Sets Battle for Zendikar Spoilers
- Thread starter Eric Chan
- Start date
CML
Contributor
ob nixilis reignited
kiora, master of the depths
gideon, ally of zendikar
greenwarden of murasa
drana, liberator of malakir
quarantine field
akoum firebird
painful truths
woodland wanderer
radiant flames
ruinous path
scatter to the winds
smothering abomination
from beyond
horribly awry
bring to light
lumbering falls
shambling vent
prairie stream
sunken hollow
smoldering marsh
cinder glade
canopy vista
akoum stonewalker
planar outburst
i miss anything?
kiora, master of the depths
gideon, ally of zendikar
greenwarden of murasa
drana, liberator of malakir
quarantine field
akoum firebird
painful truths
woodland wanderer
radiant flames
ruinous path
scatter to the winds
smothering abomination
from beyond
horribly awry
bring to light
lumbering falls
shambling vent
prairie stream
sunken hollow
smoldering marsh
cinder glade
canopy vista
akoum stonewalker
planar outburst
i miss anything?
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I'm just adding cutthroat as a more balanced replacement for blood artist.
Negative nancy time.
The only thing I would add is that I don't like allies in cube because they are the red herring tribe unless you run a huge density of them, which dosen't currently exist.
Negative nancy time.
The only thing I would add is that I don't like allies in cube because they are the red herring tribe unless you run a huge density of them, which dosen't currently exist.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Interesting article. I think a lot of people are putting a lot more weight on some things that there ought to be: PV is down on devoid because it's basically flavor text to him and that there's not many cards that interact with things being colorless.
To which I would rebut: that's the point. It's mechanical flavor text, and it works better than the color dot would for illustrating a lack of color.
I think the allies aren't parasitic at all, since they're costed such that they expect one trigger.
This thing could have been in magic origins, and while the wording would have been a bit weird, he'd play fine. Since there are other allies in the block, the wording isn't weird. (Hell we kinda had one anyways)
His criticism of which cards happen to be allies and which ones happen to not be allies is very real though.
I'm also a bit leery about just how strict mana requirements in standard are if you're worried about not being able to play colorless lands when fetch/shock (albiet slow) is the manabase order of the day.
To which I would rebut: that's the point. It's mechanical flavor text, and it works better than the color dot would for illustrating a lack of color.
I think the allies aren't parasitic at all, since they're costed such that they expect one trigger.
This thing could have been in magic origins, and while the wording would have been a bit weird, he'd play fine. Since there are other allies in the block, the wording isn't weird. (Hell we kinda had one anyways)
His criticism of which cards happen to be allies and which ones happen to not be allies is very real though.
I'm also a bit leery about just how strict mana requirements in standard are if you're worried about not being able to play colorless lands when fetch/shock (albiet slow) is the manabase order of the day.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
The reason that I'm leery about allies in cube, is that they are worded in such a way as to make a player think of them as a tribal mechanic. That puts you in a position where you have to awkardly announce to the group "hey, I know this here card looks like we have 'allied tribal' now, but its actually just three cards: think of it as another ETB" or you don't, and someone spends a draft wondering why their sweet tribal deck didn't come together.
And I don't see why you would go through that when you can just run actual ETB creatures that aren't confusing. The mechanic itself dosen't actually interact with anything else in the cube (or other sets, as Paulo points out), which makes it actual poison principle. You could still justify it on the basis that its just an ETB, but that just feels random and nonsensical: you're essentially expecting your players to treat part of the rules text as flavor text.
And I don't see why you would go through that when you can just run actual ETB creatures that aren't confusing. The mechanic itself dosen't actually interact with anything else in the cube (or other sets, as Paulo points out), which makes it actual poison principle. You could still justify it on the basis that its just an ETB, but that just feels random and nonsensical: you're essentially expecting your players to treat part of the rules text as flavor text.
stuff in standard that interacts with:
1) devoid?
i guess he forgot about the whole ghostfire blade thing or the whole morph morph thing or just, you know, hangarback walker
2) ingest/put opponent cards from exile?
delve, anafenza, rebound, jace, oring effects, torrent elemental, ugin
3) allies, well, i dunno, they were stupid the first time around too
1) devoid?
i guess he forgot about the whole ghostfire blade thing or the whole morph morph thing or just, you know, hangarback walker
2) ingest/put opponent cards from exile?
delve, anafenza, rebound, jace, oring effects, torrent elemental, ugin
3) allies, well, i dunno, they were stupid the first time around too
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
They did fix the utter parasitic-ness of Allies though (for the most part), and running a mix of creatures should be no problem. If Junk Allies is a thing, you can still run Siege Rhino.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
My point is that in standard, it works because either A) you can run other allies, since there's even an elite vanguard. That's not usually a tribal piece we get, or B) you can treat it as a one time ETB guy
In retail draft it makes sense because there's plenty of random allies
In cube, I get it. I've heard complaints of people drafting peasent and slamming Gemhide Sliver P1P1 not realizing it's a perfectly valid Utopia Tree on it's own and that's all the designer was thinking of. I don't think there's any I'd be adding on the "Just treat it as an ETB guy" basis, and I've got the option of taking a sharpie to the ally parts of the card, but I can see the concern.
