What if he transforms into a Planeswalker? Having a DFC that's different kinds of permanents on each side rather than just different kinds of creatures would be one of the most interesting uses, and one of the most compelling for using DFCs in the first place.
You would pick it over Vendetta? Almost every creature worth taking is a leveler which you then can't level, or has more than 3 power.
Domestication is also very color committing and can't be splashed, which is extremely relevant since this format has great fixing.
Mind Control is awesome because it steals the best creature your opponent can play. This format is loaded with bombs at common and uncommon that make stealing an early, lower powered dork irrelevant a lot of the time.
It isn't bad since stealing and trading or even chumping is good, but it is one of the weakest control magics for limited.
I'm not sure what I think about the deck. I have yet to play against it or with it, so I'll reserve judgment for now. Seems quite solid, though I'm not sure of its longevity once the metagame settles.
Do you think this is a planeswalker? That is what I was talking about. Gosh, I hope there isn't a double-faced planeswalker. The ruling questions alone make my head want to explode.
The guy who is the head of the set design and the person I saw interviewed said (off the record) that Garruk would return. I am not going to say another website, but there is a video and some reporting from the, I guess, it was a release party.
"don't take it personally," "no, you're taking it personally, but don't," "I so am not taking it personally, you are and there's nothing personal," "well I'm so impersonal I won't even address you," blah blah blah.
Good call. Although I do like the occasional Jerry Springer episode in comment threads... :)
Why would they make a new Garruk? There is already a new one in M12.
I think the speculation that there is a new Liliana is a bit more founded.
@ Dual lands- Sure they are nice, enemy colored and all. They can not be fetched, however. Are they really going to be all that good? I think that "fine" is a word to describe them, but not "awesome".
WotC apparently still has an aversion to put basic land types on nonbasic lands...sigh.
You know, I should be surprised, but after the comedy of errors that I had in trying to get the podcast done, I am not.
I am so sorry everyone. This was my first stab at being the one to upload the cast, and since it took me quite a while to get everything done, it was late when I was finishing up and I guess I missed something.
Here is a sendspace link to the mp3 of the cast. I will try and get it fixed ASAP otherwise.
Awesome comments section! Classic really needs more debate . . . although less "don't take it personally," "no, you're taking it personally, but don't," "I so am not taking it personally, you are and there's nothing personal," "well I'm so impersonal I won't even address you," blah blah blah.
Hiya! For the M12 draft, the 2 Consume the Spirit that tabled was sick!! I think if you went all in on black you would have 4 Blood Seeker, 2 Doom Blade, 2 Consume the Spirit, 2 Devouring Swamp, 3 Sorin's Thirst, 2 Duskhunter Bat, 1 Gravedigger, 1 Drifting Shade, 1 Child of Night, 1 Zombie Goliath, 1 Solemn Simulacrum, and maybe a couple Tormented Soul. The Blood Seekers would suck a decent amount of life if left unmolested and able to set up a lock on your opponent late in the game. Runner runner Blood Seeker opening is really strong if opponent do not kill them. Glad you managed to get to break the bad run. Crack more bombs in future drafts! =)
But did you see that party they had for Innistrad? I wouldn't be caught dead at something like that. It was like a Star Trek convention with even less women.
But Innistrad scares me. I have a feeling that the whole "warewolves vs vampires vs Humans, etc." will never come into play in constructed. People will stick to what they know in SOM, play the cards from M12 they need like counters, and only use whatever broken cards are in Innistrad, and I'm sure WotC will overlook some cards that are going to be broken.
I doubt the "curses" will have much play in constructed, and I saw one, which was: Enchant player, that player puts the top 2 cards of their library into their graveyard. Doesn't seem like a good use of deck space.
Blue seems like they want to make it mill, but people don't seem to want to play mill in standard. Black will have it's usual removal, and that plus the removal from SOM will be a little overpowered for black, so I think creatures might be thrown out the window, and people will revert back to what they always do, because they can't seem to make a single deck without one, which is planeswalkers.
You already have some pretty good planeswalkers, but I heard that either Lilliana or Garruk, which will both be in the set, will have 5 abilities. That sounds a little too Jace the Wallet Sculptor for me.
