Kaldheim - What is your take?

[ISBPathfinder]

So, often with new standard sets we don't see a ton of action but wizards has been all "YEAR OF COMMANDER" on us and that apparently just continues on forever. There have been plenty of sets where there aren't a ton of noteable take aways for this format but those days might be behind us. I figured I would create a thread for sort of a set take away as a whole and just see where people are on it.

My own take away here is

Pros:

• Snow is back - It keeps snow basics affordable and I do think that the snow effects are cool. Some effects like skred are incredibly welcome to some of the less powered colors.
• Changelings - I think there are a lot of lesser played tribes that could totally use a few commander playable changelings to help fill their ranks.
• Fetchable duals at common - I am totally blown away that they did this. They could have made this entire cycle of 10 lands rare and I don't think anyone would have been surprised or really even complain all that much about it. Seeing this cycle at common is just crazy.
• Runes - Auras have historically under performed and required build around strategies which equipment have not needed to nearly the same extent. Runes seem like a small buff to auras but I wonder in what frequency we will see them moving forward.
• Gods are back - People love gods, no real surprise here.

Cons:

• Snow is back - While I love snow effects, I fear that we might get more towards it becoming the norm to run snow as we see more and more of it. Back when we just had ice age and cold snap there weren't many effects to push people to play snow and it felt more special. I worry as we see more returns to snow that it might become the norm rather than feeling somewhat special.
• Gods feel less godly - honestly, the flip design is cool its just that the creature side of these gods feels just like a generic mythic creature rather than a god to me. Maybe its the lack of indestructible or something but these mostly don't feel like gods to me? I feel like the gods at rare rarity perhaps should not have been gods.
• Changelings only in UG - I keep asking why all the cool things go to UG only. I get from a color identity perspective but I was really looking forward to some playable tribal changelings in some of the other colors like primarily red and white which need some freaking help and ohhh look its just UG again. Getting tired of UG getting all the cool things lately. Beyond this, stop making legendary multi colored changelings. The need of changelings in commander is mono color or colorless changelings that we can run in the 99.
• Where are all the runes? - They came out with a new mechanic, gave us a tutor for them, and then create only 5 runes all of which are uncommon rarity giving us only one per color? Am I crazy to be like, can we have a rare / mythic rune? I sure hope we see more runes soon because when I saw the dwarf rune tutor I was expecting kind of a lot more than what we actually got.
• Poison is back - I guess for some this is a pro. I think the design of Fynn, the Fangbearer is actually great, its more that like we walk a fine line where poison is kind of ok as long as it isn't super easy and achievable in this format. If poison got pushed and had a lot more viable cards its possible that commander would have to change its rules. I just don't find poison to be an overly healthy mechanic for this format even though I think that Fynn is a really cool card.

I guess while my excitement is high, it feels like my complaints are maybe a little higher than my highlights this time. I am curious how everyone else is feeling offhand.

[folding_music]

even though I'm just blinking my way through the laziness of Kaldheim's theme, I like the set. all the best stuff in the set needs no support - there's several Foresight cards and a few Boast things which are simply good by themselves without having to be running the Foresight or Boast improving folks so that rules. Not all the snow cards are like SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW either, it could have been worse! Most of the legendaries rule, far more creative than a lot of the cards from ZNR or CMR. I like Cosima and the snow zombie king in particular. I think Esika's too good, I think Tergrid's too good, I think Birgi's too good and tbh I think Magda's too good as well... like for certain themes on legendary creatures the casting cost is always far too lax. All the new utility land is lovely and the commons are powerful to the point where I think buying a box might be worth it (but I'm holding back 'til I can prove I'll ever play another game.)

my complaints (besides it being a naff pantheon grab where they barely bothered to change any of the names) about the set are all focused on its disparateness. It feels like MH2 more than a cohesive expansion in the way it blithely touches on old mechanics which need more care and attention like Treasure and Snow, just really cavalier with abilities which can become too pervasive at any moment. and just try to name a classic enchantment from this set without looking at the spoiler? Feel like they desperately wanna relegate the type to just Auras and Sagas at this point to me, worrying when im such an enchantress. I hope whatever set follows this is more simple and has more room for the fundamentals!

