Engulf the Shore: Pretty sweet removal since most of my decks play a lot of islands.
Epiphany at the Drownyard: Mostly just for Mizzix. She will turn this into an insanely powerful "go get what I need to win" card.
Forgotten Creation: If I played Niv, for sure. As it is, I'll test the hand cycling in some combo decks.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: Probably won't make the cut in anything. PWs in EDH must meet some serious parameters to be playable in most of my groups. If they aren't valuable off one activation, can't combo or can't protect themselves they usually are terrible.
Pieces of the Puzzle: Again, a combo enabler. And another card that will be great for Mizzix.
Sin Prodder: I'm not running any true storm right now and this card will probably only be great for YawgWin and PiF decks. I'll try t in some red decks but odds are you never get many good cards and do little consequential damage.
Cryptolith Rite: Most of my decks my creatures are for ETB effects or are glorified enchantments. This gives them more utility.
Altered Ego: Not a great clone. But worth testing for the "can't be countered" clause
Anguished Unmaking: Freaking great removal. An almost Vindicate at instant speed.
The Gitrog Monster: Awesome for Sidisi if I want to make her more hardcore. Might just make a Gitrog deck.
I don't think Epiphany at the Drownyard is all that good. For 5 mana you have a Steam Augury - only some random Izzet lists play that. It's not exactly a high tier card. When you go for x=10 or something I wonder why you wouldn't just Blue Sun's Zenith or Stroke of Genius instead. You don't reveal information, you get a solid 8 cards instead of probably 5 or 6 or so (pending the piles)...I think only in something like Reanimator it might see play and even there it's likely not going to supplant the tried and true cards.
Steam Augury is an often underrated card for versatile combo decks. Obviously, neither Augury nor Epiphany are reliably as good as FoF but both are often more efficient at digging for combo pieces than a lot of straight draw spells. Epiphany can potentially see more cards than anything else you might run for dig purposes. The drawback to both Augury and Epiphany, your opponent choosing the keep pile, is pretty minimized by having multiple combo options.
Jace is definitely strong in 1v1, but I'm not ready to go out and recommend it for multiplayer just yet.
Invasive Surgery vs Pieces of the Puzzle is pretty close in my mind, honestly, and if I could list 6 cards they'd both be in there. You may be right that Pieces is the stronger of the two. The thing I like about Surgery is that you only need to hold up U and you can always counter a lot of the game-winning haymakers that competitive players tend to use, but it does depend a lot on your meta. Pieces vs. Drownyard is another comparison I wouldn't mind hearing opinions on.
Thing in the Ice is one of the best blue two-drops ever printed, but if you don't need mass bounce, I guess you don't need mass bounce.
Either way, blue got plenty of goodies this set.
I think Epiphany is the best blue card in the set. The dig potential is just potentially insane in a color that holds up mana all the time and loves dig.
Thing is pretty sweet and an easy transform for most blue decks. I'm just not sure how it scales into competitive metas. In my experience as decks get stronger creature counts go down. In a lot of cases spells like Snap are going to be of more value than mass creature bounce.
Surgery is good and hitting sorcery spells is relevant, but how deep do you go on counters before it sees play? Pieces digs for better counters and win conditions. Dig is maybe the most important thing for high caliber blue decks. If Pieces was instant it would seriously threaten Epiphany as the best blue card in the set.
And yeah, 7-8 playable blue cards for upper mid tier blue decks is a pretty strong set.
I would probably rate new Jace over Thing in the Ice. Even with how tough it is to get value out of PWs in more competitive circles. Also, Pieces of the Puzzle over a corner case counter like Invasive Surgery.
Insidous Dreams could also be an option. A 1 land hand with Dreams turns it into an instant speed Demonic Tutor. It also allows top-deck manipulation for dredge shenanigans. Sensei's Divining Top seems like a worthwhile inclusion as well.
Discarding the land is part of the cost of Dreams so the draw trigger off the Frog resolves before you tutor I believe. But I'm no judge. Still not a bad tutor here though.
The ones that annoy me most
"The Edric player is of no consequence. Besides he lets me draw cards."
"He has the highest life, he's the biggest threat."
"He has the biggest creature, he's the biggest threat."
That kind of stuff makes me want to punch a wall.
So true.
Another thought process that I see a lot of players get trapped in is the "I love my hand" thought process. They get to wrapped up in their hand and just cave to mass discard or a wheel of some kind (*****ing and moaning all the while). Instead, love your deck. Be so confident in how you've built your deck that a wheel excites you because your hand is decently likely to get better.
Frog seems like a pretty good include for any dredge deck that runs LabMan. But I hesitate to really consider it OP at this point. The cmc is pretty high and he needs a lot of other parts on his own.
You're thinking of Trail of Evidence, which I agree with you completely on. Pieces of the Puzzle is decent instant/sorcery dig. Both of them are likely to make it into many of my spell focused decks in the future.
