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

[Ninjaman]

He doesn't actually have to run Cavern. If he wants to run Green removal, or activate abilities of creatures that require Green, or maybe doesn't particularly want to spend $120 to protect against a threat that will have faded by that time, he doesn't have to run Cavern. Cavern still taps for colorless if you aren't casting a creature, and having actual Green mana when you need it can be big.

I'm not saying that Cavern isn't an option or that it's bad, just that you don't need to automatically run a playset of them in any deck you make.

No you don't need an automatic playset in any deck, but you need in multicolered zombies. Having only 8 lands that tap for green is simply to dangerous.

[Narkis]

A question regarding rewinding the game due to an illegal action in a tournament:

If someone tries an illegal action the game state is restored to the point immediately before the illegal action occurred. Does this include mana abilities?

Following example:
Player A has one card in hand (Swords to Plowshares), and one untapped Plains.
Player B has a Knight of Infamy (prot. from White) on the 'field.

Player A taps the Plains for {W} and tries to play Swords on the Knight.
Player B is like "dude, ma dude has protecshion from yellow, you can't not do that".

Game state is restored, but to what?
Possibility 1:
Player A has Swords in hand, Plains untapped.

Possibility 2:
Player A has Swords in hand, tapped Plains, {W} in pool.


Which is it?

Plains untapped, player A gets a warning for game rule violation.

[breakdownjason]

No you don't need an automatic playset in any deck, but you need in multicolered zombies. Having only 8 lands that tap for green is simply to dangerous.

See, I've worked it out, and for the most part, I'll only need one green open to cast any given green spell (minus Jarad). Granted, this could change given the fact that I haven't seen nearly all the goodies Golgari has in place for me (or Rakdos to a smaller extent), but I think 8 lands tapping for green is a workable number. Also, control seems to be getting downplayed a lot recently, so I don't think I'll be seeing all that much of it for the foreseeable future.

[9mm]

See, I've worked it out, and for the most part, I'll only need one green open to cast any given green spell (minus Jarad). Granted, this could change given the fact that I haven't seen nearly all the goodies Golgari has in place for me (or Rakdos to a smaller extent), but I think 8 lands tapping for green is a workable number. Also, control seems to be getting downplayed a lot recently, so I don't think I'll be seeing all that much of it for the foreseeable future.

Funny, cause I see control going up. :/

[Ninjaman]

See, I've worked it out, and for the most part, I'll only need one green open to cast any given green spell (minus Jarad). Granted, this could change given the fact that I haven't seen nearly all the goodies Golgari has in place for me (or Rakdos to a smaller extent), but I think 8 lands tapping for green is a workable number. Also, control seems to be getting downplayed a lot recently, so I don't think I'll be seeing all that much of it for the foreseeable future.

8 lands is too little, i play 10 in my Black/blue zombies, and i still lack blue sources too often, with 8 you are going to get mana screwed a lot.

[tgva8889]

Note: For ease of myself, if you haven't seen Izzet vs. Golgari yet and don't want to be spoiled on Return to Ravnica cards, ignore this post. I reference cards in there.

You haven't seen any black removal yet? You mean, like Tragic Slip or Victim of the Night or Liliana of the Veil? All of these cards are playable in varying degrees. Tragic Slip is actually very good even with minimal sacrifice outlets.

You probably don't want to play Prey Upon because you want every single land in your deck to tap for Black so that you can play Geralf's Messenger on turn 3 almost every time. That's really the reason you're playing Zombies. You don't need nearly as much removal these days, as you can just play some awesome creatures instead. As a result, you can only really play 8 lands that can cast Prey Upon, which is just too few for it to be reliable as removal. Better to play Tragic Slip and a pile of awesome dudes.

If you are trying to play the best B/G Mono-Zombies deck possible, you should be playing at least 2 Caverns because they let you cast sweet things into Geralf's Messenger on turn 3. Which is, as always, what your deck wants to do. They will still be relevant, if only because they don't come into play tapped and they let you play, for example, Dreg Mangler and Geralf's Messenger more easily in the same deck. You don't need them but the best Zombies decks will play them and mana fixing is almost always worth the money.

