I'm having a bit of flashback to AVR. Large, expensive monsters that looks like the set will be slow at first glance, but the lack of efficient removals, a number of small but highly efficient creatures and ways to pump those creatures (soulbond vs auras) makes me think this set may be quite fast.
The awkward girl at the dance I'm noticing is Burnished Hart... colorless Ogre, 3: sac it and play two lands from your deck tapped. Ramping from 4 to 6 lands looks like it's gonna be big here.
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Blue just looks to be vastly superior to the other colors to an absurd degree in limited. There's a 2/1 flyer for 2, a 2/2 flyer for 3, a 3/2 flyer for 4, and a 3/4 flyer for 5, all at common. The latter three have additional upsides. There's all the 1/3, 0/4, 1/5, and 1/4 walls you could ever want to hold the ground, and most come with extra effects like scry or tapping your opponents' guys to help you stay ahead. The only reach creature is a 2/2, which means it simply trades with a flyer rather than holding off a team of them.
There's also not much unconditional removal, making your flyers hard to get rid of. You have Griptide and Voyage's End at common to handle any Bestow shenanigans or your opponent trying to build up a heroic creature. Every time you leave mana open your opponent must play around Stymied Hopes, which significantly slows them down and lets you get to the endgame where you autowin with your draw 3s.
Honestly, I still can't believe they printed a draw three at common. Why would I play any other color? Oh look there's Mnemonic Wall, also at common, to get my draw 3 back so I can cast it again. With all the scry effects tacked on to everything it's not like it's going to be hard to find your copies of this once you reach turn 6.
This looks like M14 draft all over again, IE draft blue or go home.
1. There's basically no efficient removal beyond Lightning Strike. Everything else is either super-limited in its targets (Last Breath, the same-color hosers, Divine Verdict) or obscenely expensive (the only spells below rare that can stop something with 5+ toughness all cost 6 or more). There aren't even Pacifism or Encroaching Vines variants. This would seem to imply creature stalemates are going to be the order of the day. It would also seem to imply that Curse of the Swine is easily the biggest bomb in the set, as I fully expected.
2. Since the removal is weak, auras should be fairly prevalent, particularly if heroic plays as well as I think it will. Maindeck enchantment removal should be automatic. Destructive Revelry seems like a very high pick. I also tend to think that blue sort of auto-wins here with Annul at common. A blue player can keep an island untapped all game and bluff like a boss. However, that leads to the question: if you're in blue, how many Annuls do you want? I can't see playing more than 2, but they're usually going to have targets. Where's the line?
3. With creature stalls being likely I expect control decks to really want to hit monstrous triggers. As such, Burnished Hart seems like a high pick for decks that hope to trigger monstrous on a regular basis. It's easily the best ramp spell in the format, and its ability to fit and fix in all decks should make it a pretty high pick as well.
4. Combat tricks on heroic creatures are going to make math very difficult. Again, with removal so limited you'll want a couple tricks just to try and force bad blocks. There will probably be a number of bad beat stories coming out of the prerelease where a pumped Centaur Battlemaster either wrecked someone's whole board or came unblocked for 10+. G/W and R/W both seem set up well for these kinds of shenanigans.
5. Gold cards are all drastically better than their mono-colored brethren. Horizon Chimera in particular seems nutty. Shipwreck Singer is going to eat soooooo many Magma Jets.
On an unserious note: I'm looking forward to the inevitable ultra-pissed-off stories about controlling the game for most of the way, stalling out, and losing to a monstrous Colossus of Akros.
Blue just looks to be vastly superior to the other colors to an absurd degree in limited. There's a 2/1 flyer for 2, a 2/2 flyer for 3, a 3/2 flyer for 4, and a 3/4 flyer for 5, all at common. The latter three have additional upsides. There's all the 1/3, 0/4, 1/5, and 1/4 walls you could ever want to hold the ground, and most come with extra effects like scry or tapping your opponents' guys to help you stay ahead. The only reach creature is a 2/2, which means it simply trades with a flyer rather than holding off a team of them.
