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[Imperfected]

Maybe in a vacuum. But we're not in a vacuum.

It WOULD be weird when you take Amonkhet and how he has it set up to basically be a breeding ground for super soldiers. That's pretty NOT Red/Black.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

I think you've gone a little overboard in trying to assign "personalities" and "strategies" to the color wheel. You're trying to make the argument that what's most likely a planned genocide to engineer super soldiers is somehow an exclusively Blue trait?

I don't even.

 

[Angry Grimace]

All of the ideas you guys are floating for Aftermath are bad. Like really bad. All you're actually asking for is for the Aftermath cards to be oriented like normal split cards. Which they could do. Shit, they still could do that if they wanted to.

I don't know exactly what you mean, but I will say that I would be floored if he were anything other than base UBR in identity.

Dark Intimations is Grixis, so I would be highly surprised if Bolas wasn't.

Maybe in a vacuum. But we're not in a vacuum.

It WOULD be weird when you take Amonkhet and how he has it set up to basically be a breeding ground for super soldiers. That's pretty NOT Red/Black.

I don't get how its a breeding ground for super soldiers. Everyone dies at the end of the trials. It seems more like he's trying to find people with Planeswalker's sparks.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

All of the ideas you guys are floating for Aftermath are bad. Like really bad. All you're actually asking for is for the Aftermath cards to be oriented like normal split cards. Which they could do. Shit, they still could do that if they wanted to.

Thry literally are split cards on modo. They look much better.

Kamigawa flip cards are the worst.

I like the frame overall, always have. It's problematic if used on creatures tho. They were the DFC predecessor but they immediately went crazy with it turning creatures into legendaries or creatures into enchantments.

 

[OnPoint]

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

I think you've gone a little overboard in trying to assign "personalities" and "strategies" to the color wheel. You're trying to make the argument that what's most likely a planned genocide to engineer super soldiers is somehow an exclusively Blue trait?

I don't even.

I didn't say it's exclusively blue? You're putting words in my mouth.

It is definitely Grixis, and not at all black/red.

And I'm not going overboard -- you're blind. WotC places a huge amount of value in assigning personality to color identity. Sure sometimes they miss, but more often than not they're very careful with how they plan these things. They're not going to throw out 10+ years of establishing Bolas as Grixis just because you think we need a black red walker, especially when what he's doing isn't a black red plan.

I don't get how its a breeding ground for super soldiers. Everyone dies at the end of the trials. It seems more like he's trying to find people with Planeswalker's sparks.

They're "super soldiers" because all they do is train all day. I don't really care about that though. Last page I supposed the same theory about sparks.

 

[Jhriad]

Aftermath would have been a lot worse with DFC's.

Just give them a unique frame treatment like miracles indent a second faded card name line with a similar treatment and an arrow to the backside like you have with the P/T for DFC creatures. That way you can orient them like every other card in your graveyard, stacked such that the names are all visible. It would allow more room for art, and it allows more room for rules text. As it stands the Aftermath cards are limited in their design by the frame and clunky to actually visibly surface both sides of the card while in your yard. What was the non-Aftermath side of that card in case I/they want to Goblin Dark Dwellers/Snapcaster it? Who knows, someone decided to orient it such that you can only see the Aftermath half instead.

 

[Imperfected]

It is definitely Grixis, and not at all black/red.

You're going to have to explain this to me. His plan seems to involve sacrificing a lot of people while searching for/creating strength, with a high likelihood of mayhem and destruction at the end. If anything it seems more Black/Red/Green than Blue.

Edit: Like, if his plan involved trying to find some secret knowledge or time travel or metamagic or something, sure, it's super blue. I don't see anything blue about it as it stands.

 

[Angry Grimace]

You can orient them however you want in your graveyard. These complaints are silly.

 

[zethren]

I'd have to agree that it would be very odd if Bolas wasn't still at least Grixis colors. He's calculating and vastly more intelligent than many other beings, bam. There's your blue.

Besides, is his goal not to have mastery over every color of mana? Losing one of his three colors seems counter to his flavor.

 

[OnPoint]

You're going to have to explain this to me. His plan seems to involve sacrificing a lot of people while searching for/creating strength, with a high likelihood of mayhem and destruction at the end. If anything it seems more Black/Red/Green than Blue.

Edit: Like, if his plan involved trying to find some secret knowledge or time travel or metamagic or something, sure, it's super blue. I don't see anything blue about it as it stands.

I'm not saying it's not partially red or black. I'm saying it's not JUST red black.

