I find it funny people are complaining about power creep on the wurm. While I do agree power creep exists in this game, I don't believe this is a great example of it. Like other people have pointed out, both broodmate dragon and grave titan are comparable, if not better than this wurm... and grave titan had a much "easier" mana cost to boot.
This is a great card but it's not as broken as some of you are making it out to be.
sort of just reiterating what has been stated... but i've helped several players get started on the EDH scene in my area and THE BEST thing that has happened for this community is the release of the Commander precons. they have FANTASTIC value for their $35 retail price... and you can find them in many places for $25 or $30.
for a total rookie on the Magic/EDH scene who doesn't have a lot of older cards, i'd recommend choosing two to three (depending on your budget) of the commander decks that have some overlap. For example going with the WGB and UGB gives you an overlap of two colors. You can poach the cards from each of these two boxes and come out with a pretty solid deck to start with.
from there, i would just start casually adding cards. i don't recommend going out and dropping a quick $200-400 to fill in your deck. i've found that you can find solid trades and/or purchases pretty easily for EDH. a lot of solid edh cards are cheap-ish and players who don't play the format will pretty willingly trade them for hot standard cards. also the dollar/50 cent bins often have tons of edh playable cards in them (think things like weaker dual lands and mana artifacts, etc).
as for legacy... yeah that's much tougher. other than buying singles the only thing you can do is trade Hot standard cards for legacy cards... just know that you're generally "losing" value in the short term... though you gain long term stability as legacy prices tend to be stable.
Unless I'm missing something, what creatures with flying and two or less toughness are seeing substantial enough play to warrant Daybreak Ranger?
I can think of Glint Hawk, the Idol, Ornithopter and Chandra's Phoenix. None of the former three can be killed with the un-flipped Daybreak once a Tempered Steel has been dropped, and Chandra's Phoenix comes back pretty easily, so all he really does is nullify one Phoenix at a time if he manages to survive burn.
ornithopter isn't legal in standard and you forgot vault skirge, birds of paradise, and spirit tokens (from moorland haunt and other cards).
you do know he has a back side right? i mean... that is the main draw of the card after all...
I'm inclined to call shenanigans on scg. Wizards has had no problem keeping my local store in stock (and it's the only store in one of the biggest cities in the UK).
I reckon scg are just using the excuse of low stock to put up prices, which in turn causes people to panic buy because they want to get in before prices go up even further.
i have two large stores near me and both are completely out of innistrad stock (booster boxes/packs and fat packs). i know one of the stores is getting more in stock today after being sold out since sunday. not sure on the other store.
these are the ones that are getting some buzz at my local store. most will probably end up around $0.50 but still... i would keep these in mind. there are two commons that are trading extremely well too:
John-, that won't work. If Necrotic Ooze gains Mirror-Mad Phantasm's ability, it gains the ability except that all instances of "Mirror-Mad Phantasm" in the ability now read "Necrotic Ooze".
why would it read "necrotic ooze" instead of "mirror-mad phantasm"? ooze's ability copies the activated ability... it says nothing about replacing any words in the ability.
i agree with the poster above that said neither of these is worth a pick at p1p2 unless the pack is extremely weak. both are conditional and not even THAT cheap to cast. also, good players can and will play around rebuke.
if pressed to make a choice i'd say rebuke though. mainly because in the drafts i've been in, there are definitely times smite is stranded while you lose to a bunch of 2-3 power fliers.
Wouldn't you still die if you let him declare attackers? The trigger for Trepanation Blade goes on the stack, so it doesn't matter at this point if the equipment exists or not because it says "until end of turn"
correct, you'd have to blow up the equip at the beginning of combat phase, before he declares attackers. as soon as he declares attackers the trigger is already on the stack and blowing up the equip does nothing.
the problem with 3 color decks in the new standard is the lack of mana consistency (at least in all of my testing). just looking at your mana base... you have 8 ways to cast a turn 1 accelerator and only 10 green sources overall. it's gonna take some aggressive mulliganing for that to happen.
and if we keep a hand with no t1 ramp, then we're looking at a best case scenario of turn 2 stalker turn 3 beater turn 4 destiny? not too shabby but not exactly mind blowing.
