General Jumpstart, Historic Horizons spoiler thread

[Chris Taylor]

Some of the abovementioned cool ideas as I can see why people might not trust that:

This defends itself really well, but fundamentally gets its value via upgrading your creatures which is nice.
The middle ability is actually inspired, it protects itself while also offering some synergy opportunities with untap themes, where this can target a land with utopia sprawl on it or something with a powerful tap ability.

This card is amazing! Look maybe you aren't running merfolk specifically in your cube, but if you are, those decks can run this in place of lands for the most part, as the ability to turn a merfolk into a land if necessary is a big boon. Upgrading a land in your hand to become tropical island isn't bad either, and this is a 2/1 for if you look at it sideways.
That's a lot of great words said about a blue one drop

Honestly, while I doubt they'll go super deep on "cards that conjure alpha duals", the more of these we see, the better.

This one I'm less sure about the ability to run in paper, and if one point of damage ever becomes relevant and you get into an argument about it, I can see the downside.
However, this is also kinda just red hero's downfall. I think this is close enough to soul sear that I don't need the swap, but if 6 toughness is common in your environment, this might be something you need.

This has been brought up above obviously, but this is a powerful fight spell, and that's something mostly new.
Blizzard Brawl has been doing a lot of work in post-rotation standard, but has its own host of issues (Snow, sometimes you have 2 snow basics and the math is off, discourages people running nonbasic lands, etc).
I think somewhere here we've got the germ of a card we'll all love, and I like to celebrate getting closer

 

[blacksmithy]

yeah i really like the fight spell and the merfolk as well, these are solid spells and the fight spell is very not-texty and easy to grok. love the idea of turning an island into a tropical island, or keeping a one lander with the scout

 

[Chris Taylor]

Jeff Hoogland also brings up a good point: a bunch of these cards may not be intended to change the historic metagame, but to make Arena Cube better

 

[Peter LaCara]

Managorger Phoenix is exactly the kind of card I would never run in a paper cube due to memory and tracking issues, but digitally I think works great. I don't think you just throw it in any 2 color red deck, though. I think you need to be mono-red or mostly red. It's the kind of card that hangs out with Goblin Chainwhirler and Torbran.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think Skyshroud Ambush is literally fine in paper Magic. The technical definition of what winning means will be put in the comprehensive rules. I would expect this kind of effect to eventually make it to paper Magic.

 

[Velrun]

Card text:
Static Discharge deals X damage to any target, where X is 3 plus the number of charge counters on Static Discharge. Then put a perpetual charge counter on this card and each card named Static Discharge in your hand, library, and graveyard.

Here is how it could have been worded to make it printable:

Static Discharge deals X damage to any target, where X is 3 plus the number of cards named Static Discharge in your graveyard.




Card text:
Flying
1U, Discard two cards: Return Stitchwing Skaab from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

Here is how it could have been worded to make it printable:

Flying
1U, Discard two cards: Return Stitchwing Skaab from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.

 

[ravnic]

Stitchwing is a reprint.

And static discharge works different than what you typed, since it can make itself hit harder with any form of spell recursion.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Stitchwing is a reprint.

And static discharge works different than what you typed, since it can make itself hit harder with any form of spell recursion.

Also works differently with cards like Thousand-Year Storm. Perpetual is a peculiar mechanic that can't quite be replicated in constructed in a lot of cases. You can come close, true, but I think it has merit as a unique mechanic. It's very versatile as well in its application, which makes it a great fit for online specific card, I think.

The same is true for conjure by the way. Again, you can come close, but there are quite some use cases that can't be done with alternatives that would be suitable for paper Magic. For example, you can discard a conjured creature card to Psychatog, then reanimate it with Zombify, and the mechanic opens up counter play by black discard spells like Thoughtseize that wouldn't otherwise be available.

All in all, I think these are a good addition to Magic, to be honest. Not something I'm likely to play with, since I don't play Arena, but I don't begrudge Arena players their own exclusive content.

 

[Velrun]

Are you two trolling? Did you not read these?

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoiler-thread.3475/post-106424

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoiler-thread.3475/post-106599

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Are you two trolling? Did you not read these?

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoiler-thread.3475/post-106424

https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/jumpstart-historic-horizons-spoiler-thread.3475/post-106599

Why would you think we're trolling? I mean, for all I know you are trolling with Stitchwing Skaab, since that's an existing card, but assuming you were serious with your suggested alternative for Static Discharge, it is functionally different from the "printed" version using the perpetual mechanic. The effects of perpetual can not or not easily be replicated in paper Magic, depending on the card. The effects of conjure can not be replicated in paper Magic, period. Like I said, you can come close with different implementations, but there are multiple scenario's for each of these mechanics where those alternatives don't quite behave the same. So, I am serious when I think these are a worthwhile addition to the game.

 

[Zoss]

Going in a different direction than the above discussion, for Static Discharge you can just deal 3 + X damage, where X is the number of Static counters you (the player) have, then put a static counter on yourself. I think the only difference it would make would be to buff Discharges in exile, but if that matters you're already doing something weird and probably broken.

Of course, this opens up the possibility to put new and strange non-poison counters on players, but that's not my problem.

