General [DOM]Dominaria

[Velrun]

How much of a change would one have to make to their cube to be able to run a couple of sagas? It feels like the format needs to be slow enough where getting the value of the sagas is reasonable to expect?

That is a very good question and I believe the answer may very well vary depending on the individual cube and sometimes even playgroup.

Personally I believe that Benalia and Scriptures may prove really strong even in fast powered cubes. The rest require some sort of extra efford to run sustainably.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

How much of a change would one have to make to their cube to be able to run a couple of sagas? It feels like the format needs to be slow enough where getting the value of the sagas is reasonable to expect?

I'm guessing very little if any. They are basically planeswalker variants that tick up to an ultimate turns 6-7, which is well within the time crunch for most formats.

I would be more concerned with running too many creating a stealth midrange buff, but only one way to find out.

 

[Peter LaCara]

That is a very good question and I believe the answer may very well vary depending on the individual cube and sometimes even playgroup.

Personally I believe that Benalia and Scriptures may prove really strong even in fast powered cubes. The rest require some sort of extra efford to run sustainably.

Mine is already an attrition-focused grindy format, so they should slot in just fine. I'm going to see how they play in retail draft for a bit before I make any judgments on them. There's enough nostalgia catnip in here to drag me back for at least a few FNM drafts.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Y'know, looking at the set and listening to the Limited Resources set review, I think this format reminds me a LOT of my cube in general. Maybe not specifically the play patterns and mechanics (there's a lot of graveyard stuff in mine that's not here), but the general philosophy of having cards that are good on their own but have all these sweet synergy hooks so they fit together in interesting ways. There's also a big focus on cards that generate value over time, which is a thing that I love.

Anyway. Here's what I'm considering adding:

 

[James Stevenson]

Song of Freyalise looks sweet. Another card that's normally good, and slots into green storm perfectly.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I really wonder how they are going to implement the "at least 1 legendary creature in every booster pack", since historically these gimmicks have replaced a common or basic land card (see dfc's in Shadows over Innistrad and mana fixing in Fates Reforged). I did some drafts vs AI under the very basic assumption that you simply get a random legendary creature instead of a common, and I've had a few super sweet decks come together. My favorite two so far have been...

UR Wizards

Naban was awesome with the Trickster, might actually be playable given enough wizards, though it's kind of a weird tribe to cater to in cube, maybe? There's our namesake Riptide Laboratory though, which just so happens to work together excellently with the wizards Naban wants you to run.
Keldon Overseer is a nice card for aggressive decks. Puts your opponent under pressure early, and is a great topdeck later on.
Powerstone Shard is great in multiples, no surprise there
Jhoira was sweet! There were so many ways to trigger her, and everybody knows card advantage is sweet, right!
Time of Ice was g-r-e-a-t! I glossed over the exact rules text until I played with the card, but it isn't the usual "doesn't untap during their controller's next untap step". ToI locks down all creatures it targets until it leaves play!
Karn's Temporal Sundering is suh-weet!!! Unsummon + Time Warp is a great combination if your deck can support the number of legendaries required.

Only "disappointing" card in the deck was Naru Meha, which has never copied a spell so far. 3/3 flash is still a great ambusher though, and the buff to wizards is actually relevant in this deck.

And yes, I did get to crew the Weatherlight with the captain

GU Value Train

I think I'm in love with Tatyova. Especially after I cast a Slinn Voda, and was able to attack for 4 still (thanks Freyalise!)
Both Relic Runner and Tetsuko Umezawa provide a steady stream of pings, I like both of them as potential two drops for my cube actually. Tetsuko especially makes utility creatures relevant in the late game, as suddenly your 1/1's can get in.
Ancient Animus was good, instant speed fight effect that puts a +1/+1 counter on a legend? Yes please!
Song of Freyalise I'm still not sure about. I think I like it? Haven't seen an explosion yet though, since the two mana cost does hamper your development.

Edit: I cast Kamahl's Druidic Vow for 6 and found Tatyova, Benthic Druid and three lands. <3

 

[whydirt]

WotC has said that the guaranteed legendary creature isn't taking up a special slot, so there's no doubling up on rares like in INN/SOI blocks. Their computerized pack collating system is high tech enough now to just make sure that it happens.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

WotC has said that the guaranteed legendary creature isn't taking up a special slot, so there's no doubling up on rares like in INN/SOI blocks. Their computerized pack collating system is high tech enough now to just make sure that it happens.