There's also not much unconditional removal, making your flyers hard to get rid of. You have Griptide and Voyage's End at common to handle any Bestow shenanigans or your opponent trying to build up a heroic creature. Every time you leave mana open your opponent must play around Stymied Hopes, which significantly slows them down and lets you get to the endgame where you autowin with your draw 3s.
Honestly, I still can't believe they printed a draw three at common. Why would I play any other color? Oh look there's Mnemonic Wall, also at common, to get my draw 3 back so I can cast it again. With all the scry effects tacked on to everything it's not like it's going to be hard to find your copies of this once you reach turn 6.
This looks like M14 draft all over again, IE draft blue or go home.
At common there are two reach creatures, a 4/5 and the 2/2 which you reference without mentioning it can also be an aura. There's a mess of spells which deal with the 2 or less toughness guys (every other color has at least one at common, not counting unconditional removal.) It's looking like in this set creatures are just going to be getting bigger and bigger as the game goes on, so those x/3 and x/4s aren't going to buy you more than a turn or two. Bounce is less powerful against Bestow than normal auras.
Blue certainly isn't weak in this set, but it's not at all the unstoppable powerhouse you're envisioning. White is gonna be hard to outpace, Green is just nasty, Black is a toolbox color, and Red is what Red always is.
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Blue just looks to be vastly superior to the other colors to an absurd degree in limited. There's a 2/1 flyer for 2, a 2/2 flyer for 3, a 3/2 flyer for 4, and a 3/4 flyer for 5, all at common. The latter three have additional upsides. There's all the 1/3, 0/4, 1/5, and 1/4 walls you could ever want to hold the ground, and most come with extra effects like scry or tapping your opponents' guys to help you stay ahead. The only reach creature is a 2/2, which means it simply trades with a flyer rather than holding off a team of them.
There's also not much unconditional removal, making your flyers hard to get rid of. You have Griptide and Voyage's End at common to handle any Bestow shenanigans or your opponent trying to build up a heroic creature. Every time you leave mana open your opponent must play around Stymied Hopes, which significantly slows them down and lets you get to the endgame where you autowin with your draw 3s.
Honestly, I still can't believe they printed a draw three at common. Why would I play any other color? Oh look there's Mnemonic Wall, also at common, to get my draw 3 back so I can cast it again. With all the scry effects tacked on to everything it's not like it's going to be hard to find your copies of this once you reach turn 6.
This looks like M14 draft all over again, IE draft blue or go home.
Blue does not have a common 3/2 flyer, I think you're getting mixed up with flash. I think it did get the best cantrip aura though.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
At common there are two reach creatures, a 4/5 and the 2/2 which you reference without mentioning it can also be an aura. There's a mess of spells which deal with the 2 or less toughness guys (every other color has at least one at common, not counting unconditional removal.) It's looking like in this set creatures are just going to be getting bigger and bigger as the game goes on, so those x/3 and x/4s aren't going to buy you more than a turn or two. Bounce is less powerful against Bestow than normal auras.
Blue certainly isn't weak in this set, but it's not at all the unstoppable powerhouse you're envisioning. White is gonna be hard to outpace, Green is just nasty, Black is a toolbox color, and Red is what Red always is.
Totally missed the Nessian Asp :\
The thing with bounce is it actually deals with super-fatties created by Bestow and lets your wall-creatures block them again. Griptide actually does it without losing card advantage. Almost none of the other removal can deal with a Bestowed creature at all, there's just the 6CC one in black.
Black seems to be Read the Runes, Lash of the Whip and a bunch of unimpressive stuff. I see a lot of Black splashes in my future.
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Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
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Red has the best removal, green looks like it has the most efficient creatures at common, and blue seems really strong too. Anyone else see:
Aqueous Form + Benthic Giant to build-an-Invisible Stalker
Aqueous Form in general looks like it has a lot of interaction. Dropping it on Centaur Battlemaster makes a 6/6 unblockable. In general I like UG if you aren't shooting for Devotion, or RG for fat and removal. Black didn't impress me much at all, especially with its removal being so expensive.
