Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[MAGUSZANIN]

On the precons:

Disguise and Cloak just aren't worth while without a deeper card pool sadly. The new cards in the precon are a step in the right direction, but the mechanic is rough from an efficiency perspective and they aren't willing to print the kinds of effects they need to print to make this strong. They also need more original design slots if they are going to do this for every set mechanic. An extra 5 pushed face down creatures would make a big difference.

Combine that with the only real support in the command zone is on diametrically opposite color sets (Naya with the new deck, Sultai with the old deck) and you have a situation where you can't even pull the old support forward or use a lot of the new support to bolster the old deck. Yes, Kadeena will adopt some of the new green disguise cards, all 5ish that are worth trying out, but it's ultimately another example of WOTC wanting a precon for every set mechanic being a questionable thing from a design perspective.

This may get better when we return to Tarkir, but we'll see. As it is I just am continuously reminded that Kadeena is the most static deck in the format from what I recall of the data, because there's simply not much you can even do with it.

Surveil has the advantage of being a secondary mechanic in its own deck, being used primarily as an enabler for a classic reanimation strategy.

Clues have multiple sets to pull from, with both card draw and Artifacts being strong and deep mechanics.

Boros forced combats isn't anything new or overly strong, but the deck does offer some great support pieces and at least lets you keep everyone pointed away from you in the short term. Also nice to see this Strategy branch out into White. I assume we will get a Mardu deck eventually that will allow you to play things from this deck with cards like Kardur, Doomscourge, which could be interesting.

The question of this much Goad being healthy for the game is in my head though. Taking all of your choices away in the declare attackers step isn't a great feeling, especially when the other players are in the same situation of being forced to hit you. When this was a handful of spells I was less concerned, but at this point we have like 5 board wide ones and a ton more continuous and resetting ones. It's only a matter of time until we can reliably build a deck that just makes hitting it from turns 3-7 functionally impossible, and I'm not sure that's good for the overall health of the game.

2/4 decks being questionable outside the precon environment isn't a great place to be, but none of these are nearly as bad as the Blood/Vampire Precon, so I won't complain to much overall. Also the massively improved reprints are noticed and welcomed! Here's hoping every deck is like this going forward and they do a bit more for the mana bases. I am seriously considering buying a set of these just because of all the juicy reprints.

On the set itself: it's fine? Not much notable at lower rarities outside of the usual pushed uncommons, but some cool cards for lands decks, Collect Evidence is an interesting way to use the graveyard, and some interesting but not broken designs for rares and mythics. Looks like a fun and interesting set. Getting all 10 lands upfront is great too.

[Dunadain]

I've mentioned many times on this site than morph is my least favorite mechanic. There are a variety of reasons but one of them is that it loses a lot of value in eternal formats. If someone plays a morph creature in a green deck in modern, you aren't fooling anyone, that's a Den Protector. There's no easy fix to this problem, but you could at least mitigate it by occasionally printing additional morph cards. So the fact that they reintroduce morph, but slightly changed it so that you can't even bluff between the new and old cards just makes it so much worse.

[materpillar]

Got some bangers in this set for me.
For Tivadar of Thorn:
Delney, Streetwise Lookout is an absolute slam dunk. Not only to double up Tivadar of Thorn triggers but the deck is basically already a blink small creatures deck. Trouble in Pairs and Unexplained Absence will probably make it in as goodstuffs.

For Yurlok of Scorch Thrash, I might test Mob Verdict. It runs Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle so it'll be slamming Raucous Theater and Commercial District.

Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge gets multiple slams. Conspiracy Unraveler is looking like it'll be EXTREMELY busted. It'll basically make every spell free since all that deck does is do things like discard The Pride of Hull Clade to Ill-timed Explosion. Both of which look absolutely stellar.

Changelings get another turbo busted off standard tribal legend with Voja, Jaws of the Conclave

[CommanderMaster999]

On the precons:

Disguise and Cloak just aren't worth while without a deeper card pool sadly. The new cards in the precon are a step in the right direction, but the mechanic is rough from an efficiency perspective and they aren't willing to print the kinds of effects they need to print to make this strong. They also need more original design slots if they are going to do this for every set mechanic. An extra 5 pushed face down creatures would make a big difference.

