I like it. Creature and a spell in one card. Flexibility is always good in both limited and constructed. As the 1st preview I have high hopes for this up and comming set.
I think I can see where wizards is coming from thematically.
Theme-
Elementals represent raw magic manifested into a physical being, much like the elementals from the time spiral block. These new elementals with the "evoke" keyword represent magic spells that have manifested into these elementals. As such the essence of the elemental is the spell, here it's seen as terror. If need be the wizard/planeswalker could "evoke" the essence of the elemental for said spell effect. The end result would be a destroyed elemental but the spell would still be cast.
I realize some of this post should go under speculation, but I would also like to point out that wizards showed us in future sight that they are willing to expand the morph mechanic to non-creature spells. Again from the theme we can see the cost of crafting a "body" is :3mana:. Now we have the body we can turn it into an elemental by "imprinting"/instilling a spell into it, terrow here. So we add in the :1mana::symb: for terror and we have our elemental at the cost of :4mana::symb:. Again should we need to we can tear/"evoke" the spell from the elemental for the normal cost of the spell. Again this thematically represents the triggered sacrifice action from evoking the spell.
While most of you probably see this just as a newer version of channel or kicker simplified, I can still see why WOTC would go for this simply because it has a great theme to it.
Possible cards could be:
"Volcanic Hammer Elemental" :3mana::symr:
When ~ comes into play, ~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Evoke :1mana::symr:
2/2
Basically grab a popular sorcery spell and add to its casting cost to make a creature then give it the evoke keyword for its casting cost.
I'm pretty sure this is what wizards aimed for with the elementals, especially since we can see that there is a five colored theme deck for the elementals.
I hope I made this coherent enough to follow.
A minimum of 5 x 47 = 235 monocolored cards, likely a couple more. 301 - 20 (basic lands) = 381
That leaves room for a maximum of 46 'other cards' (artifacts, gold cards, new card-types), likely a couple less.
Well with Lorwyn being a 2 set block I would assume we oven have 10 basic lands (2 for each color) and 10 basic lands in Jelly. So we may have to adjust the number crunches a little
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Current Type 2 deck: Snakes on a flying thing
Current Type 1 deck(s): SerraBomber & "Cheaper by the Lazuli"
I think I can see where wizards is coming from thematically.
Theme-
Elementals represent raw magic manifested into a physical being, much like the elementals from the time spiral block. These new elementals with the "evoke" keyword represent magic spells that have manifested into these elementals. As such the essence of the elemental is the spell, here it's seen as terror. If need be the wizard/planeswalker could "evoke" the essence of the elemental for said spell effect. The end result would be a destroyed elemental but the spell would still be cast.
I realize some of this post should go under speculation, but I would also like to point out that wizards showed us in future sight that they are willing to expand the morph mechanic to non-creature spells. Again from the theme we can see the cost of crafting a "body" is :3mana:. Now we have the body we can turn it into an elemental by "imprinting"/instilling a spell into it, terrow here. So we add in the :1mana::symb: for terror and we have our elemental at the cost of :4mana::symb:. Again should we need to we can tear/"evoke" the spell from the elemental for the normal cost of the spell. Again this thematically represents the triggered sacrifice action from evoking the spell.
While most of you probably see this just as a newer version of channel or kicker simplified, I can still see why WOTC would go for this simply because it has a great theme to it.
Possible cards could be:
"Volcanic Hammer Elemental" :3mana::symr:
When ~ comes into play, ~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Evoke :1mana::symr:
2/2
Basically grab a popular sorcery spell and add to its casting cost to make a creature then give it the evoke keyword for its casting cost.
I'm pretty sure this is what wizards aimed for with the elementals, especially since we can see that there is a five colored theme deck for the elementals.
I hope I made this coherent enough to follow.
That is nice spec, the other good thing about it is that the cost (the 3 mana) and the body aren't fixed. So they can push stronger creatures
with evoke costs closer to th CMC at higher rarities and, as you've pointed out, have a baseline for what would be "fair" (ie a 2/2 body for 3 being the most vanilla case).
I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has been mentioned...but does this hint that Lorwyn will not be tribal? I mean, it's a promo card, yet there is no reference to tribal.
Well, certainly it is an interesting art. I love that in comparison to the Simic mutants, this thing seems to be weird, but somewhat smoothly joining the three animal aspects into one.
As for evoke - well, it seems pretty much like Channel from SOK, with the difference that this is a full keyword, and that it will trigger "Whenever you play a spell" and "Whenever a creature comes into play" effects.
Because of the type of foiling and rarity, this has to be the release promo. How has the guy get his hands onto it in such advance, I cannot tell.
