Rumors/Previews/mtg.com articles 2010 - 2013

[Odd mutation]

Modern is official, and my god, did they manage to screw it up.

Added to the banned list is:

Hypergensis --Ok, it needed to go.  The possibility of a turn 1 Emrakul is simply too good

Glimpse of Nature --Sure, they don't like combo, I can see why they don't like this, it's probably too good

Dread Return --I can understand this.  I don't dredge was really that good, but people don't like playing against it, so sure

Stoneforge Mystic --It enhanced every deck except Hypergeensis, which is now every deck.  I'm down with this ban

Valakut --I don't really know what they're doing here.  They said combo decks that win after turn 3 are fine, but they still kill Scapeshift.  Seems bad, but whatever

Bitterblossom --Doubt they needed to ban this.  Sure faeries is good, but banning everything that could resemble a combo deck seems to make zoo really good and it would easily keep faeries in check.  It's a bad ban.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor --I can see why they wanted to ban this, but I mean, once again lets see how good zoo is before we get too hasty

Mental Misstep --Is this real life?  They're actually banning mental misstep?  WTF

Ancestral Vision -- OH COME ON.  WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

That was my initial reaction as well, when I read your post:"A lot of the fun cards are taken out beforehand!" On the other hand, this way, Modern might not damage Legacy as much as some are expecting, since you still get to PLAY ALL DEEZ in Legacy and Vintage!

It feels strange to me that they're forcing us to try other stuff. That shouldn't be the objective of a banned list. But maybe, they're right and these cards/strategies are overpowered, I haven't tested the format yet. I just saw all the cards I thought of trying first appear on the list...

But there's still lots of stuff left and hopefully the new format is fun to play!

[Cruel Ultimatum]

wizards has shown to have a pretty strong stance that they prefer creatures to spells at the moment. This explains why a lot of the control cards were banned but creatures are still around to herp derp all over the red zone. That being said no creature with power less then 3 is relevant in this formant anyway.

[honestabe]

Bob is pretty relevant.  So is Doran.  And noble Hierarch.  And Goyf (sometimes)

[Troy_Costisick]

That's the dumbest banned list I've ever seen.  They let Ravager-Disciple stay, but take out Valakut and Ancestra Vision?  WTF?

[Tempus]

That's the dumbest banned list I've ever seen.  They let Ravager-Disciple stay, but take out Valakut and Ancestra Vision?  WTF?

They took out Artifact Lands, so that should slow Ravager down...

[Cruel Ultimatum]

by power less then 3 I mean toughness less then 3, because of punishing fire. In my opinion zoo will not dominate the pro tour, because of punishing fire, cryptic command, wog/day of judgment, and the fact that there are still combo decks like dragonstorm, pyromancer's ascension and heartbeat of springs. Control decks still have cryptic, gifts/mystical teachings, punishing fire, jace I, as well as the possibility of tron decks (depending on the play of tectonic edge)

[honestabe]

by power less then 3 I mean toughness less then 3, because of punishing fire. In my opinion zoo will not dominate the pro tour, because of punishing fire, cryptic command, wog/day of judgment, and the fact that there are still combo decks like dragonstorm, pyromancer's ascension and heartbeat of springs. Control decks still have cryptic, gifts/mystical teachings, punishing fire, jace I, as well as the possibility of tron decks (depending on the play of tectonic edge)

All of Zoo's guys have a butt of 3 or more already, the exception being Goblin Guide, but by the time he you can punishing fire him, he's already dealt you 4 damage, and you're wasting your whole turn just killing him.

Big Zoo with hierarchs will run blood moon to save themselves from punishing fire.


Anyone else think it's funny that vision gets banned because it's too much card advantage, but Grove/Punishing fire is allowed to stay?  Vision gets you 3 cards in 4 turns, while grove gets you at least 1 removal spell every turn.   It's like the june 2008 restrictions but in modern

[Norm4eva]

Honestly, the biggest blight on Modern since its inception was its Banned list.  Even the first one from the Community Cup doesn't really look very good - let's not ban Vial, but make sure that Counter-Top doesn't get a chance to make actually force people to run Vial.  Or let's ignore Hypergenesis until people actually remember the card is in Modern.  The artifact lands; I get it, Affinity was a beast, way back in "ought-something".  Really though, I think Zoo is the aggro deck of the format, Affinity would be lucky to pair off evenly against it, much less be dominant enough to warrant banning all of its artifact lands.  Chrome Mox doesn't need a ban; it's always card disadvantage and it's not like anyone's making up for it, where are the good draw spells in this format?  What are we scared of here, Counsel of the Soratami?  Sign in Blood?  Harmonize???

[honestabe]

They didn't like that Chrome Mox could create a turn 1 Dark Confidant or Bitterblossom.  Though I don't think a ban is necissary for Chrome Mox, I can at least understand why it's banned, which is more than I can say more a good chunk of cards on that list.

[Norm4eva]

They didn't like that Chrome Mox could create a turn 1 Dark Confidant or Bitterblossom.

In the same format where Zoo is basically the same deck in Modern as it is in Legacy, and people go "First turn sac an enemy fetch for a shockland, I'll go to 17", they were worried about a turn one featuring cards which make you lose more life?

