Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[heridfel]

Maybe that discussion should go to a different thread? I keep expecting to see discussion about new and unreleased cards in Commander, not the archetypes in Hobbit Limited.

[Dunadain]

Maybe that discussion should go to a different thread? I keep expecting to see discussion about new and unreleased cards in Commander, not the archetypes in Hobbit Limited.

Nobody yelled at me when we were talking about the movies and that was more off-topic and was a longer discussion

But yeah, your right, @onering we can open a thread on in the limited forums if you want.

[Guardman]

Maybe that discussion should go to a different thread? I keep expecting to see discussion about new and unreleased cards in Commander, not the archetypes in Hobbit Limited.

Nobody yelled at me when we were talking about the movies and that was more off-topic and was a longer discussion

But yeah, your right, @onering we can open a thread on in the limited forums if you want.

Not to derail this thread further, but please do open the thread if you want. I love discussing limited (and have so few opportunities to do so).

[Hermes_]

[Serenade]

Saw that post and immediately blocked them. I don't want to see content like that on my feed.

[TheGildedGoose]

Saw that post and immediately blocked them. I don't want to see content like that on my feed.

[Hermes_]

Saw that post and immediately blocked them. I don't want to see content like that on my feed.

my favorite comment was the person who said they would play Soldier of Fortune

[materpillar]

I assume this is a joke and not actually something they did?

[Hermes_]

I assume this is a joke and not actually something they did?

yeah it's a joke, i've seen the same image of the collection in the back of a truck with other topics

[Wanli]

Just watched the debut stream: Not sure how much sense the story will make, but with UW sets I inevitably feel more of a sense of wonder than with any UB setting.

[Mookie]

Reality Fracture spoilers formally starting. Huzzah! I skipped the story from the last few sets, but I've been enjoying the audiobooks for this one so far.

• 'Empower Jace' is... an interesting mechanic. The token isn't particularly powerful, but free surveils and card draw are always nice. There is a significant threshold in value if you can get 3+ counters, since you'll get actual card draw instead of just some surveils, but overall I suspect this will mostly be a limited mechanic - drawing an extra card or two over the course of a few turns just doesn't sound that exciting in commander. Still, there are some very efficient sources of it, so it could be good.
• Loyal Tutor is Enlightened Tutor for planeswalkers. Seems nice for superfriends.
• Repurposed Enforcer is cheap and can potentially do a ton of empowering, which feels like a litmus test for how playable the mechanic is. A 2-drop with no keywords that draws a card on attack seems like it could be pretty good, but if it only surveils then I'm less interested.
• Return to the Light Realms looks like a very nice upgrade over Triumphant Reckoning. Does white have an unconditional mass creature reanimation effect? I guess Storm of Souls and Ascend from Avernus, but this feels a lot cleaner. Not sure how I feel about it compared to Rise of the Dark Realms (and it's still a step down from Eerie Ultimatum, but seems nice.
• Jace's Machinations is pretty close to an instant speed draw-2. Seems more cute than good though.
• Hexhaven Invigorator joins Phyrexian Vindicator and Phyrexian Obliterator in the 'no actually evasion but close enough' category. Note that it can grab any lands (not just basics), which is... a thing. Primeval Titan says hi.
• Aerid Konstrari reminds me of Galazeth Prismari as a four mana legend that makes a mana rock on ETB. I guess Roxanne, Starfall Savant also fills a similar role.
• Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes is sort of a 2-drop with 'landfall: draw 2/3' of a card, which seems... quite strong if you have enough landfall. You're limited to once per turn, but still seems good.
• Denzilor Fatehold does a decent Cathars' Crusade impression if you have a bunch of scry triggers.
• Ingris Stingerquill is a potent force multiplier for go-wide aggro decks.
• Kwia Vigorbloom has a pile of keywords and spams Black Lotus tokens whenever you gain life. Six mana is a lot, but seems very easy to break.
• Uldaros Theorix has a pesky 'if you cast' clause, so no flicker shenanigans. Still, you can potentially bring back Phantasmal Image or other cheap clones for extra triggers... or just run it as a value card.
• Karn, Gilded Guardian looks like a nice alternative to The Everforger if you want to build a 5c colored artifact pile.
• Karn, Argent Defender + Phyrexian Dreadnought. There, you're welcome.
• Theorist's Sanctum follows up The Lonely Mountain as a fetchable utility land. I guess we're getting this as a cycle over multiple sets? Either way, the mere fact that it can turn every fetchland into a draw engine seems quite strong.

[5colorsrainbow]

Just some story info to give some context to spoilers:
-After his trauma over Phyrexia Jace set out to heal the multiverse by overwriting and reversing the damage the eldrazi, bolas and phyrexia had done.

