This tourney sucked for me last year, the girl who sat across me pulled foil prime time and dungrove elder, stomped me, pulled garruk in her next pack, won, pulled foil solsim and in her final win got another prime time.
I wanted all those cards, I nearly cried as she pulled them. Worst was she wouldn't have beaten me if her boyfriend hadn't been helping her play our whole match, since she didn't even play magic.
Well, that said, hoping for better luck this year! fun event all around.
Sweet, an EDH chase card just got a LOT cheaper!
Of the cycle I love all of them except the g/r one. Since haste is only useful once.
They are really good for common and uncommon.
Hey. Brainstorm is better.
Here's why.
Temporal Mastery 5UU.
Sorcery
Take another turn
Miracle (If this is the first card you draw this turn immediately cast for its miracle cost) 1U.
So being able to shuffle this badboy from your hand right to the top of your deck is going to be incredible.
Now I'm not up with recent french bannings, are mystical tutor or sensei's divining top or scroll rack still around? If they aren't I think I'll be using soothsaying again to have some sort of filtering engine in the deck. (plus soothsaying is such a great mana sink and cheap too!)
Well yeah, this is a great addition and a ridiculously powerful card to boot, so I'm definitely going to find a way to include it in my build.
Beyond new cards though, I have a discard heavy meta and use brainstorm more than the other 1 mana blues (except probe which i use to check for removal) due to its ability to save my needed threats. For example, I was playing against my friend's scion deck, managed to stop hermit druid with well timed exile, so he cast scion for beatdown, and bolased, luckily I brainstormed my phyrexian metamorph from my hand to deck and managed to win the match because of that.
But yeah, in a meta without discard Brainstorm might be worse than the ones which actually let you shuffle.
EDIT2:
Well miracle is strong now.
I'm definitely throwing soothsaying in to be able to use and abuse it.
The new evacuation is as outrageous as the new time walk.
And the bounce to the top of the deck for u is good... if you can hit the miracle cost.
But I love the walker the most.
5 mana for 4 loyalty.
+1: Tap target permanent. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
-2: Draw a card for each tapped creature target player controls.
-8: You get an emblem with "You have no maximum hand size" and "Whenever a card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may return it to your hand."
Yup.
I want. I mean, 5 mana to tap down a creature is... well bad.
BUT. Against aggro, (gaddock and lyzolda still huge thorns in my side) dumping the walker after they've attacked and drawing 4 cards seems pretty swell.
And against voltron, tapping down one of the non-hexproof guys (yeah i know that geist and many new ones aren't targettable, but some still are) the +1 is enough to slow them down. The ultimate obviously means we win even more than jaces i think due to our mana - simply we can say "I can cast infinite counters"
Of course, she is slow. I don't know 100% that it'll be good for us, but right now i know that is one sexy ultimate that I want to use.
Hot diggity dog I hate the new mikaeus!
Great in EDH if he were multicolored, you could have done fun stuff with changing all your enemies creatures to humans
EDIT: On the other hand, he's a 5/5, and gives all your other creatures the ability to revive, needs protection for himself though...
From a non edh standpoint I do not know.
But yeah, he's pretty cool I guess, just dislike the intimidate (worthless IMO).
The undying for everynon human creature is crazy cool tho, same with the buff.
EDIT2: HOLY CRUD AT FLAYER.
Could he change the way reanimate decks work?
I mean, revive him, then revive something FAT for nearly half their life gone in one fell swoop! Seems pretty absurd. (admittedly I don't know how modern reanimator works, but heck, play him, then gitaxis for example.
Boom, they take 9 damage, you get 7 new cards, next turn reanimate iona or something, they're at 16 damage already.
Its frustrating how overcosted she is, if she costed 4 mana and were a 0/3 instead I'd be far more keen on her, but yeah, that price and the lack of protection pretty much doomed it.
All I wanted was snapcaster 2.0
Well, at least wizard support is coming more often I guess...
Fingers crossed we get at least one card worthy of our 100 in this set.
Anyway, I hate Heidar, I feel flat out his casting cost is too high, I do agree on Kira though, he's crazily awesome.
