Sets [OGW] Oath of the Gatewatch Spoiler Thread
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Bant Blink Flash synergies doesnt sound too good. Using Flash, Blink and etb cards which are good on their own should create enough funny plays.
Bant flash was a good deck in standard just a little while back, and I'm not sure how to read what you are saying. First sentence says that the synergy won't be good, but the second says that running cards that have flash/blink effects will create good plays? Are none of the cards good on their own? Restoration angel? Advent of the wurm? I can see arguments on the others I mentioned being a little weak. Most of the flash creatures being highlighted have ETB effects, including bounding krasis and our new eldrazi friend, so seems that blink and flash could go hand in hand. Turns out that the deck ends up being bant very easily.
Maybe Monds meant that it's sweet as an interaction but doesn't really need to be a theme? As a player I'd feel way better about finding out sweet blink targets on my own rather than having as a "theme".
Being told "hey dude, get as muuuch sacrifice shit as possible!" is super fun because it turns the draft into a treasure hunt for bombardments and gravecrawlers and threaten effects but if someone tells you "you should totally pick up thragtusk and a resoangel" you just go duh of course, where's the sphinx's rev and snapcaster?
Being told "hey dude, get as muuuch sacrifice shit as possible!" is super fun because it turns the draft into a treasure hunt for bombardments and gravecrawlers and threaten effects but if someone tells you "you should totally pick up thragtusk and a resoangel" you just go duh of course, where's the sphinx's rev and snapcaster?
Our local pro once pulled a UWb deck with Silumgar's Command, Resto Angel, Venser, Finks and a bunch of other 187 effects. It was brutal, every combat phase felt like Russian roulette... but one-sided. The tag team Resto+Venser is totally nuts. I loved it
I don't think you can call it Russian roulette when each chamber in the gun is loaded with a different type of bullet.
Personally, I don't like it when decks have more than ~10 instants/flash perms in cube/limited for reasons to which Alphez alluded. A player's main phase should be somewhat sancrosanct as to not provide continuous threat of response after a certain # of responses have occurred. While I have found that sweating a few combats or resolutions to be great Magic, there is a point of diminishing returns to enjoyment. Resources are just too thin in most limited to give good options when an opponent can interact with every spell or every combat phase over the course of many turns.
On the flip side, there should be enough variation and quantity in instant-speed responses so that players are required to think about possible responses to their mainphase/own-combat actions. Constrained instant-speed response cards (Negate as Jason mentioned, Valorous Stance, etc.) seem to be more palatable in larger numbers as there is a cost to keep open the ability to cast them.
I imagine that blinking 187 creatures would need to follow a similar constrained approach to be palatable en masse. E.g., that new Eldrazi Deadeye Navigator should be playing with the likes of Keening Banshee and Bala Ged Scorpion not Shriekmaw and Nekrataal
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
I think its better to think in terms of providing impactful instant speed spells, to reward people for keeping mana open, than overloading on flash creatures.
A lot of ripetide formats are so fast, that keeping mana open to cast below the curve spells seems like a poor strategy. You're just going to get killed on tempo.
I would rather be running cheap removal that helps me get back on plan, with a few generic eot mana sinks (e.g think twice) to cover me if I don't use my mana. The main problem is getting punished for holding up mana, and the flash dudes don't really address that well.
A lot of ripetide formats are so fast, that keeping mana open to cast below the curve spells seems like a poor strategy. You're just going to get killed on tempo.
I would rather be running cheap removal that helps me get back on plan, with a few generic eot mana sinks (e.g think twice) to cover me if I don't use my mana. The main problem is getting punished for holding up mana, and the flash dudes don't really address that well.
I called it "Russian roulette" because you never knew when the shot would come, but you could rest assured that it would, sooner or later! Not the best analogy ever, I agree.
Well I might be an Old Fogey, but I like to occasionally have some stack interaction. Instant-speed stuff is the best way to ensure that.
In my case, I think it's significant that it was the best player in my group who built that deck. The other players let him have all the nicest toys, so he seized the opportunity!
I think to fully flush out support for an "instant speed" deck, you need some creatures too, though. Also, I don't see how many, or any of these creatures are that below curve? Beyond the fact that your squad is a lot better in combat because they are all combat tricks, I think the idea of the deck would be to build early with stuff like Noble Hierarch, wall of omens, wall of blossoms, and then transition into a deck that can utilitize it's mana whenever. This would be both with spells and creatures. For reference, I used to run a deck like this in RTR-THR standard, and it would demolish Monoblack and esper control, because it could out permission and out-threat both decks.
Note that I agree that this may be one of those "themeless themes" that is just there as an option, but only because the spells are cool enough together. Still think that the UWG section can be "optimized" with little negative impact to anything else
A couple other coolio things:
Approximately this. I shouldn't write here when at work and using my phone.
So spicy!
That chandra seems neat, but overall I'm unimpressed with the Oath cycle.
