(The following information is from this article detaliing the Banned/Restricted List Changes and this forum post on MTGCommander.net)
Hey all!
Today's another Banned/Restricted announcement, this time a normally scheduled one. All normaly Banned/Restricted updates happen on the 20th of ever 3rd month (so there are 4 regularly scheduled updates in a year). This is the first Banned/Restricted announcement since Jace, the Mind Sculptor got banned in Standard, Stoneforge got semi-banned in Standard, and the Modern official Banned list was released.
And today sees more changes than are normally seen out of a Banned/Restricted Update. Let me put it this way...the only formats NOT hit seemed to be Scars of Mirrodin block and Standard. Everything else that has sanctioned play at least once a year got a Banned/Restricted List update.
So let's go ahead and get started off with the first rotating format to get updates...EXTENDED!
Extended Ban List Update
NEWLY BANNED:
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Mental Misstep
Ponder
Preordain
Stoneforge Mystic
REASON: Basically, every card banned here was a big player in too many successful decks over the last 3 years in Standard. Players seemed to complain about how the format was shaping up, so these new bans are a means to help revitalize interest in Extended.
NOTE: There is no partial banning of Stoneforge Mystic. She is completely banned in Extended.
Now let's move on to our most recent Eternal format, MODERN!
Modern Ban List Update
NEWLY BANNED:
Blazing Shoal
Cloudpost
Green Sun's Zenith
Ponder
Preordain
Rite of Flame
REASONS:
Blazing Shoal delivered too consistent of a quick kill: Turn 1-2, throw out Blighted Agent or Inkmoth Nexus, Turn 2-3 cast Blazing Shoal and ditch a Dragonstorm/Reaper King/Progenitus to get lethal Infect damage.
Cloudpost was dominating, allowing very quick mana acceleration in combination with Vesuva and Glimmerpost. Supposedly, these decks could hit 15 mana by Turn 4. This was deemed unhealthy.
Green Sun's Zenith: Early or late game, it's just too efficient at what it does. It can either act as early mana acceleration by getting a Dryad Arbor or get a late-game beater like Primeval Titan. It was getting to a point where all Green decks were going the Green Sun's Zenith route and no other way.
Ponder and Preordain: Like Brainstorm and Ponder in Vintage, they're too good at what they do. In some combo decks, it became too easy to find combo pieces...just like Brainstorm.
Rite of Flame: Combo enabler that was seen way to often. One of the highest finishing decks at the latest Pro Tour won 9 out of 10 games with it and the games ended VERY quickly.
Next up, we're moving to the more restrictive format...LEGACY!
Legacy Ban List Update
NEWLY BANNED:
Mental Misstep
REASON: Mental Misstep was a mistake...a BAD mistake. Printed to help non-blue decks have access to a Force of Will-type card, instead blue deck adopted Mental Misstep ALONGSIDE Force of Will. What happened to the Legacy metagame was exactly the opposite of what they intended. They planned to ban the card if the results were poor, and, well, they were.
So congratulations! Unless you're playing Standard, Scars of Mirrodin block constructed, or Vintage, you have no opportunity to play Mental Misstep.
And almost finally, we get some good news with an unrestriction in the most open format for legalities, VINTAGE!
Vintage Restricted List Update
NEWLY RESTRICTED:
None
NEWLY UNRESTRICTED (4-of):
Fact or Fiction
REASON: Fact or Fiction was powerful long ago, and the time seems to have come to unban it and see if it's as big a powerhouse now as it was then. This goes along with unbannings like Grim Monolith and Time Spiral in Legacy where each proved to be not overpowered in the present day.
ULTIMATELY LASTLY AND FINALLY...finally (:p)...we have a COMMANDER update with one unbanning and 1 banning as a Commander.
Commander Ban List Update
UNBANNED:
Lion's Eye Diamond
BANNED AS A COMMANDER (still okay in the other 99 cards of your deck):
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
BANNED:
Shahrazad
REASONS
Lion's Eye Diamond: Sheldon Menery, basically the internet leader for EDH, and his rules committee feel that while Lion's Eye Diamond COULD have potential issues, the benefits of letting newer players explore "non-scummy" ways to use it seems to be worth unbanning. Or something like that? But they'll keep a close eye on it and see if it ends up hurting the format.
