Zoners, we are very excited to announce that we will joining forces with the team at Commandercast.com
After three years of operating The General Zone we have watched the audience grow immensely and we are so thankful to you for supporting us, especially our regular readers and commenters, without whom we would never have been given this opportunity.
We have been in communication with the CommanderCast team for some time now and Uncle Landdrops has appeared several times as a guest columnist and contributor to the flagship podcast. It is our shared belief that we can best accomplish our goals for growth and expansion by working together on one platform. All content will be hosted and published at www.commandercast.com and at this time we will be discontinuing The General Zone blog. No further posting or updates will take place here and we will no longer be monitoring the comments on previously posted articles. Please join us over on the new site.
By combining our strengths we will be better able to serve the loyal following that has grown up around us. You can expect to see an expanded publishing schedule with a larger variety of content including podcasts, articles, interviews, news, discussions, and game play commentary.
You can continue to reach us at the same contact points as before:
Unclelanddrops@gmail.com
GrandpaGrowth@gmail.com
Again, thank you so much for your support and we look forward to seeing you in the comments over at Commandercast.com
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
In General: Commander Rules Update
Hello Zoners! Welcome to what will probably be the last In General segment here on The General Zone. In case you missed it: we announced last week that we will be merging with Commandercast.com.
This is big news and an exciting time for us here on the blog. However, in the midst of this transition period, the Commander world was rocked by an even bigger announcement. The March 2015 B&R List Update. You can view it here if you have not already: Link. I am going to assume that you have read it, but I will include direct quotations when I reference particular parts.
I am going to comb through the post line by line, spewing vitriol and contempt for the EDH Rules Committee every step of the way. If that doesn't sound like something that you are into, get out of the way. If you are still reading...hold onto your butts.
The Article is titled Banned List Announcement. Not unexpected. This is an understated, but nevertheless exciting tag line. There is no Buzzfeed click bait here.
The First section addresses changes to the Banned and Restricted List...there are no changes. Oh boy. You can tell something bad is about to happen. It is like when your significant other says that we need to talk, so you ask: 'Okay, about what?', and then they are like: 'No. We need to TALK.'
In the next paragraph they explain that they are changing how the command zone replacement effect works. Applying this new change, anything that could send your commander into your library or back to your hand can instead send it to the command zone, at your discretion. They take care to point out that this is a replacement effect, but that it can apply multiple times to the same event. In layman's terms: If someone wants to put their commander back in the command zone, there is no way that you can stop them from doing so.
Now, if you have followed In General for any length of time you will know that I am not a supporter of the Rules Committee, their implied authority, or really anything that they do. They are an exclusive group with subjective opinions asserting control over something that they have no legitimate claim to regulate. They are essentially playground dictators and they have no place in my Commander experience.
Before we delve into their justification for this rules changes I want to discuss a primary concern I have about governance: If you want to institute a policy, you should have demonstrable evidence that this policy will affect the change that you desire it to. The reasons should be logical and provable qualitatively. The results should be measurable and documented quantitatively.
If you change a policy, it should be because something has changed in the environment that you are trying to regulate. If you are simply waffling back and forth about an idea, but nothing has prompted this change, that signals to me that you should never have instituted a blanket rule in the first place. You couldn't prove it was smart and you still aren't sure. Subjective leadership is inherently ineffective for groups of a certain size.
Let's digest their justifications line by line:
"We want to engender as positive an experience as we can for players. Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game. "
This is generic boilerplate nonsense. This is exactly the kind of answer you would expect from a politician or CEO: pure rhetoric. Everyone has goals to increase satisfaction, but merely dreaming of improvement will not create it. Secondly, there are EXACTLY equal 'feel-bads' created by NOT being able to deal with particular commanders. If you can't tuck a Zur or Rafiq early, you are going to have trouble fighting through opposing counterspells and protection later on. Unchecked, certain cards will just take away a game. Eventually, they will have more lands than you have removal spells and just recast their commander.
The presence of tuck encourages players to play more tutors so that in case their commander gets sent to the library, they can get it back—exactly the opposite of what we want (namely, discouraging the over-representation of tutors).
This is the perfect example of a solution that is supported neither by logic or data. I won't stop playing tutors because you have taken away one POTENTIAL tutor target. There is no reason to believe that people will use less tutors. Mathematically, tutors still increase your win percentage by improving the quality of your average draw and adding consistency to situational cards. People play them because they are strong Magic cards and they have a place in strong decks.
Secondly, I don't believe that it is appropriate for the rules committee to have an official opinion about whether or not people should include certain types of cards in their decks. Discouraging tutors, counters, land destruction, removal, combos, etc. this is highly subjective and the 'logic' of one person's subjective experience does not translate well to other people. This is, simply put, not a strong position to build your governance on.
"While we are keenly aware that tuck is a great weapon against problematic commanders, the tools to do so are available only in blue and white, potentially forcing players into feeling like they need to play those colors in order to survive. We prefer as diverse a field as possible."
The first statement is patently false. Red also has access to this type of effect and it is the strongest form of removal available to Red in the format. See Warp World or Chaos Warp. The former doesn't see much play, but the latter was specifically designed for the original Commander product releases, so I would think that Sheldon Menery should be familiar with it. He was on the design team of that product.
I can respect the idea that the format should rich and open. You should be able to play whatever strategy or colors you like at a high level of competition. There is no way any format can be perfectly balanced. Some thing will always be better than another thing.
In reality, Blue has a tradition of being the strongest color in Magic. The game's design team has chosen to distribute certain effects across the color pie in a particular way. This shapes the way colors and cards interact. The power and responsibility to control this is outside the scope of the rules committee's authority and, quite frankly, their ability.
"It clears up some corner case rules awkwardness, mostly dealing with knowing the commander’s location in the library (since highly unlikely to actually end up there)."
There is absolutely no ambiguity in the rules about this. If a card in your library, or any face down card for that matter, is DISTINGUISHABLE such that you know the identity or physical location of that card in a pile of other face down cards, IT IS MARKED. Playing with marked cards is and ALWAYS has been against the rules of Magic. Also, when a library is shuffled it must be sufficiently randomized to the point where there is no reliable way to predict the position of any card(s). There is absolutely no need to create an ancillary rule just to enforce a rule that is already in force.
Speaking of awkwardness. I always thought it was strange that they decided to include over-sized commander cards in the Commander decks. How is anyone supposed to shuffle that anywhere? What is even the point of using it in a game? They are novelty items meant for decoration and collection. They are not actual cards that can be used in the game.
After a long discussion, we decided the best course regarding commander-ness was no change. Your commander is always your commander regardless of where it is or its status. That means enough hits from a face-down commander can kill you.
The final rules change affects how commander damage is dealt, clarifying that damage dealt by a face-down commander is still counted as commander damage for the purpose of winning the game. I do want to point out that I have mixed feelings about this. There is no simple solution; any decision will be arbitrary. In situations like this I am in favor of having no position instead of taking an arbitrary one, but I understand the rules committee's desire to address the issue. My thoughts on this topic could fill an entirely separate article, but I will try to summarize.
A commander's commander-ness, in my mind, springs from its identity. It is embodying the leader of an army. The personality of that card is what unifies your other cards. I have a hard time believing that an army would follow a formless ball of energy unless THEY knew who it was. From a gameplay perspective, I don't like the idea of having to keep track of damage dealt by multiple separate Morph bugs. Am I going to constantly tabulate damage dealt just on the off chance that one is a Commander and could flip up at any moment revealing that I lost the game because it had done 21 damage to me? This situation seems tremendously awkward.
