Magic: The Gathering C/D

i like the modernized city of brass a lot btw, that's an effect that standard really needed.

also lsv wrote this at the end of his column: "I'm excited to see more of Journey into Nyx and am ready to welcome back an old favorite (and very impactful card) in my preview for this column next week!" so now i'm trying to figure out what 'very impactful' reprint they could drop in this set

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http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=10844
http://sales.starcitygames.com/carddisplay.php?product=23564

I have no serious answers

had a really fun experience at a local ptq today - i decided not to play the ptq itself but showed up to do some side drafts and got invited to do some commentating on the top 8 draft and matches which was really enjoyable and exciting

that sounds awesome. anything online??

had a lot of fun at gp philly. met vinnie.

opened a so-so pool u/w w/ decent bestow guys and an ornitharch but my only playable rare was spirit of the labyrinth (which is really clunky in a deck w/ blue draw). my deck was fairly consistent but unexciting and the type of deck that has to be played really tight because your cards aren't going to just win on their own.

lost m1 to a bad (but very nice) player due to a scry mistake / being too lazy to do math
then won my next 4 (vs. two bad players with a lot of bombs, then vs 1 guy who got screwed w/ his draws, and lastly vs my friend from ny who's one of the stronger players here and had a pretty good deck)
then lost a tight match vs a u/g deck due to miscutter hydra one game and the tempo advantage that came w/ the 'put two 3/3 centaurs into play' card g3. I think I played that match really well, just got outdrawn.
dropped at 4-2 because I wasn't going to win 4 in a row and I had a bus ticket home w/ my friend for 730. also I woke up at 4 am and was super exhausted.

vinnie, did your friend end up d2ing?

Yeah my friend did extremely well. Went 8-1 day 1, drafted two solid decks, and ended up playing round 15 for top 8. Unfortunately his opponent (Pierre Mondon) had a bonkers Rakdos deck and my friend didn't have a chance. But he ended up getting $500, couldn't complain.

I had a dream pool and missed day 2. Boon Satyr, Spear of Heliod, Eidelon of Countless Battles, Silent Sentinel, Ornitharch, green Emissary, Raised by Wolves, Archetype of Courage, Ordeal of Heliod, Wingsteed Rider, Leafcrown Dryad, Skyguard, Hopeful Eidelon. My 23rd card was Agent of Horizons. Still confused why I lost. I lost 8 out of 9 die rolls on the day, but I think I was playing my deck too aggressively. I would make a Voltron flyer and trade 5 damage for 5 damage, when really my card quality is so strong, I should've been playing for the long game. A card like Voyage's End would blow me out. Also I had no removal. Think this format isn't good for my playstyle, I need to adapt.

Highlights of weekend were eating at the amazing market across the street and learning the origin of iatee's handle

so, some of these new cards are Interesting huh? 3/4 and 5/5 fliers at 3cmc. inspired gild on a reasonably costed 2/3 stick. an 0/5 sheep. 2 x 3cmc gods. not sure about pharika but athreos seem like a decent enchantment effect that comes down early and had a decent chance to come alive in its particular colors. seems like it could be a big deal in BW aggro.

oh and the 1/3 double strike trample exile & play a card guy. that seems crazy.

yeah way more interesting cards in this set than in born

cider got his riddle reprint

King Midas card is a great topdown card idea though it's weird it doesn't trigger on blocking/blocked by creatures. If you're gonna go the flavor route, why not go all the way?

i'm digging this set so far

that a nice idea w/ the midas having to 'touch' a card to exile it. it also occurred to me that for it to be a curse the exile effect should be mandatory.

Just noticed that new enchantress triggers for itself too, that's a nice boon

Mana Confluence could be a huge card across all formats - I don't see it going below $20

now that riddle of lightning is confirmed, my next more audacious request is for LSV's mystery 'impactful' reprint preview card to be Eternal Witness

The lid is pretty tight this set, huh? Still half the set to go with one week till prerelease. They finally fixed O-Ring!

yeah i'm a fan of the new o-ring and new mesmeric fiend. i also like the dredge spider a lot but i dunno if its good enough for constructed.

this set seems hilariously stronger & more interesting than BNG

Yeah I already like Journey more based on half the set haha. Spider fills a niche that Dredge was missing, a way to repeatedly dump cards in the graveyard, but it's likely too slow.

the arachne card is a neat limited card too, sets up instant speed constellations

oh shit I didn't put it together that Renowned Weaver was Arachne, because it's a non-Legendary common

I dig that they're printing a Sheep

this set seems incredibly strong for a small set even if all the good cards are already spoiled

yeah I'm almost getting a Future Sight vibe from this, a lot of really cool 'build-around' type cards and bizarre effects but nothing that jumps out as overpowered the way Brimaz did (obviously Tarmogoyf was way better than everyone expected, but we didn't see that back then)

not so much future sight as new phyrexia to me

like in the top tier of small sets but future sight was even more than that

though on the flip side mirrodin besieged was a very strong set for standard that bottomed out into a shitty set when it rotated, while NPH kept most of its value and thus looks a lot better of the 2 in retrospect when it really wasn't by much at the time.