Combine that with the only real support in the command zone is on diametrically opposite color sets (Naya with the new deck, Sultai with the old deck) and you have a situation where you can't even pull the old support forward or use a lot of the new support to bolster the old deck. Yes, Kadeena will adopt some of the new green disguise cards, all 5ish that are worth trying out, but it's ultimately another example of WOTC wanting a precon for every set mechanic being a questionable thing from a design perspective.

This may get better when we return to Tarkir, but we'll see. As it is I just am continuously reminded that Kadeena is the most static deck in the format from what I recall of the data, because there's simply not much you can even do with it.

Yea total I definitely still don't see the pop is not there yet and the biggest mistake is u is missing. I was really hoping red and white was gonna get an enormous push because of the deck and the set it still needs work. Plus quite a few cards from the main set should have been in the deck.

• Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods
• Tin Street Gossip
• Pyrotechnic Performer
• Expose the Culprit
• Unyielding Gatekeeper
• Essence of Antiquity

[MAGUSZANIN]

Oh, also mark my words: Trouble in Pairs is the next Smothering Tithe and won't be reprinted for a few years. It potentially draws 9+ cards a round (allowing for someone casting 2 spells/drawing 2 cards on your turn). Much like with Tithe it could potentially hit 40ish$, though it's generic enough they will hopefully print it again soon.

Even if the opponents are careful to not hit more than 1 of the conditions per turn, that's still 3 cards per round, and that is extremely implausible. More likely is they hit 2 trigger conditions per round depending on the deck. Which is almost a full grip every single turn!

[RxPhantom]

So I guess there are now a bunch of detectives on Ravnica who were just waiting for the right mystery to make themselves known. I hope the haberdasher isn't too overworked.

[Hermes_]

So I guess there are now a bunch of detectives on Ravnica who were just waiting for the right mystery to make themselves known. I hope the haberdasher isn't too overworked.

[kirkusjones]

So I guess there are now a bunch of detectives on Ravnica who were just waiting for the right mystery to make themselves known. I hope the haberdasher isn't too overworked.

It's all a plot by the Dimir. Lazav overbought on fedoras and trenchcoats in the mid 2000s, so they've been manipulating public opinion in order to make them fashionable and exploit the fad. Dimir Eye for the Unfashionable Ravnican. They're going to transmute your style!

[Mookie]

So I guess there are now a bunch of detectives on Ravnica who were just waiting for the right mystery to make themselves known. I hope the haberdasher isn't too overworked.

It's all a plot by the Dimir. Lazav overbought on fedoras and trenchcoats in the mid 2000s, so they've been manipulating public opinion in order to make them fashionable and exploit the fad. Dimir Eye for the Unfashionable Ravnican. They're going to transmute your style!

My current theory is they're actually imported from Innistrad via an omenpath. Novice Inspector is just Thraben Inspector in a trenchcoat!

[CommanderMaster999]

Oh, also mark my words: Trouble in Pairs is the next Smothering Tithe and won't be reprinted for a few years. It potentially draws 9+ cards a round (allowing for someone casting 2 spells/drawing 2 cards on your turn). Much like with Tithe it could potentially hit 40ish$, though it's generic enough they will hopefully print it again soon.

Even if the opponents are careful to not hit more than 1 of the conditions per turn, that's still 3 cards per round, and that is extremely implausible. More likely is they hit 2 trigger conditions per round depending on the deck. Which is almost a full grip every single turn!

Yea "Trouble in pairs" is the most likely for are Dockside Extortionist/True-Name Nemesis of the decks other culprits include

Boltbender — it's Deflecting Swat on a morph ability

Charnel Serenade — clearly the best one of the infinite suspend cast cycle so far

Knowledge Is Power — truck load of draw matters decks can take that (saving grace is most played ones can't snag it from the w since most involve the colors ur)

Unexplained Absence — that's Reality Shift on steroids on every level (shift is arguably the 10th most played removal in the format)

[DirkGently]

If "create a clue token" gets shortened to "investigate", why hasn't "create a food token" gotten shortened to "cook"? Or "create a treasure" to "ransack"?



