The problem for me is that the song aren't long or varied enough. This one is particularly bad. In the past they felt like Zelda dungeon music that was half as long as it should be, that is to say, it fits the theme but gets annoying quickly due to how often the composition repeats itself.
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Magic: the Gathering |OT12| Hour of Devastation - Hour of Jace getting dunked on
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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The problem for me is that the song aren't long or varied enough. This one is particularly bad. In the past they felt like Zelda dungeon music that was half as long as it should be, that is to say, it fits the theme but gets annoying quickly due to how often the composition repeats itself.
Man, RDW is putting in some work at the pro tour it looks like. I figured more people would be rocking UR control, but I guess it's not a great idea if you can't stabilize before mono-red gets into high gear.
Red's looking really good right now though. Wish I could say the same for green, but it didn't get a lot in HOU (doesn't look like too many people are trying out Hour of Promise just yet).
Red's looking really good right now though. Wish I could say the same for green, but it didn't get a lot in HOU (doesn't look like too many people are trying out Hour of Promise just yet).
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Not half damage points again.
Only the sword is from unstable though, don't get the protection or rolling a d20.
Only the sword is from unstable though, don't get the protection or rolling a d20.
Pummeler is base green and it's been doing good numbers too.
That's true. I figured Pummeler decks wouldn't do so well with Abrade being a thing now, but I guess not.
Imperfected
Member
Doesn't matter much. The Pummeler itself was always very vulnerable to removal, and Abrade isn't significantly better at it than other options. Just makes Blossoming Defense a prerequisite for the finisher.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
It also transforms into a nasty RG midrange deck post board.
idk a repetitive track just has to sound nice, take the innkeeper music from HS it's on theme and pleasant. The current is particularly terrible for me as it's action music.
A Serious Man
Member
MaRo finally got another Un-set greenlit by just making it a bunch of Hasbro promotional wank. I figured those were just for Hascon, are we seriously going to have a bunch of cards with fucking Transformers trademarks on them in the actual set?
ONLY THE SWORD IS IN UNSTABLE
Also true. Bristling Hydra is still a fucking tough as hell creature for a lot of decks to deal with, and we all know how good Chandra and to a lesser extent Glorybringer are. Not to mention Tireless Tracker always putting in a ton of work into whatever deck you throw it into.
I'd feel a bit better about Pummeler itself if there was one more decent "Pump + Hexproof" spell in standard.
The d20 bit is definitely to represent a crit, in a weird way, but the protection is odd to me. Rogues and Clerics are both big D&D classes but so are Wizards? Not to mention Druids and Monks. Seems kind of arbitrary.
Need War seems fun.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
rolling the dice should do something not be ceremonial though.
SigmasonicX
Member
Surprised that they made a Grimlock card instead of Optimus. I wonder if that "becomes" wording instead of "transform" means anything, along with the different multicolored frames.
I expect we'll see more d20 cards, since there's already a reasonable expectation players will have them.
I expect we'll see more d20 cards, since there's already a reasonable expectation players will have them.
psst psst Ixalan psst psst
ThLunarian
Member
The Swords always give protection from two things. They could only pick two classes, and "Rogues and Clerics" rolls off the tongue very easily. There may be other combinations that also would have sounded as good, but that's the pair that they stuck with. I don't think there's any deeper reason than that
Importantly, the sword makes a Gold dragon, not a multicolor dragon. I'm wondering if there will be a subtheme of caring about non-magic colors in Unstable. It would play well with cards like Avatar of Me.
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I think Grimlock is also cubeable if you just errata out the part about transformer toys and jus tmake it a mana payment. Here's the other side:
Yeah, didn't even consider Dinosaur tribal when this was first announced and figured Optimus would be in and he would have a vehicle side and a creature side.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
It cracks me up that design sat down to make a flagship card for HOU and then they settled on "Nicol Bolas that's basically a copy of the last Nicol Bolas but worse even though the first one saw no play either of the times it was in Standard"
That's a really good point. Why is he so bad?
charlequin
Banned
You get a bonus effect if you roll a critical hit. I think someone in this thread called this mechanic after the name was announced, actually.
