#that's part of what made Jace the Mind Sculptor so strong

[dravidious]

I really like Enlightened Ancestor and Promising Torrent as rares, because they offer big exciting payoffs, but have costs/conditions that make them pretty impractical to actually use. The YuGiOh approach to rare cards lol

With Horvor Superiors, something I worry about is using it to put worthless spells on top of your opponent's library to effectively make them skip their draw step. That does NOT feel good, and that kind of thing is the reason why modern effects of that style say "that card's owner puts it on the top or bottom of their library", to give them the choice so that they don't have to waste their next draw. Though I'm guessing the point of this card being able to target opponents' cards is meant to get rid of cards in the opponent's graveyard, so letting them put it on top would be bad. Maybe it could say something like "if you own it, put it on top of your library. Otherwise, put it on the bottom of its owner's library"? Pretty wordy, so idk. You could also just limit it to your own graveyard for simplicity.

Blue Rares

[ravnicaforgoblins]

Ravnica for Goblins

Exciting Planeswalker Visitors

(Caution: Before we begin, this post is going to be much more opinion-based than previous ones. These are my own homebrew ideas, use them as/if you wish, discard/dismiss them if you prefer.)

Planeswalkers are an integral part of MTG Lore, as well as several of its most iconic characters. Put simply, a Planeswalker is an individual with an inherent gift for traveling between planes, or worlds. The gift does not appear at birth, but is usually triggered by some manner of incredibly emotional (usually traumatizing) event. In addition, each Planeswalker displays a unique aptitude for a particular style of magic; be it plant growth, transformation, becoming transparent, illusions, invulnerability, summoning beasts, structural analysis, setting things on fire, etc. Whatever their specific brand of magic is, it’s usually on a higher level than an ordinary person can hope to achieve.

Planeswalkers, as a general rule, are wanderers by nature. They may have a home plane, or even an adopted home plane, but being able to traverse the multiverse leads many towards lives of constant adventuring/shenanigans. Add in the fact that Planeswalkers cannot bring anyone else with them on these travels (except in very rare cases), and you end up with a special breed of super-powerful magical loner. They show up, make a name for themselves with their big magic, and depart when they feel like it. Did you say, “Instant Adventure”?

Ravnica has a few native Planeswalkers among its citizens; Ral Zarek, Vraska, and Domri Rade. In addition, it has several Planeswalkers who have at some point or another (depending on your timeline) devoted enough time & energy to be effectively considered citizens; Azor, Tezzeret, Kaya, Dack Fayden, Dovin Baan, Gideon Jura, and Jace Beleren. Some of these are currently dead, missing, or magically barred from ever returning. At one point, Ravnica had more Planeswalkers on it at one time than any plane in the multiverse has ever or will ever see. If you are going the War of the Spark direction, good luck. You'll need it and so will your players. For everyone else, which Planeswalkers you choose to include in your campaign (if any), should be based on who will work the best for the story you’re trying to tell. A recommendation; if you find their lore too distracting and complicated, stick to the main beats. A lot of these figures can be boiled down to simple ideas, and you don’t want to bore your party with the entire novel of these usually dramatic/tragic lives. Trust me, the base concepts are enough.

With that in mind, here are four Planeswalkers that I, a random person on the internet, believe would work great for a Ravnica campaign. My choices are not based on who has canonically already spent time in Ravnica, or who would be the most powerful/dangerous to suddenly appear in the city. Several Planeswalkers have their own prior commitments on other planes that are pretty central to their character, and BAMFing them to Ravnica for a quick Bad Guy to take down wouldn’t do them justice. These four characters would slide into various aspects of Ravnica beautifully. These four would be the most exciting visitors to Ravnica.

Ashiok, Dream Render

I don’t think any MTG character could be as good a fit for a Ravnican Guild as Ashiok is for House Dimir. Ashiok is almost literally a walking shadow of secrets and intrigue. Their origins, their age, their motives, their face; hell, their gender is a secret yet unrevealed. Ashiok’s power is creating living beings born of the greatest fears stolen from people’s nightmares. Literally.

