Ikoria mechanics revealed. I understand that flavor partially dictates mechanics, but this feels like a year's worth of complexity in one set (felt similarly about War of the Spark). I thought Bestow was borderline too complex as a mechanic and Mutate is probably moreso. Despite that, the set looks fun so far
― Vinnie, Friday, 3 April 2020 02:46 (four years ago) link
what the hell
http://mythicspoiler.com/iko/cards/zilorthastrengthincarnate.jpg
― frogbs, Friday, 3 April 2020 13:10 (four years ago) link
i guess those are special alt art versions like the weird heiroglyphic ones in amonkhet or whatever, the actual name of the card is under the fake name up top
― ciderpress, Friday, 3 April 2020 13:28 (four years ago) link
not thrilled about companion, I really hope the restrictions are all significant enough that none of these see competitive play.
― iatee, Friday, 3 April 2020 14:40 (four years ago) link
http://mythicspoiler.com/iko/cards/colossification.html
damnit this card makes me want to start playing again
― frogbs, Friday, 3 April 2020 14:44 (four years ago) link
it's no eldrazi conscription
― ciderpress, Friday, 3 April 2020 14:48 (four years ago) link
so much for all the companion cards being too weak for constructed
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:20 (four years ago) link
Rielle seems really good
alternate art stuff looks amazing
― frogbs, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:37 (four years ago) link
This companion mechanic seems like a pain in the ass.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:44 (four years ago) link
I feel bad for all the people who are gonna p1p1 those
― frogbs, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:47 (four years ago) link
the bw one is really good just as a card in your deck though
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:51 (four years ago) link
Would be interesting to see someone use one successfully in limited though. Allowing sideboard cards to break the companion rule just seems bad to me.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:53 (four years ago) link
the "each card must be unique" one almost invites you to cheat in limited
― frogbs, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:54 (four years ago) link
in limited all the cards not in your deck are in your sideboard though so it has to work that way to be doable. not that its worth going for rather than just putting the rare creature in your normal deck
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:54 (four years ago) link
other than the highlander one yeah that seems very doable
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 13:56 (four years ago) link
there's some interesting deckbuilding challenges you could get around in Modern but idk if any of these cards are good enough to jump all the hoops for
― frogbs, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 14:15 (four years ago) link
of course I'm always wrong about stuff like this so I fully expect one of these to be banned by July
― frogbs, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 14:16 (four years ago) link
yeah the lifelinker is gonna be a stupid free roll in a lot of decks. I hope it’s banned quickly. stupid, stupid mechanic.
― iatee, Tuesday, 7 April 2020 15:28 (four years ago) link
full spoiler is out. I think Zirda is the companion card that really needs to be watched. I can see some U/R artifact based deck doing some stupid things with this. idk how many Standard decks are gonna try these out but Modern with its huge cardpool seems like it'll have the pieces to do something broken with these
― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 22:22 (four years ago) link
UW one is better than it looks in modern, i think playing a cantrip-heavy 80 card deck is worth it if you always start with a 4/5 mulldrifter in hand
― ciderpress, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 22:29 (four years ago) link
as an 8th card in hand even
I feel like the popularity of edh has made them overrate how popular this will be among the very-not-edh. I have no desire to play any competitive format where one guy gets a commander.
― iatee, Tuesday, 14 April 2020 23:36 (four years ago) link
I'm willing to give this a try, but highly skeptical that it will create an enjoyable experience.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 23:50 (four years ago) link
Although the commanders themselves are not the primary reason I steer clear of edh.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Tuesday, 14 April 2020 23:51 (four years ago) link
Companion is one of those mechanics that on the surface seems fun and encourages interesting deckbuilding, but too many of them limit the card pool to the point where I think the ideal decklists will look very similar. The U/W one might be an exception if it's good enough, that one encourages more variety of cards played. For limited, I guess a couple of them are doable but it might be better to just put the card in your deck
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 01:55 (four years ago) link
I guess a couple of the ones that restrict permanents are freerolls in older formats, and could be played in any number of decks if they are good enough
― Vinnie, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 01:57 (four years ago) link
yea the freeroll thing occurred to me too but I wonder if those decks will want to give up the sideboard spot
― frogbs, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 02:37 (four years ago) link
14 card sideboard is an easy trade for an 8 card hand
― iatee, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 02:40 (four years ago) link
the U/W will not create variety of cards played, it will cause every deck to have 4 arcums astrolabe, 4 ice-fang coatl, 4 abundant growth, etc
― ciderpress, Wednesday, 15 April 2020 04:17 (four years ago) link
Wow!
