Sets (OTJ) Outlaws of Thunder Junction Previews

[Mown]

I think you're supposed to plot it in order to get the ability. It seems completely unobtainable otherwise.

Aether Vial gaming.
You can also flicker it at your opponent's end step if you want to commit to not playing anything else on your next turn, or Suspend it if that somehow made it into your cube. But yes, plotting it is by far the easiest.

I'm not really in the market for potentially 2 mana 4/5 flying lifelinkers with a pretty decent floor if you just curve it out normally, but it is a kind of cool design.

 

[LadyMapi]

Dust Animus is probably the best take on this kind of card that they've ever printed. Contrast...



And, hey, you could always just play it when you have 7+ lands out! I can kinda see that happening in Limited...

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh, UNTAPPED lands.... I'm just gonna be over here crying in the corner I guess.......

Did you really expect standard to handle 2 mana baneslayer? Just plop down two of these on T5?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Did you really expect standard to handle 2 mana baneslayer? Just plop down two of these on T5?

Technically you can plop down two of these on turn five… if you plot them on turn four!

 

[ravnic]

Dust Animus is just a freaking 2/3 flier for 1C with massive upside. When did white go from 2/1 flying+ as a rare to 2/3 flying+ as a rare. God I hate how blantantly they use increased stats every spoiler season now, like come on, isn't the 6/5 trample with upside for 2CC enough?

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Dust Animus is just a freaking 2/3 flier for 1C with massive upside. When did white go from 2/1 flying+ as a rare to 2/3 flying+ as a rare. God I hate how blantantly they use increased stats every spoiler season now, like come on, isn't the 6/5 trample with upside for 2CC enough?

If you're looking for the card to see competitive play, no.

We've lived in a world of two mana 8/9's for nearly twenty years. Honestly, it's a bit surprising that it has taken other baneslayery creatures so long to begin catching up.

 

[Brad]

Dust Animus is just a freaking 2/3 flier for 1C with massive upside.

I like the "more lands makes it better" for my Eldrazi format, but it could really use -0/-1 at the very least.

When I made my first cube, I was pretty happy to run 2/X flyers for 2 as an aggressive WU deck. Adding flash made them feel pretty strong lol.

it's a bit surprising that it has taken other baneslayery creatures so long to begin catching up.

Stats are in a weird place with how pushed everything has gotten. Your plan is really to play something and wait a turn?! Maybe that cuts it in Standard, I can't keep up there, but this 4/5 flying lifelink for 2 is basically a bulk rare in a couple years. Actually, almost everything is a bulk rare because of all these specialty boosters.

I'm so happy I only cube and can avoid all the shit I don't like.

 

[LadyMapi]

Dust Animus is just a freaking 2/3 flier for 1C with massive upside. When did white go from 2/1 flying+ as a rare to 2/3 flying+ as a rare.

2009, if we're talking about commons. Why do you ask?



Jokes aside, I feel like Dust Animus encapsulates one of my big annoyances with the stat creep from the past few sets (which, let's be honest here, has less to do with competitive than it does with EDH, where raw stats are naturally less impactful) — it makes it harder to mix old creatures with new creatures if you're trying to do cute things with your designs instead of just trying to powermax your archetypes.

Like, if I revisit these cubes, Plot seems like a pretty tasty mechanic to add to the mix... but the creatures are quite a bit more pushed stat-wise than the Kicker creatures that I've been using as a way to fill in gaps in the curve.

 

[safra]

If you're looking for the card to see competitive play, no.

We've lived in a world of two mana 8/9's for nearly twenty years. Honestly, it's a bit surprising that it has taken other baneslayery creatures so long to begin catching up.

goyf was a 5/6 and when he wasn't he was a 6/7 or an 0/1

 

[Brad]

it makes it harder to mix old creatures with new creatures

My Onslaught cube regularly has to deny uncommons for being too OP lol.

Outlaws of the Blind Eternities

 

[Sinner2221]

Dust Animus is just a freaking 2/3 flier for 1C with massive upside. When did white go from 2/1 flying+ as a rare to 2/3 flying+ as a rare. God I hate how blantantly they use increased stats every spoiler season now, like come on, isn't the 6/5 trample with upside for 2CC enough?

No, probaly a 6/5 trample with a situational upside is not even enough. It won't be a vintage cube staple or even warp standard. It is shocking how overpowered instants and sorceries have been (and still are) since the start of MTG.

 

[Rusje]

No, probl. a 6/5 trample with a situational upside is not even enough. It won't be a vintage cube staple or even warp standard. It is shocking how overpowered instants and sorceries have been (and still are) since the start of MTG.

