Well, Triumph of the Hordes is a very good card in commander; this is a permanent but much weaker version.
I would say it's fine, although the wording could be better. I would just say "While (...), combat damage dealt by (...) counts as commander damage dealt by your commander."
Chulane was meant to be the adventure commander. The problem is that he is good with everything and everything is better than adventures
(kinda the same for Korvold and food)
Yeah, but I specifically mean a commander with the adventure ability on the card.
Although come to think of it, you could just put them back into your command zone rather than exiling them as part of the adventure. So they'd just be a sorcery/instant in the command zone at that point. I still think it would play out interestingly, and there would still be drawbacks as long as the creature half is also worthwhile.
Shepherd of the Flock is a one mana Narrow Escape. So any decks running Narrow Escape will run this. Dodge removal or reuse ETB effects.
But nobody should really be running narrow escape.
Saving Grasp maybe. If you're not in blue but want the bounce then Whitemane Lion or Stonecloaker are some of the other contenders so at that point I could see playing him. Also aside from color he's strictly better than Rescue if you want to return a noncreature permanent.
Foulmire Knight makes no sense to me because you're not gaining any cards there. I don't think that much mana even at instant speed makes a 1/1 deathtoucher for no card loss worthwhile.
I would say the best adventure creatures are good for their adventures and not their bodies. Murderous Rider is probably the only one I could see playing in commander. But despite being a zombie and a knight he doesn't stick around in your graveyard for you to make any use of that.
It's also ridiculously disappointing there were no commanders with the adventure mechanic in a brawl-oriented set. Makes no sense to me.
Well, speaking as someone who has gotten multiple people of various genders into Magic, but not as someone who is into the dating scene...
Don't think of women or 'attractive people' as somehow fundamentally different from you (in this regard, at least ). Explain what the game is, design some super baseline 'duel decks' style decks to play if they want to (or just buy them; Eldraine has some very striking art to draw people in). Then try to assess interest.
This can be tough because even if they didn't like playing they usually won't say so out of politeness. I imagine this goes double if they're romantically interested in you and they get the impression that it's something important to you.
So pay attention to how interested they seem during the game; how many questions they ask versus just shrugging and nodding when you explain something to them. Hypothetical questions are a dead giveaway for interest because it means they're thinking about the game beyond what's currently in front of them. Magic as a form of creative self-expression thrives off of that sort of interest.
Then you've just gotta be reeeeal patient. They're starting out from square 1; try to remember how you thought about Magic at that point. Artwork is probably very important, and inclusion of cards will probably be based on factors other than effectiveness. As a form of self-expression they're probably going to want to make horrible deckbuilding decisions at first. Don't discourage that, they'll learn eventually. Keep explanations limited to basic game concepts like card advantage and tempo unless they specifically ask for help.
Most players learn through kitchen table magic. I would find some close friends (or maybe inexperienced SOs of close friends!) and start with low-power 60-card-casual decks. 4-player is ideal since 3-player tends to turn into kingmaker.
Ruination, Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and so on are all solid choices since big money combo decks tend to overreach and not run many basics. Though they tend to cause collateral damage though against fair decks that just happen to run a lot of colors. I like running loot effects alongside these so that I can pitch them if they're not relevant to the current game.
Without a doubt, Dominus of Fealty. Really, alltheLorwynspiritavatarsshouldabsolutelyhave been legendary just going by lore. They're pretty much the same story as the nephilim: they weren't strong enough to need the 'drawback' of legendary and EDH wasn't a thing yet in WotC's eyes.
Admittedly only about half of them are at all interesting as commanders, and most of those have a comparable alternative.
But Dominus in particular offers a really solid Threaten effect, the only comparable legendary alternative to which is laughably bad. His hybrid cost also means you could run him monored or monoblue if you were so inclined.
Imo it's unfair some strategies in the colors gets a better landbase them others. It's needless constraint.
I agree with this. Most land cycles are symmetrical in their constraints. If they aren't then it has a weird side effect of telling players what colors or strategies they're allowed to play right from the manabase, rather than as a result of what other cards are in the format's pool.
I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.
I'm actually pretty baffled about us not getting any legends with adventure in a set made for Brawl.
I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.
And playing Disallow in response to the Spore Frog activating its ability would NOT work because the sacrifice is part of the cost, correct?
Rezzahan is correct, though given the nature of your initial question I think it's worth pointing out that Disallow would only cancel the 'prevent combat damage' effect that comes after the colon. Spore Frog would already be in the graveyard.
Essentially playing a spell works like this...
