General [ZNR] Zendikar Rising Spoilers
- Thread starter Rasmus Källqvist
- Start date
Speaking of this, I've long run (and loved) a custom Augur of Bolas I got from someone here - 1/3 human wizard for 1U, same ability but 'instant, sorcery, or human'
It's obviously support for humans tribal (the only tribal that works without finesse) but also, in control decks, so many of your 'spells' turned out to be on human bodies that the 'augur of look at three cards' mod has been a really wonderful quiet roleplayer. big ups and I bet ' instant, sorcery, or wizard' of bolas would be slightly less frustrating in the average Cube deck!!!
It's great to add in some options on narrow effects like that and I LOVE how thematic Wizards are alongside instants and sorceries. A nostalgia cube I keep updated in the background is based on Onslaught themes, so I was happy to see that line of text.
I made a Warriors post in The Black Cube thread if anyone wants to check it out. (Link in signature.) TLDR: Warriors look alright. Many of the aggro cards we use are Warriors anyways and there's a few lords that aren't too parasitic. Definitely has the potential to run 2-3 payoff cards and shift your aggro suite to contain more Warriors.
Never wanted to play Augur of Bolas for obvious reasons even though it is connected to the multiverse’s most ancient evil.
Instant, sorcery or Wizard is soo great! It makes you Ponder a little extra during drafting.
Instant, sorcery or Wizard is soo great! It makes you Ponder a little extra during drafting.
And/or Pondering Mage.
I like Malakir Blood-Priest a lot having played the set. It does a nice little Gary impression. Linvala and Zagras are also nice, but the party stuff on them seems secondary to the rest of their text. Tazri is also nice and goes with Kenrith as a 5c white card.
Yeah I really really hope we get to see some more "wide tribes" like instant+sorcery+wizard. Maybe we'll get a Return to Lorwyn set that is done under this new paradigm?
Maybe some day. The upcoming story-related sets are:
Kaldheim
Strixhaven
Adventures in the Forgotten Realm
Two different Innistrad sets.
The Great Aurora which is the event that transformed Lorwyn into Shadowmoor took place around the year 4520 after Urza and Mishra was born. Around 40 years later The Gatewatch arrived on Amonkhet, later Ixalan the same year and later Dominaria the same year. In year 4561 (one year after Amonkhet, Ixalan and Dominaria) Nicol Bolas attacked Ravnica in War of the Spark. We will need a pretty big time skip in order to see Lorwyn again anytime soon because The Great Aurora happens every 300 year exactly. (But Magic lore is always subject to change so we’ll never know until we know.)
Shadowmoor gets attacks by phyrexia, Gatewatch arrives, Teferi induces wibblywobblytimeywimey deus ex machina and conjures the great aurora early to freeze the invasion in its tracks and buy time?
edit: you get two sets out of this (one for each version of Lorwyn) and get to reintroduce Phyrexians as villains without having to commit to a hard story change for any plane or revisit the mechanically dangerous under FIRE design Mirrodin plane/mechanics baggage.
edit: you get two sets out of this (one for each version of Lorwyn) and get to reintroduce Phyrexians as villains without having to commit to a hard story change for any plane or revisit the mechanically dangerous under FIRE design Mirrodin plane/mechanics baggage.
I just want to add that party is brilliant draft mechanic for "how to do tribal the right way" in this set.
Pretend green doesn't exist for a moment (because they get to play with lands this set). Each color gets a major tribe and a minor tribe, and the gold cards are payoffs for the tribal decks.
: Major: Clerics, minor Warriors. Tribal Common: Expedition Healer
: Major: Wizards, minor Rogues. Tribal Common: Expedition Diviner
: Major: Rogues, minor Clerics. Tribal Common: Expedition Skulker
: Major: Warriors, minor Wizards. Tribal Common: Expedition Champion
Match a major and minor color, and you've got a tribal deck:
: Clerics
: Rogues
: Wizards
: Warriors
So that sets the stage for tribal drafting, but how do you keep tension in the draft once players are in their lanes? The biggest problem with tribal is it can tend to be poisonous. Introducing the Party mechanic, which incentivizes players who are not drafting tribal decks to compete for tribal cards.
