MTG Salvation

Quote from bigbearlyke »

I just don't get the overcosted argument when Mindmoil is 5cmc. So 6cmc for that plus a 5/5 flying wizard (enabling Azami)? Seems solid. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind is 6cmc. Is he weak? The two decks will play very similar. In fact, most Niv decks will play Arjun. Even some of the more optimized.

I actually consider the body to be a negative on the card, not a positive. I think overall Mindmoil is better as an enchantment and thus why I would want a creature version to be cheaper, not more expensive.

Niv-Mizzet gets by on the fact that his ability does not actually require that you cast a spell, it triggers on card draw of any kind (so Azami + MoM can trigger it for example). He also has an instant kill combo for just 1 more mana in Curiosity (along with more complex or expensive comboes). I don't expect Arjun to win on his first trigger without alot more set up than Niv-Mizzet takes. That said, outside of instant kill combos, no I actually don't like Niv-Mizzet that much. If he didn't have his instant kills he wouldn't see play most likely (see Dracogenius).

IMO Arjun's problem is his cost. At 6 mana he just costs so much and he still hasn't given you anything yet. You need to either have more mana on top of that for triggering his effect in one turn or he needs to survive a whole round to get back to you to have an effect. And this issue only gets worse if you need to recast him. That's the main reason why I don't consider him that "powerful." The effect is "good" the cost just weakens it terribly. If he cost 4 (with a smaller body) I'd be much more interested.

I'm honestly surprised that Ajun and Ezuri are the ones you single out as best when IMO both Golgari Commanders and Mizzix (maybe even Karlov) stand above both. Still I guess we'll see when they start getting played.

Quote from Droptimal »

Quote from TSRD »

Ezuri - 3. Probably worth a 4 but I just don't like him personally. +1/+1 counter guy. I'm not impressed here either but he does have combos.

Think you are missing the combo potential of Ezuri...

Ummm... What? No I'm well aware of Ezuri's combo potential (I even list it in his description, I'll bold it for you), it's just not something that impresses me. Mazirek has far better combo potential and is certainly great outside of combos.
I mostly don't like Ezuri because he isn't interesting to me for a G/U commander. Momir is more along the lines of what I want G/U to do. Not put some counters on a single creature once a turn...

Anya - 1. Utter Trash indeed. Should have a 0 or negative option.
Arjun - 2. Meh. He's vaguely interesting I guess but I see no reason to use him. He's expensive, fragile, and provides little immediate value usually.
Daxos - 3. Average. Semi-cheap token maker. I'm not impressed but I wouldn't be surprised to see him played either.
Ezuri - 3. Probably worth a 4 but I just don't like him personally. +1/+1 counter guy. I'm not impressed here either but he does have combos.
Kalemne - 1. Dumb beater which Boros already has plenty of. Not as bad as Anya but there was no 0 option for Anya.
Karlov - 4. Very, very good. Could honestly be a 5. Strong, super cheap, good ability. This is a good beater, pay attention Boros.
Kaseto - 2. Meh. At least he's cheap and can be a mana sink. That puts him over the Boros options.
Mazirek - 5. Awesome. Will win games often and easily. Semi-expensive at 5 but should end games on the spot when played so who cares?
Meren - 5. Awesome. Great value for the cost. Plays the slower grindy game rather than the big finish.
Mizzix - 5. Awesome. Could be a 4 because you really need to untap with her to get the value. Still if you get to untap you should win.

So there you go, could move Karlov up and Mizzix down but otherwise I'm happy with those ratings.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

The counter mode is the worst mode on the card.

Sure I guess but it's not like it's "pay 1" or "pay 2", it's mana leak. That's alot of mana to have extra during the middle turns of the game. If you really absolutely need to counter the spell you can pick it a couple times and still draw a card/bounce your eternal witness. More often though 3 mana probably is enough and you're bouncing 2 things/drawing 2 cards. Super late game (which doesn't exist near me but appearently it does for some) it's not a counter but at that point Draw 3 or Bounce and replay 3 of my creatures is probably worth it alone.

Cryptic is better in a number of ways, sure but that doesn't make this any less of a powerful spell and better in some situations.

Quote from APurePhyrexia »

Except her ability triggers at the end phase. If it was at the beginning of the turn then I would say otherwise.

I would ask if you knew that the fact that it triggers on the End Step is a good thing, but obviously you don't. If it triggered on the upkeep it would be so much worse it's not even funny. It would have to survive for an entire turn around the table before it generated any value for you. The fact that it works on end step means it's getting you value unless it's killed at instant speed. The only way it could be better is if it triggered on the second main phase but they almost never print stuff like that anymore. Realistically this is as good as you can ask for with the timing of the ability.

Heck if it triggered on upkeep your complaint about her being graveyard centric would carry more weight. Since it triggers on end step, again outside of instant speed answers, you can choose to cast her when you know you'll get something back.

Quote from AzureShadow »

This is such a bad commander.

She wants you to win with commander damage, but you have to have already done a bunch of damage with other things first for her to start getting bigger and indestructible. Then, once you kill one of your opponents she shrinks again. Never mind the fact that she does nothing to advance your gameplan by herself while being in the worst color combination in the game.

Why do you hate Boros so much, Wizards? Both of these new legends are terrible. We needed someone that gave some form of card advantage, and we got yet another mediocre beatstick.

Agreed 100%. Holy cow is this a massive disappointment. This is just straight bad and horribly boring. Frankly I would have to look long and hard to come up with a single R/W legend I wouldn't use in a deck first.
*Looks at Gatherer R/W Legends* ...Ok fine wizards, I guess I'll take that back because a vanilla 4/4 flyer for 5 is actually better than some of your past R/W Legends (poor Boros) but still, this card is insulting.

