Unreleased and New Card Discussion

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Based on the fact that there are so many ways to venture into the dungeon - and that so many of them are repeatable - I'm going to say that it will probably be possible to build a dungeon-based deck. Still a parasitic mechanic, but at least it's self-enabling.

As for cards....
  • Dungeon Map is mildly interesting as a mana rock, but likely outclassed by Bonder's Ornament in all but the most dedicated of decks.
  • Froghemoth is an interesting twist on Scavenging Ooze, and some potent repeatable grave hate.
  • Triumphant Adventurer is a fairly safe way to adventure repeatedly, and also wears equipment quite well. First strike + deathtouch doesn't show up that often.
  • You Happen On a Glade is interesting as a weaker Cultivate // Regrowth split card. Both halves are weaker - doesn't ramp // only permanents, respectively, but being an instant is relevant.
  • You Find a Cursed Idol is almost another strictly-better Naturalize.... but it's a sorcery, so pass.
  • "Krydle of Baldur's Gate" is an interesting option for enabling saboteur abilities. Mill / scry / drain is also an alright little package, but I suspect the best use is going to be to enable other, more impactful triggers. Still, letting your 'when this deals combat damage, venture into the dungeon' creatures get in is relevant in limited.

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Post by Igzex » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
This is a dumb thing to fixate on but I hate the flavor text of half-elf monk

"The fight was over the moment you picked up that clumsy cleaver of a sword."
If there's anything a half-elf monk hates, it's a clumsy cleaver-especially a clumsy cleaver of a sword, the symbol of a finished fight!

Triumphant Adventurer is easily one of my favorite reveals so far just for flavor alone. Being black/white and having Deathtouch is subtle self aware humor in its absolute, most perfect form.

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Post by SocorroTortoise » 2 years ago

Dunharrow wrote:
2 years ago
Not sure if just me but I haven't seen a single card that slots into my decks.
There are a couple things I'll try out but nothing that seems like an obvious inclusion. That said, as someone who plays exclusively paper and face-to-face I'm not too broken up about it. I still have plenty of things to try from the last year (when I wasn't playing at all) and don't even have everything from MH2 that I'm interested in yet.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

I'm personally really glad this set (so far) isn't for me. I'm still waiting on fetches to hit their nadir before I add them to my cart, and otherwise it's been a bit of a marathon of picking and choosing from virtually every release in the last 18 months. My trades folder and wallet could both use the break, and so could my brewing brain.

Honestly I think this one is just more of a top-down design focusing on the flavour in the crossover rather than overt strength of mechanics and card design. There's still some neat stuff so far but I have no skin in the D&D game at this point (I've always wanted to but it's actually kinda hard to put a group together) so I'm happy to leave most, if not all, of this set on the shelf. A break from product release fatigue is actually pretty welcome at this point.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
"Krydle of Baldur's Gate" is an interesting option for enabling saboteur abilities. Mill / scry / drain is also an alright little package, but I suspect the best use is going to be to enable other, more impactful triggers. Still, letting your 'when this deals combat damage, venture into the dungeon' creatures get in is relevant in limited.
They've done another Zaffai, Thunder Conductor with this card. The name of the card doesn't match the spelling in the rules text. Unless I'm missing some reason they've got it between quotation marks in the rules text.
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Post by JWK » 2 years ago

I am really liking the various modular spells in this set, especially the instants. The one that is a counterspell or draw 2, discard 2 is a good example. Nothing too broken or super-exciting, but tons of value.
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

Dungeon Descent bums me out. I'm always on the lookout for sweet value lands, and I'm okay with paying a steep cost (etbt and colorless) if it can enable some sick value generation. But etbt, and colorless, and a four mana activation, and tap a legendary creature, and as a SORCERY? Are you kidding me? I think we can agree that the EV of "venture into the dungeon" is somewhere below "draw a card", so why does this stack up so unfavorably compared to Bonders' Enclave? Hell, it stacks up badly compared to Arch of Orazca - I'd happily pay an extra mana just for the instant speed activation, let alone not needing to tap a legend and not etbt.

