Unreleased and New Card Discussion

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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

bobthefunny wrote:
4 years ago
If that were true, there would be no reason for 903.5d, Yes, the lands have that intrinsic ability, but that's still in the rules, and not on the card - and CI looks at what's on the card. While the lands are granted that ability, that ability is not actually on the card, it's in the rules. Exactly like extort. On the card, it is only there as reminder text. This is why 903.5d is there and necessary.
Or it may not be necessary at all. Basic land types were included in color identity rules before commander was in Wizards comprehensive rules. The color identity of Badlands has been black and red since the idea of color identity was invented. The Rules Committee didn't have rule 903.5d when that determination was made. They still don't, basic land type restrictions aren't mentioned in the rules maintained by the rules committee. Why? Because they don't have to. Because the color identity restriction covers it.

If that rule is necessary, and the color identity of Blood Crypt isn't black and red in the comprehensive rules, the comprehensive rules were written incorrectly. That's not their rule to change.
Basic lands do not have rules text.
Basic lands do have oracle text. It's stupid oracle text, Forest just says "G", and so forth for the rest, but it's there. It's so dumb that 3rd party card databases cite the reminder text instead, but oracle text is official, even when super dumb. And technically, it's enough to officially establish color identity in the official rules text of all the basics, without having any rules meaning whatsoever. Point is, Wizards can do some dumb things and make mistakes like anyone else, and unless a RC member wants to pop in and tell me that Blood Crypt has a colorless color identity, I'm going to believe Wizards either did a dumb here or added the extra clarification to be as unambiguous as possible. And if that does happen, I'll have to ask them "since when" and "why are your deck construction rules glaringly incomplete?"
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Post by Hermes_ » 4 years ago

I'm sorry that my late night random thoughts caused this
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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Hermes_ wrote:
4 years ago
I'm sorry that my late night random thoughts caused this
Nah you're good. Bob actually contacted me in private messages to continue the debate without derailing here any more.

Back on topic!

The recent cards they've printed that are like big mana rocks but they come into play tapped, in this case Manascape Refractor, are just all so fair, and I forget how crippling that limitation is every time they do it. For obvious reasons, I've only gotten to try Refractor out as a slip of paper in goldfish bowl, but cipt mana rocks are just so awkward, it makes me wonder how pushed a mana rock could be and still be ruined by that one line of text.
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Post by Hermes_ » 4 years ago

I'd like to get Manascape Refractor but the only time i'd put it in a deck would be with amulet of vigor,which is in my mostly out of the box dragon precon.
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Post by illakunsaa » 4 years ago

I could potentially see Manascape in deck that already use artifact untappers in conjunction with the ixalan tolarian academy. I think the card is pretty bad. For the same mana you could play coalition relic which gives you consistent value and even relic sees fairly little play. 3 drop mana rocks are just mostly just bad in this format even when they do into play untapped.

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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

illakunsaa wrote:
4 years ago
I could potentially see Manascape in deck that already use artifact untappers in conjunction with the ixalan tolarian academy. I think the card is pretty bad. For the same mana you could play coalition relic which gives you consistent value and even relic sees fairly little play. 3 drop mana rocks are just mostly just bad in this format even when they do into play untapped.
But I wanna activate my Manascape Refractor with the ability of Wandering Fumarole so that I can tap for Nykthos, shrine to Nyx mana for every time I can trigger my Jeskai Ascendancy!
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 3 years ago

Mangara, the Diplomat (from Twitter until spoilers on here are updated) looks great. White card draw with a condition that we can reasonably expect to happen many times a game. This is about as close to unconditional white card draw as I would expect to be printed.
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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

Oh, MAN, this is a Teferi set, right? Hopefully that means some more amazing flavor and more...Love Song of Night and Day!

Here's hoping that Mangara is too costly for standard because I sure do want a bunch!
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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

doesn't even exile lol

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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

BuT wHiTe'S wEaKnEsS iS It CaN't DrAw CaRdS....

