Sets (MKM) Murders at Karlov Manor Previews

Basic Lands! Looks like one from each guild.

Nice catch!
The way I see them we have

Top: Azorius Island -> Rakdos Mountain -> Boros Plains -> Golgari Swamp -> Gruul Forest

Bot: Simic Island -> Izzet Mountain -> Orzhov Plains -> Dimir Swamp -> Selesnya Forest

Really sweet attention to detail, Wizards!
 
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This, on the other hand, is a pretty sweet card that seems like it'd have quite a bit of play. It is, however, hilariously power-creeped over something like Zoetic Cavern.

Wait what? Zoetic Cavern isn’t powerful enough to see play in any format thus it cannot by definition power creep anything. And this new one costs 6 mana to play face down and turn face up, not 5. If you disagree then please explain.
 
Sweet mechanics in this set!
- Disguise & Cloak
- Cases
- Collect evidence
- Suspect
And returning mechanics Basic land cycling & Investigate
- We even have a wither card and a Kellan again with adventure.

The rare duel land cycle is great!

The Ravnica Showcase frame and the Detective Showcase frame are beautiful.

The Impossible Basic lands are beautiful.
 
Wait what? Zoetic Cavern isn’t powerful enough to see play in any format thus it cannot by definition power creep anything. And this new one costs 6 mana to play face down and turn face up, not 5. If you disagree then please explain.
Well, powerful enough or not depends on the format, so that's the first thing where I do not agree on with you. Second is that the new one returns two mana (and can color fix) and has ward 2 when morphed. There are corner cases where the old one is better, e.g., only two lands available but the new one is a free unmorph as opposed to costing 1.
 
Thing is with the morph lands is that it would be better if it was a land that you could turn face down when it is in play.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Or you know, they could have named it morph and just change the rule that morph has ward 2...
They have changes rules before, which made cards play differently.
I would like to avoid functional eratta on a widespread scale
"No actually, you can't kill my facedown creature here, lemmie just pull up this article on the mtg website that says so..."
Real Bitter Triumph vibes for the flavour text on this one.
The fact this card is playing it as a joke and bitter triumph is playing it straight faced is the most humorous thing about the similarity :p
 
Well, powerful enough or not depends on the format, so that's the first thing where I do not agree on with you. Second is that the new one returns two mana (and can color fix) and has ward 2 when morphed. There are corner cases where the old one is better, e.g., only two lands available but the new one is a free unmorph as opposed to costing 1.
Exactly! Thus not hilariously power crept :) Wouldn't you agree?
 
Velrun, that was non-literal use of language, used to bring up a previous, similar design for comparison.

A 2/4 flyer with vigilance is under-rate but not wholly embarrassing, and it thankfully avoids Bolts.

I dunno, a 2/4 flyer for 3 honestly seems pretty on rate to me, especially with vigilance and an ability that punishes your opponent for trying to swarm past your 4 toughness blocker? Though I'll admit that I don't have the cleanest read on what WotC thinks are appropriate stats for creatures anymore...
 
I would like to avoid functional eratta on a widespread scale
"No actually, you can't kill my facedown creature here, lemmie just pull up this article on the mtg website that says so..."

The fact this card is playing it as a joke and bitter triumph is playing it straight faced is the most humorous thing about the similarity :p
Well, they did that with mana burn. Tapped blockers do deal combat damage. Combat damage not on the stack...
 
What exactly does this mean?

(If unsolved, solve at the beginning of your end step.)

Does it just mean that all cases get automatically solved the turn they etb?
 
Well, I rather have the new one than the old one... That's power creep not? (Not that that is a bad thing, it is still not breaking the bank in most formats)

No. Power creep is only if it pushed the format into all cards have to be more powerful. So for a card to have to be power crept it will have to already be in the upper tier of the cards in the format.

And for a card to be hilariously power crept it had to be a lot more power crept than just being a little different.

In this case there are situations where you want one card and situations where you want the other cards. Are you not swimming in mana then you might not have 3 available during blockers step.
 
I dunno, a 2/4 flyer for 3 honestly seems pretty on rate to me, especially with vigilance and an ability that punishes your opponent for trying to swarm past your 4 toughness blocker? Though I'll admit that I don't have the cleanest read on what WotC thinks are appropriate stats for creatures anymore...