Personally, I think the simplest and most elegant solution is to say that only face up Creatures can deal commander damage. That makes it easier to track and everyone knows where they stand. Morphs are intended to be indistinguishable. Making one more important than any other is problematic for many reasons. Again though, this is just my opinion.
I expect there to be tremendous backlash from the community about these rules changes. Don't let me down. Grab your pitchforks and let's go storm the MTGCommander.net forums demanding the blood/resignation/both of the entire rules committee. Or, you know, we can just go back to our game of Magic and continue ignoring them.
-GG
This is big news and an exciting time for us here on the blog. However, in the midst of this transition period, the Commander world was rocked by an even bigger announcement. The March 2015 B&R List Update. You can view it here if you have not already: Link. I am going to assume that you have read it, but I will include direct quotations when I reference particular parts.
I am going to comb through the post line by line, spewing vitriol and contempt for the EDH Rules Committee every step of the way. If that doesn't sound like something that you are into, get out of the way. If you are still reading...hold onto your butts.
The Article is titled Banned List Announcement. Not unexpected. This is an understated, but nevertheless exciting tag line. There is no Buzzfeed click bait here.
The First section addresses changes to the Banned and Restricted List...there are no changes. Oh boy. You can tell something bad is about to happen. It is like when your significant other says that we need to talk, so you ask: 'Okay, about what?', and then they are like: 'No. We need to TALK.'
In the next paragraph they explain that they are changing how the command zone replacement effect works. Applying this new change, anything that could send your commander into your library or back to your hand can instead send it to the command zone, at your discretion. They take care to point out that this is a replacement effect, but that it can apply multiple times to the same event. In layman's terms: If someone wants to put their commander back in the command zone, there is no way that you can stop them from doing so.
Now, if you have followed In General for any length of time you will know that I am not a supporter of the Rules Committee, their implied authority, or really anything that they do. They are an exclusive group with subjective opinions asserting control over something that they have no legitimate claim to regulate. They are essentially playground dictators and they have no place in my Commander experience.
Before we delve into their justification for this rules changes I want to discuss a primary concern I have about governance: If you want to institute a policy, you should have demonstrable evidence that this policy will affect the change that you desire it to. The reasons should be logical and provable qualitatively. The results should be measurable and documented quantitatively.
If you change a policy, it should be because something has changed in the environment that you are trying to regulate. If you are simply waffling back and forth about an idea, but nothing has prompted this change, that signals to me that you should never have instituted a blanket rule in the first place. You couldn't prove it was smart and you still aren't sure. Subjective leadership is inherently ineffective for groups of a certain size.
Let's digest their justifications line by line:
"We want to engender as positive an experience as we can for players. Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game. "
This is generic boilerplate nonsense. This is exactly the kind of answer you would expect from a politician or CEO: pure rhetoric. Everyone has goals to increase satisfaction, but merely dreaming of improvement will not create it. Secondly, there are EXACTLY equal 'feel-bads' created by NOT being able to deal with particular commanders. If you can't tuck a Zur or Rafiq early, you are going to have trouble fighting through opposing counterspells and protection later on. Unchecked, certain cards will just take away a game. Eventually, they will have more lands than you have removal spells and just recast their commander.
The presence of tuck encourages players to play more tutors so that in case their commander gets sent to the library, they can get it back—exactly the opposite of what we want (namely, discouraging the over-representation of tutors).
This is the perfect example of a solution that is supported neither by logic or data. I won't stop playing tutors because you have taken away one POTENTIAL tutor target. There is no reason to believe that people will use less tutors. Mathematically, tutors still increase your win percentage by improving the quality of your average draw and adding consistency to situational cards. People play them because they are strong Magic cards and they have a place in strong decks.
Secondly, I don't believe that it is appropriate for the rules committee to have an official opinion about whether or not people should include certain types of cards in their decks. Discouraging tutors, counters, land destruction, removal, combos, etc. this is highly subjective and the 'logic' of one person's subjective experience does not translate well to other people. This is, simply put, not a strong position to build your governance on.
"While we are keenly aware that tuck is a great weapon against problematic commanders, the tools to do so are available only in blue and white, potentially forcing players into feeling like they need to play those colors in order to survive. We prefer as diverse a field as possible."
The first statement is patently false. Red also has access to this type of effect and it is the strongest form of removal available to Red in the format. See Warp World or Chaos Warp. The former doesn't see much play, but the latter was specifically designed for the original Commander product releases, so I would think that Sheldon Menery should be familiar with it. He was on the design team of that product.
I can respect the idea that the format should rich and open. You should be able to play whatever strategy or colors you like at a high level of competition. There is no way any format can be perfectly balanced. Some thing will always be better than another thing.
In reality, Blue has a tradition of being the strongest color in Magic. The game's design team has chosen to distribute certain effects across the color pie in a particular way. This shapes the way colors and cards interact. The power and responsibility to control this is outside the scope of the rules committee's authority and, quite frankly, their ability.
"It clears up some corner case rules awkwardness, mostly dealing with knowing the commander’s location in the library (since highly unlikely to actually end up there)."
There is absolutely no ambiguity in the rules about this. If a card in your library, or any face down card for that matter, is DISTINGUISHABLE such that you know the identity or physical location of that card in a pile of other face down cards, IT IS MARKED. Playing with marked cards is and ALWAYS has been against the rules of Magic. Also, when a library is shuffled it must be sufficiently randomized to the point where there is no reliable way to predict the position of any card(s). There is absolutely no need to create an ancillary rule just to enforce a rule that is already in force.
Speaking of awkwardness. I always thought it was strange that they decided to include over-sized commander cards in the Commander decks. How is anyone supposed to shuffle that anywhere? What is even the point of using it in a game? They are novelty items meant for decoration and collection. They are not actual cards that can be used in the game.
After a long discussion, we decided the best course regarding commander-ness was no change. Your commander is always your commander regardless of where it is or its status. That means enough hits from a face-down commander can kill you.
The final rules change affects how commander damage is dealt, clarifying that damage dealt by a face-down commander is still counted as commander damage for the purpose of winning the game. I do want to point out that I have mixed feelings about this. There is no simple solution; any decision will be arbitrary. In situations like this I am in favor of having no position instead of taking an arbitrary one, but I understand the rules committee's desire to address the issue. My thoughts on this topic could fill an entirely separate article, but I will try to summarize.
A commander's commander-ness, in my mind, springs from its identity. It is embodying the leader of an army. The personality of that card is what unifies your other cards. I have a hard time believing that an army would follow a formless ball of energy unless THEY knew who it was. From a gameplay perspective, I don't like the idea of having to keep track of damage dealt by multiple separate Morph bugs. Am I going to constantly tabulate damage dealt just on the off chance that one is a Commander and could flip up at any moment revealing that I lost the game because it had done 21 damage to me? This situation seems tremendously awkward.
Personally, I think the simplest and most elegant solution is to say that only face up Creatures can deal commander damage. That makes it easier to track and everyone knows where they stand. Morphs are intended to be indistinguishable. Making one more important than any other is problematic for many reasons. Again though, this is just my opinion.
