• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Magic: the Gathering |OT4| Izzet Me; Izzet You? A Love Story

Status
Not open for further replies.

Wichu

Member
en_2VDtpv4Pu8.png
en_pCTGWxdak3.png
en_pZgtVJqfqM.png
en_ke7NtuLm8r.png

Looks like there will be a cycle of Retreats.
 
It's got three modes:

3U - Draw two cards
5U - 4/4, ETB tapped, ETB draw two cards
6U - 4/4 Haste, ETB draw two cards

It doesn't have the same absurd mana efficiency as Mulldrifter, but it's still insanely good.
 
Looks like there will be a cycle of Retreats.

Yep, I figured from the name it'd be a cycle, but good to see it confirmed. I feel like these are a pretty decent execution of Landfall (and in general nothing with Landfall we've seen in BFZ has the problems that ruined ZZZ limited.)

Now that we've gotten a full picture of what's going on with the set, I'm mostly pretty happy with it, but there's a couple weird rough edges. Even after getting a chance to have it explained, converge is still a WTF. Nothing else in the set really supports a sunburst mechanic and it doesn't really fit into any of the themes besides the high-level "color vs. colorless" thing -- it feels like the kind of thing the judges would have told someone to cut in GDS2.

The other thing is that they really seem to have punted on the big colorless eldrazi. Now that we see the scope of it, I think the exile thing is actually pretty great -- it's a totally new type of mechanic, it's weird and destructive, and it lets them make a bunch of eldrazi with internal synergy. When the colorless guys interact with that (like Ulamog, or Oblivion Sower, or the Processors) it's cool, but the ones who don't feel entirely vestigial thanks to the absence of Annihilator. I think at very least if they weren't going to come up with a new replacement mechanic to put on all of them, they could have given them all an ETBT exile-some-library-cards effect or something.
 

kirblar

Member
No Geopede/Lynx means Rietzl's going to be unhappy.

Just pulled the trigger on a set of Jung Park basics for my eventual cube. Wasn't reprinted, SCG had a sale on the Islands- seemed like the right time to do so.
 

Daedardus

Member
Oh I get it now. I still think it's nothing super special, but still a decent limited card. But be wary that awaken leaves your mana base open for creature removal. I don't know if the limited will be as brutal as Zendikar though. It was my first drafting season and really sucked at it.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Oh I get it now. I still think it's nothing super special, but still a decent limited card. But be wary that awaken leaves your mana base open for creature removal. I don't know if the limited will be as brutal as Zendikar though. It was my first drafting season and really sucked at it.

It's because the card is both modular (in that you have choices in how you cast it) and always basically a 2 for 1. If your opponent removes your Awakened Island, they have to spend a card and mana to remove half of what you got from a single card because you still get to draw 2. It's a really good limited card.
 
Generally when you see a portmanteau like this, you look at the cost of the separate effects to see if you're getting a deal. That's why a card like Man-o-War is so good; you're getting Grizzly Bears + Unsummon on a single card for their combined cost. Mist Raven is similar; you get Wind Drake + Unsummon. These are cards that you would play separately (Unsummon is marginal, sure), but combine the two into a mana-efficient package and you've got a stew going. Even Separatist Voidmage can be analyzed this way; while I wouldn't play Gray Ogre or Unsummon on their without having a specific reason to do so, I happily play them when they're stapled together on the same card.

So look at the rate on Costal Discovery. At the common/uncommon level, a 4/4 generally costs 4 in green. Blue doesn't usually get 4/4s on the ground - they get them in the air, but generally they cost five for blue (or come with some sort of weird condition attached).

So let's say that 4/4 costs 4 mana at its most efficient. If you cast this thing with 7 mana open (so the land can be untapped), it's essentially costing you 4 mana for the body + 3 mana for the card draw. It's basically like getting a Kami of the Tended Garden + Divination on the same card. If you don't need the blocker/attacker straight away, you can get this at a discount.

The pure card draw is the least interesting option of the three. Mulldrifter was absurd because sometimes it could just be Divination, which is really good. Sorcery speed Inspiration is actively not good (but having the option is nice for the games where you get mana screwed), so I would be putting this card at the 6/7 slot in my curve when building a Limited deck. But given that this set looks like it's taking inspiration from ROE rather than ZEN, I'm going to guess that you can play this card as a 6 drop without worrying too much about it.
 
Random Magic fact I just realized. If you sort the shards of Alara in alphabetical order, they end up in WUBRG order as determined by the center color. Mind blown.
 
