Was anyone really saying legends is a bad set? It's iconic as hell and has tons of powerful cards, maybe only second to alpha (although urza's saga puts up a good fight).
Not sure I'm convinced the legends rule is good (I don't even really see an argument that it is). Flavor-wise, it is (or at least used to be) a big win. These days...idk man. Having both versions of jhoira is fine, but having 2 of the same version isn't? Maybe it's supposed to be a multiple timelines thing, but then why can you and your opponent have one, but one poofs as soon as one switches sides? It feels like a top-down rule that's proven to be bad for gameplay, and at this point wotc is just trying to pay lip service to the flavor motivations while essentially destroying everything mechanically important about it.
Toshiro Umezawa
What I love about him is that he's incredibly tricky to play with and against. There's a million things to keep in mind when your whole graveyard is your toolbox, and a single kill spell can set off a cascade of instants. As usual, I like to build my decks general-focused, so the deck has a ton of instants and is very control focused. Basically zero creatures since you should be using removal, and the threat of removal, for defense. It's light on wincons, your main strategy is simple beatdown with toshiro once you've equipped him sufficiently, but you can also use liliana or beacon of unrest to use your opponents' threats against them.
As far as recommendations, I don't want to stray too far from the basic premise - lots of instants, lots of death. But I'm open to better ideas for wincons, mana changes, more ramp, etc.
1 toshiro umezawa
land (40)
1 bojuka bog
1 buried ruin
1 cabal coffers
1 dakmor salvage
1 desert
1 deserted temple
1 dust bowl
1 forbidden orchard
1 high market
1 mouth of ronom
1 mystifying maze
1 petrified field
1 phyrexian tower
1 reliquary tower
1 scrying sheets
1 shizo, death's storehouse
20 snow-covered swamp
1 thawing glaciers
1 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
1 volrath's stronghold
1 vesuva
instants (35)
removal
1 broken visage
1 darkblast
1 diabolic edict
1 dismember
1 eyeblight's ending
1 geth's verdict
1 go for the throat
1 hideous laughter
1 horobi's whisper
1 muderous spoils
1 rend flesh
1 shriveling rot
1 slaughter
1 sudden death
1 sudden spoiling
1 tendrils of corruption
1 tragic slip
1 tsabo's decree
1 tribute to hunger
1 victim of night
1 insidious dreams
1 shred memory
1 vampiric tutor
1 cremate
1 aphotic wisps
1 moonlight bargain
1 plunge into darkness
1 skeletal scrying
1 tainted pact
1 treacherous urge
1 darkness
1 imp's mischief
1 undying evil
1 word of command
dredge (1)
1 stinkweed imp
non-instant removal (3)
1 damnation
1 o-stone
1 disk
equipment (6)
1 champion's helm
1 nim deathmantle
1 sword of feast and famine
1 sword of fire and ice
1 batterskull
1 runechanter's pike
tutors (10)
1 beseech the queen
1 brainspoil
1 demonic collusion
1 demonic tutor
1 diabolic tutor
1 dimir house guard
1 dimir machinations
1 increasing ambition
1 liliana vess
1 beacon of unrest
1 phyrexian arena
1 sol ring
1 sensei's divining top
yeah i didn't really expect anything. I do spend too much time thinking about the color pie, though. a card with those costs would be pretty cool.
hmm, could be. all of their mtgo cards look like that though (with the small set symbol and such). where do they get their mtgo images, then?
edit: just figured this mystery out:
false alarm, apparently.
but if you're ok with only shards or only wedges, the following will work:
:symwu::symub::symbr::symrg::symgw: for wedges, and
:symwb::symbg::symgu::symur::symrw: for shards.
EDIT: so do i get a prize?
hmm, doesn't seem that different to me, but again I know jack about copyright law so I'm not going to get into it.
again, mostly I'm pointing out that it's unethical, not illegal. and also just plain weird that wizards dredged up some thread on this very forum from 2006 when designing those cards.
I'm not a lawyer and I'm not saying the artist should take legal action against them or whatever, obviously I like what wizards does, on the whole, or I wouldn't play. And frankly I'd love to have paper versions of those prettier duals, and the reserve list can piss off. I'm really just posting because i thought it was interesting. and even if it's probably not illegal, it at least seems unethical if they took his work and never informed or paid him.
EDIT: also, if that's true, then how does weird al get to make money?
easy.
true...and notice a lot of the stylistic decisions that are carried over. For instance, the normal skull has a crack on the upper left and upper right sides of his head. The UB skull from both arts, though, only has one on the upper right side. And on the badlands, above his right eye, there's sort of a double flame close together, which isn't present on the normal fireball symbol, but it's present in both the mtgo dual and the art one.
