(Less Serene Steward is fine with me. I honestly wouldn’t even use that if it wasn’t an Ally.)
Otherwise, that looks like a decent start for something I’d actually use since mainboard Duress is totally fine with me. Also, Damnable Pact was there over Read the Bones because you can target your opponent with it, which means that it can used sort of like Sign in Blood in that you can sometimes finish them off with it. I’m fine with Read the Bones though.
So, looking at the set as a whole it becomes obvious why they put the expeditions in there. Looks like it’d sell pretty badly without the lottery aspect. The cards are just at a lower power level than KtK, which is fine by me but maybe not great for sales. The unofficial BFZ theme seems to be "combo two to three mediocre cards to get an effect equal to what a single Scars/Inn/RtR card used to do.
From our initial testing with proxies my group determined that there is not going to be much synergy between Khans/Origins and this set. There are cards that replace existing cards that will be going away, but they are mostly worse versions trading instant speed or scry for garbage like Awaken and Devoid. Some unique effects are floating around that seem to be pretty awful compared to what you’re taking out to fit them in.
We built some ally decks and they are sometimes fine, when you drew well, but mostly too slow. The El Drazi decks were quite swingy. Sometimes seemed broken beyond belief and other times did a whole lotta nothing.
At the end of the day, though, I still like BFZ more than Theros because you’re at least playing mediocre cards that combo into good combinations rather than utter trash to enable godlike cards that effectively have no text when you don’t have enough garbage in play.
Only cards im looking forward too are the new lands pretty much all of em, some are bad but for commander most are okay in some way. And the elementals omnath, the big ass eternal witness and elemental phantom nantuko all for my horde of notions budget edh deck which odly does pretty good and its super homebrew since i dont know any deck that plays like this one. Outside of that the walkers are not that bad and thats about it the rest is pure junk. Hell even the elementals are junk in theory if i wasnt lookibg for decent elementals.
Wtf happened to Ukyo and who the fuck is the scrub who replaced him? You’re gonna say this shit about Theros when BFZ has creatures with a shitty keyword you have to play so that some of the overcosted cards do something?
Which are the cards which were blank without help? Master of Waves was just a solid 4 power for 4 without anybody else in play. Heliod made tokens, Grey Merchant bopped people for two, Eidolon of the Great Revel didn’t need any help, most of the weapons did something useful, Polukranos and Stormbreath put in work in the long haul, you had sort of control deck with Elspeth and Xenagos as win conditions, etc.
I agree that Mono Blue Devotion was trash, but that was not indicative of the power level of the set. A lot of the cards were good, R&D fucked up the support as opposed BFZ were all the cards are trash unless you play the shitty support they gave you.
See the Unwritten seems really stupid with this new set. Sometimes I wonder if they forgot that they made that card.
That stupid move a card from exile printed on those new Eldrazi pisses me the fuck off. They should’ve just printed the new cards with those abilities instead of forcing in a bullshit cost to get said abilities.
Why is it so big of a deal to you that you think BFZ is worse than THR and I think the opposite, when we have already established that we think both sets are bad?
Among those cards, Stormbreath was the only real card. Polukranos was mediocre without Nykthos (essentially equal to Deadbridge Goliath, which was decent but nothing to write home about). Master of Waves was blank. Grey Merchant was blank. None of those cards would have been worth playing without their garbage 2-pip and 3-pip enablers, which was proven by the fact that once those enablers from RtR rotated they disappeared from Standard completely. The only “Theros Mechanic Deck” to survive was Green Devotion, because Courser stuck around (incidentally, Courser was an exceptional card from within a sea of chaff).
Eidolon of the Great Revel admittedly found success were in the Pro Tours where the format was new and untested. But check a week or two later when the formats solidified and it was back to being unplayable. Hell, Heliod was trash even when enabled.
Maybe I’ll come around to thinking BFZ cards are trash once I’ve managed to play with them more, but for now I still consider them to be merely mediocre. And even if BFZ was composed of nothing but utter garbage, I say that a format where we play 100% trash is better than a format where we play 95% trash and then the remaining 5% is sometimes godlike when the stars align.
Course was shitty in devotion; Heliod was a solid magic card but Elspeth; Polukranos did a lot of work outside of Nykthos and a lot of the cards were fucked up by the raw power of Jace into Sphinx. The gods would’ve been very much playable if it wasn’t for that. Even then you’re comparing Merchant with any other black permanent in play with this awesome combo:
Into
Oh look, its even mediocre when the conditions are met. At least master of waves was solid power to cost ratio and pro red. Every deck is Mono Blue Devotion now.