[Outcryqq]

I like this set. I've got something like 24 decks, and there are a lot of cards I want to pick up to slot into those decks. Of my group I'm the only one that is high on the foretell mechanic; I think it's strong and has a ton of room to grow, most of the others in my group think it's a flash in the pan and will be irrelevant at rotation. There are a lot of pushed legendary creatures, and I think this makes room for new commander decks, while most of them don't seem "too good", though a few might be close (Tergrid and Esika come to mind). I've never been a snow guy, but I might change a few decks to snow lands to support a few of the more interesting/pushed snow cards. I'm not big on the storylines, but I'm glad that the storyline here makes me understand a few inclusions, like the rare gods (they access their god status by drinking an elixir) and Vorinclex without his fellow praetors (he was tricked there). And there are a lot of art pieces that I like; and while I don't personally like a lot of the "metal" art besides Vorinclex, I'm glad they're experimenting with art themes.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Kaldheim is waaaay overwrought and waaaay too busy for my liking. Dinosaurs and Pirates and Vampires and merfolk on Ixalan was busy too, but at least all those factions felt adequately supported. Kaldheim has gods, dwarves, elves, humans, phyrexians and changelings, and none of them feel complete. Furthermore, if they never print another card with the snow supertype, it'd be too soon. I hate snow IRL, and looking at this set makes me feel cold. I despise the mechanic too, it just says if your basics cost 50 cents instead of 10, you get some arbitrary value. Piss all over that.

I'm liking the story so far though, it seems like a lead up to something cool, way cooler than Kaldheim. I also dig some of the pauper playables.

[BOVINE]

fynn, the fangbearer has taken over my heart

[JovialJovian]

As always, I feel like the Snow Basics are a mistake, and the way to fix snow is to ban them all and replace with "Snow-Covered Wastes," so including snow is actually a deckbuilding cost, rather than a freebie.

Foretell will have an impact on Commander, simply the individual cards are quite competitively costed with the basic verisons. The ability to set them ahead of time reminds me of the Capsules and Seals, but with the surprise factor of Morph. The counterspell in particular I think we will see a lot.

I like the support for Giants, and I like that they've expanded the Giants' horizons a bit by handing them the UR slice (I know there have already been blue giants, but never as a major theme)

Vorinclex is a Doubling Season in the command zone, but since he's mono green, he will not be enabling crazy planeswalker nonsense from there. I think the bigger impact is that he is searchable by the green tutors, making him much easier to find than doubling season.

Super Rune-Scarred Demon seems like an overstep. I'm not sure why it wasn't just a reprint of Rune-Scarred Demon, flavor fits, the card is already very powerful but not oppressive.

I'm happy with Fynn. The problem with poison was trying to make a whole set with a poison theme. In the old days, there would be just one or two cards in a set that dealt poison, it was this side-option, not a primary element. Fynn feels more like that old-time poison, and not like Phyrexian poison, which is good in my mind. Just wish he was BG...

[pokken]

This is a set that is very mechanically interesting. I really like the Gods who are also artifacts and I especially love stuff like Cosima, God of the Voyage who is just very, very neat.

[motleyslayer]

I think the flavour in this set is really cool. I really like the gods for sure and could see myself building a deck or two around them

[nobody]

I fell as thought this set lacks focus in that there are a lot of things going up but very little support for anything in particular.

[onering]

I think the gods feel strange in a magic context, but make sense in a Norse context. Norse gods die. It's one of their defining features. Their other defining feature is generally having some amazing magic artifact associated with them, so these designs are pretty on the nose.

[toctheyounger]

There's scant from the set that gets me extremely excited, but there's lots of stuff that has subtle value in our format, and I really like that.

Like ISB I was floored that we now have duals at common. As someone that will never own ABUR's these are some consolation, and while they're a far cry, the consistency they'll add to a ton of decks is fantastic.

My big concern is how ubiquitous snow will likely be from here on in. There's no reason not to just swap out basics for snow basics more or less everywhere.

[brainface]

My big concern is how ubiquitous snow will likely be from here on in. There's no reason not to just swap out basics for snow basics more or less everywhere.