Luckily for 99% of players, without fetch lands they were going to freak out, but they added non-aligned colors which is nice. I can finally make that Black Green Glissa/Zombie deck I have been working on.
All I know about Innistrad is that the whole creature dynamic in constructed will be wiped out unless there is the a new "red deck wins".
I think the one thing Wizards grossly overlooked is how slow standard will be when Zen and M11 cycles out. I played SOM block exclusively for about 3 months, and it is arguably 3-4 turns slower than current standard. Standard will be really slow, and I think that will anger some people.
**Modern, Legacy, and Classic players rejoice with the new lands. They love playing 3 color decks.
Limited will be interesting.
And the burning question for everyone is........ What will the broken card be, and how long till they ban it.
Here is a fun picture:
4 mana Lilliana (3)
+1 Discard
-2 Diabolic Tutor
+2 Dark Ritual
-4 Terror
+5 Way of fetching creatures from graveyard en masse.
The thought of a Planeswalker with 5 abilities when the last one with 4 was pretty nasty, eh, Idk.
I think this is obviously where these cards will be best. but MTGO always outperforms paper when it comes to technical details like this. For example, shuffling is the most tedious mechanical detail of Magic, but it is handled much better by mtgo. This makes me glad that I play primarily online.
Re: Opponent transforming back
This is my biggest worry with Transform. I can see it as a potential success in limited where you create a fascinating subgame of werewolf flipping, but I've never been one to like a mechanic that gives my opponent choices. i.e. Rhystic...
RE: DFCs are a huge mistake.
They very well could be. I understand someone not wanting to play the cards. For example, I opted out of playing M12 limited at all because I didn't want to play with a set that was only 50% new, that still had the Titans as the top cards, and that had Overrun at uncommon.
However, I'm going to say that I disagree that the set looks boring. I think that the DFCs look like they have a lot of potential to be fun. I love the flavorful stories behind each card, and I love the tension between the different modes of each card. For example, I think the Dr. Jekyll card is one of the best designed cards that I've ever seen. The question for me is not whether the Transform cards will be exciting and fun, but whether these exciting and fun parts are going to outweigh the technical strains.
Also, I don't see how the Transform mechanic is subpar. I think that it is excellently designed. I've long waited for werewolves in magic, and I've tried to design several myself, but they always came out as these clunky, texty, complicated monstrosities that no one would ever play. These, however, are exciting, visceral, and intuitive. I think that you will get a sudden rush of excitement every time you flip the cards, and that your opponent will be sighing in relief every time they are able to flip the cards back.
RE: MTGO drafting different from IRL drafting
I don't think it will really be taht different. People like to talk about how different it is going to be, but I don't see it being quite as huge an impact that people assume it will be. Remember, there will only be one DFC per pack, the majority commons, and not all of them are going to be that playable. Sure there is a little signalling feature that we miss out on online, but I miss out on a lot of the "signals" that players give me IRL anyways. For example, my last casual draft, my neighbor basically told me every card he picked anyways. In others, I can tell just by reading people a lot of what they are doing. Further, most of the drafters IRL are so low quality that it completely changes the format anyways. I think it is a little bit silly to assume that this will create a monumental shift in that dynamic.
In the end, I think Transform is an awesome mechanic, but I'm a little worried about whether the technical execution will overshadow the mechanical benefits.
From what I see in decklists, they aren't running a whole lot of Karakas (like 1x in a deck). Maybe there is a bigger trend toward more Karakas in those lists?
The problem I see with using needle to stop Karakas is that if the MU is running Karakas it is also probably running so much hate for artifacts already it is unlikely to solve your problem.
I think Karakas is THE #1 thing I hate to play against. The sideboard is really well positioned to at least have a fighting chance against Shops. The two basics obviously come in (For GQ and general utility mana), the nature's claims and the ancient grudges serve a role here too. The best part about shop matchups is it contains their least favorite card in the world, Oath of Druids.
Stifle seems pretty decent, but I don't think it solves anything by itsself.
Example: EOT they Karakas my Emrakul, I stifle. They rinse and repeat after the untap. I had 2x Pithing Needle and ended up cutting them in favor of firespouts. Considering Fish is also the MU most likely to play Karakas, I may need to revisit that.
