Magic: The Gathering XIII: What A Horrible Night To Have An Enchantment- Curse

[tgva8889]

Because the Undying creatures are walking 2-for-1s, Surgically Extracting them is helpful for maintaining control because it reduces your opponent's access to 2-for-1s.

[Ninjaman]

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Lands: 22
12xSwamp
2xGhost quarter
4xDarkslick shores
4xDrowned catacomb

Creatures:24
4xGravecrawler
4xDiregraf ghoul
4xPhantasmal image
4xDiregraf captain
2xCemetery reaper
4xGeralf's messenger
2xPhyrexian obliterator

Sorceries:4
2xMoan of the unhallowed
2xGhoulcaller's chant

Instants:8
4xGo for the throat
4xTragic slip

Artifacts:2
2xMortarpod

That is 60, any suggestions for changes?

Sideboard:15
4xDoom blade
3xSever the bloodline
4xNihil Spellbomb
4xGeth's Verdict

how about this? I think i will switch the doomblades out for something, but i don't know what.

EDIT: Vapor snag?

[Suedars]

Because the Undying creatures are walking 2-for-1s, Surgically Extracting them is helpful for maintaining control because it reduces your opponent's access to 2-for-1s.

But by the time you're extracting them you've already deal with them once, so they won't be coming back again.

[tgva8889]

Right. But it prevents your opponent from getting, say, the other 3 Strangleroot Geists or the other 3 Geralf's Messengers while also making you not have to deal with the second copy of the one you just killed. It's not card advantage, but you still really want it. Like, you really want to Surgically Extract Lingering Souls, even though all you're doing is preventing them from getting the card advantage they're already getting from you extracting them, because it means they have 3 less cards in their deck that will naturally generate that advantage.

[Bucky]

But by the time you're extracting them you've already deal with them once, so they won't be coming back again.

Use Surgical Extraction in response to the Undying trigger. This is as good as aiming a kill spell at it afterwards, and also has a chance to hit another copy out of their hand.

[The Extinguisher]

Use Surgical Extraction in response to the Undying trigger. This is as good as aiming a kill spell at it afterwards, and also has a chance to hit another copy out of their hand.

It's still not card advantage (unless they're holding two in their hand or something).

Because you have to spend resources to kill it in the first place, and now you're spending more resources to kill it again. You're getting two-for-oned. If you hit one out of your hand, now you're just even. And no, taking it out of the deck isn't card advantage. Because they could have just as easily never drawn it.

It's still a good play, but not because it's card advantage.

[Androgeus]

Coverage of the PAX East Avacyn Restored previews disccuion thingy is happening right now, there's live text coverage here

Quick sum-up of stuff so far

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Mechanics
Undying is in

Souldbound - Reminder text "You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired as long as you control both of them" The paired creatures both get some bonus

Miracles - you can cast the card for a reduced cost when you draw it if it is the first card you drew this turn. New Frames, no black miracles


Cards
Demonlord of Ashmouth! 2BB, Flying, Undying, 5/4, when enters the battlefield, exile it unless you sacrifice a creature

Silverblade Paladin - 1WW, 2/2, Soulbond (You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired as long as you control both of them). As long as Silverblade Paladin is paired with another creature, both creatures have double strike.

Restoration Angel - 3W, Flash, Flying, 3/4, When Restoration Angel enters the battlefield, you may exile target non-angel creature you control then return that creature to the battlefield under your control.

Sigarda, Host of Herons - 2GWW - Flying, Hexproof, 5/5, spells and abilities your opponents control can't cause you to sacrifice permanents
(I think this is meant to be a Legendary Angel, but they keeps omitting creature type)

Thunderous Wrath - 4RR, Instant, Thunderous Wrath deals 5 damage to target creature or player. Miracle R (You may cast this card for its Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn)

Other stuff
There's three flights of angels. Avacyn isn't the only legendary angel.

