Also Exiles instead of destroys.Originally Posted by Poron
CAMELS
We went from 0/1 bands to 3/5... Cool camel I guess, but a 3/5 at 5 CC doesn't reflect a Camel. Heck, even Kaladesh had a 0/4 Dromedary..
DESERTS
I like this cycle, although I hate the art. I would have liked to see a card like this at rare or mythic:
Fata Morgana
Land - Desert
When Fata Morgana comes into play, choose a creature with power less than or equal to 1.
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
1: Fata Morgana becomes a copy of the chosen creature until end of turn. If Fata Morgana becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.
x/x
This would have made Desert Nomads relevant tech against this land too!
Also, where's the Oasis reprint with its type changed to Land - Desert the same way time spiral Desert has? This should be a desert, no?:
DESERT INTERACTION
Why aren't there more desert-matters cards??? I love the monitor but why does it have to be an unplayable card cycling at 3G???? You would think the 3G premium is because you can create a 2/2 Zombie from Cradle of the Accursed for 3 mana during combat, but no that card can only be activated as a sorcery. Same for Grasping Dunes.
Your thoughts on the monitor are the worst things about limited-first design in my opinion. The average card has to be a piece of shit for limited to play how they'd like so it's rare for a new mechanic to be relevant in modern let alone eternal formats. There is just so much wasted effort put into so many worthless cards and mechanics.
Monitor is like a better krosan tusker which was borderline playable ages ago.
3G ramp draw a card uncounterable instant is nowhere "terrible" tier.
Why are many cards worded as: "Whenever you cycle or discard a card, ..."?
Isn't the "cycle" obsolete here, because it implies "discard"?
Why not simply "Whenever you discard a card, ..."?
If I remember correctly, Maro said they'll be doing more with deserts in the next set. I'm cautiously optimistic and it's not a wasted mechanic yet.
The monitor is pretty good as a second Krosan Tusker. It's playable outside of Legacy at least.
Their excuse is that new players don't understand cycling, even though the whole reason for fucking reminder text is to REMIND players what cycling is. So instead they use these poorly worded cards that instead confuse everyone
The power level of the set seems pretty high. Might just be my perception colored by the different spoiler structure though.
At first glance the best card is Red, I like that if nothing else.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
So apparently they had data on PT Kaladesh when doing the finishing touches to Amonkhet, hence the increased amount of artifact hate in the set and even some usable GY hate.
Looks like they've shortened the development time, for better or worse?
The most novel one certainly is. Since we have the full spoiler, it's time to make lists of interesting cards.
Anointed Procession - There are certainly bad combos that use this card. Are there any good ones?
Cast Out - A strong card, but answers want to be low casting cost and 4 is probably too much in legacy.
Devoted Crop Mate - Probably unplayable, but Death and Taxes can cast this guy and runs a lot of creatures it could reanimate.
Gideon of the Trials - Can't lose. Probably can't win either.
Gideon's Intervention - Another card with lots of utility potential as an answer, but a huge CC.
Vizier of Deferment - probably just a bad flickerwhisp, but flash matters.
Vizier of Remedies - potential combo piece.
As Foretold - Cheating mana costs always has potential. Probably not good enough though.
Cryptic Serpent - If you can get it for UU reliably, it's not bad.
Pull from Tomorrow - Draw X powerful.
Vizier of Tumbling Sands - Interesting as a bad - but only marginally bad - untap cantrip.
Dispossess - Sideboard material
Dread Wanderer - Low to the ground zombie beater with a recursion ability.
Liliana, Death's Mystery - probably not strong enough for the cost, but can clearly run away with a game
Plague Belcher - Probably not viable, but big and evasive for 3 isn't terrible.
Scarab Feast - Potential Sideboard card, but there are better options.
Shadow of the Grave - Potential for heavy card advantage for 1B.
Blazing Volley - The days of hordes of x/1 creatures are behind us, but trading 1-for-1 is OK, and there is upside here.
Glorious End - Time Stop is a strong effect - stifle, time walk, or counterspell.
Harsh Mentor - Punishing fetchlands can do a lot of damage.
Sweltering Suns - Sweepers are strong cards, this looks weaker than some of the other options at 3cc.
Channeler Initiate - A 3/4 Mana Dork for 2 seems OK. Probably won't end up being that though. Also people don't play Werebear anymore.
Harvest Season - Probably not good enough, but it has a significant performance ceiling.
Manglehorn - CC is probably too high for legacy, but it's pretty hateful.
Prowling Serpopard - 4/3 uncounterable for 3... not quite as good as Great Sable Stag but what is?
Sandwurm Convergence - Potential combo finisher.. also a funny thing to drop vs show and tell in a world full of Griselbrand and Emrakul.
