Magic: The Gathering C/D

Siege Rhino looks pretty damn legit

the 4B delve removal seems potentially modern/legacy playable

yeah those were the 2 cards that jumped out at me today. given how removal has been shifting, a kindasorta doom blade at uncommon is not too shabby.

i think that card's too unreliable to see modern/legacy play in a world where go for the throat and doom blade no longer show up

it's a good card nonetheless

I feel like an esper control deck in modern could def play it

common lands, uncommon lands, rare land *and* cluestones
jeez

probably best to overcompensate, full-block RTR had lots of mana fixing but sometimes you'd get a 5-color drafter next to you and wouldn't pick up much, and the result would be miserable

shards of alara had the uncommon lands, obelisks, and a 5-cycle of common lands that kind of sucked, and the fixing in that format wasn't quite good enough, so switching the common lands to a 10-cycle of good ones should hopefully get it there

also this set isn't going to be as heavily multicolor, though you wouldnt know it from the cards they've previewed since the multicolor stuff is mostly at rare

Less than half as many multicolor cards as RTR, I saw somewhere.

it was half as many per pack, not necessarily by overall count. meaning there wont be many at common

that makes sense

I am having cluestone-related war flashbacks to dgm, I guess in a large set you probably won't open 5 in a pack

these do seem worse (pretty hard to crack) than the cluestones, which already weren't very good (in a slow format that could accommodate them)

you'll probably get some packs with 4 common mana fixers but most of them will be the lands which are significantly better

for what its worth i think this format is likely to be slower than RTR block, morph means that your turn 3 play is often going to be a plain 2/2, which doesn't really push the tempo of games much compared to the likes of splatter thug or beetleform mage or whatever

yeah that's a good point, a morph creature will often eat up two turns also

card idea: 1WB banishing light style card, deals 2(?) damage to you each turn, when cast you can search library for another copy

http://mythicspoiler.com/ktk/cards/digthroughtime.html

this seems like it'll find a home somewhere..?

yeah that card's fine in dedicated control decks

here's the set http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/ktk-cig-en

limited looks fun, constructed looks pretty low-key to the point where i have no idea what's even good

the Blue Elk is doing my head in

i love Blue Elk

doesn't seem like a ton of ways at common to get cards into the yard for for delve

early observation: there is a lot more toughness than power on low rarity creatures. this is usually the sign of a slow format. theros broke this trend but only because its mechanics let you go over the top of 4-5 toughness creatures in the midgame; i'm not seeing as many tools to do that in this set. it seems like it shouldn't be difficult to stall the game out while you delve or outlast your way into a winning position. i can't figure out what a winning mardu or temur deck looks like, but the existence of two 6-power green commons and 3 cards that spew out 1/1 tokens is probably related to this.

with RTR block and M14 rotating out, this is the first time that I have a bunch of of cards that are staples in non-Standard formats including shocklands, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, and Mutavault. Is it worthwhile holding on to these or should I be trading them as soon as possible?

I think Abrupts will only go up, and Mutavault feels like a good bet to stay at $25+, people were playing them in Modern a lot before IIRC. Dunno about Deathrite, being banned kinda caps its value doesn't it?

still gets lots of Legacy play

those 3 cards are playable in every format they're legal in, hold them all if you have any interest in modern/eternal magic

got coerced into doing the midnight prerelease again. i'm playing sultai because cost-reduction mechanics have always been broken in the past and i don't see why that should change now. people already talking about playing treasure cruise in legacy.

ars arcanum is up and the guy hits the same conclusions as i got from eyeballing the spoiler more or less - slower format than recent blocks, 18 lands probably optimal due to a logjam of 5cmc costs because so many of the morphs unmorph for 5, choose to play first despite slow format because morph initiative is super important, highly value 2cmc cards that trade with morphs and 3cmc 2/3s, banners suck because you want to play a morph on 3.

tl;dr basically morph is a really format-warping mechanic for limited and most of your macro-level decisions should be informed by its existence.

i think whoever gets to 5 mana first in this format is heavily advantaged, and it's going to be difficult to win at all if you don't get there within a turn cycle of your opponent

it definitely occured to me that a banner may not be an ideal Turn 3 play

i think banners will be like cluestones in DGR, a bit of over-the-top fixing that most people won't need/want but they'll be available late if you somehow get starved for fixing or if your deck explicitly wants to jump 3 to 5 (i.e. if you have few morphs and several strong 5cmc hardcasts like Bear's Companion or whatever)

Yeah that's a spot on analysis. The Banners are kind of a consolation prize for those who don't pick up good morph creatures. I like that they exist.

