Apparently, I should be there...

My only hope is that Eldrazi cards are not a completely out of the box concept.  As fun as the command zone is, I'm going to get particularly annoyed if Wizards implements type after type of sub permanent and new fields of play that they come from.  Eldrazi as a creature-less type is fine, triggered creatures from the command zone is annoying though.

I agree mostly with the sentiment above.  In general, I think the value of any card in a given format is an undefined equation of cost versus effect.  In vintage more than any other format, we have access to grossly undercosted effects which, when merged together form an elaborate painting of an overall picture.  Historically, vintage has highlighted so called "mistakes" of R&D in which a spell is simply too strong period on top of an low mana cost.  These spells never see reprint and are seldom remade without an additional to added on to the casting cost.  Examples of these are Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will (sort of), etc...

I do disagree on the "Inferiority" example of Hurkyl's Recall vs. Rebuild.  Both cards have a small unique angle on a same general ability and each has it's one spot in various (or the same decks).  To say that one is better than the other is (I believe), variable to the situation in which you draw them in.

Truly amazing.  I wonder, could this thread surpass the lifespan of Magic itself?

I would hazard a guess that it is due to the fact that a given hand with your deck is less unique in a given Legacy deck.  That being said, you always seem to remember the most "sick" or unique hands in vintage most vividly.

I was swaying heavily against each player returns a nonland permanent but I'm thinking perhaps I will come up with a new + ability and make the minus ability return a permanent to it's owner's hand, that way it is far less possible to use this ability continuously.

The Blue Walker

Planeswalker - Blue Guy

+1: ?
-1: Each player returns a permanent they control to it's owner's hand.
-X: Draw X cards.



For the +1 ability nowI am considering: Discard a land, draw 2 cards.

Apparently, when you loop Mindslaver a bunch people get upset, go figure.

In any situation where you were worried of being locked out of land, would this fix that?

I thought that the casting cost of 4 would make the land lock a bit too difficult.  Does anyone have additional suggestions on how to rectify this?

That is something that has been weighing on my mind.  That is why I moved away from cute life gain to Life Linkers and a few outstanding cards...  The life gain is not so much to "stay alive" as it were as to Sanguine Bond  my opponents or "get there" with Felidar.

It's exactly a Concentrate if you use it, albeit it has  more utility than Concentrate.

The second ability could easily be -2: Return target nonland permanent to it's owner's hand.

As for 4 mana to draw 5 cards, that assumes that you use the first ability, and then this guy does not take any damage.  At that point this guy would only be a win-more in such a situation IMO.

As it is, I'll change him in the following ways: First and second ability are +1/-1 respectively, Loyality dropped to 2.  Second ability only hits nonland permanents.

I have been wanting to make a bit more casual of a deck for EDH that does not run blue so I can play in any EDH group.  That being said the General I have decided on is Orzhov Ghost Council...  I have some cards I know I want to run but I'm a bit concerned because I know I'm likely missing some key things that I should run.

Here is what I know thus far:

Creatures:
Baneslayer Angel
Exalted Angel
Divinity of Pride
Gerrard Capashan
Felidar Sovereign
Deathbringer Liege
Angel of Despair
Archon of Justice
World Queller
Braids, Cabal Minion
Solemn Simulacrum
Eternal Dragon
Academy Rector
Puppeteer Clique
Luminarch Ascension

Kill:
Sanquine Bond
Beacon of Immortality
Test of Endurance
Eternity Vessel

Control:
Identity Crisis
Vindicate
Path to Exile
Swords to Plowshares
Mortify
Wrath of God
Damnation
Hallowed Burial
Terashi's Grasp
Martial Coup
Karmic Justice

Random Good:
Debtor's Knell
Necropotence
Phyrexian Arena
Sword of Light and Shadow
Umezawa's Jitte
Sensei's Divining Top
Mind's Eye
Well of Lost Dreams
Congregate
Elspeth Knight Errant

Tutors:
Enlightented Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Idyllic Tutor


Acceleration/Fixing:
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Coalition Relic
Darksteel Ingot
Land Tax

Lands: (Beyond the Snow-covered Lands)
Scrying Sheets
Wasteland
Strip Mine
Marsh Flats
Godless Shrine
Scrubland
Flagstones of Trokair
Kor Haven


I would love additional help constructing this deck, taking out cards I may be overvaluing as well as getting suggestions on cards I am undervaluing.

With all this talk of Jace I thought I had some pretty neat ideas for a fairly balanced yet strong Planeswalker in the color blue...

