While I agree that it's hard to build an archetype around one card, as Whitemane Lion is a common, there are still two uncommon rescue cards, both of which are playable on their own.
Whitemane Lion is a good creature on its own, but is not fantastic outside of a deck that can really abuse it. However, many of the red echo creatures have very good CITP effects, such as Stingscourger and Mogg War Marshall. And White already has Momentary Blink, which abuses CITP effects in the same way. A red deck with say, three flash rescue creatures / blinks and two Stingscourgers wouldn't require a lot of extra commitment but would have a ridiculous tempo boost if it could manage to draw both halves of the "combo." And it's RW, so if it can get an extra 2 turns of bouncing opponents creatures it can end the game. Furthermore, all of these cards are common and good on their own. So while it's not exactly an archetype, it can be quite powerful.
I got two Stingscourgers, a Whitemane Lion, and a Stonecloaker in my prerelease deck and they led me to a 4-0 finish. Each individual piece was playable on their own, but together they were taking out fatties and blockers all day.
I was trying to create cards that "wished" themselves into your hand. In sanctioned play they wouldn't really be like Relentless Rats because you could still only have 4 between your hand and sideboard, but I can see how it could be a problem for casual.
Any idea on how to word these so they don't break the rules in half? I personally like the power level of the two cards, though the Djinn may be a little on the strong side. Any other ideas of cards using this that are internally synergetic (like the shift + RFG on the Djinn and the discard cost + madness on Starfire) would also be cool.
Not that I expect this to actually be a mechanic in Planeshift, of course, but I was toying around how to represent a creature "changing planes" and came up with this idea:
Djinn Seeker
2UU
Creature - Djinn
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, search your library for a card and remove it from the game. Shuffle your library afterwords.
Shift 2UU (If ~ is with you outside the game, you may pay its Shift cost and put it in your hand.)
3/2
Starfire
2R
Instant
~ Deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Madness: 2R
Shift 1R, Discard a card The random nature of Planar Shifts sometimes brough celestial objects to the surface of Dominaria.
Game 3 of round 1, playing a Rakdos + green against a GUB deck with a lot of fliers.
I open an unspectacular hand, mulligan. No lands, mulligan again. No lands, mulligan again. Finally I keep a hand with Forest, Swamp, Civic Wayfinder, and Dimir House guard.
I play first, and topdeck a land on turn three in time to play my Civic Wayfinder. On his turn, he casts a blocker and plays Riot Spikes... on my Wayfiner, making it a 4/1. I topdeck a galvanic arc and suit up my elf, killing his blocker and swinging for four. He plays another blocker, and I swing past and play my House-Guard. I killed him three turns later. I went on to earn a 4-0 record, earning 16 packs. And it never would have happened if he hadn't cast Riot Spikes on my Wayfinder.
Mana Artist
3UR
creature- human wizard
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery you may pay 1. If you do, search your library for an instant or sorcery with the same converted mana cost and put it into your hand. Shuffle your library afterwards. The world is her canvas and mana is her brush.
2/2
Canticore Guardian
BB
creature- demon hound
Whenever ~ is dealt damage, each player loses that much life. A Canticore's lugibrious song can drive the strongest man to madness and the bravest man to flight.
1/3
Conquistador Scout
2G
creature - human explorer soldier
~ has landwalk of each basic land type you control.
Whenever ~ deals combat to a player, you may search that player's library for a basic land card and put it into play tapped under your control. If you do, shuffle that player's library aftrwords.
1/3
Ghostly Sigil
:2mana::symw:
enchant creature
At the beginning of each upkeep, remove enchanted creature and ~ from the game.
At end of turn, return enchanted creature to play and ~ to play enchanting target creature.
Anbaric Firebird
3UR
Creature- Phoenix
Flying
When ~ comes into play, ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
UU: Return ~ to your hand
2RR: Return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
3/2
Screw stifle, that's thinking small. All you're getting there is a 6 mana flyer for two cards, which isn't even that much above the curve.
Now if you're really feeling like a johnny, the card you should be playing is Otherworldly Journey.
It's not often that one can make a combo/control deck in limited, but somehow I managed to open the perfect pool for such a deck. This is the third week of the league, and I had a mediocre record of 6-4 overall playing a standard UBg deck with no real bombs except moldervine cloak. While facing a glare deck, I decided to side in my 3 (!) faith's fetters to combat the enchantment and the results turned out to be quite powerful. This is helped by the absurd number of evasion creatures I've opened.
