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2016-03-23, 12:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
That theory was shaky to begin with for a number of reasons, notably a series of reactions (or lack thereof) on Sorin's part that made the claim not fit with the evidence. It was completely jossed when we got cards for both of them this set.
Anywho. On the subject of theories, I've been thinking a bit, and I've got an Eldritch Moon/Innistrad's Past theory that I think may be plausible:
Spoiler: Rampant SpeculationBack in time, far before Avacyn before even Edgar Markov, Innistrad was, believe it or not, a far more hostile place. Back in the days before Avacyn, the Angels struggled to defend humanity. But defend humanity from what? Vampires did not exist back then. Demons were bad, but evidently manageable, given that the unnamed W/B Archangel was willing to pact with them. But again, what did the Angels need the help do deal with? Skabaren and Ghoulcallers tend to be rather squishy, and it takes but one Angel to deal with them.
I propose that the creatures so terrible that Angels could not deal with them, and were willing to side with witches and demons to deal with, were the Horrors we see peeking out in Shadows over Innistrad. Creatures such as the Awoken Horror and Gitrog Monster, creatures that presently sleep deep underwater. Creatures that Nahiri is awakening through the Drownyard.
I also propose that these horrors are the primordial reason behind Innistrad's current gothic themes. Skabaren created creatures from their dead fellows that could stand against the Horrors' magic. (Hence the horror typing on a lot of zombies, and how they dodge Awoken Horror's bounce.) While Skabaren were successful, they couldn't make enough; thus, the tradition of the ghoulcaller was founded. Over time, the horrors were driven into the deep places of the world, albeit at cost of a famine that eventually led Edgar Markov to his infamous discovery. Only the oldest vampires remember them; the heads of the Stromkirk line, for instance, who revere them in their absence.
When the horrors were driven back, however, the Skabaren and Ghoulcallers didn't want to abandon their art. Thus led to them becoming ostracized by the community, becoming the monsters themselves. This would also explain why Angels tend to leave Ghoulcallers and Skabaren alone; they remember why they came to be in the first place. It also explains the massive rise in Horror typing in Shadows as compared to original Innistrad, preparing for future tribal themes when the horrors resurface in Eldritch Moon.
Thoughts?
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2016-03-23, 02:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Response to rampant speculation:
Interesting theory. Basically what I'm getting from it is that the old monsters were horrors, and now previous horror "worshippers "have become horrors themselves. So is Avacyn the one who drove back the horrors? What motive does Nahiri have for bringing back horrors?Avatar made by Bradakhan| Other avatars.
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2016-03-23, 04:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Nahiri is all "BLARG MAKE SORIN PAY", which feels like motivation enough. And Avacyn being the one to drive back the horrors makes sense given her stated role as a comeback mechanic for humans. Maybe the enchantments involved in her creation are starting to fail or something though, because while she's getting stronger on schedule, she shouldn't be turning that strength on the humans.
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2016-03-23, 05:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
The worshippers aren't becoming the horrors. They're just waking them up.
Correct on all counts, but it's all but confirmed that the Cryptoliths are altering the mana of Innistrad to mess with Avacyn's head, which in turn disrupted the Cursemute. There may be another enchantment Avacyn is supplying to suppress the horrors, but I've no evidence to cite for that.
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2016-03-23, 05:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Spoiler: Stuff is going on on Innistrad
I am totally rooting for a Marit Large reveal.
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2016-03-23, 09:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Hmm...
Lands:
Spoiler
These are tricky because they need to be terrible but still playable sometimes over basic lands.
Aysen Abbey cycle (This cube has splashable cards? These are nominally fixing)
Bant Panorama cycle (if you want to support bad Domain cards)
Contested War Zone
Dakmor Salvage
Encroaching Wastes
Glimmervoid (This is a carrot; it baits people into drafting unplayable artifacts and untenable splash cards. It's only good if you've gone out of your way to make the rest of the deck terrible.)
Madblind Mountain (combos with Moonring Island. But generally useless)
Moonring Island (combos with Madblind Mountain. But generally useless)
Primal Beyond (marginal; include it if you only have strong elemental presence in two colors)
Rainbow Vale (combos with nonbasic hate)
Adventurers' Guildhouse cycle
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Cloudpost
Eye of Ugin
Maze's End (If you do this, I'd put 1-2 Gates in the cube. Probably exactly one.)