Curse of Swine is the closest thing to a board sweeper that I saw, besides slightly-bigger-Pyroclasm. Has anyone crunched the numbers RG on average power/toughness of the set?
Black seems to be Read the Runes, Lash of the Whip and a bunch of unimpressive stuff. I see a lot of Black splashes in my future.
It's not sporting the most impressive cards in and of themselves, but it has draw, the deathtouch eidolon, decent evasion, direct damage, lifegain, Morbid Plunder variant (which should be neat with Bestow,) a touch of mill, removal, etc... IOW, what black always gets, which is a toolbox. Plus there are some gravy uncommons like Rescue from the Underworld, Mogis' Marauder, and Keepsake Gorgon.
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Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
- Black has a Giant Growth, more or less, which is weird. (Boon of Erebos)
- I guess Blue's game plan is the old "attack with small fliers, block with walls" approach. I was skeptical because it seems easy to make something that can punch through blue's walls (they're mostly not that big), and blue lacks an Essence Scatter or Claustrophobia or even a Cancel to hold off big things. However, Voyage's End, Griptide, and Annul actually give Blue a very solid counter plan against someone trying to break through with Heroes and Auras. Against someone just trying to break through with big monsters, I think the plan becomes "kill them first with 2-power fliers", which is a little shakier. Nessian Asp in particular seems like an absolute terror against your typical Blue deck.
One upshot is that I'm still a little iffy on Blue in Sealed. I think Blue is fundamentally on a tempo plan (2-3 mana 2-power fliers, walls against aggro, race against monsters/rare bombs), which tends to be better in Draft.
- I think I understand what Ephara's Warden (white 4-mana 1/2, taps creatures with < 4 power) is doing now. It seems like it will often be pretty poor defensively, but it taps down walls like a champ ( I'm including things like Coastline Chimera in "walls"). I think this is supposed to be a late game card for aggressive white weenie strategies to break through the set's many defensive creatures (low-power guys with high toughness/deathtouch/regeneration).
- The removal situation is mostly average to slightly weaker than usual (Blue doesn't really have any except some tempo stuff, Green has one decent Fight spell and can kill enchantments and fliers, Red and Black have plenty though most is expensive). The exception seems to be White, which is normally one of the "removal colors", but this time around has an extremely poor common removal suite. The best one is Divine Verdict. Yikes.
Pretty sure White is committed to the beatdown plan in this set.
Black seems very defensive; the black deathtouch bestow guy seems like he should be a beating if you can afford to use him as an aura since he's likely to be a double-dip removal spell.
Also, by my count there are 3 common defenders (1 artifact 3-drop, 1 black 2-drop, 1 blue 5-drop), and the only uncommon is the horse, so the Prowler's Helm is pretty close to "equipped creature is unblockable".
Also, by my count there are 3 common defenders (1 artifact 3-drop, 1 black 2-drop, 1 blue 5-drop), and the only uncommon is the horse, so the Prowler's Helm is pretty close to "equipped creature is unblockable".
Actually, the only things that can block it are creatures with the type "Wall." So that leaves Mnemonic Wall.
Wait... since that card is made for combo decks, can we call it Johnny Mnemonic Wall?
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Black seems very defensive; the black deathtouch bestow guy seems like he should be a beating if you can afford to use him as an aura since he's likely to be a double-dip removal spell.
Also, by my count there are 3 common defenders (1 artifact 3-drop, 1 black 2-drop, 1 blue 5-drop), and the only uncommon is the horse, so the Prowler's Helm is pretty close to "equipped creature is unblockable".
Huh, I'd skimmed right past that card, but it's actually better than that... it specifically says the creature can only be blocked by "walls", of which Mnemonic Wall is the only one in the entire set.
Also: Hey, it's the invisibility helmet from the original Clash of the Titans! Neat!
