Sets (MoM) April of the Machines Previews
- Thread starter Velrun
- Start date
landofMordor
Administrator
wow. Augur of Bolas is in shambles, too! crazy. i'm definitely gonna play this in Pulp for the loops with Stream of Thought
you know it! I've got like a zillion green 2s I want to run in Pulp and not enough slots for them... but this is absolutely a slam dunk on flavor and mechanic. (if anything, it's maybe even too beefy for Pulp?)
I love that Surveil is deciduous now!
I think this is probably good enough for my main Cube, but green 2s are a bit stacked. I will wait to see how much this costs, as I will definitely be picking it up if it ends up being bulk priced.
@landofMordor another card for Pulp Cube//Theseus?
@inscho GCC card?
this strongly reminded me of a good line from I Think You Should Leave
How does this work with stream of thought? The Oracle shuffles back cards with mana value 3 or greater. Is it just redundancy for a reshuffle effect?
This is honestly one of the better-designed color hate cards I've seen so far:
That flavor text is super clunky, though — it has that "we're trying to sound math-y but we refuse to ask anyone who actually does stuff with math for ideas" issue that a lot of Quandrix flavor text had.
It also makes me a little sad, because there was a thread of what seems to be a scrapped post-War of the Spark "reboot" left over in Eldraine/Strixhaven, and this kinda reminds me of it? Strixhaven generally does.
...
Part of me is convinced that they were originally going to do a big (I'm talking decades) time skip after War of the Spark, giving them a chance to work with other characters and re-invent some of the new ones... but then they chickened out and didn't do that. My main "evidence" for this is that Eldraine/Theros/Ikoria felt like they were setting up a new status quo. By Zendikar, though, they went back to focusing on "known quantities" as the faces of their sets, with Tyvar and Niko Aris basically being background characters in their debut set.
Eldraine and Strixhaven really stick out to me because both sets only include one pre-Eldraine planeswalker in them (Garruk in Eldraine, Liliana in Strixhaven — the twins don't count as preexisting planeswalkers since Battlebond didn't exactly have a plot), so they had this passing-the-torch feeling to them, combined with having much lower, much more personal stakes. My guess is that that didn't go over well in focus testing, so they switched gears back to focusing on big, "epic" stories and fan-favorite characters/villains. Hence why they just kinda dropped Calix and Oko, even though they were set up to be personal enemies for Elspeth and the twins (respectively).
I kinda suspect that Kaldheim wasn't originally going to be the start of the Phyrexia plotline — my guess is that at one point it was about Niko Aris and Tyvar having an adventure on Kaldheim, with Tibalt serving as a villain/"here's what this guy's doing now!", with Kaya vs. Vorinclex being what they pivoted to after deciding against the whole "new cast" thing in Zendikar.
...
It also just hit me that they really should've had Lucca be Urabrask's errand boy in New Capenna instead of Vivien, if only because it'd help explain why he was on the invasion force.
That flavor text is super clunky, though — it has that "we're trying to sound math-y but we refuse to ask anyone who actually does stuff with math for ideas" issue that a lot of Quandrix flavor text had.
It also makes me a little sad, because there was a thread of what seems to be a scrapped post-War of the Spark "reboot" left over in Eldraine/Strixhaven, and this kinda reminds me of it? Strixhaven generally does.
...
Part of me is convinced that they were originally going to do a big (I'm talking decades) time skip after War of the Spark, giving them a chance to work with other characters and re-invent some of the new ones... but then they chickened out and didn't do that. My main "evidence" for this is that Eldraine/Theros/Ikoria felt like they were setting up a new status quo. By Zendikar, though, they went back to focusing on "known quantities" as the faces of their sets, with Tyvar and Niko Aris basically being background characters in their debut set.
