- Mergatroid_Jones
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Member for 8 years, 3 months, and 5 days
Last active Fri, Mar, 29 2024 08:11:04
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Jan 6, 2018Mergatroid_Jones posted a message on The Magic Market Index for Jan 5, 2018Amonkhet is on there twice, and Hour of Devastation is missing, so you know.Posted in: Articles
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Nov 30, 2017Mergatroid_Jones posted a message on If You Can't Take Criticism of Jeremy Hambly, You're Part of the ProblemEveryone: STOP TRYING TO WIN THE CULTURE WAR BY POSTING ON THE INTERNET!!!Posted in: Articles
No matter how smart and compelling your post/ article seems to you, it is not going to change hearts and minds. None of us had ever heard of either of these two people before this nonsense: it is just an excuse to rehash a bigger issue that will never be resolved by making posts and counter-posts on message boards. (Yes, I know saying that here is hypocritical.) -
Apr 23, 2017Mergatroid_Jones posted a message on The Magic Market Index Amonkhet Set ReviewIt's like people don't even know that Anointed Procession will be eight bucks in five years. How is it this kind of card always follows this pattern? It seems investors would have destroyed that easy plunder by over-exploiting it.Posted in: Articles
Not that I mind. I'm happy when cards are cheap, and easily available. Order now for your casual fun purposes, or you'll end up paying way more for the same card. In the mean time, almost every other card in the set will tank in value. Business as usual. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Dauntless Dismantler is a pretty strong hatebear. It's definitely good in my artifenchantment cube, but it might be good in general depending on how many artifacts you like to run. I like a large colorless section myself.
What do you folks think about Abyssal Gorestalker? A beefy body on a Barter in Blood seems powerful.
Pit of Offerings is pretty interesting, but I fear it may be too dependent on an existing graveyard. In an opening hand, you can't rely on it being a real land. But I may give it a go.
Market Gnome is super cool. I will end up using it various places.
Nurturing Bristleback is yet another decent high-end cycler. They've been hitting that note hard lately.
Golly: that's one scary Geological Appraiser. Losing the haste makes it a lot less explodey than Bloodbraid Elf, but being monocolor gives it a lot more cube appeal.
There will be many more situations where you open a pack with multiple pick-one quality cards, which means picks two-four can be a lot more spicy.
There have been too many types of booster for a while now. Honestly the only thing I don't like is the drop to 14 cards. Just give us an extra common! One of the things this will do is make commons less... common. So the really good ones will go up in cost.
The abilities are all very relevant for very different purposes, and all can be used at any point Niko is active, unlike most planeswalkers.
The shards being Opts instead of clues can let you dig out exactly what you need if the game is getting long (Which the +1 also helps punch through). And if the game is more aggressive, the -1 is where it's at. Niko can protect in the now while eking out a later advantage if you managed to get any shards.
This is one of the most strategically complex and versatile planeswalkers out there. I'm a big fan. But they're still not gonna be toppling a top tier Teferi any time soon.
In comparison to Sphinx's Revelation, I prefer Niko simply because they're a lot more interesting than the rather generic Revelation effect. But Niko will not save you when you are behind like Revelation. If you top-deck Revelation against a game-warping must-answer threat, you can draw for the answers you need while buying the time to get there. Niko on the other hand won't draw you the cards fast enough to save you, or buy you any time against a doomsday monster.
This has been pretty top notch shock variant from what I have seen. Bargaining is not too difficult with a bunch of treasures and 1/1 tokens floating around, and sometimes you get to bargain a Perilous Myr. A little bit of scry is worth a lot on cheap removal, as Magma Jet shows. And the backup mode is Magma Spray, which is often sufficient to take out the thing you need dead and exiled.
This has a lot of bonus text and sits at about the same level as Unholy Heat. That card has a higher ceiling, as it can occasionally take out threats red removal struggles to reach. But Torch the Tower has a higher floor and reaches the ceiling much more often.
Cybermat, Cyberman Patrol, and Clockwork Droid are all very pushed two drop artifact creatures. I'm pretty anti-crossover, so I don't think I'll be playing any of them. But the droid at least seems to have pretty generic flavor.
The two extra abilities are sweet trinket text. Land creatures aren't incredibly hard to come by, and obviously this discounts manland activations. The best interactions are Mishra's Factory, Blinkmoth and Inkmoth Nexus, and Mutavault.
The middle ability is the most intriguing. But I had a look around, and other than the discount on manlands it doesn't do too much inside or outside of cube (Fastbond + Oboro, Palace in the Clouds for ALL THE LANDFALL!). Great with the Darkwater Catacombs cycle, but that cycle is close to last place.
I think this card has all the hallmarks of a super fun b-list all star. Sadly it's a mythic, so it most likely won't be cheap until it gets reprinted.
So here's something I've been wondering for a while. How long has it been in canon since the events of like... Zendikar 1? I keep waiting for characters to visibly age. Sure, Nahiri and Sorin and Liliana and Karn are eternal, ageless beings. But why is Chandra still like 24? At least the Kenrith sibs did seem to grow up a bit in their latest representation.
There are tons of cantrips with selection for U. I don't really feel the need to play either Sleight of Hand or Opt, though I fully acknowlege they're playable. I actually like Portent and Thought Scour better than both.
The options that give some other advantage than selection can keep the blue cantrip slot from feeling stale, so I'm happy to play only some of the good selection+cantrip effects.
On the subject of Opt, I recently added Plunge Into Winter with my best optimism. It's 2 mana for an Opt, but it's in white and it interacts with the board a bit. We'll see if it's okay.
And on the subject of Peek, I find it hard to justify when Gitaxian Probe exists. As Kryptnyt said, I wouldn't play both. That said I do think peeking is underrated, especially on a cheap card. Playing The End in draft recently really highlighted how powerful the extra information can be, though I think some of that is psychological.
One final note. Regardless of other playable options, a one-mana instant that draws you a card and grants you a minor advantage is always decent. I've had good experiences with Whispers of the Muse, and I think Expedite is underrated. I'm wondering about how relevant the upside on Quicken is. So practically speaking, while it may not be theoretically optimal, a card like Peek or Quicken will never be a strictly bad card. Not everybody's trying to be theoretically optimal.
I don't think people tend to have time for things like this in cube anymore. Cubes are fast, power levels are high, and cuts are impossible. This is six manaa, doesn't win the game by itself, and doesn't have a backup mode.
But for those like myself, this is definitely still a fun and splashy card worth picking highly.
I do wish the adventure were an instant, even if it had to be slightly weaker to compensate. But adventure has played out pretty well. It's swell being able to fill out creature and spell slots at the same time.
Golly, I missed that. In my mind it wiped out abilities. Thanks for pointing out.