I don't see how if you state that you're going to value a card at X, and are honest with the person you're trading with, that you're at fault. That makes no sense unless you're preying on people who don't know any better.
If I have four Dark Confidants that are worth $40 a piece, I don't have to trade them at $40 a piece if I value them at $50 a piece. And you don't have to trade with me either, that's your choice. But I wouldn't want to let them go (I play with them, or collect them, or whatever) unless I was getting $50 a piece for them.
If the other person is willing to do that because they want the card that bad, there's no shady business going on.
i also 100% agree with this. i am known locally as a fair trader with well-stocked binders that has a lot of stuff people need and want. i generally trade everything for fair value.
HOWEVER, there are some cards that i do value higher than their current value at online stores. Why? There are typically a couple of reasons...
1) I know the card is hot so I want to wait for it to go up more. I don't think this is unfair for me because it's just like waiting for any other investment to gain value.
2) I use these cards often in various decks so I don't like trading them away because the hassle of getting them back isn't worth it (fetchlands, shocklands, and other staples).
point is... i'm very up front about this. somebody might flip through my binder and say "is wooded foothills for trade?" my answer is typically yeah but i value it higher than online prices. it's currently $22 on tcgplayer but I value it at $26-27.
if they still want to pull it out and trade for it, that's on them. i'm being completely fair and forthright. and if they don't want to trade for it that's fine, no hard feelings.
i would be so bloody confused that someone is playing a deck with torpor orb and nothing else
i don't know if you're incredibly dense or just trying to troll... but the point remains. torpor orb is not strictly better than silence of stone. nor the other way around. they shut off different parts of the deck and half a functioning pod deck can still beat you.
True, except torpor orb is strictly better against pod decks, Pod wasn't a major archetype when orb was being spoiled, and torpor orb is only not a staple because the decks that would use it usually have ETB effects of their own
saying torpor orb is strictly better is plain wrong. torpor orb IS better against pod but not strictly so. you'll know what i mean when you play against a pod deck with torpor orb in play and they pod their 2 drop into a 5/6 flier that kills you 4 turns later.
really though... this card and torpor orb are both good sb cards. while orb more readily answers pod decks, this card also shuts down equipment based strategies and several grand architect strategies that might see play (tumble magnet, forgemaster, mindslaver, etc).
yeah, but it really doesn't do anything about the sword that's already out and equipped. This makes it really situational in that scenario. Granted it would be nice to drop this against an opponent with no way to deal with it before they drop a sword. Realistically though, O-Ring is back in the format and you're probably better off with that or naturalize to handle you're sword hating.
well you can really argue both sides of that coin. preemptively playing this out is stronger in that it guarantees no chances for your opponent to swing with the sword. with o-ring and naturalize (if you are tapped out for ex) your opponent usually gets a swing in with the sword.
i'm not saying this is the greatest card ever... but i can definitely see it having a lot of uses. not to mention the flexibility it offers over some of the other options... ie shutting down pod/spellskite/swords/equipment in puresteel/etc etc. it's more flexible than simply running a naturalize.
This is a great card but it's not as broken as some of you are making it out to be.
for a total rookie on the Magic/EDH scene who doesn't have a lot of older cards, i'd recommend choosing two to three (depending on your budget) of the commander decks that have some overlap. For example going with the WGB and UGB gives you an overlap of two colors. You can poach the cards from each of these two boxes and come out with a pretty solid deck to start with.
from there, i would just start casually adding cards. i don't recommend going out and dropping a quick $200-400 to fill in your deck. i've found that you can find solid trades and/or purchases pretty easily for EDH. a lot of solid edh cards are cheap-ish and players who don't play the format will pretty willingly trade them for hot standard cards. also the dollar/50 cent bins often have tons of edh playable cards in them (think things like weaker dual lands and mana artifacts, etc).