I expect there to be tremendous backlash from the community about these rules changes. Don't let me down. Grab your pitchforks and let's go storm the MTGCommander.net forums demanding the blood/resignation/both of the entire rules committee. Or, you know, we can just go back to our game of Magic and continue ignoring them.
-GG
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Dragons of Tarkir Set Review: Mana and Utility
Hello and welcome back to The General Zone's Review of Dragons of Tarkir! If you missed any of the previous parts check out the links below.
Part 1: Legends
Part 2: Threats
Part 3: Answers
This is the final segment of the review and it will cover everything we haven't discussed yet, namely: mana producers and utility cards.
Mana is easy to define. If it produces mana, filters colors, or puts lands into play it is a mana card. Utility is harder to define. Utility cards expand the options for your deck, enhance synergy, or simply allow you draw or tutor through your deck. There are many different kinds of cards that fit into this category, so it is kind of a catch-all.
I was having a conversation recently where I completely panned this card, saying something like: "Why would you play an Overrun effect that doesn't win you the game?" The answer to that question is: if you weren't far enough ahead on board you just Overrun again next turn. It feels weird for me to endorse this card, but it gives you potential to win games that you have absolutely no business winning, especially in multiplayer.
For those of us who have been around for a while, or who play Cube regularly, this is a disappointment. You see, I remember the days when Impulse was considered to be the best (still legal) card in competitive Magic.
This does less for the same price, and the way the game has changed in recent years, that just isn't going to cut it. Impulse wasn't worth playing in Commander except in the most niche decks. Sadly, this more modern update has no reason to show up in any constructed format.
When I assemble a new Blue deck, I usually include Opportunity in the first draft. I WANT to play with this card. I just don't think that it is quite good enough to play with. The first part of my deck building process is to examine all options and give cards a chance that don't necessarily look good on paper.
This is an upgrade to Opportunity, however it is only a very small upgrade. Making it uncounterable is an upside because the card is very expensive; it can be tough to leave up protection for this card and cast it at the same time. Now the question is: how do we get a Dragon to go along with this?
There really aren't any Blue dragons that I am super-psyched about playing in competitive decks. There are of course the various Elder Dragon Legends that are perennial mainstays of the format, but I don't tend to think of those cards as standout hits. They are usually the sub-optimal Commander of a 'good stuff' deck.
Night Soil. Don't laugh, it works. It consistently makes a ton of tokens and it provides excellent crossover hate against Reanimate effects. Corpseweft provides much better value on the tokens: Removing two Creatures makes a 4/4 instead of a 1/1. That is a huge difference and something worth considering.
However, the main reason I would include Night Soil in a deck, and mind you that it would only actually happen in Pauper Commander, is that you can exile cards from the OPPONENT'S graveyard. If you are playing Black and you have a full yard, don't use this! Reuse, Recycle. Chances are that the actual Creature is better than a token.
One of my favorite Magic authors, Matt Sperling, described this as a modal spell, and I agree with his assessment.
Your options are: max this out and point it at someone's face to kill them.
Or: draw cards until you have eight in hand.
I have a lot to say about this card, but I am going to try and keep it short here. Drawing cards is good. Doing it more is the flat out best indicator of who is going to win a game of Magic.
Is this the best way to draw cards? Heck no! But that doesn't always matter. If you need a way to restock in the late game, this will do just as well as the next thing. If you run into this problem a lot, see also: Skeletal Scrying, Promise of Power, Necrologia, Necropotence, Ad Nauseum, Yawgmoth's Bargain, et al.
While you are on Gatherer looking up all those other cards I just talked about, make sure you stop by and say hello to Yawgmoth's Will. Still one of the best cards in Magic over a decade later. If you have never cast this it, shame on you. If you have never had it cast against you: it kind of feels like drinking ipecac syrup.
Let's discuss Trove: It is a seven mana card, so it had better come pretty close to winning the game on the spot and, quite frankly, this doesn't. You will almost certainly win the game, but it might take a bit. I am very excited to play with this card though, because it is just extremely powerful. It is going to be a staple of the format for years to come.
This will get played, but there are already half a dozen cards that do this exact same thing. They are all just about equally good/bad depending on how you look at them. I don't want to be the guy casting too many Creatures or the guy casting do-nothing invest-enchantments, much less the guy doing both.
This is probably the best Red card advantage spell since Past in Flames, but that doesn't mean it is good. Remember when I was saying just a moment ago that Damnable Pact was worse than a whole list of other cards that do the same thing? This card is worse than Pact. So what does that tell you?
If you are playing mono Red, you really don't have many options. The best card drawer in mono Red is Library. Red mages just have it tough. My advice: play Blue.
This is a worse version of Fervor and Pandemonium stapled together, but they had the decency to give us a deep discount on the cost in exchange for the restriction that it really only works with Dragons.
Is this good? Probably...? I have never seen a dedicated dragon deck that was what I would call 'good', however they certainly do exist so I expect this card to see some amount of play.
Red cards really are terrible. If this were Green, you could get any Creature. If it were Black it would have a lot more text that would end up telling you that you could get any card you want. Why can't Red have an unrestricted tutor? Give me one good reason.
This card was named Battle Formation. They made a flavor-inappropriate change to the card just so that they could work ass into the title. Look at the card itself, not the name.
The art depicts a Dromokan army in front of one of THEIR cities. You don't assault your cities. You defend them. You assault someone else's city. Secondly, look at the soldiers. They are in a phalanx, a defensive formation. The whole Abzan/Dromokan philosophy is one of stout defense. The Mardu/Kolaghan assault. This card is just one big ass flavor fail.
I don't even know why someone would play this. Do you have a Doran deck, but don't actually have Doran in it? WELL, then do I have just the card for you...
This is not what I would call 'mythic'. The ability to Biorhythm people out will win games, but those are games you were probably going to win anyway. Recall that you already have a huge board when you activate the ability AND it takes a whopping 11 mana.
My main problem with Creatures that produce mana is that they will get killed incidentally. People cast Wrath effects. It just happens. It is going to happen about 10 times in a normal multiplayer game. You are so much better off casting Rampant Growth or Cultivate because the mana advantage will endure through a sweeper. Having your mana dorks killed is the worst because you fall behind on mana, on board, and in the card advantage race.
I am a long time listener of the Limited Resource podcast. Marshal Sutcliffe has quickly become one of the best EDUCATORS in the history of the game. His contribution to the community by developing strategy content rivals that of greats like Luis Scott Vargas or Mike Flores.
Marshal uses a system called "Four Quadrants" to evaluate cards. We determine how useful the card is in four different typical game situations, to help us decide how good the card is overall. The quadrants are: early game, parity, winning, and losing. I am going to apply quadrant theory to evaluate the next few cards, starting with Atarka's Command.
Early game: In the early game, your opponent probably isn't gaining a ton of life, attacking with multiple Fliers, or at 3 life. Putting a land in play is cool, but this is a more color intensive and demonstrably worse version of Explore in this scenario. So basically, it is horrible early on.
Parity: Again, the first two modes are pretty useless. They third mode is now also pretty useless because you likely have many lands in play and aren't constrained on mana. The fourth mode is better in this spot, but if you have a bunch of Creatures and your going to attack into the other guy who also has a bunch of Creatures just to use this combat trick...well you are probably not a very experienced player. There are so many ways that can go wrong. Also, this situation just doesn't come up very often because the best way to break a board stall is a sweeper, and chances are someone has cast one or will cast one within two turns. So, bad at parity.