Yeah, here's someone opening packs proving just that:

Edit: You have to wait for the sixth booster, but there is actually one where none of the uncommons are legendary, and the rare (*cough* mythic *cough*) is. I did notice all of the other five boosters had exactly one legendary creature at uncommon, in exactly the third slot. So, all of them were uncommon (not a legendary creature), uncommon (not a legendary creature), uncommon legendary creature. There's also a booster with both an uncommon legendary creature and a mythic legendary creature, so an uncommon legendary doesn't mean you don't get a legendary rare. I wonder if you can get multiple uncommon legendary creatures.

 

[Kirblinx]

Went to my prerelease and got a pile of rares that weren't very exciting for limited (Mox Amber, Sulfer Falls, Cabal Stronghold). Was going to play a midrangey WB deck since my white was easily my strongest colour and my black had a couple of removal spells and some middling creatures. But I wanted to use one of my rares and The Antiquities War screamed at me to see if it was playable in limited.

Here is where I ended up:

(Stupid phone kept trying to focus on the Fearie face on the mat so ignore the blue :\)

Ended up going 2-1, just playing cards on curve and putting Frenzied Rage's on Juggernauts

Notes:

• I never once drew The Antiquities War (or Shivan Fire for that matter), so I don't know what the point was building my deck around it
• Sparring Construct is actually not terrible. It can either attempt to chip in with other attackers, chump block and still be useful when it dies. Plus heroic triggers were great.
• Jodah, Archmage Avenger was an awkward 4 mana 4/3 flyer.
• Kwende was pretty good. I had 4 natural first strikers so it came up more than I thought it would, plus doing this after a turn two Serra Disciple is pretty fun.
• Mesa Unicorn has great hair
• Relic Runner was worth the splash, as I won a game where I played both early and chained herioc spells to keep getting them through.

Format seems fun to play and there are a lot of different avenues you can go down, as I didn't think jeskai arifacts are a thing (they still probably aren't). Doing another sealed tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully I get more fun rares to play with.

 

[McMenno]

Heroic? I don't think we're in Theros!

 

[Peter LaCara]

Just went 3-0 with a pretty sweet 4 color base green deck. Song of Freyalise is awesome. The first two chapters let you build a board, and then if that board is remaining after two turns you basically win. Also, Jaya's Immolating Inferno is as busted as it looks. I had four legendaries in the deck (because I was splashing for two of them) and I pretty much could always cast it, at which point it was Rolling Thunder++.

I opened a Karn, Scion of Urza in my prize packs, and though I wasn't considering adding him before I'm kind of tempted to add him now. Do you think he needs artifact support to be good? Is a cheap colorless grindy value engine a good idea?

 

[shamizy]

BW Dudes

I lost R1 because I flooded extremely hard in G3 against a solid BW deck, but I won the next 3 rounds to finish at 3-1. I had a good amount of removal in my pool to help me keep up, but it was kind of difficult to efficiently close out the game. I would have have to have just some vanilla 5/5 for 6 or something big. A lot of it came down to prioritizing certain cards and running others into removal before I ran my opponents' resources low enough to stick a threat that could chip in enough times to close it out. Aryel is a really good card if she sticks, but I actually didn't get to cast it a single time all night so no firsthand experience there. Icy Manipulator kept me afloat against an insane UR Historic Wizards deck with timely tap-downs and I barely won by hitting for lethal off a topdeck land where I would have died on the crackback. Phyrexian Scriptures is one hell of a card, the artifact play with it was kind of interesting as there were times where I decided to maximize what I could get out of it by sandbagging it and playing out my dorky 2/1 fliers prior to deployment. No one wanted to trade with either of my Gliders all night and I was glad, I'm pretty sure I dealt like 30 damage between the two of them and closed out games because a ton of decks either didn't have removal or did not use it when they should have prior to taking 6+ damage over a game.

I'm super interested in seeing how draft will be for this set, there are a lot of cool little interactions throughout to be exploited here and there.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Heroic? I don't think we're in Theros!

