What i don't like about him is how he picks individualism as black's top "psychological" facete and decadence as it's imediate consequence.
Also in white's interview he created a too strong bound between morals and altruism. I'm not expert phylosopher but i'm pretty sure morals has much more to do with self ruling and respect for the others then properly helping others.
I can choose to not help or do something that might hurt others if i believe this is the moraly right thing to do. Using third party for moral criteria is failure imo as normaly your actions will have good and bad repercussion over different people, no matter what you do.
In short i like his construction of Blue, Red and Green but I've my own vision on Black and White (based on the flavor of the game).
I think we have a great deal of color pie and color philosophy articles. Unless he takes another step and actually start to evolve those concepts in more internally consistent ones, the writing will be the repetition of the same things. Unfortuenly =/
I think what he implied is "If Rakdos guild is running contracts, they will ask blood (life) not public information and mana".
I think Rakdos keyword will have something to do with discarding cards from your own hand. Imo Hellbent was one of the worst keywords in original RAV block cause there was no way to quickly dump your hand or make use of discarded cards.
You didn't read his full card - the first part does not, the rest of the effect that cares how many cards are exiled does however.
The card gets "powered up" by how many cards you have in exile under his theorized card - which Haunt still exiles things normally - just the card uses its keyword to build up the exile zone in a different way.
It's a little wonky to be right, but of the ideas pitched so far, it's the first one that actually makes me think "Hey, I'd use that with the old cards" that actually seems a printable power level.
Haunt those combo with the card's second ability (the exile trigger) not the keyword.
Also that keyword doesn't have any value except trigger other abilities of other cards... I dunno if wotc would desing something like that. Not to mention the keyword is "pointless" if you use it in heavy Orzhov decks (i played haunt decks on RAV block and one characteristic of the Orzhov is have "clean graveyards" cause you play alot of cards with haunt).
I suppose. My concern would be that, without Terminus, even the most creature-heavy agro decks would be unlikely to have more than 30 creatures meaning you have a 50 percent chance of milling a creature for 3 manna. That means stand-alone Cellar Door is six manna over two turns investment for a 2/2 token return. That doesn’t include the 2 to cost the Cellar Door in the first place and the fact that the door itself is taking up one to four of your sixty card slots.
I would argue that, in a Standard environment (current or post rotation), Cellar Door represents a very poor use of resources- even if it’s pumping your 2/2 tokens through Scavenge. One might argue that it has value in a stalled game but then why not just run Army of the Damned and swing next turn for win?
So, let’s imagine there’s a Scavange for 1 out there that will add 1 +1/+1 counter. Turn 1 Arbor Elf. Turn 2 Cellar Door. Turn 3 use cellar door, win the coin flip and put a 2/2 zombie into play off a Scavange 1 creature, Arbor elf for scavenge to give you a 3/3 zombie. Turn 4 swing with 3/3. I don’t really think that’s very strong. It’s certainly confusing, but not very strong.
Scenario 2. Lets imagine there’s a Scavange for 5 out there that will add 4 +1/+1 counters. Turn 1 Arbor Elf. Turn 2 Cellar Door. Turn 3 use cellar door, in the coin flip and put a 2/2 zombie into play off said Scavange 5 creature. Turn 4 Scavange to swing with a 6/6 creature. I guess that’s better. Still not sure it’s competitive thought.
The thing is, you have an 3/3 or 6/6 token creature using only 1 card in your hand. If you keep doing that you may get 2 or more creatures w/o using cards.
This would only be relevant in a meta with a bunch of control decks where card advantage compensates lack of speed. Normaly you would play Arbor Elf and drop your hand, get swipped by Terminus or Bonfire and then use Cellar Door as you keep drawing cards and using Scavenge to pump your tokens. Wait your opponent swippe your board again to drop the cards you got while treatening him with Cellar's zombies. You can play ramp creatures to filter lands, increasing your odds of milling a creature with Cellar's.
