Zombie piggy is eatin' your sigs om nom nom (>*o*)> MTG CardShow
Front: PigKnight, One Line Poster (3W) Legendary Creature - Boar Knight Vigilance When this creature dies, return him to play and transform him. (2/3) >(5/3)<
Back: (Black)ZombiePiggles, Eater of Tomato Sauce Legendary Creature - Boar Knight Zombie Trample, Intimidate B: Regenerate this creature. When this creature is the target of a white spell, transform this creature. (5/3)
Part of a cycle, so we either get alt-art for one or more months of these things, and it's not even Standard legal. And I thought it was bad when they made cards that were rotating just a few months after their printing. ****ing. Awesome. At least it's in a month when I'm only going a few weeks so I don't care that I can't even use it for my EDH decks.
I must say, the volcanic aspect of this, Valakut, and both of the Jund-themed Mountains makes for a very pleasant theme, but I'm worried if they are pushing this a little too much. Then again, most Mountain art is a bit brighter and atmospheric, so ... good stuff. Hints on when this will come online, though, would be nice.
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
So, is there any chance of Witchbane Orb ever being the Wallpaper of the Week? I'm pretty sure that it's my favorite art in Innistrad and it seems like the right sort of art for a wallpaper.
Things I'd like to see in a future Commander release or product that coincides with new material designed to help the Commander format (with the obvious desire that they, unlike Planechase, be available online). Below the fold for those who do not want to read it:
1. A few more enemy colored legends. The purpose there, of course, is to enable strategies in color slices which are occasional, but fun, such as Tribal. These include:
A Knight legend. (Ihsan Reborn! or something that allows you to run Haakon.) So far, most legends like you running tokens of sort (GC eats them, Teysa uses them to exile stuff, and Vish Kal eats then spits them back out -- Selenia is something of an outlier, and Kaalia seems better than her for "Angel" tribal anyways). But a synergistic commander for cheaper aggressive decks seems lacking.
is currently the most overpopulated enemy pairing for legends (7), while GU is the weakest (3). should gain something that helps enable pure control, as Momir is definitively a combo card, and Kraj as well, while Edric enforces both an aggressive "steam" build or Forbiddian-type control. lacks a pure control card, and I wonder if a is practically tied to card draw/disruption, with almost no change, making decks that step out of this cycle difficult to trust. To paraphrase, "Where there's Nin, there's Mizzet." A little more inventive variety would be interesting, on the lines of a build-around rather than something that just get's Voltroned like Tibor and Lumia .
Basandra and Jor are great examples of legends that aren't "damage/life" hybrids, allowing them to stand outside the norm. While Jor is a lot like Agrus in many ways, he requires a different more Voltron build, while Agrus asks you to play with creatures of multiple colors that attack (so no defensiveness). This creates a great spectrum in this pairing that isn't really present in other enemy pairs, and that should be rectified.
2. New enemy-colored lands, on the theme of lands such as Invasion's Coastal Tower , which can enable cheaper alternatives to the duals of Ravnica or Alpha. Alternatively, enemy-colored Odyssey filters (such as Sungrass Prairie ) could be a great alternative.
3. Wedge spells.
The absense of any assortment of useful wedge spells is glaring in light of the wedge commanders produced in Commander. While Apocalypse provided several tools (cards like underused Guided Passage or the Volvers) these are limited in respect to their functions, and in some cases just terrible for what they are intended to do: there are always better alternatives in the arcs or in allied colors. The most interesting of enemy-colored cards from Ravnica are, I think, the split cards. In this case, wedge splits (e.g., Crime/Punishment ) can only be played in Wedge or 5 color decks, and their use tends to be restricted by the usefulness they provide. When the commanders are nonsynergistic with the card, this leaves them essentially non-useful, and that seems a waste.
Wedge-charms are certainly at the top of this list, and if we wanted to they could be rare to make up for the arc-charms already produced (Shards and Invasion). They should have corresponding power. Additionally, non-charm wedge spells can be used that encompass the philosophies of wedges, once you actually get that written down, that can allow a variety of decks use.
BGW can have a Reanimate -effect, and so forth. Departing from the "Chinese Menu" of effects, or "effect" then two things the other colors do tacked on (extra damage, extra life) seems weaksauce.