3 Faith's fetters
Mark of Eviction
Dream Leash
Last Gasp
Clinging Darkness
Spectral Searchlight
Selesnya Signet
Terrarion
Dimir Aquaduct
6 island
5 swamp
4 plains
Relevent sideboard:
2 Strands of Undeath
1 Flight of Fancy
1 Dimir Signet
1 Compulsive Search
2 Vedalken Entrancer
1 Gaze of the Gorgon
I really want to find room for either the flight or the strands as a card advantage engine, so what should I take out? I'm leaning towards Terrarion, but if I do add the enchants, i'll have like ten 4 drops.
The freethinking and creative guild is the Izzet, mixing red's love of freedom with blue's love of knowledge and thought. I think personally that the Azorious firts UW fairly well. There is nothing in white to suggest creativity, indeed it is probably the most conservative and rule-oriented color- and creativity by its nature tends to break rules. The color combinations also seem to only reflect one specific aspect of the colors. Even if blue cares about knowledge and thought, that's only one aspect of the color. The control aspect is the closest to white, so that is the aspect that manifests itself in Azorious, in the same way that blue's manipulativeness manifests in Dimir.
Ok if someone else said this I'm sorry but I didnt see it in there, can anyone say: ban psychatog? I beleive their deffinition of a stagnant format is one where every deck has the same cards in it, to win extended you must be playing psychatog or be an Avatar of Vishnu.
The problem with blue and red is that they're both extremely shallow. Red has about 3 "good" commons in the entire set, and blue is only a little deeper, but even its top commons aren't as good as Viashino Fangtail. Compare this to green or white, where one consistantly gets good cards tenth pick or later just because the color is so good. In the draft I did today both I and my neighbor were in GB, but we both ended up with very good decks because the colors are so deep.
Green is by far the best color in the set, mostly because it pairs up with black and white. The GW cards like Selesnya Evangel, Seeds of Strength, and Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi; and the GB cards Shambling Shell and Golgari Rotwurm are all much stronger than anything in the Dimir or Boros guilds. Green also has the best two abilities: Dredge and convoke, the best creature base, and the best mana fixing. I strongly suggest playing base green, paired with WR, WB, or BU.
I think that would actually be more broken than Survival was. I was thinking more like:
Unnatural Nature 1UG
Enchantment
X, Discard a creature card: Search your library for a creature card with a converted mana cost less than or equal to X + the discarded creature's converted mana cost, reveal it, put it into your hand, and shuffle your library.
The problem with this card is that if you can get the most expensive creature in your deck (not hard it all if you have a low curve or if you have some way to tutor) you can systematically search your deck for every creature and put them into your graveyard. I'm sure there's some way to abuse a card that puts every one of your creatures into your graveyard.
Whitemane Lion is a good creature on its own, but is not fantastic outside of a deck that can really abuse it. However, many of the red echo creatures have very good CITP effects, such as Stingscourger and Mogg War Marshall. And White already has Momentary Blink, which abuses CITP effects in the same way. A red deck with say, three flash rescue creatures / blinks and two Stingscourgers wouldn't require a lot of extra commitment but would have a ridiculous tempo boost if it could manage to draw both halves of the "combo." And it's RW, so if it can get an extra 2 turns of bouncing opponents creatures it can end the game. Furthermore, all of these cards are common and good on their own. So while it's not exactly an archetype, it can be quite powerful.
I got two Stingscourgers, a Whitemane Lion, and a Stonecloaker in my prerelease deck and they led me to a 4-0 finish. Each individual piece was playable on their own, but together they were taking out fatties and blockers all day.
For example:
Future Bear
0
Creature- bear
Echo: 1G
~ cannot block if its echo cost has not been paid
2/2
That's hardly broken and is effectively a futurecast within the existing rules.
Any idea on how to word these so they don't break the rules in half? I personally like the power level of the two cards, though the Djinn may be a little on the strong side. Any other ideas of cards using this that are internally synergetic (like the shift + RFG on the Djinn and the discard cost + madness on Starfire) would also be cool.
Djinn Seeker
2UU
Creature - Djinn
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, search your library for a card and remove it from the game. Shuffle your library afterwords.
