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Magic: the Gathering |OT8| Eldritch Moon - It's only a paper (and digital) moon

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Or just buff it to -2/-2, which is just one digit off but worlds away in practical board value. (Or even -3/-1.)

Yeah, either of those would have worked too. There are so many ways they could have given a more effective +1 and they went with none of them. I get that she has two other powerful abilities but what she got for the +1 is too cautious.
 
Sheesh, a lot of negativity today.

Ishkanah did turn out to be MaRo's spoiler, by the way, for those who didn't check. Her effect is probably not as much of a spider booster as some people hoped, but she seems like a nice low-key commander--there is a demand for commanders that aren't obvious targets for kill spells. The life loss is a good way to capitalize on Spider Spawning, and you may not have delirium the first time you cast her, but you probably will by the second time.

United Resistance is interesting. Just hitting a creature for 4 for 1RR seems fine, but the variety seems good. 3RR to deal 4 damage to a creature, deal 3 damage to a player, and refresh your hand on its own seems like a fine effect, and this is better. At least in Limited, I feel this will be pretty good.

Nephalia Academy is an effect I didn't expect to see on a land. I'm guessing this will be looked at for the nonrotating formats.

As I said before, Liliana is fine but boring. Oath of Liliana seems alright. Deploy the Gatewatch felt weak at first, but I remembered that there are a fair number of Superfriends decks in Standard. The fact that this cheats mana costs and colors could make this pretty good there (as a 2 of at most).

Selfless Soul seems good.

Also, today's Access Magic episode that revealed the Liliana cards also has amusing art of Gideon looking grumpy as he leads a group of zombies.

EDIT: Huh, neat. It looks like you can use United Resistance with Goblin Dark-Dwellers and you can still pay the escalate cost to get other effects.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Liliana's card is really stupid not because its not good, but because the abilities aren't mechanically very Liliana.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
t93dvx7jr67x.png


United Resistance - 1RR.
Sorcery - Rare

Escalate 1.

Target player discards all cards in his hand, then draws that many cards.
~ deals four damage to target creature.
~ deals three damage to target opponent.

Seems pretty good to me.

This card is horrible and not pushed at all holy fuck why are there so many limp fucking cards in this set.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I'm always really cautious about saying a 3 mana Planeswalker isn't good but Liliana seems legitimately not good. Am I missing something?

Like I'm even playing a Delirium deck and I don't know why I would play this card; her minus is basically Grapple with the Past but legitimately worse and her plus is nigh useless in an environment where they randomly pushed the toughness on everything by 1.
 

Haines

Banned
As someone who used to play a lot of hearthstone, manyany cards released were not competitive on ladder.

It feels like my players have an expectation that every card must be better than the last.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
As someone who used to play a lot of hearthstone, manyany cards released were not competitive on ladder.

It feels like my players have an expectation that every card must be better than the last.

Its more, I think, that people badly want something to disrupt the current Bant company meta
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
What? Some of her associated cards have been making Zombies for quite some time. Especially in Origins they shifted focus to Zombie rather than normal reanimation, her flipwalker even creates a Zombie.
That's the only one that does: she doesn't have that many cards. But Defiant Necromancer is also significantly more powerful even with the hoop to jump through.
 
Its more, I think, that people badly want something to disrupt the current Bant company meta

GW tokens already did that.

My wants were

Merfolk (never was gonna happen)
LotV (never was gonna happen)
Angels (highly disappointing Angels in this set)
3 Mana Esper Enchatnments (Oath actually might find a spot)
Otherwise nice EDH cards (Exactly Tamiyo)

That I'm most excited for an uncommon land kinda says it all.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
LOTV wasn't going to happen for an obvious reason: the card fits and its not that bad in the current meta (although it might be REALLY good in BW Control), but they're not ever going to waste reprint equity on a card in standard now that they've invented a way to sell 10 dollar packs.

I don't want to say never but you will not see Modern-tier reprints in Standard any time soon. It's not happening.
 
I had an idea for a Lili as a madness enabler.

+1: Target Player discards a card. If you discarded a card this way put a Loyalty counter on Liliana.
With a bigger payoff with the ultimate.
 

kirblar

Member
LOTV wasn't going to happen for an obvious reason: the card fits and its not that bad in the current meta (although it might be REALLY good in BW Control), but they're not ever going to waste reprint equity on a card in standard now that they've invented a way to sell 10 dollar packs.

I don't want to say never but you will not see Modern-tier reprints in Standard any time soon. It's not happening.
Funny thing is that printing it probably just makes G/W even better.

Liliana is trash and embarrassing.

Pillar of Incinerate is here:
 
Bummer Nephalia Academy actually doesn't blank discard triggers, there goes my exciting uncommon.