He's become the savior of my deck actually, since like I said everyone is running tons of targetted removal, making them kill him before azami is good stuff. (also, its nigh impossible to do so thanks to counterspell backup :D)
As long as I don't get rushed early game I've found I can get a nigh-impregnable wall up by turn 6 (talking about french here) and pretty much just stall out till they realize there's no hope of victory.
Welp, new wizard for our casual builds/non-french:
Beguiler of Wills 3UU
Human Wizard
1/1
T:Gain control of target creature with power less than or equal to the number of creatures you control.
Won't do jack in french, but I might try it in non-french where I can ramp up to it pretty fast, my current build also has greaves in it to protect azami since my group is using tons of targetted sorcery speed stuff, so in this case it'll be quite useful.
(also note you don't lose control of the creature when she dies!)
So yeah, we'll see. In the end I don't expect much of it, but it seems like it could be silly and fun.
Yeah, I guess it has no hope in french at all though, way too expensive and way too fragile, eh.
Oh man I cannot wait for 3 months to pass and sorin to drop under 50, I GOTTA pick that up.
Bloody heck, that -2 is crazy.
And the + and the ultimate.
So much fun to be had!
So will transcendence shoot up in price now? Or is enchant hate common enough in legacy (pridemage see much play?)/its too slow to be a good strategy?
I really wish that it had a clause about
"if a permanent would be put into your library from your graveyard" triggers, so I could make my friends follow this and do some reanimation nonsense with eldrazi... well that explains why they'd never make that happen I guess lol.
So far I feel like people are slightly overreacting to this change, the whole "magic is dead" syndrome.
I know personally this will never affect me or anyone in my playgroup and I bet its the same with many of you guys. (IE this not affecting FNMS)
You know, just every single time WotC has ever broken a block up into smaller chunks. No Allies or Landfall in RoE, no Clash or Evoke in Shadowmoor/Eventide...you know, just a pattern of facts throughout history.
WATWATWATWAT?
You realize this is completely different, right?
First, Shadowmoor/Eventide are A DIFFERENT BLOCK. DERP.
As in, they don't have the same mechanics for a reason. You didn't say "HAY LOOK ONSLAUGHT DOESNT HAVE THE SAME ABILITIES AS WEATHERLIGHT EVEN THO THEYRE BOTH ON DOMINARIA LOLOL" because it's stupid to say that.
yeah, they're on the same plane, but they're still diferent blocks.
Don't believe me? Check the mothership, Shadowmoor/Eventide are their own block.
As for Zen block, WotC stated that because they had never done a land based set before they didn't know if it would work well - ROE was their insurance incase landfall flopped.
Neither of those applies here. DFCs are new, but they aren't the focus of the set. If anything, we might not see morbid and that other new ability in the set.
There will be DFCs in this set.
Also, I really am hoping this means Inn's story will be wrapped up and we get a happy ending, that would be so cool.
I for one would love a third Ajani incarnation! After all, he is my favorite character from the series.
Ajani is in the lorwyn five though.
They were: garruk, jace, chandra, ajani, liliana.
My take on the non-lorwyn coreset walkers would be:
Elspethv1 (OH GOD MOST OP draft card EVER!), tezzeret v1, koth, a new green walker (green is SERIOUSLY SHAFTED IN WALKERS) and sorin.
Nissa won't work in a new set due to needing a reprint of nissa's chosen - which could be done, but it would make you try to draft elf tribal which wouldn't work usually.
I also think these 5 (assuming a good new green walker) are relatively balanced.
Elspeth is boss, tezz if you pulled artifacts would be amazing, both for tutoring and untapping your creatures/other artifacts, koth would be the perfect red lategame card, and sorin is sorin - 2 damage per turn is nothing to sneeze at.
No, so you can discard some other instants/sorceries for mage to abuse/draw more cards.
That said, this seems like an awesome card, I can't wait for it!
Nah, the decks have too many singletons to blame it on bad playing.
It's a challenge because there is no consistency. There are synergies and strategies if you look for them, but it typically comes down to Ajani rushing down NB, while he tries to stabilize and win late game. I have seen games blown out where NB gets enough Hand D early to clean out Ajani's hand before he can drop anything meaningful.
