Sets (AFR) Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Previews- Dripping with Flavor, and Excess Words!

Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Onderzeeboot said:
4 mana, effectively, since the treasure you create recoups one of the mana spent. I'm not saying run it, but I think it's funny how all three abilities it has do in fact synergize, because giving +2/+0 and deathtouch to a 1/1 menace body actually threatens to kill both blockers, no matter their size.
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But that's a terrible play. Think about it, why would your opponent block?

If you attack for two turns in a row, you deal two damage. If you spend a turn and four mana to creature a treasure and then boost Forsworm Paladin you deal three damage. I'm not going to blow up two of my creatures to prevent one point. In fact, since boosting is so horribly inefficient, chances are you won't even boost if I don't block, meaning you do less damage overall that if you hadn't created a treasure in the first place.

It's even worse. If I have two creatures, why wouldn't I be the one attacking? You removed a potential blocker and spent valuable early-game mana creating a treasure instead of developing the board. I'm winning the race for sure.

At the end of the day, I don't think it's better than Unwilling Ingredient. The additional text is additive substraction, IMHO.
 
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blacksmithy

Cruel Sadist feels like a fairly good basis for evaluation of this new card, which is to say, neither are very good but they do at least provide mana sinks. this might see standard play though as it does in fact ramp you for 2 mana. i think it’s gonna be ok for synergy cubes that need to ramp in black or just need good treasure generation. that’s probably pretty much the ceiling for it
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
It's threat of activation and a mana sink. Either you have something better to do and you just got a point of damage in despite your attacking body being outsized, or you don't have anything better to do, and you can use the mana to actually get some damage in. Alternatively, you can leave it back with mana up and trade up if your opponent decides to attack, or scare your opponent off of attacking (and bank a Treasure), precisely because they don't want to trade down. Again, I'm not saying Forsworn Paladin is necessarily better in context than Unwilling Ingredient, since the self-mill and sacrifice synergy of the latter might be relevant in your cube, but I don't think the abilities are as useless as you paint them out to be.
 
Velrun

Velrun

If Cruel Sadist and Unwilling Ingredient had a baby, and you upgraded that baby several times, then you have a paladin.

It can attack early and late unlike the other two. It is a mana sink unlike Ingredient. It can carry Equipments really well unlike Sadist. It can buff each of your other creatures unlike the other two. No one can attack into your low drops in the late stages of the game. And if that is not enough, it is a human that synergizes with artifacts.
 
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sigh

sigh

Just the last ability makes the Paladin nicely flexible for any format that isn't "maximum speed". I currently don't think I have room for it, since it doesn't interact that directly with my {B} themes, but I could definitely see running it. Maybe in place of Deadeye Tracker or something. It plays really well with Double Strike, Equipments, and some other things my format is doing.

The treasure ability I see almost as an "extra", but I like that you can meld it all together. It's a Shade type creature that can target any of your creatures, but also has unknown shores stapled to it, which is great IMO.
 
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blacksmithy

sigh said:
Just the last ability makes the Paladin nicely flexible for any format that isn't "maximum speed". I currently don't think I have room for it, since it doesn't interact that directly with my {B} themes, but I could definitely see running it. Maybe in place of Deadeye Tracker or something. It plays really well with Double Strike, Equipments, and some other things my format is doing.

The treasure ability I see almost as an "extra", but I like that you can meld it all together. It's a Shade type creature that can target any of your creatures, but also has unknown shores stapled to it, which is great IMO.
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deadeye tracker is probably a better comparison than cruel sadist. if you’re running tracker you could probably test and get good results from this paladin
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

longrest.jpg

Well this is going to get reprinted in every Green commander pre-con for the rest of time.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Ah yeah, I was wondering about this guy. First, I just realized he only triggers once, unlike Edric, Spymaster of Trest. However, one is quite a lot and returning creatures may be strong in the right deck.

What do you guys think of changing one for the other to free an UG slot?
 
sigh

sigh

If you want Edric as a clear signpost for what UG decks can do, I would leave him, but I can definitely see adding Grazilaxx as a Mono U option. If you want Edric's slot for something else, Graxilaxx + Toski can frame UG as a lots-of-creatures-dealing-combat damage guild.
 