1. You have priority
2. You cast the spell, selecting targets and paying costs (which may include tapping lands)
3. The spell goes on the stack, you have priority again. Nobody has had any chance to react to your spell yet.
4. You pass priority and each player is given priority in turn order, until someone uses priority to cast a spell or activate an ability, or everyone has passed priority in sequence. This is the point at which someone would actually be able to 'respond' to the ability, and this is what is meant when someone says "in response I (action)".
Using abilities works the same way as casting a spell, and everything in an ability before the colon (i.e. "sacrifice spore frog:") is a cost to activate the ability. As a cost it is 'paid', and the frog placed into your graveyard, as part of step 2 before anyone has had the chance to respond.
I know they thought about adding purple in the time spiral block.
I support colorless being the sixth 'color'. Now that they've updated the formatting on producing colorless mana vs. generic mana on cards like Wasteland, it makes enough intuitive sense to possibly be used in the next Zendikar or Innistrad set. It adds a deckbuilding constraint, and so can be allowed to have its own unique effects beyond the existing colors. It also works thematically as artifice or the unnatural, taking position between blue and black and directly opposing green. Meanwhile blue is left to directly oppose red and white is left to directly oppose black.
As to what colorless-the-color's slice of the pie would be that isn't already handled by traditional generic mana artifacts... I couldn't say. I think the most distinct part of its identity is its unique position as a non-color, and I think effects like Scuttlemutt, Painter's Servant, Ugin's second ability and All is Dust exemplify this well. It could also have something of a 'reflection' theme as exemplified by Mirror Pool, Mimic Vat, or Mirage Mirror. It also seems to like exiling things by association with the Eldrazi and therefore the Blind Eternities.
But that's hardly a unique color, and the exile thing even treads on white and black's toes.
I had a rather funny idea to build a degenerate combo-control deck, only instead of combos the deck can only include vanilla or french vanilla creatures of common or uncommon rarity for its win condition. This includes any card that could reasonably be expected to win the game (Reins of Power would be out for consistently enabling wins, but Undermine would be fine since it wouldn't be a way to close out a game except in highly unusual circumstances). This also means that the deck can't include utility creatures like Reclamation Sage and Eternal Witness since they could reasonably be expected to win the game if given long enough.
The 'control' part of the deck would, in contrast, feature a very cookie-cutter list of all the best staples aside from win conditions. Probably in Sultai or Bant colors.
As a further constraint, no stax or lockdown. This is a control deck, and should resemble the sort of deck that only runs counters and removal to slow down opponents while it reaches for its combos. If you Capsize all of their lands away then winning with vanilla creatures isn't actually meaningful. You could have won with a single millstone at that point. I'm inclined to say that more easily escapable locks like Counterspell on a Scepter would be allowed, as would sorcery-speed hand attack.
I'm still not sure about highly win-conducive effects like Triumph of the Hordes or Hatred which can lead to an immediate knockout with even a modest board state, though I'm leaning towards 'no'. I'm also unsure about extra turns even of the non-infinite variety. What do you all think?
And what would be a good choice for a commander? (The commander isn't constrained by the creature restrictions, but also shouldn't itself be a win condition except in that it's a creature with middling to respectable P/T for its cost. Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Tasigur, the Golden Fang or some other value engine would be good examples of acceptable commanders. Ideally the sort of thing that would make opponents groan when sitting down against it until the deck reveals its true devious strategy.)
The thief should maybe have the "spend mana as though it were mana of any type" clause. Although then you're pushing the limit on text space. It could be fun to build around that by needing to include a lot of "mana of any color" sources, though. There's also a definite advantage simply to exiling things facedown, since then players will never be certain what they've lost from their deck.
Battle cry on all warriors is very abusable. You might try "nontoken warriors" or just "whenever a nontoken warrior you control attacks, creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn." Something along those lines.
The elf is my favorite of these. Works very well on every level, and avoids being overpowered since elves are usually mana dorks anyways. I will second that it could just be "elf spells" and not "elf creature spells".
The Stormsire is way busted. Firstly, cascade shouldn't go on anything below 3 CMC becausecertaincardsexist. Second, even without those problem cards, that's still way too much card advantage for free from the command zone where it can never be dealt with, in colors that already include both blue and green. Overall that's a total rework on the eminence ability.
On a side note for The Stormsire; I get that the X is there for cascade, but it should probably also factor in to its text box in some way so that the card feels more streamlined and intuitive.