Nice find, I give it 95% of being real.
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there must be sorceries, mainly i always thought sorceries should be powerful spells, and way more amped than an instant conterpart but the thing about evoke is once again teferi comes to mind, granting it instantability, which Sorceries are harder to grant instant speed.
This thing Looks Freaky I like it alot I see a mixture of many things
Butterfly Wings
Frog lower Mandible
Falcon Upper Mandible
Serpent Body
With a Cheetah lower Leg portion
And Tentacles wtf?
kool chimera, i don't see how its an Elemantal though
i wonder what are these guys smokin? And I hope the pass the peace soon.
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a piece of my soul, through poetic sows.
The tides of fate procreate disaster
and awakens thy master
the gates explode and the seals anulled
between the dust lyes a fold
of unimaginal minds untold
i duress in death's caress
where the unknow take hold
Through a portal of the past
I regress past a river blazing cold
Looks solid maybe not a creature will be ran in pro tourney's but still fun,
Loving the idea of invoke since it means more when creature comes in to play ability's for my blink deck.
I'm aware of the differences between Evoke and Channel. And Crystal Shard/Shriekmaw is, I'm sure, a cute combo in multiplayer. I still don't think it's worth cluttering up the game with yet more new keyword mechanics, though. Is anyone else about sick of how many stupidly needless mechanics there are? I think Forsythe sort of missed the point of his own article; if you can do so many things elegantly with Kicker, why don't you? To make the game needlessly complex and obtuse?
I'm aware of the differences between Evoke and Channel. And Crystal Shard/Shriekmaw is, I'm sure, a cute combo in multiplayer. I still don't think it's worth cluttering up the game with yet more new keyword mechanics, though. Is anyone else about sick of how many stupidly needless mechanics there are? I think Forsythe sort of missed the point of his own article; if you can do so many things elegantly with Kicker, why don't you? To make the game needlessly complex and obtuse?
Because kicker has the flavor of taking a small spell and making it bigger. It has the mechanical ability to be many other things, but the concept of Evoking an elemental for its ability (which could be done with kicker) is far more flavorful than "If I kicker this thing, I can keep it!".
Perhaps this is a further indication of the theory that Lorwyn will have Planeswalkers and Jelly will have tribal. As urzassedatives pointed out, both Tribal and Evoke in the same block are superfluous. But if they put Tribal into Jelly that would be very synergetic with Evoke in Lorwyn, whilst being mechanically and flavourfully different.
I haven't read the whole thread, so forgive me if this has been mentioned...but does this hint that Lorwyn will not be tribal? I mean, it's a promo card, yet there is no reference to tribal.
There's no reference to tribal the card type, but I think when most people say "Lorwyn will be tribal" they mean it will be based around creature types the way Onslaught block was. And while this card has no reference to the tribal card type, it is an elemental, which one of the precons suggests is a frequently-occurring creature type of Lorwyn.
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Does anyone else see a problem with the reminder text on this card?
I may be mistaken, but isn't the card considered a creature card until it enters the stack? If so, how can you play this "spell" if it isn't a spell until after it is played and is put onto the stack? Also, should it not say "When it comes into play, sacrifice it." rather than "it's sacrificed when it comes into play"?
For reference: Evoke 1B (You may play this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it's sacrificed when it comes into play.)
Because kicker has the flavor of taking a small spell and making it bigger. It has the mechanical ability to be many other things, but the concept of Evoking an elemental for its ability (which could be done with kicker) is far more flavorful than "If I kicker this thing, I can keep it!".
-E
I call bull*****. The concept of a spell that takes animate form for an extra investment of mana is plenty flavorful. Moreover, it conserves design space. Why don't we try to come up with a new and flavorful evasion ability for each set to match the plotline of the novels? Why do we keep going back to flying? Because it works, it makes sense, and it keeps the game simple(r).
i can abuse this ability like no tomorrow, especially with fatties with Evoke.
example:
Big Scary Monster1G
Creature- elemental
Trample, Haste
evoke 3GG
6/5
I think I can see where wizards is coming from thematically.
Theme-
Elementals represent raw magic manifested into a physical being, much like the elementals from the time spiral block. These new elementals with the "evoke" keyword represent magic spells that have manifested into these elementals. As such the essence of the elemental is the spell, here it's seen as terror. If need be the wizard/planeswalker could "evoke" the essence of the elemental for said spell effect. The end result would be a destroyed elemental but the spell would still be cast.
That's just about what I was thinking. It seems like a nifty way to do an elemental tribal theme, which assuredly Lorwyn has.
