Personally, to put it simply, I'm happy to see the Birds go. My main gripe with 8th Edition was that new players in my playgroup didn't have any easy access to Llanowar Elves. Llanowar Elves are common. Birds of Paradise are rare, and a 10 dollar rare at that. The basic truth is that an important part of a new player's deck, the one mana accelerant, was missing during 8th edition unless they bought some from the dealer or managed to trade for them, which was hard in my area since most people who had them didn't want to give them up. They're common, have a low casting cost, accelerate mana, and show newer players that in order to cast that Scaled Wurm, playing mana acceleration will allow them to play it on turn 6 instead of turn 8. Since a majority of new players start out as Timmy, Llanowar Elves can majorly help them become more competitive by ramping up to a 7-8 mana fatty a lot sooner, as well as being a respectable creature for attacking or blocking in a pinch.
As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. The learning curve of Magic is bad enough without having a main part of the game as a 10 dollar rare.
Personally I really love them. Not the "best basic land ever" or anything, but certainly pretty.
I also love the little details on the images, like the boats in the channels, the little floating things everywhere, and little statues, windows, and the other little details that make the images just look really complex and involved. Cities tend to be anything but tranquil, and I like how the art reflects how complex the terrain really is.
Personally, I hate cards that only work in conjunction with other cards. Part of the reason many people disliked the splice onto arcane mechanic in Kamigawa was that it didn't interact with anything outside block. Splice is such a neat mechanic, but it's too narrow to create interesting decks with because the only cards that can be used with it are the cards that were printed in Kamigawa block.
Meanwhile, cards like, say, Sakura-Tribe Elder, interact well with block, by supporting a higher mana curve in green decks for big legendary creatures, but also provide chump blocking, an easy sacrifice effect, mana acceleration, mana fixing in multicolor decks, and can attack for 1 in a pinch.
The cards that interest me the most in the Ravnica previews we've been getting are the cards that aren't narrow. They don't have to be powerful, like the Tribe Elder, but cards with a multitude of uses are the types of cards I enjoy.
Having cards be tied to a specific guild or other flavor aspect is even worse than splice, because with splice, at least the card can be played normally without any issues. One can't get the full power of the splice card without using the ability, but if I want to play Blessed Breath with no splice cards, I can go ahead and do so. The splice mechanic is narrow, but the effect of the card is not. Having cards that only work in conjunction with other cards would make the cards totally useless without the cards to work in conjunction with them, and that's just plain bad design.
Serra's Blessing might be interesting here. You could attack and then convoke it out. It's certainly not the most amazing of fatties, but it's still got uses in any deck that ignores the casting cost. My green-white Elvish Piper deck would probably give it a good home.
Man, you are so awesome. You go through such great topics that are of great importance to the game, and add little tidbits of humor to make even the simplistic of topics interesting and entertaining.
I wanna know where you got that cat...I could use some easy to reach competition ^_^()
What about the speculation that they might be in precons? That kept Jitte down from going to the sky, and I'd bet it would keep it in the 10 dollar range if they are.
At least I hope. I can't afford 25 dollar lands X_X
I'd assume they'd use the giant legends we're being informed of now that use the guild mana as the second rare. That way both Timmy and Spike would get something out of the precon. Since Johnny doesn't buy precons, that would seem like a good mix.
Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if the inbalance in Ravinca is to make the rest of the block more stable in the mana base. Note that green, black, and white all have mana fixing available in color.
Red has temporary acceleration in color (Seething Song), but it doesn't give the player fixing in colors. Blue has a few mana fixers (Phantasmal Terrain), but nothing particularly stellar.
It's possible that the emphasis on those colors is to make limited play more stable down the road by giving players access to mana-fixing early on in the draft.
I was thinking this too, and there is another way they could make the precons stay splashy for the newbies with a rare being a land: Cool uncommons. We've had a lot of them in recent sets, and that would offset having one of the gold symbol cards being a land.
I truly hope they put these in precons as well, because otherwise they won't be affordable. The Rat's Nest precon kept Jitte reasonable, and precons could keep these lands reasonable as well.
Personally I see no reason to keyword Web for one simplistic reason: The reminder text would reference another keyword, Flying.
All "This creature can block as though it had flying" is saying is that another keyword, Flying, is being disabled in this specific case. It would be like keywording "Target creature loses trample until end of turn". Why would we need a keyword for the nullification of another keyword? That just makes no sense at all. The web ability is simply adding even more complexity and design space to an already existant ability. I don't see anyone suggesting we keyword "This creature can only block creatures with flying".
The kind of abilities that need keywords are the kind of abilities that do something specific that has nothing to do with other abilities in the game. Spirit Link is pretty much the only ability I can think of off-hand that could probably use a keyword. Spirit Link has been around since Arabian Nights and has solidified itself in white as a mechanic that white creatures get fairly frequently. It does something unique and isn't covered by any other keyword. It's also a combat-related creature ability, which are the best kind of abilities to keyword (See: Flying, First Strike, Haste, Vigilance, Regeneration, Banding, etc.) since they make it easier to explain what someone is being attacked with ("You're being attacked with a 2/2 Flying Spirit Linker"). I'd bet the only reason they haven't keyworded it yet is because there isn't a good word to use. "Spirit Link" is two words, and that's rather unelegant for a keyword.
Guild mana does smell of Rosewater, but on the other thing revealed, I really hope the redesign of their website makes the front page cleaner or at least more organized. Their website has never been that particularly clean in its layout. Finding specific things there can often be an excercise in futility.
