Shards of Alara Previews

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EricBess

Guest
I think it depends on the "shard". Every "shard" seem to have a few gold cards that are 3-color, but I'm guessing part of that was the mandate.

The wGr shard (Naya), which the Nacatle belong to, seem to have a number of green cards that benefit from white and red. The Wild Necatle being an example, but there is also Naya Battlemage, a green creature with 2 abilities requiring red and white mana respectfully. Naya also appears to have some serious beef, with Qasali Ambusher and Wolly Thoctar, both more traditional gold cards.
 
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EricBess

Guest
Oversoul said:
It should. Seven cards is a lot.
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Sure, but you have to rebuild your mana base against an opponent with established board presense. Conditionally it will be okay, but more often than not, it will be too little too late.
 
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mythosx

Guest
I like this neo kird ape.

Back the to the artifact in question. It's a narrow artifact. It will work great for decks that burn themselves out for that one kill shot. It forces the opponent to be able to reproduce its kill condition at least once. But only a few decks have to worry about that. I'd say 99% of the decks out there are capapble of dismantling an opponent if they had a 5 turn head start. If you want to expirement with this, you can try this. Start a game with an oppoenent and give him 7 cards. You get only 10 life, but you get to take the first 6 turns unopposed. You can't do any damage to them until turn 7. I'm pretty sure you'd have a lock down by then or a big enough army to end it in 2 swings.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
EricBess said:
Sure, but you have to rebuild your mana base against an opponent with established board presense. Conditionally it will be okay, but more often than not, it will be too little too late.
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This is a problem with the card, but I'd consider it part of the bigger problem, which may mean this thing won't see much use, despite the powerful effect...

It's a card that replaces losing the game with something. Decks are already trying NOT to lose. In order for this card to be good, you have to be losing, but if you're losing, you're already, well, losing.

mythosx said:
Back the to the artifact in question. It's a narrow artifact. It will work great for decks that burn themselves out for that one kill shot. It forces the opponent to be able to reproduce its kill condition at least once. But only a few decks have to worry about that.
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This seems like the wrong approach. This artifact would undeniably be crap against an opponent where the game was long and drawn out and you eventually lost, because the opponent will just finish you off again. And it will be crap when you get run over by a deck that gets everything it needs and beats you to the punch. They'll just kill you again right away or use the head start they have to make sure they still win. But that doesn't mean this is relegated to dealing with those decks that burn themselves out to kill you quickly. It would be better to use this in an already explosive deck. Perhaps one that goes crazy and kills quickly with some combination of cards, but might run out of gas and fail, in which case getting this out at some point (and that's another problem--it's not exactly cheap) gives you a second chance. The opponent's head start is still bad for you, but not as bad because you're going for a highly explosive kill and most of the time you shouldn't be needing to lose the game and use this to make a comeback. It's insurance. But maybe not very good insurance.

Or it could be even more useful in a deck that might have a tendency to kill both players. My friend had a ProsBloom deck that sometimes had a tendency to fail to get the kill. I forget what the problem was and did eventually fix it, but for a while he'd simply circumvent the issue by casting a giant Prosperity that would deck both him and his opponent, forcing a draw. In such a scenario, this card would turn the draw into a win.

Pretty cool, but like some of you are saying, it IS kind of narrow. But it could make for a cool casual deck that wins by killing all players somehow with this thing out...
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
One situation I see the card in is with some kind of direct dmg/control deck. It's a close game and you have your opponent around 5 or less life, but just can't break through or get rid of his creatures and you're out of cards. If you can draw 7 new ones and potentially some more removal or burn, that could stave off the defeat.

I mean, I'm sure there's been lots of close games where you're thinking "If only I had one more turn/more cards/more life, I could have won".
 
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EricBess

Guest
Spiderman said:
Jacob Van Lunen's article
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Reading this article, he says that every shard has each of these lands. I was hoping to see each have it's own unique take on the triple-color. Perhaps the rBu would be a more traditional pain land, for example...

If he is actually "in-the-know" and not just assuming (though I would have thought the editor would have made him remove those comments if he were just assuming), then at the very least, the land base was not created "in a bubble" like they have claimed for the rest of the set. Either that or the final solidifying pass was used to determine which of the lands to use.