It’s like if the Dimir stopped half-assing the art of stealing thoughts and turned it into a weapon of mass destruction. Because even the mightiest of Ravnicans are afraid of things. Ask Niv-Mizzet about the Nephilim sometime, see how quickly he changes the subject. What’s better, for a Guild that prides itself on always having the up & up on everyone, Ashiok is inscrutable. They have no past that can be divined, no secrets that can be stolen, no previous encounters to prepare any for their arrival. Neither Lazav nor Etrata can claim such anonymity, despite their best efforts. Ashiok is a true enigma and a dangerous new weapon for House Dimir.

Ashiok also comes with the ability to create minions and NPCs from out of any PC’s worst nightmares, making encounters a great combination of roleplaying & combat. Fighting them is specifically facing one’s deepest & darkest fears made real. Can you say, “character development”?

Ashiok’s arrival could spread this new magical art to other Dimir Agents for a longer campaign, but it might be best to confine it to Ashiok in order to allow for a cleaner victory. Ashiok is not a fighter, cornering them into a direct confrontation should be enough to make the Nightmare Sculptor run for the hills. The mind is powerful, but also very squishy.

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

You know how the Cult of Rakdos are technically Chaotic Evil but generally just a bunch of artsy hedonistic nuisances? Tibalt is to them what a gallon of gasoline would be to a lit stove. Good for fire, bad for everything else. Tibalt is an empath specializing in Pain Magic. Quite literally, he loves hurting people for fun. Drawn to pain like a magnet; physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological, etc, he is sadism personified.

His brief time on Ravnica during War of the Spark was enough to make a strong impression on the Rakdos.

“I like this one’s energy.”

This is because they do not realize how bad Tibalt would be for the Cult. There is a fundamental difference between the Chaotic Evil the Cult practices and the Chaotic Evil Tibalt delights in. The Rakdos have survived 10,000 years by taking in the freaks, the rejects, and the crazies, and giving them a place where they can live out their most depraved hedonistic fantasies. They are the voice of the outsiders bringing all figures of power & authority down a peg. They always punch up, never down. Tibalt is a young man with no home, no friends, no job, and no interests or hobbies beyond inflicting pain in as many people as possible. Tibalt punches everyone. The most important distinction between the two is that the Cult of Rakdos is a culture, a way of life for people to embrace; it might be crazy, but it welcomes & accepts people no matter how insane the world says they are. Tibalt does not care about anyone but himself. Following his example would see the city turned into the largest, bloodiest, and most destructive riot in its history; with Tibalt inciting and sicking every monstrosity he can find onto the city at once. He will burn the Rakdos candle at both ends and leave them to suffer the consequences of his fun. The aftermath being the city in ruins, the Cult wiped from the face of existence, and him moving on to his next project. In short, Tibalt will hurt the Cult of Rakdos as much, if not more, than the rest of Ravnica. Because that’s how he gets his kicks.

The one thing standing in his way will be Rakdos himself. As the single largest diva on the entire plane, Rakdos does not tolerate anyone who tries to steal his spotlight. As a 10,000+ year-old Demon Lord, Rakdos is in a league of his own, and Tibalt is just a hotshit little pain mage with a few tricks. It’s not a fight, it’s either an exit or a curtain call for the Planeswalker. If Rakdos is around, Tibalt’s spree will be very short-lived. If, however, Rakdos is doing his usual thing of hibernating for weeks, months, or years at a time, that’s a different story. Tibalt is good for if your campaign wants to bypass politics & intrigue and go straight to killing Cultists & Demons. He’s bad for anyone he comes in contact with.

Garruk Wildspeaker

In case I haven’t made my contempt for Domri Rade clear, I hold Domri Rade in utter contempt. As a character, as a Planeswalker, and most of all as a Gruul, he’s a failure. Scrawny, weak, gullible, and stupid. My chief grievance with Domri is that he fell short in all the areas the Gruul Clans idolize. He couldn’t survive in the wilderness on his own without his Planeswalker abilities, he couldn’t fight for himself except against weaker opponents or with herds of animals as backup, and he acted on orders from someone else who wasn’t Gruul. For a Guild built on independence and survival of the fittest, he failed both completely.