Brad

Brad

Velrun said:
If Cruel Sadist and Unwilling Ingredient had a baby, and you upgraded that baby several times, then you have a paladin.
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Has science gone too far???
Erik Twice said:
Ah yeah, I was wondering about this guy. First, I just realized he only triggers once, unlike Edric, Spymaster of Trest.
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I think having a lower ceiling while still being very solid is great. I dislike the idea that someone is going to draw a whole fistful of cards off one combat phase. The GU slot is also pretty valuable. That said, they can absolutely complement each other. The return effect is also really interesting and potentially strong.
 
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blacksmithy

Brad said:
Has science gone too far???

I think having a lower ceiling while still being very solid is great. I dislike the idea that someone is going to draw a whole fistful of cards off one combat phase. The GU slot is also pretty valuable. That said, they can absolutely complement each other. The return effect is also really interesting and potentially strong.
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yeah, i think if you are running edric this squid is worth testing
 
inscho

inscho

Grazilaxx is great! I see this making combat a real pain. Attack with an etb guy…they block you bounce to recast. They don’t, you get to draw a card. It’s great that it can bounce itself. The bounce in general makes this more than just a poor man’s edric. Will possibly test it for the GCC…but blue 3 drops are pretty stacked so it might not make my list. It’s worth considering in a lot of cubes imo
 
sigh

sigh

#synergy with the Monk. I like that they are utilizing the loyalty counters as a sort of "devotion" mechanic, where Bahamut is only unleashed when they've reached appropriate loyalty levels. Not planning on including it because of the A+B nature of the card, but neat thing they did with the loyalty.
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They spoiled the green creature land, and it is pretty good. A mana sink land comes in super handy later in the game, and this is about as flexible as you can get with a mana sink.
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Nest of the Hydra
Land
If you control two or more other lands, Nest of the Hydra enters the battlefield tapped.

T: Add G.

XG: Nest of the Hydra becomes an X/X green Hydra creature until end of turn. It's still a land. X can't be 0.
 
sigh

sigh

blacksmithy said:
clarion spirit is awesome in my environment but this one i’m not too sure of. it takes multiple turns to become a real threat and doesn’t spread out the value across multiple bodies
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2 more one drops on turn 2 can turn it into a 2/2, which is the "standard" rate for a premier aggro one drop. Seems quite promising, as even two triggers puts it well above the "normal" P/T range for a white 1 drop, besides a couple notable examples.

Has the issue of any scaling threat like it of potentially falling off hard if drawn too late into the game.
 
B

blacksmithy

sigh said:
2 more one drops on turn 2 can turn it into a 2/2, which is the "standard" rate for a premier aggro one drop. Seems quite promising, as even two triggers puts it well above the "normal" P/T range for a white 1 drop, besides a couple notable examples.

Has the issue of any scaling threat like it of potentially falling off hard if drawn too late into the game.
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yeah i think if you run aggro and are ok with the floor it’s probably pretty OK. especially if your aggro decks have cantrips.
 
VincePendrell

VincePendrell

ravnic said:
View attachment 4739

it doesn't really synergize with anything white does in my cube (except attacking), but it's such a elegant and simple, yet tempting design.
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I really like this guy, but then again, I'm a fan of all of the recent uncommon one-drops that can be a gigantic threat late game if you do the thing (like Stonebinder's Familiar).

Besides the Clarion Spirit/Bloodsky Berserker/Foretell route, and the straight-up white weenie aggro mentioned above, if your white supports the artifact deck, you can get this as a 2/2 turn one with Mishra's Bauble or any other cog, then again later with mana rock+spell. There's also prowess and magecraft support in white, that can also help making this big. Maybe it even fits in UW Delver tempo builds if you expect to cantrip+spell or cantrip+counterspell more than a couple of times. As long as your cube doesn't need aggro decks to explode in 4 turns and the game doesn't lead to giant creatures clogging the board all the time, this seems super solid.
 
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Brad

Brad

platearmor.jpg

This is fine with 0 equipment in play. Pretty crazy one for Equip decks, I think.

divinesmite.jpg

I'll take it.

thebookofviledarkness.jpg
handofvecna.jpg
eyeofvecna.jpg

Damn it.
 
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