Red black by itself is impulsive and self-serving and brutal. There's normally no plan in a black red character besides chaos. In the moment.

Adding blue in allows for there to be a plan. It allows for careful planning and direction for that selfish brutality. It adds manipulation. Blue doesn't do things without a carefully crafted reason. It's the definition of what Bolas is. And this scheme fits right in with that.

I would say manipulating the Gods by altering their magic is pretty dang blue. As is carefully overwriting the identity of a society by injecting himself into its history falsely.

 

[Joe Molotov]

I don't know about you guys, but Bolas feels very Simic to me.

 

[Imperfected]

I'd have to agree that it would be very odd if Bolas wasn't still at least Grixis colors. He's calculating and vastly more intelligent than many other beings, bam. There's your blue.

Besides, is his goal not to have mastery over every color of mana? Losing one of his three colors seems counter to his flavor.

This has a non-explicit (and not very forward-thinking) supposition that planeswalkers "lose" a color if they're printed without a color they previously had, and therefore can only gain more colors as time goes on.

That's not only proven to not be the case in the past, it basically destroys the design space entirely. There's no reason they can't print a walker in fewer than their full set of component colors and then reprint them in the full panoply later. Tezzeret, Sarkhan, and Ajani have all bounced back and forth between various colors over their printings.

As was pointed out, Dark Intimations make it likely Bolas will be Grixis, but there's absolutely no reason they couldn't do a 2-color Bolas if they wanted to.

 

[OnPoint]

This has a non-explicit (and not very forward-thinking) supposition that planeswalkers "lose" a color if they're printed without a color they previously had, and therefore can only gain more colors as time goes on.

That's not only proven to not be the case in the past, it basically destroys the design space entirely. There's no reason they can't print a walker in fewer than their full set of component colors and then reprint them in the full panoply later. Tezzeret, Sarkhan, and Ajani have all bounced back and forth between various colors over their printings.

As was pointed out, Dark Intimations make it likely Bolas will be Grixis, but there's absolutely no reason they couldn't do a 2-color Bolas if they wanted to.

They absolutely COULD. But it doesn't make sense HERE. His motivations are not two color. They're three.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I don't think the impetus is that his motivations tie into those colors, its more that people expect Bolas to be Grixis.

He'd have to be outrageously OP to be better than Ugin though. Ugin was just a ridiculous 8 drop without any color restrictions.

 

[Imperfected]

They absolutely COULD. But it doesn't make sense HERE. His motivations are not two color. They're three.

Yeah, I can't buy that, sorry. "You have to have Blue to plan" is too ridiculously limiting to ever be the case. Planning isn't Blue, though you could maybe make the case that the Amonkhet setup is convoluted enough or involves enough misdirection to be Blue.

 

[OnPoint]

Yeah, I can't buy that, sorry. "You have to have Blue to plan" is too ridiculously limiting to ever be the case. Planning isn't Blue, though you could maybe make the case that the Amonkhet setup is convoluted enough or involves enough misdirection to be Blue.

I don't care what you can't buy. You can refuse to see it. But it's the justification.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

Imagine how much fun these conversations must be at Wizards HQ.

 

[OnPoint]

Imagine how much fun these conversations must be at Wizards HQ.

I think they figured out how they use the color pie to write their characters a long time ago. And I think they hold to that pretty consistently.

If you mean reading these conversations? Policy dictates that they can't haha

 

[charlequin]

Aftermath wouldn't have.

No, I think people are right that it'd be miserable to use these cards with checklist cards and relatively unpleasant to be unsleeving them briefly

Especially now that the set is out I think it's obvious that the current layout works and shows the difference from regular split cards so people will play these cards correctly in a really clear fashion. People are still trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.

I mean, is it more weird to have a Bolas that just uses 2 of his 3 colors, or a Nissa that's suddenly blue for no reason?

The former, by orders and orders of magnitude.

Yeah, I can't buy that, sorry. "You have to have Blue to plan" is too ridiculously limiting to ever be the case.

You don't have to be blue to plan. You do have to be blue to plan elaborate Xanatos roulettes where innumerable factors come together over decades or centuries to achieve a secret goal.

Imagine how much fun these conversations must be at Wizards HQ.

This will perhaps shock you but even the most negative ex-Magic R&D people have been completely consistent in saying that the actual creative part of the job was extremely enjoyable and interesting.

 

[Santiako]

Aftermath cards as DFC would have been the worst. Having to unsleeve them or use checklists for cards in the graveyard would've been extremely annoying.
The way the are right now is ugly, but very functional. They are split cards, but with a gameplay difference on that one can't be cast from hand, so it makes sense to differentiate them.

