i know alliances had all the cards with multiple artwork..i dont know about the connected ones. though the earliest i remember was some angel maybe and paralyze...no idea what sets though
Hmmm I remember it being alliances that had the connected art works. I don't recall iceage having that and I was somewhat more Vorthos about my cards back then. Perhaps a link will serve to jog our memories?
=Edit=
Ok missed Shard's links...now that I see it I remember those lands more clearly. For some reason I had them as Mirage in my mind.
I like Baga's art in general. Stoic Angel is amazing. And anything with hands is always cool. But that's probably mostly why I have such a hard time with RU. It just looks funny to me.
@Shard: Great find! I always enjoyed Magic art and these links are very valuable to me. Thanks man.
@JustSin: Thankfully the Eldrazi bosses cannot be reanimated but you are right about the rest. I'm sure WotC is also aware of it. Not only reanimation but Oath decks also might find a use for some of those Eldrazi titans. And how will they effect those formats? I have no idea but I hope that the masters of those formats would write a few articles here and talk about their impact for Classic and Legacy.
A sidenote: Iona, Shiled of Emeria sees a lot play in Oath decks and I still think that she's more devastating than the Eldrazi. Shutting down a whole color? That's crazy if you think about it.
@ArchGenius: So your opponent will get into all that trouble and will summon an Eldrazi titan and you will steal it, attack with it and make him sacrifice everything he got with his own Eldrazi?! Man you're cruel :)).
Oh and you're definately right about Momentous Fall of course.
@Leviathan: I'm a big admirer of Volkan Baga's art and now that you say you don't like his work, you automatically found yourself on top of my blocked list:). Just kidding of course. Check this link: http://puremtgo.com/articles/rogue-play-special-edition-interview-volkan...
That's an interview I did with Mr. Baga last summer. Maybe that will change your mind.
Am I the only one that doesn't like the art on Realms Uncharted? I get the reference to Gifts Ungiven, but the elf lady depicted in RU looks like an awkwardly positioned dude. I think the main difference between the two is that RU has a little too much detail making the deficiencies stick out more in my mind, while GU is just a little bit impressionistic and smoother. But I'm not an art major or anything, so what do I know.
In retrospective is was probably a miss play,but at the moment having seen that he didnt want to ramp to 4 mana I thought he didnt have anything besides removel and later drops,so I guessed I coult trade there and have time to draw other stuff instead of having a 2/1 killed by removal and a big drop that I needed to kill with magma rift and halt my board development.
Great article, I agree with your analysis of green and colorless, however I believe Momentous Fall at least deserves a mention. I think it will see some play with Vengvine and possibly Adventuring Gear.
As for red, I think Kiln Fiend and Conqueroring Manticore will see some play. Kiln Fiend will often hit for more damage than Plated Geopede, especially in pauper, and Conqueroring Manticore seems like an ideal anti-eldrazi strategy. (okay, maybe not for Emrakul) I can see a steal and sacrifice deck with the Manticore combined with Pawn of Ulamog, Bloodghast, and Bloodthrowne Vampire. I think the Manticore is probably a bit too slow right now for standard, but after Alara rotates out and the format becomes all about the Eldrazi, then we might see it.
Also, I'm thinking that since the next set is Scars of Mirrodin, with Mirrodin being the artifact plane, it will most likely have a reasonable number of playable colorless artifacts which will make All is Dust and Emrakul slightly less devastating, at least in the future standard.
My apologies if these thoughts were already written by someone else. I glossed over some of the discussion about rudeness and may have missed some of the more precise information.
As far as keeping matches flowing in a timely manner, if would be pointless for WOTC to restrict the number of events a user can enter at the same time. Such restrictions would still not prevent a user from being slow while they played online poker, downloaded adult entertainment, or stepped outside for a smoke.
Such rules would do nothing to stop players from playing under multiple user names. Yes, this is against the rules, but I can't help but beleive it happens.
What might helped keep matches flowing in a timely manner would be a "action clock". Think of it as a shot clock from basketball. A basketball game has both a game clock and a shot clock. Magic Online players could have a action clock and the game clock. The action clock would only allows players so much time before the game moved onto the next action. Actions usually being marked by an "okay button" or similar. A palyers game clock would continue to run while the action clock runs, thus keeping the existing game time rules while adding the action clock.
