Agreed that the night to day in AVR's basics is a cool concept. Did anyone else notice that in the middle Island art, the stream in the foreground changed?
Honestly the switching just made me more aware of (and annoyed by) the differences like rocks or trees that appeared out of nowhere or the stream that just changed course.
The need to rely on meta-awareness is exactly my problem. Obviously a set named Avacyn Restored indicated that someone named Avacyn would be somehow Restored. But the cards themselves didn't really set that up. To be fair, some of the flavor text certainly gave the "hey, where'd Avacyn go?" impression. But I'm speaking specifically to mechanics.
And I'm specifically talking about flavour.
Avacyn was the source of all protection for humans on the continent. Then she left, and things got worse. Her faithful cling to their failing wards. Then Thraben got overrun by zombies, the Lunarch was killed, and things got even worse.
Compare that to Scars block, where the Phyrexians start slow in the first set. By the second set, it looks like it's an even fight. The presentation of the flavour suggests that the Mirrans have a chance, when in actuality, they don't.
For Scars block, the narrative is Rising Threat-World War-Evil Reigns. For Innistrad block, it's Things-are-Bad-without-Avacyn, Things-are-desperate-without-Avacyn... given your knowledge of Western story-telling, do you think that Avacyn will return, or that humanity will get wiped out of existence, and all the monsters will dance around their corpses?
From the early days of Zendikar we had about exploring ancient land and triggering traps. The land itself was in flux. Land moving, traps going off: there's your Chekhov's Gun. The whole concept was pointing to something ancient, powerful, and dangerous - long before we knew the name of the third set.
I think you're remembering things differently than how they happened. Because you NOW know what the Eldrazi are (something unknown until a month before its release), you can remember after the fact all the clues left for you. Before we knew they were huge Cthulus, there wasn't a lot of info on the Eldrazi or what their role in Zendikar was. The Eldrazi being the inspiration for Zendikar's deities? Known after RoE, but it fits so well into what was established that you "feel" like you already knew it.
From the early days of Innistrad we had Gothic Horror. Nothing about Werewolves fighting Zombies implies that there's a lost savior of Humanity trapped somewhere.
This block was never about monsters fighting each other. It was about humanity fending off monsters in the absence of their saviour: Avacyn.
Or if demons are important, have them conspicuous from day 1.
Demon worship was set up from the start as being anti-thetical to Avacyn worship in flavour. RL religion makes it clear that demons and angels naturally oppose each other, so that Demons are Avacyn's natural opposition. Every other monster is second string to the larger conflict between Angels and Demons, whether in battle or in claiming the souls of humanity.
"People want balance but can't accept this homogenization that occurs as a result of that balance being implemented. then they complain that the fighter is weaker than the wizard ad nauseam.: - Teitan
For linking a card to Gatherer without writting the name of said card for readers, use the autocard brackets together with and equal sign and right the name of the real card. Then put the message you want inside the tags, like you would do with autocarding. Like this:
I like storm crow because I really like crows in real life, as an animal, and the card isn't terribly stupid, but packs a good deal of nostalgia and also a chunck of the game's history. So it's perhaps one of the cards I have most affection to, but not because "lol storm crow is bad hurr hurr durr".
Although I do assume you deliberately refer to them (DCI) as The Grand Imperial Convocation of Evil just for the purposes of making them sound like an ancient and terrible conspiracy.
Now, now. 1994 doesn't quite qualify as "ancient".
Oh, it's a brilliant plan. You see, Bolas was travelling through shadowmoor, causing trouble, when he saw a Wickerbough Elder with its stylin' dead scarecrow hat. Now, Bolas being Bolas took the awesome hat and he put it on his head, but even with all his titanic powers of magic he couldn't make it fit. He grabbed some more scarecrows, but then a little kithkin girl asked if he was trying to build a toupee. "BY ALL THE POWERS IN THE MULTIVERSE!" he roared, "I WILL HAVE A HAT WORTHY OF MY GLORY." and so he went through his Dark Lore of Doom (tm) looking for something he could make into a hat that would look as stylish on him as a scarecrow does on a treefolk. He thought about the Phyrexians, but they were covered in goopy oil that would make his nonexistant hair greasy. He Tried out angels for a while but they didn't sit quite right. Then, he looked under "e" (because in the Elder Draconic alphabet, "e" for Eldrazi is right next to "h" for Hat) in his Dark Lore of Doom and saw depictions of the Eldrazi, and all their forms. "THIS SHALL BE MY HAT!" he declared, poking a picture of Emrakul, "AND WITH IT I WILL USHER IN A NEW AGE OF DARKNESS -- ER, I MEAN A NEW AGE OF FASHION!"
And so Nicol Bolas masterminded the release of the Eldrazi.
The last couple days have been roughly every perverse fetish imaginable, but it only got "creepy" when speculation on Mother of Runes's mob affiliation came up?
I like to think up what I consider clever names for my decks, only later to be laughed at by my wife. It kills me a little on the inside, but thats what marriage is about.
Of course, the best use [of tolaria west ] is transmuting for the real Tolaria.
Absolutely. I used to loose to my buddy's Banding deck for ages, it was then that I found out about Tolaria , and I was finally able win my first game.
Browbeat is a card that is an appropriate deck choice when there's no better idea available. "No better idea available" was pretty much the running theme of Odyssey era.
Modern is like playing a new tournament every time : you build a deck, you win with it, don't bother keeping it. Just build another, its key pieces will get banned.
I always find it helpful when im angry to dress up in an owl costume and rub pennies all over my body in front of a full body mirror next to the window.
Dymecoar:
Playing Magic without Blue is like sleeping without any sheets or blankets. You can do it...but why?
Omega137:
Me: "I love the moment when a control deck stabilizes. It feels so... right." Omega137: "I like the life drop part until you get there, it's the MtG variant of bungee jumping"
Zigeif777:
Just do it like Yu-Gi-Oh or monkeys: throw all the crap you got at them and hope it works or else the by-standers (or opponents) just get dirty and pissed.
Normally it's difficult to pick up on your jokes/sarcasm. But this one's pretty much out there. Good progress. You have moved up to Humanoid. You'll be Human in no time.
Every time a new set gets released, I get myhopes up that we will get decent Intro-Packs. I'm such a fool!
The R/W one looks like it will be pretty strong and have the potential for some absolutely bananas plays courtesy of Thatcher Revolt. I think the R/B kill everything deck is a close second to it.
The G/U soulbond deck doesn't look too bad, but I agree it doesn't look particularly potent either.
The G/W and the U/B are the weakest in my opinion.
******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** From Mark Rosewater's Tumblr:
the0uroboros asked: How in the same set can we have a hexproof, unsacrificable(not a word) creature AND a land that makes it uncounterable. How does this lead to interactive play?
I believe I’m able to play my creature and you have to deal with it is much more interactive than you counter my creature. ******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Post #777
Why release sets of decks, with out showing us what the cards actually do? Completely pointless!!
They stop spoiling avacyn, then they spoil release premade deck, and yet there is no spoil, because you can't even view the cards!! agg
It has always been that way. They don't put the cards onto Gatherer until around the time the set releases. It would be nice if they would do it as they reveal the cards so that we can hover over them and see them when they get used in the preview articles.
Nice Tibalt wallpaper. I wish you guys would give us more in this style. That is, wallpapers that don't have the giant, obtrusive, violators across the top or side the artwork telling us what set it's from. I just want a nice clean, fresh piece of art on my desktop
