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Magic: the Gathering |OT10| Aether Revolt - That shit that make your Soul Burn slow

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It's not going to be double tap surely? That either means you have to put a marker on the creature (which is confusing as hell in an environment with heavy counter usage) or you have to remember it's double tapped which adds an easy to forget state based requirement to the game.

I'm betting on the -1/-1 counters myself, that seems to make the most sense and would fit the themes that we know of / suspect.
You can represent it by literally double tapping i.e. rotation by 180°.
 

Tunoku

Member
I mean the wording could just be "when this attacks you may put an exert counter on it" And then it wouldn't untap while it has that counter and it just untaps when the counter gets removed.
 

Maledict

Member
Again though, that's a lot of text for an ability that wouldn't really fit any of the known themes for the block. Admittedly if it is -1/-1 counters that dragon is insane value - but then we have just been complaing about red lacking power cards and strong abilities in recent years! ;-)
 

Tunoku

Member
If it's -1/-1 counters you could make it work once if the wording was like "When this attacks, if it doesn't have a -1/-1 counter on it, you may put a -1/-1 counter on it. If you do, this deals 4 damage to target creature an opponent controls"

EDIT: My bet on Duelist is just a really efficient dude at Uncommon that they expect to see play.
 

ultron87

Member
It's not going to be double tap surely? That either means you have to put a marker on the creature (which is confusing as hell in an environment with heavy counter usage) or you have to remember it's double tapped which adds an easy to forget state based requirement to the game.

I'm betting on the -1/-1 counters myself, that seems to make the most sense and would fit the themes that we know of / suspect.

That kind of effect gets pretty easily remembered all the time with Frost Breath type cards without any sort of reminder. The opponent has every reason to remember that it was a thing that happened, especially since this thing in particular is going to be shooting down their creatures every turn. So even if it accidentally gets untapped you gotta believe that "hey, didn't this kill my guy last turn?" is something that easily leaps to mind.
 

Tunoku

Member
As someone who has never really experienced Cycling, how has the mechanic usually been implemented within a block? Does it interact with other cards and mechanics in big ways? I guess the Demon is an indicator that we'll see more of that.
 

Hero

Member
As someone who has never really experienced Cycling, how has the mechanic usually been implemented within a block? Does it interact with other cards and mechanics in big ways? I guess the Demon is an indicator that we'll see more of that.

Cycling is usually pretty good.

Urza's didn't have too much but the other times it was used pretty effectively. Astral Slide was a big thing back in the day, and in Alara block there were cards you either wanted to cycle to get into the GY for shenanigans or you could cycle for basic lands while the spell itself was pretty decent. There have been times where you wanted to cycle it for a big splashy effect (Decree cycle) too.

Cycling is awesome.
 

Tunoku

Member
Oh right, Alara had cycling. I even played during that Standard, but I don't remember any cards with Cycling being particularly popular. Everyone was on Jund and I played some whacky Naya Ally deck or Boros Bushwhacker.
 
Oh hey, one of my predictions was right! We have cycling, and effects trigger on discarding instead of just cycling! (It will be a shame if it turned out I never posted about that here >_>)

Perhaps exert is a variant of monstrous. You put a -1/-1 counter on it, and you can only use the ability if the creature isn't exerted. Or perhaps if you it doesn't have a -1/-1 counter, so it can be used again if you remove the counter.
 

Santiako

Member
Cycling yessss

The intro deck walkers were also leaked

r7ZnLT5.jpg
bJM4yvs.jpg

Gideon, Martial Paragon
+2: Untap creatures you control. They get +1/+1 until end of turn.
0: until end of turn, gideon, becomes a 5/5 human Soldier with indestructible, still a planeswalker. Prevent all dmg that would be done to Gideon
-10: all creatures u control get +2/+2. Tap all your opponent creatures.
(can't see loyalty).

Liliana, Death Weilder - 5BB
+2: Put a -1/-1 counter on up to one target creature
-3: Destroy target creature with a -1/-1 counter on it
-10: Return all creature cards from your graveyard to the battlefield
(can't see loyalty).
 

Justin

Member
As someone who literally learned and played Magic for the first time yesterday (iphone version), on those Planeswalkers that have +0 skills can you use those every single turn?
 

bigkrev

Member
As someone who literally learned and played Magic for the first time yesterday (iphone version), on those Planeswalkers that have +0 skills can you use those every single turn?

You can activate 1 ability on each Planeswalker each turn. A Plus ability adds loyalty, and minus removes loyalty, and a 0 ability neither adds nor removes loyalty. So you could use a 0 ability the same way your use a plus ability, you just aren't building loyalty
 

Santiako

Member
Mechanics:

Embalm

Embalm is an activated ability you can activate if the creature card with embalm is in your graveyard. Notably you're not casting the card from the graveyard, so things that counter spells won't work against the embalm ability. The original creature spell can be countered, of course, but that just puts the card in the graveyard. I think you see where this is headed.

To activate an embalm ability, simply pay the embalm cost and exile the card. You do this any time you could cast a sorcery, meaning during your main phase when nothing else is happening. When the ability resolves, you create a token copy of the card, but as you'd expect, going through the process of mummification causes some changes. It's got that whole undead thing going on, so it's a Zombie in addition to whatever creature types it used to have. You'll find lots of ways to take advantage of its new Zombiehood, I'm sure. And now that it's all service, all the time and doesn't care about whatever it was it cared about while alive, it's white instead of whatever color it used to be. One more minor change is that it doesn't have the mana cost the card has.

Exert

Exert allows creatures to give a little more effort to produce unusually good results.