 

[Velrun]

@Onderzeeboot
I understand that you could be thinking that I was trolling. I can kind of see this situation from both sides. You thought I was trolling first because I commented on a reprint card and I thought you were trolling later because you ignored the talks there was ealier about how to translate these cards into paper-legal cards. Or whatever we want to call them. I am sorry for the misunderstanding. I did not know there was a reprint card. In fact I am having a hard time finding anything on this product anywhere.

I do think conjure can easily be printed on actual paper Magic. All we need is a rules change and some tokens. What we need is for the tokens to not cease to exist in any zone that isn't the battlefield. Or we could make a new type of card that isn't tokens but has the benefit of not ceasing to exist outside the battlefield.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Tokem&m's (melt in your mouth, not in your hand)

 

[Sheltem]

Tokem&m's (melt in your mouth, not in your hand)

Real life food tokens!

 

[ravnic]

We have used cashew nuts for food tokens before. You shouldn't play hungry though unless you have a lot of spare mana.

 

[Velrun]

 

[Sheltem]

We used gummibears, but after a few turns it was difficult to track what should have how many counters. There might have been some snack based causalities…

 

[Mown]

I don't really expect any of the cards to come out of this to be so mind-blowing amazing that I'd be compelled to find a way to put them into my cube, but if you really feel the need:
Seek: Magic obviously has no way to tutor for cards randomly without looking at and having to subsequently rearrange the deck, but the Abundant Harvest implementation is a good enough approximation. Naturally won't work on dynamic conditions, like Faceless Agent, but is fine with Bounty of the Deep (which would also require a "reveal your hand" clause to work in paper.)
Perpetually: This mechanic obviously introduces a lot of memory issues, and quickly causes problems when dealing with hidden zones. For the most part, if you want to use perpetual, ensure that your cube is singleton with respect to what you are perpetually affecting, and add a bunch of "reveal" clauses on anything having to do with the hand or library. If you want a Static Discharge archetype in your cube, change it to key off emblems or a counter. For the most part, I'd say "don't", but there are solutions. Consider adopting a sticker system if you're completely enraptured by the designs.
Conjure: Probably the most plausible mechanic to make use of in a tabletop cube environment, the challenges with conjure is the physical constraints of having to deal with Kiora ticking up 14 times in a game. I would set a number for how often you can conjure any given card in a game (and then hand them that many copies). I would personally also add the rule that conjured cards cease to exist if they are moved to your library, so you can sleeve them in a different color and more easily remove them after a game.
Lists: Not that difficult, just use a dX roll table, and make them easily accessible during the draft. If you for some reason really want to add Davriel to your cube because you've already added the Strixhaven deans and your players still haven't picked up on how much you hate them.

I don't really care much one way or the other about the existence of these cards, I've much bigger other gripes about where Magic is heading. That said, I think that instead of playing with these cards on Arena, you should play a digital card game that was actually designed from the ground-up to make use of the design space, instead of carrying the limitations of a 30 year old tabletop game.

 

[Seeker]

Going in a different direction than the above discussion, for Static Discharge you can just deal 3 + X damage, where X is the number of Static counters you (the player) have, then put a static counter on yourself. I think the only difference it would make would be to buff Discharges in exile, but if that matters you're already doing something weird and probably broken.

Of course, this opens up the possibility to put new and strange non-poison counters on players, but that's not my problem.

Copies of the spell also, it's like still a big functional difference.

 

[Erik Twice]

Personally, I don't think any of the mechanics they've shown so far are good enough to justify separating Arena from Paper. In particular "perpetually" looks terrible for the same reason the Strixhaven double faced cards with 15 different abilities do. It's not a "memory issue" for me as much as it being awfully inelegant and ugly. I mean, I don't even understand what Sharkan's Scorn is supposed to do.

I do like Conjure but that would actually work in paper. If there's an interesting card with Conjure in the set, I would be happy to create a proxy for the cards it fetches.

 

[Velrun]

My thoughts exactly! Conjure could easily work on paper. On this page we’ve even had custom ‘Scrolls’ that were instant/sorcery tokens that could be in the hand zone and graveyard zone.

 

[blacksmithy]

i’m so hype for conjure dudes. so. hype.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Personally, I don't think any of the mechanics they've shown so far are good enough to justify separating Arena from Paper.

I think that's exactly the point. Paper Magic is still the main horse they're betting on. If they would make clearly superior mechanics that actually do justify digital Magic over paper Magic, now that would be a Bad Thing TM, wouldn't it? At least for everyone who prefers paper Magic. This is just a bone they're throwing Arena players, just as they throw Commander players bones that have no impact on constructed tournament Magic either.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Why does anyone else having something cool in any way detract from the game we have?

 

[japahn]

Why does anyone else having something cool in any way detract from the game we have?

Because people have limited time, energy, and money. The same way that a powerful deck in an environment may other weaker decks to die out.

Not that this means Arena is a bad thing (tm). There is a tradeoff, however, between the health of Arena and the health of Paper Magic. It is possible that synergies like people getting into Paper Magic because of Arena make focus on Arena into a positive net effect on Paper Magic. That is not what I have anecdotally observed, though, but it's hard to tell especially with the effects of the pandemic.