Magic: The Gathering Thread XIV: Instant Annoying, Just Add Hexproof

[Zombimode]

The promo probably is the legendary guild champion and this will mostmlikely just reduce their price.

Source on this?
So far I don't think they have disclosed what card (or even what type of card) the promo will be.

It will take the rare-slot of the special guild booster. So you actually get one rare less out of your prerelease.

[Mystic Muse]

Got my Kozilek, Butcher of truth and Emrakul the Aeons torn in the mail today. Using them in a casual eldrazi deck. Wish I had another sol ring and two more Palladium myrs for the deck though.

[tgva8889]

The promo is 1) most certainly a rare and 2) the rare (or one of them...) in your in your Guild Pack. I say one of them because they could replace the "basic land." (Why not?) If they gave everyone a game-breaking Mythic, well that will just be really annoying. I hope they don't give out the Guild Leaders since that would reduce the value of opening one yourself, but you never know, I guess.

Fortunately, I can now show my true colors! Izzet forever! By the way, the quiz was very, very predictable, to the point that I could almost pick exactly which questions pointed to which guilds.

[Foeofthelance]

Wasn't that one ofmthe first things they announced?

What do you mean - affect the format? The promo probably is the legendary guild champion and this will mostmlikely just reduce their price. Which is a good thing if they are constructed playable and kinda meaningless if they are not ;)

What it means is that after spoilers are up one is going to get identified as the Elesh Norn equivalent of the five, about 80% of the base is going try and pick that as their faction. 15% is going to aim for what they consider the counter to that one will be. And about 60% of the people are going to whine that they got shafted because they didn't get a chance to claim the "good" promo.

[Silverlich]

My Return to Ravnica set review continues!

First Installment:http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=514

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Wow. Unleash does not strike me as good. I suppose if they undercosted it, it could be not awful, but it seems to work best in an aggro deck. You know, the kind of deck that won't use regenerate.

[raymundo]

Source on this?
So far I don't think they have disclosed what card (or even what type of card) the promo will be.

It will take the rare-slot of the special guild booster. So you actually get one rare less out of your prerelease.

Soirce: Merely my imagination ;) That is, if you wanted a source on the matter of what the promo will be. They don't want to give mythics away as promo, because of value issues, so it will be a rare. The guild champions would fill the bill as a splashy, most likely not too overpowered card. But, just speculation. It is also possiblet the promo will be a multi land or some kind of mana fixer artifact (you saw that Mox-like artwork on mtgsalv?).

foeofthelance, where are the remaining -65%? :) Keep in mind, this is not confirmed, just my idea about the promo. If they came up with the idea of a playable promom and the guild pack early enough, they probably had enough put into balancingnthemmin Development. Or so do I hope..

Do you people have any other idea what the promo may be? Maybe someone who saw the original Ravnica block? The promo must be splashy, (rare,) exciting and showcase the guild. Guild mages would almost fit the bill, except for being rare and splashy..

[Foeofthelance]

Sorry, breakdown should look like this:

Preset -
80% Looking for "Good" promo
15% Looking for "Counter" promo/guild
5% "Sweet! Prerelease! Huh, metagame what now?"

Actual Prerelease
25% will manage to get their desired prerelease (factoring for Vorthos)
15% will get the "counter" they wanted
60% will whine about the first 25% getting what they were "supposed" to get, and complain that the 15%ers were stoopid over powered broken haxxors.

I wonder if the lack of sleep makes me extra cynical...

[tgva8889]

I just don't like bombs in Limited and wish it was more about building to synergy and stuff. I'm sure I'll enjoy beating people with a low curve and 2/1s for 2 while they try to cast their 7-mana rares, though.

Also, amusing note on the wording of a preview card:

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The way the Unleash reminder text looks, it appears that if the creature gets a +1/+1 counter from ANYTHING, it will be unable to block. Including Scavenge. I assume we'll have to wait for the FAQ to be completely sure, but that could be a hilarious trick-play in the Rakdos vs. Golgari match.

[9mm]

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The way the Unleash reminder text looks, it appears that if the creature gets a +1/+1 counter from ANYTHING, it will be unable to block. Including Scavenge. I assume we'll have to wait for the FAQ to be completely sure, but that could be a hilarious trick-play in the Rakdos vs. Golgari match.

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I doubt it, theres a lot of "this creature" and "it" on it.

sigh, the pre-release is coming and I can't get really excited, my guild, Grull, is in the next set.

