Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[pokken]

The restriction lets the cost be lower. Esper Sentinel has been an insane amount of value from a 1-drop in my experience thus far.

I think I'd rather have it cost 1 and be once per turn than cost 2 and be unlimited. The difference between T1 and T2 is very significant.

There is no reason it needs to cost more to be unlimited. It would not be overpowered if it were not -- it'd be very good, but not bannable. They're never going to catch white up by printing cards that are worse than every other color's options, they need to leap frog a little and be close to as good as stuff like Rhystic Study or whatever.

That said I would have definitely preferred it cost WW and be unlimited all things considered. I hate that they keep making great white cards splashable.

(This is more of a general complaint about how they make it so effortless to play multiple colors by printing all the powerhouse cards with 1 pip like Opposition Agent and Hullbreacher and Smothering Tithe

[ilovesaprolings]

The [leak] tag exists, please use it when appropriate. Like now.

Well, on one hand i want to say sorry, i completely forgot the rule.
On the other hand... can i just say %$#% wotc? They always slow roll the commander cards/decks and something always get leaked before the official spoilers. Does someone still care at this point?

[Gashnaw]

the RG Pregon dragon commander is GOOD!

Please remember to use the leak tags for any sweet, sweet cards that get spoiled. I know it's exciting, so it's all good. Just a friendly reminder!

[DirkGently]

There is no reason it needs to cost more to be unlimited. It would not be overpowered if it were not -- it'd be very good, but not bannable.

Irrelevant. Cards aren't banned in commander for being too good.

Also I disagree. I think it's pretty absurdly powerful already - though how powerful something needs to be to quality as OVERpowered is pretty subjective. I think it's probably the most powerful 1-drop creature in the entire format though.

They're never going to catch white up by printing cards that are worse than every other color's options, they need to leap frog a little and be close to as good as stuff like Rhystic Study or whatever.

(1) Rhystic study costs 3x more than this card. That is a massive difference and you seem to completely ignore it. It's so big of a difference that it makes them kind of impossible to compare imo.

(2) Please don't give wotc justification for printing more unpleasantly powerful garbage. Don't you dislike it when wotc prints broken stuff? Rhystic study was a card printed long before commander was a twinkle in Sheldon's eye (or whoever invented it, I know it wasn't sheldon). Let's not try to make all cards conform to that same level of power.

(3) To the degree that white is "behind", that's been the product of cards printed since alpha - healing salve v recall/rit/bolt/growth and all that. The idea that we should hurry up to try to compensate for almost 30 years of printings within some artificially short window is a recipe for disaster.

That said I would have definitely preferred it cost WW and be unlimited all things considered. I hate that they keep making great white cards splashable.

Outside of budget builds it's kinda irrelevant tbh, at least within 3c or less. Fixing is too strongk. You'd need to make it WWW before it started to look sketchy in 3-color decks and probably WWWW for 2, and by that point it's a totally different card. And even at cmc 2 with unrestricted triggers, that's a way weaker card imo.

Anyway, at least in commander you have to actually have a white commander to play it. That white pip makes a much bigger difference here than anywhere else. You can't just put a w/x dual in a non-white deck with a dozen-plus fetches and instantly be able to play all the white cards you want.

Plus heavy-color-requirement cards annoy me even in monocolor because it restricts how many utility lands I can run. And I love my utility lands, dammit. The joy of having 15+ utility lands is one of the few benefits monocolor has.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

They're never going to catch white up by printing cards that are worse than every other color's options, they need to leap frog a little and be close to as good as stuff like Rhystic Study or whatever.

Shouldn't the idea of white "catching up" in EDH be abandoned? In any format (any game, for that matter), there's always going to be some sort of tier list, and someone's always going to end up as being the "worst".

I don't mean stop printing more Commander goodies for white, but not every color should get a Rhystic Study or its equivalent.

[Venedrex]

They're never going to catch white up by printing cards that are worse than every other color's options, they need to leap frog a little and be close to as good as stuff like Rhystic Study or whatever.

Shouldn't the idea of white "catching up" in EDH be abandoned? In any format (any game, for that matter), there's always going to be some sort of tier list, and someone's always going to end up as being the "worst".

I don't mean stop printing more Commander goodies for white, but not every color should get a Rhystic Study or its equivalent.

