Welcome back to TGZ Spoiler week (and a half). Today's the typical day Grandpa takes off in our little two-cents on the set review, and Landdrops steps in to talk Legends.
Here's a few quick links to what we've gone over so far, in case you missed it:
M15 Threats, Part I
M15 Threats, Part II
For those newer to the game, my first look at Anorexic Avacyn drew an aesthetic comparison to Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, which rumor has it, was supposed to be R&D's first hack at designing p-dubs.
As far as design goes, AA and Jaya couldn't be more different. Mostly, this is color pie nonsense, and not being a fan of original Avacyn, my unconscious dislike for it is unfairly projected in here as well. But I'll try to be nice.
The rules change on Legendary Creatures and Clone Effects made old Avacyn pretty annoying to play against in my metagame, being that anyone playing Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and anyone with a Clone basically made their board state inpenetrable short of a handful of tuck and exile effects.
I imagine this, along with the key word changes to indestructible, are a few of the compelling reasons R&D might have had to make a new card for her. This one is obviously more fair, which if you subscribe to my pal Grandpa Growth's Rosetta Stone, means it's a significant power-down from her first moments of fresh air out of the Helvault.
Still, I think she's totally playable. As a guy who favors 6-cost or less creatures with relevant static and cheap activated abilities, there's room for design and abuse. An evasive, two-way attacker that can shape the battlescape and protect herself on the cheap is still useful. Couple that with a big 5WW cost emergency button, and you've got a Commander that has the potential to shut down most mono-colored and non-artifact-based two color decks as well.
Take Jalira. Like surgeons, the designers on this card nipped and tucked until they were sure a Master Polymorphist couldn't do anything that was "unfair," which makes her look more like a novice than anything else, and R&D like chumps once again.
Personally, I see no problem with a Master Polymorphist possessing any or all of the following qualities:
1. Being able to turn one's self into something else.
2. Having the ability to do this with as little resources as possible.
3. Being able to turn any creature into any other creature, regardless of sub- or super-type.
4. Having the skills necessary to do this as quick as possible.
When we examine this card, the designers only got one of these right. But ask yourself- would it be busted if Jalira could turn herself into something? Would it be "un-fun" if she could Polymorph into Kozilek?
I don't think giving a Master Polymorphist these kinds of powers would make her worse- especially if you held all her other qualities constant. And even if Jalira was 2U, it would compare with something like Proteus Staff, which as far as I know, isn't a heinous imposition on any metagame anywhere.
Based on what we have, which does not include information from the Future-Future-League, like R&D does, I find this card pretty disappointing overall. If anything, a card should at least be able to validate its own flavor text, and when it doesn't, I'm a little peeved.
That said, Kurkesh is a card that possesses more of the qualities I'd like to see, even if I'm not thrilled about it.
For starters, the Onakke Ancient is a 4/3 for 2RR. So even if the rules text is no bueno, we still have a Legend with the ability to hack and slash our way to 21.
Looking at this rules text, we've got a pretty weird one, which is particularly refreshing for me, as it gives us Commander players excuse to do some research, even if it's a dead end.
I haven't done any for a potential Kurkesh deck, but having a cheap trigger for the activation of artifact abilities seems good.
Yet perhaps the most exciting part of this card to me is his creature type. Ogre Spirit. Awkward, unique, and from a place we haven't been yet- Shandalar. All of these add up to an overall okay design, even if it's not something that jumps out at me as "good" or "playable."
Thanks to Brad Muir, it looks like our boy O.B. Nix is looking more like his old self. Just look at Karl Kopinski's artwork. This is some seriously scary-looking art.
Looking past flying and trample, it's pretty clear this version of O.B. is intended for us EDH players. Punishing players for library searching is something that is severely lacking in Commander outside of Psychogenic Probe, and I like that Ob Nixilis is a potential piece of removal that also forces removal because he gets bigger if you don't.
All that said, I still feel he's overcosted. It's clear this card wouldn't be fair at 3BB without an additional cost, but it still feels like a shaky investment, even when I have an intangible emotional investment in the Demon ex-Planeswalker as a character.
I know I've been complaining a lot, but Yisan is a dumb name. So is Kurkesh, and so is Jalira, but Yisan is the straw. They all look and sound terrible, but Yisan is just- I don't know. They don't feel like names. It just looks like someone pulled out scrabble letters and strung a few together until it sounded like a car accident.
The actual design of this card isn't horrible, but surely underpowered. While I don't get how a Bard is also a Rogue that can summon creatures, like Kurkesh, I'm more intrigued than completely put off by the design.
Unlike Aether Vial, the Yes Man (this is his nickname, because I don't want to say his name. I know it's terrible, but this is improv) doesn't have access to all colors, so he's really on the bad of the eight ball when thinking of ways to double up his verse counters. I imagine he'll be part of a gimmicky squad or the General for some fun toolbox decks, but not much more than that, which is disappointing. I like to see bad cards become better, and I like to hold out for the hope that they can. But this is just not gonna work.
Just look. ----------------------------------------------------->
Now I'm not a "Sliver Hater." They are a very powerful tribe in Magic, and I think it's possibly one of the most unique-to-Magic tribes in the card game, as they have an expansive presence throughout its history.
Mostly, I'm just bored with the way Wizards is attempting to revive the tribe and make it exciting. This is one of the easiest decks to put together across every format the game has to offer, and that's just horrible for a person like me who plays Commander, and values the artistic process of building a deck.
Since their revival in last year's Core Set, it seems that my distaste is only going to grow as they continue to give Slivers every ability imaginable, and I get it, but I'm not okay with it. I wish they had their own specific abilities, not just sharing common static, activated, and triggered abilities within themselves. It's not uncommon knowledge that Harmonic Sliver and Necrotic are two of the most popular, and it's not just because they are great at policing the board. They are representative and reminiscent of specific cards in the game, and their power is checked.
Sliver Hivelord basically gives this deck a cheaper Darksteel Forge, which is a very "win-more" card, I think, as far as the Sliver deck goes. While it's true most of these decks are aggressive, losing Slivers isn't really a problem because they have access to Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding.
Mostly, I think this was designed for some of the reasons I mentioned above, but also to help beat into the ground all these new rules changes they made about indestructible. Being a Core Set, it offers old players getting back into Magic and new players the chance to understand the game, and so here's the obligatory "garbage pop" card they make for these players, who, I'd guess, probably won't even like it.
Back in Innistrad, we heard the story and seen the $70 version of Liliana super-charged with the veil, and watched our formerly Green Hunter Garruk get infected with the Veil's curse.
Now that it's here, I'm angry about it. Not only does it make zero sense flavor-wise, but it's inclusion in this set is baffling.
I know Core Sets represent all the cards from pre-existing planes, but this was an integral part of a set- Why was it not included then, if the card was obviously already designed?
Furthermore, how is this a curse? Planeswalkers getting to activate their abilities again seem like a privilege to me. The only thing that's a curse is if you don't have planeswalkers.
And on top of all of this, why is it so expensive to play and cast? How does that make sense at all? In a world where we're talking about Rings of Brighthearth doing better work to copy a P-dubs abilities, or Proliferate cards being able to add the counters you need, I don't believe I need more evidence to demonstrate how sad and pathetic The Chain Veil really is. Truly a "Win-More" card, when you consider no player in any format is going to let you have more than one P-Dub out, unless they are already going to lose anyway.
Well, that wraps 'er up for today. Godspeed at your prereleases. Make good choices.
-UL
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