You get 1 pre m15 card from a list of 121 cards. If we assume a regular set of 36 packs that means you'll only see each 'rare' once every 3-4 boxes. Then there's the fact that you can open garbage tier cards like Wild Nacatl or Ancient Dent just as likely as an Athreos or a Rhystic Study. If this product gets opened in any significant way a lot of cards that are a few $ now will be relegated to bulk. On top of that you get a M15 forward 'rare' as well which is again a 1 in 121 chance and you're as likely to open a mana crypt as a talrand?!
This product seems like extreme variance.set On the 1 hand you can open a pack with nothing but bulk, on the other you can open a pack with a mana crypt, Rhystic Study, demonic tutor and any other expensive uncommon from any of the colours.
I don't hate it, since Cat and ramp both got hit already I'd have liked Oath to stay another week and see how it goes. I was sure cruise would get the banhammer too, looks like I'll get at least 1 more week of fun with it then.
I feel like it could be a nice change. Including RTR seems like a good idea because it means we have access to a lot of extra cards that were not in Origins onwards that will police the format like thoughtseize, rest in peace, pithing needle, abrupt decay and supreme verdict.
Personally I'm a big fan of their starting ban list. Having no fetches to start will massively reduce the price to build a deck and also helps police cards like the delve spells, deathrite, jace and delirium. I also like that they've taken a hands off approach and haven't preemptively banned anything to allow the format to find its feet first. That being said I wouldn't get married to any deck just yet, there's likely to be bans in the coming months, I just can't believe treasure cruise and dig through time will remain unbanned. I've only played 4 matches on mtgo so far against 4 different people but they've all had treasure cruise + I'm also running a treasure cruise deck lol, who knew that ancestral recall in a arclight phoenix deck was good
I'm glad this is getting reprinted to keep it in standard. It's the kind of effect that should always be available in case a certain strategy gets too strong. That being said making is a rare again is a big letdown. it will be a trashtier card to open at prerelease and in general in your drafting and will obviously have no financial value either. Should have just been uncommon this go around.
This card would have been so much better pre faithless looting ban as a way to hate on those looting decks UR/R Phoenix and grishoalbrand. Got to imagine this was designed to hate those decks since they'd obviously have made the card before Hogaak was a thing and when Phoenix was dominating the format last year.
Still might be of some use in certain meta's. Being just 1 mana is huge and it's actually useful in UW control as it gets around snapcaster flashback unlike rule of law or the taxing effects of dampening sphere.
does the black one have potential outside standard/limited?
Nope.
Instead of just saying "nope," can you please explain why you do not think it has much use outside of Standard? Exile a card w/ flashback that can be brought back w/ Runic Repetition. Misthollow Griffin can be cast from exile. There are work-arounds.
Thing is working hard to work around a draw-back to a card that already has 2 very playable options (Inq/TS) is pretty pointless. Vs most decks the 2 life doesn't matter but being down a card when you're likely playing it in GBx that wants to grind you out 1 for 1 then 2 for 1'ing yourself in the early game seems awful. The only time this would be any good is against other black decks but if you're against death's shadow then Inq already hits the cards you want to take and the same is true vs GBx.
The only decks where this could possibly be useful are prison decks or 8 rack since neither care about cards in hand and both want to stall as long as possible so not losing life and still hitting every card might be worth losing a card. That being said neither deck is exactly top tier in modern and this card won't change that so yeah, unlikely to see much if any play in older formats.
I get the idea of the colour pie but certain things should be possible in any colour just for fairness sake. It sucks hard to play a monno black deck and someone plays an enchantment (edh/standard/modern/whatever) and you're like well I have 0 outs to this.
That being said there's a good chance your opponent either has a crap enchantment if you want to remove a creature or a crap creature if you want to remove an enchantment so this will rarely actually remove what you want but it's still a 2 mana mass edict that doesn't hurt you.
Anointed procession is already $13 and given it's a staple going to keep creeping up and up so wizards would rather let it get to $20+ then cash in the equity on a premium set than just crush the value on a commander printing already.
Anyway when I heard of the themes for the decks I was least excited for this by a long way but it seems like they did a better job with this than the first two.
Bit of a let down in reprints again. Now we've seen 2 of the 4 decks it pretty much guarantees we aren't getting the spicy cards that were implied with "we hear you about C18 but C19 will be better"
That being said Elsha is going straight in my spellslinger deck, getting artifacts and enchantments too is sweet upside.
You're getting more than the purchase price if you're a new player. Short of new cards there isn't anything I want in the deck. It's not for me, it's not for you. They just printed a masters set a few months ago. The core set was very lacking in reprints. It's whatever though. They haven't changed their formula. People are still going to buy these decks. If anything it seems like they included a lot more rares. Even rare dual lands.
The core set was lacking in reprints... what?
We got leyline of the void, sanctity and anticipation that were all $20+ cards and see plenty of play. Grafdiggers cage was $8 and is a staple in older formats. Steel overseer was $16 and sees play in multiple formats. Lotus field is a functional reprint of lotus vale and there were several other cards that were made even cheaper like the temples and rule of law. If you wanted a playset of leyline of the void and sanctity along with 1 anticipation for commander 4 months ago you'd pay $320, now it's 'just' $92. A $228 price cut seems more than reasonable for reprint value.
