I'm still amazed they didn't catch the combo in the first place. Seems like the community noticed it within minutes of seeing Felidar Guardian.
I've been pretty forgiving of wizards in this thread, but yeah I'm surprised by this.
Any time, ANY TIME, there is a "copy something" effect on a permanent, one of the things I think is "can this be broken in the format?"
It's important to remember that cards change during development. Missing it was a huge mistake, but I suspect that one of the cards was tweaked later in the development cycle or something.
The data they were getting from Magic Online must have been pretty bleak for them to make this ban now. Copycat decks were doing VERY well in the leagues, but the leagues were also fairly unpopular considering that a new set just came out. Wizards probably decided that they couldn't allow another season of ruined standard to crush interest in the format.
I've long been of the opinion that Phrexian Mana was a horrible mistake and should just be banned out of the format, so I'm glad probe is gone. PM warps the entire format in unhealthy ways.
Tezz is better than most people in this thread seem to think. He starts at 5 loyalty, ultimates very quickly, protects himself, and ramps you. He is like Domri Rade in that he is very good in a deck that is designed around him but weak elsewhere, which is why so many people are underrating him. He's not as good as Domri was but he seems strong.
Disallow is an awesome design, it is powerful and it will lead to interesting gameplay decisions like when you should use it to counter something like a planeswalker ability and be down a card. It will almost certainly see a lot of play just like voidslime did.
Dovin shuts down Aggro/Burn pretty hard. Dovin vs Chandra incomming.
Scrapheap Scrounger is a nightmare for Control. Or some combo which requires to sac a creature or artifact.
Bomat Courier leaves up questions for me. Do they have seperate piles when I play multiples of them? Do I only need one to get all the cards faced down by their abilities?
Dovin vs Chandra vs Liliana vs Emrakul could definitely be a core aspect of the standard metagame. Flavor people at Wizards will be pleased.
Dovin is fantastic. It's worth remembering that lifegain combined with card draw is always a bit better than it seems, which is why most players (including pros) underrated Sphinx's Revelation when it was printed. The life gives you the time to cast the cards and not be forced to sequence them in sub-optimal ways in order to not die, which makes drawing the cards much more powerful
oh man, fleetwheel cruiser and lathnu hellion just got soo much worse. I hate aggro decks, but just once I wanted to crush the competition with self-driving cars.
The cruiser doesn't enter the battlefield as a creature so it is not impacted by Authority of the Consulate. It enters the battlefield as a non-creature artifact and then its ability triggers, which makes it a creature until end of turn. Blind Obedience caused artifacts to enter the battlefield tapped too, which is another reason this card is a million times worse.
Oh wow, does this work in modern? Might buy a lot of time for control decks vs. aggro like deaths shadow, burn, zoo. Even maybe an extra turn against Infect. Blind Obedience was meh in standard but at one mana and gaining life instead of extort this looks good
Blind Obedience was a million times better than this card because being able to extort whenever you cast a spell is much, much more powerful than gaining a life whenever a creature enters the battlefield under their control.
Alone? You're right, it's not powerful. The power comes from being part of the overall package.
Normally I would agree, but the -2 ability requires a spell in hand, that's an instant or sorcery, that's relevant, that you can afford at the time you want to -2. Is that really that common or worth dedicating 4 mana and a card (opportunity cost factors in)?
Her loyalty makes it easy to keep her alive long enough for her first two abilities to generate a substantial amount of advantage. The +1 lets you draw a card a not insignificant amount of the time, and scry makes it easier to set up. Her -2 can do splashy things in the right scenario, and if you are a control deck then you should be able to reach that stage of the game.
A common sequence would probably be something like this
Turn 3 you cast some sort of removal spell
Turn 4 you play Narset and +1 then pass
Turn 5 Wrath
That's actually a pretty devastating sequence, even if you don't have a real wrath and only have another removal spell. They have to either attack Narset and probably not kill it or let it sit on the board and generate advantage.
No, I paid 4 mana for a Planeswalker that does a lot of different things. The fetchland interaction is just one of the things that combine to make Narset powerful
Except that isn't powerful at all. It ~might~ get you a card - first card it actually hits means you broke even on cards. I need to go up on cards for me to think it's playable.
Alone? You're right, it's not powerful. The power comes from being part of the overall package.
Another thought: Narset makes manifest cards slightly better since it reveals when the top card of your library is a creature (so you can manifest) and lets you draw the manifest spells with her +1. I doubt that will come up, but I'm just throwing out bad ideas here.
You activate her +1 and if your top card is a land or a creature you don't want (say, a finisher you don't want to draw yet) then you can crack a fetch to shuffle it away
So, you just paid 4 mana a 1 life to shuffle away a card you don't want to draw a random card the next time you draw. Maybe it's just because I haven't played standard in years, but is Standard really that inefficient now? The card advantage will, in all likelihood, take 3-4 turns to hit +1.... for FOUR mana. That's brutal.
No, I paid 4 mana for a Planeswalker that does a lot of different things. The fetchland interaction is just one of the things that combine to make Narset powerful
2. it is very hard to kill, so you will often be able to play it into an empty board then wrath
3. it has cool art
It is very, very strong. C
How exactly does it combo with lands?
You activate her +1 and if your top card is a land or a creature you don't want (say, a finisher you don't want to draw yet) then you can crack a fetch to shuffle it away
Pseudo-scry, I like this
It's a far less powerful version of the Brainstorm + fetchland combo, but it's still quite good. During the mid to late game being able to shuffle away a land can count for a lot a significant % of the time.
2. it is very hard to kill, so you will often be able to play it into an empty board then wrath
3. it has cool art
It is very, very strong. C
How exactly does it combo with lands?
You activate her +1 and if your top card is a land or a creature you don't want (say, a finisher you don't want to draw yet) then you can crack a fetch to shuffle it away
The cruiser doesn't enter the battlefield as a creature so it is not impacted by Authority of the Consulate. It enters the battlefield as a non-creature artifact and then its ability triggers, which makes it a creature until end of turn. Blind Obedience caused artifacts to enter the battlefield tapped too, which is another reason this card is a million times worse.
Blind Obedience was a million times better than this card because being able to extort whenever you cast a spell is much, much more powerful than gaining a life whenever a creature enters the battlefield under their control.
Her loyalty makes it easy to keep her alive long enough for her first two abilities to generate a substantial amount of advantage. The +1 lets you draw a card a not insignificant amount of the time, and scry makes it easier to set up. Her -2 can do splashy things in the right scenario, and if you are a control deck then you should be able to reach that stage of the game.
A common sequence would probably be something like this
Turn 3 you cast some sort of removal spell
Turn 4 you play Narset and +1 then pass
Turn 5 Wrath
That's actually a pretty devastating sequence, even if you don't have a real wrath and only have another removal spell. They have to either attack Narset and probably not kill it or let it sit on the board and generate advantage.
Alone? You're right, it's not powerful. The power comes from being part of the overall package.
No, I paid 4 mana for a Planeswalker that does a lot of different things. The fetchland interaction is just one of the things that combine to make Narset powerful
It's a far less powerful version of the Brainstorm + fetchland combo, but it's still quite good. During the mid to late game being able to shuffle away a land can count for a lot a significant % of the time.
You activate her +1 and if your top card is a land or a creature you don't want (say, a finisher you don't want to draw yet) then you can crack a fetch to shuffle it away