Or blood tokens to "slice" or map tokens to "scout"?








Or saproling tokens to "grow" or zombie tokens to "reanimate" or bird tokens to "hatch" or...

[Mookie]

Eh, I'm not entirely sold on Trouble in Pairs. I do think it's very good - I could see it easily drawing 2-3 cards per turn cycle with no support, and even more if you're running Howling Mine or other effects to force opponents to trigger it. However, I would not put it on the same level as Smothering Tithe or Dockside Extortionist for several reasons:

• It is replaceable. If you just want card draw, you could run Tocasia's Welcome, The One Ring, Four Knocks, or one of any number of other options. It may be the case that it turns out to be the best option for card draw in mono-white, but I'm not convinced it is is so much better than the next-best option that it will be worth paying $40+ for it outside the most optimized of decks.
• It costs ww, which makes it harder to splash. Even if that doesn't stop people from running it in their decks, it will occasionally come down off-curve due to color issues, which makes it slightly weaker outside mono-white.
• It's a punisher effect, and not guaranteed to trigger in the first place. No matter what your opponents do, they will always trigger Smothering Tithe from their natural draw step, or Rhystic Study whenever they cast a spell. But there are plenty of turn cycles (especially in the early game) where opponents won't be doing much on their turn other than casting a single spell. In general, I think it is an effect that is weaker in the early game, which makes it more difficult to snowball (in contrast to Smothering Tithe, which can often lead to a large early mana advantage when opponents can't afford to pay the ).
• It's also particularly ineffective against opponents doing stuff on other players' turns (like cracking clues or casting instants).

[Dragonlover]

If "create a clue token" gets shortened to "investigate", why hasn't "create a food token" gotten shortened to "cook"? Or "create a treasure" to "ransack"?

Or blood tokens to "slice" or map tokens to "scout"?

Or saproling tokens to "grow" or zombie tokens to "reanimate" or bird tokens to "hatch" or...

Clues were the first "trinket token" they came up with, so they got a named mechanic in Shadows over Innistrad. When WotC realised "hey this is actually some cool design space" they regretted naming the mechanic as it kinda limits the contexts where Clues can show up, so then didn't do it for any of the others.

Personally if they changed all existing instances of investigate to "Create a Clue" and got rid of it going forward I wouldn't mind.

Dragonlover

[5colorsrainbow]

If "create a clue token" gets shortened to "investigate", why hasn't "create a food token" gotten shortened to "cook"? Or "create a treasure" to "ransack"? Or blood tokens to "slice" or map tokens to "scout"? Or saproling tokens to "grow" or zombie tokens to "reanimate" or bird tokens to "hatch" or...

They now consider Investigate as a mistake (as in making it a key word). Originally Investigate (with clues) was made before create was used so it helped with shortening the "put a colorless clue artifact token onto the battlefield" and so other cards could work on it (like Erdwal Illuminator). Afterwards they came up with create, figured out how useful and there is design space with similar tokens (which lead to food, treasure, blood ect,) and found Investigate limiting in some ways how to use clues flavorfully (ie a serial killer card who leaves behind clues feels funky to say investigate, it be more of the person hunting down the serial killer ) and now have been debating if they should keep Investigate or just spell out the "create a clue token".

EDIT- Dragonlover beat me too it lol

[DirkGently]

Oh god, just noticed that the CLU cards look like they're only available in the clue box, which only gets you 8 of the 20 rares (not including the lands and suspects which, at least, are in every box). Cracking them sounds like a thankless task at the current price point though. Guess we'll see where prices shake out.

Okay, real quick review to decide how worthwhile this thing is.

I review the legends in my GBU review, but real quick...