[Chill79]

Anyone else think it's funny that vision gets banned because it's too much card advantage, but Grove/Punishing fire is allowed to stay?  Vision gets you 3 cards in 4 turns, while grove gets you at least 1 removal spell every turn.   It's like the june 2008 restrictions but in modern

Owling Mine seems good to try in this format...

[LotusHead]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/157
Maro's latest article gives us this much from Innistrad:

With that said, here are some things you'll find in Innistrad:

        * A card based on a silver-bordered white card
        * A token-making sorcery which makes more creature tokens than any previous token-making spell (not counting X spells or spells that make a variable number)
        * An enchantment that could let you play all your creatures for free
        * A spell that can deal 13 damage to multiple creatures for one mana (and yes, I mean 13 damage multiple times)
        * Many—and I'm talking more than a few—cards inspired by famous horror stories
        * A card that turns a loss into a win
        * A two-mana creature that lets you make a 2/2 creature each turn for two mana
        * A card that lets you exchange your life total with something you've never been able to exchange it with before

and...

        * A planeswalker with five loyalty abilities

I hope that whets your appetite. See you next week.

[Troy_Costisick]

Can you imagine trying to read the microtype with the 5 ability planesalker.  Magic players are going to go blind from this.

[Yare]

Can you imagine trying to read the microtype with the 5 ability planesalker.  Magic players are going to go blind from this.

[Joblin Velder]

i lol'd

[LotusHead]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/157a

Flip cards that have no regular magic back? Whahhhhhh?

:/

[GrandpaBelcher]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/157a

Flip cards that have no regular magic back? Whahhhhhh?

:/

The cards not having Magic backs seems kind of awkward at times, but the theme and art for Innistrad are amazing, so I'll give it a pass. I'm looking forward to this set!

[Joblin Velder]

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/157a

Flip cards that have no regular magic back? Whahhhhhh?

:/

The cards not having Magic backs seems kind of awkward at times, but the theme and art for Innistrad are amazing, so I'll give it a pass. I'm looking forward to this set!

Agreed!

[MaximumCDawg]

This "flip card" nonsense is a gimmick that screws terribly with a very fundamental mechanic without much payoff.  It's not a big deal for people who play in sleeves anyway (i.e. everyone on this board), but it comes with a dimestore novel's worth of new rules for Limited.  Certainly doesn't ruin the game, but it's such a pointless move.

The only advantage this mechanic has over other mechanics is that they can fit more text on each transformation.  I fail to see how this was worth it.  Why not just print it in the style of Planeswalkers or "Level-Up" cards, with discrete areas for each transformation?

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

non standard backing seems like the hugest bitch ever for drafting.

[reaperbong]

so it's come to the point now WOTC is ripping off the old CCG Rage? It's so blatant I doubt they even care whoever notices.

Lame.

Rage >> these wack Innistrad werewolves

[Ten-Ten]

non standard backing seems like the hugest bitch ever for drafting.

yeah, pretty sure they will come up with something to get around this....maybe no drafting and just booster battle thingie..i forget what its called, when each player uses three boosters for their decks. idk, something around those lines.

Im not likeing the feel of this set though, too twilight-ish imho.  wazup with the whole curses thing...eww.

[Lemnear]

I swear .... the moment anyone plays those shitty cards against me double-sleeved and starts to unsleeve-flip-resleeve ... god .... save ... their ... soul

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Hope the Judge is faster dq'ing them for stalling than me jumping over the table...

[DubDub]

It looks like there will be a new Garruk, named "Garruk Relentless", and he will be a transformer costing  .  That's likely to be the most playable transformer card for Eternal play, depending on his abilities.

[ELD]

Great concept.  This sets up for the epic transformation of a creature into a Planeswalker.  That's a very key part of the mythos of magic, which we might get to see happen in game!

[Yare]

Strongly dislike this mechanic. What a huge pain. What were they thinking?

[MaximumCDawg]

Great concept.  This sets up for the epic transformation of a creature into a Planeswalker.  That's a very key part of the mythos of magic, which we might get to see happen in game!

Whats wrong with a flip card or token or whatever?  I still don't see how this idea does anything that couldn't be done otherwise.  Alot of hassle for very little payoff.

[DubDub]

Great concept.  This sets up for the epic transformation of a creature into a Planeswalker.  That's a very key part of the mythos of magic, which we might get to see happen in game!

That would be marginally cooler than the transformers that have been spoiled so far, but for the record I'm guessing that the new Garruk is a Planeswalker in both forms.  MaRo recently hinted that a Planeswalker in Innistrad would have five abilities, so I'm guessing it's like:

FORM1
+a: do stuff
+b: transform
-c: do epic stuff

FORM2
+d: do dark stuff
+b: transform back
-e: do epic dark stuff

Which would be five 'unique' abilities.

[Meddling Mike]

I'm not really happy about how this might affect drafting, I've enjoyed not sleeving my draft decks and this new mechanic seems to take that option away from me, I see that they have these checklist cards, but they seem incredibly unhelpful and lame, basically a glorified proxy. I also don't like that this pretty much forces people to buy only fully opaque sleeves.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

They have a stand in card for playing instead of the transform card. It's a card with the other cards names on it and a check box next to each one and a p/t slot... Seems dumb. What gets me is that you can look around and tell who opened and picked a transform card.