You make the decision whether to exert a creature as you declare it as an attacker. If you choose to have it exert, an ability will trigger and grant you some bonus. As a trade-off, the creature won't untap during your next turn. It's tired. Needs a nap. Attack more later.

You don't have to exert the creature as it attacks. If you don't, no ability will trigger, and it will untap normal during your next turn. Note that as you declare attackers is the only time you can have it exert. You can't wait until later in the turn and then exert it. When your next untap step rolls around, if the creature you exerted is untapped, nothing happens and the exertion cost you nothing. Maybe you found a different way to untap it, or maybe you gave it vigilance. You are clever!
 

bigkrev

Member
LOLOLOLOL the card images with the new mechanics are broken images. Master Trollwork, up there with printing Emrakul and not giving graveyard hate in standard,
 

bigkrev

Member
Reddit is all abuzz about there being cycling dual lands in this set. How would you do them, and what Rarity would you put them at?

UB Dual
CITP
T: add U or B to your mana pool
Cycling: UB
 
Cycling is one of the best mechanics ever, always glad to see that back. This'll be the fifth block (Urza's, Onslaught, Time Spiral, Alara, and now Amonkhet) so that definitely puts it well ahead of any other returning mechanic.

I like that they're bowing to reality and providing tools to visualize board state better with some of these mechanics. When they finally started printing tokens in packs it let them do more token mechanics that were previously only "complex" because of lack of clear visuals, and the stuff here should be similar: giving people specific -1/-1 and exertion counters lets you use those mechanics together without creating confusing board state, and printing specific tokens for the Embalm creatures lets them do more complex versions of that mechanic as well. (And that's cool since it's basically a persist variant, but one that can be pushed more directly since it isn't amenable to infinite combos.)

The punch card thing is a great idea and i'm surprised they haven't done something like it sooner.

This is one of the things Rosewater has been posting asks about a lot recently so I'm not surprised to see it's because they were actually introducing it.
 

ultron87

Member
My one worry with the embalm counter specifically is that people might not get that the copy is a token, since the expected use is to remove the physical card from the graveyard and put the counter on it to represent it as the copy. So then they might put it back in their hand if it gets bounced or etc.

Also a little odd that unlike other tokens that are copies, embalm tokens don't have the original's CMC. Or at least that's how I'm interpreting: "One more minor change is that it doesn't have the mana cost the card has." Wonder why that decision is there.
 

Santiako

Member
I think the Embalmed label is supposed to go on top of the mana cost of the card if you don't have the token. It's a neat solution.
 
So we probably have the full set of mechanics at this point, right? So it looks like:

  • Exert
  • Embalm
  • -1/-1 counters
  • Brick counters
  • Cycling
  • Aftermath

Bit more than I expected after all the stuff about too many mechanics, although I guess two of these are unnamed and one is potentially just a cycle of rares or something.

Also a little odd that unlike other tokens that are copies, embalm tokens don't have the original's CMC. Or at least that's how I'm interpreting: "One more minor change is that it doesn't have the mana cost the card has." Wonder why that decision is there.

They don't like to give tokens CMC because it's confusing and very rarely relevant. This is pretty consistent with past stuff like the creature-shapers from Future Sight.
 

Lucario

Member
did not expect to wake up to a set with:

-aven
-a dragon with a hat
-minotaurs
-a dragon who gets tired after breathing fire and needs to take a nap
-Anubis-like jackals
-CYCLING

Preordering a fucking case now
 
Re: embalm removing the cmc. I imagine we'll be encouraged to represent embalming either by using the token if we have it or by placing the card out on the battlefield with an embalm counter in it. Two valid ways of showing the same board state.

My wishlist reason for this text? Engineered Explosives reprint.
 

Maledict

Member
Whelp, I was very wrong on exert! But good to see the punch card token for it, that should deal with the memory issues I was concerned about.

Interesting that the zombie tokens are white - I really, really like that move. Which colours can we now get zombies in?
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
en_aDb3i2cSDQ.png


I wonder if Electrostatic Pummeler decks become a real thing now.
I would be surprised if not. It's an uninteractive BS combo so of course it's tier 1.

(but seriously, you get utterly wrecked if you get Fling countered)
 
Interesting that the zombie tokens are white - I really, really like that move. Which colours can we now get zombies in?

Before this Stitcher Geralf is the only card that's ever made a zombie token that isn't black. (And one of only three cards ever that made a Zombie token that wasn't a vanilla black 2/2.)

We'll have to see if they print the first monowhite zombie card (as opposed to token) in this set; red and green have exactly one each.
 

hermit7

Member
So they're printing tokens for every creature with Embalm?

EDIT: OHHHH that's why the tokens don't have a mana cost. Because they're printing bespoke tokens and that would get super confusing.

Maybe they have figured out seeded packs if this is the case and they are printing a larger than usual number of tokens.
 
I do hate having embalm and crew in the standard going forward. It means any playable creature with it will make vehicles effectively creatures always.
Why are mummies white anyway? Other than the fact that they appear white in color?

Straight from the horse's mouth
WotC said:
And now that it's all service, all the time and doesn't care about whatever it was it cared about while alive, it's white instead of whatever color it used to be.
 
Why are mummies white anyway?

They're religiously-sanctified zombies that arise as part of an orderly, societally-important cycle of life instead of by a random necromancer selfishly forcing them out of the grave. Especially based on this one example, for the cards we're gonna see here the flavor's gonna typically be people so devoted to their job or whatever that they come back after death to keep doing it.

Or, in other words: the thing here isn't that they made zombies and then had to come up with a reason for them to be white, it's that they made an in-color white reanimation mechanic and had to call them "zombies" since they're technically reanimated corpses.

White's totally into Necromancy now, guys.

Bro, white had Resurrect in Alpha.
 
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