as for legacy... yeah that's much tougher. other than buying singles the only thing you can do is trade Hot standard cards for legacy cards... just know that you're generally "losing" value in the short term... though you gain long term stability as legacy prices tend to be stable.
ornithopter isn't legal in standard and you forgot vault skirge, birds of paradise, and spirit tokens (from moorland haunt and other cards).
you do know he has a back side right? i mean... that is the main draw of the card after all...
i have two large stores near me and both are completely out of innistrad stock (booster boxes/packs and fat packs). i know one of the stores is getting more in stock today after being sold out since sunday. not sure on the other store.
the packs are selling like hotcakes around here.
fiend hunter
intangible virtue
midnight haunting
dissipate
diregraf ghoul
tribute to hunger
desperate ravings
reckless waif
these are the ones that are getting some buzz at my local store. most will probably end up around $0.50 but still... i would keep these in mind. there are two commons that are trading extremely well too:
forbidding alchemy
ancient grudge
why would it read "necrotic ooze" instead of "mirror-mad phantasm"? ooze's ability copies the activated ability... it says nothing about replacing any words in the ability.
i believe you are wrong.
if pressed to make a choice i'd say rebuke though. mainly because in the drafts i've been in, there are definitely times smite is stranded while you lose to a bunch of 2-3 power fliers.
correct, you'd have to blow up the equip at the beginning of combat phase, before he declares attackers. as soon as he declares attackers the trigger is already on the stack and blowing up the equip does nothing.
gg.
and if we keep a hand with no t1 ramp, then we're looking at a best case scenario of turn 2 stalker turn 3 beater turn 4 destiny? not too shabby but not exactly mind blowing.
it's not the most elegent solution... but taplands means something else completely to us. i don't think that name will work/stick.
i also 100% agree with this. i am known locally as a fair trader with well-stocked binders that has a lot of stuff people need and want. i generally trade everything for fair value.
HOWEVER, there are some cards that i do value higher than their current value at online stores. Why? There are typically a couple of reasons...
1) I know the card is hot so I want to wait for it to go up more. I don't think this is unfair for me because it's just like waiting for any other investment to gain value.
2) I use these cards often in various decks so I don't like trading them away because the hassle of getting them back isn't worth it (fetchlands, shocklands, and other staples).
point is... i'm very up front about this. somebody might flip through my binder and say "is wooded foothills for trade?" my answer is typically yeah but i value it higher than online prices. it's currently $22 on tcgplayer but I value it at $26-27.
if they still want to pull it out and trade for it, that's on them. i'm being completely fair and forthright. and if they don't want to trade for it that's fine, no hard feelings.
i don't know if you're incredibly dense or just trying to troll... but the point remains. torpor orb is not strictly better than silence of stone. nor the other way around. they shut off different parts of the deck and half a functioning pod deck can still beat you.
saying torpor orb is strictly better is plain wrong. torpor orb IS better against pod but not strictly so. you'll know what i mean when you play against a pod deck with torpor orb in play and they pod their 2 drop into a 5/6 flier that kills you 4 turns later.
really though... this card and torpor orb are both good sb cards. while orb more readily answers pod decks, this card also shuts down equipment based strategies and several grand architect strategies that might see play (tumble magnet, forgemaster, mindslaver, etc).
well you can really argue both sides of that coin. preemptively playing this out is stronger in that it guarantees no chances for your opponent to swing with the sword. with o-ring and naturalize (if you are tapped out for ex) your opponent usually gets a swing in with the sword.
i'm not saying this is the greatest card ever... but i can definitely see it having a lot of uses. not to mention the flexibility it offers over some of the other options... ie shutting down pod/spellskite/swords/equipment in puresteel/etc etc. it's more flexible than simply running a naturalize.