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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 1:06AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Nov 29, 2007
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The moon carries great significance to the people of Innistrad. Werewolves transforming is the big thing. All of those new double-faced cards have a moon on the back. The Helvault is made of moon silver, apparently, and the moon is somehow symbolic of the good guys even though it buffs the bad guys. Well, Tamiyo is a big fan of moons. She pays a lot of attention to them. I thought it was obvious that she's a tourist, and that she's visiting Innistrad because their moon does stuff and changes people's lives. Not every plane can boast a moon as exciting as Innistrad's. If Wizards was any more blunt with it, it wouldn't be fun. But apparently too many people are missing it. moonmist  Lunar Mystic  EDIT: nath'd while I searched for Lunar Mystic. Figures.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 3:35AM
#12
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- Celestial Teapots are broken!
Date Joined:
Feb 24, 2007
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I do think it would be better if Misthollow Griffin  didn't exist. There are usually two cards involved in exiling: the exiler and the exilee. While Misthollow Griffin only works when it's the exilee, it can still interact with all exilers in ways that messes with their functionality. It's not as bad as Pull From Eternity  , but it's not zero bad.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 3:48AM
#13
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Pull From Eternity did have a specific point in the set though: to hose suspend. You might disagree with the way it went about it.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 3:56AM
#14
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- Celestial Teapots are broken!
Date Joined:
Feb 24, 2007
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I would have been perfectly fine with Pull From Eternity if it had said "target suspended card" instead. There are other cards that interact with suspended cards (mainly adding/removing time counters), and I don't think those cause a problem. The problem is that there are a lot of cards that exile something and then expect it to remain where they put it. That way, they can either get information about that card (e.g. Chrome Mox  ), copy that card (e.g. Isochron Scepter  ), or return that card to some other zone (e.g. Oblivion Ring  ). I don't think it's good that the cards they exiled can be pulled out from under them. With suspended cards, there isn't any other card that's expecting them to remain in exile. They're just there to have time counters removed from them and eventually get played.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 4:04AM
#15
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Makes sense to me! When making Zealous Strike was the design team aware that it was making a card obsolete that appeared in Dark Ascension (Skillful Lunge)? Were one of these two cards changed in development in a way that led to this? Obviously making cards strictly better than other cards happens from time to time, especially given the power level of very old cards, but to do it one set later feels more like an oversight.
I was also interested in hearing about this. I'd guess that if they did it for any specific reason it would have been mentioned, so it was a screw-up on their part.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 4:28AM
#16
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Date Joined:
May 31, 2004
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I second those that say Tamiyo was fine in concept but the flavor presentation was poorly exectued. "Tamiyo shows up to study the moon" which is all we got from MJF's column, isn't much of a backstory, because it's not a story. There's no drama. By contrast, if we had been told some crisis that made the study of the moon more epic (maybe Kamigawa's moon became defective after someone used it to kill a mockingbird: www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/mockingbi..., so Tamiyo needs to repair it), it would feel less random, and Tamiyo might feel like less of a throwaway. Having a backstory for Tibalt would be nice too, but since he's from Innistrad his presence there requires less explanation.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 4:30AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Jun 16, 2010
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Usually, you don't want to pair the same creature with itself because having the same ability twice doesn't do anything extra. But power-boosting stacks, so it does work. Remember, if you pair a Trusted Forcemage with another Trusted Forcemage both become 4/4 creatures.
Really? That's kind of underwhelming - a 4/4 for   would be great, but if it's conditioned on the survival of another creature it's barely on-par - and it's not how I read it. Wouldn't each Trusted Forcemage  give +2/+2 to itself and the other, making them 6/6 creatures? That looks much better to me.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 4:54AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Mar 25, 2005
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Makes sense to me!
When making Zealous Strike was the design team aware that it was making a card obsolete that appeared in Dark Ascension (Skillful Lunge)? Were one of these two cards changed in development in a way that led to this? Obviously making cards strictly better than other cards happens from time to time, especially given the power level of very old cards, but to do it one set later feels more like an oversight.
I was also interested in hearing about this. I'd guess that if they did it for any specific reason it would have been mentioned, so it was a screw-up on their part.
From a flavor perspective, it actually makes a sort of sense. In the absence of Avacyn, a cathar might perform a skillful attack to defeat an enemy in combat, but would still be vulnerable to a spell or an attack by multiple enemies. With the support of Avacyn, the same cathar could perform a similar attack and also be protected from harm.
From a gameplay perspective, on the other hand, it makes no sense at all. It feels like making a card strictly better just for the sake of making it strictly better, since the toughness pump is going to be irrelevant most of the time.
Usually, you don't want to pair the same creature with itself because having the same ability twice doesn't do anything extra. But power-boosting stacks, so it does work. Remember, if you pair a Trusted Forcemage with another Trusted Forcemage both become 4/4 creatures.
Really? That's kind of underwhelming - a 4/4 for would be great, but if it's conditioned on the survival of another creature it's barely on-par - and it's not how I read it. Wouldn't each Trusted Forcemage give +2/+2 to itself and the other, making them 6/6 creatures? That looks much better to me.
Read Trusted Forcemage again.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 4:56AM
#19
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- Celestial Teapots are broken!
Date Joined:
Feb 24, 2007
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Reread Trusted Forcemage . The bonus is just +1/+1. If each gives each +1/+1, that makes them a total of 4/4. A pair of Druid's Familiar  s will be 6/6, while a pair of Wolfir Silverheart  s would be 12/12.
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1 year ago ::
May 07, 2012 - 5:18AM
#20
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From a flavor perspective, it actually makes a sort of sense. In the absence of Avacyn, a cathar might perform a skillful attack to defeat an enemy in combat, but would still be vulnerable to a spell or an attack by multiple enemies. With the support of Avacyn, the same cathar could perform a similar attack and also be protected from harm.
I did wonder if it might be something like this, but I think if it was the cards would have much more explicit flavour ties.
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