Wholly forgot the Flamecaller,thanks, bro But we have not seen her summoning the elementals in story,IIRC.
There was this weird period of time when literally all PWs did in the story was summon creatures. I remember back in the original Ravnica's book, there was this scene that saw Jace summon a fairy, only for it to be BRUTALLY MURDERED by Tezzeret's own summon (long story short, Tez was trying to beat an important lesson on the nature of planeswalkers into Jace's head). That same book saw Jace summon a drake and a sphinx, and Liliana got to summon a friggin' vampire of all things.
So yeah, back then everyone was a summoner, and so even Chandra got to summon the occasional fiery elemental, although yes, she was always more about going Human Torch on people. Summoning fiery elementals was more of Baltrice's cup of tea: you people do remember Baltrice, right?
In EDH this is outrageously good. Instant staple in every single green deck out there, really. Outside of EDH the steep mana cost might make it a bit worse, but... Well, if a combo deck with green in it can afford to play Collected Company, it can PROBABLY afford to play this too.
I'm sure you're aware of this but it's not really an apples to apples comparison because CoCo flashes in the 2 creatures whereas this only puts them to your hand. Now, there's other differences as well but that's a fairly dramatic hurdle.
Let's talk about Fountain of Ichor please.
That's the bloody Phyrexian liquid. Phyrexian liquid ON IXALAN.
At the end of WAR, Tezzeret claimed that, with Bolas out of the way, he's now free to act on his own accord. He was one with the Panar Bridge, and knowing him he probably has the means of recreating it: you know, the artifact capable of transporting entire armies of half-artifact zombies across dimensions. You know, half-artifact zombies SUCH AS THE PHYREXIANS. Phyrexians with whom Tezzeret has already interacted in canon, I hasten to add.
Meh, between illness and work I've been out of the loop for so long, and now I return to find three new sets and this website on its way to closing/moving elsewhere/whatever the hell is going on. It's nice to see a topic I was fond of still going, in these confusing times.
So, how has Varina been doing for you these days? I wanted to stop by and ask if you've been testing the God-Eternals, as both Bontu and Oketra feel like they'd do a lot of work for this deck, the latter by creating even more zombies and the former by providing even more card draw, potentially to hilarious results (I'm pretty sure I can put together a combo to draw your deck with her and Varina given the time, which could lead to a slew of new and exciting potential wincons).
Griselbrand didn't need help - it just drew 35 cards off the bat
This card is fine
My thoughts exactly. I do like how, with a bit of set-up that is however not difficult to pull off in mono-black, this guy essentially becomes a Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief who spends mana to kill creatures, but with draw power instead of "kill folks with commander damage" power. People WILL find a way to break this, but isn't that true for most cards nowadays?
In EDH this is outrageously good. Instant staple in every single green deck out there, really. Outside of EDH the steep mana cost might make it a bit worse, but... Well, if a combo deck with green in it can afford to play Collected Company, it can PROBABLY afford to play this too.
So uh... Chandra is officially the energetic, endearing, lovable face of the product now? Are we all supposed to pretend that one time when she killed innocent people with no provocation (TWICE!) never happened?
Greetings! Due to an illness I've been away from this forum so long, many of you might not even remember me... And now I return to find all these news about moving somewhere else and stuff. It's all very confusing, let me tell you: I've been out of the loop for so long, I barely have any idea of what's going on
Speaking of not having any idea of what's going on: I've also been out of the loop when it comes to MTG and especially EDH, since the illness w preventing me from working, which in turn was preventing me from making enough money to buy new cards. Now I return to a big end for the Gatewatch story arc, with Modern Horizons already out and Core 2020 on its way, and there are just so many new cards to check out. One thing I have noticed, however, is that plenty of new cool cards have been created/reprinted that support the self-mill/dredge theme, and just as many that support the sacrifice themes: I used to have a Golgari deck with Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord at the helm, that made good use of both themes... But with so many exciting cards to choose from now, I figured I'd remove the sacrifice theme from it, and focus it exclusively on the self-mill/dredge. Then I went ahead and made a brand new deck with the sacrifice-themed cards.
So yeah, I'm here seeking feedback, opinions, criticism and suggestions/ideas for both decks: as a preliminary disclaimer, please note that both decks still lack a mana base, but I mean, they're both bicolor decks that are mainly black, so after I've thrown in the mass mana lands that black is famous for (Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Cabal Coffers, Thespian's Stage, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx etc) I can pretty much fill the rest with whatever I have lying around, these are not decks with especially complex mana needs. With that out of the way:
1) This is the reworked Jarad deck, which as mentioned focuses solely on self-milling and dredging. It wins with the Mike+Trike combo, by dropping Izoni, Thousand-Eyed followed by Craterhoof Behemoth, or just by casting Emrakul, The Promised End, which effectively costs 8 mana in this deck (and I mean, it's BG, amassing 8 mana should be trivial enough).