Also, I don't see how control could increase. They lose so many tools and I have a hard time imagining a control deck that beats Zombies with ease.

[Sith_Happens]

Six new spoiler cards:

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Why hello there, Soul Sisters, long time no see. Did you do something with your hair?

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Don't let the art and creature type fool you, this is a dragon, and a fairly nice one at that. Needs haste, though.

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They really couldn't come up with better abilities than these for the end-all-be-all color combination of killing things? Unless Rakdos somehow gets an infinite colored mana combo, mark me down as unimpressed by this guy.

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This is one to watch. Goes great with cantrips, but it doesn't look like there will be very many of those floating around.

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Underworld Connections
"Enchant Land
Enchanted Land has '{T}, Pay 1 life: Draw a card'"

Hm, a Phyrexian Arena that costs one mana per turn? Sign me up. Also, did someone say "Arbor Elf?"

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Y U NO HAVE FLASH!? This card is so close to being amazing, but yet so far.

[Mr._Blinky]

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I swear, this set is the best thing to happen to my EDH decks; there's four or five cards already spoiled that are playable in Mimeoplasm, and two or three times that for Ghave. It's like Christmas!

[Landis963]

Six new spoiler cards:

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Y U NO HAVE FLASH!? This card is so close to being amazing, but yet so far.

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If you're playing, I don't know, Modern, that's what Teferi is for. I'm certain there are better options, but that's the first thing that came to mind.

EDIT: That should probably be in a spoiler.

[tgva8889]

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The card is plenty good without Flash. I mean, come on, do you really need to attach a 2/1 Flier to your 1-mana self-bounce spell? That's actually an absurdly good card, not just a playable one. As is, a 2/1 Flier for 1 deserves a drawback like forcing you to return a creature to your hand. Like a good drawback, however, it is abusable in some fashion: you can turn it into advantage. Overall interesting card, and way more interesting than if it had Flash and was clearly an absurdly good reactive spell.

[Dakaran]

Hey all,

I don't know if anyone else would find this useful, but I've designed a printable template for creature tokens that I thought I would share. I love creating stuff for the games. Hopefully someone else will find it useful as well. I plan to keep a few in my deck box for whenever the need arises.

Here's an image:

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I'm sharing the PDF on my blog: http://iheartprintandplay.blogspot.c...le-tokens.html

[Landis963]

Hey all,

I don't know if anyone else would find this useful, but I've designed a printable template for creature tokens that I thought I would share. I love creating stuff for the games. Hopefully someone else will find it useful as well. I plan to keep a few in my deck box for whenever the need arises.

Here's an image:

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I'm sharing the PDF on my blog: http://iheartprintandplay.blogspot.c...le-tokens.html

This is the sort of thing that WotC needs to put in the boosters. I realize that there wouldn't be as much opportunity for them to pay artists, but it'd be cheaper for them, easier for the players to get all the token cards they need, and less connected to the setting of each block, meaning they could be used at any time with less danger of a player's suspension of disbelief snapping.

[Squark]

I like it. Clean, easy to use. And if someone wants to do something more fancy, they can download a custom magic card making utility, at least some of which do tokens.

[Sith_Happens]

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The card is plenty good without Flash. I mean, come on, do you really need to attach a 2/1 Flier to your 1-mana self-bounce spell? That's actually an absurdly good card, not just a playable one. As is, a 2/1 Flier for 1 deserves a drawback like forcing you to return a creature to your hand. Like a good drawback, however, it is abusable in some fashion: you can turn it into advantage. Overall interesting card, and way more interesting than if it had Flash and was clearly an absurdly good reactive spell.

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Oh dear, I just remembered that bouncing Snapcaster at sorcery speed is still a thing people can and will do. Point taken.

Eight more cards spoiled:

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They just had to make this a hybrid insead of a regular multicolor, didn't they? Two words: Corpsejack Menace.

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Well this definitely has potential. A Disperse that can turn into a one-sided field wipe? Don't mind if I do.

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Hm, I think I'll search for... Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Gravecrawler. Yeah, that sounds good.

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Free token every turn? Sure, why not. Not sure if this shouldn't be for three CMC, though.

