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Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 3:17 am
by Serenade
...what is the CMC of
Valki, God of Lies? Wondering if I can make it my general and switch Obosh to my companion.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 3:21 am
by toctheyounger
Serenade wrote: ↑3 years ago
...what is the CMC of
Valki, God of Lies? Wondering if I can make it my general and switch Obosh to my companion.
I'd assume its the creature face of 2, at least from the command zone, as Tibalt can't naturally be your commander.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:31 pm
by Dunharrow
Reflections of Littjara, name shapeshifter, cast
Clever Impersonator, get two more reflections of Littjara.
I don't have a shapeshifter deck but this seems like it would be interesting to build around.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:03 pm
by Krishnath
Oh, that is evil, I love it.
Every time you cast a shapeshifter (such as a clone) you get four. Now imagine that with something like a
Vesuvan Doppelganger.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:18 pm
by BeneTleilax
Goldspan Dragon seems good in Feather, who already has some treasure synergies in Extortionist and Tithe.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:43 pm
by Rumpy5897
On one hand,
Goldspan Dragon looks like a
Feather slam dunk. One of the best setups my deck can get going is token generation plus
Phyrexian Altar, which translates to "each time you cast a repeatable instant, get a mana if you so choose". Goldboi turns that into "each time you cast a repeatable instant, get two mana if you so choose". That is a nontrivial upgrade, and can turn a hand of one-drop spells into a mountain of banked mana in one go around the table. However, Goldboi is a heroic sink, and those historically have trouble in the deck. Picture
Zada, a lovely game-ender, with this. Suddenly you've got a problem - to target Goldboi or Zada? Draw one and gain mana, or draw a fistful and spend mana? I'm probably being overly critical, and will need to coax my group into letting me test this a bunch.
Also, I can attest from experience that
Goblin Matron is a good Feather card with a toolbox of Zada,
Dockside Extortionist and
Guttersnipe. Is Goldboi enough to start running
Sarkhan's Triumph, given the fact it can also reach
Mirrorwing Dragon?
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:55 pm
by BeneTleilax
I doubt it, as Matron's ETB is also relevant for flicker, and its body is relevant for Zada. If we got a Sarkan's Triumph on a stick, maybe. Also, I think Goldspan (which can I just say is a weird cardname, because it's a not uncommon last name) is different from other heroic effects in Feather because it directly creates mana, and mana is the limiting factor with Zada and Feather in play.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 3:12 pm
by Rumpy5897
That's quite insightful. To be fair, Zadas are extremely potent game enders in my deck, to the point where I've sometimes spent ten mana (
Imperial Recruiter into
Goblin Matron) to get one online. However, as you say, that did make some extra bodies along the way.
Your level of expertise suggests you're a Feather player yourself. Got a list anywhere?
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:21 pm
by Lifeless
Huh, Kolvori is quite interesting. Artifact ramp early and a big body with selective card drawing later (although getting her stuck as an artifact is a real risk). I like this design quite a bit.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:23 pm
by Hawk
Serenade wrote: ↑3 years ago
...what is the CMC of
Valki, God of Lies? Wondering if I can make it my general and switch Obosh to my companion.
Good question. I also assume 2, but these are the first cards we've seen like this (the other MDFC and classic Transform cards all have a CMC of "0" on the backside). 2 seems a safe bet, but then again I can't run
Garruk Relentless // Garruk, the Veil-Cursed in monogreen because the rules of the game treat him as "Green and Black" for the purpose of deckbuilding. If that's the case for Valki, he may be treat like a split card - you can't run
Toil // Trouble (either half is 3, but CMC outside the stack is 3+3=6) in an Obosh Companion build, but maybe you can run Valki because 7+2=9? I think we'll need to wait for official rulings to be sure. The ruling also matters for cards like
Beseech the Queen, and I'm again not certain of the answer due to how non-intuitive the rulings on stuff like
Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary has been (you can't go tutor it with
Sylvan Scrying, but you can play the land side out of your deck or graveyard with
Oracle of Mul Daya or
Crucible of Worlds respectively). Basically, MDFC are weird.