In terms of flavor I'm 100% for black being able to remove enchantments. If any color knows how to destroy a metaphysical concept given power like 'hope' or 'rancor', it should be black, not green. It follows closely with black's motifs of inflicting insanity or despair.
I also think that black should be able to take control of (but not destroy) artifacts in place of blue.
As the most power-hungry color, black should care a lot more about artifacts on the battlefield than blue, with more effects like the Nim or Phylactery Lich that care about greedily hoarding them (while blue is still the go-to color for 'inventing' them, with cards to help search for them, cast them, or put them directly into play as already exist)
Black should also have the ability to steal artifacts as a result of coveting them. (Which limits their artifact 'removal' competitively since gaining control always costs a lot more than destroying and is almost always sorcery-speed, while you probably won't get much use out of an opponent's non-creature artifact if your deck isn't built around it. This still allows the Naya colors to be better at dealing with artifacts and avoids crowding them out).
There are Hunted Dragon, Hunted Troll, and Hunted Phantasm, all of which I would consider bad cards in commander without a way to exploit the tokens. (but maybe not awful awful)
I would say it's fine, although the wording could be better. I would just say "While (...), combat damage dealt by (...) counts as commander damage dealt by your commander."
Although come to think of it, you could just put them back into your command zone rather than exiling them as part of the adventure. So they'd just be a sorcery/instant in the command zone at that point. I still think it would play out interestingly, and there would still be drawbacks as long as the creature half is also worthwhile.
Saving Grasp maybe. If you're not in blue but want the bounce then Whitemane Lion or Stonecloaker are some of the other contenders so at that point I could see playing him. Also aside from color he's strictly better than Rescue if you want to return a noncreature permanent.
Foulmire Knight makes no sense to me because you're not gaining any cards there. I don't think that much mana even at instant speed makes a 1/1 deathtoucher for no card loss worthwhile.
I would say the best adventure creatures are good for their adventures and not their bodies. Murderous Rider is probably the only one I could see playing in commander. But despite being a zombie and a knight he doesn't stick around in your graveyard for you to make any use of that.
It's also ridiculously disappointing there were no commanders with the adventure mechanic in a brawl-oriented set. Makes no sense to me.
Particularly Dominus of Fealty, Divinity of Pride, Oversoul of Dusk, and Overbeing of Myth.
Don't think of women or 'attractive people' as somehow fundamentally different from you (in this regard, at least
This can be tough because even if they didn't like playing they usually won't say so out of politeness. I imagine this goes double if they're romantically interested in you and they get the impression that it's something important to you.
So pay attention to how interested they seem during the game; how many questions they ask versus just shrugging and nodding when you explain something to them. Hypothetical questions are a dead giveaway for interest because it means they're thinking about the game beyond what's currently in front of them. Magic as a form of creative self-expression thrives off of that sort of interest.
Then you've just gotta be reeeeal patient. They're starting out from square 1; try to remember how you thought about Magic at that point. Artwork is probably very important, and inclusion of cards will probably be based on factors other than effectiveness. As a form of self-expression they're probably going to want to make horrible deckbuilding decisions at first. Don't discourage that, they'll learn eventually. Keep explanations limited to basic game concepts like card advantage and tempo unless they specifically ask for help.
Most players learn through kitchen table magic. I would find some close friends (or maybe inexperienced SOs of close friends!) and start with low-power 60-card-casual decks. 4-player is ideal since 3-player tends to turn into kingmaker.
Instant-speed grave hate and low-mana counterspells like Negate, Arcane Denial, Delay, Swan Song, Force of Negation, and Flusterstorm also help. Counterspells that exile like Faerie Trickery, Void Shatter, Dissipate, and especially Mindbreak Trap can make sure combo pieces stay gone for good.
Really, all the Lorwyn spirit avatars should absolutely have been legendary just going by lore. They're pretty much the same story as the nephilim: they weren't strong enough to need the 'drawback' of legendary and EDH wasn't a thing yet in WotC's eyes.
Admittedly only about half of them are at all interesting as commanders, and most of those have a comparable alternative.
But Dominus in particular offers a really solid Threaten effect, the only comparable legendary alternative to which is laughably bad. His hybrid cost also means you could run him monored or monoblue if you were so inclined.
I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.
Essentially playing a spell works like this...
1. You have priority
2. You cast the spell, selecting targets and paying costs (which may include tapping lands)
3. The spell goes on the stack, you have priority again. Nobody has had any chance to react to your spell yet.
4. You pass priority and each player is given priority in turn order, until someone uses priority to cast a spell or activate an ability, or everyone has passed priority in sequence. This is the point at which someone would actually be able to 'respond' to the ability, and this is what is meant when someone says "in response I (action)".
