The first two times I looked at this, I thought it was 2WB. My brain was certain that's what a card like this should cost. This card at this cost is clearly below the curve in terms of mana cost compared to creatures of similar strength. I wonder if a WB goodstuff midrange deck will exist because of this card.
Edit: I highly doubt to see tons of modern staples in this set. This is a casual format aimed at non-tournament players. Putting fetchlands and such in here would drive the price up so that anyone who would would actually play this format can no longer afford it and anyone who has no interest in this format suddenly has to buy a lot of it. That's a lose-lose.
Plus, if there really are money rares in this thing, Cogwork Librarian opens up moneydrafting problems like we've never seen before.
In the list of the design team, the first name listed is Pnrci Kjbu (bbgu).
The (bbgu) after that name almost certainly translates to "lead"
which once again is odd, as l and e share a letter in the translation.
Clearly the same letter doesn't always output the same letter in the translation.
Actually, we also know that the input-output relationship changes within each word, as evidenced by the fact that letters l and e both translated to b within the same word. That's something we know for sure about the cipher.
Every turn you leave up 2B to potentially use this without actually doing so, you're hurting your tempo. Every turn you don't, you're hurting your chances of making use of the spell.
I agree with the first part, those who leave 2B up every turn in hopes of playing it on your opponent's turn are going to cripple their mana, and would have been better off playing an off-color land.
But I disagree with the second part. The ability to attack, see how they block, and then use this or cast a threat during the second main phase allows you to make use of the spell without holding up mana to lose tempo.
This is a really strong card in aggressive B/W heroic. This is a really weak card in most other decks.
I think this is a fine card, but only if you play it well.
At three mana, this is tough to use defensively. If they have instant speed removal, they can get a two-for-one very easily. To be fair, that is true about all combat tricks, but leaving three mana open on your opponent's turn telegraphs it more than most. Criticizing of its defensive capabilities is very valid criticism; however, I think it has a lot more offensive potential than people realize.
Necrobite shines when:
-your opponent doesn't have instant-speed removal (or is tapped out)
-you have smaller guys and your opponent has larger guys
-your creatures actually get into combat with theirs
All three of these scenarios are likely to happen when you are playing an aggressive deck against a midrange deck. They are a lot less likely to have mana open during your turn, you're trying to attack into larger creatures in general, and instead of worrying about blocking an evasive guy, you can get them to block you. The #1 use of Necrobite I can see is this:
Turns 1-3 or 4: Play cheap creatures and start attacking with them.
Their turn 4 or 5: They tap out to stabilize with a big creature (or bestow guy)
Your turn 4 or 5: Attack with everyone. If they block, cast Necrobite and take out their stabilizing creature. If they don't block, you can hold back Necrobite and play a creature during your second main phase so you don't lose tempo, plus you got through for free damage.
This isn't some magical Christmasland scenario; this general sequence probably happens in 90+% of aggro v midrange matchups. Note that Necrobite is better than Boon of Erebos in this case because a. you get to kill their stabilizer 100% of the time, even if it was a Nessian Asp b. you get to keep the creature you sent to fight their big guy. Admittedly, Necrobite gets weaker and weaker as the game goes on and your opponent is more likely to have mana untapped during your turn, but if the game was going to go long, you were probably going to lose anyway.
Don't play (or board out) Necrobite when:
-You can't put enough pressure on your opponent to get them to block you with larger creatures during the first six turns of the game
-Your opponent has a good number of cheap, instant-speed removal and they will regularly have mana to cast it on your turn
-You aren't the beatdown (be willing to board this out if they are playing a fast deck)
I'd play up to 2 copies and feel great about it in an aggressive black deck, especially if I had heroic or inspired creatures. I'd never feel good about playing this in any form of control deck.
I'm not a constructed player, but I understand concerns that this set is underpowered. I cant tell for sure, but it seems that this set is quite underpowered to me. My condolences to constructed players.
However, this is shaping up to be one of the greatest limited sets of all time. So much great stuff here. There will be a ton of diverse sealed/draft strategies, and if the third set is as good as this one, NYX/BNG/THS draft might go down as one of the all-time great draft formats, net to ROE and INN.
The only thing holding it back right now is the lack of meaningful discussion online. Netrunner has a small corner of boardgamegeek, their main searchable database is upstart cardgamedb.com, and a google search for Android: Netrunner articles returns a casting call for people who would be interested in writing netrunner articles. When the online and in-store community infrastructure grows, it will become a force. Its design is definitely good enough to support it.
Ok, so he actually didn't confirm anything, but he strongly hinted at the Simic/Golgari alliance in his Feb 25 column.