Shahrazad: Meant to let newer players have some fun with subgames, the rules committee was finding that people were building Shahrazad-based decks just to annoy players. That's never good for the game. Whatever exception allowed Shahrazad to be played was removed and it's not completely banned.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant as a Commander: Simply put, he effectively ends games as soon as he hits the board. Sheldon and the rules committee don't like Commanders that do that. Players learn the hard way that, unless they have a very narrow set of answers, they can't deal with Erayo once it flips.
All of these changes except Commander take effect on October 1st, so enjoy your Ponders, Preordains, Mental Misstepts, and Rite of Flames a little while longer. For Commander, the changes are immediate, as best I can tell.
That is all for tonight. Comments? Suggestions? Feel free to post here. :)
Showing posts with label Commander. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commander. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Commander Deck Lists! And Patterns in the Decklists
Hello, hello!
With the Commander decks releasing this upcoming Friday (June 17th, MSRP of $30 each), some stores have already gotten their shipments...and unfortunately for WotC busted them open for deck lists and singles.
But thank goodness for the community they did, because they've shown what a deal these decks can be!
Before I get to the actual deck lists, though, I want to point out a few common themes among them.
COMMON THEMES IN COMMANDER THEME DECKS
1) Each deck comes with a Sol Ring and a Lightning Greaves. Yes, every single Commander theme deck comes with nearly $15 worth of cards right off the bat!
2) Each deck comes with one of the 5 Planar Chaos Legendary Dragons, each of which is from one of the "wedges". This gives you a familiar card to start using as your Commander.
3) Each deck comes with 2 new tri-color "wedge" Legendary Creatures to also potentially serve as your Commander.
4) All decks have a new 2-color "enemy pair" Legendary Creature as a Rare.
5) All but 1 of the decks have 3 of the old Ravnica Signets (2, Artifact, EFFECT: 1, TAP: Add [insert allied color pair mana symbols here] to your mana pool.). The only one to not have them? Political Puppets.
6) Each deck has only 1 new card in common between all 5 of them: Command Tower.
Yep, you read that right! A card that's only good in one format, Commander, and is inherently limited to one per deck. Hey, look on the bright side of it: A playset only consists of 1, and you'll get it in any deck you buy! :) And on another bright side, we finally have a card that's strictly better than Reflecting Pool. ha ha!
7) Every deck has 3 of the new "Vow of [something]" Enchantments. What are these "Vows"? Well, for example...
All the Vows have some common themes:
a. They are all mono-colored Enchantments.
b. They all cost 2C (2 plus their color).
c. They all provide a power/toughness boost (usually +2/+2, but green love beatdown!).
d. They all provide an on-color ability addition (green is Trample, white is Vigilance, etc.)
e. They all have Pacifism-like abilities in that the creature can't attack you or a Planeswalker you control.
These could be good in regular casual, I think! Here are all 5 Vows for their Power/Toughness boosts and granted abilities:
1) WHITE: +2/+2, Vigilance
2) BLUE: +2/+2, Flying
3) BLACK: +2/+2, Intimidate
4) RED: +2/+2, First Strike
5) GREEN: +3/+3, Trample
Each Commander theme deck will have the 3 Vows for their colors (so for example, Political Puppets, a RWU deck, will get the Red, White, and Blue Vows)
I've tried to hunt for more similarities, but I can't find a lot where every deck had the same theme. Feel free to point out more as you find them in the lists.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...the actual lists!
(These lists are taken from this post on the MTGSalvation forums.)
Mirror Mastery
Devour for Power
Heavenly Inferno (Personal Note: This is the one I'm picking up.)
Political Puppets
Counter Punch
Well, what do you think? Are these decks worth the $30 MSRP? Are any of them just utter crap? Remember, these decks are meant for multiplayer Commander use, so judge their inclusion in the decks accordingly. Though feel free to judge the new cards in more of a regular 60-card idea for Legacy and Vintage only.
I hope you've enjoyed the (few) previews here. This week I'll start tackling M12 for its release on July 15th (and Pre-Release the weekend before that, July 9-10). Look for more posts this week on the new Core Set! Until then, take care.
With the Commander decks releasing this upcoming Friday (June 17th, MSRP of $30 each), some stores have already gotten their shipments...and unfortunately for WotC busted them open for deck lists and singles.
But thank goodness for the community they did, because they've shown what a deal these decks can be!
Before I get to the actual deck lists, though, I want to point out a few common themes among them.