More seriously, Mangara looks reasonable. Drawing cards on being attacked by multiple creatures looks really conditional, especially since white doesn't have the ability to force attacks. Not a bad pickup for Boros though. On the other hand, drawing a card on the second spell cast should come up significantly more often. And, again, fun in Boros (although in this case, due to Possibility Storm). I don't think Mangara looks particularly exciting as a commander, since there isn't much to build around, but could be interesting in the 99. Not as impactful as Smothering Tithe, but every bit helps.

(although, shouldn't Mangara be exiled? :P)

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Mangara is a trap. I saw him as part of some early M21 leaks, and my reaction was a similar jawdrop to what seems to be currently common. I mean, this has to be good, right? I bust him out for testing in my Daxos deck, and he was... disappointing. Turns out leaving the power to Rule of Law yourself to your opposition does not actually hamstring anyone, or reward you too bountifully. Think in his best game he drew four cards before going, with this value unfortunately being an outlier. The sequence that did me in was a guy going deep on draw and a tutor to wipe me, and all I got for this was a land draw. Smothering Tithe this is not.

Try for yourself before you buy. Expecting this to be expensive due to mythic and hype.
 
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
Mangara is a trap. I saw him as part of some early M21 leaks, and my reaction was a similar jawdrop to what seems to be currently common. I mean, this has to be good, right? I bust him out for testing in my Daxos deck, and he was... disappointing. Turns out leaving the power to Rule of Law yourself to your opposition does not actually hamstring anyone, or reward you too bountifully. Think in his best game he drew four cards before going, with this value unfortunately being an outlier. The sequence that did me in was a guy going deep on draw and a tutor to wipe me, and all I got for this was a land draw. Smothering Tithe this is not.

Try for yourself before you buy. Expecting this to be expensive due to mythic and hype.
Well, I would expect a black deck to have better ways to draw. I look at Mangara as a very good option if you're stuck in white, or red/white. That's it. It looks efficient at covering one of white's biggest weaknesses and that's enough for me.

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Post by freelunch » 3 years ago

Gotta go with Rumpy on this one. One of White's strengths is its protective spells, like Rule of Law, and pillowfort packages that frequently include Crawlspace too. This Mangara completely nonbos with those strengths.

I'll play him in Alesha though.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

I think diplomat is going to be better in lower-haymaker-quotient metas. In CEDH, Kraum, Ludevic's Opus is very, very good. It acts essentially like Rule of Law since no one wants me drawing cards. The more efficient your opponents' decks the better it will be. Pretty easy to protect it even in mono white (with Eldrazi Displacer , Angelic Renewal Reveillark Eerie Interlude etc.).

The more likely your opponents are to cast 2 spells a turn the better it is.

I'll definitely pick up a foil and think about it, but I think it's probably better even than Windborn Muse at that discouraging attackers thing.

If we think of it as a Ghostly Prison in the command zone, it's really not far from that as a mono white commander either, which I really like.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

That's a fair point. I might have let playgroup bias get in the way here, but even when people would decide they want to pop the bubble and play stuff I'd feel that me drawing a solitary card as compensation would be insufficient. That said, if somebody wants to alpha you, you still die. If somebody wants to have a mega turn, it still happens. It's still a great thing to put in white, as evidenced by my rush to playtest it in a deck that has black in it. It's also possible that my popped hype for it is also leading to increased scepticism now. But yeah, it's nice that they're really trying to give white some draw and ramp.
 
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Post by freelunch » 3 years ago

I like your analysis here pokkenn.
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
If we think of it as a Ghostly Prison in the command zone, it's really not far from that as a mono white commander either, which I really like.
This take actually changes my analysis a little bit, I wasn't really thinking of this new Mangara as a part of the pillow fort package. Having a pillow in the command zone is an interesting twist. I'll have to consider this more. I think I still like him in the 99 more than as a commander, but I'm starting to see a deck take shape around him.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

Hmmm, my initial thoughts on Mangara, the Diplomat are a little different. Bear in mind I'm viewing this in the context of my mono white primer, so it's likely to be in the 99 there if anywhere.