Sometimes I feel like they're massively overvaluing the power of "venture into the dungeon", but then you've got ballers like Yuan-Ti Malison who get repeatable triggers at a solid rate. In what universe is "unblockable 2 drop deals damage to an opponent" and "land with heavy downsides costs 4 to activate plus tapping a legend as a sorcery" reasonable to give the same effect? I mean jesus, the campus lands have a nearly-as-good effect except they fix your mana instead of making it worse, don't need to tap a legend, and can be activated at instant speed, and they're COMMON.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
Dungeon Descent bums me out. I'm always on the lookout for sweet value lands, and I'm okay with paying a steep cost (etbt and colorless) if it can enable some sick value generation. But etbt, and colorless, and a four mana activation, and tap a legendary creature, and as a SORCERY? Are you kidding me? I think we can agree that the EV of "venture into the dungeon" is somewhere below "draw a card", so why does this stack up so unfavorably compared to Bonders' Enclave? Hell, it stacks up badly compared to Arch of Orazca - I'd happily pay an extra mana just for the instant speed activation, let alone not needing to tap a legend and not etbt.

Sometimes I feel like they're massively overvaluing the power of "venture into the dungeon", but then you've got ballers like Yuan-Ti Malison who get repeatable triggers at a solid rate. In what universe is "unblockable 2 drop deals damage to an opponent" and "land with heavy downsides costs 4 to activate plus tapping a legend as a sorcery" reasonable to give the same effect? I mean jesus, the campus lands have a nearly-as-good effect except they fix your mana instead of making it worse, don't need to tap a legend, and can be activated at instant speed, and they're COMMON.
Whoa there, Dirk. We're coming off OG Mirrodin levels of power creep and this is the obligatory Kamigawa-esque low power follow up. Personally, I'm okay with people not being able to power through the Dungeon of the Mad Mage with a colorless land that can fit in anywhere. That would be stupid beyond belief. Just let this set be, the game design needs to cool down anyway. Better they play it painfully safe than ban the damn thing in a few months, right?
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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
2 years ago
Whoa there, Dirk. We're coming off OG Mirrodin levels of power creep and this is the obligatory Kamigawa-esque low power follow up. Personally, I'm okay with people not being able to power through the Dungeon of the Mad Mage with a colorless land that can fit in anywhere. That would be stupid beyond belief. Just let this set be, the game design needs to cool down anyway. Better they play it painfully safe than ban the damn thing in a few months, right?
I'm happy for the set to be lower-powered, but that card would still be low-powered if it didn't etbt and could activate as an instant AND cost 1 less. If you're worried about someone speed running the dungeon, then I'd be a lot more concerned about Triumphant Adventurer than someone sinking 28 godforsaken mana into a land.

Bonders enclave was not the problem card in ikoria.

(Btw just to clarify, I'm overall happy with the set, but I find it vexing how hard they've nerfed this particular card since I really like utility lands and we don't get very many)

Btw am I the only one who noticed that the "made for edh" dungeon is the brainless one? You never have to make a decision beyond "what do I want at this exact moment".
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Post by Wallycaine » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
Dungeon Descent bums me out. I'm always on the lookout for sweet value lands, and I'm okay with paying a steep cost (etbt and colorless) if it can enable some sick value generation. But etbt, and colorless, and a four mana activation, and tap a legendary creature, and as a SORCERY? Are you kidding me? I think we can agree that the EV of "venture into the dungeon" is somewhere below "draw a card", so why does this stack up so unfavorably compared to Bonders' Enclave? Hell, it stacks up badly compared to Arch of Orazca - I'd happily pay an extra mana just for the instant speed activation, let alone not needing to tap a legend and not etbt.

Sometimes I feel like they're massively overvaluing the power of "venture into the dungeon", but then you've got ballers like Yuan-Ti Malison who get repeatable triggers at a solid rate. In what universe is "unblockable 2 drop deals damage to an opponent" and "land with heavy downsides costs 4 to activate plus tapping a legend as a sorcery" reasonable to give the same effect? I mean jesus, the campus lands have a nearly-as-good effect except they fix your mana instead of making it worse, don't need to tap a legend, and can be activated at instant speed, and they're COMMON.
So I can at least isolate one of your complaints: Basically all Venture into the Dungeon Cards are either Sorcery, trigger in a way that's typically expected to be a sorcery, or based off your opponent's actions. Because some of the dungeon effects produce creatures, they specifically avoided being able to use them as a combat trick.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

So far I am loving how utterly bad and nearly completely parasitic this set is. It just keeps getting worse and I feel better and better about it not being loaded with new EDH staples.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago

I'm happy for the set to be lower-powered, but that card would still be low-powered if it didn't etbt and could activate as an instant AND cost 1 less. If you're worried about someone speed running the dungeon, then I'd be a lot more concerned about Triumphant Adventurer than someone sinking 28 godforsaken mana into a land.