Ahead: Pretty good when you are ahead on board actually. You can deal three to the face and likely get in 8+ damage by pumping your Creatures. An 11 damage burn spell is definitely worth two mana.
Behind: If you are behind late in the game this card does stone nothing. Not even one mode is going to help you stabilize the board, get ahead on cards, or regain the lead in a race.
So since this card is generally bad in three stages of the game and good in another, I would classify it has highly situational. I.e. bad most of the time. That is not a good result.
Now that we have the hang of it, let's power through the rest of the Commands!
Early: Poor. Early on, you are most likely using this to pump your guy and kill a Creature, which is fine, but not much better than any other removal spell.
Parity: This is excellent at parity. If they have a key permanent like an Anthem or God card, you can really get them. Killing a Creature and dealing with an Enchantment simultaneously is my kind of value.
Ahead: If you are ahead on board you are probably only going to get value out of fighting, but not much else. Still, if your lead is big enough, you won't need much value to just win the game.
Behind: If you are behind, this really ins't great either. This is the most volatile situation, depending on the exact resources that you are behind on and the exact permanents that are in play, this could be good or bad. It is tough to tell.
The Fight mode goes a long way towards making this universally good. Removal is useful at just about every point in the game.
Early game: You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I like it quite a bit here. Destroying a mana Artifact and forcing them to discard an excess land is a great way to get ahead on mana. This card attacks multiple resources, which is a primary characteristic of quality disruption. It could also be the situation that you are killing a mana dork, which is also useful here.
Parity: This isn't going to bust your board stall wide open, but small incremental advantages are a good way to take over the game and prevent parity from ever occurring. If you get five or six 2-for-1's throughout the game, you are well on your way to winning. Also, the option to rebuy your best threat could easily give you control of the board.
Ahead: If you are ahead, this is probably at its worst, but it is still good. You get to dig up a Creature to help seal the game. Also, killing chump blockers or pesky Artifacts like Ensnaring Bridge will lead to quick victories.
Behind: For Kolaghan's Command, ahead and behind look very similar. Get back your best threat and hope that you can win with it. Whichever of the three other modes actually does something in the current game state, use it. That is the best value you can expect when behind.
So we have determined that you can use this to generate card advantage during all four quadrants. You can use it as removal in most of the quadrants. I would call this a standing ovation for a Black/Red card. Usually these kinds of cards suck pretty badly.
Early: This card is a little expensive for early game applications. However, counter a Creature and draw a card is very good as you move into the mid and late game, so I would say that this is good 'in transition'.
Parity: Oh yeah. Regardless of whether the board is empty or full, this card is FANTASTIC at parity. Card advantage is key here. Counter a threat, get a threat back from the bin is one of the absolute best plays in Magic.
Ahead: Again: counter + draw is excellent here. It is like to just win the game if you are significantly ahead. Aggro-control decks are founded on the principle that you can get ahead and stay ahead using cards like this.
Behind: Unfortunately, this doesn't max out all four quadrants. If you are behind, drawing and reanimating is probably your best bet, but I am not sure that will be enough to create parity. Certainly not enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
If 3 out of 4 is good enough to amend the constitution, it is good enough for you. Play it, like it.
Early: This card is too expensive to be a factor in the early game. Complete fail.
Parity: Killing a Creature and bouncing a permanent will unravel a knotted board. Bonus points for being able to answer a Planeswalker.
Ahead: Also good here. The Negate effect will prevent your opponent from doing all manner of scary things like sweeping the board, drawing a bunch of cards, or casting Bribery, et cetera.
Behind: The kung fu combination of killing a Creature and a Planeswalker is sure to make a dent in anyone's board. Will that be enough to dig you out of a hole? Probably not. The particulars of this card are just too conditional. The Creature must be small. Pdubs are common, but not AS COMMON as Creatures. Bounce spells are bad when you are behind and so are counterspells. Tough to call, but I would say that this is situational at best...in this situation.
This card scores pretty well on quadrant theory, the main problem though is the high cost. Each mode on this card costs two mana at most. Why does the resulting combination cost MORE THAN double? That is not a good cost/effect ratio. Honestly, I could see this card costing just UB. Is that really so broken?
In Scion decks, this is just another five color land. The ability to rebuy a card from your graveyard is balanced with the cost of not being able to cast non-dragon spells with colored mana. Is it great? No. Is it going to see play in a couple fringe decks? Yes.
Well, we finally made it to the end. In more ways than one. In case you missed the announcement last week, The General Zone will be merging with Commander Cast. This is our final set review friends. We have had a great run and are very excited to move on to this new and exciting frontier.
I have really enjoyed writing here on the blog and interacting with the community. I hope you will all join us as we migrate to our new home on Commander Cast.
That being said, what did you think of the review? How do you like the new cards? Do you have any good stories from the pre release? Leave it all in the comments below.
See you on Commandercast.com!
-GG
Part 1: Legends
Part 2: Threats
Part 3: Answers
This is the final segment of the review and it will cover everything we haven't discussed yet, namely: mana producers and utility cards.
Mana is easy to define. If it produces mana, filters colors, or puts lands into play it is a mana card. Utility is harder to define. Utility cards expand the options for your deck, enhance synergy, or simply allow you draw or tutor through your deck. There are many different kinds of cards that fit into this category, so it is kind of a catch-all.
I was having a conversation recently where I completely panned this card, saying something like: "Why would you play an Overrun effect that doesn't win you the game?" The answer to that question is: if you weren't far enough ahead on board you just Overrun again next turn. It feels weird for me to endorse this card, but it gives you potential to win games that you have absolutely no business winning, especially in multiplayer.For those of us who have been around for a while, or who play Cube regularly, this is a disappointment. You see, I remember the days when Impulse was considered to be the best (still legal) card in competitive Magic.This does less for the same price, and the way the game has changed in recent years, that just isn't going to cut it. Impulse wasn't worth playing in Commander except in the most niche decks. Sadly, this more modern update has no reason to show up in any constructed format.
When I assemble a new Blue deck, I usually include Opportunity in the first draft. I WANT to play with this card. I just don't think that it is quite good enough to play with. The first part of my deck building process is to examine all options and give cards a chance that don't necessarily look good on paper.This is an upgrade to Opportunity, however it is only a very small upgrade. Making it uncounterable is an upside because the card is very expensive; it can be tough to leave up protection for this card and cast it at the same time. Now the question is: how do we get a Dragon to go along with this?
There really aren't any Blue dragons that I am super-psyched about playing in competitive decks. There are of course the various Elder Dragon Legends that are perennial mainstays of the format, but I don't tend to think of those cards as standout hits. They are usually the sub-optimal Commander of a 'good stuff' deck.
Night Soil. Don't laugh, it works. It consistently makes a ton of tokens and it provides excellent crossover hate against Reanimate effects. Corpseweft provides much better value on the tokens: Removing two Creatures makes a 4/4 instead of a 1/1. That is a huge difference and something worth considering.However, the main reason I would include Night Soil in a deck, and mind you that it would only actually happen in Pauper Commander, is that you can exile cards from the OPPONENT'S graveyard. If you are playing Black and you have a full yard, don't use this! Reuse, Recycle. Chances are that the actual Creature is better than a token.
One of my favorite Magic authors, Matt Sperling, described this as a modal spell, and I agree with his assessment.Your options are: max this out and point it at someone's face to kill them.
