Thanks for posting this. I've had this, uh, 'discussion' with a number of shops that had proposed to launch Pauper nights and I try to ask them "MTGO rules or actual-paper printed rarity", they go "Whatever, if it was ever a common it's good unless it's on the banlist, if it was bad it'd be on the banned list", I explain "Hymn and Sinkhole aren't on the MTGO banned list because they're not MTGO commons..." "Whatever, man. We'll see how it plays out." Yeah, I already know how this plays out.
I don't want to bring a deck with Hymns and get in arguments with the faction that thinks they're illegal in paper pauper (not on the MTGO pauper valids list). I don't want to bring a deck with Chainer's Edicts and get in arguments with the faction that thinks they're illegal in paper pauper (never printed as paper commons). I don't want to bring a deck that resists using either flavor of corner case and then face decks all evening that didn't hold themselves to the same deckbuilding restrictions. I want a show-runner who gives a damn enough to make it clear to all players what the cardpool is; ideally, I want the organization that handles all the other formats (including the online version of Pauper) to actually give a damn enough to codify a ruleset for paper pauper. But for some reason they never do.
The other card that gums up the "7 rares per clan" math is Crucible of the Spirit Dragon. There's truly no clan to associate with that one (nor any prerelease participant who would be happy to get that as their promo)
On the last two small set pre-re's (when the rares weren't promos but they were preseeded), they just doubled up on some color-specific rares rather than stuffed colorless cards into seeded packs, right?
In the JNX pre-re, there were two distinct White seeded packs where the rare was Aegis of the Gods, and another two distinct White seeded packs where the rare was Launch the Fleet. They didn't, say, shoehorn Mana Confluence into any seeded packs.
I expect some promos will be more common than others because some will be in 2/8 of their clan packs while some (including the mythic) will only be in 1/8.
We know of one colorless-artifact rare so far, and while it COULD be forced Jeskai, it is colorless and non-watermarked, so it probably won't be.
The numbercrunchers have already boxed in the multicolor content of this set... there are just 10 multicolor cards in FRF, the 5 common enemy-color instants and the five rare allied-color dragons.
There are at least two participants in this thread who still operate under the fallacy "If I remove the top card from their library I've deprived them a valuable asset" - these people are counting both the exiled creature, and the (if they're lucky noncreature) card that gets manifested as a double win, because they continue to count a "mill 1" as a win when it is, at best, a push (and in many cases not even that good). They very specifically see "I manifested GoodCard, which means one less copy of GoodCard in their deck so they're less likely to be able to cast GoodCard" - they don't consider the fact that every other card in the deck is now coming one turn sooner and unless some stacking/scrying/peeking happened there is absolutely no assurance that the card manifested is any more relevant than the one promoted to next draw as a result.
Temporal Isolation template plus Lignify-esque wording would be instant polymorph without exile.
If there was no valid target opponent, you couldn't even activate the ability.
If there was a valid target opponent when you activated the ability but that opponent became an illegal target by the time the ability resolves, then yes, the ability would 'fizzle' (be countered). No cards for you.
The theory is that a Call of the Conclave would be a better fit in a set with Delve than Watchwolf would be, because the CotC goes to the graveyard right after it's cast while the Watchwolf won't be able to help fuel a Delve until that 3/3 creature actually dies.
Which is to say if you're playing delve card(s) in your deck, and you have the choice between a creature card (that just adds 1 permanent to the battlefield and 0 to your grave right away) and a sorcery creature-creator (that adds 1 permanent to the battlefield and puts a card in your graveyard right away), the latter is preferable.
Crazy talk. 12 power's worth of flying trample... you think should cost 6?
It's like the card was made not to be played in red decks, but splashed into non-red-creature decks.
Because dealt damage will eventually cause something to die, and then that something won't be around to be dealt any further damage.
If the two creatures had Indestructible, this would loop... until one of the players had 0 or less life, then the game would end. It would only be a draw if the players' life totals were close enough that the same iteration of the loop would put both players to-or-below 0 life in the same trigger resolution.
If the two creatures were indestructible Platinum Angels (one controlled by each player), then yes, you would have a draw.