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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I'd trade every white mythic in the last 5 years for Dockside Extortionist :P (which I know is a rare, but...it's a mythic c'mon ;).
For fun I just looked at standard white mythics. Luminous Broodmoth was the only one that didn't look like tech and even then I have yet to ever play that card myself. I don't even know when the last "good" mythic before that was lol.
A quick scryfall gives me this list. My personal yardstick falls on Lyra Dawnbringer, which is a long time between hits and a lot of niche or misses in between.

I guess bearing in mind that's my opinion and there's others since that have been good bit players, just not must-runs or always-goods. I also feel like mythics are often trap cards, too - they're the splashy effects that cost a ton, or the face cards of the set, where often the rares in the set are more sensible, and often just give good, solid value as additions to a deck.
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

The top twenty mono-colored (by color identity) mythics in standard, ignoring reprints and sorted by EDHREC rank: (out of 54 mono-colored mythics total, excluding cards like Kenrith, the Returned King with a non-monocolored color identity)
  1. The Great Henge
  2. Nyxbloom Ancient
  3. Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
  4. Heliod, Sun-Crowned
  5. Embercleave
  6. Nylea, Keen-Eyed
  7. Mangara, the Diplomat
  8. The Magic Mirror
  9. Terror of the Peaks
  10. Rankle, Master of Pranks
  11. Fiery Emancipation
  12. Erebos, Bleak-Hearted
  13. Teferi, Master of Time
  14. Luminous Broodmoth
  15. Ancient Greenwarden
  16. Moraug, Fury of Akoum
  17. Vivien, Monsters' Advocate
  18. Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
  19. Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn
  20. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
White: 3/12
Blue: 4/10
Black: 2/8
Red: 5/13
Green: 6/11

Looks like black and white mythics are the least likely to playable in EDH, blue and red are in the middle, and green is the only color where a majority of mythics are EDH-playable. Note that black does look better if you include reprints due to Grim Tutor and Massacre Wurm. Other reprints that would be in the top 20 are Lotus Cobra and Containment Priest, but those are both rares.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

@Mookie doesn't that list more come from quantity of a mythic showing up though? I really question Heliod, Sun-Crowned in commander for instance even in a lifegain deck because it goes off of lifegain frequency rather than quantity it makes it an incredibly narrow card. I can't get behind this card being run even 1/10th as much as Sun Titan as far as optimal use.

EDIT Oh, you said standard used mythics. I guess that changes a bit but thats still crazy that Heliod is used more than the moth. I personally would have put heliod in the bottom 1/4th of cards on that list.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

@ISBPathfinder I would absolutely argue that you missed a lot of very strong cards in that list. Several that I listed above, plus some older ones off the top of my head like Heliod, God of the Sun, Angel of Serenity, and Cataclysmic Gearhulk,

I think you may have been looking at the list a precoloured perception that white mythics are bad. Not being overpowers/busted/auto-includes doesn't mean they're not good, strong cards. I won't argue that white mythics are strong as the mythics we get in blue/black/green, but it's disingenuous to say they're all bad.

Most white mythics should be rares, true. But many rares are powerful staples, so that doesn't mean much.

Also, as for Heliod, Sun-Crowned, don't forget that it's a very powerful combo card. That's really its primary usage. As a lifegain engine it's just fine.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
@ISBPathfinder I would absolutely argue that you missed a lot of very strong cards in that list. Several that I listed above, plus some older ones off the top of my head like Heliod, God of the Sun, Angel of Serenity, and Cataclysmic Gearhulk, [/card]
Eye of the beholder. We can include / exclude cards. In the end I don't really consider either of those three to be very good cards to be honest. 4 mana Heliod is probably the closest to one I would include offhand. But like I said you can add or remove depending on where you want to stand. I took a bit of a harder line given that we are comparing against the good mythics of colors that have gotten a LOT more love of late I felt it was better to take a harder line in what we have gotten.
ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
I think you may have been looking at the list a precoloured perception that white mythics are bad. Not being overpowers/busted/auto-includes doesn't mean they're not good, strong cards. I won't argue that white mythics are strong as the mythics we get in blue/black/green, but it's disingenuous to say they're all bad.

Most white mythics should be rares, true. But many rares are powerful staples, so that doesn't mean much.

Also, as for Heliod, Sun-Crowned, don't forget that it's a very powerful combo card. That's really its primary usage. As a lifegain engine it's just fine.
For me its just harder when we see a parade of busted blue and green cards and then they roll out a constant stream of bad white mythics. White's primary use in even 60 card magic for some time now has been wraths, sideboard tech, and swords to plowshares / path to exile. I don't understand when wizards says that white is in a good spot and then point at a UW deck that is like a bunch of blue walkers, counterspells, and a few white wraths. White has been in a miserable place for like forever and they have justified it because white has wraths and every other color just splashes it for that.