-------------
I had a realization today as I looked at
Goldspan Dragon - I was excited yesterday and immediately switched to burned out. This is a cool card that does cool things, and it immediately wore me out to know that he's going to be like $40 and impossible to track down as he tears up formats for the next two years. I'm just so very tired of pushed mythics with infinite text tacked on.
...almost as tired as I am of blue getting to do whatever it wants.
Ravenform is sure a card I'll be playing everywhere (I didn't despise
Ichthyomorphosis tbh and this is infinity times better), and also classic WotC. "Blue can't KILL cards in play, it has to react. Wait, that's sort of unfair - I mean, the game is all about having cards on the table. So I guess Blue can steal cards , or exile them and give opponents something useless, or tuck them, or freeze them forever. Just as long as it doesn't say destroy, we're good."
"Oh, white drawing cards? Yeah, no - the game will literally die if white ever, ever, ever gets to draw cards. Honestly, even
Happily Ever After makes us a bit uncomfortable. We will find some other way for white to be playable, but not by allowing it to draw cards in this card game."
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:24 pm
by BeneTleilax
Blue has straight up artifact removal now. Because color pie limitations are for Boros.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:29 pm
by pokken
BeneTleilax wrote: ↑3 years ago
Blue has straight up artifact removal now. Because color pie limitations are for Boros.
Well to be fair boros is getting card draw and ramp. And that blue artifact removal is hot garbage. And Blue has always had transmuting effects (e.g.
Reality Shift Pongify and interacted with artifacts. Seems fine to me).
If it was an instant it'd be a semi-staple and we'd be maybe more right to be annoyed
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:31 pm
by BeneTleilax
The center of gravity of this game is its commons. When we see something like this at common, it is a sign that we will will get a strong version at rare ere long.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:34 pm
by pokken
BeneTleilax wrote: ↑3 years ago
The center of gravity of this game is its commons. When we see something like this at common, it is a sign that we will will get a strong version at rare ere long.
Ultimately they seem to be pushing the color pie for all colors to be a bit more diverse to support EDH, and it's likely a mistake to print too much splashable stuff that pushes the pie like that.
I share your concerns honestly, but I think there's a strong argument to be made that it's for the best as well since it improves mono color decks so much to have more flexibility.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:38 pm
by Wallycaine
Hawk wrote: ↑3 years ago
Serenade wrote: ↑3 years ago
...what is the CMC of
Valki, God of Lies? Wondering if I can make it my general and switch Obosh to my companion.
Good question. I also assume 2, but these are the first cards we've seen like this (the other MDFC and classic Transform cards all have a CMC of "0" on the backside). 2 seems a safe bet, but then again I can't run
Garruk Relentless // Garruk, the Veil-Cursed in monogreen because the rules of the game treat him as "Green and Black" for the purpose of deckbuilding. If that's the case for Valki, he may be treat like a split card - you can't run
Toil // Trouble (either half is 3, but CMC outside the stack is 3+3=6) in an Obosh Companion build, but maybe you can run Valki because 7+2=9? I think we'll need to wait for official rulings to be sure. The ruling also matters for cards like
Beseech the Queen, and I'm again not certain of the answer due to how non-intuitive the rulings on stuff like
Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary has been (you can't go tutor it with
Sylvan Scrying, but you can play the land side out of your deck or graveyard with
Oracle of Mul Daya or
Crucible of Worlds respectively). Basically, MDFC are weird.
Okay, so you've got some wrong information mixed in here, so hopefully I can help you clear it up. First off: classic Transform cards no longer have a CMC of 0 on the back side, they are treated as having the CMC of whatever their front face is. Additionally, CMC has nothing to do with color identity, hence why Garruk is Green and Black, because that's calculated completely separately from CMC.
All the official rulings stem from one simple rule: The card is treated as the front face for all purposes other than being played or cast. If something says you can *play* or *cast* a card, then you can use either side, but just for the purposes of searching, it's only the front face. Hence why
Sylvan Scrying doesn't work, but
Oracle of Mul Daya does.
So extending that to Obosh, as far as deck construction is concerned, the game only cares about
Valki, God of Lies. Unfortunately for this plan, that's the even numbered half, so Valki makes a deck invalid for
Obosh, the Preypiercer.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:44 pm
by Hawk
pokken wrote: ↑3 years ago
BeneTleilax wrote: ↑3 years ago
Blue has straight up artifact removal now. Because color pie limitations are for Boros.
