Magic: The Gathering C/D

Draft the set, that is. Maybe not the same deck

didn't sign up for the local drafts in time, gonna draft it on magic online whenever it's out on there (probably next week?)

it's friday. i am starting to get a cold already. maybe the flu. something at any rate.

I went 11-4 at gp columbus this weekend but finished out of t64 on breakers. woulda liked to do a little bit better but I do have my first pro points.

still haven't touched eternal masters but it does look like a good limited set.

not bad! you still playing the recruiter taxes deck?

yep. in prague someone ended up one misplay away from t8'ing with it http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/430202#paper

it's a very strong list, vial + imperial recruiter is super broken in a format where card advantage is hard to come by and mana is super tight

Hope you're feeling better, Roberto! xp

thx, have a feeling i'll be fine by friday evening

so this new set looks uh...pretty nutso thus far. everything's turning into an Eldrazi. plus they're finally doing a merge mechanic where two specific creatures become one super-creature.

there's 3 things i'm particularly tired of right now: 1) eldrazi 2) multicolor sets 3) sequel sets throwing so much of their weight into callbacks e.g. second iterations of legendary creatures

we've been getting a lot of 1 and 3 lately so my engagement level is low. this set looks fine, i'll play it, but nothing's gotten me too excited yet.

my favorite card so far is the G 1/1 deathtouch with delirium +2/+2. curious to see how many formats it cracks

seems like just the word eldrazi is making ppl check out right now but i do like how they seem to be using them in the context of innistrad from what we have seen so far.

also, i can't imagine we will see back to back return sets again any time soon. i get the impression there is the feeling that a successful return requires both recapturing the milieu and also the experience of the earlier set and imo if they are really going 50/50 with new and old planes they need to question the wisdom of that or it will stale the return sets. varying the approach will keep things feeling fresher.

ok another new one i like a lot:
http://media.wizards.com/2016/ouhtebrpjwxcnw5_EMN/en_D0gaFPhvFg.png

the fall set is Kaladesh the steampunk india plane from all the origins thopter cards, so that should be a nice respite from eldrazi for a bit. maro's been talking it up as his best design since original innistrad which uh...he said similar things about theros and that one ended up being just okay so we'll see

The Eldrazi reveal caught me by surprise but only because I only know about the story vaguely. felt like I was the only one on my FB feed surprised. if it was just Emrakul that'd be one thing, but based on Meld and Emerge, it seems there's gonna be a sizeable amount of Eldrazi here. if Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, and Displacer hadn't invaded every freaking format in the game in the last year, I would be more excited. SOI is also my favorite draft format probably since original Innistrad so I hope that Eldrazi don't ruin the good INN vibes

yeah that's a cool card Cider xp

i do like that there are only 3 meld cards, that's a level of restraint we don't always see from them with wacky new things

oh i also like the curious homunculus, that's a card that seems like it should be good enough for standard with an outside shot at bigger formats

did they change the Legendary rule for Ulrich? or can you have one side flipped and one unflipped?

http://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/docentofperfection.html

I love that Delver has become a whole storyline. This is a part of MTG design that I absolutely love.

yes you can have one of each side in play, this is already happening in standard with Avacyn

oh yeah forgot that one was legendary. that's kinda dumb. there should just be a rule that says "both sides of a legendary card can't be in play at the same time".

the overall cost on this card is too conservative for it to actually be good but it is definitely sweet

http://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/soulseparator.jpg

man I really liked that card until I saw that you had to sac it

wait on second thought that would be totally broken as a repeatable effect

clearly, this is going to be the best card in the set:

http://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/harmlessoffering.html

cool, can't wait to get a red Time Walk next

but seriously, it'll be interesting to see if pure 2-card combo can make it back to Standard

handing your opponent various pacts seems fun

murder at uncommon. black uncommon kill anything in SOI is just sinister concoction, right?

right, murder is standard-relevant, there's nothing more efficient already

my attitude with spoilers lately has shifted from "yay, new cards!" to "oh no, it's going to suck to have to play against this". Not sure that's a healthy attitude.

I am happy about good black removal and the possibility that vampires or werewolves might become standard-playable with this new set. The Eldrazi werewolves are a pretty neat idea. Merge seems kind of weird and clunky though.

I don't see anything that's likely to be obnoxiously omnipresent yet

the only time vampires was a good constructed deck was because of Kalastria Highborn and i still don't see any card on that level. bloodhall priest is great but you need something lower on the curve that's really powerful and right now we just have lots of cards that aren't quite there

http://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/eldritchevolution.jpg
they're really poking the bear with this one, natural order does not seem like an effect that scales down safely

re: vampires, it's just disappointing to me that in a set with these great horror creature types and cool mechanics, the one tribal deck to succeed is humans. I think that's a really boring choice for wizards to push.

xp yeah i was wondering about that. there is definitely power there in combination with other acceleration. t3 gurmag angler t4 iona or inkwell leviathian or s/thing. and chaining a couple could be nuts. idk, doesn't quite seem broken tho.

there are a whole host of creatures with come into play abilities that this would be very good with. agree that it seems dangerous but I can't think of anything offhand that would break it (someone will figure it out soon, I'm sure). seems pretty sick with Kitchen Finks at least

it's another tutor option for assembling the creature combos in modern (melira or kiki-jiki), at the least

xp this happened last time around with the first innistrad block as well, humans were the strongest tribe for most of standard, though zombies ended up being good for a bit too

it's pretty much the same card that did it both times too, Champion of the Parish and now Thalia's Lieutenant

The combo of tutor + ramp... I guess no card is guaranteed play without the right home, but this seems destined to get played a lot. Not even a green creature restriction like Natural Order has!

new tamiyo http://s3.gatheringmagic.com/uploads/2016/07/01/EH_1.jpg

main abilities are good, omniscience + draw 3 not too shabby as ultimates go

potential gross addition to bant humans

that's pretty underwhelming for a 3 color planeswalker, especially since all the abilities are in blue's color pie so it didn't need to be more colors

bant humans doesn't have many non-creature slots available really though yeah that is the only deck it works in. could see it showing up as a 1-2 of

oh i missed that you can use the +1 on your opponents creatures that helps make it less bad when you're behind since it's still a draw 2 + soak some damage

that is a good point, they really didn't do anything at all mechanically to justify the change from u to wug

well 'draw a card on combat damage' is more of a green thing, blue gets draw a card on damage to opponent only. but there's no white ability for sure

(me, looking at spoilers for the new set): this one has grown old and bitter

yeah I hate eldrazi decks so much that I actually hope they don't print good cards