Craterhoof can be searched up with GSZ, Emrakul can't.Originally Posted by Grumpy
GSZ and/or Pact.
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Emrakul can be searched up with Fierce Empath who can be searched up with GSZ or Summoners Pact. So that's not a very strong reason to play Craterhoof instead.
Craterhoof will rarely if ever be countered in Elves. A great deal of effort is deal to stop the combo early, waiting for the bomb isn't a good idea either--what are you going to do, counter Craterhoof only to have a field of 3/3-4/4 elves by the dozens?
It's practically a win-win there unless you have a perish in-hand or something.
*EDIT*
Fetching Fierce Empath for Emrakul costs between 18 and 19 mana. I can tell you from experience that there are times where that shit won't fly. Sometimes you can't find enough nettles and GSZ'ing for them and not drawing a card for it will end the combo, I can't even begin to express how nice it would be to be able to pay what, 7 or 8 mana to bomb your opponent out?
To be fair, I'm pretty sure that Force is the only one of those listed cards that will matter in a real situation. If you're already going nuts with glimpse, there's nothing to stop you from just getting like twenty elves out and making your lone sentinel 20+ power with trample. Also, the presumption that you'll only have one untapped non-summoning sick duder seems pretty worst-case-scenario. Most of the time i'm sure you'll have two or three.
@ Angel of Jubilation: It kinda sorta hoses a lot of stuff (phyrexian spells, fetchlands, force of will, cabal therapy, dread return), but:
a) it doesn't really turn off any legacy deck, just slows down some stuff.
b) it costs four mana. Thats way too slow for a hate creature.
c) It's symmetrical.
It might have some value as a sb card against Birthing Pod decks in modern, but even that might be sketchy.
@ Craterhoof Behemoth: Don't think this is particularly relevant for legacy. It could be used as a substitute for Emrakul in Elves, but I believe it is almost strictly worse. Sometimes, you can't kill straight up with this, or they have a moat, or whatever. Emrakul gives you an extra turn when hardcast, so behemoth isn't actually faster.
@ Killing Wave: It's interesting for standard zombies, perhaps, but not good enough for legacy. It's like Browbeat, looks good, but never does what you actually want it to do. You pretty much have to cast it for X = 3 or 4 before anyone cares, and they can just sack that random hierach and keep the knight/goyf/whatever and kill you with it. Or just keep them all, what are you gonna do, beat them down? With what? those creatures you just sacked to your own conditional sweeper?
@ Cloudshift: It Momentary Blink for W, without flashback. When did you last see a Momentary Blink-deck do well in legacy? It's just not good enough.
Add more land.
It's not about speed in terms of turns, it's speed in terms of game-length. The ideal scenario for elves is to have an untapped lord who can just keep tapping for absurd amounts of mana since it doesn't take long to do, but generally you go off with heritage druids, which sucks because it's slow and tedious.
The fact that he's green means you don't have to dig around or fiddle with elves while you're going off to ensure perfect amounts of mana gain. Getting a dozen or so elves on the table and swinging with 1-2 of them + him is game and it's quick to do, it's also a hell of a lot easier to do than getting emrakul down.
And while it's strictly something that happens to bad players, emrakul's extra turn has the off-chance to let someone forget about a pact trigger and lose.
I mean it's a long list. Very few highly swingy cards over two mana see much, if any, play. Cards that require heavy commitment to colors other than blue are also rarely played. Short list;
Student of Warfare
Shining Shoal
Eternal Dragon
Aura of Silence
Wing Shards
Mirran Crusader
Sacred Mesa
Peacekeeper
Wrath of God
Humility
Moat
Worship
Parallax Wave
Cataclysm
Armageddon
Gideon Jura
Elspeth Tirel
Baneslayer Angel
Reveillark
Decree of Justice
Sun Titan
Yosei, the Morning Star
Akroma's Vengeance
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Jushi Apprentice
Trade Secrets
Forbid
Capsize
Thirst for Knowledge
Compulsive Research
Vedalken Shackles
Venser, Shaper Savant
Control Magic
Collective Restraint
Cryptic Command
Fact or Fiction
Gifts Ungiven
Treachery
Meloku The Clouded Mirror
Tezzeret, the Seeker
Consecrated Sphinx
Braingeyser
Dominate
Stroke of Genius
Nantuko Shade
Order of the Ebon Hand
Withered Wretch
Keeper of the Dead
Oversold Cemetery
Oath of Ghouls
Shriekmaw
Phyrexian Arena
Recurring Nightmare
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Throat Slitter
Phyrexian Negator
Phyrexian Obliterator
Damnation
Consuming Vapors
Curse of Death's Hold
Black Sun's Zenith
Consume the Meek
Decree of Pain
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Thrashing Wumpus
Null Profusion
Kargan Dragonlord
Hammer of Bogardan
Pulse of the Forge
Hell's Thunder
Ball Lightning
Pillage
Seize the Day
Aggravated Assault
Relentless Assault
Breath of Fury
Grab the Reins
Word of Seizing
Wildfire
Burning of Xinye
Devastation
Nostalgic Dreams
Eternal Witness
Holistic Wisdom
Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk, Primal Hunter
etc. etc..