Yeah, seems pretty good in spell slinger decks where you have a decent chance of hitting 2-3 instant/sorcery on the reveal. I just wish it was instant. Then it would almost be an auto include in almost all my blue decks. As a sorcery it will probably go in Mizzix and get tested in others.
[card]There are too many players in this format who feel violated by any combo, ever, no matter how inefficient it is or how late it comes out. It could be after everyone has seen half of their deck, and they'd still feel cheated. That crowd can happily just not play this card, just as happily as they aren't playing to the rest of the card pool to begin with.
Your whole post perfectly sums up my opinion on the card but I really love this paragraph. I understand hatred of cheap combos that win in the early turns. But I've always felt some of the hatred towards inefficient combo is hypocritical and irrational.
I just realized this. Oh man, this might get fantastic. Absolute excellent with Tamiyo's Journal. Tutor for a beater, then put it into play! Wow...
Not the best idea. Patrol triggers at end step so the beater has to survive to your turn to make an impact. Best to get some high value ETB creature, a combo piece that doesn't need to tap to do its job or a lockdown/protection creature.
Sounds like a lot of fun in some grixis aggro deck like Thrax. 10 mana to give your creatures flying and haste and get a full new grip. Seems good for decks that don't just win on 10 mana.
Separate from that, if BtB was instant it might be borderline playable in high end combo decks. But a 7 cmc sorcery to tutor your combo is pretty weak for most good combo decks. I would hope that even most casual decks can deal with whatever gets tutored up by any deck willing to run this. So it seems like a pretty good casual EDH card.
So far I'm mostly only excited about new Jace, new and improved Steam Augury and new (and in my opinion improved for EDH) Vindicate. Maybe Pieces of the Puzzle. But I wish it was instant. Still, should be good for Mizzix or any storm deck.
Not enough for lethal you say? ARMY, ATTACK... and then... ARMY TO THE FACE!
I cast blasphemous act, and in response... ARMY TO THE FACE!
Honestly, this looks pretty hilarious as a finisher. If it wasn't an instant, I'd relegate it to trash mode, but instant speed means that you can do... stuff.
Yeah, I could see it having some use in a sub-optimal Krenko (the CMC is too high for most optimized lists)? Oh you wrath my 60 goblin tokens. Okay, I kill you.
It's funny because, on the one hand, the Niv/Curiosity combo is seen as being cheap by a lot of playgroups and gets so little respect it almost falls into the "not-really-a-win" category. On the other hand, it's not really that strong of a combo, requiring you to play out a six mana creature and either give it haste or have it survive a turn when everyone knows the combo is coming. I feel like against a group that plays even the bare minimum reasonable amount of removal/permission, it's a pretty hard combo to get off because it's so telegraphed.
And even when you do get it off, you often can't kill the whole table before you mill yourself in multiplayer.
I play in an extremely control heavy meta with all the removal and denial and Niv is very strong in that group. Like I said before, the problem with some Niv decks is that they pack it full of suboptimal draw instead of highly efficient deck cycling and card selection. Strong Niv plays strong control and a lot of fast artifact ramp along with wheels, cantrips, the combo pieces and tutors.
Milling yourself should never be an issue. Play the old Eldrazi titans with ways to discard and the blue shuffle wheels. That is why Mind Over Matter is a better combo piece for Niv than Curiosity or Ophidian Eye. It gives you a discard outlet you need to indefinitely cycle your deck with Niv. Since you should always have big hands, it also pays for itself and Niv pretty quickly with a good rock like Gilded Lotus.
I doubt some of the people making comments here have played a Niv deck as good as Rowan's at its best and to be honest, Rowan's is (and was in its old form) low powered compared to the best I've seen.
Well that is just a silly statement. Both cards are still strong even without many creatures. However, Seedborn Muse is for the most part a better card for decks that utilize very few creatures. Which is most higher power level decks that aren't Edric or Animar.
Untapping lands and artifacts every turn is incredibly powerful. The only reason Muse and Prophet saw limited play in high power level decks is their CMC. Those decks are often looking to win by the time you can cast them and they only marginally aid in that. Control decks want them at higher power levels. But not much else.
Epiphany at the Drownyard: Mostly just for Mizzix. She will turn this into an insanely powerful "go get what I need to win" card.
Forgotten Creation: If I played Niv, for sure. As it is, I'll test the hand cycling in some combo decks.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: Probably won't make the cut in anything. PWs in EDH must meet some serious parameters to be playable in most of my groups. If they aren't valuable off one activation, can't combo or can't protect themselves they usually are terrible.
Pieces of the Puzzle: Again, a combo enabler. And another card that will be great for Mizzix.
Pore Over the Pages: Probably not good enough, even in Mizzix.
Thing in the Ice: I just want to test it in Sidisi. Odds are I'll just make a standard deck with this card.
Liliana's Indignation: Awesome for Sidisi.
Sin Prodder: I'm not running any true storm right now and this card will probably only be great for YawgWin and PiF decks. I'll try t in some red decks but odds are you never get many good cards and do little consequential damage.
