Avacyn has been around for way longer than Nahiri has been missing.
I'm genuinely curious where you're getting this from. The article about Nahiri's awakening from her hibernation puts her going off in search of Sorin at about 1000 years ago. The best guess I can get for Avacyn's appearance is from Vault of the Archangel, which says that she kept the world in balance for centuries.
None that I've seen that were both pale and have white hair. The Voice of the Provinces and Herald of War are both pale, but their hair is clearly blond, not white. All of the Angels I was able to find from Innistrad block (barring those who you can't really tell) had hair/skin colors that matched real Humans...except Avacyn.
The Helvault is specifically silver, while Nahiri has an affinity for stone, not Silver. The Helvault is not a Hedron, it's a chunk of Innistrad's moon.
Excellent point. I thought that this was one of the weaker observations, and came after I'd already come to the conclusion. That said, I only meant to say that it was reminiscent in shape to a hedron and also had the purpose of imprisoning things. Also, while Nahiri chiefly worked with stone, the UR where she's on a dying world before meeting up with Sorin and Ugin (I think it's from around the time of the Commander decks last year) has her pulling a metal sword from the ground. That is chiefly from her expertise with rock, but she wasn't incapable of working with metal.
If Avacyn ends up being Nahiri, rather than just a construct like we've been led to believe, I'm going to be seriously annoyed because that's a twist for the sake of a twist and nothing built on what has been established.
Totally fair reaction, that said, narratively speaking it makes a whole lot of sense for the story to move in that direction. I guess I'm saying that there was at least a small seed planted for this.
I'm not sure quite how tinfoil hat I'm being at the moment. Or maybe this isn't crazy and everyone has already figured this out and I'm behind on this one.
Today I was thinking about the abrupt return to Innistrad after BFZ and was thinking about how the story seems to be hinting something about Avacyn. Then, in an unrelated string of thoughts, I heard someone thinking about a new Sorin to come. That got me trying to think about what Sorin was up to after meeting with Ugin: finding Nahiri. That made me wonder why he might be back in Innistrad if that were the case (note that this is still working off someone else's speculation of a new Sorin). I know from the Uncharted Realms that Nahiri woke up from her hibernation earlier to stop an previous unleashing of the Eldrazi and then left to find Sorin. That got me to thinking.
I think Sorin transformed Nahiri into Avacyn. Sure he was still an oldwalker at the time with god-like power, but what if he used her as the base for the new angel he was creating to protect the humans of Innistrad. That's a task closely suited to Nahiri's personality as we've seen it.
Sure enough, I went and reread the story where Sorin and Ugin are reunited. Here's the relevant bit:
The notion of shame had long since evaporated from Sorin. Over the millennia, Sorin's human frailties and neurosis had grown, blossomed, and withered away—he was as immune to regret as he was to old age. And yet, for the first time in years, an uncomfortable feeling grew within him, an unpleasant itch, the sense that he was responsible—solely—for something important going awry. It wasn't remorse exactly, just a dull, discordant echo ringing in the space where remorse had once resided.
"She is—not here," said Sorin, to no particular patch of air.
"That is clear," said Ugin. "I inquired about her whereabouts. Is she still on Zendikar? We should rejoin her, as soon as I am able to travel."
"I do not believe that she is there," Sorin said carefully.
Ugin's neck pleats fanned in irritation. "Speak facts, you vague thing. She's dead?"
"No," said Sorin. "She lives." The fuller extent of the truth was not something Ugin needed to know at this time, in Sorin's estimation. "I think I may know where she might be."
That sounds like Sorin's done something to her, but that she's still around.
I then was looking at the picture of Nahiri given in that article (from her planewalker card), and it really reminded me of Avacyn. Intrigued, I pulled up the pictures of all of the other legendary angels from Avacyn Restored and they look like winged humans. When I pulled up Avacyn's art, she looks more like a Kor to me.
TLDR points:
-Sorin's comments and inner monologue point toward him having done something serious with Nahiri, but that's she's around still.
-Normal angels on Innistrad have the coloring of normal humans, while Avacyn has the typical coloring of a Kor.
-It explains why we're going back to Innistrad right after BFZ
Am I being crazy? Is this something everyone else knows? I don't know.
Edit: I also just realized that if you're looking for it, the Helvault looks something like a super crude hedron.
