It boils down to: Do I give up a stable, useful way of looking for action cards in my deck for the ability to potentially tutor for color fixing and offshoot of winning.
In my opinion, no. You either support the 5C Maze's End win with a full land utility package, or don't use the Maze's End package, it's too slow as both fixing and a wincon. I suppose as a meta consideration, if your group doesn't use land destruction (targeted or otherwise) you might be able to squeak in some surprise ("surprise": ten turn) wins here and there, but I doubt it. The other big consideration is budget, I guess - if you want to build a 5C deck and don't have access to a billion dollars worth of duals, fetches and shocks, Maze's End is a decent option.
This card isn't bad at all in a couple decks.... Shu Yun and Talrand, Sky Summoner both love 1 mana cantrips. The fact that it gives beat down evasion isn't bad either. For almost every other deck though... poop.
There are so many pieces of draw and library manipulation that Talrand wants more of. To be fair, my Talrand deck is a Polymorph shell, so my ideas might be skewed, but I rarely attack with Talrand himself, and his Drakes already have flying. I'd rather run a useful 1CMC card that didn't cantrip over this card just for cheap card draw. I mean, there's much-more-unblockable in Shadow Rift, better draw/filtering in Careful Study since you (or, I) don't need a ton of lands and will happily filter them away for more draws and a Drake, basic standards like Brainstorm, Ponder and Preordain, Opt at instant speed, even something tricksy like Quicken or Visions of Beyond are more useful depending on your deck and/or meta, and they're all U cantrips.
Hell, even Leap is strictly better than Cloak since it's an instant.
(Also, I just found Shared Discovery, which may find a legit spot in Talrand since I tend to have 3 dudes + Talrand in play fairly regularly...)
I've been playing it in a pillow-fort build, and it helps a lot.
This. Slower defensive decks that focus on creating locks and long-term tempo moves love Wall of Denial. It stops so many early game attacks, is hard to deal with and isn't a huge loss when it gets wrathed with the rest of the board. It doesn't have a traditionally high power level (top keke since it has 0 power) but there are definitely strategies that like to fly low in multiplayer, nullify attackers while not necessarily making them distinctly disadvantageous for the attacker, and eventually pop off with a game winning play.
Ping for one is also not a hugely desirable ability, especially at a cost - there are a ton of ways to do it for free and without the pingback. I mean, I'm sure there are tricky gimmicks that want to deal damage to yourself as well as other targets - with a decent, cheap way to give him lifelink and a deck that's already built around lifelink, it's a net gain of 1 life for using his ability.
All that in addition to the very limited color identity makes him kind of bad. .5/10, meaning I would include him in MAYBE one out of twenty decks. Maybe.
Instant speed makes it kind of a beast. Even just W for a land tutor at all in white is great. I know it's limited to Plains and that's why it's cheaper, but it's more efficient than almost all green ramp, which is nuts. Being able to fire it off at an opportune time, at instant speed, and fixing at the same time... Such a solid card. I can see it being cut in some decks that are too tight for space and might not need the fixing, but it can fit in so many white decks, and almost any white deck running a solid manabase.
It does come into play tapped. It has no charge counters when it enter the battlefield and you can't cheat counters on it. You need to untap this in order to get it to do something the turn it comes into play. I can use fungal reaches the turn it comes into play
It doesn't come into play tapped. The strength of this card is it doesn't take a land drop, it costs nothing to play, and it sets up your next turn for acceleration. It is the same reason Mox Diamond is good. Fungal Reaches isn't going to get your commander out a turn earlier (which is huge for some decks.)
I think the essence of that thought was that while it costs 0 to cast, it costs 1 and a tap to set up for a later turn. Obviously if you're not doing anything T1 and you want to drop your 3CMC Commander T2, it's a pretty solid play. After T1 or T2, though, and outside of 3CMC Commanders, I would guess that Coalition Relic would be a better in most situations.