Garruk is the real deal. Gigantic, strong, savage, and cunning. Here is a man who, on a fundamental level, has embraced animal savagery as a way of life. He lives like a predator on the hunt, an alpha of any pack, and a fierce threat to all who intrude upon his territory. On a plane like Ravnica, where civilization has encroached on the untamed wilds almost completely, Garruk would be a gamechanger. Not only could he feasibly fight Borborygmos for leadership of the Gruul, he could win, and he could unite the Gruul under his howl of reclaiming the wilds from so-called “civilization”. Garruk would bring animal strength to the Gruul in ways they’ve only begun to tap into, and he’d do it in their language. Because Garruk understands the Gruul, and they understand him. They have so much in common with each other that it’s hard to think of any Planeswalker who could be welcomed so readily into a Guild. They would become so much more than rock-smashers and anarchists, they would become Ravnica’s reminder that nature will survive when all traces of society have crumbled away.

As if taking on the city itself wasn’t big enough already, Garruk has also taken to hunting other Planeswalkers, and can actually track them across the Multiverse. Meaning a few high-ranking members of Guilds and even the Living Guildpact have to take his threat seriously. He’s got a particular grudge against necromancers, dislikes talking, and has a special gift with animals of all varieties. All of which provides plenty of ideas to build from. He’s an 8ft tall Human Druid/Barbarian who willingly chooses animal savagery over intellectual reasoning, can there be anyone more perfect for the Gruul?

Did I say Ashiok was the most perfect fit for an MTG character in a Ravnican Guild? Yeah, scratch that. Garruk is.

Sarkhan Vol

Most Planeswalkers have a theme to their abilities. For some, that theme extends to their personalities as well. And then there are Planeswalkers who can be adequately summed up in a single word. For Sarkhan, that word would be “dragons”. Sarkhan sees dragons as nature’s purest & most destructive form, and carries a fascination with them that is perfectly healthy for anything with wings and scales that breathes fire, but generally less healthy for everything & everyone else.

One of the things that makes Ravnica unique is the distinct lack of dragons (emphasis on the plural). Ravnica has a dragon, Niv-Mizzet the Firemind, who made the executive decision thousands of years ago that he alone was sufficient to represent his entire species. Ravnican dragons are considered more intelligent than dragons on other planes, Niv himself being a prime example of this. Around the original signing of the Guildpact, Ravnica’s Godlike dragons were hunted to extinction, with Niv leading the hunt against his own kind. They were not entirely successful in this endeavor, but what few dragons do remain in the present day survive by staying as far off Niv’s radar as possible. Some dragons live by carrying out Niv’s will under constant supervision, or by hunting in the untamed wilds outside the city, or as sideshow attractions for the Rakdos (usually with their wings cut off to prevent escape). They are effectively stripped of anything that would identify them as “dragons” for the sake of their own existence. Since dragons are such a notoriously touchy subject for the Firemind, few have the nerve or fire immunity necessary to speak out against it.

Sarkhan would be horrified. If he thought the extinction of dragons on his home plane of Tarkir was bad, seeing them living like this would infuriate him beyond words. What would Sarkhan do once the initial shock of seeing his spirit animal (in more ways than one) reduced to pitiful scraps of life as lab rats, scared prey, and freak shows wears off? Let’s make it a game! Do you think Sarkhan will:

A. Cry.

B. Throw up.

C. Embrace this as a plane’s reality that he has no right to get involved with.

D. Scream.

E. Set something on fire.

F. Set everything on fire.

G. Bring back the dragons.

H. Burn the city to the ground with dragons.

I. Kill Niv-Mizzet.

J. All the above except “C”.

If you selected Answer “J”, then congratulations! You’ve just won a free trip to a BURNING METROPOLIS! Sarkhan will absolutely make it his life’s goal to bring dragons back to Ravnica and destroy the whole wretched city down to the last brick. How he would do it is up to you, but it’s a solid bet that even if every other Guild treats him like an apocalyptic madman, the Gruul might side with him over some shared beliefs in smashing the city apart with ferocious animal savagery. They tend to lean towards such ideas with uncharacteristic willful compliance. Ravnican dragons are primarily red, with the most prominent breed still remaining being the Utvara Hellkites beyond the city limits.