It's not really just as easy to keep track of life with a regular d20. It requires either memorization of the numbers' positions or time taken to look for the next number for every life change. On a spindown, the numbers are all easily locatable and for changes of 1-2 life require very little work at all.
That said, I agree that d20s would be more useful, and might discourage more people from using nothing but the spindowns to keep track of life at FNMs/prereleases (even though that's why they're included).
I think both U/B and Sultai Control are viable at the moment, as are a whole host of other decks.
I personally prefer Sultai because it has a more proactive gameplan, and I like the easier use of delve spells. Also, I already had all the expensive stuff for Sultai and would have had to invest more to get into U/B. Oh, and planeswalkers are sweet. I think against the general field, Sultai has a better array of matchups, but that an average game for U/B is more consistent than an average game for Sultai.
Regarding the U/B-Sultai matchup, it's not very good for Sultai. The amount of countermagic in the U/B deck is fairly difficult to overcome, and they still have Hero's Downfall to take care of the things that get through. This is a match where they have better answers than we have threats. I'm not claiming to be great with the deck, nor to have many reps in the matchup, but I have yet to even snag a game against UB while playing Sultai.
Jivanmukta, it's funny you should ask people to listen to Maro's podcast for insight into these things. I went back and transcibed a portion of the Scourge set breakdown where he talks about the creation of Form of the Dragon. It's about 5 minutes into Part 2, if you want to listen to it yourself. Here you go:
“Next, Form of the Dragon.
Costs 7 mana 4 Red Red Red. It’s an enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, you deal 5 damage to target creature or player, at the end of the turn your life drops to five, and creatures without flying can’t attack you. YOU HAVE BECOME A DRAGON!
Now when I talk about top-down cards, Vorthosian. Cards for Vorthos, cards which are dripping with flavor, this is the example. This is probably Brian (Tinsman)’s best design. This is, like, I think if you ask Brian the best thing he ever designed at Wizards, this might be it. The thing is quite quite beautiful. I would later make fun of it in Unhinged with Form of the Squirrel.
Now, this card is interesting. So one of the abilities of the card, obviously it does 5 damage every turn, you breathe fire, you do damage to whatever. Red does that fine. Drop your life total to 5, ehh, red will do stuff like that. It’ll make you take, you know, have some gain and some loss.
The last one though, can’t be attacked except by flying creatures, you might know that as MOAT, Moat is a white card, it is not a red card. One of the big debates on this card is that this ability isn’t red, this is a white ability. So at the time, what we said is, look, the card is going for this overall effect, the overall effect is that you are a dragon. It is important that you are a dragon that you are flying, because we make dragons fly. Okay, we’re going to make you, the player, fly. And we decided, you know, one of the things that’s important to realize is…
One second. Sorry, my mirror was bent.
One of the things we realized was that sometimes you can bend the color by a little bit when the overall flavor is so strong. Like while, that ability in a vacuum is not red, the ability as a whole is very red. Turning yourself into a dragon is very red. It definitely has a risky quality to it. It definitely has, the card evokes a very sense of red and so we let it go.
It is careful. You have to be very careful where and how you bend the color pie. You don’t want to break it. The big thing here is, it is not like red is supposed to be particularly vulnerable to ground creatures and somehow giving red this ability lets red undo some inherent weakness built into the color. So when you are messing with the color pie, it’s important that you don’t undo what the colors are supposed to not be able to do. And this is not that, it’s not like red doesn’t have means to protect on the ground, so we felt that it is okay."
He specifically calls out Form of the Dragon as a beautiful design, and given how recently he said this, the age of the card shouldn't be a factor. And though he mentions caution with regard to bending the color pie, but that it's okay because the ability doesn't completely get rid of an innate weakness the color is supposed to have. I would argue that putting Moat onto a card is a far bigger bend of the color pie than allowing red to destroy some creatures. In the end, the card is evocative of changing a swath of creatures into Dragons, and the mechanics were made secondary to that.
can someone tell me what happens if you cast arcbond on a lifelink creature and you kill yourself by the damage? does the lifelink happen before the you drop below 0 life?
Lifelink happens at the same time damage is done, so you'll gain the life as you're taking the damage. If for some reason all other damage other than to you is prevented you'll still end up at the same life total you started (you gain just as much as you take), any damage done to anything else would make you go up.
