[ZEN] Rumor Mill

Wow, this is awesome. You can easily dodge removal, but wastelands could give you a hard time. Let's find a shell for this one.

Stax Shell: nice against swords and counters, but prevents you from playing duress and thoughtseize. Also, getting BB isn't that easy with 12 colorless lands.

B/G Eva Green Shell: Gives you access to Living Wish and Goyfs, while Confidants and the usual discard fill the other slots. Not much to change there, it reminds me of NO Progenitus.

U/B Control: I think this or B/G will make it in the end, blue cantrips are still hot, counters are too. Maybe you could even fit StifleNought into the mix, this would add some wasteland protection and you'd get a crucial amount of beef.

Well see, but it definately looks promising.

Yea some combination of Blue, Black, Green seems best. With Blue you get Stifle or Telfari's Response, general countermagic: FOW, Spell Snare, dig: Brainstorm, Ponder. You could run Intuition, which with a green splash would give you access to Loam and Genesis packages to pull up w/e piece you're missing and recur it (IE: Loam, Dark Depths, Wasteland or Genesis, Hexmage, Hexmage). You could run Living Wish with combo piece #4s in the SB, to pull them up if needed. If it's in some sort of Counter-Loam shell you could also run Mox Diamond to speed the deck up a bit. I don't know there's alot of possibilities, but the combo seems pretty solid and since the Token is a 20/20 flying and Indestructible, and you don't have to use the combo in a very aggressive deck, like you can play control for a few turns then just throw a 20/20 on the board and win. Unlike some combos that work better being rushed out, there's no real reason to be pushing this shell to be super fast.

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Originally Posted by Jade

Stax Shell

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My eyes!! Oh, my eyes!!

Not to forget this new Vamp kills Planeswalkers too. Nice drop vs Ultimate Walkers and other decks with a Planeswalker as a finisher. Expecially with AEther Vial and Volrath's Stronghold.

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Originally Posted by Bigface

Not to forget this new Vamp kills Planeswalkers too. Nice drop vs Ultimate Walkers and other decks with a Planeswalker as a finisher. Expecially with AEther Vial and Volrath's Stronghold.

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Wow, very true, something I had not even considered. Could be very handy since I think we'll see more and more walkers over the years as more are released.

Main problem about the combo is that Dark Depths by itself sucks - and you need several copies or ways to get it to make the entire thing half-way consistent.

Maybe a green splash for Crop Rotation and/or Living Wish?

But technically, Dreadnought sucks too by itself, yet it's played just because it combos with Stifle to give you a 12/12 Trampler.

Granted, Stifle is awesome-sauce, while Hexmage is only decent (he kills Chalice for 1 too? Omg!), but Marit Lage is essentially only a land drop, and something that can potentially be at least useful with Urborg, and can be tutored easily with stuff like Crop Rotation, or recurred with Life from the Loam. Plus, both cards can be recurred with Eternal Witness, so that's another synergy plus if we are going the G/B and maybe add a splash of blue route.

I don't know if it's good enough, but you can essentially do something like: Volrath's Stronghold Hexmage back to your library, cast LftL to get back Dark Depth, play Dark Depth, play Hexmage for a 20/20 flier, and you can do it all again if they Sword/Path it :D. All of this can exist in a It's The Fear shell, maybe.

It's probably worth noting that the shell people are describing sounds a lot like the shell for Progenitus.

If you're running Eternal Witness (and can support the :g::g: for witness and the :b::b: for the Vampire), you can support Goyf, Kitchen Finks, and Natural Order. Add some Thoughtseizes, Cabal Therapies, Smothers, and Diabolic Edicts, and you have a pretty solid list (on paper, at least). The Vampire is the weak link in there, but that doesn't seem terrible.

EDIT: Looks like there's a separate thread for him already, whoops.

New card:

Emeria Angel :2::w::w:
Creature - Angel
Flying
Landfall—Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying into the battlefield.
3/3

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Originally Posted by Barook

New card:

Emeria Angel :2::w::w:
Creature - Angel
Flying
Landfall—Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may put a 1/1 white Bird creature token with flying into the battlefield.
3/3

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Makes me say "Stax". Crucible + Horizon Canopy, you get a card and a 1/1 token.

Figo.

Not that bad, IMHO. I mean, lands = little flying bastards is always nice.

why are they birds though? why not spirits? what do angels and birds have in common aside from wings?

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Originally Posted by DownSyndromeKarl

why are they birds though? why not spirits? what do angels and birds have in common aside from wings?

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Feathers.

With Loam to guarantee land drops every turn, this thing becomes 100% better than Luminous Angel. I like this.

Angel Stompy gets some love =)

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Originally Posted by Elfrago

Angel Stompy gets some love =)

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It competes with both Cataclysm and Elspeth as gamebreakers. I won't play that card. Maybe in a Chalice aggro shell. Elspeth does nearly the same thing, but she is just plain better.

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Originally Posted by Digital Devil

It competes with both Cataclysm and Elspeth as gamebreakers. I won't play that card. Maybe in a Chalice aggro shell. Elspeth does nearly the same thing, but she is just plain better.

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elspeth dies to vampire hexmage :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Jeff Kruchkow

elspeth dies to vampire hexmage :tongue:

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...that's another reason to play (and to continue doing so) Cataclysm in Angel Stompy XD XD

Here's a rumor I'm starting: of the ten Merfolks in Zendikar not yet spoiled, at least one of them will be strictly better than Crimson Kobolds... Or is that just asking for too much????

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Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght

Here's a rumor I'm starting: of the ten Merfolks in Zendikar not yet spoiled, at least one of them will be strictly better than Crimson Kobolds... Or is that just asking for too much????

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I think that Wizards has some idea what creature types matter, look at Goblin Piker and Elite Vanguard. Goblins are better than soldiers when it comes to tribes, so the piker has to cost one more, or just be too good. Having a human soldier on a 2/1 body cost only one mana, isn't crazy-awesome. thats not to say that a 2/1 vanilla goblin for one would be...but i digress... a free 0/1 merfolk(or elf, goblin, probably even soldier) would be totally broken. The only way they'd get away with a free creature would be to make it some obscure tribe, like Kavu or Griffin

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Originally Posted by DownSyndromeKarl

I think that Wizards has some idea what creature types matter, look at Goblin Piker and Elite Vanguard. Goblins are better than soldiers when it comes to tribes, so the piker has to cost one more, or just be too good. Having a human soldier on a 2/1 body cost only one mana, isn't crazy-awesome. thats not to say that a 2/1 vanilla goblin for one would be...but i digress... a free 0/1 merfolk(or elf, goblin, probably even soldier) would be totally broken. The only way they'd get away with a free creature would be to make it some obscure tribe, like Kavu or Griffin

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My point was I want Merfolks that don't suck, not that I want "Kobold Merfolk"... I really don't think I would run a 0/1 Merfolk unless it gave me one blue mana when I played it.