Sure, we don't need Rhystic Study. But why does it seem like 80% of the time Wizards favors green over white when good cards are being given. For example: The Great Henge vs The Circle of Loyalty. Tell me how a game designer can think those two cards are even close to the same power level? Which means Wotc either doesn't know how to evaluate power levels, or they do and they just didn't give a crap about balancing that particular cycle.

I guess what I'm getting at is, who does deserve Rhystic Study type cards? I know, the color its in! Hullbreacher. Its a stax card that blows all the white stax cards cards out of the water (even though white is supposed to be "best" at stax, haha) because Wizards loves blue and green, and likes red and black, and couldn't give a crap about white.

[DirkGently]

Sure, we don't need Rhystic Study. But why does it seem like 80% of the time Wizards favors green over white when good cards are being given. For example: The Great Henge vs The Circle of Loyalty. Tell me how a game designer can think those two cards are even close to the same power level?

I think it's a combination of (1) the things that have made white viable in the formats wotc has cared about for most of the existence of the game - standard, draft, etc - don't translate well into edh, whereas the things that have made blue and green viable have translated much more powerfully, and (2) there's some inertia around that, both in terms of design philosophy and in terms of what many players want. You print a bunch of powerful green stuff people want, now they identify themselves as green players and only want good green cards, and the cycle perpetuates.

I think the solution is to print fewer great henge situations, though, and not to push the wins that white does get even further. I will say I'm not thrilled about the disparity between the mythic dragons in this set - that, to me, is a much better thing to whinge about than how esper sentinel should be even MORE absurd.

(Ebondeath, Dracolich is baller AF though)

[Venedrex]

Sure, we don't need Rhystic Study. But why does it seem like 80% of the time Wizards favors green over white when good cards are being given. For example: The Great Henge vs The Circle of Loyalty. Tell me how a game designer can think those two cards are even close to the same power level?

I think it's a combination of (1) the things that have made white viable in the formats wotc has cared about for most of the existence of the game - standard, draft, etc - don't translate well into edh, whereas the things that have made blue and green viable have translated much more powerfully, and (2) there's some inertia around that, both in terms of design philosophy and in terms of what many players want. You print a bunch of powerful green stuff people want, now they identify themselves as green players and only want good green cards, and the cycle perpetuates.

I think the solution is to print fewer great henge situations, though, and not to push the wins that white does get even further. I will say I'm not thrilled about the disparity between the mythic dragons in this set - that, to me, is a much better thing to whinge about than how esper sentinel should be even MORE absurd.

(Ebondeath, Dracolich is baller AF though)

Oh for sure, I love esper sentinel and I wouldn't change a thing about it. But as far as the Henge goes, it was better in draft and standard than the circle, I know because I played with and against a lot of decks called Gruul Adventures that used the Henge as their lynchpin finisher in the maindeck to achieve tournament success. Sure, Circle saw a little play in standard too, but not half as much as Henge, and it wasn't half as good.

There are truly some simic cards that aren't good in faster formats, like Tatyova. But the vast majority of them are fantastic in fast formats. I rememeber fondly winning a Theros draft by playing Uro and laughing as my opponents conceded once they realized the card I just played had just essentially won me the game on the spot, and would finish them if they didn't have exile.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Sure, we don't need Rhystic Study. But why does it seem like 80% of the time Wizards favors green over white when good cards are being given. For example: The Great Henge vs The Circle of Loyalty. Tell me how a game designer can think those two cards are even close to the same power level? Which means Wotc either doesn't know how to evaluate power levels, or they do and they just didn't give a crap about balancing that particular cycle.

I blame the Simic Commander player on the design team who really wants to draw cards and put a land into play.

But seriously though, green is being pushed. I honestly wonder why.

[Venedrex]

Sure, we don't need Rhystic Study. But why does it seem like 80% of the time Wizards favors green over white when good cards are being given. For example: The Great Henge vs The Circle of Loyalty. Tell me how a game designer can think those two cards are even close to the same power level? Which means Wotc either doesn't know how to evaluate power levels, or they do and they just didn't give a crap about balancing that particular cycle.

I blame the Simic Commander player on the design team who really wants to draw cards and put a land into play.

But seriously though, green is being pushed. I honestly wonder why.

Exactly. The way I see it, what happened is simple. Blue used to be unbelievably broken. We all know that. Why? Because among many reasons, it was the color of instants, sorceries, and artifacts. Creatures at the time were hot garbage that had upkeep costs. So blue was overpowered. Wotc, realizing this, slowwwwwwwwllyyy begins to make creatures playable.