Since I was both concerned about availability and impatient, I obtained the red one from Wal-Mart on Thursday night (before they were supposed to be on the shelves) at $34.98. Then today, I got the white one from my LGS for $34.99 (before a discount that I usually get from them). So they're available here at retail price. The price for a set of all 5 at the LGS is $150. As for physical availability, Wal-Mart had plenty of all colors when I was there (though it was before most people would have known to look), and later tonight the LGS was out of red, white, and green but is getting a new shipment in soon.
FNM promos are easily accessible cards chiefly because of the following reason: FNM is supposed to be a low-key event where there isn't much on the line. If you're competing for a $5 Dissolve promo, people are going to be far less incentivized to either cheat or bring nothing but Tier 1 decks, which would drive away more casual players. FNM is supposed to be the home of the average Magic player, and raising the stakes for the event has the chance to drive them out of that environment.
Judge promos evolved from rare things that were sent to thank Judges for their hard work to being the standard method of Wizards compensating Judges for working at GPs (in addition to the tournament organizer's contribution) and attending conferences. As such, making them rare cards allowed Judges to pay for their travel expenses to attend these events without spending too much money out of pocket. This is changing again, and Judge promos are likely to be much more uncommon in the future as Wizards will no longer be doing them for GPs and the burden of comepensating Judges will fall fully upon the TOs.
A far better comparison you're looking for is with GP promos, which often are fairly good cards that see some play and have some value: Batterskull, Primeval Titan, Goblin Guide, Umezawa's Jitte have all been GP promos and Griselbrand is on the schedule for next year. This is more appropriate given that these are given to all participants (or at least to the extent of availability) and the event is much more prestigious than FNM.
1) Istvan, due to him reducing all Creature Based damage, is immune to Infect, correct?
2) Assuming you deal six damage with Istvan to a Blightsteel Colossus (or any Indestructible creature) and then Dismember it, does that cause the creature to die?
This is probably better left for the Rulings section, but here I go.
1) You're correct, like Wither, Infect replaces how damage is recorded. Something that prevents that damage from occurring doesn't care how the damage will be dealt.
2) No, it will live. When you reduce the toughness of the creature, it'll be a 6/6 with 6 damage marked on it. Since it's indestructible, that won't cause it to die (despite what Duels of the Planeswalkers tells us, damage doesn't reduce toughness).
3. Blue has seriously hefty card draw. By hefty, I mean cubeworthy. You have Brainstorm (prioritize landcycling with it), Compulsive Research, Fact or Fiction, and Breakthrough all at common and uncommon. That said, the rest of the color looks pretty low-powered, so I'd make it a priority support color.
Having done a couple of 4 person drafts of the set so far, I just wanted to reiterate this. Caveat: a 4-person draft is going to be already warped fundamentally. In both draft, blue was fairly open and had someone really decided to move all in on it, they could clean up (including me one game). When discussing afterwards, we decided that that was in large part due to the fact that the "excitement level" of the blue cards was pretty low. The power level was pretty high but it was focused pretty much on the card draw side of the spectrum. As such, it looks to be better as a supporting color (with the exception of the U/W flyers deck).
Dethrone seems like it got more focus than you would have thought. People were constantly checking life totals in order to hit the "dethrone target," or taking various lines to keep themselves from being that guy. Among other things, one player got the Treacherous Ogre up to a 5/6 before it got neutralized and used its ability to keep himself from being the target and cast his spells.
I'll go ahead and add my success at Game Day to this thread. I've been sick of playing nothing but Esper control since October, so I borrowed someone else's Mono Blue Devotion for FNM this past week. Due to the regular crowd of Mono Black players going to GP: Atlanta, I pretty much wrecked house with it, so I got permission to borrow it again for Game Day (the owner was going to be out of town anyway). The list was pretty much bog standard for Mono Blue, just about the same list everyone comes up with when they slam it together, except he could only loan me 2 Mutavaults. I filled those spots with an Island and a second Nykthos and went to town. Only 10 people showed up because the Grand Prix was all of 90 minutes away from the store (I couldn't have spared the time or money to go, so I was stuck with just Game Day).
Round 1- RDW- This guy rarely shows up, but he's a decent player and builds solid decks. He tries to keep me off devotion by killing my early plays, but had no answers for 3 Nightveil Specters in a row, who were conveniently large enough to hold off his whole team. Had he been a little more aggressive in trying to get past my Specters, he'd have probably gotten me. Game 2 started quickly for him with a multiple Burning-Tree Emissary draw, but petered out as soon as I was able to drop a Master of Waves for 3 tokens, followed by another the next turn for 4 more.