2) All of my sacrifice-themed cards happened to be black, I had no green ones... So yeah, since I had a few cool cards for Rakdos-colored combos lying around, I figured I'd go with that color combination rather than Golgari, so as to try something different. By putting Lyzolda, The Blood Witch at the helm, I eventually came up with this: it aims to in by making infinite mana with the Animate Worldgorger combo, so that Lyzolda can then burn everyone to death (she can sac herself to her own effect). Ashnod's Altar and Nym Deathmantle can also produce infinite mana with the likes of Mogg War Marshall, Grave Titan and other such token-producing creatures (a kind of creature a deck like this would want to play regardless): Lyzolda cannot win with such mana because it's colorless, but it is still possible to capitalize on it with Profane Command (instantly kill a guy while giving your army evasion in preparation for an alpha strike), Walking Ballista (which can instantly kill everyone with the aid of Goblin Bombardment) or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician (draw your deck so as to find another wincon). Other cards that are usually used with such a strategy, like Torment of Hailfire or Walking Ballista, are not included here because they're only useful once you have infinite mana, which makes me a little wary of them (they're dead draws if you get them before the combo is online): the cards I listed can do stuff for me even if I don't have the combo ready, which makes them more versatile and thus less risky to use.
As a side note, I mentioned having openings to launch alpha strikes, and this deck draws and discards a lot, so Anger would probably be a great inclusion, but I really don't know what to remove to make room for it. I mean yeah, this second deck is on card short (both are going to have 35 land, the amount I'm most comfortable with), but I'm waiting for Cavalier of Night, an announced card from Core 2020 which looks like it would do a of of work in this deck.
So yeah, this is what I got. Any feedback and constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated
Sorry for not coming back at you here in a while, but my health conditions are really getting worse lately, so I haven't been spending much time on this forum.
Anyway, I tried putting together a list, which you can see here. How does it look?
Who would win? A narrative concept used to build a powerful villainous faction, or THE EXACT SAME CONCEPT, only with Lovecraftian horror instead of sci-fi horror?
I dunno why, but the list with full set Foundry and full set Sword just wasn't working for me. After much reworking, I eventually settled on this, which felt like a good enough compromise. I got to play the list (heavily proxied, of course) today on the side of Allegiance's pre-release, facing a mix of people I play against often and people I'd never played with before. Here are my results:
Bant Spirit Tribal 1 - 2
Game 1 he opened broken and squashed me before I could do much of anything. Game 2 a well-timed Grafdigger's Cage killed his Collected Company, game 3 he used Gaddock Teeg to kill my Whir of Invention. Third game especially felt like it could have gone either way.
Izzet Gifts Storm 2 - 0
Both games he scooped as soon as I whirred in a Damping Sphere.
Mono Blue Tempo 2 - 1
He had this deck built around Tempest Djinn, Vendilion Clique and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Game 1, after we both completely locked down the field, I started grinding out thopters, but then I scooped upon realizing that I wouldn't be able to prevent him from ulting Jace. Game 2 and 3 Pithing Needle took care of Jace, and then it was relatively easy.
Grixis Death Shadow 2 - 0
Easy match-up, the guy had literally nothing to break my board state.
Jund Midrange 0 - 2
THIS BLOODY GUY WAS MAINING 4 ASSASSIN'S TROPHY, 4 ABRUPT DECAY AND 4 KOLAGHAN'S COMMAND. Hard as I tried, I just couldn't keep up with the sheer amount of removal he kept throwing at me.
All in all, it was a positive day. The deck felt fun to pilot and I never once thought "God, what a crappy hand", which is generally a good sign.
It is, actually, I sincerely thank you. Allow me to address your points individually:
1) I have literally one double-faced card in the color white, and it is Helpful Volunteer. Corrupted Profiteer, its other face, is black, so I'll post it when I post the black cards: I had actually made a note clarifying this in the old version of this topic, but I forgot to include it this time around. When I get around to posting the red cards (might take longer than originally planned due to health getting worse again + IRL project due in 3 days I need to finish) you'll see quite a lot more of those.
2) I didn't know the bit about ability words not interacting with rules: learning this kind of stuff is the main reason why I started this project to begin with, after all. I shall rework it into a keyword ability, then.
3) I hear your points concerning the power of a few cards, and I shall make changes accordingly. In addition to the two you already mentioned, is there any other you'd like to address?