Quote from Kolmogorov »

Might replace Basandra as my R/W commander (hope this doesn't provoke Basandra-bashing comments...).

I certainly wouldn't be bashing Basandra in a thread with this card. Basandra is at least moderately interesting (with good art), this is not...

Quote from Incanur »

I prefer Basandra, Battle Seraph over Anya, Merciless Angel, albeit only for the art.

If I ever build a RW deck, it'll probably be Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. I'm happy about that reprint.

I'd take Basandra over Anya every single time from a game point of view too. Anya is frankly shockingly bad garbage. At least Basandra can do a few kinda interesting things.

Quote from Greenlexluthor »

Quote from TSRD »

Quote from Jack Eraya »

Not as good as the red one, but still a good card. Looking foreward to seeing the black and the blue one ^^

Not as good as the red one? Multiple Regrowths (minus Instants/Sorceries) and/or Basic Land Ramping? That's excellent. Red is Artifact Destruction or Pyroclasm... Honestly I'd much rather have the green one most of the time.

6 mana for ramp is pretty bad, we already have nissa's renewal and no one was rejoicing for that card when it came out.

Red one is far more than a pyroclasm, blowing up 3 artifacts is very relevant for the mana cost, let alone using its direct damage to kill planeswalkers.

Flexible removal is better than pump and bad regrowths.

If it was just Ramp, yes it would be bad. The ramp is a extra when you only have 2 things you want to regrow or you're holding a card in hand you want to cast but can't. As a modular option it's much better than as the sole effect of the card. The pump I'm just ignoring because it's either good for synergy reasons or bad in general and deck dependant.

Personally I'd gladly take bad regrowths over bad removal/artifact destruction. I can work around regrowths because they are a factor I can control with my deck building/game play. Artifact destruction and pyroclasms (or randomly getting to snipe a planeswalker, which I would be impressed to see happen with the red confluence) are only good in certain situations and are dependant on the opponent's deck/play.

The way I see it the Green Confluence is all about 3xRegrowth with a few extras when you can't do that. The Red is Artifact Destruction or Pyroclasm and it just depends on the situation as to which you pick. With Regrowth I can get better Artifact Destruction (Regrow Bane of Progress) or a Card Draw/Tutor Engine (Sylvan Library/Survival of the Fittest) or a Proactive Threat. With Pyroclasm or Artifact destruction modes I can get those two effects... And Pyroclasm isn't an effect I'm all that interested in. I'd rather have Molten Disaster, Star Storm, Blasphemous Act, ect...

Quote from Jack Eraya »

Not as good as the red one, but still a good card. Looking foreward to seeing the black and the blue one ^^

Not as good as the red one? Multiple Regrowths (minus Instants/Sorceries) and/or Basic Land Ramping? That's excellent.
Red is Artifact Destruction or Pyroclasm+1... Honestly I'd much rather have the green one most of the time.

This card screams for Tezzeret's Gambit... "Free" and gets 2 exp counters...
Stroke of Genius over other x draw spells since colored mana will be your bottle neck here.
Naturally all of the Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, Time Spiral, Windfall style cards...

Excellent and, IMO, iconic black card. If the deck I'm building is B in any way then this is one of the first cards I consider and only comes out when I have to start making cuts. Sacing creatures yourself as B is easy (plenty of takens or recurrable creatures in B) and there's almost always a player with a soft board to an edict (or a wrath can make them soft). Sure you can tac on a body but 1 mana is a very nice place to be and early plays can change games.

Quote from gilrad »

(and for the love of god, don't try to justify it by "encouraging better deckbuilding habits", that's just an arrogant way of saying "my brand of fun is superior to yours").

You do realize that it goes the other way too. "My brand of fun is the type that should be allowed so you can't play Gaddok Teeg/MLD/whatever." People act like other types of spells (even just big creatures) don't force game states to be played a certain way and remove options and the usefulness of certain cards from consideration.

Anyhow, yep, gotta love the fact that someone felt they had to ask if Gaddok Teeg was "bad manners" in EDH. For a supposedly casual/fun format I've seen few that are as mean or toxic as this.

Quote from Infernal_Denizen »

Care to explain why I do not have it right?

The "cater to spikes" and "competitive" parts of your comment would be the assumptions you made (heck even the "balance" part is arguable, as is to what degree this "balancing" would be attempted). That has not been decided yet nor is the proposed banlist by forgotten one necessarily the one they will go with. This is an idea thread to discuss possibilities, including possibilities that have nothing to do with the banlist, like mulligan rules, life totals, or commander tucking.

Your posts (and many other posters in the official banlist thread) also just further cements for me that the idea of "social contracts"/"Spirit of EDH"/"self policing players" is a terrible basis for a banlist because people can oh so easily be petty and cruel. The very idea that someone would not want to use the RC's banlist (for whatever reason, and not all of those reasons include sol ring or whatever card might be argued) is apparently so unacceptable that you need to come to this thread just to insult/mock/troll/ect.. at those who are actually putting in effort into this. I would hate to try playing a "social" game with you and many other vocal champions of the "casual EDH" set.

If this thread is so doom to failure because the concept simply cannot work then there isn't any reason for you to bother with it, no? Let it die and leave those who want to struggle in vain with it to their own devices.

Quote from RivenVII »

I'd say that was plenty proof that they listen and are reasonable.

My response is primarily driven by the repeated responses of "If you don't like it, house rule it/make your own ban list/get out" and the direct quote stating that it wouldn't matter if you could somehow prove the majority of players didn't like X they would continue doing things their way regardless.