When they announce core sets like this, couldn't they at least give us some better info? I mean, when a regular set is announced, sure, it's exciting, but who did not see M12 coming, with this name and expansion symbol? A preview card, or a confirmed cool reprint, would make it a little more interesting, and I don't think one full card would be too much to ask for.
We still have two sets between now and M12. They want our eyes on Besieged, not the summer.
I think it probably won't happen. Lands are unexciting, and they only have so many slots to use for new cards. There's no real need for them, either. As a one of, it won't significantly impact the mana bases of the decks.
Only thing which annoys me is the "battle cry" keyword. Again its such an useless, unnecessary replacement for a one sentence long trigger. If you can explain a keyword in a single sentence it shouldn´t be one. These are the locations in magic design where wotc should step in and prevent bloating the game up even more.
"This creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach."
"Creatures with first strike deal combat damage before creatures without first strike."
"Creatures dealt damage by this creature are destroyed."
"Threshold is whenever you have seven or more cards in graveyard."
"Bloodthirst goes off if an opponent was dealt damage this turn."
"Affinity for artifacts makes your spells cost less if you have more artifacts."
...and so on. In fact, keywords which take more than a sentence to explain tend to be bad or overcomplicated ones-Kinship, Madness, Suspend, etc.
So...to the people suggesting that Extirpate was the be all end all of Survival decks...what did you do when you Extirpated their Vengevines and then they Ooze/Devourer/Trike combo'd you? Or vice versa? Or just never drew Survival and beat you down with regular cast Mongrels, Rootwallas, and Vengevines? Or used Duress to strip it from your hand in the first place? Or any number of common answers to Extirpate?
Extirpate's useful, to be sure, but it's an answer that can be answered, without providing an answer of its own.
Are there people actually confused here? There are only two functional changes the "color identity" rule provides:
Generals with off color abilities in their text box now count those off color abilities (Bosh et al.)
Cards with characteristic defining abilities that set color now count those (Kobolds and such.)
All other consequences of this "change" remain the same as they were before.
I'm wondering if any judge can explain in detail how this call can be made. I seriously don't understand how 'stalling', something pretty subjective, can lead to a major penalty such as DQ.
Can't it easily be argued that he was just making a decision? Wouldn't he be warned to 'hurry up' before he gets DQ'd? If so, did he get warned yet still did not speed up his gameplay? I really don't quite get this ruling.
I"m not a judge, but I play one on TV!
In all seriousness, I don't have any credentials myself, but I've seen explanations from other judges and am familiar with the rules.
In essence, stalling is defined as altering the speed of your play to take advantage of the clock. Not how you play-it's perfectly fine to go "Draw, Land, Go" and draw out Game 2 when you're 1-0 while your opponent keeps playing. Stalling is instead sitting there doing nothing in an effort to drag the game out. Additionally, it falls under the Cheating category, which means that if you get called for stalling, it's because they think you're trying to take advantage of the system.
The issue is this: while Stalling is about as well defined as it could be in the rules, it's still pretty subjective compared to other rulings. How do you know that someone isn't actually thinking or, in this case, double checking Jace for some small minor detail they forgot? As judges cannot read minds, this comes down to more an observation of behavior at multiple times, as well as general gut feeling.
As for what happened to Saito, I wasn't there, I can't say. I imagine, however, that a DQ is not taken lightly, and a suspension even less so. Especially with something as relatively subjective as Stalling, I would think the judges only issued this one if they were very sure.
This is one of the most self-centered, inconsiderate things said in this entire thread.
Let's get something straight: I am a "Spike." I play to win. I play "competitively." I don't build bad decks just because and I spend a very significant period of time testing and optimizing my builds. Your thoughts tell me you are also of the "Spike" mentality.
The simple fact is, not everyone is like us. Get over it. You're telling people they are screwing up when they have a blast? To return to your completely inappropriate analogy, people who aren't playing to win get full satisfaction out of the game, whether or not it's the same satisfaction you get is irrelevant and to say they are screwing up is completely self-centered and shallow. When these other players play the way they want, it doesn't intrude on your fun at all, so what is your issue?
