Sets Amonkhet (AKH) Spoilers

Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Probably not good enough for cube--I don't really want that kind of feast or complete famine combo effect in my already inconsistent cube aggro decks.

I expect it to see at least some play in other formats,however.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

That's the hard thing to know. Will it be relevant enough?

One thing I think is an issue for a lot of aggressive strategies is feeling like you can't really go all in on creatures without putting yourself in a really bad situation (overextending). A card like this allows you to do that because if a turn is going to wreck you, you just cancel the turn completely.

Every aggro deck generally gets close to winning in most matchups. It's a consistent deck. And when they lose, it can often be by a single turn. This is really great as the last card in your hand when you have a board lead and your opponent is close to death. What I think is sort of neat is red getting a counter spell type ability. Blue generally has a complete monopoly on the effect and it's a powerful thing. Why should blue be the only color that has access? So for me personally, I am excited to see the idea of a counter being applied to another color in a way that is flavorful for the color. I want to run it simply because this is a very progressive card from a design standpoint IMHO.
 
inscho

inscho

ahadabans said:
I was just posting on MTGS about Glorious End. Hard to evaluate. Might be really good though. It's a counter spell in red for a beatdown deck trying to hold off an opponent. Wait for them to cast something then play this. Imagine hitting a finisher or Sphinx's Rev or a wrath? Now, you have to then win on your next turn but that is generally when you'd want to play a card like this.
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Wouldn't you almost always play this in their upkeep rather than waiting to counter something? If it's a deciding turn you deny a draw step and they don't get to cast anything on their turn. If you play it on your turn you instantly lose? Or am I misunderstanding the wording?

Sphinx's Rev on their turn is an exception, but then again how many people tap out to play that on their turn?
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I might be misreading it. But I think it's beginning of the your next end step. So I think that works for things like EOT Sphinx's Rev on your turn. The beginning of the EOT has already passed, so you get one more turn (and you just countered their spell).

I feel like waiting for them to commit to something is better because it uses their mana up giving them fewer resources on your next (and final) turn. I don't see the advantage to not waiting. It's a sort of reset button or like going back to a save point in a way. Oh, that is totally not good for me and I just lose if this happens, so let me just E-brake out of that and try and win on my next turn.

That's how I'm thinking of it anyway.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Aggro decks are inconsistent in the sense that they can't smooth draws, and are dependent on getting a reasonable opener and reasonable top decks. They do this by having a low land count and high creature count.

Even though combo finishing instants and sorceries are good, its a very real sacrifice when you start giving up bodies for spells--especially when the spell's worth varies to such extremes, unlike ultra flexible burn spells. You really aren't going to be seeing that many cards if you're piloting an aggro deck, and the cards you can hit need to be consistently relevant to a wide variety of board states. While it can win games, this card is going to be harder to cast on average than a temur battlerage or a rally the peasants, due to the doomsday clause; and because its worth is so board state contingent, it needs draws to develop in certain ways, which is bad for a deck type generally devoid of smoothing.

In a min/max spike world, this is not a card I would be excited to run in an aggro deck, though its certainly plausible to do so, and you will occasionally be rewarded for it.

Now, is it a fun card that stokes the imagination? Sure. And I think that, and the stories that it can illicit are a good reason to run the card, and you can justify it on the basis that it has a home--however tenuous--in an aggro deck.

Not going to stop anyone from testing it--I'm not the time police, and I will take your free test data--but the closest analogous card is final fortune, and that card has always been more fun than good. And thats something to think about depending on how you value your time.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Lots of solid cards in this set. Makes me want to go back and tweak my midrange list because so much of this has high playability IMO.

Fling-Tongue is neat. Seems solid in a heavy creature environment. Obviously pretty wicked with threaten effects. Works good alongside aristocrat strategies too. Real nice role-player. I really want to sacrifice Abyssal Persecutor to this. Swing for 6 and then take 6 more to the face please.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
bloodlustinciter.jpg

Oh wow

labyrinthguardian.jpg

I think there was a time at which my cube would have wanted this. Not sure if it's passed yet.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
James Stevenson said:
What's with the no mana cost thing? Just seems so clunky to have that in there.
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It's because of the rules text of embalm. Embalm {X} means "{X}, Exile this card from your graveyard: Create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a white Zombie <other creature types> with no mana cost. Embalm only as a sorcery."

So, because all of the other embalm tokens have no mana cost, neither does this clone embalm.
 
whydirt

whydirt

I hope exert plays as well as it reads. At least in theory, it looks like it could be great to give low-powered aggro decks that almost-combo explosiveness that Grillo often talks about.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

I had that in an iteration of my cube but no one ever did anything with it. Doesn't help that the wording is confusing (referencing not dealing damage when you can do exactly what you said - remove it after damage is dealt for pseudo vigilance).
 
whydirt

whydirt

Reconnaissance does a lot of work, but unfortunately a lot of its value comes from abusing rules knowledge in a way that I don't like. One mana to make sure you never lose in combat when attacking and give all your dudes vigilance is powerful in anything resembling a low power fair environment. If you don't have a lot of creature combat in your cube, its power goes down, obviously.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
anotak said:
oh its spellheart chimera
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That's what I thought at first, but that 4th toughness is critical I think. Look at it this way. It's pretty trivial to get two instants and sorceries into your graveyard in UR, right? What would you rather play, a 2/3 flying, trample for three mana, or a 2/4 flying for three mana? First one sounds about on par for a strong common, second one sounds decidedly above curve.
 
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