Then they decide to buff green in general because green sucked. Put these two things together, and you end up with the creature color being pushed and busted because we are in the age of the etb creature or the Elder Gargaroth that does your laundry and finds you a dinner date. I like creatures being strong myself, its better for the game. But pushing the color that has the best creatures is stupid. Let it have good creatures, why does it need card draw, removal, ramp, and all the things.

And you know what is really rich. Greens "WEAKNESS" is supposed to be its overreliance on creatures. In the age of Uro and Hydroid Krasis, playing creatures is like breathing. How is it a weakness to have to play creatures. EVERY DECK PLAYS CREATURES. I know what your going to say but what about control decks? You know what I ran in every control deck I've ever played? Creatures.

The best part about the situation is the fact that only after green is broken to insanity does Wotc say, hmm lets not overcorrect when doing white's makeover. Now that green has five years of busted cards, we're going to give white one moderately playable card per year because we learned from our mistakes with green, and blue. Lol. Wish they could've been as cautious as they are now with white when they were designing green cards. There's never any caution or taking it slow with Simic, because Simic is the favorite child of Wotc.

Rant over.

[DirkGently]

EVERY DECK PLAYS CREATURES. I know what your going to say but what about control decks? You know what I ran in every control deck I've ever played? Creatures.

While technically kinda true for me since even my otherwise-creatureless decks have all had creature commanders (as far as I can remember) that's by no means true in spirit. And I've had many controlly decks that ran a small number of creatures, maybe like 10 or so.

I do think it's true in commander especially that, for a lot of green decks, relying on creatures is a significant downside because it means so much of their strength is on-board. When a green deck wins in a 75% meta, it's usually the sort of thing that people could see coming from at least a turn or two before. That means that, against savvy players, they have to fight upstream politically a lot of the time. Of course that looks overpowered since it means that, when they win, they're more likely to have won a 3v1 situation, whereas another deck might have found a sneaky win that didn't have them ahead for so long. But in terms of overall winrate...idk, I'm skeptical. Hard to really get any kind of reasonable gauge on that. For my money, I think blue probably still wins the most by a decent margin, simply because of how many ways it can win the game from basically nothing.

There's never any caution or taking it slow with Simic, because Simic is the favorite child of Wotc.

While it's fun to create a narrative that wotc loves certain colors more than others, I think that's almost certainly a very simplistic take. WotC is a big company with a lot of people, whose primary goal is making money. If they tend to print better green cards than white cards, I'd bet that it's that it's because they think it's what people want to spend money on, not because of some allegiance to one color over another in the abstract. Again, I think it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

[pokken]

much better thing to whinge about than how esper sentinel should be even MORE absurd.

I don't see how it's absurd at all. I've seen it a few times now and the only people who allowed draws off it were really, really bad players. W: Draw 2 cards eventually is a fine card I guess, but it's really nothing in the grand scheme of EDH.

Percentage of the time it's worse than Serum Visions is pretty high

edit: "It's fine" sadly is how I feel about most of the new white stuff. They keep printing Hullbreacher and we're supposed to appreciate Esper Sentinel and Archaeomancer's Map. Maybe if they would settle down about power creeping the other colors I'd be more excited about the new stuff.

[Venedrex]

EVERY DECK PLAYS CREATURES. I know what your going to say but what about control decks? You know what I ran in every control deck I've ever played? Creatures.

While technically kinda true for me since even my otherwise-creatureless decks have all had creature commanders (as far as I can remember) that's by no means true in spirit. And I've had many controlly decks that ran a small number of creatures, maybe like 10 or so.

I do think it's true in commander especially that, for a lot of green decks, relying on creatures is a significant downside because it means so much of their strength is on-board. When a green deck wins in a 75% meta, it's usually the sort of thing that people could see coming from at least a turn or two before. That means that, against savvy players, they have to fight upstream politically a lot of the time. Of course that looks overpowered since it means that, when they win, they're more likely to have won a 3v1 situation, whereas another deck might have found a sneaky win that didn't have them ahead for so long. But in terms of overall winrate...idk, I'm skeptical. Hard to really get any kind of reasonable gauge on that. For my money, I think blue probably still wins the most by a decent margin, simply because of how many ways it can win the game from basically nothing.

There's never any caution or taking it slow with Simic, because Simic is the favorite child of Wotc.

