Personally I will always pick the bigger pile unless I'm dead on board without a mass removal. And if it's a 2-2 split I will pick the cards I can see unless I don't like what I see lol.
If you cast a card “without paying its mana cost,” you can’t pay any alternative costs, such as awaken costs. You can, however, pay additional costs, such as kicker costs. If the card has any mandatory additional costs, such as that of Lightning Axe, you must pay those to cast the card.
Kicker says "you may pay an additional 2 as you cast this"
Escalate says "pay this cost for each mode chosen beyond the first"
So the question is: Does escalate - 2 count as an "alternative cost", an "additional cost", or is it part of the mana cost? (like an optional cost) Do I get all modes for free if I cast it via Jar/Dwellers? If not, can I still escalate?
edit: I heard that if you cast a 2 mana spell with "escalate 2" it counts as a 4 mana cost spell which is what confused me.
I think the Jace comparisson is really missing the mark.
You're right, it's not fair to compare this to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Jace dies to removal and takes time to flip, this comes into play and can immediately tick up.
She's everything a mid-range deck wants. Her +1 destroys aggro. Her -2 makes it possible to grind control decks and comeback from Languish.
Even though people want to play this in 3 color jund decks, realistically if you want to cast her reliably on t3 you will need to be mono black or mostly black and splash a second color. That's a good thing though you don't want her to be easily splashable because then we would have to deal with 90% Abzan decks all over again.
My prediction is that Liliana, The Last Hope will see play in the following decks (in order of power):
GB Neglected Heirloom was one of the first decks I tried to brew. Taking advantage of the powerful 2 drop werewolves + heir of falkenrath and with instant speed combat tricks to support the werewolves transformation. The deck was fun and could have explosive turns for example attacking with a 10/7 lifelink or a 6/5 flying first strike on t3.
The problem of course is that this strategy suffers from the same problems that Hardened Scales and Assault Formation had. If you have it, you can win. If you don't have it, you will likely lose since you're playing average creatures and have no top end finish or even a good curve.
Now about Elusive Tormentor. I like him a lot. I'm convinced this card is constructed playable. But it's only a control win condition. You don't need to equip him with Neglected Heirloom, he can easily win games on his own. You just needs loads of removal, counters and board wipes, then drop him late game and he'll punch through like a creeping tar pit with hexproof and indestructible. But we might need to wait for the dragons and languish to rotate before people start experimenting wth him more in control decks.
Of course a 4/4 flyer is better than a 3/3 with skulk. But if we are talking about a madness/delirium/graveyard engine it's difficult to find something better: You untap first, then get a *may* ability to discard your hand and draw X. Perfect for madness but unfortunately off colors since most relevant madness cards are in red and black. However requiring only one blue makes it easy to splash.
That being said Avaricious Dragon could still be better in very aggressive/burn decks. Because regardless of its drawback it's still card advantage: Discarding your hand at end of turn is irrelevant if you already played most of your good spells by t4 (would require you to have a lot of 1 drops and 2 drops). Once hellbent you are drawing 2 cards and playing those cards every turn so it's no longer a drawback.
I was also thinking about the potential of this card + double strike (via Uncaged Fury). With +1/+1 and double strike, you only need 8 creatures in the graveyard to deal 20 damage.
Jund is of course what I had in mind. However the problem is the sheer amount of powerful removal in this new standard. Without access to blue we will have a hard time protecting the combo. I would definitely try to play 3x Duress and 3x Thought-Knot Seer to make sure the coast is clear.
Gaea's Revenge was early 2015 tech. Ulamog/Kozilek/Worldbreaker obviously give control way more trouble but they are all weaker now due to the sheer amount of exile removal.
I have a feeling Ormendahl will be better in control decks that play few creatures, a couple of planeswalksers and plenty of removal/counters.
The reason is, you don't want to keep your removal against control decks that play no creatures, but you'll kinda have to if you want to deal with Ormendahl. But then those removal cards will be completely dead 90% of the time so you are in this awkward position where you want to be super aggro but you also want answers against Ormendal and the tokens he can make but you can't have the best of both worlds.
I think it's good and will see play in both tokens and control builds, but you should only sac tokens as last resort (unless it's winning you the game on the spot obviously).
If you have 5 tokens/creatures in play, chances are you are already winning or can survive a couple of turns by chump blocking. Either way it's better to force them to deal with your army of tokens first. For example I could see situations where they HAVE TO Languish but at the same time if they do languish you get to sac everything and flip this guy which probably means you have won.
