(If you don't get the above Pop Culture reference, or do, and just want to watch the ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY again, click here!)
Grandpa Growth and I are excited to announce that we will be conglomerating our tasty scoops of insight and other delectable diatribes over to CommanderCast, one of the hottest corners of the Internet for all things concerning our favorite Kitchen Table Sandbox format.
GG and I really appreciate our Zoner Support, and we're making the switch to our new dot-com home not only because we're ambitious, but also because it helps us improve the content quality and quantity we can get to you. It's a real no-brainer to create a one-stop shop, and in this case, one great site that we can all devote our time and energy into is going to be better than just CommanderCast AND The General Zone.
We talked about trying to balance both, to continue to write under TGZ while we move over, but ultimately it just makes sense to keep the break clean, without too much transition or too much sentimentality and sadness due to sudden abruptness.
We want to go out with a bang, and by riding in on the "Set Review" Horse that GG walked in on, doing the Set Review over the next week and a half, we can do this without too many seams showing.
So let's kick things off with the Legends from Khans' last block, who happen to have never known that they were Khans in the first place.
So let's work our way from superfluous to spicy.Here's Surrak, a shadow of his formerly super-fast, Instant-speed self, but still Formidable. Yeah I went there. I'm getting the bad jokes out of me too.
In judging Surrak's second spin around the time travel wheel, there's one REALLY obvious change that sticks out- his favorite flavor of ice cream.
Seems to me like he went from being very Neopolitan, or even a Cookie Dough man, to being straight VANILLA.
Now, there's nothing wrong with Vanilla. In fact, I too would prefer it to Chocolate, but let's be real. No one wants Vanilla as Magic flavor.
Even the FLAVOR text is too simple for its own good. Surrak we know that great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma Yasova bowed down to Funky Cold Atarka, but that doesn't mean you have to be a Mindless Automaton! There's more to life than being really, really, ridiculously Formidable- ask Derek Zoolander if you don't believe me.
Anyway, I like haste. This is a neat outlet for Green in Commander, that can be better than Concordant Crossroads if you're playing bigger, single threats, and don't get wide in combat. Animar could enjoy not paying full price for this too. Overall, Surrak is irrelevant to tokens, but really good for decks not playing Xenagos, the Party God, that are looking to do throw Hipster beatsticks at their opponents.
Her reward? Murder. I guess Narset didn't do anything outright, but we're basically painted the same picture in Anafenza's flavor text as we are when Sarkhan visits Taigam and learns Narset was exiled.
I guess we can say my disappointment lies in my allegiance to Abzan colors, but I guess I'm also disappointed that Narset goes OP and lose Legendary relevance while Anafenza is tied to a tree.
No amount of beautiful art can really make me forget the sadness and confusion I have in the storyline, or really the flavor- and this art, is insanely gorgeous. I'm not usually one who likes low contrast, or artwork that tends to have too much orange, but the depth and luster to this work create so much dimension, and really make it pop. From a flavor perspective, the Remembrance, Daghatar's spiked mace filled with a bunch of former leaders and ancestors, were also this luster-y rust color. So I guess that's about the most consistent we get here.
Dromoka, as the story goes, made Daghatar and his people renounce necromancy, the black part of the Abzan clan, shattering said Rememberance over a thousand years ago. So on top of the question of, "Why isn't Anafenza black, considering that she is a part of this old guard necromancy?" I'm also asking the question, "How did Anafenza EVEN LEARN of this part of the Abzan's history AT ALL?" Like I said before- it's not like she found scrolls and learned some secret truth or anything. If she did, maybe she wouldn't be living in a tree.
Overall, I'm definitely more likely to play a card like White Anafenza, but it probably wouldn't be good. In fact, I'm more likely to play Daghatar with just White cards and other colored mana to use his ability than I am to feature Anafenza as the leader of any fighting 99. However, I do love Spirit tribal, and it's just as good for Soldier lovers too.
Much like Kolaghan, the Dash mechanic is what is appealing here. A 2/2 for two is really fair, but being able to protect our Commander with Dash whilst also abusing the super-cool Hero's Blade, Cloudstone Curio, Purphoros, and all of Mono-Red's other goodies like Ogre Battledriver really appeals to me.