Upon further noodling, I think lifegain in general and Ordeal of Helios in particular is gonna be important in this set. My brain is painting out scenarios where WW has 3 3/3ish guys out and swinging by t4, while holding combat tricks... and Stompy swinging for 14 a turn reasonably often. It seems like there will be relatively few turns where a player is losing less than four life, and there are enough beats-out-of-nowhere cards to make being at 10 no guarantee. This also seems to be suggested by Erebos' innate ability (opponents can't gain life,) which would normally be fairly worthless, seemingly on par with "all creatures you control gain vigilance/trample."
This seems particularly relevant to black decks, as there are a number of life-as-resource cards; then again, WOTC seems to have realized this and planted a number of lifegain cards in black, too.
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
How do you guys feel about Triton Tactics? Seems very strong with heroic, and especially at one mana where it can't really be played around. If blue/white tempo is a thing I can see it being great. Uncommon though, so not going to be seen that often.
How do you guys feel about Triton Tactics? Seems very strong with heroic, and especially at one mana where it can't really be played around. If blue/white tempo is a thing I can see it being great. Uncommon though, so not going to be seen that often.
I'm not too sure... still trying to translate it.
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My Decks: EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn Modern: Polytokes IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Draft base green and grab every land fetcher, you should be good to hit all your land drops and then some.
Well, if we want to imagine a 5-color deck, we're really talking about Opaline Unicorn, Traveler's Amulet, Nylea's Presence, and the Simmering Grotto functional reprint. (Acolyte, Burnished Hart, and Ordeal are all uncommon, Acolyte doesn't fix mana, and Ordeal is unreliable as a ramp spell.)
Still that's a surprising amount of 5-color fixing at common, much more than I expected. It's even mostly colorless. Good catch.
I don't know about 5-color ramp as an actual archetype, but at minimum splashing should actually be pretty easy. That'll be a nice change from M14, where "splashing" seems to mean "Playing more than one color."
How do you guys feel about Triton Tactics? Seems very strong with heroic, and especially at one mana where it can't really be played around. If blue/white tempo is a thing I can see it being great. Uncommon though, so not going to be seen that often.
It's pretty bizarre, but I think it's extremely good. It's a one mana double heroic enabler. On a tempo-offense plan, you get to attack with more creatures and nail them with a Frost Breath. On defense, you can get up to a 2-for-1 and take the creatures you can't kill out of commission for two of your attack steps and another one of theirs.
It might be tricky to use correctly, but I think it's always worth a card at the very least, and it only costs 1 mana.
full disclosure, I suck at limited. Nonetheless, here are the cards I like from the full spoiler elsewhere on this site. No bestow or monstrosity since I consider these a bonus, and no rares or mythic rares since these are a bonus as well.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
There's also not much unconditional removal, making your flyers hard to get rid of. You have Griptide and Voyage's End at common to handle any Bestow shenanigans or your opponent trying to build up a heroic creature. Every time you leave mana open your opponent must play around Stymied Hopes, which significantly slows them down and lets you get to the endgame where you autowin with your draw 3s.
Honestly, I still can't believe they printed a draw three at common. Why would I play any other color? Oh look there's Mnemonic Wall, also at common, to get my draw 3 back so I can cast it again. With all the scry effects tacked on to everything it's not like it's going to be hard to find your copies of this once you reach turn 6.
This looks like M14 draft all over again, IE draft blue or go home.
1. There's basically no efficient removal beyond Lightning Strike. Everything else is either super-limited in its targets (Last Breath, the same-color hosers, Divine Verdict) or obscenely expensive (the only spells below rare that can stop something with 5+ toughness all cost 6 or more). There aren't even Pacifism or Encroaching Vines variants. This would seem to imply creature stalemates are going to be the order of the day. It would also seem to imply that Curse of the Swine is easily the biggest bomb in the set, as I fully expected.
2. Since the removal is weak, auras should be fairly prevalent, particularly if heroic plays as well as I think it will. Maindeck enchantment removal should be automatic. Destructive Revelry seems like a very high pick. I also tend to think that blue sort of auto-wins here with Annul at common. A blue player can keep an island untapped all game and bluff like a boss. However, that leads to the question: if you're in blue, how many Annuls do you want? I can't see playing more than 2, but they're usually going to have targets. Where's the line?
