Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[Guardman]

Blood tokens are the first standardized token where the name just makes no sense to me at all

Maro has confirmed Blood tokens were designed to play nice with Madness decks... even though there are no madness cards in the set.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Couldn't they at least change the name? Tithe tokens, tribute tokens, etc?

This way they could still flavor some of them as blood tithes,

[BeneTleilax]

It would also increase the reusability of the mechanic, because again, they insisted on making at least two siloed legends for it. It's just disappointing in all aspects. It doesn't even play well with the Midnight Hunt vampires.

[Gamazson]

Digging the Full Art for Chandra, Dressed to Kill. I don't what the lore is for Innistrad regarding vampires and fire, but other vampire fiction fire is quite deadly and even terrifying to vampires. If that is the came for Innistrad, that is quite the power move Chandra is making with that dress.

[Mookie]

Voice of the Blessed is a solid upgrade over Ajani's Pridemate. More of a Standard / Modern thing, but still amusing.
Manaform Hellkite is mildly amusing for spellslinger / token-based decks.
Runo Stromkirk looks really clunky. I guess he works for sea monster tribal, and cloning stuff on attack is strong (especially since the clones stick around forever, which is somewhat rare), but creatures that need to survive a full turn cycle tend to die quickly. Still, high-risk, high-reward, so Runo does look amusing if you can get him to work.
Witness the Future is an interesting combination of abilities - Impulse + grave hate // shuffle-recursion. I suspect most direct draw spells will be better, but I could see some niche cases where the recursion is relevant.
Alchemist's Gambit and Path of Peril pretty much confirm a cycle of cleave cards. I'm not impressed by Path, and Gambit isn't really my thing, but it does have its place in Obeka, Brute Chronologist decks.

Re: blood tokens - I don't hate the idea of changing the name to something more mechanically on-point. Blood feels like it is usually tied mechanically to life drain - see stuff like Exsanguinate and Blood Artist. In fact, Bloodtithe Collector appears to be the only card that mechanically ties blood to discard (and even then, it still plays off life loss). Hmmm.... that said, there are cards like Anje, Maid of Dishonor that let you convert blood into life loss... and more thematically, the blood tokens in the set effectively function as the vampires' treasure - they've already extracted the blood, so just having it lying around won't cause any more life loss.

[Ruiner]

Chandra, Dressed to Kill is pretty awesome. Definitely looking forward to adding that to my Chandra burn deck.

[Serenade]

Every now and then I wonder if I should make Daxos with a spirit subtheme. Love to see things like Hallowed Haunting that support the option.

[5colorsrainbow]

Halana and Alena, Partners- Cute to see them together and glad they fit the theme I was wanting to do for the commanders legends version of them and seems solid as a different version of Xena-god.

Blood tokens are the first standardized token where the name just makes no sense to me at all

Maro has confirmed Blood tokens were designed to play nice with Madness decks... even though there are no madness cards in the set.

Its for non-standard vampires decks that use vampires from SoI as well as to help play into the graveyard themes of this set.

[Jemolk]

Runo Stromkirk looks really clunky. I guess he works for sea monster tribal, and cloning stuff on attack is strong (especially since the clones stick around forever, which is somewhat rare), but creatures that need to survive a full turn cycle tend to die quickly. Still, high-risk, high-reward, so Runo does look amusing if you can get him to work.

I mean, Runo does do something on ETB -- he recurs a creature, which works with his flip condition, as well as Quest for Ula's Temple, so even if he does die fast, it could be far worse.

Couldn't they at least change the name? Tithe tokens, tribute tokens, etc?

This way they could still flavor some of them as blood tithes,

It would also increase the reusability of the mechanic, because again, they insisted on making at least two siloed legends for it. It's just disappointing in all aspects. It doesn't even play well with the Midnight Hunt vampires.

Honestly, it feels to me like they're just under so much pressure from Hasbro to release things constantly that they just aren't able to put as much thought into anything as they might otherwise. That's the only thing I can think of that explains the easily-worked-around colossal flavor fails with both the blood tokens and Sigarda's Summons.

[5colorsrainbow]

That's the only thing I can think of that explains the easily-worked-around colossal flavor fails with both the blood tokens and Sigarda's Summons.

