Tolsimir Wolfblood
I've always loved the art, and the card itself. My first EDH was a GW beatdown deck with him as the general. It was terrible, lol. Maybe someday I'll try to remake it, except this time it will be halfway decent.
Hexproof Commanders - they always want to play the whole nobody interact with my board game. It makes me sort of answer them whenever I can because they are hard to interact with. "Waaaa why did you Hinder my Uril????" "Because he was going to eventually maul my face and I dont know where my next answer for him might be."
This. Uril is probably the most annoying general to me. Followed closely by Sigarda. Uril is worse because he grows so much faster and there are a bunch of cards like Spirit Mantle and 8 billion cards that give him trample so chumping no longer becomes an option. Sigarda has most of those same cards, but can't use Kessig Wolf Run and doesn't get big as fast, though the "no sacrifice" clause is awful. And making either of them indestructible is basically GG unless you pull something like Final Judgment or Terminus.
The problem is that if she was a 4/6, it would make even harder for opponents to attack, making her ability useless.
Overall, I didn't like any of those two cards. Niv is almost identical to older incarnation, except it's probably worse, and Isperia does not work well with her guild ability, and is booooring. I was expecting more (I'm talking about flavor here, powerwise I know both of them are good).
I think new Niv is better than old Niv. Sure, the new one doesn't combo with Curiousity. But his ping/draw ability usable multiple times a turn. Your mana is the only limit. And if you have the mana for it you can use the turn he hits.
I love Overload. Great flavor for the Izzet. Almost reminds me of a backwards Miracle for some reason. Also glad to see that there will be a cycle of charms. Not sure why, but I've always liked them.
Ulasht was one of my favorite decks, but my vote has to go to Wort. My buddy's Wort deck does stupid things, ramping super hard till he can conspire a burn spell and kill two people, or conspiring Tooth and Nail to just destroy the whole table. So good.
The same can be done with any kind of mass wipe, be it Disk, Armageddon, Damnation, etc.
Except all of those either destroy non-land permanents or lands, while Decree hits everything (excepting enchantments because red shouldn't touch those, and PWer's since they weren't around then).
I don't think Decree is close to banworthy, but I do agree that people using it and its siblings (Obliterate and Jokulhaups) as a "Well I'm about to lose so lets reset the game and see who recovers fastest" instead of an actual win condition is annoying as hell. I only say this because it used to happen in my meta a lot, to the point where the majority of the group ended up agreeing to quit playing them.
First multicolored rare I ever pulled. I already had an unhealthy love of the Izzet. I still have one in my Nin deck, along with a Krark's Thumb for good measure when I copy my Stitch 2 or 3 times.
A friend of mine has a Doran deck that pretty regularly gets "super shroud" as he calls it. It's annoying but not gamebreaking. At least not until he put Avacyn in his deck, now he gets "indestructible super shroud". That kinda sucks. Luckily he's only done it twice, and both times has died shortly afterwards. Once to my giant double striking unblockable Cromat, the other time to my friend's army of hasty, overrunning tokens. I'm just glad he doesn't have Solitary Confinement, or the draw power to support it even if he did have it in there.
if you're running 6 spots and 3 to 5 colors to utilize a hulk combo, that's just more of a reason to have it unbanned. It's like tooth and nail except you have to build around it. I'd rather have flash banned instead of hulk, since flash was used with crap like sundering titan.
The only argument I see against this card is that's it's basically a conditional 7 mana primetime.
Yeah, I gotta agree with this. Looking at all the combos mentioned so far, TnN just does it better. So either it should be banned or Hulk shouldn't be. I was really sad when I realized Hulk was banned, I wanted him in my RG deck a while back, just because of the flavor text. Borborygmos!
Anything that lets you gain control of your opponents creatures is sweet for creature control, then when you shoot them you draw the cards. I'm a big fan of Dominus of Fealty in my Nin deck.
If you want to go the spellslinging or storm option you could put in Turnabout and Reiterate for infinite mana and storm count. Worst case scenario you can deck someone with Nin. As you mentioned, Psychosis Crawler and Stuffy Doll are both great friends with her, as is Sturmgeist carrying a Runechanter's Pike. Fling also becomes a legitimate win condition if you're throwing a Crawler or Sturmgeist and can copy it a couple times.
(I apologize if the card tags don't work, doing this on my phone so I'm not positive they will)
I have never seen anyone play TnN without attempting to combo out with it. Ever.