Having an action clock rather than a turn clock or phase clock wouldn't penalize someone for playing action-heavy decks such as Storm. Each action would have the same time allowed. A turn clock or phase clock would cause problems with such action heavy decks.
An obvious problem with an action clock would be how the game moves forward when a player runs out of time during an action involving a choice? Should the program make a random choice? Or should the player be penalized time on their game clock? I don't know, because I haven't given it enough serious thought, and I don't expect to.
i think it's due to the fact that they were nuts in extended and now with ptqs gone they are relegating to serving their duties in standard - aka employed only by the dwindling appearance of naya, with some mythic action
great article as always, right or wrong I still love reading the insights and seeing others points of view
now in std Eldrazi may come out as early as turn 5, but you bump that up to Legacy/Classic/Vintage and these guys will be out turn 4 at the latest... 4x Cloudpost alone is enough mana and Cloudpost + Amulet of Vigor makes it even easier.. I'm going to be one of those cranky people I always hated who complained when a new set came out because I'm not a fan of the Eldrazi, since the beginning of Magic we've had draw backs to counter power on a card, but the "draw back" here is high casting cost, which isn't really a draw back at all... reanimator decks will still get these out on turn 1 or 2 in Legacy, prism decks will have them out fast, between Cloudpost, Vesuva, and the Uzra's lands not to mention the new lands and mana ramp spells these guys will be out fast and I'm guessing a lot of the time that Annihilator ability is going to be blowing up lands left and right, if you don't have a kill you'll be hit at least once by it and unless u have more then 4 permanents for some of these guys you're going to lose lands.. all of a sudden every game will be facing LD and while I'm still deciding over "allies as bad as slivers?" I know that Eldrazi tribal is not going to be something I want to play against
glad to see someone put together an article like this, I had one submitted tho asked it be pulled back because doubles would be silly.. I had added all decks to my chart, but I think you're right in leaving some out to give a clearer showing, but perhaps listing the other decks that didn't make the chart would be a nice add
its interesting to see a difference in some of the categorizations, you get a lot of that tho when there are so many possibilities in card choice
@Shard: I'm checking frequently the paper prices and the Eldrazi ones seems acceptable so far. That white planeswalker Gideon is a bit hyped right now, so he's very expensive. The Eldrazi are still high but less than I imagined; especially All is Dust and Emrakul (they both are around $15 each). Surely these are not prices for budget players but I wasen't expecting them to be.
I just checked the CHK basic lands and they indeed are one big picture. Check this one out: http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic430401_lg.jpg.
@Katastrophe: Agree with everything.
@StealthBadger: Devastating Summons... hmmm... I don't know, I need to test it. The additional casting cost might fire back in some situations. Especially if you get too greedy. It definately needs testing.
He probably didnt realize that he could play it on my own creatures or maybe just thought about the evasion part. It was clearly a mistake that gave me the game since my only out would be a burst lightning after.
The first instance of connected lands to form a single picture is the Christopher Rush Plains from Ice Age. All four connect to form a single picture, but I think Chris did this by his choice rather than a request from WotC.
Back when WotC had the caravan tours, Chris showed a print of the original art.
I'm wondering why he would kick a rite of replication on his welkin tern? I assume you must have had more than 2 cards in hand, but even so, why not kick the blademasters?
Its nice to get some positive feed back. I actually didnt face any jund charms currently. I thought they were somehow old news but it makes sense in the current meta do fight back Open the Vaults and Im surprised people didnt sleeve them in the side more agressively. I find that mono black list interesting. It doesnt rely so much on unhearthing and combing out but more on dmg and consume spirit does it perfectly.
i played this deck before wwk came out and eventually was losing more than i won in the 8-mans, but i gave it a go and went 4-0 yesterday, all the jund decks i faced had charm in the board and maindeck ruinblasters but i did beat all 3 of them 2-1.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Devastating Summons though. I definitely see it as a sleeper, and expect it to show up in red aggro and boros. Remember, you can float mana from from the lands you're about to sacrifice, then use them to play something (*cough* goblin bushwhacker *cough*) after getting your two tokens.
