Magic: The Gathering C/D

for the 4th year in a row the new england GP is on a weekend when i'm likely going to be away on vacation :/

might look at hitting up the philly or DC ones if i'm feeling good about magic next summer though

yeah ok Mortars does nothing, I'm dumb

none of the cards that Vinnie mentioned are likely to get much Standard play. Far/Away takes care of it I guess. I mean the fact that it's a Watchwolf even outside of Monstrous is insane, the only parallel I can think of is Figure of Destiny, which of course did not have the stupid combination of hexproof and indestructable. In fact, outside of that one Angel that requires a human in play, have they ever printed those two abilities on the same card?

its a bit of a trap though in that your opponent has plenty of time to prepare to blow you out by killing it in response to the activation

in general I'd think the good instant spot removal would have been used on this thing earlier, it's still an over-the-curve 2-drop. and it's not like Lightning Bolt is still legal.

scry lands don't seem so good

no one's going to play them until RTR rotates, but they're probably better than they look

are you serious

they will see heavy play in non-aggro decks

well without any other options they kinda have to

getting scrys from your manabase is pretty powerful when the alternative is 'having worse mana' rahter than 'having faster mana'

maybe I shouldn't have said "no one", if nothing else that W/U one will see a lot of play. shocks just seem so good right now when the power of 2-4 mana spells are all so high and many of them can end a game quickly if not dealt with. but Scrylands are good draws at pretty much any point in the game which is why I think ppl will underrate these.

we don't have the W/U one yet. this is actually a big deal for standard i think

and yes part of the hidden power of these is that they are better lategame topdecks than any other land excluding manlands. they also let you keep a slightly wider range of opening hands and will create a format with a bit less flood/screw which is beneficial to stronger players.

i'm happy enough with the u/b one, still haven't seen anything that makes me think my u/b tempo deck couldn't possibly be competitive

ha, didnt even see that they only did the Gatecrash ones, very clever

Whoops I skimmed over the fact that they aren't just straight ally color duals. This is gonna be the first standard in a while where we only have one set of duals that can come into play untapped, right? Seems like 2-color aggro decks are gonna take a consistency hit. And forget about 3-color aggro.

yeah that sounds about right.

Vinnie, wasn't that also the case a year ago when RTR came in? There weren't GTC shocks at that point.

It seems like they are making a concerted effort to sink u/w control between these lands and all the ways that they are hosing Sphinx's Revelation.

I'm with the vast numbers of mtg complainers in saying that the scry lands should be uncommon rather than rare. Maybe if they were tap for scry instead of ETB it would make more sense.

oh, I see what you mean about one set of duals... was thinking half of color pairs, duh...

They certainly feel uncommon. They remind me of the Zendikar Refuges, though way more useful.

i've pretty much made my peace with that, especially in the presence of cards like Thoughtseize being rare (given that every similar effect is common or uncommon)

these are much stronger than refuges. they are reasonably equivalent to lots of other past rare dual lands in power. they don't read well at all, so hopefully they'll be dirt cheap to start and you can pick some up before the pro tour produces the first round of tuned standard decklists

looks like scg has started them at $6 but i wouldn't be surprised if they drop down to 3 before going back up based on use

i wonder if with all that scry, the time is right for a notion thief/whispering madness combo deck. i think with a shell of jaces, omenspeakers and tidebinder mages, and like 4 soul ransoms, that deck could be pretty good.

some more spoilers this weekend - a "reverse" Fact or Fiction for 2UR (probably still good enough to play), Ashen Rider which seems like a new reanimator target, an instant speed Dreadbore, new Glorious Anthem...all good stuff!!

Ashen Rider clearly inspired by Angel of Despair, but it's strange that it's THAT similar. Very good card though.