Or: draw cards until you have eight in hand.
I have a lot to say about this card, but I am going to try and keep it short here. Drawing cards is good. Doing it more is the flat out best indicator of who is going to win a game of Magic.
Is this the best way to draw cards? Heck no! But that doesn't always matter. If you need a way to restock in the late game, this will do just as well as the next thing. If you run into this problem a lot, see also: Skeletal Scrying, Promise of Power, Necrologia, Necropotence, Ad Nauseum, Yawgmoth's Bargain, et al.
While you are on Gatherer looking up all those other cards I just talked about, make sure you stop by and say hello to Yawgmoth's Will. Still one of the best cards in Magic over a decade later. If you have never cast this it, shame on you. If you have never had it cast against you: it kind of feels like drinking ipecac syrup.Let's discuss Trove: It is a seven mana card, so it had better come pretty close to winning the game on the spot and, quite frankly, this doesn't. You will almost certainly win the game, but it might take a bit. I am very excited to play with this card though, because it is just extremely powerful. It is going to be a staple of the format for years to come.
This will get played, but there are already half a dozen cards that do this exact same thing. They are all just about equally good/bad depending on how you look at them. I don't want to be the guy casting too many Creatures or the guy casting do-nothing invest-enchantments, much less the guy doing both.This is probably the best Red card advantage spell since Past in Flames, but that doesn't mean it is good. Remember when I was saying just a moment ago that Damnable Pact was worse than a whole list of other cards that do the same thing? This card is worse than Pact. So what does that tell you?If you are playing mono Red, you really don't have many options. The best card drawer in mono Red is Library. Red mages just have it tough. My advice: play Blue.
This is a worse version of Fervor and Pandemonium stapled together, but they had the decency to give us a deep discount on the cost in exchange for the restriction that it really only works with Dragons.Is this good? Probably...? I have never seen a dedicated dragon deck that was what I would call 'good', however they certainly do exist so I expect this card to see some amount of play.
Red cards really are terrible. If this were Green, you could get any Creature. If it were Black it would have a lot more text that would end up telling you that you could get any card you want. Why can't Red have an unrestricted tutor? Give me one good reason.This card was named Battle Formation. They made a flavor-inappropriate change to the card just so that they could work ass into the title. Look at the card itself, not the name.The art depicts a Dromokan army in front of one of THEIR cities. You don't assault your cities. You defend them. You assault someone else's city. Secondly, look at the soldiers. They are in a phalanx, a defensive formation. The whole Abzan/Dromokan philosophy is one of stout defense. The Mardu/Kolaghan assault. This card is just one big ass flavor fail.
I don't even know why someone would play this. Do you have a Doran deck, but don't actually have Doran in it? WELL, then do I have just the card for you...
This is not what I would call 'mythic'. The ability to Biorhythm people out will win games, but those are games you were probably going to win anyway. Recall that you already have a huge board when you activate the ability AND it takes a whopping 11 mana.My main problem with Creatures that produce mana is that they will get killed incidentally. People cast Wrath effects. It just happens. It is going to happen about 10 times in a normal multiplayer game. You are so much better off casting Rampant Growth or Cultivate because the mana advantage will endure through a sweeper. Having your mana dorks killed is the worst because you fall behind on mana, on board, and in the card advantage race.
I am a long time listener of the Limited Resource podcast. Marshal Sutcliffe has quickly become one of the best EDUCATORS in the history of the game. His contribution to the community by developing strategy content rivals that of greats like Luis Scott Vargas or Mike Flores.Marshal uses a system called "Four Quadrants" to evaluate cards. We determine how useful the card is in four different typical game situations, to help us decide how good the card is overall. The quadrants are: early game, parity, winning, and losing. I am going to apply quadrant theory to evaluate the next few cards, starting with Atarka's Command.
Early game: In the early game, your opponent probably isn't gaining a ton of life, attacking with multiple Fliers, or at 3 life. Putting a land in play is cool, but this is a more color intensive and demonstrably worse version of Explore in this scenario. So basically, it is horrible early on.
Parity: Again, the first two modes are pretty useless. They third mode is now also pretty useless because you likely have many lands in play and aren't constrained on mana. The fourth mode is better in this spot, but if you have a bunch of Creatures and your going to attack into the other guy who also has a bunch of Creatures just to use this combat trick...well you are probably not a very experienced player. There are so many ways that can go wrong. Also, this situation just doesn't come up very often because the best way to break a board stall is a sweeper, and chances are someone has cast one or will cast one within two turns. So, bad at parity.
Ahead: Pretty good when you are ahead on board actually. You can deal three to the face and likely get in 8+ damage by pumping your Creatures. An 11 damage burn spell is definitely worth two mana.
Behind: If you are behind late in the game this card does stone nothing. Not even one mode is going to help you stabilize the board, get ahead on cards, or regain the lead in a race.
So since this card is generally bad in three stages of the game and good in another, I would classify it has highly situational. I.e. bad most of the time. That is not a good result.
Now that we have the hang of it, let's power through the rest of the Commands!
Early: Poor. Early on, you are most likely using this to pump your guy and kill a Creature, which is fine, but not much better than any other removal spell.Parity: This is excellent at parity. If they have a key permanent like an Anthem or God card, you can really get them. Killing a Creature and dealing with an Enchantment simultaneously is my kind of value.
Ahead: If you are ahead on board you are probably only going to get value out of fighting, but not much else. Still, if your lead is big enough, you won't need much value to just win the game.
Behind: If you are behind, this really ins't great either. This is the most volatile situation, depending on the exact resources that you are behind on and the exact permanents that are in play, this could be good or bad. It is tough to tell.
The Fight mode goes a long way towards making this universally good. Removal is useful at just about every point in the game.
Early game: You might be surprised to hear me say this, but I like it quite a bit here. Destroying a mana Artifact and forcing them to discard an excess land is a great way to get ahead on mana. This card attacks multiple resources, which is a primary characteristic of quality disruption. It could also be the situation that you are killing a mana dork, which is also useful here.Parity: This isn't going to bust your board stall wide open, but small incremental advantages are a good way to take over the game and prevent parity from ever occurring. If you get five or six 2-for-1's throughout the game, you are well on your way to winning. Also, the option to rebuy your best threat could easily give you control of the board.
Ahead: If you are ahead, this is probably at its worst, but it is still good. You get to dig up a Creature to help seal the game. Also, killing chump blockers or pesky Artifacts like Ensnaring Bridge will lead to quick victories.
Behind: For Kolaghan's Command, ahead and behind look very similar. Get back your best threat and hope that you can win with it. Whichever of the three other modes actually does something in the current game state, use it. That is the best value you can expect when behind.
So we have determined that you can use this to generate card advantage during all four quadrants. You can use it as removal in most of the quadrants. I would call this a standing ovation for a Black/Red card. Usually these kinds of cards suck pretty badly.
Early: This card is a little expensive for early game applications. However, counter a Creature and draw a card is very good as you move into the mid and late game, so I would say that this is good 'in transition'.Parity: Oh yeah. Regardless of whether the board is empty or full, this card is FANTASTIC at parity. Card advantage is key here. Counter a threat, get a threat back from the bin is one of the absolute best plays in Magic.
Ahead: Again: counter + draw is excellent here. It is like to just win the game if you are significantly ahead. Aggro-control decks are founded on the principle that you can get ahead and stay ahead using cards like this.
