This thread is about the Commander 2013 Identity Nemesis card.
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{1UU}
Creature — Merfolk Rogue
As Identity Nemesis enters the battlefield, choose a player.
Identity Nemesis has protection from that player. (This creature cannot be blocked, targeted, damaged or enchanted by a source controlled by that player.)
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I invite many of the excellent contributors to this site to comment on the below from a (competitive) Legacy point of view:
- Which existing decks are benefiting for this card, which are suffering
- Which cards (single cards or typology of cards) are benefiting for this card, which are removed
- How is the metagame affected: specifically aggro, control and combo
- How do you feel about this new mechanic (protection from that player)
- Any spare deck list?
I post my answers tomorrow.
I feel this card is a metagame changer with long-term implications and innovative approaches.
From my point of view, this card is dumb, boring while noninteractive, shows poor design, but nonetheless seems very powerful. I don't know why blue needed another evasive 3-power-creature... This card will be strong in decks which can capitalize on it's ability to withstand most removal and go directly to the throat. Stoneblade (Esper, BWR) comes to mind as well as tempo decks. Merfolk could use this guy to compensate their weakness to nonblue decks with big creatures.
The design is strange for EDH and clearly geared toward eternal play (a product full of multiplayer-based cards and we get one that is terrible in multiplayer...). Ignoring that, I think the card is about as good as Vendilion Clique. You trade hand disruption and flash for nigh-unkillableness with the small bonus of a more relevant creature type. I like the card paired with Stoneforge Mystic as those two together (with Jitte, ofc) mean lights out for most fair decks. One problem is the decrease in viability and popularity of Stoneblade and I don't think this guy helps making strides towards bringing that deck pack. It might be good in 4c Delver and/or Shardless but without Jitte it pretty much is a dumb creature. I think, however, that Clique offers a lot vs. combo decks and that this guy does nothing of the sort.
My overall reaction is tempered annoyance. My evaluation is a potential player, but definitely not format-defining.
Can you imagine how much this is going to cost? Ooze wasn't a 4-of and it costed a lot, this is going straight into Merfolk and probably going to spawn some other archetypes.
I don't like this card at all, and I could see it being banned. Not because it's going to be broken in Legacy. But because it's unintuitive, unfun, uninteractive and just plain boring. It is just a card that belongs in 4-player EDH where it actually makes sense like the Join Forces mechanic or the "hate auras".
I could see the ability being protection from spell the player casts, but giving it protection from creatures and effects from creatures of that players controls is just stupid.
For the power level, the card is unfortunately overpowered and will have a big impact on the format imo. Clear 4-off in many decks. Blocks Goyfs, carries Jitte, blocks Jitte'd creatures, blocks Batterskull, trumps Jace, pitches to FoW, is a Merfolk. A 3 mana 3/1 functional Progenitus is quite retarded.
For the design: This is the most unfun and uncreative card of all time. Hexproof + unblockable is retarded. The color choice makes no sense whatsoever. I hate it a lot.
It has all the advantages of hexproof and then some.
Its best use will probably be some kind of Stoneblade package. It's solid in Merfolk as well, but the ability to unequivocally swing with a Batterskull or Sword of Fire/Ice with little-to-no chance of retribution removes most of the remaining risk of assembling an Equipment Voltron.
It's more answerable outside Merfolk since it may not be surrounded by a horde to protect it from -X/-X effects or Edicts. The majority of answers to it are typically not regarded as good cards in Legacy though -- you gonna run Infest/Mutilate in Grixis Control to stomp this guy? What are you taking out? Doesn't that wreck your board too?
I don't like him. But I would play the everloving shit out of him. He's a fantastic target for fat pants of all varieties; Auras, equipment, whatever. He blocks all day all the time. No Swords, no Bolt, no incidental damage can reach him. Playable answers are like... Terminus, Golgari Charm (outside of a Merfolk shell where there are Lords for days), Supreme Verdict. Maybe Moat. Yeah.
I've been joking for a long time that with enough creep the only viable beaters are going to be hexproof + unblockable and that all viable removal is going to be untargeted or untargeted sweepers. Looks like we're well on our way.
More Deed? Blue has Stifle.
Terminus?.... Vapor Snag?
Lili? Maybe you already have another dork.
I love this thing. Three turn clock with SoFI - just counter their win conditions or sweepers and ride it to victory?