If you're in a non-green color, and miss the tribal boat, you can pick up bits and pieces of the other drafters' tribes, and play party. Of course, the two color pairs which don't have major/minor pairs that line up, pair perfectly for this concept:
: White: Clerics, Warriors. Blue: Wizards, Rogues. Party!
: Black: Rogues, Clerics. Red: Warriors, Wizards. Party!
And the sign-post uncommons help anchor these pairs. And a colorless payoff for on-color stragglers
I also quite like the second set of tribal uncommons, which obviously work best in the on-color tribal decks, but are playable anywhere with a critical mass. Any blue deck, for instance, can play Relic Amulet with confidence that spells and blue wizards will make it a strong card.
So there's some ability to mix-and-match tribal colors, and while not the focus of green, there are a few good green cards which are party types as well.
Then you have the "off-pair" cards. These cards are less than average but provide their color with unique card types (Farsight Adept, for example, is the only White Wizard at common).
What's very cool here, is the ability text on Farsight Adept is "Wizard". For a deck with party cards at all, this can be worth a half card or more. It can get you an extra scry, and extra drain, or even save you a mana each time you cast a spell with party.
Unfortunately, the Cleric and Vampire are misses here, they're still too weak even with this advantage.
Finally, we get to the cog-iest cog card maybe ever.
Wizards has been trying to make (Bronze Sable, Field Creeper, Prismite, etc) work in retail sets for a long time, and they've finally got it right. It hits the right power level as a two-drop with upside without being oppressive, and opens up a huge swath of options for deck construction. The tribal color pairs love this card as extra hits to their tribal synergy cards while being off-type to boost party. The off-tribal party decks love this card to hit party more consistently. And off-color and green decks love the ability to get creative and join in on the tribal strategies when they normally wouldn't be able to.
Party is a brilliant mechanic and enables a very unique draft structure and inventive color wheel, supporting cohesive tribal play while encouraging all drafters to fight for tribal cards.
Pretend green doesn't exist for a moment (because they get to play with lands this set). Each color gets a major tribe and a minor tribe, and the gold cards are payoffs for the tribal decks.
: Major: Clerics, minor Warriors. Tribal Common: Expedition Healer: Major: Wizards, minor Rogues. Tribal Common: Expedition Diviner: Major: Rogues, minor Clerics. Tribal Common: Expedition Skulker: Major: Warriors, minor Wizards. Tribal Common: Expedition ChampionMatch a major and minor color, and you've got a tribal deck:
: Clerics: Rogues: Wizards: WarriorsSo that sets the stage for tribal drafting, but how do you keep tension in the draft once players are in their lanes? The biggest problem with tribal is it can tend to be poisonous. Introducing the Party mechanic, which incentivizes players who are not drafting tribal decks to compete for tribal cards.
If you're in a non-green color, and miss the tribal boat, you can pick up bits and pieces of the other drafters' tribes, and play party. Of course, the two color pairs which don't have major/minor pairs that line up, pair perfectly for this concept:
: White: Clerics, Warriors. Blue: Wizards, Rogues. Party!: Black: Rogues, Clerics. Red: Warriors, Wizards. Party!And the sign-post uncommons help anchor these pairs. And a colorless payoff for on-color stragglers
I also quite like the second set of tribal uncommons, which obviously work best in the on-color tribal decks, but are playable anywhere with a critical mass. Any blue deck, for instance, can play Relic Amulet with confidence that spells and blue wizards will make it a strong card.
So there's some ability to mix-and-match tribal colors, and while not the focus of green, there are a few good green cards which are party types as well.
Then you have the "off-pair" cards. These cards are less than average but provide their color with unique card types (Farsight Adept, for example, is the only White Wizard at common).
What's very cool here, is the ability text on Farsight Adept is "Wizard". For a deck with party cards at all, this can be worth a half card or more. It can get you an extra scry, and extra drain, or even save you a mana each time you cast a spell with party.