COMMON THEMES IN COMMANDER THEME DECKS
1) Each deck comes with a Sol Ring and a Lightning Greaves. Yes, every single Commander theme deck comes with nearly $15 worth of cards right off the bat!
2) Each deck comes with one of the 5 Planar Chaos Legendary Dragons, each of which is from one of the "wedges". This gives you a familiar card to start using as your Commander.
3) Each deck comes with 2 new tri-color "wedge" Legendary Creatures to also potentially serve as your Commander.
4) All decks have a new 2-color "enemy pair" Legendary Creature as a Rare.
5) All but 1 of the decks have 3 of the old Ravnica Signets (2, Artifact, EFFECT: 1, TAP: Add [insert allied color pair mana symbols here] to your mana pool.). The only one to not have them? Political Puppets.
6) Each deck has only 1 new card in common between all 5 of them: Command Tower.
Yep, you read that right! A card that's only good in one format, Commander, and is inherently limited to one per deck. Hey, look on the bright side of it: A playset only consists of 1, and you'll get it in any deck you buy! :) And on another bright side, we finally have a card that's strictly better than Reflecting Pool. ha ha!
7) Every deck has 3 of the new "Vow of [something]" Enchantments. What are these "Vows"? Well, for example...
All the Vows have some common themes:
a. They are all mono-colored Enchantments.
b. They all cost 2C (2 plus their color).
c. They all provide a power/toughness boost (usually +2/+2, but green love beatdown!).
d. They all provide an on-color ability addition (green is Trample, white is Vigilance, etc.)
e. They all have Pacifism-like abilities in that the creature can't attack you or a Planeswalker you control.
These could be good in regular casual, I think! Here are all 5 Vows for their Power/Toughness boosts and granted abilities:
1) WHITE: +2/+2, Vigilance
2) BLUE: +2/+2, Flying
3) BLACK: +2/+2, Intimidate
4) RED: +2/+2, First Strike
5) GREEN: +3/+3, Trample
Each Commander theme deck will have the 3 Vows for their colors (so for example, Political Puppets, a RWU deck, will get the Red, White, and Blue Vows)
I've tried to hunt for more similarities, but I can't find a lot where every deck had the same theme. Feel free to point out more as you find them in the lists.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...the actual lists!
(These lists are taken from this post on the MTGSalvation forums.)
Mirror Mastery
Devour for Power
Heavenly Inferno (Personal Note: This is the one I'm picking up.)
Political Puppets
Counter Punch
Well, what do you think? Are these decks worth the $30 MSRP? Are any of them just utter crap? Remember, these decks are meant for multiplayer Commander use, so judge their inclusion in the decks accordingly. Though feel free to judge the new cards in more of a regular 60-card idea for Legacy and Vintage only.
I hope you've enjoyed the (few) previews here. This week I'll start tackling M12 for its release on July 15th (and Pre-Release the weekend before that, July 9-10). Look for more posts this week on the new Core Set! Until then, take care.
Friday, June 10, 2011
More Commander Previews! New Commander, New "Mechanic"
(NOTE: All images from MTGSalvation.com Commander spoiler)
Today's a BIIIIIG spoiler day for the Commander decks!
Not only do we have a lot of Commanders and new cards being spoiled left and right, we now also have the deck lists for each deck! So starting today, I'll preview one new Commander and the Decklist they go with.
But first, let's start off with a preview of the new "mechanic" in the Commander theme decks. While its roots are in multiplayer, I wouldn't be surprised to see this mechanic used in duels to give the person casting these an advantage.
Let me introduce you to the new mechanic by previewing one of the new spells. Introducing the new ability word JOIN FORCES!
Join Forces is an ability word, which means that not all Join Forces work EXACTLY the same every time but they do share a common theme. Any card with "Join Forces" basically allows all players to pay any amount of mana, then all players get some effect for every time the mana was paid.
For example, we see Collective Voyage. Let's say in a 5-player game, I cast it and pay 3 mana. The next player pays 2 mana, the next 4, and the final 2 players pay 0 mana. ALL players will get 3 + 2 + 4 = 9 basic lands into play straight form the library!
That's one advantage to Join Forces: If you're the last player to decide to pay in, you don't have to spend a dime (so to speak) to reap the rewards. If you think 9 basics is enough for you, go get 'em without paying anything else in!
