Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[duducrash]

Borne Upon a Wind quickest! I'll play this card! I think its really good and did not deserve a gallery dump spoiler

Eh, I mean Scout's Warning and Quicken are both rarely played, and when you're tacking on mana that needs to be paid in addition to the spell's cost 1 mana make a big difference. I don't think it'll see that much viability. If you really want flash you'd probably prefer a more reliable method, like Vedalken Orrery or Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage.

I like that it doesnt determine which kind of spell can be played with. Im also a notorious Quicken fan, playing in a few decks, including my Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage one. I will play in Veyran, Voice of Duality I think

[pokken]

There are significant advantages to flash things being surprises. Orrery and so on are telegrams saying when you will do things.

I think it's a hair over costed but an end step flashed hour of revelation that cantrips is something I can get behind, when you can flash other things in for flexibility.

Cool card even if it's not amazing

[DirkGently]

I mean if you're sitting on enough mana to cast the spell you want + 2 extra mana, especially while playing blue, I'm probably not going to be super surprised when you respond to something. And quicken is already available and cheaper for hour of rev and isn't blowing any minds. This thing has the advantage of flexibility and potential to multi-cast but the latter requires a lot of mana. I'm not saying it's unplayable but it's just a minor role player imo.

[Mookie]

Borne Upon a Wind looks okay. Quicken isn't a bad card, but it is pretty narrow. Adding the option to flash out your commander / splashy enchantments / etc. is pretty meaningful - I know one of the weaknesses of my Mizzix deck is that it can be hard to find an opening to deploy setup cards like Mizzix / Thousand-Year Storm / Metallurgic Summonings. I actually tested out Electrodominance for a while, and Borne Upon a Wind looks like a significant upgrade over it - the base case of cantripping gives it a pretty high floor.

[NZB2323]

How does Shadowfax, Lord of Horses work with cards like Silverwing Squadron?

In any case seems really good with cards like Captain of the Watch Lena, Selfless Champion, and Evangel of Heliod. It seems like Shadowfax is good at helping soldiers which is on brand for the lore.

Edit: Aurelia, the Warleader also seems great for shadowfax.

[Arebennian]

...more cards, I suppose? It's hard to tell when spoilers are done these days.

• Horn of Gondor is expensive to activate, but Krenko, Mob Boss for human decks can definitely do things.

Do you think it is any better than Increasing Devotion or Visions of Glory in terms of getting a sizeable amount of humans quickly?These seem to be the best humans in a can cards that I've seen.

[Mookie]

...more cards, I suppose? It's hard to tell when spoilers are done these days.

• Horn of Gondor is expensive to activate, but Krenko, Mob Boss for human decks can definitely do things.

Do you think it is any better than Increasing Devotion or Visions of Glory in terms of getting a sizeable amount of humans quickly?These seem to be the best humans in a can cards that I've seen.

I think they function differently - Horn is a slow value engine that provides inevitability, while Increasing Devotion is much faster and not dependent on board state. I do think it generally beats Visions of Glory though, at least in human-heavy decks.

• The Ring Goes South is interesting. You always get one land (since the ring makes a creature legendary), and your commander gives a second one, which means you only need one other legendary creature for it to be a premium ramp spell. Less exciting if you're light on legends, but seems nice for commanders like Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves that can create a legendary token.
• "Gloin, Dwarf Emissary" is probably outclassed by Magda, Brazen Outlaw, but still reasonable.
• Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff is an interesting hatebear. The life loss does add up, but generally worth it, particularly since WB has limited ramp options.

[DirkGently]

[*]The Ring Goes South is interesting. You always get one land (since the ring makes a creature legendary), and your commander gives a second one, which means you only need one other legendary creature for it to be a premium ramp spell. Less exciting if you're light on legends, but seems nice for commanders like Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves that can create a legendary token.

Nah it's terrible, honestly one of the worst cards in the set. Even for something like Tolsimir, needing to wait to cast your 5-drop commander means you're forced to play this way off tempo. Even the first one isn't free, you need to have at least one creature in play. And god forbid someone board wipes while you're setting up. Compare to, say, Harvest Season which costs less and has WAY less restrictive requirements. I mean you can use saproling tokens ffs, TRGS requires LEGENDS? And costs MORE? Can't even chuck us a bone and include planeswalkers or legendary artifacts or something?

Yeah even in legendary matters that card is dumpster material.