As a Magic card, maybe, but not necessarily as a Cube card that can justify a coveted gold slot. I'm still planning on running it, but it doesn't attack any better than a Wind Drake, which isn't ideal in 2024 Magic if I have to build my mana around a card. It gets there otherwise, clunky text or not.

SPEAKING OF CLUNKY TEXT:



I really love Magic cards. What a fun game, lol.
This is such a silly card; I adore it. It's got some great synergies with what my black section is already doing, and I love having another excuse to put an enchantment in my graveyard for Delirium. The fact that it's written in a way that's easy to misunderstand is slightly annoying (a Twitter user figured out a much better way to template this imo) but I think it'll work out.

steamcorescholar.jpg
Steamcore Scholar - 2U
Creature - Detective Weird
Flying, vigilance
When Steamcore Scholar enters the battlefield, draw two cards, then discard two cards unless you discard an instant, sorcery or creature card with flying.
2/2

neat.png
 
This templating annoys me so much. I'm assuming this is from the main set and not even a commander set? If the wording has to be like this for it to work in multiplayer, they need to redesign the card rather than print this. "Whenever an opponent attacks with creatures, ..." is nonsense in a game where the only things you can attack with are creatures.
I don't believe multiplayer factors into the wording here, the awkwardness comes from planeswalkers themselves effectively functioning as different players. Obviously if multiplayer didn't exist you could just have it trigger any time an opponent attacks with two creatures and ignore that it now also works with battles. I do think there are probably better ways it could have been worded, but there might be some considerations I haven't thought of as to why they didn't do something like "Whenever an opponent attacks you and/or planeswalkers you control with two or more creatures", like it might ambiguously lead people to think it could trigger multiple times.
The Affinity for Planeswalkers is just cute flavor text (he loves Ral!)
Are they in an open relationship?
 
Yeah, but how many creatures have 3+ power these days? If it was MV2 or less, I'd be interested, but half of my two drops in white are over that limit, so this basically just rips 1-drops from the top of my deck.
Over half of all the creatures in mine are 2 or less. Not that this is the type of card I want to play with.
Great if you for some reason run a lot of modular or other +1/+1 creatures. Or morph, as the intended use case for this set.
 
No. Power creep is only if it pushed the format into all cards have to be more powerful. So for a card to have to be power crept it will have to already be in the upper tier of the cards in the format.

And for a card to be hilariously power crept it had to be a lot more power crept than just being a little different.

In this case there are situations where you want one card and situations where you want the other cards. Are you not swimming in mana then you might not have 3 available during blockers step.
Most cards have corner cases when the more powerful are worse than the less powerful. So, no, when a card is most of the time better, then it is often a power crept version. And no, I do not agree that a card has to be in your upper tier and then made stronger to talk about power creep. If the creatures get more powerful, then whole strategies become useless. That could be:
A cube with only a few tier 1 creatures a bit more tier 2 and a lot tier 3. Changing the tier 3 creatures to tier 2 is a creature power creep (could be for the best or not, depends on the wishes) and then a whole slew of strategies could be inviable (and maybe a few new ones emerge).

 
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5 mana Steam Augury where you get a flier the size of the number of cards in the pile your opponent bins.
I think I'll run this? Seems like a very strong proactive play, maybe slightly too much, but making piles is fun.

I don't really understand where the thopter comes from flavor-wise.
 
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Chris Taylor

Contributor
intrudeonthemind.jpg

5 mana Steam Augury where you get a flier the size of the number of cards in the pile your opponent bins.
I think I'll run this? Seems like a very strong proactive play, maybe slightly too much, but making piles is fun.

I don't really understand where the thopter comes from flavor-wise.
Do not be fooled: you divvy they choose means "draw zero relevant cards"

This is as much a draw spell as browbeat is
 
Most cards have corner cases when the more powerful are worse than the less powerful. So, no, when a card is most of the time better, then it is often a power crept version. And no, I do not agree that a card has to be in your upper tier and then made stronger to talk about power creep. If the creatures get more powerful, then whole strategies become useless. That could be:
A cube with only a few tier 1 creatures a bit more tier 2 and a lot tier 3. Changing the tier 3 creatures to tier 2 is a creature power creep (could be for the best or not, depends on the wishes) and then a whole slew of strategies could be inviable (and maybe a few new ones emerge).


Watch these two educational videos:

Video 1

Video 2
 
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