It makes perfect sense in the deck it was built for; a 5-color planeschase cascade deck. The "shardless" part is a reference to Alara. As a colored artifact, the only options for the second color other than green was red (the two-colors that esper isn't). Since the deck is base-green, like most 5-color decks, blue-green makes the most sense.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT4| Izzet Me; Izzet You? A Love Story
- Thread starter The Technomancer
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acheron_xl
Member
Supplemental products are the perfect place for things like Shardless Agent that just scream 'let's make a rad card that's mechanically interesting and damn the flavor'.
Agreed, but I feel like Shardless is within flavor.
Inquisition of Kozilek can easily be reprinted in the new Zendikar Block so I'm not really fussed about that. No Path, Probe or Visions though seems like lunacy. Especially the later two as they can't be reprinted in any set in the near future since they use Block specific mechanics. Like what in the flying fuck?
I will also say, an annoying number of commons got upgraded to uncommons. This might be correct for the sake of draft but is kind of annoying for the sake of value.
In addition to what Yeef said, I'll add that all Cascade are multicolor cards - cascade is inherently tied to multicolorness
I will also say, an annoying number of commons got upgraded to uncommons. This might be correct for the sake of draft but is kind of annoying for the sake of value.
In addition to what Yeef said, I'll add that all Cascade are multicolor cards - cascade is inherently tied to multicolorness
I don't know if that's true. Supposedly, only Ulamog is still on Zendikar, so it wouldn't make much sense as a reprint there. We might see it as a reprint in another set soon after when we find out where Kozilek actually is.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The Inquisition of Kozilek isn't being performed by Kozilek himself lol
As for Shardless Agent, its a shitty card because Cascade is a shitty mechanic. Rather than write up my burning hatred for Cascade, I'll just quote it as already written:
"God's Beard!"
Member
So with the basically undraftable rares like Splinter Twin and Daybreak Coronet, I'm more solidified in my belief that wizards only tangentially cares about MM2015 as a limited format. They should just send vending machines to LGSs that randomly crap out a modern-legal card for a dollar.
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";163197082]So with the basically undraftable rares like Splinter Twin and Daybreak Coronet, I'm more solidified in my belief that wizards only tangentially cares about MM2015 as a limited format. They should just send vending machines to LGSs that randomly crap out a modern-legal card for a dollar.[/QUOTE]
Duh and/or Hello.
Duh and/or Hello.
Sequence Six
Member
What happened to the other two then? I've heard a lot of different and contradictory things about how Zendikar 1.0 ended and I don't know what's what now.
You think they came up with the name first, then designed around it? Yeah, of course the NAME makes sense; I was talking about the design. There's no reason it couldn't be any other colour combination with another spiffy name.
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
Black looks completely unplayable. Its unreal. There are barely any playable creatures.
Shocked at some of the cards that aren't in the set. Thought Serum Visions and Aven Mindcensor were locks.
Shocked at some of the cards that aren't in the set. Thought Serum Visions and Aven Mindcensor were locks.
Shardless Agent and Etherium Horn-Sorcerer are cards that per the narrative can only exist after the events of Conflux and Alara Reborn.The name may not have been the first aspect of the card to be created (though they have designed that way in the past and I'm sure they will do so in the future) but its clear they wanted to design cards that can only exist in the New Alara. UR and UG artifact creatures would fit that description.
Or... not make it an artifact creature at all. I don't know know why it has to be an artifact creature.
Why is this such a huge sticking point for you? I honestly don't get it. Did you dislike Birthing Pod because it was green? How about Bow of Nylea?
acheron_xl
Member
Cause it's rad. Gold artifact creatures look cool.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
There's no way its playable outside of splashing if you get Bitterblossom or some shit. Even then I'd be leery of going black holy shit.
Sequence Six
Member
Flavor-wise green artifact creatures are weird. There's only one that's monogreen (it's Phyrexian), two that are 5-color, and Shardless Agent. If it weren't part of the Alara mashup it would be even weirder.
Red has almost as few but I'd argue it's much more in line flavor-wise there.
No, but I do think they came up with the theme of the deck before they designed the card. Since planeschase is going to be mostly reprints, 5-color cascade meant that most of the cards would be from Alara. I think it's extremely likely that for pre-con decks like this, they build with the reprints first then add in new cards that they think will work well both mechanically and flavorfully.
