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On April 11 2013 01:28 Louuster wrote: Same here cant say I expected a 7 drop with that picture..
Wow, this comment was so observant. It's literally disquieting to look at the mana cost then to look at the picture, right? I felt the exact same way.
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I think orzhov and selesnya will be the strongest guilds for sealed in general. Just so long as selesnya's secret guild is not boros, by the way.
most likey: orzhov + azorious (sick)
selesnya + simic (sick)
Maybe you wont need to 3 color in a deck, and maybe playing like 10 gates could be detrimental in the event.
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Just proof that Wizards overreact on control cards. I was thinking Heartless Summoning and realized how pointless it was.
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Seems like they could have cut vigilance and protection from creatures and made it a 2/2 for 2WB. Would match the CMC of no mercy which is sorta cool aesthetically, though maybe balancing cards based on Urza's block isn't the best idea, lol.
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Is anyone else sorta annoyed that Wizards decided to just mash the set symbols for RtR and GC for Dragon's Maze? 
Of the Gatekeepers, the Ubul Sar (black ones) look like the least potent of the bunch, but maybe that's just me. Will it add to Esper decks' removal, maybe?
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Lol nah, none of those gatekeepers will see play outside limited/sealed.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On April 10 2013 11:55 MCMcEmcee wrote: doesn't hit gladecover scout, curiosity/spiritdancer, or coronet so I dunno how great it is against anything but the actual bogles. Also Spell Snare is a card in Modern (and Dispel will be around in most Geist decks in Standard). True. But it's better than Lightning Bolt or PtE against most of them and flexible enough that it's not a terrible sideboard card. With Boggles, they generally dont have a lot of threats so just getting rid of their suit-ed up one drop is nice enough. Not something you'd need a playset for or maindeck, but something nice to keep in mind when building a sideboard. Don't play Standard so Spell Snare probably biggest worry.
Lavinia of the Tenth seems like maybe a nice curve topper in some UW aggro build. Like -1'ing Venser with extra Restoration Angel shenanigans. Still rather pricey hm.
Teysa makes me sad and disappointed. Out of all the Champions I wanted her to be constructed playable the most. Oh well...
On April 11 2013 04:24 cLAN.Anax wrote:Is anyone else sorta annoyed that Wizards decided to just mash the set symbols for RtR and GC for Dragon's Maze?  Of the Gatekeepers, the Ubul Sar (black ones) look like the least potent of the bunch, but maybe that's just me. Will it add to Esper decks' removal, maybe? RTR symbol is a lock, GTC symbol is the key.
Also, I can't see the Gates being constructed playable as mana fixing, let alone anything that requires you to have a minimum number of gates. 4 mana removal that doesn't wipe stuff is also a lot to ask for.
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Damn dude. Golgari champion is cheap and is broken with death's shadow/dreadnought cards.
Edit: And a new baby bob! He could possibly find a place in some deck.
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Interesting split cards. Plenty of targets for abuse with everyones favorite mechanic, Cascade.
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Rakdos guildgate was played in BR aggro when it was the best deck so clearly the gates are playable.
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Celestial Collonade is basically a Gate with an additional effect that doesn't really matter until somewhere around turn 6-10, and yet it is a 4 of in many modern control decks. So far I haven't seen a Gate based effect that comes anywhere close to Celestial Collonade, but I wouldn't rule out the viability of gates in constructed.
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On April 12 2013 00:53 spinesheath wrote: Celestial Collonade is basically a Gate with an additional effect that doesn't really matter until somewhere around turn 6-10, and yet it is a 4 of in many modern control decks. So far I haven't seen a Gate based effect that comes anywhere close to Celestial Collonade, but I wouldn't rule out the viability of gates in constructed.
This comparison is full of fallacies. Man lands represent a threat and interact with the opponent while being a land. None of the guildgates have that aspect by itself. This duality in roles is worth (or rather necessary to have) the comes into play tapped restriction. On top of all that, you fulfill 2 roles in a single card which "tightens" your deck construction.
This is why Brian Kiebler was able to go 6-0 in the standard portion of the 2nd to last World Championship piloting a UW control deck with "only" 4 Squadron Hawks as creatures.
This is why playing Spreading Seas on a manland was such a big deal and why the same line of play for a guildgate means next to zilch even if you are cutting them out of a color.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On April 12 2013 00:53 spinesheath wrote: Celestial Collonade is basically a Gate with an additional effect that doesn't really matter until somewhere around turn 6-10, and yet it is a 4 of in many modern control decks. So far I haven't seen a Gate based effect that comes anywhere close to Celestial Collonade, but I wouldn't rule out the viability of gates in constructed. Celestial Colonnade acts as a non-interactive way of establishing a threat and provides inevitability in grindy matchups. It's insanely powerful. By being a manland, it also dodges all sorcery based removal.
