Sets Battle for Zendikar Spoilers

Suicufnoc

Suicufnoc

My experience:
Super fast sealed format, saw a lot of RW ally aggro, WB flyer "aggro", Gx beatdown aggro, and one huge mana ramp deck. Went 4-0 with a bunch of 2 power 2 drops, a few fliers, and like 5 pieces of removal.

Common blue land that days creature doesn't untap is good, ran it in a mardu deck for several games, probably should have started mainboard all night.
Endless one rules sealed, who knows if its good enough.
Awaken cards all impressed.
4BB exile creature and land - very good when you hit a manland, good spell land, and a creature. Could be good enough in the right cube
 
shamizy

shamizy

My prerelease pool was pretty decent, had enough cards to put together a sweet Temur List. I've still got it intact:

Temur

Creatures (16)
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
2 Ondu Champion
1 Lifespring Druid
1 Nettle Drone
1 Bane of Bala Ged
2 Grove Rumbler
1 Valakut Invoker
2 Incubator Drone
1 Eyeless Watcher
1 Blisterpod
1 Broodhunter Wurm
2 Akoum Stonewaker

Spells (6)
1 Turn Against
1 Stonefury
2 Horribly Awry
1 Sure Strike
1 Spell Shrivel

Lands (18)
1 Lumbering Falls
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Skyline Cascade
3 Island
6 Mountain
6 Forest


My promo was Omnath, but 3RRGG was too hard for me since I had to splash blue for playables and most matches I played against were too quick. I finished 3-1 on the night, could have gone 4-0 if I didn't face the nut Allies deck and brick on two land drops. Turn Against is INSANE in this format, instant speed Act of Treason should never be underestimated. In my first round we went to G3 and on Turn 7 or so I was facing down a board with the 4/5 gains flying if you gain life ally and a 3/4 trampler, I had Dragonmaster, one 5/5 dragon, and Incubator Drone and I was on like 8 with him at around 16. I leave Turn Against up and pass back to him, he does some quick math then uses his own Turn Against, leaving one mana untapped, taking my Dragon and trying to swing for lethal. I Turn Against and get back my dragon, block his 4/5, and chump his 3/4 trampler with my 2/3. And then I wreck him the following two turns.

Unexpected MVP was Akoum Stonewalker. If you're on the play and you can play him into just land drops, you apply a great amount of pressure just generating free 3/1s and charging them into your opponent. I beat two people just doing that b/c they were unwilling to trade cards for tokens and once they played bigger, better things I started using the cards in my hand to deal with them. I had such a good late game in those matches.

All in all set is really fun, I don't think I saw any unbeatable bombs out there or when I looked over the set so it's a pretty sweet sealed format. I think we had 3-4 Expeditions opened among the 140 people we had at our prerelease. I opened two foil basics so swagswagswag. I think I'm just going one more event this weekend, 2HG with a buddy at 7pm.
 
shamizy

shamizy

RavebornMuse said:
Do you think Akoum Stonewaker could be cubeable? Looks like "free" Lightning Strike generator (...kinda...?) but I was a bit shy about jumping on it.
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I have no idea, I'll probably try it out. The only problem I could see is that I don't really know where it slots into in our cubes. You don't want it in Mono-Red b/c you pretty much just want bodies early to overwhelm them, and a 2/1 is just easy pickings later. If Landfall is a thing in your cube, I don't see why not, but this is probably a card that would need to be doubled up on to really see it shine.

Generating a Hellspark Elemental off each land drop for 2R is pretty decent. I initially brought it in out of the side against an aggro matchup but then just kept it in once I saw how much value it generated. It's a pretty decent card because eventually they realize that they can't just keep taking a bolt to the face off each land drop and they need to trade with it. All the while you're just building up a hand with threats that you can deploy as the game goes on. One game I topdecked an evolving wilds late and the landfall + 4RR gave me 6 trample damage out of nowhere to close out the game. When I first opened it in my pool I was like nah who has time to make 3/1s for 2R. Turns out this format lets you do that and 3/1s trade with a lot of creatures.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Yeah I will legit P1P1 Turn Against in this draft format if the rare sucks. That card is such a blowout. I blew out a guy by making his 4/4 block his 4/3 while I chumped his last attacker. It was so gross.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I had a very difficult pool, deckbuilding was a blast, and games were as well. Went 4-2, still don't know if my eventual deck was the correct build o_O

BfZ Sealed Pool











I'll let you puzzle a bit on what you would build out of this, then you can look at what I played ;)

BfZ Final Build








 
Lucre

Lucre

This grip of desolation card sorta reminds me of a black instant wildfire and might be a fun upside for lategame black strategies in more toned down cubes. Like protection doesn't stop it and it exiles and you are like two steps ahead of any midgame or control deck you resolve it on.

