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Kavu Enthusiast
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Post by Kavu Enthusiast » 4 years ago

So I've got color pie and color philosophy bones to pick with some of the design a in the past two days:

* The Mardu partner pair's colors and names are really off. The champion of freedom is *white* and the devourer of the free is *red/black*. Freedom is a no brainier red ideal. The champion of the freedom being white, the color maybe least concerned with personal free, feels like they don't know what the colors even are. Rakdos is perhaps the least restrained color, if you wanted something that devoured the free or freedom it would be white black or white blue; also a no brainier. If you've been designing cards for any amount of time and know magic color ideology 101 how is this a mistake you make?
* The snake leviathan legend is RUG. Snakes are GU almost all the time, that's fine. But there are barely any red snakes, most of the black snake like creatures are naga, but there are more snakes with black than red IIRC. Add leviathan, which are basically all blue with black the main secondary color. Where is red in this picture? This legend should be BUG. It's not even a hard choice.
* Same deal for the Hydra and X spells legend, but it's an even worse ball drop. It's BUG. Hydras are GR. They *always have been*. When there's a third color in their identity it's generally black. It's also a nightmare, which should just reinforce black as the third color. Nightmares are sometimes red and sometimes blue, but paired with Hydra and targeted at Hydra and x spells theme its again, a no brainier that it should be GRB. It being non red cuts a large swath of the cards that should go in a Hydra and x spells deck out of the card pool.

It just bothers/worries me that really obvious screw ups of color ideology and tribal colors. They're supposed to have multiple layers of people reviewing card design to make sure things like that are getting caught and fixed. Those sort of things just make it look like they are all asleep at the wheel.

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Post by ilovesaprolings » 4 years ago

Yeah they could have switched the temur and sultai ones

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RedCheese
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Post by RedCheese » 4 years ago

Nice, Fluctuator got a reprint. I feared they would pull the Ixidor bs again.

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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Kavu Enthusiast wrote:
4 years ago
So I've got color pie and color philosophy bones to pick with some of the design a in the past two days:

* The snake leviathan legend is RUG. Snakes are GU almost all the time, that's fine. But there are barely any red snakes, most of the black snake like creatures are naga, but there are more snakes with black than red IIRC. Add leviathan, which are basically all blue with black the main secondary color. Where is red in this picture? This legend should be BUG. It's not even a hard choice.
You seemed to have stopped reading after the first ability for some reason. Red (and blue) have traditionally been about symmetric draw. While this is a little reigned in, the draw ability is definitely red.
* Same deal for the Hydra and X spells legend, but it's an even worse ball drop. It's BUG. Hydras are GR. They *always have been*. When there's a third color in their identity it's generally black. It's also a nightmare, which should just reinforce black as the third color. Nightmares are sometimes red and sometimes blue, but paired with Hydra and targeted at Hydra and x spells theme its again, a no brainier that it should be GRB. It being non red cuts a large swath of the cards that should go in a Hydra and x spells deck out of the card pool.
Hydras are green's iconic. They are no more Red/Green than they are Black/Green or Blue/Green in terms of the color pie. And there are 3 existing Black Hydras (though, only one is just green/black). Whereas there are 4 existing Blue hydras. If you want to make the case for a third color after red, blue seems to make more sense.

In any case, most of the red hydras were before the time green stole them and, frankly, green can partner with whatever other colors it wants for its iconic. The card seems fine as it is. And, to be honest, Blue and Black have way more fun X spells than Red does (subjectively speaking) and people get to play Villainous Wealth with it.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

RedCheese wrote:
4 years ago
Nice, Fluctuator got a reprint. I feared they would pull the Ixidor bs again.
I picked one up a month or so ago for $5 and saw that it spiked big time over the past several days. I'm glad they decided to reprint as well. Not sure what I'm going to do with 2 though. . . lol
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Post by Serenade » 4 years ago

Dang, I assumed it was on the Reserved List. Old border is better, though.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Oh man xythris, the writhing storm might be a deck in which I could play my timetwister and have it be synergistic instead of just goodstuff :) That sounds fun.

I thought you only got one card for each group of draws but you get one for each. That's nuts fun.

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Post by ironic gesture » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
WizardMN wrote:
4 years ago
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
An open sac outlet in the command zone is a really powerful effect (that's unprecedented afaik?)
[...] yahenni, undying partisan
My first though was that Yawgmoth is, but you already provided another example in your post :)

I agree with the idea that most partners so far haven't really stood out and, for me, I don't really like the Mardu pair either. Mostly because of the "sac a human" clause. If it was unconditional I might like it more but 5 mana is still a lot.
Yawg really isn't open, since he costs life for each one - although it's very good. I think I shorthanded it but I meant more that having access to a reasonable number of colors :P

I don't think there is a multicolored open sac outlet of any sort in the cz.
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

New stuff:

Dismantling Wave looks like a cheaper Return to Dust variant... which doubles as an uncounterable cantripping Bane of Progress effect. Seems solid.