Depends on your definition of "combo". My buddy plays a Wort deck, and along with fireballs and other X spells he plays TnN. If he plays it and copies it usually his targets are Primeval, Avenger of Zendikar, Urabrask, and Chancellor of the Forge. Usually ends up netting him 30 or 40 hasty tokens and death for most if not all of the table by that point in the game.
IMO most EDH decks should be built to utilize the graveyard. Every color has some effects that allow you to bennefit from a full GY and so if you include some the mesmeric orb should be beneficial.
If you have a howling mine out in a 3v1 that gives 3 times as many resources as what you grant the opponent. It's no different with mill in a game of EDH so long as you built your deck to take advantage of the GY.
Mesmeric orb is only dangerous if youre facing a mill deck (lol!) or a GY focused player like mimeoplasm, Karador, or Sedris. Other wise it's knocking cards off your library and still leaving you to draw a random of a card. I could see it being annoying however if you have a lily1 or a mystical tutor ;).
It's strange how annoyed people get with nonthreatening mill effects.
Says the person with the Karador deck
Two of my decks wouldn't mind it at all, they have pretty solid GY recursion. But certain decks just don't or can't make use of it. The Orb is just throwing their cards in the bin, and if a win-con happens to bite the dust then there's going to be some serious frustration. I do see where you're coming from though, all of my decks have at least some use for the graveyard, just in case.
I've always loved the art, and the card itself. My first EDH was a GW beatdown deck with him as the general. It was terrible, lol. Maybe someday I'll try to remake it, except this time it will be halfway decent.
This. Uril is probably the most annoying general to me. Followed closely by Sigarda. Uril is worse because he grows so much faster and there are a bunch of cards like Spirit Mantle and 8 billion cards that give him trample so chumping no longer becomes an option. Sigarda has most of those same cards, but can't use Kessig Wolf Run and doesn't get big as fast, though the "no sacrifice" clause is awful. And making either of them indestructible is basically GG unless you pull something like Final Judgment or Terminus.
Ahaha, that's amazing, now I may have a use for all the Captains I've pulled. Never used him, I always forget he I taps stuff too!
I think new Niv is better than old Niv. Sure, the new one doesn't combo with Curiousity. But his ping/draw ability usable multiple times a turn. Your mana is the only limit. And if you have the mana for it you can use the turn he hits.
Except all of those either destroy non-land permanents or lands, while Decree hits everything (excepting enchantments because red shouldn't touch those, and PWer's since they weren't around then).
I don't think Decree is close to banworthy, but I do agree that people using it and its siblings (Obliterate and Jokulhaups) as a "Well I'm about to lose so lets reset the game and see who recovers fastest" instead of an actual win condition is annoying as hell. I only say this because it used to happen in my meta a lot, to the point where the majority of the group ended up agreeing to quit playing them.
First multicolored rare I ever pulled. I already had an unhealthy love of the Izzet. I still have one in my Nin deck, along with a Krark's Thumb for good measure when I copy my Stitch 2 or 3 times.
Yeah, I gotta agree with this. Looking at all the combos mentioned so far, TnN just does it better. So either it should be banned or Hulk shouldn't be. I was really sad when I realized Hulk was banned, I wanted him in my RG deck a while back, just because of the flavor text. Borborygmos!
If you want to go the spellslinging or storm option you could put in Turnabout and Reiterate for infinite mana and storm count. Worst case scenario you can deck someone with Nin. As you mentioned, Psychosis Crawler and Stuffy Doll are both great friends with her, as is Sturmgeist carrying a Runechanter's Pike. Fling also becomes a legitimate win condition if you're throwing a Crawler or Sturmgeist and can copy it a couple times.
(I apologize if the card tags don't work, doing this on my phone so I'm not positive they will)
Depends on your definition of "combo". My buddy plays a Wort deck, and along with fireballs and other X spells he plays TnN. If he plays it and copies it usually his targets are Primeval, Avenger of Zendikar, Urabrask, and Chancellor of the Forge. Usually ends up netting him 30 or 40 hasty tokens and death for most if not all of the table by that point in the game.
Mhmmm, you and me both!
Says the person with the Karador deck
Two of my decks wouldn't mind it at all, they have pretty solid GY recursion. But certain decks just don't or can't make use of it. The Orb is just throwing their cards in the bin, and if a win-con happens to bite the dust then there's going to be some serious frustration. I do see where you're coming from though, all of my decks have at least some use for the graveyard, just in case.