You think there'll be a double-sided sheet in Ixalan? It's clear at least that they're gonna do a big batch of rules and templating tweaks there (like with the Legendary Planeswalker thing) but I guess if this was true it would be something we wouldn't know about at all even after seeing the rare sheet.
I think what he meant was that Ixalan has Dinosaurs and vehicles, so the Grimlock design is relevant to black-border cards that will be released in the same time frame.
This. Naya are the dinosaur colors in Ixalan.
charlequin
Banned
Oh. Right, durr.
It is really weird that they changed the word, and it's especially ironic that they apparently changed it at exactly the right moment that the Transformers card can't actually say it "transforms."
Yeah, it's a really weird templating change.
They figured they had to make him 3 non-green colors and cost a million mana just like the last one. That's already a kiss of death no matter what abilities they gave him.
If they wanted him to see significant standard play, they'd have had to make his abilities good enough to basically win the game the turn he entered play.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
People still don't wanna believe me that bolas is worse than 6CMC Chandra. Oh my you can mind rotwitness the end on turn 7 instead of clocking them for 6 every turn.
of course I'm an idiot I read is as roll another d20 as if confirming a critical hit not to make another dragon and then roll another d20.
Speaking of I need a dozen of these
of course I'm an idiot I read is as roll another d20 as if confirming a critical hit not to make another dragon and then roll another d20.
Speaking of I need a dozen of these
shrapnelmagnet
Member
Nice. That's sweet.
charlequin
Banned
BTW, I love that the Dragon token's actual color is just "Gold," lol.
They don't? That seems like an easy call to me?
They don't? That seems like an easy call to me?
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I keep getting into arguments about it in the MTGS UR control thread.
charlequin
Banned
Rogues and clerics seem obvious to me since Fighter isn't an MTG class and Wizards is the name of the company.
blindrocket
Member
I'm not a fan of parody, or even this cross pollination of brands...
but
THOSE CARDS ARE AWESOME!
Definitely great art.
but
THOSE CARDS ARE AWESOME!
Definitely great art.
Remembrance
Member
Note that Nerf War has a literally red and blue border instead of a "gold" one.
I would speculate that they're turning "gold" frames into a separate color identity if it wasn't for the Ixalan cards we've already seen.
I don't know how you make a multicolored, non-green competitive pw at 7+ mana. Karn and Ugin see play due to the ease of fitting them in ramp decks/synergy with Urza lands. For an 8 mana Bolas to be good, he'd pretty much need to win the game on the spot or have some sort of earlier effect/cost reduction ability.
The first Bolas did see play in 5 color control, though that was more a block presence than a standard one, and the latest one has a few copies across energy decks, so they're not awful. They just don't measure up to the practical power of game ending control pws like Chandra Flamecaller or Elspeth Sun's Champion.
Edit: Missed Archon's post. That's pretty much exactly what I wanted to say said first.
The first Bolas did see play in 5 color control, though that was more a block presence than a standard one, and the latest one has a few copies across energy decks, so they're not awful. They just don't measure up to the practical power of game ending control pws like Chandra Flamecaller or Elspeth Sun's Champion.
Edit: Missed Archon's post. That's pretty much exactly what I wanted to say said first.
SigmasonicX
Member
If they removed one ability and gave Bolas cycling, I think he'd be more playable.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
I wondered why they didn't do this recently. They've been opening design space for PWs rapidly over the last couple years and cycling was cited as a bolas thematic ability.
But Bolas wouldn't cycle himself away, would he?
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
that would require cycling to have a flavour which to my knowledge it doesn't really. All we know is that it's thematically connected to Bolas' intellect.
Familienoberhauptvogel
Banned
Oh right I forgot that Amaz got a special invite, they didn't put him on camera once but apparently he made day 2.
He 0-3d limited but managed to get to 4-4 in Standard
charlequin
Banned
My first thought was that was supposed to evoke the NERF logo, but actually looking it up reveals that (my brain's angry assertions to the contrary notwithstanding) the logo is actually just red with no blue at all?
They're being weirdly hesitant about putting non-loyalty abilities (besides "X can be your commander" and Garruk's transformation ability) on planeswalkers, which I assume means they want to do it as a big splashy thing. I think the bigger issue is that doing that basically means using the four-ability frame and they probably feel like they haven't quite gotten all the juice they want out of that.
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