The "legendary" cube was 3 years ago already, wow.
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- Thread starter Velrun
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I like her rule "The power level of a card shouldn't be based on the colors of the opponent's permanents or the land types they have." Hey @Aston, did you read this? Shriekmaw is right out!
Exactly and that is why I said Wizards was going in the wrong direction when they made the modern version of hexproof in Dominaria.
Has the announcement happened yet?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yes, battlebond cuts a lot of the crap commons to be able to 2HG draft with less boosters, they spoiled two mildly interesting cards, and the fall set and the following two sets (three total) will take place on Ravnica, with the third not being about guilds.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/2018-spring-announcement-day-2018-05-18
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/find-your-partner-battlebond-2018-05-18
For commander players, "partner with X" works like "partner", but the partner is locked in. You can use Pir and Toothy as your commander, but not Pir and Ravos, Soultender, for example.
Also, they're apparently letting a kid fight grown-ups. That doesn't seem wrong or disturbing at all...
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/2018-spring-announcement-day-2018-05-18
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/find-your-partner-battlebond-2018-05-18
For commander players, "partner with X" works like "partner", but the partner is locked in. You can use Pir and Toothy as your commander, but not Pir and Ravos, Soultender, for example.
Also, they're apparently letting a kid fight grown-ups. That doesn't seem wrong or disturbing at all...
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I mean I didn't expect partner to even do anything in non EDH formats. Nice.
Wait what? Can you?
The way I read the reminder text is this: You can use either of them as Commander and put the other one among the 99 in order to always find it.
It states this directly in the article, yes. They can be partnered as commanders, but only together as this pair.
Weird it doesn’t say so on the card.
But I guess cube players rejoice. Any mention of the Commander is banned in my cube so no Daretti. This is fair game because no where on the card does it say anything about being able to play as Commanders together.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I run Daretti and Ravos. They're excellent cards, so I just ignore the commander rider. I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to though.
I also don’t run any ‘Lords’ that are cool because I do not want to signal to the players something they can’t achieve. The upside of having a custom cube (besides including the community in designing the cards for the cube) is the fact that you are totally limitfree.
Basically you could run a Daretti but without the Commander-line although I would never go that low. Having a real MtG card (or even more so a foil or altered one) is far superior to running any customized proxy.
Are you never bothered by the line of text mentioning another format?
Basically you could run a Daretti but without the Commander-line although I would never go that low. Having a real MtG card (or even more so a foil or altered one) is far superior to running any customized proxy.
Are you never bothered by the line of text mentioning another format?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yes I am, but I just like the cards too much to cut them. It's like a good movie that needs a pinch of suspension of disbelief. It's great to watch, unless you let that one annoying bit get to you. So I simply don't let it get to me
Yes I am, but I just like the cards too much to cut them. It's like a good movie that needs a pinch of suspension of disbelief. It's great to watch, unless you let that one annoying bit get to you. So I simply don't let it get to me
If I was the only one playing the cube, sure.
It is not about letting it get to ME. There are 8 players who I should take care of. Sometimes 7 if I participate in the tournament. I cannot dictate to them that it should not get to them. The next tournament there will be 8 new players. I cannot decide that for them. I feel like it is my responsibility to not run my nails down the teacher’s black board, to not write a story where there is disbelief and to not force something unpleasent down their throats so to speak.
Is there no good substitute for Daretti?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I believe my players are perfectly capable of ignoring that commander rider as well, I have never heard any complaints, nor was anyone ever confused by it. Really, whether you want to include them is, from my point of view, entirely a matter of aesthetics, unless you regularly draft with very new players who don't even know what commander is and thus might be confused by the text. For me that's not the case, I play with veteran Magic players, so the chances of those commander riders confusing my player base is basically 0%. So then it comes down to aesthetics, as I said, and whether the cards are easily substituted, and for me the answer is no.
I have run Goblin Welder in the past, but I don't like how quick it is. Daretti sits at a sweet spot mana wise, and offers card filtering as well. This is important for several reasons. First, it gives red access to a respectable source of card quality improvement. Second, it means the deck playing Daretti doesn't need to be all in on artifacts. Maybe the plus ability is what synergizes best with your deck, maybe you play only a few artifacts. It's clearly more versatile. Third, it synergizes with itself. I really, really like what Daretti does.