 

[Poodlestrike]

So, regarding that plan... Nobody actually stays dead in Amonkhet, yeah? Like, the mummies get special preparation that makes them controllable (but resistant to control by necromancers like Liliana, iirc) , but they rise from the dead on their own. And the people killed by Hazoret's spear at the culmination of the trials get carted off before that happens. Do we know if they're embalmed first? Because if they are the "zombie supersoldier army" gets a lot more likey, but if *not*, it probably has to do with harvesting potential Planeswalkers. Maybe he's trying to somehow gather their sparks to amp up his own or something.

 

[Angry Grimace]

So, regarding that plan... Nobody actually stays dead in Amonkhet, yeah? Like, the mummies get special preparation that makes them controllable (but resistant to control by necromancers like Liliana, iirc) , but they rise from the dead on their own. And the people killed by Hazoret's spear at the culmination of the trials get carted off before that happens. Do we know if they're embalmed first? Because if they are the "zombie supersoldier army" gets a lot more likey, but if *not*, it probably has to do with harvesting potential Planeswalkers. Maybe he's trying to somehow gather their sparks to amp up his own or something.

I mean, I'm sure he likes the idea of using the Planar Bridge to take them somewhere, but I doubt that was his overall goal since the existence of the Bridge was found like a few weeks before Amonkhet's plot started.

Aftermath cards as DFC would have been the worst. Having to unsleeve them or use checklists for cards in the graveyard would've been extremely annoying.
The way the are right now is ugly, but very functional. They are split cards, but with a gameplay difference on that one can't be cast from hand, so it makes sense to differentiate them.

It's a rules nightmare to make them anything but Split cards. Split cards are 100% fine, people are just whining about the aesthetics.

Not that split cards don't have their own rules catastrophes in them. Torrential Gearhulk and Goblin Dark-Dwellers both interact in clunky as fuck ways with split cards. I think it was legitimately easier to understand before they changed the rules because now I'm not actually sure what I can cast with it. You can cast Memory with Torrential Gearhulk, but you can't cast any Aftermath cards at all with Goblin Dark-Dwellers. I legitimately have no idea how it works with Snapcaster Mage now.

 

[DrArchon]

I mean, I'm sure he likes the idea of using the Planar Bridge to take them somewhere, but I doubt that was his overall goal since the existence of the Bridge was found like a few weeks before Amonkhet's plot started.

Well, it's not like the idea of a planar bridge is a new one. He could've been sending Tezz around to various technologically advanced planes to see if any of them came up with a new one for him to grab and Kaladesh just happened to be where it happened.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Well, it's not like the idea of a planar bridge is a new one. He could've been sending Tezz around to various technologically advanced planes to see if any of them came up with a new one for him to grab and Kaladesh just happened to be where it happened.

What I was gonna say. He might not have planned on having THAT planar bridge, but it's possible his long term plot involved getting his claws on A planar bridge.

Very blue BTW.

 

[Yeef]

Not that split cards don't have their own rules catastrophes in them. Torrential Gearhulk and Goblin Dark-Dwellers both interact in clunky as fuck ways with split cards. I think it was legitimately easier to understand before they changed the rules because now I'm not actually sure what I can cast with it. You can cast Memory with Torrential Gearhulk, but you can't cast any Aftermath cards at all with Goblin Dark-Dwellers. I legitimately have no idea how it works with Snapcaster Mage now.

The only thing that's changed is CMC. Goblin Dark Dwellers keys off CMC, so that's why it doesn't work. Everything else works the same as it always has.

 

[HK-47]

I mean, the prophecy goes that the God-Pharaoh is supposed to return and blow up the barrier because they don't need it anymore. Even if the Jacetice League didn't show up, Bolas nuking the city was always in the cards.

Not sure why he'd do that though. You'd think he'd want his super soldier zombie factory running for as long as possible.

But yes, it'd be nice to have an ending set that wasn't "Oh fuck, everything's gone to shit!" Seems like all of them end up like that. That's why we need to return to Shadowmoor so the ending set is it turning back into Lorwyn and getting better.

What? Shadowmoor and Lorwyn were fixed in the end.

 

[HK-47]

On the latest Commanderin' with Ethan Fleischer they revealed a couple interesting things. First, Amonkhet, like Shadows Over Innistrad, was pitched by an R&D member (in this case Shawn Main) at one of their offsites, which means that in general an increasing number of blocks are being driven by other R&D members instead of Rosewater's top-down planning.