Eldraine and Strixhaven really stick out to me because both sets only include one pre-Eldraine planeswalker in them (Garruk in Eldraine, Liliana in Strixhaven — the twins don't count as preexisting planeswalkers since Battlebond didn't exactly have a plot), so they had this passing-the-torch feeling to them, combined with having much lower, much more personal stakes. My guess is that that didn't go over well in focus testing, so they switched gears back to focusing on big, "epic" stories and fan-favorite characters/villains. Hence why they just kinda dropped Calix and Oko, even though they were set up to be personal enemies for Elspeth and the twins (respectively).
I kinda suspect that Kaldheim wasn't originally going to be the start of the Phyrexia plotline — my guess is that at one point it was about Niko Aris and Tyvar having an adventure on Kaldheim, with Tibalt serving as a villain/"here's what this guy's doing now!", with Kaya vs. Vorinclex being what they pivoted to after deciding against the whole "new cast" thing in Zendikar.
...
It also just hit me that they really should've had Lucca be Urabrask's errand boy in New Capenna instead of Vivien, if only because it'd help explain why he was on the invasion force.
The bones are their money?
landofMordor
Administrator
DANGIT i can’t read
“Wait, you *want* magic cards to be bad?”
“I sorry. I cannot think any good Magic ideas because *this* guy keep *farting*!”
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Huh, this aint bad. Hallowed Burial meets Phyrexian Rebirth (Appropriate I suppose?)
Having a giant creature locked behind the 2 mana payment has both upside and downside, in that sometimes you die to a hasted creature, but said creature is also getting at least one swing in if they're on sorcery speed removal.
I guess as compared to a hypothetical version of this card that doesn't exist.
Well, you're talking to me after all. It could.
Yeah I have 99 % given up also
They are pretty good at making settings feel right. Feel flavorful. But the stories are nothing to applaud I think.
Good thing is they started a whole new department and hired new people because they want to devote more time and money into their lore. They have started a new podcast/revived an old one. They are going to give lore more space on their website.
I don't think the battles are reflective of the state of the battles on the planes as a whole, and rather that they are all snapshots of minor triumphs, because they would rather showcase the unique aspects of the individual planes. In terms of using the card design as a storytelling device I agree that it does present Phyrexia as a pretty insignificant threat.
Optimise it by having a lot of of flicker! The cards will return face up
Unfortunately most flicker effects only target creatures, and Yedora, the Explorer turns you creatures into lands.
Yedora goes infinite with a sac outlet and one of these five:
Do with this information what you will.
...
The funny thing is that I actually prefer that they're doing this instead of having Phyrexia roll over all of these worlds like an unstoppable force. They're a single mid-sized plane invading literal dozens of other worlds at the same time — that's a textbook example of spreading yourself too far and too thin.
Heck, in retrospect this entire plotline makes more sense if you view it as some... overly optimistic propaganda from a bunch of impatient egocentric idiots. They took their literal army-in-a-can superweapon and broke it because they tried to replace the "OBEY YAWGMOTH WHEN HE SHOWS UP" programming with "OBEY THE PRAETORS — SPECIFICALLY ELESH NORN".
It's still not great, but the fact that they pratfalled on half of the worlds they decided to invade (because who scouts beforehand, amiright?) with their only major success being Theros (because Ajani is actually a good commander, unlike the rest of their generals). The smart play would've been to send their planeswalkers to a number of different planes, dump some Oil in the water, and then watch and take note of how it worked in places it wasn't designed for (after all, it was designed for Dominaria and the fact that it worked so well on Argentum might've been a fluke, and we already had foreshadowing that there was stuff that was resistant or immune to the Oil). But nope! Elesh Norn needed her sweet propaganda-perfect invasion, so it was "ram your faces into a wall"-o-clock for everyone involved.
Do with this information what you will.
...
The funny thing is that I actually prefer that they're doing this instead of having Phyrexia roll over all of these worlds like an unstoppable force. They're a single mid-sized plane invading literal dozens of other worlds at the same time — that's a textbook example of spreading yourself too far and too thin.
