Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Wild Magic Surge is sweet. I do love interaction that says "You can't have that, have this instead". I know giving them nothing is usually always better, but I can't help but feel that I swindled my opponent every time I play Swords to Plowshares. But hey, how about that 4 life, amiright?

[NZB2323]

Wild Magic Surge: new staple, or total jank? It's cheaper than Chaos Warp, but the fact that your opponent will always get back something of value is a pretty big downside - a lot of the strength of Chaos Warp is that ~50% of the time, your opponent will flip a land or instant/sorcery, which isn't the case here. As a result, my prediction is on the jank side.

Another advantage of Chaos Warp is that it hits lands a lot of times. For Wild Magic surge I think it depends on what you target. This is a red card that allows red to take out enchantments, but the most played enchantments are Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, Rhythm of the Wild, Mirari's Wake, Mystic Remora, sylvan library, Temur Ascendancy, and Aura Shards.

I guess it depends on what you remove, but I think taking out an enchantment for an opponent getting one of the cards above is going to feel bad most of the time. I mean, I guess red players aren't scared of rhythm of the wild, and there are rare instances when giving an opponent an aura shards allows them to destroy enchantments you can't get rid of, but overall it seems like a bad trade.

For other permanent types, red has ways of dealing with them that doesn't give the opponent a card. I just think Meteor Golem is better, even if it cost 5 more.

[DirkGently]

I think it's pretty good. Better in the 4p game than 1v1. You definitely don't want to fire it off on a lesser target, but it's versatile removal at a low cost. If you're mono-red and don't want to lose to combo or voltron or whatever, I think it makes sense. Definitely better in that role than meteor golem between the cost and (can't stress this enough) instant speed.

[Guardman]

I think it's pretty good. Better in the 4p game than 1v1. You definitely don't want to fire it off on a lesser target, but it's versatile removal at a low cost. If you're mono-red and don't want to lose to combo or voltron or whatever, I think it makes sense. Definitely better in that role than meteor golem between the cost and (can't stress this enough) instant speed.

Basically this. As a person who plays a ton of mono-red, Meteor Golem is a necessary evil as there are so few answers to enchantments available in mono-red. Wild Magic Surge is going to be a great replacement in any mono-red deck.

[DirkGently]

Why is Barroom Brawl a rare? Unless your opponents cooperate and the stars align, it's just the crappiest Prey Upon variant of all time.

[Hawk]

Why is Barroom Brawl a rare? Unless your opponents cooperate and the stars align, it's just the crappiest Prey Upon variant of all time.

Wow this is rare. Ugh. I could see for complexity reasons bumping it up to uncommon, but it's a "may" making this more or less totally, wildly unplayable. I'm not sure I'd play it even in dedicated Neyith of the Dire Hunt Fight Club.dec.

[duducrash]

- "roll a d20; destroy that many nonland permanents" (the 'WotC you need to stop buffing white' timeline)

No blink timeline?

Wild Magic Surge I think it is awesome. Dealing with enchantments in mono R is amazing. I will run and embrace the chaos. don't ever care

[Dragoon]

I am super stoked about Wild Magic Surge for my random deck. Random removal tends to always suck or cost way too much mana (looking at you, Haphazard Bombardment). This is even quite good in mono-red decks, and probably rakdos decks.

[Hawk]

Ya'll have convinced me to at least test Wild Magic Surge in Daretti. I think it is an order of magnitude worse than Chaos Warp but I too have found Meteor Golem and even Spine of Ish Sah a bit clunky there.

Aaanddd...we live in the best timeline! Ancient Gold Dragon makes 1/1 flying dragon tokens equal to the d20, which seems excellent! One downside is that everyone else got a second french vanilla keyword but Gold here just gets +0/+3 instead of Vigilance or Lifelink or something, but hey - at least the trigger isn't just gain 1-20 life!

[Serenade]

I also think Wild Magic Surge is a trap (can't exile/tuck gods), but I will try it out for a while.

Not sure if Sculpted Sunburst will be worth it, but more exile is good.

[Mookie]

Aaanddd...we live in the best timeline! Ancient Gold Dragon makes 1/1 flying dragon tokens equal to the d20, which seems excellent! One downside is that everyone else got a second french vanilla keyword but Gold here just gets +0/+3 instead of Vigilance or Lifelink or something, but hey - at least the trigger isn't just gain 1-20 life!

Ancient Brass Dragon, Ancient Bronze Dragon, Ancient Silver Dragon, and Ancient Copper Dragon also only have flying as their keyword, so no difference here. If anything, Gold has the best statline of the bunch.

[Hawk]

Aaanddd...we live in the best timeline! Ancient Gold Dragon makes 1/1 flying dragon tokens equal to the d20, which seems excellent! One downside is that everyone else got a second french vanilla keyword but Gold here just gets +0/+3 instead of Vigilance or Lifelink or something, but hey - at least the trigger isn't just gain 1-20 life!

