considering how combo-centric much of M15 is, I'm expected the new block to be about massing armies either for the purpose of swarming or just to hold the line until huge fatties come out, but in the end it will die to a combo firing off on the other side.
First time I read through this I glazed over the "you control" part. For a moment there I thought it was a one-sided near-boardwipe if opp had a legend out. Still a nasty card nevertheless, especially with Battlefield Thaumaturge.
As soon as I saw the tagline for M15 was "Hunt Bigger Game" I (foolishly) hoped they were going to lay off the removal and speed and have another go at Battlecruiser Magic. I love games that last 10+ turns, and not because of excessive control, but because both sides are building their resources and preparing fatties. Don't expect to ever see it as a competitive strategy, but it's nice to dream.
The last standard FNM I went to I lost to a ridiculous Consuming Aberration deck (that went undefeated), then Phenax is spoiled and that deck just got pumped like a mofo. In a good control setup that's just sickening.
I've hated mill since the Black Vise decks of '94, but I can't deny that's an awesome finisher for the deck type.
As for unoriginality.. what did you expect UB to get? Mill is what it does. This seems like whining about red getting yet another direct damage spell.
Last night, haven't fully tested it out yet to get the balance of mill and counter/removal and walls:
Phenax, God of Deception
Deathrite Shaman
Consuming Aberration
Hover Barrier
Nightveil Specter
Omenspeaker
Thassa, God of the Sea
Crypt Incursion
Grisly Spectacle
Mind Grind
Tome Scour
Bident of Thassa
Doom Blade
Essence Scatter
sb:
Gainsay
Hero's Downfall
Obviously you churn out the walls and omenspeakers and shamans and specters early on to build up your toughness count, with thassa in there as a little added scry since she's so cheap. Turns 4 and 5 (with a mana from the shaman) put out the Aberration then Phenax and that's pretty much game. The spectacles help the aberrations be bigger while only adding 1 to the cost of hero's downfall, though I'd swap em out against a walker heavy deck. The obvious weakness is aggro, which the crypt incursions can completely negate if you've been getting out your tome scours/mind grind. Once the Aberration and Phenax are out, one activation will generally get the aberration to 20-something, then the next turn they're milled out.
I would absolutely splurge a bit for each set's 'fat pack' if it had a binder made specifically to hold every card in that set. That by itself makes the product an automatic buy for me. Sure I can just go buy a plain binder, but for some reason I never get around to doing that. If the binder came with a bunch of cards and it's all tied together artistically, I'd be all over that.
In my local game shop the commander league runs every few months, and the last couple leagues have been ruined by someone running a Ruric Thar deck while someone else in the pod is running a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck. If those two are out, the game is over in a couple turns. We go for points rather than just straight kills, so it completely ruins the league.
So now to my question: Is Defang the only useful Ruric Thar deterrent? Aside from running pure aggro creature decks?
First post. Not familiar with the formatting here, so I won't try.
Prismatic Monolith {X}
Artifact
Prismatic Monolith comes into play with X charge counters on it.
Tap, remove {X} counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add {X} to your mana pool. {X} cannot be 0.
Tap, remove three counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add one of any color to your mana pool.
{X}, Untap: add {X} counters to Prismatic Monolith.
I've wanted this since I first got a Basalt Monolith from a 3rd edition pack back when I started playing in late '94/early '95. Lately when I've thought about it, I figured they wouldn't make it now because anything you can tap/untap infinitely without losing mana (or any other resource) in the process would be a key to unlock way too many infinite combos, but it's no different in that respect from the orginal Basalt Monolith.
One thing I think is nifty is that unlike the Basalt Monolith, this untaps normally. That means if you drain it dry and leave it tapped, it untaps during your untap phase and you have no way (aside from using another card) to tap it again. Since you can only add counters (without using another card) when it's tapped, and when you tap it X cannot be 0, you have to leave a little bit of charge in it or it goes dead.
Overpowered? Not powerful enough? What do you think?
I've hated mill since the Black Vise decks of '94, but I can't deny that's an awesome finisher for the deck type.
As for unoriginality.. what did you expect UB to get? Mill is what it does. This seems like whining about red getting yet another direct damage spell.
Phenax, God of Deception
Deathrite Shaman
Consuming Aberration
Hover Barrier
Nightveil Specter
Omenspeaker
Thassa, God of the Sea
Crypt Incursion
Grisly Spectacle
Mind Grind
Tome Scour
Bident of Thassa
Doom Blade
Essence Scatter
sb:
Gainsay
Hero's Downfall
Obviously you churn out the walls and omenspeakers and shamans and specters early on to build up your toughness count, with thassa in there as a little added scry since she's so cheap. Turns 4 and 5 (with a mana from the shaman) put out the Aberration then Phenax and that's pretty much game. The spectacles help the aberrations be bigger while only adding 1 to the cost of hero's downfall, though I'd swap em out against a walker heavy deck. The obvious weakness is aggro, which the crypt incursions can completely negate if you've been getting out your tome scours/mind grind. Once the Aberration and Phenax are out, one activation will generally get the aberration to 20-something, then the next turn they're milled out.
So now to my question: Is Defang the only useful Ruric Thar deterrent? Aside from running pure aggro creature decks?
Prismatic Monolith {X}
Artifact
Prismatic Monolith comes into play with X charge counters on it.
Tap, remove {X} counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add {X} to your mana pool. {X} cannot be 0.
Tap, remove three counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add one of any color to your mana pool.
{X}, Untap: add {X} counters to Prismatic Monolith.
I've wanted this since I first got a Basalt Monolith from a 3rd edition pack back when I started playing in late '94/early '95. Lately when I've thought about it, I figured they wouldn't make it now because anything you can tap/untap infinitely without losing mana (or any other resource) in the process would be a key to unlock way too many infinite combos, but it's no different in that respect from the orginal Basalt Monolith.
One thing I think is nifty is that unlike the Basalt Monolith, this untaps normally. That means if you drain it dry and leave it tapped, it untaps during your untap phase and you have no way (aside from using another card) to tap it again. Since you can only add counters (without using another card) when it's tapped, and when you tap it X cannot be 0, you have to leave a little bit of charge in it or it goes dead.
Overpowered? Not powerful enough? What do you think?