I play Top x2 in my R/G deck... it's aggro but has elements of control... the tops work quite well... they find what I need for the moment... (... some-times... others it's just shear card advantage... especialy after Death-Cloud resolves...)
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Brian Tinsman, Set Designer :?mana::snow::snow:
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block. "Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
Well, i too run 2x tops in MY R/G, and i must say... its exceptional. It may seem that it slows you down, but at the moment... arent the only black 1 drops... bile urchin, Nezumi Shadow-watcher, and Rag Dealer, since by the time Maher's card is legal the diciple will be gone? How much could that slow you down? Unless there is another deciple in Ravnica.^_^;
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:confused2:Asian-obsessed Elitist
Nan says: there should be more asian people
Lord Rahl: i agree
Nan says: they need to **** more
Quote from Feuerdrache »
Feuerdrache says: but but but
Lord Rahl says: what?
Feuerdrache says: she's a negroe!
... then I would bomb the R&D office... as for your R&G build... intresting... have a look at my topic in T2 Casual!
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Brian Tinsman, Set Designer :?mana::snow::snow:
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block. "Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
As it's currently worded, it wouldn't give you a choice. To be quite honest, I don't like it There are WAY too many ways to kill yourself with this, and turning over Kokusho at the wrong time is a good way to do it. However, this may change. If it gains a "may" clause, it'll become T1 material.
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Some wonder why I carry 8 decks on me. The answer? I get tired of being boarded against in casual games, and 90% of the players I meet can't beat a jank deck I made to be tokens for a serious one.
Phyrexian Arena DOES have some advantages over this, it doesn't die to cloud, burn, and the most life you lose is 1. But it can't chump, beat or cost 2
so, just for clarification, we're ignoring Cranial Extraction now?
Ok, thats one. Kokusho, thats two. Death Cloud, that 2 and 1/2. Now lets count every other black rare in Mirr. and most in CHK. Thats a big numerical differance.
And Makkert, it is optional, read the rest of what I posted. ", if you don't, remove the revealed card from the game."
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"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx Cube
If it is as it's posted. I don't like it. I don't see a way to turn it off if you don't want it. Now, you slip a 'may' clause in there (which is really all the fixing it needs), and you're in business.
Maher Elemental :symb::symb:
Creature - Whatever
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library.
You may pay X life, where X is the casting cost of that card.
If you do, put it into your hand.
2/1
If anyone watched coverage of PT NO, you would remember the announcers talking about the card he submitted (Randy Buehler being one of the announcers.) They all agreed that the card Maher submitted in the form you guys are talking about now is too powerful, so it is almost guaranteed to be neutered in some way or another.
Ok, thats one. Kokusho, thats two. Death Cloud, that 2 and 1/2. Now lets count every other black rare in Mirr. and most in CHK. Thats a big numerical differance.
And Makkert, it is optional, read the rest of what I posted. ", if you don't, remove the revealed card from the game."
He was actually going off what the card was revealed as in the article on mtg.com, where it isn't optional.
Arena also doesn't cost you tons of life for better spells. I think R&D will DEFINITELY add a "may" clause to the card, and probably boost the mana cost to 1BB. It's a decent card, though not on the level of Meddling Mage or Solemn Simulacrum.
Ok, thats one. Kokusho, thats two. Death Cloud, that 2 and 1/2. Now lets count every other black rare in Mirr. and most in CHK. Thats a big numerical differance.
The problem isn't the lack of good black cards, its the existence of Affinity and the overall speed of the environment that is hosing black. There are lots of options for black if Affinity wasn't in the META right now.
The problem isn't the lack of good black cards, its the existence of Affinity and the overall speed of the environment that is hosing black. There are lots of options for black if Affinity wasn't in the META right now.
Such as?
Seriousley there is one, possibly two decent decks available for black at the moment, even with a ravagerless meta.
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"There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx Cube
Well, at least we know one thing about Ravnica - there will be a black Wizard in the set/block.
By itself, the card seems good enough to play in constructed. While I might not run him in Death Cloud, I'd certainly put him in mono B aggro or B/R aggro.