3. With creature stalls being likely I expect control decks to really want to hit monstrous triggers. As such, Burnished Hart seems like a high pick for decks that hope to trigger monstrous on a regular basis. It's easily the best ramp spell in the format, and its ability to fit and fix in all decks should make it a pretty high pick as well.
4. Combat tricks on heroic creatures are going to make math very difficult. Again, with removal so limited you'll want a couple tricks just to try and force bad blocks. There will probably be a number of bad beat stories coming out of the prerelease where a pumped Centaur Battlemaster either wrecked someone's whole board or came unblocked for 10+. G/W and R/W both seem set up well for these kinds of shenanigans.
5. Gold cards are all drastically better than their mono-colored brethren. Horizon Chimera in particular seems nutty. Shipwreck Singer is going to eat soooooo many Magma Jets.
On an unserious note: I'm looking forward to the inevitable ultra-pissed-off stories about controlling the game for most of the way, stalling out, and losing to a monstrous Colossus of Akros.
UBDragonlord Silumgar WGKarametra, God of Harvests
BRUNekusar, the Mindrazer BGMazirek, Kraul Death Priest
URMelek, Izzet Paragon UGPrime Speaker Zegana
WUHanna, Ship's Navigator BWUSydri, Galvanic Genius
WUBRGSliver Queen RBBladewing the Risen
WBKarlov of the Ghost Council RGXenagos, God of Revels
GFreyalise, Llanowar's Fury RWAurelia, the Warleader
RIb Halfheart, Goblin Tactician BDrana, Liberator of Malakir
UAzami, Lady of Scrolls WNahiri, the Lithomancer
WBGDoran, the Siege Tower CEmrakul, the Promised End
At common there are two reach creatures, a 4/5 and the 2/2 which you reference without mentioning it can also be an aura. There's a mess of spells which deal with the 2 or less toughness guys (every other color has at least one at common, not counting unconditional removal.) It's looking like in this set creatures are just going to be getting bigger and bigger as the game goes on, so those x/3 and x/4s aren't going to buy you more than a turn or two. Bounce is less powerful against Bestow than normal auras.
Blue certainly isn't weak in this set, but it's not at all the unstoppable powerhouse you're envisioning. White is gonna be hard to outpace, Green is just nasty, Black is a toolbox color, and Red is what Red always is.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Blue does not have a common 3/2 flyer, I think you're getting mixed up with flash. I think it did get the best cantrip aura though.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
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(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
Totally missed the Nessian Asp :\
The thing with bounce is it actually deals with super-fatties created by Bestow and lets your wall-creatures block them again. Griptide actually does it without losing card advantage. Almost none of the other removal can deal with a Bestowed creature at all, there's just the 6CC one in black.
Black seems to be Read the Runes, Lash of the Whip and a bunch of unimpressive stuff. I see a lot of Black splashes in my future.
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
5CB PotM - June 2005, November 2005, February 2006, April 2008, May 2008, Feb 2009
MTGSalvation Articles: 1-20, plus guest appearance on MTGCast #86!
<Limited Clan>
In particular, Nessian Asp seems like a friggin' monster.
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
Aqueous Form + Benthic Giant to build-an-Invisible Stalker
Aqueous Form in general looks like it has a lot of interaction. Dropping it on Centaur Battlemaster makes a 6/6 unblockable. In general I like UG if you aren't shooting for Devotion, or RG for fat and removal. Black didn't impress me much at all, especially with its removal being so expensive.
Curse of Swine is the closest thing to a board sweeper that I saw, besides slightly-bigger-Pyroclasm. Has anyone crunched the numbers RG on average power/toughness of the set?
