You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Calling it now, Nahiri becomes the big-bad for the next major story arc.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
I get the same sense, maybe it's because the marketing department browbeat us with that trailer. "What this set needs is an unambiguous villain in the trailer. Yes, they have to do something real evil, for practically no reason. We can make a grand story arc out of her being real evil for no good reason! That's what sells."
Maybe it depends a little bit on our reception of Nahiri. I mean, she's always been crazy so at least it's consistent. But as much as I thought Bolas was a shallow, clichéd villain who I genuinely wish to never see again, at least he made sense. Pushing Akiri off the edge of the precipice in cold blood just kind of makes her uninteresting as a villain to begin with, and also feels inappropriate for a RW character. She'd be vastly more compelling if, alternatively, she and Akiri were struggling and Akiri fell by accident... Nahiri is shown grief stricken but, hardened, proceeds as planned. It would show Nahiri is ultimately willing to make sacrifices for her goals that are morally questionable yet actually be conflicted about those sacrifices such that they have dramatic stakes. We're supposed to pay attention to this story about Nahiri because we know who she is, but the other characters who are her victims are much less prominent and so less likely to have meaningful impact. All the more if they don't have a meaningful impact on Nahiri herself, in which case, she doesn't meaningfully impact us either. That might be different if her goal, eliminating the Roil, felt a bit more justified or held more personal significance to her. But instead I just feel like she's shoe-horned into this Roil-eliminating plot because they need some source of conflict in the absence of the Eldrazi. Which is of course literally the reason for the plot, but in this case it's so glaring. An anti-villain who clearly only cares about their ideals right from the get-go might have the potential for character development but there's little the hook the audience as to this possibility, in which case you need other characters to shore up that front. With Nissa as the counterpoint... well this is par for the course for Magic storylines.
All that said, if they add even a little bit of depth to the character (which will be hard to do but not impossible), I'm excited to think about the possibilities of a new story arc. The sooner I can completely forget Bolas was ever a thing, the better.
I don't see why the two colors can't share the Outnumber effect. White gets it because it needs more rewards for going wide, and red gets it because it's king in dealing damage.
I mean, I think they can share, it's just that Red doesn't need the effect. Outnumber is, in all honesty, a pretty medicore card but Kabira Takedown has lots of potential because it's White, the same way Harmonize is a slamdunk Green card but Concentrate is nothing special.
Yep, this is right. I see it as a reasonable effect for a card which would imply that it would be acceptable as a monored card, but in practice if there's a choice between which color gets this effect in a card, white is preferable. And RW would gain the option to aim at players.
I guess the design team is fine with W dealing damage getting Outnumber now because you need creatures on the board for it to do something? That's a question I want Maro to answer.
Basically this is white's version of green's fight mechanic. Green uses giant beaters as the condition for its creature removal; white uses a weenie board state. If this is a color pie bend, I think it actually enriches the color pie. Red doesn't need to invest in a creature board state to burn, it shouldn't have this effect and just focus on being the burn color.
Hmm. They are really designing for arena now. A whole sleeved deck with half DFCs would be really annoying to play with.
I think it might be a good idea for them to meet Arena's needs by having Arena-exclusive sets. That will make it diverge a little bit from the main game, but if they treat it like its own set of formats they'll be able to keep paper magic clean of potential issues like this one with sleeves.
Well, this card definitely rips off the band-aid on the enchantment destruction limitation for black by being so efficient and versatile.
I think this will be healthy for the formats it's in. Good removal can be hard to come by which has been a problem recurrently. And giving black access to an answer to enchantments maybe frees them up to do interesting things with enchantments.
Black has been a bit under the radar as a color in need of some attention. White and red have suffered the most from the blue-green bloat, but black will eventually need to be addressed too. I'm interesting in hearing people's thoughts about what it needs as a color right now.
The creature/land DFCs can't be too efficient without warping formats. The most pushed versions of these cards should be the non-creature ones that offer utility rather than a win condition. I think this card is about right, comparable to the rate for a man-land with a small upside since it's modal.
Zoning Provision 1W
Enchantment
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under his or her control this turn, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. If you don't, that player sacrifices a land.
Mono-white protecting the 'burbs? A little on the nose right now, don't you think?
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
White's gonna white. Art imitating life and all. Besides, green is out of control, ramping all over the place. My roses!
Zoning Provision 1W
Enchantment
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under his or her control this turn, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. If you don't, that player sacrifices a land.
It is just me or is this Linvala really bad.
She does nothing unless you have a full party. You need 3 other specific typed creatures and than you can Ice Cage a nonland permanent they control for one turn?