This is why desert needs to be a supertype, along with desert mana and you know, sand-covered plains et al, so you have to make a choice!

(I'm trolling but I also genuinely want this.)

[onering]

There just needs to be some snow hate printed, like back in the day, and stapled onto already playable cards, or cards that are playable enough that you'd run them if you had a reasonable expectation of seeing any snow.

[folding_music]

giggle
jamming Cold Snap in Tayam

[Sinis]

Pros:

• Art: I love the heavy line drawing in the showcase cards. Stuff like the showcase Inga Rune-eyes are gorgeous.
• Low(er) Power: The powerlevel of this set is pretty low. Gods are destructible. I'm on side with this. I don't want more pushed designs like Elder Gargaroth, or whatever. Just give me pretty weak cards that I will like playing with and against.
• Common land-typed Duals: Full set of 10. Wow. They just reprinted Three Visits in CMR, so this is pretty great IMO.
• Theme: People calling it lazy, or whatever... I like it. Sorry not sorry. It's right up my alley. Like, Replicating Ring; that's a thing in Norse mythology, it was called Draupnir. Yeah, the red god is a dude with a hammer. Is that lazy? If it is, I don't care.
• Cool takes on angels: Honestly, this tribe has needed low-curve options for a while. Sure, there have been 2-3 mana angels, but these ones are pretty decent. The black angels feel pretty great. The tribe has been missing the 'wrath' aspect of angels for a long time, and I think the reapers fit those shoes well.
• Gods: I like that the gods are really mortal, and come with built in options. I think they're neat, and will be solid roleplayers in existing decks. I think some, like Birgi, could easily become staples since they provide very salient material benefits (Birgi either gives you card advantage or mana, and it's hard to argue with those things).
• Tribal gack: I really like the Dwarf-elf-giant-god-angel-berserker tribes and overlaps. I think they did a pretty good job without it being heavy-handed.
• Sufficiently Vague Cards for backward compatibility: I'm mostly talking about Vega, the Watcher and Sage of the Beyond. Clearly, these were intended to work with Foretell, but, they're nicely compatible with Flashback, Retrace, Suspend (for Vega, anyway), the Command Zone, etc. They're worded just vaguely enough to be useful outside of the one very narrow application of Foretell, and I appreciate that.

Cons:

• Colour Pie Breaches: So, blue can just exile artifacts now. Blue got Bind the Monster, which feels pretty egregious for the colour that doesn't have removal in its pie. Blue/green got all the changeling stuff. White, predictably got nothing, despite the design push on Mangara in M21. It often feels like White is getting looted by other colours for its strengths (like, any interaction with artifacts), but, doesn't get anything in return. I guess White got Search for Glory, which is narrow, but not terrible.
• Runes: Man, I was hoping for more with these. I realize it may have been impractical for them to have ten runes, but there could have been more than the five. Runed Crown is just awful. Most of the runes suck, too, but, I can easily see people gluing trample to Lightning Greaves and having a good time. I guess I just hoped for more out of the keyword. Or, a trample rune on a Sword of Protection and Value.
• Gods like multiples: One of the things that's kind of cool is that the gods of this set (mostly) interact well with their flipsides. In EDH, it's pretty hard to leverage that; it will be hard to play Egon, God of Death and somehow make a Throne of Death. Or, ones with even more synergy, like Toralf, God of Fury with Toralf's Hammer. It can be done with Sculpting Steel, etc., but, there's a fair bit of cost in that. The only one that seems extra viable is Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff, since it has access to plenty of copy effects, and Kaldring, the Rimestaff can recur Jorn himself. It just feels a bit like the Grandeur mechanic again.

All in all, I'm pretty enthused by this set. It's not earthshattering in terms of mechanics (is Foretell just reskinned Morph? At least it's not as uninspired as Megamorph...), but, the individual cards have sparked my interest, and for the most part, I like them. If I had one wish, it would have been that they gave something to White other than one narrow tutor. They gave red some sweet Treasure interaction cards; I'm glad they got that in their colour pie. But, white needs to actually have something in its identity instead of their good/historic roles just being pillaged by other colours. Maybe Divine Gambit is intended to be the exemplar of White's "power" in this set, but, it looks incredibly risky, even in non-EDH contexts.