Bonders enclave was not the problem card in ikoria.

(Btw just to clarify, I'm overall happy with the set, but I find it vexing how hard they've nerfed this particular card since I really like utility lands and we don't get very many)
I feel your pain as a fellow lover of cool lands, but I disagree. The land is exactly at the right power level given the dungeons they've printed. It's a shame that it should suffer for the sins of the dungeon, but Dungeon of the Mad Mage is brainless enough to be frightening if it was more easily enabled.

Edit: Triumphant Adventurer isn't a great 1:1 comparison considering it's still only active on your turn and is waaaay more vulnerable to removal than a land. With all due respect, it doesn't speedrun the dungeon any faster than anything else and whataboutisms aren't great lines of argument anyway.
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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

So….Orcus, Prince of Undeath seems tremendous (NOTE: WOTC said it should say -X/-X in the comments.) Those are both great modes.
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Post by RxPhantom » 2 years ago

Rarely am I ever so indifferent toward a set. I don't play D&D and have only passing awareness of its tropes, but these cards look like I'm playing someone's poorly templated custom set. Maybe it'll play better, but mechanically I'm not interested. In terms of flavor, it comes off as cheap and dated. I came back to the game ten years ago when New Phyrexia came out, and this is the first set that I just don't care about. I'm not normally this negative either.
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
So….Orcus, Prince of Undeath seems tremendous (NOTE: WOTC said it should say -X/-X in the comments.). Those are both great modes.
Good to know. I saw +X/+X and got very confused, since global mass pump isn't really a thing (and even if it were, it wouldn't be BR).
With that text.... a flexible board wipe // mass reanimation creature (that is also a 5/3 flying trampler for 4) seems quite strong. Very harshly affected by commander tax though - you need a lot of mana if you want to kill / reanimate a lot of things, which is difficult if Orcus has already died a few times. I suspect Orcus is better in the 99, since he seems difficult to take advantage of multiple times. Still as a commander, could be sweet alongside big mana producers like Mana Geyser and Cabal Coffers.

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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

Does Rakdos secretly have the most variety in its generals? Often we get combat-, discard-, or sacrifice-themed dudes, but even those offer a wide variety of strategies.
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Post by EonAon » 2 years ago

Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
Does Rakdos secretly have the most variety in its generals? Often we get combat-, discard-, or sacrifice-themed dudes, but even those offer a wide variety of strategies.
Yes. but sadly people dont normally like rakdos colors in edh

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
Does Rakdos secretly have the most variety in its generals? Often we get combat-, discard-, or sacrifice-themed dudes, but even those offer a wide variety of strategies.
  • WU: blink, control, flying
  • UB: mill, saboteurs, graveyard-as-resource
  • BR: SUFFERING
  • RG: creatures, ramp, lands
  • GW: tokens, enchantments, +1/+1 counters
  • WB: aristocrats, lifegain, tokens
  • BG: sacrifice, tokens, graveyards
  • GU: ramp, card draw, ramp and card draw
  • UR: spellslinger, card draw, artifacts
  • RW: combat, equipment, more combat
By my count, Rakdos actually has the least variety in its generals. Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Mogis, God of Slaughter, Xantcha, Sleeper Agent.... all of them are devoted to making your opponents have a bad time. :P

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
2 years ago
I feel your pain as a fellow lover of cool lands, but I disagree. The land is exactly at the right power level given the dungeons they've printed. It's a shame that it should suffer for the sins of the dungeon, but Dungeon of the Mad Mage is brainless enough to be frightening if it was more easily enabled.