Because one of the mechanics of Alara block was color artifacts.
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";163197082]So with the basically undraftable rares like Splinter Twin and Daybreak Coronet, I'm more solidified in my belief that wizards only tangentially cares about MM2015 as a limited format. They should just send vending machines to LGSs that randomly crap out a modern-legal card for a dollar.[/QUOTE]
Three. Gee. Pees.
Three. Gee. Pees.
Yeah, Birthing Pod was pretty dumb too, but at least the artifact type allowed it to be removed more easily, so it had a gameplay reason to do so on top of the flavour (debuting in Scars of Mirrodin). Shardless Agent is a 2/2 creature that dies to pretty much anything anyway. Actually, the artifact type can be a boon, since it makes it immune to Go for the Throat AND it's blue which enables you to pitch it to Force of Will. Instead of making it a cool card, they made it a cool card in the dumbest way possible and in effect created the Shardless BUG midrange value deck.
They'll be $15-$20 before you know it.
Maybe we're going back to New Phyrexia soon? That could bring back Infect (Inkmoth Nexus) and possibly "Serum" if they wanted, and Probe as well.
Based on the Rosewater test, I don't think we're going back to New Phyrexia for about a year and a half to 2 years. He's been answering questions about infect over the last few months. At first he was saying that he wasn't sure it was coming back, now he's saying that he's still not sure, but always points out that Standard shouldn't be beholden to what upsets non-rotating formats. If I had to guess, I'd say that's him petitioning development via his audience. If that's the case, that means the set was recently handed off to development, so it'll probably be awhile before we see it.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Infect/Poison is a shitty mechanic anyway.
divisionbyzorro
Member
A friend of mine bought a box, so I'll probably do one paper draft. If the set is worth drafting, I'll just play MTGO phantom events.
Development is right to be concerned- it's very similar to Hexproof in being super-unfun.
No Path is shocking.
charlequin
Banned
Eh, that's not exactly true, we get Duel Decks and Commander precons every year, high-value commons with wacky mechanics are perfect reprints for those.
That said, Path, Probe, Visions, Mindcensor, and Inquisition are my big WTF exclusions here. There's some stuff on the high-value common/uncommon list that I can easily see being problematic for limited, but all of those seem entirely viable. These are more glaring to me than the Damnation and Goblin Guide exclusions at rare.
There's one story beat in one of the web content story summaries about how only Ulamog has been seen recently. It doesn't necessarily confirm the others are gone, especially since the last we heard they were still unable to leave Zendikar, but it does suggest maybe they're focusing on the one for this set.
It's the Spring 2017 block. The answers to his Infect questions started changing right when R&D would be working on that block, and it would put it as the eighth block after Scars (Scars was the seventh block after Mirrodin.) It miiiight actually be Fall 2016, in which case it would have been the last block in his "Seven Year Plan" (just like Scars was the last block in his original "Six Year Plan") and be exactly the same number of blocks apart.
yeah, Gitaxian Probe too, I thought it was a certainty.
phazedplasma
Member
modern = rich ded game
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I think the story where we heard that was the Nissa, Worldwaker story card. As for Path, I think they feel it was printed enough in MM1 + the Event Deck. Inquisition I would guess is in BFZ; e.g. why wouldn't it be? There's no other block to put it in, really, plus Thoughtseize is moving out.
I also noticed Maro bumped Infect to a 7 on the Storm Scale right around the time he started answering questions about it. I'm guessing they don't like how much it restricts the ability to print goofy combat tricks or double-strike.
In other news I let my wife play the blue/white commander deck with Dragonlord Ojutai as the commander. She got just a little too happy to put a Sword of Feast and Famine on her Ojutai.
I also noticed Maro bumped Infect to a 7 on the Storm Scale right around the time he started answering questions about it. I'm guessing they don't like how much it restricts the ability to print goofy combat tricks or double-strike.
In other news I let my wife play the blue/white commander deck with Dragonlord Ojutai as the commander. She got just a little too happy to put a Sword of Feast and Famine on her Ojutai.
charlequin
Banned
There's basically three problems I can see: it needs a huge amount of support in limited, it encourages out-of-nowhere asspull wins, and it's hard to make competitive in Standard without breaking Modern.