Cryptolith Rite: Most of my decks my creatures are for ETB effects or are glorified enchantments. This gives them more utility.
Altered Ego: Not a great clone. But worth testing for the "can't be countered" clause
Anguished Unmaking: Freaking great removal. An almost Vindicate at instant speed.
The Gitrog Monster: Awesome for Sidisi if I want to make her more hardcore. Might just make a Gitrog deck.
Steam Augury is an often underrated card for versatile combo decks. Obviously, neither Augury nor Epiphany are reliably as good as FoF but both are often more efficient at digging for combo pieces than a lot of straight draw spells. Epiphany can potentially see more cards than anything else you might run for dig purposes. The drawback to both Augury and Epiphany, your opponent choosing the keep pile, is pretty minimized by having multiple combo options.
I think Epiphany is the best blue card in the set. The dig potential is just potentially insane in a color that holds up mana all the time and loves dig.
Thing is pretty sweet and an easy transform for most blue decks. I'm just not sure how it scales into competitive metas. In my experience as decks get stronger creature counts go down. In a lot of cases spells like Snap are going to be of more value than mass creature bounce.
Surgery is good and hitting sorcery spells is relevant, but how deep do you go on counters before it sees play? Pieces digs for better counters and win conditions. Dig is maybe the most important thing for high caliber blue decks. If Pieces was instant it would seriously threaten Epiphany as the best blue card in the set.
And yeah, 7-8 playable blue cards for upper mid tier blue decks is a pretty strong set.
I would probably rate new Jace over Thing in the Ice. Even with how tough it is to get value out of PWs in more competitive circles. Also, Pieces of the Puzzle over a corner case counter like Invasive Surgery.
Discarding the land is part of the cost of Dreams so the draw trigger off the Frog resolves before you tutor I believe. But I'm no judge. Still not a bad tutor here though.
So true.
Another thought process that I see a lot of players get trapped in is the "I love my hand" thought process. They get to wrapped up in their hand and just cave to mass discard or a wheel of some kind (*****ing and moaning all the while). Instead, love your deck. Be so confident in how you've built your deck that a wheel excites you because your hand is decently likely to get better.
Yeah, seems pretty good in spell slinger decks where you have a decent chance of hitting 2-3 instant/sorcery on the reveal. I just wish it was instant. Then it would almost be an auto include in almost all my blue decks. As a sorcery it will probably go in Mizzix and get tested in others.
Your whole post perfectly sums up my opinion on the card but I really love this paragraph. I understand hatred of cheap combos that win in the early turns. But I've always felt some of the hatred towards inefficient combo is hypocritical and irrational.
Not the best idea. Patrol triggers at end step so the beater has to survive to your turn to make an impact. Best to get some high value ETB creature, a combo piece that doesn't need to tap to do its job or a lockdown/protection creature.
Sounds like a lot of fun in some grixis aggro deck like Thrax. 10 mana to give your creatures flying and haste and get a full new grip. Seems good for decks that don't just win on 10 mana.
Separate from that, if BtB was instant it might be borderline playable in high end combo decks. But a 7 cmc sorcery to tutor your combo is pretty weak for most good combo decks. I would hope that even most casual decks can deal with whatever gets tutored up by any deck willing to run this. So it seems like a pretty good casual EDH card.
So far I'm mostly only excited about new Jace, new and improved Steam Augury and new (and in my opinion improved for EDH) Vindicate. Maybe Pieces of the Puzzle. But I wish it was instant. Still, should be good for Mizzix or any storm deck.
Yeah, I could see it having some use in a sub-optimal Krenko (the CMC is too high for most optimized lists)? Oh you wrath my 60 goblin tokens. Okay, I kill you.
I play in an extremely control heavy meta with all the removal and denial and Niv is very strong in that group. Like I said before, the problem with some Niv decks is that they pack it full of suboptimal draw instead of highly efficient deck cycling and card selection. Strong Niv plays strong control and a lot of fast artifact ramp along with wheels, cantrips, the combo pieces and tutors.
Milling yourself should never be an issue. Play the old Eldrazi titans with ways to discard and the blue shuffle wheels. That is why Mind Over Matter is a better combo piece for Niv than Curiosity or Ophidian Eye. It gives you a discard outlet you need to indefinitely cycle your deck with Niv. Since you should always have big hands, it also pays for itself and Niv pretty quickly with a good rock like Gilded Lotus.
I doubt some of the people making comments here have played a Niv deck as good as Rowan's at its best and to be honest, Rowan's is (and was in its old form) low powered compared to the best I've seen.
Well that is just a silly statement. Both cards are still strong even without many creatures. However, Seedborn Muse is for the most part a better card for decks that utilize very few creatures. Which is most higher power level decks that aren't Edric or Animar.
Untapping lands and artifacts every turn is incredibly powerful. The only reason Muse and Prophet saw limited play in high power level decks is their CMC. Those decks are often looking to win by the time you can cast them and they only marginally aid in that. Control decks want them at higher power levels. But not much else.