Odyssey- CONFIRMED

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Zadok001

Guest
http://www.wizards.com/magic/expert/odyssey/welcome.asp

That's the new Odyssey homepage. Four cards are available there:

Kamahl, Pit Fighter
4RR
Haste
6/1
T: Kamahl, Pit Fighter deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

Krosan Beast
3G
1/1
Threshold (Yadda yadda yadda) - Krosan Beast gets +7/+7.

Ancestral Tribute
5WW
Sorcery
You gain 2 life for each card in your graveyard.
Flashback 9WWW

Mirari
5
Legendary Artifact
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay 3. If you do, put a copy of that spell on the stack. You may choose new targets for that copy.

My thoughts?

Kamahl: Nice. Expensive, but a powerful creature with a great ability. The new Ball Lightning? No way in hell. On par with Skizzik? Maybe, maybe not.

Krosan Beast: That's a long time to wait for an 8/8. Four mana 1/1s are just not strong in my book, even if they get to be 8/8s late.

Ancestral Tribute: In the days of Alpha, Healing Salve cost the same as Lightning Bolt because it was assumed that the two were equally powerful. As it turned out, damage is FAR better than lifegain, and lifegain gets cheaper and cheaper in each set. Then Odyssey comes along, and they prove their pattern WRONG. I mean, can lifegain GET more expensive? That spell had better win me the game EVERY time, being a Sorcery and all. Sheesh. 7 mana, then TWELVE?

Mirari: I don't want to deal with the idea of having two Sorceries on the stack at the same time, but despite that issue, this thing is quite the impressive little Urza's Rage machine. And Counterspells, of course, become far better when used in conjunction with this thing, while they become far WORSE when played against it. A unique and interesting effect, one I look forward to toying with... :)

Enjoy!
 
A

arhar

Guest
My opinions:

Constructed: The three cards are completely terrible, except for Mirari, which is Buh-ROKEN!!! Can you you imagine it with counterspells? burn? overrun? tutors? Holy crap, I want my four now!!!

Limited: The red and green cards are amazing, the artifact is iffy, and white card is one of the worst cards I've ever seen. 12 mana to gain, um 6 life? No thanks, I'd rather have the Urza's Rage.
 
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FoundationOfRancor

Guest
Kamal:
Well, this certainly blows Latulla out of the water. Excellent control card, excellent sligh finishing....excellent red card.

Krosan:
Well, we now have *another* reason Armageddon wasnt in 7th.

Tribute:
Later in the game, this can be good....but it should be cc'ed at 5. At most.

The orb thing:
The first card to ever mention the stack! In your face to everyone who never thought it would happen over at Homemade Cards (Including me)
Excellent card......just a plain excellent card.
 
D

Dementia

Guest
Wasn't there some doubters about the way Threshold was worded? Guess there isn't anymore:)

Kamahl, Pit Fighter
4RR
Haste
6/1
T: Kamahl, Pit Fighter deals 3 damage to target creature or player.

Well, ya gotta say this for them; there's not TOO much more they could do to a creature to try to make it playable at 6 mana. In the slower enviorment I personally think this is playable. In Limited and such this thing won't attack much is my guess....just a big ol Tim:D

Krosan Beast
3G
1/1
Threshold (Yadda yadda yadda) - Krosan Beast gets +7/+7.

Ok, they have done it again. This thing is NOT good. It suffers from everything Monger suffers from AND can be Banished AND can be CoPed AND can be burned(admittingly a big amount of burn). This thing is just sad. If green is gonna have a big fat rare creature without trample....well...this thing MIGHT be good if it was an 8/8 WITHOUT the Threshold part thrown in there.

Ancestral Tribute
5WW
Sorcery
You gain 2 life for each card in your graveyard.
Flashback 9WWW

*Repeats to himself* Try not to be too cynical. Ok, this thing is pretty bad....not many cards can be compared to Blessed Wind and say "I'd rather have the Wind", but this thing comes close. There are SO many things that they did wrong with this card. I COULD be an instant. It COULD have only one W in both it's costs. It COULD gain you 3 or 4 per card. It COULD cost one or two less mana to cast. Any one of those things and this thing wouldn't be the whipping boy it is, but as is this thing just looks like crap.