But on the other hand, I really loved swinging with a 3/3 mutavault because Coralhelm Commander was an otherwise good blue aggressive creature at the time. There's balances.
It'll be interesting to see if whatever comes after this block is a tribal set and we get changelings back, who (you guessed it) are allies
I don't think it'd actually be return to lorwyn, but changelings aren't a concept I think is particularly bound there
Are any of the original allies worth running if you have a few of the better BFZ ones running around? (ie Lantern Scout)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Holy crap, that article (and most of the reactions below it) are depressing... Also, I'm a bit amazed/disappointed that a player of Paulo's caliber can't make the connections to Tarkir block. Devoid works with (or against) Ugin, Ghostfire Blade, Ultimate Price and others. Converge plays into Tarkir's multicolor roots. Awaken combo's wonderfully with prowess, which was just introduced in Tarkir. His point about allies stand though, it's very hard to distinguish allies from non-allies, unless you read the typeline.
And how did he miss all the cards that care about colorlessness in the set?
Seriously? Didn't you look through the visual spoiler? Tunnel vision much?
Et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, it's just flavor text man.
He makes a few fair points, but some of his arguments were pretty shaky. In particular, his complaint about Devoid:
"It's unclear which one of those 'comes first' and which one tries to tie everything together."
I thought it was pretty clear that both Devoid and exiling are associated with Eldrazi cards. Devoid is mechanically important for at least a few cards (Dominator Drone, Titan's Presence, Sanctum of Ugin) and exiling is important for the processors.
In fact, if he really wanted to make an argument here, he could instead have pointed out that the strategic lines are drawn SO clearly that it might induce auto-drafting reminiscent of Infect.
"It's unclear which one of those 'comes first' and which one tries to tie everything together."
I thought it was pretty clear that both Devoid and exiling are associated with Eldrazi cards. Devoid is mechanically important for at least a few cards (Dominator Drone, Titan's Presence, Sanctum of Ugin) and exiling is important for the processors.
In fact, if he really wanted to make an argument here, he could instead have pointed out that the strategic lines are drawn SO clearly that it might induce auto-drafting reminiscent of Infect.
it's a pretty clear case of top players being awful designers/critics (again)
it's also clear that there is certainly something to be wrong for him to be motivated to write that article. it does not make sense to dismiss his feeling of wrongness with regard to BFZ, only to dismiss his listed reasons. players may not be good designers or critics but they are a good measure of whether or not there is a problem, the canary in the coal mine.
it's also clear that there is certainly something to be wrong for him to be motivated to write that article. it does not make sense to dismiss his feeling of wrongness with regard to BFZ, only to dismiss his listed reasons. players may not be good designers or critics but they are a good measure of whether or not there is a problem, the canary in the coal mine.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Here's the best I could find:
Not much, a lot of these are super reliant on the ally thing. There's also
who pitches to force, but I doubt the ACS of literal grizzly bears is good enough. Blademaster at least holds the fort really well
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
Its really unlikely that Paulo is missing many connections, as he probably has been playing with proxied copies of the cards for some time.
He probably just arrived to the same conclusion that I eventually did: the payoff for a lot of these mechanics is so marginal as not be worth discussing. I'm running a major colorless theme, and am not running any of the devoid cards because they are not very good. Ingest is way too marginal of a mechanic, so its really a question of if the processors can carry the flag, and the best you get there is a bad skinrender and ETB counterspell creature. All of these of which are much worse than alternatives, because of the exile condition attached to them.
Now, maybe it will be a great limited format, I don't know, but I don't think its unfair to say there are some issues with the way these themes were implimented.
He probably just arrived to the same conclusion that I eventually did: the payoff for a lot of these mechanics is so marginal as not be worth discussing. I'm running a major colorless theme, and am not running any of the devoid cards because they are not very good. Ingest is way too marginal of a mechanic, so its really a question of if the processors can carry the flag, and the best you get there is a bad skinrender and ETB counterspell creature. All of these of which are much worse than alternatives, because of the exile condition attached to them.
Now, maybe it will be a great limited format, I don't know, but I don't think its unfair to say there are some issues with the way these themes were implimented.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Those are all fair points, but not really the points he addresses in this article.