White struggles for draw, as we all know. This gives us two ways, in one card, without committing any further resources, of getting more cards in hand. The first, granted, is not ideal; specifically in the context of my Bruna build I can amass a reasonably sizeable army and make it unfavourable to attack me, so that's not ideal. The second ability though, is golden. All it takes is someone playing, say, Birds of Paradise into Sol Ring and you have yourself a new card in hand. This happens every turn. So if that same player then plays say Counterspell and Lightning Bolt the next turn we net 2 cards from one player outside of our own turn. That happens for every player. The way I see it, bare minimum that second ability discourages splashed blue control, as well as storm, aggro and weenies for archetypes, and is at least in some cases possibly better for draw than something like Mind's Eye, which I consider for most white builds. Add to that that it drops early and has lifelink and you have every chance of catching a whole lot of ramp spells to keep your grip nice and full.

I'll definitely at least playtest it; worst case scenario, it makes people more hesitant to drop their spells, which gives me an opportunity to accelerate past them. Also, Bruna can reanimate it, so it's a nice control piece I can keep in play pretty easily.
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 3 years ago

Grim Tutor.

I'm sure a lot of people will be irritated because of this becoming more widely played but hell yeah. I was just speculating about this getting a new print weeks ago in either Double Masters or Commander Legends but it looks like Christmas came early.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

guess exquisite blood is gonna have another needless price spike.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

The mad lads did it. They somehow printed a 200+ dollar card in a core set.

In fairness, this is a PR stunt if there ever was one. Grim Tutor does not see widespread use, and is only this much money because approximately three copies got printed back in 1999. As such, it's the perfect card to put up a smoke and mirrors show how crazily they can reprint things and how nothing is off the charts! Look at us, we put a 200+ dollar card in a core set! Minor fetchland-induced cynicism aside, there are a lot of very nice reprints revealed already. Finally, something is budging.

That said, there was a leak of the new Teferi, but it had five loyalty. So he'd come out, rev up to 9 in one go of turns around a four-man pod, you'd plus him again in your turn and now he's ready to Time Stretch you whenever desired. Starting on three gives the table 1.5 revs to find an out rather than one turn per head, which is a bit more reasonable. Still probably going to be strong and see a bunch of play.
 
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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

"Mill" being keyworded is nice.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

no, its gamy and anoying. thats player slang with no flavor and they just stuck it on a card. there were dumbas names for al the other keywords like trolshroud but they replaced them with words that made sense and aded something. now they are just lazy. its pandering.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

I think the key to evaluating Mangara, the Diplomat is recognizing that, despite the unconventional nature of it, he's fundamentally a punisher card. And like every punisher card, he's going to be the worst of the two options most of the time, because you give the opponent a choice. So he's a split card between Rule of Law+a personal Silent Arbiter and, idk, "Draw a card each opponent's turn" (theoretically, he can draw more than that, but that seems like a realistic ceiling). So when you want him to be Rule of Law, he'll just draw you a card, but when you want the card draw, opponents are more likely to just stick to 1 spell a turn and not attack you.

That said, the multiplayer nature of commander can have a weird effect on punisher cards. Because a single opponent drawing a card isn't as big a deal in multiplayer, it weights the choice in that direction. Plus, board states might encourage people to give you cards, if something else is more threatening. On the flip side, if you're seen as the powerful player, either via board state or just by reputation, players are more likely to want to avoid giving you options.

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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

I like Vito. Anytime I can get a bigger enchantment effect 2 cheaper (at first, when general), it's nice!
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
when you want the card draw, opponents are more likely to just stick to 1 spell a turn and not attack you.
Sure, but if everybody else is playing in slow mode and not attacking you, you should be able to easily advance your game plan (against proactive decks at least, reactive decks are another beast)

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