These are nice for EDH. The red one is still my personal favorite, and after that the green one. It's a shame the black one only revives your own guys, I would have loved it for my almost creatureless Mardu spellslinger deck. Blue and white are a bit boring.
Check out the Jeskai blink deck from my sig. It controls the game, blinks dudes for value and all the while wins through incremental damage from Purphoros, God of the Forge and company without attacking once.
Check out the Jeskai blink deck from my sig. It is a classic flicker control deck, and wins with Purphoros, God of the Forge and co. while constantly blinking guys for value.
the lord wind grace deck still exists on the shelves here (but its being sold at like double the price of all the others).
I'm hoping for some weirder decks. zedruu basically offered a new deck archetype that wasn't really possible before, and I'm hoping for something as weird. Maybe a suicide RB? a tempo deck? something that makes boros aggro playable? maybe a pressure deck? maybe a mono-brown deck?
Actually, i'd wanna see them make a creature type changing archetype (artificial evolution on a stick). I like the idea of making yuriko, the tiger's shadow looking for frog creature types instead, and then making my didgeridoo warp in eldrazi.
Can't see this ever happening though, but i can always hope! Does anyone know what the themes are supposed to be? or is it too early?
Edit: geez, i just realised. with artificial evolution on a stick, i can make spawnsire of ulamog throw in all of the angel cards or sliver cards i own into play. One tribe after the other! Make this wizards!
My cousin has such a deck, with Varina, Lich Queen as commander. It's glorious.
Well, after reading this article, I am really curious to see how good C19 will be. I haven't bought any commander product since the 2016 edition and I am itching for great new stuff.
WotC better impress us this time!
PS: It's also good to see that Wizards appears to care about our reactions on any given product and are willing to take necessary measures to improve said product(s). I still wonder however how come a company with such a long track record still makes so many mistakes after all these years (25). Doesn't make much sense to me. But hey, I get that there are a lot of moving parts and formats to consider, so things are bound to go south once in a while...
I think the reason why they are still succesful and deliver an overall great product after 25 years is precisely the reason why they keep making mistakes. Both are a consequence of their continued willingness to test new waters and come up with new and interesting products. Of course, they are motivated by money at the end of the day and I don't want to sound too fanboy-ish here, but one of the things that make Magic such an enjoyable product for me personally as a consumer is that it didn't get stale at all in the 16+ years I have been playing, mostly in terms of individual card designs but also in terms of the product portfolio (I am thinking of the different formats I enjoy both in paper and digital). If WotC had never tried anything new, they probably would not have made many mistakes. But then again, MtG probably would never have existed for such a long time in the first place.
That said, they really did drop the ball in terms of reprints with C18. I am curious to see if there is substance to Verhey's promise. I always enjoyed buying and tuning the Commander precons and haven't done that during the last couple of iterations, so I definitely wouldn't mind if they deliver a product that I feel is worth buying for someone with a decently sized EDH collection already at their disposal.
On a related note, I think it is interesting that C18 sold as well as Verhey says. It seems to me there is plenty of demand for Commander products and they could probably do 3-4 Commander specific releases per year and would not exhaust the demand.
Here's what Gavin Verhey has to say on the issue of reprints:
First, the decks still did extraordinarily well. We've reprinted them multiple times and had them sell out each time, so clearly, people are still very excited and hungry for them. In fact, we're reprinting another batch to carry people through until the next Commander release hits; that's how popular these are.
Now, if you weren't happy with 2018's reprints, I could see how you might be concerned reading that. "Oh, great, it still worked and sold well, so we can expect the same for 2019."
Well, that's why secondly, I want to specifically say that we've taken the community's concerns to heart when designing the Commander release for this year. It's important to have a jolt now and then to reconsider some things, and as the product architect working on all Commander products, I really felt listening to this was important. I think you'll be happy with what you find in 2019's offering.
We've also repeated that we're unlikely to in the future invoke PBtE because new cards are way more available than older ones.
Out of curiosity, since I don't pay attention to the secondary market much, when was the last time a new card went over $100? Leovold, maybe?
Karn, Scion of Urza was pretty at high at some point when Dominaria was just out. Here in Europe it peaked at around 80 Euros, so I assume it was more than $100 in the US.
I plan to do a more detailed write-up in the decklist forums soon. While it is not primarily a political deck per se, Mathas is very good at generating friends at the table. It's a blast to play. The rough strategy is somewhat similar to DirkGentley's Phelddagrif deck (see the link in his sig) in that you aim your removal and control options - and your bounty counters - at the most powerful player and support the weaker players, thus maintaining a balance at the table until you are ready to win in one fell swoop. And Toshiro Umezawa is awesome in Mardu spellslinger.