[flabort]

Coverage of the PAX East Avacyn Restored previews disccuion thingy is happening right now, there's live text coverage here

Also not in that sum-up:

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Thunderous Wrath - 4RR, Instant, Thunderous Wrath deals 5 damage to target creature or player. Miracle R (You may cast this card for its Miracle cost when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn)

New mechanic!

Edit: OK, you're editing way too fast.

[Androgeus]

Edit: OK, you're editing way too fast.

Mainly cause I'm using the lazy reporter method. Copy and paste what someone has said without adding your own spin.

They're doing a Q&A now

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the guy reporting this is awesome (I understand it's probabbly a long winded answer.
"Brady was asked a question about diversity in Magic art. He talks about how he is striving to make Magic more diverse in its art."

Question: Is there a link between Avacyn and Serra?
Answer: no, there isn't a connection between the two.

Question: Are there any male angels?
Answer: Right now, almost all the demons in magic are male, angels are largely female due to tradition.

Question: How they approached Red and Black considering the set is themed very white-heavy.

Answer: Black and red have cool things like demons for black, and haste for humans. There will be a much larger Dave assures you all there will be cool things for black and red!. Oh, and demons are awesome!
(I wonder if that is meant to be hate for humans, and not haste)

Question: Is soulbond isolated to creatures, or are there ways to grant soulbond with other things like equipment or equipment.

Answer: No comment. Dave Guskin says the mechanic is really fun.

Two questions with basically the same answer:
Question about miracle: with cards like howling mine where you draw two cards, it makes it easy to cheat and reveal the wrong card. & If a player draws a card with miracle, and puts it into their hard with the rest of the cards before deciding they want to cast it, are they too late to do so? Do you have to make your announcement before you actually put the card with miracle into your hand with the rest of the cards in your hand?

This mechanic will be a little challenging to get used to, and that was taken into consideration. In the end we believe people will get used to it and not cheat with it. There will also be a very detailed FAQ about the mechanic.

[flabort]

Aha! he took one of my questions! Or, a paraphrasal of it, or someone else's question that is the same thing.
"No comment."

[Androgeus]

Is the name of the fall set a spoiler?

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Return to Ravnica!!!

[Cogwheel]

So Miracle with Scry and such is pretty neat. Looking forward to that and Soulbond.

Thuderous Wrath is a wonderful topdeck in red burn, I imagine.

[Duos]

Is the name of the fall set a spoiler?

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Return to Ravnica!!!

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

[Frankelshtein]

Is the name of the fall set a spoiler?

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Return to Ravnica!!!

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*faints*

(So the Boros angels disappeared because they became trapped in the Helvault, right? )

[flabort]

And it's over so soon.

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Well, we had several cards spoiled, two new mechanics introduced, I'm looking forward to the articles explaining them, and...
I always though it was Ravinica, not Ravnica. Still, that seems rather nice of them. And judging by the fact that that's the main multicolor world, and everyones' reactions, I'm really exited for that, now, too.

[Suedars]

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It looks like blinking is going to be a pretty significant mechanic in AVR. I hope we get a legend tying into it, since I'm currently working on a blink-based EDH deck.

[Androgeus]

And it's over so soon.

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Well, we had several cards spoiled, two new mechanics introduced, I'm looking forward to the articles explaining them, and...
I always though it was Ravinica, not Ravnica. Still, that seems rather nice of them. And judging by the fact that that's the main multicolor world, and everyones' reactions, I'm really exited for that, now, too.

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Yhea, I've only heard good things about Ravnica aswell (started around M10 with a couple shards precons, love me some domain).

Btw anyone see that you can sac the demonlord to its own effect and get a 6/5 on turn 4, as long as that you have another creature.

[flabort]

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Yhea, I've only heard good things about Ravnica aswell (started around M10 with a couple shards precons, love me some domain).

Btw anyone see that you can sac the demonlord to its own effect and get a 6/5 on turn 4, as long as that you have another creature.