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I know, I'm telling you why he didn't think they were worth addressing, so you can be less amazed or disappointed at his analysis.
He did the same thing in his modern article, where he correctly diagnosed a major problem with a format, which people that like modern naturally had a problem with, and than they focused on a structural flaws with the way he presented the argument rather than the substance of it.
I am sure that he did look at the visual spoiler, and noted that there are cards that care about colorless in the set; however, as they are unlikely to see much play outside of limited, they don't really matter to him. Could he have phrased that better? Absolutely--he is technically incorrect when he says that devoid is just flavor text--however, it is also likely that the vast majority of the time devoid will feel like flavor text due to how awkardly it was implimented as a mechanic.
I know that negative opinions aren't popular, but constructive criticism is important, and there is enough strangeness here to justify a raised eyebrow. Like Anotak said, the canary in the mine.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Well, I don't mind constructive criticism at all, but when I need other people to explain his point of view, his article isn't exactly helping his cause, is it? As a non-competitive player I get completely lost in his arguments, because they make no sense to me. And the reason for that is precisely that he skips detailing several parts of his train of thought. Instead we get what amounts to the last wagon of thought...
Anyway, I hope he's wrong and a healthy amount of cards see play, but I do agree the set looks weakish. I love devoid and awaken, and ingest makes me go "what.", just as Wizards intended, but ingest especially is so weird that I don't think it would play nicely with the previous blocks.
Late to the party as usual, but...
Cards that are definitely making the cut, in order of excitement:
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
Bring to Light
Retreat to Coralhelm
Drana, Liberator of Malakir
Woodland Wanderer
Planar Outburst
Dragonmaster Outcast
Ruinous Path
Ob Nixilis Reignited
I'll be trying the following, in order from most likely -> least likely to make it to the main cube.
Clutch of Currents
Cliffside Lookout
Ondu Rising
Scatter to the Winds
Vampiric Rites
Halimar Tidecaller
Quarantine Field
Coastal Discovery
(I may even double up on Clutch if it seems like a Real Card, but I'm not sure.)
Cards that are definitely making the cut, in order of excitement:
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
Bring to Light
Retreat to Coralhelm
Drana, Liberator of Malakir
Woodland Wanderer
Planar Outburst
Dragonmaster Outcast
Ruinous Path
Ob Nixilis Reignited
I'll be trying the following, in order from most likely -> least likely to make it to the main cube.
Clutch of Currents
Cliffside Lookout
Ondu Rising
Scatter to the Winds
Vampiric Rites
Halimar Tidecaller
Quarantine Field
Coastal Discovery
(I may even double up on Clutch if it seems like a Real Card, but I'm not sure.)
Laz
Developer
I too have an issue with Devoid, but for me it boils down to 'is colour-less-ness-matters worth it as a theme?'. The Eldrazi in BFZ already have this exile/return from exile mechanic, which is cool and otherworldly, but Devoid feels tacked on. I mean, what possibly feels colourless about this card?
There isn't even a colourless mana symbol in the casting cost!
Previously coloured Eldrazi existed; Nest Invader for instance. Forerunner of Slaughter could easily have been a BR Eldrazi with 'Target Eldrazi creature gains haste'. There is also the odd flavour mechanics non-bo of the interaction between the Eldrazi colourlessness-matters theme and the anti-Eldrazi awaken mechanic.
I think my impression is that most of these pseudo-colourless cards actually gain nothing by being colourless. That said, I do love the feel of the large colourless Eldrazi. I just feel that feel is undermined by these small coloured-but-not-Eldrazi.
There isn't even a colourless mana symbol in the casting cost!
Previously coloured Eldrazi existed; Nest Invader for instance. Forerunner of Slaughter could easily have been a BR Eldrazi with 'Target Eldrazi creature gains haste'. There is also the odd flavour mechanics non-bo of the interaction between the Eldrazi colourlessness-matters theme and the anti-Eldrazi awaken mechanic.
I think my impression is that most of these pseudo-colourless cards actually gain nothing by being colourless. That said, I do love the feel of the large colourless Eldrazi. I just feel that feel is undermined by these small coloured-but-not-Eldrazi.
My issue with Devoid is it's either a symptom of a deeper problem the designers refuse to confront (tribal thirst) or part of a complete flavour fail (see: Eldrazis playing nice with thopters and morphs???).
My money is on tribal thirst. They want tribal back, desperately, but refuse to give it to themselves. Allies ARE tribal, but without the cool "Tribal" type potential fun times. Same goes for Eldrazi. So they keep adamantly designing tribal cards but are too stubborn to cop to it. I mean, damn! DTK had Dragon tribal crap; Theros was practically "enchantment tribal". They would get a lot out of opening up to tribal again, but they stubbornly refuse. It's insane.