While I agree with many of the criteria mentioned so far and even though it falls short on a number of them . . .
Where do you think the criteria fall short?
sorry, I meant Meglonoth falls short as a great blocker according to some of your criteria (i.e. it doesn't have reach and is not cheap). My choice of words may have been a bit clunky.
I'm a simple man. I just want some three colored decks, good reprints (not like last time) and original new card designs (just like last time).
Come on wotc, don't drop the ball again. If you can come up with cool cards like Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, you can also figure out that top of library matters deck should include Sensei's Divining Top rather than Serra Avatar.
While I agree with many of the criteria mentioned so far and even though it falls short on a number of them, I want to give a shout out to Meglonoth. A wonderful, fun, creative blocker. Just give him reach, indestructible and first strike.
End of the day, no one person that plays EDH will ever convince everyone that their style of play is the best. Or most correct, or most efficient, or whatever. Where's the fun in playing exactly the same game every time? No one wants that. Ultimately everyone here is entitled to their opinions barring any prejudice.
The RC tries to walk a fine line; it's a socially minded game, and one of the first things that drew me to this format is that power levels and acceptable limits are dictated by the people you sit down with; that's the way it should be, and that's what is encouraged by the RC. If you don't like their recommended banlist, don't use it, or make your own. If you want a game where fast combo is accepted and welcomed, great. You want to lock everyone else out of the game, go for it. If you want to embrace your inner Timmy and play battlecruiser stompy, you can. So long as the people you sit down with are happy with you doing that. That's where it's at.
I think at the end of it all, from what I read in the article, Sheldon maybe could have been more specific in his questions towards the guy in question - instead of 'are you the kind of guy we wanna play with?' 'just so you know, we're not interested in MLD, hope that's ok'. It's his prerogative to want to enjoy the game the way he wants to, as it is everyone's. The only real part of this that shouldn't sit well with anyone is the way communication broke down in this instance.
It's why I'm absolutely clear with what to expect, and what I can expect, when I sit down with a new group of people. I have a little something for everyone - stompy decks, chaos decks, control, a couple combo decks, a tiny splash of stax in some, I can handle land destruction with some too, I just need to know what vibe we're going for. I sit down with people and game to make friends, that's the whole point. No one needs to defend what play style they enjoy, they just need to make it clear what they don't enjoy, so that everyone involved has fun. It isn't that hard.
100% this.
Pretty much all of the problems in the format at large, in Sheldon's Article and in this thread stem from a lack of proper communication. Y'all just need to talk to each other before you sit down for a game. And yes, if you play with total strangers for the first time, chances are that the communication may fail even though everybody has good intentions. But at least you will avoid games with Tier 1 competitive decks against precons. And if everyone involved is a somewhat sensible human being, you can just go from there and try to find a better fit in the next game. (Obviously, this all works best in a regular playgroup)
That said, they really did drop the ball in terms of reprints with C18. I am curious to see if there is substance to Verhey's promise. I always enjoyed buying and tuning the Commander precons and haven't done that during the last couple of iterations, so I definitely wouldn't mind if they deliver a product that I feel is worth buying for someone with a decently sized EDH collection already at their disposal.
On a related note, I think it is interesting that C18 sold as well as Verhey says. It seems to me there is plenty of demand for Commander products and they could probably do 3-4 Commander specific releases per year and would not exhaust the demand.
Source: article today at the mothership: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/state-product-design-2018-2019-02-05
I plan to do a more detailed write-up in the decklist forums soon. While it is not primarily a political deck per se, Mathas is very good at generating friends at the table. It's a blast to play. The rough strategy is somewhat similar to DirkGentley's Phelddagrif deck (see the link in his sig) in that you aim your removal and control options - and your bounty counters - at the most powerful player and support the weaker players, thus maintaining a balance at the table until you are ready to win in one fell swoop. And Toshiro Umezawa is awesome in Mardu spellslinger.
Come on wotc, don't drop the ball again. If you can come up with cool cards like Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, you can also figure out that top of library matters deck should include Sensei's Divining Top rather than Serra Avatar.
Edit: I think it was Foglio tribal with Uril, the Miststalker as commander. Can't find a link right now though.
Pretty much all of the problems in the format at large, in Sheldon's Article and in this thread stem from a lack of proper communication. Y'all just need to talk to each other before you sit down for a game. And yes, if you play with total strangers for the first time, chances are that the communication may fail even though everybody has good intentions. But at least you will avoid games with Tier 1 competitive decks against precons. And if everyone involved is a somewhat sensible human being, you can just go from there and try to find a better fit in the next game. (Obviously, this all works best in a regular playgroup)