Was it really necessary to reprint Erase, Shatter, AND Naturalize all in the same set?
|
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:10 |
|
|
# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:21 |
|
DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:Delve isn't gonna be played as "mill myself for 20 then cast a bunch of spells for free," it's going to be more incremental-- exiling cards as you go to play spells efficiently. Tormod's Crypt is dead against any deck that's not a dedicated delve deck with Sidisi, the Ascendancy, and other enablers, and against that deck it's a one-shot thing. If a delve deck ever has more than 7-8 cards in their yard they are probably either doing it wrong or about to use them all on a giant Empty the Pits or something. My thought is that the self-mill deck is going to be playing Nighthowlers, Nemesis of Mortals and maybe an incidental Delve spell like Murderous Cut. sarmhan posted:There isn't a set one any more, you get one of 8 clan rares/the khan in your promo pack. They did this in response to the balance problems and warped environments having a guaranteed rare produced in the past (Journey into Nyx being the worst). The Abzan mechanic seems to be "+1/+1 counters matter," not really outlast. Outlast is just what you do if you can't "turn" on your "counters matters" guys. In Constructed, I don't think any of the Outlast guys would get used even in a deck that's looking to use the "counters matter" mechanic. Seems like best enabler of that mechanic is Ajani Steadfast or Ajani, Mentor of Heroes. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:14 |
|
Cool artwork.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:15 |
|
sarmhan posted:This isn't including the king of outlast enablers, incremental growth. Seems to me that the king of outlast enablers is clearly Ajani, Mentor of Heroes
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:17 |
|
AnacondaHL posted:Was it really necessary to reprint Erase, Shatter, AND Naturalize all in the same set? *shrug* When is the last time one (or more) of these cards warped a format? Shatter was a high pick in Mirrodin draft cause it was Terror with the upside of killing equipment, but a couple of one-for-ones isn't going to change the world. At least they didn't waste the slots on something worthless like Defensive Stance.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:17 |
|
I was talking about limited, not constructed. Hence me focusing on commons and uncommons. I would note the counters matter guys are also the outlast guys, there's only a few that are exceptions to that rule (Herald, the stupid 0/4 and 2/5, High Sentinels).
Sarmhan fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:18 |
|
Despite the complaints I have about large numbers of vanilla creatures, I am impressed at how few unplayable cards there are in the set at first glance. The fat boring vanilla guys can at least get played on curve turn 3, and even the underwhelming combat tricks do something. Shards of Alara had a very high number of completely unplayable cards, crap like Vectis Silencers and Turtle Formation Sunseed Nurturer, so by the end of the pack there was just nothing to take. This format seems slow as hell, there are a TON of walls and not a ton of ways to get through them. Mardu and Abzan are going to be sniping cards off of each other, but I do like that each clan has a different pick order. The Outlast lords are very intentionally NOT Warriors, making them worse in Mardu for that reason and because they are slow. I'm pretty sure a good Mardu deck will be one that has some good raid but more importantly has good Warrior synergies, because it's going to be really loving hard to attack profitably in this set. The Warrior cards are still good in Abzan, which sucks for the Mardu drafter, but for Abzan the Outlast lords are a much higher pick because you want to get your entire team pumped up. The noncreature spells that just put +1/+1 counters on things will be a good pick for Mardu but a very high pick for Abzan. Other clans have similar relationships going around the color pie. Delve enablers like Rakshasa's Secret, Taigam's Scheming, and Scout the Borders are still somewhat playable in Abzan or Temur, but they are actively good for Sultai and jump up the pick order accordingly. Delve cards will still be occasionally playable in Abzan or Temur, but you can only realistically expect to play one or two at most (probably the rare that digs 7 cards or the +6/+6 instant or Murderous Cut) and potentially have trouble casting it. The real standout cards and high picks in the set are the ones that are good in 2 or three clans. Mardu Blazebringer is good in Mardu or Temur (it's probably better for Temur, oddly enough) Jeskai Elder is good in Jeskai or Sultai (and might be better in Sultai). Embodiment of Spring is as good in Sultai as it is in Temur. Seeker of the way is great in Jeskai or Mardu (since it's a Warrior), and is probably still good in Abzan. Smoke Teller looks great in Temur or Sultai, but the quality of cards in the set is so high I don't even know how many vanilla morph guys will even make the cut. This analysis doesn't even take into