Apothecary White - B
Senator Peacock - D
Mastermind Plum - D-
Headliner Scarlet - D
Emissary Green - B+
Commander Mustard - D-
Lavinia, Foil to Conspiracy - D+
Amzu, Swarm's Hunger - B
Lonis, Genetics Expert - B for the combos.

and the non-legends:

Portal Manipulator - nobody plays Illusionist's Gambit, D+ because of blink I guess
Suppressor Skyguard - B+, seems real annoying for a lot of decks
Dimir Strandcatcher - D+, payoff doesn't seem that good even if it's free for you.
Memory Vampire - too expensive, too unreliable. D
Undercover Butler - not a commander card, F
Carnage Interpreter - discarding your hand is extremely niche at best and there are better ways to reload, D
Frenzied Gorespawn - Kinda middling for that sort of effect, I'd rather play Disrupt Decorum and I generally don't. C-
Incriminating Impetus - worst impetus, D-.
Furious Spinesplitter - technically can grow decently fast but still seems pretty weak, D.
Herald of Ilharg - Grows fast and can deal a lot of damage. Seems pretty decent. B
Stampede Surfer - generally this effect can be had for cheaper, but maybe not in RG. Not the best token producer but not terrible. C.
Conclave Evangelist - spicy. seems fun. Probably more dream than reality but will likely be relatively popular. B-.
Sumala Rumblers - No evasion, doesn't grow its toughness, maaaybe playable but not great. D+.
Vernal Sovereign - kinda pricey but not the worst. C-.
Afterlife Insurance - doesn't say nontoken so honestly it's probably reasonably tech for a go-wide token deck. Pretty much an extra Teferi's Protection with a cantrip. B+ where it fits.
Covetous Elegy - awful as a board wipe, and probably too expensive to be interesting for treasure creation. D.
Syndicate Heavy - doesn't really do enough. D-.
Corporeal Projection - probably some decks that can exploit the single-target mode with an etb commander or something. Overload seems probably not worth it but who knows, might be a blink deck that wants to do that. B-.
Ecstatic Electromancer - not really a commander card, F.
Resonance Technician - interesting card, probably too slow to be really good, but still okay. C.
Sludge Titan - Eh, for 6 we can do better. Being limited to milled cards is a big drawback. D.
Tribune of Rot - Kinda okay, but realistically doesn't get there - too hard to attack and even a creature-dense deck only averages one token. F+ for effort.
Aegis of the Legion - Too much work, and attacking means removing the shield counter is easy anyway. F.
Ordruun Mentor - not a commander card, F.
Scuttling Sentinel - not awful but not worth it. F+.
Unruly Krasis - Pretty efficient, but I'm not sure how many decks are really in the market for this sort of thing. C-.
Room lands (do they have a name? Can we go with "room lands") - I kinda like them tbh. Strictly for slow control decks but still, they're neat. B-.

Edit: thanks @Dragonlover and @5colorsrainbow, good to know. Yeah it sticks out like a sore thumb tbh but I thought that they were overall happy with the flavor last I heard. Makes sense they'd change their minds.

[Dunadain]

Unexplained Absence — that's Reality Shift on steroids on every level (shift is arguably the 10th most played removal in the format)

To be fair, Reality Shift is in blue, the competition isn't exactly fierce. Unexplained Absence, on the other hand, has to contend with white removal.

[MAGUSZANIN]

It's a punisher effect, and not guaranteed to trigger in the first place. No matter what your opponents do, they will always trigger Smothering Tithe from their natural draw step, or Rhystic Study whenever they cast a spell. But there are plenty of turn cycles (especially in the early game) where opponents won't be doing much on their turn other than casting a single spell. In general, I think it is an effect that is weaker in the early game, which makes it more difficult to snowball (in contrast to Smothering Tithe, which can often lead to a large early mana advantage when opponents can't afford to pay the ).

While I do acknowledge that a lot of your post is true and part of this is meta dependent, I disagree with this bit because I don't think of Trouble as filling the same role as either of those. In most cases I want both of those early (ideally on curve) and they will then continue generating me advantage, and while I would also be happy playing Trouble that way it's not when I want the effect the most. The turns I want Trouble the most are turns 5-10, because that's when your average white deck is starting to run out of gas. Study often stops drawing cards around turn 5 in my playgroups. And while it's certainly still good for the reasons you have mentioned, Tithe has done it's job one way or the other by the time turn 6+ comes around unless they are drawing a ton of cards to keep casting things.

Also I often beat a player with Tithe by running them out of cards even if it's early and they have a draw engine in the CZ, making Tithe weaker in the later portions of the game when White really needs the help. A well timed wrath will often deny them enough resources and card draw that the mana advantage becomes less important.