Using abilities works the same way as casting a spell, and everything in an ability before the colon (i.e. "sacrifice spore frog:") is a cost to activate the ability. As a cost it is 'paid', and the frog placed into your graveyard, as part of step 2 before anyone has had the chance to respond.
I support colorless being the sixth 'color'. Now that they've updated the formatting on producing colorless mana vs. generic mana on cards like Wasteland, it makes enough intuitive sense to possibly be used in the next Zendikar or Innistrad set. It adds a deckbuilding constraint, and so can be allowed to have its own unique effects beyond the existing colors. It also works thematically as artifice or the unnatural, taking position between blue and black and directly opposing green. Meanwhile blue is left to directly oppose red and white is left to directly oppose black.
As to what colorless-the-color's slice of the pie would be that isn't already handled by traditional generic mana artifacts... I couldn't say. I think the most distinct part of its identity is its unique position as a non-color, and I think effects like Scuttlemutt, Painter's Servant, Ugin's second ability and All is Dust exemplify this well. It could also have something of a 'reflection' theme as exemplified by Mirror Pool, Mimic Vat, or Mirage Mirror. It also seems to like exiling things by association with the Eldrazi and therefore the Blind Eternities.
But that's hardly a unique color, and the exile thing even treads on white and black's toes.
The 'control' part of the deck would, in contrast, feature a very cookie-cutter list of all the best staples aside from win conditions. Probably in Sultai or Bant colors.
As a further constraint, no stax or lockdown. This is a control deck, and should resemble the sort of deck that only runs counters and removal to slow down opponents while it reaches for its combos. If you Capsize all of their lands away then winning with vanilla creatures isn't actually meaningful. You could have won with a single millstone at that point. I'm inclined to say that more easily escapable locks like Counterspell on a Scepter would be allowed, as would sorcery-speed hand attack.
I'm still not sure about highly win-conducive effects like Triumph of the Hordes or Hatred which can lead to an immediate knockout with even a modest board state, though I'm leaning towards 'no'. I'm also unsure about extra turns even of the non-infinite variety. What do you all think?
And what would be a good choice for a commander? (The commander isn't constrained by the creature restrictions, but also shouldn't itself be a win condition except in that it's a creature with middling to respectable P/T for its cost. Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Tasigur, the Golden Fang or some other value engine would be good examples of acceptable commanders. Ideally the sort of thing that would make opponents groan when sitting down against it until the deck reveals its true devious strategy.)
Battle cry on all warriors is very abusable. You might try "nontoken warriors" or just "whenever a nontoken warrior you control attacks, creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn." Something along those lines.
The elf is my favorite of these. Works very well on every level, and avoids being overpowered since elves are usually mana dorks anyways. I will second that it could just be "elf spells" and not "elf creature spells".
The Stormsire is way busted. Firstly, cascade shouldn't go on anything below 3 CMC because certain cards exist. Second, even without those problem cards, that's still way too much card advantage for free from the command zone where it can never be dealt with, in colors that already include both blue and green. Overall that's a total rework on the eminence ability.
On a side note for The Stormsire; I get that the X is there for cascade, but it should probably also factor in to its text box in some way so that the card feels more streamlined and intuitive.
I also think that black should be able to take control of (but not destroy) artifacts in place of blue.
As the most power-hungry color, black should care a lot more about artifacts on the battlefield than blue, with more effects like the Nim or Phylactery Lich that care about greedily hoarding them (while blue is still the go-to color for 'inventing' them, with cards to help search for them, cast them, or put them directly into play as already exist)
Black should also have the ability to steal artifacts as a result of coveting them. (Which limits their artifact 'removal' competitively since gaining control always costs a lot more than destroying and is almost always sorcery-speed, while you probably won't get much use out of an opponent's non-creature artifact if your deck isn't built around it. This still allows the Naya colors to be better at dealing with artifacts and avoids crowding them out).
Buuut that's probably just me.
There are Hunted Dragon, Hunted Troll, and Hunted Phantasm, all of which I would consider bad cards in commander without a way to exploit the tokens. (but maybe not awful awful)
Cosmic Larva,
Drooling Ogre,
Goldnight Castigator
Jagged Poppet,
Mardu Blazebringer,
and Qal Sisma Behemoth are some good reasons to run red.
Ogres are apparently rife with badness as well. Raving Oni-Slave also exists.
Also Worldgorger Dragon and Soulgorger Orgg are really bad.