account the tri-colored cards, which are, for the most part, all extremely powerful. I would take very strong ones highly (undercosted rare creatures, Ascendancies,Charms) but I think it will be important to read what is open rather than committing hard. So take a tricolor card early and hopefully you will get the synergies you need. The charms are all powerful, but they are all basically one for ones and it is easy to tell if your opponent has mana up for one. If you are lucky you will get 2 of your clan's charm in your deck, and hopefully you will have 1. But if your deck does not synergize well, a Charm will not save you against a well tuned deck of pretty much any clan. I feel this way about most of the tricolor cards: They are very powerful, but most won't win you the game by themselves, especially against a synergistic deck. There is enough removal and stall in the set that one big, probably nonevasive creature will rarely be enough. I wouldn't pick most tricolor commons and uncommons highly unless I am already in that clan. They are more of a reward you get for being in a particular clan. The two-colored gold cards are mostly insane and are probably the high picks in the set. Taking a two-color card in Khans is like taking a Hybrid card in Shadowmoor: You are still open to two of your five options. So rares like Rakshasa Death Dealer, Sagu Mauler, Utter End, Ride Down (I know it is an uncommon, I think they mixed up the rarity of this and Deflecting Palm) are all easy first picks because they are relatively easy to play in more than one clan AND are extremely powerful. Lets Pickle fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:20 |
|
Also, I think the discrepancy in power levels between various morph creatures in going to be a very important part of playing games in Khans Limited. There are a lot of morphs, especially at rare, that are VERY powerful, either through an ability that triggers when the turn face-up by virtue of being, say, a 6/6 with Trample and Hexproof. But there are also 3/6 vanillas, and 5/2 vanillas, and 3/1s. Your opponent plays a creature face down. Her biggest bomb may be sitting there, vulnerable, waiting for you to punch it savagely. But it might be what I will vaguely refer to as a low-impact creature, and you only have one removal spell. Why would she just run it out there to get killed? It must be a less powerful creature. Better not waste removal on it. But she knows that you would expect it to be a low-impact card and so she did play her big loving trampler! Now you're dead. This is how I expect a lot of games of Khans to play out. The vanilla morphs look pretty good as bluffing tools, because there are a lot of them: 2 W commons (a 1/5 flier, a 3/6) 1 W uncommon (a 2/1 flier) 1 W rare (a 2/2 that gives your creatures +2/+2 until end of turn) 3 U commons (a 0/5 flier, a 3/2 unblockable, a 4/5) 2 U uncommons (a 0/6, a 3/1 flier that gives hexproof until end of turn 2 U rares (a 5/6 flier that bounces other tapped creatures, a 3/3 Spelljack) 2 B commons (a 5/3, a 1/4 lifelink) 1 B uncommon (a 1/1 deathtouch) 1 B rare (a 3/2 that draws a card when you creatures die) 2 R commons (a 5/2, a 3/3 first strike) 1 R uncommon (a 2/2 that deals controller 1 damage when it blocks) 1 R rare (a 2/1 Act of Treason) 1 R mythic (a 4/1 flier that comes back morphed) 3 G commons (a 1/1 regenerator, a 2/5 reach, a 6/7) 2 G uncommons (a 3/1, a 5/5 that untaps) 1 G rare (a 2/1 that taps for 3 colors) 1 G mythic (a 5/5 that makes snakes upon death) 1 UG uncommon (2/2 flier that bounces a dude) 1 UG rare (the aforementioned 6/6 Trample Hexproof) 1 BUG common (3/4 flier that loots when it deals combat damage to player) 1 GUR common (5/5 trample) 1 URW common (4/3 first strike that gives +3/+0 until end of turn) 1 RWB common (a 2/2 that makes 3 1/1s) 1 WBG common (a 4/4 lifelink) That's 34 creatures in the set with Morph, some of which are super strong on board, some of which are only good when flipped face up, and some in between. Some are worth spending removal on, some are not really. There seems to be different types of morph creature: 1. Large creatures whose morph cost is used to get them out early (all the tricolor guys and big vanilla dudes) 2. Cheaper, on curve creatures with a more expensive morph cost that does something when they flip up (most of the rares) 3. Creatures that have a morph cost equal or much less than their mana cost, mostly as a way to be tricky (most of the green guys, Monastery flock, Grim Haruspex, the uncommon "reveal a card" cycle) This means that if your opponent plays a morph guy and has a few mana up, whether or not to kill it is going to be a tough call. It might be a 0/5 or 0/6, so your removal might not even work! This may make Lens of Clarity actually playable. Lets Pickle fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:25 |
|
Ride Down is an absolutely bogus card just fyi. That thing is raunchy.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:29 |
|
DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:Ride Down is an absolutely bogus card just fyi. That thing is raunchy. I can't tell if you are trying to say its good or its bad. Are you british or something?
