Sets [IKO] Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths

[Onderzeeboot]

Official previews are near, so here's your official thread to drop them hot new cards as they get spoiled, without bothering those recluses who want a fresh experience when the set finally can be played at a prerelease after the summer! (Kidding... I hope...)

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Hype hype hype!!

 

[Velrun]

Spoiler and trailer is up.

TrainMasterGT was super right (I believe)

Suck it to everyone on MTG Salvation (50+ people) who disclaimed him and called fake. Literally 0 people believed him. And he was right, right?

 

[ravnic]

Yeah, all mutate cards at all rarities will get a comic style version. Maybe that mechanic will bring something for my cube.

 

[Mondschwein]

Impressions of the first spoilers from livestream:

- PWs are bad design, as (nearly) always
- I LOVE the idea of big frggn monsters with lots of colours and abilities and stats and counters and fancy fucked up badass lookings
- I don't like that most counters are just keyword counters. wtf why would you announce 12(?) different kinds of counters if it's only loyaltyx, +1/+1 and ten keywords, no reason for hype WotC
- mutate doesn't look very playable so far, as it seems to be easy CDA, and complicated to keep track of abilities, and very timmy-like (it was obv that there was going to be some timmy action when the topic is BIG MONSTERS)
- looking forward to more Cycling and Evolve cards
- trailer's pretty bad
- Keruga has some interesting design to it, reminds me much of Hearthstone where some cards give you restrictions to your deck-building, don't know how good this will translate to MtG

 

[Mondschwein]

Companion

There are ten companions in Ikoria, each one a legendary creature whose companion ability lists a deck-building rule. If your starting deck follows that rule, then the legendary creature can serve as your chosen companion. For example, if our majestic friend Keruga is going to be your chosen companion, then your starting deck can't include any cards with converted mana cost 1 or 2.

You can have up to one chosen companion for each game. That chosen companion doesn't start in your main deck. Rather, it's a card in your sideboard. (If you're playing casually without sideboards, it's just in your collection outside the game. All the same rules apply to it.) This means it doesn't count as a card toward meeting the minimum deck size in the format you're playing, but in Constructed formats, it is one of your fifteen sideboard cards. Just before the game begins, reveal your chosen companion to all players. Once during the game, you may cast your chosen companion from your sideboard. Doing so follows all the normal rules for casting a creature spell, so do so only during your main phase.

Casting your chosen companion brings it onto the game for good. The spell will go on the stack. If it resolves, it will enter the battlefield under your control (yay!). If it's countered, it will go to your graveyard (boo!). Once it's in the game, it can be exiled, go back to your hand, be shuffled into your library, etc. It won't return to your sideboard until the game ends.

Your companion's deckbuilding rule applies only to your starting deck, which is the deck you begin play with each game. It won't consider any cards in your sideboard, so those cards don't have to follow the deck-building rule. Additionally, you can just ignore the deck-building rule and include creature cards with companion in your main deck. This is especially relevant to formats like Booster Draft, where following the deck-building rule may not be possible. But if you can pull it off, glory awaits.

So, the companions are legendary creatures who begin outside your starting deck and have great influence over the rest of your deck. Where have I heard this before? Ah yes, Commander. Commander players, even though you don't have sideboards, you can still get in on the fun. Each Commander deck may include a chosen companion. It starts outside the game and doesn't count as one of your 100 cards. Just like the rest of your deck, your commander must follow the deck-building rule if you're going to use a companion.

 

[ravnic]

Yeah, all mutate cards at all rarities will get a comic style version. Maybe that mechanic will bring something for my cube.

Thinking a bit about this, I'm not really a fan though. It took me, a player of 15 years, quite a moment to wrap my head around it, how am I ten supposed to teach this ability to newbies? Looks as confusing as banding pretty much.

I like cycling and keyword counters, but I don't think the rest of this set's mechanics are for me

 

[Peter LaCara]

How is Companion going to be enforced? Like, how do I prove that my deck has no CMC 1 or 2 cards in it? This is assuming in a paper realm, not on Arena. Plus, depending on the restrictions it sounds like a nightmare for cube, so I don't like it.

