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This set sure has a bunch of random ass creature types. Kirin, Efreets, Djinn, Naga, Hounds and a Lammasu. The set doesn't look that exciting but I don't play standard anyways.
My favourite card out of the set is probably + Show Spoiler + I like me some Kiln Fiend but unfortunately it doesn't look like there will be the cheap counters and burn to back up any sort of prowess strategy which is unfortunate. Nice art though. The art direction in this set seems pretty decent overall, much better than Theros imo, some of my favourite pieces at a glance.
This guy seems like a huge limited bomb at uncommon + Show Spoiler +, the format seems likely to be quite slow due to the colour intensity of a lot of the creatures. And if m14 taught me anything its that water servant is the bomb.
+ Show Spoiler [Art] +
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I'm really enjoying the art of this set too. It's a pretty nice style.
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Is it just me or is this a draft set where you grab 1-3 multicolor bombs then force that color pattern?
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Something about the art and flavor reminds me of pre-5th edition. Not sure if it's just the efreets and other random monsters (Arabian Nights etc.)
Is this the third falconer printed too?
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United States5080 Posts
So since I'm kind of new to magic I don't really understand something, are the lands that enter play tapped worth including in my deck or do I ignore those and play basic lands/fetch lands instead? (currently trying to figure out a deck that I can build around Jace Architect of Thought from the RTR block, some sort of Ux control deal I think)
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Straight outta Johto18973 Posts
On September 14 2014 06:04 las91 wrote:
So since I'm kind of new to magic I don't really understand something, are the lands that enter play tapped worth including in my deck or do I ignore those and play basic lands/fetch lands instead?
Lands that enter play tapped can still be very good if they have an upside you really want and that upside is worth the cost of entering the battlefield tapped. Alternatively you might be able to mitigate the cost of entering the battlefield tapped.
- If you're playing a multi-colour deck for example, the Alara tri-lands for example provides 3 colours so it's really flexible and makes sure you can hit all the colours you need in a multi colour deck. This is really important if you HAVE to hit certain colours on specific turns (e.g. RR on turn 3 for Volcanic Fallout into UUU on turn 4 Cryptic Command is impossible to do with only basic lands)
- I'm going to repeat this again because it's so important but hitting the right colours on time is really important in multi-colour decks.
- A land may have an option to come into play tapped and you choose to do so. The Ravnica shocklands are great for hitting things on time, but sometimes you may not want to take the 2 life hit so you let it enter the battlefield tapped. An example in Modern is cracking a Fetchland at the end of your opponent's turn to fetch a shockland and letting it come into play tapped if you're not going to play anything.
- The Mirrodin fast lands are useful for a lot of decks because they care most about their early drops and needs to hit the right colours on their first few turns. The tapped downside here is not so important because the upside of getting your turn 1 and 2 plays off correctly is worth so much more to you. (e.g. in a GW weenie deck where most of your cards are one or two drops)
- You might be able to mitigate the downside. The pair lands from Innistrad and the Core Sets let you fix your mana cheaply. If you have, say, an Island but really need to hit Red next turn then drawing Sulphur Falls OR a Mountain solves your problem. Alternatively, if you have a Mountain but need to hit Blue then Sulphur Falls solves your problems again. So it's like a Fetchland in a way but can't be used on Turn 1.
- They're lands with a special effect. These kinds of cards are really powerful because you're turning your lands into uncounterable spells (can't counter lands!). Manlands for example can becomes creatures and hit your opponent and can only be killed with instant speed removal. That means they dodge Sweepers like Wrath of God. An aggro deck loves this because even if their board gets wiped you can still use your lands as threats to finish off the game. Alternatively a control deck loves them because they can safely get their creature threat into play without needing to spend mana, so they can keep their mana open to play more removal/counterspells/etc.
- Alternatively the special effect may be a special effect so you never really use it as an actual land for mana. Examples include Valakut (combo kills) in a deck with Scapeshift, or using Knight of the Reliquary's ability to fetch spell-lands. Fetching Bojuka Bog for example lets you stop Graveyard Combos at instant speed while Sejiri Steppe lets you set up combat tricks. These kinds of lands you often tutor with other cards rather than playing them from your hand so the tapped part of the card doesn't matter to you.
There's a lot more examples of when you might want to use lands that enter play tapped but hopefully this gives you a good understanding now about how to evaluate lands!
