General [WAR] War of the Spark

[Chris Taylor]

I'm hype on the art as well!

Not loving having to explain the full text of any of these walkers though. Maybe I can get full res scans of these...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh boy, those are really, really not for me!

 

[Peter LaCara]

Oh boy, those are really, really not for me!

Yeah, I know not everyone is the target audience, which is why they're not available everywhere. But look at me. I'm the guy who was in the anime club in college. I have played no less than six Final Fantasies to completion. I am exactly the target audience for this.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Aaaanyway. Here's what I'm looking at for potential inclusions. This set has enormous implications and I'm considering rebuilding entire color sections to work with stuff. I'm also considering raising my planeswalker count substantially due to having increased tools to deal with them. Once again, there's so many cards I need to split them into mono-colored and multicolored posts.

 

[Peter LaCara]

Multicolored and colorless:

I was nervous, but I think WotC knocked it out of the park with this one. They are on a crazy hot streak right now. I love it.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well, as you've been able to tell from my previous posts, I've been testing a bit, but it's still a work in progress. So far...

Definitive adds:

Tested maybe's:

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Untested maybe's:

 

[shamizy]

Alright, my final testing/inclusion list with the set spoiled are the following cards:

Decent number of cards to test out with this set. They're giving R/G colors some interesting tools to work with, I'm a fan of the simple designs of both Viv and Domri as I've pointed out before. Green Finale is pretty much another copy of GSZ with added utility in rebuying a creature, which is sweet (also no green creature clause!). I've been working on a very small counters subtheme in U/G so hopefully this Proliferate/Landfall dude can put in some work. I can already see gross things happening off of fetchlands. Arkbow seems like a cool addition to the Pod/CoCo/GSZ suite of pulling cards from your deck onto the battlefield. The more ways we can do that, the better. UG dude is mostly just a placeholder until Hydroid Krasis is reasonable to pick up, but he might end up sticking.

The two gods give both colors bigger bodies that can finish and open up some interesting lines of play. Kefnet can block everything forever and being able to get cheaper copies of big impact instants/sorceries without using the actual card is pretty insane to me. Like, flipping a wrath, using it, and then following up with something small seems like a fun line of play since you'll be getting Kefnet back to recast in a few draw steps. Bontu gives some serious beef to B/x decks with a legit finisher with some evasion and a big butt. I could see her playing very well in low to the ground aggro decks as a top-end but also as a means to cash in tiny tokens for big time value down the stretch of a game. Really excited about that one.

Red cards help to expand some themes with spellslinger implications, Arcanist gives some additional velocity for UR decks by rebuying cheaper cards and allowing for big combo-y turns off things like Reckless Charge and then buying back a burn spell or something. Krenko helps expands the +1/+1 counters subtheme into red very slightly, but also good support for Red token based decks. I like how he scales well with the game and just continues to churn out more dudes if he ends up surviving. Butcher is just the perfect signal for R/B aggressive strategies, does everything I want in a neat package and has the relevant zombie typing.

Finally, both the lands will be added to the ULD. I'll need to see how good Blast Zone is in action, but there's a good chance that that might just make the main card pool eventually.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I've done four sealed pools so far on Arena, went 4-3, 2-3, 7-2, and 7-2! This format has some craaaazy stuff. I scooped to a t3 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, and had an opponent scoop to mine on t3. That card can get out of hand ridiculously fast. In one game I followed up a t3 Krenko (my opponent didn't scoop this time) with a t4 Stealth Mission. That wasn't pretty... Another card that's way over the top is God-Eternal Oketra, way better than the boar (which I was lucky enough to open in two of my sealed pools and admittedly also won me a fair share of games).

My two 7-2 lists, if anyone is interested:

Spoiler

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Jesus Christ, look how sexy this is:

Oh boy, those are really, really not for me!

I don't know- I'd probably pick up a couple of them if they were in english. The Japanese-only ruined it for me.

It's a real shame too, since some of the Anime walkers look better than their "normal" counterparts. Have you guys seen Karn and Ugin??

Far better, and more powerful looking, than their regular counterparts.

But- none of my friends speak Japanese or have the willpower to memorize the card texts- so we can't actually play them with the superior art.

ARGH!!!

 

[ravnic]

Here are all the cards I am adding to my cube immediately:

Spoiler

Yeah, this set wasn't for me at all.

 

[Velrun]

Here are all the cards I am adding to my cube immediately:

Spoiler

Yeah, this set wasn't for me at all.

From page 3

Your city’s going dooown!

How ominous

 

[ravnic]

Seriously, I liked the story. I just think planeswalkers, while a cool idea, are the worst executed card type ever. They did almost everything wrong in my opinion, and not since WAR but since Lorwyn. I could write a super long post explaining everything that's wrong with PW's as they are and how they would've been awesome without causing the endless problems they did.