Unless all other factors are completely equal - which they almost never are in multiplayer - I would never target one specific player for whatever Vorthos-style gimmick that player has going on. I love the art, flavor and style of Magic, but it has literally zero to do with my decision making process for game mechanics. I can see why someone would make the assumption that the pimped deck is better tuned, but that is as much a meta decision about the player as it is about the cards themselves. If I really had to make a hard decision, it would probably boil down to the more composed player, and that does include someone who has all Judge Foils and whatnot.
Coffin Queen is absolutely my favorite out of them. Three mana isn't much when you can continually steal the biggest threat out of any yard. And of course she doesn't have to attack either. Plus she can act as yard hoser as well to exile the creature if you need to.
Coffin Queen is also a great hoser against opposing reanimation strategies since she can eat a dude from your opponent's graveyard, and when she untaps it exiles the stolen creature so the opponent can't turn around and reuse it. Keep the best guy your opponent has in their yard, then get rid of it permanently when you take another one.
I like Ink-Eyes in aggressive black decks. Even if she does her job once and you end up with a 5/4 and a stolen beastie, it's worth the cost, generally. Coupled with some discard backup and some of the other recur options mentioned here - which black is already good at - she can do some work and fly a little under the radar. Help control the board for other people then steal something out from under them.
Just a quick question, it says her ability requires you move the card from your hand into play. Surely you can't activate her ninjitsu from the command zone then?
Sadly, no Ninjitsu from the Command Zone (pretty sure). But still casting her and leaving regenerate mana open is not a bad play, personally.
Yup, no Ninjutsu from the Command Zone. Makes her kind of a crap Commander, unfortunately.
I like when cards have great art that is in a style I appreciate, but bad art in no way detracts from the gameplay experience for me. It's a bonus if it's good, and it's not a negative if it's bad.
Do you think i can keep Iona and Avacyn and some choice creatures in the deck, while removing mentioned cards for board wipes? as for tutors to get things like, board wipes, avacyn, land tax, how about Skyship Weatherlight?
I like the Skyship, especially in decks with a decent equipment focus, but be careful with the board wipes you choose to use. If the Skyship gets blown up and you kept an important piece there, it's gone forever! If you're mostly using it for equipment I would rather have the cheaper one-shots that krichaiushii mentioned (Enlightened Tutor and Steelshaper's Gift) over the Skyship. Avacyn is absolutely a fine piece to keep in when you rely heavily on permanents; again, beware some of the wraths you include, because while she works well with traditional destroy wraths, some of them do exile.
A few other ideas that I like, personally, for token decks:
Mirror Entity - great buffs. Coat of Arms - if you've already got a handful of tokens on the field when this drops, they all get tribal bonuses from the matching tokens. Spawning Pit - free sac outlet for extra value from wraths and removal. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - might be a better option over Iona, depending on your meta. Iona is great if you're shutting out mono-blue, or other players who want to mess with your board state, but sometimes she just doesn't pull her weight, and by the time she comes out if you name the wrong color, someone will have an answer, especially in multiplayer.
There are a lot of utility lands you might consider to make your manabase slightly more powerful. Ancient Tomb, Secluded Steppe, Flagstones of Trokair, Eiganjo Castle, Windbrisk Heights. Endless Horizons is solid ramp as well, just be careful for the same reasons as the Skyship.
In my opinion, no. You either support the 5C Maze's End win with a full land utility package, or don't use the Maze's End package, it's too slow as both fixing and a wincon. I suppose as a meta consideration, if your group doesn't use land destruction (targeted or otherwise) you might be able to squeak in some surprise ("surprise": ten turn) wins here and there, but I doubt it. The other big consideration is budget, I guess - if you want to build a 5C deck and don't have access to a billion dollars worth of duals, fetches and shocks, Maze's End is a decent option.