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:30 |
|
I generally agree with you on picks- staying flexible is very valuable. The one of the best first picks in the set is probably ghostfire blade, since it's very powerful and leaves you open to literally anything. Anything powerful and monocolored is similarly really good. I don't see enough of a color discrepancy to ever want to force a color. Ride down is amazing for both Jeskai and Mardu and is probably a 1st-3rd pick.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:31 |
|
AnacondaHL posted:Was it really necessary to reprint Erase, Shatter, AND Naturalize all in the same set? Shatter in particular seems eminently last-pickable. What are you even blowing up with it, one of those clan cluestones? That one Morph Golem creature? e: Oh hey, Alpha Tyrannax is back with an even goofier "I'm big you guys" name: Entropic fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:34 |
|
Kurtofan posted:Cool artwork. I thought the same thing. That white kirin could have really used some more ethereal artwork, though. At first glance it looks like something whipped up in Poser.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:42 |
|
I hope this set drafts as good as it looks
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:42 |
|
Elyv posted:Can Tarkirites(Tarkirians?) not be inspired or something?
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:48 |
|
Kurtofan posted:Cool artwork. We finally get to find out what the knife from Damping Field was for!
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:49 |
|
People who keep saying Delve needs more enablers don't really understand why delve is good. Delve doesn't really need significant self mill to be good, it just needs you to play other spells. Just don't have every card in your deck delve and you're fine.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:53 |
|
Did we see this guy before? 'cause I want to first pick the hell out of him. I love the flavor of this one. It's a crocodile pit attackers can fall into! And you can feed stuff to it! I basically guarantee the playtest name was just "crocodile pit". Entropic fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:54 |
|
Bread Set Jettison posted:People who keep saying Delve needs more enablers don't really understand why delve is good. Delve doesn't really need significant self mill to be good, it just needs you to play other spells. Just don't have every card in your deck delve and you're fine. Yeah, Delve wants to be on 2-3 cards in just a regular deck, not as part of a dedicated DELVE.DEC.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:56 |
|
Zorak posted:I hope this set drafts as good as it looks I know that isn't what you mean but seriously, this set is just amazing looking Babylon Astronaut posted:I know it's petty, but it grinds my gears when they waste a perfectly good name on a functional reprint. It also sort of annoys me that if you're going to do a functional reprint you should theme it to the set. For example, do something like Flames of the Firebrand.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:58 |
|
I think it can support more than 2-3 cards but yes the idea of MAXIMUM DELVING is probably not sustainable. Having conditional counter spells and removal and then when those don't work anymore use your graveyard to Murderous Cut a dude and still have mana open for counter responses. E: It boils down to Outlast and Ferocious being about synergy between cards. Delve and Prowess are about getting value from other cards. Raid is value from aggression. Bread Set Jettison fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 18:59 |
|
sarmhan posted:There isn't a set one any more, you get one of 8 clan rares/the khan in your promo pack. They did this in response to the balance problems and warped environments having a guaranteed rare produced in the past (Journey into Nyx being the worst). I wasn't saying I would pick Brave the Sands over any of those cards, or that I would play it over any of those cards. I said I would play it if it fits in the right deck, and it's silly to assume that there's always a card that will be better than it, both in pick order and in deck construction.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:05 |
|
Sickening posted:I can't tell if you are trying to say its good or its bad. Are you british or something? It's very, very, very, very good. edit: very
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:06 |
|
Green is very literal in this set.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:08 |
|
Entropic posted:
That might as well say Get Big because that's all I'm going to say when I play it.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:08 |
|
BIG LARGE BEAR MAN BECOME IMMENSE NOW AND PUNCH SMALL DOG MAN
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:09 |
|
Target creature gains Big until end of turn.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:10 |
|
Also hilarious that become immense has a snake on it
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:10 |
|
An interesting note on drafting this set is that since there are 5 clans and 8 people at a draft table, there should be 2 clans per table for which there is only one drafter. My advice is try to be one of those people. Everyone should be situated into a clan by the end of pack one, and the card quality is high enough in this set that seeing which cards wheel and which don't will actually give useful information.