On the subject of making fat tokens, I reckon Gelatinous Genesis is often going to be better than casting an eldrazi in most of the green ramp-style decks that are showing up. I saw it make 13 13/13s at the prerelease (due to an awakening zone - another card which I could see in the deck!).
Splinter Twin + Mnemonic Wall is an especially good one. I like it! And I agree that red is missing anything splashy. I'm also afraid to sink 6-9 mana into a card that dies to a single removal spell. That's a lot of tempo loss, even in casual. With the Dragonlord you could lose both turns 2 and 3 or turns 3+4 to a single Lightning Bolt.
All Is Dust - yeah, I don't get it. When Avoid Fate (a pet card of mine) becomes available for 7 mana, who cares. Time Warp for 15 mana is no big deal either. The colorless hybrids from Eventide were all fine because their pure colorless cost was overcosted. But Nevinyrral's Disk for just 7 made me sit up straight in my chair. Blue, black, and modern white still can't destroy artifacts, but Grixis can now destroy enchantments. And green and blue getting pretty good creature sweepers is shocking. Sacrifice effects get around both regeneration (WoG -> DoJ) and indestructibility. I know I'm just repeating you. That's how surprised I am.
Great article there Erman. Ive been tinkering with the ideas of building a G/R eldrazi ramp deck for a few days now though without prices yet its hard to guess what exactly to add. On a sidenote, I dont think the CHK block lands did that, but i do know that the Uzras lands did...at least the plains do anyways
Sharp eyes! I think you're right. He didn't even throw in a standard demonic pentagram - he went all Jewish with his naked dwarf art.
Alt arts started with Homelands. The links you provided show the alliances connected art.
i know alliances had all the cards with multiple artwork..i dont know about the connected ones. though the earliest i remember was some angel maybe and paralyze...no idea what sets though
Hmmm I remember it being alliances that had the connected art works. I don't recall iceage having that and I was somewhat more Vorthos about my cards back then. Perhaps a link will serve to jog our memories?
=Edit=
Ok missed Shard's links...now that I see it I remember those lands more clearly. For some reason I had them as Mirage in my mind.
I like Baga's art in general. Stoic Angel is amazing. And anything with hands is always cool. But that's probably mostly why I have such a hard time with RU. It just looks funny to me.
Thanks for the comments.
@Shard: Great find! I always enjoyed Magic art and these links are very valuable to me. Thanks man.
@JustSin: Thankfully the Eldrazi bosses cannot be reanimated but you are right about the rest. I'm sure WotC is also aware of it. Not only reanimation but Oath decks also might find a use for some of those Eldrazi titans. And how will they effect those formats? I have no idea but I hope that the masters of those formats would write a few articles here and talk about their impact for Classic and Legacy.
A sidenote: Iona, Shiled of Emeria sees a lot play in Oath decks and I still think that she's more devastating than the Eldrazi. Shutting down a whole color? That's crazy if you think about it.
@ArchGenius: So your opponent will get into all that trouble and will summon an Eldrazi titan and you will steal it, attack with it and make him sacrifice everything he got with his own Eldrazi?! Man you're cruel :)).
Oh and you're definately right about Momentous Fall of course.
@Leviathan: I'm a big admirer of Volkan Baga's art and now that you say you don't like his work, you automatically found yourself on top of my blocked list:). Just kidding of course. Check this link:
http://puremtgo.com/articles/rogue-play-special-edition-interview-volkan...
That's an interview I did with Mr. Baga last summer. Maybe that will change your mind.
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
Fun article.
Am I the only one that doesn't like the art on Realms Uncharted? I get the reference to Gifts Ungiven, but the elf lady depicted in RU looks like an awkwardly positioned dude. I think the main difference between the two is that RU has a little too much detail making the deficiencies stick out more in my mind, while GU is just a little bit impressionistic and smoother. But I'm not an art major or anything, so what do I know.
