that whole legendary creature cycle is going straight into my cube, they're all fantastic
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 02:33 (seven years ago) link
anyone else gonna be at gp louisville?
― iatee, Friday, 6 January 2017 02:40 (seven years ago) link
Man I love that 3/4 green elephant for G. I get nostalgic for Rogue Elephant every time they print a 3 power creature for G, but this one actually seems good. I love that you can beat down or do some energy shenanigans, with some restrictions (I know you can't go above 2 energy with it)
― Vinnie, Friday, 6 January 2017 07:01 (seven years ago) link
full set is up: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/aether-revolt
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 15:55 (seven years ago) link
man, that was fast
― frogbs, Friday, 6 January 2017 15:57 (seven years ago) link
"Caught in the Brights", looooool
― frogbs, Friday, 6 January 2017 15:58 (seven years ago) link
http://media.wizards.com/2016/c1lRLirbrl_AER/en_50506d5iUZ.pngthis guy can one-shot people if you have a wandering fumarole
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:23 (seven years ago) link
whoa, that is a strange ability to put on a card
― frogbs, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:24 (seven years ago) link
interesting! am i crazy to think this is one of the best build arounds we have seen for a while:http://media.wizards.com/2016/c1lRLirbrl_AER/en_T6xS2dXGa4.png
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:37 (seven years ago) link
did you miss the part where you sac it? i wouldn't call it a build-around, it's more of a niche tool for black energy & revolt decks.
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:43 (seven years ago) link
oh lol. i knew something didn't add up. that would be ridiculous.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:53 (seven years ago) link
red and black look like the best colors to me on first pass. the red common 2-drop is insane and could end up being a higher pick than the (quite good) removal spells since it's the only one and thus an important bottleneck.
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 17:57 (seven years ago) link
omg @ saheeli rai + felidar guardian
standard splinter twin is back baby
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:08 (seven years ago) link
lol amazing
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:11 (seven years ago) link
that is a legitimately good combo for standard, theres tutors for both halves and she even helps find the felidar
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:18 (seven years ago) link
haha i got as far as felidar guardian in the card image gallery and was like ....
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Friday, 6 January 2017 18:19 (seven years ago) link
its also on-color with reflector mage which gets re-triggered by both halves of the combo to buy you forever time
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:25 (seven years ago) link
i like how it's doable in limited this time too
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:31 (seven years ago) link
yeah. will probably work on this for standard & see if i can make it competitive. surprised by the # of strong non-creature effects in aether revolt. was already obv excited to test for prague/dublin but am really hopefully this limited/std ends up being interesting
― ( ^_^) (Lamp), Friday, 6 January 2017 18:34 (seven years ago) link
looks like some strong cards for green aggro in constructed. no idea how easy it will be to get revolt early in standard, presumably not that trivial?
was confused at first by the junky looking do-nothing uncommon artifact that brings along a servo for 2 generic but i guess it's there for turbo improvise. still, essentially strictly worse than the white puzzleknot. improvise makes servo expedition seem less lame too i guess.
a few ways to make vehicles creatures outside of crewing. most pretty ropey admittedly but might force reevaluation of some of the huge garbage vehicles out of KLD.
― Roberto Spiralli, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:38 (seven years ago) link
you can make the 1 mana 7/11 vehicle into a 10/11 first strike on turn 3 with the red aura. seems pretty janky outside of limited though
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:52 (seven years ago) link
revolt seems kinda tricky to turn on in standard, like that G deathtouch guy is pretty strictly a plant for modern zoo type decks
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 January 2017 18:58 (seven years ago) link
Greenwheel Liberator seems like it could see Modern play too. it's better than Goyf in the early turns
I thought I'd spec on Saheeli but I'm too late. it's already up to around 8 tix
― Vinnie, Saturday, 7 January 2017 09:36 (seven years ago) link
yeah way too late, it's spiked pretty hard. i'm trying to identify other new interactions that could be good in standard but there's nothing anywhere near as in-your-face as that one
― ciderpress, Saturday, 7 January 2017 17:30 (seven years ago) link
So...
Announcement Date: January 9, 2017Effective Date: January 20, 2017Magic Online Effective Date: January 11, 2017Standard:Emrakul, the Promised End is banned.Smuggler's Copter is banned.Reflector Mage is banned.Modern:Gitaxian Probe is banned.Golgari Grave-Troll is banned.