1-0
Round 2- Mono-Blue, splashing White- Fairly regular player around the shop, but tends to make rash decisions. He took down Game 1 by taking the control route with Supreme Verdicts and Detention Spheres to keep my creatures in line. We both had to mulligan to 6 for Game 2, and his was pretty sketchy. I was able to curve out perfectly and tie it up. Another double mulligan started game 3, but I kept the sketchier hand this time around: just one island. I topdecked pretty perfectly and was able to use 3 sideboarded Gainsays to keep him in check. Even so, we traded blows and were both low heading into a board stall. I managed to make it through with a Nightveil Specter and hit a Thassa off the top of his deck and he conceded.
2-0
Round 3- Boros Aggro- She was a player visiting from another store a town over. I knew her in passing, but hadn't played against her before. This was the second toughest match I played all day. Had she been better about remembering her Soldier of the Pantheon triggers, I'd have been toast. I had to mulligan to 6 in Game 1, and kept a mediocre hand. I was hoping to stabilize based on a couple of Master of Waves, but Banishing Light took each away as they came out. Game 2, I got lucky and she never drew a 3rd land while I ran over her. Game 3 got interesting, as I was able to blunt her early aggresion with Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mages. She was able to stop my Thassa and Domestication on Brimaz with Banishing Lights. I was falling behind on the race, until I blocked a lethal Boros Charm with a Dispel and followed it up with an overloaded Cyclonic Rift which was able to allow me to swing for the fences and the win.
3-0
Round 4- Boros Burn- This was actually the 8 year old son of my opponent from Round 1, and if he won, we'd have had to play again in the finals next round. I wasn't about to give in to him, since the matchup looked to favor him, and I'd rather have had 2 chances to beat it than 1. This was by far the match I had to get luckiest to win. I got a great hand Game 1 and was able to capitalize on his inexperience and reluctance to be as fully aggressive as he could have been. Judge's Familiar actually managed to counter a clutch Lightning Strike against Nightveil Specter that would have actually worked if he'd played a land first that turn. Game 2 gave me no such opportunity for advantage. I kept a weak hand, light on early creatures and he stomped me into the ground before I could possibly recover. Perhaps the best game the whole day was Game 3. We both got off to strong starts, I ended up at 8 life and had to use Domestication to steal one of his Soldier of the Pantheons, which turned out to be a good choice when he showed double Boros Charm. Nevertheless, he'd committed so many resources to the plan of burning me out that he was out of cards and showing a Dispel in hand got me the concession. I told the kid that I really hoped to see more of him, and that he'll be a heck of a player with just a little more experience under his belt.
4-0, and since there were only 10 people we skipped a Top 4 and headed straight for the Finals
Finals- RDW- My round 1 opponent went on a serious tear after I'd beaten him and came back to be in second place, so we had a rematch for the finals. Game 1 went to him as my inexperience with the deck led me to keep a hand that looked okay, but wasn't as good as expected. He eventually won via Purphoros triggers and burn spells. Game 2 wasn't really a thing that happened, since he mulliganed to 5, kept 1 land and never saw another. Game 3 saw me keep the sketchiest hand imaginable (1 Island as the only land, no 1 drops, and lots of double blue costs) and then proceed to rip the best possible card at every turn. I even agreed with my opponent and spectators that it was amazing. The deck decided it wanted to win, and only criminal misplays from me would have allowed that. I walked away with the Game Day playmat, but gave my own (the SCG Pandas one) away to 2nd place for his two kids and in recognition of how well he played.
TLDR: Some days, all the stars aline and you get as lucky as you could ever hope to be. My best opponents were out of town. The meta was almost uniquely weak to the deck I brought. I topdecked spectacularly all day. And my opponents made key errors. I was sickeningly lucky.
I've seen the poster in person, but didn't think to take a picture of it. I'd assumed someone else would have done so and posted it.
I like this challenge deck, and look forward to seeing what will happen with it. Looks like main-decking Ratchet Bomb is a pretty good catch-all plan for neutering it, same as the previous two. I look forward to trying to kill Xenagos with a Far//Away.
I did 2 prereleases, and did well in both of them with pretty excellent pools and good prize packs.