Yes, it's dumb. However, we all know that's where this game is headed anyway.
Personally, I think it's going to be easier to design around this guy than thought. Forget about jamming it into existing decks. Just make UG Hexproof with tempo/permission and win.
1) Disrupt
2) Swing
3) ?????
4) Profit
"I made a Redguard that looks like Kimbo Slice. He wrecks peoples' shit. And dragons." - Bignasty197
Wonder how they did come to make a creature with minimal interaction after players hating creatures like Geist and stalker...
Its a killer card and will be house in merfolk but otherwise its essentially a 2 card combo (+ equipment) to really be frightening and one that doesnt outright win the game. Its a mini-me progenitus.. Personally id rather just cast NO.
Hmmm or maybe both.
Edit- NM the picture sucks..
-The Treefolk MasterYou just sent him to the place were brain cells go to die. The Las Vegas of The Source, if you will.
I feel like this should be Blue/White. Hexproof and unblockable are distinctly Blue, but outside of Energy Field (which I'd think most people would agree is not an example of stuff Blue should be able to do) there's no real precedent for how it prevents all damage to itself from sources opponents control.
Hate that blue are geting so much aggressive stuff. Just like at the standard monoblue devotion deck atm..
I'd say for once RnD is being clever about shit. That card is perfect for moving players toward Merfolk and Stoneblade and away from RUG. RUG won't play anything that costs three, but this card is excellent in the control mirror, and its especially awesome with Quirion Ranger, or something that lets you untap it to block. I see this guy being an excellent a win condition in some fringe decks like Stasis, that seriously needs something like an evasive 3 drop that can't really die. Also, in those evasive/pump decks he will certainly find a place. Note that you can't 2 for 1 this guy so they actually have to focus your pump spells instead.
Luck is a residue of design.
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Expect me or die. I play SI.
So, 3/1 beater with hexproof, evasion, indefinite chumpbblocking and a relevant creature type? I mean it's -maybe- a 2-of in Merfolk and RUG since it's a relatively implacable clock but other than that I don't really see it rocking the format. I mean it's not as if people don't already play edicts, taxes, chasms, global sweepers and a host of other shit in order to circumvent non standard threats such as this, and Vendillion Clique still has more utility for most of the benefits.
I'm generally of the opinion that people on internet forums know and understand, comprehend and can evaluate hyperbole when they see it. Progenitus can die, it doesn't make it easy or reasonable to attempt. Supreme Verdict basically did go away, at least in my meta there are no copies of it and I'm not even sure why miracles is still in the deck to beat section given how badly BGx midrange decks--which are popular right now, shit all over that archetype so bad it's silly.
It's not that it's impossible to beat it's that it's unreasonably difficult to do it. The decks that play it can and will stall the game for the ~6 turns it takes to kill you, probably fewer with anything else they can spare to deal you damage. Lingering Souls produces chump blockers for days, Snapcaster Plowshares can run you out of threats, stoneforge mystic can make it absolutely ridiculous.
This card is really good. But I won't call it format defining. It will see play especially in merfolk. But merfolk already has quite a number of 3 drops. What merfolk needs are better 1 drops like cursecatcher.
In other legacy blue decks, it has to fight geist and Clique for spots. These 2 creatures are the closest competitors. UWR tempo plays 2 geist and would they swap it for this new guy? Geist swings for double but is terrible defensively and has no evasion. However for an aggressive deck like tempo, if you are on the defensive you are fucked anyway. I'd still take geist in aggressive decks.
Ur/rug delver can't afford 3 drops so no spot for the new merfolk there. Though since nimble mongoose is total crap now, alternative beaters are needed. Maybe a Grim/new merfolk split replacing mongoose? Next is stoneblade which runs 2-3 cliques. Unfortunately clique is important in stoneblade for its combo/control busting role. Unfortunately for this new folk, it does nothing against combo. Stoneblade has so many 3 drops to choose from like lingering souls and vindicate. The merfolk is facing some tough competition since its basically a hard to kill beater.
It reminds me a little of thrun. It has its uses but won't be format defining because it lacks a disruptive element. That's why geist doesn't see as much play as say Kotr and Clique. Kotr fetches wastelands and Clique messes with hands. In legacy combo is a thing and 3 drops really need to do something against combo.
Who would have thought the day would come when we needed combo to balance the power of creatures.
What's the mail to insult R&D ?
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