One last trick is to take advantage of the resources you build to make your mechanics work. For instance, evolve requires +1/+1 counters to function. That is a resource. You are then able to make cards that care about the resource of +1/+1 counters. If you use that resource on multiple elements of your game, this allows you yet another way to join together disconnected parts of your design. This will best be seen when Return to Ravnica is played with Gatecrash (when Dragon's Maze comes out) and the +1/+1-matters cards will be able to interact not just with evolve but also with scavenge and unleash.
I had actually previously speculated that Simic would not be pairing with Golgari, because at low sizes the creatures are actually anti-synergistic (if you scavenge onto an evolve creature, you are simply limiting the evolve creature's potential to grow larger; now it's more difficult for it to receive counters when other creatures enter the battlefield). The one area of interaction the two guilds had was +1/+1 counters, and Maro's hint that the +1/+1 counter theme is played up in Dragon's Maze supports the idea of a Simic/Golgari link.
As far as the other pairings go, I like Rakdos/Gruul as well as Dimir/Izzet. The only ones I would swap are putting Selesnya with Boros (populate leads into Batallion quite well) allowing Azorius and Orzhov to pair up (bogging down the game and chipping away at the opponent is central to both guilds, although the each can be played from an aggressive angle).
One good way to determine if this was intentional or an accident is to wait and see if other Simic Fluxmages start appearing in Ravnica packs.
No more fluxmages found: supports this one being an accident. If it was an intentional leak, they'd leak at least a hundred to make sure someone who goes to this site found one.
More cards from Gatecrash found, but not Simic Fluxmages: supports this one being an accident. If they were intentionally leaking cards into packs, they'd pick one and do a bunch of those. The likelihood that they'd intentionally leak multiple cards from the set is basically zero.
More fluxmages found, no other cards: Good evidence that this was an awesome intentional leak.
I personally think that this was unintentional. Wizards has had to deal with hugely increased demand lately, so it's possible that they're having to use different printing processes/accelerate their pace, causing them to run into issues that they have't had in the past. Based on Wizards's general attitude toward early leaks from unofficial preview sources, they'll say this was unintentional and a terrible accident that must be avoided in the future. Which is a shame because both cards that got spoiled were great first-spoiled cards, and the entire idea of 'leaked' cards that got mispacked would certainly make players more excited to open packs. It would be like finding a golden ticket, only more magical.
But like I said, all we have to do is wait and see as more packs are opened to determine pretty solidly whether this was intentional or not.
I actually like both versions, with and without the +1/+1 counter. Yes, the counter kind of feels tacked on, but I'm willing to put up with it to have it play better with the original Simic. On the other hand, I appreciate the streamlined newer version too. Either way, memory issues should be less of a problem because players will surely use the physical card to remember who has which hybridize abilities; they will just stick the card sideways under the creature or something to remind themselves.
Two quick templating suggestions:
-Keep the ability to target your opponent's stuff with this. It's less words and allows for funny tricks such as Plummet-it's very simic to 'improve' an opponent's creature only to set it up for disaster.
-Instead of saying 'gains this card's other abilities' just spell out the ability that it would gain (e.g. 'gains flying' or 'gains hexproof'.) This makes it easier for players to understand what the cards do at first glance.
You know, magiccards.info is more of a reason I play Magic than anything actually related to the game/anything wizards decides/anything anyone else in the real world does. It just makes the game better. Thank you.
other awesome candidates:
Jangling Automaton
Jinxed Choker
Sleeper Agent
Edit: I highly doubt to see tons of modern staples in this set. This is a casual format aimed at non-tournament players. Putting fetchlands and such in here would drive the price up so that anyone who would would actually play this format can no longer afford it and anyone who has no interest in this format suddenly has to buy a lot of it. That's a lose-lose.
Plus, if there really are money rares in this thing, Cogwork Librarian opens up moneydrafting problems like we've never seen before.
The (bbgu) after that name almost certainly translates to "lead"
which once again is odd, as l and e share a letter in the translation.
Clearly the same letter doesn't always output the same letter in the translation.
Actually, we also know that the input-output relationship changes within each word, as evidenced by the fact that letters l and e both translated to b within the same word. That's something we know for sure about the cipher.
almost certainly translates to
Release Date: June (or July) 6, 2014
not that the double k at the end of "release date" indicates that the letters probably aren't 1:1 equivalent.
That's all I got, I'm not actually that good at this code stuff.
I miss these.
I agree with the first part, those who leave 2B up every turn in hopes of playing it on your opponent's turn are going to cripple their mana, and would have been better off playing an off-color land.
But I disagree with the second part. The ability to attack, see how they block, and then use this or cast a threat during the second main phase allows you to make use of the spell without holding up mana to lose tempo.
This is a really strong card in aggressive B/W heroic. This is a really weak card in most other decks.