I just moved to Vietnam, which doesn't have a Magic scene afaict, so this will be the first block since Invasion that I'll only be watching instead of playing with (I'm rarely in the mood for MTGO).

i think my 5 mana hypothesis holds, i got a bunch of free wins from people who missed their 5th land drop for a turn or 2.

this feels like the most turn-management-based format since ROE, i found that i often had so many lines of play each turn that i was unintentionally stalling the game trying to figure out what was best. lots of unintentional draws at my prerelase so it wasn't just me either.

i went 4-1 at my prerelease playing two drops and removal and capitalizing on the # of people that werent playing spells before turn three. i agree with cider i found it hard to sequence my spells correctly and was often unsure of what to prioritize. the one round i lost i could have easily won game three if i had prioritized killing my opponents morph instead of leaving mana up to threaten unmorphing my own creatures. there were also just a lot of situations were i could only get max value out of some subset of my cards (outlast vs. attack for raid as an e.g.) and it made me feel like my games were v skill intensive.

not sure i have any real insights into the format yet except that understanding attacking and blocking into opponents morph creatures seems like the most important thing. i had no problem not hitting my 5th drop and won a couple of games on 4 lands but will admit my deck was probably not typical. also people having approx like 52 of the refuges in their sealed decks made playing aggro kinda irritating

the outlast stuff is really skill intensive. I got a total blowout thanks to a bunch of "all creatures with +1/+1 counters get ______" dudes and an Abzan Charm

well it's the turn management element that's skill intensive, not figuring out the clever card interactions

i played again today and tried just running every refuge/triland in my pool and splashing all the best cards, and it worked out much better, my deck felt way more powerful and the ticks of lifegain do help make up for the loss in tempo from having lands come in tapped.

i ran into 1 person playing 2-drop aggro who seemed to be doing well, but in general once you learn to suck it up and trade off your good morphs for their 2/2s its hard for them to win.

has anyone gotten to raid the 3/3 add RWB guy into the 2/3 + 1/1 yet?

had it happen to me actually

haha no. i did have someone cast that into a free mardu charm though. #value

my raid allstar was the halvetongue kavu unsurprisingly but the 2/1 discard was a lot better than i had anticipated. even nabbing a land would often pay off because peoples hands against me were so often chocked on mana - there are so many effects and spells at 5 and 6 &c

so...standout commons? that 2/1 outlast for 2 and 3/3 reach outlast dude seemed kinda insane together. prowess seems kinda underwhelming and but I plan on forcing it regardless. sultai/slow delve seemed way better than expected but idk if your average draft deck will get as much dedicated delve mechanic stuff as the prerelease decks. the 4/4 apes is a really high pick tho.

I'm a fan of most of the raid cards, I think it is definitely the stongest non-morph mechanic in the set. Had a sweet turn today where I was able to cast Warshrieker > Warshrieker > Hordechief. I also jammed a lot of Ponyback Brigades over the past couple days.

Outlast seems too dependent on taking off turns to grow your guys and getting a critical mass on the board, when it can all be thrown off nicely with a well-timed Bring Low. I suppose it will work better in draft where you can get a more consistent deck.

Cool pickups: 3 fetches, Bloodsoaked Champion (nuts!), Rattleclaw, Sorin, and a random Keranos from a JOU prize pack.

im honestly stumped on best commons other than bond-kin and injury

the 3-color ones are obviuosly powerful for commons but theyre also 3 colors which tempers them a lot

some pretty potent-looking jeskai ascendancy storm lists going around. would be kind of amusing if that card needed a modern ban

i am excited by the idea of a standard combo deck

yeah I noted Prowess's similarity to Storm and figured any pushed card with Prowess might be trouble

the standard lists i've seen have mostly looked flimsy and misbuilt, my friends and i worked on it a bit yesterday but didn't come up with anything too inspiring but i think there's at least a playable combo deck there, on the order of burn at the stake combo or whatever