Behind: Unfortunately, this doesn't max out all four quadrants. If you are behind, drawing and reanimating is probably your best bet, but I am not sure that will be enough to create parity. Certainly not enough to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
If 3 out of 4 is good enough to amend the constitution, it is good enough for you. Play it, like it.
Early: This card is too expensive to be a factor in the early game. Complete fail.Parity: Killing a Creature and bouncing a permanent will unravel a knotted board. Bonus points for being able to answer a Planeswalker.
Ahead: Also good here. The Negate effect will prevent your opponent from doing all manner of scary things like sweeping the board, drawing a bunch of cards, or casting Bribery, et cetera.
Behind: The kung fu combination of killing a Creature and a Planeswalker is sure to make a dent in anyone's board. Will that be enough to dig you out of a hole? Probably not. The particulars of this card are just too conditional. The Creature must be small. Pdubs are common, but not AS COMMON as Creatures. Bounce spells are bad when you are behind and so are counterspells. Tough to call, but I would say that this is situational at best...in this situation.
This card scores pretty well on quadrant theory, the main problem though is the high cost. Each mode on this card costs two mana at most. Why does the resulting combination cost MORE THAN double? That is not a good cost/effect ratio. Honestly, I could see this card costing just UB. Is that really so broken?
Well, we finally made it to the end. In more ways than one. In case you missed the announcement last week, The General Zone will be merging with Commander Cast. This is our final set review friends. We have had a great run and are very excited to move on to this new and exciting frontier.
I have really enjoyed writing here on the blog and interacting with the community. I hope you will all join us as we migrate to our new home on Commander Cast.
That being said, what did you think of the review? How do you like the new cards? Do you have any good stories from the pre release? Leave it all in the comments below.
See you on Commandercast.com!
-GG
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Dragons of Tarkir Set Review: Answers
Hello and welcome back to The General Zone's Review of Dragons of Tarkir. If you missed any of the previous segments be sure to check them out in the links below.
Part 1: Legends
Part 2: Threats
In today's segment we will be addressing the answer cards. Answers are what you use to stop your opponents game plan. They answer threats and disrupt development. Removal, counters, discard, sideboard cards, color hosers, and graveyard hate all fall into this category along with many others. Answers are a diverse bunch; the best way to evaluate them is to think in terms of what problem you want this to solve and how well it can perform in that role. Let's find out what the Dragon clans of Tarkir have to offer us:
The White entry of this cycle is a pretty spicy one. I am really into Creatures that kill other other Creatures. Reprisal is a decent removal spell, albeit one that doesn't normally see a lot of play in Commander. Stapling this onto a three power Lifelink is a deal that I can see taking, although for six mana I would expect something better most of the time.
There are probably more multicolored permanents in Commander than any other format. That being said, this is a very tight restriction on a removal spell, let alone that it can only hit particular card types.
You see there is a general guideline for playable removal spells.
When I first saw this card I got a little weirdy feeling. I thought that they just printed this in Khans. As it turns out Suspension Field has the inverse targeting restriction. For most applications in Commander I would guess that you would want to have Suspension Field. You are generally more worried about dying to a large Creature rather than a small one.
The biggest problem here though is that if you wanted this, you already had Journey to Nowhere, which is a Common and better than both of these. So bascially, you don't need this.
This is the first of an enemy color hoser cycle of uncommon removal spells. All of them are very mediocre, but I am going to discuss them all for completeness sake, even though only one or two will ever see play. Spoiler: This isn't on of the good ones.
I don't know anyone who would use Polymorph as a removal spell in Commander. The risk of something going horribly wrong is just too high in this format. However, I have see people use Proteus Staff in their Blue decks to good success. You can continue activating it until they flip out something that is actually way worse than the original target. This gives you a similar safety valve in case they reveal something that is even scarier than what you targeted the first time.
The thing that sets this apart from Proteus Staff is that the target is exiled instead of being tucked away to the bottom of their library. For many regular threats, read: not someone's commander, you are happier exiling than putting into the graveyard or back into their library. On balance, this is a card that I could imagine seeing some play, but it isn't going to be a runaway hit because you can't use it on your own things.
The Blue entry in the color hoser cycle is also quite poor. The only saving grace that I could imagine for this card is the relative lack of removal in Blue. However, with an eternal card pool you are sure to find better options than this. I would guess that just about ANY counter spell will serve you better than Encase in Ice.
Illusory Gains is the most interesting Control Magic effect that I have seen in quite some time. It also just so happens to be quite poor. Why are we going to pay full price for this when we could pay less for a better card? IF you wanted to play actual Mind Control you can. I don't recommend that because there are probably ten better ways to take control of your opponents' stuff than that. This effect is worse than Control Magic so I would expect it to cost less than control Magic, sound fair?
This is some of the greatest and most inspiring flavor text that has ever made it onto a Magic card. It is wasted on a pretty silly card, but hey, what am I complaining about. I will take ANY good flavor text over the constant stream of babble that gets printed nowadays. The quality of literature and humor in Magic's flavor text is more akin to a teenager's Twitter feed than a professional writer's portfolio.
If you have a Creature with ETB triggers, you can put this on your own thing for profit. That is a high risk and I don't really know why you need a second trigger from your Frost Titan. If you use it on other people's Creatures then you can use the token as a blocker to pick off their team or perhaps even trade, although this doesn't seem like a great use of the card. In my opinion, the payoff from this just isn't worth what it takes to set it up.
This seems pretty sweet. A one way board sweep, even if it only clears things back to the hand is still worth looking at. This takes a little bit more to set up than I would like, but there aren't enough comparables to declare this unplayable. Decks like Animar are going to be very interested in this because they will be able to play it with a heavy discount, they are likely to have a large Creature to feed to it, and they can immediately capitalize on an empty board by attacking for the win. Look for this a finisher in those decks, but I don't foresee it popping up much anywhere else.
It kind of bothers me when the English language has words like profane which are spelled and pronounced the same regardless of whether they are being used as an adjective or verb. Profaner sounds to me like what you would use to mean 'more profane' if you weren't all that familiar with the language.
By now there are more than a dozen versions of this card. Blue, make something small, maybe it becomes a frog or cat or sheep or some such nonsense. This card is still just as good as its predecessors, but it also has all of the same problems. PLUS this isn't an instead and it doesn't remove abilities. I don't see much of a future for this in Commander. Pauper Commander maybe.
Dragons would know humility. Why wouldn't they? I am sure a dragon can kill another dragon, which means that they would still know the fear of death and loss. We clearly see dragons being killed in several pieces of art. Maybe the dragons are having trouble learning Humility because that card turns things into 1/1's and not 0/2's.
Oh my lord reminder text really destroys the templating on cards. This would normally be a very attractive text box, but I am so distracted by the line breaks that must be created because of the god awful parentheticals. If the dev team is concerned about people not properly understanding Flash, then why are they using it as an evergreen mechanic?!
Back in the real world where no one cares about my typesetting pedantics, this is a two-power, three-drop that has three relevant abilities. This card looks like it is small balling a bit for Commander, but you are getting a lot for the cost.
In Commander, we aren't hurting for playable counter spells. There are about 15 great options and 50 more that are totally reasonable if you don't want to by Force of Will or Cryptic Command. That being said, in many decks, this will be very close to Counterspell, which is definitely a quality card.
