Sets [OGW] Oath of the Gatewatch Spoiler Thread

[Goldenpineapple]

Well, we've reached the point where a 2/x for M isn't enough to be all "aw snap" over, so...

This is a neat. Still wishy-washy on colorless but trigger is nifty.

All of your creatures cycling is cool, but a mana flare for seven seems bad. EDH gold!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wow, this is awesome!

 

[FlowerSunRain]

Really not sure about "Generic Value 3 drop". Seems pretty Kitchen Finks-esque. Brainstorming something stupid on top in response to it dying is going to be insane.

I guess I haven't fully comprehended the opportunity cost of the colorless mana symbol yet. You can't fetch sources for it or get it off of sources that gives you one mana of any color, so its slightly less accessible then colored mana, but on the other hand the lands it comes on are WAY more powerful then color mana lands.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I feel generic value 3 drop will probably find its way into my cube...
..
...
....
...but it'll cost 1GG

 

[ahadabans]

Think of the colorless symbol like any other colored mana symbol. If Matter Reshaper cost 2W, how many white mana sources would you want in your deck?

The only thing that makes colorless slightly more flexible is the incidental colorless you get off things like pain lands and utility lands. In other words, you'll likely have access to some colorless without intentionally trying to support it. Still, if you want to reliably get that colorless spell cast on T3, you'll need to treat colorless like you would any other color. I think it will be a mistake not to offer wastes in the basic land piles personally.

 

[sigh]

A) You can CoCo this into play!
B)

+ +

 

[Chris Taylor]

Think of the colorless symbol like any other colored mana symbol. If Matter Reshaper cost 2W, how many white mana sources would you want in your deck?

The only thing that makes colorless slightly more flexible is the incidental colorless you get off things like pain lands and utility lands. In other words, you'll likely have access to some colorless without intentionally trying to support it. Still, if you want to reliably get that colorless spell cast on T3, you'll need to treat colorless like you would any other color. I think it will be a mistake not to offer wastes in the basic land piles personally.

I'm leaning more towards including cards that are higher up on the curve for this reason. You also can't realistically be base-wastes

 

[ahadabans]

I'm leaning more towards including cards that are higher up on the curve for this reason. You also can't realistically be base-wastes

I think you have to have Wastes in your base land piles regardless. I'm not suggesting people run 8 of them in their decks, but one or two to support whatever colorless cards you are running feels prudent. One of the issues with just relying on utility lands, mana rocks, pain lands, filters, etc is that none of that is fetchable (outside narrow one-off things like expedition map). Sakura-Tribe Elder gets you a forest. It also gets you a waste for a T3 Matter Reshaper.

Here's where I feel like people are going to be disappointed with the reality of colorless matters cards. If they think they can run one or two of them just because they have a pain land and a filter and a utility land. If you wanted to run Banefire as a finisher, would you be ok with just have a pain and filter land and teetering peaks? Or would you be tossing in at least one token mountain that you could fetch somehow?

 

[Goldenpineapple]

I always play a basic of my splash, no matter how small, so I can thank my opponent for pathing me.

I'll be getting some wastes because the chances of full art wastes ever appearing again seems a lot lower than wastes at all, so why not chuck a handful in the land pile? No real cost to do so.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Suprised no one's posted the new wisp. Seems like a pretty good enabler for all kinds of fun aggro / spell deck stuff?

 

[Jason Waddell]

Isn't is effectively functionally identical to Wisps though?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

You know I didn't even realise

 

[GiftsForgiven]

Full spoilers are here! There's some sweet tech that they've been holding out on.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/oathofthegatewatch

 

[FlowerSunRain]

For a one mana premium over Bonesplitter, you get an attacking dude instead of +1/0. Seems pretty interesting.

 

[Aston]

I've been looking through this and whilst it's not something I usually notice all that much, some of the flavour text is just awful. I already pointed out Oath of Chandra, but I'm only down to blue so far and Ancient Crab and Unity of Purpose are both just so clunky.


Oh, not to mention Kozilek himself.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

This is a fuckton of lifegain for the cost on a card that actually does something.

 

[Face]

We may have seen the last of awaken, but these kids do a pretty marvelous impression.

As terrible as cohort is, I feel that with a little luck, it could come together in a draft. Drafting that deck just may be a scramble for Rally and Zada Commandos, though. Just wish they'd whip up better red two-drops.

