General Rivals of Ixalan (RIX) Spoilers

Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Well... If you know ascend is in the cube, you know it might get turned on when your opponent nears 10 permanents. Also, so far the effects seem feast or famine than miracle. Unlike miracle, I don't expect ascend to be a shitty mechanic to be on the receiving end.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Onderzeeboot said:
Well... If you know ascend is in the cube, you know it might get turned on when your opponent nears 10 permanents. Also, so far the effects seem feast or famine than miracle. Unlike miracle, I don't expect ascend to be a shitty mechanic to be on the receiving end.
Click to expand...

That's very true.
However I feel like you might misunderstand what I meant with the 'surprise' element. That's my fault because the guilt is always on the messenger end and not on the receiving end. With surprise I meant "Hey! I just drew a permanent! Great man, lucky me." Doesn't it have the same feeling as Miracles except three times more likely to happen and thus a little less RNG-based?
 
sigh

sigh

You can obviously be in a situation where you want the city's blessing, but don't yet have enough permanents. I wouldn't go so far as to say you can't do anything about it during play though... you can play more permanents! What I mean is you can extend your board beyond what you might have normally in order to get to 10 faster. Not saying that's a good idea for this particular card (relatively low upside overall), but possible.

They've done a great job making ascend quite a bit less feast/famine than other "switch" mechanics, which is great. This is still elite vanguard without ascend, which is a perfectly fine baseline. That draw spell is still divination, which is also fine, etc.
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
I feel I need to play a few drafts where I actively count how many permanents end up on the battlefield. I don't think that I reach 10 particularly often, but then again, I could be wrong. I also have no idea which particular types of decks get to 10 in my list. I don't think my aggro decks go wide enough, but I suspect that my artifact control decks might get to 10 in the late game, but none of the effects spoiled thus far really fit into that kind of shell.

In lower power lists, with artifact support via clue, treasure and servo tokens, getting to 10 might be more viable. Something like an anthem which offered +2/+2 with the Blessing, and +1/+1 without might be interesting in such a shell, but unfortunately in this tribal block, Glorious Destiny, which only pumps an individual creature type will likely be the closest we will get.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Flex that grade 10 french:
warsailmarauder.jpg

"Warsail Marauder"
1U
Creature - Human Pirate
Flying

Whenever Warsail Marauder attacks, target creature defending player controls loses all abilities and has a base power and toughness of 0/1 until end of turn.
2/1

Also this adorable little top down fella:
cherishedhatchling.jpg
 
Velrun

Velrun

sigh said:
You can obviously be in a situation where you want the city's blessing, but don't yet have enough permanents. I wouldn't go so far as to say you can't do anything about it during play though... you can play more permanents! What I mean is you can extend your board beyond what you might have normally in order to get to 10 faster.
Click to expand...

I wouldn’t say that either. In fact I just said you could change your deck building strategy in order to try and make it work ;)

May I charge you with the assignment to test Ascend? Not only to see how likely you are to complete the 10-permanent-task but also how rewarding it is?
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
You assess these cards by gauging how reasonable the floor is, like you would with any card. If a 2/1 for {W} is reasonable in your format than you can run it. Anything beyond that is just upside, and if you have decks that can increase board presence rapidly, than that just means you have an existing shell for it to slot into, and it can be a potential synergy signal.

That being said, skymarcher and kytheon are completly different cards. The main appeal of skymarcher is that you can top deck it past turn 6 and it might not be completly dead, while you run kytheon because its a one drop that can scale with the changing game texture. The ten pernament requirement is a steep one, and skymarcher isn't a card that you should run on the basis that its reliably, or semi-reliably going to scale into an evasive threat around the point in the game when 2/1 ground pounders are obsolete. Its a good card though, and especially good in limited formats, where drafters sometimes slot in odd numbers of these cards, and this is a much more forgiving cards than savannah lions in those instances. I'm very happy that it exists.
 
sigh

sigh

Velrun said:
I wouldn’t say that either. In fact I just said you could change your deck building strategy in order to try and make it work ;)

May I charge you with the assignment to test Ascend? Not only to see how likely you are to complete the 10-permanent-task but also how rewarding it is?
Click to expand...
I stated "DURING PLAY" to specifically not address that point; yes I get that your deck should synergize with the mechanic. You stated specifically that deck building was the ONLY way to force it, which isn't necessarily true (as I stated).

I will be testing at least this one ascend card. I won't go out my way to test the entire mechanic though. Might casually count my permanents while im playing every now and then

I also do realize they aren't the same slot. I'm not removing Kytheon to satisfy the same slot, I just want to take him out cuz he's too much.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Oh okay so the suggestion is to simply do as follows: “I wouldn't go so far as to say you can't do anything about it during play though... you can play more permanents!”

?

So you are going to solve the Ascend mechanic issue by simply playing more permanents than you have? Or you want to somehow have more permanents in your hand than if you didn’t have an Ascend card in hand/on the battlefield?

It takes a lot to confuse me but I am confused. If we ignore deck building because that’s the premise and purely focus on the game play. How are we going to play more permanents than we normally would?

I suggested not attacking because that could lead to a trade but that can rarely lead to optimal situations if you are an aggro deck.

And I accept your decline on the keyword-testing task. I guess I’ll have to do it myself.
 