As for the validity of the card, there are some things that make me question it, the first being the odd black line down the side. If that is a hair, then the (4) is over top of it. It could just be some kind of weird print error in the foiling or something though. The second is that the texture for the foiling looks suspisciously like the standard "canvas" texture in PS or Gimp.
Don't get me wrong though, I still believe this has a very good chance of being real.
I'm hoping that, since it's an elemental, we will se this ability on other creatures with different colors than black, maybe to get a Fact Or Fiction evoke and a Wrath of God evoke.
Now what would be the point of an Evoke creature that Wraths? Unless it was indestructible, or destroyed each "other" creature, there would be no use for multiple costs.
English is not my mother tong but the fact that’s spelled "If you do, it's sacrificed when it come into play" instead of "If you do, sacrifice it when it come into play" can’t be unimportant.
I believe it's the same reason why kicker was reworded - so that, if your opponent takes control of this spell while it's on the stack, it will still be sacrificed when it comes into play.
I think this is an incredibly elegant mechanic, and am surprised they didn't print it before. Props to WotC on this one.
Another thing I'm noticing is that Evoke is worded as an alternate cost, so if it works the way I think it does, it should be able to be reduced by the likes of Cloud Key or Jet Medallion. Channel can't be.
Someone steer me in the right direction if I'm wrong, but it looks sound to me.
As for the validity of the card, there are some things that make me question it, the first being the odd black line down the side. If that is a hair, then the (4) is over top of it. It could just be some kind of weird print error in the foiling or something though. The second is that the texture for the foiling looks suspisciously like the standard "canvas" texture in PS or Gimp.
Don't get me wrong though, I still believe this has a very good chance of being real.
The foil error wouldn't amaze me at all, its common. My Coldsnap Marit Lage token has a straight line in exactly the same place, which pissed me off at the time.
This is a neat mechanic, although somewhat unoriginal. I've seen it around several custom sets. But that's because its obvious and very interesting (Creature >> Spell). In fact, Wizards tried it before in Saviors. They bungled it horribly IMO with the abomination that was Channel...it'll be nice to see it done right.
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Gaymer Raccoons please My artworkz
"We've made OVER NINE THOUSAND unique cards."
- MaRo, October 8th, 2007 IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!!!
As AaFo pointed out amply in that article a few weeks ago, Wizards could get through whole blocks' worth of new mechanics with different variations on kicker. But why in the world would they want to? Someone mentioned earlier, very acutely, that kicker as a flavor item has a very narrow (but very useful) role--taking a spell and making it have a bigger, flashier effect. Kicker as a rules mechanic can be extended, through the stupid and convoluted templating seen on Skizzik and others that permeates "custom-set" threads the world over, to do a whole slew of things. But just because it's possible for Wizards to start attempting to execute new mechanical ideas with the templating of stuff they've already done doesn't mean in the slightest that they'd be justified in doing so.
I can't see how anyone would prefer an entire block with just kicker done in interesting ways as its new mechanic over a block with actual new keyword abilities that, while they could superficially be templated with kicker, have flavor and rules-interaction nuances that make them quite different. I agree that keywording reach, shroud, deathtouch, lifelink, etc. was sort of unnecessary and makes for a lot of memory issues, and it's understandable that people have angst about inventing new keywords when we've just been dumped an unusual 10 in Rav block and even more than that in TSP. But new keywords have been an integral part of showcasing new sets since the beginning of modern Magic design, and trying to make mechanics as sterile as possible (i.e. making absolutely sure every new idea couldn't be templated with some contortion of an old one instead, because God forbid the game evolve and take on new material) isn't healthy for anyone.
And no, R_E, it wasn't an admission that they're running low on design space; it was an admission that Kicker was sort of a bad idea because it was too mechanically broad, even though initially it was used fairly narrowly flavorwise, and that lots of new mechanics tend to live under the shadow of kicker because of its incredible versatility. I'm sure they've realized for a long time that Kicker can be used to do whatever the hell you want if you tweak the templating enough (and again, amateur designers seem to get a kick out of doing just that), but they've also realized that that's a bad idea for the health of the game. Refusing to innovate isn't nice. And MaRo and others answer concerned Ask Wizards questions every other month about whether they're running out of design space, and they're always upbeat and say they have many depths yet unplumbed. From looking at set-creation threads and from knowing the considerable ingenuity R&D has for designing the game, I'm well prepared to believe that.
