I always like seeing the price changes and hearing aout the big events going on,
I sorta wish they would find another budget format for official events since they're obviously really popular and get people to start playing more seriously without the huge investment barrier, and pauper while ok doesn't feature a lot of my favorite magic dynamics.
First off, nice work. Lots of info, but the right amount of depth on each topic (IMO).
Regarding your TNMO comments, you mention this week's format is Legacy constructed. If I'm not mistaken, this was the format last night (since the article is posted on Friday). It would be cool if you mentioned next week's format as a look-ahead. That info is probably more relevant to us readers.
I keep intending to get to one of these events. I have a G/W infect deck (hyena umbra is the key) which I've been stomping with pretty effectively in the tournament practice room, but I have no idea if the decks's actually good, or whether I just keep fluking games!
Unfortunately, it's pretty rare for me to get home by 6pm on a monday!
These articles are good fun, but I wonder if there's something you could do with the way you present some of the cards in images, because the way MTGO chops up the text makes some of this a bit indecipherable.
As an example, in the second image (your rares), knowing none of the cards from this set, I can only actually tell what wall of nets and emerald medallion do. Maybe you could just display 7 card images, or put the links below or something?
Onto the actual content!
How did Ogre Menial play for you? I was expecting it to be fairly reasonable in my NPH-Scars prerelease pool, but I found it to be completely underwhelming. Having only briefly glanced at your sealed pool, my initial temptation would be to try U/B with a teeny red splash for scrapmelter and the moltensteel dragon.
With the amount of golems you have (conversion chamber, precursor, artisan) I'd also be looking at just jamming master splicer into everything(!), but I admit this isn't really a good idea, just something that seems fun. It's quite an open-ended looking pool actually. I would even give W/R infect a second look!
Online Commander is different than paper EDH so I don't mind if there are different rules. It would be nice for them to code for the mana symbols on cards, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I like the fact that Commanders aren't subject to the Legend Rule like in paper EDH. When you join a game you never know what commanders are going to be played, it sucks if you find out someone is playing the same commander. Although maybe it would lead to more obscure commanders being used. More diversity isn't a bad thing.
Quite right Gainsbanding I take the full hit on the name. I have no idea why but for 5yrs+ I always called him Mike Linto being mindtricked by the DangerLinto Client name. Once you use something for so long you eventually stop questioning whether it was right or not. Anyway, we found it mildly amusing to mock the hammer so kept in the unedited version. Zach does a lot of post recording editing, but where possible we keep the content as natural and as intact as possible. Some obvious editing is required when I on mic curse about GoblinLackeyisBlue as such profanity must be removed from a general-population audience.
Great job as always. It was great hearing Danger speak on some topics. He brought somewhat inside information to the show.
I'm surprised no one said anything about original art, black border Merchant Scroll for Danger's fictional ME5. Or is it because you guys are into foils, you don't care about the border?
Eternal playable but not chase rares as promos is a great idea!
Danger's right about white cards being bad - there are zero white creatures left with power higher than 3.
I still don't see them doing the "eternal core set" thing though. Although the nice thing about your idea is that just the super expensive cards get brought down to reasonable levels. What I mean is if they did something crazy like nixtix TSE all the time, Wasteland would become affordable, but also all of the couple tix cards would become worthless. This could be good or bad depending on your point of view.
I think you should have done a take 2 for the first 30 seconds there.. get the man's name right!
I'm totally with you there. I'm SO sick of seeing azusa with bojuka bog + karoo lands exiling library each turn. When I point out that it's illegal, they go "how come it doesn't stop me then".
Maybe we need to put some pressure on them to get things in gear by bringing it up on the mothership? Seems a shame to announce something like that and then it never appears to happen.
I haven't heard anything. I guessed that they were going to try and do it by the time those new Commander precons came out, but that's coming up quick. I have a feeling that things won't get updated for a while, but hopefully I am wrong.