4) And concerning the flavor yeah, I know there's a lot of overlap with SOI-EMN, which causes this project to not feel like the most original, most creative thing ever. That was intentional on my part: in order to achieve my goal, I need to learn BOTH the subtleties of balanced set design AND how to craft a compelling, interesting, unique flavor... But life experiences have taught me that trying to learn two things at the same time often leads to mastering neither: so for now I'm focusing on becoming good at the former, since I still have a lot to learn on that front, while keeping the latter as simplistic and straightforward as possible. I specifically chose a post-Emrakul Innstrad set as my first endeavor, because such a set could have a basi plotline put together with zero effort. If the feedback get on this project is enough to make me improve at the set design part, for my next project I'll put more effort and focus on having a unique, compelling story.
That said, I'm off making some edits to the white cards in accordance to your suggestions. Check back in a few minutes to see the changes
EDIT: changes made!
Summon Bigger Fish XXUG
Sorcery
Create a token that's a copy of target creature. It enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it and gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step. If you can't beat them, claim their powers as your own.
There was this weird period of time when literally all PWs did in the story was summon creatures. I remember back in the original Ravnica's book, there was this scene that saw Jace summon a fairy, only for it to be BRUTALLY MURDERED by Tezzeret's own summon (long story short, Tez was trying to beat an important lesson on the nature of planeswalkers into Jace's head). That same book saw Jace summon a drake and a sphinx, and Liliana got to summon a friggin' vampire of all things.
So yeah, back then everyone was a summoner, and so even Chandra got to summon the occasional fiery elemental, although yes, she was always more about going Human Torch on people. Summoning fiery elementals was more of Baltrice's cup of tea: you people do remember Baltrice, right?
Hence the "probably" in caps
That's the bloody Phyrexian liquid. Phyrexian liquid ON IXALAN.
At the end of WAR, Tezzeret claimed that, with Bolas out of the way, he's now free to act on his own accord. He was one with the Panar Bridge, and knowing him he probably has the means of recreating it: you know, the artifact capable of transporting entire armies of half-artifact zombies across dimensions. You know, half-artifact zombies SUCH AS THE PHYREXIANS. Phyrexians with whom Tezzeret has already interacted in canon, I hasten to add.
Am I reading too much into this?
So, how has Varina been doing for you these days? I wanted to stop by and ask if you've been testing the God-Eternals, as both Bontu and Oketra feel like they'd do a lot of work for this deck, the latter by creating even more zombies and the former by providing even more card draw, potentially to hilarious results (I'm pretty sure I can put together a combo to draw your deck with her and Varina given the time, which could lead to a slew of new and exciting potential wincons).
My thoughts exactly. I do like how, with a bit of set-up that is however not difficult to pull off in mono-black, this guy essentially becomes a Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief who spends mana to kill creatures, but with draw power instead of "kill folks with commander damage" power. People WILL find a way to break this, but isn't that true for most cards nowadays?
Speaking of not having any idea of what's going on: I've also been out of the loop when it comes to MTG and especially EDH, since the illness w preventing me from working, which in turn was preventing me from making enough money to buy new cards. Now I return to a big end for the Gatewatch story arc, with Modern Horizons already out and Core 2020 on its way, and there are just so many new cards to check out. One thing I have noticed, however, is that plenty of new cool cards have been created/reprinted that support the self-mill/dredge theme, and just as many that support the sacrifice themes: I used to have a Golgari deck with Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord at the helm, that made good use of both themes... But with so many exciting cards to choose from now, I figured I'd remove the sacrifice theme from it, and focus it exclusively on the self-mill/dredge. Then I went ahead and made a brand new deck with the sacrifice-themed cards.
So yeah, I'm here seeking feedback, opinions, criticism and suggestions/ideas for both decks: as a preliminary disclaimer, please note that both decks still lack a mana base, but I mean, they're both bicolor decks that are mainly black, so after I've thrown in the mass mana lands that black is famous for (Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Cabal Coffers, Thespian's Stage, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx etc) I can pretty much fill the rest with whatever I have lying around, these are not decks with especially complex mana needs. With that out of the way:
1) This is the reworked Jarad deck, which as mentioned focuses solely on self-milling and dredging. It wins with the Mike+Trike combo, by dropping Izoni, Thousand-Eyed followed by Craterhoof Behemoth, or just by casting Emrakul, The Promised End, which effectively costs 8 mana in this deck (and I mean, it's BG, amassing 8 mana should be trivial enough).
