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Post by Travis Lannoye on Nov 19, 2012 15:26:08 GMT -5
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Nov 19, 2012 15:38:45 GMT -5
...let's see here. So far we have: - a card that will immediately get put on the banned watch-list for EDH, because drawing your whole deck is, well, insane. Then again, Time Stretch is also a blue sorcery that costs 10+ mana and is pretty insane, and it's not banned. - a card that will immediately become one of the best red cards ever printed for EDH. Seriously? Gain control of ALL artifacts target player controls PERMANENTLY? Just for one point of flying-trample-combat damage? - a new 3cc planeswalker (Sun Titan) with three relevant abilities. - two new EDH commanders to build around. - five more cheap Gate lands and five more reprinted shock lands.
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Post by JediCheese on Nov 19, 2012 16:23:43 GMT -5
The Planeswalker has very fair abilities. An auto-include in any R/G deck but you'll never get the ultimate off (4x +1 abilities off a planeswalker in EDH?). That's up there with Elspeth (at 5x +1), Tamiyo (at 4x +1), Karn (at 3x +4) or Ajani V. (at 4x +1)!
The 12 CC blue card is meh. Remember, they die in 2 turns during their draw step. Plus prosperity for 2 = death. The only deck that would like to go all in on this is Niv-Mizzet (can you image the damage off this card!).
As to the Hellkite Tyrant, it's lacking haste. It's good, but if it stays out a round, you're in a bad position anyway. It needs haste, either with Sneak Attack or Scion of the Ur-Dragon.
Borborygmos Enraged is one of the more interesting cards. A commander with built in Seismic Assault in R/G? Wish they had added black so you could do add some pay life draw power (and reanimator).
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Post by abeckett on Nov 20, 2012 0:08:06 GMT -5
I think the planeswalker is pretty good. He can potentially draw cards and conditionally protects himself. It's hard to judge a PW on its ultimate, since you almost never get them to go off. How often have you ever actually fired of a PW ult when you weren't already winning the game? Enter the Infinite is a combo piece and pretty much reads I win in a deck that would use it, but there are plenty of cards like that already that are still legal in EDH. Any deck that could actually play it early enough to matter is not one I'm expecting to see locally. Dragon is meh. Cool ability, but the only time I would want him is playing against a Sharuum deck As for the legends...love them both. If RW was not such a horrible color combination, I would totally use that boros angel as a general.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Nov 20, 2012 10:04:43 GMT -5
Oh yeah, like red doesn't have any way to give a creature haste. Child please! I'm gettin' me a full set of foil Tyrants. Even if I just manage to steal your Darksteel Ingot or force you to break your Relic of Progenitus early, that's a pretty unique effect. The 6-power flyer doesn't hurt, either.
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 28, 2012 9:26:20 GMT -5
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Post by JediCheese on Dec 28, 2012 13:02:54 GMT -5
Batallion seems ok, depends on how aggressively they cost it and how many creatures have it. If they have enough cheap creatures, I could see an aggro deck curving out and turn 4 swinging in and doing 9 extra damage (to either the dome or the opponent's creatures).
Orzhov is ok, but very slow. I don't know if doing a point of damage for W/B is enough.
Bloodrush is meh. The deck that wants to do this is aggro, and thus you won't have many lands out when you use the ability.
Evolve is probably the best ability. Your 1/1 aggro creature can grow as the game goes on and be useful in the later game.
Cipher requires something that you are hitting the opponent with anyway. There are a few unblockable creatures, so this could be useful. It all comes down to the power of the cards they print, Something like draw a card (or two) would be playable. I could also see a discard ability which could be good. A tutor would be a bomb ability (depending on cost)! Another possible playable in color would be some sort of bounce ability.
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Post by John Galli on Dec 28, 2012 14:33:42 GMT -5
My sentiments are largely the same as what Chris said. I think we have a big wait and see game here as there really isn't a lot spoiled thus far even though the mechanics are out there. The cards that have the mechanics right now are unimpressive in my eyes.
Another issue with bloodrush is that your discarding the card. While it's at instant speed and it's a nice combat trick, it's card disadvantage in aggro decks that already suffer from that issue. I could see it being impressive in a 3-color Naya midrange or humans build, but the current card leaves me wanting.
Evolve seems like it could be good, although again the spoiled card isn't terribly interesting.
