the land that grants haste to a creature is very interesting.
(I still canât tell yet whether Werewolves & Wolves are getting screwed over (again) or might actually be constructed playable now. Same with Spirits, though at least there itâs because so far thereâs only been one Spirit creature revealed thus far.
Zombies and Vampires at least seem to be getting proper support with whatâs been revealed so far for the non-Human, non-Eldrazi âtribesâ, though where theyâll actually see play in Constructed is a different question. Horrors technically are getting support too given how many of them there are now, but the only real support they have so far is Thing in the Ice not bouncing them when it flips. Big whoop.)
Yeah, Hanweir Battlements is easily one of the better cards in the set so far, though you could also say that of the two creature cards related to it given how absurdly powerful they can get. That said, I still find it odd itâs not a Legendary Land, especially given itâs almost strictly better than at least one Legendary Land:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=77924&type=card
vs.
I know that Wizards generally doesnât tend to like printing Legendary Lands for whatever reason and Iâm not even saying that Hanweir Battlements should be one, especially since they thankfully made Hanweir, the Writhing Township a Legendary (Meld) Creature and itâs not like itâs one of those cards with a proper place name that really should have been Legendary like Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle. Itâs just that it gets extra weird when one of the cards revealed three days later is a (rightfully) Legendary Land.
Oh well. None of that is really relevant to its quality and it at least seems more than usable even without the Meld aspects as well as giving Red something else nice to play with in EDH where itâs still probably the weakest mono-color of them all.
YGO mechanics aside, the set does have a lot of interesting cards. Good in that if youâre already playing, they are worth looking forward to but not in the come back to play magic type of way.
(Thatâs certainly debatable, and I say this as someone who still doesnât exactly care for Emrakul being in the set and subsequent Eldrazi subtype take over.)
Yeah, I suppose I can agree with this set not necessarily getting people to come back in who werenât already in, though at least itâs still looking far more amenable to letting new players in the Standard of just 3 or so months ago when fetchlands were still around making Standard essentially mini-Modern in terms of being hideously overpriced. Even with as much as WotC is obviously pushing Humans in terms of power (for whatever reason), most of the decks in the current Standard still seem to top out at around $250 rather than beginning there.
That said, for me, thereâs already three cards that might be âenoughâ to come back for just in terms of how fun they might be to play around with: Harmless Offering, Tree of Perdition, and, of all things, Docent of Perfection.
You donât make them lose 13 life, you set their life total to the toughness of that card.
It does combo with Triskadethfgdadhqerfafgphobia, but thatâs not a very resilient combo. Potentially very good card in commander, though. And you can reduce the toughness of the tree to make it remove even more life.
their life becomes 13, but when you use death wind you can make their life even lower.
Not sure if this would work also, just killing them at the same time the tree would die.
The tree dies before you can do anything. =(
I thought it might work since you would use the trees ability 1st, then in response cast image?
Guess if it doesnt work I guess you have to use something like death wind.
What happens then is Twisted Image resolves > state based actions kick in and the tree dies > tree ability resolves.
Unless the trigger can resolve even after the tree is dead, itâs still not gonna work. And if it can, the tree is one hella busted Magic-card.
(I was wondering why this thread was moving so far all of a sudden.)
Yeah, Tree of Perdition dies as soon as its toughness becomes 0 or less, so you canât outright kill anyone with it ever thankfully, even if you activate the ability and then respond to it by making its toughness 0 or less.
It can reduce someoneâs life total to 1 if you use something like Diminish that lets it keep its ability; Godhead of Awe also immediately came to mind:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=208226&type=card
or
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=142019&type=card
That said, given neither of those types of effects are in Standard, if it sees any competitive use, then itâs going to be to combo with Triskaidekaphobia, which is admittedly non-resilient but rather amusing. Only other real use I can see beyond having huge ass is maybe being used to make sure that you one someone with Emrakul 2.0, though even that seems like overkill.
ya I was more of thinking of modern use, though once it becomes a 1/1 it becomes a easy target, so I guess you would have to main board spellskite.
My take on this set as it pertains to Standard: Right now the prevailing notion is that Green and White are significantly better than all other colors. The new Thalia will make it harder to splash colors. This means that the meta will likely contract to just GW decks.
ive never really liked standard, most of the time 3-4 decks will dominate the format.
IMHO itâs not actually decks that dominate standard. Itâs cards. The cardpool is so small that itâs common for the entire format to revolve around a few key cards that force all decks to either be built around them or built to beat them. Right now those cards are Collected Company and Dromokaâs Command. Last season it was Siege Rhino. The season before that it was Sphinxâs Revelation and Pack Rat.
When the power level of cards is relatively flat (ie. INN/RAV Standard), standard is awesome.
Well people make decks around only good cards, so it makes sense. Why use something that cost 7 mana kills a creature when you can use something for 2 mana that does the samething?
Rav/Theros standard was really really diverse
From a flavor/lore perspective Iâm really disappointed in the new Tamiyo.
She is probably the most âBlueâ planeswalker in regards to attitude and goals. All she wants to do is explore and document. She is driven by curiosity. She doesnât get directly involved. Sheâs way more blue than even Jace, who acts Blue/Red half the time.
So Wizards decided to slap an extra 2 colors on herâŚnot feeling that decision. Why is she white and green Wizards? She doesnât care about order or harmony. She takes things as they are.
And then the abilities themselves donât even reflect her two new colors. The first lets you draw cards for creatures dealing combat damage. HmmâŚthatâs a blue effect right there. The second lets you tap things and prevents them from untapping for a turnâŚyeah thatâs a blue ability too. And her ultimate, you get an Ancestral Recall and an Omniscience. Blue.
I swear if they make Liliana Black/RedâŚ
What I donât like about Tamyio is that she fits right into Bant Coco and nowhere else. I just donât understand why wizards print cards to make Humans and coco even better.
My take is that Gideon is more problematic than Dromokaâs command. DC hoses enchantments, which is bad 
, but outside that Iâm fine with it. But GideonâŚthis is a bad designed walker that made Abzan aggro best deck when BFZ dropped, and now GW tokens. He is played everywhere, midrange (GW tokens), control (WB control), even aggro (some humans md him or at least sb). I think GW Tokens would be much more acceptable without Gideon.
You know, I might actually agree with this
Iâve heard people criticize RTR/Theros for becoming stale fast (which is a fair criticism â the format had stabilized by the first month, and it stayed that way for the next year), but I completely agree otherwise. Aside from the obvious top dogs in black and blue devotion, UW/esper control and jund monsters, there was a myriad of other playable decks, i.e. sligh, WR burn, green/red devotion, BG graveyard, white weenie, mono black aggro, etc. Several of the really inexpensive decks were also really good, especially against black devotion and UWC.
I just realized how much I miss Sphinxâs Revelation. =(