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United States5080 Posts
On September 14 2014 06:35 MoonBear wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2014 06:04 las91 wrote:
So since I'm kind of new to magic I don't really understand something, are the lands that enter play tapped worth including in my deck or do I ignore those and play basic lands/fetch lands instead? Lands that enter play tapped can still be very good if they have an upside you really want and that upside is worth the cost of entering the battlefield tapped. Alternatively you might be able to mitigate the cost of entering the battlefield tapped. - If you're playing a multi-colour deck for example, the Alara tri-lands for example provides 3 colours so it's really flexible and makes sure you can hit all the colours you need in a multi colour deck. This is really important if you HAVE to hit certain colours on specific turns (e.g. RR on turn 3 for Volcanic Fallout into UUU on turn 4 Cryptic Command is impossible to do with only basic lands)
- I'm going to repeat this again because it's so important but hitting the right colours on time is really important in multi-colour decks.
- A land may have an option to come into play tapped and you choose to do so. The Ravnica shocklands are great for hitting things on time, but sometimes you may not want to take the 2 life hit so you let it enter the battlefield tapped. An example in Modern is cracking a Fetchland at the end of your opponent's turn to fetch a shockland and letting it come into play tapped if you're not going to play anything.
- The Mirrodin fast lands are useful for a lot of decks because they care most about their early drops and needs to hit the right colours on their first few turns. The tapped downside here is not so important because the upside of getting your turn 1 and 2 plays off correctly is worth so much more to you. (e.g. in a GW weenie deck where most of your cards are one or two drops)
- You might be able to mitigate the downside. The pair lands from Innistrad and the Core Sets let you fix your mana cheaply. If you have, say, an Island but really need to hit Red next turn then drawing Sulphur Falls OR a Mountain solves your problem. Alternatively, if you have a Mountain but need to hit Blue then Sulphur Falls solves your problems again. So it's like a Fetchland in a way but can't be used on Turn 1.
- They're lands with a special effect. These kinds of cards are really powerful because you're turning your lands into uncounterable spells (can't counter lands!). Manlands for example can becomes creatures and hit your opponent and can only be killed with instant speed removal. That means they dodge Sweepers like Wrath of God. An aggro deck loves this because even if their board gets wiped you can still use your lands as threats to finish off the game. Alternatively a control deck loves them because they can safely get their creature threat into play without needing to spend mana, so they can keep their mana open to play more removal/counterspells/etc.
- Alternatively the special effect may be a special effect so you never really use it as an actual land for mana. Examples include Valakut (combo kills) in a deck with Scapeshift, or using Knight of the Reliquary's ability to fetch spell-lands. Fetching Bojuka Bog for example lets you stop Graveyard Combos at instant speed while Sejiri Steppe lets you set up combat tricks. These kinds of lands you often tutor with other cards rather than playing them from your hand so the tapped part of the card doesn't matter to you.
There's a lot more examples of when you might want to use lands that enter play tapped but hopefully this gives you a good understanding now about how to evaluate lands!
Ok thanks Moonbear, I'm basically just playing with cards I get out of packs so I'm trying to work on making a somewhat cohesive deck with what I have... i.e. no 4x mythic rares in this collection, and the non-basic lands I have mostly are the pair lands from the core sets.
Your explanation was really helpful, hopefully I can get some sort of deck together before next Friday!
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I think the main thing when looking at lands that come into play tapped is your curve. If you have holes in your curve where you can afford a land entering tapped then they are great. For example if you have no 1 drops then playing a turn 1 tapped land is great. Or if you have a lot of two drops and no 3 drops you can play 1 on turn 3 and then just play another two drop.
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United States24780 Posts
I just played in a cube/draft for the first time. It was with people from work and pretty informal. I went 2-0 2-0 2-0 which was a nice and uunusual feeling. I knew roughly half of the cards going in. I went green creatures and splashed a few red cards (3dual lands) and it worked out very well. I lucked out with almost zero mana difficulties.
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Khans limited looks hilariously fun if the Community Cup is any kind of reasonable measure. Can't wait for the prerelease.
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THS/M15/KTK standard is hilarious
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On September 15 2014 15:31 MCMcEmcee wrote:
THS/M15/KTK standard is hilarious
The standard after rotation is going to be a lot of fun without sphinx's revelation. The power level of the new set is absolutely insane though. The midrange junk deck seems to have a ton of potential as do a ton of ultrafast aggro decks with a splash of delve enabled by heavy fetch lands. I expect the power level of this set to be much more closely tied with Innistrad/RtR than the last standard format... which had one of the lowest power levels in a long time.