Well to be fair boros is getting card draw and ramp. And that blue artifact removal is hot garbage. And Blue has always had transmuting effects (e.g.
Reality Shift Pongify and interacted with artifacts. Seems fine to me).
If it was an instant it'd be a semi-staple and we'd be maybe more right to be annoyed
Hot garbage seems strong - this is a monoblue, common, exiling
Putrefy, with Foretell if you feel like putting it on layaway for later. It is notably a sorcery to Putrefys instant, and I don't think its quite auto-include; I will probably pass on it in most blue decks that also contain Black and/or White, as the glut of instant-speed removal I'll have access to will trump this. But for monoblue, Izzet, Simic, and Temur decks this card feels hard to avoid including as a versatile catch-all answer (the bird is close to irrelevant and much less punishing than the card given to opponents with
Reality Shift or even
Pongify). I'd wager those decks are targeting a creature or artifact 95% of the time with
Beast Within,
Chaos Warp, and
Imprisoned in the Moon, and again while this is a sorcery it gives a much weaker thing to opponents so I'll be thrilled to run this alongside those staples even though it is on balance "worse" (for the record I don't actually think it is worse than Imprisoned at least).
It isn't a straight-up color pie break, I know - blue gets to "transform and transmute" cards all the time (see above). Blue has never had a card specifically target artifacts like this, but blue gets to
Steal Artifacts and
Annul artifacts, so it isn't a "break" to let them transmute an in-play artifact. It is emblematic of the bias WotC seems to show design though - they're willing to follow the letter of the law but not the spirit for blue's supposed weaknesses and color pie restraints, but are hyper-vigilant about the letter and spirit of the law for Boros (and specifically white).
And like BeneTleilax said, commons are a center of gravity so if this is now "fine" for a blue common, it opens the door for something even more bonkers at rare or mythic in a few sets.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:49 pm
by Wallycaine
Hawk wrote: ↑3 years ago
pokken wrote: ↑3 years ago
BeneTleilax wrote: ↑3 years ago
Blue has straight up artifact removal now. Because color pie limitations are for Boros.
Well to be fair boros is getting card draw and ramp. And that blue artifact removal is hot garbage. And Blue has always had transmuting effects (e.g.
Reality Shift Pongify and interacted with artifacts. Seems fine to me).
If it was an instant it'd be a semi-staple and we'd be maybe more right to be annoyed
Hot garbage seems strong - this is a monoblue, common, exiling
Putrefy, with Foretell if you feel like putting it on layaway for later. It is notably a sorcery to Putrefys instant, and I don't think its quite auto-include; I will probably pass on it in most blue decks that also contain Black and/or White, as the glut of instant-speed removal I'll have access to will trump this. But for monoblue, Izzet, Simic, and Temur decks this card feels hard to avoid including as a versatile catch-all answer (the bird is close to irrelevant and much less punishing than the card given to opponents with
Reality Shift or even
Pongify). I'd wager those decks are targeting a creature or artifact 95% of the time with
Beast Within,
Chaos Warp, and
Imprisoned in the Moon, and again while this is a sorcery it gives a much weaker thing to opponents so I'll be thrilled to run this alongside those staples even though it is on balance "worse" (for the record I don't actually think it is worse than Imprisoned at least).
It isn't a straight-up color pie break, I know - blue gets to "transform and transmute" cards all the time (see above). Blue has never had a card specifically target artifacts like this, but blue gets to
Steal Artifacts and
Annul artifacts, so it isn't a "break" to let them transmute an in-play artifact. It is emblematic of the bias WotC seems to show design though - they're willing to follow the letter of the law but not the spirit for blue's supposed weaknesses and color pie restraints, but are hyper-vigilant about the letter and spirit of the law for Boros (and specifically white).
And like BeneTleilax said, commons are a center of gravity so if this is now "fine" for a blue common, it opens the door for something even more bonkers at rare or mythic in a few sets.
I deeply appreciate the lines of complaint that go "I'm going to outline precisely the reasons why this is completely in color pie for blue, but once I've done that, I'll ignore all that and complain about how it clearly represents bias, despite having literally just established why it is okay." Blue gets to transform things. Things include artifacts.