Vizier of the Menagerie - Could work as a bad combo piece.
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisions - Token production is powerful. Probably not good enough?
Nissa, Steward of Elements - Probably just a bad version of Sylvan Library, but there's definitely upside.
Wayward Servant - Zombie mass production is possible
Dusk // Dawn - Weak wrath effect with upside
Heaven // Earth - Double sweeper
Monument Cycle (except blue) - Potential combo pieces
Cycling duals - probably not good enough for legacy, but...
Island - Clearly OP.
...
How does Soul-Scar Mage interact with protection effects?
Do we expect +1/+1 - -1/-1 counter cancellation to lead to confusion?
This. They're so worried that they'll make a patently busted card that they'll throw all the viable mechanics under the bus for jank-ass horseshit, yet they won't test their pet-project rares (or the jank) for even the most cursorily important synergies.
Like, what the fuck is Ripple? Devour? Level Up? Brick counters?
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
Melira specifically prevents the act of placing counters. It's like how Angel of Jubilation prevents you from casting Fling or activating Birthing Pod. You effectively replace "Add a -1/-1 counter" in the cost with "Add {null}" and the game won't let you do that.
This card doesn't do that, it just modifies the number of counters. You effectively replace "Add a -1/-1 counter" with "Add zero -1/-1 counters", which should still work.
I think we're all in agreement here. This works according to the current rules.
Oh, right, reading comprehension FTW.
RE: Complete Set: Not bad. I'm not a huge fan of the Aftermath cards, but I suspect that mechanic will be Sir Not Appearing In This Film for the next set, so that's fine.
Just dislike for the low power level, the terrible graphic design or something else?
All of the above.
1) They're ugly visually. In a tournament environment, especially a prerelease, people tilting their heads or spinning a card in hand will be dead giveaway that they have an aftermath spell and are reading the back half of it.
2) They're super weak. This isn't flashback, where you get the same effect twice. The second half is basically a fresh card, so why do they charge a premium on both ends? The U/G one is a really egregious example of this, especially considering there's an instant "draw two" in the set at four mana already.
3) There's a lot of uninspired designs. I think treating this mechanic similarly to Fuse would have served them well, in the sense that Fuse spells are basically three cards in one: each half, plus the two halves together. The most satisfying Fuse cards are the ones where each of the three cards makes sense - that is, the two halves fused feel like an organic card and not just two random effects stapled together. My golden example of this is Beck / Call; the only Fuse card that really seems poorly done is Protect / Serve. This is in contrast to regular split cards, where you can have unlinked cards because you're only ever casting one half at a time and the strength of the mechanic is its flexibility. It doesn't matter if the whole split card tells any kind of story, since the game play of the card doesn't reinforce a linkage between the components in players' minds.
In the case of Aftermath cards, the second half of the card is at least notionally dependent on the first half, since the usual way to get access to the back half is to cast the front half. That suggests that the two halves should be more strongly linked on a mechanical level, maybe not to the level of Fuse spells, but somewhere close. Instead, there are relatively few Aftermath cards that have any kind of narrative through line. Most of them are just two color-specific effects stapled together and with the mana cost upped 25-75% because otherwise you'd get too much value or something, and the association comes from the play on words in the name. I'm thinking here of totally disjointed spells like Cut / Ribbons or Heaven / Earth; it doesn't help that those two are some of the strongest Aftermath cards and thus the ones most likely to be associated with the mechanic in the long run because they'll be highly visible. Even in cases where the effects are linked, like Commit / Memory, the mana investment is so intense you're unlikely to get both halves off in a single turn, which weakens the story the card is trying to tell.
The mechanic just feels like kind of a letdown.
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 04-16-2017 at 01:08 AM. Reason: Fixing split card tags.
The original split cards were yucky visually and often overcosted. These new ones are worse on both fronts.
[EDIT: you'd think they would've realized that needing cards with little or no graveyard synergy to be in the graveyard to use them at all would make reducing the cards' costs a better plan than INCREASING them.]
Last edited by Ronald Deuce; 04-16-2017 at 11:22 AM.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
I think a lot of the cards do fit together well, but got wrecked by someone turning the back half of instants into sorceries and adding 2 to the mana cost. It's like they were avoiding people playing combat tricks from the graveyard at all costs. I suspect the cards were much stronger, and then got turned to turds to make them limited-friendly. (They also gave the fuse cards a whack with that nerf-bat, so it's plausible that those are considered a mistake now.)
I do think Commit//Memory is sort of nice. It lets you counter a spell or remove a permanent in response to a fetch land, and Torrential Gearhulk gets to play an EOT Timetwister for free. Perhaps not at the legacy power level, but def nice. As for the design issues you pointed out -> those are not exclusive to the aftermath cards unfortunately. It's been like this for years :/
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