-To do this Jace made his way to the meditational realm which was shown to be a nextus of creation/reality. Along the way Jace started to give into the negative sides of blue, letting himself hurt and harm other under the idea all would be made right if he got his plan done. This resulted in him and Vraska soft breaking up when she start to question what where doing and Jace went solo.

-While powerful Jace was unable to fully cast his spell and seemly him and reality around him shattered. Like Ugin had done Jace was able to reform himself however his mind has been fractured and instead of changing reality a separate echo-ing reality formed which Jace was able to put in his "fixes".

-However, Jace is still in over his head and his subconscious is shaping things as much as his conscious mind. More so, Jace willing the echoverse to be his ideal is made of paradoxes and "plot holes" making it unstable, and events happen beyond Jace control, such in his efforts to help Liliana he didn't think on Garruk now finding the chainveil instead of Liliana.

-To fix this Jace has planned to overlay the echoverse on the main one, killing/smothering/easering the prime multiverse and the echoverse living on thru its bones.

-However, parts of Jace know this wrong, know this stupid, know they should stop. And in a literal version of what Jace had been doing before his body had been shattered, Jace started to fracture his mind, locking away his empathy, conscience, the parts of him that know he's hurting other to ignore what they/he knew was the truth.

-Now all is left is the Theorist, a telepath who has no issues reaching into others minds and taking control of them, who has replaced empathy with cold logic and sees no good or evil, just pragmatism to his plan.

-All that stands in his way is his former friends Ajani and Chandra who have recruited his "ex" Vraska and Garruk (whose is immune to Jace's illusions) to help them locate the parts of Jace that can be reasoned with, and Tam, a gorgon who Jace made out of a core part of himself and give independence (and no don't ask why she looks like a mix of him and Vraska its totally normal).

-Jace has made Hexhaven his base to finish his plan.

[PrimevalCommander]

Hexhaven Invigorator joins Phyrexian Vindicator and Phyrexian Obliterator in the 'no actually evasion but close enough' category. Note that it can grab any lands (not just basics), which is... a thing. Primeval Titan says hi.

Ha, now this is an interesting ramp creature. 4-drop 6/6, but honestly this still gets chump blocked by a 1/1 pretty good. Having Vigilance makes this a pretty effective blocker because who is going to want to swing with anything big enough to kill this? Now I need a way to make it fight something, which is extra steps of course, but pretty worth it.

[Ruiner]

Hexhaven Invigorator joins Phyrexian Vindicator and Phyrexian Obliterator in the 'no actually evasion but close enough' category. Note that it can grab any lands (not just basics), which is... a thing. Primeval Titan says hi.

Ha, now this is an interesting ramp creature. 4-drop 6/6, but honestly this still gets chump blocked by a 1/1 pretty good. Having Vigilance makes this a pretty effective blocker because who is going to want to swing with anything big enough to kill this? Now I need a way to make it fight something, which is extra steps of course, but pretty worth it.

Lure is also fun . . .

[NZB2323]

Hexhaven Invigorator joins Phyrexian Vindicator and Phyrexian Obliterator in the 'no actually evasion but close enough' category. Note that it can grab any lands (not just basics), which is... a thing. Primeval Titan says hi.

Ha, now this is an interesting ramp creature. 4-drop 6/6, but honestly this still gets chump blocked by a 1/1 pretty good. Having Vigilance makes this a pretty effective blocker because who is going to want to swing with anything big enough to kill this? Now I need a way to make it fight something, which is extra steps of course, but pretty worth it.

If you're in Gruul you could do Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction, Starstorm, Worldsoul's Rage, or cycle a Mjölnir, Hammer of Thor.

He may be better for Tannuk, Memorial Ensign than Harmonize? Probably not actually.

[Lifeless]

The concept of creating Planeswalker tokens has dealt me massive psychic damage.

[MAGUSZANIN]

Return to the Light Realms seems great. Best high MV card White has gotten in a couple years IMHO, with White finally having a meaningful mass recursion piece at a large mana value that is not hobbled by an inability to hit creatures, a mana value/power restriction, or both.

Hexhaven Invigorator kind of annoys me. Not only does it blow the Black and White versions of this effect out of the water in terms of synergy potential with not only Green having native Fight spells. but also why yes, I will Blasphemous Act my own board when doing so finds me the best 13 lands in my deck! But the bigger issue is that it is not Phyrexian, and prior to this the cycle was exclusively Phyrexian, including the Red one that was Arena exclusive for Alchemy reasons. Making this be tied to one of the Hexhaven Schools means that now Vorinclex/Jin Gitaxis will never get the Green/Blue versions to go with the White and Black versions.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Ingris Stingerquill is very interesting to me, not as a Commander but in the 99 for those Mardu Weenie Reanimation builds (ie Terra, Herald of Hope and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death).

