reprints.

 

[traveler]

I don't want to get back into the shipping thing, but I will say I did not realized they had both divorced. The only reason I was ever uncomfortable about it is because I thought at least one of them was Ina relationship and it was really weird to have two prominent members of the community represent you at a GP with seemingly everyone being ok with either displaying an affair or hiding it from their family members. Thought it was super weird/borderline bad on wizards part and didn't understand why it was ok for the community to play along, but never actually point it out. Knowing they're divorced changes all that.

 

["God's Beard!"]

Starting to have second thoughts.

 

[kirblar]

What on earth are you buying?

 

["God's Beard!"]

What on earth are you buying?

Lantern Control, it's a hundred bucks cheaper if I split the packages but the pptq is next weekend and I wouldn't want to risk snail mail.

 

[Ashodin]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";246391766]Lantern Control, it's a hundred bucks cheaper if I split the packages but the pptq is next weekend and I wouldn't want to risk snail mail.[/QUOTE]

god's beard will forever be the best because of him dropping and buying into formats

 

[Imperfected]

[QUOTE="God's Beard!";246391766]Lantern Control, it's a hundred bucks cheaper if I split the packages but the pptq is next weekend and I wouldn't want to risk snail mail.[/QUOTE]

I see this thread just can't get off the topic of shipping.

 

[charlequin]

These are a few cards I really want reprinted for cube purposes:

I can support pretty much everything in this list, but while it's hard for me to really get a great feel on the subtle differences between what's appropriate for Iconic vs. 25 Masters, I feel like Rishadan Port and most of those artifacts are more aligned with the latter.

 

["God's Beard!"]

god's beard will forever be the best because of him dropping and buying into formats

I like playing the game and I feel like I could win a PPTQ but the value in a thousand-dollar MTG deck when the only weekly locals are 3 rounds with 12 dollar buy in to get $30 in store credit for 3-0 is just so bad.

 

[hermit7]

If demonic tutor isn't in Iconic I will legitimately be shocked.

Especially cause there is no foil printing and I feel that that is a card that would have a huge amount of people buying in for foils (no one wants to pay 250 for a judge foil).

Port I doubt will be reprinted in iconic if the focus is on angels, demons and dragons. It seems to be more of a 25 card as well as aether vial.

There needs to be money cards in iconic if they are going to charge 10/ pack however. I think it will be things like consecrated sphinx, avacyn, elesh norn, phyrexian obliterator etc. all huge edh cards that are expensive but flashy and don't see play outside of that or cube. Maybe something such as worldly tutor as well as though it is pretty cheap it wasn't in EMA and there also isn't a foil of it. I am unsure of good dragons for it though just because if commander 17. Maybe there will be a bunch of new arts as a means to increase desirability with old artists to make some actual "iconic" editions of cards like they did terese Nielsen for FoW in eternal. Bringing back old artists like Guay for new renditions of cards they have illustrated would be a pretty significant sell I think.