Of course, Glacial Ray and Frostling will make it hard for this guy to see much table time, and after KGB (Kamigawa Block) rotates out, who knows? He's better than Graverobber, but not as good as Shortfang.
My problem is that these tourney wonners seems to be so bland in their card designs. All they seem to do is take pre-existing abilities and tack them onto creatures. If I was in their place (which I'm not, I'm just saying.) I'd take the chance to make some zanny card that wasn't necessarily for the tourneymeny win, but just plain fun to use. Frankly I feel that everytime an unimaginative player wins a tourney the baby jesus cries.
(please note that the opinions of this poster are not necessarily that of any christian church, and furthermore the poster is not even christian.)
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Where to I was once the purveyor of much merryment, now I'm just a complete bastard.
I don't like this card it basically requires the deck to be build around it (you either have to run spells lower then 4cc or have a way to manipulte or view the top card of your library before this cards ability triggers so you dont die to revealing kokoshu).
That said if you run this your main win condition will probably be Consume Spirit since its only 2cc.
Reason: Wasting 8 slots (4x ~ and 4x Sensei's Top) is not a good idea if I can only use ~ once anyway. It might be playable if not legendary. I've noticed building decks around legends is really hard...
i actually like this card a lot...could be quite good in some sort of Suicide black build...and very good with Top...although i do think that R&D will look at it...playtest it and hopefully make it a bit better but will still leave the same general flavor of the card...
otherwise it'll be too narrow of a card and i think they want the Invitational cards to be a lil better than this...i mean every invitational card up to this point has been pretty good with only 1 exception, Sylvan Safekeeper...
so far we've had: Avalanche Riders which is a very good and seen a bit of constructed play Rootwater Thief although not spectacular has certailly proved useful in a variety of formats dealing with combo decks. Meddling Mage wasn't all that great in block and T2 but has and continues to see a ton of play in extended. Shadowmage Infiltrator hasn't seen all the much play, was good in a few decks like battle of the witts and Pirates and a few T1/T1.5 decks, it kinda got overshadowed by the fact that they let wild mongrel change colors. Voidmage Prodigy very good creature in T1.5 fish decks... but didnt see too much play other than that because wizards felt the need to nerf the wizard tribe in Onslaught because of Patron Wizard Solemn Simulacrum very good card in block and T2 and will continue to see play as long as its in T2 and i'm sure will see plenty of play in Extended after it rotates to Invasion...
I like this card. In an aggressive black deck it serves many purposes well. It is an efficient body that will draw you some cards at minimal cost (most your spells should be 3cc and under anyways, and if it includes a 'you MAY' clause, you don't need to lose the life if you think that you can't afford it). It will get lands off the top of your deck for free (a big deal in aggro decks which can have trouble with drawing lands after they curve out). If you have to mulligan or get in to a longer game, it will help you recover cards.
All in all I think this is a fairly powerful card in aggressive black decks and black aggro decks only. The double-black CC rules out playing it in something that is not virtually monoblack, and control would take Phyrexian Arena over this any day as it will always cost you just 1 life and is much harder for the opponent to remove. Nonetheless, when combined with other fast beaters and some disruption, this card will see play.
Example: if you play a creature or disruption spell on turn 1, 2cc spell on turn 2, and a 3cc spell or multiple cheaper spells on turn 3, you will have played 6 or 7 cards and drawn 2 (assuming you hit all land drops and go first). This means that at the start of turn 4 you have 2 or 3 cards in hand (assuming you didn't mulligan). If you had played Maher as your turn-2 spell, you would have 3 or 4 cards in hand and the ability to draw an extra card per turn to refuel. Now whether your opponent was able to stop your initial barrage of disruption and beats or not, having that card-drawing engine is going to help you replace threats that were removed, continue to disrupt your opponent, or deal with threats that they may have played out.
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"Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock"
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Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block.
"Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
Legendary Creature – Human Designer (MR)
Brian Tinsman, Set Designer can only be cast during the third set of a block.
When Brian Tinsman, Set Designer enters the battlefield, ignore all flavor and mechanics of the first two sets in the block.
"Ok so what do we have here... gothic horror? Scrap it. Expand the Devine Vs. Demonic duel deck to 244 cards and print it!"
