Sets AEther Revolt Spoilers

[sigh]

Some more to add to the honestly steadily growing list of useful interactions for this card:
-blood rush
-Soul of Innistrad and bros
-Avacyn, Guardian Angel
-Brago, King Eternal
-Gryff's boon gy activation
-cascade
-abilities tied to cycling, Decree of pain etc

 

[Chris Taylor]

Man no wonder I'm thinking this card is shit, I've just seen a laundry list of things I don't run

 

[Dom Harvey]

 

[CML]

Vengevine is the illest

 

[CML]

I disagree w the beef on Disallow. Some of us have been waiting for monocolor Voidslime for ages!

Aethersphere Harvester looks insane

Fatal Push is just right for Cube

 

[Chris Taylor]

I disagree w the beef on Disallow. Some of us have been waiting for monocolor Voidslime for ages!

Aethersphere Harvester looks insane

Fatal Push is just right for Cube

I was one of those people! then I played with it...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I disagree w the beef on Disallow. Some of us have been waiting for monocolor Voidslime for ages!

I have to agree with Chris here, card looks better than it plays. Most of the time it's just a Cancel, which is disappointing.

Aethersphere Harvester looks insane

Looter Scooter has been awesome, but Renegade Freighter was annoying. I wonder where the Harvester falls. On paper the 3/5 lifelink looks like a nightmare for Aggro decks, so I'm not sure I'm on board with it. If anyone has positive results I'ld like to hear though!

Fatal Push is just right for Cube

Yeah, Push looks good. I couldn't really find a cut for it, as I still like the utility of Darkblast better, and Fatal Push is like four euros over here, for an uncommon from a new set o_O If I open one at the prerelease or it gets cheaper I might bite.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I mean it's the best removal spell printed in the last what, 5 years probably?
Probably the best black removal spell ever.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Sure, I don't blame sellers trying to get Path to Exile money for it, but it's not like I need the card either.

 

[ahadabans]

I mean it's the best removal spell printed in the last what, 5 years probably?
Probably the best black removal spell ever.

Just comparing it to Disfigure, the base mode hits fewer things in my retro list at least. How often do we think revolt will be triggered? Even then, it's better but not by a huge amount (10% more targets maybe - could be more in modern lists)?

And is this really better than Snuff Out or Dismember? Greatest black removal spell ever is feels like a stretch to me. But maybe I'm not being objective enough about how good it will perform in cube? I don't know.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Snuff out maybe, but dismember is hardly a black spell

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

As black removal goes its pretty meh. Removal has just been really bad in standard for a while.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It's not our cubes that drives up the price, it's the card's playability in every constructed format, especially those where fetchlands means revolt is trivial to trigger. PVDDR wrote a nice article last week, and the list of targets is impressive really.

Edit: Meaning, of course, it might very well not be the best, or even the right black removal spell for our cubes.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Thats fair, however if I might add, PV is also being paid to market cards for channel fireball. I mean, when you're writing stuff like this with a straight face lol...

A much smaller list, and mostly creatures that wouldn’t die to Bolt anyway.Path would kill most of those, but Path has a very big downside, and Fatal Push has none.

This is the kind of nonsense driving the speculation that pushes the price up. That isn't to say push isn't a fine card, but some hyperbole is at play here to $$$

 

[shamizy]

I don't actually think that's as hyperbolic as it may be on first glance.

Push is just insane in Modern and Legacy killing all but a handful of threats off a fetch. Path is awful to fire off early in most matches, Bolt can't deal effectively with certain threats that end up outpacing or outgrowing your removal. Looking at the top 50 played creatures listed for each format, these are the only like 5-6 creatures (most of which are in the bottom 20) that it can't hit in both. It's not as big a deal in our cubes with balanced curves and whatnot, where it will mostly just be a very solid spell, but in eternal formats with the majority of creatures trending towards <3 cmc? It's format-warping and the best removal spell we've seen in years.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

And thus a conditional spell that can't cleanly answer certain threats becomes > Path or Bolt, something that on a logical level, we know is probably far from true, but on an emotional level feels so good.