[Mookie]

Nah it's terrible, honestly one of the worst cards in the set. Even for something like Tolsimir, needing to wait to cast your 5-drop commander means you're forced to play this way off tempo. Even the first one isn't free, you need to have at least one creature in play. And god forbid someone board wipes while you're setting up. Compare to, say, Harvest Season which costs less and has WAY less restrictive requirements. I mean you can use saproling tokens ffs, TRGS requires LEGENDS? And costs MORE? Can't even chuck us a bone and include planeswalkers or legendary artifacts or something?

Yeah even in legendary matters that card is dumpster material.

Eh, I disagree. Maybe Tolsimir is a bad example, but there are cheap commanders like Emmara, Soul of the Accord, Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, and Rhys the Redeemed that you can reasonably expect to be on the board by T4. Plus legend-matters decks like Sisay, Weatherlight Captain and Dosan the Falling Leaf. Harvest Season has a higher ceiling, but it can be awkward if you don't have an easy way to tap your creatures or you don't have safe attacks.

[DirkGently]

Eh, I disagree. Maybe Tolsimir is a bad example, but there are cheap commanders like Emmara, Soul of the Accord, Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, and Rhys the Redeemed that you can reasonably expect to be on the board by T4. Plus legend-matters decks like Sisay, Weatherlight Captain and Dosan the Falling Leaf. Harvest Season has a higher ceiling, but it can be awkward if you don't have an easy way to tap your creatures or you don't have safe attacks.

In Emmara, you'd need to play emmara on 2, find a way to tap her, and she has to survive, and then on turn 4...congrats, you created Explosive Vegetation, a card that has been strictly-bettered 5 times. And that's setting aside the larger issue which is that you need to be an emmara deck that ALSO wants to ramp on 4. And emmara is almost always a token deck so you probably aren't running tons of other legendaries, so your high roll potential is presumably limited.

Katilda, also token focused, also she ramps you quite powerfully on her own so why would you bother? You get more ramp from Gather the Townsfolk.

Rhys, also token focused, and tends to die. For any of these idk why you wouldn't prefer to just run Invasion of Zendikar // Awakened Skyclave or something so you aren't relying on your stuff surviving just to get the same effect.

Sisay costs 4 so running a 4 cost ramp spell is awkward. EDIT: whoops, wrong sisay. Most sisay decks I've played against go heavy on planeswalkers and such, though, which don't work with this card. And ramping from 4 to...6 charitably?...isn't really the mana jump that sisay wants typically. Sure she has potential to get a lot late-game, but if she's searching up that many legends she should probably just win the game. Dosan has nothing to do with legends but I'm guessing you mean Reki, the History of Kamigawa. Which is probably the single best use case possible for the card, but even there, you're probably sandbagging your legends to play after your commander, so there's a solid probability you don't have an extra creature, and we have the same issue where you probably don't really want to play a ramp spell on 4.

The natural fit for a 4-mana ramp spell is with a commander that costs 7 or so. Maybe one that costs 3 or less but has an expensive activated ability, or maybe something with landfall triggers. Anything expensive, this card sucks because you probably can't reliably have enough legends to even manage explosive vegetation-tier ramp before then. And even for the cheap ones with abilities etc, you have the requirement of having an additional creature in play before we've achieved explosive vegetation, which is still a pretty weak card these days. So we need to basically always have our commander in play, and another creature in play by 4 mana, AND another legendary creature in play some reasonable percentage of the time to justify running it over the other options that don't have any additional requirements, and often have other upsides. Maybe there's some deck out there that meets those requirements, but that still leaves this card exceedingly narrow at best and completely unplayable at worst - by which I mean realistically.

Should have headed north tbh.

[WizardMN]

How does Shadowfax, Lord of Horses work with cards like Silverwing Squadron?

It doesn't. At least not directly. Put onto the battlefield attacking doesn't mean it "attacks". Aurelia is another that doesn't work directly with it (though has uses in other ways).

[Serenade]

These are laughably the most-UW UW legends imaginable. I love them.

[DirkGently]

How does Shadowfax, Lord of Horses work with cards like Silverwing Squadron?

It doesn't. At least not directly. Put onto the battlefield attacking doesn't mean it "attacks". Aurelia is another that doesn't work directly with it (though has uses in other ways).

I think they're asking about the */* power and toughness.

If it's */*, it's tracked in all zones so its power is the number of creatures you current have. Creatures that are 0/0 but get +1/+1 for each creature, like Shanna, Sisay's Legacy, are 0/0 in all zones except the battlefield though. Life just ain't fair sometimes.

[NZB2323]

Palantir of Orthanc seems like a really solid option for decks that struggle with card draw and like self mill.

[heridfel]

Also seems fun in conjunction with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. An opponent loses at least ten life and you get your whole graveyard back.