That's also a disadvantage to Join Forces: If you pay in, you're allowing everyone to get the same effect effectively that many times.
Be wise in how you use it and you should get some good mileage out of what would seem like a fair ability word. :)
Our next preview is one of the new "wedge" Commanders. And in my opinion, it's one of the strongest. We know how bad 4-mana fliers can be on opponents. So how about one that dumps more fliers onto the battlefield? Announcing...Kaalia of the Vast!
I've gotta say, I don't mind paying 4 mana for this. A 2/2 Flier may not be as good on the cost-to-mana curve, but I'm looking at that second ability. Do you know what kinds of Angels, Demons, and Dragons there are that you COULD drop just by attacking? Let's look at just what's in the deck!
Serra Angel
Malfegor
Angel of Despair
Akorma, Angel of Fury
Need I go on? How about one more preview card today that combines with the 2 shown here: It's a Dragon and has Join Forces on it! Give a big round of applause for Mana-Charged Dragon!
I know, the text can be hard to read. So I'll short-hand what it does.
For 4RR, you get a 5/5 Flier with Trample that has a Join forces ability. When it attacks or blocks, any players may pay any amount of mana. Then, the total amount gives Mana-Charged Dragon +X/+0 until end of turn.
O.O
Did I read that right? Okay, if you think in the normal context it's pretty nice that you can be the hero by taking out an opponent and everyone else contributing to their downfall.
But I'm looking more at this being a splashable dragon, similar to Moltensteel Dragon in New Phyrexia.
You see, ANY amount of players may pay ANY amount of life, starting with you. One of the problems with Firebreathing-like abilities has been "But I've gotta pay Red to get the +1/+0!" Well, Mana-Charged Dragon changes that. If you're Red/Green, for example, guess what? You can now use those otherwise useless Llanowar Elves to help pump your dragon. I've gotta say, that's pretty darn nice. :)
That's all I have for today. There are a TON of spoilers, so feel free to check out MTGSalvation.com's Commander spoilers. M12 is starting to spoil at a pretty nice rate, so I'll probably do one more Commander preview update and call it a wrap and get ready for M12.
I hope you've all enjoyed some of these previews. Please leave comments and E-mails with feedback and I'll see what I can do to switch things up in the near future.
Thanks again for reading!
Today's a BIIIIIG spoiler day for the Commander decks!
Not only do we have a lot of Commanders and new cards being spoiled left and right, we now also have the deck lists for each deck! So starting today, I'll preview one new Commander and the Decklist they go with.
But first, let's start off with a preview of the new "mechanic" in the Commander theme decks. While its roots are in multiplayer, I wouldn't be surprised to see this mechanic used in duels to give the person casting these an advantage.
Let me introduce you to the new mechanic by previewing one of the new spells. Introducing the new ability word JOIN FORCES!
Join Forces is an ability word, which means that not all Join Forces work EXACTLY the same every time but they do share a common theme. Any card with "Join Forces" basically allows all players to pay any amount of mana, then all players get some effect for every time the mana was paid.
For example, we see Collective Voyage. Let's say in a 5-player game, I cast it and pay 3 mana. The next player pays 2 mana, the next 4, and the final 2 players pay 0 mana. ALL players will get 3 + 2 + 4 = 9 basic lands into play straight form the library!
That's one advantage to Join Forces: If you're the last player to decide to pay in, you don't have to spend a dime (so to speak) to reap the rewards. If you think 9 basics is enough for you, go get 'em without paying anything else in!
That's also a disadvantage to Join Forces: If you pay in, you're allowing everyone to get the same effect effectively that many times.
Be wise in how you use it and you should get some good mileage out of what would seem like a fair ability word. :)
Our next preview is one of the new "wedge" Commanders. And in my opinion, it's one of the strongest. We know how bad 4-mana fliers can be on opponents. So how about one that dumps more fliers onto the battlefield? Announcing...Kaalia of the Vast!
I've gotta say, I don't mind paying 4 mana for this. A 2/2 Flier may not be as good on the cost-to-mana curve, but I'm looking at that second ability. Do you know what kinds of Angels, Demons, and Dragons there are that you COULD drop just by attacking? Let's look at just what's in the deck!
Serra Angel
Malfegor
Angel of Despair
Akorma, Angel of Fury
Need I go on? How about one more preview card today that combines with the 2 shown here: It's a Dragon and has Join Forces on it! Give a big round of applause for Mana-Charged Dragon!