Some people like full auto-erotic asphyxiation, others like to be tied down and ball-gagged, who in the world are you to say someone's "fetish" is incorrect? I'm honestly quite appalled that someone would have the gall and complete lack of consideration as to make such a claim.
Actually, he seems to be talking about playing in tournaments and stuff, where, yes, the "proper" thing to do is to play to win. If I'm sitting with my friends, I'll let myself relax and let my inner Timmy and Johnny out. If I'm in a tournament, I play to win, and I imagine the majority of people who enter a tournament, EDH or not, are in it to win.
Not sure if it's been said already, but... the first thing that came to mind after seeing Pierce Strider was that it's going to become Venser's new best friend, VERY fast...
Dunno why people are saying this...there's better things to blink with Venser than a 4 mana Lava Spike. Journey to Nowhere to kill creatures, Wall of Omens/Sea Gate Oracle for card draw, Sun Titan for repeated recursion or LD with Tectonic Edge, Frost Titan for repeatable Icy Manipulator, or even just a Baneslayer to give it a sort of vigilance...and this is just stuff in WU. Acidic Slime, Inferno Titan, Carnifex Demon, Contagion Clasp/Engine-all sorts of cards that are interesting on their own and also blink well.
The difference between all of those and the Striders is that all of those guys are good on their own and only require Venser to become insane while the Striders are bad and require Venser to become merely good. That doesn't really seem like a winning plan to me.
Making it sanctionned means the DCI will be maintaining a ban list of sort, and the format will finally be a real format instead of some hodge-podge of brokenness mixed up with BS 'don't be a dick' proseletizing, which is useless.
A thousand times this. I love EDH, but I would love if the banlist and what people don't want to be played could match up, as well as dealing with annoying inconsistencies. For example, Tinker is banned, yet Tooth and Nail is not. Arguably, the difference is that one is blue and three mana and one is green and nine mana, but in practicality, both put out a giant monster on turn 3-except Tooth and Nail puts out two. Additionally, Coalition Victory and Time Stretch are nominally different, just similar by being expensive spells, but Coalition Victory with proper setup wins you the game immediately and a Time Stretch with proper setup....wins you the gamer immediately.
Personally, I like the idea of EDH being official and maintained by Wizards. Yeah, it would "become infested with Spikes", but there's a difference between being official and a tournament format. EDH being official would give a hard and fast line on what's allowed and what isn't, while still keeping everything the same.
The wording creates some, I'm sure unintended, shenanigans. If your opponent is playing Scarecrows and you have this out, you get the tokens when their scarecrows due.
One thing I don't get is the infinite myr/mana combo. It is so obvious that it has to be intentional. Were they just thinking hey lets see what people do with infinite mana?
Is this a sign of the direction for the rest of the block, everyone gets ridiculous amounts of mana?
No need to worry. There's been an infinite mana combo pretty much every Standard season. We just came off the block having Filligree Sages, and before that we had stuff like Devoted Druid and Nettle Sentinel, and if that wasn't infinite, it sure was an obscene amount of mana. Just because a combo exists doesn't make it any good.
Thing is, though, this'll be for a prerelease, so it won't matter much if "one faction is better", because there will always be people who want cards from the other faction, as well as this only lasting for a day, and thus not having a lasting effect on card availability.
We still have two sets between now and M12. They want our eyes on Besieged, not the summer.
"This creature can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach."
"Creatures with first strike deal combat damage before creatures without first strike."
"Creatures dealt damage by this creature are destroyed."
"Threshold is whenever you have seven or more cards in graveyard."
"Bloodthirst goes off if an opponent was dealt damage this turn."
"Affinity for artifacts makes your spells cost less if you have more artifacts."
...and so on. In fact, keywords which take more than a sentence to explain tend to be bad or overcomplicated ones-Kinship, Madness, Suspend, etc.