The Blue Walker

Planeswalker - Blue Guy

+1: ?
-1: Each player returns a permanent they control to it's owner's hand.
-X: Draw X cards.

3

I feel this is fairly costed and very competitive at the same time...  The ultimate is realistic as opposed to most when it comes to tournament play and it isn't just library manipulation constantly.

I would make the card "As this comes into play so there is no option to Stifle it.

This needs to be a dwarf.

Saying yes would be the understatement of the year.

Wasteland is pretty much in 1/3+ of all decks played right now and manabases in Legacy are notoriously weak.  Decks that are running wastelands will also be running (or likely to run) Stifle affects to create an even harder position to play out of.

This hypothetical situation has never completely occurred, I have seen several hands only to choose myself but I've never had the audacity to actually right down all their cards.  There is also a difference between psyching an opponent and performing a "dick move".

Assumed plays seems like a huge part of the psychological game.  A good example is Vendillion Clique.  There have been several times when I really need to get rid of a junk card and have considered Cliquing myself (whether this is the right play or not is beyond this conversation).  What is interesting is you can play Clique and more often than not my opponent will reveal their hand (keep in mind I have no designated a target on the stack nor has my opponent even specified the Clique's resolution.  I could then respond with something along the lines of "Do you mind if I write down your hand?" followed by "Alright does Clique resolve? I'm going to target myself!"  

Nothing illegal has necessarily occurred here but the assumptions your opponents make about plays can sometimes be excellent ways to capitalize on the psychological game.  There is nothing that says your opponent can't reveal their hand and you can't notate what you see.  There is not any point where I misinterpreted the game state, I simply was very careful about my choice in words...  A very strong weapon in the MTG players arsenal.

I think there is a point when taking an old card in it's exactness and giving it legs is pretty much lame.  Sure some of those cards are good, but overall very uninteresting and just downright disappointing to think about.  Secondly, why do you assume that the only use for my card is as a Tezz hate card? 

I want this to be a cheap efficient card that is playable, it dies to creature removal... great!  I think creatures should die to creature removal.  It dies to current creature removal run by decks you want to hate, GOOD!  It is perfectly fine that it does not open any new doors for any decks, it does however cause a more difficult situation should you say have this and a Null Rod out and your opponent has to win this turn.  Does he have the answers he needs?  Making the cards diverse in type, not diverse from what is out there now as far as weaknesses is what counts; it is more difficult for an opponent to find answers for both hate cards as opposed to one, that is the benefit of such a card.

Normally I do not bother posting here, nor do I think trademarks are usually news worthy, but for a format as vintage, no set names have ever sounded more relevant.  According to Guinea Pig on MTGsalvation.com, the following names have been trademarked by Wizards of the Coast: (I will say in advance that the first thing that came to mind were planechase cards but these really don't sound like planes or parts of them)

Mirrodin Pure
Scars of Mirrodin
New Phyrexia

Discuss.

My current consideration is:

-1 Cemetery Reaper
-1 Plow Under
-1 Wood Elves

+1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+1 Phyrexian Arena

I think I can afford to lose Wood Elves as an accelerant if it meant I picked up a tutor which could at worse case grab me the land I needed to ensure I was not missing land drops.  Plow Under like I said was "just alright" but I'm fairly certain tutoring or drawing into a strictly better answer would be just better.  We'll see if and when these changes come to pass.

I have intentionally chosen not to include Painter's Servant with my Iona combo,  it is an instant lock but I really don't care that much to do it.  Often my Tooth and Nail wins the game anyways with Angel of Despair/Sundering Titan/Woodfall Primus or a variety of other neat stuff.  I guess I really don't feel compelled to put in the hard lock cause it seems pretty cheese and I fairly consistently control the board as is.  I'm aware that isn't a very compelling argument but I will say Painter's Servant occurred to me and I have no urge to run it.

I'm also not sweating graveyards too much, I have plenty of affects that capitalize on other peoples graveyard and a graveyard removal card if I really need it (Identity Crisis) so I don't feel I need to replace Reaper with Wretch necessarily as much as just anything better.

The tutors, as I've stated feel like they would push me over the top to critical mass or at least make me a target.  A lot of people play with the tutors in my area and generally either are forced to 'win' on the spot or die trying.  I'm still quite tempted to run them but have to mull over it a little bit longer.

Phyrexian Arena is a strong card that I am considering, as I've said, I just need to get a nice black bordered one when I get a chance.