Stifle has the added benefit of being blue. It appears you'd normally only need to swing once with Emmy. It takes care of Karakas activations as well, though admittedly it possible many times they will get two cracks at your Emmy with a Karakas,
"also think recording TP room matches do little to drive home any points. I will have the matches I played with the deck for the current season 2 of mmogg's league up in YSO this week."
No offense, but isn't that slagging Whiffy's whole article? It's nothing but recorded TP matches.
"I will have the matches I played with the deck for the current season 2 of mmogg's league up in YSO this week"
Sounds good - I look forward to watching them.
Read my other posts to Whiffy, Zac. I've taken nothing personally. Anyone who takes my posts as Gospel is foolish.
I didn't say Zac or you were wrong. I'm perfectly willing to believe that removing Sol Ring from the deck is the correct choice - but I did say that saying "this classic deck doesn't need Sol Ring" is the kind of thing you'd better come ready to back up with more than "I built the deck and tested it a LOT!"
You'll notice on many forums with established meta games, that if you are going to make claims that seemly defy established thinking, it's your job to convince people otherwise. There is a reason for that. Unless you honestly think that taking Sol Ring out of a deck is a decision that can be casually thrown aside- and I'm sure you know it's not. Hence, I reiterate that the videos here and your own arguments leave a lot to be desired in convincing anyone that was the correct choice.
Not exactly sure why you felt you needed to add that bit about the evolution of Oath.
Both you and Zac seem to be taking things way too personally. I think the deck is pretty good, and when i was thinking about putting it together, I would have done much the same thing. I'm offering you constructive advice on how to better go about convincing people about the choices, especially the more difficult ones, you've made here.
What if he transforms into a Planeswalker? Having a DFC that's different kinds of permanents on each side rather than just different kinds of creatures would be one of the most interesting uses, and one of the most compelling for using DFCs in the first place.
I expect it to be a legendary human /human werewolf with some amazing ability.
You would pick it over Vendetta? Almost every creature worth taking is a leveler which you then can't level, or has more than 3 power.
Domestication is also very color committing and can't be splashed, which is extremely relevant since this format has great fixing.
Mind Control is awesome because it steals the best creature your opponent can play. This format is loaded with bombs at common and uncommon that make stealing an early, lower powered dork irrelevant a lot of the time.
It isn't bad since stealing and trading or even chumping is good, but it is one of the weakest control magics for limited.
I'm not sure what I think about the deck. I have yet to play against it or with it, so I'll reserve judgment for now. Seems quite solid, though I'm not sure of its longevity once the metagame settles.
I disagree with your assessment of Domestication. Sure, it's not Mind Control, but it's still very good in this format and first pickable.
Agreed lol.
Do you think this is a planeswalker? That is what I was talking about. Gosh, I hope there isn't a double-faced planeswalker. The ruling questions alone make my head want to explode.
Garruk is also on the DFC checklist card, as seen here:
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/isd/g4cc1x3ges_en.jpg
Apparently he is a DFC that costs 3G...
I have a couple of friends that are Aussie because of it!! I am a night owl...
Don't you post on MTGS? I think I have seen you in the RDW threads.
I think I was asking somewhat rhetoricaly, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised...
What a waste of design space. They could have easily made a new planeswalker...the M12 Garruk is fine.
The guy who is the head of the set design and the person I saw interviewed said (off the record) that Garruk would return. I am not going to say another website, but there is a video and some reporting from the, I guess, it was a release party.
nice article though.
I have Restore balance built
If you want to test just hit me up on modo.
I am in australia so times are just a little bit better if you want to test.
"don't take it personally," "no, you're taking it personally, but don't," "I so am not taking it personally, you are and there's nothing personal," "well I'm so impersonal I won't even address you," blah blah blah.
Good call. Although I do like the occasional Jerry Springer episode in comment threads... :)
Why would they make a new Garruk? There is already a new one in M12.
I think the speculation that there is a new Liliana is a bit more founded.
@ Dual lands- Sure they are nice, enemy colored and all. They can not be fetched, however. Are they really going to be all that good? I think that "fine" is a word to describe them, but not "awesome".
WotC apparently still has an aversion to put basic land types on nonbasic lands...sigh.
You know, I should be surprised, but after the comedy of errors that I had in trying to get the podcast done, I am not.