?
As strong as some instants/sorceries have been/are, they are nowhere near overpowered. The power of the threats determine the clock. When one starts at 20 life, the power is different then when one starts at 40. When EDH started, this created slower clocks since the creatures did not have the buffed stats of these days.


Only one of them is a threat and that is Tendrils. Some of the others are ridiculously strong due to braking the card advantage rule, but are on their own not a threat (they will likely yield threats, but that is a different story). Yes, even recal is not a threat, busted as it is. Desire is in these modern days (without broken fast mana, which breaks another rule of mtg) likely not even worth playing.
In limited one can have weak creatures and strong answers/non-threat cards. It is shocking that when a threat does not pass the murder test that it can be dismissed. In the old days there were only a few creatures which had build in advantage (and those creatures were weaker than the others). The fact that a creature was a threat was enough and can still be enough in limited.

Creatures are so strong that bricking a turn due to drawing a land, or non-land is game over. Due to randomness of mtg this is something what happens sometimes. Whether you like that or not, gives you an indication of the desired strength of your threats.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

No, probaly a 6/5 trample with a situational upside is not even enough. It won't be a vintage cube staple or even warp standard. It is shocking how overpowered instants and sorceries have been (and still are) since the start of MTG.

?

Fact is, Colossal Rattlewurm still dies to an Infernal Grasp, so the solution is two mana cheaper than the problem, in this case. Creatures have been power crept immensely over the past few decades, but good old Terror variants often still trump them in mana efficiency, and hence could be seen as “overpowered” compared to those creatures.

 

[ravnic]

Fact is, Colossal Rattlewurm still dies to an Infernal Grasp, so the solution is two mana cheaper than the problem, in this case. Creatures have been power crept immensely over the past few decades, but good old Terror variants often still trump them in mana efficiency, and hence could be seen as “overpowered” compared to those creatures.

But the Rattlewurm still draws you a Rampant Growth, so it is not really solved with a Terror. Also, more importantly, removal spells are situational cards, they have to be cheaper and bring some advantages. Dust Animus for example doesn't even die to shock and disfigure variants, which makes it quite a bit more powerful than those cards, not even counting the plot and late game upside. And those removal spells is what we get to work with.

 

[Velrun]

Fact is, Colossal Rattlewurm still dies to an Infernal Grasp

That’s what it wants you to think. That’s how it gets you. It wants to die so it can do its thing from the GY.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well, it all depends on what you are running in your cube. I don’t run Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt or Dismember in my cube, nor Force of Will or Thoughtseize. Without premium removal, premium threats become problematic, so I don’t want to run a lot of today’s pushed bodies, including the Rattlewurm. A lot of people do run those removal spells though, and for them a two mana 2/3 flyer or 6/5 trample for four poses no problem at all.

Edit: Or to put it another way, if creatures would be much stronger than spells, you'ld expect most decks to run many more creatures than spells. A quick look at a recent high profile Standard tournament reveals that even the aggro decks top out at 20-21 creatures. While most decks run somewhere between 15-20 creatures, we even see a WU control deck without any creatures made the t8 here! I don't entirely agree with Sinner2221's claim that instants and sorceries are overpowered, but for cards that are inherently temporary and often situational, they sure see too much play to support the "creatures are overpowered" rhetoric either.

 

[Rusje]

Fact is, Colossal Rattlewurm still dies to an Infernal Grasp, so the solution is two mana cheaper than the problem, in this case. Creatures have been power crept immensely over the past few decades, but good old Terror variants often still trump them in mana efficiency, and hence could be seen as “overpowered” compared to those creatures.

True. But a terror without a target is a dead card, which the wurm is not. (Okay, if there is a moat in play...)
That is as Ravnic correctly states the reason why an answer card has to be cheaper (or have another advantage).
It is also why it is easier in limited. There one can limit the number of answers compared to the number of threats. Besides

Is the lace a great card since it is cheaper and than and answers the killcard? Lace beats terror beats wurm, hence lace beats wurm? (Or use intervene instead of lace). Funny thing is, the answer to an answer card is surprisingly bad due to being double conditional. It is often better to have another threat instead of being able to answer the answer card.

P.s. Force of will is surprisingly bad when the opponent is not doing broken things/spending a lot of cards to play a biggy. Hardcast is a whopping 5. And spending a total of 2 cards to answer one is, well, an disadvantage.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

As a person who plays a lot of sealed, I'm really quite unhappy with how big and beefy creatures are becoming. Some games just end up being complete non-games because such a big creature can't really be interacted with in combat, and removal tends to be pretty bad.