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On September 15 2014 15:52 GoSuNamhciR wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 15:31 MCMcEmcee wrote:
THS/M15/KTK standard is hilarious The standard after rotation is going to be a lot of fun without sphinx's revelation. The power level of the new set is absolutely insane though. The midrange junk deck seems to have a ton of potential as do a ton of ultrafast aggro decks with a splash of delve enabled by heavy fetch lands. I expect the power level of this set to be much more closely tied with Innistrad/RtR than the last standard format... which had one of the lowest power levels in a long time.
Eh don't confuse "boring and stale" with low power level. The power level of this Standard format was pretty insane, even if all the decks were pretty linear.
Everybody has wildly divergent ideas on what's actually good in upcoming Standard so far, which is interesting to say the least. Our testing has not been kind to level 0 midrange strategies.
Very curious what direction people are going in for the slower control decks. All the "unconditional" answers cost 3+, all the conditional cheap answers are virtually useless against a large set of threats, the card advantage is scarce and expensive/slow. Even Wafo-Tapa played non-blue midrange at the block PT.
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I'm just dreading Blood Moon coming back into standard. With all these temples, fetches, pain lands, and dual/tri-lands, I'm sure Wizards has it set to being reprinted within the next year or maybe when the new standard format hits.T_T Can't wait for fetches though, maybe I'll get into Legacy!
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I am not confusing power level with linearity and the staleness of standard.. The power level really was low and so was the interaction level of this past year of standard. I am just happy for legacy, and especially modern as the entry point has dropped considerably for both formats with the allied fetch reprinting.
Also modern metagame should shift slowly as the new fetches get utilized, affinity will get slightly weaker as a lot of decks will take 2-4 less damage per game with better manabases. We will likely see a lot less shocklands in modern decks as fetching basics becomes better. Blood moon will likely take a small hit as well in modern.
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Heading into the pre-release, do we have a favorite/favorable faction to seed?
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Czech Republic18921 Posts
On September 15 2014 16:48 sickthink wrote:
I'm just dreading Blood Moon coming back into standard. With all these temples, fetches, pain lands, and dual/tri-lands, I'm sure Wizards has it set to being reprinted within the next year or maybe when the new standard format hits.T_T Can't wait for fetches though, maybe I'll get into Legacy!
Well, fetches are one of the few nonbasics that don't get that fucked over by Blood Moon. If you fetch before the Blood Moon hits the table you can just get your basic and have it function. Blood Moon overall gets weaker in Modern with the inclusion of Onslaught fetches.
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On September 15 2014 16:30 MCMcEmcee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 15:52 GoSuNamhciR wrote:On September 15 2014 15:31 MCMcEmcee wrote:
THS/M15/KTK standard is hilarious The standard after rotation is going to be a lot of fun without sphinx's revelation. The power level of the new set is absolutely insane though. The midrange junk deck seems to have a ton of potential as do a ton of ultrafast aggro decks with a splash of delve enabled by heavy fetch lands. I expect the power level of this set to be much more closely tied with Innistrad/RtR than the last standard format... which had one of the lowest power levels in a long time. Eh don't confuse "boring and stale" with low power level. The power level of this Standard format was pretty insane, even if all the decks were pretty linear. Everybody has wildly divergent ideas on what's actually good in upcoming Standard so far, which is interesting to say the least. Our testing has not been kind to level 0 midrange strategies. Very curious what direction people are going in for the slower control decks. All the "unconditional" answers cost 3+, all the conditional cheap answers are virtually useless against a large set of threats, the card advantage is scarce and expensive/slow. Even Wafo-Tapa played non-blue midrange at the block PT.
Control is going to be interesting to figure out. I am brewing currently with only ideas, but the only stipulation I see thus far is the need for Green in the shell because they arguably have the best control tools especially when paired with Blue. The question is the third color; is B/R/W the third color? No idea, but I feel the Courser engine is too damn good right now to pass up.
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Do you really need a third colour?
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Short answer is "yes, probably."
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EPT![[image loading]](http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/ktk/8arg43u984398yf/en_qwoz1b8jbm.png)
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