Heliod, Sun-Crowned - Ok, first of all I am not a cEDH or combo player but I think that its use in commander is really not that great. Sure I get the infinite combo with ballista but my point is more that ballista is a reasonable magic card on its own but Heliod is terribad in this format. In sixty card magic the lifegain he can dish out can be useful and small incrimental size gains are still useful when you get to attrition battles. Most of what Heliod does in commander is just maybe make walking ballista go infinite. The problem I have is that there are so many better combos that are harder to disrupt. I generally speaking call a combo good when it is either incredibly hard to interact with or all of the cards involved are good cards on their own. I have played against a few walking ballista / heliod combo decks and honestly, its really not good in this format. Walking Ballista is probably the most interactable target that exists and while you can lead with Heliod the turn before its very easy to see coming. I don't really chalk much up for combo but given the 10,000 combos you could do with Ashnod's Altar I just don't get the hype for Heliod, Sun-Crowned. Again though, I don't play cEDH and while I do play against a little bit of combo I have not seen one situation that I have been impressed by Heliod, Sun-Crowned in this format. I think that Heliod, Sun-Crowned gets a lot more play than it deserves based on what people have witnessed it do in 60 card formats. The small lifegain changes and power / toughness gains just don't measure up the same way in commander.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I don't understand when wizards says that white is in a good spot and then point at a UW deck that is like a bunch of blue walkers, counterspells, and a few white wraths. White has been in a miserable place for like forever and they have justified it because white has wraths and every other color just splashes it for that.
White is very solid in current Standard, which is their primary concern. Current tier 1-2 standard includes:
  • Mono white aggro (focused mostly on lifegain and +1/+1 counters)
  • Esper Yorion, which is predominantly white
  • Abzan Yorion, which is often heavily white as well
  • WG Aggro/Adventures, which is mostly an anti-meta deck and about half white
Plus a number of fringe decks that are heavily white, like the Zenith Flare deck and the Winota, Joiner of Forces deck,
Looking at the meta breakdown for Historic and Modern, the percentage of white being played is pretty close.

It's really not all that hard to understand why WotC feels white is in a good place right now, because really it is.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I don't understand when wizards says that white is in a good spot and then point at a UW deck that is like a bunch of blue walkers, counterspells, and a few white wraths. White has been in a miserable place for like forever and they have justified it because white has wraths and every other color just splashes it for that.
White is very solid in current Standard, which is their primary concern. Current tier 1-2 standard includes:
  • Mono white aggro (focused mostly on lifegain and +1/+1 counters)
  • Esper Yorion, which is predominantly white
  • Abzan Yorion, which is often heavily white as well
  • WG Aggro/Adventures, which is mostly an anti-meta deck and about half white
Plus a number of fringe decks that are heavily white, like the Zenith Flare deck and the Winota, Joiner of Forces deck,
Looking at the meta breakdown for Historic and Modern, the percentage of white being played is pretty close.

It's really not all that hard to understand why WotC feels white is in a good place right now, because really it is.
I haven't been in touch with current standard in the last half a year or so. Last I payed attention was before Cauldron Familiar / Fires / Uro / Teferi bans. Essentially I played until a bit before the Oko ban and continued watching for like two more sets. Things got really miserable and I stopped paying attention.

Oko was completely miserable and it was at least half of the field when I quit. After that though it felt like it shifted to primarily Fires / Adventures / Cauldron Familiar decks which were incredibly hard to do anything to. Essentially of those three white was seen in Fires as a sweeper color only.

Its good to hear that white is perhaps seeing more play now than it was. I remember when heliod came out he showed up sparsely for a few months in standard and then got drowned out by way more terrifying things. Winota came out and was popular for a bit but it also got completely drowned out for a good while due to just not ok things happening.
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Post by capitacommunist » 3 years ago

@Mookie I think this list really shows the evolution of red versus white, and how far white now lags behind all the other colors. Terror of the Peaks, Moraug, Fury of Akoum and Fiery Emancipation are all very strong cards, fitting in different decks, helping you to win the game, and with build-around potential or strong synergies. They can be very strong in mono red, but are also playable in multicolor combinations.
Of the white mythics, Heliod is only strong for infinite combos, Mangara (for me) barely makes the cut even in mono white, and Luminous Broodmoth is quite good, but in mono white itself falls flat (it excels in multicolor combinations with black). White could make good use of mythics at the level of some of the red or green ones, which are also good in mono color (versus something like Luminous Broodmoth), and have more build around potential.
For Starnheim Unleashed itself, the (alternate) art is great and the card itself is probably the best of these effects to run given the flexibility and vigilance if you are in the market for this effect.
NB: For black the best mythic in my opinion, Agadeem's Awakening, is not in the top 20 list but I assume that is price-related.