Edit: Triumphant Adventurer isn't a great 1:1 comparison considering it's still only active on your turn and is waaaay more vulnerable to removal than a land. With all due respect, it doesn't speedrun the dungeon any faster than anything else and whataboutisms aren't great lines of argument anyway.
The only mode of the mad mage that's better than drawing a card is the last one, which takes a long time to get to. I guess the exile 2 is debatable but it's a lot weaker if you had to spend mana to activate. I can't imagine a deck that wouldn't rather draw 7 cards than get all the minor trinkets just to get to the final room with a decent payoff. I'm sorry but if you think such a slow process is remotely scary, especially at such a high cmc, I think you're just wrong.

So long as it requires a legend it requires some board presence and is thus vulnerable to removal, which isn't true of arch, for example.

The difference between paying 5 and paying nothing (except a likely-safe attack) is huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. The reason I'm using it as a point of comparison is to determine how valuable wotc considers venturing. Based on that card and others (plus my own intuition) it seems like the answer is somewhere below drawing a card, because to my knowledge the only 2-drops that draw cards in combat do so only under particular scenarios (blocked, or not blocked) and have no relevant combat abilities. So if the land just drew a card, which would presumably be stronger than it currently is, would it be good? I'd say no, it would be incredibly awful.

Calling this "whataboutism" seems like a massive dodge. I'm using other cards as a point of comparison to suss out the effectiveness of a new card. Is it whataboutism to point out that bolt is better than shock? Unless you think adventurer is busted so badly that it's an unfair point of comparison, I don't see how the term "whataboutism" could apply.

EDIT: just to clarify my chain of logic:

-the power level of other venture cards shows that venture is likely weaker than draw a card (or at least wotc thinks so). Replace most of those cards with "draw a card" and it looks pretty nuts.
-Therefore, the version of this card where it draws a card instead of venturing > this card.
-To compare the alt version of this card to Bonders' Enclave, enclave costs 3 instead of 4, doesn't etbt, doesn't tap the creature, and can be activated as an instant. On the plus side, legendary is probably easier for many decks than 4+ power, but overall I would say it's still a huge downgrade in power.
-Bonders' Enclave is a totally decent fine nonproblematic card.
-Therefore the imaginary version is significantly worse than fine.
-And the real version is significantly worse than that.
-Therefore this card is stinky poopoo.

As far as "Needing" to be sorcery speed to avoid tricking people with blockers, (1) it's got a pretty major cost plus you're tapping down your existing legendary blocker anyway so it doesn't seem like much of a trick, and (2) even if we assume sorcery speed is non-negotiable, they at LEAST could have lowered the cost or let it enter untapped as compensation. Phelddagrif (the only deck of mine that would look twice at this sort of thing) wouldn't run this even it entered untapped and only cost 2 to activate tbh, and he doesn't care too much about attacking/blocking/activating tap abilities, is in the market for very slow value engines especially on lands, and usually has tons of mana to burn. It's hard to imagine a deck that would be TOO much more excited by this, and it's still terrible even there even after removing two of the four nerfs.
Last edited by DirkGently 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by folding_music » 2 years ago

could use Tiamat or Orcus to make a secret Shin Megami Tensei-themed EDH deck. giggle. it's so jarring to see these ancient mythological and religious figures get templated into creatures with attributes n stuff across a bunch of different game media, it always feels off. Maybe we're getting Yahweh in the next base set

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

@DirkGently

I don't necessarily agree with your premise that Venture < a card drawn. Let's assume the following for the sake of argument:

Dungeon Descent does not etbt, costs 3 to activate, requires you to have a Legend in play a la Enclave but not tap it as part of the cost, and has no timing restrictions. That would ostensibly put the card on par with Enclave by every visible metric.

Except I think it would make it much better than enclave. Cards drawn is an excellent ROI for mana spent, but access to options is superior imo. The hypotehtical descent as described above doesn't only draw cards, it does all of the following:
-gains life
-causes life loss
-creates goblin tokens
-creates treasure tokens
-creates skeleton tokens
-scrys varying amounts
-stops a creature from attacking
-shrinks a creature
-puts a +1/+1 counter on something
-sacrifices permanents you control
-makes a 4/4 demon
-lets you cast a thing for free, ignoring timing restrictions.

