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It was balanced back in the day because blue had decent counters, board sweepers, bounce, legacy's allure etc. against the Survival decks while red and green had their Sligh and Stompy deck to punish blue. I think it had a lot of character and balance.
if the militant is darkblasted, does the darkblast get rfg?
Yes. Damage spells or -X/-X spells will get RFG.Quote:
Originally Posted by jam3sbob
Terror/StP effects will go into the graveyard.
Savannah Lions being Rare made little sense to me, honestly. It's a one-color vanilla small creature, what's Rare-worthy about that?Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
Though I'm confused as to why the rarity matters in a case like this. A card's rarity shouldn't just be based on its power.I'm dubious about it seeing play in Show and Tell or Sneak Attack. If you're going to devote so much to getting a creature into play in those decks, it'd better be able to stand up to cards like Swords to Plowshares, which this...doesn't. Emrakul and Progenitus dodge it entirely, and Griselbrand at least draws you 7 extra cards off the lifegain. This one has no protection whatsoever against the most common removal spell in the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkenslight
The fact you'd get 15 life out of it is nice...but I don't think it'll be going into the deck just because the creatures already in the deck seem to be so much better.
Worldspine Wurm seems like a good Sneak Attack/Through the Breach target. Not so much for Show and Tell as there are simply more better options.
I remember certain Sneak/Show decks ran Wurmcoil Engine because the same reason that it leaves bodies behind when it gets sacrificed from Sneak Attack.
What is it with all the negativity on the one-drops? We get solid one-drops with utility instead of just (annoying) insane beatdown stats like Delver, finally a good non-blue piece of library manipulation and a fattie that is insanely powerful but still possible to beat.
The 2/1 is particularly sweet because while it disrupts a lot of strategies from Storm (PiF) through RUG (Mongoose) all the way to Dredge (Therapy, Dread Return, Looting), it doesn't really shut of these decks either. That's exactly the kind of hate I enjoy: cheap enough to matter, powerful enough to be meaningful but limited enough to actually allow for gameplay to continue instead of turning the game into "can you solve my hatecard".
So far I'm loving the direction this set is going!
That Wurm is a pretty clear Ken Nagle design: big derpy fattie with no drawback and high Timmy appeal. Exactly the sort of card I was worried about seeing when I heard this set had Nagle leading it. That said, it's not Sneak Attack-playable because Griselly Bear and Emrakul are already better and you don't want to load up on dudes in that deck.
The 2/1 is pretty clearly built to answer Snapcaster in Standard, and I suspect it will be merely okay in Legacy. The 2/1 body is actually not very good, and I don't think Maverick can afford to load up on relatively poor attackers even if they're moderately disruptive. That said, it's probably still fine as a sideboard or maindeck 1-of versus RUG and various combo decks.
I am mad because I was so happy when I got those Savannah Lions all those years ago. Then they made them Uncommon (Elite Vanguard) and now they even let the player decide if he wants to pay G or W and make them the best MD answer to Snapcaster Mage out there.
Regardless of shutting down Pyromancer's Ascension in Modern completely...
"Fight Fire with Fire"
The rarity doesn't matter, it's an indication behind the philosophy and that's what matters. Back in the day colors had their own character and an acceptable power level for certain things. Since green was the color of aggro and creatures, 1cc 2/x creatures were commons and since White had a different role a 1cc 2/x creature was something White wouldn't normally have to give it the such an aggro boost, thus a White beater with the same specs would be a rare card. Today not only the color pie is completely messed up (from every direction) but also the creep makes it unexciting for the dynamics we are used to playing with since the power level boundaries are gone (imo).Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Seth
The whole aim of this power creep is to make us all (including the eternal format players) play with the recent cards and pour money into the in-print products and slowly, over time dissolve the older formats, which are also bound by the reserved list, and get all the players in this money wheel. I don't know if this is a conspiracy theory or just a rant but I'll stop it here as I don't intend to stir up an irrelevant discussion.
Interesting distinction between -X/-X spells and simple "Destroy" or "Exile" effects. The key is state-based effects aren't checked under the spell is done resolving, and the last action a card takes when it's on the stack is to go to the correct zone. Creatures try to go to the battlefield, instants/sorceries try to go to the graveyard; Darkblast or Lightning Bolt wouldn't actually kill the creature until SBEs are checked, so there's no chance for Dryad Militant to die before such a spell tries to hit the bin, but can't and gets exiled.