Beast Within continues to represent a far more massive color pie break than
Ravenform or anything even vaugely resembling Ravenform.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 4:57 pm
by pokken
Honestly I don't think any amount of pushed/pie-bending removal is going to break EDH in the end. You only have so many slots for efficient removal and when they push a new one it just pushes a worse card out (say,
Bedevil mostly pushing out
Dreadbore )
If you consider a scenario where there were say a mix of 10 playable cards in each color that are some variant on 1-3 mana, instant, destroy/exile target <nonland permanent/creature/artifact/enchantment/planeswalker>, you'd still only play ~5-10 of them at most in even the most removal heavy decks.
And having mono-colored decks have access to a couple more of those effects if anything is probably a benefit because those decks tend to be heavily incentivized to be non-interactive because of their lack of good cards.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 5:14 pm
by Crazy Monkey
Goldspan Dragon is better than I think it's being credited for in Zada and Feather decks that abuse Zada-esque effects. Notably, the trigger is not when a spell is cast that targets it, but instead when the dragon is targeted. This is important because, as noted in the previous discussion, a common question is "when should you target it"? In a heroic-focused deck, this can be a limitation.
However, in a more Zada focused deck (such as a dedicated Zada list), the copied spells will include the spell copy that targets the dragon, which will then trigger and create a treasure. This makes the dragon extremely effective with
Zada, Hedron Grinder and
Mirrorwing Dragon effects. I look forward to testing in my Zada and Feather decks.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 5:23 pm
by Rumpy5897
Neat, that's what I get for skimming the card
In my defence, I'm trying to be more active with adding previews to the site this time around, but that's a crummy line of defence if there ever was one.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 6:02 pm
by Mookie
- Others have already pointed out Goldspan Dragon's interaction with pump effects, but I'll point out that it also triggers on attacking, which gives it a bit of additional utility. Sort of like a smaller Savage Ventmaw. Also good alongside Brass's Bounty or other treasure-generating effects.
- Forging the Tyrite Sword is mildly interesting as a treasure generator / delayed Open the Armory, but it also looks way too slow for my taste.
- Ravenform bugs me, as a way to exile artifacts in mono-blue. I don't care that the opponent gets a 1/1 bird token - that's not a relevant object.
- Path to the World Tree is mildly interesting. A bit expensive to crack, but probably more of a build-around for limited.
- Tyvar Kell is a reasonable option for Elf tribal decks.
- Kolvori, God of Kinship // The Ringhart Crest is.... interesting. Ringhart Crest is essentially a niche Rampant Growth, which is an interesting thing to be able to guarantee on turn 2, but also not necessarily what I'm looking for in a commander - Radha, Heir to Keld does it better. On the other hand, Kolvori is a decent draw engine and beater, assuming you're running enough legends. Could be an interesting alternative to Reki, the History of Kamigawa. I do think this is aimed more at Standard though.
- Random observation: Valki, God of Lies was probably designed as an answer to Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. Makes it slightly more interesting to me from a Standard perspective.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 6:04 pm
by ISBPathfinder
I am not that impressed with the new spoils today. It feels odd to see so many spoils and just be left with none of them having seemed that unique or interesting.
Elf planeswalker is ok I guess but walkers are fragile in this format. The
green god feels uninspiring to me (It seems like a linear build that likely builds itself in that its mono color legendary creatures). The
red dragon I guess I don't really know offhand but it feels like its likely not good enough for most commander decks but I guess time will tell.
I guess
Reflections of Littjara is the most interesting card of what I have seen today. Blue tribal decks are ok I guess there just aren't that many tribes in blue it feels like.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 7:22 pm
by SocorroTortoise
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 7:41 pm
by BeneTleilax
Esika seems like a solid addition to 5-color legends, though unlikely to ever beat out Sisay.
Re: Unreleased and New Card Discussion
Posted: Fri Jan 08, 2021 8:00 pm
by Lifeless
Did anyone want a 5 color creatureless superfriends commander?
Esika, God of the Tree is another interesting one. At first glance it seems like here sides don't interact very favorably, but what do I know.