yeah NPH probably a better analogy, I wasn't playing a whole lot then so I forgot how wild a lot of that looked. to me the big thing is how Nyx seems like a way to really push the Theros mechanics/flavor to its wildest and I'm starting to get the feeling that a lot of the more interesting cards in Born may have gotten pushed off to this set. Also all of the artwork is gorgeous so far - Theros block has got to have the best art of any Magic block (IMHO of course)

I wonder if they push off some of the crazier, stronger cards for set 3 to minimize the amount of time they're in Standard in case there's a mistake? It always seems like they do the weirdest, most potentially broken stuff in set 3. I guess BNG cards will be Standard-legal for 19 months and JOU cards for 16 months so not much difference really

i don't think so, though they'll sometimes put something that's really strong with the previous year's block in the core set so that you get 3 months of that interaction e.g. infect with rancor

so it looks like ral zarek is going to be a card in 'conspiracy' and has been partially spoiled

DACK FAYDEN yeahh

I wonder if they push off some of the crazier, stronger cards for set 3 to minimize the amount of time they're in Standard in case there's a mistake? It always seems like they do the weirdest, most potentially broken stuff in set 3. I guess BNG cards will be Standard-legal for 19 months and JOU cards for 16 months so not much difference really

I think they've publically stated that they do this and it seems like they've been doing it ever since Apocalypse. I can see why they'd want to minimize the amount of time something like Phyrexian mana was in Standard

his first ability is almost certainly faithless looting based on that partial image

Brain Maggot wins the award for most disgusting card that references both Funkadelic and Wrath of Khan

new Enchantress is gonna be awesome, especially in conjunction with the new O-ring

haha DACK FAYDEN yes jeez im an idiot. here is the partially spoiled card

current odds seem to be:

+ 1 faithless looting
- 2 gain control of target artifact
- 6 standstill emblem

but only the first two seem reasonably hammered out. i like these because they all correspond to cards that have been released as idw promos

i've been avoiding JOU spoilers because i like playing the prerelease with as little foreknowledge as possible but this conspiracy stuff is so much more interesting to me - i love that wotc is spending all this time seeding dummy twitter accounts with encrypted spoilers. but im kinda bummed that im going to be working overseas all summer and probably wont get to do any paper drafts of it.

i'm getting the sense that Conspiracy won't be done on MTGO so you may be out of luck

yeah, it would make sense that conspiracy is a paper-only thing since it roughly coincides with vintage masters, which is mtgo-only

The casting cost and loyalty on Dack are the most intriguing to me. Will be interesting to see how far they will push a Planeswalker that isn't Modern/Standard legal

had an idea for a card while i was waiting for lunch:

creature - ooze
0/1

indestructible

CARDNAME must block if able.

if CARDNAME blocks or becomes blocked, CARDNAME becomes a copy of one creature blocking or blocked by it. it gains this ability and is indestructible.

interesting? already done? cost? feels simic-y

oh and the initial 1 T is so it can be dealt with and to keep the casting cost down, but i might've overthought that

i don't think that's been done but Serene Master has essentially the same functionality with a completely different rules text

i think its an interesting card but the mechanics dont quite match the flavor, oozes always have to 'eat' the creature who's abilities they are copying, although exiling the card blocking or blocked by makes the cards really powerful. cards that just copy w/o exiling are usually shapeshifter/wizards i think?

seems like a good way to prevent your opponent from ever attacking you in Limited, at least

an idea I had floating around for a while was a Gifts Ungiven type thing - something like

[something] 3G Sorcery
Search your library for 3 creature cards with different names. An opponent chooses one and puts it into play under their control. Put the other two into play under your control.

If Brain Maggot is destroyed, does the card it exiled go back to its owner's hand or somewhere else? Do exiled cards when un-exiled always return to where they last were in the game?

yeah it goes back to their hand

yeah, if a card is exiled from the battlefield e.g. with banisher priest, it returns to the battlefield. one thing i've never actually understood is why the wondering on fiend hunter (or mesmiric fiend) allows for you to permanently exile a card but the 'fixed' versions banisher priest and now brain maggot do not. i vaguely have assumed its because in the older cases the trigger happens 'when' but they changed it too 'until'? but dont really understand the rules minutia that govern these things

wondering = wording in the above jeez

frogbs' card seems like a one card win combo once the right 3 creatures are discovered

yeah i was gonna say, you can get 2 game-winning creatures and a big game hunter or whatever, and it's essentially a natural order without the sacrifice cost

maybe they get 2 you get 1