Honestly I do not think that this spell is going to ruin anyone's graveyard-based strategy. It doesn't really matter how many Grafdigger's Cages or Dryad Militants get printed, because those cards are fair. They cost mana and they will never win the game just by being cast. They hang around and wait to get answered. Meanwhile a combo player just digs for the answer, while the aggro player is busy NOT leading with their best beaters. It gives new kids that play non-Maverick GW Beats a false sense of security, and they might steal a game with it, but I don't think it's going to shut down everything ever.
The difference between the Dryad and cards like Cage is, that you can easily play the Dryad Maindeck and ALWAYS get value out of her.
Anyone want to side bet that 'detain' will only refer to nonland permanents?
Dryad Militant could be a pretty strong metagame/sideboard choice for D&T type decks, and if they print 2/1 for 1 hatebears in bulk, they could snowball.
Well, fuck.
Realistically, 2/1s or even 2/2s for 1cc with bonuses are the only way to expand the range of one drops available in Legacy (and we already saw that in Gravecrawler.)
The new and improved Wild Mongrel & Savannah Lions are neat, but what I really want is a power crept Psychatog.
Something like this:
1UB
Creature - Merfolk(why not right?)
Flying, Hexproof.
Ability- Remove a card from anywhere(library, hand, or graveyard) to give creature +1/+1 until end of turn.
Yes it would be broken but intentionally so like Psychatog or Tarmogofy.
This card is missing the Amazing keyword (Can be pitched to Force of Will and be cast with Islands).Quote:
Originally Posted by joemauer
I think these new 1-drops are great. So far, they are all playable and have interesting effects without being overly obnoxious or game-breaking.
Also, I don't really think Dryad is that big of a problem for RUG or Snapcaster decks. I'd much rather they be dropping this guy on turn one instead of Mother of Runes, and he's also not anywhere near as threatening as Scavenging Ooze. It also gets answered by the same cards you'd be using against G/Wx aggro strategies regardless. It's more of a speed bump than a completely devastating immediate must-answer.
The decks that really get hurt by this card are certain combo decks that rely on graveyard interaction like Dredge, High Tide, and Storm (Past in Flames, Ill Gotten Gains, and even Cabal Ritual get significantly weaker with this guy in play) -- this comes out fast enough to throw a wrench in those decks' gameplans. I like that they are giving non-blue decks a way to combat combo.
Alright! The sky is falling conversations started!
My gift of seeing the future tells me there will be more than a hundered pages of hive mind complaining about new cards then after they are released nothing will change drastically.
Savannah Lions isn't a rare nowadays, though. It's an uncommon. And a soldier but that doesn't make it weaker. It is a big leap to make it easier to cast and available in more than one colour along with giving it a potentially relevant hate ability but a lot of stuff has been better than Savannah Lions for some time now. This one just makes it explicit.Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
Izzet really isn't (heh) about sane scientific procedures. They don't make useful things and don't really care about the consequences of their more or less random experiments. Calling what they do "progress" in scare quotes is fully appropriate.Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
Why would you be worried about seeing a large, expensive creature? It can't even be particularly cheated onto the field. I'd be more worried about something that indicated, IDK, the next dredge or whatever. This is no Griselbrand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
Judge's Familiar, Thalia, Canonist, and Teeg are all better answers to combo. Storm decks don't need the graveyard to go off, making Familiar better most of the time. Dredge is hurt, sure, but something like Crypt or Relic is still a better answer to there in most cases (and Scavenging Ooze is always a better answer except in cases where they are coming out of the gates at a blistering pace). I guess High Tide gets hurt, but honestly a 2/1 with that ability does not seem tremendously threatening to that deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by wcm8
I do agree with you that this guy is being overestimated right now, though. Scavenging Ooze seems like it will be as good or better at least 75% of the time. Unlike Dryad, Ooze is actually a decent attacker.
EDIT:It's not that I'm worried about it for Constructed; the card is terrible there. It's just that I hate what it represents: power and splash creep. Also, the parade of big herp-a-derp fatties gets really old after a while, especially when they're aimed as obviously at EDH and casual players as this one. I can't wait for the upteen million mono-green decks around here to start running this because "it's so good against Wraths!" - it's gotten to the point where Perish is a perfectly good maindeck card in my meta.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kjell