Surge looks like it's going to be amazing in the penny pincher cube without all the free untap land spells. You could make a really strong spells matter theme in a lower powered cube. I thought surge was probably going to be terrible in cube, but it could be one of the more interesting things to come out of the set, if you're building a cube around it.
Oath of Nissa is clearly quite powerful, but Oath of Jace looks really strong as well. I think we might be surprised by Oath of Chandra, I just have a feeling about it. Shame these weren't around when we were all trying out enchantment themes with Theros. I expect FSR is probably quite keen on them for his cube.
Oath of Nissa is clearly quite powerful, but Oath of Jace looks really strong as well. I think we might be surprised by Oath of Chandra, I just have a feeling about it. Shame these weren't around when we were all trying out enchantment themes with Theros. I expect FSR is probably quite keen on them for his cube.
I, too, love the flavour text on Oath of Chandra. So red!
Am I the only one who is disturbed by the fact that the art above and the one in Fall of the Titans are basically the same? They could at least show a slightly different perspective on the Eldrazis in the background. We would still understand that things are happening simultaneously, but the whole thing would be a lot more realistic. Chris Rallis, you are a damn lazy guy.
I don't get Reality Smasher. It's just a bunch of good stats and abilities, but I don't see why we needed this. In this respect, it's really colourless in that I find it to be a very uninspired and uninspiring card. I think the guy who came up with its flavour text kind of agrees with me
Am I the only one who is disturbed by the fact that the art above and the one in Fall of the Titans are basically the same? They could at least show a slightly different perspective on the Eldrazis in the background. We would still understand that things are happening simultaneously, but the whole thing would be a lot more realistic. Chris Rallis, you are a damn lazy guy.
I don't get Reality Smasher. It's just a bunch of good stats and abilities, but I don't see why we needed this. In this respect, it's really colourless in that I find it to be a very uninspired and uninspiring card. I think the guy who came up with its flavour text kind of agrees with me
lolwut....... is this good enough to run on it's own, not even caring about the middle part? Or would that be a trap card?
Uh... maybe... like.... uh.... if you've been running Crystal Ball, but wish those plebian non-blue mages couldn't use it, but also feel that it gets Naturalized too often, and would like to be able to scry more than 2 in a turn on occasions when you have
up.So... cards like
Are very weird in cube. Running multiples isn't the answer, I feel, to making these cards work, as someone could easily hatedraft a single copy and screw the player trying for these types of weird strategies. Then you have to include like six biovisionaries, and eeeeh... blech.
What if there was only a single copy of these types of cards (like biovisionary), in the cube, and when that player picks it they get the other 3 from a seperate pile? There are issues with that idea also, of course, as the biovisionary player is essentially picking up 4 cards for one, but... hm. It's quite the problem.
Are very weird in cube. Running multiples isn't the answer, I feel, to making these cards work, as someone could easily hatedraft a single copy and screw the player trying for these types of weird strategies. Then you have to include like six biovisionaries, and eeeeh... blech.
What if there was only a single copy of these types of cards (like biovisionary), in the cube, and when that player picks it they get the other 3 from a seperate pile? There are issues with that idea also, of course, as the biovisionary player is essentially picking up 4 cards for one, but... hm. It's quite the problem.
I'll let my opponent take as many gold-costed vanilla 2/3s for 3 as he wants. Good luck winning with those duds.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Dear lord, remember when Biovisionary was one of the possible pulls in the Simic preconstructed booster at the prerelease! Yeah, I was one of those unlucky guys. Fuck Biovisionary!
Grillo_Parlante
Contributor
A lot of flash creatures make some sacrifice in stats to make up for the fact that they have flash. Bounding krasis, that wolfir card, deceiver exarch: not that impressive. Teferi is a lot of awkward mana, etc. Its even worse if you have an etb heavy format, since those cards generally don't etb, and are generally at the same mana point.
Resto angel is great, but most of those cards don't approach that level of efficiency.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
When I said this set delivers, I specifically meant this set except this one mechanic. Seriously, who came up with this parasitic shit?
They explicitly designed rally so it would work in non-ally decks, and then they print this in the next set? Wtf?
Pick 1 get 4 for Squadron Hawk is a thing for sure. I think the rules overhead outweighs the benefit for how I cube, but if your group is into it, it's totally viable.
Oath of the Gatewatch seems like the set they've been building up to since Lorwyn, pretty much. It seems fairly transparently a set up for the Magic movie, and a shift from self-contained block stories to overreaching arcs. I'm interested where this is coming from - planeswalkers as the Avengers seems very Mark Rosewater, but I'm not sure how much input he has on the creative side these days. It seems like it's a good time for this with the Avengers movies being so popular and Justice League coming out, and I am looking forward to seeing how well an effectively brand new superhero property fares up against the classics.
I do this and it's very popular, but it does add another thing to explain at the start of a draft with new players, along with ULD, mention it's not singleton and whatever else.