^^^ This. The current meta is extremely important to keep in mind when viewing prices on preorders. This card does nothing against Devo Black but does seem to be able to fit into RW Burn which has been topping out lately. It effectively gets your Phoenix's past Desecration if you haven't already chained him to a rock.
It kind of sucks in RW Burn though. Not enough creatures/devotion for it to do anything. Might be viable in some sort of Boros weenie, though in that case, it probably would be run as a 2-off at most.
Standard affinity didn't have metalcraft (the only relevant card that modern affinity wants from standard affinity is skullclamp,nd that's banned in legacy anyway)
You are grossly understating the importance of Artifact lands and their ability to allow you to dump your entire hand out consistently by turn 2. Sure, they open you up to dedicated artifact hate, but the boost to Arcbound Ravanger and Cranial Plating is quite significant.
Aside from that, I agree with the rest of your comment.
You are correct, except that Battering Krasis has trample, which allows its controller to allocate damage to the player assuming that the blocking creature has been assigned lethal damage or is removed from combat.
Quote from Comprehensive Rules »
702.18c. If an attacking creature with trample is blocked, but there are no creatures blocking it when damage is assigned, all its damage is assigned to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.
How many Black creatures are there in Standard right now that have immediate (meaning it does something the turn it's played) impact? Let me list them:
That's pretty much it. I didn't count multicolored cards with Black in the casting cost, and I didn't count cards that had conditional abilities.
Of this list, only one card stands out to me that has seen competitive play, and that's Geralf's Messenger. One card, out of all the ones I've listed. There are far more Black cards without ETB effects that manage to see play on a continual basis.
Erm, what black creatures without ETB effects and cost 4 or more are actually seeing play?
While I could pick apart everything you said piece by piece and explain how wrong it is, this one statement says enough. Inquisition of Kozilek is not a core set card. Why? Because Kozilek is in the name. It's why Divination is a card instead of just reprinting Counsel of the Soratami. Before spewing your opinion as gospel, please do at least the most cursory research on a topic that has been expounded upon at great length by WotC R&D.
They still do reprint random cards or new cardsthat reference older characters or locations not in core sets. The no named characters thing is just a guideline, not a set-in-stone rule.
Reanimator vs Mill isn't as good a matchup as suggested for Reanimator. Think of it this way, 50% of reanimator's spells help Mill deck the Reanimator out.
Yes, it is one card among thousands. Yes, it is not representative of the art of MTG.
But as far as body types go--especially for angels--that one is always worth mention.
And that art gets flamed to oblivion in this forums. Which incidentally is the reason why there are so few unattractive character arts in MTG, resulting in the everyone is a supermodel/body builder syndrome.
As stated by others, a group of dragons is best called a paradox or an oxymoron. After all, "sparrows fly in flocks, but eagles fly alone", and no predator at that level would even go into a group aside from perhaps mating purposes (think lions), but even then we know that just two dragons in one place, even as a pair, is a terrible idea.
Except that lions (the lionesses specifically) do live and hunt together as a pack (pride). And depending on what fantasy settings your dragons come from, pack behaviour may be the norm.
It kind of sucks in RW Burn though. Not enough creatures/devotion for it to do anything. Might be viable in some sort of Boros weenie, though in that case, it probably would be run as a 2-off at most.
You are grossly understating the importance of Artifact lands and their ability to allow you to dump your entire hand out consistently by turn 2. Sure, they open you up to dedicated artifact hate, but the boost to Arcbound Ravanger and Cranial Plating is quite significant.
Aside from that, I agree with the rest of your comment.
Erm, what black creatures without ETB effects and cost 4 or more are actually seeing play?
They still do reprint random cards or new cards that reference older characters or locations not in core sets. The no named characters thing is just a guideline, not a set-in-stone rule.
It had existed in Odyssey/Onslaught standard.
And that art gets flamed to oblivion in this forums. Which incidentally is the reason why there are so few unattractive character arts in MTG, resulting in the everyone is a supermodel/body builder syndrome.
To be fair, all the answers to Supreme Verdict are at least partially white, so actually only one colour has outright answers.
To be fair, Dimir cards didn't have much synergy in old Ravinca either. It was transmute, mill and random 4 mana 4/4 flyer.
Except that lions (the lionesses specifically) do live and hunt together as a pack (pride). And depending on what fantasy settings your dragons come from, pack behaviour may be the norm.
Because it looks like a pile of cards until you actually play/see it in action it.
But it's in Canada!