#autocorrect

 

[Jason Waddell]

James and I went to a local pre-release here in Antwerp. On a whim I tried to see if I could get 5-color control to work, and he played some midrangey black-green deck that was splashing for some removal spells. Anyways, because we're dorks who post on Magic forums, we both started 3 - 0 and met in the finals. Drawing would put us both tied for first (read: more boosters), so we officially did that. But we still played it out. And something had to be on the line. So we decided, the loser had to write an ode about the other. What I'm trying to say is, if you see an odd Ode thread in the future, now you know what it's about.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So we decided, the loser had to write an ode about the other. What I'm trying to say is, if you see an odd Ode thread in the future, now you know what it's about.

This is going to be the best thing in a while

 

[Velrun]

I can’t wait to see who’s posting that ode!

 

[Jason Waddell]

Can we talk about something weird in the print run though? Several times while opening our packs, James and I had packs that opened with the same 6 or so cards in the exact same order. It was bizarre, sitting there, seeing card after card matching across different packs. I have no idea what they did, but these packs were in no way random.

 

[Velrun]

Maybe it had something to do with that 'guarenteed legendary' card in each pack? Like it was one of the best solutions they could come up with in order to guarentee something in a otherwise seemingly random card pack order.

 

[David Bohlander]

A friend of mine opened a pack with a print run hiccup. The same two commons were repeated in the middle. It went Eviscerate, some worse common, then Eviscerate and that same worse common. Then the pack carried on like everything was normal.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Alright here's what I'm ading

Holy crap this is an uncommon? o_O

And Maybe

Let's get some thoughts now that we've played a little with theae:
Fight with fire: this has been excellent, as I'd hoped. My cube is pretty fast, but I've died to this being kicked at me, and copying that opens up whole new decks. A+
Untamed Kavu: kinda meh. It's fine, don't get me wrong, but the 2 drop is barely ever cast. Eh, I don't evoke mulldrifter much either.
Rite of Belzenlok: this thing is awesome! The body is right and the amount of food it gives you can be used for other things as well, AND it can still swing if you can't sac something.
Grand Warlord Radha: haven't seen her yet
Verix Bladewing: kicker a bit more out of reach than I thought, and the token being legendary has actually come up still great though.
Territorial Allosaurus: this is not the removal spell I want it to be, or the 4 drop I want it to be, but it's still great despite all that. If you find yourself overhyped for this card this is me saying it's still very worth running.
Dauntless Bodyguard: love the choices on this one. Fun fact: you can sac it if there was no chosen creature, or if that creature is gone. Might come up
Merfolk Trickster: best blue creature printed in years,TONS of play here. I might even double up, which is heresy on anything else costing CC
Cast Down: mostly unconditional, but the odd exception makes this interesting. Doom blade is the least interesting of theses since it's the least dependent on your sequencing, and If we get enough like this I might remove it entirely.
Vicious Offering: flexible, not too strong, and still great
Phyrexian Scriptures: it's duneblast. Miiiiight be too strong @4
Time of ice: returning ALL tapped creatures puts this in pure defensive camp. Will cut.
Shalai: cute! Anything saying hexproof is cause for worry but this is totally fine

 

[CaptnIrony]

Time of ice: returning ALL tapped creatures puts this in pure defensive camp. Will cut.

Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Sagas. You should almost never be losing creatures.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Sagas. You should almost never be losing creatures.

I.... Didn't think about that.
That being said I still don't love it, 4 cmc on blue is very dense.
Maybe though, it does kinda do the tempo things I liked about jace TMS without being "you never draw gas again" miserable

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Still drafting against the AI. Naban is so spicy! This is the deck I had the most fun with. It's ambitious as heck, but I have hardly been color screwed The Compass and the two Surveyors are quite adept at preventing that screw, and the cards keep flowing thanks to all the card draw in the deck. Also, turn 5 Darigaaz (off Gateway) is preeeetty sweet.

The UBrg Special

Also, Naban into any of the wizards is mean. I had a turn where I was able to go Journeymage into kicked Skin-Witch. And suddenly I was winning!

 

[Jonas]

So, I guess I'm the only one that really like the kina boring beatstick ?

Sure, would be a bit more interesting if pushed to rare and cost 1w, but eh.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think if I wanted a pile of keywords, I'd go for Aerial Responder, and if I wanted more aura support I'd go for Sram, Senior Edificer