Mirari
5
Legendary Artifact
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell, you may pay 3. If you do, put a copy of that spell on the stack. You may choose new targets for that copy.

Well, we all know why they put the other three next to this thing.....to make this thing look better:) And it is good. Especially with burn of course where burn suffers from card advantage. With Counterspells it's not GREAT since you don't need it twice, but it will win you counter wars that is for sure:) I think this thing with Fact or Fiction might be enough to get one of the two banned. Course that's just a guess looking at how mean that could be:) Also cool with Cantrips...

Just looking at those four makes me think that Odd will be alot like Invasion with the basic some crap some good stuff except with a couple ban potential combo cards like Mirari. Course it's impossible to tell just from four cards.
 
L

Loonook

Guest
The cards gonna be errated or will be put on the quickban list (remember M.Jar? didnt think so ;)). Have fun for a couple hours and then they'll say "our bad" and SWIPE the card sucks
 
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Zadok001

Guest
I think that's knee-jerk, Loonook. Is it really that broken? At five mana, it's not really viable for counterspell decks outside of multiplayer, since you leave yourself too vulerable to opponent reactions. In burn, it could work as a late game option, but in the late game, burn's already low on good cards. In limited, it's great if you play with lots of those types of cards, but bad if you're playing a standard creature deck.

So, to work well with it, a deck must meet the following criteria:

1. Not afraid of tapping out.
2. Access to plenty of mana.
3. Lots of instants and sorceries.
4. A need for repeated effects.

Not many decks fit all those criteria.

Now, however, let's go over a PROBLEM with the card. Some spells have costs associated with them that aren't casting costs - i.e., Tinker makes you sacrifice an artifact, Fling makes you sack a creature, Infernal Contract makes you pay half your life, etc... Well, these costs are payed when you play a spell. Putting a spell on the stack is NOT playing a spell.

Not a deal-breaker, and it doesn't make the little bugger broken, but an interesting side effect that may result in errata.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
ROFL

They are all terrible. The only semi-playable on is Kamahl but I think he has yet to prove that hes better than Tahngarth.
Mirari is slightly better than Horn Of Plenty, but worse than Jayemdae Tome. I thought it was broken for a while, but apparently you can only pay 3 once per spell, so you cant run combos off it. I was close to turn 3 kill bases of Gush, but it doesnt work.

Zadok is correct, you gain most (and IMHO the ONLY) useful advantage by playing spells that have other costs attached, which is why I immediately latched onto the ACC spells.

I wouldn`t play Mirari in limited, let alone constructed. It MIGHT be ok in T1.
 
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Loonook

Guest
its an EXACT COPY ON STACk... so the cost is applied... its forced to be because its the extra cost just to get it on the stack.. however the reverse may be true
 
D

Dead

Guest
I'll reserve judgement on Kamahl until i know whether it's a legend or not... multiples would indeed be harsh.

Krosan Beast really does need trample or something else to make that 8 points dangerous, plus it does kinda crumble in the face of terminate (but then what doesn't). I'd be most interested in red or black threshold critters as they stand a good chance of hitting the requisite 7 cards by around the time you want to cast one of these. Of course, threshold in general makes life difficult for my milling deck, and if flashback cards are highly playable then pulling them out of the grave would just make threshold even weaker.

I wouldn't be too concerned by the massive expense of the tribute - there may be a memory crystal style card later in the set to reduce them. As it stands it'd have to be all graveyards before i'd want to run it.

Mirari is no fork machine, because you don't get to meddle with their spells which is the most fun aspect of fork, at least in multiplayer. Hopefully we'll get some nice effects worth copying in block as it seems a bit slow elsewhere at 5CC. Still great in multiplayer cards, but i'd much prefer it to copy just their spells than just yours.
 
