That's a ludicrous comparison, even with the "upside" clause. Meloku is absolutely bonkers and should essentially never be passed in a format with plenty of fixing available.
This. Meloku is just absolutely monstrous once you untap with him. Its one of the hardest creatures to beat in limited history.
I think that Meloku is only worse than Vedalken Shackles and Sword of Fire and Ice in MMA.
Kiki-Jiki alone is pretty easy to build around, especially in blue (with the aforementioned pestermite kill as well as plenty of strong targets in blue).
I don't think so. The sword cycle was built as a two card cycle in darksteel. They decided to finish it for nostalgia factors. The swords are pretty uniquely mirrodin, so I wouldn't expect to see them outside of that world.
Boros Battleshaper basically does exactly what you want to do in magic; it removes choice for your opponent. At their core, all good magic cards do this.
M10 had a reasonable amount (mostly in black), but I didn't think that was the format's weakness at all. Actually, a common trait of many of the best formats ever (Innistrad, Rise of the Eldrazi, Time Spiral block) is that they had more removal than most other limited formats, so I tend to think that more removal is good for a format because:
1) Less is decided by rare bombs (creatures specifically).
2) It makes combat decisions harder, rewards good play and use of resources. Interaction is good.
3) It lets games go longer more often, and not be decided on turn 4.
I would agree with this, but there is definitely a tipping point where removal becomes to plentiful. An example of this, I think, is MM block. Removal and removal-esque cards vastly overpowered the low quality creatures available to the point the games were just hard to win (the quality of creature really hurt too).
I'd say that it comes down to the amount of removal against the average quality creature. When a set has three common pingers and everyone is boxed into playing one toughness creatures, you're gonna have a bad time.
You absolutely can't forbid your opponent to shuffle your deck, but you could politely request he shuffle in a different way (perhaps pile shuffling as apposed to riffle or bridge)
Assuming a standard ~24 land deck, and that the player will have drawn and played 6 lands at the point at which you start grinding them, you need to swing probably 5 times, maybe four if you're lucky and they draw 2 more of their lands while you're attacking them, in order to kill them. That doesn't seem terribly impressive. It gets a bit better in Limited, where decks run only ~17 lands, meaning that you should kill in roughly 3 swings.
Is also needs to connect, whereas Nemesis only needs to attack.
"4-color" fuse cards - will these be castable in Limited, do you think?
(for the fuse effect)
Also Toil//Trouble is fantastic for Rakdos.
Were 4 color Fuse cards confirmed? If Dissension is any indication, I'd Hazard a guess that we're only going to see a cycle of "Shard" fuse cards and "Wedge" fuse cards.
This. Meloku is just absolutely monstrous once you untap with him. Its one of the hardest creatures to beat in limited history.
I think that Meloku is only worse than Vedalken Shackles and Sword of Fire and Ice in MMA.
I would agree with this, but there is definitely a tipping point where removal becomes to plentiful. An example of this, I think, is MM block. Removal and removal-esque cards vastly overpowered the low quality creatures available to the point the games were just hard to win (the quality of creature really hurt too).
I'd say that it comes down to the amount of removal against the average quality creature. When a set has three common pingers and everyone is boxed into playing one toughness creatures, you're gonna have a bad time.
Is also needs to connect, whereas Nemesis only needs to attack.
http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html
Were 4 color Fuse cards confirmed? If Dissension is any indication, I'd Hazard a guess that we're only going to see a cycle of "Shard" fuse cards and "Wedge" fuse cards.
Also, Serrow isn't great without A lot of cheap grean creatures that you want to return, you only have 8 other green creatures total.
Guildgates are common and Shocklands are rare. For every 10 Guildgates, there will be a Shockland(And 1 in 8 schocklands will be the Mythic).
That reason generally being budget cuts...