Herald of the Forgotten looks fair and reasonable. Another powerful build-around mass reanimation effect. (and only triggers off casting, thankfully, because triggering off Astral Slide would be dumb)

Lavabrink Floodgates is intriguing. I suspect it would get blown up at inconvenient times, but if you have some counter manipulation (either to add/remove counters... or give it a deathtouch/lifelink counter) it could be decent.

Nikara, Lair Scavenger // Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel look solid. Draw engine + counter producer in the command zone.

Barracuda of the Tide is hilarious. Total chaos on your opponents' turns, serenity on your own. I'm actually not sure whether this combined effect is weaker or stronger than just Leyline of Anticipation - I suspect stronger, but it's hard to know without playing it. (although I suppose if you're incentivized to act on your own turn to not run into your opponents' tricks, it may be a bit awkward)

Call the Coppercoats looks soooooooo much better than Deploy to the Front.

Xyris, the Writhing Storm appears to have generated a bunch of discussion as a wheels commander.... but the 'you and that player both draw cards' clause is also pretty intriguing. Unlike The Locust God, the tokens don't have haste (so you would need to wait a turn to attack with them), and no black means you don't get Megrim effects. So, I think it would skew in a different direction anyway.

Cartographer's Hawk is.... intriguing. I'm not sure if it's good, but it is cheap, and a 2/1 evasive body is pretty reasonable. Interesting to compare to Boreas Charger.

Silvar, Devourer of the Free // Trynn, Champion of Freedom - sacrifice outlet + token producer in the command zone makes me think aristocrats. They don't look super splashy, but they're fine.

Deadly Trick - black has a lot of removal options already, but this one looks like a solid addition. I may give it a shot in a few decks - free is good, after all. Does require having a commander out, but on the flip side, it means tapping out to cast your commander is less of a tempo loss. And honestly, having cards that encourage you to cast your commander is probably a good thing.

Pako, Arcane Retriever // Haldan, Avid Arcanist - not functioning without each other is a little disappointing, since you can't run them as singletons elsewhere. Pako being the more expensive one is also somewhat awkward, since you need to wait a while for your draw engine to be available. Still, it's a cute design, and card draw in the command zone is usually good.

Manascape Refractor looks sweet. Worst-case scenario, it's an ETBT Manalith... but it's really easy to have it tap for a lot more mana, or provide other random utility.

Glademuse does feel weird, since green usually doesn't care about this (or would actively dislike it). Does sort of remind me of a reversed Heartwood Storyteller. Still, while it may be a bend, I don't think it's a color pie break. Blue also already has several instances of this effect, so I'm not going to complain too much about giving green a weaker version.

....on a related note, reprints look to be pretty reasonable so far. I'll wait for full decklists before rendering judgment, but cautiously optimistic.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Yannik and Nikara look very nice. Some Abzan blink stuff looks fun.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

This set is just filled with crazy bombs.




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Post by NZB2323 » 4 years ago

So far these are the new cards I'm thinking about adding:
Great value in all these cards. I'm still waiting to see what the blue spell is that you can cast for free if you have your commander. It could be a counterspell, a draw spell, bounce, or something else.
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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 4 years ago

Twinning Staff goes infinite with two forks & something else, which is nice. Simply cast any instant or sorcery like Lightning Bolt, then cast a fork (such as Twincast) plus another fork (say Fork) targeting the first fork. The 2nd fork resolves & copies 1st fork twice. The first copy targets the 1st fork while the second copy targets Bolt. This repeats. You end up with as many copies of Bolt as you want.

At first I was thinking of Staff as a new Mirari, giving us what we want rather than what we need, but now it seems like a combo engine.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

UnfulfilledDesires wrote:
4 years ago
Twinning Staff goes infinite with two forks & something else, which is nice. Simply cast any instant or sorcery like Lightning Bolt, then cast a fork (such as Twincast) plus another fork (say Fork) targeting the first fork. The 2nd fork resolves & copies 1st fork twice. The first copy targets the 1st fork while the second copy targets Bolt. This repeats. You end up with as many copies of Bolt as you want.

At first I was thinking of Staff as a new Mirari, giving us what we want rather than what we need, but now it seems like a combo engine.
I think it goes infinite with itself too if you activate it targeting the fork I think.