In retrospective is was probably a miss play,but at the moment having seen that he didnt want to ramp to 4 mana I thought he didnt have anything besides removel and later drops,so I guessed I coult trade there and have time to draw other stuff instead of having a 2/1 killed by removal and a big drop that I needed to kill with magma rift and halt my board development.
Great article, I agree with your analysis of green and colorless, however I believe Momentous Fall at least deserves a mention. I think it will see some play with Vengvine and possibly Adventuring Gear.
As for red, I think Kiln Fiend and Conqueroring Manticore will see some play. Kiln Fiend will often hit for more damage than Plated Geopede, especially in pauper, and Conqueroring Manticore seems like an ideal anti-eldrazi strategy. (okay, maybe not for Emrakul) I can see a steal and sacrifice deck with the Manticore combined with Pawn of Ulamog, Bloodghast, and Bloodthrowne Vampire. I think the Manticore is probably a bit too slow right now for standard, but after Alara rotates out and the format becomes all about the Eldrazi, then we might see it.
Also, I'm thinking that since the next set is Scars of Mirrodin, with Mirrodin being the artifact plane, it will most likely have a reasonable number of playable colorless artifacts which will make All is Dust and Emrakul slightly less devastating, at least in the future standard.
My apologies if these thoughts were already written by someone else. I glossed over some of the discussion about rudeness and may have missed some of the more precise information.
As far as keeping matches flowing in a timely manner, if would be pointless for WOTC to restrict the number of events a user can enter at the same time. Such restrictions would still not prevent a user from being slow while they played online poker, downloaded adult entertainment, or stepped outside for a smoke.
Such rules would do nothing to stop players from playing under multiple user names. Yes, this is against the rules, but I can't help but beleive it happens.
What might helped keep matches flowing in a timely manner would be a "action clock". Think of it as a shot clock from basketball. A basketball game has both a game clock and a shot clock. Magic Online players could have a action clock and the game clock. The action clock would only allows players so much time before the game moved onto the next action. Actions usually being marked by an "okay button" or similar. A palyers game clock would continue to run while the action clock runs, thus keeping the existing game time rules while adding the action clock.
Having an action clock rather than a turn clock or phase clock wouldn't penalize someone for playing action-heavy decks such as Storm. Each action would have the same time allowed. A turn clock or phase clock would cause problems with such action heavy decks.
An obvious problem with an action clock would be how the game moves forward when a player runs out of time during an action involving a choice? Should the program make a random choice? Or should the player be penalized time on their game clock? I don't know, because I haven't given it enough serious thought, and I don't expect to.
what's wrong with obv? ofc dunkle_stille can post what he wants, no?
i think it's due to the fact that they were nuts in extended and now with ptqs gone they are relegating to serving their duties in standard - aka employed only by the dwindling appearance of naya, with some mythic action
what's up in rd1g1, swampwalking 2/1 trading with arbor elf?!
That is actually quite nice, I kept thinking of the green lands from kamigawa which i knew didnt match but john avon mountains....very nice.
I found this very interesting given the topic
http://www.angelfire.com/va/planeswlk/multicrd.html
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=111917&page=2
great article as always, right or wrong I still love reading the insights and seeing others points of view
now in std Eldrazi may come out as early as turn 5, but you bump that up to Legacy/Classic/Vintage and these guys will be out turn 4 at the latest... 4x Cloudpost alone is enough mana and Cloudpost + Amulet of Vigor makes it even easier.. I'm going to be one of those cranky people I always hated who complained when a new set came out because I'm not a fan of the Eldrazi, since the beginning of Magic we've had draw backs to counter power on a card, but the "draw back" here is high casting cost, which isn't really a draw back at all... reanimator decks will still get these out on turn 1 or 2 in Legacy, prism decks will have them out fast, between Cloudpost, Vesuva, and the Uzra's lands not to mention the new lands and mana ramp spells these guys will be out fast and I'm guessing a lot of the time that Annihilator ability is going to be blowing up lands left and right, if you don't have a kill you'll be hit at least once by it and unless u have more then 4 permanents for some of these guys you're going to lose lands.. all of a sudden every game will be facing LD and while I'm still deciding over "allies as bad as slivers?" I know that Eldrazi tribal is not going to be something I want to play against
glad to see someone put together an article like this, I had one submitted tho asked it be pulled back because doubles would be silly.. I had added all decks to my chart, but I think you're right in leaving some out to give a clearer showing, but perhaps listing the other decks that didn't make the chart would be a nice add
its interesting to see a difference in some of the categorizations, you get a lot of that tho when there are so many possibilities in card choice
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Shard: I'm checking frequently the paper prices and the Eldrazi ones seems acceptable so far. That white planeswalker Gideon is a bit hyped right now, so he's very expensive. The Eldrazi are still high but less than I imagined; especially All is Dust and Emrakul (they both are around $15 each). Surely these are not prices for budget players but I wasen't expecting them to be.