Way too many cards featuring PWs recently, they are mucking up the flavour of sets.
 

Daedardus

Member
As someone who used to play a lot of hearthstone, manyany cards released were not competitive on ladder.

It feels like my players have an expectation that every card must be better than the last.

Cards don't have to be always strictly better than previous sets, and it's fine that sets have a rising and waning power level. What people want in new sets is either a good addition for current strategies in the metagame or cards that permit new strategies all together. If a set changes very little in the Standard environment and adds nothing to Modern or Eternal, it doesn't matter if the set actually released or not. So far, this set does not seem to be adding many interesting things compared to previous sets, so that's why people are a bit down on it.

I was looking for some addition to Jeskai Control, but since they are 'denying' Blue and Red of any good cards I will just have to wait another year or so. Sometimes they think a certain color can become too unbalanced due to some cards that they watch out with giving additional good cards, but this gamble doesn't always turn out like they expected. They thought Jace would be too good so they made sure it didn't get boosted through the roof, but now GW has taken the crown. In upcoming sets they will reduce the GW power level and try to promote some more hate and/or control. This is the neverending cycle of Magic development.
 

alternade

Member
Haha this is 75% the reason I gave up standard and never looked back. Having to buy these increasingly underwhelming cards to only have it be a creature slug fest is tired. I'm happy they throw us edh players a card or two per set.
 

Ashodin

Member
Finally a red burn spell

Where's my instant

Also ayyyyyyyyy lmao on Liliana. What a garbage card, trolling with the three mana cost by saying

"hey remember Of the Veil?

Fuck you."
 
New Liliana is great, I'm excited. Oath of Lili goes from overcosted bad card to one of the best edicts ever printed if you get one zombie off of it.
 

Crocodile

Member
The +1 ability lasting until your next turn rather than end of turn makes the card a lot better. The version that Ashodin found out about was kind of a turd but that one change makes a big difference. Kind of shocked she isn't a madness enabler and bummed that her second ability doesn't also return lands as Black can do that occasionally. Card seems good but not exciting.

Volcanic Pillar is probably the most important card spoiled so far.

Selfless Soul is good too. Into the Cube it goes <3
 
One thing I'll say about new Lili is while I doubt she'll replace LotV, her abilities do seem better suited for Modern. Her +1 hits a lot more valuable targets, like Bob, Young Pyro, Noble Hierarch, and most infect creatures. Her -2 can also be good at reusing high-value creatures like Snapcaster or Fulmniator Mage.

Also, hooray for a solid burn spell (Incendiary Flow)! I doubt it'll be enough to get RDW back on the map, but I'll take what I can get.
 

Ashodin

Member
This set is underwhelming as fuck

Like the only cards I'm hyped are

Thalia
Hanweir Garrison
Hanweir Battlements
Lightning strike sorcery speed

That's it so far
 

Ashodin

Member
I like charlequin's explanation of

"Shit we didn't think GW tokens would be so Damn good, fuck fuck fuck fuck"

And shit the bed on actually pumping up other archetypes

Save us Kaladesh

Supposedly cavern of souls reprint is still in the cards

Don't count on it though lol

They know reprints of value make them money in overcosted sets like modern masters
 

Toxi

Banned
The spider makes lots of spiders when you recur it in play (which you're gonna do because you have a green/black deck) and sits behind board stalls to blow guys away with big damage hits, people are gonna whine extra about it because a) commander players are all entitled now and b) they're still mad about Ulrich and are gonna want a second opportunity to bitch about it, but this really does seem fine for its actual intended purpose.
The card was presented to Commander players, of course they're gonna complain when it's not great in Commander.

One last thing before I call it a day and wrap up my column. I have a preview card to show you! This is one I handpicked because it is something that players have been bothering me to make for a long time. Ever since Commander became a popular format, players write to me whenever there's a creature type they want to make a deck around that doesn't yet have a commander. The number one request I get is for a legendary Bear, but today's preview is my number two request.

If its actual intended purpose is to be some sort of lame standard value card, they shouldn't have presented it as a Commander.

As a fan of both spiders and Commander, I'm happy they made this, but it's probably the least exciting way they could have made such a card.
 

Firemind

Member
[QUOTE="God's Beard!";209141860]New Liliana is great, I'm excited. Oath of Lili goes from overcosted bad card to one of the best edicts ever printed if you get one zombie off of it.[/QUOTE]
The question is: Esper or Grixis?
 

ironmang

Member
Liliana is fine and playable but super unexciting. We're kind of getting to the point where the set needs some exciting cards that threaten to shake up some format or it's a failure.
 

y2dvd

Member
Haha this is 75% the reason I gave up standard and never looked back. Having to buy these increasingly underwhelming cards to only have it be a creature slug fest is tired. I'm happy they throw us edh players a card or two per set.