Well if you cut out every card under $1 for the reprints the deck value is still $83. Even if we assume cards lose 50% of their value once they flood the market you'll still get at least $40 back in reprints and who knows what value the 17 new cards will hold so it's not horrible. That being said if the other 3 decks are similar it will certainly be underwhelming. I do understand it's hard for wizards to reprint some cards. Plenty of the in demand cards are $20+ and it's obviously going to be hard to put 1 expensive card per deck since it puts a ton of value that they don't need to include. At the same time just putting 1 high value card in 1 deck skews the values so that that deck will sell far better than the rest.
All things considered I'd say this ends up as a win for modern. I'm still shocked at some of the cards on the ban list considering what is legal but I'm glad they did what they could to not disrupt other decks and also keep the Hogaak deck as a competitive option.
I am starting to get worried about WU control though. With bridge gone and the Hogaak deck slowing down in general sweepers will become far more effective. On top of that with the 4 field of ruin 2 surgical package tron is a far less scary matchup than it used to be so if people reckon tron will be back that's pretty grim.
It's not like there's any 1 card in WU that is too strong it's just that in the last 2 years the deck has got access to field of ruin, opt, big teferi, little teferi, narset, jace, force of negation, dovin's veto and other less played options like fof and search for azcanta. That is a ton of tools that have really pushed the deck to the top.
You get 1 pre m15 card from a list of 121 cards. If we assume a regular set of 36 packs that means you'll only see each 'rare' once every 3-4 boxes. Then there's the fact that you can open garbage tier cards like Wild Nacatl or Ancient Dent just as likely as an Athreos or a Rhystic Study. If this product gets opened in any significant way a lot of cards that are a few $ now will be relegated to bulk. On top of that you get a M15 forward 'rare' as well which is again a 1 in 121 chance and you're as likely to open a mana crypt as a talrand?!
This product seems like extreme variance.set On the 1 hand you can open a pack with nothing but bulk, on the other you can open a pack with a mana crypt, Rhystic Study, demonic tutor and any other expensive uncommon from any of the colours.
Personally I'm a big fan of their starting ban list. Having no fetches to start will massively reduce the price to build a deck and also helps police cards like the delve spells, deathrite, jace and delirium. I also like that they've taken a hands off approach and haven't preemptively banned anything to allow the format to find its feet first. That being said I wouldn't get married to any deck just yet, there's likely to be bans in the coming months, I just can't believe treasure cruise and dig through time will remain unbanned. I've only played 4 matches on mtgo so far against 4 different people but they've all had treasure cruise + I'm also running a treasure cruise deck lol, who knew that ancestral recall in a arclight phoenix deck was good
Still might be of some use in certain meta's. Being just 1 mana is huge and it's actually useful in UW control as it gets around snapcaster flashback unlike rule of law or the taxing effects of dampening sphere.
Thing is working hard to work around a draw-back to a card that already has 2 very playable options (Inq/TS) is pretty pointless. Vs most decks the 2 life doesn't matter but being down a card when you're likely playing it in GBx that wants to grind you out 1 for 1 then 2 for 1'ing yourself in the early game seems awful. The only time this would be any good is against other black decks but if you're against death's shadow then Inq already hits the cards you want to take and the same is true vs GBx.
The only decks where this could possibly be useful are prison decks or 8 rack since neither care about cards in hand and both want to stall as long as possible so not losing life and still hitting every card might be worth losing a card. That being said neither deck is exactly top tier in modern and this card won't change that so yeah, unlikely to see much if any play in older formats.
That being said there's a good chance your opponent either has a crap enchantment if you want to remove a creature or a crap creature if you want to remove an enchantment so this will rarely actually remove what you want but it's still a 2 mana mass edict that doesn't hurt you.
Anyway when I heard of the themes for the decks I was least excited for this by a long way but it seems like they did a better job with this than the first two.
That being said Elsha is going straight in my spellslinger deck, getting artifacts and enchantments too is sweet upside.
The core set was lacking in reprints... what?
We got leyline of the void, sanctity and anticipation that were all $20+ cards and see plenty of play. Grafdiggers cage was $8 and is a staple in older formats. Steel overseer was $16 and sees play in multiple formats. Lotus field is a functional reprint of lotus vale and there were several other cards that were made even cheaper like the temples and rule of law. If you wanted a playset of leyline of the void and sanctity along with 1 anticipation for commander 4 months ago you'd pay $320, now it's 'just' $92. A $228 price cut seems more than reasonable for reprint value.
I am starting to get worried about WU control though. With bridge gone and the Hogaak deck slowing down in general sweepers will become far more effective. On top of that with the 4 field of ruin 2 surgical package tron is a far less scary matchup than it used to be so if people reckon tron will be back that's pretty grim.
It's not like there's any 1 card in WU that is too strong it's just that in the last 2 years the deck has got access to field of ruin, opt, big teferi, little teferi, narset, jace, force of negation, dovin's veto and other less played options like fof and search for azcanta. That is a ton of tools that have really pushed the deck to the top.