Really masterful persuasion from PV. Push is a fine card, and I would gladly hire PV to market for me.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

And thus a conditional spell that can't cleanly answer certain threats becomes > Path or Bolt, something that on a logical level, we know is probably far from true, but on an emotional level feels so good.

Really masterful persuasion from PV. Push is a fine card, and I would gladly hire PV to market for me.

To be fair, Bolt can answer less threats, and Path does have a serious downside when you need to use it in the early game.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I agree its a good card, and I really like the design. I am sure it will carve out a niche for itself.

However, can you imagine that player who proudly traded their paths for pushes in modern, sitting down, shuffling up, and watching their round 1 tron opponent play out a turn 3 wurmcoil engine, all while staring awkwardly at the useless push in their hand? Answers are often about what they can't do, not what they can do, and that appears to have awkwardly been ommitted from PV's analysis...for some reason that I am sure has nothing to do with channel fireballs business model.

 

[shamizy]

Well, expecting a catch-all at one mana would just be asking for too much. In a format full of fetchlands, it's not as hard to get it to where you need it to be if you face down a 3 or 4 mana threat (of which there aren't many in the first place). Even then, the utility of Push is in being able to answer the early drops which can quickly warp a game anyhow. For those particular formats (especially Modern), Push can and will be better than both Path and Bolt in many circumstances in the critical T1-T3 frame.

Having to Path an early Goyf feels terrible and will usually bite you in the ass. A Bolt in hand facing down a Scavenging Ooze with open green mana is tricky to navigate cleanly. You can't answer an early Thought-Knot Seer cleanly with Bolt. Against aggressive decks, you only have so many pieces of one mana removal that can interact with an aggressive Goblin Guide + Monastery Swiftspear start. You now have a clean answer that can hit 80-85% of the most played creatures within that format, I don't think that should be underestimated. Even before PV wrote of it, there was discussion all across the internet about the impact of Push in Modern (a format that he doesn't even really play or care for) where it will most assuredly make a major impact.

It's not only on an emotional level that it'll feel good; it WILL be a very good card in those formats.

 

[shamizy]

I agree its a good card, and I really like the design. I am sure it will carve out a niche for itself.

However, can you imagine that player who proudly traded their paths for pushes in modern, sitting down, shuffling up, and watching their round 1 tron opponent play out a turn 3 wurmcoil engine, all while staring awkwardly at the useless push in their hand? Answers are often about what they can't do, not what they can do, and that appears to have awkwardly been ommitted from PV's analysis...for some reason that I am sure has nothing to do with channel fireballs business model.

To be fair, you're probably not going to beat a T3 Tron anyway in most scenarios if you're a fair deck. There's just very little that any deck can do against resilient 6 and 7 drops on T3. If Push increases my ability to interact against 3-4 other decks in the format and lessens my ability to deal with one, I'd still take that trade. I don't think anyone is cutting all of their Paths for Pushes, but I do see decks going from 4 Path to a 3/2 configuration finding space for Push.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Ok, thats fine. That sounds like actual reasoning.

When someone like PV starts making extreme statements its a bit of a tell. Making a comparison with push being at least as good or better than path or bolt isn't an accident, and represents significant hyperbole. The mind instantly starts cataloging all three spells into the same basket, and it becomes very difficult to distinguish them again.

The realty is that push isn't as clean an answer as path, nor does it have anywhere close to the utility of bolt. Thats just objective realty. Push can occupy a niche, and that niche might even be really important, but it has to be one where its comfortable being a dead card some of the time, in ways that neither path nor bolt can be.

Where exactly it will fall, I can't say for sure, but I do know that if one wanted to artificially drive the price, ignoring the card's flaws and suggesting its directly analogous with some of the best removal in modern (something the wider modern community is already predisposed to believe) would be an effective way to go about doing so.

And of course, that hype can bleed into our evaluation of the card for cube.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, thats fine. That sounds like actual reasoning.