I'm at this point too. Pretty done with standard. All my trades lately have been trying to pick up modern/Legacy/EDH staples. And with our lgs now allowing 15 proxies for Legacy, I finally have enough pieces to make a deck for it. (Infect!)
 
Sheesh, a lot of negativity today.

Bad spoiler reveal strategy for today. You want to kick off week two with at least one card that gets people really excited about playing in Standard. Usually they do that by saving a PW for that morning, but even if Lili turns out to play well she doesn't read well so it doesn't have that effect. Alternately they could have done it with a really great escalate card (since that's an ideal tournament-ready mechanic) but this red one just isn't pushed for no obvious reason.

United Resistance is interesting. Just hitting a creature for 4 for 1RR seems fine, but the variety seems good. 3RR to deal 4 damage to a creature, deal 3 damage to a player, and refresh your hand on its own seems like a fine effect, and this is better.

If using the hand effect made it card neutral it'd be worthwhile, as is it's just a pretty expensive burn spell.

I'm always really cautious about saying a 3 mana Planeswalker isn't good but Liliana seems legitimately not good. Am I missing something?

Well, like I was saying, I think people are underestimating her minus ability because Raise Dead isn't good when it costs a card and it hasn't been on a PW before.

Its more, I think, that people badly want something to disrupt the current Bant company meta

Right, people get way crabbier about random spoilers if there's a perceived problem in the metagame because nobody can get excited about brewing random bullshit.

The card was presented to Commander players, of course they're gonna complain when it's not great in Commander.

I guess my issue is that for years and years, Commander players had to get by with whatever random stuff happened to show up for them, and the idea of building decks around generals that weren't necessarily the most efficient was pretty normal. But now even though there's a dedicated product every year with 10 new legends, people not only identify gaps they desperately want filled, but then get super demanding about what filling those gaps looks like. I feel like it's okay if the spider legend just makes spiders and has a damage ability to go over the top when the board stalls.

Then again I'm probably a hypocrite because I know I'll be super-demanding about the blue/red artifact commander.
 

jph139

Member
The spider general is fine. I'd rather have goofy, marginal generals than the super pushed nonsense that the precons used to have.

He's big, makes spiders when you cast him, zaps guys with spiders. Looks fine to me.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Honestly I'm fine with the spider general as well. I get wishing that he didn't have the delirium requirement but everything else about him looks good to me. He powers up off of spider tribal in a much more interesting way than "spiders you control get +2/+2"
 

Firemind

Member
Honestly I'm fine with the spider general as well. I get wishing that he didn't have the delirium requirement but everything else about him looks good to me. He powers up off of spider tribal in a much more interesting way than "spiders you control get +2/+2"
They could have given it "other spiders gain deathtouch" to at least power spider spawning.
 

Daedardus

Member
I don't really like the spider, but that's mostly because I'm not fond of Delirium. I find it harder to activate than you would think, although in Commander it will probably easier, and it just doesn't feel very exciting.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I don't really like the spider, but that's mostly because I'm not fond of Delirium. I find it harder to activate than you would think, although in Commander it will probably easier, and it just doesn't feel very exciting.

Its actually going to be harder in commander I think, because the likelyhood of you getting an enchantment or artifact you can sac early on is super low unless you super build for it. So you're stuck trying to make land-creature-instant-sorcery work
 
For anyone keeping track of pro responses, Ari Lax is pretty bullish on Lili.

The spider general is fine. I'd rather have goofy, marginal generals than the super pushed nonsense that the precons used to have.

Yep. In general I'd like to see them de-escalate commanders a little bit, nobody needs endless arrays of Prosshes.

Honestly I'm fine with the spider general as well. I get wishing that he didn't have the delirium requirement but everything else about him looks good to me. He powers up off of spider tribal in a much more interesting way than "spiders you control get +2/+2"

Yeah, I think the thing that seems initially weird about it is that definitely the best way to build around this is to make a mill/reanimation deck that fogs and generates spider tokens, but that honestly seems fine to me -- spiders just in general are bad, so by giving you a way to kill your opponent from behind a wall of critters and fogs it actually makes it possible for a spider deck to have a real strategy.

I think the actual thing that makes me sad about this is that it doesn't include red, which leaves out a few good spiders, but what can you do.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I don't get it. What's Tooth Collector have to do with it?
 

Takuhi

Member
Liliana seems totally solid to me. She comes out early in a control deck, forces your opponent to overextend into your Languishes, and then lets your Languishes and Grasps kill pumped Sylvan Advocates. If they can't remove her, you get what is basically a win-the-game emblem for a control deck.
 
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