Effective Date: January 20, 2017
Magic Online Effective Date: January 11, 2017
Standard:
Emrakul, the Promised End is banned.
Smuggler's Copter is banned.
Reflector Mage is banned.
Modern:
Gitaxian Probe is banned.
Golgari Grave-Troll is banned.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Monday, 9 January 2017 19:30 (seven years ago) link
Definitely have mixed feelings about these. Emrakul was a pain to play against, and I'm glad I sold every copy I opened. Still think Marvel would have made more sense to ban instead. I'm bummed about Copter as I've played a bunch of different decks since Kaladesh and all of them had Copter. Of course, that's probably exactly why it got banned. Don't really know why they banned Mage, except there may be some new combo that they are preemptively stopping. Not really sure that banning Gitaxian Probe will make a huge difference. I get Golgari Grave-Troll, Dredge is pretty ridiculous right now.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Monday, 9 January 2017 19:35 (seven years ago) link
ok so I have like 6 Copters on MTGO and don't play constructed...should I sell ASAP while they're still legal for a bit or are they worth somehow holding on to? sucks that the one money rare (non-mythic) got nerfed.
― frogbs, Monday, 9 January 2017 19:49 (seven years ago) link
They're already pretty much worthless since it goes into effect in 2 days on mtgo, take your ticket each or whatever if you can get it
― ciderpress, Monday, 9 January 2017 21:25 (seven years ago) link
Probably a lot of ink spilled over this already, all I'll say is that historically standard bannings only happen when there's a significant downturn in tournament attendance at the local level. It's not just about power level of cards, it's about optics and getting people reinterested in a format they didn't want to play
― ciderpress, Monday, 9 January 2017 21:36 (seven years ago) link
it seems like they've really been clutching at straws regarding Standard FNM attendance. First the change to rotation, then Saturday Showdown, and now this. Hopefully it's working. Standard attendance in Austin has improved over the Origins - Oath period, but it still could be better. I'm seeing Modern pull in more people than Standard at some shops, and now a bunch of Frontier events are popping up.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Monday, 9 January 2017 21:46 (seven years ago) link
i still think a good standard season and/or good modern season might just kill all momentum that frontier has, it feels like such a reactionary format
― ciderpress, Monday, 9 January 2017 21:48 (seven years ago) link
also i suspect if it ever became official they'd start it at origins rather than m15 since having yet another format's accessibility bottlenecked by fetchlands is not ideal
― ciderpress, Monday, 9 January 2017 21:52 (seven years ago) link
it's true that it may not last or that wizards may support something similar but slightly different. For now though, I'm sleeving up a frontier deck to run on Wednesday night and it has Smuggler's Copter and Reflector Mage!
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Monday, 9 January 2017 22:10 (seven years ago) link
I like the Probe ban, it's similar to the Mental Misstep ban. It's a card that gets chucked into too many decks, and a small reason why Modern can feel repetitive. It's not busted but I think overall Modern will be more fun without it
― Vinnie, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 01:02 (seven years ago) link
I'm pretty shocked at the Standard bans though. Like y'all said, attendance must have been way down - this is practically a brand new Standard format now
― Vinnie, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 01:04 (seven years ago) link
Wonder if this means the 3/5 crew 1 dude with occasional lifelink is gonna get played. Seems nearly as good!
― frogbs, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 14:28 (seven years ago) link
it's pretty different, more of a midrange card, but should get played
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 14:31 (seven years ago) link
renegade rallier is interesting in modern zoo with the cheap landfall guys
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 14:58 (seven years ago) link
t1 steppe lynx / t2 fetch, geopede / t3 fetch, rallier is lethal. you even have an extra mana on t3 to path or bolt a blocker
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 15:01 (seven years ago) link
starting to think printing fetches was not exactly a great decision
― frogbs, Tuesday, 10 January 2017 15:04 (seven years ago) link
got a favorable impression of this set from the prerelease, though my pool was absolute garbage and i only won matches because i was playing vs new players. feels almost oldschool to have actual good removal at common at this point.