In my opinion, very balanced and loads of fun. I hope V vs K is a blast too!
No.
Just no.
Even with singletons - it's bad playing on the Ajani side that causes Bolas to win.
The odds are really quite good that ajani has a t1 play, in the nacatl or loam lion or ape, and since bolas has so few early game cards - well yeah, he's boned.
Likewise, ajani still has better lategame stuff.
Searing meditation REALLY screws bolas up, since he has like 2 ways to remove it once its on the field, and beyond that bolas just has bad creatures - that stupid vamp that deals him 1 per turn, to the other generally worthless trash.
Just a list of ajani's lategame stuff:
Ajani, marisi's twinclaws, that mirrodin elemental, war pride, behemoth sledge.
He beats the heck out of bolas for early game and has pretty much just as many good lategame cards.
(Plus even cruel ultimatum can't save bolas usually - ajani has played his hand, is probably at over 20 life, and has enough creatures that he can sac a bad one)
Yeha, I played like 200 matches of them and bolas won maybe 10, which is directly because ajani had to mull to 5 and had no t1 plays.
The bolas deck simply sucks.
Well, Riptide Entrancer is something I've wanted to test for a while - it fits the control magic bill, but the problem is connecting for 2 when they have something deadly out. Legacy's Allure is weird.
I've tried it, but I HATE it.
It's sooo darn slow, it gives people too much time to prepare for it.
That said, I also don't see why cursecatcher is bad.
He's saved me from T1 thoughtsieze so many times, and even delaying a T2 cultivate (t1 mana elf) by 1 turn can be amazing.
I mean, yeah he becomes crap if you can't get him down T1, but as a T1 drop he rules (plus combined with mana drain and whatnot, he can be that extra boost to counter something)
Other than that your list looks pretty solid, I just really dislike not having a way to combo out, and thus not having a real wincon.
Overall, I agree with your sentiments though handsome - we need more 1-2 cmcs with GOOD abilities. If we had even a few more, it'd be a whole new ballgame.
As a note, it seems you win by damage, the terrible 1-drop from innistrad, delver of secrets may be worth it with 26 instants.
I mean, it'll reliably flip, and a 3/2 with evasion is pretty nice stats, he can either trade with a 2/2 after that or try to aggro it up - it's a **** card but since we're desperate it might be worth testing.
Jake556, this thread should suffice.
We just need someone to change the topic, the problem is I haven't been playing enough matches lately to have any new strategies to discuss (midterms, you know), but if you have any experimental stuff to post we'd love to help you out!
That said - I've been on the hype train for a new card lately - I did this for diviner's wand (SLAM DUNK!) and Drift of Phantasms (kinda slam I still say its a staple for regular BL since it hits most of our wincons, but many disagree)
Anyway, I think Lion's Eye Diamond is the real deal.
Also, LED is speculated to be unbanned in french in november when that list is revised.
As such - everyone playing french should at least look into saving up to get one (it's pretty pricey after all!)
I've used it to success having broken ramp ala mana crypt and sol ring, so in a format where those are banned - LED shines even more.
I'm testing on cockatrice - more creatures (enclave cryptologist is back in) and a huge focus on bounce as well to stem the tide of aggro. In a deck that has a large amount of creatures, LED is awesome - it hits the T2 azami perfectly (tho that's a tad early) and I've found its best use is with scroll rack - you force to the top a counterspell, dump some stuff you don't care about and then redraw after azami lands.
Admittedly it's situational, but the high creature prescence makes LED less risky and far easier to recover from, since you draw like 3 or 4 cards immediately after playing her.
Admittedly it is speculation right now, but if LED is unbanned in french I do REALLY recommend everyone try it, as I've loved it in most of the decks I run so far (basically, azusa and edric are the 2 I don't use it in lol)
As a note, LEDs price has been on the rise since it was unbanned for regular EDH, I recommend if anyone thinks theyd want it get it now. I got mine and I'm sooo happy, its one of those cards I thought I'd never own (along with tropical island, volcanic island, force of will et al, the expensive legacy cards) when I started, which are super good.