So the #1 strength of this card is that it offers an almost full proof backup plan against mass removal. But even beyond that, you don't even need to generate tokens because this land can generate some on its own. So it could potentially be the only win condition in control decks which makes room for more spells.
The weakness is that it is vulnerable against exile effects, To the Slaughter, Reflector Mage and Just the Wind. However the cons don't outweigh the pros IMO. The fact that it's a land means that if they bounce it, you can just replay it and it can't get countered. And it also means you don't have to worry about stuff like Despise/Duress/Transgress the Mind taking your win condition. And on top of all that you can also get it back from your graveyard with something like Pulse of Murasa.
Exile effects are really what own this card hard. So I think ideally you should have some sac outlets or blink/bounce spells in the sideboard/main just to be able to save Westvale Abbey in response to exile.
This card will be great. Steam Augury was good and it WAS played by Patrick Chapin and other control players. I've played with Steam Augury myself and what people don't seem to understand is this:
You make the piles. The fact that they choose is not that big of a problem because you can and will arrange the piles in such a way that makes you win-win regardless. Here's an example:
You pay 3U, now you have to make 2 piles out of 4 cards. You could make it a 2-2 decision but sometimes it will be much better to make 3-1 piles. Where 3 cards are just ok and 1 is a big problem win con/mass removal. If they give you the mass removal, you win. But if instead they give you 3 cards, you just drew 3 cards for 4 mana at instant speed and you have a card in the graveyard that you can later flashback or get back via other means. Another thing is redundancy: because you often play more than 4 removal spells and more than 2 win cons, it's very possible that you will be able to make 2 piles that both contain removal and/or win con.
And of course there is also the new dimension of delirium that falls into the mix. The opponent will have to decide what's more harmful between giving you t3 delirium or giving you decent cards in hand. And because of spells like To the Slaughter, sometimes denying you delirium will be the right call.
It's one less card than Steam Augury, but it can be played for 2 or 3 mana and it doesn't require red (if steam augury had a 3u cost it would be played in a lot more decks). And of course there was no delirium/flashback mechanic when Steam Augury was legal.
This seems more lethal than everyone is giving it credit. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim life gain decks would enjoy it as would RB Vampires. Even if it is only a Game #1 finisher, it seems like the kind of threat that could be accomodated.
4 mana enchantment that doesn't effect the board is not playable. It is a fun and interesting card.
Wrong thinking. This is a combo/win con card. It doesn't need to affect the board when your opponent is straight up dead with the trigger on the stack lol! It's also not mandatory to play it on t4. You could simply play a Mardu control deck and late game you put it down and just wait. It has built in inevitability and you have more control over life totals than your opponent.
No fetchlands in standard means it is much harder to avoid inevitable death when you are around 13-16 life on t4 (painlands can avoid death but not many lists will play more than 4 painlands unless they are playing eldrazi). It will lead to funny situations where you will have no choice but to Fiery Temper yourself to avoid losing.
This could be played in a control shell. But you of course need an alternate win con if they fall below 13. Or you could use something to make them gain X life but there aren't many spells like that in standard.
Ideally of course you want to reanimate something with a reasonable mana cost (that you can also hard cast reliably) with a great ETB effect. And Priest of the Blood Rite is quite strong in a format without crackling doom. It is especially good against To The Slaughter and Languish.
I would probably only play 8 total discard outlets and try play a normal mid-range control deck that can also win out of nowhere by reanimating its big threats late game. In other words I would not go all in on the reanimation strategy. It can't be your only way to win because then you just fold against counterspells or Anguished Unmaking.
Actually, I would probably not even loot away reanimation targets. I would just play them and let my opponent deal with them first. Then think about reanimating them late game. For example both Pia and Kiran Nalaar and Priest of the Blood Rite are threats that you can play on curve and still bring back on t6 or t7 after they use removal or mass removal on them. So why bother going through all the trouble of milling yourself/looting away creatures? You are losing half of the value by only focusing on reanimating creatures and not thinking about playing them first.
Most people fetch down to 17 on t1, then down to 14-16 or down to 12-14 if they shock again or pay 2-4 life for dismember or whatever. Leaving them only 1-3 points away from absolute death out of nowhere on t3 or t4 LOL. And the best part about it is there are numerous ways to make them gain X life if they are at 13-X (Grove of the Burnwillows, Condemn etc.) or make them lose X life if they are at 13+X (Lightning Bolt, Gut Shot duh).
