General (CLB) Magic: The Gathering: Commander Legends: Dungeons and Dragons: Battle for Baldur's Gate Previews. Even the NAME is long this time!

Zoss

Zoss

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The Monster Manual is a really clean design and a fun way of cheating on mana, even if it's likely not viable in most of our cubes. Notably, the adventure is *almost* playable on its own, but paying 6 mana to cheat a creature is way too much, even spread out over multiple turns. In a deck with lots of cheating targets or creatures with burdensome additional costs or ways to draw a lot of cards this looks sick, but that's a lot to ask.

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I will admit I'm a sucker for UW planeswalkers that do weird things. As such, I'm pre-tempering my expectations with Elminster. However, like with Nalia in Miles' post, I love top-of-library manipulation, and this card fits the bill. I suspect it's a fine finisher as a swarm of 1/1 fliers is hard to deal with, but decks with this card might want to load up on cantrips, which could easily be a nonbo. Great with X spells.

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Speaking of Nalia, Faldorn looks surprisingly good if you're loading up on impulse draw, and it goes great with Into the Wilds, one of my favorite RG cards from recent years. The second ability looks kind of funky written as it is, though I understand why it needs to be that way.

The other two are cool but don't spark joy for me.


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I'm not usually into this sort of thing, but getting a Hill Giant version of this effect is nice. Overall, I'm with Miles in that the set looks mediocre so far, which is great.
 
B

blacksmithy

looking at both walkers, nadia, and the initiative cleric so far… lots of cool designs with crap dev that i may juice as a custom later too
 
Peter LaCara

Peter LaCara

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First things first, THE ARTIST LINE SAYS BROM.

Secondly, I hope this is one of the cards they bring to Arena since my UB section is based around stealing your opponent's stuff.
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

Is it just me, or does this set feel like a custom set some D&D fans tossed together? Looking at the official spoilers (and the vast number of leaks), it doesn't feel like it coheres.

I do think that some of the designs are cute, though I'm not a big fan of how Backgrounds are literally useless outside of EDH, and I'm not terribly fond of how initiative is so explicitly tied to one specific dungeon.
 
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blacksmithy

honestly one of my favorite things about init is that it doesn’t have the additive distractions of two bad dungeons that you have to learn to ignore
 
LadyMapi

LadyMapi

I just hate that, cards-as-written, you can't really use the initiative cards with the pre-existing venture cards. That's just clunky design, WotC!

(I mean, yes, cards that go "do THE THING when you complete a dungeon" work, but you can't choose to venture into the Undercity unless you have an effect that explicitly has you venture into the Undercity.)
 
Zoss

Zoss

I noticed that guy when the leaks happened! I want him to be good, but he's very durdly. Hopefully he's a good low-power Soulherder, as that card can be a bit oppressive once it gets going.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Oji looks like it's about one generic mana off of being playable. The body is pretty atrocious, and the mana value makes it hard to trigger its effect the turn you play it. Jori En, Ruin Diver straight up has a better payoff for playing two spells most of the time, in a color combination that's arguably more suited to the two spells archetype as well, and it's not seeing much play.
 
sigh

sigh

It's absolutely a good card to get excited over. It's a very fun little self-contained engine that isn't as autopiloted as Soulherder is. There are definitely cube power levels where this is perfectly fine and/or quite good.

A couple points in its favor:
- It has a much better initial effect than Jori En (by nature of the fact that Jori has none).
- It has a much higher ceiling than JE, since you can flicker something with a much better ETB than "draw a card".
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
sigh said:
It's absolutely a good card to get excited over. It's a very fun little self-contained engine that isn't as autopiloted as Soulherder is. There are definitely cube power levels where this is perfectly fine and/or quite good.

A couple points in its favor:
- It has a much better initial effect than Jori En (by nature of the fact that Jori has none).
- It has a much higher ceiling than JE, since you can flicker something with a much better ETB than "draw a card".
Click to expand...
Depending on your cube configuration, Jori En's initial effect often is "draw a card", since you typically want to run her out on turn turn 4 together with a one drop. That was my point about Oji's mana value. That said, don't let me dissuade anyone from trying this card. It looks like good fun if it does stick!
 
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blacksmithy

before all this talk of power creeping white cantrip creatures even started, we already had the best cantripping white creature that has yet to be power crept…

Professor of Symbology

EDIT also squad hawk if you get even looser with your definition of cantrip
 
MilesOfficial

MilesOfficial

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OK, so we have a 3/3 for 3 that supports aristocrats in the ideal aristocrats colors, who looks like an aristocrat himself. Is this good?

Yes.

✅ Triggers off of tokens
✅ Multiple triggers per turn
✅ Efficient stats
✅ Backwards hands

HOWEVER

❌ Delayed trigger
❌ Only works on your turn
❌ Increasingly competitive guild

I'm still pretty interested. I think Judith fills a similar role and fills it much better, but I may have enough sacrifice outlets in my cube now that it may be time for the namesake Falkenrath Aristocrat is no longer as necessary, and payoffs like this may be the better way to use my precious guild slots. Will have to ask the group!

And his hands are backwards, which I understand means something, but being a D&D ignorant individual I simply find them fun.
 
sigh

sigh

Also triggers on opponents creatures dying! That makes it very good even in normal creature-on-creature combat, let alone with aristocrats shenanigans.
 
cstick

cstick

LadyMapi said:
I just hate that, cards-as-written, you can't really use the initiative cards with the pre-existing venture cards. That's just clunky design, WotC!

(I mean, yes, cards that go "do THE THING when you complete a dungeon" work, but you can't choose to venture into the Undercity unless you have an effect that explicitly has you venture into the Undercity.)
Click to expand...
The Undercity says that you can't enter it unless you venture into the undercity. I'm pretty sure that as written, you need an initiative card to start off, but once you're in the door, you can use your normal venture cards to progress through it.
 
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