Yeeah thats pretty good. Also, which guilds are they starting with? BR? Thats Rakdos no? They'll probably stick with Golgari for the first set.
I'm hoping for something a bit more flavorful:
Golgari Charm BG
Sorcery
Choose one; target opponent sacrifices a creature, or put target creature into play that was put into the graveyard from anywhere this turn, or each player chooses a permanent with the highest converted mana cost among permanents they control and sacrifices that permanent.
Probably OP. Its nuts with Entomb or Careful Study. The Diabolic Edict in BG (doesn't see play anymore), a reanimation spell of sorts, and a way to get rid of permanents. Might be more balanced if 'anywhere' read 'from play'.
Luck is a residue of design.
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Sadly, all we've seen is a <non-blue> -> blue bleed. It's a one way street as far as R&D is concerned. For example, P/T switching used to be exclusively Red. Now it's tacked onto cantripping Blue instants, put on Merfolk, and given to Instant-speed wizards. This isn't the first nor last time the transition has been in favor of blue.
(list for reference)
Here's hoping for minimal blue-bleed...
EDIT: Before someone mentions card filtering as a blue ability - remember that Red got Wheel of Fortune (discard, then draw) before Blue got Merfolk Looter. In reality, it's been bled to blue, and only now returning (slowly...)
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The first set has Rakdos, Golgari, Azorius, Selesnya, and Izzet.
I think people's expectations for these charms are waaaaaaaay too high. First, they're uncommon; second, they need to cost two mana (based on what we know right now), and third, they're following a pattern of Color A Ability, Color B Ability, Ability Shared Between A and B. Izzet Charm is probably about as pushed for Constructed as they're willing to make them short of a deliberate attempt to fuck up Standard/Modern. Some of the idea I've seen floating around wouldn't even be okay at rare for two mana, let alone uncommon.
Also remember that the charms need to be loosely connected to the flavor of the guild whose names they bear. Rakdos will likely involve trading resources for short-term gain, Golgari will probably have something to do with life/death, Selesnya will likely play well in a token deck, and Azorius...who knows, that guild was a mess last time.
@ Koby: Blinking has been shared with blue since, well, Momentary Blink. I don't recall there being any blink effects printed between Flicker and Momentary Blink, so the sharing goes back a bit. Note that white also gets self-bounce (like Kor Skyfisher) and slide effects that return EoT (like, well, Astral Slide), and while bounce has been in blue for a long time, sliding isn't.
It's also worth noting that blue has lost Tims to red and is now sharing draw more evenly across colors (green gets creature-based, black gets resource-for-cards, and red gets reverse looting). White has minor counterspelling abilities, but they're reluctant to push that because counters are unfun or something, I don't know. From comments on MaRo's tumblr, Polymorphing might move to red someday as well.
Main problem is that Red doesn't have much to offer and the good stuff has already been nerfed to uselessness.
What has Red to offer nowadays?
Burn, more burn, Pyroclasm-variants, overcosted, unplayable LD, crappy combat tricks, mediocre/bad mana accel and a slow shift of loot effects.
Black kinda suffers from the same problems - Rituals gone, LD nerfed, tutors nerfed hard. At least Black still gets decent discard spells from time to time and some of newer creature kill cards are decent as well.
Rakdos could be an interesting color combination if they focused on the strenghts of the colors. Instead, they rely on crappy gimmicks.
Blue might be giving up or sharing certain abilities, but they're all "fixed". There will never be a Red Brainstorm or a White Mana Leak (to say nothing of a truly hard counter without condition), so of course they will never stand out as being comparable. It's when R&D screws up and does things like making Snapcaster Mage Blue instead of Red, that's when the problem is expressed significantly enough that it's irksome. I don't know that Blink effects are on par with all that, except maybe wherein D&T is concerned.
Anyway, it's true that BR is too gimmicky. If they wanted to really sack up they'd print Hymn at BR or something like Grim Tutor or Sinkhole at RBB. But even that is more of the same and especially adding another 'anything' tutor to Eternal formats, even with the double mana cost and life loss, is probably a mistake.
However power creep is a thing, and Maverick is a deck, so maybe the Izzet junk is just scratching the surface. Can't help but be little-kid excited for the new block.