Anyway, I'm in love with this card and I'm in love with Evoke. People have already pointed out the many interesting interactions and design possibilities with the mechanic, and they're all amazing. This card and mechanic are exemplars of good design, and are also just bloody good; while Shriekmaw's stats make it probably a little too clunky for Standard, it's obviously a straight-up bombling in Limited and could see Block play. And the depth of the mechanic makes me confident that, with a little more aggression in costing, creatures with Evoke could be veritable powerhouses even outside of draft and sealed. Think Kavu Titan--early game you get a solid beater (in this case, a solid removal spell); late game you get a solid finisher. (Oops, Titan has kicker. But still.) Naysayers, naysay all you will, but if the rest of Lorwyn is as engaging as this, I think we'll be in for a nice time.
Theme-
Elementals represent raw magic manifested into a physical being, much like the elementals from the time spiral block. These new elementals with the "evoke" keyword represent magic spells that have manifested into these elementals. As such the essence of the elemental is the spell, here it's seen as terror. If need be the wizard/planeswalker could "evoke" the essence of the elemental for said spell effect. The end result would be a destroyed elemental but the spell would still be cast.
I realize some of this post should go under speculation, but I would also like to point out that wizards showed us in future sight that they are willing to expand the morph mechanic to non-creature spells. Again from the theme we can see the cost of crafting a "body" is :3mana:. Now we have the body we can turn it into an elemental by "imprinting"/instilling a spell into it, terrow here. So we add in the :1mana::symb: for terror and we have our elemental at the cost of :4mana::symb:. Again should we need to we can tear/"evoke" the spell from the elemental for the normal cost of the spell. Again this thematically represents the triggered sacrifice action from evoking the spell.
While most of you probably see this just as a newer version of channel or kicker simplified, I can still see why WOTC would go for this simply because it has a great theme to it.
Possible cards could be:
"Volcanic Hammer Elemental" :3mana::symr:
When ~ comes into play, ~ deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
Evoke :1mana::symr:
2/2
Basically grab a popular sorcery spell and add to its casting cost to make a creature then give it the evoke keyword for its casting cost.
I'm pretty sure this is what wizards aimed for with the elementals, especially since we can see that there is a five colored theme deck for the elementals.
I hope I made this coherent enough to follow.
Well with Lorwyn being a 2 set block I would assume we oven have 10 basic lands (2 for each color) and 10 basic lands in Jelly. So we may have to adjust the number crunches a little
Current Type 2 deck: Snakes on a flying thing
Current Type 1 deck(s): SerraBomber & "Cheaper by the Lazuli"
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That is nice spec, the other good thing about it is that the cost (the 3 mana) and the body aren't fixed. So they can push stronger creatures
with evoke costs closer to th CMC at higher rarities and, as you've pointed out, have a baseline for what would be "fair" (ie a 2/2 body for 3 being the most vanilla case).
I love this card, btw.
-E
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As for evoke - well, it seems pretty much like Channel from SOK, with the difference that this is a full keyword, and that it will trigger "Whenever you play a spell" and "Whenever a creature comes into play" effects.
Because of the type of foiling and rarity, this has to be the release promo. How has the guy get his hands onto it in such advance, I cannot tell.
Nice find, I give it 95% of being real.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
This thing Looks Freaky I like it alot I see a mixture of many things
Butterfly Wings
Frog lower Mandible
Falcon Upper Mandible
Serpent Body
With a Cheetah lower Leg portion
And Tentacles wtf?
kool chimera, i don't see how its an Elemantal though
i wonder what are these guys smokin? And I hope the pass the peace soon.
a piece of my soul, through poetic sows.
The tides of fate procreate disaster
and awakens thy master
the gates explode and the seals anulled
between the dust lyes a fold
of unimaginal minds untold
i duress in death's caress
where the unknow take hold
Through a portal of the past
I regress past a river blazing cold
Loving the idea of invoke since it means more when creature comes in to play ability's for my blink deck.
Because kicker has the flavor of taking a small spell and making it bigger. It has the mechanical ability to be many other things, but the concept of Evoking an elemental for its ability (which could be done with kicker) is far more flavorful than "If I kicker this thing, I can keep it!".
-E
There's no reference to tribal the card type, but I think when most people say "Lorwyn will be tribal" they mean it will be based around creature types the way Onslaught block was. And while this card has no reference to the tribal card type, it is an elemental, which one of the precons suggests is a frequently-occurring creature type of Lorwyn.
- Jon Finkel believes in maintaining a healthy, balanced diet. He gets all his fiber from eating Magic cards for breakfast, and all his protein from eating Magic players for lunch.
//There's quite a bunch of animals packed in this creature: butterfly, snake, bird, toad or salamander...
Does anyone else see a problem with the reminder text on this card?
