Magic: The Gathering C/D

like if Gruul's mechanic in Gatecrash was just Channel, but every Channel card did the same thing, that would feel a bit odd wouldn't it?

jeez tactics is a blowout. instant speed at that.

There's a careful balance they've struck with keyword mechanics; too few and people complain that there's nothing new even if there are unkeyworded mechanics (Mercadian Masques); too many and people get confused (Time Spiral). I don't think they're gonna let up having 2-3 new keyword mechanics per set anytime soon.

every block from alara through innistrad had 6 or 7 keyword mechanics, which i think is the sweet spot for the most part. 3 in the large set, 1 or 2 in each small set. RTR block had 11 and THS block has 9, so we're on the heaviest end of the spectrum right now.

this seems breakable, if not now, someday

New Ajani gets you 3/5 of the way there!

shimmering wings hardlocks the game with it if you have enough mana (you don't)

Is black aggro a deck now that there's a third 2-power 1-drop?

black aggro was already good enough with 8 1-drops, this guy just lets you go lower curve if you want to

also is straight up better than cackler even if you dont want to go to 12 1s

http://puu.sh/81Fi8.jpg

this seems breakable, if not now, someday

I'm not so sure about that - all the recursive Timewalk things like Walk the Aeons and Time Sieve have not been broken either and this seems much harder than either of them, you have to target it with 5 seperate spells to get your extra turn which seems incredibly difficult. Feels like a $1 mythic to me.

you don't need to target it with 5 spells, though that is a way to do it, you just need a regular way to get lots of +1/+1 counters on it

lol I hadn't even considered that, just shows you how linear my brain can be when it comes to Magic cards - still feels difficult considering that nearly all the +1/+1 spells are in Green and White. now that you mention it I guess it does seem like there could exist a card that totally breaks it (maybe as part of a big dumb Necrotic Ooze combo)

i think sage of hours is exciting and might find its way into standard

yeah even w/i standard you have all the evolve stuff and all the scavenge stuff

master biomancer, corpsejack menace, etc

vorel too

there's always all sorts of feedback mechanisms like these waiting in the wings in standard and occasionally you hit some critical mass of them that coalesce into a weird deck. most recent example is the burn at the stake combo deck from last year but sometimes the deck is better than that.

another fun one that never quite made it was the surge node/unwinding clock prison deck from the tail end of zendikar/scars standard

yeah sage of hours seems intended to work w/ the simic cards from gatecrash - zameck guildmage, biomancer, bioshift, there are probably a bunch of others - but i was trying to think of a really efficient engine like simic guildmage and couldnt think of one.

valrolz too

i think the golgari cards are probably wrong for the deck, but i am terrible at building these kind of decks so maybe not

deadbridge goliath is maybe a consideration

golgari cards are a faster way to get large amounts of counters on one creature than simic cards, for the most part

exceptions being biomancer and vorel

Krasis Incubation is 2-card combo with Sage, but again, soooo much mana

Could see some sort of weird enchantment engine deck with Sage, Oath of the Ancient Wood and the new Enchantress too.

Anyway - the Bestows with downside seem interesting, though it's hard to imagine anyone actually using them on an opponent's creature outside of some fringe situation (you DO get the dude when it "falls off", correct?)

Dakra Mystic is the most intriguing card to me so far. I can think of lots of goofy graveyard-abusing combo decks that would love a guy like that.

Saytr Hoplite at common seems pretty big. I think it could push R/W aggro quite a bit, given that there will be less Skyguards and Wingsteeds going around.

yeah dakra mystic seems super strong in limited at least

the pyrostatic pillar hatebear seems pretty strong, i don't know how you beat red aggro if they play that turn 2 on the play

duh infinite turns

Kruphix’s Insight 2G
Sorcery
Common

Reveal the top six cards of your library. Put up to three enchantment cards from among them into your hand and the rest of the revealed cards into your graveyard.

i don't know how the 1 extra mana is vs the existing 2 mana options but it seems like that reanimation block deck could be going nuts. and for standard this is interesting following right on the heels of sage of hours and the scavenge interaction.

also, does it not seem super weird that the 2BB removal spell w/ strive is exile instead of destroy?

why is it weird? they do exile on removal spells like that sometimes for constructed where there's a lot more things that don't die easily. we had Sever the Bloodline for this effect last year.

I think they're okay with Black getting the exile effect especially now that the difference between destroy and exile is a bit more pronounced. Kruphix's Insight seems obviously pushed though I question if there are enough good enchantment creatures to make it playable.

For Silence The Belivers, if I target one creature that is enchanted with a Bestow card, does that cost 2BB or 4BBB to exile both cards?

2bb

i dunno, it just feels like it should be destroy. even the artwork looks that way.

xpost

that's potentially a pretty big blow out, don't know why there are so many complaints out on the web that this is overpriced

it might have just been exile to avoid confusion w/r/t bestow creatures coming back

also kills gods

yeah clearly there needs to be answers to indestructible creatures or creatures with big death triggers, I like black getting exile like this. furthermore I'm also very glad they finally seem committed to removing the "nonblack" restriction on a lot of black kill spells (outside of Doom Blade I guess)

fyi time spiral drafts are up this week. it's one of the best limited formats ever if you can get past the absurd complexity level, and is my personal favorite so i highly recommend it. there's a few BS cards in the small sets so 3x time spiral would be even better, but full block is still fun and the range of decks you can get is unmatched by any other format (though innistrad came close)

yeah I am tempted tho this weekend is probably gonna be defined by me waking up at 4 am to go to gp philly

any guides/strategy to it?

i dont really have that many strategy tips for it. if you've played modern masters you've seen a bunch of the good cards already - the suspend creatures are really strong, empty the warrens wins are achievable, there's a thallid deck, etc.

oh yeah the rebels deck from modern masters is from this set too

Hey I'll be at Philly this weekend too. Lemme know if you want to meet up iatee, I still have not met any ilxors irl and should remedy that

my strategy in tpf: savagely moneydraft

TSP block is so nuts. Suspenders are indeed good (especially Errant Ephemron or whatever it was), there's a zillion different decks to make. It's more similar to Cube draft than it is a 'regular' draft format. Mostly I remember how incredibly broken (and time consuming) Sprout Swarm was...outside of Pestilence and Sparksmith it may be the most busted limited common ever.

xp theres not much to moneydraft in the first 2 packs though, but yeah future sight is loaded

a lot of the high pick commons from the first pack made it into modern masters it looks like, a few that didn't are: strangling soot (probably best common), temporal isolation, looter il-kor, fathom seer, the rest of the suspend creatures, crookclaw transmuter, & the black thallid i forget its name

once you're past the first pack i feel like things get more obvious, and again a lot of the better commons you'll recognize from MMA, but just know that a) Shaper Parasite in pack 2 is really strong and b) Sprout Swarm in pack 3 is actually broken and almost ruins the format, it's like a common pack rat, so hate draft them out if you're not green and don't have a strong on-color pick

Ephemeron still my favorite TS common by far, but Soot was quite good. I had a lot of success with blue in general in TS block draft. There's a couple crappy discard spells you should consider picking up late to side in against Sprout Swarm.