Magic: The Gathering C/D

This set definitely looks very dgm'ish, Brimaz seems like it'll be a $40 card and then nothing else will come close. the minor gods all seem very fun but you really have to build around them in a way you don't have to with say Purphorous. as you guys have all figured out the uncommons look like they'll really shake up the Limited format (which is awesome bc I don't play constructed really)

Inspired looks like it'll rise the stock of Aqueous Form and Prowler's Helm. Slapping a Form on one of those creature-gen things and going to town seems like a good time. I like Tribute too, I think a lot of people have a bad reaction to any sort of "punisher" card but I think these are different because traditional punisher cards give you things that are bad in two very different ways while these are generally bad in the same way. Like they're all probably worse than they look but many of them seem very playable

Perplexing Chimera is probably my favorite card in the set right now, especially since it combos neatly with bounce or flicker effects. Next is probably Hunter's Prowess. I also dig Tromokrasis a lot and hope that both those abilities get used from now on. But these are all 25 cent rares. Kinda refreshing in a way to have a set with almost no chase rares outside of the obligitory overpowered mythic.

perplexing chimera is going to be the most groan inducing card an opponent can resolve. so annoying.

Does it combo well with bounce/flicker effects? Can't your opponent choose to take control of your bounce spell and hit something else with it? I guess if there's no other targets, they can't.

yeah but then you get the Chimera back anyway

not saying the card's any good but I love when they come up with totally new things like that (the divide into 3 piles and lose one card is also quite a unique thing, but that's not even remotely playable)

Yeah, you get the Chimera back, but they've potentially bounced whatever you stole in the first place and it's back to square one. But maybe that's fine? It's a hard card for me to get my head around. Seems playable in limited, but I can't tell how good it is. I guess at the least it delays them from playing their best spell, like having a face-up Voidmage Prodigy on the board.

I wanted to build a Modern Seance deck and this seems like it could fit. If your graveyard is stocked you can play Seance, zip this out on the opponent's turn and take control of anything bad they might cast (and the token bites it at the end of the turn anyway), then combo off on your turn. Anything to make the deck wackier than it already is...

i'd be really suprised if brimaz is a voice of resurgence situation, there's 2 other mythics that are probably as good as it in xenagos and kiora, and the rest of the gods will probably hold value too. DGM's problem was making the headlining characters regular rares and then making most of the mythics shitty

Well for one those (and the other gods) are all multicolor so that really limits the sort of decks they can go in. The major gods were cheaper and triggered with 2 other permanents in play whereas you'll probably need 3 out for these. In other words I feel like there's probably only one deck out there for any of these. I'm also wondering just how good Kiora really is, its starting loyalty is low which means it'll usually die to anything that hits it. Like often I figure you'll have to choose between using the 0 ability that you really want to use and the +1 that will keep it alive. Also I question what kind of deck it'll fit in. Brimaz seems so pushed right now that it may be another Baneslayer situation, as in you can just slot it into any ol' white deck and it'll pull its weight.

yeah I don't like kiora at all, even in limited she seems pretty meh

Anyway, the starcity guys (who are a lot smarter than me) break it down like this:

Brimaz $30
Kiora $25
Xenagos $25 (now that I think about it there's already a Standard deck this would slide right into)
Mogis $20
Other Gods and Flame-Weathered Phoenix $10

Not a lot of other rares worth money (similar to Theros I guess):
Courser of Kruphix $4
Pain Seer $12
Spirit of the Labyrinth $8
Temples $5 each

And even then I think Pain Seer will probably tank hard once people realize that it's going to be really tough to make it more than a Grizzly Bear with all the great creatures currently in Standard. If Dark Confidant didn't exist this would probably be a $3 card right now. I'm also thinking Spirit of the Labyrinth isn't going to get much play outside of sideboards right now (and Legacy-oriented cards like that tend to not be worth a whole lot while they're in print)

yeah none of the almost-dark-confidants have panned out and spirit will be this set's swan song

even xenagos in the gr deck is what a 1-2 of? in one of the less popular decks

I'm guessing people who got burned from the gods sinking in value so fast last time will be hesitant to buy/trade them even at 20

i think kiora is quite good but i'm no expert obviously

my sleeper pick for this set is scourge of skola vale, i don't think it's awesome but i think it's playable and at a cmc slot that green's had a lot of trouble filling in recent times, and it's being priced as a bulk rare by scg so its like low risk medium reward

yeah no way the minor gods are settling north of $10

I like the design of the Scourge but it has the problem of needing some work to become a threat and even then not having a way to protect itself. Unless there's a combo with the +1/+1 counters somewhere.