That seems like a fun combo deck to try haha. Of course against burn you would need instant speed ways to gain life to avoid losing to your own enchantment but in the end since you built the deck you have more control over life totals than the opponent so you are advantaged.
Kicker says "you may pay an additional 2 as you cast this"
Escalate says "pay this cost for each mode chosen beyond the first"
So the question is: Does escalate - 2 count as an "alternative cost", an "additional cost", or is it part of the mana cost? (like an optional cost) Do I get all modes for free if I cast it via Jar/Dwellers? If not, can I still escalate?
edit: I heard that if you cast a 2 mana spell with "escalate 2" it counts as a 4 mana cost spell which is what confused me.
You're right, it's not fair to compare this to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Jace dies to removal and takes time to flip, this comes into play and can immediately tick up.
She's everything a mid-range deck wants. Her +1 destroys aggro. Her -2 makes it possible to grind control decks and comeback from Languish.
Even though people want to play this in 3 color jund decks, realistically if you want to cast her reliably on t3 you will need to be mono black or mostly black and splash a second color. That's a good thing though you don't want her to be easily splashable because then we would have to deal with 90% Abzan decks all over again.
My prediction is that Liliana, The Last Hope will see play in the following decks (in order of power):
-BG
-BU
-BW
-BR
-Colorless/Mono black
The problem of course is that this strategy suffers from the same problems that Hardened Scales and Assault Formation had. If you have it, you can win. If you don't have it, you will likely lose since you're playing average creatures and have no top end finish or even a good curve.
Now about Elusive Tormentor. I like him a lot. I'm convinced this card is constructed playable. But it's only a control win condition. You don't need to equip him with Neglected Heirloom, he can easily win games on his own. You just needs loads of removal, counters and board wipes, then drop him late game and he'll punch through like a creeping tar pit with hexproof and indestructible. But we might need to wait for the dragons and languish to rotate before people start experimenting wth him more in control decks.
Of course a 4/4 flyer is better than a 3/3 with skulk. But if we are talking about a madness/delirium/graveyard engine it's difficult to find something better: You untap first, then get a *may* ability to discard your hand and draw X. Perfect for madness but unfortunately off colors since most relevant madness cards are in red and black. However requiring only one blue makes it easy to splash.
That being said Avaricious Dragon could still be better in very aggressive/burn decks. Because regardless of its drawback it's still card advantage: Discarding your hand at end of turn is irrelevant if you already played most of your good spells by t4 (would require you to have a lot of 1 drops and 2 drops). Once hellbent you are drawing 2 cards and playing those cards every turn so it's no longer a drawback.
You only need Gather the Pack or Corpse Churn anyway. Plus ideally you would play creatures that self-mill like Crow of Dark Tidings
Jund is of course what I had in mind. However the problem is the sheer amount of powerful removal in this new standard. Without access to blue we will have a hard time protecting the combo. I would definitely try to play 3x Duress and 3x Thought-Knot Seer to make sure the coast is clear.
Except for Planar Outburst, To the Slaughter, Relentless Dead, Sanitarium Skeleton and 1/1 tokens generated by Westvale Abbey and Call the Bloodline you mean. Yeah big fat creature without trample sounds super unbeatable for control. Kappa
Gaea's Revenge was early 2015 tech. Ulamog/Kozilek/Worldbreaker obviously give control way more trouble but they are all weaker now due to the sheer amount of exile removal.
The reason is, you don't want to keep your removal against control decks that play no creatures, but you'll kinda have to if you want to deal with Ormendahl. But then those removal cards will be completely dead 90% of the time so you are in this awkward position where you want to be super aggro but you also want answers against Ormendal and the tokens he can make but you can't have the best of both worlds.
If you have 5 tokens/creatures in play, chances are you are already winning or can survive a couple of turns by chump blocking. Either way it's better to force them to deal with your army of tokens first. For example I could see situations where they HAVE TO Languish but at the same time if they do languish you get to sac everything and flip this guy which probably means you have won.
So the #1 strength of this card is that it offers an almost full proof backup plan against mass removal. But even beyond that, you don't even need to generate tokens because this land can generate some on its own. So it could potentially be the only win condition in control decks which makes room for more spells.