Ancient Brass Dragon, Ancient Bronze Dragon, Ancient Silver Dragon, and Ancient Copper Dragon also only have flying as their keyword, so no difference here. If anything, Gold has the best statline of the bunch.

Derp, got my brain mixed up between these and the uncommon Temur adventure dragons that all do a little extra. You're right, Gold just got a random +0/+3 for some reason which isn't that meaningful (still dies to Blasphemous Act) but it ain't nothing!

Looks like we got a dump of spoilers, and Your Temple is Under Attack looks great. The problem with Secret Rendezvous is (at least partially) the sorcery speed; meanwhile more instant-speed mass indestructible is also good. Getting both on one card is a bit awkward as they serve different decks, but makes for a nice little swiss army knife.

Also salivating over Vexing Puzzlebox for that Wyll, Blade of Frontiers deck I'm brewing

[ukkuhrmakhai]

Wild Magic Surge: new staple, or total jank? It's cheaper than Chaos Warp, but the fact that your opponent will always get back something of value is a pretty big downside - a lot of the strength of Chaos Warp is that ~50% of the time, your opponent will flip a land or instant/sorcery, which isn't the case here. As a result, my prediction is on the jank side.

It will be a staple in any deck running Gather Specimens, so watch

It seems like it will be a staple in mono red decks that want extra answers and be okay in rakdos decks. Wild Magic Surge doesn't improve your board position, doesn't give mana advantage (usually), is card disadvantage and isn't even a guaranteed answer so it isn't Assassin's Trophy. But it can remove whatever is a problem right now and you can deal with the consequences later (very red).

I think it will basically have 4 or 5 common modes.
Safe Modes
1) Destroy target combo piece. If someone has a combo piece that will win them the game the downside of them getting something back doesn't matter (Assuming they don't get another combo piece)
2) Ghost Quarter -. Not quite as good as ghost quarter since they might get something better than a basic land and you probably shouldn't target man lands.
Neutral Modes (You probably won't lose because of Wild Magic Surge)
3) Polymorph Enchantment. If you run into problematic enchantments frequently as a red deck, this is a great answer.
4) Turn Target Artifact into a Mana Rock. Most decks have enough mana rocks that if you polymorph an artifact they'll probably get a mana rock.
Risky
5) Destroy Creature/Planeswalker/Random Permanent. Even when it might be risky, Wild Magic Surge is never dead so you can always roll the dice.

It also plays nicely with stuff like Containment Priest and Grafdigger's Cage, so hatebears or stax might get more value out of it than the average deck.

[Igzex]

I'm gonna rank the Ancient dragons because they're easily the most interesting of the bajillion dragons in the set.

1: Ancient Copper Dragon
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I had a hard time choosing between this and the Silver dragon. In the end, I chose this Copper because it has the lowest CMC, making it the easiest of the bunch to leave up mana to protect until you can try and trigger its effect and basically run away with the game. Also, being red means it is in the haste giving color because violently robbing people is best when you do it by surprise.

2: Ancient Silver Dragon
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Even if you roll a critical fumble, managing to land a hit with this card gives you a really good advantage that nobody can ever take away from you for the rest of your life in this game. Which is probably gonna be short if you didn't draw the cards you need to take the game. Also for whatever reason they gave the blue one the best power/toughness so that's neat too.

3: Ancient Gold Dragon
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I'm pleasantly surprised this doesn't just heal you. Having all those flying bodies on the field allows you to just go for it and still be protected from most attacks, to say nothing of cards like Kindred Discovery. Boy am I ever glad I stockpiled on all those adorable dragon fairy tokens.

4: Ancient Bronze Dragon
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Though it got the least excited reaction I actually think this is not the worst one because it does not have as much potential to just absolutely brick. Also, a good roll is basically going to give you what you need to kill someone. I'd love to see Earthquake Dragon get +20 counters and then get boosted by Xenagos, God of Revels and then hit someone while Fiery Emancipation is on the field. Oh and Atarka, World Render is attacking too.

5: Ancient Brass Dragon
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It has the only ability that can actually do nothing so therefore I consider it the lesser of the 5. Instant Boardstate in a can is still an effect that needs to be respected none the less.

Also by looking through the spoiler page to make sure I have their stats and rules text right, I just now noticed Astarion's Thirst and had a good laugh because the guy that's being preyed upon actually looks kinda happy about it.

[folding_music]

I seem to be planning to make two green blue decks, each helmed by a hobbit, as a result of this set ))))) Erinis and Alora are so me... I have a pretty okay wizard-centric edh deck which featured a bunch of Equilibrium, Crystal Shard, ETB junk already and I think having Alora helm it and adding Master Chef lets me make those creatures more relevant and get sillier with Sage of Fables. can kinda de-tribalize it to an extent and concentrate more on the churn from hand to board to hand, etc. plus there's plenty of blue-green ophidian options so the deck can pretty much just be utility fishies, some one mana disruption and some interesting land?

meanwhile Erinis I kinda wanna try Crop Rotating for Ipnu Rivulet lol

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

I'm gonna rank the Ancient dragons because they're easily the most interesting of the bajillion dragons in the set.

