Vanila design. +1 card advantech -3 kills a card -big X ulti.
He's in izzet. It could be +1.5 card advantage if you pitch a jump-start into the yard. I'm actually sure that's the intended design.
His +1 ability can feed Undergrowth too.
Too bad undergrowth has no overlapping colours. You are looking at a 3 colour deck to make that work (which might be okay with Shock lands in the format)
Ral is a cool character by design, hes about LIGHTNING, and this card doesnt really give a good image of him, especially as the abilities arent really unique at all, other planeswalkers already to that stuff , and even better.
Yup - one youtuber I watch refers to him as a 'rebalanced Chandra'. He's almost strictly worse than Chandra with basically the same abilities. It could be argued that the +1 is better since it goes into your hand when tapped out but you don't get to optionally deal damage.
What did you expect? Boros is the aggro guild. We won't get something different in Ravnica from Boros. Maybe in another plain. (I doubt it. Most of the legends cares about attacking)
Gruul and Rakdos are the aggro guilds. The original Boros tends to the midrange side of aggro with life gain and other tricks. IT's original guild mechanic was Radiance - which had nothing to do with aggro and mostly existed to play up the multi-coloured matters theme in the original Ravnica: City of Guilds. Radiance was also a nod to their angel-focused lore theme - which has been lost a little in Battlefront and Mentor which focus on their military nature and not their faithful nature. I was kind of hoping to see something more radiance-like interesting this time around.
Overall - I'm disappointed with these new mechanics. I liked the RTR mechanics better generally than the RAV mechanics. Convoke coming back again is bleh - I was hoping to see something more enchantment focused somehow. I think of these mechanics Surveil is the only one I moderately like - and even that I'm not super excited about.
Neat flavourful mechanics is one of the reasons I like Ravnica.. that and hybrid cards (which we haven't confirmed yet) So far the set is disappointing - but I'm still hopeful.
Scry would almost always be better than Surveil unless you're running a "graveyard matters" deck. Scry works in pretty much any deck since there are almost no situations where it's not useful.
I have to disagree. Surveil is strictly better even if you are not running graveyard matters. The stuff scry puts on the bottom are things you pretty much never want to see come up again. If your library gets shuffled for any reason those cards are still there clogging you up. Surveil takes them out of your deck completely (barring an effect that shuffles your yard into your library)
This seems too slow to be used in constructed. Maybe in limited. The thing is - you can't use the token on the same spell as you use Emmara - since the trigger isn't resolved until after you've paid for the spell. There are much better ways to get multiple creatures on the board even if convoke is your goal.
Unless we see Soldier tribal of course - then I could see this working. Honestly - I'd rather it have been a saproling. I guess the lifelinker might be okay as a chump blocker in some situations.
If we get stuff like Glare of Subdual then my opinion will change, of course. I'm just refering to the claim I hear from pretty much everyone that "this will be good for convoke" ... and I just don't see that - not on it's own.
Oh. This makes Jump Start far less interesting if the cost is always the same as the CMC of the card + Discard. Not what I was expecting when I saw the mechanics announcement.
Yeah I was hoping for a bonus effect when you jumpstart.
This might happen on some cards. "If you cast this from the graveyard then..." might appear. Still hoping
Can you stack Mentor? If a 3/3 with Mentor and this guy attacks do you get to make himself 3/3 with the ability to mentor a 2/2?
Basically, you could choose to get a 3/3 token, or a 2/2 token and a 3/3 Warboss:
- Create the 1/1 goblin.
- Two mentors attack, two triggers
o The 3/3 can target the token or the Warboss
o The Warboss can only target the token.
Assuming the mentors survive, you'd end up making 3/3 tokens that have haste and must attack on the following turns (the Warboss would be a 3/3 and so the other 3/3 mentor has to target the token now).
Makes sense, thanks.
How will this work with the other guy. Boros Challenger BC (2/3) and the +1/+1 effect till end of turn?
You attack with a Goblin Token (1/1), BC (2/3) and LW (2/2):
1. You use BC pump (BC 3/4 end of turn)
2. Mentor trigger, attacked with BC: But a counter on LW 3/3
3. Mentor trigger, attacked with LW: But a counter on Token 2/2
The LW won't get to put a counter on a 2/2 on this turn. You have to put the triggers on the stack before they resolve and the LW can't target a 2/2. They also check when they resolve so if you did something weird where the target was legal but then had too much power on resoloution then Mentor is countered.