Oh, and Sarkhan can turn into a dragon, too. Have fun with that.

[s0wingsalt]

Standard and Banning

Two posts in two days? Who is this guy?

Sup nerds I’ve got thoughts on bannings and I feel like typing them out, because that’s what people do when they’ve got strong feelings now: they rant about them on the internet.

Now, as a disclaimer I don’t play standard and I’m far from an authority on what’s actually good in the format. Luckily, I’m not actually talking about whether those cards in particular should or shouldn’t have been banned, but rather about the idea of banning cards in standard at all. There’s been a lot of debate about whether that’s a good thing considering how many cards have been banned recently after a long period of no bannings whatsoever.

To start with, I’m going to voice what I think might be a somewhat unpopular opinion: I think bans in standard are a good thing, or at least a good tool to have available in the format. Wizards has been taking a more aggressive design standpoint lately, printing cards that are interesting, unique, and above all, powerful. Part of this has to do with promoting standard, while another part is expanding design space and a growing comfort with what is and isn’t okay to print. Wizards has by and large been pushing the envelope of power ever so slightly without falling into power creep or ludicrously busted designs. But as long as they’re pushing the envelope, they need to be prepared to deal with the cards they print and their impact on the format rather than abiding by an arbitrary rule of “can’t ban cards in standard.” Leaving the format as hallowed ground would mean they wouldn’t be able to be as creative and aggressive with the cards they print, so I think being comfortable with bannings is a good thing (and also with errata-ing cards when necessary. Lookin at you, Hostage Taker).

That being said, there have been a lot of bannings compared to other formats and even historical standard formats in the past year or two. Most of the cards banned haven’t been super egregious either, just cards that were maybe a bit too powerful, too ubiquitous, or too annoying to play against. That’s probably because we’re in the calibration period for that aggressive design philosophy I mentioned - they’re just now starting to print more uniquely powerful cards because they’re just now becoming really well aware of what is okay and what isn’t when it comes to certain aspects of card design. As such, most of the new banned cards actually won’t be things like Jace the Mind-Sculptor or Stoneforge Mystic, cards that are clearly broken that slipped through the cracks. Rather they’re going to continue to be things like Smuggler’s Copter and Rogue Refiner, cards that were maybe just a little bit too powerful in the creature based game Wizards has been developing. With this in mind, I don’t think it’s ridiculous for Lay of the Land + 2 energy to be banned, because it shows that Wizards is aware of what kind of format they’re trying to create, and what cards they should remove from it in order to prevent certain strategies from becoming too dominant. I also think they do a decent job of avoiding banning expensive cards - banning Felidar Guardian and Ramunap Ruins instead of Saheeli Rai and Hazoret the Fervent meant that peoples’ cards by and large retained their value, which is another big problem with bans in general.

That’s about all the cushioning I can provide for this rather large BUT I’ve got coming though. While I’m a big supporter of bans in standard, they’ve made something very apparent - standard is in what appears to be a pretty rough spot right now. While the format is still developing around RIX and the bannings are still shaking themselves out, Temur Energy was replaced by Grixis Energy almost immediately. Many of the decks in standard have been the same or similar since Kaladesh or Amonkhet, merely picking up new cards with every new release (the return of Mardu Vehicles to the top of the metagame is indicative of this). To me as an outside observer, this is indicative of a few things: first, standard decks are currently in a state where, no matter what you’re trying to do, there’s a definitive “best deck” for it. Temur Energy was the best midrange deck, Ramunap Red was the best aggro deck, and so on, and after the bannings we’re in a position where it seems like those slots will be easily filled by only slight variations to what was just replaced. This brings us to the next point, which is that standard has a series of decks which are potentially bannable based on the current metrics which are waiting behind worse offenders. Since Aether Revolt, people have been discussing some of the cards in Mardu Vehicles such as Heart of Kiran and whether they should be banned.