For Ravos I have been playing other cards, because I was very reluctant to put in a foil with a useless rider for aesthetic reasons. I was looking for a curve topper for BW go wide decks though, and I kept coming back to Ravos. I playtested a bunch of games with him, and the anthem effect simply does work in that archetype. More importantly, the raise dead ability means you can keep smashing into your opponent's defenses using superior numbers and replenishing the casualties. Ravos is a very tight package that simply happened to be the best fit for what I was looking for. There are replacements, theoretically, but not in one card that can act as a curve topper in the BW go wide archetype. I run some of those cards as well, but BW doesn't mind the redundancy.
I have run Goblin Welder in the past, but I don't like how quick it is. Daretti sits at a sweet spot mana wise, and offers card filtering as well. This is important for several reasons. First, it gives red access to a respectable source of card quality improvement. Second, it means the deck playing Daretti doesn't need to be all in on artifacts. Maybe the plus ability is what synergizes best with your deck, maybe you play only a few artifacts. It's clearly more versatile. Third, it synergizes with itself. I really, really like what Daretti does.
For Ravos I have been playing other cards, because I was very reluctant to put in a foil with a useless rider for aesthetic reasons. I was looking for a curve topper for BW go wide decks though, and I kept coming back to Ravos. I playtested a bunch of games with him, and the anthem effect simply does work in that archetype. More importantly, the raise dead ability means you can keep smashing into your opponent's defenses using superior numbers and replenishing the casualties. Ravos is a very tight package that simply happened to be the best fit for what I was looking for. There are replacements, theoretically, but not in one card that can act as a curve topper in the BW go wide archetype. I run some of those cards as well, but BW doesn't mind the redundancy.
They also decided to release 2 Planeswalker decks in China and they are legal in Chinese standard and all other eternal formats.
It just seems weird that they would release something that can be played in one countries standard format and no others.
Here are the Planeswalkers in question:
Both are your standard Planeswalker deck affair, nothing too strong or exciting to be honest.
I just really want to see the Mowu token. That dog is going to be the cutest thing looking from the Planeswalker Art alone.
It just seems weird that they would release something that can be played in one countries standard format and no others.
Here are the Planeswalkers in question:
Both are your standard Planeswalker deck affair, nothing too strong or exciting to be honest.
I just really want to see the Mowu token. That dog is going to be the cutest thing looking from the Planeswalker Art alone.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Art style obviously caters to the Chines market. Not my cup of tea. I do think these are both sweet designs. The blue one goes together well with saboteurs, and both minus abilities are actually really good. I'm a huge fan of the legendary token on the green one, because it means it will be a lot less spammy. It also makes its own token to boost with the plus and ultimate. Neat. One booboo they made is not having the plus abilities on either planeswalkers say "up to one". It's pretty silly that you can't plus these when you play these after a Day of Judgment, if you'ld want to.
...they spoiled two mildly interesting cards...
Wait, are people not more excited by these two?
I'm so so hyped for them!!!
I run Winding Constrictor and enjoy it, but never pulled the trigger on Hardened Scales like others have, for fear that sometimes it may be completely blank and you'd be down a card. At first blush, I get that a 3 mana 1/1 isn't exactly worth a card and in fact makes the effect more fragile. But Pir being a creature has benefits too! They're easier to tutor up (cube dependent I guess) and can start carrying counters from some sources (e.g. Bow of Nylea, Gavony Township) without needing an additional card. Heck, if you're already running Hardened Scales, is it not worth adding another copy of the effect? That's not to mention that Pir gets to synergize with other cards that Hardened Scales wouldn't.
I know some people around here have liked Lorescale Coatl and this seems like a more interesting version to me. It's a little slower as a pure beatdown card, but it has self insurance! Compared to Chasm Skulker it's more assured, but less board dominant. Hard to say if one is definitively better. At lower values, you'd probably rather have the cards than a few tokens. At larger values, the tokens really help cement the pressure whereas the extra cards have diminishing returns and might even deck you. That aside, Toothy also has cool synergy with flicker effects and clones.