The way I see it, it's the same reason Cryptic Command is better than Dismiss. Even if you choose counter/draw 98% of the time, the extra 2 options are pure value unless the extra pip starts to matter. But Descent/Enclave are colorless, so that drawback doesn't even apply to Descent in this scenario. Granted, you still have to work through those options in a predictable order, but even with that caveat, I think options > pure draw.

At the end of the day, this is a matter of opinion combined with mutual inexperience using the Venture mechanic. I'm going to the prerelease this weekend and I'll see for myself how strong this mechanic actuallys plays, and I'll report back. Maybe it's worse than I think, maybe it's not. I'll try to bear in mind how an instant speed venture enabler would affect the games I play and whether such an effect would feel pushed. Either way, let's table this for now. If I might have to admit wrongness in the near future, I don't wanna have to die on a hill as speculative as this debate lol.

Edit: the prerelease is next weekend, whoopsie.
Last edited by TheAmericanSpirit 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

It'll probably be a meta call and super deck-dependent, but I love Froghemoth. It's not Bane of Progress, but it's an hater that works with attacking, counters, and life gain. Sure, I already run Scavenging Ooze, but I still want to try out this horror in aggressive green decks.
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

Dungeon Descent does not etbt, costs 3 to activate, requires you to have a Legend in play a la Enclave but not tap it as part of the cost, and has no timing restrictions. That would ostensibly put the card on par with Enclave by every visible metric.
That's not quite true since I would say having a legend is a lower bar than having >=4 power. That's the one point in dungeon's favor.

Btw for sake of argument, let's ignore the sorcery-speed restriction and just assume that it's justified because that gets complicated to argue. There's still 3 other nerfs applied to the card that could have been removed (etbt, costing 4, tapping a legend). For the record I still think instant speed would have been fine, but it does allow some things that are tougher to compare to existing effects.
Except I think it would make it much better than enclave. Cards drawn is an excellent ROI for mana spent, but access to options is superior imo. The hypotehtical descent as described above doesn't only draw cards, it does all of the following:
The fact that it could do any of those things is very very far away from getting to simply pick one of those things. Most of the time you'll have 1-2 options at a given time. When you really need a chump blocker, if you're not in the right position to get to one of the rooms that make a token, then it doesn't really matter that theoretically you could get a token eventually.

Given that you only have a choice of 1-2 options most of the time, I'd say it's much closer to randomness than choice. The EV of a choice is better than the best effect, but the EV of a random selection is just the average of that group. It's not exactly random, since you have some control over when and how you move, but in most cases it'll probably be too difficult to predict exactly what you'll need and set it up, especially with such minor effects, so it's kind of effectively random. Plus outside of corner cases, the other 2 non-mad-mage dungeons are probably too crappy to consider. Yes, there's some minor EV gain in the 3% of times you get to kill your opponent at 1, or make a crucial chumper in 2 moves instead of 3, but I don't think that adds up to much and you could basically ignore those two dungeons and only lose a tiny amount of value.

In the vast majority of cases I think the most reasonable course of action is just to beeline for the end rooms of mad mage, and hopefully the junk in the early rooms ends up being worth some fraction of a card. Under that model, the question is "is the value of all 7 rooms of mad mage worth more than 7 cards" and I'm pretty sure the answer is a hard "no". On top of which, it's back-loaded payoff. If you only get to room 4, you've basically spent a bunch of time accomplishing mostly nothing. Drawing cards is good right away, at the beginning of the game when value is more important. Casting a spell for free is great, but if it's not until turn 8 then it's really not THAT exciting.
At the end of the day, this is a matter of opinion combined with mutual inexperience using the Venture mechanic.
I agree that it's hard to be completely certain, but I'm betting that wotc has run the playtests. If venture was > drawing a card, something like triumphant adventurer would be INSANE. Nadaar would be insane. Just imagine a 3/3 for 3 that etb draws a card, draws a card on attack, has vigilance, AND has an anthem upside that he himself enables. That would be beyond bonkers (and in white? wotc would never allow such blasphemy). And if you're right, the real version would be even BETTER. Even something like Bar the Gate would be a double-upgrade on the powerful Exclude, a card from back when counterspells were stronger than they are now. Fates' Reversal would be an upgrade on a bunch of cards. Fly would be a huge upgrade on Curiosity (minus the noncombat part, which is important for commander players, but combat-only-curiosities have been standard relevant in the recent past). Yuan-Ti Malison would be a massive upgrade on Vedalken Heretic and all the 3-cmc ophidian-alikes. All this in a set that most people agree (yourself included) seems to have a lower power level than sets before it. So you'd have to either think that (1) WotC has badly misjudged how strong this mechanic is, or (2) in a set of otherwise low power, a high percentage of the venture cards are significant power creep on existing, often-already-strong cards. Or, of course, (3) WotC probably got it more-or-less right, venture is weaker than drawing a card, and all these examples are good but not insane cards, in line with the rest of the set.
Last edited by DirkGently 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Krishnath » 2 years ago