An important thing to note about awaken is precisely that it costs so much, meaning that you are fairly unlikely to manascrew yourself when the Land Elemental is destroyed. A good player would have known to wait before animating the land anyway, but the high cost is a good way to prevent less experienced players from losing a land they needed.
 

Daedardus

Member
It's because the card is both modular (in that you have choices in how you cast it) and always basically a 2 for 1. If your opponent removes your Awakened Island, they have to spend a card and mana to remove half of what you got from a single card because you still get to draw 2. It's a really good limited card.

I meant Awaken in general. Sure, they have to spend cards but they make you lose mana resources too, and if the game is as aggressive as Zendikar you may get behind the curve. I'm not really sure how it will play out, since I haven't seen the rest of the set and you have to judge the set as a whole.
 

bigkrev

Member
Ugh. Durdle limited format. Figures.

If they are going to print fucking Rolling Thunder in the set, I would hope that it is a slower format where the card will be a 6-8 mana 2 for 1, instead of being a 5 mana 3 for 1 like it would be in an aggressive format where 2/1s were all over the place
 

Firemind

Member
I just hope control will be actually viable in this durdle format. Last time we were in Zendikar, the only actual control draft archetype revolved around picking up Sphinx's Bone Wand. Rest were all green midrange eldrazi tokens nonsense.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
PucaTrade has actually worked pretty well for me, actually. It was kind of confusing at first, but I've successfully shipped off all sorts of shit that was too much of a pain in the ass to list on eBay, e.g. random singletons of Pyromancer's Goggles.

If they are going to print fucking Rolling Thunder in the set, I would hope that it is a slower format where the card will be a 6-8 mana 2 for 1, instead of being a 5 mana 3 for 1 like it would be in an aggressive format where 2/1s were all over the place

I don't see any real way they're going to aim for ZZZ limited rather than Rise-Rise-Rise.
 

Jhriad

Member
PucaTrade has actually worked pretty well for me, actually. It was kind of confusing at first, but I've successfully shipped off all sorts of shit that was too much of a pain in the ass to list on eBay, e.g. random singletons of Pyromancer's Goggles.

Just about to wrap up getting a playset of each Shock land through Pucatrade. Glad someone else is finding it to be useful. :)
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Do people just not understand the Expedition stuff is just a fun throwback to the Priceless Treasures thing, but a much more fun and interesting? So many people seem bizarrely salty over something that is nothing but a positive for players.
 

Daedardus

Member
Do people just not understand the Expedition stuff is just a fun throwback to the Priceless Treasures thing, but a much more fun and interesting? So many people seem bizarrely salty over something that is nothing but a positive for players.

The problem is more the current price of Zendikar fetches. If these were printed alongside a reprint of the fetches in the normal set, there wouldn't be any problem. Instead they printed lands that are useless in Modern.
 

Firemind

Member
Do people just not understand the Expedition stuff is just a fun throwback to the Priceless Treasures thing, but a much more fun and interesting? So many people seem bizarrely salty over something that is nothing but a positive for players.
I reckon that having the chance of opening something worthless like a Nettling Imp or a Black Lotus is much more fun and interesting.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The problem is more the current price of Zendikar fetches. If these were printed alongside a reprint of the fetches in the normal set, there wouldn't be any problem. Instead they printed lands that are useless in Modern.

I think that argument lacks merit for the same reason we give about Force of Will reprints.

The price of Modern decks is actually fairly static because you can't just reprint SplinterTwin.dec in one go. If Scalding Tarn was reprinted (and don't get me wrong, Scalding Tarn will be reprinted sooner rather than later) and nothing else was reprinted, the price of all the other crap in the deck that wasn't reprinted would just go up even more. There's a reason Snapcaster Mage is $75 now.
 

JulianImp

Member
I really like the new dual lands design, since one thing I was kind of wary about is that adding more and more dual lands would eventually saturate eternal formats with them (which I guess could actually be a good thing, since then they'd be more easily hated out by nonbasic hosers, even though they're fairly rare nowadays). They work as "slowlands" to Mirrodin 2's fastlands while being fetchable, but their value drops really quickly as you add more and more nonbasic lands to your mana base.

Still, the fact that they always ETBT if played on the first two turns means that fast decks might not want to run a full playset and just fetch them instead.
 
If Scalding Tarn was reprinted (and don't get me wrong, Scalding Tarn will be reprinted sooner rather than later)

A lot of people are expecting a reprint in "Tears", but I actually expect the enemy fetchlands to appear in "Lock". The ally fetchlands will only be in Standard with the tangolands for six months, and I expect the same to apply to the enemies.
 