So just ban the keyword Infect in Modern and be done with it lol
They're so afraid of banning stuff. It's frustrating.
Apostle's Blessing is a massive part of the issues - that card really never should have been printed.
Glistener Elf will go eventually.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Saying a thing over and over again don't make it true. Calm your hate boner. There is zero indication that infect is going anywhere.
Sure but a booster product, even a limited one like Modern Masters, is the only way to put enough into circulation to really dent prices. Remand was reprinted in that Jace vs. Vraska duel deck but it wasn't enough to change prices nor should people be expected to pay $20-30 for a SINGLE copy of one of these cards in a Duel Deck or Commander product (especially since cards like Probe and Visions tend to be 4x in decks).
WOTC is aleady ban happy with the Modern format and bans have high costs to them. They can't go throwing them around like candy.
I don't have a hate boner for that one like I do Twin - it's just that eventually the redundancy in the deck will reach a point where they need to slow it down. This is almost certainly one of the reasons development is uncomfortable using the mechanic again. It's like how we knew Pod was eventually going to get axed, it was just a question of what would push it over the edge. (Pretty much all 3 sets in Khans block.)
This is also an example of where development overruling MaRo is a very very very very good thing.
SCG Preorders up
Clique at $50 (other versions 60)
BitterBlossom at $40 (Morningtide at 80)
Goyf at $175 (Other versions 200)
Clique at $50 (other versions 60)
BitterBlossom at $40 (Morningtide at 80)
Goyf at $175 (Other versions 200)
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Considering we don't know if they're afraid of using infect again, it's a bit premature to say anything. MaRo's job is to misdirect, as much as it is to entertain. Counting on what he says is likely is not really all that solid.
So, let's look at the facts again. Infect isn't killing any format, it's not dominate, it barely restricts any sort of real design space and it's a typical glass cannon deck that can almost never really beat one of the most common removal cards in modern. Become Immense made it a barely tier 1 deck, which is somehow a problem. Never mind that all of the good delve cards made it into modern, some of which gave Delver more tools.
I love you guys, but if you had your way, we'd have the most bog standard boring ass modern format ever, consisting of nothing but generic midrange/aggro/control decks. You hate the one true combo deck (Twin) and you hate the quasi-combo deck. That pattern ain't accidental.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Bitterblossom is $40 now? That's what I bought it for 2 months ago at least.
No, I'm all for them pushing stuff- I love that we got Treasure Cruise as aggressive as we did. (Dig is the WTF card.)
The issue is that infect just got really REALLY good when Pod left, and w/ stuff like Become Immense around, it's kind of close to a tipping point into "really really stupid" territory. Blazing Shoal's already banned because of the deck, and the mechanic makes large-scale cheap pump effects an issue.But the deck's never going to get banned out entirely- if they need to take it down a peg, you just attack the cheapest creatures, starting with the 1 drop. That's all I'm saying- this "Infect is a problem" reality is likely to happen at some point in the future, and that's the solution. Doesn't mean you have to ban it now, but it's something you watch for.
MaRo is not misdirecting here. He is in love with the Infect mechanic, and his recent posts have not been one of a guy who's excited that his pet mechanic is coming back into standard. He's also said "If it's not fine in Modern, just ban it!" w/in the last week, which I strongly suspect has come up in recent arguments internally. The thing is- Development isn't going to want to have to push the Infect deck to ban Glistener Elf if they can avoid it.
And btw- these tea leaves are not just veiled hints- he has literally stated that Dev has significant concerns about the mechanic multiple times in the past month.
You are completely misreading my intentions here- my opinions on infect/Elf are not a normative statement- they're positive ones.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
But all I'm trying to figure out is on what basis are we even semi-seriously talking about banning a deck that sees what, 7 percent of the meta? That's barely above the percentage that sleeve up whatever brew Woo made the week before an event. Banning or crippling the deck is not even a real discussion at this point.
But, you're right that pump spells need closer watching. Just like every single cantrip, ever single removal spell, every single counter spell, every burn spell and any card draw spell. We just saw how quickly the game changes when actual problem cards are printed, both from the pro deck builders and WotC.
I'm saying, people are scared a deck that crumbles to path and Ghost Quarter. If your deck is weak to Ghost Quarter, you know, it's probably not that dangerous.
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