I feel like a game that was like mtg but just had a set of pretty fixed body sizes would be great. I feel like a 2 mv creature should only ever be, 2/2 or 3/1 or 1/3 or 0/4 or 2/1 etc. I actually wouldn't mind if I didn't see a single 3/2 or better ever again

 

[Phone]

This maybe naive, but it really seemed like the power (and toughness) creep happened when they started to push ETB ability creatures (Mulldrifters). When most of the important cards are mulldrifters, you can/have to push removal hard to keep up. So removal has been power crept basically every set and so Baneslayers need to be power crept every set too. If I can (almost) unconditionally kill anything with a 2-mv removal spell then the risk-reward of Baneslayers in magic shifts tremendously towards needing to have ultra-beefy boys to justify the mana cost disparity.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

But the Rattlewurm still draws you a Rampant Growth, so it is not really solved with a Terror. Also, more importantly, removal spells are situational cards, they have to be cheaper and bring some advantages. Dust Animus for example doesn't even die to shock and disfigure variants, which makes it quite a bit more powerful than those cards, not even counting the plot and late game upside. And those removal spells is what we get to work with.

Here's a question: is Slippery Bogle more powerful than Shock? It doesn't die to cheap removal. Heck, it doesn't die to any targeted removal!

Likewise, is Slippery Bogle more powerful than Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer? Ragavan dies to a simple shock, but Bogle doesn't.

Here's another question: is Lightning Strike better than Shock? It does 50% more damage, but it costs twice as much. If so, does that mean Lightning Strike is as good as Dust Animus?

I don't personally buy into the argument that a card dodging a reactive spell makes it better than those spells, especially if it's more expensive to cast. It's not like Vexing Beetle is a better card than Counterspell just because it can't be countered. One of these cards is a multi-format all-star; the other is a big bug.

 

[Rusje]

This maybe naive, but it really seemed like the power (and toughness) creep happened when they started to push ETB ability creatures (Mulldrifters). When most of the important cards are mulldrifters, you can/have to push removal hard to keep up. So removal has been power crept basically every set and so Baneslayers need to be power crept every set too. If I can (almost) unconditionally kill anything with a 2-mv removal spell then the risk-reward of Baneslayers in magic shifts tremendously towards needing to have ultra-beefy boys to justify the mana cost disparity.

The removal was as strong in the early days as it is now. Thing is, you can have strong removal and weak creatures and still be bashing heads with those creatures. It will only take longer to kill the opponent.

 

[Rusje]

Here's a question: is Slippery Bogle more powerful than Shock? It doesn't die to cheap removal. Heck, it doesn't die to any targeted removal!

Likewise, is Slippery Bogle more powerful than Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer? Ragavan dies to a simple shock, but Bogle doesn't.

Here's another question: is Lightning Strike better than Shock? It does 50% more damage, but it costs twice as much. If so, does that mean Lightning Strike is as good as Dust Animus?

I don't personally buy into the argument that a card dodging a reactive spell makes it better than those spells, especially if it's more expensive to cast. It's not like Vexing Beetle is a better card than Counterspell just because it can't be countered. One of these cards is a multi-format all-star; the other is a big bug.

Depends. Do you adhere to the dies to removal check or not?

Counterspell hasn't been a multi-format all star for a while. The question is how good it would be in standard, I guess playable but not back braking.

 

[Sinner2221]

Depends. Do you adhere to the dies to removal check or not?

Counterspell hasn't been a multi-format all star for a while. The question is how good it would be in standard, I guess playable but not back braking.

And still counterspell would be stronger and more played than this 6/5 trample wurm in standard or most cubes.

 

[Schafkurai]

Soo.... I really like this card!




"Legion Foundry"
Artifact
When Legion Foundry enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target.
, sacrifice another artifact: Create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact Creature token.

It's an over costed, sorcery speed shock that can convert your food, Chromatic Star or any other dinky artifact into a 3/3 repeatedly! I'd love to play it with Gilded Goose or Oni-Cult Anvil

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Soo.... I really like this card!


"Legion Foundry"
Artifact
When Legion Foundry enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target.
, sacrifice another artifact: Create a 3/3 colorless Golem artifact Creature token.

It's an over costed, sorcery speed shock that can convert your food, Chromatic Star or any other dinky artifact into a 3/3 repeatedly! I'd love to play it with Gilded Goose or Oni-Cult Anvil

This card seems very good! I like these high-floor engine cards that don't necessarily require a ton of support to put into a deck, but are very strong when they are surrounded by an abundance of enablers!