 

[Velrun]

How is Companion going to be enforced? Like, how do I prove that my deck has no CMC 1 or 2 cards in it? This is assuming in a paper realm, not on Arena. Plus, depending on the restrictions it sounds like a nightmare for cube, so I don't like it.

As they said in the stream it will pretty much be self-enforced. If you build a deck with 10 cards that cost 1 or 2 mana then you won’t ever be able to cast them.

And as they said they had some designs in playtest that they skipped because they couldn’t make them self-enforce. Example: “Your starting deck must have 15 artifacts”.

 

[Velrun]

YES!

 

[Velrun]

A lot of the cards that Train spoiled for us in this thread has now officially been spoiled:

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/ikoria-inquiry.3104/

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Ok so Thitanoth Rex got spoiled.

Yeah, that's a casual 11/11 that also is a cantrip. 9 Mana to hardcast may prove to be a little steep in my environment, but we will see. Reanimation decks could certainly make use of this.

The cycling matters cards this time around seem to have the old "whenever you cycle" template, meaning that they are significantly narrower than the "whenever you cycle or discard" designs found on Amonkhet. Drannith Stinger here might be cubable as a bear with cycling , but his ping ability is probably not doing much if any damage during a game.

This card is very good. Ignore the companion ability on this guy, a 5/4 that draws cards when it comes into play is fantastic in Green. You're almost always going to have a 3-mana card like Overgrowth or Jace Beleren in play by the time you cast this, so you'll usually draw at least one card. Love this Hippo Dino and never let it go.

People need to can it about white being bad already, cards like this are great. Mothra here basically Undying to your Un-Flying creatures. That's pretty good. I don't know if it's going to make it into my cube given how many 3/4 fliers for 4 currently live in my white section, but I can certainly see myself playing this if I open it.

Here's a freebie for singleton cubes. Apparently the commander rules committee is preemptively banning this in commander. That seems like a cop-out to me since this card only copies spells, but whatever. The commander rules committee rarely seems to know what they're doing anyways.

I'm not sure how to evaluate this card. I will say that I would have considered testing it if it were a Zombie.

And finally...

Spoiler

(Because he's silly looking not because he's good)

 

[ravnic]

So when the creature I want to mutate on dies, you get mutate creature still. How does this work with sacrificing in response,since a lot of those seem to be cheaper as mutate than hardcast?

 

[shamizy]

I really don't like this set so far. Mutate cards feel really messy.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I really don't like this set so far. Mutate cards feel really messy.

Mutate is kind of weird. I'm just happy cycling is back.

 

[Velrun]

Lingering prowess

 

[sigh]

wow sprite dragon is really nice.

 

[Mondschwein]

Sprite Dragon looks like the Spells Matter Signpost UR deserves.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I don't know what to think. I'm not a Toho fan, so that part isn't for me. I don't like the companions from an enforcement point of view. Mutate seems kinda messy, though potentially okay? Yay for extra dinosaurs and elementals though! Hope there's some new cards from those tribes I can add to my cube.

There's certainly some new design space being used here, though!

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

My hope is that they're continuing the trend of nice draft environments. I trust that mutate will play out really well, although it might work like morph in that you really need a specific cube to run them.

 

[Brad]

Mutate is gross and basically every rare/mythic spoiled so far feels pushed beyond belief. I'm actually pretty disappointed.

 

[TekLazar]

I was holding out hope for this and it turns out that the mad lads of the Riptide Lab were right!
Now that I can get my thoughts on forum, this is basically MTG: Kaijudo Duel Masters, which is a great game! But I kind of hate its combat and spells when compared to the very rich Magic: the Gathering's.
Duel Masters has had creatures that go on top of creatures right after the second set that came out, but it was surprisingly broken, cuz all of them basically say "This creature gains haste". I like Mutate a lot better than this mechanic, as it is more flexible, and less likely to be bananas. They have also been messing around with creatures that can be cast from outside the game for almost a decade now, they're WotC so nothing stolen here, I just wanted to point it out.
Keyword counters is something that DM would probably never do though since the core gameplay is supposed to be "simple".
I agree that in traditional sense Mutate will punish those new players that just want a big creature as they get 2 or more for 1-ed, BUT this is sometimes worse, but more flexible bestow. A one with the wind that can be cast as a 2 mana 2/2 with flying is decent enough to see play in some slower cubes (I know that mutate is a lot different than this, but it is important to keep in mind). We're essentially getting split cards that are either an aura or a creature, and split cards are always good to help make your cube more flexible.
I mean just look at this dude