White
Spoiler
Nothing clever here yet
Creatures:
Abbey Matron
Alabaster Leech
Arctic Foxes (odd land hate is a proposed theme, but mostly in other colors)
Aysen Highway (It turns all your creatures into Plainswalkers! That's crazy... oh wait.)
Energy Storm
Squire (classic)Healing Salve (classic) or Shieldmate's Blessing (updated)
Worthy Cause
Blue
Spoiler
Archmage Ascension
Amoeboid Changeling (Not powerful, but has fun interactions. He's a glue card for your inherently underpowered minor tribes)
Aven Envoy
Balduvian Conjurer (for whom you might want to include some snow lands)
Index
Political Trickery or Shifting Borders (supporting the nonbasic theme)
Reality Twist
Skill Borrower (copying what?)
Vedalkin Plotter (supporting the nonbasic theme)
Wizened Snitches
Black
Spoiler
I'm going with a 'I hate my teammates' theme with the creature base, which is not only mostly inefficient but also has strong anti-synergy with itself.
Accursed Centaur
Brain Gorgers (actually a 4 mana edict)
Lord of the Pit
Minion of Leshrac
Painwracker Oni
Sleeper Agent (hates you back)
Altar's Reap (Draw two and do what with them? They suck too.)
Kaervek's Spite
Oni Possession
Phyrexian Tribute
Skulltap (alter's reap #2)
Strongarm Tactics
Tendrils of Despair
Vampirism
Red
Spoiler
The theme here is "there's no way to get enough of these to actually kill someone with"
Arc Runner
Ball Lightning
Crazed Goblin
Hellspark Elemental
Spark Elemental
Goblin Pyromancer (watch the tribal; you want a few other goblins in the cube to make it just barely useful if you draft all of them)
Norin the Wary
Lavacore Elemental
Red gets an unnecessary nonbasic land hate theme.
Crumble to Dust or Sowing Salt
Detritivore
Fissure Vent (...or an overpriced Shatter)
From the Ashes (...use with your own nonbasics for fixing)
Mercadia's Downfall (becomes good if the opponent has 2+ basic lands in play)
Ore Gorger (...and an overpriced creature)
Price of Progress
Weight of Spires
And some random spells:
Bloodshed Fever (what passes for removal in this format)
Burning Inquiry
Instill Furor (alternate version of Bloodshed Fever)
Collateral Damage
Pyromancer Ascension
Green
Spoiler
I don't have anything clever here yet, so I'm supporting off-color themes
Feast of Worms (nonbasic hate)
Quest for the Gemblades
Skyshroud War Beast (nonbasic hate)
Sophic Centaur (the self-anti-synergy is delicious)
Tempting Wurm
[/spoiler]
Artifact :
Spoiler
Originally Posted by CreaturesOriginally Posted by SpellsLast edited by Bucky; 2016-03-24 at 01:43 AM.
The gnomes once had many mines, but now they have gnome ore.
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2016-03-24, 04:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
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2016-03-24, 04:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
"Flash is fast, Flash is cool. Francois c'est pas, flashe non due."
Seventh Doctor avatar by the too-nice-for-his-own-good Professor Gnoll!
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2016-03-24, 05:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Does anyone know why Might of Old Krosa is so expensive? I recently traded away one on Pucatrade for 879 points. Googling shows it's played in Modern Infect, but it doesn't seem like a particularly rare effect - Monastery Swiftspear, for comparison, is only 387 points.
Thanks to Veera for the avatar.
I keep my stories in a blog. You should read them.
5E Sorcerous Origin: Arcanist
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2016-03-24, 05:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
i am going to make it through this year
if it kills me
i am going to make it though this year
if it kills me
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2016-03-24, 06:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Time Spiral: Very little opened, fairly old.
Khans of Tarkir: Very much opened, fairly recent.
An uncommon critical to the functioning in a deck that was only printed once, nearly a decade ago, at the low point of Magic sales, is logically going to cost more than an uncommon printed a year or two ago in a highly opened set. Also bear in mind that Infect is one of the cheapest decks in modern and a lot of people want to enter that format; Infect has a disproportionately high demand among casual players compared to its tournament success rate.