It's not sporting the most impressive cards in and of themselves, but it has draw, the deathtouch eidolon, decent evasion, direct damage, lifegain, Morbid Plunder variant (which should be neat with Bestow,) a touch of mill, removal, etc... IOW, what black always gets, which is a toolbox. Plus there are some gravy uncommons like Rescue from the Underworld, Mogis' Marauder, and Keepsake Gorgon.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
- Black has a Giant Growth, more or less, which is weird. (Boon of Erebos)
- I guess Blue's game plan is the old "attack with small fliers, block with walls" approach. I was skeptical because it seems easy to make something that can punch through blue's walls (they're mostly not that big), and blue lacks an Essence Scatter or Claustrophobia or even a Cancel to hold off big things. However, Voyage's End, Griptide, and Annul actually give Blue a very solid counter plan against someone trying to break through with Heroes and Auras. Against someone just trying to break through with big monsters, I think the plan becomes "kill them first with 2-power fliers", which is a little shakier. Nessian Asp in particular seems like an absolute terror against your typical Blue deck.
One upshot is that I'm still a little iffy on Blue in Sealed. I think Blue is fundamentally on a tempo plan (2-3 mana 2-power fliers, walls against aggro, race against monsters/rare bombs), which tends to be better in Draft.
- I think I understand what Ephara's Warden (white 4-mana 1/2, taps creatures with < 4 power) is doing now. It seems like it will often be pretty poor defensively, but it taps down walls like a champ ( I'm including things like Coastline Chimera in "walls"). I think this is supposed to be a late game card for aggressive white weenie strategies to break through the set's many defensive creatures (low-power guys with high toughness/deathtouch/regeneration).
- The removal situation is mostly average to slightly weaker than usual (Blue doesn't really have any except some tempo stuff, Green has one decent Fight spell and can kill enchantments and fliers, Red and Black have plenty though most is expensive). The exception seems to be White, which is normally one of the "removal colors", but this time around has an extremely poor common removal suite. The best one is Divine Verdict. Yikes.
Pretty sure White is committed to the beatdown plan in this set.
Also, by my count there are 3 common defenders (1 artifact 3-drop, 1 black 2-drop, 1 blue 5-drop), and the only uncommon is the horse, so the Prowler's Helm is pretty close to "equipped creature is unblockable".
Actually, the only things that can block it are creatures with the type "Wall." So that leaves Mnemonic Wall.
Wait... since that card is made for combo decks, can we call it Johnny Mnemonic Wall?
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Also: Hey, it's the invisibility helmet from the original Clash of the Titans! Neat!
This seems particularly relevant to black decks, as there are a number of life-as-resource cards; then again, WOTC seems to have realized this and planted a number of lifegain cards in black, too.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
I'm not too sure... still trying to translate it.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
Draft base green and grab every land fetcher, you should be good to hit all your land drops and then some.
Well, if we want to imagine a 5-color deck, we're really talking about Opaline Unicorn, Traveler's Amulet, Nylea's Presence, and the Simmering Grotto functional reprint. (Acolyte, Burnished Hart, and Ordeal are all uncommon, Acolyte doesn't fix mana, and Ordeal is unreliable as a ramp spell.)
Still that's a surprising amount of 5-color fixing at common, much more than I expected. It's even mostly colorless. Good catch.
I don't know about 5-color ramp as an actual archetype, but at minimum splashing should actually be pretty easy. That'll be a nice change from M14, where "splashing" seems to mean "Playing more than one color."
It's pretty bizarre, but I think it's extremely good. It's a one mana double heroic enabler. On a tempo-offense plan, you get to attack with more creatures and nail them with a Frost Breath. On defense, you can get up to a 2-for-1 and take the creatures you can't kill out of commission for two of your attack steps and another one of theirs.
It might be tricky to use correctly, but I think it's always worth a card at the very least, and it only costs 1 mana.