Even if this was the only Mutate card in your Cube, he's at worst a tri-color 3 mana 3/3 with flying and first strike (meh, but an okay top-deck) OR he's a 2 color 4 mana aura that reads "This creature gains flying and first strike, cast noncreature card with cmc 3 or less from your graveyard (also this creature can be a 3/3 if you want)" and if they kill the creature before the aura hits the battlefield you get a 3/3 flying first strike (but no ability)
As a Timmy player, this is super powerful and I love it, but from a cube designer's perspective I agree that he's probably too powerful to be in my current in-progress Cube. I'm fine with complexity in my cube personally so I'll likely test some of the rare and uncommon mutater-tots.
It's interesting how a lot of people are disappointed, I'm not sure what we were expecting? Is an elemental dinosaur cat that can combine with Godzilla not good enough for you? /s
I can understand the ideas behind it, but I feel it's wrong to judge something that you haven't played with yet or seen all of the possibilities behind.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I mean just look at this dude

Even if this was the only Mutate card in your Cube, he's at worst a tri-color 3 mana 3/3 with flying and first strike (meh, but an okay top-deck) OR he's a 2 color 4 mana aura that reads "This creature gains flying and first strike, cast noncreature card with cmc 3 or less from your graveyard (also this creature can be a 3/3 if you want)" and if they kill the creature before the aura hits the battlefield you get a 3/3 flying first strike (but no ability)
As a Timmy player, this is super powerful and I love it, but from a cube designer's perspective I agree that he's probably too powerful to be in my current in-progress Cube. I'm fine with complexity in my cube personally so I'll likely test some of the rare and uncommon mutater-tots.
It's interesting how a lot of people are disappointed, I'm not sure what we were expecting? Is an elemental dinosaur cat that can combine with Godzilla not good enough for you? /s
I can understand the ideas behind it, but I feel it's wrong to judge something that you haven't played with yet or seen all of the possibilities behind.

I don't think these 3-color monsters are going to be too good in most cubes. They're big, but they require you to be in a third color to cast in creature mode. Most of these mutate abilities seem either too expensive or not impactful enough to make me want to go out of my way to try to make them work. I don't think I can make room for any of them in my cube.

Honestly, wether or not these cards end up being bad, playable, or too good depends entirely on how well mutate plays in practice. The base casting difficulties of these things mean that they're not going to run amok in a format unless the mutation ends up being busted. for a 3/3 with Flying and First Strike is about on par if not a little worse than Mantis Rider, a card which really isn't playable in the vast majority of cubes. The mutation might save the card, but it can't mutate into the plethora of good cube humans like Young Pyromancer, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Snapcaster Mage. So it's up to testing, really. I just don't know if these will work.

If this card looks like it will be fun for you and your playgroup, give it a test and then decide. I don't think these mutate cards do enough without mutating to be worth playing in most cubes, so if mutate ends up being hard to make work, they probably won't be overpowered.

 

[Rowan_CB]

Haven’t loved what I’ve seen today (Timmy, I am not), but Drannith Stinger suggests there may be a reasonable cycling-matters archetype, likely in GR? So that intrigues me.

 

[Velrun]

I like everything about this set except Godzilla weirdness. It just doesn’t belong in a fantasy world.

-Companions. I love deck building callenges. Both for me and for my players. And the companions will be easy to enforce since the cards do it themselves except the Izzet-hybrid that restricts cards with duplicate names. I already have deck building challenge cards in my cube and they are great!

-Mutate is a split mechanic which is good for games/cubes if you want your players to have options and be less ‘on rails.’

-Cycling is a split mechanic which is (See all above)

-Keyword counters are almost stolen from my cube Although Wizards probably never saw my cube and have probably been working on Ikoria for many months before I worked Quests and Upgrades into my cube. Upgrades are keyword counters except I have 35 different ones and not 13.

Also I am not restricted from multicolored cards like most cubes are so I think I’ll find room for some mutate wedge legendaries.

I am very much looking forward to the rare land cycle. Train will you spoil?