Any word yet from WoTC when they are going to finally code in the correct rules for commander (it's been like 8 months since the announcement)? Kind of sick to see off color lands in decks just because they have an appealing trigger. Monowhite for instance should not have bog available or Nihil Spellbomb for that matter. Let them have to play claws and relics instead.
Omen Machine will be an auto include in the decks with Teferi as the commander.
I personally am more concerned with building to deal with that than worrying about Jin-Gitaxias.
Jin leaves you the possibility to topdeck something.
As for removal, I'll be happy to not have to remove the removal I always put in out of habit from dealing with Emrakul.
Saves me on deck building time heh xD
The difference between Shaharazad and Karn is, Shaharazad starts a new subgame. Once that game is played out, you continue the original game. With Karn, you restart the current game and the person who started the game will be starting with an advantage. This should spead the game up some.
Interesting. Someone else besides myself noticed the Alien resemblance to the new phyrexians. Even more interesting, this weeks Mark Rosewater article mentions that Parasitic Implant was inspired by the first movies famous baby alien birth scene.
Elesh Norn has to be my favorite general. Simply beause she doesnt seem as griefiest(?), and she reminds me of Lady Gaga.
I am mixed on Karn. He hass been my favorite charater of the series. His ultimate will probably get people to concede, but it shouldnt be long and painful if the cards exiled where the right cards.
Omen Machine does not belong in a group hug deck. A true group hug deck works to help people out with no intention of winning. Now in a group chaos deck, where randomess insues, I can see it.
There are so many good cards in this deck, it's just a shame most of them are griefer cards.
I was hoping that you would do a set review for Commander. I wasn't disappointed, good stuff in here.
I can't believe you didn't rate Praetor's Grasp higher. I just about fell off my chair when I saw this card. For 1 colorless than a Diabolic Tutor you get to basically tutor an opponent's deck. You will ALWAYS find something useful with this card. Early game pull out a Sol Ring or Mana Vault to accelerate. Grab their Mind's Eye to help draw. Get their Blightsteel Colossus to end the game. The best part is the card remains exiled until you need to use it (meaning it will be out of reach of Jin-Gitaxias, maybe you should look for an Brittle Effigy!). It gets even better if you're up against another black player. Grab their Cabal Coffers and then Demonic Tutor yours up for double the mana. I don't see how a black deck could not run this card.
The other card that blew me away was Triumph of the Hordes. This card will mean "game over" for at least one player and probably for all three opponents. If there is a card that will result in and increase in the number of poison counters needed to off someone in Commander, this is it.
And don't forget about the Deceiver Exarch/Splinter Twin (or Kiki-Jiki) combo. It's good enough to be played in Standard, it will surely be seen in Commander too.
This set looks like it will be making commander much more boring. All the cards are either griefer cards (praetors), or reprints (caged sun). vorinclex and jin are going to cause a lot of concessions, and karn is just stupid, he will not be hard to ultimate, and will be played in almost every deck.they wont reprint shaharazad but they will make a planeswalker with it? Lame
Yes, Jace always gets hated (because of obvious reasons). I mostly use him to bounce a flyer to clear the path (or the sky rather) for my general. He's a real lightning rod, so I'm not expecting him to do more than that.
And to be honest, he isn't a big part of my plan and I may replace him the moment I see something more valuable (valuable as in more useful).
I found out that Consecrated Sphinx is the card that makes people start looking at me; with anger in their eyes I must add (I cannot see their eyes of course but I feel it strongly).
I love Soromaro but haven't gotten around to making a deck with him yet. I like your list a lot. Do you find you get a lot (more than usual at least) of hate when you drop Jace 2.0? Just curious since I don't have one. Which card provokes the biggest reaction?
I'm not entirely impressed with the shrines. They remind me too much of the "verse counter" cycle from Saga, and no one plays those. I think that people will play them because they are new and that's about it. The green will probably have some legs though.
I assume they will fix the persist issue with Melira but you never know.