Cubetutor Link
1. The creatures.
white
creature cavalry pegasus 2/1/1 Flying (C)
creature decorated griffin 5/2/3 Flying (U) activation prevents damage
devotion creature evangel of heliod 6/1/3 (U)
creature wingsteed rider 3/2/2 Flying and Heroic (C)
blue
creature breaching hippocamp 4/3/2 Flash (C)
creature horizon scholar 6/4/4 Flying and Scry 2 (U)
creature omenspeaker 2/1/3 Scry 2 (C)
creature prescient chimera 5/3/4 Scry 1 for I+S (C)
creature vaporkin 2/2/1 Flying and only blocks Flying (C)
black
creature blood-toll harpy 3/2/1 Flying ETB opp -1 life (C)
devotion creature gray merchant of ephodel 5/2/4 (C)
devotion creature mogi's marauder 3/2/2 (U)
creature insatiable harpy 4/2/2 Flying, Lifelink (U)
red
devotion creature fanatic of mogis 4/4/2 (U)
creature minotaur skullcleaver 3/2/2 Haste (C)
green
devotion creature nylea's disciple 4/3/3 (C)
creature sedge scorpion 1/1/1 deathtouch (C)
2. Artifacts
equipment 2+2 Flying and Haste (C)
equipment 1+1 Scry 1 (U)
3. Control and removal
white
instant divine verdict 3 destroy attacking or blocking creature (C)
instant last breath 2 exile power 2 or less creature opp plus 4 life (C)
instant ray of dissolution 3 destroy enchantment gain 3 life (C)
blue
instant annul 1 counter artifact or enchantment (C)
instant griptide 4 creature on top of owner's library (C)
instant dissolve 3 counterspell, scry 1 (U)
sorcery thassa's bounty 6 draw three cards mill 3 (C)
instant stymied hopes 1 counterspell pay 1 scry 1 (C)
instant voyage's end 2 creature to owner's hand scry 1 (C)
black
sorcery read the bones 3 scry 2 draw 2 pay 2 life (C)
instant pharika's cure 2 2 damage to creature gain 2 life (C)
e-a viper's kiss 1 -1/-1 to creature disable abilities (C)
red
instant lightning strike 2 3 damage C+P (C)
instant magma jet 2 2 damage C+P scry 2 (U)
sorcery portent of betrayal 4 'treason' (C)
sorcery rage of purphoros 5 4 damage to creature scry 1 (C)
instant spark jolt 1 1 damage C+P scry 1 (C)
green
instant artisan's sorrow 4 'naturalize' scry 2 (U)
instant defend the hearth 2 crature or enchantment from top five cards (C)
sorcery fade into antiquity 3 'exile naturalize' (C)
instant shredding winds 3 7 damage to flyer (C)
artifact
flamecast wheel 1+5 3 damage to creature (U)
4. Heroic enablers (in addition to the ordeals)
white
instant battlewise valor 2 +2/+2 EOT scry 1 (C)
e-a chosen by heliod 2 +0/+2 draw 1 (C)
instant dauntless onslaught 3 [two creatures] +2/+2 EOT (U)
blue
instant triton tactics 1 [two creatures] EOT blocker and tapper (U)
black
instant cutthroat maneuver 4 [two creatures] +1/+1 and lifelink (U)
e-a scourgemark 2 ETB draw 1 +1/+0 to creature (C)
red
instant coordinated assault 1 [two creatures] EOT +1/+0 first strike (U)
e-a dragon mantle 1 ETB draw 1 1 red mana for +1/+0 pumper (C)
e-a messenger's speed 1 trample and haste (C)
instant titan's strength 1 +3/+1 EOT scry 1 (C)
green
e-a feral invocation 3 flash +2/+2 (C)
instant savage surge EOT +2/+2 untap it (C)
instant warriors' lesson 1 [two creatures] draw card when deals combat to player (U)
5. Heroic
white
favored hoplite 1/1/2 +1/+1 counter prevent EOT damage (U)
phalanx leader 2/1/1 +1/+1 counter on each creature (U)
blue
triton fortune hunter 3/2/2 draw 1 (U)
wavecrash triton 3/1/4 tap opp creature (C)
red
akroan crusader 1/1/1 place 1/1 token with haste (C)
arena athlete 2/2/1 opp creature can't block (U)
green
centaur battlemaster 5/3/3 three +1/+1 counters (U)
staunch-hearted warrior 4/2/2 two +1/+1 counters (C)
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