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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

@ISBPathfinder Yeah, standard was a little borked there for a while. I came back into it with the release of Zendikar Rising, after having not played standard since original Theros. I can honestly say that standard feels pretty healthy right now to me, with a lot of viable decks of different colours and strategies. While there are a few decks that have a much higher meta percentage than others, there is no clear "best" deck, and that higher meta percentage comes mostly from those decks being made up largely of cards players already had on Arena. :P
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
@ISBPathfinder Yeah, standard was a little borked there for a while. I came back into it with the release of Zendikar Rising, after having not played standard since original Theros. I can honestly say that standard feels pretty healthy right now to me, with a lot of viable decks of different colours and strategies. While there are a few decks that have a much higher meta percentage than others, there is no clear "best" deck, and that higher meta percentage comes mostly from those decks being made up largely of cards players already had on Arena. :P
My most recent stint was from the start of the most recent Ravnica block - Throne of Eldrane. I had the "fun" of living through a living hell of a %$#% of standard bans where brewing felt almost impossible because the best decks were so damn good and 80% of the field was often made up of 3 decks. Ixilan up until War of the Spark happened was actually quite reasonable but then war was really where things turned for the worse on standard. Teferi and Nissa were so damn oppressive and really set a miserable precedent.
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
It's really not all that hard to understand why WotC feels white is in a good place right now, because really it is.
Just not in our format. That's just often a tough pill to swallow when Nyxbloom Ancient and Fiery Emancipation were printed in the same year, and that's not even getting into the recent disasters of Simic/x chase rares that have been so busted they've been banned in multiple formats. Then there's ones that haven't, but are still gross. Like, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy - what the actual hell?

It just seems like a difference in scale. White is fine and does ok in standard, but u/g/x is so good it needs literally rolling bans, more in the last year than the last 15 years combined. The difference is that the most recent printings for white compete fairly well in a 1v1, 4 of format, whereas the other u/g/x get mythics that are so good they bust multiple formats. I'm not necessarily saying I want that for white, but it would be nice if white got a shot in the arm and the latter got somewhat neutered. Eye of the beholder somewhat, but its got to the point for me in recent games where I'm casting shifty eyes at Simic players any time I sit down with them.

All that being said I still enjoy playing my Bruna deck and think it performs quite well. I'd like more options for it, but...well, they just don't exist in recent printings.
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Post by NZB2323 » 3 years ago

@ISBPathfinder , I think you're severely underrating Angel of Serenity. In standard when Angel of Serenity first came out Zombie tribal was the most played deck, and Angel of Serenity could exile Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, and Falkenrath Aristocrat while giving the opponent no triggers off of Blood Artist and then act as a finisher.

Then, when Godless Shrine came out and reanimation was the number one deck with Unburial Rites, players could reanimate Angel of Serenity to exile the opponent's creatures, and/or target a Thragtusk or Craterhoof Behemoth to cast later. If the opponent played graveyard hate the graveyard player could eventually hard cast their fatties, with ramp and defensive creatures like Thragtusk. The deck was so powerful that Wizards created Scavenging Ooze to nerf it, which is one reason I will always love scooze.

In EDH you can cheat Angel of Serenity out with reanimation, Kaalia of the Vast, Mayael the Anima, etc.

Iona, Shield of Emeria is another oppressive white card that got banned in EDH, but still lives on in reanimator decks in eternal formats.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

NZB2323 wrote:
3 years ago
@ISBPathfinder , I think you're severely underrating Angel of Serenity. In standard when Angel of Serenity first came out Zombie tribal was the most played deck, and Angel of Serenity could exile Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, and Falkenrath Aristocrat while giving the opponent no triggers off of Blood Artist and then act as a finisher.

Then, when Godless Shrine came out and reanimation was the number one deck with Unburial Rites, players could reanimate Angel of Serenity to exile the opponent's creatures, and/or target a Thragtusk or Craterhoof Behemoth to cast later. If the opponent played graveyard hate the graveyard player could eventually hard cast their fatties, with ramp and defensive creatures like Thragtusk. The deck was so powerful that Wizards created Scavenging Ooze to nerf it, which is one reason I will always love scooze.