Now, by avoiding Eldrazi tribal, they get this shitty bleed in Standard over with artifacts and morph creatures, which to me is the absolute pits, because I HATE flavour fails. Why the Hell would an Eldrazi give my thopter tokens haste?! Why would they empower some mysterious morph creature? It makes no sense! Sure, it opens up new deck potential, but it is to me such a HUGE flavour miss that I can't help but despise it.
I also don't like 90% of the Eldrazi art this time around.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents, like it or love it, I won't be cracking any packs or playing this Standard anyway, so it doesn't particularly matter to me. I just wish they would stick their necks out and just bring Tribal back because they seem to really want to.
My money is on tribal thirst. They want tribal back, desperately, but refuse to give it to themselves. Allies ARE tribal, but without the cool "Tribal" type potential fun times. Same goes for Eldrazi. So they keep adamantly designing tribal cards but are too stubborn to cop to it. I mean, damn! DTK had Dragon tribal crap; Theros was practically "enchantment tribal". They would get a lot out of opening up to tribal again, but they stubbornly refuse. It's insane.
Now, by avoiding Eldrazi tribal, they get this shitty bleed in Standard over with artifacts and morph creatures, which to me is the absolute pits, because I HATE flavour fails. Why the Hell would an Eldrazi give my thopter tokens haste?! Why would they empower some mysterious morph creature? It makes no sense! Sure, it opens up new deck potential, but it is to me such a HUGE flavour miss that I can't help but despise it.
I also don't like 90% of the Eldrazi art this time around.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents, like it or love it, I won't be cracking any packs or playing this Standard anyway, so it doesn't particularly matter to me. I just wish they would stick their necks out and just bring Tribal back because they seem to really want to.
CML
Contributor
I don't mind PV's article, it's refreshing to see some negativity and criticism in Magic writing. Of course, none of us have any idea how "good" the mechanics are—observe this dated document of a doofus on the rag and on the rag: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10743&writer=Christopher+Morris-Lent
Allies and ingest shenanigans are kind of a wash for me, but I am definitely digging the awesome Awaken/lands package they gave blue. The blue retreat and all but 1-2 blue awaken cards, plus that tidecaller gal, are making blue one of my new cube's lands-matter colors.
These are the cards that I'm probably going to try out, the lands after Lumbering Falls are all going straight into ULD. 14 total cards, not bad. I know that I'm going to add Ruinous Path and Quarantine Field for sure, Treeternal Witness as well, but most of the others could go either way. Ob is sweet for B/x control decks, the retreats could lead to some cools board states, and I always wanted a second Blood Artist that wasn't as overpowered (human to boot!). Woodland Wanderer seems pretty insane as well, great payoff for splashing colors in base green.
Prerelease Recap:
Opened a bunch of rares with eldrazi-like costs that were just worse than eldrazi (swamps-matter vampire, forests-matter hydra) and converge rares when my only thing resembling fixing was a single fertile thicket, had about a third of the cards necessary for any given strategy and ended up playing green black durdle with nine pieces of removal and terrible bombs.
Went 2-2 alternating between people with worse decks and people who just ran me over before turn six. The IMPORTANT part of the story, though, was that my second opponent (0-1 bracket) was a returning player who had no idea what the stack was and had been told by his friends that you could 'forget' to untap? When I asked if he opened anything cool post-match he opened his box and dumped two ulamogs and an expedition on the floor. I gave him some sleeves.
Overall playing with the cards was very odd. There was a lot more flying aggro than I anticipated, and while you needed early presence to not just get run over, anything that cost less than five was instantly outclassed by any of the large-ish eldrazi, and the potential removal for them is much more sparse than in ROE. You can very easily just draw the wrong half of your deck (In sealed, at least).
Opened a bunch of rares with eldrazi-like costs that were just worse than eldrazi (swamps-matter vampire, forests-matter hydra) and converge rares when my only thing resembling fixing was a single fertile thicket, had about a third of the cards necessary for any given strategy and ended up playing green black durdle with nine pieces of removal and terrible bombs.
Went 2-2 alternating between people with worse decks and people who just ran me over before turn six. The IMPORTANT part of the story, though, was that my second opponent (0-1 bracket) was a returning player who had no idea what the stack was and had been told by his friends that you could 'forget' to untap? When I asked if he opened anything cool post-match he opened his box and dumped two ulamogs and an expedition on the floor. I gave him some sleeves.
Overall playing with the cards was very odd. There was a lot more flying aggro than I anticipated, and while you needed early presence to not just get run over, anything that cost less than five was instantly outclassed by any of the large-ish eldrazi, and the potential removal for them is much more sparse than in ROE. You can very easily just draw the wrong half of your deck (In sealed, at least).