I agree thats not the kind of stuff that would work nowdays because if your opponent drop his finisher chances are your 2/2 tokens will be useless even if your have like 4 of then.
As long as the past events are not irrelevant, i'm happy. The end of the guilds did not happen but there was some big changes in some guilds and i hope they use those changes in the story structure.
And the hate lines in the end of the article sucked for several reasons... First i expected more balanced opnion from Selesnya about some other guilds (Azorius specially). And i think a Selesnyan should be more sofisticated in in his insults about guilds they hate.
(...) to pay respects to the tree or utilize the properties of its magical auras.
Living temples. These are moderately sized to enormous organic elementals that dwell beneath the ground and exist for most of their lives as root structures with their aboveground vines and tendrils holding masonry in place. This masonry is often a temple or an amphitheater that Selesnyans use in day-to-day life. If threatened, a priest or shaman can summon the living temple and the whole elemental rises from under the earth, the chunks and pieces of masonry still incorporated into its body for use as armor or weapons. After it defeats its foes, the living temple then returns under the earth and assembles its stonework back into place as if nothing had happened.
Maybe i'm reading too much in this but maybe Selesnya has a enchantment subtheme ?
Those living temples really reminds me of Enchantments that becomes creatures until EOT.
You can use Cellar Door to mill a scavange creature and then use scavenge to pump the token. It's cool cause you can keep the threat w/o using cards from your hand. This could be interesting when control decks didn't had such good finishers and a bunch of 2/2 tokens would compete with then. Maybe with rotation the power level of finishers will drop (wurmcoil, titans, consacrated sphinx) and building 2/2 token turn by turn will mean something...
Haunt has two "parts": exile your own cards and put a death trigger when another card dies. So the new mechanic gotta deal with one of those. Since they avoid dealing with the exile zone, i think it should be a keyword that evolves permanent destruction/sacrifice.
I think a tax keyword would be cool because you could haunt your own cards and choose when you would skipe the tax and trigger the haunt. Or you could tax your oponent cards and he the effect of not paying the tax would be even greater ! Tematically it fits the Orzhov both ways.
I think errata is not needed, despite this effect already existing in some cards. A keyword is keyword, it can be used to trigger other cards. Also tax can also have other costs. I think 'return land to your hand' could be sweet, but the cards would need to be REALLY strong !
I wonder what they will do. Maybe 2 cmc, enters tapped and t to add one of the two manas ? I dunno if this already existe... Or maybe this is too much like the original ones ?
Well, milling your opponent is strong, however milling yourself is also strong as long as you have the right deck. And that right deck just happened to be too strong.
I think we could agree that playing cards from your graveyard is fun, but not when you have that much card advantage.
Yeah, i mean, milling yourself is good when you build around it. Reanimation, goyfs (and similar effects), cheap flashbacks, creatures that comeback alone, strong threshhold cards... I mean, some people casually try to play a mill deck but how many times you lost for that ?
What i'm trying to say is milling yourself as an cost is not right. Because theres only one strategy out there that only a very few people play that will take advantage of that. While there are dozen of ways you can use the self mill at your own gain... Imo Dredge was very fun (cause it boosted itself) but a really strong keyword cause it's pure advantage w/o real loss (you can get stuff from your gy and mill yourself for that!). While most of RAV keywords had some drawback to activate (over priced populate cards, clunky simic creatures...).
Despite this keyword being little bit too "simple" i think it is a fair play. I like limited more and the only thing i disliked on RAV was how Dregde creatures was sort of OP on that format. So, yeah, i'm happy to see some "weak" keywords !
^ Over the post above, I think the Only reason that happened is because of those dredge grave self mill combo decks!
Because Dredge's uses are different from the initial design. Dredge was made mainly to add card quality to your deck (you can choose cards from your graveyard to play, increasing the number of options). I"ve no idea why they think milling is a negative effect (cost). Milling your opponent is not a well succeeded strategy while milling yourself is.
Also in white's interview he created a too strong bound between morals and altruism. I'm not expert phylosopher but i'm pretty sure morals has much more to do with self ruling and respect for the others then properly helping others.