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2016-03-24, 06:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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2016-03-24, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
In that case, may I interest you in this subset:
Amoeboid Changeling (wildcard tribal is relevant)
Vedalken Plotter and friends (supporting a light nonbasic hate theme)
The mana fixing (the bad trilands and panoramas)
Madblind Mountain+Moonring Island with dedicated fixers (Grixis Panorama and possibly Shard Convergence)
The black self-sacrifice theme (on the theory that they convert terrible creatures into some other form of value).
Some inefficient token makers (e.g. Myr Propagator) to actually support the self-sacrifice theme.
I've come up with theme suggestions for all five colors.
Main color - Theme - Why bad cards with this theme are better here - why it's good for the cube
White - Buff auras - In the absence of decent instant removal, they are much safer - Enables weaker aura synergy spells like Aura Finesse and some generally insignificant creatures.
Blue - Donate - Worst case, you got rid of a bad card for some better purpose - Conversely, donates can be used to negate drawbacks (e.g. Islandhome) or turn on hate.
Black - creature sacrifice and self-discard - The cards you discard or sacrifice are worse than normal - Lets black based decks have a greater tolerance for situational effects.
Red - Low curve with drawbacks - Early drops take longer to be outclassed - Enables white and black themes
Green - Ramp - cube has many overpriced effects, including even bad ramp makes them more reasonable - conversely, having ramp makes the high drops more playable. The implied fixing also feeds Domain/Sunburst/Converge.Last edited by Bucky; 2016-03-24 at 02:42 PM.
The gnomes once had many mines, but now they have gnome ore.
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2016-03-24, 02:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
@Bucky most of the cards you suggested are way too good to be in this cube, with terrible cards we really do mean terrible cards.
Also with a crap cube I don't think synergy is something you pay much attention to during cube building as much as something that just sort of happens afterwards, maybe.
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2016-03-24, 08:48 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
2 days old now, but possible Emrakul hint.
TLDR:
SpoilerThe flavor text for Tamiyo's Journal has a different entry number in every language. There is a pattern, consistent in every language, using that number and the flavor text of the different Clue tokens, to spell out a message. Using the same pattern leads to the same message in every language: "Remember this, they came as three", a shortened version of what Ugin told Jace in BFZ.
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2016-03-25, 02:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
"Flash is fast, Flash is cool. Francois c'est pas, flashe non due."
Seventh Doctor avatar by the too-nice-for-his-own-good Professor Gnoll!
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2016-03-25, 02:42 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Custom avatar by me - based on my Half-Orc Eldritch Knight, Keth d'Lordran
Spoiler
Tabletop RPGs
Started with D&D 3.5, these days I mostly play 5E and occationally Call of C'thulu. Currently running two D&D 5E games over roll20
Magic: the Gathering
Started with Return to Ravnica/Innistrad. I'll draft every once in a while but EDH is my favorite format by far.
Decks: Lord Windgrace, Neyith of the Dire Hunt, Rielle the Everwise
Other Geeky Hobbies
Ridley/Lucina main SSBU
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2016-03-25, 03:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
I didn't think people legitimately cared about the MtG plotline. For me it's just "the thing at the bottom of the text box that I ignore"
"Flash is fast, Flash is cool. Francois c'est pas, flashe non due."
Seventh Doctor avatar by the too-nice-for-his-own-good Professor Gnoll!
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2016-03-25, 08:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
People definitely do. We're called 'Vorthos', in the same way that other people are 'Spike' or 'Johnny'.
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2016-03-25, 10:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
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2016-03-25, 11:02 AM (ISO 8601)
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2016-03-25, 11:32 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
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2016-03-25, 12:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
I...I like Jace. More now that he's got some actual characterization going on. I think he's over-used and occasionally poorly-written, but I kinda like the fact that most of the time he just kinda...Bumbles about with no real idea of what's actually going on. Most of Zendikar he was trying to figure out what to do, and probably ended up doing the wrong thing, and his involvement in Innistrad so far has been 'almost die twice and get yelled at by Liliana' which I really appreciate.
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2016-03-25, 01:08 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
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2016-03-25, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
It's a good card and portrays a pivotal story moment. The card itself isn't at fault.
