Sets Battle for Zendikar Spoilers

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Holy crap, why are all awaken cards blue? There's 5 blue awaken cards, 4 white ones, a blue-white one, 3 black ones, and only 1 red and 1 green one. RED AND GREEN ARE THE FREAKING COLORS OF ELEMENTALS YOU MORONS! Sorry, I had to get those caps out of my system...

I'm actually fine with basing awaken in blue, it's the color of spells after all, but I'm really disappointed that there's not more in other colors, especially since white and blue aren't a supported color pair in my cube. Halimar Tidecaller is really a wonderful card that I want to work!

Edit: Anyone else noticed that you basically need a common/uncommon set for this set, and not much more?
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I'm still trying to weigh the value of awaken. I know its just a kicker variant, but I'm not sure how good some of these cards are and what their impact is. I like that it works with land matterss and pitches to force, its an interesting angle to get blue more into the fun without putting in too many terrible creatures. I mean, I love thrummingbird, but. . . .
 
Goldenpineapple

Goldenpineapple

Skrap said:
am I the only one disappointed by the fact that this isn't a super busted "choose two of four" modal spell with delve for like 12U?
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I don't think of design stuff that often but a "choose one for each card you process when you cast ~" command WOULD have been pretty cool...
 
whydirt

whydirt

Onderzeeboot said:
Holy crap, why are all awaken cards blue? There's 5 blue awaken cards, 4 white ones, a blue-white one, 3 black ones, and only 1 red and 1 green one. RED AND GREEN ARE THE FREAKING COLORS OF ELEMENTALS YOU MORONS! Sorry, I had to get those caps out of my system...
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My guess is because green and red are already the landfall color pair for limited, a mechanic that is even more directly tied to lands than awaken. Awaken makes a decent amount of sense in blue because it's a color of transformation, but it does feel a bit forced in white (at least it plays well with +1/+1 counters!). My guess is after figuring out what all the other color pairs were doing for draft that U/W was the best option left for the mechanic.
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Goldenpineapple said:
I don't think of design stuff that often but a "choose one for each card you process when you cast ~" command WOULD have been pretty cool...
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that was just a dumb card name joke, but yeah that might be an interesting (though probably overcomplicated) design space
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
whydirt said:
My guess is because green and red are already the landfall color pair for limited, a mechanic that is even more directly tied to lands than awaken. Awaken makes a decent amount of sense in blue because it's a color of transformation, but it does feel a bit forced in white (at least it plays well with +1/+1 counters!). My guess is after figuring out what all the other color pairs were doing for draft that U/W was the best option left for the mechanic.
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Well, luckily those with custom cards can change that, because that mechanic is hella sweet!

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I just preordered my cards for this set, and spent under 30 euros, shipping included. Most of the juicy stuff really is in the common and uncommon slots! That doesn't include Ob Nixilis and Gideon though, which both look pretty saucy, but I think I can live without them until and if they drop in price.
 
Rasmus Källqvist

Rasmus Källqvist

Yeah, honestly the PWs are more just sweet because they're sort of bomby right? They don't really open up for that many new decks or ways to play old decks in our cubes?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Rasmus Källqvist said:
Yeah, honestly the PWs are more just sweet because they're sort of bomby right? They don't really open up for that many new decks or ways to play old decks in our cubes?
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Well, if you are going to support allies, Gideon is a pretty good card all over sudden. But other than that, yeah, no.

Edit: After mulling it over a bit, I think there might be just enough allies now to make it worthwile as a subtheme, but I think I'm going to wait on Oath of the Gatewatch (or whatever it's called) for a final few playable allies to fill out the theme. I like what I'm seeing so far though, since there's just enough incentive to pick one or two (good enough on their own), and then you can seriously build around it if the cards really fall your way.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I really hate Gideon, Ally of Zendikar's design, probably unnaturally so. +0 to spit out 2/2 tokens is probably what it takes to make something standard playable, but in cube, abilities like that tend to gum up the board to no end and lead to games that take forever. I threw in Xenagos, the Reveler for exactly one draft before I decided I wasn't buying what he was selling.

It's too bad, because Gideon's +1 and -4 abilities are both interesting, and if he had any other +0, I think I'd be all over that. But as is, the token spewing is more bad all around than the two good abilities combined.
 
anotak

anotak

serpentinespike.jpg

who is this card for
i don't get it
am i missing something

Goldenpineapple said:
The set dropped

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booooooooooo
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it's so you can finally run both in your cu*mtg collection catches fire*

RavebornMuse said:
In an entirely different direction, I'm also pretty intrigued by this new sac outlet:
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compare carnage altar i guess
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I didn't want to say it at first because I tend to be pessimistic about everything, but this set is really disappointing. Maybe the set-specific themes will be fleshed out more with the next set, but I was hoping for a lot more from the return of landfall/
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Chris Taylor said:
So what is everyone adding?
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Aside from the spell lands (commond and uncommon) that'll end up in my ULD, I'm contemplating almost 40 cards (not all of which will make it though). Some highlights

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Will replace Banishing Light. I don't mind that this is just a tad slower, and this has significantly more upside in a deck that aims for the late game. Swell upgrade!

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Awaken is such a sweet mechanic, and Halimar Tidecaller really is a sweet incentive card.

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These cards make me want to play allies this time around. Sweet pod targets that affect the whole board!

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Speaking of pod targets... There's a few very nice scion makers with nice total P/T ratio's.

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{U/R} has some nice colorless support that synergizes partly with the artifact subtheme.

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Since I run a cube with a focus on certain shard/wedges, mana is pretty good, and scalable converge effects are pretty neat.

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This looks like a promising little engine with Gravecrawler and Curse of Shallow Graves.

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Pitches to Force! But seriously, I've defended this guy a few pages back, and think he's pretty sweet!
 
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