- VulpineShine
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Last active Sat, Sep, 30 2017 21:12:14
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DarthParallax posted a message on The Scorpion Godvery lazy name. no indestructible. all mechanical identity of the God creature subtype has been lost unless they rectify the mistake the next time they do gods. I get that ''this is one of the 3 'hideaway' Gods Bolas stole'', but that's really not a good enough reason make a God that isn't indestructible. they were able to justify that the Amonkhet Gods would always be creatures, but this is too far over the line. This just isn't a God.Posted in: The Scorpion God
-not an enchantment. no starry background.
-not an 'invoked' creature from a different state. always a creature.
-not indestructible.
what are we left it?
it's curvy. a 5 mana 6/5 with no drawbacks is....well, it's close to what Green gets for Common, frankly! (a LOT has changed to Craw Wurm's space on the limited curve over the years.) but not Red-Black I guess. OK, I'll admit that's not only solid grounds for an uncommon, it squeaks as a rare Just for the 6/5 for 5 mana.
it's Legendary. this hurts it's 6/5 for 5 status. but hey, fun Commander possibilities for themes and colors. Anytime you give Commander a new Creature type Color combination, there's going to be someone that wants to build it. Before, we only had Mogis for Rakdos colored Gods. This is a new face for that set of players. there's only one problem: he's not really much of a God, so the flavor falls flat.
-he's got an activated ability, but so what? lots of creatures have activated abilities.
A Creature Design like this is like a Demigod of Revenge given the Legendary Creature type (forget for a moment that Demigod happens to be one of the only ones from that 10-card megacycle that really didn't want to be legendary). It puts even more spotlight on proofing that Shadowmoor basically gave us more Nephilim-- "forgetting to put 'Legendary' on cards that felt Legendary"-- (another Cycle that is sort of like that is the Titans. But the Titans kind of created their own new Trope as ''if you're not going to do Legendary, this is how to do Non-Legendary Epic RIGHT.'' Most people I think would say the Titans are cooler and more fun as Non-Legends. But the Ghastlord of Fugue, Nobilis of War, Demigod of Revenge and friends really look like they share with Nephilim the flaw of not being Legendary as a flaw. They should have been.
The fact that this Scorpion God can exist, pass itself off as a kind of bland, slightly curvy legendary, with a Mythic Rarity slapped on it, and represents a minor role from the lore that will be easily forgotten given a year, and people are still at least somewhat excited to at least get a card for the character, really shows that those Shadowmoor cards could have been Legendaries and nobody would have doubted their Legendary status as legit and earned.
This card isn't exactly bad or boring, I'm having a hard time believing it's Mythic Rare and Legendary, but it does dodge the graveyard, it does use -1/-1 counters for a flavorful Scorpion's Sting, and it does remind me in a lot of ways of Olivia Voldaren just based on what a Mythic Rare Legendary card gets you in Red and Black with fairly modern R&D sensibilities about Power.
I'm not irritated about the power level of the card here, but it looks a lot more to me like a Mythic Scorpion Horror than a Mythic God. The flavor is very distorted and diluted for two major, major, reasons, and one minor reason.
1. Gods need names. Every God so far has had a name. While it can work to have flavor texts refer to ''the Scorpion God'' ''the God-Pharoah'' ''the Serpent God'' or ''the Jackal God'', on the cards themselves, you want the character to know it's own true real name for a figure as high-profile as a God. it's fine if the denizens of Amonkhet don't know this guy very well at all. Let his epithet title be ''(God's Name Here), the Scorpion God'', and let the other two Secret Gods all be ''the Something God'', but give them names too! Nicol Bolas ought to know their names! This is pretty lazy. The biggest excuse for allowing laziness here is I don't expect them to ever return to Amonkhet. It's a pretty fun world, but they deliberately drained it of having much to tell about it and destroyed it on their way out. We're probably done with Amonkhet and will never see this one again. But......if he ever gets a reprint anywhere for some reason, like a reprint set, well.....''The Scorpion God'' with no other name is in my opinion lame.
2. He's not Indestructible. Look at Progenitus, the Eldrazi, the Theros Gods, and even the Amonkhet Gods. Graveyard-dodging has taken on a life of its own with these Super-Mythic monstrosity creatures, and we expect them all to be able to do it by now, but there's also an issue of flavor at stake. Some shuffle into the library, some are indestructible. it matters which is doing what. It's become part of their identities as their creature types to have the same methods of graveyard dodging consistently. If Emrakul, the Promised End had returned to your hand, that would have felt wrong, for more reasons than just power balance. Eldrazi-undeathing is iconically shuffling your whole graveyard into your library. They decided to not give any graveyard dodging to the 2.0 Eldrazi from what I remember, but if they had given a power like that to any of them, they would have given the SAME one to ALL THREE OF THEM.
(2.b Likely, because Wizards isn't totally stupid, (only partly stupid), they'll give this grave-bouncing to the other two Secret Gods.)
3. (Minor) No flavor text. It would have taken fewer words to give him Indestructible than to give him Graveyard bouncing, and they could have used a quote to really increase the flavor lore of these Secret 3 Gods, who are still pretty giant mysteries. Now it looks like the only things we'll be learning about them is that they aren't indestructible and they have 3 animal heads. We have little idea what they really care about as Gods because this one doesn't have any flavor except -1/-1 counters and a possible connection to Scorpions. out of 26 Gods with Creature Type-God this one is easily the stupidest which is a little sad, because Theros pumped out so many God creatures that it should have been easy to be better than the 3-5 worst of them by just being Very Amonkhetlike and Very Godlike.