My complaint is with the storyline that led up to that point, and that being its climax. Let's take a look at what the creative team was thinking at the start of the block.
Originally Posted by Mark Rosewater, Chasing Shadows Part 2
Or, you know, we can just have the Angels go crazy and try to kill everyone. Easy way to get them out of the picture, right? No one liked AVR; who'd mind?
Oh, Avacyn? That Angel that we spent two of the most popular Magic sets in recent memory trying to save? Eh, let's just kill her off. She's way too powerful for a good guy. Let's have Sorin do it for the drama, despite the fact that he'd much rather fix her or imprison her until he's devised a cure.
It just reads to me like they were trying to handwave Avacyn Restored out of the picture in the most hamhanded manner they possibly could. Even if they kept this tact, keeping Avacyn around would at least give the hope that things could return to a happy median. Instead, they fall to their standard MO of trashing a plane because they can. Zendikar? Trash it. Mirrodin? We only made it to trash later. Khans of Tarkir? Pff, who had any investment in the interesting dichotomy of the clans' conflicting impulses from their unusual mana ties? Let's turn them into the standard two color caricatures, but with DRAGONS! Innistrad? Oh, nice happy ending you got there. Unfortunately, you're popular, so we can't let that stick around.
I dislike Anguished Unmaking as a symptom of wider writing failure, not for what it is on its own.
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2016-03-25, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
I thought the point was to make players find uses for generally useless cards. In any event, cube drafts are inherently about synergy; it will be there in some form even if you design against it. But the cube will play better if you deliberately include some crappy walls to use Animate Wall on.
Last edited by Bucky; 2016-03-25 at 02:06 PM.
The gnomes once had many mines, but now they have gnome ore.
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2016-03-25, 02:12 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
I'd be inclined to agree. Playing with bad cards is fun, but only when you find silly ways to use them. Using Confusion in the Ranks to feed terrible creatures to your opponent? Hilarious. Donating awful creatures or enchantments? Delightful. Animating walls that are usually useless? All of these are fun because there are actually strategies you can use. Bad strategies, but still strategies.
A cube full of awful cards that might work together is fun to theorycraft, and makes for an interesting draft. A cube full of cards so awful that every pick is just "take the least bad card here" doesn't sound fun.
Ingredients
2oz Djinn
5oz Water
1 Lime Wedge
Instructions
Pour Djinn and tonic water into a glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Garnish with lime wedge. Serve.
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2016-03-25, 02:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
I totally understand where you're coming from, but I don't feel disappointed by the SoI story as you are. I agree that both BFZ and DoTK were pretty lack-luster, despite having really good set-ups (Especially DoTK... what a waste of a fun setting) but the corruption of Avacyn being used to erase Avacyn Restored actually makes sense to me. When watching scary movies or playing horror games, one of the things I find very effective in creating a scary atmosphere is removing or violating things that make us feel safe. In that sense, I think having Avacyn become a threat rather than a defender is a good way of removing the safety that Innistrad had at the end of the first block.
Custom avatar by me - based on my Half-Orc Eldritch Knight, Keth d'Lordran
Spoiler
Tabletop RPGs
Started with D&D 3.5, these days I mostly play 5E and occationally Call of C'thulu. Currently running two D&D 5E games over roll20
Magic: the Gathering
Started with Return to Ravnica/Innistrad. I'll draft every once in a while but EDH is my favorite format by far.
Decks: Lord Windgrace, Neyith of the Dire Hunt, Rielle the Everwise
Other Geeky Hobbies
Ridley/Lucina main SSBU
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2016-03-25, 02:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Many of the cards you suggested weren't bad. It is partly about synergy, but synergy the players happen to find when drafting, not synergy you forced into the cube.
First off, playing bad cards is absolutely horrible under all circumstances. Secondly, you too are naming cards that aren't bad.
If you want to make a weird/chaos cube, that's not a half bad idea, but that's not what a crap cube is about.
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2016-03-25, 03:01 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Magic the Gathering XXII: Where Puns Go to Die
Ingredients
2oz Djinn
5oz Water
1 Lime Wedge
Instructions
Pour Djinn and tonic water into a glass filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Garnish with lime wedge. Serve.