MTG Salvation

If you support blink in any capacity Clocknapper can be the highest ceiling blue finisher. We ran a silver border package for a while and it was utterly absurd, was a top 10 blue card in my opinion. Even without blink support it's still good though no where near as absurd. Stealing your opponents untap, upkeep, and draw is very good.

Without Kiki combo I don't like Guardian at all.

That's a tough one. If powered I'd go Portable Hole > Prismatic ending > Fateful absence, but in unpowered Portable Hole ~ FA > Prismatic Ending.

Is this better than Talrand? I'm not sure it is.

I really like a lot of these particularly the two Vectiline cards. I was wondering though if Rumblehoof would be better served borrowing exalted as a mechanic? It really captures the idea of the team working together and getting behind one strong champion I think.

Quote from Ecophagy »

GG, hard fought game. Well played Proph you were incredible, I'm really impressed.

I hope Grapefruit is OK, he was absolutely up for the F3 fight so there's no way he just bailed on the game because he didn't want to give it a go. Something really important must have come up. It's a shame that definitely cost us the game, but we were always up against it in the F3 anyway and I think we gave it a good go from a very rocky D1 lurk-out.

Sorry for bailing. I was unwell and slept for most of 3 days straight. I just couldn't post through it. You came in so well and almost saved the game for us and definitely made it a ton more fun for me. Thank you so much Eco. Sorry I couldn't bring the win home.

GG to town. I thought we had you completely fooled at one stage but you all kept grinding away and eventually got pretty close. I'd like to think I'd have had a shot to convince Proph at the EoD but it felt like he was getting pretty close. It was really fun playing with all of you. Thanks!

And thanks to HR for hosting! I really enjoyed the flavor!

Quote from ReapThaWhirlwind »

Running this in a split with Ponder alone will definitely do something.

You're suggesting there's no way to do anything.

My point is that you're trying to create a consistency increasing card but you've created one worse than pretty much all of them all while insisting it's better. The design isn't that bad I just think you have misunderstood the powerlevel and that your designs would be better if you understood what is powerful. That's why I mentioned your comment in the Chainwhirler standard thread despite it being off topic to this design.

Yes you could run it with ponder and then you get to exile two unwanted cards off the top of your deck. But you might randomly draw one of them and exile two good cards instead. Or you may look at 3 cards you want and have Impulsive Wish stuck in your hand wasting a mana because you can't afford to risk exiling them and drawing a blank instead. Which would be brutal. Why would I take that risk when I can just run preordain, brainstorm, serum visions, or opt with my ponder instead and have card selection I can actually control? I'm not disagreeing with you that it has uses, my point is that they are narrower and weaker than you think. Which is fine! There is nothing wrong with narrow and weak cards at all! You just need to be aware that's what they are when you're designing them.

Question for all of you, in the pandemic era have you found an online program for drafting you like? I've been mostly doing rotisserie because it avoids the question all together but it would be nice to be able to do proper drafts. Thanks in advance!

Quote from CrownsOnTheGround »

Putting together a budget cube and coming to the conclusion that the lands will probably have to be peasant-style tap lands (Tri/Vivid/Thriving my top 20 picks due to versatility in draft). If I'm aiming to support 2 color decks (but not really more colors) how many more cycles would you recommend adding? 0-2 more sounds reasonable to me (likely the bounce/scry cycles), but having trouble making up my mind.

Which do you prefer, the bounce or the scry? Could the signets reasonably fill the role of 3rd cycle of fixers? Alternatively springing a part of the budget on the man lands as lands that aren't too expensive and may survive the transition if I ever decide to de-budgetize the cube?

Any budget colorless lands anyone really loves (I didn't really see any on first glance)?

On the off chance you're still looking for replies to this two weeks later I am a big fan of the scrylands. The creature lands are also mostly quite good too. They're the two strongest cycles of always tapped duals.

This really isn't the space for it but I go by primary usage for organizing my cube. For example Dryad Militant is classed as mono white in my cube because green just doesn't play 1 mana 2/1's in our set up, while lingering souls is classed in gold because it usually gets cut unless you can at least theoretically pay for both halves. We just track how they are used. Back in the day I initially had Deathrite in as a black card because the idea of a black ramping 1 drop seemed insanely good but it was used in both black and green so we reclassified it to golgari.