Extirpate's useful, to be sure, but it's an answer that can be answered, without providing an answer of its own.
But that was always the case.
Are there people actually confused here? There are only two functional changes the "color identity" rule provides:
Generals with off color abilities in their text box now count those off color abilities (Bosh et al.)
Cards with characteristic defining abilities that set color now count those (Kobolds and such.)
All other consequences of this "change" remain the same as they were before.
I"m not a judge, but I play one on TV!
In all seriousness, I don't have any credentials myself, but I've seen explanations from other judges and am familiar with the rules.
In essence, stalling is defined as altering the speed of your play to take advantage of the clock. Not how you play-it's perfectly fine to go "Draw, Land, Go" and draw out Game 2 when you're 1-0 while your opponent keeps playing. Stalling is instead sitting there doing nothing in an effort to drag the game out. Additionally, it falls under the Cheating category, which means that if you get called for stalling, it's because they think you're trying to take advantage of the system.
The issue is this: while Stalling is about as well defined as it could be in the rules, it's still pretty subjective compared to other rulings. How do you know that someone isn't actually thinking or, in this case, double checking Jace for some small minor detail they forgot? As judges cannot read minds, this comes down to more an observation of behavior at multiple times, as well as general gut feeling.
As for what happened to Saito, I wasn't there, I can't say. I imagine, however, that a DQ is not taken lightly, and a suspension even less so. Especially with something as relatively subjective as Stalling, I would think the judges only issued this one if they were very sure.
Actually, he seems to be talking about playing in tournaments and stuff, where, yes, the "proper" thing to do is to play to win. If I'm sitting with my friends, I'll let myself relax and let my inner Timmy and Johnny out. If I'm in a tournament, I play to win, and I imagine the majority of people who enter a tournament, EDH or not, are in it to win.
Dunno why people are saying this...there's better things to blink with Venser than a 4 mana Lava Spike. Journey to Nowhere to kill creatures, Wall of Omens/Sea Gate Oracle for card draw, Sun Titan for repeated recursion or LD with Tectonic Edge, Frost Titan for repeatable Icy Manipulator, or even just a Baneslayer to give it a sort of vigilance...and this is just stuff in WU. Acidic Slime, Inferno Titan, Carnifex Demon, Contagion Clasp/Engine-all sorts of cards that are interesting on their own and also blink well.
The difference between all of those and the Striders is that all of those guys are good on their own and only require Venser to become insane while the Striders are bad and require Venser to become merely good. That doesn't really seem like a winning plan to me.
A thousand times this. I love EDH, but I would love if the banlist and what people don't want to be played could match up, as well as dealing with annoying inconsistencies. For example, Tinker is banned, yet Tooth and Nail is not. Arguably, the difference is that one is blue and three mana and one is green and nine mana, but in practicality, both put out a giant monster on turn 3-except Tooth and Nail puts out two. Additionally, Coalition Victory and Time Stretch are nominally different, just similar by being expensive spells, but Coalition Victory with proper setup wins you the game immediately and a Time Stretch with proper setup....wins you the gamer immediately.
Personally, I like the idea of EDH being official and maintained by Wizards. Yeah, it would "become infested with Spikes", but there's a difference between being official and a tournament format. EDH being official would give a hard and fast line on what's allowed and what isn't, while still keeping everything the same.
Actually, there's a strategy I ran to great effect on Game Day (like, 4-0 the day great effect).
Journey to Nowhere.
It removes anything for only 2 mana, and you can later blink it with Venser onto juicier targets.
No need to worry. There's been an infinite mana combo pretty much every Standard season. We just came off the block having Filligree Sages, and before that we had stuff like Devoted Druid and Nettle Sentinel, and if that wasn't infinite, it sure was an obscene amount of mana. Just because a combo exists doesn't make it any good.
Additionally, Rafiq is a very popular EDH general, and the Duel Decks are liked by the EDH crowd due to alt arts and staple commons/uncommons.
With those combined, I can't see how Rafiq couldn't be in.