I just completely missed putting Lashwrithe on the list. Solid mono black card. Does MBC need this though. Not sure. My feeling is yes, but I've always been more of an aggro guy. And I didn't even know Unwinding Clock existed until now. It would also probably work in Sharuum decks.
Lots of griefer cards coming to games near you. You cannot expect to try and pull of your plans unimpeded any more. More removal is going to be necessary from now on.
I agree with ideas about promo's, except I would love to see some of those ridiculously expensive cards as prizes for winners or even top 8's. I don't want to get into the whole money limits classic argument again, because both sides of the argument have merit and it all depends on what side of the fence you are on, but that would promote and cause more events to fire, which would be good for everyone. WHAT YOU GOT AGAINST THRULLS LINTO? lol, just kidding. Dead on with the eval on the remaining cards, I don't know how WotC is going but we need to start getting P9 online soon.
For Caw-whatever, you definitely don't want to be cutting Gatekeeper of Malakir, second only to highborn in terms of value, in any matchup. You are going to win by going aggro, so I would definitely cut arc trail and nighthawk first (Arc trail is by far the weakest card, since it doesn't stop an equip).
Personally I think the Demon of Death's Gate plan is way worse than just 4 Mark of Mutiny and pray vs Valakut. It leads to more awkward hands than it does free wins, and lots of Valakut lists run tumble magnet.
Kudos for not running inquisition, that card is just awful in Vampires, you aren't a control deck. Dark Tutelage is a metagame call, good vs UB and slow UW control variants. Personally I would rather have them and skinrender over pulse tracker but vampires can go a lot of ways, most of them fine (except inquisition).
Also don't worry about cutting the Nighthawks and having a curve that jumps from 2-4, Gatekeeper is a three drop and so is Kalastria Highborn.
great stuff,
I always like seeing the price changes and hearing aout the big events going on,
I sorta wish they would find another budget format for official events since they're obviously really popular and get people to start playing more seriously without the huge investment barrier, and pauper while ok doesn't feature a lot of my favorite magic dynamics.
First off, nice work. Lots of info, but the right amount of depth on each topic (IMO).
Regarding your TNMO comments, you mention this week's format is Legacy constructed. If I'm not mistaken, this was the format last night (since the article is posted on Friday). It would be cool if you mentioned next week's format as a look-ahead. That info is probably more relevant to us readers.
Keep up the good work.
I keep intending to get to one of these events. I have a G/W infect deck (hyena umbra is the key) which I've been stomping with pretty effectively in the tournament practice room, but I have no idea if the decks's actually good, or whether I just keep fluking games!
Unfortunately, it's pretty rare for me to get home by 6pm on a monday!
These articles are good fun, but I wonder if there's something you could do with the way you present some of the cards in images, because the way MTGO chops up the text makes some of this a bit indecipherable.
As an example, in the second image (your rares), knowing none of the cards from this set, I can only actually tell what wall of nets and emerald medallion do. Maybe you could just display 7 card images, or put the links below or something?
Onto the actual content!
How did Ogre Menial play for you? I was expecting it to be fairly reasonable in my NPH-Scars prerelease pool, but I found it to be completely underwhelming. Having only briefly glanced at your sealed pool, my initial temptation would be to try U/B with a teeny red splash for scrapmelter and the moltensteel dragon.
With the amount of golems you have (conversion chamber, precursor, artisan) I'd also be looking at just jamming master splicer into everything(!), but I admit this isn't really a good idea, just something that seems fun. It's quite an open-ended looking pool actually. I would even give W/R infect a second look!
Online Commander is different than paper EDH so I don't mind if there are different rules. It would be nice for them to code for the mana symbols on cards, but I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I like the fact that Commanders aren't subject to the Legend Rule like in paper EDH. When you join a game you never know what commanders are going to be played, it sucks if you find out someone is playing the same commander. Although maybe it would lead to more obscure commanders being used. More diversity isn't a bad thing.