In EDH you can cheat Angel of Serenity out with reanimation, Kaalia of the Vast, Mayael the Anima, etc.

Iona, Shield of Emeria is another oppressive white card that got banned in EDH, but still lives on in reanimator decks in eternal formats.
I lived through Innistrad standard and I can tell you 100% there was literally no counter to zombies when innistrad first hit. Later on Angel of Glory's Rise reanimator did become a deck but that wasn't for a few sets after. When zombies first hit in innistrad I don't recall there being much of a counter deck to it but its been a good long while. Later in that set I built an esper spirits deck. It was one of the more fun decks I have played to this day.

Angel of Serenity - I get the card, I just don't think its really that good. Some of the issue is that white has gotten almost no additional access to sac outlets in recent years which primarily limits white sac decks to Orzov (a color combination that isn't known for ramp). Generally speaking when you look at a seven drop that you might want to sac as soon as its ETB is on the stack that means you need a sac outlet set up beforehand and even then you are spending seven mana to not further your own board and just remove three things. Paying 7 mana and needing setup and in a specific archetype to accomplish something like exiling three targets just doesn't feel stellar to me. Good removal can scale to more targets, cost less, and or be more instant speed. I would generally consider the few outliers like Kaalia of the Vast and Mayael the Anima to be more of tech considerations than I would the general value of a card. I once ran Zodiac Rabbit in Edric, Spymaster of Trest but its hardly a reason that I would consider the rabbit to be a good card, it just found a roleplayer in that specific deck due to unusual circumstances. That isn't a reason for me to campaign about how good Zodiac Rabbit is.

Iona, Shield of Emeria - I never felt the card was good, it was just a griefer card that got banned not because it was good but because it made games bad. The same could be said about Sylvan Primordial and Sundering Titan. Primordial is by far the best of these cards but even then its not as if it won the game, it just did miserable things that nobody was better off for doing.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

The sad truth is that most of white's main strengths are just not good in this format.

Incremental life gain, or life gain as its own strategy, is great in 20 life formats, but fine at best here.
Strong aggressive creatures that benefit heavily from playing 4 copies are amazing in a 4-of 60 card format, but basically worthless here.
Silver bullets are incredibly potent and important in a format with sideboards. We don't get to play with sideboards.
Going wide with 4/4 angels is a strong tactic in a 20 life 1v1 format, where you've got 120 damage to deal to kill the table and you should almost always assume one of your three opponents will have a wrath.
Building up dudes with +1/+1 counters suffers from the same problem as above.

Generally speaking, the white cards we see most frequently play large, ubiquitous roles in this format are the ones that focus one of white's other two main strengths:
1) hate, tax, etc
2) recursion

Unfortunately, in recent years, the white cards have leaned more heavily on all the strengths we don't really benefit from. Are they bad cards? No. Are they good for this format? Also no. But we've still gotten some gems, at least.
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
I lived through Innistrad standard and I can tell you 100% there was literally no counter to zombies when innistrad first hit.
I also lived through that standard, right in the heart of when I was actually attending a lot of higher level events, and I can definitely say Haunted Humans performed quite well against Zombies. Which, coincidentally enough, was a mostly mono white deck splashing blue for Geist of Saint Traft and Moorland Haunt. :P
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Post by materpillar » 3 years ago

I don't even want Starnheim Unleashed|63374 to be better. I just want it to do something other than effectively be a Protean Hydra with flying across a couple of bodies. The hydra comparison doesn't even work because that can at least have fun synergies with Pyrohemia or whatever. 4/4 angels are just french vanilla bodies, there's almost no interesting room there at all.

For example, imagine how much more insanely awesome this card would be if all the Angels got to fight something on ETB. Jack the mana price up more to balance it out or whatever. It would feel so much more flavour and mythic to cast. Hell, just make it an instant so you can cast it mid-combat and your angels effectively pop out of valhalla right into battle.
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Post by ilovesaprolings » 3 years ago

White doesn't get enough good fatties or good fat spells.
Blue, the worse color at creatures, has consecrated sphinx&friends and time stretch&friends
Green, the worse color at spells, has avenger of zendikar&friends and genesis wave&friends
White has a pitiful amount of fatties and its "game-winning" sorceries are... storm herd

Even looking at commander legends, we have sphinx of the second sun and apex devastator VS... archon of coronation

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Post by NZB2323 » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
NZB2323 wrote:
3 years ago
@ISBPathfinder , I think you're severely underrating Angel of Serenity. In standard when Angel of Serenity first came out Zombie tribal was the most played deck, and Angel of Serenity could exile Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, and Falkenrath Aristocrat while giving the opponent no triggers off of Blood Artist and then act as a finisher.