Lets Pickle fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:14 |
|
I saw this joke, groaned, and had to share it.quote:A goblin walks into a bar. He sits down at the counter and immediately slumps over, dead. A knight, who was already sitting at the counter, gasps in shock, but eventually shrugs and ignores it. A saproling walks into the bar, sits down at the counter, and drops dead as well. By this point, the knight is pretty nervous. He tries to ignore it, but just then, a Kithkin sidles up to the counter, and before he can order his drink, falls over dead. The knight looks over at the bartender in shock. "What's happening here?" he asks, bewildered.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:16 |
|
^^^^ ownsEntropic posted:It's always kind of weird when they rename a functional reprint even though the original name would have worked just fine. Zero_Grade fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 12, 2014 |
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:16 |
|
Zemyla posted:I saw this joke, groaned, and had to share it. awesome
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:20 |
|
Lets Pickle posted:An interesting note on drafting this set is that since there are 5 clans and 8 people at a draft table, there should be 2 clans per table for which there is only one drafter. My advice is try to be one of those people. Everyone should be situated into a clan by the end of pack one, and the card quality is high enough in this set that seeing which cards wheel and which don't will actually give useful information. We'll have to wait to see how the environment pans out, but I don't know if there are enough incentives to go 3 color to assume that everyone will end up in a clan and not a 2 color deck.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:20 |
|
I want HUGE to become a keyword, with it having the meaning of +2/+2. That's it. Excessive complexity, reduce everything, including "green" to a mechanic. 3G for a 1/2 with HUGE for example.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:20 |
|
Lets not take jokes about dumb card names and make horrible cards out of them.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:22 |
|
Elyv posted:We'll have to wait to see how the environment pans out, but I don't know if there are enough incentives to go 3 color to assume that everyone will end up in a clan and not a 2 color deck. If the fixing is good enough, there's no reason to stay 2-color because you can then just splash black for Thoughtseize. Contrary to my expectations, Wizards did absolutely nothing to hose Thoughtseize in this set. Its going to run rampant again.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:25 |
|
Angry Grimace posted:If the fixing is good enough, there's no reason to stay 2-color because you can then just splash black for Thoughtseize. Contrary to my expectations, Wizards did absolutely nothing to hose Thoughtseize in this set. Its going to run rampant again. I was talking about draft, sorry if that was unclear.
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:27 |
|
Bread Set Jettison posted:Lets not make cards the horrible goes without saying
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:28 |
|
Elyv posted:I was talking about draft, sorry if that was unclear. In triple-KTK, it seems like a lot of the bomb-y spells are going to be three-colored. I agree that its not necessarily "right" to say "I am going three-color before I open Pack 1."
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:28 |
|
|
# ? Jun 7, 2024 20:21 |
|
Zemyla posted:I saw this joke, groaned, and had to share it. gently caress
|
# ? Sep 12, 2014 19:29 |