So I think this is kind of an apples to oranges comparison with these two. White needs help drawing cards in the later portions of the game, digging you towards your closers like Overruns and so on, which is where Trouble is good and cards like Study and Tithe have either done their thing or not, and you either won or you didn't.

I could see it easily drawing 2-3 cards per turn cycle with no support,

As for this, that still puts it above most of the White card draw effects? Any of them that can do similar things either require support to draw multiple cards per round (Esper Sentinel and needing a power buff to continue being relevant, Tocasia's Welcome and flash creatures/other once per turn effects), or outright cannot draw multiple cards per round (Four Knocks and similar). So by your own logic the baseline for this card is the well supported version of those other cards, one of which is already 30+$ on it's own merits after being printed 2.5 years ago, and Welcome is steadily creeping up to 6+$ after only being out for a year and having a much larger print run. There is a mana cost difference between Sentinel and Trouble I admit (also legs), but Sentinel falls off in the late game while Trouble only gets better as the opponents are advancing their boards, building resources, and getting in for damage. Trouble draws 2-3 cards per round in the early-mid game by your own logic and grows from there, while that is the cap for Sentinel and it won't even keep doing that without additional support into the later turns.

And I see people double spelling a LOT in the early and mid game. The advent of untapped 2 mana rocks/ramp being everywhere means that people are very often casting 2 cost Ramp into a 3 drop on turn 3 or 4 for example, so even slamming this down on turn 3 or 4 it's pretty likely to replace itself over the round. And then it starts scaling from there.

And if we hold the card to the same standards of needing support, we have goad adding cards to Trouble (Bloodthirsty Blade is playable even in MonoWhite and gets you halfway there on it's own!), we have Enchantment synergies (though admittedly those are the white decks that need the least help with card advantage), we have devotion in MonoWhite or God Commanders, this gets Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx pretty far towards being mana positive on it's own to help you cast those cards you're drawing, we have Howling Mine effects as you noted, Wheels, and so on.

To be fair, Reality Shift is in blue, the competition isn't exactly fierce. Unexplained Absence, on the other hand, has to contend with white removal.

While I agree, I do think there is a good case for playing it over something like Stroke of Midnight, since neither can hit lands and paying 3 mana for a 1/1 exchange isn't great. 4 mana for adding exile and hitting something from every opponent is quite good. I think we are hitting the saturation point on these mechanics though, with Excise the Imperfect, Unexplained Absence and, Get Lost and Generous Gift so far coming out on top for me, beating out Stroke. Exile is a big deal, and the need to put mana into the Maps/Incubate tokens to get anything out of them makes them arguably worse than a 3/3. Gift still hits lands so that's something, and Get Lost is nice because it's 2 mana even with the more limited targeting.

As WOTC continues to print these, I expect the bar to continue to rise.

[yeti1069]

Eh, I'm not entirely sold on Trouble in Pairs. I do think it's very good - I could see it easily drawing 2-3 cards per turn cycle with no support, and even more if you're running Howling Mine or other effects to force opponents to trigger it. However, I would not put it on the same level as Smothering Tithe or Dockside Extortionist for several reasons:

Have you played with Mangara, the Diplomat? It's rare for it to trigger on 2 attackers, but does probably every other turn cycle--and sometimes that card drawn has mitigated the attack--but the trigger for 2nd spell in a turn typically comes up at least once per turn cycle, and more often twice. Phyrexian Arena still sees heavy play even though it's slow (waiting a whole turn cycle for 1 card) and has a drawback (losing life). This is likely to draw more cards, faster, including the turn cycle you play it, and its only drawback is that you're reliant (somewhat) on what your opponents are doing.

Now, to address the specific modes: if your opponents aren't attacking you much, aren't playing many spells, and aren't drawing extra cards...you're almost certainly winning. Rhystic Study is considered to be one of the strongest draw engines available, while also relying entirely on what your opponents are doing, and has the same sort of outlook--if they're paying the tax all the time or playing fewer spells otherwise, they're slowing themselves down, and you're probably pulling ahead, and if they aren't paying the tax, you're making out like a bandit. Here, the upside isn't quite as strong, since you're never drawing more than 3 cards from a single player on their turn, but it's going to be hard for opponents to play around all 3 modes.