Going to regret this but is your argument that entering and leaving the stack are not different functions well understood and defined? Because it seems obvious to me that they are. Casting a spell and starting a stack is very differnt from resolving a stack. I think the clearest example is something like Emrakul, the aeons torn. It has a cast trigger which is the same as your mechanic just in this case it's take an extra turn rather that the triple filter. But it also functionally has a leave the stack effect (becoming a creature in play).

It's clear that your design didn't want that to be the case and if WotC wanted to print a card where it was the case they would use the "and or" wording but I don't think it's necessary just what their current style guide would choose. Just clearer. But you're not WotC and you don't get to change the rulebook. I mean you can for your custom cards but if you're going to it should be for a purpose like creating a new zone for partners or something that adds to the game, otherwise it just ends to talking in circles and difficulty in communication.

FYI here is a ruling on the exile zone that implicitly states it is possible to exile an exiled card:

406.7. If an object in the exile zone becomes exiled, it doesn’t change zones, but it becomes a new object that has just been exiled.

I hope you guys are right but this card just seems weak to me. Hard to answer, expensive fliers aren't really what white wants to be doing. In the land mode I'm just struggling to think of a non stax list that would want to pay 2 to get a land and pay 4 to get a flier.

Indeed, I enjoy we are seeing both protagonists of this story (Sorin and Arian) dealing with the big bad bride and groom and it does look bleak for both. We know they win but this was pretty powerful to leave them both almost dying.

Pretty intense cliffhangers.

Part 4
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/episode-4-wedding-crashers-2021-11-17

Wow!

we know they beat Olivia and Edgar but this is grim

Edgar got sorin to drink some blood

And Despite sure strike picture and flavor text Olivia actually bested her arlinn might be dead.

but reminder.

katilda's rising dawn and Glorious Sunrise shows they win.

Quote from Grapefruit21 »

Quote from OrzhovPlaneswalker »

Today’s story was the first of the latest Innistrad stories (so far) to not have pacing issues.


The story was good though it didn’t seem to explain why Chandra ‘dressed to kill’ in a formal gown.

If she (as a +1 or small cadre) accompanied Sorin at the festivities in the barely hidden guise of ‘witnessing’ the occasion, then I could be convinced of the change in appearance.


But that’s not what happened, nor has it been explained why or how she got the dress.


If anything, she’s about to lead a bunch of human allies and soldiers into battle.

I mean, who does that IN HEELS??

That and the flavor text with Arlinn being the one to object to the wedding. Having the flavor not match the story is a weird way to avoid spoilers from having the set come out before the story.

RIGHT?!??

Main Story 3
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/episode-3-forever-hold-your-peace-2021-11-10

Clearly the best green aggro 1-drop ever printed, and I like than you can go elf on t1, this +2-drop t2, and a 4-drop t3 and this attacks as a 3/2.

The ONLY G 2/1 I still run is Hexdrinker though - and I think that's probably still better in more decks.

"Not plot relevant"? The whole deal with SOI was that the angels went cuckoo for some reason and that we get to see them from the perspective of their purging targets. Avacyn's corruption and fall was positively necessary for the story to work as it did.

And personally, I find Sigarda much more interesting than the angel robot doll. She's a veteran from the big bang that saw cilizations rise and fall, saw the rise of this strange angel, saw her sisters die one by one and still endures.

Quote from CrownsOnTheGround »

Two questions.

First, how highly would you rank Clocknapper power-wise among all possible blue cube cards?

Tier 1 (unordered)
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk

Tier 2 (unordered)
Clocknapper
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Opposition
Upheaval

Tier 3 (unordered)
Counterspell
Consecrated Sphinx
Treachery

Clocknapper is very powerful and definitely deserves mention among the best cards in cube. Being 5-mana keeps it somewhat in check. If aggro decks can goldfish turn 4 or green decks are casting Natural Order on turn 3, then Clocknapper isn't too out of place. It's a very powerful card, though, mainly because it interacts with so many commonly played cube cards - a single trigger from Clocknapper is strong, multiple triggers are back-breaking.

Main story part 5 By K. Arsenault Rivera
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-story/episode-5-night-closes-round-2021-09-29