i think xenagos does, and if brimaz, xenagos, and tamiyo are all >$10 and a few of the regular rares break out to the $5-10 range then we've got a pretty average small set value-wise. its the latter that i don't know if is going to happen.

the best chance is that these 3 temples are worth >$5 due to the small set effect

people thought dark ascension was shitty when it came out, similar to this, and then falkenrath aristocrat and hellrider broke out later in the year and it ended up being a fine set in retrospect, it just took a bit

to me the mythics here seem less promising than the mythics in dragonsmaze did (lots of which seemed to have potential, even though only voice and baron went anywhere) + there are no random shocklands in packs

Both Aristocrat and Hellrider seemed pushed upon release but there wasn't a deck for them until later. I don't really see that sort of card here. The Phoenix and Spirit of the Labyrinth are the two cards that seem real good but need the right deck or metagame, and they're 10 and 8 right now.

Maybe Herald of Torment?

Yeah I think Herald has a chance of getting play. Reminds me of Boon Satyr in terms of cost/power level.

I also think Kiora looks pretty sweet. Her abilities map to Jace, Architect of Thought's abilities somewhat, but the ultimate is more powerful, and it's quicker to go off. The tradeoff is smaller starting loyalty. We'll see if there is a deck for her.

I agree that the power level is similar but being 2 color limits the sort of decks that it gets played in. If a deck does get built around Prophet of Kruphix and Ephara I can see it working very well...

I could see UW Control decks splashing G for Kiora too. Though then it competes directly with Jace.

I'm looking forward to someone building a crazy mill deck around Mill God + Mnemonic Walls + Triton Tactics + Hidden Strings

As someone at my LGS noticed, Pheanx + Consuming Aberration are BFFs

current modern deck, since lamp was asking about modern the other day
http://i.imgur.com/0Zi1QE5.jpg

pretty happy with it so far, i think the cryptic command build is probably fine too but i want 4 valakut 3-4 omen in any version of the deck i play right now

Got in 380 pre-release kits (which is 100 more than I need, oops) and assorted goodies to go along with it. Kinda wish I could sleep at my office tonight, I suddenly don't trust the alarm.

the store i play at just sells off the extra kits afterwards, since they have 6 booster packs worth of cards in them and thus are presumably worth about that much. sometimes they do another event with extra ones the following weekend too.

there's inevitably one color that runs out before the others, but which one it is seems to vary not only from set to set but from store to store as well. around here it's usually blue.

yeah ime people tend to really like the guild packs and enjoy having events with them so it shouldn't be a problem to get rid of the extra 100. store here also sell them for what the charge for the prerelease

pretty weird shit going on here, someone found a promo from an unknown/not-yet-announced product in their prerelease kit
http://i.imgur.com/Byl2JQz.jpg

looks pretty real and rk post has confirmed that it's his art

its probably just the summer multiplayer supplemental product, but 210 cards is a lot for one of those and they haven't had prerelease-style promos for them before.

yeah the effect makes no sense if it's not multiplayer

maybe most of those cards are reprints?

cool ability though

further weirdness - the card had a phone number printed on the back, people called it and it was like a numbers station style thing with a ciphered message thats been decoded to:

Cogwork Librarian (4)
Artifact Creature - Construct
Draft Cogwork Librarian face up. As you draft a card you may draft an additional card from that booster pack. If you do, put Cogwork Librarian into that booster pack.
3/3

so looks like some sort of multiplayer draft format

ha

Haha that's awesome. I'm ready for regular Magic to absorb that card into the game, a la Barren Glory.

dial 1-425-204-2672 you can hear it yourself

kinda seems like the accidental spoiling of Rootborn Defenses last year wound up getting a lot of people excited and thus WoTC maybe thought "we should do something like that on purpose"

I could have sworn they did this before, a planned "accidental" spoiling

Man, there's some really cool things they could do in this vein. A card that lets you see or steal or restrict your opponent's draft picks, maybe

eh that actually gets into ante-zone 'no you don't get to pick the voice you just opened -> (quits magic)'

they did ARG marketing stuff leading up to Innistrad but that's the only time in the past they've done anything like this really.

xp Ah yeah, good point. Some people are suggesting it will be sold as more of a set to be cube drafted with rather than boosters, in which case it would be fine.

yeah it makes sense that a cube product would involve great-but-not-tournament-sanctioned cards, as any reprints of real-expensive-cards is gonna create some problems