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NeuroDeus

Guest
Kamahl, Pit Fighter - Dear, a pit fighter with toughness level 1? Where is the reality factor. Kamahl should have been at least a 6/4 demon and not a puny 1 toughness creature. New Ball Lightning... were is trample??? The ability is good but still with 1 toughness... Razorfin Hunter can fry this guy... 1/10

Krosan Beast - Ok the Croissant Beast is a squirrel... maybe in Type II he might be great in a Deranged Hermit / Squirrel Wrangler deck... still not that great 3/10

Tribute - I am definitley sure player will play this card in 1 turn at the cost of 14WWWWW. 1/10

Mirari - I'm definitly not commenting on this. I suspect there is some other card that may well break apart this card... ?/10 This card may have potential
 
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Loonook

Guest
im tellin ya... YOU ARE GONNA HAVE PROBLEMS in this whole thing with the artifact... simply because it will be errata'ed here
 
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Azreal the Soulmaster

Guest
The only thing I'm gonna say about Kamahl an Mirari, is that they'll have a nice place in my legend collection :D
 
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Zadok001

Guest
Why does the artifact need errata, Loonook? It's wording is fine as is...

(Kamalh, btw, is indeed a Legend.)
 
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Istanbul

Guest
Interesting note: Mirari gives countermagic fits. You can put another copy on the stack when you play the spell, meaning your opponent has to come up with two counterspells to stop it.
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
Smash to Bits - 3R
Instant (common)
Destroy target artifact.
Flashback: 4RR

Dematerialize - 3U
Sorcery (common)
Return target permanent to owner's hand.
Flashback: 5UU

Exactly how scared IS WotC of this mechanic? I mean, a seven mana BOOMERANG? I'm NOT paying 11 mana for two Boomerangs!
 
D

Dementia

Guest
I think you may just be right on that Zodak. Wizards is afraid of what this stuff might do. Has any ability ever warrented a raise of TWO mana to the casting cost ALONG with taking away the instantness AND along with making the damn FB cost high as hell too!

Green, Red, and to a lesser extent Black has been put at a natural dissadvantage with this ability. Wizards is making it clear that they want these games to last 10 turns AT LEAST(Only time these FB cards are gonna get cast)! And Red, Green, Black is put at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to that! I heard Garfield always liked Blue the best and that is why it was so overpowered. Is it just a coincidence that such an ability that is gonna beneficial mainly to blue gets made in the same set:(

This sucks......FB is gonna be one of the most boring mechanics ever:(
 
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Hetemti

Guest
Kamal is pathetic. No Trample, no good. He makes Viashinoes look good on defence, and they unsummon themselves.

Mirari is not bad...but it's not that great. It means your lategame spells are better...Sick of that crappy Giant Growth when you wanted Might of Oaks? Or need a bigger Overrun? Or need to Hymn the hell out of that Blue guy? This'll do it. Mirari is $6~$10 level rare. No need for eratta. It's already fixed by it's Legendary status and it's wording. But I think this means Fork should be brought back. :)

The other cards are standard preview fodder. I do hope they give us some good white and red...my R/W deck is starting to suck again.
 
D

Dementia

Guest
About Kamahl.....

WHAT THE HELL DO YA WANT?

Should he deal 5 damage instead of 3? Should he cost 4 mana?

Ok ok ok....I got it....I have a good point

If Flametongue Kavu is one of the best creatures in standard right now then Kamahl is pretty damn good too wouldn't you say?

Good points about FTK....

Costs 1R less to play. Has one extra toughness point. Deals 4 damage instead of 3.

Good points on Kamahl
Can play him even if your opponent doesn't have a target on the board. You can deal the damage to your opponent if you so choose. He gives you good options....if your opponent is creatureless...swing in for 6!

Bad points on FTK....
He sometimes is a dead card. He has 2 less power. He doesn't have haste(this is less important since I am mainly comparing the burn aspect which, in a way, would mean that it kinda DOES have haste)

Bad points on Kamahl
Costs 1R more. Has a 1 toughness...dies to Plauge Spitter, Half Fire, RazorTim Hunter and so on.

So, looks pretty even there....I know in actual practice 6 mana is a world of difference from 4 but Kamahl is indeed good. He stacks up pretty evenly with one of the best creatures in standard....I would say he is worth a bit more then the brush off some of you's are giving him.

If any of that sounds like I am talking to someone else it is because I cut and pasted it from a post I just made on MTGnews.....so I am not crazy;) Just lazy!
 
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