Not sure how I feel about this.
On the plus side, new cool mono-White Commanders are always exciting, and I've been saying that W deserved a Blink Commander since forever. This is a really cool design that can even be a funny way of making a Illusion Tribal or mono-White Reanimator if you want to.
On the other hand... It's so pathetically easy to go infinite with this by playing Felidar Guardian or similar which is already the kind of cards you'd want to run anyway. I feel like this could end up as a "cool on paper, linear and boring on practice" Commander like Prime Speaker Vannifar.
Also, holy crap they are REALLY drip-feeding us on this Anthro/Fable Plane aren't they?
are there enough tools accessible to monowhite for that kind of infinite flicker to actually matter?
i mean yeah, cathars' crusade will make a third (or more) creatures infinitely large, but that's already a card that gets out of control really easily. its not like monowhite has a purphoros or impact tremors
White anafenza is also infinite power.
Blessed Sanctuary is infinite unicorns.
Radiant Solar wins the game as well if you cycle through the mad mage’s tower and keep playing everything for free.
Rumor Gatherer let’s you effecrively tutor anything to the top of your library
Blasting Station turns the tokens into infinite damage
Genesis chamber makes infinite myr
Ashnod’s Altar is infinite mana.
Phyrexian Altar is infinite mana (which can be used to activate the activated ability, sacrificing tokens until all nonland permanents opponents control are gone).
Plus Cathars’ Crusade… plus any of the numerous ways to gain nigh-infinite life. If the starting benchmark for power is just Cathars’ crusade going nuts, I’d say that there’s room for mono white to expand and make this deck terrifying.
Well, we now have Levitating Statue as a sort of template for this kind effect. (Flavor aside coz I still think it is weird for a Ring to become a massive metal thing but we'll let that slip for now)
Rings of Darksteel 0
Legendary Artifact - MR
Indestructible, trample, vigilance
As long as Rings of Darksteel is a creature, its a Construct with base power and toughness 5/5 in addition to its other types. 8: Rings of Darksteel becomes a creature until end of turn.
I’m not sure it works that way, though. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that timestamps work such that a card effect turning this into a 4/4 or 0/0 with counters will virtually always be more recent than the static ability turning it into a 5/5 and that the effect with the newest time stamp will take priority.
In terms of interactions, I’m kinda wary about it, mostly cuz I don’t wanna spend mana to answer things; I kinda wanna just pressure the table, and hope that it’s enough. It’s a very weird play style the deck kinda likes. I’ve played not of this world and bolt bend and imps mischief, and I’ve never had them work out. Protecting my cards are not what I wanna do; removing/neutering things like propaganda/board-based tax/stax effects are what I need.
That opinion is fair enough, though I’d likely recommend against using your specific choice of Rakdos as commander if you don’t want protection. If your opponent react to the sacrifice trigger with a Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile/Generous Gift/Beast Within/Chaos Warp/Cyclonic Rift/Deadly Rollick/Pongify/Rapid Hybridization or other instant speed removal even one time (and that’s a fairly obvious thing for them to try), you are likely losing half of your lands and your chances of winning absolutely plummet.
If you want a “suicide aggro” deck in the sense that you are taking gigantic all-or-nothing chances every game, that’s an acquired taste. Most people use the term to describe a deck that pays life as a resource and doesn’t mind getting hit on the backswing.
Honestly, I don’t think that locuses are good design… like at all.
While it’s interesting to consider a world where a colorless deck could be compensated by the mana base resembling a sliver deck, I believe that there is very much a maximum limit on the number of these cards that can ever be printed for power reasons.
I really did want this to be castable for RG. I thought that would be so delightful.
Since blue gets flying, it's nothing out of the way to be demoted to reach. Deathtouch would be extremely exotic, but that's not a bad thing for your product, it would be hailed as an exciting thing (most likely) by the players. This is good for business. Keep them excited and happy—especially with cheap and accessible content. Considering this, it shouldn't be out of taste to give blue a crumb of deathtouch.
Not every color deserves a crumb of every effect. The purpose of the color pie is to explicitly bar certain effects from certain colors so you are drawn to use multiple colors to gain access to all effects, not to create different “flavors” of each effect for each color.
Tired of how gray and inorganic MTG has felt this whole year
What does this even mean?
I think that I get it. We had a relatively contemporary city (more so than Ravnica) in New Capenna, a cyberpunk dystopia in Kamigawa, and a set filled with mechs in Brother’s war, peppered with things like an outer space set and warhammer 40k decks.
Other than dominaria united (and the speed bump that was baldur’s gate) this year has a bit of a different aesthetic.
I do want to point out that you can effectively cheat out a 15/15 haste creature for 6 mana with Reanimate or Sneak Attack for the sake of thoroughness, though there are simply better targets that don’t force you into another color.
This is not “black fact or fiction”. This is “instant speed Ancient Cravings that feels like a red punisher spell”.
This type of spell effect simply does not work if you cannot ensure that you are getting at least one good card in any pile and this card only “pays off” if you draw two different “good piles” (one “good enough” pile with a threat and/or removal to reveal and an “actually good pile” to hide away).
I would hesitate using this even if it only cost 3 mana.
Could simply say exile a permanent and then put it in your hand.
Would be shorter and kinda simpler.
While that’s all accurate, I feel that wizards made the intentional choice to highlight the distinction in this way so newer players would be clued in if they don’t know about the synergy between blink-esque effects and unearth (which has been a pretty niche rules interaction until now).