I have to agree that I'd like to see Birds die. My #1 gripe with 8th edition was the lack of Llanowar Elves. It's not that I don't have a ton of them, and it's not that I don't like birds. However, Birds is a rare and Llanowar is a common. This means that new players (which my playgroup had a lot of at the time) didn't have easy access to good mana acceleration. Since many new players like to build decks that play big green creatures, the lack of access to Llanowar was hurting their ability to learn one of the most important parts of playing a big green deck: Mana acceleration rules. When the only 1-mana acceleration was a 10 dollar card, there was no way they could have gotten a playset of four of those.
By bringing back common mana acceleration, a basic part of the game is back in the common slot again. This is good for both newbies and older players alike, since Llanowar is easy to pick up in multiples to run in as many decks as one feels like.
As a seperate matter, this seems like it would let you get, say a green guy with this ability into play even if you are running no forests at all! Imagine the following cards:
Helper Man (G/W)
1/1
Big Crusher Guy 4G
That Keyword ability
4/4
It seems like you could play Helper Man with white mana, then later tap it to reduce Big Crusher Guy's cost by G, and pay the rest of the cost with W, putting a green creature into play even though you have no green mana sources. Not that this is a huge game-breaking problem or anything, but as the ability is understood right now, isn't it possible?
Actually, this is probably intentional to allow for people to not only play off-color cards but have less mana screw in limited. If people are going to be playing 3-4 colors, then there is a high likelihood of mana screw if they don't have interesting mechanics to get around it. This looks like one of them. It essentially turns creatures into a pseudo Mana Prism.
I'd love to see things like that in the actual set. Color smoothing is always good.
As far as I'm concerned, good riddance. The learning curve of Magic is bad enough without having a main part of the game as a 10 dollar rare.
I also love the little details on the images, like the boats in the channels, the little floating things everywhere, and little statues, windows, and the other little details that make the images just look really complex and involved. Cities tend to be anything but tranquil, and I like how the art reflects how complex the terrain really is.
Warp World would probably best be used to do really stupid stuff in a 10 player multiplayer game.
Meanwhile, cards like, say, Sakura-Tribe Elder, interact well with block, by supporting a higher mana curve in green decks for big legendary creatures, but also provide chump blocking, an easy sacrifice effect, mana acceleration, mana fixing in multicolor decks, and can attack for 1 in a pinch.
The cards that interest me the most in the Ravnica previews we've been getting are the cards that aren't narrow. They don't have to be powerful, like the Tribe Elder, but cards with a multitude of uses are the types of cards I enjoy.
Having cards be tied to a specific guild or other flavor aspect is even worse than splice, because with splice, at least the card can be played normally without any issues. One can't get the full power of the splice card without using the ability, but if I want to play Blessed Breath with no splice cards, I can go ahead and do so. The splice mechanic is narrow, but the effect of the card is not. Having cards that only work in conjunction with other cards would make the cards totally useless without the cards to work in conjunction with them, and that's just plain bad design.
I wanna know where you got that cat...I could use some easy to reach competition ^_^()
At least I hope. I can't afford 25 dollar lands X_X
Green is the mana fixing color, Black has filters (Initiates of the Ebon Hand, Blood Celebrant), and White has taxing effects (Land Tax, Gift of Estates).
Red has temporary acceleration in color (Seething Song), but it doesn't give the player fixing in colors. Blue has a few mana fixers (Phantasmal Terrain), but nothing particularly stellar.
It's possible that the emphasis on those colors is to make limited play more stable down the road by giving players access to mana-fixing early on in the draft.
I truly hope they put these in precons as well, because otherwise they won't be affordable. The Rat's Nest precon kept Jitte reasonable, and precons could keep these lands reasonable as well.
All "This creature can block as though it had flying" is saying is that another keyword, Flying, is being disabled in this specific case. It would be like keywording "Target creature loses trample until end of turn". Why would we need a keyword for the nullification of another keyword? That just makes no sense at all. The web ability is simply adding even more complexity and design space to an already existant ability. I don't see anyone suggesting we keyword "This creature can only block creatures with flying".
The kind of abilities that need keywords are the kind of abilities that do something specific that has nothing to do with other abilities in the game. Spirit Link is pretty much the only ability I can think of off-hand that could probably use a keyword. Spirit Link has been around since Arabian Nights and has solidified itself in white as a mechanic that white creatures get fairly frequently. It does something unique and isn't covered by any other keyword. It's also a combat-related creature ability, which are the best kind of abilities to keyword (See: Flying, First Strike, Haste, Vigilance, Regeneration, Banding, etc.) since they make it easier to explain what someone is being attacked with ("You're being attacked with a 2/2 Flying Spirit Linker"). I'd bet the only reason they haven't keyworded it yet is because there isn't a good word to use. "Spirit Link" is two words, and that's rather unelegant for a keyword.
By bringing back common mana acceleration, a basic part of the game is back in the common slot again. This is good for both newbies and older players alike, since Llanowar is easy to pick up in multiples to run in as many decks as one feels like.
Actually, this is probably intentional to allow for people to not only play off-color cards but have less mana screw in limited. If people are going to be playing 3-4 colors, then there is a high likelihood of mana screw if they don't have interesting mechanics to get around it. This looks like one of them. It essentially turns creatures into a pseudo Mana Prism.
I'd love to see things like that in the actual set. Color smoothing is always good.