I can choose to not help or do something that might hurt others if i believe this is the moraly right thing to do. Using third party for moral criteria is failure imo as normaly your actions will have good and bad repercussion over different people, no matter what you do.
In short i like his construction of Blue, Red and Green but I've my own vision on Black and White (based on the flavor of the game).
I think we have a great deal of color pie and color philosophy articles. Unless he takes another step and actually start to evolve those concepts in more internally consistent ones, the writing will be the repetition of the same things. Unfortuenly =/
I'm not. Seriously, i don't see that synergy, can you show me ?
I think Rakdos keyword will have something to do with discarding cards from your own hand. Imo Hellbent was one of the worst keywords in original RAV block cause there was no way to quickly dump your hand or make use of discarded cards.
Haunt those combo with the card's second ability (the exile trigger) not the keyword.
Also that keyword doesn't have any value except trigger other abilities of other cards... I dunno if wotc would desing something like that. Not to mention the keyword is "pointless" if you use it in heavy Orzhov decks (i played haunt decks on RAV block and one characteristic of the Orzhov is have "clean graveyards" cause you play alot of cards with haunt).
The thing is, you have an 3/3 or 6/6 token creature using only 1 card in your hand. If you keep doing that you may get 2 or more creatures w/o using cards.
This would only be relevant in a meta with a bunch of control decks where card advantage compensates lack of speed. Normaly you would play Arbor Elf and drop your hand, get swipped by Terminus or Bonfire and then use Cellar Door as you keep drawing cards and using Scavenge to pump your tokens. Wait your opponent swippe your board again to drop the cards you got while treatening him with Cellar's zombies. You can play ramp creatures to filter lands, increasing your odds of milling a creature with Cellar's.
I agree thats not the kind of stuff that would work nowdays because if your opponent drop his finisher chances are your 2/2 tokens will be useless even if your have like 4 of then.
And the hate lines in the end of the article sucked for several reasons... First i expected more balanced opnion from Selesnya about some other guilds (Azorius specially). And i think a Selesnyan should be more sofisticated in in his insults about guilds they hate.
Maybe i'm reading too much in this but maybe Selesnya has a enchantment subtheme ?
Those living temples really reminds me of Enchantments that becomes creatures until EOT.
Can't.. contain... the hype.. i'm drolling...
I think a tax keyword would be cool because you could haunt your own cards and choose when you would skipe the tax and trigger the haunt. Or you could tax your oponent cards and he the effect of not paying the tax would be even greater ! Tematically it fits the Orzhov both ways.
I think errata is not needed, despite this effect already existing in some cards. A keyword is keyword, it can be used to trigger other cards. Also tax can also have other costs. I think 'return land to your hand' could be sweet, but the cards would need to be REALLY strong !
Golgari could have Pernicious Deed.
Yeah, i mean, milling yourself is good when you build around it. Reanimation, goyfs (and similar effects), cheap flashbacks, creatures that comeback alone, strong threshhold cards... I mean, some people casually try to play a mill deck but how many times you lost for that ?
What i'm trying to say is milling yourself as an cost is not right. Because theres only one strategy out there that only a very few people play that will take advantage of that. While there are dozen of ways you can use the self mill at your own gain... Imo Dredge was very fun (cause it boosted itself) but a really strong keyword cause it's pure advantage w/o real loss (you can get stuff from your gy and mill yourself for that!). While most of RAV keywords had some drawback to activate (over priced populate cards, clunky simic creatures...).
Despite this keyword being little bit too "simple" i think it is a fair play. I like limited more and the only thing i disliked on RAV was how Dregde creatures was sort of OP on that format. So, yeah, i'm happy to see some "weak" keywords !
Because Dredge's uses are different from the initial design. Dredge was made mainly to add card quality to your deck (you can choose cards from your graveyard to play, increasing the number of options). I"ve no idea why they think milling is a negative effect (cost). Milling your opponent is not a well succeeded strategy while milling yourself is.