Then, when Godless Shrine came out and reanimation was the number one deck with Unburial Rites, players could reanimate Angel of Serenity to exile the opponent's creatures, and/or target a Thragtusk or Craterhoof Behemoth to cast later. If the opponent played graveyard hate the graveyard player could eventually hard cast their fatties, with ramp and defensive creatures like Thragtusk. The deck was so powerful that Wizards created Scavenging Ooze to nerf it, which is one reason I will always love scooze.

In EDH you can cheat Angel of Serenity out with reanimation, Kaalia of the Vast, Mayael the Anima, etc.

Iona, Shield of Emeria is another oppressive white card that got banned in EDH, but still lives on in reanimator decks in eternal formats.
I lived through Innistrad standard and I can tell you 100% there was literally no counter to zombies when innistrad first hit. Later on Angel of Glory's Rise reanimator did become a deck but that wasn't for a few sets after. When zombies first hit in innistrad I don't recall there being much of a counter deck to it but its been a good long while. Later in that set I built an esper spirits deck. It was one of the more fun decks I have played to this day.
When innistrad first hit Angel of Serenity didn't counter zombies because Angel of Serenity hadn't been printed yet. When rotation hit and Return to Ravnica came out, the first tournament had over 50% of players using Zombie decks, and an Angel of Serenity Azorius Control deck took first place. From the release of Return to Ravnica to the release of Magic 2014, Angel of Serenity was in the winning decklists, from Azorius Control to Junk Reanimator.

I was trying to find the best standard decks by year but was having issues finding a good list. Here's a thread from 2012 of people talking about how busted the card is: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the ... f-serenity

Zodiac Rabbit is good in one EDH deck. Angel of Serenity is good in Kaalia of the Vast, Mayael the Anima, Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, Bruna, the Fading Light, Lyra Dawnbringer, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Athreos, Shroud-Veiled, Roon of the Hidden Realm, etc.
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Post by ZenN » 3 years ago

NZB2323 wrote:
3 years ago
Zodiac Rabbit is good in one EDH deck. Angel of Serenity is good in Kaalia of the Vast, Mayael the Anima, Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign, Bruna, the Fading Light, Lyra Dawnbringer, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Athreos, Shroud-Veiled, Roon of the Hidden Realm, etc.
Don't forget that Angel of Serenity is also great in blink/flicker/general ETB abuse decks, as well.

But yeah, I was very successful in standard with Angel of Serenity. Most notably in Bant Control, with other such amazing goodies as Supreme Verdict, Thragtusk, Snapcaster Mage, Detention Sphere, Sphinx's Revelation, and Restoration Angel. Man, that was a good year of standard.

---

Back to being more on topic for the thread, Shepherd of the Cosmos is actually surprisingly close to being playable, given that it's an uncommon. As is it gets beaten out by so many other better white recursion cards, but this is the sort of design that makes me hopeful for white's future.
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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

ZenN wrote:
3 years ago
Back to being more on topic for the thread, Shepherd of the Cosmos is actually surprisingly close to being playable, given that it's an uncommon. As is it gets beaten out by so many other better white recursion cards, but this is the sort of design that makes me hopeful for white's future.
Agreed. The only real thing hindering it is CMC. For 1-2 less it'd be excellent. Foretell is fine as a mechanic, but it's still a lot to pay total and splitting that over turns doesn't really make up for the total cost. Nonetheless, it's a nice card.
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Man Shepherd of the Cosmos makes me frustrated:( Give me a rare/mythic version that's pushed a little harder please. I want another of these effects desperately.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

Close but no cigar, right?
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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

Frankly, you could play that as is just for the art.
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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Man Shepherd of the Cosmos makes me frustrated:( Give me a rare/mythic version that's pushed a little harder please. I want another of these effects desperately.
It's called Sun Titan. We got the it roughly 10 years ago (About the same time they stopped making decent white mythics coincidentally)
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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Yeah, Shepherd of the Cosmos is a lower power level than I would like, but at least it's a start. I'm not going to complain about more Sun Titan effects - I've wanted WotC to amp up white's recursive abilities for ages. Hopefully the next one will be at a bit higher power level... Mono-white Renegade Rallier would be sweet.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
It's called Sun Titan. We got the it roughly 10 years ago (About the same time they stopped making decent white mythics coincidentally)
Hence...'another' :)

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