The sacrifice effect is okayish but odd to sacrifice such a character. I don't know... not a fan. At least she is cheap. Nothing seems to reach the power of her first card. This is garbage in comparison. Going to the next bad thing of her is the art. This doesn't seem to be Linvala at all. She looks so different and she should have 4 wings not 2. Well the armory seems to be done right. Maybe this is just another angel which happens to have the same name
Full party is a very cool, resonant mechanic but probably not a very powerful one. Getting five (?) different creatures on the board is a lot of hoops to jump through, is very easily disrupted and punished, and the payoff on Linvala is... a very average effect.
3CMC for a 3/3 flier with upside is just above average, I'd say. We'll have to see how the meta pans out to know if she's playable in standard or not, but the fact that she passes the Sun Titan test makes her automatically playable in EDH. Recurring half of Heroic Intervention? Yes please.
I dislike the fact that the majority of this card's power is accessed just by casting it and the threshold mechanic for the bonus effect contributes very little relative to its cost.
For example,
And You Thought Ixalan was Over 2U
Sorcery
Ascend
Draw two cards. If you have the city's blessing, scry 1.
The card has a reasonable rate for its main effect. So, the bonus is just gravy, but considering the conditions of the bonus, maybe it would better for this card to not use the ascend mechanic and have another card in the set do that(please god let's not revisit Ixalan though [unless it's not tribal]).
Kaldheim will probably be the Hoth of MTG Fandom. Hoth I believe was an iceworld in the Star wars galaxy or universe right?
Wait, when exactly was she canceled anyway? I know it went viral recently but I feel like I've been hearing about her for awhile now.
Quote from H3RAC71TU5 »
Hopefully they'll introduce a trans planeswalker as the MC as an extra dig at Rowling for that Lovecraft Country reclamation effect.
That would be absolutely lovely. As someone who's still a partial closeted MTF it'll be nice to see further representation outside of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death.
Strixhaven seems like a nod to all the people who love Harry Potter but have their enjoyment of that IP tainted since the author got herself cancelled.
Don't get me triggered, bruh.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
Purely being descriptive of the cancellation effect, people do seem to be craving magic school alternatives to Harry Potter. Fortunately I think this is a relatively rich trope in the fantasy genre although a little peculiar for a Magic set.
Edit: Hopefully they'll introduce a trans planeswalker as the MC as an extra dig at Rowling for that Lovecraft Country reclamation effect.
Strixhaven seems like a nod to all the people who love Harry Potter but have their enjoyment of that IP tainted since the author got herself cancelled. I think that's a pretty sizable audience so it makes sense to offer them up a set. Note that magic schools are not purely the domain of Harry Potter, just most popularly realized in HP. Hopefully Magic will give the setting its own special touch. We can definitely anticipate at least five houses representing different color combos.
It is just me or is this Linvala really bad.
She does nothing unless you have a full party. You need 3 other specific typed creatures and than you can Ice Cage a nonland permanent they control for one turn?
The sacrifice effect is okayish but odd to sacrifice such a character. I don't know... not a fan. At least she is cheap. Nothing seems to reach the power of her first card. This is garbage in comparison. Going to the next bad thing of her is the art. This doesn't seem to be Linvala at all. She looks so different and she should have 4 wings not 2. Well the armory seems to be done right. Maybe this is just another angel which happens to have the same name
Full party is a very cool, resonant mechanic but probably not a very powerful one. Getting five (?) different creatures on the board is a lot of hoops to jump through, is very easily disrupted and punished, and the payoff on Linvala is... a very average effect.
it should have been white and not blue but whatever I guess now Uro player have a hate card for the ramp mirror.
I agree. I'm not sure why this is blue, consider white has so many more land-related suppressions in the past, lots of LD and land minimization and they give BLUE this?
I also strongly feel that this could be a white card, although it does have some precedence in blue. Blue being anti-ramp contrasts its color-pie relationship to green, and the method (returning to hand) is characteristically blue. Blue and white should definitely share anti-ramp cards as one of their points of intersection.
Hopefully, white will get some anti-ramp cards which are at least as good as this one, since in the context of this environment it seems to me white needs this more than blue.
I'm inclined to think the idea that you choose before the beginning of the game is a misinterpretation. It's more plausible that you choose while playing. But of course we'll have to wait for the official rules primer for confirmation. What this means is that if you have a hand low on lands, you get a land. If you have a dead hand/too many lands, you can cast the instant. The worst case scenario is top-drawing it, but the opportunity cost of this is low because the card itself is taking up a land slot. Finally, lands entering the battlefield tapped are less suitable for aggro builds.
Edit: Corrected the error that card is an instant, not sorcery, so that I hopefully don't get twenty replies informing me of this fact.
I get the same sense, maybe it's because the marketing department browbeat us with that trailer. "What this set needs is an unambiguous villain in the trailer. Yes, they have to do something real evil, for practically no reason. We can make a grand story arc out of her being real evil for no good reason! That's what sells."