I am so sorry everyone. This was my first stab at being the one to upload the cast, and since it took me quite a while to get everything done, it was late when I was finishing up and I guess I missed something.
Here is a sendspace link to the mp3 of the cast. I will try and get it fixed ASAP otherwise.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3no254
sorry again to everyone.
Awesome comments section! Classic really needs more debate . . . although less "don't take it personally," "no, you're taking it personally, but don't," "I so am not taking it personally, you are and there's nothing personal," "well I'm so impersonal I won't even address you," blah blah blah.
Thanks for the continued Classic content, whiffy.
Hiya! For the M12 draft, the 2 Consume the Spirit that tabled was sick!! I think if you went all in on black you would have 4 Blood Seeker, 2 Doom Blade, 2 Consume the Spirit, 2 Devouring Swamp, 3 Sorin's Thirst, 2 Duskhunter Bat, 1 Gravedigger, 1 Drifting Shade, 1 Child of Night, 1 Zombie Goliath, 1 Solemn Simulacrum, and maybe a couple Tormented Soul. The Blood Seekers would suck a decent amount of life if left unmolested and able to set up a lock on your opponent late in the game. Runner runner Blood Seeker opening is really strong if opponent do not kill them. Glad you managed to get to break the bad run. Crack more bombs in future drafts! =)
I'm definitely in love with the new dual lands. I wasn't expecting them, and I'm very happy.
But did you see that party they had for Innistrad? I wouldn't be caught dead at something like that. It was like a Star Trek convention with even less women.
But Innistrad scares me. I have a feeling that the whole "warewolves vs vampires vs Humans, etc." will never come into play in constructed. People will stick to what they know in SOM, play the cards from M12 they need like counters, and only use whatever broken cards are in Innistrad, and I'm sure WotC will overlook some cards that are going to be broken.
I doubt the "curses" will have much play in constructed, and I saw one, which was: Enchant player, that player puts the top 2 cards of their library into their graveyard. Doesn't seem like a good use of deck space.
Blue seems like they want to make it mill, but people don't seem to want to play mill in standard. Black will have it's usual removal, and that plus the removal from SOM will be a little overpowered for black, so I think creatures might be thrown out the window, and people will revert back to what they always do, because they can't seem to make a single deck without one, which is planeswalkers.
You already have some pretty good planeswalkers, but I heard that either Lilliana or Garruk, which will both be in the set, will have 5 abilities. That sounds a little too Jace the Wallet Sculptor for me.
Luckily for 99% of players, without fetch lands they were going to freak out, but they added non-aligned colors which is nice. I can finally make that Black Green Glissa/Zombie deck I have been working on.
All I know about Innistrad is that the whole creature dynamic in constructed will be wiped out unless there is the a new "red deck wins".
I think the one thing Wizards grossly overlooked is how slow standard will be when Zen and M11 cycles out. I played SOM block exclusively for about 3 months, and it is arguably 3-4 turns slower than current standard. Standard will be really slow, and I think that will anger some people.
**Modern, Legacy, and Classic players rejoice with the new lands. They love playing 3 color decks.
Limited will be interesting.
And the burning question for everyone is........ What will the broken card be, and how long till they ban it.
Here is a fun picture:
4 mana Lilliana (3)
+1 Discard
-2 Diabolic Tutor
+2 Dark Ritual
-4 Terror
+5 Way of fetching creatures from graveyard en masse.
The thought of a Planeswalker with 5 abilities when the last one with 4 was pretty nasty, eh, Idk.
Again, thank you guys for the comments.
Re: DFCs on MTGO
I think this is obviously where these cards will be best. but MTGO always outperforms paper when it comes to technical details like this. For example, shuffling is the most tedious mechanical detail of Magic, but it is handled much better by mtgo. This makes me glad that I play primarily online.
Re: Opponent transforming back
This is my biggest worry with Transform. I can see it as a potential success in limited where you create a fascinating subgame of werewolf flipping, but I've never been one to like a mechanic that gives my opponent choices. i.e. Rhystic...
RE: DFCs are a huge mistake.
They very well could be. I understand someone not wanting to play the cards. For example, I opted out of playing M12 limited at all because I didn't want to play with a set that was only 50% new, that still had the Titans as the top cards, and that had Overrun at uncommon.
