well, this makes me feel a heck of a lot better about the 4 promo valakuts I've got sitting in the depths of my binder. Not sure if I should dust em off and play or just trade them and get some normal, uglier ones.
I haven't seen the actual card myself, but if I had to guess I would say it is probably the FNM card art. Keep in mind that lots of cards in DOTP 2013 won't be in M13.
Yes, because dominant is defined as ruling, governing, or controlling; having or exerting authority or influence. Delver regardless of how it is doing has a major controlling effect on the meta if 45%+ percent of the people are playing it. Step 1 to winning any major event ATM is being able to beat delver. It is the number 1 controlling factor in standard.
regardless of the dictionary definition of the word dominate, delver is not, by wizards standards, "dominating" anything. It wins about half the time against the field, which is not broken in the slightest.
The fact is that in a world where people mostly net deck, one deck is always going to be played the most. Wizards is not going to ban a deck just because it is kinda popular. The standard for banning is usually if the meta becomes "best deck" and "anti-best deck".
Glancing at any given top 8 will show you that it is not delver and anti-delver
it's delver and a number of other interesting decks that have fair matchups against the field.
It's not a bad set at all. Something is wrong with your card evaluation skills, there are probably 5 cards better than ajani.
in your opinion, what are those?
personally I think ajani slides into white weenie decks easier than any other card slides into any other given existing deck.
Right because you're going to be landing 4 mana PWs in control mirrors.
Yes, that is why 4 cmc planeswalkers are always unplayable garbage. Jace the mind sculptor? He cost 4! Terrible in control matchups!
Not a great comparison I know, but saying "lol but they'll always counter it" is a silly argument. A better one would be something like "she has no immediate effect on the board, so sorcery speed removal/attacks will get rid of her" or "she doesn't provide enough CA right of the bat" or something
"lol counters" is meaningless. The nature of counters means that anything barring Thrun is bad by that metric
The +1 seems solid in control mirrors where you never want to miss land drops.
I think the biggest thing that will decide whether she is playable or not is the viability of Monoblack control, or U/B that's light on the blue.
Shocks being reprinted will make her better, obviously.
I think it is hard to judge now though. In a more controlling meta she'll be quite good. In a more aggressive, creature based environment I'd be surprised if she saw much play.
Honestly if the legacy players would just stick to selling the merits of legacy i would be totally down. But when you constantly trash other formats and players as inferior and say things like turn cards sideways like you hate creatures, you turn me off.
Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I play primarily standard because I've only been playing since Mirrodin Besieged, but I've always considered trading or cashing out into legacy.
Then I read this thread.
If this is honestly the attitude I can expect from legacy players, you can have your format. Just stay the heck away from my LGS.
To save some clicking, 2 in 5 male students in south africa have been sexually abused/raped, about 1 in 6 men have been sexually abused as children, and in general male rape victims are incredibly unlikely to report the crime.
Taking one statistical example, in the 80's it was believed around 3% of men were sexually abused as children. Now it is closer to 1 in 6. Only recently have statistics become more accurate. Currently rape of men is so under reported that is is very, very hard to gauge what the extent of the issue is. Right now only a very small percentage of men are believed to have been raped. Who knows what will be shown statistically in 5 or 10 years, as it becomes more socially acceptable to acknowledge that men can be raped.
On the main topic of whether or not this is sexist/offensive, I don't really agree. This just looks like a natural stance to take when you are about to punch someone in the face. Putting your leg inbetween theirs makes it harder for them to dodge away, and is the most natural position for effectively shifting your weight (having one leg in front of the other allows you to turn, putting more force behind the punch). Is it unfortunate that rape victims might be triggered by this, or that others might be offended? Sure, that sucks. With this sort of card (huge man physically assaulting a much smaller and "weaker" woman) it is hard to avoid. I don't really support removing any and all garruk punching from future blocks.
If you genuinely don't want censorship of this type of art, then... good for you? I guess it sucks that you are offended or hurt by this art, but the fact is you are probably the minority, and I think the danger of losing out on effective art is pretty high once we get into these types of contentious debates of what is or is not too "rapey".
edit: On the topic of fighting stances is this implying rape? Is it sexual violence? There is a heck of a lot more room for such an interpretation, but the obvious context (UFC) makes it clear that this is just plain old punching people violence.
I really like him so far, turn 2 drop, use to draw a bunch, drop stuff w/ flashback, burn on turn 4 for 4-5 damage? I like it.
The problem is that you don't get to decide if you drop stuff with flashback. You are just as likely to drop stuff into the grave you can't get back, then get the PW killed by a flipped delver and gain nothing.
I bet I can find you 200 casual players spending $50 on boosters in 6 months for every wannabe pro spending $500 on singles.
and lets be real about it when was the last time LSV actually bought a booster or single? he get them handed to him but his sponser Channel fireball.
How do you think Channel Fireball, or Star City Games, or any online retailer gets those singles? Maybe there are 200 casuals for every pro, but consider how many packs online retailers cracked to get 500$ worth of singles out there. I think that the biggest factor financially would be a place like star city losing business because people don't have pro aspirations anymore, as well as the lost marketing from there being much fewer magic celebrities. Speaking personally, LSVs videos are what got me into magic on a more competitive level.