As it is LED is on the reserve list and wizards doesn't print STUPID BROKEN cards like it anymore, so it CANNOT go down in price once it goes up, seriously, everyone here, sess, farchyld, mantxi, handsome, and everyone else (sorry guys, I can't remember everyone's names when I'm this... messed up lol) if you can't afford to buy one on the spot, you should make a piggy bank and put like a dollar in each day, no matter how poor you are you should be able to put 1 dollar in every day, you can get that much just by picking up pennies off the ground walking around! and use that money as soon as you hit enough to buy LED, since if it is unbanned it'll have HUGE relevance in french and it has huge relevance in many many regular banlist decks too and its great for azami since we have such good recovery with our general being such an awesome draw engine we can recover from discarding our hand so easily - its a must use.
I wanted all those cards, I nearly cried as she pulled them. Worst was she wouldn't have beaten me if her boyfriend hadn't been helping her play our whole match, since she didn't even play magic.
Well, that said, hoping for better luck this year! fun event all around.
Of the cycle I love all of them except the g/r one. Since haste is only useful once.
They are really good for common and uncommon.
Here's why.
Temporal Mastery 5UU.
Sorcery
Take another turn
Miracle (If this is the first card you draw this turn immediately cast for its miracle cost) 1U.
So being able to shuffle this badboy from your hand right to the top of your deck is going to be incredible.
Now I'm not up with recent french bannings, are mystical tutor or sensei's divining top or scroll rack still around? If they aren't I think I'll be using soothsaying again to have some sort of filtering engine in the deck. (plus soothsaying is such a great mana sink and cheap too!)
Well yeah, this is a great addition and a ridiculously powerful card to boot, so I'm definitely going to find a way to include it in my build.
Beyond new cards though, I have a discard heavy meta and use brainstorm more than the other 1 mana blues (except probe which i use to check for removal) due to its ability to save my needed threats. For example, I was playing against my friend's scion deck, managed to stop hermit druid with well timed exile, so he cast scion for beatdown, and bolased, luckily I brainstormed my phyrexian metamorph from my hand to deck and managed to win the match because of that.
But yeah, in a meta without discard Brainstorm might be worse than the ones which actually let you shuffle.
EDIT2:
Well miracle is strong now.
I'm definitely throwing soothsaying in to be able to use and abuse it.
The new evacuation is as outrageous as the new time walk.
And the bounce to the top of the deck for u is good... if you can hit the miracle cost.
But I love the walker the most.
5 mana for 4 loyalty.
+1: Tap target permanent. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
-2: Draw a card for each tapped creature target player controls.
-8: You get an emblem with "You have no maximum hand size" and "Whenever a card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may return it to your hand."
Yup.
I want. I mean, 5 mana to tap down a creature is... well bad.
BUT. Against aggro, (gaddock and lyzolda still huge thorns in my side) dumping the walker after they've attacked and drawing 4 cards seems pretty swell.
And against voltron, tapping down one of the non-hexproof guys (yeah i know that geist and many new ones aren't targettable, but some still are) the +1 is enough to slow them down. The ultimate obviously means we win even more than jaces i think due to our mana - simply we can say "I can cast infinite counters"
Of course, she is slow. I don't know 100% that it'll be good for us, but right now i know that is one sexy ultimate that I want to use.
How? If any of them attack, Unhallowed will cause them to die horribly.
Great in EDH if he were multicolored, you could have done fun stuff with changing all your enemies creatures to humans
EDIT: On the other hand, he's a 5/5, and gives all your other creatures the ability to revive, needs protection for himself though...
From a non edh standpoint I do not know.
But yeah, he's pretty cool I guess, just dislike the intimidate (worthless IMO).
The undying for everynon human creature is crazy cool tho, same with the buff.
EDIT2: HOLY CRUD AT FLAYER.
Could he change the way reanimate decks work?
I mean, revive him, then revive something FAT for nearly half their life gone in one fell swoop! Seems pretty absurd. (admittedly I don't know how modern reanimator works, but heck, play him, then gitaxis for example.
Boom, they take 9 damage, you get 7 new cards, next turn reanimate iona or something, they're at 16 damage already.