When someone like PV starts making extreme statements its a bit of a tell. Making a comparison with push being at least as good or better than path or bolt isn't an accident, and represents significant hyperbole. The mind instantly starts cataloging all three spells into the same basket, and it becomes very difficult to distinguish them again.

The realty is that push isn't as clean an answer as path, nor does it have anywhere close to the utility of bolt. Thats just objective realty. Push can occupy a niche, and that niche might even be really important, but it has to be one where its comfortable being a dead card some of the time, in ways that neither path nor bolt can be.

Where exactly it will fall, I can't say for sure, but I do know that if one wanted to artificially drive the price, ignoring the card's flaws and suggesting its directly analogous with some of the best removal in modern (something the wider modern community is already predisposed to believe) would be an effective way to go about doing so.

And of course, that hype can bleed into our evaluation of the card for cube.

You are absolutely correct that we shouldn't forget what ChannelFireball is: a store that wants to make money. I think all of us can agree that Push will be important for multiple constructed format, as there simply wasn't a black removal spell that answered so many creatures in the format cleanly, not without significant loss of life anyway. If you're in white, Path or Swords, depending on the format and your deck, will most likely still be the better removal spell. If you're red, it depends on whether you need the reach, because Bolt can go face unlike Push. If you're not white or red though, I think Push is the new default one mana removal spell of choice, and I don't think the hype is warranted.

For cube it's a little less clear whether Push is good or not. I have cut Bolt and Path (and Swords) for being too efficient at removing opposing threats, and removing them at instant speed at that! Whatever you choose to remove with these spells, you're sure to get ahead, because you spent only one mana! In that light, we should really evaluate how well Push mimics the efficiency of Bolt and Path, and I think it's somewhere between the two. In my cube 187 of the 227 creatures, not counting token producers, have a cmc of 4 or lower, which means Push kills an awful lot. The "upside" is that the difference in mana invested is never going to be more than 3 mana, and you have to jump through some hoops to get there.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

For cube it's a little less clear whether Push is good or not. I have cut Bolt and Path (and Swords) for being too efficient at removing opposing threats, and removing them at instant speed at that! Whatever you choose to remove with these spells, you're sure to get ahead, because you spent only one mana! In that light, we should really evaluate how well Push mimics the efficiency of Bolt and Path, and I think it's somewhere between the two. In my cube 187 of the 227 creatures, not counting token producers, have a cmc of 4 or lower, which means Push kills an awful lot. The "upside" is that the difference in mana invested is never going to be more than 3 mana, and you have to jump through some hoops to get there.

Yeah, I am super curious about this. I would also like to add tragic slip into the basket of spells we are comparing it with, as I feel thats something of a natural analogy a lot of people would be inclined to make, and this helps avoid pre-determining the outcome of our comparison by running such a narrow framing.

The floor is definitely higher than slip, but the ceiling is much lower, which has to be balanced against the super low curves most of our formats run. Is the condition cumbersome enough where this is conditioned or heavily conditioned removal, or is it de facto unconditioned removal? Assuming of course, some number of fetchlands in the format.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I run 10 fetchlands, 5 bouncelands, and 5 borderposts for the mana base alone, so I assume my players can turn on revolt if they draft around it. What I do like about push is that it reward you for drafting around it, unlike Bolt and Path with are just generically good and always "on". I also like that the ceiling is lower here. It doesn't provide reach, and it can't kill the big beaters. Maybe this means they actually managed to print a good efficient removal spell that, for once, isn't overbearing on a custom draft format while simultaneously being teh hotness in constructed?

 

[sigh]

Fatal Push seems more meta dependent, when considering it in constructed formats, compared to other "staple" removal pieces. The modwrn meta at my LGS back when I was more into constructed had a lot of Jund, hatebears, zoo, burn, affinity, and so on, and in that meta Push is miles better than Path, complementing bolt as premier removal. If you are drowning in Titan and Tron and whatnot, Path is probably a better meta removal spell.

Still think Push is an incredible removal spell, opening up an array of decks to a much better removal option (like grixis decks).