General Print this Wizards! (So I can put it in my cube)

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Guys, this card is the bee's knees. In testing I used it both as clutch removal for problem permanents (flyers, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Sentinel of the Eternal Watch) and as creature pump. Awesome tool for green!

Beastform.png

For the myopic:

Beastform {2}{G}
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature is a Beast with base power and toughness 4/4 and has trample, and it loses all other abilities and creature types.
When Beastform is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return Beastform to its owner's hand.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Chris Taylor said:
That was the idea yes.
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Well obviously. It's also the reason why your card is miles better than Mirri's Guile. Mid- to late game you're suddenly drawing all gas, which is insane. Crystal Ball is actually very close to playable, because the effect is so strong. At {2}{G} I still think it's playable, especially if you drop it off a mana elf, but less obviously good. I'ld suggest trying it at Library's {1}{G} casting cost, and expect it to perform similarly, maybe even better.
 
ColonelSanders

ColonelSanders

I've always found sylvan to be pretty damn good, especially if you have fetches + rampant growth style ramp effects to shuffle. Scry 2 on upkeep for G seems better in most cases unless you frequently find yourself paying life for sylvan. So, do you want something at a sylvan(+) power level?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
ColonelSanders said:
I've always found sylvan to be pretty damn good, especially if you have fetches + rampant growth style ramp effects to shuffle. Scry 2 on upkeep for G seems better in most cases unless you frequently find yourself paying life for sylvan. So, do you want something at a sylvan(+) power level?
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See, I keep telling myself, but nobody ever wants sylvan in their final 40, and I hate the stupid, complicated for complicated sake wording it has because it predates good templating.
So I switched to the far simpler Mirri's Guile, since nobody ever payed life for sylvan anyways. But this is more ostensibly like sensei's divining top, and I think players are generally a bit more clued into the fact that it requires shuffle effects?

But Mirri's Guile is still not making people's 40s, and this is transcending archetypes as well. Green makes a decent control color in my cube (at least from a support sense, it's not got custom wraths or anything), and it's possible I need more shuffle effects, but I think a simpler but comparable card might be the better route. 1G seems like a better cost for this idea
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Minus the cheating I actually am a fan of forcing a card/archetype/whatever to teach players that it exists and they should value it.

n.b. this doesn't work with blue cards. People will either love them or hate them. I've forced blue (and had it be open) for the last umpteen drafts and only my most impressionable drafter has ever tried it; she drafted blue green, didn't understand how to take advantage of flash cards, and got mauled. Perhaps I should make her some flash cards on how to play Magic at instant speed.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
Holy crap, I wonder if we have the same playgroups. Because I'm always trying to stay open and read signals, I end up in base blue an inordinate amount of the time - well over 50% - because a decent chunk of my drafters are averse to the mere notion of playing blue cards. They love their black cards, their red cards, and especially their green cards, but it's like my blue cards have some layer of contagious fungus on them. Sometimes one of them will "do something different" and go blue one draft, have a whale of a time doing it and proclaim that they're having a lot of fun... and then decide they want to go back to ol' reliable white and red cards the next three drafts afterwards.

I'm not sure what's so intimidating about blue, other than the fact that it has fewer bread and butter creatures than the other colours.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Ferret said:
Teach them. Teach them by drafting Guile and slipping yourself a second copy on the sly and melting face.
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I've been doing a lot of teaching over the years :p My playgroup is pretty casual, a lot of them only really play cube the once every 1-2 weeks I host it. Fetchlands are good, you need more manafixing then you ever will baneslayer angels, no color is stronger than being in the right deck for your seat, hatedrafting is not an equitable option, hell I give enough people pre-pack-3 advice about how their deck is going I'm not sure more advice will stick :p

Also I've already got a second guile in there :p
I'm more convinced that the ammount a flat, no synergy guile improves your draws isn't worth a card. Sensei's divining top usually isn't, and if merfolk looter put cards you drew this turn on top of your library instead of in your yard, I'm not sure we'd be playing it either. Hell most people aren't even playing merfolk looter these days, unless it's also secretly snapcaster mage 2-3 times!

Eric Chan said:
Holy crap, I wonder if we have the same playgroups. Because I'm always trying to stay open and read signals, I end up in base blue an inordinate amount of the time - well over 50% - because a decent chunk of my drafters are averse to the mere notion of playing blue cards. They love their black cards, their red cards, and especially their green cards, but it's like my blue cards have some layer of contagious fungus on them. Sometimes one of them will "do something different" and go blue one draft, have a whale of a time doing it and proclaim that they're having a lot of fun... and then decide they want to go back to ol' reliable white and red cards the next three drafts afterwards.

I'm not sure what's so intimidating about blue, other than the fact that it has fewer bread and butter creature than the other colours.
Click to expand...

I know this is hardly feasable at all, but the presence of a blue beatdown deck really has helped my drafters. Really powerful crossover cards like Snapcaster Mage and Jace, the Mind Sculptor already go in the beatdown deck, and clue the odd drafter in like "Oh man, Jace here would be pretty nifty if I had just wrathed my opponent wouldn't it!"

We'll all be 80 before blue has enough copies of savannah lions and seeker of the way for anyone who's not making their own cards to have a decent beatdown deck, but when that day comes I highly recommend it.
(Yes I know there's phantasmal bear, delver and cloudfin raptor, but they all have issues and I know I probably want about 8 aggressive 1 drops if that color can make an aggressive deck, at 450 anyways. I can see people running phantasmal bear, but 8 phantasmal bears? And then the blue deck just can't run equipment? There's more than surface issues here)
 
Lucre

Lucre

I find the blue beat down cards kinda strangling and it's amazing how many small blue creatures go unplanted draft to draft.
 
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