3drinks wrote: ↑

4 days ago

Outside of Kaalia, how good is this actually?

I think Balefire Dragon is pretty great! It basically requires removal if you don't have a chump blocker, and that's worth thinking about, IMO.

I think the main feature of the Disk is the potential for asymmetry/repetition with indestructible. Darksteel Forge, OG Avacyn, Soul of New Phyrexia, or even a cheeky Heroic Intervention can make this extra gross, but I'm not sure it'd be worth it outside those kinds of scenarios.

At 5 mana, I'm not sure I could justify this in any deck. I like it, but.

I had it in mono-W legends, and ended up taking it out cause half the time it didn't hit the things I needed to get rid of. Cool card, but getting steadily worse as the years go by. Dragonlover I think this is a critical insight about it. As more and more things are legendary, this card gets worse ...

I think the solution has already been presented: We play for fun, and it's very unfun. So don't do it. Additionally, your win rate might be high by using this strategy... but you won't get to play as many games as players begin to decline games with you. I may be biased because I've been on the bad ...

I'm firmly in Esper for this, for no particular reason. Just play a decade old favourite: Oloro, Ageless Ascetic . It buffers your life total, and can do... stuff. Alternatively, try some partners or friends forever. Tymna the Weaver / Esior, Wardwing Familiar seems like an okay pair of Ophidian-sty...

Hermes_ wrote: ↑

1 week ago

Sinis wrote: ↑

1 week ago

The art is really nice, though.

Art makes me think of a badly written supernatural romance novel on kindle

But like, not written by AI. Right? RIGHT?!

Kind of a milquetoast, generic 4127 planeswalker. The art is really nice, though.

I also know of a lot of people/decks that are high on Technique. I just can't ever bring myself to look at giving my opponent a creature back as not too much of a downside. I think I would generally agree, but there's often a not-creature oriented deck at the table, or one where it's just unlikely ...

Ever After is a card I want to like, but it just doesn't do enough, while other cards with different costs seem to do more, or are more versatile. It competes with Victimize , Haunting Voyage , Patriarch's Bidding , Living Death , and most recently Lich-Knights' Conquest . It's worth noting that the...

And phoenixes do seem to mostly suck :D This is, tbh, what stopped me from building it. The real struggle is that most Phoenixes have prohibitive costs ( Immortal Phoenix , Magma Phoenix ... Skarrgan Firebird ), no impact ( Flamewake Phoenix -- which I play in Bhaal right now because its only job i...

First off the hop, it doesn't really have to be Phoenix tribal kindred, but I think that's a way to make it happen. Second, most phoenixes are kind of bad (though, that shouldn't stop us from playing them). I think Skarrgan Firebird has the highest power of any phoenix (with bloodthirst trigger), so...

I think Dreadhorde Arcanist is pretty much only for equipment decks. You can get a cheeky Sword to Plowshares or similar without any help, but I think there's room for it to be better. Honourable mention for Glamdring and Runechanter's Pike.

I think Vault 101 is pretty weak. Equipping things is often an as-needed or on-demand sort of thing, and the timing on this card isn't great. At least it gives you the good grace to put a human out to equip something to, rather than needing you to table this and a creature to realize the full benefi...

I've played it a little. It was kind of a way to dispose of extra bodies in Rankle and Torbran before I dismantled that deck. It didn't quite make the cut in my Bhaal, Lord of Murder deck, despite being thematically appropriate and mechanically desirable. Maybe I'll find room for him. Really the bes...

Against Copy Enchantment, it's hard to justify over Mirrormade. That said, what are you folks copying with it?

My environment has boatloads of exile removal. Indestructibility isn't even remotely reliable with my playgroup.

So, I think it could be a winner if it were unanswered, but that's a very big "if".

I love Runechanter's Pike! It's cool in spellslinger or self-mill that's weighted more heavily towards instants and sorceries than creatures. The first strike is clutch. It's got a huge upgrade in Glamdring, but I think if you're playing one, you're probably playing both.

I think it is very good in metas where mass haste isn't hotly played, or people aren't just winning with stack-based stuff. It's actively bad when someone is going to win with Approach of the Second Sun and it becomes a cooperative effort for the table to beat that player up. I think it's probably a...

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

1 month ago

but the era of random 6 mana "value" plays is long gone.

This statement is very true, and it makes me very sad. I really liked the 6 mv CMC setup plays.

Seems like junk to me. 6 mana for something that may or may not help, and if it does you have to pay life for it, and can ditch your bloodghast to do it twice... doesn't seem amazing. (and no free lands, btw.) I'm sure there's a cost where it becomes worth it because you're casting spells from exile...

There's some keyword soup going on with Ezrim, but, I can't see myself wanting to play it. The mana cost is demanding, Investigate twice isn't super-compelling (what are you really doing here; paying 9 mana for a 5/5 flying draw 2? Is that better than Sphinx of Uthuun?). Maybe in a clue/investigate ...

Mookie wrote: ↑

2 months ago

Powerstones are a mechanic that never really took off -

This is really the heart of it. I'm not sure what deck powerstones live in, if any of them.

I thought Wreck Hunter was super sweet when it got spoiled and was one of the cards that prompted me to pick up the Brother's War commander decks along with many of the old-frame cards...

I haven't played it or seen it played. I'm sure it's fine in the right deck.

I think that while Clone is iconic, I find it really sad that Clone|LEB itself is not. There are so many Clone+ cards, that even in a dedicated clone deck probably wouldn't run clone. Phyrexian Metamorph is 13 years old, Gigantoplasm is 10, Stunt Double is around 8, and there have been much more rec...