In other words the mentor triggers at 2 and 3 happen at the same time - and LW only has 2 power, not yet 3.
You can do shinanigans with this over multiple turns, though. You can even BC the LW on turn 4 and then LW the BC the turn after.
Given all of this, I am surprised that it's 2 counters per card... I don't recall Trail really taking off much.
Trail is a decent comparison - and usually decks that used it had other things you get off clues rather than just the card draw.
Dynavolt Tower was the card that came to my mind. It required 2.5 spells for the 3 damage activation (and no mana) on it's own. It requires tapping. Again - other energy sources can use this energy and feed it so it's hard to make a strict comparison. This card WAS used in a lot of burn-heavy spells decks that existed before AKH, but those decks also ran Glimmer of Genius and Harnessed Lightning to feed it and draw from it.
So I think that because this is similar to Trail and Dynavolt - which saw some play in edge cases - that this might also see play in edge cases. It will largely depend on how much other 'spells matter' stuff we see with the Izzet guild - it looks like it is going to be a pushed sub-theme.
This is the kind of card that speaks to maybe being a cycle - one for each guild.
That said - the colour specific effects are already gated on their activation cost. I'd rather this have cost (U/R) or otherwise did something the turn it came into play (scry?)
SURVEIL - so, Search for Azcanta, basically.
MENTOR - kind of like a reverse Evolve.
JUMP - eh? Doesn't really seem izzity to me. Maybe seeing some cards might change my mind.
The golgari one makes me think of threshold/delirium but counting creatures specifically.
IDK these all feel meh to me. Even Convoke is disappointing I much preferred Proliferate.
Indestructible seems kind of redundant on a body that big. Trample would've been a better option.
But as for Convoke, it makes sense that they're using older mechanics. It's getting to the point where they don't have much wiggle room in new mechanics without introducing new card types, colours or what have you. I wonder if some of the other guilds might have a returning mechanic too. I just hope Boros RW doesn't get Radiance again
'buster
If they go with the direction they took in core 2019 it's most definitely battalion. Otherwise. Why make a one drop cat that gets bigger if three or more creatures are on the field?
I'm reasonably sure MaRo said at one point that Rtr block mechanics aren't coming back here - which means no battalion. It's a shame because I thought the Rtr mechanics were miles above the first iteration.
Convoke is meh - i much preferred proliferate. I was hoping to get to some shinanigans with Polyraptorm
I love the reprints, but why Deathrite Shaman? He's banned in basically every competitive format he is potentially legal in and is proven to be a broken card. He isn't even showing up in standard...
Oh, this will be comedy gold if he is in standard again. I can see him being balanced in a more limited card pool so at least it would make some sense?
He was banned in Standard too in his day. Right after I picked up a playset.
I am 100 percent going to pick up the simic one no matter what. I hope Kraj is in it - i could use to replace my one that got water damaged and I love the set symbols.
If I recall correctly, the Planeswalker colours we need represented the most is WB We currently have all other colours in Standard and while I know many are rotating out the last WB was Sorin in SOI.
Given that each set is designed to be stand-alone, I expect they will throw a bone to each of the colour combinations not represented in each set. So I think we`ll see a WB planeswalker in Guilds even though WB is mostly going to be in Alliance. They could do a nativewalker in Alliance though.
Aren't plenty of top modern decks using block monster cards? Eldrazi? Infect?
Infect is NOT a block monster. It relies too heavily on buff spells from other sets. It likely wouldn't be competitive in Modern if you had to take out all the off-block cards.
He's in izzet. It could be +1.5 card advantage if you pitch a jump-start into the yard. I'm actually sure that's the intended design.
Too bad undergrowth has no overlapping colours. You are looking at a 3 colour deck to make that work (which might be okay with Shock lands in the format)
Yup - one youtuber I watch refers to him as a 'rebalanced Chandra'. He's almost strictly worse than Chandra with basically the same abilities. It could be argued that the +1 is better since it goes into your hand when tapped out but you don't get to optionally deal damage.