Imagine RB midrange with this card or like curving venser, tamiyo, grip.

Like a deck who's endgame is 2X wildfires a grip and a Titan seems sick if you have access to even 2 rocks and some relevant 2s and 4s.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Eric Chan said:
Yeah, I'm more and more inclined to give Grip of Desolation a try. Volcanic Offering was very strong over here when we had it in - imagine Acidic Slime, except it kills their best creature instead of a middling one! - so six mana might actually be a fairer cost for this kind of effect.
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I loooove slime especially now with all the decent enchantment creatures.
Dude is Volcanic Offering just target player sacs 2 nonbasics and 2 creatures? Is that fucking fair?

I get the feeling casting grip is gonna feel a lot like casting opportunity or eot ultimatum in some matchups. What's great is that once you're at 6 mana part of the game your opponent is going to be taking a while before they can make their next land drop happen most of the time.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Lucre said:
I loooove slime especially now with all the decent enchantment creatures.
Dude is Volcanic Offering just target player sacs 2 nonbasics and 2 creatures? Is that fucking fair?

I get the feeling casting grip is gonna feel a lot like casting opportunity or eot ultimatum in some matchups. What's great is that once you're at 6 mana part of the game your opponent is going to be taking a while before they can make their next land drop happen most of the time.
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Volcanic offering basically reads: Destroy target nonbasic land and deal 7 damage to target creature you control.
Your opponent may sacrifice a nonbasic land and deal 7 damage to target creature you don't control.

Technically Council's Judgement lets you exile one of your permanents if you like (Not that most people do, though I suppose it's not the worst way to rid yourself of an Abyssal Persecutor)
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Chris Taylor said:
Volcanic offering basically reads: Destroy target nonbasic land and deal 7 damage to target creature you control.
Your opponent may sacrifice a nonbasic land and deal 7 damage to target creature you don't control.

Technically Council's Judgement lets you exile one of your permanents if you like (Not that most people do, though I suppose it's not the worst way to rid yourself of an Abyssal Persecutor)
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I will say, it's pretty non-obvious on first reading that your opponent should pick the same target that you do. I understand why they made it this way, but it's so clunky in a 2-player setting.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
I will say, it's pretty non-obvious on first reading that your opponent should pick the same target that you do. I understand why they made it this way, but it's so clunky in a 2-player setting.
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Literally every voting card is

Thus:
PwyIHwO.jpg
20.jpg
 
B

blacksmithy

I mean, it's not far off. "Choose a nonland permanent. Exile that permanent." Ought to retain the original 1v1 functionality. But if I were ti make a custom CJ, i'd change the cost to 2W.
Anyway, how about that new Cremate that costs 3 and makes an Eldrazi Scion? Seems cool.
 
Alfonzo Bonzo

Alfonzo Bonzo

blacksmithy said:
I mean, it's not far off. "Choose a nonland permanent. Exile that permanent." Ought to retain the original 1v1 functionality. But if I were ti make a custom CJ, i'd change the cost to 2W.
Anyway, how about that new Cremate that costs 3 and makes an Eldrazi Scion? Seems cool.
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Opponent chooses :(
 
B

blacksmithy

Okay, but, at what cost would "make a scion, draw a card at instant speed" be cubable? Cuz i feel like at 2 that'd be a really sweet effect.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
blacksmithy said:
Okay, but, at what cost would "make a scion, draw a card at instant speed" be cubable? Cuz i feel like at 2 that'd be a really sweet effect.
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Amazing what a single colorless does isn't it?

Also really? Flash Elvish Visionary with a bit of mana is good enough?
I don't want it cheaper, I want it to do more
 
B

blacksmithy

I mean, it's simple, but it replaces itself, can kill an attacking creature out of nowhere, has "blue haste," or can ramp you to 4 (surprise!). That's a lot of uses for such a simple spell. Too bad the exile gravy isn't worth {1}
 
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