I have to agree with the Sun Titan bringing back Image annoyance. Two decks run it (Bant Pod and Flare).
This happened to me last night (Bant Pod vs Junk Pod)
I have Slime and Metamorph(Ruinator) in play
Opponent casts Image copying Slime destroying my Metamorph, sac'ing Image to Pod grabbing a Titan bringing back Image copying Titan, bringing back Ruinator. I just shake my head and say gg...lol
I'm pretty sure you can't pod into anything with phantasmal image. It dies from being targeted before pod's ability can resolve.
If you were the sole producer of both humans and tomatoes you would absolutely be able to do that.
WOTC make Magic. They define what "dominate" means in Magic. Based on the definition they have delver does not, in fact, dominate.
regardless of the dictionary definition of the word dominate, delver is not, by wizards standards, "dominating" anything. It wins about half the time against the field, which is not broken in the slightest.
The fact is that in a world where people mostly net deck, one deck is always going to be played the most. Wizards is not going to ban a deck just because it is kinda popular. The standard for banning is usually if the meta becomes "best deck" and "anti-best deck".
Glancing at any given top 8 will show you that it is not delver and anti-delver
it's delver and a number of other interesting decks that have fair matchups against the field.
in your opinion, what are those?
personally I think ajani slides into white weenie decks easier than any other card slides into any other given existing deck.
Based on that all 4 CMC planeswalkers are bad. That is objectively wrong.
Yes, that is why 4 cmc planeswalkers are always unplayable garbage. Jace the mind sculptor? He cost 4! Terrible in control matchups!
Not a great comparison I know, but saying "lol but they'll always counter it" is a silly argument. A better one would be something like "she has no immediate effect on the board, so sorcery speed removal/attacks will get rid of her" or "she doesn't provide enough CA right of the bat" or something
"lol counters" is meaningless. The nature of counters means that anything barring Thrun is bad by that metric
I think the biggest thing that will decide whether she is playable or not is the viability of Monoblack control, or U/B that's light on the blue.
Shocks being reprinted will make her better, obviously.
I think it is hard to judge now though. In a more controlling meta she'll be quite good. In a more aggressive, creature based environment I'd be surprised if she saw much play.
Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I play primarily standard because I've only been playing since Mirrodin Besieged, but I've always considered trading or cashing out into legacy.
Then I read this thread.
If this is honestly the attitude I can expect from legacy players, you can have your format. Just stay the heck away from my LGS.
You are thinking of the correct legend. I would argue the immediate judge foil is a much more likely reason than a "soft" reserve list.
To some extent
To save some clicking, 2 in 5 male students in south africa have been sexually abused/raped, about 1 in 6 men have been sexually abused as children, and in general male rape victims are incredibly unlikely to report the crime.
Taking one statistical example, in the 80's it was believed around 3% of men were sexually abused as children. Now it is closer to 1 in 6. Only recently have statistics become more accurate. Currently rape of men is so under reported that is is very, very hard to gauge what the extent of the issue is. Right now only a very small percentage of men are believed to have been raped. Who knows what will be shown statistically in 5 or 10 years, as it becomes more socially acceptable to acknowledge that men can be raped.
On the main topic of whether or not this is sexist/offensive, I don't really agree. This just looks like a natural stance to take when you are about to punch someone in the face. Putting your leg inbetween theirs makes it harder for them to dodge away, and is the most natural position for effectively shifting your weight (having one leg in front of the other allows you to turn, putting more force behind the punch). Is it unfortunate that rape victims might be triggered by this, or that others might be offended? Sure, that sucks. With this sort of card (huge man physically assaulting a much smaller and "weaker" woman) it is hard to avoid. I don't really support removing any and all garruk punching from future blocks.
If you genuinely don't want censorship of this type of art, then... good for you? I guess it sucks that you are offended or hurt by this art, but the fact is you are probably the minority, and I think the danger of losing out on effective art is pretty high once we get into these types of contentious debates of what is or is not too "rapey".
edit: On the topic of fighting stances is this implying rape? Is it sexual violence? There is a heck of a lot more room for such an interpretation, but the obvious context (UFC) makes it clear that this is just plain old punching people violence.
The problem is that you don't get to decide if you drop stuff with flashback. You are just as likely to drop stuff into the grave you can't get back, then get the PW killed by a flipped delver and gain nothing.
How do you think Channel Fireball, or Star City Games, or any online retailer gets those singles? Maybe there are 200 casuals for every pro, but consider how many packs online retailers cracked to get 500$ worth of singles out there. I think that the biggest factor financially would be a place like star city losing business because people don't have pro aspirations anymore, as well as the lost marketing from there being much fewer magic celebrities. Speaking personally, LSVs videos are what got me into magic on a more competitive level.
Ah, okay. I thought the card read "sacrifice target creature". Checking again it's just "sacrifice a creature". That would work then.
I'm pretty sure you can't pod into anything with phantasmal image. It dies from being targeted before pod's ability can resolve.