 

[Chriskool]

Before you get too excited: there is a defunct band with this name already.

 

[RavebornMuse]

Full spoilers are up! Here's what intrigues me on an initial pass-through.

What stands out to me are how very few cards intrigue me that use wastes mana (are we gonna get that symbol for the forums? pleeease?); it seems almost not worth including. With Blinding Drone we get a better Puppeteer, coming in at 1/3 with an activation cost of 1 wastes mana, but I'm not really sure I'd want to batter my mana base so that I can activate that ability when I could just as well be mucking up my mana base to splash a Feeling of Dread and a Sunscape Familiar. Matter Reshaper, Warping Wail, and Eldrazi Displacer are the only ones with a power ceiling high enough to be worthwhile includes if they're just for a splash. My personal splash philosophy is that a splash should be typically no more than 2 cards, and I should be happy casting them as late as T9; no to splashing Stormblood Berserker, yes to splashing Past in Flames. Considering this rule, only those 3 really look interesting enough for me. And of them, only Eldrazi Displacer really gets me going. Ah, well. I'll probably pass on the whole lot.

That leaves me with... 12 cards, ignoring lands and waste-mana stuff, that I'm interested in. It's a better haul than I expected, but I'm sure once I actually start analyzing where things would fit, my final includes will not be so numerous.

The lands are a bit difficult to place, but I'm thinking they'll be ULD picks. While Crumbling Vestige looks like it may do a decent Tendo Ice Bridge impression, the fact that you can't control when you get that mana outside of land sequencing makes it seem unreliable for accessing a splash; what if you simply have the 1 you drafted in your opening hand? Do you miss land drops to enable your splashed Shriekmaw down the road? I like it, but I'm not sure if it's really quite worth a main draft pick - I guess we'll see. Holdout Settlement has some potential, as well, but it's a bit hard to say that it's worth a main draft pick, either. (edit:) and heck, they may not even do anything in the ULD.

 

[Alphez]

Well this is a great control tool that works well in Pod decks and pitches to Force. Worth considering.

Heeey theeere! Solid. Very solid.

I think I would consider running literally any Prowess creature with CMC 2 or lower. This has at least 2-power!

Decent. I know people don't like gravepulses, but this has built-in Regrowth!

Not too shabby, but competition is fierce and this costs double black.

This is low-power, but people were trying to make Pain Seer worthwhile and this works in the same vein and shares its colour.

But, most of all... now it's time to decide if it's worth running colourless-specific cards! It seems that WotC didn't have any other card up their sleeve to convince us. The best ones were already out there. And a bunch of them are actually quite tempting.
I think we should try to imagine how our manabase would change in order to include colourless support before focusing on what would the potential additions be. Adding colourless support will have consequences for all our drafters, not just the ones that decide to use colourless cards. If we can make the experience pleasant for them, too, then we can support colourless. Otherwise, I'll pass.

 

[Alfonzo Bonzo]

I'm not sure there's enough colourless matters cards that I like for me to make it a theme I think. The only ones I like are:

Worldbreaker
Thought-knot seer
Matter reshaper
Blinding drone
Eldrazi Displacer

I'm probably going to add Worldbreaker as it's a fatty that ties in with graveyard themes. I'm not sure how great it's going to be though.

That Wall of Resurgence looks really great. There's actually a lot of interesting cards in the set. I'm not sure there's that many for a higher power environment, but there's quite a few you could do some interesting things with. I think they dropped the ball a bit with surge, I guess because they were worried about breaking things with alternative costs. You either have things which are only really playable at their surge cost, or things which only have a very slight reduction which isn't really that exciting. The best things about 'surge' are Jori En and Pyromancers Assault, which are more spells matter than surge. The cost of Pyromancers Assault might make it prohibitive.

At the moment I'm most likely going to be considering adding

Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Goblin Dark Dwellers
Wandering Fumarole
Hissing Quagmire
Oath of Nissa
Worldbreaker

Other things that I think are interesting and might be good in themed cubes or cubes pushing a particularly strong theme are

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Jori En
Seer's Lantern (possible for my main)
Gift of Tusks
Thought-knot Seer
Matter Reshaper
Warping Wail
Eldrazi Displacer
Wall of Resurgence
Blinking Drone
Slip through space (cool name!)
Corpse Churn
Embodiment of Furty
Phyromancers Assault
Birthing Hulk
Elemental Uprising
Embodiment of Insight
Pulse of Murasa
Seed Guardian (this might be main cubable)
Sylvan Advocate
Mina and Denn
Captains Claws
Holdout Settlement

(Sorry for the lack of images, can't seem to do it on the Ipad).