I just checked the CHK basic lands and they indeed are one big picture. Check this one out: http://images.boardgamegeek.com/images/pic430401_lg.jpg.
@Katastrophe: Agree with everything.
@StealthBadger: Devastating Summons... hmmm... I don't know, I need to test it. The additional casting cost might fire back in some situations. Especially if you get too greedy. It definately needs testing.
@Kalandine: If you say so :).
Thanks again for the comments.
LE
He probably didnt realize that he could play it on my own creatures or maybe just thought about the evasion part. It was clearly a mistake that gave me the game since my only out would be a burst lightning after.
The first instance of connected lands to form a single picture is the Christopher Rush Plains from Ice Age. All four connect to form a single picture, but I think Chris did this by his choice rather than a request from WotC.
Back when WotC had the caravan tours, Chris showed a print of the original art.
I'm wondering why he would kick a rite of replication on his welkin tern? I assume you must have had more than 2 cards in hand, but even so, why not kick the blademasters?
Its nice to get some positive feed back. I actually didnt face any jund charms currently. I thought they were somehow old news but it makes sense in the current meta do fight back Open the Vaults and Im surprised people didnt sleeve them in the side more agressively. I find that mono black list interesting. It doesnt rely so much on unhearthing and combing out but more on dmg and consume spirit does it perfectly.
i played this deck before wwk came out and eventually was losing more than i won in the 8-mans, but i gave it a go and went 4-0 yesterday, all the jund decks i faced had charm in the board and maindeck ruinblasters but i did beat all 3 of them 2-1.
Nice article!
I'm surprised you didn't mention Devastating Summons though. I definitely see it as a sleeper, and expect it to show up in red aggro and boros. Remember, you can float mana from from the lands you're about to sacrifice, then use them to play something (*cough* goblin bushwhacker *cough*) after getting your two tokens.
On the subject of making fat tokens, I reckon Gelatinous Genesis is often going to be better than casting an eldrazi in most of the green ramp-style decks that are showing up. I saw it make 13 13/13s at the prerelease (due to an awakening zone - another card which I could see in the deck!).
Splinter Twin + Mnemonic Wall is an especially good one. I like it! And I agree that red is missing anything splashy. I'm also afraid to sink 6-9 mana into a card that dies to a single removal spell. That's a lot of tempo loss, even in casual. With the Dragonlord you could lose both turns 2 and 3 or turns 3+4 to a single Lightning Bolt.
All Is Dust - yeah, I don't get it. When Avoid Fate (a pet card of mine) becomes available for 7 mana, who cares. Time Warp for 15 mana is no big deal either. The colorless hybrids from Eventide were all fine because their pure colorless cost was overcosted. But Nevinyrral's Disk for just 7 made me sit up straight in my chair. Blue, black, and modern white still can't destroy artifacts, but Grixis can now destroy enchantments. And green and blue getting pretty good creature sweepers is shocking. Sacrifice effects get around both regeneration (WoG -> DoJ) and indestructibility. I know I'm just repeating you. That's how surprised I am.
Great article there Erman. Ive been tinkering with the ideas of building a G/R eldrazi ramp deck for a few days now though without prices yet its hard to guess what exactly to add. On a sidenote, I dont think the CHK block lands did that, but i do know that the Uzras lands did...at least the plains do anyways