There are so many pieces of draw and library manipulation that Talrand wants more of. To be fair, my Talrand deck is a Polymorph shell, so my ideas might be skewed, but I rarely attack with Talrand himself, and his Drakes already have flying. I'd rather run a useful 1CMC card that didn't cantrip over this card just for cheap card draw. I mean, there's much-more-unblockable in Shadow Rift, better draw/filtering in Careful Study since you (or, I) don't need a ton of lands and will happily filter them away for more draws and a Drake, basic standards like Brainstorm, Ponder and Preordain, Opt at instant speed, even something tricksy like Quicken or Visions of Beyond are more useful depending on your deck and/or meta, and they're all U cantrips.
Hell, even Leap is strictly better than Cloak since it's an instant.
(Also, I just found Shared Discovery, which may find a legit spot in Talrand since I tend to have 3 dudes + Talrand in play fairly regularly...)
This. Slower defensive decks that focus on creating locks and long-term tempo moves love Wall of Denial. It stops so many early game attacks, is hard to deal with and isn't a huge loss when it gets wrathed with the rest of the board. It doesn't have a traditionally high power level (top keke since it has 0 power) but there are definitely strategies that like to fly low in multiplayer, nullify attackers while not necessarily making them distinctly disadvantageous for the attacker, and eventually pop off with a game winning play.
Doesn't matter what Commander.
Blue.
Ping for one is also not a hugely desirable ability, especially at a cost - there are a ton of ways to do it for free and without the pingback. I mean, I'm sure there are tricky gimmicks that want to deal damage to yourself as well as other targets - with a decent, cheap way to give him lifelink and a deck that's already built around lifelink, it's a net gain of 1 life for using his ability.
But then, like someone else said:
All that in addition to the very limited color identity makes him kind of bad. .5/10, meaning I would include him in MAYBE one out of twenty decks. Maybe.
I think the essence of that thought was that while it costs 0 to cast, it costs 1 and a tap to set up for a later turn. Obviously if you're not doing anything T1 and you want to drop your 3CMC Commander T2, it's a pretty solid play. After T1 or T2, though, and outside of 3CMC Commanders, I would guess that Coalition Relic would be a better in most situations.
Coffin Queen is also a great hoser against opposing reanimation strategies since she can eat a dude from your opponent's graveyard, and when she untaps it exiles the stolen creature so the opponent can't turn around and reuse it. Keep the best guy your opponent has in their yard, then get rid of it permanently when you take another one.
I like Ink-Eyes in aggressive black decks. Even if she does her job once and you end up with a 5/4 and a stolen beastie, it's worth the cost, generally. Coupled with some discard backup and some of the other recur options mentioned here - which black is already good at - she can do some work and fly a little under the radar. Help control the board for other people then steal something out from under them.
Yup, no Ninjutsu from the Command Zone. Makes her kind of a crap Commander, unfortunately.
I like the Skyship, especially in decks with a decent equipment focus, but be careful with the board wipes you choose to use. If the Skyship gets blown up and you kept an important piece there, it's gone forever! If you're mostly using it for equipment I would rather have the cheaper one-shots that krichaiushii mentioned (Enlightened Tutor and Steelshaper's Gift) over the Skyship. Avacyn is absolutely a fine piece to keep in when you rely heavily on permanents; again, beware some of the wraths you include, because while she works well with traditional destroy wraths, some of them do exile.
A few other ideas that I like, personally, for token decks:
Mirror Entity - great buffs.
Coat of Arms - if you've already got a handful of tokens on the field when this drops, they all get tribal bonuses from the matching tokens.
Spawning Pit - free sac outlet for extra value from wraths and removal.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - might be a better option over Iona, depending on your meta. Iona is great if you're shutting out mono-blue, or other players who want to mess with your board state, but sometimes she just doesn't pull her weight, and by the time she comes out if you name the wrong color, someone will have an answer, especially in multiplayer.
There are a lot of utility lands you might consider to make your manabase slightly more powerful. Ancient Tomb, Secluded Steppe, Flagstones of Trokair, Eiganjo Castle, Windbrisk Heights.
Endless Horizons is solid ramp as well, just be careful for the same reasons as the Skyship.