Random Magic fact I just realized. If you sort the shards of Alara in alphabetical order, they end up in WUBRG order as determined by the center color. Mind blown.

I always assumed this was on purpose.

No Geopede/Lynx means Rietzl's going to be unhappy.

Good.

Do people just not understand the Expedition stuff is just a fun throwback to the Priceless Treasures thing, but a much more fun and interesting? So many people seem bizarrely salty over something that is nothing but a positive for players.

Yeah I honestly don't get the salty responses on this one, it's pretty much a pure value-add, and it's purely for bling so it doesn't cost people who need cards to compete any extra.

The problem is more the current price of Zendikar fetches.

The ZEN fetches will get reprinted somewhere in the next... let's say three blocks.

A lot of people are expecting a reprint in "Tears", but I actually expect the enemy fetchlands to appear in "Lock". The ally fetchlands will only be in Standard with the tangolands for six months, and I expect the same to apply to the enemies.

It entirely comes down entirely to a question of how they want the overlap to work: Tears if they want tangolands to always have fetchlands available, Lock if they want them to leave and come back, Barrel if they want this to be the one window of overlap.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I always assumed this was on purpose.



Good.



Yeah I honestly don't get the salty responses on this one, it's pretty much a pure value-add, and it's purely for bling so it doesn't cost people who need cards to compete any extra.



The ZEN fetches will get reprinted somewhere in the next... let's say three blocks.



It entirely comes down entirely to a question of how they want the overlap to work: Tears if they want tangolands to always have fetchlands available, Lock if they want them to leave and come back, Barrel if they want this to be the one window of overlap.

I'm guessing Tears simply because Tangolands themselves aren't the problem: its that literally anything with Landfall actively becomes less useful in constructed without fetchlands. The solution to this is to just print allied Fetchlands (since they want to add them to Modern) in Battle for Zendikar and Tangolands in Khans of Tarkir, really. But since it didn't go that way, I'd think Enemy Fetches make sense in "Tears."
 

Daedardus

Member
A lot of people are expecting a reprint in "Tears", but I actually expect the enemy fetchlands to appear in "Lock". The ally fetchlands will only be in Standard with the tangolands for six months, and I expect the same to apply to the enemies.

It's not going to be Tears. We'll get the enemy tangolands in that one.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It's not going to be Tears. We'll get the enemy tangolands in that one.

I'm not really sure. There's supposed to be 20 lands in Zendikar Expeditions that are in Sweat but I'm not really sure what they could be other than Manlands + Tangolands + Scars Fastlands (which only exist as half a cycle to begin with) There's pretty much nothing else people actually care about.

(I'm still pretty sure enemy manlands are in)
 
I'm not really sure. There's supposed to be 20 lands in Zendikar Expeditions that are in Sweat but I'm not really sure what they could be other than Manlands + Tangolands + Scars Fastlands (which only exist as half a cycle to begin with) There's pretty much nothing else people actually care about.

(I'm still pretty sure enemy manlands are in)

5 Enemy Tanglolands
10 Manlands
Tectonic Edge
Cavern of Souls
Gemstone Mine
City of Brass
Mana Confluence

(I originally had Mutavault on this list, but there's already a full-art Mutavault out there)
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
There's something that bothers me about people responsible for storytelling being unable to carry a panel about the story without making it sound dumb and boring.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
GB Eldrazi, so I guess Devoid isn't limited to Grixis Colors.
 

jph139

Member
I really like that Ob Nixilis's only real motivation at this point is "fuck Zendikar." It's like when you've been stuck in a waiting room for hours and just want to burn the whole goddamn building to the ground. Easily their most relatable character.
 

Daedardus

Member
I'm not really sure. There's supposed to be 20 lands in Zendikar Expeditions that are in Sweat but I'm not really sure what they could be other than Manlands + Tangolands + Scars Fastlands (which only exist as half a cycle to begin with) There's pretty much nothing else people actually care about.

(I'm still pretty sure enemy manlands are in)

There's still the Filterlands, or if they are really stupid, the Checklands. So those + the enemy Tangolands + Manlands.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I guess you're supposed to be excited for Oath of the Night's Watch existing.

I mean, Oath of the Gatewatch. Seriously, what a terrible name. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the creative team putting out these Uncharted Realms stories came up with it. Yeesh. Also, good on those guys that asked the creative team for some feedback on an esoteric drafting rule and/or the decision to print some specific type of card in the set.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom