It's hard to evaluate a card this early, but I'd say this is mostly just a really bad Valki, God of Lies
Valki is black. The important detail that makes this card very important in Magic is the color bend thing. Wizards gives white a way to look at your opponent's hand, which is usually blue and black.
It's not a discard effect, but it has elements of it. In Legacy, that's one card the opponent can't Brainstorm or Faithless Looting away, pitch to free spells like Force of Will or Unmask. Cards in one's hand are resources that aren't meant to be cast sometimes (I'm not even talking about Processor l.o.l.).
That being said, formats like Standard, Historic and Pioneer will surely make use of the card.
They opened design space for white, that's good news !
A question to anyone who plays modern. Is this going to make humans a problem?
Humans play Reflector Mage and Mantis Rider, 4 copies each. They have Kitesail Freebooter, so Spellbinder will have a hard time competing with those. Humans is a very strong deck already, you'll know it in a heartbeat when a new human will make the cut. Here the only possibility is to take the slots of the 2 remaining 3-drops available, so it needs the right metagame.
Spellbinder is designed to fit in a D&T deck, or maybe a tribal Cleric deck some time soon.
Dwynen's Elite allows the line T1 Heritage Druid, T2 Dwynen into 3 mana. Warmaster doesn't do that. It doesn't do anything on T2 if you don't have a T1 dork, then a T2 one-drop to etb after Warmaster. I don't think they fit quite the same slots actually. I personally don't know what to cut to fit him in.
So happy they banned SSG, this card never belonged with Modern.
I'm glad they're shaking Pioneer big time, I dig this format and I want to see it grow.
Oko in legacy and Lurrus in vintage were expected. Tbh, Arcanist is a bit surprising to me, it seems to be in response to the community whining about it.
There's some speculative thought process in this announcement, it is rather different than what we're used to. It reminds me of the inception of Modern where they preemptively banned a million cards.
Ok, so those formats will be shaken a bit, exciting times incoming !
If Uro gets banned in Legacy but not Oko, you know what I'll take it. But Oko is still the most over-represented card, it's in 75% of the Trop Island decks (Uro is in only 50%), and either ban wouldn't kill those said decks. You can replace the banned cards with other powerful 3-mana threats (Narset, TNN, Mentor, etc...), which would be acceptable. Wait & See.
I don't have the source of that "president" claiming the company is ok with printing cards that are too strong, mistakes, or whatever the wording is.
That being said, there's no need to be condescendant towards people on this forum who think otherwise.
Even then, if "Wizards" (what does this word even mean in this context ?) is okay with mistakes, it's fair to complain some cards are mistakes. I doubt dev teams are happy when they screw up and receive community backlash. Time will tell, but a card like Tibalt's Trickery may be remembered as a terrible design mistake, and I doubt Maro will talk about it like "it was okay, we stopped to care about cards that ruin formats a long time ago anyway !". Won't happen.
And again, some people take for granted the narrative some president delivered, but it may very well be a posture in order to reduce the devs incompetence in the eye of the customer. Wizards community management is very smart.
Let's not forget some of those mistakes were not caused by new designs, but just blatant "wtf" wordings, synergies or stats on cards : Hostage Taker erratum, Saheeli Rai + Felidar Guardian in the same set, Oko, Thief of Crowns and the other broken green cards in that same set, etc...
We can argue where to draw the line with power creep or Color Pie break, and agree to disagree, nonetheless it happened quite a few times where we knew what was about to happen with previewed cards, and devs were unable to notice or fix anything. Once they ban the cards or mention in an article "woops we missed it", we're not talking about Wizards being okay with mistakes, we're witnessing devs who acknowledge they screwed up.
I personnally have no issue with Wizards pushing the boundaries, it's just sad that potential powerful yet balanced cards (like Oko, for example) were mistakenly put on steroids, and it will remain as is forever.
In Modern, there's this idea to Cascade into this spell, or maybe Spoils into it. In Pioneer, I guess a prison / control shell could work ? If ever you resolve Trickery, you want either a wincon or something that stabilizes the board (a wrath for example). But any other hit will be underwhelming. Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast would be a nice hit too.
Anything that puts the creature on top of the library can work too. Here's a list of spells in the format that does it :
With black, you may wanna play Thoughtseize and Lightning Axe to discard fatties in your hand, while being good cards on their own.
Edit : oh well, I missed Trickery exiles the top cards as I was pondering. Mmmh, maybe a way to rearrange the top of the library can work instead, like Taigam's Scheming and Contingency Plan.
It's very powerful. It turns normal spells into more impressive spells than the natural foretell spells we have in the set.
For example, Battle Mammoth costs 2 to foretell then 2GG to cast, so 6 mana total, while its normal cost is 3GG. A Doom Whisperer will cost 2 then 1BB, which is the same amount of mana you would spend normally : 3BB. You litterally have no downside using foretell anymore with this little demon on the board.
This + Thornmantle Striker means elves can actually be something else than what we're used to. Both play well with Pyre of Heroes, in an archetype where it could replace Collected Company (Pioneer for example).
And another example of tribes that overlap, I like the idea.
Valki is black. The important detail that makes this card very important in Magic is the color bend thing. Wizards gives white a way to look at your opponent's hand, which is usually blue and black.
It's not a discard effect, but it has elements of it. In Legacy, that's one card the opponent can't Brainstorm or Faithless Looting away, pitch to free spells like Force of Will or Unmask. Cards in one's hand are resources that aren't meant to be cast sometimes (I'm not even talking about Processor l.o.l.).
That being said, formats like Standard, Historic and Pioneer will surely make use of the card.
They opened design space for white, that's good news !
Humans play Reflector Mage and Mantis Rider, 4 copies each. They have Kitesail Freebooter, so Spellbinder will have a hard time competing with those. Humans is a very strong deck already, you'll know it in a heartbeat when a new human will make the cut. Here the only possibility is to take the slots of the 2 remaining 3-drops available, so it needs the right metagame.
Spellbinder is designed to fit in a D&T deck, or maybe a tribal Cleric deck some time soon.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker was broken upon release.
Feather, the Redeemed has an archetype around her.
Winota, Joiner of Forces has an archetype around her.
So, yes !
I'm glad they're shaking Pioneer big time, I dig this format and I want to see it grow.
Oko in legacy and Lurrus in vintage were expected. Tbh, Arcanist is a bit surprising to me, it seems to be in response to the community whining about it.
There's some speculative thought process in this announcement, it is rather different than what we're used to. It reminds me of the inception of Modern where they preemptively banned a million cards.
If Uro gets banned in Legacy but not Oko, you know what I'll take it. But Oko is still the most over-represented card, it's in 75% of the Trop Island decks (Uro is in only 50%), and either ban wouldn't kill those said decks. You can replace the banned cards with other powerful 3-mana threats (Narset, TNN, Mentor, etc...), which would be acceptable. Wait & See.
That being said, there's no need to be condescendant towards people on this forum who think otherwise.
Even then, if "Wizards" (what does this word even mean in this context ?) is okay with mistakes, it's fair to complain some cards are mistakes. I doubt dev teams are happy when they screw up and receive community backlash. Time will tell, but a card like Tibalt's Trickery may be remembered as a terrible design mistake, and I doubt Maro will talk about it like "it was okay, we stopped to care about cards that ruin formats a long time ago anyway !". Won't happen.
And again, some people take for granted the narrative some president delivered, but it may very well be a posture in order to reduce the devs incompetence in the eye of the customer. Wizards community management is very smart.
Let's not forget some of those mistakes were not caused by new designs, but just blatant "wtf" wordings, synergies or stats on cards : Hostage Taker erratum, Saheeli Rai + Felidar Guardian in the same set, Oko, Thief of Crowns and the other broken green cards in that same set, etc...
We can argue where to draw the line with power creep or Color Pie break, and agree to disagree, nonetheless it happened quite a few times where we knew what was about to happen with previewed cards, and devs were unable to notice or fix anything. Once they ban the cards or mention in an article "woops we missed it", we're not talking about Wizards being okay with mistakes, we're witnessing devs who acknowledge they screwed up.
I personnally have no issue with Wizards pushing the boundaries, it's just sad that potential powerful yet balanced cards (like Oko, for example) were mistakenly put on steroids, and it will remain as is forever.
In Modern, there's this idea to Cascade into this spell, or maybe Spoils into it. In Pioneer, I guess a prison / control shell could work ? If ever you resolve Trickery, you want either a wincon or something that stabilizes the board (a wrath for example). But any other hit will be underwhelming. Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast would be a nice hit too.
Anything that puts the creature on top of the library can work too. Here's a list of spells in the format that does it :
Reclaim
Silhana Wayfinder
Witch's Cottage
Mortuary Mire
Forever Young
Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire
The Raven's Warning
With black, you may wanna play Thoughtseize and Lightning Axe to discard fatties in your hand, while being good cards on their own.
Edit : oh well, I missed Trickery exiles the top cards as I was pondering. Mmmh, maybe a way to rearrange the top of the library can work instead, like Taigam's Scheming and Contingency Plan.
This wrath is very good, especially in your opening hand. Any time you want to stabilize VS an opponent's blitz start, this saves you the game.
For example, Battle Mammoth costs 2 to foretell then 2GG to cast, so 6 mana total, while its normal cost is 3GG. A Doom Whisperer will cost 2 then 1BB, which is the same amount of mana you would spend normally : 3BB. You litterally have no downside using foretell anymore with this little demon on the board.
I've been waiting for a white Abrupt Decay for 2 years, this is what I get. Gotta wait for a bit longer I guess.
And another example of tribes that overlap, I like the idea.