I don't usually play B/R combinations but it would be cool to see a Rakdos Charm that mixes Sinkhole that only targets non-basic, an instant until end of turn Chains of Mephistopheles and Gamble
Izzet charm being blue is huge, having removal that can be pitched to FOW is awesome. Fire//Ice has a similar effect and is being played, I could definitely see this being played as well. I don't think this card will ever be insane, although now with izzet charm and faithless looting there may be enough cards to fill the graveyard for goblin welder--I think show and tell its just better.
Contract From Below.
Demonic Tutor. The best draw a card, ever.
Recall.
Twister.
Time Walk. Kind of.
Braingeyser.
I mean, come on. When were you ever in doubt of blue doing it all?
Lifegain?
Yeah, how about Lifetap
They put the word LIFE in there for you.
Direct damage??
Pirate Ship.
Psionic Blast.
Check.
Enchanting Enchantments?!! WTF
Obv.
Feedback
Power Leak
I would argue that other colors got their swag from blue.
Edit: Yes, Discard then Draw should be red, but that was all Irrel after Enchant Enchantments.
spreading seas
aquitect's will
sea's claim
Seems like a reasonable ability for Simic.
As for the Rakdos charm, we could see something like pyroclasm, mind rot, ???. Standard will be sorely missing a pyroclasm at cmc 2 after whipflare rotates.
It's interesting to note that black has card draw and discarding as separate abilities, and red has both combined into the rummaging goblin effect. Aside from the charm, we could see something like probe:
Rakdos Probe
Sorcery
Each player discards 2 cards, then you draw 2 cards.
I don't think any 2 cc spells will be on any of he chams.
The design seems tobe:
Careful study/looting=. 1cc
Shock = 1 cc
Pierce = 1 cc
Izzet charm=2 cc
Black green will probably get:
Discard (seize, iok, ostracism, duress)
1/1 token (with death touch?) or something
Giant growth or crop rotation or something
I hope they'll all be 2 CMC. For symmetry reasons.
I could see something like:
Silence-Force Spike/Mana Tithe-Unsummon for the Azorius one.
That would be a very good card, though I'm not sure if they'd put rares in it. Orim's Chant and Silence are both rare, and it would make Abeyance a pretty crappy card by comparison. We already have Saving Grasp, so the unsummon seems likely. Mana Tithe/Force Spike seems like a natural fit as well. Really, anything except for gain 3 life is acceptable to me in the W slots :D
I think the charm will see play. I would try it instead of my 1of Fire-Ice in RUG, but it would obviously be better in a deck that does not complain about playing 4-5 "expensive" 2 mana spell. Some Terminus decks already splash red. If they do that a bit more serious this card could provide flexible utility...especially getting rid of "dead" cards/miracles. That deck also has no problem keeping 2 mana up. Could work as a 2-3of...
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Another interesting revelation is that it lets the Shardless Agent-Ancestral Vision engine deck that Brian DeMars was championing run real counterspells in addition to 4 FoW.
So much utility in one card makes it very appealing for RUG (I am talking about the Izzet charm here). More instant removal which can be pitched to FoW. End of turn, grow my Nimble Mongoose. Keep it as Spell Pierce, opponent lays a ton of lands, then you say fuck it and use it as faithless looting which is a better effect than cycling. So in theory it looks great. But the thing is RUG runs and queues 1cc spells so well that a 2cc spell can be such a deal breaker.. I mean there are so many times when you just Brainstorm in response and cast a Spell Pierce afterwards. Or Chain Lightning in your turn (or cast a creature or a ponder or whatever) keeping 1 mana up to bluff a Pierce or Stifle. Or keep 1 mana up for Brainstorm. There are so many ways to sequence your plays with 2 lands and a bunch of 1 mana spells. Having a 2cc spell feels like throwing a wrench in those plans and restricting your sequencing. I don't know, I tried it a little last night but felt uncomfortable with it even though it proved very useful in a couple occasions.
It seems worse than Brainstorm+1 cc instant, but that's not exactly surprising.
Somewhat OT: Is overload just going to be kicker with a different name?
It's important to note that Overload is templated so that it doesn't affect the casting cost. It is an alternate way of playing the spell that changes it slightly. The example given is:
X Deal X damage to target creature.
Overload XX Deal X to each creature. --> CMC is still X + 1
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Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
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