How is Sigarda's Summons. a flavor fail?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Geralf, Visionary Stitcher is pretty cool imo. Basically a suped-up ooze garden tailormade for Phenax decks.

[Mookie]

Not a ton of stuff today, but still a few things to call out.

• Cemetery Protector looks interesting. Instant speed grave hate, plus token production. Four mana is a little more than I'm comfortable paying for the effect though.
• Engulfing Tide is a pretty cheap mass bounce effect, plus it provides a little card draw. Leaving something behind is a notable limitation though.
• Geralf, Visionary Stitcher + Slagwurm Armor?
• Halana and Alena, Partners don't look amazing for EDH, but I'm thinking of adding a 'haste / combat trigger' subtheme to my cube, so may give them a shot there.

[Gamazson]

• Engulfing Tide is a pretty cheap mass bounce effect, plus it provides a little card draw. Leaving something behind is a notable limitation though.

Depends on how much you value the card draw. Returning everything except for 1 permanent each for is a price I'd pay gladly in many decks. It certainly has a place in my Grimgrin, Corpse-Born deck. I am certain there are a few other Voltron commanders that will like it too.

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Toxrill, the Corrosive

Yes.

YES!

YEEEESSSSSS!

Like something I would design!

[Jemolk]

That's the only thing I can think of that explains the easily-worked-around colossal flavor fails with both the blood tokens and Sigarda's Summons.

How is Sigarda's Summons. a flavor fail?

I dunno about you, but I'd say changing creature types is enormously different flavor-wise from summoning creatures. I see zero actual connection between the art, name, and flavor text, which are all on the same page, and the rules text, which is doing something that is, to my mind, completely unrelated to any of them. This isn't summoning angels at all -- transforming, sure, a la Angelic Destiny, but it's not summoning a damn thing. If it were summoning angels in any actual sense of the term, it should put angels onto the battlefield, probably as tokens, or search them up and add them to your hand. Again, alteration and summoning are very different concepts.

[pokken]

I find it very amusing that they named Toxrill, the Corrosive the way they did given what a completely toxic card it is. "Hey, this resolved, now it's going to kill all your creatures until you kill it, and make me draw cards. Ok, you killed it, now I'll cast it again. Time to whack the mole!"

It looks like such a cool card at first glance but spend a little time looking at the play patterns and it's basically "hope you brought your spot removal for my commander every turn I have mana for it or you can't have creatures."

Absolutely atrocious design.

Any commander design that basically enables you to play nothing but ramp and removal/countermagic is just and couple it to a commander that kills everyone's creatures without needing any support...bleh.

I don't know why no one has figured out that spam killing every creature on the board doesn't create good games. It's one thing if it's an unassailable lock I guess, but this is just going to create agonizing games.

edit: I will admit some serious yearning to play this as a UB control commander who basically acts like Decree of Pain in the command zone Basically lets you play 20+ counterspells. Fun!

[Wallycaine]

That's the only thing I can think of that explains the easily-worked-around colossal flavor fails with both the blood tokens and Sigarda's Summons.

How is Sigarda's Summons. a flavor fail?

I dunno about you, but I'd say changing creature types is enormously different flavor-wise from summoning creatures. I see zero actual connection between the art, name, and flavor text, which are all on the same page, and the rules text, which is doing something that is, to my mind, completely unrelated to any of them. This isn't summoning angels at all -- transforming, sure, a la Angelic Destiny, but it's not summoning a damn thing. If it were summoning angels in any actual sense of the term, it should put angels onto the battlefield, probably as tokens, or search them up and add them to your hand. Again, alteration and summoning are very different concepts.

Okay, but can you see how if you have to write up an entire paragraph explaining *why* it's a flavor fail, you might be nitpicking at something that's not actually a "colossal flavor fail"?

[Jemolk]

How is Sigarda's Summons. a flavor fail?

I dunno about you, but I'd say changing creature types is enormously different flavor-wise from summoning creatures. I see zero actual connection between the art, name, and flavor text, which are all on the same page, and the rules text, which is doing something that is, to my mind, completely unrelated to any of them. This isn't summoning angels at all -- transforming, sure, a la Angelic Destiny, but it's not summoning a damn thing. If it were summoning angels in any actual sense of the term, it should put angels onto the battlefield, probably as tokens, or search them up and add them to your hand. Again, alteration and summoning are very different concepts.