This is not may favorite of the cycle, but it is still very solid. It compares very favorably to things like Voidmage Prodigy. If you are able to counter something like a ramp spell en route to getting a 3/2 Flying, you have given yourself a huge boost in tempo and likely gotten in 6-9 damage already. I have a tough time seeing how you could leave this out of Blue Aggro-Control builds.
Foul indeed. I like my removal to come with a couple things: few targeting restrictions and card advantage. I am sometimes willing to pay large sums of mana to make sure that I get that. You might be slower and require more resources, but if every single card that you cast is a 2-for-1 you are going to be tough to compete with in the late game. I am really digging this digger and I can't wait to put it to use in some of my decks.
The Black entry in the color hosing cycle is easily one of the worst. This should absolutely be an Instant, I am not accepting any excuses for that. Diabolic Edict. It is ten years old and really isn't that good. Why are we regressing?
This is an interesting point about power creep that I want to make. Nowadays, the power is more concentrated around flashy, promote-able rares. If they can't make a poster out of it or put it on the front of a booster pack, no one cares. The overall power level of the game is moving up, but it is also being concentrated on fewer and fewer cards leaving things like this in a very disappointing spot.
I like this card quite a bit and it is just as good as the other members of the cycle. It calls directly back to flavorful cards from Magic's past. While Hidden Dragonslayer gave you a Reprisal effect, this gives you a Smother. Color appropriate, thematic, awesome.
The only problem that I see with this card is that its evasion ability allows it to sort of 'duck under' blockers, but activating the Megamorph ability INCREASES its power and thus increases the chances that your opponent can find a suitable blocker. The difference may not be significant in practice, but there are significantly more Creatures in the subset of [Power > 2] than there are in the set of [Power > 3].
I am never going to play this card. Neither are you. Instead I am going to go on a flavor rant.
What happens with the mechanics of this card is not the same as what is being pictured in the art. This card pictures dragons which are all from the Atarka clan, so they should all be on the same team. It also implies that the dragons are going to EAT the big cow things. So this card should have all of your Creatures fight all of your opponent's Creatures. It should also be Green. The flavor text somewhat matches up with this design.
The text box however, tells a different story. It implies that non-dragon Creatures are exploding and dragons are coming out of their dead bodies. Like alien eggs hatching from the corpse of a dead animal. The flavor text does not line up at all with this design. It would indicate that the dragons emerged AFTER they beasts were eaten...since you know that is what happens on the card, why would they be emerging hungry? They don't even emerge until they eat. This whole card is a steaming pile. I just can't anymore.
I love Fissure Vent. I don't get to play it all that often because it is a bit slow for competitive Commander, but it is certainly powerful enough to make it into a nominal deck list. It does a lot of what you would want non-Creature removal to do. For a common it is certainly pulling a lot of weight.
Well imagine my delight when they print an updated version which has:
Boom sucka! What does your whole team think about my Obliterate now? Red mass removal has come a long way in recent years. There is enough of it to make some frighteningly effect control decks. Really all that these decks are missing is a way to guarantee card advantage. With the limitations of Red spot removal and a lack of counterspells, you have to be able to make up for it with brute force...or a steady stream of fresh cards. Having a board sweeper that gets back another board sweeper is going to lead to a lot of card advantage.
This card is a little bit strange because it looks so much like it should fit in the Rare Megamorph cycle. In fact if you just made it Rare, no one would be able to tell the difference. But alas, it is an uncommon, so it doesn't get a free keyword/evasion ability at the top of the text box, but the Morph trigger is still very relevant.
Can anyone explain to me what is happening in the art of this card? Is the Rakshasa killing a Creature, because that doesn't make any flavor sense. The card can't kill Creatures. This is equally problematic if the other Creature is stabbing the Rakshasa. Perhaps the pink nonsense is somehow related to the protection effect of the card's second mode. I really have no idea.
This card does a lot of what you would want in a Green deck. It counters removal spells, remove problem permanents like Grave Pact or Future Sight, and it does so at Instant speed. At this cost, you can't ask for much more than that.
IN THE FACE!!! This is a solid card. It is very likely to hit something relevant and the size boost lets you trade up a significant portion of the time. I think that both Epic Confrontation and its predecessor Bear Punch are both quite playable in certain decks, but they are far from the best thing that you can be doing in Commander.
I am not going to speculate on the relative likelihood of this saving your whole team, nor am I going to explain the different ways to get +1/+1 counters onto your Creatures. I am simply going to say that, if you dodge or at least partially dodge a Wrath effect while drawing multiple cards, that is a big game. However you can make this work, you should go ahead and do that.
That is all for today ladies and gents. Remember to leave your comments below. I will see you next time for the epic finale of our Dragons of Tarkir set review where we will take a look at all of the things we haven't talked about so far.
-GG
Part 1: Legends
Part 2: Threats
In today's segment we will be addressing the answer cards. Answers are what you use to stop your opponents game plan. They answer threats and disrupt development. Removal, counters, discard, sideboard cards, color hosers, and graveyard hate all fall into this category along with many others. Answers are a diverse bunch; the best way to evaluate them is to think in terms of what problem you want this to solve and how well it can perform in that role. Let's find out what the Dragon clans of Tarkir have to offer us:
The White entry of this cycle is a pretty spicy one. I am really into Creatures that kill other other Creatures. Reprisal is a decent removal spell, albeit one that doesn't normally see a lot of play in Commander. Stapling this onto a three power Lifelink is a deal that I can see taking, although for six mana I would expect something better most of the time.There are probably more multicolored permanents in Commander than any other format. That being said, this is a very tight restriction on a removal spell, let alone that it can only hit particular card types.You see there is a general guideline for playable removal spells.
- At zero mana you get a drawback AND a targeting restriction. Ex: Snuff Out.
- At one mana you should get either a tight targeting restriction OR a drawback and NO targeting restriction. Ex: Deathmark, Swords to Plowshares.
- At two mana you should get a loose targeting restriction or sometimes a tighter restriction that comes with a bonus. Ex: Doom Blade, Combust.
- At three mana you generally shouldn't have targeting restrictions and sometimes you will get a bonus anyway, or maybe extra flexibility. Ex: Murder, Crackling Doom.
When I first saw this card I got a little weirdy feeling. I thought that they just printed this in Khans. As it turns out Suspension Field has the inverse targeting restriction. For most applications in Commander I would guess that you would want to have Suspension Field. You are generally more worried about dying to a large Creature rather than a small one.The biggest problem here though is that if you wanted this, you already had Journey to Nowhere, which is a Common and better than both of these. So bascially, you don't need this.
This is the first of an enemy color hoser cycle of uncommon removal spells. All of them are very mediocre, but I am going to discuss them all for completeness sake, even though only one or two will ever see play. Spoiler: This isn't on of the good ones.I don't know anyone who would use Polymorph as a removal spell in Commander. The risk of something going horribly wrong is just too high in this format. However, I have see people use Proteus Staff in their Blue decks to good success. You can continue activating it until they flip out something that is actually way worse than the original target. This gives you a similar safety valve in case they reveal something that is even scarier than what you targeted the first time.The thing that sets this apart from Proteus Staff is that the target is exiled instead of being tucked away to the bottom of their library. For many regular threats, read: not someone's commander, you are happier exiling than putting into the graveyard or back into their library. On balance, this is a card that I could imagine seeing some play, but it isn't going to be a runaway hit because you can't use it on your own things.