Shift 2UU (If ~ is with you outside the game, you may pay its Shift cost and put it in your hand.)
3/2
Starfire
2R
Instant
~ Deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Madness: 2R
Shift 1R, Discard a card
The random nature of Planar Shifts sometimes brough celestial objects to the surface of Dominaria.
Game 3 of round 1, playing a Rakdos + green against a GUB deck with a lot of fliers.
I open an unspectacular hand, mulligan. No lands, mulligan again. No lands, mulligan again. Finally I keep a hand with Forest, Swamp, Civic Wayfinder, and Dimir House guard.
I play first, and topdeck a land on turn three in time to play my Civic Wayfinder. On his turn, he casts a blocker and plays Riot Spikes... on my Wayfiner, making it a 4/1. I topdeck a galvanic arc and suit up my elf, killing his blocker and swinging for four. He plays another blocker, and I swing past and play my House-Guard. I killed him three turns later. I went on to earn a 4-0 record, earning 16 packs. And it never would have happened if he hadn't cast Riot Spikes on my Wayfinder.
3UR
creature- human wizard
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery you may pay 1. If you do, search your library for an instant or sorcery with the same converted mana cost and put it into your hand. Shuffle your library afterwards.
The world is her canvas and mana is her brush.
2/2
Canticore Guardian
BB
creature- demon hound
Whenever ~ is dealt damage, each player loses that much life.
A Canticore's lugibrious song can drive the strongest man to madness and the bravest man to flight.
1/3
Conquistador Scout
2G
creature - human explorer soldier
~ has landwalk of each basic land type you control.
Whenever ~ deals combat to a player, you may search that player's library for a basic land card and put it into play tapped under your control. If you do, shuffle that player's library aftrwords.
1/3
Ghostly Sigil
:2mana::symw:
enchant creature
At the beginning of each upkeep, remove enchanted creature and ~ from the game.
At end of turn, return enchanted creature to play and ~ to play enchanting target creature.
Which would you pick first from this pack, and why?
Abyssal Nocturnus
Thunderheads
Conjurer's Ban :symw::symb:
Skarrg, the Rage Pits Land :symr::symg:
Blind Hunter :symw::symb:
Repeal
Necromancer's Magemark
Gruul Nodorog
Burning Tree Bloodscale :symr::symg:
Absolver Thrull
Izzet Chronarch :symu::symr:
Tin Street Hooligan
Pyromatics
Gigadrowse
Gruul Signet
Would help if we knew a few more commons
Anbaric Firebird
3UR
Creature- Phoenix
Flying
When ~ comes into play, ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
UU: Return ~ to your hand
2RR: Return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
3/2
Now if you're really feeling like a johnny, the card you should be playing is Otherworldly Journey.
Abuse Mark of Eviction.dec
3 Snapping Drake
3 Dimir Infiltrator
2 Dimir House Guard
Surveilling Sprite
Keening Banshee
Nightguard Patrol
Benevolent Ancestor
Drift of Phantoms
Vedalken Dismisser
3 Faith's fetters
Mark of Eviction
Dream Leash
Last Gasp
Clinging Darkness
Spectral Searchlight
Selesnya Signet
Terrarion
Dimir Aquaduct
6 island
5 swamp
4 plains
Relevent sideboard:
2 Strands of Undeath
1 Flight of Fancy
1 Dimir Signet
1 Compulsive Search
2 Vedalken Entrancer
1 Gaze of the Gorgon
I really want to find room for either the flight or the strands as a card advantage engine, so what should I take out? I'm leaning towards Terrarion, but if I do add the enchants, i'll have like ten 4 drops.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mf70
See the chart at the bottom.
Green is by far the best color in the set, mostly because it pairs up with black and white. The GW cards like Selesnya Evangel, Seeds of Strength, and Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi; and the GB cards Shambling Shell and Golgari Rotwurm are all much stronger than anything in the Dimir or Boros guilds. Green also has the best two abilities: Dredge and convoke, the best creature base, and the best mana fixing. I strongly suggest playing base green, paired with WR, WB, or BU.
The problem with this card is that if you can get the most expensive creature in your deck (not hard it all if you have a low curve or if you have some way to tutor) you can systematically search your deck for every creature and put them into your graveyard. I'm sure there's some way to abuse a card that puts every one of your creatures into your graveyard.