Went for the White promo at the midnight event. Got an Ajani and a fairly solid WG deck, splashing U for Sudden Storm and Sea God's Revenge. I was sorely tempted to make an attempt at the Chromanticore deck, but decided not to risk a solid pool on something like that. Ajani won me every game I drew him except one, which was beyond saving anyhow. That cat pulled me to victory through some rough resistance, and only ever bricked on his top 4 cards +1 once. Honestly though, the Sea God's Revenge won me more games over the course of the day. Went 4-0-2 into the top 8 (ID'ed the last few rounds because I was already locked and was getting tired), wherein I swiftly lost to double mana screw (also it being 6am). Pulled Keranos and Iroas in prize packs.
Vote for most surprisingly effective card for this one goes to Deserter's Quarters. I knew it was colorless pseudo-removal, but not whether or not that would be good enough or if I could comfortably get to 6 mana with it regularly. I was pleased with how often it did good work, though it did spent a couple of games doing nothing while I died at 4-5 mana.
Went for Black at the Saturday afternoon event. Ended up with 2 King Macar, the Gold-Curseds and a Whip of Erebos. After some debate with myself, I decided to go with UB over the GB that would fully utilize my scryland. I was able to make great use of the various instant speed untapping tricks (Crypsis, Triton Tactics, Thassa's Ire) with Macar to grind out ridiculous advantage. Went 3-1-1 into Top 8, where the general exhaustion and illness levels were sufficient to convince everyone to split. Only thing of note in prize packs was a Prophetic Flamespeaker.
Most consistent card in the deck was easily Thassa's Ire. Not only did it allow me to virtually lock some opponents out of creatures with Macar (even at 8 mana, repeatable instant speed removal is still excellent), but it won several games for me by keeping bombs tapped down while I flew over the top for the win. The fact that it often came down on Turn 1 when I usually didn't have another play was a nice bonus.
Edit: I did notice that aggro was doing very well for itself. Even control decks cannot afford to do nothing for the first few turns. 2/3s for 3 are looking pretty good right now.
As a fringe benefit, you can use this to sacrifice in response to a split second effect (mana abilities can still be used when split second is on the stack). I've used it to get around having my commander taken via Take Possession.
Most often I just use it to power out an early Primal Surge.
I'm genuinely curious where you're getting this from. The article about Nahiri's awakening from her hibernation puts her going off in search of Sorin at about 1000 years ago. The best guess I can get for Avacyn's appearance is from Vault of the Archangel, which says that she kept the world in balance for centuries.
None that I've seen that were both pale and have white hair. The Voice of the Provinces and Herald of War are both pale, but their hair is clearly blond, not white. All of the Angels I was able to find from Innistrad block (barring those who you can't really tell) had hair/skin colors that matched real Humans...except Avacyn.
Excellent point. I thought that this was one of the weaker observations, and came after I'd already come to the conclusion. That said, I only meant to say that it was reminiscent in shape to a hedron and also had the purpose of imprisoning things. Also, while Nahiri chiefly worked with stone, the UR where she's on a dying world before meeting up with Sorin and Ugin (I think it's from around the time of the Commander decks last year) has her pulling a metal sword from the ground. That is chiefly from her expertise with rock, but she wasn't incapable of working with metal.
Totally fair reaction, that said, narratively speaking it makes a whole lot of sense for the story to move in that direction. I guess I'm saying that there was at least a small seed planted for this.
Edit: Wording
Today I was thinking about the abrupt return to Innistrad after BFZ and was thinking about how the story seems to be hinting something about Avacyn. Then, in an unrelated string of thoughts, I heard someone thinking about a new Sorin to come. That got me trying to think about what Sorin was up to after meeting with Ugin: finding Nahiri. That made me wonder why he might be back in Innistrad if that were the case (note that this is still working off someone else's speculation of a new Sorin). I know from the Uncharted Realms that Nahiri woke up from her hibernation earlier to stop an previous unleashing of the Eldrazi and then left to find Sorin. That got me to thinking.
I think Sorin transformed Nahiri into Avacyn. Sure he was still an oldwalker at the time with god-like power, but what if he used her as the base for the new angel he was creating to protect the humans of Innistrad. That's a task closely suited to Nahiri's personality as we've seen it.
Sure enough, I went and reread the story where Sorin and Ugin are reunited. Here's the relevant bit:
That sounds like Sorin's done something to her, but that she's still around.