[Ceridan]

Quick question. I heard there is a red creature that double all damage dealt by instants and sorcery. What is it?

[memnarch]

Quick question. I heard there is a red creature that double all damage dealt by instants and sorcery. What is it?

This one!

[Ceridan]

indeed it is. Thank you!

[tgva8889]

Well, looks like there are quite a few more spoilers now! WARNING: REALLY LARGE PICTURES INSIDE.

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Yep. This guy is definitely gonna get played. Not sure yet how relevant all his abilities are, but I'm definitely going to be interested to see this guy in action. I am certain he will be highly overrated for a long time, though.


This card is probably quite a bit better than I would guess at first look. Keep track of this one, I think.


Kaboom. Such a good card.


Huh. Interesting. I'll be looking for this to do some work with Exalted.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No but seriously, I suspect this card won't be very good. Though I suppose playable in Limited as it could get out of hand quickly.


Well if anyone doubted that the charms would be played in Constructed, may I present Azorious Charm?


YES! FINALLY! DOUBLING SEASON HURRAH!


Awesome card. Much more powerful than I would guess just by looking.


The Guildmages are all going to be unreal in Limited, I can already tell.


Now this is quite the X spell.


This card is going to be far better than it looks. I imagine this card enables some kind of silly 5-color good-things deck. Keep it in mind when brewing.


And we'll end this session with the cards everyone actually cares about.

[The Extinguisher]

We have our prerelease promos

(large images abound)

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As much as I love Izzet, I will probably try and grab Azorius at the prerelease, because I'm pretty sure that's the best bomb. (Detain is absolutely sick in limited)

[Fable Wright]

Well, looks like there are quite a few more spoilers now! WARNING: REALLY LARGE PICTURES INSIDE.

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Yep. This guy is definitely gonna get played. Not sure yet how relevant all his abilities are, but I'm definitely going to be interested to see this guy in action. I am certain he will be highly overrated for a long time, though.


This card is probably quite a bit better than I would guess at first look. Keep track of this one, I think.


Kaboom. Such a good card.


Huh. Interesting. I'll be looking for this to do some work with Exalted.


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
No but seriously, I suspect this card won't be very good. Though I suppose playable in Limited as it could get out of hand quickly.


Well if anyone doubted that the charms would be played in Constructed, may I present Azorious Charm?


YES! FINALLY! DOUBLING SEASON HURRAH!


Awesome card. Much more powerful than I would guess just by looking.


The Guildmages are all going to be unreal in Limited, I can already tell.


Now this is quite the X spell.


This card is going to be far better than it looks. I imagine this card enables some kind of silly 5-color good-things deck. Keep it in mind when brewing.


And we'll end this session with the cards everyone actually cares about.

Well, rather than use the uncropped oversized images, you could use the ones already up on the mothership. Including a few that you missed...

[tgva8889]

I could I suppose. But it's a bit late for that and I'm not going to edit them out of lazyness.

[Sith_Happens]

Ravnica spoilers:

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Holy. Crap. A Terminate that can hit planeswalkers. Sure it's a sorcery, but still.

[9mm]

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huh, now this is interesting, I wonder what the story line is given how much we're seeing of various guild mechanics being great with off guild colors. See pack rat and G/W populate. Also according to non-mothership, this set has a second set of duel mana producers called gates. on a side note Blue/white's mechanic annoys me already.

[tgva8889]

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The mechanics should be designed to at least play well with other cards. A couple of the Detain cards can pull some amusing tricks with all the flickering we got in the last set. Which is pretty cool, since it's all in Blue and White. Scavenge plays well with self-mill. Izzet's spell-based mechanics play pretty well with Flashback, even if Overload doesn't. Populate plays well with just about every token strategy ever, so much so that it'd be difficult for it not to overlap in some places. Rakdos's mechanic pairs well with that guy that doubles +1/+1 counters.

The guilds have to work well together for an additional reason: we have to play with all of them eventually.

Edit: Also, just remembered how bad Intimidate is in a multicolored set. I guess the Korozda Guildmage is going to be a bit worse, then.

And a final note from looking; I think they reused 1 basic land art for each type from Ravnica: City of Guilds. Someone may want to check on that, but they look startlingly similar. It's always the second land by Richard Wright.