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Turn 1: swamp, whatever.
Turn 2: Swamp, dark ritual, Demonlord of Ashmouth. "Exile unless you sacrifice a creature", so sacrifice Demonlord. Undying, it reenters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. 6/5 on turn TWO.

[Androgeus]

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Turn 1: swamp, whatever.
Turn 2: Swamp, dark ritual, Demonlord of Ashmouth. "Exile unless you sacrifice a creature", so sacrifice Demonlord. Undying, it reenters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. 6/5 on turn TWO.

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That whatever on turn one better be a creature, otherwise you have to sac your demonlord when it comes back

[Gallus]

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Turn 1: swamp, whatever.
Turn 2: Swamp, dark ritual, Demonlord of Ashmouth. "Exile unless you sacrifice a creature", so sacrifice Demonlord. Undying, it reenters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. 6/5 on turn TWO.

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...And then you have to sacrifice another creature, or exile it.

Noooo! I was ninjitsu'd.

[Ninjaman]

An opponent just rage quited against me on cockatrice, i had 2 diregrafs and 2 copied diregrafs, he had Elesh norn Garruk relentless and 2/3 birds of paradice and 2/2 deathtouch wolf (both because of gavony township counters). I then copied Elesh norn, he rage quited. Yes i know since they are legendary they would both be exiled, but then i would be able to hit him with 4 4/4 deathtouchers that deals 3dmg when they die.

[Mystic Muse]

Having two of the same legendary creature on the field exiles them? I guess that makes sense, I just wasn't aware of that.

[Androgeus]

Having two of the same legendary creature on the field exiles them? I guess that makes sense, I just wasn't aware of that.

Nah, they both get sent to the graveyard

704.5k If two or more legendary permanents with the same name are on the battlefield, all are put into their owners’ graveyards. This is called the “legend rule.” If only one of those permanents is legendary, this rule doesn’t apply.

[Suedars]

Having two of the same legendary creature on the field exiles them? I guess that makes sense, I just wasn't aware of that.

No, when there are two legends of the same name both go to the graveyard. Same with Planeswalkers with the same subtype.

(So Jace Beleren and JtMS neutralize each other, but you can have both Red Akroma and White Akroma out at the same time)

[Lord Ruby34]

What's a good site to estimate a card's value? There are a lot of value traders at FNM, and I feel like an idiot when I don't know how much my cards are worth.

[Mystic Muse]

What's a good site to estimate a card's value? There are a lot of value traders at FNM, and I feel like an idiot when I don't know how much my cards are worth.

I usually use Ebay personally.

[Frankelshtein]

What's a good site to estimate a card's value? There are a lot of value traders at FNM, and I feel like an idiot when I don't know how much my cards are worth.

"magiccards.info" is my aggregate of choice. Of course, you can always ask them what sites they prefer and go from there. You may want to try asking your trading partner what they consider a good trade. If they're nice people, they will tell you the value of your cards and set up a relatively even trade that nets them a bit of value while you get the cards you want. It's okay to lose a couple dollars on a trade in order to obtain the cards you're looking for. I've found that having an open dialogue like this can make trading easier and enjoyable for both parties.

[The-Mage-King]

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So.


Return to Ravnica. With Jace and Niv-Mizzet on the pic. Bets on how many planeswalkers there'll be in the block?

[Lord Seth]

This'll probably be my last post on the subject of Avacyn for a while, as most people seem to have moved on and I feel there's not much being gained here, but I felt I should try to clarify some of my points that I'm not sure I've really explained well...

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Thalia can be replaced fairly easily with Grand Abolisher. They both fulfill the same purpose, being a 2-mana creature that disrupts your opponent and serves as a solid creature.

Even ignoring the nitpicky details like Grand Abolisher being WW and Thalia being 1W, Grand Abolisher doesn't discourage you from playing noncreatures, whereas Thalia does, and thus has a bigger effect on the deck itself. Though it's hard to "replace" Thalia with Grand Abolisher because they're so frequently played TOGETHER.