While it's fun to create a narrative that wotc loves certain colors more than others, I think that's almost certainly a very simplistic take. WotC is a big company with a lot of people, whose primary goal is making money. If they tend to print better green cards than white cards, I'd bet that it's that it's because they think it's what people want to spend money on, not because of some allegiance to one color over another in the abstract. Again, I think it's a self-perpetuating cycle.

That's fair, I agree with that. I think you may be quite right that money is more the driver of this than some weird favoritism. However, whatever the reason, I just hope they keep doing what they've been doing and begin to pump the brakes on the value train of Simic. But I did think of a silly way of looking at it:

Blue and green are the eldest children who can do no wrong, black and red are the mischievous middle children, and white is the youngest troublemaker.

[DirkGently]

I don't see how it's absurd at all. I've seen it a few times now and the only people who allowed draws off it were really, really bad players. W: Draw 2 cards eventually is a fine card I guess, but it's really nothing in the grand scheme of EDH.

Percentage of the time it's worse than Serum Visions is pretty high

edit: "It's fine" sadly is how I feel about most of the new white stuff. They keep printing Hullbreacher and we're supposed to appreciate Esper Sentinel and Archaeomancer's Map. Maybe if they would settle down about power creeping the other colors I'd be more excited about the new stuff.

Even if people are paying for it, that's effectively negative mana on the cost of the sentinel. Plus if it comes down t1, I think it's a huge mistake NOT to cast your ramp spell regardless of whether the sentinel player draws a card or not. I really dislike this narrative around sentinel and study that not paying is always huge mistake. Preventing one opponent from drawing one card is not worth reverse-time walking yourself, especially if you're not trying to create some sort of agreement with the other players to do the same (which I would probably only bother trying to do if I was pretty sure the study/sentinel player was the threat).

The floor is lower than serum visions, sure, but the ceiling is way, way higher. First time I played against it, I think it drew at least 5-7 cards.

And sure, it falls off if you draw it late, but it's a flippin' one drop. Besides, you can pump it to make it relevant again, in the right deck. People ignore that upside but it's there. The floor on craterhoof sucks too (a lot worse, really) and nobody is complaining about that.

I am 100% on the side of "don't print hullbreachers" and 0% on the side of "print hullbreachers but only in white". Fewer busted cards please. For all colors.

Blue and green are the eldest children who can do no wrong, black and red are the mischievous middle children, and white is the youngest troublemaker.

lol, doesn't that imply that all the colors are little bastards?

I'd say white is more like the good little rule-follower that gets no attention because it never causes problems. Blue and green are the ones who pull great grades but the parents don't realize that they're doing coke and vandalizing cop cars on the weekends.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

You guys got your children analogies wrong. Blue and green are the eldest overachievers that can do no wrong (in the eyes of their parents), black and red are the mischievous and cute youngest who are allowed to get away with anything.

White is the middle child, quiet and overlooked.

[EonAon]

Honestly if they had just double white pipped the token production on circle of loyalty it would have been equal to henge at least playability wise. Making you pay 4 for a 2/2 vigilance is just nuts since white can still have/create that as a basic creature still if they so choose. They just honestly get too scared at efficient token production anymore even if it was balanced around being solid cost.

I get why of course, since it can get out of hand quickly if done wrong but still you would have needed 4 specifically typed creatures to lower the intro cost and then to create the token two solid pips of white to cast and another two pips to create would mean the splash effect would be mitigated. To get a single creature same turn, which lets face it would be reasonable since its not a open ended effect.

The whole create token off legendary spell isn't that efficient even in block id imagine, and only comes into its own in commander where smaller legendary creatures can be cast, and even then doing a white/? knight deck isn't going to be ultra powerful in commander, fun certainly, power no.

Even in older formats where its hard but not impossible to untap a artifact but there are way more efficient ways to copy the token or mass create than getting another 2/2 vigilant knight.

[plushpenguin]

Esper sentinel is definitely pushed. You're really not investing a lot at all in exchange for either slowing down opponents or 2+ cards. Yes, it's easier to pay off than remora and isn't as nutty, but you also don't have to pay upkeep. VERY low investment.

[ilovesaprolings]

You guys got your children analogies wrong. Blue and green are the eldest overachievers that can do no wrong (in the eyes of their parents), black and red are the mischievous and cute youngest who are allowed to get away with anything.

White is the middle child, quiet and overlooked.

Quite a simple analogy
Green used to be hot garbage, so hardly an "eldest overachievers".
Black used to be an absolute powerhouse, then bye bye dark ritual and necropotence.
Red used to suck worse than white.
Wotc's family is quite complicated.