Maybe it depends a little bit on our reception of Nahiri. I mean, she's always been crazy so at least it's consistent. But as much as I thought Bolas was a shallow, clichéd villain who I genuinely wish to never see again, at least he made sense. Pushing Akiri off the edge of the precipice in cold blood just kind of makes her uninteresting as a villain to begin with, and also feels inappropriate for a RW character. She'd be vastly more compelling if, alternatively, she and Akiri were struggling and Akiri fell by accident... Nahiri is shown grief stricken but, hardened, proceeds as planned. It would show Nahiri is ultimately willing to make sacrifices for her goals that are morally questionable yet actually be conflicted about those sacrifices such that they have dramatic stakes. We're supposed to pay attention to this story about Nahiri because we know who she is, but the other characters who are her victims are much less prominent and so less likely to have meaningful impact. All the more if they don't have a meaningful impact on Nahiri herself, in which case, she doesn't meaningfully impact us either. That might be different if her goal, eliminating the Roil, felt a bit more justified or held more personal significance to her. But instead I just feel like she's shoe-horned into this Roil-eliminating plot because they need some source of conflict in the absence of the Eldrazi. Which is of course literally the reason for the plot, but in this case it's so glaring. An anti-villain who clearly only cares about their ideals right from the get-go might have the potential for character development but there's little the hook the audience as to this possibility, in which case you need other characters to shore up that front. With Nissa as the counterpoint... well this is par for the course for Magic storylines.
All that said, if they add even a little bit of depth to the character (which will be hard to do but not impossible), I'm excited to think about the possibilities of a new story arc. The sooner I can completely forget Bolas was ever a thing, the better.
Yep, this is right. I see it as a reasonable effect for a card which would imply that it would be acceptable as a monored card, but in practice if there's a choice between which color gets this effect in a card, white is preferable. And RW would gain the option to aim at players.
Basically this is white's version of green's fight mechanic. Green uses giant beaters as the condition for its creature removal; white uses a weenie board state. If this is a color pie bend, I think it actually enriches the color pie. Red doesn't need to invest in a creature board state to burn, it shouldn't have this effect and just focus on being the burn color.
I think it might be a good idea for them to meet Arena's needs by having Arena-exclusive sets. That will make it diverge a little bit from the main game, but if they treat it like its own set of formats they'll be able to keep paper magic clean of potential issues like this one with sleeves.
I think this will be healthy for the formats it's in. Good removal can be hard to come by which has been a problem recurrently. And giving black access to an answer to enchantments maybe frees them up to do interesting things with enchantments.
Black has been a bit under the radar as a color in need of some attention. White and red have suffered the most from the blue-green bloat, but black will eventually need to be addressed too. I'm interesting in hearing people's thoughts about what it needs as a color right now.
White's gonna white. Art imitating life and all. Besides, green is out of control, ramping all over the place. My roses!
Zoning Provision 1W
Enchantment
Whenever a land enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, if that player had another land enter the battlefield under his or her control this turn, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped. If you don't, that player sacrifices a land.
I dislike the fact that the majority of this card's power is accessed just by casting it and the threshold mechanic for the bonus effect contributes very little relative to its cost.
For example,
And You Thought Ixalan was Over 2U
Sorcery
Ascend
Draw two cards. If you have the city's blessing, scry 1.
The card has a reasonable rate for its main effect. So, the bonus is just gravy, but considering the conditions of the bonus, maybe it would better for this card to not use the ascend mechanic and have another card in the set do that(please god let's not revisit Ixalan though [unless it's not tribal]).
Wait, when exactly was she canceled? I know it went viral recently but I feel like I've been hearing about her for awhile now.
Hash tag make-Kasmina-trans-WotC?
Purely being descriptive of the cancellation effect, people do seem to be craving magic school alternatives to Harry Potter. Fortunately I think this is a relatively rich trope in the fantasy genre although a little peculiar for a Magic set.
Edit: Hopefully they'll introduce a trans planeswalker as the MC as an extra dig at Rowling for that Lovecraft Country reclamation effect.
Kaldheim seems the most interesting though.
Full party is a very cool, resonant mechanic but probably not a very powerful one. Getting five (?) different creatures on the board is a lot of hoops to jump through, is very easily disrupted and punished, and the payoff on Linvala is... a very average effect.
I also strongly feel that this could be a white card, although it does have some precedence in blue. Blue being anti-ramp contrasts its color-pie relationship to green, and the method (returning to hand) is characteristically blue. Blue and white should definitely share anti-ramp cards as one of their points of intersection.
Hopefully, white will get some anti-ramp cards which are at least as good as this one, since in the context of this environment it seems to me white needs this more than blue.
Edit: Corrected the error that card is an instant, not sorcery, so that I hopefully don't get twenty replies informing me of this fact.