Delver takes the place of Phantasmal Bear, as a 1-mana blue creature that's fairly aggressive in exchange for a drawback.

Outside of standard, replacements for Delver of Secrets: Cosi's Trickster, Drifter il-Dal, Spindrift Drake.

Definitely not. Not a single one of those fulfills the same role as Delver of Secrets. The only real thing they have in common is they cost one blue mana and are creatures.

When you make a deck with Delver of Secrets, you put in all those sorceries and instants to work with it. If you were to shift it out for any of those "alternatives", then they suddenly lose that purpose for all those sorceries/instants is lost and the deck works very differently. They don't fulfill the same role because they don't relate to the rest of the deck in the way Delver does. Similarly, you can't have Phantasmal Bears in an Illusions deck and swap it out for Delver and have it run the same way.

To find a real Delver substitute, you'd need to pick a card that, like Delver, is very cheap and ordinarily weak but becomes a real threat if you have a lot of instants/sorceries in your deck. Best card I can think of that fits that bill is Snapcaster Mage, but I can't say it would really function as a substitute for Delver (makes a good supplement, though!) That's the point I was trying to make.

I'm not saying you can't take Delver out of a Delver deck and use something else there, of course you can. But it serves a different role. If you make a Delver deck and replace the Delver with Phantasmal Bear, it's suddenly a quite different deck and the Bear serves a very different purpose in how it relates to the deck. If you want to do that and keep the deck decent, you'll probably have to fix up some of the instants and sorceries, as there's less of a reason to bother with them if they're not fueling the Delver.

I'm especially baffled by the Cosi's Trickster you mention. That's possibly the farthest away from Delver of the cards you mentioned. The reason to play that is (1) metagame knowledge (if fetchlands are popular, Cosi's Trickster can power up quick) and/or (2) combining it with cards that make them shuffle their library (which is actually an interesting idea for a deck! Hrm...). Very different from Delver.

For Thalia: Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, True Believer, Kataki, War's Wage, Leonin Arbiter, and probably many more since this is a hard archetype to search for.

Rather different usages. Let's examine how they shift your deck:
Ethersworn Canonist: Makes you use many artifact cards (or makes you use a deck that will rarely cast a spell more than once a turn--or both).
Gaddock Teeg: Makes you not want to use any expensive noncreature cards.
True Believer: Makes you not want to play any spells or abilities that target you.
Kataki, War's Wage: Makes you want to avoid artifact cards as much as possible.
Thalia: Makes you want to avoid noncreature cards as much as possible.

Gaddock probably comes closest to being another Thalia, but even then it's a pretty different purpose and effect on the deck if you ask me (Thalia discourages you from playing under-4 spells whereas Gaddock does not--there's also the fact he requires green mana, though I suppose if a deck was white/green that doesn't affect it). These cards all have quite different effects on the deck you play. If you make an artifact-heavy deck with Ethersworn Canonist, swapping it out with Thalia is going to have an extremely different effect, quite possibly screwing you over rather than having a negligible effect like the Canonist would.

What is true, is that Thalia and Delver both are unique in the specific abilities and rules text that they have, which is exactly as true for Avacyn, if not moreso. Delver isn't the first card to do something depending on what card you reveal, and it's certainly not the first aggressive evasive creature. Thalia comes from a long lineage of disruptive, efficient white 2-drops, and her specific ability has existed before in it's entirety, even if it wasn't on a creature.

The fact the "costing 1 more mana" wasn't on a creature by itself is a reason to consider her unique. Thalia goes into a white creature deck to provide the effect while still working in the rest of the framework besides. Not so much Thorn of Amethyst. They'd have different roles in the deck.