Except they gave an excuse (no matter how lame) for that...this...no excuse...no nothing. Or is that Know Nothing??? At this point I am not sure.
Quite right Gainsbanding I take the full hit on the name. I have no idea why but for 5yrs+ I always called him Mike Linto being mindtricked by the DangerLinto Client name. Once you use something for so long you eventually stop questioning whether it was right or not. Anyway, we found it mildly amusing to mock the hammer so kept in the unedited version. Zach does a lot of post recording editing, but where possible we keep the content as natural and as intact as possible. Some obvious editing is required when I on mic curse about GoblinLackeyisBlue as such profanity must be removed from a general-population audience.
Hmm that sounds a lot like leagues...
Dudes:
Great job as always. It was great hearing Danger speak on some topics. He brought somewhat inside information to the show.
I'm surprised no one said anything about original art, black border Merchant Scroll for Danger's fictional ME5. Or is it because you guys are into foils, you don't care about the border?
Eternal playable but not chase rares as promos is a great idea!
Danger's right about white cards being bad - there are zero white creatures left with power higher than 3.
I still don't see them doing the "eternal core set" thing though. Although the nice thing about your idea is that just the super expensive cards get brought down to reasonable levels. What I mean is if they did something crazy like nixtix TSE all the time, Wasteland would become affordable, but also all of the couple tix cards would become worthless. This could be good or bad depending on your point of view.
I think you should have done a take 2 for the first 30 seconds there.. get the man's name right!
I'm totally with you there. I'm SO sick of seeing azusa with bojuka bog + karoo lands exiling library each turn. When I point out that it's illegal, they go "how come it doesn't stop me then".
Maybe we need to put some pressure on them to get things in gear by bringing it up on the mothership? Seems a shame to announce something like that and then it never appears to happen.
I haven't heard anything. I guessed that they were going to try and do it by the time those new Commander precons came out, but that's coming up quick. I have a feeling that things won't get updated for a while, but hopefully I am wrong.
Any word yet from WoTC when they are going to finally code in the correct rules for commander (it's been like 8 months since the announcement)? Kind of sick to see off color lands in decks just because they have an appealing trigger. Monowhite for instance should not have bog available or Nihil Spellbomb for that matter. Let them have to play claws and relics instead.
Omen Machine will be an auto include in the decks with Teferi as the commander.
I personally am more concerned with building to deal with that than worrying about Jin-Gitaxias.
Jin leaves you the possibility to topdeck something.
As for removal, I'll be happy to not have to remove the removal I always put in out of habit from dealing with Emrakul.
Saves me on deck building time heh xD
The difference between Shaharazad and Karn is, Shaharazad starts a new subgame. Once that game is played out, you continue the original game. With Karn, you restart the current game and the person who started the game will be starting with an advantage. This should spead the game up some.
Interesting. Someone else besides myself noticed the Alien resemblance to the new phyrexians. Even more interesting, this weeks Mark Rosewater article mentions that Parasitic Implant was inspired by the first movies famous baby alien birth scene.
Elesh Norn has to be my favorite general. Simply beause she doesnt seem as griefiest(?), and she reminds me of Lady Gaga.
I am mixed on Karn. He hass been my favorite charater of the series. His ultimate will probably get people to concede, but it shouldnt be long and painful if the cards exiled where the right cards.
Omen Machine does not belong in a group hug deck. A true group hug deck works to help people out with no intention of winning. Now in a group chaos deck, where randomess insues, I can see it.
There are so many good cards in this deck, it's just a shame most of them are griefer cards.
I was hoping that you would do a set review for Commander. I wasn't disappointed, good stuff in here.
I can't believe you didn't rate Praetor's Grasp higher. I just about fell off my chair when I saw this card. For 1 colorless than a Diabolic Tutor you get to basically tutor an opponent's deck. You will ALWAYS find something useful with this card. Early game pull out a Sol Ring or Mana Vault to accelerate. Grab their Mind's Eye to help draw. Get their Blightsteel Colossus to end the game. The best part is the card remains exiled until you need to use it (meaning it will be out of reach of Jin-Gitaxias, maybe you should look for an Brittle Effigy!). It gets even better if you're up against another black player. Grab their Cabal Coffers and then Demonic Tutor yours up for double the mana. I don't see how a black deck could not run this card.
