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

The fact that MTG makes lightning "red" is pretty rare in fantasy tropes. Generally "red" is fire and fire like things only, and lightning is air or water (some sort of blue) based magic. For example see Divinity: Original Sin 2 (pyro = fire, aero = air). DnD follows the more usual tropes than MTG does.
1625331848727.png
1625331898405.png

And let me just take a moment to say that "Epidemic of Fire" is a badass name for a spell.
 

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I imagine lightning being red is mostly a facet of WotC's unwillingness to let any color other than red deal damage.
Lightning Bolt is probably an aerothurge spell, and that would be blue, but we can't have U: deal 3 damage.

You can kinda see this in how they're struggling with blue dragon:
Blue-Dragon-borderless-AFR-672.jpg

Lightning gives Minus Power. Sure Wotc.
 
Maybe it’s about time Wizards give blue some more lightning cards, then? I certainly wouldn’t mind shaking things up a little bit (like black enchantment removal lately)
 
1625343598185.png
Treasure land. Neato. Probably will try this out in my artifact cube. It's also an artifact land...nice touch. Edit: Yikes, sorry for the massive image.

Lightning gives Minus Power. Sure Wotc.
Well, if you've ever been hit with a taser, I'd imagine it's a little difficult to swing an axe?

I see the cognitive dissonance this causes but I think this interpretation is reasonable and (honestly) pretty clever way to resolve things, flavor-wise.
 
Last edited:
Treasure land. Neato. Probably will try this out in my artifact cube. It's also an artifact land...nice touch. Edit: Yikes, sorry for the massive image.

This is very cool. Being an artifact land makes this more appealing, but I’m not sure it does enough for me. If you have the mana to pump into this at x>2, what are you trying to ramp into? At x=3 you go from 7 mana available to 9 mana the next turn, and you sacrificed a land and an entire turn’s worth of mana to do so. You’ll need to be taking advantage of the extra artifacts or sac triggers to get some real value out of it. This is a tough one for me to gauge. What do y’all think?
 
Maybe it’s about time Wizards give blue some more lightning cards, then? I certainly wouldn’t mind shaking things up a little bit (like black enchantment removal lately)
I could see a Psionic Blast style effect as lightning. Difficult to tame lightning. That said, blue already has everything. That's the real issue here.
Treasure land. Neato. Probably will try this out in my artifact cube. It's also an artifact land...nice touch.
You'll be running 1 mana land destruction if you run this.
says a lot about how poorly blightning aged
What do you mean? I like both.
 
I like this one with the Dark Souls / Innistrad kind of art.

Decent 1 drop for attacking black players. Decent ramp card when the 1 dmg/turn is irrelevant or when enemy has two blockers. Very difficult to block efficiently in the later stages of the game. Very difficult to attack into in the later stages of the game.

6B1307D1-04C5-4D7D-A335-50AA11E5797F.jpeg

The last ability can fairly easy grant deathtouch to a small dude blocking a big dude.
 
I don’t fully agree although I do think Knight of the Ebon Legion is pretty powerful. The fact that this new one can buff target creature and not just itself and the fact that it has other things to do when it’s not large enough to be combat relevant anymore is super valuable. You will never have a bad turn with this on the board.
 
I also think that the treasure ramp can be quite powerful to power out something like Wildfire a turn earlier. It looks like a pretty solid, if unassuming one drop for lower powered lists. It's a bit generic so not every cube will want it depending on how synergy driven it is.
 
  • Like
Reactions: dbs
You will never have a bad turn with this on the board.
You should see how I play my turns.

I'm looking at switching to an artifact heavy build right now and I don't think this guy makes the cut. I'd loved to be convinced otherwise, but I can't see how this is worthwhile.
 
You should see how I play my turns.

I'm looking at switching to an artifact heavy build right now and I don't think this guy makes the cut. I'd loved to be convinced otherwise, but I can't see how this is worthwhile.
It’s cheap so you can sneak it out almost any turn. It has evasion for your Equipments. It can ramp you and create an artifact every turn you have 2 mana to spare. It is a boss in the late game because most of your creatures threaten to be deathtouchable.
 
I also think that the treasure ramp can be quite powerful to power out something like Wildfire a turn earlier. It looks like a pretty solid, if unassuming one drop for lower powered lists. It's a bit generic so not every cube will want it depending on how synergy driven it is.
I wouldn't run Forsworm Paladin if I were playing Wildfire. It's extremely inefficient and I can't imagine not having a better option for its slot, be it any other form of ramp or a spell or a creature that survives Wildfire.

Personally, I don't think the card is any good at any of its roles. Decks that want the 1/1 Menace don't want the one-shot ramp, decks that want the treasure don't want the creature. Spending 5 mana to give a creature +2/+0 and deathtouch is terrible, too. +2/0 and deathtouch isn't even a good combination and if you are ramping you are not using the 1/1 meance body.

Really, I don't like the card at all and would run any other black aggro drop over it.
 

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Spending 5 mana to give a creature +2/+0 and deathtouch is terrible, too. +2/0 and deathtouch isn't even a good combination and if you are ramping you are not using the 1/1 meance body.
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.
 
Top