2) All of my sacrifice-themed cards happened to be black, I had no green ones... So yeah, since I had a few cool cards for Rakdos-colored combos lying around, I figured I'd go with that color combination rather than Golgari, so as to try something different. By putting Lyzolda, The Blood Witch at the helm, I eventually came up with this: it aims to in by making infinite mana with the Animate Worldgorger combo, so that Lyzolda can then burn everyone to death (she can sac herself to her own effect). Ashnod's Altar and Nym Deathmantle can also produce infinite mana with the likes of Mogg War Marshall, Grave Titan and other such token-producing creatures (a kind of creature a deck like this would want to play regardless): Lyzolda cannot win with such mana because it's colorless, but it is still possible to capitalize on it with Profane Command (instantly kill a guy while giving your army evasion in preparation for an alpha strike), Walking Ballista (which can instantly kill everyone with the aid of Goblin Bombardment) or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician (draw your deck so as to find another wincon). Other cards that are usually used with such a strategy, like Torment of Hailfire or Walking Ballista, are not included here because they're only useful once you have infinite mana, which makes me a little wary of them (they're dead draws if you get them before the combo is online): the cards I listed can do stuff for me even if I don't have the combo ready, which makes them more versatile and thus less risky to use.
As a side note, I mentioned having openings to launch alpha strikes, and this deck draws and discards a lot, so Anger would probably be a great inclusion, but I really don't know what to remove to make room for it. I mean yeah, this second deck is on card short (both are going to have 35 land, the amount I'm most comfortable with), but I'm waiting for Cavalier of Night, an announced card from Core 2020 which looks like it would do a of of work in this deck.
So yeah, this is what I got. Any feedback and constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated
Excuse you. Judith is the most beautiful lady of all times, she's no mere "as good as you're going to get" <.<
Anyway, I tried putting together a list, which you can see here. How does it look?
Bant Spirit Tribal 1 - 2
Game 1 he opened broken and squashed me before I could do much of anything. Game 2 a well-timed Grafdigger's Cage killed his Collected Company, game 3 he used Gaddock Teeg to kill my Whir of Invention. Third game especially felt like it could have gone either way.
Izzet Gifts Storm 2 - 0
Both games he scooped as soon as I whirred in a Damping Sphere.
Mono Blue Tempo 2 - 1
He had this deck built around Tempest Djinn, Vendilion Clique and Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Game 1, after we both completely locked down the field, I started grinding out thopters, but then I scooped upon realizing that I wouldn't be able to prevent him from ulting Jace. Game 2 and 3 Pithing Needle took care of Jace, and then it was relatively easy.
Grixis Death Shadow 2 - 0
Easy match-up, the guy had literally nothing to break my board state.
Jund Midrange 0 - 2
THIS BLOODY GUY WAS MAINING 4 ASSASSIN'S TROPHY, 4 ABRUPT DECAY AND 4 KOLAGHAN'S COMMAND. Hard as I tried, I just couldn't keep up with the sheer amount of removal he kept throwing at me.
All in all, it was a positive day. The deck felt fun to pilot and I never once thought "God, what a crappy hand", which is generally a good sign.
1) I have literally one double-faced card in the color white, and it is Helpful Volunteer. Corrupted Profiteer, its other face, is black, so I'll post it when I post the black cards: I had actually made a note clarifying this in the old version of this topic, but I forgot to include it this time around. When I get around to posting the red cards (might take longer than originally planned due to health getting worse again + IRL project due in 3 days I need to finish) you'll see quite a lot more of those.
2) I didn't know the bit about ability words not interacting with rules: learning this kind of stuff is the main reason why I started this project to begin with, after all. I shall rework it into a keyword ability, then.
3) I hear your points concerning the power of a few cards, and I shall make changes accordingly. In addition to the two you already mentioned, is there any other you'd like to address?
4) And concerning the flavor yeah, I know there's a lot of overlap with SOI-EMN, which causes this project to not feel like the most original, most creative thing ever. That was intentional on my part: in order to achieve my goal, I need to learn BOTH the subtleties of balanced set design AND how to craft a compelling, interesting, unique flavor... But life experiences have taught me that trying to learn two things at the same time often leads to mastering neither: so for now I'm focusing on becoming good at the former, since I still have a lot to learn on that front, while keeping the latter as simplistic and straightforward as possible. I specifically chose a post-Emrakul Innstrad set as my first endeavor, because such a set could have a basi plotline put together with zero effort. If the feedback get on this project is enough to make me improve at the set design part, for my next project I'll put more effort and focus on having a unique, compelling story.
That said, I'm off making some edits to the white cards in accordance to your suggestions. Check back in a few minutes to see the changes
EDIT: changes made!
Sorcery
Create a token that's a copy of target creature. It enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it and gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
If you can't beat them, claim their powers as your own.