Ancient Cravings at instant speed that can potentially punish you. I know that some players live for the mind games but this doesn’t sound too useful unless you are VERY confident that you can make it go your way.
I’m waiting to see the exact language on this card.
On Reddit, the translation targets the permanent but not the player. Here, it targets the player but not the permanent. A lot of the weird fun that this card enables is going to be determined by the minutiae.
If by some miracle the card targets both, for example, you’d be able to do silly things with Myriad Construct (the spell wouldn’t be countered when the construct explodes as you’d have another legal target).
While the value engine for pumping out relatively big tokens is cute, I think that this card starts the value engine a turn or two too late as a 2/2 blocker on turn 4/5 doesn’t strike me as too potent for defense.
If you can draw a card for free when this hits the field (such as with baby jace or looter Il-Kor) the 3/3 blocker you end up with is decent… but just decent.
Even in an ideal situation, where you are somehow able to land Teferi and a Draw-7 in a single turn, you won’t be able to create a token and still ult next turn (in a vacuum, at least), meaning that move would only really be useful to break a board stall… and wiping my opponent’s board the turn after I likely had them draw seven cards doesn’t seem as impactful unless I can win VERY quickly.
White anafenza is also infinite power.
Blessed Sanctuary is infinite unicorns.
Radiant Solar wins the game as well if you cycle through the mad mage’s tower and keep playing everything for free.
Rumor Gatherer let’s you effecrively tutor anything to the top of your library
Blasting Station turns the tokens into infinite damage
Genesis chamber makes infinite myr
Ashnod’s Altar is infinite mana.
Phyrexian Altar is infinite mana (which can be used to activate the activated ability, sacrificing tokens until all nonland permanents opponents control are gone).
Plus Cathars’ Crusade… plus any of the numerous ways to gain nigh-infinite life. If the starting benchmark for power is just Cathars’ crusade going nuts, I’d say that there’s room for mono white to expand and make this deck terrifying.
I’m not sure it works that way, though. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that timestamps work such that a card effect turning this into a 4/4 or 0/0 with counters will virtually always be more recent than the static ability turning it into a 5/5 and that the effect with the newest time stamp will take priority.
Am I wrong here?
That opinion is fair enough, though I’d likely recommend against using your specific choice of Rakdos as commander if you don’t want protection. If your opponent react to the sacrifice trigger with a Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile/Generous Gift/Beast Within/Chaos Warp/Cyclonic Rift/Deadly Rollick/Pongify/Rapid Hybridization or other instant speed removal even one time (and that’s a fairly obvious thing for them to try), you are likely losing half of your lands and your chances of winning absolutely plummet.
If you want a “suicide aggro” deck in the sense that you are taking gigantic all-or-nothing chances every game, that’s an acquired taste. Most people use the term to describe a deck that pays life as a resource and doesn’t mind getting hit on the backswing.
While it’s interesting to consider a world where a colorless deck could be compensated by the mana base resembling a sliver deck, I believe that there is very much a maximum limit on the number of these cards that can ever be printed for power reasons.
Not every color deserves a crumb of every effect. The purpose of the color pie is to explicitly bar certain effects from certain colors so you are drawn to use multiple colors to gain access to all effects, not to create different “flavors” of each effect for each color.
This is a key element of MTG as a card game.
I think that I get it. We had a relatively contemporary city (more so than Ravnica) in New Capenna, a cyberpunk dystopia in Kamigawa, and a set filled with mechs in Brother’s war, peppered with things like an outer space set and warhammer 40k decks.
Other than dominaria united (and the speed bump that was baldur’s gate) this year has a bit of a different aesthetic.
This is not “black fact or fiction”. This is “instant speed Ancient Cravings that feels like a red punisher spell”.
This type of spell effect simply does not work if you cannot ensure that you are getting at least one good card in any pile and this card only “pays off” if you draw two different “good piles” (one “good enough” pile with a threat and/or removal to reveal and an “actually good pile” to hide away).
I would hesitate using this even if it only cost 3 mana.
While that’s all accurate, I feel that wizards made the intentional choice to highlight the distinction in this way so newer players would be clued in if they don’t know about the synergy between blink-esque effects and unearth (which has been a pretty niche rules interaction until now).
On Reddit, the translation targets the permanent but not the player. Here, it targets the player but not the permanent. A lot of the weird fun that this card enables is going to be determined by the minutiae.
If by some miracle the card targets both, for example, you’d be able to do silly things with Myriad Construct (the spell wouldn’t be countered when the construct explodes as you’d have another legal target).
Dude, the UR ping legendary hates this as it will never ever trigger if all pings are for 2 damage.
While the value engine for pumping out relatively big tokens is cute, I think that this card starts the value engine a turn or two too late as a 2/2 blocker on turn 4/5 doesn’t strike me as too potent for defense.
If you can draw a card for free when this hits the field (such as with baby jace or looter Il-Kor) the 3/3 blocker you end up with is decent… but just decent.
Even in an ideal situation, where you are somehow able to land Teferi and a Draw-7 in a single turn, you won’t be able to create a token and still ult next turn (in a vacuum, at least), meaning that move would only really be useful to break a board stall… and wiping my opponent’s board the turn after I likely had them draw seven cards doesn’t seem as impactful unless I can win VERY quickly.