Nice thing is something else doesn't have to be your spell lol :P Someone casts lightning bolt then dies on the stack. Pretty funny.

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Post by Gashnaw » 4 years ago

Twining staff will get banned. Way too easy to combo with.

I am asking glad they did partner with instead of partner. But I kind not like the lack of possible combinations. I guess they did not want a repeat of thasios.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Gashnaw wrote:
4 years ago
Twining staff will get banned. Way too easy to combo with.
Explain? We're in a world where Swarm Intelligence and Mirari both roam free.
 
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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 4 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
4 years ago
Gashnaw wrote:
4 years ago
Twining staff will get banned. Way too easy to combo with.
Explain? We're in a world where Swarm Intelligence and Mirari both roam free.
I don't believe it'll get banned, but the Staff vastly more powerful than either of those. It goes infinite with two forks & an instant/sorcery on the stack, or with just one fork & an instant/sorcery on the stack if you activate its ability. It also goes infinite with one fork & a tapped Kalamax if one of your opponents puts an instant/sorcery on the stack. (Kalamax's trigger copies the fork twice. One of the copies targets the original & the loop begins.) & it synergizes with Kalamax & with forks for only three mana.

I can only assume there won't be any true forks in Kalamax's deck. Perhaps this why they've shifted to the Doublecast approach.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

I see. So in a world of Kiki Conscripts, Deadeye Palinchron and whatnot else, a pile of specific spells and a situational payoff piece bordering on winmore come together to create a combo. And somehow gets called out as bannable. Uh-huh. Sure. :P
 
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Honestly, the first place my brain went with Twinning Staff was Bonus Round and Thousand-Year Storm. Of course people will play it for the infinite bolts and whatnot, but I'm more interested in chaining together a zillion draw spell copies.
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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 4 years ago

Twinning Staff has an impressive number of combos along the lines of Palinchron. For example, Izzet Guildmage plus Manamorphose gets there. I think it's fine & can't wait to build & play with the Staff in the Kalamax, the Stormsire list I'm working on (intended as fringe cEDH). My point is just that the Staff is considerably better than Mirari & Swarm Intelligence.
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Post by Cyberium » 4 years ago

Kavu Enthusiast wrote:
4 years ago
So I've got color pie and color philosophy bones to pick with some of the design a in the past two days:

* The Mardu partner pair's colors and names are really off. The champion of freedom is *white* and the devourer of the free is *red/black*. Freedom is a no brainier red ideal. The champion of the freedom being white, the color maybe least concerned with personal free, feels like they don't know what the colors even are. Rakdos is perhaps the least restrained color, if you wanted something that devoured the free or freedom it would be white black or white blue; also a no brainier. If you've been designing cards for any amount of time and know magic color ideology 101 how is this a mistake you make?
I think the word "Free" is used as a noun here. The girl let people out of the city, so her partner could eat them.

As you said, white isn't the best color for freedom, but it has a certain level of "propaganda" and "manipulation" build into it, especially if you take into account who she befriended with. I'd prefer seeing her as the "white" part of the Mardu tricolor than as a stand alone white.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

UnfulfilledDesires wrote:
4 years ago
Twinning Staff has an impressive number of combos along the lines of Palinchron. For example, Izzet Guildmage plus Manamorphose gets there. I think it's fine & can't want to build & play with the Staff in the Kalamax, the Stormsire list I'm working on (intended as fringe cEDH). My point is just that the Staff is considerably better than Mirari & Swarm Intelligence.
I was calling out the original hysterical post, not you. Your explanations have been nothing but helpful. As a guy who's never really set foot in conventional slinger town, I didn't have a good feel for it.
 
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 4 years ago

Manascape Refractor and Deadly Trick go right into Erebos. Refractor obviously doubles up on land doublers/ramp like Coffers, Stronghold, and Nykthos, but also being able to steal something like Kor Haven or Hall of Heliod's Generosity? Delicious. As for Trick, well, I run a low cost indestructible enchantment for a commander. It's going to be free the overwhelming majority of the time. Trick is pretty insane, honestly.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

No way in a million years twinning staff gets banned with all the nonsense spellslinger stiff out there. It is a fairly powerful card tho.

I really like manascape refractor -- probly go in all 5 of my golos decks?:P

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Nikara, Lair Scavenger // Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel

You can get infinite ETB/LTB with Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel and Karmic Guide and a sacrifice outlet.
Nikara, Lair Scavenger basically gives you a win condition as you get to draw tons of cards, that and you get to distribution infinite +1/+1 counters.
Phyrexian Delver does it as well, but you need life gain to go infinite, like Angelic Chorus, Healer of the Pride, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice, Verdant Sun's Avatar.

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