This card is going to be BONKERS, and before even considering the ways in which you can put a thumb on the scales. Howling Mine effects do it for sure, but so does Possibility Storm.

[MAGUSZANIN]

On top of what Yeti1069 said, I would also like to remind everyone that this is in the weaker card draw color. Arguably not the weakest anymore with the amount of support it's gotten recently, that one a probably goes to red. But white is still generally weaker than the unrestricted colors like black and blue.

So having a card that essentially gives you Phyrexian Arena with no downside, that draws you the cards during the opposing turns so if you draw into interaction or even just something with flash you can cast it, and gets you between two and four cards per turn on it's own is pretty strong? And it works with a variety of support pieces that you may well be playing anyway?

Also for the Mangara comparison, he specifies that the two creatures attacking have to be attacking you, while Trouble does not, And he also does not see any draw spells to trigger, so this effect is significantly broader on top of the more resilient card type.

You better believe that I'm going to be playing this card.

[Dunadain]

Also for the Mangara comparison, he specifies that the two creatures attacking have to be attacking you, while Trouble does not

Idk what your trying to say, both cards require two creatures to be coming at YOU.

It's fine, it's going to be played, it's not the messiah that's going to fix mono-white (though it's one more step in that direction).

[MAGUSZANIN]

Also for the Mangara comparison, he specifies that the two creatures attacking have to be attacking you, while Trouble does not

Idk what your trying to say, both cards require two creatures to be coming at YOU.

It's fine, it's going to be played, it's not the messiah that's going to fix mono-white (though it's one more step in that direction).

They worded it slightly differently on Mangara, and I missed the "you" on Trouble.

That doesn't really change my overall point though, which is that this card is in the same general position as Smothering Tithe. It is a four mana enchantment that does something White is traditionally bad at, it has nothing readily comparable in terms of a budget replacement that is playable in any deck and will draw half as many cards as this will. The closest comparison is probably smuggler's share, but that card doesn't do nearly as much as this because of how much narrower it is, even if it does create the occasional treasure.

Even if Trouble only draws two cards per turn, which I think is pretty low, that still puts it significantly ahead of basically every other card draw enchantment in White, just like Tithe is the best Ramp enchantment in White.

[Rumpy5897]

Trouble in Pairs is nothing new - literally all three of the clauses have been present on cards before. As such, your mileage will be representative of how Mangara, the Diplomat and/or Smuggler's Share perform in your group for draw. In my case, Mangara did little - it was easy enough to just alpha strike me down, and a surprising number of turns involved people playing one hefty spell rather than multiple smaller ones. However, Smuggler's Share performs quite well somehow. People like having value engines that replace spent cards (and also land ramp, which is not carried over to the new one). Plus four mana is a nontrivial cost. I think part of Share's success locally is that it's a little cheaper, making it easier to justify the expenditure as it's literally in the same mana value as Phyrexian Arena.

I'm wondering whether the sweet spot for white would be exploring Psychic Possession style space, i.e. uncapped reward but limited in targeting. Smothering Tithe came out a bit too good and the power was very quickly dialled back, and cautiously dabbled with since. The relative peak since came with Archivist of Oghma and Deep Gnome Terramancer, both arguably the best representatives of their categories. It kind of feels like the stuff fell off in priority since, which is a bit of a bummer - there isn't quite enough density to give you freedom of how you want to approach this when building.

Also damn, Smothering Tithe is now five years old. Yet it feels like them working on "fixing white" is still quite a recent development. It's interesting how cheap these various white fixers ended up, and I wonder whether it's a function of them not actually being that good or people still not playing that much white. I'd probably guess the former, the cards are quite slow and the format kind of picked up pace over the years as well.

[Mookie]

I'm wondering whether the sweet spot for white would be exploring Psychic Possession style space, i.e. uncapped reward but limited in targeting.

...Wedding Ring?

[Rumpy5897]

Kind of, but not quite - this one falls into the pitfall of "I draw, you draw"

[Hermes_]

I review the legends in my GBU review, but real quick...

I'd love to read a write up from you on which commander/legend from the whole of magic you think is A+ or even A,