[Wallycaine]

Honestly if they had just double white pipped the token production on circle of loyalty it would have been equal to henge at least playability wise. Making you pay 4 for a 2/2 vigilance is just nuts since white can still have/create that as a basic creature still if they so choose. They just honestly get too scared at efficient token production anymore even if it was balanced around being solid cost.

I get why of course, since it can get out of hand quickly if done wrong but still you would have needed 4 specifically typed creatures to lower the intro cost and then to create the token two solid pips of white to cast and another two pips to create would mean the splash effect would be mitigated. To get a single creature same turn, which lets face it would be reasonable since its not a open ended effect.

The whole create token off legendary spell isn't that efficient even in block id imagine, and only comes into its own in commander where smaller legendary creatures can be cast, and even then doing a white/? knight deck isn't going to be ultra powerful in commander, fun certainly, power no.

Even in older formats where its hard but not impossible to untap a artifact but there are way more efficient ways to copy the token or mass create than getting another 2/2 vigilant knight.

Worth remembering that Circle would make the knight a 3/3, which is a fairly relevant size for a token. I think they also assumed that the "pump out a token for legends for free" ability would be more relevant in standard, where it was more clearly aimed.

[EonAon]

Worth remembering that Circle would make the knight a 3/3, which is a fairly relevant size for a token. I think they also assumed that the "pump out a token for legends for free" ability would be more relevant in standard, where it was more clearly aimed.

I would agree more if circle was not a six drop and only cheaps down for a specific creature type. Now I realize that there were alot of knights in Throne so in draft its fairly doable. But then you get Embercleave and Henge which objectively count things that arent nearly as specific and are alot more utility. Even the rest of the cycle is somewhat more generic than circle in that one just counts creatures in the yard and the other instants and sorcery. Admittedly the other two have way less applications and the black one outright neuters itself against removal. Heck ember actually attaches itself to a creature.

Mostly what I'm trying to say is if your going so narrow might as well open the taps a might.

[pokken]

only cheaps down for a specific creature type

Green gets generic goodstuff and white gets knight specific borderline parasitic crap. News at 11

It's not like they couldn't have thought of something applicable more widely that would also have been themely.

[DirkGently]

Honestly, looking at it, it seems like it should have just been cost reduction for legendary creatures/permanents. Then it also would avoid having this weird dual synergy where you need to be playing knight tribal AND legend tribal to get full value.

[EonAon]

Really if it counted just creatures by itself it would have been ok (you cant play multiples so the +1 is not going to stack by itself), tac on the legendary for outside of standard and it works and since green cared more about the power of creatures would probably not infringe, and red cared for how many attacking creatures. Drop off one generic mana and or up it to two pips white and it still wouldnt be that broken in standard. Just so much weirdly situational about it vs the other cards in the cycle.

[Couver]

Honestly red has had the most organic level of growth and improvement in EDH. It's been slow and steady. Green has felt like a boulder rolling down a hill. I actually like that WOTC is going the red route with white. Obviously white needs improvements and support for EDH but I agree with those saying it shouldn't happen in the way it has with green. As someone who plays a lot of mono white in EDH I've been happy with a lot of the newer white cards released since Commander Legends and into this year. I don't want the colour to become the next 'broken' colour in EDH. I just want it to get fun cards/cool toys which it has and is.

[NZB2323]

And you know what is really rich. Greens "WEAKNESS" is supposed to be its overreliance on creatures. In the age of Uro and Hydroid Krasis, playing creatures is like breathing. How is it a weakness to have to play creatures. EVERY DECK PLAYS CREATURES. I know what your going to say but what about control decks? You know what I ran in every control deck I've ever played? Creatures.

That's not green's weakness. Green is actually strong as a spellslinger color with commanders like Kalamax, the Stormsire and Sarulf, Realm Eater.

Green's weaknesses are that it doesn't have giant flying creatures, doesn't have traditional creature removal, doesn't have burn, and doesn't have countermagic. However, in a multiplayer format with 40 life when you have lots of ramp and creature tutors to play Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, not being able to cast Murder, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, or Serra Angel isn't a big weakness.

Blue is the best for cEDH, but for most games green is the most powerful for EDH, and it's generally the strongest for draft. I do appreciate white getting cards like Esper Sentinel and Smothering Tithe, but then they print cards like Hullbreacher and Opposition Agent, making cards like Aven Mindcensor and Alms Collector seem like jokes.