I then was looking at the picture of Nahiri given in that article (from her planewalker card), and it really reminded me of Avacyn. Intrigued, I pulled up the pictures of all of the other legendary angels from Avacyn Restored and they look like winged humans. When I pulled up Avacyn's art, she looks more like a Kor to me.
TLDR points:
-Sorin's comments and inner monologue point toward him having done something serious with Nahiri, but that's she's around still.
-Normal angels on Innistrad have the coloring of normal humans, while Avacyn has the typical coloring of a Kor.
-It explains why we're going back to Innistrad right after BFZ
Am I being crazy? Is this something everyone else knows? I don't know.
Edit: I also just realized that if you're looking for it, the Helvault looks something like a super crude hedron.
1) The plot will be that Avacyn has changed since coming out of the Helvault, as a result things are going pear-shaped.
2) Playable Tibalt (possibly R/B).
That said, I agree that d20s would be more useful, and might discourage more people from using nothing but the spindowns to keep track of life at FNMs/prereleases (even though that's why they're included).
I personally prefer Sultai because it has a more proactive gameplan, and I like the easier use of delve spells. Also, I already had all the expensive stuff for Sultai and would have had to invest more to get into U/B. Oh, and planeswalkers are sweet. I think against the general field, Sultai has a better array of matchups, but that an average game for U/B is more consistent than an average game for Sultai.
Regarding the U/B-Sultai matchup, it's not very good for Sultai. The amount of countermagic in the U/B deck is fairly difficult to overcome, and they still have Hero's Downfall to take care of the things that get through. This is a match where they have better answers than we have threats. I'm not claiming to be great with the deck, nor to have many reps in the matchup, but I have yet to even snag a game against UB while playing Sultai.
Costs 7 mana 4 Red Red Red. It’s an enchantment. At the beginning of your upkeep, you deal 5 damage to target creature or player, at the end of the turn your life drops to five, and creatures without flying can’t attack you. YOU HAVE BECOME A DRAGON!
Now when I talk about top-down cards, Vorthosian. Cards for Vorthos, cards which are dripping with flavor, this is the example. This is probably Brian (Tinsman)’s best design. This is, like, I think if you ask Brian the best thing he ever designed at Wizards, this might be it. The thing is quite quite beautiful. I would later make fun of it in Unhinged with Form of the Squirrel.
Now, this card is interesting. So one of the abilities of the card, obviously it does 5 damage every turn, you breathe fire, you do damage to whatever. Red does that fine. Drop your life total to 5, ehh, red will do stuff like that. It’ll make you take, you know, have some gain and some loss.
The last one though, can’t be attacked except by flying creatures, you might know that as MOAT, Moat is a white card, it is not a red card. One of the big debates on this card is that this ability isn’t red, this is a white ability. So at the time, what we said is, look, the card is going for this overall effect, the overall effect is that you are a dragon. It is important that you are a dragon that you are flying, because we make dragons fly. Okay, we’re going to make you, the player, fly. And we decided, you know, one of the things that’s important to realize is…
One second. Sorry, my mirror was bent.
One of the things we realized was that sometimes you can bend the color by a little bit when the overall flavor is so strong. Like while, that ability in a vacuum is not red, the ability as a whole is very red. Turning yourself into a dragon is very red. It definitely has a risky quality to it. It definitely has, the card evokes a very sense of red and so we let it go.
It is careful. You have to be very careful where and how you bend the color pie. You don’t want to break it. The big thing here is, it is not like red is supposed to be particularly vulnerable to ground creatures and somehow giving red this ability lets red undo some inherent weakness built into the color. So when you are messing with the color pie, it’s important that you don’t undo what the colors are supposed to not be able to do. And this is not that, it’s not like red doesn’t have means to protect on the ground, so we felt that it is okay."
He specifically calls out Form of the Dragon as a beautiful design, and given how recently he said this, the age of the card shouldn't be a factor. And though he mentions caution with regard to bending the color pie, but that it's okay because the ability doesn't completely get rid of an innate weakness the color is supposed to have. I would argue that putting Moat onto a card is a far bigger bend of the color pie than allowing red to destroy some creatures. In the end, the card is evocative of changing a swath of creatures into Dragons, and the mechanics were made secondary to that.
Edit: Grammar
Lifelink happens at the same time damage is done, so you'll gain the life as you're taking the damage. If for some reason all other damage other than to you is prevented you'll still end up at the same life total you started (you gain just as much as you take), any damage done to anything else would make you go up.