 

[FlowerSunRain]

My thoughts. There are no eldrazi cards here because I hate them.

Tier 1 (Definitely buy, almost certainly have a spot)

Oath of Jace: While it has less raw power then Compulsive Research and less synergistic explosiveness then atunement, Oath of Jace is a good compromise between the two.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: A decent lifelink creature in black is definitely something I was looking for. I might eventually go to a custom card, but I'll try this dude for now.
Oath of Nissa: A green cantrip with enchantress/devotion implications is pretty cool.
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrin: I ran a custom enchantment very similar to this card and liked it, but it was too narrow. Putting it on a decent body, even if the activated abilities are slightly weaker, is probably the right direction.
Mira and Denn, Wildborn: Having exploration effects on cards with wildly different stats will help this theme cross over better.
Stormchaser Mage: Like Alphez, I'd consider running almost any prowess creature under 3 mana. I'm slightly skeptial of this design, but keyword salad creatures tend to be more fun then they look. Unless they say vigilance.
Hissing Quagmire: Its a dual land that doesn't suck.
Neddle Spires: Its a dual land that doesn't suck.
Wandering Fumerole: Its a dual land that doesn't suck.

Tier 2 (Almost certainly buy, will probably get played at least temporarily)

Chandra, Flamecaller: Seems pretty right. I like it better then Wildfire. Having 3 distinct and powerful modes is pretty crazy. Not sure of its niche, exactly, but probably works in the same places Crater Hellion does.
Oath of Chandra: Shitty removal spell, but plays with some nice themes.
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar: Possible Curse of Predation replacement. Endless chumping on a 3 mana planeswalker could be annoying.
Pulse of Murasa: I've been on the lookout for green incidental lifegain. The card seems sweet, but 6 life might be too much of a beating on certain decks.
Cliffhaven Vampire: Underpowered, but his heart is in the right place. Could be custom buffed.
Captain's Claws: Pretty cool equipment, an equipment that replaces its holder might be annoying.
Sea Gate Wreckage: ULD stuff, awesome for some harder to draft decks like red/black control that can easily get into topdeck wars.
Mirrorpool: ULD stuff, no clue who wants it.

Tier 3 (Probably buy, have the potential to see play)

Linvala, the Preserver: People keep saying Elspeth 6 is over the top, but I like her better then all the alternatives. Maybe Linvala is a replacement?
Vampire Envoy: Underpowered, but her heart is in the right place. Could be custom buffed. Probably some mashup between her and Cliffhaven. Likely Cliffhaven's ability on her body.
Embodiment of Fury: Pretty cool red 4 drop, but yeah, red 4 drop.
Goblin Dark Dwellers: Good, but I'm not sure I want this?
Oath of Gideon: Good synergies, but I'm not sure this is the effect I want.
Sylvan Advocate: Seems overpushed even if he hits the right design notes.
Corpse Churn: Not sure if this is how black should get cards, but black doesn't have much of way of filling the graveyard an it and probably should so maybe its cool.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Grasp of darkness is a reprint, it was originally in scars

Corpse churn looks like a great raise dead effect.

 

[Dom Harvey]

I like:
Matter Reshaper
Spatial Contortion?
Warping Wail?
Eldrazi Displacer
Dimensional Infiltrator?
Crush of Tentacles
Oath of Jace?
Bearer of Silence?
Flaying Tendrils
Sifter of Skulls
Corpse Churn
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Goblin Dark-Dwellers
Vile Redeemer?
World Breaker?
Oath of Nissa
Pulse of Murasa
Void Grafter?
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim?
Stormchaser Mage
Needle Spires
Hissing Quagmire


Corpse Churn in particular intrigues me, it's a solid card and it's great to see black get self-mill for a change

 

[sigh]

I'm not sure why so many peeps are saying over pushed on Sylvan Advocate?
How many land creatures do y'all run in your average Gx deck?
Isn't this a nifty extra little payoff for getting that Hissing Quagmire?
It's removable every way to Sunday.
It scales hella slower than Goyf does, it's a 4/5 on T5/6, probably., Goyf can get there T2, if things go right (fetch -> handhate -> artifact creature).

I dunno, I really like it as a cool scaling beater. Will Play.