However, I'm going to say that I disagree that the set looks boring. I think that the DFCs look like they have a lot of potential to be fun. I love the flavorful stories behind each card, and I love the tension between the different modes of each card. For example, I think the Dr. Jekyll card is one of the best designed cards that I've ever seen. The question for me is not whether the Transform cards will be exciting and fun, but whether these exciting and fun parts are going to outweigh the technical strains.
Also, I don't see how the Transform mechanic is subpar. I think that it is excellently designed. I've long waited for werewolves in magic, and I've tried to design several myself, but they always came out as these clunky, texty, complicated monstrosities that no one would ever play. These, however, are exciting, visceral, and intuitive. I think that you will get a sudden rush of excitement every time you flip the cards, and that your opponent will be sighing in relief every time they are able to flip the cards back.
RE: MTGO drafting different from IRL drafting
I don't think it will really be taht different. People like to talk about how different it is going to be, but I don't see it being quite as huge an impact that people assume it will be. Remember, there will only be one DFC per pack, the majority commons, and not all of them are going to be that playable. Sure there is a little signalling feature that we miss out on online, but I miss out on a lot of the "signals" that players give me IRL anyways. For example, my last casual draft, my neighbor basically told me every card he picked anyways. In others, I can tell just by reading people a lot of what they are doing. Further, most of the drafters IRL are so low quality that it completely changes the format anyways. I think it is a little bit silly to assume that this will create a monumental shift in that dynamic.
In the end, I think Transform is an awesome mechanic, but I'm a little worried about whether the technical execution will overshadow the mechanical benefits.
From what I see in decklists, they aren't running a whole lot of Karakas (like 1x in a deck). Maybe there is a bigger trend toward more Karakas in those lists?
The problem I see with using needle to stop Karakas is that if the MU is running Karakas it is also probably running so much hate for artifacts already it is unlikely to solve your problem.
I think Karakas is THE #1 thing I hate to play against. The sideboard is really well positioned to at least have a fighting chance against Shops. The two basics obviously come in (For GQ and general utility mana), the nature's claims and the ancient grudges serve a role here too. The best part about shop matchups is it contains their least favorite card in the world, Oath of Druids.
Stifle seems pretty decent, but I don't think it solves anything by itsself.
Example: EOT they Karakas my Emrakul, I stifle. They rinse and repeat after the untap. I had 2x Pithing Needle and ended up cutting them in favor of firespouts. Considering Fish is also the MU most likely to play Karakas, I may need to revisit that.
Stifle has the added benefit of being blue. It appears you'd normally only need to swing once with Emmy. It takes care of Karakas activations as well, though admittedly it possible many times they will get two cracks at your Emmy with a Karakas,
"also think recording TP room matches do little to drive home any points. I will have the matches I played with the deck for the current season 2 of mmogg's league up in YSO this week."
No offense, but isn't that slagging Whiffy's whole article? It's nothing but recorded TP matches.
"I will have the matches I played with the deck for the current season 2 of mmogg's league up in YSO this week"
Sounds good - I look forward to watching them.
Read my other posts to Whiffy, Zac. I've taken nothing personally. Anyone who takes my posts as Gospel is foolish.
I didn't say Zac or you were wrong. I'm perfectly willing to believe that removing Sol Ring from the deck is the correct choice - but I did say that saying "this classic deck doesn't need Sol Ring" is the kind of thing you'd better come ready to back up with more than "I built the deck and tested it a LOT!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophic_burden_of_proof
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_burden_of_evidence
You'll notice on many forums with established meta games, that if you are going to make claims that seemly defy established thinking, it's your job to convince people otherwise. There is a reason for that. Unless you honestly think that taking Sol Ring out of a deck is a decision that can be casually thrown aside- and I'm sure you know it's not. Hence, I reiterate that the videos here and your own arguments leave a lot to be desired in convincing anyone that was the correct choice.
Not exactly sure why you felt you needed to add that bit about the evolution of Oath.
Both you and Zac seem to be taking things way too personally. I think the deck is pretty good, and when i was thinking about putting it together, I would have done much the same thing. I'm offering you constructive advice on how to better go about convincing people about the choices, especially the more difficult ones, you've made here.