A Planeswalker's Guide to SPPf (Magic: the Gathering)

[the3rdH0kage]

Can't wait for tomorrow then.

[DucksGoMooful]

If we go logically, we started with Simic and have gone through Gruul and Boros, so if we keep thinking along the UG/GR/RW/WB/BU lines, tommorow is Orzhov and friday Dimir.

Firemane Avenger looks like a fun card to play with. I don't think he'll be as powerful as the other 4-drops available, but he'll be a good budget substitute for players with small wallets (such as myself), much along the lines of Dungeon Geists.

I thought the Avenger was female. Oh well.

I think she's (he's?) going to be really powerful. 3 damage to anything you want plus lifegain, before blockers are declared? I'll probably play Boros at the prelease, unless something even more awesome comes along.

[the3rdH0kage]

and we have another spoiler from GTC this time from Orzhov. their ability will be awesome in any multiplayer format/game.

[palingensia]

it's a strange thing to keyword.

[Kamotz]

Yeah. It also-unfortunately-doesn't seem to be a compounded effect. You need to pay W/B for each instance of Extort, believe. Though a lot will depend on the rest of the cards and their interactions. If there's a card that lets you interact with your deck/field/whatever when you gain/deal life loss...kinda like the Fathom Mage...I can see Extort being quite good.

[niedude]

...
It fits their lore, and it's cool and all, but...

I dunno, I think that a whole guild dedicated to bug bites could find a better way to make it work.

All in all, I think that, for now, Evolve is the only truly good new mechanic. Honestly the RTR guild's got the much better end of the deal. ALL of their mechanics were some level of awesome. Detain? Game breaking, much praised mechanic. Populate? There's a reason 1/1 Birds are now a thing. A tournament topping thing. Scavenge only get's shafted cause GB has better stuff to do than that but it still gets a lot of use. Unleash is effing awesome and and Overload's only flaw is the cards that carry it.

Right now, Battallion, while I do like it, doesn't have the immediate threat effect Detain had and I cant see it getting much tournament play, Extort wastes mana on a bug bite that could be much better used on a better spell, Gruul's just gives a temporary boost worthy of a glorified instant (and it's still one of the better mechanics). Evolve seems good in theory, and is probably the best of the bunch revealed, but "Build your own creature" decks are easy to deactivate with a simple Terminus, or what have you.

Dimir might get a Detain-level of awesome skill, but it still won't make Gatecrash's keywords as cool as RTR's.
Here's hoping the actual cards make up for it, though.


PS: having said that, if I do go to a pre-release event I'm most likely going as Boros.

[Kamotz]

I disagree. Hardly any of the RTR keywords are used in Constructed formats. There are a few playable Scavenge cards (Dregs Mangler, Deadbridge Goliath), maybe 1 Unleash (Rakdos Cackler), 1 or 2 Populate (Trostani?? And Sundering Growth), absolutely NO detain, and a few decent Overload cards (Mizzium Mortars--Overload also gets played in EDH via Cyclonic Rift and Vandalblast).

Detain is only good in limited formats because you'd rather just counter or remove them completely, Populate involves too much build-around, Unleash just isn't on good enough creatures, Scavenge is only rarely cost-efficient, and Overload is usually just too cost-restrictive to use in Constructed.

On the other hand, Evolve seems like a decent enough ability, especially if they put it on a mana dork or other small creatures. Fathom Mage provides very good card advantage in creature heavy decks, where card advantage is a difficult thing to come by. If Extort gets an equivalent to F. Mage things like extra life gain/loss will become more relevant. Bloodrush is basically an uncounterable instant-speed effect, which is pretty awesome.

I'm on the fence about Batallion, if only because it depends on your creature #, and that's easy to disrupt for control and tempo decks.

[DucksGoMooful]

Still, Battalion seems like the best ability to me. Gruul doesn't seem like it'll be too good, unless each creature's keyword ability has a different effect. Orzhov doesn't seem big enough. Simic sounds fun, but I'll have to see how the other cards are before I make up my mind. Boros will be what I'm sticking with.

[the3rdH0kage]

I was going to roll a dice when I preordered my guild thing but, now that I know the guilds I was considering (Boros, Simic, or Orzhov). I just don't know.