The Blue entry in the color hoser cycle is also quite poor. The only saving grace that I could imagine for this card is the relative lack of removal in Blue. However, with an eternal card pool you are sure to find better options than this. I would guess that just about ANY counter spell will serve you better than Encase in Ice.Illusory Gains is the most interesting Control Magic effect that I have seen in quite some time. It also just so happens to be quite poor. Why are we going to pay full price for this when we could pay less for a better card? IF you wanted to play actual Mind Control you can. I don't recommend that because there are probably ten better ways to take control of your opponents' stuff than that. This effect is worse than Control Magic so I would expect it to cost less than control Magic, sound fair?This is some of the greatest and most inspiring flavor text that has ever made it onto a Magic card. It is wasted on a pretty silly card, but hey, what am I complaining about. I will take ANY good flavor text over the constant stream of babble that gets printed nowadays. The quality of literature and humor in Magic's flavor text is more akin to a teenager's Twitter feed than a professional writer's portfolio.If you have a Creature with ETB triggers, you can put this on your own thing for profit. That is a high risk and I don't really know why you need a second trigger from your Frost Titan. If you use it on other people's Creatures then you can use the token as a blocker to pick off their team or perhaps even trade, although this doesn't seem like a great use of the card. In my opinion, the payoff from this just isn't worth what it takes to set it up.
It kind of bothers me when the English language has words like profane which are spelled and pronounced the same regardless of whether they are being used as an adjective or verb. Profaner sounds to me like what you would use to mean 'more profane' if you weren't all that familiar with the language.
By now there are more than a dozen versions of this card. Blue, make something small, maybe it becomes a frog or cat or sheep or some such nonsense. This card is still just as good as its predecessors, but it also has all of the same problems. PLUS this isn't an instead and it doesn't remove abilities. I don't see much of a future for this in Commander. Pauper Commander maybe.Dragons would know humility. Why wouldn't they? I am sure a dragon can kill another dragon, which means that they would still know the fear of death and loss. We clearly see dragons being killed in several pieces of art. Maybe the dragons are having trouble learning Humility because that card turns things into 1/1's and not 0/2's.
Back in the real world where no one cares about my typesetting pedantics, this is a two-power, three-drop that has three relevant abilities. This card looks like it is small balling a bit for Commander, but you are getting a lot for the cost.
In Commander, we aren't hurting for playable counter spells. There are about 15 great options and 50 more that are totally reasonable if you don't want to by Force of Will or Cryptic Command. That being said, in many decks, this will be very close to Counterspell, which is definitely a quality card.This is not may favorite of the cycle, but it is still very solid. It compares very favorably to things like Voidmage Prodigy. If you are able to counter something like a ramp spell en route to getting a 3/2 Flying, you have given yourself a huge boost in tempo and likely gotten in 6-9 damage already. I have a tough time seeing how you could leave this out of Blue Aggro-Control builds.Foul indeed. I like my removal to come with a couple things: few targeting restrictions and card advantage. I am sometimes willing to pay large sums of mana to make sure that I get that. You might be slower and require more resources, but if every single card that you cast is a 2-for-1 you are going to be tough to compete with in the late game. I am really digging this digger and I can't wait to put it to use in some of my decks.The Black entry in the color hosing cycle is easily one of the worst. This should absolutely be an Instant, I am not accepting any excuses for that. Diabolic Edict. It is ten years old and really isn't that good. Why are we regressing?This is an interesting point about power creep that I want to make. Nowadays, the power is more concentrated around flashy, promote-able rares. If they can't make a poster out of it or put it on the front of a booster pack, no one cares. The overall power level of the game is moving up, but it is also being concentrated on fewer and fewer cards leaving things like this in a very disappointing spot.
I like this card quite a bit and it is just as good as the other members of the cycle. It calls directly back to flavorful cards from Magic's past. While Hidden Dragonslayer gave you a Reprisal effect, this gives you a Smother. Color appropriate, thematic, awesome.The only problem that I see with this card is that its evasion ability allows it to sort of 'duck under' blockers, but activating the Megamorph ability INCREASES its power and thus increases the chances that your opponent can find a suitable blocker. The difference may not be significant in practice, but there are significantly more Creatures in the subset of [Power > 2] than there are in the set of [Power > 3].
I am never going to play this card. Neither are you. Instead I am going to go on a flavor rant.What happens with the mechanics of this card is not the same as what is being pictured in the art. This card pictures dragons which are all from the Atarka clan, so they should all be on the same team. It also implies that the dragons are going to EAT the big cow things. So this card should have all of your Creatures fight all of your opponent's Creatures. It should also be Green. The flavor text somewhat matches up with this design.
The text box however, tells a different story. It implies that non-dragon Creatures are exploding and dragons are coming out of their dead bodies. Like alien eggs hatching from the corpse of a dead animal. The flavor text does not line up at all with this design. It would indicate that the dragons emerged AFTER they beasts were eaten...since you know that is what happens on the card, why would they be emerging hungry? They don't even emerge until they eat. This whole card is a steaming pile. I just can't anymore.
I love Fissure Vent. I don't get to play it all that often because it is a bit slow for competitive Commander, but it is certainly powerful enough to make it into a nominal deck list. It does a lot of what you would want non-Creature removal to do. For a common it is certainly pulling a lot of weight.Well imagine my delight when they print an updated version which has:
- A better name.
- Better flavor.
- Better flavor text.
- An easier mana cost.
- The ability to hit ANY land.
Boom sucka! What does your whole team think about my Obliterate now? Red mass removal has come a long way in recent years. There is enough of it to make some frighteningly effect control decks. Really all that these decks are missing is a way to guarantee card advantage. With the limitations of Red spot removal and a lack of counterspells, you have to be able to make up for it with brute force...or a steady stream of fresh cards. Having a board sweeper that gets back another board sweeper is going to lead to a lot of card advantage.This card is a little bit strange because it looks so much like it should fit in the Rare Megamorph cycle. In fact if you just made it Rare, no one would be able to tell the difference. But alas, it is an uncommon, so it doesn't get a free keyword/evasion ability at the top of the text box, but the Morph trigger is still very relevant.Can anyone explain to me what is happening in the art of this card? Is the Rakshasa killing a Creature, because that doesn't make any flavor sense. The card can't kill Creatures. This is equally problematic if the other Creature is stabbing the Rakshasa. Perhaps the pink nonsense is somehow related to the protection effect of the card's second mode. I really have no idea.This card does a lot of what you would want in a Green deck. It counters removal spells, remove problem permanents like Grave Pact or Future Sight, and it does so at Instant speed. At this cost, you can't ask for much more than that.
IN THE FACE!!! This is a solid card. It is very likely to hit something relevant and the size boost lets you trade up a significant portion of the time. I think that both Epic Confrontation and its predecessor Bear Punch are both quite playable in certain decks, but they are far from the best thing that you can be doing in Commander.
I am not going to speculate on the relative likelihood of this saving your whole team, nor am I going to explain the different ways to get +1/+1 counters onto your Creatures. I am simply going to say that, if you dodge or at least partially dodge a Wrath effect while drawing multiple cards, that is a big game. However you can make this work, you should go ahead and do that.That is all for today ladies and gents. Remember to leave your comments below. I will see you next time for the epic finale of our Dragons of Tarkir set review where we will take a look at all of the things we haven't talked about so far.
-GG
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