Bonus points for being the first revealed populate card that can be played in G/B with Vraska.

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Bell-Chime Sphinx
"Flying
Discard two nonland cards with the same name: Draw four cards."

I can't say I see that ability coming up very often without jumping through a lot of hoops. I could be wrong, though. Besides that, it's just a beefy blue flier.

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Slime Shaping
Sorcery
"Put an X/X green Ooze creature token onto the battlefield."

Ah, I was wondering when we'd see a token really worth populating. Hopefully there are more.

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Martial Law
Enchantment
"At the beginning of your upkeep, detain target creature an opponent controls."

Basically, this is a pseudo-Journey to Nowhere for four that can switch targets once per turn. Not bad, but not great either.

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Precinct Captain
"First Strike
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, put a 1/1 white Soldier creature token onto the battlefield."

Wow, just wow. This guy pretty much speaks for himself.

[tgva8889]

Magic: the Gathering is Turing Complete. Have you guys seen this? This is some pretty awesome stuff.

[IthilanorStPete]

Magic: the Gathering is Turing Complete. Have you guys seen this? This is some pretty awesome stuff.

That is amazing.

[Androgeus]

Magic: the Gathering is Turing Complete. Have you guys seen this? This is some pretty awesome stuff.

That is beautiful. I am in awe.

[Duos]

Wow. I knew Magic was complex, but sweet jesus, that is astonishing.

I gotta share this with some of the other people I know.

[Sith_Happens]

Magic: the Gathering is Turing Complete. Have you guys seen this? This is some pretty awesome stuff.

That is the most awesome thing I've seen, read, or heard at least all month, and I was at an anime convention on the 1st and 2nd. To Facebook, AWAAAAAAAAAY!!!

[Lord Seth]

I've been feeling awfully nostalgic about that old The Duelist magazine, and was wondering if anyone knew of any place to get issues of it.

[Dakaran]

I've designed a set of really unique printable counters that I thought I'd share with the community. I love using them and hopefully some of you will find them helpful as well. You can download them and read more about them on my blog (http://iheartprintandplay.blogspot.c...-counters.html), but here's an image to help illustrate. You can see images of them in use on my blog.

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[Callos_DeTerran]

RtR spoiler

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Really? No comments on Epic Experiment (Genesis Wave for sorceries and instants) or Detention Sphere (blue/white Oblivion Ring on steriords?

[Landis963]

RtR spoiler

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Really? No comments on Epic Experiment (Genesis Wave for sorceries and instants) or Detention Sphere (blue/white Oblivion Ring on steriords?

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Epic Experment is, IMO, your average build-around-me Izzet game winner. Not much besides that to write home about. I didn't know Detention Sphere had been spoiled.
EDIT: Oh wow, Detention Sphere spells doom for any current Selesnya deck.

[Ninjaman]

*Sees detention sphere*
*Looks at my zombies*
"Don't worry guys, we will just play 4 abrupt decay in mainboard, it will be allright"
*Pads gravecrawler*

[9mm]

RtR discussion

spoiler any RtR discussion plox.

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In other news. Azorius is quickly making me want to murder something. Lawl who thinks control needs holes?

[Fable Wright]

spoiler any RtR discussion plox.

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In other news. Azorius is quickly making me want to murder something. Lawl who thinks control needs holes?

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Murder won't help you against those Enchantments...

[Sith_Happens]

spoiler any RtR discussion plox.

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In other news. Azorius is quickly making me want to murder something. Lawl who thinks control needs holes?

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Not to mention that Detention Sphere basically says "{1}{W}{U}: Win against target token deck."

...Look, new Izzet card:



An uncounterable Cancel that can hit multiple spells at once for an extra {1} in the rare event that that's actually relevant? Sure, why not.

[Duos]

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All these mythic X spells. What a cycle. So far, though, the only one that really excites me is the Izzet one.

[Sith_Happens]

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So what does X have to be for Sphinx's Revelation to be any good?

[9mm]

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Not to mention that Detention Sphere basically says "{1}{W}{U}: Win against target token deck."

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either populate got really, really out of hand, or Wizards have finally stopped pretending that they aren't smoking crack.