Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
If you don't want the trinket text and think instant edict effects are playable at all, there's always the og Diabolic Edict.
General [STX] Strixhaven Spoilers
- Thread starter Jason Waddell
- Start date
That's fair. I do run two Liliana cards so it can be relevant every now and then. But most of all I just really like the promo art compared to any Diabolic Edict printing thus far:
Pretty much. Best case scenario it kills a walker on an empty board, worst case you've killed their weakest creature and didn't really make a big impact clearing the way. For standalone edicts I just value mana efficiency pretty highly if you don't have some way to recur them like you would with edicts on a body.
I know some folks have been getting good mileage out of Pharika's Libation, but it seems a little weak to me. I'm almost tempted to make a mashup of the two--make an Inkling, enemy sacs a critter, enemy sacs a PW, or enemy sacs an enchantment, but at that point it's just Angrath's Rampage with extra steps. (Not that I'd mind that, honestly.)
What’s your Sneaky Welder Archetype?Are you doubling up on Sneak Attack or something?
Mostly in conjunction with Black's:
It spills into the other colors as well...but the name has more to do with the haste of the necromancer, grave upheaval, sneak attack, and feldon, and the surprise factor of makeshift mannequin and manticore fling
So Cursed Mirror is right at home in the archetype...it is ramp, a welder target, and a hasted clone effect.
Another version I've run at times is the Flayer Combo:
With the right setup you can get a one-shot kill with all of the Hatebound triggers.
Actually I think Ruxa might be kinda fun in a "beginner cube / simple cube" that tries to run quite a lot of vanilla beaters?
I thought this, too, but the number of decent french vanilla beaters is way higher than straight up vanilla. Still, tokens and a few vanillas is pretty useful. A 4/4 with a chance to +1 ETB is plenty decent.
Feels like a Yu-Gi-Oh card that cares about Normal Monsters, if anyone has experience there.
Orzhov has some bangers.
Ever wanted to play Dark Confidant in a multiple-Eldrazi deck with a clear conscience? Ever wanted a Dark Confidant that also survives Wrenn and Six and also gives you free info about the opponent?
edit: and in case my hyperbole did not make it clear, I think this card is actually better than Dark Confidant, even if it may hurt you for more mean damage in the decks that Bob's best in because they tend to have very low mana curve relative to the average opponent's, because I really like the extra toughness and also the Goblin-Guide-esque peeking.
edit2: I'm illiterate, they get a card too, oh god no don't.
Like Luminarch Aspirant, but bad. But good for multiplayer.
Can you imagine if this was legal in retail limited? What an enormous beating.
I like mentor.
A Demonstrate card I don't hate playing in two-player.
Durdly, but okay.
Super durdly, but okay.
I like Trading Post but, you know.
firmly in multiplayer territory now
Ever wanted to play Dark Confidant in a multiple-Eldrazi deck with a clear conscience? Ever wanted a Dark Confidant that also survives Wrenn and Six and also gives you free info about the opponent?
edit: and in case my hyperbole did not make it clear, I think this card is actually better than Dark Confidant, even if it may hurt you for more mean damage in the decks that Bob's best in because they tend to have very low mana curve relative to the average opponent's, because I really like the extra toughness and also the Goblin-Guide-esque peeking.
edit2: I'm illiterate, they get a card too, oh god no don't.
Like Luminarch Aspirant, but bad. But good for multiplayer.
Can you imagine if this was legal in retail limited? What an enormous beating.
I like mentor.
A Demonstrate card I don't hate playing in two-player.
Durdly, but okay.
Super durdly, but okay.
I like Trading Post but, you know.
firmly in multiplayer territory now
Fain is amazing just for that first ability alone, it's so good.
Seeker, I like your take except for Combat Calligrapher. You trigger it too, meaning that it's a MV-4 Rabblemaster with flying that makes tokens that are more than twice as good. It's probably a lot better than Emeria Angel, which is solidly average.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Also doesn't your opponent draw with keen deulist?
Am I crazy or are a lot of the cards printed in connection with strixhaven reaally wordy??
...wow, okay, I'm illiterate.
...wow, okay, card blows and I'm illiterate.
What a way to find out that my kindergarten teacher did a worse job than expected
edit: I also thought Fain cost 4 and not 3 so that's a substantial improvement there too. Really showing my whole brain here.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Worse: it's too wordy for US
We're the deeply entrenched target audience for this! If we're having trouble parsing things, good lord think of the normies!
...wow, okay, I'm illiterate.
...wow, okay, card blows and I'm illiterate.
What a way to find out that my kindergarten teacher did a worse job than expected
edit: I also thought Fain cost 4 and not 3 so that's a substantial improvement there too. Really showing my whole brain here.
In that approximately 100% of us have made an error like this recently, I wouldn't beat yourself up over it.
Dom's line from the podcast was something along the lines of "We thought questing beast was bad, and now we've got a MDFC where both sides are questing beast length"
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
It's just Silverquill. These people don't know when to stop writing!
Frankly, I'm just impressed that WotC has returned to this level of complexity after the legendary keelhauling that led to the New World Order schema of "simplicity. "
And I agree, don't beat yourself up about it, Seeker. I've been doing the same thing over and over again this whole spoiler season. You were just excited to talk about new cards, the way we all are.
And I agree, don't beat yourself up about it, Seeker. I've been doing the same thing over and over again this whole spoiler season. You were just excited to talk about new cards, the way we all are.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
It's just Silverquill. These people don't know when to stop writing!
Great take, but you know it's not just the Silverquill cards
This complexity is why I really dislike all the "shortcuts" they've made to their phrasing recently. One major thing changing CMC to MV does on a card is let them cram more complexity into that text box*. This is operating under the principle that "converted mana cost" and "mana value" both take the same mental space to actually process, since they are talking about the same card concept. Same with "create a token" and "put a token onto the battlefield". Same mental card concept, just less physical space taken now.
Additional words they can now fit add additional card concepts that they couldn't fit before. Their overall card complexity cap is now higher.
Wordy phrases are self-limiting on the complexity in a way. Removing some of that self-limiting can lead to ever increasing readability difficulties.....
(I do like "create a token" for the record. That's a very intuitive phrase)
Additional words they can now fit add additional card concepts that they couldn't fit before. Their overall card complexity cap is now higher.
Wordy phrases are self-limiting on the complexity in a way. Removing some of that self-limiting can lead to ever increasing readability difficulties.....
(I do like "create a token" for the record. That's a very intuitive phrase)
It's way too much. Like Chris said, we're probably in the top percentage of enfranchised players that actually focus on new releases, but even then there are so many cards where I'm like wait what did this do again? I know they haven't had paper Magic to pull data from for over a year now, but this complexity leap is crazy if you're someone new or very casual with the game. I feel dumb for thinking that Adventures were too wordy in Eldraine.
I really hope it ends up like Velrun mentioned in a thread where they went Strixhaven - Kaldheim - Zendikar in terms of internal MDFC design so they actually got better as they went along. ZNR had simple to understand cards and cycles with similar templating, no problem at all playing with those cards. This is just all over the place.
To some of the points above, I do feel like they are pushing forward with new design space at the cost of elegance. Commander sets have always leaned more in this direction, but some of these cards strike me as particularly brutish. I feel like not so long ago, if a card needed to have an arguably confusing phrase like "Activate only once" tacked on like this, the design would have been scrapped as unworkable.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
FWIW these "Activate your secretly chosen opponent" cards do play fine
Emissary of Grudges is in a friend of mine's cube and it's strong
Emissary of Grudges is in a friend of mine's cube and it's strong
Man I was so excited for that Dark Confidant variant until I realized it drew both players a card.