And the tropical island is maybe the most blatant, since the ripples don't look like the original water droplet at al, making it hard to believe they both had the same idea. same number of ripples even.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=22796
compare in particular the badlands skull to the one from the MTGO dual lands:
http://magiccards.info/me2/en/225.html
and note the dates...the thread hasn't been updated since 2006 and the mtgo duals are from last year.
Coincidence?
(and 5 gold stars to anyone who gets the title reference)
EDIT: just figured this mystery out:
false alarm, apparently.
link? the one I read said cryptically
My big concern, on the other hand, is that we could end up in situations where you have the choice of winning the game or opening the helvault. What if one of the achievements is "someone never loses a game" and you're in the 4-0 match against a guy who hasn't lost any games while you have? do you have to throw the game for the greater good? or what if one is "kill a demon with an angel" and you've got a demon and they've got an angel...what if you've got to choose between suiciding the demon into the angel or winning the game? That would really annoy me, personally. Maybe everyone should just agree at the beginning of the prerelease that all the people who go 0-2 right off the bat should focus on getting the achievements so the people with a shot at the good prizes don't have to throw games. At least then you'd have fun things to do if you do badly, I suppose.
speculation-wise: W+R
I'm actually leaning towards chaos reigns being WBR. Why? Because of primordial hunger. primordial hunger is almost guaranteed to have green. very unlikely to have white. and ninjas is pretty much guaranteed to have UB or UBx. if the legends are a cycle of, one assumes, enemy triads. Which could mean ninjas is UBG (that being the only UBx enemy triad) logic be damned. primordial hunger COULD be UBG, but then it seems like it would sort of overshadow ninjas by sharing 2 of its colors, which hasn't happened in the previous planechase or archenemy decks (excluding the 5 color deck obv). So if hunger is an enemy triad, and it's not white, the only other choice is URG. We already know a deck has those colors, and although chaos reigns SOUNDS like it could be those colors, hunger is boxed in by ninjas colors.
So I think WBR for chaos reigns and URG for hunger, and as mentioned GUB for ninjas. Green ninjas IS a bit weird, but they have to be in UB or UBx, and if there's a cycle of legends which are enemy triads then that's the only option. In order for that NOT to be the case, one of the following would have to be true:
-ninjas aren't in UB or UBx (seems unlikely since they've ONLY been in those colors).
-the spoiled legend isn't part of the cycle (again, seems unlikely, but it is POSSIBLE I guess. that'd mean a LOT of new legends, though with a cycle on top of this one.)
-the cycle isn't enemy triads. this is possible but it would be, imo, a major mislead on wizard's part. and realistically, assuming the spoiled legend is part of the cycle, how could the other legends complete the cycle without being enemy triads? maybe they're all red with 2 other colors? that's just weird and unbalanced. seems unlikely.
-one deck has multiple of the new legends. possible, but again I say unlikely if there are 4 legends (assuming that doran fills in for WGB). You'd need to have 1 four-color deck and 2 3-color decks, and then one deck doesn't get a new legend (it'd be the ninjas one) while another gets 2.
That leaves savage auras in RWU which makes sense - UW is very aura friendly and R is savage. So I think that setup is very possible.
to reiterate, my prediction:
Chaos Reigns = WBR (chaos = R, reigns = WB)
Night of the Ninja = GUB (night = B, ninja = UB...of the = G...oh piss off)
Primordial Hunger = URG (primordial = UG, hunger = RG)
Savage Auras = RWU (savage = R, auras = WU)
I know people are balking at green ninjas but it's been a long time since kami and I can believe that wotc would want to do something new with them. and green is the color of hexproof, which seems ninja-y.
haha, look who came over to the gargle side. And you were all skeptical a few pages ago.
I'm working on an instant-speed version with scout's warning, which works awesomely with gargle (see the rulings on quicken). Perhaps a lotus cobra build, since it would help with generating the mana needed to power out a shimmer myr so you can keep ramping up CA. a KCI build might work too (obviously it's a bit simpler since shimmer myr flashes KCI, and provides a sac target) but the initial 7 mana seems like a bit of a bear. Anyway I'll post a list when (if) I get it working.
well I'm glad someone at least gave it a try. gargle does overlap with GQ and edge of autumn a bit, but it also makes it easy to sacrifice all your lands with every second sunrise, so I still think it ought to return a significant amount of mana. of course GQ is a great way to recur lands, but it also keeps giving you more and more lands, so you won't be able to sac all of them easily without gargle or something. So I still want to try it myself before passing judgement.
another random idea: anyone ever tried using urborg, tomb of yawgmoth as a 1-2 of? Mostly I'm thinking so you can tap your fetches for mana after you've already run out of targets. Although then I guess they don't get sacced unless you've also got a gargle. oh well, just a thought.