(Edit: (More parentheses!))
Judge promos evolved from rare things that were sent to thank Judges for their hard work to being the standard method of Wizards compensating Judges for working at GPs (in addition to the tournament organizer's contribution) and attending conferences. As such, making them rare cards allowed Judges to pay for their travel expenses to attend these events without spending too much money out of pocket. This is changing again, and Judge promos are likely to be much more uncommon in the future as Wizards will no longer be doing them for GPs and the burden of comepensating Judges will fall fully upon the TOs.
A far better comparison you're looking for is with GP promos, which often are fairly good cards that see some play and have some value: Batterskull, Primeval Titan, Goblin Guide, Umezawa's Jitte have all been GP promos and Griselbrand is on the schedule for next year. This is more appropriate given that these are given to all participants (or at least to the extent of availability) and the event is much more prestigious than FNM.
This is probably better left for the Rulings section, but here I go.
1) You're correct, like Wither, Infect replaces how damage is recorded. Something that prevents that damage from occurring doesn't care how the damage will be dealt.
2) No, it will live. When you reduce the toughness of the creature, it'll be a 6/6 with 6 damage marked on it. Since it's indestructible, that won't cause it to die (despite what Duels of the Planeswalkers tells us, damage doesn't reduce toughness).
Having done a couple of 4 person drafts of the set so far, I just wanted to reiterate this. Caveat: a 4-person draft is going to be already warped fundamentally. In both draft, blue was fairly open and had someone really decided to move all in on it, they could clean up (including me one game). When discussing afterwards, we decided that that was in large part due to the fact that the "excitement level" of the blue cards was pretty low. The power level was pretty high but it was focused pretty much on the card draw side of the spectrum. As such, it looks to be better as a supporting color (with the exception of the U/W flyers deck).
Dethrone seems like it got more focus than you would have thought. People were constantly checking life totals in order to hit the "dethrone target," or taking various lines to keep themselves from being that guy. Among other things, one player got the Treacherous Ogre up to a 5/6 before it got neutralized and used its ability to keep himself from being the target and cast his spells.
Round 1- RDW- This guy rarely shows up, but he's a decent player and builds solid decks. He tries to keep me off devotion by killing my early plays, but had no answers for 3 Nightveil Specters in a row, who were conveniently large enough to hold off his whole team. Had he been a little more aggressive in trying to get past my Specters, he'd have probably gotten me. Game 2 started quickly for him with a multiple Burning-Tree Emissary draw, but petered out as soon as I was able to drop a Master of Waves for 3 tokens, followed by another the next turn for 4 more.
1-0
Round 2- Mono-Blue, splashing White- Fairly regular player around the shop, but tends to make rash decisions. He took down Game 1 by taking the control route with Supreme Verdicts and Detention Spheres to keep my creatures in line. We both had to mulligan to 6 for Game 2, and his was pretty sketchy. I was able to curve out perfectly and tie it up. Another double mulligan started game 3, but I kept the sketchier hand this time around: just one island. I topdecked pretty perfectly and was able to use 3 sideboarded Gainsays to keep him in check. Even so, we traded blows and were both low heading into a board stall. I managed to make it through with a Nightveil Specter and hit a Thassa off the top of his deck and he conceded.
2-0
Round 3- Boros Aggro- She was a player visiting from another store a town over. I knew her in passing, but hadn't played against her before. This was the second toughest match I played all day. Had she been better about remembering her Soldier of the Pantheon triggers, I'd have been toast. I had to mulligan to 6 in Game 1, and kept a mediocre hand. I was hoping to stabilize based on a couple of Master of Waves, but Banishing Light took each away as they came out. Game 2, I got lucky and she never drew a 3rd land while I ran over her. Game 3 got interesting, as I was able to blunt her early aggresion with Frostburn Weird and Tidebinder Mages. She was able to stop my Thassa and Domestication on Brimaz with Banishing Lights. I was falling behind on the race, until I blocked a lethal Boros Charm with a Dispel and followed it up with an overloaded Cyclonic Rift which was able to allow me to swing for the fences and the win.