How do these things relate to bannings? The main point is that the bans we’ve had so far have revealed one thing: standard as a format is becoming more powerful than Wizards wants it to be, and it would take a whole lot of bannings to bring it back down to where they want it. That puts them in a rough spot where they can either ban a boatload of cards, which would obviously anger players, or they can deal with having them in the format. I think they’ve found a decent middle ground since there’s no good solution, but it’s hard to say.

To close, remember these are my thoughts as an inexperienced observer. By all means disagree with what I’ve said here. But as someone who hasn’t played standard in years, never have I felt less inclined to start than in recent years, and it’s not because of the bannings but rather what the bannings mean about the format. If anything I’m of the opinion that Wizards needs to change a bit of its design philosophy when it comes to standard cards, because you can only print so many creatures with super powerful effects on them before things get wonky. That being said, I’m glad they’re willing to admit when they’ve made mistakes, and when they need to take direct action to fix those mistakes, even so far as to print sets that feel distinctly less powerful (in my opinion, certain individual cards nonwithstanding) than their predecessors to act as palette cleansers of sorts. Maybe we should just stop visiting artifact-based planes...

[neingel]

Wizards showing us who really means business and what it really means.

Foreword

So at the time I’m writing this, a little too late. Most of you should know by now of the recent banning announcement. Wizards officially banned Gitaxian Probe and Golgari Grave-Troll in modern while Standard has it’s first ban since 2011, Where Jace the Mind Sculptor as well as Stoneforge Mystic were deemed to be too powerful for Standard at that time.

Now the modern bans were of course treated quite seriously, but the community was furious with the decision towards the banning of certain cards in Standard: Emrakul the Promised End, Smuggler’s Copter and Reflector Mage. Since the last Standard banning was over 6 years ago, it was quite an abrupt decision made by Wizards to ban 3 cards in Standard out of nowhere. But to further understand why these 3 cards were banned, we must first analyze the actual reasons Wizards gave for banning these cards in their respective formats.

Modern

So Grave-Troll and Gitaxian Probe were banned in modern. Both saw successive runs in certain top tier decks (Probe saw play in Infect,Suicide Zoo variants while Grave-Troll sky-rocketed Dredge to be a fearsome deck to deal with in the post Splinter Twin modern metagame).

In the explanation provided here by Wizards for the banning of Grace-Troll. It is clear that Wizards is clear that there is a problem going on in Modern, Dredge was way too unhealthy which caused a influx in the increase of hate for it in many decks’s sideboards. However, do note the phrase “the real offender has been the dredge mechanic itself.” Let’s face it, Grave-Troll is probably the best “dredger” in terms of value,power level and playability. None of the other Dredgers come quite close to Grave-Troll. In fact, to nerf/balance Dredge, you would have to get rid of the most powerful card it runs, in this case Grave-Troll. However, this does not downright mean Dredge will shift down a tier, it will simply be slightly slower but no stranger to it’s former power pre-ban. 

And now..for the infamous Gitaxian Probe. Ever since Modern took off from it’s post-twin meta, Aggro did once again have a voice and say in Modern. And it did so in a very vibrant way of the Suicide Zoo variant, in which the deck revolves around the player taking as much self damage as possible in order to cast an extremely powerful Death’s Shadow for only 1 mana! Various archetypes of Suicide Zoo have popped up over time but Gitaxian Probe did too much to contribute to this powerhouse of a deck. It was also contributing a major part of Infect’s “engine”, which is now a top tier deck feared by many. But this Gitaxian Probe banning made me recall 2 very similar cards that are already banned in Modern…

Ah yes…the 2 of the best cantrips ever made in Magic’s history, being deemed too powerful for Modern as it mainly pushed non-creature strategies to insane levels. But what do these 2 have in common with Probe?

Well if you mentioned it does “too much” for 1 mana…

In fact Gitaxian Probe theoretically cost 0 mana! So Modern is basically stripped of all it’s “value” cantrips leaving behind Serum Visions as it’s top candidate :/

Shocking isn’t it?

Standard

Now onto the main course and it’s glorious, spongy potato salad crest atop it. The Standard bans ladies and gentlemen..

Well hold on there..! Everyone still has their toes hot on this topic even though it’s more than a week after the announcement but I’ll try to analyze what was right and wrong to each banning.