At three mana, this is tough to use defensively. If they have instant speed removal, they can get a two-for-one very easily. To be fair, that is true about all combat tricks, but leaving three mana open on your opponent's turn telegraphs it more than most. Criticizing of its defensive capabilities is very valid criticism; however, I think it has a lot more offensive potential than people realize.
Necrobite shines when:
-your opponent doesn't have instant-speed removal (or is tapped out)
-you have smaller guys and your opponent has larger guys
-your creatures actually get into combat with theirs
All three of these scenarios are likely to happen when you are playing an aggressive deck against a midrange deck. They are a lot less likely to have mana open during your turn, you're trying to attack into larger creatures in general, and instead of worrying about blocking an evasive guy, you can get them to block you. The #1 use of Necrobite I can see is this:
Turns 1-3 or 4: Play cheap creatures and start attacking with them.
Their turn 4 or 5: They tap out to stabilize with a big creature (or bestow guy)
Your turn 4 or 5: Attack with everyone. If they block, cast Necrobite and take out their stabilizing creature. If they don't block, you can hold back Necrobite and play a creature during your second main phase so you don't lose tempo, plus you got through for free damage.
This isn't some magical Christmasland scenario; this general sequence probably happens in 90+% of aggro v midrange matchups. Note that Necrobite is better than Boon of Erebos in this case because a. you get to kill their stabilizer 100% of the time, even if it was a Nessian Asp b. you get to keep the creature you sent to fight their big guy. Admittedly, Necrobite gets weaker and weaker as the game goes on and your opponent is more likely to have mana untapped during your turn, but if the game was going to go long, you were probably going to lose anyway.
Don't play (or board out) Necrobite when:
-You can't put enough pressure on your opponent to get them to block you with larger creatures during the first six turns of the game
-Your opponent has a good number of cheap, instant-speed removal and they will regularly have mana to cast it on your turn
-You aren't the beatdown (be willing to board this out if they are playing a fast deck)
I'd play up to 2 copies and feel great about it in an aggressive black deck, especially if I had heroic or inspired creatures. I'd never feel good about playing this in any form of control deck.
However, this is shaping up to be one of the greatest limited sets of all time. So much great stuff here. There will be a ton of diverse sealed/draft strategies, and if the third set is as good as this one, NYX/BNG/THS draft might go down as one of the all-time great draft formats, net to ROE and INN.
I had actually previously speculated that Simic would not be pairing with Golgari, because at low sizes the creatures are actually anti-synergistic (if you scavenge onto an evolve creature, you are simply limiting the evolve creature's potential to grow larger; now it's more difficult for it to receive counters when other creatures enter the battlefield). The one area of interaction the two guilds had was +1/+1 counters, and Maro's hint that the +1/+1 counter theme is played up in Dragon's Maze supports the idea of a Simic/Golgari link.
As far as the other pairings go, I like Rakdos/Gruul as well as Dimir/Izzet. The only ones I would swap are putting Selesnya with Boros (populate leads into Batallion quite well) allowing Azorius and Orzhov to pair up (bogging down the game and chipping away at the opponent is central to both guilds, although the each can be played from an aggressive angle).
No more fluxmages found: supports this one being an accident. If it was an intentional leak, they'd leak at least a hundred to make sure someone who goes to this site found one.
More cards from Gatecrash found, but not Simic Fluxmages: supports this one being an accident. If they were intentionally leaking cards into packs, they'd pick one and do a bunch of those. The likelihood that they'd intentionally leak multiple cards from the set is basically zero.
More fluxmages found, no other cards: Good evidence that this was an awesome intentional leak.
I personally think that this was unintentional. Wizards has had to deal with hugely increased demand lately, so it's possible that they're having to use different printing processes/accelerate their pace, causing them to run into issues that they have't had in the past. Based on Wizards's general attitude toward early leaks from unofficial preview sources, they'll say this was unintentional and a terrible accident that must be avoided in the future. Which is a shame because both cards that got spoiled were great first-spoiled cards, and the entire idea of 'leaked' cards that got mispacked would certainly make players more excited to open packs. It would be like finding a golden ticket, only more magical.
But like I said, all we have to do is wait and see as more packs are opened to determine pretty solidly whether this was intentional or not.
It's too well-designed not to be real.
Two quick templating suggestions:
-Keep the ability to target your opponent's stuff with this. It's less words and allows for funny tricks such as Plummet-it's very simic to 'improve' an opponent's creature only to set it up for disaster.
-Instead of saying 'gains this card's other abilities' just spell out the ability that it would gain (e.g. 'gains flying' or 'gains hexproof'.) This makes it easier for players to understand what the cards do at first glance.
Nice design.