When first printed it had seven lines of text. Now all three abilities have been keyworded but if you are new to the game you still have to read and understand all seven lines of text. Flying was also keyworded down from it’s original wording.
General (LTR / LTC) Lord of the Rings Testing/Includes Mega Thread!
- Thread starter TrainmasterGT
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When first printed it had seven lines of text. Now all three abilities have been keyworded but if you are new to the game you still have to read and understand all seven lines of text. Flying was also keyworded down from it’s original wording.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Flying was already a keyword in Alpha, the very first Magic set.
PS. Please spoiler big images like that one, saves a lot of bandwidth for mobile people and scrolling for everyone
I'm pretty confident in calling Rockets meaningfully worse than Star for most environments.
I remember finding Vampire Nighthawk to be pretty damn strong back when I was playing some kitchen table magic 10 years ago. It's an incredible blocker and it's evasive and can offset a race. It's good!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I mean, I think Magic in general is a lot for a new player. These are three pretty straightforward keywords that are easy to explain, and they make for a relatively powerful uncommon. Much better than Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward, Aberrant, or Aberrant Mind Sorcerer, I'ld say!
So, all except one can do something immediately when they hit play. Hmm, how far the game has gone that not having an immediate impact nullifies a card.
it's ok to like bad cards
it's another chromatic star -- awesome! -- but the slowtrip thing isn't just 'strictly worse'. the ability to sac it for multiple colours of mana, as well as at x=0, are both really cool and valuable things you don't get with your factory-issue stars and spheres. helps fix for one key spell in mana-soup decks, but doesn't sit around guaranteeing their colours forever like Astrolabe did. good cantrip
This, really. The Gatherer comments from 2013ish are full of people losing their minds over how good Vampire Nighthawk was.
Of course, nowadays it'd probably be a 4/4 and people would still look at it and go "eh... I don't think it's worth it".
(Slightly off-topic: I had a conversation with my boss the other day, and he mentioned that he drafted a ton. Like, get-full-sets-on-Arena-whenever-a-new-one-comes-out amounts. And one of his biggest complaints was how efficient removal has gotten lately. And honestly? I agree. Creatures these days are pushed as hell because removal is pushed as hell because creatures are pushed as hell because...)
Chris Taylor
Contributor
RE Wizard rockets, it's another Terrarion, not chromatic star. I feel like that's different enough to be important.
And look, you're absolutely within your rights to get all grognardy about vampire nighthawk (Fascinating video in the link btw. I love the idea that napoleon had a special rank in his forces of "people who were allowed to complain"). Lotta people don't like the direction of modern magic, some people prefer it when creatures were laughed at for even being considered. I operate on the sort of rising tide which raises all boats, excising stuff I don't like (Ragavan, Initiative, etc)
My point is that nighthawk certainly looked impressive when it debued a decade ago, was the best uncommon in a deeply unhealthy draft format, and then saw little to no play for its entire lifespan. There was a vampire aggro deck in standard at the time that didn't play it because it was against plan (It was mostly an aristocrats affair based around Bloodghast and Kalastria Highborn)
It is the exact type of card to override your thinking, just like akroma before him. "WHOA LOOK AT ALL THOSE KEYWORDS AMAZING" but yes, its still wind drake++
It's fine. Honestly not much to worry about.
And look, you're absolutely within your rights to get all grognardy about vampire nighthawk (Fascinating video in the link btw. I love the idea that napoleon had a special rank in his forces of "people who were allowed to complain"). Lotta people don't like the direction of modern magic, some people prefer it when creatures were laughed at for even being considered. I operate on the sort of rising tide which raises all boats, excising stuff I don't like (Ragavan, Initiative, etc)
My point is that nighthawk certainly looked impressive when it debued a decade ago, was the best uncommon in a deeply unhealthy draft format, and then saw little to no play for its entire lifespan. There was a vampire aggro deck in standard at the time that didn't play it because it was against plan (It was mostly an aristocrats affair based around Bloodghast and Kalastria Highborn)
It is the exact type of card to override your thinking, just like akroma before him. "WHOA LOOK AT ALL THOSE KEYWORDS AMAZING" but yes, its still wind drake++
It's fine. Honestly not much to worry about.
Nowadays I think it would be an X/3, where X is the number of card types in your opponents' graveyards plus one.
Not that it detracts from your point, since these are both decks from 10 years ago, but nighthawk did show up in both Golgari Control decks and Mono Black Control decks when it was reprinted in Magic 2013.
I even think nighthawk makes a really good benchmark for a given format. I certainly prefer to curate cubes where nighthawk is a very solid card.
How are most of the cards different from the list of creatures you mentioned?
Well, the decks are a bit lower powered than your list, but your list are all cards that needs to be answered immediately (and if you answer then you are often already behind) or overbombed. No thanks
No, in the early days the removal was pushed but the creatures were weak. Still, draft and so on was won with the bad creatures.
I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about. What list of creatures?
I was just saying that Commander is inherently unbalanced because of the free regenerating 8th starting card, longer games leading to more must-answer threats being cast, and large singleton decklists leading to a lot of variance in how decks play in a given game.
I just realized you can sacrifice Rockets where x=0. I like that a lot more. It's still no Chromatic Star, but better than Terrarion by a country mile.
You should try Duel Commander, best format in the game after cube <3
and maybe Standard
That's a weird way of spelling Modern
there is only cube