[Kamotz]

Except Odric already flopped. And he had the same ability except he could allow an Alpha-strike. What's worse, even the angel is a conditional lightning helix on a stick, it's right in Searing Spear range. You'll play it and it becomes an instant target for disruption or removal. Or they just remove the other creatures in play to make it a 3/3 with flying. Not that dangerous.

Bloodrush will be different, just like Batallion. The ability text is after a dash, not italicizes in parenthesis like reminder text (as with Extort, Populate, Evolve, or Unleash).

[The Admiral]

Battalion has a lot of potential... potential. Whether it will actually live up to that remains to be seen. I kind of like Extort, as long as there are cheaper sources of it (i.e. like one-drops with it).

[niedude]

I've just realised I misread Extort as "whenever you cast THIS spell" instead of "a spell"...

I take back everything I sad about Orzhov.

[the3rdH0kage]

I misread it to. But I like the actual text. This will take some serious thinking when I preorder unless I can get more then 1. Might get all 3 and roll a dice to see which one I use for launch.

[palingensia]

odric did need one additional attacker than battalion though, keep that in mind. also gore-house chainwalker is another unleash dude seeing standard play in dirty red.

i'm not sure how i feel about these mechanics, they all seem very dependent on the cards that carry them. i do hope for something with multiple instances of extort (maybe on teysa?), that would be sweet.

also i'd laugh a LOT if they didn't show dimir's mechanic today because it's a secret.

[D-World]

In any case, all these cards seem to be powerful for EDH, except maybe Firemane Avenger. The best would be Fathom Mage. Whether combined with Animar of the Mimeoplasm, it makes for formidable power.

[the3rdH0kage]

I have a question and I know this will be pretty stupid. When you Populate does Parallel Lives trigger?

[Kamotz]

Yes. P. lives triggers whenever you put a token in. Since populates puts a token onto the field, a single parallel lives will gie you twice that many tokens.

[the3rdH0kage]

okay thanks. Expect to see a deck in the next few days

Important EDIT:

We have the 5th guild!!! They just released the Dimir preview The ability seems a bit weird to me, but lets hear your opinions.

[palingensia]

cipher is pretty amazing and will be powerful given they push it even a little, since yanno "free spells".

the preview card is terrible though.

[D-World]

I might disagree. Windfall effects can always be nice when you're out of juice, it also fills your grave for Reanimation/Snapcaster/Deathrite, and fuels your hand with brand new cards. 2UB might be a bit too much, but I think with all the extra free spells it would be wonderful.

[the3rdH0kage]

I'm thinking of building an EDH deck but can't settle on a general. I have 2 that I want to use but they do very different things. I'm think Glissa the Traitor or Horde of Notions. Any thoughts.

[D-World]

Depends what kind of deck you want. Horde of Notions is fun to play, but otherwise doesn't have much of a strategy and the Five Color Manabase is often tricky to pull off without a hefty budget.

Glissa seems better to me. You get all the ramp in Green, the tutoring in Black, and they are a lot of good artifacts/artifact creatures you can recuperate.

[the3rdH0kage]

I was thinking that and the January FNM promo is Searing Spear!!!

[niedude]

Cypher is super awesome!
Flavour wise, it's my favourite ability. In.game wise, well, it depends heavily on the cards packing it, but since Dimir will undoubtedly have an easy time getting unblockable creatures (and we already have a lot of Blue support for that) it might be a VERY interesting mechanic indeed.

All in all, I'm pleased. Extort is, unlike what I previously said, rather good. Battallion might be disappointing once we get the full set, but I have some faith in it, and this and evolve are AWESOME.

I'm most likely not going to be able to join a pre-release, but, if I do join, I wouldn't know which guild to go under. I'd probably pick either Boros or Dimir, though.

[palingensia]

yeah i'm really not sure which guild to choose, i might end up rolling a die or just choosing the least represented guild. since i'm going to both the prerelease and 2hg on the same day i might go with simic for the prerelease and boros for the 2hg (if you even choose a guild for the 2hg? i'm not sure), but i really don't have a preference out of these guilds since they're actually all pretty cool ones.