Okay, but can you see how if you have to write up an entire paragraph explaining *why* it's a flavor fail, you might be nitpicking at something that's not actually a "colossal flavor fail"?

Frankly, I thought it was rather self-evident. That's why I didn't initially explain. I *can* write multiple paragraphs explaining damn near anything in unnecessarily meticulous detail -- it's one of the very few advantages of dealing with minimum page count papers in college. Whether I have to or not is something I'm less sure of -- I just wanted to be clear enough to not have to make another attempt explaining more. While we're on the subject of overly verbose and meticulous answers -- yes, I can see how your reply makes sense in general. I do not believe it applies here, however. To put my commentary from the previous post more briefly -- when all flavor-only aspects of a card explicitly reference a particular type of concept, and the actual rules text does something utterly unrelated to that concept, that's a flavor fail.

[pokken]

I dunno about you, but I'd say changing creature types is enormously different flavor-wise from summoning creatures.

adding creature types is quite a bit different than changing. The 'story' I assume is that she summoned angels to inhabit people who are worthy (because they have counters?) or something?

I'm not sure lore-wise if angels can possess people but that's kinda what it reads like to me.

[Serenade]

I figured these humans got a feather from Sigarda and felt strong and secure with her "blessing," so that is the +1/+1 counter.

Then somehow they BURST into angels with this card, which doesn't make a lot of sense, but I never quite got what happened with Divine Visitation either.

[5colorsrainbow]

That's the only thing I can think of that explains the easily-worked-around colossal flavor fails with both the blood tokens and Sigarda's Summons.

How is Sigarda's Summons. a flavor fail?

I dunno about you, but I'd say changing creature types is enormously different flavor-wise from summoning creatures. I see zero actual connection between the art, name, and flavor text, which are all on the same page, and the rules text, which is doing something that is, to my mind, completely unrelated to any of them. This isn't summoning angels at all -- transforming, sure, a la Angelic Destiny, but it's not summoning a damn thing. If it were summoning angels in any actual sense of the term, it should put angels onto the battlefield, probably as tokens, or search them up and add them to your hand. Again, alteration and summoning are very different concepts.

Flavor is flexible, I can see this card flavored as either, could be tighter flavor-wise but "colossal flavor fail" just feels feels like your just being nitpicking and lacking a bit of imagination.

[Rumpy5897]

I skimmed Toxrill real quick, imputing some things in the text as I glanced at the computer while a friend took a long turn. My imputed version had him put counter on one creature in your end step. "Huh," I thought, "it makes you really work for it, but I guess it's cute with the slugs." Then I saw the reaction in thread, re-read. Spotted the "all". Re-read again, spotted the "each". Well that's just disgusting.

[Wallycaine]

Toxrill, the Corrosive definitely will be strong when it lands. I'm skeptical it'll be toxic for most playgroups, though. It takes a while to ramp up to actually killing big stuff, and all the effects go away as soon as it dies (barring, I suppose, any slugs it already created). To me, it strikes as the right power level for a 7 mana commander to actually see play. It won't instantly win games, but will have huge effects if you don't deal with them.

[Mookie]

Toxrill, the Corrosive definitely looks to be worth testing. It reminds me of Sheoldred, Whispering One in its ability to make the rest of the table miserable... but instead of reanimating your creatures if it sticks around, it instead makes tokens and draws cards. I will strongly question why it has a blue activated ability though - I assume it is to allow you to run Sludge Monster for more slime counters, but it does seem a bit unnecessary.

....still, does seem like a strong reanimation target in multiplayer - shrinking everything on each end step is sort of disgusting.

[DirkGently]

Eh, toxrill in the CZ is a lot harder to get value from. People aren't going to dump a board of slug fodder into play without an answer unless they're clueless. Plus 7 cmc is kinda high for a counterspell deck of any real viability. Not saying he's weak, but I'm more scared of cards that don't require your opponents to play badly to do overpowered stuff.

But I haven't touched the game in 2 months so what do I know.