No brotha this set is ass and people who try and make decks from it are dumb as fuck. This format wants to go long .
Gonna be a douche and assume your “group” isn’t elite. Of course there is no fucking synergy 70% of the new set needs the new set to fucking win.
Just completed 50 sets and im 43-7 with this deck, make it and play against ANYTHING you make and you will see just how fucking godlike I am as a TCG player. If only these skills were transferable to Fighting games. This format is gonna be fucking osmosis slow and everyone is running high life or tap mana bases… My loses almost always came form Radiant Flames or Seismic Rupture and Gideon is a bitch on the draw.
4 Monastery Swiftpeaser
4 Lightning Berserker
4 Kolaghan Stormsinger
4 Bonded Construct
4 Goblin Glory Chaser
1 Zurgo Bellstricker
4 Valley Dasher
2 Mardu Scout
4 Collateral Damage
4 Wild Slash
4 Titan’s Strength
4 Call of the Full Moon
17 Mountains
1 Roast
3 Goblin Heelcutter
1 Act of Treason
3 Twin Bolt
4 Scab-Clan Berserker
2 Fiery Impluse
1 Magnetic Chasm
Fuck you, I unlocked ramp tech. What you know about big fat guys with affinity in standard?
Even assuming you were right, I think a format of trash and mediocre cards is still better than a format of trash and broken cards. Less random.
What do you mean by Elite? We have PT players and GP top 8 players on our group. Not a team pantheon but not bad IMO.
(not getting into this abortive “discussion” about Theros vs. Battle for Zendikar)
Anyway, it would seem that the Battle for Zendikar cards are all in Gatherer now, which is what I expected after it was down on Tuesday. There’s not much else to say beyond except that I was unaware that Rolling Thunder was a reprint as well, though it explains why it is one of the good cards, and somehow missed that the new Kiora’s ultimate creates three Octopuses at once–for some reason, I just thought it created one. I also missed that Felidar Sovereign got downgraded from Mythic Rare to just Rare, but, meh, I’m more than fine with that.
Oh I was just fucking around man.
I for once am exited about Type 2(whether it’s short lived or not who knows). I like this format and its potential cause I can do what I do best, Apply pressure early and often and not worry about someone drowning me in sorrow.
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I don’t know why I bother writing anything sometimes but what about all the other Origins / Khans stuff you’ve completely overlooked?
Blight Herder is one of the last cards I’d be underrating from this set. Scions ramp big Eldrazi, yes, but they’re also sacced at instant speed so you can block with them and sac to power whatever for combat tricks. They power more than just things from BfZ as well. Scion generation is going to be very powerful.
Ruination Guide buffs Eldrazi making something like Blight Herder much bigger turning even the tokens into offence. Ruination Guide also has synergy with cards from older sets like thopters and Hangarback Walker. Vile Aggregate, a very powerful 3 drop, loves token generation like thopters and scions. Even if Vile Aggregate is the only creature on the board it’s a 1 / 5 trample for 3 with Ingest. It’s back is big enough to block Siege Rhino.
Ghostfire Blade has synergy with Eldrazi. Sword of the Animist works well with Landfall.
Manlands and essentially reprinting Vapor Snag with Awaken tacked on does a lot for Control decks which should work very well in the new rotation. They have a lot of tools in the new set.
There are weak cards in the set but I wouldn’t act like Standard decks are going to be crap all of a sudden. There’s a bunch of interesting stuff in the new set and plenty of it does work well with older cards.
I think it’s fair to throw WotC a bone and note that Silkwrap and Suspension Field can set up the processors. It’s not just fetches and Tango lands.
Still not great TBH. Last night I had to calm down a friend who skyped me at 1:00 in the morning to moan about his massive buyer’s remorse from pre-ordering BFZ boxes.
Played in the Battle for Zendikar pre-release six times.
First two times I won 1, lost 3. First time I built an awkward midrangey Naya thing without realizing how slow the sealed format would be and got crushed. Second time I had junk everything. No good rares or uncommons, barely usable commons and all in the wrong colours, it was about the worst sealed pull I’ve seen in my time with Magic.
After that I went 4 - 0 twice. I played a Bug Ramp deck with a bunch of good cards and generally just flooded the board with tokens into bombs. The second 4 - 0 I played Grixis control. It was mostly black/blue control which honestly seemed like the best way to play the format and I just splashed red because I had a couple of decent kill spells, a Brutal Explusion and couple of converge costs like Painful Truths.