Second, there was a significant faction pushing very strongly for Embalm and Aftermath to be done with DFCs, but Ethan ultimately decided not to push it as he felt with SOI so recently and the costs (monetary and in player satisfaction) being what they are this wasn't a cool enough spot to justify using them.



Bolas would have been way more powerful in the FRF era though?

It's lame there aren't double faced cards on other planes. They are little stories on a single card. It's part of why innistrad is so evocative.

 

[DrArchon]

What? Shadowmoor and Lorwyn were fixed in the end.

Damn. Shows what I get for only paying attention to the stuff that's printed on the cards.

But if that's the case, why haven't we been back! I miss Lorwyn (not so much Shadowmoor).

 

[charlequin]

It's lame there aren't double faced cards on other planes. They are little stories on a single card. It's part of why innistrad is so evocative.

I agree that I'd like to see them use them more often. I think they'd be a solid to good replacement for Embalm (wouldn't be the exact mechanic but it's certainly a proven, solid execution of the idea) but a bad one for Aftermath.

You can cast Memory with Torrential Gearhulk, but you can't cast any Aftermath cards at all with Goblin Dark-Dwellers.

Not even Failure to Comply?

But if that's the case, why haven't we been back!

Because approximately nobody likes Lorwyn.

 

[Angry Grimace]

The only thing that's changed is CMC. Goblin Dark Dwellers keys off CMC, so that's why it doesn't work. Everything else works the same as it always has.

Right, so they're one card, but then also not one card depending on the situation. It's not any less confusing to me.

 

[Angry Grimace]

I'm just praying they don't make a good way to capitalize on New Perspectives in Hour of Devastation because F6 Decks are fucking stupid and that's exactly what the New Perspectives deck is right now when people try it.

 

[Glix]

Damn. Shows what I get for only paying attention to the stuff that's printed on the cards.

But if that's the case, why haven't we been back! I miss Lorwyn (not so much Shadowmoor).

The Lorwyn limited environment was torture.

 

[Glix]

I'm just praying they don't make a good way to capitalize on New Perspectives in Hour of Devastation because F6 Decks are fucking stupid and that's exactly what the New Perspectives deck is right now when people try it.

I kinda thought the draw-go that LSV played on the vid they put up on Channel Fireball today was pretty cool and old school.

(not a NP deck, but just commenting on Draw-go's)

 

[DrArchon]

The Lorwyn limited environment was torture.

Shame that a poorly received set never seems to get another chance. Just because it sucked once doesn't mean it would suck again. Just like Kamigawa. We might get a planeswalker from Lorwyn and never hear from it again.

 

[Ashodin]

Anyone going to GP Richmond Friday? Will probably only be down there Friday, unless I get 4-0 in any events. With 2 byes will probably sign up for the sealed ($85 is too much)..

If you look for me in a lab coat, you'll see me there. I'm in the main event on Saturday.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

No, I think people are right that it'd be miserable to use these cards with checklist cards and relatively unpleasant to be unsleeving them briefly

Especially now that the set is out I think it's obvious that the current layout works and shows the difference from regular split cards so people will play these cards correctly in a really clear fashion. People are still trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.

I've been to 2 sealed, 1 draft and 1 standard event and not once have I seen someone use aftermath as intended. They work gameplay wise as a form of flashback but the frame is effectively functionless in my eyes and ugly to boot.

 

[HK-47]

I've been to 2 sealed, 1 draft and 1 standard event and not once have I seen someone use aftermath as intended. They work gameplay wise as a form of flashback but the frame is effectively functionless in my eyes and ugly to boot.

I'll echo this. I prefer the normal split card look they have on mtgo by miles.

 

[SigmasonicX]

What are the problems people are having?

 

[ultron87]

You're really encouraged not to have them conspicuously sticking out of your graveyard, so that your opponent might forget to play around them. But that's going to be a problem with any sort of Flashback type effect.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

You're really encouraged not to have them conspicuously sticking out of your graveyard, so that your opponent might forget to play around them. But that's going to be a problem with any sort of Flashback type effect.

This I called, there's no incentive to give the opponent free information.

What are the problems people are having?

Who said anything about problems? Just that from my experience no one puts aftermath cards into their yard perpendicular to the rest.

 

[duxstar]

The pro tour is in the middle of the month, tough to buy into a deck that could be absolutely obsolete in 2 weeks, though I haven been thinking about playing decks on mtgo.