We can keep going for a while. A shorter answer might be, "Any card you tend to find in a lot of Cube or EDH decks, especially ones costing 3 or more or requiring some tricky setup to be good."
Lots of cards might win you the game, but in Legacy it's not enough that a card be powerful for it to see play. Most lists are fairly tight and only have so much room for anything other than the handful of 0-2 cc stuff that make up the nuts and bolts of the format.
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I agree, Craterhoof being countered after a combo is highly unlikely. But if we combo off, Emrakul still is the better option. I've played Elves for quite some time now and after a combo mana hardly ever was an issue.
If the combo fizzles early or I don't combo at all but have bunch of elves on the field to generate around 8 mana, GSZ into Regal Force usually is a pretty solid play that often leads into a game winning combo. So playing Craterhoof there doesn't seem like the better play.
I'm not saying Craterhoof couldn't win games for you but I don't think he will be the next big thing in Combo Elves Lists. I could be wrong though. Perhaps I should do some testing before making such bold statements ...
Anyways...
While I can see the argument that Temporal Mastery -might- not break the format, it sure as hell isn't going to help it any.
I'm envisioning that the card will correctly only fit into decks that operate under a jace win. Things like UWx Stoneblade, maybe RUG, but way more towards Stoneblade.
It's not going to accelerate into a turn 3 jace, it's likely going to hit around turn 4 or 5 when Jace is already in play and they brainstorm either via brainstorm or jace. Better if done with a brainstorm. It's going to be either back to back turns of a Batterskull swing + Fatesealing or some combination of board control to put you into a losing position.
I guess I'm just not that stoked about seeing Stoneblade getting an extra turn to have mana untapped to counter, an extra turn to sculpt their hand, an extra turn to pump jace even further out of reach, an extra turn of batterskull gaining them life, or jitte getting even more counters on it.
It's going to be a mid-game bomb that should almost always result in Stoneblade being in a favorable position.
(PS--Can a mod please just ban that guy, we don't need that shit here.)
Keep your discussion to wharrrrgrbl about the new Time Walk and how the green spells blow. If you see a problem post, report it. I shouldn't have to delete posts from established members who take trollbait.
I am disappoint.
I have it from a reliable source that Temporal Mastery isn't the wtfbusted Miracle card that was mentioned at PAX, and it will be spoiled later this week.
Well the only remaining colors are green and black and it was stated that black isn't getting one. So it's likely going to be some kind of green creature fetch that's going to make dumbass emrakul decks...
"Something dumb"
5GGG
Instant
Search your deck for a creature card and cast it without paying it's mana cost.
Miracle: 2G
Yeah, I heard the green one puts a token enchantment that's a copy of Survival of the Fittest into play.
What makes you think each color only gets one? The other ones spoiled have only been Uncommon.
Oh hell yes.
I'm assuming this card will be previewed by Flores on Thursday, assuming majikal's source is correct.
I think Evan Erwin is previewing it actually. Not sure about the SotF part though. That seems like sarcasm.
Just a guess, they've done it with things like this in the past. In future sight for instance, each color was given a legendary creature with grandeur. In the kamigawa block there were the epic spells and the dragons.
This mechanic feels like something each color is only getting one of.
They said at PAX that black isn't getting any miracles. I think they'll be more like curses in terms of distribution.
EDIT: @majikal - I know it was, but a miracle that makes Survivals would still be awesome. Not as good as actual Survival, but still awesome.
Angel of Jubilation makes me glad since it means Wizards has finally figured out that interesting white hate abilities don't have to get stuck on crappy bear bodies. Now this particular girl is at best decent, but I'm looking forward to future white spoiler lists not being restricted to "ok, what's the new 1-of for Maverick?".
Killing Wave, on the other side, prospects us with another 3-4 years of new players having trouble figuring out why Browbeat isn't the hottest card ever. Sweet art though.
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