All I wanted was snapcaster 2.0
Well, at least wizard support is coming more often I guess...
Fingers crossed we get at least one card worthy of our 100 in this set.
Anyway, I hate Heidar, I feel flat out his casting cost is too high, I do agree on Kira though, he's crazily awesome.
He's become the savior of my deck actually, since like I said everyone is running tons of targetted removal, making them kill him before azami is good stuff. (also, its nigh impossible to do so thanks to counterspell backup :D)
As long as I don't get rushed early game I've found I can get a nigh-impregnable wall up by turn 6 (talking about french here) and pretty much just stall out till they realize there's no hope of victory.
Beguiler of Wills 3UU
Human Wizard
1/1
T:Gain control of target creature with power less than or equal to the number of creatures you control.
Won't do jack in french, but I might try it in non-french where I can ramp up to it pretty fast, my current build also has greaves in it to protect azami since my group is using tons of targetted sorcery speed stuff, so in this case it'll be quite useful.
(also note you don't lose control of the creature when she dies!)
So yeah, we'll see. In the end I don't expect much of it, but it seems like it could be silly and fun.
Yeah, I guess it has no hope in french at all though, way too expensive and way too fragile, eh.
Bloody heck, that -2 is crazy.
And the + and the ultimate.
So much fun to be had!
I really wish that it had a clause about
"if a permanent would be put into your library from your graveyard" triggers, so I could make my friends follow this and do some reanimation nonsense with eldrazi... well that explains why they'd never make that happen I guess lol.
So far I feel like people are slightly overreacting to this change, the whole "magic is dead" syndrome.
I know personally this will never affect me or anyone in my playgroup and I bet its the same with many of you guys. (IE this not affecting FNMS)
WATWATWATWAT?
You realize this is completely different, right?
First, Shadowmoor/Eventide are A DIFFERENT BLOCK. DERP.
As in, they don't have the same mechanics for a reason. You didn't say "HAY LOOK ONSLAUGHT DOESNT HAVE THE SAME ABILITIES AS WEATHERLIGHT EVEN THO THEYRE BOTH ON DOMINARIA LOLOL" because it's stupid to say that.
yeah, they're on the same plane, but they're still diferent blocks.
Don't believe me? Check the mothership, Shadowmoor/Eventide are their own block.
As for Zen block, WotC stated that because they had never done a land based set before they didn't know if it would work well - ROE was their insurance incase landfall flopped.
Neither of those applies here. DFCs are new, but they aren't the focus of the set. If anything, we might not see morbid and that other new ability in the set.
There will be DFCs in this set.
Also, I really am hoping this means Inn's story will be wrapped up and we get a happy ending, that would be so cool.
Trolling warning issued. -viper
Ajani is in the lorwyn five though.
They were: garruk, jace, chandra, ajani, liliana.
My take on the non-lorwyn coreset walkers would be:
Elspethv1 (OH GOD MOST OP draft card EVER!), tezzeret v1, koth, a new green walker (green is SERIOUSLY SHAFTED IN WALKERS) and sorin.
Nissa won't work in a new set due to needing a reprint of nissa's chosen - which could be done, but it would make you try to draft elf tribal which wouldn't work usually.
I also think these 5 (assuming a good new green walker) are relatively balanced.
Elspeth is boss, tezz if you pulled artifacts would be amazing, both for tutoring and untapping your creatures/other artifacts, koth would be the perfect red lategame card, and sorin is sorin - 2 damage per turn is nothing to sneeze at.
No, so you can discard some other instants/sorceries for mage to abuse/draw more cards.
That said, this seems like an awesome card, I can't wait for it!
No.
Just no.
Even with singletons - it's bad playing on the Ajani side that causes Bolas to win.
The odds are really quite good that ajani has a t1 play, in the nacatl or loam lion or ape, and since bolas has so few early game cards - well yeah, he's boned.
Likewise, ajani still has better lategame stuff.
Searing meditation REALLY screws bolas up, since he has like 2 ways to remove it once its on the field, and beyond that bolas just has bad creatures - that stupid vamp that deals him 1 per turn, to the other generally worthless trash.