I know, the text can be hard to read. So I'll short-hand what it does.
For 4RR, you get a 5/5 Flier with Trample that has a Join forces ability. When it attacks or blocks, any players may pay any amount of mana. Then, the total amount gives Mana-Charged Dragon +X/+0 until end of turn.
O.O
Did I read that right? Okay, if you think in the normal context it's pretty nice that you can be the hero by taking out an opponent and everyone else contributing to their downfall.
But I'm looking more at this being a splashable dragon, similar to Moltensteel Dragon in New Phyrexia.
You see, ANY amount of players may pay ANY amount of life, starting with you. One of the problems with Firebreathing-like abilities has been "But I've gotta pay Red to get the +1/+0!" Well, Mana-Charged Dragon changes that. If you're Red/Green, for example, guess what? You can now use those otherwise useless Llanowar Elves to help pump your dragon. I've gotta say, that's pretty darn nice. :)
That's all I have for today. There are a TON of spoilers, so feel free to check out MTGSalvation.com's Commander spoilers. M12 is starting to spoil at a pretty nice rate, so I'll probably do one more Commander preview update and call it a wrap and get ready for M12.
I hope you've all enjoyed some of these previews. Please leave comments and E-mails with feedback and I'll see what I can do to switch things up in the near future.
Thanks again for reading!
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Commander Previews! 2 New Wedge Commanders
Today I'm going to kick off the new card bonanza for the Magic: The Gathering Commander Theme Decks!
We have quite a few new cards, all of which come from MTGSalvation.com to make getting images easier (MTGSalvation.com gets theirs from different sources).
But first, about the "rarities" you'll see as I post up previewed cards: You'll look at these cards and go "But if they're 1 per deck (since Commander is a Singleton format), how does that make them any more or less rare than other cards in the Commander decks?"
Well, the Commander decks do things a bit differently. They have cards designed mostly for multiplayer play. To facilitate that, they made new cards for these decks. And since some decks share colors 2 or 3 times over, it allows new cards to go in multiple decks.
So here's how the "rarity" for NEW cards in the Commander decks will work:
Mythic Rare: These are the new "wedge legends", Legendary Creature cards that have all 3 of their wedge's colors in their cost.
Rare: Appears in only 1 of the 5 Commander decks (like the new enemy pair (ex: UG) Legendary Creatures).
Uncommon: Appears in 3 of the 5 decks.
Common: Appears in all 5 decks.
Note that this is only for new cards. Sol Ring, although it's an Uncommon, is in all 5 decks because it's not a new Uncommon. Therefore, Wizards of the Coast has discretion to put it in as many decks as they want (in Sol Ring's case, all 5 decks will have one).
Lastly, tournament legality on these is very limited. The cards deubting in the Commander theme decks are Vintage and Legacy legal ONLY! Standard, Extended, and no block formats will have these legal. Of course, the reprints are fine and are legal in whatever format(s) they are normally legal in.
Today, I'll introduce to you 2 of the new Commanders for the under-represented "wedge" color trios (like White + Red + Black, so if you tried to group 1 color and their two enemies together on the color wheel they'd make a wedge-looking shape), 1 new Ability Word making its debut in the Commander theme decks, and 1 new cycle of Enchantments that all have Pacifism-like abilities...depending on whose creature your enchant. That's what's in store the next few days. Today, we'll look at the new Commanders! (Because, after all, that's what these decks are based on. :p )
We'll start off with a patriotic Legendary creature. It's no flying angel, but for its mana cost it could be a bear...about 3.5x bigger than one, anyway! Introducing Ruhan of the Fomori!
Okay, so maybe it's a bit unimpressive at first. He's a 4-mana 7/7 creature that doesn't even have Trample! But here's how I look at it: He's a 1RWU 7/7 creature that could put your opponent(s) on a very tight clock.
You see, I'm looking at some of these cards not from a multi-player standpoint (because with his effect, random chance goes from 100% in a 2-player game to 50% in a 3-player game to 33 1/3% in a 4-player and so on and so on) but a one-on-one perspective. So what if Mr. Fomori here must attack each turn if able? 7/7 attacking Turn 5 is not something to sneeze at! Lack of evasion hurts it, true, but he'll probably draw out removal or destroy chump blockers that otherwise could have been very helpful to you.