 

[Velrun]

I would enjoy that read. I think I have a lot to learn from you and if you ever feel like spending those hours writing, I would very much appreciate it! <3

 

[ravnic]

Wow, okay, sure, then I'll gladly make a post these days and share my views in detail with you!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Basically everything negative I've heard about the story is "It didn't contain everything unexplained in the set"

Okay and the bungling of the online story elements that god held back for the release of the book

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Seriously, I liked the story. I just think planeswalkers, while a cool idea, are the worst executed card type ever. They did almost everything wrong in my opinion, and not since WAR but since Lorwyn. I could write a super long post explaining everything that's wrong with PW's as they are and how they would've been awesome without causing the endless problems they did.

I quite enjoyed the prerelease today, despite all the planeswalkers. I do run a few in my cube as well, but in general, I found that running too many doesn't make for fun gameplay. For me at least, some players did enjoy them to be fair. I've cut more and more planeswalkers from my cube, to the point that I now run only 7 (three of them require two colors, two of them require three colors), plus 4 flipwalkers, in a 450 cube. I like what those walkers bring in those numbers, but then again, your mileage may vary.

Some of the planeswalkers in War of the Spark, however, are pure gold. I think you should at least check out the uncommons with an open mind, since they can only tick down. They are more like living enchantments that any deck can kill than the value engines you're used to think of when you think of planeswalkers. They truly feel and play wildly different from the planeswalkers we're all used to. I would encourage everyone to play a few games with Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Tell me that isn't one of the sweetest spells matter card ever!

 

[Chris Taylor]

There are a lot of good evolutions in this set planeswalker wise. No Ultimates is a big one; Seeing a domri in play at like 10 loyalty and not being worried at all is a nice move forward.

Passives add a lot of flavor to a planswalker and Loyalty gives a lot of interesting possibilities to enchantments. There's a good melding of design there, as there's a ton of enchantments that get a bad rep because most of the time they have hexproof because naturalize isn't a card you can play in the dark, and there's a lot of planeswalkers who kinda just...draw you a card every turn. The precise difference between Garruk, Primal Hunter and Bringer of the Green Dawn feels smaller than it should be sometimes, and all 3 of his abilities are worth activating, where some planeswalkers you get 2*, or maybe even only 1

I like planeswalkers. There's been a lot of missteps along the way, but they've been getting better, and I liked what they were doing at the beginning.

*I get that people will tell me people minus this card, but after seeing otherwise excellent players miss lethal for multiple turns and pass up extreme advantages because they could draw a bunch of cards I will never fully believe you.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I quite enjoyed the prerelease today, despite all the planeswalkers. I do run a few in my cube as well, but in general, I found that running too many doesn't make for fun gameplay. For me at least, some players did enjoy them to be fair. I've cut more and more planeswalkers from my cube, to the point that I now run only 7 (three of them require two colors, two of them require three colors), plus 4 flipwalkers, in a 450 cube. I like what those walkers bring in those numbers, but then again, your mileage may vary.

Some of the planeswalkers in War of the Spark, however, are pure gold. I think you should at least check out the uncommons with an open mind, since they can only tick down. They are more like living enchantments that any deck can kill than the value engines you're used to think of when you think of planeswalkers. They truly feel and play wildly different from the planeswalkers we're all used to. I would encourage everyone to play a few games with Saheeli, Sublime Artificer. Tell me that isn't one of the sweetest spells matter card ever!

I had Saheeli, Sublime Artificer in my deck today and it was pretty decent! I often found myself in weird situations where I wouldn't really find the "Make a 1/1" ability useful though... which was a little unfortunate. I also had a Ral, Storm Conduit in my deck (which only had 3 instants and or sorcery cards- I was mostly just running him for the scry/life), and I found him to be far better for some reason.

Saheeli is still going to be the one joining my cube though.

There are a lot of good evolutions in this set planeswalker wise. No Ultimates is a big one; Seeing a domri in play at like 10 loyalty and not being worried at all is a nice move forward.

No Ultimates was probably the best part about this set if I'm being honest! I had 3 games where my Ral was at 10 loyalty and I didn't even care whether he got hit or not.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Also, can we talk about these four cards?



Is there a reason the synergize the wrong way around?

 

[ravnic]

Interesting observation

 

[Aston]

Because Chandra and Jaya are best buds and their full potential can only be unlocked via the power of friendship.

 

[vennythekid]

Did the pre-release this weekend, ended up playing a Sultai Midrange deck that did ok:

Spoiler

Highlights included:
Winning a game by casting Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi EOT after an opponent's boardwipe.
Match #2 when time was called, neither my opponent nor I had dealt damage to each other in game 2. I won that match 1-0.
Silly attacks with Erratic Visionary to set up Vraska's Finisher
Activiating Arlinn, Voice of the Pack 3 times, then bouncing her with Callous Dismissal and replaying her for another 3 wolves.
Turning Guild Globe into a 4/4 with Saheeli, Sublime Artificer in the late game

 

[Chris Taylor]

Also, can we talk about these four cards?



Is there a reason the synergize the wrong way around?

They just wanna be friends

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Also, can we talk about these four cards?



Is there a reason the synergize the wrong way around?

It's because they wanted to make an actual reprint instead of a functional reprint.