3-0
Round 4- Boros Burn- This was actually the 8 year old son of my opponent from Round 1, and if he won, we'd have had to play again in the finals next round. I wasn't about to give in to him, since the matchup looked to favor him, and I'd rather have had 2 chances to beat it than 1. This was by far the match I had to get luckiest to win. I got a great hand Game 1 and was able to capitalize on his inexperience and reluctance to be as fully aggressive as he could have been. Judge's Familiar actually managed to counter a clutch Lightning Strike against Nightveil Specter that would have actually worked if he'd played a land first that turn. Game 2 gave me no such opportunity for advantage. I kept a weak hand, light on early creatures and he stomped me into the ground before I could possibly recover. Perhaps the best game the whole day was Game 3. We both got off to strong starts, I ended up at 8 life and had to use Domestication to steal one of his Soldier of the Pantheons, which turned out to be a good choice when he showed double Boros Charm. Nevertheless, he'd committed so many resources to the plan of burning me out that he was out of cards and showing a Dispel in hand got me the concession. I told the kid that I really hoped to see more of him, and that he'll be a heck of a player with just a little more experience under his belt.
4-0, and since there were only 10 people we skipped a Top 4 and headed straight for the Finals
Finals- RDW- My round 1 opponent went on a serious tear after I'd beaten him and came back to be in second place, so we had a rematch for the finals. Game 1 went to him as my inexperience with the deck led me to keep a hand that looked okay, but wasn't as good as expected. He eventually won via Purphoros triggers and burn spells. Game 2 wasn't really a thing that happened, since he mulliganed to 5, kept 1 land and never saw another. Game 3 saw me keep the sketchiest hand imaginable (1 Island as the only land, no 1 drops, and lots of double blue costs) and then proceed to rip the best possible card at every turn. I even agreed with my opponent and spectators that it was amazing. The deck decided it wanted to win, and only criminal misplays from me would have allowed that. I walked away with the Game Day playmat, but gave my own (the SCG Pandas one) away to 2nd place for his two kids and in recognition of how well he played.
TLDR: Some days, all the stars aline and you get as lucky as you could ever hope to be. My best opponents were out of town. The meta was almost uniquely weak to the deck I brought. I topdecked spectacularly all day. And my opponents made key errors. I was sickeningly lucky.
I like this challenge deck, and look forward to seeing what will happen with it. Looks like main-decking Ratchet Bomb is a pretty good catch-all plan for neutering it, same as the previous two. I look forward to trying to kill Xenagos with a Far//Away.
Went for the White promo at the midnight event. Got an Ajani and a fairly solid WG deck, splashing U for Sudden Storm and Sea God's Revenge. I was sorely tempted to make an attempt at the Chromanticore deck, but decided not to risk a solid pool on something like that. Ajani won me every game I drew him except one, which was beyond saving anyhow. That cat pulled me to victory through some rough resistance, and only ever bricked on his top 4 cards +1 once. Honestly though, the Sea God's Revenge won me more games over the course of the day. Went 4-0-2 into the top 8 (ID'ed the last few rounds because I was already locked and was getting tired), wherein I swiftly lost to double mana screw (also it being 6am). Pulled Keranos and Iroas in prize packs.
Vote for most surprisingly effective card for this one goes to Deserter's Quarters. I knew it was colorless pseudo-removal, but not whether or not that would be good enough or if I could comfortably get to 6 mana with it regularly. I was pleased with how often it did good work, though it did spent a couple of games doing nothing while I died at 4-5 mana.
Went for Black at the Saturday afternoon event. Ended up with 2 King Macar, the Gold-Curseds and a Whip of Erebos. After some debate with myself, I decided to go with UB over the GB that would fully utilize my scryland. I was able to make great use of the various instant speed untapping tricks (Crypsis, Triton Tactics, Thassa's Ire) with Macar to grind out ridiculous advantage. Went 3-1-1 into Top 8, where the general exhaustion and illness levels were sufficient to convince everyone to split. Only thing of note in prize packs was a Prophetic Flamespeaker.
Most consistent card in the deck was easily Thassa's Ire. Not only did it allow me to virtually lock some opponents out of creatures with Macar (even at 8 mana, repeatable instant speed removal is still excellent), but it won several games for me by keeping bombs tapped down while I flew over the top for the win. The fact that it often came down on Turn 1 when I usually didn't have another play was a nice bonus.
Edit: I did notice that aggro was doing very well for itself. Even control decks cannot afford to do nothing for the first few turns. 2/3s for 3 are looking pretty good right now.
Most often I just use it to power out an early Primal Surge.