I've always had difficulty seeing how these decks close out long games, and Ingris gives you a mana sink; make all your extra mana into 2/2 Cadets, and gives mass haste as added bonus. Triggered ability is the cherry on top, helps close out games faster.

Only 1 power and costing only 3 MV means it can be brought back with all those effects that bring low cost and/or low power creatures (like in Terra decks, Sun Titan, General Leo Cristophe, Squall, SeeD Mercenary and Sevinne's Reclamation can all revive Ingris).

[folding_music]

besties!

[heridfel]

I hate the Jace tokens and the obsession with Jace in the set's storyline. Gerrard was less of a focus in the Rath cycle; I could even say that Urza was less of a focus in Urza block - at least he mainly showed up in flavor text rather than mechanics. I guess I am happy that Commander players probably won't include many of those cards in decks.

I would rather that Hexhaven Invigorator only pulled basic lands. It would be weaker, but at the same time, it wouldn't be used as a combo piece and would be less likely to get banned like my old friend Primeval Titan or targeted with non-damage-based removal. But I know I am unusual for enjoying a mono color deck rather than running tons of non-basic lands to support a multicolor mana base.

[DirkGently]

Eh, hexhaven invigorator is probably fine. Cost is very restrictive, and it generally needs another spell to resolve to do anything. Obviously strong with fight spells, but you get very blown out by interaction, and fight spells are bad in most decks.

The question is, can I shove GGGG in my wayta Sorrow's Path deck...

[tstorm823]

Eh, hexhaven invigorator is probably fine. Cost is very restrictive, and it generally needs another spell to resolve to do anything. Obviously strong with fight spells, but you get very blown out by interaction, and fight spells are bad in most decks.

The question is, can I shove GGGG in my wayta Sorrow's Path deck...

Just use Hexhaven Invigorator to tutor your Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, duh.

[5colorsrainbow]

I don't partially love empower Jace but I feel like empower is a good way to have more of a superfriends theme and I think is the way to have "common" planeswalkers. Shame they didn't think/want to go with this for War since you could gotten a few more characters they didn't have space for/ up the number of "walkers" in that set, thought thats likely something they wanna do more for a Modern Horizons retelling of War (like they did the eldrazi arc) with just having one kinda of planeswalker was pushing it seemly.

That said I do like the white empower cards do give white some minor ca with the -1 and at least one that can active the -3 (and maybe a few times at that), so thats nice.

Hexhaven Invigorator kind of annoys me. Not only does it blow the Black and White versions of this effect out of the water in terms of synergy potential with not only Green having native Fight spells. but also why yes, I will Blasphemous Act my own board when doing so finds me the best 13 lands in my deck! But the bigger issue is that it is not Phyrexian, and prior to this the cycle was exclusively Phyrexian, including the Red one that was Arena exclusive for Alchemy reasons. Making this be tied to one of the Hexhaven Schools means that now Vorinclex/Jin Gitaxis will never get the Green/Blue versions to go with the White and Black versions.

I think you could still see a green phyrexian version thats a bit more meaner feeling for a phyrexian cycle. As much as the ramp is negative for an opponent it feels a lot less punishing/harsh then phyrexia can be and more of a reward for you the player, which is kinda in theme.

[Mookie]

Hexhaven Invigorator kind of annoys me. Not only does it blow the Black and White versions of this effect out of the water in terms of synergy potential with not only Green having native Fight spells. but also why yes, I will Blasphemous Act my own board when doing so finds me the best 13 lands in my deck! But the bigger issue is that it is not Phyrexian, and prior to this the cycle was exclusively Phyrexian, including the Red one that was Arena exclusive for Alchemy reasons. Making this be tied to one of the Hexhaven Schools means that now Vorinclex/Jin Gitaxis will never get the Green/Blue versions to go with the White and Black versions.

Counterpoint: Phyrexian Obliterator wasn't originally printed as a Phyrexian, because it wasn't a creature type at the time. So, clearly the unifying creature type is actually Horror. Captain N'ghathrod hype?

[onering]

Well, we did it boys, in Kwia Vigorbloom we finally broke %$#%$#% Juju Bubble

Infinite life, infinite Black Lotus tokens, making infinite mana and infinite permanent sac triggers, token creation triggers, and artifact entry triggers.


Such a nice gift for its 30th anniversary

Edit: as others pointed out, I missed the once per turn clause. Makes this far less obnoxious.

Oh well Juju Bubble, you still have Supportive Parents and a kicked Rite of Replication targeting Famished Paladin