I'm curious about his statement that none of the land is rare. It makes me wonder if there is one global land that taps for any of the 5 colors, but at the Mythic Rare level. That seems like something they would save for a latter set, though...
 
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BigBlue

Guest
On the subject of the Lich

If you're going to lose the game... wouldn't you rather have a second chance?

AND... You can protect permanents with Phasing....
AND... It doesn't empty your mana pool...
AND... It doesn't affect permanents you control - but don't own
AND... Your opponent doesn't go back to 20 life, so in a real close game, you can eke out a W potentially.

So... there are ways to potentially abuse this card I think. It's dangerous to be certain...
 
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mythosx

Guest
BB your mind is ever spinning.

the phasing thing I can see but it doesn't seem like it will go off most likely.

it doesn't empty the mana pool only works with channel. If you get a god draw and can pump out 2 green on turn 1 yeah...you can generate upwards to about 33 colorless mana which would make for a powerful fireball. Channel is restricted though and hard to exploit.

I don't think there are two many theft decks that could really gamble on using this for the win. Theft decks usually require a lot of mana. With your mana base wiped out, its very hard to come back.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Oh, it does spin almost constantly... :)

As far as steal things... I was thinking along the lines of Scion of Darkness or Bone Dancer... they steal things out of Graveyards which would remain in your control.

As far as mana pool, I wasn't thinking channel... just that when you get a fresh 7, you could have mana to use with those cards. I think this card is something you'd need to play with to see how it interacts before you'd actually use it.

My point is basically that it seems pretty useful - when some folks are arguing it's pointless.

For phasing, consider a RU build using Teferi's Veil. This would phase out all your creatures after your attack, if you'd played Final Fate and lost at the end of the turn, you'd get a new 20, and next turn your creatures (and their enchantments) would be back.

One other note... It doesn't return Removed from Game cards to your library, just the ones in Hand, GY, and Play. So, I think suspended cards would still come into play... also, I think something like Memory Jar or other temporary rfg cards could interact interestingly...

And, I've come up with a name for a deck... I Lose, I Win!
 
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mythosx

Guest
for the mana thing...Chances are if its not involving channel. The mana pool will be full on someone else's turn or attack phase. You wouldn't be able to spend most of the mana before it gets emptied.
 
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BigBlue

Guest
Sorry.... I get what you're saying there...

I was trying to break the card, making myself lose on my own turn by reanimating a phage or something like that... :)

If you die during your opponents turn, you're not nearly as in control of things... :)
 
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EricBess

Guest
I think you are right, BB, though. I'm fairly certain that there is a very interesting deck that could be built that does take advantage of the card. I just don't think it's something that you can stick into a deck, though. You really have to build around it and whether it actually helps or not may be too situational to afford it.
 
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mythosx

Guest
if your talking about phage BB. Actually that's a great fail safe switch for phage decks. Most of the time when phage loses, its cuz some one is messing with your graveyard. This prevents that from happening.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
BigBlue said:
On the subject of the Lich

If you're going to lose the game... wouldn't you rather have a second chance?

AND... You can protect permanents with Phasing....
AND... It doesn't empty your mana pool...
AND... It doesn't affect permanents you control - but don't own
AND... Your opponent doesn't go back to 20 life, so in a real close game, you can eke out a W potentially.

So... there are ways to potentially abuse this card I think. It's dangerous to be certain...
Click to expand...
It also lets you continue to use Channel's effect, which would be pretty crazy if you actually played Channel with this thing out...
 
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BigBlue

Guest
I'm thinking of it like a personal timetwister + life (but minus permanents in play).

If your opponent wins with an alt win condition, unfortunately they still win... won't matter if you get 20 life etc. This would also be a reset if you were using Platinum Angel or Ali from Cairo.
 
Oversoul

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Mycoloth could easily get huge. Sacrifice 5 creatures (potentially easy for green decks) and it's a 14/14 that pumps out 10 tokens during your upkeep. Let your token army build up for a few turn and play a second Mycoloth, then you can sacrifice 25 creatures for a 54/54 Mycoloth that pumps out 50 tokens during your upkeep. And if you get a third Mycoloth...
 
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