Dissolve (Cancel + Scry 1) is in the running for best hard counter since Counterspell, eh?

dissipate was quite good in a format where the exile mattered but yeah in a vacuum this is possibly the best 3cmc counter since invasion (absorb/exclude). it's not the best overall because cryptic command

the trojan horse card is fun

Trojan Horse card design seems a bit obvious but still great to see. heh xp

good point. I was only running through the 3CMC ones in my head, Cryptic Command was so dumb (it kinda felt like an instant-speed Time Walk)

Trojan Horse is definitely goin in my Zedruu EDH deck that I swear I have somewhere in my trunk. Is it just me or does this set already have the most top-down designs since like, Arabian Nights?

the W 2/1 with prot. from multicolor seems quite strong, looks like they're pushing for a decent white weenie deck again

Lots of heroic stuff spoiled in the last few days. Now we just need to see the stuff we're supposed to target it with. The 1WW 2/2 double strike that gets +1/+1 seems pretty dangerous.

Red got its Slagstorm variant in a mass Annihilating Fire, seems like it'll keep the Voice/Lion decks at bay a little.

The one-mana counterspell seems like another attempt to make a big splash in old formats without messing up Standard. They're gonna preorder for way more than they'll be worth a month from now, but it's definitely a card to keep an eye on

these heroic cards would have been pretty awesome in the Mutagenic Growth/Apostle's Blessing/Gut Shot era

Spellheart Chimera is Runechanter's Pike, the creature. Not as durable as Haunt + Pike, but only one card. I'm often wrong about these kinds of things, but it seems Constructed playable. It would fit nicely into the current Standard, but I know by the time it's legal, the blue-based decks will have lost Thought Scour and Think Twice.

aaaaand anger of the gods is a good example of why you should never test new formats before you have the entire cardpool. card is potentially format-defining and a kick in the balls to aggro decks

Prognostic Sphinx also looks pretty strong. Hard to kill, blocks well, and sets up the rest of your game.

xxp well Chimera + new FoF seems pretty potent. I feel there's a (tier 4) deck somewhere out there with those two and Young Pyromancer though.

wow, anger of the gods seems incredibly overpowered. Looks like this is going to push R/x decks towards midrange. Does this mean I get to play my Ruric Thars now?

Also, I love that it shuts down voice decks.

Right now I'm thinking that B/G control may be the way for me to go post rotation, at least until the dust settles.

Prognostic Sphinx has some of my favorite art for this set so far. That dude is chill.

i wouldn't say it's the death knell for aggro decks, i survived 2 standard seasons of Slagstorm being in the format while playing creature decks. it just means you need to adjust to its presence in both deckbuilding and play

do you really think slagstorm is 'format-defining'?

not really i guess, but it does affect how aggro decks are constructed

the exile clause makes it look targeted at voice but i am curious how good certain red-based swarm decks were w/o this card: both burning-tree and young pyromancer seemed increasingly powerful given the cards spoiled. it does makes lots of things worse i think - i had been thinking about how useful wight of precinct six could be but the exile clause on this combined w/ooze means it will probably have to stay a draft all-star :(

rules question: does heroic only apply if the card is in play? if i target an agent of the fates with a recursion spell, do i still get the free edict?

what do you mean? it has to be in play when you target it, but not when the ability resolves.

rules text doesn't do anything in the graveyard unless its explicit about it

also i finally bit the bullet and picked up RTR jaces the other night. i think that card has enormous upside once all the resilient midrange creatures from ISD block + thragtusk are gone, unless there's some equivalent things in theros that we have yet to see, which is unlikely at this point unless they're trying to sweep them under the rug

Yeah, no free edict if you Grim Return your Agent.

More flavor-based cards rolling in. I don't know how useful the Fates will be in any format (I suppose removing a bomb is worth negative card advantage) but I like that this card exists, just as art I guess.

Wow, and a strictly better Jackal Pup too

The amount of cards with high-concept mechanics has been staggering

Dauntless Onslaught (+2/+2 to 2 target creatures) is gonna be a total blowout in some decks

What's funny is that the strictly better Jackal Pup might not be as good as a Rakdos Cackler or Stromkirk Noble, though mono-red will basically play any 2-power 1-drop it gets its grubby hands on.