Additionally, I think the flavor and story behind Zurgo is probably the most reasonable. The polarity is nice- While is previous version was strong, and all things capable of "beating by example," we have this fantastically wimpy, pathetic Orc who doesn't know how to do anything other than provide sound effects for AC/DC songs.
This card probably shouldn't be leading any Mono-Red decks, but I'd sure love to see the lists that try. I'm intrigued by the mission to make a cool, compelling version of this deck.
Here's the noodley-boodley-est power card of the set, folks. Sidisi's undead corpse is probably the best of the Legends formerly known as Khans. Take back the noodley-boodley thing. We've reached the spicy meatball of the group.
Not only does she just slot into every deck, her Exploit trigger is basically a thing already in Mono-Black Commander- the "Tutors on Tutors.dec" deck.
The conditional nature of Exploit is mind-bogglingly powerful, and we're all supposed to know it. While I'm not a big fan of boisterous cards like this, I have a feeling I'll be playing this somewhere, not as a Commander, but just as an excellent part of the 99.
For me, it compares favorably with my #1 favorite tutor in Mono-Black- Increasing Ambition. I might not be netting an extra card immediately, but the ability to go get cards that generate more card advantage, in addition to investing in a creature with Deathtouch, feels like it will surely pay dividends for every Black and Black-included deck everywhere.
The first thing I do love, across all five of the Dragons, is this Elder typing. As a fan of Magic History, this is nostalgic, and all parts a silly marketing ploy for people who play Commander and still call it EDH. Still it makes sense from a flavor perspective, they were able to do it at a time and place in Magic where everything fits right in terms of block format reconstruction. This part is fine, and so is, for the most part, the generic-ness of each Dragon's name. They kept it simple, and I don't think it would've mattered anyway.
Where this cycle breaks down for me, however, is not just in individual design, but in the structured planning that gets revealed to us in the "present" set. Having the benefit of listening to several sets Mark Rosewater's "Drive to Work" Podcast, I feel that I have a significantly better grasp on the direction of Magic design. That doesn't mean I know everything- heck, I don't know any more than you about what's in the next set, or the upcoming Standard landscape- but I understand design from the mind of a person who is working in this department.
Looking forward and planning ahead has its advantages. This has changed a lot over the last 5-6 years in design, since Alara block, where alignment among Design, Development, and Creative has resulted in cleaner, clearer defined roles so that the experience of a set and mechanics match storyline and create for a full immersion of Magic culture and enhanced game play, from the Kitchen Table to one streaming on Twitch.tv as a Feature Match.
However, following the rules that have established this great age in Magic also comes with consequences and drawbacks. If we relate this to the color pie, it is the innate "Green-ness" conflict that creates the Elder Dragon problem I'm talking about. With rules, there is civilization. With no rules, there is natural order, an innate, organic sense of design.
My argument, I suppose, is that both the Dragonlords and their younger versions printed in Fate Reforged were not given enough natural, rule-breaking consideration in design. This is because both cycles were probably made at the same time, with the kind of caution and conservativism that adheres to the "New World Order" concerning the design rubric. Yes, we don't want to make one set of colors WAYY better than the others- yet, it still happens, and even Mark Rosewater will admit that. They have to have cards that are better so that people will figure out what to play and what not to.
What you'll see is a pattern of criss-crossing, flip-flopping in my review, beginning with Kolaghan, in a second. Where FRF Kolaghan felt like a really fun, really strong card, the Elder Dragon version leaves a lot to be desired in our format. Haste is great, and comparatively, this Elder Dragon aged very well if we compare her to the only other Elder cycle we had before. Still, I'm not sure I see the purpose of that third ability in any format other than Casual, considering that 4RB is a hefty price to pay for anything in Modern, and where she is relevant, there are only two decks right now that make that third ability relevant- Shadowborn Apostles and Relentless Rats.
I'm not saying it's not a cool or compelling ability- just not relevant. Maybe that will change, and we can't see it right now. Or maybe it is in fact as lame as we see. I believe that Kolaghan, being older, should "age," but I just don't feel that this was a result of the natural development of the character, so much as it was these rules of nerfing and not-nerfing to prevent too much OP action going on- which is weird, considering how quickly this set is going to rotate out of Standard.