[Silverlich]

RAVNICA

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Did someone say...BURRRRRRNNIIINNNG VEENNNNNGEANNCE! But seriously, with this guy, the other izzet goblin, and Teferi Dragon, this deck is going to be insane. And I want it.

[Aidan305]

I'm really torn about which guild I'm going to play for this set. I'm liking the Azorius mechanic, but the Izzet have a Hypersonic Dragon. Not a sonic dragon, not a supersonic dragon, but a Hypersonic Dragon. (Also, a huge amount of really strong synergy between cards)

[Androgeus]

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Also according to non-mothership, this set has a second set of duel mana producers called gates.

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Gates are in the mechanics article. They are lands which have the gate type that come in to play tapped and tap for on of its guild colours. Some things care about you controlling a gate

[Bucky]

RAVNICA

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Did someone say...BURRRRRRNNIIINNNG VEENNNNNGEANNCE! But seriously, with this guy, the other izzet goblin, and Teferi Dragon, this deck is going to be insane. And I want it.

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See also Buyback and Rebound.

[Lord Seth]

Ravnica:

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Judge's Familiar seems too strong to me. It's taking a Cursecatcher, letting you play it with Blue or White, and then giving it flying on top of that. And Cursecatcher is already a pretty good card.

It's one of those cards where I feel if they had just dialed it back a little it'd be fine, e.g. if it was only Blue or was only White, or if they removed the flying, or if they removed the other ability. But I'm not really a fan of this kind of blatant power creep.

[IthilanorStPete]

Ravnica:

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Judge's Familiar seems too strong to me. It's taking a Cursecatcher, letting you play it with Blue or White, and then giving it flying on top of that. And Cursecatcher is already a pretty good card.

It's one of those cards where I feel if they had just dialed it back a little it'd be fine, e.g. if it was only Blue or was only White, or if they removed the flying, or if they removed the other ability. But I'm not really a fan of this kind of blatant power creep.

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Well, Cursecatcher only ever saw play in Merfolk; without the tribal advantage, it was hardly broken. I think Judge's Familiar is fine.

[The Extinguisher]

Ravnica:

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Judge's Familiar seems too strong to me. It's taking a Cursecatcher, letting you play it with Blue or White, and then giving it flying on top of that. And Cursecatcher is already a pretty good card.

It's one of those cards where I feel if they had just dialed it back a little it'd be fine, e.g. if it was only Blue or was only White, or if they removed the flying, or if they removed the other ability. But I'm not really a fan of this kind of blatant power creep.

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Everyone honestly underrates just how much of a downside not being a Merfolk is.

[tgva8889]

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Judge's Familiar seems fine but it's not a card that I'm all that worried about. There are plenty of really good creatures that will make their way into decks, and I don't mind a card that gives Bonfire of the Damned the finger as long as it's in play. A 1/1 flier is nice, but the body isn't relevant without ways to pump it up. I don't see it as power-creep, I see it as something entirely different.

[The Extinguisher]

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Judge's Familiar seems fine but it's not a card that I'm all that worried about. There are plenty of really good creatures that will make their way into decks, and I don't mind a card that gives Bonfire of the Damned the finger as long as it's in play. A 1/1 flier is nice, but the body isn't relevant without ways to pump it up. I don't see it as power-creep, I see it as something entirely different.

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It's not really anti Bonfire tech. They just cast it for one less, and still wipe your board (and your Familiar). I still like the card though.

On an unrelated note, I feel like I'm going to be adding Gatecrash shocks to my decks by accident for a while now.

[tgva8889]

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If you play Familiar on turn 1 it significantly weakens Bonfire's ridiculously overpowered tendencies. If I lead Familiar into a 2-toughness creature and a 3-toughness creature (not implausible), a miracled Bonfire will have no effect for the first 3 turns, which are the turns in which it has the most absurd value. From then on it is little value for you to leave up a counterspell for it in the future (and I can't imagine you won't have at least 1 option in that department). It also becomes much weaker if it's in their hand, as for most reasonable values it is now 1 more mana which is a huge investment. This is not an insignificant cost, ESPECIALLY if you yourself are playing Bonfires, which is not unreasonable as Izzet is one of the Return to Ravnica guilds.

[Silverlich]

Yay Ravnica!

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Now presenting...Maro and the Amazing Technicolor Streetlight!! It was red, and white and green and black and blue...

Also:

He rides across the nation, the thoroughbred of sin...