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 17 January 2017 20:21 (seven years ago) link
black and/or red felt like the strongest colors to me, blue is bad but in a more fun way than usual
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 17 January 2017 20:26 (seven years ago) link
some idle comments on colors
white - dawnfeather eagle is an unusually good finisher for a common, feels like it got a lot of white's power budget which is awkward since you can't play manyblue - blue only has 1 decent on-curve creature at common (the drake) and a ton of nonsense. you're relying a lot on cheap artifact dudes and will probably have to play off-color automatons in blue decks. good blue decks are going to look like total piles just like the bad ones and it'll take some nuance to figure out which is which.black - we've had a bunch of crummy -x/-x commons lately but i think cruel finality does enough here to elevate it to a higher pick than things like die young or throttle werered - red commons are just all really good for the format. shock is better here than 4 mana 4 damage which is better than aether chaser and sweatworks brawler, but all 4 of those look better than any blue common and also probably any white common that isn't the pacifismgreen - none of the beaters are efficient enough to be higher picks than the mana guy, and they're interchangeable enough that prey upon probably comes in 2nd as well. peema outrider and thriving rhino outsize AER creatures really hard so green drafters get rewarded nicely in pack 3artifacts - renegade map is the card that makes revolt a strong mechanic rather than a marginal one, while also working well with improvise. this kind of makes it the equivalent of both prophetic prism and renegade freighter at the same time in this set and i wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a consensus high pick common
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 17 January 2017 20:56 (seven years ago) link
so frontier seems to be really picking up in Austin, TX. A bunch of stores are running events, some doing 2 a week. I took down the Wednesday night frontier event at my LGS two weeks in a row with a pretty sweet Jeskai Spirits deck. The crowd that's showing up on Wednesday nights is bigger than they've been getting for FNM, although maybe that will slow down once Aether Revolt is released. Everyone seems very enthusiastic, in part because the general quality of decks and level of play seems to be higher than with standard. Another local store is running a frontier 1K in a couple weeks, should be fun.
My only concern is going to be deciding how I split up my time going forward. I would like to continue with frontier and standard and maybe draft here and there. Also working on building Naya Burn for Modern. Don't know how I'm going to find the time to play all these formats though.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Thursday, 19 January 2017 14:43 (seven years ago) link
Frontier reminds me of when Modern was first announced and they threw it up on MTGO before any major events and people were playing all sorts of wild & diverse decks, and then once PTs and GPs started up it turned out most of those decks weren't actually good. I think if Frontier ever comes under any scrutiny as a competitive format they'll have to ban Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time since I'm certain those cards are still overpowered even in a smaller/newer format than Modern. Possibly Collected Company as well.
― ciderpress, Thursday, 19 January 2017 15:30 (seven years ago) link
the format is nowhere near solved and throwing in Aether Revolt will bring some pretty big changes. I can see wizards supporting a similar format with some tweaks as you mentioned. I can say that Torrential Gearhulk into Dig is pretty disgusting. The Ensoul Artifact deck is pretty popular right now and will get more powerful with the new set. That all said, no one seems to have a credible plan against the deck I've been running, but I'm sure that will change eventually.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Thursday, 19 January 2017 15:35 (seven years ago) link
yeah i'm just saying i find it funny that people are touting the diversity of the format as a draw when it hasn't been stress tested by the best players/deckbuilders yet. i was excited about the Rage Forger deck that was doing decently in MTGO events when Modern first started, and then it turned out the format was more about hardcasting Emrakul on turn 4
― ciderpress, Thursday, 19 January 2017 15:39 (seven years ago) link
in the near term, the format is going to see some consolidation as people figure out what's good and what isn't. In the longer term, it will certainly get more diverse as more cards enter the pool.
Right now I think people are overvaluing the Khans block cards and strategies and not using enough powerful cards from more recent sets. A deck like Abzan just feels painfully slow to me.
― Al Moon Faced Poon (Moodles), Thursday, 19 January 2017 17:47 (seven years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/OuhiIVs.jpg
Finally got to live the dream before KLD draft season is over
Hadn't considered before what having all three modules out did but it is pretty lol when you get it going
― frogbs, Friday, 20 January 2017 03:03 (seven years ago) link
it's basically just 1 mana for a 2/2 and an energy right?
― ciderpress, Friday, 20 January 2017 04:14 (seven years ago) link