Let’s start off small with Reflector Mage:

Now, Reflector Mage wasn’t a card that made huge impact in Standard, but this ban report claims that Reflector Mage was simply making the UW Flash deck too powerful, the ban report also states Reflector Mage had been “quite strong” in the day of Collected Company Standard. For me, Reflector Mage is indeed quite an annoying card, but it’s power level isn’t something so serious that it needed to be banned. Yeah, you could say whatever you want on how a major piece it was in Collected Company and UW Flash decks, but that doesn’t justify that decks entirely revolved around it.

Next up is the sneaky Copter

Before you all go over how powerful Smuggler’s Copter is, let this slowly sink in for you: “Kaladesh was released on 30th September 2016″, which means Smuggler’s Copter’s time in Standard was only around 3 months. Now..the card is ridiculously strong. A potential 3/3 for 2 is already value, consider also it’s low crew cost and it’s looting effect that could be used offensively and defensively for card advantage. The card overall was solid, but the real question is…

“Why would Wizards print an extremely powerful card, let it stay in Standard for 3 months and ban it?”

Exactly! Wizards knew Smuggler’s Copter was going to be a very powerful card in Standard, yet they still let it sink into the metagame for a while, saw their predictions come true then ban it! It’s not as if “Oh..there’s probably other vehicles to replace it”. No, people have actually spent a lot of money building up the deck, and Smuggler’s Copter isn’t a cheap card either. Standard also isn’t a format in which the banhammer always pays particular attention to, this will affect the future of Standard - in a way that new players would be afraid into certain decks over a fear that their cards would be banned.

And finally the biggest, baddest, strongest and possibly fattest Eldrazi of them all…there can only be one!

Now on the topic of Emrakul, this version had to be tuned down from the previous version of herself for her to even be playable.

Yes…thank god the Promised End wasn’t as terrifying as this when this absolute monster was printed 6 years ago

But still, Promised End was still one hell of a force to be reckoned with. It’s cmc reduction, ability to use your opponent’s best cards against them, resulting in a more favored board position for yourself - all these were nothing but a small resemblance to her former self printed 6 years ago. Nonetheless, I felt she was still a card that was perfectly balanced in Standard, where it saw play in Aetherworks Marvel. Which I once again felt the deck did seem menacing being able to find Emrakul off Aetherworks, but this wasn’t a deck that had all the strengths and none of the flaws. In fact this doesn’t change much where there are other Eldrazi Titans such as Ulamog that are extremely powerful and have devastating effects when played.

But more importantly, if the slightly under-powered version of Emrakul is banned from Standard, why is the the original Titan still legal in Modern? Where it’s a more explosive format and there are multiple easy ways to cheat it into play?

Now you might tell me “Oh..it’s Modern and the answers there are more reliable towards decks playing these..” , well you are half-right but like I mentioned earlier. There are answers to the Aetherworks Marvel deck! Wizards should have thought about the Modern example of decks cheating Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play before deciding whether to ban it’s newer form in Standard!

What Standard might look like in the future..

Now most of you have probably heard Standard has a potential new meta-breaking deck..what? No? Alright…here it is.

With Aether Revolt coming up, Standard is about to receive a literal Splinter Twin combo. While not as powerful as the original Splinter Twin combo, it does win on turn 4. While most players are extremely displeased with Wizards printing a pair of cards within the same block, then announcing the bans above. I would like to raise some motivation: the original Splinter Twin combo with Deceiver Exarch actually were playable in Standard, but even at that time it wasn’t even a top tier deck! To add on, this combo isn’t even as reliable or powerful as the original(Saheeli can be removed before Felidar is played,the combo can be shut down by Authority of the Consuls,if u arrange removal on the stack the combo can be disrupted). So do not be disheartened, we never know that this would dominate Standard, it might just be anyone’s game after all.

Orrrrrrrr maybe not, who knows?

Conclusion

Thus, it’s been a wild week for both Standard and Modern players alike, as well for many collectors and investors. For Standard, it does seem interesting to watch how the meta and other decks will perform with some decks getting nerfed after the bannings. On a good note, do have fun, embrace whatever your playing and I’ll see you soon!