[NZB2323]

Norse gods can die, so they shouldn't be indestructible.

Overall, I like some singles in the set that I'll buy.

[Cyberium]

There's a lot of pros and cons, most had been mentioned.

Kaldheim presents several new possibilities. Tiny demons, treasure mana doublers, white tutor, double-faced commanders, combat centric empowerment, etc. Hell, even a new style of "white ramp" via Colossal Plow if they print cheaper version in the future. Tales of the Ancestors would've been perfect as a white draw since it's just 1/3 of a reversed Balance, though WotC gave it (and Hullbreacher) to blue, I'm glad white receives many other buffs.

At the same time, I'm still unsatisfied with some of the other directions involving color pie. Big black demons with no drawback continues to irk me, and blue getting more efficient removals (the key here is "efficient") is not an amiable sight, etc. While white were given many new power cards, I feel WotC should explore its other traits further, especially in legendary creatures; combat isn't the only thing white (or Boros for that matter) can do.

[Yatsufusa]

I'm okay with the gods feeling less impressive, especially with what it feels like a power-level drop swing in ages for a set. Like with almost every other set recently, there's almost always something for someone. In fact since the 1-set model, nothing has really fallen as flat as the 3rd-set issues we had of ages past (there were some downers, yes, but nothing as catastrophic relatively like Saviors of Kamigawa / Dragon's Maze).

On a personal level, because the tribal focus doesn't align with my EDH decks and I don't care about Snow, this set could functionally be considered a downer for me (only me). Not really a lot of high synergy cards and while there are fun cards I won't feel like I'm missing out on too much if I can't get them.

I still haven't got used to MDFCs (didn't play around since Zendikar for obvious reasons) but its "complicated" effects from Zendikar still seem to linger (ever since Ikoria's companions and mutate it felt like the entire R&D was willing to complicate the game on a base level so that Arena has interesting effects that it can automate, paper doesn't) and when combined with "reskinned morph", snow, tribal and gods, all aspects from different eras of the game, the set feels a tad crowded. It's like they took a quarter of a set of Tarkir, Lorwyn, Theros and Coldsnap and put it together as one set.

Or maybe it's just me seeing the set a lot more mechanically because honestly the way Norse Mythology is weaved into MTG this time didn't feel outstanding (plus as I already said my immersion was severed by the TWD black-border debacle). I did have roughly the same reaction to Theros flavor personally anyway.

[onering]

I'm sorry, how is foretell re-skinned morph? The pay upfront, then get a discount later part? Echo sort of does the same thing too, splitting up the cost. Foretell goes on anything, and you don't get anything until you pay the second part. Its more like taking the cost splitting and hidden info of morph and combining it with the exile zone and having to wait to get the effect from suspend. Most mechanics aren't completely new and doing something that hasn't ever been done before. Foretell is pretty fresh compared to boast (narrow raid), or Mutate (bestow but with different complications).

[Yatsufusa]

I'm sorry, how is foretell re-skinned morph? The pay upfront, then get a discount later part? Echo sort of does the same thing too, splitting up the cost. Foretell goes on anything, and you don't get anything until you pay the second part. Its more like taking the cost splitting and hidden info of morph and combining it with the exile zone and having to wait to get the effect from suspend. Most mechanics aren't completely new and doing something that hasn't ever been done before. Foretell is pretty fresh compared to boast (narrow raid), or Mutate (bestow but with different complications).

Nah, it's the face-down part giving your opponent mind games that's the most similar visually when you play. My mistake, re-skin is poor wording choice, they're functionally quite different (morph/manifest was easily interactable while foretell isn't, but at the same time foretell is heavily timing restricted while morph can bypass even split second), but on the surface level it does have a similar "feeling like a reskin" even if it isn't functionally one.

With the timing restriction, technically foretell is a more of a "less interactable hand of cards" than it is closer to morph but visually in game play it sure still feels more like "less interactable morph".