Original Atarka was a good example of this, but Dragonlord Atarka is even better. The way these fiery spines come off provide an extremely appropriate feel for a Dragon that is Red-Green, and it is in a lot of ways reminiscent to Rith, the Awakener, yet still different than her. Karl Kopinski did a great job with this piece.
Moving into our Vanilla test, I'm good with a 5RG Elder Dragon for an 8/8. Having been fed for a thousand years by Temur Hunters, her FRF 6/4 body had only one direction to go, and that was up.
The only part I'm a little upset about is the ETB trigger. While I am SO HAPPY that we are starting to see more targeting for planeswalkers specifically, I still wish that this said "players" too.
One of my biggest pet peeves with the way the rules work is the planeswalker damage redirect. While adding planeswalkers into the rules is part of this cycle of Dragons, and it helps to adapt to the changes, adding "players" would've only helped to further a precedent of differentiation. I mean, I get that these Dragons interact with creatures or planeswalkers, and that's the mechanic they were developing along the cycle- this is just something I would've liked to have seen, and I don't think it would've taken the venom out in this instance.
Dragonlord Silumgar's vanilla test has the worst results- a 3/5 for 4UB is just TERRIBLE, even if we do get some goodies in the rules box, and the artwork.
And we do get some great stuff here. Deathtouch, probably my favorite static ability, and an ETB trigger that gives us our first opportunity to directly Confiscate a planeswalker.
I can see Dragonlord Silumgar being probably more playable than FRF Silumgar. UB is a solid Control archetype, and getting an ELDER DRAGON with this much power is pretty spicy.
Personally, I'm still not excited about having a 3/5 for 4UB, but maybe I'll get over it at some point. His necklace, however, may be a tad more difficult.
I don't get the design and flavor. Is he just so aloof in his high mountain roost that he has conditional hexproof?
Much like Silumgar, he too has shown a decrease in toughness as the years wore on. Whereas it appears to be lethargy in the case of the UB Dragonlord, I'm thinking that Ojutai was knocked down a couple of points because any more and he would be too good, which is not really what I like to see. Again, part of that flip-flopping from his FRF form, and I don't like it.
Anyway, I've done enough flavor-pontificating on him. Ojutai is still a good card. I have a feeling it's going to be relevant in Standard in some sort of Esper Control build, potentially with FRF Silumgar.
For Commander, that means we might not see this card for a while. However, if you Early Adapt like me, snag a copy. I "Anticipate" it's going to play like a much better version of Throw-Mo-Crates (Tromokratis), but with a much better affinity for card advantage. He'll be played, price pending on how soon he arrives.
O, how the nerfed become the nerfing!
It's Nerf or nothing!
Wait... That's not right.
This is the kind of Dragon design I was waiting to see, and I think it's a good place to establish precedent for Dragon design in Green-White.
We'll start with the artwork. Even though Dromoka could be seen as a ripped, mutated porcupine/owl with gargoyle wings, I really like this art a lot. It's regal, and the angle is one that commands respect, which is very congruent with the rules box below.
And Dromoka's rules box is chock-full of power. Perhaps too much power, but definitely necessary if they were ever going to demonstrate how far an off-color Dragon needs to go.
Combined with his vanilla test, this is one tough Dragon. Having Bolstered/Outlasted AKA "Hunkered-Down" for thousands of years, resisting all things, this is some pretty sensible flavor action. He's gotten tougher. He's imposed the celebration of life (lifelink) over death. He's imposing on his opponents' ability to do anything. Being the most aloof and out-of-the-loop in terms of the way they've positioned him in the story, choosing to omit any interactivity with anyone outside of his realm, I think this design really works for me, serving as a powerful outlier, and functioning as a high press for both Control decks and those looking to usurp them.
If I'm going with my heart, this is for sure my favorite pick of the ones we've talked about for Commander. I have a feeling we will be dueling a lot against him and/or his new pal Sigarda together for a very long time. So get yourself over to Arby's, cause this is one Dromoka Shake you don't want to miss.
That's all I got for ya here, Zoners! Be sure to follow me on Twitter @unclelanddrops and for all the exciting new stuff Grandpa Growth and I are gonna be doing over at CommanderCast. We appreciate your support as we move to our new Bat-Time and Bat-Place!
Last Pass.
-Ya Boi Landdrops