folding_music wrote:
2 years ago
could use Tiamat or Orcus to make a secret Shin Megami Tensei-themed EDH deck. giggle. it's so jarring to see these ancient mythological and religious figures get templated into creatures with attributes n stuff across a bunch of different game media, it always feels off. Maybe we're getting Yahweh in the next base set
Both Orcus and Tiamat have been part of D&D since 1st edition, and both are major players in lore (Heck, when Orcus was killed and his throne ursurped, he became first undead then a god before reclaiming his throne. Which is pretty badass. There's basically only one demonlord more powerful than he is, and that one is primarily held back by his literal split personality.)

Both were of course adapted from real world mythology, but both from religions that are no longer actively worshipped. Tiamat belonging to the Sumerian pantheon, and Orcus being a minor Roman deity with no real equivalent in Greek mythology.
In those cases where D&D have adapted real world mythology, they've always tried to do so as faithfully and respectfully to their source material as possible with the understanding of the mythology at the time, and they have always tried to shy away from current world religions (That both the Olympian and Asgardian faiths having had a resurgence since the inception of D&D I partially attribute to the games popularity, because it has made people interested in these ancient religions). This is partially why Tiamat is not just another dragon, although one with five heads, but a literal nigh unkillable goddess of dragons, and why Orcus, despite having been defeated a couple of times (and even killed once), always comes back.

And speaking of real world religions, here's a fun fact: The single most powerful canonical deity in D&D is one from a real world religion: Anubis. He is also the only deity, that is not an overdeity, who does not need worshippers to retain his power. Why you ask? Well, there is a funny little barely known detail in D&D regarding the Astral Plane, mortals were never meant to go there and it was supposed to be a graveyard of sorts for dead deities. As a god of death Anubis had free access to it, and eventually mortals found their way there. He found mortals desecrating his dead bretheren and was so enraged by this that he forced himself to evolve into a guardian of the dead gods. Desecrate a dead god in the Astral and he *will* find you, and he *will* kill you. If there is one entity in the entire multiverse to not make angry, it's Anubis.
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Post by EonAon » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
Serenade wrote:
2 years ago
Does Rakdos secretly have the most variety in its generals? Often we get combat-, discard-, or sacrifice-themed dudes, but even those offer a wide variety of strategies.
  • WU: blink, control, flying
  • UB: mill, saboteurs, graveyard-as-resource
  • BR: SUFFERING
  • RG: creatures, ramp, lands
  • GW: tokens, enchantments, +1/+1 counters
  • WB: aristocrats, lifegain, tokens
  • BG: sacrifice, tokens, graveyards
  • GU: ramp, card draw, ramp and card draw
  • UR: spellslinger, card draw, artifacts
  • RW: combat, equipment, more combat
By my count, Rakdos actually has the least variety in its generals. Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Mogis, God of Slaughter, Xantcha, Sleeper Agent.... all of them are devoted to making your opponents have a bad time. :P
You say suffering and your not wrong, but look at all the different ways they MAKE you suffer. Its not standardized every commander does a mostly different thing. All the Rakdos are different,. Each one has variable effects, ping out for big creatures, nuke the board I'm going in demon tribal, and exile smack repeat. Mogis and Kroxa are hand control, Xantcha is hey everybody pay to make this guy dead. Lotta various effects. Lotta variance in R/B

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