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Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I'm pro "sweepers you can play outside of a hard control deck"
Make aggro players respect the threat even if there's not islands across the table, you know?

That's a REALLY tough road to hoe, but if we can get there I like it
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
ravnic said:
Can you give some examples? Only thing that comes to my mind is By Invitation Only.
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Winds of Abandon is the only one I think I've put in an aggro deck, and I don't love how final it is, but it does fit the bill.
Delayed Blast Fireball has its issues (especially without other fortell in a cube) but it specifically does the thing

If you move up to midrange the space opens up:
Crippling Fear is really great at killing basically all but one creature on a board, and you can go harder to make it better for you.
Harvester of Misery (along with any ETB sweeper) leave you at least one creature, so they can work
Calamity of Cinders from the bloomburrow commander decks has other problems, but you can play this in your deck with 14 creatures in it for sure.
Any Earthquake works, since you can sculpt it around your board size.
Flame Sweep/Firespout is another cool idea with sculpting potential, and I prefer it over Breath Weapon/Fiery Cannonade for being easier to build around, but that could be fixed via the environment.
The Meathook Massacre probably maintains its price point via EDH players discovering this phenomenon.

Also its me, there are customs:
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None of anything I've listed works perfectly, but I much prefer an inconsistent sweeper that more than one drafter a night can put in their deck over another copy of wrath or 5 mana wrath plus.
 
Seeker

Seeker

Next year's alleged leaks, per Reddit: Marvel Super Hero, Hobbit, Star Trek sets in June, August, November

more importantly here's 4 leaked Lorwyn cards from that post that could all make it into cubes (of higher power level, except the first one):
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ravnic

ravnic

I like how these cards look. I don't like how hard Figure of Fable outclasses it's predecessor. And I don't like that we're now at that point that blue get's a {1}{U} 2/2 unblockable, that can continuously protect you're team and make it unblockable, while also drawing cards.
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

ravnic said:
I don't like how hard Figure of Fable outclasses its predecessor.
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I don't think it does that hard. Red isn't supposed to get nearly as efficient of creatures as green and white, and the OG is still better in many circumstances. It's also been half of the 30+ lifespan of the game of Magic since Figure of Destiny was printed.

ravnic said:
I don't like that we're now at that point that blue get's a 2/2 unblockable, that can continuously protect you're team and make it unblockable, while also drawing cards.
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This part is crazy to me too. Looking at the history of 2/2s for {1}{U}, it's pretty amazing to see how far we've come in such little time. Archmage's Newt is still the only blue bear without a downside, but Taigam's legendary status is hardly one, much less in a typical Cube context. Man, I really like the designs of many of these cards.



Skyshroud Condor is a great, simple design that still has the juice for many environments 28 years after printing.

I remember Cloudskate used to be in a lot of Cubes. I vividly recall picking one up from Channel Fireball in college for mine but I'm not sure if it ever made the list.

Thought Eater is the kind of novel design I like UB for bringing them back to more frequently. I miss the particularities of era of design all the same.

Quickling is still good! I'd respect even a high-powered Cube for playing it alongside Ambrosia Whiteheart and Sunpearl Kirin, even with its downside. I don't need this kind of card in Blue as much, but I'd be willing to play it again if I go back on my Barrin nonsense.

Departed Deckhand rightfully spent a few years in my Cube and would be totally reasonable even now. It's a neat design that has a lot going on without being complex.

I forgot Shacklegeist existed. It's pretty good, and makes me feel less weird about the new Sygg, to be honest. Sygg is still pretty absurd/overly complicated in UW, don't get me wrong, but its play pattern seems like it would be fantastic and fun. I don't know if it can overcome the headache of a card it would be for less frequent drafters, though, especially during the drafting stage.

As mentioned before, Archmage's Newt and Taigam, Master Opportunist both were tentatively in but didn't make it past their first draft, though they're both on the cusp of coming back in at any moment. Every time I go through my "On-Deck" binder I think of them fondly, I really like both designs and just wish they had slightly fewer words on them.

Seeker said:
Marvel Super Hero, Hobbit, Star Trek sets in June, August, November
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For as bummed as Spider-Man made me, I truly feel like I can tolerate another Marvel set if it means we're getting The Hobbit in MtG, especially with the proper frame this time around.

Having Star Trek -- my favorite fictional world/franchise -- join Magic? It's a dream, even if it's kind of a weird pairing. I know they won't make a Cube-worthy Andorian but I will spend the next year hoping and praying.
 
shamizy

shamizy

That new Figure of Destiny variant looks sweet, I'm all in for more playable mana sink options in G/W decks. Bitterblossom on a body feels good also, but did they have to make yet another unique token?

Looking forward to this set, less enthused about all the surrounding UB releases until then.
 
Seeker

Seeker

shamizy said:
Bitterblossom on a body feels good also, but did they have to make yet another unique token?
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I do not enjoy that it makes different tokens from Bitterblossom!

I get why - if Faeries are still in blue and black then all of them of either color can just make gold tokens throughout the set - but they're not even Oona, Queen of the Fae tokens, they're not Rogues! Gotta make New Lorwyn have synergy with Morningtide!
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I'm not sure I believe that those leaks are real.