Velrun

Velrun

inscho said:
Often times playing every permanent in your hand is undesirable due to sweepers, bluffing, baiting removal, etc.

I also think assigning people tasks on an online forum is tacky, and a sure fire way to get under someone's skin.
Click to expand...

So you’re going to run into a sweeper on purpose in order to give a creature flying?

I might be stupid but I do not get it. Aggro decks usually play all their stuff as fast as possible in order to win before the opponent can stabilize.

I did not intent to get under his skin. I asked him a question so we could solve the question at hand in an academic way like the way I tested The Treasure Format:
http://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/three-player-formats.1816/

I thought maybe someone else would do it this time.
 
Velrun

Velrun

On a second (fifth) thought I will admit Sigh is right: There are ways to push Ascend strategies during game play.

I do not see them as optimal if we’re calculating win-chances but there are ways to affect the outcome. I concede my point and Sigh wins.
 
inscho

inscho

Velrun said:
So you’re going to run into a sweeper on purpose in order to give a creature flying?

I might be stupid but I do not get it. Aggro decks usually play all their stuff as fast as possible in order to win before the opponent can stabilize.
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I can't tell you how many times I've held a card such a llanowar elf around turn 9 as it had literally no impact on the board, and rather had more value as a bluffing tool. If I ran it out there to fuel ascend, will it break my game if my opponent wraths? Probably not. Similarly with excess lands...I've held onto multiple lands to mess with an opponents head...are those cards combat tricks, removal, counterspells?


EDITsss: Also, say you're gripping an oblivion ring and you can afford to sit on it for a little bit to hit a better target. You draw little flyer bro that can soar over a congested battlefield if you only had enough permanents. That might sway you to drop the o-ring, and go on the attack rather than slow rolling. All I'm saying is there is a lot of small instances that come up all the time in your average game.
 
Velrun

Velrun

You have convinced me. I was wrong.

I must even admit that Ascend seems a little interesting now. Perhaps I can find one Ascend card from RIX to try in my cube. However having multiples seems like a more interesting angle if the power level is adequate.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse



Profane Procession // Tomb of the Dusk Rose
{3}{W}{B}: exile target creature, flip when you've exiled 3 or more.

2{W}{B}, {T}: put a card exiled with ~ onto the battlefield under your control.

Not sure I have space for all of these, but seems to be doing a fine job of making vampires look like a fun new angle to life gain/pay strategies and aristocrats. Really fond of this downsized Phyrexian Rager, as the 3-drop slot for black is rather competitive these days for me, although I'm not sure I have space for either at this point.

Admiral's Order fits the aggressive, tempo-oriented counterspell slot I've been looking to fill now that {U}{G} and {U}{W} both play aggressively so often in my format. I think it's worth considering if you've got beatdown decks that use blue, as those decks have weird requirements for the sort of counterspells they're interested in.

Also pretty interested in Tomb Robber, as explore is a wonderful mechanic and black absolutely wants to do it more than the other colors (I guess white might like it a lot too).
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
Man, Golden Demise is exactly the Ascend card for the artifact-control shells in my list, the ones which are actually pretty likely to reach 10 permanents. Does a fine job of stalling aggro starts, then late game doesn't kill all of your own 1/1s and clears the way for them.

Anyway, here is my fun math problem:
forerunneroftheempire.jpg
+
polyraptor.jpg


How much power do you end up with? I think it is 40 - spread across 8 Polyraptors, but there might be a better way to stack the triggers.
 
M

McMenno

Polyraptor 1 etb, triggers Forerunner, Polyraptor 1 triggers.
Polyraptor 2 etb, triggers Forerunner, Polyraptor 1 and 2 trigger.
Polyraptor 3 and 4 etb, both trigger Forerunner.
First Forerunner trigger resolves, make 4 more raptors and Forerunner dies.
Second Forerunner trigger resolves, make 8 more raptors.

In total you should end up with 80 power spread across 16 bodies.

EDIT: woops, I missed how triggers worked
 
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Laz

Laz

Developer
McMenno said:
Polyraptor 1 etb, triggers Forerunner, Polyraptor 1 triggers.
Polyraptor 2 etb, triggers Forerunner, Polyraptor 1 and 2 trigger.
Polyraptor 3 and 4 etb, both trigger Forerunner.
First Forerunner trigger resolves, make 4 more raptors and Forerunner dies.
Second Forerunner trigger resolves, make 8 more raptors.

In total you should end up with 80 power spread across 16 bodies.
Click to expand...


Nice! I mentally passed on one of the Forerunner triggers to allow more bodies to enter before resolving it, but your way is better.
 
Laz

Laz

Developer
goldenguardian.jpg
goldforgegarrison.jpg

"Golden Guardian" {4}
Artifact Creature - Golem
Defender
{2}:Golden Guardian fights another target creature you control. If the Golden Guardian dies, return it to the battlefield under your control transformed.
4/4

"Golden Garrison"
Land
{T}: Add 2 mana of any one color to your mana pool.
{4}{T}: Create a colorless 4/4 artifact Golem creature token.

This is an... interestingly designed card. Super mana intensive sac outlet, a non-terrible body/cost ratio (Defender... I know), but that flip side! Sweet Golem synergies too :). I think I will have to test this out, because it is really hard to evaluate just by reading it.
 
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