I am also happy that Smite the Deathless doesn't work on Thrun, Breaker of Silence. It generally makes me sad when offense beats defense. Yeah, I am looking at you, Barrow-Blade. It's technically neither offensive nor defensive, but it sure feels aggressive.

[Hermes_]

some spoilers in large images from twitter

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[materpillar]

Palantir of Orthanc seems like a really solid option for decks that struggle with card draw and like self mill.

By that you mean decklists that run Draco/Shadow of Mortality and a Grozoth package? Because I've got one of those that it's getting slammed into.

[NZB2323]

Palantir of Orthanc seems like a really solid option for decks that struggle with card draw and like self mill.

By that you mean decklists that run Draco/Shadow of Mortality and a Grozoth package? Because I've got one of those that it's getting slammed into.

I think most of the times opponents will let you draw a card.

[duducrash]

Radagast, the brown man they are rocking the radagast designs. This could be extremely fun in casual as well as a natural adition to every simic volo deck ever

[Mookie]

More stuff! Are we finally approaching Mount Doom (the end)?

• Fiery Inscription looks reasonable - I've avoided Guttersnipe in the past because creatures feel a bit too vulnerable, but getting this effect on an enchantment seems nice.
• Shelob, Child of Ungoliant is amazing. Time to build spider tribal!
• Entish Restoration is quite nice. It's not quite Harrow (since the lands enter tapped), but getting three lands with Tasigur, the Golden Fang out sounds really spicy. Strict upgrade over Roiling Regrowth.
• Phial of Galadriel is a strong mana rock for decks that regularly deplete their hand - it's not even limited to once per turn. Lifegain ability is a bit more niche, but it does have implications for stuff like Evra, Halcyon Witness and other life-swap effects.
• Mirror of Galadriel is a nice draw engine for legend-heavy decks.
• Lost to Legend gives me Unexpectedly Absent vibes. Not quite as flexible, but I do want it for my cube (which has a heavy historic theme).
• Flowering of the White Tree is an extremely strong anthem effect. I don't think there are any other unconditional two mana anthems, and the legend bonus text is quite relevant. I could see it having Modern implications with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben / Adeline, Resplendent Cathar in humans.
• Isildur's Fateful Strike is a nice removal spell with upside. The legendary spells always tempt me - they're a little tricky to cast, but they do provide a lot of value.
• Radagast the Brown is a fun 'creature type matters' card.

[pokken]

I was just looking for card advantage engines for xenagos, and I think Radagast the Brown is pretty decent. Dig 4 for a bomb. I have a pretty serious potpourri of creature types in that deck.

[materpillar]

I think most of the times opponents will let you draw a card.

Sure, sure, once they know what's in my deck. Before that point though? If it's the first spell I've played in a game though, how many people are going to let me draw the first card? After someone takes 10 to the face off that trigger, will they let me draw on the second or think they just got highrolled on damage? That is truly the delightful question.

Also, the new Sheliob looks spicy. I really want to do something stupid involving March of the Machines/Opalescence and Psionic Sliver+Sliver Hivelord+Changelings. That's probably a bit tooooo much of a stretch but I'm so so curious.

Shelob, Child of Ungoliant+Pestilence+Maskwood Nexus+Opalescence… nah… something of this nature has got to be just stupid enough.

[Hermes_]

I think I may want Flowering of the White Tree for a soldier/token deck

[DirkGently]

I'm finally caught up on all the spoiled legendaries with my GBU review. And honestly, for once I might be with the haters on this one. The ratio of bad to good legends is nearly 3:1. Everybody hated aftermath and that was 1:1. I can understand why, say, Butterbur, Bree Innkeeper is trash, but why is Frodo Baggins actual garbage while Frodo, Sauron's Bane, and objectively much worse name, is the powerful one? Why are both versions of the witch king terrible and uninteresting? Why are all the commander precon commanders (save Eowyn for some reason) so bad? The best version of Sauron is Sauron, the Dark Lord and honestly it's still mid AF. And then for some reason Palantír of Orthanc is insane and (for more obvious reasons tbf) The One Ring is insane. The power levels are so all over the map and the vast vast majority is garbage.. I don't even understand why a card like Galadriel, Gift-Giver exists, it could have doubled the effectiveness of its abilities and still been mid. None of this would bother me nearly as much except that it's being sold at inflated prices and there's only a handful of cards that are going to drive pack sales. My LGS is charging $70 NZD for prereleases and there's like 5 mythics worth opening in the whole set. And god help anyone dumb enough to buy the precons, currently preselling for $95 NZD each. Can't wait to pick up the singles for pennies in a few months.

[Dunharrow]

I hope I get a land card.