Avacyn doesn't really do this the way Thalia does. She doesn't seem to force you to play a different kind of deck than the other big creatures do. When you compare, say, Thalia and Ethersworn Canonist, the decks they work in seem quite different (there are a few decks that successfully overlap enough to work both in, to be fair, but by and large their deck types and thus roles are quite different). When you compare, say, Avacyn and Elesh Norn, they both seem to work in the same kinds of decks with the same kind of role, whether that be Birthing Pod (actually, not sure Avacyn works there, 8 mana is a bit much), Ramp, Reanimator, etc. Even in that deck you posted Elesh Norn works fairly well by herself and fulfills essentially the same role as Avacyn would (she doesn't make your tokens indestructible, but does pump them up to make them stronger).

It's essentially the same thing you see with the question of what creatures to put into a reanimator deck: The deck functions the same way regardless of which ones you pick. It's still the same strategy for the deck (especially in making it) and the same role for the creature whether you opt for Inkwell Leviathan or It That Betrays.

Could there be some more unique usage of Avacyn that I'm missing? I of course admit there could be. After all, it seems even some expert players missed Delver's power at first. If so, I'll take back much of the things I've said. Still, the fact it just seems more of what we've had for so long (and a weaker version at that) just feels...disappointing considering how much it was built up. The posterboys for Innistrad and Dark Ascension (Liliana and Sorin) both made decent impacts on a variety of formats--especially Liliana--in a way I don't see Avacyn accomplishing. Again, who knows, maybe Avacyn will, and maybe the rest of the set will somehow support her. I hope it does (actually, that might be bad for me, considering if Avacyn turns out to actually be competitive it'd pose a threat to my decks...), but at PRESENT it doesn't seem particularly unique in terms of usage or role, it doesn't seem particularly competitive, and it doesn't seem like it'll have a particularly strong impact on formats despite being more hyped than any card I've ever seen.

Now, getting back to Delver. Again, it warps your deck considerably. Those other cards that do things based on what you reveal or those aggressive evasive creatures? They don't require stocking your deck with Instants and Sorceries to work. For example, Dark Confidant has you reveal cards and things happening, but Dark Confidant has a different effect: It makes you want to stock your deck with cheap spells.

For a contrast on what I'm talking about, let's say I make a blue/black Delver deck and (logically) want some discards in there, and I choose Thoughtseize. If I want to go back and adjust the deck, I can't replace the Delver of Secrets with a Phantasmal Bear (your suggestion) and really still have the same deck strategy. But Thoughtseize can easily be replaced with Inquisition of Kozilek and everything goes on working exactly the same (well, okay, if my opponent has a 4-mana card in their hand I want to get rid of things might be different...but I'm talking principally about deck construction here). In fact, this applies to the instants/sorceries in a Delver deck in general. You can take them out and replace them with different things (Chain Lightning with Forked Bolt, Dismember with Gut Shot, Spell Snare with Spell Pierce...and that's just the ones that are closest to each other) and the deck overall still runs pretty similarly. Not so with taking out the Delver and replacing it with a Phantasmal Bear.

And all of that is what makes Delver so unique. No other card seems to fulfill its role, its purpose in a deck. None of the alternatives you mentioned interact with the deck in the same way. Of course, if you can think of any cheap creature cards that become substantially stronger if you're playing lots of Instants or Sorceries, that might be a good alternative to Delver. But I haven't seen any so far.

Now that we've (hopefully) laid that matter to rest for now...

What's a good site to estimate a card's value? There are a lot of value traders at FNM, and I feel like an idiot when I don't know how much my cards are worth.

Any site that sells cards is a way to do so. Just see how much the cards are at, say, Troll and Toad and compare the prices.

Now, granted, many times you can find the cards for cheaper elsewhere, especially eBay (Force of Will is $70 there but is usually around $50 on eBay). But as we're just trying to compare comparative value for trades, that sort of thing should work.

Of course, if you're actually buying or selling rather than trading, then you'll probably want to pay attention to eBay, especially for the real money rares.

[Fable Wright]

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So, what are the chances of Shockland and Bob reprints in Return to Ravnica? Having just traded for a Dark Confidant at $45, I'm hoping that they don't reprint him yet, but what do you think?