For Colonnade in particular, having Vigilance means it can also be used to attack and still provide mana on your own turn to Path/Cryptic something. It's pretty amazing and a lot of matchups revolve around Tec-Edging or Spreading Seas the Colonnade.
Gates themselves are bad because they don't do anything apart from entering the battlefield tapped all the time and providing no additional benefits. Colonnade has such a huge upside that you don't mind it coming into play tapped. The same goes for all the other Zendikar manlands such as Creeping Tar Pit, Raging Ravine or Stirring Wildwood.
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Don't forget, you don't need to play 20+ manlands to get value out of them. With the "control X gates" mechanic you have to play wayyyyyy too many gates. Like, WAAAAYYYY too many. Collonade is a nice 4-of that allows you to play mostly untapped lands and still get the benefit of a sweet win-con.
PS I love the design of the new split cards. how you can cast both sides and how they kinda augment each other. Although the old "dichotomy" cards with names like "Rack//Ruin" were also awesome because of the names
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Whoa, geez, I didn't expect such an enthusiastic reaction about that. I mean, I DID say that currently Gates don't come anywhere close to the power level of Collonade, didn't I? But at the same time I think Wizards was trying to increase the power of Gates in GC over RTR, and they might try to increase it some more in Dragon's Maze since they obviously still aren't great. Whether they will succeed in that (what I saw so far isn't worth mentioning) is another story.
I was just trying to show that having some ETB tapped lands doesn't make you lose the game, and with a good enough upside even Gates could be worth playing.
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And that's why we stated that you can't just overlook the effect and draw the conclusion that you did, they are not viable, some were played because of no other alternatives, not because they were viable.
They do lose you the game, timewalking yourself for a turn because the land comes into play tapped loses games regardless of what you are playing.
Edit:
Also, providing support means win-the-game-on-spot with the ultimate do-nothing concepts.
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On April 12 2013 01:48 spinesheath wrote: Whoa, geez, I didn't expect such an enthusiastic reaction about that. I mean, I DID say that currently Gates don't come anywhere close to the power level of Collonade, didn't I? But at the same time I think Wizards was trying to increase the power of Gates in GC over RTR, and they might try to increase it some more in Maze's End since they obviously still aren't great. Whether they will succeed in that (what I saw so far isn't worth mentioning) is another story.
I was just trying to show that having some ETB tapped lands doesn't make you lose the game, and with a good enough upside even Gates could be worth playing. It's still very much a limited thing. You'd need the Gates to be able to do something incredibly powerful for them to be constructed playable, especially since the cards that tutor for them are not very good in and of themselves. Powerful decks play powerful cards, and the Gates themselves are not powerful cards. Instead of playing a cards that do nice things with drawbacks and trying to mitigate them, it's just way better to play cards that can do the same but with no drawbacks.
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If you play a card to enable something and the deck as a whole turns out to be fine, then the card is viable. In the end all that matters is the win rate (and variance) of a deck, not how good the individual cards are.
That much we can agree on, right? (If not, then this argument is pointless as we would have different definitions of viable)
So, I never said Gates were viable. I just said I wouldn't be so quick to call them unviable. We haven't seen the whole Dragon's Maze set yet. There might be good decks that need Gates to enable them, just like the BR deck needed them. Because of certain mechanics or because of a lack of better options, doesn't matter as long as the deck is good.
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On April 12 2013 04:09 spinesheath wrote: If you play a card to enable something and the deck as a whole turns out to be fine, then the card is viable. In the end all that matters is the win rate (and variance) of a deck, not how good the individual cards are.
That much we can agree on, right? (If not, then this argument is pointless as we would have different definitions of viable)
So, I never said Gates were viable. I just said I wouldn't be so quick to call them unviable. We haven't seen the whole Dragon's Maze set yet. There might be good decks that need Gates to enable them, just like the BR deck needed them. Because of certain mechanics or because of a lack of better options, doesn't matter as long as the deck is good.
The problem is that the thing that you're doing with all the gates needs to be powerful enough to both win you the game consistently AND make up for the fact that you'll be 1 land behind nearly every turn. There's really nothing that can do that IMO.
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Hmmmm
So far as I can tell, none of the "guildgates matter" cards would be good if they automatically got whatever guildgate effect they get (except maybe maze's end). So, it stands to reason that playing bad cards to power up bad cards into slightly less bad cards doesn't make a ton of sense.
PS: the cards need to be good if they never had the "guildgates matter" effect, plus the "guildgates matter" effect needs to be seriously useful, to the point where the cards would be legitimately unprintable without needing guildgates. THEN the guildgates themselves might see play.
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