In multiplayer, this is a non-political card. You can't just choose 1 player and he attacks that player each turn if able. Instead, it's random each time. (Well, assuming you're not using loaded coins/dice. *COUGH!*) I like this card just for that reason: It's fair. It doesn't let the controller say "Well, I know you're getting beat up on a lot SOOO I'll swing in for the final 7 points." It says "Hmm...eenie meenie minie moe!"
Our next "Wedge General" will get your Green blood going. He can get pretty big and can help save on the cost of your other creatures based on how big he gets. Proliferate will like him, too, btw. I'm pleased to announce one of the first URG Legendary Creatures in the game, Animar, Soul of Elements!!!
So I guess you saw the first abilities? Protection from Swords to Plowshares and Doom Blade? haha. No, seriously I like the protections. It helps make Animar stick around a little more easily. And he needs to stick around for his second and third abilities to matter.
When you cast a creature spell, he gets a +1/+1 counter. If you're playing Green and Red, you may already have cheap creatures to cast (Noble Hierarch, Llanowar Elves, Mogg Fanatic, etc.). As a 1/1 he may not be a pain in the butt early, but if he draws some removal I guess that's okay since it'll help keep your bigger creatures going, huh?
I love the second ability. For each +1/+1 counter he has, you reduce the casting cost on your creatures by 1 when you cast them for each counter on Animar! Who says blue and red can't dabble a little bit in mana reduction? This will help your Commanders out very well. If you use Animar as a non-general and you can help offset your General overcome the "2 mana additional for each time it comes back" drawback.
Although I want to look at this and go "Hmm...is there a casual deck that could use this guy outside of Commander?" The -1 to casting costs of creatures is very appealing! To get an ever-increasing creature with protection from some of the more dangerous colors in the game is even more tempting.
What do you all think? Do you think these 2 could see any kind of constructed play, even if it's casual-only? What about Commander-based? Are they worth the effort to even try and play?
We have quite a few new cards, all of which come from MTGSalvation.com to make getting images easier (MTGSalvation.com gets theirs from different sources).
But first, about the "rarities" you'll see as I post up previewed cards: You'll look at these cards and go "But if they're 1 per deck (since Commander is a Singleton format), how does that make them any more or less rare than other cards in the Commander decks?"
Well, the Commander decks do things a bit differently. They have cards designed mostly for multiplayer play. To facilitate that, they made new cards for these decks. And since some decks share colors 2 or 3 times over, it allows new cards to go in multiple decks.
So here's how the "rarity" for NEW cards in the Commander decks will work:
Mythic Rare: These are the new "wedge legends", Legendary Creature cards that have all 3 of their wedge's colors in their cost.
Rare: Appears in only 1 of the 5 Commander decks (like the new enemy pair (ex: UG) Legendary Creatures).
Uncommon: Appears in 3 of the 5 decks.
Common: Appears in all 5 decks.
Note that this is only for new cards. Sol Ring, although it's an Uncommon, is in all 5 decks because it's not a new Uncommon. Therefore, Wizards of the Coast has discretion to put it in as many decks as they want (in Sol Ring's case, all 5 decks will have one).
Lastly, tournament legality on these is very limited. The cards deubting in the Commander theme decks are Vintage and Legacy legal ONLY! Standard, Extended, and no block formats will have these legal. Of course, the reprints are fine and are legal in whatever format(s) they are normally legal in.
Today, I'll introduce to you 2 of the new Commanders for the under-represented "wedge" color trios (like White + Red + Black, so if you tried to group 1 color and their two enemies together on the color wheel they'd make a wedge-looking shape), 1 new Ability Word making its debut in the Commander theme decks, and 1 new cycle of Enchantments that all have Pacifism-like abilities...depending on whose creature your enchant. That's what's in store the next few days. Today, we'll look at the new Commanders! (Because, after all, that's what these decks are based on. :p )
We'll start off with a patriotic Legendary creature. It's no flying angel, but for its mana cost it could be a bear...about 3.5x bigger than one, anyway! Introducing Ruhan of the Fomori!
Okay, so maybe it's a bit unimpressive at first. He's a 4-mana 7/7 creature that doesn't even have Trample! But here's how I look at it: He's a 1RWU 7/7 creature that could put your opponent(s) on a very tight clock.