Batallion, at least in the case of the Angel, is being overvalued IMO by many people on facebook and the internet. A lot of people immediately drew a comparison to Hellrider, but there's a big difference in that Hellrider didn't need to attack to do damage with his triggers. I've had a lot of RDW games where I just flung a couple chumps at my opponent just to do trigger damage to win the game. That all said, the ability is powerful and in the right deck this could be nasty, especially if we see a card use it to it's full potential.
I think I'm not quite understanding the Orzhov ability. Can you pay as much b/w mana as you like to do the drain ability or is it just one life per card that has the ability. If it's just a net of 1 life the ability seems craptastic but I'm guessing that's not the case
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Dec 28, 2012 14:40:51 GMT -5
If I read the Orzhov ability correctly, you can only do it once per card. It's really more of an EDH ability than anything, but in the right combination, it could provide some additional reach, especially if you have enough cheap spells. The spoiled Orzhov card will absolutely be an EDH staple.
Bloodrush seems like it gives certain creatures the opportunity to become combat tricks instead. Seems versatile, but like John said, wait and see.
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Post by abeckett on Dec 28, 2012 20:21:19 GMT -5
The Orzhov mechanic is once per spell, per instance of extort. So, if you had two copies of Treasury Thrull out, you would get two extort triggers that you could pay. It's totally an EDH mechanic and I don't expect it to see any serious play outside of multiplayer.
I agree the Thrull will likely be an EDH staple. The recursion ability is quite strong and the extort mechanic is not something to be ignored in a 4-player game. I might have to try him out in Karador.
As for the other mechanics, it really does come down to the quality of spells they print with those abilities. I imagine there will be at least one from each guild that is playable.
EDIT: Also, Bloodrush was better the first time around, when it was called "Channel" and did other things.
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Post by crazedferret on Dec 29, 2012 0:31:22 GMT -5
Depending on what other cards there are with the abilities, my pick is cipher.
Reason being battlion requires multiple creatures to activate it if you lose one before attacking, it doesn't activate. Evolve requires at least two creatures to activate it which means it's requiring you to commit to the board which can lead to overextending. If there are aggressively costed cards in both of these abilities, then they might be good. If there are more aggressive costing cards with orzhov (maybe even enchantments/artifacts) I could see it go in a vampires deck to tack on an extra point of damage to finish them off, but the current one is too high costed and slow. Bloodrush makes me want to play wolf run instead or in addition to it. If I can manage to hit you within range of a bloodrush card early on then I'd want to play it as bloodrush, but late game I'd rather play wolf run and just play the bloodrush creature as an actual threat.
With cipher, assuming the cards are decent on there own, attaching a copy to a creature you control to do it a second time right away seems pretty good to me. The one spoiled seems interesting to me in a reanimator type deck where there is potential to mil yourself 14 cards relatively quickily.
As Chris was saying a cheap discard spell or draw spell would be great --> think Delver here. 1st turn delver, flip and play a draw spell and draw again... or make them discard two. I am also assuming you can have multiple instances of cipher on the same creature to trigger multiple times, so as the game goes on that delver may draw you four cards and make them discard two or something of that sort.
Then of course snapcaster could immediately have a useful ability put on it and if there are instants could have a useful ability ready to rock during your oponnents turn.
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Post by John Galli on Dec 29, 2012 9:23:07 GMT -5
I forgot to mention cipher, I like that ability a lot too. I sense there's going to be some crazy ass cards afoot that we haven't seen yet with it.
And Invisible Stalker is still a card. . .
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Jan 2, 2013 10:20:22 GMT -5
Ho damn, we got a new Gideon. This guy is gonna be sick.
We also have a new UB Commander card, and he looks very cool.
The new Orzhov commander looks dumb.
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Post by John Galli on Jan 2, 2013 13:41:15 GMT -5
Holy Hell this set just got Real. That Gideon is busted as fuck, EXILE ALL OTHER PERMANENTS?? daaaayum I like just about all the new cards they spoiled today, they seem pretty insane. I really like one I didn't notice before for my red deck which looks purty (aside from the fact that mono red probably won't be viable if G/R takes over like it looks to do)- i.imgur.com/lpGgT.jpg
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Post by Travis Lannoye on Jan 2, 2013 15:29:25 GMT -5
Yeah, I think the combination of Jace AOT plus new Gideon is gonna dominate Standard for quite some time.
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