Gruul and Rakdos are the aggro guilds. The original Boros tends to the midrange side of aggro with life gain and other tricks. IT's original guild mechanic was Radiance - which had nothing to do with aggro and mostly existed to play up the multi-coloured matters theme in the original Ravnica: City of Guilds. Radiance was also a nod to their angel-focused lore theme - which has been lost a little in Battlefront and Mentor which focus on their military nature and not their faithful nature. I was kind of hoping to see something more radiance-like interesting this time around.
Overall - I'm disappointed with these new mechanics. I liked the RTR mechanics better generally than the RAV mechanics. Convoke coming back again is bleh - I was hoping to see something more enchantment focused somehow. I think of these mechanics Surveil is the only one I moderately like - and even that I'm not super excited about.
Neat flavourful mechanics is one of the reasons I like Ravnica.. that and hybrid cards (which we haven't confirmed yet) So far the set is disappointing - but I'm still hopeful.
I have to disagree. Surveil is strictly better even if you are not running graveyard matters. The stuff scry puts on the bottom are things you pretty much never want to see come up again. If your library gets shuffled for any reason those cards are still there clogging you up. Surveil takes them out of your deck completely (barring an effect that shuffles your yard into your library)
Unless we see Soldier tribal of course - then I could see this working. Honestly - I'd rather it have been a saproling. I guess the lifelinker might be okay as a chump blocker in some situations.
If we get stuff like Glare of Subdual then my opinion will change, of course. I'm just refering to the claim I hear from pretty much everyone that "this will be good for convoke" ... and I just don't see that - not on it's own.
Skilled Animator was where my mind first went too when I saw this card (Can you tell I'm a Johnny?) Hostage taker is a sweet idea too.
This might happen on some cards. "If you cast this from the graveyard then..." might appear. Still hoping
The LW won't get to put a counter on a 2/2 on this turn. You have to put the triggers on the stack before they resolve and the LW can't target a 2/2. They also check when they resolve so if you did something weird where the target was legal but then had too much power on resoloution then Mentor is countered.
In other words the mentor triggers at 2 and 3 happen at the same time - and LW only has 2 power, not yet 3.
You can do shinanigans with this over multiple turns, though. You can even BC the LW on turn 4 and then LW the BC the turn after.
Trail is a decent comparison - and usually decks that used it had other things you get off clues rather than just the card draw.
Dynavolt Tower was the card that came to my mind. It required 2.5 spells for the 3 damage activation (and no mana) on it's own. It requires tapping. Again - other energy sources can use this energy and feed it so it's hard to make a strict comparison. This card WAS used in a lot of burn-heavy spells decks that existed before AKH, but those decks also ran Glimmer of Genius and Harnessed Lightning to feed it and draw from it.
So I think that because this is similar to Trail and Dynavolt - which saw some play in edge cases - that this might also see play in edge cases. It will largely depend on how much other 'spells matter' stuff we see with the Izzet guild - it looks like it is going to be a pushed sub-theme.
That said - the colour specific effects are already gated on their activation cost. I'd rather this have cost (U/R) or otherwise did something the turn it came into play (scry?)
MENTOR - kind of like a reverse Evolve.
JUMP - eh? Doesn't really seem izzity to me. Maybe seeing some cards might change my mind.
The golgari one makes me think of threshold/delirium but counting creatures specifically.
IDK these all feel meh to me. Even Convoke is disappointing I much preferred Proliferate.
I'm reasonably sure MaRo said at one point that Rtr block mechanics aren't coming back here - which means no battalion. It's a shame because I thought the Rtr mechanics were miles above the first iteration.
Convoke is meh - i much preferred proliferate. I was hoping to get to some shinanigans with Polyraptorm
He was banned in Standard too in his day. Right after I picked up a playset.
I am 100 percent going to pick up the simic one no matter what. I hope Kraj is in it - i could use to replace my one that got water damaged and I love the set symbols.
Given that each set is designed to be stand-alone, I expect they will throw a bone to each of the colour combinations not represented in each set. So I think we`ll see a WB planeswalker in Guilds even though WB is mostly going to be in Alliance. They could do a nativewalker in Alliance though.
Infect is NOT a block monster. It relies too heavily on buff spells from other sets. It likely wouldn't be competitive in Modern if you had to take out all the off-block cards.
THe only one I can remember is the bear punch from Khan's block [/quote]
I recall a couple of times from Khans... Tormenting Voice was printed in Kahn and Dragons (with different art) ... and then again in SOI
Tormenting Voice
Tormenting Voice