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― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Thursday, 16 April 2020 17:22 (four years ago) link
new set's been pretty fun. idk if the Cycling decks are the strongest but it's definitely the architype I've seen (and played) the most. I've had several games where I've nearly decked myself which seems not ideal. Mutate seems to result in a lot of reverse 2-for-1s but when you start chaining creatures with Mutate abilities some crazy things happen
btw I've noticed that some of the companion cards are fetching high prices which is probably not good for the game
― frogbs, Sunday, 19 April 2020 19:15 (four years ago) link
one of my friends suggested that lurrus was the strongest card ever printed (at least in the perspective of older formats) and I think that's certainly true for vintage and legacy. haven't been paying attention to what's being broken in modern and pioneer. I really, really hope they just ban the mechanic outside of standard, but I have to imagine at least one of these guys is gonna break standard too.
― iatee, Sunday, 19 April 2020 19:21 (four years ago) link
UG and GW ones basically already have standard decks and GB is easy to build around. and i don't think anything other than a combo deck is going to compete at 7 starting cards vs 8 in standard. lurrus won't be a problem though at least!
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 20:03 (four years ago) link
all the pushed cards they've made since WAR are so unsatisfying to look at & read too, its nightmare wall of text after wall of text. give me back smuggler's copter, i'll live with that now
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 20:11 (four years ago) link
whoever's designing the cards now has no nuance, every rare is a sledgehammer
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 20:13 (four years ago) link
I don't know where they lost the script, but each new set is making me feel less likely to jump back in
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Sunday, 19 April 2020 21:42 (four years ago) link
Planeswalkers
― Fetch the Bolt Thrower (PBKR), Sunday, 19 April 2020 21:43 (four years ago) link
I came to the game well after planeswalkers and enjoyed it for years. However WAR does seem like a more recent tipping point.
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Sunday, 19 April 2020 21:46 (four years ago) link
All I play is limited and from that perspective it's been really fun. Drafting against human players on Arena is a big improvement, too. Signals in the draft are readable now. Just went 7-1 with a BW go wide deck, feels good.
― davey, Sunday, 19 April 2020 22:05 (four years ago) link
Also I have no idea what to do with the 80 mythic and 200 rare wildcards I've accumulated on Arena. Maybe I'll try historic or smthg
other than JTMS planeswalkers were fine for their first 10 years. they intentionally started pushing them after Origins
maybe elspeth knight errant and liliana of the veil were a little too good too but whatever, i'll accept that as the high end of planeswalker power
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 22:27 (four years ago) link
and the former doesn't even cut it anymore in any format i don't think?
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 22:28 (four years ago) link
yeah even veil and jtms see less and less play in older formats
― iatee, Sunday, 19 April 2020 22:42 (four years ago) link
was looking at some of my decks from delver standard and i want to go back to that format where you could play birthing pod and it wasn't the boogeyman somehow
― ciderpress, Sunday, 19 April 2020 23:00 (four years ago) link
it did seem pretty clear at a glance when the set was first released that oko was gonnna break a few formats prolly
― davey, Sunday, 19 April 2020 23:08 (four years ago) link
oko felt like an honest mistake - they saw it as something that made 3/3s every other turn and occasionally swapped them for something
there's no excuse with companion though - it was obvious that this mechanic was going to change the game significantly. edh is popular - probably even the most popular way to play magic, so it's easy to understand their urge to push the game in that direction. but edh only works because it's a casual format.
I think this set will sell terribly, will go down as a saga-level disaster and I hope they don't blame it all on coronavirus.
― iatee, Sunday, 19 April 2020 23:38 (four years ago) link
i don't know if this set will sell terribly but i think people will start to check out and the next few sets will take a hit
they really need the fall set to be confidence-restoring, it's going to be a make or break moment for the entire competitive portion of the playerbase
― ciderpress, Monday, 20 April 2020 00:50 (four years ago) link
the ??? part of oko is its loyalty numbers are way better than other 3 mana planeswalkers so they clearly thought his abilities were low impact or something
― ciderpress, Monday, 20 April 2020 01:04 (four years ago) link
Saga was busted in more ways than just one, idk if you can compare it to anything. there are so many "what the fuck were they thinking" cards in that block. iirc it sold quite well, it was Mercadian Masques that people weren't really thrilled with
as a strictly limited player for the last decade I agree with this, kinda sick of every bomb rare being a 5-mana 6/6 that 3-for-1s when it enters play
― frogbs, Monday, 20 April 2020 01:34 (four years ago) link
saga was a mistake you can justify because they had a very basic understanding of what they were doing at the time - most of the sets before that were underpowered, some so underpowered that it might have been a real threat to the game's future. they pressed the gas pedal too hard, but that had basically never happened before.
but everyone knows better now - any competitive player could have told you that giving a player an extra card that goes in their hand every game was going to be a disaster.
― iatee, Monday, 20 April 2020 02:09 (four years ago) link