Wedge commanders that enable utility of things such as the Wedge splits, making those cards more useful. Wedge commanders, unlike Arc commanders, lack variety. can sit out on this one as it currently has more legends than other wedges (thanks to Doran). Consider what would have to be done to make Odds/Ends useful in commander, much less Research/Development (unless you're allowed to use a sideboard, which is not always the case!), and then Bound/Determined is only seemingly useful in Child of Alara decks. Arc, on the other hand, got a number of essentially Chinese Menu-style splits which never required them to debate their functionality, especially when they acted as removal or tempo in cases where they were needed: Rise/Fall is crazy good, and Hit/Run comes in a close second. To make these useful, variety should be added to allow players to make use of those quirky things from various sets that would seemingly only require that additional piece to really work.
Allied colored cards that work better when you do something their mutual enemy cares about, or when casting a spell of their mutual enemy's color, making it a wedge-helper card. These can be creatures, enchantments, etc., without being legends. One can also consider cards like the Vows that are Auras which grant abilities relevant to the colors (much like the Deity-Auras from Shadowmoor). These would be for the more casual "fun" crowd than the cutthroat crowd.
4. More interesting ways to deal with perennial problems and trouble cards, such as Tooth and Nail , indestructible cards, mass land destruction. For every answer to a problem, there should be an answer to that answer, and so forth, without having to play Blue. Stranglehold is one such card, and excellent, as is the development of new "tuck" cards ("shuffle object into library," "put on bottom of library," etc.).
Answers and development of solutions to alternative win conditions (infect, mill) that aren't restricted to those terrible Eldrazi legends (which are never used for just this purpose) or Elixir of Immortality . That is, I'd like a few other cards whose purpose is to shuffle the grave into the library when milled that can get themselves BACK out of your hand. Example:
Hidden to preserve any WotC folks from reading something that they don't want toShow
[CARDNAME] - Artifact When ~ is put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it. If you do, shuffle your graveyard into your library. Cycling
Thus this effect can go anywhere, and you are not forced to play Blue or Green for it. It also stops itself from being an engine card by exiling itself mandatorily. The only problem is that, unlike the Elixir, it cannot infinitely recur itself, but then you can use both, and the use as a cantrip is also beneficial.
Additionally, the typical response to mana ramp is land destruction, which has justified the ability of deck to go into combo Crucible removal, despite that this is commonly used in control decks that try to dominate the board themselves. This is not necessarily a solution, and any deck using Crucible is threatened for doing something it may not actually be doing. This is warping. This has led to the effect of Primeval Titan , above the others, to utterly dominate the table if protected. solutions to this that do not promote more problems can simply be effects in the form of Stranglehold that inhibit (rather than punish) land ramp. At a cheap enough cost, this can be dropped as early as turn 3 to help fight Azusa into Blightsteel ramp, or Primeval, or any assortment of things.
5. Wedge lacks cheap support cards in those colors whose colors benefit synergies. Of all Wedge cards, what is most lacking is the ability to synergize other pieces of the deck. Arc cards have this, such as Wargate and Sprouting Thrinax , but Wedge lacks "ordinary" Wedge effects, and this is very stiltifying. This has the effect of Wedge decks being filled with lots of monocolored effects, while Arcs can throw multicolored and Arc effects around like "it ain't no thang," and be very synergistic. This tends to lead to combo relationships, for which the commander is a proxy (any commander, even a 5 color commander, could work just as well). A stronger sense of identity with decks would be more interesting and "fun," rather than the sense that if you see one deck, you've seen them all (or in fact any deck that's X has the overhaning threat of probably using Hermit Druid + combo unless proven otherwise, or all Jhoira of the Ghitu decks are of Obliterate + Blightsteel Colossus variety).
6. Weenie helpers that work on your colors, such as a "main color" that cares about its enemies, with differing effects, much how Planeshift's Familiars, Apocalypse's Sanctuaries, or Eventide's Mimics operates, thus, cheapening, doing, or becoming a thing when certain other effects align.
7. Identities for different directions. One of the problems I think Commander as a format suffers from is that if you are in a color, there are automatic choices for your deck if you are competitive. It makes me feel like Commander is trying too hard to be Legacy, even competitively. The dearth of a casual identity in light of this, given the prevalence of power cards in certain colors (you are damned if you are not playing Primevail, T&N and Witness in Green, much less NO etc.) causes the game to suffer when players are promoted to playing "GoodStuff." Some level of attainable power that synergizes lesser strategies can make some "bad" commanders in certain color pairs more viable by extension of using these cards, and thus affirm a distinct identity. Thus "bad" becomes "good." This can include, but not be limited to, variations on Muraganda Petroglyphs and the use of vanilla legends. A cycle, for example, promoting nontoken pump to undercosted vanilla creatures can allow vanilla legends to be more useful, so I can finally make that The Lady of the Mountain Giants tribal deck! (Just kidding.)
"Possibilities abound, too numerous to count."
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion Backs)