Sadly, Amonkhet has stripped the God Type of most of its Divinity piece by piece, taking away everything that made Theros Gods special. Each time having less and less reason to do so.
There were good and necessary reasons for Enchantment to be taken away, but considering that these cards are supposed to be the highest of high profiles short of Planeswalkers-- "Mythic Rare Legendary Creature- God"-- each of the Gods ever needs to stand on nearly even footing with a Titan for coolness. They don't have to match the Titans for Raw Power, especially as you add more colors to them, but they do at least have to feel Iconic and Mythic. And 25 cards have set up the expectation that this creature type is Defined more than anything else by its Indestructibility.
All this guy is is an activated ability dealing with -1/-1'ing stuff. I'm sure there are better ways to -1/-1 in not just other cards, but Standard, heck even this set. If he'd been the God of -1/-1, the God of Stingers or whatever, he could have had extra mana in his mana cost and a crazy powerful machine gun ability, but instead they played him down so safe that I'd much prefer him to lose the God type and Mythic Rarity, and be a Rare Scorpion Horror instead. He looks nasty for Limited I guess. Still doesn't feel at all like a God, in a game where everything is Magical and there's all kinds of other cards feeling more Magical than this one.
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GW2GuruUser7586 posted a message on Adorned PouncerSometimes I wonder if people even bother to read what I write - because I've covered nearly every point you've brought up.Posted in: Adorned Pouncer
http://magiccards.info/query?q=o:Transform&v=card&s=cname
How many reminder texts do you see for Transform? None. It's pretty obvious what it does solely based on the fact its a double-sided card. This is why I feel that this might also be a double-sided card. (Being an Emblem that needs to change zones would make it different enough from other transform cards to need it's own keyword)
The card is fully revealed. This isn't a case where WotC has put half the card on their site and hid half of it (as they have done with some cards). We have a photo of the actual cards. It's technically a leak, not a WotC reveal. There is no reminder text on this card (There might be a reminder text in the in-set non promo card, though.)
I am unable to find a case of any promo cards (full art or otherwise) that didn't have reminder text on the keyword except for evergreen keywords or cards that had a lot of other text which didn't leave room for a reminder - neither of which is the case here.
I encourage you to google image search Full Art Promo Cards MTG - you'll see that these do typically waste a lot of space when a reminder text is not necessary. They never have flavour text. -
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GW2GuruUser7586 posted a message on Adorned PouncerIt's rare to see a keyword without reminder text. That usually only happens when the keyword is blatantly obvious (or there isn't enough room - which isn't the case here.) Even evergreen keywords have reminders.Posted in: Adorned Pouncer
The only keyword I can think of that doesn't use reminder text is transform - because double-faced cards are obvious what they need to do.
For something to be 'eternal' it can't be removed in any way. Something eternal to me winds up being a concept or an idea rather than a physical thing you can interact with.
I feel like these come together to mean that Eternalize cards are double-faced cards with an emblem on the back side of them. They get moved to the command zone and have an eternal effect on the game after they have been eternalized. (Hopefully we'll have a way of dealing with Emblems too - something I've been wanting for awhile) -
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gnd343 posted a message on Gideon of the TrialsThey should rename the game to Creatures: The GatheringPosted in: Gideon of the Trials -
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Lithl posted a message on How to Search for Lords?If you've got a regex search, "^(other )? .+ creatures (you control)? get \+1\/\+1\.$" (with case-insensitive and single-line modes set) should get you almost all of them without many false positives.Posted in: Magic General -
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blackjack419 posted a message on Release the GremlinsFinally, some new artifact removal. Least it's better than demolish.Posted in: Release the Gremlins -
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Shug88 posted a message on Authority of the ConsulsThis depresses me.Posted in: Authority of the Consuls -
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scoed posted a message on Dubious ChallengeIF I read this right, it is a very bad card. You get the worse of the two cards you exile and your opponent gets the better one. You spend a card, you pay the mana and you get the worse of two creatures. Please explain why anyone would cast this? I guess it combos with Phage the Untouchable. Find Phage and fail to find a second creature but that is it. Maybe there is a functional reprint of Phage coming? Well I guess there there things like brand but that still isn't great two cards for two creatures and you have to combo out for them. Not a good card.Posted in: Dubious Challenge -
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Rosy Dumplings posted a message on Metallurgic SummoningsAh yes. Because Mizzix clearly needed the tools to punch you in the face with giant creatures.Posted in: Metallurgic Summonings - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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The ultimate is cute with vehicles. Not game winning but it would be broken if it was. Still not something I'd want to face against a grindy deck.
The -2 is terrible. He won't be able to defend himself. But his high starting loyalty is a form of defense.
Can see this absorbing a bunch of damage and sprouting an early Noxious Gearhulk or helping crack clue tokens.
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Selfless Spirit? You still lose 2 turns to Reflector Mage though.
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Good in edh.
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I think the main ways of dealing with Hangarback are going to be evading it and faltering it. It's slow enough to race ... and that's about it. The card is oppressive, for sure.
Hallowed Moonlight might not be too unreasonable. It also hits Deathmist Raptor and Rally the Ancestors and tokens, Scion or otherwise.
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