While I agree the Copper Dragon is the best one, mostly because of its cost, in my opinion Ancient Gold Dragon comes in 2nd, with Silver in third, because of the risk (albeit small) that the Silver Dragon's trigger causes me to straight up lose the game. It's not likely, true, but there are situations where it's the late game and I'd be reluctant to swing because this thing might kill me.

For me, Brass Dragon comes in at 4 with Bronze Dragon at 5; I think the ability of Brass Dragon to rebuild a board state by grabbing useful utility creatures (nice hatebear you got there) from everybody's graveyard slightly outclasses Bronze Dragon's +1/+1 counters.

[kirkusjones]

Full spoiler is up! Deadly Dispute is reprinted at common, woo!

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Undercellar Myconid!

Yes, YES, YEEEEEEEESSSSSS!!

[ukkuhrmakhai]

That Run Away Together art is amazing. Are someone's brains about to be eaten or is really true love? It makes me want to build a star crossed lovers themed deck.

[RedCheese]

Looks like a boring set to me. Standard sets have more itneresting cards to brew IMO. Not a DnD fan so this is probably towards them because the flavor of the set doesn't connect to me.

[Mookie]

Looking at the set, it does look to be a step down in power level compared to the first Commander Legends set. Definitely still plenty of cards I'm interested in picking up, and it's probably for the best that we're not getting another Hullbreacher / Jeweled Lotus, but.... I think part of that may be that several of the key components of the set - backgrounds, gates, dragons, dice rolling - don't fit easily into most preexisting decks. It also looks like the strongest returning mechanic (adventures) has been toned down in power level significantly since it last appeared.

...on the plus side, it does look like it will be a sweet limited format.

[Guardman]

I guess my biggest disappoint about the set are the background commanders/backgrounds are mostly underwhelming compared to the cool synergies in the original commander legends partners. Most of them are either kind of general or super specific. There are cool cards, but not at the level of commander legends.

[Igzex]

Dragon bias aside I prefer this to the original commander legends set. I felt that the first set was designed by people who kinda did not understand the format, looked up EDHrec to see all these super optimized "my deck's the best one" dream lists, and went into it with a "Legacy Horizons" mindset. The cards were less "I can't wait to play with these" and more "Oh, I'm gonna have to play against these...". Here in D&D world we got the balance down better...I hope. Favorite cards include

Archivist of Oghma: See WOTC you can punish groan inducing strats without making the card itself groan inducing! Bonus points for the creature being a halfling cleric. I always found that an adorable combination.

Crystal Dragon: Pretty dece value for what's supposed to be draft chaff.

Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant: (⊙‿⊙✿)

Sapphire Dragon: Yeah I might actually use this one outside of draft too. A counter spell with only 1 of its mana cost being blue is always worth a look in multicolor decks and also the creature itself is not too shabby.

Shameless Charlatan: I just love effects like these.

Blood Money: The treasures come into play tapped so I can't just get an instant rebate and also win on the spot! They're learning!

Descent into Avernus: Not exactly the chaos red card I've been longing for but my gamebreaker roulette takes what it can get.

Dragon Cultist: Overkill? This isn't a game of kick the Ouphie!

Ganax, Astral Hunter: Oh there's gonna be some shenanigans with this guy alright.

Swashbuckler Extraordinaire: This guy is lowkey kinda deadly with how much treasure support just so happens to be tacked onto other dragons.

Majestic Genesis: Now this is a commander interaction design I like. Cheap commanders already have more than enough of an advantage by being playable a lot earlier and being much easier to protect so cards like these to kind of reward you for playing more top heavy commander decks are kinda cool until an opponent plays it against you.

Scaled Nurturer: Sure give The Ur-Dragon a Llanowar Elves

Elminster: A decent planeswalker in his own right that "accidentally" happens to be pretty decent in an Ur-Dragon deck and also I appreciate seeing classic wizard fashion again as opposed to magic's usual Obnoxiously Smug Young Man.

Gluntch, the Bestower: (⊙‿⊙✿)

Thrakkus the Butcher: THAT'S AN UNCOMMON?! (I guess I should appreciate that he's Gruul for deck inclusion purposes but the actual character himself is Rakdos as hell)

Marching Duodrone and Treasure Keeper's reprint: Oh hey Modrons they actually remembered those were a thing!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This is weird for me, but there's just nothing in CL2 that's got me chomping at the bit. Goose egg, zip, zero! I mean, my wallet could use the break, and drafting it will be dope, but single-wise, there's not a damn thing I really wanna, gotta, needta own. That's just so odd.

More time to catch up on capenna stuff, I guess.

[kirkusjones]

Pretty much everything I picked up were commons and uncommons. I think Cultist of the Absolute was the only thing I bought that was more than 50 cents. I can get behind more sets like this.