The other card that blew me away was Triumph of the Hordes. This card will mean "game over" for at least one player and probably for all three opponents. If there is a card that will result in and increase in the number of poison counters needed to off someone in Commander, this is it.
And don't forget about the Deceiver Exarch/Splinter Twin (or Kiki-Jiki) combo. It's good enough to be played in Standard, it will surely be seen in Commander too.
This set looks like it will be making commander much more boring. All the cards are either griefer cards (praetors), or reprints (caged sun). vorinclex and jin are going to cause a lot of concessions, and karn is just stupid, he will not be hard to ultimate, and will be played in almost every deck.they wont reprint shaharazad but they will make a planeswalker with it? Lame
Thats a bug then, melira stops persist counters, it has been mentioned in articles on the magic website.
Melira is a good replacement (or addition) to the old (project x?) deck with juniper order, greater gargadon, and redcap.
Yes, Jace always gets hated (because of obvious reasons). I mostly use him to bounce a flyer to clear the path (or the sky rather) for my general. He's a real lightning rod, so I'm not expecting him to do more than that.
And to be honest, he isn't a big part of my plan and I may replace him the moment I see something more valuable (valuable as in more useful).
I found out that Consecrated Sphinx is the card that makes people start looking at me; with anger in their eyes I must add (I cannot see their eyes of course but I feel it strongly).
LE
I love Soromaro but haven't gotten around to making a deck with him yet. I like your list a lot. Do you find you get a lot (more than usual at least) of hate when you drop Jace 2.0? Just curious since I don't have one. Which card provokes the biggest reaction?
I'm not entirely impressed with the shrines. They remind me too much of the "verse counter" cycle from Saga, and no one plays those. I think that people will play them because they are new and that's about it. The green will probably have some legs though.
I assume they will fix the persist issue with Melira but you never know.
I just completely missed putting Lashwrithe on the list. Solid mono black card. Does MBC need this though. Not sure. My feeling is yes, but I've always been more of an aggro guy. And I didn't even know Unwinding Clock existed until now. It would also probably work in Sharuum decks.
Lots of griefer cards coming to games near you. You cannot expect to try and pull of your plans unimpeded any more. More removal is going to be necessary from now on.
I agree with ideas about promo's, except I would love to see some of those ridiculously expensive cards as prizes for winners or even top 8's. I don't want to get into the whole money limits classic argument again, because both sides of the argument have merit and it all depends on what side of the fence you are on, but that would promote and cause more events to fire, which would be good for everyone. WHAT YOU GOT AGAINST THRULLS LINTO? lol, just kidding. Dead on with the eval on the remaining cards, I don't know how WotC is going but we need to start getting P9 online soon.
For Caw-whatever, you definitely don't want to be cutting Gatekeeper of Malakir, second only to highborn in terms of value, in any matchup. You are going to win by going aggro, so I would definitely cut arc trail and nighthawk first (Arc trail is by far the weakest card, since it doesn't stop an equip).
Personally I think the Demon of Death's Gate plan is way worse than just 4 Mark of Mutiny and pray vs Valakut. It leads to more awkward hands than it does free wins, and lots of Valakut lists run tumble magnet.
Kudos for not running inquisition, that card is just awful in Vampires, you aren't a control deck. Dark Tutelage is a metagame call, good vs UB and slow UW control variants. Personally I would rather have them and skinrender over pulse tracker but vampires can go a lot of ways, most of them fine (except inquisition).
Also don't worry about cutting the Nighthawks and having a curve that jumps from 2-4, Gatekeeper is a three drop and so is Kalastria Highborn.
I was working on an exam as well as editing, little scatterbrained