[JovialJovian]

Nah, it's the face-down part giving your opponent mind games that's the most similar visually when you play. My mistake, re-skin is poor wording choice, they're functionally quite different (morph/manifest was easily interactable while foretell isn't, but at the same time foretell is heavily timing restricted while morph can bypass even split second), but on the surface level it does have a similar "feeling like a reskin" even if it isn't functionally one.

With the timing restriction, technically foretell is a more of a "less interactable hand of cards" than it is closer to morph but visually in game play it sure still feels more like "less interactable morph".

Interestingly, although they are protected from discard, Foretold cards are vulnerable to the Eldrazi Processor ability, and in commander they can provide a limiter on Foretell if it starts to become too ubiquitous in your playgroup.

[onering]

Been playing a lot of limited and I'm liking how Foretell and Boast play a lot. They both gain a lot from support cards, but are perfectly fine on their own as well. Snow got some nice stuff but I don't see it becoming a case of just running snow lands in every deck. Only the black wrath gets a serious upgrade from really scaling up on snow Mana, the white tutor gains you a bit of life that's barely worth actually sleeving up a bunch of snow plains for outside of mono white.

[Rumpy5897]

Kaldheim's a big experiment in how far they can push things, both within the game and outside of it, to overall mixed results. The #$!@ YEAH METAL VIKINGS tone of the initial announcements was just garish and massively dampened my already low expectations for the set. The within-game pushing took on two forms, one being the type line and one being tokens. The type line I'm largely indifferent to, but it feels that in the last few years they realised that it's another form of real estate they can mess around with to try to make people excited about the game in different ways. Are ten supported tribes really that much crazier than having ten draft archetypes with guide uncommons and everything in a regular set? Not really. The thing that did tickle my fancy were the various new noncreature tokens offered. That's some interesting design space that they've been subtly exploring with the Gold/Treasures, and are taking a deeper plunge into now. Add in the snow duals and I ended up liking the set a bit more than I was expecting.

Pretty much all other key points were hit in the thread already. I'm happy that they seem to have successfully learned their lesson from ELD, and there doesn't seem to be anything busted beyond belief at first glance. The various small colour pie mess-arounds have been adding up from set to set, and eventually there might be enough of them where any colour will theoretically be able to handle most anything in a game. I was already a little leery at Mire in Misery/Feed the Swarm, but now we get Ravenform plus Tibalt's Trickery in one set and the leeriness upgrades to discomfort.

[Sinis]

I'm sorry, how is foretell re-skinned morph? The pay upfront, then get a discount later part? Echo sort of does the same thing too, splitting up the cost. Foretell goes on anything, and you don't get anything until you pay the second part. Its more like taking the cost splitting and hidden info of morph and combining it with the exile zone and having to wait to get the effect from suspend.

I did say 'kind of'. It's more that you pay a flat-fee, and then you have the option to pay a cost later. Also, that some of the foretell cards have additional effects if you play it for its foretell cost (Haunting Voyage, Poison the Cup, Starnheim Unleashed) which is not unlike "When ~ is turned face up...".

It makes me think of Morph because it's basically saying "I have one of this subset of cards. Now play around it."

That said, Morph gives you a 2/2 body, and Foretell doesn't.

Most mechanics aren't completely new and doing something that hasn't ever been done before. Foretell is pretty fresh compared to boast (narrow raid), or Mutate (bestow but with different complications).

I mean, I agree with this. There's only so much within the Magic framework that can be done, and they have to ration out that design space for future sets.

I guess I should clarify: I don't think it's a bad mechanic. I just think it's less than inspiring. I will absolutely play cards with Foretell, and I will absolutely use their Foretell function. But, I expect people will interact with it the same way they interact with Morph: Just as when you're in blue and put down a Morph people believe it's Willlbender, when you Foretell a card in blue, people will believe it's Ravenform... and 90% of the time they're going to be right, just like they are with Willbender.

[pokken]

and there doesn't seem to be anything busted beyond belief at first glance.

I mean..Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern is an obvious huge honking annoying mistake.

At least in my opinion. "synergize powerfully with everything people hate" seems like such a questionable design decision. Surprised it didn't have a smokestack attached to it