The weakness is that it is vulnerable against exile effects, To the Slaughter, Reflector Mage and Just the Wind. However the cons don't outweigh the pros IMO. The fact that it's a land means that if they bounce it, you can just replay it and it can't get countered. And it also means you don't have to worry about stuff like Despise/Duress/Transgress the Mind taking your win condition. And on top of all that you can also get it back from your graveyard with something like Pulse of Murasa.
Exile effects are really what own this card hard. So I think ideally you should have some sac outlets or blink/bounce spells in the sideboard/main just to be able to save Westvale Abbey in response to exile.
You make the piles. The fact that they choose is not that big of a problem because you can and will arrange the piles in such a way that makes you win-win regardless. Here's an example:
You pay 3U, now you have to make 2 piles out of 4 cards. You could make it a 2-2 decision but sometimes it will be much better to make 3-1 piles. Where 3 cards are just ok and 1 is a big problem win con/mass removal. If they give you the mass removal, you win. But if instead they give you 3 cards, you just drew 3 cards for 4 mana at instant speed and you have a card in the graveyard that you can later flashback or get back via other means. Another thing is redundancy: because you often play more than 4 removal spells and more than 2 win cons, it's very possible that you will be able to make 2 piles that both contain removal and/or win con.
And of course there is also the new dimension of delirium that falls into the mix. The opponent will have to decide what's more harmful between giving you t3 delirium or giving you decent cards in hand. And because of spells like To the Slaughter, sometimes denying you delirium will be the right call.
It's one less card than Steam Augury, but it can be played for 2 or 3 mana and it doesn't require red (if steam augury had a 3u cost it would be played in a lot more decks). And of course there was no delirium/flashback mechanic when Steam Augury was legal.
Wrong thinking. This is a combo/win con card. It doesn't need to affect the board when your opponent is straight up dead with the trigger on the stack lol! It's also not mandatory to play it on t4. You could simply play a Mardu control deck and late game you put it down and just wait. It has built in inevitability and you have more control over life totals than your opponent.
No fetchlands in standard means it is much harder to avoid inevitable death when you are around 13-16 life on t4 (painlands can avoid death but not many lists will play more than 4 painlands unless they are playing eldrazi). It will lead to funny situations where you will have no choice but to Fiery Temper yourself to avoid losing.
This could be played in a control shell. But you of course need an alternate win con if they fall below 13. Or you could use something to make them gain X life but there aren't many spells like that in standard.
Ideally of course you want to reanimate something with a reasonable mana cost (that you can also hard cast reliably) with a great ETB effect. And Priest of the Blood Rite is quite strong in a format without crackling doom. It is especially good against To The Slaughter and Languish.
Looting is better than milling yourself for reanimation purposes. But you also don't need to play 12 mill/loot spells, you only need a couple of discard outlets and there are many great options: Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Lightning Axe, Call the Bloodline, Tormenting Voice, Macabre Waltz etc.
I would probably only play 8 total discard outlets and try play a normal mid-range control deck that can also win out of nowhere by reanimating its big threats late game. In other words I would not go all in on the reanimation strategy. It can't be your only way to win because then you just fold against counterspells or Anguished Unmaking.
Actually, I would probably not even loot away reanimation targets. I would just play them and let my opponent deal with them first. Then think about reanimating them late game. For example both Pia and Kiran Nalaar and Priest of the Blood Rite are threats that you can play on curve and still bring back on t6 or t7 after they use removal or mass removal on them. So why bother going through all the trouble of milling yourself/looting away creatures? You are losing half of the value by only focusing on reanimating creatures and not thinking about playing them first.
I will be trying this out in modern.
Most people fetch down to 17 on t1, then down to 14-16 or down to 12-14 if they shock again or pay 2-4 life for dismember or whatever. Leaving them only 1-3 points away from absolute death out of nowhere on t3 or t4 LOL. And the best part about it is there are numerous ways to make them gain X life if they are at 13-X (Grove of the Burnwillows, Condemn etc.) or make them lose X life if they are at 13+X (Lightning Bolt, Gut Shot duh).
That seems like a fun combo deck to try haha. Of course against burn you would need instant speed ways to gain life to avoid losing to your own enchantment but in the end since you built the deck you have more control over life totals than the opponent so you are advantaged.
You can also use things like Surgical Extraction, Dismember or Gut Shot at instant speed to avoid losing.