Heck, in retrospect this entire plotline makes more sense if you view it as some... overly optimistic propaganda from a bunch of impatient egocentric idiots. They took their literal army-in-a-can superweapon and broke it because they tried to replace the "OBEY YAWGMOTH WHEN HE SHOWS UP" programming with "OBEY THE PRAETORS — SPECIFICALLY ELESH NORN".
It's still not great, but the fact that they pratfalled on half of the worlds they decided to invade (because who scouts beforehand, amiright?) with their only major success being Theros (because Ajani is actually a good commander, unlike the rest of their generals). The smart play would've been to send their planeswalkers to a number of different planes, dump some Oil in the water, and then watch and take note of how it worked in places it wasn't designed for (after all, it was designed for Dominaria and the fact that it worked so well on Argentum might've been a fluke, and we already had foreshadowing that there was stuff that was resistant or immune to the Oil). But nope! Elesh Norn needed her sweet propaganda-perfect invasion, so it was "ram your faces into a wall"-o-clock for everyone involved.
You know what the next storyline will be not?Yedora goes infinite with a sac outlet and one of these five:
Do with this information what you will.
...
The funny thing is that I actually prefer that they're doing this instead of having Phyrexia roll over all of these worlds like an unstoppable force. They're a single mid-sized plane invading literal dozens of other worlds at the same time — that's a textbook example of spreading yourself too far and too thin.
Heck, in retrospect this entire plotline makes more sense if you view it as some... overly optimistic propaganda from a bunch of impatient egocentric idiots. They took their literal army-in-a-can superweapon and broke it because they tried to replace the "OBEY YAWGMOTH WHEN HE SHOWS UP" programming with "OBEY THE PRAETORS — SPECIFICALLY ELESH NORN".
It's still not great, but the fact that they pratfalled on half of the worlds they decided to invade (because who scouts beforehand, amiright?) with their only major success being Theros (because Ajani is actually a good commander, unlike the rest of their generals). The smart play would've been to send their planeswalkers to a number of different planes, dump some Oil in the water, and then watch and take note of how it worked in places it wasn't designed for (after all, it was designed for Dominaria and the fact that it worked so well on Argentum might've been a fluke, and we already had foreshadowing that there was stuff that was resistant or immune to the Oil). But nope! Elesh Norn needed her sweet propaganda-perfect invasion, so it was "ram your faces into a wall"-o-clock for everyone involved.
They accidentally left some oil behind, rinse and repeat.
This 100%. As much as the Phyrexians can self-propagate through the use of the upgraded glistening oil, it still takes a bit of time for that to happen. If the initial force isn't large enough, they can't subjugate entire worlds. Likewise, because the Phyrexians are invading an entire (ostensibly) infinite multiverse all at once, they just aren't going to have enough soldiers to be effective everywhere. I think this is why the Invasion of Shandalar failed– it's just the one guy! Meanwhile, worlds where the Phyrexians were able to dedicate significant resources to compleating did not do that well against the Invasion. Theros seems completely screwed and probably would have fallen entirely if it weren't for Zhalfir and New Phyrexia changing places at the last second. The city of New Capenna seems to have been mostly destroyed in resisting the Phyrexians. The entire government of Eldraine has been destroyed... It seems like everywhere the Phyrexians focused their efforts, they succeeded, and they only lost because they were simultaneously trying to invade too many planes at once.
Granted, I don't think this comes across very well in the story articles. Too many of the "side stories" didn't focus on any major events in the invasion in favor of showing us what shenanigans random legendary creatures were up to. There's no reason why the Eldraine story should have been about Rankle trying to get a love potion when the literal monarchy is collapsing in the background. It seems like the Phyrexians suffer embarrassing defeats in every side story, even on the planes they're supposed to be winning. The plot is fine but the writing was awful.
They scouted beforehand.
They sent their most efficient weapon against each plane. Not that it mattered when Wizards weren’t brave with their lore.
For your information Yedora is not a new card. We first saw it two years ago. Now it has new frame and art.
https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid...+Grave+Gardener"+include:extras&unique=prints