Just a list of ajani's lategame stuff:
Ajani, marisi's twinclaws, that mirrodin elemental, war pride, behemoth sledge.
He beats the heck out of bolas for early game and has pretty much just as many good lategame cards.
(Plus even cruel ultimatum can't save bolas usually - ajani has played his hand, is probably at over 20 life, and has enough creatures that he can sac a bad one)
Yeha, I played like 200 matches of them and bolas won maybe 10, which is directly because ajani had to mull to 5 and had no t1 plays.
The bolas deck simply sucks.
Legacy's Allure is weird.
I've tried it, but I HATE it.
It's sooo darn slow, it gives people too much time to prepare for it.
That said, I also don't see why cursecatcher is bad.
He's saved me from T1 thoughtsieze so many times, and even delaying a T2 cultivate (t1 mana elf) by 1 turn can be amazing.
I mean, yeah he becomes crap if you can't get him down T1, but as a T1 drop he rules (plus combined with mana drain and whatnot, he can be that extra boost to counter something)
Other than that your list looks pretty solid, I just really dislike not having a way to combo out, and thus not having a real wincon.
Overall, I agree with your sentiments though handsome - we need more 1-2 cmcs with GOOD abilities. If we had even a few more, it'd be a whole new ballgame.
As a note, it seems you win by damage, the terrible 1-drop from innistrad, delver of secrets may be worth it with 26 instants.
I mean, it'll reliably flip, and a 3/2 with evasion is pretty nice stats, he can either trade with a 2/2 after that or try to aggro it up - it's a **** card but since we're desperate it might be worth testing.
We just need someone to change the topic, the problem is I haven't been playing enough matches lately to have any new strategies to discuss (midterms, you know), but if you have any experimental stuff to post we'd love to help you out!
That said - I've been on the hype train for a new card lately - I did this for diviner's wand (SLAM DUNK!) and Drift of Phantasms (kinda slam I still say its a staple for regular BL since it hits most of our wincons, but many disagree)
Anyway, I think Lion's Eye Diamond is the real deal.
Also, LED is speculated to be unbanned in french in november when that list is revised.
As such - everyone playing french should at least look into saving up to get one (it's pretty pricey after all!)
I've used it to success having broken ramp ala mana crypt and sol ring, so in a format where those are banned - LED shines even more.
I'm testing on cockatrice - more creatures (enclave cryptologist is back in) and a huge focus on bounce as well to stem the tide of aggro. In a deck that has a large amount of creatures, LED is awesome - it hits the T2 azami perfectly (tho that's a tad early) and I've found its best use is with scroll rack - you force to the top a counterspell, dump some stuff you don't care about and then redraw after azami lands.
Admittedly it's situational, but the high creature prescence makes LED less risky and far easier to recover from, since you draw like 3 or 4 cards immediately after playing her.
Admittedly it is speculation right now, but if LED is unbanned in french I do REALLY recommend everyone try it, as I've loved it in most of the decks I run so far (basically, azusa and edric are the 2 I don't use it in lol)
As a note, LEDs price has been on the rise since it was unbanned for regular EDH, I recommend if anyone thinks theyd want it get it now. I got mine and I'm sooo happy, its one of those cards I thought I'd never own (along with tropical island, volcanic island, force of will et al, the expensive legacy cards) when I started, which are super good.
As it is LED is on the reserve list and wizards doesn't print STUPID BROKEN cards like it anymore, so it CANNOT go down in price once it goes up, seriously, everyone here, sess, farchyld, mantxi, handsome, and everyone else (sorry guys, I can't remember everyone's names when I'm this... messed up lol) if you can't afford to buy one on the spot, you should make a piggy bank and put like a dollar in each day, no matter how poor you are you should be able to put 1 dollar in every day, you can get that much just by picking up pennies off the ground walking around! and use that money as soon as you hit enough to buy LED, since if it is unbanned it'll have HUGE relevance in french and it has huge relevance in many many regular banlist decks too and its great for azami since we have such good recovery with our general being such an awesome draw engine we can recover from discarding our hand so easily - its a must use.