So we have two cards that are comparable to others that we already like. Better in some ways and worse in others. But the kicker is that they tutor each other! I find that combos make drafting more exciting. It gives players extra things to consider or look out for. But maybe this "synergy "is too hamfisted to be interesting for some people? Perhaps that's cube size dependent? Less interesting if they both show up every draft and only exciting if you don't know for sure that's the direction you'll end up at.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I cut Hardened Scales for being too busted! The effect is way fairer on a three mana, fragile body, and the synergy between these two cards is nice, but I don't support GU as a color pair in my cube, and my +1/+1 counters commander deck is four colors. Though, now that you mention it, these would actually be really cool in the 99. Ok. You sold me on these!
I only quoted the first sentence. Not to disrespect and not because I didn’t read it. Simply to make this post a little shorter
I do not think it is a matter of capability because I do not think you have to be very capable to ignore such a useless line of text
I think it is a matter of style and I do not think I am entitled to make such a decision for so many people.
Furthermore my tournaments are open which means a lot of people sign up. Some I do not even know yet. I do not include a Russian Stoneforge Mystic even though 99 % of all players know the card by heart because one day someone might not know the card. I do not include Lyra Dawnbringer because it signals there is an Angel tribal in the cube and I do not include Daretti, Scrap Savant because it signals there is a Commander rule in the cube. Most people know the cube before they sign up but some are new.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Fair enough, I get what you're saying, and our opinion on this matter in general is very close then. I wouldn't include a card like Lyra Dawnbringer either, for exactly the same reason (ignoring the discrepancy in power level with the rest of my cube for this specific example). Cards like that cause your players to make assumptions that may lead to a very unfun draft experience, simply because the promise of a theme isn't fulfilled. In the case of the commander riders though, I feel it's safe to include them in my own cube, because there isn't a promise of a theme here. Everyone at my table knows we're drafting and playing 1 vs 1 matches afterwards. We're not playing commander, so that line is just useless trinket text that can be safely ignored.
I can totally respect your decision to not run them in your own cube though, especially because you organize tournaments with unknown players. There might be someone at the table who isn't familiar with commander, or with the draft format, and then takes the wrong hint or is confused by those commander riders.
I can totally respect your decision to not run them in your own cube though, especially because you organize tournaments with unknown players. There might be someone at the table who isn't familiar with commander, or with the draft format, and then takes the wrong hint or is confused by those commander riders.
www.magiccards.info is now part of www.scryfall.com
This means www.magiccards.info doesn't exist anymore. No more easy searching for Basic lands and their sets in annual order.
This means www.magiccards.info doesn't exist anymore. No more easy searching for Basic lands and their sets in annual order.
www.magiccards.info is now part of www.scryfall.com
This means www.magiccards.info doesn't exist anymore. No more easy searching for Basic lands and their sets in annual order.
I was deeply upset by this too. Scryfall does a few things quite poorly, unfortunately.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
They've also gone on record that they won't do proxy services, so where am I coming for that now.
You can however search for all the unique printings of a card and sort by release date if you want:
https://scryfall.com/search?q=!"Lightning+Bolt"+unique:prints
You can however search for all the unique printings of a card and sort by release date if you want:
https://scryfall.com/search?q=!"Lightning+Bolt"+unique:prints
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
From https://scryfall.com/blog/scryfall-magiccards-info-190
"We know that magiccards.info has very loyal users and we want this transition to be smooth. We’re listening for your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We salute the owner of magiccards.info for their service to the Magic community. magiccards.info has been a true utility and it is an essential piece of Magic’s history. We hope to do right by its legacy.
—Corey Csuhta and the Scryfall team"
I have been using Scryfall instead of MagicCards.info for months now, and their syntax has grown on me. I can search for almost anything I want with relative ease. Their syntax is actually pretty well documented!
"We know that magiccards.info has very loyal users and we want this transition to be smooth. We’re listening for your feedback. Please don’t hesitate to contact us.
We salute the owner of magiccards.info for their service to the Magic community. magiccards.info has been a true utility and it is an essential piece of Magic’s history. We hope to do right by its legacy.
—Corey Csuhta and the Scryfall team"
I have been using Scryfall instead of MagicCards.info for months now, and their syntax has grown on me. I can search for almost anything I want with relative ease. Their syntax is actually pretty well documented!