I may be mistaken, but isn't the card considered a creature card until it enters the stack? If so, how can you play this "spell" if it isn't a spell until after it is played and is put onto the stack? Also, should it not say "When it comes into play, sacrifice it." rather than "it's sacrificed when it comes into play"?
For reference: Evoke 1B (You may play this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it's sacrificed when it comes into play.)
I call bull*****. The concept of a spell that takes animate form for an extra investment of mana is plenty flavorful. Moreover, it conserves design space. Why don't we try to come up with a new and flavorful evasion ability for each set to match the plotline of the novels? Why do we keep going back to flying? Because it works, it makes sense, and it keeps the game simple(r).
example:
Big Scary Monster1G
Creature- elemental
Trample, Haste
evoke 3GG
6/5
EDIT: Pandemonium. 'Nuff said.
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That's just about what I was thinking. It seems like a nifty way to do an elemental tribal theme, which assuredly Lorwyn has.
As for the validity of the card, there are some things that make me question it, the first being the odd black line down the side. If that is a hair, then the (4) is over top of it. It could just be some kind of weird print error in the foiling or something though. The second is that the texture for the foiling looks suspisciously like the standard "canvas" texture in PS or Gimp.
Don't get me wrong though, I still believe this has a very good chance of being real.
Now what would be the point of an Evoke creature that Wraths? Unless it was indestructible, or destroyed each "other" creature, there would be no use for multiple costs.
I think this is an incredibly elegant mechanic, and am surprised they didn't print it before. Props to WotC on this one.
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Someone steer me in the right direction if I'm wrong, but it looks sound to me.
yay fo Lorwyn Rumor Mill! )))
The foil error wouldn't amaze me at all, its common. My Coldsnap Marit Lage token has a straight line in exactly the same place, which pissed me off at the time.
This is a neat mechanic, although somewhat unoriginal. I've seen it around several custom sets. But that's because its obvious and very interesting (Creature >> Spell). In fact, Wizards tried it before in Saviors. They bungled it horribly IMO with the abomination that was Channel...it'll be nice to see it done right.
Creator of Thoughtless Sensei and Morph Aggro
Gaymer
Raccoons please
My artworkz
"We've made OVER NINE THOUSAND unique cards."
- MaRo, October 8th, 2007
IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!!!!!
I can't see how anyone would prefer an entire block with just kicker done in interesting ways as its new mechanic over a block with actual new keyword abilities that, while they could superficially be templated with kicker, have flavor and rules-interaction nuances that make them quite different. I agree that keywording reach, shroud, deathtouch, lifelink, etc. was sort of unnecessary and makes for a lot of memory issues, and it's understandable that people have angst about inventing new keywords when we've just been dumped an unusual 10 in Rav block and even more than that in TSP. But new keywords have been an integral part of showcasing new sets since the beginning of modern Magic design, and trying to make mechanics as sterile as possible (i.e. making absolutely sure every new idea couldn't be templated with some contortion of an old one instead, because God forbid the game evolve and take on new material) isn't healthy for anyone.
And no, R_E, it wasn't an admission that they're running low on design space; it was an admission that Kicker was sort of a bad idea because it was too mechanically broad, even though initially it was used fairly narrowly flavorwise, and that lots of new mechanics tend to live under the shadow of kicker because of its incredible versatility. I'm sure they've realized for a long time that Kicker can be used to do whatever the hell you want if you tweak the templating enough (and again, amateur designers seem to get a kick out of doing just that), but they've also realized that that's a bad idea for the health of the game. Refusing to innovate isn't nice. And MaRo and others answer concerned Ask Wizards questions every other month about whether they're running out of design space, and they're always upbeat and say they have many depths yet unplumbed. From looking at set-creation threads and from knowing the considerable ingenuity R&D has for designing the game, I'm well prepared to believe that.
Anyway, I'm in love with this card and I'm in love with Evoke. People have already pointed out the many interesting interactions and design possibilities with the mechanic, and they're all amazing. This card and mechanic are exemplars of good design, and are also just bloody good; while Shriekmaw's stats make it probably a little too clunky for Standard, it's obviously a straight-up bombling in Limited and could see Block play. And the depth of the mechanic makes me confident that, with a little more aggression in costing, creatures with Evoke could be veritable powerhouses even outside of draft and sealed. Think Kavu Titan--early game you get a solid beater (in this case, a solid removal spell); late game you get a solid finisher. (Oops, Titan has kicker. But still.) Naysayers, naysay all you will, but if the rest of Lorwyn is as engaging as this, I think we'll be in for a nice time.
I'm hoping just the same! That would suck big time
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