If they are, it sure is a coincidence that the leaked cards are two direct references to popular cards from Morningtide/Eventide, a changeling using templating that has never been used in a Standard-legal set before, and a pushed legendary creature to appeal to the EDH crowd. It's also weird that none of them have any new mechanics and that the two (!) cards that have or grant Protection do so in an incredibly broad way.

I'd find it more believable if they were from the Commander decks, since they generally look like Commander designs... but if that was the case, why wouldn't the leaker specify that that's where they were from?
 
Seeker

Seeker

LadyMapi said:
I'm not sure I believe that those leaks are real.

If they are, it sure is a coincidence that the leaked cards are two direct references to popular cards from Morningtide/Eventide, a changeling using templating that has never been used in a Standard-legal set before, and a pushed legendary creature to appeal to the EDH crowd. It's also weird that none of them have any new mechanics and that the two (!) cards that have or grant Protection do so in an incredibly broad way.

I'd find it more believable if they were from the Commander decks, since they generally look like Commander designs... but if that was the case, why wouldn't the leaker specify that that's where they were from?
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They aren't from the Commander decks (if they are real) - the set code is ECL, for "Lorwyn Eclipsed", rather than whatever the commander code is (it's usually something ending in C - FIC for ff, EOC for eoe, TDC for dragonstorm are the three most recent ones.) That said, they could definitely be fake.

I lean real (and deliberate choice of cards), because the effort put into the frame is far too high. And getting real Magic-looking art that actually fits the cards. And Sygg's incredibly stupid head / club placement is the kind of WotC extended art decision they'd totally make and no leaker would dare to make such an ugly artistic design choice. Wouldn't've posted it if I was very confident they were fake, but they're just high-enough-effort that I'm pretty convinced, personally.

Now, that said. Absolutely wild we're conjuring Mutavaults in paper... but we already had Offspring as precedent for weird tokens, so it seems a lot more plausible now than it would have three years ago.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Seeker said:
And Sygg's incredibly stupid head / club placement is the kind of WotC extended art decision they'd totally make and no leaker would dare to make such an ugly artistic design choice.
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Note that Sygg, Wanderbrine Shield only wields a dagger, and no shield whatsoever :rolleyes:

By the way, super happy that they got Omar Rayyan back to do more art. He was easily my favorite artist of the original Lorwyn!
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

Seeker said:
Now, that said. Absolutely wild we're conjuring Mutavaults in paper... but we already had Offspring as precedent for weird tokens, so it seems a lot more plausible now than it would have three years ago.
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I mean, we got Ajani, Strength of the Pride in a Core Set in 2019. Llanowar Mentor was 2007, even if Future Sight shouldn't count for such matters.

I know they were long resistant to do tokens for lands because of how players are so sloppy with tokens and it's hard to be 100% clear of the "tapped" status with a dice or the like, but as they've been putting more tokens in packs, things like Overlord of the Hauntwoods are now possible at higher rarity.

I have zero doubt to the legitimacy of these leaks. The frame, the art, and the text is all wholly convincing, and the occasion is too: they already said they were going to preview the next few sets this Friday, and these are the kinds of cards they typically try to preview for new sets (not revealing major mechanics but giving some fan service with the splashes cards/characters).

I try to keep up on the tech space, but if AI can make these kinds of novel custom frames without any inconsistencies across multiple colors, I'll know that it's progressed a few years beyond where I thought it was. No highly-skilled human designer has the time to spend 50 hours making these for the purpose of a leak, and if they do, they should get hired immediately.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

My specific quibble with the Mutavault token isn't that it makes a Mutavault token - it's that it's just "create a tapped Mutavault token".

If it was "Create a tapped colorless land token named Mutavault with'{T}: Add {c}' and '{1}: This land becomes a 2/2 creature with all creature types until end of turn. It’s still a land.'", I wouldn't bat an eye, since that matches the formatting of every card that does this kind of thing that has ever been printed into a Standard-legal set, since otherwise resolving the effect would require access to the Oracle text for whatever card you're creating. This is in contrast to, say, Embalm or Offspring, where making a token copy of a creature with some minor changes is pretty trivial because you have the card it's referencing at hand.

I'm also weirded out by seeing multiple new cards with Protection - given how conservative WotC has been with the keyword over the past few years, it'd be odd to see both of those cards in the same Standard-legal set. The part that really stands out to me is that they both effectively get/grant Protection from Almost Everything, but in very different ways. If both of them were "protection from your opponents" or Sygg was "choose a color" and Figure was "protection from all colors", I don't think it stand out to me nearly as much.

It's reasonably likely that the cards are real (at the end of the day, WotC prints what they will), but I'm just getting "really well done custom card" vibes from them.
 
Brad

Brad

LadyMapi said:
My specific quibble with the Mutavault token isn't that it makes a Mutavault token - it's that it's just "create a tapped Mutavault token".
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It's the alt art version, so that's to be expected, I think.
LadyMapi said:
I'm also weirded out by seeing multiple new cards with Protection - given how conservative WotC has been with the keyword over the past few years
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One is really expensive and one is temporary. Not too unreasonable for {4}{G/W}{G/W}{G/W}{G/W}{G/W}{G/W}{G/W}.
 
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