Myojin, now there is a  card that really didn't occur to me too much.  The question at this point is what I would want to remove for it, Divinity seems possible because it's a pretty vanilla 8/8, Fetters also seems possible...  I will say that Luminarch Ascension is much to strong to get cut, Similarly I think Chord of Calling, although expensive can be particularly amazing; giving you the answer on someones end step.  Plow Under is just alright but has definitely come through for me a few times.

STE has been awesome and it is only on the borderline of getting removed.  It just doesn't feel as powerful as an affect as I identify with EDH.  Double star is identical to start except it has to be replaced by a similar affect, it means nothing else than that.

I do not run disk because it takes a turn, and that is the only reason.  There is a lot of removal,  whether it is just in my meta or in all metas, but either way, disk gets blown up quite often.  I would rather just not expose myself to that weakness since I'm rather content with my board control.  On top of this simple point, I like being able to control when I blow up enchantments so I can keep a hold of things like Debtor's Knell or Survival through a board reset.

When I last posted in these forums I was but a naive newbie to EDH.  Unable to really find a general or a deck that was to my liking,  I first tried to be cute with a deck focusing on producing a large amount of tokens; which were then used to do explosive sacrifice affects.  This strategy quickly fell through as I learned what other decks in my area looked and played like.  I was unable to ever develop a sufficient amount of tokens to do anything "fun" without developing a high amount of my opponent's attention.

Frustrated by my first failing deck, I immediately took out 70% of the cards I had originally picked up, proxied out a newly brainstormed deck and jumped into the fray.  Several incarnations later, my new favorite deck has been butting heads with the best of them.  Although it does not always win, my deck is usually a prime contender and contains a large amount of subtlety along with the finishing power and early game control to be a strong contender in my local metagame.

I present for your consideration:  Teneb, the Harvester


The deck is quite simple:  I utilize a slew of control cards (from spot removal to board clear) along with a chunk of mana-ramping to keep myself safe and in contention.  Once I am in a position where I have the mana to play the big guns, I can create several strong situations, from control locks via crucible, or Survival of the Fittest recursive tricks (with Knell, Reya, or Teneb), or simply capitalize on weakened opponents a variety of two-for-one affects.

This deck plays very much to my style and is tuned to be of the same approximate power level as other decks in my meta.  if I find myself underpowered, I can add in cards such as Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor down the road to give me an equal footing to the other top decks.  However, for now, my deck is on the level and I choose to only run so many tutors for this reason.

Cards starred (*) are marked as such because they are waiting to be cut, for more powerful cards I either haven't picked up yet or because I haven't found a replacement yet.

Cards double starred (**) are marked to be removed if I can find a more efficient affect of the same genre (spot removal for spot removal, accel for accel, etc).


Cards I'm Intending on Fitting In:
Sorin Markov
Regrowth
Phyrexian Arena
Knight of the Reliquary

I don't think you'll be losing any life from Arena or Necro very much with Ascension in play on your opponent's turns.

What would cause me to be banned from this now?

Closing Link: ***-**-**-**.col.wideopenwest.com (*** Banned )

Is this an issue with my provider or a mishap with my IP?

Edit: rebooting my computer fixes it, bizarro!

This card in general wants to be able to hit all artifacts that it can, so I would rather not make a non-mana producing clause in it.

@thorme: I'm sorry to be arguementative  I just don't think that the tap clause does what I want the card to do nor is particularly fair.

Lastly, the other bodes I had for this card included a 2/1 for but I think I'm much happier not being forced to play BOTH those colors.  Would it be fair to make this guy a 2/1 in his current state?  Anusien thinks so, I'd like a general consensus before altering it.

Note:  In my brainstorming I actually considered making him this:
R/G R/G
Creature - Ape Shaman On Crack
Whenever a player activates or triggers an artifact's ability, that player sacrifices that artifact.
2/2

Wish I could have come to the vintage half but exam studying prioritizes... I'll do the next one me thinks.

Your version is ridiculously more powerful as an anti aggro shop device and makes Tangle Wire ridiculous...  Furthermore my ability does not limit non-tapping artifacts to only using their ability once...

Activate Karn to make my Smokestack a creature.
Monkey-sac goes on the stack.
In response, activate Karn to make Sphere of Resistance a creature.
Monkey-sac goes on the stack.
Etc..
Etc....

I have yet to see a compelling reason why my version is overpowered.  As a 1/1 it dies to every bit of creature removal, meaning Darkblast is going to eat this guy up, it's harder to remove a null rod than a 1/1.  This also has massive color restrictions in vintage where this creature is neither black nor blue (making him only good in a creature deck, where count sideboarding in the form of creature hate is already a should-be).


Edit: I'm just waiting for a comment about monkey-sac.