You see, I'm looking at some of these cards not from a multi-player standpoint (because with his effect, random chance goes from 100% in a 2-player game to 50% in a 3-player game to 33 1/3% in a 4-player and so on and so on) but a one-on-one perspective. So what if Mr. Fomori here must attack each turn if able? 7/7 attacking Turn 5 is not something to sneeze at! Lack of evasion hurts it, true, but he'll probably draw out removal or destroy chump blockers that otherwise could have been very helpful to you.
In multiplayer, this is a non-political card. You can't just choose 1 player and he attacks that player each turn if able. Instead, it's random each time. (Well, assuming you're not using loaded coins/dice. *COUGH!*) I like this card just for that reason: It's fair. It doesn't let the controller say "Well, I know you're getting beat up on a lot SOOO I'll swing in for the final 7 points." It says "Hmm...eenie meenie minie moe!"
Our next "Wedge General" will get your Green blood going. He can get pretty big and can help save on the cost of your other creatures based on how big he gets. Proliferate will like him, too, btw. I'm pleased to announce one of the first URG Legendary Creatures in the game, Animar, Soul of Elements!!!
So I guess you saw the first abilities? Protection from Swords to Plowshares and Doom Blade? haha. No, seriously I like the protections. It helps make Animar stick around a little more easily. And he needs to stick around for his second and third abilities to matter.
When you cast a creature spell, he gets a +1/+1 counter. If you're playing Green and Red, you may already have cheap creatures to cast (Noble Hierarch, Llanowar Elves, Mogg Fanatic, etc.). As a 1/1 he may not be a pain in the butt early, but if he draws some removal I guess that's okay since it'll help keep your bigger creatures going, huh?
I love the second ability. For each +1/+1 counter he has, you reduce the casting cost on your creatures by 1 when you cast them for each counter on Animar! Who says blue and red can't dabble a little bit in mana reduction? This will help your Commanders out very well. If you use Animar as a non-general and you can help offset your General overcome the "2 mana additional for each time it comes back" drawback.
Although I want to look at this and go "Hmm...is there a casual deck that could use this guy outside of Commander?" The -1 to casting costs of creatures is very appealing! To get an ever-increasing creature with protection from some of the more dangerous colors in the game is even more tempting.
What do you all think? Do you think these 2 could see any kind of constructed play, even if it's casual-only? What about Commander-based? Are they worth the effort to even try and play?
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Commander Deck Reprint News: Sol Ring and Lightning Greaves!
This week MTGCommander.net is previewing some cards from the new Magic: The Gathering: Commander theme decks coming out in June.
Today, they and "the mothership" previewed 2 reprints. 1 goes into every Commander theme deck, while the other we're not sure how often it'll appear.
The card that will appear in every Commander theme deck?
SOL RING!
(image from WotC's Arcana for June 1st)
If you remember the From the Vault: Relics set from last year, you'll remember that this is the artwork used on that version of Sol Ring. Will the original drop in price? Most likely. But part of Commander/EDH is "pimping your deck", so either a From the Vault version or old Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised versions could hold some value for being original art or foil (or in the case of the DCI Judge promo verison, both!).
The other card is one we're very familiar with but is about a $4-$5 Uncommon already...Lightning Greaves!
(preview image from MTGCommander.net forums)
These 2 are practically universal additions to a Commander deck if you've got these cards. Sol Ring is just a fast mana accelerator at best and a decent mana accelerator at worst.
Tomorrow I'll show a preview of a new Commander card...and a new Commander for those U/G decks. :)
Today, they and "the mothership" previewed 2 reprints. 1 goes into every Commander theme deck, while the other we're not sure how often it'll appear.
The card that will appear in every Commander theme deck?
SOL RING!
(image from WotC's Arcana for June 1st)
If you remember the From the Vault: Relics set from last year, you'll remember that this is the artwork used on that version of Sol Ring. Will the original drop in price? Most likely. But part of Commander/EDH is "pimping your deck", so either a From the Vault version or old Alpha/Beta/Unlimited/Revised versions could hold some value for being original art or foil (or in the case of the DCI Judge promo verison, both!).
The other card is one we're very familiar with but is about a $4-$5 Uncommon already...Lightning Greaves!
(preview image from MTGCommander.net forums)
These 2 are practically universal additions to a Commander deck if you've got these cards. Sol Ring is just a fast mana accelerator at best and a decent mana accelerator at worst.
Tomorrow I'll show a preview of a new Commander card...and a new Commander for those U/G decks. :)
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