2/2
so, just for clarification, we're ignoring Cranial Extraction now?
Ok, thats one. Kokusho, thats two. Death Cloud, that 2 and 1/2. Now lets count every other black rare in Mirr. and most in CHK. Thats a big numerical differance.
And Makkert, it is optional, read the rest of what I posted. ", if you don't, remove the revealed card from the game."
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx
Cube
Maher Elemental :symb::symb:
Creature - Whatever
At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library.
You may pay X life, where X is the casting cost of that card.
If you do, put it into your hand.
2/1
Yeah, I'd play that.
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Think.
He was actually going off what the card was revealed as in the article on mtg.com, where it isn't optional.
Arena also doesn't cost you tons of life for better spells. I think R&D will DEFINITELY add a "may" clause to the card, and probably boost the mana cost to 1BB. It's a decent card, though not on the level of Meddling Mage or Solemn Simulacrum.
The problem isn't the lack of good black cards, its the existence of Affinity and the overall speed of the environment that is hosing black. There are lots of options for black if Affinity wasn't in the META right now.
Such as?
Seriousley there is one, possibly two decent decks available for black at the moment, even with a ravagerless meta.
of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits"
-Karl Heinrich Marx
Cube
By itself, the card seems good enough to play in constructed. While I might not run him in Death Cloud, I'd certainly put him in mono B aggro or B/R aggro.
Of course, Glacial Ray and Frostling will make it hard for this guy to see much table time, and after KGB (Kamigawa Block) rotates out, who knows? He's better than Graverobber, but not as good as Shortfang.
(please note that the opinions of this poster are not necessarily that of any christian church, and furthermore the poster is not even christian.)
That said if you run this your main win condition will probably be Consume Spirit since its only 2cc.
Reason: Wasting 8 slots (4x ~ and 4x Sensei's Top) is not a good idea if I can only use ~ once anyway. It might be playable if not legendary. I've noticed building decks around legends is really hard...
Plus the fact that the submissions tend to get heavy-handed by R&D... well, anyway, I guess I just disagree with your above statement.
otherwise it'll be too narrow of a card and i think they want the Invitational cards to be a lil better than this...i mean every invitational card up to this point has been pretty good with only 1 exception, Sylvan Safekeeper...
so far we've had:
Avalanche Riders which is a very good and seen a bit of constructed play
Rootwater Thief although not spectacular has certailly proved useful in a variety of formats dealing with combo decks.
Meddling Mage wasn't all that great in block and T2 but has and continues to see a ton of play in extended.
Shadowmage Infiltrator hasn't seen all the much play, was good in a few decks like battle of the witts and Pirates and a few T1/T1.5 decks, it kinda got overshadowed by the fact that they let wild mongrel change colors.
Voidmage Prodigy very good creature in T1.5 fish decks... but didnt see too much play other than that because wizards felt the need to nerf the wizard tribe in Onslaught because of Patron Wizard
Solemn Simulacrum very good card in block and T2 and will continue to see play as long as its in T2 and i'm sure will see plenty of play in Extended after it rotates to Invasion...
"Everybody belongs to everybody else"
Aldous Huxley
All in all I think this is a fairly powerful card in aggressive black decks and black aggro decks only. The double-black CC rules out playing it in something that is not virtually monoblack, and control would take Phyrexian Arena over this any day as it will always cost you just 1 life and is much harder for the opponent to remove. Nonetheless, when combined with other fast beaters and some disruption, this card will see play.
Example: if you play a creature or disruption spell on turn 1, 2cc spell on turn 2, and a 3cc spell or multiple cheaper spells on turn 3, you will have played 6 or 7 cards and drawn 2 (assuming you hit all land drops and go first). This means that at the start of turn 4 you have 2 or 3 cards in hand (assuming you didn't mulligan). If you had played Maher as your turn-2 spell, you would have 3 or 4 cards in hand and the ability to draw an extra card per turn to refuel. Now whether your opponent was able to stop your initial barrage of disruption and beats or not, having that card-drawing engine is going to help you replace threats that were removed, continue to disrupt your opponent, or deal with threats that they may have played out.