Dropping $300 for a deck i might play 3 or 4 times in standard is a tough pill to swallow, sure I have a couple of pre-release winnings i could trade, and a couple of "war chest" type cards I could use to make it easier, but buying into standard with heirarchs and wastelands doesn't seem wise.

 

[charlequin]

Shame that a poorly received set never seems to get another chance. Just because it sucked once doesn't mean it would suck again.

It's pretty normal opportunity cost evaluation, really. Making something a block means it's individually responsible for like 40% of your annual revenue. It's always gonna be worthwhile to steer away from previous failures on a margin like that because if you fail again then you blew a ton of cash on a trivially predictable mistake.

And to be clear, their standards for this aren't hugely high. In the 10 year planar era, it's only the two worst-polling planes they've done (#1 Kamigawa and #2 Lorwyn) that they've specifically said wouldn't clear the bar. That seems pretty legitimate.

I've been to 2 sealed, 1 draft and 1 standard event and not once have I seen someone use aftermath as intended.

People play new mechanics wrong in the pre-release window for every set ever, but all indications are that Aftermath isn't notably confusing and people are getting used to it like they got used to the original split cards. If it had the standard split card frame you'd still have people fucking up Failure >> Comply in Vintage ten years from now.

 

[divisionbyzorro]

I like it. The part of the card you can cast from your hand is readable in your hand (unlike a normal split card). It's really clever.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

People play new mechanics wrong in the pre-release window for every set ever, but all indications are that Aftermath isn't notably confusing and people are getting used to it like they got used to the original split cards. If it had the standard split card frame you'd still have people fucking up Failure >> Comply in Vintage ten years from now.

People aren't playing it wrong. There are no rules requiring you to have aftermath cards stick out of the graveyard.

Considering Vintage is more alive on MODO than in paper people would be playing Failure Comply as standard split cards and still not fuck it up.

 

[kirblar]

Part of the issue is that not all of the Aftermath cards follow the same "rule."

Some are meant to be a 1-2 punch the same turn. Some are meant to be a "cast me early...then cast the other half way later." And others aren't designed to be cast in the first place! So people are running into having to learn the gameplay card by card because of that.

 

[Ashodin]

A lot of people are confused on when to cast both halves of the card, yeah.

 

[TheBlackMarvel]

Won my first draft today!

Played a R/G/U deck that worked way better than I expected when putting it together.

Decklist:

1 x Hazoret the Fervent
2 x Violent Impact
3 x Thresher Lizard
1 x Trial of Zeal
1 x Tormenting Voice
2 x Curator of Mysteries
1 x Trial of Knowledge
1 x Hieroglyphic Illumination
2 x Cartouche of Knowledge
1 x Trial of Strength
1 x Haze of Pollen
2 x Spring
1 x Mouth
2 x Cartouche of Strength
2 x Benefaction of Rhonas
1 x Cradle of the Accursed
1 x Painted Bluffs
1 x Sunscorched Desert
9 x Forest
4 x Island
4 x Mountain

This set is a lot of fun to draft. Pulled jank from my prize packs though.

Spoiler

The Liliana, Death's Majesty in the Planeswalker Deck packs made up for it.

 

[Imperfected]

Dusk // Dawn and Cut // Ribbons are such trivially simple blowout cards that if you catch people using them wrong, I don't think it's the card's fault.

The same for Mouth // Feed, really. I honestly don't think there are many "hard" play choices with the split cards other than maybe Onward // Victory (there's a slight "trap" there in that the sides of the card obviously combo well together, but because the second half is at Sorcery speed your inclination to use the first half as a combat trick can bite you). Most of them are really just, "Play both halves now if you have nothing better to do, play the second half later if you have something better to do."

Like, what even is the "wrong" line of play you're seeing? People dropping Dusk for bad value just to get a shot at casting Dawn?

 

[Yeef]

It's often right in a lot of games to cycle Heaven for G just to cast Earth from the yard. I think that's the one that's less likely to be obvious to lower level players. It's the same way they'll hold onto an expensive card with cycling instead of just cycling it in the early to mid game.

 

[charlequin]

People aren't playing it wrong. There are no rules requiring you to have aftermath cards stick out of the graveyard.

Yeah, I didn't see your clarification that you were talking about about physical positioning when I made the post.

Part of the issue is that not all of the Aftermath cards follow the same "rule."

Someone (Stoddard probably?) said in an article that this was on purpose since they didn't want them to all feel one-note.

 

[kirblar]

Someone (Stoddard probably?) said in an article that this was on purpose since they didn't want them to all feel one-note.

Ya, I was parroting it to make the point about them feeling "weird".