Slept, woke up, massive breakfast still tired as hell went in for a 2HG and another event. The 2HG I played with a random as I travelled to the event and didn’t talk anyone else into coming. Random turned out to be pretty cool. He was newer to the game but a smart dude so we pieced it all together quick. He played a green/white ally deck with a lot of ramp and bomb cards and I played a black blue deck with a splash of white for United Front and Noyan Dar plus some stuff. We won 3, lost 1. We lost to Ulamog and we mostly won because of combos. I had a Part the Waterveil which is just insane in 2HG and I also had about four Kalistria Healers and with two of them on the board I converged 4 Kor tokens to deal like 16 life to some poor guy.
Last one I went 3 wins and 1 draw. I was playing a super slow Esper control deck, I basically had Awaken as my win condition and a lot of generally annoying stuff and removal. I had a Gideon and a Felidar Sovereign and those two things kind of let me stabilize and finish. Both good cards. I also got a lot of use one of a couple of Ruin processors in that flight. That card is surprisingly good. You exile something with a counter spell and then turn 7 play a 7 / 8 and get 5 life. Definitely a great card to have. Especially if you had a Kozilek Channeller which might I say is sweet as just a 4 / 4 body for 5 colourless even if you’re not ramping.
Overall it was pretty fun. I could go on forever about all the cards and combos and just fun tricks and combos. I liked the format a lot for Sealed. It was kind of nuts because of how big the bombs are but the slow games made for tactical games which I enjoy. I’m a control guy so formats where aggro is king are not my thing. For Standard I got a lot of ideas from playing pre-release, a few cards I didn’t think of before that had some cool applications. Gonna rest up, avoid Magic for probably the next week after all this and then look at piecing a deck together. Also, cracked like 60 packs between the winnings and sealed pools and no expedition.
In case anyone cares:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?set=["Battle%20for%20Zendikar"]&sort=rarity+
Also,
Why did Wizards errata this card? Was it too powerful in it’s original form:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=3481&type=card
So you guys/gals are telling me that this card is shit?
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=402036&type=card
Have at least 2 of those in play and you win the game…
And what about this card:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=402093&type=card
This card is literally a monster! Even in Vintage and Legacy this card will win. Bye Black Lotus and Moxen.
Just to confirm, if a Force of Will is cast without paying the mana cost, will it be considered a spell casting cost of zero???
EDIT: Nevermind. I found the answer. Force of Will is still converted mana cost of 5 regardless of hw it is cast.
So I had to skip the prerelease. Had to work on Saturday and on Sunday some personal stuff came up. Probably for the best. Judging from FB posts the players could be split into two groups:
Sire is slow. The problem with Sire is that by the time you play a six drop, they’ll likely not be playing a lot more land. It might work out well depending on the meta with Landfall abuse. Sire is not a bad card, it’s just maybe not fast enough. It’s effect is really powerful, especially if they crack a fetch and it’s a huge body. It’s one to keep an eye on, I wouldn’t write it off. Could be real good in Sultai deck.
Void Winnower if you can shortcut it into the game can literally win the match. It doesn’t stop them swinging however, only blocking as my opponent found out when I tapped it with Rush of Ice and killed him. It’s also begging to get zapped with Murder. Overall it’s a brutal Hoser but it needs to compete with Iona and your usual bomb cards like Elesh Norn for shortcuts.
One Eldrazi you didn’t mention but has turned out REALLY good so far is Oblivion Sower. 5/8 is absolutely massive for a colourless 6 drop. The effect has a really powerful interaction with Landfall cards as well and at 6 mana it’s the perfect price to fit at the top of a curve for those kind of cards. Even if you don’t find land, it’s still a great card for screwing their top deck, putting stuff in exile to be processed and just being a big body.
(Good to hear that at least someone here had some fun at the pre-lease even if the report in question is mostly what I expected as far as what’s good in Sealed/Limited.)
Yeah, Sire of Stagnation would be nuts if its own ability was a Landfall one, but given it’s entirely dependent upon your opponent playing more land at a point where they likely won’t, unless you can cheat it out, then it’s at most a mediocre if usable card in actuality. Given that “cheating it out makes better” applies to pretty much any card not named Phage the Untouchable, that’s not saying much.
Sire of Stagnation is still one of the better Eldrazi and generally better cards from the set, but that’s also really not saying much, and both Void Winnower and Oblivion Sower are (much) better.
feeling like chopped liver over here