Unfortunately, the Cleric and Vampire are misses here, they're still too weak even with this advantage.
Finally, we get to the cog-iest cog card maybe ever.
Wizards has been trying to make (Bronze Sable, Field Creeper, Prismite, etc) work in retail sets for a long time, and they've finally got it right. It hits the right power level as a two-drop with upside without being oppressive, and opens up a huge swath of options for deck construction. The tribal color pairs love this card as extra hits to their tribal synergy cards while being off-type to boost party. The off-tribal party decks love this card to hit party more consistently. And off-color and green decks love the ability to get creative and join in on the tribal strategies when they normally wouldn't be able to.
Party is a brilliant mechanic and enables a very unique draft structure and inventive color wheel, supporting cohesive tribal play while encouraging all drafters to fight for tribal cards.
Thanks, @vennythekid, for articulating how much I like the tribal design for ZNR better than I could.
One of the nice things about Party is that, other than the abilities that actually require a full Party, the abilities tend to be playable as long as you have 1-2 creatures in your Party. This means that you can still get away with running them if you went tribal and "splashed" for a non-tribal Party creature within one of your colors. For example, someone drafting UB Rogues could pick up Malakir Blood-Priest (which will drain for 2) or Cascade Seer (which will scry for 2) and have them still fit in their deck. This means that there will still be some fighting over cards even if everyone goes for Tribal.
EDIT: Something else that's pretty neat is that ZNR links its archetypes. Even if you're just looking at shards, Naya Landfall and Esper/Grixis Party seem reasonable.
One of the nice things about Party is that, other than the abilities that actually require a full Party, the abilities tend to be playable as long as you have 1-2 creatures in your Party. This means that you can still get away with running them if you went tribal and "splashed" for a non-tribal Party creature within one of your colors. For example, someone drafting UB Rogues could pick up Malakir Blood-Priest (which will drain for 2) or Cascade Seer (which will scry for 2) and have them still fit in their deck. This means that there will still be some fighting over cards even if everyone goes for Tribal.
EDIT: Something else that's pretty neat is that ZNR links its archetypes. Even if you're just looking at shards, Naya Landfall and Esper/Grixis Party seem reasonable.
All I wanted fromnthis set was a single useful landfall card thats either
Commander Legends will finally give you a Simic landfall dude
Not mono blue though It’s a huge Serpent that lets you play more lands and draws a card on each landfall trigger.
Commander Legends will finally give you a Simic landfall dude
That sounds like a slam dunk. Can you give me a source for this? I haven't seen it among the leaks.
Edit: Just found it. Her name is Aesi and I love her.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This presumes I get to play my cube with Corona around :'(
Couple more than me.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
My heart goes out to you all
I've had a hard time drumming up interest, but I'll be sure to let people know:
-Draft using Dr4ft.info
If I can get my cube running via this process, you'll have an easy time
I've had a hard time drumming up interest, but I'll be sure to let people know:
-Draft using Dr4ft.info
-You can literally have it pull your list from cubecobra
-Play using cockatriceIf I can get my cube running via this process, you'll have an easy time
I can second Dr4ft, I've been using it with a group of friends to draft old sets every other Saturday. Being on voice through Discord and playing over Cockatrice is almost like playing in person.
. . .
Heck, does anyone want to draft someone's cube over dr4ft some time? If anyone would be interested, I can make a thread to organize and schedule it.
. . .
Heck, does anyone want to draft someone's cube over dr4ft some time? If anyone would be interested, I can make a thread to organize and schedule it.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Does this work with custom cards?My heart goes out to you all
I've had a hard time drumming up interest, but I'll be sure to let people know:
-Draft using Dr4ft.info
-You can literally have it pull your list from cubecobra-Play using cockatrice
If I can get my cube running via this process, you'll have an easy time
I know you can import, draft, and play cubes directly using XMage. I haven't done it in a couple of years but I know it works.
http://xmage.de
http://xmage.de